Silent Knit, Deadly Knit

by Peggy Ehrhart

  The two kittens had finished their tussle as Pamela and Penny talked, and had wandered from the room. Pamela suspected that they had joined their mother on the thrift-store Persian carpet in the entry and that all three were luxuriating in the patch of morning sun that made the carpet’s colors glow.

  The toast was cold but they frugally ate it anyway, and they sipped reheated coffee as they browsed through the rest of the Register. When the last drops of coffee had been drained from their cups, Penny stood. “You won’t cancel Knit and Nibble tonight or anything, will you?” she asked, pausing near the tray of brightly decorated cookies, covered with plastic wrap, that waited on the counter.

  “No,” Pamela said, rising too. “We have to go on with our rituals.”

  Chapter Three

  Upstairs, Pamela made her bed and arranged her collection of vintage lace pillows against the brass headboard. Then she dressed in her winter work-at-home uniform of jeans and a hand-knit sweater and stepped into the bathroom across the hall to run a comb through her dark straight hair. Penny had inherited her curls from her father’s side of the family.

  In her office Pamela poked the buttons that would awaken her computer and listened through the beeps and hums that signaled it was preparing to face the day. Five messages lurked in her inbox, three that could be dealt with later and two from her boss at Fiber Craft magazine. One of those was garnished with the stylized paper clip that indicated it brought with it attachments—i.e., work for Pamela. The other, at the top of the email queue, had been sent barely half an hour ago. With a click it was open.

  Pamela, the message began. Pamela’s boss eschewed the nearly universal custom of opening every email with the casual “Hi,” no matter how serious the import. But in this case the formal greeting matched the seriousness of the message.

  I’ve just heard the shocking news of Millicent Farthingale’s death, the message went on. This is a terrible blow to the Fiber Craft community. Millicent’s shop was an important outlet for the work of tri-state textile artists and I am not sure that her partner Nadine will be able to keep it going—in fact I am quite sure that she will not.

  I know you are right there in Arborville and so know more about the skill of local law enforcement, but I do not have high hopes that a suburban police force will be able to bring Millicent’s killer to justice.

  Pamela took a moment to respond, keying in, I’m sure they will do their best.

  The second email from her boss was more matter-of-fact. Attached are five recent submissions to the magazine. Please read them and advise as to which you recommend for publication.

  The soothing rhythms of knitting were Pamela’s first choice as an antidote for stress. But immersing herself in the worlds explored by the authors who submitted to Fiber Craft came in as a close second. Now she clicked on the first attachment and prepared to evaluate “Re-creating Traditional Turkish Weaving Techniques.”

  * * *

  The second article was about jewelry made from the hair of dead people. Pamela fingered her chin as she skimmed the first paragraph. It is true that hair is a fiber, and making jewelry is a craft, but did the topic really fit the mission of Fiber Craft? It seemed so . . . macabre, particularly in light of Penny’s grim discovery the previous day. But Pamela’s boss must have seen the title, “Memorializing the Departed: The (Hair) Art of Victorian Mourning Brooches,” and skimmed the article before sending it on to Pamela for a more in-depth reading. She shrugged and began reading more closely.

  She’d barely read past the first paragraph when the doorbell chimed. Even from the landing Pamela knew that her caller was Bettina. Though veiled by the lace that covered the oval window in the front door, Bettina’s pumpkin-colored coat stood out against the somber colors of the wintery landscape. Pamela hurried the rest of the way down the stairs and opened the door to greet her friend, who stepped inside murmuring about the cold wind. Once she was inside, she pulled off her beret and raised a hand to pat the tendrils of her vivid coif into place.

  Catrina looked up briefly from the sunny spot on the rug where she was still dozing. The kittens had long since wandered off. A few balls of leftover yarn had found new lives as cat toys and the kittens often engaged in a morning game of capture the yarn ball. In fact, as Bettina slipped out of her coat, a ball of yarn rolled through the arch that separated the entry from the living room. Ginger followed in hot pursuit, trailed by her brother.

  Bettina had come in looking both eager and intense, as if bearing news that she could hardly wait to impart. But her face softened as she watched the kittens.

