Died in the Wool

by Peggy Ehrhart

  “What’s she doing?” Pamela asked.

  “I don’t know.” Penny shrugged. “She didn’t say. But she still lives in Arborville, and she knew all about Mr. Jefferson being killed, and what a mystery it is and everything, and how everybody’s talking about it.” She reached for an apple slice.

  “It’s not so much of a mystery anymore,” Bettina said. “Brad Striker’s been arrested.”

  “Candace Flynn knows everybody thinks he did it, but she said he couldn’t possibly have.” Did Penny’s smile suggest the tiniest hint of gloating?

  “And you know this because . . . ?” Pamela had always encouraged Penny to think critically.

  “He was with her Saturday night.”

  “Wow!” Bettina clapped her hands and smiled delightedly. “I guess I know something Clayborn doesn’t.”

  But Pamela had always encouraged herself to think critically too. “Are you sure this is true?” She leveled a stern look at Penny. “Candace always liked attention. She could have just been angling for a reaction.”

  “It’s true, Mom. At least, it’s true that he could have been. They were . . . sort of together . . . when she was still in high school. She was a cheerleader, remember?”

  “Oh, my!” Bettina’s smile faded. “The football coach, and a cheerleader, and she probably wasn’t eighteen yet.”

  “Nobody was supposed to know,” Penny said. “But people sort of did. But maybe they weren’t . . . you know . . . then. Maybe they were just friends.”

  “And now she’s eighteen, or more, and it sounds like they’ve moved beyond friendship.” Bettina nodded slowly.

  “But he’s married,” Pamela observed.

  “He was married then,” Penny said. “And I’ve got to change. Lorie Hopkins and I are eating at the Golden Pagoda, and then we’re going to hang out at her house.” She stooped to give Catrina a quick pat and a few seconds later Pamela heard her feet on the stairs.

  “What do we do?” Pamela said. “If he’s really not guilty, but Candace Flynn is his alibi . . . ?”

  “His wife must know about Candace Flynn,” Bettina said. “That’s why she retracted her story that he was home with her Saturday night. She’s probably furious—so furious that she doesn’t care if he goes to prison for a murder he didn’t commit.”

  “If Candace Flynn really cares for him, she’ll give him an alibi, won’t she?” Brad Striker certainly hadn’t made a good impression on Pamela at Arborfest, but she liked to think that life was basically fair.

  “If his wife already knows about Candace Flynn, there’s no secret to keep anymore.” Bettina checked her watch again. “I’ve really got to get going.” She stood up.

  Pamela carried the cheese board to the counter and slipped the rest of the cheese into a zipper bag. She paused in mid-zip and turned toward Bettina. “When Penny talked to Candace on the bus, nobody except you, the police, and Brad Striker knew that he’d been arrested. It will be in the Register tomorrow. So we’ll see what happens with Candace.”

  “She’ll say something and they’ll let him go,” Bettina said. “That’s my bet.”

  Pamela finished zipping the cheese into its bag and opened the refrigerator. “So we’re right back where we were,” she said. She tossed the cheese onto a shelf and slammed the refrigerator door.

  “I told Clayborn about Marcus Verteel,” Bettina said. “He seemed noncommittal.”

  “There’s always the red-haired woman.”

  * * *

  Bettina left, and soon Penny was out the door, dressed for the evening in jeans and a T-shirt. Pamela checked for new messages from her boss at Fiber Craft, resisted the urge to visit AccessArborville for the latest twist in the KILLER AARDVARK thread, and deleted an email offering coupons from the hobby shop at the mall.

  Downstairs she made a salad, and got the Swiss cheese out again. After this simple dinner she settled onto the sofa. It was just time for her favorite British mystery program, and she had knitting to do. The scarf project she’d started at Nell’s on Tuesday had been growing all week, and if she could add a few more feet it would be ready to present to Nell at the next Knit and Nibble session. As soon as her needles began clicking, Catrina appeared, wending her graceful way in from the dining room, tail aloft. She hopped lightly onto the sofa and curled up against Pamela’s thigh.

