Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03

by A Stitch in Time

“All right.”

  “Is the passenger compartment tight? I mean, is snow coming in, or the wind?”

  “Well, you see, that’s the problem. I ripped open the gas tank or something. I tried to start the engine, and it turns over but won’t start, and there’s a strong smell of gasoline. Does that mean it’s okay to light a candle? The smell is so strong I’ve got a window cracked, trying to air it out.”

  “Hmmm, maybe you’d better not, at least right now. If the smell goes away, then you can.”

  “That’s what I thought. But I’m cold. I’m really cold.”

  “All right, that makes a difference.” There was a weighty pause, while Jill thought. “Have you got any idea at all where you are?”

  “No. I got so lost toward the end I didn’t even know what direction I was heading—and I usually have a pretty good sense of direction. I started out on Nineteen, but I missed something, I guess. Or maybe I didn’t. I thought I was lost, and then I thought I was all right, but the road was curving wrong, so I guess I was lost after all. There were sharp curves where the map says easy ones, and my brakes quit working…” Betsy wasn’t crying, but only because she had stopped talking.

  Jill wasn’t one to encourage people to break down. “That must have been tough,” she said briskly. “How strong is that gasoline smell?”

  “Well, it was pretty strong for a while, but I think it’s not as bad as it was. Or maybe I’m just getting used to it. If I can’t run the engine, how am I going to keep from freezing to death?”

  “You’re not going to freeze to death, okay? You’re inside, you have a heavy coat and boots, and that blanket. You have water and something to eat. But you’ve got a window open and you’re cold, which means you probably shouldn’t curl up and go to sleep. I have an idea about how we might figure out at least your general location. You just sit back and relax, eat, drink, think good thoughts. I’ll call you again in a while, okay?”

  6

  Godwin was sitting on the couch, asleep. The television was murmuring about cookware and flashing an 800 number on the screen. He jerked awake when the phone rang. “Yuh?” he croaked into the receiver, having grabbed it on the first ring so as not to wake John. “Yes?” he said, more clearly.

  “Godwin, it’s Jill. I have the phone company trying to triangulate from the car phone signal to figure out where Betsy is, but it’s taking awhile. Last time I talked to her, she sounded a little sleepy. I may get called in, so I’m forming a committee to take turns calling her. Want to come?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “How about we meet at Crewel World? Will you go down now and open up?”

  “I’m on my way.” Godwin broke the connection and stood up. He hadn’t undressed; all he had to do was add a few layers.

  Patricia Fairland was struggling with a bad dream. Her husband murmured “Pat?” reaching over to touch her shoulder and wake her.

  “What, what? Oh, sorry, bad dream,” she whispered. “Thanks, ’m okay now.” She lay still until he went back to sleep, which didn’t take long.

  But she didn’t want to reenter that dream again, so she slipped out of bed and went to the window. She lifted the heavy drape at its edge and looked into chaos. The line between air and ground had vanished into flying snow. She could see two blobs of blue-white light that were the miniature streetlights marking the gate to the pool, barely a dozen yards from the window. The lights didn’t seem to have any stems, which meant the snow was drifted four feet deep right there. The big old elm beside the pool was waving its huge branches as if this were a hurricane, not a blizzard.

  Nothing out in that can live, she thought, shivering. She dropped the curtain and turned her back to it. She felt a painful gratitude for the thick carpet under her bare feet, the almost inaudible hum of the furnace as it heated the beautiful house and her and the children safe asleep and her husband in the big, luxurious bed. It had been a long, hard struggle. The last hurdle had been Peter’s mother, but her signal of acceptance had been buying this house as a very belated wedding gift last year.

  The phone rang softly—its bell was turned all but off and could not wake people already asleep. But Patricia hurried to it anyway and lifted the receiver. “Hello?” she murmured.

  “Patricia, it’s Jill. We’re meeting at Crewel World to help Betsy. Can you come?”

  Patricia’s heart leaped. It was all over town about Betsy; no less than four people had called her earlier in the evening with the news that Betsy was missing. “Has she been found?”

