Thai Die Page 5

  “So where is this Buddha statue?”

  “In the hands of the person who bought it from him, I’d say. Probably the woman who got out of the Hummer. Paid for it and left, I’d guess. What do you think?”

  “I think his murder and the search of his store, and then the search of Ms. Valentine’s apartment are no coincidence, and this statue is what they have in common. It could be that Ms. Valentine found out the statue was valuable after all and decided to keep it for herself. In order to do that, she had to murder Mr. Fitzwilliam.”

  “Apart from the extreme ridiculousness of thinking such a thing of Doris Valentine, you have to assume she shot him with a different gun than the one she owned,” said Betsy.

  “If she’s an intelligent person, sure.” Mike was turning pink around the ears.

  “But why murder him? Why not just fail to deliver it?”

  “Because Mr. Fitzwilliam would want to know why it wasn’t delivered, and when he can’t get hold of Ms. Valentine, he will contact the Bangkok dealer, who will give him her address.”

  “Oh. But he wouldn’t have had to contact the Bangkok dealer, since Doris said she talked to Mr. Fitzwilliam on the phone. He knew her name and probably that she was coming to his store from Excelsior. But all right, then, how about Mr. Fitzwilliam decided not to hand it over to the customer? And the customer murdered him to get it.”

  “Fine—except in that case, why come over here and ransack Ms. Valentine’s apartment?”

  “It was just a burglar in Doris’s apartment. Coincidences happen, you know.”

  “No, this place was tossed by someone looking for something. He left a huge mess, spilling and dumping all kinds of things. He even took the covers off the exhaust fans in the kitchen and bathroom.”

  Betsy looked up at the ceiling as she pictured the ruins. What a horrible thing to walk into! But a search. She quashed her empathy in an effort to think clearly. Why would someone go on a search of Doris’s apartment? She couldn’t think. She shrugged.

  Mike said, “Suppose Doris didn’t hand over the Buddha because she found out it is really ancient and valuable? Countries have laws about exporting their antiquities.”

  Betsy nodded.

  “And the person who was to buy it thought Mr. Fitzwilliam was the one holding it back and killed him. If Doris is right and the woman who went into his shop was the customer, she searched his shop, and when she didn’t find it, she came looking for Doris.”

  Betsy bit her lower lip as her heart began to thump. Was Doris in danger? “Do you think that’s what happened?” she asked.

  “I’m still collecting information.”

  “You know, if this was such a secret deal, why was everyone being so aboveboard about it, her going to the Bangkok man’s office and phoning ahead to Fitzwilliam in St. Paul?”

  He said, “I thought Fitzwilliam was upset because Ms. Valentine showed it around.”

  “Well, yes, but he said that was because he was afraid she might have damaged it. Which was a legitimate fear. The hands on the statue were carved very delicately.” Betsy raised her own hands and tried to imitate the pose of the fingers as best as she could remember it.

  “Well, maybe,” said Malloy. Again he consulted his notes. “Tell me about Phil Galvin.”

  “He’s nice, a retired railroad man. I think he must be well into his seventies, though he’s pretty spry. He’s been a customer of this shop since before I came to own it. A gentleman, kind of old-fashioned. He’s been courting Doris for a long while, and being very discreet about it. Well, anyway, he thinks he’s being discreet. It’s cute watching the two of them not announcing to the world that they’re in love or hooked up or going into business together or whatever the current term is. It’s nobody’s business but theirs, and that’s fine with them.”

  “Any reports of quarrels lately?”

  “No. But as I said, they aren’t talking about their relationship to anyone. You don’t think he’s involved in this, do you?”

  “I’m just asking questions. Are you thinking you’re going to get involved?”

  Betsy thought of Phil, angry on Doris’s behalf—and Doris, distraught at being caught up in a case of murder without knowing how or why. “Of course,” she said.

  Four

  THIS time the customers weren’t standing for any polite evasions. They wanted to know what Sergeant Malloy had been doing upstairs and then what he talked about with Betsy. “What’s going on?” Shelly demanded.