  Chapter Eleven

  Someone was in the kitchen making coffee, but it wasn’t Pamela. She was still in bed. She rolled over, pulled her tangled bedclothes smooth, thrust her arms back until her knuckles tapped her bed’s brass headboard, and stretched. Near her knees, something stirred. A warm presence made its way gently across her belly, and Catrina’s face emerged from under the edge of the sheet.

  Pamela twisted her head to glimpse the clock on her night table. Eight a.m., early to rise for a Saturday. She could close her eyes for a few more minutes. But the coffee—undoubtedly Penny’s doing—smelled so alluring. And the light behind the white eyelet curtains hinted at a day in which time spent in bed would be time wasted. Besides, she recalled, as the last remnants of dreams retreated and the day came into focus, this particular Saturday was the fourth Saturday in May.

  Arborville, as Roland often pointed out, could be very predictable. The town had many churches, and the churches had fundraisers, and the town calendar allotted dates to bazaars, fairs, sales of all kinds, pancake breakfasts, spaghetti dinners, and even bingo. The fourth Saturday in May had been, as long as anyone could remember, the day St. Willibrod’s church held its annual rummage sale. Hanging above Pamela’s dresser, and visible from where she was lying, was a treasure she’d discovered there the previous year, a mirror whose frame had been decorated with antique buttons of all shapes and colors.

  * * *

  “You’re awake early for a Saturday,” Pamela said as she entered the kitchen. Penny was sitting at the table dressed in jeans and a frilly blouse that made her resemble the heroine of an old-fashioned romance, at least from the waist up. She was eating a piece of toast. The Register lay before her, front page uppermost. A cup of coffee sat near it and a whole carafe waited on the counter.

  “I’m meeting Laine in the city,” Penny said. “She’s going to show me her dorm at NYU, and we’re going thrifting in Brooklyn. Then we’re coming back to Arborville, and Sybil is coming back too, and they’ll be at the barbecue tomorrow.”

  Pamela was listening to her daughter, but her eyes were on the Register. Penny noticed.

  “It’s all in here,” she said. “About him being arrested for killing Mr. Jefferson, that is.” She shrugged. “What do you think will happen? Candace can’t just let him go to prison.”

  “I don’t know,” Pamela said. “He wouldn’t keep quiet, I don’t think, if Candace could be his alibi now.”

  Penny fixed her eyes on her mother in an intense way that made looking away seem impossible. “You and Bettina aren’t getting involved in this, are you?” she said.

  “Why would we?” Pamela gestured toward the newspaper.

  “He’s not guilty, Mom. So that means somebody else is.”

  * * *

  After Penny left, Pamela reached a cup and saucer from the cupboard and slipped a piece of whole-grain bread into the toaster. A few minutes later, coffee poured and toast buttered, she settled at the table and pondered the front page of the Register. A headline in type larger than any other on the page announced ARREST MADE IN ARBORVILLE MURDER. In smaller type beneath it were the words FOOTBALL COACH IN CUSTODY. A Register photographer had obviously been on hand to get a picture of Brad Striker being escorted to a waiting police car. The pleasant little house in the background was one she had often walked past on her rambles around town.

  The article didn’t add anything beyond what Bettina had reported, and mercifully it avoided using the phrase “Killer Aardvark.” It featured a quote from Detective Lucas Clayborn to the effect that the murder had arisen from a personal grudge, smart police work had resolved the case, and the residents of Arborv
ille had never been in danger. “Smart police work,” Pamela murmured to herself. She liked Detective Clayborn, and she felt bad that he was going to be on the front page of the Register probably quite soon, admitting that Brad Striker was not the murderer after all.

  * * *

  St. Willibrod’s was on Arborville Avenue, but at the north end of town. Pamela contemplated taking her car. What if she found so many treasures that she couldn’t carry them all home? And if she walked, she’d have to go on foot through Arborville’s commercial district, risking the possibility of unpleasant conversations about what people would probably never cease calling the “Killer Aardvark.” Of course, she’d risk unpleasant conversations at the rummage sale too, but she wasn’t about to skip one of her favorite treasure hunts. At least maybe some attention had been deflected from Knit and Nibble by the arrest of Brad Striker, unwarranted though his arrest was.

