Dead Men Don't Crochet

by Betty Hechtman

  I did a row on my shawl, then I brought out the plastic bag with the hanky and showed it to Sheila. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

  She picked up the plastic bag and examined the contents. “It looks like a handkerchief,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes and explained I knew it was a handkerchief. “I was hoping you could give me some information about it, like when it was made.”

  She paused and took a few long breaths. “I’m trying something new for my anxiety. When I get tense I count to five as I inhale and then do the same when I let the air out. It’s supposed to do something to fool your vagus nerve.

  “As long as I never hear from Detective Gilmore again, I’ll be fine,” she said with a sigh. She turned the plastic bag over a few times and looked closely at the filigree-like edging around the fine cotton center. “It might be Victorian,” she said. “No, change that to First World War.” She turned it over again. “I’m really not sure. The class I’m taking now is geared toward designing wardrobes for robots and space creatures.” I saw her do her breathing move, and when she let all the air out she asked where I’d gotten it.

  “She found it at the Cottage Shoppe, dear,” CeeCee blurted out. “Molly, didn’t you say you thought it was connected with the murder?” She gestured toward the red spots. “That’s not blood. It’s tomato soup.”

  Sheila’s breath turned shallow, and she dropped the bag as though it were a scorching poker.

  I put my head down in dismay. So much for keeping its origin a secret. When I looked up, the whole table was staring at me again.

  I went through the story, saying I’d picked it up by mistake. I told them the whole no-show sock thing but left out that I’d been under Kevin’s desk at the time. Where was Dinah when I needed her? She could corroborate my story. Her ex ought to be at her house cleaning up after his own kids. This situation was worse than if she’d met a new guy and was caught up in that infatuation fog that made you forget all your other friends.

  “Pink, you’re losing it. Isn’t that called shoplifting?” Adele said. She had moved her chair so close to Eduardo’s they knocked into each other.

  “It’s not shoplifting if the thing you pick up is crumbled up and has soup on it, and most of all, isn’t for sale,” I said, giving Adele the evil eye. I reached to get it back, but Eduardo asked if he could look at it.

  He turned the bag over, examining it from all angles. “This looks like Irish crochet.” When he saw my quizzical expression, he explained he was a McGurk on his mother’s side, and he went on to tell us a bit about his family. Eduardo had a deep, melodious voice and a charismatic smile. He could have been telling us the history of dirt and we all would have happily listened. Luckily, the story he told was much more interesting.

  “My Gran Maeve wanted to pass on the knowledge of Irish crochet, but we were a family of boys.” His blue eyes sparkled with good humor. “I was the last to come along, and she realized there weren’t going to be any girls to teach, so I got the gift.”

  Eduardo pointed to the wide scallopy edging of the handkerchief. “This isn’t what most people think of when you mention Irish crochet. Most of it is made of motifs like flowers and leaves, sometimes around cord to give it more of a three-dimensional appearance. My gran taught me how to baste the motifs to some fabric like muslin and then join them with Clones knots or picot filling stitches.” He looked down at his hands and chuckled. “I’m afraid that even with all her lessons I was never that good.”

  His Gran Maeve had told him about the history of it as she tried to teach him how to do the fine work. “The craft was created during the great potato famine and saved many families. It was based on Venetian lace that had been available only to the very rich people. My ancestors created a new craft and made money to feed their families. And for the first time the not-so-rich were able to have lace. But the work was so beautiful that royalty and the very wealthy wanted some of it, too. Queen Victoria owned some, and Queen Mary’s coronation dress was rumored to have been made of it.”

  I asked him if he had any idea of the value.

  “I saw something like it in a shop for six hundred dollars.”

  “For a hanky?” I exclaimed and he nodded.

  CeeCee shook her head, and her feathered bangs flipped up and down in the resulting breeze. She reached up to push them out of her eyes but then reconsidered and let them be. “That was all very interesting, but nobody’s hook is moving. We made a commitment, remember?”

