Hanging by a Thread

by Monica Ferris

  Betsy hung up, then realized the quarrel out in front had stopped. She went out for a look and found Godwin alone in the shop. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I sold them that round needlepoint canvas with the ocean theme. The grandmother is going to stitch the ocean in a solid blue and the fish in very pale shades of gray and white, so she gets her Israeli flag colors and the daughter gets sharks, dolphins, and a beluga on her yarmulke.”

  Betsy heartily approved of this clever solution. “I wish you’d been here instead of me when they came in,” she said and immediately changed her mind. “No, it was fun to hear the accents again. Do they have a Jewish neighborhood in the cities?”

  “There’s a suburb called St. Louis Park that has so many, they call it St. Jewish Park.”

  Betsy was startled. “I didn’t think there was anti-Semitism in Minnesota!”

  “Why not? We’re just like everyone else. There’s even a small KKK chapter. Every time they parade, the onlookers argue over whether the Klansmen are stupider than they are ugly or uglier than they are stupid. But St. Jewish Park isn’t a slur, the nickname was given by the Jews who live there.”

  “Oh,” said Betsy, and went to call Vern Miller’s wife.

  Jin Miller spoke unaccented English, but in a soft and gentle voice without the flat tones common in middle America. “Why do you want to talk to Alex?” she asked.

  “I’m hoping he can tell me something about Paul Schmitt.”

  There was a little silence. “He will not say anything good about that man,” Jin said.

  “That’s all right, I’m not looking for only good things.”

  “You are the woman who investigates murders, am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are looking for the name of the person who murdered Paul and Angela?” Jin asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I can tell you that. It was Foster Johns. He was in love with Angela, and when she told him she would stay with her husband, he killed both of them. The police didn’t have enough proof to arrest Mr. Johns.”

  “Perhaps I can find the proof, one way or the other.”

  “Oh, I see.” A little pause. “All right, if you think Alex can help, I will give you his number.”

  At a little before five, Betsy left Godwin in charge and hurried the few blocks up to Foster Johns’s little office building. His receptionist said Foster had already left on a consultation, but that Betsy was welcome to wait; she wanted to speak to their cleaning lady, right?

  “Thank you,” said Betsy, and sat down in the little reception area to look at a copy of Architectural Digest. She was studying an ad featuring a sumptuous easy chair, when the door opened and a short, stout woman with a snub nose and blond hair well mixed with gray came in. She wore a puffy winter jacket of sky blue with big yellow patches, and heavy mittens, which she pulled off after closing the door. She greeted the receptionist in a quiet, dour voice, then saw her nod toward Betsy and turned to look.

  “How do you do,” said Betsy. “Are you Mrs. Nelson?”

  “Yah, that’s me. What can I do for you? I warn you right now, I’m not taking on any new customers.”

  “No, this isn’t about that, I just have some questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

  Mrs. Nelson looked at the receptionist, who said, “Mr. Johns said she’d be by. It’s all right. Why don’t you use his office?”

  “Yah, okay,” said Mrs. Nelson. “It’s back this way.”

  She went around the big desk that stood in front of a paneled oak door, Betsy following. It opened into a room with tilted tables and big windows and, when Mrs. Nelson threw the switch, merciless fluorescent lighting. To the right was another paneled door, and this led into a very comfortable office with a modern leather couch, an antique desk, and a big, plain table. One wall was made of corkboard. A single blueprint was tacked to it; otherwise the table and desk were empty. There were framed architectural drawings on the other walls.

  Mrs. Nelson went to the couch but didn’t sit down. “What did you want to ask me?”

  “Do you remember the night Paul Schmitt was killed?”

  “Do I? Ha! You bet I do! The police come and get me out of bed in the middle of the night—no, past the middle of the night, it was like three A.M.! Want to know if I cleaned Mr. Johns’s office. Of course I cleaned it. I give it a once-over every night and a heavy cleaning once a week, more often if it needs it. They said did I clean it that night and I say sure, and they ask me what did it look like when I got there. They couldn’t wait till a decent hour of the morning? I asked them.”

