Death of a Crafty Knitter

by Angela Pepper

  Voula was suddenly in front of me, pressing something into my hand—a business card.

  "You will come see me tomorrow at noon," she said. "I will return your beautiful favor."

  "No, you don't need to do that. The mask was only a few dollars, and I was done with it anyway. You don't need to give me a free… um… whatever it is you do."

  "Tomorrow is New Year's Day. All the stores are closed. You have no plans for noon. Don't argue with Voula Varga. You will come see me, and I will help your heart."

  "My heart?"

  She leaned in close, filling my nostrils with her spicy perfume, and whispered in my ear, "I will help your heart, yes. To take away your anger, for you to get over Christopher."

  My breath caught in my throat.

  Voula pulled away, and with a swirl of her layered skirts and shawls, she was gone, leaving me standing in the washroom of the Fox and Hound with my mouth open, wondering how the heck she knew that my spider-phobic ex-fiancé was named Christopher.

  Chapter 5

  January 1st

  The first morning of the new year, I awoke with a weight on my chest. It wasn't anxiety, though. Just a gray cat, lightly touching his wet nose to my chin and mouth.

  "Good morning," I said with a crackly voice.

  He pulled his head back in reaction to my morning breath and quickly retreated, flicking his long gray tail as he jumped off the bed.

  "Let that be a lesson to you," I called after him. "Stick your nose where it doesn't belong and you might get something you don't want, like halitosis."

  He slipped out the partly open bedroom door just as Jessica appeared. She had her long red hair plaited into a single braid resting on one shoulder, and she looked crisp and casual in dark jeans and a blue turtleneck that matched her eyes.

  "Want your breakfast in here?" she asked. "Maybe on a tray?"

  I sniffed the air, detecting cinnamon and fresh coffee.

  "Breakfast in bed? Jessica, you should sleep over more often." I sniffed again, detecting something else—bacon. "Is that bacon?" She nodded. "Forget sleeping over. You should move in."

  She laughed and shook her head. "I'm an early riser during the winter months, and that's when I bake. I drive roommates crazy. I won't live with someone again unless we're already married, so they can't back out when they realize what I'm all about."

  I climbed out of bed, pulled my housecoat on over my nightie, then got down on one knee in front of Jessica. "Marry me."

  She patted me on the head. "Come have some breakfast."

  "I'll be there in a sec." I headed down to the washroom to freshen up before eating. The room was quiet, with no sounds coming from Logan's side. My cat followed me in and supervised, as usual, looking curious about my toothpaste, then disgusted that I would willingly splash water onto my face.

  Out in the kitchen, the setup on the table looked as wonderful as it smelled. I took a moment to dish out Jeffrey's breakfast on his kitty plate, then sat down to enjoy the spread.

  My phone, which was in its usual charging spot by the front door, began to ring.

  Jessica jumped up and grabbed it for me. "I gave Marcy your number," she said, wincing as she handed the phone to me. "She wants to apologize for last night, and she wants to ask you something."

  "Ask me what?" I looked down at the phone in Jessica's hand like it was a ticking bomb, or a coffee cake made with broccoli.

  "She wouldn't tell me. It's probably something crazy. Marcy has been so paranoid lately."

  "Drama," I said with a groan as I reluctantly accepted the phone. As soon as it touched my hand, the phone stopped ringing. It didn't beep with a new message, though. Marcy hadn't wanted to talk bad enough to wait for voicemail.

  "She hung up? Probably for the best," Jessica said as she filled my coffee cup. "Who needs more drama in the new year? Not me. I slept great last night. How about you? Got any resolutions?"

  "Not really. How about you? Maybe we'll both get some ideas after this afternoon's meeting with…" I grabbed the card from my purse and read off the business card she'd given me the night before: "Vibrant and Vivacious, Voula Varga, Psychic Extraordinare."

  "What do you mean, we? I'd love to meet with Voula again, but I've got a date with a half-frozen lake. I'm doing the Polar Bear Dip, same as I do every year."

