“Well,” said Jill, “half of that would be me, and the other half is Ms. Devonshire. I’m only a desk sergeant; Betsy is the sleuth.”
Godwin said, “I work for Betsy, I’m Vice President in Charge of Operations at Crewel World, Incorporated, and Editor in Chief of
Hasta la Stitches,
our newsletter.” Godwin loved to give his full title. “But I really came because I want to see the sugar gliders.”
Frank said, “There are no sugar gliders here, the hotel doesn’t allow pets.” He raised his eyebrows, nodded significantly, then winked. “Okay?”
“You mean you have more than one?” asked Godwin.
“Do you see any sugar gliders around here, son?” said Frank, at the same time nodding in the affirmative.
“How many don’t you have?” asked Betsy.
“An even dozen.”
Godwin whistled.
“I’ll take you back one at a time,” said Frank. “They get excited when they see too many strangers at once.”
Betsy, because she had another, more important, reason to speak with Judy, went first.
She found a slim, attractive woman with silver-and-iron hair standing between two stacks of hamster cages in various sizes. She was wearing an apron over a blue turtleneck sweater and slicing a banana into a bowl. “Excuse me if I keep on working. They have to be fed several times a day, and they just love fresh fruit,” she said. “I’m Judy Bielec.”
“Hi, I’m Betsy Devonshire. Your husband said you wanted to talk to me?”
“About. . .?” said Judy.
“The death of Belle Hammermill.”
The slicing stopped. “Oh! I’m sorry, I thought you were a shop-owner.”
Betsy smiled. “I am. And I carry your Mosey ‘n Me patterns. I’m sorry we arrived too late for your class yesterday. Several people told me the two of you are a riot.”
Judy smiled and finished slicing the banana as she said, “Well . . . not a riot, not really. But we do our best to amuse as well as instruct.” Judy took the bowl and went to one stack of cages. Betsy turned to peer over her shoulder.
“Want to see one?”
“May I?”
Judy opened a cage and reached in. She turned and enclosed in her fist was a small, pale-gray creature with black stripes running up its wide flat head. Its ears were oversized and round, its black eyes were enormous, and its pink nose wiggled. It looked like the most charming alien Industrial Light and Magic could invent.
“May I touch it?” Betsy asked softly.
“Certainly.”
Betsy stroked the tiny head with a forefinger, and found the fur delightfully soft. The sugar glider made a high-pitched inquiring sound, and twisted in Judy’s hand, trying to sniff her finger.
“This is Mama, our senior sugar glider, boss of this pack.” Judy indicated the stack of cages from which Mama had come. “We have enough of them that they have divided into two tribes.”
“Are you breeding them?” asked Betsy.
“No. We’re rescuing them. People buy them without realizing how much trouble they are.”
“How can something this small be trouble?” asked Betsy, amused, stroking again.
“To stay healthy they must eat only fresh food. Fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, live mealworms, fresh chicken, four times a day. Nothing canned, nothing preserved, nothing leftover even from earlier in the day. And clean, pure water. They must be kept warm and out of drafts. And you can’t have just one, unless you give it constant attention, because they are tribal creatures and need at least one close friend. Fail in any of this, and they get sick, and, too often, they die. To me, the main thing wrong with them is that they are so adorable that people see them and want them and buy them without doing any research. When they realize how much trouble sugar gliders are, they throw them away. Sometimes I get to them before they die.”
“Poor babies. Don’t know how lucky they are to have you, I bet. They’re from Australia, is that right?”
“Yes,” said Judy, putting Mama back into her cage.
“Are they marsupials?”
“Yes. They also have that flap of skin between their front and back legs like flying squirrels, and can glide like them. In the wild they lap sweet sap from trees. That’s why they’re called sugar gliders.”
“Huge eyes,” Betsy said, “so, nocturnal?”
“Sort of. They’re active mostly in the early morning and late evening. That’s called
crepuscular.
”
Betsy snorted. “It sounds like a skin disease.”
Judy picked up the bowl of bananas and went to the other stack of cages. “I haven’t fed this bunch yet.” She opened a cage and reached in with some slices of bananas in her fingers and yanked her hand back as the cage erupted with tiny growls and miniature squeals and the sound of small creatures rushing about.
