Cat's Paws and Curses

by Nancy Warren

  Ian looked at her, and when he put on his tough cop face, he could be quite intimidating. “I can take you down to the station and interview you in a private room, if that would make you more comfortable. Please remember, this is a criminal investigation.”

  Eileen looked at the empty chair as though she might get Priscilla’s permission to go on and, receiving none, said, “I don’t suppose it matters too much now that the poor woman is dead. We represented her husband in their divorce.” She hesitated, then added, “If everything he claimed was true, she wasn’t very nice to him.”

  “Divorce?” Sarah asked her. “I thought she said she was widowed.”

  “She was divorced from the man first. I think she called herself a widow as it made her sound like the victim.”

  “Did you feel someone walk behind you before they knocked into the table and broke all that crockery?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “You and Lucy bumped into each other. You’re the only person who seems to have been on their feet during the blackout. Are you sure it wasn’t you who caused the accident with the table?”

  I discovered that Eileen had a steely glare just as tough as Ian’s. It was impressive. “I’m very sure.”

  They stared at each other for about thirty seconds in a standoff that I knew I’d have lost in the first microsecond.

  He turned, finally, to Joan Fawcett. He asked her the same questions he’d asked everyone else. She said very much what the rest of them had. When the lights went out, she’d heard some shuffling. Someone coughed. And she looked at Eileen. “And yes, I did hear Priscilla mutter something. I was wondering whether I should put my crochet away when I was hit by scalding tea. Well, I didn’t understand it was tea at the time. All I knew was the shock of great pain. I’m afraid I screamed. After that, I was so completely taken up with mopping myself up that I didn’t notice anything else.”

  “Did you hear anyone behind you?”

  “Now you mention it, I did. I heard footsteps and then the impact as someone hit that table and then, as I said, I was hit by the burning tea and also heard all the china breaking on the floor.”

  He looked at her. “This is very important, Mrs. Fawcett. Do you have any idea who that person was who knocked into the table?”

  “I think it might’ve been Sarah Lawson.”

  Chapter 10

  Sarah sat up straight and shrieked, “What?”

  Joan shrugged helplessly. “It was a heavy-footed person. That’s all I know. And, of course, Priscilla had been very unkind to Sarah.” She let her words hang in the air, which they did, like a fog or a bad smell.

  I felt the vibration that told me a text message was coming in. To my relief, it was from Rafe. He’d worked very quickly, and I had the answers to both my questions. It wasn’t proof, but his new information confirmed what I already believed.

  I put my phone back in my pocket as Ian asked, almost by rote now, “And Mrs. Fawcett, did you know the victim before this evening?”

  “Yes, like everyone else, I saw her most weeks at the knitting circle.”

  He nodded. “And you’d never seen her before?”

  She shook her head. “No. Never.”

  I didn’t like what I had to do, but Joan Fawcett had just told a lie. “Are you sure?” I asked her.

  Everyone turned to me, looking startled. I wasn’t supposed to be the one asking the questions, but Ian Chisholm knew that I had a bad habit of getting involved in murders. I didn’t like to boast, but I had actually helped solve a couple of them. And I felt certain I was on my way to solving this one.

  Joan turned to me in surprise. “What can you mean, Lucy? I suppose I might have seen the woman in your knitting shop, but I didn’t pay any attention.”

  I glanced at Ian, and he gave an imperceptible nod for me to go on. I knew I had to be very careful here or I’d make a mess of things. “Didn’t you once attend Miss Adelaide’s Ballet School?”

  She looked stunned for a moment, and I saw her mouth open as she went slack-jawed. Then she shut her mouth so hard, her false teeth snapped together with a clatter. “My goodness, that was donkey’s years ago. But yes, I took dance lessons when I was young.”

  Hudson glanced over now, looking interested. “Miss Adelaide’s Ballet School? Wasn’t that the school that Priscilla Carstairs said she’d attended?” He looked around at us all. “She was just telling the story tonight.”

  Eileen furrowed her brow and then nodded. “Yes, Hudson, I believe you’re right.”

  Joan Fawcett shifted in her seat, finding a more comfortable position. “I should think a great number of girls attended Miss Adelaide’s Ballet School. It was famous. She turned out a number of dancers who went on to great careers.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But you and Priscilla Carstairs were exactly the same age.” And thank you Rafe for that information. “You must have been there at the same time.”

  She shrugged irritably, looking at Ian now. “Even if we were, I could hardly be expected to remember something that happened nearly seventy years ago.”

  I let a beat of silence pass. If there was one thing I’d learned in my brief time of interrogating people, it was the importance of silence. Letting that pause build until the suspect was uncomfortably waiting for the next question. I let her wait, and the silence grew in the room. Ian didn’t say anything. He let me have the floor. “You said to Eileen that you didn’t suffer from rheumatism. That you walk with a cane because you had an accident when you were young. What was that accident?”

