Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_01 (29 page)

“There, Jill; there's your proof!” Betsy said. “The horse Margot used as a model for her canvas and the horse I saw are not the same color. I think that when Margot went down there to look at the horse last Wednesday, she took the 1007 colors with her. And they didn't match the horse in the case.”

Jill said, “And of course she went to tell Hud. He's responsible for the Chinese stuff.”

“And Margot was murdered that night. I suspect Hud told Margot not to tell anyone else until he checked into it. But what he did was come out here and murder her. And he stole the needlepoint horse and the sketchbook, because they're evidence. Then he trashed Crewel World to make it look like a burglary.”

“Wait a minute,” said Godwin. “Wait just a minute.” Then he himself waited until they all turned to look at him. “About those different families of blue. I've been to the museum, and I know how carefully they light those exhibits. I have a feeling they don't light the storage areas like that.”

Betsy flashed on the warm lighting of the Fasset exhibit and then on the big chill storage room with its harsh overhead lights. “No, they don't.”

“Well, how many of us have put on an outfit that matches beautifully in your bedroom, but when you get to the office it's like you got dressed in the dark?”

The women, frowning, nodded doubtfully.

“So of course the silks didn't match the horse! On exhibit, in storage, different lights, different colors.”

Betsy stared at him, her heart sinking. What if she had made a terrible mistake?

18

Hud arrived Friday evening, right on time. He paused inside the door when he saw Jill and a very tall and well-built man waiting with Betsy for him.

“I'm so sorry, Hud,” said Betsy, “but Lars's car broke down this afternoon and Jill's is in the shop, too, so I said you wouldn't mind giving them a lift.”

Hud looked for a moment as if he did mind, but then he shrugged and said, “Sure, why not.” He was wearing a beautifully cut tuxedo—or perhaps it fit so well because he was the shape the designer had in mind.

Jill had said the dance was “dressy,” and turned up in a short cocktail dress of ice-blue silk, her escort in a dark suit and tie. So Betsy felt right in her little black dress and the garnet earrings and necklace her mother had left her.

“How ‘dressy' is this dance?” asked Betsy. “I mean, am I all right?”

“You look wonderful,” said Hud sincerely, so she let him wrap her in her black silk coat and followed him down the stairs.

Hud put Jill and Lars into the big back seat of the Rolls and pushed a button that rolled up a window between it and the front seat—which sent the two of them into gales of laughter.

“What's so funny?” Betsy asked Hud.

“Beats me.” He handed her into the car and they started off.

The drive to the club was along a back road that wound among the bays of Lake Minnetonka, through small towns and past modest cottages and the beautiful new mansions that were quietly replacing them, all set in rolling land covered with big old trees. The sun was a glowing red ball—Betsy caught herself trying to decide which shade of perle cotton would be closest and decided she was carrying this needlework business too far.

The Rolls was big and comfortable, and as smooth to ride in as Hud had said it was. “Yeah, I really lucked out with this car,” said Hud when she remarked on that, and on the powerful but quiet engine.

“You said you bought it at a police auction?” asked Betsy. “How did that happen?”

“I was in Las Vegas for our annual convention about six years ago.” He showed his wolfish grin. “What, you think curators should meet in Chicago? In February? Anyhow, I took an afternoon off from the doings and got lucky at the craps table. A fellow curator told me about the auction. He said there would be sports cars—he was going to bid on a Porsche 928S. I went along to see if he'd get it—he didn‘t—but right at the end, when most of the people had left, this Rolls Corniche came up. A cop with a great big grin bid five hundred dollars, so I bid eight, which surprised him. Then he bid a grand, and I bid twelve hundred, and we kept going up until I bid everything I'd won, which was eight thousand, two hundred dollars. Silence from the cop, who wasn't grinning anymore. So I packed my bags and started driving for home, because you don't want to be in a town where you've wiped the grin off a cop's face. And you know how you hear about how crummy English cars are? Well, this one sure isn't. It has never given me any trouble at all. It gets terrible mileage, of course, because it's so heavy. But it's like sitting on a leather couch and watching the road come at you on a big TV screen.”

