“Shall we go home, dear wife?” Wilfred asked, slipping his arm around Bettina’s ample waist. Bettina nodded toward Pamela and he aimed his kindly gaze in her direction. “All of us, I mean,” Wilfred added. “You too, Pamela. We don’t know what happened here”—he waved a hand in the direction of the parking lot—“and you’re right next door.”
“I’ll be fine,” Pamela said. “And you’ve got a birthday party to go to.”
* * *
Once back at home, Pamela felt at loose ends. She sat down with her knitting, taking up where she’d left off on the second sleeve of the ruby-red tunic. She also felt very curious, so she turned on the radio. She didn’t usually listen to the radio while she knit, preferring to let her mind wander or to watch the television if something good was on. But the truck that had showed up next door, even before the sheriff’s van, had been from the local AM station. The station must have gotten word very quickly that something serious had happened, the most obvious thing being another death. They’d want to report the story to their listeners as soon as possible.
She worked for an hour or more, losing herself in the pleasant motions of needles and fingers as the cheery radio voices alternated between news of dubious interest and advertisements for products and services of dubious use. But there was no mention of breaking news in Arborville, NJ. She was sitting on the sofa with her back to the windows that looked out on the street. The windows were closed, but sounds began to filter through—car doors slamming, a revving engine, people calling to each other. The street seemed suddenly alive with activity, as if an event at the church had just ended. In fact it had.
She was on her feet, the trance induced by the steady back and forth of knit and purl swept totally away. The police and the sheriff’s van people must have finished their work. The Players had been released to go about their business, though evidently not to resume their rehearsal. Pamela pictured yellow crime-scene tape sealing the doors that the police officer had been guarding. She tossed the partly finished sleeve on the sofa, not even caring that she’d stopped in mid-row. Catrina had just appeared in the arch between the living room and the entry. She looked up as if questioning whether dinner would be forthcoming at the usual time, but Pamela ignored her too—at least for the time being.
She hurried to the door and stepped out onto the porch. A small group of people, including the older woman she’d talked to before, was heading toward Arborville Avenue, just passing the end of the hedge that separated her yard from Richard Larkin’s. Pamela hopped down the steps and cut across her lawn, calling, “Hello? Excuse me?” They all turned, most staring at her curiously. But the older woman recognized her and said hi.
“Something happened at your rehearsal,” Pamela said.
“Well, duh.” It was the young woman who had taken over Caralee’s role, and apparently Caralee’s scornful personality as well.
“I’m not usually nosy,” Pamela said. Unless you’re detecting, responded a voice in her head. “But I do live right next door,” she added, “and . . .”
“You want to know why the police were here, and that crime-scene van,” the older woman supplied. Pamela nodded. “Anthony Wadsworth is dead.”
Pamela took a step backward, then another. She wasn’t totally shocked—she’d already realized something pretty serious had taken place. But Anthony Wadsworth? She and Bettina had pegged him as a possible villain, not a possible victim.
“Did . . .” She paused and the older woman waited, her eyes open extra wide as if she was eager to hear the rest. Pamela obliged. “Did something fall on him?”
“Quite a few things.” The woman nodded. The woman who had replaced Caralee hid a smirk.
One of the others chimed in. “The cops asked more questions this time. And they kept us all inside. Something was different, but I don’t know what.”
Pamela felt slightly guilty. Someone was dead, which was a very sad thing. So why did she feel excited? Perhaps because she liked challenges, she decided as she walked back toward her house. Pondering who killed Caralee had been like tackling a complicated knitting pattern. The end had seemed in sight, with suspects winnowed down to just a few. But now there was a second victim—and that victim was Anthony Wadsworth, who had been one of the suspects. She felt like she had turned the page in a pattern book expecting to find only a few more steps and discovered that in fact the project was scarcely half done—and that the end result would be much more interesting than she had originally imagined.
