Knit of the Living Dead

by Peggy Ehrhart

  The building’s massive doors opened into a dim foyer, with hallways leading back from each side and a stairway rising up straight ahead. The ancient wooden floors creaked underfoot and the space smelled pleasantly of old wood. A directory indicated that the classics department was on the second floor.

  Bettina led the way, after eyeing the stairs warily and taking a few minutes to catch her breath. Once they reached the second floor, a sign posted next to a door at the end of the paneled corridor they found themselves in identified their destination.

  The floor creaked on this level too, and Pamela noticed she was walking on tiptoe as they approached the door that led to the classics department. They entered to find a small room that looked as if it had been furnished when the building was built and not touched since: wooden desk, wooden filing cabinets, straight-backed wooden chairs. The only signs that it was the twenty-first century were the computer monitor on the desk and the young woman sitting behind the desk. Her hair was bright chartreuse and she wore a stud resembling a tiny skull in her left nostril.

  Bettina introduced herself as a reporter for the Arborville Advocate and explained her errand. Then she noted apologetically, “I know it’s awfully soon to be asking about this, but the Advocate is a weekly and I have a deadline.”

  The young woman’s lips, which were painted a deep maroon color, parted in an understanding smile, but she shook her head regretfully. “Dr. Stafford is in a seminar till noon,” she said, “and after lunch”—she fingered her computer mouse and consulted the monitor in front of her—“he has a meeting of the faculty senate.” She looked up. “Can you come back tomorrow?”

  “It will be too late for my deadline,” Bettina said. The young woman’s expression was as dejected as the tone of Bettina’s voice.

  “Maybe another faculty member?” Pamela ventured. After all, the real purpose of their errand was to figure out whether any of Brainard’s colleagues had hated him enough to kill him. A department chair might take a diplomatic tack.

  “Maybe.” The young woman nodded encouragingly. “The faculty offices are along the corridor”—she pointed to the door with a finger tipped by a maroon fingernail—“right out there.”

  But the door leading from the office opened of its own accord before Pamela could reach for the knob—or rather, someone opened it from the other side. A pleasant-looking young man burst in, nearly treading on Pamela’s toes.

  “I need to see Dr. Stafford right away,” he announced.

  “Greg!” The young woman smiled. “How are you doing?”

  “Good,” he said. “I hope, but I’ve got to get a letter from Stafford by tomorrow morning.”

  The young woman repeated the message she’d given earlier: seminar followed by faculty senate. “But,” she said, “give me the information and I’ll tell him.”

  Bettina and Nell began to edge toward the door, but Pamela lingered, feigning interest in a framed photograph that showed ornate columns silhouetted against a dramatic sunset. She caught enough of the conversation between Greg and the young woman to learn that he had an interview for a teaching job the next day, but the interview was contingent on a letter from his former employer.

  When Pamela stepped back out into the corridor, she saw Bettina tapping on a door near the head of the stairs as Nell stood by. After a few moments, it was clear that no one was inside. Pamela made her way across the creaking floor to join them.

  “We tried that one too.” Bettina pointed at a door closer to the office they had just left. “No luck there either.” The door they were standing in front of seemed to serve in part as a bulletin board for its occupant. Several cartoons involving characters dressed in togas were taped to its wooden surface, along with a clipping about an archeological excavation in Italy, where the largest wine jug yet found had been retrieved. In the margin, someone had written, “We always knew they liked to party.”

  “I suppose most of the professors have classes in the morning,” Nell observed, “and if they don’t, there’s no reason to come to the campus.”

  “He won’t be in.” The voice came from behind them. “He’s on sabbatical this term.”

  The owner of the voice was Greg, the young man they’d encountered in the department chair’s office. He seemed older than the typical student, but his face was unlined and his hair was sandy and abundant, though neatly trimmed. His eyes were a pale shade of blue that gave him a guileless look, as did his rosy cheeks and gentle mouth.

  Bettina turned toward him and offered one of her most flirtatious smiles. “I’m a reporter for the Arborville Advocate,” she said, “hoping to talk to colleagues of”—she tempered the smile—“the late Brainard Covington. He’ll be missed, I’m sure . . .”

