Silence of the Lamb's Wool (A Yarn Retreat Mystery)

by Betty Hechtman

  “I hope you are all enjoying your dinner,” Kevin said, putting on a pleasant expression. He kept his tone light as he introduced Lieutenant Borgnine, apparently not realizing we’d all met before. The three early birds had been questioned by the lieutenant during the last retreat. And I had dealt with him a number of times. I heard Bree make a little gasp as Kevin St. John explained that she was the one who’d found Nicole. I was glad he didn’t say “the deceased” or “the body.” Referring to Nicole by name somehow didn’t seem as bad.

  “I’m going to need a statement from you,” the lieutenant said to Bree. I’d never noticed what a growly tone his voice had. Her face went pale and she seemed befuddled.

  “What’s the cause of death?” I said, standing up. The lieutenant glowered at me. He still hadn’t come to terms with the fact that I’d bested him in a previous investigation.

  “Here we go again,” he said with an unhappy shake of his head. “I’m the one who asks the questions.” Without taking a breath he turned to Bree and asked her to explain what had happened.

  “Was she murdered? I didn’t do it. I promise,” the young mother said, seeming close to tears. Olivia put a hand on her shoulder to calm her.

  “Bree, he just asked what you saw,” the older woman said.

  “Are you saying her death was suspicious?” I interrupted. Lieutenant Borgnine groaned at my question and paused as if considering his words. In the end, he ignored me, but explained a little more to Bree.

  “Ms. Meyers, it’s routine to get a statement under the circumstances,” he said, but stopped there without any explanation of what the circumstances were.

  Bree nervously repeated pretty much what she’d told me earlier. I interrupted and asked again about the cause of death. Lieutenant Borgnine rocked his head and looked skyward in a hopeless fashion.

  “We’re not ready to give out that information yet,” he said tersely. He thanked Bree for her cooperation, which was a little dig at me, and gave her his card in case she thought of anything else. Just to be sure, he asked the other two what they knew about Nicole.

  Scott shrugged it off and said the only thing he knew was that Nicole was supposed to have given them a spinning lesson. Olivia said pretty much the same thing.

  Lieutenant Borgnine turned back to me. “And you, Ms. Feldstein. I understand that you hired her for your retreat. Did you see her this morning?”

  “Why are you asking if I saw her? What kind of information are you looking for?” I asked. It was an automatic response with me. When I’d worked for the detective agency, my boss had trained me never to give out information, only to get it. The policeman actually hit his forehead in frustration.

  Then he pointed at himself. “I am the investigator here. Not you.”

  “I am just trying to be helpful,” I said. “Do you want to know if she looked ill?”

  It was clear I was trying his patience and he spoke brusquely. “Fine. Did she look ill when you saw her today?” He looked at me intently. “And don’t you dare answer with a question.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I didn’t see her this morning.”

  Lieutenant Borgnine barely choked out a thank-you before he turned to go. I got a parting dirty look from Kevin St. John as he followed the cop toward the door.

  Even with the cop and the manager gone, the mood stayed gloomy at the table. I didn’t even feel like eating the mushroom stroganoff that had looked so luscious a few minutes ago. Bree seemed at a loss about what to do. She took out her cell phone and then put it away.

  “This is like withdrawal,” she said. “I wonder what she died of. Maybe she was choking. If only I’d known what was wrong.” Bree’s shoulders slumped and as I feared, she was beginning to worry she hadn’t done enough.

  “We don’t know anything about her,” Scott said and looked to me. “Casey, you’re the only one here who knew her at all. Did she have some kind of condition?”

  “It does seem strange that a woman so young would die of natural causes,” Olivia said. I was trying to find a way to change the subject to something more cheerful and was happy to see Dr. Sammy come into the dining hall. The feeling seemed mutual because as soon as he saw me he bounded over to our table.

  Sammy’s natural expression was a smile that seemed to come mostly from his eyes. I know that sounds weird, but that’s the only way I can explain it.

