Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_02 (14 page)

“She has three samples hanging in her living room, and all three have butterflies, and they look a lot like this one you've drawn.”

“I've never been in her living room. I saw some gorgeous stuff she made for Mrs. Allen's baby's christening cap twenty years ago, and there's no butterfly on that. And I saw the pieces she made as shelf fronts for the Sutter House restoration, and there's no butterfly on them, either.”

Jill frowned, then nodded. “Okay, okay, that's right, she said she put the butterfly only in pieces she meant to keep for herself.”

Alice sniffed righteously, but Jill didn't apologize.

Betsy stared at the pattern on the graph paper. Jill had told her about the butterflies in the bobbin lace that edged Martha's handkerchiefs on her wall. This was bad, this was very bad.

8

I
t was a teachers' conference day, schoolchildren had the day off. But the portion for elementary school teachers ended at noon, and Shelly came to Crewel World after a hasty sandwich in the Waterfront Café.

“I, uh, wanted to see if you had any work for me,” she said. She was looking very earnest—Betsy might have described her as desperate.

Betsy looked around doubtfully. The shop wasn't very busy; Godwin was seeing the first customer in an hour to the door.

“You see, there's that Carol Emmer counted cross-stitch pattern, and with the hours I put in last Saturday and my employee discount, I could buy it and the floss with just a few more hours' worth of work.” Shelly glanced toward the front of the shop. “And, that front window isn't as good as it could be. I could redo that.”

Betsy frowned at it. “I think it looks very nice.”

“Well, then, how about I get out the Christmas decorations and put them up? There's lights for the window and some fat candles with needlepoint and cross-stitch decorations, and some artificial holly garland.”

“I can't afford to buy—” began Betsy.

“No, they're in the storeroom, in a big cardboard box.”

Betsy looked at Godwin, who nodded. “Well, all right,” she said, wondering if perhaps Shelly needed the money for something more necessary, like groceries or car repairs. Though Shelly
was
a very avid counted cross-stitcher.

Godwin came to help her get out the box of decorations. They had been at it only a few minutes when the real reason Shelly had come to Crewel World was revealed. She asked, cautiously because of Betsy's aversion to gossip, “Did you hear about Martha Winters?”

“Hear what?” asked Godwin immediately, but then he also glanced at Betsy.

But Betsy looked inquiring as well, so Shelly burst out, “Martha is under arrest for murdering Trudie Koch!”

“Nooo!” wailed Godwin.

Betsy also made a mourning sound but said, “I guess I've been expecting that.”

Godwin said, “You have? Honestly, Betsy, I don't know how you managed not to become a private eye years and years ago! You know everything before it happens.”

Before Betsy could object to this, the door went
bing
and Jill, in uniform, entered. “Have you heard?” she asked.

“Shelly just told me. Was it the lace?”

Jill nodded.

“What lace?” Shelly asked.

“Were you there?” asked Betsy.

Again Jill nodded.

“How did she take it?”

“Utterly surprised. She didn't do it, Betsy, she couldn't have, or she would have been more careful what she said when Mike interviewed her the second time. He walked all around that handkerchief, and she just kept on talking, innocent as a baby chick. I had to go stand behind her, or my face would have warned her. I couldn't believe she couldn't see what he was doing.”

“What was he doing?” asked Shelly.

“She said she never rode the
Hopkins
, she didn't visit it while it was aground or while it was tied up waiting to be towed out and sunk. She said she never gave away any of her personal handkerchiefs, and that she never put butterflies in any of the lace she gave away. She said that when a handkerchief would get worn out, she'd take the lace off and put it on another handkerchief. Bobbin lace lasts forever, did you know that? Mike asked if she ever missed any handkerchiefs, and she said of course she'd lost some, but mostly got them back because people knew about the butterflies. Only two she never got back. One she lost at the State Fair in 1944, and another at the Guthrie Theatre ten or twelve years ago. She was laughing about them; she was pretty sure she dropped the one in the biggest-pig display in the pig barn and was glad no one tried to bring it back to her, because you never get the smell of pig out; and the other she thinks she saw the next season, onstage, in a production of
Othello
.”

