Hanging by a Thread (3 page)

“Well, maybe he wanted to protect his wife’s reputation,” said Comfort.

“Oh, that’s so old-fashioned!” scoffed Godwin. “People nowadays don’t care a rat’s right ear for things like that.”

“Only Foster knows why it happened in that order,” said Martha darkly. “And he’s not telling.”

Alice squared her shoulders and asked Betsy, “Could it be that Foster didn’t commit any murder at all?”

“Why are you so eager to defend him, anyhow?” demanded Godwin.

“Because ... because I was paying attention before all this happened,” said Alice. “I think Paul might not have been a good husband. And I saw the way Foster behaved after Angela was murdered. He didn’t act the least bit guilty.”

“That’s because he has nerves of steel and a heart of ice,” said Comfort.

“I mean he was sad and upset, not calm and cool,” said Alice.

Bershada said, “Well, if I murdered someone, I’d be sad and upset, too. Anyway, if he didn’t do it, who did?”

Alice said, “I don’t know. You all think you know Foster did it, but the police couldn’t find enough evidence to charge him, much less convict him. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

“Not with Mike involved in the investigations,” said Martha pointedly.

“Well, we’re not the clever ones when it comes to solving mysteries, Betsy is. Think for a minute, Betsy. Who do you think did it?”

“Thinking wouldn’t help,” said Betsy frankly. “There’s not enough information for me—”

She was interrupted by the annoying Bing! of the front door. Foster Johns, his back to them while he closed the door, turned and saw the faces turned toward him. But his voice was calm when he said, “The inspector finished quicker than he thought he would and came looking for me. He seems to think everything is fine. What are you going to do about it?”

“
I
’ll write you a check after I talk to the inspector,” said Betsy.

The relief in Johns’s eyes was palpable. “He’s outside,” Johns said, and turned and opened the door. Its Bing! sounded loud in the rigid silence of the shop, and Betsy noted irrelevantly that she’d forgotten to turn on the radio when she opened up that morning. She glanced around at the table and Alice caught her eye with a tiny, encouraging nod.

At Johns’s gesture, a short man in heavy blue coveralls came in. “Ms. Devonshire,” he said with a little nod, removing his red hunter’s hat to reveal a bald head surrounded by white hair.

“Mr. Jurgens.” Betsy nodded back.

He frowned at the silent group at the table. “Is there a problem?”

“I don’t think so,” said Betsy. “Unless you found something else wrong with my roof.” Betsy had thought the job done two weeks ago, but the inspector had discovered a pair of flaws, necessitating a removal of part of the new tarred covering, replacement of some of the insulation, and then fresh hot tar being applied to the patches. This, Foster Johns assured Betsy, was not really unusual, and the patch would be as sound as if it were original to the roof.

“The repair is fine. They did a good job—that roof should do well for prob’ly twenty years, if not more.” He unbuttoned the top of his coveralls, revealing a red plaid shirt, and fumbled in a pocket for a thin sheaf of papers folded lengthwise. “Here’s my report.”

Betsy took the papers and glanced them over. Computer printouts, they included a copy of his first report saying she needed a new roof, then the one describing the flaws he’d found, and on top the newest report indicating the roof was now properly done and resealed. He had signed this one in thick, soft pencil and dated it today.

“These look fine,” said Betsy. “Thank you.” The inspector put his hat back on, glanced again at the people around the table, and departed.

“If you can wait here a minute, Mr. Johns,” said Betsy, “I’ll go upstairs and get my checkbook.”

“May I come with you? I’d like a word with you, in private.”

“Sure—no, wait a minute.” Betsy glanced at her watch. It was nearly two, and she hadn’t had lunch yet. “How about I go get my checkbook and then we both go to Antiquity Rose for a bowl of soup? Or have you had lunch?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Not yet.”

Antiquity Rose was a house converted to a tea and antique shop. It had an excellent kitchen, which was currently featuring a hearty potato-cheese soup. Betsy had hers with a bran muffin. Foster chose the fat, warm breadstick.

After a few spoonfuls, Betsy said, “Did you bring your bill with you?”

