Monica Ferris - A Murderous Yarn

“I imagine he was pretty angry with you.”

“I imagine he was. The truth can hurt.”

“Are you going to buy the Fuller from Charlotte?”

“Yes, if she offers it for sale. And if I’m not in prison, convicted of murdering Bill.”

“You think that’s possible?”

“Ms. Devonshire, anything’s possible. I’ve been reading about those convicts on death row they’re finding didn’t do it after all, and let me tell you, it’s keeping me up at night.”

“Minnesota doesn’t have the death penalty.”

“If they did, I’d’ve moved to Costa Rica by now.”

Soon they turned onto County 11 and a few miles later entered Litchfield. It was a small city with a really wide main street which put Betsy in mind of some New England towns she’d visited long ago. They’d passed a few of the slower antique cars along the way, but Lars’s Stanley was already parked at the top of the street that bordered a pretty little park. He was making some arcane adjustment to the valves when Betsy came up to him.

“Were you the first to arrive?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied, a little too carelessly.

“Where’s Jill?”

“Over in the museum.” He nodded his head sideways and Betsy looked over at a modest building with a Civil War era cannon in front of it. “I went in with her, but it’s just some old pictures and stuff, so I got bored after a while and decided to check my pilot light. If I leave the pilot light on, it keeps a head of steam on and I can start ’er right up.”

Betsy said, “How long before you want to start back?”

“Oh, anytime you two are ready. I proved my point today already, and I’ll take her easy on the trip back, so she’ll be in good trim for tomorrow.” And a big, confident grin spread all over his face.

The main room on the first floor of the museum was devoted mostly to enlarged photographs of every Litchfield man who had served in the Civil War. There were about twenty, most of them with names like Svenson and Larson and Pedersen. Brief bios under the oval frames indicated some had been in America only a year or two before marching off to war. Betsy found herself touching the frame around the solemn face of a young man who hadn’t been in Minnesota long enough to learn English, but had died at Bull Run, age twenty.

Elsewhere on the ground floor was a small collection of dresses from the 1890s. The pride of the collection was made of light green silk, all ruffles and gathers and ruching, worn by a bride at her wedding. It must have been put away carefully, since it showed few signs of wear or fading. But the dress was on a mannequin from the midtwentieth century, when notions of what made a woman’s form beautiful were quite different. The dress wasn’t designed for a cantilevered bosom, and the mannequin, despite a look of cool indifference, looked as if she would have preferred a pair of pedal pushers and a sleeveless shirt, maybe with a Peter Pan collar.

Betsy went upstairs and found Jill wandering among a large collection of toys. There were electric trains and windup cars and dolls in great variety. “I used to have a doll just like that,” said Betsy, pointing to a doll with a composition head and cloth body. “It makes me feel old to see it in a museum.”

“Maybe you are old,” said Jill, deadpan.

“Oh, yeah? Look over there,” retorted Betsy, pointing at a Barbie doll. “I bet you had one of those.”

“You want to know the truth? I didn’t. My mother didn’t like dolls that looked like miniature grownups, and anyway, I preferred baby dolls or little kid dolls. My favorite doll was Poor Pitiful Pearl-remember her?”

“Gosh, yes! She made me think of Wednesday Addams. Remember the old television show? Biddle-dee-boop! ” She snapped her fingers twice. “Biddle-dee-boop!” Snap, snap.

Jill smiled. “Did you get to ride with Adam Smith?”

“Yes, from Pine Grove to here. Jill, you should see his car, it’s a 1911 Renault sport touring car seventeen feet long. Gorgeous, gorgeous car, rides like a limo. It’s right out front, he parked behind the Stanley.”

“How fast does it go?”

“Around fifty.”

“Rats, we’d better get back to Lars.” Jill started for the stairs.

“Why?” asked Betsy, hurrying to keep up.

“Because when he finds out how fast that car is, he’ll go nuts waiting for us. Let’s go!”

Sure enough, Lars was in a fever to be gone. “Smith already left in his blue yacht. That Renault’s hot, and he doesn’t have to stop for water.”

“You got steam?” asked Jill.

“Yes, yes, yes, let’s go!”

Betsy grumbled, climbing into the back seat, “This is not a race, you know.”

“Well, of course it isn’t!” said Lars. “Otherwise we’d be lined up at a starting line so’s everyone would leave at the same time. Which way out of town?”

“We’re not going out of town, we’re supposed to go someplace around here for lunch.”

“Jill, we don’t have time for lunch!”

Betsy said, “But I’m hungry.”

Jill said, “Me, too. And anyway, it’s included in the entry fee.”

Jill was not a little woman, but Lars was very large, and when he turned toward her, his expression angry, he seemed very intimidating. But she had that special look of her own, one that simply absorbed his anger and frustration, giving nothing back and leaving him deflated. He sighed, “Oh, well, what the hell. Which way?”

“Go to the corner and turn right. Go one block and turn left on Sibley.”

“Right,” said Lars, settling himself in the driver’s seat. He opened the throttle about a third of the way, and the Stanley obediently pulled smoothly away. Lars appeared resigned to lunch, but as they rounded the corner at the end of the block, the car let loose a loud and angry Whooooo, whoo-whoo! , making pedestrians jump and stare. Some waved, laughing at their own surprise. One exception was a young man standing in the dark, wet ruins of a two-liter bottle of Coke. His gesture was unkind.

Jill read instructions until they were safely parked at Peters on the Lake. “ ‘Please remember to order from the Antique Car menu,’ ” she concluded.

“Hey, Smith is here, too,” said Lars, nodding at the long and beautiful Renault parked in a distant and shady corner.

“Wow,” said Jill, pausing to stare.

“Come on,” said Lars. “Let’s order sandwiches to go.”

“We will sit at a table and eat like civilized persons,” said Jill.

Lars sighed, but said nothing, not even when Jill asked for soup and a salad.

They joined Adam Smith, who greeted Betsy warmly and shook hands with Lars and Jill. Betsy said, “Are you giving someone a ride back?”

Adam said, “No, but if you’d care to join me again, that would be great.”

Jill gave Betsy an encouraging look, but Betsy said, “No, I think I’ll stay with the Stanley.” The fact that he was unafraid to answer more of her questions meant either that he had no guilty knowledge or was very confident of his answers.

In another few minutes more people joined them, and the talk became strictly about the cars. Betsy listened anyway, hoping to pick up something useful.

Mike Jimson grumped to Adam, “I took your advice and resleeved the number two cylinder. I thought the rod was rapping, but you were right, it was the piston slapping. The clearance was great. I don’t know why it was doing that.”

The man beside Mike was saying, “That damn foot brake locks. I use it and I got to stop and release it by hand, so I was taking my foot off the gas and yanking on the hand brake, and be dipped if it don’t work like a charm, finished the run, and got my fourth medallion.”