“Same with the yarns,” Godwin said, nodding.

  “Any questions?”

  Despite the intense looks, no one had any. Maybe they were just eager to get started.

  “Everyone have your inventory sheet and pen?” Betsy held up hers.

  In response, everyone held up theirs.

  “All right. Shelly, you take the painted canvases. Goddy, you mentioned the knitting yarns, you take them. Mindy, you take the spinner racks beside the counted cross-stitch patterns.” And so on until everyone had an assignment. Betsy’s own assignment was “back stock,” items in the back of the shop waiting for space in the retail section.

  There wasn’t a lot of talking after the first ten minutes, which was a good sign; everyone was bent to his or her task.

  At twelve twenty, Betsy called a forty-minute halt. Betsy brought out the deli sandwiches, chips, pickles, and soft drinks. Her workers gathered around the library table or sat at the checkout desk—two sat on the floor and sneaked fragments to the cat Sophie. When Betsy noticed them, the cat quickly lay down on a potato chip and tried to look innocent. Betsy decided not to notice a scatter of crumbs down the cat’s front. Sophie currently weighed twenty-one pounds, and Betsy despaired of getting her to lose any of it. How could she, with customers and employees constantly undermining her efforts?

  As one o’clock approached, Betsy went through the shop, checking with each employee—everyone was back at work, another good sign—to see where she was in the counting. So far, adequate progress was being made, which was a relief. Each person had her own method; the most common was the four vertical sticks with an angled one to make units of five—though one person was counting each stroke as five, making units of twenty-five. But she was counting skeins of floss.

  When Betsy came to Godwin standing among skeins of yarn, he said, “My gosh, we have a lot of yellow!”

  “That was my error. I placed an order twice, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right. We should schedule a spring sweater class. Yellow is such a cheerful spring color.”

  “Good idea.”

  Overheard on her way to the back of the shop: “I have three PHDs,” which Betsy knew were not doctor of philosophy degrees, but Projects Half Done. She had a few of those herself, plus a few barely started. So many projects, so few hours in a day.

  Six yards away: “Well, I hear she’s sleuthing again,” she heard Mindy say.

  “Really? For who? The only mysterious death I’ve heard about lately is that homeless woman.”

  Betsy paused, partly hidden behind a spinner rack, to listen.

  “That’s who it is. Turns out that homeless woman is a cousin or aunt or something of Margaret Smith. And the police are looking very hard at Margaret over it.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Well, of course she couldn’t be involved, not really. But there was bad blood between them, and I hear she’s really scared she might be arrested.”

  “Poor thing!”

  That “poor thing” was said in a very gratified tone, and Betsy’s heart sank. Margaret was a rather proper sort of woman, and there might be people around who’d like her taken down a peg or two. If this was the sort of thing being said about Margaret, it was terribly important not only that there be found no proof whatever of her guilt, but that the real culprit, if there was one, be loudly and overwhelmingly brought to justice.

  But first things first; she went back to counting her reserve stock of bamboo knitting needles.

  THANKS to bar codes and computers, Betsy had records of purchases and sales for the past year to compare to the physical count of the inventory.

  “One nice thing,” she said to Godwin on Monday after comparing the two, “is that thefts are actually down.” She knew this because the running count kept by her computerized cash register showed inventory not far above the actual count done on Sunday by her employees. Betsy attributed that to the honesty of her employees and the carefully nurtured rumor that she prosecuted shoplifters.

  IT was near lunchtime. Marty had called Betsy yesterday to ask for a luncheon date.

  “What do you suppose he wants?” asked Godwin.

  “He’s probably hoping for good news about clearing his wife.”

  Godwin said, “Suppose you do—and it’s Marty who did it?”

  “Why would Marty Smith murder Carrie Carlson? He told me he’s pretty sure he never met her.”

  “All the more reason to suspect him. I mean, isn’t it always the one you never would suspect who did it?”

  Betsy smiled. “Not always.”

  “Well, who do you think did it?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “So it could be Marty.”

  “Sure. It also might be Margaret.”

  MARTIN Smith owned a wholesale pet food distribution company. When he started it fifteen years ago, he called it Smith and Company, and located it in a small old warehouse in the sleepy little town of Navarre, “nestled between the southwest corner of Upper Lake Minnetonka and the northeast corner of Lower Lake,” according to its web site.

  His wife called it, affectionately, Din-Din. Somehow that name caught on, and eventually he changed Smith and Company to Din-Din, Incorporated. As such, it was doing well. He had recently added pet medicines and supplies to his catalog, but hadn’t changed the name. He was grooming his younger son to take over the company when he retired, which he had no current plans to do.

  “Fran, did you make reservations for me and a guest at Biella’s in Excelsior?” Martin asked his secretary.

  “Yes, sir, for twelve thirty.”

  Biella’s was a fine Italian restaurant with an excellent menu. And it was only a few blocks from Betsy Devonshire’s needlework shop. He hoped to ply her with wine and good food, which would cause her to tell him what she was thinking about Carrie Carlson’s death. He didn’t want to call it a murder, despite Sergeant Malloy’s opinion that it was. He was hoping Ms. Devonshire was not averse to finding information that would prove it a shocking accident.

