Six Merry Little Murders

by Lee Strauss et al.

  However, I had to have a few rules before I’d let them knit with humans. First, they couldn’t knit at their normal speed, which was so fast I couldn’t watch them without going cross-eyed. Also, they had to be careful what they said. Like most older people, Clara and Mabel liked to reminisce about their experiences. In the vampire knitting club, it didn’t matter if Mabel talked about knitting stockings for wounded soldiers in World War I. Or if Clara talked about the chilblains she used to get on her feet from walking to school in the winters before central heating. I warned them that if they made so much as one slip, I would have to ban them from my Christmas knitting circle. They assured me that they understood, and so I allowed them to come.

  That particular Tuesday, I had six customers who’d signed up for my knitting circle, plus Clara and Mabel.

  In the run-up to the holidays, I’d had fun decorating the front of my shop. There were twinkle lights around the front window, and I’d hung stockings and absurd Christmas jumpers, as well as gift ideas for all the family, from knitted tea cozies to children’s toys. Naturally, I left the basket of wools that my black cat familiar, Nyx, used as a cat bed when she felt like snoozing. Oh, yes, my familiar. I was also a witch. Not the smartest or most experienced witch in Oxford, not by a long shot, but I was learning.

  I made sure, as usual, that I had locked the trapdoor leading down to the tunnels. It wouldn’t stop a determined vampire; it was just a reminder that I had people in my back room who would be more than a little shocked if pale-looking creatures with cold hands came up through the floor.

  It was quite cozy in the back room, where I ran my knitting circle. I hadn’t decorated it as much as the front of the shop, but Theodore, a vampire who was also a very good scene painter, had painted me a trompe-l’oeil fireplace complete with flames and a fireplace mantel from which I hung four hand-knitted stockings, which I’d filled with crumpled newspaper to plump them out. That morning, I’d come down to find that he’d added a Dickens-style village on the other wall, complete with carolers in the street. When I looked closer, I saw Scrooge being frightened by Marley’s ghost and dancing and feasting at Mr. Fezziwig’s ball.

  Theodore had promised to paint over the fireplace when the holidays were over, but I suspected I’d keep the Dickens painting, as it made me smile all day.

  I’d added twinkle lights around the scene, adding another festive note to the normally dull space. I always served tea and cookies around eight o’clock, halfway through the knitting circle. Usually they were cookies from a packet purchased from the small grocery store at the top of the street, but tonight I decided to really get into the spirit of the season and offer my knitters home-baked cookies.

  Since I lived above the shop, it was easy enough to leave my cousin Violet, who was also my shop assistant, in charge for an hour or so, slip upstairs and whip up some holiday treats. I decided to bake white chocolate chip and cranberry cookies. It was a recipe that my mom used to make back when we lived in Boston. Even though I was in my late twenties now, I still got homesick around the holidays. Mom and Dad were archaeologists working on a dig in Egypt, so it wasn’t often that I saw them for Christmas. I’d made quite a few friends, though, since coming to Oxford and knew I wouldn’t be alone for the holidays. Still, the cookies were a happy reminder of home.

  I had to walk to the store to get the ingredients, and as I did I noticed that the wind was blowing so hard, I had to push the edges of my hand-knitted woolen scarf into the front of my coat to stop it from blowing away.

  “It’s a blustery day out there,” the cheerful grocer remarked as he rang up the butter, white chocolate chips and dried cranberries.

  Blustery was an understatement. When I walked the block back to my shop, I had to push against the wind as though it were a heavy door.

  2

  I was cheerfully whipping the butter and sugar together in the electric mixer when the mixer suddenly stopped mixing. Had I blown a fuse?

  I looked around and realized that my computer had also turned off and the lamp in the corner was out. I went to the window and peered down on Harrington Street and noticed that all the lights in my block were out. That was weird. A power outage? I couldn’t remember having one before. Just as I was wondering how long it would last, the lights came back on again and the mixer burped back to life.

