Crewel Yule

by Ferris, Monica

  “Sure, all right.”

  But Betsy thought she knew of another reason: With everyone in chairs, their heads would all be on one level. It’s hard to control a conversation with someone who is looking down on you, as Cherry would on them sitting on the couch. She’d read that in a Travis McGee novel a long time ago—it’s possible to learn real things from fiction. Though Betsy was willing to bet Jill hadn’t learned it from a novel.

  “Would you like coffee?” Cherry asked them, still the hostess. The sitting room was full of the smell of freshly brewed coffee and a pot of it was sitting in its maker on the narrow counter beside the sink.

  “Why, yes, thank you,” said Jill, who drank coffee all day long, even at bedtime. “Black, please,” she added.

  “No, thank you,” said Betsy, who couldn’t sleep if she indulged in caffeine after two o’clock. It was nearly five. She wrote Cherry’s name at the top of the page and below it wrote, Volatile.

  Cherry brought a mug for Jill and filled a second for herself. “Now,” she said, wrapping her hand around her mug rather than holding it by the handle, “what did you want to ask me about Belle?”

  Jill said, “Something else first: You’ve probably been asked a thousand times—”

  “Yes, it’s my real name,” the woman interrupted, her smile gone sour. She spread her lower arms in a gesture half shrug, half invitation—but gently, so as not to slosh. “And it’s okay to laugh, really it is. Though I wish my parents had at least thought to give me a middle name, in case I didn’t think their joke was funny. Which I don’t. Because then I wouldn’t have a problem every time someone asks me my name.” She shook her head, her mouth still pulled back in that painful smile. “But at least it’s not the kind of name people forget as soon as they hear it.”

  “You’re right there,” said Betsy, looking down at her open notebook, away from the pain. She wrote: Hates her name. On the side opposite the blank page was Rule 6: Reward, reward, reward—and praise! So she added, “And it’s not a bad name, really. Sweet, cheerful, down-home, and delicious. Cherry pie is on just about everyone’s list of favorites.”

  Cherry cocked her head at Betsy, judging her, then smiled. “Thank you,” she said, drawing the words out a little to emphasize she was really pleased, and took a sip of coffee.

  Jill asked, “Did you and Belle arrive together at the Market?”

  Cherry nodded. “We flew in Friday evening. We’d decided not to take any classes this year.”

  Betsy asked, “Does Belle have any relatives who need to be told?”

  Cherry paused to take a breath that was nearly a sob. “Well, she has a sister named Cassy and a brother. I think his name is Eliot. I don’t know where they live—not in Wisconsin, I know that. Her parents are dead. There isn’t a husband—at least, she’s divorced. It was a long time ago, no kids. There’s an aunt and an uncle . . .” Cherry, eyes half closed, had been nodding at each person named in her recitation while Betsy made swift notes. She opened them again, and Betsy saw their green had gone from a soft Anchor 261 to something nearly gray—maybe 1040?

  “I didn’t know what to do. You see, I can’t get home. So what I did was, I e-mailed our attorney, and asked him to notify her relatives, since I don’t know how to from here. I have the information—at home. In a drawer. I kept meaning to put it into my computer, but never did. It should have occurred to me, I suppose, that I might need that information away from home. You know, emergency contact numbers.” She glanced toward the door to the bedroom. “I use the same laptop at home and on the road, so my computer’s right in there.” She looked at Jill. “Was that the right thing to do? I hate to think of a lawyer calling these people to tell them. That sounds kind of cold.”

  “You did fine,” said Jill. “And you’re being very helpful to us. How long did you know Belle?”

  “I met her nine or ten years ago, when she was working in the shop we ended up buying. That was before my accident. We were partners almost five years. I saw her almost every day during those five years.”

  “So you were friends?” asked Betsy.

  Cherry blinked several times, as if surprised at the question, took another sip of her coffee, then nodded. “Of course.”

  Betsy wrote, Liar? and asked, “What was she like?”

