Knitting Bones

by Monica Ferris

  He was knitting another in his endless series of white cotton socks—not that he needed another pair. What he needed was an excuse for staying up late. Some customers who knew him would be sure to notice he was tired tomorrow and ask if he’d been out on a date. He didn’t want to lie and say yes—but he also didn’t want to say he stayed up late to watch a Bette Davis marathon. So he knit, because saying he got involved in knitting was almost the truth, and something Crewel World customers would definitely understand.

  But he was really staying up late because he wanted to think. Like his parents before him, he had grown up doing homework while watching TV, sometimes with music also playing. He believed all those distractions somehow helped him focus.

  But it didn’t seem to work this time. Maybe because he’d seen The Petrified Forest before, several times, and he didn’t think it one of her better efforts—Ms. Davis was very young in this movie, not the gallant ruin she would be many years down the road. It made him aware that one day he, too, might be a ruin—and not a gallant one, at that.

  Which was not what he wanted to think about. He wanted to think about sleuthing. He’d thought he’d be a natural. Wasn’t he nosy? Even nosier than Betsy, if it came to that. Wasn’t he able to charm almost anyone into talking to him? Hadn’t he gone to places where he knew he could get people to talk to him, where he knew many of the people he would talk to? And hadn’t he found that Bob Germaine was living a secret second life? And yet the way she’d looked at him and his deductions…

  He’d watched Betsy’s techniques as she investigated crimes over the past few years. He’d hung on her every word at the end of her cases and absorbed her explanations. It wasn’t hard, she always said. She’d just talk to people and gather their meanings, hidden and obvious, until a pattern emerged. And that’s what he’d done, talked and listened. And he brought home lots and lots of good information.

  So why did it seem to him that she wasn’t fully satisfied with his results?

  The deep thinking this was calling for was getting a bit hard, so he reached for the remote and turned off the television. He continued working on the sock, which was one begun at the toe and ending at the cuff. He was at the cuff, knit one, purl one, very easy, and he liked a nice, long cuff. Betsy often said that knitting something simple freed her mind to think, to ponder, which she defined as a deeper kind of thinking. He sat back in his big, comfy chair, allowing his mind to ponder.

  He hadn’t done everything wrong. For example, Betsy had been very impressed with his idea that Bob Germaine had decided to come out of the closet with a big, bad, dishonest act, make a statement, so that was probably true—Betsy had a nose for the truth that was at least as good as his own.

  But she had seemed particularly nose-wrinkly at his vision of Bob sailing down a highway with his silver-haired lover, which Godwin thought was a particularly fine piece of deduction. Why didn’t she like that one?

  He pondered that for a while before deciding it was too many for him—he’d read that expression in a Mark Twain story once upon a time and really liked it—“too many for him,” meaning he just couldn’t figure it out—that was sharp. But knowing it was too many didn’t solve the problem. He knew his next assignment was going to be to talk to the women who had been at the EGA convention banquet, which was going to be a lot harder than talking to friends around the city. Maybe he’d better ask Betsy about her expectations, or at least get some solid instructions about his methods. That decision settled his mind enough that he could tuck his knitting away and go off to his lonely little bed for the night.

  BETSY, struggling gingerly into a fresh nightgown, reflected on Godwin’s efforts. Godwin had many talents, and his admiration for Betsy’s sleuthing ability was as charming as it was sincere. But his ambition to emulate her, to be a sleuth himself, was, she feared, not something he could do reliably.

  Godwin had gone investigating to prove his already-drawn conclusion that Bob Germaine was a closeted gay man. Which was almost all right. He had told Betsy that Germaine was gay before they talked about his sleuthing. The problem was, he found a number of people who helped support his theory, and felt his mission was accomplished. Perhaps if he’d talked to more people, he might have found some who disagreed with his theory, perhaps with facts to back them up.

  But what put the cap on the thing, she thought, was his imaginative description of Bob Germaine driving his Lexus down a long highway with a handsome, wealthy, mature lover in the passenger seat—there was not a shred of evidence to indicate this scenario was more than a happy dream—and one close to Godwin’s own heart. Who knew what Bob Germaine’s dreams were?

