And Then You Dye

by Monica Ferris

  “That’s why I only thought I knew Hailey Brent. She wasn’t supporting me in my decision. She made the decision herself, and got me to agree with it.”

  Betsy wondered if Randi wasn’t now reflecting her husband’s opinion or even the counselor’s, but she just cleared her throat and made another note.

  It also occurred to her that unless Randi was lying, she had no motive to murder Hailey. On the other hand, Walter certainly did.

  Nine

  THE timer dinged in Betsy’s galley kitchen as a reminder that it was time to make the salad. At the same moment the doorbell buzzed. It was exactly 7 p.m.

  “I’ll get it,” said Connor.

  “Thanks, love.” Betsy began pulling items out of the refrigerator and putting them beside the cutting board.

  Jill and Lars Larson were always so prompt that Betsy sometimes wondered if they didn’t stand out on the sidewalk waiting for the second hand on their watches to sweep around to the minute.

  Jill came up the stairs to Betsy’s apartment ahead of Lars. She was a tall woman, naturally ash blond, with a Gibson Girl face. She was wearing her usual lofty, serene expression, which hid a not-always-subtle sense of humor.

  Lars was a very big man, equally fair but in a golden way, with broad shoulders and a little too much chin. He had an amiable air that sometimes fooled people into thinking he wasn’t as hard-nosed in his profession as a sergeant on Excelsior’s little police department should be.

  They were both dressed casually in chinos and lightweight flannel shirts, Jill’s light blue and Lars’s deep green—it was cool for early June.

  Connor was a medium-tall man with a weather-beaten face, kind blue seafaring eyes, and an Irish accent so faint hardly anyone could hear it. He took them into the living room and sat down with them to talk. He wore gray twill trousers and a densely patterned Fair Isle sweater he’d knit himself.

  “How does Emma Beth like preschool?” Connor asked. Divorced and with two sons and a daughter, all grown, Connor liked talking about the Larsons’ children as if they were the grandchildren he was beginning to fear he’d never have.

  “She’s doing very well,” said Jill. “Of course, she’s the brightest child in her class.”

  “Of course,” agreed Connor.

  “She asked a riddle the other day. Why can’t a bicycle stand up on its own?”

  “Beats me,” said Connor.

  “It’s two tired.” Jill laughed and said, “She actually understood the pun, isn’t that amazing?”

  Connor laughed, too. “Amazing.”

  “Dinner smells delicious,” Lars said. “I smell poultry. Are we having chicken?”

  “No, some extra-small Cornish hens Betsy found somewhere.”

  Lars rubbed his palms together. “Oh boy!” he said. “I like those because I can eat them bones and all.”

  But first there was a spinach salad with red onions, mushrooms, avocado, and pieces of mandarin orange.

  “I thought about putting in some little shrimps, too,” said Betsy, “but I just never got the chance to go back to the store for them.”

  “This is great just as it is,” said Jill.

  The Cornish hens came with wild rice stuffing and tender new asparagus. Dessert was cheesecake with brandied cherries.

  “Ahhhh,” sighed Lars at last, leaning back in his chair and touching his hands lightly to the sides of his stomach. “That was really nice, Betsy, thank you.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “How’s your latest project coming?” Jill asked Betsy.

  “I need more practice stitching on perforated paper, so I’m working on Mill Hill’s Moonlit Kitties. It’s got a wonderful Van Gogh–like moon.”

  Jill laughed. “No, I meant the Hailey Brent case. Any progress to report?”

  “Not a whole lot.”

  Connor began to clear the table while Betsy got out the Scrabble game, long a favorite of the two couples.

  “I can tell you something, though it’s not particularly helpful,” said Lars. “It’s peripheral to the case you’re working on.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone involved in the case, not a suspect, has a concealed carry permit.”

  “Who is it?” asked Betsy, eagerly.

  “Pierce McMurphy, Joanne’s husband.”

  “That’s not peripheral!” said Betsy.

