Died in the Wool

by Peggy Ehrhart

  “He killed those two men,” Pamela said, “and he came up here to kill Nell because she knows the Jefferson family secrets.”

  The pleasant-voiced officer took off after his partner, and soon the two of them had wrestled Joe to the ground. They linked his wrists together with handcuffs, led him to the police car, and bundled him inside. The wail of another siren suggested that reinforcements were on the way.

  Pamela leaned shakily against Harold’s car as Nell started down the steps. The potatoes had still had dirt on them, and Pamela’s hands felt gritty. She rubbed them together.

  Harold gazed toward the shrubbery. “Nell isn’t going to like these potatoes going to waste,” he said. “I’d better try to gather them up—but what was that business about the lottery number?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The blueberry cobbler was cooling on Pamela’s kitchen table, which had been spread with a freshly ironed cloth. Bettina was setting out cups and saucers from Pamela’s wedding china on a painted wooden tray. Coffee beans had been ground and loose tea spooned into the teapot.

  “I’m just sorry the police whisked him off so fast,” Bettina said. “All the trouble he caused and we couldn’t even get a picture of him in handcuffs for the Advocate.” She reached for Pamela’s cut-glass sugar bowl. “This is getting low. Shall I fill it?”

  “Sure. And there’s cream in the refrigerator.” Pamela held out the matching cut-glass cream pitcher. “The Register had a shot of him appearing in court,” she said.

  “I saw it,” Bettina said. “And that quote from Benson Jasper. Poor man. I know how I’d feel if I lost Wilfred.”

  “It’s a sad way to come into a fortune.” Pamela counted out six forks and six spoons.

  “We certainly jumped to conclusions, didn’t we?” Bettina said.

  “It all made sense, or seemed to.” Pamela’s lips formed a sad smile. “Killing Randall and helping himself to his brother’s beautiful things.”

  “We just didn’t know that Randall and Reynolds had jointly inherited the house and everything in it. Then, when Randall was gone, it all belonged to Reynolds, and now it belongs to Benson.” Bettina opened the refrigerator and reached for the cream.

  Their conversation was interrupted by the doorbell. Pamela hurried to the entry, and in a minute Nell and Roland were stepping over the threshold. Roland had apparently come directly from work and was dressed in one of his flawlessly tailored suits and a shirt whose starchy perfection had outlasted a ten-hour day in a corporate office. Nell wore nondescript pants and a faded blue chambray shirt that matched her eyes.

  Roland offered a quick greeting and headed for his usual seat on the sofa, but Nell lingered in the entry. “How is Catrina doing?” she asked. Catrina had been dozing in the chair by the mail table. She looked up sleepily and blinked her yellow eyes.

  “She seems the same,” Pamela said. “I mean, the same as she used to be, before . . . before she started acting strange.”

  “I have to warn you”—Nell chuckled—“cats are very efficient breeders. You might end up with a whole family.” She started toward the living room but paused. “Richard Larkin certainly is a nice man,” she said. “He was getting out of his car as I walked past his house just now. He made a point of asking if I was okay, and he was concerned about you too. He seemed very solicitous.”

  Bettina chimed in from the kitchen doorway. “He planted the rest of the foxgloves,” she said. “I ran into him yesterday. He told me he’s determined to keep the perennial border in good shape. He wanted you to know.”

  “Ummm.” Nell studied Pamela with an appraising smile. “He’s single, and good looking. Is it possible he’s—”

  “Is it possible you’re both more interested in my business than I am?” Pamela tried to leaven the question with a smile of her own.

  “You’re not getting any younger,” Roland piped up from the sofa.

  “For heaven’s sake!” Pamela retreated to the kitchen, where she counted out six dessert plates for the cobbler. She knew about the foxgloves. She’d watched from her kitchen window as Richard labored in his yard all Sunday afternoon.

  The doorbell rang again and Pamela stood in the kitchen doorway as Bettina welcomed little blond Karen and her gregarious friend, Holly.