  Bershada reported, “I saw Doris in here a while ago, and she was looking like she was about to scream. Or cry, at least.” That last brought several more women away from the yarn sale baskets.

  “What’s wrong? Is something wrong?” customers were asking.

  So Betsy felt forced to explain. “Someone broke into Doris Valentine’s apartment—fortunately while she wasn’t there—and thoroughly trashed it.”

  That brought on an exclamatory chorus: “Oh, that’s awful!” “Oooh, scary!” “Poor thing!”

  Alice asked, “Have the police got any clues?”

  “I don’t know, they didn’t say anything to me about collecting useful evidence,” Betsy said.

  People who knew Doris came close to the desk. Jeanette Morgan said, “No wonder she’s upset. I had a friend who was burglarized, and she actually sold her house afterward. She said she couldn’t live there anymore.”

  “Poor Doris!” said Pat Ingle. “But she isn’t going to move out, is she?”

  “Who’s Doris?” asked a customer.

  Linda Barta said, “Doris Valentine. She lives upstairs. Nice woman. She’s dating Phil Galvin.”

  Jeanette said, “I saw them together the other night in that new restaurant, Biella’s. He seems very taken with her. And about time, I’d say. He’s been a widower for—how many years is it? Fifteen?”

  “Seventeen, I think,” said Edie Wills. “Doris was kind of slow to catch on he was interested . . .”

  Pat, Edie, Linda, and Jeanette drifted away, gossiping about senior dating.

  But Bershada, a member of the Monday Bunch, remained at the desk. She looked pointedly at Betsy and said, “I don’t know if you know this, but the police don’t clean up after a crime.”

  “Yes, of course, I know that,” said Betsy.

  “Good, because if you think she’s upset now, girl, you better believe she’s going to go ballistic when she comes home and there’s still that mess in her apartment!”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? I can’t leave the shop!”

  Shelly, standing by with two skeins of Lucci ribbon yarn, said, “But you’re her landlady! You should call someone! You can’t leave her to clean up a burglar’s mess all by her own self!”

  Godwin, having heard the conversation in passing, made a U-turn. “Isn’t that double jeopardy?” he asked.

  Rosemary Kossel, a very advanced knitter who taught classes at Betsy’s shop, said, “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

  Bershada said, “There are companies that will clean up crime scenes, but it’s bad enough having one stranger go through your stuff, without inviting more of them. Plus, they aren’t cheap.”

  “But what choice do you have?” Rosemary asked.

  She, Bershada, and Shelly looked at Betsy then, who said, “What, you want to surprise her?”

  “I should think she’d find it a wonderful surprise,” Rosemary said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Betsy said. “It’s one thing to be there when someone is helping to clean up your place, because you can tell them to throw that away and keep this, and thank them. But it’s another thing entirely when a bunch of gossipy women go through your things when you’re not there, and without your permission, and think they’re doing you a favor!”

  “Okay, you have a point there,” said Shelly. “So why don’t we ask her?”

  This time they all looked pointedly at Betsy, who acknowledged the responsibility with a small nod. “All right,” she said, “I’ll ask her if we
can help, okay?” She looked at each in turn. “That’s we, as in all of us. Except Godwin, who is taking a late flight to Florida.”

  “I could put it off,” Godwin offered, obviously hoping Betsy would turn him down.

  “No, you can’t,” Betsy said firmly. “You and Dax bought those cheap tickets and you can’t change them.”

  “That’s right,” Godwin said, relieved.

  Betsy looked at the others. “I expect you back here when Crewel World closes at eight.”

  Bershada and Shelly nodded, but Rosemary’s fair complexion turned bright pink. “Oh, wait, I was thinking we’d do it tomorrow! I can’t tonight! I’m so sorry. My daughter is taking me out to dinner and a movie tonight.”

  Bershada said, “But you can’t expect Doris to try to sleep in her apartment when it’s all torn up.”

  “I’m really sorry,” reiterated Rosemary. “But my daughter and I have been trying to have a private conversation for two weeks. I think she’s got something important she wants to talk about.”

