How to Knit a Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

“What about getting Robbie to help?” Stella had asked. She hadn’t seen Robbie since the uproar they’d heard through the wall, nor had Gus mentioned anything about him. But Gus hadn’t seemed like himself ever since.

  “Robbie’s moved out,” he said, his tone abrupt. “He’s been back once—I heard him the next day, stomping around, making a mess of things in the storage room.”

  Stella didn’t ask questions, she could tell Gus wasn’t in the mood for it. Nor would he appreciate her asking if she could leave the rest of her things there for a few days until she figured out what to do with them. So she’d piled as much as she could in Uncle Mario’s office, pushing his little homemade bar into the corner. Tucked away and hard to get to.

  Most of the things should probably be thrown out, including some knickknacks and personal things she’d stored when she had moved out of her mom’s and got her own apartment—things she couldn’t quite throw away.

  She dropped one box as she moved it across the room and a yearbook fell out. “Oh geesh,” she thought. She thought she had thrown them away. She picked up another and found a smelly old sock beneath it. Gus hadn’t been very discriminating; he’d included one or two of Robbie’s old books, too, along with some of his dirty laundry, apparently. There was a whole stack of books, some the flimsy books from grade- and middle school, and then the more substantial Sea Harbor High books.

  And then her thoughts turned to Spencer Paxton. She was older than he, but he’d have been in a couple of her books.

  Curious, she paged through one of the books on her desk, first quickly, then more slowly, thoughts of Spencer Paxton disappearing as she stared at the dozens of faces looking up at her. Finally she lifted up the whole stack and settled down on the floor, soon surrounded by pages of small square school pictures: grade school, middle school, and Sea Harbor High.

  She grabbed a paperweight to hold one page open, then shoved some envelopes in other pages. An old sock of Robbie’s in another.

  At first she thought it couldn’t be. But there, in the fifth grade, was a solemn-looking girl with a space between her front teeth. She didn’t have a ponytail—and her face was plump, surrounded by straight, short, dark hair. Her cheekbones weren’t defined. But her eyes were the same, those same green eyes. Fresh green, like the color of flowers in spring. Nice eyes.

  ROSE ELLEN WOODLEY was printed below in plain black type. Woodley. Of course. “Rosie had been married,” Stella murmured to herself. “Chopra. Prem Chopra who made Indian food for her.”

  The girl in the photo looked reticent, as if she were holding back. Or maybe afraid. Afraid to have her picture taken?

  Stella remembered the goofy photographer who used to come dressed as a clown to take their school pictures. He did it all through grade school. He even did it for the middle- and high school kids. He thought it would make them laugh, but the kind of laughter that he evoked wasn’t always what he was trying for.

  Rose wasn’t smiling at all. Maybe the clown had scared her.

  She looked at the small square class pictures of the other students in Rose’s class. A few of the kids she remembered—mostly because they had a brother or sister in her own, upper class. It was funny how when you’re a kid, three, four years is like a generation. She went back and looked at the unsmiling girl. Rose.

  It was definitely her Rosie.

  She went back and forth, thumbing pages, pressing some flat. And she finally found a photo of Rose in first grade. Rose with a shy smile. And second grade. But the older she got, the further away the smile went, as if worn away by the years. She followed her through fifth, then sixth, when Stella herself was a happy upperclassman, happy to leave the world of the little kids behind. Happy to drive a car. To feel she had the world by a string. She traced Rosie as she grew, in years and in size, all the way to high school. A freshman. The same year, Stella realized, that she herself had gone off to Salem State and Rose had moved away to the middle of the country. Had she seen Rosie around the middle school–high school campus? Around town or at the beach? She couldn’t remember her, not at all. Did she look right at her and not see her?

  She thumbed through until she came to an activities section where larger photos filled the pages, highlighting group activities, kids having fun, putting on plays, studying plankton at the Maritime Gloucester museum, being silly. But she couldn’t find her Rosie.

