Knit of the Living Dead

by Peggy Ehrhart

“I’ll take a cookie,” Nell said, starting to rise. “Just one, though.”

  “Let me, let me—” Roland edged toward the coffee table where the plate of cookies waited, but he swiveled back to ponder Nell and said, “Cream and sugar too! You need cream and sugar for your tea!”

  Nell was on her feet now. “Roland, really”—her voice was soothing—“everything is lovely. Please relax and sample your own treats.”

  He was about to return to the sleek turquoise chair when he noticed Melanie still on her feet. He waved her toward the turquoise chair with a courtly gesture and fetched an extra chair from the dining room. Soon everyone was settled, with coffee or tea sugared and creamed to their satisfaction and one cookie or more in reserve on a small porcelain plate.

  Pamela didn’t really like candy corn, though she acknowledged that it was as crucial to the rituals of Halloween as peppermint candy canes were to Christmas or foil-wrapped chocolate eggs to Easter. But she had to admit that the pairing of chocolate with candy corn was inspired. Sweet as the chocolate cookie was, its flavor still hinted at the slight bitterness of the cacao bean, and that bitterness tamed the excruciating sweetness of the candy corns studded here and there.

  Melanie didn’t usually join the group when Roland hosted Knit and Nibble, but perched in the turquoise chair, she seemed to enjoy the benign gossip and the chatter about babies and home improvement projects unloosed by Roland’s expertly managed refreshments. She was happily nibbling on the cookies, though to judge from her lithe, well-toned body, such indulgences were rare.

  Roland’s discreet peek at his watch signaled that he, at least, judged the time had come to return to the knit component of the evening. Taking their cue from their host, people began tipping cups to capture the last swallow of coffee or tea. Murmuring that she really shouldn’t, Bettina helped herself to one more cookie.

  Pamela lowered her empty cup to its saucer and picked up her knitting. She’d left off at the end of a row, so there was no need to ponder which direction she’d been heading when the group put their knitting aside to sample Roland’s treats. Soon she was once again enjoying the steady rhythm of yarn-looping and needle-thrusting as, stitch by stitch, the blue cashmere sweater front continued to grow. Roland had made short work of cleaning up, loading the two pewter trays with cups, saucers, plates, and the rest, and allowing Melanie to help him by bearing one to the kitchen.

  Next to Pamela, Bettina was advising Karen that Lily was plenty old enough to enjoy eating banana slices with her fingers. Holly had once more left the sofa to confer with Nell about the progress of the Christmas stocking. Back in the turquoise chair, Roland was contentedly at work on what he had made clear was the second sleeve of the camel-colored sweater destined for Melanie.

  After some time had passed, Nell rested her knitting in her lap and raised a hand to muffle a yawn. “It must be nine, or nearly so,” she said. “I don’t usually get sleepy this early, but I still haven’t quite caught up with my sleep after Saturday night.”

  “I’m ready!” With a flourish, Bettina completed the last stitch in a row. She reached for her knitting bag and tugged it up onto her lap.

  After a brief flurry of activity, during which knitting was stowed in knitting bags and coats and jackets were retrieved, the Knit and Nibblers gathered at Roland’s front door, congratulating him once again on his Halloween cookies. Nell had arrived with Holly and Karen because the walk all the way to the Farm was a bit far, even for her. But she was to be driven home in Pamela’s car because Holly was stopping off at Karen’s to look at swatches for a set of curtains Karen had in mind.

  With a last round of thank-yous and goodnights, the five women stepped out onto Roland’s porch, where the scarecrow’s jack-o’-lantern grin, illuminated by the porch light, echoed their host’s genial send-off. They made their way down Roland’s front walk to their respective cars. Pamela, Bettina, and Nell climbed into Pamela’s serviceable compact and, with a wave to Holly and Karen, set out for the Palisades and Nell’s house.

  Chapter 7

  Pamela halted at the corner when she reached Nell’s street. Even from the end of the block, it was clear that something untoward had happened in the vicinity of Nell’s house. Intense lights—startling and brief as flashbulbs, but alternating red, white, and blue—dazzled from vehicles massed along both curbs.

  “Police,” Bettina said in a small voice from the back seat.

