Knit Fast, Die Young

by Mary Kruger

  Ari doubted that very much, but it was useless to protest.

  Ari’s attention was caught by movement near the door. A man wearing a slicker over the unmistakable gray and slate blue uniform of the Massachusetts State Police had come in, and was talking to one of the vendors near the door. Good. The interviews will go faster now, she thought.

  “So there are the staties,” Diane said.

  Ari watched as the vendor spoke to the trooper and then pointed across the barn. The trooper nodded, touched the brim of his hat, and began walking across the barn. He was, Ari realized with surprise, coming for her.

  Some minutes earlier, the door to Barn A had closed behind Debbie Patrino and the state trooper escorted her to Barn B. Left behind was a short and very angry woman facing the three policemen. “What is this?” she demanded before anyone could speak.

  “Mrs. Marley?” Briggs, who with the others had risen, left the table. “I’m Detective Briggs, Massachusetts State Police.”

  “Yeah? What are you doing here?”

  “Well, Mrs. Marley, we thought you’d know about it by now,” Charlie said.

  “About what?”

  “About Felicia Barr’s death.”

  The color leeched from Beth’s face, and with it her anger. “What are you talking about? Nothing’s happened to Felicia.”

  Josh moved forward. He didn’t know how this woman would react to bad news, but he didn’t like her pallor, or the suddenly hunted look on her face. “Mrs. Marley, I’m sorry, but Felicia’s dead.”

  Her eyes, slightly magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses, stared unblinkingly at him. “Dead? You’re sure?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “She can’t be. She can’t.”

  “Here, Mrs. Marley.” Josh caught her elbow. Her face was chalky and her hands were shaking. “Sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”

  “My God.” Beth sank into the fourth chair at the table, staring blindly ahead. “She can’t be dead. She’s too tough a broad.” She looked up. “What was it? Heart attack? Stroke?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, but she was killed.”

  “Killed? Felicia? I don’t believe it. This is coffee,” she said, looking down at the cardboard cup Josh had set before her. “I want tea.”

  “I’ll see if there’s any,” Josh said, and went back to the snack bar. Of all the people they’d interviewed so far, Beth Marley was the only one showing what he would consider a normal reaction. Yet, by all accounts, she had disliked Felicia intensely.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Marley.” Briggs’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “She was stabbed to death.”

  “Stabbed!” She recoiled. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. With a knitting needle.”

  “A what?”

  “A knitting needle.”

  “Oh, really! That’s plain silly. A needle’s not sharp enough for that.”

  The same thought had occurred to Josh. It was an odd choice of weapon, dull pointed and too thin to have much strength behind it. Yet someone had succeeded.

  “But how could it possibly have happened? Felicia wouldn’t have let anyone attack her like that,” Beth added.

  “She was stabbed in the back.”

  “Was she? Hm.”

  “You don’t sound surprised,” Charlie said.

  “Oh, I am,” she assured them. “Of course, I could have predicted she’d come to a bad end. She wasn’t a very nice person, you know.”

  “We’ve heard that you had trouble with Mrs. Barr,” Josh put in.

  Beth had crossed her arms across her chest, ignoring the cup of tea Josh had set before her. “That’s something I don’t care to talk about.”

  “We hear you fought with her this morning.”

  Beth audibly sniffed. “I shouldn’t have lowered myself in such a way.”

  Briggs had sat back and was studying her through narrowed eyes. “Care to tell us about it?”

  “No.”

  “We’ve heard details from other people,” Josh said. “It might help if we heard your side.”

  “Humph.” She glared at them. “I’d rather not talk about that woman ever again.”

  The three policemen cast each other quick looks. If they hadn’t realized it earlier, Beth’s posture told them how reluctant, and difficult, a witness she would be. So did her mouth, clamped together in a tight, petulant pout. Maybe, Josh thought, it’s time for a different approach.

  “Ma’am, we need to know where you were,” Briggs said, as if he had read Josh’s mind. “Why did you leave the fairgrounds?”

