Silent Knit, Deadly Knit

by Peggy Ehrhart

  Pamela busied herself setting water to boil in Bettina’s gleaming kettle and measuring grounds from a bag of Guatemalan coffee into a coffee filter. While she worked she enjoyed the oohs and aahs coming from the dining room as people admired Maxie’s yule log. After a minute Maxie darted back to the kitchen to retrieve a stack of dessert plates.

  Cups and saucers from Bettina’s sage-green pottery were already waiting on the high counter that edged the cooking area of Bettina’s spacious kitchen. Someone had set out the sugar bowl too, and made sure it was filled, but the cream pitcher needed cream. The kettle began to hoot as Pamela was returning the carton of cream to the refrigerator. She poured the boiling water slowly through the grounds, tilting her head aside to avoid the drift of steam.

  The water would take a minute to seep through the grounds into the carafe below, so Pamela delivered the sugar and cream to the table. She paused to watch Maxie transfer a slice of the magnificent cake to one of Bettina’s sage-green dessert plates, dark chocolate sponge and light chocolate buttercream alternating in a spiral, with a marshmallow mushroom tucked at the side.

  When the cups of coffee had been delivered, with Bettina’s help, and sugar and cream added to everyone’s liking, people applied themselves to the pleasant task of demolishing their share of the yule log. Appreciation required focus: on the layers of flavor and texture represented by the chocolate buttercream filling, the tender crumb of the chocolate sponge, and the dense chocolate ganache that provided the log’s bark. But as forks hunted the last morsels down and conveyed them to eager mouths, concentration was broken by a thin wail emanating from above.

  Both Greta and Warren were on their feet in an instant. “I knew it was too good to last,” Warren murmured with an apologetic smile.

  “Morgan’s schedule is all messed up,” Greta added. “Too much excitement.”

  Wilfred Jr. and Maxie insisted on handling clean-up duties and the boys scampered off to the kitchen with their parents. Soon Greta and Warren descended the stairs with their lively child. Enfolded in her father’s arms, she was no longer crying, and willing to be admired by her grandparents’ neighbors before being carried off to the kitchen for a meal.

  “Shall we adjourn to the living room?” Bettina asked. “There are gifts to be opened.”

  As Pamela and Penny settled on the sofa and Bettina sank into one of her comfortable armchairs, Pamela noticed that the engraving from Millicent’s attic, now framed, was propped up on the mantel. “He loves it,” Bettina said, beaming.

  Wilfred slipped away to launch another round of carols, and soon voices serenaded them with “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” On his way back to join the group, Wilfred detoured past the Christmas tree and selected four gaily wrapped packages.

  “Yes,” Pamela said, seeing his choices. “The big one with the red ribbon is for Bettina from me and the one with partridges in pear trees on the wrapping is for you from Penny.”

  “And here’s one from us for you”—Wilfred deposited a small silver-wrapped box in Pamela’s outstretched hand—“and for you.” With a bow and a smile he offered Penny a larger silver-wrapped box.

  After a few minutes in which the only sounds were crinkling paper, Pamela lifted the lid of a box from the mall’s fanciest department store. Inside was a pair of sparkly, dangly earrings looking for all the world like miniature chandeliers.

  “Too late for you to add them to your outfit last night,” Bettina said with a fond smile. “But I hope you will wear them sometimes, especially with that beautiful ruby-red tunic.”

  “Just what I need!” Wilfred exclaimed, lifting a set of stainless steel mixing bowls from a nest of tissue paper.

  “Almost indestructible,” Penny explained. “And they fit inside each other, so there’s every size you might ever need, but they hardly take up any room to store.”

  The hand-woven tablecloth and napkin set was received with equal delight by Bettina, and Penny opened the box from Bettina and Wilfred to find a wallet made of smooth leather in a bright shade of turquoise.

  “Two more!” Penny jumped up and hurried to the tree, returning with the remaining gifts. Soon Bettina was holding up hands encased in Penny’s gift of purple leather gloves and Wilfred was paging happily through the book on the settlement of the Hudson Valley from Pamela.

