Thai Die (21 page)

“Nobody seems to know—how could there be a reason? Carmen is an elementary school substitute teacher, and she’s not teaching this quarter. The one thing she did that ties her into this mess was go to Thailand with Wendy and Lena two years ago, and now both of them are dead.”

“Do the police have any suspects?”

“No. Not a clue. None of us do.”

“So if you didn’t go away, how did you get through the night?”

“We stayed up all night with guns. You wouldn’t believe the fantastic Remington shotgun Richard has or the gun he loaned me, a Colt forty-five semiautomatic, a model 1911. Beautiful weapon. He’s got that magazine holder polished so slick the magazine falls completely out when you release it, ready for a reload. And he gave me two magazines to carry. I’m telling you, we’re loaded for bear. We locked the doors and made regular tours of the house all night. We told each other war stories until I was almost hoping our shooter would come back so I could pop a cap in him.”

“Phil!” said Betsy.

“Well . . . No, dammit, we were
ready
! And if he did come back, we would have put an end to this nonsense.”

Betsy sighed very quietly. “All right, maybe you’re right.”

“So what do you think the next step should be?”

“I don’t know.” Betsy thrust her fingers into her hair. If this was about the silk—or the statue—and Wendy and Lena were involved in smuggling it, why didn’t one of them bring it back? Why leave it to sit for two years and then get an outsider to carry it here? She said, “Hmmm,” because she had no idea.

Then she asked, “Are you going to stay there?”

“Yes,” Phil responded. “At least until Dorie wakes up. Then I’m taking her away—and I’m not telling you or anyone where we’re going.”

After trying fruitlessly to talk him out of that, they hung up.

Betsy thought it possible that the shooter was after Carmen, because this time there had been no demand of Doris that she turn over the silk.

But if the shooter were after Carmen, the question still remained: Why?

Sixteen

THE shop had barely been open half an hour on Thursday morning when Betsy had to explain—again—to one of her part-timers that the customer is always right. Good employees never, ever argue with a customer over her choice of pattern, floss, wool, or canvas. Her other part-timer was avidly eavesdropping, which aggravated Betsy very much, since she’d had to give her the same lecture a week ago.

The phone rang, and Betsy, thinking she was starting to rub the young woman’s nose in it, said, “You have a kind heart, Mary, so I’m sure you’ll do much better from now on,” and went to answer it. “Good morning, Crewel World, Betsy speaking, how may I help you?”

“Good morning, I may have good news for you.”

“Oh, good morning, Joe! A little good news might be very welcome right now.”

“Were you serious about needing just a few minutes of a textile expert’s time?”

“Why, yes, I was.”

“Good, because if you can get here by twelve thirty, you can see Dr. Edyth Booker for fifteen minutes. That is a serious time limit, because she has a luncheon engagement and has to leave at twelve forty-five.”

“That’s wonderful. I may not even need the whole fifteen minutes. Who is Dr. Booker?”

“She’s our new curator of textiles, very knowledgeable about anything woven, though her specialty lies in things Asian.”

“Wow, the curator herself! Thank you very much!”

“No problem. I hope she’s able to help you. I’d spend a few minutes right now begging for more money, but I’ve got an emergency meeting in Roseville I have to get to. You can rest assured I’ll call you later.”

Betsy laughed. “All right.” She hung up and checked her watch. There was barely time to call another part-timer to replace one or both of the ones now working, but should she? These two tended to rub up against one another until sparks flew. On the other hand, they were experienced in retail sales and even better at the minutiae of needlework.

She decided simply to ask and called them to the desk in front. “I have to go out unexpectedly for a noontime meeting. I’m thinking of calling Goddy in as an emergency supervisor, or maybe sending one of you home and calling Chelsea as a replacement.”

“Oh, don’t do that!” And, “Of course you can trust us!” they insisted, ashamed she’d even thought to propose such things, as if they were unruly children.

Well, it wasn’t as if she was going to leave them alone the rest of the day.

So at twelve Betsy left the shop and headed up Highway 7, exiting on the fringe of downtown Minneapolis. In a few blocks the white, classical front of the art institute came into view. It sat atop a low hill and had a magnificent set of about a hundred white granite steps leading up it. But since that was not handicapped accessible to a ludicrous degree, it was no longer the main entrance. She parked on Third and went through a much more modest entry lined with heavy glass doors.

The entry lobby was light and airy, floored with highly polished tan marble. To the left was the Children’s Theater, on the right was another set of big glass doors leading into the museum proper, where the tan marble floors continued.

The private offices of the museum were on the third floor, and carpeted.

Betsy had rolled the Thai embroidery in a white cotton towel and carried it in a purse almost big enough to be an overnight bag. She wished she’d remembered to bring a small knitting or counted cross-stitch project. Experience had taught her that handwork made waiting easier on her nerves and her temper.

But today there was no waiting. The secretary showed her right into a medium-sized office, where Dr. Edyth Booker waited beside her desk. Betsy had never met her, so she paused for a moment in the doorway to take her measure.

Dr. Booker was a woman of late middle age. She had a somewhat stocky build and she wore her blond hair in a short and prickly cut. She was wearing a flowing black ankle-length skirt printed with big spirals of aquamarine and gray, and a severely cut white shirt. She had turquoise jewelry and sported rings on almost every finger. When she smiled at Betsy, her dark blue eyes twinkled.

“So you’re the one who won’t let me gather my thoughts before I have to go ask the board for an interim increase in my budget.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were just having lunch!” Betsy said.

“It is over lunch,” said Dr. Booker. “I find that a couple of bottles of a good wine with an ample meal loosens pinch-penny minds.”

