A Knit before Dying

by Sadie Hartwell

  “I’m sure,” Evelyn said decisively. “In fact, I’ll put away the soup myself. Now go.”

  Josie did as she was told.

  Chapter 19

  When Josie had lived in New York, she hadn’t had much—okay, any—opportunity to drive just for the joy of it. Driving was just a way to get from one place to another, and frankly it was nearly always easier to just walk or take a cab or even the subway rather than compete with the traffic. Let alone find a legal place to park. So now that she had an unexpectedly free afternoon, she decided to take advantage of it.

  She drove to the end of Main Street, past the g.s. and the town hall, and out into the countryside, which was blooming with early spring flowers. She made a mental note to ask Evelyn or Helen about putting in some bulbs at the farmhouse this fall. Some nice cheerful daffodils and little purple crocuses. Maybe she’d even try some tulips. How hard could it be?

  She almost laughed at herself, making plans for next spring. Was that her subconscious telling her she was planning to stay in Dorset Falls, even if the information hadn’t quite caught up to her brain yet? Maybe.

  And here might be another indication her subconscious was working overtime, though she didn’t know what it meant. The sign on the pole up ahead read RYDER ROAD. Well, she was here. She might as well take a look and see how the construction was going. She rolled to a stop in the driveway, which had been paved all the way to the house, then opened up into a new parking lot she hadn’t noticed before. It spanned the distance from the old Ryder house to the large barn on the right.

  Since she’d last been here, a sign had been placed in the front yard. Made of carved and painted wood with some dull gold metallic accents, the sign featured two hands, crossed at the wrists, each holding an old-fashioned tankard. ETHAN ALLEN BREWERY was written under the logo. Josie had thought Ethan Allen was a Vermonter, so she had to wonder why he was lending his name to a tavern in Western Connecticut. Yankee was Yankee, she supposed.

  The ancient clapboards encasing the house had received a fresh coat of white paint, and the front door and shutters were now a glossy black. A banner, probably made of some kind of vinyl, was tacked up to the left of the door. OPENING IN MAY, it proclaimed. Josie wondered if that was wishful thinking. It was March now, and that didn’t leave a whole lot of time to get this place up and running. Late May, maybe.

  The barn was made of weathered dark wood that had a faint, rich glow. Based on the chemical scent that was now drifting toward her, it had recently been stained or sealed. A sign, smaller and simpler than the main sign out front, hung over the door. BREW HOUSE, it said. This must be where the beer-making equipment was going. Though it was possible the new owners were going to brew their own beer somewhere else. She’d been in brewpubs in New York that did not have on-premises vats and tanks and whatever else it took to produce the beverage.

  The sound of tires on gravel made Josie crane her head. She probably wasn’t supposed to be here. DLG Construction was painted on the door of the truck that had pulled up next to her on the other lane of the driveway. Darrell Gray got out and came to her door.

  “Long time no see,” he said with a grin. “What brings you out here?”

  Josie breathed a little sigh of relief. She wasn’t in trouble. “Evelyn’s minding the shop this afternoon, and I’m headed home early, but I thought I’d swing by and see how things were going here.”

  Darrell gave her an assessing look. “Yeah, Margo and I are excited about a new business coming to town too. You want to come in and have a look around?”

  “I do,” she said. “How’d you know?” She got out of the car and planted her feet on the driveway. The sun was warm on her face, and the breeze smelled fresh and clean, now that she was upwind of the freshly coated barn.

  “This is one of the oldest houses in Litchfield County. Pre-Revolutionary War.” He closed her door behind her. “If I hadn’t already seen the inside, I’d want to. Come on.” Darrell led the way over two thick, worn slabs of rock that served as steps, over the threshold, and inside.

  Josie found herself standing in a foyer, facing a set of steep stairs lined with a delicate wood balustrade. Doorways framed in simple painted woodwork lay to her right and left. “This,” Darrell said, gesturing to one doorway, “will be the bar. And on the opposite side will be the dining room. We’re not taking down any walls. The new owners want to preserve as much of the house’s integrity as they can.”