Betsy smiled, then sobered. “So she didn't understand what Mike was getting at?”

“What was he getting at?” asked Shelly.

“Yeah,” seconded Godwin, “what?”

Betsy said, “Alice Skoglund worked out the pattern of the lace edging on that piece of silk and showed it to me and Jill. There was a butterfly in the pattern. Martha used to do bobbin lace, and she always put her own design of a butterfly in the lace she meant to keep for herself. And the pattern Alice figured out looks an awful lot like Martha's butterfly.”

“Oh, no,” groaned Godwin.

Betsy continued, “And so Mike gave her every opportunity to explain how a handkerchief with a lace butterfly on it came to be on the
Hopkins
—other than that she left it there after hiding Trudie Koch's body on it.”

Jill said, “And Martha said she'd never taken a ride on the
Hopkins
, or gave a handkerchief to someone who later complained of losing it on the
Hopkins
.”

Shelly said, “Poor lady—but I see what you mean. If she had lost a handkerchief while hiding the body, she would have realized what Sergeant Malloy was doing, and at least tried to make up a story.”

Jill said, “Of course, he didn't ask her directly, because that would have alerted her, and she might have lied. But you're right, Shelly, if she
did
lose a handkerchief about then, even more especially while moving Trudie's body, Mike's questions would have put her on her guard. But they didn't. So he thanked her and let her get back to her baking while he went and got a warrant. They're booking her now. I think she still hasn't got a clue why.”

Godwin said, “Gosh,
Martha Winters in jail!
” He turned to Betsy. “So, what do we do first?”

Betsy frowned at Godwin and said, “What do you mean?”

“
Martha,
of course. What are we going to do about her?”

“What could we possibly do?”

“We can
investigate
, of course! Where do we start? Who do you want to talk to?”

Betsy said, “Are you serious?”

Shelly said, “If he isn't, he should be. The nerve of Sergeant Malloy, arresting Martha! Why, nobody with a functioning brain cell could believe she's a murderer!”

Betsy said, “He's an investigator. He'll investigate, find out she's innocent, and let her go. Meanwhile, it's awful for Martha, and I'm very sad and sorry for her, but I don't think there's anything
we
can do.”

“You can help me find out about the lace,” Jill said, to Betsy's surprise. “Seriously, Betsy, I'd like you to talk to some people. You would be giving me a hand here. No, no, I'm not an investigator, but Mike considers me his expert on lace, and God knows I'm nothing of the sort. I'm going to ask around, but I'd like you to ask, too; help me find out about who was making lace in 1948. And while you're about it, maybe you can find out if her pattern was hard or easy to copy.”

“Oh, my!” said Godwin. “I didn't think of that!”

Shelly said, “And so long as you're asking those questions, you might as well find out who else had a reason to want Trudie Koch dead.” Seeing objection in Betsy's face, she hastened on, “Since it's all tied together, isn't it? If Martha didn't murder Trudie, and of course she didn't, how
did
that handkerchief get on the
Hopkins
? Someone stole one of hers, right? Or made one just like it. Why? To frame Martha. Why frame Martha? Because if poor, dumb Malloy weren't looking so hard at Martha, even he could see who really did it.”

Betsy said, “That handkerchief was left on the
Hop
kins before Mike Malloy was born.”

Shelly gestured. “You know what I mean, it was so the police would think Martha did it. A frame.”

“And who do you think was the author of the frame?” asked Godwin.

Shelly said, “
I
don't know. That's why Betsy has to try to find out, isn't it? But Carl Winters knew. That's why he came back, right? He learned about the skeleton on the
Hopkins
, and he knew right away who did it. He came back to tell what he knew, and that same person who killed Trudie killed him.”

Godwin said, “Then I think we should start with Carl's murder; it's newer, so everyone's memory is fresher, there's more to find out, and more people to talk to.”

Jill said, “There's nothing to find. The only person he called when he got back was Martha. Nobody else knew he was in town.”

