A Stitch in Crime

by Betty Hechtman

  Sheila stopped at the front and offered to help me. Dinah pulled out the box and put it on the table. Adele joined us and assisted in laying out hooks and balls of yarn, along with some samples and several copies of A Subtle Touch of Crochet with notes attached saying they were for sale.

  I put a pile of printed directions with the other things. Much as I would have liked to participate in the crochet workshop, I felt obligated to act as an observer. Just looking at the hooks on the table made my hands long to crochet. Later, when I was alone, I’d have some time. With everything set up, Dinah, Sheila, and I took seats in the back. Adele stayed in the front, patrolling the teacher zone. As usual she was a walking advertisement for her craft. Over her black turtleneck and black leggings, she wore a long vest made out of classic granny squares done in ruby red, creamy white, and black edging. I always said Adele and I had our differences, but I would never dispute her crochet ability. If only she hadn’t worn the hat, she would have looked fine. It was newsboy style, and even if it was masterfully crocheted, the way she had it pulled low on her forehead just looked silly.

  Miss Lavender Pants, Edward, and his wife, along with the knitting couple, came back in and took their seats. When Mason arrived, I realized that was everybody—everybody but Izabelle.

  “As soon as Izabelle returns, we’ll begin, people,” Adele said. She had put on her authority voice and was beginning to strut across the front. The door opened, and Izabelle came in, carrying a shopping bag. She’d added a few touches to her outfit, all crocheted. I saw her do a double take at Adele’s position. She made a face and stepped in front of her, putting some sample scarves and baby blankets on the table. “I just want you to get an idea of some of the possibilities.”

  Izabelle turned back toward the group and took off her black wool jacket. As she stepped closer to the class, I saw Adele look up. Her gaze stopped on Izabelle’s neck, and her mouth opened into a troubled expression. “What’s that?” she said, pointing at Izabelle’s neck.

  “This?” the crochet presenter said, touching the fuzzy white puffs. “It’s just something I made with this stitch I came up with. I’ll be demonstrating it in a later session. I call it Izabelle’s Cloud.”

  “But that’s my work,” Adele said, stepping close to her. “I invented that stitch. You just figured out my stitch and then added on to the piece I started.”

  Before Izabelle could respond, Adele looked frantically from me to Sheila to Dinah. “You saw it. Remember I called it the marshmallow stitch? And then my work disappeared.” Adele’s gaze stuck on me. “You said somebody in our group probably picked it up by mistake.”

  Neither Sheila nor Dinah had much recollection; I, however, did remember Adele saying something about her work disappearing.

  Izabelle looked at Adele with a condescending smile. “I’m sure you’re mistaken. I came up with this stitch eons ago.” She lifted her shoulder-length hair to show the choker that consisted of four white, fuzzy puffs with spaces in between. It appeared to tie at the back.

  Adele was not to be dissuaded. “I know that’s my work. It disappeared the other day when you came by the Hookers meeting. I can prove it, too. I spilled a little pink pearl nail polish on the back of it.” She reached toward Izabelle. “Take it off and let me have a look.”

  Izabelle was no longer smiling. She glared at Adele. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have to prove anything.” She picked up one of the hooks and shoved it toward Adele. “If this is your work, let’s see you do a sample of your marshmallow stitch.”

  “I can’t repeat it. I was just experimenting when I made the stitch. I was going to undo my stitches and write down what I’d done, but my work disappeared first.” Adele’s voice cracked. She must have realized she was losing ground.

  Izabelle glanced toward the crowd. “Sometimes people want to be crochet designers so badly, they imagine they’ve come up with something fresh.” She pulled out a printed sheet and said it was really an advanced stitch, but she had directions in case anyone was interested.

  Her words were like lighter fluid on a campfire. Adele lost it and went to grab Izabelle. I stepped in to block Adele before she made contact, and put my arm around her. I started to usher her toward the door while whispering that she was making a scene.

  “Pink, I am not making a scene,” she said. “She is.” She pointed at Izabelle. Just before I got Adele out the door, she stomped her foot and turned back one last time.

