Hanging by a Thread

by Monica Ferris

  Navarre begins a little before County Road 19 joins County Road 15. Coming up 19, a big gray board sign reads “Navarre” and under it “City of Orono.” Spring Lake is around the corner on 15, with its own smaller sign (though it’s actually a bigger town) announcing that it, too, is both Spring Lake and City of Orono, and at the other end of Spring Lake is Mound, City of Orono. Orono is a small city that has done on a small scale what many of its big sisters have done: grown until it engulfed its neighbors.

  The streets of all three towns followed the meandering lakeshore, and were a maze of curves and dead ends. Betsy was glad Jill was driving, because in the early dark she was hopelessly confused a minute after they turned off the highway. But Jill went confidently down this street, up that street, turned onto this lane, and pulled into an asphalt driveway, up to a two-bay garage.

  Peering into the dimness, Betsy saw an ordinary gray clapboard house, probably built in the 1950s as a little summer cottage. A partial second floor had been added, and a new-looking mud or utility room now connected the garage and the house. The nearest house was at least fifty yards away, and a number of mature trees obscured its shape.

  “Handyman’s special,” remarked Jill as they went up a newly-laid brick walk and up two cement steps to the little porch, whose roof was held up by two raw timber beams.

  The door frame looked new, but the window beside it had its original and inadequate shutters. The clap-boards were also original, made of wood. Jill rang the bell, which pealed in three impressive notes.

  The door was opened by a very fair girl about nine years old. “Hi, Ms. Cross,” she said. “Won’t you come in?” She saw Betsy and added hastily, “And your friend, too.”

  “Is your daddy home yet?” asked Jill as she and Betsy shed coats in the small entrance hall. A narrow stairway with white balusters rose ahead of them. To their right was an open doorway leading into a sparely furnished living room.

  “Yes, he’s in the kitchen with Mommy making hors d‘oeuvres. That’s what he calls ’em, but I think they’re just crackers and funny-tasting cheese.” She led the way into the living room, which, Betsy saw, had a brick fireplace with a raised hearth surrounding it on three sides. A small fire was burning merrily—a gas fire, Betsy noted, licking around a pair of imitation logs.

  Jill and Betsy sat on a couch facing the fireplace, and the child went to sit on the raised hearth.

  “What’s your name?” asked Betsy.

  “Kaitlyn Marie Searles.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’ll be ten on December fourteenth.”

  “How long have you lived in this house?”

  Kaitlyn had to think about that. “When we moved here, I was in second grade.”

  “So about three years.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Do you like this house?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s got lots more room than our apartment. And we have a great big yard, and we have a boat and everything.”

  “Do you know who lived here before you?”

  The child turned solemn, and nodded. She nodded toward the floor in front of the fireplace. “That’s where it happened.”

  “What happened?” asked Jill.

  Her voice fell to a very soft whisper, which she aided with elaborate mouth movements. “The murder.”

  “Who was murdered?” asked Jill in an interested voice, leaning forward to make a friendly conspiracy of the conversation.

  “A man named Paul Schmitt. He was my mommy’s cousin. This used to be his house. Someone shot him with a gun, right here in this room. Everything was washed and they even painted it before we came here, but ...” She leaned sideways and put her finger into a big chip taken from a brick in the top row of the hearth. “See that?”

  Jill and Betsy craned their necks. Jill said, “Yes, I do. Can you see it, Betsy?”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “That’s from a bullet.”

  “It is?” Jill looked very impressed.

  Betsy went for a closer look. The chip was substantial. She said, “Who told you that?”

  “No one,” said the child. “Daddy said it is not from a bullet, but Mommy said that chip wasn’t there before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Just before. I think before Paul Schmitt was ... murdered. Mommy used to come here to visit Paul Schmitt.”

  Testing, Jill asked, “Did Paul Schmitt have a wife?”

  “Yes. I think she was murdered, too, only not in this house.”

  The child was beginning to look nervous, so Betsy said, “This looks like a nice house for pets. Do you have any?”

  “Yes, we have a cat and a dog.”

