Knit Your Own Murder (18 page)

Ham's in town. He has agreed to talk to you if Howie and I come along. We want you to come to our father's house in Wayzata. The address is 1250 Lakeview Street, and we're meeting there at eight o'clock tonight to talk about an estate sale. Ham says he'll give you half an hour, so don't be late.

It was signed,
Heck.

“Should I go?” Betsy asked, in succession, Connor, Godwin, Jill, and Mike Malloy.

All said she should go, even Mike. And all, even Mike, asked for a report of the conversation.

W
ayzata
is a beautiful little town, though its Indian name is not spelled the way it is pronounced: Why-zet-ah. Its main street, unlike Excelsior's, runs along the lakefront, and its shops along the inshore side are attractive and upscale. Behind the main street, the land rises in steps, and those homes lucky enough to face the lake are beautiful and costly, without being overbearing, vainglorious mansions.

It was dark when Betsy arrived at the late Harry Whiteside's house, on a big corner lot up three “steps” from the lakefront, too dark to see anything other than that the house itself was white stucco and at least two stories tall.

The driveway started at the back of the lot and curved around to a broad parking area. There were three outsize vehicles taking up all the space, so Betsy pulled beyond them to find another space set forward in front of a two-car garage.

She got out and went back to a broad front porch—well, a back porch, really, since the front must face the lake. The porch was as broad as the house and marked with arched stucco pillars.

She rang the doorbell. The chimes inside were three deep notes,
ding
,
dang
,
dong
.

The door, made of polished vertical boards with a little window guarded by wrought-iron filigree, was promptly opened by Heck. “Well, howdy, Ms. Devonshire, glad you could make it!” he said, his Texas accent a little more on display than it was during their conversation at her shop. He was wearing a red and gray plaid flannel shirt of western design, plain jeans, and old cowboy boots. Betsy suspected his wardrobe choice was an overreaction to being away from home, like an American discovering patriotism while in France.

“I'm glad you offered me this opportunity to meet all three of you,” said Betsy, coming into the house. They were in a roomy reception area with tile paving and a small wrought-iron chandelier overhead.

Heck came around behind her to help her off with her white cloth coat. He hung it in the coat closet and gestured at her to precede him through a big, gourmet eat-in kitchen into the living room. There she stopped in her tracks. An even more beautiful room!

It was big, and done all in shades of gray. The floor was shining wood stained dark gray, the square-cut couch was light gray, as was the severely modern occasional chair, and the walls were a medium gray. Very light and filmy silvery gray curtains were pulled back from the gigantic square of glass that was the wall facing the lake. Beside the one
window was a huge square of plywood covering what was undoubtedly a twin opening now lacking glass.

In front of the couch, which faced the windows, was a highly polished chrome coffee table. It and the couch rested on a big rug woven in a geometric pattern of dark taupe and white. To the right, suspended on the wall, was a long gas fireplace with a surround of small rectangular stones a darker shade of gray than the walls. Tiny yellow flames danced through black gravel down its length, and hanging above it were two large framed architectural drawings of commercial buildings on pale gray paper. On the left side, the entire wall was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase made of matte black metal. The books in it provided touches of color. Small lights on the ceiling spotlighted the bookshelves, the coffee table, and the architectural drawings.

As Betsy stepped farther into the room, she glanced back the way she'd come and saw on the wall a large Impressionistic painting of Marilyn Monroe's head, done in shades of black, gray, and white, except for her lips, which were a brilliant red.

“Wow!” said Betsy, turning back around slowly to take a second look. Someone had paid a professional interior designer a lot of money to put together this room. Outside the front window the land fell away. There were a few mature trees in black silhouette flanking the window, and houses with glowing windows were down the hill. The main feature in view was the dark, restless surface of the lake, and the darker sky with clouds moving swiftly across a half-moon high in it. The view was wonderful, in tune with the room's message of masculinity, power, and money.

