Framed in Lace

by Monica Ferris

  “Did she make enemies over losing her jobs?”

  “I don’t think so. She wasn’t one to carry a grudge, and I don’t think her bosses cared that much.”

  “But someone finally got angry enough to kill her.”

  “Yes, you’re right. Y‘know, all these years I thought she just up and left town, and that’s how I thought about her, living in some other town, still waitressing, flirting with the customers. Or maybe she roped some jerk into marrying her, maybe she even settled down, had five or six kids. I used to think about her a lot for a long time. And I never quit thinking about her altogether. And all this while she was in that damn boat, a skeleton. It’s like my mind got into a rut, thinking about her in some big city, sassing the customers in a café, so it’s hard to change that into knowing she’s been dead for fifty years, that she’s forever twenty-two.”

  “Is that why you joined the army? Because you thought of her in some other town, flirting with someone else?”

  He said, surprised, “Hell, no! I left before she went missing. We’d had another fight and I decided I wasn’t gonna go crawling back this time. Besides, I wasn’t get-tin‘ anywhere in this one-horse town. So I decided to give the army a chance. I’d like to tell you we made up, that she came down to see me off and begged my forgiveness and promised to write, but she didn’t. She had her pride, too, I guess. I know I did, once I made up my mind.”

  “So how long were you gone before she disappeared?”

  He thought a long while, scratching his chin, then said reluctantly, “I guess I was still in boot camp when someone wrote and said she’d run off with Carl Winters. She’d been gone a couple of weeks by then.”

  “But you’re sure you were in army basic training when Trudie disappeared.”

  “Hell, I could dig out my old service record and show it to you. My dates of service are July 3, 1948, to July 3, 1978. I got that letter, and I couldn’t believe it, flat couldn’t believe it. Mr. Winters was a married man, with a business and a kid and a house. I thought it was a crock, I thought she’d gone off on her own, at the most let him give her a ride to somewhere. I just couldn’t believe those two had a serious love affair—and I guess I was right.”

  “What do you think really happened?”

  “I think Trudie was flirting with him at the Blue Ribbon, just like she flirted with every man, and he took it serious. I think he waited till she got off work and tried something with her, and she slugged him, and he killed her.” Miller shrugged, holding his heavy shoulders up for a bit before dropping them. “I never knew Winters, so I don’t know how much that sounds like him, but it sounds a whole lot like Trudie.”

  “Did you come home on leave from boot camp?”

  “Naw, they sent me to San Francisco, so I went right there from Kansas and had so much fun in Chinatown all my pay was gone before I reported to Presidio. The army took me in and cleaned me up, sent me to school and taught me how to repair every kind of motor there is, from motorsickle to tank. After a few wild years I started saving my pay, and a few years after that I married Miyoshi, who finished my drinking for good. Then I retired, came home, and started this business, built it from the ground up, with Japanese savvy, army money, and my own muscle. The army taught me all I know, God bless the U.S. Army.”

  Betsy went out to find the gawky young man leaning deep into the interior of her car. He straightened when she cleared her throat behind him. “Engine’s in good shape for the mileage you’ve got on her,” he said. “But your brakes are leaking. Better let me fix that.”

  “Not today,” said Betsy, who was sure her brakes were not leaking; they worked fine.

  “I bet you have to press kind of hard to get yourself stopped, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” she said firmly, going around and getting in.

  He closed the hood and went to open the doors of the old garage. She noticed as she backed out that he was looking at the car and shaking his head.

  That won’t work either, she thought, and pulled out onto Third Avenue.

  10

  It was after five when Betsy drove past her shop—darkened and, she hoped, properly locked up for the night—and went on down to Excelsior Boulevard (a prepossessing name for a narrow, unprepossessing street) to the McDonald’s, where she bought a regular hamburger, a small fries, and a Sprite. She found a much-fingered copy of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and perused it, so by the time she left the restaurant, it was fully dark. An icy little breeze that smelled of snow flirted with the curls on her forehead. Her feet crunched on the parking lot, gritty with sand. She thought of her cozy apartment.

