A Fatal Yarn

by Peggy Ehrhart

  This remark provoked a round of hearty laughter, though MacDonald stopped laughing sooner than the others and said, “Come, come. Let’s put hostilities aside for the day. He’s leaving behind people who cared for him.”

  “Like who?” asked one of the other men. Pamela recognized him as the proprietor of Arborville’s hardware store. MacDonald tipped his head toward a woman who had just come in and had paused by the coat racks to remove her coat. He raised his brows meaningfully.

  “Whew!” the mustachioed man’s moustache expanded above an amazed smile. “I can’t believe she’s here.”

  Someone said “Pamela,” and Pamela turned to see Bettina, holding two plastic plates containing slices of cake with plastic forks tucked alongside. “I tried to get two pieces from the corners,” she said, “but there are only four corners. At least I got them both from a side, so there’s more icing than just on the top, and some of the extra buttercream decoration.” Pamela thanked her and accepted a plate. Beneath the white icing, the cake itself was yellow. “Wilfred found someone from the historical society to talk to,” Bettina added.

  The crowd had doubled by now, and the room was abuzz with conversation. Many people had drifted away from the table and formed small groups, some holding plates with cake and some holding cups of punch. Others, determined to have punch and cake simultaneously, were standing along the edges of the long table and resting plates and cups on it.

  Pamela used the plastic fork to carve off a bite of the cake and lifted it to her mouth. The yellow cake was light and moist, and the icing was a fluff of intense sweetness. As she and Bettina stood there surveying the proceedings, Marlene Pepper detached herself from the group she was talking to and strolled toward them, carrying a plastic plate with a partial slice of cake on it. Marlene was the same size and shape as Bettina, and shared her fondness for sweet goodies.

  “It’s turning out nice,” she said. “Don’t you think? Lorinda did most of the organizing. She’s the one cutting the cake—she ordered it from a bakery in Haversack.” Marlene teased off a forkful of cake, conveyed it to her mouth, and smiled as she chewed it. When it had been swallowed, she leaned toward Bettina and whispered (though with the din in the room, whispering was hardly necessary to keep a communication private), “I can’t believe she’s here.” Marlene pointed to the same woman MacDonald had indicated when he remarked about Diefenbach leaving behind people who cared for him.

  With her coat removed and hung up, and standing away from the coat racks, the woman was revealed as being quite amazingly turned out.

  “That’s a Chanel suit.” Bettina’s tone was reverent. “The real thing, I’m sure.” The suit, with a slim skirt and boxy collarless jacket, was made from a nubbly tweed check in black and white. “And that handbag,” Bettina went on with a sigh. “Handbags like that cost thousands.” The handbag, made of smooth black leather, was shaped rather like an old-fashioned lunchbox, but with a complicated gold metal clasp. The woman herself was middle-aged and not model-thin, but her smooth blonde hair and careful makeup fit with the pedigree of the outfit.

  “It’s Eloisa Wagner,” Marlene explained.

  “Is she an heiress?” Pamela asked, curious despite her lack of interest in fashion.

  Marlene laughed. “The suit and bag are from her shop, I’m sure. She owns Not Necessarily New in Meadowside. It’s all consignment. Rich people from places like Timberley bring in clothes they’ve gotten tired of and Eloisa sells them and splits the proceeds with the owners.

  Eloisa had moved toward the long table as they were talking and was cutting herself a slice of cake. The cake, which was more than half gone now, had become a serve-yourself affair, and Lorinda had joined a group of other women who were finding quite a bit to laugh about despite the gravity of the occasion. Additional laughter, louder and more raucous, was coming from the group composed of MacDonald and his supporters, who were still lurking near the punch bowl, their tongues apparently loosened by the clear liquid in the flat bottle.

  The level of punch in the punch bowl had sunk—though not as low as one would expect from the many cups of punch that had been served. As Pamela watched, Lorinda detached herself from her friends, slipped around the back of the table, and lifted a huge plastic bottle of pink liquid from a cooler that Pamela hadn’t noticed before.

