Unraveled Sleeve

by Monica Ferris

  Jill said, “All right, the floss is innocent. What does that mean? Sharon’s death was an accident?”

  Betsy thought a minute, frowning. “Suppose she did go see Frank, and he induced the allergic reaction accidentally. He said he was pleased to have things around that she was allergic to, like pizza and peanut butter; maybe she walked in on him enjoying a peanut butter sandwich.”

  “Then all she had to do was walk out again, probably. But all right, suppose. She walks in, turns blue, collapses. If it was an innocent accident, why not just report it? In fact, suppose the reason you walked in and she was in there all alone was that he was downstairs trying to find someone to report it to. That would explain why he wasn’t there when you walked in.”

  “But he didn’t report it, or someone would have said something. And he told us he never saw her. So if he didn’t go to report it, where did he go? No, if he was there when it happened, and he went out, it was to prepare to take her away. You know, go unlock his car.”

  Jill said, “Maybe he was in the bathroom when you came in, and didn’t want to answer embarrassing questions. But we haven’t answered two basic questions: If Frank isn’t responsible for Sharon’s death, what was she doing dead in his room? And why was she taken away?”

  “You think they’re going to arrest him?”

  “I think they’re going to hold him for twenty-four hours.”

  “I wish—” said Betsy, then cut herself off.

  “You wish what?”

  “Nothing.” Betsy’s smile was a little sour. What she wished was that Sheriff Goodman appeared a little more confidence-inspiring, but she didn’t want to bad-mouth one law enforcement officer in front of another.

  Jill said, “How about this: Frank deliberately had something in his room that would induce an allergic reaction, knowing Sharon was going to come and see him.”

  Betsy thought a moment. “And he could claim he didn’t know she was going to walk in on him. But that puts us right back to your basic question: Why, if he was setting up an accident, ruin it by taking the body away?”

  “Frank didn’t do that, someone else did. Frank induces the reaction, somebody else sees the body and moves it.”

  “But who? Neither Liddy nor Doogie was here to do that.”

  “I bet Carla was. You said you think she’s in love with Frank. Okay, maybe he’s in love with her, too. Maybe he came up here to see Carla as well as get a little skiing in. But here comes Sharon Kaye, as usual, to spoil things. So Frank decides to murder her. He sets it up to look like an accident, but before he can finish things, Carla pops in for a little kissy-face, sees Sharon Kaye on the bed, and thinks, ‘I must protect my man.’ ”

  Betsy said, “I don’t think Carla’s capable of carrying a dead body up that trail.”

  “You’d be surprised what a person who is really scared can do.”

  “Well—maybe.” But Betsy thought about those many flights of icy wooden stairs.

  “All right, suppose you’re right, someone doctored the floss. I vote for Liddy; she probably knows Sharon’s needleworking habits better than anyone.”

  “Except Carla,” said Betsy.

  “But if Carla messed with the floss, then who—Oh, I see! Sharon Kaye staggers up the stairs into Frank’s room, and he’s the one who panics and hides the body!”

  Betsy nodded. “That sounds more like it.”

  Jill said, “Still, I wish we could have gotten to Liddy before Carla took her away. She’s gone all to pieces since they found Sharon’s body, just about like you’d expect if she’s the one responsible for this mess. If we talk to her, she’ll probably confess, if she’s guilty.”

  Betsy said, “She couldn’t have done it. Sharon disappeared on Friday during working hours, and Liddy said she was at work all day. That’s too easy to check, so I doubt Liddy would lie about that.”

  “Murderers as rattled as Liddy is tell stupid lies. She’s acting very hinky.”

  “ ‘Hinky’?”

  “It means suspiciously, in a criminal sense. Backing into a doorway when a squad car comes by is hinky.”

  “I see,” said Betsy. “Motive?”

  Jill said, “Money, probably. But also, from what we’ve been hearing, Sharon was a beautiful, charming, self-centered woman with a jealous, controlling streak. Probably Liddy has a lot of mixed feelings because her mother kept coming back and then abandoning her again. If it turns out the floss was exchanged or doctored, we’ll get the sheriff to check her alibi. Because I think she’s our best candidate for this.”

