Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 (13 page)

Betsy stooped and stroked the animal, who arched her back and purred. Shelly went around her into the kitchen, and Betsy heard the refrigerator door opening.

“She's been fed,” said Godwin from behind her, and she rose. “Sophie, I mean,” he added. She came to hug him.

“I knew someone must have taken care of her,” said Betsy in a minute. “Otherwise she'd be giving orders.”

Godwin laughed. “You go straight to bed, all right? Shelly's handling things in the kitchen, and I just wanted to say a quick welcome home. We're staying open late tonight.”

“Who's helping down there?”

“Who isn't? Half of your employees volunteered to work for nothing! I've got them lined up until Saturday, by which time you should be able to either come to work or make other arrangements.”

“You didn't accept the offers to work free, did you?”

“No, of course not. But while they're in that mood, I'm lining them up for inventory.”

Betsy said, blinking away tears, “You are the best.”

“Aw, shucks, no one has said that to me for years.”

“Not even John?”

“Oh, well—that's different,” said Godwin. And he left.

Betsy defied everyone's instructions and took a long, hot shower before climbing into bed. Sophie joined her in bed, purring loudly, snuggling close, for once seeming more interested in giving comfort than seeking it. Betsy stroked and murmured to the cat, profoundly happy and grateful to be there with her. She thought she wasn't the least sleepy, but before she knew it, she was dreaming.

She woke to the sound of someone knocking on her door. Her
bedroom
door. “Whosit?” she said, struggling with the words. Sophie padded heavily across the bed and jumped down.

“Relax, it's just me,” said Jill's voice. She came in wearing her uniform, looking immense in her bulletproof vest and thick winter jacket. “How are you?”

“Okay. What time is it?” Betsy hadn't the strength to lift her arm and consult her watch.

“Almost two in the afternoon. You were asleep, I guess.”

“I guess. But I'm glad you came. I was having a bad dream. Come on in. How did you get in, anyhow?”

“Your door's unlocked. Godwin is sending people up through the store. Unless you want me to tell him not to.”

“No, it's all right, I s'pose.” Betsy still wasn't completely awake. “What, through the shop and up the back way? Should I get up? Is there company out there?”

“No, no. Stay in bed. They're just bringing things, to judge by what's on the kitchen counters. Apparently they hear you snoring and just sneak right back out again.”

“I don't snore!”

“Godwin said someone told him you were snoring, so when I came in and didn't hear anything, I decided to check on you.”

Betsy sighed, “Huh. Thank you, I guess. Well, yes, thanks for checking. And Jill, thanks for that survival kit. I mean—” Betsy found, to her distress, that her eyes were watering. She tried to blink the tears away. “Thank you for saving my life. If you hadn't insisted I take that box along—” Betsy rubbed her eyes with both hands, like a child. “And all I got you was that book on hardanger you were looking at!” If Jill had come over and hugged her, Betsy would have broken down. But Jill, being Jill, only stood there, so Betsy pulled herself together again. “I'm glad you're my friend.”

“I'm glad I was able to do the right thing for you.” Jill smiled faintly. “Now, I've got to get back on patrol.”

“Wait a minute, I thought you were on nights.”

“We're working double shifts until everything's back to normal. There are still roads closed, and we've got a pair of thieves on snowmobiles hitting summer cottages around the lake. I'm cruising in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, hoping to surprise the little buggers.”

So much for that serene cottage in the snow. “Good luck,” said Betsy.

 

Someone knocked on Betsy's bedroom door again, and Betsy, who thought she'd only dozed off for a minute, opened her eyes and said, “Sorry, Jill.”

But it was a man's deep, warm, familiar voice that replied, “Hello, darlin.”

Betsy groaned. “Oh, no, it's the Pig.”

“No, it's me, Hal, the world's greatest fool.”

“You got that right.” Betsy hauled herself into a sitting position again, glad she'd worn her thickest flannel nightgown to bed, and hoping her hair looked awful. “Go away, Hal.” She looked at her bedside clock. It was a little past seven. She'd no idea she'd been asleep five more hours!

