Silent Knit, Deadly Knit

by Peggy Ehrhart

  “Penny!” Pamela and Bettina spoke in unison, heads swiveling toward the doorway.

  “No secrets,” Penny said, advancing farther into the kitchen. “It’s my mystery too.”

  Bettina had already fastened onto the implications of Pamela’s fascinating revelation. “Is he the kind of person who could make his own bullets?” she asked. She raised her cup back to her lips and took a long sip, as if a bit of caffeine would aid in formulating an answer.

  Penny wrinkled her nose. “He seemed kind of like . . . like someone who wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty.”

  Pamela nodded. “I can’t picture him in . . . whatever people wear when they make their own bullets.”

  “Grubby clothes?” Penny suggested.

  “On the other hand”—Bettina returned her cup to its saucer with a gentle clink—“Pierre is a Canadian. Wilfred and his cousin go up into Quebec to fish sometimes, and the woods are full of guys tramping around with guns looking for moose.”

  Pamela focused her gaze on Bettina. “You need to talk to Detective Clayborn,” she said. “He needs to know that Pierre had a motive to want Millicent dead. With his wife out of the way, his affair with Jeannette Thornton wouldn’t have to be kept secret anymore. I’m sure Jeannette Thornton is the colleague who gave Pierre his alibi, and I’m sure once Detective Clayborn knows they were more than just colleagues, he’ll realize she had every reason to lie.”

  “I’ll be checking in with Clayborn Monday,” Bettina said, “to see if there’s anything new on the case to report to readers of the Advocate.” She frowned and tightened her lips into an unhappy grimace. “But if I tell him what we know, he’ll ask if I actually witnessed the scene, and I’ll have to say I didn’t. And he’ll wonder how I’m so sure that this woman is the same person who gave Pierre an alibi. And I’ll have to say my friend looked her up on the Wendelstaff website. And he’ll know my friend is you. Then he’ll tell me you and I pay taxes so we don’t have to personally solve Arborville’s murders and that’s what the police are for.”

  Sighing, Pamela nodded. “And Detective Clayborn might know more than we know. Perhaps the police don’t just take one person’s word for it when they’re confirming an alibi. He might have asked around at Wendelstaff to make sure other people saw Pierre that morning too.”

  “But he might not have,” Bettina said firmly. She took another long swallow of coffee and when she spoke again it was to change the subject. “This coffee is really good,” she said. “Is it still that Guatemalan kind?”

  Pamela wasn’t paying attention. She was staring straight ahead, but at nothing in particular, and fingering her chin. “I wonder if we should really go today,” she said. “Pierre could be a very dangerous person.”

  “We’ll all be together.” Penny’s young face looked so trusting that Pamela felt her throat tighten. “And it sounds like the best sale ever. And why would he want to hurt us?”

  “He could be Millicent’s murderer,” Pamela said. “He could think we know things that might help the police finger him. Because we were her friends.”

  “We were her friends.” Bettina drained her coffee cup and stood up. “That’s why we should go. Who knows what secrets might turn up in all that old family stuff?”

  * * *

  Bettina insisted on driving. Wilfred, accompanied by Woofus, came out onto the porch as they all climbed into her faithful Toyota. “Be careful!” he called as Bettina backed out of the driveway. “Better safe than sorry!”

  The Wentworth mansion was a fanciful woodframe structure, three stories tall, with bay windows, turrets, and multiple chimneys. It was painted a deep cranberry red with dark gray and cream accents, and its surface alternated between clapboard and curving shingles that overlapped like fish scales. It loomed through bare trees, set far back from a road that curved past other houses of similar age and splendidness.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” Bettina commented as she slowed down so her passengers could appreciate the house from its most impressive angle. “But I can see why Millicent was eager to downsize. Can you imagine searching for a painting contractor who’d want to take on that job? Not to mention dealing with wiring or plumbing problems.” She continued driving until she came to a street that cut off to the left, skirting the edge of the Wentworth property. Like the main road, this street had no curbs or sidewalks, and cars were crowded along both sides, parked half on the asphalt and half on the scrubby winter grass that fringed it.

