Crewel Yule (25 page)

“I think you’re right.”

“So, it wasn’t Cherry, and it wasn’t Lenore. That leaves Eve Suttle. I guess now we go call Lieutenant Birdsong and tell him what we’ve got.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

“I know. And I should be, shouldn’t I? But there’s still something . . .” She gnawed her bottom lip briefly. “Let’s go talk to Mr. Kreinik and Mr. Stott.”

The Kreinik suite was a riot of color in displays of floss in silk, cotton, wool, and blends, and glittering metallics of every thickness and color, on cards or as skeins. Doug, in an open-collared shirt, was standing in the middle of the room talking to another man, gesturing with hands and forearms so as not to knock anything over. He saw them come in and smiled over the top of the man’s head. “I’ll be right with you,” he said.

And he was. “How can I help you?” he asked.

“About yesterday,” began Betsy.

He took a step back, looking Jill up and down, then Betsy. “Oh, are you the two going around looking into that unfortunate death?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jill.

Betsy said, “We just want to know—”

“I don’t think I should talk to anyone who’s not a police official,” interrupted Doug.

“I’m a police official,” said Jill, producing her ID and badge. “Sergeant Jill Larson.” She snapped the wallet shut before he could get a good look at it.

He studied her closely, but Jill could absorb any amount of study without flinching, and at last he nodded. “All right, ask your questions.”

Jill stepped back to let Betsy come forward. “Yesterday, you were warning people about Belle Hammermill’s unethical behavior,” she began.

“Illegal behavior,” he corrected her.

“You’re right, illegal behavior,” she agreed. “But you were also telling that story about the woman who didn’t know who you were and told you to your face what she thought was a funny story about how difficult Kreinik Blending Filament is to use.”

Doug smiled. “That was later, after Ms. Hammermill’s fall.”

“You’re sure you didn’t tell it earlier, perhaps shortly before she died?”

He ran a big hand across his curly dark hair. “No, I’m sure I didn’t. Why, is that important?”

“I think it may be. Now, when you ran out of the suite to look at what happened, to see Belle on the floor, did you look around?”

“Do you mean, did I look up, like to see where she fell from? I don’t think so, but I don’t remember if I did or not.”

“No, I mean did you look around the gallery here on six? What I’m after is someone who saw a woman in a wheelchair near your suite.”

He frowned at her. “A woman in a wheelchair,” he repeated. “No—wait, do you mean Emily Watson? She came by this morning.”

“You know Emily Watson?”

“Certainly. She’s co-chair of the INRG committee that runs the Market.”

“No, this is a different person. She didn’t come into your suite, but she was near it, moving down the gallery toward the elevators.”

He thought briefly, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember seeing her. But I couldn’t tell you if there was any specific person nearby or not. Well, except Dave Stott. He and I were talking in here when it happened, and he came out with me to look over the railing. He seemed to be looking around. You might talk to him.”

“Thank you, we will,” said Betsy.

“Thank you, sir,” added Jill.

They left the suite and Betsy said, “No help there. Are we expecting too much? It was chaotic when it happened, all the shouting and screaming.”

Jill replied, “Yes, but when something awful happens, people go into alarm mode, and they notice things, you’d be surprised what they notice. A person in a wheelchair isn’t common, and it isn’t wrong to think someone may have seen her.”

Dave Stott’s suite did not face the atrium, but was down one of the short passages leading to a stairwell. Norden Crafts had a two-bedroom suite, and was using both the sitting room and one of the bedrooms to display its wares. There was a wide variety of charts, fabrics, and specialty items. Not just scissors and needles, but pillow forms and books and small wooden and metal boxes with inset tops of evenweave fabric. Dave was sitting on a couch explaining the use of an esoteric gadget to a customer while his wife filled out a sales form at a table across the room. There were a lot of customers crowding the rooms, but at last they emptied, and Betsy sat down next to Dave. He smiled at her. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“I want to ask you some questions about yesterday, when you were over in the Kreinik suite.”

“What about it?” He turned his head to look up at Jill. “Are you two together?”

“Yes, sir, I’m Sergeant Jill Larson, and we’re conducting an informal investigation into Belle Hammermill’s death.”

“I thought it was an accident.”

“We’re trying to find out just exactly how it happened,” said Betsy.

“All right. What do you want to ask me?”

“Do you know you look a whole lot like General Ulysses S. Grant?” asked Betsy.

He laughed out loud. “I’ve been told that before. My wife and I have a vacation home near Galena, Illinois, which was General Grant’s hometown. But what has that got to do with Belle Hammermill?”

“Nothing,” said Betsy, blushing. “I just suddenly realized the resemblance. Sorry. What I really wanted to ask you was: What were you and Doug talking about when it happened?”

Dave said slowly, “About how Belle Hammermill cheated him.”

“I thought so. Now, did you look up to the place where Belle fell?”

He nodded once, sharply. “As a matter of fact, I did. I guess I was thinking the railing broke. But I didn’t see a broken railing.”

“Did you see anyone up there?”

“Well, it depends on where she fell from.”

“The top floor. Nine,” said Betsy.

He nodded. “Okay, that’s what we thought. And no, there wasn’t anyone up there, not right over where she landed. There were people looking over the railings all around the atrium, but none along the side she must’ve fallen from, if she fell from nine.”

“Did you see anything up there at all?” asked Jill.

He looked around and up at her. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Nothing moving along the railing?”

He thought briefly. “No,” he said, but doubtfully. “What do you mean moving along the railing? You mean like someone running?”

“We have a report of someone or something moving along the gallery up there. Something that twinkled or flashed.”