  “I hope Ginger won’t miss her brother too much,” she commented.

  “Catrina still likes to play.” Pamela reached out a foot to send the ball of yarn bouncing back toward the living room. Ginger watched it as fixedly as her undomesticated forebears must have watched mice or birds they hoped to capture for lunch, and then she pounced and rolled onto her back, clinging to it delightedly.

  “I’d love some coffee,” Bettina said, “and in return I’ll give you a full rundown on what Clayborn had to say. He knows more now than he knew when he talked to that Register reporter last evening. Lots more. I must say, the county medical examiner is very competent. But she’s a woman, so . . . of course.” Now that her coat was off, Bettina’s whole outfit was revealed: the burgundy slacks and sleek burgundy booties were topped off by a cozy burgundy sweater—“Not hand-knit,” she said, fingering it—and a paisley scarf in rich tones of burgundy, rust, and green.

  “I’m definitely ready for a coffee break myself.” Pamela led the way to the kitchen and set to work boiling water and scooping more ground beans into a fresh paper filter.

  But Bettina hesitated before reaching down cups and saucers from the cupboard, or splashing heavy cream into the cut-glass cream pitcher that matched Pamela’s sugar bowl. She lingered by the tray of decorated cookies, their festive colors heightened by the shimmering plastic wrap that covered them.

  “We probably don’t need all of these for tonight, do we?” she said hopefully. “Nell is so suspicious of sugar, and Roland will say his doctor wouldn’t approve, even though Roland is as skinny as a rail . . .”

  Pamela turned and smiled fondly at her friend. “Yes,” she said, “we can have cookies with our coffee.” She opened a cupboard and took out a small plate garlanded with roses. “Put some on this.”

  In a few minutes they were seated with steaming cups of coffee in front of them, the rich and spicy aroma promising a perfect complement to the Santas and reindeer waiting to be nibbled.

  Bettina bit off a Santa head. She took a sip of the coffee that she had sugared liberally and diluted with cream till the color was more coffee ice cream than coffee. Then she began to speak. “Millicent had been dead about six hours when Penny found her,” Bettina said, the Santa body still in her hand. “Clayborn said the ME is pretty sure of that—they have ways of knowing. So that means she was killed not very long after I saw her at her shop.”

  “She was getting ready to go out while you were there, but she was still in the shop when you left.” Pamela reached for a cookie, choosing a reindeer. She set the reindeer by her saucer and raised her coffee to her lips.

  “That’s right,” Bettina said. “Nadine had just come in—Millicent had been waiting for her, because she couldn’t go out and leave nobody there to look after things. But she was all ready. The scarf looked so nice with her coat.”

  “The body wasn’t wearing a red scarf with green stripes,” Pamela said. Bettina shook her head mournfully. “I wonder where the scarf is now.” Bettina continued to shake her head. “Anyway,” Pamela said, “did Millicent say where she was going?”

  Bettina shrugged. “Just errands. But since we were both heading out, I asked if I should wait a few minutes and we’d walk to our cars together. But she had to explain something to Nadine, something about preparing checks for the people who sell their work through the shop. Christmas and all, and people like extra money for hol
iday expenses.” Bettina bit the Santa body in half. “Millicent had no head for money, but Nadine can be a little slow on the uptake, so Millicent said I should just go on and she’d talk to me later.” Bettina polished off the Santa body and reached for another cookie. Pamela noticed that even her nails carried out the burgundy theme today.

  “So,” Pamela said. “Millicent was killed yesterday morning. I suppose the police are searching that clearing in the nature preserve for clues.”

  “They did already,” Bettina said. “They didn’t find much of anything—but they realized she wasn’t actually killed there.”

  “She wasn’t?” Pamela set her cup back down on her saucer with a clunk. “A secluded place like that? It seemed just right if somebody wanted to commit a murder and get away with it.” She paused, blinked, frowned, and thought for a minute. Then she added, “Of course the killer would have had to lure her there with some kind of a story. And it’s hard to imagine what that story might have been.”

  Bettina nodded. “Millicent wasn’t really the outdoorsy type.”

  “So what do the police think happened?” Pamela picked up the reindeer cookie and bit it in half.