  She wrinkled her nose at her tea. “I was not about to eat here.”

  “Then you went to find someplace else for lunch?” Josh said.

  “Of course.” She fixed him with that glare again. “Does this strike you as a particularly pleasant place to eat? The atmosphere is horrible, of course, and all they had were greasy hamburgers. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this.”

  No one said a thing. The silence hung heavily, and yet Beth seemed unaware of what she had just said. “Where did you go?” Josh asked.

  “A seafood restaurant. The Freeport Chowder House, I believe it’s called. I had a lobster salad roll and a passable cup of chowder.”

  “Passable?” Josh said, diverted in spite of himself. The Freeport Chowder House arguably had the best seafood chowder in the area, and had won awards at various cook-offs.

  It didn’t have tomatoes and the broth was too thick. Far too much dill, and far too much cream. Not at all what I’m used to.”

  Before Josh could protest that New England chowder, rather than the Manhattan style, was the real thing, Charlie pointed out, “We can check that easy enough.”

  “What time did you leave here?” Briggs asked.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t watching the time. Perhaps around eleven.”

  “And you went directly to the restaurant.”

  Beth hesitated. “I heard there’s a good yarn shop in town. I stopped to see it first.”

  “Ariadne’s Web?” Josh asked.

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Now, why would you want to see more yarn, Mrs. Marley, after being here?” Charlie said.

  Beth stared at him. “Surely you’re not serious.”

  “It doesn’t make sense, ma’am, for you to leave one place with yarn to go to another,” Briggs put in.

  “It’s a yarn shop,” she said, sounding exasperated.

  “There’s yarn here.”

  “Yes. Lamb’s wool, sheep’s wool, llama. Hand spun, hand dyed, spun by the last mule-spinning factory in America.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “In Maine,” she said, as if that explained everything. “This is a wool festival. There’s no silk here, no cotton, no imports. Nothing interesting. I visit yarn shops wherever I go. Ariadne’s Web looked attractive.” Her voice was grudging. “Very bright inside, though I wonder if all those windows fade the yarn. All in all, a very nice shop for a town this size.”

  “I see,” Briggs said, though by the look on his face he didn’t. Josh understood, though. Through Ari he’d learned about knitters’ passion for yarn. Of course Beth would want to visit a yarn shop. He suspected other participants at the festival did, too. “Did you go in?”

  “Oh no. I will have to, though, before I write my article.”

  “What article?” Josh asked. For a few minutes he’d forgotten that Beth worked for a knitting magazine.

  “Our readers like hearing of new yarn shops.” She made a face. “My editor wants an article about small wool festivals.”

  That explained why Beth was here, though the fact that her former boss had also been in attendance was awfully coincidental. “Why didn’t you go into the shop?”

  “It’s raining, in case you haven’t noticed, and there wasn’t an open parking space. I’ll try again this afternoon, when it’s less crowded.”

  Briggs frowned. “Mrs. Marley, I don’t think you understand the
seriousness of what’s happened here.”

  “Of course I do,” she said scornfully. “But I was gone, so surely you can see I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Did anyone see you outside the yarn shop?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Briggs sat back, his face impassive. Josh suspected he didn’t want to come out with any accusation just yet. “What time was it when you got to the restaurant?” he asked.

  “Eleven forty-five,” she said promptly. “I saw a clock in the lobby.”

  Since it was now around one, that sounded right, allowing time for Beth to eat and then return to the festival. “Did you come right back here?”

  “Yes.” Beth frowned around at them. “Who’s in charge here?”

  “I am,” Briggs said. “Why?”

  “Then, for God’s sake, you ask me the questions and stop tag-teaming me!”

  “We’re questioning everyone, Mrs. Marley. We have to find out what happened to Mrs. Barr. What did you fight about with her this morning?”

  “If someone else told you about it, then you know already.”

  “We don’t know all of it. Wouldn’t you like to tell your side?” Charlie asked, deceptively genial.

