Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_02 Page 2

  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.

  “Hi, Jill,” said Godwin, getting to his feet. “How may I help you?”

  “Trade jobs with me,” said Jill in her best deadpan.

  “Not bloody likely,” Godwin said sincerely, then added, “Tough day already?”

  “No worse than usual,” she sighed, then brightened. “But I think things are improving. Betsy, can I offer you a change in plans? They’re raising the Hopkins this morning; Lars and I are assigned to boat duty. Want to come along?”

  Betsy hesitated. She didn’t want to change plans; she really wanted to go to the Mall of America, where Shop Till You Drop was an actual possibility.

  Godwin said, “How about you take off the morning today, Betsy, and tomorrow afternoon? I’ll be okay here by myself; it’s shaping up to be a slow day.”

  Jill said, “It must be something to watch; there’s been a crowd gathering since daylight.”

  Betsy weakened. “Is it okay to take me along in a police boat?”

  “Sure. It’ll be a kind of ride-along. Except it isn’t a police boat; Lars is using his own.”

  Jill had twice asked Betsy if she wanted to go for a ride-along in her squad car for a shift, to get a look at police work on a street level. But Betsy, needing all the time she could get hold of to learn how to run a small business, hadn’t found a big enough block of time to go.

  She asked, “What’s the Hopkins, that they want to raise it?”

  “You saw the Minnehaha before they pulled her out of the water for the winter?”

  Betsy nodded. The old steam-powered boat had been raised from the bottom of the lake and restored by a local group of volunteers. It retraced part of its old route on weekends for tourists. Its shape was reminiscent of a streetcar—which was deliberate, as it had originally been one of six boats owned by Minneapolis Rapid Transit and used to take passengers to the Twin Cities streetcar terminus in Wayzata.

  Besides being a wreck on the bottom of the lake, how did the Hopkins relate to the Minnehaha? “Oh, the Hopkins is another one of those streetcar boats!”

  “Yep,” said Jill. “The Minnehaha is doing so well that the people who restored her want to do the same with the Hopkins. They thought they’d have the money by next spring, but an important grant came through, and now they’ll have all winter to work on her restoration.”

  “I hear the Queen of Excelsior Excursions are so pleased they’re going to have more competition they could just spit,” said Godwin. Queen of Excelsior Excursions sailed along without volunteers or grants and made a profit besides.

  “They’ll manage,” said Jill, and to Betsy, “Want to come?”

  “How long will it take?”

  “They only asked for police patrol till noon, so Godwin’s right that you could go with us this morning and still go shopping tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Then I think I’d like to see it. When do we leave?”

  “I’m supposed to meet Lars down at the wharf in fifteen minutes. Better go change into slacks and a sweater. And bring your jacket, it’s chilly, though not as cold as it could be. Say, did I ever tell you about the Halloween blizzard?”

  “Yes, you did, but why don’t you compare notes with Godwin while I go upstairs and change?”

  Betsy reappeared six minutes later in an old pair of jeans and her heaviest sweater. She had a long-sleeved T-shirt on under that, and her only jacket over one arm. She hoped the boat wasn’t fishy.

  It wasn’t. It was an immaculate flat-bottomed, flat-topped, four-seater, fiberglass, with a windshield and a steering wheel. It reminded Betsy of a ‘70s compact car; it was even two-toned, raspberry and cream, and its motor was hidden under a hood at the back. It being Lars’s boat, he got to drive.

  Lars was Jill’s boyfriend, a big blond Norwegian who looked like a poster telling schoolchildren The Policeman is Your Friend. His huge hands were callused, which surprised Betsy when she shook hands until she remembered Jill had told her he was buying a five-acre hobby farm. The notion that someone might take on the labor of farming as a hobby amazed Betsy, but Lars had done it, and he worked as hard on it as he did at being a policeman.

  The boat’s motor burbled deeply as they pulled away from the dock, then Lars pushed a lever and it roared, stood up on its stem, and went flying over the blue water.