  “She was killed somewhere else and then the killer dumped the body there.” Bettina took a sip of coffee. “The police could see by the way the dead leaves were disturbed that the body had been dragged from that parking area. And they didn’t find any evidence that a gun had been fired in the clearing. But”—Bettina took another sip of coffee—“the ME recovered a bullet from her body.” She smiled, the first Pamela had seen her smile since she’d fielded the call from Penny the previous afternoon. “That’s a big clue,” Bettina said. “Sometimes bullets go right through, and the police never find them. But now they know something about what kind of gun it was—a rifle, Clayborn said, like an old hunting rifle. And the bullet was lead, solid lead. That means it could have been homemade.”

  “People make their own bullets?” Pamela shuddered. “How creepy.”

  “Hunters, Clayborn said. The rifle could belong to some kind of hunter. Or somebody who knows a hunter could have had access to it.”

  Pamela shuddered again. “Did you tell him about the man who’d upset her that morning?”

  “I did.” Bettina bit into her second cookie, another Santa. “He was interested—like the only lead they really have. He said he’d follow up with Nadine—even though I clearly told him that Nadine wasn’t in the shop yet when the man came.”

  “Maybe that wasn’t the first time the man had been there.”

  Bettina studied the half Santa in her hand. “I think this is one of Wilfred’s,” she said. “He was so careful getting the red suit just right, and then the white beard, and the little red ball for the nose and two black dots for the eyes. It’s almost a shame to eat it.”

  Pamela was spared watching the demise of the Santa cookie because just as Bettina raised the rest of the Santa to her mouth, the doorbell chimed. She motioned Bettina to stay where she was, and in a moment she was welcoming the Frasers’ son, Wilfred Jr. She closed the door against the wintry gust of wind that had ushered him in.

  Wilfred Jr. had Wilfred’s genial face and thick head of hair, but he was thinner and his hair was still sandy. He gave Pamela a quick hug and greeted his mother, who had appeared in the doorway between the entry and the kitchen. “I can’t stay,” he said as Pamela offered to take his coat. He was carrying a boxy zippered satchel with wide mesh panels in the sides. “I came prepared,” he added, displaying the satchel. “The boys are beside themselves with excitement, so I hope Midnight doesn’t mind coming home with me.” He laughed. “They already gave him a name. Not too imaginative.”

  Pamela laughed too, as Catrina and her daughter strolled in from the living room, curious about the visitor. “Meet Catrina and Ginger,” she said. “Sometimes the first name that comes to you is the best.”

  Midnight—Pamela already thought of him as that—strolled in a moment later. But he took one look at Wilfred Jr. and veered past the group of humans to head for the stairs. He began to climb, rising on his back legs and stretching to his utmost to reach the next step. Pamela didn’t want to alarm him further by snatching him up, so they watched his laborious ascent.

  “Is he too young to go?” Wilfred Jr. asked, his face assuming a tender expression just like one that Pamela had seen on Wilfred Sr.’s face countless times.

  “It’s just that he doesn’t know you,” Pamela said. “He’s used to Bettina because she’s been around ever since he was a newborn.”

  “He’s plenty old enough to be adopted,” Bettina chimed in. “The others are in their new homes and doing fine, including my little Punkin.” Punkin was the name she and Wilfred had given the kitten they’d adopted from Catrina’s litter of six.

  Catrina and Ginger were sniffing curiously at the satchel with the mesh sides, which of course was a cat-carrier.

  “We’ll let him calm down for a minute, then I’ll go up and get him,” Pamela said. “We’ll put some kitten treats in the cat-carrier and he’ll be more than happy to go home with you.”

  Bettina stepped to the bottom of the stairs and glanced up. “No sign of him,” she observed. “He’s made it past the landing.”

  Pamela reached for the cat-carrier and beckoned Wilfred Jr. toward the kitchen. “Come on and have a Christmas cookie while I get out the kitten treats.”

