Framed in Lace Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  A Lacy Butterfly Designed by Denise Williams After a bobbin-lace pattern by ...

  Skeletons in the closet ...

  “You know about the skeleton on the boat they raised?”

  “Yes ... How dreadful for the divers, to find something like that.”

  Shelly nodded. “We’re involved again.”

  “Who is?”

  “The shop, Crewel World.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They’ve left a big clue in our shop, and people are being asked to look at it and see if they can identify it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a piece of silk with lace edging, or rather a picture of it. It was found on the boat, which means it went down with it in 1949. No one has come up with anything yet, but you just watch. Of course, Betsy won’t suspect you or me, because we weren’t around in 1949.”

  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

  SINS AND NEEDLES

  Anthologies

  PATTERNS OF MURDER

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  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.

  FRAMED IN LACE

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

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime edition / October 1999

  Copyright © 1999 by Mary Monica Pulver 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 : 978-1-101-49573-5

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

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

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  http://us.penguingroup.com

  1

  It wasn’t even Halloween, but autumn was over. Betsy sat at the little round table in the dining nook of her apartment and gazed out the back window. There was a small parking lot, with the ground beyond rising steeply through mature trees. Only yesterday the trees were ablaze with orange, red, and yellow leaves. She had planned to drive around Lake Minnetonka this weekend and take in the colors. But there had been a hard freeze last night, and now, in a light breeze, there was a Technicolor blizzard on the slope that would leave the branches bare by nightfall. Already she could see a gas station and a white clapboard house that had been hidden by foliage yesterday. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, but the weatherman on the radio had said that perhaps the temperature would break fifty by early afternoon.

  Betsy, fresh from San Diego, didn’t have much of a winter wardrobe. She had planned to buy winter woolens locally—Minnesota was heavily Scandinavian, and Betsy just loved their sweaters—but hadn’t realized she’d need them so soon. Today she was wearing her warmest work outfit: a federal-blue cotton skirt, a bell-sleeved white blouse, and a brown felt vest with carved wooden buttons.

  She looked at her watch and hastily drank the last of her tea. She put the empty cup and the plate that had held a fried egg sandwich into the sink. Sophie was already at the door of the apartment, ready to accompany her to work. The cat had a better sense of time than she did—not surprising, really. Sophie had been her sister’s cat, and therefore in the business longer than Betsy had.

  Like the Queen of England, Betsy “lived above the shop.” She went out the door, down the stairs, and to the obscure door into a back hallway that led to the back door of Crewel World. Sophie trundled along beside her.

  It was just nine-forty, and the store opened at ten, but the back door was unlocked. Betsy froze with her hand on the knob, key in the lock. The last time she had gone through a door that should have been locked, she had found her sister’s body.

  Sophie made an inquiring noise, and Betsy waved a shushing hand at her while she leaned forward to listen at the door. Faint conversation. One voice, a light tenor, rose to understandability: “And I’m just so fond of magenta, it’s a warm, clear color without being quite so simple as red.”

  There was a murmur as another voice replied; but Betsy couldn’t understand the words.

  “That’s right! You know, it’s just great dealing with a customer who has a decent sense of color.”

  While Betsy hadn’t understood the reply, she heard the pleased note in the voice, and she smiled as she opened the door into the back room. Sophie scooted through, and she closed it behind her firmly enough to be heard in the shop.

  “Oh, good, now I won’t have to make change out of my own pocket,” said the tenor. “Good morning, Betsy!”

  “Good morning, Godwin,” replied Betsy, coming into the shop and pausing automatically. Sunlight poured between the front-window displays of counted cross-stitch patterns and needlepoint projects. It lit up the counters and tables with their baskets of wool, cotton, and silk. On one wall, the big swinging doors that held painted canvases stood open just enough to call attention to themselves. Near the front door was an old dresser painted white, its dim mirror holding advertisements for conventions and classes on
knitting and needlepoint. All looked in perfect order.

  The customer was a medium-sized woman in a long tweed coat, and in her hands hung a sky blue drawstring plastic bag. It had Crewel World printed on it in little Xs, as if worked in cross-stitch.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Schuster,” said Betsy.

  “Good morning, Betsy. I was on my way to the Waterfront Café for breakfast when I saw lights on in your shop and stopped to see if I could pick up my order of magenta silk, and Godwin was kind enough to unlock the door.”

