She pulled into the driveway that led to the back of her building and parked, still smiling. A short, swift, silent run up a highway in the old car would be just the thing she needed to blow the cobwebs of indecision out of her brain.
She went in through the back door, into the back of her shop. Lars, a very big man with blond hair and enormous hands, was standing in front of the old desk that served as the shop’s checkout counter. Behind it was Shelly Donohue, her part-time employee at Crewel World. She was smiling up at Lars and tucking a stray tendril of hair into the big knot at the nape of her neck—Lars belonged to Jill Cross, Shelly knew that, but he had a virile Viking charm that made a woman remember whether she’d put on perfume while dressing that morning.
“Hi, Lars!” called Betsy, starting forward.
But when he turned toward her, he wasn’t smiling. His face went red and clenched into a furious display of anger. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “And what the hell were you thinking about?”
6
Lars was a large, aggressive police officer, quick to rise to the defense of the weak or threatened—which Betsy felt both of at the moment. Confused, she took a step back. Then clarity struck. “Did Mike Malloy send you over to talk to me?”
Apparently not; her question bewildered him so much that his anger faded from red to pink while he tried to figure out why she had asked that. Then he understood. “You’ve been investigating one of his cases again,” he said accusingly. “I bet it’s that murder at the art fair.”
“I’ve been asked by Mickey Sinclair’s family to look into it, yes,” she said, nodding. “But that isn’t why you’re here, is it?”
“No.” The anger came back, but not in a scary form. “No, it’s not! Jill’s having enough trouble with me without you aggravating her, too!”
“What have you done?”
He was aggravated by her always wandering from his point of ignition. “Nothing, dammit! You’re the one who made her mad. You’re the one who needs to make up with her!”
“Then tell me how!” Betsy retorted. “She’s mad at me, I’m not mad at her!” She continued, less sharply, “I don’t blame her for getting angry with me, but I apologized and promised not to do it again. I don’t know what else to do until she cools off and lets me talk to her.” Betsy waved that turn of phrase away. “I mean, warms up. She was about seventy degrees below zero the last time I saw her. Could you talk to her on my behalf, Lars? Explain that I’m really, really sorry?”
“Nope.” Lars shook his head. “We can’t talk anymore.”
“Why, is she mad at you, too? This is terrible, her being mad at both of us!”
Now he was woebegone as well as annoyed. “She’s not mad at me. She made sergeant, and there’s a no-fraternization rule. I can’t date her anymore.”
“Oh, no!”
“But that’s stupid!” said Shelly, coming out from behind the desk. “Surely they can’t mean to break you two up! You’ve been dating for years, since long before she was promoted!”
Lars tugged at an earlobe. “Yeah, I know. Everyone knows. But it’s a rule. If we were engaged or married, it would be all right.”
“Well, can’t they promote you, too?” asked Betsy. “You’ve been a police officer as long as Jill.”
“I’d have to pass the test, and there won’t be another one for a long while. Years, maybe. Openings don’t come along too often in a small department. Anyhow, I don’t want to be promoted! I like what I’m doing on patrol. It’s rotten that we can’t see each other . . .” He was suddenly recalled to his original purpose. “And it’s worse when her best friend gets her in trouble on the job!”
“On the job?” echoed Betsy.
His anger rose from its ashes. “You sure did! The chief called her on the carpet for talking to civilians about police business. He was really PO’d, and it’ll probably go in her personnel file. It’s the first time that’s ever happened to her, her first black mark on the job, and she’s really sad about it.”
Betsy was reduced to a shocked and shamed silence.
Shelly said, “If you can’t talk to her, how do you know this?”
“I had to talk to her on official business, and she was looking like she was coming down with flu or something, so I asked her if she was feeling all right, and she told me about it. I thought she was gonna break down and cry. She’s got two kinds of trouble on her plate and I’ve never seen her like this before.”
