The Drowning Spool

by Monica Ferris

  “Okay, let’s go in another direction, for now. What do you do for a living?”

  “In the winter, I work in a drugstore.” He named it, a national chain. “Just clerking, and just under thirty hours a week—the bastards, so they don’t have to give me any benefits. And I’m also part-time for an office-cleaning company, working four thirty to nine six days a week—which, you will also notice, is less than thirty hours, God bless bosses everywhere.”

  “And in the summer?”

  “I manage a miniature golf course. I do everything—sell tickets, maintain the grounds, paint the office, everything. That’s a full-time job, so in the summer I’m covered. I like my boss, too, he pretty much lets me run things my way.” He smiled and ate three french fries together in two bites.

  “You’ll pardon my noticing, but you have the appearance of a farmhand.” Betsy speared a cherry tomato with her fork.

  “Oh, yes, I kind of have another job, very part-time, and I get paid with a cut in my bed and board. My landlord owns a hobby farm, he raises goats, sells milk, and, once in a while, meat. I help feed the animals, muck out the barn, rake the corral, mend the fences, do a little painting, like that. I don’t milk them and I stay in the house on butchering day. Goats are okay; I mean, not like cows and horses, you can push them around and if they step on your foot it doesn’t hurt.” He smiled and sniffed twice. “They do have an odor, however.”

  Betsy smiled. “My grandmother’s neighbor had a baby who was allergic to cows’ milk and his parents kept a goat just for him. Grandmom said the creature smelled worse than the cows.” She broke in half a cracker that came with the salad. “Now, tell me about Teddi Wahlberger.”

  Tommy strained to keep the casual air going. “What can I say? I wasn’t really close to her, but anyone could tell she was beautiful in mind as well as body, and everyone said she was a really good person.”

  Betsy did not reply to this slab of boilerplate. She ate her cracker half, then got out her reporter’s narrow notebook and took her time writing Tommy’s name and the date on the top page. After a full minute of silence, he began to writhe subtly. He took a big bite of his burger, clearly hoping that she’d break the silence, but she waited through it.

  “Okay, okay,” he yielded. “Let’s get real about Teddi. First, she was really pretty, that’s the truth. But not stuck up about it. Not just her face, she had a great figure.” His hands moved expressively. “She loved to party. She had parties at her house, cookouts mostly. Plus, I saw her around, I mean, it seemed like every time I was out, there she was. She never got sloppy drunk, but she liked to drink. She was a great dancer, knew every kind of dance, some I never heard of, I mean, like the cha-cha. She told funny jokes, she was sexy, really hot. She would flirt with anyone, even me, especially when she was drinking. I liked her. Everyone liked her.”

  “Apparently someone didn’t,” Betsy pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, that wasn’t me. I mean, it wasn’t serious between us, the kind where I might get really mad if we had a fight, which we never did, not really. We were just—uh—friends.”

  She quirked an eyebrow. “With benefits?”

  “Well, uh, yeah.”

  “So how did it come about that you got her pregnant?”

  He boggled a little at this, and Betsy said, “I mean, didn’t you take care that this wouldn’t happen?”

  “Oh, sure. She was on ‘the pill.’” He put down his burger to waggle his fingers in quotation marks.

  “And you didn’t use some kind of backup?”

  “I didn’t think we had to.” He picked up his burger. “I mean, she told me we were good to go.” He put it back down with a little sad sigh. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

  “How long did you know Teddi?”

  He stuffed a long french fry into his mouth and thought while he chewed. “Close to a year.”

  Betsy wrote that down with an air so skeptical that he amended his reply. “Well, maybe six or seven months. If you count up to right now.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “At this club we go to, the Bar Abilene. It’s in Uptown and it has a dance floor.” Uptown was a section of Minneapolis featuring lots of bars, theaters, and ethnic restaurants.

  “‘We’?”

  “There’s three, sometimes four or even five of us, we sort of hang out together, bring our dates or steady girlfriends. There was three of us this one night, and my girl, Dell, she couldn’t be there, so I was flying solo, and Teddi danced with me a couple times and gave me her number. Next time I had a fight with Dell, I called her.”

