Thai Die (10 page)

“Well, Doris is the one who was asked to bring it to Mr. Fitzwilliam from Bangkok. May I ask your name?”

“I’m Edward Fitzwilliam.”

She looked around the shop. “May I ask you a few questions?”

“What’s your name?” he asked instead, but not in a suspicious tone.

Betsy told him, then asked, “Was this shop on its way up or down? I mean, I’m not an expert on antiques, but it looks to me as if some of the things in here are of very high quality, while other things are . . . well, not.”

The man looked around. “It looks like that to me, too—and I
am
a bit of an expert.”

“Was your father a poor judge of quality?”

“No, not at all. It’s just that things had been sliding for the last six or seven years, and then, more recently, they started picking up again.” He stuffed his hands into his back pockets, shoulders drawn up against unhappy memories. “But the come-back was slow and uneven, so he couldn’t just toss out all the drek and fill the space with good things.”

“Was he a bad businessman?”

“No, but I think he got lazy.” He sighed. “Or maybe just depressed when he realized he wasn’t ever going to attract the Summit Avenue crowd to his store.”

“So what changed his mind?” she asked.

“I . . . don’t know,” he confessed, his shoulders now up nearly to his ears. “All he told me was that he made a couple of good deals, and he thought things were going to turn around.”

“Was he normally secretive about his deals?”

“No, not usually. See, every so often he’d try to get me to come into the business with him. That pretty much stopped when the store started sliding. But it didn’t start in again when he started coming back.”

Just then, a short, trim woman with dark hair, luminous skin and sober gray eyes came toward them. Betsy hastily moved out of the way. The woman was carrying a large, raggedy cardboard box full of table lamps. “I’m sorry,” she said to Betsy, “but we’re not selling anything today, and we’re kind of busy.” She stooped and dropped the box by the front door. It clattered sharply—most of the lamps were made of porcelain—but it didn’t sound as if anything broke. She gave the man an angry look and went toward the back of the store.

“I think I’d better get back to work,” he said.

Betsy said, “Please, could you call me? I’d like to talk with you some more. Maybe I can help you find out who is responsible for your father’s murder.”

He studied her face for a long few moments, then nodded. “All right. What’s your number?”

Betsy dug in her purse for the her card case, then gave him a card, saying, “E-mail or phone, it doesn’t matter. Thank you.”

And she left.

Six

LISA Lindberg’s woolen-goods shop took up most of the ground floor of the two-story building. The original hardwood floor had been refinished and polished. Lisa had removed the plaster from the walls to expose the original brick, and she had half-finished installing an antique embossed-tin ceiling. On one wall hung a large piece of abstract art, made of thick ropes of hand-spun wool, loosely woven and fastened to a tree branch.

Phil went over to a display of skeins of yarn in soft tans, browns, and grays. Shelly went to try on the various hats made of wool, mohair, and angora, also all in the natural colors of the animals’ fur coats. She mugged at herself in the mirror as she pulled the tams into various shapes and positions on her thick hair. Doris went for a closer look at the abstract weaving.

But Alice went directly to the spinning wheel. “Is this for show or use?” she asked.

Lisa smiled. “Use. Want me to show you?”

“Yes, please.”

Lisa went to the back of her shop, where she disappeared behind a curtain, then almost immediately came back with a wire cage about two feet long and almost as wide. It contained what at first looked like two large white rabbits. But on closer inspection, they all realized it was only one immense rabbit with long fur.

“What is
that
?” exclaimed Doris.

“A rabbit with a pituitary problem, I bet,” said Phil.

“It’s a perfectly healthy rabbit,” said Lisa. “He’s a giant angora, which is a breed, like the silky, English, or French breeds. Most angora rabbits run six or seven pounds, but Fernando here weighs fourteen pounds.” She put the cage on the floor beside the spinning wheel, pulled a towel off the back of a hard wooden chair behind the desk and moved the chair up to the spinning wheel, where she sat and draped the towel across her lap.

“Where are your clippers?” asked Alice.

“You don’t clip their fur, you pull it,” Lisa said. She leaned sideways, opened the top of the cage, and lifted the rabbit by the scruff of its neck onto her lap. It sat there calmly, with its ears—with amusing tufts at their tips—erect at first, then laid back. It had red eyes and a long, thick coat, shorter on the face. Lisa gathered a tuft of fur on the back of the creature with her fingers.

“Oh, don’t!” cried tenderhearted Shelly.

“He doesn’t mind in the least,” said Lisa. “Watch.” Using her thumb and two fingers, she tugged gently and pulled out a clump of fur. The rabbit did not wince or even stir. Lisa started the wheel turning, keeping it going by working a wide, flat, wooden foot pedal. There was a short twist of string or yarn coming out the side of a simple mechanism above and to one side of the wheel. It consisted mostly of a wooden U shape lying on its side and surrounding a spindle with yarn already started on it. Alice was sure there was more to it, but she couldn’t see because the mechanism had started spinning.

Lisa twisted the clump of white fur onto the end of the yarn, moving her fingers to attach it to the end of the string. With her other hand she pulled more fur from the rabbit and gave it to the hand feeding the yarn. Her fingers moved in a smooth, experienced way and very quickly a length of white, fuzzy yarn went into the mechanism.

Doris said, “I always thought the yarn went around the big wheel.”

“No, the big wheel is there to operate the flyer assembly,” Lisa said. Her hands were busy, so she simply nodded toward the spinning mechanism.

“Well, I’ll be switched!” said Phil, coming closer for a good look. “That is a remarkable thing to see!” He was not speaking of the spinning wheel but of the way Lisa was pulling the fur off the quiet rabbit.

“I don’t understand why the rabbit puts up with you pulling its fur out,” said Shelly.

