Darned if You Do (13 page)

F
RIDAY
morning Betsy went to talk to Mike Malloy, to see if he'd found something helpful about the Riordan case. She brought him four fresh doughnuts from a shop on Water Street as the price of an audience. But at first he said he hadn't got anything useful he cared to share with her.

Betsy knew Malloy didn't trust her, because she had no official role in this case. He liked rules and clearly marked boundaries, not surprising since his job was to deal with people who didn't honor them.

She said, “So do you have time for me to tell you my own ideas and conclusions about how this is unfolding?”

“Start in, I'll tell you when we're out of time.”

So Betsy set off telling the story of a woman who had compassion for her sole living relative who had been injured in an accident. She told Mike about her own efforts to organize a volunteer crew among Crewel World's customers to help Valentina Shipp begin the gargantuan task of cleaning out Tom's house.

“They did an orientation walk-through one day and started work the next day. Emily Hame was in the dining room and found a small red box containing three carved ivory needle cases and an ivory ball carved to look like it was covered with little white mice with red eyes. She left the room to go upstairs when Connor Sullivan called everyone to come look at the mailbag he'd found. Then everyone went out into the backyard to eat lunch, and when they went back in, Emily discovered the red box had gone missing.”

Malloy didn't seem very interested in any of this. “So the red box was taken by one of the people working in the house?”

“That sounds extremely likely—except that I don't see how it was done.”

“You should maybe expand on that a little bit.” He got out his fat notebook.

“Emily was working in the dining room with Georgine Pickering. Jill Larson and Valentina Shipp were in the kitchen, Godwin DuLac and Doris Galvin in the living room, Phil Galvin in the upstairs front bedroom. Connor Sullivan, also working alone, was in the back bedroom. When Connor shouted out, they all came to see what Connor had found. Emily says she was the last to arrive because she was dealing with the box, and saw them all up there, and they all went down the back stairs to the backyard—except Connor, who took the mailbag to the post office and then went to McDonald's to buy everyone lunch. They ate together and went back into the house to get back to work together. And when they went back in, Emily went to show Georgine the box she'd found, and it was gone.”

Mike thought about it. “Looks to me like the only person who could have taken it is Connor. If they all came down the back stairs to the backyard, and Connor came down the front stairs with the mailbag, he could have ducked back into the dining room and taken the box. Hidden it in the mailbag until he got away from the house.”

Betsy nodded. “I'd entertain that solution if Connor were a dishonest person and came home that night with a Chinese-style red box, but he isn't and he didn't. And anyway, Emily hid the box under a big old magazine, so Connor would have had to go on a search for an item he didn't know was there. If he was a thief, he'd more likely have continued into the kitchen and taken the cookie jar full of Morgan silver dollars. Which he and everyone else knew about.”

“Why did Emily hide the box?”

“It was less an attempt to hide it than an attempt to weigh it down. That ball of mice spooked her, so she put the lid back on the box and added the magazine for good measure.”

Malloy chuckled. “That sounds just goofy enough to be the truth.”

“Believe me, it sounds very much like her.”

“So who took it, do you think?”

“I don't know. The theory of the volunteers at the house is that some kid on a dare slipped into the house while they were at lunch and grabbed the first thing he saw.”

“Which was hidden under a magazine.”

“Yes, that rather dashes that theory, doesn't it? If he went in there on a dare, surely he'd be nervous and just grab the first portable object he saw, not go pawing around in the debris looking for something pretty.”

Malloy sighed and tossed his pen onto the notebook in which he'd been writing. “Have you been in the house?” asked Betsy.

“Yeah, I went in there right after we got the news about Riordan's death. I was looking for something, anything, that might tell me who the hell wanted him dead.”

“What did you see?”

“Trash, trash piled to the ceiling. In the house, in the basement, out in the garage. He must've started bringing home stuff as soon as his mama let him go out of the yard.”

“He said his father and his grandfather were also collectors,” noted Betsy. “I wonder if it doesn't go back further than that. I mean, those Morgan dollars date to the late 1800s.”

“The house was built around 1927 or 1928.”

“Ah well,” Betsy sighed. “You didn't see anything that stuck out?”

“Not that would catch the eye of an amateur thief.”

“What about the rifle?”

“What rifle?”

Betsy stared at him. “You're a police officer and you didn't see the rifle? A rusty old thirty ought six. Connor says they found it when they were cleaning out the living room the first day. Now that I think about it, it seems to me a teen burglar would never walk past that to go burrowing under old magazines in the next room!”

Malloy looked at her. “There was no rifle in the living room,” he said. “Not in plain sight, anyway.”

Betsy got out her cell phone and punched Connor's number. “Connor,” she said when he picked up, “what happened to the rifle you found in Riordan's house?”

“Nothing,
machree
. It's still there.”

“Where, in the living room?”

“Yes. We put it on the couch where you can't see it from a window. No need to tempt thieves.”

“Thanks, hon.” She broke the connection. “You're sure there wasn't a rifle in the living room?” she asked Malloy.

“No—and believe me, cops have an eye trained to see things like that.”

Betsy sat back in the hard wooden chair beside Malloy's desk. “It seems that red box
wasn't
the only thing taken after all.”

“So what does that mean?” asked Malloy.

“I don't know. Mike, have you looked at anyone else but Valentina?”