  “Sort of. She’s in a ditch out there somewhere, we don’t know where, and her engine won’t start. But she’s got a cell phone and we’re going to keep calling her. Temperatures are dropping, and we don’t want her to fall asleep.”

  “Yes, of course. Oh, this is awful, she must be terrified ! But I don’t think I can get out of the driveway, much less drive eight miles to town.” She gave a scared laugh. “You don’t need to be trying to keep two of us awake.”

  “That’s right, I forgot you live that far out now. So never mind, go back to bed.”

  “No, no, I was up anyway, looking out at the storm. And now I’m aware of Betsy’s situation, I couldn’t possibly sleep. I’m going downstairs to make a pot of coffee. Can you call me every so often, too, just to let me know how she’s doing?”

  “Sure. Say a prayer, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  John and Godwin’s house was about five blocks from Crewel World. Godwin decided walking would be safer than driving his little sports car. He bundled up, but not too much—walking in snow was hard work, and it wasn’t bitter cold out. He added a light sweater to his cotton shirt, then put on his navy pea coat and covered his head with a knit hat.

  It took him twenty minutes to get to the shop, even walking down the middle of the streets where the snow was not so deep. As he approached, hatless and perspiring, there was someone already waiting in the shallow shelter of the doorway. It was Martha Winters. She was wearing a long scarf that wrapped around and around, making a sloping line between her shoulders and her fur-trimmed hat, with several feet left over to wave at him.

  “H’lo, Godwin!” she called. She was shuffling her feet to keep warm. That was the tricky part about dressing for weather like this. Any activity warmed you up, but standing still chilled you fast.

  “Yoo-hoo!” he replied and hurried up to her. The wind altered suddenly, cuffed him from behind and then threw a handful of snow in his naked ear. The gray townhouse complex across the street stymied the gale after its rush down the lake and left it confused about its direction. The snow it carried whirled as much upward as down and likewise sideways, like one of those globes you shake to make a winter scene.

  “Not a fit night out for man or beast,” he opined in a W. C. Fields voice, crowding in beside Martha to unlock the door.

  He’d barely gotten it open and stepped back so Martha could go in ahead of him when a deep voice came faintly: “Wait for me!”

  He turned and recognized Alice’s tall, mannish shape. He waved, then waited.

  The snow was two feet deep in front of the door, and they tracked it in with them. December snow wasn’t like January’s. This snow was heavy, full of moisture. Godwin turned on the lights and hurried to the back of the store to get the snow shovel and a broom. He scooped melting snow back out and cleared the doorway while Martha swept behind him. Alice went into the back room and started the coffee.

  They only cleared a space in front of the door; trying to clear the sidewalk was futile. Then Martha turned the broom on Godwin, who was covered with snow. They heard the snarl of a snowmobile. “Who is that?” asked Martha, trying to look down the street while still dusting Godwin down.

  “Whoops!” whooped Godwin. “Watch where you aim that thing!” Laughing, he stepped halfway through an opening in the snowbank along the sidewalk and peered up the street. “Hey, I think it’s Phil Galvin! And he’s got a passenger!” Godwin began to wave. “Yoo-hoo, Phil-ill!”


  The dark figure on the black snowmobile waved back and came though the opening to the building’s driveway onto the sidewalk. The machine, a shiny black and hot pink number, came up level with Crewel World’s big, lit-up window and stopped. The engine shut off.

  Phil’s passenger got off first. “Hi, it’s me!” she said. It was Shelly Donohue. She was wearing boots that looked safe for space travel, wool pants, and a ski jacket with a hood. She was carrying a plastic drawstring bag that Godwin recognized as a Crewel World bag. The bag was bulging.

  “Brought a project?” he asked.

  “And some snacks,” she replied.

  “Good thinking,” he said, waving her and Phil into the shop. Godwin realized then just how rattled he was. He hadn’t brought the sport bag with his own projects in it, the one he normally carried everywhere.

