Framed in Lace

by Monica Ferris

  “Alice had cataracts?”

  “Years ago, had surgery and all for it.”

  “She hasn’t given up needlework. She comes to our Monday needlework gatherings, and she crochets afghan squares.”

  “I don’t do needlework, and even I can crochet an afghan square. Those big hooks and the yarn in all those colors, it’s not hard.”

  “You make it sound as if she’s blind.”

  “No, not blind. But she can’t do fine work—”

  “You’re wrong!” The speaker was Godwin, who had appeared as if by magic behind Myrtle’s shoulder.

  The old woman jumped, then gave Godwin a stem look. “It isn’t polite to eavesdrop!”

  “Who’s eavesdropping? I’m at work right over there, and you’re not exactly whispering. I couldn’t help hearing what you were saying. And I say you’re wrong about Alice. She identified the threads on that piece of silk as bobbin lace right in front of us, and she figured out the pattern, down to a little butterfly in it.”

  “Well, I heard about that, and I’m here to tell you she had to give up making lace twenty-five years ago because her eyes went bad on her. She had surgery, and wore thick glasses for years. Then she got lenses put right into her eyes, I don’t know how they do that, and after that she got regular glasses. But I’ve known other women with cataracts, and no matter what the doctors do, you never get the good vision back. But on top of that, she hated Trudie Koch. I think you should wonder if she has a good reason for trying to make the police suspicious of someone else over this skeleton business.”

  “Have you talked to the police about this?” asked Betsy.

  Myrtle nodded. “And Mike Malloy listened to me, just like he always listens to people. Then he goes and does what he likes. He’s already made up his mind about this, just you watch him.”

  After Myrtle left, Betsy called Shelly over to join Godwin.

  “All right, what do you think?” she asked.

  “What do I think about what?” asked Shelly, not willing to be the one to start another round of gossip.

  “What Myrtle said, about Alice Skoglund having good reason to want the police to look anywhere but at her.”

  Shelly hesitated. “I don’t know. The things she’s talking about happened before my time.”

  “Is Myrtle inclined to stretch the truth?”

  Shelly considered this. “No. In fact, one reason she’s so involved with the historical society is because she wants the facts known and kept straight. She’s just curling up inside over that 1948—49 business. Irene Potter told me it’s given her a whole new bee in her bonnet, about taking different collections of stories and cross-referencing them.”

  Betsy said, “I think she made one important point. We’ve been looking at Carl and Martha and poor Trudie as if they were the stars in a movie, as if everyone else were extras, there to make the place look inhabited.”

  Godwin said, “And as if it’s history, like Columbus discovering America—not that he did, really—but as if it happened so long ago that everyone is dead. If Myrtle and Martha are still around, and Alice, who else is still here who remembers what was going on at that time?”

  “Vern’s still here,” said Shelly. “You know, the man Myrtle said was Trudie’s boyfriend. They trained him to fix jeeps in the army. He did that for them for thirty years, and then they gave him a pension and sent him home, where he opened his garage. It’s Miller Motors, over on Third, near Morse. It says right on his sign, ‘Since 1978’. It used to be a livery stable, his building.” Shelly lifted her head a little, having made a historical connection of her own.

  Betsy said, “He was in the army for thirty years, you say?”

  “That’s what he tells people,” said Shelly. “I take my car to him to be serviced.”

  Betsy said, “Subtract thirty years from 1978 and you get him joining the army in 1948, the same year Trudie disappeared. And Myrtle says he was a mean and jealous boyfriend.”

  Godwin murmured, “I wonder if he joined up in July. Early July.”

  The three looked at one another, but before they could say anything more, the door alarm went bing, and Jessica Turnquist came in. She saw the trio staring at her and looked down to see if she’d come out with some private parts showing.

  “Hello, Jessica,” said Betsy. “I’m afraid I’ve caught the Excelsior Virus, which turns people into gossips.”

  Jessica smiled her thin smile and said, “And I’m afraid there’s no cure, either. Betsy, I’d like four hanks of that hand-spun yarn I was looking at last week.”

