Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 (17 page)

Betsy paused in her search for a blank page. “It may be more official than that. Irene Potter told me I should wonder why Lucy Abrams died the same day her husband had that stroke. And it's suspicious that this tapestry went missing right about then, too.”

Jill said, “If I thought a tapestry pointed to me as a criminal, I wouldn't hide it. I'd burn it or bury it.”

“Yes, that would make sense. But maybe they just meant to hide it temporarily, and the room got sealed off, and they decided it was as good as gone. Or Lucy herself hid it.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I don't know. Is there anything suspicious about her death? Did they do an autopsy?”

“I don't think so. You want me to find out?”

“Please.” Jill took her notebook back, wrote herself a note, and handed it back to Betsy.

Betsy looked at the thin cardboard back of the checkbook. There was a flock of little drawings: a shamrock, then a calf or a fawn, then a heart with—something. An M? No, a heart aflame, she remembered now. And there was an ice cream cone, a candle ... Betsy began copying the drawings into the notebook. She wished she were a better artist; it wasn't easy figuring out what her original hasty sketches were supposed to be. Of course, the original stitching wasn't always clear, either. That slanting line with the three lines coming down from its tip, for example. She remembered wondering at the time what that was supposed to be. On the other hand, “Saint Olaf,” she murmured, as she copied the ax.

“Who?” said Jill, turning her head sideways to take a look at the tablet.

“Father John told me the double-bladed ax is an attribute of Saint Olaf. Like the shamrock is for Saint Patrick.”

“Oh, yes,” nodded Jill. “I remember those from Sunday school. The shamrock is also for the Trinity. And crossed keys are for Saint Peter. Are there crossed keys on there?”

“No,” said Betsy, “but there's a single key. I wonder who that stands for. And who is the cat?” She had written “cat” rather than drawn one, and had written “2” beside it to remind her that there were two of them. That was interesting enough that she put down the pen and notebook to open the big book and search down to the section where symbols were listed alphabetically. ”Ahhhhhh, cat, cat—here. It says Saint Yvo, and it also means witchcraft. Did you know there's a witch in town?”

“Yes, but she wasn't a witch back then, she was an astrologer. And before that she was into tarot cards.”

“Hmm. Then I guess Lucy wasn't telling us to hang all the witches. I remember the last item was a hang-man's noose.” She hadn't drawn that on the checkbook, so she drew one now on the notebook page. “There was a star, too, a Star of David, the kind you make with two triangles.” She drew one of those. “I didn't copy all of the attributes on the tapestry down,” she explained. “Now I think about it, there was Saint Elizabeth of Hungary.” She drew three crowns, one above two. “And a horseshoe, I'm pretty sure there was a horseshoe, unless it was omega, the Greek letter. Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, and if you combine it with the first, alpha, it's an attribute of God.” She drew a horseshoe like an upside down U, in case it was omega. “And Father John said there was the attribute of Saint Agnes, though I can't remember which one it was.”

“You really think there's a message in all this?” asked Jill.

“Maybe.” Betsy looked again at the book, still turned to the section on symbols. “Did you ever know anyone named Yvo, spelled Wye-vee-oh? Maybe these attributes are members of the church back then.”

“No. But there was an Elizabeth. And I think there was an Agnes. And I knew a Mr. Ives, he taught Sunday school. Is Saint Yvo the same as Saint Ives? I bet it is. Remember that old riddle: As I was going to Saint Ives, I met a man with seven wives, each with seven sacks, each with seven cats, each with seven kits.”

Betsy was already looking up Ives in the section that had saints alphabetically. “No, his attribute is a fountain flowing from a tomb. Ugh.”

“Ick,” agreed Jill.

The door opened and an attractive, dark-haired woman in a headband and beautiful swing coat came in, closely followed by three children.

Jill, who had swung to her feet in one swift movement, relaxed.

“Well, hello Patricia,” said Betsy, surprised and pleased.

“Hello, Betsy,” said Patricia. “We were on our way to Christmas-shop at the Mall of America and decided to stop in and see how you're doing. But I see you already have a visitor.”

