Crewel World

by Monica Ferris

“You look wonderful,” said Hud sincerely, so she let him wrap her in her black silk coat and followed him down the stairs.

  Hud put Jill and Lars into the big back seat of the Rolls and pushed a button that rolled up a window between it and the front seat—which sent the two of them into gales of laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Betsy asked Hud.

  “Beats me.” He handed her into the car and they started off.

  The drive to the club was along a back road that wound among the bays of Lake Minnetonka, through small towns and past modest cottages and the beautiful new mansions that were quietly replacing them, all set in rolling land covered with big old trees. The sun was a glowing red ball—Betsy caught herself trying to decide which shade of perle cotton would be closest and decided she was carrying this needlework business too far.

  The Rolls was big and comfortable, and as smooth to ride in as Hud had said it was. “Yeah, I really lucked out with this car,” said Hud when she remarked on that, and on the powerful but quiet engine.

  “You said you bought it at a police auction?” asked Betsy. “How did that happen?”

  “I was in Las Vegas for our annual convention about six years ago.” He showed his wolfish grin. “What, you think curators should meet in Chicago? In February? Anyhow, I took an afternoon off from the doings and got lucky at the craps table. A fellow curator told me about the auction. He said there would be sports cars—he was going to bid on a Porsche 928S. I went along to see if he’d get it—he didn‘t—but right at the end, when most of the people had left, this Rolls Corniche came up. A cop with a great big grin bid five hundred dollars, so I bid eight, which surprised him. Then he bid a grand, and I bid twelve hundred, and we kept going up until I bid everything I’d won, which was eight thousand, two hundred dollars. Silence from the cop, who wasn’t grinning anymore. So I packed my bags and started driving for home, because you don’t want to be in a town where you’ve wiped the grin off a cop’s face. And you know how you hear about how crummy English cars are? Well, this one sure isn’t. It has never given me any trouble at all. It gets terrible mileage, of course, because it’s so heavy. But it’s like sitting on a leather couch and watching the road come at you on a big TV screen.”

  “Nothing like being at the right place at the right time,” said Betsy. “I didn’t recognize this as a Rolls-Royce until I saw the grille. I remember seeing them in England back in the sixties, and they had kind of a roll of front fender that swooped down along the side to the back fender. Very distinctive.”

  “I think someone around here has one of those,” said Hud. “But I’m glad this is a later model. Unless people notice the hood ornament, they think I drive an older American car.”

  “If you don’t like the hood ornament, why don’t you take it off?”

  “Because then it would be a Bentley, and that’s not quite the same thing.”

  Hud laughed and Betsy joined in, because it was true, Bentleys are Rolls-Royces without the hood ornament. Once upon a time, Rolls dealerships would not sell a Rolls to just anyone. Rich commoners had to settle for Bentleys.

  Interesting that Hud knew that, too.

  Lake Minnetonka is big and has a complicated shoreline so the drive took a while. The lake showed itself in tree-lined bays, or in glimpses through evergreens, and even occasionally came boldly right up to the road.

  They were running alongside a particularly wide bay into which the sun had nearly sunk when Hud slowed and flipped his turn signal on. They turned away from the water, past a self-consciously quaint little brown church and across a railroad line. The other side of the road was lined with a golf course. And there, awash in white lights, was the Lafayette Club.

  It was not at all the modest place Betsy had expected, but a 1920s stucco palace, with an arched arcade, faux-Moorish windows, and a forest-green canvas marquee at the entrance. And a valet in a dinner jacket waiting to park their car.

  The lobby was huge, with a red tiled floor and a big old antique bronze fountain. A large, live band was playing somewhere, and the three couples ahead of them checking their coats were in tuxes and long dresses.

  “Oops,” said Betsy, and turned to Hud. “Why didn’t you say black tie?” Her glance took in Jill, who widened her eyes innocently.

  “What?” said Hud. “I told you, you look wonderful.”

