Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_04 (19 page)

“I don't know. Perhaps. Yes, I think so.” Carla paused a few moments, thinking before she spoke. “Sharon
couldn't get along with Frank, but every time he started to look elsewhere for female companionship, she came back to him, saying she wanted to reconcile. I'd watched her do it once before, but I didn't recognize it for the game it was. Then she found out Frank and I were getting close and she started in again with talk of reconciliation. She was using exactly the same language as before, and I suddenly realized this was a pattern of behavior. I couldn't think what to do, but at last I spoke candidly to Frank about it—and to my utter surprise, it was like someone turned on a light in Frank's head. Poor man, he kind of stared at me and said, ‘Do you know, I think you're right,' like he was surprised at my perspicacity.” Carla gave a halfhearted chuckle, then leaned forward to confide, “You and I come from a generation that said the woman must never reveal her tricks to the man, nor speak of another woman's tricks. Just like we must never let on we're smarter or stronger than he is.”

Betsy nodded. She had started adolescence at a time when women still held such notions, though some had started questioning them—and a few had even laughed at them. But some still took them seriously even now, in the twenty-first century. She said, “Were you really angry with her?”

Carla nodded. “At first, when I realized what she was up to. But I won, you see. Frank wasn't going to take her back. We talked about it, and he was quite firm on that.” Chin up, she smiled in remembered triumph.

But Betsy thought of the confident way Sharon had spoken of a reconciliation. Carla might have won, but Sharon hadn't known it.

“How well did you know Sharon? Were you friends?”

Carla frowned at her. “No, of course not.”

“Yet you seem to know her pretty well. Did you see much of her at needlework functions?”

“A fair amount. I never talked to her about Frank, of
course. Or the children, except to ask her how they were. And she always said they were doing very well, as if she knew, or even cared. Her treatment of them was totally self-serving. Yanking them this way then that, saying she was coming home for good, then smashing their joy with an indifference that was shocking in its cold-bloodedness.”

“Did you talk to Liddy and Douglas about this?”

Carla hesitated, then said, “Yes, I did, once they knew about Frank and me.”

“Knew what?”

“What happened was, Frank and I were having dinner at his house and they walked in on us. That was last summer. We'd thought they were gone for the weekend, sailing on Lake Michigan, but they came back Saturday night because the weather had turned bad. It was embarrassing, but—” Carla smiled again, this time in a way that let Betsy understand it might have been even more embarrassing if the two had come in an hour later than they did.

“What did they say when you talked to them about Sharon?”

“That was a few weeks later, after they got over the shock of learning their father had a girlfriend.” Carla laughed. “At first, they defended her to the uttermost, poor things. But I could tell they were hurting, her behavior was—what's the word? Whipsawing, that's it, whipsawing them.”

Like I am doing to Jill,
thought Betsy. “Are they close, the brother and sister?”

“Yes, very. Their mother's . . . ‘inconstant love' is the term Frank used, and isn't that the most poignant thing you've heard in a while? Anyway, she'd been behaving like that for years, so Liddy had taken over parenting Doogie. Frank allowed that, which I think might have been a mistake. I think that's why she's still living at
home, so Doogie can feel they'll both be there for him, his father and his sister. Of course Doogie's twenty-one, so it's past time Liddy started thinking of her own future. I'm doing what I can for him, and I consult with Liddy about what Doogie likes and needs, which makes both of them happy. I think I'll be as good for them as I am for Frank. At the very least, I can relieve Liddy of responsibility for Doogie.”

“What do they think of the relationship between you and their father?”

“Oh, I'm sure they approve. Naturally they want their father to be happy.”

But Betsy knew that children who “defend their mother to the uttermost” were not normally pleased to find another woman in her place. There could be all sorts of cruel angles here. Carla might be angrier than she had said she was about Sharon trying to come back to Frank, and not so sure as she had appeared to be that she had won the battle for Frank's heart. Douglas and Liddy might like Carla much better than their own inconstant mother—so much that they saw their mother as a threat to the stability Carla could bring. Or as a threat to their father's happiness. Or perhaps only Douglas hated his mother—how Freudian! Or, had their father at last come to hate her and, his eyes opened to her perfidy, try to hide her body because he had murdered her?

“You knew about Sharon's allergies, right?”

“Oh, yes; everyone knew.”

“Yet she smoked.”

“I know, and not some delicate, low-tar brand, but something extra long and dark, very exotic.” Carla's lip curled slightly.

“I heard she was trying to quit.”

“I know she still smoked. Well, she did cut back, but . . .” Carla shrugged.

