Embroidered Truths (11 page)

“Well!”
said Martha, turning on Betsy. “What can they be thinking?”

“I have no idea!” said Betsy, taking two steps backward.

“They think he murdered John!” said Alice, in a voice of baffled wonder.

“Well, we can’t have that!” declared Martha. “What are you going to do, Betsy?”

“I don’t know. I can’t believe Mike did that.”

“You’d better believe it,” said Bershada. “And you’d better do something about it—and fast.”

“What nonsense, saying Godwin murdered John,” said Emily indignantly. “Of all the stupid, stupid . . .
nonsense
!”

“Of course it’s nonsense!” said Betsy. She went to the window again, but the cars were out of sight. “I wonder what Mike found out that makes him believe Goddy murdered John?”

“No amount of evidence could convince me that boy murdered
anyone
!” declared Bershada. “He simply isn’t capable!”

“I agree,” said Emily, and everyone nodded.

Martha asked, “Where do you suppose they took him?”

“Over to the police station, of course,” said Doris. Then she frowned. “Right?”

“Call over there and find out,” said Martha.

“Yes, of course.” Betsy picked up the phone and hit the speed dial number for Jill at work.

“Excelsior Police, this is Sergeant Cross,” came the crisp reply.

“Jill, has Mike gotten over there with Goddy yet?”

“Hold on.” There was the sound of a receiver being dropped onto a desk, then silence. A minute later, Jill was back. “They’re not bringing him here. He’s going right downtown to be booked. He’s in no state to be interrogated.”

“Oh, Jill! Have they hurt him?”

“You know better than that. He’s acting like a crazy person.”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry. He was yelling and fighting all the way out the door. Jill, what am I supposed to do?”

“Hire an attorney.”

“Shouldn’t I talk to him first? Or talk to Mike? Jill, why on earth has Mike arrested Goddy?”

“I don’t know. He got a call from someone this morning, and went out for awhile, then suddenly he has a warrant. Betsy, he seems awfully sure it’s Godwin.”

“But he’s wrong, you know he’s wrong.”

“I can only repeat, get him a lawyer. A good one.”

“Yes, all right. Thanks, Jill.”

Betsy hung up. “They’re taking him to Minneapolis, to the jail. Jill said . . . she said he’s in no state to be interrogated.”

“Well, we got a good sample of how he’s handling this already,” said Alice. She shivered, as if shaking off a chill. “Poor little guy.”

“You’ve got to get him bailed out right away,” said Bershada. “I mean,
right away
.”

“I do?”

“Honey, think about it! We’re talking Godwin. Sweet,
pretty
Godwin. They put him in a cell, and it’ll be ‘Fresh meat, come and get it.’”

The chill that had troubled Alice descended on them all. Sweet, pretty,
defenseless
Godwin, thrust into a cell with some enormous tattooed biker—everyone’s eyes widened.

“Oh, dear God,” said Betsy. She sat down again and picked up the phone. She was so frightened she had trouble finding the number on her Rolodex, and then trouble dialing it. “Mr. Pemberthy?” she said. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re in! Listen, Godwin has been arrested, and we need to bail him out right away.”

Attorney James Pemberthy said, “Godwin, arrested? For what?” He sounded amused.

“Murder. Mike Malloy came and got him and said he was under arrest for the murder of John Nye. Jill says they took him right down to the jail. Jim, he was scared and crying. We can’t let him stay there, we have to get him out!”

There was no amusement now. “When did this happen?”

“Just now. I thought they were taking him to the police station, but Jill says he was hysterical so they just went right on down the road to Minneapolis.” Betsy felt a sob rising in her chest and choked it down fiercely. “You’re my attorney, can you do something?”

“Not in this case. I’m not a criminal defense attorney, and that’s what you need. I can give you a couple of names, if you like.”

“Yes, please. Right now, please.”

“Certainly. Hold on a moment.” Again, there was the sound of a receiver being dropped onto a hard surface. Penberthy was gone about a minute, too, though it seemed much longer. He picked up the receiver at last and said, “Got a pencil?”

“Yes.” Betsy flipped over the order form she had been filling out and picked up her pen.

