She finished the tea and, looking around the shop, decided she couldn’t afford to wallow in misery. A bit of shop business might put her back on track. She began a search for Joe Brown’s phone number. She remembered scribbling it—somewhere. After a minute, she found it in the margin of a Nordic Needle catalog. She was about to dial it, then backed off and first called a fellow member of the Minnesota Art Institute.
“You don’t know who Joe Brown is?” Jenna said, surprised.
“Well, yes, sort of. I know he’s a big noise in the financial world. But I want to ask him for a favor, and I’m hoping you can tell me what my chances are.”
“Okay, let’s see. He’s a money manager, big-time, earning big bucks in the upper echelons of an investment company in St. Paul. He’s on a hospital board, a museum board, and the local public television board. He’s got a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, so he’s a brain to the nth degree. He collects art, some modern but especially ancient—Egyptian, Chinese, Greek—and he really knows his stuff. But you’d never know any of this by talking to him. He’s funny, and kind, and charming. He’ll probably be delighted to do you a favor, both because he’s nice and because he’s after some money from you. I didn’t realize it was pledge time already—have you noticed the gap between pledging and asking for more pledges is getting shorter every year? Meanwhile, he’s called you twice and you haven’t agreed to up your pledge? You are probably the only person in the area who hasn’t succumbed to his charm.”
Armed with this information, Betsy was less on her guard as she dialed the number for Joe Brown and waited for the phone to be answered. To her surprise, it was a direct number and he answered it in person.
“Mr. Brown—Doctor Brown,” she addressed him. “This is Betsy Devonshire.”
“Well, hello!” he said warmly. “I really didn’t expect you to call me back. After all, I am a beggar—on behalf of the institute, but nevertheless a beggar. So please, call me Joe.”
She laughed. “All right. Joe. But this isn’t about money. I’m afraid I have another reason for calling you.”
“Uh-oh,” he said, but he sounded more amused than wary. “I hope I can be at your service.”
“I have a piece of damaged needlework that I can’t figure out how to fix, and I wonder if you could get me an appointment with someone who does textile restoration at the institute.”
For some reason he seemed a trifle taken aback at her request. “May I ask what it is?”
“Well, it might be an old Cari Buziak design.”
She could hear bemusement in his voice. “Who is Cari Buziak?”
“She’s a Canadian who designs cross-stitch patterns in the medieval Celtic style mixed with modern elements.”
“Oh, contemporary.”
“Well, probably. Or it might be some blend of styles cooked up by a Christian missionary—probably not earlier than twentieth century. But the person who stitched it was extraordinarily talented, and I think it might be very beautiful if it’s cleaned up. But I can’t seem to find the time it would take to research the repair, and I don’t want to ruin it. I thought that since you’re on the board of the institute, and since I’m a member in good standing, perhaps you could do me this favor.”
“Not to mention the fact that I’m trying to talk you into a hefty increase in your annual pledge and you feel entitled to use that on me.”
“Since you brought it up, I don’t have to mention it, do I? But I am prepared to succumb to your charm.”
“You’ve been talking with Jenna, haven’t you?”
She laughed. “Yes. So can you help me with this?”
“Hmmmm,” he said, which might be an indication that this was a bigger favor than he thought she’d ask for—or that he wanted her to think so. “You want someone over there to do the research on it?”
“No, I can do the research if someone will narrow the field, point me in the right direction.”
“Ah. Do you know what the fabric—”
The door sounded its two notes and Betsy looked up to see Leona Cunningham enter the shop. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk more right now, I have a customer. But you can tell whoever you talk to that this won’t take more than ten minutes, I swear.”
“Let me call you back,” said Joe.
Leona was looking for a pattern suitable for an altar cloth—but not the kind found in churches. Leona was Wiccan and kept a small altar in her home. She changed the cloth four times a year in honor of the four seasons. She’d recently come into an inheritance and so had decided over the next year to buy four really nice pieces of even-weave linen for the altar. Currently she was planning a summer cloth, and wanted to embroider an emblem on it for Lammas.
