Cutwork (31 page)

“Maybe he went to wipe the knife first, and was interrupted by someone coming along and didn’t have time to wipe the cash box as well,” suggested Morrie.

“Maybe, but if I had the cash box in my hand and suddenly remembered about fingerprints, I’d wipe the thing that reminded me first.”

“Still.”

“Yes, all right, maybe he put the money in his pocket and went to wipe the knife blade first. He’s not the bright and well-organized type.” She wiped her own fingers on a napkin. “So you’re thinking that if Mickey is guilty, then the order of the crime was that he went for the cash box first because Rob McFey wasn’t there.”

“Yes, and Mr. McFey came back and caught him at it.”

“Okay, suppose. He’s got the money and is thinking about wiping the cash box when Mr. McFey comes in. And he panics and grabs a knife and stabs him.”

“Yes, that sounds right.”

“And then he wipes the knife—but not the cash box.”

“Maybe someone came along about then and frightened him off.”

“Maybe. But if the murder was done in a fit of panic,” said Betsy, “then it would be more likely he’d drop the knife and run, and there would be fingerprints on the knife. Or having dropped the knife in horror, he then recovered enough to rob the cash box and, being a cool customer, wipe it down—in which case, he’d remember to go back and wipe the knife off as well. But then there’d be no prints on either the box
or
the knife handle. I dunno, it seems more likely to me that, if there were prints on only one item, they’d be on the knife, not the cash box.”

“Maybe he was interrupted a second time, by someone coming by.”

“Yes,” said Betsy. “Yes, that could be.”

“Or maybe he was wearing gloves.”

“Then there wouldn’t be fingerprints at all. Both Irene Potter and I remember him skulking around with what seemed intent Sunday morning. But he wasn’t wearing gloves.”

“Well, of course not,” said Morrie, amused. “They were in a pocket. And he took them off to get the money out, because it’s hard to do fine motor movements while wearing gloves.”

“So he didn’t wear them while rifling the cash box, but when Rob came in and caught him, he put them on hastily before picking up the knife and stabbing him.”

“That is a rather difficult scenario to imagine, isn’t it? So all right, he went in there wearing gloves, and McFey came in, so he stabbed him. Then he took them off to rifle the cash box, and didn’t think to wipe his prints off before running away.”

“Well, maybe,” conceded Betsy. “But then where are the gloves? If he wore them to stab Mr. McFey, then he would have thrown them into the Dumpster with his shoes, wouldn’t he?”

“Hmmmm,” said Morrie.

“And if he was thoughtful enough to bring gloves along, why did he have to use one of Rob’s own knives?”

“Because he’s a thief, not a murderer. The gloves were an attempt not to leave fingerprints on the cash box, not to avoid fingerprints on a murder weapon. Or maybe he did have a knife in a pocket, but when he saw Rob’s knife right there so handy, a knife that couldn’t be traced back to him, why, he just used it instead.”

“I doubt if Mickey’s bright enough to think of all that, especially when there’s an open cash box within reach. When I talked to him today, there was something about him that just yelled that he was telling the truth at last. I really don’t think he did it.”

“All right, here’s the big question: Who?”

“Yes, that is the big question. I thought it might be a man named Banner Wilcox, but he’s got a wonderful alibi: standing in a church hall full of people he knows, having coffee after service.” Betsy fell silent. She absently forked up another bite of lasagna, even though she was always promising herself she was going to stop eating as soon as she wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Penny?” said Morrie.

“Hmm?” She swallowed, saw where her hand was, and put the fork down.

“For that thought you’re having.”

“Oh, there’s this local man who’s getting to be an important artist. He’s eccentric in a very charming way—Shelly’s dating him and is very taken—and he does some interesting things with metal. He’s also generous, especially to struggling artists, loaning them money. He bought a viatical from the man who was murdered at the Art in the Park fair, Rob McFey.”

She paused but Morrie only nodded, his light blue eyes keenly interested. “I know about viaticals,” he said. “I’ve often thought they’d make a wonderful motive for murder.”

