Hanging by a Thread

by Ferris, Monica

  Morrie thought that over for a few moments. “Well, all right, you’re right,” he said. “How did you get the idea to go exploring in the basement, anyhow?”

  She told him about the search for lams, adding, “If you go down there today, you’ll see the pet store has lined both walls with metal shelves crowded with stock—but that happened after the murder of Angela. But I’m not sure if I should go to Mike yet. What do you think?”

  “Do you think he’ll listen to you?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe not. I wish I could convince him I’m just another informant. I’m sure he has informants.”

  Morrie grinned. “If you want to be an informant, you’ll have to make him pay you for your information.”

  She laughed. “That’s what my problem is, I’ve been giving him information for nothing, and he values it accordingly.”

  “What else have you found out?”

  “I thought I had come up with an alternative to Foster for Paul’s murder, but it turned out he has a really good alibi, given by a time clock.” She told the story of Alex Miller’s claim of a plot by Paul to ruin his life, and how she’d found out he was at work at the critical time. “So I guess Alex is in the clear, his alibi seems solid.”

  Morrie said, “But was Alex right about Paul’s sabotage? That sounds a little elaborate for someone who isn’t operating in a James Bond novel.”

  “Well, his middle school teacher remembers that Paul was a born genius at setting others up to take the blame for something he’d done, or getting them to do something against the rules; and Jory remembers Paul loving practical jokes, one of which involved injuring a cat. So that’s why I’m thinking that Paul was killed while trying to frame someone else for Angela’s murder.”

  “How?”

  “Comfort Leckie saw his ghost in the bookstore the night he was murdered.”

  He stared at her. “Ghost? You’re not going to tell me you believe in ghosts!”

  “Of course I do, I’ve seen them myself. But listen to this.” She repeated the story Comfort had told of seeing Paul’s ghost in the bookstore.

  “You think Paul’s ghost planted evidence of some sort?”

  “No, no. I think the living Paul did, and Comfort saw him doing it.”

  Distracted, Morrie asked, “What kind of a name is Comfort, anyhow?”

  “It’s an old pilgrim name, handed down since the seventeenth century to every other generation of women in her family. She’s miffed none of her daughters gave it to one of their daughters. But that’s beside the point. Comfort saw Paul before he was murdered, and what he was doing was planting the second shell casing. Mike didn’t find the first one, you know. It went behind a shelf and wasn’t found until they took the shelf down to replace it.”

  “Maybe she didn’t see Paul at all, maybe she saw her own reflection in the window. People do that, and call 911 to report prowlers.”

  “That isn’t what happened here. He turned sideways and she recognized him. The Monday Bunch thinks it’s a ghost, and they’re all moonstruck about it, saying Paul must have been very deeply in love with Angela.”

  “But you think ... ?”

  “Can you be married to someone you’re stalking? He tracked her every movement, he even took that job at the gift shop so he could keep an eye on her at work in the bookstore.”

  “I see.”

  Betsy took a drink of beer and went on, “Mike Malloy searched the bookstore after Angela’s murder and concluded she’d been shot with a revolver because he didn’t find a shell casing. But there were shell casings in Paul’s living room, and the bullets were the same caliber, so Mike went back to search the bookstore again, and this time he found a casing. Obviously, Paul planted it. Comfort saw him doing it.”

  He hid a smile behind a big, thin hand. “Hon, you don’t even know it was him in the shop.”

  “Yes, I do. Comfort didn’t think she was seeing a ghost, remember. She recognized Paul and wondered what he was doing in the bookstore. It was only later, when she heard about the murder, that she decided it was his ghost. And I’ll tell you something else: I talked with Mike the other day and he said both casings came from the same kind of gun and they all have marks on them that make him pretty sure they were shot out of the same gun.”

  He sat back, defeated but still smiling. “All right, mo chroide.” Morrie called Betsy by different endearments, trying to find one they both liked. “But why did Paul Schmitt want the cops to know the same gun was used in both murders?”

