Knit Your Own Murder (19 page)

“Did you go to a hotel?” asked Heck. “Or to a friend's house?”

“It was three o'clock in the morning before I cooled off enough to think about finding a place to bed down. I looked like a bum—I'd been working in the yard, I was all over dirt and blisters, I didn't want to show my face anywhere. So I went to the work site and slept in my car, went home around eight to find Abby sick with worry, and we made up.” He shrugged. “We hadn't had a fight like that for years.”

“So the investigators here in Wayzata wonder if you picked that fight,” said Betsy.

Howie stared at her with respect. “Their very words,” he said.

“If he didn't want to show his dirty face at a hotel,” suggested Heck, “then why would he show it on an airline?”

“If we're talking premeditated,” said Ham, “you stash a change of clothing in your trunk beforehand, clean up in the airport bathroom. Then change back and roll on the floor of the parking garage before you go home.”

“What are you trying to do to me?” Howie shouted at Ham. “Get me hanged?”

“Minnesota doesn't have the death penalty,” said Betsy.

He turned an angry face to her, then suddenly laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “This is stupid!” he shouted. “You're all stupid! I didn't murder my father!” He made a sound dangerously near a sob. “I never killed any human being in my life!” He turned away from them all. “I'm not staying here for this! She's not a cop, she can't arrest me! I think we're done.” He gestured at Betsy. “It's over. This was a mistake, agreeing to talk to her. We're done, you're done, all right? Heck, show her out!”

“Hold on, pardner, hold on just one minute,” said Heck. “Ham didn't mean anything—right, Ham?”

“That's right,” said Ham, with a placating smile. “No reason to fly off the handle. I apologize. We've got a problem here, and we need to work together to solve it. I don't think you murdered Dad, all right? Seriously, I don't.”

“Me, neither,” said Heck. He looked to Betsy for an agreeing comment.

But Betsy didn't give him one, instead drank some more ginger ale. “What time did you leave the house after the argument?” she asked Howie.

“Answer her,” warned Ham when Howie appeared about to explode again. Ham was looking very lawyerly.

Howie blew out the big breath he'd taken in order to resume shouting. He took a lesser one. “All right, all right, let me think.” He turned to look at the long line of little flames in the fireplace. “It was almost dark. I remember being surprised by that. I was working outside and didn't realize how dark it was getting—you know how that happens.”

Ham and Heck made soft sounds of agreement

“The argument started at a late dinnertime—she'd called me in about four times before I
did
come in, and I came to the table looking like the wrath of God, and she told me to at least go wash my hands. But dammit, I was hungry and I grabbed a chicken leg—and she knocked it out of my hand. I was pissed. I picked it up off the floor and took a bite, and she yanked it out of my hand and threw it in the garbage, and we were off to the races, the kids crying and hiding in their rooms, me totally out of control.” He took a breath and blew it out through pursed lips. “So I don't know, it was probably after eight when I stomped out.” He looked at Betsy. “Okay?”

She said, “Your home is in the Eastern time zone, so here in the Midwest it would be after seven. You'd need time to clean up, get to the airport, get a ticket, fly to Minneapolis, then get from the airport to Wayzata. The medical examiner has set the time of death somewhere around eight thirty, give or take forty minutes. So . . . you're okay, if she's right—and you're right—about the time.” She wrote briefly in her notebook.

“There, see?” said Heck, grinning. “See?”

“All right, all right, you're right, I guess,” said Howie, looking a little ashamed of himself. “But dammit . . .”

“Yes, you are right,” said Betsy. She had let this get out of hand because she had underestimated how volatile one of them might become when he realized he was suspected of murder.

She said, “I'd like to shift focus from you back to your father. He seems to have been quick to anger, willing to use physical force.”

“That's him exactly,” agreed Howie, and the other two nodded.

“But what about more subtle ways of aggression?” she asked.

“I don't understand the question,” said Howie. “Subtle aggression? Is that like when a person hugs you to death?”

“I'm thinking practical jokes—like he did to you, Heck, when you were a kid on the job.”

The men's almost identical puzzled expressions cleared up.

“Oh, that,” said Heck. “Is a practical joke a kind of aggression?”

“Of course it is,” Betsy said. “You make a fool of someone, he may laugh, but he feels injured. You're showing him you're smarter than he is, more clever.”

“I think almost everyone working on a building site plays practical jokes,” said Howie.

“So do soldiers, so do cops, so do cowboys,” said Heck. “It's part of the rough-and-ready mentality, I think.”

“Attorneys as well,” put in Ham. “Only ours are sneakier, of course. Sometimes a victim never realizes he's been played.”

“But did Harry like practical jokes played on him?”

