The Drowning Spool (A Needlecraft Mystery) (3 page)

“I do. But this isn’t just circular, it’s a Möbius band.” He lifted it up to show the half-twist in the circle.

Betsy came for a closer look. She said, “Gosh, that’s clever, I should make one. Maybe in a shade of blue to match my new dress.” She smiled thoughtfully and touched the scarf with its twist spilling from his needles. “When I was in my early teens, I learned about the Möbius strip in a math class. There’s something magical about turning a two-sided object into a one-sided one. I used to wonder if it were possible to put a half twist in a three-dimensional object. Would it then be four-dimensional? Maybe if someone could get inside such a thing, he could stop time and live forever.”

Godwin smiled. “There is a three-dimensional one, it’s called a Klein bottle—and you can knit a scarf model of it.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t make it of such beautiful yarn as this, but something sturdier. It’s not exactly pretty, more of a novelty item, something for a kid to wear.”

“What does it look like?” asked Betsy, trying to imagine its shape.

“Like a stocking hat whose skinny long end blends back into the side, like a handle. You knit it all in one piece, of course, no seams, and it’s a double thickness, so it’s really warm. You push the bottom of the bottle up inside to form the opening for the person’s head. I could make one if you want.” He looked inquiringly at her.

“Maybe I’ll knit one myself.” Betsy made a mental note to look it up on the Internet, as none of the shop’s patterns for a Möbius scarf offered a Klein bottle hat pattern to go with it.

She walked to the gadgets-filled spinner rack to select a magnet for her class—and continued walking through her shop to see if anyone had a question. She saw one woman with an iPad typing information into it from a pattern on display. Placing an order on the Internet, no doubt. This was far from the first time Betsy had seen a customer doing this, and her lips thinned. Here was an explanation for why she had customers who weren’t buying. How long could her shop survive if it served merely as a showroom for people shopping online?

• • •

C
ONNOR,
Betsy’s live-in boyfriend, was a handsome retired sea captain, born in Ireland but so long and far from his homeland that his accent was barely detectible. His courtship of Betsy had been long and arduous. Twice divorced, Betsy was wary of commitment. He fixed dinner that night, because Betsy was doing bookkeeping for the shop. While she waited for him to finish cooking, she logged on to Crewel World’s Facebook account and web site. She answered a customer’s online question about Hardanger—which she illustrated with a photo of a particularly beautiful pattern of the embroidery. Not too infrequently, her Q&A column brought in a customer seeking the patterns and materials.

Then she went to her newest feature: reviews of products to be found in Crewel World. In one review, her friend and frequent customer Jill Cross had waxed enthusiastic over a new kind of scroll bar. Betsy was trying to think who she might ask to review the Morgan “no slip” lap stand when Connor called, “Dinner,
machree
!” The English spelling of an Irish word meaning “my heart,” machree was his favorite term of endearment for her.

She went out to the dining nook to find a beautiful roast chicken posed on a small platter on the table. A coating of olive oil brushed on the bird before roasting had made the skin turn a delectable brown under a generous sprinkle of Nantucket Off-Shore Holiday Turkey Rub, left over from Thanksgiving. No wonder the apartment had smelled so delicious for the past hour.

“What’s all this in aid of?” asked Betsy, noting the bowl of mixed vegetables and a little dish of homemade cranberry sauce also on the table. Connor had really outdone himself in the kitchen.

“Call it anticipation of Valentine’s Day,” said Connor in his pleasant baritone.

“You’re too good to me.”

“Nothing’s too good for you.” His smile lit up his face and Betsy’s heart turned over. His competence in the kitchen was another reason she was glad to have him in residence—though not the main one, of course. They fell to eating. Betsy tried to go light on the cranberries, but Connor had found a recipe that called for triple sec flavoring, and the result was wonderful on the tongue. When he told her he had used Splenda instead of sugar, she took another helping.

About halfway through the meal, he said, “You know, the fourteenth of February is near. I’d like us to do something special to mark it. Would you like to go out to dinner? Or how about to the theater? We’ve neither of us been to the Guthrie for a long time.”

