Embroidered Truths (15 page)

The Adult Detention Center in downtown Minneapolis was a modern brick building whose entrance was slanted across the corner of Fourth Avenue and Fourth Street. The entrance lobby was large and also diagonal. A nice young deputy behind a long counter took Betsy’s name. She knew Godwin’s full name—Robert Godwin DuLac—but had to think for a moment before she could recall his date of birth.

Poor Goddy, he had sworn her to secrecy before telling her how old he was, and now his age had become a password!

She followed the directions that led to an elevator to the fourth floor, down a highly polished corridor, to a small room in a row of them. Inside, the room was divided in half by a wall that was plaster on the bottom and glass on the top. There was a phone on the wall near a chair, and another phone on the other side.

She sat down and a couple of minutes later a door on the other side opened, and there was Godwin, still in the official orange jumpsuit of Hennepin County prisoners. It hung loosely on him; not a big man to start with, Godwin seemed to have dropped twenty pounds. There were dark shadows under his eyes.

But he smiled broadly and waved at Betsy, then picked up the phone on his side and gestured at her to pick up hers.

“I’m
so
glad to see you!” he said. “Have you come to tell me I’m bailed out?”

“No.” The smile vanished. He looked stunned, then sadder even than he had in court. He sat down like an old man. “Goddy, I can’t afford to bail you out! You know what your bail is: a million dollars!”

“You don’t have to come up with a million, just ten percent.”

“Yes, but that’s still a hundred thousand.”

“Are you saying you can’t raise it? It’s just temporary, you get it back when I’m found not guilty.”

“No, hon, the hundred thousand is the
fee
. The bail bondsman has to put up the million, and he charges a hundred thousand to do that. The bail is given back to them when you turn up in court, guilty or innocent. But it doesn’t matter, we’re still out the hundred thousand.”

Now Godwin, as store manager, had become aware of Betsy’s financial status. He knew she was rich, but he also knew she kept her money working, not sitting in a big money bin like Uncle Scrooge’s, ready to tap. She would have to cash in profitable investments to raise the money.

Betsy knew he realized that when his next question was a jest. “And what if I run to Costa Rica?”

“They send bounty hunters after you. Big, mean men, with guns, who don’t care about extradition laws, and who have no code of conduct to make them play nice.”

“Well, nuts. I guess I’m stuck in here.”

“Is it really awful, Goddy?”

“Well, more depressing-awful than scary-awful. I’m in Quad Eleven, where they put the not-dangerous-but-odd ones. Sigmund Freud would love meeting those people. The most depressing part is to think I belong with that bunch.”

“Yes, well, another Bunch is going to be so relieved to hear about Quad Eleven. They were all picturing you sharing a cell with Lice Cutthroat, an enforcer in the Hell’s Angels.”

Godwin smiled sideways and shook his head. “Believe it or not, I think I could handle Mr. Cutthroat more easily than these people. There’s a man in my quad who insists we call him Dorothy and complains to the nurse that he’s got PMS. And then there’s George, who is worried sick about his wife, who is a collie dog. And Frank, who quarrels with invisible people. You don’t think I’m one of the crazy people, do you?”

“Of course not. So why did they put you in with them?”

“Oh, not all of them are weird. Some are just sweet and pretty, like me. My choice appears to be staying there or sitting in solitary. And I got a taste of that when they first brought me here.” His face puckered, close to tears. “Betsy, they took
all
my clothes away and gave me this smelly yellow blanket and put me in this tiny,
tiny
room, all alone, with a cement bench and a steel toilet—oh,
ugh!
I
couldn’t
go back to that!”

“No, of course you couldn’t. Oh, Goddy, I feel so guilty, asking you to stay in jail!”

“Don’t,
please
don’t, it’s all right,
really
it is. I didn’t understand what bailing me out meant. I don’t mind, not
too
much. It’s going to be hard enough to pay for that lawyer. By the way, I
like
Marvin, he’s like a big, strong daddy—and you would not
believe
how much respect he gets around here.” He looked from side to side as if for eavesdroppers, and said, sotto voce, “The
best
part is that Mike has a hard time with him. You can almost hear his teeth grind when Marvin says, ‘Wait just one second, Sergeant Malloy, I don’t think my client should answer that question.’
Such
a hoot!”

