Silent Knit, Deadly Knit

by Peggy Ehrhart

  “I think so,” Pamela said. “The first meeting she came to was at your house. She learned about the group from Millicent.”

  “So I’ll see you tonight then.” Bettina gave Pamela a hug.

  When she was alone once more, Pamela rinsed the coffee cups at the sink and poured the leftover cream back into the carton in the refrigerator. Then she set to work preparing the house for Knit and Nibble.

  She fetched the vacuum cleaner from the closet in the laundry room and, with the canister trailing along, vacuumed her way through the entry, the living room, and the dining room. Pamela’s carpets were all thrift-store finds, old-fashioned carpets in the Persian style, with sinuous stylized foliage rendered in deep, rich colors.

  When the vacuuming was done, she tidied the pillows along the back of the sofa, making sure the needlepoint cat wasn’t standing on its head. Dusting was next, first the coffee table—which had to be cleared of magazines to make room for refreshments that evening. Then Pamela tackled shelves, cabinets, and tables, dusting her thrift-store treasures and tag-sale finds with loving hands and settling each one back in place.

  As Pamela was returning the vacuum to its closet and disposing of the dust cloths, now scented with lemon oil, her stomach reminded her that coffee and one cookie were not going to fuel her through much more of her day. Pamela had made bean soup a few nights earlier, and lots of pork tenderloin was left from the dinner she’d welcomed Penny home with. The soup would be quick to reheat for the two of them before Knit and Nibble arrived, and she’d slice more of the pork and eat it on whole-grain bread for lunch.

  After lunch, Pamela gave the kitchen floor a hurried mopping and then climbed the stairs to her office. After removing Catrina from her computer keyboard, she resumed reading “Memorializing the Departed: The (Hair) Art of Victorian Mourning Brooches.” She was so caught up in it that she didn’t notice Penny standing in the doorway until Catrina leapt from the shelf where she had relocated and Penny scooped her up and murmured, “Hi, kitty.”

  “You’re back!” Pamela swiveled her desk chair to face her daughter. She studied Penny’s face, still rosy from the brisk December wind. Pamela felt her forehead crease. “Was it . . . okay?”

  “Detective Clayborn was okay,” Penny said. “He was nice. He just went over what I told him and the other policeman down at the nature preserve yesterday and asked me to confirm that that was what I said. But”—she hesitated and Pamela held her breath—“that reporter was there. In the parking lot. I couldn’t get away from her. And she had a photographer with her. He took my picture.”

  “Oh, dear.” Pamela sighed. “Well, it’s a big story and you’re part of it. I suppose you’ll be in the Register tomorrow, and people in town will recognize you, and everywhere you go somebody will want to hear your personal version of finding the body.” She sighed again. “At least you’ll be able to escape when you go back up to school.”

  “If the police solve the murder soon, the story will go away, won’t it?” The hopeful expression on Penny’s face made her look so vulnerable that Pamela’s throat tightened. “So I hope the police get busy,” Penny added.

  “I’m sure they will do their best,” Pamela said.

  Penny stooped to lower Catrina to the floor. She was still wearing her violet jacket and the violet mohair scarf. “Lorie and I are going to the mall,” she said. “And we’re going to hang out at her house tonight. So don’t worry about me for dinner.”

  Pamela waited until she heard the door close downstairs and then turned back to her computer.

  Chapter Four

  “There will only be six of us tonight,” Holly Perkins announced as soon as she stepped through the door.

  Pamela nodded. “It’s understandable that Charlotte wouldn’t want to come out.”

  “Charlotte?” Holly’s large eyes grew larger. “No, I’m talking about Karen.” Holly and Karen were best friends, young marrieds and only recently settled in Arborville.

  “Is she all right?” Pamela asked, alarmed. Bettina had appeared in the kitchen doorway and she echoed the words, sounding equally alarmed.

  “The baby . . .” Holly patted her own stomach through her stylish black-and-white houndstooth coat. Pamela and Bettina gasped in unison. “It’s okay . . . I mean it’s not here yet . . . but it might be coming. She called me a little while ago and said she and Dave were timing contractions.”

  “A Christmas baby.” Bettina sighed. “So exciting.”

