Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 (21 page)

“I was hoping you knew if there was,” said Betsy. “There are twenty-some attributes on the halo, enough for a brief message.”

Mandy shook her head. “I'm sorry, I can't help you. She must have been upset, but she never said a word, so I think she probably just picked things at random to fill the space.”

“Well!” said Betsy after Mandy left. “So the sainted Father Keane wasn't such a saint after all.”

“And where does that leave us?” said Jill.

Betsy replied, “I think it depends on who knew. It was only ten or twelve years ago. Surely most if not all of those vestry members are still around. I wonder why they decided not to tell the parish. There must be a record somewhere, like minutes of their meetings or something.”

“If they left a record, where is it?” asked Jill. “Because this is all news to me, and I've been a member of Trinity since I was baptized. I never heard a word. Patricia's a member of the current vestry, so she certainly should know, but she's the one gung ho about renaming the library after him.”

“Then they must have decided not to tell anyone,” said Betsy. “And having decided that, I can see why they'd be upset if it got out now. But what I don't see is why they're coming after me.” Betsy gnawed at her bottom lip. “Maybe it's Patricia trying to keep us from finding that out. He's her hero.”

“But then the person to kill is Mandy, not you,” Jill pointed out.

Betsy said, “She'd better act fast. Mandy will get hold of Father John or Patricia—or both—later today.” She looked at Jill. “Uh-oh.”

Before she could say anything more, Jill was out the door. She came back a couple of minutes later, breathing hard. “I caught her. She's going straight home and won't talk to anyone about this until we tell her she can. I asked her what she said to the receptionist at Trinity, and she only told Crystal that she'd call back.”

Though Godwin and Shelly were obviously eaten up with curiosity, Betsy refused to tell them more. And to keep them from speculating together, she sent Shelly on an errand. A little Christmas tree on the checkout desk that had been decorated with donated needlework ornaments was to go to a patient at a local nursing home. “Better get that over there now,” Betsy said.

Back upstairs, Betsy said to Jill, “All right, let's look at the actual attributes, copy them all down in order.” She called Trinity. Father John was doing hospital calls. Betsy said to Crystal, “I've got some more wool I want to try to match to the tapestry. May I come over and see it?”

“I'm sorry, Ms. Devonshire, but I don't know where it is. It was in the church hall, but they cleared that out. I know they didn't take it with them because Mrs. Fairland called yesterday wanting to see it, and when I said it wasn't in the church hall anymore, she called all the people who volunteered to help clear things out, and none of them had moved it. Our janitor says he didn't move it, either. She's pretty upset, but I could only tell her what I'm telling you: I don't know where it is.”

“Well . . . ah . . . thank you.” Betsy hung up and turned, frowning, to Jill. “Remember when you said that if the tapestry had a message that accused you of something, you'd get rid of it? Apparently someone has.”

B
etsy tried to call Patricia, but there was no answer. “When are they leaving for Phoenix, do you remember if she said?” Betsy asked Jill.

“No.”

“So what do we do now?”

Jill looked around the apartment and said, “Finish decorating the tree?”

But while doing that, Jill, still picking at the case, asked, “Are you sure it isn't Hal Norman doing all this? There are a lot of weird men out there who decide, ‘If I can't have her, no one can.' ”

“I know. But don't they tend to shoot themselves after shooting their women? The Pig doesn't strike me as the suicidal type. I mean, how would the world get along without him?”

“Well, then let's call Mike and see if he's found any suspects among the friends and relations of the murderers you've unveiled lately.”

Jill placed the call to Mike's pager, and when he called back, she asked if he'd developed any new suspects. “I'm afraid not,” he said. “Any action on your end?”

“No, I think the word's out that she's got an armed guard. The tapestry's gone missing, and that may also be a factor.”

But trying to think why someone might want her dead prompted Betsy to other morbid thoughts. She put the hot dish she'd just pulled out of the freezer into the microwave to thaw it and phoned John Penberthy at home. “I guess it's time to make out that will,” she said, not very graciously.

