Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 (7 page)

Last night—there had been a party here last night—
that's
why she had a headache. And the party was Saturday night, so this must be Sunday. The radio hadn't come on because this was Sunday, which was lovely because even late as it surely was, she wasn't ready to get up just yet. In fact, she could feel herself drifting back to sleep again.

The mattress joggled as about eighteen pounds landed on it.

Sophie, aware by the change in her breathing that Betsy was awake, had jumped on the bed. Betsy tried to feign the deep breathing of sleep. Another fifteen seconds and it wouldn't be fake.

Too slow. There was the imperious tap of a cat's paw on her shoulder.

“Go 'way,” muttered Betsy.

But this further sign of consciousness only encouraged the cat. “Reeeewwwwww,” she whined, her mouth close to Betsy's hypersensitive ear. Betsy flinched and pulled the covers over her head. The cat tapped again. And again. Her normal breakfast time was long past, and she was probably genuinely hungry.

Betsy groaned—softly, softly!—and began a careful struggle to free her legs from the tangled blanket and sheet. Sophie immediately jumped off the bed and hustled toward the kitchen, where the cat food lived.

Betsy was sure that somewhere deep in the cat's soul Sophie knew she was not starving nor in danger of starving. But probably she was equally certain that this was because of her own unending efforts to keep her mistress aware that The Cat Must Be Fed.

Betsy had been running a campaign of her own to Make the Cat Wait, but so far it was a series of strategic retreats. Sophie cleverly—her laziness apparently did not include her brain—didn't approach each target directly but went for the target beyond and accepted as compromise the one she was after.

Back when Betsy fed the cat
after
she got dressed, Sophie began nagging for food before Betsy got into the shower. Betsy compromised by feeding Sophie after she showered but
before
she got dressed. Now Sophie was trying to maneuver breakfast time up to right after that first and most necessary trip to the bathroom. And Betsy had actually been contemplating feeding her before she showered. Today the cat had crossed another line: waking Betsy up. Never before had Sophie ventured to wake Betsy. She'd always waited until Betsy woke up either by herself or to the music of the clock radio. And she normally included an interval of cuddling. Not today; today The Cat Must Be Fed
Now.

Well, no more compromising; if Betsy wanted to sleep in on Sundays, she was going to have to hold the line at feeding the cat after her morning shower.

Betsy looked at her puffy morning-after face in the bathroom mirror and smiled. The Pig had come and been sent away empty-handed. It was great how Jill had backed her up, literally slamming the door in his face. Imagine his turning up here like that, thinking he would be welcome! When it came to nerve, the Pig took the cake.

The party last night had been good, Betsy thought as she brushed her teeth. Most of the guests had departed at a respectable eleven, but a final six remained. They, with Betsy, had settled into a discussion of modern culture (what was lacking and how to fix it) that went on until nearly three A.M. Joe Mickels was proven not to be the Fascist everyone thought, and the straitlaced Patricia had unbent so far as to be amused by Godwin, who had sent John home alone when he hinted for the fifth time he was bored. Alice Skoglund told the joke about the bishop on roller skates, which set off a sidebar on religion that for a wonder actually shed more light than heat. Betsy had opened another two bottles of wine, and after her third glass had given a lecture on college faculty politics. Perhaps after the Pig's brief appearance, that was to be expected. Her guests bore it patiently, and even offered cordial thanks for a good time when at last they'd gone home.

Betsy took a quick shower, then went to give Sophie her breakfast of diet cat food. She put the kettle on.

Half an hour later, she was eating dry toast, sipping a second cup of green tea, and thinking of tackling the Sunday Crossword of the
New York Times Online.
It was a little after eleven, and Betsy was still in her striped flannel robe. The phone rang.

“Hello?” she said into the receiver.

“Hello, darlin',” said a deep, warm, oh-so-familiar voice.

“Calling to say you've got to stay on campus for another staff meeting?” said Betsy.

