Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_04 (15 page)

“That took a long time. What did he say?”

“It was a hard sell. I don't think he believed the falls are acting like I described. He says he's never heard of
the Devil's Kettle acting that way, so I said maybe he'd better have a look. Was that Frank Owen stomping through here just ahead of you?”

“Yes, he's angry with us for hurting the reputation of the Naniboujou Lodge and its loyal employees and customers by saying someone died in one of their rooms. Jill, what if I'm wrong?”

“I don't think you are. Sharon's car is here, she had an important role to play here, she was seen here, and she doesn't seem to be anywhere else. I've listened to a lot of sadly mistaken stories, and your story doesn't sound like one of them.”

They walked back to the fire, which had burned down to a few weak flames among black and broken pieces of log. Betsy selected a birch log from the little stack in the holder and put it on the coals. The firebox was hot, flames immediately leaped up to crackle eagerly at the white, paperlike bark of the log. She added another log and they sat down to watch the progress of the burning in silence, each lost in her own thoughts.

So it was a while before they realized someone was standing near, waiting patiently to be noticed.

Betsy looked up and saw a tall, extremely attractive woman with dark red hair and a scatter of freckles across a queenly nose. “Hi, I'm Liddy Owen,” she said in a low, pleasant voice. When Betsy didn't at once recognize the name, she added, “You called me to ask where my mother was.”

“Oh, of course!” said Betsy, standing. She asked eagerly, “Did your mother get in touch with you?”

“No,” said Liddy, adding, when Betsy's face fell, “and I take it you haven't found where she went, either.”

Betsy hesitated but Jill said, “No. I assume you're here because you're worried about her?”

Liddy looked inquiringly at Jill and Betsy said, “Ms.
Owen, this is Jill Cross, a friend of mine from Excelsior, where we both live.”

“How do you do?” said Liddy, adding to them both, “Mama usually calls me when she's broken an engagement, once she thinks about it, in case someone else calls me looking for her. But she hasn't yet. I was at work all day Friday and at home until a couple of hours ago, so she could have gotten in touch if she wanted to.” Liddy pulled off her right glove to begin unbuttoning her black woolen coat. “And I can't locate her.” Under the coat she wore a finely knit cream dress embroidered with thistles around the neck. She let the coat slip off her arms and Betsy saw she had the slender figure it took to do the dress justice. She looked around the big room and said, “I haven't been up here since I was twelve, but it's just as amazing as I remember.” She turned to look up at the laughing head of Naniboujou high on the far wall, surrounded by the brilliant colors of a sunrise. “I just love that painting. So happy—just like we were when we used to come up here, back when I was a little girl.”

“Jill says that Naniboujou is a god of peace, the outdoors, and pranks. I should think that such a god might make a perfect summer realm for a child.”

Liddy's big gray eyes searched Betsy's. “What a lovely thought! And you're right, we had such fun back before—” She turned and said, “Is there coffee?”

Jill said, “Only what's left over from lunch. It's probably pretty rank by now.”

“Well, then, let's not have any. But can we sit awhile? I want to talk to you.”

“Of course.” All three sat down.

But Liddy apparently couldn't think how to start, so Betsy asked, “Are the other faces also Cree gods?”

“So I was told,” said Liddy, looking at the wall over the French windows. “I understand one of the two at this
end of the room is the god of Lake Superior.” Her eyes moved over the gods painted on either side of the fireplace. “And another is the Cree god of death.” Her fingers, clasped in her lap, tightened. “I hope Mama's all right.”

“I hope she is, too,” said Betsy.

Liddy made a wry face, one corner of her mouth pulled back, one eyebrow lifted. “Mama has never been very reliable, and I wouldn't have come, but she really did seem eager to be here, and when I found out she wasn't, I got worried.”

“Could she have gone to Chicago to be with her boyfriend?” said Betsy.

“No. After we talked, I called down there to ask. But he hasn't heard from her since Thursday. Tony Campanelli is very nice, very reliable. He's younger than Mama, but Mama doesn't look her age. And she's good with Tony's children. He shares custody of his little boy and girl. They adore her, of course, just like Doogie and I did when we were their age.” But she waved that away as irrelevant. “I saw Mama's car in the parking lot; I assume you did too?”

“Yes.” Betsy nodded. “The sheriff was here a while ago—” She looked at Jill. “Did they search her car?”

“Yes, but they wouldn't let me come near. They didn't take anything away; her luggage is still in it. Who's Doogie?”

“My brother, Douglas.”

Betsy asked, “Where is he? Is it possible your mother is with him?”

“No, I called him, too. But she wouldn't have gone to stay with him. Doogie is playing forest ranger this year, and he's got some incredibly grubby cabin outside Grand Marais, where the kitchen is a hot plate and the toilet is at the end of a path. Mama likes her comforts. She considered staying here the moral equivalent of
camping.” She looked around the beautiful room and smiled. “And that was before she got all those terrible allergies. I'm so glad Doogie and I didn't inherit them.”

“Yes, if you're allergic to a lot of things, you couldn't be a forest ranger.” Betsy smiled.

“Oh, he's not a ranger, he's kind of an apprentice. He doesn't even get to wear a uniform. He does things at the station like sweeping up and answering the phone.” She shrugged and did a brief reprise of the wry face again. “But he says he likes it, he may even go back to college in the fall to study forestry.”

“Does he work at the ranger station across the road?” asked Jill.

“No, in Grand Marais. That station in the Judge Magney Park isn't open in the winter. At least it wasn't when we used to come up here. God, those were happy times!” She said that devoutly, then realized she'd already said something like it, and gestured as if to erase the strong feeling in her words. “But that was a long time ago, it's old history, not important. What's important is, where on earth could Mama have gone?”