  She sank carefully into bed, laying sheet and blanket tenderly over her mending leg. She had a huge stretchy stocking pulled over the hard plastic “boot” on her left foot and lower leg to protect her sheets from its buckles and rough edges, but pulling it on had reignited the pain.

  She had barely emitted a sigh of relief at successfully becoming horizontal when Sophie jumped up on the bed, on the other side from her usual landing spot, away from Betsy’s wounded leg. Funny how Sophie had immediately understood that her mistress was injured and in pain, that the pain was located in her right leg, and that she, Sophie, while seeking to comfort Betsy, must not step on or bump the injury.

  The cat, a beautiful, fluffy white creature with tan and gray patches on her head, down her back, and up her tail, was also very solid, and she joggled the mattress—and Betsy’s leg—while making her way to Betsy’s left side, where she collapsed with a purring sigh. Very gently she put one paw on Betsy’s forearm. Betsy could not help smiling, and she stroked Sophie’s dense fur, eliciting a deeper, more rhythmic purr. Giving and receiving comfort, Sophie was good to have around, Betsy thought.

  Betsy was also, for once, grateful that Sophie was probably the laziest cat in the state. Long ago, a friend who owned a more energetic cat was sick in bed, and the cat wore itself out bringing her freshly killed mice, gophers, and once even a squirrel, in an attempt to nourish her mistress back to health.

  Sophie, the queen of nourishment, did not hunt even to nourish herself. Possibly it was not her fault, possibly she was taken from her mother before her mother could teach her to hunt; it was even possible her mother did not know how to hunt, either. In any case, Sophie did not seem to know food could come from elsewhere than a human hand.

  Betsy’s thoughts had wandered off the topic, which was…what? The pain pill she’d taken after brushing her teeth was kicking in. Oh, yes, sleuthing. And Godwin’s willing, enthusiastic, but not very good attempts at it.

  So what was she to do? She didn’t want to hurt Godwin’s feelings by telling him he wasn’t to do any more investigating. And, it wasn’t as if she could go out herself. Perhaps, hinted her weary mind, she should just call the matter off. She’d done what Allie had asked, found that the police were, in fact, looking into other possibilities than that her husband was a thief. Still, it was an interesting case, and she was intrigued by its contradictions. Could she use Godwin’s inept investigating somehow? Or was there someone else she could send out? Who did she know who might be more skilled at sleuthing than Goddy?

  The pill began easing her gently into sleep. Her last conscious thought was: Jill.

  Eight

  IT was late the next morning. Godwin was just starting to think about lunch: Should he go first, or send Marti, the part-timer? It had been a slow morning, and he was sitting at the library table in the middle of the shop, stitching a model Christmas stocking. It was cut out of a piece of canvas and he was covering it in shades of red, white, yellow, and green yarns in a bargello pattern. Bargello is beautiful with its sharply curved lines, and not difficult—if the first line is done correctly. Also, once under way, the stitcher can put it down and pick it up again very easily, a nice quality if one is (hopefully) constantly interrupted by customers. One trick Janet Perry suggests is to begin that first row in the center of the line. Leave half the yarn hanging, p
arking its end at one end of the canvas, and work the line to the end. Then come back and pick up the loose end and finish the line in the other direction. Godwin was doing an illusion pattern, where the center section had steeper and narrower lines, making it look as if it were partly folded.

  He’d done the first row and then quite a few more rows when the door sounded its two musical notes. He put his work down and stood to smile a greeting. And then smiled more warmly. A tall woman with a serene Gibson-girl face and very pale hair pulled back in a braid was standing there in pale green wool slacks and matching soft flannel shirt.

  “Hello, Jill!” he said. His voice went very high as he added, stooping, “And heh-woe to you, wittle darlin’!” to Emma Beth, who stuck a forefinger in her mouth and looked up doubtfully at her mother. Emma, even fairer than her mother, was delectable in wine corduroy overalls and a pink-and-wine sweater.

  “It’s all right, baby, you may say hello to Godwin.”

  “Woe,” said Emma obediently, looking at him.