  But before they reached the kitchen door, Penny appeared on the landing holding the black kitten in her arms. “Look who came up to visit me,” she said, scratching the kitten between his ears. He twisted his neck to study her face. Penny continued down the stairs. She had changed out of her pajamas and robe, and into an outfit rather nicer than her usual winter at-home uniform of leggings and a much-loved and much-worn sweater. She was wearing a pair of jeans in a dark navy blue and a navy pullover with a V-neck that revealed the collar of a crisp white shirt.

  “Job interview?” Bettina asked.

  “No,” Penny said. “I’m supposed to talk to the police this morning.” Bettina raised her fingers to her lips to smother a quick intake of breath. “No big deal. I suppose they want to make sure they got all the details right. Everything that happened before they got there. Things were kind of . . .” She grimaced. “Kind of confusing yesterday.”

  Bettina held out her arms and the kitten allowed himself to be transferred. Penny opened the closet and pulled out her violet jacket and the violet mohair scarf that Pamela had offered to share when Penny acquired the violet jacket. She slipped on the jacket, twisted the scarf into a cozy knot under her chin, and reached for the doorknob.

  Pamela couldn’t hold back the words that popped out. “Let me come! Please!” She dropped the cat-carrier, dodged around Bettina and Wilfred Jr., and pulled her coat out of the closet.

  “Mo-om!” Penny groaned, but the expression on her face was sympathetic, not angry. “I can go by myself. Really. And I’ll be back in no time.”

  Pamela stood with her coat in her hand, watching as her daughter opened the door. “Marcy Brewer might be waiting for you outside the police station,” Pamela said. “She’s the reporter from the Register, and she knows you’re talking to Detective Clayborn today.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Penny said, and she was off.

  In the kitchen, Bettina offered Wilfred Jr. a cookie and helped herself to another as Pamela took the bag of kitten treats from the cupboard. The cat-carrier waited on the kitchen table. The treats were shaped like fish, tiny fish the size of guppies. And they smelled like fish, though not in a way that Pamela thought would entice a human looking forward to a fish dinner. Clearly the manufacturers of the treats knew their market, however. As soon as Pamela had tugged apart the plastic zipper at the mouth of the bag, the kitten, still in Bettina’s arms, lost interest in chewing at her fingers. He began to stare at the now open treat bag with an intensity that was comical in a creature so small.

  Pamela reached into the bag and seized a few of the treats. She
transferred them to the palm of her other hand and extended that hand toward the kitten. The kitten hunched himself up on Bettina’s arm as if about to make a gravity defying leap right into Pamela’s open hand. “Here we go,” Pamela murmured, edging toward the kitchen table.

  Wilfred Jr. unzipped the panel that constituted the carrier’s door. Pamela reached in and deposited the fish treats on the floor of the carrier, which was covered in a smooth nylon fabric with a bit of padding beneath. “Yummy fish treats,” she cooed, extracting her hand as Bettina advanced across the floor bearing the excited kitten.

  Bettina stooped toward the table, extending the arm that the kitten was clinging to. The kitten hopped lightly onto the table and through the open door of the cat-carrier. Wilfred Jr. closed it quickly and, with a sound rather like the purring of a cat, the zipper was zipped and the kitten was captured.

  “You’ll be sure to report back,” Pamela said, as she gazed through the mesh to watch the kitten savor his treats.

  “Of course.” Wilfred Jr. picked up the cat-carrier. “I can’t wait to see the looks on the boys’ faces,” he added, and headed for the entry.

  “I’ve got to be going too,” Bettina said. “I want to write up my interview with Clayborn while it’s still fresh in my mind.” In the entry she retrieved the pumpkin-colored coat and buttoned herself into it. She was about to follow Wilfred Jr. out the door when she paused. “I wonder if Charlotte will come tonight. I don’t think she was that close to Millicent, even though she was Millicent’s tenant. But she seems like kind of a sensitive soul, and hearing that Millicent was murdered must have been a shock. Besides, she might be afraid that the Knit and Nibblers won’t want to talk about anything else.”

  Pamela laughed. “She doesn’t know us very well then.”

  “No.” Bettina joined in the laughter. “Nell hates gossip and Roland is in his own world and Karen is a shy little mouse, afraid of her own shadow. But Charlotte only joined when . . . ? A month ago?”