Yarn to Go

by Betty Hechtman

  Bree seemed to be feigning interest in what I was saying. Lucinda was polite. I knew she’d heard it all before, probably many times. Scott was keeping his distance from the group, so much so that a passerby might not have even realized he was with us. Melissa and Sissy were arguing about something, and I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with the lighthouse. In other words, my spiel was pretty much for nothing. I checked to see if maybe I’d captured Olivia’s attention, but she had gone on ahead and was crossing the street that ran between the lighthouse grounds and the water.

  Sunset Avenue made a loop around the lighthouse before snaking along the coast. On the other side of the street a narrow strip of land ran along the rocky cliff. I couldn’t see the waves, but I could hear them hitting the rocks below. Olivia stopped next to a weathered bench facing the water.

  “Is that where it happened?” Bree asked, pointing to the little slip of land Olivia was standing on.

  “Yes,” I said in a low voice, realizing this destination wasn’t any better than the cemetery. “Amanda must have been sitting on that bench, knitting and looking at the water.” It didn’t seem like the most peaceful spot for the activity, but there was something mesmerizing about the rhythm of the waves and the salty breeze. “I heard she lived inland. Maybe she just wanted to get in a little more time by the sea.”

  “But how did she go over the edge?” Bree said with a shudder.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she heard a harbor seal or something and went to have a look and . . .” This time both Bree and I shuddered.

  By now Olivia had walked to the edge of the unprotected bluff. I didn’t know much about her other than she had brought sleeping pills with her, seemed upset about something and the trip had been a gift to get her out of town. Was it my imagination or was she teetering on the edge? Without hesitating, I ran across the street and grabbed her from behind, pulling her back. As I did, I caught a glimpse of the waves rolling over the piles of rocks nestled against the base of the cliff.

  When I let go, she looked at me as if I was crazy.

  “What are you doing?” she said, straightening the cream-colored fleece jacket she had on over her velour pants. Either I was wrong or she was trying to cover up what I’d stopped her from doing. Either way it was an awkward moment. The rest of the group caught up with us, even Scott, hidden in his hoodie, and we all stood watching the waves lash against the rocks below.

  As I stood there, something else I knew about Olivia suddenly popped into my mind. In all the confusion I’d forgotten until that moment that Olivia had walked Edie back to her room and must have been the last person to see her alive.

  11

  KRIS WAS KNITTING AT THE LONG TABLE IN OUR meeting room when we got back from the walk. Everyone was glad for the cozy interior, and there was an instant run on the coffee and tea service.

  I hung back and let them all go first. As Olivia approached me, I noticed she’d gone from appearing distracted to looking upset. “I just want you to know that what you think you saw was wrong,” she said.

  “It would help if I knew what was on your mind,” I said, glad that we were out of the earshot of the others.

  “Right now it’s being a suspect in Edie’s murder,” she snapped. “Someone told Lieutenant Borgnine that I insisted on taking Edie back to her room.” Olivia glared at the group as they brought their drinks to the long table. “I said I was just trying to be helpful since her room was down the hall from mine, but that cop acted as if it was some kind of plot so I could kill her.”

  So, I hadn’t been the only one who’d remembered that Olivia had escorted Edie to her room. I thought Lieutenant Borgnine had handled it wrong. Instead of accusing her outright, he should have tried to pump her for information first and then accused her. I considered trying to find out how Edie had been when Olivia left her. But I’d learned something during my work for Frank. If I started questioning someone on the phone and I hit a sensitive spot and they got all angry, the chance of getting any useful information was gone. I suspected the same was true of Olivia right now.

  Kris rapped on the table to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s try to get back to work on your projects.” The low hum of conversation stopped, and they drifted toward the table.

  As Melissa passed Olivia and me, she stopped. “I heard you talking,” Melissa said, her face squeezed in distress. “It was me. I’m so sorry. But I didn’t imply you had anything to do with Edie’s death. He asked me what I remembered about that night. I told him that I’d had some wine and was feeling a little fuzzy around the edges. I mentioned that you seemed upset about something and that you’d offered to help Edie back to her room.”

  Bree’s phone began to beep, and we all jumped at the sound as she quickly answered it, while mouthing sorry to all of us. “Mommy is in the middle of something,” she said in into the phone in a singsongy voice that was almost as irritating as the loud chirp the phone made.

  Scott had dropped his hoodie as soon as he came inside and slid into a chair. He grabbed his giant needles and happily began to work on the red lap blanket. Lucinda couldn’t help herself and was checking cups to see if anyone needed a refill of coffee or tea.

  As Bree tried to end her call, Sissy stepped between Melissa and Olivia. “Mother, how could you tell that cop that Olivia killed Edie?”

  A gasp went through the group, and Bree clicked off her call without even saying good-bye. Melissa looked like she might cry and repeated that it was a misunderstanding. Kris rapped on the table again.

  “Our whole schedule has gotten off track, and I understand that what happened to Edie has us all on edge, but I think you should turn those energies into something positive. We only have limited time together.” She gestured toward the array of yarn and projects on the table, but no one moved.

