Cutwork

by Monica Ferris

  “Ian’s not satisfied with this,” said Shelly, coming to look over Betsy’s shoulder. “But they’re really anxious for it, so he’s shipping it off today.”

  “It will be interesting to see if this commands as big a price as the others.”

  “Well, why shouldn’t it?” asked Shelly, surprised.

  “Yes, why shouldn’t it?” echoed Betsy. Shelly nodded, satisfied, and went back to admiring the photos of the kinetic sculpture. But Betsy was thoughtful for the rest of the afternoon.

  20

  Mickey’s attorney called the next morning to say the boy had been moved to adult jail. Mr. Wannamaker was going to see him, and Mickey had asked to see Betsy. Did she care to come along?

  Betsy did indeed. Godwin sighed and pretended to be overburdened at being left alone in the shop, but his hurt feelings were suspiciously easy to soothe with a promise to let him know what the Sinclair boy had to say for himself.

  Mickey was looking a lot less sullen than he had the last time. In fact, he had that starey look of someone who has lost everything in a tornado or revolution. Adult jail is not a pleasant place to be. He sat in the plastic chair across from his attorney and Betsy and said—to her, not to him, “Please, help me.”

  Betsy said, “I absolutely can’t do that unless you stop lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying . . .” he began with a whine, but she gestured at him to stop it.

  “You were in the park. You and your friends Thief and Noose went there to look for something to steal. You wanted to sell it so you could buy marijuana.”

  Mickey’s attorney said warningly, “I am not hearing any of this.”

  “Of course not,” said Betsy. To Mickey, she went on, “You separated in the park, and not long after, you called Thief’s cell phone from home to tell him you had copped some money and for him to bring Noose over.”

  “No, you’re wrong, I never—” began Mickey, but Betsy was rising to her feet and he stopped.

  “If you tell me again you weren’t in the park, I am going to leave, and I won’t be back.”

  Mickey looked at his attorney for advice, but Mr. Wannamaker had gone into resting mode behind his expensive eyeglasses and didn’t even return the look. Mickey opened his mouth and closed it as he thought of various lies he might try, only to discard them unvoiced. Finally he shrugged and said sullenly to his hands on the table, “All right, I was in the park.”

  “And you took the money from the cash box in Mr. McFey’s booth.”

  Very quietly, almost with relief, “Yes.” Betsy sat down and Mickey raised his eyes and started, “But . . .” He stopped, with a desperate look that said that even though he was going to tell the truth, she wouldn’t believe him.

  “But Mr. McFey was already dead when you got there,” she said.

  His whole face lit up. “Yes! I thought nobody was in there. I didn’t see him until I was already in the booth and, and, I looked down and I was standing in blood.” His face echoed the sickening distress he must have felt at the time. “It was all over the place, like a mud puddle, only . . . And I didn’t know what to do. There was this dead guy, and I didn’t do it. I mean, he was really dead. I would’ve yelled for help, if I’d thought . . .” His eyes slid sideways, a sign he was edging away from fact. Then they came back, and he continued, “But he wasn’t moving or breathing or anything. And, and, well, there was this money, and I needed the money.”

  “So you took it,” said Betsy.

  “Well, it was like, I mean, he’s dead, he don’t need it anymore, right?” He took a breath and said all in a rush, “So okay, I took it and I tried to wipe my shoe off in the booth but it wouldn’t come off so I ran through the rain outside but the grass didn’t brush it off, it was still there, it even spread up on the shoelaces somehow. So I took them off and I threw them in this big trash bin behind the guy selling pork chops.” He paused long enough to swallow, relieved at having gotten past the really bad part. In fact, he waxed indignant. “Who knew they’d find them? What kind of cop goes digging in the garbage, anyhow?” He waned a little under her sardonic look.

  “Anyway, I went home and I called Thief and he came over with Noose and I told them where I got it, and they didn’t believe me, that I saw a dead man. I was like, well, catch the news on TV, homies. And Thief went, maybe it’s true, there was cops and the fire department at the park. I gave them each twenty dollars, which they took, no problem, and they left.” The habitual whine came back. “And I just got the rest hid in my closet when the doorbell rings and it was the cops. I didn’t even get to spend any of it.”

