Knit Your Own Murder (15 page)

“Did Maddy have a weak heart?” asked Connor.

“I don't know—but I don't think so. She certainly never acted as if she was in fear that her heart was about to quit.”

“You got that right,” said Godwin with a grim smile.

“So we're back to Joe Mickels?” asked Connor.

“Why?” asked Betsy. “If a customer couldn't buy a lethal dose of nicotine, why would you think Joe could?”

“Isn't it possible he was mixing his own brand of vapor liquid? As a wholesale purchaser, doesn't he have access to things the general public doesn't, such as pure nicotine?”

“You ask good questions,” said Betsy. “How about we do some research this evening to see if we can find answers?”

Godwin said, “I can do research, too, please?”

Betsy smiled at him. “All right, good idea. How about you and Rafael research Harry Whiteside from a business angle? How much was he worth? What properties and companies did he own or control? What did the people who worked with him think of him? But poke gently; don't step on anyone's toes, especially if they work for the Wayzata police.”

Godwin snatched up a ballpoint from the checkout desk and began writing down Betsy's instructions: “. . . people who worked with him,” he concluded, nodding. He looked up at Betsy. “And don't step on toes,” he added with a grin.

Seeing a hint of mischief in his eyes, Betsy said, “Godwin, this is important. If you screw up—” She looked across at Connor. “If any of us screw up, we may irreparably harm innocent people.”

“Yes, you're right, of course,” said Godwin. “We'll be careful. I promise.”

C
haz
was waiting at the door to Crewel World Monday morning. He was standing under a black umbrella—it was pouring rain—and was wearing a dark blue suit, dark red shirt, and silver tie.

Betsy unlocked the door and invited him in. “You look terrific!” she said.

“Thanks.” He half closed his umbrella and shook it out the door, scattering redundant raindrops onto the sidewalk. He brought it back in and leaned it against the wall. “I've got a meeting with a lawyer this morning. I wanted to let you know, if you haven't heard already”—he grimaced against the probability that she had, given the reach of the Excelsior grapevine—“I'm inheriting a great deal of property from Maddy.”

“Yes, I had heard. Not in any great detail, though,” she hinted.

“Two large apartment buildings in Minneapolis,” he
said, holding out one hand and pressing down on the fingers as he counted, “a corner grocery store with two apartments above it in Saint Paul, a building in Hopkins that's an empty store and a hair and nail salon on the first floor with four apartments on the second floor, two houses here in Excelsior, three houses in Wayzata, a dry cleaner and a lumberyard in Golden Valley, a gas station–mini mart in Minnetonka, and . . .” He had to pause and think. “That little set of three row houses over on North Water Street!” he concluded triumphantly.

“That's a lot of property, Chaz,” Betsy said. “But they're spread out all over the place.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, “but I've already been managing most of them—some of them for a long while. I know the tenants, I know the problems—like the row houses need new roofs, and one of the apartment buildings has plumbing that seems to date back to the Civil War. And taxes? Whoosh! I've been telling Maddy we may have to raise the rents—I mean . . .” Suddenly, he looked near tears. “Dammit,” he muttered as he struggled for control.

“Oh, Chaz, this must be at least as hard for you as it is good news.” Betsy reached to touch him on the arm.

“Yes, it is. I mean, you're right. One part of me is celebrating because I'm actually rich, independently wealthy, and another part of me would give up any chance to own any of it if only Maddy would come storming into the office and chew me out for not getting the estimates for those roofs collected yet.”

He drew a ragged breath. “But done's done. Mom said you wanted to ask me something.”

Betsy turned away, pain gripping her heart. Chaz's distress
was palpable. How could she ask him a question that would add to it?

“What, what's the matter?” he asked. “Go ahead, tell me what it is. I have to get going. I have to be in that law office in forty-five minutes.”

“All right.” She turned back around. “Where were you on Friday afternoon?” The day Joe Mickels was shot.

“Oh jeez, you, too?” The words were jesting, but there was anger in his eyes.

“I guess the police have already asked you that.”

“Damn straight.” He took a calming breath. “Mom and I were on Skype with my sister Leeza, who is on her honeymoon in Key West.”

