Crewel Yule

by Ferris, Monica

  They think it’s murder, and I don’t think they’re convinced I didn’t do it. I have to find a way to stop them. No, not that, I won’t do that again. That was unbelievably worse than I thought it would be. My stomach hurts all the time and that scream keeps going on and on in my head. It won’t stop. On the other hand, I’m not sorry she’s gone, there is relief happening, too. Maybe the relief will get stronger and the sickness will go away.

  But what am I going to do about those two women? Their questions are like enemy soldiers in computer games, you shoot one down and another takes its place. They’re going to figure it out if we don’t get out of here—and we can’t get out of here because of the snow. I wish I could just tell them I won’t talk to them anymore. But I can’t do that, it would make them sure I did it.

  Maybe if all of us stopped answering her questions . . . I’m going to talk to them.

  Sunday, December 16, 10:40 A.M.

  “What have we got?” asked Jill. They were back in their suite.

  “Nothing,” said Betsy in a hollow voice.

  It was partly that Betsy was tired, but it was mostly that when Betsy had another question she wanted to ask Eve, they’d gone searching for her on three and, naturally, found her at the far end of the gallery. She’d stared at them with wide, frightened eyes and said, “I’ve decided I’m not going to talk to you anymore. Okay? So please just go away.”

  “Whose idea was this?” asked Jill, but Eve just turned and walked off.

  So they were back in their suite, and Betsy was depressed.

  Jill said, “You’ve got a notebook full of notes. That’s not nothing. Look at them, what do they tell us?”

  Betsy opened the booklet, and found herself looking at a page of notes from the interview with Cherry Pye. She read a note at random, gave a quiet little gasp, and read the words aloud. “ ‘Thought it was a prank.’ ”

  “Who did?”

  “Cherry. When she heard Belle’s scream. And the smash on the floor.”

  “Well, so what?”

  “That was another of Cherry’s lies.”

  “That’s a lie?” said Jill, surprised. “She said she thought it was a prank and she didn’t want to go gaping like a tourist. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Did you think it was a prank?”

  “Me? No, of course not.” Jill shook her head, remembering. “I was out of the suite before I thought anything, looking over the railing. But I’m a cop, Betsy; that’s different.”

  “I’m not a cop, and the racket I heard all around me after she fell was not people being amused or startled; they were scared, and then horrified,” said Betsy. “But Cherry said she didn’t look down until she was in the elevator and heard two women say someone had died in a fall.”

  “Maybe she’s a—I don’t know—a social inept, or something. Someone who doesn’t interpret people’s behavior accurately.”

  “You think she’s autistic?” Betsy was incredulous.

  Jill frowned and lifted her shoulders. “Well, no. And you’re right, she’d almost have to be, to ignore all the shouts and screams. Wouldn’t she?”

  “So why did she say that? Did she have some other reason for not going to look?”

  “Maybe she couldn’t see over the railing and for some reason doesn’t want to say that. You know, it would be just one more admission of something she can’t do that fully abled people can do without thinking.”

  “Maybe. But that’s a pretty thin argument,” said Betsy, and a thoughtful silence fell.

  “On the other hand, look at her chair,” said Betsy, at last. “Those plastic spokes don’t twinkle like wire wheels do.”

  “You think that twinkle business Judy Bielec told you about is for real? I thought when Eve described the way the falling snow made the light twinkle . . .”

  “Yes, but she also said she saw some kind of movement. Someone was up there, we know that; someone who threw Belle over the railing. It’s true, I didn’t see anyone standing up there, and nobody else did, either. I know, I know, you can’t see someone who isn’t right up against the railing. But it’s funny.” Betsy thought a few seconds. “Eve said the shape was boxy, not long. I wonder . . .” she hesitated. “What do you call it when you do this?” Betsy held the back of her skirt in place with her hands, then stooped and awkwardly waddled a few steps, her knees nearly up to her chin.

  Jill put a hand over her mouth to hide a grin. “Duck walk,” she said, and held out her other hand to help Betsy up.