“Not till you let me have my say.”

“Nothing you say could possibly interest me.”

“There's a saying, ‘Experience keeps a hard school, but a fool will learn in no other.' I've been to experience's
grad
school, let me tell you.”

“It seems to me, since you're standing upright and have all your limbs and both eyes, it wasn't hard enough.”

Hal's voice took on a pleading tone. “What can I do to show you I mean it when I say I'm sorry? That I've learned my lesson? What do you want from me?”

“Besides your head on a pole? Nothing. And all you're going to get from me is a hard kick to a delicate place if you don't get out of here. Now.”

“Please, let's talk! I really want a second chance!”

“To what? Hurt me again? Never! If you don't leave, I'll call the police.” When he didn't start immediately for the door, she picked up the bedside phone's receiver and glanced at him, fully prepared to dial.

Betsy had read in English novels about a person “going white to the lips,” but had never seen anyone actually do that before. In the blink of an eye, he went from hurt and contrite to ferocious, his dark eyes blazing at her from that white face, his lips a thin slash. But he didn't say anything, only turned on his heel and walked out of the bedroom. Seconds later, she heard the door to the hall slam.

“Whew!” she said, replaced the receiver, and slid down under the covers again.

But the excitement of that visit had left her wide awake. She huffed a bit, trying to work up a sleepy yawn, but no good. So she twisted over and picked up the bedside phone again, dialed the shop.

“Godwin?” she said when he answered. “If Hal comes back, don't let him upstairs again, okay? I don't want him up here. Thanks.”

She hung up and realized she was hungry—no, famished. When had she last had a real meal? Yesterday? The day before? She went out to the little kitchen and was touched to find the counter space crowded with baskets of fruit, a large selection of Excelo Bakery's cookies, and a loaf each of their beautiful herb and multigrain bread. In the refrigerator were a six-pack of Diet Squirt, a liter of V8 Extra Spicy, three brand-new quarts of milk, and four kinds of casserole—er, hot dish—plus two orders of her favorite chicken salad made with red grapes and cashews, a plastic bowl of homemade potato salad, and a whole banana cream pie. She checked the freezer and, as Shelly said she would do, there were more no-longer-hot dishes waiting in there.

This was ridiculous. And vastly touching. She stood there sniveling until cold air spilling out of the refrigerator started to chill her toes.

Then she got a dinner plate out of the cabinet and made an enormous and peculiar dinner by taking a sample of every hot dish that wasn't frozen. She washed it down with milk.

She washed the plate, glass, and fork and wandered into the living room. Normally eating an enormous meal made her sleepy, but having slept so much already, Betsy was in no mood to go back to bed. She looked around for something to do. She didn't feel up to the concentration it took for counted cross stitch. She was about to pick up the scarf she was nearly finished knitting for Godwin, when she remembered the mystery of the tapestry.

Those little symbols, the shamrock, the flaming heart, the pig. Attributes, Father John had called them, because they identified certain saints. Was there a pattern to the ones selected?

She went into the back bedroom where she had her notes, and the book on attributes Father John had loaned her. The book was there, on the computer desk, but her notes weren't. Betsy could be absentminded, moving things and forgetting where she'd put them, so she looked all around the room. No luck. She even went into the two-drawer file cabinet, though she knew perfectly well she hadn't been so organized as to make up a file folder and put the notes in there. She started to boot up her computer, then remembered she hadn't saved the notes, just printed them out.

She expanded her search to her own bedroom, then the living room. The doorbell's ring found Betsy on her knees in the kitchen, looking under the sink. She answered it warily, afraid Hal might have talked his way past Godwin again. But it was Jill.

“I saw your lights on and thought I'd check on you,” said Jill, who looked barely able to stand.

“I'm feeling pretty good, but you look terrible,” said Betsy. “When were you last in bed?”