  I’d deliberately tried to throw her off with a question she hadn’t expected. She began to look offended and sat up ramrod-straight. The cameo broach at her throat caught the light from the lamps. She put down her tea with a snap. “I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  I looked at Ian. We weren’t doing good cop/bad cop so much as real cop/fake cop, but he’d obviously decided to trust me in this unorthodox investigation. He said, “If Lucy thinks your injury could have a bearing on this case, then I must ask you to answer the question. Again, if you’re uncomfortable speaking in front of the group, we can take you down to the station and ask you questions there.”

  She appealed to the room at large, holding her hands out. “This is ridiculous. I suffered a fall. My leg was broken in several places and never healed properly. It happened years go.”

  Ian cut his gaze to me, and I knew he was giving me silent permission to continue. I appreciated his trust in me and very much hoped I didn’t screw this up. “But where did you fall, Joan?” I felt sad pushing her, this old lady who’d suffered for so many years. “And what did you fall off?”

  There was a terrible silence. She looked at me, and whatever she saw must have told her I’d guessed the truth.

  And then her face seemed to fall in on itself. “How did you know?” she asked me. “How could you possibly know?”

  It was like there were only two of us in the room now. “Because you were the only one who was burned with the tea. From where the table was located, if the tea hit you on your left arm, it should’ve hit Priscilla and possibly Eileen. But no one was scalded but you.”

  “But Sarah could’ve done it, anyone could, and they could have picked up the teapot and knocked it over so it splashed on me.”

  “But that’s not what happened, is it? Are you really going to let Sarah take the blame for this?”

  She picked up her cold tea and took a sip. Her hands were shaking when she put the cup back down. “No. You’re right.”

  “Priscilla Carstairs wasn’t killed because of something that happened tonight. It happened many years ago. Why don’t you tell us what happened? All those years ago?”

  Chapter 11

  Her eyes were clouded with age, and she gazed across the room as though she were gazing across the decades. Into the past.

  “You guessed it, of course. Priscilla and I both attended Miss Adelaide’s Ballet School. We were about twelve when we met, and we
were the two best students in the class.” She smiled a little. “Priscilla was right. Miss Adelaide loved to show the rest of the class her turnout. It was excellent. But I was the more graceful dancer.

  “Miss Adelaide herself gave us both extra coaching. We were her star pupils, and she promised us that with hard work and dedication we could end up as professional dancers. Both of us shared the dream and worked tirelessly. We pushed each other on, but I thought it was healthy competition.”

  “But something happened,” I said.

  She nodded. She looked relieved to finally be telling the story. “We reached the age of seventeen and both had the opportunity to audition for a coveted spot as a junior dancer in a prestigious dance company.

  “I can’t tell you the excitement I felt. There were lots of girls there, but it very soon became clear that Priscilla and I were in competition for one of those coveted spots. We’d been practicing at the barre in the rehearsal hall to warm up for the final audition, and then Priscilla suggested that we go to the stage and see what it looked like. We’d just take a peek, she said, and then we’d run back and get ready for our final audition.

  “She’d always been so jealous of me that I should have been suspicious that she suddenly became so friendly.” Joan sighed heavily. “But I was a fool. I went with her. There we were, two young ladies in our black leotards with our hair done up in tight buns, dance slippers on our feet. We practiced arabesque and did some leaps across the stage. And then Priscilla walked to the very edge of the stage and looked over. “Come over here and look. That’s where the orchestra will play for us when we’re both famous ballerinas.”

  There was complete silence in the room. No one even breathed.

  “I followed her to the edge of the stage, and when I leaned over to look into the orchestra pit, Priscilla pushed me off the stage.”

  Even though her story had led us here, I still felt my heart jump. Sarah gasped.

  “I don’t to this day know what she’d intended, but I knew the minute I hit the ground that something terrible had happened. I heard my leg break. I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I was in the hospital.”

  “Oh, how awful,” Eileen said.

  “Priscilla got the place, of course. I told my parents what had happened, and they complained to the ballet company and to Miss Adelaide. Priscilla, naturally, claimed that going on the stage had been my idea and while looking over into the orchestra pit, I had slipped and fallen. We were friends, she kept saying. And, naturally, anyone who’d seen us at the audition had witnessed nothing but friendly behavior.”

  Her hands tightened into fists. Her skin was so thin, I could see the white bones of her knuckles. “She even came to see me in hospital. Brought me flowers and pretended she believed her own lies. I screamed at her. Told her if I ever saw her again, I would kill her.”

  Clearly, Joan was a woman of her word.

  “To give the ballet company credit, they didn’t take her on after all. No doubt they weren’t sure who to believe but didn’t want to take the chance on a girl who might have harmed a rival dancer. That didn’t stop Priscilla. She kept auditioning, and eventually she was taken in by a ballet company. I followed her career for a while. Every promotion, every triumph felt as though she’d pushed me off the stage once more. It was too painful, and eventually I stopped.”

  She sighed. “It had been so long, I didn’t think I even hated her anymore. Then, when this thin old woman turned up at the knitting circle, I didn’t even recognize her. It had been sixty-five years, so she didn’t look like her younger self, and she had a different surname. It wasn’t until she told that story tonight about Miss Adelaide’s school and I really looked at her that I recognized her. She was the same Priscilla who had destroyed my career and left me a virtual cripple for all my life while she went on to stardom. She got away with it for so long. And when she spoke to Sarah that way, I knew she was still cruel.”

