“It’s well worth your time,” said Ruth. The exhibit, which came from Egypt, featured wonderful things, and was at the museum in Saint Paul for a limited time. “Is there something we can do for you besides apologize?”
“Maybe. I’ve been asked to look into Hailey’s death, to see if I can figure out who killed her. I would like very much to see where the murder happened, and to talk to both of you about Hailey.”
“Are you a private investigator?” asked Philadelphia.
“No, but I’ve been useful to the police before.”
Philadelphia and Ruth exchanged glances. “What do you think, Philadelphia?” asked Ruth.
“I don’t know. I don’t know this lady,” she said.
“I heard Hailey talk about her,” Ruth said. “She told me that Betsy had actually helped the police arrest a murderer.”
“Is that true?” Philadelphia’s tone was sharp, her gaze intent on Betsy’s face.
“Yes, it’s happened more than once.”
“Do you really think you could find out who murdered my mother?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. I certainly am going to try.”
“If you do, I’ll believe God sent you to me.”
“Well, if He did want to arrange an introduction, He didn’t need to scare the life out of me doing it,” said Betsy.
“Come on,” said Philadelphia. “I’ll show you the whole house, and try to answer any questions you have.”
Five
BETSY estimated the little house to be at least seventy-five years old. But on the first floor, instead of a series of rooms—kitchen, dining room, living room—typical of a house that old, there was one open space. The kitchen was marked off by a low, broad counter that was part breakfast bar and part desk, on which sat an outdated computer. The kitchen floor was covered with gray linoleum tile.
The floor of the small dining room was hardwood. Its severely plain oak table held a vase of dying lilacs. Only two chairs were drawn up to it. There were two windows on one wall and a tiny powder room opposite.
The living room was marked off by a light tan flat-weave carpet, and was furnished with a love seat and an upholstered chair in a matching tan shade, set off by brightly colored needlepoint pillows. An OttLite magnifying light sat beside the chair, along with a basket whose open lid revealed needlework materials, including a partly finished counted cross-stitch piece in a wooden stretcher. The heavy drapes were a rich brown. The room was well lit, with a big front window.
“I thought you told me this house is nearly eighty years old,” Ruth Ladwig said.
“It is,” said Philadelphia.
“But that big front window and an open floor plan like this make it seem much newer than that,” Ruth said.
“It was remodeled about a dozen years ago. Mother had just finished paying off the new mortgage she took out to update the house when . . . this happened.” Philadelphia turned her back on them with a painful sniff, then regained her composure. Her mother’s death had occurred only a few days ago, and her emotions clearly were still very near the surface.
The rooms were in good order. The air smelled faintly of decaying lilacs and Clorox.
Upstairs were three pale green bedrooms and one bathroom. One bedroom was completely empty, without even curtains on the window. Another was used as a storage space, with chairs, suitcases, and taped cardboard boxes taking up most of the floor space. The third, although the largest, was modestly sized, and modestly furnished. A pinwheel quilt with badly faded colors looked to be equal in age to the old brass bed it lay upon, but well cared for. A long crocheted dresser scarf ornamented the top of the dresser. Betsy noted a very faint smell of lavender in the room. The bathroom was small but had modern floor tiling and fixtures.
“See anything helpful yet?” Philadelphia asked Betsy.
“I’m afraid not.”
The place seemed to have belonged to a person much older than Hailey Brent, whom Betsy estimated had been in her middle fifties. Betsy hadn’t seen crochet work topping a chest of drawers since she spent part of a childhood summer at her grandmother’s house.
“Is this the house you grew up in?” Betsy asked Philadelphia.
“Yes,” said Philadelphia, nodding. “In fact, my mother grew up here, too. She lived here until she married, and when she divorced Dad, she moved back in and we all—Mom, me, and my brother, JR—took care of Grandmom and Pop until they moved into a nursing home.” She smiled sadly. “They both lived to be eighty-seven, and died a little over a year apart.”
“That’s a long family history at this address. So what are you going to do with the house?”
“Oh, sell it. Our current house is nicer than this one. Besides, I don’t think I could bear to live here, or even let someone I know live here. So we’ll clear it out and sell it.” She looked around the hallway where they were standing and shrugged. “Some other family will love it, I’m sure, someone who doesn’t have a connection to the terrible thing that happened here. Now, I suppose you’ll want to see the—the basement. That’s where it hap-happened.”
She was looking more and more distressed. “You don’t have to—” Betsy started.
“Oh no, I want to. It’s all right, we cleaned . . . we cleaned it. Anyway, I agreed to show it to Ruth so she can tell me what’s valuable in it.”
“But if it’s going to upset you—”
Philadelphia spoke fiercely. “I can endure anything that might help find out who did this.”
There was a steep and very plain wooden staircase between the kitchen and dining room that led down to the basement, where the Clorox smell was stronger. Philadelphia led the way, descending into the dimly lit space, then flipping several switches, flooding the basement with light.
