by Tracey Drew
“I wasn’t thinking about Mr. Kerr.” The lawyer, whose name I now remembered was Kaye, thanks to the ‘KAYEnne pepper’ color of her hair, made a stabbing motion with one of her needles and managed to drop at least three stitches. “May he rot in jail for peddling drugs to children. No, as a professional, I just find it so shocking that one of our town’s prominent citizens is mixed up in all of that.”
Muttered comments of ‘such a terrible thing,’ ‘the gall,’ and ‘unforgivable behavior’ rippled around the room. My cynical side wondered if Kaye was planning to campaign for Ed’s position in DOPE.
Kaye turned her attention to where Sharon sat next to my granddad, shrinking into her chair as if she wanted to slither under the table. “You and the staff must still be in shock at what’s happened.”
“Yes, we are. Shocked,” Sharon parroted in a reedy, breathless voice.
Beth’s needles resumed clicking at light speed, working on the dishcloth she was meant to be demonstrating to her students instead of knitting herself. “Goes to show, you never really know someone, even when you work such long hours with them.”
She gave Sharon a bland stare over the rims of her reading glasses, and I could almost hear the hamster-wheel whirr of her brain as she tried to figure out just how well this Hanburys’ employee knew her boss.
“His poor wife,” Jennifer said. “Was she aware of what he was up to, do you think?”
She directed the comment to Beth, who seemed to be shaping up as the group’s oracle on all things scandalous.
Sharon wobbled to her feet. “Excuse me. Where’s the bathroom?”
Harry stood and rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’ll show you, love. Come with me.” My granddad shot me an indecipherable look as he guided Sharon out of the room.
The second they left the workroom, Beth pounced. “It’s all connected. The warehouse raid, the drugs found in the old butcher shop, and Lucas Kerr’s murder. It must be.” Her needles clicked even faster. Soon there would be nothing left for her students to complete.
“Ed and Lucas were drug-dealing partners, but something went wrong, and Ed offed him,” Beth continued. “Isn’t that the likeliest scenario, Tessa? Aren’t you carrying out your own investigation?”
“Um.” Not the slickest of responses, but she’d caught me off guard.
A roomful of curious gazes swiveled toward me, including my mother’s. With that irritating maternal mind-meld that women seem to have with their daughters, I sensed her willing me to agree with Beth’s assessment of Ed’s guilt. Do it for your brother, her pinched lips and pleading eyes seemed to say.
“I wouldn’t say I was investigating Lucas’s death. That’s the police’s job.” Stalling for time, I admit it.
“Pigs. More interested in hassling innocent protesters than tracking down murderers,” Nadia snapped. Nadia, an early twenty-something student, had declared she was learning to knit so she could yarn bomb the ‘oppressive patriarchal’ university she attended.
Good luck to her. She’d probably leave knitted versions of the male anatomy on all the campus doorknobs.
“But you are unofficially trying to discover who the killer is in this community?” Beth insisted. “Though we don’t know for sure that it is someone from Discovery.”
Jennifer spoke up before I could. “In my opinion, it’s more likely another drug dealer from Napier was involved. Maybe some sort of turf war with a rival gang.”
Nods and murmurs of agreement greeted her statement. No one in this sleepy town wanted to think their neighbor, friend, or grocery store owner could be a killer. But I knew details that the police hadn’t released to the general public. Such as, what self-respecting drug lord would crack his victim over the head with a wine bottle instead of the easier bullet to the brain? Guess it wasn’t completely out of the question, but a gang hit didn’t explain the need for a coroner’s toxicology report.
I slid my hand into the pocket of my pants and curled my fingers around the leprechaun pin I’d started carrying with me. Somehow, Lucas’s death felt more personal than a simple execution.
“But what if it was someone from Discovery?” Isabel said. “What if they get away with cold-blooded murder, and we’re left with a killer in our midst?”
Jennifer sighed. “In that event, maybe the guilty person will be overcome with remorse. They could suffer a crisis of conscience and choose the easy way out rather than face serious prison time.”
Kaye snorted. “Prison, where he could join another gang and learn even more nefarious skills? And serious prison time? What a joke.”
