Knit One, Die Two

by Peggy Ehrhart

  In the entry, the bold ginger female was wrestling with one of her glossy black brothers as Catrina rested contentedly in a patch of sunlight that made the colors in the worn Persian carpet—a thrift store find—glow.

  Saturday was a work day—not Fiber Craft work, unless a pressing deadline loomed, but laundry and housework. No rest for the wicked, Pamela murmured to herself, then laughed at the recollection of Rue Wadsworth’s monologue. Upstairs, she opened her bedroom windows. As a fresh breeze rippled the white eyelet curtains, she stripped her bed and made it up again with lavender-scented sheets from the linen closet, lining up the vintage lace pillows against the brass headboard. She added the dirty sheets to the straw hamper in the hall, along with the towels from the bathroom, and carried the hamper down to the laundry room where she set a batch of whites to washing.

  The afternoon passed quickly as she scrubbed the bathrooms, vacuumed, and finally dusted, upstairs and down. Dressers, shelves, cabinets, tables, and chairs needed attention, as well as the thrift store treasures and tag-sale collectibles that decorated so many surfaces. Midway through, she paused for a bite of lunch and fed Catrina and her brood. Then she transferred the first load of wash from washer to dryer and launched another, darks this time.

  At last everything was clean, the wash folded and put away, and towels replaced in the bathrooms. It was almost time to cross the street for Bettina and Wilfred’s barbecue, with the tomatoes and corn that would be her contribution. The ears of corn sat on her kitchen counter, still sheathed in their coarse green husks, with tufts of corn silk, now dried to a pale brown, emerging from the ends. Next to the corn were three tomatoes, glowing red, the size of fists and just about as curiously shaped, their irregularity and nose-tickling acidity marking them as homegrown.

  * * *

  Wilfred looked up from the grill he was tending, rising heat waves making him seem to shimmer. He wasn’t cooking yet, just monitoring the progress of the charcoal fire, but he’d already tied his apron over his bib overalls.

  “The boss is in the kitchen,” he said as Pamela stepped onto the patio. She carried a canvas bag laden with the sweet corn and tomatoes.

  “Where were you taking Caralee’s knitting this morning?” Pamela asked, regarding him from across the grill. Caught up in the satisfying routines of housecleaning and laundry, she’d forgotten until just now the curious sight of Wilfred climbing into his ancient Mercedes with the swath of lumpy gray wool draped over his arm.

  “I wanted to show it to my cousin John. He was a radioman in the Navy.” Wilfred rearranged a few pieces of smoldering charcoal with a poker.

  “And now he’s a knitting enthusiast?” Pamela recalled from an article in Fiber Craft that sailors, in the old days at least, had whiled away long days at sea plaiting rope into charming designs. But she couldn’t imagine what interest Caralee’s inept creation could hold for a sailor—or anyone, really.

  “Morse code.” Wilfred tapped the side of his forehead and gave her a smug smile. “I got to looking at that thing and all of a sudden I was seeing patterns: a bump and a smooth spot and three bumps and a hole, then a bump and a smooth spot and a bump and a hole, and like that.”

  “Why would Caralee—or anybody—use Morse code in a knitting project?” Pamela asked, aware that she was squinting and hoping her face wasn’t telegraphing too much of the skepticism she felt.

  “You got me,” Wilfred said with a laugh, “but the first name John decoded was Anthony Wadsworth.”

  Chapter Eight

  From the door that connected the kitchen with the patio came Bettina’s voice. “Is he telling you about the knitting?” she called.

  Pamela turned. “Anthony Wadsworth?”

  “There are other names too—or at least other words.” Bettina had changed from her morning outfit of lime-green pants and striped blouse into a flowing wide-legged jumpsuit patterned with huge blooms in shades of orange and gold. “Let’s get busy shucking that corn,” she added.

  Wilfred spoke up from his position at the grill. “The coals are ready, dear wife,” he said. “It’s time to launch the ribs.”

  Inside, Pamela added the sweet corn and the tomatoes to the dinner ingredients arranged on Bettina’s well-scrubbed pine table. They joined three racks of baby ribs waiting on a tray with a bowl of barbecue marinade—Wilfred’s own recipe, Pamela knew—and a basting brush, as well as a bowl of Co-Op deli potato salad and a plate of brownies.

