Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_01 (17 page)

He'd had to resort to a far less reliable source this time. However, she was certain in her assertions that Betsy was a mess. Some things he already knew: Betsy had shut out people trying to help her and had arranged the cheapest funeral she could for her sister. Now she was hysterical over a sick cat. That wasn't all: she had told her landlord he couldn't reclaim his property and at the same time she refused to listen to an offer that would get her out from under a business she didn't know how to run. And, possibly weirdest of all, Betsy had hinted that her sister's death was not just a burglary gone wrong.

He remembered the witty woman with the happy eyes at Christopher Inn. This sure didn't sound like her.

Though it did kind of sound like the wounded person he had seen at the funeral. Poor broken thing, obviously in need of comfort.

Maybe he should give her a call. They could discuss ... the fund-raiser, sure.

To hell with Margot's warning him off—she was dead. And to hell with his rules. What were rules for, if not to be broken?

And maybe he could be of some help to her.

 

Mickels sat at his desk in his office. He could have afforded a bigger desk in a large, well-lit comer office in a downtown Minneapolis tower. But why spend the money when he was just as comfortable in this little second-floor suite in Excelsior? Here he had three rooms, one with a window that overlooked Water Street. Years ago, at the bankruptcy auction of a business rival, he had bought an old, solid oak desk and matching armchair (on casters, not upholstered) and they had served him ever since. His personal assistant (as she styled herself, though he called her his secretary) had her own small windowless office. The third room, whose only entrance was through his office, was a reinforced and alarmed walk-in closet in which he kept his records. There were other employees, of course, who ran some of his other properties. Many people thought these employees were the owners, which suited Mickels just fine. They never came to this office, and Mickels himself rarely spent an entire day at this desk.

He was there this morning because he needed to think.

He pulled a yellow legal pad from the middle desk drawer and a cheap ballpoint from his pocket. He clicked the point out and drew a dollar sign on the notepad, then a circle around it and a diagonal line through it. If this incorporation business was true, his plans might be in trouble. That Devonshire woman had had that tone of voice people use when they'd won one, but some people were pretty good at faking it. Was she pleased because she was right, or pleased because he'd lost his temper believing her lie? He drew another dollar sign, this one sprouting wings. Was she crazy? She'd acted nuts when Officer Cross brought that hurt cat into the place—but that lady cop and the schoolteacher had been all excited as well. What was that all about?

Okay, okay, he remembered seeing a cat belonging to Margot in the store, a big fat thing, sleeping in a chair. (He was drawing a cat's head, with crosses for eyes, as he thought this.) He didn't remember its name, but it had been white, like the hurt cat might have been under the dirt. So maybe it was Margot's cat. So what? Betsy Devonshire hadn't been in town long enough to get attached to it, had she? All three of those women went hustling it off to the animal doctor like it was a human emergency.

Check cat, he wrote on the pad, because he was a detail person, and it might be useful to know if it still lived.

But that wasn't the real problem here. The real problem was, what if Betsy hadn't been just making idle threats about the corporation? He unlocked his desk and got out a photocopy of the lease, almost illegible with scrawled notes. The original must have been drawn up by his brother from memory, to judge by the semilegal language of the thing. That was what the notes were about: they marked the chinks he'd found in it, hoping one would be the crowbar to pry Margot out of her place. None of them so far had proved strong enough, and now this sister claimed she had a chink of her own that meant she could stay if she wanted to.

“Assigned the lease,” that was the term she used, a legalism he was familiar with, being a landlord. It meant that the tenant turned the lease over to a new tenant. In every lease Mickels had ever signed, when assignment wasn't flat forbidden, the landlord's permission was needed for assignment. He glanced over the document, more to refresh his memory than to glean information, because he was already pretty sure the clause forbidding assignment was not in Margot's lease. And it wasn't.

What a jerk his brother had been! On the other hand, as Joe understood it, his brother had been doing a favor for Aaron Berglund, Margot's husband, giving her that lease. He had thought Margot just wanted to play at owning a business, that she would get bored or do something terminally stupid and fold up in six months or a year. Ha! That had been nearly thirteen years ago. He shoved the photocopy back in the drawer and locked it.

Interesting that Betsy Devonshire not only used the right terminology, she was right about the lease not forbidding assignment. Was she brighter than she looked? Or did someone tell her about it?

Wait a second, he hadn't noticed that Margot was arranging to be incorporated! And he kept close check on all his tenants, especially Margot, the fly in his ointment, the bug on his birthday cake.

Margot had been a “d/b/a”—doing business as—back when she started Crewel World, but she'd never incorporated. Never needed to. Never hinted she was thinking about it. He began doodling again, drawing a big threaded needle and then putting a circle with a slash around it. But he added a question mark. Margot was smart enough not to talk about her business to people who didn't need to know. If she had incorporated, it was very recently. And wherever she was, she was laughing up a storm, because he was screwed once again. Dammit, he needed to know!

He reached for his phone, dialed. But Penberthy was still tied up with a client, said his secretary, and could not be interrupted. Mickels left an urgent message and slammed the phone down. Stupid secretary, wouldn't listen when he said he had one question that wouldn't take more than ten seconds!

He settled back to wait, but in a minute he was up and pacing the perimeter of his office, which after four trips put him in mind of a hamster in a cage. He started to reach for the phone to call Penberthy's secretary back and shout at her—but instead did the one thing guaranteed to cool his temper.