  I finished the cookies, then put them into the oven to bake and sat knitting as the aroma of baking began to fill the air. Nyx settled herself beside me on the couch, her black furry body warm against my side. It was a very pleasant moment. I wasn’t much of a knitter, but there were moments when it felt very peaceful, with my hands making something beautiful (with luck) and my thoughts free to wander.

  When the timer went off, I carefully took the cookies off the baking sheet and transferred them onto cooling racks and then put the second batch into the oven. The recipe made four dozen cookies. I’d take two dozen down to serve for our tea break during the knitting circle. I’d keep the rest in case anyone came to visit for tea and cookies. That’s what I told myself, anyway, but I was pretty sure I’d eat most of them all by myself.

  I found a red and green tin in the back of Gran’s cupboard and put my freshly baked cookies into it once they’d cooled.

  Cardinal Woolsey’s closed at five o’clock as usual, but I was back down just before seven to get ready for the evening event. I closed the blinds in my front window so that people walking by on the street wouldn’t think I was open for late-night shopping. I also closed the curtain that led into the back, making the back room seem even more cozy. It was a habit I had from the vampire knitting club, but I liked the sense of intimacy.

  I greeted each of the knitters as they came in from the cold, sending them straight to the back room to get settled.

  The first to arrive was Hudson Caine. Hudson was one of the youngest knitters who took advantage of my circle. He was a student at Christchurch studying some kind of complicated philosophy that I didn’t even understand. He was intense and very, very tall, with spiky black hair. I guessed him to be a little younger than me, probably in his mid-twenties.

  Hudson was from Liverpool and sounded like the Beatles. I didn’t care if he did talk about complicated philosophical subjects I didn’t understand; I could listen to him all day. He was knitting slippers for his whole family, each in a different color, and was trying to get them all done before he went home for his winter break.

  Tonight he was going to start work on a pair of slippers for his grandmother. I thought that was a nice role reversal. He wanted some pretty pink wool, he told me, and I helped him choose it. We went for a vibrant color. Not the pale pink of a baby sweater but the deep color of a healthy rose or a peony. “She’ll like those,” he said, “they’re proper antwacky.”

  I laughed. “Antwacky?”

  “You know, old-fashioned like.”

  It wasn’t a very big sale, as his grandmother didn’t have large feet and he already owned the pattern, but I always made a few extra sales on the nights of the knitting circle.

  Hudson took his wool and headed into the back room just as Joan Fawcett arrived. Joan leaned heavily on her cane, and her eyes looked shadowed with pain. I thought the cold weather might be affecting her. Joan was the same age my grandmother would be if she were still alive and had kept aging. That put her at eighty-two. She looked older, though, and careworn. She wore a green and black plaid skirt, thick black stockings and black orthopedic shoes. She’d knitted her black cardigan herself, and under it was a white blouse pinned at the throat with a cameo broach. Her white hair was cut short, more for convenience, I thought, than style. She didn’t come to the knitting circle to keep her projects a secret from her family. She was a widow who lived alone. I suspected she came in order to get out and see people. I smiled at her warmly and invited her to go through. I knew she didn’t need more wool, as she’d bought a quantity the week before. Joan was crocheting a blanket for her great-granddaughter in Ireland.

  Eil
een Crosby came in next. The wind was blowing so hard it grabbed the door out of her hand, and it banged against the wall. She looked as though she had come straight from work. She was a solicitor in her mid-sixties with blond hair going gray that was beautifully styled. Beneath her heavy coat, she wore a red and black dress with a heavy chain of a gold necklace and shiny low-heeled black pumps. She looked tired. “Busy day?” I asked her.

  Her mouth turned down in a grimace. “I’d have been there till midnight if I didn’t have the excuse of your knitting circle to get me away from the office. Besides, I’m completely out of the pale blue cashmere.” Eileen was knitting a sweater for her tiny grandson. He was her first grandchild, and she was so proud, she glowed. As I brought her the wool, I asked, “Any new pictures?”

  I wasn’t in much suspense about the answer. There were always new pictures of darling young Henry. Sure enough, she pulled out her phone, and I dutifully admired tiny Henry as he drooled, slept, and watched the black and white mobile dancing above his crib.