“Well, this is very nice,” said Ruth, looking around at the finished half of the room. In contrast to the old-fashioned, cement-floored unfinished space, this half of the basement—which was by far better lit—was divided into a kitchen and a carpeted space with a real spinning wheel resting at the very center. A hard wooden chair with a thin pink seat cushion was pulled up to the wheel. Beside the chair was a low cabinet with two stainless steel bowls on top of it; fuzzy, off-white material half filled each bowl.
“I wonder if she was working on Irene Potter’s floss,” Betsy said.
“Yes, she was, and she was working hard on it,” said Ruth. “I talked with her about her finding soy and bamboo fibers, unspun, a couple of weeks ago. It’s very likely that’s what’s in the bowls over there.”
“Could you tell for sure if it’s soy and bamboo?” asked Betsy.
“Not me,” said Philadelphia.
“I can make a good guess,” said Ruth. She went to the bowls and lifted a small wad of fiber from one bowl. She rubbed it between thumb and fingers, then raised it to her nose for a gentle sniff. “I’m sure this is soy,” she said, dropping the fibers back in the bowl. She did the same with a wad from the other bowl. “I can’t say for sure, but feel and logic say this is bamboo.”
“She was working on a blend,” said Betsy to Ruth. “That’s why she has both on the table.” She went over to the spinning wheel to look at the spindle, which was about half full of a thin, very pale beige yarn. “This is probably the blend,” she said. “Right?”
“Very likely,” agreed Ruth.
“This was a special order,” said Philadelphia. “When I talked with her on the phone she said it was coming along well, and that Ms. Potter had made a generous offer for the material. I’ll have to talk to Ms. Potter about whether she should get a refund, or if Mom agreed to accept payment on delivery.” Her face twisted; here was a project that would never be finished.
“Over here is where she did her dyeing—and where she died,” continued Philadelphia with an effort, walking up to the border between
the spinning wheel setup and the kitchen. “She was found on the floor near the sink.” She made a truncated gesture in that direction. “JR came with me and we cleaned up the blood. I was shocked to find out that the police are not responsible for that job.” Her lower lip began to tremble, but with an effort she stopped it. “The police said there are companies that will do it for you, but I felt I just couldn’t let strangers down here. That was a mistake, I know now, because it was a nightmare, and the aftereffects have been horrible.” She gave a little sigh. “We used just plain water at first, and emptied three buckets on her bed of lilies out back.” She looked at Ruth and Betsy with worried eyes. “Do you think that was wrong, to do that? I just couldn’t pour it down . . . the drain . . .”
Betsy said warmly, “I think that was very nice and really appropriate.”
Ruth said, “I agree, very nice.”
Philadelphia added, her voice still a little worried, “We used bleach at the end, to . . . disinfect and . . . deodorize.”
“That must have been a terrible task,” said Betsy, dismayed by the thought but clearly sympathetic.
“Yes, far worse than you can know.” Philadelphia turned and walked over to the spinning wheel and stood there with her head down.
“Ms. Ladwig, what can you tell us about this setup?” asked Betsy, trying to distract Philadelphia.
“Please, call me Ruth. This is an excellent setup for dyeing,” she said. “I wish mine were as nice as this.”
“Did your mother do this as a profession?” Betsy asked Philadelphia.
With her head still down, she replied, “It was more like a paying hobby. She went to work full-time at General Sportswear Company in Minnetonka after her divorce, then cut back to part-time a few years ago.”
“Was it an amicable divorce?”
“No, there was a whole lot of shouting and screaming, and it left some hard feelings between the two of them.”
“What happened to your father?”
“He remarried, then re-remarried, and took his newest family to Oregon. That was five years ago. He sends me and my brother Christmas cards.”
“Does he know about your mother’s death?”
“Yes, JR called him. He was very shocked but didn’t come back for the funeral. He and his latest wife have three small children, so it would have been an expensive trip.”
Ruth had gone into the kitchen to open cabinet doors. She remarked again, admiringly, on the completeness of the setup.
“Well, isn’t this interesting,” she said from the stove, gesturing at the three stainless steel pots on it, the lidded one much bigger than the others.
“What is it?” asked Betsy.
“She was dyeing some yarn; it’s still in the pots. I wonder who turned the stove off.”
Philadelphia said, “It must’ve been the police. Or maybe Mother turned it off before . . . they shot her.”
“Maybe,” said Ruth. “But it’s a small window of time between shutting off the burner and lifting out the dyed stuff.”
She looked at the clothesline hanging over the sink, with two skeins of dyed yarn draped over it, one a medium green with pale green flecks in it, the other a pale rust color with darker flecks in it. She went to touch the green yarn. “I wonder if these aren’t also the soy-bamboo blend she was spinning. Soy and bamboo accept coloring differently, even with the same mordant. Blending the two might give you this effect.” She touched them again, thrusting her fingers into the middle of each skein. “They’re both bone dry.” She looked back at the stove. “The dye in the pots doesn’t match either of these skeins.”
Philadelphia returned to the border between the two sections of the basement and said, “They were hanging there when I first came down here after—afterward. She just didn’t get a chance to take out the rest from the dye pots.”