Betsy was delighted and threw her arms around him. “Oh, that's so wonderful! Thank you!”

He didn't hug her back. “You're welcome. Now I gotta go.” He made a sound that could have been a laugh, turned on his heel, scooped up his umbrella, and left.

*   *   *

B
etsy
called Excelsior's City Hall to see when she could get a peek at Maddy's will and was told it did not become public property until probate was complete, which would take at least four to six months, maybe longer.

A while later she sat down with Godwin at the library table. Betsy had her long notebook out, and Godwin had a small, fat spiral notebook in front of him. Each had a mug of tea.

“Okay, whatcha got?” asked Betsy.

“Harry Whiteside was a very rich man, his total worth somewhere around twenty-five or thirty million, maybe more. He owned property in four states, but primarily in Minnesota. He did big jobs and small ones. His last small one was at the University's hazardous waste disposal facility, replacing the pipes in the fire-extinguishing system. His last big one, which isn't finished, is building an industrial park up near Mille Lacs.

“He wasn't a crook—not legally. But there are people angry with him, some so angry that they've filed lawsuits against him. There have been four lawsuits in the past three years, and he won them all—he has a very good law firm on retainer. But his last lawsuit was a dilly.”

“Who sued him?” asked Betsy.

“His son Howard.”

Betsy stopped writing. “Howard? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” Godwin handed over several multipage printouts and a screen shot.

It took Betsy, no economics whiz, a while studying the documents to understand what had happened. Harry had approached Howard to design an industrial park near Lake Mille Lacs in central Minnesota. Early in the negotiations, Harry asked Howard for some preliminary drawings. Howard complied—and Harry promptly turned them over to another contractor who signed a contract for thousands less than Howard was going to charge. The contractor's mistake was in making his plans too obviously derivative of Howard's drawings.

Howard saw the online advertising for the park and promptly sued. But Harry's law firm, through a feat of
legerdemain Betsy couldn't quite understand, got the case dismissed “with prejudice,” which meant Howard couldn't find another court to bring the suit in for essentially the same offense.

The screen shot was of an article from a Scranton, Pennsylvania, newspaper about an “outburst” in a courtroom where a hearing had begun in the lawsuit. Major fines were imposed on all parties, the heaviest on Howard and Harry Whiteside. “Objects were flung and a chair was broken,” wrote the reporter.

“I'm surprised Hamilton and Hector didn't know about this,” said Betsy.

“I guess if you move to different parts of the country and deliberately don't stay in touch, this sort of thing can happen. For example, the headline reads that the lawsuit was brought by Stonebridge Design, Incorporated. It's possible that the other two brothers didn't know Stonebridge was Howard Whiteside.”

Betsy looked back into the papers. “Yes, Howard incorporated under that name only two years ago. So that would make it possible.” She nodded to herself as she began to write a note. “It looks as if we have another motive for murder right here.”

“So what did you and Connor find out?” Godwin asked.

“Even as the owner of an e-cigarette store, Joe couldn't buy pure nicotine. Only the factories that have a use for it, like making insecticides or bottling the flavored diluted nicotine, can buy the pure stuff. University medical departments and research labs can buy it, too. But not members of the general public, even if they sell vapor liquids. It's like buying cyanide or arsenic; you can do it, but you need
a license, and a good enough reason to get a license, like working as a scientist in a research lab.”

*   *   *

B
usiness
at Crewel World began its comeback that day. Seven customers came in the morning, five of them determined to buy something new, something complex, something challenging. Betsy and Godwin sold three hand-painted canvases to one regular, two to a man neither had ever seen before, and two to Jill Cross Larson. They sold two Dazor lights, four pairs of Gingher scissors, twenty-six cards of overdyed silk floss, three dozen skeins of cotton floss, six spools of Kreinik metallic, four packs of needles, three pairs of magnifying glasses, several yards of Aida cloth in eleven, fourteen, and eighteen count, and nearly a yard of Cashel linen. The rush of customers was so great that Betsy had had to call in a part-timer. By noon the cash drawer was plump and the charge card reader was, in Godwin's words, “smokin'!”

Bershada came in right at noon and said, “Betsy, may I take you to lunch?”