  I took back the hanky and we all got to work. Adele looked at my shawl and let out a “tsk-tsk.” “Pink, you really need to work on your speed.”

  I just rolled my eyes.

  THE MORE I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE HANDKERCHIEF, the more I believed it was the key to everything. But I still didn’t know how it had landed in Kevin’s office. When I took a break in the afternoon, I headed down the street to the Cottage Shoppe to see if I could find out.

  The inside of the store was more in flux than the last time I’d seen it. The for-sale items had even less space.

  Dorothy finished a phone call and walked over to me.

  “Things look different around here,” I said, gesturing toward the entranceway and the dining room.

  “You don’t have to tell me.” She shook her head with dismay. “Mr. Kevin has gone nuts with the restaurant idea. Want some soup? Even with all this upheaval, he’s making it every day.” She shrugged and put up her hands. “People say it’s good.”

  “I guess the important question is, is it selling?”

  “Surprisingly yes, though it’s almost all a to-go business. Who’d want to eat in there now?”

  I nodded in agreement. Tables had been set up next to the heavy plastic sheet hanging where a wall used to be.

  “I know you looked at this before,” she said, pointing to the basket of yarn supplies. She took out the yarn swift and opened it. She set it on the floor, picked up one of the hanks of yarn and then showed me how the swift worked. She was quite the saleswoman, though she almost got her arm caught in it. “It works better when it’s attached to a table or something,” she said, indicating the clamp on the bottom. “We’re offering a deal on the swift and the yarn,” she added in her best sales voice. “It’s likely to go fast.”

  I wasn’t there to go shopping, but I was tempted. I thought of all the yarn I had already, but the swift was intriguing. Finally, she offered to put them on hold for me. It was an offer I couldn’t resist, and she said she’d stick them in the storage container with a note on it.

  I asked her where Trina was.

  “She quit. She said she couldn’t get past the trauma of finding Drew,” Dorothy said. “It’s been better for me, more hours, and Mr. Kevin has been taking up the slack.”

  I picked up some tea towels with a layer of crocheted trim on the bottom. Now that I had the name of what I was looking for, I thought it might make a difference.

  “You mentioned having some heirlooms a while back. I wondered if any of them were Irish crochet,” I said.

  She thought for a moment and her face brightened. “Yes, that’s what the stuff was called.” She thought some more. “I don’t know if you ever saw the display room upstairs. It’s where Mr. Kevin’s office is now. It was such a pretty room. Mrs. Brooks used to keep all the really nice stuff up there. The walls were a soft ecru color and made a nice backdrop for the mahogany furniture. She used an old chest of drawers to display antique linens. She always kept candelabra bulbs in the wall sconces so the light was soft. There was an old washstand with a pitcher and washbowl, too.” Dorothy was getting all misty-eyed. “It was so different when she was here. So much nicer. She loved the business and this store. Mr. Drew just cared about making more profit, and Mr. Kevin is dead set on making this some kind of soup emporium.”

  She was getting off the subject, so I asked her again about the heirloom items.

  “They were in an old-fashioned suitcase. You know, no wheels or handles. I think it was leather and
had decals from different places stuck to it. Mrs. Brooks used the suitcase to display them in the room upstairs. There were some pieces I think she called Irish crochet. I think she even tried to show them to me. I just remember some lacy stuff she was oohing and aahing about. To me it all looked like doilies, which I don’t care for. There were other things, too. Some candle-sticks, I think, and a silver tea set.”

  “But was there a handkerchief? Something with lots of trim?”

  She gave me an odd look, then apparently remembered I’d said I was looking for a hanky for a gift.

  “I’m sorry, but all those things sold. Too bad we don’t still have the brochure the seller provided. It probably listed all the items. I think it had the whole story about where the things came from and some photographs.”

  I asked for more details, but she shrugged. “I can barely remember Gina and Captain Blackhart and I read that last week, so I certainly can’t remember the details of something I looked at maybe once, eight months ago.”