  “Do you? I have a cat, too. I bet my cat’s bigger than yours. My cat Sophie weighs twenty-three pounds.” Betsy formed a shape with her hands to show the immense dimensions of Sophie.

  Kaitlyn came back stoutly. “Okay, but I bet our dog is bigger than your cat. He’s a chocolate Lab, except he’s not real chocolate, he’s just the same color as chocolate.”

  “If you have a grown-up Lab, he probably weighs as much as three Sophies.”

  That tickled Kaitlyn, and she was still laughing when her parents came into the room.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Mr. Searles.

  “Toby weighs as much as three cats!”

  “He weighs as much as six cats, you mean.”

  Betsy said, “I have a cat that weighs twenty-three pounds.”

  Mr. Searles stared at her. He was an average-size man with light brown hair surrounding a bald spot. His face was long, his eyes blue and kind. He wore relaxed-fit jeans and a green sweater. “In that case, it only takes a cat and a half that size to make one Toby.”

  The notion of half a cat tickled Kaitlyn even more. Her father put a tray of crackers with dollops of a melted cheese mixture on the coffee table. “Kaitlyn, go help your mother bring in the drinks.”

  “You’re being too kind,” said Betsy. “We weren’t expecting to be treated like company.”

  He raised an eyebrow at them, meaning they should wait until Kaitlyn left the room before continuing.

  Once the child was gone, he said, “She doesn’t know.”

  Betsy said, surprised, “Doesn’t know what?”

  “That my wife’s cousin was murdered in this house.”

  Betsy looked to Jill for guidance. Jill said, “Kaitlyn was showing us the chip taken out of the hearth of your fireplace the night Paul Schmitt was murdered in this room.”

  “Oh, jeez,” he said, and dropped into an easy chair at right angles to the couch. “How much does she know?”

  Betsy said, “She knows that Paul was shot to death in this room, and that his wife was murdered elsewhere. She didn’t seem troubled by the murder of Paul, but instead rather thrilled by it. She does seem a bit bothered by Angela’s murder.”

  Jill said, “That may be because she doesn’t know as much about it. She may think there is something especially awful about her death, or something somehow threatening to you or Mrs. Searles.”

  Betsy asked, “Where are your other children?”

  “Alan’s at a Cub Scout meeting. Jessica is staying overnight at a neighbor’s. They don’t know ...” He grimaced. “I thought they didn’t know anything about this. But if Kaitlyn knows—she’s the second oldest, and a blabbermouth—then I suspect they all know.”

  “How did you come to move into this house?” asked Betsy.

  “My wife’s mother and Paul’s mother were sisters, their parents’ only children. Paul’s parents are divorced, and his mother is remarried and living in Ohio. We’d been trying to save for a house, but with three children, it was slow going. This house was notorious and they were having trouble finding a buyer. We put in a very low bid, they offered a contract for deed, and so far, so good.”

  “It looks as if you’re making improvements, too,” noted Jill.

  “Some.” Searles nodded and looked around the room. “Some were done by Pa
ul. He tore down half a wall to put a built-in china closet in the dining room, remodeled the kitchen at least once, enlarged the garage, and installed the gas log. That last one I really appreciate. We all love a fire, but I hate chopping wood.”

  “About that chip on the hearth,” began Betsy.

  “Yes, I keep saying I’m going to replace it, but it’s pretty low on the list right now. It’s not a functional defect. We don’t know what it’s from.”

  “Kaitlyn said your wife said it wasn’t there, quote, before, close quote.”

  “It wasn’t there when she visited the house, or at least she doesn’t remember it,” said Searles. “But she hadn’t visited here for months before it happened. There wasn’t any, er, that is, the place was all cleaned up when we moved in. No bloodstains, no broken furniture, nothing to show what happened here.”

  “No ghosts?” asked Betsy.

  He gave her a funny look, but shook his head. “No one’s reported anything.”

  “Here we are!” caroled a woman’s voice, and Kaitlyn came skipping sideways ahead of her mother through a swinging door. Mrs. Searles carried a tray on which were four mugs and a steaming pitcher. The air warmed with the scent of apples, cinnamon, and cloves.