  “Oh. That’s different,” said Bershada. “We understand. So go ahead, don’t worry about it.” She turned to Shelly. “What time?”

  “Wait, hold on,” said Betsy. “What if the police are still investigating in there? Or they have it sealed up for some reason and we can’t get in?”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Godwin, pleased to be able to do something in aid of the cause. He was gone only a few minutes. “They’re winding up now,” he said. “They’ll be gone in about ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “How about we go up now—no, in an hour?” suggested Shelly. “I want to take these things home.” She held up a plastic bag of yarn and needles.

  “Fine with me,” said Bershada.

  “But I’m not free until eight—” Betsy began, trying not to sigh. Her feet were already aching and she had a headache from hours in the shop.

  “I’ll come,” said Alice, who had been standing quietly in the background.

  “Thank you!” said Rosemary. Still pink, she went away.

  “Yes, thank you, Alice,” said Betsy, her tone quieter but just as heartfelt.

  Betsy phoned Phil and said some members of the Monday Bunch had volunteered to help clean up Doris’s apartment.

  “Well, isn’t that nice of you!” he said. “I think that’s really great! I’ll tell Dorie—and I’ll be there to help, too. Hold on.” There was a conversation on his end, unintelligible because he had put a hand over the receiver. “All right,” he said. “Betsy, we’ll both be there in an hour. Thank you!”

  They were all prompt. Betsy went up with Doris, Phil, Alice, Shelly, and Bershada to have a quick look for herself. The yellow plastic crime-scene tape had been pulled down, but left in a heap on the floor. Doris unlocked her door and started to open it, but when it bumped against something she drew back fearfully. Betsy reached in and pushed the obstacle out of the way—it was the door to the coat closet. It had been left open, and everything in it had been pulled off the hangers or the upper shelf. A box of Christmas ornaments had been upended and many of the glass balls were broken. Two winter coats, and a host of sweaters and jackets were on the floor under a crisscross of hangers.

  The entryway led into a small living room with a triple window on the right. They all stood there for a few moments, shocked at what they saw. Lamps were thrown on the floor and broken. Papers were scattered across the carpet, and chairs were overturned. Cushions from the couch had been dumped on the carpet and the couch upended over them. The thin fabric that covered its underside had been ripped away.

  “Oh my Lord!” said Bershada. She put an arm around Doris’s shoulder. “I thought you said it was a burglar! Honey, this was a vandal!”

  As Betsy led the way through the living room, everyone walked carefully, but still their feet crunched now and again on something frangible. The kitchen was another disaster. The refrigerator had been opened, and much of its contents had been pulled onto the floor. Every cabinet door and counter drawer had been opened and emptied. Sugar and flour canisters were spilled onto the floor.

  Traces of black powder were on every surface, left by the sheriff’s department investigators.

  Betsy said, “I had no idea it was going to be this bad.”

  Alice said, “If I wasn’t standing here looking at this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.”

  Shelly said, “Some teenagers once broke into a school where I was teaching and spent hours trashing it. But it didn’t look as bad as this.”

  “I hope this guy left lots and lots of fingerprints,” said Shelly in a low, angry voice. “I hope his fingerprints are on record somewhere.”

  “I hope so, too, baby,” said Bershada. She turned to Betsy. “You get back downstairs. We’ll get started.”

  Betsy, shaken, went back to work.

  Hours later—only a few, but it seemed like many—the sale ended and the shop closed. Cleaning up, taking down signs, removing colored stickers denoting sale prices from products, counting the money, running the credit card machine and cash register, emptying the coffee urn and tea kettle, washing up, carrying out the trash, and writing up a deposit slip all took additional time after the door was locked. Krista said she’d take the money over to the night deposit at the bank, and Betsy gratefully handed the bag of checks and cash to her.

  Then, upstairs again, Betsy looked over at Doris Valentine’s apartment door. It was partly open and there were two plastic garbage bags standing in the hall outside it. Betsy could hear the sound of cheerful voices coming from inside.

