Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_01 (12 page)

Joe Mickels drank his coffee and thought. Awful the way Margot had died, he'd agreed six or seven times with people about that. And murder was an ugly thing, to be sure.

But she was gone, really, truly, wholly gone. Forever; and he no longer had to scheme to find ways to make her move out.

How long should he wait before he served notice on the sister to vacate? Not too soon, or the whole town would come down on his neck, and he didn't need any more ill will. But there was a lot to be done, arrangements to be made. Clear the building, remove anything salvageable; find a contractor who wouldn't charge an arm and a leg to tear that old place down. It could be done by Christmas, surely. And maybe by spring the architect's drawings would start coming to life. He meant to put up a high-rise with stores on the ground floor, offices on the second and third, condos above that. First high-rise in Excelsior, a historic building from the git-go. And cut deep in the stone above the entrance: THE MICKELS BUILDING.

And it would make money, more money than he'd made to date, which was already more money than anyone but his accountant knew, more than most people saw in their lifetimes. What a kick it was, making money. The first two million were the hardest, that was what old Aaron Berglund used to say. But he was wrong; what was hardest was parting with hunks of it trying to make more of it. Mickels hated parting with money, even more than he hated pretending he was basically doing good, improving the community, helping his fellowman, and that the money was just sort of a side effect.

As a local radio host liked to say,
B
as in
B, S
as in
S
.

He was making money, first and foremost. If others rode his coattails, or got good out of what he was doing, that was fine, sometimes it was even necessary, but that wasn't what he was doing.

And now the pigheaded impediment to his biggest project was at last out of the way, and he was going to make great heaps of money from that property.

He found himself breathing a little too audibly and buried his nose in the coffee cup. He'd waited for over a year for a way to open and now it had. How long, O Lord, how long did he still have to wait?

8

It was just starting to get light when Betsy woke, stiff and grubby from sleeping in her clothes. She'd slept nearly fourteen hours. She rose, got undressed, put on a nightgown, and tried to go back to bed. But though she felt exhausted, she was awake, at least for now.

She went into the kitchen and had another fight with the coffeemaker. This fight was shorter than the first, and more in the nature of a quarrel—after all, the manufacturer hoped people would like its product and recommend it to friends, and so it had to make its features accessible even to people whose sisters had thrown away the manual. Soon a rumble and wakening fragrance filled the kitchen. While it worked, Betsy took a shower. She put on her oldest jeans and sweatshirt, combed her wet hair straight back, and went toward the warm smell of coffee barefoot.

She filled a mug, doctored it shamelessly with milk and sugar, and went into the living room. She went to the front windows and lifted the layers of coverings to peer out. It was raining again, and the sky was that dreary dark color that indicated serious intent to rain all day. She turned away and curled up on the love seat. Time to begin planning.

Mr. Huber at the funeral home had wondered if Betsy had talked yet with Margot's lawyer. And Margot had mentioned him, too, as her ally against Joe Mickels, the evil landlord. What was his name? One of those old-fashioned English names. Penwiper? Wellworthy? Never mind, his name would be around here somewhere. She'd call him today. He could tell her how to access Margot's accounts, close them out. How to get the shop put out of business. How to do a legal going-out-of-business sale.

There were no heirs, except herself. She and Margot had remarked on that one time, how there were no other descendants of this branch of the family. She looked around. All this furniture was hers, and if Margot had paid the September rent, then perhaps Betsy could stay through the month.

But she wouldn't stay here in Excelsior longer than that. And she would probably have to sell the furniture, which was sad, because there were some nice pieces, but they'd bring a good price, and she needed the money.

She tried to think of where she wanted to go. New York City? Like California, it cost the earth to live there. Besides, she was pretty sure she'd outgrown both New York and California.

