Darned if You Do (18 page)

“‘Wrong'?”

“Yes, the description is faked somehow. Maybe those cases aren't for needles, or they aren't antique, or not even steel. Or, maybe they were stolen.”

She stared at him. “Really?”

He nodded. “It happens.”

“But—”

Betsy was interrupted by Connor's abrupt raising of his card. The auctioneer didn't see him, so Connor continued to hold it up, and his bid was taken on the next raise. But when the bid was raised again, he brought his hand down, shaking his head in the negative.

“Outbid again,” he murmured.

“That seems to happen a lot.”

“You have to stay cool at an auction,” he said. “The auctioneer is an expert at getting people excited, and unless you're careful, you wind up bidding more than you meant to, and paying more for something than it's worth.”

“You don't seem to have that problem—and I don't think the Pickerings do, either.”

“No, they're a pair of very cool heads,” he said.

“They've probably been at this a long time,” said Betsy. “I know they are making a living at it. That's two reasons for them to be doing well.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he said. She thought he was being negative, then realized he was focused on the next item being brought forward, an antique rocking horse with real horsehair mane and tail.

“You don't want that,” she said, surprised.

“No, but I want to see how much it goes for.”

*   *   *

M
UCH
later, on the long drive home, she said, “That was interesting. But I think I'd be afraid to go to another auction. I kept catching myself wanting to bid on things that I now realize, in my cooler moments, I have no use for.”

A little silence fell. It was a fine night, the temperature just chilly enough to make the car's heater a welcome presence.

Connor started to hum, and in another minute he broke into an old English music hall song. “Two lovely black eyes,” he sang. “Oh! What a surprise!”

Betsy joined in, “Only for telling a man he was wrong: Two lovely black eyes.”

They wandered into other selections. God knew where Connor learned these old songs; Betsy had learned them at her father's knee. They wound up singing another favorite together. “With 'er 'ead tucked underneath 'er arm, she waaaallllks the bluddy tower!”

“Maybe we should listen to the radio some more,” said Connor, “instead of singing this nonsense.”

“No, please!” protested Betsy. “When you listen to the radio, they keep breaking in to tell you the news—and it's generally so awful, I don't listen more than once a day.”

“As you wish,” he said, and began singing about a fellow who wouldn't perform a number of deeds for his girlfriend because, “I'm shy, Mary Ellen, I'm shy.”

Another little silence fell, then Connor said, “Something I wonder: You have been involved in a number of criminal investigations. Do you ever feel compassion for the people who end up in handcuffs?”

“Sometimes. Other times, my compassion goes to the victim, and the victim's family and friends.”

“Are you forming a theory about Tom Riordan's murder?”

“I don't think so. It looks very much as if the only person with a motive to kill him is Valentina—which, if she had any intelligence at all, would keep her from murdering him. And while she's an odd person, she's not crazy or stupid.”

“Still . . .”

“Yes, I know. People do the darndest things.”

“Including me, right?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“I was surprised at how angry you were at me for partnering with Godwin to rearrange that display in the shop. I thought we were partners.”

Betsy said, “In all but that, my darling. If anyone is my partner in that shop, it's Godwin, and he doesn't own a share of it.”

“How did that come about?” Connor asked, diverted.

“I was almost totally ignorant about both needlework and owning my own small business when I came here, and content to remain so—until Margot was killed. Only hubris can explain why I didn't immediately sell out. Well, that and anger. I couldn't believe it was some random burglar who killed her. I was mad at the police for thinking so, mad at the town because they celebrated Margot's life instead of mourning her death, mad at Margot for abandoning me. All I had left of her was the shop, so I held on to it. The struggle to learn how to own that business was successful because I had Godwin and Jill and the Monday Bunch. And now you come along—and don't get me wrong, I'm very happy you did, because you have made my life so much better, and I love you with all my heart. But, you haven't earned a part of my continuing struggle, so you must stay out of it.”

“But all I did was—”

“All you did was conspire with Godwin—at whom I am angry, too—to make a significant change in the shop's display, a change you have no authority to make. And, you went into my stash upstairs to pull out a sweater I have made for Einar's next Christmas. You didn't ask if I was willing to spoil Jill and Lars's surprise.”

Betsy, to her surprise, found tears forming in her eyes. “I know you mean well, but it feels like you're taking over, and it's making me feel threatened.”

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and he said nothing for about fifteen seconds. Then he said, “Do you want me to move out?”

Her heart felt a squeeze of alarm, instantly banishing the tears. “No!” She took a breath and forced a chuckle. “Where would you go? I rented your apartment.”