A number of why the justice system is flawed conversations sprang up.
Taking a deep breath to steady my racing pulse, I knocked on the tabletop to gain everyone’s attention. “Whoever killed Lucas has opened a crack in Cape Discovery,” I said. “And we all have to choose whether we’ll allow that crack to widen and drive this community apart with rumors and accusations, or…” I paused for effect, making steady eye contact with each person in the room. “Or whether we mend that crack by sticking together and trusting that justice will be served.”
More nods and murmurs of agreement, and this time, it was as if the ill-feeling evaporated from the room. Except for the thundercloud forming over Beth’s perfectly coifed curls.
With a huff, she shoved her needles and yarn into the lap of the woman next to her. “Trust in justice? How? By sitting on our be-hinds and knitting dishcloths? Who’s to say some other drug lord won’t turn up to take Lucas’s place and set up his headquarters in town?”
Harry returned to his spot at the table, but instead of taking a seat, he switched his former-cop stare on Beth until her mouth snapped shut. “If that happens, the town council will recruit you to yarn bomb said headquarters. Until then, we let the police do their jobs and get back to sitting on our be-hinds.”
“Right then,” I said in the most enthusiastic tone I could muster. “Who’s ready to mix things up and conquer the purl stitch?”
Exhaustion came in blurry waves as I ushered the last student out of Unraveled at ten. Darkness had spread its tentacles through town, but instead of bringing a welcome coolness after the heat of the day, our upstairs apartment was still muggy and uncomfortable.
Harry didn’t believe in air-conditioning, so we flung windows open in the hopes of catching any sea breeze. Ready for bed in my sleep tank and shorts, I was reminded of my duty to let Kit inside for the evening by the persistent scratching coming from the back door. His Lordship preferred not to use the cat door after an unfortunate tight-squeeze-almost-stuck incident.
I headed down the stairs in a zombie-like stagger and flung open the door, so Kit could zoom past me to investigate his food bowl. As I closed the door, a flash of white caught my eye. I yanked it open again.
Squinted.
Froze.
The white was a sheet of paper—copier paper, it looked like—and someone had pinned it to Nana Dee-Dee’s potted lavender by a…?
Was that a…?
Yep, it was.
A knitting needle.
I didn’t need to read the printed black letters on the paper. The knitting needle stabbed through the sheet was warning enough.
But I stumbled forward anyway and pulled the needle—a metal needle like the one my beginner class had used earlier—and paper from the plant’s sweet-smelling foliage. The message was brief and to the point:
Keep your nose out of other people’s business. Or else.
And below the words, a childish doodle of a cat, complete with whiskers and a curled tail. The point of the needle pierced the cat’s chubby stomach.
Eleven
Sleep took its sweet time arriving that night.
After finding the note, I’d locked the cat door from the inside, so Pearl couldn’t go out during the night as she often did. Then I completed a double and triple check of the downstairs doors and windows. Seemingly sensing my unease, both cats spent the night curled up on my bed.
Kit stretched alongside my legs; Pearl tucked into a semi-circular punctuation mark near my pillow.
I woke early when the cats demanded they be let out. Wrapped in my fuzzy robe, I shoved the folded note into my pocket and made a steaming cup of coffee to take with me into the yard. I could keep an eye on the two mischief-makers and caffeinate at the same time.
While Kit and Pearl sniffed around Harry’s glasshouse—the furry fiends could most likely smell the catnip growing inside—I checked the panels of my car. When I found no threats carved into the paintwork, I continued along the driveway to the gate.
Harry had hung a chain-link swing gate across the driveway soon after his ‘unwanted’ cats had arrived. It wasn’t to keep them inside the property—never gonna happen with any feline—or as a security measure for him and Nana Dee-Dee. The gate was to keep dogs from hurting his ‘little mates.’ However, Pearl enjoyed teasing passing dogs with a feline version of a lap dance…just out of their reach behind the metal mesh.
