Sins and Needles (19 page)

Bobby Lee shot Lucille a glance full of meaning. “I don't think the purpose of our coming up here is any business of yours.”

“It is if it involves Edyth Hanraty or any of her heirs.”

“Who's Edyth Hanraty?”

“Jan Henderson's great-aunt. And a victim of a homicide.”

“If you're thinking we had anything to do with that, you're nuts.”

“I don't know who had anything to do with it, but if your wife is correct—that is, if she is Susan McConnell's daughter—she is in line to inherit a great deal of money.”

“Really? How much money?”

Lucille sighed; any mention of money could turn her husband's mind in an instant.

“That has yet to be determined. On the other hand, you might be aware that a person responsible for another person's demise cannot inherit anything from the decedent.”

“Well, we're not responsible. Okay? And that's the end of the story, as far as I'm concerned. I'd like you to leave now.” He went to the door, which Lucille had closed, and opened it again.

Rice gave him a long, considering look, but then went out. Bobby Lee slammed it shut and turned on his wife. “How much did you tell him?” he demanded.

 

A
T
closing time, Godwin picked up the plastic bag that held the stinky pillow Jan had brought in. “What's this?” he asked.

“Something a customer wants restored,” said Betsy. “No, don't look at it. It smells to high heaven and probably has fleas, among other mouse leavings, all over it.”

“Oh, ish!” He put it down hastily. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Take it down in the basement and put it in that big chest freezer for a couple of days. That'll take care of the livestock and most of the smell. Then we'll see.”

R
ICE
climbed into his car thinking,
Lucille Jones was lying to me, but Bobby Lee Jones has an attitude problem.
Rice knew that the difference between people in need of an attitude adjustment and people with felony problems was not always immediately apparent. He would know more soon enough. He'd already made a note to contact Houston PD to see if either Jones had a record.

After a quick lunch at McDonald's, he stopped at Excelsior PD and sat down with Sergeant Mike Malloy. Malloy worked out of a little office he shared with a fellow detective, who was out somewhere, so Rice took his office chair. “This Hanraty case may involve two more people in Excelsior than Jan Henderson,” he said, over a cup of coffee that he'd raised from awful to merely bad with two teaspoons of sugar and a big dollop of milk.

“Yeah, who?” Malloy asked, taking a gulp of his coffee without even wincing.

“A husband and wife, up from Houston. Lucille and Bobby Lee Jones. Lucille is trying to convince Ms. Henderson that she's a long-lost sister.”

Malloy snorted. “I think I once saw a silent movie with that plot.”

“You probably did,” nodded Rice. “But this claim has a modern twist. Ms. Jones says she has DNA evidence that backs her claim.”

Malloy put his mug down, surprised. “Jones really is Henderson's sister?”

“That has not yet been proved beyond a doubt. When I took a family history from Ms. McConnell, she never mentioned a daughter she gave up. But there's a rare genetic twist in Jones's genes that she shares with Ms. Henderson. And Ms. Henderson is going to ask her mother to submit to a DNA test that could disprove the connection for sure.”

Malloy nodded. “All right, that's sensible. So what's the big deal that's got you interested?”

“Miss Hanraty wrote a will dividing her estate among her female relatives, but only those descended from her sister's daughters and their daughters. So her nephew, Stewart, gets zilch and so do his four girls. But this woman, if she
is
Susan McConnell's daughter, gets a full share, and the amount may be in the millions.”

Malloy's full attention was captured now. “Is there some way to fake a DNA test?”

“I don't see why you can't forge one, or put someone else's name on the results of a test you like, but you can bet the parties involved in this upcoming one will be watching the process like hawks. Lucille Jones claims she never knew about Edyth Hanraty until after the murder, but she and her husband arrived here before it happened, and her alibi is as thin as tissue paper. Plus, the murder weapon appears to be a very thin knitting needle, and Ms. Jones is a knitter.”

Malloy made a whistling shape with his lips. “You like her for this?”

“Yes, I do. She's had medical training, and she didn't know Edyth Hanraty as a person like these other people do. Murdering a stranger for a couple million is a lot easier than murdering an aunt who used to give you boat rides on the lake.”

