Knit of the Living Dead

by Peggy Ehrhart

  They took their seats. “The stew is too hot to pass,” Wilfred said, “so I’ll serve.” He reached a hand toward Pamela, who sat at his left, and she handed him her plate.

  His ruddy face gleaming with satisfaction, Wilfred scooped a drift of mashed potatoes onto the plate and added a generous serving of the beef bourguignon as Bettina poured the wine. Wilfred went on to serve Bettina and himself. Then with a hearty “Bon appétit,” he picked up his fork.

  But before anyone could start eating, butter had to be passed for the mashed potatoes. Once she’d sculpted a little hollow into the peak of her mashed potatoes and slipped in a pat of butter, Pamela picked up her own fork. The cubes of beef, seared to a rich brown, were bathed in a gravy whose russet hue hinted at the red wine and tomato paste that had supplemented pan drippings and beef broth. Here and there among the beef cubes was a chunk of carrot, a mushroom slice, or a glossy little pearl onion.

  Bettina took the first bite and, as she savored it, her expression reminded Pamela of the expression she sometimes observed on the faces of her cats when a head-rub was in progress—eyes closed and mouth curved into an ecstatic smile. With such an advertisement, Pamela eagerly sampled her own serving.

  Wilfred had outdone himself. The beef was meltingly tender, savory, and meaty, infused with the flavors of carrots, mushrooms, and the subtly sweet onions—all melded together during the stew’s long, slow cooking. Pamela was pleased to recognize in the gravy a fleeting note of the thyme she had contributed to the recipe. The mashed potatoes were the perfect complement to the beef bourguignon, with a flavor that didn’t upstage and a texture that provided contrast—as well as a useful means of capturing extra gravy.

  No one spoke for a time. The expression on Wilfred’s face telegraphed his satisfaction with his afternoon’s work in the kitchen, and Pamela contributed her own sounds of pleasure to Bettina’s purring.

  “A little more?” Wilfred offered when all that remained on the plates were streaks of the russet gravy and little dabs of mashed potatoes.

  “The tiniest bit.” Bettina handed her plate to her husband. Pamela requested a bit more too. Wilfred served them spoonfuls of mashed potatoes and dipped into the casserole for cubes of beef. Then he helped himself to seconds as well.

  After her first bite from the refilled plate, Bettina suddenly put down her fork. “I hope those sweet kids don’t do something that will ruin their lives forever,” she said, as if—with her hunger nearly satisfied—her mind had turned to other things.

  “Do you mean Herc and Felicity?” Pamela looked up from her plate, where she’d been guiding a forkful of mashed potato toward a puddle of gravy.

  “Of course.” On Bettina’s face, the cheer induced by Wilfred’s meal had been replaced by an expression of distress that puckered her brow and erased her smile. “That conversation you overheard. . . with Felicity saying they had to do something. . .”

  “Herc said they could wait . . . should wait,” Pamela said, feeling her own cheer threaten to flee. “He’ll get a good job when he finishes the degree. Just a few years, I’m sure. He seems industrious—and with Felicity so eager for them to be together . . . what better motivation?”

  Bettina sighed. “From our perspective, it seems easy to wait.”

  “From our perspective now.” Wilfred spoke up from the head of the table. “But when I was courting you, I was . . . impetuous. Faint heart never won fair maiden.”

  Bettina laughed. “Wilfred—you were forty when we met.” In an aside to Pamela, she added, “I was only twenty-five.”

  “My dear, I was as eager as a boy. I couldn’t wait for us to be together. And you’re as beautiful now as you were then.” Wilfred tipped his head to beam at his wife.

  Pamela speared a cube of beef with her fork, but instead of raising her fork to her mouth, she studied her plate. She had no real reason to envy the bond the Frasers shared. They were generous in their affection for her. But their love for each other was the love of a man and wife, and she had lost that love when she lost her husband.

  What would have happened, she suddenly wondered, if she had encouraged Richard Larkin’s interest? Would the two of them be sitting here at Wilfred and Bettina’s table, seeing the drama of their own courtship reflected in Herc and Felicity’s romance?

