Cutwork (26 page)

“Isn’t that cheating, to do something over again?”

“I don’t think so. That artist who just paints his canvases all one color does that over and over. And museums just keep buying them. But . . .” She sighed. “Ian doesn’t want to prostitute his art—that’s what he calls it. He says he wants to move on to the next level.”

“A kinetic sculpture of you.”

“Well . . . Well, yes, that’s right, isn’t it? I wonder what it will look like?” Shelly did a few waltz steps, arms up and around an imaginary partner. “I shall inspire him to new heights.”

Bing!
A customer came in, and Shelly fell back to earth to help her find a wedding sampler. Betsy went back to stitching.

Now that she’d reeducated her fingers and was satisfied she could maintain a high level of sameness in the stitches, she could relax and get into the movement. As with knitting, the repetition took only a fraction of her concentration and the rest of her mind began to stroll through the furniture of this murder case. It studied the shapes and decided what went with what—and found a lot was missing.

For example, she didn’t know much about the actual murder. Perhaps she should talk to Deb Hart, who had run the Art on the Lake fair for many years. Deb might know if there had been any previous trouble at Rob McFey’s booth. For example, Sunday was the second day of the art fair. Had there been any trouble on Saturday? Had Banner Wilcox come by to make threats? Had Rob told anyone he was expecting trouble?

And was Banner really a nice little man, full of sound and fury but ineffective in action?

What was the relationship between Ian Masterson and Rob McFey? By Shelly’s description, Ian was indeed well on his way to becoming an Important Artist, so how come he stayed friends with Rob after he realized Rob wasn’t able to help him with publicity? Nice that he had, of course, because he was able to help Rob by buying that viatical—and could afford to wait for the payoff. Had someone helped Ian when he was starting out, so that he thought it worth his while to do the same for others? Kind of nice to know he wasn’t entirely self-centered, that he was a man who, having attained a high plateau, reached down to help others in their struggle to climb up.

Unfortunate that Rob McFey hadn’t lived to realize his own dream of fame.

Or had he been happy where he was, selling at art fairs? Betsy, through her volunteer work at Excelsior’s art fair, knew there were many who were content to travel from fair to fair, rubbing elbows with the general public, making them happy to take home something to ornament their houses.

Of course, Irene Potter, Excelsior’s zaniest stitching artist, wasn’t one of them. She had thought she would like selling at the fair, but she had only the smallest understanding of how other people’s minds worked, and was always surprised by their vagaries. She was, however, so prodigiously talented with her needlework, that soon her contact with everyday people anxious—or not (and that was always to her amusingly great surprise)—to buy her work would be minimal. But Betsy was glad she was at this last fair, because her telling Betsy what she had seen that Sunday morning was very helpful.

It supported her theory that Mickey Sinclair had come upon the murder scene right after it had happened, and had taken the money from the cash box left helpfully visible. And if that was so, maybe he had come there so promptly he had seen something useful. Or someone. She would have to go see him again and ask.

Once she started considering, there were a lot of questions she needed to ask. This case was like the cutwork she was trying to master, full of holes. Bad choice of comparison, she thought with a grimace, remembering how Rob McFey had died.

Tomorrow was her day off, but the major restocking of her refrigerator and linen closet she had planned would have to wait. It was time to go talk to people.

17

After the shop closed, Betsy phoned the Wilcox home. Wilcox was puzzled when she said she wasn’t with the police but wanted to talk to him about Rob McFey’s murder anyway.

“Why, what’s your interest in this? Are you a reporter?” His voice was pleasant but high-pitched.

“No, sir, I’m doing an investigation on my own, as a private citizen. I talked with Skye McFey today, and—”

“How is Skye?” he interrupted, sounding concerned.

“She’s sad about her father, of course, but otherwise seems to be coping.”

“Poor kid. She was her daddy’s little girl, and he was crazy about her.”

“Yes, I’ve gathered that. She’s an intelligent young woman. She said I should talk to you, and I wonder what you’re doing tomorrow.”

“Well, ordinarily I might say it’s none of your business what I’m doing tomorrow.” Betsy crossed her fingers. “But since Skye said I should talk to you, all right. Still, tomorrow I’ve got three job interviews, the first one around ten and the last around three. How about day after tomorrow?”