  Betsy said, “I believe you.”

  “Thank you,” he said, chin up, as if he’d done a noble act.

  “Now, think hard: Did you see or hear anyone as you came up to the booth initially?”

  He frowned at her, reluctant to revisit the event. But after a pause while he thought, he said, “No. Probably not. I don’t know. I was walking kind of slow, you know, just looking around . . .” He humped his shoulders up and down, nodding, an innocent kid taking an innocent stroll.

  “Uh-huh,” said Betsy.

  “Okay, okay. But wait, I must not’ve seen anyone. ’Cause if I would’ve, I wouldn’t’ve gone in the booth.”

  At home that night, Morrie and Betsy had a quiet dinner. Morrie, a retired police detective, was tall and thin, with a long, narrow jaw and kind eyes. She told him about seeing the Sinclair boy.

  “You think he’s telling the truth now?” Morrie asked.

  “Yes. He is not a sweet, innocent child, even his parents know that. But now I’m certain he did not murder Rob McFey.”

  “Why did you doubt it in the first place? The evidence was strong. And it’s gotten stronger.”

  “Well, for one thing, when I offered to believe he didn’t do it the first time I saw him, it was like striking a match in the dark. His eyes fairly blazed at me, and not with surprise, but with hope.”

  Morrie nodded, but it was with a cop’s “just the facts” skepticism.

  “Well, that’s not all, of course. But once that seed of doubt was planted, it made it possible to realize that the evidence Mike had was flawed. For example, I heard ‘fingerprints on the cash box, fingerprints on the cash box’ but never anything about fingerprints on the knife. So I thought maybe there aren’t any fingerprints on the knife. Mike did let you look at the file, didn’t he?” Though retired from the police department, Morrie maintained his relationships with various members of local constabularies, and so was sometimes able to help Betsy find things out.

  “Not he. I am retired and therefore no better than any civilian.” He smiled into her disappointed eyes and said, “But Jill did. And yes, the knife handle was wiped clean.”

  “I thought so,” she said, with satisfaction.

  “So he wiped one but not the other. So what?”

  “Now, I have never killed anyone, but it seems to me that if I stabbed someone, especially out of fear, the first thing I’d do is drop the knife. And then, if I recovered enough to decide to steal the money I came for in the first place, and if I remembered to wipe my fingerprints off the cash box, that would remind me to wipe the knife off, too.”

  “Maybe he went to wipe the knife first, and was interrupted by someone coming along and didn’t have time to wipe the cash box as well,” suggested Morrie.

  “Maybe, but if I had the cash box in my hand and suddenly remembered about fingerprints, I’d wipe the thing that reminded me first.”

  “Still.”

  “Yes, all right, maybe he put the money in his pocket and went to wipe the knife blade first. He’s not the bright and well-organized type.” She wiped her own fingers on a napkin. “So you’re thinking that if Mickey is guilty, then the order of the crime was that he went for the cash box first because Rob McFey wasn’t there.”

  “Yes, and Mr. McFey came back and caught him at it.”

  “Okay, suppose. He’s got the money and is thinking about wiping the cas
h box when Mr. McFey comes in. And he panics and grabs a knife and stabs him.”

  “Yes, that sounds right.”

  “And then he wipes the knife—but not the cash box.”

  “Maybe someone came along about then and frightened him off.”

  “Maybe. But if the murder was done in a fit of panic,” said Betsy, “then it would be more likely he’d drop the knife and run, and there would be fingerprints on the knife. Or having dropped the knife in horror, he then recovered enough to rob the cash box and, being a cool customer, wipe it down—in which case, he’d remember to go back and wipe the knife off as well. But then there’d be no prints on either the box or the knife handle. I dunno, it seems more likely to me that, if there were prints on only one item, they’d be on the knife, not the cash box.”

  “Maybe he was interrupted a second time, by someone coming by.”

  “Yes,” said Betsy. “Yes, that could be.”

  “Or maybe he was wearing gloves.”

