Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_04 (21 page)

“I don't understand why they all weren't sabotaged.”

“I think the one I found was supposed to be taken away, hidden, or destroyed. Someone carried some of her things to the furnace shed to burn them, and dropped that lavender floss. Her coat and purse, a canvas bag with her stitching in it are all gone. I think the sabotaged pen would have gone, too, but it rolled under a locked door and he couldn't get it back.”

“He?”

“Or she. I don't know who yet.”

A tiny smile quirked in the corner of the woman's thin mouth. “The floss you gave Sheriff Goodman. Was that the floss someone dropped out by the furnace?”

“Yes.”

“And you think it was the murderer who did that.”

“Yes.”

A small, patient sigh escaped the BCA investigator. She asked, “So how was the attack induced, if not by the floss?”

“I don't know. Something on her needle, perhaps, or on something else she handled. In fact—” Betsy stopped, thinking.

“What?”

“I can't help but think there are two separate crimes involved here. Sharon Kaye died of a severe allergic attack. There's nothing suspicious about that, considering that she was allergic to just about everything. So why hide the body? And though some of her things are missing, her car is here. It's like—”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. But it's murder, it's got to be.”

“There are so many odd things about this case that I'm inclined to agree something illegal was going on. How about you tell me what you know, from the start.”

Betsy explained what she knew and what conclusions she had arrived at while LaPere listened carefully, asked sharp questions, and took a lot of notes. Before they
were finished, Betsy was sure most of her toes were frostbitten, though not that she had convinced the investigator of anything. LaPere's face could give Jill lessons in impassivity. At last LaPere looked over at the man without the camera and said, “Bobby, go find out what they do with the wood ash from that furnace. Arrange to bring it to Grand Marais. I want it sifted for sewing needles.”

Betsy thought to correct her—hardanger needles and counted cross-stitch needles were not the same as ordinary sewing needles—then thought better of it. It didn't matter. Steel needles wouldn't burn in a fire, and their presence in the ashes would prove what had become of Sharon Kaye's project bag.

LaPere dismissed her, and Betsy went back into the lodge, looking for the maintenance man. She found him taking thin birch logs out of a canvas carrier and stacking them neatly in the holders beside the fireplace.

His name, he said, was Dan—actually, what he said was, “I'm Dan, the maintenance man,” accompanying the rhyme with a wry smile, having apparently discovered that using rhyme himself preempted others from doing so. He was a wiry young man with an open face and the restless air of someone who has a lot to do.

“That furnace out in the shed,” said Betsy, “do you burn trash in it?”

His eyes rounded, as if he were being accused of some crime. “Oh, gosh, no! Only wood and paper. We never burn trash in the furnace.”

“So if they find sewing materials in the ashes, it isn't because you emptied a wastepaper basket into the furnace.”

“No, ma'am.”

“Thank you,” said another voice, and Betsy turned around to see Michelle LaPere waiting her turn to talk to Dan. “Doing my job for me, I see,” she added.

“I apologize,” said Betsy. “But while I was talking to you, I thought of that question and couldn't help asking it.”

“How about I go get more wood while you two talk?” suggested Dan.

“Fine,” said LaPere. “But don't be long.”

When he was out of earshot, Betsy asked, “Do you think Frank Owen is guilty of this murder?”

“I came into the game too late to know that for myself. As I investigate further, I may come to that conclusion. Though I will tell you his alibi is pretty solid; he was in Grand Marais most of the afternoon, shopping and skiing, seen there by several people. On the other hand, the town is only sixteen miles away. Do you think he's guilty?”

“No. It's interesting, I think everyone involved is lying about something, but obviously they're not all guilty of murder.”

“Do you have any idea which one is guilty?”

“Not a clear one. You might talk to Carla Prakesh. She and Frank were romantically involved, and Sharon was trying to break them up. And the children, Elizabeth and Douglas, need to be looked at closely. It's not for the money; their mother left a lot of money, but not to them. But Elizabeth's behavior especially is . . . hinky. Do you use that word, too?”

Again the tiny quirk. “Yes. May I ask why you've involved yourself in this?”

“Actually, I've been trying to stay out of it. But things keep nagging at me.”

The lobby was full of suitcases, but the women were all back in the lounge. By checking out ahead of time, they could stitch uninterrupted until they were shooed out the door for home. Betsy wound her way through the luggage to the pay phone. She called the ranger station in Grand Marais and asked three questions.

Then she called Sheriff Goodman.

After talking with him she found Linda and asked to borrow the blue sponge she used to dampen floss to smooth its kinks and keep it manageable while doing cross-stitch.

Then she went to find Jill.

The two filled mugs with coffee and went to the table where Carla, Douglas, and Liddy still sat, looking sad.

“Do you mind if we join you?” asked Betsy.

Liddy and Carla looked about to mind very much, but while they tried to think of a less rude way of saying so, Douglas said, smiling, “No, not at all. Sit down. Maybe some cheerful company will cheer Liddy up.”

Jill and Betsy sat and tasted their coffee while Betsy tried to think how to begin this conversation.

Carla threw etiquette aside and said directly, “I don't know how you have the nerve to sit here. After what you have done to me and these young people, taking their father and my dear friend away from us, to sit down and expect us to be polite is the sheerest gall I have ever encountered.”

“I didn't arrest Frank Owen,” returned Betsy. “I reported the finding of a dead woman to the police, and things followed from that. The sheriff is the one who decided Mr. Owen murdered her. As a matter of fact, I don't think he is guilty.”

“You don't?”

“Oh, I'm so glad!” said Liddy, with a faint hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“Why not?” asked Douglas, tossing a frown of censure at Liddy.

