The Drowning Spool

by Monica Ferris

  “When?” asked Betsy.

  “End of August.”

  “Which, another boy?”

  “I don’t know. I may not want to know.”

  “So what does this do to your plan to get that private-eye license?”

  Jill stepped back and shrugged. “That can wait. I can be a PI after menopause, but the window for having children is narrowing. And I wanted at least three.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “All is very, very well—touch wood.” Jill bent over and touched the wooden toggle that fastened her daughter’s knit hat under her chin. Like Betsy, Jill only thought she was not superstitious.

  Emma Beth looked up at Betsy. She was radiantly fair, her hair almost white, her complexion palest ivory, her large eyes a clear light blue. She was wearing royal-blue leggings and coat, and her hat was bright yellow. “Do you have any bubbles you need for me to snap, Aunt Betsy?”

  Erik smiled his most winning smile. “Can I have popping bubbles, too, please?” he said. His hair was a golden red, his eyes dark gray. He was tall for his age, just a few inches shorter than his sister. He was wearing forest green snow pants and ski jacket, and his knit hat was white.

  Betsy agreed she had some bubbles that needed popping and went to the checkout desk to pull out two sheets of bubble wrap. In short order, the two children were seated at the library table in the middle of the room, their expressions serious, their little fingers busy.

  Jill and Betsy stood just out of earshot near the box shelves that divided the needlepoint part of the shop in front from the counted cross-stitch section in back.

  “Any other news?” asked Betsy.

  “How could I have other news newer than yours?” Jill replied. “You’ve blown that case wide open by letting Wilma Carter show you that secret way into and out of the complex. But these young people: What was the attraction of a secret entrance, anyway?”

  Betsy smiled at her. “Sometimes I think I’m younger than you instead of older. Ever hear of skinny-dipping?”

  “Who was—oh. Teddi. But how did she know about it?”

  “I don’t know. But people rarely go skinny-dipping alone. So someone else must have known, and showed that entrance to Teddi—or Teddi knew and showed someone else. And there were probably others. This was too delicious a secret to be kept, don’t you think?”

  “That sounds very logical. But who is the person who first discovered it?”

  “That is the question of the hour. Neither the Hopkins police nor the Watered Silk staff can find a connection between Teddi and Wilma. But we’ll find out more, I hope, when Wilma is able to remember the secret door again.”

  • • •

  THE next morning, as Betsy and Connor were relaxing over a second cup of strong black Irish tea—Betsy couldn’t tell it from black English tea, but Connor insisted there was a difference—the phone rang. Betsy was closer, so she got up to answer it.

  “Betsy, it’s Jill.” Her voice was hushed.

  Betsy was alarmed by her tone. Had something happened to the baby Jill was carrying? “What’s the matter?” Betsy asked.

  “Wilma Carter is dead. She was found dead in her bed this morning. No sign of foul play, but this was certainly unexpected. An autopsy will be ordered.”

  Betsy was struck dumb. Her first foolish thought was, No more “wait a minute, wait a minute.”

  Then she found her voice. “God have mercy on her soul, poor thing! Oh, this is terrible!”

  Betsy hung up and Connor was beside her an instant later. “What is it, machree?”

  Betsy leaned in and Connor took her in his arms. “Someone has murdered Wilma!” she said, and burst into tears.

  “Murdered? Are they sure? How was it done?”

  “They don’t know—they aren’t even sure it’s murder. But I am, I most assuredly am!”

  Eleven

  WHEN Betsy came down to open the shop the next morning, Godwin was already there. The lights were on, the coffee was brewed, the Bose was broadcasting something light and sparkling from NPR. Godwin turned sad eyes on her and said, “Oh, my dear, Jill called to tell me to be extra nice to you today—and why. Do you want to go back upstairs?”

  “Thank you, Goddy, but no. I’m upset, of course, but I think I’ll do better if I’m at work.”

  “Do you really think it’s murder? After all, she was old and had a terminal disease.”

  “Alzheimer’s doesn’t kill suddenly. The path downward is a long one, and she was far from the bottom. It could have been a heart attack or stroke. All the same . . .”