  Josie liked them already. “Who are they? I haven’t heard anything about them.”

  “They’re from somewhere near Boston, I think. He’s an architect; she’s an engineer of some kind. They retired early and decided to come out here and open a brewery. Probably hoping to hobnob with some celebrities.”

  Josie had heard Litchfield County was home to a fair number of famous actors and musicians, who liked the country life, but needed to be within a couple of hours drive to New York City, but she had yet to meet any. Maybe she should hire Evelyn to give private knitting lessons. That might draw some in to the shop.

  Darrell led Josie through the dining room door. Another room of approximately the same dimensions lay through a wide archway, so there appeared there’d be plenty of indoor seating, possibly some outdoors in the nice weather, if the owners were smart and put in a covered patio. Each room had its own fireplace complete with wooden mantel carved with a shell design. Josie closed her eyes, then opened them again to take a fresh view of the rooms. This front room was probably where Bea had spent most of her time, knitting, crocheting, reading perhaps. Josie had no idea what Bea had looked like, but she could picture her anyway. The farther room had probably been the dining room, or maybe a second parlor. She wondered if there was a borning room, like she had back at Eb’s farm.

  Josie didn’t believe in woo-woo, but this house seemed peaceful, even though it must have seen its share of death and tragedy over the centuries of its existence. Bea hadn’t died here, Josie was almost sure of it. How she knew, she couldn’t say.

  Darrell led her through to the back of the house, where an enormous hole lined with stones took up an entire wall. “Original beehive oven,” he said. “There aren’t too many of these left outside of houses that have been turned into museums. The last owner’s lucky his tenants didn’t destroy it.”

  “Oven? Women used to cook in these things? That must have taken some skill.” The opposite wall was lined with knotty pine cabinets topped with yellow countertops with a turquoise-blue boomerang design. Fifties era, if Josie had to guess. There was a deep white porcelain sink and an electric range. Had Bea stood at this stove, preparing simple, single-person meals? It was impossible to tell.

  “They did, using cast-iron pots. I understand there were a lot of burn injuries, which only makes sense. We’re putting on an addition off this room. Restaurant kitchen and updated restrooms. It’s going to be nice.”

  “I’ll bet it will. Thanks for showing me.” Josie turned to go back the way they’d come.

  “Do you want to see upstairs? The owners are going to use that as office and storage space. There are just some bedrooms up there, nothing really to see. Once the brewery build is done, we’re breaking ground on a new house for the owners on the far side of the property. They designed it themselves, and it’s going to be a showplace.”

  Josie was tempted, but she’d already burned through any extra time she had. “Thanks. I have to get home. I can’t wait to come out here for dinner and a drink.”

  “I don’t know if they’ll make May, but they’ll be open by midsummer.”

  A few minutes later Josie was back in her more or less trusty Saab and headed for home. Bea Ryder seemed to have replaced Lyndon, Taylor, and Kai in her thoughts. The Ryder property seemed fairly large, and there were a number of other outbuildings besides the barns. Was Bea’s body somewhere inside her house? Inside that enormous oven? Or buried somewhere on her own property? Surely that would have been the first place the decades-ago police would have looked. Of
course technology wasn’t as good then as it was now. But maybe they hadn’t needed technology. Josie was pretty sure the police were using trained dogs back then. And if they had used dogs, wouldn’t the dogs have found Bea?

  Clearly, they hadn’t. And Josie was fresh out of ideas of where Bea might be.

  Chapter 20

  Eb’s truck was gone from the driveway when Josie pulled in. She opened the front door cautiously and peeked in before entering. Jethro didn’t greet her, so the dog was either sleeping or had gone with Eb. She looked around. No note on the dining room table. Not that she’d expected one. Eb had been keeping his own schedule and not answering to anyone for most of his life. He was unlikely to start now just because Josie had moved in. Her great-uncle would come back when he was good and ready. No sense worrying about him.

