Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_04 Read online

  “That’s the way it is, sometimes,” Jill said. In a firm tone Betsy thought of as her “cop voice,” Jill said, “But now you’ll go back to sleep and dream only slow, quiet, pleasant dreams.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said obediently—and to her surprise, she not only went right back to sleep, she slept the rest of the night in peace.

  She was wakened the next morning by a pleasant alto rendition of “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime.” She thought for a moment she was in her own bedroom, listening to KSJN’s zany Morning Show, then realized the tuner wasn’t a little off station. The hiss was the rush of a shower.

  No need to drag herself out of bed to get down to the shop. Today she would sit among stitchers and get some real work done.

  The thought startled Betsy. She hadn’t felt her growing interest in needlework was anything other than an honest attempt to learn enough to be an intelligent help to her customers. She had inherited the shop. At first, she kept it open because there were customers waiting to give her money for things already in the shop, and she needed to support herself while the money portion of her inheritance worked its way through probate. She had good employees already on board, and running a needlework shop with them seemed more interesting than any temporary job she might otherwise have found.

  But she had come to like needlework for its own sake—and why not? It was beautiful stuff. There were counted cross-stitch patterns as exquisitely detailed as any painting. It took patience, and an eye for detail, to make one of those big pieces. And if they were challenging to work, what an eye it must take to design the patterns! Betsy vowed one day to go to a needlework show and meet some of these amazing people.

  Betsy’s own natural talent seemed to be in the area of needlepoint, where a couple of mistakes didn’t screw up the whole doggone piece, and where you could get creative with stitches, fibers, and colors.

  The shower and voice cut off together. Betsy, not wanting to be caught lazing in bed, hastily climbed out. She went to the closet and found her clothes in something like the order she would have chosen herself, if Jill hadn’t done it for her. She settled on a brown wool skirt and an ivory sweater.

  Jill came out of the bathroom wrapped in a thick terry robe, her pale hair only slightly darkened by being wet. “Good morning,” she said. “Did you sleep all right?”

  “The second time, yes, thank you. Where’d you put my underwear?”

  “Bottom drawer, on the left.”

  Drying off after her own shower, Betsy’s stomach growled. Wow, she was hungry. She hadn’t been really hungry since back in December, when a dose of arsenic had ruined her digestion for what she feared was forever. But here she was, wondering if breakfast would be as good as last night’s dinner.

  It was: waffles with a delectable orange-rum syrup, and the bacon just smoky enough. There was a side dish of peeled grapefruit sections that had never seen the inside of a jar.

  Jill didn’t mention the too-real dreams Betsy had been having, for which Betsy was grateful.

  They were savoring second cups of coffee—robust without being bitter—when a tall, heavyset woman with a very short haircut walked to stand in front of the fireplace. She wore an unflattering purple knit dress.

  “Good morning!” she called, with laughter in her voice, and called it several more times, until the room quieted down. Betsy looked around. She thought at first that here was a nice cross section of young, old, slim, fat, tall, short, and everything in between—even a woman in a wheelchair—then she realized everyone looked prosperous. Of course, nobody poor would spend three hundred dollars for a weekend of stitching.

  Including Betsy.

  Betsy felt a little guilty about that, but only for a moment. After all, not everybody could be poor.

  The woman said, “Good morning,” one last time, then went on. “As most of you know, I am Isabel Thrift, treasurer of the Grand Marais Needlework Guild. Welcome to the First Annual Naniboujou Stitch-In. I am so pleased at this wonderful turnout for this first time. But…” Her tone was suddenly very sober, and a soft, portentous groan went around the room. Obviously rumors were about to be confirmed. “But, as some of you know, the organizer of this event hasn’t been feeling well lately. Two days ago the doctor diagnosed walking pneumonia, and going to her car after leaving his office, she fell and broke her leg. The pneumonia isn’t the walking kind anymore; she’s at St. Luke’s in Duluth. But the hard work is done, and the stitch-in goes on. Charlotte Porter is, of course, also president of the Grand Marais Needlework Guild. And she’s the one who arranged for our mystery guest, who, I’m pleased to announce, is going to teach two classes, one on hardanger and a beginner’s class on designing counted cross-stitch patterns.” There was a pleased murmur. “Charlotte wouldn’t tell me the teacher’s name; she was very mysterious about it.” Isabel’s tone was again humorous and the ladies laughed.

