Pamela and Bettina looked at each other and, without further consultation, backed as silently as they could away from the wide arch between the dining room and the living room. Pamela checked her watch and tipped the watch face toward Bettina. Both nodded, and in a few moments they were on their way back to Pamela’s car.
Chapter 23
Five p.m. came and went. At about ten minutes after the hour a few people straggled out, but none was wearing a bright color-block sweater. Pamela started her engine and eased slowly down the block until she had a view of Cassie’s front door.
The TAG SALE TODAY sign had been removed. After ten more minutes, the door opened and Haven stepped out, accompanied by Marjorie. Marjorie turned and locked the door, giving the doorknob a little shake to make sure all was secure. The two women descended the steps, strolled to the end of Cassie’s front walk, and parted ways at its end, Haven heading toward Orchard Street and Marjorie heading toward where Pamela and Bettina were parked. As Marjorie approached, Pamela bent toward the steering wheel as if napping and Bettina slid down in her seat until her eyes were level with the dashboard.
After a few minutes, Pamela raised her head. Marjorie had passed, and Haven, wearing a light jacket over her color-block sweater and carrying a large tote bag, had just turned the corner at Orchard Street and was walking in the direction of Arborville Avenue. Pamela waited a few more minutes and then started her engine. She followed Haven, creeping slowly down the hill, thankful that the residential streets of Arborville were lightly traveled, especially on weekends.
A person intending to catch a bus into Manhattan would at this point cross Arborville Avenue. Busses headed south through Arborville and then Meadowside, veered west onto the Turnpike and reached the city via the Lincoln Tunnel. That had been Penny’s commute the previous summer when she worked at an upscale home furnishings store in Manhattan. But Haven didn’t cross Arborville Avenue. Instead, she turned again, to the right.
Pamela did cross Arborville Avenue, after pausing at the stop sign and making sure the way was clear. Then she used the parking lot behind the stately brick apartment building at the corner to turn around. She pulled out onto Orchard Street again and coasted in along the curb facing the intersection. From there, she and Bettina had a view of the bench and small Plexiglas shelter that marked the bus stop for people wanting to travel north. Haven was sitting on the bench, her tote bag at her side. A strand of yarn emerged from the tote bag and Haven was knitting. It was a new project, cobalt blue this time rather than gray like the other. But though it was only an inch long at this point, it was the same width as the gray creation Pamela had been sure was intended to rescue yet another tree from the depredations of the Arborists.
By the time the bus came, Haven’s project had grown by an inch. Bus service to and from Arborville was not too frequent on Saturday evenings. As the bus, with a sigh and a huff of exhaust, pulled away, Pamela made her turn and eased in behind it.
The bus headed north on Arborville Avenue, past the grammar school and the Co-Op and through the intersection where a cross street led down to the library and the police station. It huffed past the bank on the far corner of the intersection, and the row of shops that filled out that block, and it stopped again, with a sighing wheeze, at the bench in front of another bank at the end of the block.
As the bus neared St. Willibrod’s, it picked up speed. It cruised through the residential northern end of Arborville, past well-tended yards coming alive with trees in delicate blossom or weighed down by the pink exuberance of unfurling magnolias. It made a few more stops there, then it cut to the west on a well-traveled street that marked the border with Timberley.
Soon the bus, with Pamela and Bettina in pursuit, was making its way along the street where most of Timberley’s commercial enterprises were located. Pamela drove past the yarn shop, the florist, the cheese shop, and the bakery. And when the bus stopped to discharge a passenger, they found themselves halted temporarily in front of a store window that featured child-size mannequins in charming pastel dresses and black patent-leather shoes.
“It wasn’t Haven that got off,” Bettina reported, ducking her head back into the car and raising her window. “She must be heading further north.”
“I certainly wouldn’t have thought of her living up here,” Pamela said. “Timberley and the towns beyond just don’t seem like her kind of places.”
Indeed, the further north one went in the county occupied by Arborville, the richer people became. And with that increase in wealth came an increase in conservative tendencies.
