Thai Die (7 page)

“Well, what am I supposed to do? I can’t leave the shop!”

Shelly, standing by with two skeins of Lucci ribbon yarn, said, “But you’re her landlady! You should call someone! You can’t leave her to clean up a burglar’s mess all by her own self!”

Godwin, having heard the conversation in passing, made a U-turn. “Isn’t that double jeopardy?” he asked.

Rosemary Kossel, a very advanced knitter who taught classes at Betsy’s shop, said, “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

Bershada said, “There are companies that will clean up crime scenes, but it’s bad enough having one stranger go through your stuff, without inviting more of them. Plus, they aren’t cheap.”

“But what choice do you have?” Rosemary asked.

She, Bershada, and Shelly looked at Betsy then, who said, “What, you want to surprise her?”

“I should think she’d find it a wonderful surprise,” Rosemary said.

“I’m not so sure,” Betsy said. “It’s one thing to be there when someone is helping to clean up your place, because you can tell them to throw that away and keep this, and thank them. But it’s another thing entirely when a bunch of gossipy women go through your things when you’re not there,
and
without your permission, and think they’re doing you a favor!”

“Okay, you have a point there,” said Shelly. “So why don’t we ask her?”

This time they all looked pointedly at Betsy, who acknowledged the responsibility with a small nod. “All right,” she said, “I’ll ask her if we can help, okay?” She looked at each in turn. “That’s
we
, as in all of us. Except Godwin, who is taking a late flight to Florida.”

“I could put it off,” Godwin offered, obviously hoping Betsy would turn him down.

“No, you can’t,” Betsy said firmly. “You and Dax bought those cheap tickets and you can’t change them.”

“That’s right,” Godwin said, relieved.

Betsy looked at the others. “I expect you back here when Crewel World closes at eight.”

Bershada and Shelly nodded, but Rosemary’s fair complexion turned bright pink. “Oh, wait, I was thinking we’d do it tomorrow! I can’t tonight! I’m so sorry. My daughter is taking me out to dinner and a movie tonight.”

Bershada said, “But you can’t expect Doris to try to sleep in her apartment when it’s all torn up.”

“I’m really sorry,” reiterated Rosemary. “But my daughter and I have been trying to have a private conversation for two weeks. I think she’s got something important she wants to talk about.”

“Oh. That’s different,” said Bershada. “We understand. So go ahead, don’t worry about it.” She turned to Shelly. “What time?”

“Wait, hold on,” said Betsy. “What if the police are still investigating in there? Or they have it sealed up for some reason and we can’t get in?”

“I’ll be right back,” said Godwin, pleased to be able to do something in aid of the cause. He was gone only a few minutes. “They’re winding up now,” he said. “They’ll be gone in about ten or fifteen minutes.”

“How about we go up now—no, in an hour?” suggested Shelly. “I want to take these things home.” She held up a plastic bag of yarn and needles.

“Fine with me,” said Bershada.

“But I’m not free until eight—” Betsy began, trying not to sigh. Her feet were already aching and she had a headache from hours in the shop.

“I’ll come,” said Alice, who had been standing quietly in the background.

“Thank you!” said Rosemary. Still pink, she went away.

“Yes, thank you, Alice,” said Betsy, her tone quieter but just as heartfelt.

Betsy phoned Phil and said some members of the Monday Bunch had volunteered to help clean up Doris’s apartment.

“Well, isn’t that nice of you!” he said. “I think that’s really great! I’ll tell Dorie—and I’ll be there to help, too. Hold on.” There was a conversation on his end, unintelligible because he had put a hand over the receiver. “All right,” he said. “Betsy, we’ll both be there in an hour. Thank you!”

They were all prompt. Betsy went up with Doris, Phil, Alice, Shelly, and Bershada to have a quick look for herself. The yellow plastic crime-scene tape had been pulled down, but left in a heap on the floor. Doris unlocked her door and started to open it, but when it bumped against something she drew back fearfully. Betsy reached in and pushed the obstacle out of the way—it was the door to the coat closet. It had been left open, and everything in it had been pulled off the hangers or the upper shelf. A box of Christmas ornaments had been upended and many of the glass balls were broken. Two winter coats, and a host of sweaters and jackets were on the floor under a crisscross of hangers.