“Nothing like being at the right place at the right time,” said Betsy. “I didn't recognize this as a Rolls-Royce until I saw the grille. I remember seeing them in England back in the sixties, and they had kind of a roll of front fender that swooped down along the side to the back fender. Very distinctive.”

“I think someone around here has one of those,” said Hud. “But I'm glad this is a later model. Unless people notice the hood ornament, they think I drive an older American car.”

“If you don't like the hood ornament, why don't you take it off?”

“Because then it would be a Bentley, and that's not quite the same thing.”

Hud laughed and Betsy joined in, because it was true, Bentleys are Rolls-Royces without the hood ornament. Once upon a time, Rolls dealerships would not sell a Rolls to just anyone. Rich commoners had to settle for Bentleys.

Interesting that Hud knew that, too.

Lake Minnetonka is big and has a complicated shoreline so the drive took a while. The lake showed itself in tree-lined bays, or in glimpses through evergreens, and even occasionally came boldly right up to the road.

They were running alongside a particularly wide bay into which the sun had nearly sunk when Hud slowed and flipped his turn signal on. They turned away from the water, past a self-consciously quaint little brown church and across a railroad line. The other side of the road was lined with a golf course. And there, awash in white lights, was the Lafayette Club.

It was not at all the modest place Betsy had expected, but a 1920s stucco palace, with an arched arcade, faux-Moorish windows, and a forest-green canvas marquee at the entrance. And a valet in a dinner jacket waiting to park their car.

The lobby was huge, with a red tiled floor and a big old antique bronze fountain. A large, live band was playing somewhere, and the three couples ahead of them checking their coats were in tuxes and long dresses.

“Oops,” said Betsy, and turned to Hud. “Why didn't you say black tie?” Her glance took in Jill, who widened her eyes innocently.

“What?” said Hud. “I told you, you look wonderful.”

Fortunately, when they got to the ballroom there were a number of other women who either hadn't read Miss Manners on “Proper Attire for Black-Tie Events” or didn't care. Hud took her around, introducing her to people. Some of them she already knew, such as the chief of police, whom she'd met only yesterday. His wife was an ardent counted cross-stitcher.

The band was good. It played a mix of big-band, soft rock, and standards, mixed with waltzes and, once, a polka. She danced first with Hud, who made her think she was a better dancer than she remembered, then with Mayor Jamison and attorney Penberthy, who taught her that Hud was the kind of dancer who made his partners look good.

It was a slow dance with Penberthy, and as they box-stepped around the floor, she asked, “Were you a friend of Margot's, as well as her attorney?”

“I'd like to think so,” he replied, a little dreamily. He hummed a snatch of the melody.

“Did she talk to you about anything the last time you saw her?”

“Hmmm? No, I don't think so.”

“Are you sure? You saw her the last day of her life. Surely you remember what people said to you when they turn up dead right after.”

He loosened his hold to lean back and look into her face. “What's this all about?”

“The police are here, they're going to make an arrest,” she said.

“Arrest who?” he asked, alarmed.

“I'm not supposed to say, but it's the person who murdered Margot.”

Penberthy tried to look around and dance at the same time and stepped on both of Betsy's feet. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. He regained his rhythm. “Is that Joe Mickels over there?” The landlord was holding a highball in one hand and gesturing sharply with the other to a trio of men.

“Yes, and there's Detective Malloy. Jill's here, too, and her date is a Shorewood cop.”

“Jesus God,” murmured Penberthy. “When is it going to happen?”

“I don't know, but don't worry, they won't do it in front of everyone. They're supposed to let me know when everything's set up.”

“Why you?”

“Oh, I'm going to be in at the kill. In fact, I get to take the first bite.”

“Jesus God.” The dance ended; Penberthy assumed a patently false look of indifference and escorted her back to her date.

