Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_01 (22 page)

Betsy nearly fled, but told herself not to be an idiot, and went to sit at the computer. She found the power switch and turned it on. The screen flickered, the computer grumbled, and then came the chord of music: ta-dah!

At first Betsy just explored, noting the AOL icon, finding games (FreeCell solitaire and something called You Don't Know Jack, which made her smile wryly) and the word-processing program. Margot had Windows 95, which Betsy had had on her own computer, so it didn't take long to get comfortable.

She began looking for a business program and found Quicken. But when she tried to get into it, it demanded a password. She tried Margot and Berglund and Crewel and World and Crewelworld, and then all the needlework terms she could think of, to no avail. She sat back, frustrated.

She remembered her own computer, and the list of her assets she had kept in a file that required a password. She had used “Margot.” She looked at the screen, its cursor flashing impatiently. She typed “B-E-T-S-Y” and hit Enter.

And she was in.

And there she found the business courses she needed to run Crewel World, Inc. In Payroll was a list of employees, their pay scales, their hours (none entered since Margot died, of course, but Betsy knew where the time sheets were kept, so that was all right). Also Social Security paid, and withholding for state and federal income tax, for herself and for each employee. (“That's my first business decision: as CEO, do I get a raise?” she muttered.) The inventory file had a list done in January. And another done a year ago January. And another, and another, going back five years. Taxes, paid and due, the special account it was paid into. A list of suppliers and what was ordered, when it was due, the amounts owed, the amounts paid.

She printed out much, read more. Hours later, heavy-eyed, she could no longer make sense of anything. She shut down the computer and went to bed. She could do this, she was going to stay in business, paying her workers and herself. But she dreamed for the remaining four hours of the night of audits and penalties and bankruptcy.

14

Late the next morning, she left the shop in Godwin's hands and went to the First State Bank of Excelsior. She found a seat in the little waiting area, feeling important. She was wearing a light gray skirt, white blouse, and jacket-cut gray sweater; she carried an attaché case she'd found in Margot's closet, now weighty with printouts.

The magic word, she had learned, was line of credit. Margot had had one, a nice big one. When someone has considerable assets, a bank can issue a line of credit, which is sort of like getting a preapproved series of loans. Betsy was sole heir to two and a half million dollars; surely that was an asset worthy of a considerable line of credit, even if the asset hadn't paid its taxes yet. She had called earlier and gotten a very prompt appointment with the vicepresident—okay,
a
vice-president-of the First Bank of Excelsior.

When her name was called, she rose with the air of someone who is about to do a banker a big favor and allowed herself to be shown into a small but nicely decorated office.

And left it half an hour later greatly humbled. The vice-president had read with interest the notes Betsy had written about Margot's estate—but then pointed out that since Margot had banked with First State, the bank was even more cognizant of Margot's financial status than Betsy was.

However.

Bankers were, according to this one, reluctant to make a loan based on an estate that was in the process of being settled. “There is occasionally a slip between the cup and the lip,” quoted the vice-president, not quite accurately.

Perhaps when Betsy had been officially named as personal representative, they would consider making a loan against the assets of the shop in order to buy more inventory, because of the fact that the business was of long standing. Perhaps the loan would be as much as one hundred percent of the value of what she was purchasing. They might also lend her money based on the insurance settlement for the burglary.

Even this was not usually done, the banker concluded, but after all, it appeared that Betsy would be coming into a lot of money one of these days, and the bank would love to do business with her, as they had with Margot.

With an effort, Betsy refrained from leaping across the desk and watching the vice-president's pink complexion turn to mauve as she throttled him. Instead, she pointedly snapped the attaché case shut, shook his hand perfunctorily, and left the bank.

First State was on the comer of Water and Second, where she'd almost missed the turn the first time she'd come into Excelsior. She walked toward the lake and reached the tavern, but couldn't make herself turn down Lake Street toward Crewel World. She dreaded going back to the shop. She had been so sure she'd come bursting back in with the glad news that their troubles were over, the shop could keep running, and everyone would be paid. Now...

