Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03

by A Stitch in Time

  “No. But there was an Elizabeth. And I think there was an Agnes. And I knew a Mr. Ives, he taught Sunday school. Is Saint Yvo the same as Saint Ives? I bet it is. Remember that old riddle: As I was going to Saint Ives, I met a man with seven wives, each with seven sacks, each with seven cats, each with seven kits.”

  Betsy was already looking up Ives in the section that had saints alphabetically. “No, his attribute is a fountain flowing from a tomb. Ugh.”

  “Ick,” agreed Jill.

  The door opened and an attractive, dark-haired woman in a headband and beautiful swing coat came in, closely followed by three children.

  Jill, who had swung to her feet in one swift movement, relaxed.

  “Well, hello Patricia,” said Betsy, surprised and pleased.

  “Hello, Betsy,” said Patricia. “We were on our way to Christmas-shop at the Mall of America and decided to stop in and see how you’re doing. But I see you already have a visitor.”

  “That’s all right, come in,” said Jill, “come in and talk.” She moved away to the window.

  Betsy said, “I’m glad you came by. Are all of these yours?”

  Patricia laughed a fond parent’s laugh. “Yes, all three. This is Brent, who is eleven.” She pushed forward the oldest child, a very handsome dark-haired boy with hazel eyes that looked back at Betsy—a woman in a nightgown in bed—with a warm interest that was surprising in one that age. Knows he’s good looking, too, thought Betsy.

  “And here is Edith Ann, who is nearly six.” Edith Ann had her mother’s light brown eyes and a gap-toothed smile. She was very thin and a little shy.

  “And this is Meryl, who is three.” Meryl was round and blond and ravishingly pretty. She smiled at Betsy from behind her mother’s left leg.

  “What are you doing?” asked Brent.

  “Oh, I’m trying to figure out a puzzle, but I don’t have all the pieces.” She looked at Patricia. “I didn’t write them all down, so I’m having trouble figuring out if Lucy hid her name in those attributes.”

  “Well, I hope you aren’t straining yourself over it,” said Patricia. “You should just rest and get well.”

  “I’ll be all right in a day or two,” said Betsy.

  “Are you very, very sick?” asked Edith Ann, who must be named after her grandmother, because no one named a child Edith Ann nowadays.

  “I was, but I’m only a little sick now,” said Betsy. “I may go home today.”

  “That’s good news,” said Patricia. “So I suppose I needn’t offer to bring you something.”

  “No, but thank you.”

  “I’m going to buy my grandmother a present today,” said Brent. “We’re going to fly to Phoenix for Christmas. That’s where she lives. There isn’t any snow there.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” said Betsy.

  “We’re going in a airplane,” announced Edith Ann.

  “Yes—oops, come here, Meryl,” said Patricia. She went to pull her youngest off the empty bed nearer the window and continued, “My mother told me there are two ways to visit someone in the hospital. First, don’t sit down, and when your feet start to hurt, go. Second, bring a small child, and when the child gets bored, go. Either way, you won’t overstay your welcome. So that’s it for now. Say good-bye, children.”

  “Good-bye, Ms. Devonshire,” said Brent, offering another of his charming smiles. “I’m glad you feel better.”

  “Good-bye,” smiled Edith Ann, who might be thin because so many baby teeth were missing. Meryl used that adorable just-the-fingers wave as her mother herded them out the door.

  “Awwwww,” said Betsy, when they’d gone.

  “That boy of hers is a born politician, just like his father,” remarked Jill, coming back to sit beside Betsy’s bed.

  “Phoenix, where there isn’t any snow,” sighed Betsy. She picked up the checkbook and finished copying her notes into Jill’s notebook, then looked them over. “Phil said she also sometimes put a family member’s name in her work. Maybe she had a sister named Agnes.” She frowned and tapped the notebook with the pen. “How about she spelled her name with the first letter of these things?” She looked but couldn’t find any symbol that started with an L. “Wait a second, I think Father John said this was a lamb, not a fawn.” Betsy tapped the lying-down animal. “Now, U, U, U … Not here.”