  “Not into baby talk, is she?” Godwin remarked, straightening.

  “Not too much.”

  So he made a silly face at the toddler, who suddenly warmed to him, grinning back.

  Jill said, “Betsy told me she was going to send you to find out if Bob Germaine was leading a secret life.”

  “Yes, she did. And I did. And he is.”

  “Really?” Jill looked just a trifle taken aback. Since she rarely showed surprise, this gratified Godwin very much.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, preening, “I have a lot of contacts in the gay community, so I talked to a lot of people. And I described the man I saw getting the check at the EGA convention banquet. That was Bob Germaine, and they said that from my description, it sounded like Stoney Durand, who is quite well known in the community.” Godwin raised and lowered his eyebrows in a complex way and Jill nodded comprehension.

  “Well done,” she said. “Betsy asked me to come over today and talk to her. Is she free?”

  “Sure. Go through the back door of the shop, so she doesn’t have to get up and answer the downstairs buzzer. Her apartment door’s unlocked.”

  Jill didn’t ask if she could leave Emma with Godwin, for which he was grateful.

  EMMA Elizabeth knew what a visit to Betsy’s apartment meant. She turned left into the kitchen with a one-word cry of happiness: “Cookie!”

  “Hi, Betsy!” called Jill. “It seems I brought the Cookie Monster with me by mistake. I thought I had my lovely, well-mannered daughter along.”

  “Cookie!” insisted the lovely daughter.

  “The cookie jar is on the counter near the refrigerator!” called Betsy from her place on the couch.

  “Cookie!” reiterated Emma, who could hear that magic word in any sentence, be it ever so long; and the next sound heard was the pottery lid being lifted off the pig-shaped jar.

  A few moments later they came into the living room, Emma contentedly gnawing on a sugar cookie, Jill smiling a greeting.

  Jill said, “Did you know Goddy can do the wave with his eyebrows?”

  “What? Oh, that thing he’s started doing when he thinks I may be missing a point he’s trying to make. I bet he practices an hour in the mirror twice a week.”

  “Kitty?” asked Emma, looking around.

  But Sophie had vanished in that magical way some cats have, the instant they hear a child’s voice. Though Emma had a habit of spilling lickable cookie crumbs, she also loved to pull the cat’s tail and whiskers. Sophie knew she could gather up the crumbs after the child was gone.

  Jill said, “The kitty is taking a nap. Would you like to take a nap?”

  “No!”

  “Her favorite word,” said Jill with a sigh. “I was just downstairs, talking to Goddy. Were you surprised to find out Bob Germaine is a closeted gay?”

  “I’m not sure he is. I have only Godwin’s opinion.”

  Jill raised her left eyebrow and said, “I take it Goddy is not a detective.”

  “Well…he does his best. But in this case, he had an idea, and I think he only looked for information that would confirm it.”

  Jill cocked the other of her pale eyebrows. “Where did he get that idea to start with?”

  “He is sure Bob Germaine returned a flirting smile Goddy gave him as he went out of the banquet hall last Saturday night. Therefore, according to Goddy, he is a deeply closeted gay man.”

  Jill’s lovely features went still for several seconds. Then she said, “I don’t believe it.”

  Betsy felt a sharp stir of interest. “Have you met Bob Germaine?”

  “Certainly. I’ve been to the Germaine house half a dozen times—maybe more. I’ve spent evenings with them. And I have never had the remotest idea that Bob was gay. He’s an artist, but more the serious kind than the flighty kind, you know?”

  Betsy smiled. “More Russian than French, right?”

  “I’d say he’s definitely more suffering than romantic, if that’s what you mean. He gets really intense when he’s on a project.”

  “Allie said that about him. I wish I had met him, then I might have a better feel for this. What do you think, could he have been joking with Godwin? Does Bob know Goddy?”

  “No, although he knows about him. Allie loves to talk about Godwin with me—she likes him at least as much as I do, and she’s always telling Bob the funny things he says. But I don’t think Godwin’s ever been to their house, and I’m quite sure Bob wouldn’t know him on sight. On the other hand, Goddy isn’t the kind to receive a message when one isn’t being sent, is he?”