Betsy had seen Jill sad but never tearful. “That’s terrible! What can I do? She’s my best friend!” She thought of Jill, cool, unruffled Jill, distressed to the point of tears—and it was all Betsy’s fault! Betsy felt her own eyes filling. She turned away to grope blindly for one of the little chairs around the small table in the back half of her shop. She fell into it and put her elbows on the table, resting her face in her hands, trying to control her breathing, which threatened to turn into sobs.
“Aw, now, don’t you start in,” said Lars, coming to pat her on the back. His big hand was hard as a board, and he brought with him a whiff of kerosene and oil—his antique car took constant maintenance. The pain of his sympathetic thumping shocked away the incipient sobs.
“Th-that’s all right,” she said. “But there must be s-something that will help.”
Lars stopped thumping. “I dunno what it could be,” he said. “I can’t help her and I can’t arrest you.” But the thought of an arrest made him grip her shoulder.
“Arrest!?” Shelly said indignantly. “What would you charge her with, Lars, failure to yield?”
After a startled moment, Betsy laughed, and Lars, surprised, let go. Betsy said, “That’s funny, Shelly: failure to yield!” She looked up at Lars’s pink, sad face and sobered again. “I’m sorry, I apologize. My emotions are all over the place. I’m just coming from a terrible interview with the Sinclairs, and when I saw your car, I thought I was going to have fun going for a ride, but when I came in, you were so angry it scared me, and all because Jill’s in a pickle at work . . . I’m just feeling a bit of whiplash, that’s all. She stood up, wiping her cheeks.“Lars, do you think writing Jill a letter would help?”
“I’m a lousy letter writer—oh, you mean if you wrote to her? I dunno, maybe.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hell, when we used to fight, nothing worked to change her mood. All I could do was wait her out. After a week or two, she’d decide she liked me more than she was mad at me, and she’d call and we’d get back to normal. I suppose that’s what you’ve got to do, too.”
Betsy grimaced. Two weeks seemed like a very long time to just wait. “Well, if you say so. I guess I’ll have to be patient with her.” Seeking to become businesslike, she said to Shelly, “Has the mail come yet?”
“Not yet. But that shipment of Crystal Rays you ordered is here. And Mrs. Wilcox phoned to ask if her special order of merino wool has come in yet. I couldn’t find it, so I said no.”
“Oh, golly, I meant to call the supplier about that, we’ve been waiting for that order for nearly a month. I’d better phone them. No, wait a second, this is Saturday, they aren’t open on weekends. Write a note, Shelly, use my red pen and all capital letters, reminding me to call them first thing Monday.”
Lars said, “I’d better get out to the Stanley before someone tries to steal her.”
“Wait a minute, Lars.” Betsy didn’t want to be patient. “Isn’t there something we can do? I know, I’ll send her a gift, nothing big, some little thing from the shop. Maybe a couple cards of Crystal Rays?” Jill liked exotic fibers, and that shipment of Crystal Rays tubular ribbon included the new solid colors.
“For cripe’s sake, don’t do that!” Lars said. “After the way the chief laid into her, she’d turn you in for attempted bribery.”
Betsy shoved her fingers into her hair. “But there has to be something I can do to help her warm up to me again! I can’t just sit quietly for weeks!”
“Well, hey, isn’t there a Sophia Designs t
runk show coming in soon?” asked Shelly from behind the desk, red-ink pen raised to her cheek. Trunk shows were sent in sturdy cases from shop to shop across the country. They featured new designs, new patterns, new fabrics and fibers—and special prices.
“Yes, I’ve already done a mailing about it.”
“Did you mention that this one features C. Bethel’s work?”
“Yes, of course. Oh! Shelly, you are a genius!” C. Bethel’s needlepoint canvases often featured exotic women in Art Deco-style clothing: strangely shaped hats or turbans, brightly patterned dresses with peacock-feather trim, complex jewelry. The hand-painted canvases were costly, but beautiful and popular. Jill loved them. “That would be just the thing to lure her back into the shop.”
