Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 (28 page)

Betsy lingered a while in the silent nave, saying a personal prayer or two. Jill stood watch in the aisle.

The moment Betsy stood, a man's voice behind her said, “I'm glad to find you here, Betsy.” She turned and saw Father John. He continued, “I hope you find here a further support for the admirable courage you've already shown in your troubles, and perhaps some comfort. It must be terrifying to have someone trying to take your life and not know why. I've been saying a prayer for your protection, a very militant prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel that has stiffened my nerve in difficult situations. ‘Defend us in battle' it says, against ‘evil spirits, who prowl about the the world seeking the destruction of souls.' ”

“Amen,” said Jill.

“I must say, however,” continued the priest in his mild voice, “that I can't imagine what a ten-year-old tapestry might have to do with a current attempt on your life. After all, the woman who designed it is dead, and her husband is beyond saying anything about it.”

“I assume Mike Malloy talked with you?” said Betsy.

“Yes, that's right, a few days ago. He's an interesting fellow. Catholic, of course, but not fervently so. He . . . his questions seemed rather vague.”

“I'm afraid he's as baffled as we are, Father,” said Betsy. “None of us understands where these attacks are coming from.”

They got back to Betsy's apartment in time to listen to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge, rebroadcast by KSJN, a local public radio station. Betsy heated water for tea and the oven for some of Excelo Bakery's holiday bread, Shelly's gift to her. As usual, Betsy had to stop what she was doing when the lovely boy soprano's voice wafted up all alone, “Once in Royal David's city ...”

Over tea and sweet, fragrant bread, Betsy said, “It's been twenty-four hours since someone tried to kill me.”

Jill nodded. “And it's not like you've been sitting at home.”

Betsy said, “I wonder if maybe Patricia saw something or someone, and doesn't realize it. Like in that Agatha Christie mystery, where the murderer dressed up like a postman or milkman, I forget which, and so the eyewitness said she didn't see anyone on the street, because she was looking for a chance pedestrian, not someone making his regular rounds. But the person Patricia saw realized he'd been spotted, and so he's gone into hiding.”

“All right, who is supposed to be walking on our street on a winter midnight?”

“Okay, maybe not walking but driving. Someone in a police car, or a snowplow.”

Jill thought about that. “I'm the only person you know who drives a squad car. And I don't think you know anyone who drives a snowplow.”

“There's Vern Miller, of Miller's Motors.”

“But he's the one who reported your brake line had been cut. And he hasn't shown any sign of being unhappy that you suspected him of murdering poor Trudie. In fact, I think he's proud of it. It adds to his reputation as a tough guy, having been a murder suspect.”

Betsy said, “Speaking of Vern Miller: Do you think Malloy would let him get started on my car repairs? One of these days I'll be able to drive again, and I'd like to have a car.”

“We can ask Malloy on Monday. What do you want to do today?”

“Can we go somewhere? I'm feeling really good, completely well, and I'd like some exercise. How about that cattle roundup you promised you'd look into back in September?”

Jill laughed. “It's a cattle drive, not a roundup. And I don't think they're doing any of that this time of year. But I did look into it. There's one in June. It goes on for a week and costs a hundred and ten dollars a night.”

“A hundred and ten dollars—to eat beans and burnt beef and sleep on the ground?”

“Well, nowadays I guess it's more comfortable than that.”

“I don't want a comfortable cattle drive. I want a real one.”

“All right, I'll look again.”

Then they opened presents. Jill expressed gratitude for the book, and was surprised to find tucked inside it a gift certificate for framing her next project. She watched with a face she could not quite keep smooth while Betsy opened Godwin's gift: a needlepoint horse in T'ang Dynasty style, done in blues, buffs, and a muted orange, matted and framed. It was very like one that had once belonged to Betsy's sister Margot.

Betsy stared at it, then at Jill. “I don't understand,” she said.

“Godwin found a photo of the horse and copied it onto graph paper, then onto sixteen-count canvas.”

