The sound of something soft bouncing down the stairs—something like a pinecone dropped by a fairy—froze me in place.
“Must be an ornament I didn’t hang properly,” I said. “They’re always falling. I blame it on shoddy hooks. Have you seen the quality of hooks these days?”
When we heard the same sound again, Irene’s head swiveled toward it. “That’s not an ornament. It sounds like a small animal on your stairs. Shouldn’t you investigate?”
“There’s no need.”
“Oh, no.” Irene blanched. “Oh, Kate, I’m so sorry.” Seemingly overcome by embarrassment, she rose, her fingers to her lips. “I should have made sure to get you on the phone first. I’ve interrupted a private moment.”
Good heavens. “Now look, just a minute . . .” I left my wineglass on the table and rose to meet her. “There’s no one here. Don’t even suggest that, Irene. It’s not funny. Did you invite men to stay overnight a year after your husband died?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I crossed my arms and made a defiant stance. “Precisely.”
“It’s been a year?”
“Tomorrow. December twenty-fourth. Great date for it, huh? Come on.” I wiggled my fingers at her, strode to the living room, and started up the stairs. “Let’s go. Follow me. I don’t want the Merry Knitters spreading gossip about me all over town. I’ll be the next Carla and have to move to Pennsylvania.”
“Carla?” Irene grabbed the banister and held it as if it were an anchor. “You are not making sense, Kate, and I’ve come to rely on you making sense. What has Carla got to do with this?”
“Fifty-plus years on and she’s still paying for her high school days. All that vicious, unforgiving gossip. And if Carla did have an affair with your husband—and I doubt that—why are you two in the same knitting group? Why poke at old wounds?”
“Affair?” Irene spat the word. “What the dickens?” She was angry now. I’d never seen her so angry.
I sat down in the middle of the stairs and made myself small, in the same way a dog lies down or rolls over to show he’s no threat. “Isn’t that what you suspected?”
“Jack with Carla? Have you lost your mind?”
“But that’s what—”
“That’s what other people are saying?”
“But I thought you knew and didn’t want to tell me. Or didn’t want to admit it. You said Carla kissed Jack at a party.”
“The woman was downing martinis like lemonade.” Irene sat one step below me. “Her husband was dying at the time, but he was at the party. How could she do that to him? He must have seen her.”
“Well, maybe she felt—”
Irene held up her hand, requesting silence. “That was a rhetorical question. I didn’t like her making Jack part of her sordid game. It was years ago, yes, but according to people who should know, she’s the same woman she always was.”
“You have to give people a second chance. And a third and a fourth and a fifth.”
“I knit scarves with her, don’t I?” Irene moaned and briefly lowered her head into her hands. “Are people really saying Jack and Carla had an affair?”
“Just one person, and I don’t think she’s a gossiper. She only talked because I was asking questions. Marvin Moretti doesn’t think they had an affair.”
“You talked to Carla’s son?”
“I’ve been talking to anyone who will talk to me.” We both needed a quick change of subject. “Of all the women in the Merry Knitters, who’s most capable of holding a grudge?”
A faint smile played at her lips. “My, that’s the million-dollar question.” She fingered the chain on her glasses as she pondered. “Oddly enough, not Carla. And I don’t think Birdie is capable, partly because she’s not good at remembering details. Norma is a very forgiving woman—more than I am. And so . . . truthfully? Joan and Hazel. They’re tough ladies.”
Before I could follow up on my question, my kitchen phone rang. It was Laurence, calling with what he hoped was helpful news. His source had called him again, letting him know that the Smithwell Police had performed urgent tests on all of Birdie’s tea packets. The conclusion? Only one—Phyllis’s—had been poisoned with aconite. I thanked him and hung up.
But honestly, I wasn’t one step closer to solving Phyllis Bigelow’s murder. It was time to gather the Merry Knitters again.