“Did you also know she carried an EpiPen everywhere she went?”

“Yes, she showed several of us how to use it after that one time she had a severe reaction at a meeting and none of us knew what to do. She came to the next meeting with one in her purse and showed it to us and demonstrated how to use it. Not difficult, fortunately. And even more fortunately, we never had to.”

“She carried it in her purse, or her sewing bag?”

“It was in a plastic bag in her purse. Easier to find than in a project bag. You could dig for ten minutes in her project bag before you'd find something that size. And of course time is important when you need to use that thing.”

“My bag hides things, too,” said Betsy with a wry smile. She hadn't even owned a knitting bag—project bag, that was a better name for the thing!—as recently as September, and already hers was a jammed mess. She sold two kinds of needlework carriers in her shop, but it hadn't occurred to her to buy one for herself. “What do you use?”

“I'm not one of those ultra-organized fanatics. I roll my canvas up into a plastic tube, and I carry everything else in a big plastic box. I use ZipLoc bags for my silks, and the box has compartments for my scissors, needles, laying tool, dololly, and any other oddments. I had Frank hot-glue a magnet to the inside of it for my needles. The box itself is light, so it's easy to carry. I don't use a frame for any but the biggest projects, and I don't travel with those. Since I have two homes, I keep a Dazor light at both places, because I have projects I'm working on in both, too.”

“You do a lot of needlework?”

“A great deal.”

“After Sharon, isn't Frank a little leery of getting involved with someone else who does needlework?”

Carla said, with perfect seriousness, “Well, I hardly think someone who does trame is in the same class as someone who does counted, don't you think?”

Betsy got to hide her smile by turning her head at the sound of footsteps. It was Jill. “What did he say?” Betsy asked.

“He's on his way.”

“Who?” asked Carla, eyes lighting up.

“Sheriff Goodman.” The light went out. Jill explained, “Betsy found something and the sheriff wants a look at it.”

Carla looked at Betsy. “What did you find?” she asked, and the fear was back in her voice, now colored by anger that Betsy hadn't said anything about a find.

“An EpiPen I think is Sharon's.”

“Why does the sheriff want Sharon's EpiPen?” She seemed genuinely puzzled. “And how do you know it's Sharon's?”

“Do you know anyone here besides Sharon who carries one?”

“Well, no. But is finding her EpiPen important?”

“Maybe,” said Jill.

Carla said, “Well, if you want to know who else might have one, ask Isabel. She's handling lost and found, she would know if someone is missing one.”

“Yes, of course,” said Betsy.

She went in and found Isabel, who was all but finished with her roses on linen pattern. Betsy watched her for a minute, as Isabel, caught up in the excitement of finishing a project, was stitching very rapidly. Her tongue was just showing between her lips, its tip moving a little in rhythm with her stitching.

“Ha!” Isabel said, an exclamation of triumph, and turned her work over to run the end of the floss under several stitches and snip the remainder off with a tiny pair of gold scissors. “Ahhhh,” she said, relaxing and
turning it back again to regard it happily. The pinks glowed against the snowy linen, and Betsy suddenly realized there were realistic drops of dew in the pattern of petals.

“Very nice,” said Betsy, and Isabel, startled, looked up.

“Oh, hello, Betsy.”

“Isabel, does anyone else here carry an EpiPen?”

Isabel blinked, changing gears from stitcher to person-in-charge. “Why, no, not that I know of. In fact, I think Sharon was the only person bothered by anything more serious than hay fever. Why?”

“Because I found an EpiPen and I wondered who might have lost it.” Betsy showed it to Isabel.

Isabel took it and looked at it. “No one's asked about one of these,” she said, and stood. “May I have everyone's attention for a moment?” she called, and slowly the lounge quieted as faces turned to her. “I have here an EpiPen,” she continued, waving it over her head. “Did anyone here lose this?”

There was a silence, broken when Nan said, “It's Sharon's, of course. Where did you find it?”

Isabel said, “It was found here at the lodge,” glancing at Betsy and getting a nod of confirmation. “So none of you claims it?”

No one did, though two women wanted to know if Jill was coming back to finish her lesson on the Amadeus stitch. Betsy said she didn't know.

Isabel sat down again, and Betsy took the EpiPen back from her. “Is there something significant about that thing?” asked Isabel.

“Yes, but I'm waiting for the sheriff to come, so I can tell him about it.”

“Is it that it hasn't been used?”

“You noticed that?”

“Sharon showed us how to use it, so yes, I noticed
that it's still full of whatever the medicine is called. I take it that means Sharon didn't have an allergic attack after all.”