  * * *

  The four of them stood at Bettina and Wilfred’s front door. Pamela and Penny were wrapped in their coats and ready to step outside. Wilfred Jr. and Maxie had departed, each bearing a sleeping child, and Warren and Greta had retreated upstairs with their own sleeping offspring. Thanks and final Christmas greetings had been exchanged, along with hugs.

  “Could you fancy a trip to the yarn shop in Timberley?” Bettina asked suddenly.

  “I suppose,” Pamela said. “After all, this is a vacation week. But you still have quite a ways to go on that sweater for Wilfred, don’t you? And I’ve barely begun the project with the yarn Penny picked out.”

  “I was just thinking though—” Bettina cocked her head and smiled. “Maxie was talking about learning to knit. I could give her some yarn and a pattern for something simple to get her started. Sort of a belated Christmas present.” She paused and smiled again. “I do like Christmas.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Bettina regarded the two freshly baked poppy-seed cakes cooling on Pamela’s kitchen counter. “You’ve been busy,” she commented. It was the next morning.

  Pamela nodded. “I wanted to get them done before we went on our Timberley errand. I thought we could have lunch out and make an afternoon of it.” She was working at the sink, rinsing the bowls and utensils she’d used to make the cakes and tucking them into the dishwasher.

  “You made two,” Bettina said, noting the obvious. “Who are they for?”

  “I promised Penny she could take one when she goes back to school.” Pamela pulled out the dishwasher’s lower rack and inverted a large mixing bowl over the prongs that marked out spaces for plates. She gave the rack a gentle shove.

  “And the other one?” Bettina tried to hide a teasing smile. “It wouldn’t be for a certain snow-shoveling neighbor, would it?”

  Pamela stooped and stared into the dishwasher’s shadowy interior. Something was preventing the rack from sliding all the way back. She pulled the rack out again and a dull clank from deep in the dishwasher’s interior suggested that a utensil had strayed from the silverware compartment and ended up somewhere hard to reach. At that moment the doorbell chimed.

  “I’ll get it,” Bettina said. “You’ve got your hands full.”

  Pamela heard the front door open, then feet coming down the stairs. From the entry came overlapping voices: Bettina offering a greeting, Penny adding a cheerful hi, and a pleasant male voice acknowledging both. After a brief mumble of conversation that Pamela couldn’t make out, Penny stuck her head around the edge of the kitchen doorway.

  “I’m going to lunch with Aaron,” she said in a voice whose tone implied that discussion wouldn’t be welcome. Pamela frowned. “He found the scarf, Mom,” Penny added. “That’s all.” And she hopped away.

  Almost before Pamela heard the front door close, Bettina was back in the kitchen. “Penny introduced me,” she said, looking stricken. “That was him, the person who ended up with my scarf. I can’t believe you’re letting her go out with him!”

  Pamela sighed. “She’s in college now, and who knows what kind of people she’s meeting up there?” She sighed again, more deeply, and ran a hand over her forehead. “I have to trust her.”

  “Penny could know more about him than we know.” Bettina’s earlier cheer had fled. Her bright lipstick and eye shadow seemed to decorate a mask that scarcely resembled its original.

  “I think she’d tell us.” Pamela felt her throat tighten and the next words came out at a higher pitch. “Wouldn’t she?”

  “He’s a nice-looking boy,” Bettina said. “She’s obviously smitten. I could see it in her face.” She shook her head. “Penny co
uld know horrible things about him. But love is blind.”

  Pamela turned away and bent toward the dishwasher’s interior.

  “I’m glad you’re giving the other poppy-seed cake to Richard Larkin,” Bettina added. “He deserves it.”

  * * *

  Overnight, the snow had settled and its surface had hardened into a bright glaze that made the sunlight dazzle the eyes. Pamela and Bettina crossed Orchard Street and climbed into Bettina’s faithful Toyota. Fifteen minutes later they were cruising along the street that ran through Timberley’s charming commercial district, gay with its holiday decorations, looking for a place to park. The sidewalks were abuzz with well-dressed people hurrying to and fro, and they had nosed along for two blocks without encountering a single empty spot.