  “Because he was going to frame Foster Johns for the murder of his wife.”

  “How?”

  “I think he was going to shoot someone else with the gun he used to kill Angela, and since the bullet from Angela’s murder had gone flying out the window, he needed the shell casing for them to compare. But Mike couldn’t find the bookstore shell casing. So he fired the gun and went to plant a new shell casing.”

  “But he didn’t shoot someone else, someone else shot him.”

  “Come on,” said Betsy, “he didn’t know he was going to end up dead! I think he arranged for Foster to be alone in his office that night so he’d have no alibi. Then he invited another person to come over to his house. I think the plan was to take that person to Foster’s building, murder him there, and leave the gun for the police to find.”

  “Or her,” corrected Morrie gently. “Maybe he planned to murder another woman.”

  “No, only a man could win a knock-down battle with Paul. Because that’s what happened. He got into a fight and the person took his gun, shot him, and ran away.”

  “Who was this person?”

  Betsy grimaced. “Since it’s not Alex Miller, I don’t know.”

  “Well, consider this. Maybe the person Paul planned to murder was Foster. Maybe Foster’s lying about Paul telling him to wait in Foster’s office. It’s not a very good alibi, you know. I’m sure Foster could have faked it.”

  “I know.” She lifted and set down her beer bottle on the white paper table covering, making a series of overlapping circles. “I’ve been thinking the person who fought with Paul was Foster Johns. Except ...”

  “Except what?”

  “I just don’t think he did it.”

  This time he didn’t bother to hide his smile.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she protested, but she was making a rueful, amused face herself.

  “I wouldn’t dream of laughing at you, not with your record,” he said. “But I was thinking what my boss would say if I came to him and said I didn’t want to press an investigation because I had a feeling the suspect didn’t do it.”

  “But surely you get feelings about suspects!”

  “Sure I do. Often. Sometimes I’m sure a suspect did it, and sometimes I’m equally sure a suspect didn’t. Sometimes I’m right. But those feelings are more than instinct, they come from experience. You haven’t been at this long enough to learn if your feelings are always right.”

  “I know,” she sighed, sitting back in her padded seat. “But Foster Johns was so careful and, and scrupulous over putting that new roof on my building. I talked with the city inspector about him, and he said Foster Johns has a reputation all over the state for honest dealings. He follows the rules, he said, he insists on an independent inspector, and he only hires sub-contractors who agree to do things over if they aren’t perfect. How could someone as honest as that be a murderer?”

  “Well,” said Morrie, leaning back in his own seat, “if I did something horribly against the law and wanted to get away with it, I’d obey the laws and follow the rules and mind even Miss Manners forever after.”

  “Hmmmm,” conceded Betsy, turning her beer bottle around by the neck to draw a wavy line through her circles. “A middle school teacher, now retired, came to the shop the other day and told me about Paul, Jory, and Foster, all of whom she taught English. She kept diaries of her classroom days and recalled Foster as an impatient, aggressive seventh grader. He certainly is none of tho
se things today.”

  Her expression was troubled, and he said, “Look, dear heart, your interest in crime is not so much to discover the culprit as to see justice done, right?”

  Betsy nodded.

  “Well, perhaps it already has. If Paul Schmitt murdered Angela and tried to frame Foster Johns for it, and Foster killed him, then the scales are in balance. Perhaps you should withdraw from this one. If justice is your game, then Mum should be your name. Go home and tell no one what you’ve found out.” He made a little motion in front of his mouth, as if turning a key. “Tick-a-lock!” he said. “Look, here comes our dinner.”

  16

  Thanh Do’s Vietnamese basil chicken was so fabulously delicious that Betsy couldn’t do anything but make delighted little humming noises for a while. There were big pieces of fresh Asian basil strewn among the chicken tenders, and pineapple chunks and streamers of sweet onions in a delectable brown teriyaki sauce.

  Morrie had to stop and blow his nose after every three bites of his fiery curry, which was making Betsy’s eyes water clear across the table.

