First thing Tuesday morning a man in a handsome three-piece business suit came into Crewel World. Despite the vest, and though his shirt had long sleeves with French cuffs held together with heavy gold links, and his bright blue silk tie was tight against his collar, he did not look the least wilted in the early-morning warmth and humidity. The big American sedan he’d climbed out of in front of the shop was a variety that came with heavy air-conditioning.
He was tall, with dark brown hair and blue eyes, square-jawed and handsome, moving with athletic grace. The fit of the suit bespoke wealth. Betsy could almost hear Godwin’s engine start to race.
But the man ignored Godwin’s flutter of inquiring eyelashes and came to the desk to ask Betsy, “Are you Ms. Devonshire?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’m Broward Birmingham.” He didn’t hold out his hand, and his tone was that of an executive seriously thinking that order could be restored only by firing someone. Betsy suddenly realized that his jaw was so prominent because the underlying muscles were clenched.
“How do you do?” said Betsy.
“My mother came here yesterday and talked with you.” It was not a question.
“Yes, she did.”
“She asked you to do some unofficial investigating of the murder of my father.”
“That’s correct.”
“I am here to ask you not to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because this isn’t any of your business. I see no reason to ask an amateur to second-guess the police.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t be second-guessing them. I don’t have any idea what they might be doing. I will just talk to people, listen to their stories, and draw my own conclusions.”
“And who knows what conclusions an amateur might draw? This isn’t something you’ve been trained to do.”
“That’s true. But I seem to have a talent for it. Also, I am unhampered by the rules-of evidence and so forth-that the police must follow.”
“That is exactly why I am asking you to stay out of this. I don’t want you screwing up an official investigation.”
“I wouldn’t dream of doing that!”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t, not on purpose. On the other hand, if you come across evidence and handle it or move it or take it away, that can compromise the rules that must be followed for the evidence to be used in a court of law.”
“Oh, I see what you’re getting at. But, you see, I wouldn’t do something like that. I have a friend who is a police officer, and she advises me about particulars like that. I don’t usually pick up things, mostly I just talk with people. It can’t hurt to talk.”
“I’m not just concerned about you moving evidence. I don’t want you to investigate, period. Let me tell you as plainly as I know how: Stay out of this.”
Betsy nearly continued arguing with him. Then she saw that the muscles in his jaw were even more prominent, and she recalled what Phil had said yesterday about the Birmingham men: They don’t like people to disagree with them.
Broward had no legal authority over Betsy, but something her mother used to say rolled across the front of her mind on those letters made of dots: Those who fight and run away, live to fight another day.
“I understand,” she said as meekly as she could, and dropped her eyes.
“Thank you,” he said tightly, turned on his heel, and walked out.
Godwin withheld his snigger until Broward slammed himself into his big car and drove away. “Good for you,” he said. Because Betsy had not said she was going to obey Broward’s order, only that she understood it.
“I wonder how long I’ll be able to poke around before he finds out?”
Godwin’s amused smile faded as he thought that over. “I think you ought to be even more concerned about what he’ll do when he does find out.”
Adam Smith sat at the head of the old wooden table, his six steering committee members arranged down either side. Five were, like him, white males in their sixties. The sixth was Ceil Ziegfield, married to a white male in his sixties. Every one of them owned at least one antique car; every one had made the New London to New Brighton run at least three times.
Adam had tried it fourteen times in six different cars, and had finished it only nine. He liked the rarer makes, which tended to be more delicate, eccentric, and cranky than the ones which had proved their worth by becoming numerous. But he always had chosen the road less traveled.
“Have we got all the pretour routes printed?” Drivers would gather in New London early, and would drive to nearby towns: Paynesville on Wednesday, Spicer on Thursday, and Litchfield on Friday, following complicated routes on back roads, trying to keep off busy highways as much as possible.
“All set,” said Ceil. She was secretary of the committee, naturally; it never occurred to the men to think a woman wouldn’t be pleased to take minutes and do the endless paperwork connected with this project. Ceil wasn’t pleased. On the other hand, the men who had done the job in previous years-this was the first year a woman had been honored by being chosen to sit on the steering committee-had managed all right, and so she supposed she could, too.
“Who’s going out ahead to put up arrows?” asked Ed.
