Died in the Wool

by Mary Kruger

  “Have Ted pay for a cleaning lady for you. He has enough money,” Laura said dryly.

  “I’d have to clean the house first.”

  The women around her broke into sympathetic laughter. “Too true,” Barbara said. “I rush around like crazy picking up clutter each week before mine comes. She even told me once that I’m dirty.”

  “What? And you kept her on?”

  “Good cleaning people are hard to find. Seriously, though, it’s not a bad idea, Ariadne. I can ask my cleaning lady if she has an opening, or if she knows someone else.”

  “Maybe.” Ari was frowning at the screen. “People really put their patterns online without expecting payment?”

  “I hate to say it, but I’ve gotten some good ones that way.”

  “Hmm. Maybe that’s an idea. What do you think?” she turned to ask Kaitlyn.

  “Why?” Kaitlyn said.

  “As samples. You know I do that every now and then in here. It gets people to see what I do, and I usually get customers from them.”

  Kaitlyn was frowning. “Well, if you want to.”

  “I’ll think about it. I think I’ll check out some other sites here tonight,” she added.

  “Where are Ted and Megan going tonight?” Laura asked. Since Edith’s murder, Ted had called every night before closing, and last night Ari had mentioned that she would be staying late at the shop tonight, without saying why. To her pleased surprise, Ted had offered to take Megan out for supper.

  “Megan wants to go to Chuck E. Cheese.” Ari’s smile was wicked, as she thought of Ted in his designer suit at the popular and noisy children’s paradise.

  The women around her laughed again. “Still, I’ll stay, too, shall I, dear?” Laura said, when they were quiet again.

  “Oh, no, don’t be silly,” Ari said, alarmed. She didn’t want anyone here to witness her meeting with Herb. “Aren’t you going out to dinner tonight?”

  “I’ll cancel.”

  Ari turned to look at her, though her shoulder cramped. “You’d actually cancel a date?”

  “A date?” Barbara looked at Laura with interest. “Who is it, and why haven’t we heard about it?”

  Laura’s face was red. “It’s nothing much.”

  “My mother fixed her up with the new science teacher from the high school,” Ari said, her smile diabolical again. It served Laura right, for all the times she’d interfered. “This is, what, the second date?”

  “Second! And you never told me, Laura,” Barbara said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Laura protested. “Ari has a beau, too, now.”

  “That cop?”

  “Maybe we’ll double with Laura,” Ari said lightly, knowing no one would take her seriously. “If he has time.”

  “With Joe arrested, he should,” Susan said.

  “Maybe,” Ari said, and listened with only half her attention as the conversation shifted to the events of the past days. At last, though, the women left. Laura stepped back from the computer.

  “That was rotten of you, Ari,” she said.

  “Serves you right.” Ari stretched and put her hand to her shoulder again. “Ouch.”

  “I do think you should rest your shoulder, dear.”

  “For goodness sake, it’s not broken, only bruised.” She pushed back her chair, grimacing again. “Maybe I will go home for a while now. Megan will be home from school soon. I’d like to spend some time with her before she goes out. Can you hold down the fort?”

  “Of course I can, dear.”

  Laura’s bright tone instantly made Ari suspicious. “Laura, what are you planning?”

  “Why, nothing, dear.”

  Ari raised her eyebrows skeptically. She didn’t quite trust Laura where the shop was concerned. “Don’t you dare rearrange anything while I’m gone.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, dear.”

  “I can stay,” Kaitlyn volunteered. “I don’t have much homework tonight.”

  Ari quickly calculated the damage to her payroll if Kait did stay. “Thanks, Kait, but I don’t think you have to. It’s been quiet today.”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine,” Laura put in.

  Ari cast Laura another suspicious look as she took her pocketbook from a desk drawer. “I hope so.”

  “Don’t worry so much.”

  From the door Ari looked back at Laura, who was already gazing about the shop, and sighed. “Okay. I’ll be back later,” she said, and went out.

  Ari walked back into the shop just before closing. Laura, counting the money in the cash drawer, looked up. “I didn’t think you’d be back.”

  “I told you I would be.” She looked around. “All right. What did you do in here?”

  “Nothing,” Laura said innocently. “I just moved a few samples around.”

  “And some yarn, I see,” Ari said.

  “Well, dear, I do think that Chanel jacket wasn’t displayed quite right. That’s lovely chenille you used, and the fake fur collar is wonderful.”

  Laura was a force unto herself, Ari thought as she walked into her office. “I had a reason—oh, never mind.”

  “Did Megan get off all right?”

  “Yes.” Ari gave Laura an unholy grin as she came back out onto the sales floor. “You should have seen Ted’s face when he found out where they’re going.”

  “Serves him right.”

  “No, not really. He’s good with Megan.”

  “Yes, now, but when you were married he didn’t pay much attention to her.”

  “He didn’t pay much attention to me, especially during tax season.”

  “I think, dear, that you should start seeing that policeman.”

  “No!” Ari said in mock surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes, dear. He’s a nice man.”

  “He is,” Ari agreed. “He’s also wrong about Joe.”

