Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_04 (12 page)

“No, he wasn't in the lobby, so I just left it in the office.”

“Maybe it belongs to someone who works here.”

“Yes, of course.” Betsy closed her eyes—she was so very tired!—and tried to block out the thoughts vying for her attention. But in they trooped, pushing and shouting and waving their arms. Her head felt squeezed in a vise.

“I'm allergic to cigarette smoke” was a common complaint, even among people not allergic to other things. Yet Sharon Kaye smoked.

Was she one of those people who claimed to be allergic just to gain sympathy? Then what about the collapse Ingrid had described? Suppose the EpiPen Betsy found was Sharon's. If Sharon had an allergic attack, why wasn't it used? What was it doing in the office? That office door was kept locked; Sharon couldn't have put it in there herself. Was James somehow culpably involved in all this?

Or was it possible Sharon hadn't been here at all, that this had been a dream after all? No, she must have been here, her car was here. The car made it real.

If Sharon had been here, why did she leave? Someone had suggested that Sharon had left because she saw someone she didn't like. Who didn't Sharon like? More important, who didn't like Sharon? Certainly some of the stitchers had been acid-tongued when speaking of her.

Was it a coincidence that Sharon's ex-husband chose
this weekend to come here, the same weekend Sharon agreed to come and teach a class?

Maybe it was learning he was here that had sent Sharon away. Certainly Betsy would not stay in a hotel, especially in a remote location, if her ex-husband turned up.

What was Hal up to now? Thank God he'd stopped sending flowers. The pig.

Was her headache a little better?

What was the cause of that water leak in the shop? Was she right to trust Godwin to handle it?

Was Godwin taking good care of Sophie?

If he forgot to give Sophie water, could the cat perhaps turn on the faucet in the bathtub and refresh herself?

And, of course, not being able to turn it off, the water would run and run, and the tub would fill and overflow.

And Godwin was upstairs in her apartment, lifting buckets of water out of the tub and pouring them onto her living room carpet while shouting, “Get an ax, chop a hole in the floor before Sophie drowns!”

And the cat was swimming neck deep in water toward a toy motorboat whose engine was idling over by the window. Sophie was too big for the motorboat, she would tip it over and sink it if she tried to get aboard. Betsy didn't have an ax; she took a meat cleaver from the kitchen and stepped into the living room and sank in over her head, and swam down, down, reaching for the carpet, cleaver at the ready, holding her breath, but by the time she got down to the carpet, she was already in need of air, so she dropped the cleaver and started back up, kicking desperately for the surface, which was too far away, she needed to breathe, she couldn't hold her breath any longer, she would have to open her mouth and breathe water, she was going to drown.

Betsy sat up on the bed, gasping.

Then she fell back on the pillow, to inhale more deeply and less desperately while her heart slowed down.

Well, at least this bad dream wasn't about murder.

What time was it, anyway? She looked at her watch. Nearly noon. Half an hour's sleep, not enough.

But despite the brevity of the nap, and the bad dream, she felt better. Her headache was gone, anyway. Rather than try to sleep some more, she'd wash her face and comb her hair and go back downstairs to stitch some more.

She went down the stairs into cooking fragrances and found the dining room was being set up for a buffet lunch. The long, broad counter at the other end was being laden with a delectable array of salads, cold cuts, meatballs, chicken wings, marinated vegetables, and desserts. A line was forming, snaking down the long room, winding among the tables. Betsy inhaled deeply and went into the lounge to retrieve Jill, and found her almost alone and everyone else still there packing away their stitching.

They got into line. Betsy complained about her problems with the rose window pattern. Jill said, “If you put a white cloth on your lap, you can see the holes in the fabric a lot better.”

“Well sure, I know that!” Betsy grimaced. “I just didn't think of it.” This was certainly not one of her brighter days. Talking about the patterns painted on the walls and how they would make pretty and easy cross-stitch patterns, they chose the first table they came to with two seats available. It was already occupied by a man and a woman. It wasn't until they had put their plates down that Betsy realized the woman was Carla.

