The Drowning Spool (A Needlecraft Mystery) (19 page)

Another couple danced so closely that they were right up against each other, their hips moving in perfect synchronicity, their eyes locked on each other. Connor nodded toward them, then blinked empathetically and wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead. Betsy laughed.

There were two women who danced so well together it was obvious they were a couple, not two girls merely showing off their moves to attract men.

A short, stocky Latino man wearing a black pinch-brim cap danced with such skill and ease that it was clear he’d grown up hearing this music.

In honor of the music, Betsy and Connor ordered Cuba libres and guacamole—the latter to be prepared at their table. While they waited for it to arrive, Connor swept Betsy onto the dance floor, where he proved to be light of foot and inventive of movement. The dances had no pause between them, and at last, Betsy, out of breath, signaled with a fanning motion of her hand that she had had enough.

They came back to their table to find their drinks waiting and the guacamole ready to be mixed. The waiter, a good-looking man in his forties, wore a tan western shirt and fancy cowboy boots. He expertly mashed the peeled avocado halves in a stone bowl, dashed on the Worcestershire and hot sauces, stirred in the onion and chopped tomato, all very quickly.

“Anything else?” he asked, already looking around to see what else needed his attention.

“Yes,” said Betsy, presenting the drawings. “Do you know this man?”

“Say,” he said, “I remember watching a young woman do that drawing!” He touched the caricature with a forefinger that had a dab of avocado on it. “Oops,” he said, and wiped his finger on a napkin. “I’ll get you a fresh napkin, okay?”

“Oh, never mind that,” Betsy said. “When was it you saw this being drawn?”

“Oh, I don’t remember, maybe a couple months ago. I do remember the drawing, though, because it was so clever. He’d gone away from the table and she got out her eyeliner and did it very fast on a napkin.”

“Do you remember anything about the man she drew?” asked Betsy.

He pulled back a little, eyeing her suspiciously. “What’s your interest in this?”

“I’m doing a private investigation. The young woman you remember is dead, and I’m trying to trace her last movements. The man was just a friend of hers, but naturally I’d like to talk to him.” This was sort of the truth, Betsy told herself.

“All right, I guess I buy that.” He thought briefly. “She seemed like a nice person, but he was, like, totally focused on her, in an almost theatrical way, kind of like Dracula with his next victim.” He frowned. “Maybe I’m exaggerating, but there was his exotic look, that long leather coat he wore . . . But it could have been a pose. I mean, maybe he was one of the good guys. But he was just so—”

“Intense?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“You didn’t by any chance learn the name of the man?”

“Hell, no. Or hers, either.”

“May I ask your name?”

“Will McNally. I’m the manager here. But we’re busy tonight—and shorthanded. Will you excuse me?”

B
ETSY
was feeling a little droopy when she came in to work on Monday—not because she was hung over; she’d been careful with her liquor consumption. But the outing had been a failure. Okay, yes, she’d found a new restaurant she’d like to return to, and it was fun to discover that Connor was great at salsa dancing, but the big goal of the outing, to find out who this Pres person was, hadn’t been met.

Then a regular customer came in with a problem that took her mind off her failure. Mrs. Cunningham—Betsy had never learned her first name—was in love with a counted cross-stitch pattern by Maxine Gold of an ethereal woods fairy called Chrysella, and wanted to stitch it as a birthday gift for a dear friend. But the friend’s living room was done in not quite the same shades of green, and it would seriously clash with the green family of Maxine Gold’s pattern. Mrs. Cunningham was familiar with the custom of changing the colors of a pattern to fit a decor, but this piece had a lot of subtle color changes in it and she was unsure how to make the changes so the new pattern would be coherent.

Betsy called Godwin over for a consultation.

“What colors are you thinking of?” asked Godwin.

“Well, first, I want the fairy to have white hair instead of blonde,” said Mrs. Cunningham, “and her dress and wings in shades of brown or russet, buff, and gold instead of green, gray, and ivory.”

“Ooooh,” said Betsy.

“The front of her dress is ornamented in ivy,” Godwin pointed out. “And there are more green leaves in that flowered headdress.”

“Yes, well, DMC 320 and 368 would match Glory’s living room.”

But those weren’t the greens the pattern called for.

“Also,” said Betsy, having had a minute to think about it, “if you’re doing an autumn-themed piece, the ivy leaves could have turned red.”

“Well, I hadn’t thought to make it autumn-themed—but, on the other hand, maybe I should,” said Mrs. Cunningham.

“It depends on what you’re thinking to bring in along with the browns,” said Godwin. “Bright, glowing oranges and reds, like DMC 742 and 946, say autumn, but brown-reds like 355 and greeny-tans like 680 don’t.”