  “All right,” Godwin said, nodding. “Maybe the autopsy will tell us something.”

  “I hope the autopsy is clear.”

  • • •

  WILMA Carter’s funeral was a church service in the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church in Minneapolis. A big, roughly circular building of gray stone, it had a tall, elaborate, delicate spire rising from its center, supported on slim flying buttresses.

  Preston Munro; his wife, Sonja; and Tony Halloway, Sony’s father, crossed the street together, preparing to enter the church. Tony, a tall man with a respectable paunch, was wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black silk tie under a dark gray wool overcoat. Preston, tall and thin, with dramatic cheekbones and piercing dark eyes, was wearing navy blue slacks, light blue shirt and tie, and dark brown blazer under a lined raincoat. Sony, also tall, and strongly built with thick golden hair swept back from her face, was in a deep green dress, black low-heeled shoes, and a light gray long coat with a black fox collar.

  Preston was there under protest, though he was trying to conceal it. He had met Wilma only three times in his life: once at his wedding, again at his son’s christening, and once at Watered Silk. His father-in-law, Tony, was Wilma’s nephew, which made her his great-aunt-in-law, too distant a relation to be important. And although Tony remembered Wilma fondly from her younger days, he had finished grieving for her long before she died, when she stopped knowing who he was. Sony was sad and a little bitter—she had loved Wilma and resented the attitude of the two men with her.

  The interior of the church was a descending semicircle, with the altar at the bottom and the pews in the nave rising upward, and a choir loft surrounding it. Wilma’s coffin, closed and covered with a magnificent purple and gold pall, stood near the altar. An enormous wreath of white lilies rested on it. Sony wondered where the wreath had come from.

  She was surprised at the large turnout. She knew Wilma had been the widow of a Minnesota Supreme Court judge—but he had died twenty years ago. I guess the political class have long memories, she thought. Looking around, Sony recognized several important Minnesota political figures among the sixty or more mourners. While the organ played, she read the service bulletin. There was a brief biography. She was glad to see the mention of Wilma’s amazing book of wildlife photographs. It had won the Minnesota Book Award the year it was published. Sony had her own cherished copy and her son, Little Tony, loved to look at it.

  The minister came out in a black cassock, white surplice, and purple stole. He was a short, rotund man with a great shock of white hair and an air of dignity. His voice, amplified by the microphone, was very deep. “We have gathered here this morning in God’s presence,” he began, startling Sony into thinking for a moment he had mistakenly opened his prayer book to the marriage service. But he continued, “. . . to remember the life of Wilma Carter, and to commend her soul into the gracious care of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

  The service was moving, the music familiar, including a beautiful restatement of Psalm 23.

  “O God,” concluded the minister, “give us now your grace, that as we shrink before the mystery of death, we may see the light of eternity.”

  The eulogies were touching and heartfelt, though one politician seemed to think they were here to honor Wilma’s late husband rather than Wilma herself. Tony had been asked to say something, but he’d asked Sony to speak for the family.


  Sony had wrung her heart out on two pages. She clutched them tightly as she made her way to the lectern. But standing there, behind the covered coffin with its lilies, she lost her ability to speak. She cleared her throat twice, then wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and finally managed to begin, “Great-Aunt Wilma was funny and creative, brilliant and fearless—and a second mother to me. She loved Valley Fair, and would take me on the roller coaster as many times as I wanted to ride. I never thought of her as old, and was shocked when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

  “She loved the outdoors, especially the Boundary Waters, where she would take me camping and fishing. She taught me to admire nature on its own terms. She loved politics a little less, but worked hard on her husband’s behalf when he was campaigning. And she . . . she loved me.

  “She taught me to live life to the fullest. I will never forget the way she’d come hurrying in to my birthday parties, late as usual, calling ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, start over!’” She had to pause while a rush of reminiscent laughter filled the church. “Or how she’d rush ahead at the State Fair, calling, ‘Come on, come on, follow me!’ Oh, Aunt Wilma, I know where you are now, and I hope someday to follow you to that happy place. I know we’re supposed to say ‘God rest your soul,’ but somehow I think you’re too busy to rest, trotting around heaven with your camera, catching angels unaware and Saint Peter in his bath.”