  At first it was fun. Betsy would call, then half an hour later one of them would call. Jill came and talked to Betsy about her boyfriend Lars’s hobby farm—two of his miniature goats were pregnant, and he was going to make cheese—and about the Christmas ornaments she and Betsy had both been working on. “I even donated one of them to the Minneapolis Art Museum,” said Jill. “They’re putting up a tree decorated entirely with locally handmade ornaments.”

  Shelly talked about the medieval unit her class was doing, how the children had set up a medieval court with a king and queen and knights—some of them girls—and a magician. “I’m teaching them how to spin wool into yarn,” she said. “Then we’re going to try weaving.”

  On her turn, Martha thanked Betsy for being so clever about murder investigations and talked about the tapestry project they would be starting soon. “Everyone seems enthusiastic about naming the library after Father Keane, and we’re going to stitch Lucy Abrams’s name onto the canvas—once we’re sure she hasn’t already done that.”

  Alice said she was making loaves of raisin-cinnamon bread as Christmas presents, and Betsy said she often gave loaves of an Austrian bread that had blanched almonds, grated orange rind, and two kinds of raisins in it. They agreed to exchange recipes.

  Phil said he was thinking of tackling an authentic aran sweater and asked Betsy if she could special order the yarn for him.

  “Tell Godwin to remind me,” she said.

  At two, Jill became worried about using up the car battery and limited the calls to five minutes. Then she got a page from the police station, asking her to come in and relieve Emily at the switchboard.

  At four-thirty, it was Godwin’s turn. He talked about buying another Christmas stocking for himself, and then about his first attempt at silk gauze. “I was doing a twenty-six-count linen and making a real mess of it, remember ? So I thought I was crazy to try a forty-count silk gauze, but you know something? It works! I don’t even get out the Dazor, I can work it sitting by the window ! Silk gauze is almost like needlepoint canvas, the holes are that obvious. I’m doing that pansy bouquet. I’m going to make it into a box lid.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Betsy, sounding not very interested.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m just tired, I guess.”

  “I think it’s time we marched along with the teddy bears again.” He started to sing in a fair tenor, “Picnic time for teddy bears … Are you marching? Knees up nice and high.”

  After a few bars he realized she wasn’t marching and stopped.

  Betsy said, “I’d like something warm to drink,” as if she were giving an order in a restaurant.

  “Are you out of water?”

  “Huh?”

  “Isn’t there any bottled water left?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Well, take a sip of that.”

  “Okay. Are they coming soon, Godwin?”

  “Very soon, I promise. The snow is slacking off, and it’ll be daylight pretty quick. They’ll be knocking on your car window any time.”

  “It’s not getting light over here. And it’s still snowing.”

  “But not as hard, right? Hang on. It’ll be over soon.”

  “Godwin, it’s never going to be over.”

  At five it took four rings before she answered, and she wasn’t tracking at all well. Martha, near tears, was afraid her fear would infect Betsy, and Alice was openly crying. Shelly was comforting them, and Phil had fallen asleep, head down on the table, so Godwin took the receiver from Martha.

  “Now listen up, woman!” he scolded. “We’ve been at this for too long to give up now. I called Jill, and she told me what she’s been doing. A few years ago, there was a woman in South Dakota in the same fix you’re in. What they did was triangulate the signal as it went through the cell phone towers, and by measuring the signal’s strength at each tower, they figured out how far she was from each one. Does that make sense?”

  “No. I don’t know. I guess not.”

  “Well, it made perfect sense when Jill described it. But you have to keep talking, so they can trace the signal. All right?”

  “You’re lying to keep my spirits up. Nobody’s coming.”

  “Me? Lie? Betsy, would I lie?”

  “No. I don’t know. I guess not.”

  But that was the last time she called them. They had to call her every time, now.

  “Don’t call me anymore,” she mumbled at seven. “It’s dark all the time. I’m going to die. I’m just too tired.”

  “Of all the nonsense—!” began Godwin, too tired himself to think clearly.

  “Tell the Pig to go home and not to marry again,” she said. “And I wrote this down, you get the shop. Don’t forget to take inventory.”

