Knitting Bones

by Monica Ferris

  THE Monday Bunch came out in force Monday afternoon. From doll-size Idonis to man-size Alice, there were nine women in Betsy’s apartment.

  If there had been fewer, or if they had been in less of a hurry, it would have taken half as long to clean up the place. As it was, they got in one another’s way and issued contradictory instructions. But somehow, in a little over an hour, from kitchen to bath, the apartment became spic-and-span.

  There were two reasons they were in a rush. First and foremost, they had read of the discovery of Bob Germaine’s body in an airport parking lot and wondered if Betsy knew more about it than had gotten into the news. Second, they were quick to finish any task standing between them and their stitching.

  Betsy, enthroned on the upholstered chair in her living room, just smiled and smiled. Gradually running out of things to do, the Monday Bunch gathered around her, bringing chairs from the dining nook and the two bedrooms, crowding onto the couch. The two youngest sat on the floor. Needlework projects were brought out.

  “All right, girl,” said Bershada, her glasses even lower on her nose than usual, “give!”

  “Well, Goddy gets a lot of the credit, let’s start with that.”

  “You mean Godwin DuLac, our own fair-haired boy?” said Idonis, who adored Godwin.

  “He’s the one who found out that it wasn’t Bob Germaine who accepted the EGA check at their banquet.”

  There was a general gasp of surprise and indignation.

  “What, you didn’t know this?” asked Betsy. “I thought my telling Mike Malloy was what triggered the search for his car…” She ran down at that point, frowning. “That doesn’t make sense, does it?” she asked, more to herself than the others. “They were already looking for his car.”

  “I thought they were looking for him,” said Alice in her deep voice, looking around at the others, who nodded in confirmation.

  “Well, they were,” said Betsy. “But he drove off in his car, so they were looking for that, too. Allie was afraid he’d had an accident in it and was lying injured in a ditch somewhere.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence as the group thought of poor Allie, who had been living on a hope that grew fainter day by day, until she was told Sunday morning, when she was about to leave for church with her son and daughter, that her husband had been found murdered.

  “So,” said young Emily, drawing the word out, “it was the person who took Bob’s place at the banquet, and who stole the check, who murdered poor Mr. Germaine.”

  “Well, that’s the current theory,” said Betsy.

  “What, does Bob have a double?” asked Idonis. When the others looked at her, she said, “Surely someone would have noticed otherwise that it wasn’t Bob up there, shaking hands and putting the check in his pocket.”

  “Everyone has a double, or so I’ve heard,” said Shelly, an elementary school teacher with thick brown hair and beautiful eyes. She had taken a personal day from teaching to be here.

  “He didn’t look exactly like Bob,” said Betsy. “What happened was everyone who really knows Bob was at that officers’ meeting, so no one realized it wasn’t Bob at the podium.”

  Rosemary was not a regular member of the Bunch, but she was well known to most of them, since she had taught knitting classes at Betsy’s shop for years. Now she asked, in her dry, pragmatic way, blinking through her rimless glasses, “How did he arrange that?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Alice, surprised.

  “I mean,” said Rosemary, putting down her knitting, “how did he either know about the EGA officers’ meeting running long, or arrange for it to? I thought it was supposed to end before the banquet, so the officers could attend.”

  “It was,” said Maureen, a soft-spoken woman who had been on the event planning committee of the local EGA chapter.

  “So how did this crook know it would run over into the banquet and Bob’s wife and others who knew him wouldn’t be there?” Rosemary reiterated.

  “There’s no way he could have known,” said Maureen. “Nobody knew, not even the officers at the meeting.”

  “What was it about, anyway?” asked Betsy, diverted.

  “Redistricting,” said Joyce Young, an ardent needlepointer new to the group. “They’re thinking about redrawing the borders of EGA regions and they ran into a whole lot of objections—which they should have anticipated.”

  “Of course they should have!” said Betsy. “How stupid! Didn’t they think about running the notion past local groups first, just to test the waters?”

  “What’s that got to do with stealing the check?” asked Idonis, who was not a member of EGA.

