The Drowning Spool (A Needlecraft Mystery)

by Ferris, Monica

  “Is he married?”

  James looked shocked. “Why? You interested in him?”

  “No, but he was dating someone I sort of know who thought he was single.”

  He raised his eyebrows, glanced again at the store windows, then shrugged. “Yes, he’s married. He’s married to the boss’s daughter.

  “He’s Tony Halloway’s son-in-law?”

  “That’s right.” He turned away from her to begin putting one of the wipers on. “Now, first you lift up—”

  “So that’s how he gets away with that attitude.”

  He put the wiper down and turned back to her. “What’s this about, anyhow?”

  “The woman he was dating has been murdered.”

  “Sufferin’ cats!” he said. “Hold on, are you a cop?”

  “No, I’m conducting a private investigation. Have the police been here yet to talk to Mr. Munro?”

  “No.” He was staring at her, alarmed. “Will they?”

  “I’m sure they will.” Especially since Betsy was going to phone Mike Malloy as soon as she got back to Excelsior.

  “Because he was dating a woman who’s been murdered?”

  “Don’t you think they should?”

  He thought about that. “Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not the president of Pres’s fan club, but murder is serious business. Do you actually think he might have killed that woman?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just collecting information.”

  “Maybe I should warn Pres about this.” He nodded toward the store. “Or Mr. Halloway . . .”

  His expression was significantly enigmatic, so Betsy asked, “What do you think Mr. Halloway’s reaction would be?”

  James suddenly showed Betsy a malicious grin. “Whatever it is, Pres won’t like it.”

  • • •

  BACK at the shop, Betsy searched the Internet phone directories for a Preston Munro in Minnesota and was surprised to find only one listing, right down the road in Minnetonka. It even offered his wife’s name, Sonja.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the Excelsior Police Department. “May I speak with Sergeant Malloy?” she asked.

  “I’ll see if he’s here. Who’s calling, please?”

  “Betsy Devonshire. Mike knows me. It’s important.”

  “One minute.”

  In slightly less than a minute Malloy’s voice came impatiently over the line. “I can’t tell you anything about an ongoing investigation,” he announced.

  “Maybe not, but I can tell you something.”

  The tone mollified. “Is that so?”

  “Did Lia or Frey get in touch with you about that drawing of Pres?”

  “Yes, and I have the drawings here on my desk. That was good work, thank you.”

  “Well, I know who he is, and where he works, and where he lives. With his wife.”

  “Have you talked to him?” Malloy asked sharply.

  “No.”

  “Good, that’s good.”

  “But I talked to someone he supervises, and I’m afraid that man will purely enjoy telling Pres the police may come by.”

  “Dammit—”

  “There’s no way I could know that would happen, Mike.”

  “All right, all right, I can see that. How did you find him?”

  “Goddy remembered buying a brake pedal pad at the Halloway Auto Parts store in Saint Louis Park from a man who resembled the one in the drawing. So I went there to buy a pair of windshield wipers and saw him in the flesh. But I bought the wipers from another employee, who gave me additional information about him. Pres is the son-in-law of the owner of that store.” Betsy gave Mike all the information she’d gathered, including Pres’s home address. “His wife’s name is Sonja,” she added.

  “Nice piece of detective work,” Malloy said, not too grudgingly. “Maybe you should think about getting a license.”

  “And give up needlework? Not gonna happen. But may I ask a favor?”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “Let me know what he says when you talk to him.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Seventeen

  “SO, you’re thinking it’s one of those three,” said Connor. He, Godwin, and Betsy were seated at the shop’s library table enjoying a lunch of soup and half a sandwich—in Connor’s case, a whole sandwich—that Godwin had fetched from Antiquity Rose. It was about half past one, and there were no customers present.

  Betsy nodded. “I think that very likely.”

  “So which one are you leaning toward?” asked Godwin.

  “I’m trying not to lean toward any of them.” She took a bite of her sandwich, chicken salad flavored with dill on cracked wheat.