  “How’s the project coming?” asked Betsy, going behind the big desk that served as a checkout counter.

  “Very, very well,” said Mrs. Schuster. Encouraged by the question and still pleased at Godwin’s compliments, she pulled a needlepoint canvas from the bag. It was a square canvas of grapes and grape leaves, not quite abstract. The stitching was an appropriate and very competent basket weave. When finished and framed, it would hang in the office of a friend of Mrs. Schuster’s, who vinted wines as a hobby. The grapes were being done in silk, the leaves were already stitched in various green wools.

  “Oh, I like how it’s turning out,” said Godwin, coming to look. “You were so clever to do the grapes in silk to make them shimmer.” He cocked his head. “Chalk-white wool for the background, of course.”

  “Yes—of course,” said Mrs. Schuster, and Betsy shot him a grateful look. Mrs. Schuster had taken up a lot of Betsy’s time discussing colors and fibers for this project and had changed her mind three times about the background.

  But Betsy wasn’t surprised that Mrs. Schuster was quick to take Godwin’s suggestion. The young man had developed a serious talent for needlework during the two years he’d worked for Betsy’s sister and now for Betsy. That he was gay only added to his reputation for selecting the right color and texture for any project.

  Betsy was new in town, and not knowledgeable about needlework or about running a shop. Crewel World had been her sister’s, and for her sister’s sake its customers were giving her every chance to climb the steep learning curve into the intricate world of needlework.

  Mrs. Schuster left with her magenta silk and enough white wool to do the background of her project. As she went up Lake Street, her breath streamed out behind her. Brrr, thought Betsy. And it’s not even Halloween yet.

  She looked around again. The track lights were on, the front door unlocked, the needlepoint sign turned so that Open faced the street. When Mrs. Schuster had paid her bill, Betsy had put the forty dollars of startup money in the old-fashioned cash register. The hot-dust smell in the air meant Godwin had turned up the heat. Even as she turned to remind him, he was stooping to turn on the Bose radio, tuned to a classical music station. Sophie clambered up onto “her” chair, the one with a powder blue cushion that set off her white fur with the tan and gray patches perfectly. They were ready for business.

  “What brought you in early?” asked Betsy.

  “Oh, John was being a pissant last night, so I just went to bed early; and so I got up early, and so here I am.” John was the wealthy lawyer Godwin lived with, whose support enabled Godwin to work for slave wages at Crewel World.

  “Trouble?” asked Betsy.

  “Oh, nothing we haven’t had before. He’s so jealous, and really, right now I’m not giving him the least reason to be jealous.” Godwin tossed his head. He was a slender man, a little under medium height, and his wardrobe tended toward Calvin Klein Slim Fit jeans and silk knit shirts, though today, in honor of the season’s change, he was wearing a brown-plaid shirt under a fine-woven Perry Ellis sweater with textured pinstripes. His short hair was an enhanced blond color, his eyes a guileless blue, his nose almost too perfect. He looked eighteen, though Betsy knew he would be twenty-six in December.

  Betsy smiled at him even as she hoped there wasn’t a breakup in Godwin’s future. He was her best employee: knowledgeable, loyal, and reliable. He could be charming, gossipy, witty, and sympathetic in turn with customers, all in an exaggerated, self-deprecating way designed to make them remember him, talk about him, and come back for more. Betsy sometimes wondered if there was a deeper, more reflective Godwin—though she had no intention of doing an archaeological dig on his personality. He suited her, and the shop, just fine as he was.

  He smiled back, and they moved with one accord to the library table in the middle of the floor. They sat down opposite one another. Betsy reached into the basket under the table, he unzipped his canvas sport-club bag, and each pulled out a project. Godwin was knitting a pair of white cotton socks. Betsy was trying to learn knitting in the round by making a pair of mittens.

  Betsy found where she’d left off and, after a brief struggle, got her needles under control. Knitting with alpaca wool onto three double-pointed needles is a definite step up from stretchy polyester yarn on two single-point needles. She glanced across at Godwin who was knitting with tiny, swift gestures while looking out the window. He had turned the heel of his sock and was heading for the toe.

