The Drowning Spool (A Needlecraft Mystery) (8 page)

“You’re sure you’ve never seen the woman before?”

“I’m sure.” She shuddered and rubbed her fingers together as if to wipe off the remembered feel of dead flesh.

“Any idea how long she’d been in the water?”

“No. She was stiff—that’s rigor mortis—but I don’t know how long it takes for that to set in. I understand that the warmer the body is, the faster it takes hold, though, and our pool is right around ninety-three degrees. I locked up at four in the afternoon the day before. Residents can get into the exercise room at any time; their pass keys will open that door. I haven’t heard that any resident reported someone in the pool.”

“Have you ever left the key to the pool in your office?”

“No, I keep it on my key ring.”

Betsy could see that Pam was getting impatient, and she couldn’t think of anything else to ask, so she thanked Pam and left the building.

She was sitting at a stoplight when it struck her: That coat should not have been on top of the pile. When a person undresses, the outer garments come off first, then the inner. Underwear last. But Teddi’s bra was on the bottom, her coat on top. Did that mean anything? It would have if it were not already known that Teddi didn’t stand there, undressing herself. Right?

The car behind Betsy’s honked; she was in danger of sitting through a green light. Betsy hated when she sat behind an oblivious driver. Connor had once remarked that she was a little quick to blow her horn at drivers slow to realize the light had turned. Betsy had determined to reform, and once sat while a woman in the car ahead of her carried out some interaction with an unseen person in the passenger seat—changing a diaper, judging by the movement of her arms—through two green lights. She had turned to Connor then and said smugly, “See?” And Connor had not said anything about it again.

The car behind her honked again. So here she was, caught in the same error. Blushing and angry, waving an apology, she hurried through the intersection and focused on her driving the rest of the way back to Excelsior.

Once in the shop, she took care of a customer, then phoned the Courage Center and left a message for Heidi Langstrom to call her at her convenience.

A little before noon, Heidi called. “Just a few quick questions,” Betsy said.

“The repairs on the pool are moving right along,” Heidi said promptly. “We’ll reopen on schedule.”

“That’s great,” said Betsy, “but that’s not what I’m calling about.”

“Oh?”

“You took over at Watered Silk while Pam Fielding was on vacation, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Is that where you’re going in the interim?”

“Yes. Pam says she gave you the key to the pool, and that you left it in her desk drawer the last day you worked there.”

“That’s right. Was there a problem about that?”

“Was her office locked when no one was in there, do you remember?”

Heidi hesitated. “I . . . don’t remember—I don’t think so. Why, was her key missing?”

“No, it was there. It’s just that the key is the only way into the pool area, and they’re supposed to keep a tight hold on it.”

Heidi chuckled. “Skinny-dippers a problem over there?”

Betsy dutifully chuckled back. “Not that I know of. Well, thanks, Heidi.”

“You’re welcome. Say, wait a second! You don’t think that’s how that drowned woman got into the pool over there, do you?”

“I don’t know how she got in. Nobody does.”

“Oh my God, I hope not. But wait a minute, I don’t see how I could be responsible, that was nearly six months ago, and this woman drowned just last week. But now I’m gonna worry till somebody finds out how. Jeez. Well, see you in a few weeks.”

T
HE
following Monday, Betsy asked Bershada to stay after the Monday Bunch meeting broke up.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t solve Ethan’s problem with Watered Silk,” she said. “The police no longer think Ethan drowned that poor woman, but they reached that conclusion on their own, not because I brought them some information.”

Bershada nodded. “But they still believe he let into the building whoever brought her body to Watered Silk. Maybe they don’t believe it with the same conviction as before—but still.” She thought for a moment. “It turns out there are some holes in their security. It could have been someone else who works there, or even someone who lives there. I think it was a resident; after all, some of them are no longer thinking very clearly.”

“That’s true. But the problem remains: There are only four keys to the pool itself, and Ethan had access to none of them.”

“So that would seem to mean the people they should look at are those four. Who are they?”