The entryway led into a small living room with a triple window on the right. They all stood there for a few moments, shocked at what they saw. Lamps were thrown on the floor and broken. Papers were scattered across the carpet, and chairs were overturned. Cushions from the couch had been dumped on the carpet and the couch upended over them. The thin fabric that covered its underside had been ripped away.

“Oh my Lord!” said Bershada. She put an arm around Doris’s shoulder. “I thought you said it was a burglar! Honey, this was a
vandal
!”

As Betsy led the way through the living room, everyone walked carefully, but still their feet crunched now and again on something frangible. The kitchen was another disaster. The refrigerator had been opened, and much of its contents had been pulled onto the floor. Every cabinet door and counter drawer had been opened and emptied. Sugar and flour canisters were spilled onto the floor.

Traces of black powder were on every surface, left by the sheriff’s department investigators.

Betsy said, “I had no idea it was going to be this bad.”

Alice said, “If I wasn’t standing here looking at this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Shelly said, “Some teenagers once broke into a school where I was teaching and spent hours trashing it. But it didn’t look as bad as this.”

“I hope this guy left lots and lots of fingerprints,” said Shelly in a low, angry voice. “I hope his fingerprints are on record somewhere.”

“I hope so, too, baby,” said Bershada. She turned to Betsy. “You get back downstairs. We’ll get started.”

Betsy, shaken, went back to work.

Hours later—only a few, but it seemed like many—the sale ended and the shop closed. Cleaning up, taking down signs, removing colored stickers denoting sale prices from products, counting the money, running the credit card machine and cash register, emptying the coffee urn and tea kettle, washing up, carrying out the trash, and writing up a deposit slip all took additional time after the door was locked. Krista said she’d take the money over to the night deposit at the bank, and Betsy gratefully handed the bag of checks and cash to her.

Then, upstairs again, Betsy looked over at Doris Valentine’s apartment door. It was partly open and there were two plastic garbage bags standing in the hall outside it. Betsy could hear the sound of cheerful voices coming from inside.

But Betsy needed to eat something. It had gotten too busy in the shop for her even to grab a snack at noon. She needed to sit down for at least a little while, too; not just her feet but her right leg, the one she’d broken last year, ached from being stood on for so many hours. Right beside her own front door was Sophie, mewing piteously for her supper.

Not that Sophie was as desperately hungry as Betsy was. She had spent the entire long day cadging treats from customers, some of whom knew to bring along a little something for her. In vain, Betsy had pointed at the needlepoint sign hanging on the chair with the powder blue cushion that the cat had claimed as her own: NO THANK YOU, I’M ON A DIET. People saw the sign, laughed, and slipped Sophie a fragment of cookie or bagel.

Betsy unlocked her door, and the cat led the way into the galley kitchen. Betsy followed, to feed her a single small scoop of Science Diet dry cat food, the variety designed for old, fat, lazy cats, though the package didn’t put it that bluntly. Betsy bought Science Diet because the package advertised it as a “complete” food, meaning it had all the nutrients to keep a cat healthy—something quite untrue of the goodies Betsy’s customers loved to slip Sophie.

While her pet was crunching her swift way through her pittance of cat food, Betsy was building a salad of iceberg and romaine lettuce, sweet red peppers, cucumber slices, one of those little cans of tuna, and lots of croutons. She ate with Sophie’s swift efficiency, drinking a glass of iced tea with her meal and then heading over to Doris’s apartment.

Order was becoming apparent. Phil and Doris were working in the living room. The chairs were upright and in place, the broken lamps gone. Phil was tacking the loose underside fabric of the couch back in place with a broad thumb. Doris was sorting bills, postcards, letters, and other papers from the floor beside a small wooden desk. She didn’t seem to be looking at what she was picking up, but merely stacking them a few at a time and putting them into random drawers. Her face was almost expressionless.

In a few days
, thought Betsy,
she’ll have to go through all of that again.

Shelly and Bershada could be heard in the bedroom and bathroom.

Alice was sweeping up the last quarter of the kitchen floor, a pile of flour growing under her broom.

“That must have been spilled toward the end,” remarked Betsy.

“Why do you say that?” asked Alice, turning to smile a greeting at her.