“Do you want to come see me tomorrow?”

“I have to work tomorrow, so if you're free this evening, can you come over? Come to supper. We've got plenty to eat, if you like hot dish. Jill Cross is staying with me for a while, so there will be two of us to talk to.”

“Yes, I heard about that arrangement, and I think it's a very good idea. All right, thank you, I'll be there. We've got that one asset to talk about as well. I'll bring the file.”

Penberthy was prompt. He was about thirty, dark and good looking, with humorous, intelligent eyes. Under a short winter coat he wore khaki slacks, a white shirt open at the collar, and a sky-blue, V-necked sweater—his version of casual. He carried a shining old-fashioned briefcase that was probably older than he was.

Betsy had chosen a hot dish of potatoes, pork, onion, and cheese. After thawing it, she had put it in the oven to heat through. She made a salad of cucumber, tomato, endive, green onions, and herbs. That was the meal, plus seven-grain bread and milk, with coffee for dessert. Penberthy declined a slice of banana cream pie.

“Ah,” he sighed at last, putting his second cup down empty. “That was delicious. My mother used to make that hot dish from leftover pork roast.”

“Martha Winters made this one,” said Betsy. “I only know how to mix peas and tuna with macaroni and cheese.”

“Definitely not Lutheran, then,” said Penberthy with a nod, and Jill laughed.

Betsy decided that was an obscure reference Minnesotans used as shortcuts to character. She also decided she didn't want to know what it said about her. She and Jill began clearing the table. “Is it a complicated thing, making a will?” Betsy asked over her shoulder.

Penberthy replied, “It can be. Depends on what you want to do. If you want to set up trusts, it definitely will be. Any idea who you want your executor to be?”

“No, but what I want is not very complicated. I want to leave Crewel World to Godwin du Lac, then split the money between Godwin and Jill Cross.”

“Me
?” said Jill, clattering plates into the sink. “Sorry.”

“Well, I have to leave it to someone—”

Jill came to take the salad bowl from Betsy and said, “But Betsy, when he leaves, we'll be all alone and . . . well, I've got a gun.”

Penberthy laughed hardest at that.

But when the two women came back from the kitchen, he had a thick file folder on the table. “Let's look at this first,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Have you ever heard the term
silent partner?”

“Sure. It means someone who buys shares in a company but doesn't help run it.”

Penberthy said, “Yes, that's approximately correct. Your sister was a silent partner in a company called New York Motto.” He opened the file folder and began handing over documents.

Betsy studied them for a couple of minutes, but then said, “I'm sorry, I don't understand what this is about. In some places it looks as if Margot owned the company, but in others it seems like it was Vicki Prentice. Who's she?”

“At the start, she was a friend of mine. She owned a small property in Wisconsin, adjoining a lake cabin your sister used to own, so Margot knew her, too.”

“It was a nice place,” said Jill. “But Margot sold it when the developers moved in.”

Penberthy nodded and continued, “But what I'm talking about happened a few years ago. Margot had been playing the market, but it made her nervous and it demanded a lot of her time, so she wanted someplace else to put the money. I had been fooling around with futures, and she came and asked me if I wanted to do some investing for her. It's unethical for a person's attorney to enter into a business connection with her, so I introduced her to Vicki.

“Vicki was taking law courses at night while she worked as a law clerk for a lawyer during the day. The lawyer specialized in bankruptcies and receiverships, and Vicki had come up with an idea involving bankruptcy estate assets. The auction of these assets is not advertised, and often valuable assets are sold for far less than they are worth.”

Betsy began to smile. “And that's where Margot put her money, into buying these assets.”

“In a way. Vicki was the one who wanted to do this, but she didn't have the start-up money. Margot didn't have the time it takes to find and attend the sales and then sell the assets. So what Margot did was start a shell company, called New York Motto. Did you know the state of New York's motto is ‘Excelsior'?”

