Crewel Yule Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Crewel Yule Tree Ornament

  PRAISE FOR MONICA FERRIS’S NEEDLECRAFT MYSTERIES

  “Ferris’s characterizations are top-notch, and the action moves along at a crisp pace.” —Booklist

  “A comfortable fit for mystery readers who want to spend an enjoyable time with interesting characters.”

  —St. Paul Pioneer Press

  “An accurate and amusing portrait of the needlework world and the characters that inhabit it.” —Rendezvous

  “Colorful and humorous . . . perfect.” —BookBrowser

  “Delightful . . . Monica Ferris is a talented writer who knows how to keep the attention of her fans.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Another treat from Monica Ferris.” —Mysterious Galaxy

  “A fun read that baffles the reader with mystery and delights with . . . romance.” —Romantic Times

  “Fans of Margaret Yorke will relate to Betsy’s growth and eventual maturity . . . You need not be a needlecrafter to enjoy this . . . Delightful.” —Mystery Time

  Needlecraft Mysteries by Monica Ferris

  CREWEL WORLD

  FRAMED IN LACE

  A STITCH IN TIME

  UNRAVELED SLEEVE

  A MURDEROUS YARN

  HANGING BY A THREAD

  CUTWORK

  CREWEL YULE

  EMBROIDERED TRUTHS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  CREWEL YULE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2004 by Mary Monica Kuhfeld.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-0-425-20635-5

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Acknowledgments

  When the NMI Company invited me to their Nashville Market, I was thrilled. Every needlework shop-owner goes to the various markets; I’d been told that from the start. But, since my needlework shop is imaginary, I thought I couldn’t go. Not only did I learn a lot about shop-owners there, but I also got the plot for this book. Thank you, especially Emily Castleberry!

  And thank you Gail, my editor, who patiently found and plugged countless holes in the story.

  Thanks also to Betsy Stinner, Marcia Kulik, Doug Kreinik, Dave Stott, Terrence Nolan, Frank and Judy Bielec, and several designers who kindly gave me permission to use their real names in this story. Everyone else is totally fictional, especially the suspects and the victim.

  And thank you International Needlework Retailers Guild, sponsor of the Nashville Market.

  One

  Saturday, December 15, around 10:15 A.M.

  Godwin, a slender, handsome young man in jeans and white cotton sweater, sipped his tea and looked around the atrium with happy interest. This was not his first trip to Nashville, but his first to the Nashville Needlework Market. As usual, it was being held at the Consulate Hotel; but not at all usual, it was being held in December.

  Godwin didn’t care; he adored shopping in any season and here was shopping squared: shopping for a shop. Namely, Crewel World, a sweet little needlework store in Minnesota, owned by his favorite boss, Betsy Devonshire.

  Every year the International Needlework Retailers Guild held a cash-and-carry market for member shop-owners, who came to select among the newest and/or most popular designers and manufacturers of needlework material. Not normally an early riser, he had been up and dressed, fed, watered, and ready for action as soon as the doors opened at nine, buying new and favorite counted cross-stitch patterns, new colors in fabrics and floss, new gadgets. Now, after carrying bags of loot out to the U-Haul trailer in the parking lot, he was taking a break to rest his feet and steady his nerves with a cup of tea. And, okay, a big chocolate chip cookie.

  On one long side of the atrium were a restaurant—where he got the tea and cookie—and a bar, and on the other there was a swimming pool set up and a gift and notions shop. On the back end of the atrium was a warren of meeting rooms, while at the other, six steps led to a carpeted dais and three big double doors, through which was the lobby with its enormous Christmas tree.

  Far overhead, the ceiling was nine stories away, and snow was building up on the glass roof. The snow had started last night and was continuing today. Who would have thought in southern Tennessee?

  Surrounding the open air of the atrium, starting at the second floor, were tiers of galleries marked by painted iron railings ornamented with flower boxes from which descended thin cascades of ivy. And behind the galleries were comfortable little suites, each containing a bedroom facing the outdoors and a sitting room that faced the gallery. Starting on the second floor, and on through the sixth floor, every one of those suites was occupied by wholesalers who had packed their sitting rooms with needlework merchandise. Suites on the seventh to the ninth floor were held by those shop-owners who were first to regis
ter for the Market—Betsy Devonshire, Godwin’s boss, was among them. Others had to make their slippery way to and from one of the motels down at the bottom of the steep hill on top of which sat the Consulate. That the Consulate was jammed with buyers was a comment on both the popularity of the Market and the tenacity of small business owners. And Godwin was carrying a Crewel World credit card. Heaven!

