Christmas Card Murder

by Leslie Meier

  Seated on a blue velvet loveseat, with a silver tray bearing refreshments on a graceful coffee table before them, they waited while Sorrel poured three cups of coffee from an ornate silver pot and then settled herself on a needlepoint hassock. Pamela had never visited Sorrel’s apartment before, and she gazed around at the Victorian-era art and knickknacks that gave the room a delightful old-fashioned air. Adding to the old-fashioned air was a tabletop Christmas tree decorated with tiny knitted sweaters, stockings, and mittens.

  Sorrel herself had an old-fashioned air, with her graying hair rolled into a large bun at the crown of her head and a lace collar peeking from the neck of the roomy cardigan that clothed her plump torso.

  “We know you’re not guilty,” Bettina said after she’d added sugar and cream to her coffee and taken a sip. “But you went to the Christmas tree lot with Karma quite late Friday night, and you were the last person seen with her. And the police found one of those tiny sweater ornaments of yours at the crime scene.”

  “I took a few of them with me when we went out to get the tree,” Sorrel said mournfully. “I wanted to make sure they’d look nice on the tree we brought home, and I wanted a nice traditional tree like a balsam fir. But then Karma didn’t want to use my ornaments, and she wanted a modern-looking tree, like a blue spruce.”

  Pamela and Bettina nodded sympathetically.

  “So we had an argument.” Sorrel’s lips tightened, stretched into a grimace, then struggled to remain still. “But I didn’t kill her. I got so upset that I told her to get whatever tree she wanted and I left. I stuffed the ornaments back into my purse, but I must have dropped one.”

  “There’s a missing hour though,” Bettina said. “And that’s part of why Clayborn thinks you’re guilty. You left this building at nine, and let’s say it took fifteen minutes to get to the tree lot, then you had the argument, so you should have been back home well before ten. But he says Mr. Gilly didn’t see you come in till nearly eleven.” Mr. Gilly was the building super.

  “I was still upset.” Sorrel blinked a few times, as if she felt tears coming. “So I took my car—I thought Karma could perfectly well walk home—and I drove to that fancy ice-cream shop in Timberley. I bought a quart of eggnog ice cream and I sat in my car and ate it.”

  “Wouldn’t that be your alibi for the missing hour?” Bettina asked.

  “The person who served me left for Peru the next day.” Sorrel dabbed at her eyes. “Hiking in the Andes.”

  * * *

  Pamela had been so distracted by the encounter with Jocelyn that she’d forgotten she wanted to show Bettina the extra little face on the twelve-drummers-drumming card. So as they approached Bettina’s house on their return from visiting Sorrel, she said, “Come across the street for a minute.”

  She stopped for a minute on the porch to collect her mail from the box—Christmas cards made for quite a handful this time of year—and then led Bettina through the entry to where the card still lay on the kitchen table.

  “There are thirteen drummers.” She aimed her index finger at the soldiers in their smart uniforms. “And look closely at number thirteen.”

  Bettina picked the card up and stared at it. “He’s kind of hidden,” she said after a bit. “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

  Pamela did, in the bureau in the living room. In a moment she had fetched it and Bettina was studying the image on the card, now much enlarged.

  “Rather handsome,” she commented, “in a kind of bad-boy way.”

  “Almost like a portrait,” Pamela said, “or a sort of caricature—of a real person.”

  Bettina set the magnifying glass down and handed Pamela the card. “What do you think it means?” she asked.

  Pamela shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve got to be getting on home,” Bettina said, stepping toward the doorway. “Wilfred will be wondering where I am. He’s making some of his five-alarm chili for lunch. Do you want to eat with us?”

  “I haven’t seen much of Penny yet today,” Pamela said, “but I’ll be over at three, when Phoebe Ruskin comes to meet Woofus. And then we’ve got Knit and Nibble at your house tonight.”

  Back in the kitchen, Pamela studied the contents of her refrigerator. The pot roast from Saturday night had furnished several meals, most recently shredded with barbecue sauce and served on crusty rolls that Penny fetched from the Co-Op bakery. But that had been the end of it. Tonight would be pizza from When in Rome.