  “Don’t hold that against him, dear. He was only doing his job.”

  “True.” She looked over Laura’s shoulder. “How did we do today?”

  “Pretty well. A lot of people came in to talk about Joe. I looked at knitting sites,” she added.

  “Knitting sites? Oh, on the web.”

  “Yes, between customers. Actually, do you know the first thing I did?” Laura grinned. “I searched for myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I looked up my name.”

  “Did you find anything?” Ari asked, intrigued.

  “Mostly genealogical information about different Sheehans, or various Lauras.”

  “I never thought of doing that,” Ari said. “Maybe I will tonight.”

  “You’re still going to stay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kaitlyn volunteered to come back in, if you need help.”

  “I told her not to. I can manage.”

  “I think she has some designs she’d like you to look at.”

  Ari’s heart sank. She had no heart for telling Kaitlyn that yet another of her designs didn’t work, although maybe that had changed. The girl did have talent. “I’d rather she waited until her shift on Saturday.”

  “She sounded disappointed. To tell you the truth, I felt sorry for her.” Laura went into the office and came out, throwing a heavy cardigan around her shoulders. “Her life’s not easy.”

  “I know. She needs the money.”

  “So do you, dear.”

  “Of course I do, but Kait’s different. Leaving RISD hurt her.”

  “If you ask me, I think she was a little spoiled before. Maybe it’s hard for her with her father losing his job, but Susan has to be making a good amount in real estate, with prices the way they are.” She rooted through her pocketbook. “Now where are those keys—there they are.” She paused by the door. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

  “And miss your hot date? Don’t be silly.” Ari reached for the sign on the door and flipped it to CLOSED. “Good night, and have fun.”

  “Yes, dear.” In spite of her earlier
concern, Laura had brightened up. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yes,” Ari said, and after closing the door, turned the lock. Laura’s obvious anticipation sent a pang of jealousy through her. Certainly it was time for Laura to have some happiness, she thought. She herself wouldn’t be meeting a man tonight, though. Only Herb.

  Sighing, she walked in to her office and logged on to the Internet. She should have checked out her competition long before this. After all, she’d gone to regular yarn shops before opening her own, hadn’t she? It made sense to do the same online. Though Kaitlyn had already done so when she was designing the site, to get an idea of how others had put theirs together, the final responsibility was Ari’s. It really was high time she entered the twenty-first century.

  Her fingers were poised to type her name into a search engine when Barbara Watson’s words floated back to her. Free knitting patterns. Now who would put those on the web? Intrigued, Ari searched first for Kaitlyn’s own site. It was professionally done, and the directions for the scarf, featured in a colorful picture, were clear and concise. Kait did have a future, Ari thought again, if only she’d stop trying so hard.

  Typing some more, she sat back, waiting for results. “Free knitting patterns,” she read aloud, scanning one group of type. It had a web address highlighted at the bottom. Below, there was another grouping and then yet another. She glanced up to see the number of results for her search, and blinked. It numbered in the thousands. “That many?” she muttered, and clicked on the address for the first site.

  A web page came up on her screen. On it was the owner’s name, and the proclamation that all the patterns she provided were free to anyone. Ari clicked on the link for Aran sweaters. The site was nicely designed, she thought, with a background of pastel-colored stockinette stitch, and ornate lettering. Surely the designs wouldn’t be as amateurish as Kaitlyn had implied.

  They weren’t. The photographs showed various models wearing beautifully made sweaters, with links to the instructions for each one. The illustrations themselves, though, were of varying quality, some in color and some in black and white, some fairly large and some small. There was something about them, especially the one on the lower right….

  “Heavens!” Ari stared at the screen. She knew that sweater. It was the fisherman sweater she’d made when she was a teenager. When she clicked on the picture the directions came up, densely printed and still familiar to her after all these years. That project was the hardest she’d done at that time, and she was still proud of it. It also had come from a booklet published by a yarn company, not the person who claimed it now.

  Disturbed, she went back to the main screen and clicked on other links. Norwegian sweaters were displayed, again with obviously posed photographs and again with directions in tiny print. The same held true for children’s and babies’ items, for men’s sweaters, for afghans. Some of the sites were for businesses that sold patterns, like hers. Others gave credit to the original publishers. A lot of them offered original designs, free of charge. Too many, though, had been pirated.

  Ari was more than disturbed now. She was angry and appalled, as she leaned back in her chair. Kaitlyn had mentioned designers losing their copyrights if they published online, but this was far worse. This was direct infringement, direct theft. She wondered if the publishers knew. She wondered if her own designs had been stolen.

  Again she bent over the keyboard, tapping furiously. There were fewer results on her search for her own name. The site for the shop wasn’t listed yet, but Kaitlyn had told her to expect that. What results she had were chiefly genealogical, and there were far more than she’d expected. Evans might be a common name, but Ariadne certainly wasn’t.

  Modify the search. Beside her name she typed the word “knitting.” This time there were far fewer results. The companies that had published her patterns had them listed, giving her the credit. The clothing company that occasionally turned out high-end knitted goods from her work promoted her on their site. There was even a reprint of the article Vogue Knitting had done on her a few years back, with a link to a pattern. The rest of the results were again mostly genealogical.