  Then Pamela heard the words “wasn’t supposed to lose,” muttered in a deep masculine voice, and turned her attention from Lorinda to the group of men clustered nearby. Some of the men were still laughing, but it was clear that MacDonald wasn’t amused. “The guy was a crook,” he growled. “One week before the election, the Wendelstaff College poll had me leading by twelve points.”

  “What happened to ‘hostilities aside for the day’?” The mustachioed man grinned and jabbed MacDonald with an elbow. The action set in motion the fringe on the man’s jacket, which extended even down the sleeves. Then suddenly, he called, “Hey!” He glanced over at Pamela, extracted the flat bottle from his jacket pocket, and held it toward her. “You’ll hear better if you come right on over,” he said. “Have a drink and join the party.”

  Pamela rarely blushed, but she felt her cheeks grow hot. Yes, she’d been staring, and eavesdropping shamefully. She mumbled, “No thanks,” and retreated, backing up until she encountered an obstacle. The obstacle turned out to be Bettina, who was chatting with Marlene Pepper. Bettina laughed good-naturedly. “You’re all pink,” she said.

  “Hot flashes,” Marlene said. “It happens to us all.” And she grabbed Pamela’s arm in a gesture of female solidarity.

  “What’s going on?” Bettina asked, suspecting that Pamela’s flush had another cause.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Pamela mouthed, because Marlene was standing right there, and Marlene had the eager look on her face of someone who had been interrupted in mid-sentence and was longing to complete her thought.

  Bettina turned back to Marlene with a smile that invited her to go on. “So,” Marlene said, “like I was saying, he told her that one marriage was enough for one lifetime and he didn’t plan to repeat the experience.” Marlene tipped her head forward in a satisfied nod, as if confirming his (whose? Pamela wondered) satisfaction in making his position clear.

  “She must have been crushed!” Bettina’s mobile features usually radiated cheer, but when sympathy was called for, her forehead creased and the corners of her mouth sagged.

  “She was!” Marlene agreed. “Seven years of her life, and helping him through the campaign, and then he wins—and the very next thing, he tells her that marrying her is not on his agenda and never will be.”

  “Hmmm.” Bettina pondered for a moment, nibbling her lip. “Getting involved with a divorced man can be sad,” she observed. “The first time around wasn’t good for him, and so of course—”

  “Oh, he wasn’t divorced,” Marlene cut in. “He was a widower. Unhappily married, but he stuck it out. I give him credit for that, I guess. The kids turned out okay.”

  “That’s important,” Bettina said. “I think children know though, when their parents aren’t happy together.”

  “True.” Marlene nodded.

  The conversation was winding down, and Marlene had finished her cake. She glanced toward the long table, studied her empty plate, and said, “I think there’s quite a bit left. It would be a shame for it to go to waste.” She smiled at Bettina and then at Pamela. “Care to join me?” she asked as she took a step toward her objective.

  “No more for me,” Pamela said quickly and grasped Bettina’s arm. She was pretty sure she knew whose romantic misadventures Marlene had been so eager to discuss, but she wanted Bettina to confirm her impression. And if they were whose she thought they were, a new possibility for freeing Roland came into view.

  “You’re sure?” Marlene inquired.

  “I’ll have more a little bit later,” Bettina said. “You go ahead.”

  Pamela waited until Marlene was several yards away, and for good measure she tugged Bettina t
oward a quiet corner of the echoing room.

  “Diefenbach and Eloisa?” she asked then.

  “So sad.” Bettina looked as woeful as if she herself had been the jilted girlfriend. “I just can’t imagine, loving someone so much and then he just . . . rejects you. I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “Maybe you’d kill him,” Pamela said.

  Bettina gave a start that set the tendrils of her hair a-quiver, and the woeful expression was replaced by alarm. “Oh, I couldn’t!” she exclaimed. “I would never do anything like that!”

  “Bettina!” Pamela tipped her head forward to meet Bettina’s gaze. “Someone killed Diefenbach, and it wasn’t Roland. It might have been Haven, but she might have an alibi. So we have to consider who else it could have been, like a woman who waited seven years for a proposal and then was told marriage was never going to happen.”

  “Eloisa?” Bettina whispered.