  “I can’t help you,” the young man said. “I’m not his colleague . . . anymore.”

  Bettina’s mobile face telegraphed her disappointment with a slight pout and a pucker of the forehead. Her hazel eyes searched Greg’s face as if looking for comfort.

  “You could try the faculty lounge,” he suggested. “I’ll show you where it is—there’s usually coffee and sometimes even food.” He pointed down the stairs. “It’s this way. Just follow me. They won’t all be from classics, but maybe you can get something for your article.”

  “If you’re not his colleague,” Bettina inquired as she fell into step beside him, “how come you know about the faculty lounge?”

  “I taught here for seven years,” he said. “Then”—he paused and rubbed his hands together, as if dusting them off—“no tenure, so poof! I’m out.”

  * * *

  The faculty lounge was down the hallway to the right of the building’s entrance. As they approached, they could see that the door was open invitingly and they could hear laughter. They stepped inside to see a room furnished with two long sofas and two easy chairs, all upholstered in faded green. Bookshelves, a small wooden table surrounded by four wooden chairs, and a wooden desk that seemed to fulfill the function of a kitchen counter completed the furnishings. The desk held a coffee maker, a hot plate with a kettle on it, the makings of coffee and tea, an assortment of ceramic mugs, and a package of disposable cups.

  The room’s occupants, who had been the source of the laughter, were on their feet as Greg entered, followed by Bettina and then Pamela and Nell.

  “Greg! How’ve you been?” said one of them, an elderly bearded man in a cardigan sweater. He paused for a handshake and glanced at his watch, explaining, “Class time,” as he hurried out.

  The liquid visible in the coffee maker’s Pyrex carafe was the dark hue of coffee that had been kept warm for hours while growing progressively stronger, so they turned down Greg’s sociable offer of a cup. And with no one else interested in refreshments, Nell didn’t inquire about the possibilities for tea.

  “Just make yourselves comfortable,” he said, gesturing toward the closest sofa. “Some people are going to class but others are getting out, so you’ll likely have somebody to interview soon.”

  They took seats on the sofa, but he remained standing. Then, with a friendly nod, he started out the door, pausing to say, “Good luck!”

  “Wait!” Bettina jumped to her feet. She’d slipped off the pumpkin-colored down coat—it was very warm in the faculty lounge—to reveal an olive-green, fit-and-flare dress that matched her olive-green booties.

  Pamela and Nell exchanged amazed glances, surprised not only by Bettina’s action but by her agility. Pamela’s helping hand was often required when it was time for Bettina to rise from a low-slung sofa.

  Looking startled, Greg swung around to face the room again. Pamela wanted to know more about Greg too, but she hadn’t been sure how to go about it. Apparently, neither did Bettina. She’d gotten his attention, but now she was stuttering and turning a becoming shade of pink.

  “Um . . . I mean . . .” She offered him a smile that blended admiration with embarrassment. “It’s just that . . . I was curious.” Was she actually batting her eyelashes at him?


  “Oh?” Greg took a few steps toward Bettina.

  “You said you didn’t get tenure here?”

  He nodded.

  “So what will you do?”

  As Bettina waited expectantly, Greg looked puzzled—understandably so, in Pamela’s view. Why should a woman who he had just met, and under the most casual of circumstances, be interested in his future?

  Bettina answered that question. “It’s just that you remind me so much of my son,” she said with an apologetic laugh. “Up in Boston, and he doesn’t have tenure yet . . .”

  “Look for another job.” He shrugged, raising his hands palms up. “What else can I do?” He stepped farther into the room and headed for one of the armchairs. Bettina sat back down and Greg lowered himself into the armchair, then leaned toward her, as if sensing a sympathetic ear. “It’s complicated, though, because I want to stay around here.”

  “It’s fun to live near New York City,” Bettina said encouragingly.

