Free Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_01 by Crewel World Page A

then onto Highway 100 north to 394, then east to Minneapolis. They got off on the Twelfth Street North exit. “When we cross Hennepin it will become South Twelfth,” Jill said.
    And so it did. Almost immediately, Jill said, “There’s Buca’s.” It was on a comer, marked with an old-fashioned vertical neon sign, showing a wine bottle filling a glass.
    The restaurant was in the basement of an apartment building, a series of small rooms. The walls were covered with old photographs of thickly dressed children—presumably the owner’s ancestors—and photos of Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Pope Pius XII, Al Capone, Frank Sinatra, and other notable Italians.
    There were the correct checkered tablecloths, and a shabby-friendly atmosphere that felt authentic, down to last Christmas’s tinsel still wrapped around the overhead pipes. The plates didn’t quite all match, nor did the silverware. The wineglasses were simple tumblers.
    Betsy, remembering the shabby little restaurant in Brooklyn, smiled. This was a very authentic look.
    And the smell was both authentic and heavenly.
    The menu was on the wall, on a big rectangle of whiteboard. Betsy felt alarmed at the prices, which were anything but shabby. A small dinner salad for $6.95? She began to wish she hadn’t insisted dinner be dutch treat.
    Jill must have read her face, for she said, “We’ll get one salad and share—the portions are large.”
    That was an understatement; the “small” salad came on a platter, a great heap of mixed greens and purple onions, glistening with oil. Dark olives clung precariously to what showed of the rim. The garlic bread they ordered with it was the size and shape of a large pizza, crusted with Parmesan, greening with basil, thickly flecked with slices of roasted garlic.
    Betsy had thought it was only New York cops who loved Italian food, but perhaps it was a universal trait; certainly Jill seemed familiar with the menu.
    â€œHow long have you known Margot?” asked Betsy as they waited for the entrée.
    Jill considered. “Fifteen years, or thereabouts,” she replied, and added, “She taught me how to embroider and do crewel. And, more recently, needlepoint.”
    â€œDo you knit?”
    â€œNo. And neither do you, I guess.”
    Betsy thought for an instant that this was a witticism, but when she looked up from her second slice of garlic bread, all she saw was that implacable calm and a penetrating pair of eyes.
    Jill had the full face the Victorians so admired; not a bone sticking out anywhere. And her eyebrows were so pale they were almost invisible. So there was no quirky eyebrow or quiver of jaw tendon to read in that face.
    A little defensively, Betsy said, “Knitting’s a dull business, don’t you think? It seems so mechanical, knit, purl, knit, purl, on and on—but you have to pay attention, or you end up with a mess.”
    â€œYou did learn how to purl, then?”
    â€œYes, Margot showed me. I thought I had taught myself, but Margot looked at it and said she thought I had invented a new stitch.”
    Was that a glint of amusement in those cool eyes?
    Encouraged, Betsy continued, “And while I thought I was dropping stitches, it turned out I had added six. Did you ever notice how knitters have to keep stopping and counting? Always dropping or picking up stitches. Give me the kind of needlework where all I have to do is look and I know where I am.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    The chicken Marsala was to die for. A single serving came as three large chicken breasts in a caramel-brown sauce, covered with big hunks of fresh mushrooms. They shared that, too.
    â€œWell?” said Jill coolly as the meal drew toward its end.
    â€œWell what?” replied Betsy, feeling overfed, and a little fuddled with Chianti. It was too easy to be generous when pouring it into a tumbler.
    â€œIs it as good as that little restaurant in