  “Hello, hello,” said a cheery voice from the porch. Pamela advanced to the threshold and glanced out to see Nell Bascomb climbing the porch steps. Illuminated by the porch light and tousled by the wind, Nell’s hair floated like a white halo above her kindly face. “Roland is just coming,” Nell said as Pamela moved aside to let her enter. Holly came farther into the entry and handed Bettina her coat.

  Pamela watched as Roland DeCamp’s Porsche nosed into a spot at the curb. Roland climbed out, retrieved the briefcase in which he carried his knitting supplies, and strode up the front walk in his well-cut wool coat.

  “Good evening, Pamela,” he said once he had gained the porch. “I believe I may be a bit late.”

  “Not at all, Roland. Not at all.” Pamela ushered him inside, just in time to hear Nell’s soft squeal of pleasure as she absorbed the news that Karen’s baby might be on its way. Nell’s ancient gray wool coat joined Bettina’s and Holly’s coats on the chair in the entry, and Roland arranged his carefully on top of the pile.

  “Only five tonight, it looks like,” Bettina observed, “and we have so many cookies . . .” She took a seat on Pamela’s sofa, moving a few pillows aside, and Holly joined her.

  Nell started toward the living room but paused and took Pamela aside. “You’re all right, I hope . . . after yesterday?” Pamela nodded. “And dear little Penny?”

  “She went to the mall with one of her Arborville friends today,” Pamela answered.

  “Shopping,” Bettina volunteered from the sofa. “That’s the cure for everything.” And she and Holly went back to a lively conversation about the likelihood of Karen’s baby being born that night.

  Nell set out again, heading for the sofa. Before she could get there, Pamela intercepted her. “Please take the comfy chair,” she said, gesturing toward the comfortable armchair at the side of the fireplace.

  Roland hesitated in the arch between the entry and the living room, briefcase at his side. Bettina patted a spot on the sofa next to her. “Plenty of room here,” she called. “Come and join Holly and me.”

  “But where will Pamela sit?” he asked, scanning the room, perhaps put off more by a sense that he had little to contribute to a conversation about childbirth than by genuine concern about a shortage of seating.

  “I’ll be fine on this footstool,” Pamela said, tugging the footstool away from the armchair and toward the center of the room. She’d collected her knitting bag from its customary spot at the end of the sofa and was about to sit down when the doorbell chimed.

  People had begun pulling out yarn and needles and projects in various states of completion, but everyone paused and watched as Pamela headed for the door and grasped the knob to swing it open.

  “I know I’m late,” said a small, breathless voice. The owner of the voice peeked around the door then tiptoed into the entry. “And I’m sorry to disturb you.” It was Charlotte Sprague, looking like a romantic heroine in a voluminous coat and a lacy knit shawl that covered her head and her narrow shoulders. Her pale, oval face and huge dark eyes completed the image.

  “We’re scarcely disturbed,” Roland said with a frown. He’d settled to work as soon as the latecomer made her identity known, and the pink angora rectangle hanging from his needles had already grown by half a row. He continued knitting even as he spoke.

  Nell freed herself from the embrace of the comfy armchair and leaned forward. “We didn’t think you’d come, dear,” she said in her kind voice. “It must have been a terrible shock to learn that Millicent had
been killed.”

  “It was,” Charlotte said. “It was a terrible shock. But I thought it would be better to come out and see people rather than sit home alone. The carriage house can get spooky at night, so far back from the road and with all those trees around.” She removed the shawl to reveal dark hair pulled into an elaborate bun at the nape of her neck. Stray tendrils softened her hairline. Pamela held out her arms as Charlotte slipped out of her coat.

  Charlotte perched on the rummage-sale chair with the carved wooden back and needlepoint seat, facing the sofa with the coffee table in between. Bettina leaned toward her. “How’s Pierre doing?” she asked.

  “Sad, of course,” Charlotte said. She pulled a skein of sky-blue yarn from her knitting bag, which was sewn from flowered chintz and hung from wooden handles. “But he’s also quite distracted at the moment.”

  “His teaching, I imagine . . . though Wendelstaff must be on break now.” The expression on Bettina’s face made the statement a question.

