Thai Die (6 page)

“Anything else?”

Betsy thought. “Well, she said the person who was going to buy the statue might have been waiting for it, because when she got back to her own car a woman got out of a Hummer parked in front of the shop and went in. She thought the woman might have been waiting for her to leave.” She raised a questioning eyebrow at Malloy. “What’s this about, Mike?”

“How long has Ms. Valentine lived in that apartment?”

“Nearly six years.”

“Any trouble with her?”

“None. She’s very quiet, pays her rent on time, doesn’t give loud parties, doesn’t break things. Plus she’s nice, a little shy but sweet.”

“Does she normally go off without telling anyone where she’s going?”

“No, at least not for more than an overnight trip somewhere. She has a cat—oh!”

“What?”

“Is the cat all right? She was looking so upset when she came down just now . . .”

“He’s fine. He was hiding in the back of her bedroom closet. Not a mark on him.”

“That’s good.” Betsy smiled. “I suppose I shouldn’t have worried—she named him Waldo because he can be very hard to find.”

“The deputies are very good seekers.” Was his thin mouth tweaking because he was amused? Or was he trying not to show annoyance? He finished making a note, then asked, “Who was closest to her, family or friend? Besides Mr. Galvin, that is.”

Betsy had to think about that. “Well, I guess her best friend is Carmen Diamond. I don’t know Carmen very well. Shelly does—they’re both schoolteachers, and they both have dogs. Carmen’s not a stitcher, so I think I’ve maybe talked to her twice.”

“Do you have her address or phone number?”

“No, but Shelly does.”

Mike made a note. “Who else?”

Betsy named Shelly, Emily, Bershada, and Alice, of the Monday Bunch, and gave Mike their phone numbers.

“Is there anything that strikes you as odd about her? Could she be a secret drunk? Does she light bonfires in the park and dance naked around them?”

Betsy smiled. “I really don’t think so.”

“Yet she ups and goes to Thailand all by herself.”

“Oh, that. She and Carmen Diamond were supposed to go together, and when Carmen had to back out, we were kind of surprised that she decided to go alone. But she said she’d always wanted to spend some money foolishly, have an adventure, go someplace exotic. And she needed some kind of surgery, something elective, and she’d heard the hospitals in Thailand were far less expensive than here but just as good. Her surgery went well, and she had a marvelous time. She sent us an e-mail almost every day she was over there, telling us what she’d seen and done, and we loved hearing about her adventures. And she came home with some wonderful souvenirs.”

“What kind of elective surgery?”

“She didn’t tell me.”

Mike just looked at her, and Betsy said, “I don’t know what it was, Mike—but she came home looking awfully good. Very
rested
.” She smiled at him, eyebrows raised.

Mike smiled back. Once upon a time, when a movie star had a face-lift, the euphemism often used to describe the improvement was, “she looks very rested.” He flipped back a couple of pages in his notebook to read something. “Now, tell me about this statue she brought home from Bangkok.”

“She brought two. One was a bronze of an elephant-headed god named Ganesha.” She stopped to look inquiringly at him.

“Yes,” he said nodding, “it was on the floor in her living room.”

“Ah. The other was that statue of the Buddha.”

“What does the Buddha statue look like?”

“Didn’t she tell you?”

“Yes, but you tell me, too.”

“Well, it’s about this high.” Betsy held out her left hand, her right hand hovering about seven inches above it. “Some kind of light-colored stone, fairly heavy. It wasn’t the fat, bald, Chinese kind, but slim, and standing up, not sitting. If Doris hadn’t told us it was a statue of the Buddha we never would have guessed it.”

“We?”

“The Monday Bunch, the people who come in on Monday afternoons to stitch. She brought in her suitcase full of souvenirs on Wednesday, and we had a special meeting to see them. We saw the box the Buddha was in, and made her open it.”

Mike nodded. “Go on.”

She described the statue. “Doris said it is an ancient form of the Buddha, but that the statue is a modern copy.”