  “What you did was amazing,” Holly squealed, catching sight of Pamela and displaying her perfect teeth in a dimply smile. “You’re totally a hero. And Nell—” She turned toward where Nell had joined Roland on the sofa. “You were so brave.”

  “I was inside the house the whole time,” Nell said with a shrug. “I hardly knew what was happening until the end.”

  “And Harold coming to your defense like that—I can’t wait to hear the whole story from him.” Holly advanced toward the sofa but took a seat on a footstool nearby. Karen perched on the rummage-sale chair with the carved wooden back and needlepoint seat.

  “There’s room here on the sofa,” Nell called to Bettina.

  Pamela stepped back into the kitchen to finish preparing for the refreshment break. She reached down her electric mixer and fitted it with its beaters, and she set out the deep bowl she’d whip the cream in for the cobbler. Bits of conversation drifting in from the living room suggested the group had all read the Register’s report of Joe Taylor’s arrest as thoroughly as if preparing for an exam. They were now happily rehashing the details. She lingered over the table, arranging and rearranging the already-neat stack of napkins.

  When she finally joined the group in the living room, they had settled down to work on their projects. Nell was casting on for another scarf—bright blue this time, Holly’s giant needles were twisting and looping her giant yarn into another section of her chic jacket, and Karen was shaping another tiny sleeve. Roland was toiling at the pink angora dog sweater, which had barely grown since the previous meeting. “Busy week,” he murmured when he noticed Nell observing him, “but I’ll get in a solid two hours of knitting tonight.”

  Pamela offered the comfortable armchair to Karen and then to Holly, but they insisted she take it. She settled against its soft cushions, pulled out the ruby-red yarn and the needles with the beginnings of the tunic’s back, and abandoned herself to the rhythmic motions that stitch by stitch, row by row, would create the glamorous garment pictured in the pattern book.

  But suddenly Holly spoke. “How did you figure it out?” she asked, looking up from her project. “That’s one thing the Register didn’t explain.”

  “I—what?” Pamela was startled. She sensed that she was frowning and made an effort to smooth her forehead.

  “How did you figure out it was Joe Taylor? And just in time to rescue Nell?”

  “I was in the house the whole time,” Nell protested from the sofa.

  “He could have broken a window,” Holly said. “He wanted to kill you. He would have found a way, if Pamela hadn’t told you not to answer the door and to call the police instead. And then to drive up there, and stop him from escaping—” The look she gave Pamela was so admiring that Pamela felt embarrassed.

  “It was Harold who thought of the potatoes,” Pamela said.

  “Don’t get me wrong—” Nell had apparently reconsidered her comment. She leaned forward and caught Pamela’s gaze. “It was very brave. And how did you figure it out? I want to know too. Harold told me about the lottery number, but there must have been other clues as well.”

  “The Jeffersons had three sons,” Pamela said. “You must have known that, Nell, and when I called you it was to check on what I suspected about number three. There was a photo in Randall’s study, obviously taken in front of the Jefferson house long ago—”

  “Randall’s study?” Nell’s voice scaled an octave. “How did you—?”

  Pamela grimaced. She hadn’t meant to give that part away.

  “Did Harold give you that key?” Nell half rose from the sofa and Pamela shrank against the cushions. But Nell laughed and sank back down. “I guess it’s water over the bridge, as Wilfred wou
ld say. You’re okay, and Joe Taylor is in jail.”

  Roland looked up. “And all those aardvarks we worked so hard on are in a box at the Co-Op. What are we going to do about that?”

  “They’re not at the Co-Op anymore,” Nell said. “They’ve been donated to the women’s shelter in Haversack, for children staying there with their mothers.”

  “Nice idea,” Bettina murmured, but Holly was squirming impatiently on the footstool.

  “The photo, the photo,” she said, looking like an excited child with her wide eyes and flushed cheeks. “What about the photo?”

  “It showed a man and two little boys,” Pamela began. She realized that she was enjoying herself, at least a little bit, like she sometimes felt when she helped a fellow knitter with a pattern she herself understood clearly. She went on, “But the edge had been cut off, as if there was someone else in the photo that the owner of the photo wanted to erase from memory.”

