Sins and Needles

by Monica Ferris

  Lucille laughed. “I remember reading that fortune tellers just listen to their customers and repeat back what they tell them, and the customers think their minds are being read. So all right, I did a little of that with Jan. When she’d say she liked fishing, I’d let on how amazed I was that I liked fishing, too.” She took a drink of her raspberry tea. “But there are some real things that we both do or like. We both love needlework, for example. And it’s true that I always wanted to be a nurse like she is, but I couldn’t afford the years of training. And I did always want a red PT, but we couldn’t afford one.”

  “Are you driving a rental?” asked Betsy.

  Bobby Lee swelled up a little and said, “I won it for her in a poker game.”

  Betsy got a glimpse of fear in Lucille’s eyes, and a little light went on in her own head. She asked, “Bobby Lee, how long have you had a problem with gambling?”

  “I don’t have a problem!”

  Betsy let that claim hang in the air. She sat back, sipped her tea, and waited.

  Lucille looked near to tears but didn’t say anything. Finally Bobby Lee said, “All right, maybe I do have a problem. But Lucille got on my case about it till I finally joined Gamblers Anonymous. I’ve been going to meetings, even up here. And I haven’t been in a casino for almost a year. But not long back I got back into poker with some old friends. That’s where I won the Cruiser, but Lucille almost made me give it back, she was so angry. Would you believe it was winning her that Cruiser that got me to quit gambling?”

  Lucille said quickly, “That’s true, it really is. All he ever talked about were the big pots he won, but all I could see was that there wasn’t enough money to pay the bills. And I agree, somehow that PT Cruiser was the last straw. We each have a car—we have to with both of us working, and our jobs nowhere near the same place. My car was a nice little Kia, nothing to brag about, but reliable. Yes, I saw the Cruisers around and I wanted one—they’re sharp and cool. But that was one of those ‘someday’ wishes, y’know? ‘Someday I’m gonna have me a swimming pool. Someday I’ll be able to hire a cleaning lady. Someday we’ll take a trip to Hawaii.’ We’re still digging out of the hole he got us into with his gambling, so that ‘someday’ is a long way off. He won that car off a friend of ours, and I was ashamed to speak to him next time I saw him. But it made me madder and madder, and finally I just let it all boil over and told Bobby Lee I was leaving him if he didn’t quit gambling.”

  “But you didn’t make him give it back,” Betsy said before she could stop herself.

  “No. No, I didn’t. Did you ever hear how to make a dog quit killing chickens?”

  “I didn’t know dogs killed chickens.”

  “Some do—the ones that live on a ranch. They think it’s a game. Anyway, what you do is, you tie a chicken he killed around his neck and make him wear it till it rots off. He’ll never kill one again.”

  Betsy looked at Bobby Lee. The look on his face was so pained she nearly cried out. He said, “I was so proud to give her that Cruiser, but she made me feel like a chicken-killin’ dog. That was when I hit bottom and found the only way out was up.” He smiled like it hurt his mouth. “I’d still feel like one, except Ham’s wife made him join Gamblers Anonymous, too, and told us it was worth losin’ the vee-hickle if it made him quit gambling.”

  “That was tough love,” Lucille said. “Tough on both of us, but I’m proud of the way he came around. And in another couple-three years, we’ll be out of debt.”

  Betsy said, “It may be sooner than that, if you really are Susan McConnell’s daughter and in line for a substantial inheritance.”

  Lucille sat a moment thinking about that. Then she sighed deeply. “I almost can’t think too much about that. It isn’t what I came up here for, really it isn’t. I just want to know where I came from.”

  Betsy said, “If you are her daughter, why does Susan McConnell deny it’s even possible?”

  “I wish I knew!” cried Lucille. She drew a deep breath. “Because maybe it isn’t true. But the DNA links are real! Oh, I don’t know what to think about all this!”

  “When did you find out about the money?”