“He wouldn’t have wanted to leave footprints.”

“A careful vandal,” said Alice, started to sweep again. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“Can I help you in here?”

“It’ll need to be mopped pretty soon.”

“Call me,” said Betsy, going back to the living room.

“Phil? Phil!” That sounded like Bershada, calling from the bedroom.

Phil called back, “I’ll be right there!” He looked around, saw Betsy, and said, “Here, give me a hand.”

Doris saw what they were about to do and came to help. They tipped the couch up onto its feet and pushed it back against the wall.

“Phil!” called Bershada again.

“I’m coming!” Phil called back. He touched Doris on the arm, and walked away.

Doris went back to the hard wooden chair in front of her desk, hung her head, and looked about to weep. Betsy hurried to put a hand on her shoulder. “Doris, it’ll be all right. Trust me, it will be all right.”

“I know, I know. But to think of a stranger’s hands pulling all my things out and dropping them like they were nothing important, leaving his dirty fingerprints all over everything . . .” She sobbed once. “It’s like he’s still here, smirking at me from every corner. It’s like I’ll look in a mirror and see him looking back at me from over my shoulder with a slimy smile.” She shuddered. “It makes me want to just walk away, leave everything behind, start over somehow.”

“No, don’t do that,” Betsy said.

Doris smiled sourly. “You don’t want to lose another tenant, huh?”

Betsy smiled back at this sign of courage. “That’s right. You’re paying the taxes on this place, you know.” She squeezed Doris’s shoulder. “Besides, I’d miss you. And Godwin would miss you—him especially. You’d break his heart if you moved away.”

“Maybe. I love him—and you, and the Monday Bunch. I’d have to stay in Excelsior. And there’s not many places in this town I can afford to rent.”

She was right. Excelsior looked like a sweet little country town—and it was—but its residents paid big bucks to live in a safe, clean, attractive, Mayberry-like place this close to the Twin Cities. Betsy had some lucrative investments that made the shop almost a hobby and enabled her to charge less-than-average rent for two apartments and stay in the third herself.

“Once everything gets put away, I think you’ll feel better,” Betsy said.

“You’re probably right.” But Doris didn’t sound as if she believed it. She bent to gather up the last of the papers and shove them into another drawer.

“Where’s Waldo?” asked Betsy.

“Hiding in the linen closet. He hates company.”

Betsy went off to see why Bershada had been calling Phil. It turned out she needed help getting the queen-sized mattress back on the bed. It was thick but inclined to sag. Betsy arrived in time to help guide the thing into place. Bershada wadded up the sheets and pillowcases and found a hamper in the closet to stuff them into. On the floor in front of the linen closet in the bathroom, Betsy found a fitted sheet and a top sheet that didn’t match, but were in the middle of a heap and therefore clean. She also found a single pillowcase of yet another color. Phil went back to the living room while Betsy and Bershada made the bed.

“She’s really upset,” said Bershada, pulling on a corner.

“I know.” Betsy floated the top sheet out. “I wish there was some way to comfort her.”

“I know she’s in a lot of pain, but maybe what comforts me when I’m sad will help to comfort her just a little, too,” said Bershada. Betsy looked at her inquiringly, and Bershada leaned forward to murmur, “Chocolate!”

Betsy smiled. “I wonder if she has any cocoa in the kitchen.”

“Don’t just stand there, honey, go and see.”

Of course Doris had cocoa, though it was an inexpensive brand that needed just hot water. In a cabinet Betsy found six mismatched mugs, one a thick diner-style claiming to come from the Chatterbox Café in Lake Wobegon. Betsy knew it was Doris’s favorite, so she set it aside for her. There was another stamped SOUVENIR OF THAILAND and others printed with many-hued roses. Betsy started the kettle and put into each mug a little more dry cocoa than the carton called for. As soon as the kettle boiled, she filled them, added a splash of condensed milk, stirred, set them on a tray, and called Phil and the women into the living room for a break.

Doris came to sit on the couch beside Phil. Betsy sat on his other side, Alice took the shabby old upholstered chair, Shelly took the desk chair, Bershada sat on the floor. “It’s yoga,” she said, when Doris remarked on how easily she got down and how erect she sat. “You still goin’ to that water aerobics three days a week?” she asked.