  Cherry thought a moment, then smiled. “There’s a word someone used once, and it was just right. ‘Vivacious.’ That was Belle. Smart and full of energy. And she was sweet—and funny, mostly making fun of herself. Good with customers. People really liked her.”

  “Did she have any faults?” Betsy got just the right tone, making it sound as if Cherry must be exaggerating this paragon.

  Cherry’s smile faded. “Nobody’s perfect, of course.” She looked at her hands. Jill inhaled softly, as if to ask something, but Betsy, turning over a page in the booklet, jogged her elbow and she exhaled again without speaking.

  After a few moments, Cherry said, “Okay, she was kind of airheaded, forgetting to order things for customers, or messing up an order—but she made jokes about it, like she’d say her brain must be made out of a sieve; and customers couldn’t stay mad at her for more than a minute.”

  Betsy smiled and nodded, writing. “I’ll remember that for next time I mess up in my shop.”

  Jill said, “Now, about today. Do you think what happened to her was an accident?”

  “Why sure, what else could it be?”

  “Well, those railings are kind of high for a person to go over by accident.”

  “They are? I thought they were kind of low.”

  Betsy asked, “How tall was Belle?”

  “Five-foot-three and three-quarters. She thought it was cute to say that, rather than rounding up to five-four.”

  “I’m five-four,” said Betsy. She half stood. “The railing comes up to here on me.” She held her forearm horizontally across her lower ribs, then sat down again. “I couldn’t go over by accident unless I was standing on something and leaned over too far.” She looked inquiringly at Cherry, who widened her eyes at her in surprise.

  “You mean like standing on a chair?” Cherry considered that with a doubtful expression, and then shook her head.

  “Can you stand?” Jill asked abruptly.

  Cherry’s attention swiveled back to her. “If I have something to hang onto, like a bar, or crutches. I can stand alone in water, if it’s deep enough. But I can’t walk. I have feeling in my legs, but I can’t move them. Oh, I see what you’re getting at. If I try to stand, I fall over easily, so maybe I’m—what do you call it—projecting.”

  “Yes, possibly,” said Jill. “But you see how there may be a problem, trying to figure out how Belle went over the railing by accident.”

  “Yes. Yes, I can see that now.”

  “But what about suicide?” asked Betsy.

  Cherry turned to Betsy, her eyes green again. “Yes, what about that? Do you think. . .?” She wheeled forward, all the way to the table, to put her coffee cup on it, let her hand rest on the cup a moment or two, then pulled it back into her lap. “Because she was different lately. Preoccupied, I guess that’s the word. Not really unhappy, not what I’d call depressed, but something was wrong. She didn’t say what, but something was wrong. So maybe—maybe yes, it could be suicide.”

  Betsy wrote, Agrees it might be suicide.

  Jill asked, “Where were you when you learned she was dead?”

  Cherry drew her shoulders up and her eyes wandered around the room. “In an elevator.” She touched her chin with her fingertips, and her eyes came back to Jill. “I mean, I was just passing by the Kreinik suite—it was too crowded for me to get in there—when I heard the yell and the . . . the smash, but I thought it was a prank, someone dropping something to get a rise out of us. Or a banner falling. I never thought it could be a person. People were excited and rushing around, but I didn’t want to go gaping like a tourist, so I refused to pay any attention. Then in the elevator I heard someone . . . say it was a person who fe
ll and she was . . . dead, and I looked then, and recognized—” Cherry cut herself off with a gesture, and a big sob escaped her. “Excuse me.” She turned and rolled swiftly toward the bathroom, nicking the extra-wide doorway on her way through with the axle of her chair.

  They heard the sound of sobbing, then of a nose being blown, then water running. In another minute Cherry came back, a couple of clean tissues in her lap, looking almost angry.

  “This isn’t like me!” she said harshly. “Normally I can handle anything! But every time I think about seeing her like that, I just . . . go to pieces.”

  Betsy, the image rising unbidden behind her eyes, said, “It’s horrible to see anyone dead from a big fall. And to see someone you know all broken, that must be terribly difficult.”