  “Jan told me about it the second time we got together. She told me about the will her great-aunt wrote. We joked a little bit about how, if I really were her sister, I could claim some of the money. Only I wasn’t joking. I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say, all that money, and some of it could be mine, so I just went along with her joke. I don’t know if she remembers that conversation—”

  “She’s aware that if you really are her sister, you have a legitimate claim to a share in the inheritance,” said Betsy.

  “Do you know how much money we’re talking about?” asked Bobby Lee, trying to make the question casual.

  “No,” said Betsy. A thought struck her. “I don’t want to unduly alarm you, but it occurs to me that if a member of the family murdered Edyth Hanraty for the money, he or she isn’t going to be happy to find half of it may be carted off to Texas.”

  THE next morning, Jan was walking by her husband’s office when she heard the phone ring. It was near lunchtime, and the clinic receptionist was gone. The other two nurses were helping Doctor with twin five-year-olds who were strenuously objecting to being given their school shots, so Jan stepped in and picked up the phone. “Young America Health Clinic,” she said. “Nurse Henderson speaking.”

  “Just the person I was seeking!” said Stewart in a bright voice. “May I buy you lunch?”

  This was different, Stewart offering to pay for lunch. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “You said we could talk sometime, and I was hoping today is the time,” he said, still brightly.

  Her heart sank. She wasn’t feeling up to being the bad guy today. But she wouldn’t feel like it tomorrow, or the next day, so putting it off wouldn’t make it any easier. “All right; there’s a cafeteria here in the Medical Arts building. Can you come at one?”

  “Certainly! See you then!” And he hung up.

  Stewart was waiting for her at the start of the cafeteria line. He waved one arm at her, smiling broadly. He was wearing an open-necked light blue shirt, navy-blue slacks, and white deck shoes. He looked like a retired cruise ship commander who had spent a lot of time in foreign ports. She smiled and waved back as she wove her way between the tables to join him. “You look beautiful,” she said impishly.

  “And you look like the wreck of the Hesperus,” he replied—Stewart was fond of very old sayings—eyeing her faded scrubs and dirty walking shoes. “As soon as the estate finishes probate, you should quit that job and get yourself a new wardrobe.”

  “But I love my job! Oh, Uncle Stewart, you can’t possibly think I’d give up nursing!” She was sincerely surprised at him.

  He, in turn, was surprised at her. “Oh, come on! All those sticky, sick kiddies? I’d think you’d want to get into something more exciting, more fun! Something where you can wear stylish clothes.” He cocked his head sideways as he looked at her. “You would look smashing—” another old term, though not as old as the shipwrecked Hesperus—“in a navy blue pinstripe, with a broad-brimmed straw hat kind of sideways on your head.”

  “You think so? But I couldn’t go eye-to-eye with a three-year-old while wearing a hat that covers one eye. And trust me, there is nothing more fun than making a sticky, sick three-year-old smile through her tears. Or more exciting than helping Hugs find out what’s wrong and how to fix it. Or more rewarding than telling a scared set of parents that their baby is going to be just fine.”

  “Oh. Well, all right, if that’s what you truly want.”

  “It is. Come on, let’s get something to eat. I can’t stay away too long.”

  Shaking his head that someone could be happy in a job that didn’t reward snappy dressers or allow lengthy lunch breaks, Stewart followed Jan down the stainless steel shelf as she picked a bowl of fruit here, an egg salad sandwich there, and a bottle of cranberry juice at the end. He selected
a ham and cheese sandwich, a bag of corn chips, a bowl of rice pudding, and coffee, black, with three sugars.

  They found an empty table surrounded by empty tables—most people working here ate at noon—and sat down. He sighed deeply and began to tear open the papers of sugar and empty them into his coffee.

  “Still like coffee syrup, I see,” noted Jan.

  “Yeah, but only when Terri isn’t looking,” he replied, wadding up the paper. “She’s turned into a real Nazi about sugar. I can only get a taste of the real thing away from home.” He looked across at Jan and smiled. “Of course, I’ve lost seven pounds since she starting cracking down, so there’s good news with the bad.” His smile broadened as he stirred his coffee. “You know, big money becomes you; apart from that singularly tasteless outfit, you look bright and shiny as a new quarter.”

