Knit Your Own Murder (6 page)

B
etsy
was in her shop sighing over a bill that had come in, because it seemed to be charging her a whole lot of money for items she hadn't ordered—nor had they been delivered. Godwin was standing beside her making angry sounds.

“They did this once before, remember?” said Godwin. “There's another shop named Crewel World, in Iowa, and this vendor sent them an order we had made and billed us for it. This time they sent us a bill for some things they ordered. It's funny how they don't know that IA and MN are two different states.”

“Maybe they think we're a chain, like McDonald's.”

“Even so, if the Excelsior McDonald's orders a truckload of buns, I don't think the Hopkins McDonald's wants to pay for it. Give me that bill, I'll go call them.”

“Thank you.”

He was well into his tirade at the hapless accounts
manager and so didn't pay any attention to the door's “Hello, Dolly!” announcement of someone coming in.

Betsy looked up and saw it was Joe Mickels. His normal blustering demeanor was gone; he appeared uncomfortable and diffident. She had been wondering if he would dare stop in to talk to her. Apparently he did dare, but he didn't like it. Given their unhappy history, his attitude wasn't surprising.

Betsy put on her blandest expression and said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Mickels. How may I help you?”

He took a deep breath and walked to her desk, a solid chunk of a man, but not above five foot five, with a pigeon breast, a proud beak of a nose, nineteenth-century sideburns, and bushy eyebrows nearly hiding sharp blue eyes. Yet still she was struck by how much of a facade this bold front now appeared. Normally, he was strength and aggression to the bone.

“Good afternoon,” he croaked quietly, then cleared his throat and tried again. “Good afternoon!” he barked assertively.

“Is there something I can do for you?” she asked.

“I hope so,” he said, and it was a confession. “Sergeant Michael Malloy has been talking to me—almost accusing me.”

“Of what, Mr. Mickels?” She was not surprised that Malloy had gotten around to Joe.

“You know, I think, that I own three e-cigarette stores.”

“Yes, I had heard that.”

“And you know Ms. O'Leary was poisoned to death with nicotine.”

“Yes, I had heard that, too.”

He drew a deep, angry breath through that nose. “Well?” he demanded.

“Well, what, Mr. Mickels?” She was having trouble hiding her smile.

And he realized that she was enjoying this. He turned on his heel and started for the door. Then, just as she began to regret baiting him, he thought better of it and turned back.

They said, simultaneously, “I'm sorry.”

And they both grimaced.

She said, “Obviously you are here to ask me to get Mike Malloy off your back, either by providing you with an unbreakable alibi or by proving someone else guilty.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding, relieved. “I'm prepared to pay any expenses you may incur.”

“That's generous of you. But please be aware that this . . . talent I have for discovering the truth behind a crime is just that: a search for the truth. If I agree to look into the case, it's not going to be entirely on your behalf. I'm not going to be out to clear you but to find out who murdered Maddy O'Leary.”

“Sergeant Malloy thinks I also murdered Harry Whiteside. Will you investigate that, too?”

“I wondered if he'd roll that into the case, too,” said Betsy. “He probably thinks it was an attempt to reopen the bidding on the Water Street property.”

“Exactly,” said Joe, nodding once, sharply. “It's not possible to do that, but it's an easy conclusion. I think he's not the only one thinking that's the case.”

“I know he's not the only one,” said Betsy. “I've heard it stated baldly right here in my shop.”

Joe snorted. “I had better instruct my attorney to file for a change of venue as soon as I'm arrested!”

“Maybe it won't come to that,” said Betsy. “Maybe Mike will find out what really happened, if it wasn't you. Maybe he'll discover Maddy and Harry are two different cases with two different murderers. They were each done in a different way, as if two different minds were at work on them.”

“Do you think that's likely?” asked Joe.

“I think it's a valid theory. Harry was attacked in his home, his skull was fractured, and his house was burglarized. Maddy's knitting yarn was soaked in a poison she absorbed through her fingers, possibly by someone thinking her death might be ruled natural. That's two different mind-sets, don't you think?”

Joe thought about it. “That means two different murderers, which would mean two different motives.”

“On the other hand, they were both into property—design, construction, rental.”