  “Here’s one,” Pamela exclaimed. “Grab it. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as Wilfred would say, and I don’t mind a little walk.”

  Bettina swung into the spot and in a few moments they had joined the bustling crowds. But something brought them up short just before they reached the yarn shop. As people scurried around them, they gazed in the window of the craft shop that had been Millicent Farthingale’s.

  “Nobody’s here,” Bettina said. She turned to Pamela, concern sketching a vertical line between her carefully shaped brows.

  “It’s totally dark inside.” Pamela nodded, a vertical line forming between her brows as well.

  “Nadine can be a little batty,” Bettina commented. “Maybe she’s doing something in the back room and forgot to turn the lights on.”

  Pamela tried the door, pressing down hard on the latch, but the door didn’t budge. She leaned to the side and tapped on the window. Meanwhile Bettina had launched a call on her phone. “No answer for the shop number,” she announced after a few moments. She launched another call. “Nadine doesn’t answer at her own number either,” she said, lowering the phone from her ear. “It just goes to voicemail.”

  “We’ll ask at the yarn shop,” Pamela said. “It’s right next door—surely the people who work there notice what goes on at the neighboring shops.”

  * * *

  The stylish blond woman who had sold Pamela the ruby-red yarn for the tunic looked up from behind the counter as they entered. But something in their faces must have suggested that their quest was not solely for yarn. “Has something happened?” the woman asked, in lieu of a more conventional greeting.

  Pamela and Bettina both spoke at once. Pamela’s “Has the craft shop been open at all today?” overlapped with Bettina’s “Do you know Nadine from next door?”

  The woman pursed her lips and frowned. “Is no one there now?” she asked.

  “No one,” Pamela said, and Bettina added, “The shop is locked and the lights are off.”

  “Very strange.” The woman shook her head. “The day after Christmas is an odd day to be closed, because lots of people are off work and they’re in the mood to shop and some people don’t like the malls. The craft shop was closed on Tuesday too—which is even more odd because the day before Christmas is when the procrastinators come out looking for last-minute gifts.”

  So distracted were they by this upsetting development—the apparent disappearance of Nadine—that Pamela and Bettina left the yarn shop without choosing anything for Maxie, though the shelves were piled with yarns in every shade and texture imaginable.

  Back in the car, Bettina tried again to call Nadine but with no success. She thrust her phone back into her handbag and turned to Pamela, her lips quivering and her eyes wide with concern. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she whispered.

  “Geoff Grimm?” Pamela whispered back.

  Bettina’s head drooped forward. Even the tendrils of her hair seemed to sag. She nodded mournfully.

  Pamela went on. “Nadine was terrified of him. When we stopped by the shop last week she was hiding in a back corner because she thought it was him coming back.”

  “She’s dead,” Bettina whispered. “Geoff Grimm came back and killed her.” She raised a gloved hand to her mouth and her eyes grew even wider. “We have to tell the police.”

  “Let’s make sure she’s really dead first,” Pamela said. She straightened her shoulders and tightened her lips into a determined line.

  “What?” Bettina’s hand darted from her mouth to Pamela’s arm, where it squeezed hard. “How?”

  “Well . . .” Pamela’s lips relaxed into a slight smile. “Geoff Grimm might have come back, but let’s at least make sure Nadine’s not just hiding out at home. You know where she lives, don’t you?”

  * * *

  The apartment building was a few blocks from Timberley’s commercial district. It was an elegant brick structure suited to Timberley’s stately grandeur, five stories tall and with carved stone trim. An awning-covered walk led from the sidewalk past artful landscaping, now softened by snow, to the building’s imposing entrance. Just inside the heavy glass doors a doorman sat at a handsome desk.

  Bettina hung back, as if afraid to hear the answer that their question might receive. So it was up to Pamela.

  “We’re here for Nadine Davenport,” Pamela said, “in apartment 2B. Can you please let her know she has visitors?”

