Murder, She Knit

by Peggy Ehrhart

  Not expecting visitors, she almost lost her footing on the stairs when the doorbell chimed unexpectedly. She steadied herself by grabbing the railing and hurried down the last few steps. Bettina was standing on the porch, peering through the lace that curtained the door’s oval window. Bettina was wearing a dressy wool coat in a deep lavender shade instead of her usual cold-weather wrap, which was a down coat the color of a pumpkin.

  “I saw your car in the driveway, so I knew you were still here,” she said as the door swung back. “Why don’t we ride out there together?”

  “Ride out where?” Pamela said.

  “The funeral, of course.” Bettina stepped inside. She’d topped off the lavender coat with an olive-green scarf. The effect was particularly striking with her bright red hair, described by Bettina herself as a color not found in nature.

  “You’re going?”

  “I was planning to. She was a fellow knitter, after all, and I thought you might want company.”

  “You’re too sweet,” Pamela said. “I’d love company. I almost wonder if her parents will blame me. I’m not sure what I’d think if I were them.”

  “Someone wanted Amy to be dead,” Bettina said. “That person would have found a way to kill her no matter where she was. It just happened to be your yard, and it wasn’t your fault.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Pamela said. “I’d feel better if the police had found someone to arrest.”

  “We should get going,” Bettina said. “Maple Branch is about an hour’s drive. We’ll take my car.”

  * * *

  Maple Branch was west of Arborville. Pamela and Bettina headed for Route 80, and Pamela counted off the exits till it was time to take the winding exit ramp and cruise along a sparsely traveled road. Soon a wooden sign told them, in elegant gold letters, that they were entering Maple Branch and that it had been founded in 1791. It was a pleasant town with old houses, some wood, some brick, situated on big rambling lots.

  “What a pretty church,” Pamela said as Bettina pulled into the parking lot. “So simple, but just perfect.” The church was gray stone, set in the middle of a still-green lawn and surrounded by mostly bare trees hanging on to a few yellow leaves.

  “Wilfred grew up Presbyterian,” Bettina said. “Plenty of money, of course, and everything is done just right, but it’s considered bad form to show off.”

  About twenty cars were already lined up in the parking lot, and another had pulled in behind them. A door opened on one of the parked cars, a white Porsche, and a familiar figure climbed out.

  “Is that Roland?” Pamela asked. “What on earth is he doing here?”

  “I emailed him and told him about it,” Bettina said. “I emailed all the Knit and Nibble people. I thought they’d like to know, since Amy would have been a member.”

  Roland hurried along the slate walk that led from the parking lot to the church steps and disappeared through the heavy wooden doors.

  “Isn’t Roland awfully busy at work?” Pamela said.

  “Trying to ease up a bit, I guess. Doctor’s orders. That’s where the knitting comes in. He’s supposed to stop and smell the roses.”

  “By going to funerals?”

  * * *

  Inside there were white roses in the foyer, just a few, in subdued arrangements that seemed to fit the understated style of the old church. But as they waited for an usher to return from seating the couple that had climbed the steps ahead of them, one of the heavy doors behind them opened and light poured into the shadowy space. “Can you help me with this door?” an irritated voice said. “I’ve got my hands full.”

  Pamela turned, blinking at the sudden brightness, to see a young man balancing a giant flower arrangement on his hip while his free hand held the door at bay. “I’ve got it,” she said, leaning her back against the door as he edged past.

  The usher had returned. “The service is just about to start,” he said with a flustered glance at the arrangement.

  “Maple Branch is further away than I thought,” the young man said, shrugging. He was inside now, and the giant arrangement was resting on the floor. It reached nearly to the young man’s waist.

  “I’ll take care of it,” the usher said, not too happily. The young man pushed one of the doors open and started to leave as a few people came in the other door. The usher looked despairingly at the arrangement and finally hefted it onto a table, moving aside a pile of funeral programs. He turned to Pamela and Bettina. “People usually ask if there’s a charity they can donate to. This congregation is very practical.”