  And then she did. She picked up the book and looked closer. Rosie looked older, taller, and still pudgy, with braces on her teeth. Two girls were in the photo, Rosie and an older girl, but smaller than Rose. There were adults in the background, lined up on a stage. The two girls in the front were holding a trophy. And Rose Ellen Woodley was smiling. Not big, but it was there.

  MATH OLYMPIAD WINNERS, Stella read.

  She heard footsteps coming up the stairway, and then a knock on the door. A second later Rose pushed it open.

  Stell looked up into Rosie’s sad green eyes, the same ones that had been looking at her from the class books.

  Birdie walked in behind her.

  “Stella.” Birdie smiled, looking down at her, sitting in the center of a hodgepodge of books. “Little Miss Muffet.”

  “But you’re not bringing spiders, I hope.” Stella’s smile was subdued. Her legs were crossed and one book lay open in her lap. She looked down at it, then over to where Rose stood, quietly watching her.

  “Rose Woodley,” Stella said. And then she smiled, because the girl in so many of the photos had looked so sad.

  “I came to explain . . .” Rose began, her voice faltering. Birdie walked over to Stella and slipped on her glasses, leaning over. She looked down at the page of photos, then one that Stell had circled. Rose Woodley. She frowned and straightened up, mentally paging through years of memory.

  Stella got up and collected the books, carrying them over to her desk. She turned back to Rose, her hands in the pockets of her slacks. “Rosie—?”

  “I wasn’t trying to deceive you,” Rose said. “I was still using my married name. I never took the time to change it back. Driver’s license, IDs—they were all Chopra. Too much trouble. And when I came back here, no one knew me, so it didn’t matter. In a way, I liked that. Rose Woodley wasn’t happy in Sea Harbor, Stell. I thought I’d give Rose Chopra a chance. But now . . .”

  “Now?”

  “It’s different now. What didn’t matter before, matters now. I came over to tell you, to talk to you about it.” She managed a smile and walked over to Stella’s desk, looking down at the books. “I don’t have any of these books. I didn’t take them with me. I threw them in the trash.”

  “How is it different now?”

  “It’s different because you’re my friend, not just Stella Palazola, the Realtor. Birdie, Nell, all of you. But you, Stella. You gave me this job, you’ve wrapped me in a friendship that already—well, already it matters to me. A lot. Way more than you know.

  “It was an accident almost—just a happenstance that no one remembered me or was aware that I once lived here. But it doesn’t seem like an accident anymore. It feels deceptive. And I knew I had to tell you because, it’s . . .”

  Rosie’s voice was filled with such sadness that Stella tried to lift her spirits and said with a smile, “What? You were going to tell me first so I wouldn’t have the fun of looking at all these goofy little kids’ pictures? Never.”

  Birdie looked over at Stella and blessed her silently.

  Stella went on. “Hey, Rosie Woodley or Chopra or whatever you want to call yourself, it doesn’t matter to me. You’re my Rosie. And that’s a good thing.”

  Rosie bit down on her bottom lip and looked out the window. When she looked back and opened her mouth to say something, Birdie interrupted.

  “Woodley, Woodley,” she murmured. Then she drew the name out and followed the last Woodley with a smile as her memory finally cleared. “I remember your mother, Rose. Yes, I do. Gladys Woodley. She was a lovely woman.”

  Rose had been holding back the emoti
on, but at the mention of her mother, her eyes glistened and she smiled as if Birdie was somehow giving her a gift, bringing her mother back to life.

  Birdie knew that only too well. People lived on through memories and in your heart. It was good to talk about them. “I didn’t know Gladys well, but I’d meet her walking the beach sometimes, and we sometimes attended the same poetry readings at the library. Gladys herself was a poet—a kind of blithe spirit, I always thought. And she loved the water.”

  Rose’s whole face smiled. “Yes, she was a happy, lovely lady. She saw the world differently than a lot of people. She saw it in rainbow colors. And she wanted to paint that kind of rainbow for me, too. It was so important for her to make me happy. Sometimes she tried too hard to do that for me, patching up my life. And it made her so sad when she couldn’t fix everything and give me a perfect life, that I kept those hard times from her. Those times that kids go through. Partly I came back here to put my own demons to rest forever, and I knew that would make my mother happiest of all.”