  “You understand how important it was to get the answer to their questions, don’t you?” asked Betsy.

  “Yah, sure I did, but only later. What they wanted was to know if Mr. Johns murdered Mr. Schmitt. They didn’t tell me that then, so I was cross with them, like anyone would be, waked out of a sound sleep.”

  “So what did you tell them?”

  “That the big workroom was kinda messy, but the office was neat, only the wastebaskets was full. So they took me back to look, and what a mess! Paper and blueprints and drawings and all, everywhere.”

  Betsy asked, “Had you ever seen it like that before?”

  “Yah, sure. Whenever he’s workin’ on something, he hasta get everything out and he sticks some of it up on the wall with thumbtacks and lays other stuff on the table and his desk, sometimes on the couch even.”

  As if reminded, she unzipped her jacket and sat down. “And he leaves it out, spreads it around, rearranges it, whatever, until he knows how the project’s gonna go, then he cleans it up.”

  “He never asks you to put it away?”

  “Oh, no, no, I know better than to touch any of that there stuff. I dust and I vacuum and I empty wastebaskets and I scrub the toilet and every once in a while I do the windows.”

  “What’s he like to work for?”

  “Well, I used to hardly ever see him, y‘know. That was good, because when he would stay after special, it was so he could complain about something. He was a real shouter, and he went through receptionists like they was Kleenex. I’m surprised I stuck with him, and maybe I wouldn’t’ve, but the place is easy to clean, no grease or mud. Then after this murder thing he calmed down a lot. He used to give me a Christmas bonus, but now I get another one, on my birthday.”

  “Mrs. Nelson, do you think he murdered those people?”

  She looked at Betsy, surprised. “Yah, I do. Everyone knows he did it. I think it made him sad and that’s why he’s nicer than he was. It was almost good for him, in an awful way. He’s suffered and he’s still suffering, worse maybe than bein’ put in jail. I hope they never prove he did it.” She looked at her hands, small but red and thickened. “Surprised me, it did, coming into that office and seein’ all that paper out, because when I left it, there wasn’t so much as one sheet of paper showing.”

  “But you don’t think that proves he was here at work rather than over in Navarre shooting Mr. Schmitt?”

  “No, I don’t. It’d take maybe ten minutes to pull out papers and drape ’em all over everything, wouldn’t it? Didn’t prove a thing to me.”

  Betsy thanked her and went back to the shop to find Godwin selling her tenant’s twin, Doris Valentine, a set of Christmas tree ornament patterns and floss.

  “Hi, Betsy,” she said in her husky voice. “Godwin says, can I make an ornament to put on the tree.” She beamed at Godwin. “Such a nice young man!”

  Godwin said, “I wouldn’t usually ask someone so new to cross-stitch to commit to doing that, but Doris is an unusually hard worker, and she’s doing really well.”

  Doris simpered a bit. “Well, I have such a good teacher. He was just showing me how to grid.” She held up a scrap of evenweave fabric basted in rows five threads apart.

  Betsy smiled at both of them. “I remember how great it was when someone showed me about gridding. All of a sudden counted cross-stitch became actually possible for me. I’m gl
ad Godwin has taken the time to show you; he’s a good teacher. This isn’t a difficult craft to master, but it helps to have someone show you the steps to take.”

  11

  Alex Miller worked second shift over at Ford Motor Company, where he was a line supervisor. He was suspicious and reluctant, but at last said that if Betsy wanted to talk to him, he’d meet her at the gate to the plant at 11:00 P.M. tonight, when he was on break.

  Betsy called Morrie and he agreed to drive her over after she closed, and watch from the car while she talked to Alex.

  She spent the next several hours, between customers, going over her stock, straightening, sorting, removing anything worn or frazzled, putting things back where they belonged. Keeping up with tasks like this made inventory less of a chore.

