Knit One, Die Two

by Peggy Ehrhart

  For a few minutes the only sounds were nonverbal, mostly “mmm” and its variants. Bettina was the first to articulate an actual sentence. “You certainly did justice to those peaches,” she said, and there was no disagreement. Pamela was happy to concentrate on her cobbler and coffee, picking up fragments of conversation from here and there. Holly, on her footstool near Nell’s feet, had asked Nell about her work at the women’s shelter in Haversack and was gazing in admiration as Nell described the Wednesday morning story time she did for the children. Bettina had brought a chair in from the dining room and perched near Karen to discuss babies—though Karen’s was not yet born and Bettina’s new granddaughter was all the way up in Boston.

  Roland set his empty plate on the coffee table with a thunk and a jingle of fork against china. “Back to work,” he said, pushing back his well-starched shirt cuff to consult his impressive watch. “I have a quota to meet here.” He picked up his knitting, guided his right-hand needle through the next loop on his left-hand needle, and twisted a strand of pink angora yarn around his index finger.

  Holly was on her feet in an instant, collecting plates and silverware. The only hints of what the plates had contained were dabs of peach syrup and trails of melted ice cream. Bettina gathered the cups and saucers back onto their tray and followed Holly to the kitchen, while Nell followed with the cream pitcher and sugar bowl. Karen started to pull herself out of the deep armchair, but Bettina motioned her back. “Stay off your feet while you can,” she said with a wink. “You’ll have plenty to do after December.” Karen smiled shyly and picked up her knitting.

  Nothing remained for Pamela to carry except the napkins. She entered the kitchen to find Bettina standing at the sink. But she wasn’t washing dishes. She was staring fixedly out the window. The cups and saucers and dessert plates and silverware all sat on the table near the remnants of the cobbler, over which Nell was stretching a piece of foil while Holly returned the foil to its drawer.

  “Can you see the moon from there?” Pamela asked.

  Bettina stayed facing the window but looked back over her shoulder. “I thought I saw car lights in Richard’s driveway,” she said.

  Pamela felt a stirring in her chest like a small creature moving about, a kitten perhaps, but all she said was “Oh.”

  “Are you all right, dear?” Nell focused her kind gaze on Pamela. Her hands paused and the foil glinted in the bright kitchen light.

  “Of course.” Pamela continued on her way toward the table and nestled the lacy white bundle of napkins in a pile to go to the laundry.

  “I don’t think he’s back though,” Bettina added. “No lights have come on in the house.”

  “Probably just someone using the driveway to turn around.” Pamela wasn’t sure whether she felt disappointed or relieved.

  “Such a nice man,” Nell said. She looked at Holly. “I think you’re the only person in our little group who hasn’t met him.” She looked back at Pamela. “Has he been away?”

  “Volunteer work in Maine,” Pamela said. “It seems to have stretched on longer than he expected. Not a big deal though. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  Pamela almost never blushed, but she felt her cheeks growing warm. To hide her confusion, she murmured something about making sure they’d collected everything that needed collecting, and hurried back to the living room.

  Karen and Roland had remained behind when everyone else pitched in on the cleanup, Karen almost lost in the big armchair and Roland across the room on the far end of the sofa. Both had been knitting when Pamela left, but now only Karen was busy, eyes rapt on the delicate piece of work suspended from her needles—and perhaps daydreaming about the little person who would one day wear the garment she was shaping.

  Roland was not knitting. He had set the pink angora sleeve—only half a sleeve really—aside and he was focused on his right foot. He was bent nearly double, leaning forward so that only the top of his head, with its close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, was visible. With his right hand he seemed to be adjusting something on his faultlessly polished shoe. But as Pamela watched, what she had assumed was a dark shoe took on a life of its own. It scampered away, now looking rather furry, then returned and attempted to scale Roland’s calf, struggling for foothold in the tight weave of his pinstripe trousers.