She dithered awhile, and finally crossed Lake Street and walked down to the wharves. They barely met the definition of the word, since no actual ship tied up here, only excursion boats. Still, the boats were large, multidecked objects, painted white, made of Formica. Or was it fiberglass?
Queen of Excelsior,
one was named. Beside them, the streetcar boat
Minnehaha
looked very odd and old-fashioned. Betsy walked out on the wharf it was tied next to.

The
Minnehaha
was made of wood painted a brownish red with mustard-yellow trim. A black metal chimney stuck up from its midsection. Its stem sloped sharply away from the rear, like a warship back in the days of the Great White Fleet.

The lake twinkled in the sunlight. Betsy looked down into the clear water. She could see three good-size crappie swimming among the waving water weeds, into and out of the shadow cast by the
Minnehaha.
How much was a fishing license? Maybe it would be a savings to invest in one, and a cane pole. If she ate fish a few times a week, it would cut back on her grocery bills.

Sophie would probably like that, too. She thought of Sophie, curled on a cushion in the shop, injured leg uppermost so everyone would see her cast and offer sympathy and treats. Sophie, regaining weight almost hourly, had not stopped purring since she'd returned from the hospital.

Some way would have to be found to pay the vet.

She went back up to the comer of Lake and Water. A short block away was Second Street, a little way up that was the entrance to that big parking lot with City Hall on the other side of it. No wonder Margot walked over to the meeting and then home again. It wasn't very far. That's also why she had been wearing those sensible low-heeled pumps instead of her flashy high heels.

Betsy started up Lake Street toward Crewel World. Margot had come home this way on the last night of her life.

Had the murderer been waiting in the shadows for her? Did he come out and introduce himself and find some reason for her to take him up to her apartment?

When did he strike Sophie? Because the vet said he doubted if Sophie had been hit by a car. There was a deep, narrow bruise over the break in Sophie's leg, he said, as if someone had hit her with a rock or club. That confirmed that Sophie and Margot had entered the shop together, where the murderer struck both of them. Perhaps the murderer swung first at Sophie, and Margot could not help crying out, because Margot never struck, nor would she allow anyone else to strike, Sophie. But if he had hit Sophie with the weapon, why didn't Sophie have a hole in the middle of her bruise?

Why wasn't it Sophie who was dead and Margot walking around as if she had a square wheel?

Betsy wished suddenly she had turned down that invitation to go out that evening. She would have been at home with Margot, and the murderer would not have dared to try anything with both of them there.

Say, there was a new thought. Was it possible the murderer knew Margot was home alone?

Who knew Betsy was going out that night? Jill did, Margot did, Shelly did. Did one of them tell Joe?

Without thinking, Betsy put a hand out and opened the door to Crewel World.

“How'd it go?” came Godwin's eager voice.

“Oh!” said Betsy, who, amazingly, had forgotten she was the bearer of bad news. “Not good, I'm afraid. I can borrow against the inventory, he said; and we'll have the insurance money from the burglary claim. And Margot had a life-insurance policy, Mr. Penberthy mentioned it, but I guess it's not very large. We're going to have to work very hard and make this shop pay, not only for itself, but for me, too.”

She looked at Godwin's disappointed face. “Sorry,” she said, and then she noticed the dark-haired lady standing beside the desk. Irene Potter.

“I brought you something to look at,” she said, and unrolled a piece of cloth across the desk.

Betsy came to look. It was a picture of the sun coming up over hills and a river.

“You should get that framed,” said Godwin.

It was a stunning work of art, with many subtle changes of color. “Incredible,” breathed Betsy. “Tell me, how did you get that misty effect?”

Godwin said over her shoulder, “Oh, my God, she did the
entire thing
in half cross!”

Betsy looked closer; it was true, instead of the
X
of cross-stitch, here Irene had used only one leg of the cross—and in places, less than that, half of one leg. The colors shifted constantly, it even appeared that some of the stitches contained more than one color.