  The mugs were filled and handed around. “What were you talking about before we came in?” asked Mrs. Searles.

  “Little pitchers,” said Searles.

  “Little pictures of what?”

  “The kind that have big ears,” said Searles.

  “Oh. Kaitlyn, Mommy and Daddy want to have some grown-up talk with these two ladies. Do you think you could give Toby a walk in the yard for a little while?”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  Searles made sure he heard the back door close before he explained to his wife that Kaitlyn, and probably the rest of the children, knew about Paul Schmitt’s murder. “She told Jill and her friend that the chip taken out of the hearth was probably done by a stray bullet.”

  Jill had risen while Searles was talking and gone to look into the fireplace. Now she stooped for a closer look at the chip.

  Mrs. Searles said, “I never said anything like that to her, of course. Anyway, I thought it was done during the fight, Paul’s head striking it, maybe.”

  Jill said, “If a man’s head hit this brick hard enough to break it, there would have been no need to shoot him. I’m no expert, but this doesn’t look like it was done by a bullet. There’s no trace of lead, for example. And no other mark of a ricochet—were these doors new when you moved in?” Jill indicated the brass-framed glass doors of the fireplace.

  “No,” said Mrs. Searles. “I remember them from way back.”

  “Then I’d say this is from a hammer or other tool, maybe done when the gas fire was being installed.”

  “Really?” said Mrs. Searles. “Well, then, Bob, you’re off the hook.” She explained to Jill, “I’ve been nagging him to replace that brick, it bothered me to look at it.”

  Betsy said, “Do you remember visiting Paul’s workshop on a visit out here?”

  The woman nodded and took a sip from her mug. “Mmmmm, this came out really good! But I couldn’t tell you much about his shop, I really don’t know much about tools.”

  “What I was wondering was, did you notice that he kept old nails and screws? A lot of carpenter types do.”

  She frowned and took another drink while she thought. “Oh, you mean in jars? He did this clever thing where he nailed the lids to the underside of a shelf and screwed the jars onto the lids. That way he could have glass jars he could see into but without the danger of knocking one over and getting broken glass all over the floor. He had nuts and bolts and nails and screws all separated in them. He was a very neat person, and clever, too.”

  Betsy asked, “Were the nails and screws bright and new or old and rusty?

  “Both. Some were new, some were rusty.”

  Betsy smiled and took a deep draught of her cider. “Ummm, this is good!” she said.

  Mrs. Searles said, “I just remembered, that chip couldn’t have happened when the gas log was put in. The last time I was here, it had just been installed, and there wasn’t that chip out of the brick. Angela really liked that gas log, she said something about not having to sweep the bricks anymore since they didn’t have shaggy logs on the hearth, and I distinctly remember noticing how clean and smooth the hearth was. She was such a good housekeeper!”

  On the way home, Betsy asked, “Did you mean it about that brick being chipped by a hammer, not Paul’s head or a bullet?”

  Jill nodded. “Yes. Or a piece of flying furniture. You know, I looked around, but didn’t see any other evidence of a violent man. Maybe they patched the walls and replaced the windows.”

  “Was he the sort who broke things?”

  “Mike Malloy said he was. They thought at first the murderer had broken down the back door to get in the house, then realized the door had been broken well before the murder. Very typical. Paul being a handyman kept rumors from being spread by a steady stream of repairmen.”

  “It’s a good thing the Searles aren’t the kind inclined to see ghosts. I think that place would give a sensitive person nightmares.”

  Jill smiled. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Sure. Don’t you?”

  15

  Around nine the next morning Betsy was pouring a second cup of English Breakfast tea when her phone rang.

  It was Foster Johns. “Have you found out anything?” he asked, hope painful in his voice.

  “A few things,” she replied. “For one, Paul’s alibi for Angela’s murder is no good anymore.”

  She explained and he fairly exploded with pleasure. “There! There it is! I was hoping against hope, and by God you’ve done it! I knew that bastard killed Angela, and now you’ve proved it!”