“I used to, but I'd forgotten.”

Penberthy continued, “Excelsior was founded by immigrants from New York.”

“Really? I didn't know that. I'm going to have to research the history of this place someday.”

“You'll love it,” said Jill. “We have a checkered history.”

“We have a varied and interesting history,” corrected Penberthy. Then he continued, “Margot kept ninety-five percent of the company, selling five percent to Vicki. Vicki quit her job and dropped out of law school when she was named operating officer. Vicki hired a highly talented CPA as comptroller and other staff, mostly scouts to research bankruptcy and sheriff's auctions. New York Motto has been doing quite well since its founding. But here,” he said, handing Betsy another document, “this may be of special interest to you.”

It was some kind of land contract. New York Motto agreed to sell a piece of land on which was a restaurant to Joseph P. Mickels. “Joe!” exclaimed Betsy, and Jill came out of the kitchen to look over her shoulder. The legal description of the location didn't mean much until Betsy got to “City of Pinewood, in the County of Hennepin, State of Minnesota.” Pinewood was another of those Hennepin county “cities” that are really small towns. In Pinewood's case, practically a village. But it was just up the road from Excelsior, on the shore of Lake Minnetonka.

Jill drew air softly through her teeth. “I know that place,” she said. “The manager was a crook.”

“Was this restaurant bought at one of those auctions?” asked Betsy.

“Yes, at a bankruptcy estate sale in bankruptcy court.”

“And Joe is buying it from New York Motto.”

“He's buying it back.”

“You mean it was his? Joe went
bankrupt?
”

“Not Joe, one of his companies.” Penberthy explained, “Joe plays around with a lot of different kinds of real estate. When the deal seems particularly risky, he'll start a new company and put the holding in the new company's name. That way, if it doesn't work out, the loss doesn't put a drain on any of Joe's other holdings but is confined to the corporation that owns it.”

Betsy nodded.

Penberthy continued, “Restaurants are chancy businesses at the best of times. Joe put his company and its restaurant into the hands of a cousin who, it turned out, really didn't know what he was doing. And when the cousin saw it was going bad, he ran it into the ground—it's called running a bust out—and absconded with most of the money. By the time Joe realized what was going on, it was too late. The company had to declare bankruptcy.

“In legal terms, what happens when a company goes bankrupt is that it disappears and a new entity, a bankruptcy estate, is created, and the court assigns a trustee to manage it. These trustees are often overextended, handling six hundred or more cases a year. When they don't investigate the background or search the estate thoroughly for assets, they may misapprehend its true value.”

Betsy, holding onto comprehension with both hands, nodded again.

“In this case, after a halfhearted search for assets—the trustee knew this was a bust-out case—the trustee ordered the property sold to pay creditors. If he'd paid attention, he would have realized that while the restaurant was deep in debt, the lakefront property on which it stood was free of liens. New York Motto's scout wasn't as careless and recommended making a bid. Joe came to the auction with a cashier's check in an amount equal to about eight cents on the dollar of the value of the property. But Vicki came with a cashier's check for twelve cents on the dollar and, when Joe couldn't raise his bid—you must have cash in hand or a cashier's check—the judge dropped his gavel and New York Motto got it. Joe was very angry, of course.

“A week later, he contacted New York Motto and expressed an interest in the property. Vicki offered him a contract for deed, and, surprisingly, he took it. What I assume is that at the time, he was cash poor, but he was sure he would be in good financial condition at the end of the purchase contract. He planned to have The Mickels Building finished or nearly finished and figured he could handle a balloon payment at the time it came due.”

“Oh, a balloon payment,” said Betsy, nodding more easily. She'd known several people desperately worried about balloon payments.

Penberthy smiled. “This contract offered terms that amounted to paying interest on a loan of the purchase price, with the entire principal due as the last payment.”