The Drowning Spool (A Needlecraft Mystery) (18 page)

“Who else was there when you and Teddi went?”

“There was a man and another girl.”

“Lia? Or Frey?”

“I never saw either of them there. Look, it was only maybe three or four times, okay?

“When was the last time you were there?”

“Some weeks before Christmas, maybe the middle of December. It was snowing like a son of a gun, and we had a hard time getting out of that alley, and I could just see trouble all around if I got stuck, or damaged my truck sliding around back there. It’d be embarrassing explaining how I came to be in that alley. Plus, I need my truck, can’t afford to bang it up.”

“But Teddi kept going back.”

“I don’t know that.” He drank the last of his ale and pushed away his plate, with the remnant of his wrap still sitting on it. “Are we about done?” he asked.

“Where were you the night she was drowned?”

Noah tried for a dismissive tone. “As it happened, I was home alone. I caught some kind of bug and was sick for two and half days.”

“Did you see a doctor about it?”

“No, it wasn’t that serious. But I shut off my phone, just laid on my couch and watched some old movies. Slept a lot between visits to the bathroom.” He shrugged. “Threw it off with no aftereffects.” He wrinkled his brow. “But that’s not much of an alibi, is it?”

“It’s not an alibi at all. When did you last see Teddi?”

“About a week before she called to say she was pregnant. Maybe longer.”

“Did she hint about it then?”

He frowned, then shook his head. “No, not really. We went out to dinner and were going to go dancing at our usual place, Bar Abilene, but she was in some kind of bad mood, so I brought her home early.” He frowned over that for a few moments. “I guess that was a sign, but it went right past me.” He sighed. “I thought we were a couple, y’know? I knew she sometimes went out with other guys, but I was putting up with that, thinking fine, let her play, get it all out of her system, right? But when she got pregnant, that meant she wasn’t just dating these other men. I was . . . disappointed.”

“And maybe a little angry?” asked Betsy.

“No, that wasn’t the way it was. I was upset, yes, but once I calmed down I was concerned about her. But she didn’t call again—and then I heard she was dead.”

“That must’ve upset you.”

He sighed. “Yeah, it did. I was really depressed over it. I liked her, she was more fun than anyone I ever knew—in a nice way, and not . . . mean, I guess is the word, she didn’t tease in a mean way, she didn’t ever hurt anyone. When she got mad, she didn’t yell or call anyone names, she’d just start bawling. Made you want to hug her. She was a good kid, she just wanted to have fun.”

Betsy felt a twist of sympathy for Teddi. “Did she cry when she told you she was pregnant?”

“Only when I mentioned getting a DNA test. ‘You don’t believe me!’ she said and started to cry, but I wasn’t ready to hear that, so I hung up.”

O
N
her return from lunch, Betsy found Godwin winding up a consultation with a customer who was jazzing up a relatively simple needlepoint canvas. He was just closing
The Needlepoint Book
, with its three hundred illustrated stitches. Beside it was a heap of wools, silks, metallics, beads, and charms. The total for the materials would add up to over two hundred dollars, including the needles, new scissors, and laying tool. The hand-painted canvas had been purchased at a sale price, further discounted because it was the customer’s birthday, so she was paying more for the materials than the canvas—not an uncommon event.

The customer, a prosperous-looking matron in her middle forties, was wreathed in smiles as she left. Godwin turned to Betsy and said, “So?”

“He seems nice enough. He’s unwilling to say he was in love with Teddi or that he was angry with her for being unfaithful to him. And he’s got no alibi at all. He’s really good-looking,” she added irrelevantly.

“So what do you think? Is he a murderer?”

“I don’t know. He had been skinny-dipping a couple of times with Teddi at Watered Silk.” She thought for a moment. “Of course that doesn’t necessarily make him a killer.”

Godwin said, “But he’s a carpenter, so he could be the one who rigged that back door.”

“He denied it—and before I could conclude that he might have done it, I’d have to connect him to Watered Silk, either as an employee or as someone hired to work there. Or maybe as someone with a relative living there. I don’t think he would just wander by accident down a narrow alley and on spec cut his way into a machine room. There would be no way he’d know that to be a back way to an indoor swimming pool. And something else: I told him I had a witness to the goings-on in the pool, and he said she was a crazy woman, liable to say anything. So he must have known I was talking about Wilma. On the other hand, I don’t think he knows she’s dead.”

• • •

U
PSTAIRS
that evening, Betsy found that Connor had become very close to Thai. The cat, still a little tender in his hindquarters, was lying across the back of the couch, one dark paw just touching Connor’s shoulder. Connor was knitting a tiny green cardigan that was meant to be a gift at Jill’s baby shower in the summer.