  Cherry’s mouth thinned with distress. “Yes, it was.” She looked down at her lap, and said softly, “And yet, on the other hand, I keep forgetting it happened. Like, this is my third time here in Nashville, and everything else is so familiar that I keep thinking Belle will come in here and tell me to quit goofing off talking to people and get back to buying.” Cherry’s face suddenly twisted and she put the heels of her hands up to her eyes. “Sorry . . . sorry.”

  She shifted her hands so they covered her face, and continued in a muffled, angry voice, “Could you find out when they’re going to take her away? I can’t stand their leaving her down on the floor like that!”

  Jill said, “That’s been taken care of. An ambulance crew managed to climb the hill on foot a couple of hours ago.”

  “Oh?” Cherry brought her hands down to show a surprised blank. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “I went down for lunch and saw she was still there, and I came right back up here and didn’t go out again. So I didn’t know.” She looked around the room, as if for the complaint she had unexpectedly been relieved of. “Where . . . where did they take her?”

  “I’m sure they’re holding the body at the morgue in case they decide to do an autopsy.”

  “Why? I mean, if they thought it was an accident . . .”

  “Well, they’re probably going to wait until I report in,” said Jill. “And I’m quite sure it wasn’t an accident. So let’s continue. How did you come to be partners?”

  Cherry looked at her for a few moments, a little surprised. But Jill had asked another question and now she hastened to answer it.

  “I was looking to invest some of the money I got in a settlement after my accident. A lot of it went into safe places, but I’m young and I plan to live to a ripe old age, so I want to grow my money. Belle had worked in this shop for a long time, and I came in a lot so we knew each other. She told me it was for sale, but she didn’t have the money to buy it. Every time I came in, there were other customers, especially on weekends. She thought it was a good investment, and so did I.”

  “But it wasn’t?”

  “Well, not as good as I hoped. I guess I didn’t understand that owning a small business isn’t exactly like planting a money tree.”

  “You got that right,” Betsy said in a dry voice.

  Cherry made a sound like a chuckle being strangled at birth, then cleared her throat and became serious. “This is so strange,” she said.

  “What is?” asked Betsy.

  “We’re sitting here making jokes about owning a business, and at the same time we’re talking about Belle’s death. And you”—she looked at Jill—“you’re saying it wasn’t an accident. Do you really think it was suicide?”

  “Seriously? No.”

  Cherry’s mouth opened, but then she froze. “No? What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean I’m not sure it was a suicide, either.”

  The color drained from Cherry’s face, and she looked at Betsy. “What does she mean?” she asked, though it was obvious she knew the answer.

  “She means she thinks Belle might have been murdered.”

  “No!” shouted Cherry. “That’s impossible!” She turned on Jill, angry and frightened. “You’re crazy! All of a sudden you’re talking like you’re crazy! This is stupid, I can’t listen to this! You’re going to have to leave, right now!”

  “All right.” Jill stood.

  Betsy didn’t stand, but said, “You know, if someone murdered Belle, I’d think you’d want to know who. And, since you were her partner, why.”

  “Why?” Cherry echoed. Her puzzled frown suddenly smoothed away. “Oh, why. I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe you shouldn’t go, then. Maybe I could keep answering your questions.”

  And Betsy made another brief note: Scared.

  Seventeen

  Saturday, December 15, 4:28 P.M.

  Jill turned back, sat down, and asked, “Was anyone you know mad at Belle?”

  There was a pause, then Cherry murmured, “God, I hate this.” She sighed and wrung her hands, and Betsy was struck by the play of powerful muscles in her forearms. “All right. Like I said, Belle was a bit of an airhead. She made it cute, part of her charm, but it sometimes meant things didn’t get done and customers would be disappointed.”

  “Any customer in particular?”

  “Well, Judy Neville, who was supposed to bring a marriage sampler to a friend’s wedding, but Belle put the due date down wrong and it wasn’t ready on time. Judy was angry and said she wasn’t going to bring anything else to us to be finished ever again. She was pretty steamed about it.”