“You like it?” asked one of the other two men standing
near the windows. He was just a little taller than Heck, slimmer, older. He and the other man, even taller and very skinny, but not so much older, had dark hair and features very much like Heck's. Clearly, the men were his two brothers, Howard and Hamilton.

“Impressive,” said Betsy.

“But perhaps lacking a woman's touch,” said the thinnest brother with a wry smile. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a faint pinstripe and a dark tie, also pinstripe, but from side to side. A short glass, half full of whiskey-colored liquid and ice, was in one hand.

“I'm Hamilton Whiteside,” he said.

“I'm Howard,” said the other, who was wearing a very thick brown pullover and brown corduroy trousers. He held an identical glass in his hand.

“The house is for sale, of course,” said Hamilton.

“Would you like to make an offer?” asked Howard, only half seriously.

Betsy laughed. “No, I don't think so. For one thing, it's not my style. For another, I don't think I could afford it.”

“Come over, sit down,” invited Hamilton, gesturing at the couch. “Would you like something to drink? We have beer, wine, gin, scotch, Campari, and—” He glanced at Heck.

“Diet Coke, and something called ‘spicy ginger ale.'”

“The ginger ale, please,” said Betsy, hoping it was what she thought it might be, and in any case thinking it was the best of the choices.

So she took the tall, ice-filled glass of the pale stuff when Heck brought it to her, and she smiled. “Thank you,” she said, and she took a taste. It was what she hoped; she recognized the taste, not too sweet and very gingery. “I'll come
to your estate sale to buy all of this you have.” Betsy had found WBC Craft Sodas at a now-closed craft beer store in Saint Louis Park and was sadly disappointed when she couldn't find the Spicy Ginger variety she'd quickly come to love anywhere else she looked.

“There's a whole case of it back beside the refrigerator,” said Heck.

“I'll take it.”

“Write that down,” said Hamilton to Howard, gravely.

Betsy drank some more, then realized a silence had fallen. They were waiting for her.

“Ah,” she said, looking for a coaster on which to place her sweating glass.

“Just put it on the table,” said Heck. “It can take it.”

She obeyed, then went into her purse for her long, narrow notepad and a pencil—ballpoint pens sometimes failed her when she was trying to get something down on paper quickly.

She looked up and around at the three of them, all still standing, and got up to go to the egg-shaped occasional chair, which was under the window. She moved it near the coffee table and sat down. It was surprisingly comfortable. “Will you all sit?” she asked.

“Sure,” said Heck quickly, and they moved to the couch. It was more than long enough to hold the three of them.

“I'm interested in the kind of person your father was,” she began. “Howard, you're the oldest; presumably you knew him best. He was a very successful businessman. But what was he like as a man? What were his hobbies? Did he fish? Play golf? Own a motorcycle?”

“He liked to fish,” said Howard. “When he was a kid, he
used to spend summers with his grandparents up somewhere in Pine County in a cabin on Pine Lake—imaginative names you people have for landmarks. He took me up there a couple of times to see the old place, which was about the size of this room and had a roof that was missing half its shingles. It actually had an outhouse, which he thought was a fine feature.” He made a sideways mouth at the memory.

Hamilton said, “I remember that! Somebody else owned it, and he wanted to buy it from them and restore it. But they wouldn't sell it. He kept raising his bid for it, but they had hopes some company was going to build a lodge up there and refused to sell it to Dad.”

Heck said, amused, “An outhouse? An actual two-holer?”

Howard said, “Yes, and he was going to
keep the outhouse
. Wanted us to go on vacation up there. Said roughing it would be good for us, because it was good for him.” He shook his head.

Betsy hid a smile behind her glass of ginger ale, and took a drink.

Hamilton said, “I saw where the hopeful owner finally died, but now someone else has it and tore down the old place to build a new cabin on it. So I guess we can be grateful we dodged that bullet.”