  She smiled back and began to undo the Saran Wrap around her sandwich. “I don’t have the money yet, but thank you. The lack of sugar becomes you. You’re looking very svelte.”

  “Thank you.” He watched her take a bite of cantaloupe and asked, “What’s this I hear about you having a twin?”

  She swallowed and smiled. “Who told you?”

  “Katie. She says there’s a visitor from Texas who looks enough like you to be your twin sister.”

  “Well, there is a woman here who actually claims to be a blood relative, possibly a sister. She says she has DNA evidence. But when I told Mother, she said she would be happy to take a DNA test to prove this woman was an imposter.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think. DNA can’t prove two people are siblings, but that isn’t what this is about. She has a symmetrical translocation of two genes and claims to have discovered the same translocation on my genes, and—”

  “Hold on, hold on,” said Stewart, raising one hand, palm toward her. “How did she get hold of a sample of your genes?”

  “We both attended a conference in Houston, and when she saw me, she wondered if we were related, so she stole my hairbrush and had some tests run on the hair she found on it. She works in a medical testing lab, so that part wasn’t hard.”

  Stewart had been looking more and more amazed at this account. “She sounds like some kind of nut!” he said.

  Jan smiled. “No, she’s not a nut. She was blindsided recently by finding out she was adopted, and she’s trying to find out who her real parents are. Actually, I like her. We met at a knitting lesson, and we’ve become friends. We have an amazing number of things in common. The thing is, if she is related but isn’t Mother’s daughter, then where did she come from?”

  “How old is she?”

  “Four or five years older than me.”

  Stewart shrugged. “Not mine, then. I was in grade school when she was born.” He ate some of his sandwich while he thought. Then his face lit up with amusement. “You don’t suppose she’s Edyth’s?”

  Jan choked on a strawberry and clapped a paper napkin to her mouth.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, rising when he saw the deep red she was turning.

  She waved her other hand at him to sit back down and nodded furiously, eyes watering, unable to make other than odd breathing noises for about a minute. “Urg!” she muttered at last, wiping her lips, “That was a terrible thing to say!” And she burst into laughter.

  They both laughed long and loud at the notion of Edyth Hanraty ever allowing a man to father her child.

  “But, but it’s not possible, Uncle Stewart, you know that,” Jan said and her laughter subsided into the occasional giggle. “It’s beyond belief.”

  “I don’t know,” he said loftily. “Perhaps if she killed the father and buried him under a thorn bush after the deed was done…”

  She laughed again, then said, “Hold on, hold on, that isn’t what I mean. When Lucille was born, Aunt Edyth would have been at least fifty, and the woman who has a baby in her fifties is doing it with the help of some very modern medicine, which was not available back then.”

  “All right, all right, not Edyth’s. And not Grandmother’s, either, or she wouldn’t have been given up for adoption. So whose?”

  “That’s what I asked you.”

  “How sure is this Lucille person that she’s one of us?”

  “Very sure.”

  “Do you want me to talk to her? Maybe I can help her see this is impossible.”

  “She wants to meet my family. And I’d like your opinion. How about I invite her and her husband to dinner, and you and Terri come, too?”

  “All right, pick a night and let us know.” He began to unwrap his sandwich. “If Susan is sure Lucille isn’t hers—” He paused to look at Jan inquiringly.

  “Mother is adamant.”

  “Then suppose it’s David who’s her father? You and Jason look like your dad, not your mom.”

  “Jason and I look like you, too—there’s blond on both sides of my family. What ties her to Mother is that Lucille had a problem carrying babies to term, and so did I—and so did Mother. What’s more, I suspect Grandmother did, too. You came a long while after Mother, and I know you had a sister who died young, just like Mother’s daughter Julie. So if the link is genetic, it’s down the female side of the family.”

  “Hmmm,” said Stewart.

  “Yes,” nodded Jan. “I think your daughters should be tested for it.”