  I was just ringing up her wool order when Priscilla Carstairs came in. Priscilla was over eighty and seemed to be the embodiment of healthy senior living.

  Where everyone else had bundled up against the weather, she seemed energized. “What an invigorating breeze. It’ll put the roses in your cheeks.” She was as loose-limbed as a teenager and held herself so straight and with such fine posture that whenever she walked into my shop, I felt as though I must be slouching and pulled my shoulders up and back.

  She was long and lean, and her thick silver hair was pulled back into a bun. She was dressed all in black from her cashmere turtleneck to the bottom of her wide-legged jersey trousers. She wore ballet flats as though she’d lived in ballet slippers for so many years of her life, she couldn’t break the habit.

  “Lucy, dear,” she said, bringing a rush of cold air in with her, “wait until you see my latest creation. Oh, and I’ll need some more of the gold embroidery thread for my little drummer’s drum.”

  She and Eileen greeted each other, and then Eileen headed with her new wool into the back room while I found the gold embroidery thread.

  Mabel and Clara came in together. Clara rubbed her eyes. They’d obviously just woken up from their day’s sleep.

  Apart from being slightly pale, which everyone was this time of year in England, they could pass for two average little old ladies. So long as they remembered not to talk about things that no living human could possibly remember, I was perfectly happy to have them in my knitting circle.

  It was ten after seven and I was just about to lock up and head into the back room myself when Sarah Lawson rushed in. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Lucy. I hope you weren’t waiting?”

  “No, of course not. You’re just in time.”

  Sarah Lawson was in her late thirties and, in her white down coat, she looked like a snowman. She was round everywhere, from her face to her belly. She often sounded short of breath and was usually the last one to arrive at knitting circle. “I hope you don’t mind—I brought my dinner with me.”

  There wasn’t much I could say, but I didn’t think that eating a greasy burger from a fast-food place was entirely conducive to knitting.

  “Do you need wools or patterns or notions before we go in?”

  She shook her head and patted her bulging tapestry bag. “I have everything right here. Including my dins.”

  “Go on in, then, and I’ll be right there.”

  I poked my head out of the door and looked up and down Harrington Street, but I didn’t see any likely-looking knitters scurrying toward Cardinal Woolsey’s knitting shop. In fact, it was so windy and cold, there wasn’t a soul on the street. I shut and locked the door. I left the Christmas lights on, though, as they looked so pretty from the street and would be festive when my knitting circle left. After they were gone, I’d have to remember to turn out all the lights.

  Nyx had been snoozing in her basket of wools, but when I locked up, she rose daintily to her feet, executed a perfect cat’s stretch, stepped out of the basket and leapt nimbly to the floor. I thought she would make for the connecting door so that she could go upstairs to my flat, but no, she walked right past and headed for the curtained doorway that led to the back room. She pushed the curtain aside with her nose and walked in.

  I followed.

  The knitting needles and crochet hooks were already busily at work. Except for Sarah’s. She was unwrapping a hamburger.

  Nyx made her way around the circle, stopping to poke her head into Joan Fawcett’s open tapestry bag. When she walked by Hudson, he leaned down to scratch her behind her ears. She showed her approval by purring loudly. Then she rubbed against Sarah’s legs before jumping onto Mabel’s lap, turning around a few times until she found a comfortable spot and then settling down for a nap. It seemed that lying in my front window snoozing for hours had exhausted her.

  We always began the vampire knitting club meetings with a show and tell, so it had seemed natural to begin doing the same thing with my evening knitting circle. It was fun to see people’s projects grow, especially if they had time to work on them between meetings. There was an excitement as the date of gift-giving grew closer, and this added a touch of suspense and drama to what was normally a fairly staid activity. Would Joan finish her granddaughter’s blanket in time? Would little Henry’s sweater be too big? But at the rate he was growing, should Eileen not make it big? Could Hudson complete six pairs of slippers and still manage his schoolwork?