  “But?” said Connor. He enjoyed watching the way Betsy’s mind worked.

  “Okay—Tommy. I hate saying as much, because he’s Phil’s grandnephew, but he lies like a frightened person.” She dipped up two spoonfuls of soup, then added, reluctantly, “And if you trace the route between Watered Silk and the drugstore where Tommy was working that night, it passes right by Mrs. Ball’s house.” Mrs. Ball was the woman who had found the Hardanger-edged sheet in her trash.

  “Strewth!” breathed Godwin. “Have you told Phil and Doris?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you should, just to give them a heads-up before Tommy gets arrested.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Connor crumbled a cracker into his soup while looking speculatively at Betsy. “Do I hear some other kind of ‘but’ in there, machree?”

  “Well . . . yes. Tommy is scared, but he’s also weak. I can see him getting angry enough to dunk a woman under water—but to hold her under while she struggles? Halfway through he’d change his mind and let go. On the other hand, I think he was hurt and angry by what he interpreted as Teddi’s pity. He thought he was winning her heart, but it appears she was allowing him to hang around because she felt sorry for him. That kind of pity can make some people really angry.”

  Connor said, “I think it would depend on whether Teddi told other people she was feeling sorry for him. Especially on Twitter or Facebook, where everyone could see.”

  “Hmm.” Betsy hadn’t gone far down the line of entries on Teddi’s Facebook page. No doubt she should do that.

  “And one other thing,” Betsy said. “Wilma was poisoned by something applied to a medicated pad that was put on her back by a nurse every night. Tommy works at a drugstore.”

  “Whoa!” said Godwin. “That looks bad, really bad!”

  Connor, listening to all of this, felt a need to be contradictory. “Well, okay,” he said, “but what about the other two?”

  “Noah has no alibi at all for Teddi’s murder. He says he was home alone, sick, with his phone shut off. He’s scared of being accused, and a little conflicted about his feelings when he found out someone else was the father of her baby. But his motive is weak. And, looking as far as Wilma’s murder, although he knew the unguarded way into Watered Silk, he has no knowledge of or access to the poison used on her. Even more telling, he didn’t seem to know she’s dead.”

  “And Pres?” asked Connor.

  “Yes, now there’s Pres. He has a serious motive—he’s married, and he works for his father-in-law, who, it seems, would be pleased to discover something seriously bad about him. The employee I talked to—his name is James—was very sure about that. James doesn’t like Pres either.”

  “What kind of alibi does Pres have?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t talked to him yet, just to that employee at the auto parts store. Mike has warned me off until he has a crack at him. On the other hand, Pres lives in a house that’s on a slightly wavy line between Watered Silk and the place where the torn sheet was found.”

  “Godfrey Daniels!” exclaimed Godwin. “You need to talk to him!”

  “I’m sure Mike Malloy will be talking to him shortly. I wonder if James warned Pres to expect a visit from the police.”

  Connor said, “If Pres
is as unpopular as James described him, I would think James took delight in telling everyone.”

  Betsy said, “But it’s almost equally likely he’d take a secret delight in watching a police investigator come in and surprise him.”

  There was a thoughtful silence as they finished their lunch. Then Connor said, “Are there any other suspects?”

  “Like who?” said Godwin, surprised.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Those two roommates, Lia and Frey. A boyfriend of Teddi’s we don’t know about yet. Pres’s wife. Or Noah’s ex-wife—were they divorced because he has a violent streak? Or Tommy’s girlfriend—What’s her name? Dell?” he asked Betsy. “You talked to Dell, what did she say?”

  “She said that Tommy’s hopeless, and that she dreams some day he’ll realize she’s the one he needs to take care of him. Meanwhile, I’d like to talk to Pres’s wife—only I don’t know how to approach her. And you’re right, I really should talk some more to Lia and Frey.”

  “You’ve been busy with Crewel World, machree, trying to do two big jobs at the same time. I think maybe you need to focus on one or the other.”

