“It’s a thirty ought six bolt action, which is what Riordan had,” Connor replied. “And it looks to be in the same bad condition. I didn’t look closely at it in the house, so I’m not positive.”
Malloy used his cell phone to take several pictures of the rifle in place, stooping to get a clear photo of the modest tombstone.
“Chester A. Teesdale,” said Betsy, also stooping to read the name. The date of death was August 14 of last year, and a little math indicated he was sixty-two. “That name sounds familiar.”
“He died young. I wonder of what?” said Connor. “And, did he know Riordan?”
“I don’t know.”
Betsy thought but couldn’t come up with where she’d heard the name.
Malloy took the rifle with him when he left, and Connor and Betsy went home. All evening she mused off and on, “Chester, Chester Teesdale, Chet Teesdale,” but it rang nothing but the faintest bell.
Preparing for bed that night, she found a book on her pillow. “What’s this?” she asked Connor.
“I believe it’s called a ‘book,’” he replied.
The book was called Art Crime, by John E. Conklin.
“Have you read it?” she asked.
“Parts of it, the parts about auctions. You wonder what I’m doing, going to auctions. This book tells the dark side of them.”
She shrugged, but she did read parts of it before putting it down and turning off the reading lamp on her side of the bed.
But a little later, on the verge of sleep, she had a sudden notion so strong she climbed out of bed to check it out. Sophie the cat barely moved, but Thai, always up for action, accompanied her into the back bedroom she used as an office.
She closed the door so as not to disturb Connor—or Sophie—and went into the file pocket where she kept her notes on whatever case she was working on. In it she found the list of names Valentina had given to Connor to give her, of the people who had worked in Tom Riordan’s house.
And there, with a check beside it, was the name C. Teesdale.
“I knew it!” Betsy was so excited she nearly went to wake up Connor, but thought better of it.
“Mau!” said Thai in his deep-for-a-cat voice. She turned to look at him and saw he’d brought her his favorite toy, a pair of shoelaces tied into one length.
“No, it’s too late for games,” she told him and carried him back to bed.
* * *
SHE called Valentina the next morning to ask her about the C. Teesdale who helped clear out Tom’s house.
“Oh, him,” said Valentina. “He only worked that one morning. I think he volunteered because he was curious about what was in the house—which is fine; that’s probably why most people volunteered.”
“How did he find out about the need for volunteers?”
“He didn’t say. But I know lots of places in Excelsior were talking it up and giving people my phone number. I’m still getting calls, even though I’m trying to put out the word that it’s all over, at least for now. He called at a time I was at the motel, so I took his name and gave him a day to come, and he did.”
“Was he a young man?”
“Hard to say. Maybe late twenties or early thirties. A tough-looking fellow.”
“Was he a good worker?”
“Yeah, he was, pretty much. Kind of a gawker, but they generally were, at first—even your Monday Bunch crew. He was working in the living room—there’s a coat closet there we were just getting started on—and then suddenly, whoosh! He was gone. Didn’t say boo to anyone. I kind of wonder if he found some treasure in that closet, tucked it under his jacket, and took off.”
“Did anyone see him leave?”
“I don’t think so; nobody said anything to me. I came to see how he was doing and there wasn’t anybody there, so I figured he was working alone—which I’m trying not to let people do, for that very reason. Somebody could find a Ming vase, and if nobody’s there to watch him, off he goes.”
“I’m thinking he took the rifle.”
“Really? Why?”
“I think to leave it on his father’s grave.”
There was a startled silence. Then Valentina said, “How do you figure that?”
“Because it was found on the grave of a man with the same name who was old enough to be his father.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
* * *
A FEW days later, Betsy was sorting an order of the new Kreinik colors of metallic thread. She set aside a spool of 5835, Golden Olive, for herself. She would use touches of it on a little Christmas tree canvas she was stitching as a model for the shop—she liked using mixes of fibers in needlepoint.