  “Doogie has the same motives as Liddy, money and abandonment.”

  Jill said, “But he’s really risen to this terrible occasion. Before, he was an awful wuss. Anyhow, he was at work, too. Sweeping up the ranger station in Grand Marais.”

  “Maybe we should suggest the sheriff check his alibi, too. Did you see how Carla is suddenly acting like the surrogate mommy to those two? Her concern seems real. And they like it, especially Liddy.”

  Jill nodded. “Yeah, but I’ll bet you a dollar she’s got no alibi at all. Love can also be a powerful motive.”

  “All right, it would be hers. Along with anger that Sharon Kaye was trying to come between her and her man. Still . . . I wish I knew who gets Sharon Kaye’s money. There’s a whole lot of it. Frank doesn’t get any, thanks to a prenuptial agreement he signed. He told me he doesn’t know where the rest goes. The obvious answer is, to the children. Liddy and Doogie had large trust funds set up when they were born, and they can’t access the principal till they’re thirty. They’re living comfortably off the income from the trusts, but I wonder if one or both of them uses drugs, or is a gambler.”

  Betsy looked up the stairs. She was sure that with Carla as a gatekeeper, they were not going to be able to question either of the Owen siblings until Carla chose the time. In the controlling arena, Carla shone as brightly as Sharon.

  James walked into the dining room and stopped, looking around. He saw Jill and Betsy and said, “There you are, Ms. Devonshire. I’m very sorry, but that young man is on the phone again. Mr. DuLac?”

  “Oh, help.” Betsy sighed. “All right, where?”

  “In the office, like before. I left the door open for you.” He headed off in the direction of the kitchen.

  “I’ll be in the lounge,” said Jill.

  Betsy picked up the heavy black telephone receiver in the office and said, “Okay, Godwin, what is it now?”

  “A man just walked in here with a letter for you. Instead of a stamp, it has ‘By Hand’ typed in the corner, and he made me sign for it. The return address is ‘Touhy and Howe, Attorneys, in the IDS Center, Minneapolis.’ Betsy, do you know who they are?” He said that as if he knew, but wasn’t sure Betsy would.

  “Sure, Mr. Touhy is one of Joe Mickels’ lawyers.”

  “I knew he would try something, I just knew it! There’s probably a summons in here! He’s taking you to court!”

  “No, a summons has to go to the actual person, and it’s never in an envelope. This probably has something to do with the sale of the building.”

  “Oh, then this is about the water leak! He thinks he’s found a way to make you pay for it, I bet! But he can’t do that, can he? I mean, the building still belongs to him, right?” Godwin in a panic put up italics like a porcupine erects its bristles.

  “Calm down, Goddy! If you want to know what it’s about, open the envelope.”

  “Can I? Is that legal?”

  “Why not? You signed for it, didn’t you? So you have legal custody. It’s addressed to me, so I can give you permission. For heaven’s sake, open it and see what kind of headache it contains.”

  The letter was a formal notification of a meeting two weeks hence in the office of Mr. Langston Touhy, Esquire, in the IDS Tower in Minneapolis, at which time and place papers concluding the sale of the building in which Betsy’s apartment and shop were contained would be signed.

  “Oh,” said Godwin, considerably let down. �
��Well, why’d he send something this ordinary by courier?”

  “Because he agreed to give me two weeks’ notice of this signing, and the date is exactly fifteen days from today. I think you’re right: He’s trying to conclude the sale quickly now, in case there’s more water damage that hasn’t shown up yet.”

  “It’s today’s date on this thing. Getting an attorney to work on a Sunday isn’t exactly cheap,” Godwin pointed out.

  “How much was the estimate for the water damage?” asked Betsy.

  “Oh, my God, Betsy, wait till I tell you! The water is coming from the roof, it’s been spilling down an opening in the side wall for days, running between the floor of your apartment and the ceiling of the shop, and pooling right in the center, where it finally soaked through! I asked for a ballpark figure on what it’s going to cost to fix it, and he said nine thousand! I told them to put a temporary patch on the roof, which all by itself will cost about five hundred but that’s only temporary! And that doesn’t include the cost to repair the ceiling or replace the damaged goods!”

