Murder, She Knit

by Peggy Ehrhart

  “Why, Pamela,” Jean said with one of her gracious smiles. “I see you’re on foot. I do so admire your devotion to exercise.” The smile faded. “How tragic about Amy! I just can’t believe that would happen in our little town—and on our very street.”

  “The funeral was terribly sad,” Pamela said. “Almost everyone from Knit and Nibble was there. I was the only one who really knew her, but Bettina and I rode out to Maple Branch together. And Nell and Karen came, and even Roland. So nice of all of them.” Jean seemed on the point of speaking but Pamela went on. “The flowers you sent were amazing. I didn’t know so many kinds of flowers came in white.”

  “I wanted very much to be there,” Jean said. “But we needed some work on the koi pond and that was the only time the man could come. You have to be there to tell them things, you know, or it’s hopeless.” She pushed her cart a few feet along the sidewalk. “Don’t forget we’re at my house Tuesday night,” she added. “I’m not a baker like you, but I’ve ordered some very cute cookies from a bakery in Timberley.”

  The Co-Op stocked chickens from a local farm. Soon Pamela was on her way home, with a shopping bag containing a fresh chicken, an onion, and a supply of celery. She was looking forward to a pleasant cooking session later that day. She’d make cornbread from scratch to crumble for the stuffing and harvest some leaves from the sage plant in her backyard.

  There was an errand to do, though, before she settled down in front of her computer.

  She dropped the food off at home and crossed the street. Wilfred Fraser was apparently in the mood for cooking too. He answered the door with an apron tied over his bib overalls. Bettina’s comfortable house smelled delicious. “Five-alarm chili,” Wilfred said, licking his lips. “Have a seat. I’ll call Bettina.”

  “Look what I found,” Pamela said as Bettina came down the stairs. She flourished the metal knitting needle. “It was lost in my sofa, I guess from when Karen was pulling everything out of her knitting bag.”

  “So that means . . .” Bettina raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m not sure. I couldn’t find the other one.”

  “But this one could match the one in Amy’s chest.”

  Pamela nodded. “Would your police friends be interested in checking?”

  “No guarantee, but they certainly should be,” Bettina said. “I’ll hand it over.”

  * * *

  At home, Pamela ate a quick cheese sandwich and then climbed the stairs to her office. An article on free-form yarn sculptures held her interest, but the next one, on the evolution of the spindle, required a break to make a pot of coffee halfway through. Four articles later, she looked away from the computer screen to realize the room had grown dark except for the puddle of light her desk lamp cast on her keyboard. It was time to harvest some sage and get a batch of cornbread going.

  The sage grew in a wooden barrel at the edge of the driveway. It had started life twenty years earlier as a tiny seedling from the garden store and had outgrown container after container. Now it resembled a good-sized shrub—a very fragrant shrub.

  Catrina was waiting on the porch when Pamela stepped outside. Pamela heard a sound coming from behind the hedge that separated her yard from Richard Larkin’s. As she watched, a large man bobbed up and down, making his way from the side door to the front yard. A black plastic garbage bag trailed along at his side. Despite the streetlamp, it was hard to make out his features.

  In the morning, the garbage trail was gone and an upright garbage can sat at the curb.

  Chapter Ten

  Wendelstaff College was a pastoral enclave along the river that separated Arborville and its equally suburban neighbors from grittier Haversack to the west, the county seat and locus of the courthouse and the jail. Pamela found a spot in the parking lot labeled “Visitors” and followed a path that cut between buildings variously constructed of stone and brick and garnished with ivy until she reached the central quadrangle. Students hurried to and fro, laden with backpacks, on paths that crisscrossed the yellowing grass.

  She’d been on the campus for lectures and films, but had no idea which building housed the School of Professional Arts. A young man was walking just ahead, backpack flopping against his down jacket. “Excuse me,” she called, noticing that it was chilly enough today that the phrase produced a little puff of steam.

  “I’m late,” he called back. “Can’t stop.” He sped up. As if to punctuate his words, a bell began to toll. She paused and pushed the cuff of her glove down to check her watch. It was just nine a.m.