  So caught up was she in this reverie that she lost track of the topic whose conversational twists and turns had sparked Wilfred’s revelation of his ardor and the adoring look he gave his wife. Thus, she was startled when Bettina responded to his compliment by saying, “What if she already tried once to ‘do something,’ but was confused about who Bo Peep was?”

  As Pamela stared across the table, trying to fathom what Bettina meant, Wilfred said, “Do you mean Felicity killed Dawn Filbert thinking she was Brainard?”

  Bettina nodded vigorously and her earrings, gleaming gold spheres on slender chains, swayed. “Herc could have told her that his parents’ little Halloween joke was to dress as famous couples, but with Brainard as the woman and Mary as the man.”

  Pamela dismissed the image of Richard Larkin beaming at her, which had popped into her head unbidden, and rejoined the conversation. “Felicity is an awfully delicate little thing,” she said. “She hardly seems strong enough to imagine herself killing a woman, let alone a man.”

  “Brainard isn’t a large man.” Wilfred’s tone was thoughtful, as if he was trying out Bettina’s idea in his own mind.

  “No, he isn’t!” Bettina’s nod set the earrings in motion again. “And that’s all the more reason that Felicity could have mistaken Dawn Filbert for him—especially in the dark, back among those trees. But then, after she knocks him out, she bends over to make sure he’s dead by strangling him with the yarn—”

  “And she sees Dawn Filbert’s face”—Wilfred completed the thought—“and leaves the yarn untied and runs away, probably hoping that her unknown victim—unknown to her at least—is just unconscious and not dead.”

  This was a great deal to think about. Empty plates sat in front of Wilfred and Bettina. On Pamela’s own, a cube of beef and a pearl onion remained, in a tiny swirl of gravy. She quickly dispatched them and rose to her feet, saying, “Please let me clear away” and waving Wilfred back into his chair.

  “Don’t take the spoons,” Wilfred advised.

  Three trips to the kitchen sufficed, and Wilfred joined her there on the third to remove his baked apples from the oven. When she returned from depositing the casserole on the stovetop, small plates and salad forks had replaced the plates and flatware she’d borne away. A mound of arugula sat on each plate, its fresh green bright against the dusky green of the plates. Peeking out from among the curly leaves were whole cherry tomatoes, glistening with olive oil.

  Pamela sampled a few leaves. Their astringency was a perfect contrast to the hearty beefiness of the stew with its rich gravy.

  With the salad course, talk once again turned to the food—the crispness of the greens, the way the cherry tomatoes concentrated the very essence of tomato-ness, and how olive oil and a touch of vinegar brought a salad to life. Then it meandered along familiar pathways: the doings of the Frasers’ children and grandchildren, Penny’s reports from college, and Wilfred’s most recent craft project—a dollhouse modeled on a house in the Greek Revival style that was one of Arborville’s most noteworthy.

  When the salad plates were empty, Wilfred rose. “Dessert won’t be a surprise,” he said, “but I think it will be welcome. The Co-Op had apples direct from a farm in upstate New York. Red, but nice and tart—just right for baking.”

  He collected the salad plates and forks and disappeared into the kitchen. They heard the freezer door open and close. In a few minutes, he was back with a small bowl in each hand, which he delivered, one each, to Pamela and Bettina.

  In each bowl was a baked apple, still rosy but with skin crinkled from baking. Nestled against it was a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream, melting into creamy rivulets from the warmth of the apple. Wilf
red fetched his own bowl, and for a bit no one spoke as they tackled the dessert with spoons that carved easily into the yielding baked apple flesh.

  The mixture that Wilfred spooned into the hollowed-out apples had formed a sweet sauce as the apples baked. It tasted of brown sugar and butter and cinnamon, and chopped walnuts gave it a texture that contrasted with the soft apple flesh and melting vanilla ice cream.

  “Delicious!” Bettina pronounced, and Pamela agreed as she maneuvered her spoon to capture apple, ice cream, and sauce all in the same bite.

  * * *

  “Do you think Felicity killed Mary too?” Pamela asked as they lingered over coffee later. In the silence induced by the delights of Wilfred’s baked apples, her mind had circled back to the topic that had provided fodder for conversation on and off all evening.

