Knit Your Own Murder (13 page)

Betsy nodded. “Yes, I know. I order and send them to the suppliers and designers I like, and my most loyal mail-order customers.”

Heck nodded. “We used to do something like that, but it got expensive, so we quit.”

Betsy said, “Would your brother Howard perhaps know who had recently been caught up in some shenanigans or manipulations by your father?”

Hector thought about that while he ate his sandwich. Then he nodded. “Maybe, maybe.” He gave her a wry smile. “We brothers don't talk to one another very much, either.”

“Is Hamilton coming to Minnesota?”

“Yes, but I'm not sure when he's arriving.”

“If Hamilton hated construction, what did he go into?”

“He first became a real estate agent down in Florida. The turnover down there is pretty brisk, you know.”

“Yes?”

“They call it God's waiting room for a reason.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose that's right.”

“Then after he married he went back to college and became a lawyer. He specializes in construction litigation.”

“I'm not sure what a construction litigation lawyer does.”

“You hire him after you move into your new building and the roof leaks or the windows fall out or the furnace sets your place on fire. He'll sue the builder for you.” He raised his eyebrows significantly.

“So he, more than Howard, might know if your father had been subject to litigation that left him or a client angry.”

“Maybe. Like I said, I don't know.”

“Could you tell him and Howard that I'd like to talk to them? And that I don't bite?”

He chuckled, picked up the cardboard cup and drank a big mouthful of his soup. “Yes, I will do that.”

“Do you smoke?”

He looked down at himself. “Why, do I smell like it?”

“No, but maybe you use e-cigarettes.”

He nodded. “I've thought about trying them. But it was too hard to quit the real thing, and I suspect it would be just as hard to get out from under the vapor.”

“How long had your father smoked cigars?”

“For as long as I can remember.”

“How about Ham, or Howard?”

“I don't think so. No cigarettes, either, as far as I know. What's this interest in smoking?”

“I'm just poking around. I never know when an innocent question will give me a solid lead.” Betsy had no reason to tell him she'd reconnected with a hospital pharmacist named Luci Zahray whose nickname was the Poison Lady. Luci had told her that boiling just three cigarettes in a small pot could extract enough nicotine to kill the average adult.

D
oris
sat at the dining room table in Rafael and Godwin's attractive condo overlooking Lake Minnetonka. Daylight savings time had been instituted, so instead of darkness, there was a deepening sunset washing over the lake. The view from the windows was to the north and east, so the sun was out of sight, but the colors were muted pastels with a bright flash here and there as a ray of sun caught a wave.

“The first thing you want to do is pick a venue,” said Doris.

“No,” said Rafael, “the first thing we must decide is how much we can afford to spend.”

“If it were up to you alone,” said Godwin, “we'd have a quick little ceremony down at the courthouse in Minneapolis and dine afterward at Subway.”

“Actually, you are not far wrong,” acknowledged Rafael.
“But if it were up to you, we'd have a destination wedding in Paris and a honeymoon in Barbados.”

“Oooooh, Barbados,” sighed Godwin. “But not Paris. Even your French is not up to their standards, and we'd waste too much time trying to get what we wanted—and end up in some dingy café full of cigarette smoke and cheap wine fumes.”

“Are same-sex marriages legal in France?” asked Doris.

Godwin blinked. “You know, I have no idea.”

“Yes, they are,” said Rafael. “But I don't want to get married in France. Too close to Spain, and my family might choose to come and spoil things.”

“You're right, you're right, you're absolutely right!” said Godwin with a shudder. “Nowhere in Europe, then.” He looked at Doris expectantly.

“I suggest, since you want all of us to come, you plan on a wedding right here in Minnesota. You've already decided against a church wedding, so next you need to think about whether you want something formal, like in a ballroom setting, or something kitschy and fun like a resort, or something casual like a barbeque, or something truly unique and maybe a little edgy.” Doris looked from one face to the other.

“Not edgy,” said Godwin, and Rafael nodded. “I see lots of tables in a big room with a high ceiling and tall windows, dark blue tablecloths and silver candles and filmy blue curtains hanging from the ceiling—you know, looped up, with fairy lights inside them. Live music. Buffet dinner with at least three entrees for two hundred guests.”

Rafael said, “I see forty guests at two long tables, white
tablecloths with little bouquets of flowers up and down them, and a little table for just the two of us, waiters serving game hens and a really nice cabernet wine.”