  "Sounds fun," I lied.

  "So much fun," she said with a smile, oblivious to my sarcasm. "The cold water is amazing for your circulation and pores. My mother swears the Polar Bear Dip is basically a fountain of youth."

  Jessica's mother did have perfect skin, but I wasn't so easily swayed. I pulled my warm bathrobe tighter against the mere idea of plunging into the chilly waters at the foot of Misty Falls.

  The waterfall the town was named for had a rocky outcropping midway down that served as a perfect jumping-off point for locals. The drop from the ledge was about fifteen feet, and I'd jumped off plenty of times, both clothed and unclothed, but never in the middle of winter. It was the perfect location for the town's annual Polar Bear Dip because the moving waters kept ice from forming, unless the weather was extraordinarily cold.

  "It's my tenth year," Jessica said proudly. "I get my ten-time pin."

  "If I go and jump in ten times in a row, do I get a pin?"

  She pursed her lips in mock outrage and handed me a hot-from-the-oven cinnamon bun to go with my scrambled eggs and bacon.

  We ate our breakfast and gossiped about the previous evening's events. Marvin and Marcy had gotten drunk enough to stop bickering around the third bottle of wine, and the mood lightened once our friend Harper arrived with some other young twenty-something friends in tow, straight from another party.

  Marvin had heroically saved me from a hangover by drinking most of the wine, so the new year was off to a good start. I hoped my noon appointment with the psychic would bring more positive things into my life.

  I'd puzzled over what Voula Varga had said to me about my ex-fiancé, and had come up with a reasonable explanation. If she was a con artist, as Logan had suggested, she would have researched local residents with money. A quick internet search would reveal plenty of information on me, including the name of my former business partner and spider-phobic fiancé.

  You're just a con artist, I thought as I tapped the edge of her business card on the table. Voula Varga, I'm onto your so-called magic tricks. You may have sold my gullible friend Jessica a voodoo love doll, but you'd better not try to pull one over on me, or you'll be in for trouble.

  Chapter 6

  As I drove to Voula Varga's house, I rehearsed what I would say to get out of any mumbo jumbo she might try to pull on me.

  First, I would casually mention that my father was a retired police officer, and that I'd inherited his skepticism about all things mystical.

  Secondly, if the cop thing alone didn't kill her interest in scamming me, I would cut the visit short by claiming I had something else scheduled—like getting started on counting the inventory at my gift shop while it was closed for the day.

  Voula's house was just outside of town, perched high on its own hill. The house itself was famous, by Misty Falls standards. It had been used for a horror movie filming location back when I was in high school. The Hollywood people had modified the windows on the front to look even more like eyes on a face.

  I'd seen the glowing eyes of the house countless times, but I'd never been to the house before today—the day I'd been summoned there by Voula the Psychic Extraordinaire.

  I didn't spot the turnoff for the road leading up the hill the first time I passed by it, so I pulled a U-turn and drove back slower. The weather that day was overcast, so between the blanket of snow on everything, plus the lack of shadows, everything looked flat and featureless. It was the kind of murky day where things can hide in plain sight, right in front of you.

  Finally, I spotted the turnoff for the road—which wasn't much more than a goat trail—and steered my car onto it. As I bumped over the snowy ruts, hoping the scr
aping sound coming from the undercarriage wasn't anything to worry about, the idea of trading my fancy car for something more practical, like a Jeep, became more appealing.

  As I rounded what was a blind corner due to a thick stand of evergreen trees, another vehicle sprang up in front of me, bright headlights gleaming through the murky daylight as it came right at me.

  The narrow road barely had enough room for one vehicle, let alone two, so I slammed on my brakes, expecting the other vehicle to do the same.

  The other vehicle didn't stop, though. Either the driver didn't see me, or they did, and wanted to have a head-on collision. My car was equipped with the finest in safety features, but I didn't want to test my air bags that day, so I hastily cranked the wheel to the right, took my foot off the brake pedal, and hit the gas. My car graciously obeyed my command and sailed off the road and down the slope into a ravine.