  Josie headed for the kitchen, shrugging out of her heavy sweater on the way. She draped it over the back of a chair. It was tempting to go take that nap before getting ready to go help Lorna. But it was equally tempting to see how the doilies she’d washed out were faring.

  They appeared to be as she’d left them, laid out on bath towels on the kitchen table. She placed her palm on one. Bea, she thought. What happened to you? The doilies didn’t answer, of course. She almost wished they would. Her hand came away damp, but not soaking wet. Now was the perfect time to set their shapes with a hot iron.

  Josie hadn’t actually ironed anything since she’d lived in Dorset Falls. None of the clothes she wore now required it, nor could she say she missed it. She recalled seeing an iron in the oversized bathroom closet, which was where everything from antacids to extra pillows were stored. She retrieved it. The appliance looked relatively new, and she was virtually certain Eb had never ironed anything in his life, so she assumed this had been something Cora had brought into the house.

  Back in the kitchen, she plugged it in and waited for it to heat. In the meantime, she took a clean white kitchen towel, dampened it, and wrung it out, then laid it on top of the first doily. She went back to the sink. There were a couple of coffee mugs in the sink, so she washed those out and put them in the dish drainer. As she turned to go back to her project, the door to Eb’s workshop creaked open, probably set in motion by the movement of one of the old floorboards under her feet.

  Josie looked inside. Eb had a good-sized inventory of his thingamajigs stacked several deep in front of the worktable. He’d been in some kind of artistic frenzy the past few weeks, but didn’t seem to have any clear plan for his work. Eventually he’d have to do something with his sculptures, otherwise he might box himself in some day and not be able to get out, like a hoarder on that television show.

  A coffee mug sat precariously on top of one of the piles of rusty metal on the workbench. She went in to retrieve it. Who knew how long it had been in there? It was probably growing a new—alien?—life form within its depths by now. She stretched out her arm over some of the finished sculptures.

  And knocked over a pile of junk onto the workbench, where it fell with a nerve-jangling clatter of metal.

  “Great.” There was no way she’d be able to put things back the way they were, so she wouldn’t even bother to try. She made a preemptive apology to Coco. Her cat was about to take the blame—and take one for the team.

  But no. There was no point in not being honest with Eb when he got home. She was a big girl, and it had been an accident. She moved around to the other side of the worktable and sat down. So this, minus the toppled pile of cogs and springs and gears and whatever else this stuff was that was now spread all over the surface, was what Eb was looking at when he worked on his thingamajigs. Josie wasn’t claustrophobic, but it was a tight space. She gathered as much of the detritus as she could into a pile. Her foot bumped something. It didn’t hurt, but it surprised her. She looked down.

  Holding up one leg of the table, probably to keep it level on the crooked floor of the workshop, was a book. Josie craned her head to look at it. Official Manual of the U.S. Coast Guard: Semaphore and Morse Code. Eb didn’t seem to keep any other books here in the workshop, or anywhere else in the house for that matter, so she wondered where it came from. He could have gotten it anywhere, she supposed. Perhaps his father or uncle or grandfather had been in the coast guard. She knew little about her ancestors other than the fact that they’d lived in this house.

  She picked up the coffee mug, which did indeed have a dry dark ring around the inside. At least Eb drank his coffee black. Cream and sugar would have been much nastier at this stage. Josie closed the workshop door behind her, making sure it was securely latched, and deposited the cup into the sink. A good soak in hot water with a generous squirt of soap should do the trick.

  The ready light glowed orange from the iron. Josie dried her hands, then went to work. Placing the soleplate of the iron on the damp press cloth, she applied gentle pressure as a hiss of steam wafted up. She moved the iron until she had pressed the entire doily, the way Evelyn had shown her. When Josie removed the cloth, which was now essentially dry, the doily underneath was set in its shape. Now when it dried completely, it would be ready to use.

  Wetting and wringing the press cloth again, Josie repeated the process with the other doilies. Once she found her rhythm, it didn’t take long to finish them all. She straightened, stretched out her lower back, unplugged the iron, then glanced at the kitchen clock. It was well after three. She needed to clean up before she went to meet Lorna.

