Unraveled Sleeve

by Monica Ferris

  Jill said, “When you no longer resist temptation, you will know you are officially a stitcher.”

  Isabel said, “I have a T-shirt that says, WHOEVER DIES WITH THE BIGGEST STASH WINS. I’m definitely in the running.”

  Betsy said, “I sell a T-shirt that says, WHOEVER DIES WITH THE BIGGEST STASH IS DEAD. WHEN’S THE ESTATE SALE?’ ”

  The women laughed. Carla said, “I don’t think I’ve heard of Charley Harper.”

  Jill said, “Counted cross-stitch,” and Betsy looked for and saw the very slight raising of Carla’s upper lip.

  Honestly, she thought, why there has to be this split between the counted cross-stitch and needlepoint communities, I cannot understand. It’s worse than dog people versus cat people.

  Betsy and her sister Margot had had both cats and dogs, often simultaneously, while growing up. So it was no surprise that Crewel World carried cross-stitch, knitting, and needlepoint supplies.

  There was a period of silence while everyone settled into their projects. Betsy finished her first wedge in DMC, then got out the Kreinik metallic filament and snipped off a foot of it. It changed colors every couple of inches from gold to blue to green to silver. She consulted the pattern and began the first stitch. Pulling it through, the ultra-fine stuff, twisted and crinkled around a very thin thread, caught on the cloth, and slipped out the eye of her needle.

  “That should look very pretty,” noted Isabel.

  “Yes. This will be my first try at a blending filament.” Betsy took another stitch, holding the filament in the eye with her fingers, and this time the filament knotted without warning, and when she tugged experimentally, it broke.

  She glanced at Jill, who was smirking subtly. Betsy stuck her tongue out at her, teased the filament loose, cut off the knotted portion, rethreaded her needle, and set off again. But with almost every stitch, when the filament didn’t twist and knot, it slipped out of the needle or snagged and broke. It was impossible for Betsy to lose herself in a stitching pattern when the thread was being difficult. Despite herself, thoughts of Sharon Kaye began to intrude. At last she growled, stuck her needle in the fabric, and asked, “What hospital did you say Charlotte Porter is in?”

  Isabel said, “What a good idea! I think it would be a nice thing if we bought a get-well card and everyone signed it. She’s at St. Luke’s in Duluth.”

  But Betsy wasn’t thinking about a get-well card. She stood and said, “Excuse me, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Then she remembered: No phones in the rooms.

  Jill murmured something and Betsy bent to hear it said again. “Pay phone in the lobby.”

  She nodded and went out into the lobby, where she found James on duty and got him to break a five-dollar bill into coins. She sat down in a dark corner near the office where the pay phone lurked. In a few minutes, the heap of coins considerably diminished, she sat frowning.

  Charlotte Porter was feeling quite, quite comfortable, thank you, and thanks so very, very much for the sympathy expressed by the stitch-in people, weren’t they nice, and she was sooooo sorry she couldn’t be there. She had her stitching with her and had thought perhaps to join the stitchers in spirit, but the pain medication was making it soooooo hard to work on her Celtic Christmas angel. Mystery guest? Oh, wasn’t she there? How strange, Charlotte had talked to her day before yesterday and she had assured Charlotte she’d be there. Her name? “Kaye of Escapade Design. Sharon Kaye Owen, yes, yes, yes, you know her? Wonderful lady, terrific friend, good teacher. I can’t believe she’s not there yet. She’s going to teach an advanced class on what-is-it, hardanger, and a beginner’s class on designing a counted stitch pattern, cross-stitch. She was soooooo excited about it.”

  “Did she say anything to you about her ex-husband being here?”

  “Oh, is Frank there? Let me think, she does go on about him, doesn’t she? She thinks she’s still in love with him, though of course she isn’t, she just can’t bear thinking that someone else might get him. Though she hasn’t got him anymore, I’ve told her that lots of times. I shouldn’t be talking like this about her, she’s a very good friend and a very, very fine woman, talented and very, very, very patient with beginners especially. That’s why I agreed when she volunteered to teach at Naniboujou. Isn’t that a lovely, lovely name? Some people call it Nanny-boo-zhou, but it’s pronounced Nanny-boo-zhou. So Frank is there? He and she used to go up there all the time, until the divorce. Which was all her fault, I suspect. The divorce was. I shouldn’t say that, either, should I? It’s the pain medication, I suppose. It makes me feel soooooo very nice, but a bit talkative. Do you suppose they gave me truth serum?” The idea amused Charlotte, and she giggled in a slow, strange way.