  Betsy shouted to Jill, “Where are we going?”

  Jill shouted back, “Other side of the Big Island!” She pointed to what looked like part of the shoreline on the north side of Excelsior Bay. But as the boat went by it, Betsy saw that it was indeed an island.

  As they came around to the other side, Betsy could see two barges sitting broadside to one another, each with a crane on it. Near the barges were eight or ten motorboats and a couple of sailboats, their sails furled. Lars slowed as they approached, and when the roar of his motors fell to a guttural murmur, Jill picked up a small bullhorn.

  “Move back from the barges!” she ordered. “You are in danger of being struck from below! Move back from the barges!”

  Heads swiveled, but nobody moved.

  “Is that true?” asked Betsy. “Being struck from below?”

  “There’s a seventy-foot boat down there,” Jill replied. “It’s gonna need some room when it comes up.” She spoke into the bullhorn again. “This is the police! Move back from the cranes!”

  That worked. Boats started moving. Betsy looked at the slowly widening area around the barges. She could see cables running from the cranes into the water, which was otherwise undisturbed. Huge engines in the cranes whined deeply. “Is it happening now?”

  “Beats me,” Jill shrugged. “Our job is to keep the gawkers away until after it does.”

  “And then to keep them from bumping into the thing, or climbing on it, or trying to steal hunks of it for souvenirs,” added Lars.

  Betsy chuckled uncertainly. “People wouldn’t actually do that, would they?”

  Lars said over his shoulder, “Civilians do things you wouldn’t believe. I was sitting in a Shop and Go parking lot so near the door the guy in the ski mask had to walk around me to get in and hold up the place. I actually sat there and watched him do it. I couldn’t believe it. And guess what he said when I busted him?”

  When Betsy shrugged, Jill said, “What they always say.” She and Lars drawled in unison, “ ‘I didn’t dooo nuthin’!‘ ” Then she and Lars laughed wicked, evil laughs.

  The whining of the cranes went on long enough that Betsy began to realize that was the sound of their engines in neutral. Lars and Jill realized it, too, and, once they had established a perimeter, they relaxed and took turns telling Betsy stupid-crook stories. The stories were so hilarious Betsy forgot this was taking a lot longer than she thought it would.

  The sun shone, the water rocked the boat. Lars and Jill removed their jackets. A couple of the motorboats went away, a new one joined the watchers. Several of the boats standing watch were of a size that looked capable of going to sea. Betsy wondered what kind of job it took to afford a cabin cruiser and yet have time to come out on a Tuesday morning to watch volunteers raise an old boat.

  Jill identified some of the boats, gossiped a little about their owners. “I thought Billy’d left for Florida by now,” she noted about one called The Waterhole.

  “What, is there a river out of Lake Minnetonka that connects to the Mississippi?” asked Betsy.

  “Yes, but it’s not deep enough for that boat,” said Jill.

  “Not to mention the sudden forty-foot drop going over Minnehaha Falls,” added Lars with a grin.

  “Then how does he get that boat down to Florida?” asked Betsy.

&nb
sp; “He doesn’t,” said Jill. “He has an even bigger boat down there.”

  “Is it called The Waterhole Two? And why Waterhole ?”

  Lars said, “Anyone with a boat will tell you that it is a hole in the water into which you pour money.”

  Jill added, “And a water hole is a place where animals come to drink, which is why taverns are sometimes called water holes. Billy’s a party animal, and you’d be surprised how many people he can haul in that boat.”

  “You know something about just about every boat owner out here,” said Betsy. “Is that because you’re a police officer, or do you have a boat, too?”

  Lars laughed. “Neither; it’s because she’s from Excelsior, gossip capital of the state.”

  “Have you lived here long, Jill?” asked Betsy.

  “Third generation,” nodded Jill. “My grandfather used to run the ferris wheel at the Excelsior Amusement Park, and my mother put herself through nursing school by working at the Blue Ribbon Café at the Park.”