  Betsy grabbed and pulled herself upright. “My joints don’t want me to do things like that anymore,” she sighed, shaking a leg to loosen an incipient cramp. “But Eve is a young woman, she could duck walk all the way to the stairwell if she had to. Farther, probably. And she was wearing a dark sweater with lots of silver threads knit into it.”

  “But Eve’s the one who said the shape was boxy.”

  “So it was Lenore she saw.”

  “And what would have possessed Lenore to think of doing something like that?”

  Betsy thought. “Well, picture it. Belle’s scream brought almost everyone’s attention. If I had set off that scream, I’d’ve ducked down instinctively. And once down, it’s easy to think maybe I should stay down.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” agreed Jill, but doubtfully. “Still, a duck walk is . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Silly?” said Betsy.

  “You said it, not me,” agreed Jill, suddenly fighting to contain her amusement again.

  Betsy made a sulky face. “I don’t like it when you laugh at me.”

  “I’m not laughing,” said Jill, which was true—but she was smiling. “But think about it: If the twinkle is real, then it can’t be Cherry, because she doesn’t have wheels that twinkle. I’m just happy because we’ve finally crossed someone off the list, even if it does call for someone else to duck walk away from the scene of the crime.”

  “Well, okay,” said Betsy. And she smiled, because she had looked silly doing her duck walk. “Anyway Eve was wearing slacks, no need to duck walk when you can crawl.”

  “Did Lenore have anything about her that twinkled?”

  “I don’t remember anything, but she changed clothes before she came down to lunch, remember? She told us about that, how she changed out of her fancy working clothes because she spilled coffee on them.”

  “So maybe we should find out, if we can, what she was wearing that morning,” said Jill.

  “Let’s go back to Bewitching Stitches and ask her.”

  They found her in her sky-blue dress oramented with birds and waited until a pair of shoppers walked away before approaching her, but she waved them off. “I’m not talking to you anymore. You’re not official, and I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  “Whose idea was this?” asked Jill, but Lenore set her jaw into a stubborn line and looked away until they left her alone.

  So they went to speak to Mr. Moore, the owner. He seemed proud and possessive of Lenore.

  “She’s doing great for us, now she’s seen how well her pattern is selling,” he said. “You should have seen her yesterday morning, she was so unhappy.”

  “Was she dressed as beautifully as she is right now?” asked Betsy.

  “Oh, gosh, yes,” he replied.

  “What was she wearing? Do you remember?”

  He thought that an odd question, but obediently tried to recall. “She had this long green skirt, and a fancy burgundy blouse with trick sleeves, and her hair was done up with little slips of it hanging down. Very classy, but even more so today. Look at her over there, she dresses like a queen.”

  “Was there gold or silver in the blouse or skirt?” persisted Betsy.

  He frowned at her. “No. Everything was plain, not even shiny. What’s this about?”

  “We’re looking for someone who was wearing clothing that twinkled yesterday.”

  “Well, it wasn’t her.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Jill, and the two left t
he suite.

  “Well?” said Betsy.

  Jill said, “Looks like we really are down to one, then. Unless you want to search Lenore’s room? But I can’t imagine someone putting on flashy clothing to go commit a murder.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “So, it wasn’t Cherry, and it wasn’t Lenore. That leaves Eve Suttle. I guess now we go call Lieutenant Birdsong and tell him what we’ve got.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t sound happy about it.”

  “I know. And I should be, shouldn’t I? But there’s still something . . .” She gnawed her bottom lip briefly. “Let’s go talk to Mr. Kreinik and Mr. Stott.”

  The Kreinik suite was a riot of color in displays of floss in silk, cotton, wool, and blends, and glittering metallics of every thickness and color, on cards or as skeins. Doug, in an open-collared shirt, was standing in the middle of the room talking to another man, gesturing with hands and forearms so as not to knock anything over. He saw them come in and smiled over the top of the man’s head. “I’ll be right with you,” he said.

