A Murderous Yarn (7 page)

She bent over to murmur something to him, laughed softly at his unheard reply, touched him lightly on the top of his rump. “See you later,” she concluded, and went to open the passenger side door and haul out in one big armload a carpet bag with wooden handles, the duster she’d been wearing, and the big, well-wrapped hat.

“Let’s go see if Adam will keep these in the booth for me,” she said. “And maybe he has something for me to do.”

Adam sighed over the size of Charlotte’s bundle, but found a corner for it. And he didn’t have anything for her to do, not at the moment. “But say, if you want to assist Betsy in recording the departure times, that would be nice. They are supposed to tie their banners on the left side, but some interpret that to mean the driver’s side, and if their steering wheel is on the right, they put it there; and some don’t read the instructions at all and put it on the back end or forget to put it on at all.”

Betsy said, “That’s right. I had to ask a lot of the drivers what their entry number was because it wasn’t where I could see it when they drove up.” One had had
to get out of his car and dig it out of the wicker basket that served as a trunk, remarking he didn’t think it mattered until the actual run.

“If you’ll stand so the cars run between you,” said Adam, “one of you is bound to see the number.”

Betsy, remembering the wicker basket, asked, “Why
does
it matter? If it’s not a race, and they don’t get a medallion for finishing this run, who cares what time they leave here?”

“We need to keep track,” replied Adam. “So if someone doesn’t show up at the other end, we know to go looking for him.”

Ceil said, “They have special trucks that follow the route between New London and New Brighton, but they’re not here today. Someone could break down, and if we weren’t keeping track, they might not be missed until dark. Most of these cars shouldn’t be driven after dark.”

Betsy nodded. “I see.”

Ceil checked her watch. “The first arrivals can start back in about fifteen minutes. That will be the Winton and the Stanley.”

Betsy said, “Not the Steamer.”

Ceil asked, “Why not?”

“He lives here, he just wanted to see if the car could make it from St. Paul. Kind of a tryout for the big run.”

Adam asked, “His is the Steamer coming to the run, isn’t it?”

Betsy nodded, then said, “I haven’t seen the whole list of people signed up. Is there only one Steamer?”

Adam nodded. “Yes. Generally we get only one. The steam people have their own clubs. Their requirements
and rules are different. Here, why don’t you sit inside the booth? It’s shade at least.”

“Thanks.” Betsy and Charlotte came in. The booth was roomy enough, even with the big quilt on its stand taking up most of the center. The booth had a board running around three sides of it that made a counter. Handouts about the Antique Car Club of Minnesota made stacks along it. There were also a few maps of the route stapled to a three-page turn-by-turn printed guide, for drivers who had lost or mislaid theirs. Postcards featuring pictures of antique cars were for sale. Mildred had taken up a post, her cash box on one side and the immense roll of double raffle tickets on the other. By the number of tickets dropped into a big, clear plastic jug, business had not been brisk, but she professed herself satisfied.

“Here, sit beside me,” she said to Betsy. “And you, too, of course,” she added to Charlotte.

Charlotte sat on Mildred’s other side. She picked up a corner of the quilt and said, “Oh, it’s embroidery, not appliqué. That’s so much more work, isn’t it? How many of you worked on that quilt?”

“It varies from year to year. Five of us did it this year. We start right after each run to work on next year’s. I hope you noticed that every car on it is a car that has actually been on the run. When we started out, we didn’t know much about antique cars. We got a book from the library and made photocopies of cars that we were interested in, and Mabel turned them into transfer patterns and put them on the squares, and we stitched them. The center square is always the emblem of the club—the Merry Oldsmobile.”

Betsy said, “Oh, like from the song,

‘Come away with me, Lucille,

in my merry Oldsmobile’?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” said Mildred, with a little smile. “Though I think the theme of the run should be ‘Get Out and Get Under.’ You know,” she started to sing in a cracked soprano,

“ ‘A dozen times they’d start to hug and kiss,

  
and then the darned old engine, it would miss,

  
and then he’d have to get under,

  
get out and get under,

  
and fix up his automobile!’ ”

Betsy said, “I remember my grandmother singing that song!” She looked up the street. “Looks as if things haven’t changed much with those old machines.” The driver who’d been under his car earlier was still under it.