  Bettina passed a row of twenty cars before reaching an empty stretch and guiding the Toyota into a spot just in front of a tired-looking compact. “I wore my most comfortable boots,” she announced as she twisted the key in the ignition and the Toyota’s engine rumbled into silence. “Good thing, too.”

  They strolled back the way they’d come until they reached a gap in the string of cars where a graveled driveway led back into more of the woods that sheltered the mansion from the main road. A bright orange sign fastened to a stake featured an arrow pointing into the woods and the words ANOTHER GREAT SALE PRESENTED BY EVERGREEN. FRIDAY, SATURDAY, AND SUNDAY 10:00 TO 5:00.

  Pamela, Penny, and Bettina crunched over the gravel, passing a few people who had apparently already exhausted the sale’s delights. These people were heading the other way, bearing their treasures away in plastic bags on which Pamela recognized the logo of the upscale grocery store that had an outpost in Timberley.

  They could see their destination up ahead. In a small clearing stood a building with four pairs of wide double doors across the front and a steep, peaked roof that suggested a capacious attic above. Like the main house, it was fashioned of wood, but the wood was weathered and worn, and the structure blended into the faded grays and browns of the bare trees that surrounded it.

  “It’s the old carriage house,” Bettina said as they proceeded. “The groom’s quarters, where Charlotte lives, are around the side. They’re part of this, but they have a proper front door. She halted for a moment, and Pamela and Penny slowed down.

  “Did you hear something?” Pamela and Penny turned to see Bettina tilting her head.

  “Like what?” Pamela asked.

  “Like that!” Bettina tilted her head further and closed her eyes in concentration.

  “It’s a sneeze,” Penny exclaimed. “Someone is sneezing.”

  They all stared in the direction of the sneeze. A figure was moving among the trees, a figure dressed in periwinkle blue.

  They continued on their way. The gravel became sparse as they drew nearer, giving way to rutted earth sprinkled with a few shriveled autumn leaves whose color now blended with the dirt. One pair of the structure’s doors stood open, giving a glimpse into a shadowy interior. Near the open doors but at the edge of the clearing sat a round cast-iron table and two matching chairs, their white paint sadly chipped and streaked with rust.

  On a balmy summer afternoon with trees in full foliage rustling overhead, the chairs could have invited dallying and the table could have accommodated a pitcher of lemonade or a bottle of wine. On a chilly winter day, however, with snow threatening, Pierre Lapointe looked incongruous perched on one of the chairs, bundled in a bulky but chic down jacket and sneezing. He was not, however, the sneezer they had glimpsed through the trees. His jacket was loden green, not periwinkle blue.

  “Dust,” he said, stifling another sneeze and rising to his feet. “It’s very dusty in there.” He gestured toward the open door. “Bonjour and welcome, ladies. I hope you are not as susceptible to the dust as I am.” He stepped toward the door. “I will tell them you are not to be charged for anything. I know Millicent would have wanted her friends to help themselves.”

  They followed him into the shadowy interior, straining to see anything at all as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. The room that they had entered was quite spacious—it had obviously housed the carriage in earlier times. But now it was filled with piles and piles of... everything. Tables and chairs, an iron bedstead, a Victorian-style sofa with a carv
ed wooden frame, and boxes and boxes and boxes, piled in teetering stacks on armchairs that were themselves balanced precariously on mountains of old magazines and ancient trunks. Here and there a lamp had been pressed into service, perhaps by Evergreen, and glaring pools of light punctuated the dimness. The only other illumination came feebly through high windows in the back wall, windows so grimy that the glass seemed smoked, or from people moving through the gloom with flashlights.

  Just ahead, a rustic stairway—little more than a series of boards with handrails on either side—led to the attic. And to the left was a rough wooden door with heavy iron hardware. A recent-looking sign read CLOSE DOOR WHEN YOU GO IN OR OUT.

  To the right a makeshift table had been created from a pair of sawhorses and a broad plank. An assortment of jewelry was displayed in a glass-topped case but otherwise the table held only a calculator and a stout cash box. Behind the table sat a sturdy older woman with jet-black hair.

  “These are Millicent’s friends—and mine,” Pierre informed her. “They are to have carte blanche.” He stifled a sneeze. “Whatever they want to take.”