  He took the last bite of his cookie and sipped his tea, which was still very warm and smelled of raspberries. Across the open floor, baby palms and flowering plants were set among small boulders that lined a miniature brook that curved diagonally across the tan tile floor. A little hump-backed bridge crossed the brook halfway along. A pair of white cockatoos fluttered and preened in their cage on the far side, near the foot of the stairs, where the brook ended in a tiny pool.

  Godwin sat amid a scatter of wrought-iron chairs and glass-topped tables, most empty since breakfast was long over and it wasn’t time yet for lunch. Godwin could hear a gush of women’s voices from above and could have sworn he also heard a rustle of money or checks changing hands, credit cards being swooshed through little machines, and merchandise being pushed into plastic bags.

  He opened the Market guidebook and began to plan his second foray. He’d done the sixth floor, so what was on four? He had the even floors, Betsy the odd. He’d heard Terrence Nolan was here. Sure enough, here was his trade name, Dimples. Suite 448—

  A high-pitched sound pierced the cloud of chatter—a scream? A glimpse of something white falling, and the scream was cut off by a big, messy crunch down by the steps to the dais.

  One of the birds screeched hard, and then human voices began to shrill and shout. Godwin jumped to his feet, his knuckles hard against his mouth. That couldn’t possibly have been—

  But it was.

  A Tuesday in mid-August

  Betsy read the e-mail again and groaned softly. December was a very busy month. Crewel World would be open extra hours to accommodate last-minute shoppers, and there were preparations for inventory, and taxes, and the non-business tasks of Christmas, the rounds of parties—Betsy threw a big one herself for her friends and employees—all in addition to the usual long hours kept by any small business owner selling to the public, filled with stocking, doing payroll, cleaning, planning, and record keeping.

  The e-mail explained that while the International Needlework Retailers Guild normally held a cash-and-carry market every February, this year there was a glitch. Because of an error on the hotel’s part, INRG had lost its February reservation. The Consulate Hotel was offering a free night to the sellers and buyers of needlework materials—if they could come in December. Betsy had a reservation for February; would she be able to make the change?

  No, December was impossible. Betsy clicked on Reply—and then changed her mind. The Nashville Market was very important. Shop-owners from across the country, including Betsy’s rival shops in the Twin Cities, would be there, buying the newest patterns, the latest fabrics and threads, the most innovative gadgets. Regular customers might be disappointed if Betsy didn’t go, and look elsewhere for consolation.

  She asked her shop manager about it.

  Godwin was adamant. “You have to go.”

  “I’d like to,” Betsy said, “but you know as well as I do, December is the worst possible month for a buying trip.”

  At noon, her favorite employee, Shelly Donohue, came in. She was a school teacher who only worked full-time in the summer, but she was an expert counted cross-stitcher, and a patient, friendly sales clerk. Godwin would have gone out to lunch, but he took a few minutes to tell her about the change in dates for Nashville.

  “Oh, rats, December is impossible!”

  “See?” said Betsy to Godwin. “I told you we can’t go.”

  Shelly said, “No, I can’t go. Winter break from school won’t have started, and I can’t change the arrangements I made to take a long weekend in February.” Betsy, having never gone to a market, had promised to take Shelly along when she signed up for Nashville Market.

  “Well, how about taking me?” said Godwin. “This will be almost as much fun as NNA in January.”

  “Wait a second!” said Shelly. “That’s not fair! You can’t go to two markets!” Godwin had already agreed that he should go to the National Needlepoint Association Market in San Diego because he was an expert on needlepoint; counted cross-stitch was the focus in Nashville, Shelly’s area of expertise.

  He yielded gracefully. “You’re right. So how about, just this once, we trade. We’ve both worked here long enough to know what our customers like in either kind.”

  “Hold on, you two,” Betsy said. “I haven’t said I’d go to Nashville yet. Adding thousands of dollars to inventory just before tax time is crazy.”

  “So don’t open the boxes,” said Shelly.

  Betsy blinked at her. “I don’t understand.”

  “A long time ago, Margot ordered a whole lot of stuff from a supplier going out of business. She placed the order somewhere in the third week of December, thinking it would maybe arrive before the end of January. Well, UPS pulled up December 29. So she just stacked the boxes in her apartment and didn’t bring them down until after inventory in January was finished.” Betsy’s sister Margot had been Crewel World’s previous owner.

