“You can? Here, let’s get in my car. You must be freezing.”

  Betsy pressed the button that made her car honk softly, flash its lights, and unlock its doors. Annie quickly climbed in the passenger side and sat huddled, using both hands to rub her upper arms through the bulky cardigan she wore, while Betsy hustled around to get in on the driver’s side. She started the engine and turned the heater up high.

  They sat in silence until the air blowing out the vents turned warm. It didn’t take long.

  “Now,” said Betsy, “what do you mean, you can find things out?”

  “They sent you away from Naomi without telling you anything, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, they have a strict confidentiality policy.”

  “Which is okay and necessary, I suppose. But I’m staying in Naomi! I can go anywhere in there, and talk to anyone! I know people in Naomi who I bet were residents when Carrie was there. I’ll talk to them for you—I mean, if you want. Would . . . would that be all right?”

  Annie had gone from assertive to tentative in that brief spate of words.

  “But what if the people in charge find out what you are doing?”

  “So? I’m only talking to people. I can do that. No need to tell them I’m also talking to you, is there?”

  “Well . . . no, I guess not.”

  “So see? I told you I wanted to help, and now here’s a way for me to do that! Why are you looking sideways at me?”

  “That’s a valid question,” said Betsy, nodding. “One reason is because I don’t want you to get tossed out of the place. The more important reason is, if this is murder, you may find yourself in the line of fire.”

  “Awww, not to worry! I’ve done slicker things than this and got away with them! I used to work on the line in a factory until the company moved overseas. The stuff we got away with . . .” Annie shrugged and fell silent for a few moments. “Anyway, I can do it if you want me to.”

  Betsy thought it over. “All right. Thank you very much. Seriously, thank you.”

  “Sh—heck, it’s all right. What do you want me to find out?”

  “I want to know the dates that Carrie Carlson stayed at the shelter. And how she got bruises on her body. It happened days before she died—but we don’t have an exact date of her death. Her body was found on January sixth, so it happened before then. I want to know if she fell or if someone hit her, and if the latter, who it was and why it was done.”

  “Okay, I think I can manage some of that. Maybe all of it. Anything else?”

  “Yes, see if you can find out if Janet Turnquist also stayed there, and when. And if the two of them were talking to one another. Now listen, I want you to be very careful.”

  “Sure,” Annie said cheerfully.

  “I mean it.”

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” Annie had a big grin on her face.

  “How will you contact me with what you find out?”

  “What’s your e-mail address and your phone number? I can use the computer at any library, and phone from someplace else. See? I know better than to contact you from Naomi.”

  “That’s good thinking.” Betsy went into her purse and brought out a business card. “It’s got my business phone and my cell phone numbers on it, as well as my e-mail address.”

  “Great, thanks. One way or another, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thank you again—and remember, be careful, all right?”

  “Not to worry! Miss Sneaky, that’s me! All I’m going to do is talk to people. I do that all the time!” And Annie bailed out of the car to go jittering and shivering her way back up to the shelter.

  But all the way home, Betsy worried.

  GODWIN, depressed by winter, was trying to cheer himself up by pulling a batch of summer-themed counted cross-stitch patterns. He was thinking that perhaps a display of them under a ten percent off sign would be a good thing. He smiled over one that showed a cat on a sunny windowsill, and pulled it off to set on the chosen stack, exposing the next one, a golfer taking a mighty swing under a brilliantly lit sky. That broke his feeble composure and he put the stack down with a heavy sigh.

  The door sounded its two notes, announcing the presence of a customer. Forcing a smile, Godwin turned to greet her—virtually all of Crewel World’s customers were women.

  But standing just inside the door was a very handsome Latino man about Godwin’s age. He was fashionably dressed in a dark brown overcoat, a broad knit scarf in shades of dull red and bright yellow, and highly polished boots.

  “Rafael!” exclaimed Godwin, his smile broadening. “What brings you out on such a cold day?”

  “Gorrion!” replied Rafael, using the nickname he had given Godwin. It meant “sparrow,” which he said described a small, brave, determined sort of person. “I had an appointment with my financial advisor. He thinks I shouldn’t be selling my municipal bonds just yet, and wants to shift some of my American stocks into overseas investments. After an hour with him, I want badly to talk to someone about something other than money. So I come here.” He looked around. “You have your warm-weather patterns out,” he noted. “Are you so tired of winter already?”

  “Well, I am, but that’s not what’s going on,” Godwin replied. “These pieces take a long time to complete, so stitchers are usually working a season or two ahead.” He looked around. “But also Betsy and I are impatient people, always looking forward to the next project, trip, or holiday, so this business of looking ahead to the coming season suits us very well.” He smiled at Rafael. “That’s what I like about you. You’re always content to be where you are, doing what you are doing.”

  Mock annoyed, Rafael said, “Is that all? You like me because I am content, like a cow?”

  Godwin chuckled. “You’re not in the least like a cow, and you know I don’t think that. But it’s really nice the way you are comfortable no matter where you are; it’s a gift you have.”

  “In that case, I thank you. Where is your boss today?”

  “Out sleuthing.”

  “Is she making good progress?”