  “Nothing, nothing,” said Betsy. “You’re right, that’s off topic. And you’re right, too, Rosemary. There is no way anyone who didn’t know the topic of that meeting could have guessed it would run over the time allotted for it.”

  “Or even if they did know the topic,” said Patricia. “Because obviously the people who scheduled the meeting didn’t know what a can of worms they were opening.” Patricia was a beautiful, wealthy woman approaching middle age with great serenity, perhaps because she’d served time in prison for attempted murder, an experience that made her grateful for every blessing freedom brought.

  “Then that means he didn’t know,” said Emily. “So why did he even try it?”

  After a brief, thoughtful silence, Betsy suggested, “Maybe he didn’t know Bob was Allie’s husband.”

  “Of course, that must be it!” said Emily. “He didn’t know anyone at the banquet had ever seen Bob, so why shouldn’t he take Bob’s place?”

  “He was pretty good at thinking up a speech, too,” said Bershada.

  “What do you mean?” asked Betsy.

  Bershada took off her little reading glasses to think. “It didn’t sound made-up on the spot. He began with a statistic and a joke, saying, ‘Heart disease is now the leading cause of death in women, especially women over sixty-five’”—Bershada paused to raise an eyebrow, imitating the speaker—“‘not that anyone in the room is anywhere near that age.’” The Monday Bunch laughed, as the EGA audience had, and Bershada continued, “He thanked the Embroiderers Guild of America for this significant gift, and the Minneapolis chapter especially for thinking of the Heart Coalition in their charity drive…” Bershada paused to recall what else he said.

  “Did he thank anyone by name?” asked Betsy.

  “Yes, he thanked the President of the Guild, I remember he said ‘Karen Wojahn,’ but he didn’t mention anyone else, or if he did I don’t remember it.” Bershada looked around the room to see if anyone else remembered another name being dropped, but no one did.

  “That’s odd,” said Rosemary. “If he didn’t know whether anyone had ever met the real Bob Germaine, how did he know Karen’s name?”

  “I think Betsy has her work cut out for her on this one,” said Alice.

  “But she’ll figure it out,” said Emily loyally.

  But Betsy was dismayed to think that what Bershada remembered of the speech was just what was contained in the speech Bob Germaine composed—Bob’s secretary at the Heart Coalition had e-mailed her a copy of it. Suppose it was Bob Germaine who had set off Godwin’s gaydar after all? Or had someone somewhere gotten a copy of Bob’s speech in advance? She was less certain now than earlier that this was a puzzle she could solve.

  “I wasn’t as comfortable downtown as I usually am,” said Patricia. “The hotel was very nice, but there are some odd people hanging out on the streets.”

  “Yes,” said Bershada, with a nod. “And have you noticed that there are those check-cashing places opening up there, too? I mean, right next door to the hotel there was a PostNet place.”

  “What’s PostNet?” asked Idonis.

  “It’s a mail drop,” said Shelly. “If you’re homeless, it’s a way to have a mailing address. Or if you’re a con artist, you can have a downtown Minneapolis address that isn’t connected to where you really live.”

  “The
things you know!” said Idonis, admiringly.

  Betsy was glad no one wanted to talk anymore about Bob Germaine’s murder, and she was glad to join the gossip—and the movement to unpack the needlepointing, cross-stitching, punch needling, crocheting, and knitting projects, which, after all, formed the real purpose of the Monday Bunch meetings.

  Betsy was working on a counted cross-stitch model for her shop, showing a kitten and a puppy being friendly. She’d stitched that part and was working on the lettering, which read, “A Friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.”

  Idonis was stitching a piece from S. P. Ink that featured a grand piano, musical notes, and the words, “Practice, Practice, Practice.” It was for a great-nephew’s birthday.

  Betsy leaned forward to get a look at what Rosemary was working on. It was a scarf, done in squares, each square made of alternating narrow stripes of deep green and a twist of maroon and white.