“Now, hon,” protested the voice, but Betsy hung up so she wouldn't have to listen to the rest.

 

“He's still in town, you know,” said Godwin on Monday morning.

“Who?” asked Betsy, checking the sky out the front window. It was gloomy, and the forecast was for snow, but so far it had held off. Perhaps the flakes would hover in the clouds until the weather system moved over to Wisconsin.

“Hal Norman, your husband.”

“He is not my husband.” Betsy came back to the library table and sat down.

“He's telling people he has reason to hope for a reconciliation.” Godwin's tone put a twist on the words, hinting he thought this wasn't going to happen but leaving a little wriggle room because the ways of love are passing strange.

“He needs a reality check,” said Betsy, picking up the hippopotamus ornament she was working on. She'd made a mistake twenty stitches back. She'd seen it half a dozen stitches ago. Realizing it wasn't an important mistake, she'd tried to ignore it; but it kept mocking her until she couldn't bear it. Frogging, it was called, when you took stitches out. She said, “No, he should fall off that pink cloud of fantasy he's been riding and break his neck.”

“I see,” said Godwin. “You want to know who he's talking to?”

“No,” said Betsy, her needle going rip-it, rip-it. But Excelsior was a gossipy little town. Pretty soon people would be dropping by and making remarks, so perhaps it was better to be forearmed. “Okay, who?” she said.

“Irene Potter,” began Godwin, but Betsy interrupted him with a groan. Of all the gossips, Irene was probably the worst. She was a fanatical needleworker, fabulously talented, but passing strange, on her way to totally weird. Perhaps because she had no social skills, she was endlessly interested in what people said and did and loved speculating aloud what their motives might be. More than anything in the world, she wanted her own needlework shop and suspected darkly that Betsy kept Crewel World open mostly to keep Irene from taking it over and running it as it should be run. Her speculations about Hal and Betsy, therefore, would not be kind.

“Who else?” asked Betsy, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, trying toward off a headache.

“I understand he bought Patricia Fairland a cup of coffee at the Waterfront Cafe and talked to her for about ten minutes. Left her doing that thing women do with the back of their hair. He is rather good-looking.”

“Looks aren't everything,” said Betsy, the voice of experience.

“But they open a lot of doors,” Godwin said, the voice of his own experience. Betsy nodded. Godwin was so handsome he was almost pretty. “He talked real estate with Joe Mickels,” Godwin continued—real estate was one topic on which Joe was always willing to converse—“oh, and at church yesterday morning, he expressed surprise and disappointment that you weren't there.”

Betsy groaned again.
“What
am I going to do about him?”

“Nothing,” said Godwin. “People are already speculating. Some think he's here because he heard about your money, others that the father of one of the coeds he seduced has a contract out on him.”

Betsy giggled and Godwin smiled. “Well, it's Irene who offered that one. If you really have to do something, sic Jill on him, why don't you? She could find an excuse to shoot him, maybe.”

Betsy said, “No. I've read about what shooting a person does to the shooter.”

“Not to mention the
shot, ”
said Godwin, surprised.

“I'm serious,” said Betsy. “I have a friend in San Diego, her name is Abbey, and she has a friend who is married to a cop, and he shot some teenage thug who was holding up a bank. He got a medal for valor, but he was suicidal for years afterward. So don't even joke about doing that to Jill.”

“All right,” said Godwin.

A customer came in looking for a needlepoint project and expressed disappointment that they hadn't marked down the Christmas stockings, now that Christmas was almost here.

“There's no need to mark them down,” said Godwin. “Many customers give them as gift kits. And besides, it can take as long as
two years
to finish a project like this, so it isn't exactly a seasonal thing.” He looked around as if to check for eavesdroppers and winked at Betsy with an eye the customer couldn't see—and then at the customer with the other eye. “However,” he murmured, “we
may
be able to give you a special price on the wool or silk you select for the project, or on one of our scheduled classes on needlepoint. I
think
there's an opening in the one I'll be teaching, the one that starts the middle of January.”