“Ladies?” said a man's voice. It was James, standing at the other end of the room. “And, gentlemen,” he added with a little smile. “Lunch is served.”

Everyone began to put things away, except those who just had to run out the last two inches of floss, or finish a row of stitches. The quiet murmur of the room grew a little louder with anticipation: Naniboujou's meals had been a delight so far.

The room had nearly emptied when Betsy, who had forgotten where she left her project bag, finally found it and was making sure everything she had with it was there. She heard, “Ms. Devonshire?” in a gruff voice. Betsy looked up to see Sheriff Goodman standing not far from her.

She followed him to the tiny lobby, where she quietly described finding the device and showed the sheriff where it had been sealed shut.

“This pen does not belong to anyone working at the lodge, or anyone here for the stitch-in, so it has to be Sharon's. And it could not have been sealed like this by accident. I believe it was done deliberately by someone hoping for just what we have: Sharon Kaye Owen dead of an acute allergic reaction.”

“The first test on that string you gave me came back one hundred percent cotton.”

“So it wasn't a blend substituted for the cotton. Then you'll find it's been sprayed or dipped in peanut oil or powdered latex or something equally lethal to Sharon. Because why sabotage the EpiPen unless you know she's going to need it?”

Goodman stared at her, seeming for the first time to take her seriously. He asked, “What time did you see the body in Mr. Owen's room?”

“I'm not sure. It was dark, and they were serving dinner in the dining room, which would make it after six but before seven-thirty.”

The sheriff nodded once, sharply, and went to the lobby. James handed over the phone behind the desk and Goodman dialed. “Gimme the jail!” Goodman barked when someone answered. There was a pause, then: “I want you to put a hold on one Francis Arvid Owen till I get back there.” Another, shorter pause. “What? Oh, hell! Oh, dammit to hell! Where'd he—yeah, yeah, yeah, damn all lawyers. Did you eyeball the car? Well, dammit—Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Hell, he's probably taking him to the nearest airport! All right, put out an APB, wanted on probable cause murder. That's right, murder! I've got the evidence right here in my hand!”

T
he sheriff left. Betsy saw him barking orders into his radio as he fishtailed one-handed up the snow-packed lane to the highway. Remembering Frank Owen's mild manner, she thought Goodman's ferocious attitude a bit overdone.

On the other hand, whoever was responsible for that sealed EpiPen certainly deserved a bit of ferocity. Considering the blue-lipped woman lying cold and still on Frank Owen's bed, maybe a lot.

Betsy returned to the dining room. Liddy and Douglas were sitting with Jill and Carla. Liddy took one look at Betsy's face and stood. “What's happened? What's going on?” she demanded as Betsy approached.

Heads turned, so Betsy raised a hand to request silence and, on arriving, at their table said, “Let's go into the lounge.”

Jill, Carla, and Douglas came, too. Betsy said, “I showed Sheriff Goodman an EpiPen I found in the office. It had been tampered with. I thought perhaps
someone was using it as a prop in a first-aid class, but no one will claim it. So it's probably Sharon's.”

“Tampered with?” echoed Carla. “How?”

“The cap was sealed shut. With superglue, I think. The sheriff called the jail, but Frank has already been released on bail, so he ordered an all-points bulletin for him. Have any of you any idea where he might go? I think someone should call and warn him about this.”

“Yes!” Liddy exclaimed. “Let's call—”

But Jill interrupted, saying, “That's a very bad idea, Betsy. You don't help a wanted man get away.”

“No, no, not to help him get away, to tell him to turn himself in. I don't want him to get shot by someone trying to apprehend him.”

“Oh, my God!” said Liddy, lifting her arms as if in surrender. “Oh, no, Doogie, we have to do something! Call someone, tell them! Have that search called off!”

Douglas frowned at her. “I suppose we can try to contact Dad's lawyer—”

“That may take too long; there must be something—” Carla said, her voice high and frightened.

Liddy turned to Jill, arms forward now in appeal. “Please, you're with the police, for the love of God, stop them! Don't let them shoot my father!”

People in the dining room were falling silent, watching and listening through the French doors that separated the lounge from the dining room.

“Keep your voices down, please!” begged Betsy. “You'll have everyone asking questions.”

Jill took Liddy's hands in her own. “Take it easy, your father is in no danger.” She shot a cool glance at Betsy, then continued in the same soothing voice to Liddy, “No one is going to shoot anyone. Your father doesn't carry a gun, right? Answer me: Right? Or wrong?”