But it would have been very rude to walk away at that point, so they sat. Carla said, “Jill, Betsy, I've been having the most interesting discussion with Anna's
husband Parker, here. He's been out looking for garnets—no, agates. He's a graduate student in geology, and full of the most amazing facts about this part of the state. Mr. Lundquist, this is Jill Cross and Betsy Devonshire, of Excelsior, who are here for the stitch-in.”

“I took a course in geology several aeons ago,” said Betsy, glad to discuss a topic that didn't involve either crime or trame. “I enjoyed it very much—especially the part about continental drift and earthquakes, since I was living in California. But if I remember correctly, this area is stable, geologically speaking. And therefore not terrifically interesting.”

“Well, that's partly correct,” said Parker, with the pedantic air of the becoming-learned. “The bedrock around here is of the Keweenawan Supergroup, intrusive rocks of dominantly mafic composition.”

“Which means?” asked Carla with a little smile.

“Composed of something that looks like granite, but isn't, not really. There was once a rift in the earth's mantle here, and consequently lots of volcanos. The bluffs around here are the lava flows, which were thousands of feet thick. If you walk up along the Brule River, you can see how the water has cut a slice in it. The soil that overlays it is glacial drift, left behind when the last glacier retreated about twelve thousand years ago. This area is the North Shore Volcanic Group, which formed approximately eleven hundred million years ago, although most of Minnesota is part of the Canadian Shield, Precambrian rock six hundred to thirty-six hundred million years old.”

“Good Lord!” said Carla. “Older than—well, old.”

“Is that what you're studying?” asked Betsy. “The Precambrian formations?”

Parker shook his head. “I've been studying the Brule River rhyolite flow, part of a very ancient mountain
range, the Sawtooth Mountains. The hills around Grand Marais are a remnant of them.”

Betsy said, “What about the Devil's Kettle?”

“What about it?”

“Jill told me the water goes into a rock and never comes out again. Has that got something to do with the rift? Can you explain where it goes?”

“I believe the water probably flows underground and empties into Lake Superior.”

Jill said, “But they put dye into the kettle, and it never showed up in the lake or anywhere.”

“Oh, it will, eventually. I'm trying to prove a theory that there's a large and very slow-moving aquifer deep underground, which is fed by the Devil's Kettle.”

Betsy said, “Are you saying that one of these days someone will be fishing along the shore here, and suddenly yellow dye will show up in the water?”

“It's possible,” said Parker. “Though if my theory is correct, none of the people involved in the original experiment will be alive to see it. I think the water presently going into the aquifer will spill into Lake Superior in seventy-five or a hundred years.”

“Have you been to see the waterfall?” asked Jill.

“Oh, yes, I went there a dozen or more times last summer—in fact, I was there again last week.”

“Isn't it frozen solid?” asked Betsy.

“No, the river has a cover of ice, but the waterfall is open. I took some photographs along the riverbank, and of the falls itself. There is an interesting mix of boralfs and udipsaments along the top there, though of course none of it visible because of the snow cover.”

“Of course,” said Carla dryly, and Betsy laughed.

“I hope you will excuse my language,” said Parker, abashed.

“Oh, I wasn't just laughing at you,” said Betsy. “I was thinking of how Carla loves to talk about her
favorite kind of needlework in almost exactly the same tone of voice you use talking about geology.”

Carla, surprised, laughed. “It's true, it's true!” she said. “I was wondering why I liked this man. It must be because I recognize a fellow spirit. When I get interested in something, I obsess.”

Jill asked, “What else have you obsessed on besides needlework?”

Carla's laugh cut off as if she'd been slapped. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” said Jill, surprised. “You made a general statement that you obsess about things, and I wondered what else you had obsessed over.”

Carla blinked. “Oh. Of course.” She smiled. “Well, cooking; I love to cook; I have over a hundred cookbooks and a kitchen that can cook an eight-course meal for twelve—though I don't do that often; I'm a widow and my one child lives in New Zealand. And I do a lot of volunteer work for the Humane Society. I am currently on four animal welfare committees.”

