The Drowning Spool (A Needlecraft Mystery)

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Monica Ferris

CREWEL WORLD

FRAMED IN LACE

A STITCH IN TIME

UNRAVELED SLEEVE

A MURDEROUS YARN

HANGING BY A THREAD

CUTWORK

CREWEL YULE

EMBROIDERED TRUTHS

SINS AND NEEDLES

KNITTING BONES

THAI DIE

BLACKWORK

BUTTONS AND BONES

THREADBARE

AND THEN YOU DYE

THE DROWNING SPOOL

Anthologies

PATTERNS OF MURDER

SEW FAR, SO GOOD

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

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THE DROWNING SPOOL

This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2014 by Mary Monica Pulver Kuhfeld.

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eBook ISBN 978-1-101-63828-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ferris, Monica. The drowning spool / Monica Ferris.—First Edition.
pages cm—(A needlecraft mystery)

ISBN 978-0-425-27008-0 (hardback)

1. Devonshire, Betsy (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Fiction. 3. Drowning—Fiction. 4. Needleworkers—Crimes against—Fiction. 5. Needleworkers—Fiction. 6. Needlework—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3566.U47D76 2014
813'.54—dc23 2013039583

FIRST EDITION:
February 2014

Cover illustration by Mary Ann Lasher.

Cover design by George Long.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

F
OR
Betsy, it started in January, when the Courage Center’s Olympic-size pool needed repairs. It was announced at her early-morning water aerobics class that the pool would be closed for twelve weeks, starting next week, and everyone was going to have to take a hiatus or find a new place to go during that period.

There was grumbling in the locker room after class. Twelve weeks! That was far too long to go without exercising. But where were they going to find another pool heated to ninety-three degrees? And one that offered a water aerobics class beginning at six thirty in the morning?

A woman changing for the Individual Therapy class that followed aerobics said, “I know a place that has a water aerobics class starting at seven.”

“Well . . . Heated pool?” asked Betsy.

“Around ninety degrees or a little more. The pool’s nice, although not nearly as big as this one here.”

But Betsy didn’t need a big pool to stand and do jumping jacks in. “Where is this place?”

“It’s a new addition to a senior-living complex in Hopkins. It cost them so much to add the pool that they’re offering classes to the fifty-five-and-older members of the public to make some money. My mother lives at the complex—it’s called Watered Silk—and she told me about it.”

Hopkins was a suburb farther west of Minneapolis than Golden Valley, where the Courage Center was located—which put it closer to far-west Excelsior, where Betsy lived. So there would be a shorter drive to Hopkins for twelve weeks. Nice.

“Why is it called Watered Silk”? asked Betsy.

“The building that houses the complex was once a silk factory, back in the 1800s. One of the varieties they produced there is called watered silk. They actually found a piece of it inside a wall, or maybe it was under a floor, when they were remodeling. I guess they liked the term. It does have kind of a smooth, luxurious feel to it, which describes the complex itself. Everything is first-class over there, the residents really like it.”

So when Betsy called the office, she should not have been surprised when she was quoted a price for three months’ worth of thrice-a-week classes that was fully half again what the Courage Center charged. Not so nice.

Dismayed over the cost, she searched on her computer for alternatives. But all the other water aerobics classes in the area were held in pools far cooler than Watered Silk’s, or were farther away, or didn’t start as early; and none were less costly. So Betsy sighed and signed up.

Around twenty to seven on the first day, Betsy was guided by her GPS to a street on the west side of downtown Hopkins. The building was big, of dark red brick, old and plain. It had obviously once been a factory, perhaps built in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Four stories tall, it took up most of a city block, with a narrow alley separating it from a smaller, newer commercial building next door.

It was set far enough back from the street to accommodate a new stone and cement portico with a curved driveway leading underneath it to the main entrance.

There was a parking ramp across the street, bi-level—the second “story” was the roof of the first—and there was no charge for parking. Betsy pulled in and found it almost empty at that hour of the morning. She parked and hurried across the street, under the cement portico, and into the broad entrance.

