Knitted and Knifed

by Tracey Drew

  Knitted and Knifed

  A Knitty Kitties Mystery

  Tracey Drew

  Copyright © 2020 by Tracey Drew

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Wanted: Cat mum to manage a yarn store, corral two curious cats, all the while being tangled up in murderous mayhem and mystery.

  * * *

  A smart woman would dump her cheating ex, move from the city, and give herself a chance for a well-deserved do-over. A smarter woman—smarter than me, anyway—wouldn’t jump out of that same frying pan and return to Cape Discovery, a seaside village where her family is the nuttiest of all the nut-ball residents.

  * * *

  I’m a former high school counsellor, middle-child peacemaker, and current curator of lots of squishy/fuzzy goodness at my granddad’s little yarn store. Temporary assistant. Until I decide what to do with the rest my life. There’s only one knotty problem to untangle first. The knife sticking out of the most unpopular man in town, and the police detective trying to pin the murder on the donkey—otherwise known as my younger brother. With a pair mischievous cats determined to be underfoot and a craft group of Serial Knitters and Happy Hookers wanting the inside scoop, a girl could lose her mind. And if the killer has their way, maybe even my life...

  * * *

  Tessa Wakefield has her hands full juggling a cozy craft store, her crazy family, and two men who’d rather poke out their eyes than describe themselves as cute. Which they totally are. Cute, charismatic, and occasionally on her mind when she’s not stumbling over dead bodies and using her newfound sleuthing skills to track down murderers. Lucky she’s an excellent multi-tasker because digging beneath Cape Discovery’s surface can unearth secrets that kill.

  Also by Tracey Drew

  Knitty Kitties Mysteries

  Knitted and Knifed

  Purled and Poisoned

  Hanks and a Hitman

  Free Book!

  * * *

  Want to read the prequel of Kit and Pearl’s first crime-solving adventure? Click here to sign up to my newsletter and I’ll send you a FREE e-copy of Balls & Bones!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Sneak Peak of Purled & Poisoned…

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Have you ever reached a milestone in your life where you’ve thought: This is it; I’ve gone from being a successful thirty-five-year-old school counselor to a woman sans home and a man, surrounded by yarn and two spoiled, high-maintenance cats.

  Well I have, and it wasn’t when I caught Jared, my boyfriend of ten years, with his personal trainer after my beloved nana’s funeral. Nope. My current sad existence became apparent when I entered the kitchen of my new home and spied on the counter, a chubby feline wedged inside a pastry box.

  Loud munching noises filled the room.

  Perhaps I should hit pause to explain who I am and how I came to catch a gluttonous cat scoffing expensive baked goods.

  Hi, I’m Tessa Wakefield. A woman scorned, who fled the big city lights of Auckland to return her small New Zealand hometown. And the bosom of her family. Her slightly nutball family, but a loving family, nonetheless. While my two older sisters and their families lived elsewhere in the country, my parents, younger brother, and paternal grandparents remained long-term Cape Discovery residents.

  Except now, I have only one grandparent left. We lost Nana Dee-Dee to a massive stroke two months ago, and Granddad Harry needed us all, nutty or not, to help him adjust to the gaping hole created by her absence. As the youngest sister and the only female Wakefield sibling without a brood of kids—and with a significant other who preferred the company of his personal trainer—moving into my grandparents’ spare room seemed the obvious, most helpful choice.

  As a temporary measure, of course.

  Just until Harry figured out what he wanted to do with the yarn store that he and Nana Dee-Dee had owned for nearly forty years.

  Over those years, Nana Dee-Dee had turned Unraveled into a craft addict’s paradise. Breezy and light-filled during the summer, and a cozy, welcoming haven in winter. And it would break the last fragment of Harry’s shattered heart to sell the store and the two-bedroom apartment they’d lived in above it. To honor my nana, the least I could do over the busy summer season was keep Harry and Unraveled functioning. Not in the charming old-school style that made Nana Dee-Dee a much-loved local icon, but in more of a don’t worry; I’ve got this trial-and-error kind of way.

  So far, I’d coped with the day-to-day running of the store. While Harry managed the admin side of things, all I had to do was point yarn-o-holics to the shelf of alpaca fiber blends or ring up a purchase of rainbow-colored merino. Luckily, most customers knew what they wanted, and I spoke enough craft-ish to sound like a professional. I’d even convinced Harry to restart the Thursday night Crafting for Calmness classes, with me taking the lead.

  Don’t laugh—my nana taught me to knit the moment my chubby little hands could grasp a pair of knitting needles.

  While there’d been plenty of crafting when Nana Dee-Dee was alive, calmness tended to be waylaid by a free-for-all of gossip, friendly rivalry between the group’s knitters and crocheters, and snacks. Lots of yummy snacks. Such as the much-coveted, delicious pastries from Disco’s Bakery.

  Yes, the very same pastries one of Nana Dee-Dee’s jet-black cats was now scoffing. And I didn’t need to see the culprit’s face; I recognized his chubby hindquarters.

  “Kit!”