“Lammas?” echoed Betsy. “But that’s a Christian word.”
Leona nodded. “It means ‘loaf mass,’ after the first loaf of bread made from the first ripening grains, put on the altar as a summer thanksgiving. But celebrating harvests wasn’t invented by the Christians. It’s as old as agriculture—older, maybe.”
“Yes, of course,” said Betsy. She helped Leona search the patterns and they selected one of a sheaf of wheat tied in a red ribbon.
“Are you going to just have the sheaf on it?” asked Betsy.
“No, but I already have patterns for the four elements,” Leona replied. Wiccans—rather, some Wiccans, Betsy knew, since it’s a very individual religion—think of the four sabats or major holidays, as each relating to one of the four elements: air, earth, fire, water. Lammas was earth, so the altar cloth was a rich brown. Betsy gave Leona one of Doris’s gold silk skeins, asking for a report on how useful it was. Leona paid for her purchases, and as she left, Betsy reflected that she was learning more than she wanted to know about Wicca.
At noon Betsy called up to her apartment and persuaded Doris to come down and go next door to buy them each a sandwich. “I’d ask you to fix me one upstairs, but I’m out of bread.”
She was just taking her second bite of a roast beef sandwich on rye when the door sounded its two notes. Betsy glanced up—and dropped her sandwich to go give Godwin a big hug. His good wool overcoat was cold from the outdoors and his “man bag” slid off his shoulder and thumped her on the leg.
He laughed as he hugged her back. “So good to be home!” he said.
“How come you’re back early?” she asked, because Godwin was not one to leave a warm, sunny place for a cold, snowy one.
“Oh, the weather turned bad. The forecast was for three days of rain, so instead of the Everglades tour I bought a new ticket home.”
“Bless Florida’s bad weather, because I’m really glad to see you!” She stepped back. “Wow, what a nice tan you have!”
He made a little face. “You think so? I got more sun than I meant to—not good for the skin, you know.” He looked over Betsy’s shoulder.
“Doris, is that you? What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”
“I’m all right,” she mumbled, and forced a smile. “I’m so glad to see you.”
He looked from her to Betsy, back to her, back to Betsy. “Not all right, I think. Who’s going to tell me what’s going on?”
He took off his coat as they took turns telling him, and his mouth hung open in amazement through most of it. “Strewth!” he exclaimed at intervals. At the end, he came to sit beside Doris and give her a sideways hug. “Oh my dear, dear sweetie, how very brave you are to be sitting here at all! I’d be quivering in a closet, alternately screaming and crying, and eating Valiums like they were M&M’s.”
Doris leaned her head on his shoulder. “You are the very best, thank you.”
Betsy went in the back to give them a little privacy.
“SO, you and Dax had a good time?” Doris asked Godwin after Betsy retreated.
“Yeah,” said Godwin, but he drew out the word until it sounded more like a question.
Doris looked sideways at him. “Already?” she said.
“What do you mean, already?”
<
br /> “I know that tone. It’s over, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t,” Godwin asserted, but falsely and Doris looked slantwise at him, so he shrugged. “Oh, all right, maybe it is.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask that kind of question. Because you know how it is. You’re sitting across the breakfast table one morning and you realize you can’t stand the way he butters his toast. It’s not personal—well, it is personal, but there’s no reason for it. Yesterday you loved his eyelashes, today the shape of his earlobes bothers you.” He sighed. “I guess I’m just not meant to find someone I can love forever.”
“No, I guess you aren’t,” said Doris, solemnly. So solemnly he began to smile.
“Hush, you,” he said.
Hearing a cozy silence, Betsy came back to find the two looking at Godwin’s latest version of a white cotton sock—he was always knitting white cotton socks, claiming the dye in commercial socks made his feet break out. Like Betsy, he never went anywhere without a stitching project. His “man bag” was on the table and from it trailed the white yarn. The sock was a pattern of his own invention, a white-on-white argyle, the pattern discerned by subtle variations in the shades of white and the use of stitch changes to outline the diamonds.