  A horrific crunching came from below, as trees whizzed by left and right. I hit the brakes, but I was sledding, not rolling, so it made no difference. I used the steering wheel and the magic power of curse words to nudge the car left, narrowly avoiding impact with a tree. The vehicle eventually came to a halt in fluffy snow, deep enough to cover the headlights.

  Behind me, the road was clear. The driver didn't even have the decency to stop and check on me, let alone take responsibility for the accident.

  After letting out a few unladylike epithets, I put the car in reverse and attempted to get back onto the road. My car tried to obey, bless her precision-crafted engine, but the slippery snow and the steep incline were too much. I would need a tow truck, unless I could figure out another route.

  I shut off the engine and stepped out to survey the situation. My tire tracks down the edge of the ravine showed me how lucky I'd been to squeeze between the many trees without hitting any, except…

  I walked along the tire tracks and scooped up something familiar. It was my passenger-side mirror. I had hit a tree after all, clipping it with my mirror.

  "Could be worse," I said to myself as I tossed the loose mirror into my trunk.

  I slammed the trunk shut, which startled the birds in the tree branches above me. They took flight with alarmed squawks, shaking loose snow down on me. The snow fell down the back of my jacket, inside my shirt, and down my pants. I let out another unladylike epithet and did the snow-in-my-pants dance as I tried to shake it out of my pant legs with a minimum of melting. A total of maybe three individual snowflakes made it out, while the rest turned to water.

  "Could be worse," I repeated, tempting fate further as I looked around.

  Through the trees, I could see Voula's house up ahead, beckoning me with its bright eye-windows. Since I could call a tow truck just as easily from a warm house as from a snowy ditch, I made my way up the snowy bank and then on to the house.

  As I stepped onto the creaky porch, I shuddered. It wasn't just the melted snow in my clothes giving me a creepy, shivery feeling. The wide, covered veranda, which should have felt welcoming, was anything but. Instead of seasonal Christmas lights or cheery wreaths, it was still decorated for Halloween, with creepy stuffed ravens—the kind with the shiny eyes that seem to be watching you.

  "Nice touch, witch lady," I muttered under my breath as I rang the doorbell.

  A full minute passed, and nobody seemed to be coming to the door, not even after I rang it a few more times.

  Somewhere nearby, a dog barked, and then whimpered.

  I turned around and called out, "Hello? Voula, are you out walking your dog? It's me. Stormy Day. I'm here for our noon appointment."

  "What?" answered a female voice, also outside.

  "I'm on the porch!" I yelled back.

  A moment later, a woman emerged from the woods near the side of the house. She wasn't Voula, though. She was a tall, willowy young woman with long, poker-straight hair as black as the stuffed ravens staring at us from the porch. The girl was walking a brown and white Corgi who looked eager to be my new friend.

  "We're allowed to cut through here," the raven-haired girl said defensively. "It's city land all around, and we're just passing through, so it's not like we're trespassing."

  "I'm just here for an appointment," I said. "Do you know if the lady who lives here is around? There's no answer."

  "Are you a witch, too?"

  "No." I looked over her clothes, noting that every single item she wore was black, including the studded choker around her neck. "Why? Are you a witch?"

  She cracked a grin, seemingly against her will, then quickly shut it off again.

  "Whatever." She rolled her eyes, then turned to leave, and tugged the leash for her dog to follow. The Corgi, who was wearing a matching studded choker, gave me a happy, tongue-lolling parting look, as if to say, She's not so bad, really, and she spoils me rotten.

  I could tell by the minimal clearance between the Corgi's belly and the snow line that the Corgi did, indeed, have a charmed and treat-filled life.

  Alone again, I returned to Voula's door and rang the doorbell again, then knocked on the door. The lock must have been unlatched, because the door creaked open under my knuckles.

  "Hello?" I stepped inside the psychic's ominous house, my ears straining to hear a response.

  There was only the ticking of a clock.

  I stamped the snow off my boots on the entryway mat, then proceeded into the house slowly. A kitchen lay to the left, and I checked there first.