  During my stint as a substitute teacher I’d had to deal with lots of unruly kids and had discovered the best way to get a handle on the situation was to ask for their help. I thought the same strategy might work with this group.

  I went over to the table and picked up the swatch I’d been working on. “You all know how to knit, but I’m just a struggling beginner. This may sound stupid, but what do I do now? How to I end the swatch?”

  It worked, and suddenly the whole dynamic of the room changed. The people who were standing found their seats as everyone looked toward my dangling piece of knit material. They had all become a team to help me.

  “I can certainly help you with that,” Olivia said, taking the swatch from me. She did some fast work with the needles and one of the stitches was hanging off the side.

  “It’s no good to do it for her,” Melissa said. “Remember that thing about giving someone a fish or teaching them to get their own.” She took the swatch from Olivia and handed it back to me.

  Kris sat back and seemed glad to let them take over. Melissa told me to knit another stitch and then slip the first one over it and off the needle. I was clumsy as I followed her directions but was able to do it, and now there were two finished stitches hanging off the needle.

  Scott looked up from his work. “That’s it. Keep going. Now knit another stitch and do the same.” They all watched as I moved across the row. Lucinda gave me a thumbs-up and a pat on the back when I got to the end.

  Unfortunately, as soon as I’d finished binding off my swatch, Sissy brought up Edie again. “Do any of us know what happened to Edie—like how she died?” Sissy glanced around the table. “I tried asking the cop who questioned me, but he kept saying, ‘I can’t give out that information yet,’ no matter what I asked him.”

  “He told me the medical examiner has to investigate and determine the cause of death. The best I got was that she died under suspicious circumstances,” Lucinda said, shaking her head with disbelief. “I could have told him that.” Suddenly all eyes were on her, and Olivia asked why she was so sure. So far the three of us who’d found E
die hadn’t mentioned the knitting needles sticking in Edie’s chest or the red stuff all over the place. Lucinda caught herself and said it just looked fishy to her, but she didn’t remember why.

  Kris seemed exasperated. “You’re getting distracted again. Please, all of you, let’s get back to knitting. I’m going to help Casey learn how to pick up a dropped stitch.” She walked around the table and leaned in close to me. “We need to keep their minds off of Edie.”

  It worked. At the mention of dropped stitches, they left the discussion of Edie and all started sharing their stories of stitches they’d lost and how they’d fixed them. Meanwhile, Kris had me start a new swatch.

  When I’d knitted a bunch of rows and was in the middle of one, Kris had me stop. In order to fix a dropped stitch, you had to drop one and then keep knitting. Doing it by accident apparently wasn’t hard, but doing it on purpose was another story. Kris told me to push one of the loops off the needle without knitting it first. Since I knew this was going to make a problem, it was hard for me to do. As I hesitated, Kris said, “Drop it, Casey.”

  Then the others joined her, and pretty soon there was chant going of “Drop it, Casey.” When I finally nudged the loop off the needle, they all applauded. It was certainly the first time I’d gotten a round of applause for making a mistake.

  All their eyes were glued to my little swatch as I followed Kris’s directions and kept knitting more rows and watching the fallen loop slip farther and farther down.

  Kris finally held up her hand and told me to stop. “Now the fun begins,” she said, handing me a metal thing with a hooked end. “You’ll fix it with a crochet hook.” She gave me some story of it being like a ladder as she pulled the loop up through the first missed row and then turned it over to me.

  Give me a dessert gone wrong anytime rather than this. I could do wonders to a lopsided cake, with buttercream frosting. Cookies that crumbled got mixed with melted butter and became pie crust. But this—I was sweating by the time I wove that loop through all the rows and finally put it back on the needle.

  Somehow my learning how to pick up a stitch served as a catalyst to the group and they all picked up their projects without another word about Edie. I suggested that since we’d missed a lot of our workshop time, we go through to just before dinner. It seemed like everyone had reached a stumbling block and needed Kris’s help and they were glad for the extra time with her.

  As for me—now that I’d learned how to cast on, knit, bind off, and fix a dropped stitch, Kris pushed me to start my real project. I held up the directions that had been in my tote bag. There was a picture of the finished scarf. “This is way too complicated. The scarf has bands of different colors,” I wailed.

  Kris smiled indulgently at me, held up a skein of my yarn and pointed to the name of the pattern. “It’s called It Only Looks Complicated. Casey, check out this yarn. See how it changes into different colors? The yarn makes the stripes for you.”

  “Really?” I said, viewing it with amazement. “If only it could knit itself, too.”

  Lucinda was the only one who chuckled.

  Kris stood over me while I clumsily casted on the stitches and began the first row. She went into her cheerleader mode. “Yay, you’ve got it. Now just keep going,” she said, giving me an encouraging pat before moving on to Sissy.