“Now, that's a whole different story,” said Heck. “He'd lay for anyone who pulled one on him. Didn't find them funny the least little bit.”

“That's right,” said Howie, nodding.

“But he liked to play them,” said Betsy.

“Sure he did,” said Howie. “All his life, and some of them were damn mean. But so what?”

Ham said, “She's thinking about that woman, what's her name, O'Leary, Maddy O'Leary. Someone sneaked poison onto her knitting yarn, remember? A really filthy practical joke. And Harry was very angry that she outbid him. And if she'd already done him out of the cabin . . .”

“No, no,” said Heck. “She died from that poisoned yarn. That's not exactly a little ol' practical joke. And anyway, she died
after
Dad.”

“The trap was laid before Harry was killed,” said Betsy, and a silence fell.

Finally, Heck murmured, “Well, damn.”

But that was it; without saying a word, the trio seemed to draw together, to make a pact to say nothing more. The man, after all, was their father. Betsy tried to ask a few more questions, but she got monosyllables in return.

“Maybe we had better wrap this up,” Betsy said at last. “I am grateful to all three of you for allowing me to come here and talk with you. I hope there are no hard feelings and that you'll allow me to contact one or more of you if I have additional questions.”

There was a little murmur of reluctant agreement, and Betsy collected their current contact information.

She thanked them again.

Heck walked her through the beautiful kitchen, retrieved
and helped her on with her coat, but when he opened the door, rain was falling in a steady patter.

“Oh, rats,” sighed Betsy. “I knew I should have worn my raincoat.”

“Where's your car?” asked Heck, peering out into the rain past the three SUVs.

“Over past the end of the porch,” said Betsy, gesturing. “In front of the garage.”

“Oh, well, come on, there's a door to the outside through the garage. I'll let you out there. Less of a hike.”

“Thanks,” said Betsy.

A sudden silence fell as they came back into the living room. Heck smirked at his brothers and said, “Raining. Letting her out through the garage.”

He hustled her across the room, out a dark gray door, into a hallway. Betsy got a glimpse of an office through an open door halfway along, then reached for a doorknob at the end of the corridor.

“Wait!” ordered Heck. “It's dark and there's a step down.” He went around her to open the door.

“Ow!” He went into a dark space beyond the door, and a second later a pair of overhead lights came on, and she saw him grasping his right hand. A tiny trickle of blood was just barely visible through his left fingers.

“What happened?” Betsy asked.

“That damn door bit me!” He was smiling, but it was a painful smile.

He'd gone down a step, and Betsy saw a big concrete block a couple of inches below the threshold. Betsy looked at the door, which was standing open. It looked uninjured.

Heck said, “Here, let me look at that doorknob.” He
bent down to examine it. “Looks like there's a screw loose,” he said. “And I don't mean in me.”

Betsy came for a look. There was a small, dark stain on the underside of the bright brass knob, on the area where it fastened to the flange that came through the door latch. It was partly covered by fresh blood, and the flat head of a screw was standing up a fraction of an inch through it.

“I'd better fix that before it gets someone else,” said Heck.

“It already has,” said Betsy. “And I think we'd better leave it alone. The police need to be called right away.”

“They do? Why?”

“Because that dark stain already on the screw is probably blood, and I think it was left there by the murderer.”

A
t
breakfast the next morning, Connor asked, “So the police investigator wasn't as excited about the bloody doorknob as you were?”

“No, but he did take samples.”

“What are they expecting to find?”

“Probably that Harry Whiteside cut his hand on the knob.”

“But you don't think so.”

“I think if Harry cut his hand, he would have cleaned himself up, then wiped the knob, then fixed the loose screw. That house was immaculate, everything in order, no books stacked on tables or the floor, no dishes in the sink, nothing dirty or dusty. The kind of person who likes cleanliness and order is not going to leave a hazard like that doorknob unrepaired. It's my opinion that the murderer cut his hand going out the door. I did persuade the
investigator to look around the garage for more blood traces. I looked, too, and didn't find any.

“But you see, I don't think they'll get any usable evidence from the blood they did find at all. Heck Whiteside also cut his hand on that door, so the blood sample is mixed, and DNA testing won't prove anything useful.” She looked down at her two soft-boiled eggs in the little blue dish. “Rats,” she mumbled.

Downstairs, she found Godwin just starting to open up. He was unusually quiet, and she let him go unquestioned until at last, the opening up finished, she asked, “Something on your mind, Goddy?”

“Well, yes. But, there is, um . . . but . . .”

“Oh dear. What now?”

