Silence of the Lamb's Wool (A Yarn Retreat Mystery)

by Betty Hechtman

  The movie theater was closed and the downtown street deserted as we walked to the various coffee spots. They all had alcoves at their back doors, meant for early deliveries. Our last stop was the Coffee Shop, which got us almost back to Nicole’s place.

  The way Dane was acting made me think that last night had been just a one-night thing. I itched to make a snippy comment, but forced myself to keep quiet. Besides, I had rethought the whole thing and decided friends and neighbors were all we were going to be, ever.

  There were other things on my mind that I wanted to talk to him about. I was still trying to pick my moment when we walked into Nicole’s studio. I turned on the lights and was relieved to see everything seemed as I’d left it. It had probably had been Nicole who’d messed the place up.

  The interior looked lovely at night. The arched windows made a dark contrast to the natural color of the walls. The tiny hanging lights she’d added spotlighted the antique pieces, reflecting in their refinished surfaces.

  “It’s amazing how different this place looks now,” Dane said. He walked over to the fireplace and picked up one of the old ledgers that were stacked next to it. He opened it and flipped through the pages. “The bank just closed and apparently left everything here. Except money,” he quipped. He looked at the rest of the ledgers. “All that paper gave Nicole a lot of kindling for the fireplace.”

  Now that he’d brought Nicole up, I seized the moment. “I’m not so sure it was suicide.” Dane’s head shot up and he became a cop again.

  “You’re doing the Nancy Drew thing again, huh?” I told him about the ticket for one to Bhutan and the timing of her deposit. “Interesting,” he said. “But it could have been some kind of last-ditch effort, which she immediately regretted. The medical examiner is about to make an official ruling that her death was a suicide. We took a lot of statements around town from people. The consensus was she was depressed that her business wasn’t doing well and she felt trapped in a small town. Of course, Lieutenant Borgnine talked to Will Welton. He seemed to be in shock about her committing suicide. I think he is in shock about her death in general. Why else would he be going in to work?”

  Dane stroked his chin and smiled. “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but Lieutenant Borgnine put the word out that nobody should give you any information.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said.

  “I think you can see I agree with your statement. I’m certainly not paying attention to it.” He gave me a soft nudge to the shoulder. “So, if you have any thoughts about anything, you know my door is always open.”

  “Except last night.” The words fell out before I could stop them and he looked surprised.

  “Right,” he said with no more explanation before he moved over to the back of the studio where the spinning wheels were lined up and went back to talking about Nicole.

  “She must have been very depressed and she knew her husband had concocted an insecticide containing cyanide that was kept in the shed on the Vista Del Mar grounds. The suicide note on the cell phone. I have to admit that’s something new.”

  “Did you check her cell phone for fingerprints?” I asked.

  “You’re unrelenting,” he said. “We did and the screen was all smudged up.” He hesitated. “Somebody might have tried to wipe off the prints. Lieutenant Borgnine doesn’t see it that way. He thinks that woman with the blond hair who found Nicole probably picked up the phone and then freaked when she realized what she’d done and tried to wipe her prints off.”

  He started checking over all the wheels, looking to see what moving parts there were. “If you think about it, putting down the deposit could have been what pushed her over the edge. The note said she’d done something bad. Maybe that referred to the deposit, considering her business wasn’t doing well.” I mentioned that she had a job lined up with me and she had seemed anything but despondent when I’d last seen her.

  “Not everybody shows their feelings,” he said. “But say you are right. Then what? She was murdered? By who?”

  He had me there. The only suspect I could come up with was her husband and that wasn’t because of anything Will had done or said. It was totally based on the fact that murders were usually committed by those closest to you. It was an odd and disquieting thought. I let the subject drop.

  Dane had parked his red Ford F150 next to the building. I helped him carry out the spinning wheels and he secured them in the back and covered them with a tarp. “Will is going to meet me at Vista Del Mar. He knows which meeting room to put them in.”