Adam put in, “That’s why the run isn’t a race. Just getting across the finish line is enough of a challenge, and anyone who makes it has earned his medallion. By the way,” he added, holding out a clipboard, “here comes the Winton.”

“Oops!” said Betsy, grabbing it. “Come on, Charlotte, time to get to work!”

The cars were spaced about three minutes apart—except when, as sometimes happened, a driver couldn’t get his started, and there was a wider gap while another car was waved into its place. This happened with Bill Birmingham’s Maxwell. A thin crowd stood on the sidewalks to cheer and clap as the gallant old veterans putt-putted, or whicky-daddled, or pop-humbled their
way out of town. Bill finally got his Maxwell started after all the others had left. Charlotte blew kisses at the car, which despite Bill’s efforts still went
diddle-diddle-hick-diddle
down the road. “Happy trails, darling!” she called, then turned to Betsy. “Whew, am I glad I’m not going on that ride!”

B
etsy checked on Crewel World one last time before leaving for St. Paul. Godwin seemed to have come out of his funk, and was assisting a customer trying out a stitch under the Dazor light. Betsy caught his eye and told him she’d try to be back before closing.

Then it was through the back into the potholed parking lot with Charlotte to Betsy’s car.

Betsy’s old Tracer had never recovered from a winter incident involving sliding off a snow-covered road into a tree. In seeking a replacement, she considered several high-quality used cars, envied the mayor his amusing cranberry-red Chrysler PT, but had at last bought a new, deep blue Buick Century four-door, fully loaded. It was the nicest new car she’d ever owned and she was very proud of it.

But Charlotte was obviously used to a better variety
of cars. She simply laid her duster and big hat in the back seat with her stitchery bag, hiked the bottom of her antique white dress halfway up her shins, and climbed in the front passenger seat.

They took 7 to 494, up it to 394, then skirted downtown Minneapolis on 94 to St. Paul, taking the Capitol exit.

Crossing over the freeway put them on a street leading to a big white building modeled on the U.S. Capitol—except the Minnesota version had a very large golden chariot pulled by four golden horses on top of the portico. There were cars parked in slots in front of the capitol, but no people standing around.

Betsy said, “Looks as if we beat everyone. Even the booth is empty.” A twin to the booth in Excelsior stood on the wide street at the foot of the capitol steps. They drove around back and found a parking space. After the air-conditioned interior of Betsy’s car, the moist heat was again almost insufferable. Nevertheless, Charlotte donned her hat, draping the veils carefully around her head and shoulders—“It’s easier than trying to carry it,” she remarked. She did carry her duster and a handful of pamphlets she’d scooped out of the booth in Excelsior. Betsy brought her and Charlotte’s stitching. She noticed that by the worn appearance of Charlotte’s carpet bag, it was another antique. Its nubby surface was scattered with “orts,” what stitchers called the little ends of floss. They walked around the blinding white building and across the broad paved area to the booth, where they collapsed on folding chairs.

“Whew!” said Betsy, fanning herself with a pamphlet. “How did people stand this back before air-conditioning?”

“It’s not so hard to bear if you don’t keep going in and out of air-conditioned spaces. People survived much worse weather than this before there was air-conditioning. Think of St. Louis—or Savannah—back when what I’m wearing was a marvelous improvement on the much heavier Civil War era clothing.”

“Yes, of course, you’re right. You know, we didn’t have air-conditioning until I was about fourteen, and while I remember how much I loved having it, I don’t remember suffering like I am now without it.” She looked out across the shimmering heat lake of the parking area to the trees lifting tired arms in the sun. “Hard to believe we had our last snow just two months ago.”

“And that in three months we may have another one,” said Charlotte. “But that’s why we love it here in Minnesota.” Her tone was only a little dry. She reached into her carpet bag and pulled out a square of linen tacked onto a wooden frame. On it, in a variety of stitches, was a flowering plant with caterpillars on the leaves and two kinds of bees and a ladybug hovering among the flowers. She saw Betsy’s eye on her work and said, “It’s from a hanging designed by Grace Christie back in 1909. I’m going to work more of the squares and have them made into pillows.”

Betsy said, “Do you know what that plant is? It looks familiar, somehow.”

“Someone told me it’s borage, an old medicinal herb.”

