And Then You Dye (7 page)

Eight

O
N
Thursday afternoon, June first, Betsy drove over to Hailey Brent’s house, where she found Ruth Ladwig waiting for her in the driveway. “The key is to the side entrance,” said Ruth, holding up a fish-shaped key holder.

The dead lilacs had been removed from the dining room table. “Philadelphia said she went through the house with an agent,” said Ruth. “The estate sale will be next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the house will be staged Tuesday and Wednesday, and a for-sale sign will go up Thursday.”

Betsy looked around. “Kind of sad, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I think the fact of the murder is weighing her down, and she wants very badly to be freed from this reminder of it.”

They went down the steep, age-grayed stairs into the basement. Ruth turned on the lights.

The spinning wheel looked somehow forlorn in its place in the middle of the carpet, perhaps because the sky was overcast. The light coming in through the high little windows was not friendly.

They noted the two bowls with unspun fibers in them. “You’re still of the opinion that these are made from soy and bamboo?” asked Betsy.

“Yes,” said Ruth. “I have some samples of spun soy and spun bamboo at my station at the museum, and the textures feel the same as those in the bowls. Odd, but the bamboo is softer than the soy to the fingers.” She went to put a forefinger on the wheel of the spinning wheel. “I’ve already got a bid to put on this on behalf of a friend. Now, let’s take another look at the dyeing setup.”

Betsy looked with trepidation at the spot on the floor where the body had been found, but as before, there was no visible sign of its former presence.

The three long-cooled pots remained on the stove. “Do you smell that?” said Ruth. “Vegetable matter goes moldy pretty fast in water.” There was, in fact, a musty, spoiled smell in the air.

“Why is the yarn a darker brown than the dye bath?” asked Betsy, peering into one pot, wrinkling her nose as she confirmed the source of the moldy odor.

“The yarn has taken up the dye,” said Ruth. “You see, she hadn’t taken the carrot tops out of the other bath; she was probably going to use that to dye the rovings over there in the bowl.”

“I
thought
they were carrot tops,” said Betsy. “Is there anything that can’t be used to make a dye? Rocks, I suppose.”

Ruth considered the question. “I don’t know. Even crushed rocks can make a dye. Any portion of plant material—roots, leaves, bark—can make a dye. Some are stronger or more beautiful than others, of course. But all the vegetable dyes have a soft quality that’s really lovely.”

“Yes, and I remember thinking that every color of yarn Hailey brought in went with every other color.”

Ruth took down the dried skeins of yarn, then lifted the pot with the brown yarn in it and poured its contents into the sink. She turned on the faucet and began to rinse the yarn in cool water, squeezing it gently from time to time. She draped the yarn on the plastic-coated clothesline where it immediately began to dribble. “I don’t know if Philadelphia will do anything with this,” she said. “But I’m sure—Irene, isn’t it? I’ll bet Irene would be glad to have it for her project.”

“I’ll call her.”

“Better check with Philadelphia first. Maybe she wants it for her own knitting projects.”

“Good idea, you’re right. Do the green one next,” said Betsy.

“All right, but it isn’t green dye.”

Betsy, frowning, watched as Ruth brought the big pot to the counter. When she took the lid off, Betsy could see that the dye bath had turned inexplicably from green to dark blue.

“I thought so,” said Ruth. “The air gets into it, by osmosis, I guess. This is indigo.” She used the dowel sitting on the counter to reach into the pot and pull out a large amount of thin yarn. It came out green and she held the dribbling stuff over the sink. Right in front of Betsy’s surprised eyes, in a few seconds the green disappeared and the roving was blue.

“It’s like magic!” said Betsy. “How does it do that?”

“It’s the oxygen in the air that causes the change. When you make up the indigo solution you use two chemicals: Spectralite, a brand name for thiourea dioxide, and lye. You have to measure the lye carefully, because too much lye can turn your fibers into mush. But it’s the thiourea dioxide that removes the oxygen from the dye bath. This means you stir very carefully, and slip the fibers into it gently, so as to mix a minimum of air into it. But if you let it sit long enough, the air gets in anyhow.” Ruth put the dowel into the dye bath and moved it around. “Ah, I thought there was something else in here.”

She brought out a knitted square about six inches on a side, but it was yellow-green—then the air did its work, and it turned a pretty red-brown.