She looked up to see her finisher, Heidi, come in with a big box of items for her customers. As she came through the door, she stopped to listen to the music playing: Dee-doop, dee-doop, dee-doop, dee-doop, dee-diddle-dee-doople, dee-doop, dee-doop.
“What is that?” asked Heidi, laughing.
“Something Godwin put up. It’s ‘The Cuckoo Song’ that Laurel and Hardy used at the start of all their movies.”
“Too rich!”
“Thank you.” Godwin rose from the table, putting down his knitting, to help her carry the box to the library table in the middle of the room. The top was open, and there were so many pieces in the box that they threatened to spill out of it.
Most, if not all, independent needlework shops offer to arrange for pieces of stitchery to be “finished”: washed if necessary, stretched or blocked, then framed or turned into pillows or have hangers attached in the case of bellpulls. Stitchers know a fine piece of needlework can be ruined by an amateur hand at finishing, so they pay willingly for this expensive professional service.
Betsy checked the contents of the box against her master list and wrote Heidi a substantial check, and Heidi left, laughing again when the door played its silly song.
The star of the finished pieces was a nice long piece of Ashley Dillon needlepoint featuring Santa leading a polar bear attached to a flatbed cart carrying a snowman and a small decorated Christmas tree. A crow was hitching a ride on the snowman’s head. Unlike most Christmas pieces, it was done in muted colors. Santa was wearing brownish maroon, his beard was gray, the bear was shades of buff and ivory, the snowman was more gray than white, even the tree was a muted green and its ornaments were tiny beads in dim colors. Betsy held it up for Godwin to admire, then had him hold it while she backed away and studied it.
“You know, I only sort of liked it when I sold it to Dee Dee,” she said, “but now I think it’s gorgeous. I was a little concerned about that heavy dark frame, but it’s perfect. And such a relief from the bright and twinkly Christmas stuff!”
“Not that you don’t have an assortment of bright and twinkly projects you’ll haul out to decorate your place in a few weeks,” said Godwin drily.
“Guilty as charged!” said Betsy, laughing.
* * *
WHEN Dee Dee came in later to pick up the finished piece, Betsy agreed all over again that it was gorgeous and certainly qualified to be an heirloom. Then she protected it with bubble wrap and covered it again in heavy brown paper. When she had finished taping it closed, she said, “Dee Dee, may I talk to you about something?”
“What, you’ve got another Ashley Dillon piece you want me to look at?”
“No, this has nothing to do with needlework.”
Her serious tone made Dee Dee frown. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t think so. But I don’t know. I read that article in the Sun Sailor about the delayed mail delivery—you know, I got a surprise myself from that same mailbag.”
“Yes, I saw the article. I don’t think Margot ever thought seriously about carrying handkerchiefs in Crewel World.”
Betsy smile
d. “No, Mrs. van Hollen wanted me to carry the pattern. Which we’re arranging to do. But I noticed that the reporter didn’t quote anything from that delayed letter your nephew sent you. Didn’t you read it to him?”
Dee Dee turned away for a few seconds, then said without turning back, “No, I didn’t.”
“May I ask why not? Was it true what the reporter said, that you were in tears over it?”
Dee Dee turned around then and nodded. Her face was red and she looked about to cry. “Because it broke my heart when I read it. There was no way I could share what he wrote with the world, because it showed me I failed that little boy.”
“Oh, Dee Dee, I can’t believe that!”
“But it’s true, it’s honestly true.” She paused, and Betsy tried to look as friendly and sympathetic as she could. Dee Dee grimaced, shrugged, and said, “Aaron wrote that his father hit him and was angry all the time at him and his mother. And that he tore up Aaron’s letters to me, so he was going to sneak this one out in a schoolbook. I remember now that when he’d arrive, he was very quiet. It would take a day or two for him to get happy. And when his visit was coming to an end, he’d get quiet again. But I didn’t know—I had no idea—!”
“You think his father was abusing him.”
“I think his father murdered him!”
“Oh, Dee, surely not!”