  “Oh—not that. I mean, Pierre is a dedicated teacher of course and yes, Wendelstaff is on break.” Charlotte reached into the bag again and came up with a wide swath of sky-blue knitting. Above a few inches of ribbing, an elaborate interlocking pattern commenced, Celtic in feel, like a braid woven from many strands. She studied it, smoothing it out on her knee. “Didn’t Millicent tell you?”

  Pamela had taken her seat on the footstool and set to work completing the last piece of the ambitious project she had started at the beginning of summer—a glamorous ruby-red tunic with (what seemed to her daring) peekaboo shoulders. But now she let needles and knitting rest in her lap and leaned forward.

  Pamela was not a nosy person. Quite the opposite. But she doubted even the most detached of persons could ignore words as tantalizing as Didn’t Millicent tell you? And in fact Nell had abandoned her knitting too and was staring at Charlotte.

  “Tell me what?” Bettina had no scruples about making her curiosity known.

  “Millicent had a sister,” Charlotte said. “An older sister—except Millicent never knew her because Millicent’s parents put the sister up for adoption.”

  “Oh, my!” Nell’s faded blue eyes looked positively tragic. “Why would people do that?”

  “That’s what this woman says anyway. She came around last week. Millicent had never laid eyes on her.” Charlotte shrugged.

  “The house,” Bettina said. “When Millicent’s mother died, the house should have gone to the sister—if she’s the oldest.”

  “Depends on the will,” Roland observed without pausing the steady rhythm of his needles.

  Holly leaned across Bettina to flash Roland one of the dimply smiles that revealed her perfect teeth. “You must know everything there is to know about wills,” she exclaimed.

  “Inheritance law is hardly my specialty,” Roland said, suppressing a tiny pleased smile. “But the basics are pretty basic. If the will says somebody gets something, then that somebody gets it.”

  Bettina tightened her lips into a thoughtful line. “Millicent’s mother must have had a will—that huge house on that huge piece of land . . . in Timberley. The estate is worth millions, I’m sure. And Millicent cared for her mother for so many years before she died. It would be shameful if her mother just left everything for whatever heirs to fight over, while the lawyers all took their cut.”

  Pamela glanced at Roland, but he seemed more interested in the process of shaping his pink angora yarn into what seemed to be a sleeve than in following the conversation. “Millicent must have known the house was hers,” Pamela said, “because she was going to sell it.”

  “True.” Bettina nodded. “So what claim could this person think she has?” This question was directed to Charlotte.

  Charlotte shrugged again, a delicate one-shouldered shrug that made the tiny gold locket nestled between her collarbones shift slightly. “DNA evidence. Isn’t that what people do now?” Her pretty mouth shaped an apologetic half smile. “I’m not really supposed to know about this. I stopped by the big house to pay my rent last week and heard them talking before they saw me. They’d just come back from somewhere and were walking up to the porch.”

  “What will you do now?” Holly exclaimed, as if the thought had just occurred to her. “You’ll have to move . . . unless Millicent’s husband decides to keep the house, or this DNA person decides to stay . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “I was going to move anyway,” Charlotte said. “I love living in that old carriage house, but I don’t like paying rent when I could be buying something of my own. Morton-Bidwell just offered me a five-year contract and I’ve been looking at townhouses.” Morton-Bidwell was a fancy private school in Timberley with a reputation as a sure conduit to the Ivy League.

  Pamela surveyed the room. Holly’s project looked new, and interesting, a rectangle knit from thick, fuzzy yarn in a dramatic shade of orange. Next to Holly, Bettina was intent on what Pamela knew was her most ambitious project to date: a Nordic-style sweater for Wilfred, navy blue with red ribbing and bands of snowflakes in red and white. Roland was still at work on the pink angora sweater destined as a Christmas gift for his wife, Melanie.

  As if Holly had been doing her own survey, she suddenly spoke up, addressing Nell. “How many have you done so far?” she asked.

  Nell looked momentarily startled, then blinked and smiled, as if a bit embarrassed to have been caught in the trancelike state that Pamela knew knitting sometimes induced. “This is number twenty,” she said, holding the project up so it could be seen by all.