“Yes, but that’s not the problem I wanted to talk to you about.”

“No? What’s the problem?”

Foster looked across the little table, his face a mix of desperation and hope. “I heard you do private investigations for people falsely charged with crimes.”

“That’s approximately true. Who’s in trouble?”

His smile was wry. “Don’t tell me they didn’t give you an earful while I was gone. Because of people like them, I’ve been living in hell for five years and eleven days.”

“Ah,” said Betsy. “Yes, they told me about Paul and Angela Schmitt.”

“I was hoping that if I could get just one person in town to give me a chance, then they’d start to come around. But I guess now you’re sorry I took advantage of your ignorance.”

Betsy’s lips tightened. “That’s not true.”

“Of course, if I murdered two people, nothing could be bad enough to be worse than I deserve. But I didn’t. I’ve done everything I can think of to show people I’m an honest citizen, but nothing’s worked. Then someone told me about you—”

“Who?” interrupted Betsy. “Who told you?”

“Jurgens, the inspector. He told me you solved your sister’s murder and another murder up on the North Shore. ‘She’s real slick,’ is how Jurgens put it. I hope he’s right and this is something you’re willing to do for me.” Indeed, he looked so hopeful, Betsy’s heart was again wrenched, and all her promises about this being too busy a time of year for sleuthing began to crumble. Still, she held herself to a mere nod, and he continued, “I don’t know what you charge, but if you can clear my name, any amount is worth it. How much do you want as a retainer?”

“Nothing. I don’t have a private investigator’s license, and I wouldn’t dream of taking money from you.”

He tossed his spoon into his bowl and sat back. “I’m sorry you feel like that.”

“Wait a minute, I didn’t say I wouldn’t try to help. I am willing to look into your problem, but it will be strictly as an amateur.” Hope flared on his face—here was no heart of ice or nerve of steel—and she added, “I just hope you aren’t in a big rush. It will probably be after the first of the year before I can give your case the attention it deserves. All I can do now is try to gather some basic information.”

He nodded. “I’ve waited this long, I can be patient a while longer. What do you want to know?”

She asked, “First, have you thought about hiring a real private investigator?”

“I did that. He charged me three thousand dollars and all he could tell me was that Paul Schmitt probably abused Angela. I already knew that to be a fact.”

Betsy said, “It’s been five years. If I start asking questions, people are going to recall some sordid details. Are you sure you want me bringing the whole mess up again?”

“What again? It’s never gone away. I’ll tell you anything I can. What do you need from me to begin with?”

Betsy thought. “Let’s start with Angela. Tell me about her.”

Foster leaned forward and a slow smile formed as he cast his mind back. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with her,” he said. “I don’t even know exactly when it happened. I do know that it started when I said something to her on the steps after church one Sunday about it finally getting warm enough to do some work outdoors, and she thought I meant gardening. I said, ‘No, I own a construction company,’ which I did back then, and we were making a joke about the misunderstanding when her husband came from out of nowhere and yanked her away so hard, she dropped her purse. The look on his face surprised me, it was so full of anger. But I thought I was mistaken. I mean, I thought I knew Paul, we’d ushered together a few times, and I’d had a few conversations with him about roofing—he was a good amateur carpenter. He was one of those guys who almost always has a grin on his face, like he’s got the point of a joke the rest of us don’t. So that look that day was surprising. I actually remember trying to decide if it was the angle of the sun putting a funny shadow on his face. You see, he was always willing to lend a hand, jump-start a car, bring groceries to a shut-in, like that.

“But while I was surprised by him, I was surprised even more by the look on her face as she went off with him, like she was scared to death of what would happen when he got her home. Even weirder, when he noticed it, he shook her arm and she all of a sudden looked fine.” He shrugged.

“At the time, of course, I didn’t think of it that way, that he was ordering her to wipe that look off her face. It was only later I learned what a son of a bitch he was, excuse my French. That she was right to be scared.