But Dee Dee nodded. “I should have stayed in touch, I should have called, or gone to their home. Maybe I would have realized . . .”
“Maybe it isn’t what you’re thinking. Maybe he did fall out of a tree. Little boys exaggerate, you know that.”
“I don’t think that was the case with Aaron. All I can think of now is that I would have asked some hard questions. I could have saved his life, if only I’d known, if only I’d gotten that letter!” Dee Dee was weeping now. “I know that dreadful man had no idea the damage he was doing when he stole that mailbag, but oh, I’d like to try to make him understand!”
Dee Dee would not stay to be comforted—and what could Betsy have said to comfort her?
When Godwin came back from a late lunch a minute later, he said to Betsy, “I just saw Dee Dee going up the street with that framed Santa, and I think she was crying! Didn’t she like it?”
“Oh yes, she loved it. There’s another problem she told me about. It’s got her all upset.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
“Not right now. Look, here come Emily and Julie.”
Emily came in with a damp-haired little girl by her side. Emily was carrying a large white plastic garbage can liner, its orange drawstring pulled tight shut.
“Hello, Ms. Devonshire. Hello, Mr. DuLac,” said the child, who was being taught good manners.
“Hello, Julie-Poo,” said Godwin. “Have you been out in the rain?”
Julie giggled. She knew as well as Godwin did that it was a sunny day. “No, I been swimming, at the Y!”
“You know how to swim?” Godwin’s eyes grew big as he stared at her.
She grinned at him and struck a pose. “Yes, don’t you?”
He pressed a splayed hand on his chest. “Me? Oh no, I never go in the water, I’m afraid I might melt!”
Her pose dissolved as she bent over laughing.
Betsy said to Emily, “What is it you’ve brought with you?”
“A piece of needlework. Valentina found it in the house. I think Tom dug it out of a garbage can, it’s so nasty.” She held up the bag. “It’s in here.”
“Let me see, too,” said Godwin—but he drew back when Emily loosened the drawstrings. “Uff-da!” he said, wrinkling his nose and holding a hand up to his face. “What’s in there, a dead cat?”
“Mommy, Mommy, is there a dead kitty in the bag?” cried Julie
“No, of course not, honey, Goddy’s just teasing.”
But Julie stood halfway behind her mother while Betsy opened the white bag. “Whuff!” exclaimed Betsy, as the odor made her eyes water. “Mercy!”
Then she looked at Emily and said, “When did Valentina find this?”
Emily winced and looked out the front window. “I don’t know.”
Betsy and Godwin exchanged a look. It seemed Valentina was making no secret of her continuing efforts in cleaning up her cousin’s house.
Betsy picked up a catalog to use as a kind of pincers to pull the article out.
It was a tall sampler, done on light brown linen. It had been framed, and broken lengths of the light brown wood clung here and there to the needlework, making it hard to pull free. If there had been glass covering the work, it was gone without a trace.
“Why, it’s an old sampler,” said Godwin, coming close again, but keeping one hand vertical in front of his face.
“It’s dated 1882,” said Emily, “but is it real or a copy?”
“That frame is modern,” Betsy said. “And it was stretched onto a thin piece of plywood.” Which also was broken into fragments.
“Yes, but the linen is real, and it isn’t evenweave,” Emily pointed out. “Maybe someone reframed it recently.” Modern needlework linen is evenweave, the same number of threads per inch in both warp and woof.
The pattern was period to the year stitched on it—two alphabets, birds, deer, dogs, and flowers, a house with evergreens bracing it, the words Elizabeth Woodard beside the date, and at the bottom a tree of life motif, with Adam and Eve standing on either side of a highly stylized tree with apples and birds on it.
“Okay, here’s why Tom took it from wherever he found it,” noted Godwin with a smile. He gestured at the two human figures. “They’re naked, except for fig leaves.”
“Oooooh, Mommy, he said naked!”
“So?” said Emily to her, then to Godwin, “You can hardly see anything with that funny old cross-stitch!”