  “Betsy, I’m not taking over the shop.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because what are you going to do when you’re home and safe? I don’t know if I’d want you working for me. That’s a joke, okay?”

  “I’m not coming home. Because they can’t find me. They’ll never find me. Listen Godwin, you take the shop and run it, all right? And Jill gets half the money.”

  “Betsy—”

  “Say you’ll do it, Godwin. Say it.”

  “All right, when you die at age ninety, I’ll take over the store and give half the money to Jill. I’ll be twenty-nine by then and ready to settle down. That’s another joke, Betsy.”

  “Keep the same part-timers, okay?”

  “Why aren’t you laughing?”

  “And don’t let Irene teach a class. She’s a lousy teacher.”

  “Shall I tell her your last thoughts were of her?”

  Behind him, Martha wept, “Oh, Betsy, Betsy!”

  Alice shook Phil awake. “Betsy’s dying, wake up!”

  “She is not. Don’t say that!” cried Shelly.

  All four stared at Godwin, who was listening hard. “Who’ll take Sophie?” fretted Betsy feebly.

  “Boss lady, what is this all about? It’s morning! I can actually see daylight outside, honest I can! And the snow has stopped. The sky is clear, the snow has stopped! Snowplows are already on their way! They’ll be pulling up any second, and be running up and down the road, calling your name. They’ve got hot cocoa in a thermos with them, and you’ll be just fine. And there you sit, worrying about your spoiled cat. Now stop it, okay? Just stop such nonsense. Betsy, I think we should do some foot stamps. You haven’t done them in a while. Ready? If you go out in the woods today—Betsy?”

  “And how can it be light where you are? It’s still dark here.”

  “No, really, it’s starting to get light, can’t you see it? It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

  “No sun here. No sun.”

  “Snow on the windshield,” suggested Phil.

  “Well, of course! Betsy, that’s because there’s snow on your windows. You need to roll your window down so the snow will fall off. Then you’ll see it’s getting light, and you can wave at the snowplow when it comes along. Roll your window down. Betsy? Roll your window down, now.”

  “ ’S too cold. Don’t let ’em put her t’sleep, ’kay? Promise.�
��

  “Yeah, yeah, I promise. Roll your window down, Betsy, and you can see the sun come up. Okay?”

  “In a minute.” After a very long pause, “In a minute.”

  And that was the last anyone could get out of her. No amount of shouting, cajoling, ordering, or begging got a reply.

  Jill exploded into the shop. “We know where she is!” she said, her face alive, her eyes sparkling. “A snowplow is on its way to her right now!”

  “Jill,” said Godwin, coming to take her by the arm, “we can’t raise her. She’s not answering.”

  “What?” said Jill. “Where’s the phone?”

  “Maybe the battery’s dead,” said Shelly, holding it out to her.

  Martha, fending off despair, agreed. “These cell phones will drain a car battery right down if you don’t run the engine and recharge it.” Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed.

  “She’s fine!” said Jill, grabbing the phone. “Betsy, this is Jill. Betsy? Listen, they did that triangulation thing—Did you tell her about it?”

  Godwin nodded.

  “And Betsy, they know where you are. A snowplow is on its way to you this minute. Betsy? Betsy! Betsy!”

  Jill turned on Godwin. “How long since she talked to you?”

  Godwin looked at his watch, though he knew almost to the second how long it had been. “Twenty-seven minutes. How long till they get there?”

  “Forty minutes, maybe? Less than an hour. But she’s in a white car covered with snow and completely off the road. If she could flash her lights or blow her horn when she hears them coming, that would help.” She lifted the phone again. “Betsy, this is Jill. We’re coming to get you, but you can help us find you. Are you listening? Turn your headlights on. Do you hear me? Turn your headlights on, right now! Betsy? Have you done that, have you turned your headlights on? Talk to me, say something!”

  She wasn’t cold anymore, but she was muddled and very, very tired. She felt her head fall sideways, onto something hard. She thought very briefly about moving it, but it fit her ear. Besides, it was making a noise that sounded like her name, which was pleasant. She wanted to make a noise back, but she was just too tired.