  “Looks like,” Nell agreed from her spot beside Pamela. Then, as if it had just occurred to her, she whispered, “I left Harold at home.”

  “Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s happening at your house,” Pamela said soothingly. She turned and eased along until she was halfway down the block. “Look,” she said, leaning over the steering wheel, “there’s Harold standing in the street”—her headlights had illuminated his rangy figure— “so he’s okay for sure. And he’s looking toward the Lyon-Covingtons’ house.”

  “That’s a relief,” Nell murmured. “But what a reckless man! He always has to know what’s going on.”

  “It’s definitely something at the Lyon-Covingtons’!” Bettina exclaimed. “There are police in their yard.”

  The spasmodic flashes coming from the lights on the police cars made it hard to focus on anything beyond the range of Pamela’s headlights. But Pamela stared hard toward the house that faced Nell’s house across the street and made out two dark-clad figures emerging from the backyard.

  Pamela started to open her own door, but Nell was already leaping from the car and dashing ahead. Before Pamela’s feet even touched the pavement, Nell was halfway to Harold’s side. She had reached him and tugged him several paces toward his own curb by the time Pamela caught up with her.

  “They don’t need your help, Harold,” Nell was saying in a voice that sounded more frightened than angry. “But what on earth is going on?”

  Pamela was curious herself. She blinked against the glare as the row of lights across the roof of the nearest police car flashed red white blue, red white blue in blinding sequence, straining to make out what the two dark-clad people, obviously police, were going to do next. And Bettina had joined them, clutching Pamela’s arm and asking if she’d noticed whether Detective Clayborn was among the responders. Together, they took a few steps toward the dramatic scene as the Bascombs talked.

  “More police,” Bettina whispered, pointing to the Lyon-Covingtons’ porch, where the porch light illuminated two officers who had just stepped out through the front door.

  But they were distracted by Nell’s sudden moan, and both turned. The streetlamp and the flashing lights on the police cars clearly revealed their friend’s distraught expression. Barely resembling her own sturdy self, Nell stood with her hands clasped tightly against her breast and supported by Harold’s arm. She moaned again, but this time the moan resolved into words.

  “You were right, Pamela,” she said. “You were so, so right, and we tried to warn her, but she didn’t take our advice.” She swayed toward Harold, he tightened his hold on her, and the words squeezed out through a tight throat. “Our little town didn’t need another murder.”

  At the word murder, Pamela quaked, then froze. Bettina was talking, but Pamela felt like an onlooker watching a scene she herself wasn’t part of—wasn’t part of because it couldn’t really be happening.

  How could there be another murder so soon after Dawn’s just that past Saturday night? And if Pamela had been, as Nell put it, so, so right, that meant that this time the victim was—

  “Mary Lyon,” Harold was saying. In his long career as a doctor, Harold had often delivered unwelcome news. But after decades of experience, his voice and expression were no less sorrowful. “I was putting out the recycling,” he went on. “A police car came careening around the corner and Brainard came dashing down the driveway yelling, ‘My wife is dead! In the backyard!’ ”

  “Oh, Pamela!” Bettina clutched Pamela’s arm again. Pamela tried to shake off the sense of unreality that had enve
loped her. She gently freed her arm so she could wrap it around Bettina’s shoulders. “Mary didn’t take our advice,” Bettina moaned. “She went outside in the dark and someone was waiting for her.”

  A police officer was approaching, Officer Sanchez, the young woman police officer with the sweet, heart-shaped face. “We need to clear the street,” she said. “Are you residents of this block?” She scanned their faces slowly, from Harold to Nell to Bettina to Pamela.

  “We are,” Harold said. “Harold and Nell Bascomb, and we live right up there.” He pointed to his and Nell’s substantial house, with its shrubbery-filled yard and curving flight of steps.

  “And you?” Officer Sanchez turned to Pamela and Bettina. Then she nodded toward Pamela’s car. “Is that your car?”

  After quick good nights and promises to get in touch the next morning, Pamela and Bettina parted with the Bascombs and soon were on their way down the hill. As they approached the intersection with Arborville Avenue, they passed the huge silver van with the logo of the county sheriff’s department that signaled the arrival of the crime scene unit.