  “The black sheep!” Bettina spoke up from the sofa.

  Pamela nodded. “Bettina and I found out that Randall had a brother, Reynolds, and that Reynolds was an antiques dealer. This was before Reynolds was killed, obviously. We went to his shop in the city and his partner told us that there was a third brother, but that brother had been disinherited.”

  Nell was frowning and Pamela knew she disapproved of the sleuthing. So she was relieved when Roland, who had been listening closely, cut in. “I don’t see any connection at all,” he said with a dismissive laugh. “Lots of families have black sheep. Why should a black sheep in the Jefferson family mean Joe Taylor was the killer?”

  “Aardvarks,” Pamela said. “The team, not the animal. Joe’s father was a football star at Arborville High. The library has a display about the high school’s athletic program up now, and a yellowed clipping from the Advocate shows Joe’s father in jersey number 43. The team won the state championship in 1985. Joe let slip one day that when he plays the lottery he always uses the same number, 431985. And when he got a look at the aardvarks out on display at the Knit and Nibble booth he said, ‘Nice varks.’ Only somebody who’d listened to his father relive his glory days on the football field at Arborville High would call them ‘varks.’”

  Roland grunted. “Impressive reasoning, I have to admit. And meanwhile, what were the police doing with our tax dollars? Privatizing some aspects of law enforcement might—”

  Nell’s knitting flew across the room, and she sprang up from the sofa. “That is the silliest thing you have ever said,” she exclaimed.

  Pamela jumped up too. “There’s blueberry cobbler,” she said hastily, “with whipped cream, and coffee and tea of course.”

  Bettina was on her feet. “I’m certainly ready for a break,” she said.

  “I’ll help with serving.” Nell retrieved her knitting and gestured at Karen and Holly to stay put.

  In the kitchen, Pamela poured cream into the deep bowl and set to work with the electric mixer. Bettina got water for coffee and tea started in the kettle while Nell scooped portions of the cobbler, deep purplish blue with golden-brown crumbles of crust, onto plates. Soon they were all reunited in the living room, plates of cobbler topped with whipped cream in hand and the tray with four coffees, two teas, and the cut-glass sugar bowl and cream pitcher waiting on the coffee table.

  “My turn next week,” Holly said, showing her dimple. “I can’t wait to have you all at my house. This group is so amazing.”

  “I feel bad about the people who gave their aardvarks away,” Karen said. “Maybe they would have wanted them back.”

  “It was their free choice to part with them,” Roland said. “No recourse now.”

  “The children at the shelter are loving the aardvarks,” Nell said.

  “I’m sorry I missed out on doing the aardvarks,” Holly said. “A group effort like that must feel amazing, and having a booth at a town event is such a great way to show everybody what an awesome hobby knitting is.”

  “Actually”—Bettina was adding sugar to her coffee but she paused—“there’s going to be a craft fair. The craft shop sent a press release to the Advocate last week, and they’re looking for groups to get involved. It’s to be in the parking lot behind the library, and each group will set up a booth, and—”

  Roland cleared his throat. Karen’s face puckered up as if she was about to cry. Nell closed her eyes. Pamela focused on her plate of cobbler.

  Holly looked around nervously. “I didn’t mean that soon,” she said. “I meant, like maybe—”

  “Like maybe never again?” Nell said.

  “Like maybe never again,” the rest said in unison.

  KNIT

  Cozy Cat

  He’s not cool. In fact, he’s very square, and if you can knit basic squares and rectangles you can make a knitted stuffed-animal toy.

  If you’ve never knitted anything at all, it’s easier to learn the basics by watching than by reading. The Internet abounds with tutorials that show the process clearly, including casting on and off. Just search on “How to knit.” You only need to learn the basic knitting stitch. Don’t worry about “purl.” That’s used in alternating rows to create the stockinette stitch, the stitch you see, for example, in a typical sweater. If you use “knit” on every row, you will end up with the stitch called the garter stitch. That’s a fine stitch for this cat. A skein of medium-weight acrylic yarn from the hobby store will provide plenty of yarn. Use medium-gauge needles, size 8, 9, or 10. You’ll also need acrylic stuffing from the hobby store and two buttons for eyes.