  “How many times did you go out with her?”

  He shrugged and again his blue eyes shifted just a little before he said, “Hardly any. Three at the most.”

  “And yet—”

  “Yeah, well . . .” He sighed heavily and said, as if it were his own original thought, “All it takes is once.”

  Betsy put her pen down in a pointed way. “Mr. Shore,” she began, then stopped.

  “All right, all right,” he said, raising both hands, one with the last of his burger in it, the other holding a french fry. “Maybe it was more than once.” He put his food down on his plate. “Look, are you going to help me or not?”

  “I can’t help you if you’re not going to answer my questions truthfully.”

  “But I am answering truthfully.” His smile turned charmingly rueful. “Eventually.”

  “Mr. Shore, I don’t have time to pry the truth out of you. You can go ahead with this game you’re playing—with yourself or others, I’m not sure which—but personally, I am done.”

  “But Uncle Phil and Aunt Doris are good friends of yours! I mean, they said they could get you to help me!”

  “I’m sure what they actually said was that they’d ask me to help you, which they did. But you’re giving me false answers to questions. And I have better things to do than to chase after shadows.”

  “But—”

  Betsy signaled for the check. Leona, the slim, dark-and-silver-haired owner of the Barleywine, brought it over, glanced at Tommy, and then, seeing something in his eyes, leaned over him and said with quiet conviction, “Whatever the problem is, you’re not helping.” Leona was uncanny at reading people, perhaps because she really was, as many people believed, a witch with psychic powers. Or perhaps because she’d been in the hospitality business all her life, dealing with every kind of person.

  Tommy stared at her, openmouthed, as Betsy handed Leona her credit card.

  When Leona walked away, Betsy said, “You think she’s good? Wait until a really experienced police detective starts in on you.” She stood.

  “No, wait! Please, wait!” Now he looked seriously frightened.

  Betsy sat back down. “What?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to tell me how you came to impregnate a young woman you barely knew, and how you reacted when she told you.”

  He wiped his mouth with his hand, then grabbed his mug of beer and took a big swallow. “I thought she liked me, but later I guessed she just felt sorry for me,” he muttered, shamefaced. “And when she told me she was pregnant, I didn’t believe her.” He wiped his mouth again, this time with the edge of his hand.

  “I mean, okay, it wasn’t once, but it wasn’t like every other night for a month, it was only a couple of times.” He was speaking to the top of the table, one trembling hand resting on his unfolded napkin. He spoke rapidly but with emotion. “So I asked her, I went, ‘How do you know it’s mine?’ I mean, she wasn’t a—you know—but she got around. I mean, I’d see her leave a place with a guy, and you know they’re not going out for a smoke. You know? But she said the timing was right, and it was mine, for sure. I was scared, then I got mad. I mean, she said she was on the pill and there wasn’t anything to worry about. Now she’s saying maybe she forgot to take it a couple of times. I say, ‘Well, maybe you shouldn’t forget to get an abortion,’ and she goes, ‘Maybe I don’t want one.
’”

  Tommy rubbed his forehead hard with the fingers of both hands. “I can’t afford child support! Hell, I’m barely supporting myself! I mean, what was I supposed to do?” Suddenly realizing what a culpable statement that was, he swore in a low whisper and said, “I didn’t kill her. I really, truly, honest-to-God didn’t kill her.”

  “Where were you the night she was killed?”

  Again his eyes shifted. “I was working. I did half a shift at the drugstore, then went with a gang to clean offices. You can ask both my bosses, like I’m sure the cops have. Then I went home.”

  “There’s been a second murder, you know, this time of a woman who lived at Watered Silk.”

  Tommy looked seriously alarmed. “Whe—When did that happen?”

  “There’s a problem with this crime. It was a setup— someone interfered with a medication that a nurse administers—so while the time of death is known, the setup could have occurred any time between when Teddi was killed and the day this new victim died.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair!” Tommy said. “How can I—how can anyone give an alibi for that?”

  “He can’t,” said Betsy. “So what I’m looking at is opportunity—and access to what is needed for the setup. I have found out that both the medicine the victim was given—and the poison introduced into that medicine—are found at a pharmacy.” She watched as his frightened mind stumbled over the implications.