  Toward the end of the workshop, I ducked out to check on what was happening with the police investigation. The sun had finally come out and was making shadows from the trees limbs. Everything looked normal from a distance, but when I got closer I could see that the yellow tape was still strung around the perimeter of the building. I walked around to check the back of the building and saw there were still a police car and the white van there. The back door of the building opened, and two men brought out a gurney with something dark on top. I shuddered when I realized it was a body bag and Edie zipped inside. I couldn’t help but remember how excited she’d been when she arrived at Vista Del Mar. Who would have guessed this was the way she was going to leave?

  Once they’d loaded the gurney inside, the van pulled away and slowly drove down the narrow road.

  “What are you doing here?” Lieutenant Borgnine said, startling me as he came from behind.

  “I wanted to see if my group could get in their rooms.” I gestured toward the yellow tape. “When is it coming down?”

  “Miss Feldstein, as long as you’re here, I’d like to talk to you again,” he said, totally ignoring my question. “Maybe this time you won’t be so uncooperative. You know I could take your abrupt departure before as an effort to hide something.” He let it all sink in for a moment before continuing. “You didn’t mention that the victim was falling down drunk and had to be helped to her room, nor did you mention the party who did the helping.” He paused a beat. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

  As he was talking, all I could think about were those needles missing from my aunt’s, which seemed awfully likely to be the ones stuck in Edie’s chest. But I wasn’t about to volunteer anything.

  12

  I GOT BACK TO THE WORKSHOP JUST AS THEY WERE finishing up. The only positive thing about my run-in with Lieutenant Borgnine was that I was there when he released the murder scene and Sand and Sea was once again available to the residents. He had tried his best to squeeze information out of me, and I had done my best to get information from him. We were both losers.

  When I worked for the detective agency, Frank had always said my job was to get information, not give it. I was pleased that I’d learned my lesson well.

  “Are you sure we can go back in our rooms?” Bree said, her brows knit in worry. I nodded, but just to be sure, I said I would accompany the group to the building. Only Scott went off on his own.

  I went inside first and checked it out for them. A fire had been laid in the living room area, and everything seemed normal. The only hint that anything had gone on was that several housekeeping carts had been arranged to block off the end of the dark wood hallway where Edie’s room was located.

  Once I gave the all clear, they filed in. Kris thanked me before heading upstairs. The rest went to rooms on the first floor. I’d hoped to get a chance to talk to Lucinda, but she was already on the phone with Tag, and I gathered there was another dustup at the restaurant. I’d have to catch up with her later.

  The afternoon was waning as I walked away from the Sand and Sea building. The brief bit of blue sky had been replaced by a thick layer of white clouds. I let out a sigh of relief as I headed down the slope through a sea of tall golden grass. How had my aunt managed these weekends? But then she hadn’t had a murder to contend with.

  Finally, now that I had a moment alone with my thoughts, I went through my phone conversation with Frank. He’d given me so many things to think about, and they were all more or less a jumble in my mind. Who had motive? Well, that was easy, since Edie seemed to be in the middle of everybody’s business. Who had opportunity? The obvious person was Olivia, since she had walked Edie back to her room. The thing was, it seemed almost too obvious. Who had means? Assuming the murder weapon was my aunt’s knitting needles, it had to be someone who knew they were there. But why go to the trouble of getting those particular needles? What could set them apart? The only reason I could come up with was it was a way to get needles with fingerprints on them that weren’t the killer’s. As an afterthought, I remembered some of the fingerprints were mine . . .

  I had hoped for a cup of coffee in the meeting room, but when I’d gotten around to checking the container, it was lukewarm and almost gone. This had been a long day, and there was still dinner and a night knit get-together to handle. I needed a jolt of caffeine.

  By now I’d passed the main driveway that served as the entrance and exit to the grounds. Ahead the road narrowed and ran past the Lodge. With the dining hall just a short distance beyond, I thought of this area as being the heart of Vista Del Mar. The
hotel van had pulled in front of the double doors of the social hall, and several people were getting out with their bags, no doubt to check in.

  I followed them into the building, hoping the gift shop was still open with its coffee wagon. The large room was busier than I’d seen it since the beginning of our retreat. It was filled with guests who had finished their afternoon activities and were waiting for dinner. Though somewhere in the white sky the sun was still up, all the lights were blazing inside.

  Four people were having a table tennis tournament at the back of the large open room. A family was gathered around the pool table preparing to start a game. The couches and chairs in the sitting area were all full, and the one TV in the whole resort was tuned to the news.

  I glanced toward the window that overlooked a large deck on the opposite side of the building from where I’d entered. I was surprised to see heat lamps and a crowd of people. When I looked closer, I saw Kevin St. John bringing out bottles of wine. This seemed more elaborate than the impromptu toast we’d had the night before. Kevin filled the glasses on a tray, and one of several uniformed servers picked the tray up and started to circulate through the crowd. I watched as a woman took a glass and set it onto one of the posts along the railing. A moment later, the woman next to her hit the glass with her elbow and sent it tumbling. I don’t know how Kevin St. John managed it, but within a moment he had replaced the glass on the post. I supposed there was a lot of breakage with outdoor events, remembering I’d heard a crash of glass at ours.

  A waiter carrying a tray of some kind of appetizers headed for the door to the deck, and I asked him what was going on.