  “Hey, Case,” he said, calling me by the nickname only he used. He glanced over at the people sitting around me and picked up on their glum mood. “What’s up?”

  I rose from the table and pulled him aside, dumping the whole story on him, including my problems with the retreat.

  “Turning wool into yarn sounds like magic, but I’m afraid I’d be no help with that,” he said. “But if you want to talk about your retreat person’s death, I’m available any time, night or day,” he added. The best thing about Sammy was I knew he meant that, but I had a more immediate problem.

  “Can you do something to cheer them up?” I asked.

  “Can I?” he said with a wink. “It works out perfect because I stopped by to check out the room. You know, get a feel for the space with people in it. Don’t worry about it. I can take it from here.”

  He kept me next to him and addressed my early birds. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m the Amazing Dr. Sammy and I’m going to be doing table magic here this weekend,” he began. He looked down at his attire. “Oops, I didn’t realize I was still wearing this.” He whipped off the white coat with Dr. Glickner embroidered on it. “I’ll be wearing a tuxedo,” he said.

  He put his hand on my back and pushed me forward. “And this is my lovely assistant, Casey.” My group responded with smiles and I could feel their mood lifting already.

  Sammy was tall and had an imposing build. People at other tables had begun to look toward our little group. He made a magnanimous wave and invited everyone to gather around.

  When it seemed everyone who wanted to had joined us, Sammy reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards.

  Making eye contact with the crowd, Sammy began his patter. “You know there are people that think magicians are dorky,” he said as if he were letting them in on a secret. “The kind of guys who never get the girl.”

  The crowd murmured in agreement. Maybe a little too much, and Sammy’s smile dimmed for a moment before he continued. “Never underestimate the power of magic.” He had me pick a random card from the deck. Once I saw that it was the six of hearts, he had me show it to the crowd. “My assistant will write her name on it,” he said, handing me a pen. I’d never seen this trick and had no idea where it was going, so I did as he asked, including folding the card in quarters before he put it in my mouth.

  He picked a card and showed the crowd that it was the king of spades before writing the Amazing Dr. Sammy on it. As he folded it up, he said now he was going to demonstrate the power of his magic. He put the card in his mouth and then before I knew what was coming, he kissed me. He had caught me completely off guard and while I was still reeling from surprise, he told me to take the card out of my mouth and unfold it.

  “It’s the king of spades—with your name on it,” I said in amazement. He grinned as he took the card out of his mouth and showed off the six of hearts with my name on it.

  Then he delivered the punch line. “It’s all in the lips. A magical kiss. Pretty cool, huh? I tricked a girl into kissing me.”

  The trick had the desired effect and everyone laughed and rolled their eyes at the corny line. He even got a round of applause. He took a hammy bow and leaned into me. “Maybe we should practice that trick again.”

  Here was the problem with Sammy. There just wasn’t any magic in his kiss on my end. He thought it was technique and that he could somehow learn how to fix it. I didn’t share his opinion. Whether it was because he was too nice of a guy or my parents had endorsed him so
strongly, there was something missing for me and I didn’t think there was any way to change that.

  “You told me that you never repeated a trick,” I said with a laugh.

  “I can always make an exception,” he said with an overdone wiggle of his eyebrows. The mood of my little group had changed and the icing on the cake was when I told the early birds about our trip to the ranch the next morning.

  As we parted company, Bree was telling Olivia and Scott they ought to meet in the lobby of Sea and Sand for their own knitting session.

  “Thanks, Sammy,” I said when they’d gone. “Your trick did the trick,” I rolled my eyes at my too-clever comment. “Just a hint, though. You might not want to use that one over the weekend. Family crowd and all.” Sammy nodded with understanding.

  “I didn’t do it in the bar in Seaside, either. Not the trick for a bunch of drunken sailors.” Sammy laughed. “Actually, the only one I wanted to show it to was you.”