 

R
ICE
went straight from the cop shop to Crewel World. There he found Betsy deeply involved in a discussion of gauge for knitting felted slippers, so he turned to her employee, a medium-short male with very light brown hair and pale blue eyes that lit up when he saw the detective. Rice became left-handed long enough for the man to get an eyeful of his wedding band, and the twinkle died.

“May I help you?” asked the young man.

“I am Sergeant Mitchell Rice, Orono Police—”

“Oh, you're investigating Edyth Hanraty's murder! How interesting to meet you! I'm Godwin, Betsy's Vice President in Charge of Operations here at Crewel World, Incorporated.”

Rice grinned, he couldn't help it. “Nice to meet you.”

“I assume you want to talk to Ms. Devonshire,” he said in a confidential tone.

“Why would you assume that?”

“Well, you certainly don't want to talk to me—do you?” The twinkle was back.

“No, I don't. Unless you can tell me if she's been conducting her own investigation.”

Godwin started to say something but changed his mind. “I think you should talk directly to her. Hearsay and all that.” He nodded wisely.

“Fine. When she's finished with her customer.”

It was nearly five minutes before Ms. Devonshire ushered her customer to the door. “I don't care,” the woman said as she departed. “No more felting. This time, my husband can wear the slippers I made for myself, so I'm glad I didn't knit them in pink.”

Betsy laughed, then turned to look at her latest visitor. “Sergeant Rice,” she greeted him. “Are you here to buy another set of knitting needles?”

“No. I've just come from talking with Lucille Jones and her husband. I was wondering if you'd been talking with her.”

“Yes, I have.”

“About what?”

“About why she believes Jan Henderson is her sister.”

“Did she show you any proof of that?”

“No.”

“Do you believe her?”

“Yes. That is, I believe she had a DNA test performed that proved, to her own satisfaction, that Jan is her sister. Whether that is true, I don't know.”

“When did you first see Lucille?”

“Two—no, three Sundays ago. She came to my church and we shook hands. But it wasn't until the next morning, when she came into my shop and I mistook her for Jan Henderson that I saw the resemblance.” Betsy frowned. “She had her hair up on that Sunday, and Jan is a Methodist, so Lucille was…out of context, I guess is the best way to describe it, so I didn't notice then how much the two of them look alike.”

“Jan is a regular customer?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, I was expecting her that morning.”

“You know Sergeant Mike Malloy?”

“Yes, I do.”

“He told me you sometimes conduct amateur investigations and that you are often successful.”

Betsy looked both surprised and pleased. “How flattering of Mike to say that. He doesn't approve of amateurs, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Rice, rather more warmly than he meant to. Amateurs were foolish, dangerous, and disruptive. “But he said you get results. I was hoping you could tell me something helpful about the Joneses.”

“I don't know much, not yet.”

“What do you make of her?”

“She's very likable—but she wants to be liked. She hopes she belongs to the McConnell family, so she's grabbing onto every sign that she and Jan share more than just physical traits. It may merely be that she's eager to belong to this family. Of course, there is a lot of money to be had if she
is
Susan's daughter. I just don't know. I feel sorry for her; it must be hard to learn the people you thought were your blood parents aren't.” The look in Ms. Devonshire's eyes was thoughtful and compassionate.

“Have you met Mr. Jones?”

“Just briefly, not long enough to form an opinion.”

But there was something in the way she said it that made him ask, “Still, what do you think?”

“Well, I hope you aren't confining your investigation to Lucille. As her husband, he has a lot to gain, too. He is a surgical nurse, so I assume he, even more than she, might know where to put a thin, pointed steel wire so it would stop someone's heart.”

Rice thanked her and left. He had already made a note to see if either Lucille or Bobby Lee Jones were known to the Houston police, but that was because Bobby Lee had been hinky as a cat with a feather in its mouth back there at the cabin. Funny that Betsy Devonshire had come to that same conclusion—and not in a haphazard way at all.

 

B
ETSY'S
freezer was a holdover from when her sister Margot had owned the shop and lived in the apartment above it. It was enormous; God knew what Margot kept in it. Betsy put her Christmas goose in it and the occasional roast or leg of lamb too big for her freezer upstairs; but mostly she kept it for the use of her tenants.