  Finally she pushed back from her desk. The Internet was all very well, but she had just spent a lot of time at the computer that she could profitably have spent doing paperwork. Besides, Herb would be coming soon. She checked her watch and made a little noise of surprise. It was well after six. Where could he be?

  Just then, she heard a soft swishing sound from the sales floor. Ari turned her head sharply. “Hello?” she called. “Herb?”

  Absolute silence. Still, she wasn’t alone in the shop. She could sense it, though she heard no more sound. A chill shuddered up her spine, and instinct made her fumble for a weapon, any weapon. Absurdly, what her fingers latched onto was a ruler. What damage can I do with that? asked a cool, rational voice in her mind, but she clutched the ruler tightly anyway. Hardly breathing, she slowly got up, wincing when her chair squeaked as she moved.

  At that moment, the lights went out in the shop.

  That same primal instinct for defense had her diving for the light in her office. With it backlighting her, she would be an easy target. The computer screen glowed eerily, and in the shop the shadows left by the setting sun obscured everything. Had someone moved over there behind a display counter? The shadow was caused by the lights of a passing car shining through the store window.

  Time seemed to pass in a slow, excruciating eternity. Frightened of leaving her office, frightened of staying and being trapped, she was reaching for the phone to call the police before she realized she couldn’t call out. Her computer was still connected to the Internet.

  A board creaked on the sales floor, and suddenly Ari had had enough. She wasn’t going to cower here, no matter what might happen. And she wasn’t without defenses. She’d played soccer and football when she was younger, and she still knew how to tackle an opponent. She hoped her kicks were still as powerful as they had been when she’d sent soccer balls flying.

  She quickly barreled out of the office, head down, ready to butt whoever was after her in the stomach. “Shit!” someone said in a muffled voice, suddenly standing. Ari was finally facing her attacker. Medium height, she thought, still cool, still rational. Medium build, too. The hair was covered and the face was obscured. And the figure was holding some kind of stick high in the air.

  It was a long stick, with a long reach. Ari charged, hoping she’d pass her assailant before he could swing the stick at her. A long stick, thin, with a crook at the end. She’d have to give details to the police. She’d have to—

  And then the stick slashed down.

  twelve

  ARI DREAMED OF ARAN SWEATERS. Knit three, purl two, work a cable. The directions so befuddled her that she had to keep rereading them, with the frantic conviction that she’d never get it right. She dreamed of Scandinavian sweaters, their distinctive eight-pointed star design worked in bright green. She dreamed of a dress made of crocheted granny squares in neon shades: bilious yellow and irradiated pink and poisonous green. It had a high turtleneck collar of a fire-bright orange. Wait a minute. Granny squares were used in afghans, not in dresses. The thought was so absurd that she pulled free of the dream.

  Only gradually did she become aware of other things. A beeping sound, bright and continuous. Footsteps. And a soft swishing sound, just like…

  She came fully awake at that, frightened, though she didn’t know why. What she did know, though, was that she was in a hospital. She closed her eyes, still seeing in her mind the images of bland beige walls, striped curtains next to her bed, and monitors that beeped and flashed. Definitely a hospital, but why?

  There was a sudden growing pressure on her arm. She opened her eyes to see that it came from a blood pressure cuff inflating. “Oh,” she said.

  The nurse who stood by a machine, watching the numbers on display, glanced at her. “Good,” she said. “We thought you were waking up.”

  “W
hy?”

  “Because of your vital signs.”

  “Oh,” Ari said again. Now that she was awake, she was aware of pain in her head, throbbing and persistent. “Am I in the hospital?”

  “Saint Luke’s,” a voice said nearby.

  Ari turned her head to see Josh lounging against the windowsill. At the foot of the bed, Ted glared at her. His hands were balled into fists, and his head was thrust forward belligerently. “Jeez, Ari, what’ve you gotten yourself into now?”

  Ari closed her eyes against the pain in her head. The last thing she needed to deal with just now was Ted’s anger. “Why am I here?”

  “You don’t remember?” Josh said.

  “No.”

  “You were attacked in your shop. What were you doing there that late?”

  “Megan,” Ari said, suddenly remembering. “Where is she? Is she all right?”

  “About time you asked. With your mother.”

  Thank God. She winced as she looked toward Josh, backlit by the bright sun streaming in through the window. “Is it morning?”

  “Early afternoon,” Josh said.

  “Afternoon! Oh, she must be so scared.”

  “Call her,” Ted said, his tone more normal. Why, he was concerned, she thought with surprise. “Here’s the phone.”

  “In a minute.” Some of the pain had left. “Do you know who did it?” she asked.

  Josh straightened. “No. I was hoping you could tell me. When Herb—”

  “What is that noise?” she asked sharply, hearing that soft swishing again.

  “What noise?”

  “That whispery sound.”

  Josh looked toward the nurse, who, in the act of rolling out the machine used for taking vital signs, had paused at the bottom of the bed to note something on a chart. “Push that again,” he said. The nurse, frowning quizzically, moved it a foot or so farther. “That noise?”