  “It’s not that.” Greg’s lips twisted in a mournful smile. “I’d live anywhere. But my girlfriend got her dream job teaching at Newfield State right when I lost my job here.” He described the upcoming interview Pamela had overheard him telling the young woman in the department chair’s office about, then said, “It’s not guaranteed at all—I’m one of many they’re interviewing, I’m sure—and if I don’t get that, I’ll probably have to move away. Somewhere, anywhere, that I can get a teaching job.”

  Bettina had been making sympathetic murmurs, and Pamela was so moved by Greg’s obvious misery that she felt a catch in her throat—and all the more as he went on.

  “The ancient Greeks have been my lifelong passion,” he said, staring straight ahead but not focusing on anything. “I used to build Greek temples out of LEGOs when I was a little kid.” Then he fastened his gaze on Nell, Pamela, and Bettina in turn. “Do you know what it’s like to have to choose between the person you love and the subject you love?” he asked plaintively, and slumped back in his chair.

  Bettina wiggled toward the edge of the sofa and reached out to touch Greg’s hand. “You’ll get something nearby,” she whispered. “I’m sure of it. Anybody who loves their subject that much has to be a great teacher.”

  Greg pulled himself upright. “I’ve got a part-time thing now, teaching humanities. But I can’t live on part-time forever.” His expression cheered. “I do have the interview, though, and Stafford always liked me. So he’ll write a good letter.” Greg climbed to his feet and mustered a small smile, which he directed at Bettina. “Wish me luck!”

  With that, he was out the door. But no sooner was he gone than someone else arrived—a woman dressed in a conservative wool pantsuit that suited her scholarly air. She was followed by a youngish man in more casual garb but bearing an overstuffed leather satchel that marked him as a fellow professor. They nodded at Pamela, Nell, and Bettina, and seemed to find nothing odd about strangers turning up in the faculty lounge.

  “Was that Greg Dixon?” the woman asked as she picked up one of the ceramic mugs. Did faculty members keep their own mugs in the lounge? Pamela wondered. Or did someone wash the whole collection every night?

  The woman filled the mug with some of the lethal-looking coffee and stepped aside while the man picked up a mug and did likewise. “Sure was,” the man said. “I wonder how he’s getting on.”

  “It was a shame they let him go.” The woman sampled her coffee. “It was all Brainard’s doing.”

  Pamela smothered a startled yelp as Bettina poked her. From the other direction came Nell’s soft, “Oh my.”

  “Really unfair.” The man shook his head. “One person shouldn’t have that much power.”

  “Brainard Covington was the head of the tenure committee.” The woman shrugged.

  “I guess Greg’s gone back on the job market.” The man sampled his coffee.

  “What else can he do?”

  The man laughed. “At least now if a job possibility calls here looking for a reference, Brainard won’t be able to torpedo Greg’s chances.”

  “This coffee gets worse and worse,” the woman said. She headed for the other sofa. The man agreed about the coffee and followed her. Soon they were deep in a discussion of some upcoming lecture series.

  “Shall we go?” Bettina whispered. Nell leaned past Pamela and cocked an ear in Bettina’s direction. Bettina repeated the question. Pamela nodded and stood up, and soon the three of them were on their way down the hall toward the building’s main door.

  “We did discover things,” Bettina said as the ancient wooden floor creaked in response to their footsteps.

  Pamela nodded. “Probably more things than we would have discovered by asking outright.”

  As they approached the door, they almost collided with Greg, who was hurrying toward the stairway that led to the second floor. He was carrying his smartphone. “Just got a text,” he said. “A guy I wanted to see today is back in his office now.”

  They waved him on his way and watched him climb the stairs. He was carrying his jacket, and its removal had revealed a sleeveless, V-necked sweater, obviously hand-knit from yarn in a natural brown shade, worn over a businesslike white shirt.

  “I wouldn’t have taken him for the sweater-vest type,” Pamela commented as they lingered at the door while Bettina slipped back into her coat. “He seems too young.”

  Nell raised a brow and wrinkled her nose. “That sweater looked like it was supposed to have sleeves,” she said in a puzzled tone. “There wasn’t any ribbing or anything around the armholes.”

  “Why would a person wear a half-finished sweater?” Bettina asked as Pamela pushed open the door.