  When she first inherited Crewel World, she’d often found a pattern or painted canvas tucked out of sight under or behind other items—a flower canvas pushed in among the Christmas ones, for example. At first she attributed it to absentmindedness, or the stress of trying to learn how to run a small business with a large and varied inventory. But now, settled in and comfortable with the work, it was still happening. A Laura Doyle Sea Images cross-stitch kit was hanging near the back of the Marc Saastad flower kits. “Look at this, Goddy,” she said, exasperated. “Am I getting senile? Already?”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Godwin, and came for a look. “No, it’s not you,” he said, amused. “When customers want something and don’t have the money at hand, or when a sale is coming up, they’ll hide what they want so they’re sure it will still be there when the sale starts. I’ve done that at Macy’s, put a sweater I want in among the extra-extra large sizes, so it will be there when I come back with my credit card.”

  Betsy began to laugh, her relief so great that she forgot to be annoyed at her sneaky customers.

  But between trying to restore order and serve customers, who were turning out in great numbers now that office hours were over, there was little time to worry, or even sit down. Betsy was beyond tired when she finally turned the needlepoint sign around to “Closed.” She made three mistakes on the deposit slip and had to do it over twice before it was right. She sent Godwin yawning off with the money and slip, turned the lights off, punched the code for the alarm system, and went out the front door, yanking it shut and pushing it hard to make sure it locked.

  Morrie was already waiting outside, engine running. She clambered into his Jeep Wagoneer for the forty-minute ride, and fell asleep before they were halfway to Minneapolis.

  Morrie began to shake her gently as they crossed the short bridge into St. Paul at Minnehaha Falls Park. “Hello? Hey, sugar, wake up!”

  “What?” said Betsy sleepily. She looked out the window as he pulled to the curb beside a very large, single-story brick building across a wide sidewalk. A familiar logo said “Ford.” “Oh, are we there already?” She thrust her fingers into her hair and pulled hard to wake herself up. “Why’d you let me fall asleep? Now I’m all groggy!”

  “What do you mean, ‘let’ you fall asleep? I talked to you, I played the radio, I whistled—loud and badly—to the music, and you fell asleep anyway. Maybe we should call this off for now and try again later.”

  “No, no, it was hard enough to get him to meet me the first time. What time is it?”

  “Ten fifty-eight.”

  “No time to go scrounge up a Coke then. Well, here’s luck.” Betsy climbed wearily out of the Wagoneer. The rain had stopped, but the temperature had dropped, and the icy wind whipped her coat around her legs and tousled her hair as she walked up to the high chain-link fence that surrounded the plant. A stocky man in a dark leather jacket and wool cap was just coming to a halt by the truck-size gate.

  As Betsy got closer, she could see that he looked very like his brother. “Alex Miller?” she said, closing the distance, and he nodded. “I’m glad you agreed to see me.”

  “What’s this all about?” he demanded gruffly.

  “Paul Schmitt,” she said.

  “That son of a bitch? I suppose you’re another one of those who wants to canonize him!” He turned to walk away.

  “I think you may be right to hate him!” she called, and he turned around, one eyebrow lifted in surprise. “I’m here to find out the truth!” she declared.

  “If I told you the truth about him, your ears would burn for a month!” he declared.

  “I used to be in the Navy, where I dated a bosun’s mate. I doubt if you could surprise me.”

  He came back to grab hold of the fence with all his fingers and describe in ugly, graphic terms what he thought of Paul Schmitt’s mind, heart, and organs of generation, the various perversions he practiced on victims of many species, and the likely entertainment his soul was giving the devil at present.

  “Mr. Miller,” Betsy interrupted firmly when he paused to regroup his imagination, “this is all very interesting, but you gave me only ten minutes, and I have some questions to ask.”

  He snorted, then relaxed and put his hands back in his pockets. “All right, ask away.”

  “Do you consider Paul Schmitt somehow responsible for the breach between you and your brother Jory and your father?”

  Alex’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead, then came down again. “Well, how did you figure ... ? Yes, I do. He played all three of us, one against the other, until now neither Dad nor Jory will speak to me.”

  “Why would he do something like that?”

  “For the fun of it, I guess.”

  “Why would he think it was fun to do that?”

  “Because he was a low-down, filthy, sneaky, grinning snake, who—”

  “Seriously,” said Betsy, cutting him off before he could get all wound up again.

