Crewel World

by Monica Ferris

  “It’s the slash jacket,” said Shelly.

  “No, I mean, how is it made?”

  “You take six, eight, ten different fabrics, layer them, cut out your jacket, and sew the layers together in lines, like ... like”—she cast about for a simile—“contour farming.” Her hand described curves. “When the jacket is finished, you cut through the layers between the contour lines. You line it, then you wash it over and over, until the cut edges stand up and fray. See how she used a layer of navy blue among all the reds and yellows? That gives a really interesting effect.”

  “It sure does. Who in the world dreamed up the idea?”

  “Beats me. I’ve wanted to make one for a long time, and Margot told me it’s easy to do, but I never got up the nerve. I mean, to take a razor to a finished garment! I’d probably chicken out and just call it quilted.”

  “Here, let me see it.” Betsy took it off the hanger and tried it on. It fit a little snugly, and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she made a face and shrugged it right off again. “Makes me look fat.”

  Shelly looked as if she wanted to disagree, but honesty won out. “That is a drawback,” she said. “And it’s not as warm as a down coat would be.”

  “I suppose I could just hang it on the wall, like a work of art.” She backed off and cocked her head, studying it. “Yes, that would be really effective on the right wall.”

  “Are you going to bid for it, then?”

  “I don’t know. How much do you think it might go for?”

  “Three or four hundred, maybe more.”

  Betsy sighed. “Well, I guess not.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “Shelly, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure, what?”

  “Who would you consider to have been Margot’s enemies?”

  “Now, that’s an ugly question. But I guess the right answer would be, nobody.”

  “Come on, Joe Mickels has to go on the list.”

  “Okay, Joe Mickels.”

  “And Irene Potter?”

  “Oh, Irene’s just a little crazy, not dangerous.”

  “She came over here after the funeral wanting to buy Crewel World.”

  “Of course she did, she’s wanted to open her own needlework store for years.”

  “So she wanted Margot out of the way, didn’t she? How badly?”

  Shelly was smoothing the slash jacket on the hanger. “Oh ... pretty bad, I suppose. But she’s the kind of crazy that would make a little doll and stick pins in it. I can’t imagine her coming after Margot with a real weapon.”

  “All right, then, who would?”

  Shelly hung the jacket on the closet doorknob. “I told you, nobody. Margot was a good person. She organized charity events, and got people excited to start working on them.”

  “There’s a silly old joke: she lives for others; you can tell the others by their haunted look. Was Margot one of those, always poking into other people’s business? Trying to reform people who maybe didn’t want to be reformed?”

  Shelly frowned. “No, that wasn’t her at all. All I ever heard from people she helped were thank-yous. She was a busy lady, and she liked getting other people up off their butts. She got so much more done in a day than normal human beings, I used to wonder if she slept four hours a night or something. She kept the store going, she was involved in her church, she did a lot of volunteer work, yet she never complained about being tired. Or not a whole lot, anyway. She inspired me, so now I teach and I work part-time in the store and I’m on this one committee.” She grinned, a little embarrassed. “I will say, once this committee’s work is done, so am I. Christmas is coming, and there’s enough work in that for me.” She consulted her watch. “Oh, gosh, I’ve got to get home and feed the kids.”

  Betsy said, surprised, “I didn’t know you had childen.”

  “That’s what I call the dogs. My husband got the boat, the Miata, and the condo in Chicago; I got the summer home here in Excelsior—which was my grandmother’s to start with, so big deal—the Caravan and ‘the kids’—two goldens and a miniature schnauzer bitch who bosses us all. Still, I figure I came out way ahead; he has the Cubs to contend with.”

  While the dogs were wolfing down their evening meal, Shelly dialed Hud Earlie’s home number.

  “Today Detective Mike Malloy came in and read Betsy the riot act. Remember you told me you heard she thinks Joe Mickels did it? Well, you were right. And Mr. Mickels complained to the cops and the cops are leaning on Betsy, hard.”

  “Yeah, well, if Betsy had said something to me, I could have told her Mickels casts a long shadow in Excelsior.”

  “Shoot, any of us could. But you know something? Even after he said he’d arrest her if she didn’t lay off, she was asking me who Margot’s enemies were.”

  “So you think she won’t lay off?”

  “You can’t stop a person from thinking about something, but I don’t know if she’ll go around accusing people anymore. You could ask her tonight.”

  “What makes you think I’ll see her tonight?”

  “Aren’t you coming to that fund-raising committee meeting tonight?”

  “Oh, that. Was she invited?”

  “Sure, she’s on the committee, isn’t she?”

  “I thought she was only an add-on of Margot’s. Not really official.”

  “Hmmm, well, I was there when Jamison called, and he asked her. Maybe they’ll try to put Margot’s mantle onto her.”

  “It won’t fit.”

  Shelly sighed. “Nothing of Margot’s will fit anyone else. That’s the really sad thing about this business. I bet if it was Betsy who got murdered, Margot would have the murderer wrapped up in floss and delivered to the jail by now.”

