Cutwork (30 page)

“Oh,
Jill
!” said Betsy.

Jill nodded, and Betsy saw there were tears in her eyes. “Then and there, I decided something had to be done. I don’t want one of us to die without leaving the other a widow.” With an effort, she managed not to let a sob escape. “Is that stupid, or what?”

Betsy came to Jill and put a hand on her arm. She wanted badly to embrace her, but Jill wasn’t a hugger. She felt an enormous pity for this woman who so suppressed her feelings that they could only come out sideways like that. And at the exact same time an enormous pride in Jill, who made her way deftly through the land mines of her life without screaming about how victimized she was.

“That’s the least stupid thing I’ve heard in a long time,” Betsy said. “And I’m so glad you thought of this solution to the no-frat rule!”

Jill reached over to touch Betsy’s hand. Her shiny-new, broad gold wedding ring gleamed on one finger. “Thank you,” she said. “Now we’d better get back out there.”

Betsy had the chicken salad for lunch. Lars, puffed up like a blowfish, could not take his eyes off Jill. And Jill glowed like a candle under his regard. Betsy thought that Father John had better find a hole in his calendar soon.

Mike, sitting next to Betsy, said, “How’s the investigation going? Circling in on anyone?”

He said it lightly, but the fact that he asked made Betsy ask in return, “Are you maybe not so sure it’s Mickey Sinclair anymore?”

“I am sure,” he said with a short nod. “He’s a punk from way back, and he needs to do some hard time.”

“I can’t disagree with you,” said Betsy. “He’s a liar with a bad attitude and a larcenous soul. But I don’t think he’s a murderer. Have you talked with him lately?”

“No. I think his attorney is working on him to cop some kind of plea. It won’t work; this isn’t some jerkoff who got killed. And it happened in the course of another crime, a felony, which bumps it up to murder one.”

“I think the murder had already happened when Mick came along.”

“Oh, yeah? Two separate criminals happening along at the same time?”

“Things like that happen. How many times have the police arrived at a disaster and had to run off the thieves busy picking the pockets of the victims?”

“Yeah, but they’re just amateur thieves, taking advantage of an opportunity. Like when the back door of an armored truck opens up and twenty-dollar bills go scattering along the freeway. Some gather them up and turn them in, some don’t stop, and some think of them as a bonus for being in the right place at the right time. Professional thieves will make an opportunity.”

“Still, it takes a certain hard-heartedness to go poking through a dead man’s pockets, surely,” said Betsy.

“Oh, I agree that’s different, going through a dead man’s pockets.”

Betsy nodded. “Okay, but stealing is stealing; it’s only a matter of degree.”

Mike nodded back. “And nerve. Me, I’m too busy trying to hang on to my dinner when I come across something gross to think about dipping into a pocket.”

Betsy looked across the table at Lars and Jill, lost in their own conversation. How nice to think that something gross was averted in their case. And led directly to this very pleasant occasion.

“Lars,” she said, and he looked over at her, eyebrows raised in inquiry. “Did you drive out here in your Stanley?”

“Yep,” he said. “Gonna take my bride for a ride.”

Jill smiled at Betsy. She hadn’t liked the machine when Lars first bought it, but Betsy knew now she would never again complain about its peculiar ways and bad smells.

 
Back at the shop, Godwin was waiting with six customers, all of them agog for the news. Betsy, glad she wasn’t going to disappoint them, laughed at their eagerness and said, “Officer Lars Larson and Sergeant Jill Cross were married today. They are very happy, and I’m happy for them.”

Godwin gaped satisfactorily, and most of the customers cheered—one or two didn’t know the happy couple. They all slowly cleared out, revealing Shelly waiting impatiently. It was not a day she was scheduled to work, and she didn’t have any needlework materials in her hand she wanted to buy. “I’m not telling you anything more about the wedding,” warned Betsy.

Shelly laughed. “No, I want to show you something.” She dipped into her purse and came up with some computer printouts of photos taken with a digital camera. “Here, look at this.”

Obediently, Betsy took the sheets and looked at them. They appeared to be of a very large puppet made of sheet metal suspended on wire cables. The figure was of a nude woman, her figure voluptuous, her pose graceful. A length of very thin material had been wrapped across her breasts and around her upper thighs. A gentle breeze must have been blowing, since a streamer of the fabric was lifted into a graceful line.