  Beth’s lips were so tightly set that her skin showed white around them. “I want a lawyer. Are there any good ones in this hick town?”

  Damn it, Josh thought. “We’ll get you a phone book.”

  “Ha. An ambulance chaser? No, I’m going to call my own lawyer.” She stood up. “Can I go now?”

  Briggs and Charlie exchanged looks, and then rose. “For the moment,” Briggs said. “Trooper Lopes will bring you back to Barn B.”

  “I can get there myself, thank you.”

  “Regardless, he’ll go with you. Lopes? Take Mrs. Marley to the other barn.”

  Lopes stepped forward. “Yes sir,” he said, and looked down at Beth. “Ma’am?”

  “Oh, all right,” she snapped, and flounced out of the building, completely ignoring the trooper. The door slammed shut, and she was gone.

  Josh wasn’t the only one of the men to let out a harsh, exasperated sigh. “That ends that,” he said.

  “For now.” Briggs sat down. “Have you constructed a time line yet?”

  Charlie shook his head. “Only a preliminary one. There’s been too much to handle.”

  “I’ll get someone started on it.” Briggs tapped his pen against his lips. “The main person we need to talk to is Ms. Evans.”

  “Yeah,” Josh said after a moment. He knew full well that Ari hadn’t killed Felicia, and yet he had to admit that the circumstances were suspicious. Of course she would have to be questioned, if only to shed more light on the morning’s events. “I’ll get her.”

  Briggs had just finished using his walkie-talkie. “They’ve handled ten people so far in the mobile unit,” he said.

  “Anything?”

  “No. All vouched for.”

  “Still a lot left,” Charlie said.

  Briggs looked at the clock. “Did anyone order food for the others?” he asked.

  “One of my officers did, a while ago.” Charlie looked at Josh. “Are you going?”

  “Yeah,” Josh said, and, putting on his jacket, went out. Ari, he thought, was in for it.

  Chapter 5

  One by one, the Sheep to Shawl participants had left the barn in the company of a state trooper to be questioned. One by one, they returned and began packing up their belongings under the envious stares of those still left. “And then there were none,” Ari murmured.

  “What?” Diane said.

  “Nothing. Just that we’re being picked off one by one.”

  “Strange way to put it.” Diane picked up a sub sandwich from its nest of white paper and took a bite. “It’s about time they fed us,” she said, with her mouth full.

  “I know. Marty’s must be doing a huge business because of us,” Ari said, referring to the town’s deli/convenience store from which the police had ordered the sandwiches.

  “Because of the food or the gossip?”

  “Both,” Ari said. The news of what had happened at the festival had to be common knowledge by now. Marty’s was a prime gathering place in Freeport, and a prime location to spread gossip.

  “I wish I had a bowl of kale soup instead. Can you imagine it? Not Marty’s, but my mother’s. Big pieces of linguica, kidney beans, chunks of potatoes—”

  “Stop it,” Ari said, looking now with disfavor at her cold-cut sub. She glanced over at Beth Marley. Since coming into the barn Beth had sat in the far corner near the fleeces, as far away from anyone as possible. She looked extremely disgruntled. “I’d like to know where she’s been all this time.”

  “Who, Beth?” Diane looked toward her, too. “One thing’s for certain. She’s not going anywhere soon.”

  “No, and we aren’t, either.”

  “They haven’t questioned me yet.”

  Ari looked toward the door, where a state trooper stood guard. “No, but they will.”

  “At least you’ve got someone on your side—that policeman of yours.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk about him in that way, Di.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? He treated Joe and me rotten last year.”

  “I know.” Ari sighed. She could understand Diane’s attitude, but it made her life difficult. If she ever developed a relationship with Josh, and that was a big if, she would be caught between him and her best friend.

  “What’s going on between you and him, anyway?” Diane asked, as if she’d read Ari’s mind.

  “Not much.” Ari rested her chin on her fist. “We haven’t gone out together in a long time.”