  “Then there wouldn’t be fingerprints at all. Both Irene Potter and I remember him skulking around with what seemed intent Sunday morning. But he wasn’t wearing gloves.”

  “Well, of course not,” said Morrie, amused. “They were in a pocket. And he took them off to get the money out, because it’s hard to do fine motor movements while wearing gloves.”

  “So he didn’t wear them while rifling the cash box, but when Rob came in and caught him, he put them on hastily before picking up the knife and stabbing him.”

  “That is a rather difficult scenario to imagine, isn’t it? So all right, he went in there wearing gloves, and McFey came in, so he stabbed him. Then he took them off to rifle the cash box, and didn’t think to wipe his prints off before running away.”

  “Well, maybe,” conceded Betsy. “But then where are the gloves? If he wore them to stab Mr. McFey, then he would have thrown them into the Dumpster with his shoes, wouldn’t he?”

  “Hmmmm,” said Morrie.

  “And if he was thoughtful enough to bring gloves along, why did he have to use one of Rob’s own knives?”

  “Because he’s a thief, not a murderer. The gloves were an attempt not to leave fingerprints on the cash box, not to avoid fingerprints on a murder weapon. Or maybe he did have a knife in a pocket, but when he saw Rob’s knife right there so handy, a knife that couldn’t be traced back to him, why, he just used it instead.”

  “I doubt if Mickey’s bright enough to think of all that, especially when there’s an open cash box within reach. When I talked to him today, there was something about him that just yelled that he was telling the truth at last. I really don’t think he did it.”

  “All right, here’s the big question: Who?”

  “Yes, that is the big question. I thought it might be a man named Banner Wilcox, but he’s got a wonderful alibi: standing in a church hall full of people he knows, having coffee after service.” Betsy fell silent. She absently forked up another bite of lasagna, even though she was always promising herself she was going to stop eating as soon as she wasn’t hungry anymore.

  “Penny?” said Morrie.

  “Hmm?” She swallowed, saw where her hand was, and put the fork down.

  “For that thought you’re having.”

  “Oh, there’s this local man who’s getting to be an important artist. He’s eccentric in a very charming way—Shelly’s dating him and is very taken—and he does some interesting things with metal. He’s also generous, especially to struggling artists, loaning them money. He bought a viatical from the man who was murdered at the Art in the Park fair, Rob McFey.”

  She paused but Morrie only nodded, his light blue eyes keenly interested. “I know about viaticals,” he said. “I’ve often thought they’d make a wonderful motive for murder.”

  “Yes, I did, too, when I heard about this one. But it turns out Ian wasn’t anxious about the money. Still, I wonder if he ever forgives a loan. There was another artist who died in a fire—it wasn’t arson,” she said, “the fire wasn’t suspicious or anything. But Ian said he had given the guy some money and got a mortgage on the guy’s house, which burned down. All he got out of it, he said, was an oxyacetylene torch and some scrap metal. But there’s something about that whole deal that makes my brain itch. I wish I knew what it was.”

  “What could it be?”

  “I don’t know, that’s what bothers me. I wonder if the land the house and studio stood on went to Ian, too, or if the mortgage was just on the building. I wonder who has the land now. I wonder if Rob McFey knew the dead man’s heir, if there was one. I wonder if there isn’t some kind of broker out there, putting artists with money together with artists who need it.”

  “You wonder some strange things, Kukla,” he said.

  “I know,” she sighed. “And I’m like a computer whose hard disk is damaged. I think there’s an idea in there somewhere, but I can’t get at it. And I can’t get it off my mind. I’m sorry, I’m turning into bad company. Could you either go home or sit here and read while I go Google something?”

  He looked at her, his expression sympathetic. “Do you want me to go home?”

  She smiled at him. “No. But I don’t know how long this will take.”

  “May I sit behind you and make encouraging noises?”

  “Sure. You may even see something I’ve been missing.” So they went into the spare bedroom that was also Betsy’s office. She sat down at the desk and booted up.