  * * *

  After retrieving the County Register on Wednesday morning, Pamela scurried even more quickly than usual back to the cozy haven of her kitchen. As if her sleep hadn’t been disturbed enough by the grim discovery that Mary Lyon had been murdered, a cold front with winds that shivered the windowpanes and howled around the eaves had blown in overnight. She’d awakened at eight, feeling stiff and barely rested, but too on edge to roll over for another hour or two of slumber.

  Besides, there were cats to feed. She had dispatched that task before starting water for her coffee, then she had fetched the paper, and now she was measuring coffee beans into her coffee grinder. She hoped these customary rituals would launch a day with few, if any, surprises.

  Seated ten minutes later at her kitchen table, she hesitated before slipping the Register from its flimsy plastic wrapper. Perhaps it would be better to fortify herself with the slice of buttered, whole-grain toast that waited at her elbow, as well as a few sips of coffee, before discovering what the Register’s energetic reporter, Marcy Brewer, had done with what was sure to be the front-page story.

  But her deliberations were interrupted by the telephone’s ring.

  “I knew your cell phone wouldn’t be on,” said an urgent voice.

  The voice was right. Pamela had risen from her chair to lift the handset from the wall-mounted phone that had been a fixture of her kitchen ever since she and her husband moved in.

  “Penny?” Among the tangle of thoughts that had vexed Pamela’s waking and sleeping mind the previous night had been the knowledge that Penny, up in Massachusetts, would know as soon as almost anyone in Arborville did that Arborville had had another murder.

  “Yes, Mom, it’s Penny.” Penny’s matter-of-fact tone was meant to suggest—what?—that after two murders in less than a week, calling home to discuss them had become a routine chore? “Lorie Hopkins texted me this morning and I looked at the Register online. So I know all about what happened.”

  “I was going to call you,” Pamela said. “But I thought you’d be asleep, or in class, if I called now.” She paused, but Penny didn’t say anything. “There’s no need for you to worry,” Pamela went on.

  “Really?” Penny sounded skeptical. “That woman who was killed had a yarn blog.”

  “Lots of people have yarn blogs,” Pamela said. “The police will figure out who killed her. I have every confidence.”

  “You and Bettina won’t try to help them?”

  “Why would we do that?” Pamela tried to keep her voice offhand.

  “Mo-om! She had a yarn blog. Hello? Knit and Nibble?”

  “Penny! I’m not . . .” Pamela hadn’t been sure what she was going to say next, so she was relieved when the doorbell’s chime interrupted her unformed thought.

  Still holding the handset, she stepped through the kitchen doorway and glanced toward the front door. Through the lace that curtained the oval window, she could see a figure garbed in a very seasonal color. Bettina’s familiar pumpkin-colored coat stood out as a bright contrast to Pamela’s lawn and the street and houses beyond.

  “It’s Bettina,” she said quickly. “I have to go. Don’t worry.”

  Bettina entered on a chilly draft of air. “Quite a change from the past few days,” she pronounced. She’d added purple leather gloves and a purple beret to her ensemble, and her lipstick was the bright pumpkin shade of her coat. “Is that Nell?” she asked, noticing the handset Pamela still carried.

  Pamela shook her head. “Penny. She knows all about the murder. Her Arborville friend, Lorie Hopkins, texted her, and she read the Register online.”

  “Did you read the Register yet?” Bettina advanced toward the chair that was the main piece of furniture in Pamela’s entry and began to slip off her coat.

  “I was just about to open it up,” Pamela said, “and then Penny called.”

  “Marcy Brewer’s article isn’t very complete.” Bettina smiled a secret smile. “The Register went to press before the crime scene people were through. But I’ve just been with Clayborn . . .”

  “You’ll tell me all about it. But what’s happening with Nell?” Pamela asked as she led Bettina toward the kitchen.

  “She called me,” Bettina said. “She said she tried to call you, but your landline was busy and your cell phone just went to voicemail. I talked to her in my car on the way here.”

  “And?”

  “She wants to know what we’re going to do now.”

  “What we’re going to do now? Meaning you and me?” Pamela laughed.