  “Don’t think this is over. You’re not going to get away with this.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “ADELE SURE BLOWS HOT AND COLD. ONE MINUTE she’s practically kissing the ground Izabelle walks on, and the next she’s threatening her,” Dinah said. I had done my best to save the situation after I got Adele out the door, but the damage was done. Nobody could concentrate on crochet. Even those of us who knew how couldn’t do a foundation chain without screwing up. I did the only things I could do. I ended it, and hoped Commander’s s’mores interlude would sweeten up the atmosphere. Izabelle had taken off with the rest of the group, leaving Dinah, Sheila and me to gather up her things.

  “This fog is getting tiresome,” I said with a sigh. We were walking down the path toward the administration building, not that we could see it. The walkway disappeared into the ether up ahead. We were walking slowly when Bennett suddenly appeared from the whiteout behind us, and after greeting us he disappeared again as he moved a little bit ahead. It was no wonder the roads had been shut down.

  “What if Adele is waiting for Izabelle to show up in the administration building?” Dinah said, trying to peer into the distance.

  “Good point. Adele was really over the top, and she’s not one to give up.” I picked up speed, picturing Adele jumping out from behind a curtain and pulling the choker off of Izabelle’s neck.

  The administration building suddenly appeared out of the fog. When we reached the door, I pulled it open quickly and looked around inside. To my relief, all was peaceful. Commander was hovering over the long table, pointing out bags of s’mores ingredients to the knitting couple. Miss Lavender Pants seemed to be having a hard time choosing and was easing her way around to Commander’s side of the table.

  I almost laughed when I caught sight of Dinah’s expression. It was amazing how someone else wanting Commander had changed her opinion. With a swirl of her long, rust-colored scarf, she crossed the space to the table. Commander Blaine’s eyes lit up when he saw her. At the same time Miss Lavender Pants’s lips twisted in annoyance.

  “Hey, Sunshine.” I recognized Mason’s voice. I hadn’t noticed him playing a solo game of pool. I was still surprised by the white outfit and the soft shoes. He put down his pool cue and joined me. “You look tense. But then you had quite an afternoon. I bet you didn’t know that on top of everything else, you’d end up having to be a bouncer,” he said with a chuckle before giving my shoulders a quick therapeutic massage. “What you need is to sit around the campfire and have some s’mores.”

  We walked up to the table and I let Mason take over the s’mores selection. Commander made a point of telling me he thought the s’mores were a crowd pleaser and asked that I mention it to Mrs. Shedd. “She tried to talk me out of doing them, but I fought to keep them in.”

  Mason took my arm and we walked out on the deck side of the administration building and headed down the walkway to the fire circle. Commander might have been raving about the popularity of his treat event, but for now we had the area to ourselves. Mason picked a bench and I reached for one of the bags.

  “Molly, I have it covered.” He gestured for me to sit down, and when I seemed surprised, he chuckled. “I guess you don’t know that I’ve done my share of camping and know my way around making a s’more.”

  “You’re right, I didn’t know. You’re full of surprises. First the tai chi, and now you turn out to be a whiz at campfire treats.” I sighed, and he looked up from skewering the sweet white puffs on two of the long forks.

  “You’re
still upset about the fracas in your crochet workshop. You did the best you could under the circumstances.” He got ready to put the marshmallows over the fire.

  “Do you think Izabelle Landers stole your fellow Hooker’s work?” He tried not to, but he laughed over the word Hooker.

  “It’s hard to say if Izabelle was so insulted by the accusation that she wouldn’t take off the choker and let Adele look at it, or if she was hiding something. I know Adele did misplace her work, and it was the day Izabelle stopped by our group meeting. But Izabelle Landers is a well-known crochet designer, and Adele is starved for attention and always trying to get herself into the spotlight.” I put my chin in my hands and slumped. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “The best advice I can offer is to keep them apart.”

  I let out a mirthless laugh. “Like that’s going to work. We eat together. Their rooms are probably down the hall from each other. And that’s not even considering the workshop sessions.”