  Betsy went to one of the yarn bins in the box shelves. “What color?”

  “That pale yellow.” Betsy got down the yam, which was full of blibs. The yellow was an uneven and dispirited shade, a sorry imitation of the soft color onion skins produce.

  Jessica shook her head over it. “I don’t much like this myself, but I have a good friend who just loves sweaters made of it. It’s to be her Christmas present.”

  “You know,” said Betsy, ringing up the sale, “it’s interesting how handmade has gone from meaning especially well done to meaning full of obvious mistakes, even if you have to make them deliberately. Listen, do you have to go right away? I have some questions for you.”

  Jessica hesitated, obviously wanting to say no, but compassion—or curiosity—won out. “If it won’t take too long. I’ve got to go grocery shopping today. What do you want to know?”

  Betsy leaned forward and asked quietly, “You knew Carl Winters, didn’t you? What was he like?”

  “Well, I didn’t know him really well. I saw him around town, and I took my dry cleaning to him, of course. And he worked for me every August during State Fair. I used to have a food concession, and he would sell while I would cook.”

  “Did you really? How interesting! What kind of food did you sell?”

  Jessica smiled. “Corn dogs on a stick. One of the things our State Fair is famous for is food on a stick. Steak on a stick, fish on a stick, pork chop on a stick, fried cheese on a stick, shish kabob on a stick.”

  Betsy laughed. “I think I’ve heard of that last one.”

  Jessica’s smile had some life in it this time, and Betsy suddenly realized that she’d once been really beautiful. “You’d be surprised how much money you save not having to supply paper plates. I sold corn dogs, French fries wrapped in newspaper, and three kinds of pop in a deposit bottle. You wouldn’t believe the grease inside that stand; the floor would get so slippery we had to mop it a dozen times a day.”

  “What was your husband’s role in all this?”

  “He bought the stand for me as a kind of wedding present in 1941, but we only ran it together that first year. He joined the Army Air Corps right after Pearl Harbor, and they made him a navigator in the flying fortresses. He was killed in a mission over Germany.”

  “I didn’t realize that’s how you became a widow. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m more sorry we decided not to have children in case he didn’t come back. We were very young but trying hard to be grown-up about things. I was so sure he would come back that I didn’t mind putting off having a child.”

  “You know, this may seem like an impertinent question, but I wonder why it was you didn’t marry again. You must have had lots of suitors.”

  Jessica’s eyelids dropped as she simpered just a little. “Well, I did,” she said. “I thought about it, but I just didn’t ... connect with anyone. And then one morning it was too late. I’ve had a good life anyway, good friends, a nice town to live in, my own home, my church, my needlework. It’s enough.”

  “Did Carl Winters flirt with you?”

  For just an instant those prominent eyes flashed. “I should say he did! He was notorious! ‘Hiya, sweetheart, you’re looking mighty fresh and tasty this morning,’ he’d say. And until you put a stop to it, he’d get worse and worse. But it was never more than talk, really; he didn’t mean anything by it. He loved his wife, I know that now. But at the time I felt
sorry for her, even though I didn’t really know her. It wasn’t until Carl disappeared that we became close. She was kind of standoffish, I thought, but now I know it was because of Carl; compensating, I’d guess you’d say, for his being over-friendly.”

  “Would she get mad at him for acting like that?”

  “She never said a word to him, not where anyone else could hear—though of course he wouldn’t behave like that in front of her, that would have been going way too far. He did call her ‘the ball and chain’ and ‘my first wife’ and things like that when she wasn’t around.”

  “God, I‘d’ve murdered him,” muttered Betsy.

  “Yes, well ...” said Jessica, and looked away.

  Betsy said, “Now wait! You came to me and begged me to prove she didn’t murder him!”

  “No, I came to you and begged you to prove she didn’t murder Trudie Koch,” said Jessica. “It broke my heart to hear the talk going on around town about that. But now Carl comes back and right away he’s shot dead, and it isn’t suicide, the police say. So now I’m not sure what to think.”