“It’s not attached very firmly,” said Lisa. “And, anyway, all that fur is hot, so he likes having it thinned out.”

Indeed, the rabbit sat quietly across her lap—hanging over it actually, because of its size—its nose working in the putt-putt-putt way of its kind.

“They grow new fur fast. I can do this to Fernando about every four months.”

Lisa spun until everyone was satisfied by the demonstration. Then she put the rabbit back into its cage and accompanied her visitors as they walked around her shop. The big room was sparsely furnished, with a table and display shelves of felted wool hats and mittens, angora berets and helmets, a couple of knit sweaters in earth tones. Alice tried on a couple of hats, with Shelly supervising, and it was Shelly who chose the angora beret in a silvery gray color for her. Alice frowned over the price, but said she’d take it, anyway.

Doris picked up a brown felted hat with tiny white loops standing up all over it.

“Is this woven? I don’t see how you got these picots so even all over it,” she said.

“Mohair doesn’t felt,” Lisa explained. “When I knit the hat, I mixed wool and mohair, and when I felted it, the wool shrank but the mohair didn’t.”

“Well, isn’t that amazing? I just love the effect!” It was obvious that Doris wanted the hat, but she put it back down without even asking the price. She told herself it was because she had spent so much in Thailand—and she had overspent her budget. But in truth, her losses in the burglary made her fearful of acquiring anything nice and new.

Though Lisa didn’t normally sell yarn, Phil persuaded her to part with a skein of white angora, enough to put a collar and cuffs on a sweater he was going to knit in sky blue wool.

Bershada picked up some small wads of wool in bright hues of orange, red, and purple. “I thought you only used natural dyes,” she said, holding them out.

“Oh, those were done by third-graders in a class I taught. The dye is Kool-Aid. You have to use it in a very concentrated form, of course. I use vinegar to set the dye.”

They stopped to look at a strange machine in the back. About the size of an ice chest, it was made mostly of large and small rollers covered with long, shining wire bristles. It was sitting on a metal cabinet that brought it up to near eye level. “It combs the wool,” explained Lisa.

“Wow,” was all any of them could think of to say for a few moments. The thing looked dangerous. The mere thought of a hand getting mangled by the menacing prickles made all of them keep a respectful distance.

Phil said, “I never knew, never thought to think, that there was a happy medium between hand-combing wool and having it processed in a big factory.”

“Well, there’s too much carding for me to do it by hand,” said Lisa, “but not enough to send it to a factory, so I’m exactly in that place, Mr. Galvin.”

Doris said, “This is a very pretty town, Ms. Lindberg. But it’s so small. How do you keep the store going?”

“Tourist trade,” replied Lisa. “We get more visitors through here all the time. I used to leave the front door unlocked even when I wasn’t here, because local people knew to come to the restaurant to pay for anything they wanted. But with so many strangers passing through, I don’t dare do that. I can’t afford the losses of a theft.”

“I understand,” said Doris softly. She turned and slipped away toward the front.

The others had more questions, and then Phil noticed she was gone. “Dorie?” he called.

“I’m up here,” said Doris in a choked voice. “And . . . and look, it’s starting to snow.”

“Is it snowing hard?” asked Phil, hustling to the big front window where Doris was standing.

Shelly started to follow him, but Bershada took her by the arm and shook her head. “She’s upset,” Bershada murmured. “Let him talk to her alone.”

Phil came up beside her. “It’s not snowing very hard,” he said. “Say, are you crying? What’s the matter?” When she did not answer, he said, “Now, Dorie, I know it’s something.” He leaned close to her ear and murmured gently, “You can tell me.”

She turned away. “No.” Then she changed her mind and turned to face him. “Well . . . all right. When Lisa talked about leaving doors unlocked, it reminded me how I’d left my apartment unlocked. So it’s my fault the burglar got in. Just thinking about it makes me sick and sad.”

“Well, you poor thing!” Phil said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Here I’ve been admiring you for being so brave, but not realizing what a struggle it’s been for you. I think all of us appreciate your letting us help you forget for a little while. When we get home, you can cry all you like, and I promise I’ll be right there to lend you my shoulder.”

“Thank you,” Doris said, in a shaky voice. “I’ll take you up on that. Now, give me a minute and I’ll be all right.” She sniffed, found a Kleenex in her purse, blew, and the tears stopped.

The others came over soon after to look out the window. They saw more than mere flurries, but not a heavy snowfall.

“Maybe we’d better start for home,” said Shelly.

“Why?” asked Bershada. “I’d like to visit that antiques store. The weather forecast this morning was for light snow, and that’s what’s happening out there. I already told you, my old car can plow through anything up to six inches.”

“Yes, but we’re kind of a long way from Excelsior,” noted Alice. “If this keeps up . . .”

Bershada turned to Lisa. “Is the antiques store open?”

“Yes, and it has some wonderful things. The owner must have three hundred old hats in there, for example, and some clothes that date back to the early twentieth century. And he also has a tame squirrel that climbs all over him.”

“That sounds interesting,” Phil said, looking encouragingly at Doris.

But Shelly said, “I’m sorry, I still think we should start for home.”

Alice, looking out the window, backed her up. “Me, too,” she said.

Lisa raised her hand to discourage further argument. “Let me check to see if the weather forecast has changed,” she said. She pulled out a cell phone, dialed a number, and listened.

“It’s snowing hard in Minneapolis,” she said, after she broke the connection, “and the prediction is for six inches as far south as Mankato.”

“Uh-oh,” said Phil.

“All right, let’s go,” said Bershada.

They gathered up their purchases, put on their coats, hats, and mittens, and thanked Lisa warmly.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Come again, soon.”

“We will, we will,” they all promised as they hurried out the door.