Blackwork (9 page)

“It’s very striking—” Betsy began.

“I’ve already turned it into a pattern,” Irene went on, talking over her and reaching into her bag and producing three sheets of stapled paper. “I think it should sell really well, particularly in this area, don’t you?”

Betsy felt a stir of anger. “What do you mean, ‘particularly in this area,’ Irene?”

“I mean, after what’s been going on in Excelsior, the falling fish and mysterious death and our very own witch living right in the midst of us.”

Betsy had to take two deep breaths before she could control her impulse to shout, so it was in a deadly calm voice that she asked, “Irene, did you call Leona Cunningham and accuse her of murder?”

“Oh, no, of course not! I would never do such a thing! How can you think I would do such a thing? I would never accuse her of anything! What if I was wrong? What if she recognized my voice? She might . . . cast a . . . do something . . .” Betsy was relieved to see Irene at last pick up the signals Betsy was sending. Her words stumbled and ran down into silence.

“Do you believe in witchcraft, Betsy?” she asked in a falsely cheerful voice.

“No, I do not. Do you?”

“Well, not really. I mean, there’s good witchcraft, right? Blessings and herbals and, and, and—
beer
! That sort of thing is real. But not curses and hexes and other black magic, that can’t be real. It’s just make-believe. That’s why we like Halloween nowadays, right? It’s just make-believe wickedness, like ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night, good Lord deliver us.” Irene gave a brief, high-pitched giggle. “Does this mean you aren’t going to sell my design in your sweet little shop?”

“Irene, this is a wonderful, powerful design,” Betsy said, hedging a bit. Not that it wasn’t true. “How did you find that perfect fabric?”

“I found it at Stitchers’ Heaven, that shop in Dinkytown that went out of business. Fifteen yards of white congress cloth at fifty cents a yard, would you believe it? Then I bought some pink dye, orange dye, and dark purple dye and played with the colors. I found that if you do small, concentrated batches, then thin it without stirring, you can take a paintbrush and kind of swoop it over the fabric and create these great effects. Like this sky. I did the pink first with just a tinge of orange, then the purple at the top. I was going to try for a sunset—do a little more gold with the pink and orange coming up from the bottom—but I liked this so much I stopped here. It looks like an
angry
sky, don’t you think? And all swirly, as if the wind is blowing a gale.”

Betsy nodded. “Yes, a very interesting effect.”

“And at first I just thought about a late-fall storm, but then all this business with Leona and Ryan happened, and I looked at my pattern and it simply
inspired
me!”

“To do the tree?”

“Oh, I was always going to do a tree, they are so interesting, don’t you think? Especially without their leaves. No, to do something . . . witchy.”

“So you do consider this piece a charge against Leona for trying to cast a spell on Ryan McMurphy.” Betsy tried to keep her voice calm.

Irene, oblivious, nodded. “Yes, of course. And on Adam Wainwright, too. But in a
fun
way, don’t you see?”

“Don’t you think that’s a cruel thing to do?”

“Well, it’s a joke, and jokes are almost always cruel, isn’t that so? And considering what she did—or
thinks
she did to Ryan . . .” Irene made a kind of nudging gesture while blinking rapidly. “I’m glad you understand what I’m trying to do with this design. I can only hope others do, too.”

Betsy sighed. If only that were not so! Shop-owner Betsy wanted to buy the pattern, which was so striking she was sure it would sell well; but citizen-with-a-conscience Betsy would do no such thing. Beyond the obviousness of the design, Irene, who was as dotty as a spotted dress, would very likely explain the motive for her design to anyone who would stand still long enough to hear it.

Betsy searched for a tactful way to turn down Irene’s offer. She did not want to start an argument that might end with Irene losing her temper. Even in a calm state, Irene was a little scary, and Betsy did not want to be alone in the shop with Irene in a rage.

“I’m sorry, Irene, but I couldn’t give this the prominence it deserves at present. I’m about to take down all my Halloween things and set out the Christmas designs and patterns. On the other hand, I would be honored to debut it in Crewel World—next year. I could feature it in an ad, do a story about it on my web site and in our newsletter. Maybe do an interview with you, if you would be so kind. This could be a bestseller, you know; you have the most remarkable talent for evoking emotion as well as reality in your designs.”

Irene simpered and blushed at the praise, though it was amply deserved. It would be wonderful to have a design by a famous needlework artist offered to the public for the first time—Irene had never turned any of her work into a pattern before. To have it debut at Crewel World would be a real coup. It could be, as the saying went, a win-win-win. A win for Irene, for Betsy, and for all the stitchers who patronized the shop.

But then Irene began to look crestfallen. “I wanted it out this year,” she said. “It would be more timely that way.”

“I understand that. And I’m sorry, but it’s too late to do it properly this year. I mean, think about it, Irene. If I bought a dozen patterns from you and sold even as many as eight or ten, that wouldn’t make it worth your while. Besides there is work still to be done. You need to turn these pages into a booklet, and get it properly printed. And you’ll want a color photograph of the model for the front, right? Plus you need to get the fabric cut to size—and if you’re going to include the fabric, you might want to kit it up properly and include the floss. This will take a lot of time and cost you a certain amount of money. You don’t want to do all that for such a small return. I think this should go to a needlework publisher, one with the resources to give it the attention it deserves. I can’t believe there aren’t a whole lot of other needlework shop owners around the country who would be very happy to offer it. I hope you will remember me when it is published, because I would love to debut it in my shop. Let’s think about doing that next year. You should aim for a date in, say, mid-August.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Irene, a bit petulantly, folding up her model.

The door went
bing-bong
, and Betsy looked around to see Godwin coming in from a late lunch.