  “I believe some truth serums are actually pain medications,” said Betsy.

  “Oh, my dear, you mustn’t take what I’m saying as the truth,” said Charlotte, giggling some more. “I’m just saying whatever comes into my head, speculating out loud.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Gossiping.”

  “I understand,” said Betsy. “But I think you’ve talked enough for now, and I should let you get some rest.”

  Since it was nearby, Betsy made use of the restroom and then went back to the lounge, where, in a pretense of looking at Jill’s project, she murmured that Sharon Kaye Owen was, in fact, the mystery teacher and had talked with Charlotte about teaching at the stitch-in as recently as Thursday.

  Betsy sat down and took up her needle, but after about ten minutes, Jill said, “I want a cup of coffee,” and looked pointedly at Betsy, who obediently said she’d like one, too.

  Carla said, “They leave a pot out, but it’s probably awfully strong by now.”

  Jill said, “Maybe we can get them to make a fresh pot. Come on, Betsy.”

  Betsy followed her across the chromatic dining room to a pair of doors on the other side of the fireplace. Jill pushed through the one with the marks of people shoving on it, Betsy on her heels, and they were in the kitchen.

  “Hi, Amos!” Jill called, and a trim, gray-haired man looked up from a big pot he was stirring on an eight-burner stove.

  “Hi, Jill!” he said. “Arrested anyone lately?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone who needs arresting.” She walked to the big stove at which he stood.

  Amos laughed, then saw something in Jill’s face and said, “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re not sure.” She turned slightly and said, “This is my friend Betsy Devonshire, who owns a needlework shop in Excelsior. Betsy, this is Amos Greenfeather, chef here at Naniboujou for the past six years.”

  He had the broad face and black eyes of a Native American, but not the usual impassivity Betsy had come to expect. He made a little French-style bow in her direction, and Betsy said, “Your meals are delicious.”

  “Thank you.” He smiled broadly.

  Jill said, “Would you know Sharon Kaye Owen if you saw her?”

  “Never heard of her. Is it important? Maybe the wait staff would.”

  “Are they around?”

  “Most of them.” He turned the heat down under his pot and went to the back of the long, narrow kitchen. Like all places not frequented by paying customers, it was a little shabby. The big stove was elderly, the stainless steel pot on it was scratched from countless scrubbings, and ceiling tiles over it were warped by heat and steam. But everything was spanking clean, and the only smells were the fabulous ones of bread baking and stew stewing.

  Amos came back with four women and a fresh-faced young man. All wore clean white shirts. The women were in dark skirts well below the knee and comfortable shoes, the young man in navy twill trousers. No multiple piercings, no Kool-Aid-red hair. How quaint, thought Betsy. How refreshing.

  “Would any of you recognize Sharon Kaye Owen if you saw her?” asked Jill.

  “I would,” said a woman with short, dark brown hair and beautiful light brown eyes. She looked a little older than the others, and she spoke with the authority that marked h
er as their senior in rank, too. “She used to be a frequent guest at the lodge.”

  “I don’t think I ever saw her,” said the young man, and the other women also shrugged.

  “She’s a little taller than I am,” said Betsy, “very thin, with blue eyes and very light blond hair, short and curly. She was wearing one of those Norwegian sweaters, blue and white with a starburst pattern around the neck, and pewter fastenings.”

  “Did any of you see her today?” asked Jill.

  Shrugs and negative shakes of heads.

  “Yesterday?”

  Same response.

  “I saw her yesterday afternoon,” said Betsy. “I came downstairs from our room and went into the lounge. She came in and sat down across from me. We talked for a bit and then she said she wanted to go see Eddie, and I think, to have a cigarette.” Betsy looked at the young man. “Is your name Eddie?”