He immediately fell in with the silliness. “I bet Annie Summerhill would let me sleep on her couch until I found a place.” Annie was a formerly homeless woman who had shared an adventurous train ride to Fargo with Betsy and become a friend. Betsy had helped her get an apartment and then Connor had helped her with her ne'er-do-well son. Annie would doubtless be thrilled to do a favor for Connor.

Not that that was going to happen. Right?

They rode in silence the rest of the way home, and, alarmingly, Connor slept in the guest room that night. He said he wanted to stay up and read, but when she went to the bathroom an hour later, there was no light shining under the door.

Though feeling not at all up to it, Betsy went to the early service the next morning—she had long ago learned that she needed church most when she was least willing to go.

Father Rettger had retired to Florida, to Betsy's great sorrow, and Trinity was trying out some new priests. Today, they had Father Paul LeMain Wheat, who appeared to be in his late thirties, built kind of straight up and down, but nice looking, with straight black hair and brown eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. His moves around the altar were smooth and competent, unlike last Sunday's entry, who had nearly dropped the chalice and flicked water over the server while performing the ceremony of washing his fingers.

Father Paul's sermon was intelligent and direct, and included a spirited defense of the Book of Common Prayer. But one paragraph of it struck Betsy to the heart:

“One of my most vivid memories as a child was a children's sermon. My minister scattered salt on the carpet, and then urged us to pick it up. Of course, we couldn't. He said that the salt grains were like words, which, when they come out of our mouths, cannot be retrieved. It was the first time I remember knowing, really knowing, that some words, written and spoken, can hurt, and the damage done may be irreversible.”

Betsy didn't stay for coffee and doughnuts after the service but went straight home and prepared a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, English muffins with butter and preserves, and coffee while Connor was in the shower. Over the meal, she confessed that she might have been too hasty in condemning his actions down in the shop.

He, buttering his third muffin, said that perhaps he'd been too hasty in assuming authority in matters that did not concern him.

Together, they agreed that when he had a good idea, the person to talk to about it was her.

Betsy, washing up after breakfast, felt the same shaky relief she suffered when, many years earlier, a huge truck came out of nowhere to slide across the road in front of her and her then boyfriend, very neatly amputating the passenger-side headlight off the tiny old MGB car they were riding in. It happened so fast and with such little consequence that they broke into laughter and continued on their way. It took an ambulance roaring up in the other lane toward the accident a few minutes later for the reality of the close call to sink in. Then they had to pull off the road for a few minutes to gasp and hug and worry about the ones who hadn't managed a mere close call.

And a sermon now to bring home the danger she had brought to her relationship with Connor.

She resolved to be more circumspect in her dealings with him. And maybe she needed to speak kindly to Godwin on Monday, too.

O
N
Monday morning, right at ten, the shop's phone rang. Betsy, standing closer to the desk, swooped it up. “Good morning, Crewel World, this is Betsy, how may I help you?” she said cheerfully.

“Hello, I'm Ellen Jo Whitfield, calling from Atlanta. Viola van Hollen was my mother.”

“The woman who sent me the handkerchief!” exclaimed Betsy, pleased.

“That's right. I'm sorry to tell you that she passed away five years ago.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.”

“Well, yes, it is sad, but she was ninety-three, so she lived a good long time. I was surprised to get your note after so many years. It's fortunate that we're living in her house. The post office delivered it to the address rather than returning it as undeliverable.”

“Well,” Betsy said, “as I explained in the note, a bag half full of undelivered mail was returned to our post office after nearly two decades, and it's being delivered in our town. Margot Berglund is my late sister. I have taken over her business, so that's how your mother's handkerchief got into my hands. Have you any idea how she found out about Crewel World?”

“Back in the nineties she and her best friend, Ida Mae Proudfoot, took a notion to travel all over the country. Every place they went, they visited needlework shops. I know they visited Minnesota, so it's possible they came through Excelsior and bought something in your shop.”

“What a happy thought!” said Betsy. “And how awful to think she thought my sister wasn't interested in her lovely crochet pattern. It's too late to offer your mother a chance to sell the pattern in my shop, but would you be interested in doing so?”

“I would be, but I don't do crochet, and I'm afraid all my mother's papers are long gone, so I don't have the pattern anymore.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Betsy said. “Shall I send the handkerchief back to you?”

“No, you keep it. I've got three of them. My mama always said a proper lady will have a fancy handkerchief in her purse at all times and should arrange it so the lacy edge shows.”

“Oh, what a charming old custom, and how sweet of her to continue it. And thank you for allowing me to keep the handkerchief. That's very kind of you.”

“You're welcome. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Betsy, and broke the connection.