  They talked briefly over a shared plate of bruschetta, then Betsy had the Prince Edward Island mussels, prepared with wine, garlic, chorizo, and chimichuri. He had the caramelized sea scallops, made with shiitake mushrooms and served under a Thai coconut curry sauce. Yum!

  Martin was careful to have only one glass of wine—he had two appointments with manufacturers’ representatives this afternoon—and was disappointed when Betsy, despite his urging, followed suit.

  He hadn’t had much interest in her previously, her business being primarily of interest to his wife, of course. So now he was trying to draw her out a little. They talked business at first. She did not come to owning her own business voluntarily, he found, having inherited the shop on the death of her sister and kept it going because she had no other viable choices for income at the time. But after these few years, she knew the lingo and was comfortable in her position. She asked intelligent questions about his company and laughed at his jokes.

  At last, winding down the meal with coffee, Martin said with an air of frankness, “I wanted to talk with you about your investigation. Can you share with me where you are in it?”

  “I’m at kind of an impasse right now,” Betsy replied after a moment for thought. “Sergeant Malloy says he has good reason to think this is a case of murder, but I’m having trouble finding anyone with a real motive for killing Carrie.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  “Well, there is the real possibility that I’ll find something in your past, or Margaret’s past, that Carrie was using to blackmail you in order to get money from you.”

  That took his breath away. “What terrible dark secret could we possibly have?” he said after a moment.

  “I don’t know—and I don’t think either you or Margaret would be willing to tell me.”

  “But there isn’t anything!” He said that too loudly, and people at other tables looked around at him. “I mean it,” he said, much more softly. “There is no dark secret. How could you think something like that? What on earth makes you think there is?”

  “Margaret’s reaction when I warned her that my investigation might uncover things she’d rather were not brought to light.”

  “What did she say?” Martin asked sharply.

  “Nothing. And you’re not saying what it is right now, are you?”

  “There isn’t anything, I’m telling you! Besides, the autopsy didn’t find any cause of death other than hypothermia.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  He sat back in his chair and studied her, a handsome woman of a certain age, comfortably plump, studying him back with calm blue eyes. “What is it you’re not telling me?” he asked.

  “Mike said something interesting. He said the medical examiner told him there is not enough blood and tissue in the human body to test for every possible poison. So the standard test is for barbiturate and opiate drugs, the most common. In this case, the tests came up negative.”

  “So see? It probably wasn’t poison after all.”

  “Or maybe it was some other kind of poison.”

  “Margaret doesn’t know anything about exotic poisons, you know. Or common ones, for that matter.”

  “I know. That’s one reason I don’t think she’s guilty of this murder.”

  “‘This murder’?”

  “Anyone is capable of murder, under the right circumstances.”

  Martin felt himself growing afraid, and that made him angry. “Would that include me, do you think?”

  “Certainly. Me, too.”

  “What do you think could move me to murder someone?”

  Betsy cocked her head sideways and said consideringly, “A threat to your family. Suppose someone knew something terrible about you, or your wife, or your sons. And threatened to reveal it. You have a spotless reputation, and your wife is a model of decorum. I think both of you enjoy having people you admire think well of you. It’s good for business, too. So if someone threatened to reveal that you and your wife, say, burn down houses for fun every Halloween, you might go a long way to prevent that from being found out.”

  He started to laugh, realized it sounded phony, and shut up. “What an imagination you have!”

  “Yes, I know. And it gets worse every time I investigate a crime.”

  Whew! Martin thought on his way back to his plant. I wonder if she was joking, or if she seriously suspects Margaret. Or me.

  AT two, the Monday Bunch meeting was called to order. The Monday Bunch was an informal club of women—and one man—stitchers, who gathered to talk and do needlework projects at Crewel World.

  Bershada Reynolds, outspoken but good-natured, was working on a motto: “Sour Grapes Make Fine Whines.” She wasn’t sure whether she was going to hang it in her house or give it to her daughter-in-law, who, having two teens in her house, would heartily agree with the sentiment. Bershada was saying, “We have to do something about the homeless. Build more shelters, open more clinics. Get them off the streets, especially in winter.”

  Godwin was sitting in on the meeting today, knitting yet another in his endless series of white cotton socks. “It seems a shame that in a country as rich as ours, we have beggars on the streets.” His fingers were moving swiftly through a pattern so familiar he didn’t need to look.

  “I say we shouldn’t give anything to street beggars,” said Phil Galvin provocatively, daring them to disagree. “There are plenty of programs to take care of them, and anyway, giving them money only helps them buy liquor.” He was working on a small painted canvas depicting an old-fashioned steam locomotive.

  Emily Hame said diffidently, “I don’t know if that’s true, that all they want is to buy liquor.” She was working on a Kris Stott Memorial Sampler. “Some of them are mentally ill or mentally deficient.”

  Large and bluff Alice Skoglund gestured with a big hand holding her half-finished crocheted afghan square. “You’re right, Emily. My husband, though he was a man of God, used to say that they should reopen the asylums because so many of the homeless have severe mental problems and can’t manage to live in regular society no matter how many programs there are.”