  The doorman, a young Hispanic man, glanced up from studying a textbook open to a page of complex formulas. “She isn’t here,” he said.

  “You’ve seen her though?” Bettina blurted. “She’s okay?”

  “She left Monday evening.” One of his fingers rested on the open page, apparently marking the spot where he’d left off.

  “She left?” Bettina blinked.

  “In her car.” He nodded. “I carried her suitcase out. I often carry things for her.”

  “Did she say where she was going?” Pamela asked. “Or when she’d be back?”

  He shook his head no. “Sometimes they do.” He shrugged. “She didn’t. They don’t have to. I’m just the doorman.” He returned to studying the page of formulas.

  At first Pamela and Bettina were silent as they retraced their steps through the snowy landscape back to Bettina’s car. The air was still, the day was bright, and the only sound was the echo of their boots on the meticulously shoveled Timberley sidewalks.

  “Millicent had all the money anyone could want,” Bettina said as they turned onto Timberley’s main street and were once again strolling past shop fronts where strings of twinkling lights, luxuriant wreaths, and garlands of holly marked the season. “The craft shop was a hobby. Millicent loved being a patron of the arts—and she loved being able to help her old friend Nadine. She could have just given her money, but she wanted to give her a job instead . . . so Nadine didn’t feel like an object of charity.”

  “So why would Nadine vanish?” Pamela thought for a minute and then answered her own question. “With Millicent gone, the job would end.” She paused in the middle of the sidewalk and Bettina paused too. Someone jostled her elbow and a woman scurried past, aiming an irritated look in their direction. Pamela turned to Bettina and asked, “Who handled the shop’s financial business?”

  “Nadine,” Bettina said. “Millicent had no head for numbers. She just liked artists and craftspeople, and she liked helping them find markets for their work. Nadine worked as a bookkeeper when she was younger.”

  “What if Nadine cleaned out the shop’s bank account before she disappeared?” Pamela edged toward the nearest shop window, tugging Bettina with her, as more people jostled them in their hurry to get past. “And there were valuable things in the shop. She could have bundled up whatever she thought she could resell and made off with that too.”

  The series of expressions that passed over Bettina’s face—doubt, concern, then anger—suggested that she was pondering this scenario. “I liked Nadine,” she commented at last. “But you’re right. She must have been very worried. What would she live on with Millicent and the job at the shop gone?”

  “We should go to the police,” Pamela said. “The Timberley police. But first we have to ge
t into the shop to see if things are missing.”

  “Pierre.” Bettina sighed. “We’ll have to go see him. He’s the only person I can think of with a key to the shop. And he can probably get into the shop’s bank account too. He was as interested in Millicent’s money as he was in her—if not more so.”

  * * *

  Pamela thumped the ornate brass knocker against the ornately carved wood of the Wentworth mansion’s door. After a long pause the door swung back to reveal the slim figure of Pierre. For an instant he looked annoyed, but then his face settled into an expression more flattering to his elegant features. He nodded deferentially, invited her and Bettina to step over the threshold, and escorted them to a room where Victorian-era woodwork formed a backdrop for a sofa and armchairs upholstered in luxurious velvet, draperies of heavy silk (with tassels), and a richly patterned Persian rug. A pair of red stiletto heels in the middle of the rug—one poised on its stiletto heel, the other lying carelessly on its side—contrasted markedly with the traditional nature of the room’s décor.

  “Are we interrupting something?” Bettina asked as her glance strayed to the shoes.

  “Not at all,” Pierre replied smoothly. “What can I do for you lovely ladies?”

  Pamela explained the errand and Pierre nodded as she spoke. He seemed neither surprised nor upset to hear that his deceased wife’s business partner might have disappeared with the contents of the shop’s bank account and some or all of its most valuable stock.

  “But of course I will help you,” he said when she had finished. “I just have a bit of... work . . . to finish up here.” His glance strayed toward the shoes but he quickly focused back on Pamela. “I’ll meet you at the shop in an hour, key in hand. And I’m sure I can find the password for the bank account.”