  What was I going to say? When someone wears their heart on their sleeve that way, you can’t just walk away. I gave him a warm hug before I left.

  Julius was waiting by the door. I checked his bowl and the chicken was still there. He did a few figure eights around my ankles and then went directly to the pantry, like I was supposed to follow him. He looked up at me with his yellow eyes and I swear his meow came out like “please.” I was never good at tough love even when I was a substitute teacher. He did a happy cat dance when I took out a can of stink fish.

  When he was happily eating, I was back to thinking about Nicole. It wasn’t just because of my obvious problem. I wondered what had happened to her. Wouldn’t the easy thing have been for Lieutenant Borgnine to explain they thought that she had died of heart failure or something? And why was he investigating unless he didn’t think she’d died from natural causes? I was willing to bet there were some suspicious circumstances.

  I looked at my watch and calculated the time difference in Chicago. It wasn’t that late, I thought, as I punched in the number.

  I didn’t have to say who it was; Frank recognized my voice before I’d gotten all of “hello” out.

  “Feldstein, it’s been a while. What’s up? You back in town or are you still in that town that sounds like a chocolate bar?” Frank had been my boss when I did the temp work at the detective agency in Chicago. It had been my favorite temp job and if I’d been offered a permanent position, I probably never would have ended up in Cadbury. But Frank’s fortunes came and went with the clients who came and went, and he couldn’t hire permanent help.

  “I’m still in Cadbury,” I said. “I just wanted to run something by you.”

  “Oh no, Feldstein. What happened this time?” Frank always sat in a recliner and kept trying to push its limit of recline, which made the chair protest. It was a loud-enough squeak to hear through the phone, but this time all I heard was silence.

  “Where are you? I don’t hear your chair.” I heard Frank laugh.

  “Good detective work, Feldstein. I’m not in the office. I’m doing a surveillance. Insurance case. A woman claimed she threw her back out picking up something at work. Her Facebook status said she was going for a dance lesson. I’m sitting outside the dance studio waiting to see if she’s going to strut her stuff.”

  I apologized for bothering him while he was working, but he said it was pretty boring sitting in his car watching a bunch of people mangle the tango.

  “You know how to tango?” I said, surprised. I always said Frank had more resemblance to the Pillsbury Doughboy than to James Bond.

  “There’s lots you don’t know about me, Feldstein. Underneath my gruff exterior, I’m a romantic.” He made some grumbly noises. “Forget I said that last part. You were going to tell me something.”

  “This woman I know died—” I said before Frank interrupted me.

  “Not another death. Feldstein, it’s a small town with a low crime rate. You come to town and people start dying. I hope they don’t start connecting the dots.”

  “I didn’t say she was murdered. I just said she died.” I told him what I knew and then ran by how Lieutenant Borgnine was investigating. “Don’t you think that makes it sound like there was something suspicious about her death?”

  “Well, yeah,” Frank said in slightly sarcastic tone. “Young women don’t usually die sitting on a bench. What was she doing there anyway? Didn’t you say she was supposed to be meeting you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer, but went on. “Feldstein, I trust you know where to start.”

  “Yeah, flirt with the cop down the street,” I said with a sigh. Frank had suggested that when I got involved with my first murder and was looking for information. Frank laughed.

  “You can do it, Feldstein. A little hair twirling and eyelash batting and he’ll tell you everything.” Frank was teasing me. He knew I wasn’t good at that girly kind of flirting, but what he didn’t know was that I liked Dane. Liked was the wrong word. That was the kind of thing I said in elementary school about the boy who sat in front of me in seventh grade. There was a definite attraction thing going on between Dane and me, which I had been trying to ignore. I cringed, realizing the whole phone call had just been so he would tell me to do what I really wanted to do all along.

  I thanked Frank for his advice, wished him luck with the lady dancer and hung up.

