And Then You Dye

by Monica Ferris

  ON Saturday evening, Jill was in the kitchen fixing dinner—steamed broccoli, fish sticks, and mac and cheese. Bjorn, the family’s huge black Newfoundland dog, lay asleep on a strip of carpet in a corner. Bjorn adored the two children of the household, but he occasionally sought a break by hanging out with an adult. Fortunately, the kitchen was large and he didn’t interfere with Jill moving around.

  The back door, which let into the kitchen, opened, and a very tall and broad uniformed policeman with sergeant stripes on his sleeve came in. Lars was home. He was a watch supervisor in the little Excelsior department and was on weekend duty that day. Jill came to greet him with a kiss. As she went back to work, he opened a little cabinet high on the wall in the entryway and locked his gun in it.

  “Daddy!”

  “Daddy!”

  Two towheaded little children, the girl almost six and the boy just four, came rocketing into the kitchen to attach themselves to his legs. Bjorn lumbered to his feet to join the trio, bushy tail wagging, pink tongue lolling.

  Lars picked the children up to kiss them while they hugged him hard.

  “Kiss Bjorn!” demanded Erik.

  Lars obediently stooped and the dog’s big wet tongue slurped him on the mouth and nose. The children shrieked with laughter.

  “Good dog, Bjorn!” said Emma, reaching to stroke the dog’s black head.

  “Bjorn loves Daddy!” declared Erik.

  “I love Daddy!” said Emma.

  “No, I love Daddy!” said Erik.

  “We all love Daddy,” said Jill. “Now go wash your hands, dinner will be ready very soon.”

  The children broke their embrace and, cheering, ran from the kitchen.

  Lars got to his feet, pretend-staggering under the sudden release of his burden. “And we’ve been talking about having another one,” he said.

  “It’s you who wants another one,” said Jill, turning off the flame under the steaming broccoli. She pushed her hand into an oven mitt and brought a cookie sheet out of the oven. The smell of breaded fish intensified. “What I long for is the day when the kids’ appetites evolve so that meals like this are a fading memory. Bring on the shrimp scampi. Please.”

  Lars, passing through the kitchen, paused to snort. “Yeah, please. If you go for that PI license, we’ll be down to TV dinners. The hours those guys work are crazy.” He headed for the bedroom to change out of his uniform.

  Jill made a face as she arranged the fish sticks on a plate. It wasn’t as if she really felt she was wasting her valuable talents raising the children. What she was doing as a stay-at-home mom was important and challenging. She loved Emma and Erik so much that she couldn’t bear the thought of turning them over to a day care facility, no matter how good it might be, and thereby missing the milestones of their development.

  On the other hand, watching her good friend Betsy struggle to find time to investigate, to follow meager leads that led nowhere, made her yearn to assist. Betsy, though not as inexperienced as she had been at the start of this curious second career as a sleuth, didn’t have Jill’s formal training. Having passed the notoriously difficult sergeant’s exam on her first try, Jill was reasonably certain she could pass a test to get a private eye license. And then she could be of signal use to Betsy—not to mention able to follow through on some cases of her own.

  She already had a concealed carry permit, and a nice Rossi snub-nosed .38, something Betsy refused to consider getting. That wasn’t a good decision, in Jill’s never humble opinion. Going up against a murderer unarmed was not intelligent.

  Jill was glad Betsy was bright enough to inform the police when she was sure of a culprit’s identity, but one of these days she was going to do or say something in front of someone she only suspected—and that might put her in real danger. Betsy was brave, but sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference between being brave and being foolhardy.

  Supper went about as expected, noisy and a little messy; and neither of the children took more than the required single bite of broccoli.

  Afterward, there was the usual fuss of getting them bathed and into pajamas, their nighttime stories read (tonight Lars read to Emma, Jill to Erik), their final glasses of water brought. Silence fell at last when they went to sleep.