Betsy smiled at this grand display of courage. “Well, then, we’ll keep him on retainer, won’t we?”

Godwin nodded. “Are you going to sleuth?”

Betsy nodded, then remembered a warning John had given her long ago: There are things about Godwin you don’t want to know. “Are you all right with me doing that? You know how deep I dig.”

“If it means getting me out of this mess, you may dig away. Carte blanche—that means do what you will, right?”

“Yes. All right, I’ll start by talking to Jill this evening. Maybe she knows why Mike arrested you.”

“Shoot, I can tell you that. It’s John’s new will. He was killed before he could sign it.”

“What’s in it?”

“Nothing for me. And that’s the problem. In his old will, he set up a . . . a testamentary trust for me. Or a spendthrift trust, they use both words, so I don’t know which is the correct one. A big hunk of money goes into a special account and I get the interest from it for the rest of my life.” His face went blank, then sad. “He really
was
mad at me this time, I guess. But he died before he could sign the new will—and Mike thinks I murdered him so I’d get the money.”

“But if you didn’t know about it—”

“Yeah, well, Mike thinks I did know about it. It’s a sweet motive, you have to admit. It might even have tempted me, if I had known about it.”

“I trust you don’t say things like that where Mike can hear you.”

“Never fear.” But he looked sad at having to guard his mischievious tongue.

“Actually, I don’t care how big it is. I just hope I get to spend it on something besides the prison commissary.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Goddy. If you’re found guilty, you won’t get it at all. You aren’t allowed to profit from a crime.” She added hastily, “But never mind about that. You know perfectly well you won’t be found guilty. In fact, it won’t come to trial. I’m going to find out who really murdered John, and they’ll have to drop the charges.”

“Do it fast, okay? If I stay here too long, I may start missing the missus, too.”

Fourteen

BETSY got caught up in rush-hour traffic all the way out to Excelsior, but managed to get to the exit to Excelsior before five. The long, slow drive out had given her a chance to think a bit about this case. Where to begin? Well, that was obvious. What she needed was the name of that person who had used John Nye’s whirlpool bath and purple bathrobe.

And she knew where that information was.

She walked into Crewel World at four minutes to five, to the cheers of Bershada, Shelly, Rennie Jones, and Phil Galvin. Phil was a member of the Monday Bunch. A retired railroad engineer, his beautiful counted cross-stitch patterns of railroad engines sometimes graced the walls of Crewel World as models to encourage others to buy the charts. He waved at Betsy from behind the checkout desk, where he was ringing up a sale under Rennie’s watchful eye.

“Hiya, Betsy!” he called cheerfully. “How’s Godwin?”

“Not happy,” said Betsy briefly. “Hello, Mrs. Cunningham,” she greeted the customer.

“Hi, Betsy” Mrs. Cunningham nodded.

“Whom did you hire?” asked Shelly.

“Marvin Lebowski.” Betsy turned and fixed Bershada with a gimlet eye. “Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“He’s black. I wish you had warned me, I stared at him like a tourist, which, fortunately, amused him.”

Bershada stared at her. “Marvin
Lebowski
is
black
?” A broad smile appeared. “Are you serious?”

“Well, his mother was African-American; his father was a second-generation Pole from Chicago.”

Phil said, “Why do white folks think black folks all know one another?” He shook his head at Betsy for harboring such a notion.

“I don’t think any such thing—do I?” Betsy did a brief examination of her conscience. “No, of course not, it’s just curious. Mr. Whistler is black, too.”

“Now him I know,” said Bershada. “Was he wearing one of his fancy-schmancy suits?”

Betsy smiled. “He sure was.”

“Fancy suit?” asked Rennie. “What are you two talking about?”

“Attorney Frank Whistler wears suits that are on the very leading edge of fashion,” explained Betsy. “You should have seen the lapels!”

“You mean like the beautiful things Goddy sometimes wears?” asked Mrs. Cunningham.

Betsy shook her head. “Godwin would sooner wear that orange jail coverall than the suit I saw Frank Whistler in today; Frank wouldn’t be caught dead in one of Goddy’s unconstructed sport coats.” She put a hand to her forehead and continued in a faint voice, “Dear lord, I am becoming far, far too knowledgeable about men’s clothing. Is there hot water in back? I need a cup of tea.”