  “Where did you learn to like food that hot?” Betsy asked when she was able to form a thought that didn’t have the word “basil” in it. “Certainly not here in Minnesota, which thinks a dash of fresh-ground pepper is going wild.”

  Morrie nodded. “My first wife and I used to vacation in Texas every winter for about ten years. Their Tex-Mex food is wonderful, but hot enough to melt horseshoes. I actually tried to wrangle a job down there, with Houston PD, but didn’t succeed.”

  “I’m glad,” said Betsy.

  “Me, too, now.” He smiled at her in a way that made her heart turn over.

  “Do you always fall in love this easy?” she asked.

  “No. You?”

  “Oh, gosh, yes.”

  He stopped eating to stare at her, and very slowly his face began to change, from surprise to disappointment, to sorrow, to deep, deep sorrow.

  At first embarrassed, she soon began to giggle. He heaved a despairing sigh, incandescent with curry, and she became helpless with laughter.

  When he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to touch his eyes, she lay down sideways on the seat, and there, unable to see his brokenhearted face, she regained control. “Are you finished?” she asked from that position.

  “Yes,” he replied in a voice with a sad catch in it. “Sit up, people are staring.”

  She came up to see him eating his dinner with a satisfied smirk. “Idiot,” she said.

  “Tell me a ghost story,” he said.

  She told the one about Cecil’s ghost haunting the house his granddaughter owns. “When the house was being remodeled to accommodate a wheelchair, Cecil would steal tools, slam doors, and wreak some kind of breakdown on the man’s pickup ...” She stopped suddenly to think.

  “What?”

  “I wonder how long ago it was that that happened.”

  “Why, is that important?”

  “Probably not, but wouldn’t it be strange if the carpenter was Foster Johns? He started out as a carpenter, then got into construction, and is now a general contractor.”

  “Are you thinking that these women played a trick on Foster?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. This is a small town, and so there are lots of connections among people. Carol and Sue have been living together for sixteen years. Carol didn’t say the carpenter’s name. That’s kind of sad, isn’t it? She has this wonderful story, but she can’t say it involves Foster Johns without spoiling it.”

  “Tell me another ghost story.”

  “Just let me finish this little bit here first,” said Betsy, and ate some more. She was disobeying the rule slender women follow: Eat only until you’re not hungry anymore. But she wasn’t slender—and obviously the maker of that rule had never eaten Thanh Do’s Vietnamese basil chicken. “Is everything here as good as this?”

  “I haven’t been disappointed yet.”

  “Your turn, tell me a ghost story now,” she said.

  “I don’t know any ghost stories. But you said you’ve actually seen a ghost, so tell me about that.”

  “The bright and good one, or the scary one?”

  He considered. “The scary one.”

  “We were camping, my parents and my sister and I. I think I was eight or nine years old. I don’t know where we went, it wasn’t a campground with a building that sold ice and soft drinks and charcoal starter, but a forest with no road into it, or even trails. We drove for hours, it seemed like, and arrived near sundown, and had to walk back in for a long time, carrying things. We came to a clearing in the woods and put up the tents by lamplight. I remember there were owls, two owls, hooting back and forth. Dad dug a shallow hole and we built a wood fire in it and we roasted weenies and marsh-mallows. He and Mama talked about themselves as children, and what school was like and what they did for fun. Mama said a favorite thing was to take an old wallet and put green paper in it so it looked nice and fat with money, and put a rubber band around it and tie a length of button thread to it and put it on the sidewalk, and when someone would reach for it, yank it back, then laugh like anything. She laughed again when she told us about it.” Betsy shrugged.

  “Every generation has its own sense of humor. Have you noticed that cartoons aren’t funny anymore?”

  Betsy said, “Boy, are you right! If I want to enjoy a cartoon, I have to wait for the Bugs and Daffy Hour.”

  “That wasn’t much of a ghost story,” said Morrie.