  She hesitated on the porch, keys in hand, car waiting in the driveway. But the day was perfect again, the bright green lawns darker where trees cast their shadows, the sun softened by a breeze that stirred the branches. She’d walk, but she’d take a roomy canvas bag.

  Back in the house, she collected a bag from the closet in the entry. As she was doing that, the phone rang. She paused long enough to hear a voice tell her voice mail that a truck would be on Orchard Street the following week collecting used furniture. Halfway out the door, she noticed that the paper recycling basket was about to overflow, so she detoured around the side of the house to dump the contents into the recycling bin.

  Thus it was that she was heading down her driveway when a voice addressed her from the hedge that separated her house from Richard Larkin’s.

  “Hello,” the voice said. “Could I ask you something?” She looked up to see Richard Larkin’s head projecting above the foliage. He looked different somehow, not so shaggy. Perhaps he’d gotten his hair cut.

  “Um . . . sure.” She squinted up at him. He was very tall and the sun was right behind him.

  “I . . . could you come around here?” He took a few steps toward the sidewalk. Pamela proceeded down her driveway, and they met at the end of the hedge.

  “There’s a plant here on the porch.” He waved toward Miranda Bonham’s ceramic planter, which sat next to the front door. “It was a plant, at least.” Just visible over the scalloped edge of the planter were a few spiky stalks bearing shriveled brown nubbins. “So many things are coming up all over the yard. I thought it would turn green again, whatever it is.”

  “Oh!” Pamela laughed. “Miranda always had marigolds there in the summer. These are the remains of them. Marigolds are annuals. When they’re gone, they’re gone. They’ll never come back. Not like perennials.”

  “Oh.” His face could look very stern, despite his gentle mouth.

  “You can plant new ones,” Pamela said. “That’s what people do. Just go to the garden center. They don’t have to be marigolds. Buy anything that you think looks nice.” A beat or two passed before he nodded, as if he hadn’t really been paying attention despite his intense gaze. “So,” she said brightly, taking a step. “I’m off.”

  “I’m going to have help,” he said. “I’ve hired Joe Taylor.”

  * * *

  Arborville’s commercial district, all two blocks of it, was busy. From across Arborville Avenue, Pamela could see the usual Saturday morning cluster of people gathered near the bulletin board on the Co-Op’s façade, catching up on the week’s gossip before proceeding into the store to do their shopping. Shoppers who had completed their task pushed carts loaded with groceries along the sidewalk to cars angled into the parking spots along the Co-Op’s stretch of curb. Pamela caught a glimpse of the cardboard box set up to receive the discarded aardvarks and averted her eyes. She hurried on, past a bank, Hyler’s Luncheonette, several shops, the Chinese takeout, and When in Rome Pizza, staring fixedly ahead, as if in too much of a hurry to notice if she passed a familiar face.

  St. Willibrod’s possessed a large church hall, built much later than the venerable church itself and in a style that had been modern in the 1950s. A hand-lettered sign on the heavy glass doors announced: RUMMAGE SALE TODAY—ALL WELCOME. Pamela felt the little thrill she always felt when rummaging. Perhaps a treasure was waiting to be discovered, and even if she came away with nothing, she enjoyed imagining the previous lives of the curiosities set out for sale.

  Inside, the hall was bright with fluorescent lights. Indistinct conversations echoed in a low buzz. Long tables set end to end stretched along both sides of the room, with an island formed from more long tables in the center. Some of those tables held baked goods.

  Pamela veered to the left, where the closest table offered a jumble of china, glassware, and curious objects. She browsed among bowls with gilt edges, sets of wine glasses suitable for parties of three, African wood carvings, crystal paper weights, and small boxes with exotic motifs rendered in brilliant colors. A small brass cat, perhaps a doorstop, caught her eye and she scooped it up.

  She made her way slowly around the room. A few people greeted her, but no one said anything about the murder or the aardvarks. Perhaps the knitting club’s connection with the murder had been diluted, at least temporarily, by the news of Brad Striker’s arrest. She examined a beaded handbag as a part of her mind tussled with the issue of Brad Striker’s yet-unrevealed alibi. It inevitably would be revealed, she was sure, and what would happen then?