Jill thought. “I can't remember, though it wasn't all that long ago. I'm just tired. Driving on icy roads after a storm like this isn't much fun.”

“Have you eaten?”

“You don't have to feed me.”

“Okay, how about I let one of my many friends feed you?” Betsy went to her refrigerator, brought out one of the hot dishes, and spooned half of it into a Tupperware bowl. “Here,” she said, “take this home, put it in the microwave, and hit your soup button twice.”

“Thank you. I didn't even think I was hungry until you started spooning it out. Then I had to keep swallowing so drool wouldn't drip off my chin. Whose is it?”

“Patricia Fairland's. It's got shrimp, pea pods, mushrooms, and three kinds of cheese.”

“Golly,” sighed Jill.

“It tastes as good as it smells, too.”

Jill said, “Well, thanks so much. I'll call you tomorrow morning.
Late
tomorrow morning.”

After Jill left, Betsy gave up her search and sat down to knit. Knit two, purl two, fifty times, with an odd one at either end of the row. There were only a few inches left to do, so she turned on KSJN and finished it to Schubert's Unfinished Symphony—she had to get out her
Learn to Knit in One Day
booklet to remind herself how to cast off—then, to the odd cadences and plaintive harmonics of medieval music, used all the colors of yarn that were in the scarf to make a long fringe at either end.

Tired at last, she went to bed and read enough of the book, which was actually called
Attributes and Symbols of the Christian Church
and was nearly a hundred years old, to put herself back to sleep.

B
etsy came down to her shop around ten-thirty on Thursday morning looking bright and chipper.

Godwin was explaining how to use blending filament in counted cross stitch to a customer, so Shelly hurried to intercept her, exclaiming in an undertone, “What are you doing down here? Why aren't you in bed?”

“I feel fine. I couldn't stay in bed any more without being tied down. How are things?

“Fine, really, just fine. I'm here with Godwin, so why don't you go shopping or something?”

“I don't know if I'm up to shopping. Too much walking.”

Betsy went to the library table. “But I feel odd not coming down to work. How are we doing? Has it been busy? Did that ad salesman come in? Anything going on I should know about?”

“It's been fairly busy, enough so we're glad there are two of us. We had three people waiting at the door for us to open. Godwin's just winding up the last one. And the ad salesman came in yesterday, so we showed him the ad you designed and he should call you today with prices. Are you going to advertise in all the weeklies around the area?”

“Depends on the price. Maybe only the
Excelsior Bay Times.”
Betsy leaned right, then left. “Is my project down here?”

“What, the ornaments?”

“No, the needlepoint one, the kitten asleep in the basket of yarn.”

Shelly came to pull out a chair. “Here, sit down. What's it in?”

Betsy sat. “The basket with the lid.” She bent again to look for it, but Shelly had already picked it up. She put it on the table, her movements hasty and her face anxious. “What's the matter, Shelly?”

“Nothing, I guess. I mean, Betsy, we were afraid you were going to die, and you still looked awful when I brought you home. I can't believe you think you're well enough to go back to work already.”

“Plus,” drawled Godwin as he closed the shop door on his customer, “Shelly wants that Wentzler Camelot sampler, and is afraid you'll send her home before she earns enough money to buy it.”

“Goddy—!” scolded Shelly, but her face was pink. “It's not true!” she said to Betsy. “Well ... not altogether.”

Betsy laughed. “I want you to stay. I don't think I have the stamina to work a full day.”

Godwin said, “I don't think you should work at all. Aren't you supposed to stay in bed until Saturday?”

“No, I'm supposed to rest until Saturday. And if I have to stay upstairs, I will start climbing the walls, which isn't very restful. I'd rather be sitting down here with you.”

The shop door went
bing,
and Godwin said, “Who's sitting?”

It was Martha Winters. “Well, I'm so glad to see you up and about, Betsy,” she said. “I'm here to see if you have any of those Rainbow Gallery ‘Wisper' colors.”

“Yes, we do,” said Godwin. “They came in yesterday.”