The Drowning Spool (A Needlecraft Mystery) by Ferris Monica

Author:Ferris, Monica [Ferris, Monica]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

“OH, that’s impossible!” cried Lia, crowding Frey out of the way as she reached into the armoire. She lifted the other sheets, then pulled them all out, tumbling them onto the tiled floor.

“Careful, careful!” warned Frey.

“But of course it’s here. Oh my God, Teddi will have a cow—” She cut herself off and, pressing both hands to her face, turned away. “Sorry, sorry!” she said in a strange, high voice. “Oh, Teddi!”

Frey immediately pulled her away from the wardrobe and embraced her. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” she said.

“I can’t believe she’s gone!” wept Lia. “She was so alive!”

“I know, I know,” said Frey, who was looking apologetically at Betsy over Lia’s shoulder.

Betsy said, “I’m sorry this has upset you. Maybe this was a bad idea. Do you want me to leave?”

“Maybe that’s best,” moaned Lia.

“No!” said Frey, releasing Lia and holding her at arm’s length. “Now you listen to me, Lia Perrin. You agreed with me that we should take every opportunity to help find out who did this terrible thing to Teddi. Ms. Devonshire just now found something that the police missed. It may be important. So pull yourself together and stop being messy. Okay? Okay?”

“Okay,” said Lia, sniffing and nodding. “Yes, okay.”

“Good girl.” Frey turned to Betsy. “Is the missing bedsheet important?”

“I don’t know how important it is, but it’s definitely a clue. Someone brought the missing sheet to my shop, torn and dirty. She found it in her garbage bin, with no idea how it got there.”

Lia whirled to face Betsy. “How did that happen? Who put it there?”

“I don’t know. But it will be helpful to try to find out who took it away from here. Did either of you take it, perhaps to show it to someone, or even to wrap around something?”

“No, no, the only person who ever handled those bedclothes was Teddi,” said Frey. “Even when we were cleaning in here, she insisted on being the only one to take them out and put them back, and we mostly just dusted around them. They were too fragile to survive much handling, she said.”

“That’s right,” seconded Lia. “One thing that made us good roommates was that we never touched anything that wasn’t ours. And it helped that we each had our own bedroom.”

“May I see Teddi’s?” asked Betsy.

“You show her,” Lia said to Frey. “I can’t go in there.”

Teddi’s bedroom wasn’t large, but it was tastefully decorated in deep pink and silver with pale pink accents. The bed was thickly draped with a rose-pink duvet over a pale pink dust ruffle, and the border of the tufted headboard had been painted silver. The wall behind it had been hand- painted with a gnarled tree covered with pale pink flowers visited by silver butterflies. The carpet was silver-gray.

One pink wall was covered with pen-and-ink and watercolor portraits and landscapes, some framed and others held on by painter’s tape. Betsy recognized Lia and Frey in two of the drawings. The paintings were well done, though not quite professional.

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