Cutwork

by Monica Ferris

  The customer sighed and apologized again. “Too bad I don’t knit,” she said, “I could buy that and make myself a pair of mittens and a scarf.”

  “We have classes,” offered Betsy, but the customer didn’t take the hint.

  Alpaca is a very expensive wool. Betsy wrung it out gently, wrapped it in paper towels, and put it into a plastic bag. She’d take it upstairs and lay it out to dry. Perhaps she could dye it again, properly this time. If not, someone who wasn’t fussy about color was going to get a wonderful bargain. So much for Betsy’s dreams of profit; between the baskets—which were not selling as well as she’d hoped—and now the damaged wool, there would be no smiles this month.

  The customer bought a counted cross-stitch pattern of roses from a sale basket, a single skein of DMC 3722, and departed. Betsy sat back down and tried to figure out which direction the next kloster block went in. Did the first of the five stitches start at the top or bottom of the fifth stitch in the previous row? She sighed, and thought how nice it would be when she could close the shop and go have dinner with Morrie.

  The phone rang; she tucked her needle into the fabric and picked up the receiver. It was Brian Forseth, her financial planner. “Don’t forget we’ve got a meeting this evening,” he said.

  “Is that tonight? Yes, I guess it is. Thanks for the reminder.”

  Hanging up, Betsy gritted her teeth and called Morrie to tell him she couldn’t have dinner with him after all. They commiserated awhile, and finally Betsy was persuaded to say she’d call Morrie after Brian left unless it was after ten.

  She hung up and picked up her stitching, but didn’t start the struggle with it right away. She was remembering a while back, when she’d first realized she was heir to a fortune. She had quickly realized that it wasn’t like fantasies of wealth, in which one gorged a bank account and wrote checks for whatever one wanted. Right from the start there had been tax deferrals and money markets and investment portfolios to worry about.

  And over time, it had become even more complicated. She bought the building Crewel World was in and found it needed a new roof. She had moved some money into a batch of high-tech stocks just before the dot-com bubble burst. She couldn’t figure out how to keep the IRS from taking most of any profit she made. At last Mr. Penberthy, her attorney, had recommended Brian Forseth as a financial planner. Brian worked at a company she had always connected with insurance but which turned out to be a major financial institution. He proved to be a good-looking fellow with a great smile and an ability to explain things like “reposition of assets” and “cash flow analysis” without making her eyes glaze over.

  And under his tutelage she began to understand the ins and outs of hanging on to, and even increasing, her fortune. She had a complex financial situation, he told her, partly inherited and partly the result of her own floundering. For example, there was the strange little company her sister had started in Wisconsin that hunted down bankruptcy estates and bought them at deep discounts to sell at a quick profit. It was doing well, but owning a company in another state complicated tax returns.

  She had bought the building that housed Crewel World more because her landlord was a huge, interfering nuisance than because she was interested in real estate. But while it was a good investment—real estate around a prime lake like Minnetonka had been increasing in value since the first white man built a log cabin on its shores—it was also a major drain on her time and her pocketbook. It wasn’t just the roof; the mortgage payment was daunting, and there were two other stores and two apartments whose tenants needing constant tending.

  Brian Forseth had charged her several thousand dollars for a year of intense education, planning, and constant access to his own and his company’s vast store of knowledge and experience.

  It was Brian who counseled her to make the building part of Crewel World, Incorporated. For one thing, it made the expense of her general liability insurance policy on the building tax deductible, and it protected her other assets from any claims that might arise from a fire in the deli or the broken leg of a customer in Isbn’s Used Books.

  Tonight Brian was going to talk to her about “springing power of attorney,” a way to manage her affairs if she should become disabled.

  No wonder economics was called “the dismal science,” Betsy reflected. So much of it involved thinking of how to divert or manage fiscal disasters!

  “You are involving yourself in crime,” he said that evening, over a cup of coffee in her apartment. “There have already been attempts on your life. In case one is successful, you have a will—but what if one merely incapacitates you?”

  “Well, what if?” she replied—retorted, more like. Thoughts like that were depressing.

  “Who could make decisions about your corporation? Who would run the shop until you were able to take over again?”

  “Godwin could run the shop, of course,” said Betsy promptly. “I’m a silent partner in New York Motto, so that would continue all right.” New York Motto was the Wisconsin bankruptcy business. “But I don’t know about the other things. I suppose I could name someone to collect the rents and pay the mortgage and upkeep on the building. But how do I do that?” And who would even want the responsibility, she added to herself.

  “That brings us to ‘springing power of attorney,’” he said, picking up a form. “It’s called that because it springs to life only under certain circumstances.”

  Betsy sighed and prepared to learn something new. She had a needlepoint legend hanging in her kitchen that read: The only thing more overrated than natural childbirth is owning your own business. Being rich wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, either.

  10

  What!?” shrieked Pam McFey. “I don’t believe it! How could he do this to us?”

  Skye, in the kitchen building a complicated sandwich, dropped the pickle fork she was using to pull a pepperoncini out of its jar, then forced herself to calmly pick it up and continue. She recognized the tone, and had no doubt whom her mother was talking about, though how her father could still be doing things to enrage her mother, she didn’t know.

