Knit of the Living Dead

by Peggy Ehrhart

  “I met Jocelyn.” Pamela spoke looking at the floor.

  “Ummm?” Bettina’s expression barely changed, except the wrinkle went away.

  “They were going somewhere today.” Pamela continued looking at the floor, concentrating on one black tile in the black-and-white-checkerboard pattern.

  “Oh?”

  “Sometimes I wish I’d given him more of a chance.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Pamela abandoned her study of the floor to focus on Bettina’s face. Bettina’s expression was still bland. “Don’t you care?” she blurted, hearing her voice thin out and start to break.

  Instantly, Bettina’s mobile face softened, and Pamela’s friend was once again her caring self. “You made me promise not to talk about Richard Larkin ever again,” Bettina said. “I was just trying to keep my promise.”

  “Oh, Bettina!” Pamela wailed. She sagged forward into the embrace that Bettina, still clutching an apple in one hand, offered.

  “There, there.” Bettina rubbed her back, and Pamela dipped her head and hunched over to rest her cheek on Bettina’s shoulder. Pamela seldom cried, and she was startled by the gulping sobs and high-pitched moans she heard coming from herself. Burrowed against Bettina’s shoulder, her face felt hot and slippery with tears.

  Pamela wasn’t sure how long they stood like that. Eventually, the sobs became hiccups, and Bettina eased her into one of the chairs at the table where the two of them had seen so many happier times. After a final gentle shoulder rub, Bettina removed her hands and disappeared around the corner to the laundry room, where she knew Pamela kept a supply of fresh kitchen towels. She was back in a moment with a small towel that she moistened in cool water at the sink.

  Gratefully, Pamela held the soothing towel to her face as its coolness calmed the feverish aftermath of her tears. She took slow, deep breaths. The breaths were ragged at first, but soon they smoothed out enough for her to speak.

  “Have you met her?” she asked. Bettina had taken her usual chair and was studying Pamela from the other side of the table. Her expression was as mournful as Pamela imagined her own to be, but her eyes offered comfort and encouragement.

  “Do you really want to talk about this?” Bettina asked, reaching for Pamela’s hand, the one that didn’t still hold the moist towel.

  Pamela nodded. “I guess she’s my neighbor now, at least part-time. She must have stayed there last night.” She paused and dabbed at her eyes with the towel. “She’s very . . . attractive.”

  “I’ve chatted with her a few times.” Bettina shrugged. “Wilfred knows more.”

  “He does?” Wilfred was friendly, and his jaunts around the neighborhood with Woofus were often prolonged by his tendency to strike up a conversation with anyone willing to dally.

  “Rick told him about her,” Bettina said. “They knew each other long ago, in architecture school.”

  People did meet that way, Pamela knew. You’d find a kindred spirit if you were both studying the same thing. She and Michael Paterson had met in college.

  “They’ve reconnected,” Bettina added, somewhat unnecessarily.

  “I guess it’s too late then,” Pamela murmured, half to herself. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  Bettina hopped to her feet. “Let’s put some of these apples in your nice bowl,” she said. She took an apple in each hand and stepped toward the spot on the counter where Pamela’s wooden fruit bowl, currently empty, reposed.

  Pamela joined her, and for several minutes both focused on the constructive task of piling the apples, in the most artistic way possible, into the bowl. Then they stood back to admire their handiwork: a pyramid of apples, from deepest red to pink to striped to bright green, rising above the rim of the graceful hand-hewn bowl.

  “You could date other people.” Bettina said it in a musing tone of voice, as if the possibility had just occurred to her.

  Pamela sighed. Was Bettina introducing a new theme? And would she become as insistent on this topic as she had been on the topic of Richard Larkin?

  Pamela’s face must have telegraphed her thoughts, because Bettina grabbed her hand and whispered, “It was just an idea.”

  Pamela lifted an apple from the top of the pyramid and rotated it so the slight blemish that had marred its otherwise gleaming skin was hidden. She sighed again, but this sigh reflected irritation at herself. She should have listened to Bettina earlier. Maybe she should listen to her now.