  “Katie had that amnio-thing, and her baby’s fine.”

  “Amniocentesis doesn’t test for the kind of problem I’m talking about. My two boys are fine, but I’m having them tested because they may carry the defect and hand it on to their daughters. And Katie may have the problem herself and was merely lucky with this first child. I’ll talk to her, if you like, and the other girls. The test is expensive, but it can at least warn them of a possible complication.”

  Stewart frowned—he was never one to borrow trouble—but at last he nodded. “All right, if you think it’s a good idea.” He took a bite of his sandwich.

  Jan picked up her fork, speared a chunk of pineapple, and turned her mind to the other problem. “Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”

  “I have a business proposition.”

  She nodded. This was what she expected. “What kind of business?”

  “Boating. Boating and fishing.” He began to beam at her. “I know, doesn’t it just finally make sense? The thing I love to do most, the thing I would do instead of working at my other businesses, should be my business: go fishing! Combine that with just cruising the lake, which I also love, and what a business! It’s incredibly obtuse of me not to have seen the possibilities a long time ago! I think finding Aunt Edyth’s boat was a sign.”

  “Now, Uncle Stewart,” said Jan.

  “All right, maybe not a real sign, but it’s strange, because I’ve actually been thinking about the boat business for a while. Problem is, that sort of thing takes capital, the kind we just don’t have. But now, with Aunt Edyth gone, the money is here—and what do we find going through her property? That wonderful old boat, the Edali! I really am halfway to thinking it is a sign, and from the old woman herself, that she wishes me well, that this is the business I was meant to be in, this is the business where I can redeem myself, take better care of my girls. I know what I am, a no-good loafer, been that way all my life. But it was never on purpose. It just seemed to happen, like I was born with a ‘gone fishing’ sign planted in my heart.

  “But don’t you see? That’s why I chose the boat. It was like I was saying ‘I understand’ to Aunt Edyth. I can restore it and make it the symbol of the business, even offer to take special customers for cruises in it. Lure of the Lake, isn’t that a great name? It’s a natural!”

  When Jan didn’t respond at once, his smile faded into a worried look. “What’s the matter? Can’t you just see it?”

  “Yes, I can,” she said slowly. “And I agree, it would be a natural for you. But I can also see that this would take a large amount of money to start up. I take it you ar
e hoping I will give it to you.”

  “Not give,” he said. “Loan. L-O-A-N. I’ll pay you back, with interest, I swear it. This is the best idea I’ve ever had. It’s a sure thing. I know every square foot of Lake Minnetonka. I’ve been out on it since I was a little, little boy. I know all the best places to catch bass and walleye, the times of day when they’re biting, and I can read the sky and water as well as anyone who boats on it. Remember how you and I were never skunked when I took you fishing? Or caught by surprise by rain? I’m a better weather forecaster for this area than any of those nimrods on television. I’d be the best guide for fishermen ever! I know that lake, I love that lake like it was my own child. I’d never get tired or bored with this, ever.”

  Jan felt herself drawn into Stewart’s enthusiasm. It seemed genuine—but then it always did. “Uncle Stewart, have you any idea how much starting up such a business would cost? You’d need property to build on, you’d need a building, you’d need boats—the cost would be astronomical!”

  “Now, no, it wouldn’t. For one thing, we already have the property. The land behind our house runs right down to the lake. And I’ve got a nice boat—and a second, spectacular one, too!”

  “You mean, use your own house and yard for this? Does Terri know about this?”

  “Not yet, not yet.” He patted the air as if patting the shoulder of a weeping woman. “Now, now,” he said, “once she sees how serious I am—and once I tell her I have the money in hand—”

  “How much?”

  “What?”

  “How much money would it take to start this business up?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Not as much as you’re probably thinking.”

  She asked again, more deliberately, “How much?”

  He said with false bravado, “I’m not completely sure. Somewhere between five and seven hundred thousand dollars.”

  That was pretty close to what she’d been thinking he’d ask for. The interesting part was, she didn’t think that was enough.