Yarn to Go

by Betty Hechtman

  We looked through the needles next and picked out a pair of large ones. “This way I can make my square faster,” I said. We grabbed several other sets to bring along so Olivia could have her choice. While I snagged a tote bag from my aunt’s collection and packed up the supplies, Lucinda fixed her hair and put on fresh lipstick. I didn’t even think to glance in the mirror.

  When we came outside, I saw something dark and small moving through the plants in the backyard. I shined my flashlight on it and saw that it was the black cat. Instead of taking off, it sat down near us.

  “There’s that cat again,” Lucinda said. “He seems to like you.”

  “Him?” I said. “How can you tell?”

  “I’m not a cat expert, but something about the face makes me think it’s a male.”

  “He must belong to somebody around here,” I said.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” my friend said as the cat walked away with a flick of its tall before we headed back across the street. In our absence, everyone but Olivia had continued to work on their squares. I was touched when everyone wanted to help me start mine. Only Kris acted as a taskmaster and said I needed to learn how to do it myself. The whole thing about learning how to fish instead of being handed one, again. Personally, I would have taken the help. I doubted I’d be knitting when the weekend was done. Actually, I was wondering if I’d even keep it up all weekend.

  But for now, I didn’t want to make any waves. Olivia reluctantly accepted a skein of yarn and picked from the needles I’d brought. Lucinda was able to start her square on her own, but I had already forgotten how to cast on. Kris did a demo and told me how many stitches I needed so my square would turn out about the right size. Once I had the stitches on my needle, I began knitting and was surprised when my fingers seemed to know what to do on their own.

  “See, your fingers already remember,” Kris said, nodding with approval as I went through the first row. Then she picked up her own work. I was shocked to see that her square was already almost complete. I think she was very happy to blend into the background.

  Bree held up her work and tried to compare it with everyone else’s. “Oh no,” she wailed. “I thought were supposed to make it in the garter stitch.”

  “There’s no wrong way, Bree,” Sissy said. “Kris said the only requirement was that they’re about the same size.”

  Bree apologized. “I’m just so used to being with a group that is all working on exactly the same thing.”

  “And you worry about getting it wrong and somebody coming down on you,” Sissy said, giving a side glare at her mother.

  “Among other things. Have you ever noticed how loud silence is?” Bree said. She pulled her gray hooded sweatshirt closer around herself. “I mean when you’re used to being with your kids like all the time and your husband has the TV on tuned to some basketball game with all those bouncing balls and squeaky shoes and then suddenly you’re in a room by yourself without any noise. Well, maybe a bird singing or the sound of the ocean coming from outside. But the silence inside just seems so spooky. And being by yourself starts to feel really weird. Like the thoughts in your head start blaring out at you.”

  “Give it some time. You’ll get used to it,” Olivia said. She had been staying on the outskirts of the group, but when she began on her square, she had pulled her chair in closer to get better light. I was beginning to get used to her distracted look and took it as normal for her. I had also accepted that she didn’t seem to want to be here and was clearly disturbed about something. She had taken the yarn I’d offered along with the needles and without looking down had cast on her stitches and begun to knit as if the needles were on autopilot. I think we were all surprised when Olivia spoke. But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she looked away and stared at the crackling fire.

  “Does that mean you live alone?” Bree said to Olivia. “You haven’t told us much about yourself.”

  “There’s nothing I want to tell,” Olivia said. I was glad she looked at the group when she spoke. It was too creepy having her stare at the fire while she talked to us.

  “We can all see there’s something on your mind,” Melissa said. “You’ll probably feel better if you talk about it.”

  Olivia shook her head with such vehemence, the reddish hair that framed her almond-shaped face flapped back and forth. “I know when people get together and start knitting, it turns into a therapy session. And I’m sure you all mean really well, but I don’t want to talk about anything.” And that was the end of it. She went back to staring at the fire as her needles kept clacking.