  Fortunately, when they got to the ballroom there were a number of other women who either hadn’t read Miss Manners on “Proper Attire for Black-Tie Events” or didn’t care. Hud took her around, introducing her to people. Some of them she already knew, such as the chief of police, whom she’d met only yesterday. His wife was an ardent counted cross-stitcher.

  The band was good. It played a mix of big-band, soft rock, and standards, mixed with waltzes and, once, a polka. She danced first with Hud, who made her think she was a better dancer than she remembered, then with Mayor Jamison and attorney Penberthy, who taught her that Hud was the kind of dancer who made his partners look good.

  It was a slow dance with Penberthy, and as they box-stepped around the floor, she asked, “Were you a friend of Margot’s, as well as her attorney?”

  “I’d like to think so,” he replied, a little dreamily. He hummed a snatch of the melody.

  “Did she talk to you about anything the last time you saw her?”

  “Hmmm? No, I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure? You saw her the last day of her life. Surely you remember what people said to you when they turn up dead right after.”

  He loosened his hold to lean back and look into her face. “What’s this all about?”

  “The police are here, they’re going to make an arrest,” she said.

  “Arrest who?” he asked, alarmed.

  “I’m not supposed to say, but it’s the person who murdered Margot.”

  Penberthy tried to look around and dance at the same time and stepped on both of Betsy’s feet. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. He regained his rhythm. “Is that Joe Mickels over there?” The landlord was holding a highball in one hand and gesturing sharply with the other to a trio of men.

  “Yes, and there’s Detective Malloy. Jill’s here, too, and her date is a Shorewood cop.”

  “Jesus God,” murmured Penberthy. “When is it going to happen?”

  “I don’t know, but don’t worry, they won’t do it in front of everyone. They’re supposed to let me know when everything’s set up.”

  “Why you?”

  “Oh, I’m going to be in at the kill. In fact, I get to take the first bite.”

  “Jesus God.” The dance ended; Penberthy assumed a patently false look of indifference and escorted her back to her date.

  During a break, the mayor came by and suggested to Hud that so long as he was here he might take Betsy around and show her the features of the club, since they would be using it for the fund-raiser next month. Hud seemed pleased to get out of the ballroom, which was a trifle warm. He showed Betsy the enormous fireplace lounge (two, count ‘em, fireplaces), the long screened porch that overlooked yet another bay, the dining room, the intimate café, and the indoor pool.

  Betsy’s opinion of the Lafayette Club racheted up another notch with every feature. The suggested cost of a ticket to the fund-raiser, she remarked to Hud, was not high enough.

  “Yes, but if they pay a lot for a ticket, then they won’t feel a need to buy anything at the auction.”

  “Oh. Yes, I suppose you’re right.” They were back in the café, which was deserted and dimly lit, lined with semicircular booths in red tufted leather. There was the warm smell of coffee in the air. “Here’s where they make the greatest coffee in the state,” said Hud. “They’ll start serving it soon.”

  “Minnesotans sure drink a lot of coffee.”

  “We’re probably near the top per capita,” said Hud, but with an air of intimacy that did not match the topic.

  She looked up at him, his smiling face, the bright hair, the broad shoulders. “Hud, did you really have
to murder my sister?”

  He stood perfectly still for several long seconds. “What are you talking about?” His voice was still soft, as if he hadn’t understood.

  “Is the T‘ang horse the only thing you’ve stolen from the museum?”

  That caught his attention. “Stolen? I haven’t stolen anything!”

  “Yes, you have. The Asian art collection is almost completely in storage, and has been for over a year. What better time to replace some of the artifacts with replicas? People are less likely to notice any differences when they haven’t seen the originals for a long time. But Margot noticed, didn’t she? She made two trips to that storeroom, the first to do her original canvas and then only a few months later to do the second. And she saw the difference right away. You said she kept snagging things while she worked on that horse, that’s what made me realize that both times she saw it was in the storeroom. So it wasn’t a change in lighting that made her think the horse was a different shade of blue.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The T‘ang horse in your collection, the one Margot made a needlepoint copy of. The horse she saw originally matched the one-thousand series of Madeira blue silks, while the horse she saw the second time matched the seventeen-hundred series. She realized it wasn’t the same horse.

