Cutwork

Table of Contents

 

 

“Colorful and humorous . . . Instead of knitting on a Minnesota wintry night, [read this] perfect work.”

 
A MURDEROUS YARN

“A delightful cozy . . . Monica Ferris is a talented writer who knows how to keep the attention of her fans.”

 
UNRAVELED SLEEVE

“A comfortable fit for mystery readers who want to spend an enjoyable time with interesting characters.”

 
A STITCH IN TIME

“A fun read that baffles the reader with mystery and delights with . . . romance.”
—Romantic Times

 
FRAMED IN LACE

“An enjoyable, classy tale. Betsy is everyone’s favorite grandma, who proves life begins after fifty . . . Engaging . . . A fun-to-read story.”

 
CREWEL WORLD

“Filled with great small-town characters . . . A great time.”

 
“Fans of Margaret Yorke will relate to Betsy’s growth and eventual maturity . . . You need not be a needlecrafter to enjoy this delightful series debut.”
—Mystery Time

CREWEL WORLD
FRAMED IN LACE
A STITCH IN TIME
UNRAVELED SLEEVE
A MURDEROUS YARN
HANGING BY A THREAD
CUTWORK

 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 
CUTWORK

 
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with
the author

 
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / January 2004

 
Copyright © 2004 by Mary Monica Kuhfeld.

 
All rights reserved.
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Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014.

 
Visit our website at
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eISBN : 978-0-425-19389-1

Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing
Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME
CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 

I am exceedingly grateful to a lot of people who helped with the many details of this novel. Julie Norton designs and teaches Hardanger (and cutwork). Ivan Whillock taught me a lot about the art of carving wood. Tom Yarborough let me try his electric welding torch. A dear relation who wishes to remain anonymous explained to me how the world of modern art works. Deb Hart allowed me to “help” with Excelsior’s annual Art on the Lake fair so its details as presented here are mostly accurate. My writers’ group, Crème de la Crime, made me work really hard, for which I thank them. And Ellen Kuhfeld, as ever, did her wonderful “invisible editing,” thereby improving my reputation as a detail-oriented mystery novelist.

PROLOGUE

It was a few minutes after ten on a warm June Sunday. Art on the Lake, Excelsior’s annual art fair, had started yesterday, so those who simply had to come had already been; and the threatening weather today had made others decide to wait and see if it cleared. Still, it was a very popular fair in an attractive location; so when the rain started, there were several hundred shoppers wandering the outdoor aisles. Then thunder boomed and the aisles cleared as customers hustled into the nearest booths for shelter.

Betsy Devonshire was a member of the volunteer committee who ran the fair. A small-business owner, she’d really been pressed to find time for the planning meetings, and because her needlework shop was open on Saturdays, she had only Sunday to offer her services. Deb Hart, chairman of the fair, had been ruthless with her schedule. Betsy had been in the service building on The Common since daylight, which came very early in June. Artists could not open to the public until ten—but there was cleanup, rearranging, and restocking to do, the entertainers wanting to know where they could set up, and the food vendors needing to get cooking. Betsy had fielded a steady stream of artists and workers, coming for the free donuts and coffee she had laid out for them on the counter and to ask questions: Was it against local ordinances to—, could they run a line from—, was there a mechanic in town who could fix—, would she mind if the balloon artist stored his spare balloon inflater in here?

“Here” was the information booth in a corner of a brick building on the southwest corner of the big field in which the fair was held.

Betsy was surprised at the number of times she had to refill the urns and make more coffee.

But with the approach of ten o’clock and customers, the stream slowed to a trickle. Betsy unplugged and washed the coffee urns, put the six remaining donuts into a paper bag, then stocked a big refrigerator with soft drinks and the counter with T-shirts, both for sale to the public.

The intense downpour cooled the air but raised the humidity, and only dampened slightly the scent of broiled pork, popcorn, whipped fruit, hot dogs, blooming onions, and other delectables being sold from stands around the corner from her, out of sight but not nose.

Right in front of Betsy, glittering under a wash of rain, was a big red fire truck, the kind with a cubicle back end. It was at the fair as a boast and exhibit; the art fair was sponsored in part by the Excelsior Chamber of Commerce, and the fire truck was new. Despite the rain, a few adults stopped to show the truck to their children, and a fireman in a yellow raincoat and helmet answered questions.