  He pulled Penny aside as Bettina started down one of the makeshift aisles that separated the piles of castoffs. “Bonne chance, mademoiselle,” Pamela heard him whisper. “I hope you find many treasures—and that you will stop and say good-bye before you leave.” Pamela lingered near her daughter.

  Chapter Nine

  As Pierre turned and headed back outside, the door to the left opened and a young couple stepped out carrying a pile of old books and a lamp. In the brief moment that the door was open, Pamela could see that the room behind it was much brighter than the dim space they now stood in.

  “Let’s look around in there first,” Penny suggested. “It’s hard to see anything out here.” She grabbed the heavy iron door pull and tugged the door open as Pamela retrieved Bettina.

  They stepped into a huge space that had obviously been the stable. Four horse stalls still remained along the wall to the right—at least the partitions that had formed the sides of horse stalls. Or perhaps the horses had remained happily in their stalls with no gates to confine them. As in the other room, walls, ceiling, and floor had been constructed of roughly finished lumber and never painted. They now had the rich patina of very old wood.

  This room had the same small, grimy windows as the other room, but at some point large hanging light fixtures had been installed, three of them, and the castoffs of many generations, ranged around the room, were clearly illuminated. Ten or so other people poked among them. One of the horse stalls had been fitted up as a kitchen, but long ago. The stove, white enamel now yellowed and stained, stood on legs, and the counter that surrounded a similarly yellowed and stained sink was stacked with battered kitchen ware. Another horse stall contained a narrow cot, still made up with sheets, a pillow, and a faded wool blanket. A small dresser held a dusty collection of mason jars. A drawer had been explored and left half-open, disclosing a tangled garment that might have been long underwear.

  The other horse stalls were piled with boxes—old wooden boxes, dusty and discolored, and cardboard boxes, some looking as if animals had nibbled on them. Some boxes had been opened and abandoned, evidently by bargain hunters unimpressed with their contents: random dinnerware, mysterious newspaper-wrapped shapes, small parcels of fabric in antiquated prints, reels of lace and faded ribbon. An old dress form stood in the corner of one stall, a headless and armless torso on a metal post. The same stall held a treadle sewing machine, its glossy black paint dimmed by dust but its oak cabinet and the cast-iron filigree of its stand still impressive. In the middle of that stall’s floor stood a large cardboard box with its flaps folded back to reveal balls of yarn in various sizes and colors.

  A haphazard arrangement of tables and shelves occupied the long wall that faced the horse stalls. Some tables were covered with books, old books with cloth covers, arranged in rows with their spines facing up. Shelves held more books. A young man sitting on the floor was picking out one book at a time from a lower shelf, examining it, and then consulting his mobile device. “Found any first editions yet?” an older man inquired in a joking tone.

  Other tables and shelves held dusty glassware, framed pictures and empty picture frames, vases, lamps, knickknacks of all sorts, and stacks of ancient magazines with faded covers.

  “Ohh! I know what I’m going to look at,” Penny exclaimed. A huge trunk stood at the far end of the room with its heavy lid thrown back. A few young women had been examining the contents but moved away to reveal tantalizing folds of silk and velvet draped over the trunk’s rim, as well as a length of lustrous fur that sported a tail and a pair of legs. Penny darted across the creaking wooden floor and was soon dipping into the trunk’s recesses.

  “I’m going to rummage in that box with the old yarn,” Pamela said.

  “Maybe I can find Wilfred something interesting for his den walls.” Bettina pointed at a table with a particularly large stack of framed pictures. “You know how he likes anything historical.” She set out toward the far corner of the room.

  Pamela turned and walked a few steps back to the stall that held the treadle sewing machine, the dress form, and the box of yarn. She squatted and began to pull out the balls of yarn and pile them on the floor. Beneath the yarn she came upon a knitting pattern book, dating from the 1940s to judge by the ensemble modeled on the cover—a young women in saddle shoes and bobby socks, complementing her pleated plaid skirt with a hand-knit twinset. Assuming each ball of yarn represented the leftovers of a project, the owner of this trove had been a busy knitter. And given the likely age of the trove, it was a wonder these remnants—which all seemed to be wool and not acrylic—hadn’t succumbed to moths.