  “Depends,” said Connor, a stack of dessert plates in his hands. “What kind of gun does he carry? Do you know?”

  “A forty-five semiauto—or he did. But it isn’t relevant; it was stolen two weeks before the murder.”

  “Was it a forty-five caliber bullet that killed Hailey?” Betsy wanted to know. She thrust her hand into the little bag of tiles and pulled one out. “T,” she said, and handed the bag to Lars.

  “Yes,” said Lars, nodding. He shoved a big hand into the bag. “Ha!” he said, showing the others the X he’d drawn. “Best you can do is tie me for the chance to go first.” Contrary to normal Scrabble rules, they played that the letter with the highest score went first.

  “Was it stolen in a burglary?” asked Jill. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” She took the bag from him and drew a C.

  “I didn’t think it was important,” said Lars. “Like I said, he’s not a suspect. And anyway, he didn’t have the gun at the time of the murder.”

  “Hmm, a burglary,” said Betsy.

  “Yes, but not a home break-in; the gun was stolen from the trunk of his car.”

  “If he had a concealed carry permit,” said Connor as he came to sit down at the table, “what was the gun doing in the trunk of his car?” He reached for the bag of tiles.

  “He was visiting a client who works in a building with a big ‘Allied Merchants Forbids Guns on These Premises’ sign on the door. So he locked it in his trunk. When he came out, his car had been broken into. They stole his brand new Garmin GPS, a cowhide attaché case with a three-hundred-dollar cashier’s check in it, and his forty-five Ruger aluminum-frame semiautomatic.”

  “What a good memory you have!” said Jill, laughing.

  Betsy watched Connor draw a Z. “But if he was visiting a client, why didn’t he take the attaché case in with him?”

  “He didn’t need it for that client; he was making a delivery of some drawings too big to fit in the case.” Lars drew seven tiles from the bag and began to arrange them on the wooden holder.

  They settled into the game. With his splendid British vocabulary, Connor always did well at Scrabble, though he sometimes had difficulty with American spelling, and anyway Jill kept him on his mettle. Lars liked to use strategy, blocking Betsy, Jill, and Connor whenever he got the chance. Betsy just was happy to find she had the tiles and the opportunity to form a good word. Such as adding C-O-M to Jill’s P-L-A-I-N, and turning the board to Connor.

  He was smiling in anticipation and immediately started putting tiles down to link the D in E-N-D-I-N-G with the O of C-O-M-P-L-A-I-N, then going on, spelling D-Y-S-T-O-P-I-A. And the Y was on a triple letter score. He looked around the table, anticipating a challenge, but the other three only nodded. He added up his points and turned the board to Jill, saying, “I was looking for a place to put that Y.”

  Connor won the game by thirty points, but Betsy came in second, surprising everyone, including herself.

  Jill insisted on helping with the dishes, but once in the kitchen she had something else on her mind.

  “Betsy, I don’t think you know any licensed private eyes—or do you?” she asked while waiting for the sink to fill with soapy water.

  “No, I don’t know any. Why?”

  “I’m sort of wondering if I shouldn’t go for a license myself.”

  Betsy nearly dropped one of the glasses she was putt
ing into the water. “Jill Cross Larson! What gave you that notion?”

  “Watching you—well, more watching the people you help. They come to you desperately scared of being charged with murder, and are relieved and grateful when you prove them innocent. One reason I joined the police force was because I enjoy helping people: keeping the streets safe for honest folk, restoring lost children to their families, investigating traffic accidents. I can’t go back to that job, not with two small children to raise, but I could do sort of that same kind of work part-time, the kind of work you do, maybe.”

  “What does Lars think?”

  “He thinks we should get me pregnant again.”

  * * *

  GODWIN, having loaded the dishwasher, wandered into the study to find Rafael laying out coins on the big antique mahogany desk. “‘The King was in his counting house, counting out his money,’” said Godwin.