Liddy, trembling, tears spilling out of closed eyes and running down her cheeks, nodded. “R—right. Right.”

“And when I talked to him, I thought that I have rarely encountered a more laid-back person—and I've lived in Minnesota, land of the staid, all my life.”

Despite herself, Liddy smiled. “That's t—true.”

“So when a police officer comes up to him and says, ‘Mr. Owen, will you come with me?' what is your father likely to do?”

Liddy's eyes opened and she said with an odd, choked laugh, “He'll say, ‘Sure, you bet.' ”

Douglas said, “That's right, that's exactly right.”

“See? No shooting.”

“Yes, yes, no shooting.” Liddy nodded again and Jill released her. Liddy collapsed onto a couch and put her hands over her face.

“Here now, what's all this?” said a quiet voice, and they all turned to see Frank Owen coming toward them. With his Sorel boots, down jacket, ashen hair, and thick, drooping mustache, he looked quintessentially Minnesotan. Walking behind him was a slender man of medium height in an exquisite gray suit, a gray overcoat hanging off his shoulders. He had an expensively shaped mane of salt-and-pepper hair, gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and an unlit cigar tucked into a corner of his mouth. All that, plus his extremely self-assured manner, announced that here was a high-priced attorney.

“Daddy!” shouted Liddy, jumping up to run over and hug Frank.

“Gosh, Dad, you don't know how glad we are to see you!” said Douglas, going to stand near him. His manner was both diffident and protective.

“Oh, I think we have a pretty good idea,” said the lawyer, giving Liddy and Frank some room. “But once they found there was nothing funny about the cotton floss”—he cast a sharp look in Betsy's direction—“they decided they had to turn us loose.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, sir,” said Jill. “The sheriff
left here just a couple of minutes ago. He's putting out a want on Mr. Owen, on a charge of murder.”

“Murder?” echoed Frank, disentangling himself from his daughter's embrace. His shaggy eyebrows raised high, he said to Liddy, “Explain this to me.”

“It's too awful, they're all so stupid, they won't listen!”

Douglas said, “This woman”—he gestured toward Betsy—“found Mother's EpiPen in the lodge office. Someone had super-glued the cap on. Mother couldn't use the pen when she had an allergic reaction, and that's why she died.”

Liddy interjected, “So the sheriff is charging you with murder. I know, I know, that doesn't make any sense! But that's what he's doing. And so—and so everyone is looking for you, and they have guns, so you'd better call them.”

“Call who?”

The lawyer said smoothly, “The Cook County sheriff is the person to contact, since he put out the want. I'll call him, Mr. Owen. But we don't have to do that immediately. They aren't likely to let you out on bail on a charge of murder, so you'll need to make some arrangements about your job and your house. We can do that before I call Sheriff Goodman to arrange for your surrender. But more than that, you and I need to talk. We'll need some privacy. Do you still have a room here?”

“The only phone for guest use at Naniboujou is a pay one in the lobby,” warned Jill.

“That's why I have one in my pocket,” said the lawyer, pulling out a tiny cell phone.

Frank had pulled one from his jacket pocket as well, Douglas was reaching into his shirt pocket, and Carla was reaching for her purse. There were smiles all around.

“We've been up in your room, so I suppose it's still yours,” said Douglas.

Liddy said, “I think now I really ought to go home. The police will come there, and may break in if no one answers when they ring the doorbell.” Her voice took on a note of pleading. “I can't bear staying here, especially in that room. Mama died in that room. I can do whatever you want done from home, make phone calls, arrange with work for you to get a leave of absence. Right? Doogie can do whatever needs doing here.”

“Yessir, of course I can,” said Douglas.

But Frank eyed him coolly. “You've got a job of your own to go to, son,” he said. “Besides, when I really need someone I can rely on, Liddy has always come through.”

Betsy exchanged a glance with Jill. Douglas was turning back into a little boy right in front of them under his father's remarks.

Frank said to Liddy, “You'll get a different room tonight, soldier. But since they'll keep me in Grand Marais, I need someone who is not a long-distance phone call away.”

“Oh, God, please,” said Liddy, and it was a prayer.

“Hey, now, hey now, who's my brave soldier?” he said, looking a little surprised at this display of weakness.

Carla said, “Honestly, Frank, if you could see how brave your son has been through all this, you'd be very pleased. He's the brave soldier, not Liddy.”

Douglas spoiled it by whining, “Come on, Dad, I can call the station and tell them I need some time off. That job's nothing important, after all.”

“Every job's important.”