“You can tell enough—especially . . .” He gestured at his chest, head cocked sideways. “Did you find any girlie magazines among the Looks and Lifes in his house?”
“No . . .” Emily choked back a laugh. “You mean this was his . . .” She gestured. “That, in this day and age?”
“You gotta go with what you got,” said Godwin mock-sententiously.
“Oh, I give up! Betsy, what about the uneven weave linen?”
“We have natural linen right over there on the shelf,” she said. “It isn’t evenweave, and we stock it for our stitchers who duplicate old samplers,” Betsy said. “Which reminds me, we need to order some more of it.”
“Oh heck, that’s right,” said Emily, disappointed. “So this isn’t real, is it?”
“No, sweetie,” said Godwin. “It’s a copy. See also the silk on the back is the same color as the silk on the front, but the front would be exposed to light for years and years, so it should be more faded. And look, down in the lower right corner, some initials that don’t match the name of the original’s stitcher.” He held his breath while he took a close look. “RNJ,” he read aloud.
“So it wouldn’t be worth my while to try to clean it?”
Betsy said, “Perhaps if RNJ was someone you know, it would be.”
“No. So I guess it’ll go back in the garbage. Too bad.”
She picked the sampler up using Betsy’s catalog and put it back in its bag.
“So,” asked Betsy, pushing the catalog into the bag, “have you talked to Valentina lately?”
“Just about this thing. I asked her if I could show it to you. She said okay. She sounded mad, but I think that’s because she’s supposed to stop work for thirty days.”
“Yes, she told us that.”
“It’s a legal thing. Mr. Penberthy had to go to court to have her made the estate’s personal representative, so that’s been done. But for some reason there’s a hold or a wait or something for thirty days. They have to make sure there are no . . .” Emily thought briefly. “I don’t
think they’re looking for other heirs, but maybe they are. And they’re looking for . . .” She thought some more. “‘Other claims against the estate.’ Something about medical assistance.”
Betsy groaned. “Tom’s social worker—I wonder if Hennepin County is going to file a claim.”
“I don’t know.” Emily lowered her voice. “And she’s been going into the house anyway. She wants this over so she can go home.”
“But she can’t go home until the police have finished their investigation.”
Speaking even more softly, Emily said, “She said she has things to do back in Muncie. I think when she’s had enough of Mike Malloy, she’s just going to leave town.”
Godwin said, “I hope she doesn’t do that. It would be a big mistake.”
Emily nodded. “I think so, too. I’m hoping you will find out fast who really murdered Tom Take—I suppose I shouldn’t call him that anymore—Tom Riordan.”
Betsy said, “I’m working on it. Emily, I want to ask you about that red box you found. What happened?”
“Well, I was alone in the dining room and I stumbled on something on the floor and I picked it up and it was a red box, all carved, with Asian motifs.”
“Was it plastic? Or wood?”
“If it was wood, it was some kind of very light wood. It kind of felt like plastic, but somehow not like plastic, too. It was a little heavier than plastic. The inside was black. The carving was flowers and those fish with the big tails.”
“Koi,” supplied Godwin.
“That’s right, koi,” said Emily. “Inside the box were three ivory needle cases, very beautiful, carved with flowers and a teeny little dragon, all narrow and long, wrapped around and around. I picked one up and I could see it pulled apart near the top, and inside were three ivory needles, that’s how I knew they were needle cases.
“But also there was some little ball thing covered with a gray rag, and when I pulled the rag off, it was carved so it looked like the ball was made of lots of little white mice with red eyes, ish! I almost dropped the box. Instead I put the rag back on top of those mice, and closed the box, put it on the table, and put a magazine on top of it, and went upstairs to see what Connor was shouting about. He’d found that mailbag. Then we went out in the backyard and he went and bought us lunch—thank you, Betsy, for paying for it, that was very nice of you. And when we went back inside, I was going to show the box to Georgie, only it was gone.”
Darned if You Do Page 15