“Brown?” said Betsy.

“It must have been orange when it was put in,” said Ruth. “Orange and blue make brown.”

“Why a knitted square?” asked Betsy.

“I have no idea. Perhaps she was doing it for her own use; certainly if Irene wanted yarn, a finished piece of knitting was of no use.” Ruth rinsed the square and draped it dribbling over the clothesline, then rinsed the indigo yarn.

“See anything yet?” asked Ruth.

Betsy looked around the space and sighed. “Not a thing. I guess I’m too ignorant of the whole process to recognize anything wrong or even just a little off. Except the smell, of course.”

“I don’t see anything wrong or off, either,” said Ruth, looking around.

“We should take these with us,” said Betsy, gesturing at the yarn and at the knitted square hanging over the sink. “Otherwise Philadelphia or the person doing the staging might throw them away. I’ve got a deep sink in my basement. I can run a line and hang them over it to dry. I’ll let Philadelphia know I’ve got it. And, with her permission, I know how to get in touch with Irene to see if she wants any of it, and I’m pretty sure she will. I’ll have her contact Philadelphia about payment.”

“All right, good idea.” Ruth shook water off her hands. “Now, where is that cheesecloth? I know I saw it somewhere.” She began opening cabinets, and finally found the one that had a tall stack of gauzy white cloths in it. She chose one, spread it over the drain in the sink, and started to empty the pot that had carrot tops into it. Then she paused again. “Or do we want to dye the roving that’s in the bowl of mordant?”

“I don’t know how to spin it into yarn, do you?”

“No. Kind of a shame, but no.” She emptied the pot onto the cheesecloth, gathered it up, and squeezed it out. Then she opened the door to the cabinet under the sink and said, “Darn it, I forgot: There’s no liner to the trash can.”

She held the sopping cheesecloth over the sink while Betsy went into the big box of plastic bags next to the can and pulled one out.

“Isn’t that kind of strange?” asked Betsy.

“What’s strange?”

“Well, she must have strained the pot of brown dye, right? And thrown the vegetable matter away. Why empty the trash can when there were still the carrot tops to strain out and throw away? And if for whatever reason she did dump the old liner, why didn’t she put a new liner in the can? I do it automatically, pull out the full bag and put a new one in. It’s one task, really, not two.”

Ruth shrugged. “So do I. But different people do things differently. Maybe the trash can was overflowing and she just quick tied it off and took it out.”

Betsy had on occasion put off emptying her trash bin until it threatened to overflow. She nodded. “I can see that,” she said.

“We’ll have to toss that new liner, though it seems a shame to waste a whole trash bag on just the carrot tops and the rovings.” Ruth poured out the mordant in the bowl, squeezed the rovings, and put them in the trash bin. Then she washed her hands thoroughly and dried them on a paper towel.

Finally, she pulled another trash bag from the box of them and shook it open. She put one skein of dry yarn into a bottom corner, twisted it once, put the other dry skein in the other corner and twisted it again, then did the same with the wet items, twisting each until she’d made a sort of compartment for each item, to keep the wet ones from soaking into and possibly spreading their fresh dye. She pulled the drawstring at the open end of the bag to close it and put the lumpy bundle on the counter.

She and Betsy then proceeded to scrub, rinse, and dry the pots, paying special attention to the big one that had held the indigo dye. “It clings,” Ruth explained, “and even a tiny bit left over can spoil the next thing you try to dye in it.”

“How long have you been interested in dyeing?” asked Betsy as they worked.

“A very long time, years.”

“How did you meet Hailey?”

“We both turned up at Murphy’s Landing—have you ever been out there?”

“No.”

“It’s a collection of old buildings, dating back to the late 1800s, early 1900s. People in period costume show what life was like back in those days, and in one of the houses there’s a woman who concocts vegetable dyes on a wood-burning stove. She has a loom and a spinning wheel, too. Hailey and I spent most of an afternoon talking with her, and came away friends.”

“What did you think of Hailey?”

“As long as what you talked about was dyeing, spinning, and the needle arts, she was amazing. Happy to share what she knew, loved to experiment. But she had a real problem about men and another one about politics. I never tried her on religion. Twice burned, you know?” Ruth smiled as she rinsed the pot she’d been scrubbing.