  The hindquarters wriggled, and his tail flicked in agitation…but the munching sounds from inside the box only increased in speed.

  “You little mother…I mean…mohair-flecking glutton!”

  Even mid-rant, I was mindful of Harry next door in the living room. My granddad insisted his adult grandkids called him ‘Harry,’ and having been a cop for his entire working life, he claimed he’d heard enough cursing on the job so didn’t want to hear it from his family. We were strongly encouraged to rise above gutter-talk. But one thing we Wakefields were good at was appearing to abide by rules while actually finding creative ways to get around, under, or through them.

  I raced across the kitchen and whipped open the box lid.

  Two jungle-green eyes blinked up at me. A pink tongue flicked out to swipe a clot of cream off a furry lip. Kit, the boy half of Nana Dee-Dee’s devilish duo, kept his stocky paws right where he’d planted them—one in the center of an apricot Danish, the other on a custard-scrolled delight I’d personally had my eye on. He gave me a querying, “purrrrt?”

  A hello, human, can I help you? response.

  To add insult to injury, he slowly rose from his hunkered-down-to-feast position, displayed four licorice jellybean toes, and proceeded to lick custard from between them.

  “Kit. You know those weren’t for you,” I wailed.

  Because I was that kind of inherited by default cat-staff. The kind convinced that cats understand everything we say but choose to react only to the things that interest them.

  Or benefit them.

  Or entertain them.


  Call me insane, but I shot devil eyes at Kit for a moment, waiting for an apology.

  I got a bored yawn instead.

  Then he jumped off the kitchen counter—he was surprisingly agile for such a furry fatty—and sashayed into the living room. No doubt to join Harry on his La-Z-Boy so they could watch The Bachelorette and criticize the contestants.

  Sure enough, Harry soon piped up with, “Can I steal you for a moment?” then laughed. His big belly laugh that, even though I was as mad as an alpaca with an unexpected military buzz cut, still gave me the warm fuzzies.

  Of course, warm fuzzies wouldn’t replace the cat-chewed pastries meant for this evening’s Crafting for Calmness.

  I’d only left the store unattended for a minute while I snuck upstairs for my own boredom snack. However, the salted pretzels would have to wait until after an emergency run back to Disco’s.

  “Harry”—had to raise my voice over the excitable females OMG’ing on the TV—“I’m going into town to pick up some more snacks.”

  “What happened to the ones I bought earlier?” he hollered back.

  With a sigh, I dumped the whole box into the trash. I poked my head around the curved archway that divided kitchen and living room. “Kit happened. You left them on the counter instead of hiding them in the pantry.”

  “I did? Don’t remember doing that.” Harry scratched a finger under today’s choice of a purple-and-orange striped knitted beanie, releasing a flyaway tuft of snowy hair. My granddad needed a haircut and a better excuse than ‘I forgot.’ Because, although in his early eighties, the man was whip-smart and only pretended to forget things to tease his wife.

  Who would’ve had conniptions at me serving a store-bought packet of chocolate chip cookies. The idea had crossed my mind as an easy solution.

  “Say hello to Jules from me while you’re there.” Harry shot me an innocent until proven guilty grin then toggled up the TV volume to drown out any snarky response to his blatant attempt at matchmaking.

  Gah!

  Mentally throwing up my hands, I left him and the smirking black menace curled up on his lap.

  When I clattered down the stairs and pushed through the 70s style bead curtain in the doorway that separated store from apartment, Unraveled was empty of customers. As per usual, one of my directionally challenged curls snagged on a bead strand, giving rise to funky dance moves to avoid being scalped. Finally untangled, I came face to face with the haughty gaze of Nana Dee-Dee’s other pride and joy—Pearl.

  Tail neatly curled around her paws, she sat on the edge of the service counter, silently judging. Silky black, like her litter brother, Pearl was a lean, mean thieving machine; in perfect contrast to Kit’s penchant for gobbling up human food whenever the opportunity arose. I didn’t doubt for a second that it had been her who spied the unattended pastry box on a perimeter prowl.

  Making the two-fingered I’m watching you gesture in her direction, I said, “Don’t think I don’t know who was behind the stolen pastries, girlfriend.”

  The cat’s eyelids lowered to half-mast as I bored her with my silly prattling. Human, you are dismissed.

  I rolled my eyes for her, since a cat can’t, and flicked over the ‘Back in a Tick!’ sign that hung on Unraveled’s door.

  It was a beautiful Discovery summer’s day, the sunshine beating down with such vigor I could feel the sidewalk’s heat beneath my flip-flop-clad feet. As I passed my retail neighbors—Bloomin’ Great Discovery Florists and Chic Threads—I waved a cheery hello. A light sea breeze rolled off the turquoise ocean at the far end of Cape Street, Cape Discovery’s main thoroughfare, and I promised myself another early morning swim later this week if the nice weather held.

  Spoiler alert: During a Discovery summer, the weather’s always nice.