  Betsy sat up straighter. Wow, she was going to get an actual glimpse of how designing was done!

  Isabel continued. “So, will our mysterious instructor please stand up and introduce herself? Or himself?”

  There was a rustle as everyone looked around. But no one stood up.

  “Maybe it was Charlotte herself who was going to teach the class,” someone suggested.

  But another said, “No, Charlotte doesn’t do hardanger well enough to teach it.”

  Isabel forced a smile and said, “Well, this is mysterious!”

  There was brief, uncomfortable laughter, then a quiet murmur moved around the room as Isabel frowned and tried to think what to say next. A slim woman with a deep tan at the next table said, “Who?” to the table beyond hers, and repeated the name to the others. “Kaye of Escapade Design.”

  Betsy said to Jill, “I see I wasn’t the only one thinking it might be her.”

  Isabel said, “Well, maybe she’s not here yet. While we wait for her, let’s get started. Come on into the lounge.”

  The room filled with pleased, anticipatory murmurs as the guests began to stand and move.

  Jill and Betsy returned to their room to load up with the paraphernalia of needlework. Betsy took a moment to tuck the magazine into her knitting bag.

  Back downstairs, the women—and two of the men—had just about filled the sunlit lounge. There was a sign-in sheet on a clipboard displayed on a table; Jill and Betsy signed it.

  Jill said, “I see two seats there,” nodding toward the middle of the room. As they moved toward them, Betsy glanced out the big windows and halted in amazement. The lake steamed as if it were coming to a boil. A light breeze bent the steam this way and that, uncovering small areas of dark blue water and quickly covering them again.

  “Oh, pretty!” said Betsy.

  “Yes,” Jill said, “the air is colder than the lake. As soon as it warms up a little, the steam will quit.”

  Jill followed Betsy to a pair of facing couches. Isabel was sitting on one, the strong sunlight putting lavender highlights on her purple dress, and on the other was the tanned woman who had repeated the name “Kaye of Escapade Design.”

  Isabel said, “Sit down, sit down! I’d introduce you to Carla, but I don’t know your names.”

  “I’m Jill Cross,” Jill said, sitting next to Carla, “and this is my friend Betsy Devonshire. We’re from Excelsior, where Betsy owns a needlework shop.”

  Betsy sat next to Isabel, smiled, and said, “Hello.”

  Carla, whose short hair was salt and pepper, smiled back and said, “I’m Carla Prakesh, from Duluth and Fort Myers, Florida. What kind of needlework do you sell?”

  Betsy said, “Needlepoint and counted cross-stitch, knitting yarn, and patterns, some crochet supplies. I carry only a few Penelope canvases, as not many people care to do both petit point and needlepoint on the same piece.” She mentioned that because the brown canvas Carla was working on was called Penelope.

  “And isn’t that a shame?” drawled Carla. “I mean, trame is the original, isn’t it? This is how the medieval nob
lewoman applied her needle. Cross-stitch was done by the peasants.”

  Betsy didn’t know what to say. While she really liked needlepoint herself, she didn’t think it was because she carried the genes of a medieval noblewoman.

  Isabel had made a sound in her throat, and Betsy glanced over to see she was working on a cross-stitch pattern of roses.

  “Where do you find your trame canvases?” asked Betsy. Only a few months ago she would have pronounced it “trame.” Now she knew it was pronounced “trah- may.” In trame, the pattern is first painted onto the canvas, then floss is basted horizontally across the pattern in colors to match, and the result sold to a stitcher who stitches over the basting. It is an expensive form of needlework, but allows complex and beautiful patterns, often based on medieval and Renaissance patterns or the paintings of old masters.

  “I buy them from a sweet little shop in Fort Myers,” Carla replied, with an archness that encouraged her listeners to deduce that “sweet little” meant very upscale. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it? C. Chapell is the name.”

  “No, but I’m new to the business,” said Betsy. “I inherited the shop from my sister, and I still have a great deal to learn about it.”