  Oh, Lord, she remembered that Sophie was waiting at the door!

  Godwin said he would push Sophie out into the hall when he closed up. Margot, he explained, did this, too, when she left before closing time. Sophie knew to go upstairs and wait outside the apartment door for her mistress to come home.

  Feeling guilty for loitering over her burger, Betsy drove quickly up Lake Street to the narrow entrance to the parking lot behind her building. She let herself in the back door with her key, hustled down the back hall and up the stairs to arrive breathless in front of her door. A muzzy whiteness opened its pink mouth in complaint and greeting, a long, drawn-out cry.

  “Yes, yes, Sophie, I see you, it’s all right, here I am,” she gasped, stooping to stroke the thick fur.

  “Rewwwwwwwwwwwwww,” complained Sophie. She had a high-pitched voice for an animal that weighed twenty-three pounds, not including the cast on one hind leg.

  Betsy unlocked the door, Sophie shot through and ducked into the kitchen to stand beside her bowl, gleaming empty on the floor. “I’m sorry,” Betsy apologized, reaching into the cabinet under the sink for the metal can that held the lams Less Active dry cat food. She filled the little scoop and poured it into the bowl. Sophie fell to crunching her way to the bottom of the bowl with swift efficiency. One would think she hadn’t eaten in a week; but Betsy had seen Godwin and two customers slip the animal tidbits.

  Jill had not come to the shop nor had she called. So now Betsy checked her own machine and found a message from Jill that she would come over, but not until around nine: “Lars is taking me out to dinner.”

  Betsy went into her bedroom and changed from her good work clothes to jeans and a faded-pink sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves. She’d had her supper, so she filled half an hour with some housecleaning, then remembered that in the rush to get home to Sophie, she hadn’t checked her mail.

  She went back down the stairs to the front entrance and unlocked her mailbox with a little brass key. There were six or eight first-class envelopes—mostly the depressing kind with windows—some magazines, catalogs, and a fistful of advertising.

  Back in her apartment, she began sorting. Margot was still getting mail, of course. Betsy put those aside. She would return the personal ones unopened with a brief letter explaining that Margot had died in unexpected and tragic circumstances and that she, her sister Betsy, would be at this address for at least the next six months. Doing this invariably triggered sympathy cards and even the occasional written letter of condolence, the latter requiring a thank you note. Betsy was getting used to crying over some parts of her mail.

  All the catalogs were of items related to needlework. Betsy kept these in the shop for her customers to peruse. She was beginning to realize how useful they were to her in finding out what was big or popular or new—and make sure Crewel World carried it.

  As she was sorting through them, a picture postcard fell to the floor. She picked it up. The picture was of the huge and ugly fruit bats in the San Diego zoo. Turning it over, she saw the message: “Going bats in Minnesota yet? I hear you have snow. Brrrrr!” It was signed Abbey.

  Betsy sat down at the little round table in the dining nook, the mail scattered before her. Light from the kitchen shone through the window beyond the table, catching little dancing movements. It was snowing, the flakes dancing in a light wind. It was very dark
out, very quiet in the apartment. If she was in San Diego, she could call Abbey and they’d go down and walk on the beach, or drive out into the desert and look up at an immensity of sky and stars. They’d talk about life after divorce, hair dyes, and estradiol versus Premarin. And the perils of dieting. Betsy felt suddenly quite alone.

  Almost automatically, she looked toward the kitchen. There was leftover chicken salad in there, her favorite kind of chicken salad, with cashews and red grapes. And some of Excelo Bakery’s wonderful herb bread. Betsy had a tendency to eat when she was troubled or lonely. And right now she felt both.

  But just a few days ago she had gotten a glimpse of her naked self in a mirror and been appalled. Everything seemed to be puffy or sagging. Really sagging. How on earth had she let herself get like this?

