Knitting Bones (21 page)

“What’s behind that other door?” he asked.

“It’s the bathroom.”

This was stupid, crazy—was it possible Godwin really wasn’t here?

“You say this is your place.”

“Yes.”

“Where does Godwin live?”

“About five blocks from here.”

“But he owns this building, right?”

“Well, no. I do. And I live in this apartment. Alone. Godwin is my store manager.”

“I’ll kill you if you keep lying to me!” he raged, and pointed the gun at her, with his finger on the trigger.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked, breathless with terror, her eyes enormous in her white face.

“I want you to tell me Godwin owns a store called Crewel World.”

“Godwin owns a store called Crewel World,” she said, as if reciting a lesson—and suddenly he knew that was the lie, that
she
owned Crewel World, she owned this building, Godwin was a manager, not an owner.

“He lied!” he shouted.

“Who did?” she asked stupidly.

“None of your business! I need to get to Godwin!
Now!”

She was near tears, he could see that, which would render her useless to him, so he took a breath and then another, to calm himself. “All right, all right.”

“Do you want me to call him?” she asked.

“Yes!” he said, then, “No, no. He’d call the cops before he came.”

“Yes,” she said, “very likely. He told me he was afraid of you.”

“Well, he should be, setting me up like he did. What did he think I was gonna do? Lay down and take it?”

“I don’t understand. How did he set you up?”

He felt his throat start to close. He was perilously near tears himself. This was not going his way at all. He grabbed for his anger to give him courage. “He
framed
me! He set me up!
He’s
the murderer, not me!”

She stared at him. “Godwin—you think
Goddy
killed Bob Germaine?”

“You’re damn right I do! It won’t be the first time he’s murdered someone!”

Something flickered behind her eyes, and he thought,
She thinks I’m crazy
. “I’m not crazy! I heard how he killed his lawyer boyfriend and got away with it. He set up someone else to take the fall, and now he’s doing it again!”

“No—” she began.

“Shut up, just shut the hell up!”

“All right,” she said.

He tried to think. What should he do? She was no good. And she knew who he was. Christ, was he going to have to kill her, too?

“M
AY
I sit down?” she asked in a humble voice. “My leg is starting to hurt.”

He nearly decided to say no, but his own leg was aching and he wanted to sit down, too, so he said, “Okay, but move slow,” and waved the gun at her to get her started moving—he had taken it back into his good hand.

He watched as she started for the upholstered chair sitting at a right angle to the couch. Then he saw the big soft bag in a wooden frame beside the chair and called, “Hold it!” She froze. “On the couch, on the couch!” he ordered. Because who knew what she had in that bag?

“All right.” She went to the far end of the couch and sat down heavily. The cat, which had jumped down and gone somewhere when she turned on the light, reappeared and jumped back up to lie down beside her, reaching with a forepaw to touch her on the leg. She stroked it once, then looked at him, and put both her hands in her lap. Being the good little girl, he thought with cruel satisfaction.

He moved to the chair himself and sat down in it, easing his own leg. He’d banged it around some getting in and out of the stolen car and climbing the stairs, and it was really hurting. His arm was, too. He wondered if she had any painkillers. Probably, they gave girls medicine more often than boys, even though they needed it less. Probably something better than his damn no-good Vicodin.

But if he took one of hers, he might be slowed down to a dangerous degree. He was already having trouble holding on to the high his rage at this Godwin person had produced. What if he got so relaxed she figured she could charge him and take the gun? That was so alarming a thought that he stirred himself to talk, asking, “Who lives in the other apartments?”

“Doris Valentine lives in one, the other is empty right now.”

That answer came with a convincing carelessness. He tried to think how to get Godwin over here. If he asked her to phone him and tell him to come over, Godwin would want to know why, and even if she told some kind of story, he might not believe her—after all, it was a scary hour of the morning; there probably wasn’t much she could say that he would believe—and if he didn’t believe her, he might call the police.
I’ll ask her for his address,
he thought. But then he’d have to leave her here. He couldn’t tie her up, not with only one hand. And the woman across the hall might hear him if he shot her. Damn, this was stupid, this was ridiculous!

Without conscious thought, his left hand went to the necklace. Though he’d only owned the thing for a couple of hours, it felt as if it had always been his, soothing his stress with its texture moving under his fingers. And soothing his stress helped him think.

“Who told you Godwin lived here?” He started at her voice.

“What’s it to you?”

“I just wondered why someone would lie to you like that.”

“It was a fellow named Travis,” he said, because he was angry with him and so didn’t mind naming him.

“Travis Dash?”

“You know him?” Good!

“I’ve heard of him. I think I’ve even met him once. He and Goddy know each other. But he knows Goddy doesn’t own Crewel World.”