  She had more luck with an older woman heading toward her. “Professional Arts?” the woman asked. “There are several departments, not all in the same building—fashion design, interior design, photography, and landscape architecture. That one’s by the gardens at the edge of the campus. Which one do you want?”

  “Interior design,” Pamela said. On reflection she’d decided that the ruse of researching programs for her daughter was a very good idea.

  “Through there.” The woman pointed across the quadrangle. “It’s in the building behind that big brick one with the white columns.” She looked Pamela up and down and added. “You’re not connected with Wendelstaff, are you? I suppose they’ll let you through. And anyway, they’re not usually very awake this early in the morning. If they give you any trouble, assure them you’re not trying to attend a class and you’re not even part of the college.”

  Pamela continued on across the quadrangle. She heard them before she saw them, the sound echoing as she bore left to cut around the brick building with the columns. “NO FAIR. NO FAIR. IT’S NOT FAIR,” came the chant, male voices mixing with female voices in a ragged harmony. “NO FAIR. NO FAIR. WENDELSTAFF IS NOT FAIR,” came a variation.

  Once behind the brick building she could see where the sound was coming from. A dozen students were marching in a circle in front of the steps that led into a strikingly modern building with a dramatic glass-and-steel facade. They carried large signs that read, “PROMOTE WENDELSTAFF.” The marching stopped as Pamela drew closer. A dozen pairs of eyes examined her, some from beneath woolly caps pulled down low, others from above mufflers snugged up cozily around necks.

  “I . . . I have an errand inside the building,” Pamela volunteered. “I’m not connected with Wendelstaff.”

  The neat circle parted, six people in a semicircle on either side of the steps, and Pamela entered the building as they stared at her.

  * * *

  Inside, the halls were eerily empty. As Pamela passed closed door after closed door, glances through windows revealed empty lecture rooms. At last, after turning this way and that as if in a maze, she came to a door with a plaque that read, “Interior Design.” She tapped on the door and then opened it cautiously. A voice from an inner room called, “If you want Olivia Wiggens, she’s back here.”

  Pamela ventured toward the sound of the voice. In the inner room, a striking woman in her thirties rose from behind a desk and extended her hand. Her expertly lipsticked mouth shaped an embarrassed smile. “Olivia Wiggens,” she said. “How did you get them to let you in?”

  “I told them I wasn’t connected with Wendelstaff,” Pamela said.

  “Please don’t judge us by this. Wendelstaff is not one of those places where the students are always protesting something.” She gestured toward the chair that faced her desk and took her own seat again. She was dressed in an austere black-and-gray ensemble that seemed chosen to harmonize with the avant-garde style of the building she inhabited. “What can I do for you?”

  “My daughter is interested in interior design,” Pamela said. “She’s a freshman up in Massachusetts now, but she didn’t have a major in mind yet when she picked that college.” She paused. “What are the students picketing about?”

  “Me,” Olivia said, and the embarrassed smile appeared again. “In support of me, I should say. I was passed over for a promotion to head the School of Professional Arts. My degree is from here and the students think Wendelstaff
should have more confidence in its own graduates. The person who got the promotion had an MFA from Parsons.”

  “I noticed you said ‘had,’” Pamela said. Olivia nodded. “Amy Morgan? Very sad. It’s been in all the papers.”

  “The police have been all over the place, of course.”

  “Of course.” Pamela recalled Dorrie saying the police might not ask the right questions. She quickly added, “Do you by any chance knit?”

  “Oh, please! Yes, I know she was killed with a knitting needle. I was in a studio class from six to ten that night, and the police checked my alibi. One of the students in the class backed me up.”

  “What will happen now? With the job? Wendelstaff still needs someone to head the School of Professional Arts.”

  “They’ll find someone else from Parsons, I suppose.” Olivia frowned at Pamela. “Why did you come here? Do you even really have a daughter?” She rose again and extended her hand across the desk. Pamela had been dismissed.