  “I hadn’t gotten to the ghost part yet. Let’s see, oh, yes, parents’ stories about their childhood. Well, Dad told about a brown-and-white pinto pony his father had as a boy that would rear up and strike at anyone who came near with a saddle. Only Granddad could ride it, and he had to ride bareback. It was a menace in the barn, sneaking a bite if someone got within reach of it. Except it loved Granddad and never bit him. That night I went to bed simply wild to have a pony of my own that no one but me could ride.”

  “Still no ghost,” noted Morrie.

  “Be patient, my dear. We had two tents, one for our parents, one for Margot and me. I woke up very early the next morning, convinced I’d heard a pony neighing not far away. I was absolutely positive that pony was white with big brown patches and that it would let me ride it. So I got out of my sleeping bag, put on jeans, T-shirt, and sandals, and went out looking for it. I listened and heard it neigh again, and started for it. Every time I’d get discouraged, I’d hear it again, and pretty soon I was a long way from the camp. I kept thinking about how much fun it would be to come back to the camp riding my spotted pony, which I felt I pretty much had to do, because I remembered my parents had warned me not to leave the camp alone, so I needed a spectacular excuse.

  “At last I came to a meadow, but it wasn’t the one we’d parked the car in the night before. And there wasn’t a beautiful brown-and-white pony grazing in it, either.

  “It was about then it stopped neighing, so I decided it had been a ghost pony, haunting the meadow and crying for its old owner to come play with it again.

  “But I’d been wandering the woods for so long, I didn’t know where I was or which way back to the camp. I started walking aimlessly, got into some brambles, and fell a few times. Some mosquitoes found me, and invited all their friends and relations to come and feast. The woods seemed dark after the sunny meadow, and I started to feel afraid. I couldn’t find the tents. I just kept walking and crying and even praying. Then I saw a big box turtle. I loved turtles, so I knelt down and stroked it and cried some more, because I was really scared and getting very hungry. And so long as I was down there, I prayed really hard, and when I stood up, there was the camp on the other side of some bushes, not twenty yards away.

  “I came running into camp bawling and woke everyone up. It was only about seven-thirty, I must have gotten up before six. My mother wanted to know why on earth I went off into the woods like that, and I told them about the pony, and Dad said there wasn’t a horse or a p
ony for miles.”

  “How did he know?”

  “He didn’t say, but I’m sure we didn’t just pull off the road and go camping in some stranger’s woods,” said Betsy. “He must have known the area.”

  “Still ...” Morrie looked skeptical.

  Betsy sniffed loftily. “I told the story of that ghost pony at camp, and it was very well received.”

  Morrie laughed. “You made that up! Well done!”

  “The getting lost part wasn’t made up,” said Betsy. “Once when we went camping, I went out for an early-morning walk and got lost and stooped to play with a box turtle, and when I stood up, there were the tents. When I told that story in camp, I added the ghost pony and said I went out later looking for proof of the pony and guess what I found?”

  Morrie said solemnly, “Horsefeathers!”

  That set Betsy off into another peal of laughter. “I wish I’d thought of that when I told that story!” she said when she was able to speak again. “The best I could do was to say I found an old, rusty horseshoe just the right size for a pony’s hoof.”

  The waiter came by. “Do you want to take that home in a box?” he asked, looking at the platter, which was still nearly half full.

  “All right, thank you,” said Betsy.

  She was quiet on the ride home.

  “A penny for that thought,” Morrie said at last.

  “Something ... I said something, or you said something that triggered something, only I can’t think what it is.”

  “Sleep on it. If you’re like me, it’ll come to you in a dream.”

  Betsy didn’t know who the grinning bad man was, but he had a gun and he was going to shoot her if she didn’t give him forty thousand dollars. She didn’t have any money and went out on the street to look for some. And there on the sidewalk was a fat billfold full of money, but every time she stooped to reach for it, it leaped away. She finally threw herself down and grabbed it with both hands, but it resisted and finally worked itself loose from her fingers, as if it were attached to something by a rubber band.