“Well, I don't know which one of them had this brainstorm, Raf or Pilar, but they talked about it on the way to the airport, and most of it was in Spanish, and it was late when we got back, and I sort of forgot about it until this morning. So I remembered and asked. And so now he's told me what they think they've cooked up. And I don't know if I like it. I mean, maybe it's all right, but I never did think I'd be a parent one day.” He went to the library table and dropped into a chair with a sigh.

She joined him there and said, “A parent? I don't understand. You mean he got talked back into doing that? He will after all go ahead with the plan and marry Ms. Montserrat, and try to get custody of the child when they divorce?”

“No, he's not going to marry Ms. Mountain.”

“Who, then? And what if it's a girl?”

“We talked about that, earlier, that he might have to
breed a long string of girl babies before they got to a boy. But no, that's not the plan at all.”

“Then I really don't understand.”

“We'll still get married. But then . . . things like in vitro and, and a surrogate.” Godwin drew up his shoulders, his face showing his distaste for the idea. “Because the way he and his family think, it has to be his biological son, not an adopted child. And so, of course, we will be the ones to raise it.”

Betsy sat staring at him while the silence went on and on. He just stared at the collection of stitching tools in a bin in the center of the table.

Finally, she said, “What are you going to do?”

“I don't know. Rafael's halfway to being pleased with the idea; he thinks it's clever. But somehow the idea of me being a daddy—well, it just never occurred to me. I knew a long time ago that I wouldn't ever . . . you know, with a
girl
, so I just accepted that to be the way it was. And I put a brave, bad face on it, because after all, babies are loud and messy, and you're up all night and ishy
diapers
and icky
potty training
and crying for no reason and
expensive . . .
so I told myself that was okay for some but not for me. Besides, I wasn't ever going to be old enough to be a
father
. Fathers are old, and I'm always so . . .
young
.” He looked at her, his expression so pitiful and yearning that her heart turned over.

“And now, the man you love is suggesting the two of you do this thing that will upset that applecart,” she said. “What did you say to Rafael when he told you?”

“I hugged him so he wouldn't see the look on my face and said I had to get to work early. I've been here for nearly
an hour. I'm trying to think, and I can't think. What can I say to him?”

Betsy took several minutes to gather her thoughts. “First of all, you mustn't lie to him. You have to talk to him, tell him you have deep reservations about this plan. You could begin by saying you don't think you'd be any good at parenting—”

“Well, I wouldn't! I mean, look at me! I'm frivolous! I'm vain! I like pretty clothes and nice vacations and everything neat and clean, sweet and peaceful. Except at parties, I like loud parties and drinking too much and then sleeping till noon the next day. You can't do that with a baby!”

“It wouldn't stay a baby forever, you know. They grow up quicker than you think. But then, of course, you're faced with new problems: dating, and driving, and getting into a good college.”

Godwin's eyes widened. “Oh my God, you're right! Suppose he drops out of school, takes drugs, and falls in love with absolutely the wrong person?”

“Suppose she's a girl, this child of yours?”

He waved that off with one hand. “No, not likely. There's something they can do, some processing of the sperm that makes it extremely likely it will be a boy.”

“What if he's gay?”

Godwin stared at her, then bloomed all over. “Wouldn't that be the biggest hoot in the
world?
” He laughed. “I don't think dear Pilar thought about
that
!”

Then he sobered. “So you think I should tell Rafael what I think.”

“I think you must, because you are not to go into this unwillingly. Remember how your father reacted to learning
you were gay? Think how this child will react to a father who dislikes him for a reason he cannot understand?”

Godwin's mouth fell open, then his face crumpled. He jumped to his feet and ran into the back room. Betsy heard the bathroom door slam. She went there but heard noisy weeping and retreated. Neither of Godwin's parents spoke to him, hadn't seen or communicated with him in any manner since he was fourteen and they'd thrown him out into the street.

She had cut him to the quick with that single careless remark.

She felt tears of her own beginning, but the front door began to play “Yes! We Have No Bananas,” and Jill came into the shop with the children, Emma Beth, Airy, and Einar. The children ran to her for hugs and loud greetings—she was Emma's godmother and informal aunt to them all.

But Jill saw something in Betsy's face and said, “What's wrong?”

“It's Godwin. He's in a real pickle, and I don't know what to tell him.”

“Get the coloring books,” ordered Jill, and Betsy went into a bottom drawer of the checkout desk for the big plastic box of crayons and three coloring books.

In another minute the children were settled at the library table telling stories about the pages they were coloring—or scribbling over, in Einar's case—while Betsy drew Jill out of earshot and swiftly gave a condensed version of Godwin's predicament.

“Where is he now?”

Betsy grimaced. “In the bathroom, crying his eyes out. It's my fault. I brought up his parents, who didn't want
him once they learned he was gay. If he is burdened with a child he doesn't want . . .”