Betsy said, “I'm interested in animal welfare, too—I used to do wild animal rescue for the San Diego Humane Society when I lived out there. I'm going to have to check into what's needed in Hennepin County now that Excelsior's my home.”

“I specialize in bird rescue when I'm in Florida,” said Carla. “I've raised I don't know how many baby birds blown out of their nests by hurricanes.”

“When I was nine I raised two baby robins I found in our yard after a storm,” said Jill.

“I once found an orphaned baby raccoon,” said Parker, and the awkward moment was quickly forgotten as the four got into a discussion of the amusing and healthy ingratitude of rescued wild animals.

A
fter lunch, Jill said, “Well, back to the lounge?” Betsy replied, “Not yet. I want to see if James can help us figure out where Sharon Kaye thought she was going to stay if Frank wouldn't let her move in with him.”

Jill said, “I'm glad you're not taking your own advice about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you weren't going to get involved in sleuthing anymore.”

“This isn't sleuthing! I mean, the police did the sleuthing and didn't find anything, so I'm going to find something that will make them try harder.”

Jill could hide an emotion better than a world-class poker player. Still, Betsy narrowed her eyes at her. But Jill only nodded and said, “Okay.”

“I've already told you Sharon Kaye Owen didn't have a reservation,” James said a minute later, from behind the counter in the lobby.

“But did anyone change their reservation from a single to a double?” asked Betsy.

“I'll check.” He checked his registration file. “Yes, Charlotte Porter changed her reservation from a single to a double about four weeks ago, and prepaid for two people.”

Jill asked, “Did Charlotte tell Sharon Kaye her ex-husband was going to be here?”

James made a “How-would-I-know?” face, and Betsy said, “Charlotte didn't mention it to me when I phoned her—but she was pretty drifty from pain medication.”

Jill nodded. “So it's possible Sharon Kaye didn't know Frank was going to be here.”

Betsy said, “I think she did. Otherwise, she would have claimed Charlotte's room—it was paid for, after all, and Charlotte meant to share it with her. But she didn't claim it, which probably means she was hoping Frank would ask her to join him. Frank said he didn't know she was here. If that's true—” Betsy cut herself off; this was coming dangerously close to real sleuthing.

Jill asked James, “Can anyone read your check-in list to see who else is here?”

James shook his head. “If someone asks specifically, we will tell them so-and-so has checked in. But as I already said, I never saw Mrs. Owen, I had no idea she was at the lodge. Nobody asked me about her before you two did. And I'm the only one on the desk.”

Betsy said, “I'm more and more sure she knew he was going to be here. In fact, I think it was his being here that made her decide to come. Because don't you think, Jill, that it's too big a coincidence that she decides to teach at a stitch-in at a time and place her ex-husband, with whom she wants to reconcile, happens to be?”

Jill asked James, “How far in advance did Frank Owen register?”

James said, “I'll have to check. But I can tell you the
Grand Marais Embroiderers Guild reserved a block of rooms back in October, and no one else had reserved a room for this weekend that far back.” James turned again to his registration file. “Mr. Owen reserved his room five weeks and two days ago. I warned him about the stitch-in, but he said he didn't think they'd bother him.”

Jill said, “Did he ask if Sharon Kaye was coming?”

“I don't think so. If he did, I would have said she wasn't, because I didn't have her name on the list of people coming.”

Betsy said, “But that works, don't you see? Five weeks ago Frank decides to come up, and a week later Charlotte changes her reservation to a double. No, wait, if I was allergic to everything, I'd want a room of my own.”

Jill said, “The room I reserved was the last of the stitch-in's block, and that was six weeks ago.”

James said, “Yes, that's right. She couldn't have gotten a room of her own.”

Betsy said to James, “So the lodge is full, right? Sharon Kaye had to share a room, because Jill got the last stitch-in room, and then Mr. Owen took the one room left over.”

James said, “Yes, we didn't quite get the innkeeper's dream of every room but one taken.”

Betsy frowned. “I should think you'd want them all taken.”