And this. She lifted the freezer's thick lid and pulled out a big blue plastic box, which contained the white plastic garbage bag with the damaged pillow. Betsy put a layer of newspapers into the deep sink and opened the bag. The bad smell was all but gone. She lifted out the pillow. It wasn't big, about fourteen inches long by nine or ten inches high. The top was a knitted pattern of a flag, but the colors had washed to a dull blue, a pinky maroon, and a dingy white. The pillow had been about four inches thick, its sides and back made of cotton duck, once perhaps light blue or even white, now a dull gray color. The bottom and one side leaked batting from large, ragged holes.

Betsy went into a pocket and pulled out the rubber gloves she kept in her kitchen. She grasped some of the batting and began to pull. She cleared a hollow inside the pillow but was reluctant to reach too far inside, where there were likely tiny corpses of fleas and who knew what else? Maybe bigger corpses of baby mice. She went back to her apartment for a seam ripper.

The thread that had been used to sew up the seams was tough but old, and soon she had opened all of one narrow side and half of an adjoining longer side. When she emptied the batting onto the newspapers, she was glad she hadn't put her finger inside. No baby mice, but lots of their leavings. With a grimace of distaste, she wadded up the newspapers and pushed them into the plastic bag the pillow had come in.

Then she turned the pillow inside out. It had a fabric lining, but the maker apparently had chosen to use some old embroidery because there was a good amount of freehand stitching on it. Whether it was a practice piece or something else was impossible to tell, because the front was facing the flag. The back of the cloth was like a web of floss made by a drunken spider, a sign of a careless or novice stitcher, who had carried the thread over to another area to be done in the same color, rather than tucking it into nearby stitching and cutting it off. Betsy smiled at this very personal evidence of a stitcher's method. But what was on the other side? The edge of the lining had come loose when Betsy ripped open the seam, so she turned it inside out.

Protected all these years from light, the colors of the threads on the fabric were bright and fresh. The piece appeared to depict a seashore scene as seen from the sky. There were waves indicated by upside down blue Vs and dashed lines of green to show a grassy shore. A tiny sailboat and larger powerboat plowed through the Vs. There were a few buildings along the shore—hold on, here was a building Betsy recognized: The Lafayette Club. This wasn't a view of a seashore, but of Lake Minnetonka. Not the entire lake, just a portion. Near the bottom was Excelsior, marked by what was probably supposed to be a roller coaster—this map must be from back when there was an amusement park along the shore of Excelsior Bay. So over here was the Big Island, with details too small to make out.

Betsy took the emptied pillow upstairs, into her apartment's living room. She turned on her Dazor magnifying light and held the stitched map—for so she now thought of it—under the powerful rectangular magnifying glass. There was a square-built house along the Crystal Bay shore that Betsy thought she remembered seeing from the road. Was that the Hanraty mansion?

And there were two cottages stitched on one side of the Big Island. Betsy knew there were more than two families who lived out there. Personally, she thought they were crazy, because there was no bridge to the shore. Residents had to use a boat in the summer and a snowmobile in the winter—but in the spring and fall, when the ice blocked boats but was too thin to support even foot travel, they were castaways.

Well, except that nowadays there were cell phones and television sets and radio and the Internet.

Holding her breath, Betsy bent over her Dazor lamp and saw, along a broad path—or perhaps it was a road—a red heart done in tiny, perfect satin stitches. The road continued past one of the cottages near the shore—a miniature dock was indicated, with a brown triangle indicating a boat tied up to it. A curl of smoke came out of the cabin's chimney.

The stitching on the map was clear but hasty, with uneven stitches and mismatched colors. And they'd run a bit—Jan had said the pillow was found in an old boat, so doubtless the pillow had been wet on occasion. But the artist was sure of her topic.

Around the edge of the map were small letters. On two sides they were partly hidden by the seam of the pillow, and on the third side, mice had chewed them away. Betsy's careless hand with the seam ripper had damaged the writing on the fourth side. Holding her breath again, she put the pillow under the magnifying light and turned it back on. “…there will your…” read one segment, and here, “…will your hear…” No, not hear, heart. She straightened a bit, took a deep breath, and bent over the light again. “…where your treasure…will your heart…” No good, no good! She let her breath out in a sigh of exasperation and tried again. Okay, it was something repeated, because the same phrases kept turning up. The chewed edge had almost no letters, but gently pulling at the sewed edges gave her some more letters. Yes!
Where your heart lies, there will your treasure be also.