  Lunch would have to be—she closed the refrigerator and opened a cupboard—tuna salad sandwiches on whole-grain bread. And then she would make a shopping list for the excursion to the Co-Op she planned for the next morning.

  Penny emerged from her room and descended the stairs as Pamela was starting to chop celery for the tuna salad. “Do you think,” Pamela asked once she’d greeted her daughter, “that the extra drummer on Karma’s card looks like he could be based on a real person?”

  She watched as Penny sat down at the kitchen table and took up the magnifying glass. Penny was dressed to go out, in jeans and a turtleneck Pamela had knit for her long ago, fashioned from ombré yarn that shaded from green, to indigo, to violet.

  Penny bent over the card. “He might be,” she pronounced after a bit. “The other drummers all look the same, and their faces aren’t very realistic.”

  “Could he be someone Karma knew?” The celery was going unchopped, but Penny and Karma had been close, though in a teacher-student kind of way.

  “I don’t know, Mom.” Penny set the magnifying glass down and moved the card aside. “She didn’t really confide in me . . . about boyfriends and things.” Penny paused. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter if he’s real or not, does it? It’s still a great card.”

  No, it didn’t matter. What could be more far-fetched than thinking an image on a Christmas card could be a clue in a murder case? Detective Clayborn would just laugh.

  Pamela returned to chopping the celery, and soon mother and daughter were sharing a companionable meal. Penny left then to meet her Arborville not-really-boyfriend, Aaron, and Pamela settled onto the sofa with Foraging for Herbal Dyestuffs: Revisiting a Lost Art and two cats this time. The sunny patch on the entry carpet had long since retreated.

  * * *

  Woofus’s interview with his potential dog-walker got off to a bad start, even before he set eyes on her. He was napping on the sofa in Bettina’s comfy living room as Pamela and Bettina chatted in the kitchen, which still smelled deliciously of Wilfred’s five-alarm chili. The doorbell rang promptly at three p.m. Observing that Phoebe was certainly prompt, Bettina climbed to her feet and Pamela did likewise.

  Before either of them reached the doorway that led to the dining room and the living room beyond, Woofus hurtled into the kitchen, looking over his shoulder as if he was being pursued. He collided with Bettina, nearly knocking her down. She steadied herself by grasping the back of a chair, and the huge shaggy creature cowered against her and began to whimper. Bettina had changed into an at-home outfit since their visit to Sorrel that morning, and was wearing bright red leggings and a Christmas sweater featuring a large sequined candy cane. Miniature candy canes fashioned from glass dangled from her ears.

  “I’ll get it,” Pamela said, edging past the two of them and hurrying to the door.

  The caller was indeed Phoebe, bundled in a dramatic black and white checkerboard-patterned coat, and with her colorful hair tucked under a black stocking cap. Pamela invited her in, and by the time she’d divested herself of coat and hat, and smoothed her bright blue hair, Bettina had joined them.

  “You both look very familiar,” Phoebe said suddenly. She focused her gaze on Bettina. “You especially.”

  “Oh!” As if propelled by amazement, Bettina’s arms sprang away from her body, her hands, with fingers spread wide, hovering at waist level. A smile that implied good-natured submission to life’s unpredictability illuminated her features. “What an incredible coincidence!” she exclaimed. “You we
re at the craft fair!”

  Pamela edged away, biting her tongue to keep from laughing. Bettina’s acting always struck her as hopelessly unbelievable, yet her audience seemed not to notice.

  “I was, yes.” Phoebe nodded, not quite as thrilled by the coincidence, it seemed, but accepting that indeed it was one.

  “I googled,” Bettina said. “New Year’s resolution, you know—make sure our dear Woofus gets enough exercise, now that my husband and I have gotten a bit creaky. I googled dog-walking. And your name came right up—you have a terrific website, by the way. So artistic! You must get a lot of business!”

  Phoebe nodded, frowning slightly. She glanced around the room.