  And he was. “How can I help you?” he asked.

  “About yesterday,” began Betsy.

  He took a step back, looking Jill up and down, then Betsy. “Oh, are you the two going around looking into that unfortunate death?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jill.

  Betsy said, “We just want to know—”

  “I don’t think I should talk to anyone who’s not a police official,” interrupted Doug.

  “I’m a police official,” said Jill, producing her ID and badge. “Sergeant Jill Larson.” She snapped the wallet shut before he could get a good look at it.

  He studied her closely, but Jill could absorb any amount of study without flinching, and at last he nodded. “All right, ask your questions.”

  Jill stepped back to let Betsy come forward. “Yesterday, you were warning people about Belle Hammermill’s unethical behavior,” she began.

  “Illegal behavior,” he corrected her.

  “You’re right, illegal behavior,” she agreed. “But you were also telling that story about the woman who didn’t know who you were and told you to your face what she thought was a funny story about how difficult Kreinik Blending Filament is to use.”

  Doug smiled. “That was later, after Ms. Hammermill’s fall.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t tell it earlier, perhaps shortly before she died?”

  He ran a big hand across his curly dark hair. “No, I’m sure I didn’t. Why, is that important?”

  “I think it may be. Now, when you ran out of the suite to look at what happened, to see Belle on the floor, did you look around?”

  “Do you mean, did I look up, like to see where she fell from? I don’t think so, but I don’t remember if I did or not.”

  “No, I mean did you look around the gallery here on six? What I’m after is someone who saw a woman in a wheelchair near your suite.”

  He frowned at her. “A woman in a wheelchair,” he repeated. “No—wait, do you mean Emily Watson? She came by this morning.”

  “You know Emily Watson?”

  “Certainly. She’s co-chair of the INRG committee that runs the Market.”

  “No, this is a different person. She didn’t come into your suite, but she was near it, moving down the gallery toward the elevators.”

  He thought briefly, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember seeing her. But I couldn’t tell you if there was any specific person nearby or not. Well, except Dave Stott. He and I were talking in here when it happened, and he came out with me to look over the railing. He seemed to be looking around. You might talk to him.”

  “Thank you, we will,” said Betsy.

  “Thank you, sir,” added Jill.

  They left the suite and Betsy said, “No help there. Are we expecting too much? It was chaotic when it happened, all the shouting and screaming.”

  Jill replied, “Yes, but when something awful happens, people go into alarm mode, and they notice things, you’d be surprised what they notice. A person in a wheelchair isn’t common, and it isn’t wrong to think someone may have seen her.”

  Dave Stott’s suite did not face the atrium, but was down one of the short passages leading to a stairwell. Norden Crafts had a two-bedroom suite, and was using both the sitting room and one of the bedrooms to display its wares. There was a wide variety of charts, fabrics, and specialty items. Not just scissors and needles, but pillow forms and books and small wooden and metal boxes with inset tops of evenweave fabric. Dave was sitting on a couch explaining the use of an esoteric gadget to a customer while his wife filled out a sales form at a table across the room. There were a lot of customers crowding the rooms, but at last they emptied, and Betsy sat down next to Dave. He smiled at her. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I want to ask you some questions about yesterday, when you were over in the Kreinik suite.”

  “What about it?” He turned his head to look up at Jill. “Are you two together?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m Sergeant Jill Larson, and we’re conducting an informal investigation into Belle Hammermill’s death.”

  “I thought it was an accident.”

  “We’re trying to find out just exactly how it happened,” said Betsy.

  “All right. What do you want to ask me?”

  “Do you know you look a whole lot like General Ulysses S. Grant?” asked Betsy.

  He laughed out loud. “I’ve been told that before. My wife and I have a vacation home near Galena, Illinois, which was General Grant’s hometown. But what has that got to do with Belle Hammermill?”

  “Nothing,” said Betsy, blushing. “I just suddenly realized the resemblance. Sorry. What I really wanted to ask you was: What were you and Doug talking about when it happened?”