“Oops, I forgot to wash my hand. Did I mention that my two tribes are at war? This tribe
hates
Mama, even the smell of her.”
Judy went to wash, and the helium-fueled threats of mayhem gradually subsided. Betsy, peering into the cages to see them busy grooming ruffled fur back into place, didn’t know whether she was amused or dismayed by this display of envy and hatred among these darling, elfin creatures.
When Judy came back and after she had fed her charges, Betsy said, “You had something to tell me about Belle Hammermill’s death.”
Judy’s face turned solemn. “I don’t know if it’s important, but Frank said I should let you decide.”
“What is it?”
“I came up here this morning around ten to give my gliders their midmorning snack, and I came out just in time to hear that awful scream as the woman fell. I couldn’t believe it, and I looked up to see where she had fallen from. The strands of ivy on the ninth floor were waving, so I assumed that’s where she started from.”
“Did you see anyone else up there?” asked Betsy.
“No. At least, I don’t think so. But there was some kind of movement. I . . . can’t describe it, exactly. It was as if someone wearing something dark and sparkly was crawling on her hands and knees.”
Betsy could only stare at Judy, her mind working that one over.
“I know, isn’t that the oddest thing? But that’s what I thought it was. Or—you know how people will put a T-shirt on a Lab? Maybe that’s what it was. I mean, I got my sugar gliders into the hotel, maybe someone else brought a dog. And then put a sparkly shirt on it and sent it trotting down the gallery. Only I think before it got to the corner it went into a room.”
“Did you see a door open and close?”
“No, but I wasn’t at an angle where I could see the doors. All I can tell you is that there was a twinkle, it moved, and then it was gone. I’m not sure when it went away, because I couldn’t see very well, there are those flower boxes, and the banisters. So it was glimpses of fragments, y’know? But it seemed to go away before it got to the end of the gallery.”
“Might it have just gone back along the wall? I got a lesson earlier today in how things vanish if they step back from the railing.”
Judy thought about that. “All right, that might be what happened.”
“Which means whatever it was could have gone down to the corner and around it.”
“Yes.”
Betsy thought for a bit. “Could it have been someone in a wheelchair?” That made more sense, the wheels turning, seen through the balusters.
It was Judy’s turn to try to picture this. “Well . . . yes, I suppose so. Hmmm . . . yes, that makes sense to me. Though wait a second, you’d think I’d see more of the chair, wouldn’t you? And the person in it. But I didn’t.”
Betsy thought some more. “Please don’t be insulted, but how sure are you that you really saw something?”
“Oh, I really saw something. We have a lot of animals at home, and I’m quick to spot movement, especially sneaky movement.” Judy frowned in thought. “It wasn’t something small, like a ball or a cat, but large, like a big dog or a child. It wasn’t tall—like a person walking—it was low, and dark, and somehow there was a twinkle or sparkle, and it was moving fast.”
“Which way?”
“To the left.” Judy raised a forefinger to a little above eye level and moved it a few inches. “That’s all. I’m sorry, I guess that isn’t very helpful.”
That was true, but it was something peculiar, and on the scene, so who knew? She said, “I don’t know what is or isn’t helpful. And even if it isn’t, I got to meet these beautiful sugar gliders.”
“Would you consider acquiring one as a pet?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Good girl.”
Betsy went back out into the sitting room. “Oh, Goddy, they are just the prettiest little things!”
“Good, me next!” announced Godwin, and he slipped past her into the bedroom.
Jill and Betsy were invited to find places on the sofa, and they did. “May I get you something to drink? We have Seven-Up, Coke, and mineral water.”
“Coke, please,” said Jill.
“Water, thank you,” said Betsy.
Jill asked Betsy, “What did she tell you?”
Betsy told her about the “sparkly” sighting.
Jill thought that over while Frank brought them their drinks. “What do you think?” she said at last.
“I have no idea,” said Betsy. “Frank, what did you think when she told you?”