“But there are no pots on the stove with no yarn in them,” said Betsy, coming to take a look. The dye in the two smaller pots was pale brown and bright yellow. The yellow dye had something that looked like carrot tops in it. The pale brown dye held a much darker brown shade of yarn. She lifted the lid on the big pot and saw the liquid was a deep, almost opaque green. Something might be floating in the dye bath; it was hard to tell.
“It’s possible she rinsed these skeins, hung them, then washed the pots and put them away,” said Ruth, “meaning to take the other yarn out later. But didn’t get the chance.”
“Is that how you’d do it?” asked Betsy.
“No, but everyone has her own method.” Her tone seemed to indicate she thought it possible, but eccentric.
“What’s more likely?” Betsy asked.
“That she dyed stuff on two successive days,” replied Ruth. “She dyed this stuff the day before she was killed, and was in the process of dyeing the yarn in the pots when she was interrupted. And see, here’s some yarn being mordanted.” She gestured at the big glass bowls with what looked like water in them. Floating in the water was more yarn, this of a near-white color. She picked up the glass-stoppered bottles beside them. “Tin and alum,” she read aloud.
“What do the police think?” Betsy asked Philadelphia.
The woman lifted her shoulders until they touched her blue-green hair. “I don’t know, they didn’t tell me anything. But I couldn’t tell them anything, either. I knit, crochet, and weave, but I don’t dye.”
Betsy wondered if another reason they didn’t tell her anything was that they considered her a suspect. Probably. Murders like this were generally done by someone the victim knew, or even was related to.
“Do you and JR share the inheritance of this house?” asked Betsy.
“Yes, half and half, equal shares of everything.”
“Does JR agree that you should sell it?”
“Yes—he and his wife live in Fridley with their two children, and their house could use some upgrades, which selling this house will help them afford. He’s like me in that he doesn’t want to own a house our mother was murdered in. Even worse than me, actually. He says I can have an extra thousand dollars from the sale if I’ll arrange the estate sale and have it prepped.”
Betsy wondered how badly JR’s house needed repair. And how far he might go to get the funds for it.
“Did the police ask the two of you for an alibi?” asked Betsy.
“Yes,” said Philadelphia. “JR was at work, but I was home sleeping—I was working the night shift at HCMC.” Betsy knew she was referring to Hennepin County Medical Center.
“Are you a nurse?”
“Yes.”
Betsy wondered what a patient waking up after surgery would think on seeing someone with blue-green hair.
“It might be hard to sell a house with an extra kitchen in the basement—unless you can find a buyer who likes to dye fibers at home,” said Ruth.
“I’m thinking the buyer could turn the other half of the basement into a bath and bedroom and make this a mother-in-law apartment,” said Philadelphia.
Betsy walked back to stand near Philadelphia. “When do you plan to sell it?” she asked. “Right away?”
“As soon as I can find someone to advise me on staging it,” said Philadelphia. She looked around the space and, frowning, gave a sad little sigh.
“When you hold the estate sale,” said Ruth, “please let me know. These stainless steel pots and the glass bowls would be very useful to any dyer.”
“All right,” said Philadelphia, her voice gone creaky and her mouth turned downward.
“I think maybe we’ve seen enough—” began Betsy.
“No, no, no!” said Philadelphia harshly. “Go on, look! Look at everything, don’t miss anything! Mother’s dead and gone, you can’t hurt her anymore!” She caught her breath on a sob. “And what I want or feel doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does,
and I’m terribly sorry to be bothering you with all this,” said Betsy placatingly, patting the air between them with her hands.
“Please, ask me more questions.” Her voice was sad, but her expression determined.
“All right.” Betsy sighed then asked bluntly, “Who was angry with your mother?”
“No one. That’s what’s so awful about this. Who could be angry with a woman whose main occupation was to turn roots and flowers into dyes? She liked to spin, she liked to do handwork—embroidery and cross-stitch. She was a strong feminist, but she liked all the old-fashioned womanly things. She was a dedicated folk artist. Who could hate someone like that?”
“Marge Schultz was angry with her,” said Betsy.
“Oh, that! Once or twice Mother went over there and cut some flowers. So what? I’ll bet Marge didn’t notice most of the time when she did it.”
“So she did it more than once or twice.”
Philadelphia blinked at her self-contradiction. “All right, more than once or twice. She didn’t destroy any plants, she didn’t hurt Marge, it was almost a compliment when you think about it. She saw some flowers that would make a lovely dye and she took a few.”
But Betsy remembered the large number of blooms Hailey had used in making a relatively small dye lot. If Hailey was dyeing a large amount of newly spun yarn, “a few” flowers wouldn’t describe the number needed.
And she’d done this more than twice.
“I’m surprised Marge didn’t do more than merely complain,” Betsy said.
“Oh, I don’t think Marge Schultz’s hands were clean enough for her to go crying to the police.”
Betsy felt her attention sharpen. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly what she did, but my mother said whatever it was, was illicit.”
“‘Illicit’?”
“She used the word illicit, which is the same thing as illegal, isn’t it? In fact, it sounds worse than illegal. Nastier.”
And Then You Dye Page 4