He looked up at Betsy and said, “Are you going to let Doris stay with you for a while?”
“She can stay as long as she needs to, as long as she wants to, for that matter. I’m going to redecorate her apartment so thoroughly she won’t even recognize it.”
“But that will take a while,” Doris said. “Meanwhile, I’m in the way. You use that spare bedroom for an office. Anyway, you haven’t had a roommate for years—neither have I, for that matter—and while we can get along for a few nights, I’d better find a temporary apartment really soon.”
Godwin said, “Maybe after a couple of nights away, you’ll be ready to go back to your old place.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll never go back, never.”
Another customer came in. Her name was Gwen, and she was an immigrant from Liberia. She had discovered counted cross-stitch in America and was here to select the new floss she needed to work Stephanie Seabrook Hedgepath’s beautiful Mabry Mill counted cross-stitch pattern. Its depiction of a water wheel on the side of a gray-weathered mill with rhododendrons in bloom was “so very American,” she said. “I will send it to my aunt in Katata.”
Betsy took her to the back portion of the shop where the counted cross-stitch materials were displayed.
After a few minutes back there, she heard the door again sound its two-note alarm. This was followed by squeals of joy. Betsy looked out between the stacks of box shelves to see Doris embracing a slim, attractive blonde while Godwin stood by beaming.
“Carmen!” cried Doris.
“Doris!” cooed Carmen. “We’re just back from New Mexico, or I would have been here sooner.” She was pulling off her gloves, which covered beautiful, slim fingers. Even from the back of the shop, Betsy could see the diamonds glittering on several of her fingers.
“Now, you must tell me yourself about this dreadful mess you got involved in,” she heard Carmen say to Doris. “I’ve been hearing all sorts of stories, and I’m sure half of them aren’t true.”
A few minutes later, Betsy added up Gwen’s purchases, walked her to the door, then turned to the three people seated at the library table. Where there had been joyous greetings, there was now sorrow and worry.
“Betsy, this is Carmen Diamond,” said Doris. “She’s the one who was supposed to go to Thailand with me.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” said Betsy, coming to the table. “Diamond, what an appropriate name,” she added, noting there were diamonds in the woman’s ears as well as on her fingers.
Carmen laughed complacently. “I’m so glad I didn’t marry a man named Potts.”
Betsy declared, “My next husband is going to be named Mr. Sapphire.”
Godwin laughed, then put on a serious face. “I told Carmen you’re just like Patricia Wentworth’s Maud Silver.” He offered his most guileless smile. “Only not quite as old.”
“Goddy!” said Doris with a smile, but Carmen looked shocked.
“It’s all right, you get used to him or you learn to ignore him, one or the other,” said Betsy.
“Seriously, Betsy,” said Carmen, “what we would like for you to do is find out what all this mess is about.”
“I’m already working on it,” said Betsy.
“Well, that’s wonderful! What have you found out so far?”
Betsy sat down. “It’s all sad news, unfortunately.”
“You mean you haven’t found out anything important?” Godwin said, surprised.
“No, I’ve found out things, and I think some of them are important, but all it’s doing is making the mystery uglier, without showing me any solution.”
“Like what?” asked Godwin. “What bad things?”
“For one, the owner of the antiques shop, Fitzwilliam, apparently has been involved in the sale of smuggled antiquities for several years. His son discovered this when he was going over the books, after closing the shop.”
“That is sad,” said Doris. “But not really a surprise, right?”
“I suppose not.”
“What else?” asked Carmen.
“Lena Olson has committed suicide.”
“Doris was telling me,” said Godwin, “and it’s awful news. But what does she have to do with this mess?”
“I hadn’t finished!” said Doris. “Lena Olson and Wendy Applegate went to Thailand with Carmen here, where they met David Corvis. Lena, Wendy, and David took a trip up to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. Then Wendy and Lena started an import business when they got back home, and now both of them are dead.