  Betsy frowned at the pattern: stripes running up one side, then turning to run down an adjacent side. It looked as if Rosemary had managed to knit around one corner of each square. Which was not possible; knitting went in a straight line, then came back again. Okay, you could take opposite ends of a row and join them and thereby make a circle. Build on that and make a tube, sure. But a knitter cannot come to the end of a row, make a ninety-degree turn, and continue.

  “How are you doing that?” Betsy demanded and several heads turned.

  “I call it mitered knitting,” said Rosemary, handing the piece across to Betsy.

  Betsy frowned over it a while, then, turning it over said, “Oh, there it is.” She put a forefinger on a faint line going diagonally across a square. “It’s a decreasing pattern, you decrease down the middle.”

  “Very good!” said Rosemary. “That’s exactly the secret. You don’t knit a square, you knit a diamond.”

  Betsy turned the scarf over to its right side. “But that’s not all there is to it, is there? How do you get that edging on it—and why put it there?”

  “You slip the first stitch in a row, and purl the last one. It makes it easier to pick up the stitches you need. In this pattern you don’t sew the squares together, you knit them right on.”

  Betsy nodded sharply. “Clever!” She frowned over the squares some more, then shrugged and handed it back. “I get the principle, I think, but not the details. Can you teach me? And can I make the squares any size? I’m making an afghan and I’m bored making ordinary squares, but they’re bigger than the ones you’re doing here, more like eight by eight inches.”

  “You can make a square using any odd number of stitches,” said Rosemary. She reached into her rice basket and pulled out a finished hat, very Scandinavian in its style and in its white and blue colors. The squares it was made of gave it a boxy shape, and from the top came a tassel on a string. The squares were much larger than on the scarf, using just four to make a good-size hat.

  “Oooooh,” said Emily. “That would look adorable on Morgana Jean.” Morgana Jean was Emily’s daughter.

  “I’d like one just for me,” said Joyce.

  “Maybe you’d better teach a class,” said Betsy, laughing.

  “All right. When you get back to the shop we’ll start a sign-up list. These work up fast; people can make the hats as Christmas presents.”

  “Sign me up, too,” said Shelly. “I have a friend who likes cross-country skiing, and that hat would be a great present for her.”

  “I have a friend, too,” said Doris, not looking at anyone. She and a retired railroad engineer named Phil were dating, secretly they thought. But everyone else only pretended they didn’t know.

  “I’ll work up a class and come back in a few days to try it out on you, if you don’t mind,” Rosemary said to Betsy.

  “That would be wonderful,” said Betsy. “Thank you.”

  Around two-forty, the last of them was packing up to leave. It was Alice, and she was deliberately slow in putting her crocheted baby blanket away.

  When everyone else was safely out of earshot, Alice said, “Betsy, I have a favor to ask of you.”

  Since Alice was an elderly woman and had taken on the onerous task of cleaning Betsy’s bathroom, Betsy did not feel in a position to say no, at least not without first hearing what it was. “You know I’m still confined to this apartment,” she warned.

  “Yes, I know, and that’s actually one reason I feel okay about asking you. It’s something you can do, but it’s not hard and you don’t have to go anywhere to do it.” She drew a breath for courage and added, “But it’s illegal.”

  Betsy stared at her. Alice was the widow of a Lutheran minister, and an extremely moral person. “What do you mean, illegal?” Betsy asked.

  “Well, against the law—but I don’t think it’s a good law!” Alice burst out.

  “What bad law are you asking me to break?”

  “The one about injured wild animals that can’t be rehabilitated.” Seeing Betsy’s confusion, Alice continued, “There’s a law in Minnesota that if a wild animal is found so badly injured that it can’t be restored to full health and released back into the wild, it has to be destroyed.”

  “I never heard of such a law.”

  “Most people haven’t. It’s a stupid law. And, there already are exceptions. Certain animals are kept for demonstration and publicity purposes; the Raptor Center has hawks and owls they show to school children to stir up interest in wildlife preservation. But most seriously injured wild animals are killed. It’s not altogether a bad thing; I mean if an animal is in terrible pain or would live a futile, unhappy life, seriously crippled, certainly taking its life is a mercy. But there are these other cases. For instance if a bird breaks a wing, it almost never can be mended, at least so it can fly again, but it’s otherwise perfectly healthy. It can live happily in captivity if it has a good keeper. And that’s what I’m talking about here.”