  Pamela glanced around. “Where’s Caralee’s knitting now?” she asked. “I’m longing to know what else it says.”

  “And you shall, but no rest for the wicked”—Wilfred had entered the kitchen and now reached for the tray of ribs—“the coals cannot wait.” And he was out the door. “No rest for the wicked,” Bettina mouthed, and laughed.

  Wilfred had been gone barely a minute before the sweet, spicy aroma of sizzling barbecue sauce began to waft in from the patio. Bettina, meanwhile, had picked up an ear of corn. She was tugging away the layers of husk, exposing the creamy golden kernels in their perfect rows.

  “He was out all day,” she said, “at John’s and then doing something for the historical society, and he barely had time to stop at the farmers market in Newfield for the ribs. I don’t know any more about what message Caralee hid in that piece of knitting than you do.” Bettina deposited a handful of corn husks on the counter and delicately picked a few bits of corn silk from the freshly peeled ear. “He brought back peaches too,” she added. “It’s still peach season and there are some for you too, if you’ll take them. He got more than we can eat.” A rustic pottery bowl on the counter was heaped with peaches, and next to it sat a shopping bag labeled “For Pamela.”

  “They’re just ripe,” Pamela said. “They smell so sweet. I was going to make peach cobbler for Knit and Nibble Tuesday. I’ll use these.” She reached for an ear of corn and began peeling back the layers of husk. Meanwhile Bettina had stepped over to the sink and was filling a giant pot with water.

  “This should be ready for the corn just about when the ribs are done.” She set the pot on the stove and added a cover. The burner ignited with a whispery whoosh, and she returned to the corn-husking project. When all six ears had been peeled and deployed on the counter next to the stove to wait for their water to boil, Bettina fingered one of the tomatoes. “These are beautiful,” she said. “What shall we do with them?”

  “Slice them and arrange them on one of your platters from the craft shop,” Pamela said. “All they need is a little salt and some olive oil and pepper.”

  Bettina reached an oval platter in a pretty shade of sage green down from a cupboard and set it on the pine table next to the tomatoes. Next to it she placed a cruet of olive oil, a tall wooden pepper grinder, and a jar of sea salt. “Do you want to do the honors?” she asked, handing Pamela a knife and a cutting board.

  Through the glass door that slid open to make Bettina’s patio an extension of her kitchen they could see Wilfred, wreathed in smoke as he bent over the grill. He was dipping his basting brush in his bowl of marinade and applying it to the sizzling ribs with the delicate touch of an artist. Bettina slid the door aside and the cool September breeze brought with it the seductive aroma of fat and barbecue sauce meeting hot coals.

  “How are they coming?” Bettina called.

  “Getting close,” Wilfred answered. “How’s the corn?”

  Pamela turned away from her tomato slicing to check the corn water. She lifted the cover. Small bubbles were beginning to rise from the depths of the pot. “A few more minutes,” she reported. “Then we can put them in.” She finished slicing the tomatoes and laid them out in three parallel rows on the oval platter, adding a tiny sprinkling of sea salt. She had read once that to bring out the essence of a tomato, one should salt it and let it sit for five minutes before doing anything else to it. Now she let the tomatoes rest while she carried the potato salad to the dining room.

  Bettina’s dining room table was set for three. Dinner plates
in the same sage green as the tomato platter were centered on round placemats woven of raffia in shades of gold, russet, and brown. Carved wooden napkin rings held russet napkins. Sleek stainless steel flatware was tucked alongside the plates. Bettina had arranged chrysanthemums in a low bowl between her candleholders, which echoed the flatware with their muted silvery glow and modern lines.

  Back in the kitchen, Pamela carefully dribbled olive oil over the tomatoes, then added several twists of pepper from the grinder, enjoying the contrast of the sage-green platter and the rich red of the tomatoes, with their speckles of coarse-ground pepper. Meanwhile Bettina was lowering the ears of corn one by one into the deep pot of boiling water.