He looked up and smiled at Betsy as she came into the living room—Sophie had detoured into the kitchen, where her dish lay hidden in a cabinet. In another minute she would start demanding her suppertime pittance of Science Diet cat food. That and an equal pittance in the morning gave vitamins at least a fighting chance against the junk food she cadged from customers all day.

“How’s Thai doing?” asked Betsy.

“Much better.” The cat had come home from the vet yesterday sore and still confused from the anesthetic. The “cone of shame” he’d been given was gone; his distress at wearing it was so obvious, Connor had taken it off and thereby made it his responsibility to keep the animal from pulling out his stitches.

The two sat and talked while Betsy decompressed from her day in the shop. Then she went into the bedroom and had a conference with her closet. What she thought of as her “good” clothes were appropriate for church or a sedate evening out at a fine restaurant or a meeting with her banker. But what to wear going out clubbing?

She did have a heavily sequined top, bought for a giddy New Year’s Eve party years ago, but too out of fashion for an ordinary night on the town.

Finally she went with her old standby: the Little Black Dress. She fancied it up with a sparkly scarf and her most dazzling earrings. She emphasized her eyes and cheekbones with makeup, put on her strappiest sandals—then remembered the weather forecast: sleet turning to snow. She thought for a while of wearing boots and carrying her sandals, then remembered her tendency to leave a trail behind her wherever she went, of purses, shoes, toiletries, even pajamas, hose, and jewelry. She sighed and took off the sandals and put on her high-heeled boots. She stuffed her second-tiniest purse with her driver’s license and medical insurance card, forty-five dollars in assorted bills, a lipstick, her smartphone, a tiny notebook and pen, and the folded-up copies of Teddi’s drawings of Pres. Connor’s admiring look when she came out of the bedroom told her she would do.

He wore a navy blue suit, an ice-blue shirt, and a pale pink tie. His black shoes were polished to a mirror finish.

They put on their winter coats and headed for Uptown. It was a little after 7 p.m.

There was a public, ground-level parking lot behind the Lagoon Theater. Connor, driving, pulled the ticket from the dispenser and found a space near the front end. They came out onto Lagoon Street and paused to take their bearings.

The many lights that ornamented the theater and flanked the nightclubs reflected merrily off the snow piled on curbs, and on the wet streets and sidewalks and the dark windows of passing cars. The air was also wet with a fine sleet. Or maybe it was tiny snowflakes; it was hard to discern. Betsy huddled deeper into her overcoat and was glad she’d decided to wear boots.

They crossed Hennepin and started up it. They passed the Uptown Theater, which was offering a midnight showing of
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
—and had been doing so since the movie was released. Beyond the theater was a hat store featuring fedoras for men and women, and then came Chino Latino, a restaurant and nightclub, where they had reservations for dinner. The entrance led into a long, narrow hallway with a wall made of tufted turquoise leather.

From a very high lectern at the end of the hallway, a black woman smiled down at them. “Reservations?” she asked.

“Sullivan for two at eight,” said Connor. “May we wait at the bar?”

“Certainly.”

They walked past a deeply sunken dining room to the bar, a long room backed by a ceiling-high, orange-lit mirror lined with glass shelves. On the shelves rested hundreds of bottles of liquor. The room was otherwise dimly lit and the orange color reflected flatteringly off the faces of the customers.

After a brief wait, they found two bar stools. A hasseled-looking bartender took their order for a scotch and water and a glass of pinot noir. “We picked a bad night to come,” said Betsy, looking over the crowd. A row of small, tall tables bordered the other side of the narrow room. All were occupied by wildly assorted groups of people: young and middle-aged, black, white, Asian, brown, well dressed or in decidedly casual clothing. One couple even wore cowboy gear.

“Why is this so bad?” asked Connor, also looking around. “Lots of people to ask, don’t you think?”

“I was hoping to have a couple of minutes to chat with the bartenders. They’re the ones here night after night. But they’re too busy right now. A busy man will glance at the drawings and say, ‘Nope,’ and move on to the next customer.”

Which is what happened when the bartender came back to see if either Connor or Betsy wanted a refill. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Don’t recognize him.”

But they got a different reaction from the second bartender. He paused to consider the drawings, rubbing the dark little fringe of whiskers on his chin. “Yeah, I seen him in here before. Nice enough fella, kind of quiet, but sharp eyes, know what I mean? And he drinks nothing but ginger ale with a twist, that’s why I remember him.”