  Chapter 19

  “I’m leaning toward lox and cream cheese on a bagel.” The voice came from behind one of Hyler’s oversize menus. “What do you think?”

  “I’ll join you,” Pamela said as Bettina’s scarlet fluff of bangs appeared over the top of the menu, followed by her hazel eyes.

  “Made from sustainably raised salmon, I hope.” Nell lowered her own menu. “Yes, I think I will have that too. And tomato juice.”

  The minute they’d walked in, Pamela had noticed that Felicity was on duty, serving a table near the door. They’d greeted her, but Pamela had purposely steered Bettina and Nell to a booth far at the back and on the opposite side.

  It seemed inevitable that their conversation would stray to their morning’s adventure at Wendelstaff, and Pamela was relieved when their server proved to be the middle-aged woman who had been at Hyler’s forever. It would be best if Felicity didn’t overhear them discussing suspects and clues—or the grisly topic of murder in general.

  Once they’d ordered and handed their menus back to the server, it took only seconds before Bettina leaned across the worn wooden table toward where Pamela and Nell were sharing the booth’s other bench. “Why would a person wear a half-finished sweater?” she asked again, as if the question had been preying on her mind.

  “Maybe it once had sleeves,” Nell suggested. “When I was a girl, people often reused yarn or remade clothes. The Depression had taught them to be frugal.”

  “You think Greg took the sleeves off because he wanted the yarn for something else?” Bettina twisted her mouth into a skeptical knot.

  “What if he”—Pamela paused for effect—“needed the yarn to strangle someone? Or several someones? Did you notice that Greg’s sleeveless sweater was the same brown as the yarn we saw around Dawn’s neck? And presumably the killer used the brown yarn later, though we didn’t see those bodies in person.”

  Bettina added a frown to the skeptical knot, and Nell tipped her head sideways to give Pamela a curious stare.

  But Pamela went on. “We know he had a reason—a big reason—to resent Brainard,” she said. “Brainard was the head of the committee that turned him down for tenure.” Pamela returned Nell’s stare, then faced Bettina. She felt her lips form a tight smile. “Not only that, he had reason to want Brainard out of the wa
y lest Brainard give him bad references in his new job search.”

  “Oh, Pamela!” Bettina’s voice was a thin wail and her face resembled a tragic mask—though one with scarlet hair, bright lipstick and eye shadow, and dangly amethyst earrings.

  The server was approaching, bearing three expertly balanced platters. But she paused about five feet from the booth, her expression nearly mirroring Bettina’s.

  “It’s okay,” Pamela said, beckoning her to complete her errand. And Bettina summoned up a smile and echoed Pamela’s words.

  As soon as the food had been delivered, however, and the server had departed in quest of their drinks, Bettina continued. “Greg was such a nice young man,” she moaned, “and he reminded me so much of my own Warren. These young people trying to make it in the academic world have a hard time—especially when there are two careers to consider.”

  She cheered up somewhat as she inspected the contents of her platter. The bagel was a graceful circlet of golden-brown dough, with a surface that shone as if it had been polished. Bettina lifted the top half to inspect the filling. Layers of thin-sliced lox—pink shading to orange, gleaming, and nearly translucent—rippled over the bagel’s lower half, nearly hiding it. The platter was garnished with a curl of lettuce and rounds of tomato and onion.

  Pamela and Nell’s platters were similarly tempting. Pamela added the tomato to her lox and replaced the top half of the bagel. She waited as the server delivered their drinks—a vanilla milkshake for Bettina and tomato juice for Pamela and Nell—then lifted the formidable creation to her mouth and took a bite.

  The bagel’s dense texture resisted the teeth in a satisfying way, and its simple yeastiness was the perfect foil for the rich but delicate smoked salmon. Bettina’s eyes grew wide as she sampled her own sandwich, gripping it tightly with both hands. After taking her first bite, she lowered it to her platter and beamed as she chewed. The pressure as she squeezed the sandwich to fit into her mouth had disarranged a few layers of lox, which were now escaping in translucent scallops from between the bottom bagel half and the top.