  “Meaning you and me and Nell.” Bettina felt the side of the carafe, then transferred it to a burner and lit a low flame under it.

  “She didn’t used to approve of amateur sleuthing.” Pamela reached a wedding-china cup and saucer down from the cupboard and set them on the counter near the stove. Bettina, meanwhile, had stepped over to the refrigerator to retrieve the cream.

  “She does now,” Bettina said, peering into the refrigerator. “At least in this case.” Bettina straightened up, holding a small carton, and turned toward Pamela, who was monitoring the progress of the coffee. “She feels guilty that she wasn’t more adamant when we suggested that Mary be careful about going out alone at night. She wanted to know what Clayborn had to say, of course, and after I told her . . .”

  Bettina broke off. Pamela had patted the side of the carafe to establish that the coffee was hot again and filled the cup destined for Bettina. Bettina claimed her coffee, as well as the sugar bowl and a spoon, and took her customary seat at Pamela’s kitchen table. The Register, which was still tightly folded and encased in its plastic cover, remained on the table. Bettina pushed it aside. A wedding-china plate with an uneaten slice of toast remained on the table too.

  “Your coffee looks cold,” Bettina observed before commencing the sugaring and creaming that would transform her own coffee into the pale, sweet concoction she favored.

  “It is,” Pamela said. “And I never even had a chance to take a sip.” She poured it back in the carafe and lit the burner again.

  Bettina looked up from her vigorous stirring. “I almost stopped off at the Co-Op after I left Clayborn,” she said. “They have that pumpkin-spice crumb cake now. But I knew you’d be anxious to hear what he had to say.”

  “I am anxious”—Pamela raised the flame under the carafe and watched as a few small bubbles rose through the dark liquid—“very anxious.” With the aid of an oven mitt, she tipped the carafe to refill her own cup, turned off the burner, and joined Bettina at the table.

  After a long sip of coffee, Bettina spoke. “We already knew, last night, that Mary was dead and that Brainard discovered her body in the backyard,” she said.

  Pamela nodded.

  Bettina rested her hand on the Register. “Marcy Brewer’s article adds the information that, according to Mary’s husband, Wendelstaff College Professor Brainard Coving
ton, she had gone out to carry vegetable scraps to the compost heap at the far corner of the Lyon-Covingtons’ property. It also adds the information that, according to the first responders, she had been struck on the forehead with a blunt object, breaking the skin.”

  “And the extra tidbits you got from Clayborn?”

  “One tidbit.” Bettina smiled the secret smile again. “But it’s a good one.” She paused, and Pamela could tell she was enjoying teasing her friend by drawing out the suspense. But Bettina changed the subject. “Is there more toast?” she asked, pointing to the plate with the uneaten toast. “Besides that cold piece?”

  “Of course there’s more toast,” Pamela laughed, “but not until you—”

  “Yarn.” Bettina tapped her own neck. “Strands of yarn, just like when Dawn Filbert was killed.

  “Oh my . . .” Pamela whispered.

  “But this time”—Bettina paused for effect—“the yarn was tied. Tied in a bow.”

  “So . . .” Pamela rested her chin on her folded hands and frowned.

  Bettina nodded, and the tendrils of her bright hair vibrated. “Definitely the same killer.”

  “And the killer knew that this time he’d really tracked down Mary—so he carried through with his whole plan: strike her on the head, which might or might not kill her but would knock her out, and then strangle her with the yarn.” Pamela took a sip of coffee, and realized that—what with all the interruptions—it was her first sip of the day.

  Bettina nodded again. “The ME will have to determine which thing actually killed her.”

  Pamela took another sip of coffee, determined not to let it get cold this time. “That’s all, then?” she asked.

  “Well,” Bettina said, “that was all he had to tell me. But I had things to tell him.” Without revealing the things, however, she rose from her chair.

  “You told him about the llama farm?” Pamela watched as Bettina helped herself to two slices of whole-grain bread and slipped them into the toaster.

  “Of course.” Bettina didn’t add the word duh, but her tone and her comical wide-eyed expression implied it. She let her answer sink in for a moment, then she gestured toward the toaster. “What can I put on the toast when it’s done?”