Betsy laughed, but then Dr. Booker looked at her watch, which had a silver and turquoise band, and turned abruptly serious. “So, what is it you want to ask me about?”

“I own a needlework shop in Excelsior, and recently I rescued a beautiful piece of silk embroidery from the trash. The more I look at it, the less I can figure out what it is and how to repair it.” She reached into her purse, brought out the towel, and said, “May I show it to you?”

“All right,” said Dr. Booker warily, probably afraid this was going to take longer than she’d hoped.

She went behind her desk, a very solid antique piece constructed of pale oak, almost clear of papers and totally devoid of personal items. Betsy put the towel on one side of the desk and unrolled it with a swift movement of her fingers. The silk had been folded in half lengthwise; she unfolded it, then stepped back.

Dr. Booker stared at the piece, her mouth moving as if she could not quite remember how to whistle. She bent over for a closer look and whispered, “Where did you get this?”

“A friend went to Thailand a few weeks ago, and when she came back she brought a beautiful stone statue of the Buddha. It was wrapped in this piece of fabric. The Buddha was to go to an antiques shop in St. Paul, but my friend thought that delivering it with this dirty rag was disrespectful, and so she threw the fabric in a wastebasket. I fished it out and I’ve been trying to think how to clean and restore it. But I can’t find any information about this style of embroidery on the Internet—it’s silk, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s silk.” Dr. Booker’s tone was neutral. She moved her hand along the surface of the fabric, almost but not quite touching it.

Betsy continued, “And the weave is unusual, kind of like twill, don’t you think? The embroidery is very attractive but I can’t find any style like it, either. I don’t want to do anything to it until I know what I’ve got here. It’s dirty, but is it safe to wash it?” She saw the way Dr. Booker was staring at her, and said, “What?”

“You say you rescued this from a wastebasket?”

“Yes. There’s more to the story, but—”

“I don’t doubt that,” interrupted Dr. Booker. “Will you excuse me for just one minute? Don’t go away, I’ll be right back.”

“Certainly.”

Dr. Booker hurried out of the office, closing the door behind her. Betsy waited a minute, then walked to the window. It overlooked a courtyard piled with snow. A sidewalk between the entrance lobby of the museum and the new wing across from it had been cleared with a snow blower. The Target Corporation had donated the wing, and while it wasn’t marked with anything so obvious as the Target logo, there was a very large circle deeply cut into the façade over the entrance. The tan of the stone seemed deeper in color than Betsy remembered it, but that was probably because of its contrast with the sparkling new snow that covered the courtyard. Along the walk it was piled higher than the head of the man walking up it. Only the very tops of several small trees and an abstract sculpture could be seen under the drifts.

Betsy sighed and turned toward the door, which remained shut. She took her coat off while she looked around. Beside the window was a small table on which rested a flat-screen Sony Vaio computer, a secretarial chair in front of it. A file cabinet so old it was made of real oak came out from an adjoining wall, making something like an alcove for the computer setup. An equally old oak armchair, recently reupholstered in green leather, stood on the other side of it.

Betsy took a seat and waited some more. She wondered if her part-timers were behaving. The thought made her sigh with impatience for Dr. Booker’s return.

She was just reaching for her bag to get her cell phone out when the door opened and Dr. Booker came striding back in. For the first time Betsy noticed how firm and square her jaw was. Dr. Booker went back behind her desk and said, “I want you to tell me how you came by this piece of silk.”

“Is there a problem?”

“I’m not sure.” Dr. Booker’s eyebrows were raised, like a high school principal waiting for a delinquent to explain himself.

So Betsy told what she knew of Doris’s adventures in Bangkok, and of what had happened since her return. Dr. Booker’s eyebrows didn’t come down once.

“So this friend of yours is apparently mixed up in a
murder
?” Dr. Booker said when Betsy finished.

“Yes, and I’m afraid that if she had been at home when the burglar came into her apartment, she might also have become a victim.”

“Have you any idea what this person or these people are after?”

“The only thing they have in common is that statue of the Buddha that Doris brought back from Thailand. I am starting to think it wasn’t a copy, as the man in Bangkok told her, but the real thing. I assume it could be extremely valuable?”

“It could be. Someone would have to examine it—not me; I’m not an expert on artifacts that aren’t made of fabric.”

Betsy gestured at the piece of embroidered silk on Dr. Booker’s desk. “Unless . . . It couldn’t be the silk, could it?”

“No, no, no, it’s not the silk. As you suggested, it’s probably a modern design. Could you describe the statue to me again?”

Betsy did, even raising her hands to show the position of the Buddha’s hands. Dr. Booker nodded. “Well, I do know that that’s a very early pose. All of the positions have meaning, you know—a command to cease fighting, a command to contemplate the beauty of the earth. What you are demonstrating is the oldest-known pose—and no one knows its significance.”

Betsy looked at her raised hands, left and right. “Interesting.”

“I will pass your story along to our Asian curator, who may contact you with questions of his own. Now, about this embroidery. It is a beautiful thing, and it would be a shame if it were just tossed away or damaged in an attempt to restore it. I’ll be glad to do a little research on it for you.” Her left hand hovered over the piece, but again she did not quite touch it. “It won’t take long—” Her eye was caught by her watch. “Oh, my, I’m going to be late! Let me call you when I’ve got some answers for you.” She came out from behind her desk and walked rapidly to the door. “It should be by next Wednesday at the latest.” She opened it and waited for Betsy to go through. “This will be a pretty little problem for me, and thank you for bringing it in. Good-bye.”

Betsy found herself on the other side of the closed door, not sure if she should feel insulted at this very mild bum rush. It reminded her of the way Doris was treated in that antiques shop.