  * * *

  Pamela had hurried through the crowd of picketing students and up the steps of the building so quickly that she hadn’t looked closely at them. Now, leaving the building, she paused just outside the heavy glass doors and watched as the marchers slowly traced their ragged circle on the concrete below. The chant was the same as before: “NO FAIR. NO FAIR. IT’S NOT FAIR,” as was the variation: “WENDELSTAFF IS NOT FAIR.”

  Her eye was drawn to one of the young women, bundled in an oversized coat cinched at the waist with a wide leather belt. The young woman’s face was tense with excitement and her voice carried above the others. She strode forward rhythmically, emphasizing every second syllable with a decisive stamp of her right foot. The other students kept time by bobbing their picket signs, but this young woman’s hands were otherwise occupied. She was knitting.

  Pamela made her way down the steps, one hand on the elegant steel handrail that bisected them. Her gaze was fixed on the knitter. As she got closer she could see that the leather belt was actually an ingenious harness that anchored one of the knitting needles. A strand of yarn emerged from a leather pouch that dangled from rings attached to the belt, and a sleeve appeared to be taking shape, fashioned from yarn in a bright fuchsia shade.

  Pamela had read about such devices, perhaps in an article submitted to Fiber Craft, but she’d never seen one. They stemmed from an era in which women’s hands were never idle, and an hour spent walking to market to sell eggs or vegetables was an hour that couldn’t be devoted solely to daydreaming.

  A sitting knitter could rest the left-hand needle in her lap as she handled the yarn to form each stich, but a walking knitter had no lap. Thus the harness.

  The marchers parted as before, leaving a path flanked by two semicircles. A few were silent, then more, and the chanting trailed away on the word “WENDELSTAFF.” The knitter took a deep breath and looked up from her knitting. Her face was quite red, from the shouting Pamela imagined.

  She looked right at Pamela and took a few steps to close up the gap that would have allowed Pamela to leave the marchers behind her. “Do you support our cause?” she asked.

  “I was a friend of Amy Morgan’s,” Pamela said. “We’d been out of touch, but she’d recently moved to my town. I know she was excited about the job. When she accepted it, I’m sure she had no idea that such complicated campus politics were involved.”

  The young woman frowned. “Olivia was in line to be head of the School of Professional Arts, and she deserved it. There was no reason at all for the search committee to look any further. There were students on the committee, but that’s always just window dressing. The higher-ups do exactly what they want no matter how the votes turn out.” Her voice rose and began to crack. Whether from overuse or because she was on the verge of tears, Pamela wasn’t sure. She went on, “Olivia has an MFA from Wendelstaff. It’s like they’re happy to recruit students and take our money, but then they might as well just come out and say, ‘Your Wendelstaff degree isn’t really worth very much—not like a degree from someplace like Parsons.’” She punctuated the sentence with a sarcastic twist of the lips.

  “I see you’re a knitter,” Pamela said, nodding toward the partially finished fuchsia sleeve that dangled from the young woman’s needles.

  “Well, duh.”

  “I’ve read about those knitting harnesses,” Pamela went on pleasantly, ignoring the young woman’s scorn. “I guess you must be quite devoted to your hobby.”

  “Knitting is not a hobby.” Her smooth forehead creased. “It’s a way of life.”

  “Amy was a knitter, you know,” Pamela said. “You probably saw in the papers that the murder weapon was a knitting needle.”

  “Well, I didn’t do it.” She locked eyes with Pamela as if not to do so would suggest she was lying.

  “I guess the police talked to a lot of people on campus.”

  “I was in a studio class from six to ten that night, and the police checked my alibi. Olivia backed me up.”

  Something sounded very familiar about that wording. As Pamela recalled, Olivia Wiggens had said basically the same thing, except that one of the students had backed her up. What if the studio class only had one student in it? So only two people were present, Olivia and this young woman? The young woman stepped aside and looped the strand of fuchsia yarn around the fingers of her left hand. She was ready to begin knitting again. Around her the other students picked up their signs. A few took tentative steps.