CHAPTER 12
Norma stood at her living room window, watching as Irene helped Birdie up the steps to her house. “Not one word to her,” she said, shooting looks around the room. “She’d be crushed to know her tea was used to kill Phyllis.”
“The police must have told her by now,” Carla said. “And anyway, what if she was the one who—”
“If they did tell her, she doesn’t remember. I don’t think we should bring it up.”
“But that’s dishonest,” Hazel said, registering her objection just as Irene opened the door.
Irene led Birdie to Norma’s soft and plump armchair—the one by the balsam Christmas tree. “We’re being honest this morning, are we?” she asked, glancing about her, daring anyone to speak pro or con on the matter.
Everyone clammed up and found a place to sit.
I shut the front door, waited until the other knitters had settled, and then got myself a chair from the kitchen and pulled it alongside the couch. I had told Minette to get into my left coat pocket this time, figuring I’d end up where I was now, on a chair closest to the kitchen, my left pocket turned safely away from the women.
There wasn’t going to be a confession this morning. My purpose for gathering the women was to get them talking. No, to get them arguing. What was it Irene had said? We talk like pinballs whipping around a pinball machine when we get together. My hope was that, tongues loosened and tempers on the rise, the killer would slip up. I would try to remember as much as I could and then take the information to Rancourt. If he was working today, that is.
“I wish I could have gone to church this morning,” Norma said.
“This morning’s meeting was my idea,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t think it could wait.”
“I brought cookies,” Hazel said, removing the plastic wrap from the plate on her lap. “Chocolate chip and raspberry. We could make coffee in a bit. Carla?” She handed the plate off and I shot Irene a warning look. Absolutely no comments about Carla and Christmas cookies. Argue about what counts.
“So why are we here?” Joan said.
“I told you on the phone,” Irene said. “Just like I told everyone else.”
It was ten o’clock in the morning and already Irene was snippy. Joan reacted in kind, harrumphing and crossing her legs, shoving her fingers into that white streak of hair at her temple.
“Like we can find out what the police can’t,” Carla said, taking a chocolate chip cookie and passing the plate to Birdie.
“When the police called me yesterday and told me not to drink my tea,” Joan said, “I thought—”
Norma hissed and made a zipping motion with her fingers on her lips
“You’re being overprotective,” Joan said. “Birdie isn’t a child.”
“Why are we talking about me now?” Birdie said.
“Never mind, dear,” she replied. “So I thought to myself, that’s it, we’re all going to die. One by one. That was the plan all along. Just like with the Secret Santa ornaments. It was time for us to pay for something we did, like the note said. But now I think not. I think Phyllis was the only one meant to die. I have to say, it’s a relief.”
Carla made a face, her bright red lips curling in disgust.
When I found myself wondering what sort of senior citizen wore red lipstick at this hour of the day, and answering myself with a derogatory appraisal of Carla, I shifted gears. “Carla, I talked to your son Marvin yesterday.”
I heard a small intake of breath.
“At his real estate office,” I went on. “We talked about that break-in thirty-eight years ago. You remember tha
t, Joan. You were a teacher at his elementary school.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, yes,” Joan said. “I remember. It seems I’m not allowed to forget.”
“Welcome to my world,” Carla said.
“If I’d had any idea at the time that my actions that night would be considered so gargantuan in the future, I’d have hid in a closet and let them destroy the place,” Joan continued. “I can hardly remember that night, but apparently, everyone else can. It’s a huge event in Smithwell history.”
Irene piped up. “They didn’t destroy anything, Joan. They were ten years old.”
“I didn’t know they were kids, did I?”
“No, you didn’t.” Irene leaned Birdie’s way and snatched a cookie from the plate.
“Then why are we talking about it decades after the fact?”
“Because it ticked one of us off. So did my two letters to the editor criticizing the Public Works Department. Hence my typewriter ornament.”
“That’s what your ornament is about?” Carla asked.
Irene’s face hardened. “As you very well know.”