  Across the table, Bettina set her coffee cup back on its saucer. “Not on purpose,” she said. “But she could have been making another attempt to get Brainard out of the way.”

  “You think she mistook Mary for her husband?” Pamela spoke without thinking, and she suspected that her expression signaled how ridiculous she considered that idea. Candlelight had created an elegant and relaxing atmosphere for the meal. She hoped the room’s dimness also disguised her scorn.

  Apparently, it had. Bettina continued unperturbed. “It was dark. Mary had probably put on some old jacket to carry out the compost. She was tall, even a little taller than Brainard. Maybe they kept an old jacket by the back door and shared it for grubby jobs in the yard.”

  “It’s possible,” Wilfred commented from his post at the head of the table. “Perhaps Felicity had been tracking Brainard and thought she knew his rituals—but didn’t realize that he occasionally spent an evening in the Wendelstaff library.”

  “So, on Tuesday night, Mary had compost duty,” Pamela chimed in. Perhaps Bettina’s idea wasn’t as outlandish as it had first seemed.

  They sipped their coffee in silence. Pamela’s cup was nearly empty and after one last swallow, she returned it to her saucer. “This was wonderful,” she said, and started to rise. “Baked apples are a perfect autumn dessert.”

  Wilfred and Bettina rose too. “There will be more apples tomorrow,” Bettina said. “Wilfred is going to the farmers market in Newfield.”

  “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” Wilfred interjected with a chuckle.

  * * *

  Standing at the open door, buttoned into her coat, Pamela hesitated before stepping over the threshold. “Felicity would have seen the face of her victim when she bent down to do the strangling. We’re thinking when she realized she’d struck Dawn Filbert on the head Saturday night at the bonfire, she left the yarn untied because Dawn wasn’t Brainard. But Tuesday night, the person who killed Mary tied the yarn to complete the job. If Felicity was the killer, why would she have done that when she saw clearly that she’d gotten the wrong person again?”

  Bettina shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Chapter 15

  Leaves were starting to drop—though only some of the trees whose autumn displays were most glorious had turned their fall colors. On Pamela’s trip outside to retrieve the newspaper the next morning, she realized that her black walnut tree had been shedding. Faded yellow leaves, small and shriveled, dotted the lawn and littered the front walk.

  Thus, a few hours later, after she had breakfasted and dressed, Pamela fetched her bamboo rake from the garage and set about tidying her yard. Starting the first week of November, Arborville’s DPW came around a few times a week to carry away leaves homeowners had raked into the street along the curbs.

  Pamela was enjoying her labors. The day was bright and clear, with just the slightest breeze. People arriving for the Sunday morning service at the church next door were calling cheerful greetings to one another as they strolled past or climbed out of cars. She was nearly through, and almost wishing for another task to keep her outdoors longer—though today would be a good day for a rambling walk too—when she heard someone say her name.

  “Pamela?” The voice was cheerful, if somewhat questioning. It came from the spot where the tall hedge that divided her property from Richard Larkin’s met the sidewalk.

  Pamela finished guiding a little pile of leaves toward the larger pile sitting near the curb and then turned toward the voice.

  Framed against the glossy foliage of the hedge was an attractive woman, slender like Pamela, and as tall. But this woman apparently understood her natural advantages and had enhanced them with an outfit that featured skinny jeans, sleek leather boots reaching to the knee, and an equally sleek leather jacket. A scarf so soft it had to be cashmere, in a deep green that flattered her olive complexion, was twisted into an interesting knot at her neck. Her thick black hair was pulled into a fashionable messy-bun whose escaping tendrils called attention to her delicately modeled cheekbones.

  “You are Pamela, aren’t you?” the woman said.

  Pamela nodded, aware of her baggy jeans, scuffed loafers, and ten-year-old jacket. The woman extended a hand that featured well-cared-for nails, though devoid of polish, and a few slender gold rings set with interesting stones.

  “I’m Jocelyn Bidwell,” she said as Pamela shifted her rake to her left hand and offered her right. “I’m so happy I’m getting to meet you at last,” she added. “Rick has told me so much about you— how helpful you were with his gardening—and your daughter and Laine and Sybil are such good friends.”

