Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_02 (18 page)

“What's that got to do with changing the oil in your car?”

“Nothing. But I'm hoping you'll talk to me about her.”

Miller shrugged his heavy shoulders and turned the chair away from her. “I suppose someone told you I was her boyfriend way back then.”

“Yes.”

He heaved an insincere sigh and turned the chair halfway back, glancing at her as he did so. “That was a long time ago.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“What do you want to know?”

“What was she like? Who were her friends? Who ... who were her enemies?” She saw him start to get up and said hastily, “Please, you loved her, didn't you? You were probably the one person who really understood her. If Martha Winters didn't murder her, and I don't think she did, then who else might have done it?” He looked up at her from under that massive, frowning brow, and she tried a winsome smile along with a look of friendly, sincere inquiry.

A little to her surprise, the frown faded and he sat back in his chair. “I did love her,” he said after a bit. “People didn't understand how much, because we had a lot of fights. Worst of all, I don't think Trudie understood.”

“Wasn't she the understanding sort?”

“She was the kind of girl who always asked, ‘What's in it for me?' She could be sweet and charming when she wanted something, and she could turn cold as—well, as January in International Falls when she didn't get it. She liked having a good time, she liked men to bring her presents, and she could be real grateful when the present was something special.”

“Like money?” asked Betsy.

“No, she wouldn't take money, that was going too far. But something she could return for money was okay.”

“Was this before you became her boyfriend?”

He nodded. “And when we'd have a fight, she'd go take up with someone she knew would give her things. And she made sure I knew about it.”

“And I suppose that would set off another fight.”

He nodded. “It sure would. Sometimes she'd pick a fight with me because she got to wanting a jacket or a hat or a piece of jewelry and I couldn't afford to give it to her. I'd blow up and say we are through, I never want to see you again; and she'd take up with a fellow who would buy it for her, but in a day or a week, I'd hear the new fellow was out on his ear. And there'd I'd be with a bouquet of flowers or some candy, saying I was sorry and would you take me back.”

“And she did?”

“Every damn time. Neither of us any smarter for it.”

“Why did you love her?”

He shrugged, then said, “She was smart and sassy, and real pretty. I thought she was beautiful. She had that sexy shape, like a woman oughta be shaped. And always laughing, teasing—” The frown returned, but not directed at Betsy this time. “Her last job was waitressin‘ at the Blue Ribbon Café. She was a waitress most of the time, once she got off the farm. Complained her mother worked her to death, but on her own she worked about as hard. Course, the money she earned on her own was her own. She was a hard worker. On her feet all day, but she could still dance half the night. She was a good dancer, liked to dance.” He glanced up at her and something almost like a smile lightened his features. “Boogie-woogie. You ever hear of it?”

“Of course. There was swing, then boogie-woogie, then rock and roll. Where would you go dancing?”

“Different places, sometimes to a ballroom that was part of the amusement park. Huge dance floor, biggest I ever seen, it was the biggest in the midwest at one time. Lawrence Welk came there once, during the war. I went and I danced with Trudie. She was just a kid then, her ma had to bring her, but she already was giving her fits. She was a wild ‘un.” Smiling, he shook his head.

“Was she popular in high school?”

He nodded proudly. “Had the boys standing in line.”

“I bet the other girls were green with envy.”

He nodded. “Some of ‘em. Some of 'em was downright mean to her about it. But it didn't bother Trude. She'd sass ‘em back, and walk off laughing. She didn't care. She just didn't care.”

“Did you care?”

He looked at her, seeking suspicion, but Betsy's look only begged for a good answer. “Yeah, I cared. She was wild from the start, and I knew it, but I kept on coming. She dropped out of high school the end of her junior year, got a job, a good job in a factory, moved into a rooming house. But she flirted with the line supervisor and his wife found out, and she got fired. She said she didn't like that job anyway, and got another as a waitress, and she was always a waitress after that. She'd work six months, a year, then she'd move on. Sometimes it was the boss, sometimes it was the customers, it was never her fault. I think she'd just get bored. She knew it didn't matter; she could lose her job and turn right around and get another.”