  Sony didn’t hear the congregation’s appreciative laughter this time. She stumbled back to her seat, where Preston put a good, strong arm around her, and her father blew his nose like a proud trumpet.

  The final hymn was one not found in the hymnal, but entirely appropriate for Wilma: “How Can I Keep from Singing?”

  After the service, while they waited for Wilma’s coffin to be loaded into the hearse for its trip to the cemetery, Sony noticed a group of four or five men and one woman standing a little to one side. They looked alert and professional. Who were they? Sony wondered. Why were they here? She slowed as she passed and heard the woman say, “What did the autopsy show?”

  One of the men, shorter than his companions, with a freckled face and thin lips, said quietly, “Atropine.”

  As she listened, Sony felt Preston come up behind her. As he took her by the arm, she pulled him not toward the door but off to the side, where she heard the freckle-faced man say, “Someone got into the box of Exelon kept in a locked cabinet in her room, and injected a fatal dose of atropine into the back of one of the foil packets. The used packet was found in a wastebasket and it had a tiny puncture in it.”

  “Oh my God,” murmured Sony.

  One of the other men turned to look out the open door and saw her. She immediately took Preston’s arm and went out to stand on the porch. She looked at Preston, whose expression was grim. He had heard it, too. Murder! Great-Aunt Wilma had been murdered—and the police knew it!

  • • •

  AFTER the next Monday Bunch meeting, Phil and Doris stayed to talk with Betsy. Phil, in his rather loud, hoarse voice—he was a little deaf and didn’t always wear his hearing aids—said, “I know you tried to help Bershada’s nephew after he lost his job at Watered Silk, and that didn’t go too good, so maybe we shouldn’t try to get you to help us with an even bigger problem that has to do with it all over again.”

  Normally, Phil was direct, so this circumlocution made Betsy wary of what was coming. Still, she said encouragingly, “What’s the new problem?”

  “You know that drowned girl was pregnant.”

  “Yes.”

  Phil hesitated, so Doris spoke up. “Phil’s grandnephew Tommy—Thomas Shore is his name—was the father of Teddi Wahlberger’s baby.”

  “Oh my,” said Betsy. “So now he’s a suspect?”

  “Oh, yes, definitely,” said Phil.

  “Is he under arrest?” Betsy asked.

  “Not yet,” said Phil. His old-man’s face, rumpled as an unmade bed, was further disordered by eyebrows that twisted upward unevenly, and by the severe downward turn of his wide, thin-lipped mouth. “He’s a nice, sweet boy,” insisted Phil. “He didn’t—he couldn’t—not ever—wouldn’t—kill anyone!” He wrung his broad, strong fingers hard. His eyes were shiny with tears, but he didn’t break down.

  “How did the police identify Tommy as a person of interest?” asked Betsy.

  “They talked to Teddi’s roommates,” said Phil, “and they said Tommy was one of the men Teddi was dating. There are at least two others, but they could only find one of them. I hear they took DNA samples from the two they had, and lightning struck Tommy.”

  “The problem is . . . ” said Doris, halting as she glanced at Phil.

  “Yeah, all right, the problem is, Tommy lied to them. First, he said he never heard of Teddi Wahlberger. When the roommates said Teddi invited a guy named Tommy over to a barbecue a couple of times, and described him, he finally admitted it, but said he’d never, er, well, you know.” Phil was old-fashioned; intimate details were not to be shared in mixed company.

  “But then,” said Doris, “it turns out he was the father of that poor unborn child. So now he says that he never heard of Watered Silk and never knew anything about an indoor heated pool over there.”

  “And they don’t believe him,” said Phil.

  “I can see why,” Betsy said.

  “Yeah. So, is there anything you can do to help him?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose I can try. How about I start by talking to him? Do you want to arrange a meeting, or will you give me his contact information and I’ll get in touch with him directly?”