But Joe had landed hard on her first theory. “Think about it. They moved in two different areas of that world. Maddy was into housing, Harry was into commercial and industrial buildings. There was some overlap, of course, but that's a lot of difference.”

“So why did they both try to buy the Excelsior property?”

“Because they both planned to put retail on the ground floor and residential above. O'Leary was going to emphasize the retail end, Whiteside the residential. Me, I was going to have stores on the ground floor, business offices on the second, residential above that.” He looked around the shop. “It's a common plan, business on the ground floor,
residences above. What you've done here is like that. I'm just taking it a step further.”

Actually, all Betsy had done was continue the setup she inherited from her sister: a two-story building with three apartments on the second floor—one lived in by herself—and three stores on the ground floor—one her own needlework shop. Even the other two, a used-book store called ISBNs (pronounced “Iz-bins”), the other a deli whose name had remained Sol's through several owners, were in place when she came to Excelsior.

“Is it possible there's a fourth bidder waiting in the wings?” asked Betsy. “Someone who thought it necessary to get rid of Maddy and Harry but thinks he or she can outbid you?”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Joe, surprised.

“Maybe you should. Also, has anything threatening or dangerous happened to you recently? Something you might feel was a close call? Maybe the murderer is thinking he'll get rid of all three of you.”

“No, of course not!” The thick eyebrows came down and gathered over his nose like thunderclouds over a mountain. “I don't like where you're going.”

“Where I'm going is to look at alternatives to the theory that you murdered two people in order to gain ownership of a piece of property.”

“And your theory is that there is a fourth person after the property who is willing to kill Harry, Maddy,
and me
to get it?” He snorted again. “Preposterous!”

“What's your theory?” Betsy shot back.

“I don't have a theory. That's why I'm here. You have a talent for helping people who've been falsely accused of a
crime. I came here to hire you to work for me, proving to the satisfaction of the police—or a jury if it comes to that—that I have not murdered anyone. But if all you can offer is some ridiculous story of a fourth person who wants that Water Street property, then I withdraw my offer.”

“Well, that's your choice,” said Betsy with a good show of indifference.

Defeated, Joe turned and started for the door.

“Wait!” called Betsy.

He stopped and slowly turned back. And there again was that sad and baffled look.

“I spoke rashly just now. You must know you are a . . . difficult person for me to relate to, given all we've been through. But I don't think you are a murderer. I don't know if I can be of any real help to you. I'm willing to try. But you can't hire me. I don't take money for my efforts to clear people who've been mistakenly accused.”

Joe stood silent for a long thirty seconds. Then he said, “All right. Go ahead with it.” After a just-noticeable pause, he added, “Thank you.”

Again he turned to the door.

Betsy called again, “Wait a minute. Maybe we should get right to it. Mike Malloy must have more than motive to be looking at you. For example, maybe you don't have a solid alibi for one or both murders?”

He said, “I don't think they know when nicotine was put on that yarn Maddy was using when she died. It could've been weeks ago.”

“No, the window of opportunity is more or less a week. I didn't announce that champion knitters were picking
their own yarn. And I didn't have the yarn and needles put into marked bags until near the auction.”

“Still, you're talking about a week or so. I don't know how anyone could cover every minute of a whole week with alibis. I know I can't.”

“Fair enough. What about the night Harry Whiteside was killed?”

“The night he was killed I went to a dinner meeting with a man I thought to hire to survey some land I bought up in Cass County. But he turned out to be a flake; he believes in extrasensory perception guiding his surveying. He told me he was in the process of moving from Chicago to Duluth, and now he's canceled his phone service, so I can't get hold of him. And he won't be getting in touch with me; I told him I wasn't going to hire him.”

Betsy pursed her lips then said, “That's too bad.”

“You think?” he growled. “If this was going to be easy I wouldn't have come to you.” He turned away and reached for the door, but before opening it, he looked back at her and said, “You have no idea how hard it was for me to come in here.” He left before she could think of a reply.

*   *   *

“A
re
you serious?” demanded Godwin. “You are going to help that, that, that—?”

“I'm going to try. We've both known him for a long time. Years. He doesn't play nice, he's greedy, and he's bad tempered.” She smiled. “Once, something set him off in front of me and he shouted words I haven't heard for a long time—from back when I dated a U.S. Navy bosun's mate.”
The smile faded. “But I don't think Joe's a criminal, and I doubt he'd ever kill someone, especially in that sneaky way Maddy was killed. That's not his style at all.”