  Phil’s wife, Doris Galvin, said in her low, gentle voice, “Opening the asylums sounds like a terrible idea, perhaps, but it might be better than the life they do live, sleeping under bridges in summer and freezing to death behind movie theaters in the winter.”

  Lovely and reserved Patricia Fairland was working on a complex counted canvas called “Diamond Delight VI,” one of a series from DebBee’s Designs. Worked in a variety of threads and stitches in gold on eggshell, it was a pattern of diamonds within diamonds within diamonds, and came with a book of instructions seventy-seven pages long. It was the sort of pattern that took away the breath of anyone who knew something about needlework, but caused noncognoscenti to nod and say, “Very pretty, but maybe a little busy.”

  She glanced at Doris and said, “Still, being in an asylum would be like being in prison, wouldn’t it? Except there’s no parole.”

  Since Patricia had herself served a term in the women’s prison in Shakopee, her opinion carried weight.

  Betsy, busy sorting a shipment of pewter charms and buttons, comparing it against the original order, said, “The problem would be separating those who have mental problems from those who are just having a run of bad luck from those who are plain alcoholics. Bureaucracies aren’t always very good at making these fine distinctions.”

  Some of the women gave ladylike snorts of agreement, and Phil said, “I understand you are looking into the Excelsior woman’s death, Betsy. Why? Is it or isn’t it a murder?”

  “Mike Malloy says it’s a suspicious death. Besides, I got a request from a family member,” said Betsy.

  “What family?” said Phil. “Hard to think of those people as having families.”

  “But they do, most of them,” said Emily with unusual firmness. “It’s very sad for the families when one of the members refuses their help.”

  “Or when you help and help and help and it doesn’t do any good,” said Betsy, remembering her conversation with Margaret.

  “Yes, that’s the hardest part of all,” agreed Emily.

  The door sounded its two notes, and Jill Cross Larson came in with her two children, Emma Beth and toddler Erik. “I need to talk with you privately,” she said to Betsy.

  “All right,” said Betsy, surprised. “Come in back.”

  She led the way through the back half of the shop and into the little back room with its coffeemaker, tea kettle, and crowded shelves of surplus stock. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “They’ve found another body. She was buried in the snow on the Fiedlers’ front lawn.”

  “Oh, good heavens! I don’t believe it! Who is she?”

  “I don’t know. Another homeless woman, apparently. They’re still at the scene.”

  “This is just terrible! It’s frightening!” She grabbed for Jill’s hands. “What’s going on in Excelsior?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Jill. “Lars is at the scene, he called to tell me. As soon as he knows more, he’ll call again.”

  “Please relay what he says to me, okay?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Mommy, can we go now? I’m hot!” complained little Emma Beth, pulling at her mittens.

  “Yes, darling, we’re going right now.”

  “Go, go, go, go!” chanted toddler Erik, pulling at his mother’s hand.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I hear more,” said Jill, and she led the way back to the front of the shop.

  “Thank you for telling me!” Betsy called after her as she and the children went out the front door.

  “Well!” exclaimed Godwin in his best Jack Benny voice. “What was that all about?”

  Betsy grimaced. “Another frozen dead woman. They just found her body. Lars is at the scene, at the Fiedlers’ over on Fourth Street.”

  There were gasps around the table. Emily turned white as a sheet.

  “Oh, my God!” exclaimed Godwin.

  “It’s a serial killer,” pronounced Bershada.

  “Who is she?” asked Emily in a scared voice.

  “They don’t know yet,” said Betsy. “They just found her, they’re still at the scene. It might be another homeless woman.”

  “How many homeless women are there in Excelsior?” asked Doris. “I didn’t think we had any at all.”

  Indeed, Excelsior was by and large an affluent community; it only looked like an ordinary small town. Its location on the shore of a big, clean lake helped to ensure that. People seeking to relocate to its safe, pleasant, Mayberry-like environs were always dismayed at the price asked for an otherwise undistinguished house.

  That two homeless women were found in town was remarkable; that both were found dead was hugely shocking.

  “Betsy, you really have to do something about this!” said Godwin.

  But what could she do? All she had was the faint lead of Dice Paulson. Could he have killed two women? Why?

  “I’m doing what I can, Goddy.”

  “I guess I know that, but this is simply dreadful!”

  Betsy sat down, but she was too distracted to continue sorting. What was going on? It couldn’t be a coincidence that two women froze to death in the same small town. Mike must be right—this was murder.

  Could it be that Dice Paulson was guilty after all? Maybe he wanted to divert attention from himself as a suspect by killing not only Carrie but another homeless woman. If he killed Carrie at all, of course; after all, she and he broke up a very long time ago. Still, it was a bad sign that he had disappeared right after being paroled from prison. She hoped Mike was able to find him quickly and that finding him would solve this mystery.

  Meanwhile, this must relieve some of the pressure on Margaret. If Mike had only the thinnest reason to think she had murdered her cousin, he couldn’t possibly think she had reason to murder a stranger.

  Right?