  “We’ve already told him we’re going to ask you for help,” said Doris. “He’s agreed to talk to you. He’s really scared—and so are we.”

  Phil handed Betsy a slip of paper. “Here’s his cell number. He’s waiting to hear from you.”

  • • •

  THE next day, Betsy was sitting in a booth at the Barleywine, Excelsior’s microbrewery, waiting to meet Thomas Shore for lunch. A couple of minutes late, he came in shyly, looking for her. She waved, and he came over to her.

  He was handsome—almost pretty—short and trim with a young face and a vulnerable cast to his features. Betsy was surprised; she’d been told he was twenty-four, and here he looked about nineteen. He had a fresh, unlined complexion and rosy cheeks, though his hands, while clean, bore the thickening that comes from physical labor, and he had walked in with an adult tiredness. He wore work boots, stained jeans with a split at one knee revealing long underwear, and a dark-brown turtleneck sweater under an old mock-sheepskin coat with a torn pocket. Heavy, fur-lined gloves were stuffed in the intact pocket. There was a farm- animal smell about him.

  “Hello, Mr. Shore,” said Betsy.

  “Hello, Ms. Devonshire.” His voice was light but not thin. He slid in opposite her. “Can we get our food right away? I have to get back to chores before I go to my job.”

  “All right.”

  Betsy ordered one of those salads that feature six kinds of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, purple onion, black olives, sweet yellow peppers, celery, carrots, and feta cheese, with a balsamic vinegar and oil dressing. She asked for a diet ginger ale.

  Tommy had a bacon cheeseburger and skin-on fries, and a big mug of pale ale. He ate quickly, as if he hadn’t been fed for a week—another reason to think he was surely younger than twenty-four.

  Betsy said, “I’m pleased you agreed to talk with me face- to-face.”

  Tommy chewed and swallowed before responding. “Uncle Phil and Aunt Doris said you are like magic when it comes to detecting crime.” His smile was hopeful.

  Betsy waved her fork dismissively. “Oh, sometimes I can see through a problem, find a missing link, or make a connection. I do it in my shop all the time. And when it comes to crime, it usually happens when I try to prove the innocence of someone who’s been falsely accused.”

  “Wow, that’s me!” He put his burger down, his light-blue eyes shining. “Can you really do tha
t? Will you do it for me? I have this feeling that any second a big hand is gonna grab me from behind, slap the cuffs on me, and start telling me I have the right to remain silent.”

  “Has that ever happened to you before?”

  His eyes shifted briefly. “No, never.”

  He was lying. Betsy gritted her teeth and pretended she didn’t know. “If it happens, invoke it.”

  “Invoke it?” Tommy looked as if he wasn’t sure what “invoke” meant.

  “Say you don’t want to answer any questions without your lawyer present.” Betsy had a strong feeling he was going to need this advice.

  Tommy looked alarmed. “I don’t have a lawyer. Are you saying I should hire one? How much do they cost? I don’t have any money.”

  “A good one is expensive. But the state has to provide one for you if you can’t afford one.”

  Tommy nodded. “That’s right, that’s part of that rights thing they recite when they arrest you.”

  “Pay attention to it, and tell them you won’t answer their questions without a lawyer. Then stick to it.” Betsy repeated what Jill and Lars had told her: “No matter how friendly they appear, no matter how much you want to explain, sit tight and don’t give them any information that’s not on your driver’s license, and say over and over that you want to talk to a lawyer.”

  Again Tommy nodded, this time more thoughtfully. “Okay, gotcha. Invoke my right to silence.” He picked up his burger and took a bite before continuing. “But it’s not gonna come to that, right? I mean, you’re gonna do your magic thing and I’ll be out of trouble.”

  Betsy gave him her most level look and said, “A very dear friend of mine was arrested for a murder he did not commit and spent weeks in jail before I could clear him. What I do is not magic, Mr. Shore, it’s justice.”

  Tommy swallowed thickly. “Okay, okay, I see what you’re getting at. But really, honestly, as strong as I can put it, I didn’t murder Teddi.”

  Betsy took a bite of her salad, which was fresh and delicious.