  “I can organize a crew to take care of the shop,” Godwin said at once. “I think Connor’s right, you need to spread your net wider if you’re going to prove Tommy didn’t do this.”

  Connor looked at Betsy’s frustrated face and felt compassion for her. “Goddy, you can ask me to help in the shop,” he said. He knew Betsy didn’t want to involve him too deeply in the business. But why not? She was too damn independent, in his opinion, too determined to keep him at arm’s length. But Godwin was store manager, he was the one who made the hiring decisions. He smiled winningly at Godwin. “I work very cheaply,” he said. He failed to see a swift look of alarm and anger cross Betsy’s face—and so did Godwin.

  • • •

  BUT the next lead came from inside the shop. Ramona Tinsmith, who had once made a quilt that included stitched chicken patterns bought at Crewel World, came in looking for cat patterns.

  “I have been instructed by my niece that the chicken quilt is to be hers after I die, so now my daughter wants me to leave her a cat quilt.”

  Godwin laughed. “You look kind of young to be thinking about leaving heirlooms to people,” he said.

  “It came up when my niece Lily, who is twelve, read an old mystery novel about a mean old rich uncle who draws up a will disinheriting some of his relatives. She started asking questions. Like, “Why don’t you have a will? Why don’t you write one leaving that chicken quilt to me?” Follow-up from my daughter, Hunter: “Make mine a quilt featuring cats.” So I’ve been buying fabric that has cat-themed prints, and now I’m here.”

  Ramona picked first a simple pattern from Dimensions of a black, tan, and white kitten behind a big blue ball of yarn, then a larger and much more difficult Bucilla kit of the front half of a gray tiger cat asleep against a jug of yellow flowers. “That will go in the center, like the dancing Mexican cock was the center of the chicken quilt,” said Ramona. Then she selected two Anchor kits, each featuring a head-and-shoulders cat portrait, one of a black and gray tabby, the other a brown tabby. She paused at the famous Frederick the Literate pattern, but decided it was too large and elaborate to be a quilt block, and instead chose Janlynn’s Glamour Puss cartoon of a cat in sunglasses relaxing on a recliner.

  She found a booklet full of cat patterns but made a face and put it back. “I need some little ones,” she said.

  Godwin said, “Hold on a second,” and went over to the shop’s computer. “Yes, I thought so!” he said a few moments later. “Look at this.” It was a downloadable online pattern from Trina Clark called Cat Sampler, consisting of eight black silhouettes of cats in various poses. The whole thing was about ten inches by nine and a half inches, but it would be easy to make small squares from each individual silhouette, and piece them together to use as a border for the quilt. Ramona was delighted. It cost five dollars for the download, and Ramona gave Godwin the cash to print it out for her on the spot.

  And because she’d put a fox in a bottom corner of the chicken quilt, she wanted a dog for the cat quilt. She wanted a barking dog, but they couldn’t find one, so she looked for something else and finally picked a bookmark that included a silhouette of a Scottie dog at the bottom. “It’ll mix in with the sampler cats to make it hard to find,” said Ramona, happily.

  She selected some floss in colors she didn’t already have and a square of low-count aida fabric to go with the patterns.

  Then while Godwin was adding up her bill, she went to the big board covered with tiny charms. It was near the checkout desk, where he could keep an eye on it—charms were a temptation to thieves, being so easily slipped into a purse or pocket.

  Betsy had been in the back thinking of ways to reconfigure the displays—a cost-free way to stir interest in patterns was to stir regular customers from their accustomed paths so they’d find something new. She came out to see Ramona looking over a dozen or more charms lined up on the checkout desk. As she approached, Betsy saw Ramona select three, four, six, eight of them with a forefinger; then, hesitating, a ninth. Each was different from the others: some were Christian themed; some portrayed puppies or palm trees; there was even a jack-o-lantern.

  “You must be planning a marathon of stitching patterns that call for charms,” Betsy remarked.

  Ramona turned and smiled at Betsy. “No, these are for my scrapbook.”