  Mason kept turning the marshmallows until they were a perfect golden brown while he pondered my problem. The patience was typical of him.

  “Give yourself a few minutes off,” he said. “And taste this.” He had put all the pieces together, and as he held out the sweet treat, my mouth watered. Who knew he’d turn out to be a killer s’more maker on top of everything else? I took a bite. The marshmallows were perfectly toasted on the outside and molten on the inside. Everyone else I knew was always in a hurry and ended up with black, blistered marshmallows that tasted like ashes. Mason’s creation worked together. The heat melted the chocolate and the graham crackers held it all together.

  Mason had made a s’more for himself as well. When he tried to eat it, it broke and he ended up with marshmallow on his nose. He looked funny, and I started to laugh. He pretended to be upset and then stuck a blob of marshmallow on my nose. Now it was his turn to laugh. All the tension flooded out. Something about the way Mason never seemed to take anything too seriously made him fun to be with. The treat and the fire began to work their magic, and I sighed as relaxation kicked in. That is, until my cell phone went off.

  “Just checking in, babe,” Barry’s voice said. “I wanted to make sure you were all right with the fog emergency.”

  “So far, so good,” I said with a crack in my voice. There was no reason for me to feel guilty. All I was doing was sharing a s’more with a friend.

  “Is that Barry?” Mason said. “Tell him I’m looking out for you.” I threw him a dark look and he responded with an innocent shrug. As if I believed he didn’t know what he was doing. Of course it worked. Barry started interrogating me on where I was and what I was doing and where was everybody else.

  “Every time I talk to you, you seem to be with Mason. And campfires and making s’mores sound like fun to me. I can roast marshmallows, too.” He sounded hurt, so I got up and walked away for some privacy while I explained I wasn’t really having fun. I told him about Adele and the blowup.

  “Babe, I’m sure you’ll figure out something. I hate to add to your concerns, but remember the boxes I put in the garage yesterday? When I came by today, they’d been moved to your front hall.” I told him to leave them where they were, and after we clicked off, I called my sons. Peter was at work and didn’t know anything about the boxes. I got Samuel’s voice mail and left a message. When I clicked off, Mason was holding out another perfectly executed s’more. I felt another wave of guilt, but took the oozing graham crackers anyway. I saw Commander’s point; the s’mores were absolutely delicious.

  Some more of our group showed up with bags of supplies, and suddenly I was back to being the holder of the rhinestone clipboard. Mason and I traded looks. He got it—fun time was over. We left the fire circle and he announced he was going back to his room to practice his tai chi routine. “You’re welcome to come. I’ll throw in a private lesson.” His tone was genuine, no smarmy innuendo. I gave him a nice thank you, but no thank you. Besides, I needed to figure out what I was going to do about Adele and Izabella.

  Mason disappeared in the fog and I went to the gift shop, hoping to snag a red-eye. The coffee wagon person was a no-show along with the rest of the staff, but the desk clerk let me make my own. While I was sipping the strong brew, I went to check out the social hall. Dinah grabbed me. “Stay here,” she commanded.

  Dinah was my best friend and she had always come through for me, so if she needed me to stay somewhere, I did it without question. A lot of the bags were gone from the table. I noticed Commander Blaine wasn’t there, nor was Miss Lavender Pants. Just as I was going to ask what had happened to them, Commander Blaine came through the door in a burst of enthusiasm.

  “I got my jacket, so now we can go,” he said, stopping next to Dinah.

  “Good,” Dinah said with a pasted-on smile. “Won’t it be nice to take a walk and look for driftwood to use for Commander’s workshop?” she added, grabbing my arm.

  It was clear that Commander Blaine didn’t share Dinah’s enthusiasm at my joining them, but he quickly picked up that Dinah wasn’t going to go without me and said something about it being good that there would be another set of arms to carry driftwood. No one brought up the folly of looking for anything in all that fog.