  “And what does one do when one suspects there has been a theft? Why, one reports it to the person responsible—that was you, wasn’t it, Hud?”

  He made a little noise in his throat, but no words came out.

  “And you said you’d look into it right away. You probably asked her not to tell anyone until you’d checked it out, right? Then you came to her apartment that night, saying you needed to see the proof. So she got her sketchbook and took you down to the shop because that’s where the original needlepoint hung. And you hit her with your cane—was it the one with the head shaped like a snail? I remembered the way the slinky little head came out of the shell on the head of your cane, and it made me wonder. But maybe it was the one shaped like a bird. What kind of a bird is that, with the pointed beak?”

  “Who have you told this fairy tale to? You’re going to have some explaining to do if you’ve told anyone, because you’re making a horrible mistake.”

  “Whatever cane it was, you hit Sophie with it, too, but with the side, and you broke her hind leg.”

  “I didn’t hit anyone with a cane. Anyhow, I thought you said Joe Mickels did it. Or Irene Potter. They both were near the store, weren’t they?”

  “Yes, but they couldn’t have done it, either of them, Hud. Margot left City Hall pretty close to nine forty-five. It took her six or maybe seven minutes to walk home, so she got in before ten, but not by much. The murderer was waiting for her, but he had to talk his way into her apartment, convince her to come down to the shop, murder her, and then trash the shop. There wasn’t time to do all that and still be down by that parking lot by ten-fifteen.”

  “Maybe Irene saw Joe on his way to the shop, before the murder.”

  “No, because I made that call to 911 at three minutes after eleven. Say five minutes to the shop from the parking lot, persuade Margot to come down into the shop, murder her and injure the cat, then wreck the shop, and get away before I got there at eleven—not enough time, Hud. Even if he was still in the place when I saw the open door, there wasn’t enough time. The shop was really trashed; you must have spent a long time breaking and tearing and kicking and smashing. It must have taken you at least half an hour to do that, and more likely forty-five minutes, or even an hour.

  “Both Irene and Joe described your car as the one they saw in that parking lot at a little after ten. You really should have taken that hood ornament off. Ask me how I can prove it was your car.”

  “You can’t prove it was my car.”

  “The department of public safety can make up lists of Minnesota car owners broken down any way you want. Did you know there are only seventeen Rolls-Royces in the state, Hud? And only two of them are convertibles. And guess how many owners of Rolls convertibles don’t have alibis?”

  “Bitch,” Hud muttered. “You bitch!” He grabbed for her, but prepared, she ducked away.

  “Jill!” she shouted, and Jill stood up on the other side of the gleaming-empty salad bar. Beside her were Lars and two more uniformed officers, one with his gun drawn.

  “Hold it right there, Mr. Earlie,” the cop with the gun said in a deep, calm voice.

  “I tried,” said Betsy. “But he wouldn’t confess.”

  “Close enough, I think, Miss Devonshire,” said another man’s voice, and a heavyset man who looked like every B-movie plainclothes cop came out of the kitchen. He was the chief of Excelsior’s police department. With him was Mike Malloy, handcuffs in hand.

  Jill, Lars, and the uniformed cops ducked under the salad bar and approached.

  “You’re under arrest, Mr. Earlie,” said Malloy. He reached for Hud’s right arm and snapped the handcuffs onto his wrist. “For the murder of Margot Berglund. You have the right to remain silent....”

  Betsy had always wanted to hear the entire Miranda warning, but all of a sudden her head was swimming and someone grabbed her and the next thing she knew she was sitting sideways at the end of a booth and the room was empty, except for Jill.

  “Hey,” said Betsy. “Where did everyone go?”

  “Down to the police station,” said Jill. “They want to talk to you some more, but it can wait until tomorrow.”

  “That’s good, I think I’m kind of talked out. Did Hud go quietly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Too bad, I would have liked him to feel a billy club or two.”