“That she saw something real. I’m the one with the weird imagination.” He sat in an upholstered chair and put one red-canvased ankle on his knee. “But what it might have been, I don’t know. Who goes crawling around on the floor carrying sparklers?”
“Beats me,” said Jill.
“Still,” said Frank, “we decided that since you are taking an interest in what might have happened, you should hear about this. What do you think? Is it a real clue?”
“I’m not sure,” said Betsy. “Maybe not, since what she saw was probably not a person.”
“But what else could it be?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
The talk turned to the world of needlework design, which lasted until Godwin came out. “I want one,” he announced.
“No, you don’t,” said Betsy.
“Yes, I do, I really do. But I won’t get one because in about three weeks I’d start looking for shortcuts in feeding, and they’d get sick and I’d feel guilty. Still, those three weeks would be really sweet. Do you know she takes them on airplanes and everything? Just sticks them in her pockets and down the front of her shirt and no one knows a thing.”
“So much for airline security,” noted Jill.
The door to the bedroom opened and Judy came out. She looked a little surprised to find three guests instead of two.
Frank said, “Sergeant Larson, do you have anything to ask Judy?”
“Just one thing,” Jill replied. “I haven’t got Betsy’s wild-card talent for investigations, and I haven’t had department training as an investigator. But I did wonder”—she turned to Judy—“How fast was this sparkly thing moving?”
“About as fast as a yellow Lab can trot,” Judy replied. “Or so it seemed to me.”
“Thank you.”
Godwin said, “Jill, go take a look at those sugar gliders, you’ll just fall in love.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Jill. “I have a weakness for soft, furry things, but I have someone to love and take care of already.” She put her empty glass on the end table and said, “It’s getting late, we should let these people rest up for tomorrow.”
Betsy stood and said, “Thank you so much for calling us about this. What Judy told me is certainly intriguing.”
As the trio went back up the gallery toward their room, Betsy told Godwin what Judy said she’d seen that morning.
“Sounds like the sort of clue that not even Miss Marple would get,” he said. “Do you know what it means?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe it’s nothing; maybe it’s not important.”
“No, no, I think it is important,” said Betsy. “This is the first eyewitness account that someone might’ve really been up there. And . . .”
“And?”
“Something . . . I don’t know. It’s like someone at the very back of a big crowd, waving his hand to get my attention. Hard to tell.”
Jill looked at her askance. “You’re a strange one.”
“Look who’s talking, Miss Let’s-Throw-Goddy-Over-A-RAIL.”
“I never let go of him, never.”
“True,” said Godwin. “Even when I wriggled and said, ‘O my
dear!
’ ” He hurried out ahead of them and did a little waggle as he walked on, looking over his shoulder with eyebrows lifted and his mouth in a shocked O.
“Are you hiding a sugar glider in there, or do you need a dose of that itch cream you carry in your suitcase?” asked Jill.
“Ooo-ooo, made you mad, made you mad.”
“Stop it, both of you,” said Betsy, laughing.
Back in their suite, Jill asked, “Do you want me to call Eve Suttle or Lenore King to see if they’ll talk to you this evening?”
Betsy checked her watch. It was barely nine-thirty, but she was tired. It had been a late night last night, and a long day today. “I don’t think I could ask an intelligent question, or understand the answer if I could,” she said. “Let’s do it tomorrow. I want to go to bed.”
But lying in bed soon after, she couldn’t fall asleep. She thought about getting up and doing some needlework, but that might disturb Jill. And Godwin was asleep in the sitting room, so she couldn’t go there, either. She slipped out of bed, found her copy of the Management and Hiring booklet—her choices were that or the Gideon Bible, and somehow she didn’t feel up to King James’s English—and went into the bathroom. The regular light switch, she knew, also turned on a roaring exhaust fan, so she twisted the timer on an overhead heating light and sat down to read.
She found a list of “red lights” to look for while interviewing a prospective employee—she’d had two bad experiences this year with employees who’d left after a few weeks—and decided that the red lights both employees had shown was lack of enthusiasm and lack of chemistry. She was about to turn the page and explore the positive signs to look for, when her eye was caught by the notes she’d made while interviewing Cherry Pye.