“Oh, of course, ‘Borage for Melancholy.’ ”

Charlotte looked at the nearly finished piece. “Does it work, I wonder?”

“I understand St. John’s Wort does. So perhaps borage does, too.”

Two tourists in shorts and sunglasses—a man and a woman—came up. Pointing, the woman said, “What a crazy hat!”

Charlotte laughed and said, “You’re too kind.”

The man said, “We came to see the old cars.”

“They’re on a round trip to Excelsior,” said Charlotte.

“Who drove to Excelsior?” asked the woman, frowning.

“The owners of the antique cars,” replied Charlotte.

“So where are the cars?” asked the man.

“The owners drove them to Excelsior.” An element of patience had come into Charlotte’s voice.

“Why did they do that? The paper said they were going to be here.”

“They were here,” said Charlotte more patiently. “But they drove to Excelsior to put on a display there.”

“But I thought the paper said they’d be on display here!” said the woman.

“They were here, early this morning,” said Charlotte, speaking very slowly now. “Then they drove to Excelsior. And now they’ve started driving back. At”—she consulted her watch—“four-thirty or so, they should be back from Excelsior.”

“How come they’re driving from Excelsior?” said the man. “The paper said they’d be here.”

Betsy started to make a low humming noise, and when the woman looked at her, she coughed noisily, eyes brimming.

“They
were
here,” said Charlotte, ignoring Betsy, “and they’ll be back here in a couple of hours.”

“I don’t understand why they aren’t here now, when the paper said they would be,” said the woman.

Charlotte, speaking as if to a first grader, said, “The paper said they’d be here early this morning, then that they’d be driving from here to Excelsior, then that they’d return here to be on display again.”

“Oh,” said the woman, looking curiously at Betsy, who, hands cupped over nose and mouth, was trying unsuccessfully to contain that cough. “Thank you. Come on, Lew,” she added, taking the man by the arm and leading him away. “I don’t remember reading all that stuff about them being here and not being here and being here again.”

As they trailed out of sight, Betsy could at last release the laughter. “Why didn’t you just give those two a map and suggest they go meet the cars en route?” she asked.

“And have them run someone into a ditch?” retorted Charlotte.

“Never fear,” said Betsy. “Those two couldn’t possibly follow that map. They would have ended up back across the border in the place of their birth: Iowa.”

“A distinct improvement to the gene pool in both places,” said Charlotte in a dead-on Hepburn drawl.

Betsy laughed some more and Charlotte joined in. Insulting Iowa is a peculiar Minnesota custom—and while Iowans are happy to reciprocate, their jokes aren’t considered half as clever. In Minnesota, anyway.

A woman drove by in a Land Rover, slowing to wave from inside the vehicle at Betsy and Charlotte. Betsy recognized Ceil, one of the women in the Excelsior booth. The Rover went on around to the parking lot in back of the Capitol building.

She came back on foot to say, “What, Adam isn’t here yet?”

“Not yet,” said Betsy and turned to greet another pair of tourists.

“My uncle once told me his grandfather owned a 1914 Model T Ford,” said the man. “But we were here before the cars left on their run, and there was a 1910 Ford the driver said was a Model T. Who was right?”

“I—I don’t know,” said Betsy, and listened for Charlotte’s cough.

Which kindly didn’t come. Instead, she stood and said, “The first Model T appeared in 1908, and wasn’t replaced by the Model A until around 1928. Of course, Henry Ford made constant changes and improvements as the years went by, but it was always called the Model T.”

“Why Model T?” asked the woman.

Ceil came over to join the conversation, “Well, every time he reinvented his car, he gave the model the next letter of the alphabet. By the time Tin Lizzie came along, he was up to T. I don’t know why he stuck to T so long; the 1912 model was very different from the 1908 one, and the 1927 Model T was a very different car again. The car that replaced it was the more expensive and sophisticated Model A, which is apparently why he decided to start over.”

The couple asked a few more questions, took a brochure on the Antique Car Club, and drifted away. Betsy said, “I didn’t know any of that!”

Charlotte smiled. “I only cling to my ignorance when it comes to actually working on restoration and repairs. I prefer to let Bill pack the wheels or replace the transmission bands.” She held out her slender, long-fingered, and very clean hands, regarding them complacently.