She needed someplace cheap. She wasn't used to winters anymore, so someplace south. Not Phoenix, too hot. Ditto Florida. Besides, Florida had hurricanes and the people were a little too handy with firearms. Ditto Texas. Arkansas, someone once had said, was very inexpensive. And the Ozarks were both beautiful and relatively cool in the summer. “Not everyone in Arkansas lives in trailer parks,” he'd said. “There's a long waiting list.” They'd laughed and laughed at that.

But that was where she was going to end up, probably. On that waiting list.

The doorbell rang. Betsy frowned and went to the door of the apartment. There was only a button, not an intercom. Still frowning, she pressed it.

In a minute someone knocked on the door and she opened it a fraction, keeping one set of toes pressed firmly against it.

“Hi, Betsy, it's me, Jill.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk to you. Please, it's important.”

Reluctantly, Betsy released the door. “Come in,” she mumbled, and returned to the love seat.

After shedding a raincoat, Jill detoured into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee, then brought it with her to the comfortable chair. She hesitated very briefly before sitting down in it, and with an almost ceremonial gesture shifted the needlework holder farther out of her way. She was wearing slacks and a soft gray flannel shirt, which made her fair hair look almost silver. “How are you doing?” she asked quietly.

“I don't know. Okay, I guess.”

“When are you going to reopen the store?”

“I'm not. I have to get in touch with Margot's lawyer to find out how to get everything shut down and sold off.”

“Why?”

“There's a silly question! Because I don't know how to run a business—especially a needlework store!”

“You've done fine the times I've come in and found you behind the counter. Besides, we can help you.”

“Who's ‘we'?”

“First and foremost, the people Margot hired to work in the shop. Some of them have worked in that place for years and know all about running it. And there's the Monday Bunch.”

“‘Monday Bunch'?”

“Today's Monday, so you'll meet them today. They'll turn up around two. They meet to talk and do needlework. Give advice. Help out. Buy supplies. When it's my day off, I join them. Like today. But I decided to come over early to warn you they'll be here, and see if there's anything that needs doing. Have you been into the shop?”

Betsy felt her shoulders tighten. “I don't want to go down there.”

“What, you think the police are going to clean up?”

Betsy thought to reply sharply, and instead asked with genuine curiosity, “Who cleans up after a murder?”

“Unfortunately, that's left to the survivors. There are companies you can hire to clean up horrible messes, like after an ax murder or deaths that don't get discovered for weeks and weeks.”

“Please!”

“You asked. You don't want to hire someone in this case, unless you can find someone who also knows floss and silk and wool and canvases, so they don't just dump it all in bags and toss it. And, of course, you'd have to supervise them if they do know about it so they don't walk off with the good stuff.”

“Sure. Okay.”

“You don't have to do it right this minute, of course.” Jill's tone seemed familiar, and Betsy glanced up. Was there the merest hint of a twinkle in those ice-blue eyes?

Still. “I just can't go down there, Jill.”

“Sure you can. I'll come with you. Come on, let's go right now and see how bad it is. Up, up, on your feet. Whoops, shoes first, want me to fetch them?”

Jill in this mode was like a bulldozer, and Betsy was too exhausted to resist.

The shop was even worse than Betsy remembered. The damp air seemed to have gotten into all the fibers, dimming their colors and making them sink down on themselves in hopeless tangles. Even turning on all the lights didn't help; it only made the ruin clearer.

The long triple row of wooden stems on the wall that had held skeins of needlepoint wool was nearly empty, and some of the stems were broken. Most of the wool was in a crooked, broken drift along the floor, as if someone had scuffed his feet through it.

Pyramids of knitting yarn had been kicked apart, baskets crushed and broken, magazines torn. The burglar didn't seem to have missed any opportunity to wreak havoc.

“What, was he angry at something?” wondered Betsy aloud.

“Some burglars get upset when there's nothing of value to steal,” said Jill, squatting beside a heap of knitting wool and starting to untangle skeins from a webbing of loose yarn.