“That wasn't Mrs. van Hollen, was it?” asked Godwin.

“No, it was her daughter. Mrs. Van Hollen died years ago—and her daughter has gotten rid of all her papers, so the pattern for the handkerchief edging is gone.”

“Oh, foop! So what are we going to do with the handkerchief?”

“She said we can keep it. It's such a pretty thing.” Betsy opened a drawer and took it out. “I'd like to carry it myself.”

“So would I,” said Godwin. “I wonder . . .”

“What?”

“Maybe we could get one of our crochet mavens to look at this. She might be able to figure out the pattern.” He took the handkerchief from Betsy and opened it out, then held up one edge toward a ceiling light. “It's not a complicated pattern, really,” he said. “Mostly repeats of the same loop de loop de loop.”

“Except in the corners,” Betsy pointed out. “There's that row of tight stitches, like lily of the valley blooms.”

“Well, yes, that's true.” Godwin laid a corner on the palm of his hand, poking at it with his thumb. “Still, maybe it's one of those stitches that only looks hard.”

“Perhaps you're right. So I tell you what, let's get back to”—she looked at the scrap of paper on which she had written the daughter's name—“Ellen Jo Whitfield, asking her how she'd feel if we try to re-create the pattern and call it Viola van Hollen's Lace Edging. We can carry it in the shop.”

“I like it.”

Betsy pressed redial on her phone—how amazing that phones these days could automatically place calls to the last incoming number!—and asked Ms. Whitfield how she'd feel to have her mother listed as the creator of the handkerchief pattern, assuming they could re-create it.

“Can you really figure out the pattern just by looking at it?” she asked.

“Yes. Well, I can't, personally—I'm afraid I'm not good enough at crochet work—but I know several women who are experienced with it, and I've been assured it can be done.”

“I think that's wonderful! Mother would be so proud if she knew about this!”

“I'm pleased you think so. Now, let's talk about pricing. What do you think would be a fair dollar amount to buy the right to sell the pattern?”

“Oh dear, I don't have any idea. But since it's not my design, I don't think it's right to charge you anything for it. Certainly Mother is in no position to need the money.” She chuckled just a little. “I think just using her name is sufficient. Perhaps you could send me a copy of the pattern when you are ready to sell it?”

“That's very kind of you, thank you!” said Betsy warmly. “And certainly I will send you a copy of the pattern.”

A minute later, she was talking busily with Godwin. “Who do we know who can look at a piece of crochet and write out the pattern?” she asked.

“I don't know, offhand,” he replied. “Pauline Morgenstern, maybe . . . Hey, wait a minute! Gracie Pickering! Remember, we both saw her crocheting at a Monday Bunch meeting. She was working on something really tiny and detailed. Let's ask her!”

Just then, Valentina entered the store. She cocked her head to listen as the door closed behind her. “That doesn't sound like the song I heard last time I came in,” she said.

“It isn't,” said Godwin. “It's so easy to change the tune that accompanies the door's opening and closing that I do it every time the mood strikes me. That's ‘Funeral March of a Marionette,' also known as the Alfred Hitchcock theme. In honor of Halloween,” he added.

“Huh,” said Valentina. “Well, listen, Goddy, I want to buy another skein of yarn, something that contrasts with that yellow you sold me. And it better be from that sale basket.”

Betsy said, “Let me give you a skein. Consider it a contribution to the ‘keep Valentina sane' movement.”

“Thank you,” said Valentina, gratefully.

“No problem at all. May I ask where you are staying these days? I'm worried about you, I have to admit.”

Valentina's face lit up. “Leona Cunningham is letting me use her spare bedroom. Her cats like me, so we're getting along fine.”

Betsy smiled back at her. “Now that sounds like the perfect solution. I should have thought of that. I can see the two of you being very compatible.”

After Valentina left with a skein of yellow-green wool, Godwin turned to Betsy. “The two of them might make a formidable pair,” he said. “I think the rest of us should be relieved when she goes back to Muncie.” And he made a few cabalistic signs with his fingers and pretend spit over his left shoulder. Leona was an accomplished practitioner of Wicca, and Godwin was obviously thinking Valentina was ripe for conversion.

Betsy laughed at him and went into the back room to make a fresh urn of coffee.

*   *   *

E
MILY
came into Crewel World about half an hour before the usual Monday Bunch meet time, responding to Betsy's earlier phone call to arrive before the others. She saw Jill sitting at the library table working on a counted cross-stitch Easter bunny pattern—stitchers only rarely work on patterns that match the actual season—so clearly she wasn't the only early arrival. “Hi, Jill,” she said before turning to greet Betsy. “What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked.