  Alex rubbed his jaw, then his face, then the back of his neck. “My wife got onto me the same way you are,” he said. “Saying there had to be a reason. And what we finally came up with is, because he saw me kiss his wife on the cheek. Before God, that’s all I can figure.”

  “When did you kiss his wife on the cheek?”

  “About the time her mother died. I went to the funeral and when we were shaking hands after, I leaned over and kissed her. She was looking sad, and just shaking her hand didn’t seem like enough. But she kind of jumped back like I did something wrong, and looked around kind of nervous, and there was ol’ Paul, looking at me like a lightbulb had gone on over his head.”

  “Did you know he was a very jealous husband?” asked Betsy.

  “Oh, yeah, he was always suspecting her of playing him for a fool. But we were friends, Paul and me, or I thought we were, and he didn’t say anything to me about it, so I thought she explained it to him, and he was all right with it. But right about then I started having trouble with Dad and Jory. I never connected Paul to that, they never mentioned him, so it never occurred to me. And then Danielle, that’s my wife, started acting suspicious toward me, accusing me of playing around. It was getting to the point we were talking divorce when Paul was shot dead—and damned if things didn’t start coming around right again with Danielle. I was just grateful that things were straightening out, again I never thought about Paul. But Danielle noticed it, too, and she sat me down and made me talk about it. I told her I didn’t know why things were better, I wasn’t doing anything different. But she said that wasn’t so, that before I’d been acting like the biggest jerk in the world, and now I wasn’t. And I repeated I wasn’t doing anything different now than I was before. And after she quit shouting at me about how I’d been fooling around on her—which I wasn’t, and where did she get that idea, and why was she trying to have a baby behind my back, and we fought over that for a while, and then she said stop shouting and listen to me. And we figured it out. I didn’t even know she’d been talking to Paul, and all along it was Paul’s doing. At first I couldn’t believe it, and then I did, and it was like the sun coming up. And after a couple of days I started thinking of the fights with my brother and Dad. I wanted to ask them about it,
but they wouldn’t talk to me, so Danielle went to Mom, and the two of them figured it was the same thing between me and Jory and Dad, pretty much. Only it’s too late to do anything about that, I guess.”

  He heaved a big sigh, lifted his arms in an exaggerated shrug, then pointed a thick forefinger at Betsy. “You can’t imagine how grateful I am to Foster Johns for shooting that bastard. It was too late for Jory and Dad, but at least he saved my marriage for me.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Betsy, wondering if she was so tired she was missing something obvious. “How did Paul Schmitt work it so you quarreled with people?”

  “Well, suppose someone your husband thinks of as a good friend tells your husband he better start using a condom because you want another baby and you’ve quit taking your little daily pill? And then this ‘friend’ comes to you acting all concerned and says he thinks you ought to know that he and your husband went to this whorehouse together and your husband now has a social disease. So you think your husband’s using a condom because he’s got the clap, and your husband thinks he better use one if he doesn’t want another mouth to feed, which he can’t afford. And this ‘friend’ tells your husband to tell you that he’s using condoms because he heard that the brand of birth control pills you’re using isn’t always effective, and then he tells you that he heard your husband say the lie he’s gonna tell you is that he’s using condoms because he heard there’s a bad batch of birth control pills out there.”

  Betsy, trying to keep track of who she was supposed to be and fuddled by all the pronouns, said, “You mean this was happening to you? I’m not sure I understand what Paul was up to with all this running back and forth.”

  “He was causing serious trouble between Danielle and me. I mean, pretty soon I was ruining my back trying to sleep on the couch and Danielle was dropping ninety-pound hints about rent-a-slut, which I didn’t understand. And the kids were looking like refugees from a war zone, which it just about was at our house. I will never, ever forget the day my wife made me sit down for a talk and there it came to us, we figured the whole thing out. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t her, it was Paul, him carrying lies back and forth to the both of us. That was the biggest relief I ever felt, it was like I’d been drowning and got saved at the last minute. I actually thought I was going crazy there for a while, my whole life was coming apart and I couldn’t figure out why. And all the while it’s this bastard who’s pretending to be my friend—and all I can figure for a reason is because he saw me kiss his wife!”