“Me, I guess,” said Adam. Small squares of paper with bold black arrows printed on them were to be stapled on fence posts at intersections to aid drivers. This had been the late Bill Birmingham’s job, as he had been in charge of laying out this year’s routes.
But after a discussion about possible problems Adam might have to be on site to resolve, it was decided that Jerry, who had laid out the routes last year, should put up the arrows. Ceil handed over the shoebox full of them and a staple gun.
“What else?” asked Adam. “What have we forgotten?” There was always something forgotten, something that was thought to have been taken care of that wasn’t, some glitch in the planning. This would be the Sixteenth Annual New London to New Brighton Antique Car Run, but he was sure that even now, after sixteen years, there was a screwup somewhere.
But everyone turned confident smiles on him, and Ceil even said aloud, “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
“We have enough banners,” Adam prompted, meaning the heavy plastic squares with a soft drink logo and a number on them-a past president of the club owned a soft drink bottling company, and supplied the banners for free, complete with logo.
“We have fifty-three drivers signed up as of yesterday evening, and expect perhaps twelve more by Saturday,” said Ed, consulting his notes. People were allowed to sign up as late as the day of the run. “We’ve never had more than seventy, and we have banners numbered up to eighty-five.”
“Have we got enough volunteers at Buffalo High for lunch?” Buffalo wasn’t a big city, but the high school was one of those massive consolidated ones, with a huge parking lot. Drivers came in for a hot lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs, with cole slaw and watermelon on the side. The Antique Car Club had to rent the cafeteria from the school district, and then find volunteers to buy supplies and prepare the meal. The soft drink bottler would provide drinks at cost.
“I think we’re okay,” said Ed, “though I’m hoping to scare up another server on the lunch line.”
“Get two,” advised Adam. “You’ll always have a no-show, and if another one gets sick, you’re in big trouble. How’s the program coming?”
“Fine,” said Ceil. “The layout’s done, the printer’s been warned it’ll be a rush job, and I’m just waiting another day because Milt said he’s FedExing his photo to me.” The program was printed as late as possible in order to include as many entries as possible. It came in the form of a magazine, and each entry was to supply a color photograph of his or her vehicle. Onlookers enjoyed being able to look up and identify a car they had seen and liked.
“Did we take Bill Birmingham’s name off the program?” Adam asked, and there was an awkward shuffle.
Ceil said, “That’s something we should discuss. Some of us think we should leave it, maybe put a black border around it.” Bill’s photo showed him at last year’s run, the first one he and Charlotte drove in the 1910 Maxwell. The photo had been taken in New London, with the two of them aboard looking happy and confident. The look had vanished by the halfway point, when they’d staggered into Buffalo two hours late. Their car had not been able to continue.
“What will Charlotte think when she sees it?” Adam asked.
“She’s not coming,” Ceil said. “I talked with her this morning and she told me to tell you not to expect her.”
“When’s the funeral?” asked Henry.
Ceil replied, “They don’t know yet. The medical examiner hasn’t released the body.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Ed remarked, “This whole business sucks. I don’t know which aspect sucks the worst, but there isn’t an aspect that doesn’t.”
“I call the question,” said Henry, who was familiar with Robert’s Rules of Order.
“What does that mean?” asked Adam, who wasn’t.
“That means, let’s vote on the motion.”
“Nobody made a motion,” noted Ceil.
“All right, I move we leave Bill’s name and photo in the program, with a black border.”
“Second,” said Mike.
The motion carried five to two, Henry and Adam being the two dissenters. Henry thought they should either make a big fuss, dedicate the run to Bill, ask for a moment of silence and put a big picture on the first page of the program-or drop the photo out of the program and say nothing at all. Though no one wanted to say so now, Bill hadn’t been popular enough for the first to have any meaning, so Henry voted for the second. Adam thought it would make people who knew the ugly details of Bill’s death uncomfortable to find him beaming out at them from the program, even with a black border. He knew it would him. So he voted against it.
Early in the afternoon a woman came into Crewel World. Betsy didn’t recognize her. She was in her late twenties, too thin, with fine-grained skin lightly touched with freckles, dark blond hair pulled carelessly back into a scrunchie, and a sleeveless, pale pink dress a size too large. She looked around with an experienced eye, then went to the racks of counted patterns. After a few minutes, she picked up a black-on-white pattern called A Twinkling of Trees and brought it to the desk.