  There was no time like the present to follow Frank’s advice. I couldn’t go to Dane’s empty-handed, so I went to the refrigerator and took out one of the logs of butter cookie dough. I had made up a double batch and had them wrapped and ready to slice and bake for my retreaters. There would still be plenty with one less log.

  While the cookies baked, I tried to spruce up my appearance. The long-sleeved black T-shirt and snug but comfortable jeans were a little dull. I tried to emulate Nicole’s style and swirled an aqua cotton scarf around my neck. Even with the swirl, it looked forced to me and I took it off. Maybe a little more makeup, I thought, trying to do the Crystal thing with black eyeliner. It looked great on the yarn store owner, but I didn’t have her touch and on me it looked like a cross between some Addams Family character and a raccoon. I washed my face and started again. When I’d put on what served as makeup for me and checked myself in the mirror, I felt better. I looked like me. The timer for the cookies was going off as I made another attempt with something around my neck. This time I dropped a cherry red cowl over my head and it felt natural. I finished by taking the scrunchy out of my hair and shaking it loose.

  A short time later I left with a plate of hot cookies.

  No matter how much I tried to tell myself that I was just going down there to find out what Dane knew about Nicole’s death, I realized it was an excuse to go see him. Why fight nature. Even my mother had seen it.

  I had the rest of the evening free. Since the Blue Door was closed on Wednesdays, I didn’t have to go in and bake. Wednesdays were muffinless in town, too.

  I needed my flashlight to guide the way since there were no streetlights in Cadbury. It was even darker here on the edge of town with all the trees. I was glad to see the street wasn’t parked up, meaning there was no karate workshop going on in his garage.

  As I got closer, I began to get nervous. When I didn’t take off like a scared rabbit, he’d get the hint. But was I opening Pandora’s box? I could smell the wood smoke from his fireplace and had an image of the cozy room inside.

  And then I was at his front door. I could hear a low hum of voices, the TV, no doubt. I took a deep breath and punched the bell. It took a few moments before he opened the door and I put on my very best beaming smile.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said. I should have gotten the message that there was something wrong when he sounded surprised and uncomfortable, but I was too caught up in what I was doing to notice.

  I presented the cookies. “They’re nice and warm,” I said, trying to make it sound seductive. “You know how
you’re always saying I should come over and stay sometime. Well, here I am.” He glanced toward the inside of the house, but instead of opening the door and inviting me in, he pulled it closed behind him as he came outside. He took the plate of cookies and snagged one. “Up to your usual standards,” he said when he’d eaten it. He saw me looking at the door.

  “It’s kind of awkward,” he said. “I have company.”

  From inside, I heard a woman’s voice calling out and asking what had happened to him.

  Oops. No, super oops. Of course he wasn’t sitting around waiting for me to pick up on his teasing. He had somebody. I started to back away, but he grabbed my hand.

  He started to say something and then seemed to give up. “It’s complicated.” He let go of my hand and seemed upset. “Whatever you think it is, is right.”

  I wanted to disappear. How embarrassing. But I wasn’t fourteen, so I pulled myself together, remembering my other mission, and tried to pretend it was the sole reason I was there.

  “No problem,” I said, doing my best to sound indifferent. “I was hoping you might have some details about what happened to Nicole Welton.” I mentioned that Lieutenant Borgnine had stopped by to question my people, but wouldn’t tell us anything.

  “I heard about that,” Dane said with a grin. “I saw him taking a couple of aspirin when he got back. He complained that you refused to give him a straight answer about anything and just kept asking questions.”

  “I was only trying to find out what happened,” I said, and Dane chuckled.

  “I think he might have met his match with you.” Dane made another glance toward his house and I got it: He was anxious to get back to his company.

  “Sorry to keep you,” I said, forcing myself not to sound sarcastic. “I’ll take any and all details.” I pleaded my case. “She was the center of my retreat and I ought to know what happened.”

  Dane must have felt guilty for the awkward circumstance because he was very forthcoming with information. The first detail was anything but what I was expecting. “We think it was suicide.”