“We were born the same year, Angela and me, and Paul was two years older. I went to high school with them both, though I never dated her—I was into big, cushy blonds back then, so I didn’t see her as my type. She was just a bit of a thing, and dark-haired. But she was pretty enough, and I think could have been popular if she put herself out some more. But she was shy, hardly said anything to anyone in school. I went on to get my degree in architectural engineering, but she dropped out of college to marry Paul.

“Anyhow, the Sunday after I talked to Angela about the weather, Alice Skoglund said it was sad how Angela seemed so unhappy nowadays, and something about the way she said it made me think of that scared look. So I kind of kept my eye on her for the next few weeks, and once I paid attention, I could see Angela wasn’t just unhappy, she was scared. So I took to talking to her when Paul wasn’t around, which was like a minute here and a minute there—he was generally right with her. But I kept trying to find out what was going on. Pretty soon she trusted me enough to really talk to me. And soon after I got the hint from her that he was abusing her. I got mad on her behalf, and told her to walk out, just leave him, go down to Florida to stay with her parents; but she said she was afraid of what he might do.

“By then I wasn’t just out to rescue a fellow Lutheran; it was getting personal. So I paid attention, I got to know her schedule, and we’d meet while she was grocery shopping or on her way to and from work, friends’ houses, like that. He was always checking up on her, phoning her, making her account for her time, so it was tricky.” He smiled. “But I’m an efficient scheduler, and we got pretty good at it. Then I started pressuring her to leave him for me. I said I’d send her to live with my parents in North Carolina, or my sister in Las Vegas, until he gave up looking for her, but she said he’d never give up, and when he found her, he’d kill her and whoever was giving her shelter, so she just couldn’t do that. I was even looking into those ways of giving someone a new identity when it happened.” His face tightened.

“You’re saying he’s the one who killed her,” said Betsy.

“Of course. There was no one else, how could there be? He never let her get close enough to anyone, so there was no one else to love her or hate her enough to do that.”

“You managed.”

“And he found out.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she phoned me from work the day it happened, to warn me to keep away from her, that Paul had gone from suspecting she was fooling around to being sure she was, and that I was involved. He’d actually started writing down the mileage on her car, and it didn’t match the driving she was supposed to be doing, so he figured she was going somewhere she shouldn’t. Which she was, of course. He’d seen me going into the bookstore and talking to her, and she smiled at me in a way that, he said, told him all he needed to know. That night it was her turn to stay and close up the shop, and normally we would have a few minutes together. But this time I walked up Water Street a little after five, just to look in the window and see her. It was pouring rain and when I waved at her, I got water up my sleeve—funny the things you remember. She waved back and I went on up the street. I wish I’d gone in, I wish...” He twisted his head, dismissing that futile thought. “He worked just two doors down from her, did you know that?”

Betsy said, “Yes, in the Heritage gift shop on the comer.” Betsy could see it in her mind’s eye, it was light red brick and went around the comer in a curve just broad enough to accommodate a door. Its big windows were generally full of imported dishes, sweaters or dresses, and glassware.

“He took that job to spy on her. He did freelance computer programming in an office in their house for very respectable pay; and he did some freelance home repairs, carpentry mostly, for which he got paid under the table. Not paying taxes made up for not getting union wages. He didn’t need that job at the gift shop.”

“How long did Angela work at the bookstore?”

“Not quite two years. She’d begged and pleaded with him and he finally said she could get a part-time job. It wasn’t for the money, not entirely, she just wanted out of the house. But he couldn’t stand the thought of her meeting strange men all day long, so right after she started, he got that job so he could watch her.” Foster smiled. “He wanted to work in the pet shop right next door, but she was allergic to cat hair, and he’d’ve come home with it on him. And he couldn’t work in the place on the other side of the bookstore, it’s a beauty parlor.” He ripped his bread stick into three pieces. “There’s the proof he was some kind of nut, taking that job just to spy on her. She was never, ever unfaithful to him.”

Betsy’s eyebrows went up at that, and he said, “I mean it. We wanted to—God, how we wanted to! But he made her carry a cell phone and he called her about every fifteen minutes when she wasn’t home or in the bookstore, where was she, what was she doing, who was there with her. He said he loved her, but it was a crazy love. He was crazy, insane.”