  “It’s boiling again,” she said after a minute or two. “Now cover back on and let them sit with the heat off.” She looked around. “Butter!” she said suddenly. “We have to have butter on the table, and salt and pepper of course. And Wilfred put some beer in to chill this morning.”

  Wilfred had appeared in the doorway, carrying the three racks of ribs, now back on their tray and still sizzling from the grill. “I’ll slice them apart in here—but quick, quick, quick so they don’t get cold.” Bettina fetched another platter from her cupboard as Pamela hurried to unwrap a stick of butter and set it on the butter dish that matched Bettina’s sage-green dishes. She delivered butter and salt and pepper to the dining room, and returned to watch Wilfred wielding Bettina’s sharpest knife as he expertly sliced three racks of baby back ribs into a pile ready for eager fingers.

  “We’ll need extra napkins,” Wilfred observed. “Eating ribs is messy work—not to mention the corn.”

  “You’re right,” Bettina said. “We’ll have to dispense with formality.” She opened a cupboard and pulled out a package of paper napkins. “Can you do the corn?” she added to Pamela. “There’s another platter up there.” She nodded toward the cupboard the other platters had come from.

  After a bit of last-minute bustle, they were all seated at the dining room table with a tall glass of beer at each place. Wilfred served the ribs, glistening with ruddy barbecue sauce and speckled with black where the sauce had charred, and Bettina set an ear of corn on each plate. “Just to start,” she said. “There’s plenty more.” The potato salad made its way around the table, but there was scarcely space left on the plates for more than a few spoonfuls. The tomatoes would have to wait.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Wilfred deposited a rib bone on his plate and looked over at Pamela. “Did Rick call you?” he said, using Richard Larkin’s nickname.

  “What?” Startled, Pamela stared at him over the ear of corn she was about to bite into. Her heart thumped once. “Have you talked to him?” she blurted out, and then prayed neither Wilfred nor Bettina had sensed how eager she sounded.

  “No,” Wilfred said. “That’s why I asked if you had. He was supposed to be coming back around this time. I wondered if he’d gotten in touch to say his plans had changed.”

  Bettina had been chewing. Now she swallowed and joined the conversation. “Wilfred is going to build a dollhouse,” she said. “For the children who come to the women’s shelter with their mothers. Nell asked him to do it, and he’s anxious to show Richard the plans he’s drawn up.”

  “Well, I haven’t heard anything from him,” Pamela said, grateful that her heart had calmed down after that initial thump. “I don’t know why he’d call me particularly. . . if he decided to come back later.”

  Bettina touched Wilfred’s arm. “Richard probably just decided to stay up there through the weekend,” she said. “He’ll be back Monday and I’m sure he’ll be very interested in your plans for the dollhouse.”

  They—mostly Wilfred and Bettina—chatted about town doings, and then Wilfred asked Pamela how Penny was getting on at college. Pamela answered distractedly, asking herself why she’d gotten so excited when he mentioned Richard. Crumpled paper napkins accumulated as the platter of ribs was transformed into three piles of bones, and ears of corn dripping with butter turned into denuded cobs. Wilfred collected the bones and cobs and carried them to the kitchen, making space on the plates for tomatoes and more potato salad.

  “I am stuffed!” Bettina set down her fork and leaned back in her chair. “What do you say we wait a bit for brownies and coffee?”

  “I vote yes,” Pamela said, mirroring her friend’s actions.

  “So then”—Wilfred stood up—“how about a little decoding?”

  Caralee’s knitting project waited on the coffee table in the living room, a fuzzy gray sprawl. The three of them sat along the edge of the sofa, bending toward it. To Pamela the stitches still seemed a random assortment of knit, purl, and dropped stitches, with no clear pattern evident, but as she looked closer she realized that the holes weren’t dropped stitches at all, but rather had been carefully worked, like tiny buttonholes.

  Wilfred pointed to the spot near the bottom where, after a stretch of smooth stockinette stitch, chaos seemed to set in. “ ‘A,’ ” he said, pointing to a spot where, after a hole, a purl was followed by a knit and then three purls in a row. “And then come ‘n . . . t . . . h . . . o’ ”—he inched his finger along—“‘n . . . y’—Anthony. And next we have ‘W . . . a . . . d . . . s . . . worth.’ ” He flashed a triumphant smile and Bettina clapped her hands.