“Pam and Jaydie, the physical therapists, and Felicia Colt—she’s the administrator of the complex—and whoever is the head of maintenance. I don’t know his name.” Betsy frowned at this lapse. “I should find that out, shouldn’t I?”

Bershada nodded. “Maybe Ethan knows, I’ll ask him.”

She called Betsy later that day. “Ethan says his name is Paul Juggins, with two
g
’s. He lost his job, too.”

Betsy, surprised, laughted. “Juggins? Are you serious?”

“That’s his name, according to Ethan. Why?”

“It doesn’t matter. Does Ethan know how to contact him?”

“No. Sorry.”

But Juggins was not a common surname, and Betsy quickly found a phone number for a Paul Juggins living in Hopkins.

Mr. Juggins was an angry man. He kept saying, “Who is this?
Who
is this?” And “Well, what do you expect me to say?” And, “I don’t work there anymore, I don’t know what they’re doing now.” His voice was deep and resonant, and might have been pleasant if he weren’t so angry.

Finally, Betsy said, “Can I buy you lunch? Or dinner?”

“What?”

“If you will agree to sit down and talk to me, let me explain what I want from you, I’ll buy you lunch at the restaurant of your choice.”

He asked suspiciously, “Talk about what?”

“The woman who was found drowned in the therapy pool.”

That brought on an explosion of remarkably creative profanity, mostly regarding the improbable recreational habits of Watered Silk staff. Betsy held the receiver a little away from her ear until the image-laden noises faded to mere grumbling. Then she said, “I want you to tell me how you think someone brought that already dead woman into the building.”

“Already dead? Who told you that? How do you know she was already dead? Hold on; do you think
I
had something to do with it?”

“I’m not asking if you did it, I’m asking you—an expert on the layout of that building—how it was done.”

“Who told you I’m an expert?”

“You worked there how long?”

There was a brief pause, then, “Six years, since it first opened.”

“So you must know every nook and cranny of the place. You know all the entrances and exits. You went into places nobody else gets into. I bet, if you thought about it, you could tell me probably three ways to get into that building that nobody else knows about.”

Juggins fell silent, except for some noisy breathing. “Well . . .” he finally said.

“Will you meet me so we can talk?” she pressed.

“Who are you again?”

“My name is Devonshire, Betsy Devonshire, and I’m doing a private investigation into the firing of Ethan Smart.”

“Yeah, they tossed him out, too, the poor bastard. Private investigation, huh? How much will you pay me?”

“Not one red cent. The motive here is justice—maybe we can get you your job back, too.”

“Huh.” Another noisy interval. Then a long, deep sigh. “All right, okay, and I’ll let you choose the place to buy me lunch.”

“Can you come to Excelsior? We’ve got a couple of nice places. When can you come?”

“Gimme your number, I’ll call you back.”

Betsy half expected him not to call, but he did, thirty minutes later. “How about Wednesday at noon?” he said, nice and calm.

• • •

B
ETSY
was surprised to see that Juggins was an African American man, then a little ashamed of her surprise. But his grin on seeing her expression made it clear that he enjoyed her reaction.

“Yo, y’all want me to talk lak this?” he drawled. “Or, p’raps you would prefer this?” he continued in a very convincing British accent.

They were standing beside a table in Sol’s Deli. Juggins was short, broad, and balding, with intense brown eyes in a brown face. He looked to be in his middle thirties, maybe a little older. He was dressed all in brown, jacket, denims, boots. A tiny gold earring gleamed in one ear. He had a close-cropped black beard only a little longer than his hair, and he smelled strongly of cigarette smoke.

“Who are you, really?” asked Betsy, amused and confused in equal parts.

“I’m an actor,” he said.

“Ah, of course,” said Betsy, enlightened.

“And I want to apologize for my behavior when you first called me. I’m going through a complicated breakup with my wife and I keep getting phone calls from people trying to get in the way.”

Betsy said, “I understand. Shall we sit down?”

She suited the action to her words, taking off her coat, pulling out the little chair with wire legs and back, and sitting down at the tiny, marble-topped table, one of two in the room. Juggins pulled off his jacket to reveal a brown sweater and sat down across from her.

