A Stitch to Die For (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Book 5) by Lois Winston Page B
Authors: Lois Winston
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murder.
Three hours remained before I needed to get ready for work. I contemplated cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms but the activity would wake Ralph, and his squawking would wake everyone else, especially Mephisto. Having no desire to walk a dog in below-freezing temperatures at three-thirty in the morning, I decided to forego any cleaning and let sleeping animals snore.
Instead, I searched online for any reference to Betty Bentworth, not that I expected to find anything of significance. Her television hailed from the last century. I doubted she owned a computer, much less had any sort of Internet presence. However, refining the search parameters, I might discover some information about her.
After nearly two decades of living across the street from the woman, I knew nothing about her other than her name. And I wasn’t alone. To my knowledge none of my neighbors knew anything more than I did.
A search of “Betty Bentworth” turned up nothing. The only “Elizabeth Bentworth” I found was a reference to a woman born sometime around 1781 and listed in an 1841 census in England. I then checked nicknames for Elizabeth—Bess, Bessie, Bette, Beth, Betsy, Liz, and Lizzie—as well as less common nicknames. When nothing of significance surfaced, I searched related named, checking out Lisa, Liza, Eliza, Elle, Elsa, Elsie, Elspeth, Libby, Liddy, Lise, and Lizbeth. I even tried odd spellings I found listed on one website.
Zilch. Nada. I was just about to spend the remainder of the night playing computer solitaire when I stumbled upon a site that listed foreign forms of the name “Elizabeth.” With nothing to lose, I systematically worked my way down the list of countries, pairing each given name with “Bentworth.” When I typed “Belita,” a Spanish derivative of Elizabeth, into the browser, the results revealed a shocking news article.
FIVE
In 1965 Belita Acosta Bentworth was arrested in Sacramento, California for attempting to kill her three young children by poisoning them with lethal doses of salt. The justice system worked much more swiftly back then, and Belita was convicted four months later. She served twenty years in a federal prison before being released in August 1985. Could Betty Bentworth be Belita Acosta Bentworth? Her age certainly fit.
I opened another window on my computer and typed Betty’s address into Zillow. Her house last sold in September 1985. I certainly couldn’t present this tenuous connection to Detective Spader. He’d accuse me of basing my suspicions on circumstantial evidence at best—or worse, mere coincidence. And he’d be right. I needed to dig deeper.
As daybreak began to filter into the bedroom from between the slats of my wooden blinds, I wondered: if Betty really was Belita, had one of her kids tracked her down after all these years to exact some long overdue revenge?
I glanced at the clock. Ten past six. Too early to call Detective Spader, even if I had more than speculation to offer him, but definitely time to power down my computer and start my day. Besides, before handing Spader my theory, I thought it best to check into the whereabouts of Belita’s children. Were they even still alive? I knew with every hour that slipped by, the likelihood of finding Betty’s killer grew slimmer. I didn’t want to waste precious investigating time by sending Spader off on a wild goose chase, should he take me seriously. I’d hunt down those geese myself and present him with a platter of foie gras, when and if I located them.
~*~
Trimedia, the parent company of the magazine where I work, has a strict policy against using company computers for non-work-related activities. Nita Holzer, otherwise known as the Human Resources Attendance Nazi, not only used to write us up if we arrived a minute late to work, she also monitored our computer usage. Get caught playing Candy Crush or watching YouTube videos on company time, and you risked receiving a pink
Three hours remained before I needed to get ready for work. I contemplated cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms but the activity would wake Ralph, and his squawking would wake everyone else, especially Mephisto. Having no desire to walk a dog in below-freezing temperatures at three-thirty in the morning, I decided to forego any cleaning and let sleeping animals snore.
Instead, I searched online for any reference to Betty Bentworth, not that I expected to find anything of significance. Her television hailed from the last century. I doubted she owned a computer, much less had any sort of Internet presence. However, refining the search parameters, I might discover some information about her.
After nearly two decades of living across the street from the woman, I knew nothing about her other than her name. And I wasn’t alone. To my knowledge none of my neighbors knew anything more than I did.
A search of “Betty Bentworth” turned up nothing. The only “Elizabeth Bentworth” I found was a reference to a woman born sometime around 1781 and listed in an 1841 census in England. I then checked nicknames for Elizabeth—Bess, Bessie, Bette, Beth, Betsy, Liz, and Lizzie—as well as less common nicknames. When nothing of significance surfaced, I searched related named, checking out Lisa, Liza, Eliza, Elle, Elsa, Elsie, Elspeth, Libby, Liddy, Lise, and Lizbeth. I even tried odd spellings I found listed on one website.
Zilch. Nada. I was just about to spend the remainder of the night playing computer solitaire when I stumbled upon a site that listed foreign forms of the name “Elizabeth.” With nothing to lose, I systematically worked my way down the list of countries, pairing each given name with “Bentworth.” When I typed “Belita,” a Spanish derivative of Elizabeth, into the browser, the results revealed a shocking news article.
FIVE
In 1965 Belita Acosta Bentworth was arrested in Sacramento, California for attempting to kill her three young children by poisoning them with lethal doses of salt. The justice system worked much more swiftly back then, and Belita was convicted four months later. She served twenty years in a federal prison before being released in August 1985. Could Betty Bentworth be Belita Acosta Bentworth? Her age certainly fit.
I opened another window on my computer and typed Betty’s address into Zillow. Her house last sold in September 1985. I certainly couldn’t present this tenuous connection to Detective Spader. He’d accuse me of basing my suspicions on circumstantial evidence at best—or worse, mere coincidence. And he’d be right. I needed to dig deeper.
As daybreak began to filter into the bedroom from between the slats of my wooden blinds, I wondered: if Betty really was Belita, had one of her kids tracked her down after all these years to exact some long overdue revenge?
I glanced at the clock. Ten past six. Too early to call Detective Spader, even if I had more than speculation to offer him, but definitely time to power down my computer and start my day. Besides, before handing Spader my theory, I thought it best to check into the whereabouts of Belita’s children. Were they even still alive? I knew with every hour that slipped by, the likelihood of finding Betty’s killer grew slimmer. I didn’t want to waste precious investigating time by sending Spader off on a wild goose chase, should he take me seriously. I’d hunt down those geese myself and present him with a platter of foie gras, when and if I located them.
~*~
Trimedia, the parent company of the magazine where I work, has a strict policy against using company computers for non-work-related activities. Nita Holzer, otherwise known as the Human Resources Attendance Nazi, not only used to write us up if we arrived a minute late to work, she also monitored our computer usage. Get caught playing Candy Crush or watching YouTube videos on company time, and you risked receiving a pink
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