“But he said…he said…” Tony was trying to think of what Travis said. “He said Goddy—he calls him Goddy, too—he said Goddy ran a booth at that embroidery convention and made lot of money.”

“That’s true. He had to run it because I was in the hospital with a broken leg.”

“So he
was
there, at the convention.”

“Yes, of course.”

“So he’s the one who murdered Germaine.”

“No, of course he isn’t!”

“Well, then, who did?”

She looked frightened at the question.

“See? You think so, too!”

“No, I think you did.”

“No, I didn’t!”
he shouted.

“Well, Goddy didn’t, either,” she said in a very humble voice.

“How do you know that?”

“Because he wouldn’t. And anyway, he saw the man who murdered Bob walking out of the banquet hall,” she said.

“Germaine was murdered in the banquet room?”

“No, out in the parking garage.”

Tony blinked at her. Echoing voices, a smell like automobile tires…Was that a memory? “I didn’t,” he said. “I couldn’t’ve.”

She said gently, “Perhaps you don’t remember. Here’s how I think it happened. Bob Germaine was supposed to pick up the check at the EGA convention. I think someone found out about it and decided to steal it from him. This person went to the hotel and waylaid Bob in the parking garage next to the hotel. I think he was scared and hit Bob harder than he meant to, and killed him.” Tony felt his whole attention fastened on this recitation. Apart from the bit about hitting him too hard, she was right.

She went on, “But Bob didn’t have the check. The killer didn’t know Bob was going to pick it up at the banquet, which hadn’t started yet. The killer went through Bob’s clothes, looking for the check, but what he found was a speech Bob was going to give, thanking EGA for the check. What was he going to do? Maybe he should just run away. But he’d killed a man, and if he ran, it would be for nothing. Then he had a very clever idea, but one that would take enormous nerve.”

Trying not to sound too interested, Tony asked, “What was that?”

“He took Bob’s place. He undressed Bob, put his black suit and white dress shirt on himself. He hid Bob’s body in the trunk of his car. Then he very boldly walked into the banquet room, read the speech, and was presented with the check.”

Though he was sure this wasn’t how it happened—Tony never got the check!—Tony nodded at her to continue.

So she said, “The killer wanted to walk out and drive away in his own car, but several officers of the local EGA chapter walked him to Bob’s Lexus, so he had to drive off in it. But then he had another clever idea: He drove Bob’s car out to the long-term parking lot at the airport and left it there. Cars can sit out there for weeks.”

Tony nodded, he knew that. But so what? A lot of people knew that.

She said, “He came back to town on the light rail, picked up his own car—and got into a serious accident on his way home.”

“But if that was me, where’s the check? Where’s the goddam
check
?” demanded Tony.

“I don’t know. Maybe it got lost during the accident.”

“No, it didn’t! I got everything back, my clothes, everything! The hospital sent me home with everything! I did mean to intercept that check—it was mine, I had plans for it and everything. But I never got my hands on it. So see? See? Your story is cute, it may even be true, but it’s not about me, because I don’t have the
check!”

She was looking nervously around the living room, trying to think what to say next, but he waggled the gun and her attention came back to it. She blinked at it, as if she’d never seen a gun before.

He taunted her, “Any more ideas, lady?”

She asked, “Did the hospital send you home with a black suit and a white shirt with solid-gold cuff links?”

His left hand went to the necklace. “What about it?”

“That’s what Bob Germaine was wearing when he disappeared. When his body was found, the suit, shirt, and cuff links were missing. And his watch, a nice Bulova—”

“I didn’t pawn it!” he said, but his voice came out too high, and he moved his good arm to hide the cufflink, but it was too late, she’d already seen it, that’s what caught her eye, not the gun. He pulled the necklace away with his left hand to distract her, but she just kept on looking at his right cuff.

So he wriggled the gun some more, to bring her attention to it, to the danger she was in, to make her begin to promise not to tell anyone. Because he knew that, somehow, she knew more than he did about what happened that night at the hotel.

That was it! She was Godwin’s
partner
in this frame-up! He really was going to have to kill her, even though he’d never killed anyone in his life. But he could do it. And now he could see that she was aware of it, too, gesturing at him, opening her mouth to beg—

Suddenly something black and feathery was smacking him on the face, blotting out his vision, and biting the fingers of his broken arm, and pinching his shoulder. It was the woman, he tried to punch her with the gun. But he kept missing her somehow. The flapping was like the wings of a big bird, and now there was a bad stink. Was she whipping him with a dirty cloth? It had fishhooks in it, his fingers were being seriously torn, and his face was being scratched—the cat!