“Be glad Bill didn’t get a Stanley Steamer,” said
Betsy, “or dirt might not be the worst that can happen. My friend Lars has one, and the places on him that aren’t dirty are blistered.”

Ceil laughed. “Has he still got both his eyebrows?”

“Well, he has now, since the right one grew back.” She sat down beside Charlotte and resumed stitching. Betsy was working on a counted cross stitch pattern worked on black fabric. It had pale green cats’ eyes and the merest hint of paws. In crooked lettering down one side it said,
Sure Dark in Here, Isn’t It?
Betsy was adding whiskers in back stitching, counting carefully to make sure they were placed properly.

“Where are you going to hang that?” asked Charlotte.

“Six, seven, eight—in my bathroom,” replied Betsy. “The thread glows in the dark.”

“Hang it next to the light switch,” advised Charlotte. “I’d hate to try to find the . . . er, by the light that thing will give off.”

Ceil giggled.

“I don’t see Mildred,” said Betsy. “Perhaps I should have volunteered to bring the quilt, too.”

Charlotte said, “But it wouldn’t be any good unless you could sell raffle tickets for it, and Mildred won’t let anyone take custody of that roll of tickets or the money jar. That’s a job she’s very jealous of.”

“Speak of the devil,” said Ceil, and they looked up to see Mildred, driving a large old Chrysler, pull up beside the booth. She put her car in park, got out, and opened the passenger door. The big heap of quilt engulfed her as she tried to get it out without letting it touch the ground. Betsy and Charlotte hurried to help. The frame was in the back seat, and Betsy wondered how she’d gotten it in there; even with their help, it was
a struggle to get it out again. But Mildred again proved stronger than she looked, and was experienced in handling the thing. Under her crisp directions, she and Charlotte set it up in the booth and helped Mildred drape the quilt over it.

Mildred said, “Thank you, Betsy. Now, I’ll be right back,” and went to park. When she came back, she had the money jar and the big roll of raffle tickets in her arms. Evidently Mildred had hidden them in the trunk.

About twenty minutes later, Ceil said, “Look, here comes Adam at last.” Betsy hadn’t noticed him drive in, but he was walking from behind the Capitol building, where they—and apparently Adam—had parked.

“What kept you?” demanded Ceil.

“There’s an accident in the tunnel,” said Adam, meaning a long, curved underpass on 94 in Minneapolis. “It’s down to one very slow lane in the eastbound side.” He held up a large paper sack. “Plus I stopped for sandwiches.” He handed them around.

He’d barely finished his tuna on a whole wheat bun before the first antique car came up, a 1909 Cadillac. Betsy grabbed the board Adam quickly held out, and Charlotte again helped Betsy clock the cars in.

As before, the 1902 Oldsmobile was last—except for Charlotte and Bill’s Maxwell.

“Did you see Number Twenty, a rust-brown Maxwell, along the road?” Charlotte asked the driver of the Olds.

“No, when I left Bill was still trying to get it started. And it never caught up with me.” Betsy thanked him and waved him through.

“Well, this is a fine thing!” grumbled Charlotte. “I
wonder where he broke down?” She went to talk to Adam, Betsy trailing behind her.

“He was having trouble with it, remember?” she said.

“Yes, but he just waved me off when I went to ask him if he wanted to cancel his return trip,” replied Adam. “And it seemed to be running only as ragged as it was when he came into Excelsior.”

“I know, I know. That darned machine—and he
would
insist on driving it even though he has other cars that don’t misbehave!”

Betsy turned to Ceil and Adam. “Didn’t you mention a truck that follows the route looking for breakdowns?”

“No follow-up truck for this run,” said Adam.

“Anyway,” Ceil said, “doesn’t Bill have a cell phone?”

“Yes, he does,” said Charlotte, frowning. She went to her old-fashioned carpet bag and rummaged in it for her own very modern cell phone. She turned it on and punched in some numbers.

“That’s funny,” she said a minute later, the frown a little deeper. “He’s not answering.”

“Maybe he’s gone to find someone to help get his car started,” said Betsy.

“Wouldn’t matter,” Charlotte replied. “He carries that thing with him in his pocket.” She dialed the number again, listened awhile, and shut her phone off.

Betsy turned to Adam. “Where is that other woman who was with you in the booth in Excelsior?”

“Nancy’s gone home, she could only volunteer this morning. Why?”