  Lars and Jill met in the living room, their expressions alike: love and indulgence mixed with aggravation and relief.

  “If we have another one, they’ll outnumber us, you know,” said Jill.

  “I think I can talk Emma into joining our side,” said Lars.

  “Seriously,” said Jill, “what do you think?”

  “I want another girl,” said Lars. “I think they’re easier.”

  “I said, seriously.”

  “I am serious. Remember when we got married we said we wanted a house full of children?”

  “I think the house is full. Although—”

  “Although what?”

  “Erik will start preschool this fall and Emma will be in first grade. That means the house will be empty part of the day—”

  “Which will give you time to focus on Elsa.”

  “No, it would give me time for a part-time job. And who is Elsa?”

  “Our second daughter. I’m not stuck on Elsa, it just begins with an E, like the other two. I like Ellen, too. And Eleanor.”

  “You’ve really been thinking about this.”

  “Yes, I have,” Lars said. “Haven’t you?”

  “Yes. But I keep coming down on the side that says no. I want to look into getting a PI license.”

  “Look, once upon a time PI work was mostly following a husband or a wife suspected of playing around, or finding a teen runaway. Nowadays, criminal defense lawyers hire them to do real investigations, to interview suspects and uncover admissible evidence, and that kind of thing can be dangerous. Betsy’s gotten involved with some hairy stuff and she’s an amateur.”

  “I would love to work with Betsy and do it with legal recognition. She doesn’t always follow the rules of evidence.”

  “Yes, but what might you get yourself into? I think one of us with a potentially dangerous job is enough for this family.”

  “Oh, Lars, I could get hit by a truck, or the house could blow up, or who knows? Just being alive can be dangerous to your health.”

  “I know, I know. I don’t think you know how worried I can be. I don’t want to shorten the odds, that’s all. If you really want to get back into action, I’d prefer that you come back on the cops.”

  “You mean come back to a desk job.”

  Lars hesitated. “All right, yes. But you’d be officially part of what was going on, have some input, and be of real service. Please, darling, think about that, will you?”

  Jill didn’t reply, and the air in the living room took on a slightly frosty chill that lasted the rest of the evening.

  * * *

  IT was the quiet hour after dinner. Godwin was working on a needlepoint canvas, and Rafael was going over some coins from his collection.

  After forty minutes or so, Godwin sighed and parked his needle in a corner of the canvas. It was a beautiful face of a chicken in bright reds and yellows, completely surrounded by a swirl of its small feathers, in shades of cream and off-white, each oval shape coming to a black point, an image at once surreal and realistic. No Name Chicken it was called, from CanvasWorks Traditions. It was going to look terrific in the remodeled kitchen, but stitching all those feathers was becoming a bore. He decided to take a break and go talk to Rafael.

  Rafael kept his medieval English coins in a three-ring binder whose “pages” were clear plastic. Each page consisted of five rows of four pockets each. Godwin had seen the collection, though he had not paid much attention to it. He knew Rafael had collected one coin from each English monarch from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth I, tw
enty-three monarchs in all—there were no coins minted during the brief reign of Edward V—and devoted a row to each coin. In the first pocket he had put a square of paper with the name of the king or queen in whose reign the coin was minted, the year of birth, and year of death. In the second pocket he put the actual coin. In the third he put the little envelope the coin had come in, which had such details as the city in which it was minted and where the coin was found. In the fourth he put another slip of paper with a very brief bio of the monarch.

  The coins themselves were silver, darkened by age. Most were pennies; for centuries, pennies were the only English coin. They varied in size, each a little larger or smaller than a nickel. None was perfectly round; each had been struck by hand. As Godwin entered the den where Rafael worked on his collection, he saw him pull one of the coins from its pocket. He slid it out, balancing it on a forefinger, and looked closely at it under the light from a strong desk lamp.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to touch coins without wearing one of those thin cotton gloves,” said Godwin.

