Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 (18 page)

“But the hangman's noose,” protested Betsy.

“Oh, it was probably some kind of joke, like my grandfather calling his best friend ‘you old horse thief.' But we'll never know what Lucy's joke was, because she's dead, and Keane's got the mind of a houseplant.”

“We could ask Mandy.”

“All right, when you get out of here, we'll do that, since it's bothering you.”

Betsy smiled at Jill. “Yes, thank you for understanding. As soon as we get home.” She gave the notebook back to Jill, put the checkbook in her purse, and began searching the basket for some needlework.

But it was hard to let the idea go. Soon, while pausing to count stitches, Betsy said, “We should find out if anybody else connected with the tapestry has been attacked.”

“Mike already checked on that. Patricia, Martha, Phil, Father John, everyone is going about his or her daily business with no problem.”

 

The electronic
bing
sounded, and Godwin looked up to see Malloy standing inside the door.

“Hi, Malloy,” Godwin said.

“I understand you were the one sending people upstairs with food for Ms. Devonshire Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“Yes, that's right.”

“Do you remember the names of everyone who brought something?”

Godwin assumed a thinking pose, tilting his head back, wrapping a slim forefinger around his chin, and closing his eyes. “Martha Winters brought a hot dish. So did Shelly Donohue, Alice Skoglund, and Patricia Fairland.” He spoke slowly, assuming, correctly, that Malloy was writing this down. “Katie MacDonald brought a fruit basket, and so did Phil Galvin. June Connor brought a hot dish and Annelle Byford brought a tropical fruit basket. Ellen Rose, Ingrid Leeners, and Rayne Hamilton brought hot dishes, and Gabriel Anderson brought a banana cream pie. And Betsy's ex, Harold Norman, came in and asked what Betsy liked. I said she was crazy about that cashew chicken salad the sandwich shop next door makes, and he went and brought a take-out order. But after he took it up, Betsy called and said not to let him come back up again.”

“Did he come back?”

Godwin nodded. “Yes. This time he had a live Christmas tree with him, a big one. And when I told him he couldn't take it up to her, he got in my face until I told him it was her orders. Then he took his tree and went away, and I haven't seen him since.” Godwin was smiling at the memory.

“It's my understanding that two people brought chicken salad.”

Godwin thought. “I only remember one, the one Hal Norman brought.”

“Could he have brought two orders?”

“Sure, but he didn't. I saw him with just one.”

“Could someone have gone through here without you seeing him or her?”

Godwin, shaking his head, opened his mouth to say no, then shut it again. “I don't think so. I mean, I'd be helping a customer, and people would interrupt to ask me if I'd take something up to her, and I'd unlock the back door and tell them the door to her apartment was unlocked. Then, when they came back down, I'd lock the door again. I thought leaving her door unlocked was okay, because the other doors to upstairs were locked. And because I knew the ones I sent up: they were friends or good customers. That's why I know who brought what. I was careful about keeping the back door to the shop locked, and we weren't so busy that someone could sneak by. At least, I don't think so. I mean, Irene Potter came in with her Peter Ashe canvas and we got into a pretty intense discussion of stitches, and I suppose someone could have walked through during it. But that takes two coincidences, that I was distracted
and
I left the back door unlocked. Which I don't think I did.”

“Did you bring her a gift of food?”

“Are you kidding? There was enough food going up there to feed an army!”

“Did Irene Potter bring something?”

“No. Nor Joe Mickels.”

“I thought Joe Mickels was being a lot nicer to Betsy than he was to Margot.”

“Well, it's more like he isn't doing things to harass her, like lawsuits. On the other hand, it's not like he's asking her out to dinner. He still looks at her like he looks at everyone, like we're burglars on parole.”

 

The owner of Eddie's Sandwich Shoppe next door was a blocky, middle-aged man with dark, tired eyes and large hands in clear plastic gloves. He couldn't remember how many orders of cashew chicken salad he'd sold on Tuesday. He sold between eight and a dozen orders on any given day, it was one of his most popular salads, so probably it was between eight and a dozen.