“Is it possible the statue is really old?”

“I don’t know. She said it wasn’t—that is, the person who asked her to bring it here told her that. I saw no reason to disbelieve it. Mike, what’s the problem here?”

“Didn’t you hear about Mr. Fitzwilliam on the news?”

“No, I must’ve missed it. What about him?”

“Fitzwilliam was found in his St. Paul antiques store around noon on Friday, dead. Murdered. And his store was trashed about as thoroughly as Ms. Valentine’s apartment.”

“No! Oh my goodness, that’s dreadful! That’s . . . that’s horrible! Oh, and you think this burglary is related to . . . But how can that be? She took the statue over there! Why would they come to her apartment? What are they looking for?”

Instead of replying, Mike asked, “Did you know that Ms. Valentine bought a gun?”

“No, she didn’t. Phil bought it for her. I didn’t know anything about it until Phil mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. But that can’t be significant, since she didn’t buy it for herself. Is it missing?”

“No,” he said. “It was up there, in her bedroom.”

“Was Mr. Fitzwilliam shot?”

“Yes.”

“With
Doris’s
gun?”

“Probably not. Though we’re waiting for the complete autopsy results, he was shot with a small-caliber gun, probably a twenty-two or twenty-five, and the Valentine gun is a thirty-eight.”

“So her gun wasn’t taken?”

“No, it was found on the floor of her bedroom. Ms. Valentine said she kept it inside a pillowcase.”

“So what
is
missing from up there?”

“Ms. Valentine says a piece of handwoven silk brocade, a ruby necklace and earrings, and a silver ring, all bought in Thailand. And her laptop.”

Betsy said, “That sounds pretty much like a burglary to me.”

“Well, the stone statue of the Buddha she says she took to St. Paul wasn’t found in the Fitzwilliam store. And it isn’t in her apartment, either.”

“You think she didn’t take it over there? And that it was taken from her apartment?”

“What do you think?” He narrowed his eyes, reluctant to admit he really wanted her opinion.

“Of course she took it over there. The way she talked about going over there, the story she told of his reaction, it was all too complicated to be anything but the truth.”

“So where is this Buddha statue?”

“In the hands of the person who bought it from him, I’d say. Probably the woman who got out of the Hummer. Paid for it and left, I’d guess. What do you think?”

“I think his murder and the search of his store, and then the search of Ms. Valentine’s apartment are no coincidence, and this statue is what they have in common. It could be that Ms. Valentine found out the statue was valuable after all and decided to keep it for herself. In order to do that, she had to murder Mr. Fitzwilliam.”

“Apart from the extreme ridiculousness of thinking such a thing of Doris Valentine, you have to assume she shot him with a different gun than the one she owned,” said Betsy.

“If she’s an intelligent person, sure.” Mike was turning pink around the ears.

“But why murder him? Why not just fail to deliver it?”

“Because Mr. Fitzwilliam would want to know why it wasn’t delivered, and when he can’t get hold of Ms. Valentine, he will contact the Bangkok dealer, who will give him her address.”

“Oh. But he wouldn’t have had to contact the Bangkok dealer, since Doris said she talked to Mr. Fitzwilliam on the phone. He knew her name and probably that she was coming to his store from Excelsior. But all right, then, how about Mr. Fitzwilliam decided not to hand it over to the customer? And the customer murdered him to get it.”

“Fine—except in that case, why come over here and ransack Ms. Valentine’s apartment?”

“It was just a burglar in Doris’s apartment. Coincidences happen, you know.”

“No, this place was tossed by someone looking for something. He left a huge mess, spilling and dumping all kinds of things. He even took the covers off the exhaust fans in the kitchen and bathroom.”

Betsy looked up at the ceiling as she pictured the ruins. What a horrible thing to walk into! But a
search
. She quashed her empathy in an effort to think clearly. Why would someone go on a search of Doris’s apartment? She couldn’t think. She shrugged.