“No, the rest of the dream is that a reporter for an important travel magazine has a car breakdown right outside your door and just falls in love with your place.”

“So as of now you're full up?”

“No; since neither Charlotte Porter nor her roommate turned up, we've got an empty room.” He smiled. “But there's no sign yet of the
New York Times
travel correspondent.”

James went back to his bookkeeping and Jill said, “I
just thought of another possibility to eliminate: Call the area hospitals. She might be in one of them, too sick to let anyone know where she is.”

There were a surprising number of them in the phone book. After the fourth call, Jill went away. Betsy continued through a fortune in dimes and quarters, calling hospitals and medical clinics, none of which had admitted or treated a patient named Sharon Kaye Owen.

Finished at last, she went back to her room and got a white hand towel, brought it to the lounge, and stood just inside the door. A number of the stitchers looked at her the way people will look at the scene of a car accident, and she showed them her best customer-welcoming smile until they went back to their work. Jill declared her place in the room by raising the canvas tiger in its frame and indicated an empty place across a coffee table.

Betsy found her canvas bag and brought it to the empty place. She draped the towel across her lap and got out her rose window pattern. Amazing how having a gleaming white lap made the weave so much easier to see, but she hadn't even found her place when a woman in a wheelchair rolled up to them. She was about twenty-five, a streaky blond athletic type, with the too-bright, aggressive look of a hawk in her eye.

Betsy blinked at her, surprised. She had seen the woman in the dining room and, now on this closer look, recognized her as someone she'd seen wheeling around Excelsior. She'd had no idea she was a stitcher. Certainly the woman had never come into Betsy's shop. But there on her lap was an almost-finished cross-stitch pattern of butterflies.

“Hi!” she said brightly. “I'm Sadie Cartwright.” She leaned forward a little and said in a lower voice, “It's interesting you're here, because if anyone here can solve
the mystery of Sharon Kaye's disappearance, it's you, correct?”

“Why do you say that?” asked Betsy.

“Because Jill Cross may be a cop, but you're the one with a nose for solving mysteries!”

“I'd disagree with you, because I see mystery I can't solve right in front of me. How come I didn't know your name, but you appear to know all about me?”

Sadie laughed. “I order my stitching supplies from the Internet, that's why I never come into your store. And the reason I know about you is that I've come to Shelly Donohue's class a few times to talk about life in a wheelchair, and I usually have lunch with her after. She loves to talk about her part-time job in Crewel World, and she's always bragging how Betsy Devonshire is a regular Miss Marple. She says you go around pretending to be an ignorant amateur, then all of a sudden someone is on his way to jail and it's all your doing. Now you're up here and we've got a mysterious disappearance, and who's the first one to sniff it out? Betsy Devonshire, the Sherlock Holmes of the needlework set!”

“I'm not Sherlock Holmes,” said Betsy, “nor am I Miss Marple. I don't have any special skills as a detective, I don't like getting mixed up with crime, and I have no intention of investigating what happened to Mrs. Owen.”

“See?” crowed Sadie, forgetting to speak quietly, rolling her chair back and forward in a show of pleasure. “Just like she said you do! 'Oh, I don't have any idea what you're talking about, but if you want to know who did it, just watch who I dance with tonight,' ” she quoted in a high, breathless voice, though Betsy had never said such a thing in her life. “Ha! Shelly introduced me to Irene Potter, who told me you're so good you should sell your needlework store and hang out your shingle as a private eye. So don't pretend with me. I bet you'll
have this little case all wrapped up before we go home tomorrow afternoon.” Laughing, Sadie turned her chair in a single deft movement, and started back up the room.

“Wait!” said Betsy, but Sadie didn't.

“Durn,” said Jill, “she'll tell everyone.”

“I didn't know Irene bragged about me,” said Betsy. “I thought she didn't like me.”

“She wasn't bragging, she was dreaming out loud. She knows that if you turn private eye, you'll sell Crewel World. And you already know that above all else in this world, Irene Potter wants to own Crewel World.”

“She told you that I should be a private eye?”