During a break, the mayor came by and suggested to Hud that so long as he was here he might take Betsy around and show her the features of the club, since they would be using it for the fund-raiser next month. Hud seemed pleased to get out of the ballroom, which was a trifle warm. He showed Betsy the enormous fireplace lounge (two, count ‘em, fireplaces), the long screened porch that overlooked yet another bay, the dining room, the intimate café, and the indoor pool.

Betsy's opinion of the Lafayette Club racheted up another notch with every feature. The suggested cost of a ticket to the fund-raiser, she remarked to Hud, was not high enough.

“Yes, but if they pay a lot for a ticket, then they won't feel a need to buy anything at the auction.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose you're right.” They were back in the café, which was deserted and dimly lit, lined with semicircular booths in red tufted leather. There was the warm smell of coffee in the air. “Here's where they make the greatest coffee in the state,” said Hud. “They'll start serving it soon.”

“Minnesotans sure drink a lot of coffee.”

“We're probably near the top per capita,” said Hud, but with an air of intimacy that did not match the topic.

She looked up at him, his smiling face, the bright hair, the broad shoulders. “Hud, did you really have to murder my sister?”

He stood perfectly still for several long seconds. “What are you talking about?” His voice was still soft, as if he hadn't understood.

“Is the T‘ang horse the only thing you've stolen from the museum?”

That caught his attention. “Stolen? I haven't stolen anything!”

“Yes, you have. The Asian art collection is almost completely in storage, and has been for over a year. What better time to replace some of the artifacts with replicas? People are less likely to notice any differences when they haven't seen the originals for a long time. But Margot noticed, didn't she? She made two trips to that storeroom, the first to do her original canvas and then only a few months later to do the second. And she saw the difference right away. You said she kept snagging things while she worked on that horse, that's what made me realize that both times she saw it was in the storeroom. So it wasn't a change in lighting that made her think the horse was a different shade of blue.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The T‘ang horse in your collection, the one Margot made a needlepoint copy of. The horse she saw originally matched the one-thousand series of Madeira blue silks, while the horse she saw the second time matched the seventeen-hundred series. She realized it wasn't the same horse.

“And what does one do when one suspects there has been a theft? Why, one reports it to the person responsible—that was you, wasn't it, Hud?”

He made a little noise in his throat, but no words came out.

“And you said you'd look into it right away. You probably asked her not to tell anyone until you'd checked it out, right? Then you came to her apartment that night, saying you needed to see the proof. So she got her sketchbook and took you down to the shop because that's where the original needlepoint hung. And you hit her with your cane—was it the one with the head shaped like a snail? I remembered the way the slinky little head came out of the shell on the head of your cane, and it made me wonder. But maybe it was the one shaped like a bird. What kind of a bird is that, with the pointed beak?”

“Who have you told this fairy tale to? You're going to have some explaining to do if you've told anyone, because you're making a horrible mistake.”

“Whatever cane it was, you hit Sophie with it, too, but with the side, and you broke her hind leg.”

“I didn't hit anyone with a cane. Anyhow, I thought you said Joe Mickels did it. Or Irene Potter. They both were near the store, weren't they?”

“Yes, but they couldn't have done it, either of them, Hud. Margot left City Hall pretty close to nine forty-five. It took her six or maybe seven minutes to walk home, so she got in before ten, but not by much. The murderer was waiting for her, but he had to talk his way into her apartment, convince her to come down to the shop, murder her, and then trash the shop. There wasn't time to do all that and still be down by that parking lot by ten-fifteen.”

“Maybe Irene saw Joe on his way to the shop, before the murder.”

“No, because I made that call to 911 at three minutes after eleven. Say five minutes to the shop from the parking lot, persuade Margot to come down into the shop, murder her and injure the cat, then wreck the shop, and get away before I got there at eleven—not enough time, Hud. Even if he was still in the place when I saw the open door, there wasn't enough time. The shop was
really
trashed; you must have spent a long time breaking and tearing and kicking and smashing. It must have taken you at least half an hour to do that, and more likely forty-five minutes, or even an hour.