  * * *

  Less than an hour later, showered, shampooed, and dressed in black pants and a white T-shirt as Lorna had instructed her, Josie pulled up and parked in front of Lorna’s apartment. They’d be taking Lorna’s car, which had a larger back area than Josie’s Saab. Josie locked up and was about to ring the bell when Lorna appeared at the door. Her arms were full. Josie opened the door for her, then reached out to take the top box from the stack that her friend was carrying. “Let me help you with that,” she said.

  “Thanks. I shouldn’t have tried to carry two boxes at once. It’s asking for a disaster.” Lorna walked to her car, then set the box on the crisp brown grass of the lawn while she found her keys and opened the trunk. “At least we don’t have to bring dishes or table linens. Dougie says they have those at the house and we should use them.”

  It took three trips to bring everything down the stairs, including a picnic cooler that Josie assumed held the perishables. She would have thought the stuff would have been okay for the twenty-minute drive to the lake, but Lorna was the food professional, and Josie deferred to her judgment. Each holding one end, they bumped the cooler down the stairs and wrangled it into the car. After they shifted some items around, the trunk lid finally closed.

  “That’s everything,” Lorna said. “You ready to go?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Josie replied. “Do I need to move my car?”

  Lorna eyed the Saab. “Nope, it should be fine there.”

  “I hope you know the way. I don’t think I ever went to the lake when I lived here as a kid.”

  “It’s not far.” Lorna got into her SUV, and Josie followed suit. “A few miles from town. No public beach, so it’s no surprise we never went there back in the day.” Once they were buckled up, Lorna pulled away from the curb.

  As they drove, Josie gave Lorna a rundown on what had gone on earlier in town.

  “I heard that there was filming going on in front of the antique store,” Lorna said. “But not about some made-up curse. That’s pretty low, exploiting Lyndon’s death for a television show that doesn’t actually exist yet.”

  “Or for any show. Or any reason.” The more she thought about it, the angrier Josie got. Taylor and Kai were pieces of work, as her mother would have said if she were here.

  Josie decided to change the subject. It was going to be a long evening, and it would go better for everyone if she could play her part with a smile on her face. “So who’ll be at this dinner party tonight? What will you have me doing?”

  Lorna put on he
r blinker and made a left turn to head west. “To answer your questions out of order, all the prep work is done, thanks to your coming over the other night. So we’ll throw the potatoes and the roast into the oven. Closer to serving time, we’ll cook the vegetable and whip the cream for the dessert. But it’ll mostly be assembly. Are you comfortable with serving? It’ll be more efficient with two of us.”

  Josie had somehow missed the obligatory table-waiting gig while living in New York. Most everyone she knew had worked in a restaurant at some point during his or her residence in the Big Apple. But she’d eaten at enough establishments that she thought she knew more or less how it was done. She hoped. “Zero experience in that department, but I can follow your lead.”

  Lorna laughed. “Just remember to serve, pour, and clear from the right of the guest, and you’ll be fine.” Josie would be extra fine if she didn’t dump dinner into anyone’s lap.

  “To answer your other question, Dougie didn’t give me a guest list, and we’re not doing a formal seating arrangement. But I know it will be him, his father, and his friend Rick Steuben, plus eight other men. Their official Collingswood reunion is tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I guess as long as we keep the food and alcohol coming, they’ll be happy.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” Lorna said. “Meat, potatoes, and liquor.” She pulled off the pavement onto a gravel road. Even with her trusty GPS unit, whose Italian-accented voice she had named Antonio, Josie wasn’t sure she could have found this place. There was no sign, just a space between trees on a heavily wooded stretch of road.

  The trees formed a dense canopy overhead. There was still daylight left, but it barely filtered down through the leaves. Was this old-growth forest? If it wasn’t, Josie was willing to bet it was on its way to reclaiming that designation.

  Gravel crunched under the tires as they rolled along at a whopping speed of fifteen miles an hour. “It’s about half a mile up this road,” Lorna said. “So sit back and enjoy the drive.”