  “Could it have been someone else?”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Anyone. Alice Skoglund, for example?”

  Jessica’s well-shaped eyebrows lifted. “I think Alice might have been the one person in town Carl didn’t flirt with.”

  “Because she was the minister’s wife?”

  “No.” Jessica let that stand by itself while she gathered up the bag with the her wool in it. Then she added a rather peremptory “Good-bye,” and left.

  “Well!” said Godwin. “Talk about rude! Why didn’t she just come out and say she thought Alice was too ugly for even Carl to flirt with? Humph! I bet she was never as pretty as she thinks, not with that attitude.”

  Betsy thought to scold him for sneaking up, and for poking his oar in, then decided it didn’t matter. Besides, she was inclined to agree with him.

  A half hour later, Betsy pulled into the parking lot beside Miller Motors. The old wooden building did look like something out of a western movie, with its false front and general air of impermanence. The back of the shop was right on the edge of a gully. Betsy pulled her car up to the edge and looked over, expecting to see mechanical debris—it was, after all, so handy; just open the back door and toss. And just what one might expect of a place like this.

  But the gully was clean. Down its center ran some new-looking railroad tracks. Just as she became aware of footsteps crunching on the frozen gravel of the parking lot, a low, gruff voice said behind her, “Them damned volunteers are gonna run a trolley car down there.”

  “What volunteers?” she asked.

  “Same ones that run the trolley steamboat.” The speaker was a man built approximately like a shell a battleship might fire. He was about five feet eight inches tall, with a domed head shaved bald and no hat to protect it from the chill air. His powerful, sloping shoulders and thick neck added to the gunshell effect. He was not a young man: his face was deeply seamed, and as he turned to gesture at the gully, she could see the start of a stoop as well as a thinness to his legs inside the filthy denim trousers. He wore a heavily lined denim jacket and in one large, dirty, chapped hand carried a plastic bucket full of old oil cans.

  “The same ones who raised the Hopkins?” she asked.

  “That’s them.” He spat, more in opinion than from need.

  “Where did they put the boat after they took it out of the water?” she asked.

  “Big ugly barn over on George Street. You gonna be one of them volunteers?”

  She smiled. “No. Are you Vernon Miller?”

  “That’s right.” He spat again, less definitively. “Who are you, then?”

  “My name’s Betsy Devonshire. I inherited Excelsior’s needlework shop, Crewel World. I was wondering if I could talk to you.”

  “I don’t know from needlework. I do car repairs. That your car?” he nodded toward the elderly white hatch-back.

  “Yes, that’s mine.” Betsy had an inspiration. “And it needs an oil change and whatever kind of tune-up you give a car that’s not used to the winter.”

  “Bring ‘er up to the door.” He nodded toward the set of double doors on the side of his building. “We’ll have a look.” He walked off with his burden to the row of wheeled gray garbage cans lining the other side of the parking lot.

  Betsy obeyed and soon was admitted to the interior of the shop. If the floor was not dirt, it had become so thickly layered with oily dirt that it made no difference. A young man in need of serious dental work came over and listened to her story of a car bought used in San Diego and only recently driven to Minnesota.

  “But I need to talk to Mr. Miller first,” she said, not wanting to tell him just yet that there was no way on earth she would trust her car to this place, these people.

  Miller shrugged and let her go first into his office, a room formed out of a corner of the work area with plywood and used boards. Much of its interior was taken up by a desk buried in paper, both marred by black fingerprints. There was an office chair, dirty and so broken into the shape of Miller’s lower extremities she would no more sit in it than his lap, and a metal stool with a composition seat she took instead. The office was perhaps twenty degrees warmer than the shop area, so both of them unbuttoned their coats.

  “What can I do for ya?” asked Miller, sitting in the chair. His eyes were small and watchful under the heavy brow.

  “I’m curious about that skeleton they found on the Hopkins,” began Betsy. “Apparently, the police are sure it’s Trudie Koch.”

  “What’s that got to do with changing the oil in your car?”

  “Nothing. But I’m hoping you’ll talk to me about her.”