A pair of doors brought her out of the cold into a good-size entrance area, brightly lit and blowing hot air. She stopped in front of a pair of thick glass doors, tinted brown. But before she could press the button indicated for entry, the doors slid open.

The hall inside was tall. Really tall. Betsy’s eyes were drawn up and up to an immense, very modern chandelier of crystal and chrome. The pale walls were bare except for one small painting in an elaborate frame. It was hung too far away for her to see any details other than it was red, and probably an abstract. The low-nap carpet had a pattern of dark gray curves and angles on a light gray ground. There was a long, plain buff couch near the framed art. A matching chair stood at right angles to it, with a chromed-metal-and-glass coffee table inside the angle. The lighting was gentle but adequate, and stronger on the right, where a beautiful wooden counter was guarded by a handsome, young African American man, who was smiling inquiringly at her. Betsy had a feeling she’d seen him before, but she couldn’t place him.

“Betsy Devonshire,” Betsy said, approaching him. “I’m here for the water aerobics class.”

He checked for her name on a list, found it, and handed a clipboard to her to sign in. “Pool’s down the stairs and to your right,” he said, gesturing toward the back of the lobby.

It was then Betsy realized that the floor ended well short of the far wall. She walked over and saw a set of eight steps nearly the width of the lobby.

She went down to find a sitting area in front of four big windows and to one side a trio of doors—one was an elevator, one was marked
PRIVATE
, and the third had a glass insert in its top half through which she could see exercise equipment.

Through that door she found herself in a middle-size room reeking of cement and freshly laid carpeting and canvas, and full of new-looking treadmills, Exercycles, and even a set of lightweight barbells. A machine offered to test her blood pressure, and beside it was another glassed-in door leading into a well-lit room mostly taken up by a rippling pool.

She went in. The air was heavy with moisture and the smell of chlorine. The pool was rectangular, about twenty by fifty feet in size, and surrounded by a gray-tiled apron. The pale green walls featured a row of dark green tiles, which depicted a line of ancient-Greek-style dolphins leaping in perfect order.

A slender young woman with short black hair and dark eyes greeted her with a dazzling smile from the other side of the pool. She was wearing a navy blue Speedo swimsuit, and holding what Betsy recognized as the little kit used for testing water quality.

“Good morning!” she chirped. “Dressing room over there!” She gestured toward a pair of doors near a floor-to-ceiling window partly covered with condensation. The soft murmur from a fan showed why it was clearing from the bottom up.

The narrow dressing room extended past a set of six showers, then three sinks and two toilets, then into the locker area, which had a bench down its middle. The lockers were a mix of short and tall, painted sky blue.

Four women were already there. Betsy recognized two of them from Courage Center. “Hi, Rita, hi, Barbara,” she said.

“Good morning,” said one of the others, an elderly thin woman whose swimsuit hung loosely on her. “I’m Eileen and this is Morgana.” She gestured at the fourth woman, not so old but standing with the support of a walker. “We have to take a shower before we can go in the water.”

“I’m Betsy,” Betsy said, introducing herself. “Glad to be here.”

The women took brief showers and went into the warm and humid pool room. Two men—one of them Dave from the Courage Center—were already in the pool. There were no steps into it, only a ramp. Betsy headed down it into the water, which, she noted with pleasure, was deliciously warm. Its sloping depth ranged from just under her waist to just over her shoulders.

The instructor stooped over a big, old-fashioned boom box and within moments the music started: a sixties rock song set to a disco beat. She jumped sideways into the pool at the deep end and announced, “My name is Pam and I’ll be leading this class. Let’s begin by rolling our shoulders.” She led them through a series of stretches, and soon they were performing jumping jacks and cross-country skiing and hopping—first on one foot, then the other—while making the water boil with their hands.

They were nearly half an hour into their routine when an old woman’s shrill voice called, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, start over!”