“But wait, I’m not finished. Why don’t you have a special early opening for it, inviting only your best customers? Jill certainly qualifies, doesn’t she?”
“Well, of course! And I’ll set aside a Lady in Blue for her. Last time I had one, someone else got it ahead of her. Now when she comes in, I’ll . . .” Lars caught her eye and she quickly amended that thought. “I’ll be just ordinary to her, no special attention at all.”
Lars nodded approval of her swift grasp of the rules. “If she acts like nothing was ever wrong, you should be just as usual back.”
When the door went Bing! they all turned to look at a man standing just inside the shop. He was a stranger, about forty-five, handsome in a broad-faced, burly way, his eyes marked with laugh lines and his mouth inside a goatee already in a smile as he looked around with pleased interest. He was tall and dressed like an old-fashioned hippie in broad-strapped sandals, too-short trousers, and a collarless shirt big enough to drape gently over his paunch. His hair was brown lightly mixed with gray; thick, curly, and long, caught in a trio of scrunchies down his back. His eyebrows were dark and bushy, a contrast to the well-kept goatee. He had a fat bandage on one hand, just the last joints of two fingers showing.
“May I help you?” Shelly asked before Betsy could.
He turned a powerfully charming grin on her and said in a pleasant growl, “Are you Betsy Devonshire?”
Shelly turned to gesture at Betsy. “No, this is she.”
Betsy said, “May I help you?”
“I’m Ian Masterson,” he said with a slight bow, his tone indicating she should perhaps recognize the name. When she didn’t, he said, “I’m an artist and an old friend of Rob McFey’s. I was helping him get a gallery show in Santa Fe when . . . all this happened.” His smile dissolved into an unhappy look. “I hear you know something about the case, so I decided I should talk to you.”
Lars said, “I gotta go. You want a rain check on that ride?”
“Yes, please. Thanks, Lars.”
Ian held out the bandaged hand sideways to stop him. “Hey, you the owner of that Stanley sitting out front?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I always wanted to see one of them up and running. You from around here?”
“Yeah.”
“Would it be possible to talk to you about your car? I can’t believe you actually drive one of those things on the public streets. Aren’t they dangerous? Is it hard to keep it running? What kind of fuel do you use?”
“Naw, it’s safe, and it’s not hard. I use Coleman gas and kerosene, though I’m thinking of changing the pilot light fuel to hexane, because it runs cleaner than Coleman. Your pilot light clogs easy, and that can lead to real trouble.”
“Can you use regular water for the boiler, or do you need distilled?”
“Hell, I can suck it up out of a ditch if I need to. Here . . .” Lars was reaching into a front pocket. “Here’s my card. I really gotta go, but give me a call sometime and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” Lars handed over the card and went out.
Ian looked the card over, and one eyebrow lifted. “He’s a cop?”
“Yes.” Betsy nodded. “Of course, the department uses internal combustion automobiles.”
Ian looked blankly at her, then suddenly broke into such complimentary laughter that Betsy felt herself blushing. His laugh was infectious, and Shelly began to laugh too. He stuffed the card into a trouser pocket. “I’m sure the local criminal element is unhappy to hear that!” he said, still laughing. Then he sobered and asked Betsy, “Tell me, can I help you in any way with your investigation?”
“Who told you I was investigating?”
He looked embarrassed. “Uh-oh. Am I wrong? The woman I talked to, she, uh—she does some interesting fiber art, but she’s a little . . .” He broke off again with a swift glance around the shop, worried that now he’d put his foot in yet another wrong direction.
But Shelly said, “Irene Potter! Honestly, that woman is a worse gossip than I am!”
Ian turned to look with interest at Shelly. “That’s her name. You know her?”
“Everyone knows Irene,” said Shelly. “She’s a fantastic needleworker, and starting to get famous. I heard she’s not going to take a booth at the art fair anymore, because she’s getting above them.” Shelly blushed. “There, see what I mean? Gossip.”
