“Get two,” advised Adam. “You’ll always have a no-show, and if another one gets sick, you’re in big trouble. How’s the program coming?”
“Fine,” said Ceil. “The layout’s done, the printer’s been warned it’ll be a rush job, and I’m just waiting another day because Milt said he’s FedExing his photo to me.” The program was printed as late as possible in order to include as many entries as possible. It came in the form of a magazine, and each entry was to supply a color photograph of his or her vehicle. Onlookers enjoyed being able to look up and identify a car they had seen and liked.
“Did we take Bill Birmingham’s name off the program?” Adam asked, and there was an awkward shuffle.
Ceil said, “That’s something we should discuss. Some of us think we should leave it, maybe put a black border around it.” Bill’s photo showed him at last year’s run, the first one he and Charlotte drove in the 1910 Maxwell. The photo had been taken in New London, with the two of them aboard looking happy and confident. The look had vanished by the halfway point, when they’d staggered into Buffalo two hours late. Their car had not been able to continue.
“What will Charlotte think when she sees it?” Adam asked.
“She’s not coming,” Ceil said. “I talked with her this morning and she told me to tell you not to expect her.”
“When’s the funeral?” asked Henry.
Ceil replied, “They don’t know yet. The medical examiner hasn’t released the body.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Ed remarked, “This whole business sucks. I don’t know which aspect sucks the worst, but there isn’t an aspect that doesn’t.”
“I call the question,” said Henry, who was familiar with Robert’s Rules of Order.
“What does that mean?” asked Adam, who wasn’t.
“That means, let’s vote on the motion.”
“Nobody made a motion,” noted Ceil.
“All right, I move we leave Bill’s name and photo in the program, with a black border.”
“Second,” said Mike.
The motion carried five to two, Henry and Adam being the two dissenters. Henry thought they should either make a big fuss, dedicate the run to Bill, ask for a moment of silence and put a big picture on the first page of the program-or drop the photo out of the program and say nothing at all. Though no one wanted to say so now, Bill hadn’t been popular enough for the first to have any meaning, so Henry voted for the second. Adam thought it would make people who knew the ugly details of Bill’s death uncomfortable to find him beaming out at them from the program, even with a black border. He knew it would him. So he voted against it.
Early in the afternoon a woman came into Crewel World. Betsy didn’t recognize her. She was in her late twenties, too thin, with fine-grained skin lightly touched with freckles, dark blond hair pulled carelessly back into a scrunchie, and a sleeveless, pale pink dress a size too large. She looked around with an experienced eye, then went to the racks of counted patterns. After a few minutes, she picked up a black-on-white pattern called A Twinkling of Trees and brought it to the desk.
“What do you recommend for the fabric for this?” she asked. Her light blue eyes would have been her best feature if she had thought to use a touch of mascara on her very pale eyelashes.
“I’m doing it on Aida,” said Betsy. “I should warn you it’s almost all backstitching,” she added, because many stitchers become very cross about backstitching.
“I can see that, but there’s something primal about trees standing in snow, don’t you think? Plus it reminds me of where I grew up. We don’t get a lot of snow where I live now.”
“Are you from Minnesota?”
“Oh, yes, I’m Lisa Birmingham.” But not for long, to judge by the three-carat engagement diamond on a long, slender finger. Well, unless she decided to keep her name, thought Betsy. Which she might, because this was
“How do you do?” said Betsy. “I’m Betsy Devonshire. I’m so sorry about your father.”
“Yes, well, that’s the real reason I’m here. You spoke with my mother yesterday. Has my brother been to see you as well?”
“Yes, a little while ago.”
“Well, I’m sure he tried to warn you off.”
“Yes, he did.”
She leaned forward and said with quiet intensity, “Ignore him. Help my mother. She’s going crazy, and the police won’t leave her alone.”
“You don’t think the police suspect her?”
“Yes, I do, though I don’t see how. But I want as many people as possible working on solving this. The more people trying, the better, don’t you agree?”
“Possibly. Your brother seems to think I’ll do something that will spoil the investigation.”
“Will you?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Well, then. Do your darndest to help us, won’t you?”
“All right. Have you got a few minutes to talk with me?”
“What for, what about?”
“Your father, your brother, anything you think might help.”
“All right. But I live in St. Louis, and have for three years. I don’t get home very often. So I don’t know if I’ll be much help.”
Betsy led her to the back of the shop, where two cozy upholstered chairs faced one another across a small, round table. “Here, have a seat,” she invited the woman. “Would you like a cup of coffee, or tea?”
“Coffee, black, thanks.”
Betsy brought her the coffee in a small, pretty porcelain cup, and for herself a cup of green tea. Each took a polite sip. Betsy said, “How much older than you is Broward?”
“Three years. Bro is the oldest, then there’s me, then Tommy is not quite three years younger, and David is two years younger than Tommy. I assume Mother bragged about us?”
“Yes, of course. She said Broward quit an excellent job to go into business with his father, that you are a pediatrician, Tommy owns a car dealership, and David is going for an advanced degree in education.”
Lisa nodded, smiling. “I see she’s still prouder of my M.D. license than my engagement to Mark. You have a good memory.”
“I was interested. Your mother has good reason to be proud of her children. But tell me, how did your father persuade Broward to give up a position with a bigger company and come to work for him?”
“That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. My father was supposed to retire and let Bro take over the business. Father’s doctor warned him years ago that he had to retire and start taking it easy. Father chose not to believe him. His blood pressure was high and he said medications prescribed for him weren’t working, though what I think was, he wasn’t taking them. They make you sleepy, you know, and he couldn’t stand that. So he’d take them for a couple of days before he was supposed to go have his pressure checked, and that wasn’t always long enough. Drove his doctor crazy until he finally figured out what Dad was doing. And meanwhile Father refused to work fewer hours.
“Then he had a ministroke, and that scared him. He phoned Bro and told him he was ready to retire, and did Bro want to take over the company. Bro said sure-he wasn’t moving up fast enough in the company he was working for.
“But Father couldn’t quit, not completely. At first he said he had to show Bro the ropes, then he said he wanted to see how Bro was doing, and finally he said he just couldn’t trust Bro to run the company the way it should be run.”
“Bill’s way,” said Betsy.
“That’s right. Bro had his own ideas, and Father couldn’t allow that.”
Betsy took another sip of her tea and said, “How angry was Bro at his father?”
Lisa thought a moment and said, “Not murderously angry, of course. He could have quit, gone back to being a production manager at his former company-they want him back, they write him letters asking him to come back-