“No, Irene, I didn’t know. I knew you wrote gardening articles, of course, but . . . what a stupid thing to say to me! How should I know that? I knew about the letters you wrote after you fell on ice, but that was forever ago.”
“Eight years, to be precise,” Irene said.
“You think Phyllis was mad about two letters you wrote to the paper?” Carla laughed shrilly.
Irene pointed her finger. “You told me I shouldn’t have written the letters. You did. And so did you, Joan.”
Carla shrugged. “I thought the letters were a little harsh, and I wondered if the department would retaliate by blocking your driveway with plowed snow. That happened to a friend of mine once. That’s all.”
“Let me explain this to you, Carla. At the time of my letters, Phyllis’s husband was trying for a promotion to the department, and instead of getting a promotion, he retired. At age sixty, Carla. That’s a lot younger than you, and you’re still on the job.”
“Ladies, ladies,” Norma said.
I caught Norma’s eye and gave my head a small shake. Let them go. Let them work it out.
Glaring, Carla lowered her chin. She was about to let Irene have it. “What an ego you have. For your information, you ninny, he retired because he had congestive heart failure. Which he died of three years later. It had nothing to do with your snotty letters.”
Irene looked away. “Phyllis never said.”
“Your letters . . .” Carla waved her hand, letting Irene know it was a pain to correct her foolishness. “They had nothing to do with anything.”
“Phyllis didn’t think so,” Irene said meekly.
“Phyllis was glad he retired. Otherwise, he might have died on the job, and that would have been a nightmare. Good heavens to Betsy, have you thought all these years that you had him fired? You’re not that powerful.”
For the first time since I’d met her, Irene had no comeback. She looked down at her hands, and except for the sound of a clock ticking somewhere in the kitchen, there was utter silence in the house.
Birdie spoke up first. “Phyllis never said a word about being angry at you, Irene. It never entered her head. She told me all kinds of things, but never that. She never talked about your letters.”
“And if the letters never bothered Phyllis,” Carla said, “why would they have bothered the rest of us?”
Irene glanced Carla’s way.
So Irene’s letters to the editor hadn’t bothered Phyllis. Apparently, they hadn’t crossed her mind—ever. But the letters bothered Irene, and the knitter who gave out the Secret Santa ornaments might have known that and used it to torment her.
But as I looked around the room, I knew in my bones that these women weren’t faking their confusion over Irene’s sense of guilt. Carla was especially convincing, and she’d been at the top of my nasty-ornament-giver list. No one else disliked Irene as much, and no one else was more taunted for her past.
Now I was forced to consider that not only did the ornaments have nothing to do with Phyllis’s murder, but they most likely had nothing to do with the various animosities in the knitting club.
“All right, then,” I said. Heads turned my way. “Which one of you gave Hazel the chicken ornament?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer to my question, but I wanted to hear them work it out for themselves. I needed confirmation that none of them had been involved.
“Who remembers these events?” Joan replied, exasperation in her voice. “Some of us weren’t even in Smithwell then—or when Joan called the police. Some of us didn’t know each other. I didn’t know Hazel when her husband was a firefighter.”
She looked to Hazel for confirmation and Hazel nodded vigorously.
“And the woman whose dog died isn’t a knitter,” Joan went on. “For all I know, she’s no longer alive. The fire was twenty-three years ago. We only know about it because—”
“We talk,” Irene said. “Because we talk. About everything under the sun and then some. Joan, who else knows about the house fire and dog? Hmm? I’d say everyone here, everyone at Thistle and Wool, and quite possibly everyone over the age of forty in Smithwell.”
“Then what was the point of the ornaments?” Hazel said. “Why give Phyllis an egg? We all remember that eggnog fiasco, but it’s not as if we think about it all the time. And what about Birdie and her potato?”
We all looked to Birdie. Her small shoulders had sagged, her chin was almost resting on her chest, and she was taking tiny, relaxed breaths. Fast asleep.
“When that . . . thing happened in Aroostook,” Irene said, “most of us were babies. Norma hadn’t been born yet.”