  “You’re anxious to meet Woofus, of course. Let’s do that, and then we’ll chat. I’d love to hear about your career as a sculptress—or sculptor, I guess, is what everyone is now, everyone who sculpts, that is. None of this ‘poet, poetess’ business anymore.” Bettina steered Phoebe in the direction of the kitchen, and Pamela followed a few paces behind. They entered the kitchen to see Woofus hunched under the pine table and staring at his visitor in alarm.

  “Come out and meet Phoebe,” Bettina said in a cajoling voice as she bent down to make eye contact with him. A low sound like a cross between a growl and a whimper emerged from his throat and he backed away, bumping into a chair stationed on the opposite side of the table.

  Bettina stood up and mustered a cheerful smile. “He’s not usually like this,” she said, which Pamela knew was an out-and-out lie. Woofus had been adopted from a shelter. His misadventures before he arrived there had given him a bad case of nerves, and it had taken him forever to even get used to Pamela. But Bettina went on, adding, “My husband went out to buy our Christmas goose and Woofus is upset that he didn’t get to go along. He so enjoys car rides.”

  She bent down again, leaning on the table to steady herself. “Come on out, sweetie,” she cooed. “Come out and show Phoebe what a friendly dog you are.” Phoebe, meanwhile, was not-too-discreetly checking her watch. Her expression, a blend of suspicion and irritation, had barely changed since she arrived except for a slight wrinkle between the brows that came and went.

  With a sound that was more growl than whimper this time, Woofus whirled around and dashed out from under the opposite side of the table, overturning the chair he had bumped into. Skidding slightly on the polished floor, he skirted the table and darted for the doorway, snapping at Phoebe’s ankle on his way. His feet thumped on the stairs and then there was silence.

  Still steadying herself against the table, Bettina watched him go. “He’s not usually like this,” she said at last. “He’ll calm down. Meanwhile, I’ll make some coffee and there are Christmas cookies, and we can—”

  “We can what?” Phoebe enunciated the word so violently that the air in the vicinity of her lips stirred slightly. The wrinkle between her brows deepened. She turned toward the doorway. “You can do whatever you want. I am going back to my studio because I have better uses for my time than waiting around for temperamental animals to calm down.”

  * * *

  “Maybe we were expecting too much of Woofus,” Pamela suggested after the door closed behind Phoebe.

  Bettina nodded. “We’ll have to figure out another way to see if she has an alibi. She’s a very likely suspect though—with a motive and then leaving the tree lot Friday night without buying a tree. And she’s probably strong too, lifting heavy things or hammering at stone or however she makes her creations.”

  “She makes outdoor things,” Pamela agreed. “They’re probably really large. And metal, or something else that’s weatherproof.”

  Chapter Five

  The cats had been fed, the pizza had been ordered and eaten, and Penny had gone to Lorie Hopkins’ house to binge-watch something that Pamela hadn’t caught the name of. Now she stood in front of her closet.

  Tonight was Knit and Nibble, which didn’t really require dressing up, but it was the Christmas season and she’d been wearing the same brown sweater—which wasn’t a very Christmasy color—for a couple of days. A flash of forest green in the stack of sweaters on her closet shelf caught her eye and she pulled out a cowl-necked pullover she had made a few years earlier from an alpaca blend. The color was certainly seasonal, and the airy texture created by the extra-large needles she’d used gave it a dressy look.

  Downstairs, she pulled her warmest jacket over the sweater, whose cowl would take the place of a scarf, slipped into her gloves, and picked up her knitting bag. Stepping out onto the porch, she was glad her journey that evening was so short. The morning’s bitter wind had increased in force and, howling, grazed her exposed skin to a raw tingle.

  She was the first to arrive, grateful for the warmth of Bettina’s welcoming living room. Bettina’s Christmas tree twinkled from the corner near the stairs, and at the other end of the room, a cheery fire blazed in the fireplace. The cushions normally lined up along the hearth had accordingly been moved to the sofa and armchairs, the bright handwoven fabrics of their covers accenting Bettina’s sage-green and tan color scheme.

  “Come on back to the kitchen,” Bettina said after she’d hung up Pamela’s coat and Pamela had parked her knitting bag on one of the comfy armchairs that faced the sofa across the coffee table. “Nell’s bringing tonight’s goody, but I’m getting things organized for the coffee and tea.”