  Dave said slowly, “About how Belle Hammermill cheated him.”

  “I thought so. Now, did you look up to the place where Belle fell?”

  He nodded once, sharply. “As a matter of fact, I did. I guess I was thinking the railing broke. But I didn’t see a broken railing.”

  “Did you see anyone up there?”

  “Well, it depends on where she fell from.”

  “The top floor. Nine,” said Betsy.

  He nodded. “Okay, that’s what we thought. And no, there wasn’t anyone up there, not right over where she landed. There were people looking over the railings all around the atrium, but none along the side she must’ve fallen from, if she fell from nine.”

  “Did you see anything up there at all?” asked Jill.

  He looked around and up at her. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Nothing moving along the railing?”

  He thought briefly. “No,” he said, but doubtfully. “What do you mean moving along the railing? You mean like someone running?”

  “We have a report of someone or something moving along the gallery up there. Something that twinkled or flashed.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t remember anything like that. But I didn’t stare up at the place; I looked up, then down again.”

  Betsy asked, “Did you see a woman in a wheelchair outside the Kreinik suite when you went out to see what was going on?”

  “No, I wasn’t paying close attention—well, wait a minute, I did look up and down the gallery.” He thought a bit. “Everyone was at the railing, shouting and pointing. I don’t remember anyone in a wheelchair, and I think I should have noticed it. But maybe not, people were coming out of the suites and the galleries were getting clogged. I could have missed it, if she was down aways, hidden by all the people coming out of the suites. I wasn’t looking too closely, anyway. I was shook up by all this. It was about the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, that woman down on the floor.” He pinched his eyes closed with thumb and forefinger, lifting his eyeglasses to get at them. “It was really awful.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure it was a bad thing to see,” said Jill.

  Betsy sto
od. “Thank you, Mr. Stott.” She put out her hand.

  He took it and his eyes ran over her name tag. “Hey, I know you! You took over that needlework shop in Excelsior from Margot Berglund. I heard she died suddenly. That’s too bad; she was a good businesswoman.”

  “Yes, she was. She was my sister.”

  “Is that right? Well, you seem to be doing all right up there. Continued success to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  He appeared ready to say something else, but Jill hustled Betsy away, out the door of the suite.

  “I bet he’s wondering how you manage to be a cop and run a needlework shop at the same time,” said Jill.

  “I don’t think we should go back and explain, do you?”

  “No. Where are we going now?”

  “I want to talk to Emily Watson.”

  “What about?”

  “Wheelchairs.”

  Emily was in her usual place behind the long table INRG members had checked in at when they arrived. At this late stage no one was checking in, so she and another committee member were stitching and talking. There was a scatter of paper on the table, extra Market Guides, room service menus, a Nashville phone book, a couple of free counted cross-stitch patterns. Another table set at a right angle to Emily’s had stacks of T-shirts and canvas carrier bags for sale.

  Emily was working on a small Celtic knot pattern in gold, wine, and green, with black backstitching. Betsy recognized the chart as one from Textile Heritage, a Scottish company.

  There was a chair on Betsy and Jill’s side of the table, and at a gesture from Jill, Betsy took it. She opened her Management and Hiring notebook.

  “That was a good class,” noted Emily.

  “Yes, I’m finding all sorts of useful things in the booklet; I wish I’d been here for the class. Emily, may we ask you some questions?”

  “Certainly.” Emily tucked her needle into the white evenweave fabric of her piece and prepared to pay close attention.

  “You said earlier that the lightweight, armless wheelchair isn’t suitable for shopping.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” nodded Emily. “You don’t have anyplace to put your purchases except on your lap, and without arms on the chair to stop them, they tend to slide off onto the floor. They’re good in the shop, though, because they’re lightweight, which makes them easy to propel hour after hour. And they turn on a dime, and they’re just a little narrower than the heavier chairs, so you’re not constantly nicking the furniture.”