  The handbag was too beautiful not to rescue. She opened the clasp and looked inside. The silk lining was frayed, but it could be replaced—or the fraying could just be ignored. As she pondered these alternatives, a voice came from behind her.

  “So—they arrested the football coach, huh? What do you think about that?” Pamela turned. It was the small woman she and Bettina had met on Wednesday, the neighborhood gossip that Harold had recommended they seek out for details about Randall Jefferson’s lady friend. “I guess even having a brother on the town council can’t keep the law from catching up with you.” She grabbed Pamela by the arm and let loose with one of her boisterous laughs.

  Pamela wasn’t sure what to say. She certainly wasn’t going to tell the small woman that Brad Striker would undoubtedly be released as soon as his girlfriend came forward with the true story of his whereabouts Saturday night. But she was saved from having to say anything. Still clinging to Pamela’s arm, the small woman focused on the beaded bag. “So you like this old stuff too?” Another laugh erupted from her wide mouth. “Of course, why else would you be here?” She surveyed the room, then squeezed the arm she still clung to. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” But before she turned away, she raised herself on her toes to lean toward Pamela’s ear and whisper, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  Pamela didn’t, but she was too startled to answer.

  “Either that, or Randall Jefferson had a double.” The small woman drew back, her face serious now. “I saw him last night, walking down the street that runs along the side of the Jefferson house.” The expression on her face made it clear that she expected an answer.

  Pamela searched her mind for an appropriate comment. At last she said, “Really? Did you talk to him?”

  “I was too far away,” the woman said. “I was coming up the hill with Rambo. Rambo didn’t bark—that’s what made me realize I probably wasn’t seeing a real person.” Giving Pamela’s arm one final squeeze, she added, “I’m not afraid of ghosts. I believe that we can all coexist.” And with that, she wandered off toward the baked goods.

  Bettina should be told about this interesting development, that was certain, though Pamela doubted the small woman had seen a ghost or even Randall Jefferson’s double. In the dark, and to a suggestible imagination, any tall middle-aged man in a suit could look like any other tall middle-aged man in a suit.

  “Do you want me to hold those while you look around some more?” The question came from a kindly looking gray-haired woman standing behind the table where Pamela was browsing. Pamela nodded and handed ov
er her finds. The woman reached out for the brass cat, handling it as if it was a live creature. “I’m glad this beauty is getting adopted,” she said with a smile. “And this little purse. What stories do you think it could tell?”

  Pamela detoured around the baked goods. The tables along the other side of the hall held knitted and crocheted items, both old and new, along with piles of fabric. Pamela herself was not a sewer, but she had plenty of unused yarn she’d bought because it was beautiful and she’d certainly do something with it someday. So she understood how three yards of cotton fabric that featured blue oranges on a bright yellow background could end up unused on a rummage sale table, stacked with fabrics in colors and patterns equally antique.

  The next table, though, held offerings of genuine interest. The woman presiding over it led a crafts program for the senior center. Pamela recognized her from articles Bettina had written for the Advocate. A few cuddly crocheted toys—not aardvarks though—shared space with a group of knitted and crocheted scarves and another group of hats and mittens.

  “Some are new—newly made by our seniors group, that is,” she said, “and some are donated.”

  Pamela moved a few hats out of the way to examine one with a ruffled border. When she lifted that hat, another was revealed, and she was so startled that a tiny squeal escaped from her lips.

  “Are you all right?” The woman presiding over the table leaned across it and reached a hand toward Pamela.

  “Fine! Yes, I’m okay,” Pamela said. “It’s this hat.” She exchanged the hat with the ruffled border for the one that had been hiding under it.

  “Oh!” The woman laughed. “It was a donation. I almost didn’t set it out, but if people don’t see their donations here, sometimes they don’t donate again.”

  Pamela held it in both hands. Neon-orange mohair shaded into neon chartreuse and back again to orange. From the rounded top of the hat rose two ears, so large they flopped over like dachshund ears. Dangling from the back was a tail. The knitter had not been an expert. Bumps and holes marred the knitted surface.