“He has an alibi, for one thing. He was in Grand Marais and the Pincushion cross-country ski trail during the time the murder happened.”

“I thought the sheriff had concluded it wasn't murder. I certainly don't think it was,” said Douglas. “Our
mother was extremely allergic to all kinds of things. She'd had serious reactions before, so it's no surprise that she had another. It was just horrible luck that she had one here at a time when there was no member of the staff around to help her. I'm sure she went upstairs to ask Father to call an ambulance, but he wasn't here, either.”

“What about the EpiPen?” asked Jill. “That was no accident.”

“Sure it was, in a way,” said Douglas. “Factory defect, obviously. Or a demonstrator model that got shipped accidentally.”

Liddy looked at Douglas as if seeing the light at the end of a dark, sad tunnel. “I hadn't thought of that!” she said. “But of course, that must be what happened.”

“No,” said Betsy. “Long ago I worked for a manufacturer and I assure you, demonstrator models are never mixed with working models, for exactly the reason you're talking about, a consumer might get hold of a nonworking model. No, someone deliberately sealed the cap onto that device. Just as someone arranged for your mother to come up here, and then arranged for her to have a severe allergic reaction.”

“Now wait just a minute,” objected Carla. “Are you saying that
Charlotte Porter
is responsible for Sharon's death?”

“No, of course not,” said Betsy, surprised. “Oh, I see what you mean. No, if you talk with Charlotte, you'll find that Sharon volunteered rather than that Charlotte asked her. Sharon found out Frank was going to be here, and decided she had to come. You told me how Sharon Kaye reacts to any woman getting close to her ex-husband, so I don't imagine you were the one who told her he was coming up here the same weekend you were.”

“No, of course not. I told him about the stitch-in and
he said he'd been wanting to come up and do some cross-country skiing, and now he could see me as well. I certainly didn't see any need to let Sharon know that her ex-husband was courting me.”

“Who did you tell?” asked Jill.

“No one. Well, Liddy and Doogie, of course. I mean, I don't want them to think their father and I would do anything clandestine.”

“Then Dad must have told her,” said Douglas.

“No,” said Betsy. “Because he also knew Sharon's pattern of breaking up any relationship he formed with another woman, so he would have been very careful not to let her know about Carla.”

“That's right,” said Liddy. “Mama still loved Daddy, in her own way. And she loved us, too. But she didn't want any other woman to take her place. So nobody told her. It was a coincidence, her coming up here.”

“But why would it matter if she knew?” asked Jill. “Didn't she have her own boyfriend?”

“Oh, Tony Campanelli didn't matter,” said Douglas. “She was always getting boyfriends, and then leaving them again.”

“No, this one was more serious,” said Jill. “I heard that Sharon and he had talked about getting married.”

“That would never have happened,” said Liddy. “Tony has two young children, and Mama's life is complicated enough without adding young children to the mix. I talked to Tony myself, and warned him not to get too serious, because Mama had an intricate medical problem with many foods and that might complicate things for the children.”

Betsy said, “Yes, those poor children. Didn't you tell me that those youngsters are about the age you two were when Sharon Kaye left your father for another man? And that's what this was really all about, isn't it? Saving two small children the grief you and your brother
suffered?” And Betsy reached into her lap for the small blue sponge, which she put on the table in front of her plate.

All the color left Liddy's face.

“No,” said Douglas at once.

“Why did you do that?” asked Carla, staring at the sponge.

“Because I thought someone did something to Sharon's floss to induce an allergic attack, but she didn't. The floss is just fine, as pure as the day it was purchased. But somehow someone induced an allergic attack in Sharon Kaye. I was present at the start of it. It could have been put on the needles, but why, when there was something even easier at hand? The allergen was put on the sponge Sharon used to dampen each length of floss as it was cut, to make it more manageable. If that length she cut and dampened hadn't been burned, we could prove it.”

“I didn't do any such thing,” said Liddy, reaching for the sponge.

“They have some really amazing tests nowadays,” Jill remarked, very deftly sliding the sponge out from under Liddy's fingers even as they began to close on it. “Finding even trace amounts of things like latex powder or milk solids.” She held it under her nose and inhaled.

“No!” screamed Liddy, lunging across the table at Jill, sending silverware, food, and crockery flying.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” shouted Douglas, grabbing his sister by an arm and shoulder to pull her back. “Sit down, for God's sake! Can't you see she's bluffing? It's not possible that is Mother's!”

Jill, Douglas, and Carla picked up fallen chairs and the bigger pieces of crockery, and shoved the wet tablecloth around on the table to sop up spilled liquids.

Women filled the doorways and windows of the lounge, staring.

A wait person slammed out of the kitchen, but Jill waved her away.

“Why not?” asked Betsy, who had not moved, as if the incident had not happened.

Douglas gave his sister a final push to make her stay in her seat and sat down himself with a thump. “What?”

“Why can't it be her sponge? How do you know we didn't find your mother's purse and project bag in the trunk of her car?”

“She didn't keep them in the trunk,” replied Douglas, never taking his eyes off Liddy, who was watching Jill put the sponge away in her purse.

“You don't know that,” said Liddy, surprised, her head coming around. She said to Betsy, “He knows that isn't Mama's because he burned everything, the idiot. I told him to burn just the sponge and the EpiPen. Mama carried spare EpiPens, so who would miss one? And who would notice the sponge wasn't there? They'd notice if the floss was gone, or the needles, but not all stitchers use sponges. I had it all planned out, I told Mama about Dad going up to the lodge, and talked about him and Carla, and I brought a box of dried milk and sprinkled just a little on her damp sponge and put it back in the little poly bag. Mama's not allergic to polyethylene.”