Monica Ferris - A Murderous Yarn

The fifth book in the Needlecraft Mysteries series, 2002

There really is an Antique Car Run from New London to New Brighton in Minnesota every summer, except it’s held in August, not June. The members of the club, especially Jim and Dorothy Vergin and Ed Walhof, were incredibly helpful to me, patient with my ignorance, generous with information-even letting me ride in their cars. So if there’s an error in this novel, it’s my own fault for not listening more carefully. I would also like to thank Gene Grengs for letting me see how to start a Stanley Steamer, Pat Farrel out in Washington State for telling me how to use a Stanley to run down an SUV, and Fred Abbott out in Washington State for letting me “borrow” his magnificent 1912 Renault Sport Touring Car.

The shops Stitchville USA and Needlework Unlimited helped me keep on track with the details of Betsy’s Crewel World, and the Internet news group RCTN again proved reliable when I had questions or problems or needed a good idea.

Spring came early to Excelsior that year. Everyone remarked that there had been no hard freezes since the fifth of March. The ice on Lake Minnetonka was rotten and great puddles gleamed like quicksilver on it. It was not yet St. Patrick’s Day but the robins were back, mourning doves were sobbing, and daffodils budded in south-facing flower beds. Only yesterday, Betsy had been delighted to find a great wash of purple crocuses pushing through the flat layers of dead leaves on the steep, tree-strewn slope behind her apartment building.

She had noticed the rich purple color while taking out the trash. It had been the one good thing about the task. On that same trip, her vision downward blocked by boxes and black plastic bags, she had nearly fallen into one of the yawning potholes that menaced traffic in her small parking lot. And she’d had to put everything down while she struggled with the Dumpster’s creaking lid, so rusted around the hinges it resisted being lifted.

How wonderful it would be, she had thought, to bring the trash out to the front sidewalk on Wednesdays for someone else to pick up and carry away. Even better, to dig up the crumbled blacktop parking lot, put in some topsoil, and plant tulips and bleeding hearts and old-fashioned varieties of roses, the kind whose scent lay heavy on the air in summer. And at the back, a row of benches under trellises covered alternately with honeysuckle and morning glories, to draw butterflies and hummingbirds. She’d stood beside the homely Dumpster for a minute, inhaling imaginary sweet-smelling air.

But her tenants’ leases promised each a parking space and a container to put their refuse in any day of the week. She had been dismayed to discover how expensive it was to rent the Dumpster, and to have it emptied weekly. And by the estimate for resurfacing the parking lot. Being a landlord wasn’t solely about collecting rents.

Now, the next morning, she sighed over her abysmal willingness to leap into things without first learning the consequences. She should have let Joe keep this moldy old building with its leaky roof, potholed parking lot, and rusty Dumpster. It was enough trouble keeping her small needlework shop from bankruptcy.

Her cat interrupted her musings by asking “A-row?” from a place between Betsy and the door. Was it time to go to work? the cat wanted to know. Sophie liked the needlework shop and yearned to spend even more hours in it. Up here, she got a little scoop of Iams Less Active twice a day. Down in the shop, ah, in the shop were potato chips and fragments of chocolate bars and who knew what other treats. Only this last Saturday, she’d garnered a paw-size hunk of bagel spread with strawberry cream cheese, which she’d sneaked into the back room and eaten to the last crumb-a pleasant victory, since her mistress had a distressing habit of snatching delicacies away before the cat got more than one tooth into them. Sophie weighed twenty-two pounds and was as determined to hang on to every ounce as her mistress was to make her svelte.

Yesterday, Sunday, the shop had been closed. Sophie had not had so much as a corner of dry toast. Now, when Betsy put her empty tea mug into the sink, Sophie hurried ahead to the door.

They went down the stairs to the ground floor, around to an obscure door near the back wall, through it, and down a narrow hallway to the back door into the shop. Sophie waited impatiently for her mistress to unlock the door.

Godwin was already in the shop. To Sophie’s delight, he had a greasy, cholesterol-laden bacon and egg McMuffin. He was seated at the library table with it and a mug of coffee. While Betsy put the startup cash in the register, Sophie quietly went to touch him on the left shin to let him know where she was. As quietly, Godwin dropped a small piece of buttered muffin with a bit of egg clinging to it, confident it would never touch the carpet.

“Hey, Goddy!” said Betsy, slamming the drawer shut.

“Hmmm?” he said, startled into a too-perfect look of innocence.

“Remind me to call that blacktop company again this morning, will you?”

“Certainly,” he said, and when she began to check an order he’d made out, he dropped another morsel.

An hour later, Betsy was putting together a display of small kits consisting of a square of tan or pale green linen; lengths of green, pink, yellow, wine, dark gold, and brown floss; a pattern of tulips in a basket; and a needle. She had made up the kits herself, putting each into a clear plastic bag with daffodils printed on it, tied shut with curly yellow ribbon. She was arranging the kits, priced at seven dollars, in a pretty white basket beside a pot of real tulips and a finished model of the pattern, still in its little Q-snap holder. A stack of little Q-snaps, which had been selling poorly, waited suggestively close to the basket.

Godwin, meanwhile, had clamped a Dazor magnifying light to the library table in the middle of the shop, and was fastening the electric cord to the carpet with long strips of duct tape.

At home on Sunday, Betsy had put together another little basket with illustrations of various stitches, threaded needles, and an assortment of fabrics, so that customers could try these things before buying, or get Godwin’s help in doing an elaborate needlepoint stitch. The Dazor was there to help them see more clearly-and if the customer was delighted at how bright and clear things appeared under the Dazor, Betsy had several of the lights all boxed up in the back room.

Betsy had recently visited Zandy’s in Burnsville, where the owner had a similar setup. Zandy had told Betsy that she sold at least one Dazor a month. Betsy had sold two Dazors since she took over Crewel World nine months ago. Even at wholesale, the lights were expensive and a burden on the shop’s inventory.

Godwin stood up with a grunt, and brushed a fragment of dust from his beautiful lightweight khaki trousers. “That should keep people from tripping,” he said. “What’s next?”

“Pat Ingle brought a model to me in church on Sunday,” said Betsy. “Here it is. We’ll need to find space for it on the wall in back.”

“Oh, it’s The Finery of Nature!” said Godwin, going to look. “Gosh, look at it! Seeing it for real makes me wish I did counted cross stitch myself!”

And that was the purpose of models. Crewel World sold all kinds of needlework, but counted cross stitch patterns needed, more than any other, the impact of the finished product to inspire needleworkers to buy. Betsy had devoted the entire back of her shop to cross-stitch, and the walls there were covered with framed models. But as new patterns arrived and old ones went out of print, a steady trickle of new models was needed.