He told his own secretary he didn't want to be interrupted for half an hour (she wouldn't let anyone through even for ten seconds, either), locked the door to his office, and went into his strong room. He opened his safe and took out a chipped green metal chest about eighteen inches square, heavy by the way he handled it. He brought it to a small table in the strong room and unlocked its padlock with a key on a ring that was never out of his reach.

The box was nearly full of silver dollars and half-dollars minted in the era when they were all silver, not a base-metal sandwich. The coins were bright and worn from handling, and Mickels plunged his hands into the hoard, rubbing them between his thick fingers, lifting his hands and letting them pour back into the box, then plunging his hands in again. At first energetic in these motions, over the next ten minutes or so he gradually slowed, his actions becoming more playful, then almost sensual; at last holding just one in his palm, and rubbing it over his hands as if it were a sliver of soap. Then he dropped it back in the box with the rest, locked the chest, and put it back in his safe, smiling and calm.

Ms. Devonshire sat very straight and attentive in the big leather chair in Penberthy's office. He was relieved to see her looking far less scattered and unhappy than she had only yesterday. And much more prepared to listen. Poor Huber, he'd had to deal with her when she was truly distraught.

“You know your sister died intestate?” he began.

“Without a will,” she replied.

“Yes.” He nodded, pleased at this sign of intelligence. “I talked with her on more than one occasion, but she said there was only you and she wanted you to inherit, so there was no need. I believe she was wrong—she had many interests and charities, some of which would have been very glad to be remembered. But it is too late now to know what she might have wished done about that.” He gave a subtle shrug. “Of course, she was so active and helpful during her life that perhaps she felt that was enough, and did in fact intend to leave everything to you.”

Ms. Devonshire said carefully, “I have been told by two of Margot's friends that there is a rather large estate.”

Penberthy replied, “That depends on what you mean by large. I think, when everything has been accounted for, and all debts paid, there should be in the neighborhood of two and a half million.”

Ms. Devonshire froze and then her face began to flush. “Two—” she began, but her voice tripped over itself and she fell silent again.

“Two and a half million is only an approximation. And that's before taxes, of course.”

“Wow. I mean, Shelly thought five hundred thousand, and Jill said maybe a million; but two and a half million—” She tried a smile, but failed. “That's a lot of money. I had no idea. When I saw how Margot was living, I mean, in that little apartment and running that little shop, and her car is a Volvo—what nationality is a Volvo anyhow?—I thought she wasn't doing as well as it seemed from her letters. What was it, the stock market? Is that where the money was, I mean? That there's so much of it?” She touched her lips with her fingertips to stem the flow of words.

“You, as the personal representative, will conduct a search to discover where and in what form the money presently is held,” replied Penberthy. “I know Margot kept good records, so there should be no trouble.”

“We're already doing an inventory of the shop.” Ms. Devonshire nodded. “But I don't know where to begin looking for anything more.”

“I can explain how, if you like. I understand Margot put everything onto her computer. Have you, er, ‘logged on' to it as yet?” Penberthy was glad to let his secretary run his computer.

“No. But I guess that has to happen soon.”

“Do you know how to operate a computer?”

“Well, I used to own one, when I was living in San Diego, and I kept some records on it, and did my correspondence. I could even surf the net, and send E-mail. But I sold it before I came here.” She shivered and rubbed her upper arms with her hands. “This isn't what I wanted to be doing right now,” she said. “I came to stay with my sister because I've been having a midlife crisis. I wanted to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, because I didn't like where I was or what I was doing. Margot always had her life together and she seemed so content with herself that when she invited me to come I said yes, gladly. I gave up everything, threw my old life over, left San Diego shaking even the dust of the streets off the soles of my sandals.

“And then when I got here, I worried that Margot couldn't afford to keep me very long, because her shop is just that little place, and her apartment was kind of small. And then she was murdered and I was scared I couldn't even afford to bury her—oh!”

“Something wrong?”

“I was really rude to Mr. Huber at the funeral home. I think he tried to tell me that I didn't have to pinch pennies but I wasn't in a state to listen to him. I'm not sure what I can do about that.”

“I don't think it would be a good idea to do the funeral over again.”

After a startled moment, this seemed to strike Ms. Devonshire as funny, and when she smiled this time, it worked and she was suddenly very attractive. “No, I suppose that isn't the correct thing to do. But I will have to apologize to him next time I see him. Now, what is the process of transfernng Margot's accounts into my name? I will need some money—I'm about broke, and I don't have a job, and I probably won't have a place to stay real soon.”

“Then we will begin at once to get the process started—you will need to select a lawyer ... ?” He paused, hesitating.

And she replied on cue, “I hope you will represent me. If Margot trusted you, then I know I can do the same.”

“Thank you. You will need to go through Hennepin County Probate Court. We'll draw up a petition to have you appointed as personal representative. I'll start that at once, and will help you write the announcement you will have to publish in the newspaper, telling people who are owed money to contact you. There will be a brief hearing in court. It will take about a month between the filing of the petition and the hearing.” He consulted a leather-bound appointment book. “If I contact them today, we can probably get a hearing around October fifteenth. You must be there to ask the judge to appoint you, and anyone who has any opposition to that will have a chance to be heard. I doubt there will be any trouble of that sort.