  Pamela reached for the card nestled among the greenery that framed a profusion of white flowers, some blooms so exotic that Pamela didn’t know if she’d ever seen anything like them before. Embossed black letters at the top of the card read, “Florimania.” Below was a handwritten message: “In deepest sympathy. Jean and Douglas Worthington.”

  Inside, the church smelled like old wood and lemon oil. The usher led Pamela and Bettina to an empty pew halfway down the aisle. They slid into place along the polished wooden seat and opened their copies of the funeral program.

  A simple coffin of dark wood stood at the head of the aisle, closed, with a small spray of white roses on top. Subdued arrangements of white roses, like those in the foyer, flanked the altar. Pamela had never met Amy’s parents, but she suspected the elegant black-clad couple in the front row were probably them. And she thought she recognized Dorrie in the same row. Roland was seated several rows back, and with him were Nell Bascomb, in her ancient gray wool coat, and Karen Dowling, in navy blue that made her fragile blondness look all the more fragile.

  “How nice of them to come,” Pamela whispered to Bettina, touched that the bond among the members of Knit and Nibble was so strong that it extended even to a member the others had never had a chance to meet.

  The service began with a welcome and a prayer delivered by the minister, a courtly gentleman with thick white hair, who was draped in lustrous dark green. Then, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place,” he intoned, gazing upward. More words, comforting in their biblical cadence, followed. After a pause, he looked directly at the congregation and his voice became more conversational. He mentioned Amy’s youth in Maple Branch, the accomplishments that had led to a satisfying career in New York City, and the decision to devote herself to educating another generation. He himself seemed moved, and he paused a few times to compose himself. Muffled sobs echoed from here and there in the sanctuary.

  Pamela felt herself growing more serene, soothed by the church’s pale walls and stained glass windows. More prayers followed. The minister’s voice filled the room, quietly insistent, his words almost secondary to the comforting effect of their rhythms. He paused, and from the back of the church came a voice singing “Amazing Grace.”

  After final words of blessing, the coffin was borne down the aisle by six men in dark suits, one not yet out of his teens—a cousin, perhaps, or a nephew? The couple Pamela had guessed were Amy’s parents followed. Pamela could see the echoes of Amy’s beauty in her mother’s beautiful face, now frozen as if in a stoic attempt not to cry. Behind them came Dorrie, in dark pants not much dressier than the baggy jeans she’d worn when Pamela first met her, and a black leather jacket. She was followed by a muscular man with blond hair cut so short he almost looked bald. He had apparently made no attempt to stifle his emotions. His eyes were rimmed with red, and he dabbed at his wet cheeks with the fingers of both hands.

  Out in the autumn sun people stood uncertainly, a few talking in muted voices, as the coffin was slipped into the gleaming black hearse. Several approached Amy’s parents, who had formed a makeshift receiving line along with the minister just outside the church doors.

  “Coming to the cemetery?” said a voice behind Pamela, and she turned to face Dorrie, who offered a copy of the funeral program. “In case you didn’t keep yours,” she said. “There’s a reception afterward, at the Old Stone Inn.” She nodded toward the threesome by the church door
s. “So you don’t have to talk to them now.” She flipped the program over to show a neatly drawn map. “Directions are on the back. It will be very posh, of course.”

  * * *

  The mournful procession, cars with headlights on following the hearse, made its way along the road Pamela and Bettina had taken into town, past the wooden sign that welcomed visitors to Maple Branch and advised that it was founded in 1791. After a few more minutes, a graveyard came into view, an uneven, grassy field with tombstones so worn by weather and arranged so haphazardly as to suggest they marked graves dating from the early days of Maple Branch, if not before.

  The procession turned onto a narrower road that skirted the far edge of the graveyard and followed an ancient gray stone wall that rambled up gentle slopes and down gentle valleys. As they drove, the ancient tombstones gave way to more modern ones, gleaming marble and granite, and arranged in more regular rows. The narrow road ended in a parking lot, separated from the nearest graves by a stretch of grass and a small grove of tall, slender evergreens.