  “Is that legal?” asked Godwin.

  “I don’t know,” shrugged Shelly. “But Margot got the idea from another shop-owner who did the same thing. Neither one got into trouble over it with the IRS.”

  “That’s probably because no one told the IRS about it,” noted Godwin.

  “And which of us three is going to say a word to the IRS?” demanded Shelly, staring hard at Godwin.

  “Are you talking to me, girlfriend?” said Godwin, placing an outraged spread of fingers on his chest. He turned to his boss. “Not a word shall escape my lips.”

  Shelly said, “So see?”

  Before the discussion could continue, the door went bing, announcing a customer, and they quickly put on pleasant faces as they turned to greet her.

  “Hi, Jill!” said Betsy cheerfully—Jill was a close friend as well as a skilled needleworker. “Those Madeira silks you wanted came in this morning, I was going to call you.”

  Sergeant Jill Cross Larson, tall and athletic in her summer-weight blue uniform, stood still a moment, inhaling the conditioned air as if hunting down a scent—or perhaps merely enjoying the coolness of it. The police building was a few blocks away, and it was very hot and humid outdoors. She had a habit of standing with her chin lifted and her eyebrows raised, a pose that always seemed to express mild doubt about the situation presented to her. It was probably mere habit, but it tended to make miscreants think twice about lying to her.

  Jill was very fair. When she took off her six-pointed hat she revealed long cornsilk hair pulled up into a flat coronet of braid.

  “Hello, Shelly, Goddy. Betsy, I want some more of that cherry-red wool, too.” She started toward the triple row of wooden pegs on the long wall that held the thin skeins of needlepoint wool, then, identifying the scent, paused to look again at the trio and said, “What’s the problem here?”

  “Oh, the Nashville Market lost its site for next February and they’ve moved it back to this December. We’ve been talking about whether we’ll go or not,” Betsy said.

  “No,” said Godwin. “We’re talking about who gets to go with Betsy, me or Shelly.”

  “No, that’s settled,” said Shelly. “I’m going to San Diego, you’re going to Nashville. Gosh, California in January!” Betsy could almost see the Pacific waves rolling and crashing in Shelly’s eyes.

  Jill said, “When in December?”

  “When in December what?” Betsy asked.

  “What dates in December are you going to Nashville?”

  “If I go, the fourteenth through the seventeenth. Anyhow, much as I would love to have you along, no one who isn’t an owner or employee of a needlework shop can get into the Nashville Market.”

>   “Hey, that’s not why I’m asking,” said Jill, faintly shocked that Betsy would think she was asking for a dishonest favor. “There’s a seminar on police management in Nashville in December I’m thinking of attending. It’s the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth.”

  “Hurrah!” cheered Godwin. “We can meet for an evening out. Are you anywhere near the Grand Ole Opry?”

  Jill smiled and said, “This seminar is at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel.”

  “Oh, my God!” exclaimed Godwin. “Oh, Jill, you go right back to the police station and sign up! You don’t want to miss this! Betsy, you have to see this place! It’s as big as the Mall of America, but it’s a hotel! It’s got a river running through the middle of it! And there’s a jungle, with orchids and palm trees! Big palm trees! And a New Orleans section, with jazz bands and—well, you just have to see it!”

  “Looks like we’re for it, Betsy,” Jill said.

  And Betsy surrendered, lifted her hands, and said, “I guess so. I’ll confirm our reservations tonight, Goddy.”

  Wednesday, December 12, 8.40 A.M.

  Betsy and Godwin climbed into Betsy’s big Buick with the next-to-smallest U-Haul trailer fastened behind. The trailer was there because the market was “cash-and-carry,” meaning the thousands of dollars in stock they would buy must be taken away on the spot. And because neither Godwin nor Betsy traveled light, the back seat and trunk of the car were already filled with their suitcases.

  Godwin had suggested Jill ride down with him and Betsy, but Jill couldn’t spare the travel time, and so was flying down Friday morning. Which, as it turned out, was a good thing for her.

  The temperature climbed as Betsy and Godwin drove south, of course, and she felt comfortable sharing the driving with Godwin. But overcast skies turned to snow in Rockford, Illinois, and then to sleet. Betsy took over the wheel as sole proprietor, and they stopped in Bloomington for the night.