  But Betsy needed to eat something. It had gotten too busy in the shop for her even to grab a snack at noon. She needed to sit down for at least a little while, too; not just her feet but her right leg, the one she’d broken last year, ached from being stood on for so many hours. Right beside her own front door was Sophie, mewing piteously for her supper.

  Not that Sophie was as desperately hungry as Betsy was. She had spent the entire long day cadging treats from customers, some of whom knew to bring along a little something for her. In vain, Betsy had pointed at the needlepoint sign hanging on the chair with the powder blue cushion that the cat had claimed as her own: NO THANK YOU, I’M ON A DIET. People saw the sign, laughed, and slipped Sophie a fragment of cookie or bagel.

  Betsy unlocked her door, and the cat led the way into the galley kitchen. Betsy followed, to feed her a single small scoop of Science Diet dry cat food, the variety designed for old, fat, lazy cats, though the package didn’t put it that bluntly. Betsy bought Science Diet because the package advertised it as a “complete” food, meaning it had all the nutrients to keep a cat healthy—something quite untrue of the goodies Betsy’s customers loved to slip Sophie.

  While her pet was crunching her swift way through her pittance of cat food, Betsy was building a salad of iceberg and romaine lettuce, sweet red peppers, cucumber slices, one of those little cans of tuna, and lots of croutons. She ate with Sophie’s swift efficiency, drinking a glass of iced tea with her meal and then heading over to Doris’s apartment.

  Order was becoming apparent. Phil and Doris were working in the living room. The chairs were upright and in place, the broken lamps gone. Phil was tacking the loose underside fabric of the couch back in place with a broad thumb. Doris was sorting bills, postcards, letters, and other papers from the floor beside a small wooden desk. She didn’t seem to be looking at what she was picking up, but merely stacking them a few at a time and putting them into random drawers. Her face was almost expressionless.

  In a few days, thought Betsy, she’ll have to go through all of that again.

  Shelly and Bershada could be heard in the bedroom and bathroom.

  Alice was sweeping up the last quarter of the kitchen floor, a pile of flour growing under her broom.

  “That must have been spilled toward the end,” remarked Betsy.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Alice, turning to smile a greeting at her.

  “He wouldn’t have
wanted to leave footprints.”

  “A careful vandal,” said Alice, started to sweep again. “I never heard of such a thing.”

  “Can I help you in here?”

  “It’ll need to be mopped pretty soon.”

  “Call me,” said Betsy, going back to the living room.

  “Phil? Phil!” That sounded like Bershada, calling from the bedroom.

  Phil called back, “I’ll be right there!” He looked around, saw Betsy, and said, “Here, give me a hand.”

  Doris saw what they were about to do and came to help. They tipped the couch up onto its feet and pushed it back against the wall.

  “Phil!” called Bershada again.

  “I’m coming!” Phil called back. He touched Doris on the arm, and walked away.

  Doris went back to the hard wooden chair in front of her desk, hung her head, and looked about to weep. Betsy hurried to put a hand on her shoulder. “Doris, it’ll be all right. Trust me, it will be all right.”

  “I know, I know. But to think of a stranger’s hands pulling all my things out and dropping them like they were nothing important, leaving his dirty fingerprints all over everything . . .” She sobbed once. “It’s like he’s still here, smirking at me from every corner. It’s like I’ll look in a mirror and see him looking back at me from over my shoulder with a slimy smile.” She shuddered. “It makes me want to just walk away, leave everything behind, start over somehow.”

  “No, don’t do that,” Betsy said.

  Doris smiled sourly. “You don’t want to lose another tenant, huh?”

  Betsy smiled back at this sign of courage. “That’s right. You’re paying the taxes on this place, you know.” She squeezed Doris’s shoulder. “Besides, I’d miss you. And Godwin would miss you—him especially. You’d break his heart if you moved away.”

  “Maybe. I love him—and you, and the Monday Bunch. I’d have to stay in Excelsior. And there’s not many places in this town I can afford to rent.”