Irene Potter? Oh, yeah, that crazy lady with the dark, curly hair. No, she hadn't bought anything from him lately.

But yeah, now that Malloy asked, his landlord was in this week, he was pretty sure it was on Tuesday. Joe came in two or three times a month, and he usually picked either the cashew chicken or the orange coconut dessert. Last time he came in, it was the cashew chicken, and that was earlier this week. Yes, he was sure.

 

Betsy was working on her stem stitch when the door opened. Quick as thought, Jill was on her feet, standing between Betsy and whoever came in.

It was the Viking Princess, standing very still in surprise. “Hello, Ms. Devonshire,” she said over Jill's shoulder.

“Hi, Dr. McQueen. This is my bodyguard, Jill Cross.”

“I see. How do you do?” The doctor nodded, and Jill stepped aside. Today she was in blue wool slacks and a white cotton turtleneck with tiny blue flowers on it. A stethoscope was slung sideways around her neck. She came to plug it into her ears and listen to Betsy's heart. Satisfied, she asked, “Feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you. Are you going to send me home?”

“Not today. We need to keep you here another twenty-four hours, monitoring your arsenic levels while we continue treatment.”

“Poor Sophie,” said Betsy.

“You have a child?”

“No, Sophie's my cat.”

“Ah. I've heard animals become lonesome for their owners when separated.” Dr. McQueen said that as if she wanted to see a study before she would believe it. “You may get up and walk the halls, if you like. A little exercise may make you feel better.”

But Jill said, “Since she's here because there have been two attempts on her life, I don't think she should leave this room, doctor.”

“Where does arsenic come from, do you know?” asked Betsy.

Dr. McQueen said, “It's a mineral, so you mine it. There is, or used to be, an arsenic mine in France, and there's one in New Jersey.”

“Another reason we're all so fond of New Jersey.” Betsy nodded and Jill laughed.

Dr. McQueen didn't crack a smile. “Hundreds of years ago it was called inheritance powder,” she continued. “It's tasteless and odorless, and its symptoms can be confused with severe gastritis.”

“Very reassuring,” said Betsy.

Oblivious, Dr. McQueen continued, “Of course, since they developed a simple test for it, people are less likely to use it to murder. It has commercial and medical uses. It was one of the first cures for syphilis.”

“Brrr!” said Jill, surprised.

“The body quickly dumps most of what you ingest, but what little remains can kill you. That's why we're giving you Dimercaprol. It's a chelating agent that apparently binds to the remaining arsenic, rendering it harmless while the body excretes it.”

“Apparently?” echoed Betsy.

“Well, we know chelating agents work, we're just not sure how. Any arsenic we can't get rid of winds up in your hair and fingernails. We can dig up a body buried for centuries and find it. It was found recently in a lock of Napoleon's hair.”

Betsy said, “I'm so glad you didn't have to dig me up to find out I'd been given a dose.”

“That wouldn't have been me, that would have been the medical examiner,” explained Dr. McQueen seriously.

When she left, Jill said, “With that sense of humor, she should have been a surgeon.”

 

It was a shabby motel room, with a big television attached to rabbit ears instead of cable and the remote bolted to the bedside table. It had an antique microwave oven, a plug-in coffeepot, and a tiny refrigerator that leaked. Hal might have done better, but flowers here in the frozen north were expensive, and he was afraid it was going to be a long siege.

He lay back on the queen-size bed. He was familiar with the literature that portrayed Midwesterners and Southerners as inbred folk suffering from mad jealousies and inflamed libidos. He'd never thought to actually find himself among such people.

What a place this was! Excelsior, Minnesota, land of ice and snow—and people who seemed to think there was nothing wrong with living that way. Coolly polite ice people, crazily jealous when an outsider comes in and makes good. Because that was what this stuff happening to Betsy was all about, right? She moves here from San Diego and gloms her sister's money and her sister's store and her sister's friends, and they just can't stand it. Tennessee Williams would have loved it.