“Did she make enemies over losing her jobs?”

“I don't think so. She wasn't one to carry a grudge, and I don't think her bosses cared that much.”

“But someone finally got angry enough to kill her.”

“Yes, you're right. Y‘know, all these years I thought she just up and left town, and that's how I thought about her, living in some other town, still waitressing, flirting with the customers. Or maybe she roped some jerk into marrying her, maybe she even settled down, had five or six kids. I used to think about her a lot for a long time. And I never quit thinking about her altogether. And all this while she was in that damn boat, a skeleton. It's like my mind got into a rut, thinking about her in some big city, sassing the customers in a café, so it's hard to change that into knowing she's been dead for fifty years, that she's forever twenty-two.”

“Is that why you joined the army? Because you thought of her in some other town, flirting with someone else?”

He said, surprised, “Hell, no! I left before she went missing. We'd had another fight and I decided I wasn't gonna go crawling back this time. Besides, I wasn't get-tin‘ anywhere in this one-horse town. So I decided to give the army a chance. I'd like to tell you we made up, that she came down to see me off and begged my forgiveness and promised to write, but she didn't. She had her pride, too, I guess. I know I did, once I made up my mind.”

“So how long were you gone before she disappeared?”

He thought a long while, scratching his chin, then said reluctantly, “I guess I was still in boot camp when someone wrote and said she'd run off with Carl Winters. She'd been gone a couple of weeks by then.”

“But you're sure you were in army basic training when Trudie disappeared.”

“Hell, I could dig out my old service record and show it to you. My dates of service are July 3, 1948, to July 3, 1978. I got that letter, and I couldn't believe it, flat couldn't believe it. Mr. Winters was a married man, with a business and a kid and a house. I thought it was a crock, I thought she'd gone off on her own, at the most let him give her a ride to somewhere. I just couldn't believe those two had a serious love affair—and I guess I was right.”

“What do you think really happened?”

“I think Trudie was flirting with him at the Blue Ribbon, just like she flirted with every man, and he took it serious. I think he waited till she got off work and tried something with her, and she slugged him, and he killed her.” Miller shrugged, holding his heavy shoulders up for a bit before dropping them. “I never knew Winters, so I don't know how much that sounds like him, but it sounds a whole lot like Trudie.”

“Did you come home on leave from boot camp?”

“Naw, they sent me to San Francisco, so I went right there from Kansas and had so much fun in Chinatown all my pay was gone before I reported to Presidio. The army took me in and cleaned me up, sent me to school and taught me how to repair every kind of motor there is, from motorsickle to tank. After a few wild years I started saving my pay, and a few years after that I married Miyoshi, who finished my drinking for good. Then I retired, came home, and started this business, built it from the ground up, with Japanese savvy, army money, and my own muscle. The army taught me all I know, God bless the U.S. Army.”

Betsy went out to find the gawky young man leaning deep into the interior of her car. He straightened when she cleared her throat behind him. “Engine's in good shape for the mileage you've got on her,” he said. “But your brakes are leaking. Better let me fix that.”

“Not today,” said Betsy, who was sure her brakes were not leaking; they worked fine.

“I bet you have to press kind of hard to get yourself stopped, don't you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she said firmly, going around and getting in.

He closed the hood and went to open the doors of the old garage. She noticed as she backed out that he was looking at the car and shaking his head.

That won't work either
, she thought, and pulled out onto Third Avenue.

10

I
t was after five when Betsy drove past her shop—darkened and, she hoped, properly locked up for the night—and went on down to Excelsior Boulevard (a prepossessing name for a narrow, unprepossessing street) to the McDonald's, where she bought a regular hamburger, a small fries, and a Sprite. She found a much-fingered copy of the Minneapolis
Star Tribune
and perused it, so by the time she left the restaurant, it was fully dark. An icy little breeze that smelled of snow flirted with the curls on her forehead. Her feet crunched on the parking lot, gritty with sand. She thought of her cozy apartment.