  Pamela and Bettina had been nearly the last in the procession of cars. They had stopped at the church to talk to Roland, who said he was going back to his office, and Nell and Karen, who were heading back to Arborville. All three said they had exchanged a few words with Amy’s parents, who seemed touched that the members of the knitting group wanted to pay their respects.

  Now most people had left their cars and were making their way toward where the coffin rested on the grass next to a freshly dug grave. Pamela and Bettina had parked at the far edge of the lot, and the shortest route to the grave lay through the evergreens.

  “Cypress, I think,” Bettina observed as they stepped into the shadowy grove. “Appropriate for a cemetery.”

  They made their way among the dark trees, enjoying the rich, spicy smell, crunching on the small cones underfoot. Suddenly they heard voices coming from nearby. The owners of the voices were hidden by the thick, needle-like foliage of the trees, but Pamela thought one of them belonged to Dorrie Morgan. The voice was higher-pitched though, as if twisted by some recent misery, strikingly unlike the matter-of-fact tone Dorrie had used so far in speaking of her sister’s murder.

  Pamela couldn’t make out the exact words, and anyway the voice was soon cut off by another voice, deeper, but sounding equally miserable. In fact, after a few unintelligible syllables, any attempt at words gave way to violent sobs.

  The Dorrie voice returned, sounding more angry than sad now, and talking loud enough for the words to carry through the grove. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t cry if it was me that was dead,” the voice said. “I’ll bet you’d even be glad—especially if she was still alive.”

  The sobs continued, uninterrupted by any words of contradiction.

  “You would be glad, wouldn’t you?” the Dorrie voice continued. “Glad, glad, glad, glad.” More sobs. “I’m going now, crybaby. I’m going to watch them put her in the ground.” Feet, probably Dorrie’s, crunched on cypress cones.

  Once the voices started, Pamela and Bettina had paused and slipped behind the nearest cypress, putting the tree between them and the spot the voices seemed to be coming from. Now they looked at each other in amazement, Bettina’s hazel eyes open wide. “Wow!” she mouthed silently.

  Pamela took her arm and stepped in the direction of the grave, though it wasn’t visible from where they stood. “They may want to get started,” she said. As they emerged from the grove, Dorrie strode ahead of them, hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket.

  The minister watched as the three of them advanced across the grass, waiting until they had joined the small group gathered respectfully at the far end of the open grave. “Let us pray,” he said as heads bowed, and he concluded a few minutes later to whispered “amens.”

  The coffin was lowered into the grave, and people watched reverently as a few shovels of dirt landed with gentle thumps on its polished surface. The minister skirted the edge of the grave and joined Amy’s parents, shaking their hands and touching each of them on the shoulder. Then people began moving back toward the parking lot. Dorrie followed her parents, who were walking with the minister. The rest of the people straggled along in pairs or small groups, some chatting quietly. Pamela and Bettina, trailing at the very end, were the last to reach the parking lot.

  As they approached the car, Pamela stopped and grabbed Bettina’s arm. “Look,” she said, “over there. The woman standing by the little Fiat.”

  “The one with the curly brown hair?”

  “Yes—and the green coat.”

  “What about her?” Bettina murmured as she rummaged in her purse for her keys.

  “It’s Amy’s cousin—I’m sure.”

  “Well, you knew Amy longer than I did. In fact I never actually knew her at all, so I certainly never met her relatives.” She jingled the keys and set about unlocking the car.

  “The knitting booklet in the plastic bin,” Pamela said. “The little sketches of the people Amy had knit things for. They were so detailed they were like photographs. I’m sure this is the cousin that she made the vintage-looking sweater set for, the pattern where she wrote, ‘I hope she thinks of her cousin every time she wears it.’”

  Bettina paused, her hand on the open car door. “It does look like her,” she said, studying the young woman in the green coat. She turned her gaze to Pamela, who was now staring vacantly into space.

  “Shall we go now?” she asked. “People are heading over to the reception.”

  “I’m thinking about argyle socks,” Pamela said. “Remember the other knitting pattern booklet in Amy’s plastic bin? The one with that pattern for argyle socks? And on the page with the pattern, she had written ‘Love’s labor’s lost!!! Never again!!!’ I wonder if the Love’s Labor’s Lost man was at the funeral. Did you notice anyone wearing argyle socks?”