He shook his head. “I don’t remember anything like that. But I didn’t stare up at the place; I looked up, then down again.”

Betsy asked, “Did you see a woman in a wheelchair outside the Kreinik suite when you went out to see what was going on?”

“No, I wasn’t paying close attention—well, wait a minute, I did look up and down the gallery.” He thought a bit. “Everyone was at the railing, shouting and pointing. I don’t remember anyone in a wheelchair, and I think I should have noticed it. But maybe not, people were coming out of the suites and the galleries were getting clogged. I could have missed it, if she was down aways, hidden by all the people coming out of the suites. I wasn’t looking too closely, anyway. I was shook up by all this. It was about the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, that woman down on the floor.” He pinched his eyes closed with thumb and forefinger, lifting his eyeglasses to get at them. “It was really awful.”

“Yes, sir, I’m sure it was a bad thing to see,” said Jill.

Betsy stood. “Thank you, Mr. Stott.” She put out her hand.

He took it and his eyes ran over her name tag. “Hey, I know you! You took over that needlework shop in Excelsior from Margot Berglund. I heard she died suddenly. That’s too bad; she was a good businesswoman.”

“Yes, she was. She was my sister.”

“Is that right? Well, you seem to be doing all right up there. Continued success to you.”

“Thank you.”

He appeared ready to say something else, but Jill hustled Betsy away, out the door of the suite.

“I bet he’s wondering how you manage to be a cop and run a needlework shop at the same time,” said Jill.

“I don’t think we should go back and explain, do you?”

“No. Where are we going now?”

“I want to talk to Emily Watson.”

“What about?”

“Wheelchairs.”

Emily was in her usual place behind the long table INRG members had checked in at when they arrived. At this late stage no one was checking in, so she and another committee member were stitching and talking. There was a scatter of paper on the table, extra Market Guides, room service menus, a Nashville phone book, a couple of free counted cross-stitch patterns. Another table set at a right angle to Emily’s had stacks of T-shirts and canvas carrier bags for sale.

Emily was working on a small Celtic knot pattern in gold, wine, and green, with black backstitching. Betsy recognized the chart as one from Textile Heritage, a Scottish company.

There was a chair on Betsy and Jill’s side of the table, and at a gesture from Jill, Betsy took it. She opened her Management and Hiring notebook.

“That was a good class,” noted Emily.

“Yes, I’m finding all sorts of useful things in the booklet; I wish I’d been here for the class. Emily, may we ask you some questions?”

“Certainly.” Emily tucked her needle into the white evenweave fabric of her piece and prepared to pay close attention.

“You said earlier that the lightweight, armless wheelchair isn’t suitable for shopping.”

“Yes, that’s right,” nodded Emily. “You don’t have anyplace to put your purchases except on your lap, and without arms on the chair to stop them, they tend to slide off onto the floor. They’re good in the shop, though, because they’re lightweight, which makes them easy to propel hour after hour. And they turn on a dime, and they’re just a little narrower than the heavier chairs, so you’re not constantly nicking the furniture.”

“How likely is it that someone might come to the Market with two chairs, a lightweight one and a heavier one?”

Emily’s eyebrows rose. “I suppose it’s possible, but not likely. Well, if I was going out more than once, you know, to a museum or something, I might bring both.”

“If you had to bring just one, is there any reason it would be just the lighter one?”

“No,” replied Emily at once. “If I brought just one—and I did—I’d bring the one I could go shopping in. Now if I were a vendor, that would be different, of course. But any shop-owner in a wheelchair would bring the bigger chair, probably one with a basket.”

“Well, thank you, that’s what we wanted to know.”

“You’re welcome,” said Emily, puzzled. “I hope I helped.”

“Yes, you did.” Betsy stood. “Thanks again.”

Emily looked at Jill inquiringly. Jill just shrugged her own puzzlement and followed Betsy away.

But when they got in the elevator, Jill said, “You think she has a second chair in her suite?”

“If she does . . .”

“Let’s go ask her.”

But Cherry had joined the conspiracy of silence and she refused to even answer the question, much less let them into her suite to see if there was a second chair.

“Now what?” asked Jill.

“Since we’re up here, let’s go look at the scene of the crime.”

“Does it matter?” said Jill.

“I want something more than her overhearing the wrong story Doug told,” said Betsy. “Something physical I can put my finger on.”

Twenty-Three

Betsy said, “First, let’s see where Lenore and Cherry’s rooms are in relation to where Belle went over.”

Lenore’s room was along one of the long sides, about three doors up from the twin elevators. “So it wasn’t her door Eve saw closing,” remarked Betsy.

“I thought Lenore was off the list.”

“After Cherry got back on, I thought maybe Lenore should be there, too.”

“Maybe Eve was lying about the door,” said Jill. “Some people, if you press them to remember something, make something up.”

“Well, maybe she wasn’t. Cherry’s room is just a few doors down from where Belle went over.”

“Eve’s only got one oar in the water, you know,” said Jill.

Betsy smiled. “No, I think it’s more that her boat’s sprung a leak. Come on.” They walked back down the gallery to the lobby end, and turned to walk along the railing toward the middle.

“She was right about here, close to the center,” said Betsy, stopping. She laid a hand on the railing, gingerly. “Makes my toes ache,” she murmured. “Fingers, too.” She tried looking over without leaning forward, chin up and eyebrows lifted. “Long line for lunch,” she noted, being able to easily see only the other end of the atrium floor. She let her eyes wander up the tiers of galleries, noting the colorful banners hanging over the railings on the lower floors. DMC read one. DRAGON FIRE DESIGNS read another. And there was KREINIK.