  “No, not normally. He broadcasts a lot, however. Maybe he saw something he liked in Bob, let it show, and Bob saw it. And, just kidding, smiled back at him.” She looked inquiringly at Jill.

  Who nodded slowly. “I suppose so. Though that wasn’t exactly the right time and place for that sort of thing, was it?”

  “I wouldn’t think so—but I don’t know Bob. You do.”

  “And I don’t think he’d do something like that to someone he didn’t know, especially when he was acting on behalf of his employer. But downstairs just now Godwin said that when he described Bob Germaine to people in gay hangouts, they said they knew him—but by another name.”

  Betsy nodded. “Stoney Durand. An unlikely pseudonym, don’t you think? But Goddy told me Stoney Durand is a well-known figure among a certain set of gay people. A wilder bunch, if I read Goddy’s euphemisms correctly.”

  “That’s…different,” said Jill, using the Minnesota understatement for very strange. “If Bob were gay—which I don’t believe—I don’t think he’d be the wild and crazy type. He’d be the quiet kind, the one you never knew was gay until he introduced you to his partner.”

  Betsy shrugged. “Well…maybe. I mean, if you’re living a double life, and you have to keep all your gay feelings locked away most of the time, it seems to me that you’d want to let them roar at least a little bit when they’re out for a walk. Take you, for instance.”

  Both of Jill’s eyebrows went up. “Me?”

  Betsy smiled. “Yes, you. You are this cool and calm person, and when you were a cop on patrol, you were so correct you could have given lessons to Sergeant Joe Friday. I was scared to death of you when I first met you.”

  “You were?” Her ice-blue eyes twinkled with amusement.

  “Sure. Then I started hearing stories about you. My favorite was about the time you put just a drop or two of tear gas on the heater of Lars’s patrol car on the coldest night of the year. He had to choose between freezing and crying his whole watch.”

  Jill thawed into a smile. “And you realized that I roar sometimes, too.”

  “Exactly. So I suppose it’s possible Bob Germaine lets loose when he’s out of the closet.”

  Jill nodded. “In the sense that anything is possible, it’s possible. But I still don’t believe it.”

  “That’s interesting. Because now Goddy’s all hot to go talking to people who came to the EGA con
vention.”

  After a short silence, Jill said, “Did you ask me over here to see if I would go with him?”

  “Yes,” Betsy admitted, and burst out, “I don’t know who else to ask!”

  “Maybe you don’t need to ask anyone. Maybe this is a job you can’t do. Maybe you should tell Allie—wait a second.” Jill held up a hand, palm forward, a cop stopping traffic, while she thought. “Remember when Goddy was arrested for murder?”

  “Yes, of course I do. Why?”

  “Well, you involved a woman lawyer in the case. She ended up working as a PI, right?”

  “Oh, you mean Susan Lavery. She calls herself a ‘recovering lawyer’ nowadays. She’s doing private-eye work.” Susan was a regular customer in Betsy’s shop—she claimed that she could sit anywhere doing needlework and no one, even the target of her stakeout, would realize it was a stakeout. A tall, thin, white-skinned woman with bright red hair, she was otherwise pretty conspicuous.

  “You helped her change careers, maybe even saved her life,” said Jill. “Don’t you think she owes you a favor?”

  “Well, she told me she does, said to ask her for help if I ever needed it.” Betsy nodded twice. “Oh, wow, I wonder why I didn’t think of her.” She looked up at Jill. “I’m confused a lot lately. Could it be the pain meds?”

  “I don’t know. What are you taking?”

  “Vicodin, mostly.”

  Jill smiled. “Oh, yes, a couple of Vicodin will mess up anyone’s thinking. Nice stuff, otherwise.”

  “Actually, I prefer Darvon. I was given Darvon years and years ago after a dentist took out my wisdom teeth. I’ve never forgotten how marvelous Darvon made me feel.” Betsy sighed. “I actually had my doctor write in my medical file that I was not to be given Darvon again, because I really, really like it.” Betsy sighed again, remembering how Darvon smoothed all the bumps out of her life the three days she was on it. Then she looked up and saw Jill smiling at her.