Knit of the Living Dead

by Peggy Ehrhart

  Bettina finished the thought, her voice confident now: “And that’s why the yarn around Mary’s neck wasn’t left untied, like it was with Dawn Filbert.”

  “I guess Brainard took her home,” Pamela said. “Maybe she’d been on the phone with Herc and he was saying they had to wait because of his father, and then she just exploded and showed up at Brainard’s door and it all came pouring out.”

  “That is the most likely explanation.”

  “It doesn’t necessarily mean Felicity is the killer, though.” Pamela twisted her key in the ignition, and with a rough grumble, her car came to life.

  “It doesn’t?”

  “She could blame both of Herc’s parents for keeping her and Herc apart, but blaming and killing are two different things.” Pamela shifted into drive and eased away from the curb.

  * * *

  The maze was designed to puzzle. Every few yards, a choice had to be made—to go left or right. But which direction would lead to the exit and which would lead deeper into confusion? Pamela had a secret, though. She’d trailed a strand of yarn as she roamed the confusing passages, and now the same strand of yarn marked the way out.

  She gathered it as she walked, absentmindedly rolling it back into a tidy ball. She was close to the exit, she was sure, because the ball had grown nearly as large as it had been when her journey into the maze began—and because the sounds and sensations of the outside world were impinging on her consciousness.

  Notably, a telephone was ringing, and she was aware of a soft weight on her chest. When she opened her eyes, a pair of amber eyes gazed back at her, and Catrina’s forepaws began a gentle kneading motion in the region of her collarbone. But the phone had to be dealt with.

  Pamela grasped Catrina around her midsection, sat up, and deposited the cat back among the bedclothes. Without bothering with slippers or robe, she hurried across the hall to her office and seized the phone.

  “Pamela!” said an urgent voice. “Did I wake you?”

  “Yes, no . . . what is it?”

  It was Nell, though barely sounding like her usual serene self.

  “Brainard is dead!” Nell said, her voice thinning to a squeak. “Landscapers—” The thought was interrupted by a moan, then a muffled thump suggested the phone had been dropped.

  The next voice Pamela heard was that of Harold. “It’s not a happy time up here,” he said in tones that were nonetheless comforting in their gentle gravity.

  “What on earth happened?” Pamela felt behind her for her desk chair and sank into it. “What did the landscapers do?”

  “Leaf season,” Harold said. “The Lyon-Covingtons had a landscaping service. The landscapers found Brainard when they ventured into the backyard this morning. He was lying near his compost heap.”

  “Are the police . . . ?”

  “Just here now.” In the background, Pamela could hear Nell weeping. Harold continued, “I was out getting the paper and one of the landscapers came running down Brainard’s driveway, looking all frantic. He saw me and shouted something in Spanish. But luckily, I know a little Spanish. So I went back with him to see what had happened—and then I came home and called the police.”

  The weeping in the background subsided and Pamela heard Nell say, between hiccups, “The yarn, Harold. The yarn.”

  Harold responded to the cue before Pamela could say anything—and what he said was no surprise. Brainard had been knocked out and then strangled with several strands of yarn tied in a bow around his neck.

  “The yarn was definitely tied?” Pamela said.

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” Harold confirmed. The weeping had started up again. “I have to go now,” he added. “Someone’s at the door and it’s probably the police.”

  “Is Nell okay?” Pamela asked quickly. The sobs were alarming because Nell tended to be quite stoic in the face of adversity.

  “She can’t forgive herself.” Harold sighed. “She thinks the murder is her fault because she brushed off the scene in Brainard’s driveway last night. She keeps saying we should have called the police then.”

  “I’ll be over,” Pamela said just before Harold hung up.

  She was shivering even though her nightgown was flannel, but instead of fetching her robe, Pamela keyed in Bettina’s number.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, dressed in jeans and a sweater, she stood at her front door watching through the lace that curtained the oval window as Bettina bustled up onto the porch. She opened the door before Bettina had a chance to ring and Bettina swept in. She’d tugged her purple beret over her bright hair and knotted a purple scarf at the neck of her pumpkin-colored coat, but her face was puffy with sleep and bare of makeup.

