Read Online Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_02 by Framed in Lace - Free Book Online Page B

said Godwin politely, instead of making a wisecrack. Godwin knew which customers enjoyed him at his outrageous best and which didn’t.
    Patricia straightened. “I wonder why someone thinks that might be crocheted lace. It doesn’t look like crochet to me, the loops are all wrong. It might be tatting, but is more likely bobbin lace.”
    Betsy looked at the copy. “You mean you can actually make sense of that?” She had thought the original unidentifiable, but the photocopy was even worse.
    â€œOh, it’s definitely lace,” said Patricia. “Question is, what kind? There are a number of ways to make lace, but I think I’d want to see the original before I said for sure what kind this is.”
    Godwin’s customer crowded in for a peek but frowned and stepped back again. “I can’t see any pattern to that,” she said as if in complaint.
    â€œPatricia, Sergeant Malloy is going to be so pleased if you can really tell him something helpful,” said Godwin.
    Betsy added quickly, “That is—would you mind talking to him?”
    â€œNo, of course not.” She pulled her checkbook from her purse. “I’ll pay for my silks and you may copy the phone number on the check to give to him.” Her cheeks were pink with pleasure, her brown eyes alight. “This will be a poke in the eye for my husband, who says nothing of real value ever came out of a needleworker’s basket.”
    Hours later, closing time approached. Betsy, near exhaustion, was trying to rearrange a basket of half-price wool so that it didn’t look so picked-over. Her feet were like a pair of toothaches. Shelly and Godwin were in back, quarreling tiredly over whose turn it was to wash out the coffeepot.
    The door went bing (Betsy gritted her teeth and swore that someday soon she was going to replace that thing), but she forced her features to assume a pleasant look and turned to greet her customer. She was a small, thin woman with dark hair standing up in little curls all over her head. She had shiny dark eyes in a narrow face and a smile as false as the leopard print of her coat.
    â€œHello, Irene,” said Betsy neutrally—that being the best she could manage.
    â€œI hear you’ve had a splendid day, lots of customers,” said Irene.
    â€œYes, the Christmas rush has begun, it seems.”
    â€œWon’t last till Christmas,” warned Irene.
    Irene Potter was one of the thorns on Betsy’s rose. She was an extremely talented needleworker and a steady customer, but she was also opinionated, rude, hyperactive, nosy, and impatient. She thought Betsy incompetent and was watching hopefully, even cheerfully, for any sign the shop might slip into bankruptcy. Because if it did, then she, Irene, could take it over, fire that dreadful Godwin person, and run it as it should be run. Meanwhile, a mass of contradictions, she was also willing to share her considerable business and needlework expertise with Betsy. She was serenely unaware of this and other contradictions in her behavior.
    â€œWhy won’t the Christmas rush last till Christmas?” asked Betsy.
    â€œProjects done as gifts or decorations have to be bought well in advance, to be done by Christmas. Once it’s too late to get the projects finished on time, they’ll stop buying them.”
    â€œOh,” said Betsy. “Of course.”
    â€œUnless they are given as projects to be done by the recipients,” said Godwin. “Hello, Irene.”
    â€œGoddy.” Irene gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head in Godwin’s direction. She was sure of a number of vicious and untrue things about gay people, so vicious she was ashamed she knew about them and so never alluded to them, even obliquely. But the knowledge made her unable to look Godwin in the eye—which was as well, because his reaction to her shame was to grin tantalizingly.
    â€œH‘lo, Irene,” said