  “No, things are coming slowly. I think it’s because she is trying to solve two murders at the same time, without knowing if they are related. It would be a very big coincidence if they weren’t, but coincidences happen.”

  Rafael said, “Perhaps it is because she is involved with a different class of people, people she doesn’t find familiar, who live by rules different from her own.”

  Godwin nodded sharply. “I think you’re right, that’s at least part of the problem. Hey, you want a cup of coffee, or tea?”

  “All right. Tea, the strong black kind. No milk or sugar.”

  BETSY’S stomach prodded her as she drove into Excelsior. She often didn’t have time for lunch, but today wasn’t going to be one of those days. She parked in the small lot behind her building, paused for a moment to look at the big Dumpster placed on its margin. What was it making her think of? She didn’t know.

  Instead of taking the back way into Crewel World, she took the back way into Sol’s, the delicatessen to the left of the store. The kitchen area of the deli smelled delectably of breads, cured meat, cheeses, herring, garlic, pickles, and onions. She walked through to the front, past the glass-fronted counter into the public area.

  The owner, whose name was not Sol, offered her a cheery hello.

  “Hello,” said Betsy. “I want a roast beef sandwich with horseradish sauce, and your biggest dill pickle.”

  “Potato chips?”

  If he hadn’t mentioned them, Betsy would not have, either. But since he had, she said, “Sure. Scant me.” Meaning fewer than usual.

  “Take-away?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked around the store, with its big square floor tiles of black and white, the little wire-legged tables with wire-backed chairs pulled up to them—and at one of them sat Mike Malloy, eating a very large submarine sandwich dribbling shredded lettuce onto the table.

  “Hi, Mike,” she said, approaching his table and taking the other chair.

  “Hey,” he said brusquely. “What do you want?”

  “How do you know I don’t have something to tell you?”

  “Do you?”

  “Maybe. Have you run into that curtain of privacy the women’s shelters live behind?”

  “Sure. Takes a court order to get any information out of them.”

  “Have you asked for one?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Are you still looking at Margaret Smith as a suspect?”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  “What do you know about her that I don’t?” Betsy asked.

  “Why should I tell you anything?”

  “Because I tell you when I find things out, and you like it when I do that. I will tell you that I have a mole in the Naomi Women’s Shelter who can ask all the questions she wants of the clients staying there.”

  “Say, I’m going to want to talk to her.”

  “As soon as she tells me something, I’ll tell you.”

  Mike looked at Betsy with respect. “Good work.”

  “Your turn.”

  Mike sighed elaborately. Then he said, “All right. You probably think of the Smiths as people of solid respectability, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, there’s a shady side to them. Mr. Smith owns a veterinary medical supply company, and several years ago it was under investigation for selling outdated medicines to local animal doctors. He nearly went under until he proved the relabeling of the medicines was not done by him, but by his supplier. Lost a lot of business over that, though he’s recovered most of it now.”

  “But Margaret wasn’t involved in that, surely!”

  “No, she has her own sad story. Her father came down with cancer a little over twenty years ago and she went into action to see that he was given every treatment, no matter how aggressive, to survive. The old man finally called the parish priest to ask him to talk to her. He’d been ready to give up months before that.

  “But she learned the lesson too well. When her mother had a stroke sixteen years ago, she slapped the woman into hospice care almost immediately, where she lived for nine months before dying.”

  “Nine months isn’t very long,” said Betsy.

  “The average length of stay in a hospice facility before dying is forty-three days. They don’t do physical therapy in those places. It’s possible that the old woman, with prompt therapy, might have recovered enough to go home.”

  “Oh,” said Betsy, shocked. She hadn’t known that. How wretched it must be for Margaret to live with having made not one but two mistakes in her parents’ care!

  “Surely she meant well,” Betsy said.

  “I’m sure she did. But Margaret Smith shows a tendency to think she knows best, even in matters of life and death.” He sighed at the abysmal condition of humanity, then remembered something. “Here,” he said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out what looked like a light blue bookmark. “What’s this?” he asked, handing it to her.

  “Ooooh, pretty!” said Betsy. It was a bookmark, done in Hardanger embroidery on even-weave needlepoint canvas with overdyed blue, cream, and pink floss. A closer look showed evidence that this was an early attempt. The tension varied across the piece, and it was clear from the blurring of the floss that it had taken several tries to get the Kloster Blocks properly aligned. Still, the overall effect was attractive.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “A bookmark done in Hardanger. Where is it from?”

  “It was in Carrie’s personal effects, stuck inside a paperback book. Does Margaret Smith do this kind of embroidery?”

  “No. She likes needlepoint and counted cross-stitch. If this was with Carrie’s things, maybe she did it.”

  “Before I showed it to Mrs. Smith, I asked her did Carrie do needlework, and she said no. She said she had no idea where this came from, that Carrie must have picked it up someplace.”

  “It’s hand done,” said Betsy. “And not by someone experienced in this craft. But no one I know who is involved in this case does Hardanger at all.” She handed it back.

  “Betsy, here’s your sandwich!” called the man from behind the counter.

  “I have to go. Talk to you later, Mike.”

  STILL thoughtful, Betsy came into her shop. “Oh, hello, Rafael. Good to see you.”