“Yes, but from what you just said, that skull bashing poor Harry Whiteside got does sound a whole lot like him.”

“Well . . . okay. Trashing someone's house sounds even more like him. If Harry walked in on him vandalizing the house . . . But think of this: Would he murder someone and then trash his house?”

“What, you think Harry's house was trashed
after
he was killed?”

Betsy suddenly realized she was thinking of the terrific mess left right here in her shop by the person who murdered her sister—and the fact that it was done after her murder. “I don't know that, either, not for sure. In fact, I don't know what was taken from his house.” She frowned at her disorganized thinking. “Anyway, he has an alibi for Harry Whiteside's murder.”

“He does?”

“Well, sort of. He was having dinner and a talk with someone he was thinking of hiring. But the man seems to have disappeared.”

“In other words, no, he doesn't have an alibi for Harry's murder.”

“No, he
sort of
has an alibi for Harry's murder. Plus, Joe Mickels must be eighty years old. Can you really see him trashing somebody's house and capping his efforts by beating the owner to death?”

“Well, okay, that's a good point. But what about Maddy's murder?”

“No, no alibi. He pointed out very sensibly that since
there's no firm day and time when the nicotine was put onto the yarn, any alibi he offers would be at best . . . spotty.”

“But he has a motive for both murders.”

“Well, yes, he does.”

“And you agreed to help this man?”

Betsy sighed. “Yes, I did.”

L
ike
many Baptist churches, Maddy's church—First Baptist of Minnetonka—was a modest white clapboard with a small steeple surmounted by a plain iron cross at the front of the roof. The windows, four on a side, had pointed arches, but the glass was plain gray. The small parking lot was crowded, and the street in front of the church was full of cars. Connor pulled into a space a block away, and he and Betsy walked back. It was raining, not hard but in that earnest, straight-down way that probably meant it was going to do it all day. There was no wind, no thunder and lightning.

“It's a
Schnurlregen
,” said Connor, holding his big black umbrella so they could both huddle under it.

“What is?” asked Betsy.

“This kind of rain. Salzburg, Austria, is famous for this determined kind of heavy drizzle.”

“
Schnurlregen
,” said Betsy. “Very descriptive.”

Betsy and Connor stopped inside the church to pull off identical raincoats. Under them, they were dressed alike in navy blue suits and white shirts—well, all right, he wore a shirt, she wore a blouse. He had a dark green tie; she had a modest white ruffle. At first they took a pew near the back of the church. A piano was playing a hymn very softly.

Despite all the cars and the smallness of the church, the pale oak pews were full but not packed. Connor nudged Betsy and nodded at the severely plain coffin up near the front. It rested on a wheeled bier and had a single bouquet of roses so dark a red they were nearly black.

After a few seconds Betsy realized the coffin was not wood but a heavy grade of tan cardboard. That's right, she thought, Maddy was going from here to a crematorium. It looked as if there was an aimless, widespread pattern of scribbles on the coffin—and it looked as if the man standing in front of the coffin was scribbling some more on it. Betsy was shocked—then she realized he was signing the coffin, the same way someone might sign a cast on a broken leg. Say, what a lovely idea! She stood and went forward. About to search her purse for a pen, she saw a cluster of Sharpie pens gathered around the bouquet to facilitate the writing.

She picked up a Sharpie.
I am grateful you brought your nimble fingers into my life
, she wrote.
God bless you. Betsy Devonshire.

Connor took the pen from her.
You are at last in a place where there is nothing to try your patience
, he wrote, which Betsy thought was an impertinence, though it made her smile. She noticed he did not sign it.

They went back to their places. Betsy, unfamiliar with
Baptist churches, looked around. Plain off-white walls, no stained glass, no contrasting color anywhere. Up front was a vestigial altar with a bouquet of white lilies and a large black Bible on it. To the right was the upright piano whose notes they'd heard upon coming in. The pianist was a middle-aged woman with dark curling hair and an impressive bosom. She wore a long-sleeved gray knit dress with a black-on-white polka-dot scarf. Now she was playing a gentle version of “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and as Betsy tried to remember the words to it, she rolled it into another hymn Betsy did not recognize.