  Carla drew a deep breath to expound further, but Isabel had simultaneously drawn a shallower breath and so got in ahead of her with, “What are you working on this weekend, Jill?”

  Jill had set up her project, a large painted canvas of an elegant tiger sitting on a green silk pillow, looking over his shoulder at the viewer in a grand and aloof way. She had a set of stretcher bars and was preparing to stitch the needlepoint canvas onto the bars.

  “I love the way he sits alone in all this space,” said Jill, “and I’m tempted to just fill the background with basketweave stitch.”

  “Oh, I think it would be boring to do that much basketweave,” Carla said. “Don’t you, Isabel? Well, maybe not you; you do all your pictures with lots and lots of little x’s.”

  Isabel’s roses were highly detailed, in at least six shades of pink and six of green on very fine, snow white linen. “I don’t find counted boring at all,” she said with hardly any rancor.

  “But with just plain basketweave and all in the same color, the slightest flaw would just jump out at you, Jill,” remarked Betsy, the voice of experience.

  “Now if it were trame,” pounced Carla, “there would probably be a pattern of jungle leaves and flowers in fifteen or twenty colors all around that tiger. Very lovely and elegant.”

  “But leaves and flowers wouldn’t look as good as this vast plain,” said Jill, smiling at her subtle pun. “Maybe I won’t even stitch over it, just have it finished with a white backing. Or maybe a lighter shade of green than that pillow he’s sitting on.” She held it out at arm’s length by the top stretcher bar, her head cocked a little.

  Jill was rarely forthcoming like this, especially among strangers. Betsy sat back, watching, sure Jill was up to something.

  Jill said, “I wonder what our mystery instructor would suggest.”

  “Who can guess? No one knows who she was supposed to be,” said Isabel, making a single cross-stitch in a deep shade of pink on a rose petal.

  Jill said, “But didn’t Carla here say it was Kaye of Escapade Design?”

  Carla said, “No, I heard someone else say that. I don’t know for a fact who it was supposed to be.”

  Betsy said, “Do you know Kaye?”

  “Yes. She’s from Duluth, as am I. So naturally our paths have crossed a few times.”

  “Is she a good teacher? I’m thinking about hardanger, and it might be helpful to take a class.”

  Carla grew thoughtful. “Well, she’s all right, I suppose. Of course, her specialty is counted.” The drawl was very apparent. But apparently realizing she’d gone a little too far, she amended, “Now she is a very talented needlewoman, she really is. Her hardanger is amazing. And with beginners she can be sweet. But if anyone comes to her with an idea of their own, she’s not… sympathetic. Not actually rude, just not… sympathetic.” She looked at Isabel for confirmation.

  And, reluctantly, Isabel nodded. “But we don’t know that she was supposed to be the mystery teacher.”

  “Who was the first person to suggest it was Ms. Kaye?” asked Jill.

  Isabel said, “Oh, it was probably several people getting the same idea at the same time. She was the obvious choice.”

  Carla said, “I don’t even know who it was I heard saying it was her, but as soon as I heard the name, I thought that was probably who it must be. She and Charlotte have been friends forever.”

  Isabel looked up from the paper pattern clipped to the edge of her hoops and nodded. “I think that’s why her name was suggested. She only recently started selling her designs, but I know she’s been designing for several years. Charlotte’s the one who encouraged her to submit her designs to catalogs and teach classes. Her designs are good, and some are very clever.”

  “And they’re selling well,” acknowledged Carla, with what Betsy was sure was as much envy as fair judgment.

  “Do you design?” Betsy asked her.

  “Goodness no. I prefer the classic models and am quite happy in my humble place as faithful stitcher.” She smoothed a section of her work over her lap. It was of a medieval woman standing outside a pavilion set up under stylized trees. Betsy was sure she had seen that same design in a book on medieval and Renaissance tapestries.

  Betsy was reaching into her knitting bag for her own project when James called her name. “Ms. Devonshire?”

  Betsy raised a hand. “I’m over here.”

  James came to her and said quietly, “Ordinarily I wouldn’t do this, and if you like, I will say I was unable to find you. But there’s a phone call for you in the office, from someone named Godwin. He says he’s sorry, but it’s very urgent.”