  I thanked Dane and expected one of his teasing remarks about how I could repay him for the favor. Instead he just thanked me for the muffins and apologized that there hadn’t been any pasta care packages from him.

  Despite my plan to keep things between us as they were, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.

  “Thanks for the help. Sorry for keeping you away from your company.” Yes, I was hoping he would say something dismissive about it being over with.

  “No problem,” he said.

  It was a little too cryptic for me and I pushed the envelope. “Then your company is still there?”

  All he said was yes as he got in the truck and started the motor.

  12

  “Casey, you should have called me,” Will said. “I would have brought the spinning wheels over. It seems a shame to have bothered Dane.” It was Thursday morning and we were in the meeting room on the ground floor of the building called Sandpiper. It was one of the original buildings left from when the place had been a camp and there were two floors of guest rooms above the meeting room, which felt like a dark and woodsy living room with a prominent fireplace. The windows looked out on a stand of Monterey pines, but since their foliage was all at the top, they looked more like a stand of poles.

  Will wore his usual work uniform of well-worn jeans and a plaid flannel shirt over his tool belt. He looked a little scruffy in a Brad Pitt sort of way, with a day’s growth of beard, but it was perfectly understandable under the circumstances. He began to move the furniture and arranged the spinning wheels along the windows. He was doing his best to act as if it was business as usual, but of course, it wasn’t. I really wanted to ask him about Nicole, but wasn’t sure how. Whether it was suicide or murder, either way he’d lost his wife.

  Finally, I stopped him and put a hand on his shoulder in a supportive gesture. “This has to be a very hard time for you. Are you doing okay?” My words seemed to cut through the front he’d been putting up. I saw his whole body sag and he looked at the ground with a big sigh.

  “We’re waiting for her body to be released. Her family wanted her buried in San Francisco.” He glanced toward the spinning wheels. “I hope you got everything you need for the retreat. I’m really sorry you were left hanging.”

  “Don’t worry, I think I have things worked out,” I said, not wanting to burden him with my concerns about Wanda. He again told me to take anything I needed from Nicole’s studio.

  Something had been bothering me since the other night at The Bank when it appeared to have been broken into. The empty velvet backdrop. I began to describe the pieces of jewelry made out of hair and asked if he knew if Nicole had sold them all.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think she ever intended to sell that stuff. Nicole looked at them as being pieces of fiber art.”

  Of course, I thought suddenly, seeing them in a new light. After all, what was a lot of yarn but animal hair. As Will continued with his work he kept talking about Nicole and how fanatical she was about collecting textiles and fibers. She bought old yarn and knitting tools at garage sales when they were looking for old pieces of furniture for the shop. It wasn’t exactly the information I was after, but he seemed to need to talk. He sounded wistful as he talked about a particular sale they’d gone to.

  “One of the bed-and-breakfasts was clearing out a storage area s
o they could convert it into a studio apartment. We picked up a highboy dresser that had possibilities. Nicole found a bunch of old clothes and stuff in it.” Will wrinkled his nose. “The stuff reeked of mildew and I wanted to throw it all out, but she insisted on keeping it.” As an afterthought, he mentioned there was a bag of yarn and knitting things in the back of the shop. “Nicole was going to offer them to you for the retreat.”

  I thanked him, but really wanted to find a way to steer the conversation toward the contents of the supposed suicide note. Will was giving the couches and chairs a final readjustment and I realized he’d be done soon, so I went the direct route.

  “I suppose Lieutenant Borgnine questioned you to death,” I said, suddenly regretting my choice of words. Will nodded and let out a weary sigh.

  “He wanted to know about Nicole’s mood and how the shop was doing. And if I knew that Nicole had booked a trip alone.”

  There was silence for a moment as I realized he was going to leave it at that. “Well, did you know about the trip?” I asked.

  “Not exactly. She had talked about wanting to go on some exotic trip, but I had told her I wasn’t interested.”

  “I suppose he asked you what Nicole was referring to in the note,” I said, trying to sound casual, but Will’s expression darkened.