  “He wouldn’t come, would he? If he broke up with her.”

  Pamela started to answer, to say that love can be complicated—though her love for her husband had never been—but she was interrupted by Dorrie. Dorrie was strolling across the asphalt with her hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket, squinting in the sunlight. “Are you guys coming to the reception?” she asked. “There’s going to be lots of good food and booze.”

  But instead of answering the question, Pamela asked one of her own, blurting out with no preamble, “Did Amy have a boyfriend?”

  Dorrie didn’t seem surprised though. “Lots of them, I imagine,” she said. “With her looks. What do you think?”

  “Did the police inquire about boyfriends?”

  “Duh. Yes, obviously. But I didn’t have anything to tell them.” She turned toward where her mother was standing near the hearse with her husband and the minister. “Hey, Ma,” she called, “did the cops ask you about Amy’s boyfriends?”

  Pamela glanced at Bettina and saw her own distress mirrored on her friend’s face. “Please don’t bother your mother,” Pamela said, touching Dorrie’s shoulder. But it was too late. In a few seconds Mrs. Morgan was at her daughter’s side, a head taller than her stocky offspring.

  The tension in Mrs. Morgan’s face had eased a bit since the funeral, perhaps soothed by the minister’s attentions and the simple gravity of the burial ceremony. With her willowy figure, wrapped in a stylish black coat, and her dramatic coloring—pale skin and dark hair—she could almost have been Amy, except for the faint lines in her forehead and around her eyes. And Dorrie looks like her mother too, but somehow . . . so homely, Pamela thought. As if reading her mind, Amy’s mother reached toward Dorrie and drew her closer.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Pamela said, imagining how devastated she’d be to lose her own daughter. She introduced herself and Bettina and explained her connection with Amy from that long-ago time.

  “The knitting club,” Amy’s mother said, her face twisting with fresh grief but still beautiful.

  “I’m so sorry,” Pamela said again. “I’d give anything if I’d nev
er invited—”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Amy’s mother said.

  Dorrie squirmed out of her mother’s grasp. “They want to know if the cops asked you about Amy’s boyfriends,” she said.

  Pamela raised her hands and spread her fingers as if to push the question back to Dorrie. “Please,” she said, looking from Dorrie to Mrs. Morgan and back, “this isn’t the time or the place . . .”

  “No,” Bettina echoed, “definitely not the time or place.”

  But Mrs. Morgan’s expression didn’t change. “Amy didn’t share details of her love life with her parents,” she said in a quiet voice. “So I didn’t have anything to tell the police.” She bent her head slightly to gaze into Dorrie’s face. “Did you?”

  “Why would she tell me things like that?” Dorrie asked, sounding irritated. “We weren’t that close, you know.”

  Since Mrs. Morgan hadn’t seemed surprised by Pamela’s curiosity and was still lingering at Dorrie’s side, Pamela decided maybe it was okay to pursue the topic. “There was a blond man at the funeral who seemed really upset,” she said, watching their faces. “His eyes were red, like he’d been crying.”

  “Allergies,” Dorrie said. “Ragweed. It’s everywhere this time of year.”

  “But, Dor—” Mrs. Morgan glanced quickly at Dorrie, a tiny frown deepening the faint lines in her pale forehead.

  “Allergies,” Dorrie said again.

  “Darling?” It was Amy’s father, arriving at his wife’s side. He was tall and thin too, with a face that was distinguished without being exactly handsome. “Shall we drive over to the Old Stone Inn?” he said, taking Mrs. Morgan’s arm. “The caterers might not start serving until we get there, and a lot of people are already on their way.”

  “These are friends of Amy’s,” Mrs. Morgan said, and Pamela and Bettina supplied their own names.

  “Thank you for coming,” Amy’s father said, and led his wife away. Dorrie trailed along after them.

  “Allergies?” Bettina asked, raising her eyebrows in disbelief. “Did you notice if the blond man was wearing argyle socks?”