  “Eloisa.” Pamela nodded. “Or—she couldn’t resist a teasing smile—“it could have been someone else right here in this room. I’ve been eavesdropping. But we’ll get to that after we talk to Eloisa. Come on, and let’s get rid of these plates while we’re at it.”

  With Pamela leading the way, they headed for the long table, where a collection of used plates, forks, and cups had been accumulating at one end. Then they scanned the room for a blonde woman in a black and white checked Chanel suit, bobbing their heads this way and that as people milled about and chatting groups rearranged themselves. Pamela caught a glimpse of Harold and Nell, and made a mental note to say hello at some point.

  “I don’t see her,” Bettina said at last.

  “I don’t either.” Pamela sighed. “But just to make sure—I noticed her hanging her coat up when she first came in. It was a tan trench coat, and she was at the coat rack nearest the door. Let’s go check if it’s gone. If it’s still here then she’s around somewhere.”

  But the tan trench coat was gone.

  “We never had the punch,” Bettina said as they turned away from the coat rack.

  Wilfred intercepted them when they were halfway to the punch bowl. “Dear ladies,” he greeted them with a courtly bow, looking quite handsome in his well-cut suit and with his thick but well-trimmed white hair. “Quite a nice crowd,” he added. “Almost everyone from the historical society is here, and Harold and Nell, and the library director. And MacDonald, though I was surprised to see him, given that the campaign was so acrimonious.”

  “We’re getting punch,” Bettina said.

  “I will accompany you.” Wilfred fell into step. A minute later he had ladled out three plastic cups of the pink liquid and they were each taking a first tentative sip. Brandon MacDonald and his group had retreated from their post at the end of the table and were no longer drinking punch, having perhaps used up all of the liquor with which they’d been spiking it. They were still within earshot, though it was hard to make out what they were actually saying. MacDonald still sounded angry, however.

  Bettina, however, was staring fixedly at them, punch forgotten. “Pamela,” she whispered after a time, “that other person, right here in this room, who you said could be another suspect. Did you mean . . . him?” She gestured toward MacDonald with the hand that held the cup of punch. The punch sloshed to and fro.

  “I did,” Pamela whispered back. Realizing there was no real reason to whisper, she continued in a normal tone of voice, explaining that MacDonald was still quite angry about losing the election to Diefenbach—at least based on what she’d overheard earlier—and that he thought the loss was due to Diefenbach being a crook.

  “And MacDonald’s house is right next to Diefenbach’s.” Bettina leaned closer to Pamela and the words rushed out. “The only car anybody saw around nine p.m. was Roland’s Porsche, but living right next door, MacDonald could have popped over on foot. He could even have gone out his back door and gone in Deifenbach’s back door—lots of yards in Arborville just flow into each other without fences. The argument was in the kitchen, and kitchens are usually at the back of the house.”

  “Now, now, now.” Wilfred emphasized the words with a rhythmic gesture that mimed warding off an unwelcome visitor. “Brilliant reasoning, sweet wife, and you know I support your detecting efforts wholeheartedly. But MacDonald wasn’t at home last Monday night.”

  Bettina’s voice overlapped with Pamela’s in a confused jumble as Bettina said, “He wasn’t?” and Pamela said, “How do you know?”

  “Historical society,” Wilfred explained, intuiting the question despite the jumble. “The historical society met that Monday night and he’s the secretary.”

  “But you’re in the historical society,” Bettina said, her brow wrinkling, “and you’re always back home by nine.”

  “Some of the guys go out for beer afterwards,” Wilfred said. “I don’t, usually, but MacDonald’s always game for a beer or two.”

  Pamela and Bettina looked at each other as Wilfred aimed a jaunty salute in the direction of MacDonald, who had caught sight of him and boomed out a hello.

  “Now I’m ready for another piece of cake,” Bettina said, setting down her empty cup.

  The three of them circled back toward the middle of the table, where the remains of the cake still beckoned to late arrivals and those in search of a second helping. On the way, they encountered Harold and Nell, Nell in the somber gray suit that Pamela recognized as her funeral outfit. Pamela and Wilfred lingered there as Bettina excused herself, saying she’d be back in a minute.