“I was about to unplug the kettle, but hadn’t yet,” said Shelly, and Betsy went to the back room of the shop.

There, she started to smile, remembering Goddy’s over-fastidious fashion sense as she looked through the little box of tea packets for the raspberry-flavored one, but her smile quickly turned upside down. Godwin took great pride in dressing well, and to see—and be seen—in that ugly, ill-fitting jumpsuit was genuinely painful to him. Another reason, an odd, but real, reason to see that he was set free quickly.

She brought the cup back out front, inhaling the fragrance of the tea. Mrs. Cunningham had departed. Phil was at the front door, turning the needlepointed sign from Open to Closed.

“You want me to run the register?” asked Rennie.

“Yes, go ahead. What kind of day did we have?”

“Really good,” said Shelly. “Lots of people coming in to say how sorry they are about Goddy.”

That reminded Bershada. “Did you open that Godwin Defense Account?”

“No, I didn’t get to the bank. Why, how much did you take in?”

“Seven hundred and forty dollars. We emptied the bowl about five times.”

Betsy gaped at her. “Wow. That’s amazing.”

Phil snorted. “Yeah, it’ll pay for less than one working day for that fancy-suit lawyer you hired.”

“Every dollar counts,” countered Bershada. “Right, Betsy?”

“Right. And since you all are putting your money where your mouth is, I want to ask your opinion about something.”

“Shoot,” said Shelly, sitting down at the library table.

“Godwin’s bail has been set at a million dollars.” There were gasps at that. “I can’t possibly raise that amount, and a bail bondsman will charge me a hundred thousand to post it for him. I don’t think I can raise that amount, either, not in a hurry.”

“I bet the bank would loan you that amount. I mean, after all, you get it back, right?” said Rennie.

“No, and that’s the problem.” She explained how bail bondsmen worked.

“Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” said Shelly. “A hundred thousand is a lot of money for a short-term loan of a million.”

“Sometimes it takes years for a case to work its way through court,” said Phil, still standing at the door, hand on the knob. “So it’s not always a short-term loan. And if the accused runs away, bounty hunters aren’t cheap. Think about that.”

“My question is,” said Betsy, “is it wrong of me to ask Godwin to sit in jail when I could, just possibly, get him out on bail?”

“But if you have to run around trying to raise the money,” said Shelly, “then you couldn’t also be trying to find out who really murdered John.”

“If you did raise it,” noted Phil, “Godwin would feel obliged to pay you back. That would make him your slave for years to come.”

Betsy shuddered. “Yes, that’s true.”

“So I think—” Bershada looked around the room and collected nods—“
we
think you should concentrate on sleuthing.”

“From your description,” added Phil, “Godwin is unhappy but not in danger where he is.”

“That’s right,” nodded Rennie.

Betsy sighed, partly from relief, partly from concession. “All right, then, Goddy has to sit where he is.”

“I’ve got to go,” Phil said. “See you tomorrow.” He waved to the room at large and went out the door.

A minute later Rennie handed Betsy the record of sales from the cash register. Betsy ran her eyes down the tape and smiled. “Very nice!” she said. “Now the rest of you run along, too. I’ll close and make a night deposit. Rennie, can you work all day tomorrow?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And I’ll come in, too,” Shelly said.

“Emily and Martha want to work tomorrow morning,” said Bershada. “And Doris will come in the afternoon.”

Betsy put her cup of tea down. Gratitude was making her hand tremble. “You people . . .” she began, then had to swallow before she could continue. “I have the best friends in the world,” she said. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“Sure you do,” said Bershada. “Bring him home safe, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Up in her apartment that evening, Betsy opened a can of tuna and made a little salad for supper. In her one exception to Sophie’s strict regimen of Science Diet, she put the emptied can down for the cat to lick dry.

She chopped some leaves off the bunch of cilantro into the salad as she built it and the scent made her smile. Some day she’d have to pay her own visit to Mexico City, stay at the Del Prado, and eat their version of that chicken rice soup. Though she doubted it would be any better than Goddy’s.