Betsy smiled at him—he was such a romantic! But she said, “Valentine’s Day is on a Thursday this year, and that’s our open-till-eight night.”

His face showed his disappointment. But her part-timers disliked working holidays, and Betsy felt their loyalty to her went both ways. Store manager Godwin, bless his heart, was normally willing to work weekends and holidays, but he liked Valentine’s Day almost as much as Halloween, and she wasn’t willing to ask him to work those days except in emergency. And Connor’s romantic impulses, precious as they were, did not constitute an emergency.

“I’m really sorry,” she said.

He thought briefly, then raised a forefinger. “I have an idea,” he said. “Hire me.”

“To do what?”

“Hire me as a part-timer at Crewel World, just for that day. Then at least we can be together.”

Betsy would have laughed, but she saw he was serious. And now that she thought about it, it would be fun to have him working with her in the shop. On the other hand, mixing business with pleasure was risky. What if he had an idea for the shop that she didn’t approve of? Could she be his boss and his mistress at the same time? “Do you have a green card?” she asked, beginning a jesting game while she tried to think of a reason to turn down his offer without offending him.

He instantly began to play along. “What do I need a green card for? I’m retired.”

“But you want a job, and you’re not a citizen, are you?”

He was, and she knew it. He looked mock-abashed. “I was going to go through the process, but I decided it would be less complicated to marry an American.”

“To do that you have to be a legal resident—you
are
a legal resident, right?”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” he began, choking back a laugh. “That card I have will only pass casual inspection.”

Her tone heavy with mock warning, she asked, “I take it you’ve found an American woman somewhere to marry so you can stay here legally?”

He was instantly serious. “Yes, I have. I have only to convince her it would be a good idea.”

O
N
Tuesday morning, so early it was still dark out, Pam came through the main entrance of Watered Silk Senior Complex, nodded at the sleepy-eyed night guard, and went down the broad hall to the therapy complex at the far end of the building. Shucking off her long, down-filled coat, revealing a pink T-shirt and skinny jeans, she flipped on the lights in the small exercise room. She turned on the machine that measured pulse and blood pressure—it needed time to warm up. She hung up her coat, locked her purse in her office desk, and unlocked and went through the door that led into the therapy pool. She turned on the bright overhead lights. The air was warm and moist, and she could feel her winter-dry skin joyfully opening to it.

She turned on the underwater lights that illuminated the interior of the pool—and it was then she saw something large at the bottom of the deep end. She stared in disbelief. Oh my God, it was a person, arms out and legs apart, not moving. She took two steps closer. Yes, it was really there, a naked woman, with lots of long blond hair, facedown. Pam waited a few seconds for whoever it was to come up for air, but the person was motionless.

Her training clicked in, overriding her instinctive freeze. She pulled her winter boots off, dropped her keys and cell phone on the floor, and jumped into the water. She ducked under, grabbed the woman by one arm, and pulled her to the top. The arm was warm—the same temperature as the water—the skin rubbery, the joints stiff. Pam turned her over, noting with a sick feeling her half-closed eyes and foam-filled mouth. She did not recognize the woman, who had been young, petite, and really pretty. Pam could not imagine how she came to drown here.

Pam had taken a lot of lifesaving classes, but this was her first experience with an actual death by drowning. She grasped the woman under her chin and floundered with the body as she made her way to the shallow end.

The body’s rigidity made it a clumsy thing to get out onto the apron. Pam pushed a thick wet length of pale hair out of the way to press two forefingers into the carotid artery, seeking a pulse. She was not surprised to find none.

She ran around to pick up her cell phone, picked it up, and dialed 911 with trembling fingers. When an operator answered, she said, too rapidly, “There’s a drowned woman in our pool. A young woman, I don’t know how she got in here, no one’s allowed in here at night; in fact, I don’t know who she is and she’s naked and she’s dead, no pulse—”

“Hold on, slow down,” said the operator in a slow, soothing voice. “Where are you?”