  “I could,” she said after a bit. “I could date other people. But how would I meet them? Arborville doesn’t have that many . . . singles.”

  “You don’t have to meet them in person, at first.” Bettina was cheerful again, a mood that suited her vivid hair and makeup, and the multicolored baubles that dangled from her ears. “There’s always the—”

  “Internet?” Pamela hoped she hadn’t sounded as horrified as she felt.

  “Marlene Pepper’s sister met someone very nice online. And she’s almost sixty. They’re going to have a Christmas wedding.” Bettina was still holding Pamela’s hand. She squeezed it.

  “I’ll think about it.” Pamela returned the squeeze and then extracted her hand.

  “You do that,” Bettina said, locking her gaze into Pamela’s. Pamela recognized the look as one she’d used while raising Penny. Its meaning had been, I expect you to follow through. Bettina collected her canvas tote and turned toward the door that led to the entry. “I’m off now,” she said. “We’re taking apples to the Arborville children and staying for lunch, then we’re taking the boys up to the playground in the park.”

  Pamela followed Bettina into the entry. “Now, you take one of your walks this afternoon,” Bettina said as they lingered at the front door. “It’s too nice a day to hide out indoors.” Pamela nodded. “And I’ll be over tomorrow morning,” Bettina added, with her hand on the doorknob. “I’m seeing Clayborn first thing and I’ll give you a full report.”

  * * *

  She had taken a walk, and she had finished the other front for the cornflower-blue sweater, and she had baked the meatloaf. After dinner, she had started a sleeve for the cornflower-blue sweater and then dozed as a genteel British mystery unfolded on the screen before her.

  Now it was the next morning and Pamela was sitting at her computer as an email message made its way to her inbox. When it finally arrived, she realized why it had taken so long. It was a message from her boss at Fiber Craft, and it had brought with it a whole string of attachments. “Please copyedit these and get them back to me by next Monday morning,” the message read.

  She scanned the abbreviated versions of the titles lined up at the top of the message, each marked with a stylized paper clip and the Word logo. Her work for the coming week would include articles about ancient Roman dyestuffs, First Nations spindle whorls, Greek mythology, freestanding macramé creations, and several other topics.

  As she sat there, absentmindedly stroking Ginger, who had left her mother dozing in her favorite sunny spot to follow Pamela up the stairs, another email popped into her inbox. She opened it and was pleased to discover it was from Penny. She postponed the decision about which article to tackle first and gave herself over to the pleasure of reading her daughter’s note.

  It was brief, but cheerful and informative. Penny’s weekend had included an afternoon touring artists’ studios in Fort Point on the occasion of the district’s annual open studio tour. She’d gotten an A- on the research paper that had occupied her for the past month—a study of female artists connected with the Impressionist movement. And she’d returned to the thrift shop she’d discovered near the campus and come away with an amazing watercolor in a fancy frame.

  Pamela sent a quick response, promising to write more later, and turned to the articles waiting for her attention. Freestanding macramé creations sounded interesting. And soon Pamela was immersed in the world of a pioneering woman artist, sadly now dead, who had used the techniques and materials available to her to fashion macramé structures that in
voked the same awe accorded religious statuary. Pamela was just providing a dangling modifier with a proper antecedent when the doorbell chimed.

  Bettina, certainly, just as she had promised, so Pamela saved her work and descended the stairs, with Ginger leading the way.

  “I wouldn’t say no to coffee,” Bettina announced before she even stepped over the threshold. In a burgundy-gloved hand, she carried a white cardboard bakery box, suggesting that her contribution would be a sweet treat to accompany it.

  Once inside, she handed the box to Pamela and slipped off her pumpkin-colored down coat, the gloves, and the burgundy beret she’d tugged at a jaunty angle over her bright coiffure. Under the coat was a pants and jacket ensemble in a striking wool plaid employing shades of yellow, orange, and burgundy. She had accessorized it with her sleek burgundy booties and amber and silver earrings.

  In the kitchen, Pamela started water boiling in the kettle, smoothed a paper filter into her carafe’s plastic filter cone, and measured coffee beans into her grinder. Meanwhile, Bettina opened the cupboard where Pamela kept her wedding china and arranged cups, saucers, and small plates on the table.