  Her mother was now making those little one-word noises people make when they’re trying to interrupt. “But . . . well . . . I . . . but . . . yes . . . but . . .”

  Perhaps it was the funeral, Skye thought, having pulled the stem from the pepperoncini and now wrapping a slice of prosciutto around it. People sometimes left elaborate, expensive directions. Her grandmother had, she recalled. Her parents, still happy together back then, had complained for weeks afterward, her father about how the service seemed about some saint bearing little resemblance to his mother, her mother about the price of the airline tickets to fly to Baltimore for the service. Skye had been nine when taken to her grandmother’s funeral and had thought it astonishing and horrible to put a pretty dress on a corpse and make people come and look at it.

  She made a face, not at the slice of stinky cheese she was arranging on the bread, but at the memory.

  Her father had hated funerals, just like Skye. She had found this out soon after when she sat with him at work in his studio—one of her very favorite occupations. She would draw and he would carve and they’d talk about everything. Dead bodies were mere husks, he’d said that day, tossed aside like wet and filthy clothes, of no use to anyone, so why all the fuss over them? They should be disposed of in some quiet, sanitary way, and if people wanted to mark the passing of friends or relations, they should gather to celebrate the good memories.

  Skye opened the refrigerator and looked among the several containers of mustard for the one with horseradish in it. She knew that the memorial service Mommy was planning for Pop was not going to be a celebration. From what she’d heard of Mommy’s plans, it was going to be sad and dreary, with long speeches and awful hymns, and prayers asking a nonexistent God to be merciful to a nonexistent soul. She’d tried to tell her what Pop said, that the dead were dead, no need to be superstitious about it. Robert Q. McFey was gone forever, why
not just accept that? Skye turned and slammed the mustard onto the table. How dare Mommy bring people together to cry? She felt a sob rising in her throat, and banged her fist down hard, using the pain to kill the tears.

  But now the thought of food choked her. She threw the pickle fork into the sink and strode off to the living room, where she found her mother still on the phone, but now engaged in pleasant conversation. She must have hung up on the previous caller. As Skye came to a halt, her mother was saying, “But it seems odd that such a thing could have happened without my knowing anything about it!” Her mother saw Skye in the doorway and waggled her eyebrows in a message Skye couldn’t interpret, so Skye made an intense face and lifted her hands in a demand to speak.

  “Just a minute,” Pam said, and put a hand over the receiver. “Yes?” she said to Skye.

  “I heard you yelling before. Is something wrong?”

  “Mr. Christianson called to tell me that your father sold his life insurance policy to someone else.”

  Skye felt alarm run through her like an electric current. That insurance policy meant the difference between living well and living very badly. She didn’t think much of money herself, of course, but Mommy had no idea how to be poor. “Could he do that?” asked Skye. “I mean, is it legal? Why did he do it?” Life was going to be very complicated if Mommy had to learn to be poor.

  “For money, of course, so he could continue playing his ridiculous wood carver’s game. I don’t know how it could be legal, but apparently it is.” Her mother’s attention went back to whomever she was talking to on the phone. “My daughter is frightened and wonders what’s going to happen to us. Yes, I’ll explain, hold on.”

  Her mother put a hand over the receiver but didn’t take the other end away from her ear. She said, “It’s all right, darling, we’re going to be all right, there are two policies, and your father only sold the smaller one.”

  “How much is the bigger one?” asked Skye.

  “One and a quarter million, he says.”

  “That’s great, Mommy, I’m so happy for you.” Skye sighed with relief and went back to the kitchen. So it was going to be all right. Good thing. Mommy had been a mess ever since Pop said he was going to die. At first she’d been upset and frightened because how were they going to live once Pop died? Then she found out there was a big insurance policy, which made things all right—until it became clear the doctors were mistaken and he wasn’t going to die. At which point she told Pop he had to give up his art and go back to making some real money. Pop just wanted a little happiness, but all Mommy could talk about was money.

  Then Pop . . .

  Her hand contracted and too much mustard came squirting out of the plastic bottle onto her sandwich and even onto the counter. She had to get a sponge to wipe off the counter, then a knife out of the drawer to scrape off the bread.

  The sight of the knife made her ill again. Someone had taken one of Pop’s knives and . . . Skye raised her face to the ceiling, but the tears spilled out anyway and coursed down her face. Mommy said everything was going to be all right now. Oh, how utterly horrible it was that Mommy was glad Pop was dead!

  John Nye, Attorney at Law, held out a well-manicured hand to Betsy, who took it briefly. He was tall, spare, and handsome in a square-jawed way, with a long nose and very light blue eyes. Standing behind a beautiful cherrywood desk, he wore a natural linen suit, a tan shirt, and a buff silk tie. Betsy was glad she’d worn her white cotton dress with the puffy sleeves and lace panels, and high-heeled sandals.

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Betsy said, and sat down in one of the two comfortable green leather wing chairs in front of the desk.