  A voice that had to be Roland’s, but was scarcely recognizable, said, “You’re a gutsy little fellow, aren’t you?” And Roland’s hand scooped the kitten up and deposited it in his lap. He looked up, noticed Pamela watching him, and cleared his throat. In a voice even deeper than the normal Roland voice, as if to compensate for the cooing tones in which he had addressed the kitten, he said, “He wandered in here. I wasn’t sure what to do.” He lifted the kitten, which fit easily into his large palm. Pamela recognized it as the tiny male that was the smallest kitten in the litter. “Have you . . . come to take him away?”

  “Is he bothering you? I’d hate for you to get cat hair on your nice suit.”

  “I . . .” Roland cleared his throat again. “It doesn’t matter.” He frowned, set the kitten down on the sofa, checked his watch, and picked up his knitting. “I should be getting back to work.” The kitten snuggled up to Roland’s pinstriped thigh and closed its eyes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Holly and Nell returned from the kitchen. They were laughing, but behind them Bettina looked worried. She quickly glanced toward Pamela, who had resumed her seat on the rummage sale chair and picked up her knitting.

  “Are you okay?” she mouthed.

  Pamela nodded, momentarily puzzled. Watching Roland with the kitten had distracted her from the reason she’d fled to the living room. Then she remembered. “Fine,” she mouthed back, and fingered her cheek to confirm that she was no longer blushing.

  Soon everyone was back at work, and a lively conversation sprang up about the best place to look for pumpkins: the farmers market in Newfield, the farm stand along Route 19 in Kringlekamack (where one family still maintained a farm in a town that had once been only farmland), or the pumpkin sale run by the Chamber of Commerce to benefit service dogs—starting the very next weekend.

  “The Chamber pumpkins are always very expensive,” Bettina said.

  “But it’s such a good cause.” This from Nell.

  “Is the farm stand part of a real farm?” Holly asked, seeming amazed.

  “It certainly is,” Nell said. “And there used to be a real farm right here in Arborville. Out where Roland lives.”

  Roland popped to attention when his name was mentioned. He hadn’t been knitting, just staring into space in a very uncharacteristic way. “That’s why people call it ‘The Farm,’ ” he said.

  “Well, duh!” Holly laughed. “I should have known that, but I have so much to learn about this awesome town.”

  The conversation returned to pumpkins and became even livelier. Despite that, no consensus was reached about the best place to buy them, though there was general agreement that price should not be the only determining factor.

  On the stroke of nine p.m., Roland opened his briefcase. He’d reached the end of a row, and the partly finished sleeve dangled from one needle. He methodically threaded the other needle through the skein of pink angora yarn and stowed sleeve and yarn in the briefcase, clicking down the metal tongue that latched it closed. The commotion disturbed the dozing kitten and it roused itself, leapt off the sofa, and wandered toward the dining room, where a door led into the kitchen and the communal bed in the laundry room beyond.

  Bettina tucked her project into her knitting bag and stood up. “I’ll get started on those dishes,” she said over her shoulder as she headed for the kitchen. Karen, Holly, and Nell gathered their things and clustered around Pamela in the entry, saying goodnight and congratulating Pamela on the cobbler. But instead of joining them, Roland lingered in the living room.

  Pamela waved a final goodnight from the threshold, stepped back into the entry, and closed the door. Roland advanced across the carpet, looking as
grave as if he was about to raise a serious issue at a corporate meeting. “A word with you, Pamela, if I might,” he said, and cleared his throat.

  “Sure.” What could it be? Pamela asked herself. Is he about to resign from Knit and Nibble? A twinge of sympathy made her brow pucker. Perhaps he’d felt out of place the whole time. It was true that Nell could be a bit short with him, and Bettina teased him now and then.

  “I’d have to speak to Melanie, of course, and there’s Ramona to consider.” Pamela nodded, trying to project encouragement—whatever might be forthcoming. He cleared his throat again. Had the change in the weather brought on a cold? Roland had been clearing his throat a lot this evening. He went on. “But subject to their approval, I . . . we . . . could take one of those cats off your hands. That is, if you think I . . . we . . . could provide a home like the home you’d want for them, if you . . . of course you wouldn’t want to think they . . . Ramona is a dog, after all, but . . . a home . . .” His syntax began to fray and his voice trailed off.