Betsy asked, “Did your father know who the newest owner is, the one who built a new cabin?”

Ham looked thoughtful. “I don't think so—I never asked him.”

“Could it have been Maddy O'Leary?”

“Why Maddy O'Leary?” asked Hamilton. “Who is she?”

“She and a man named Joe Mickels were bidding on the
Excelsior property,” said Heck. “And you know Dad when someone was trying to keep him from something.”

The brothers looked at one another. Then Howard said slowly, “If Dad thought someone bought that cabin in order to keep him from having it . . . Especially someone he was already quarreling with.”

The others drew long faces at the thought. But Heck said, “There's no way to know that, is there?”

Hamilton said, “Sure there is. A search of listings of property owners on Pine Lake would tell you that. The county—and I'll bet you a dollar it's Pine County—would give you the names. Easy peasy.” He said to Betsy, “They call me Ham.”

Betsy made a note. Then she said, “What do you think was your father's strongest personal strength, Howard?”

“Tenacity,” said Howard at once. “He tried for years to acquire that rotten old cabin. Said his grandfather built it with his own hands. And call me Howie.”

“Fine, Howie. Was he friendly? Honest? Temperamental?” At that last word, all three stirred. Howie snorted and hid his mouth with his hand.

“Easily stirred to anger?” suggested Betsy, and this time all three of them snorted. She made a note. “Is it possible he poisoned Maddy O'Leary?”

“Hey, no, no, no,” said Howie, surprised at her. “Where'd you get an idea like that?”

“It's Dad who was murdered,” said Heck, equally surprised.

“She's also been murdered,” said Howie.

“And you think our father killed her?” Ham's tone was incredulous.

“No, the cops think Joe did it,” said Howie. He was looking quizzically at her.

“I was originally thinking there was one murderer who killed both Maddy and Harry,” said Betsy. “And that still may be the case. But Joe has an alibi for your father's murder. I'm looking for someone else who was angry with him.”

“You've come to the wrong source,” said Heck. “None of us knows diddly about who Dad was dealing with currently.”

“Now hold on,” said Ham. “If you're looking for who was tight around the jaws, get a list of who he was doing business with, and you'll have a list of who was mad at him.”

“Well,” said Betsy, “he dealt recently with Howie.”

“He asked me to help him design a building he wanted to put up in Excelsior,” said Howie. “I turned him down. No fight, no quarrel, I just said no.”

“I'm talking about before that, the time your father took elements of an industrial park design you started doing for him and hired someone else to execute a new design based on your drawings. And you sued him for doing that.”

“What are you—how do you—where did you—?”

“Do you deny that you are Stonebridge Design?” asked Betsy.

“Uh-oh,” said Ham in an amused voice.

“So you knew about it?” Betsy asked him.

“A chair thrown at the judge in his courtroom? Yes, I'd read the story. But I didn't know that was you, Howie—or Dad. But I should have; it sounds a whole lot like him. And you.” Ham was smiling broadly.

“That's enough!” said Heck. “This is serious.”

Everyone looked at Howie, whose face had gone red with fury. He took a long, noisy breath through his nose, then said, “Yes, that was me. I couldn't believe that a dad would do that to his own son.”

“Not all dads,” said Ham. “Not even most dads. But our dad? Sure, why not?”

Betsy said, “I know Heck has an alibi for the night your father was murdered. Do the rest of you?”

“Now she sounds like a cop,” said Ham, amused. “And yes, I have an alibi. I was in my office at home researching some upcoming litigation—which I should be home doing more of right now—while my wife kept freshening my coffee mug.”

Ham, Heck, and Betsy looked at Howie. He threw up his brown-sweatered arms and tried to make a joke of it. “Well, how the hell was I to know I'd need an alibi?” he demanded. When they didn't laugh, he continued, “If I'd known, I'd have stayed at home! But I had a fight with Abby, and I went out for a drive, stayed out all night.”