Darned if You Do (15 page)

“I don't think so. But I don't know. I read that article in the
Sun Sailor
about the delayed mail delivery—you know, I got a surprise myself from that same mailbag.”

“Yes, I saw the article. I don't think Margot ever thought seriously about carrying handkerchiefs in Crewel World.”

Betsy smiled. “No, Mrs. van Hollen wanted me to carry the pattern. Which we're arranging to do. But I noticed that the reporter didn't quote anything from that delayed letter your nephew sent you. Didn't you read it to him?”

Dee Dee turned away for a few seconds, then said without turning back, “No, I didn't.”

“May I ask why not? Was it true what the reporter said, that you were in tears over it?”

Dee Dee turned around then and nodded. Her face was red and she looked about to cry. “Because it broke my heart when I read it. There was no way I could share what he wrote with the world, because it showed me I failed that little boy.”

“Oh, Dee Dee, I can't believe that!”

“But it's true, it's honestly true.” She paused, and Betsy tried to look as friendly and sympathetic as she could. Dee Dee grimaced, shrugged, and said, “Aaron wrote that his father hit him and was angry all the time at him and his mother. And that he tore up Aaron's letters to me, so he was going to sneak this one out in a schoolbook. I remember now that when he'd arrive, he was very quiet. It would take a day or two for him to get happy. And when his visit was coming to an end, he'd get quiet again. But I didn't know—I had no idea—!”

“You think his father was abusing him.”

“I think his father murdered him!”

“Oh, Dee, surely not!”

But Dee Dee nodded. “I should have stayed in touch, I should have called, or gone to their home. Maybe I would have realized . . .”

“Maybe it isn't what you're thinking. Maybe he did fall out of a tree. Little boys exaggerate, you know that.”

“I don't think that was the case with Aaron. All I can think of now is that I would have asked some hard questions. I could have saved his life, if only I'd known, if only I'd gotten that letter!” Dee Dee was weeping now. “I know that dreadful man had no idea the damage he was doing when he stole that mailbag, but oh, I'd
like to try to make him understand
!”

Dee Dee would not stay to be comforted—and what could Betsy have said to comfort her?

When Godwin came back from a late lunch a minute later, he said to Betsy, “I just saw Dee Dee going up the street with that framed Santa, and I think she was crying! Didn't she like it?”

“Oh yes, she loved it. There's another problem she told me about. It's got her all upset.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“Not right now. Look, here come Emily and Julie.”

Emily came in with a damp-haired little girl by her side. Emily was carrying a large white plastic garbage can liner, its orange drawstring pulled tight shut.

“Hello, Ms. Devonshire. Hello, Mr. DuLac,” said the child, who was being taught good manners.

“Hello, Julie-Poo,” said Godwin. “Have you been out in the rain?”

Julie giggled. She knew as well as Godwin did that it was a sunny day. “No, I been swimming, at the Y!”

“You know how to
swim
?” Godwin's eyes grew big as he stared at her.

She grinned at him and struck a pose. “Yes, don't you?”

He pressed a splayed hand on his chest. “Me? Oh no, I never go in the water, I'm afraid I might
melt
!”

Her pose dissolved as she bent over laughing.

Betsy said to Emily, “What is it you've brought with you?”

“A piece of needlework. Valentina found it in the house. I think Tom dug it out of a garbage can, it's so nasty.” She held up the bag. “It's in here.”

“Let me see, too,” said Godwin—but he drew back when Emily loosened the drawstrings. “Uff-
da
!” he said, wrinkling his nose and holding a hand up to his face. “What's
in
there, a dead cat?”

“Mommy, Mommy, is there a dead kitty in the bag?” cried Julie

“No, of course not, honey, Goddy's just teasing.”

But Julie stood halfway behind her mother while Betsy opened the white bag. “Whuff!” exclaimed Betsy, as the odor made her eyes water. “Mercy!”

Then she looked at Emily and said, “When did Valentina find this?”

Emily winced and looked out the front window. “I don't know.”

Betsy and Godwin exchanged a look. It seemed Valentina was making no secret of her continuing efforts in cleaning up her cousin's house.