  The smile that accompanied this was warm and genuine, though also providing an opportunity to display perfect teeth. Pamela did her best to muster a smile of her own, her social smile at least.

  “Hello,” she said, then faltered. But Jocelyn was still smiling expectantly, and after a moment, Pamela rallied. “Yes,” she went on, “having them next door—sometimes that is, when they visit . . . their father—has been wonderful for Penny and . . . and . . . How is the garden doing? I haven’t seen it for a while because . . . there’s the hedge, you know . . .”

  “Not much left this time of year,” Jocelyn said. “It will all come back in the spring, though. Rick credits everything he knows about perennials to you. He—”

  She was interrupted by a familiar voice, Richard Larkin’s voice. “Jocey?” it called from somewhere behind the hedge.

  Jocelyn swiveled her head in the direction of the voice, then turned back to Pamela. “I guess he’s ready.” She laughed and pushed aside a tendril of hair the breeze had set adrift. “I have to run—but it was so great meeting you and talking to you. I hope we’ll get to know each other better!”

  And she was off.

  Suddenly the clear, breezy day and the pleasant seasonal chore didn’t seem as cheering. Pamela lurked near her side of the tall hedge until she heard the sound of a car engine. She peeked around the hedge and watched as Richard Larkin and Jocelyn set off for whatever Sunday outing they’d planned, thankful that their route took them up toward Arborville Avenue rather than past her own yard.

  She quickly coaxed more leaves toward the large pile, in her irritated haste not caring that a few remained to speckle the grass. Then she stepped into the street to pull the piled-up leaves, rakeful by rakeful, over the curb. The task accomplished, she put the rake back in the garage and retreated to the house, where she settled at her customary end of the sofa and took up her knitting project—the cornflower-blue cashmere sweater destined to be her mother’s Christmas gift.

  Knitting in the middle of the day was a rare event for Pamela, one that puzzled the cats. But Catrina forsook her favorite sunny spot on the entry carpet and joined Pamela on the sofa, just as if—instead of its being not even lunchtime yet—dinner had been cooked and eaten and the day was winding down.

  Pamela worked steadily at her task, thrusting the right-hand needle, looping the yarn with her finger, executing the needle dance that created a new stitch. As she worked, she willed the needles and the yarn to perform their soothing magic, but she sensed that the irritated knot between h
er brows had not smoothed away, the tension in her jaw had not eased, and the tight line of her lips had not relaxed.

  Catrina was the first to sense a visitor. With her ears tipped forward, she raised her head and rested a paw on Pamela’s thigh to gaze toward the front door. Then Ginger padded into the entry from the kitchen. When the doorbell chimed, both were already poised to greet Bettina, for that’s who the visitor was.

  As soon as Pamela opened the door, Bettina swept in, dressed in leggings, her red sneakers, and a cozy-looking, red-plaid poncho with fringe. “I thought you’d be on one of your walks,” she exclaimed. “It’s such a lovely autumn day. But I decided to check anyway—and here you are!”

  She bent to bestow a quick head scratch on Catrina and coo, “Hello, kitties!” In her other hand she carried one of the canvas tote bags that were Nell’s gifts to anyone she believed could be converted away from paper and plastic. The tote bag bulged with apples.

  “I went to Newfield with Wilfred this morning,” Bettina went on, “to the farmers market, and we bought apples, apples, and apples.” She proceeded toward the kitchen, with Pamela and the cats following. “He gets so excited when the fall apple crops start to come in.”

  She set the tote bag on Pamela’s kitchen table and began extracting apples. “This one’s a Northern Spy, and here’s a Macoun, and a Rhode Island Greening, and a Baldwin, and”—she held up an apple so dark it was almost black—“this one is a Sheep’s Nose, and . . .”

  Pamela nodded dully as the row of apples lined up on her kitchen table grew longer, some bright red, some green, some streaked red and yellow, some yellow with spots of blushing pink.

  “What is it?” Bettina said at last, pausing with a reddish-purple apple in her hand. She studied Pamela’s face and a small wrinkle appeared between her carefully shaped brows. “You seem a little . . . down. I didn’t mean to barge in. Did I interrupt something?”