  “That cake is tempting,” Nell commented, her kindly expression suggesting she sympathized with those unable to resist temptation.

  “She had a bit herself,” Harold said with a hearty laugh. “Don’t let her fool you.”

  “The world would be better off without refined sugar,” Nell said primly.

  “Hello! How are you?” said a voice behind Pamela. The words were apparently aimed at Nell and Harold, who gazed past Pamela to return the greeting with smiles and a cheery “Just fine” on Harold’s part.

  “Do you know Albertine Hutchins?” Nell asked, as Pamela stepped back to admit the newcomer to the group. Bettina was approaching too, with her fresh slice of cake, and she slipped in between Wilfred and Harold.

  Nell introduced Pamela, Bettina, and Wilfred. Albertine extended her hand and said, “I’m the library director.”

  “I’ve seen you in there”—Pamela shook the offered hand—“and now I know your name.” Albertine was a delicate, slender woman whose slightly bohemian style extended, today, to a long, gauzy dress the color of charcoal. The dress had been given a semblance of shape with a belt fashioned of macramé and beads.

  “Two deaths in town,” Albertine observed with a mournful shake of her head, “and both people who contributed so much to Arborville”—she paused—“though I can’t say I was always in agreement with Mayor Diefenbach’s initiatives.”

  “A lot of people weren’t,” Nell said. “A lot of people right here in this room right now weren’t.”

  “Cassie Griswold though—such a valuable service, maintaining the town archives.” The opportunity to praise someone restored a bit of cheer to Albertine’s expression. “The library will be drawing on that material for our upcoming exhibit.”

  “What’s the exhibit about?” Pamela asked.

  “The title is ‘Suburbia: American Dream, American Nightmare,’ ” Albertine said with a wry smile. “All about murders and such. It’s a bit macabre, but the exhibit is a master’s degree project for one of our interns. He’s getting a library science degree from Wendelstaff College.”

  A gray-haired woman who Pamela recognized as one of the library volunteers touched Albertine’s arm and gestured toward another group. “Duty calls,” Albertine explained with an apologetic shrug and allowed herself to be led away.

  The reception was winding down now. The punch bowl was finally empty and all but a few misshapen heaps of crumbs glued together with icing remained on the flat foil-covered rectangle t
hat had held the cake. The coat racks were emptying as people retrieved their coats and trickled out through the heavy glass doors, waving and calling goodbye to those who remained.

  Wilfred and Harold, however, seemed oblivious to the fact that the crowd had thinned out. They were immersed in a conversation evidently sparked by the reference to the town archives—and the loss of the town archivist—exploring ways that the historical society could take over the archiving task.

  “Did you know Cassie?” Bettina asked suddenly, aiming the question at Nell.

  “Not as a close friend,” Nell said, “but we were acquainted, certainly. Her daughter overlapped my youngest in school.”

  “Haven?” Bettina mentioned the name so offhandedly that Pamela wasn’t sure about her friend’s motive. Was Bettina simply making conversation until the men could be carried away to their respective homes? Or was she probing to see what Nell could tell them about Cassie’s daughter that might be useful in their detecting?

  “Oh, my!” Nell clasped her hands before her and looked past Pamela and Bettina, her lips parted, as if seeking inspiration. “Where to begin? Haven Griswold was the queen of the neighborhood—brilliant, beautiful, environmentally conscious, multi-talented, with a glowing future ahead. Just a very very impressive young woman.”

  “That’s quite a compliment, coming from you especially,” Bettina said. “I guess she would have been in high school in the nineties?”

  Nell nodded. “Then she went off to Bennington for college and married a sculptor, Axel Crenshaw. We were all so grateful that Cassie kept Arborville up to date on Haven’s accomplishments.”

  Pamela thought she detected a hint of irony in Nell’s final sentence, but she wasn’t sure. Nell’s own children had turned out very well, and Nell wasn’t the type to begrudge others their good fortune.

  Chapter 11

  “Queen of the neighborhood,” Bettina announced from the front seat after they’d settled themselves into Wilfred’s ancient Mercedes for the short drive home. “Would the queen of the neighborhood kill a person? Even to save a tree?” She turned and regarded Pamela over the seat back.