  Sissy was sitting, hanging her legs over the arm of the wing chair and looked toward Bree. “It sounds like you really need some time to yourself. That you’ve lost track of who you are,” Sissy said. “I know what that’s like.”

  “Now, Sissy, don’t start airing our dirty laundry,” her mother said with a warning in her voice. Melissa spoke to the group. “It’s just mother and daughter stuff.”

  I listened to their wrangling and thought of my dealings with my mother. Is that what we sounded like? I groaned to myself and made a mental note never to fuss with my mother again—at least not in public. I was sure they’d been arguing like that since Sissy had learned to talk. I knew we had.

  I noticed Kris yawning and knew that she’d gone beyond the job she’d been hired for, and I appreciated it no end and told her. Then I mentioned I’d seen her being interviewed by the Channel 3 TV news reporter.

  “Oh, that,” she said. “While you were all out on your walk, I needed to stretch my legs. The reporter was hanging just outside the gate and snagged me.” Kris smiled. “Just like Kevin St. John requested, I was discreet. When she asked about Edie, I just brought up the Retreat in a Box launch instead. You have no idea how important that is to me. And as for helping out tonight, this is the last time I’ll be doing a retreat like this, so I don’t mind doing something extra,” she said, sounding a little nostalgic. Her gaze moved over the group. “Between Joan not being here and with Edie’s death . . .” Her voice trailed off as she swallowed a few times.

  “Edie was certainly the spark in the group,” Lucinda said. “She was a spark wherever she went. After she mentioned that she’d eaten at the Blue Door, I thought about it and it all came back to me. She made quite an impression. Well, most customers don’t ask to speak to the cook so they can suggest he try their Osso Buco recipe.” My friend reminded us of how Edie had brought up her meal at the restaurant when we first heard about Amanda. Lucinda held her knitting in mid-stitch. “She must have seen Amanda leaving for her walk just before she came to the restaurant.” Lucinda swallowed hard. “While Edie was raving about her Osso Buco, Amanda had probably already fallen and was lying helpless amidst the rocks.”

  I asked if Edie was alone at the restaurant, and Lucinda had to think. “She had such a presence I almost forgot about her dining partner. She was with a man, but he seemed to be trying to hide in the corner.”

  After the scene Lucinda had described, who could blame him?

  “It was probably her husband,” Sissy said, but Kris shook her head.

  “I don’t think so. Edie told me that these retreats were her chance to get away from home and all that went with it.”

  “You don’t happen to remember what the guy looked like, do you?” I said. Lucinda stopped knitting and concentrated.

  “No, I don’t. There was something that stood out about him, but I can’t remember what it was.”

  “I wonder if that’s the same man I saw Edie with when I first met your aunt Joan. He kept kind of a low profile, so I didn’t get much of a look at him,” Melissa said.

  “Do you think you both would recognize the man if you saw him again?” I asked. Neither seemed certain. “I think his name is Michael,” I said. “And he’s here at Vista Del Mar now.” The whole group seemed to suck in their breath. I told them about meeting him
and his questions about Edie.

  “Maybe you should talk to Lieutenant Borgnine and tell him about this Michael person. He sounds kind of suspicious to me,” Kris said. “Maybe he was just playing dumb when he asked all those questions about Edie.”

  “So in case you’d seen them together, you wouldn’t think he was a suspect,” Lucinda said to me.

  “Good thinking. Tell Lieutenant Borgnine about him,” Scott said. “Anything to get the heat off of us.”

  I noticed he’d been staying out of the conversation. He had never moved from his position in the corner, so anyone passing through the area wouldn’t necessarily think the man in the preppy khakis and blue oxford cloth shirt was part of our group.

  He was working on a square but was using two short needles with a cable between them. By now I knew enough to get that they were called circular needles. Kris had explained that they were used when knitting in the round, hence the name. They were also quite discreet compared to a long pair of metal needles, and could be slipped into the briefcase Scott used as a tote.