“Hey, Irene!” he said chirpily as he entered. “What brings you to our precinct?”

“Precinct?” she echoed, a little alarmed, as if Godwin were threatening her with the police. So maybe she did have an idea that there might be more than one kind of danger in accusing a Wiccan of murder.

He gestured around the shop. “To our district, our area, our little world?”

Betsy said, “She’s designed a cross-stitch pattern, a gorgeous thing. She wants us to sell it in the shop.”

“
Really?
A pattern? Can I see it?” He hustled to the table and took the folded cloth from her hand.

Betsy knew Irene didn’t like Godwin, partly because of his slanted sense of humor but mostly because he was gay, and she was afraid of gay people. On the other hand, he was a very gifted stitcher with an excellent sense of design, and she had come to appreciate that. So after a brief tussle, she opened her fist and let him take and unfold her work. He smoothed it with both hands onto the table and there was a breathless silence.

“Oh. My. God.” He cocked his head first to one side and then to the other. He stepped back and came close and bent very close over it and stepped back again. “Irene, this is
genius
! It’s
marvelously
spooky! I
love
the fish! Have you really made a
pattern
?” Betsy handed him the stapled pages. “Why, this is
terrific
! This is actually
doable
!”

He looked at Betsy. “We’re going to sell it, of course,” he said.

“Goddy, she made this pattern as a kind of commentary on the witch who lives among us.”

Godwin frowned at her, then looked again at the pattern. “Oh, my God,” he said again, but with a totally different intonation.

Betsy said, “I told her we would like to sell it, but that we’re about to put out our Christmas things and so couldn’t give it the attention it deserves.”

Irene was looking at Godwin as Betsy spoke, so she felt safe raising and lowering her eyebrows and twiddling her fingers over her head.

“Oh, my gosh, I forgot! You’re right, all our Halloween stuff is about to go into storage until next year.” He looked at Irene. “How about next year?” He looked at Betsy.

Betsy nodded approvingly. “Next year.”

O
N autopsy, the medical examiner could find no anatomic cause of death for Ryan McMurphy. No clot in the brain, no hidden stab wound, no internal rupture. Essentially, Ryan simply stopped breathing; and after a while, his heart stopped, too. So Dr. Rendelle took a few samples from the body, wrote “Natural” on the death certificate under “Cause of Death,” signed it, and released the body.

Ryan was given a quiet, private funeral and tucked away beside his grandparents in Excelsior’s hilltop cemetery. His bereaved wife took her two sad children home, where she closed her door against the curious questions of the town and waited for the surprisingly substantial life insurance policy to be cashed in.

But the failure to find a cause of death only increased the talk. Business at The Barleywine dropped off alarmingly, and after a day or two of it, Leona came into Crewel World.

“Betsy, have you made any progress in finding the source of the gossip about me?”

“No, and it’s getting worse, isn’t it?” said Betsy.

“Yes. There seem to be more people every day who think I am responsible for Ryan’s death.”

“The medical examiner said in very clear language that he died of natural causes.”

“Betsy, he was thirty-four years old, he wasn’t weak or sickly, and he worked at a physically demanding job. It’s hard not to think there was something unnatural about his dying.”

“All right, I’m sure things can be missed even on autopsy. It’s possible the medical examiner didn’t see a very small tumor deep in his brain, or maybe there was some kind of heart problem that doesn’t show. Or maybe it was cumulative. His heavy drinking had to have affected his whole system.”

“Then why is this gossip persisting? I’m sure someone is stirring it up. But who? Who keeps saying these ugly things about me?” There was agony in the questions; Leona’s dark eyes were filled with anxiety.

Irene Potter,
thought Betsy, though she said, “I don’t know.”

“You’ve proven yourself a good detective, Betsy. Please, won’t you try to find out who it is—and make her stop?”

“Her? What makes you think it’s a woman?”

Leona’s eyes flickered. “I don’t know that it’s a woman. It just makes sense to me that it would be.”

 

 

 

 

H
ARVEY Fogelman was concerned about Shelly. Faced with a deadline to finish that design for Kreinik, she nevertheless had abandoned her workroom and instead brought things up to the living room. This put him in the awkward position of trying not to see what it was—it was supposed to be a secret. He knew it was a cross-stitch pattern, but nothing else. But he couldn’t help getting glimpses of it when she had it sitting out on the coffee table. She had damaged the edge of the table trying to set up her Dazor light on it, and finally had to ask for his help.

Keeping the project upstairs was a huge nuisance, because she had to keep putting it away when company was coming over. She kept a light blanket handy for when a casual visitor dropped by, and it seemed there were a lot of visitors lately.

There was something Harvey needed to talk to her about, something urgent and long overdue, but how could he when she was already in such distress? At last he said, “Look, this is driving you crazy. I don’t understand why you can’t go back to using your sewing room.”

Shelly said the room made her uncomfortable and she couldn’t work in it while feeling uncomfortable. Harvey couldn’t see what the problem was. He had taken the futon to Goodwill and called in ServiceMaster to clean the room from top to bottom. He had rearranged the furniture and even painted the walls a pale blue-green—her favorite color.

This needed to be resolved, and soon.

Now, this morning, he suggested as gently as he could that they both should go down there one more time and she could perhaps explain exactly what was wrong.

So before she had to leave for her teaching job at Excelsior Elementary, they went downstairs. Normally, just stepping inside brought her a feeling of cozy pleasure; he’d seen it on her face before. But he watched her step into the room and stop short, her face expressing trepidation and distaste. Even her long-eared dog, Portia (because she was made of portions of many breeds), stood outside the door, making small whining noises.