She climbed her front steps and reached for the doorknob. Inside Catrina greeted her with an annoyed meow, and from the radio came an urgent voice advising that there was still time to save hundreds of dollars in winter heating costs by installing replacement windows now. She turned the radio off.
In the kitchen she served Catrina and the kittens their dinners and sliced some of the previous night’s meatloaf for herself, eating it with whole-grain toast and a tomato and cucumber salad. Of course Bettina would need to be informed about the news that the victim had been Anthony Wadsworth, but she’d wait till Wilfred’s ancient Mercedes was back in the Frasers’ driveway. There was no need to disrupt the birthday party.
So Pamela settled back on the sofa with her ruby-red yarn, gratified to discover that no stitches had slipped off her needles when she tossed the project aside. From time to time, she walked to the door and peered through the lace that curtained the oval window, checking for signs that Bettina was back home.
She was startled when the doorbell chimed at about nine p.m. To the doorbell was added a voice, faint but audible, though it came from the porch. “It’s me, Bettina,” the voice said. “I brought you some cake.” Pamela hurried to admit her friend.
Bettina had dressed up for the party. She wore a silky, full-skirted dress in a swirly print that mingled midnight blue and burgundy. Sparkly blue stones adorned her earlobes. She carried a small plate covered with foil. “You must have just gotten home,” Pamela said. “I’ve been watching for you. Wait until you hear what I found out.”
“About . . . next door?” Bettina’s hazel eyes, wide with anticipation, gazed up at Pamela.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” Pamela said, leading the way to the kitchen. When they got there, she turned dramatically and said, “Anthony Wadsworth is dead.”
“No!” Bettina nearly dropped the foil-covered plate. “Was he . . . ?”
Pamela nodded. “Just like Caralee, except not quite.”
She described running outside when she realized the Players had been released to go home. Bettina, listening intently, set the plate securely on the table and began peeling the foil away. Pamela told her how, according to one of the Players, the police had treated Anthony Wadsworth’s death differently from Caralee’s death.
When the cake was revealed, it proved to be a square from the corner of a sheet cake—frosted with chocolate and with a grooved ripple of chocolate trim edging the base and top on two sides.
“Will you take half?” Pamela asked, studying the generous portion.
“Ohh!” Bettina patted her waistline. “I had two pieces at the party. Please go ahead.” She watched as Pamela fetched a fork and napkin and teased off her first chocolaty bite. “This complicates things,” she said after a minute or two. “Wadsworth being killed. But how did the police treat it differently?”
Pamela nodded, finished chewing, and swallowed. “They didn’t let anybody go outside till they were finished. Maybe you’ll find out why when you talk to Detective Clayborn for the Advocate. But as far as Wadsworth being dead goes, that probably means he didn’t kill Caralee.”
“We can cross him off the list,” Bettina agreed.
“And Swinton too,” Pamela said, “even though he’s a complete fraud and would have made great fodder for Caralee’s blog.” She frowned thoughtfully and took another bite of cake. “Because what threat would Anthony Wadsworth have posed to Thomas Swinton?”
Bettina frowned too. “Yes, the same person most like
ly killed both Wadsworth and Caralee. So we need a person with a motive that applies to both.”
“Probably not Kent Varnish—or Merrick Timmons either then. He could have deputized Ben Skyler to do his dirty work. But with him too—what reason would he have for wanting to get rid of Wadsworth?” Pamela sighed. “I’m afraid the code in that piece of Madame Defarge knitting has led us completely astray and this is all about some whole other something.” She carved off a piece of cake from one of the edges that had the chocolate trim.
“Craig Belknap,” Bettina said.
“Not so fast.” Pamela paused and conveyed the chocolaty morsel to her mouth, then she set down her fork and it clinked against the plate. “We thought we knew why he might have killed Caralee.”
Bettina chimed in. “Unrequited love.”
“But then why would he kill Wadsworth?”
“Not unrequited love.” Bettina laughed. “But he could have resented Wadsworth for something to do with the Players.” She studied the cake. “Do you mind . . . just a bit?”