Suddenly the fireman jerked around and hurried to the front of the truck. He climbed up and in and its engine roared to life. Adults and children scattered. A man appeared from the other side of the truck, hauling a toddler by his arm, splashing through a puddle hidden in the grass. No hard feelings; he laughed as he ran for the porch of Betsy’s building and the toddler, now over his shoulder like a sack of grain, was doing a happy imitation of the siren.

Instead of coming back past the building to the street, the fire truck did a Y turn and went forward, down between booths, past the little band shell, toward the lake. Shelter seekers in the shell waved as it went by, but Betsy frowned. The only place the fire truck could go from there was along the lakefront. Surely none of the artists’ booths could be on fire, not in this rain? So it must be a medical emergency. Here at the fair, or perhaps, thought Betsy, it’s headed for the docks where big excursion boats and smaller private craft tied up. People sometimes fell on wet decks, or had heart attacks lifting sails.

Betsy heard another siren approaching distantly. It got louder, then cut off. The sound seemed to come from the opposite end of the field, in the direction of the docks.

Here and there, artists or their assistants were braving the storm to check guy lines. One stood on tiptoe, then hurried back inside to push up on his sagging roof and dump water off it. Another was replacing short tent pegs with long ones, kneeling in a big puddle to feel for the ground, his wristwatch pushed up past his elbow. The faint “tink, tink, tink” of his hammer could be heard over the rain.

The booth at Betsy’s end of the row was a singleton, set apart from the others. The sides were rolled up all around and the artist was sitting in the very middle, on a wooden folding chair. She had a big artist’s sketch tablet braced on her lap, and was drawing swiftly. Caricatures hung all over the inside of her booth, but she didn’t have a customer at present. She seemed to be looking off toward the band shell, toward which another young man was wading. Betsy smiled; the little dog with him was swimming. Lightning cracked and thunder boomed, and the young man grabbed his dog by its collar and waded more swiftly for the band shell.

It rained hard for fifteen minutes, less hard for another ten, then the storm began to rumble north across the lake, headed for Wayzata, Saint Louis Park, and Minneapolis. A watery sun appeared, and everything sparkled as if freshly painted. The little crowd on the porch stepped out, looking upward, blinking in the sunlight, smiling at one another.

Betsy decided she needed a Diet Coke and was bent into the refrigerator for one when someone said in an excited voice, “Betsy, have you heard?”

Betsy looked around the refrigerator door to see Irene Potter looking wilder-eyed than usual, an accomplishment so unlikely that Betsy came to her at once. “Heard what, Irene? Is something wrong?” she asked.

“It’s Mr. McFey.” She added proudly, “I found him. I screamed so loud my throat still hurts. Did you hear me? I was really loud.”

“No. Why did you scream—Irene, what’s happened?” Betsy tried to think if she knew who Mr. McFey was. And suddenly remembered the fire truck going off in the wrong direction.

“I told you, it’s Mr. McFey. He’s dead.”

“Did he have a heart attack?”

Irene shook her head vigorously. “It was
murder,
” she said solemnly. She leaned closer, eyes gleaming. “I walked over to look at that carving he did of the lion, so powerful, and he wasn’t in there, which was wrong because the fair was opening, but then I saw blood, and then I saw him.” Her hands went over her nose and mouth, and froze like that a few seconds, until she made a snoring sound as she tried to take a breath through her fingers. She took her hands away, uncovering a mouth pursed into an O as round and nearly as small as her eyes, and took a deep breath. As she let it out, she whispered, “I have never seen anything like that. Ever, ever, ever. Poor man,” she added, an afterthought.

“Perhaps it was an accident of some kind,” said Betsy, not sure if she believed this strangely told story.

“Oh, no, no, no, no. Someone cut his throat.” She made the old-fashioned gesture for that, drawing a skinny forefinger across her own throat. “No one knows who did it. The police are there, but of course I thought of you. You will look into this, won’t you? It can’t go unpunished. Oh, he was
such
a good artist! His work,
so
magnificent,
such
a loss!” She rolled her eyes heavenward.