Betsy said, “Has she been charged with Carl's murder?”

Jill shrugged. “Not yet, though the fact that only she knew he was back in town may be damning enough. I think Malloy is going to try to tie the gun to her.”

“But we
know
she didn't do it!” said Shelly. “So there must be some explanation. Betsy?”

Betsy thought while the others watched. “He phoned her from the motel, right?”

Jill nodded.

“Well, he could have phoned or written or E-mailed someone else from Omaha before he left, couldn't he? Or, he could have stopped on the road and called, or he could have gone out to supper and called from the restaurant.”

“See?” said Godwin, pleased. “See? She's
so
clever! That's probably what happened. So how do we find out? What do we do first?”

Betsy said in an annoyed voice, “
We
are not going to do anything! Because
you
are going to help Shelly finish with those lights and the other decorations, which had better look as if the two of you worked hard on them. And if there is any time left after that, you are going to change the yarn in the baskets to winter colors.”

“Yes, ma‘am,” said Shelly and she took Godwin by the elbow and led him off to the front window. But she was smiling.

Betsy said to Jill, “How about if I go talk to Alice Skoglund? She's the one who figured out that pattern from that little piece Malloy found. She couldn't be a suspect, could she? Because I don't know from lace, either, and she could tell me just about anything and I'd believe it.”

“Alice, a suspect?” murmured Jill, her pale eyebrows raised. “
Alice
?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. But I imagine she could tell me the name of at least some of the people who were lace makers back in 1948, and who of them were familiar with Martha's work.” She raised her voice for the benefit of the pair up front. “But I hope I've made it clear that I am
not
out to prove Martha isn't a murderer. I'm just giving you a hand with some research, so you can pass it along to Mike Malloy.” She dropped her voice again. “Because at least one other person who poked his nose into this affair got himself
shot
.”

 

The day was overcast, the temperature in the low thirties. There was still some snow on the ground, and more was forecast for tonight. Betsy rummaged through her memory and came up with memories of early-winter snow in Milwaukee melting before more fell. But this was Minnesota, where the snow piled up to the eaves of houses. Apparently that didn't happen in one spectacular blizzard, it was cumulative.

She pulled the bright red muffler tighter around her neck, snuggled deeper into the navy blue wool coat she'd finally bought at the Mall of America, and crunched across the frozen parking lot to where her car waited, doubtless bewildered by the new viscosity of its oil.

But it started bravely, and Betsy drove off to Alice Skoglund's house, a charming but very small white house on Bell Street, four blocks from the lake. It had a picket fence that needed painting. Stiff, dead tops of flowers poked up through the crusty snow to trace the curve of sidewalk to the tiny front porch. Frowzy juniper bushes crowded the space under the front windows, whose green trim needed paint.

Betsy rang the doorbell. There was no answer. She rang again. When there was still no answer, she came off the porch and would have gone away but heard an unmusical clank from around back. She followed the narrower cement walk, stepping over patches of ice, around the side of the house. She stopped when she saw a man in a heavy overcoat shoving something into an old-fashioned metal garbage can, one of two. As she watched, he bent and picked up the lid, which he replaced with a loud clank. Then he turned toward the house—and it was Alice Skoglund.

“Hi,” said Betsy, both startled and shy.

“Hello, Betsy,” called Alice. “What can I do for you?”

“I—I need to talk to you,” said Betsy, approaching. When close enough to speak without raising her voice she continued, “Do you have a few minutes?” Close up, she felt even more awkward. The coat Alice wore was a man's overcoat, her boots had low, square heels.

“I wondered when you'd come to ask me questions,” said Alice. “Well, come on in, there's coffee on the stove.”

Betsy followed her in the back door, which let into a little stairwell leading to the basement, so they had to go up a step to get into the kitchen. The linoleum on the floor had been scrubbed so often for so long that the pattern was nearly worn off, and the markers for the stove burners were partly gray and partly gone. Even the walls were a very pale yellow—though that might have been the original color. White curtains with yellow stitching and a pattern of square holes near the hems covered the only window, which was over the tiny kitchen table.