Liddy found a remnant of backbone somewhere and said tiredly, “It's all right, Doogie, I'll stay.”

“Good girl,” said Frank.

Carla said, “I don't think—”

The attorney interrupted, “We'd better get started, Mr. Owen.”

But as they turned to go, Betsy said, “Douglas, Liddy, you don't by some chance have a set of keys to your mother's car, do you?”

Liddy stared blankly at Betsy. “No.”

Douglas shook his head. “I don't even know what kind of car she was driving.”

“Why do you ask?” asked the lawyer.

“There are some items missing—her coat, her purse, her project bag. They're not here in the lodge, and we can't see them through the windows of her car. We were wondering if they're in a wicker basket in the backseat.”

The lawyer frowned. “Who are you?”

“My name is Betsy Devonshire. This is Officer Jill Cross. She's with me,” Betsy said with the same authority Jill had used making the same explanation to Frank. The attorney nodded and led Frank away, Douglas and Liddy following.

Carla called, “Frank, is there anything I can do?”

Frank stopped, hesitated, then said, “Will you come sit with me while I make arrangements?”

She hadn't expected that. “All right.”

Betsy watched them all go, then said to Jill, “Now what?”

Jill shrugged. “Is there anything left to do? You found the body, you found the EpiPen, you've got the authorities interested in conducting a serious investigation. Frank is in the hands of an attorney who will make arrangements for him to turn himself in. You've done your part, and you didn't have to accuse anyone of murder. Aren't you satisfied?”

Betsy looked at the group, which had stopped again to talk near the door to the lobby. “I suppose I should be.” But she wasn't.

“Come on,” said Jill, “let's get some lunch while there's still a selection.”

Thus encouraged, Betsy tried again to break the binding cords of curiosity. She went with Jill to the dining room, where people were lining up for seconds. Jill was greeted by several women impatient to talk of their success—or lack of it—with the beautiful but difficult Amadeus stitch. Two of the women wanted Betsy to come and sit with them, too, obviously goggling with curiosity about what had gone on in the lounge.

But Betsy didn't want to talk anymore about the Sharon Kaye murder. She waved at the women to go ahead, filled a plate with salads, and found an unoccupied table near the kitchen door, where the constant passage of wait people bringing refills made it undesirable.

She sat down and began to pick at the cranberry–apple salad. She had barely gotten two bites when Sadie wheeled up. “So, who did they arrest for murder?” she asked cheerfully.

“Nobody,” said Betsy repressively.

“Why not? Did they decide it was some kind of accident? She fell into the waterfall?”

“No, she was taken to the waterfall after she died. Mr. Owen was charged with moving her body and released on bail.”

“Yes, I saw him come back. Did he say why he did it?”

“No.”

“Do you think he murdered Sharon Kaye?”

“I don't know.”

“Come on, you've been sleuthing, you must have an opinion. Are you seriously saying you don't know?”

“Yes, I am. I don't know. I really don't know.”

So Sadie huffed—the exhalation could hardly be called a mere sigh—in disappointment and wheeled off.
Betsy finished her lunch in peace, then went back to the lounge.

Jill was sitting with the women she'd had lunch with. They were asking her about the cashmere stitch now, though when Betsy walked up, they all stopped to listen to what she might say.

Betsy said, “I'll be down at the other end of the room.”

Jill nodded and immediately caught the attention of the women by saying, “Now here's the real catch to that stitch.”

Betsy went first to find her project bag, and then to a place at the far end of the long room. The little love seat there was empty and facing a door to the parking lot. She sat down, her back to the room, a position which suited her mood very well.

She got out the black Aida cloth and tried to concentrate on the pattern. She checked and found the error in the previous wedge. She'd have to frog both wedges.

Wait, no she wouldn't. All she had to do was frog the last one she'd done, make a very slight adjustment in the pattern—leave out two stitches here, add a stitch there—and that last wedge would fit right in where it belonged. It wouldn't make a very noticeable change in the shape of the wedge. She smiled to herself. “Real” stitchers often spoke of adjusting patterns, changing colors, or even removing whole elements, and here Betsy was doing the same thing. Her smile broadened. She was catching on to this stuff!

With increasing confidence Betsy quickly undid and restitched the wedge, and held the hoop out to admire her work. The change she had worked in it was barely noticeable, not bad at all.

She outlined it with Kreinik and was well into the last wedge when a secondary shadow fell across her pattern, blocking the light from the door, rather than the
still-brilliant windows. She looked up to see Linda Savareid bent over from a polite distance, trying to see what she was doing.