  Betsy said, “That’s right, I’ve heard that there used to be an amusement park in Excelsior. This is a sweet little town; it doesn’t seem like the kind of town for that. I mean especially years ago, when amusement parks weren’t the high-class operations they are today.”

  “Oh, it was pretty high class,” said Jill with something in her voice Betsy couldn’t read.

  “Did your father work in it, too?”

  “He was a highway patrolman. His uncle was a deputy sheriff, and my mother’s brother was an investigator on the Saint Paul cops.”

  “So you kind of went into the family business,” said Betsy with a smile.

  “It does run in families,” agreed Jill. “What did your father do?”

  “He worked in the engineering department of Poland and Harnischfeger in Milwaukee. They build cranes. I still catch myself looking for the P&H logo whenever I see a crane. It never occurred to me to follow in his footsteps, but when I was small I used to wish there were still cattle drives, because his dad was a cowboy in Utah, and I thought that was one of the great, romantic jobs. My dad used to tell some great stories about him.”

  “Can you ride?”

  “I used to be good at it. You?”

  “Oh, I don’t fall off half as much as I used to.” Jill looked out toward a boat drifting close to the perimeter she and Lars had established, but it stopped before crossing it. “You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Go on one of those cattle drives. They still have them in some places, and they allow paying guests to take part. You get your own horse to take care of and you help keep the steers in line.”

  Betsy stared at her. “Really? Where does this happen, in Texas?”

  “They run one in South Dakota, less than a day’s drive from here. Lars won’t go with me.”

  “Gosh.” Betsy’s eyes became distant. The lowing of cattle, the dust of the trail, the campfire at night, sleeping under the stars …

  “Want me to find out the details? We can go next year, maybe.”

  Betsy tried to make her acceptance as casual as the offer. “I’d like that very much. Thanks.”

  They fell silent for awhile. The sun warmed the air, the boat rocked, the motor burbled and gave off noxious fumes. Betsy began to feel a curious combination of sick and sleepy. She regretted the fried-egg sandwich she’d had for breakfast, then the seafood salad she’d had for supper last night. She was beginning to be concerned about the lo mein noodles she’d had for lunch yesterday when Lars said suddenly, “I think we’re gonna see some action now. And look over there!” He pushed a lever that stirred up the motor and steered the boat toward the nearer barge.

  Jill shouted through the bullhorn, “You in the blue boat, you’re in danger! Move back, away from the barge!” The passengers, a man and two women, turned to look at Jill. One woman waved to show she wasn’t concerned. “Move … away … from the … barge!” repeated Jill. “Now!”

  The man shouted something at whoever was steering, and the boat began to shift around. The woman stopped waving and instead made a rude gesture.

  Uh-oh, thought Betsy, and was surprised when Lars didn’t go after them but only moved back himself. Then she heard a serious change in the sound of the cranes’ big engines, and her attention came back to the space between the cranes. The water roiled, as if about to boil. Smoothly, as if in time-lapse film, enormous black mushrooms bloomed onto the surface. They were floats, balloons, in three clusters of three. The cranes’ engines were straining now, and big drops of water drooled off the cables. Betsy realized belatedly the cables were moving.

  Then, gently as dawn, a long, sleek object appeared under and then just on the surface. As it rose, water sluiced away, and Betsy could see the lines of curved boards appear, gleaming in the sun. More of the object appeared, and still more, until it was a boat about seventy feet long, canted to one side, held in place by wrappings of cable. It didn’t look much like the restored streetcar boat; there were no railings, no cabin, no upper deck, just this long, narrow wooden boat.

  Air horns saluted the arrival of the Hopkins, and only when they stopped could Betsy hear the people cheering.

  Waterfalls of various sizes cascaded off the boat, and the crane operators did something so that it mostly righted itself. Three men in black diver’s wet suits appeared at the edge of the far barge and dived in. They swam to the boat and helped one another aboard. They began a quick, running inspection. One picked up a large rock and threw it over the side. Then he threw a hunk of what looked like concrete, and then another rock.