“Yes, I did, too, when I heard about this one. But it turns out Ian wasn’t anxious about the money. Still, I wonder if he ever forgives a loan. There was another artist who died in a fire—it wasn’t arson,” she said, “the fire wasn’t suspicious or anything. But Ian said he had given the guy some money and got a mortgage on the guy’s house, which burned down. All he got out of it, he said, was an oxyacetylene torch and some scrap metal. But there’s something about that whole deal that makes my brain itch. I wish I knew what it was.”

“What could it be?”

“I don’t know, that’s what bothers me. I wonder if the land the house and studio stood on went to Ian, too, or if the mortgage was just on the building. I wonder who has the land now. I wonder if Rob McFey knew the dead man’s heir, if there was one. I wonder if there isn’t some kind of broker out there, putting artists with money together with artists who need it.”

“You wonder some strange things, Kukla,” he said.

“I know,” she sighed. “And I’m like a computer whose hard disk is damaged. I think there’s an idea in there somewhere, but I can’t get at it. And I can’t get it off my mind. I’m sorry, I’m turning into bad company. Could you either go home or sit here and read while I go Google something?”

He looked at her, his expression sympathetic. “Do you want me to go home?”

She smiled at him. “No. But I don’t know how long this will take.”

“May I sit behind you and make encouraging noises?”

“Sure. You may even see something I’ve been missing.” So they went into the spare bedroom that was also Betsy’s office. She sat down at the desk and booted up.

She decided that she first needed to know was more about the artist who had died in the fire. What was his name? Oscar or Omar, or something like that, Shelly had said. First name Benedict or Gregory.
Google.com
was amazing; she asked for obituaries in Minnesota nine to twelve years ago and it promptly linked her to newspaper archives and several genealogical sites. But she couldn’t find any dead man with a surname Oscar or Omar, or anyone dead during that time whose first name was Gregory or Benedict.

“How could Shelly confuse Benedict with Gregory?” Morrie asked.

“Well, she said it was some Pope’s name.”

“Probably not Pius,” said Morrie.

Betsy snorted in amusement. “Or John or John Paul, she’d remember those,” she said.

“Gregory and Benedict were not only Popes, they’re saints,” Morrie pointed out. “How many other Popes are also saints?”

“I’ll ask Google.”

The list was surprisingly short. “Sylvester, I’ll bet,” said Betsy. And sure enough, one Sylvester Osman died in a fire near Farmington in Dakota county, south of the Cities, four years ago. The fire was caused by faulty wiring. A fireman had broken his hand fighting it. A poke into genealogy records indicated Sylvester Osman’s cousin, Wilmar Osman, inherited the land and sold it to a developer.

“So what does all that prove?” asked Morrie, tickling the back of Betsy’s neck with his breath.

She drew up her shoulders and he sat back. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m sure there’s something in here that’s important.” She thought hard. “But I just don’t see it. Maybe the itch will go away if I ignore it. No, no, there’s something . . . Nuts, my head is stuffed with cotton, hay, and rags.”

“Then tell it to go to Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire,” he said, recognizing the reference. “Come out to the kitchen and serve that dessert you promised me.”

“All right.”

She got the ambrosia out of the refrigerator, a stirred-up mix of Jell-O, grapes, chunks of mandarin orange, pecans, and Kool Whip. But she didn’t talk much while they ate it; she was feeling tired and distracted. She put the bowls in the sink and sent Morrie home so she could go to bed.

At three she jumped awake with the tail end of a bad dream drifting inexorably away before she could catch hold of it. It had featured angry people marching at her, kerchiefs around their faces, fists upraised, shouting something ... U.S. Out of Mexico? Something impossible like that. What did it mean? She shook her head and lay back down. But convinced there was a clue in that dream, she couldn’t get back to sleep; so she got up and went into the living room, sat down, and took out her cutwork. Buttonholing around the endless curves of leaves and petals soothed her ruffled mind, but it didn’t give her any fresh ideas. She finished the second side of the pattern and decided she would put tiny seed pearls in the centers of the flowers. But she couldn’t find the little packet of them, and so gave up and went back to bed.

21

But while Betsy slept, some part of her brain must have kept working, because when she woke next morning, it was with a clear head and some urgent questions. After she had brushed her teeth and fed the cat, she dug out the papers from her volunteer work on Art on the Lake, and phoned Deb Hart.