Doris wrote all this down. “This is not going to be easy, is it?” she remarked dryly. “But you're talking reception. What about the ceremony? Do you know who should perform it?”

“It would be a hoot to get a rabbi, wouldn't it?” said Godwin. “Then I'd get to stamp on a glass at the end.”

Doris said, “Be serious.”

“All right, sorry. I don't know any judges, Raff, do you?”

“Well, one is a member of the coin club. His name is Franklin Noel. Do you remember him?”

Godwin thought. He'd been to a couple of meetings, trying to share Rafael's interest in numismatics. “What does he look like?”

Rafael pondered this, trying to pick his words carefully. “Tall, thin, very pale complexion, delicate bones in his face, an air of refinement. Wears a bow tie, and on him it looks good.”

“Oh yes, I remember him! He'd be gorgeous presiding, don't you think? He's so classy, though, we'd better have a classy wedding.”

“Would you mind a ‘classy' wedding?” asked Rafael.

“I think it would be adorable!” He turned to Doris. “Write that down. A classy wedding, tuxedos all around. And Judge Noel presiding. He'll be perfect!”

“What if he says no?” asked Doris.

“Oh.” Godwin looked crushed briefly, then brightened. “Then let's do it at a farm, in a barn, and have a hoedown reception!”

An hour later Doris went home. She had sixteen pages of notes and not one thing decided.

“I'm not strong enough to do this,” she said to Phil. “Herding cats is nothing to those two, especially Goddy.”

*   *   *

M
alloy's
questions about how someone might gain access to the yarn that poisoned Maddy had made Betsy think. It wasn't just that some people had keys to her basement—who among them might have wanted Maddy dead? Plus, this person must have had access to nicotine. Did anyone she know meet all three conditions?

No.

Therefore, it was much more likely that the yarn was poisoned at Mount Calvary.

“Really?” said Connor when she shared this conclusion with him. “Maybe there's someone with a key you don't know about. Or, maybe there's someone with a motive you don't know about.”

“Well . . . yes, that's true. I suppose I'm doing a sketchy investigation right now, looking for the obvious, hoping to get lucky and short-circuit a complex, lengthy investigation.”

He nodded. They were sitting in the living room, having turned off the latest episode of something they'd been watching, finding the series had wandered into silly, stupid, even obscene territory. Their conversation was desultory, as each was focused on a needlework project.

Connor asked, “Do you still think Joe Mickels didn't commit the murders? Or should I say murder, as I suppose it's possible he only poisoned Maddy.”

“I think that if I find out he murdered one of them, then he'll have murdered both of them. From what Jill told me of what Lars told her—third hand, I know—the house was trashed by an angry person, and Maddy was killed with nicotine. Joe has a terrible temper and owns stores that sell nicotine products.”

“A ‘perfect storm' for an investigator,” said Connor.

“Maybe if I can establish a very narrow window for when the yarn could have been tampered with, and Joe can establish an alibi for that time, we'll be in good shape to bring it to Mike.” She put her stitching down to think. “First, I have to find out if anyone's missing a key to the basement, or thinks it might have been copied, or will admit she (both of Betsy's current tenants were women) left the basement door unlocked.”

“And that fact was somehow advertised,” said Connor wryly.

“Well . . . yes, I guess so. But one thing at a time.” She checked her watch. It was not quite 8 p.m. “I'll go ask right now.”

She was back forty minutes later. “I'm going to have to come up with a different form of security!” she griped. “There are at least six keys missing, two of them basement keys. Whenever one of them loses a key, she goes next door and borrows the other's and makes a copy. Bad enough they're doing it with the basement keys, but three of them are to the back door! Now I have to have the whole place rekeyed. What's the matter with these people? Why didn't they come to me?”

“How old are they?” asked Connor, though he knew the answer.

“I'm not sure. Kit's probably twenty-four or twenty-five, and her husband's the same. Jenna's even younger, maybe twenty-two.”

“In today's world, they are practically children, and so they act like it.”

After a moment's reflection, she said, “You know, you're right. What were you doing at Kit's age?”

“At twenty-four? I was just promoted to second mate on a freighter operating in the Mediterranean. I'd been at sea for six years.”

“Six—? Then when did you go to college?”

“At the same time, off and on. I got my degree mostly through correspondence courses. I think I spent less than a year actually on campus. I believe I've mentioned all the spare time a sailor has at sea. No lassies, no pub crawls, no rugby or football—pardon me, soccer—no bright city lights. So you have to do something to keep your brain from turning to pudding.”