“Well,” hedged the customer, “I always did want to learn beading, and Emily told me you do wonderful beadwork.”

“I hope you will consider it. I was very impressed with that sampler you worked. You do a beautiful mosaic stitch. In another year, you'll be teaching your own class for us. Just let me get the schedule.”

Her brunette and his blond heads were soon bent over the calendar on the checkout desk, and then she was writing a check.

After the woman left, Betsy got out her employee list and their schedule of hours and tried to find ways to reduce them. But she had gotten to know her part-timers. Several spent the greater part of their wages on needlework projects—a saving to the shop all by itself, even considering the employee discount. The one young woman Betsy felt she could most easily spare was newly separated from her husband and desperately needed the little Betsy was able to pay her.

“I don't want to cut any of these people,” said Betsy.

“Well, what else can you cut?”

“I don't know. Maybe I can cancel my medical insurance. Crewel World pays for it, and it's very expensive.”

“Don't do that,” advised Godwin. “The goblins of fate are just waiting to pounce on people who cancel insurance policies.”

“Well then, what does Hollytree expect me to do?” she grumbled, throwing her pencil down. It bounced on its eraser and barely missed Godwin's ear on its way into a basket of fuschia wool.

The phone rang. Godwin was retrieving the pencil, so Betsy answered it. “Crewel World, good morning, may I help you?”

“Hello, Betsy, it's John Penberthy. How are you today?”

Penberthy was Betsy's attorney, a young man of great ability with an office on Water Street.

“Except for being in danger of going broke, I'm fine, thank you. What's up?”

“This may cheer you up. I've got some more figures for you on the estate. Thanks to a healthy stock market, it looks as if the final numbers will be closer to three million than two and a half. The first million is now exempt from inheritance taxes, but the rest will be taxed at forty percent.”

“Forty percent, huh?” Was that good or bad? Betsy hadn't earned the inheritance, but neither had the government.

“It also appears that certificates of deposit, money market accounts, and other assets are generating between twenty-five hundred and three thousand dollars a month, which Margot was using as income. I assume you will want to continue that, and meanwhile, the money is being put into an interest-bearing account. Not a very high interest, I'm afraid, as I'm sure you will want it to be accessible as soon as the estate is closed.”

So that was how Margot kept the shop in the black, by not paying herself a salary. “Yes, please,” said Betsy, stifling an impulse to shout, “How soon can I put my hands on that money?” Instead she said, “I got your last letter, where you put in writing what you told me about the stocks and bonds, and I thank you. I'm getting better at this, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you said about a silent partnership Margot was in. I can't find any record of it at the courthouse. I wondered if perhaps you were acting as her representative so her name wouldn't appear.”

“Oh, no, I couldn't represent her in that way. Why don't you stop by my office today or tomorrow, and I'll show you the file? You may find it amusing.”

“Is it a lot of money?” asked Betsy.

“It's an irregular income, and right now there's not much action. But it is going to pay off majorly in short order.”

“What is it, interest in a gambling casino?”

Penberthy laughed, but he only insisted Betsy should be looking at the file while he explained. “If I may make one more suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“I think you should consider making a will. You said there are no relatives, so it would be a shame if you died without one and the government got everything, after the time and effort we've spent keeping them from taking most of it. Name a favorite charity or give some friends a happy surprise. I will, of course, be very pleased to talk to you about it when you are ready.”

“All right,” said Betsy. “I'll think about it.” She hung up.

After she settled back into her project, Betsy said to Godwin, “It's different when you really become rich. I mean, instead of daydreaming about it. In the dream you get huge checks every week, which you cash and spend. In the real world, there are IRAs and investment properties and nonexempt bonds and taxes. I'm just grateful I have Mr. Penberthy to help me through it all.”