“Help yourself,” Pamela said. “You know where the forks are.”
Bettina took a fork from the silverware drawer and slipped back into her chair. She eased off a nubbin of the chocolate trim, raised the fork to her mouth, and hummed in appreciation as she swallowed. Then, returning to the topic at hand, she asked, “So did he kill them both?”
“It wouldn’t be the same motive,” Pamela said. “But it appears to be the same method. That definitely links the two deaths.” She sat up straighter, excited by a sudden new idea. “What if Wadsworth killed Caralee and Craig Belknap (in love with Caralee!) found out and decided to kill Wadsworth?”
“Possible.” Bettina shrugged. “But it still bothers me that Craig Belknap absolutely refuses to say why he dashed out of Hyler’s early on the night Caralee was killed.”
“Let’s sleep on it,” Pamela said, “and you’ll talk to Detective Clayborn.”
“Not until Monday though.” Bettina scooped up another forkful of chocolate trim.
“Be sure to ask him why they kept everybody inside this time.”
“Something will be in the Register tomorrow,” Bettina said. “It’s hard to scoop a story when you write for a weekly.”
* * *
Catrina was still snuggled against the small of Pamela’s back when Pamela opened her eyes Sunday morning. Her room was barely light. She lifted her head to bring her bedside clock into view and the glowing numerals told her that it wasn’t even six a.m. Normally she would have closed her eyes again and slipped off into a sweet early-morning dream. But a thought had drifted into her mind just as she was falling asleep the previous night, a thought about an important thing she had to remember to do.
Penny! That was it. She sat up, and Catrina surged from beneath the covers and leapt onto the floor. Penny would soon know about this most recent Arborville murder, and it was best she hear the news from her mother first. Pamela swung her feet around and lowered them to the rag rug beside the bed. She couldn’t call though. An early call from home on a Sunday morning would seem to announce a disaster. She’d send a quick email—like everyone else her age, Penny looked at her phone first thing. Pamela would just sketch the outlines of the event and say she was fine and would call later. That would be a good plan.
But what were the outlines of the event? She decided to fetch the newspaper first.
Catrina had become accustomed to the morning ritual of her mistress making a quick trip outside before turning her attention to breakfast. But today Pamela stayed outside longer than usual. The sun was barely up and the yard was chilly and gray, but the Register already lay at the end of the front walk, a pale oblong in a plastic sleeve. As Pamela made her way down the walk she glanced from left to right, not because she anticipated any threat but because she was curious to see if anyone else was stirring this early on a Sunday morning.
Thus it was that she realized something was different about Richard Larkin’s driveway. It had been empty for so long, but overnight a vehicle had appeared. The vehicle was familiar. Pamela recognized it as Richard Larkin’s olive-green Jeep Cherokee. He was home. For a moment she felt a bit breathless. Then she inhaled deeply and told herself that she’d wait until he came to claim his mail and welcome him back in a cordial, neighborly way. She continued along the walk toward where the newspaper waited, picked it up, and returned to her house.
Several of the kittens were milling around in the corner where their food usually appeared, their sleek ginger and black bodies intertwining as they jostled one another. Pamela spooned kitten food into one bowl and cat food into another. As Catrina and her brood addressed themselves to their breakfast, Pamela postponed her own in favor of discovering how much the Register’s reporter had been able to learn about Anthony Wadsworth’s death before the Register went to press.
The story was not front-page news, but a few pages in she recognized a familiar sight—the doors that opened off the church parking lot, but with a garnish of bright yellow crime-scene tape. The headline that accompanied the photo read MURDER SUSPECTED IN DEATH OF ARBORVILLE PLAYERS’ ANTHONY WADSWORTH. Pamela smoothed the page out and leaned closer to focus on the accompanying article.
It described police being summoned when the Player in charge of props for the upcoming production entered the group’s storage room to discover an arm protruding from under a pile of furniture. Before the police arrived, several more Players had removed chairs, tables, and a dresser and discovered that the arm was attached to Anthony Wadsworth, who was dead. And apparently police believed he had been murdered.