“You're from Duluth, is that right, Ms. Owen?” asked Jill.

“Yes, that's right. Call me Liddy. I probably shouldn't have come up, but it's not that long a drive, and I couldn't just sit at home waiting. You know how it is.”

“I'm sorry you're being worried like this,” said Betsy.

“Not your fault,” said Liddy. “She probably got a call from friends going to sail around the British Virgin Islands and invited herself along for an impromptu vacation.” She shook her head ruefully and asked, “Is my father still here?”

“Yes,” said Betsy. “I was just talking with him before you came.” She wished she hadn't said that; she could see Liddy was going to ask about that, and she didn't
want to tell Liddy about her conversation about the waterfall.

She looked away and saw someone standing in the doorway to the dining room, wearing a dull orange goosedown jacket and gray denim trousers. He was a young man, tall and thin, with brown hair and a redhead's freckled complexion. His nose was slender and prominent, his mouth sensitive, his pose somehow defensive. Betsy had the curious feeling she'd seen him before.

Liddy called, “Doogie!” and stood. Of course, he looked very like her. He started for her, but Liddy gestured at him to wait, said “Excuse me” to Jill and Betsy, and hurried to meet him. She led him behind the long counter at the far end of the room and began an intense discussion.

Betsy asked, “How long do you think it will be before we hear if they found her at the falls?”

“I don't know, but it won't be right away. So let's go into the lounge.”

They barely noticed the lifted heads or murmured remarks this time, so focused were their thoughts on what dreadful thing Sheriff Goodman might find in the Devil's Kettle.

Betsy got her Rose Window project out. The sun was low enough in the sky to make a strong, slanting light on the white towel she draped across her lap. But the pattern was full of pitfalls. Betsy finished another wedge in light olive and antique pink. The first wedge had been worked in horizontal and vertical stitches, the second in diagonal, then the third like the first and the fourth like the second. It seemed that just as she got used to thinking horizontally, she had to think diagonally. Betsy grumbled under her breath at the heedless cruelty of designers who made such unnecessary complications.

And each must be surrounded by the nasty, delicate
Kreinik, slowly, carefully, accompanied by more grumbling.

But held at arm's length, Betsy's grumble melted into a pleased smile, as she saw how attractive the pattern was, its subtle complexities only adding to its beauty. Only, it looked a little off balance. Perhaps because the circle wasn't finished?

“Officer Jill Cross?” called a man's rough voice. Betsy looked around. Standing in the doorway was Sheriff Goodman in his fur-collared coat. His matching hat had earflaps and a gold badge pinned to it. He lifted his chin at them, his face full of grim news.

“Come with me,” muttered Jill, but Betsy was already putting her needlework into her bag.

The two hurried toward Goodman, who turned and walked away, leaving them to follow him into the center of the dining room, where a deputy waited. Doogie and Liddy were gone.

“What have you found?” Jill asked the sheriff.

“There was the body of a woman inside that hole in the rock,” said Goodman. “It was a hell of a fight to get it out, we've got a deputy with a broken arm and a ranger with a wrenched back.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Jill, her voice shocked and sincere.

“Is it Sharon Kaye Owen?” asked Betsy, ruthless in her need to know.

“It could be. The body is a blonde, real skinny, wearing a blue and white sweater under a dark blue coat. The ME thinks it wasn't in there more than a day. But of course we need someone to give us a positive ID. Is Mr. Owen still here?”

“Yes, and Sharon's son and daughter are here, too,” said Betsy.

Goodman's eyebrows lifted. “They are? When did they arrive?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“They're possibly up in their father's room,” offered Jill. “They're adults.”

“What are their names?” asked Goodman.

“Liddy and Doogie Owen,” said Betsy.

“ 'Liddy and Doogie'?”

“Nicknames for Elizabeth and Douglas,” said Jill.

The sheriff looked at his deputy, a short, heavyset man who looked part Indian, and jerked his head toward the lobby. “Room at the top of the stairs. I want all three.” The deputy departed unhurriedly.

“Are you going to arrest them all?” asked Betsy.

Goodman looked pained. “For what? Ma'am, we don't know that she was murdered. There were a lot of footprints in the area, some leading right across the ice to that waterfall; it's possible she went to see it up close, slipped, and fell in.”

Betsy wanted to shout at him that Sharon Owen couldn't have gone to see the falls, she was taken up there dead, she'd died in an upstairs bedroom rented by her ex-husband. But as she drew an angry breath, Jill caught her eye and shook her head very slightly, and Betsy bit her tongue.

“Hello?” said Liddy's voice, and they looked around to see Liddy and Doogie approaching, their father behind them with the deputy bringing up the rear.

The sheriff immediately removed his furry hat, and his face went solemn.

“Oh, my God,” Liddy said, the question she was about to ask dying on her lips. Her brother suddenly looked scared, and his mouth opened, but Liddy spoke first. “What is it?” she said. “Tell us what's happened.”

“Are you Sharon Owen's daughter?”

“Yes, I'm Elizabeth Owen, and this is my father, Frank Owen, and my brother, Douglas. Please—”

“We found the body of a woman under the Devil's
Kettle Falls up the Brule River. I'm very sorry to say it's possibly your mother. I'm going to ask you, Mr. Owen, to take a look at it, see if you can identify it.” He was addressing Doogie, not Frank.

“Oh, no, no,” said Doogie, his scared look becoming more pronounced, “I can't do that, please don't ask me to go look at her. My dad here, can't he go?”

“You are the immediate family, sir. Unless—How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.” Just admitting to being of age seemed to put some backbone into the young man.

“You see,” said the sheriff, “since your father and mother are divorced, he's not really next of kin.”