“Oh, gosh, yes, this is Pam Fielding and we’re at Watered Silk, the senior retirement community on Twenty-seventh in Hopkins, in the therapy pool, and I don’t know who the victim is, I’ve never seen her before, she’s way too young to be a resident—”

The operator, still in that calm voice, interrupted her with questions and made her repeat the information until Pam was nearly screaming into the phone. She finally tossed the phone down, ran back to the body, and began futile resuscitation efforts. After a minute, she was shocked to find herself sobbing.

• • •

T
HE
discovery of a drowned woman in an indoor pool was on the news that night. Betsy wasn’t paying close attention until the reporter mentioned Watered Silk. Then she focused on the video accompanying the story. Yes, that was the front entrance of the senior complex—and there, that was a photo of the pool, Betsy recognized it from a brochure on amenities at the complex.

“Police are treating this as an accident, although they are investigating how the victim got into the pool, which is inside a secure building,” the reporter said.

“And you’re going to go swimming in that very water?” asked Connor with unusual fastidiousness.

“Not I.” But that was because Betsy was going to be away from the next class in any case—she had a dental appointment. She called Watered Silk and was told that aerobics classes would resume on Friday.

At the class on Friday, clients who were not residents—Betsy, Dave, Barb, and Rita—hinted mildly that they wondered if their instructor, Pam, was the person who discovered the body. Pam admitted she was, but—with a nod toward the residents—she said she did not want to discuss it.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, start over!” came a familiar cry, as Wilma charged into the pool. This time she was so late that the class was already winding down with stretches.

“Find any more dead bodies?” she asked Pam cheerfully.

“Mrs. Carter!” Pam responded. “That is a very rude question!”

Her tone surprised Wilma. “Pam,” she replied, clearly abashed, “I apologize, I didn’t know you were told not to talk about it in front of us.” Then she continued, cheerful again, “I’d want to talk about it if it was me, lots and lots!” She began rolling her shoulders vigorously with the others. “I feel so good, I think we should swim a few laps today! What do you think, how about it, everybody?”

Pam sighed and dismissed the class—and this time she included Wilma.

• • •

T
HE
Monday Bunch was in session. An informal club of mostly senior women—and one senior man—its members gathered early on Monday afternoons around the library table in Crewel World to stitch, share stitching tips, and gossip.

“Did any of you see the hat Cherie Yonder was wearing on Sunday?” asked Patricia in an amused voice. She had brought in a pattern she ordered from Crewel World after seeing it in a back issue of
The Stitchery
magazine. It featured one mostly red parrot and another mostly blue, a white and yellow macaw, and a black and gold toucan on a dense tropical foliage ground. “It looks like a box of crayons exploded,” she’d declared. She was sorting through the Kreinik silks that she was going to substitute for the cotton floss the designer called for. Silk floss has more “loft” than cotton, so it would take fewer strands in the needle, which would decrease the extra cost for silk just a little.

“Who’s Cherie Yonder?” asked Emily. She was working on a cross-stitched birth announcement for a friend whose baby was due in July. The family already knew it was a girl and were going to name her Riley. The theme of the announcement was sailboats—Riley’s parents loved to sail.

Emily had found an old poem by George W. Cable and was carefully stitching an adapted version of it on the canvas:

There came to port last (blank) night

The queerest little craft,

Without an inch of rigging on;

I looked and looked—and laughed!

It seemed so curious that she

Should cross the unknown water,

And moor herself within my arms—

My daughter, O my daughter!

Emily, who had a son and two daughters, sighed at the deep emotion the poem evoked in her own breast. “Moor herself within my arms”—yes, that was the wonder.

“Cherie’s new in town and she goes to our church,” said Patricia. “And she always wears a hat.” She tilted her elegant head sideways while she tried to decide which shades of orange she would use on the bird-of-paradise flowers among the foliage.

“I think that’s really nice,” said Alice, the widow of a pastor, who had seen parishioners whose only concession to the occasion of coming to church on Sunday was to wrap a towel around their swimsuits. A sturdy woman with broad shoulders, she was knitting a severely plain black cardigan with a rolled collar for herself.