  “Why not?”

  Ari shrugged, though it was something she didn’t fully understand, either. “I don’t know. Things get in the way. Either he has to work, or I have Megan, or something comes up.”

  “There are ways around stuff like that. Do you like him?”

  “Of course I do. He’s a nice guy.”

  “C’mon, Ari, you know what I mean. Do you like him?”

  “I think I do,” Ari said after a moment. “I’m not sure that matters, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know how he really feels about me. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure about myself. I’m kind of enjoying not having to answer to anyone anymore.” She rested her chin on her fist. “Being married to Ted was difficult. You know that.”

  “I know.” Diane was quiet for a minute. “He was always working.”

  Ari shook her head. “No, that was only part of it. All that anger.” She looked at Diane. “I know that’s how he expresses his emotions, but it’s hard to live with. I had to get out, for Megan’s sake, if not my own. I don’t think I’m ready for anything serious just yet.”

  “Who said it has to be serious?” Diane asked

  Ari turned to look at her. “If you don’t like him, Di, why are you pushing this?”

  Diane picked at the unspun wool on her table with a fingernail. “Just because I don’t like him doesn’t mean he’s not a decent guy.”

  “He thought he had a good reason to arrest Joe,” Ari said, bringing up a dangerous subject.

  “Ha.”

  “He did. He is a decent man, Di. I wish you could like him.”

  Diane shrugged. “Well, all I know is you deserve someone good, after Ted.”

  “Mm.” She frowned. “You know, Di, there’s something holding Josh back. It’s not just me, you know.”

  “Well, give him a kick in the butt, then.”

  “Di, honestly.”

  “You know what I mean.” Diane’s face was serious again. “Maybe all he needs is a push.”

  “I don’t know. I think I’ll just let things run their course.”

  “Then nothing’ll ever happen. Ha! Here’s your chance.”

  “What?” Ari asked, and then saw Josh coming into the barn. “Oh.”

  “He’s coming over,” Diane said. “G
o to it, girl.”

  Ari wanted to kick her, and yet when she looked up at Josh she was smiling more brightly than usual. The thought flickered through her mind that Diane was right. She’d better make a move if she wanted any kind of a relationship with Josh. It didn’t look like he’d be the one to make the first move. “Hi. Thanks for sending us lunch.”

  Josh blinked. “Uh, yeah. You had to eat.”

  “Diane wanted kale soup,” she went on, still smiling.

  “Yeah. It’s a good day for soup.” His eyes flicked toward Ari, and in them she thought she saw concern. “Ari, can I have a word with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Not here. In Barn A.”

  “Oh.” Ari’s happiness faded. Josh wasn’t here to see her, at least not personally. He was investigating a murder. She shouldn’t have forgotten that. “Of course.”

  “More questions, Detective?” Diane said.

  “We’re talking to everyone.”

  “I thought you talked to Ari already.”

  “Oh, please,” Ari said, before she could become an excuse for a full-blown quarrel. “I told you the police would want to talk to me again.” She shrugged into her parka. “I’ll see you in a few minutes, Di.”

  “I hope so.”

  Ari huffed out her breath as she walked away with Josh. “I have told you everything I know, though,” she said.

  “Detective Briggs wants to talk to you,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “State cop,” he said as they walked out into the storm. By the time they reached Barn A, Ari’s hair was damp again and the hems of her jeans were soaked through. And all because of Felicia Barr, whom she suddenly resented with an irrational intensity.

  “Ari,” Chief Mason said, rising from one of the tables near the snack bar. “Come and sit down. Wet out there, eh?”

  “Hi, Chief. A little.” Ari unzipped her parka and sat down. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay. Ari, this is Detective William Briggs, of the state police. He’s helping us with the investigation.”

  “Detective.” Ari shook the man’s hand, taking him in with a swift, comprehensive glance. A good, if conservative suit, military bearing, ice blue eyes. He was not a man to take lightly.