Deb’s first reaction was a slightly grumpy, “What? What?” Because it was barely six-thirty. Then, when Betsy explained, there came a more conciliatory, “Well, yes, I suppose it could be. In fact, now you ask me, yes, I think so. But how strange. Okay, I’ll put off sending the slides back another day.”

Betsy didn’t explain, but thanked her, then phoned Shelly at home. “I know you’re working here today, but this can’t wait. Are you and Skye still getting along?”

“Of course we are. In fact, I’ve agreed she can come over once a week, more often if her mother gets difficult. Honestly, that woman! But Skye’s really a sweet child under all that goth nonsense. I like her a lot.”

“What has she told you about Ian and Rob?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “That’s a funny question.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but it’s kind of important.”

“All right. He was a friend of her father’s, and Skye adored her father, poor thing. Ian is a famous artist and his show of interest in her father was very flattering. She wants to study art and she’s proud to know him.”

“Is Ian arranging to sell her father’s carvings?”

“Oh, that. Yes. He’s talking to his studio in Santa Fe about it, Marvin Gardens. But it takes a while to work that out, you know. And anyway, they might not do it, even as a favor. So Ian is also looking into getting Robbie’s work into an art auction, one that’s well publicized.”

That sounded more like something Shelly knew directly from Ian, rather than something Skye had told her. “Does Skye have any of her father’s work, or did she turn everything over to Ian?”

Another hesitation. “Well, Ian said he needed everything, to make up as big a collection as possible . . .”

Betsy bit her top lip to keep silent, and after a wait, Shelly conceded, “But she did keep a couple of pieces. She doesn’t want Ian to know.”

“Was one the peacock setting fire to its own tail with a blowtorch?”

“No . . .” Shelly suddenly giggled. “Oh, gosh, that
has
to be Ian, right? She didn’t mention that one, I guess because she knows I’m kind of funny about Ian.”

“Yes,” said Betsy.

“Well, she doesn’t have that piece. A peacock, setting fire to its own tail, what a riot!” Shelly laughed.

“So that isn’t one of the pieces Skye has?” persisted Betsy.

“No. She’s shown me what she has. In fact, they’re here; they are just little things, but she’s afraid her mother might take them away from her.” Shelly described them. “The gawky giraffe is her brother, of course.”

Betsy, relieved she wouldn’t have to ask Skye for them, asked Shelly to bring them with her when she came to work.

“But she doesn’t want anyone to know about them.”

“I’m not going to keep them. And I’m not going to tell her mother about them. Shelly, it’s important.”

Shelly came in a little before ten with the pieces wrapped in several layers of Kleenex. “What’s this all about?” she asked as Betsy uncovered them. But her face showed she was halfway to suspecting, and Betsy made her sit down with a cup of tea while she explained.

“No,” said Shelly flatly when Betsy had finished. “You are
so
wrong, Betsy, you are going to be sorry you even thought about that, I promise you.”

“I’ll be relieved to discover that, believe me. But it fits, don’t you see? It fits.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“First, call Sergeant Malloy. Then I think . . . No, first of all, could you call Ian, and see if he’ll come to lunch? Then we’ll call Mike.”

“What about Skye?”

“Not yet. We’ll talk to her after we talk to Ian.”

“All right.”

Ian said he had some phone work to do, but could come in for a late lunch. Shelly, hanging up, her face a study in grief, said, “I really think you should let me talk to Skye now. I don’t want to spring this on her without any warning.”

But Betsy was adamant. “Not yet,” she said. “Please, not yet.”

Ian turned up late, claiming to be hungry as a wolf after a hard winter. “I understand I’m taking you both to lunch, is that right?” he said, indicating with one raised eyebrow and peculiarly direct look all sorts of possibilities in that question.

“Perhaps we should ask Shelly if she minds if I come along,” said Betsy, with a very direct look at Shelly.

Ian glanced at Shelly, a teasing smile on his lips, then saw her distress and immediately shifted his tone. “Do you really mind, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice now only friendly. He reached out to Shelly, who came immediately to hug him.