The second picture was taken from a slightly different angle—no, it was the same angle, but
the figure had moved.
The pose was more sensual. Betsy looked inquiringly at Shelly, who nodded vigorously. “Isn’t he wonderful?” Shelly said.

Betsy looked again at the photos. “He did say he wanted to make a kinetic sculpture. Is this it?”

“More like a study or a model,” said Shelly. “The final piece will be jointed differently, and about ten feet tall. It’s supposed to hang outside so the wind can make it change poses. What do you think?”

Betsy thought she knew Shelly, but the Shelly she thought she knew couldn’t possibly be pleased to think the general public would someday be staring at her naked self doing a bit of dirty dancing. But it was not her place to say so. “It’s . . . interesting,” said Betsy, the standard Minnesota reply to a question one didn’t want to answer honestly.

“Look at the next one,” said Shelly.

On the next sheet was a picture more like the sculptures Betsy had seen on Ian’s website. It was of an old man peering forward, as if straining to see. His ancient skin had as many folds as the loincloth he wore. He held a lantern high in one hand. The patina had come out wrong, thought Betsy. Instead of an effect as of light coming from the lantern, it was as if the lantern had spilled soot all over the old man on that side.

Betsy studied it for a minute. “It’s really nice,” she said. And it was, but it was somehow different from the ones she’d seen on the website. The figure was more explicit, somehow. Apparently Ian’s excitement over the kinetic sculpture had started him thinking differently about his style. It more nearly resembled the veiled dancer than it did the angry child.

“There’s not a strong expression on the face of the man,” said Shelly.

“Well, yes, now you point it out,” said Betsy. The man looked lost, or maybe just sad, it was hard to tell. And that was the big thing that was wrong with it; the other sculptures expressed powerful, unmistakable emotions.

“Ian’s not satisfied with this,” said Shelly, coming to look over Betsy’s shoulder. “But they’re really anxious for it, so he’s shipping it off today.”

“It will be interesting to see if this commands as big a price as the others.”

“Well, why shouldn’t it?” asked Shelly, surprised.

“Yes, why shouldn’t it?” echoed Betsy. Shelly nodded, satisfied, and went back to admiring the photos of the kinetic sculpture. But Betsy was thoughtful for the rest of the afternoon.

20

Mickey’s attorney called the next morning to say the boy had been moved to adult jail. Mr. Wannamaker was going to see him, and Mickey had asked to see Betsy. Did she care to come along?

Betsy did indeed. Godwin sighed and pretended to be overburdened at being left alone in the shop, but his hurt feelings were suspiciously easy to soothe with a promise to let him know what the Sinclair boy had to say for himself.

Mickey was looking a lot less sullen than he had the last time. In fact, he had that starey look of someone who has lost everything in a tornado or revolution. Adult jail is not a pleasant place to be. He sat in the plastic chair across from his attorney and Betsy and said—to her, not to him, “Please, help me.”

Betsy said, “I absolutely can’t do that unless you stop lying to me.”

“I’m not lying . . .” he began with a whine, but she gestured at him to stop it.

“You were in the park. You and your friends Thief and Noose went there to look for something to steal. You wanted to sell it so you could buy marijuana.”

Mickey’s attorney said warningly, “I am not hearing any of this.”

“Of course not,” said Betsy. To Mickey, she went on, “You separated in the park, and not long after, you called Thief’s cell phone from home to tell him you had copped some money and for him to bring Noose over.”

“No, you’re wrong, I never—” began Mickey, but Betsy was rising to her feet and he stopped.

“If you tell me again you weren’t in the park, I am going to leave, and I won’t be back.”

Mickey looked at his attorney for advice, but Mr. Wannamaker had gone into resting mode behind his expensive eyeglasses and didn’t even return the look. Mickey opened his mouth and closed it as he thought of various lies he might try, only to discard them unvoiced. Finally he shrugged and said sullenly to his hands on the table, “All right, I was in the park.”

“And you took the money from the cash box in Mr. McFey’s booth.”