  “I have interesting things to reveal,” Bettina announced as she worked. Pamela turned, but was greeted with only a teasing smile. “First things first,” Bettina said, and with a flourish, she slipped off the string that anchored the top flap of the bakery box. She flipped it back and tilted the box to display the contents. Inside were half a dozen doughnuts with the cakelike surface that marked them as the old-fashioned style.

  “Pumpkin spice,” Bettina explained. “This time of year it’s hard to escape.”

  Pamela realized that the interesting revelations would not be forthcoming until she sat opposite her friend at the table with coffee and doughnuts at hand, so she returned to her task. She pressed down on the coffee grinder’s cover and listened as, with growling and clattering, it reduced the beans to a fine grind. Then she tipped the grinder over the filter cone and watched its aromatic contents slide into the filter.

  “Forks or fingers?” Bettina asked as she settled a doughnut onto each plate.

  “Fingers, I think, for doughnuts,” Pamela said.

  Bettina added napkins to the table setting and a spoon for herself, then the cut-glass sugar bowl and cream pitcher, which she filled half full with heavy cream from the carton in the refrigerator.

  The kettle whistled then, and the rich aroma of brewing coffee began to suffuse the small kitchen as Pamela poured the boiling water over the ground beans. And soon the wedding-china cups had been filled and Bettina had added sugar and cream to render her cup of coffee exactly the pale mocha shade she preferred.

  “I wonder if these are as good as the Co-Op’s pumpkin-spice crumb cake,” Bettina murmured as she lifted her doughnut to her lips. She took a small nibble, then closed her eyes and chewed meditatively for a long moment. “I can’t be sure,” she pronounced, opening her eyes. “Try yours and tell me what you think.”

  Pamela left the doughnut where it lay. “Things to reveal,” she prodded Bettina. “You said you had interesting things to reveal.”

  Bettina giggled, as if to acknowledge that she’d enjoyed prolonging the suspense occasioned by her announcement. Then she said, “The murder yarn wasn’t llama wool.” She waited with a slight smile, watching Pamela closely for her reaction.

  “So I was right?” Pamela said. “Germaine van Houten isn’t the murderer.”

  “Probably not.” Bettina nodded.

  “But Detective Clayborn did think it was worthwhile to have those hairs analyzed.” Pamela took a cautious sip of her coffee. It was still very hot.

  “Apparently so.” Bettina nodded again. “He hates to admit it when he takes my advice about something, but sometimes he does take my advice.” She sampled her coffee and smiled as she set the cup, which now bore the print of her bright lipstick on the rim, back on its saucer. “Perfect,” she sighed. “But that’s not all about Clayborn.”

  “He has a suspect of his own?” Pamela inquired.

  “No.” Bettina was obviously enjoying herself. “So he followed up our lead to the Barrows too.”

  “And?”

  “He heard exactly the story you heard—that the Barrows, dressed as mummies, were giving out Halloween candy in Meadowside while Dawn Filbert was being killed in Arborville.” Bettina picked up her doughnut and underlined her statement with an expansive gesture before raising it to her mouth.

  “But remember Nell’s idea?” Pamela sampled her coffee again and found that it was just right.

  “Umm?” Bettina had taken a bite of the doughnut and was chewing.

  “If the Barrows were dressed as mummies, how would their neighbors know they were really themselves? And my idea—that there could have been just one of them. In a mummy costume, neighbors wouldn’t have known they were always seeing him—or her.”

  Bettina swallowed and took a sip of coffee before she spoke. Then she said, “I raised those points. I didn’t tell Clayborn it was really Nell and you who thought of them.”

  “And he’s still convinced the Barrows have alibis?” Pamela reached for her doughnut.

  “The police talked to more people than we did,” Bettina explained. “Some of the neighbors saw both out on their porch together, and parents chaperoning their kids heard the Barrows’ voices.”

  “Well, that does it for the Barrows.” Pamela’s lips shaped a disgusted pout. “So who’s left?” She bit into the doughnut, and the sweet cakelike texture, with its hint of pumpkin spice, momentarily distracted her from the serious topic of the Arborville murders.