“Hmm . . .” said Mrs. Cunningham.

Half an hour later, she was seated at the library table surrounded by dozens of DMC flosses. Godwin had separated them into families of colors, so she could make the gradations of color come out right.

She was finding a lot to like in the gray-into-brown family, specifically the cool shades of 3782, 3032, 3790, and 3781. And she liked the equally cool gray-violets of 341, 156, 340, and 155. On the other hand, she liked Godwin’s suggestion of going for warm tones for the skin, mouth, and eye colors of the fairy. “But don’t forget, towheads have fairer skin than usual, so you might want to change the pattern’s tones there, too,” he pointed out.

“This is why I love your shop!” she declared. “You are
so
helpful, and you’re willing to let me spread myself out like this—I can’t imagine sitting on the floor at Michael’s with floss all around me. Not that I would even have thought to do this on my own.”

Betsy came to look at the choices she was making, and noticed how she was leaning toward the cool rather than warm shades. Then Betsy glanced again at a picture of the original pattern. “See the veining in the wings?” she asked. “What if you did that in Kreinik silver braid?”

There was a little silence as Mrs. Cunningham visualized the result. “Oh,” she said softly, then, “Oh, my, that would be lovely.”

After she left, Godwin said smugly, “There goes another satisfied customer.” Then he mused, “I wonder if that fairy is a gift for Leona.”

“Why would you think that?” asked Betsy.

“Well, they’re both Wiccans, you know.”

“Yes, I know. But both are solitaries—not members of a coven. And I don’t think fairies are Leona’s style. She’s more into the pragmatic uses of magic. Like brewing.”

“Is brewing magic?”

“Well, you take a powder that contains invisible living creatures and mix it with roasted barley sprouts and well water while you recite a spell. Then you boil it in a cauldron, and it will make beer.”

Godwin laughed. “All right, magic. But don’t you think Leona and Mrs. Cunningham know each other?”

“Sure—the same way you know every gay man in the area.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, I see what you mean.” A little embarrassed, Godwin went to the checkout desk to file the receipt for Mrs. Cunningham’s purchase.

When the phone rang, he picked it up. “Crewel World, Godwin speaking, how may I help you?” he said. He held the phone a little away from his ear. Betsy could hear a frantic voice shouting incomprehensibly. “Hold on, hold on!” said Godwin. “Slow down. Who is this, please?” He listened briefly, then said to Betsy. “It’s Frey Kadesh. Something about Teddi’s parents.” He held out the phone.

“Hello, Frey?” Betsy said. “Is there a problem?”

“Oh, yes indeed! Mr. and Mrs. Wahlberger are here to begin sorting out Teddi’s things. They brought the clothes that were left at the Watered Silk pool—the ones Teddi was supposed to have worn? Well, they’re
mine
! I don’t know what to do, I was going to call Sergeant Malloy, but they don’t want me to. They say the police are rude and incompetent, but I say this might be important. So what should I do?”

“The clothes are yours? Are you sure—I’m sorry, of course you’re sure! That’s very strange, isn’t it? And anything strange could be important.”

“Could you come over and tell Mr. and Mrs. Wahlberger that?”

“How about I tell them over the phone?”

“No, come over, could you?” Frey’s voice suddenly dropped to nearly a whisper. “They’re being very difficult. I tried to tell them who you are, and I don’t think they believed me.”

Betsy thought briefly. “All right, I’ll be right over.”

”I have to go over to Frey and Lia’s house for a little while,” she told Godwin. “Teddi’s parents are there, and Frey says they’re being difficult.” She thrust her fingers into her hair, a sure sign of frustration. “I’m not sure what she expects me to do with them.”

“You’ll calm them down. You look perfect for a meeting with people who are being difficult,” said Godwin.

Betsy looked down at herself. She was dressed in a sedate navy blue suit with white piping on its cuffs and collar, the jacket over a white camisole. She refreshed her lipstick, put on her Jean Paul Gaultier confidence-building coat, and hurried out the back door. There was a tiny parking lot behind the building. It ended in a steep, tree-dotted rise currently covered in snow. Betsy’s Buick was crouched beside a Dumpster kept there for her tenants. A thin layer of salt and sand crunched under her feet, and her breath smoked as she hurried to her car.

The car’s heater had barely stirred to life before she pulled up in front of the blue-shuttered house where Teddi had lived—and died. Betsy was already regretting her decision to come over. What could she possibly say to these people, who were angry and grief-stricken?

Still, she’d agreed to come, and she was already here.
Suck it up
, she told herself, and got out of the car.