  Stella listened carefully. And she wondered. She had been a kid, too, and she couldn’t remember “hard times,” unless Rose meant times like getting her tonsils out on Halloween and not being allowed to go trick-or-treating. But she strongly suspected that wasn’t what Rose was talking about.

  Birdie listened, too, and knew there was a lot more behind Rose’s words. It wasn’t a crime for her not to have talked about her past, or not to have mentioned that she had once lived in Sea Harbor. There was no fault there and her explanation was plausible. But there was something pressing on Rose in a terrible way. And it was slowly working its way to the surface.

  “And have you done that, Rose?” Birdie said softly. “Have you put those demons to rest?”

  Rose looked down at her hands, and then she looked at Stella. Finally she looked back to Birdie, drawing strength from her wise eyes.

  “I knew Spencer Paxton when I was a kid,” she said. “He nearly ruined my life. I had a chance to tell him what he did to me. So yes, my demons are gone.”

  * * *

  Chief Thompson was kind and gentle, listening as if imagining a daughter of his own being bullied mercilessly by some privileged kid who thought he owned the world.

  Rose’s story came out in starts and stops, but she kept her composure, holding emotion at bay so that her statements were stark naked, unadorned.

  It was Stella who found it impossible to keep emotions out of the equation. She had walked those same halls, maybe run right past a young Rose Woodley on the playground. And maybe she hadn’t spoken to her, didn’t notice her because she was just a young kid. She knew Spence Paxton, too. Everyone did, even the upperclassmen like Stella. She remembered being on a sailing crew one summer that he was on. For sure she’d have seen Rosie during those summer months, wouldn’t she? At places they all went to swim and sail?

  But that was the problem. She hadn’t seen the tall, awkward girl, slightly overweight back then, her shyness making her prey for boys like Spencer Paxton. Rose had been invisible to them.

  When the tears began streaming down Stella’s face, Birdie stood and walked out of the police station room with her, pulling tissues out of her purse and running smack into Ben Endicott.

  “Keys,” he said, dangling Rose’s car keys from his fingers. “And a wallet and phone.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Ben.” Birdie smiled and pointed to a bench in the hallway.

  Ben understood her words to include more than a set of car keys, so he sat on the bench beside them, while Stella blew her nose and Birdie filled him in.

  The look of concern on Ben’s face didn’t escape either of them.

  Rose Woodley Chopra had come into the police station on her own accord and handed Chief Jerry Thompson a perfect motive for murder, all wrapped up in a lovely bow.

  Chapter 18

  Izzy had gone up to the apartment that day, just to be sure Rose was okay.

  Rose had come back from the police station earlier and told them about living in Sea Harbor years before, about Spencer Paxton’s role in her life. About hating herself, about her near despair, and finally, about growing whole again. Stella and Birdie had helped Rose fill in some of the difficult parts.

  Later, when Izzy went up to check on her, Rose was sitting on the couch. Purl was curled up in her lap, purring contentedly. And even Rose looked content. Soft music played in the background and a candle burned on the coffee table.

  But her face was flushed and damp from tears. Izzy had sat down for a while, leaning into the soft cushions.

  Rose pointed to a familiar quote, framed and hanging on the wall. One she had shared with them before. One Birdie had quoted, too. “You are braver than you believe . . .”

  “Wise words,” Izzy said. Rose nodded. “I’ll be fine, Izzy,” she said.

  * * *

  Izzy parked her car and walked across the lot to the Canary Cove Arts Association building, her thoughts on Rose Woodley Chopra. And on a beautiful little blonde girl named Abby. The daughter whom Izzy’s life revolved around. She thought of girls and boys growing up and going through adolescence, and her emotions spilled over, her heart full of Rose and her pain—for what had been.

  Yes, she thought now. Rose would be okay. But not without some pain along the way. She checked her watch, and realized she was late. She hurried along the sidewalk.

  The Arts building, a small one-story structure, sat on the edge of the Canary Cove galleries adjacent to the main parking lot. It housed an information desk, a business office, and a multipurpose room in the back.