  “And how often are ballpark estimates way under the actual cost?” asked Betsy, and answered herself: “Often. It’s going to cost much more than nine thousand before we’re through. What Joe will do is offer to deduct nine thousand from the price of the building. That’s why the rush, he wants the deal done before we find out we need a whole new roof. I guess the bloom is off the rose.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “In the face of spending real money, any chance at romance is dead, dead, dead.”

  “That evil, sneaky old man!” said Godwin, at length and not exactly in those words.

  A few minutes later, Betsy hung up with a sigh. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone away. What with troubles she wasn’t allowed to leave behind in Excelsior and a mystery up here, she wasn’t getting much of a rest.

  She left the office, checking the door after she pulled it closed to make sure it locked. It was a fine old door, to judge by the solid thickness of the wood, but ill-fitted to the frame. At the hinge end she could fit the toe of her shoe under it.

  Betsy stood a moment, frowning at the door, then went off on a search for James.

  She found him in the kitchen, checking the blend of lettuces in a very large salad bowl. “Did you find an EpiPen on your desk yesterday?” she asked.

  “EpiPen? Oh, that plastic thing for allergic reactions. Yes, I did. I wondered where it came from. Is it yours?”

  “No. I found it on the floor of your office and left it on the desk. Are you sure it doesn’t belong to an employee or someone who has access to that little office?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Anyone needing help as serious as that pen offers would be sure to warn us all about it.” He shrugged. “Plus I asked.”

  “Then I think I know who it belongs to. May I have it back?”

  “Of course. Come with me.”

  The device had been put in a drawer behind the lobby counter. Betsy took it and asked, “So long as you’re back there, can you tell me when Carla Prakesh checked in?”

  “All right.” He checked his log and said, “She missed dinner on Friday, she didn’t drive up to our door till almost nine. I remember because she asked for help unloading her car.”

  “Thanks.” Betsy went into the dining room and sat on the circular couch with the pillar to take another look at the EpiPen. If Sharon hadn’t dropped it, might it have saved her life? She held it up and jiggled it gently. The liquid inside was thin as water. The plastic was heavy, and formed a blunt point at the needle end. She gripped the safety cap and tried it. It would not move. She tried harder, but it was stuck fast.

  Perhaps it had jammed when Sharon dropped it. She held it closer to her eyes. Was that something—? A thin trail of some clear substance ran around the cap. She prodded it with a fingernail, but it was as hard as plastic. No wonder it wouldn’t turn, the cap was sealed to the body of the pen.

  She had seen this same thin, unyielding seal before, on a favorite mug she had dropped, broken, and repaired. Impermeable, unbreakable, permanent. Superglue.

  She had a sudden, sharp vision of Sharon, eyes red and tearing, skin flaming and itching, as she frantically twisted the cap, trying to get it off. As her throat began to swell shut, the one thing that could fend off death would not open for her use. Realizing that, she either dropped it as useless, or threw it down in frustration—and it had rolled under the door.

  Where the person who had sabotaged it could not retrieve it, as he had retrieved the betraying canvas bag of stitchery and burned it.

  Betsy put the EpiPen in her skirt pocket and went to the lounge. Jill had a group of five or six stitchers sitting or standing around her, watching as she stitched something on a piece of scrap canvas, talking quietly as she did so. “You can see how the arrowhead shape of the Amadeus stitch is formed,” she was saying as Betsy approached. It appeared that the group was getting its surprise teacher after all—though it was likely Jill was as surprised as any of them.

  Ingrid, sitting near Jill but working on her own project, looked up as Betsy came in, and her face filled with compassion. “More badt news?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. Jill, may I see you alone for a minute?”

  “Sure.” Jill handed the canvas to Linda Savareid, seated beside her, and said, “Now I’ve got the second one started, you finish it and start another beside it. The rest of you watch, and kibitz to your hearts’ content.” She followed Betsy through the dining room, where James was supervising the lunch setup, and into the lobby, which was empty.