  I asked her if she knew who the seller was.

  She seemed to be tiring of my questions and said in a dismissive manner, “Mrs. Brooks dealt with the person directly and never disclosed who it was.”

  Dorothy seemed relieved when someone came in wanting soup and left me to help them. I headed back to the bookstore, disappointed that I hadn’t gotten more information.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon going over a checklist for the Milton Mindell event and putting up the signs announcing it. It was a pleasure not to have any input from Adele—she had the afternoon off.

  When I’d finished at the bookstore, I went to the grocery store. I’d received a frantic call from Dinah. She was stuck in the house with the kids and she was losing her mind. This from a person who could whip freshmen into shape in a semester. I would have cooked something and brought it over, but there wasn’t time. Dinah sounded on the edge.

  I picked up garlic-roasted potatoes, rotisserie chicken, and salad for Dinah and me, and rice, soda, crackers and that liquid stuff for kids so they wouldn’t get dehyrdrated. Then I picked up some kids’ movies and a couple of toys, scented candles and both salts at the drugstore and headed to Dinah’s. She greeted me with a hug as if she were a shipwrecked sailor and I had just showed up with a lifeboat.

  The throwing up had ended, and the kids were feeling better. “Just enough to be really annoying,” Dinah said. I could hear them in the other room playing the same Tommy and His Tootle Boys DVD over and over. It amazed me how kids who could barely blow their own noses had no problem operating video equipment.

  I gave Dinah the scented candle and the bath salts I had gotten at the drugstore and told her she needed a nice bath. I would take care of things in the meantime. She still had the rescued-sailor look as she headed off to her bathroom.

  I replaced the Tommy video with a new one. Personally, I was against electronic babysitters except in an emergency, but this clearly was one. I finished the cleanup, threw in a load of laundry and sprayed the house with odor remover. It got rid of the acidy, old-cheese smell from the kids being sick and replaced it with a fragrance that was like elevator music: pleasant, but you couldn’t place what it was.

  Dinah came out of the bath looking refreshed and relaxed. I’d set the table, and we all sat down. Dinah ate with gusto, but E. Conner and Ashley-Angela refused to eat the rice or saltines. Finally, I gave them regular food and hoped for the best.

  “What would I do without you?” Dinah said as we went into the living room after we’d eaten. The kids took the toys I’d gotten them and went to rewatch the video I’d brought. Knowing they probably would watch it multiple times, I’d picked one about wildlife with a soothing-voiced narrator.

  Dinah wanted to know what she’d missed at the crochet group. She was stunned when I told her what Eduardo had said about the hanky.

  “Six hundred dollars?” she repeated.

  “Who’d have thought a handkerchief could be worth so much?” I also told her about my trip to the Cottage Shoppe.

  “So what do you think it all means?” The zest had returned to Dinah’s manner.

  “We still don’t know where the handkerchief fits in, and we still have a whole list of suspects. After Arnold Bullard punched Eduardo, he moved up on my list—maybe right to the top. He was there around the time Drew got killed, angry about something, and he certainly has an impulse control problem. Then there is Kevin. Drew tells him no way on the soup shop, and as soon as he’s dead, Kevin goes ahead with his plan. And I have to tell you Trina’s quitting, saying she couldn’t get over the trauma, seemed a little too convenient. She is the one who was standing over him when we all rushed in. She might have thought if she was out of sight nobody would count her as a suspect. That might work with Detective Heather, but not with me. I’m keeping her on my radar.”

  I leaned back in the dining room chair. Outside it was getting dark and the temperature was going down. I pulled on the sweater I’d had tied around my waist. “But I keep going back to Arnold Bullard. We know he was angry at Drew Brooks about something. And we know he acts on his anger.”

  “But we don’t know why he was so mad at Drew.”

  I felt disheartened. “That’s exactly what Barry said when I suggested Arnold Bullard looked guilty.”