  “Unless you’re wrong about the horseshoe,” said Jill. “Turn it right side up, and it’s a U.”

  “And if the shamrock is really a clover, that’s a C! All we need is a Y, now.”

  “Oh, Yvo, of course. But there’s a lot of stretching to make it fit. Horseshoe is H, not U. Plus I know the horseshoe was upside down, or why would I think it could have been omega? Ach, this is giving me a headache.” Betsy gave the notebook back to Jill and put the book on the bedside table. She lay back and closed her eyes. After a minute she asked, “What was Lucy like?”

  Jill composed herself to think. “She was almost as tall as her husband—though he wasn’t really tall—and very slim, with a narrow face and a long nose. She had gray hair and very nice gray eyes. She was quiet and dignifled, and never said ‘ain’t’ or ‘swell’ like he did. I used to wonder about them as a couple—you know, what they saw in each other. He was loud and friendly, and, now I think about it, she was probably shy. She was polite to everyone and she carried hard candy wrapped in cellophane in her purse, and sometimes she’d give one to a toddler. I remember my cousin got one and for months he kept a close eye on that purse in case it opened again when he was around.”

  Betsy laughed. “Did it?”

  “No, she only did it once in a rare while, which made it special.”

  Betsy settled deeper into her pillows and said, “Go on, tell me more.”

  “Well, she always wore dresses, long and flowing and far out of date. She made them herself. I remember my mother talking about how well made they were. And she always wore a hat to church—and this was when nobody wore hats. She was a little too nice to join the Monday Bunch, but I admire her more now than when when I was a kid. Father Keane was more fun. But he had his dignity, too; like he never wore shorts in public.” Jill smiled. “But he did have some pretty raggedy old trousers he’d put on to repair the roof or mow the lawn. And he had this straw hat with a big brim …” She stopped, having wandered from the topic of Lucy Abrams.

  But Betsy, smiling too, said, “Go on, tell me about Father Keane now.”

  Jill’s voice took on more color. “I adored him. We all did. He was one of those tough-guy priests, intelligent in a low-brow sort of way. He could bluster and shout, but everyone knew he was marshmallow inside. He never had any trouble with the vestry or with anyone in the congregation, which is amazing when you think about it. He was a soft touch, too; when he left, there was a scramble to rebuild some of the funds, especially the rector’s discretionary fund. Not that he’d give money to everyone with a sad story, but if he thought someone was in real need, he was very generous.”

  Betsy, remembering that photo of the craggy face with the bright eyes and sweet smile, nodded. But she nevertheless asked a hard question. “Could he have used some of that money for himself or his family?”

  “I never heard that, and you know how gossip is around here. He certainly didn’t live beyond his means—the opposite, in fact. I remember Margot doing a fund-raiser to get him into a nicer nursing home, because they didn’t have any savings. The church owns a rectory—that big old house on Center Street with the really huge silver maple in the front yard. It’s in bad shape, and Father Keane did a lot of repairs himself to save on bills. It has five bedrooms, and Father John simply rattles around inside. The vestry keeps saying we ought to sell the place and give our rector a housing allowance. Which I wish they would; with property values what they are, the church could pay for the whole renovation just from the sale of that house. And Father John would love to live in a nice little apartment; he can’t even change a lightbulb.”

  “I thought he was married,”
said Betsy.

  “A widower,” said Jill. “He has children, but the youngest is studying music at Julliard. I think he’s actually afraid of the power lawn mower, he always hires local kids to mow his lawn. He’s really different from Father Keane. I can see our old priest now, painting the windows or mowing the front lawn in that straw hat, sleeves rolled up, pants legs, too. And barefoot, with cut grass sticking to his shins. And Lucy bringing him ice tea on a tray. Some of the older members didn’t think that was nice, him working on the lawn barefooted or climbing up on the roof, but those’re hardly the acts of a man living high off stolen funds.”

  Betsy rubbed a forefinger under her nose, her sign of frustration. “Why the noose?”

  “Why not?”

  “Surely no saint has a hangman’s noose as an attribute.” She opened the book but at first couldn’t find a hangman’s noose. She finally found it under rope, hang-man’s. “It means betrayal or treason, and it’s the attribute of Judas.”