“Frank Whistler.” He spelled it.

Betsy wrote that down, and the phone number.

“Thanks.”

“Just in case, here’s another: Marvin Lebowski.”

Betsy wrote that name down and asked, “Which of the two is better?”

“Well, Frank is a weasel, while Marvin’s a tank. I recommend you talk to them both and see which one you feel more comfortable with. Or better, which one Godwin will be more comfortable with. You should be warned, they’ll both want their retainer up front, and neither of them is cheap. But they’re both excellent.”

Betsy got Marvin Lebowski’s number, thanked Pemberthy, and hung up.

Ten

“DOES anyone here know what kind of bail they set on someone arrested for murder?” asked Betsy of the room at large.

“Depends on the degree,” said Doris, and everyone turned to stare at her.

She shrugged at them. Doris was a heavy-boned woman, nearly as tall as Alice, fond of elaborate blond wigs and bright red lipstick. A relative newcomer to stitching, she had taken to it with enthusiasm, and was never afraid to try new stitches or projects. But she retained a love for the quick, simple patterns she had begun with, and used them to decorate packages or as impulse gifts. She was a tenant of Betsy’s, having taken the apartment her brother had rented before he retired to a warmer climate.

“I like to watch true crime shows on television,” she explained. “And Court TV. I can tell you there’s a big difference between first-, second-, and third-degree murder charges. People charged with first degree usually don’t get bail at all. Sergeant Malloy didn’t say what degree murder he was charging Godwin with, did he?”

“No,” said Betsy. “So how do I find out?”

“Well, call him and ask,” suggested Emily.

“No, call the jail,” said Bershada.

“Yes, call the jail,” agreed Doris.

“He’s probably not there, yet,” said Emily. “It takes almost half an hour to get from here to downtown Minneapolis, where the jail is, and they only left a few minutes ago.”

“Adult Detention Center,” said Alice.

“What?” asked Betsy.

“That’s the name of our new jail: Hennepin County Adult Detention Center.” Alice volunteered at a homeless shelter once a week, probably the sad reason she knew this.

“Anyway,” said Emily, “I don’t see how he could be there yet, unless they took him by helicopter.”

But Betsy couldn’t just sit there, she was in a fever of impatience. She lifted the big phone book from a bottom drawer of her desk, looked up the number, and dialed it. Sure enough, no one there knew anything about a Godwin DuLac, prisoner. She dropped the receiver and put both hands over her face.

“We’re all sorry about this, Betsy,” said Martha. “Is there anything we can do?”

“No. Thanks.”

“Come on then, it’s time we started for home,” said Alice, and the women slipped away, even the woman who had wanted yarn for the painted canvas she was about to buy.

Betsy put the phone book away and just sat there, her mind a frightened blank.

She still hadn’t moved when Shelly came rushing, breathless, into the shop ten minutes later. “I just heard!” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

“There isn’t anything anyone can do, not yet, anyway.”

“I mean here in the shop. I can work for you while you go find things out.”

“What kind of hours can you work? Spring break is over and school’s a long way from being finished for the summer.” Shelly taught third grade in the local elementary school.

“School lets out at three, I can come straight here. I had two messages on my machine when I got home, and I came right over. I can work every day this week, from three fifteen to five and all day on Saturday.” Shelly worked part-time anyway during the school year, and all summer long.

“What about—”

“Homework, schomework, I can do that after supper and on Sunday. We’re talking third grade, not high school. I’ll help you find another part-timer for the rest of the weekday, okay? Here, let me hang up my coat.” She suited action to word and soon Betsy heard her humming in the back as she restacked and reshelved. She sighed, found Shelly’s time card in a desk drawer, and noted the time she started.

The sound of all that industry brought Betsy’s brain back in line, and she called the jail again. Again she was told no Godwin DuLac was there. She hung up and stuck the paper with the attorneys’ phone numbers under the phone. Then she realized it was on the back of an order form. She got a new order form out and began copying the items onto it. By the time she got to the end, her brain was almost up to speed and she remembered they were out of the whitest color of Rainbow Fuzzy Wuzzy floss—what was the number? She’d better go see.