  “I take a special interest in anyone who is a friend of Godwin’s,” he said, sitting down himself. “Would you like coffee?” He reached for his phone to place an order. His heavy gold watchband twinkled in the light of his bronze-shaded desk lamp.

  “No, thank you, this won’t take long.”

  “That’s too bad, I have some time before my next appointment, and if you leave too quickly, I’ll be forced to attend to some very tedious paperwork.” He gestured at three fat file folders stacked in his In box, then sat back in his big executive chair and tented his long-fingered hands in front of him, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair. He smiled a slightly crooked smile. “Are you here with a complaint about Goddy?”

  “Oh, no! On the contrary, he is an excellent employee.”

  “You don’t find him a bit . . . flamboyant?” He gestured upward with one hand, the smile suddenly reaching his eyes.

  “No—in fact, his flamboyance, as you call it, is one of his attractions. Gay men are commonly assumed to have an excellent sense of color and design, and by flaunting his sexual orientation, many of my chance customers immediately rely on his advice in selecting patterns and materials. Long-time customers know Goddy has an authentic sense of style—and he’s also a very talented needleworker, so his advice in all areas of the craft is reliable.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Are you here because of a legal problem?”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “Well, then, how may I help you?”

  “Is it true that you arranged for Mr. Ian Masterson to buy a viatical from Robert McFey?”

  The handsome visage turned to stone. “Where did you hear that?” he asked.

  “Does it matter? I want to know—”

  “Of course it matters!” he cut in sharply. “I take it very seriously when the confidentiality of a client is breached.”

  “I’m afraid you’re the one who breached it,” Betsy said. “You told Godwin a story about an artist who bought a viatical from another artist, and later I told him of a visit I had from Ian Masterson, an artist who was friends with Robert McFey, who was apparently dying of hepatitis C. Because Mr. McFey has been murdered, Goddy felt he had to tell me what you told him.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “And what made Godwin think he could tell you rather than the police this story I told him in confidence?”

  “I am investigating the murder of Robert McFey. A young man has been arrested and charged with the crime, but his family has asked me to discover who else might have had a motive. Someone who bought a viatical might find himself anxious about his money when the terminal man proved not so terminal after all.”

  “Do you often discuss your investigations with people who aren’t involved?”

  “When I am conducting an investigation, I don’t always know who is and who is not involved. I find talking to everyone brings out information—as it did in this case.”

  “So there are others who know about this?”

  “Not so far. I am aware of the sensitive nature of this information, and am not going to casually gossip about it.”

  The frost in the blue eyes intensified at this slam. “I will remind Goddy of where his loyalty must lie. I suppose this is just the latest example of his tale bearing?”

  Betsy clung to her temper with both hands, but the words came out sharply anyhow. “It is the first—but it seems to me, Mr. Nye, that if you don’t want private information about your clients shared with anyone, then perhaps you ought to keep it to yourself.”

  John rose in one motion. His face had turned red, a decided contrast to his light-colored clothing. “You tell Godwin he is fired!”

  She stared up at him. “Fired? From Crewel World?”

  “That’s precisely what I mean! If he can’t hold his tongue about my private business, he isn’t to work in a place where he can spread the news”—John gestured widely, a gardener broadcasting seed, a paperboy delivering the Excelsior Bay News to a front porch—“to every silly female gossip who happens to stop in!”

  Betsy was on her own feet now. “How can you possibly think you have the authority to make me fire anyone?”

  “Then I’ll make him quit!”

  Betsy’s chin came up. “Certainly I would quarrel with any attempt you might make to get him to quit.”


  “You won’t win that quarrel.”

  The two stared at each other across the wide desk. Rather to Betsy’s surprise, John’s eyes dropped first, and he sat down as they did. “You don’t know,” he said more quietly. “The alternative is to break off with Godwin, and I don’t want to do that. I am . . . very fond of Goddy.”

  “He’s in love with you,” said Betsy, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice. John had shaken her more than she cared to show.

  “But I can’t let his loose tongue endanger my position with Wellborn, Hanson, and Smith.”

  “Well, then for heaven’s sake, why do you tell him things you don’t want repeated?”

  “Because he’s intensely interested in what I do here, or pretends to be.”

  “Pretends?”

  “Godwin is . . . perhaps ‘used to be’ is a better phrase. Godwin used to be a clever, charming, amusing, handsome, manipulative boy. It was fun letting him tease me into giving him things, and telling him the juicy tidbits I learn about my clients. He still uses many of his old tricks, but we both understand now that they are tricks, and it’s more of a game. He’s come a long way from his beginnings—did you know he was very poor?”

  “No, he never talks to me about his past.”

  John nodded. “Good thing, probably. You’d be shocked and disgusted if you knew.”

  “Godwin’s past is none of my business, is it? He is a talented and valuable employee, and has become a trusted friend.”

  John’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t mean that, not entirely, or you wouldn’t be here to check up on the story he told you.”

  “I’m sure he repeated what you told him. I wanted to make sure you didn’t tell him something that isn’t true.” She raised both hands. “Oh, I’m not accusing you of lying. But this is about murder, and I must check everything. With your education, you understand the importance of primary sources.”