  “I don’t suppose Judy Neville is here at the Market today,” mused Betsy, and Cherry laughed uncomfortably and agreed that she wasn’t.

  “We mean someone here at Market who was angry at Belle,” persisted Jill.

  “Yes, I know, I understand,” said Cherry. She wheeled back a foot and forward again. “Lenore King,” she said at last. “She’s here and she’s pretty upset.”

  Betsy wrote the name down while Jill said, “She’s the one with the Christmas tree sampler, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. Have you seen her model? It’s kind of a mess.”

  “And she blames Belle for that,” suggested Jill, glancing at Betsy, who flashed her a replying look meaning yes, yes, I understand. She had no intention of letting Cherry know they’d already talked with Lenore.

  “Yes. And she’s right, it was Belle’s fault. Lenore brought her model to us in early August, before INRG announced the change of date. God, it was a beautiful thing, you could see that even when it was in eight pieces. So Belle sent it to Marj with a February 4 due date. Then the Market got changed to December.” Cherry drew a breath and let it out, and said, reluctantly, “And Belle didn’t call Marj to tell her Lenore needed that piece before Lenore left for Nashville. She knew, she had to know; Lenore had done nothing but talk about how she was going to introduce it at Market. She bragged about how Bewitching Stitches was going to publish the pattern, and worried over how it had to sell well if she wanted to become a professional pattern designer. So every employee and regular at Samplers and More knew this was happening at Market, we even had customers talking about it when Lenore wasn’t there.”

  “Did Lenore come in and specifically tell Belle that she needed the pattern in December instead of February?” asked Betsy.

  Cherry started to smile, but it got twisted up in her look of exasperation and distress. “No, she came in and told me. I wrote a note to Belle and put it on the checkout counter right beside the phone. She told Lenore she never saw the note.”

  Betsy nodded as she wrote, Same story. Meaning it agreed with what Lenore had said.

  “Well, then it seems to me the person Lenore would be mad at is you,” Jill pointed out.

  “And it would have been if Lenore hadn’t watched me write the note and put it where Belle couldn’t have missed it. I think it annoyed Belle just a little that she couldn’t make me share the blame.” This time the smile won, if barely.

  “Did she do that once in a while?” Betsy asked. “Dump the blame on you?” Her tone was sympathetic.

  “No!” said Cherry, too sharply. She realized that and winced, then amended
, “Oh, all right, once in a while,” her tone reluctant. “Sometimes I would think she was like the half of the population that believes people with spinal cord injuries have major brain-cell loss, too.” She shrugged. “But then she’d do something so nice, so sweet, I’d remember that we really were partners, and we’d be friends again.”

  Jill asked, “Is it possible Belle deliberately failed to contact your finisher about Lenore’s model?”

  Cherry hesitated. “Why would she do that?”

  “Maybe because there was a quarrel of some sort,” suggested Betsy, “between Lenore and Belle.”

  Jill turned to Betsy. “That can’t be right, Betsy, because if there was, she could’ve taken it to some other finisher.”

  “No, for two reasons,” said Cherry. “First, we’re the only cross-stitch shop in Milwaukee. Second, we have a wonderful finisher. People who move away will sometimes mail us projects for Marj to finish. I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose, it’s just that once in a while Belle would mess up. This time it turned out really, really bad for Lenore.”

  “Up to that point, had Belle been encouraging Lenore’s efforts?” Betsy asked.

  “Oh, yes. She put some of her early patterns in our newsletter, and helped her find a good computer program to print out new ones, and encouraged her to enter her work in competitions. Then as Lenore improved, she made copies of her patterns, to give to customers as freebies. And later she was all cheers for Lenore when she sold a pattern to a magazine. But then Lenore got this idea for a Christmas tree sampler, and when Belle saw how great it really was, all she could do was criticize it. If Lenore hadn’t brought it to a guild meeting and heard all the raves, she might not have sent it to Bewitching Stitches.”

  Betsy asked, “You think it was sabotage?”

  Cherry nodded wordlessly.