“That's all right, come in,” said Jill, “come in and talk.” She moved away to the window.

Betsy said, “I'm glad you came by. Are all of these yours?”

Patricia laughed a fond parent's laugh. “Yes, all three. This is Brent, who is eleven.” She pushed forward the oldest child, a very handsome dark-haired boy with hazel eyes that looked back at Betsy—a woman in a nightgown in bed—with a warm interest that was surprising in one that age.
Knows he's good looking, too,
thought Betsy.

“And here is Edith Ann, who is nearly six.” Edith Ann had her mother's light brown eyes and a gap-toothed smile. She was very thin and a little shy.

“And this is Meryl, who is three.” Meryl was round and blond and ravishingly pretty. She smiled at Betsy from behind her mother's left leg.

“What are you doing?” asked Brent.

“Oh, I'm trying to figure out a puzzle, but I don't have all the pieces.” She looked at Patricia. “I didn't write them all down, so I'm having trouble figuring out if Lucy hid her name in those attributes.”

“Well, I hope you aren't straining yourself over it,” said Patricia. “You should just rest and get well.”

“I'll be all right in a day or two,” said Betsy.

“Are you very, very sick?” asked Edith Ann, who must be named after her grandmother, because no one named a child Edith Ann nowadays.

“I was, but I'm only a little sick now,” said Betsy. “I may go home today.”

“That's good news,” said Patricia. “So I suppose I needn't offer to bring you something.”

“No, but thank you.”

“I'm going to buy my grandmother a present today,” said Brent. “We're going to fly to Phoenix for Christmas. That's where she lives. There isn't any snow there.”

“It sounds wonderful,” said Betsy.

“We're going in a airplane,” announced Edith Ann.

“Yes—oops, come here, Meryl,” said Patricia. She went to pull her youngest off the empty bed nearer the window and continued, “My mother told me there are two ways to visit someone in the hospital. First, don't sit down, and when your feet start to hurt, go. Second, bring a small child, and when the child gets bored, go. Either way, you won't overstay your welcome. So that's it for now. Say good-bye, children.”

“Good-bye, Ms. Devonshire,” said Brent, offering another of his charming smiles. “I'm glad you feel better.”

“Good-bye,” smiled Edith Ann, who might be thin because so many baby teeth were missing. Meryl used that adorable just-the-fingers wave as her mother herded them out the door.

“Awwwww,” said Betsy, when they'd gone.

“That boy of hers is a born politician, just like his father,” remarked Jill, coming back to sit beside Betsy's bed.

“Phoenix, where there isn't any snow,” sighed Betsy. She picked up the checkbook and finished copying her notes into Jill's notebook, then looked them over. “Phil said she also sometimes put a family member's name in her work. Maybe she had a sister named Agnes.” She frowned and tapped the notebook with the pen. “How about she spelled her name with the first letter of these things?” She looked but couldn't find any symbol that started with an L. “Wait a second, I think Father John said this was a lamb, not a fawn.” Betsy tapped the lying-down animal. “Now, U, U, U ... Not here.”

“Unless you're wrong about the horseshoe,” said Jill. “Turn it right side up, and it's a U.”

“And if the shamrock is really a clover, that's a C! All we need is a Y, now.”

“Oh, Yvo, of course. But there's a lot of stretching to make it fit. Horseshoe is H, not U. Plus I know the horseshoe was upside down, or why would I think it could have been omega? Ach, this is giving me a headache.” Betsy gave the notebook back to Jill and put the book on the bedside table. She lay back and closed her eyes. After a minute she asked, “What was Lucy like?”

Jill composed herself to think. “She was almost as tall as her husband—though he wasn't really tall—and very slim, with a narrow face and a long nose. She had gray hair and very nice gray eyes. She was quiet and dignifled, and never said ‘ain't' or ‘swell' like he did. I used to wonder about them as a couple—you know, what they saw in each other. He was loud and friendly, and, now I think about it, she was probably shy. She was polite to everyone and she carried hard candy wrapped in cellophane in her purse, and sometimes she'd give one to a toddler. I remember my cousin got one and for months he kept a close eye on that purse in case it opened again when he was around.”