  “That sounds like a quote,” said Rafael absently.

  “It’s an old nursery rhyme. ‘The maid was in the courtyard, hanging up the clothes, when along came a blackbird and snipped”—Godwin snapped his fingers—“off her nose!’”

  Rafael chuckled. “The things you know!”

  “I know, it’s a beastly bore. Are you thinking of selling some of these?”

  “Yes. I have taken to heart what you said about my working in retail to gain understanding of how it is done, so I have rented a table at the MOON coin show. I will buy and sell coins there. Will you come with me?”

  Godwin smiled, surprised and pleased at Rafael. “I’ll check my schedule. I should be able to take that day as my day off.” He went to his room, a spacious one, with a grand view of the lake, and booted up his computer.

  He did a quick check and found he could take the date off. After telling Rafael the good news, he made a note on his calendar. He had gone with Rafael to these coin meets before, but never as a vendor. He was pleased that Rafael was taking seriously his advice to get retail experience. It would be interesting to see how well his partner did when on the other side of the table.

  * * *

  THE mailman brought two big, cardboard-stiffened envelopes into Crewel World the next morning. Opening them revealed two entries in the template contest. Ten more had come in the past week, and Betsy got those out of a desk drawer to look them over.

  Several contestants had elected to treat the narrow rectangles as a color wheel, running from bright red at one end to cool blue at the other, outlining the rectangles in black. Others had filled the spaces with various stitches or patterns. One person had decided the rectangles’ black outline looked like the bars on a sagging cage and stitched a Chinese-style tiger pacing behind them, glaring out at the viewer, tail lashing and teeth on display.

  “Ooooooh,” said Betsy. “I like this one!”

  Godwin looked at the others. “I like the one she calls Rose Trellis,” he said.

  “Here’s a nice one.” It was done in a broken bargello stitch, each jump from rectangle to rectangle acknowledged by a corresponding jump in the pattern. “Wow, that took some concentration,” Betsy said. She turned it over and saw the tag had Rafael’s name on it. “Hey, I didn’t know he gave us an entry!”

  “He gave it to me yesterday and I just put it in the drawer with the others. I don’t think he wants any special consideration.”

  “He doesn’t need to ask for special consideration; this is really good.”

  “I agree, but I’m prejudiced. Now, we had said we were going to display the entries, but there’s a limited amount of wall space, and if what we’ve got already is any indication, there are going to be a lot of entries.”

  “I’ve got the solution all thought out. I bought two bags of toy clothespins at the dollar store and a ball of twine at Menard’s. The ceiling’s nice and high in here, and we can string the entries up so everyone can see them. Oh, but first we have to retag them with numbers so our judges won’t know who did them. Let’s not forget to put a corresponding number on the name tags we take off.”

  Sorting quickly through the rest of the mail, Betsy found a first-class letter addressed to her in careful printing, with the word PERSONAL printed in red letters in the lower left corner and a Forever stamp in the upper right-hand corner.

  Betsy opened it to find a single sheet of lined paper covered on both sides with more printing, this a lot more carelessly done, though obviously by the same hand.

  Dear Ms. Devonshire, it began.

  I did not want to send you an e-mail message because anyone might see it. My mother, who is Marge Schultz, told me she is being harassed by a police detective named Michael Malloy. He wants to prove she murdered a woman named Hailey Brent. I never even heard of Hailey Brent, and I am sure my mother never murdered anyone. She is a good person, and hardworking, intelligent, and honest.

  Mother says you are trying to help her. I hope with all my heart you are successful.

  Mother is the hardest worker I have ever known. She worked two jobs putting my father through medical school. My father was a good man, but he got cancer one year after he finished being an intern. He fought it for three years before he finally died. My mother was the rock that got us through.

  I am so proud of how she has made Green Gaia a success. She always loved to garden. When we lived with Grandmama, we had a big backyard garden for mostly vegetables but flowers, too. She worked for a landscape company and then a garden center, which she bought from the owner when he retired.

