“Oh, I’m glad you’re back!” Nikki said. “I thought I saw you and Godwin going in the door to the upstairs, but when you didn’t come back, I thought I was mistaken.”
“Godwin’s up in my apartment,” said Betsy. “He’s very upset and won’t be coming down.”
Nikki put the grapes down. “Why, what happened?”
Betsy sat down behind the desk. “Well, we went over to Godwin’s partner’s house to see why he hadn’t gone to work, and I’m afraid we found him dead.”
Nikki just stared for a few moments. “Dead? What, some kind of accident?”
“No. And not suicide, either. Someone came into the house, probably last night, and struck Mr. Nye on the head. The police are there now.”
“Why, that’s
horrible
! Poor Godwin! He . . . he was in love with John, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but what makes it worse is that they quarreled recently.”
“Oh, dear. But they made up?” She saw Betsy’s mute expression of denial and said, “That
is
worse! How dreadful for him! He must be just sick!”
Betsy nodded. “Yes, he is. I put him to bed, but I want to go up and check on him every so often. Will you be able to stay until I find someone else?”
“Oh, of course. In fact, I can stay all day, if you need me to.”
“Well, thank you, that would be very helpful.”
“Only thing is, I need some lunch, and I need it pretty soon.” Her brow wrinkled with concern at adding to Betsy’s burden.
“Would something from the deli next door be all right? They’ve got soups, salads, and sandwiches at the deli.”
“Sure. I’ll get something and bring it right back.”
“No, I meant, how about I buy us both something.”
“Well, gee, you don’t have to do that. But thank you!” Betsy gave Nikki some money and asked for half a turkey sandwich and a cup of tomato soup for herself.
“Oh, wait, let me give you more money,” she said. “Get a bowl of chicken soup for Godwin. Whole wheat crackers, he likes those.”
Nikki took the additional five and went out. The silent door reminded Betsy of that failing, and she wrote a note to herself to find a workman to replace it—she’d never liked the obnoxious sound it made, and now was the perfect opportunity to select something more musical. A tune? No, not a tune. Hearing “Carolina Moon” might be amusing the first few times, but the fiftieth repetition in a day might be a bit tedious. A single musical note would be fine. Or maybe two, like a doorbell.
When Nikki came back, Betsy took the chicken soup upstairs. She found Godwin asleep on the bed. She put the soup and crackers down on the computer desk and went to wake him.
“Goddy,” she said gently. He didn’t stir. “Goddy? It’s me, Betsy. I brought you some lunch.”
“Huh?” he murmured, then sat bolt upright, looking around in terror. “What? What?”
“Easy, Goddy, it’s me, Betsy.”
“What? Oh, hi. What’s wrong?” He looked around, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Say, what time is it?” He looked down at himself, surprised to find he was dressed. Then his face changed, sagging into despair. “Oh, my God, it’s not a bad dream, is it?”
“No, baby, I’m afraid not.”
He coughed violently, moved to dangle his legs over the edge of the bed. “What’s going on?”
“Nikki’s staying in the shop all day. I’ve brought some chicken soup up for you. I want you to eat some of it. There’s bottled water in the refrigerator, also milk, grapefruit, and cran-apple juice. Eat, then change into your pajamas and go back to bed. Everything’s all right downstairs, so you just rest.”
“I feel awful,” he said. And he looked awful, with brown shadows under his eyes and lines around his mouth. He stared at the floor, and his eyes widened as if he were seeing John’s body spread there. His hands clutched the blanket around his waist.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” she asked. “Or call someone, a friend, to stay with you?”
“No,” he said, but absently, still staring.
“Godwin,” she called, drawing out the sound, and he looked up at her. “It’s going to be all right. It’s terribly, terribly hard right now, but it will get better.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I didn’t either, when I lost Margot. But it does. Time passes, and wounds heal. You have a lot of friends, and their love will help.”
“All right.” This time he didn’t sound convinced.
“I’ve got to go back downstairs. Nikki’s been a great help. Thank you for calling her.”
“Yes? All right. You’re welcome.”
“Will you eat the soup? It’s chicken soup, the universal medicine.”
He smiled faintly. “All right.”
She turned to leave.