  “That rule doesn’t apply to these,” said Rafael. “These are not gold or the highest quality uncirculated, where a scratch or bit of wear can knock down the value.”

  Godwin came to the beautiful antique desk Rafael was sitting at. “Which coin is that?”

  “Edward II. He was one of us, you know.”

  “What, you mean you’re related to him?”

  “No, I mean he was gay.”

  “Really?” Godwin bent for a closer look. The front—the “obverse,” Godwin knew—portrayed the clean-shaven face of a man whose hair, in an out-and-up curl, covered his ears. There was a simple crown on his head. “How do you know he was gay?”

  “Unfortunately, he was notorious for his dalliances. He wasn’t a very good king, though his father was—and so was his son.”

  “Son?”

  “Oh, he married and had children—although there is a story that at his wedding feast his boyfriend paraded around the court wearing the queen’s royal jewels. His queen, a French princess named Isabella, eventually had enough of Edward and his ‘favorites’ and took a lover, a Frenchman named Mortimer. The two of them knocked Edward off his throne and ruled in the name of his minor son.”

  “Wow. How long ago did all this happen?”

  “He died in a dungeon, probably murdered, in 1327.” Rafael held the coin up. “I wonder what the original owner of this coin thought about his king.”

  “I wonder what his son thought of him.”

  “Well, his son was fifteen when his father died, and I’m sure his mother had filled his ears with ugly stories. On the other hand, the older Edward was handsome and probably a lot of fun. He liked the kind of work performed by commoners—he could shoe a horse and thatch a roof. Isabella and Mortimer ruled in his son’s name, but when he turned eighteen, and they didn’t seem about to let him take over, he pulled a raid on his mother’s quarters. He killed Mortimer and sent Isabella off to a distant castle with a warning not to meddle in the affairs of the kingdom again. And she never did. She was clever and very beautiful, but Edward III was not to be played. He proved to be a strong, brave king, good-tempered and very popular. He was king for fifty years, an enormously long time for that period.”

  Godwin chuckled. “You talk about these people like the Monday Bunch gossips about the citizens of Excelsior.”

  Rafael shrugged. “That’s all history is, really. Gossip.” He smiled. “That’s why I like it.”

  “And that’s why you like the coins. They are a real piece of history you can hold in your hand.”

  “You are very perceptive. And it’s true, these coins are an affordable way for ordinary people to hold in their hands an actual artifact of a very long-ago time. They can imagine who the first owner was, what he was like, what he could have bought with the coin, how he came to lose it.”

  “You’re not an ordinary person who needs to collect at bargain prices,” Godwin noted. A lot of Rafael’s other coins were high-quality rarities that cost a lot of money.

  “I always appreciate a bargain. And I am more ordinary than you think.” Rafael held out the coin. “In the case of these coins, not all of them were expensive. It was the hunt that brought me to acquire them.”

  Godwin took the coin. It was paper-thin, almost weightless. The narrow face on it looked back at him enigmatically. “Where was this one hiding all these centuries?”

  “It was part of a hoard. Back in the fourteenth century, someone took his life’s savings and put it in a pottery jar and buried it in a field—then went away and died. In modern times a farmer was plowing the field and broke into the jar, which had been lifted by frosts to a level where the plow could reach it.” Rafael had done an Internet search but found the coin through a local dealer—he preferred doing that, so he could see the actual coin before buying it.

  Godwin turned the coin over. On the reverse was a long cross interrupting uncial lettering he could not read. “Latin, right?”

  “Yes, like all coins of that time.” Rafael took the coin back. “Why don’t you try collecting?” It was a question he’d asked before.

  And Godwin gave the answer he’d given before. “I’d rather buy needlepoint canvases. They’re more interactive.”