Mike said, “Suppose Doris didn’t hand over the Buddha because she found out it is really ancient and valuable? Countries have laws about exporting their antiquities.”

Betsy nodded.

“And the person who was to buy it thought Mr. Fitzwilliam was the one holding it back and killed him. If Doris is right and the woman who went into his shop was the customer, she searched his shop, and when she didn’t find it, she came looking for Doris.”

Betsy bit her lower lip as her heart began to thump. Was Doris in danger? “Do you think that’s what happened?” she asked.

“I’m still collecting information.”

“You know, if this was such a secret deal, why was everyone being so aboveboard about it, her going to the Bangkok man’s office and phoning ahead to Fitzwilliam in St. Paul?”

He said, “I thought Fitzwilliam was upset because Ms. Valentine showed it around.”

“Well, yes, but he said that was because he was afraid she might have damaged it. Which was a legitimate fear. The hands on the statue were carved very delicately.” Betsy raised her own hands and tried to imitate the pose of the fingers as best as she could remember it.

“Well, maybe,” said Malloy. Again he consulted his notes. “Tell me about Phil Galvin.”

“He’s nice, a retired railroad man. I think he must be well into his seventies, though he’s pretty spry. He’s been a customer of this shop since before I came to own it. A gentleman, kind of old-fashioned. He’s been courting Doris for a long while, and being very discreet about it. Well, anyway, he thinks he’s being discreet. It’s cute watching the two of them not announcing to the world that they’re in love or hooked up or going into business together or whatever the current term is. It’s nobody’s business but theirs, and that’s fine with them.”

“Any reports of quarrels lately?”

“No. But as I said, they aren’t talking about their relationship to anyone. You don’t think he’s involved in this, do you?”

“I’m just asking questions. Are you thinking you’re going to get involved?”

Betsy thought of Phil, angry on Doris’s behalf—and Doris, distraught at being caught up in a case of murder without knowing how or why. “Of course,” she said.

Four

THIS time the customers weren’t standing for any polite evasions. They wanted to know what Sergeant Malloy had been doing upstairs and then what he talked about with Betsy. “What’s going on?” Shelly demanded.

Bershada reported, “I saw Doris in here a while ago, and she was looking like she was about to scream. Or cry, at least.” That last brought several more women away from the yarn sale baskets.

“What’s wrong? Is something wrong?” customers were asking.

So Betsy felt forced to explain. “Someone broke into Doris Valentine’s apartment—fortunately while she wasn’t there—and thoroughly trashed it.”

That brought on an exclamatory chorus: “Oh, that’s awful!” “Oooh, scary!” “Poor thing!”

Alice asked, “Have the police got any clues?”

“I don’t know, they didn’t say anything to me about collecting useful evidence,” Betsy said.

People who knew Doris came close to the desk. Jeanette Morgan said, “No wonder she’s upset. I had a friend who was burglarized, and she actually sold her house afterward. She said she couldn’t live there anymore.”

“Poor Doris!” said Pat Ingle. “But she isn’t going to move out, is she?”

“Who’s Doris?” asked a customer.

Linda Barta said, “Doris Valentine. She lives upstairs. Nice woman. She’s dating Phil Galvin.”

Jeanette said, “I saw them together the other night in that new restaurant, Biella’s. He seems very taken with her. And about time, I’d say. He’s been a widower for—how many years is it? Fifteen?”

“Seventeen, I think,” said Edie Wills. “Doris was kind of slow to catch on he was interested . . .”

Pat, Edie, Linda, and Jeanette drifted away, gossiping about senior dating.

But Bershada, a member of the Monday Bunch, remained at the desk. She looked pointedly at Betsy and said, “I don’t know if you know this, but the police don’t clean up after a crime.”

“Yes, of course, I know that,” said Betsy.

“Good, because if you think she’s upset now, girl, you better believe she’s going to go ballistic when she comes home and there’s still that mess in her apartment!”