Jill nodded. “That wasn't a very clever thing to say.”

“I agree, I should have thought harder before I spoke. But on the other hand, he needs to really think this through before agreeing to help Rafael raise a child. He thinks children are pretty awful.”

“Does he? Does he really?”

“Well, he said so, in so many words, just a few minutes ago.”

“Hmmmm,” said Jill. “Watch the children for me.” She walked into the back room.

Betsy went out front and found Einar, already bored with his coloring book, beginning to scrawl on the table.

“Here now, sweetie,” said Betsy, taking the crayon from his hand. “I have a different job for you.”

Einar puckered up as if to cry and reached for his crayon, but Betsy lifted it higher. “Would you like to pop bubbles?”

“Bubbles!” shouted the child.

“No, not really bubbles,” said Betsy. “This is something different.” She went to her desk and opened a middle drawer. Under a clipboard was a length of bubble wrap.

“Yay!” cheered Airy—his real name was Erik, but Emma Beth had called him Airy when they were both very young, and the nickname stuck.

“Awww, baby stuff!” scoffed Emma Beth and went back to coloring a crowned frog in her book. She was very good, even adding shading to the frog's foreleg.

“No, it isn't!” shouted Airy. “Me, me, give me some bubbles to pop!”

So Betsy cut the piece into two unequal pieces and gave the bigger to Airy, who immediately began to pop his between thumb and forefinger. Einar watched him for a few seconds, then began popping his own piece. It took him under a minute to master the technique, and then, successful, he growled a low, dirty laugh, “Hurrr, hurrr, hurrr.”

Betsy stared at him, amazed. She'd never heard such a sound from a little child before. It was practically a baritone.

“Isn't he just the cutest thing?” said Emma Beth without looking up from her book, obviously quoting some adult.

Remarkable,” said Betsy.

Snap
,
crackle
,
pop
, went Airy's plastic wrap. He was an expert at popping the wrap.

Pop . . . pop . . . pop, pop . . . pop
, went Einar's. “Hurrr, hurrr, hurrr.”

Betsy retreated to the other side of the box shelves that divided the shop in half. There she found Jill and Godwin seated at the little round table, talking in low voices.

“Oh!” Betsy said. “Excuse me!”

“It's all right,” said Godwin, offering her a watery smile. “We're just talking. I think . . . I think I'm starting to understand what I'm going to do.”

Betsy looked at Jill, who smiled and nodded. “It's going to be all right. Goddy is a good man; he's just a little frightened at all this happening so fast. It was thoughtless of Rafael to make an agreement with Pilar without consulting him first. But it will go much slower now; these things take time, lots of time. And he'll have all the time he needs to think about it, talk about it, make sure he knows what
he wants, and what Rafael wants, and that they're on the same page.”

“Oh, Jill, you're so
wise
, so
sensible
, I just love you to
death
!” said Godwin.

There came the angry wail of a small child, and Jill got up to go see what atrocity had occurred in the front of the store. Her mere appearance stopped the wail in its tracks.

“Wow,” said Godwin, looking through the opening at her. He said to Betsy, “Do you think she'll give Rafael and me lessons?”

*   *   *

T
hat
crisis over, Betsy told him about her adventure with the Whiteside brothers last night. She sighed a bit over the unfairness of discovering the tiny sample of blood only after it had been hopelessly mixed with Heck's. “I'm as sure as I can be that the first drop of blood was left by the murderer, but now there's no way to prove that.”

“Somebody, probably you, will think of something else that will break this case wide open,” Godwin predicted.

But it was Jill who lifted her spirits when she said, “They can test mixed DNA samples. They do it all the time; they just separate them. That's how I knew my second child would be a boy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a baby's DNA gets into the mother from the womb through the umbilical cord. She's sending oxygen and food to the baby, and the baby is sending fragments of itself to the mother. A blood test will pick up those
fragments, and a technician can separate the DNA in them from the mother's DNA.”

Betsy said, in a very quiet voice, “Really?”

“Google it. DNA technology is galloping headlong down the road, past what you're wishing it might do. They've been doing it for years.”

Betsy went to her computer and asked her search engine to tell her if it was possible to separate mixed DNA samples. Indeed, yes, said several sites, though sometimes in language that gave new meaning to the term “scientific explanation”: The terminology used in some of the scientific abstracts she read—“loci,” “contributor genotypes,” “biostatical software”—was enough to give her a headache.

Jill, reading over Betsy's shoulder, said, “See? In a case like Wayzata's, only two samples are in the mix, none of it fragmentary or degraded. That means it'll be relatively simple to separate them. And since one of them is Heck Whiteside, who is currently present and can give a fresh sample, it'll be even easier, using one they pull from him for comparison.”