  But Pamela lingered near the stairs, her attention drawn to an object that had appeared near the tree in the few hours since she’d last been in Bettina’s living room.

  “What do you think?” Bettina asked, following the direction of Pamela’s gaze. “Wilfred just finished it and so he brought it upstairs, even though Christmas isn’t till Friday—not that that would make any difference to a cat anyway.”

  The object consisted of three wooden posts of different heights, the widest one covered with nubby carpet. Platforms of various sizes connected the posts. The topmost one was the largest and it shared part of its surface with a boxlike structure furnished with a round hole, like a doorway.

  Just then the doorbell rang, and since Pamela was nearest to the door, she opened it.

  “A cat climber!” Holly exclaimed as she stepped over the threshold. “Wherever did you get such an awesome thing?”

  The answer was postponed in the general bustle, as Karen Dowling followed Holly across the threshold, and then Nell Bascomb, in her ancient gray coat. Coats, scarves, and hats had to be removed and greetings exchanged.

  Holly went immediately to the cat climber, crouching next to it to examine the finer details: how meticulously the wooden surfaces had been sanded smooth, and how the nubby carpeting covered not only the scratching post, but the various-sized platforms too. She slipped an exploratory hand through the hole in the boxlike structure at the top, then extracted it with a giggle. A moment later, a furry butterscotch-colored face appeared.

  “Punkin!” Bettina clapped her hands with delight. “So that’s where you’ve gotten to. Wilfred will be so pleased that you’ve discovered your Christmas present.”

  “Did Wilfred make this amazing thing?” Holly’s enthusiasm enhanced her dramatic looks and her dark eyes widened.

  Bettina nodded, smiling a proud smile.

  “And he cooks too!” Holly shook her head, as if to imply so many talents couldn’t lodge in the same being.

  “Not tonight though.” Nell had reclaimed the parcel she had set aside while divesting herself of the garments she’d bundled herself in for her walk down the hill to Bettina’s. She handed the parcel to Bettina, explaining, “Christmasy quick bread, but not too sweet. We all eat too much sugar, especially at this time of year.”

  Roland DeCamp was the last to arrive. “Chilly out there, just as the weather report predicted,” he observed as he slipped off his well-cut wool coat and handed it to Bettina, along with his sleek leather gloves and a luxurious cashmere scarf. He looked around and said, “You’re all here.” Then he pushed back his starched shirt cuff to consult his
impressive watch and added, “I’m not late though. It’s two minutes to seven. Everyone else is early.”

  With that he turned toward the hearth, seeking his accustomed cushion, as Pamela, Holly, and Karen found spots on the sofa.

  “Take a comfortable chair, Roland,” Bettina called from where she still stood near the coat closet. “I had to move the cushions because of the fire.”

  “No, no, no,” he said. “You and Nell must have the armchairs, and I don’t want to crowd the sofa.” He imported a wooden chair from the dining room, and after a few more minutes, everyone was settled.

  Many hand-knit Christmas presents were in their final stages on this night. “Just a bit more to do on a sleeve,” Holly explained, holding up a swath of navy blue knitting that ended in a few inches of ribbing. It was a merino wool sweater for her husband, Desmond, and it had been her project for the past few months.

  Bettina was nearing the end of the project that had occupied her for over a year, a Nordic-style sweater for Wilfred, navy blue with red ribbing and bands of snowflakes in red and white. She too was finishing the last sleeve.

  Roland opened the elegant leather briefcase that he used instead of a knitting bag and took out two carefully folded pieces of knitting in a soft camel shade. He laid one across his lap and smoothed it out, laid the other on top, and prepared to thread a yarn needle with a strand of yarn in the same camel color.

  “You finished all the pieces!” Holly exclaimed from across the room.

  Roland looked up with a frown. “Of course I finished all the pieces. And now I’m sewing them together. Christmas is Friday and I have limited time, so I have to set a schedule and stick to it.” Roland was a high-powered corporate lawyer whose doctor had prescribed a relaxing hobby and suggested knitting.