  “I could have told him about Felicity,” Bettina said in a small voice.

  “Umm?” Now Pamela was chewing.

  “But the evidence is sketchy—just that conversation you overheard at the bus stop.” Bettina shrugged. “And besides—”

  She paused, and Pamela finished the thought. “It’s hard to think that such a sweet young woman would do such horrible things.”

  “It is.” Bettina nodded. “It really is.”

  “And if her intention was to kill Brainard, why would she have tied the yarn when she saw the person on the ground was actually Mary?”

  With that, they gave themselves over to the full enjoyment of coffee and the Co-Op’s pumpkin-spice doughnuts.

  Chapter 16

  “Oh, dear.” The expression in Nell’s faded blue eyes was bleak, and her normally cheerful mouth had gone slack. “So that means no progress at all has been made in figuring out who’s responsible for the Arborville murders.”

  Bettina had just updated Nell on the previous morning’s meeting with Detective Clayborn. But Pamela and Bettina had kept from her, as they’d done previously, the suspicion that Felicity might—just might—be the murderer.

  Nell sighed. “I haven’t been much help at all in your detecting, have I?” She sighed again.

  The three were standing around the table in Nell’s kitchen, where she had set out cups, saucers, plates, silverware, and napkins in preparation for that evening’s meeting of Knit and Nibble. The air was infused with a hint of warm sugariness, and an interesting baked object in a rectangular Pyrex dish rested on the counter.

  The doorbell chimed then, saving them from having to agree or disagree with Nell’s statement. In a moment, they heard the door open and Harold offering a hearty welcome, followed by Roland asking if he was late.

  “I had to drive all the way to the next block to find a spot on the legal side of the street,” Roland said, sounding peevish. “I hope my car will be safe down there.”

  “I wouldn’t give it another thought.” Harold’s voice took on the soothing tones of the doctor he’d been before retirement. “Your car will be fine.”

  By this time, Pamela, Bettina, and Nell had made their way past the gallery of travel souvenirs that decorated the hallway connecting the kitchen to the entry and the living room beyond.

  “You’re actually the first one,” Nell
said, “except for Pamela and Bettina, of course.” She touched Roland on the shoulder.

  “I’m not really the first one then, am I?” Roland surveyed the three women standing at the end of the hallway. “If they’re already here. And you’re here. That makes three. But then, you live here, so maybe you don’t count . . .”

  “No matter.” Nell laughed, cheerful again. “Do go in and take a seat.”

  Roland transferred his briefcase to his right hand and lifted his left wrist to consult his impressive watch. “It’s five after seven,” he announced as he stepped toward the living room. “I am late, and two more people are still due.”

  “We’re here! We’re here!” Holly peeked through the gap between the door, which was still ajar, and the doorframe.

  Harold had followed Roland into the living room, so Bettina tugged the door back open to admit Holly and Karen.

  Soon the whole group except for Harold—who had retreated to his den—was settled in the Bascombs’ spacious living room. Beneath a high, beamed ceiling, a comfortable sofa faced the natural stone fireplace. Roland had headed for the sofa and had been joined by Holly and Karen. Pamela and Bettina sat side by side on one of the small love seats, upholstered in faded chintz, that flanked the fireplace, and Nell sat on the other.

  In summer, the grand fireplace held an attractive arrangement of dried flowers, but with the onset of cold weather, the fireplace reverted to its true purpose—evidenced by half-burned logs in a bed of extinguished cinders and ash.

  For a few minutes there was silence, as people drew their knitting from their knitting bags—or, in Roland’s case, his elegant briefcase—and pondered it, as one ponders the page of a book one has set down and then picked up again to recall exactly where one was. Pamela resumed work on the sleeve for the cornflower-blue sweater, and next to her Bettina took up the Nordic-style sweater that was to be Wilfred’s Christmas gift. She’d gotten to the point where the navy-blue background was to be interspersed with a row of snowflakes, and she was studying the directions as she absentmindedly fingered the skein of white yarn that was about to be deployed.