  She decided that she first needed to know was more about the artist who had died in the fire. What was his name? Oscar or Omar, or something like that, Shelly had said. First name Benedict or Gregory. Google.com was amazing; she asked for obituaries in Minnesota nine to twelve years ago and it promptly linked her to newspaper archives and several genealogical sites. But she couldn’t find any dead man with a surname Oscar or Omar, or anyone dead during that time whose first name was Gregory or Benedict.

  “How could Shelly confuse Benedict with Gregory?” Morrie asked.

  “Well, she said it was some Pope’s name.”

  “Probably not Pius,” said Morrie.

  Betsy snorted in amusement. “Or John or John Paul, she’d remember those,” she said.

  “Gregory and Benedict were not only Popes, they’re saints,” Morrie pointed out. “How many other Popes are also saints?”

  “I’ll ask Google.”

  The list was surprisingly short. “Sylvester, I’ll bet,” said Betsy. And sure enough, one Sylvester Osman died in a fire near Farmington in Dakota county, south of the Cities, four years ago. The fire was caused by faulty wiring. A fireman had broken his hand fighting it. A poke into genealogy records indicated Sylvester Osman’s cousin, Wilmar Osman, inherited the land and sold it to a developer.

  “So what does all that prove?” asked Morrie, tickling the back of Betsy’s neck with his breath.

  She drew up her shoulders and he sat back. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m sure there’s something in here that’s important.” She thought hard. “But I just don’t see it. Maybe the itch will go away if I ignore it. No, no, there’s something . . . Nuts, my head is stuffed with cotton, hay, and rags.”

  “Then tell it to go to Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire,” he said, recognizing the reference. “Come out to the kitchen and serve that dessert you promised me.”

  “All right.”

  She got the ambrosia out of the refrigerator, a stirred-up mix of Jell-O, grapes, chunks of mandarin orange, pecans, and Kool Whip. But she didn’t talk much while they ate it; she was feeling tired and distracted. She put the bowls in the sink and sent Morrie home so she could go to bed.

  At three she jumped awake with the tail end of a bad dream drifting inexorably away before she could catch hold of it. It had featured angry people marching at her, kerchiefs around their faces, fists upraised, shouting something ... U.S. Out of Mexico? Something impossible like that. What did it mean? She shook her head and lay back down. But convinced there was a clue in that dream
, she couldn’t get back to sleep; so she got up and went into the living room, sat down, and took out her cutwork. Buttonholing around the endless curves of leaves and petals soothed her ruffled mind, but it didn’t give her any fresh ideas. She finished the second side of the pattern and decided she would put tiny seed pearls in the centers of the flowers. But she couldn’t find the little packet of them, and so gave up and went back to bed.

  21

  But while Betsy slept, some part of her brain must have kept working, because when she woke next morning, it was with a clear head and some urgent questions. After she had brushed her teeth and fed the cat, she dug out the papers from her volunteer work on Art on the Lake, and phoned Deb Hart.

  Deb’s first reaction was a slightly grumpy, “What? What?” Because it was barely six-thirty. Then, when Betsy explained, there came a more conciliatory, “Well, yes, I suppose it could be. In fact, now you ask me, yes, I think so. But how strange. Okay, I’ll put off sending the slides back another day.”

  Betsy didn’t explain, but thanked her, then phoned Shelly at home. “I know you’re working here today, but this can’t wait. Are you and Skye still getting along?”

  “Of course we are. In fact, I’ve agreed she can come over once a week, more often if her mother gets difficult. Honestly, that woman! But Skye’s really a sweet child under all that goth nonsense. I like her a lot.”

  “What has she told you about Ian and Rob?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “That’s a funny question.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry, but it’s kind of important.”

  “All right. He was a friend of her father’s, and Skye adored her father, poor thing. Ian is a famous artist and his show of interest in her father was very flattering. She wants to study art and she’s proud to know him.”

  “Is Ian arranging to sell her father’s carvings?”

  “Oh, that. Yes. He’s talking to his studio in Santa Fe about it, Marvin Gardens. But it takes a while to work that out, you know. And anyway, they might not do it, even as a favor. So Ian is also looking into getting Robbie’s work into an art auction, one that’s well publicized.”