Betsy laughed. “Did it?”

“No, she only did it once in a rare while, which made it special.”

Betsy settled deeper into her pillows and said, “Go on, tell me more.”

“Well, she always wore dresses, long and flowing and far out of date. She made them herself. I remember my mother talking about how well made they were. And she always wore a hat to church—and this was when nobody wore hats. She was a little too nice to join the Monday Bunch, but I admire her more now than when when I was a kid. Father Keane was more fun. But he had his dignity, too; like he never wore shorts in public.” Jill smiled. “But he did have some pretty raggedy old trousers he'd put on to repair the roof or mow the lawn. And he had this straw hat with a big brim ...” She stopped, having wandered from the topic of Lucy Abrams.

But Betsy, smiling too, said, “Go on, tell me about Father Keane now.”

Jill's voice took on more color. “I adored him. We all did. He was one of those tough-guy priests, intelligent in a low-brow sort of way. He could bluster and shout, but everyone knew he was marshmallow inside. He never had any trouble with the vestry or with anyone in the congregation, which is amazing when you think about it. He was a soft touch, too; when he left, there was a scramble to rebuild some of the funds, especially the rector's discretionary fund. Not that he'd give money to everyone with a sad story, but if he thought someone was in real need, he was very generous.”

Betsy, remembering that photo of the craggy face with the bright eyes and sweet smile, nodded. But she nevertheless asked a hard question. “Could he have used some of that money for himself or his family?”

“I never heard that, and you know how gossip is around here. He certainly didn't live beyond his means—the opposite, in fact. I remember Margot doing a fund-raiser to get him into a nicer nursing home, because they didn't have any savings. The church owns a rectory—that big old house on Center Street with the really huge silver maple in the front yard. It's in bad shape, and Father Keane did a lot of repairs himself to save on bills. It has five bedrooms, and Father John simply rattles around inside. The vestry keeps saying we ought to sell the place and give our rector a housing allowance. Which I wish they would; with property values what they are, the church could pay for the whole renovation just from the sale of that house. And Father John would love to live in a nice little apartment; he can't even change a lightbulb.”

“I thought he was married,” said Betsy.

“A widower,” said Jill. “He has children, but the youngest is studying music at Julliard. I think he's actually afraid of the power lawn mower, he always hires local kids to mow his lawn. He's really different from Father Keane. I can see our old priest now, painting the windows or mowing the front lawn in that straw hat, sleeves rolled up, pants legs, too. And barefoot, with cut grass sticking to his shins. And Lucy bringing him ice tea on a tray. Some of the older members didn't think that was nice, him working on the lawn barefooted or climbing up on the roof, but those're hardly the acts of a man living high off stolen funds.”

Betsy rubbed a forefinger under her nose, her sign of frustration. “Why the noose?”

“Why not?”

“Surely no saint has a hangman's noose as an attribute.” She opened the book but at first couldn't find a hangman's noose. She finally found it under rope, hang-man's. “It means betrayal or treason, and it's the attribute of Judas.”

That set off a search for more attributes' meanings. Even the ones that had a negative symbology, like the cat, performed double duty as a saint's attribute. There didn't seem to be a Saint Amanda though, or a Saint Keane.

Then she tried to see if some combination of the initial letters of the attributes would spell Keane, or thief, cheat, or adultery, without success.

Jill said, “You know what I think? I think Lucy picked out the attributes she did because they're easy to stitch.” Jill took the heavy book and opened it at random. “Look here, Saint John the Baptist's attribute is a lamb on a book of seven seals and here, Saint Lawrence's is a thurible. What's a thurible?”

“Beats me.”

“I bet it's more complicated than a cat or an ax. Remember, she was working with a single strand of silver metallic on a space less than an inch square. She saw that blank blue space in the halo and thought it needed something, and an all-saints theme is nice and theological, right? And I bet you were right when you said members of the congregation have the names she picked.”