“No one would kill Phyllis over eggnog,” Norma said, “but why would someone give me a pig ornament?” She bit her lip and scanned the room, though I noticed she avoided looking directly at Joan.
“It wasn’t me,” Joan said. “I swear.”
“But we argued,” Norma said.
“It was a thoughtless thing for me to say. I was angry, but there’s no excuse for calling you that.”
“And I shouldn’t have taken your favorite color yarn. I knew you wanted it.”
“But it’s just yarn, Norma.”
“I’ve got several skeins—would you like them?”
“Can you spare them?”
“Of course! Help me get out of this chair, and I’ll get them for you.”
As far as I was concerned, that was that. Phyllis’s egg ornament had nothing to do with her death, and so too, Birdie’s potato ornament and Norma’s pig ornament were of no real consequence. I thought then that I knew who the Secret Santa culprit was, but that revelation could wait until I talked to Rancourt. Emily and I still had a murder to solve—before she and Laurence left for Bangor.
CHAPTER 13
We all said our goodbyes—I snagged a few of Joan’s cookies to take with me—and then headed outside for our cars. Hazel decided she would drive Birdie to her house since they both needed to stop at the grocery on the way home. Looking rather defeated as she climbed in her car, Irene said, “That didn’t solve anything, Kate. We’re as confused as ever.”
She rolled down her window and I rested a forearm on her door frame. “When it comes to Phyllis’s murder, yes. But now we can focus our efforts. From the beginning we’ve thought the Secret Santa giver and the killer were one in the same, and we’ve spent two days being distracted by that.”
“Do you still believe the killer is one of the Merry Knitters?”
“Yes, I do. I’m positive.”
“It wasn’t Norma,” she insisted.
“I know that.”
“Is she safe? She can’t defend herself. She never could, but now with her arm? I’m worried.”
“I really don’t know if she’s safe.” I leaned close and kept my voice low. “I can’t even begin to guess who dropped the ball bearings. And who had reason to kill Phyllis? I should re
trace her steps in the few days before your last meeting.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“No, I’ve got this. Is Thistle and Wool open on Sundays?”
“It closes at two.” Irene began to roll up her window. “If you’re going there, I’m going back inside.”
“Me too,” I said, starting for her door. I knew Minette was dying to escape my stuffy pocket, but suddenly, I needed to take a closer look at Norma’s kitchen.
“You don’t have to,” Irene said. “I can fix Norma her lunch and dinner. We’ll put our heads together, talk, and let you know what we find.”
“I just want to check out the scene of the ball-bearing crime. I’ve never examined her kitchen properly.”
Irene knocked once on Norma’s door and then used her copy of Norma’s key to enter. “It’s just us, dear.”
“Did you forget something?” Norma asked. She had switched seats to her favorite armchair and propped a pillow under her cast.
“Kate’s going to search your kitchen for clues,” Irene said. “I’m going to fix you lunch—and don’t you dare argue with me. Got that?”
Norma laughed, her cast and belly shaking. “Irene, you can make the most generous statement sound rude.”
A smile played at the corners of Irene’s lips.
“Where exactly did you fall?” I asked Norma.
“About two feet in front of the refrigerator.”
I headed into the kitchen and Irene followed. Standing two feet from the refrigerator, I looked down at the floor. Norma’s kitchen tile was a mottled mixture of grays and taupes, the sort of tile that didn’t show dirt—or ball bearings—easily. “Is her bedroom that way?” I asked, pointing to my right.
“Yes, and she would have come out here.” Irene walked toward the bedroom and swung back to face me. “But she fell in front of the fridge. She said it took a while to work her way up. I can imagine.”
On top of the refrigerator were several shallow bowls, nestled one inside the other. I ran my fingers around them and pulled back a dirty hand.
“Everyone in the Merry Knitters knew Norma went to the kitchen when she couldn’t sleep,” Irene said.
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