  Pamela bit her lips to stifle a laugh. “You wouldn’t be particularly interested in that little black one, would you?” she asked.

  Roland’s face tightened and his brows drew together. “Is he spoken for?”

  “Not yet,” Pamela said. She smiled. “Except by you . . . subject of course to Melanie’s approval. And Ramona’s.”

  Roland stooped to pick up his briefcase. “I won’t keep you any longer then.” He squared his shoulders. “I should know by next week. Then, maybe they’ll be ready soon?”

  Pamela nodded. “Probably a month.”

  * * *

  After Roland was on his way, Pamela joined Bettina in the kitchen, allowing the laugh she’d suppressed to bubble up as Bettina regarded her curiously. “Roland wants a kitten,” she said when she could talk normally again. The foil-covered cobbler still sat on the table, but the dishes and silverware had been whisked away into the dishwasher. Bettina was drying her hands.

  She set the dish towel aside to clap. “I told you letting the kittens come out while everyone was here would be a good plan.” She counted on her fingers, “One to Holly, one to Roland, you keep one . . . and I’ll take three.”

  “No, no!” Pamela laughed again. “I can’t let you do that. There’s plenty of time yet, and Nell might come around, and even Karen—though with a baby on the way she might worry about adding a cat to the mix.”

  “And Dave is allergic to wool. Maybe that carries over to cats.”

  “I can always put a note on the bulletin board at the Co-Op, and post on AccessArborville.”

  Bettina pulled a chair out from the table and sat. “So,” she said, “on the topic of Caralee, what did we learn tonight that’s useful? We already knew that Merrick Timmons had a trophy wife.”

  Pamela took the chair across from her. “It definitely fits with the kinds of things Caralee was making fun of on her blog—people not realizing how idiotic they seem. Old guy thinks he’s young again because he can afford a young wife. Everybody else thinks he’s an old fool.”

  “But what could Caralee say about the trophy wife issue that wasn’t obvious already?” Bettina asked. “Old guy with young wife. Duh!”

  “And would he have had access to the storage room between six and seven the night Caralee died?”

  Bettina shrugged. “We don’t know.”

  “But”—Pamela drummed the tabletop with her fingers and Bettina leaned forward expectantly—“I just remembered something Nell said.”

  “Which is?”

  “Kent Varnish is in the Arborists.” Pamela drummed faster.

  “And?”

  “The Arborists were using one of the church meeting rooms that night. Remember? Some of them were standing around outside when the police were interviewing people.”

  Bettina nodded vigorously, setting the curving tendrils of her red hair to bouncing and making the jade pendants at her ears swing wildly. But suddenly she was still, except for the earrings, which still swayed. “What could Caralee have known about him that was all that bad? From what Nell said, he sounds like a pillar of the community. He’ll probably be out there peddling pumpkins with the Chamber this Saturday.”

  Pamela slid the foil-covered dish of cobbler to the center of the table. She lifted the foil. “Plenty left in here,” she said.

  Bettina patted her stomach. “I couldn’t, really.” She reached for the foil and pulled it back a bit farther. “It was awfully good though. So maybe . . . just a tiny . . .”

  Pamela tugged the foil from Bettina’s fingers and smoothed it back down. “I’m thinking of Harold,” she said. “Nell said he knows Kent Varnish, much better than she does. Nell isn’t a gossip and even if she did know something, she wouldn’t tell us. But Harold . . . under the influence of cobbler . . .”

  Bettina gazed admiringly at Pamela. She nodded. “He might talk. And since it’s for a good cause, I can live without a second helping—though if there’s any left . . . after you share it with him . . .”

  “Nell will be at the women’s shelter tomorrow morning,” Pamela said, “reading stories to the children. I heard her tell Holly. I’ll pay a call on Harold while she’s gone.”

  * * *

  Pamela felt a soft pressure against her collarbone, like gentle kneading. She opened her eyes to find a pair of amber eyes staring into hers. The white eyelet curtains at the windows glowed as brightly as if the sun had risen hours ago. “What time is it?” she asked Catrina, who was perched on her chest. Catrina sprang to the floor and Pamela rolled over to consult the clock on the night table.