  It was a modest kitchen, probably original to the date of the home's construction about forty years ago. The room smelled of coffee, and the half-empty carafe was still warm, but not hot. Two mugs, both with lipstick imprints, sat in the sink.

  I left the kitchen and passed through a dining room, which held a table but not much else. The lack of decoration told me this wasn't the room where Voula did her readings. A woman wouldn't put so much effort into her appearance and then meet clients in a boring room with cardboard filing boxes stacked in the corner.

  The dining room led to a living room, which was a shocking vision in red. The claustrophobic room held reproduction-antique furniture, upholstered in crushed red velvet. The walls were a deep burgundy, and even the rug was predominantly red. Seeing all that red made me shiver, while a combination of melted snow and nervous sweat trickled down my back.

  Were the walls actually closing in on me, or was it just the effect of all the red? I'd expected grander rooms from the look of the house on the outside.

  "Hello?" I called out again.

  The only answer was the ticking of a grandfather clock standing in the corner. At the instant I looked at the face of the clock, the minute hand clicked into place at the topmost position and the clock began to gong.

  GONG!

  It kept gonging, presumably counting to twelve. I'd been early for the appointment, but now Voula was late.

  GONG!

  The sound was so unpleasantly loud that it drove me up the stairs to the home's upper level.

  At five gongs, I opened the washroom door and found the room empty.

  At eight gongs, I found Voula's bedroom, with a queen-sized bed, but no Voula.

  At eleven gongs, I reached for the door handle of the only room I hadn't checked.

  I turned the handle and pushed the door open a crack.

  "Hello? Am I interrupting?"

  No answer.

  Something on the dark wood floor caught my eye—a knitted doll, about six inches tall. The doll wore dark clothing, and had black button eyes and a tiny pink mouth.

  GONG!

  The clock downstairs let out its twelfth gong, and I relaxed, glad to be done with that noise. Antique clocks were beautiful, but why people would want such a noisy thing in their home mystified me.

  I stepped into the room, which smelled pleasantly of smoky incense, and scanned from left to right. This room had sucked up the whole decorating budget, with tapestries on the walls, comfortable chairs, and warm glowing lamps dotting the perimeter. Surely this was where Voula would be read
ing my fortune today, if she decided to show up.

  My eyes went back to the curious little doll on the floor, next to a pile of dark clothes. I knelt down to examine the doll.

  The back of my neck tickled, and I heard a static buzz in my head, telling me something was wrong.

  I froze, barely able to move my eyes. The dark shape on the floor to the right of the doll was a pile of clothes, but it was also something else.

  From beneath a fringed, dark purple shawl extended a pale hand, tipped in pointed, black-lacquered nails.

  My first thought was, That's an unusual place for Voula to take a nap.

  And then I saw the pool of blood surrounding her body.

  I stood quickly and took a step back, followed by more stumbling steps, until I bumped into the room's pedestal table. The table rattled, and something fell from its surface with a clunk.

  I wheeled around to see what had fallen. A pistol lay gleaming on the floor, pointing right at me.

  My hand flew to my mouth as I choked back a scream. Either Voula was very devious in setting up a terrifying prank just for my benefit, or the woman had been shot.

  I ran to the woman's side, to see if she was still alive and there was anything I could do for her. She wasn't yet room temperature, but she was already gone.

  As I held her cooling fingers in one hand, and the knitted doll in the other, I thought angrily of the vehicle that had driven me off the road moments ago.

  I should have held my ground and let the vehicle smash into me.

  I shouldn't have let Voula's killer get away.

  Chapter 7

  Downstairs in the dead woman's kitchen, I used her vintage wall-mounted phone to call the police. With the heavy headset cradled to my ear using my shoulder, I used one hand to hold my cell phone while I scrolled through my contacts.

  I wanted to call Jessica, to hear her soothing voice, but I didn't want to upset her. Besides, right about then she would be jumping into a near-freezing lake, with her phone tucked into her waiting clothes.