  At the very bottom of the box, Pamela came upon a charming knitting bag, needlepoint in a flowered pattern, with Bakelite handles. Inside the bag was an assortment of knitting needles and some bobbins. Pamela returned the equipment to the bag, and the bag and pattern book to the box, as well as the random balls of yarn. Even if she found nothing else at the sale, this find would make the trip worthwhile.

  “Hey, Mom!” said a voice behind her. Pamela stood up and turned to see Penny’s face beaming at her above the fur piece from the trunk, which was wrapped around her neck. The mouth of the creature (which seemed to be a fox) was snapped securely onto its own tail. “Did people really wear these things?” Penny asked, her blue eyes wide with amazement.

  “I didn’t wear them,” Pamela said, laughing. “But I think my grandmother did. In movies and photographs from the thirties and forties, it seems a woman had to have one if she was to be stylish. Sometimes they even wore ones made out of several animals all fastened together. Dangling feet and tails all over the place.”

  Penny stroked the fur, which was still in very good shape. “It’s quite cozy,” she said. “But I can’t take it back to school. Some of my friends are in PETA and they’d never speak to me again.” She unclipped it and draped it over her arm. “What’s that weird thing?” she asked suddenly, having just caught sight of the dress form.

  “It’s for sewing,” Pamela explained. “Dressmakers used them to size clothing they were making for clients—and home sewers used them too. They’re adjustable—see those gaps down the sides and in the front. They can be pushed together or pulled farther apart to make it bigger or smaller. My mother had one, but I never wanted to sew—just knit.”

  “Can we take it?” Penny said.

  “Sure.” Pamela laughed. “What will we do with it?”

  “Laine and Sybil might like it. Sometimes they have to fix the thrift-store clothes they find.”

  Pamela shrugged and smiled. “I doubt if anybody else is going to grab it in the next few minutes, so when we finish in here we’ll take it out to the table by the door and ask that woman to look after it while we browse upstairs.”

  “I found some other really good things in the trunk,” Penny said. “Do you want to see?”

  “I do.”
Pamela folded the flaps closed on her box of knitting treasures, stooped to pick it up, and followed Penny across the floor to where the trunk stood open. Penny had arranged her finds in a pile on the floor. She returned the fur to the rim of the trunk and Pamela set her box down. Bettina was standing at a nearby table, engrossed in sorting through a pile of unframed engravings.

  Penny held up a black-and-white checked wool jacket, tailored with a nipped-in waist. The collar and cuffs were black velvet edged with giant black rickrack. “It fits,” Penny said. “I tried it on. And there’s a skirt.” She laid the jacket over the rim of the trunk and picked up a skirt in the same black-and-white wool check. “I didn’t try this on, and it has something like a coffee stain on the front. But if it doesn’t fit, even just the jacket will be great.”

  Bettina had noticed them and turned away from her rummaging, bearing a few engravings on heavy paper. “These look really old, don’t they?” she said, displaying the top one, which showed a landscape as if seen from the top of a hill, with a caption in flowing script across the top. “The men in red coats could be the British, and here’s a burning house with a plume of smoke going up into the sky, and there are other soldiers behind these trees . . . I guess they’re soldiers because they have long guns . . .”

  Pamela leaned closer and studied the writing. “It says ‘Battle of . . .’”—she leaned still closer—“‘Lex . . . ing . . . ton.’”

  “It could be a real find,” Penny exclaimed. “We did the American Revolution in history this term.”

  “Perfect then.” Bettina looked delighted. “I’ll have it framed for Wilfred’s den—maybe I can even get it done in time for Christmas.” She gestured toward the clothes Penny had picked out of the trunk. “What goodies do you have?”

  Penny displayed the black-and-white checked suit, and then a minidress made from purple jersey printed with orange peace symbols. “Sybil will love this,” she said, “and I found these for Laine.” She held out a pair of navy wool bell-bottoms with a button-up fly. “And a minidress for me, or it could be a long top with jeans.” The garment was chartreuse velour with long loose sleeves and a V-neck. “Then, finally”—she dipped to the floor to retrieve what looked like a shapeless mass of dark, velvety fabric—“a cape!”