“She told Shelly that, and Shelly told me and probably a lot of other people—you know what a gossip Shelly is.”

“Yes, I just got a reminder of that.” Betsy frowned at the far end of the room, where Sadie was leaning forward to talk to a pair of women, both of whom glanced toward Betsy with wide eyes.

Jill said, “Speaking of not sleuthing, what did you find out?”

“She not in any hospital in Duluth,” said Betsy. “And we're sure she's not home, and she's not with her daughter.”

“She's not here, either,” said Jill.

“That's because murderers don't ordinarily leave their victims strewn around.”

“Sure they do,” said Jill. “Especially in a hotel, because who wants to get caught staggering down a hallway with a body in his arms?”

Betsy had no reply for that. She picked up her Aida cloth, and determinedly started in. The fourth wedge forming the circle around the center medallion was quickly done, now that she could see what she was doing. She got out the spool of Kreinik metallic and cut off twelve inches of it. It felt weightless in her hand,
and though it looked like colored metal, it was thin as plastic film. Thinner. When she tried to put it through the eye of her needle, the metallic part immediately separated from the very fine brown thread it was wrapped around. Licking it didn't put it back together; she had to snip off the separated ends. On the third try she got both pieces through and began to stitch, trying to work slowly and gently so as not to snag or break the gossamer stuff.

Jill looked casually around the room, seemingly at no one in particular, then said, “Look, she's telling the whole room.”

Betsy stretched, moving as if to work a kink out of her neck, and looked over her shoulder. Sadie was halfway up the room now, talking to three interested stitchers. Betsy asked Jill, “What do you think she's saying about me? Do you know her?”

“Not well. She's a good person, she won't be telling lies. She acts a little tough, that's all. Compensating, maybe. She's genuinely strong, though, runs that wheelchair up the sidewalks like it's a souped-up truck.”

One of the stitchers glanced up and saw Betsy looking, touched Sadie on the shoulder, and the two looked back at Betsy, Sadie with a big white grin.

But Betsy's ear was caught by a woman nearer, saying, not quietly enough, “I hear that when there's a murder, the police always look first at the person reporting it.”

Betsy felt a dash of cold anger. But she didn't want to look around to see who said it, so she went back to her stitching. In her anger, she pulled hard at the Kreinik, which instantly broke. Sighing, she turned her fabric over and used her threader to work the broken end under other stitches on the back, rethreaded the broken-off strand, and tried again to work little x's around the wedge.

But her focus remained on the talk all around her. Nan's voice rose into audibility. “I say, if Sharon is dead, she probably did something to deserve it.”

And someone replied with a laugh, “If they look for motives, that would mean a lot of us are suspects!”

Betsy suddenly flashed on seeing the dead woman on the bed, reliving her own reaction of terror, sorrow, and helplessness. How dreadful to dismiss a death so callously! This was too much, she took a breath and would have risen to relieve her feelings had not Jill forestalled her by saying gently, “The air in here is getting a little close. How about we take a walk?”

Betsy glanced at Jill and saw a reflection of her own anger on that normally enigmatic face. She said in a carrying voice, “Yes, I think a walk out in the fresh air is just what I need!”

They went upstairs to change into wool slacks (gray for Betsy, navy for Jill) and cotton turtlenecks (white for Betsy, cranberry for Jill), over which they put coats, scarves, hats, and mittens. They pulled on insulated boots, went down again through the dining room to the lobby, and out the door.

The air was dry, very cold, and smelled of woodsmoke.

Betsy looked across the parking area and saw a great wall of logs and cords of fireplace wood. “Is all that for the fireplace?” she asked.

“No, they heat the lodge and its water with wood. That shed over there houses the furnace and boiler. This being March, the wood supply is nowhere near what it was back in October.”

Betsy started across the parking and turnaround area. Though the sun was brilliant and the air calm, the tamped-down snow creaked under their feet, and Betsy could feel the tingle of bitter cold inside her nose and
through her mittens. “This feels much colder than Excelsior. I wonder that the temperature is?”