Leaving Timberley’s commercial district behind, the bus veered west to pick up County Road. Unlike the busy stretch of County Road that served the towns to the south, up here County Road meandered, curving past estates hidden from view by walls and evergreen hedges, a park with gently sloping lawns, a pond with a stone bridge and ducks.
Half an hour after leaving Arborville, they reached the upscale community of Kringlekamack. A finely wrought wooden sign at the edge of the road announced in elegant gilt script that Kringlekamack dated from 1698. No houses, large or small, were in sight, nor parks, nor duck ponds. The road cut through thick woods, a mix of evergreens and other trees just coming into leaf.
A wheezing sound suggested the bus was slowing. Pamela slowed too, curious about who would be disembarking with no evident destination in sight. The bus stopped then, just before the spot where a break in the woods marked an inconspicuous road leading off to the right. Idling behind the bus, Pamela waited as Bettina—who had a better view from the passenger seat—lowered her window and stuck her head out.
“It’s her,” Bettina reported, though not too loudly, lest even at a bus length’s distance Haven might hear her and recognize them.
As the bus pulled away, Pamela once more hid her face by bending toward the steering wheel, and Bettina slid down as low as she could in the passenger seat. “We’ll wait until she’s a good bit ahead of us before we follow,” Pamela said. “I don’t think we’ll lose her because there’s not much of anywhere she can go except straight ahead or down that side road.”
When Pamela lifted her head from the steering wheel, there was no sign up ahead of a tall woman in a light jacket carrying a large tote bag. Bettina swiveled backwards to check in the direction they had come, but there was no sign of Haven behind them either.
Stepping on the gas, Pamela eased toward the break in the trees where the side road cut off. As she turned onto that road, Bettina exclaimed, “Yes, yes! There she is!” Then she added, “Wow, look at this!”
This portion of Kringlekamack was not as uninhabited as they had assumed. They had entered a development of grand, grand houses, built on lots large enough to accommodate their magnificence, with space left over for sumptuous landscaping. Drifts of azaleas and rhododendron were merely sculpted greenery at the moment, but Pamela could imagine the palette of yellows, pinks, reds, and purples that early May would bring. Each house seemed set on a small rise that emphasized its owner’s stature, and driveways that curved past splendid entries offered a chance to display a luxury vehicle or two.
Haven strode forward, past a house built from smooth rose-colored stone and one in a more modern vein, all jutting angles sheathed in pale stucco. No other cars were on the road, and Pamela suspected that if they had been, her serviceable compact would have been conspicuous anyway, for its ordinariness. So she crawled along well behind Haven.
After they’d tracked her for what seemed like at least half a mile, Haven stopped in front of an impressive brick construction to their left. This house was more traditional than its neighbors, with shutters at the windows and grand white pillars flanking its double doors. The house was no smaller than its neighbors however. Symmetrical wings on either side of a massive central structure suggested the house contained more rooms than anyone could possibly need.
Haven started up the curving driveway and Pamela increased her speed, putting the house behind her. “I’ll turn a
round,” she advised Bettina, “and you watch for the address when we pass the house again. We can do some research online and try to figure out what goes on here.”
But in fact they didn’t have to consult the internet to learn the truth about Haven’s secret life.
As Pamela approached the house from the other direction, she saw that Haven had now reversed course and was running down the driveway toward the street. When she reached the end of the driveway, Haven sped up instead of stopping, veered to the left so she was heading right toward Pamela, and lunged in front of Pamela’s car.
Bettina shrieked. The sound was nearly as startling as Haven’s lunge, and Pamela felt a prickle of sweat at her brow as she thrust down on the brake. Haven stood square in front of Pamela’s car, the tote bag discarded on the asphalt and her arms outstretched like one of Arborville’s crossing guards facing an uncooperative driver.
Before Pamela’s car had even come to a complete stop, Bettina had flung her door open and leapt from the car. Now Bettina was poised a few feet from Haven, the distraught expression on Bettina’s face at odds with the serene cheer projected by the spring-green ensemble in which she had started the day. “You could have been run over! What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she screamed at Haven in a ragged voice Pamela had never heard her use before.