Someone knocked on his door. Hal rolled to his feet in one easy motion—he was in remarkably good shape for a man his—that is, he was in really good shape.

He opened the door to find a slender man a few inches shorter than himself, a redhead with freckles and very chill pale blue eyes. Something about him set off alarms in Hal's mind, but he said calmly enough, “May I help you?”

“I'm Detective Sergeant Mike Malloy, of the Excelsior Police Department. May I come in?” And suddenly he was holding up a leather folder with a badge and a photo ID in it.

Alarms now sounding loud indeed, Hal took the trouble to note that the photo and name matched the name given and face on display, then he stepped back and said, “Come in. Don't mind the mess,” though the place wasn't all that messy; it was more that it was dilapidated. Hal didn't mind good furniture that showed wear, but he didn't like cheap, seedy furniture.

He sat on the bed, gesturing the investigator to the only chair in the room, a wooden armchair. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Were you once married to Betsy Devonshire?” Now there was a pen and a notebook in the man's freckled hands.

“Yes.” Hal wanted to say more but held his tongue. He tried to look friendly, harmless, and curious—but not too curious.

“You know she's in the hospital?”

“Yes, I sent her flowers. Someone told me she got hold of some poison somehow. She's having a serious run of bad luck lately.”

“It may not be just bad luck, Mr. Norman. It appears someone is trying to murder her.”

“I can't believe that! She's a fine person, not the type to get involved with people who do that kind of thing!”

“Are you aware that she's been involved in the investigation of three murders since she arrived in Excelsior?”

Hal, genuinely startled, asked, “You mean, she's been a suspect?”

“No, she's taken a role in solving them.”

“She has? How ... peculiar. She never did anything like that back home.”

“Well, since she's come here, she has shown a positive talent both for getting involved in crime and tracking down perpetrators.”

Bewildered, Hal said, “I thought she was running a needlework store. Has she also taken out a license as a private investigator?”

“No, she's working as an amateur. How long were you two married?”

Hal, still frowning over his ex-wife's peculiar choice of spare-time activity, said, “Eighteen years. Back in San Diego, her hobbies were photography, embroidering aprons and other articles of apparel, and volunteering at the local animal shelter.”

“You sent her flowers at the hospital during this stay. Did you bring her a carton of cashew chicken salad when she came home from her first stay?”

Hal nodded. “That fellow who works in the needlework store said it was her favorite. I bought it at the deli next door to her store, and he said I could bring it up. So I did.”

“And she thanked you kindly, I suppose.”

Hal laughed. “No, she told me to leave and never come back, and she instructed the fellow in the shop to bar me. Which he did.” Hal's grin disappeared. “I hurt her badly, and our divorce was entirely my fault. I came here without an invitation, and instead of finding her heartbroken, I find she's made a new life for herself. She wants no part of me, and I can understand that. But I'm hoping that if I stick around for a while, she'll remember the good times and let me have a second chance.”

“Arsenic was found in the chicken salad,” said Malloy.

Hal found he couldn't breathe in. He sucked and sucked, and finally managed to get just enough air to croak, “What did you say?”

“I said, arsenic was found in the chicken salad. There was enough to have killed her twice over if she'd eaten all of it, but fortunately, she took only one small serving.”

Now able to breathe again, Hal couldn't think of anything to say except, “I didn't poison the salad. I didn't even open the carton. I just brought it up and put it in her refrigerator. Why would I poison the salad?”

“Because she won't take you back. Because she left you and came here and has found, by your own description, a new and better life for herself. While you have lost your career and your new girlfriend and your standing in your community. Because she is going to inherit a great deal of money in a few weeks, which you will have no share in. And because when you came up to see her with that little offering of food, she told you to get stuffed, and you were absolutely furious. So you added your own herbal flavoring—”