Pamela reread the article twice to make sure she hadn’t overlooked a reference to Caralee’s death. The circumstances were so similar—the police were calling Wadsworth’s death murder, but had dismissed Caralee’s as an accident. Bettina would talk to Detective Clayborn the next day. Surely he’d have a rational explanation. Readers of the Advocate deserved no less.
The phone rang as Pamela was halfway up the stairs, on her way to send Penny a quick email while the water heated for coffee. She was equidistant between two phones, but she stopped on the landing, whirled around, and retraced her steps to the kitchen. She picked up, expecting to hear Bettina’s voice and ready to agree with her friend that the Register article had been singularly uninformative. But the voice on the other end wasn’t Bettina’s.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Mom?” It was a hesitant whisper.
“Penny!” Pamela lowered herself into the chair she had recently abandoned. The Register was still spread out on the table in front of her. “Why are you up? It’s Sunday morning.”
“I couldn’t sleep, Mom. I was worried about you.” Penny sounded like the child she’d been until so recently.
“You heard the news then?” Pamela stared at the photo of the doors with the crime-scene tape. “I was going to email you. I didn’t want to wake you up on Sunday morning. How did you find out so soon?”
“Lorie Hopkins texted me last night but it was too late to call you,” Penny said. “Her mom is in the Players.”
“Well, I’m fine,” Pamela assured her. “You don’t need to worry.”
“He was murdered, Mom,” Penny said as if offering a counterargument, “and I just know you and Bettina are going to decide this has something to do with Caralee and go running around talking to dangerous people.” As if punctuating a dramatic scene, the kettle began to hoot. Pamela jumped up and turned off the burner, remaining on her feet halfway between the table and the stove.
Pamela didn’t like to lie. She’d weaseled out of having to lie to Penny about looking into Caralee’s death by stressing that the police considered it an accident. She hadn’t added that she and Bettina disagreed.
There was silence on both ends for a minute. Then Penny spoke again. “I trust you, Mom,” she said in a little voice. “I only have one parent now.” Pamela felt her throat tighten. “Promise me you’ll stay out of this.”
Pamela sighed. �
��Yes,” she said. “I promise.” At her feet, Catrina was licking one of her children’s fur smooth. “Go back to sleep now. Okay?”
“Okay.” Penny sounded more cheerful. She signed off with her usual, “Love you, Mom.”
Pamela relit the burner under the kettle and fetched the coffee grinder and beans from the cupboard.
* * *
An hour later Pamela stepped out onto her porch again. She carried one of her canvas shopping bags and in her purse was a grocery list. She actually didn’t need much of anything, but the bright fall day—and the fact that it was Sunday—almost demanded a walk. To distract herself from the crime scene next door, she was determined to head up the street. A route that took her down the street, and past the driveway that led into the church parking lot, might encourage a detour. And the detour might involve checking on things, like whether the crime-scene tape was still up. And, if the tape wasn’t up, whether the double doors from the parking lot had been unlocked as the church prepared for Sunday morning services.
No! she told herself. Don’t even think these thoughts. You promised Penny to mind your own business.
She descended the steps, made her way down the front walk, and resolutely turned right. A few women strolled toward her, on their way to church, judging by their pretty skirt-and-jacket ensembles. One of them waved at someone and from behind Pamela came a voice offering a cheerful greeting. A few cars cruised by, slowing to make the turn into the church driveway. Pamela resisted the urge to watch and see whether anyone was stationed there to turn them back.
So focused was she on these distractions, and so used to the sight of Richard Larkin’s empty driveway, that as she passed his house it took her a moment to realize that something had changed since that morning. The driveway was empty, yes, the way it had been for the past several weeks—but earlier that morning it hadn’t been. So he, or someone driving his car, had arrived during the night and then gone away again. She continued on her way as the two topics she was determined not to think about struggled for territory in her brain.
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