  Pamela had discovered a whole new reason for Amy’s murder and at least two suspects to go with it. But she’d come to Wendelstaff College with a particular question in mind, and she asked it now.

  “Dave Dowling lives in my town too,” she said. “Is he connected with the School of Professional Arts?”

  The young woman nodded. “Photography.” She finished the stitch and looped the yarn around her finger for another. “He’s a good guy,” the student said. “No reason for his contract not to be renewed—except people from Parsons have fancy ideas.” Her lips twisted in another sarcastic smile.

  Pamela’s heart sank. Karen certainly did have a motive to want Amy dead. She could hardly wait to hear from Bettina whether the knitting needle from the sofa cushion matched the one from Amy’s chest.

  Pamela preferred to use her walking time for daydreaming. She had never understood why people would want to broadcast their half of a phone conversation to the world at large—or at least the casual passerby. She’d heard many intimate and even incriminating details divulged by people with their phones glued to their ears, and she didn’t want to join that cohort. So she waited until she was back in her car to take out her cell phone, place a call to Bettina, and ask, “Did the knitting needle I found in my sofa match the murder weapon?”

  Bettina sighed. “I tracked Clayborn down first thing this morning and gave it to him, but there’s no word yet. And I don’t know if he even understands why it could be important. He was rushing to his car and I handed the needle to him and tried to explain. He just grabbed it and grunted at me.”

  * * *

  At home, Pamela opened a can of lentil soup. She’d wait till dinnertime to bring out more of the roast chicken and cornbread stuffing from the previous night. After her lunch, she climbed the stairs to her office and poked the button that brought the computer to life. Several emails from her boss at Fiber Craft popped up, with the attachments that she knew meant more articles to edit. She was always happy to know that Fiber Craft had plenty of work for her, but it was the last email that made her smile. She opened it first.

  “So anxious to see you, Mom,” it read. “I’m getting a ride instead of taking the bus, but the guy I’m riding with has class until three Wednesday. So I’ll be home at seven or eight.” It was signed, “Love, Penny.”

  Then she opened the first email, brought the attachment up in Word, and got to work.

  Chapter Eleven

  Perhaps Catrina had been especially excited—or disgusted—by the new brand of cat food Pame
la had decided to try. Responding to the feline eyes meeting hers through the oval window in the front door, Pamela had filled the cat-food dish the previous evening and set it in the customary spot near the porch railing.

  But as she stepped onto the porch this morning to retrieve it and bring in the daily paper, there was no cat-food dish to be found. She scanned the yard, trying to suppress the memory of what she’d discovered the last time she went searching for an errant cat-food dish. The last few fallen leaves speckled the fading lawn, but there was no cat-food dish to be seen. Out near the end of the driveway, however, lay something else that needed to be retrieved—the weekly Arborville Advocate, encased in its customary green plastic sleeve. It had rained a bit the previous night. The grass glistened with moisture, and the leaves that had fallen since the last raking were wet and shiny.

  No one subscribed to the Advocate—it arrived unbidden. But Bettina’s post as chief writer in charge of almost everything gave her access to the police. Interest in the paper’s content waxed and waned depending on what was going on in town and whether or not it was garage-sale season. Pamela imagined this issue of the Advocate wouldn’t be left languishing on too many driveways. She knew through the grapevine that Amy’s murder had caused quite a stir.

  Heading back up the walk, she caught sight of the cat-food dish under the azalea bush next to the porch steps and bent to collect it. She made her coffee and toast and spread out both newspapers on the kitchen table. But she didn’t need to read the Advocate to know that the police had made no progress in figuring out who killed Amy.

  Breakfast finished and papers read, Pamela dressed in her customary jeans and sweater. In the entry she pulled on her jacket, snuggled the violet mohair scarf around her neck, and set out. She was deep in a pleasant daydream involving Penny and a holiday baking project, eyes focused on the sidewalk to avoid slipping on the wet leaves, when a voice said, “Whoa there!” She jumped back and teetered. A strong hand wrapped around her arm. She looked up to discover that the hand belonged to Dr. Randolph.