  The Dick Huss vase Hud brought to the meeting at Christopher Inn was eerily beautiful. It was black glass, about fourteen inches high, shaped like a jug, down to a little neck just the right size for a cork. But it was covered with a three-dimensional flowing pattern of tiny triangles, circles, and dashes. It cried out to be touched, and Betsy complied.

  “How does he get that effect?” she asked.

  “He puts little pieces of tape all over it, and sandblasts the spaces away,” Hud replied.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Betsy. “Here’s the slash jacket,” she added, putting it on the table beside the vase. Its bright color only made the Huss vase stand out more.

  “Can I talk to you?” asked Hud.

  “Sure, what about?”

  He led her to a back parlor. “I hear the cops are close to making an arrest.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I also hear the perp is a burglar.”

  “Detective Malloy says he’s on the trail of a burglar. But I don’t think he’ll arrest anyone, because I don’t think it was a burglar at all.”

  “Of course it was a burglar, the store was trashed like only a burglar does.”

  “No, it was trashed way beyond that, like someone was angry at Margot.”

  “Angry about what?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

  He looked down into her unwavering eyes. “I wish you wouldn’t,” he said as sincerely as he could, putting all his concern for her into the words, and he could see a bit of wavering set in.

  And her reply was defensive. “But I can’t just take everything Margot left behind, all that money, the shop, all her good friends, and not try to do anything in return!”

  “Silly kid,” he said very fondly, and pulled her into a warm embrace.

  Which she immediately began to struggle out of. “Let me go,” she said, and he did. She straightened her jacket and ran a hand over her hair. “Don’t ever do that again,” she said, and walked out of the room.

  “Well, then, let me help,” he said ninety minutes later, walking her home.

  “How can you help?”

  “I don’t know. Ask me something you want to find out.”

  “Who hated Mar
got?”

  “Ha!” he said, surprised. “Nobody. I don’t think anyone was even mad at her.”

  “Joe Mickels was.” How could people keep forgetting that?

  “Joe Mickels was caught up in a business disagreement with her. He was doing everything he could think of to make her move out of that store. He wasn’t treating her any differently than he’d have treated anyone who was in his way like that. It wasn’t personal.”

  “You mean he’d have murdered anyone he couldn’t evict legally?”

  He stopped and took her by the upper arms. “Joe Mickels has been around for years. He is a very accomplished, very patient, very persistent businessman. He has never found it necessary to murder anyone before, and I doubt if his situation with Margot was any different.”

  But Betsy was remembering the look on Joe’s face when she asked him where he was the night Margot was murdered, and the oddly long wait for his answer. There had been fear as well as fury in that face. She shrugged free of Hud’s hands and continued down the sidewalk. “Who else?” she asked.

  “Who else what?”

  “Was mad at Margot?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Not even Irene Potter?”

  “Hey, her problem is envy, not anger. She thinks she could’ve run that store better than Margot.”

  “Hud, if Margot hadn’t incorporated, what would have happened to Crewel World?”

  “It would have gone out of business, I guess.”

  “You don’t think Irene would have taken it over?”

  “No. Well, she might have tried, but it wouldn’t have worked, not for long. She’s not a people person, which you need to be to run a successful store. And I think she might not even have tried, because on some level she must be aware that she has no people skills.”

  “I have people skills.”

  “Yes, you do. For which I am grateful. Are you going to stay in Excelsior?”

  “At least for now. I kind of think I like it here.”

  He took her hand. “It’s an even nicer place now that you’re in it.”

  She freed her hand. “Who else?”

  He sighed. “You seem to be the one with the list. Who else do you suspect?”

  “Where were you the night Margot was murdered?”

  “Me?” He put both hands on his chest, fingers splayed. His eyebrows were actually up under his forelock. “You’re kidding!”

  She had been, but his astonishment was so overdone that she frowned up at him. When she spoke, there was a crisp edge to her voice. “I know you think I’m an incompetent fool for looking into this, but I am not kidding.”

  He dropped his hands and sighed. “I don’t think you are a fool, but I do think you are asking for trouble.”

  “So help me, get me into trouble. Where were you that night?”

  He cocked his head at her. “I took my secretary out to dinner at the Green Mill, then went up the street and rented a movie, then went home and watched it. I put it in the car the next morning so I’d remember to take it back, and on my way to work I heard on the radio about Margot. The only part I can prove is the dinner—well, I suppose the video place will have a record of my renting Men in Black.”

  “I loved that movie.”

  “Me, too, but I’ll never watch it again without remembering. Who else is on your list?”

  She had nobody else, but didn’t want him to know that. “Who is the person who knew Margot best?” she asked instead.

  He drew twin lines from the comers of his mouth to his chin with thumb and forefinger. “Probably Jill Cross. Those two have been thick as thieves from the day they met.”

  “I’m going to repeat Mike’s warning, Betsy. Stay out of this. You could get arrested. Mike’s very territorial about his cases.” Jill looked tired. They were at the coffee shop on Water Street; Jill was on another coffee break; Betsy had found Jill’s beeper number on the kitchen phone list and arranged this meeting.

  “You were Margot’s best friend,” Betsy persisted. “Who was mad at her? Who was jealous? Who hated her?”