  That set off a search for more attributes’ meanings. Even the ones that had a negative symbology, like the cat, performed double duty as a saint’s attribute. There didn’t seem to be a Saint Amanda though, or a Saint Keane.

  Then she tried to see if some combination of the initial letters of the attributes would spell Keane, or thief, cheat, or adultery, without success.

  Jill said, “You know what I think? I think Lucy picked out the attributes she did because they’re easy to stitch.” Jill took the heavy book and opened it at random. “Look here, Saint John the Baptist’s attribute is a lamb on a book of seven seals and here, Saint Lawrence’s is a thurible. What’s a thurible?”

  “Beats me.”

  “I bet it’s more complicated than a cat or an ax. Remember, she was working with a single strand of silver metallic on a space less than an inch square. She saw that blank blue space in the halo and thought it needed something, and an all-saints theme is nice and theological, right? And I bet you were right when you said members of the congregation have the names she picked.”

  “But the hangman’s noose,” protested Betsy.

  “Oh, it was probably some kind of joke, like my grandfather calling his best friend ‘you old horse thief.’ But we’ll never know what Lucy’s joke was, because she’s dead, and Keane’s got the mind of a houseplant.”

  “We could ask Mandy.”

  “All right, when you get out of here, we’ll do that, since it’s bothering you.”

  Betsy smiled at Jill. “Yes, thank you for understanding. As soon as we get home.” She gave the notebook back to Jill, put the checkbook in her purse, and began searching the basket for some needlework.

  But it was hard to let the idea go. Soon, while pausing to count stitches, Betsy said, “We should find out if anybody else connected with the tapestry has been attacked.”

  “Mike already checked on that. Patricia, Martha, Phil, Father John, everyone is going about his or her daily business with no problem.”

  The electronic bing sounded, and Godwin looked up to see Malloy standing inside the door.

  “Hi, Malloy,” Godwin said.

  “I understand you were the one sending people upstairs with food for Ms. Devonshire Tuesday and Wednesday.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Do you remember the names of everyone who brought something?”

  Godwin assumed a thinking pose, tilting his head back, wrapping a slim forefinger around his chin, and closing his eyes. “Martha Winters brought a hot dish. So did Shelly Donohue, Alice Skoglund, and Patricia Fairland.” He spoke slowly, assuming, correctly, that Malloy was writing this down. “Katie MacDonald brought a fruit basket, and so did Phil Galvin. June Connor brought a hot dish and Annelle Byford brought a tropical fruit basket. Ellen Rose, Ingrid Leeners, and Rayne Hamilton brought hot dishes, and Gabriel Anderson brought a banana cream pie. And Betsy’s ex, Harold Norman, came in and asked what Betsy liked. I said she was crazy about that cashew chicken salad the sandwich shop next door makes, and he went and brought a take-out order. But after he took it up, Betsy called and said not to let him come back up again.”

  “Did he come back?”

  Godwin nodded. “Yes. This time he had a live Christmas tree with him, a big one. And when I told him he couldn’t take it up to her, he got in my face until I told him it was her orders. Then he took his tree and went away, and I haven’t seen him since.” Godwin was smiling at the memory.

  “It’s my understanding that two people brought chicken salad.”

  Godwin thought. “I only remember one, the one Hal Norman brought.”

  “Could he have brought two orders?”

  “Sure, but he didn’t. I saw him with just one.”

  “Could someone have gone through here without you seeing him or her?”

  Godwin, shaking his head, opened his mouth to say no, then shut it again. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’d be helping a customer, and people would interrupt to ask me if I’d take something up to her, and I’d unlock the back door and tell them the door to her apartment was unlocked. Then, when they came back down, I’d lock the door again. I thought leaving her door unlocked was okay, because the other doors to upstairs were locked. And because I knew the ones I sent up: they were friends or good customers. That’s why I know who brought what. I was careful about keeping the back door to the shop locked, and we weren’t so busy that someone could sneak by. At least, I don’t think so. I mean, Irene Potter came in with her Peter Ashe canvas and we got into a pretty intense discussion of stitches, and I suppose someone could have walked through during it. But that takes two coincidences, that I was distracted and I left the back door unlocked. Which I don’t think I did.”