They all stopped their movements—they were in the middle of downhill skiing—and looked around. Standing just outside the women’s locker room door was a tiny woman in an old-fashioned, bright pink two-piece bathing suit. Her gray hair was uncombed, her white limbs and torso a collection of small folds and wrinkles with here and there a bump of bone, and her expression one of righteous determination.

“We can’t start over,” Pam replied cheerfully. “You’re late.”

“So I’m late, what does that matter? I want you to start over.”

Pam said firmly, “Mrs. Carter, we are not going to start over. But come on in and join us.” She went back to twisting vigorously at the waist, lifting her feet with each twist. The others followed suit.

Mrs. Carter came wading down the ramp, taking big, noisy strides, swinging her hands through the water when she got in deep enough. But then more quietly she found a place beside Betsy and, with a wink, started dancing a clumsy twist, feet firmly on the bottom.

When the class was over, Mrs. Carter announced loudly that Pam had to stay with her while she did more exercising to make up for being late. Pam cast her eyes upward but called for jumping jacks.

Getting dressed in the locker room, Betsy asked—bravely, because she did not know these people—“Is Mrs. Carter always like that?”

“No, sometimes she’s worse,” said Eileen with a grimace, then amended, “Sometimes better. She’s got Alzheimer’s, but it hasn’t progressed far enough yet for her to get moved to the locked wing.”

Morgana, the woman with the walker, said, “I think she’s enjoying herself. Very energetic, you see her at all hours all over the complex. She really gets around.” Her tone was pensive and she looked a little downcast—envious, perhaps, of Mrs. Carter’s mobility.

As Betsy was walking through the big lobby to leave, a woman with curly red hair—more properly orange hair, a real “carrot top”—called after her. “Ms. Devonshire, can you spare a minute?”

Betsy stopped and turned. The woman was an Amazon, nearly six feet tall and strongly built, with gray eyes in a beautiful, lightly freckled face.

“May I help you?” Betsy asked.

“I sure hope so. I’m Thistle Livingstone, and I’m in charge of recreation and activities here at Watered Silk. You own a needlecraft store, right? In Excelsior?”

“Yes, that’s right.” Betsy braced herself to turn down a request for needlework materials; Crewel World, her shop, was not currently in a position to give product away.

“Do you teach classes, or know someone who does?”

Betsy nodded. “Yes, to both, for a fee. What kind of classes are you looking for?”

“Well, we have a stitchers’ group that right now is knitting and crocheting caps to donate to Children’s Hospital for preemies to wear. But they’ve been doing that for almost a year and are getting tired of it. They want something else, something new. Some of them can do counted cross-stitch, but those who don’t have voted down learning how. They’ve asked if I can find someone to teach a class on something that’s quick and easy, and a bit different, besides.”

Hmm. Something fun and easy that wasn’t counted cross-stitch. “How long a class are you thinking?” Betsy asked. “And for how many times per week? One night? Two? For how many weeks?”

“We’d prefer a daytime class, actually,” Thistle said. “Say, one afternoon a week, from one to two o’clock, for five weeks. I can offer an instructor five hundred dollars plus the cost of materials.”

A hundred dollars an hour was a lot of money. And none of it had to go to materials. Sweet! Betsy thought for a moment. “Have you heard of punch needle?” she asked.

“No. Is it difficult?”

“Not at all. Even done by beginners, the results are attractive. How many people do you think would come to the class?”

“We have over a dozen stitchers, but probably only seven or eight would take the class.”

In Betsy’s experience, an estimate of attendees at a class was generally too high, which meant this class would probably have a maximum of six students. That was a very comfortable number for a hands-on craft class. And apparently these people were experienced stitchers.

“Let me consult my calendar,” said Betsy. “Then may I call you?”

“Certainly,” Thistle said. “Thank you. Here’s my card.”

• • •

L
ATER,
over the phone, they agreed on Thursday afternoons for the class. Betsy frequently took Thursday as her day off—she normally worked Saturday, and on Sunday the shop was closed—so she was free to teach the punch needle class herself. Five women signed up for it.