  “But—but wait! I’m not a pharmacist, for God’s sake! I don’t have access to all those pills and things! And, even if I did, I don’t know what’s poisonous and what’s not! Oh my God, I am gonna get arrested! You’ve just got to help me, please! Please help me!”

  “I don’t know if I can. Let me get some more information.” Betsy wrote down the names of Tommy’s supervisors at both jobs, and then the name and phone number of his landlord. For good measure, she asked for the name and contact information for his parents and his other girlfriend, Dell Wheatly.

  “Tell me about going skinny-dipping at Watered Silk,” she said, still writing.

  “Who says I went skinny-dipping?” he asked sharply, trying to sound scandalized.

  “Did you?”

  “The cops asked me that and I told them I never did. I never even heard of the place.”

  “Was that a lie?”

  “No.” When Betsy didn’t write that down, he waggled his head back and forth while grimacing as if in pain. “Damn,” he muttered.

  Betsy waited.

  “Okay, I mean yes, I heard of Watered Silk. But I never went. This one guy says he knows a place to go skinny-dipping, which you can’t do at the Y.”

  “Who was that?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  With a sideways pull of her mouth, Betsy stood and went to the bar to pay for the meal. Tommy didn’t try to call her back this time but sat crestfallen, not moving, while she put on her coat and walked out of the pub.

  • • •

  “I’M really sorry,” she said to Phil and Doris that evening over wine and cheese in her apartment. Connor sat on a kitchen chair pulled into the living room, while Phil and Doris sat side by side on the deep-purple couch. Betsy was sitting in the comfortable champagne-colored chair she used when working on her stitching. A bright lamp stood behind the chair, its shade tilted so it was looking over her shoulder.

  Betsy had redecorated her living room not long ago, replacing the love seat with a proper couch and reupholstering the chair. Crewel-worked pillows in complementary shades—with two in bright yellow for contrast—ornamented them. The carpet was new, a neutral buff, and she had painted the walls in a pale cream. The room was large, low-ceilinged, with a big pair of windows overlooking the street, guarded by buff sheers and heavy drapes that matched the carpet.

  “I’m sure he’s sorry, too,” Phil said in a grim tone that boded ill for Tommy.

  “I wonder if it could be true that he doesn’t know who told him about people using the pool at Watered Silk,” said Doris.

  Phil gave her a frowning look, clearly annoyed that she wasn’t on his side, but she continued bravely, “Now, you know how it is among a group of people when they’re drinking. They say all kinds of things, tell stories, make jokes, all of them talking at once.”

  “But he remembered that one thing,” said Phil. “No details, just that one bit of information.”

  “It was more than a bit,” Betsy said. “He remembered the name of the place as well as the fact that people went skinny-dipping in its pool.”

  “We used to skinny-dip at the Y,” said Phil, going off on a tangent. “People don’t do that anymore.”

  “Not at the Y, anyway,” said Doris.

  This time Phil was the one who looked surprised. Doris laughed at his expression. “Or so I’ve heard.”

  He laughed then, too, and nudged her with an elbow.

  “I still don’t think he’s a murderer, but what are we going to do with the boy?” Doris asked, turning serious again.

  “Maybe after he’s been arrested, his memory will improve,” growled Phil.

  But Doris turned sad, concerned eyes on Betsy, who knew she wouldn’t be giving up her investigation just yet.

  Twelve

  LATER that night, Betsy checked her notes on her conversation with Tommy Shore, thought for a minute or two, then shrugged and dialed Dell Wheatly’s phone number.

  The woman who answered was Dell’s roommate, and she called Dell to the phone.

  “I don’t think I know you,” Dell said in a faintly angry tone, when Betsy identified herself.

  “I’m a friend of Doris and Phil Galvin, Tommy Shore’s aunt and uncle,” said Betsy. “Tommy’s in a little bit of trouble and they’ve asked me to see if I can help.”

  “Has he been arrested?” Now Dell’s voice was alarmed.

  “No. But he may be. Do you know anything about the trouble he’s in?”

