Read Thai Die for Free Online Page B

Crewel World and turned into the driveway leading to a small parking lot behind the building. A minute after that, a man crossed in front of the shop. He was slim under his lined raincoat, and his thin mouth was pulled a bit sideways. Betsy recognized Sergeant Mike Malloy, one of Excelsior’s two police investigators. He didn’t even glance into the shop but went through the door that led upstairs.
    Fifteen or twenty minutes later, she saw he was back out front. He paced slowly up and down the sidewalk, his breath smoking in the cold air, obviously waiting for someone. It took a while, but finally he raised one arm to signal a big brown van that pulled up beside some of the cars parked at the curb.
    Along the length of the van were two horizontal stripes of blue and gold over a thin red line. Above the stripes the word SHERIFF was printed in gold letters, and below it, in smaller letters, HENNEPIN COUNTY. Inside the van rode an investigative team authorized to assist at crime scenes with technology smaller departments could not afford. Three people climbed out of the front seat—two women and a man—and Mike moved to greet them. They all wore the heavy brown jackets and gray trousers of the sheriff’s department. As they spoke familiarly with Malloy, they opened the back of the van and the man went in to retrieve a video camera and several heavy cases. Mike gestured at the center door, and they all followed him into the hallway that led upstairs.
    Betsy sat down at the big old desk that served as a checkout counter. So Mike thought that what happened in Doris’s apartment was more than a simple burglary. She wanted badly to go up for a look—and it was even possible she had a right to, since she owned the building. On the other hand, Mike would be annoyed. And it wasn’t as if the shop could spare her. She sighed and turned around to sell Gerry Schmidt a counted canvas pattern of three ornamental teapots. Gerry was the only customer in several hours who wasn’t buying yarn.
    But the next customer wasn’t a knitter, either. She was Lena Olson, and she was here to pick up a large canvas that Betsy had special-ordered for her. It was by Nikki Lee, and it was a sensitive, hand-painted rendition of Kaguya-hime, Japanese goddess of the moon, rendered in delicate pastels. It was two feet wide by three feet high, and the mere sight of it brought several customers over to exclaim over its size and beauty. Lena was going to work it in silk, a costly fiber which would bring the cost of stitching this project to well over $1,000. Those customers who realized this whispered the information to some of the others, and the crowd around the desk grew large.
    Betsy and Lena ignored them and went over the silks Betsy had selected for her—a service she offered to all her customers. Lena made only one change, from a pure pink to something with a hint of apricot in it, a color that matched her hair.
    Then Lena got out her checkbook with only a tiny sigh. Betsy sighed, too, as subtly as she could—a sale isn’t made until payment is rendered—then smiled with deep sincerity as she put the check in the drawer. But she could not resist trying to add to her profit. “I hope you will bring it back when you’ve worked it, so my finisher can do a really special job for you.”
    “I will—but it’s going to take me a while.” She held up a paper bag bulging with silks and watched anxiously as Betsy rolled the canvas up and taped three of strips of paper around it to hold it closed.
    “This is going to be a fantastic heirloom piece,” said Betsy, covering the roll with a layer of thin green florist’s plastic and taping that in place. “Now if you get stuck for a stitch or anything, I want you to bring it in to Godwin. I had to hold him back when he saw it so the drool wouldn’t get all over it. If you had backed out of buying it, I think he was prepared to sell his car to get it for himself.”
    Lena laughed. “I’ve been