“I could ask you the same thing!” Haven, looking more irritated than distraught, responded in a voice that was nonetheless equally ragged. “And you too,” she added, shifting her gaze to glare at Pamela, who was now standing beside her car. “How did you find me?” she asked and paused, as if waiting for an answer. Her voice modulated from irritation to curiosity. “And why did you even want to?”
Pamela and Bettina looked at each other. They hadn’t planned what to do or say if Haven realized she was being followed.
“Was it to tell me my mom was poisoned?” Haven sounded almost gentle, as if in acknowledgment of this imagined kindness, but she went on, adding, “You needn’t have bothered. Claymore, or whatever his name is, tracked me down. He got my cell from Marjorie.”
As if something in their expressions told her that this was not the reason for their presence, Haven’s irritation returned. “That’s not it, is it?” She slapped the hood of Pamela’s car. “This is all about that Diefenbaugh thing and putting sweaters on trees and you think they’re related and that I had something to do with them even though my mom was murdered now too. Well, they’re not related and I didn’t.”
Pamela was about to ask how a person who didn’t have anything to do with those two things would know they weren’t related, and she was going to bring in the fact that Haven was very definitely responsible for at least some of the little tree-bras that had started showing up. And she was also going to tell Haven that she had been sorry to hear the news about her mother. But she was distracted by a new arrival.
A woman who resembled a dark-haired Melanie DeCamp was making her way down the final few yards of the curving driveway that served the impressive brick house with the pillars. Like Melanie, she was slim and elegant, and carefully groomed in a way that didn’t advertise the effort behind it.
“Haven, dear,” she said as she got closer. “Whatever is happening?”
“Nothing,” Haven said, her tone changing to polite deference. “Nothing at all. I’ll be right in. I know Olive and Wellesley are expecting their dinner.” She stooped to retrieve her tote. “These are”—she waved a vague hand in the direction of Pamela and then Bettina—“acquaintances. They just happened to be passing by.”
The Melanie-like woman nodded graciously. “I’m Samantha Tassle,” she said, and paused as if waiting for Pamela and Bettina to supply their names. But Haven was already walking toward the driveway. “They’re not that kind of acquaintances,” she called over her shoulder. Samantha Tassle shrugged, smiled apologetically, and started to follow Haven.
Bettina found her voice. “I’m Bettina Fraser,” she blurted suddenly, “and before you leave, where was Haven on the night of the Monday before last?”
Samantha Tassle’s head twitched and she blinked a few times. Haven had paused a few yards from the end of the driveway and was glaring at Bettina with her lips tightened into a firm line.
“Why . . . where she always is.” Samantha Tassle laughed slightly, like a delicate hiccup. “Here, with me and my husband and the children. She’s a jewel. We don’t know what we’d do without her. The agency was right . . . really one in a million.” She nodded again. “If you’ll excuse me now . . . the children will be wondering where I’ve gotten to.”
Pamela opened her car door and started to climb in, but she noticed Haven conferring quietly on the driveway with the woman she now realized was Haven’s employer. Samantha Tassle then proceeded toward the house’s grand, white-pillared entrance. Haven, however, was heading back toward the street. Pamela joined Bettina on the side of the car closest to the house.
Haven waited until she was a few feet away before she spoke.
“Okay”—for some reason she was whispering—“so now you know. Things didn’t work out with Axel Crenshaw, and I couldn’t survive on my own in the city with just the income from the writing, which wasn’t going all that well anyway. This isn’t bad, really. I have my own room, and a big, fancy bathroom of my own.” She gestured toward the house, though it was clear without her pointing it out that there was no lack of space within. “I like the kids. And Samantha’s cool. Actually very down to earth.” Haven closed her eyes and grimaced. When she resumed speaking, with eyes still closed, her manner suggested someone unaccustomed to asking for mercy.