  The center of town—which, in all honesty, put the small in ‘small town’—consisted of Cape Street, which ran perpendicular to the beach and led to the highly sought-after real estate of more upmarket stores and eateries along the waterfront. Unraveled was not located at the ‘highly sought-after real estate’ end of town, but at the other, now less-than-desirable part of Discovery.

  A sideways glance across the road revealed the source of locals’ discomfort. The old butcher shop. Almost eighteen months ago, Nana Dee-Dee and I found the remains of the butcher’s wife under it. Although, technically, Kit and Pearl found her.

  Well, bits of her.

  Sandwiched between the rear concrete wall of a motel and a three-story building that housed a law firm, an accountant, and a dentist’s office, the single-story structure had remained empty and boarded up until a month ago. Now it housed a pop-up store selling everything from beach apparel and toys to discounted grocery staples, household goods, cheap books, and party supplies. The inventory went on. And thanks to my younger brother, Sean, being the only employee, I got to hear all about how the new owner had ruffled a few feathers.

  I continued along Cape, narrowly avoiding a collision with two kids riding bikes one-handed, their other hands clutching dripping ice cream cones. Disco’s sat opposite a small park and kids’ playground, on the cross street closest to the center of the town proper. The bakery was packed every morning with parents caffeinating after the school drop-off and busy each lunchtime with locals nipping out for freshly made sourdough sandwiches. Then flat out again in the afternoon as summer tourists and parents vied for outside seats so they could watch their offspring make use of the playground equipment.

  I’d missed the lunch crowd, but Disco’s was still half-filled with sunscreen and sweaty, smelly customers. From a glance at the display cabinets, I could tell that pastries wouldn’t be included in tonight’s refreshments. I peered around a sand-speckled family of four to another display cabinet, hoping against hope that there might be a few cinnamon scones or slices of chocolate mud cake left. My hopes were dashed as the two kids pointed at the last remaining scones, and Jules, the mid-twenty-something baker who made me feel like a cougar just by looking at him, slid them into a logo-printed box.

  Not that two scones would have fed a dozen ravenous crafters. Unless Harry had some serious loaves-to-fishes miracle tucked up his sleeve.

  In despair, I hurried out of Disco’s and headed back to Cape Street. Across the road from me stood Discovery’s sole grocery store: Hanburys. Perhaps I needed to rethink the cookie option. Because the only other acceptable alternative to pastries from Disco’s was to be found at the Daily Grind on the waterfront—a trendy café owned by my high school nemesis, Rosie Cooper.

  Big hairy yarn balls.

  On any visits home over the past fifteen years, I’d mostly managed to avoid bumping into Rosie. The approximately thirty seconds of What’ve you been up to? and You haven’t changed a bit! awkward chitchat that inevitably followed was excruciating. Until one of us beat a hasty retreat, usually with an excuse of the late for a root canal variety.

  Fortunately, Rosie was surprisingly easy to avoid. For one, she seemed to spend every waking moment at her café. And two, her family was Cape Discovery’s equivalent of royalty—albeit the kind that keeps the tabloids in business. Whereas mine were of more common stock; definitely not the right people to socialize with.

  And all the way through high school, Rosie and her cliquey group never let me forget it.

  That I’d venture anywhere near the Daily Grind must give you an idea of how desperate I was for tonight’s class to be a success. I wanted Harry to enjoy himself, to not give him any reason to retreat into his shell again. Resuming the weekly class was just what he needed to start living again.

  So I pulled up my big girl panties and slunk into the café.

  The sweet-treats display cabinet still held loads of delicious-looking slices and even three-quarters of a frosted carrot cake. Score! The only thing dampening my enthusiasm currently stood behind the counter in a hot-pink Daily Grind logoed apron. Rosie chatted to a customer while working a giant espresso machine, looking as perfect and cool as the iced c
offee she was creating. Nordic blonde hair scraped into a cheerleader’s ponytail and black-lashed, chilly blue eyes that narrowed almost imperceptibly when they landed on me.

  Me, with my slightly frizzy shoulder-length curls in a color that could kindly be described as dark blonde, or unkindly as le mouse fur. And the me dressed in ancient flip-flops and a floral cotton skirt that even Nana Dee-Dee would have called dowdy and refused to wear.

  Although I couldn’t help but compare Rosie’s perfection to my imperfections, I was still comfortable in my skin. Content with my outer packaging while aware there was some room for improvement on the inside. Shouldn’t we always strive to be a better person tomorrow than we are today?

  With that attitude, I fixed a non-combative smile on my face as Rosie’s iced coffee customer collected his go-cup and moved aside. “Hi, Rosie.”

  Her button nose crinkled as if I were a carton of milk souring in the sun. “What can I get you?”

  Guess she wasn’t about to invite me to join her in the Why Did You Really Move Back to Discovery? quickstep. Others had, but only my family knew why I’d packed up my life and driven five hours south to resume my old one. I was especially good with Rosie not knowing—her with the perfect husband, perfect kids, perfect life.

  “I’ll take the rest of that carrot cake.” I mentally calculated how many ‘yes’ replies I’d received to the group invite emailed out earlier in the week. “And I’d better have some of those cherry-chocolate slices.”