  “Look at this,” Betsy said, pulling the EpiPen out of her pocket.

  Jill took it, read its printed instructions, noted that it was fully charged, and said, “Where did you find this?”

  “Under the desk in the office, when I took that first call from Godwin. I thought it belonged to someone who worked here, so I left it on the desk. But it doesn’t. James put it behind the check-in counter, waiting for a guest to ask about it, and no one has. It must be Sharon Kaye’s. Look at it, the cap has been glued on.”

  Jill twisted the cap, gently then harder. Then she, too, pried at the thin line of glue around the cap. “Very nasty. How did it get into the office?”

  “My guess is, it rolled under the gap in the door.”

  Jill walked to the office door, tried it, and found it locked, then fit the device to the space under it. Toward the hinge end, there was ample room.

  Betsy said, “This is murder, Jill. Someone sabotaged her EpiPen, got her a long way from medical help, and triggered an allergic reaction somehow.”

  “Who?” asked Jill.

  “I don’t know. Someone who had access to her purse or whatever she kept her EpiPen in. And probably not too long before she came up here, in case she was in the habit of checking the thing. I checked on when Carla got here, and it was late Friday night. And I bet if you check, she’ll have a solid alibi for the afternoon.”

  “Well, that eliminates her.”

  “Actually, it doesn’t. If you think about it, that puts her on the list. It wasn’t a case of getting Sharon Kaye up here and then triggering the attack. The attack was arranged somewhere else, then she was sent up here. I’m sure that when they test that floss, they’ll find it exchanged or coated with something. This was set up by someone who wanted to be at a distance when Sharon Kaye had that allergic attack. So when they heard the news they could murmur sadly, ‘How awful, how tragic,’ and maybe produce a tear.” Her mouth tightened. “How wicked.”

  Jill said, “So your original theory is right. The person who took the body away is the one sitting down with the sheriff right now. He came back to his room and found her and panicked. We’ve got two crimes, two different perps.”

  Betsy nodded. “Yes, I think that must be it. And as for the car, I think he missed his chance to move it. People were arriving, maybe he thought it had already been seen, or was afraid he’d be seen driving it away.”

  Jill said, “
You should call Sheriff Goodman right now and tell him about the EpiPen.”

  “All right.” But as Betsy got out her wallet to dig for change, she heard footsteps on the stairs and looked up to see Doogie coming down.

  “Ah, nuts, I might’ve known I’d run right into you two,” he said, half annoyed, half amused. “But I told Liddy that if I saw you I’d ask, so maybe you can tell me when they are going to release my father.”

  Betsy replied, “I have no way of telling that. I’m not connected with any law enforcement agency.”

  “How about your friend, the cop?”

  Jill said, “I have no connection with local law enforcement.”

  Betsy said, twiddling her left eyebrow significantly, “Jill, why don’t you call the sheriff and ask him? I think he’ll be willing to talk to you, as a fellow law enforcement person. Ask him if and when he’s going to release Frank. Meanwhile, I want to talk with Douglas.” Betsy could not bring herself to call a murder suspect Doogie.

  Faced with this offer of quid pro quo, Douglas could only nod. “Come up to our room, okay?” He looked into the dining room and led the way back up the stairs.

  He gave two brisk knocks on the angled door to his father’s room even as he turned the knob. Apparently his whole family wasn’t big on locks.

  Betsy followed him in. Liddy was lying on her stomach on the bed, propped up on elbows. Carla was sitting in a little upholstered chair by the fireplace, in which a small fire burned.

  Douglas said, obviously in response to a request he go down and check, “They’re still setting up lunch, so we’ll have to wait awhile longer.”

  Liddy sighed and lay completely down.

  “Well, it’s your own fault,” Douglas said. “You should have eaten last night, or come down this morning for breakfast.”

  Carla said, “Doogie, have a little sympathy for your sister.”

  “How little can I have?” Douglas made an amused wincing face and said, “Sorry. Oh, by the way, Ms. Devonshire here has asked her friend to find out Dad’s status, so in return I said she could talk to us a little bit.”