  It was a stocking, nearly finished, bright red, and of a size to fit a foot larger than that of any human.

  “There will be plenty of room for goodies in that,” Bettina said.

  Nell nodded. “Not too much candy though.”

  “But it’s Christmas,” Bettina protested.

  “Healthful things, like nuts. And some little toys, of course. Educational toys. Heaven knows, the children at the shelter have so little.” Nell volunteered at the women’s shelter in Haversack, and most products of her knitting industry were designed as gifts for people temporarily lodging there.

  Having satisfied her curiosity about Nell’s progress, Holly leaned past Bettina and fingered the nearly completed sleeve that hung from Roland’s needles. “Melanie is going to love this color,” she exclaimed with another dimply smile.

  Pamela had her doubts. She’d never seen Roland’s soigné wife in anything but chic neutrals and fabrics like fine wool, linen, or silk. But Melanie was delighted that Roland’s knitting hobby was serving as the stress-reducer his doctor had prescribed.

  “Will you be finished in time?” Holly went on. “Christmas is just a week away.”

  “Eight days,” Roland said with a frown. “And of course I’ll be finished.” Still knitting, he nodded toward the briefcase in which he carried his knitting supplies, which was open at his feet. Within were three knitted lengths of pink angora, folded neatly and nestled side by side. “This is the last sleeve, and I’ll have plenty of time to sew them together.”

  “What about your project, Holly?” Pamela asked quickly. Most people came to Knit and Nibble to knit and talk (and nibble of course)—but Roland didn’t do small talk and always seemed puzzled by Holly’s conversational overtures. Now his lean face was serious as his finger caught up a strand of yarn and he plied his needles to form a stitch. It was the last stitch in the row. He studied his handiwork for a moment, then shifted the piece of knitting from his right hand to his left, turned it over, and started a new row.

  “I’m making an afghan.” Holly displayed the fuzzy orange rectangle. “Color block. Some pieces will be squares and others rectangles. Different sizes too, but they’ll all fit together. It will look very sixties. And I’m using all my favorite colors—some other pieces will be turquoise, and I’m not sure what else yet. Maybe some kind of green, or—”

  She was cut off by Roland, who had set his knitting aside in mid-row and pushed back his fla
wlessly starched shirt cuff to consult his impressive watch. “It’s just eight,” he announced. “Time for our break.”

  “—another shade of blue,” Holly finished. Pamela gave her a sympathetic smile.

  “I love those bright colors too,” Bettina said. In fact, Bettina’s hair, which she herself described as a color not found in nature, was nearly the same hue as the yarn Holly was shaping into the beginnings of her afghan. “And so clever—you can easily carry the project around because you’re making one little piece at a time, then you sew them together and you have a whole afghan.”

  Meanwhile, Pamela was on her way to the kitchen. Before people started arriving, she’d set out seven cups and saucers from her wedding china on the kitchen table, and seven little plates, and seven spoons, and seven white linen napkins trimmed with lace. The napkins had been rescued long ago from the tail end of a tag sale, just as their owner, eager to downsize, was bagging up the unsold leftovers for the Goodwill. The cut-glass sugar bowl and creamer stood ready, the bowl freshly filled and the creamer ready for cream. In the absence of Karen, Nell would be the only tea drinker, but several scoops of loose tea waited in the teapot, a cherished thrift-store find. On the counter sat the coffee grinder, its canister full of fresh-ground coffee, and the carafe with a paper filter fitted into its plastic cone.

  Pamela filled the kettle at the sink, settled it on the stove, and was just adjusting the flame under it when Bettina entered.

  “That Roland,” she muttered. “He has absolutely no social graces.”

  Pamela laughed. “Well, he does keep us on schedule.”

  “Just an excuse to show off that fancy watch of his. I don’t know how Melanie puts up with him.” Bettina expelled her breath in a disdainful puff.

  “Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a Wilfred,” Pamela said. Or a Michael, she almost said, but stopped herself. Michael Paterson had been an ideal husband, and the holidays always reminded her afresh how happy their life had been. But Bettina needed little encouragement to bring up one of her favorite topics: the eligibility of Richard Larkin.