“Like who?”

“Did you see that article in the
Sun Sailor
about the long-delayed mail finally being delivered?”

Malloy nodded. “So?”

“So did you go talk to any of those people?”

“You think I should? Who? And why?”

“Because some of them were extremely angry with Tom Riordan for keeping vital information from them all these years.”

“Like who? Joe the Plumber?”

Betsy smiled. “No, not him. But I have a feeling there's someone in that story with a motive.”

“You amateurs are always getting ‘feelings,'” Mike said.

*   *   *

B
ETSY
went back to Crewel World to find Godwin deeply immersed in teaching a young woman to darn a hand-knit sock. It looked like a sock from one of his knitting classes—bright orange, with small black diamonds. Something inside it was pushing the heel into a smooth bulge. The heel had a small hole in it.

Ah, he's using a darning egg, thought Betsy. The smooth wooden implements came in various sizes and shapes—some looked more like a computer mouse than an egg. They slipped inside socks or in the arms and even the backs of sweaters that had worn or torn a hole in themselves. The darning eggs made mending easier by freeing both hands for the work and also by preventing the stitcher from accidentally stitching the front of a garment onto the back.

There's something satisfying about mending a handmade garment
, she thought, approaching Godwin as the door chime finished playing “The Cuckoo Song” theme from old Laurel and Hardy movies.
Ours is a throwaway society; it's good to push back against that once in a while.

Godwin did not glance up. He had a small ball of orange yarn in one hand and a set of four thin, double-ended knitting needles in the other. The yarn was a bright orange that matched the area where a hole had worn through.

“And now I take some of the leftover yarn from your stocking, which you wisely kept per my advice, and note I am not cutting off a length of it, because it's ever so much easier to cut the extra off than try to pick up and continue with a new length.”

“Okay,” the customer said, nodding.

Without changing tone or looking around, Godwin said, “Hello, Betsy. Valentina called. She's going to stop by in a little while.” He continued to the young woman, “Now, have you darned anything before?”

She said, doubtfully, “I've looked at duplicate stitch darning on the Internet, and so I understand the
theory
of it, but I've never tried it. Is it as easy as it looks?”

“Nothing is as easy as it looks. But this mending I'm going to show you is not duplicate stitch because there's an actual hole, not just a spot worn thin. And it's not
really
difficult. What you need is four double-ended knitting needles, which you used to knit this sock in my class, so you already know something about them. We'll use a littler quartet, size double zero, okay?”

“Fine.” She turned to Betsy. “I'll take a set of double zeros, please.”

“That's great, Molly.” Betsy brought a packaged set of four to the desk.

Godwin put down the ball of yarn, opened the package of needles, and said, “First, find the first row below the hole that has no damage. You're looking for strong, solid stitching.” He pointed the row out and, using a needle, began carefully working across the row, starting about half an inch to one side of it, lifting a single stitch and running the needle through it, then the next, then the next. He continued across the row to half an inch beyond the hole. “See?” he said.

“Gotcha,” Molly replied.

“Now, from the farthest left-hand picked-up stitch, run up that column with another needle, picking up each stitch, past the hole to a solid row above it.” He did so, his fingers moving nimbly, while she watched.

“You do that so smoothly,” she said admiringly.

“Lots of experience,” he said. “I'm always wearing a hole in my socks, though it's usually at the toe.” He leaned a little sideways and murmured, “I have
such
sharp toenails.”

Molly giggled.

“Now, run the other needle up the right side, same as you did on the left. At this point you've got that ole hole practically surrounded.”

“Except at the top,” Molly pointed out.

“Yes, well, we'll take care of that as we approach. So, you take your fourth needle, and the yarn left over from the sock lesson, and you verrrry carefully pick up that first stitch on the bottom row
and
the first stitch on the right vertical row, and you knit the two of them together with the strand of yarn. Like so.”

He deftly picked up the stitches onto the free needle and knit them into the strand of yarn.

“Now, continue across that row to the other side.”

In a few minutes he said, “And now we turn and knit our way back, picking up that first stitch from the vertical needles, so we're tacking it down on either side. You see? We're knitting a patch over the hole.”

“Well, isn't that clever?”

“Yes, it is.” Godwin handed over the sock with its needles. “Here, you do a row while I watch.”

Molly set out, moving slowly as she felt her way into the knitting. “I'm not used to such tiny needles,” she said. “But look, it's coming along.”

She did another row, this time without her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, her movements quicker and smoother. “Say,” she said, “this isn't very hard at all!”

“Tol'ja,” said Godwin. “When you reach the top, thread the empty needle across as you did at the bottom, then knit the last row onto it.”

“Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.”

“So now you know you don't have to throw away a pair of socks you worked so hard making just because you blew a hole in one of them. Come back later in the fall. I'm teaching a class on duplicate stitching, which you can use to prevent a weak spot in a sock or sweater or hat from turning into a hole in the first place.”

“All right, I will. Thanks, Goddy!”

All confident smiles, the young woman paid for her set of needles, and left the shop, her knitting stowed in the high-priced bag Godwin had sold her the first time she came in.

“Alone at last,” Betsy said, smiling. “What did Valentina want?”

“She didn't say. But she sounded . . . upset.”

“Upset how? Sad or angry?”

“I'd say angry, definitely angry. I wonder if Mike's been at her again.”