  “Whatever she was doing, it’s over with now,” he said with a surprisingly harsh edge. The friendly mood was finished and he seemed agitated as he looked around the room. “If you don’t need anything else, I have other work to do.” I thanked him for his help and wanted to apologize if I’d upset him, but he left before I could. I noticed there was no spring in his step this time.

  I went on to the Lodge, where a table had been set up for registration. I set out all the lists of names and made sure the tote bags were lined up and ready to be given out. All the while I was thinking about Will. His mood swing shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. It was only natural for him to feel sad and angry at the same time.

  One thing I’d learned from working for Frank was not to necessarily take things at face value. Then another thought began to surface. Suppose he was angry for another reason altogether. Will was well liked and had a pristine reputation. If Nicole was doing something bad, he could have worried that it would reflect on him. I had an uneasy feeling as I realized that Will Welton had a motive for murdering his wife.

  He certainly had the means. The poison in the coffee was the insecticide he’d mixed up. And he had opportunity. All he would have had to do was say he’d meet her for coffee.

  Now I really wanted to find out what Nicole had been up to. I thought back to my trip to her shop with Lucinda. With Will’s answer about the hair jewelry pieces, it was clear they hadn’t been sold, which meant they’d been stolen. But why? Or, more important, by whom?

  I didn’t have to start registration for the retreat until the afternoon. And I’d promised to take the early birds into town. We were to meet Lucinda at the Coffee Shop and after, they were going to make a stop at Cadbury Yarn.

  I found Olivia, Scott and Bree waiting for me in the seating area of the Lodge. They weren’t alone. Olivia was showing two teenagers how to knit. Bree was explaining to one of the yoga people how to make the squares. And I did a double take when I saw Scott. The man in the red polo shirt I’d seen staring at Scott was sitting next to him. The man had a pair of big knitting needles and with Scott’s help seemed to be trying to knit a row.

  “Maybe you all don’t want to go,” I said, looking at how busy the three were, but they were all anxious for the trip to the main part of town. I heard them promising to meet up with their new friends later.

  “Who’d have thought I’d be teaching someone how to knit,” Scott said as he and the two women followed me across the street. “It turns out he’d been fascinated with knitting since he was a kid, but his grandmother told him it wasn’t something boys did. When he saw me knitting, he realized his grandmother was wrong.” Scott seemed to stand a little taller. “I told him my story and he was inspired and asked me to teach him.” Bree and Olivia both gave him a pat on the back. They both had their own stories to tell.

  Olivia went first. “Those girls told me knitting was ‘the thing’ now. It was so much fun being able to show them how.”

  “My person was a little different,” Bree said as a bit of breeze caught her blond curls. “Somebody told her knitting might help her meditation practice. She admitted to me she was having a hard time with her yoga retreat. Everyone else seemed to be a super meditator, but she felt fidgety and kept thinking about her family.” Bree went on that the woman’s story was similar to hers, having young kids and not being used to traveling on her own. “She was so excited about making the squares. She knew how to knit, but had never thought of it as a calming thing or something that would ‘focus her attention.’ That seems to be important to meditating.” Bree turned to me. “She wanted to know about our retreat. I bet she comes to the next one.”

  I was so happy with their enthusiasm and for that moment understood why my aunt had started the business. I felt a huge sense of fulfillment. I also had a sense of relief that they weren’t talking about Nicole’s death. Julius watched from the window as we all piled into the Mini Cooper.

  “I understand the whole concept of not having cell phones at Vista Del Mar,” Bree said. “But it is really a pain using those pay phones.” She was sitting in the front passenger seat and I saw she had her cell phone out before I’d cleared my driveway.

  “I wish I’d brought some of my extra yarn and needles. I would love to have been able to give them to those girls,” Olivia said. I was still getting used to the new Olivia. It was like the sun came out on a cloudy day. Her whole face was different. Her brows weren’t furrowed and her mouth was no longer an angry slash. Scott brought up the guy in the red polo shirt and said he would have liked to have given him some knitting supplies, too, because he knew the guy would be too embarrassed to go buy them.