  “What a thing!” Bettina panted. “What a thing! Poor Nell.”

  Pamela had fed the cats as soon as she descended the stairs, but there was no time for a human breakfast. She took her warmest jacket from the closet, and her own purple scarf—violet, really.

  “We are absolutely not walking up that hill,” Bettina said as Pamela buttoned herself into her jacket and wound her scarf around her neck.

  “Of course not!” Pamela had almost said, “Why not? ”—but their errand was too serious to tease Bettina about her aversion to walking.

  As Pamela steered her serviceable compact up Orchard Street then up the hill that formed the Palisades, she filled Bettina in on what Harold had said. “And,” she concluded, “Brainard was obviously killed sometime between when we overheard the shrieking in his driveway last night and early this morning when the landscapers showed up.”

  They were not surprised by the scene that greeted them when they reached the block where the Bascombs lived—though neighbors just stepping outside to collect their morning papers might have been. From the corner, Pamela and Bettina could see two police cars parked at careless angles in front of the Lyon-Covington house, the lights on their roofs flashing in sudden blazes like flashbulbs.

  Pamela drove no farther than a few hundred feet after she made the turn. She parked on the Bascombs’ side of the street, and she and Bettina finished their journey on foot. As they drew nearer, they saw that yellow crime scene tape already marked the Lyon-Covingtons’ property as off-limits. It stretched along the front edge of the lot and across the mouth of the driveway, and then snaked toward the backyard. Pamela recognized a young officer she had recently seen arranging orange cones at the entrance to a street where an electrical wire had come down. He was now stationed on the driveway with his pleasant features struggling to look stern.

  Pamela and Bettina made their way up the steps that wound through azalea and rhododendron bushes to the Bascombs’ porch. Pamela rang the doorbell, and in a few moments Harold greeted them with murmured thanks and a grateful smile.

  “The police just left,” he explained as he led them down the hall to the kitchen after draping jacket and coat and scarves on the coatrack in the entry. “Just two of the uniform guys. Clayborn is across the street at the crime scene and I’m to talk to him down at the police station later this morning.”

  Nell seemed calmer than she’d sounded on the phone. She was sitting at her kitchen table wearing an ancient plaid flannel bathrobe and sipping tea, and she offered them a faint version of her usual smile as they entered. Their friend’s improved state—plus the sunlight pouring through the window and aroma of fresh-perked coffee—had the effect of lifting Pamela and Bettina’s spirits considerably.

  Harold pulled out chairs for them and waited as they settled themselves. Then, without even inquiring, he set cups and saucers in front of them and reached for the percolator. The sight and smell of the coffee as it swirled into the cups lifted their spirits yet further. Cream and sugar sat waiting on the table in the wheat-and-wildflower pitcher and bowl.

  Bettina began her ritual of transforming the dark and bitter contents of her cup into the pale and sweet concoction she favored, but Pamela took an eager sip, enjoying the jolt of the stronger perked brew.

  Th
e coffee loosened her tongue. “It’s not your fault,” she said, reaching for the wrinkled hand resting on the table and giving it a squeeze. “Calling the police when we heard the shrieking wouldn’t have saved Brainard’s life. The person shrieking at him on the driveway didn’t kill him then—because we saw his car drive away. And the person didn’t kill him when they got to their destination—because how would he have gotten back home?”

  Nell acknowledged the comforting gesture by returning the squeeze. But her words suggested she wasn’t convinced by Pamela’s reasoning.

  “But what if the person killed him en route, or when they got wherever they were going—and then brought the body back?”

  “Why would the person do that?” Bettina looked up from her vigorous stirring.

  “Yes, why?” Pamela agreed. “Suppose the person realized neighbors might have heard the shrieking? Why bring the body back then? Why not just hide it somewhere? The longer it took for anyone to discover Brainard was dead, the less likely the murder could be linked with the scene in the driveway.”