Another fortifying sip of coffee under my belt, I made my way over to the gate latch. It wasn’t latched. In fact, the gate was open. Only enough that a cat could squeeze through the gap, but open, nonetheless. The latch was tricky. If you weren’t used to it, you’d think it had caught, but seconds later, the gate would start its slow creep open until it hit an uneven spot on the driveway and stuck.
I was one hundred percent sure I’d latched it yesterday evening.
Pearl weaved between my bare calves then parked her rear right on top of my slippers. My stomach wobbled as if I stood on the edge of a skyscraper. Who would threaten to hurt Kit and Pearl if I didn’t stop asking questions? Logically, the person who killed Lucas. And, also logically, that meant the person must be a local.
I felt the damp press of a nose on my shin—a kitty kiss—and the soft vibration of Pearl’s purr. Nana Dee-Dee loved these cats. Harry loves these cats. And even if I didn’t love the little furballs myself, it infuriated me that some nameless, faceless coward would threaten to hurt an innocent creature. And, in doing so, break Harry’s heart all over again.
There must be some way of figuring out who’d entered our yard last night. With one hand, I tugged the note from my pocket and awkwardly unfolded it, trying not to spill my coffee in the process. An errant gust caught the paper and whisked it over the gate, where it landed on the sidewalk, cat-doodle side up. I glanced wildly around for somewhere stable to set my coffee mug.
Priorities, right?
The paper skidded a few inches toward the gutter, and I dithered between the gate post, the ground—with the likelihood of the gate swinging open and knocking over the mug,
and just running with the coffee—thereby dooming myself to spill half of it down my robe. Have I mentioned I missed out on the evolutionary fight-or-flight response DNA? Not that I’d been put to the test, but I believed I was a ditherer, more of a possum frozen in a hunter’s spotlight than a creature of action.
Pearl, however, didn’t suffer from any such evolutionary setbacks. She leaped off my feet and streaked through the gap. Hunter after prey, she pounced. Except a running shoe got to the paper before her. A male-sized running shoe, belonging to a male-sized tanned and hairy leg, which in turn belonged to Oliver Novak, attired in running gear.
“This yours?”
My gaze reluctantly bid farewell to his athletically toned glutes and moved to his shoe, which precisely covered the writing and horrible cat doodle.
I nodded… I think.
My caffeine levels were still low enough that cognitive reasoning hadn’t fully kicked in, but I was alert enough to mentally uh-oh when Oliver plucked the note from the ground. He glanced at it. I flinched when his eyes widened before tapering to hard slits as he finished reading.
He looked up, his mouth a grim slash.
“I found it skewered to a potted lavender by the back door last night. Someone’s idea of a sick prank.” I aimed for a nonchalant shrug but ended up with a shiver hard enough to slop coffee over the rim of my mug. Fortunately, it splattered on the ground, not on me.
“Skewered by what?” He lifted it to face height, examining the small hole.
“A knitting needle.”
“An unusual choice. How did you find it?”
I gave him an abbreviated rundown of last night’s knitting class, ending with my discovery of the note. “I didn’t see or hear anything after everyone left the store, and it was nearly an hour later when I let Kit in. It was probably just bored kids looking for some summer entertainment. Freak out the old lady who plays with yarn and cats all day.”
Oliver crossed the sidewalk to the gate and offered me the now crumpled note. I refolded it and shoved it back into the fuzzy depths of my robe pocket. He leaned against the gatepost, his greeny-blue eyes studying my just rolled out of bed face. Ugh. No mascara or anything. And worse… I clamped my lips shut, hoping I wasn’t killing him with morning breath while resisting the temptation to cup my hand over my mouth to test it.
“You don’t believe it was kids. And you’re not old.” A crinkle lifted the corner of his mouth. “The crazy is, as yet, undetermined.”
What was almost a smile disappeared. “Someone left that note knowing it’d be you that found it this morning. They also know you care about these cats.” He bent to scratch between Pearl’s ears, and miraculously, she didn’t shred his arm at the liberty he was taking. “Who do you think is panicked enough to threaten you?”
Exactly what I’d been asking myself. “Can’t be Ed because he’s had a night away from Discovery, courtesy of Napier Police.”