  “Barry?” Dinah repeated. She knew how I kept taking a step back and then he would try to take two steps closer. There was so much to tell as she’d been out of the loop.

  When I left, the kids were asleep and Dinah was sitting with her feet up, grading papers.

  The lights were on at my house when I got home. Barry was sitting on my couch again. This time awake. I didn’t have to see my eyes to know their expression had darkened. Helping with Morgan was one thing, but just being here whenever—I don’t think so. I started to say something to that effect, but he held up his hand. “Don’t say something you’ll regret, Molly,” he admonished. A shiver went down my spine. His face had that shut-the-blinds kind of blankness. It was his cop face. The one he used when he confronted people with bad news.

  CHAPTER 22

  “I WANTED YOU TO HEAR IT FROM ME,” BARRY said as he stood up and held on to my arm. “Dr. Arnold Bullard is dead.”

  I felt the starch go out of my body and my legs turn rubbery. Barry had done this sort of thing many times before and was ready when I slumped against him.

  “But he was one of my chief persons of interest,” I said. “I was sure he might have killed Drew Brooks. All I needed was the motive.” I stopped talking, realizing I’d said too much already. Barry was one hundred percent against me “playing detective,” as he called it. I personally didn’t think there was any playing involved. I just wanted to find out who did it, so Detective Heather would stop hounding Sheila.

  “I know,” he said.

  “What?” And here I thought I was being so discreet, he’d never get it.

  “I am a detective,” he said with a slow smile, “a real one, remember? And I can figure things out.” He gestured toward the couch, and we both sat down. “That’s why I came to tell you in person.”

  “Okay, Mr. Real Detective, are you going to tell me what happened?” I said. His face had softened into the Barry face I was used to. It wasn’t full of expression, but it was worlds away from his blank, bad-news cop face. I supposed over time he’d learned to shield his emotions as a way of protecting himself. It had to be horrible to be the one who had to break the news that a loved one was dead. Barry wouldn’t talk about the emotional part of his work. He also didn’t talk much about his past. Even though I wanted to know the dirt about his ex-wife, I thought it was honorable that he didn’t bad-mouth her. He kept saying that all that mattered was now. I didn’t totally agree about that and chipped away at him until he had begun to let things slip out.

  One rainy night, he’d told me why he became a cop. It had to do with his parents owning a convenience store that kept getting robbed and the cops never finding the culprits. It made him want to be on
e of the good guys. Another time he told me the way he dealt with the dark parts of his job was by remembering he was speaking for a victim who couldn’t and trying to bring some peace to the victim’s family. Then to lighten the somber mood he’d added, “And of course, I get to drive fast and carry a gun.”

  Now, he sighed with resignation and said, “I’ll tell you what happened, if you promise not to get involved.”

  I didn’t answer, which I guessed he realized was the same as not agreeing to his bargain. He grimaced and clenched his jaw a few times, then gave in and told me anyway.

  “Pixie Bullard got worried when Arnold didn’t show, and she went down to his office and found him slumped on his desk.”

  “Was it a heart attack or did someone . . .” I started to ask, afraid he was going to leave the story at that.

  “It looks like foul play,” Barry said. “There was a paper bowl of soup on his desk, like he was eating it. There were also two expelled bug bombs. The office still smelled of insecticide when the first officers arrived. They called the haz-mat crew.”

  “So the bug bombs did him in?”

  “Don’t know for sure yet, but it’s certainly a possiblity. The soup is being tested, but I’m guessing they will find something in it—some kind of sedative or knockout drops. Nobody would sit there and inhale bug bombs.”

  “What kind of soup was it?” I asked.

  He seemed surprised by the question. “Southwestern corn chowder, but I don’t think it makes a difference.”

  “Then it’s your case?” I asked, and he gave me a withering stare and shook his head.

  “Someone remembered that you had been caught stalking Bullard. And that he threw some kind of fit at the bookstore. I can’t take a case if my girlfriend is involved. If you keep it up, I may never get a case again.”