  It was nearly ten a.m. No wonder Catrina had been curious about her mistress’s state. Pamela sat up, yawned, and swung her feet onto the rag rug at the side of her bed. After Knit and Nibble ended, she’d stayed up past midnight reading Time and Time Again, which she was starting to think of as Time and Time Again and Again and Again. The characters couldn’t seem to stay in the same bodies for more than a few chapters, being reborn—again and again—into periods of history noted for unrest and misery.

  It was only while she was brushing her teeth that she remembered the morning’s errand—a visit to Harold Bascomb with a gift of peach cobbler. If all went well, she’d come away knowing what it was about Kent Varnish that had made Caralee decide he deserved the guillotine. But she’d have to move fast. Nell would only be gone for a few hours. Pamela dressed quickly and followed Catrina down the stairs.

  In the kitchen, she set water boiling for coffee, scooped cat food into Catrina’s bowl and kitten food into the kittens’ bowl, and slipped a slice of whole-grain bread into the toaster. She hurried down the front walk to collect the Register. She noted in passing that Richard Larkin’s driveway was empty, but she was resolved to concentrate this morning on Kent Varnish.

  While the boiling water was dripping through the ground beans in the coffee filter, she buttered her toast and extracted the Register from its flimsy plastic sleeve. There was no time to read it though—only time for one cup of coffee and hastily nibbled toast. Then Pamela took from her cupboard a thrift store plate that had borne gifts of Christmas cookies back and forth between her and Bettina for years. She arranged a generous portion of the leftover cobbler on it and wrapped the offering carefully in foil. As she worked, kittens roamed about underfoot.

  Hurried though she was, she couldn’t resist a tiny detour as she neared the stately brick apartment building at the corner of Orchard Street and Arborville Avenue. She veered off the sidewalk onto the asphalt of the parking lot to peek behind the wooden fence where the building’s trash and discards awaited collection day.

  But as she stepped up to the opening between the fence and the back of the building, she jumped back in alarm. Mr. Gilly, the building’s super, straightened his lean body—he’d been hunched over a garbage bag that had evidently been attacked by some scavenging wild creature—and said, “Didn’t mean to scare you!”

  “You didn’t really,” Pamela said. “I mean, you did,
but it wasn’t your fault.” She was grateful she hadn’t dropped the cobbler.

  “Still jumpy about what happened last week? Somebody dying and all, right next to your house?” He lifted the flap of his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Pamela recognized this gesture as a sign he wanted to chat.

  Pamela was torn. She needed to confer with Harold before Nell got home from story time at the women’s shelter. But Mr. Gilly talked to everybody about everything. He seemed eager to talk about Caralee’s death, and he’d probably discussed it with countless other people in the week since it happened.

  He fished a cigarette out of the pack and turned away to light it, take a long puff, and exhale.

  “The police say the young woman’s death was an accident,” Pamela said.

  “Yeah—I saw that article in the Advocate.” Mr. Gilly took another puff of his cigarette. He studied Pamela’s face as if debating whether to proceed, but then he went on. “There’s unavoidable accidents,” he said, “and then there’s avoidable accidents.”

  “Really?” Pamela tried to make her voice convey both flattery and surprise.

  Mr. Gilly nodded sagely. “Ben Skyler gets away with a lot up there.” He waved toward the church with the hand that held the cigarette.

  “He does?” Now Pamela truly was surprised. Ben had struck her as conscientious.

  “Careless,” Mr. Gilly nodded again. “Like I said, there’s unavoidable accidents and then there’s avoidable accidents. If you put a careless man in charge of an overstuffed storage room, you’ve got an avoidable accident waiting to happen.”

  Pamela felt herself start to frown but willed her forehead into smoothness. She didn’t want to discourage Mr. Gilly’s musings. “The Players didn’t look after that stuff themselves then?” she said, hoping Mr. Gilly wouldn’t think she was contradicting him. If Ben Skyler not only unlocked the storage room but had charge over its contents, new and interesting possibilities came into view.