“Agreed.”
Pearl rolled onto her back, presenting her belly for Oliver’s attention. Shameless hussy.
“An anonymous note doesn’t strike me as Brian Werth’s style,” I said.
Considering I’d been completely vulnerable in his dentist’s chair only a couple of days ago, I didn’t want to contemplate what his style might be. ‘Give ’im the old knuckle sandwich,’ as Harry would say. And being a dentist, he could then add insult to injury by charging an exorbitant fee to repair the damage his meaty fist had caused.
“Agreed again.” He used the tip of his running shoe to rub Pearl’s belly. She purred. “Don’t bite my head off for voicing a sexist stereotype, but a hand-drawn cartoon with the flourish of a knitting needle seems like something a woman would do.”
“My turn to agree.” I grimaced, remembering the look on Isabel’s face last night when Beth had recited her little knitting rhyme. “And I think I know who it might be.”
Oliver folded his arms and gave me the look I suspected he frequently used on customers trying to order another drink when they were obviously over the limit. “Leave it to the cops, Tessa. Don’t be a hero.”
Not bothering to hide my eye-roll, I said, “How about I just play it safe with my cats and yarn, all right?”
The mouth crinkle reappeared, and this time, it transformed into a grin that, okay, made me want to be a hero in his eyes. Fat chance of that, all things considered.
“You do that. I want you around to fulfill your debt to me in the near future.” He pushed away from the gatepost and carefully stepped over Pearl’s paint-me-like-one-of-your-French-girls pose. “Disco’s ham and cheese croissant, remember? Heavy on the cheese.” Then he picked up his feet into a run and loped off down the street.
I snickered at Pearl’s haughty stare tracking Oliver’s departure. In true cat fashion, she commenced grooming her hindquarters, as if the human’s rejection of her advances was no skin off her tiny nose. My humor faded as I thought of the note. The idea of Isabel hurting Kit or Pearl didn’t fit with the way she petted them in the store or fed them treats from her purse. Then again, murderers could love animals too, couldn’t they?
And since I had almost two hours until Unraveled opened, there was plenty of time to pay the principal a visit.
In a similar way that some men overcompensate for being short and bald by driving flashy sports cars, Isa
bel overcompensated for her cat allergy with her house decor theme: Everything Cat. From the cat-shaped mailbox to cat gnome ornaments lining the front path and her creepy door knocker—feline head with a mouse dangling from its mouth as a handle—Isabel missed the mark of kitschy-cute and landed in the center of Hoarders: Crazy Cat Lady Edition.
At just on eight, it was bright and sunny, with last night’s rain showers already evaporating off the garden-proud yards I’d passed on my way to Isabel’s. I knew where she lived thanks to Nana Dee-Dee’s diligent note keeping. Often, when a customer ordered yarn she didn’t have in stock, she’d personally delivered it on her ‘daily constitutional’ walk around the neighborhood when it arrived. Nana Dee-Dee had prided herself in providing customer service like no other, dropping off yarn and staying a while to chat if she thought that person could do with a spot of company and a smile.
Unraveled’s delivery was due later this week—some of it yarn ordered by local regulars. Maybe I could take up Nana Dee-Dee’s mantle of kindness toward elderly customers who found it difficult to get out.
Yeah. Except, did I really want to start something I didn’t know I could continue?
Running a couple of classes was one thing; personal service, another. This was merely a time-out, temporary situation. If only I could get rid of the barrel roll of dread in my gut whenever I thought of leaving Harry, my family, and even the cats for greener pastures…
A worry for another day.
I marched past Isabel’s cat gnome guards and, avoiding her rodent-chewing feline door knocker, used my knuckles instead. The knocking echoed hollowly inside, followed by silence. After what I deemed an appropriate length of time, I knocked again. Still nothing.
“She’s not home, Miss,” called a voice from next door.
I turned to see a man in a hot-pink bike helmet sitting astride a bicycle. With one hand balanced on a fence post and the other on the handlebars (prettily decorated with rainbow-colored streamers), he was giving me a head to toe. Perhaps wondering if I was about to indulge in some B&E.