“Betsy?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to try to find out who murdered John?”
“Do you want me to do that?”
“Yes. Yes, please. We never got a chance to make up, and that’s what makes this like the end of the world.” He sniffed, and two big tears rolled from his eyes. He blotted them with the sleeves of his shirt.
“I’ll see what I can do. But if this is a burglary, then Mike will probably solve it before I can even get started. He’s good at that kind of crime.”
“Come on! Everyone knows he’s not the swiftest boat on the river.”
“That’s when it’s about amateur criminals. When it comes to the pros, he’s very, very swift.”
“Okay, we’ll let him have a shot at it. But if he doesn’t arrest someone in the next day or two, then it’s your turn.”
“All right.” Betsy did leave then.
On her way back downstairs she reflected on Godwin’s simple trust in her sleuthing abilities. It was a strange thing, this ability of hers to solve crimes. She had no training in investigation, and she never sought out opportunities to sleuth. It was as if crime came looking for her, usually in the person of a customer who had a relative falsely accused—sometimes by Mike Malloy. And to her mind, when she solved a case, it was more luck than skill or talent.
Of course, this time there would be no relative anxious to clear a brother or cousin. Betsy was pretty sure Mike was at this moment bending over a dusty fingerprint and nodding sagely. A burglar who hadn’t realized John was home, who had been surprised and frightened when confronted by John, and struck out with the first thing to hand, then run off with only a few pieces of jewelry. And who would pay very dearly for what he’d done.
Betsy came in the back door of the shop, where she took out the little three-step stool, opened it, and climbed up to reach for the shop’s Christmas decorations in the large box high on a shelf.
Nikki, hearing the sounds of effort, came to help. In the box, near the bottom—of course—was a small wreath made of golden sleigh bells. Betsy had bought it at a post-Christmas sale, intending to cut the thing apart and sell the bells in Christmas kits. She still might, but meanwhile she would hang it on her door to use as an announcement of a customer’s entry.
She hung it by its loop over the doorknob and opened and closed the door to try its effect. “Good enough,” she pronounced. Then she noticed she had slammed the door in Bershada Reynolds’s face. “Oh, I’m
so
sorry!” she exclaimed, opening it again.
Bershada, a slim black woman, was a retired librarian made eloquent from years of nonverbal expression. She paused a moment to take in the apology, then, eyebrows raised in gentle rebuke, entered the shop.
“What can we do for you?” asked Betsy.
“I came for a knitting pattern. I want to try that kind that looks like strips of color woven together.” Bershada looked around the shop. “Where’s Godwin?”
“Upstairs. He won’t be in today.”
“Then it’s true?”
“What’s true?”
“John Nye was found dead at home?”
“Has it been on the news already?” asked Betsy.
“Not that I know of. I stopped at the Waterfront Café—do you know they’re doing the coffeehouse thing, with lattés and chai and all? They’ve even put some computer connections in the back. Anyway, I just stopped for a chai, and Jimmy Folsom was there and he said Leecia Millhouse, who lives practically next door to John, watched while they brought him out in a
body bag
. Girl, there’s crime scene tape all around the house. It looks like
murder
.” Bershada stopped to draw a breath, and her expression changed. “Wait a minute, you already
know
about this, don’t you?” She reared back and looked at Betsy sideways. “Who told you?”
“No one. We were there.”
“Where—at the
house
?”
“Yes.” Betsy explained how she and Godwin had gone over to see why John hadn’t gone to work and found him.
“Oh, the
poor baby
!” said Bershada, meaning Godwin. “Is he all right?”
“I think he will be. He’s badly shaken up, of course. I put him to bed and told him to stay there.”
“Well, of course, and I hope he does. He and John hadn’t made up?”
“No, and that’s what’s making it so hard.”
“Yes, of course. Is there anything I can do?”
“No, I don’t think so. But thank you. I’ll tell him you asked after him. Now, this pattern, would it be entrelac you’re looking for?”
“Yes, I think that’s the name of it. You use circular needles to make a purse.” She gestured a round shape.
“Yes, I just got a very nice pattern in, so I don’t have a model yet. I’m going to try it myself, or maybe a sweater, I like the look of it. I have a nice yarn for the purse, it’s from Japan, all wool, and overdyed. Do you know how to back knit?”