“And we think getting a degree via Internet courses is the newest thing.”

“There is nothing new under the sun,
machree
.”

*   *   *

T
he
next morning, Friday, down in the shop, Betsy called Kari Beckel at Mount Calvary, found she was on vacation, and so asked for Helen Bursar—who had an amazingly appropriate name. “I'd like to come and see you, today if possible,” she said. “It's about Maddy O'Leary's death at the auction.”

Helen, who with Kari ran the business side of the church, said, “I'm sorry, Ms. Devonshire, but I've got meetings scheduled all day today and into the evening.”

“Could I buy you lunch?”

“Well, my brief lunch engagement was just canceled, so yes. But could you bring it here? I've only got half an hour, twelve thirty to one.”

“Salad okay if it has chicken on top?”

“Fine. And thank you.”

Helen Bursar's office was off the big round atrium that was the center of the church hall, behind the greeter's desk. Betsy carried an insulated bag just about big enough for two plates of Asian chicken salad in peanut sauce with crispy noodles on the side, and she'd brought a liter bottle of diet ginger ale as well.

In anticipation of her coming, Helen had cleared half her desk and pulled an armchair up to it. She was a small, thin woman with thick, dark, curly hair, pale skin, and hazel-green eyes. She was wearing a pale green wool dress with a silver brooch and dangly silver earrings, each with a violet iris on it.

“So nice to meet you, Ms. Devonshire,” she said, standing and coming around her desk to hold out her hand. “Sergeant Larson has said nice things about you.”

That's right
, thought Betsy. Lars was a member of Mount Calvary Lutheran, though his wife, Jill, went to Trinity Episcopalian. “I'm glad to hear that,” said Betsy. “You have an amazing musical program here, and such a beautiful church hall.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Now, won't you sit down and tell me why you need to talk with me?”

Betsy unzipped the insulated bag and brought out the covered plates. A delicious odor wafted from them. From
her large purse, she brought out the ginger ale. “I hope you have cups or glasses. I forgot to bring them,” she said.

Helen had coffee mugs on her credenza and, surprisingly, real silverware. “Those plastic forks are just not adequate, I find,” she said. “So I borrowed these from our kitchen.”

In another minute they were tasting the thin slices of chicken breast and crunchy greens. “This is good!” said Helen.

“I like the Wok,” said Betsy. “Their food is delicious. Now, to business. You know Maddy O'Leary died right here in your atrium the Saturday of the auction. It turns out that someone poured pure nicotine onto the ball of knitting yarn that was in her bag. None of the other six knitters' yarn was poisoned, and each bag was marked with the user's name, so whoever did this was very likely after her.

“The yarn was poisoned long enough ahead of time that it had dried, so she didn't notice anything wrong with it. It's possible that the poison was put on it while the bags were stored in the basement of my shop, but there were several conditions necessary for that to happen. I am thinking it much more likely to have happened here.”

Helen nodded while nibbling on a crisp noodle. “Sergeant Malloy was here yesterday. He seems to be thinking along the same lines you are.”

“Where were the bags kept here at the church?”

Helen gestured toward the door to her office. “Here in the hall, right next door to me—it's a room where janitorial supplies are kept. We put the bags in there so they'd be handy on the day of the auction.”

“Is that door kept locked?”

“Yes, always.”

“Who has the key?”

“Our maintenance man has one, I have one, Kari has a master key that unlocks every door at Mount Calvary, Pastor Royale has another master key . . .” She paused, then nodded. “That's all.” She gave a little start. “Oh, wait, that door was left unlocked from the day of the Lenten music performance, because we weren't sure when Ms. Reynolds was going to bring those bags over. And so of course it was still unlocked the day of the auction so the bags could be brought out for the seven people who'd be using them. That was such a clever idea, having those winning toy makers knitting up front during the auction.”

“The door to the church hall wasn't locked when I came. Is it always unlocked?”

“During regular office hours, it is. Or when there are special events held here, like the Thursday before the auction. And we had a reception after the performance here in the hall.”

“Did a lot of people come to that?”

“There were close to three hundred people in attendance.”

Betsy said despairingly, “I don't suppose you kept a list of the people who bought tickets to the program.”

“No, but while we don't have cameras in the church, we do in the atrium. Three of them.”

Betsy's heart perked up. “Could I look at the videos?”