Ian grinned. “But she as much as told me the same thing.” He turned back to Betsy. “It was your Ms. Potter, all right. But is that some kind of fantasy she was spinning, about you looking into Robbie’s murder? I mean, she said you solve murders all the time . . .” He let that trail off, looking Betsy up and down.
There was that lack of intimidation again. It wasn’t that Betsy was a frump, nor did she have a vacuous face. But she was short and plump, with a pleasant, middle-fifties face. No thin, hawk-like profile here—nor a darkly powerful costume. She was wearing a pale green pantsuit with a cross-stitch pattern of flowers on the collar and pocket.
Shelly said, “Irene exaggerates, but in this case, she’s absolutely right. Betsy’s amazing. She’s solved several murder cases, some of them right here in town.”
Betsy hastened to say, “I don’t know yet if I’m going to get involved in the Rob McFey case. I’ve talked with the boy the police have arrested, and his parents, but I’m not certain whether or not there’s anything I want to do, or even can do.”
“I see,” said Ian, but not as if he really did. “This is kind of awkward. Ms. Potter seemed very sure you’d want to interview me.”
“Well, since you’re here, you might give me a new perspective by telling me about Mr. McFey.”
“I’d be glad to. Robbie was a good friend.”
“Did you see him at his booth at the fair?”
Ian nodded. “On Saturday. I came by to see how he was doing. He seemed happy, said he’d been selling pretty well. He liked the setup in Excelsior, said the park was a pleasant venue, so it attracted lots of people.”
“How long had you known him?”
Ian calculated, his eyes cast upward. “Six, going on seven years.”
“Did you meet because of your mutual interest in art?”
Ian grinned. “No, we met because I didn’t know the difference between advertising and publicity. He used to own Information Please, and I’d been told by my agent that I needed a publicist, so I made an appointment for lunch with Robbie. It must’ve been halfway through the duck at Five-Ten Groveland when he explained that a publicist was not someone who worked at an ad agency. But by then he was intrigued by someone actually making enough money from his art to hire a publicist, and we’ve been friends ever since. I mean, until . . .” He shrugged and looked away, his face sad.
“You said you were helping him get into a Santa Fe gallery?”
“Yes. It’s Marvin Gardens, the same one that represents me. They’ve done very well by me, making sure I get seen by the right reviewers, timing my shows for maximum effect, and most important, paying me promptly.” He expanded a little, literally, rising onto his toes, filling his chest, lifting his bearded chin. “Thanks to them, I’ve developed a national reputation.” He let some of the air out. “I was hoping they could do the same for Robbie.”
; “Do you know his family? Was he married?”
“He was in the process of getting divorced when this happened. It was his wife who filed. She wasn’t in favor of his new lifestyle at all.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Then let me back up and explain. Like I say, Rob used to be in advertising. About ten years ago he and another fellow started their own company, Information Please. They were doing pretty well, making real money, everybody was happy.” Ian went over to the library table in the middle of the room. He used his good hand to turn the three-tiered holder of scissors, a measuring tape, scrap fabrics, a needle holder bristling with needles, and other gadgets associated with stitchery. He made it go around one full turn, then turned around himself and said, “Then Robbie was given a sentence of death.”
7
There was a shocked silence. Robbie asked, “Have you ever heard of hepatitis C?”
“I have,” Shelly said, pleased to have something to contribute. He turned to her, his eyes warm and interested, which caused a confusion of emotions in her breast. She touched her hair in its knot and continued, “Last year a child in my classroom had it, got it from his mother before he was born—at least, I think it was hepatitis C. It could have been A or B. I do recall he was a very sick little boy.”
Betsy said, “I think they’re up to letter what, G? H? Why do you ask? Do you have hepatitis?”
Ian shook his head. “No, no. But Robbie McFey did. He was told he was dying of it.”
“He did? There was no mention of it in any of the news reports.”
“The doctors were wrong. He wasn’t dying.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I’m not explaining very well.” Ian leaned back against the table and stroked his goatee while he considered how to tell his story.
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