“Didn't you get headaches?” asked Betsy.

“Sometimes,” Irene admitted. She turned and stared at Godwin until he walked away, then leaned toward Betsy and muttered, “I hear Mr. Mickels told you he was at a business meeting the night your sister was murdered.”

“Who told you that?”

Irene hesitated, then lied badly. “I don't remember, exactly. But if that's true, he must have held the meeting on his rowboat.
And
had a for-real battle with his board of directors.”

Betsy stared at her. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I saw him walking up Minnetonka Boulevard that Wednesday night with a broken oar in his hand.”

Betsy frowned at her. Irene nodded several times. “That's the street that goes out past the old Excelsior Park restaurant—where the Ferris wheel is?”

Betsy nodded wordlessly. You could see the Ferris wheel a long block away from the front porch of Christopher Inn, which was itself barely more than a block from Crewel World.

“What time was this?”

Irene thought briefly. “I'd say around ten-fifteen.”

“Could it have been earlier?”

“I don't think so. I started out from my house right about ten, and it usually takes me about ten minutes to walk to the lake. I wasn't walking fast, as I was enjoying the weather. It had stopped raining, and was dark and cool and misty, and as I was coming up the street, he kind of loomed up under a streetlight. He was wearing one of those old-fashioned black rubber raincoats and his hat had the brim turned down, and he was carrying a broken oar. I thought for a second I was seeing a ghost, but then I saw the silver whiskers and I realized it was just Mr. Mickels. I think he saw me the same time I saw him, because he suddenly ducked into the parking lot and went behind this big car.”

“A broken oar ... ?” Betsy prompted.

“Yes, you know.” Irene nodded. “The paddle part was gone.”

“So how do you know it was an oar?” thrust in Godwin, back like a bad penny. “Without the paddle, it's just a stick, isn't it?”

Irene drew herself up. “The oarlock was still on it.”

“Oarlock?” echoed Betsy.

“Yes, you know, oarlock.” Impatiently, Irene took up a phone message pad and drew what looked like a capital U with a stem growing out of the bottom of it. “You stick the bottom part into a metal holder on the boat so you can row.” She looked at Betsy without seeing her, thinking. “Or maybe it's the holder that's the oarlock. Whatever, that's what he was carrying, the handle part of an oar with that metal part dangling. And the paddle part broken off.”

Godwin sniggered. “I bet that was a hell of a meeting with his board of directors. I bet they still have headaches.”

Betsy cast a quelling look at him and asked, “You're sure this happened last Wednesday?”

“Yes, I'm sure. It had been raining off and on that evening and there was a light fog. Just the right kind of a night to see a ghost. But it wasn't a ghost I saw; it was Mr. Mickels.”

“Maybe he didn't duck out of your way,” said Betsy. “Maybe he just went to his car.” She turned to Godwin. “What kind of car does Joe Mickels drive?”

“Some big old yacht, like a 1973 Cadillac or something.”

“See?” said Betsy.

“Is it one of those old cars that has fabric on the roof?” asked Irene. “An imitation convertible. Because this car was like that. And it had a hood ornament, too.”

“N-no,” said Godwin. “It's a real dark green, I think. And not two-tone, just one solid color.”

“This car wasn't two-tone,” said Irene. “And it might have been green, though I thought it was black. Those streetlights make it hard to see colors.”

Godwin gave Betsy a triumphant look over Irene's head.

“But it did have fabric on the roof,” she said. “I know it did. I was there, I saw it.”

“Wait a minute, I thought you were at home all that night,” said Betsy.

Irene's triumphant glare at Godwin faded abruptly, and her breath snagged in her throat with a sound almost like a snore. “What?”

“I said, I thought you told me you were home, working on a needlework project.”

“I was, I was home all evening. But I got hungry, I hadn't had any dinner. And I just love to walk when it's all misty and foggy, so at about ten o‘clock I decided to walk to McDonald's and have a hamburger, and I was almost there when I saw Mr. Mickels. And he ran away and hid when he saw me coming.”