At ten thirty on the dot, the pastor, a rotund man with thinning dark hair and a pleasant face, came in from one side and took his place at the lectern on the left. He was wearing a charcoal black suit, white shirt, and dark maroon tie. A square of maroon silk handkerchief was peeking from his suit coat pocket.

“Good morning,” he said. The piano player noticed his presence, stopped playing, and put her hands into her lap. “Good morning,” he said again.

“Good morning,” replied the congregation solidly.

“Welcome to a House of God, to a place of worship and praise. We have come here this morning to thank God that He led Maddy O'Leary to us, to praise God for her life, and to glorify God that she is now living in the perpetual sunlight of His eternal kingdom. Maddy was a faithful member of this church for nine years, a good Christian woman. But I suspect few of us really knew her. She kept herself to herself, and her charities, while many, were mostly anonymous. How many of you knew that our new piano was a gift from her?”

There was a murmur of surprise.

“Or that half the cost of our new roof came from her?”

More murmuring, louder.

“Maddy O'Leary was a God-fearing, intelligent, hardworking . . .” He paused for effect. “Difficult woman, who loved her fellow man, preferably at a distance.”

There was surprised, agreeing laughter. “Amen,” called someone.

“But she loved God and praised Him for sending His only begotten Son to us, to teach us how to live, to die for us, and to open the gates of heaven for us.” He was getting into his preaching voice now, and electricity began to trickle into the room. “Let us praise Him!”

After a heartfelt invocation, he led them in singing “Face to Face with Christ, My Savior,” a hymn Betsy was not familiar with. Connor, she noticed, seemed to know it. Or maybe, since he was holding an open hymnal, he could read music. He was always surprising her with a display of some skill or other she hadn't known he had.

When the pastor called on the congregation to speak about Maddy, only one person rose: Chaz Reynolds. Betsy hadn't realized he was there. He wore a dark brown suit with a dark brown shirt and black tie, and he went to the lectern with a deeply grave expression on his handsome face.

Betsy sat up straighter as he took hold with both hands and looked out at the congregation. “I don't think any of you know me,” he began, “so I'm grateful you gave me this opportunity to speak. I had to come. I'm not even a Baptist, I'm a Lutheran. But I couldn't stay away!

“I worked for Maddy O'Leary for seven years. She took me on as a kind of office boy, taught me step-by-step how to
collect rents, how to do basic repairs to kitchens and bathrooms, how to interview prospective tenants, how to evict tenants. I learned to keep records, fill out tax forms, make reports, do all the things necessary to keep her business running smoothly. She shouted at me—a lot—and praised me—not to my face, but to others. She raised my pay at least every year, upgraded my benefits, set me up with an investment program, and matched whatever I put into it. She gave me responsibilities and dared me not to live up to them. She made me a better man, faster than I thought possible.” His voice was thickening and slowing. He stopped to swallow. “I loved her, though I never dared to tell her that. So I hope she can hear me tell her now.” He looked upward. “I love you, Miss Maddy, and I miss you every day.”

He tore himself away and stumbled back to his pew in front. Bershada was there, and she put an arm around his shoulders.

The pianist played a few bars, and the congregation broke into “Sweet, Sweet Spirit.”

The pastor preached and offered more prayers, more hymns were sung, then he offered a blessing and said, “Because Ms. O'Leary is going from here to be cremated, and her ashes strewn in an undisclosed place, we ask that all who can please stay here for a luncheon prepared by the Ladies' Society. There will be a fifteen-minute break, then we will reconvene in the church basement. The stairs are forward and to your right, or if you want a breath of fresh air, there is another entrance around the east side toward the back. I hope to see all of you there.”

Four people—two obviously from a funeral home—came to wheel the casket out while one more hymn was
sung, and Betsy was reduced to tears, as always, by “Amazing Grace.”

Chaz and his mother left without talking to anyone. Chaz was so obviously in distress that no one remarked harshly on his departure.

Many of the congregation chose to go outside into the open air, where,
Schnurlregen
be damned, it had stopped raining and sunlight was trying to break through the clouds. They stood around speaking in amazement of a fellow church member they only thought they knew.