Betsy picked up a catalog to use as a kind of pincers to pull the article out.

It was a tall sampler, done on light brown linen. It had been framed, and broken lengths of the light brown wood clung here and there to the needlework, making it hard to pull free. If there had been glass covering the work, it was gone without a trace.

“Why, it's an old sampler,” said Godwin, coming close again, but keeping one hand vertical in front of his face.

“It's dated 1882,” said Emily, “but is it real or a copy?”

“That frame is modern,” Betsy said. “And it was stretched onto a thin piece of plywood.” Which also was broken into fragments.

“Yes, but the linen is real, and it isn't evenweave,” Emily pointed out. “Maybe someone reframed it recently.” Modern needlework linen is evenweave, the same number of threads per inch in both warp and woof.

The pattern was period to the year stitched on it—two alphabets, birds, deer, dogs, and flowers, a house with evergreens bracing it, the words
Elizabeth Woodard
beside the date, and at the bottom a tree of life motif, with Adam and Eve standing on either side of a highly stylized tree with apples and birds on it.

“Okay, here's why Tom took it from wherever he found it,” noted Godwin with a smile. He gestured at the two human figures. “They're naked, except for fig leaves.”

“Oooooh, Mommy, he said
naked
!”

“So?” said Emily to her, then to Godwin, “You can hardly see anything with that funny old cross-stitch!”

“You can tell enough—especially . . .” He gestured at his chest, head cocked sideways. “Did you find any girlie magazines among the
Looks
and
Lifes
in his house?”

“No . . .” Emily choked back a laugh. “You mean this was his . . .” She gestured. “That, in
this
day and age?”

“You gotta go with what you got,” said Godwin mock-sententiously.

“Oh, I give up! Betsy, what about the uneven weave linen?”

“We have natural linen right over there on the shelf,” she said. “It isn't evenweave, and we stock it for our stitchers who duplicate old samplers,” Betsy said. “Which reminds me, we need to order some more of it.”

“Oh heck, that's right,” said Emily, disappointed. “So this isn't real, is it?”

“No, sweetie,” said Godwin. “It's a copy. See also the silk on the back is the same color as the silk on the front, but the front would be exposed to light for years and years, so it should be more faded. And look, down in the lower right corner, some initials that don't match the name of the original's stitcher.” He held his breath while he took a close look. “RNJ,” he read aloud.

“So it wouldn't be worth my while to try to clean it?”

Betsy said, “Perhaps if RNJ was someone you know, it would be.”

“No. So I guess it'll go back in the garbage. Too bad.”

She picked the sampler up using Betsy's catalog and put it back in its bag.

“So,” asked Betsy, pushing the catalog into the bag, “have you talked to Valentina lately?”

“Just about this thing. I asked her if I could show it to you. She said okay. She sounded mad, but I think that's because she's supposed to stop work for thirty days.”

“Yes, she told us that.”

“It's a legal thing. Mr. Penberthy had to go to court to have her made the estate's personal representative, so that's been done. But for some reason there's a hold or a wait or something for thirty days. They have to make sure there are no . . .” Emily thought briefly. “I don't think they're looking for other heirs, but maybe they are. And they're looking for . . .” She thought some more. “‘Other claims against the estate.' Something about medical assistance.”

Betsy groaned. “Tom's social worker—I wonder if Hennepin County is going to file a claim.”

“I don't know.” Emily lowered her voice. “And she's been going into the house anyway. She wants this over so she can go home.”

“But she can't go home until the police have finished their investigation.”

Speaking even more softly, Emily said, “She said she has things to do back in Muncie. I think when she's had enough of Mike Malloy, she's just going to leave town.”

Godwin said, “I hope she doesn't do that. It would be a big mistake.”

Emily nodded. “I think so, too. I'm hoping you will find out fast who really murdered Tom Take—I suppose I shouldn't call him that anymore—Tom Riordan.”

Betsy said, “I'm working on it. Emily, I want to ask you about that red box you found. What happened?”