  “Nobody hated her. She was an extraordinary lady with a kind heart and more energy than a dozen of the rest of us put together. You’d think, with all her activities, that someone would at least envy her, but no one did. Her loss is the whole town’s loss.”

  “Irene envied her.”

  “Yes, she did. But she’s crazy.”

  “That can be enough to set off the mob. So why aren’t people out with torches demanding Irene’s head? Or Joe’s?”

  “Because Minnesotans don’t march with torches. They prefer to let the police do their job. That means Mike. He’ll do it right, come up with the proof that will stand up in court. You should just get on with your life and be patient.”

  Betsy said, “I don’t have a life. And if I did, I couldn’t get on with it knowing Margot’s murderer is free.”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic!” There was a definite snap in Jill’s voice.

  “Then help me.”

  “I am helping you; I’m keeping you out of really serious trouble. I told you she had no enemies.”

  “Okay, then tell me what she did on the last day of her life.”

  “I don’t know, the usual I guess—ran errands, went shopping. It was her day off. I know she went to Minneapolis, to the art museum. Check her calendar.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know. I know she has one, she called it her nag and said she’d be lost without it. But I bet when you find it, all it will have on it for that day is that trip to the art museum, and the city-council meeting that night.”

  Betsy nodded; she didn’t remember an appointment book in Margot’s purse, but she hadn’t been looking for one; she’d check again as soon as she got home. Meanwhile: “Who did Margot have a fight with lately?”

  “How lately?”

  “Jill ...” Betsy made two tired syllables of the name. “Forever, okay? Who had she ever been really mad at?”

  Jill sighed. “Godwin, for making fun of her. That was years ago, when he thought she was just messing around with her committees. Shelly for gossiping. And Hud, of course.”

  “Why ‘Hud of course’?”

  “It’s a long story. He never was a big fan of hers, you know. Maybe because she was on the board of directors of his precious museum, and she disagreed with him at board meetings once in a while. She took her position on the board very seriously, you know. And she was very bright. Hud likes women who flirt with him and let him have all the ideas. Especially if they’re rich.”

  “Like me, I suppose?” Betsy heard the edge in her voice but couldn’t help it. She was tired, too. It was late and she’d had a busy day.

  “Well, maybe it’s more that he gets along better with women who don’t have any power over him,” Jill conceded. “Because I think he likes you, so he must like some women with brains.”

  “But he really didn’t like Margot,” Betsy persisted, “just because she was on the art-museum board and therefore his boss?”

  Jill took a deep drink of her coffee; she was working a double shift because a colleague was ill. “That’s not all of it. Hud’s second wife used to be Margot’s best friend, and when he dumped her for the woman who became the third Mrs. Earlie, Margot was furious. Eleanor—that’s the second wife—moved away, and Margot was depressed about that. And when the third marriage broke up after only six months, she was even madder at Hud. Every so often he’d try to be friends with Margot, and she’d get mad all over again at him.”

  “I suppose she thought it might have been better if Hud had just had an affair,” Betsy heard herself say, and was surprised at the defensive tone. Did she like Hud that much? She rubbed the underside of her nose with a forefinger and caught Jill’s sardonic look. Or was she amused? Betsy still had trouble reading that enigmatic face.

  Jill said, “I think this time she was mad because he and you seemed to have hit it off.”

  Later, in bed, waiting to f
all asleep, Betsy thought the conversation over. Margot had been furious with Hud for dumping his wife, Margot’s best friend. That was interesting, but it didn’t seem relevant. If anything, it might have been a motive for Margot to murder Hud, rather than for Hud to murder Margot. But not all these years later. Of course, it spoke ill of Hud, behaving that way. Hud’s face, that confidence man’s grin all over it, swam up before her, then Margot’s face appeared, with a disapproving look. So Margot had spoken to Hud about her? How dare Margot think Betsy couldn’t take care of herself!

  She rolled away from the faces, seeking sleep—and after a bit, found it. In a few minutes she was dreaming that she and Jill were in a sinking boat, and she was frantically knitting a new paddle for the broken oar while Jill bailed.

  16

  Betsy woke with a start. Something energetic was playing on the clock radio, Groucho Marx being greeted as Captain Spaulding by the gritty sound track from the old movie. Betsy had first heard that song as the theme from Groucho’s TV show, You Bet Your Life, and had been surprised when she heard it in the movie Animal Crackers. Or was it Cocoanuts? Never mind, it was a delightfully silly song to wake up to.

  She had been surprised by KSJN’s Morning Show because that radio station played classical the rest of the day, which in Betsy’s opinion was the genuine, authentic, real stuff for easy listening. Still, she left her clock radio set to wake her to the Morning Show, because she was rarely annoyed by the music they offered. On the other hand, she never knew what they would play next. In this case, it was Glenn Miller’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000.” Betsy smiled; she could remember her parents dancing to this; it had been one of their favorites.

  What was more, the sun was slanting brightly through the window, it looked to be another pretty day. On those two happy notes, she began her morning stretches. Pennsylvania stretch, stretch, stretch!