Very quietly, almost with relief, “Yes.” Betsy sat down and Mickey raised his eyes and started, “But . . .” He stopped, with a desperate look that said that even though he was going to tell the truth, she wouldn’t believe him.

“But Mr. McFey was already dead when you got there,” she said.

His whole face lit up. “
Yes!
I thought nobody was in there. I didn’t see him until I was already in the booth and, and, I looked down and I was standing in blood.” His face echoed the sickening distress he must have felt at the time. “It was all over the place, like a mud puddle, only . . . And I didn’t know what to do. There was this dead guy, and I didn’t do it. I mean, he was really dead. I would’ve yelled for help, if I’d thought . . .” His eyes slid sideways, a sign he was edging away from fact. Then they came back, and he continued, “But he wasn’t moving or breathing or anything. And, and, well, there was this money, and I needed the money.”

“So you took it,” said Betsy.

“Well, it was like, I mean, he’s dead, he don’t need it anymore, right?” He took a breath and said all in a rush, “So okay, I took it and I tried to wipe my shoe off in the booth but it wouldn’t come off so I ran through the rain outside but the grass didn’t brush it off, it was still there, it even spread up on the shoelaces somehow. So I took them off and I threw them in this big trash bin behind the guy selling pork chops.” He paused long enough to swallow, relieved at having gotten past the really bad part. In fact, he waxed indignant. “Who knew they’d find them? What kind of cop goes digging in the garbage, anyhow?” He waned a little under her sardonic look.

“Anyway, I went home and I called Thief and he came over with Noose and I told them where I got it, and they didn’t believe me, that I saw a dead man. I was like, well, catch the news on TV, homies. And Thief went, maybe it’s true, there was cops and the fire department at the park. I gave them each twenty dollars, which they took, no problem, and they left.” The habitual whine came back. “And I just got the rest hid in my closet when the doorbell rings and it was the cops. I didn’t even get to spend any of it.”

Betsy said, “I believe you.”

“Thank you,” he said, chin up, as if he’d done a noble act.

“Now, think hard: Did you see or hear anyone as you came up to the booth initially?”

He frowned at her, reluctant to revisit the event. But after a pause while he thought, he said, “No. Probably not. I don’t know. I was walking kind of slow, you know, just looking around . . .” He humped his shoulders up and down, nodding, an innocent kid taking an innocent stroll.

“Uh-huh,” said Betsy.

“Okay, okay. But wait, I must not’ve seen anyone. ’Cause if I would’ve, I wouldn’t’ve gone in the booth.”

At home that night, Morrie and Betsy had a quiet dinner. Morrie, a retired police detective, was tall and thin, with a long, narrow jaw and kind eyes. She told him about seeing the Sinclair boy.

“You think he’s telling the truth now?” Morrie asked.

“Yes. He is not a sweet, innocent child, even his parents know that. But now I’m certain he did not murder Rob McFey.”

“Why did you doubt it in the first place? The evidence was strong. And it’s gotten stronger.”

“Well, for one thing, when I offered to believe he didn’t do it the first time I saw him, it was like striking a match in the dark. His eyes fairly blazed at me, and not with surprise, but with hope.”

Morrie nodded, but it was with a cop’s “just the facts” skepticism.

“Well, that’s not all, of course. But once that seed of doubt was planted, it made it possible to realize that the evidence Mike had was flawed. For example, I heard ‘fingerprints on the cash box, fingerprints on the cash box’ but never anything about fingerprints on the knife. So I thought maybe there aren’t any fingerprints on the knife. Mike did let you look at the file, didn’t he?” Though retired from the police department, Morrie maintained his relationships with various members of local constabularies, and so was sometimes able to help Betsy find things out.

“Not he. I am retired and therefore no better than any civilian.” He smiled into her disappointed eyes and said, “But Jill did. And yes, the knife handle was wiped clean.”

“I thought so,” she said, with satisfaction.

“So he wiped one but not the other. So what?”

“Now, I have never killed anyone, but it seems to me that if I stabbed someone, especially out of fear, the first thing I’d do is drop the knife. And then, if I recovered enough to decide to steal the money I came for in the first place, and if I remembered to wipe my fingerprints off the cash box, that would remind me to wipe the knife off, too.”