  Looking slightly alarmed, he shook his head. “No.”

  Betsy asked, “Is anyone working here named Eddie?”

  The senior woman said, “No.”

  Betsy persisted, “Didn’t any of you see her going out? Or standing outside smoking? This would have been after four o’clock.”

  “Not me,” said a woman whose dark blond hair was in braids wrapped around her head.

  “No,” said the young man. The other two shook their heads.

  “We were pretty much on break from the dining room,” offered the woman in braids. “Around three, everything’s cleaned up from lunch, and dinner is a ways off.”

  “But suppose someone comes in and wants a meal?” asked Betsy.

  “Too bad,” said the young man with a regretful smile. “The kitchen’s closed except at mealtimes.”

  “But I saw someone in the dining room yesterday afternoon about three,” said Betsy. “He was wearing a brown uniform.”

  The wait people all looked at one another, then at Betsy. “We don’t serve meals except between eight and nine-thirty in the morning, eleven and one-thirty in the afternoon, and six-thirty and eight in the evening,” the young man explained patiently.

  “Well, there’s generally coffee,” said the senior woman, the one with the light brown eyes. “Guests can come and serve themselves as long as it lasts.”

  “Yes, but by three o’clock that stuff’s pretty rancid,” remarked the woman with braids.

  “Coffee’s coffee to people who need a caffeine fix,” said the chef.

  “So you don’t remember seeing him, either?” asked Jill.

  “Nope,” said the third woman, and everyone agreed that they hadn’t seen him.

  Betsy’s heart sank. Such a small, telling detail—and it was false, too? But Jill said, “I remember him, he was sitting at a table in the middle of the room.”

  Heartened, Betsy asked, “Does anyone know about a company hereabout whose employees wear brown uniforms? Chocolate brown, not tan.”

  The young man said, “Park rangers.”

  Jill said, “And there’s a state park ranger station right across the road.”

  “But it’s mostly closed in the winter,” the woman in braids said.

  “What does ’mostly’ mean?” asked Betsy.

  The young man said, “Well, a ranger comes by once in a while to see if the box they leave out for admittance fees needs emptying, and to fill up the tray with more maps of the trails. And they have this guy, he’s not a real ranger, go back on a snowmobile once or twice a week to see if a hiker broke a leg and froze to death.”

  The wait staff sniffed quietly, whether at the lack of more frequent patrols or the silliness of winter hikers, Betsy couldn’t tell.

  “Does this man on a snowmobile wear a park ranger uniform?” asked Betsy.

  “No,” the senior woman said.

  Betsy closed her eyes. She’d only glimpsed the man sitting at the table. Maybe he wasn’t wearing a uniform, only a brown jacket and trousers. Why had she been so sure it was a uniform?

  Her eyes opened again. “Do the park rangers have patches on their sleeves? White or maybe buff?” She sketched a good-sized triangle on her shoulder.

  “Yes, they do.” The older woman nodded. “Did the man you saw have a patch?”

  “Yes.”

  There was nothing more volunteered from them, and there was an air of impatience as they waited to see if Betsy had more questions.

  “Okay,” said Jill, “let’s understand this. There was a park ranger having coffee in the dining room yesterday afternoon. Betsy and I both saw him, but none of you did. So the fact that nobody else saw Sharon Kaye Owen, who sat across from Betsy in the lounge and said she was here to reconcile with her husband, doesn’t mean she wasn’t just as real. She was here.”

  Betsy said, “And she’s dead.”

  7

  There was a shocked silence. Then the senior woman said, “How do you know that?”

  “Because I went up the stairs from the lobby instead of the dining room, and into Frank Owen’s room, thinking it was mine. She was lying on the bed, and she was dead.”

  “Oh, you’re the woman!” said the senior woman. “James told me about you. But there wasn’t a body in either of the upstairs fireplace rooms, was there? So we decided it was some kind of . . . peculiar mistake.” She was being polite to a guest.

  “We’re assuming somebody moved it, Ramona,” said Jill. “There was plenty of time to do that between when Betsy first saw it, and when we figured out what room she had seen it in.”