  “I think I have a solution,” I said, remembering Will’s mention of stuff Nicole had picked up at the garage sales. I pulled my car into one of the angled spots on Grand Street. “But first we stop at the Coffee Shop.”

  Lucinda caught up with us just before we reached Maggie’s place. My friend and boss was wearing the Ralph Lauren jacket again. She claimed she’d had it for years, but the Indian-like print and the classic design were timeless. An armful of silver bangles jangled as she reached out to hug me.

  “I’ve got stuff to tell you,” I said in a whisper. I saw that Olivia, Bree and Scott were all close by, and I whispered that it would have to wait.

  The early birds were telling Lucinda about their impromptu lessons as we went inside the Coffee Shop. Maggie was presiding over the counter and the muffin basket was empty and it was barely past eleven.

  We picked a small table and Scott grabbed some extra chairs. We’d just sat down when Wanda went past on the street. I saw her look in and before I could blink, she was on her way in the door.

  She nodded a greeting at Lucinda and looked over the other three. “You must be some of the pre-retreaters I heard about,” she said. “My name is Wanda Krug and I want you to know that I have everything under control and your weekend has been saved from disaster.” I was going to step in, but Wanda was unstoppable. “It’s really going to turn out much better for your group. Nicole was clearly in over her head and never could have managed teaching you all how to spin fleece into yarn.” Wanda’s voice dropped. “It might be why she did what she did to herself.” In case they didn’t get it, she explained it meant that Nicole had killed herself.

  Wanda seemed ready to go into more detail and I was glad when Maggie arrived at the table, interrupting the conversation. I pulled out a chair for Wanda, but she shook her head and marched out the door, saying she had no time to sit around with a coffee klatch.

  Maggie waited for everything to settle befor
e taking our orders. “Cappuccinos for you two?” the proprietor said to Lucinda and me. The tomato red of Maggie’s top was an eye-grabber, but her smile was so warm, my eye slid right past the bright color and went to her face. We both nodded and she turned to the others and took their requests. When she had all the orders, she gave my shoulder an affectionate pat. “Now sit back and relax and I’ll go whip up those drinks.” It was a gift how she made all her customers feel like they were her guests.

  As soon as she was gone, the three early birds looked at me for an explanation about what Wanda had said. Since she had opened up the topic, there was no reason to hold back anymore.

  “I didn’t want to bother the three of you with my problems, but yes, Nicole was the center of the Sheep to Shawl retreat.” I tried to reassure them that Wanda would do a great job taking over for Nicole.

  “And is it true that she killed herself?” Bree asked.

  “That’s what the official word is,” I said. I watched as her sunny expression clouded over.

  “If only I’d found her sooner, maybe I could have talked her out of it.” Lucinda reached over and gave Bree a comforting pat before turning to me.

  Lucinda’s head tilted sideways while she studied my expression. “Why am I getting the vibe you don’t believe it?”

  Bree’s brow got even more furrowed. “If it isn’t suicide, what is it?”

  The rest of the table looked at her and said “murder” in unison. “Oh no,” she squealed. I waited to see if she was going to have a meltdown. But she was a changed woman from the first retreat and instead of falling apart, she pulled herself together. “What if the killer passed me on the boardwalk?”

  “Did you see anyone while you were walking?” I prodded. She thought for a moment and then shook her head.

  “It seems like everybody just takes the boardwalk to the beach. I’ve taken that path before and only passed a few people.” She seemed to be straining to think. “Maybe I did see someone,” she said suddenly. “Or at least their back. I remember now looking ahead and seeing someone in the far distance scurrying along.” She raised her shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “It was before I found Nicole, so it didn’t occur to me that it would be important or I would have paid better attention.” The sound of the espresso machine made her jump. “What a scary thought. What if the killer had met me first? I could have been the victim.” She seemed close to tears as she talked about her boys growing up without their mother. Then she wanted to know what had killed Nicole.