He tried leaning back and sideways while yelling and thrusting it away, but it was fastened to him and he fell out of the chair, he was on the floor, and she had tipped a lamp over on him, his arm and leg hurt, his face was being bitten, and the woman was shouting something—and then the flapping stopped and he could hear, real near and loud, a crow cawing. The gun was gone—where was the gun? He started to roll over, even though it hurt, groaning and feeling for it. Then he saw she had the gun and was pointing it at him.

“I
T
was that gold necklace,” Betsy said. “It twinkles and the crow came after it.”

“God bless the crow!” exclaimed Godwin.

“Amen,” said Betsy. “May it live long and happily in Iowa. I wish I could nominate it for that animal hero medal, but its existence has to retain the tattered remnants of a secret.”

“Did you think it would attack Tony?” asked Detective Omernic.

“No. I noticed it coming into the living room—Tony left the office door open and the light on. I never got a padlock for its cage, so it was always getting out. I tried not to look at it, but it kept coming closer to the chair. I could see it had its eye on the necklace he was twiddling. I thought about warning him, because I didn’t want it to startle him into shooting, but then I saw it was coming up to him from behind and I hoped it might distract him enough so I could run out of the apartment.”

“On a broken leg?” scoffed Godwin.

“When you’re really scared, you can run on a broken leg,” said Sergeant Omernic with the air of one who knows. They were sitting around Betsy’s table in her dining nook. Omernic had kindly come by for a wrap-up.

“Why didn’t you sic Tony on Godwin?” asked Omernic. “It was Godwin he was mad at.”

Betsy stared at him. “I couldn’t do that!”

Godwin, moved beyond words, touched his mouth with his fingertips, then went in another direction. “Anyone want coffee? It’s already made.”

“Thank you, black,” said Omernic.

“No, thank you,” said Betsy.

Godwin stood and asked over his shoulder, “Does Tony still say I’m the murderer?”

“He’s not saying much of anything,” said Omernic. “He’s an old hand at being arrested, he knows better than to say anything more than he has to. Besides, he honestly doesn’t remember what happened that night in the parking garage. That skull fracture he suffered in the car accident wiped about thirty-six hours of memory from his brain.”

“Can you convict a man of a crime he doesn’t remember committing?” asked Betsy.

“Certainly,” said Omernic. “If you can prove he did it.”

“Still,” said Godwin, coming back with a mug in each hand, “it would be weird and awful to go to prison for something you don’t remember doing.”

“I think he already halfway believes he did it,” said Betsy. “If only—I wonder where the check got to? It was never cashed or deposited in that fake account he set up. He was very firm that he never saw it, and he thinks that’s proof he’s innocent.”

“Well, Germaine’s shirt and cuff links were in his possession. Plus these two clues.” Omernic put down his mug and reached into a pocket to pull out a folded sheet of paper. Unfolded, it proved to be two sheets, photocopies. One was of a small key, the other of a photograph of a watch. Each item had a big evidence tag attached to it.

“Where did you find that?” asked Betsy, touching the picture of the watch. It appeared to have a lizard-or crocodile-skin band.

“It was pawned just a few blocks from Marc Nickelby’s condo, where Mr. Milan stayed after his own apartment caught fire. We found a partial of Milan’s thumbprint on the band, and the pawn ticket was in Milan’s possession. Also, the pawnbroker’s description of the man who pawned it for three hundred dollars matches Mr. Milan, though he used a different name.”

“Three hundred dollars for a
watch
?” said Godwin. “But it’s not a Rolex.”

“No, it’s a Bulova.”

“My father wore a Bulova,” said Betsy. “But I can’t imagine he paid even a hundred dollars for his. Of course, that was a long time ago.”

“You don’t understand,” said Omernic. “This is a very high-end Bulova, valued at close to two thousand dollars.”

“Oh!” said Betsy, bending for a closer look. “Oh, I see. Well then…is it Bob Germaine’s?”

Omernic took a drink of coffee. “His wife says it is. She bought one for his birthday about eight weeks ago, and he was not wearing a watch when he was found in the trunk of his car. Tony at first said he picked it up at an estate sale a couple of weeks ago, and had no idea it was an expensive watch. Now he says he didn’t say any such thing and since we aren’t listening to him, he’s saying nothing further.”

Betsy shook her head. She had no further thoughts herself about it. She turned to the other sheet, the one with the picture of the small brass key. She and Godwin leaned forward to look at it. The key had a small piece of white paper taped to it, or maybe it was just a strip of white adhesive tape on which was neatly printed the number
36
.

“Where did this come from?” asked Betsy.

“Tony’s apartment. He says he doesn’t know where it came from. It’s listed on the items returned to him by Hennepin County Medical Center, so it was in his pocket when he was brought there after the accident.”

“It looks like a key to a mailbox,” said Betsy.