  So no more Quarter Pounders, no more desserts, and one day soon look into joining a health club, or do some mall walking. There was a fortune of several million dollars coming her way some time next year, and when Betsy invested in a new wardrobe, she didn’t want to buy it from some mail order catalog sent to women ashamed to be seen going into the Women at Large shop at the mall.

  So instead of eating a second supper, she got out the fabric, floss, and pattern for the little Christmas tree ornaments, then went to put the kettle on. Tea had no calories, she could have tea. She went into the living room and turned on the Bose, tuned to KSJN, the local public radio station. Fortunately, they weren’t being experimental or operatic this evening. She listened only long enough to determine it was probably Brahms, sat back, and looked around.

  The living room in the apartment was rectangular and low-ceilinged, its triple window heavily draped. The rug was a deep red on a pale hardwood floor, the walls a light cream with black baseboards. The room was furnished sparingly with a loveseat, upholstered chair with matching footstool, and some standard lamps. The low ceiling, the shaded light of the standard lamps, and the covered window made a cozy haven. Betsy had felt comfortable here from the first moment she’d entered.

  But looking around reminded Betsy that while Margot had been a fine decorator and a terrific housekeeper, Betsy wasn’t. She stood and debated getting out the vacuum cleaner, but decided against it. Instead, she went to the dining nook, sat down at the table, and tried again to work on the counted cross-stitch pattern. She counted very carefully with her threaded needle, both pattern and fabric, but after ten minutes a line of stitches that was supposed to join an earlier line didn’t. She groaned. This was always happening! She consulted the pattern and her stitching and found the error was a dozen stitches back. She stuck the needle into the fabric and shoved it aside. Why did women insist that doing counted cross-stitch was relaxing? It was a lot of things: frustrating, aggravating, stupid, and impossible. But not relaxing.

  She glanced into the kitchen but resolutely turned and went to the hall closet and got out the vacuum cleaner. She was about halfway around the living room when Sophie came out of the bedroom. Unlike many cats, Sophie had no fear of the vacuum cleaner. She got in front of it, looked up at Betsy, and opened her mouth. Betsy shut off the vacuum cleaner.

  “... ewwwwwwwwww!” Sophie was saying.

  “What do you want?”

  Sophie started for the kitchen, the too-long cast, designed to keep her from running or jumping, lifting her left back end up a little higher. The vet tech at the clinic described it as having “square wheel syndrome.” She stopped and looked back hopefully at Betsy, then at the kitchen, but Betsy said firmly, “No.”

  If Betsy was giving up snacks, Sophie was, too.

  Sophie limped to her cushioned basket under the window draperies. She gave Betsy a hurt look, then climbed into her basket, lying down with her injured leg pointedly on display.

  Betsy felt for the animal but didn’t yield. She flipped the switch on the vacuum cleaner and went back to work. It was bad enough that her employees and customers vied to see who could bring the tastiest tidbit to the cat. Betsy wasn’t going to. At twenty-three pounds, Sophie was proportionately far more overweight than Betsy.

  The vacuuming finished, Betsy considered dusting, but instead went to the comfortable chair with the cross-legged canvas needlework bag beside it and got out her knitting. Not the mittens, she needed something soothing. The red hat was at a section that was just knit, knit, knit—no purl to complicate the action, no increase or decrease. As she had noticed before, there was something calming about knitting. One sat down to it with a jumbled, disordered mind, started in, and after a few minutes, the pulse slowed, the fingers relaxed, the mind, like a troubled pool, settled and cleared.

  She wondered if Jill would just take her word for it that Alice hated Trudie without Betsy having to say why. Betsy remembered something her mother had frequently said: “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” Alice had kept her secret for fifty years; it seemed a shame it couldn’t be kept just a little longer, until Alice was safely dead, beyond hearing the wagging tongues of Excelsior.