  Rafael put the coin back in its little envelope and put the envelope back into its pocket. “Speaking of interactive,” he said, “I’ve been going through my collection, deciding what I’m willing to part with at the coin show. I’m going to bring along my medievals, though I don’t think I’ll sell any. They’re not expensive—well, except the gold ones, and they’re too hard to find to make me want to sell the ones I have.” He turned and pulled another three-ring binder from the bookshelf behind the desk. A label on its face read simply SPAIN.

  Godwin didn’t want to hear—again—a disquisition on the complex history of Spain, so he changed the subject. “Want to eat out tomorrow night?” he asked. “As you know, the shop is closed Sundays. Besides, Betsy is really busy with her sleuthing.”

  “All right. Biella’s okay?” The restaurant was a favorite of theirs.

  “Fine.”

  “Betsy is spinning her wheels this time, isn’t she?”

  “No, of course not. The case is working its way through a dry part right now. But it’s moving, and she’ll get it, she always does.”

  “Aren’t you afraid for her? Meddling in crime is no occupation for an amateur. Perhaps you should ask her if she has a will. Maybe she intends to leave the shop to you if one day she should be killed.”

  “What an awful thing to say!”

  “If she is behaving foolishly, you should act to defend yourself. You have worked there for years, and for low wages, too. She owes you compensation if you should suddenly lose your position because she dies.”

  Godwin stepped back from the desk, about to say something in anger. Then, just in time, he caught himself. “You’re joking, of course.” But he said it in a tone laden with warning.

  Rafael looked up at him, surprised. “Yes, of course. Sorry you did not find it amusing. I like your boss, she is a very nice lady, and very clever. But sometimes I think she should not interfere in the business of the police, who are quite competent.”

  “She’s not interfering, she’s helping!”

  “If she wants to help, why doesn’t she get the license? The private detective license?”

  “Because then it would be a full-time job, and she already has a full-time job. I think for her to be sleuthing all the time would break her heart. There are too many horrible things in the world for her to get mixed up in them day in and day out.”

  “So she prefers to remain a, a dabbler, is that correct?”

  Godwin frowned at Rafael. “Why are you picking on her? She does damn good work. And she’s not ‘dabbling.’”
<
br />   Rafael sighed. He reached out and stroked his book of coins. “You’re right. She doesn’t dabble. I’m the dabbler. That’s why I want to open a business of my own. I want to contribute something to this community, to this state, perhaps even to this country.” He sighed again. “It would mean breaking my grandmother’s heart. She thought a gentleman did not soil his hands with trade.”

  Godwin laughed. “Your grandmother is dead. But I think I know what this is about. I think you’re jealous.”

  “Jealous of Betsy?”

  “Yes, but not because she owns her own business. You’re jealous of her relationship with me. You think we share things you have no part of.”

  “Well, don’t you?”

  “No. I tell you everything I tell her, truly I do.”

  “Then why am I still jealous?”

  “I don’t know. I think this is a stupid and dangerous conversation, so let’s stop it right now. Would you like a bowl of ice cream? I’m going to get one for myself.”

  “No, thank you. I want to look on the Internet for small shops to rent.”

  Godwin, heart sinking, went to the kitchen and filled a bowl—a big bowl—with cookie dough ice cream. He didn’t know which was worse: Rafael’s notion that he could run his own successful small business, or his sudden perception that Betsy and Godwin had a special relationship. The trouble, Godwin thought, was that it was true.

  Twelve

  SUNDAY, after church and a hearty breakfast, which was becoming a tradition with Connor and Betsy, the two of them went out in a light drizzle to plant lily of the valley on the steep hill behind the shop.

  They worked in a companionable silence for a few minutes, then Connor said, “Machree, I wonder if you shouldn’t give up this latest case. You’re not making any progress, and I can see that the frustration is making you very unhappy.”

  “Giving it up won’t cure my unhappiness.”

  “Are you sure? It might be like putting down an impossible burden. I don’t like to see you frustrated like this.”

  “I don’t like it much, either. But quitting would leave me unhappy, too. Besides, I haven’t decided it’s impossible yet. Hand me another lily.”