“I go off to Thailand and meet David Corvis and next thing I know, I’m bringing something back with me hidden in a suitcase. What’s more, the day I deliver it to Fitzwilliam’s Antiques, who is sitting out in front waiting for me to leave? Wendy Applegate.”
Doris turned to Carmen. “I never met Wendy, so I didn’t recognize her climbing down from her Hummer outside Fitzwilliam’s Antiques. But she was the same woman who attacked Phil and me in St. Peter. That’s how I discovered who she was—when the police identified her.”
Carmen said, “Was there another person with Wendy in St. Paul? A short woman, with curly red hair?”
“No,” said Doris. “Or at least I didn’t see anyone with her.”
“But hold everything,” said Godwin. “Are we saying our Lena Olson was involved in a smuggling ring? And committed suicide? I don’t believe it! Why, she was here on Saturday, to pick up that Japanese moon goddess canvas! No one as happy as she was on Saturday commits suicide three days later!”
Carmen said, “I talked to her on Sunday. She told me about that moon-goddess thing that she had started to work on it. She said it was going to take her at least a year to finish. But she was thrilled to pieces about it, she said it was something her great-great-grandchildren would cherish.”
“See?” said Godwin. “Not suicidal.”
Doris said, “I told Betsy that if the police came by to ask questions after Wendy was killed, she might have panicked.”
“What do you think?” Betsy asked Carmen. “Oscar Fitzwilliam was murdered, you know. Mike Malloy told me that the gun Wendy was carrying was the gun that killed him. That might make Lena an accessory. Was she the kind of person who might panic if she thought she was going to be arrested for murder as well as smuggling?”
Carmen thought for a moment. “I don’t know.” She paused again then said, “She was a happy sort of person, all bouncy—like Tigger, you know? Her son actually bought her a Tigger T-shirt for Christmas a few years ago. Which she wore only once, because it was too big and she liked to show off her figure. The way she’d flirt and tell naughty jokes would embarrass poor Burke—he’s just fifteen—to death. But she had a serious side; she had a fine arts degree from No
rthwestern, and she liked artsy things—she was a member of the Walker Museum and the art institute and she always bought season tickets to the Guthrie. She was the hardest worker, worked even harder than Wendy. Well, no, that isn’t true. Where Wendy would get quiet and determined, Lena would get loud and cheerful and pushy. Maybe that was because she wasn’t very tall; you know, short people need to speak up to get noticed. She loved life, she did everything full bore, whether it was selling a house, traveling to Thailand, cooking a Thanksgiving dinner, even doing those canvas paintings, needlepoint. The harder it was to do, the better she liked it.” Carmen’s voice faltered; she was near tears. “No, no, you see? I don’t believe it! I can’t believe she saw any problem as so big she had to run away from it!”
Betsy shared a look with Godwin. “Maybe she didn’t.”
Godwin nodded. “I bet you’re right.”
Doris cried, “Oh, please no! Not another murder!”
Carmen stared at Betsy. “Oh. Oh, well, yes, if there are only those two choices.” She put an arm around Doris. “Now, darling, it’s got to be. I knew Lena, and I know she wouldn’t take that way out, no matter how hard things got for her.”
But Doris said, “Only think about it. How she died. You don’t kill someone by putting her into her own car in her own garage and starting the engine. Not without tying her up—and that would leave marks, wouldn’t it? You’d have to sit there with her, pointing a gun at her. And then you’d die, too.”
But Godwin was reaching for the cordless phone in the middle of the table, punching numbers into it. He handed it to Betsy. “Tell Mike,” he said.
Fourteen
AFTER Betsy finished talking with Mike, who promised toto share with her the results of the police report on Lena’s death, Carmen said, “If we’re right, this is very scary. First the antiques store owner, then Wendy, now Lena.”
“No,” said Betsy, glancing at Doris. “Wendy was an accident. Until this business with Lena, I had been thinking Wendy murdered Mr. Fitzwilliam. If it turns out that Lena did commit suicide, then I’ll still think that.” She turned to Doris. “And that would mean you’re still safe.”
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