  “I—don’t want to say. Maybe you should talk to Tommy,” suggested Dell.

  “I have talked with him. He gave me your number.”

  “Why did he do that? What have I got to do with it?” Now she sounded truculent.

  “I think he wants you possibly to be a character witness for him.”

  “Oh, he’s a character, all right!”

  “Did you know he was seeing Teddi Wahlberger?”

  “Not until he told me he was the father of her baby.” She gave a sad sigh. “But I knew he was seeing someone. You can always tell, y’know?” Another sigh. “So now you want me to say nice things about him, huh?”

  “No, I want you to say true things about him. You know Ms. Wahlberger was murdered, and the police are looking hard at Tommy.”

  “Yes. You would not believe how scared he is about that. But I’m sure he’s not the murderer. I don’t think Tommy would kill anyone. You should’ve seen how sad he was when his favorite goat was butchered. He hates that part about farming, when the animals go for meat.”

  “How long have you known Tommy?”

  “Oh, for years and years. Since middle school. He wasn’t good at school. I wonder if he’s not dyslexic or something.He just didn’t get studying, he never learned his times tables, his handwriting was terrible, he still can’t spell. And he’s a bad liar. He’s been drinking too much lately, which doesn’t help. People take advantage of him, they’ve done that for a long time. Once he got arrested because two people he thought were his friends asked him to keep some stuff for them that turned out to be stolen. He agreed because he’s nice. He’s sweet and kind to everyone and just hopeless. He’ll never amount to anything, I know that. He needs someone to take care of him.” After a pause, she said softly, “Maybe someday he’ll realize that’s me.”

  Betsy thanked Dell for talking to her. After they hung up, she made some notes, shook her head, and logged on to the Internet.

  She checked her e-mail, replied to an inquiry on the shop’s web site, then did a search for Teddi Wahlberger’s Facebook page. She was pleased to f
ind it had not yet been taken down.

  The page was colorful and featured lots of pictures. Teddi made the common young person’s statement that she was not religious “at all!” but was very spiritual, especially when in a forest or beside a lake. She believed cats had souls just like humans and dogs. She was touched by any show of compassion or act of kindness—“My friends are SO GOOD to me!” She believed that if more people thought hard about peace, it would happen. She believed that Girls Rule. She liked studly men who were sensitive. She liked dancing to loud music, swimming, long walks, skiing, bowling, and partying hearty (or sometimes “hardy”). New Year’s Eve was her favorite holiday, “more fun than Christmas.”

  Looking through the pictures that Teddi had posted, Betsy realized with a start that she had already seen the house Teddi lived in. It was on Third Street, about four blocks from Betsy’s building. A two-story white clapboard, it had a blue-gray roof and sky-blue shutters, and a new wooden deck out back. With her two roommates, Lia (Amelia Perrin) and Frey (Gwenfreya Kadesh), Teddi had held barbecue parties there all last summer, with guests ranging in number from four to over a dozen.

  In one photo Betsy saw Tommy, looking younger than ever, wearing the foolish expression of a drunk. His jeans were too big and his Trampled by Turtles T-shirt was faded. He was raising his can of beer in a salute to the woman in the center of the frame. That was Teddi herself, wearing a yellow bikini too small for her lush figure under a short, lacy cover-up. Standing sideways to the camera, she was posing provocatively, one hand pushing up the back of her long blond hair, the cover-up pulled off her shoulders. Also in the photo was a tall, handsome man, well-muscled and deeply tanned, wearing white shorts but no shirt. He appeared to be laughing indulgently at Teddi’s posturing. There were two other young women in the background. One was frankly plump with dark, curly hair surrounding a beautiful face. She was wielding a spatula beside a freestanding charcoal grill, and wearing denim clam diggers and a sleeveless T-shirt with a Las Vegas casino logo on it. The other woman, tall and very slender, had a noble nose and deep auburn hair. Her blue short shorts showed off long legs, her orange camisole a narrow waist. She was smiling at the camera—and presumably at the person taking the picture. There were no captions or tags to identify any of the people, but from other posted photos Betsy was able to identify the dark-haired woman as Lia and the redhead as Frey.