  “Did you intend to kill her?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I was filled with hatred. It was as fresh as the day she killed my dance career. When the lights went out, I simply acted. I reached out blindly for one of those stupid baubles that she was knitting for herself. I don’t think I intended to kill her. I just wanted to shove her appalling selfishness and cruelty down her throat. But then she started making noises, and so I had to knock the table to create enough noise to cover it. I began to scream that I’d been burned and then caught the teapot before it fell, spilled some onto myself, and then dropped that on the floor as well.”

  She shrugged. “Then I sat back down in my seat and waited for the lights to come back on. I didn’t know whether Priscilla was dead or alive, and I didn’t much care either way. It was how she must have felt when she pushed me off that stage.”

  Ian nodded to the sergeant, who formally arrested Joan Fawcett, and then she was led away, leaning heavily on her cane. As she passed me, she said, “Thank you for the tea. I feel much better. Even the pain in my leg is better.”

  I’d felt it was the least I could do when I’d known I was going to turn her in to Ian. “I’ll make sure and send you some,” I promised her. Even if I had to deliver it to jail.

  After she left, we all sat there, stunned, until Ian said, “You’re all free to go. Just make sure you leave your contact details with the constable downstairs. We may need to contact you again.”

  Hudson got up and gathered his things, then turned to me. “I’m sorry, Lucy. But I don’t think I’ll be coming to knitting circle anymore.”

  Eileen packed up little Henry’s sweater and pushed it back into her knitting bag. “I don’t think I’ll be back, either.”

  Sarah Lawson opened her mouth to speak, and I held up my hands. “Don’t worry. Knitting circle is canceled until further notice.”

  Mabel and Clara left with the others, and I suspected they’d soon tell the other vampires what had happened.

  After they left, only Ian remained. “You handled that well. How did you know about Joan Fawcett and Priscilla Carstairs’s past?”

  “Some of it was from scraps of conversation I picked up, and some was just a lucky guess.” And I couldn’t tell him about my secret accomplice. The vampire who was at this moment downstairs on a very powerful computer, no doubt waiting for Ian to leave.

  “Well, I’m sorry your evening had to end this way.” His gaze went to my kitchen. “But I’ll have one of those biscuits if I may. They look delicious.”

  I sent him away with a bag of half a dozen white chocolate and cranberry cookies.

  Soon I’d have to go downstairs and clean up the mess, but not quite yet.

  I sat on my couch, and Nyx came out of the bedroom, making sure everyone was gone before she jumped up and settled onto my lap.

  “Nyx,” I said, “I’m not sure knitting circle for humans was such a good idea.”

  She rubbed her head against my arm, which was her way of asking for a belly rub. I heard the downstairs door open and light footsteps coming up the stairs. “Oh, Lucy, Rafe and Mabel and Clara have been telling us all about your ordeal. What a dreadful evening.”

  It was my grandmother. She might be undead, but she was still my beloved gran. She sat down beside me to give me a hug. Behind her came Rafe. “We saw Joan Fawcett being led away. Did you get her to confess?”

  “I did.”

  “Well done, Lucy.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without you researching Miss Adelaide’s Ballet School and Priscilla’s career.”

  Gran said, “You two make a very good team.”

  And then she pulled out her knitting. “I’ve invited a few of the others to come up. I thought we’d have an impromptu knitting circle of our own. Just to make you feel better.”

  “Thanks, Gran.” She must have known I didn’t feel like being alone right now. I felt bad that I couldn’t work on her Christmas gift, but the truth was, I didn’t feel much like knitting, either.

  Theodore and Sylvia arrived next with Clara
and Mabel. They were whispering and looking pleased with themselves. Gran said, “We have a surprise for you. To cheer you up.”

  Theodore passed me a gift bag, looking bashful. “It’s from all of us. A little gift for you to wear in the shop.”

  The vampires often gave me things to wear, but I could tell from their expressions that this was something special. I pulled out the knitted sweater and immediately felt my spirits lift.

  It was a Christmas jumper. Possibly one of the most ridiculous sweaters ever knit by man or vampire.

  It was red, with a large green Christmas tree featured on the front, with a big gold star on top stitched in actual gold thread, and on the tree were hand-knitted baubles that hung off the sweater. I could tell Nyx thought it was an elaborate cat toy, and when her paw headed to one of the swinging, sparkling balls, I stopped her. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Try it on,” Mabel said.

  I didn’t need more encouragement. I pulled the sweater on over my black T-shirt and pulled my hair out of the neck. The sweater was a perfect fit, of course. I ran to the mirror and admired myself, turning this way and that. Every time I moved, the Christmas ornaments danced.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “I love it. I can’t wait to wear it in the shop.”

  And I decided that I would never mock the tradition of the Christmas jumper again.

  A Note from Nancy

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading my Vampire Knitting Club Holiday Whodunnit. I am so grateful for all the enthusiasm the Vampire Knitting Club series has received. I have plenty more stories about Lucy and her undead knitters planned for the future.