  I have told my mother that she should find a boyfriend and maybe get married. She always says she can’t because she is already married to Green Gaia. I think Green Gaia is the most important thing in the world to her, more important even than me or her granddaughter.

  She proudly walked me down the aisle herself when I got married. I hoped we would stay in Excelsior so she could be a loving grandmother to my daughter, but my husband got this amazing job offer in Southern California and that’s where we live to this day. We only get to Minnesota every third Christmas, because we spend one with his parents in Las Vegas, then one just us, then one with Mother. But we stay in touch by e-mail at least once a month. We plan to come to Excelsior this Christmas. I hope our plans come true.

  I can’t think what else to tell you about how good and wonderful Mother is. I thank you over and over for coming to her aid.

  Sincerely, Louise French

  Betsy, deeply touched, read the letter again. She, too, hoped this coming Christmas would see the family happily celebrating in Excelsior.

  * * *

  LATER, Betsy was high on a ladder stringing twine—Godwin was afraid of heights, especially when seen from a stepladder—when the door sang out its two-note alarm.

  “Oh, hi, Irene!” called Betsy, causing Irene to jump and look around as she entered the store.

  “Hi, Irene,” said Godwin, coming from the back of the shop.

  “H’lo, Goddy, I thought at first you were Betsy,” she said.

  “I am Betsy,” said Betsy, and this time Irene saw the ladder, ran her eyes up it, and spotted Betsy near the top of the wall behind the checkout desk.

  Irene smiled broadly. “I thought that was you! What are you doing up there?”

  “Stringing up rope so that we can hang the template contest entries.”

  “Oh, what a good idea! Mine isn’t ready yet. You said you had something for me?” Irene looked around but didn’t see a mysterious package with her name on it.

  Betsy finished tying the rope to the hook and came down the ladder slowly. “I don’t know what you’ll think of this, but Hailey had been in the process of dyeing some spun yarn for you. I brought it back with me after I visited her house, and it’s waiting for you to decide if you still want it.”

  Irene nodded several times briskly. “Of course I want it! I can think of my piece as a tribute to her—i
n addition to it being a tribute to progress in the field of fibers. New fibers! New blends! What colors did she finish for me?”

  Betsy reached under the checkout desk and came up with a cardboard box. “Here, take a look.”

  Irene peered in. “Oh my, this is very nice!” She lifted out a skein of brown yarn. “See how it’s flecked? That’s because of the two kinds of fiber, they take dye differently.” She held the skein up a little too close to Betsy’s face, and snatched it back again before Betsy could change focus. “Marvelous!” She dropped the skein on the desk and reached for the indigo one. “Such a pretty color!”

  Godwin came to the desk and picked up the brown skein. “Say, it is a mix of light and dark,” he said.

  The door sounded its two notes, and he turned to see who was coming in.

  Betsy looked around Irene’s shoulder but didn’t recognize the new customer. She was a handsome woman, about twenty-five, with short blond hair, very light blue eyes, and an athletic build. There was a pugnacious air about her.

  Uh-oh, thought Betsy, a dissatisfied customer. She braced herself for an outburst.

  “Which one of you is Betsy Devonshire?” the woman demanded.

  Irene, startled, dropped the skein she was looking at back into the box, and turned to stare.

  “I am,” said Betsy. “How may I help you?”

  “By keeping your nose out of what’s none of your business!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The woman walked to the desk. Her fists were clenched and her teeth were showing in a snarl. She didn’t have a Crewel World bag with her; this was not someone returning an unsatisfactory item. “You know what I mean! Pretending to be a detective! Snooping around, treating people like criminals! How dare you!” The woman slammed a fist on the desk.

  Irene made a sound like a whimper and scurried over to hide behind a spinner rack, then peered around it, her dark eyes enormous in her white face. Godwin took a giant step to one side, turned, and picked up a sturdy yardstick that was on the library table. He assumed a determined air.