“Connor?” Betsy called, and he came out from the back of the shop, where he'd been getting himself a cup of coffee.

“I want to talk to the three of you,” said Betsy, “about the work you did in Tom Riordan's house.”

“I want to talk to you, too,” said Emily, and she went to sit at the table, putting the little valise with her needlework on the floor beside her.

Connor sat down beside her, and Betsy joined the trio, sitting next to Jill, and holding her long, narrow reporter's notebook, on which she had already written the date and the names of the assembled trio.

Emily spoke first. “I went searching on the Internet to try to find out more information about that red box I found at Tom's house, and I was able to find pictures of similar objects. I think the box is not wood or plastic, but cinnabar.”

“What's cinnabar?” asked Jill.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I wanted to wait until I spoke to you to research it online. The pictures I found make me sure the box in Tom's house is cinnabar, however. Here, let me show you.”

Emily went into her valise—it looked like an antique doctor's case, which, in fact, it was, and very handy with its little shelves and dividers—and came up with her iPad. She poked and swiped and poked again, and then used four fingers of her right hand to enlarge the picture that appeared on the device's screen. Then she handed the iPad to Betsy. “The pattern on the one I found is different, but it's about the same size, and that's the same color.”

It was indeed a pure red box, the top deeply carved with exotically robed Asian figures and twisted trees. The sides were a diamond pattern interspersed with more dwarf trees.

“Why, it's beautiful!” said Betsy. “And expensive,” she added, noting it was for sale for seven hundred dollars. She handed the iPad to Jill.

“I don't see how someone could miss something this color, even in a room as packed as that dining room,” Jill said, and handed the iPad to Connor.

“You can buy these in Asia,” he said, “although as I recall, the carvings on the ones I saw for sale over there weren't as nice, or as detailed, as this one.”

“Did you buy one?” asked Betsy.

“No, I think it may kill people to make these—literally.”

“What do you mean, kill people?” asked Emily, as Connor handed back her iPad.

“Cinnabar is made from mercury ore, and mercury is a dangerous element.”

“But mercury is silver, not red,” protested Emily.

“Yes, but the ore is a natural compound of mercury with sulfur, and it's red. To get mercury, the ore is heated in an oven. The mercury comes off as a vapor and is cooled into a liquid.”

“Like a distillery,” said Betsy.

“Yes, exactly. You can handle liquid mercury briefly without any problems, but as a vapor, it's deadly.

“Now to get a cinnabar lacquer, the Chinese grind the ore into a red powder and mix it with a lacquer derived from insects. It's painted onto a surface, allowed to dry, then another layer is painted on, allowed to dry, and so on, until it's built up thick enough to carve.”

“Is cinnabar lacquer dangerous?” asked Betsy.

“I don't know. Probably not. But grinding the ore makes powder, and carving the dried lacquer makes powder, and I can't think it's healthy to breathe either form of it in. On the other hand, traditional Chinese medicine sometimes contains powdered cinnabar.”

“How scary!” said Emily.

“Well, our old-fashioned medicines sometimes contained small amounts of arsenic or strychnine. Arsenic cleared up the complexion, and chocolate-coated strychnine was ingested to increase energy.”

“The things you know!” exclaimed Emily.

“Sorry.” But he was smiling, and he winked at Emily, who blushed and smiled back.

“But back to cinnabar,” said Betsy. “It's lovely, but is it rare as well as expensive?”

“Not really rare. I saw quite a bit of it in the bazaars in Asia. And it wasn't very expensive. But then, I was told some of what was sold as cinnabar isn't actually cinnabar. Or else the objects I saw were constructed with just a thin layer of the lacquer over carved wood.”

“So maybe what Emily found was not an expensive piece of art,” said Jill. “But there's no way to tell without getting hold of the box.”

“What about the needle cases it contained?” asked Betsy.

“Aha,” said Emily, as she returned to the screen of her iPad. In short order she came up with another photograph, this time of a narrow cylinder, richly carved with latticework overlaid with flowers and an extremely narrow dragon wrapped around it. The cylinder lay on a gray surface beside a ruler that indicated it was not quite five inches long. “This looks
exactly
like the needle case I picked up out of the box,” she said. “And it's from right around here.” She handed the iPad to Betsy.

“Oh, Emily, how lovely! And you were right, it
is
ivory, and it's not darkened at all.” A caption under the object said it was one of three, and that they were Chinese, made in the late 1800s.

“Maybe there's a way to restore old ivory's pale color,” said Jill when she was handed the iPad.

“Where did you find this image?” asked Betsy.