  “All right, I’ll come.” Godwin had a tendency to panic, but he knew how much she needed this break. It probably really was important.

  James led her to a door in the far end of the lobby, which he had to unlock. Behind it was a tiny, cluttered office. He handed her a heavy black receiver from a very old telephone. “Hello?” said Betsy.

  Godwin said breathlessly, “Oh, thank God they found you! I’m so sorry to take you away from your weekend, but this is an emergency! You won’t believe what’s happening here, it’s just awful!”

  “Take it easy, Godwin, slow down, what’s the matter?”

  “There’s water coming through the ceiling! It’s ruining everything!”

  “Water? What, is it raining there?” That was a silly question; there were apartments over the shop, rain would have to leak through the roof, the upstairs ceiling and then the floor of Betsy’s apartment.

  “No, it’s not raining! That’s the point! It’s not raining!”

  “Then where is the water coming from?”

  “That’s what I’m talking about! It’s coming through the ceiling! It’s not dripping, it’s dribbling! And it’s ruining everything!”

  James made an excuse-me gesture at Betsy and left, closing the door behind him. “Where is it coming from?”

  “The ceiling!”

  “For heaven’s sake, Godwin, make sense!”

  “I am making sense! There is water, water simply pouring through the ceiling of the shop, and it’s getting all over everything! There’s a huge puddle right in the middle of the floor!”

  “Where is it—no, never mind, it’s coming from my apartment, obviously.”

  “Oh,” said Godwin, “is that what you were asking?” He giggled. “Silly me! Yes, it must be coming from your apartment, mustn’t it? Did you leave the water in your bathtub running?”

  “No.” Betsy thought. “And I didn’t leave the water in the kitchen running, either.” She thought some more, trying to picture various possibilities and a cure for each. She said, “How bad is the water damage in the shop?”

  Godwin sounded calmer now. “It’s coming through in two places, actuall
y, one where the library table is, where it seems to have killed the cordless phone and wet down the basket of loaner tools. And it just soaked the spinner rack of perle cotton floss; it’s standing in a puddle, a big puddle, you could go splashing in it. And the ceiling is kind of bulging down, like it’s going to crack open—”

  His voice was starting to sound panicky again, and Betsy said hastily, “All right, all right, something needs to be done immediately. You’re there, you know where I keep the spare key to my apartment, you go up and see what’s going on. Shut off the water supply to whatever’s running over, if that’s the problem. Then fix it—or get it fixed, whichever. I’ll reimburse you when I get back. Or, if you’re maxed out, use the shop’s credit card. Then contact our insurance agent, who is going to have a cow.” Back in December Betsy had made a claim for smoke damage.

  There was a brief silence, then Godwin said without any italics, “You’re so good in an emergency, Betsy! I suddenly feel much better. All right, I’ll summon a plumber or a roofer or whatever, as soon as I find out what the problem is. Then I’ll call Mr. Reynolds. Are you going to start back now? How many hours are you from here?”

  “No, I’m not coming back. Why should I? You’re a trustworthy, competent person, you’ve steered me through enough problems in the shop for me to know that. Of course, if you get upstairs and find there’s a gaping hole in the roof that’s pouring melting snow into my apartment, then maybe you should call me again.”

  Godwin’s laugh this time had more assurance in it. “Yes, all right, but I don’t think that will be the problem. And you’re right, I can take care of it otherwise myself. Now I think about it, we had a waterpipe break one time, it made an even worse mess, but there were no fatalities, so I don’t suppose there will be any this time, either. But let me add, Joe Mickels was landlord then, too, and he was a real stinker about it. But I suppose, since you’ve started dating him, he’ll be much sweeter.”

  Betsy said, “But I’m not dating him anymore. Didn’t I tell you? He thought because I was so clever about maneuvering him into selling the building to me that I was his kind of person, a little too interested in making money. We went out three times, and every time, all he wanted to talk about was all the clever ways there are to make money, and hinting that no one knows how rich he really is. Which makes it all the more ridiculous that he’s the cheapest date I’ve been out with in my life.”