“No, tomorrow would be best. May I take you to lunch?”

“No, I’ll be on the road at lunchtime. But say, how about breakfast?”

“All right, where should we meet?”

“No, you come over to my house.”

Betsy hesitated. “Well, I’d be all right with that but I wouldn’t want to make extra trouble for your wife.”

He replied, with a smile in his voice, “It won’t put Peg out; I cook breakfast most mornings. Are you lactose intolerant? I make a mean pancake.”

“No,” said Betsy. “And I love pancakes.”

So around seven the next morning, Betsy came into the sweet-smelling kitchen of a little white house in Edina. Banner was a trim, short man, seriously balding, with pale blue eyes behind rimless eyeglasses. He had a spatula in one hand and an apron protecting his good charcoal gray slacks. He wore a T-shirt, and Betsy noted there were no love handles.

He greeted her in his light, Father Mulcahy voice and led her into the kitchen. His wife was standing near a French window, a cup of coffee in her hand. She was a tiny creature, with graying blond hair cropped very short, and very pretty blue eyes.

“Hello, Ms. Devonshire,” she said in a voice made more pleasant by a Georgia drawl. “I’m Peggy Wilcox.”

The kitchen had recently been expanded; it was bigger than the living room. It had stainless steel appliances, quarrystone counters, and a tile floor—a he-man kitchen. It smelled deliciously of coffee, pancakes, and spiced apples.

Banner seated Betsy at an oak breakfast bar and presented her with a plate of hot pancakes pulled from the warming oven and gave her a choice of syrups or apples cooked with cinnamon. Betsy chose the latter.

Peggy sat down to a quarter of a pancake and reached across to fill the cup waiting by Betsy’s plate. “I’ll just finish up and leave you two alone.” She took a bite, drained her cup, and with an enigmatic glance at her husband, went away.

Banner piled a great heap of pancakes onto his plate and, when he came to the table, poured lots of blueberry syrup on them. He filled his cup from the pot on the table, added sugar and cream, and sat down. “I’m gifted with a pretty active metabolism,” he said, gesturing at the plate. “I was the skinniest kid in my class right through college, even though I ate everything I could sink my teeth into.” He cut into his pancakes with his fork and took a big mouthful.

Betsy cut off a bite and sank her teeth into a lightweight sweetness of apples and pastry. She chewed, swallowed, and said, “Gosh!” Then, “Have you always liked to cook?”

He grinned, showing blue teeth, and said, “No, but if I wanted something good, I had to make it myself. Peg is a terrific wife everywhere but in the kitchen.”

Betsy tasted her coffee, which proved to be industrial strength, but not bitter. “I told you I was investigating Rob McFey’s murder,” she said. “And I want to ask you about him.”

He cut viciously into his stack, saying, “I wanted to kill him.” He glanced at her, saw her raised eyebrows. He nodded sharply and continued, “I even bought a gun. If someone hadn’t got there ahead of me, I might have. That bastard, excuse my French, ruined me.”

“Were you on bad terms before he sold Information Please?”

“Hell, no! We were good friends for years, we’d started about the same time at Barton-Bailey and worked accounts together. It was his idea to start our own company, but I was glad to go along. I was management and accounting, he was sales and design. We had six employees and were looking for a seventh. The company was strong, we had some really satisfied accounts and were about to pick up another one, when he got sick. And all of a sudden he wasn’t interested anymore. It was like, ‘You know, I never liked this business.’” Banner said that in a slow, thoughtful, mocking voice. “I couldn’t believe it. He worked harder than anyone else, even me—and I
did
like the business.”

“I understand he drank a lot.”

“Well, yes. Yes, he did. But he’d always done that, even back at B and B. I never saw him under the table, or even drunk enough that I was afraid to let him drive home by himself. He had what my father used to call a hollow leg—he could drink a great deal and not show any effect. He was a great salesman, everyone looked forward to his presentations. He’d have clients and staff laughing like maniacs. Everyone liked him. I liked him—hell, I
loved
him. He took me places I never thought we could go. We were a success, a big, fat success. Then—” He snapped his fingers. “He didn’t like advertising anymore, he’d never liked advertising, he wanted to carve statues out of wood and sell them at street fairs like a goddam hippie.”