  The three of us started along the boardwalk that led through the dunes on the edge of the grounds. The area on either side was strictly off-limits, as it was in the process of being replanted with fragile native plants. Not that we could see it anyway. Nor could we see much ahead or behind us, but the sound of the waves was clear.

  At the end of the walkway, we passed through a small gateway that had an Asilomar sign. There was a little bit of sandy sidewalk, and then I recognized the blacktop of the street. When I tried looking both ways, I realized it was useless. I couldn’t possibly have seen a car, nor its driver, me, until it was too late. For the first time I really understood why the roads had been shut down and how isolated we were.

  Even though there was supposed to be no traffic, habit made me hurry across the street. On the other side, low fencing protected the replanted area. A walkway was formed between the fenced areas and led to the open beach. The sand felt silky soft underfoot and immediately got into my shoes.

  I thought the whole looking-for-driftwood thing was a line Commander had used to try to spend some time alone with Dinah, but as soon as we got onto the beach, he handed us each a reusable grocery bag and told us to start looking.

  He went on a little ahead and stopped to pick up something, then dropped it quickly. I saw a dark hunk hit the sand.

  “Be careful, somebody had a campfire here and it’s still smoldering.” He bent down again, then straightened, holding something. “Well, that’s not very considerate.” We’d caught up with him by then, and the sand was damp and easier to walk on. Ahead there seemed to be some kind of channel in the sand with brackish water moving toward the waves. Commander held two long wire forks identical to the one Mason had used for the marshmallows. “These aren’t throw-away items. I need them back for the next s’mores break.”

  He searched around the area a little more and used one of the forks to pull out the partially burned remains of a s’mores bag. “Looks like somebody decided to do their own campfire. Pretty careless, not even throwing away their trash.”

  He ran the bag through the sand and then touched it to make sure it was cool. Then he dropped it, along with the fork, in the canvas bag he’d brought to collect the driftwood. We were careful to walk around the remains of the campfire. Dinah went ahead toward something dark on the sand. I saw her take a step, and then she tripped and screamed.

  Commander and I rushed toward her. Dinah was sprawled on the ground, and when I got close, I saw an arm clothed in a black wool jacket with pink crocheted flowers around the sleeve sticking out from below her. Commander Blaine pulled Dinah to her feet, and the three of us gasped.

  CHAPTER 9

  “TUR N HER OVER, TURN HER OVER,” DINAH squealed. When Dinah had gotten up, the rest of I
zabelle Landers had become visible as she lay facedown in the sand.

  We got Izabelle on her back, and her face looked blue and distorted. Dinah felt her wrist and thought she detected a faint pulse.

  “Call 911,” she said quickly. The adrenaline rush had given Dinah’s voice a high-pitched, panicky sound. I reached for my cell phone, then realized I’d left it in my tote in the administration building. Commander didn’t have his phone, either.

  “I’ll go back and call,” he said, gesturing toward the Asilomar grounds, still invisible in the fog. He walked quickly through the sand, the bag for collecting driftwood swinging on his arm.

  Dinah and I knelt down in the sand on either side of Izabelle.

  She looked terrible. Now that I was closer, I could see the red blotches on her face. Dinah and I tried to comfort her and tell her that we were getting help. Nothing in her face gave any indication she heard us.

  I checked the area around her. A sand-encrusted s’more lay on the ground near her hand.

  Commander Blaine came back to tell us the paramedics were on the way, then went to stand by the street to flag down the ambulance. Luckily we had the Asilomar gate as a landmark. It seemed like it took the paramedics forever to arrive. The fog made it impossible for them to drive fast.

  Two men in dark blue uniforms hustled across the beach, carrying a stretcher and a large case. They got Izabelle on the stretcher, and one started doing CPR and put some kind of bag on her face. The other asked me what had happened, and I gave him the little information I had. I also mentioned the sandy s’more. He scooped it up and put it in a plastic bag. The paramedic working on Izabelle continued the CPR as Commander helped get the stretcher across the sand. I thought I saw Izabelle move her head as I followed them to the street.