Sol’s Deli was probably original to the building. It had a white stone floor set with random black squares. The front window was large, uncurtained, streaked in the corners with condensation. Across from the window were two big, white, slant-fronted cases, one filled with meats, cheeses, olives, peppers, lettuces, and other sandwich fixings, the other with salads: potato, egg, macaroni, two kinds of coleslaw. Behind the cases lurked the owner, whose name was Jack, not Sol. He was a tired-looking man with dark, sad eyes, and a stomach that slopped into his stained white apron. He wore loose-fitting clear plastic gloves on his hands. The smells of preserved meats and vegetable soup filled the air.

Juggins sat down across from Betsy. “Surprised I’m an actor?” he asked.

“Yes, and I’ll bet you at least started out with a specialty in comedy.”

He grinned. “Why do you think that?”

She grinned back. “Because Juggins is an obscure British nickname for a simpleton.”

His grin disappeared. “Funny how many people don’t say that out loud, at least to my face.”

“Yet . . .” Betsy began, and stopped herself from going on. Because what if she was wrong?

He laughed at her discomfort. “All right, it’s a stage name, picked because I know what it means. And I still specialize in comic roles, so I’ve never changed it. But I’m also a janitor. A very good janitor, a certified pool operator, with a boiler license. I’m also a competent pipe fitter, a good electrician, and an adequate carpenter. When I told my dad I wanted to be an actor, he said I should acquire some backup skills that couldn’t be outsourced to India or China. I apprenticed myself to my mother’s uncle, who is a contractor,
and
got a college degree in fine arts, and so I can support myself while I wait for my big break. Meanwhile, I do commercials and get various roles in theaters in the area. I’ve been to LA twice but had to come back both times.”

“Both you and Ethan are black. Do you think that had anything to do with the fact that you two are the ones who got fired from Watered Silk?”

He shook his head. “No,” he scoffed. “Somebody brought a dead body into a secure building and somehow got access to a key that hardly any people have, though one of them is me. It was done late at night. Ethan was on duty from midnight till eight, I was there until ten the night it happened, trying to fix an exhaust fan in the exercise room. Hell,
I’d’ve
fired the both of us.”

“Can you tell me anything about the woman whose body they found?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I couldn’t believe someone would do such a crazy thing as bring someone to the pool just to drown her. And now you say she was already dead? I don’t get it.”

Juggins told Betsy that people came and left the building only rarely at night. “It’s mostly emergency-response people who come late at night. You know, because someone has a heart attack or a stroke or something. But there’s no curfew, so if a resident takes a notion to go for a midnight stroll or drive to Chicago for a concert, there’s nothing to stop her from doing so. And I have a pretty good idea that those electronic keys get handed around. A resident will mislay one and get a replacement, then find the first one and give it to a friend or relation. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, people who I know for a fact don’t work there or live there coming in using those keys.” He raised both hands. “But it’s not my duty to say anything, so I don’t. Or didn’t.”

But the pool was a different matter. “When I was just a kid,” he continued, “I lost a good friend who drowned in a swimming pool, so I have a healthy respect for any body of water deeper than four inches. If someone on my staff needed to get into the pool area to clean the apron or test the water or change a lightbulb, I went with him or her myself to unlock the door. And I stayed to lock it again, unless Pam or Jaydie was there. There are people living in Watered Silk who no longer have a strong survival instinct, if they had one to begin with. There are some exceptions, but the seniors who live there are, by and large, morons.” He smiled to show he was exaggerating—but it wasn’t much of a smile.

Still, Betsy thought, that was rather strong criticism. But he was probably still angry at being fired and taking revenge any way he could.

“Did you get another job yet?” she asked.

“Oh, hell, yes; people who can do as many things as I can do in maintenance will always find work. But I thought I’d found a home at Watered Silk.”

• • •

B
ETSY
could think of no other avenue to explore after her conversation with Juggins. She felt guilty that she couldn’t help Ethan. Bershada said it was all right, that he’d found another night job that paid the same, but Betsy read disappointment in her eyes.