The pastor joined the group. “You know, I didn't tell the whole story during the service,” he said. “Ms. O'Leary helped build my discretionary fund to new heights so when members came to me with a financial emergency I would be better able to help them.” He looked around the group. “Without naming any names, there are a number of you who needed your rent money or a mortgage payment made, or a month's worth of groceries, or a tooth cap replaced, or a plumbing bill paid that I was able to handle, thanks to Maddy.”

An indignant man said, “Pastor, why in, uh, the heck didn't you say something about that a year or two ago? It would have been nice to know, y'know? So we could have thanked her while she was alive.”

“Yes, it would have been nice and done her reputation a lot of good. But Ms. O'Leary gave me strict instructions not to say anything to anyone. I suspect it was because she didn't want to start a stampede of mendicants in her direction.”

“Kind of sad she thought so poorly of us,” remarked a woman.

“Well, now, think about it, Marcy,” said another woman. “Suppose you knew there was a member of our church who was rich and very free and generous with her money. You recently had a big bump of a mortgage payment, didn't you? It hurt you, making that payment; you asked me to help you pray over it. Would you at least have thought of approaching her? Especially if you knew she had helped others?”

“No, of course not. Well, okay, maybe.” Marcy laughed. “So all right, I might've joined the line with my hand out.”

Her friend drew up her shoulders and confessed, “Me, too.”

The group began to join the others going around the side of the little church toward the basement entrance.

“Is it true you don't know where her ashes are being strewn?” Betsy asked the pastor.

“She didn't want to tell anyone.”

“Such a secretive woman!” said a man disapprovingly. “There's no reason for all that secrecy!”

“Does anyone know?” asked Betsy.

“I can give you the name of the funeral home,” the pastor said. “I think they might know. But I'm sure they have been instructed not to give out that information.”

“Thank you, Pastor,” Betsy said. Shy, shy to the very end, she thought.

The luncheon was very like every church dinner Betsy had ever attended. The menu was fried and baked chicken, cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans with strips of bacon on top, dinner rolls, two kinds of Jell-O salad, and sheets of carrot cake studded with chopped nuts and little pieces of carrot and topped with cream cheese icing. Lemonade,
milk, and coffee to drink. The meal was served buffet style; middle-aged women with hairnets handed out plates, silverware, and thick, soft paper napkins, and they brought out more food as needed.

The pastor offered a short blessing as the double line formed at the head of the long tables.

“Wow,” said Betsy on the way home. “People sure are shocked at how they only thought they knew Maddy. Turns out her death is a serious loss to her church community. I wonder if that's so in other places.”

“Didn't you say Bershada told you how Maddy would give her a check to cash so she could pass the money on anonymously to various charities? I suspect a lot of communities are going to be sad that Maddy is gone without ever knowing who she was.”

As they drove up Highway 7, and nearly home, Connor asked, “Is there any reason you want to know where her ashes might be scattered?”

“I'm willing to ask anybody anything. There's got to be a key question in all this that will point me toward an answer. Who hated Harry strongly enough to physically attack him? Who was willing to play that sneaky, deadly trick on Maddy? Could it possibly be the same person? I don't really want to know where Maddy's ashes are going to end up. But I do want to know who she picked to do the scattering.”

“I should think that information would be in her will,” said Connor.

“No, wills sometimes are not even read until well after the funeral. They are mostly about the distribution of the decedent's property. Funeral arrangements generally have
to be made before that. A ‘living will' could have those instructions, I think. Or some kind of similar document.” She frowned. “I should find out, because I need to ask someone to handle my instructions.”

“What do you want that someone to do?” he asked.

“At present, you are that someone,” she said. “And I want an Episcopalian church funeral, preceded by a wake at a funeral home. I keep meaning to find out if there's a space available next to the grave of my sister and her husband here in Excelsior, because if there is, I want to be put there. If not, cremate me and pour my ashes into Minnehaha Creek while a CD plays Bill Staines singing”—and she began to croon—“River, take me along, in your sunshine, sing me a song, ever moving, and winding and free; you rollin' old river, you changin' old river, let's you and me, river, run down to the sea.' Because the creek runs into the Mississippi, and it runs into the Gulf of Mexico.”