  “And there are several more words.” Pamela shook her head. “This is amazing, Wilfred.”

  “Hardly rocket surgery, dear ladies,” Wilfred said. “Here’s my handy code-breaker.” From the pocket in the bib of his overalls he pulled a small card and placed it on the coffee table. In two parallel columns, it showed the alphabet and the Morse code symbol that represented each letter. “So,” he said, “the way Caralee translated it into knitting, a single purl is a dot and three in a row are a dash. The knits separate the dots from the dashes and the holes mark off the separate letters.”

  Pamela focused on another row where the decision of whether to knit or purl seemed happenstance, forming strings of random bumps interspersed by holes. She consulted the card and read off “T . . . h . . . o . . . m . . .” Her finger hurried ahead and she cried out “Thomas!” A few seconds later, she added, “Swinton?” She wrinkled her nose. “Is that someone we’ve ever heard of?”

  “I have!” Bettina clapped her hands again. “I interviewed him for the Advocate last year—he’s ‘one of Arborville’s intellectual treasures.’” She laughed. “Not my words—I never know what headlines they’re going to stick on top of my articles.”

  “Is he that writer?” Wilfred asked. “The one who wrote that novel with the scenes set in the Mittendorf House? A couple of the guys in the historical society read it.” The Mittendorf House dated from the Revolutionary Era. It had been owned by a Tory sympathizer but was confiscated by Washington and presented to one of his generals.

  “I wonder what led Caralee to code his name into Madame Defarge’s knitting.” Bettina shook her head in puzzlement.

  “Here’s a familiar name,” Wilfred said, running his finger over another patch where purls and holes interrupted a smooth stretch of knitting. “Kent Varnish. He’s the president of Hands Across Arborville.”

  “I think Nell knows him,” Bettina murmured. “She knows all the do-gooder people in town.”

  “And it looks like there’s one more, up here, right before Caralee left off.” Pamela pointed to a spot just a few rows below where the swath of knitting dangled from the needle. “Some name that starts with”—she consulted the card—“ ‘M.’ ”

  Bettina leaned forward. “‘Merrrrr . . . ick.’ I’m getting the hang of it. And it’s Merrick Timmons, I’m sure. How many people in Arborville are named Merrick?”

  “None that I know of,” Pamela said with a laugh. “You really do have your finger on the pulse of our little town.”

  “The Advocate.” Bettina winked. “I get around.” She settled back onto the comfortable sofa and crossed her arms. “He moved here last year with his wife, Rachelle—a trophy
wife, no question. She’s half his age, if that. They bought that huge house up in the Palisades that went unsold for so long because nobody wanted the expense of the upkeep.”

  “Well!” Pamela leaned back too. “This is an interesting development. But why . . . ?”

  Suddenly Bettina sat bolt upright. “It all has to do with A Tale of Two Cities, of course. Like Holly would say, duh! Madame Defarge uses her knitting to encode the names of aristocrats destined for execution.”

  Pamela laughed with delight. “Caralee was really trying to immerse herself in her role . . .”

  Bettina finished the thought. “By imagining that the play’s director was destined for the guillotine.”

  “Artistic differences?” Pamela shrugged. “But what about these other people. There must have been something about all of them that Caralee didn’t like.”

  Bettina turned to Pamela, suddenly excited. “Could that be a reason for one of them to kill her? That she knew things about them?”

  “Maybe,” Pamela said.

  “So maybe Craig Belknap isn’t the killer.” Bettina raised a shoulder and her lips shaped a half smile. “You do like him. And Sydney Carton is such a sympathetic character in A Tale of Two Cities, trading places with his friend to save him from the guillotine. And why would Craig leave Hyler’s at five if Rue usually hung around the auditorium till after six? He couldn’t do anything to the furniture till she wasn’t there to see what he was up to and it’s only a few blocks from Hyler’s to the church.” The smile became broader and she added, “This calls for brownies.”

  Wilfred jumped up. “At your service, dear wife. And who wants coffee?”

  An hour later, the three of them stepped out onto the porch. Pamela carried a bag of peaches. A huge golden moon hung over her house.