“How often have you seen him?” asked Betsy.

“Oh, let’s see. Five or six times? Maybe more—it takes a while for a face to stick.”

“Over how long a period of time?”

“Huh, lemme think. Six months, a year? Probably longer. I been here almost two years, and it could be he’s been in before I came, y’know?”

“You know his name?”

That amused him. “Hell, no.” And he moved on.

When Betsy and Connor were summoned to their table on the other side of the big room, they were shown to the middle of a row of three dark-painted booths. A single light wanly lit an Asian-style wooden mask on the wall over each one. The mask hanging next to their booth looked authentic, though under it was a label reading “Miso Horney.” The waitstaff wore chinos and black T-shirts that announced they were souvenirs of Thailand, some with naughty mottos on them.

The drinks menu came on newsprint and offered cocktails aimed at the youthful: Tootsy Roll, Honolulu Hummer, Raspberry Beret. Connor had another scotch and water, Betsy a Ganesha’s Dance “mocktail,” which was good if a little sweet.

The waiter told them the food menu featured dishes from “around the equator around the world.” They selected the Senegalese peanut curry for two, which came on a single platter.

The waiter did not remember ever seeing Pres.

There is something intimate about sharing a platter. Betsy, after eating a particularly tasty tidbit, searched for another like it and fed it to Connor, and he returned the favor. The curry was spicy enough to heat their lips, and it tasted delicious. They polished off the whole thing in no time at all.

The busboy agreed to look at the copies of the drawings when he came to clear the table. “Somebody can draw really good,” was his sage remark. “But I don’t know who it is a picture of.”

“Thanks for your help,” said Connor and, making a comic bit out of looking for eavesdroppers, slipped the fellow a five dollar bill. The young man, who seemed a little slow, echoed the movement before slipping it into one of his pockets with a huge grin.

Then they donned their coats and went out to find that the snow had turned real, falling so thickly that distant objects were obscured as if in a fog. The flakes set sparkles in their hair. Connor took Betsy’s gloved hand in his. “Sorry we aren’t finding out much.”

“We’ve only just begun. Besides, I really liked that curry.”

They crossed Hennepin at Lagoon and walked up the street to the Uptown Tavern. Climbing steps, they found themselves in a long room divided by a lectern, with the restaurant on their right and the bar on their left. The bar was extensive with little, long-legged tables down its center and big-screen TVs near the ceiling, all showing a basketball game—but the sound was turned off and rock music was playing, although not loud enough to destroy conversation.

The DJ on duty was taking a break. Connor and Betsy found a pair of stools at the bar. Connor switched to Coke, Betsy ordered a ginger ale with a twist—“Just to see what it tastes like,” she said.

When their drinks came, she showed her drawings to the bartender, a plump Hispanic man with a goatee.

“Ah, yes, I see him in here three, four, fi’ time,” he said. “He is ver’ handsome, kind of quiet, but close, close with his lady.”

“Always the same lady?” asked Betsy.

“Oh, not always.”

“What else can you tell me about him?”

“He wear a beautiful coat, all dark leather, yes, and long, and he open it and it move”—he made a gesture with both hands. “Like a, a clock—no, a cloak.” He smiled, amused. “An’ then he order what you order, a ginger ale wit’ a twist!”

“Do you know his name?

He had to think. “Ah, yes: Press. Like Elvis Presley, only jus’ Press. He act like a movie star, but he drink pop!” And laughing, the bartender went to serve another customer.

The other bartender said he didn’t recognize the man in the drawing.

They finished their drinks and went out and just up the street to Bar Abilene.

The snow had already slowed, although about half an inch had already fallen. The sidewalk’s fresh white surface was seriously marred by dozens of footprints.

Bar Abilene had a covered patio out front lit by a multitude of old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs in red, yellow, green, and orange. Loud music could be heard through the wooden doors.

As Connor opened them to enter, he and Betsy were assaulted by a blast of salsa music with its chik-chika rhythms. The room was big and packed with tables. Straight ahead was the bar, with a longhorn steer’s skull attached to the back wall. There was a dance floor off to the right, crowded with people doing the salsa, with its fancy footwork and hip-and-shoulder waggle.

Connor asked for a booth and they were led to one near the back corner. The music was deafening and the dancers lively, and the room smelled of spiced hamburger, beer, and mixed drinks.

They sat for a while, studying the menu and watching the dancers.

One couple’s movements were beautiful, complex, and coordinated. The woman wore a mid-calf skirt that fell in a straight line when she was barely moving, then flared widely when her partner twirled her.