  The cat is created from three rectangles and six squares. Start with the body. Cast on 24 stitches, using either the simple “slip-knot cast-on” process or the more complicated “long tail” process. Knit until you have a rectangle 6" by 12". Cast off, leaving a yarn tail of at least two inches when you clip your yarn.

  For the head, repeat the process but cast on 16 stitches and knit 8". Cast off. For the legs, make four squares, each 4" by 4", by casting on 16 stitches, knitting 4", and casting off. The ears start out as small squares. Cast on 6 stitches, knit 1½", and cast off. The tail is another rectangle. Cast on 6 stitches, knit 6" to 8", depending how long you want the tail to be, and cast off.

  Now you are ready to assemble your cat. For the body, fold the large rectangle so that you have a 6" square. Using a yarn needle (a large needle with a large eye and a blunt end) and matching yarn, sew the sides, leaving the top open. Stuff the square with enough acrylic stuffing to fill out your cat’s body nicely. Fold the medium-sized rectangle in half and sew the sides. This will be the head. You will find it easier to sew on the buttons for the eyes if you do it now, using sewing thread if the holes in the buttons are small, or you can embroider a cat face instead. Stuff the head. Hide all the yarn tails by tucking them into the stuffed openings. When you have both squares stuffed and the yarn tails hidden, center the open end of the head over the open end of the body and sew them together, back of head to back of body and front of head to front of body—though, obviously, at this point the front and back of the body are indistinguishable. There will be little openings left on the shoulders because the head is not as wide as the body. Sew them closed.

  Make the legs by folding each 4" square in half so that the knitted edge becomes the long side and the edges where you cast on and off are the ends. Sew the long side and one of the ends and stuff each leg. With the open end of each leg facing the body, attach the legs to the cat, two at the bottom of the body and one on each side of the body at the shoulders. Sew all the way around the open end so that each leg stands out nicely from the body instead of flopping.

  For the ears, fold the smallest squares to make triangles. Sew the two open sides closed and sew the long sides of the triangles to the top of the head. You want the right-angle points to stick up.

  Fold the last rectangle in half to make a long, skinny tail and sew one end and the long side closed. There’s no need to stuff it. Attach it to the cat on the back of the body between where the legs ar
e attached.

  Now it’s time to hide any yarn tails that are still visible. Thread your yarn needle with your first yarn tail and work the needle in and out of the knitted fabric, preferably along a seam, for an inch or so. Pull the yarn through and cut off the shorter yarn tail that’s left.

  You can add a ribbon bow at the cat’s neck, and even a bell. Cozy Cat can also become a bear or a rabbit—just vary the ears and tail.

  For a picture of a finished Cozy Cat,

  visit PeggyEhrhart.com.

  NIBBLE

  STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE

  Make this when it’s really strawberry season and strawberries are at their peak of natural sweetness. Two pints (32 oz.) of strawberries makes 8 servings, but you can always use more berries if you like. This shortcake recipe makes a classic biscuit-type shortcake, not like the packaged sponge cakes often displayed near strawberries in the produce department. You’ll also want to have heavy cream on hand.

  Ingredients for the shortcakes:

  2 cups flour

  4 tsp. baking powder

  1 tsp. salt

  1 to 2 tbs. sugar

  5 tbs. butter, plus extra for spreading

  Milk to moisten the dough—about ⅔ cup

  Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Slice the butter into thin bits and add it to the bowl. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with two knives, a pastry blender, or your fingers, until the mixture resembles sand. Sprinkle the milk over the mixture, tossing with a fork until the dough holds together. Flour your hands and a pastry cloth or board and knead the dough briefly until it forms a smooth ball. With a floured rolling pin or your hands, flatten it until it is about ¾" thick. Now, using either a biscuit cutter or an inverted glass, cut out eight 2” rounds. You can use your fingers to shape the scraps into rounds or ovals too. Arrange your biscuits and scraps on a buttered baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, or until they are golden.