“Then why did he break in in the first place?” demanded Betsy. Goaded by Jill's labors, she went to the wall where the drift of wool was and stooped to begin sorting by color. The skeins were not actually skeins, but working lengths gently knotted by color. Betsy remembered a customer who had bought a single strand of orange, all she needed to finish a project. The wool was soft in her fingers.

“Because he's a burglar; that's what they do.”

They worked in silence for perhaps ten minutes, then Betsy said, “Could it be he was looking for something?”

“For what?”

“I don't know. But the way things are all pulled off the shelves and walls—it's just odd, somehow. It would have to be something small, I guess.”

Jill said impatiently, “What could he have been looking for, small or big? Nothing in the store is hidden; all the stock is on display.” She had found a usable basket, dented on one side, and was putting intact balls of knitting yarn into it.

“Yeah, well, I wonder if anything's missing.”

“You'll have to take an inventory.”

“I suppose so.”

“We'll help,” said Jill, apparently sensing her dauntedness.

“Who, you and the Monday ladies? I thought you said not to trust people who knew silk from wool.”

Jill did not reply to this, and after a moment's reflection Betsy realized how insulting that sounded, but she did not take it back or say anything more.

They had made barely a dent in the mess by lunchtime, when, prodded by her conscience, Betsy took Jill upstairs and made a tuna salad to share with her.

While putting the plates in the sink, Betsy heard Jill say something and turned off the water to ask, “What was that?”

“I said, where's Sophie?”

Betsy felt a sudden chill. The cat!

“Did she follow us down to the shop?” inquired Jill.

Betsy shook her head. “I haven't seen her for a long time. Days. Since ... since that night. Since Margot.”

“What?” Jill was staring at her.

“I forgot all about her. I'm sorry, but it's true, I haven't seen her since I left that evening to pick you up.” She felt stricken.

Jill seemed about to say something, changed her mind, and said instead, “This is very ... odd. You know how she is when it gets to be suppertime and there's nothing in her dish.”

“Indeed, yes. But maybe—does she go off by herself?”

“No, never. I wonder if—no, if she had somehow gotten locked in the shop, she would have come out as soon as we came down there, crying over being left so long.” Jill, frowning, began opening floor-level cabinets and looking inside. “Maybe she's scared and hiding because Margot hasn't come home. Have you heard a cat crying?”

“No. I would have been reminded if I heard her, and gone looking.”

“Yes, of course you would. Well, this is really strange.” Jill closed the last cabinet door, and puffed her cheeks then released the air slowly. “It's darned odd, in fact.”

“Maybe she is down there, in the store,” Betsy said. “Maybe she got kicked or stepped on or—something.”

They hurried down the stairs and through the back hall into the shop. A thorough search proved fruitless.

“Well, I'll be dipped,” said Jill.

“Whatever could have happened to her?” Betsy, shying away from worry over Sophie's fate, began instead to consider this as a piece of the greater puzzle. “She was here Wednesday. Margot was out all day, she went to the museum and then somewhere else, she didn't get home until after we closed up, and then she was in a hurry to get changed to go do her presentation at City Hall. So that day I fed Sophie both her breakfast and her supper. I remember Sophie followed me downstairs to the shop in the morning, and came back up with me at lunchtime, hoping for a snack. Which I was told I shouldn't give her, so I didn't. And she came up with me again when the shop closed at five, and I fed her supper.”

“And she was in the apartment when you left?”

“Yes, she followed me to the door as I was leaving for your place. Margot was still there.” Betsy stooped to pick up the sorted clusters of wool and put them on the table. “Jill, do you know if Margot actually went to City Hall?”

“Yes, that was checked. The council meeting started around seven-fifteen and broke up a little after nine-fifteen. Some members stood around talking with her for half an hour or so, and then Mayor Jamison offered her a ride home; but it had stopped raining and she said she wanted to walk.” Jill went to the white dresser and began carefully lifting out painted canvases, shaking her head over the ones badly bent by being caught in a drawer.