“No, what’s that?”
“Well, the pattern calls for knit and purl, but sometimes as few as two stitches. Having to turn the needles around every two stitches is a nuisance, so there’s this thing called back knitting, where you knit backwards, off the lefthand needle. Godwin showed me how to do it. Let me see if I can remember.”
She pulled two knitting needles out of the vase of accessories on the library table, picked up a small ball of yarn and swiftly cast on ten stitches, then knit a row. “See, here’s how it works.” Bershada came to stand looking over her shoulder. “Knit two,” Betsy said, doing so. “Now, put the left needle
behind
the stitch, throw your yarn around it counterclockwise, and pull it through. And again. See?”
“Well, I’ll be. That doesn’t look hard at all.”
“It’s not. Well, it’s a bit clumsy at first, but it’s not hard to do.”
Bershada bought the pattern, and two skeins of the Japanese wool in shades of purple, green, and blue, and a pair of number-five knitting needles. “I have circular needles in that size already,” she said.
As she prepared to leave, she asked again, “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do for Goddy?”
“A card would be—oh, for heaven’s sake, I
am
an idiot. He’s feeling abandoned, of course, so I remembered what happened when I got that dose of poison and came home to a flock of hot dishes. So if it’s not a huge imposition . . .”
Bershada smiled. “Not at all. Just let me get myself home and I’ll start cooking.”
Seven
THE next day, the hot dishes started to arrive. Bershada must have told everyone she knew, and each of them spread the word even further. Customers Betsy hadn’t seen in months came in, bearing Corning Ware and Pyrex, wrapped in newspaper to keep it warm—or frozen, some women apparently keeping something always ready to bring to a bereavement.
At first Betsy brought them upstairs. Later, she trusted Nikki, who was threatening to become full time, to bring them up. By the end of the day, she was waving them through. Still, by the time she closed at five, her legs ached from all the climbing.
They continued to come all evening. Touching at first, it became amazing, then silly, finally ridiculous.
The last one arrived around nine. Godwin, hearing laughter, came out of his room to see what was going on. Jill Cross Larson, who rarely laughed, stood in the midst of outrageous abundance, every flat surface in the apartment covered with ceramic and glass bowls full of a wide assortment of meats (or tuna), vegetables, and cream of mushroom soup, with yet another hot dish in her hand, laughing. “Coals to New-castle!” she crowed.
Godwin, who had not so much as peeped out all day, looked around. Slowly a smile formed, and then he, too, began to laugh.
Betsy rejoiced to see it, but said, “What on earth are we going to do with all this?”
Godwin, leaning against the door frame, only shook his head and laughed some more.
It was Jill who came up with a solution. She was herself a police officer—a sergeant—tall, very fair, with a beautiful Gibson-Girl face normally displaying only the Gibson Girl’s cool aloofness. Yet behind that stolid face was a keen intelligence and a gentle heart, the latter evidenced by the package in her hands. “You can send most of it to homeless shelters, churches that feed the homeless, and a shelter for abused women,” she said.
Betsy asked Godwin, “What do you think? After all, this is yours.”
Godwin shook his head, “Even if we gave up eating any other kind of food, we could never eat all this.” He looked at Jill. “I bet you have a list of phone numbers we could call about donating.”
“I sure do. All police departments do. I’ll send you the list by e-mail tomorrow from work.” She handed her hot dish to Betsy, who found it warm to the touch through the layers of newspaper around it, and went to take Godwin by the shoulders in a firm grip. “Are you going to be all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, nodding, looking around. “I think I will be. Thank you.”
And the next morning he insisted on coming back to work.
Word flashed around the town that Godwin was at work—e-mail and cell phones had made the gossip grapevine in Excelsior stunningly efficient—so at one in the afternoon there was a special session of the Monday Bunch. Its purpose was to lend aid and comfort.
Godwin soaked it up in bucketfuls. The Monday Bunch was emphatic. “How dare they!” was the sum of opinion about the media, though they put it variously. Needles flashed, scissors snipped sharply, and hearty sniffs and the occasional “Hah!” underlined their remarks.