“Well, I was alone in the dining room and I stumbled on something on the floor and I picked it up and it was a red box, all carved, with Asian motifs.”

“Was it plastic? Or wood?”

“If it was wood, it was some kind of very light wood. It kind of felt like plastic, but somehow not like plastic, too. It was a little heavier than plastic. The inside was black. The carving was flowers and those fish with the big tails.”

“Koi,” supplied Godwin.

“That's right, koi,” said Emily. “Inside the box were three ivory needle cases, very beautiful, carved with flowers and a teeny little dragon, all narrow and long, wrapped around and around. I picked one up and I could see it pulled apart near the top, and inside were three ivory needles, that's how I knew they were needle cases.

“But also there was some little ball thing covered with a gray rag, and when I pulled the rag off, it was carved so it looked like the ball was made of lots of little white mice with red eyes, ish! I almost dropped the box. Instead I put the rag back on top of those mice, and closed the box, put it on the table, and put a magazine on top of it, and went upstairs to see what Connor was shouting about. He'd found that mailbag. Then we went out in the backyard and he went and bought us lunch—thank you, Betsy, for paying for it, that was very nice of you. And when we went back inside, I was going to show the box to Georgie, only it was gone.”

“And nobody else said they noticed something had been taken?” asked Betsy.

“No, but they all said they couldn't remember every single thing they'd seen, so we don't know.”

Betsy said, “It seems there is something else missing, too: that rifle that was in the living room.”

“Really?” Emily drew up her shoulders. “It made me feel kind of shivery to think someone just walked in and took stuff. And now, the rifle was stolen, too? That's even worse!”

“Well, we got the rifle back, so that's something good. But I wish there was a way to know for sure if more things were taken, and from where. It would be nice if you weren't the only person there who has that gift of eidetic memory.”

“What's eidetic memory?” asked Godwin, but then answered the question himself. “Oh, you mean photographic memory. That's right, you can do that, can't you?” He beamed at Emily.

“It's not something I learned,” she said defensively. “It's just something I can do. I've always been able to do that.” She looked around. “Julie, come back here.”

The child was turning a spinner rack to look at the beautiful little scissors. “Yes, Mommy,” she said, and obeyed.

Betsy said, “That's why your description of the box is so complete—and, I'm sure, so accurate. I wish Georgie had seen it. She might have some idea if it's rare or expensive.”

“What's interesting,” said Emily, “is that I hid it under a magazine, so whoever took it had to go looking for it.”

“Was the rifle hidden under other things?” asked Betsy.

“No. It was kind of behind some books, but not covered up.”

“So you could see it from outside, through a window?”

Emily shook her head. “No, the couch was turned away from the windows.”

“What was the magazine?” asked Godwin. “Some magazines are collectible, you know.”

Emily closed her eyes briefly. “It was a magazine called
Look
,” she said. “It had a black-and-white photograph of President Kennedy on it.” Her eyes opened. “But they didn't take the magazine; it was still on the table.”

“Mommy—” Julie began.

“Hush, sweetie, Mommy's talking.”

Betsy asked, “How sure are you that the needle cases were ivory?”

“They didn't feel like plastic, and they weren't pure white like plastic,” Emily said. “They were kind of yellow-white. Georgie said they probably weren't ivory because old ivory turns brown and new ivory is illegal in America.”

“Could they have been bone?” asked Betsy.

“Ick, bone? Like a chicken leg?”

“A chicken leg!” said Julie. “Yum!”

“There are some very beautiful bone needle cases, elaborately carved,” said Betsy. “I've sold some here in Crewel World.”

“Really? Could I see one? Do you have any for sale right now?”

“No. They're expensive and some people”—she rolled her eyes at Emily—“are repulsed when they learn they're made of bone.”

Godwin had been fussing with his phone, which was equipped with many features. He said, “Here, look at this,” and held it so its screen was facing Emily.

Emily took it and saw a narrow cylindrical object, white, deeply carved with flowers. A ruler next to it showed that it was a little less than six inches long. “That kind of looks like the needle case I saw,” she said. “I mean, it's the same shape.”