Page 29 of Christmas Mittens Murder

Doris gasped and threw a hand to her mouth.

Dick’s jaw nearly hit the floor.

Sergio kept his calm and held up the sparkling ring. “Do you have any idea how this ended up in your knitting bag, Doris?”

“No!” Doris cried. “Of course not! I didn’t steal it! I’ve never stolen anything in my entire life!”

“What about that roll of Mentos breath mints you didn’t pay for at the Big Apple last month when we stopped to gas up the truck?” her husband reminded her.

“That was a mistake, Dick! It just slipped my mind! I had every intention of buying it! I didn’t even realize I walked out without paying until we got home.”

“Yeah, but did you ever go back and make good on what you owed?”

Doris’s nostrils flared at her husband. “You’re not helping, Dick!” She then focused on Hayley, who was desperately trying to stay invisible, her back to them, having just moved on to Doris’s hand-painted Christmas ornaments that were for sale. Hayley could feel her pointing an accusing finger at her. “Is she your undercover informant?”

Sergio scratched his head. “Informant? Who said anything about an informant?”

Doris folded her arms, miffed. “I’m hardly surprised it was you, Hayley! You always seem to be everywhere accusing everyone of something!”

Hayley turned to face her head-on. “I’m sorry, Doris, but when I saw the ring in your bag, I didn’t know what else to do. It’s stolen property!”

“Someone is trying to frame me!” Doris wailed.

“Look, Doris, I have known you for years. You have never struck me as the sticky-fingered type,” Sergio reassured her softly. “I believe if you knew the ring was in your bag, you would not have been so amenable to me looking inside. So I have to ask. Did you give the bag to anyone at any point at the bazaar?”

“No! Definitely not! It was in my sight the entire time!” Doris insisted. “And I would never . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Sergio took a step closer. “What, Doris? Anything you can remember could be helpful.”

Her eyes flicked back and forth as her mind raced. “No, it couldn’t have been her.”

“Who?” Sergio, Dick and Hayley said in unison.

“Tawny Beauchemin.”

“Scooter Beauchemin’s wife?” Sergio asked.

Doris nodded. “Yes. She asked for a mint, and I told her I had some in my bag and she should help herself. I remember her rummaging through it for a few seconds. But why would she need to steal a diamond ring? She’s one of the richest women in town. She and Scooter have millions. It makes absolutely no sense. No, it had to be someone else. It had to be one of the Happy Hookers! You should be dragging the whole lot of them down to the station for a thorough interrogation!”

Doris Crimmons was right.

Why would a millionaire have any reason to steal a diamond ring from Willoughby’s shop when she could fly to New York and buy one twenty times more expensive at Tiffany’s? And despite Doris’s eagerness to indict the Happy Hookers, the ring was inarguably found in Doris’s possession. She and Dick appeared, at least on the surface, to be financially sound. Unless they were hiding a mountain of debts that had yet to come to light. But Hayley agreed with Sergio’s initial assessment that Doris was not a calculating thief, at least on the basis of the information they had so far.

But if Tawny Beauchemin was the only other person to come in contact with Doris’s knitting bag, was there something they were still not seeing?

Hayley accompanied Sergio back to his office at the Bar Harbor Police Station, where he sat down at his computer and started a background check on Tawny while Hayley went down to the bakery on the corner for some muffins and coffee. By the time she returned and handed Sergio his coffee, he had already come up with the answer they were looking for.

“She’s got a rap sheet.”

Hayley nearly dropped the bag of muffins on the floor. “Tawny? It must have been from years ago, before she married Scooter.”

“No, she has been arrested for shoplifting in four separate incidents since she’s been married. The last time was just last year. She tried to walk out of Bergdorf Goodman in New York with some Prada platform sandals worth about a grand.”

“But I don’t understand. She could afford a hundred pair of those shoes. Why would she resort to stealing them?”

“Maybe her husband keeps the purse strings tied really tight and doesn’t allow her access to the credit cards,” Sergio surmised.

“Or she has kleptomania. A lot of rich people suffer from it. They don’t steal out of need, it’s more of a psychological problem. Years ago they caught Winona Ryder walking out of Saks Fifth Avenue with about five thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise, and she was an Oscar nominee!” Hayley exclaimed.

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