  Harold had not sat down. As Pamela spoke, she had been aware of something in progress behind her—a cupboard and a drawer opening, silverware jingling, and the soft clang of china against Formica. Now, instead of a response from Nell, the voice she heard was Harold’s.

  “How about bread pudding for breakfast?” he inquired.

  Bettina had returned to her stirring. Now she looked up again with a surprised smile, but her expression soon turned hopeful. “I suppose it’s too early to have it with ice cream?” she whispered.

  “Yes, it is,” Nell said, reverting for a moment to her familiar self. “Bread pudding is sweet enough.”

  “And there was plenty left from last night.” Harold slid small plates containing squares of bread pudding in front of Pamela and Bettina. He followed up with a serving for Nell and then one for himself at the empty chair he would occupy. Once napkins and forks had been distributed, he took his place.

  “This is how we ate our bread pudding when I was a boy,” he said, winking at Bettina as he reached for the cream pitcher. Tipping the pitcher, he poured a goodly amount of cream over the pale gold cube, with its rippled top shading to toasty brown in spots.

  Nell uttered a sound that resembled a discreet clearing of the throat, but she didn’t say anything. With a fond but teasing glance at his wife, Harold passed the cream pitcher to Bettina, remarking, “Not that your delicious bread pudding requires any enhancement, my dear.”

  Bettina applied cream to her bread pudding and offered the pitcher to Pamela, who dribbled a bit on her own just to be sociable.

  For a time, the silence was broken only by the clicking of forks against plates and the gentle chime of cups being returned to saucers. Then Pamela turned to Nell and waited until Nell looked her way.

  “There’s something we didn’t tell you, even though you’ve been our partner in crime . . . solving,” Pamela said. “And I think we should.”

  “What?” Nell’s eyes widened and her mouth remained half-open.

  Pamela shifted her gaze to meet Bettina’s eyes.

  “Felicity . . .” Bettina’s voice trailed off, and after a moment, she added, “You explain.”

  Pamela described the conversation she’d overheard between Felicity and Herc at the bus stop, and then she backtracked to the day she and Bettina had eaten lunch at Hyler’s and Bettina had noticed that Felicity was no longer wearing her engagement ring.

  “The engagement had been broken off,” Bettina interjected, “and she was so upset. But she said it wasn’t Herc’s fault.”

  “That voice in the driveway last night.” Pamela couldn’t bear to watch Nell’s face, so she stared down at the nubbin of bread pudding that remained on her plate. “One of the things it seemed to say was that Brainard’s son should have had a different father.”

  “Motive,” Nell moaned. Then she touched Pamela’s arm, and Pamela had to look at her. Surprisingly, Nell appeared more irritated than sad. “But, Pamela,” she said, “you just tried to convince me that the shrieking person in the driveway couldn’t possibly be the killer. So even if that was Felicity out there last night—”

  Harold took up the thought. “We saw Brainard drive away with the shrieking person, and why would that person have killed him somewhere else and then brought the body back?” Summoning up the authority that had characterized his professional life, he tipped his head forward and locked eyes with Pamela. “Your own words,” he said. “Your own words.”

  Pamela had to admit she was having trouble finding her way. If only there was a strand of yarn to follow through the twists and turns presented by this mystery.

  “I was thinking out loud.” Pamela shrugged. “But it’s hard to deny that Felicity has a motive.”

  They all pondered that thought for a bit as Harold popped up and checked the percolator to see if any coffee was left. “A bit,” he observed. “I can warm it up.” Back at the table, he tapped the side of the teapot and peeked inside. “Plenty left in here,” he reported as Nell reached for the teapot and refilled her cup.

  “I’d like a splash of coffee.” Bettina pushed her cup forward. Harold returned to the stove and soon the aroma of slightly scorched coffee, accompanied by a scalding sound, emanated from that direction. A few minutes later, he tipped the ancient percolator over Bettina’s cup, and with a sizzle and puff of steam, the last few ounces of coffee surged from the spout.