“What do you recommend for the fabric for this?” she asked. Her light blue eyes would have been her best feature if she had thought to use a touch of mascara on her very pale eyelashes.
“I’m doing it on Aida,” said Betsy. “I should warn you it’s almost all backstitching,” she added, because many stitchers become very cross about backstitching.
“I can see that, but there’s something primal about trees standing in snow, don’t you think? Plus it reminds me of where I grew up. We don’t get a lot of snow where I live now.”
“Are you from Minnesota?”
“Oh, yes, I’m Lisa Birmingham.” But not for long, to judge by the three-carat engagement diamond on a long, slender finger. Well, unless she decided to keep her name, thought Betsy. Which she might, because this was Dr. Lisa Birmingham, the pediatrician.
“How do you do?” said Betsy. “I’m Betsy Devonshire. I’m so sorry about your father.”
“Yes, well, that’s the real reason I’m here. You spoke with my mother yesterday. Has my brother been to see you as well?”
“Yes, a little while ago.”
“Well, I’m sure he tried to warn you off.”
“Yes, he did.”
She leaned forward and said with quiet intensity, “Ignore him. Help my mother. She’s going crazy, and the police won’t leave her alone.”
“You don’t think the police suspect her?”
“Yes, I do, though I don’t see how. But I want as many people as possible working on solving this. The more people trying, the better, don’t you agree?”
“Possibly. Your brother seems to think I’ll do something that will spoil the investigation.”
“Will you?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Well, then. Do your darndest to help us, won’t you?”
“All right. Have you got a few minutes to talk with me?”
“What for, what about?”
“Your father, your brother, anything you think might help.”
“All right. But I live in St. Louis, and have for three years. I don’t get home very often. So I don’t know if I’ll be much help.”
Betsy led her to the back of the shop, where two cozy upholstered chairs faced one another across a small, round table. “Here, have a seat,” she invited the woman. “Would you like a cup of coffee, or tea?”
“Coffee, black, thanks.”
Betsy brought her the coffee in a small, pretty porcelain cup, and for herself a cup of green tea. Each took a polite sip. Betsy said, “How much older than you is Broward?”
“Three years. Bro is the oldest, then there’s me, then Tommy is not quite three years younger, and David is two years younger than Tommy. I assume Mother bragged about us?”
“Yes, of course. She said Broward quit an excellent job to go into business with his father, that you are a pediatrician, Tommy owns a car dealership, and David is going for an advanced degree in education.”
Lisa nodded, smiling. “I see she’s still prouder of my M.D. license than my engagement to Mark. You have a good memory.”
“I was interested. Your mother has good reason to be proud of her children. But tell me, how did your father persuade Broward to give up a position with a bigger company and come to work for him?”
“That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. My father was supposed to retire and let Bro take over the business. Father’s doctor warned him years ago that he had to retire and start taking it easy. Father chose not to believe him. His blood pressure was high and he said medications prescribed for him weren’t working, though what I think was, he wasn’t taking them. They make you sleepy, you know, and he couldn’t stand that. So he’d take them for a couple of days before he was supposed to go have his pressure checked, and that wasn’t always long enough. Drove his doctor crazy until he finally figured out what Dad was doing. And meanwhile Father refused to work fewer hours.
“Then he had a ministroke, and that scared him. He phoned Bro and told him he was ready to retire, and did Bro want to take over the company. Bro said sure-he wasn’t moving up fast enough in the company he was working for.
“But Father couldn’t quit, not completely. At first he said he had to show Bro the ropes, then he said he wanted to see how Bro was doing, and finally he said he just couldn’t trust Bro to run the company the way it should be run.”
“Bill’s way,” said Betsy.
“That’s right. Bro had his own ideas, and Father couldn’t allow that.”
Betsy took another sip of her tea and said, “How angry was Bro at his father?”
Lisa thought a moment and said, “Not murderously angry, of course. He could have quit, gone back to being a production manager at his former company-they want him back, they write him letters asking him to come back-and he told me he was thinking about going back to wait for Father to die.”
“Was that likely to have happened soon? I mean, do you know how dangerously ill your father was?”
“Last time I talked to Mother, before all this happened, she said the doctor told her that Father would have a serious stroke within six months if he didn’t slow down.”
“Did Bro know this?”
“I don’t know. I think so. If Mother told me, she probably told Bro, Tommy, and David, too.”