Godwin said, “Go, go, go! Milly's here, and I'm so pumped, I can handle anything.”

“All right,” Betsy said.

Bershada left her needlework bag under the library table, for when she'd return for the Monday Bunch meeting.

The rain had made the sunlight sparkle as if on a new-made world. The air was fresh and cool and smelled of new green growing things. Lake Minnetonka, across the street, twinkled blue and silver. A robin was in full song from near the top of a budding tree.

“Times like this, I forgive Minnesota for its winters,” said Bershada as they crossed the street at Lake and Water—they were heading for the Barleywine.

They paused inside the door. Bershada had set a fast pace, and Betsy was a little winded. The place smelled strongly of beer (it was a microbrewery), cooked meats, fresh-baked bread, and steamed vegetables, with subtle undertones of herbs—Leona grew her own and used them generously in her recipes.

The floor was flagstone, a little uneven under their feet. A long bar to the left was made of dark carved wood. Behind it were slabs of clear glass, and behind them were the tall steel “kettles” that held the several brews. On the right were three booths left over from when the place was a simple country café, and at the back was a low counter and three stools; the Barleywine now had Wi-Fi for customers to use.

Bershada led the way to the back booth, slid in with a sigh, and said, “Chaz called me on his cell.”

“Is he angry with me?” asked Betsy, sliding in across from her.

“I think he's not sure. He was upset. He thought you were on his side. I had a talk with him when he came home from court—did you know he's inherited about half of Maddy O'Leary's properties?”

“Yes, he was listing them for me this morning. Houses, businesses, all kinds of things. But he didn't say anything about money. Didn't she leave him any?”

“She didn't need to. Chaz has been putting money aside since he got a paper route in high school. The two of them
were on the same page about money. You think Joe Mickels is a miser? Those two could give Joe Mickels lessons—and she gave him some good investment advice. She knew Chaz had more than enough to keep things going until his inheritance started paying off.”

“Will they let Chaz continue managing her properties until the estate is settled?”

Bershada nodded. “Yes, and they'll pay Chaz a good salary.”

“You said he's getting about half of her properties?”

“Yes, some of the rest are going to her church, some to other charities—who will probably sell them. It's a whole big business, managing properties, and it takes experience they probably don't have. The executors of her will—there are three of them, from a company with the super-imaginative name of Twin Cities Property Management, Incorporated—asked Chaz some questions. One question he couldn't answer, about a bill for window replacement in a cabin up in Pine County. Chaz knew nothing about a cabin, so he couldn't help them with that. He's wondering just how much property she died owning.”

Betsy smiled. “Maybe it's half the homes in Duluth. It will be interesting to find out.” Her smile faded. “Now for the hard question. Bershada, did Chaz think his race had anything to do with my asking for an alibi?”

Bershada bit her lower lip, then nodded, her eyes sad. “Yes, he took it as a sign of prejudice, which totally knocked him sideways, because he thought you and I were friends. I told him it wasn't prejudice at all, just your desire to get to the truth, but he doubts me.”

“Oh gosh, the poor fellow! I couldn't believe Chaz
would do such a thing. It's just that Joe said he thinks the man who shot him was black, and the only black man I know who is in any way attached to this mess is Chaz.”

Bershada asked sharply, “Is that true?”

“Yes. Don't you know I don't ask hard questions of people without a good reason?”

“I should know it, but I guess . . . But . . . You'd think this country would have gotten over that racist sickness a long time ago. We're way better than we used to be, but the virus remains, and it will ambush even me once in a while, often enough that I have to keep my guard up,”

Betsy looked sad now, too. “I'm a fixer—you know that. I see a problem, I want to find a solution. It frustrates me that I can't fix this one.”

“You are fixing it, you and millions of others, all decent, caring people. I do my part by being decent and caring, too. In the words of the old song, ‘We Shall Overcome.'”

Betsy reached out and took her friend's hand.

“Ahem,” said someone, and they looked up to see a young man looking back at them, small notepad in hand. “Are you ready to order?”

They looked down at the neglected menus on the table—when had they been put there?

Bershada said, “I want that salad with little shrimps in it, vinegar and oil dressing. Diet Coke to drink.”