“I’ve heard she was willing to bend the rules of ownership when someone had a plant she wanted to try out.”

Ruth thought that over. “She never said that to me—not in so many words, at least. But it wouldn’t surprise me. She talked a lot about how more things should be shared in common.”

“What was she like as a person?”

Ruth thought that over. “Opinionated. Very sure she was right, even when she wasn’t. Funny in a sharp-tongued way. Intelligent. Talented.” She tapped a forefinger on her lips as she thought some more. “There was something sly about her. No, not sly, that’s the wrong word. She liked, really liked, to listen to gossip, and then carry what she learned to the person being gossiped about.” The finger tapped again. “We all gossip, of course. I remember one time I started to tell her something and I said, ‘Now don’t tell Gladys this, but’ and she said, ‘Buy my lunch and I won’t.’ And she meant it. I mean, she laughed, but I ended up paying for her lunch.”

“Did she keep her word?” asked Betsy.

“Oh yes.” Ruth laughed. “But it cured me of sharing gossip with her unless I didn’t care who she told.”

They turned the pots over to dry on a couple of layers of cheesecloth. “Now, let’s price these things,” Ruth said. She got a notebook from her purse and began very methodically looking at every item, including even the dowels, and writing it down with a figure next to it. “If I were only a little more dishonest,” she said, mock complaining, “I’d lowball these stainless steel pots and make sure I was here first thing for the estate sale.”

As they were about to leave, Betsy said, “Ruth, do you know Randi Moreham or Joanne McMurphy?”

“I’ve heard their names, but they were Hailey’s friends, not mine. No, wait, I don’t think Joanne was a friend, just someone Hailey knew. She knew Joanne’s husband, too.”

“Did she ever talk about them to you?”

Ruth thought. “Not a whole lot. She was encouraging Randi to go ahead with her plans to divorce her husband. I know that because we were at lunch a few weeks ago and I had to wait while she had a cell phone conversation with Randi. She said something to the effect of ‘You know my door is always open to you if you need a place to stay.’ I told her that it was almost never a good idea to get involved with a divorcing couple, because if they made up, she would lose Randi as a friend. She said, ‘If Randi goes back to her husband, she’s already no longer my friend.’”

“How about Joanne McMurphy?”

“Let me tell you a story about Joanne,” Ruth said. “A group of friends, two of them from Excelsior, came over to help me out after my knee surgery a year ago, and we were sitting around after drinking coffee, and someone said it was a good thing that Joanne hadn’t come along on their mission of mercy. I asked why, and she said that Joanne had always needed to be the boss, but her bad temper was getting worse and worse until it was impossible to deal with her. But that’s just gossip, barely worth the breath it takes to repeat it. And I wouldn’t repeat it, except that you’re looking for any information about Hailey we can offer. So be wary about asking Joanne’s opinion of Hailey. I will say her fellow Excelsior-ite laughed but sincerely agreed.”

*   *   *

B
ACK
at the shop, Betsy found waiting for her an attractive young woman with thick, dark brown hair and candid hazel-green eyes, dressed in subdued bluish gray.

“I’ve been meaning to come in anyway,” she said. “That offer to donate to SNAP put me over the top. I’m Randi Moreham. You’re investigating Hailey Brent’s murder, right?” She was standing at the checkout desk, in front of a low stack of counted cross-stitch patterns and DMC flosses.

“Well, this is a very pleasant surprise!” said Betsy. “Were your ears burning? I was just talking about you!”

“Nothing bad, I hope.”

“No, not at all.”

Godwin said, “She was about to leave. I was just starting to ring her purchase up.”

Betsy said, “Then I’m glad I came back in time, Ms. Moreham.”

“Please, call me Randi.”

“All right. Randi. Can you wait another few minutes while I take something down to the basement?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.” Betsy took the plastic bag of dyed yarn downstairs and came back up. She said, “You do know that if you have any information about Hailey Brent, you should talk to Sergeant Mike Malloy over at the police station.”

“He’s already talked to me,” said Randi. She was a very slender woman probably in her early or middle thirties. “But I think I also should talk with you. Can I sit down first? These shoes are killing my feet.” Her narrow feet were encased in extremely high heels.

“Certainly. May I get you a cup of tea, or coffee?” Crewel World offered free coffee or tea to paying customers as a perk.