“He thought he was dying and wanted to follow his dream.”

Banner nodded and ate more pancake. “I know, I know,” he said to his plate, shrugging. “But so what? If I found out I was dying tomorrow—well, right now it wouldn’t be the great tragedy I would’ve thought it was back when I was vice president of Information Please. But still, I would remember my responsibilities, to my family and fellow workers.” He swallowed, looked a bit distant for a moment, then recalled himself with another little shrug. “It was a sad day when we got the news. Poor Rob, I thought, what a tragedy. He’s just hitting his stride with the company. We’d gone public, you know, and our stock was up a few points damn near every day the market was open. We’d been getting offers from Makejoy and ignoring them, but Rob got sick and suddenly things were different. He went to talk to them and came back all enthusiastic about how great they were, what a great offer they were making, how well we’d do if we accepted their offer. And I, like the gullible idiot I can be at times, believed him.” His voice turned bitter. “I got screwed. I had put all my eggs into the Information Please basket, and it worked extremely well for me. So I transferred them to Makejoy—and lost it all.” He took a deep breath, let it loose, and took a drink of coffee.

“So you were angry.”

“Aren’t you listening? I repeat, I was so mad I wanted to kill him.” He drew another long breath. “I decided I
was
going to kill him.”

Betsy, startled, said, “Did you say—what?”

“I mean it, I had made up my mind. Skye told me he was going to be at the Excelsior art fair, and I loaded my gun.”

“And—so, did you?” Betsy hoped she didn’t sound as frightened as she felt, sitting alone in the kitchen with this man.

“No, I didn’t. Peg found the gun and hid it on me.”

Betsy released the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and blurted, “God bless Peg!”

“Amen,” he replied. “But I only say that now. Back then, I was furious, because I really meant to blow that bastard to hell. But I couldn’t find the gun. I couldn’t believe she’d do that to me, keep me from committing justice on Rob. That’s how I thought of it, y’know, not committing murder, but committing justice.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went to Excelsior. I went into the park and I walked by his booth about three times, gave him the evil eye. He only saw me once, and the jerk actually smiled and waved at me. Then I came home.”

“What time of day did you see him?”

“About two, I think.”

Betsy frowned. “No, no, he was dead by then.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was killed on Sunday, I went down there on Saturday.”

“Oh. Oh! Where were you Sunday?”

He had been about to take a drink of coffee, but froze, and then put it down again and turned a megawatt smile on her. “So
that’s
what this is about, huh? On Sunday I was in church, trying to get sorry for hating him so much. I thought I’d failed, but my first reaction when I heard he was dead was, ‘Oh, my God, how dreadful.’”

“What time was church?”

The smile did not dim. “Nine A.M., lasted forty minutes, with a coffee hour after.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“Lots of people. Friends, many of them. I can make you a list, if you want.”

 
A little after ten, Betsy walked three blocks up Water Street from Lake Street to Deb Hart’s artist supply store. The sky was overcast in a glaring white, the air hot, motionless, oppressive with humidity. Betsy walked slowly, trying not to work up a sweat, trying not to be both disappointed and relieved that Banner Wilcox wasn’t guilty of murder.

Artworks was in a twin-shop, single-story building. On the corner, an old gas station had been converted to a small office building. Next to it was a tiny park in front of a parking lot, where a farmers’ market was held on Thursdays. This arrangement left the side of Artworks exposed to view. On it was a mural in Impressionist style. It depicted an artist painting a pond covered with water lilies—Monet, of course! The mural was done in cool purples, blues, and greens, and looked very inviting. Betsy, imagining cool things, told herself that one day she’d go wading in that pond looking for Impressionistic frogs and turtles. That thought made her smile. She had a special fondness for frogs and turtles, and had made a number of them live an unhappy week or two as captives during her childhood.

The front window of the store had a large artist’s mannequin in wood and wire, the hands suggested by mitten-shaped pieces, the face a flat blank. Today it was dressed in a child’s straw hat and carrying a seashore bucket. Betsy went into the little entryway and turned left—turning right would have led her into Cynthia Rae’s dress shop.