  “I haven’t proven anything, yet. All I’ve done is poke a hole in Paul Schmitt’s alibi.”

  “Have you talked to the police about this?”

  “Not yet. Sergeant Malloy isn’t fond of amateur sleuths, though he hasn’t ordered me not to investigate. He’s even hoping I’ll prove you did it.”

  “Let him hope,” growled Foster. “What next?”

  “I want to ask you something. Do you know Alex Miller? You went to school with him.”

  “Well, I remember him. Haven’t seen him in a long time. Years. He has a brother who last I heard works with his father in his auto shop; his name’s Jory.”

  “Yes, that’s right, I talked with Jory and his father, and I’ve talked with Alex. Did you know both brothers?”

  “You bet. They’re a year apart, Alex and Jory, but they hung out together so much, people thought they were twins. They each bought a beater car in high school, and they were always swapping parts, trying to keep them running. After a while, I don’t think they knew which car was whose, there were so many parts from each car on the other.” Foster was chuckling at the memory.

  “Do you remember that Paul Schmitt was also friends with Alex and Jory?”

  That put an end to the laughter. Betsy could hear Foster drawing a long, be-patient breath. “Yes, I do remember that. Actually, we were all friends back then, Paul, Alex, Jory, and me. And three other guys, Max, Mark and Mike, the 3M Company, they hung out with us sometimes, too. We played softball, went to Twins games, pulled practical jokes on each other, talked about cars and girls.”

  “Did Paul strike you back then as the jealous kind?”

  “No, not particularly. But we didn’t pair off like the kids do today, getting serious in sixth grade. Dating was casual for most of us; in fact, I don’t remember that Paul had a real girlfriend at all, until he met Angela. And that was in college.”

  “Do you remember Paul getting angry with any of you?”

  “Well, yes. Not viciously angry, not enough to quit hanging out with us altogether. He’d be sore for a day, then pull some kind of prank, you know, a practical joke, and we’d all laugh at the poor sucker he’d done it to, and we’d
be friends again. Well, except one time he really set up the 3M boys. I don’t remember all the details, it was kind of complicated, but Mike ended up on suspension and Max actually transferred to another school. Mike blamed Max, but Paul told us later he rigged the whole thing—whatever it was. I thought at the time Paul started something that turned into more than he meant it to. I do know he ran quiet the rest of the semester.”

  When Betsy went down to open up, there was yet again a figure standing in the doorway, this time a Minnesota-style Valkyrie, a tall, sturdy guardian of lives and property. But this one wore her armor under her shirt and carried her weapon in a holster. In other words, Jill.

  Betsy hurried to unlock the door. “Did you talk to Malloy? What did you find out?” she asked.

  “Mike says he checked the gate in the bookstore basement. He says it was fastened shut and so he didn’t feel a need to check the other gate. He recalls being told by the owner of the building that the gates were nailed shut in 1973. Note once again the use of the word ‘nailed.’ But he says it’s possible that Paul’s alibi can be considered broken.”

  Betsy said, “That’s good, that’s great! Anything else?”

  “Not much. I read the report on Paul Schmitt’s murder.”

  “What time did it happen?”

  “The 911 call came in at nine twenty-seven.”

  “Okay, Alex works second shift now, but maybe he was working graveyard or first shift back then. Can you find out?”

  “If I call up there, they’ll want to know who I am. When I say Officer Jill Cross, they’ll want to know why I’m asking, and what can I say? I’m not an investigator, I’m not doing it because a supervisor asked me to.”

  “Jill—”

  “No. You want to know, you ask.” Jill wasn’t speaking sharply, she didn’t even look annoyed. But her cool, Gibson-girl face gave Betsy no hope at all.

  “Turn the radio on for me, will you?” Betsy asked, and went to the checkout desk to haul a phone book out of a bottom drawer. She found the number of the Ford plant and dialed it. She said to the person who answered using her most brisk and impersonal tone, “Personnel, please.” When a man from personnel got on the wire, Betsy said in the same voice, “I need a confirmation of employment for one Alexander Miller, please.” This was the term credit card people used when they asked Betsy about her employees.