  “Want to go back to the dance?”

  “Oh, gosh no. But oh, and how am I going to get home? Hud brought me!”

  “Want a ride in a squad car? I can arrange for you to ride in the front.”

  “Can I play with the lights and siren? No, sorry, I don’t mean that. I think I’m still light-headed. Riding in the front—is that what you and Lars thought was so funny about riding in the back of Hud’s Rolls?”

  “Yes, when he rolled up that window we started reciting the Miranda warning to each other.” Jill chuckled.

  Betsy said, “We got him, didn’t we?”

  “You bet we did. Mike has a whole lot more respect for you than he used to.”

  “Did he order up the the list of Rolls-Royce owners like I asked him to?”

  “Yes, he did. How did you know there were only seventeen of those cars in the state?”

  Betsy stared at her. “There are? I just pulled that number out of the air. Wow, do you think I’m psychic?”

  “No, I don’t. But I do think you are damn quick on your feet. Now come on, let’s go phone for transportation.”

  Hud wisely invoked his right to silence. And the indictment did not mention a motive when he made his first appearance in court Monday morning. So the Strib put the story on the first page of its Metro section, below the fold, without a photo.

  But when an Asian art expert came up from Chicago on Wednesday to look at the Minneapolis art museum collection, two employees of the museum resigned without notice. They were arrested and one of them began negotiating a deal.

  A week later Jill sat at the table in Crewel World. She was in uniform, drinking coffee with one hand and stroking Sophie with the other. She didn’t seem too concerned that Mike Malloy might come in and run her off.

  Betsy was grumbling over a piece of twelve-count aida, blunt needle in her hand threaded with scrap yarn. “I just don’t get it, Goddy.”

  “I know, I know; but it’s like purling. Just listen and be patient and all of a sudden you’ll wonder what you were complaining about. Now, where do you go next?”

  “I haven’t got the faintest idea.”

  “You’re about to go up, so go down here.”

  “See what I mean?” she demanded. “I’m going up, so I go down.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Here,” he said, pointing, a
nd Betsy obediently stuck the needle through from the back.

  Jill said, “You’d think anyone who could figure out the clues that pointed to Hud Earlie could figure out a simple thing like basketweave.”

  “Yeah, you would, wouldn’t you?” Betsy said crossly. She stuck the needle back in again on the diagonal. “Now where?”

  “Here.”

  “Ah, this part I get.” Betsy finished the angled row and said, “Now where?”

  “Now we’re starting down again, so go across, here.”

  “Ahhh!” Betsy growled, tossing the canvas down. “To go up you go down, to go down you go across. It gives me a headache!”

  “But it isn’t hard,” said Godwin, picking it up and putting it back in her hands. “You’re saying it right, that means you know it. Just do it.”

  Jill said, “How’s business?”

  “Crazy,” said Godwin. “Everyone wants to meet the person who figured out a murder. And thank God they’re ashamed to admit it, so we’re selling every starter kit in the place.”

  Betsy said, “That knitting class Margot had on the schedule is overbooked; I may have to hire Irene to teach.”

  “Don’t do that, you’ll lose all those potential customers,” said Jill. “You teach it.”

  “Me? I can’t do anything more than knit and purl. Those crossovers and knots and all are a mystery to me.”

  “But you’re so good at mysteries,” said Godwin with his famous limpid look.

  “And the students will be more interested in how you solved a murder that baffled the police than they will be in how to do crossovers,” said Jill.

  “Are you upset that I solved it?” asked Betsy. “Is Detective Malloy?”

  “I’m not upset. And I think Mike has decided you’re a special kind of informant. After all, you came to him at the end.”

  “Of course I did! I’m not V. I. Warshawski.”

  “Some people think you are,” said Jill. “They’ll be really disappointed not to meet you at knitting class.”

  Betsy laughed. “You teach it, Godwin,” she said. “I’ll sign myself up as a student. That way we won’t disappoint our clients in any way.”