Thai Die by Monica Ferris

but he said that was because he was afraid she might have damaged it. Which was a legitimate fear. The hands on the statue were carved very delicately.” Betsy raised her own hands and tried to imitate the pose of the fingers as best as she could remember it.
    “Well, maybe,” said Malloy. Again he consulted his notes. “Tell me about Phil Galvin.”
    “He’s nice, a retired railroad man. I think he must be well into his seventies, though he’s pretty spry. He’s been a customer of this shop since before I came to own it. A gentleman, kind of old-fashioned. He’s been courting Doris for a long while, and being very discreet about it. Well, anyway, he thinks he’s being discreet. It’s cute watching the two of them not announcing to the world that they’re in love or hooked up or going into business together or whatever the current term is. It’s nobody’s business but theirs, and that’s fine with them.”
    “Any reports of quarrels lately?”
    “No. But as I said, they aren’t talking about their relationship to anyone. You don’t think he’s involved in this, do you?”
    “I’m just asking questions. Are you thinking you’re going to get involved?”
    Betsy thought of Phil, angry on Doris’s behalf—and Doris, distraught at being caught up in a case of murder without knowing how or why. “Of course,” she said.

Four

    THIS time the customers weren’t standing for any polite evasions. They wanted to know what Sergeant Malloy had been doing upstairs and then what he talked about with Betsy. “What’s going on?” Shelly demanded.
    Bershada reported, “I saw Doris in here a while ago, and she was looking like she was about to scream. Or cry, at least.” That last brought several more women away from the yarn sale baskets.
    “What’s wrong? Is something wrong?” customers were asking.
    So Betsy felt forced to explain. “Someone broke into Doris Valentine’s apartment—fortunately while she wasn’t there—and thoroughly trashed it.”
    That brought on an exclamatory chorus: “Oh, that’s awful!” “Oooh, scary!” “Poor thing!”
    Alice asked, “Have the police got any clues?”
    “I don’t know, they didn’t say anything to me about collecting useful evidence,” Betsy said.
    People who knew Doris came close to the desk. Jeanette Morgan said, “No wonder she’s upset. I had a friend who was burglarized, and she actually sold her house afterward. She said she couldn’t live there anymore.”
    “Poor Doris!” said Pat Ingle. “But she isn’t going to move out, is she?”
    “Who’s Doris?” asked a customer.
    Linda Barta said, “Doris Valentine. She lives upstairs. Nice woman. She’s dating Phil Galvin.”
    Jeanette said, “I saw them together the other night in that new restaurant, Biella’s. He seems very taken with her. And about time, I’d say. He’s been a widower for—how many years is it? Fifteen?”
    “Seventeen, I think,” said Edie Wills. “Doris was kind of slow to catch on he was interested . . .”
    Pat, Edie, Linda, and Jeanette drifted away, gossiping about senior dating.
    But Bershada, a member of the Monday Bunch, remained at the desk. She looked pointedly at Betsy and said, “I don’t know if you know this, but the police don’t clean up after a crime.”
    “Yes, of course, I know that,” said Betsy.
    “Good, because if you think she’s upset now, girl, you better believe she’s going to go ballistic when she comes home and there’s still that mess in her apartment!”
    “Well, what am I supposed to do? I can’t leave the shop!”
    Shelly, standing by with two skeins of Lucci ribbon yarn, said, “But you’re her landlady! You should call someone! You can’t leave her to clean up a burglar’s mess all by her own self!”
    Godwin, having heard the conversation in passing, made a U-turn. “Isn’t that double jeopardy?” he asked.
    Rosemary Kossel, a very advanced knitter who taught classes at Betsy’s shop, said, “It doesn’t