“Was your father supposed to give up the cars, too?”
“Oh, no. They were a hobby. I’m reasonably sure it never occurred to anyone to tell the doctor that he worked as hard on those cars as he did at running his company.”
“Did you know he was thinking about starting a company to supply parts to antique car collectors?”
Lisa sighed. “No, but that sounds a lot like Father.”
“Do you have any idea how valuable his antique cars are?”
“The Maxwells are fairly common. Mother will probably get the best price for the Fuller. That’s a really rare car.”
“Fuller? I thought all your father collected were Maxwells.”
“He did, except he bought this one Fuller. It’s a Nebraska Fuller, not a Michigan, a high wheeler from 1910.”
Betsy hadn’t been this confused since she first worked in Crewel World and someone asked her if DMC 312 could be substituted for Paternayan 552. Betsy hadn’t even known the customer was talking about embroidery floss. “High wheeler?” she repeated now, in the same tone that she’d echoed, “Paternayan?”
“Oh!” said Lisa. “I thought since you volunteered to work on the Antique Car Run that you knew something about these old cars.”
“Well, I don’t. What’s a high wheeler?”
“The wheels are bigger in circumference, like buggy wheels. Automobile wheels are smaller. I think Father bought the Fuller because Adam wanted it.”
“Do you mean Adam Smith?”
“Yes. He and Father were kind of rivals. You know how they keep saying, ‘This isn’t a race, the run isn’t a race’?”
Betsy nodded.
“Well, not everyone believes that. And whenever Adam beat one of Father’s Maxwells in one of his frail old rarities, Father was fit to be tied. Adam collects rarities and he wanted that Fuller very badly. Father bought it mostly to annoy him.”
“And partly because-?”
“Oh, once Father was sure Adam had given up trying to get it, he was going to sell it at a profit. He’d already had a couple of bids on it from other collectors.”
“So this wasn’t a friendly rivalry.”
Lisa hesitated, then decided candor was necessary. “At first it was. Then Adam bought a 1910 Maxwell that Father wanted badly. His plan was to resell it to Father at a nice profit. But Father, just to spite him, bought a different 1910 Maxwell-and it turned out to be a cantankerous machine, always something wrong with it. So Father was doubly angry with Adam. I think Adam was feeling guilty about the trick, but then Father bought the Fuller and wouldn’t sell it to Adam at any price. Adam was furious.”
“Couldn’t they have gotten together on some kind of trade, maybe with cash added to make it even? I assume the Fuller was worth quite a bit more than the Maxwell.”
“Yes, quite a bit, but neither was willing to talk to the other. In fact, Mother told me that the last time Adam and Father’s paths crossed, Adam told Father that he was looking forward to Father’s death, so he could come to the estate sale and buy that Fuller.” She looked at her watch and jumped to her feet. “I’m supposed to take Mother to the lawyer’s office, and I’ll be late if I don’t leave right now.” She plunged her hand into her small white purse and pulled out a card. “Are you on the Internet?”
“Yes.”
“Good. This has my e-mail address on it, contact me that way if you have any more questions. If Bro finds out I’m talking to you, he’ll be angry, so I’d better not come out here anymore. And you can’t call me. With everyone at home, e-mail’s the only way to guarantee a private conversation. Bye.” She grabbed up her purchases and left. Since they had been put into a Crewel World plastic drawstring bag, it was likely at least some of the family knew where she had been. This would serve as a reason why. But the metro area was scattered with needlework shops, most of them closer to Roseville than Crewel World, so most would quickly figure out why Lisa found it necessary to travel all the way out here to buy a cross stitch pattern.
Betsy rinsed the cups and went out front to assist a customer who came in to buy the threads for a pattern she’d found at a garage sale. Betsy managed to find all but one, which had been given the unhelpful name “Dawn’s Favorite.” But by consulting the pattern and locating where the unknown color was to be used, then looking at the colors around it, she realized it must be a shade of pink not already selected. She pulled three related shades from a spinner rack and, by giving the customer her choice, made her a collaborator and less likely to decide later she was unsatisfied with the color.
“Did Lisa help you decide Broward is a murderer?” asked Godwin when the customer was gone.
“No. In fact, she gave me a new suspect, Adam Smith.”
“I thought you liked Adam Smith.”
“I do. But it’s a shame how many nice people commit murder.”