  Rafael checked his watch. “You took a long lunch today.”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t had my lunch yet.” She held up the white paper sack.

  “Did you find anything out at the shelter?” asked Godwin, emerging from the back room with two mugs.

  “No, they have very strict confidentiality rules, and refused to tell me even whether or not Carrie and Janet had stayed there.”

  “Well, ain’t that a kick in the head!” He gave one mug to Rafael, and took a drink from the one in his other hand.

  Betsy smiled. “That isn’t a very old expression.” Godwin was a fan of old-fashioned, even antique, expressions.

  “Older than me,” retorted Godwin, with a lofty smirk.

  “So what will you do now?” asked Rafael.

  Betsy hesitated, not willing to admit she’d allowed Annie to help, or to share the shocking news about the Smiths. Instead she shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

  Rafael said, “You will think of something—you always do.” He turned and asked Godwin, “So, how would you like to go to a driving range and hit a bucket of balls?”

  Godwin stared at him, at first with delight, then miffed. “Don’t tease me about things like that! You know I can’t travel to Florida right now.”

  “I’m not teasing. I know you’re itching to play. So I looked up ‘indoor golf’ on the Internet, and there is a place in Edina which has a putting green and a driving range. Want to go?”

  “Indoor golf? Godwin was smiling, but doubtfully.

  “Yes, it’s Braemar Golf Dome.”

  “Oh, a dome! What a clever idea! And do I want to go? How can you even think you need to ask? Of course I want to go!” Godwin was practically dancing with anticipation, but carefully, so he didn’t spill the contents of his mug. Then his face fell, and he turned to Betsy. “But you’re going to need me here all this week, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but only because all my part-timers came to inventory. You didn’t take a day off last week, and you came in for the inventory, too. I’ve been really unfair to you, Goddy, and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t think about it until right this minute.”

  “It’s all right, really it is.”

  “No, it isn’t. Rafael, would you like to show Godwin where this indoor driving range is?”

  Rafael’s handsome face lit up with a big smile. “When?”

  “Monday,” declared Betsy. “Godwin, you take Monday off. That’ll give you two days in a row, all right?”

  Godwin thought it over briefly. But the prospect of hitting a bucket of balls won out. “All right, if you think I should.”

  “I think you deserve at least that.”

  “Then hurrah! I will! Rafael, what time do you want to pick me up?” Godwin’s little sports car could not take a passenger and two sets of golf clubs at the same time.

  “It opens at eight, but how about we go out there around nine?”

  “Can we stay all day?”

  Rafael smiled fondly at Godwin. “If you like, mi gorrion.”

  After Rafael left, Godwin did his famous Gene Kelly “Singing in the Rain” arms-out circle of the library table while Betsy stood watching him, a fond smile on her face.

  Ten

  MARK Turnquist sat in the smallest conference room at work, staring into a cooling cup of coffee as if it were a crystal ball that would give him answers to the questions being asked of him.

  Janet Bronson Turnquist was dead. The State of North Dakota, his employer, and lots of people thought she was his ex-wife, but in an important sense she wasn’t. They also thought Lindsey Miller was his second wife, but in that same sense she wasn’t.

  But she was going to be, by heaven, as soon as he could arrange it, as soon as their parish priest was able to find ten minutes free on his calendar. At last, at last.

  For ten years he’d wanted to be free of Janet. He’d finally gotten a civil divorce, but Lindsey, like him, was a Roman Catholic and, like him, wanted to be married in the eyes of the Church as well.

  But Janet wouldn’t cooperate. She had always been a little quirky—that’s one reason he fell in love with her. Her ability to look at a situation from a different angle was sometimes useful, sometimes amusing, and okay, once in a while, annoying.

  But it became scary sometime around their tenth wedding anniversary. Her suspicion that any government body, whether local, statewide, or national, wasn’t always operating to the public good became a belief that they were actively plotting to take her freedom from her.

  He could still remember the chill he felt the morning she asked him, “Did you hear that voice coming from our living room last night?” She was even more scared about it than he was, and at first went willingly to a doctor to see if something was the matter.

  But the questions asked by the doctor scared her even more, and the mind-altering prescriptions he later ordered had some dreadful side effects, both emotional and physical. A change of doctors didn’t bring relief. It was after the fourth doctor’s failed attempts to find a medication that both soothed her paranoia and left her personality recognizable, if not intact, that she refused to take any more pills.

  Mark didn’t blame her, but without medication, she turned slowly into a person he barely recognized, fearful, angry, at times incoherent. She started running away from home. She’d be gone at first just for a day or two, but then for a week or more at a time, coming home dirty and often ill, only long enough to wash and eat before leaving again. He finally had her committed to a hospital, but soon after she was released, she ran away—and this time she didn’t come back.

  She’d phone now and again, to accuse him of trying to harm her, or tell him the sad story of her life on the street. He moved out of their home so she would feel safe going there, and apparently she did, though she rarely showed up. A niece she long ago took an unaccountable shine to would sometimes phone to report that Aunt Janet had been by, and they’d exchange fearful stories with one another about the unfortunate feral creature she had become.