A Murderous Yarn

hundred dollars, two hundred dollars. “Who’s bidding against me?” she asked.

“The Getty.”

Betsy giggled. “Then I haven’t got a chance, have I? But I’d go as high as five hundred, I guess.”

Godwin smacked his hand down on the desk. “Sold! Would you really go that high?”

Betsy hesitated, then recalled that figure in the foreground so realistically bent under the wind’s constant shove, and the way the snow swirled around the plinth and softened the vertical lines of the buildings. She had worked not far from Columbus Circle many years ago, and had once been out in a city blizzard… “Actually, yes, I think I would. But I’d also like to hang it down here as a model for a while, and sell lots of patterns. Oh, darn, I let Irene get away without asking if she’d do that Terry Nolan model for me. Remind me when we’re closing up, I need to call her at home.”

It was a little after one when the door’s Bing! brought Alice and Martha in, project bags in hand. It was nearly time for the Monday Bunch to meet. The two went to the library table in the middle of the room, but hesitated when they saw the Dazor light.

“What’s this?” asked Alice, a tall woman with mannish shoulders and chin.

“It’s a magnifying light, silly,” said Martha, who was short and plump, with silver hair.

“I know that. What I meant was, what’s it doing here?”

Betsy said, “I’ve set up a sample basket so people can try out fabrics and fibers and stitches, and I’m going to let them do it under the Dazor if they like, so they can see better.”

Alice, who was inclined to blurt out whatever was on her mind, said, “And maybe somehow they’ll get the notion they need the lamp, too?”

“ Alice!” scolded Martha. A brisk-mannered widow in her late seventies, she was an ardent practitioner of Minnesota Nice.

“That’s the idea, certainly,” agreed Betsy cheerfully.

The women had barely taken their places at the library table when the door opened again. This time it was Jill Cross, a tall, ash-blond woman with a Gibson girl face. She nodded at Betsy and Godwin and took a seat at the table.

“Not on duty today?” asked Alice in her deep voice.

“No,” said Jill, opening her drawstring bag and taking out a needlepoint canvas pinned to a wooden frame. It was a Peter Ashe painting of a Russian church liberally ornamented with fanciful domes. She was using a gold metallic on the one swirled like a Dairy Queen cone.

“That’s coming along real nice,” noted Alice.

“Uh-huh.” Jill was normally taciturn, but this shortness bordered on rudeness.

Betsy said, “Something bothering you?”

“Huh? Oh.” She sighed. “All right, yes. I think I told at least some of you that Lars was going to sell his hobby farm.”

“You told me,” said Martha. “I thought you were pleased. I know you’ve been wanting him to cut back on the time he spends trying to make a go of that place.”

“Yes, that’s true. Actually, he’s had it for sale for a month now.”

“What, you’re afraid he isn’t going to get his price for it?” asked Alice.

“No, he got his price last week.”

“Then what’s the problem?” asked Martha.

“I think he’s already spent the money.”

“On what?” asked Betsy. She knew Lars and Jill had been dating for a long time-two or even three years. They weren’t living together, or even officially engaged, but neither dated anyone else so far as Betsy knew.

“That’s just it, I don’t know. He’s been making long-distance calls and reading books about-something. You know Lars, working fifty hours a week isn’t enough to keep that man occupied. First it was boats, then it was the hobby farm. I don’t know what’s next, flying lessons or do-it-yourself dentistry. That’s what’s bothering me-he never talks to me before he decides what he’s going to do.”

Godwin said, “Some men are just terrible at sharing their plans. Afraid they’ll start an argument, I guess.”

“Are you having trouble with John again?” asked Alice, sometimes as perceptive as she was tactless.

“No, not exactly. Well, actually, it’s me who doesn’t want to start the argument.” Godwin lived with a wealthy attorney, an older man who, by Godwin’s telling, was kind, generous, and very possessive.

Alice, who had sat down next to the Dazor, made a sudden exclamation.

“What?” asked Betsy.

Alice had casually turned the light on and, instead of using it to light her crochet project, had taken a scrap of twenty-count Jobelan from the basket to look at it through the big magnifying glass. “I can see this!” she said.

“So can I,” said Godwin, who was at the other end of the table from her.

“No, I mean, I can see the weave, I can actually see the weave!”

Betsy and Godwin exchanged smiles. While Alice was not in a position to afford a Dazor, her reaction was exactly what they’d hoped for. Other customers would sit there and hold a piece of high-count linen under that magnifying light, and the cash register would ring merrily.

Two more Monday Bunch members came in to sit down with projects and soon the table was alive with helpful hints and gossip. Betsy kept the coffee cups filled, served the occasional customer, and brought patterns, fabrics, and fibers to the table to be examined and, often enough, set aside by the cash register.

She came from the back with the newest Mirabilia pattern to hear Martha saying in an amused voice, “Honestly, Emily acts as if hers is the first baby ever born! All she ever talks about anymore is the joy and burden of staying home with an infant.”

“All first-time mothers are like that,” said Kate McMahon with a little sigh. “My Susan certainly is, and I expect I was, too.”

“Have any of you talked to Irene lately?” asked Betsy, anxious on behalf of Alice to change the subject. Alice ’s only child had died young of a heart ailment.

“No, why?” asked Phil Galvin, a retired railroad engineer. He was working on a counted cross stitch pattern of a mountain goat.

“She has made the most amazing-”

The door to the shop made its annoying Bing! sound, and a very big police officer came in. He was about twenty-five, golden blond, and excited. “Found you at last, Jill!” he exclaimed, his voice as loud as he was big.

“Hi, Lars!” said Jill, getting up and heading toward him. “What’s up?”

“Look at this, look what I found!” He had a sheaf of papers in his hand and thrust it at her.

Jill took the papers, glanced at the top one, then more slowly looked at two or three sheets under it. “What is this? Some kind of old car-what, reported stolen?” she asked. “Where’d it turn up?”

“No, no! I finally found this for sale. I can’t believe the price. Wait till you see it!”

“See it?” asked Jill, handing back the papers. “What do you mean, what have you bought?”

Lars thrust the papers back at her. “In there, look at the picture of it!”

Betsy, curious, came to look around Jill’s shoulder.

“You want to buy this?” said Jill, having sifted through the papers until she found the eight-by-ten color photo again. “Why?”

But Betsy, glancing at the printing on the margin of the photo, said, “Oh, my God, it’s a Stanley Steamer! Is it for real? Does it run? Where is it?”

“Yes, it’s real, a 1911 touring car. It’s in Albuquerque. And yes, it runs, or he’s pretty sure it will, after it has a little work done on it. He had an accident with it a few years ago and it’s been just sitting under a tarp in his back yard. But he says they’re harder to kill than a rattlesnake. What I can’t believe is the price. Only wants seventeen thousand for it!”

“Dollars?” said Jill. “For an old, old car that’s been in a wreck and it will maybe run after you’ve done, oh yeah, a little work on it?”

“You’re really going to bring it up here?” asked Betsy eagerly.