  I was about to ask who wanted to go first when Priscilla Carstairs spoke up. She was eyeing Sarah Lawson with distaste as Sarah chomped into her fast-food burger. A cardboard container of french fries was propped somewhat precariously between her knees. “Really, Sarah, this comfort eating isn’t helping. It certainly won’t bring him back.”

  There was a terrible silence, and in the silence we heard Sarah swallow a bite of her burger almost like a gulp. It was one of those painful pauses where no one knew what to say. Priscilla looked around at us all. “Well. It’s true. There is no point hiding from the truth. Sarah’s put on about two stone since her husband left her.”

  The trouble with knitting circles was that they could sometimes be confused with therapy circles. Sarah had shared her troubles in her marriage while the needles clacked on. We all knew about Gordon Lawson’s unkindness to his wife and how he’d threatened to pack his bags and leave her on more than one occasion. It sounded like he did this every time she disagreed with him. Then she’d back down and beg him to stay.

  Eileen Crosby was sitting beside Priscilla and turned to her, looking severe. “Priscilla, what you’re doing is called fat-shaming. In the workplace you could be disciplined for speaking to someone that way.”

  Priscilla made a tsk-ing sound. “That’s what’s wrong with the world today. Everyone’s afraid to speak the truth. Sarah needs to stop moaning and feeling sorry for herself. She should get some exercise and eat sensibly.” She patted her own flat stomach. “Look at me. Not an ounce of fat on me. It requires discipline to stay slim and a lifetime of denying oneself fatty foods, but it can be done. I only want what’s best for the girl.”

  “This is the first food I’ve had all day,” Sarah said, swallowing and speaking up in her own defense. “And he hasn’t left me. We’re in marriage counseling. I’m knitting him a Christmas jumper. It’s got elves throwing snowballs on the front of it.”

  Yep, that should solve her marriage problems.

  “I’m sure it will be beautiful,” Joan said. Joan was sitting on Priscilla’s other side. She and Eileen were like kindness bookends pushing against Priscilla’s thoughtless cruelty.

  I decided to get this meeting back on track. “While Sarah finishes her dinner, why don’t we do our show and tell? Who wants to go first?”

  No one volunteered, so I turned to the man sitting beside Sarah, casting pink stitches onto his needle. “Hudson. How did your dad’s slippers work out?”

  “Yeah. Great. The ol’ fella�
�s got big feet and all, but he likes to put them up of an evening and watch telly. I didn’t bring them tonight, but this is the wool for me gran’s pair. Shouldn’t take as long as her feet are so tiny.” He glanced around. “I only hope I get them all done in time. I’ve still got me Auntie Lizzie’s to do. I’m thinking red for her as she’s got such a temper.” He made a face, and we all laughed.

  Clara and Mabel were next. Clara was knitting a lace shawl in pale gray that I happened to know was for their undead friend Sylvia. Mabel was also an exquisite knitter but she didn’t have the most sophisticated taste. She was working on a jumper featuring a snowman with a felt carrot nose and lumpy black “coal” eyes. She said it was for a friend, and I suspected it was intended for Theodore, who was sweet enough that he might actually wear it.

  Eileen was sitting beside Mabel. She held up little Henry’s sweater, which consisted of the back and half of one sleeve. “I’ll have to burn the midnight oil to get this finished in time.” Then she pulled out her phone. “I got some new pictures of the baby this morning. I’ll pass them around.”

  “You’ll finish in time,” Sarah said. “Don’t worry.”

  Priscilla passed the phone along, barely glancing at little Henry. “He’ll hardly be disappointed if he doesn’t get his sweater in time for Christmas. He doesn’t know what day it is. His brain is the size of a tadpole.”

  3

  When we got to Priscilla, she said, “I’ve been busy this week. I finished four of my little tree ornaments.” And she pulled them out one by one. Priscilla was a bit of a show-off, but no one could deny her ornaments were really lovely. Her reindeer were works of art. I wouldn’t have known you could knit antlers that small if I hadn’t seen it done. She had a fat Santa with a sack of presents on his back and black knitted boots, the little drummer boy, a crocheted angel, and tonight she was working on a crochet snowflake.