Oh, Lord, she remembered that Sophie was waiting at the door!

Godwin said he would push Sophie out into the hall when he closed up. Margot, he explained, did this, too, when she left before closing time. Sophie knew to go upstairs and wait outside the apartment door for her mistress to come home.

Feeling guilty for loitering over her burger, Betsy drove quickly up Lake Street to the narrow entrance to the parking lot behind her building. She let herself in the back door with her key, hustled down the back hall and up the stairs to arrive breathless in front of her door. A muzzy whiteness opened its pink mouth in complaint and greeting, a long, drawn-out cry.

“Yes, yes, Sophie, I see you, it's all right, here I am,” she gasped, stooping to stroke the thick fur.

“Rewwwwwwwwwwwwww,” complained Sophie. She had a high-pitched voice for an animal that weighed twenty-three pounds, not including the cast on one hind leg.

Betsy unlocked the door, Sophie shot through and ducked into the kitchen to stand beside her bowl, gleaming empty on the floor. “I'm sorry,” Betsy apologized, reaching into the cabinet under the sink for the metal can that held the lams Less Active dry cat food. She filled the little scoop and poured it into the bowl. Sophie fell to crunching her way to the bottom of the bowl with swift efficiency. One would think she hadn't eaten in a week; but Betsy had seen Godwin and two customers slip the animal tidbits.

Jill had not come to the shop nor had she called. So now Betsy checked her own machine and found a message from Jill that she would come over, but not until around nine: “Lars is taking me out to dinner.”

Betsy went into her bedroom and changed from her good work clothes to jeans and a faded-pink sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves. She'd had her supper, so she filled half an hour with some housecleaning, then remembered that in the rush to get home to Sophie, she hadn't checked her mail.

She went back down the stairs to the front entrance and unlocked her mailbox with a little brass key. There were six or eight first-class envelopes—mostly the depressing kind with windows—some magazines, catalogs, and a fistful of advertising.

Back in her apartment, she began sorting. Margot was still getting mail, of course. Betsy put those aside. She would return the personal ones unopened with a brief letter explaining that Margot had died in unexpected and tragic circumstances and that she, her sister Betsy, would be at this address for at least the next six months. Doing this invariably triggered sympathy cards and even the occasional written letter of condolence, the latter requiring a thank you note. Betsy was getting used to crying over some parts of her mail.

All the catalogs were of items related to needlework. Betsy kept these in the shop for her customers to peruse. She was beginning to realize how useful they were to her in finding out what was big or popular or new—and make sure Crewel World carried it.

As she was sorting through them, a picture postcard fell to the floor. She picked it up. The picture was of the huge and ugly fruit bats in the San Diego zoo. Turning it over, she saw the message: “Going bats in Minnesota yet? I hear you have snow. Brrrrr!” It was signed
Abbey
.

Betsy sat down at the little round table in the dining nook, the mail scattered before her. Light from the kitchen shone through the window beyond the table, catching little dancing movements. It was snowing, the flakes dancing in a light wind. It was very dark out, very quiet in the apartment. If she was in San Diego, she could call Abbey and they'd go down and walk on the beach, or drive out into the desert and look up at an immensity of sky and stars. They'd talk about life after divorce, hair dyes, and estradiol versus Premarin. And the perils of dieting. Betsy felt suddenly quite alone.

Almost automatically, she looked toward the kitchen. There was leftover chicken salad in there, her favorite kind of chicken salad, with cashews and red grapes. And some of Excelo Bakery's wonderful herb bread. Betsy had a tendency to eat when she was troubled or lonely. And right now she felt both.

But just a few days ago she had gotten a glimpse of her naked self in a mirror and been appalled. Everything seemed to be puffy or sagging. Really sagging. How on earth had she let herself get like this?