  Bettina hadn’t even begun sugaring and creaming her infusion of coffee when she spoke. “I have to tell Clayborn about Felicity now,” she announced suddenly, “about the conversation you overheard, Pamela, and about the shrieking last night. And you’re talking to him today, Harold. You’ll have to tell him what you overheard last night too. He’ll interview her and he’ll check on whatever she presents as an alibi and”—she raised a fastidiously manicured hand and crossed her fingers—“hopefully she has one and it proves to be legitimate . . . and she’ll be in the clear.” With that, Bettina reached for the sugar bowl.

  “I certainly hope so.” Nell’s expression was somber. “I’m sure of it, in fact. Aside from the fact—a big fact—that Felicity is too small to kill Brainard, or even the others, if the shrieking person was Felicity and Brainard took her home, we’re saying she walked all the way back up the hill just on the chance that he’d be taking out his compost at ten p.m.?”

  “That’s a good point,” Pamela said. “Even if the shrieking person was Felicity, that doesn’t mean Felicity was the killer.”

  Nell had been sipping her tea, and as if the fresh cup had provoked a fresh idea, she spoke up. “Maybe the killer was somebody else who was after Brainard the whole time and really was confused about who was wearing which costume. So maybe there’s a Wendelstaff College connection.”

  Bettina nodded vigorously, and her bangs—her hair had been groomed more hastily that morning than was her habit—flopped over her forehead, grazing her eyebrows. Ignoring them, she nodded again. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “A Wendelstaff connection. Clayborn will think of it, if he hasn’t already. A Wendelstaff connection is much more likely than to accuse that sweet Felicity Winkle. But we could look into it too. Sometimes the police put people off, or they don’t ask the right questions.”

  “I am your partner in crime . . . solving.” Nell emphasized the point by thumping the table with her fist. “I will go to the classics department at Wendelstaff and see what I can find out about department politics.”

  Bettina smiled. “This week’s edition of the Advocate will cover Brainard’s murder, of course . . . but aside from that, the contents will be a little sparse.” Her smile became mischievous. “Unless,” she went on, “my editor would be interested in an article on the void that will be created in the Wendelstaff classics department by Brainard’s death.”

  “I’m sure he would,” Pamela said, and Nell echoed her words.

  “Tomorrow morning, then?” Bettina glanced at Pamela and then at Nell.
r />   “Tomorrow morning.” They nodded in unison.

  * * *

  As Pamela and Bettina walked back to Pamela’s car, a huge silver van with the logo of the county sheriff’s department was just turning the corner.

  Chapter 18

  “You’d think Clayborn could have made time in his schedule yesterday for me, wouldn’t you?” Bettina was revisiting a point she’d already made several times that morning, but Pamela murmured assent. “After all,” Bettina went on, her voice shading from irritation to pride, “my reporting for the Advocate shapes Arborville’s opinion of its police department.”

  “It does,” Pamela agreed. “And you will be talking to him this afternoon.”

  “I certainly hope so—otherwise nobody will know anything about Brainard’s death that they don’t read in the Register.” Bettina was panting slightly. In company with Nell, they were hurrying along one of the paths that crisscrossed the leaf-strewn grass of the Wendelstaff College quadrangle.

  Nell spoke up. “But you’ll do your article about the void created in the Wendelstaff classics department by Brainard’s death.”

  “We’ll see what his colleagues say.” Bettina had fallen a bit behind and raised her voice to be heard. “Maybe there is no void. Maybe they’re glad he’s gone.”

  “That would be a story too,” Pamela said. “Wouldn’t it?” She paused so Bettina could catch up, and Nell paused too. The three friends presented a study in contrasts. Nell was bundled in her faithful gray wool coat, Bettina was a vivid figure against the autumnal landscape in her pumpkin and purple ensemble, and Pamela wore jeans and a nondescript brown jacket. A brisk wind made her wish she’d added a hat and scarf to her outfit.

  “I’m not sure the Advocate would print that.” Bettina made a sound partway between a laugh and a pant.

  “The classics department is in that building right ahead.” Pamela gestured toward an impressive brick structure with white columns. “I checked online. It’s the oldest one on campus, dating way back to the founding of the college.”