“But Godwin can't design patterns! He told me so himself.”

“I know. He struggled hard with this, and he's afraid it didn't come out as well as the one your sister designed. But he wanted to do something special for you, especially when he realized the scarf you were working so hard on was for him.”

“That was supposed to be a surprise!”

“If you want to knit something as a surprise, don't ask the recipient what his favorite colors are, then knit in those colors where he can see them.”

Betsy giggled. “I forgot I asked him.” She reached under the tree for another gift, a long, narrow one, and showed it to Sophie, who sniffed the bow politely. Inside the wrapping was a toy fishing rod with a cluster of feathers at the end of its line. Sophie chased and leaped for the feathers and at last caught them and wouldn't let go.

There were other gifts to be given over the next week or so as chance allowed. “One thing my first husband's family taught me, to celebrate the twelve days of Christmas. All that preparation and pleasure can't be exhausted in just one day.”

Jill said, “Yes, I'm going to have another celebration with Lars when this assignment is over.” That nearly spoiled Christmas for Betsy, until Jill added, “I think the last Christmas I had on Christmas Day was in 1995. I'm always involved in something over the holidays. But none of them have been as pleasant as this one.”

“Thank you, Jill. I don't know if that's true, but it sure makes me feel better.”

Jill said, “When we get back, let's get on the Net and see if we can find a cattle drive that's more like the real ones were.”

“Get back from where?”

“The arboretum. You said you wanted some exercise? There's a very pretty cross-country skiing trail I want to show you.”

They weren't gone long. Betsy had seen cross-country skiers on television any number of times, and they appeared to float over the snow with smooth, dancelike movements of arms and legs. Not so in reality. Cross-country skiing is a total body workout, and Betsy, while no longer sick, was not remotely in shape for a total body workout. She lasted less than half an hour.

The two came through the door to the apartment, Jill partly supporting Betsy, for whom the stairs reawakened the ache in her back and legs. Jill helped her off with her coat and then to the chair with the footrest. “So,” she said, “which part did you like best?”

Betsy started to laugh; she couldn't help it. “And I have asked you to take me on a serious cattle drive? I am out of my mind.”

“Tea or cocoa?” asked Jill.

“Cocoa,” said Betsy, and Jill went into the kitchen.

Betsy sighed and leaned back in the chair. “You know, though,” she said, “when we found that big fallen log and sat down, and it got really quiet, that was nice. And then that fox the same shade of gray as the bushes he came out of stopped and looked toward us for the longest time. Do you know, I've never seen a fox in the wild before? Are the red ones only in England?”

“No, we have both gray and red. They're getting braver, our foxes, and moving into the cities. There's one that lives down by Lake Calhoun, only a few blocks from Uptown.”

“Only one‘? Poor fellow, he must be lonesome. Maybe we should introduce our fox to him.”

“No, the one by Lake Calhoun is a red fox. I don't think foxes believe in mixed marriages.” Jill brought a mug of cocoa to Betsy. “I couldn't find the marshmallows, sorry.”

“I don't have any, sorry.”

They sipped in companionable silence for a while. “Jill,” said Betsy, “were you hoping the person who's after me would turn up out on that trail?”

“I was hoping he wouldn't.”

“Would you have shot him if he did?”

“Only if I had to.”

It was Jill's turn to get dinner. While she worked, Betsy went in to check her E-mail. She sent some replies to the mail, including one to an excited Abbey in San Diego, who had once been her best friend and now at last had her very own E-mail address. Then, dinner not being ready yet, she surfed for a while. She went to eBay and found a gorgeous bronze of a Scottish terrier puppy currently going for thirty dollars. She started to register, then changed her mind. Just because she would soon be able to afford it didn't mean she should start buying things she didn't absolutely need.

Dinner was yet another hot dish, this one made with turkey. But the salad had candied pecans and bits of tangerine in it, and the dessert was lemon meringue pie. Over dinner, Jill said, “So, since you are going to buy this building, I take it you're staying in Excelsior?”

