Death By Cashmere

by Goldenbaum, Sally

  Nell had added, “And I think she was at Annabelle’s when I went to see Stella the night of the fire. When Margarethe was leaving, she saw us talking—and she’d have known that Stella would finally tell me the sweater didn’t come with a guest. It came from Margarethe’s closet. She rummaged in my car and found Sam’s photos of her truck, the one that killed Gideon, sitting so openly on the quarry edge. It was all closing in on her.”

  “She didn’t cover her tracks well,” Ben said.

  “She didn’t think she needed to—she was Margarethe Framingham. ”

  Nell had touched the sweater with her fingertips, as knitters do. “And Margarethe Framingham would not have let so beautiful a sweater die in a fire, though she didn’t think so carefully about her own life.”

  “So she mailed it to me,” Izzy said.

  The mayor introduced Angus, and the crowd laughed because there was no one in the whole town of Sea Harbor who didn’t know their old man of the sea, as they had begun calling him.

  But when Angus started to speak, they hushed and listened. The old man looked out at the crowd and at the ocean beyond, and for a minute, Nell thought he wouldn’t be able to get through this. They were asking too much of someone who had been through so much—who hadn’t regained all his strength and was still weak and frail.

  But just as Nell was about to get up and suggest the mayor speak instead, Angus cleared his throat, motioned to Nell that he was just fine, and began to speak.

  “Friends—” Angus looked out over the crowd of people filling Pelican Park. Then he looked down at the first couple rows of chairs and coughed slightly, as if he had a lump in his throat. He continued to speak, slowly, hesitatingly, but with the conviction of someone who had something he wanted to say.

  “Friends and family—thanks for coming,” he began. “I tell stories pretty good, but I’m not much of a speaker. So if you don’t mind an old man’s whimsy, I’ll tell a little story:

  “Once upon a time, there was a beautiful Finnish girl who lived on this land with her father, a good man. She met her prince, a plain fellow—a granite cutter—and she stole his heart dead away. Anja was her name, and the stone cutter loved her ferociously. She lit up his day and brought peace to his nights. And when she became his wife, the plain man’s life was filled with a kind of happiness he’d never imagined would come his way.

  “When his princess died, the man’s mind and soul died some, too, even though his old body went on. And then a young woman named Angie Archer became his friend and brought some things back to him—reminded him of his love for Anja. Angie listened to a million stories about Anja. And she even gave the old man back a piece of his princess—her family’s land. Big and glorious, jutting out into the sea like a place of honor. So now that old man wants to give some of what he has to you. And the mayor here”— Angus pointed to the man sitting on the stage—“well, he says it’s okay.”

  The crowd laughed.

  “See that out there?” Angus pointed to the former Framingham estate, where construction and fire crews had worked around the clock to clear the land of fire debris. The crowd turned as one on their white chairs, shielding their eyes, and looking at the farthest point of Sea Harbor. “It’s gonna be a park for all of us. Anja Angelina Park. There’s a cabin for me if I want it.” He looked down at Birdie and grinned. “It’ll be my summer home because I have a fine winter place where they take in your mail and make good soup.

  “But y’all come,” he said. “It’s yours.”

  When Angus left the stage, there weren’t many dry eyes around. Josie Archer was a puddle, and Nell hugged her close.

  Izzy came up to Nell then, and soon Cass and Birdie joined them. The four unlikely friends stood close, knit together as surely as the sweaters and scarves and socks that they gave birth to every Thursday night.

  Together, they looked out over the harbor and the Anja Angelina Park in the distance.

  “Geesh,” Cass said. “I’ll never be able to remember the name of that park.”

  The others laughed, a rippling sound that was nearly drowned out by the sound of the first fireworks, crackling and lighting up the sky.

  “Just call it Angus’s Place,” Izzy suggested.

  They didn’t need to say more. The Seaside knitters had begun falling into one another’s thoughts as easily as Purl fell into baskets of cashmere yarn.

  Nell looked out over the ocean into a black sky, lit with the bright burst of fireworks, every color of the rainbow lighting up the night. She swallowed hard against the emotion that rose up like the tide.

  Angus’s Place. Or Anja Angelina. It all meant the same.

  Family and friends.

  Summer had begun at last.

  Nell’s Sea-Silk Scarf

  Size: One size

  Materials:

  1 skein Handmaiden Yarns Sea Silk (70% silk, 30% Sea Cell) 400 m/100 g per skein in Ocean (or the color that looks prettiest against your skin).

  Size 8 straight or circular needles (Izzy recommends a sticky needle like bamboo or rosewood as the yarn is quite slippery).

  Gauge:

  Thank goodness for lacy scarves where gauge doesn’t matter! This diamond pattern makes a very airy, loopy stitch so that your scarf can drape elegantly over evening finery. If the pattern looks tight, increase needle size until you see the loose sideways diamonds (the “waves”) forming in your work. If you’d like to make the scarf wider and more substantial, just add multiples of six to the original pattern.

  Pattern Notes:

  KW2: Knit Wrap 2.

  Knit normally, wrapping yarn twice over right needle before

  pulling needle through original stitch. Essentially a YO in the

  middle of your Knit stitch.

  KW3: Knit Wrap 3.

  Knit, wrapping yarn three times over needle before pulling needle

  through.

  Wave Pattern:

  (multiple of 6 + 1 stitches)

  Row 1: K1, *KW2 [KW3] twice, KW2, k2*; rep from start to end.

  Row 2: Knit one in each stitch, dropping extra loops as you come to them (31 st. on needle using pattern below).

  Row 3: KW3, KW2, k2, KW2, *[KW3] twice, KW2, k2, KW2; rep from start to last 2 stitches, KW3, K1.

  Row 4: Rep Row 2.

  Repeat these four rows to make wave stitch.

  Pattern:

  Using long tail CO, CO 31 sts.

  Set-up row (WS): K 1 row.

  Work rows 1-4 of Wave Pattern until scarf measures desired length or 80 inches, then work rows 1 and 2 once more.

  Bind off loosely Kwise.

  For fringe: Cut 10-inch lengths of yarn. Using a crochet hook, fold two lengths in half and loop folded end through hole made by pattern at end of scarf. Pull loose ends through loop to attach fringe; pull snug. Continue working from edges inward until all fringe is attached.

  Tie knots at each fringe end for extra weight. Repeat on second edge of scarf.

  Weave in any remaining ends and wear to your next gala event.