  Miller shrugged his heavy shoulders and turned the chair away from her. “I suppose someone told you I was her boyfriend way back then.”

  “Yes.”

  He heaved an insincere sigh and turned the chair halfway back, glancing at her as he did so. “That was a long time ago.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What was she like? Who were her friends? Who ... who were her enemies?” She saw him start to get up and said hastily, “Please, you loved her, didn’t you? You were probably the one person who really understood her. If Martha Winters didn’t murder her, and I don’t think she did, then who else might have done it?” He looked up at her from under that massive, frowning brow, and she tried a winsome smile along with a look of friendly, sincere inquiry.

  A little to her surprise, the frown faded and he sat back in his chair. “I did love her,” he said after a bit. “People didn’t understand how much, because we had a lot of fights. Worst of all, I don’t think Trudie understood.”

  “Wasn’t she the understanding sort?”

  “She was the kind of girl who always asked, ‘What’s in it for me?’ She could be sweet and charming when she wanted something, and she could turn cold as—well, as January in International Falls when she didn’t get it. She liked having a good time, she liked men to bring her presents, and she could be real grateful when the present was something special.”

  “Like money?” asked Betsy.

  “No, she wouldn’t take money, that was going too far. But something she could return for money was okay.”

  “Was this before you became her boyfriend?”

  He nodded. “And when we’d have a fight, she’d go take up with someone she knew would give her things. And she made sure I knew about it.”

  “And I suppose that would set off another fight.”

  He nodded. “It sure would. Sometimes she’d pick a fight with me because she got to wanting a jacket or a hat or a piece of jewelry and I couldn’t afford to give it to her. I’d blow up and say we are through, I never want to see you again; and she’d take up with a fellow who would buy it for her, but in a day or a week, I’d hear the new fellow was out on his ear. And there’d I’d be with a b
ouquet of flowers or some candy, saying I was sorry and would you take me back.”

  “And she did?”

  “Every damn time. Neither of us any smarter for it.”

  “Why did you love her?”

  He shrugged, then said, “She was smart and sassy, and real pretty. I thought she was beautiful. She had that sexy shape, like a woman oughta be shaped. And always laughing, teasing—” The frown returned, but not directed at Betsy this time. “Her last job was waitressin‘ at the Blue Ribbon Café. She was a waitress most of the time, once she got off the farm. Complained her mother worked her to death, but on her own she worked about as hard. Course, the money she earned on her own was her own. She was a hard worker. On her feet all day, but she could still dance half the night. She was a good dancer, liked to dance.” He glanced up at her and something almost like a smile lightened his features. “Boogie-woogie. You ever hear of it?”

  “Of course. There was swing, then boogie-woogie, then rock and roll. Where would you go dancing?”

  “Different places, sometimes to a ballroom that was part of the amusement park. Huge dance floor, biggest I ever seen, it was the biggest in the midwest at one time. Lawrence Welk came there once, during the war. I went and I danced with Trudie. She was just a kid then, her ma had to bring her, but she already was giving her fits. She was a wild ‘un.” Smiling, he shook his head.

  “Was she popular in high school?”

  He nodded proudly. “Had the boys standing in line.”

  “I bet the other girls were green with envy.”

  He nodded. “Some of ‘em. Some of ’em was downright mean to her about it. But it didn’t bother Trude. She’d sass ‘em back, and walk off laughing. She didn’t care. She just didn’t care.”

  “Did you care?”

  He looked at her, seeking suspicion, but Betsy’s look only begged for a good answer. “Yeah, I cared. She was wild from the start, and I knew it, but I kept on coming. She dropped out of high school the end of her junior year, got a job, a good job in a factory, moved into a rooming house. But she flirted with the line supervisor and his wife found out, and she got fired. She said she didn’t like that job anyway, and got another as a waitress, and she was always a waitress after that. She’d work six months, a year, then she’d move on. Sometimes it was the boss, sometimes it was the customers, it was never her fault. I think she’d just get bored. She knew it didn’t matter; she could lose her job and turn right around and get another.”