  “You scrapbook, too?” asked Godwin. “Where do you find the time?” Ramona had a full-time job as a nurse in a medical clinic, plus she was raising her daughter. And of course, she kept busy with her needlework.

  “Oh, I’m a pretty good organizer,” said Ramona. “How much for these nine, plus the floss, patterns, and kits?”

  Godwin used his calculator to total everything up. It came to a little over a hundred and fifty dollars. Ramona opened her purse and took out a checkbook. “Bet you don’t see many of these nowadays,” she said.

  “That’s true,” agreed Godwin. Most of Crewel World’s customers used credit or debit cards. He took the check from her, confirmed that the amount was right, then turned to Betsy. “Can you approve this?” he asked, a little too casually. One of his eyebrows was raised significantly.

  “Certainly,” said Betsy.

  She looked again at the check—and saw what he’d been hinting at: Ramona’s home address was on a street just a few numbers down from Preston Munro’s.

  “Is something wrong?” Ramona’s tone had turned frosty.

  “No, not at all. I was just noticing your address. Do you by any chance know Preston Munro?”

  “Not really—but I know his sister, Julie, and his wife, Sony.” She pronounced it like the electronics manufacturer. “Sony’s a scrapbooker. In fact, she’s the one who got me interested in the craft. Her work is amazing. She does beautiful calligraphy on her pages, and she has a real eye for design.” She paused for a moment, frowning. “Why do you ask? Sony’s not a stitcher.”

  “Actually,” Betsy said, “it’s her husband I’m interested in. What can you tell me about him?”

  “I told you, I hardly know him at all.” Ramona persisted, “Why do you want to know?” Then her eyes brightened. “Hey, are you doing another investigation?”

  “Yes,” said Betsy. “The grandnephew of a friend is a suspect in two murders, and I’m trying to find out if he really did it.”

  “Two murders? Wouldn’t they know by the second one if he did it or not?”

  “You’d think so. And in all candor, things do look bad for him. But I think his personality makes him an unlikely suspect. I’ve now got two alternative theories to look at, and some people may have some answers for me.”

  “Including Pres? Oh my God, you can’t seriously suspect him! Sony thinks the sun rises and sets just for him! I don’t like him, he thinks he knows everything and he treats her like a dumb kid, even though she’s really smart. She went to school to became a surgical nurse, you know.”


  “Where does she work?” asked Betsy.

  “Nowhere, now. She’s a stay-at-home mom. They have an adorable little boy named Tony, after his grandfather. He’s just turned three.” Ramona leaned in toward them to confide, “She wants another baby, but so far no luck, which is kind of sad, because she’s a wonderful mother.”

  “Maybe Pres doesn’t want another child,” said Betsy.

  “He wants whatever she wants—that’s one of his good points. And it’s not like they can’t afford it, he makes good money.”

  “I want to talk to him—and maybe her, too,” said Betsy. “Do you think they’d be open to answering some questions?”

  “I don’t know about him, but Sony loves to meet new people, especially if they’re crafty. Tell you what, I’ll talk to her and let you know.”

  “Thanks, Ramona.”

  • • •

  BETSY called in two part-timers so she could take the afternoon off. “You know what this is doing to my bottom line,” said Betsy, who could be of two minds about anything. She was complaining to Connor in the apartment upstairs, where she went to change out of her work clothes.

  “You want to take back the arrangement, maybe drop this case?” asked Connor.

  “Well . . . no.”

  “So hush, and get on with it.”

  So Betsy got on with it. The first thing she got on was the Internet. She went to Lia’s and Frey’s Facebook accounts and found, as she suspected she would, an almost daily diary of their activities. Both spoke of an agreement they’d made with each other and with Teddi before she died: that if one of them wanted to entertain a guest, the other two would make themselves scarce for the evening. In this case they had gone out clubbing together with dates—making solid alibis for the night Teddi’s body was taken to Watered Silk. Their alibis were weaker, though, for the period during which Betsy estimated someone got into Wilma’s room and doctored her Exelon patches with atropine.