Frey answered the door, lifting her eyebrows and rolling her eyes in a swift signal of distress, as she said with false cheer, “Why, Ms. Devonshire, how good of you to visit! Come in, come in!” She was wearing jeweled sandals, tight blue jeans, and a loose-fitting dark green shirt. Her ears twinkled with lots of earrings, and she was wearing too much mascara in an attempt to disguise the redness and puffiness of her eyes.

Betsy came in and remembered to take off her shoes. She selected a pair of stretchy slippers and went to the squashy couch to put them on. The house smelled of freshly brewed coffee.

“How’s Thai?” asked Frey.

“He’s fine,” said Betsy, not wishing to burden the young woman with complaints about the war between Thai and Sophie, as each battled for a place in the household. She stood and took off her coat, which Frey took away with her out of the living room. Only then did Betsy notice the handsome senior couple behind the breakfast bar in the kitchen. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” said the woman, who was short and stocky, with silver hair and a deep tan. She was wearing a black dress, and a silver crucifix hung around her neck.

She looked at her husband, who obediently said, “How do you do?” He was medium-short, even more darkly tanned than his wife, with thick silver hair and a deeply creased face dominated by a lot of nose and small, sad eyes. He was wearing a purple turtleneck sweater.

“My name is Betsy Devonshire,” said Betsy. “I own a needlework shop here in Excelsior.”

“I’m Stan Wahlberger,” said the man, “and this is my wife, Louise. We’re from Marathon, Florida.”

Betsy smiled. “Isn’t that out on the Keys? I’ve always wanted to visit the Keys.”

“Yes,” said Louise. She sipped from a mug.

“Good fishing,” contributed Stan, earning a quashing look from his wife.

“I understand you are here to begin the sad business of picking up your daughter’s possessions,” said Betsy.

“Are you three getting acquainted?” asked Frey brightly as she came back into the room.

“Not really,” said Louise. “Why did you ask her over?”

“Because she’s a detective, a private eye,” said Frey. “And I wanted her to tell you to tell the police about some of my clothing ending up over at Watered Silk.”

“I thought she owned a needlework shop,” said Stan.

“I do,” said Betsy. “But I also sometimes try to solve crimes when people ask me for help. I don’t have a license, but the police are aware of my work.”

“Ms. Kadesh, did you ask Ms. Devonshire to investigate?” asked Louise, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

“No. It was someone else.” Frey looked at Betsy to explain.

“Your daughter was murdered, which is absolutely horrible,” said Betsy. “I was shocked to hear about that; you must be devastated. The police are investigating, of course, and have shortened the list of possible suspects to three people. One of them is Thomas Shore, who is the grandnephew of two very good friends of mine. Those two friends have asked me to look into the case, with an eye toward clearing Tommy.”

“And have you, er, ‘cleared’ him?” asked Louise, her voice hard.

“No, not yet.”

“Of course you haven’t—and you won’t, he is the father of Teddi’s unborn child . . .” She sobbed once, a heavy, choking sound, and her husband gathered her into his arms and looked angrily at Betsy.

“But don’t you see,” Frey broke in, “this case can’t get solved if the police—and Betsy—don’t have the information they need to solve it.”

“What information?” demanded Stan, still angry. “So the filthy beast who murdered our daughter grabbed some clothes from the wrong closet to take along with her body—” He stopped to take a high-pitched breath. “Her body,” he continued, struggling to get the words out, “to that indoor pool. I don’t see how that’s relevant. And I don’t want to subject my wife to more of that . . . that rude cop’s questions!”

“But Sergeant Malloy—” started Betsy.

“I don’t know any Sergeant Malloy. We’ve had to deal with a cop—what’s his name—Burgoyne!”

“Oh,
him
,” said Betsy. “He does have some kind of attitude problem. But we’re in Excelsior, not Hopkins. The policeman you want to talk to is named Mike Malloy. He’s a good man.”

“I don’t care if he’s Michael the Archangel,” asserted Stan. “No more cops.”

And they could not be moved from that position.

Betsy asked to see the clothing that had been returned, and Frey took Betsy upstairs, away from the couple—which was what Betsy wanted.

“I’m not sure this is a real problem,” she said, once they were inside Frey’s room with the door closed. The room was a little larger than Teddi’s, painted, curtained, and carpeted in a neutral buff color, but with brilliant splashes of red and orange in the duvet, the peacock blue cushion on the little upholstered chair, and a single abstract painting on one wall that might have been the climax of a ballet performance as seen by someone needing glasses. On the duvet lay a sad little heap of clothing: gray wool slacks, a butter yellow sweater, a black bra and panties, a cropped fur jacket that looked like pale mink. On the floor were a pair of high-heeled boots with silver metal trim on the toes and heels.