  “Are you asking me to take on a wild bird as a pet?”

  “No. But there is this crow, an adult crow. Its wing was broken when it was clipped by a car, and so of course it can’t fly, but otherwise it’s perfectly healthy. We’re trying to sneak it out of Minnesota, to another state where it will be safe.”

  “Who are the people doing this?”

  Alice shook her head. “Well, one is a veterinarian, but I don’t want to get her in trouble. The problem here is, the person in Iowa who can take the crow is out of town right now, a family emergency. And I can’t keep it, it’s my turn to host my book club and nobody must know about this.” Alice was so earnest that her brow was dotted with perspiration.

  “I don’t know. Isn’t a crow kind of big?”

  “Yes, and it’s not tame—you can’t tame them if you don’t get them before they leave the nest. But he’s hardly any trouble, he feeds himself, and we’ll supply the cage and the food. He’s very quiet and he’s all healed, so you don’t have to doctor him or anything like that.”

  “But…” Betsy gestured. “Sophie.”

  “Oh, he’s not afraid of cats. There were cats in the home where he was staying while he recovered from surgery to mend his wing. That is…we’re not sure if he’s a he. He might be a she. You can’t tell just by looking at a crow. But anyway, Betsy, it’s only for three days. Someone else will bring him—and the cage and food—and then will take him away again. He’ll be no trouble, I promise. Only you mustn’t tell anyone you have him, because it’s…illegal.”

  Betsy would never in a thousand years have believed Alice would be do something actually illegal. “How did you become involved in this?”

  “Well, I started doing volunteer work for a group that rescues and rehabs wild animals. One night a week I pick the animals up at the Humane Society and drive them to rehabbers. I’ve been doing it for over a year. We’re all volunteers and it’s all legal; the rehabbers have licenses to have wild animals in their homes. But last week someone told me about this underground railroad for these otherwise doomed creatures, and I
said I was interested. Only now they’ve come to me, and I can’t help because of my book club. And I thought of you.”

  “Well, that’s very flattering,” said Betsy, “but I don’t think I can.”

  “Oh, but, Betsy, you must! I can’t ask very many people, because sooner or later someone might spill the beans, and then the program might be shut down. People might be arrested. I might be arrested!” Alice boggled at this. “So please, Betsy.”

  If it had been a sweet robin, or a lively little chickadee, Betsy would have said yes at once. But a crow? A thieving, wicked crow? Didn’t they eat baby birds? Didn’t they gang up on owls?

  “They’re the most intelligent variety of birds,” said Alice, somehow out of desperation guessing Betsy’s objection. “You can almost watch them figure things out. Tame ones can learn to talk, though of course this one will never be tame. But he’ll be alive, and he’ll have other crows for company, and he may even learn to be happy. Please, Betsy.”

  Betsy thought of her nice, clean bathroom and sighed. “Oh, all right, I’ll do it.”

  Sixteen

  IT was a good thing that Alice was not afraid of the dark, because it was very dark in the empty parking lot behind a St. Paul library she had never been in. There was only one lamppost back there, and it was almost totally obscured by an oak tree holding stubbornly to its leaves despite their bone-dry, rustling state. The pavement also rustled, as leaves from less-stubborn trees were strewn in low waves across it. Alice pulled the collar of her brown wool coat up around her throat as a chill wind whirled through the lot, stirring up the leaves and ruffling her hair. As suddenly as it had come, the wind died, and the leaves settled into a new pattern.

  A car swung around the library, its lights slashing across Alice and her own car, dazzling her, then leaving her blinded as it turned sharply into a parking slot near the back door. The engine shut off. A man got out, his attitude furtive. He turned toward her and seemed to wave. Alice tentatively waved back.

  The man came to her. “You Alice?” he muttered, looking around.