  “They weighed the boat down with rubble before they sank it,” said Jill to Betsy. “The divers threw a lot of it overboard before it was raised, but I guess there’s more still in there.”

  Betsy could see the divers to their waists as they moved along the boat and she deduced the presence of a deck, because otherwise they’d be out of sight. As soon as she realized that, the rubble-tossing diver went out of sight. Betsy was deducing a ladder when he straightened—he’d only bent over. He shouted and gestured to the other two divers. They came running, and more rubble was tossed. Then one leaned against the side of the boat to shout, “Police! Police!”

  Lars glanced at Jill, who nodded, and Lars ran his boat alongside the big boat.

  “Got something here you should look at!” the diver shouted.

  “You stay here,” Jill said to both Lars and Betsy. She raised her arms and was lifted over the side of the raised boat, which Betsy could now see had once been painted white. But there was lots of slime on the boards, and Jill had to scrabble for a foothold. Her light blue shirt and dark trousers were smeared by the time she vanished over the gunwales.

  She reappeared less than a minute later. “Lars, there’s a human skeleton under the floorboards of this thing. Looks to be adult size. Call it in.” She went away again.

  “Be damned,” said Lars, and he reached for the radio microphone on the shoulder flap of his jacket.

  Betsy rose to her feet, not sure if she did or did not want Jill to pick up the skull so she could see it. Wow, a skeleton! Had a diver from years ago been exploring the wreck and gotten trapped? Or was it a murder victim, the knife still stuck between the ribs? The boat had been filled with rubble, so the murderer must also have been a diver. Betsy had a sudden image of a man in a wet suit hauling a motionless victim down, down into the depths of the lake, finding the boat, moving hundreds of pounds of rubble—no, that was silly.

  What it probably was, was a diver who found a hatch he could open and went in exploring. Then something in there ripped his air hose, and he panicked and couldn’t find the hatch to get out again. Poor fellow.

  She sat down, the image shifting to what the skeleton might look like now. Sprawled and shining white, the ruins of his wet suit crumpled around him. Were there clues to his identity? A wedding ring perhaps, one with initials engraved inside it? Or an ID bracelet? She could imagine the metal
, at first dimmed by algae, which would slowly yield to rubbing, and the letters would appear. And an old mystery of a disappearance would be solved at last. How exceedingly interesting!

  2

  Detective Mike Malloy watched the medical examiner cover the bones laid out on a metal table. Malloy had been present during the examination—it could hardly be called an autopsy—and had taken notes. Now he consulted his notes and read the important parts back to make sure he hadn’t missed or misunderstood anything.

  “You say the skeleton is about ninety-five percent complete,” he began. “That it is a white female older than eighteen but younger than thirty-five at her time of death.” He stopped to glance at the medical examiner.

  “That’s right,” nodded Dr. Pascuzzi, a darkly handsome man.

  Malloy consulted his notes again. He was a redhead with a thickly freckled face, light blue eyes, and a thin mouth. His suit was conservative, his shoes freshly but not highly polished, and he tended to think before he said anything. His career goal was to be sheriff of some rural Minnesota county, one with a really good bass lake in it; so his criminal investigations, like everything else about him, tended to be by-the-book and not splashy. He didn’t like this case because it was odd and was already drawing inquiries from the media. Investigators who got known for notorious cases didn’t get asked to run for out-state sheriff.

  “I noticed the skull was badly damaged when I saw it on the boat, the Hopkins,” Malloy continued. “But I thought it might’ve got that way banging against things under the water.” He raised a pale, inquiring eyebrow at the ME.

  “No, I’m sure the injuries to the face and skull happened shortly before or very soon after death. The same for the broken radius.” He saw a lack of comprehension in the police investigator and said, “The smaller of the two bones in the forearm.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Malloy searched through his notes and found the place.

  “Like the other injuries,” said Dr. Pascuzzi, “it happened right about the time of death.”

  “How can you tell that?”

  “Because it happened to living bone, but there is no evidence of healing. My opinion is that it was a defense wound.”