  “Why do you knit your own socks when they’re so cheap to buy?” asked Betsy after a few minutes. “And why white? I should think you’d be into argyle or at least magenta.”

  He laughed. “I’d love to wear magenta socks! But my feet are so sensitive, they break out in ugly red welts when I put colors or anything but one hundred percent cotton socks on them. And advertisers will say anything to get you to buy their products.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Betsy, who had never been plagued with allergies.

  “The weatherman says snow flurries tomorrow, did you hear?” said Godwin. “Say, did I ever tell you about our Halloween blizzard?”

  “Yes, you did, at the same time you told me that I really should get going on my mittens.” She had thought the famous Halloween blizzard a serious anomaly in the Minnesota weather until she, too, had heard the forecast. Snow flurries in October were apparently standard: the weatherman had been blasé about his prediction. Minnesota children must wear snowsuits under their costumes when they go trick or treating, thought Betsy.

  She had been raised in Milwaukee and thought she had a good grasp of winter weather in the upper midwest, but she couldn’t remember snow of any sort in October in Milwaukee. Good thing she was going to the Mall of America tomorrow on her day off. She would buy sweaters. And a winter coat and hat. And mittens. She was only halfway up the cuff of her first mitten, and at the rate she was going, she wouldn’t have this pair finished until January. The only thing she didn’t need by way of winter wear was a scarf. She had learned to knit by making herself a beautiful bright red scarf.

  Betsy had come to Excelsior from San Diego at the end of August for an extended visit, planning to work her way through a midlife crisis. She’d been here barely a week when her sister was murdered. The police had thought Margot had interrupted a burglar in her shop, but Betsy had been convinced there was a more sinister connection between the shop and her sister’s murder. She was proved right, and because of her efforts a murderer was in jail awaiting trial.

  Shortly before her death, Margot had incorporated Crewel World, naming Betsy as vice-president. Now, as sole surviving officer, Betsy could do as she liked with the shop. She had thought to close or sell it, but since she had to remain in town anyway until her sister’s estate was settled, and because Crewel World’s customers were both friendly and insistent she not do anything hasty, Betsy was still here and Crewel World was still open. And, perhaps, dealing every day with people who had known Margot well was a way of holding onto her just a little while longer.

  Betsy Devonshire was fifty-five, with graying brown hair and big blue eyes surrounded by lots of laugh lines, plump but not unattractively so. The loss of her sister was too recent to do other than weigh heavily on her heart, and the midlife crisis that had brought her to Minnesota had been triggered by an angry divorce, so the fact that at times she could smile and even laugh was proof of a resilient soul.

  There was something else that helped. Margot had been the childless wid
ow of a self-made millionaire. Since Betsy was Margot’s only sibling, the estate would come entirely to her. The prospect of wealth made Betsy more of a gambler than she might otherwise have been.

  At ten-thirty, the knitting became an aggravation and she put it away. “Coffee?” she asked Godwin.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You know, you can work on more than one thing at a time.”

  “I know. I’m going to try one of those little Christmas ornaments I ordered. I hope counted cross-stitch isn’t as confusing to learn as needlepoint was.” Betsy had long ago mastered embroidery, but only recently picked up the basics of needlepoint. To round out her understanding of her customers, she needed to venture into counted cross-stitch.

  She paused on her way to the back room to stroke Sophie, who, after a hard morning of getting Betsy out of bed, wolfing down her pittance of lams Less Active cat food, and making the long, difficult journey down the stairs and along to the back entrance, was ready for her morning nap. Perhaps it really was a difficult journey; Sophie had broken her hind leg a few weeks ago and still wore the cast, which she now arranged in what Betsy was sure was an obvious display. Sophie had quickly learned that seeing the cast excited customers to sympathy and even small treats.

  I believe she’ll be sorry when that leg heals, thought Betsy, bending to search in the tiny refrigerator for a bottle of V8 Extra Spicy for herself before pouring Godwin’s coffee into a pretty porcelain cup.

  She had barely brought them back to the table when a shadow darkened the doorway. There was an electronic bing as the door opened to admit police officer Jill Cross. An expert needlepointer, she was a tall woman who looked even bigger in her dark uniform jacket, hat, and utility belt. But her face below the cap was the sweet oval of a Gibson girl, and her figure, while sturdily built, was definitely female.