“My mother wore a hat to church every Sunday of her life,” contributed Phil, who was an old man, a retired railroad engineer. He was frequently found stitching locomotives and other rail cars, but lately he’d been working on a series of little shops, saying he needed some buildings to go with the railroad station he’d stitched last fall. Today he was stitching the bakery.

“Oh, I love hats, though I hardly ever wear one,” said Patricia. “Back when hats were in style, my mother wore them, too, for all occasions. But they were mostly—” She paused to think, then gestured at the crown of her head with her needle hand.

“Pillbox,” supplied Betsy, remembering. She was seated at the checkout desk, going through registrations for a class on candlewicking.

“Yes, the kind Mrs. Kennedy made popular. These are”—she gestured again—“extravagant.”

“The kind they’re wearing in England,” guessed Jill, whose two youngsters were now in first grade and preschool, respectively, so at last she had time to come to Monday Bunch meetings again. She was nearly finished with a famous cross-stitched alphabet monogram designed originally as the center of a quilt by a woman named Ida W. Beck. Very tall, slender letters overlapped in many colors in a shape something like the sound box of a violin. It made Betsy cross-eyed just to look at it.

“Yes, that’s it,” agreed Patricia. “They’re beautiful, really, but she’s probably the only woman in Minnesota who wears them.”

“No, she isn’t,” said Bershada, who was an African American woman and saw extravagant hats in her own church on Sundays. She had two or three grand hats of her own. She was cross-stitching a line of animals—rabbit, duck, deer, cat (with a bird on its back), and squirrel—all listening intently to a bear reading a book to them. The pattern was done in black silhouettes and under it was the word “Storytime.” It was going to be presented to the Excelsior Public Library, another in a series Bershada was making for them.

“Describe one of her hats,” said Emily, whose three children, during the weekday, were either in school or with their grandmother. “I don’t watch English TV.”

“Well, this Sunday she wore a purple felt with a deep fold in the tall crown and a turned-down brim with a big bunch of feathers all curly on one side.” Patricia was smiling at the memory.

“Sounds like something the Queen herself would wear,” said Phil.

“No, the Queen has to wear something that doesn’t hide any part of her face,” said Doris in her deep, sandy voice. She was laboriously crocheting a scarf, homework for a class she was taking.

Emily said, “How do you know that?”

“I don’t know where I read it, but I know it’s true. Just pay attention to video and photos of her for a while, and you’ll see. I don’t know if it’s a custom or a rule, but the royals never wear a hat that shades their eyes when they’re in public.” Her tongue appeared in a corner of her mouth as she chained two and turned a row.

Thoughtful frowns went around the table.

“You know, I think you’re right,” said Patricia. “That’s interesting. I suppose so the people can go home from an event and say, ‘I saw Her Majesty’ instead of ‘I saw Her Majesty’s hat.’”

When the session broke up, Bershada remained behind. She waited while Betsy turned a fat skein of knitting yarn into a ball on a clever hand-cranked machine that attached to the library table, and sold it to a waiting customer who also bought a pair of size thirteen ebony knitting needles. Bershada’s face was sad and it was easy to see the anxious look in her eyes, which she’d been careful to hide during the meeting.

Betsy had long since established a custom of paying close attention to the customer she was waiting on, making him or her the most important person in the room. It made her a popular proprietor, and often her careful listening gave her an opportunity to add to her own or the customer’s knowledge of the craft.

So she did not notice, until the customer left, that Bershada was carrying some kind of unhappy burden.

“Oh my goodness, Bershada, what’s the matter?”

“Betsy, my sister and brother-in-law have a serious problem with their son, Ethan.” Bershada, a retired librarian, was handsome and dark-skinned, with fine lips and a small, narrow nose. A little above medium height, she was slim, with an erect, almost regal bearing. Today she was dressed in a muted pinky-gold sweater (DMC 402, thought Betsy absently) and dark gray slacks. Her earrings were huge golden hoops.

“What kind of problem?”

“As you probably know, Ethan’s a senior at the university, and doing well. He’s working two part-time jobs to help with tuition and books—I don’t know when that boy sleeps—and one of his jobs is night guard at Watered Silk.”