  “Did you bring her a gift of food?”

  “Are you kidding? There was enough food going up there to feed an army!”

  “Did Irene Potter bring something?”

  “No. Nor Joe Mickels.”

  “I thought Joe Mickels was being a lot nicer to Betsy than he was to Margot.”

  “Well, it’s more like he isn’t doing things to harass her, like lawsuits. On the other hand, it’s not like he’s asking her out to dinner. He still looks at her like he looks at everyone, like we’re burglars on parole.”

  The owner of Eddie’s Sandwich Shoppe next door was a blocky, middle-aged man with dark, tired eyes and large hands in clear plastic gloves. He couldn’t remember how many orders of cashew chicken salad he’d sold on Tuesday. He sold between eight and a dozen orders on any given day, it was one of his most popular salads, so probably it was between eight and a dozen.

  Irene Potter? Oh, yeah, that crazy lady with the dark, curly hair. No, she hadn’t bought anything from him lately.

  But yeah, now that Malloy asked, his landlord was in this week, he was pretty sure it was on Tuesday. Joe came in two or three times a month, and he usually picked either the cashew chicken or the orange coconut dessert. Last time he came in, it was the cashew chicken, and that was earlier this week. Yes, he was sure.

  Betsy was working on her stem stitch when the door opened. Quick as thought, Jill was on her feet, standing between Betsy and whoever came in.

  It was the Viking Princess, standing very still in surprise. “Hello, Ms. Devonshire,” she said over Jill’s shoulder.

  “Hi, Dr. McQueen. This is my bodyguard, Jill Cross.”

  “I see. How do you do?” The doctor nodded, and Jill stepped aside. Today she was in blue wool slacks and a white cotton turtleneck with tiny blue flowers on it. A stethoscope was slung sideways around her neck. She came to plug it into her ears and listen to Betsy’s heart. Satisfied, she asked, “Feeling better?”

  “Yes, thank you. Are you going to send me home?”

  “Not today. We need to keep you here another twenty-four hours, monitoring your arsenic levels while we continue treatment.”

  “Poor Sophie,” said Betsy.

  “You have a child?”

  “No, Sophie’s my cat.”

  “Ah.
I’ve heard animals become lonesome for their owners when separated.” Dr. McQueen said that as if she wanted to see a study before she would believe it. “You may get up and walk the halls, if you like. A little exercise may make you feel better.”

  But Jill said, “Since she’s here because there have been two attempts on her life, I don’t think she should leave this room, doctor.”

  “Where does arsenic come from, do you know?” asked Betsy.

  Dr. McQueen said, “It’s a mineral, so you mine it. There is, or used to be, an arsenic mine in France, and there’s one in New Jersey.”

  “Another reason we’re all so fond of New Jersey.” Betsy nodded and Jill laughed.

  Dr. McQueen didn’t crack a smile. “Hundreds of years ago it was called inheritance powder,” she continued. “It’s tasteless and odorless, and its symptoms can be confused with severe gastritis.”

  “Very reassuring,” said Betsy.

  Oblivious, Dr. McQueen continued, “Of course, since they developed a simple test for it, people are less likely to use it to murder. It has commercial and medical uses. It was one of the first cures for syphilis.”

  “Brrr!” said Jill, surprised.

  “The body quickly dumps most of what you ingest, but what little remains can kill you. That’s why we’re giving you Dimercaprol. It’s a chelating agent that apparently binds to the remaining arsenic, rendering it harmless while the body excretes it.”

  “Apparently?” echoed Betsy.

  “Well, we know chelating agents work, we’re just not sure how. Any arsenic we can’t get rid of winds up in your hair and fingernails. We can dig up a body buried for centuries and find it. It was found recently in a lock of Napoleon’s hair.”

  Betsy said, “I’m so glad you didn’t have to dig me up to find out I’d been given a dose.”

  “That wouldn’t have been me, that would have been the medical examiner,” explained Dr. McQueen seriously.