“You won’t tell anyone in Arborville, will you? How I turned out?”
* * *
“Kind of sad,” Bettina commented as they turned back onto County Road. They had both been silent as they again passed the grand houses that marked the route they had followed in pursuit of Haven.
“She’s made a life for herself,” Pamela said. “She could still be writing. I hope she is. If she hadn’t grown up being treated like the queen of the neighborhood, she’d have no reason to be embarrassed about what she’s doing now.”
“Do you think Cassie knew?” Bettina asked. Pamela shrugged and they were both silent for a time.
It wasn’t until they were driving past the duck pond with the stone bridge that Pamela said, “We found out for sure that, tree-sweaters or not, she didn’t kill Bill Diefenbach.”
“So she didn’t kill Cassie either . . . her own mother.” Bettina shuddered. “Did we ever actually think she could have?”
“People do,” Pamela said with her eyes on the road. They were navigating the meandering stretch of County Road now.
“Oh, Pamela!” Bettina gripped Pamela’s arm and the car swerved. “If Haven had money, she could quit the nanny job and move back to the city and write full-time. Cassie’s estate is probably quite sizeable, with that nice house and all . . .”
Pamela concentrated on her driving for a long minute. Then she spoke slowly, as if trying the idea out.
“So Haven didn’t kill Bill Diefenbach”—she paused and thought for a bit—“but in the case of her mother she decided she just couldn’t wait the decade or so until Cassie died of natural causes . . .”
“I hope not,” Bettina said, her voice quavering. “I really hope not.”
* * *
“We’ll look for you and Penny at about six tomorrow,” Bettina said as Pamela’s car came to a stop in her own driveway.
Penny was at Aaron’s, but Pamela was welcomed enthusiastically by Catrina and Ginger. They greeted her in the entry and, as she proceeded, interwove their sleek bodies around her feet in a way that threatened to trip her up. Without even taking off her jacket, she hurried as best she could to the kitchen, where she scooped cat food in the “chicken” flavor into a fresh bowl and refreshed their water.
While her own chicken dinner—leftover chicken and dumplings from the night before—heated on the stove, Pamela studied the recipe
for the icing that would make the lemon-yogurt cake she’d baked that morning special enough to grace an Easter feast.
The recipe was simple—just cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar. The cream cheese and butter would be more manageable if they weren’t cold. So as her dinner continued to warm, its savory aroma reminding her that it had been quite a while since she’d eaten, she set the caramel bowl with three white stripes on the counter and took the package of cream cheese and two sticks of butter from the refrigerator.
She unwrapped the sticks of butter and, holding each over the bowl, carved off slices of half an inch or so. The cream cheese would sit nearby in its foil wrap, and by the time she had eaten and checked her email, both butter and cream cheese would be soft enough to blend easily with each other and with the powdered sugar.
By the time Penny returned, Pamela was dozing on the sofa with one cat in her lap and the other nestled against her thigh. On the screen in front of her, pandas munched on bamboo while a narrator with a cultured voice described their mating habits.
“How was it?” she asked, coming awake as Penny greeted her.
“He’s nice, Mom,” Penny said. “He might not be the one, but he’s fun to hang out with when I’m in Arborville.”
On the kitchen counter, the completed cake waited to be carried across the street at the appointed time the next day. The round layers had slipped easily from their pans. One layer had been centered on a plate of Pamela’s wedding china and a liberal amount of cream-cheese icing smoothed over its golden top. The other layer had been gently lowered into place and the remainder of the icing spread over its top and down the sides of what was now a two-layer cake. The cake glowed with a soft radiance, as if from the golden yellow layers beneath the translucent icing.
Chapter 24
“You’re the perfect model for your mother’s handiwork!” Bettina exclaimed as Penny stepped into the Frasers’ kitchen. Pamela, following close behind, nodded in agreement. The air was infused with the rich, unctuous aroma of roasting ham, and Woofus was stretched out along the wall near the sliding glass doors that looked out on the Frasers’ patio.
A Fatal Yarn Page 21