  Something had been on my mind since I had talked to Dane. I decided to put it to the group. “Do any of you know anything about Edie taking sleeping pills?” They waited, expecting me to say more. I made a quick decision to spare them all the gory details. So I said nothing about the residue on the pillow and the fact that the knitting needles weren’t the cause of death. I just mentioned I’d heard the medical examiner thought she had taken sleeping pills.

  “Edie take sleeping pills?” Bree said, starting to shake her head. “I can’t believe she did that.” Bree suddenly looked uncomfortable and stopped herself.

  “You were going to say something,” I said. Bree fidgeted with her hoodie and looked down at her square, poking at the yarn.

  “It’s just Edie was telling me what she thought of Olivia’s sleeping pills. Edie called them a crutch and said she would never take them, and well, she said we ought to make sure that Olivia didn’t take too many because she seemed so upset about something, she might . . .”

  Olivia snapped out of her usual oblivion and her eyes flashed. “Commit suicide? No way. I would never . . .” She threw the young mother an annoyed stare. “I just brought the sleeping pills to get through this weekend.”

  “Maybe she gave Edie the sleeping pills,” Melissa said to the rest of us.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Olivia said, her voice rising in emotion. She rummaged around in her purse. “I didn’t give one to Edie or anyone else. I took one myself, and there were ten in the bottle.” She held up the bottle for them to examine it and then went to put it back in her purse. I noted that the prescription was for phenobarbital.

  “Not so fast,” Melissa said. “Let’s see how many there are now.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Olivia said. Her face was flushed with anger.

  “I think you better let us see how many pills there are,” Kris said. “Just to end the discussion.”

  Shaking her head with annoyance, Olivia poured out the contents on a piece of paper. Everyone stood up and gathered around, beginning to count.

  A gasp went through the group as they all came up with the same number.

  “That can’t be,” Olivia said. “I know I brought ten pills and I took one. How can there be only five?”

  “Have we figured out who was the last one to see Edie alive?” Kris said. Suddenly Olivia pushed back her chair so hard it fell backward before she rushed off to her room.

  15

  FOR A MOMENT THERE WAS JUST SILENCE IN THE wake of Olivia’s abrupt departure. Then Sissy looked around the group. “It was Olivia, wasn’t it?” Sissy said with a hush in her voice.

  “That’s right,” Melissa said. “I didn’t even think about that when I told Lieutenant Borgnine that she had walked Edie back to her room because she seemed so wobbly.”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but Olivia never touched her wine. Maybe she was trying to keep a clear head for a reason,” Kris said. “And doesn’t it seem odd that someone so indifferent to the group would have suddenly been so concerned that she offered to take Edie to her room?”

  “So, nobody saw Edie after that?” Scott called from his corner.

  There was an uncomfortable silence, and then a log in the fireplace made a popping sound and dropped with a soft thud, which made the whole group jump.

  “You all stopped knitting,” I said. “We should continue on with our squares.” I tried to get them over the rough spot, but there was no going back to the cozy atmosphere of the knit-together.

  “I’m going to call it a night,” Kris said, putting her things back in her tote bag. I had to remind myself that she had gone above and beyond her duties to help me with the knit-together and there was no reason she had to stay. Everyone else followed her lead and put away their knitting. Though it was ten o’clock, no one seemed to be thinking of going to bed. Melissa and Sissy said they were heading to the Lodge for a game of table tennis. I was glad I didn’t have to referee that.

  Scott just waved as he walked outside, giving no indication of his plans. Bree grabbed her backpack with her tablet sticking out and said something about Wi-Fi being available only in the Lodge. I wondered if she was going to have her husband wake up the kids so she could read them a bedtime story.

  Lucinda and I were the only ones left. “What do I do with the information about Olivia?” I said.

  “You could pass it on to Lieutenant Borgnine,” Lucinda offered.