  Jane and Ham Brewster were the ones who had suggested the room be used for the fall fiber arts show they were preparing, a more neutral spot than any of the individual galleries.

  And it had been a good decision, Izzy thought as she walked through the double doors. Bree was already there, lugging a heavy ladder across the floor. Nell followed behind her with a tape measure and pad of paper. It was too early to mount or hang anything, but time to determine the best way to exhibit all the art.

  Izzy tossed her jacket to the side and joined them, looking up at the tall ceiling, the lights, the windows. “I think my sea creatures will swim gracefully from up there,” she said. She took the tape measure and climbed up with Nell standing below, recording measurements.

  “Jane said anything goes, as long as we don’t punch holes in the wall,” Birdie called out from a table near the wall.

  Bree moved some heavy pieces of mounting materials to the side, then walked over and leaned against the wall, watching the women work.

  “Small but mighty,” Birdie said to her, and Bree laughed, bending her arm and showing a formidable muscle.

  Birdie looked around the room, imagining the colorful pieces hanging from branches, from the ceiling, from the deep window recesses. “It will be just what we need. Magic. We need a bit of that in our lives right now.”

  Izzy listened from a distance and nodded, imagining the floating jellyfish-looking pieces she was creating from yarn. She’d hang them high so they floated down from the ceiling, catching the light. Silky green and burnt orange, bright pink and purple strands ending in fanciful shapes.

  “Magic is always welcome,” Nell said. She looked out the window at the darkening sky over the ocean. Inside, the gallery lights were turned on. Maybe they needed more than magic. Miracles, perhaps.

  “Count me in on that, too,” Bree said, more to herself than the others. “Magic would be super-duper fine.”

  “And are you?” Birdie asked. “Fine, I mean?”

  “Not yet. It’s complicated, Birdie. It’s a hard time.”

  “Sometimes we make things more complicated than we need to.” She smiled at Bree, hoping to ease the strain she was under. For the past few days Bree seemed to be holding herself together like a small blonde fortress. But tonight there were cracks in the armor, tiny ones, but they were there.

  “It’s a difficult time, Bree. But complications can come from trying
to force it not to be. Leaning into it can be simpler. Things happen. And then they go away.”

  “Maybe,” Bree said. “But it looks bad, doesn’t it?”

  Nell walked over, listening. Imagining what Bree was going through. It was worse than bad, she thought. She wondered how much detail the police had given Bree. Did she know that Spencer had been bludgeoned, blows that seemed to have come from an angry person, the medical examiner reported. “Yes. Spencer’s death was awful.”

  Bree nodded. “Yes, that was bad. Horrible. But I was being selfish and thinking about myself. It’s bad that he and I had a bad relationship. It’s bad that the police weren’t able to find me that night.”

  “But you told them why.”

  Nell’s comment hung there, waiting for confirmation as if it were a question. You told them you were a sound sleeper. You didn’t hear the knock or the bell.

  Bree didn’t answer.

  There was more to her story—they all knew that. They also knew that no one, unless they were drugged or unconscious, could have slept through Bree McIntosh’s doorbell. And there was something else.

  “Bree, Rose saw a woman with Spencer that night,” Birdie said.

  Bree looked at her with surprise. And then with regret. “Spence asked me to meet him there, and then he surprised me by dangling keys in front of me. He told me he had bought the place. For cash. Without saying a word to me ahead of time. I was very angry. We argued. And I left in my own car. That was it.”

  Bree was matter-of-fact. And though liars certainly could deceive people with honest-looking faces, Bree seemed honest to the core. She held things back. But what she said out loud was true.

  They’d been surprised earlier to learn that she and Spencer Paxton weren’t the happy couple that showed up on society pages. A divorce would happen, she and Spencer had both agreed on that. And she had agreed to wait, she had told them.

  “Did you know he was going to be Sea Harbor’s next mayor?” Bree asked.

  “I heard he was filing,” Birdie said. “But we have elections in Sea Harbor. Not only that, everyone votes. We even have protests now and then—I’ve been known to carry a placard now and again.”