“It doesn’t open his mailbox in his apartment building,” said Omernic.

“Maybe he has a post office box,” suggested Godwin. “You know, at the post office.”

“No, it’s not a post office box key,” said Omernic.

Betsy recalled a conversation from a Monday Bunch meeting. “I bet I know. There’s one of those mail-drop places right next door to the hotel. Patricia was complaining about ‘those kind of places’ opening up downtown. I bet he took the check there. He didn’t want to keep it on him, his bank was closed—anyway, I’m sure he didn’t have a deposit slip with him—or an envelope and a stamp, either, so he couldn’t mail it to himself. He had to put it somewhere while he figured out what to do with the body. So he went up the street and put it in PostNet.” She was looking brighter. “If the check is there, it will have his fingerprints on it. Then even he would have to admit he’s guilty.”

“I saw that place,” said Omernic. “I went and had a talk with them, and while they agree the key looks like one of theirs, no one named Tony Milan—or Stoney Durand, for that matter—has ever rented a mailbox there.”

Godwin thought while he drank some coffee, then said, “Anyway, when would he have done that? He had to drive right off from the hotel, remember?”

“When he came back from the airport—” began Betsy. “No, wait, he would still be wearing Bob Germaine’s clothes.”

“Maybe he changed,” offered Godwin.

“No, he was wearing Germaine’s clothes when he got into the accident,” said Omernic. “The hospital sent them home with him.”

“There, then!” said Betsy, with an air of stating the obvious.

“What?” said Omernic.

“If he was wearing Germaine’s clothes, then he was carrying Germaine’s wallet and ID. You go back to that mail drop and see if Bob Germaine rented a mailbox.”

Omernic looked at her for a long few seconds, then he began to smile. He reached into a different pocket and pulled out yet another photocopy. He unfolded it, bumped it with a forefinger so it spun around and across the table toward her. It was of a commercial-size check all black and smeary—“Fingerprint dust!” exclaimed Godwin. “You
knew!”

“And those are Mr. Milan’s fingerprints, all right. I brought it along to show off with, but I see Ms. Devonshire is just as clever as Sergeant Malloy thinks she is,” he said, smiling at Betsy.

“Of course she is! Strewth, she’s cleverer than that!”

Omernic’s green eyes twinkled. “I think you’re right, Goddy, I think you’re right.”

A
LICE
had brought a new cardboard box for the crow. And, somewhere, she had acquired a pair of heavy leather gauntlets that came well up her forearms.

“I’m surprised you don’t want to keep him, now,” she said. “He’s a hero.”

“That doesn’t lift his sentence of death in Minnesota,” said Betsy.

“True,” said Alice. “But he at least deserves a medal.”

Betsy held up the Crewel World keychain she was going to give the crow. “I hereby present you…” she intoned, and its shimmer and faint clatter drew the crow’s attention. It sat more upright on its perch, like a soldier at attention. “…with this medal for courage beyond the call of duty.”

Alice, taking advantage, reached into the cage with one hand to crowd the bird into a corner, then brought the second in to clamshell the creature and lift it out. All it could wiggle were its feet, which it did, industriously.

“Of course, there are other considerations that make me celebrate his departure,” admitted Betsy.

“Like the fact that you about doubled sales of the Minneapolis
Star Tribune
in Excelsior all by yourself?” Alice put the crow in the box and Betsy held it partly closed so Alice could get her hands out without freeing the bird.

Betsy said, “That, too.” The box was closed and Betsy pulled off a length of clear mailing tape from the big roll and bit it so it would tear. She taped the box shut. “I hope he has a long and happy life in his new home.” She touched the box as if blessing the bird inside it. “He was about the worst houseguest I’ve ever had in my life, but I was sure glad to see him come sneaking out of the back bedroom that night. Almost as glad as I am to see him leaving this morning.” She handed the trinket to Alice, who put it into a pocket.

Alice said, “I take it you would not be willing to be a stage on our secret passage out of state for some other crippled wild animal?”

“Maybe, if the animal were a bluebird, or a possum.”

Alice smiled at this partial victory and left.

Less than an hour later two burly young men—the same as the original pair? Betsy couldn’t tell—arrived and went to work dismantling the cage and its stand, hauling the pieces down the stairs and into an old gray van.

Sophie watched all this from the safety of Betsy’s bedroom. When the apartment was quiet again, she slipped into the back bedroom and very thoroughly sniffed the hardwood floor where the cage had sat on its platform. Betsy came in a few minutes later with a mop and bucket to find the cat circling a small black pinfeather on the floor, one forepaw pulling inward as if burying it.

“I take it you are telling me, ‘No more crows’,” said Betsy.

The cat looked up at her in eloquent silence and left Betsy to her work.