Betsy said, “I guess I am. Funny, I don't remember consciously making that decision.”

“Even funnier was Joe's face when he realized you were serious,” laughed Jill.

After dinner, Sophie politely played again with her new toy. That night, while the women were asleep, she dragged it far under Jill's bed and showed a blank face when Betsy wondered the next morning where it had gone.

Sunday, Boxing Day, December 26, Jill and Betsy were in the shop by eight. Signs proclaiming an after-Christmas sale were brought out of the storeroom and put into the windows. Inventory was repriced and rearranged to display the extra-special merchandise. When Godwin arrived at 9:30, they put him to work redoing the window. Shelly came in fifteen minutes later and started taking down Christmas decorations. Betsy turned on the radio and discovered the Christmas music station had gone to something extremely experimental. She retuned it to KSJN and heard the merry clarinet of Purcell's Third Symphony. Though Epiphany was eleven days away, the three kings had already come and gone.

With them all working hard, the place was ready for the sale—and set up for inventory—by noon.

“All right, that's it, I'll see you both back here Monday morning,” said Betsy.

Back upstairs, Jill said, over leftover hot dish, “I don't suppose you want to try cross-country skiing again.”

“I thought I'd get caught up on my computer records. We sold quite a bit Christmas eve, and I've still got sales slips from before that.”

She went to the computer, finished entering sales, and returned to the living room. Jill was trying a crochet pattern, marking her progress in the book with a straight pin. Betsy walked over and plugged in the Christmas tree and stood admiring it for awhile. She wandered restlessly to the upholstered chair and opened the needlework bag that stood beside it on its little crossed legs, but she didn't take anything out.

“Something the matter?” Jill asked.

“Kind of,” said Betsy. She went into her bedroom and came out with the Christian symbology book and her notes. “I keep thinking that if I look at it long enough, it'll make sense.”

Jill got her notebook out, found the page on which Betsy had copied the list of attributes and, handing it to her, said, “Abraham Lincoln said that persistence is the key to success.”

“He should know; he failed at a lot of things before he got to be president.” She sat down at the dining table like a reluctant child preparing to do homework in a difficult subject. Like the child, she just sat for a few minutes, tapping the table with her pencil, glooming over the notes. As before, she began reordering them, trying to spell a word. Frustrated in that, she opened the book at random and found one of the pages with three pairs of line drawings. She found herself again trying to make a word from the symbols, without success, went back to her notes.

Since each attribute could represent several saints, she began ordering saints represented in columns. That she done looked the list over selecting saints, jumping from one column to another: Kentigern, Eligius, Nicholas, Eleutherius—“Well, I'll be darned, there it is!” she exclaimed.

“There what is?” said Jill.

“It's the saints they stand for! Look at this.” Jill came to look over Betsy's shoulder. “The boar can stand for Saint Kentigern, the horseshoe for Eligius, the anchor for Nicholas, and another E you can get from the whip, for Saint Eleutherius.”

“Keane is spelled with an A,” Jill pointed out.

“Yes, but I told you I didn't write them all down. You just wait; when that tapestry shows up, there will be a symbol right there.” Betsy tapped the sheet of paper. She was no longer bored and resentful.

“Then the hangman's noose
was
for Father Keane.”

“I'd've used it for Hal, and she had even more reason to be furious. He betrayed his calling and his church.” Betsy looked at the paper. “Just like Judas.”

Behind Saint Kentigern were Saint Elizabeth's crowns, then an anvil, which could be Saint Natalia, then who was the bird? From the shape of it, perhaps a dove? Then a wolf or a dog. Was there more than just a name?

The dove was symbolic of the Holy Spirit, of John the Baptist, of Noah, of Saint Clovis and a flock of other saints, including Oswald. “This will be an O here, if this is money,” muttered Betsy.

“Then the letter before it should be M,” said Jill. “And where's the Y?”