  And what about Vern Miller? His date of entry into the army was July 3. The Hopkins had been towed out and sunk with its grisly cargo on July first or second—and Trudie had been murdered the night before that. Was it what he said, an attempt to get away from a town that didn’t appreciate his talents?

  Or from an arrest for murder?

  11

  The kettle had been refilled, heated to boiling, and turned down to simmer long before Jill arrived a little after nine. “Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,” she said as she peeled off her uniform coat, dappled with melting snow. “But I figured I might as well change into uniform, in case this runs long. I’m still on the graveyard shift, so we have till eleven-thirty.”

  “How was your dinner with Lars?” asked Betsy.

  “Okay. He asked me to marry him tonight.”

  This was said so casually, Betsy nearly missed it. “He did? What did you say?”

  “I said what I always say when he asks me: No.”

  “Aren’t you in love with him?”

  “Oh, I’m mad about the boy,” she said, still casually. “But he wants kids right away, and I’m not ready for that yet. Have you got English tea?”

  “Yes. And the water’s hot.” Betsy went into the kitchen, Jill following.

  Betsy used a Twinings tea bag, but heated the heavy mug with a splash of boiling water which she dumped out before putting the bag into it and pouring more water over it. Jill added sugar—two spoonfuls—and a dollop of milk.

  “Bad out?” asked Betsy.

  “Not yet,” said Jill. She leaned against the refrigerator while Betsy made a cup of raspberry-flavored tea for herself. Jill’s Gibson Girl face and her invisibly pale eyebrows made her, as usual, hard to read. And that cryptic way of talking about Lars—what was that about?

  Did she want Betsy to ask questions? Or was she being cryptic because she didn’t want to talk about it? Or did she think Betsy already knew enough about the two of them to understand what Jill meant?

  Betsy wondered if Jill often had trouble with that enigmatic face, with people reading into it whatever they were most—or least—comfortable with. Perhaps Jill wasn’t cold or unemotional at all, just reluctant or even unable to share her feelings with the world. There had been times when she’d seemed very friendly, such as that other morning on her boyfriend’s boat. Perhaps, thought Betsy, if I reached out a little, I’d find her easier to understand. So try to think that there is a friendly interest.

  And, actually, there must be, or why else was she here?

  “Tea all right?” asked Betsy.

  “Yes, thanks. You make it just like Margot.”

  Betsy smiled. “We both learned how from our father; he loved tea.”

  “With a name like Devonshire, that’s not surprising.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Jill, why don’t you want children?”

  “I do want children. But I want to continue in law enforcement, and when I have a child, I’ll want a year or two off, and that wo
uld put my career in jeopardy. Also, I can’t drive a squad while I’m pregnant, but I could manage a desk. When I make sergeant, then I’ll marry Lars.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “I’ve told him that, which is not the same thing.”

  Betsy smiled. “I see.” She sipped her tea. “Is Malloy making any progress?”

  “Only against Martha,” sighed Jill. “How about you?”

  Betsy said, “Yes, that’s why I called you. I’ve found out something that may be important. Alice Skoglund told me that in 1948 she wished with all her heart that Trudie were dead. She told me why. She also said she didn’t kill her, but she did have a good reason to. And after I called you, I discovered Vern Miller, who had been Trudie’s jealous boyfriend, joined the army approximately one day after Trudie disappeared.”

  Jill said, “I ask you to find lace makers, and you find suspects.”

  “I didn’t mean to, honest. Well, maybe I did go looking at Vern Miller. But all I did with Alice was ask her about her lace. She made an assumption that I was sleuthing and confessed about Trudie.”

  “Why would Alice Skoglund hate Trudie Koch enough to wish her dead?”

  Betsy hesitated, then said, “What she told me would be nearly nothing by today’s standards. But by her own, it was shocking and shameful. And Trudie was blackmailing her over it. She said she hadn’t told anyone until today, when she told me. I felt so awful, listening to her pour her heart out. All that wretchedness—I had no idea. And all I wanted was for her to tell me who was making lace in 1948—oh!”