  I shook my head with a decided motion. “Not unless I have proof she killed Edie. Otherwise it feels disloyal. And I thought of a reason why Olivia might not have touched her wine. She knew she was going to take a sleeping pill and she knew they didn’t mix.” I thought over what I had just said, but it didn’t make me feel much better.

  “I suggest we let it rest and adjourn to my room.” Lucinda got up and stretched. I grabbed my bag and we went down the first-floor hall toward her room. I avoided looking at the housekeeping carts blocking Edie’s room.

  Lucinda flipped on the lights and collapsed on the narrow twin bed under the window. Once again when I looked around the sparse room I thought of an old dormitory room or maybe something from a camp. Certainly not a hotel room. No soft mattress cover or mound of pillows or any hint of luxury. And yet it was the perfect room for someone going on a retreat. Weren’t you supposed to be stepping away from the world to a simpler place?

  My friend motioned for me to sit, and I took the other twin bed. All of a sudden Lucinda leaned back and started waving her feet in the air until her Cole Haan sneakers went flying off her feet and landed in different corners of the room.

  “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” she said with a giggle. “Tag would have a fit and probably be scrambling to put the shoes in a perfect parallel position under the bed. I know I should be upset about Edie, but I have to say I am really enjoying this weekend. Kris is brilliant the way she came up with an individual project for each of us. It’s just a little more than the first day and already I can purl.” Lucinda pulled out the square she’d started and waved it in front of me. “Look, I’m doing the stockinette stitch.”

  She reached into my bag and took out the little bit I’d done on my square and pointed out the difference between the two.

  “Now I get it,” I said, noting that mine was the same on both sides, with rows of ridges and rows of smooth, but with hers, each side was completely different. One side was all smooth and one was all ridges.

  Lucinda leaned against the wall and stretched out her legs on the bed before starting the next row. She seemed to enjoy messing up the bedspread with her stocking feet and knitting with abandon. “You don’t know what it’s like living in such precise order. If I did this at home, Tag would be straightening the bedspread as fast as I mussed it.”

  “All I can say is thank heavens my aunt hired Kris for this weekend
. Too bad she won’t be doing the retreats anymore. But then I guess it isn’t my concern anyway, since this is my first, last and only retreat.”

  “These Petit Retreats must have been a lot of work for her. You have to remember, it’s a job to her. It sounds like the Retreat in a Box thing is definitely a step up. What a great idea,” Lucinda said. She repeated what Kris had said about being able to go into a yarn or hobby store and by filling out a questionnaire, have a project custom designed for you. “Aren’t computers amazing?” Lucinda said. “I’ll probably be one of her first customers.”

  I didn’t say anything, but if Kris was depending on my business for her Retreat in a Box, she was going to be in trouble. I would work on the project she gave me, but then I planned to hang up my needles.

  Eventually we ended up talking about Olivia again and whether she was really a suspect. “I think so,” Lucinda said. “We know she has something on her mind. We know that Edie said one of her stick-her-foot-in-her-mouth comments to her. Maybe Olivia was like a rubber band pulled too tight and Edie’s comment made her snap.”

  “And somehow she got the sleeping pills in Edie’s wine, so when she got Edie back to her room she could smother her with ease.” I finished saying it and realized what I’d said. “Eeww, what an awful thought.”

  But I needed to know more about Olivia to figure out if that scenario could be true. Then I thought of my aunt’s papers for the retreat. I had been carrying her purple file like it was some kind of shield, and only recently had I tucked it into the recycled plastic tote bag I’d found for the yarn and needles. I pulled it out and opened it, thumbing through the pages until I found the one marked Olivia Golden.

  I had read through the sheets before the retreat and again as I was greeting people, but it was different now that I’d gotten to know everyone. I found Olivia’s sheet, hoping for some kind of clue, but it was as empty as I remembered it. Just bare-bones information, and it said the trip was a gift, but not from who.