  Ah, so this was James’s wife, co-owner of the lodge. Ramona knew who, and what, Jill was; and Jill’s acceptance of Betsy’s story put a new complexion on things. How incredibly valuable to have a police officer backing you up, thought Betsy.

  Ramona asked, “What do you want us to do?”

  Betsy was surprised at the lack of rancor in her voice. Rather than jumping to a denial that such a thing could possibly happen in a quiet and happy place like Naniboujou, or expressing concern about Betsy’s sanity (options very much on Betsy’s own mind), Ramona wanted to know what the next correct step might be.

  Jill said, “I think the police should be called at this point. Grand Marais Police are the controlling authority, right?”

  Ramona said, “No, the person to call would be the sheriff. But what would be the good of that? There’s nothing for him to investigate. All we have is the unsubstantiated word of a guest that a stranger no one else saw came and is now gone.”

  “There’s some substantiation,” said Jill. “The person Betsy saw was supposed to be here. She was the ’ mystery teacher’ Charlotte Porter invited, her name is Sharon Kaye Owen of Escapade Design. Isabel Thrift can confirm that.”

  “Sharon Kaye Owen? Is that who we’re talking about? Oh, my, I know her! But she hasn’t been here in years.”

  “Car!” exclaimed Betsy.

  “Car?” echoed Ramona, looking slantwise at Betsy.

  “She didn’t ride up here with someone, so she must have driven herself. What kind of car does she drive?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Betsy went out the swinging door into the dining room and crossed it to the lounge, to where Isabel was sitting.

  “What kind of car does Sharon Kaye drive?” she asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  Carla said, “It’s blue, a Saab, I think.” She frowned and reiterated, “I think.”

  Betsy straightened up and called for the room’s attention, then asked, “Does anyone here know what kind of car Sharon Kaye drives?”

  “A gray BMW,” said someone.

  “No, I think it’s light green,” disagreed someone else.

  “It’s blue,” said Carla firmly. “Kind of a medium shade.”

  “Thank you, never mind,” Betsy said.

  She went back into the dining room, where Jill waited. Betsy said, “We need to get a list of what everyone’s driving, so we can eliminate possibilities. Let’s ask Isabel—”

  Jill interrupted, “What makes you think the mu
rderer left her car here?”

  The excitement of the chase cut off as if someone twisted the faucet, hard. Betsy sat down. “That’s right, that’s right. In fact, he probably drove her away in her own car.”

  “Not far,” said Jill. “If you’re thinking he came back here afterwards.” She sat down across from Betsy.

  “I am?”

  “Well, Frank Owen’s the one you suspect, isn’t he? The obvious one.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Well, who else could it be?”

  “I’m not sure. Did you notice how Carla leapt to Frank’s defense?”

  “Carla?” Jill turned that over in her mind. “Okay, I think I did, on reflection.”

  “If there’s something between Carla and Frank, and Sharon Kaye tried to put a stop to it . . . Or, it could be Eddie. Since he’s not here, maybe he drove here with Sharon Kaye and drove off with her body.”

  “Who’s Eddie?”

  “That’s a very good question. Let’s go talk to Frank.”

  • • •

  Frank Owen was dressing to go out, in wool knee pants, argyle stockings, and a forest green sweater with cable stitching, a cross-country ski outfit. He opened the door to his room with the sweater around his neck and down one arm, the rest of it gathered on his other shoulder. He frowned at Betsy, looked beyond her at Jill, then frowned back at Betsy again.

  “What kind of car does your wife drive?” asked Betsy without preamble.

  “Ex-wife.”

  “What kind of car does your ex-wife drive?”

  “I have no idea.” He shoved his other arm into the sweater and pulled it down.

  “Have you tried to call her today?”

  “No, why?”

  “To find out if she’s all right.”

  He twisted his shoulders impatiently. “Of course she’s all right. She was never here, that’s all.”

  “Well, she was supposed to be here, to teach a class to the stitch-in people.”

  He frowned at Betsy, then Jill, who nodded. He said slowly, “I suppose that does make a difference, doesn’t it?”