But before she could do more than stand up, Shelly came to the desk holding the Margaret Bendig canvas and a few lengths of needlepoint yarn. “I found this on the floor,” she said.

And, to her surprise, Betsy sat down and burst into tears.

“What’s the matter?” asked Shelly, looking at the canvas for footprints or other damage.

“What am I going to do without Goddy?” Betsy moaned. “Oh, God, I feel so helpless!”

“Here now!” Shelly came behind the desk and turned the chair so Betsy was facing her. “Pull yourself together, you hear?”

Betsy looked up, feeling indignant. Shelly continued, “Goddy can afford hysterics at present, and is welcome to them, but not you!”

“Oh, Shelly, you don’t know—” Betsy started.

“Listen to me! Goddy needs you, and you’re going to have to be ready to fight for him. You can’t do that if you’re going to break down in tears every fifteen minutes!”

“But I can’t—”

“You can! You have to! And what’s more, you’re going to have to be both boss
and
Vice President in Charge of Operations of Crewel World, Inc.!”

“No, really—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you just got so used to him as your safety net you forgot to notice how rarely he’s had to save your kiester lately. What the store is gonna miss is his wit and charm—plus, that boy could sell ice cubes in Antarctica. But by gosh, you’re no slouch. How did we do while he was in Mexico?”

“Well, I guess we did okay. But my customers missed him. And so did I.”

“Sure. And they’ll miss him now. They’ll probably throw a heck of a welcome-home party when he gets out.” Shelly leaned forward.
“And he will get out, right?”

“I sure hope—”

“No, no, no. We’re not talking hope, we’re talking
action
.” She said the word low, like a warning growl. “You are going to call on that wild card talent of yours for solving crime, and you are going to find out who really murdered John Nye, and bring our fair-haired boy home.
Right
?”

Betsy looked up into those hazel-green eyes, currently sparkling with electricity. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll prove him innocent and bring him home.”

“Of course you will. So—” Shelly picked up a slip of paper and wrote a single, long word on it and handed it to Betsy. Kwitchyerbellyachin, it said.

Betsy read it and smiled through the last of her tears. “Thanks, Shelly.”

Betsy waited an hour and tried calling the Adult Detention Center again.

“Yes, we have him here,” said the man in charge of speaking to civilians.

“Do you know how much his bail is?”

“Ma’am?”

“How much will it cost to bail him out?”

The man sighed. “You can’t bail him out, he hasn’t been arraigned yet. That means formally charged, in court, before a judge.”

“When will that happen?”

“Sometime in the next thirty-six hours.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“No, ma’am. Right now the only people who can talk to him are the investigators and his attorney.”

Betsy hung up and rested a hand on the receiver. “His attorney,” she repeated.

“What’d you say?” asked Shelly.

“Godwin needs an attorney. Where’s that piece of paper?” She began to move things around on the desk with increasing urgency until she found it. “Hah!” She looked at the two names. “Shelly, have you ever heard of Attorney Frank Whistler? Or Marvin Lebowski?”

Shelly shook her head. “Where’d you find those names?”

“Jim Pemberthy recommended them. He said Mr. Whistler is a weasel and Mr. Lebowski is a tank.”

“Mike Malloy hasn’t got enough of a brain for a weasel to work on. A tank running over him he’ll understand.”

“Yes, but a judge is different, he may resent tank treads up his back.” Still, the notion of a tank appealed. “I’ll call Mr. Lebowski now.”

But Mr. Lebowski was in court, according to his secretary, who took Betsy’s name and phone number. Betsy made sure she had Godwin’s name spelled right and understood that he was in the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center, charged with murder. Then she hung up and dialed Mr. Whistler’s number.

Mr. Whistler’s secretary put Betsy right through. “Mr. Whistler, my name is Betsy Devonshire, and I got your name from Attorney James Pemberthy of Excelsior.”

“Yes? How is Jim?”

“Very well. But he doesn’t practice in criminal defense, and that’s the kind of help we need right now.”

“Who is ‘we,’ Ms. Devonshire?” Mr. Whistler had a rich, confident, good-humored baritone, and a way of very slightly over-pronouncing his words, as if he thought her slightly deaf. Or dull-witted.