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  ’TIS THE SEASON TO KILL

  Bettina appeared in the doorway, her face tightened by fear and her eyes wide. “It’s Penny,” she said, holding out the phone. “She tried your phone but you didn’t answer.”

  “It’s at home,” Pamela said—but at that moment the whereabouts of her phone was the last thing on her mind. Pamela reached for the phone and the words rushed out. “Penny? What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Mom?” Penny’s voice sounded small and faraway. “I’m down here at the nature preserve.” The nature preserve occupied the westernmost edge of Arborville, beyond busy County Road at the bottom of Orchard Street where Pamela and the Frasers lived. Penny went on, “I found a body, Mom. Someone is dead.” Penny stopped and it sounded like she was fighting back a sob. “I called the police.”

  “We’ll be there,” Pamela said, feeling breathless. “We’re coming, right now.” She handed the phone back to Bettina. “Someone is dead. In the nature preserve . . .”

  Books by Peggy Ehrhart

  MURDER, SHE KNIT

  DIED IN THE WOOL

  KNIT ONE, DIE TWO

  SILENT KNIT, DEADLY KNIT

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  SILENT KNIT, DEADLY KNIT

  PEGGY EHRHART

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  ’TIS THE SEASON TO KILL

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  KNIT - Cozy Hands Fingerless Gloves

  NIBBLE - Christmas Poppy-Seed Cake

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Peggy Ehrhart

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2363-5

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2366-6 (eBook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-2366-X (eBook)

  For my sweet husband,

  Norm Smith

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Abundant thanks, again, to my agent Evan Marshall, and to my editor at Kensington Books, John Scognamiglio.

  Chapter One

  “I’m not sure it was a fair trade.” Bettina Fraser rested a hand on the graceful pottery vase, a rich shade of blue tinged with violet. “All I gave her in exchange was a scarf.”

  “It was a beautiful scarf, dear wife.” Wilfred Fraser glanced up from the cookie he was decorating. “Beautiful, and warm. And just right for the season.”

  “Red with green stripes,” Pamela Paterson added. “What could be more perfect for Christmas?” Pamela was the founder and mainstay of the Arborville, New Jersey, knitting club, nicknamed Knit and Nibble, and she had watched the scarf take shape over the past several meetings of the group. The cookies that the three friends were decorating were intended to provide the “nibble” portion of the next meeting.

  “Still—to offer me this gorgeous vase in exchange . . . Of course, the craft shop is more of a hobby than anything else for Millicent. She certainly doesn’t need money.” Bettina gave the vase a final caress and picked up a cookie shaped like a wreath. “We’re running out of green icing,” she said, “so I might just as well eat this.” She bit the cookie in half, sighed with pleasure, and added, “Your butter cookie recipe is heavenly, Pamela. With your baking skills, I don’t understand how you can be so thin.” Bettina was not thin. Pamela was both thin and tall, and her lack of interest in dressing to play up her natural advantages was a source of great puzzlement to her friend.

  “Well, I don’t bake every day,” Pamela said with a smile. “But at Christmas, and with Penny home from college for the break, it’s fun to make special goodies—and of course we need nibbles for the group tomorrow night.” She spread yellow icing on a star-shaped cookie and added a sprinkle of yellow sugar. The cookie decorating was taking place at the well-scrubbed pine table in Bettina’s spacious kitchen. Woofus the shelter dog napped in the corner.

  “Nell won’t approve,” Bettina said. “You know how she feels about sweets.”

  “But surely, at Christmastime . . .” Across the table Wilfred had dabbed the last bit of green icing on a cookie shaped like a Christmas tree and was arranging tiny silver balls to create the effect of a garland. He had tied an apron over the uniform of plaid shirt and bib overalls he adopted when he retired.

  But Bettina didn’t respond. Half to herself, she murmured, “I should really call Millicent to ask how she’s doing.”

  “You just saw her this morning at her shop,” Pamela said.

  “Yes,” Bettina replied. “I did, but something had happened to upset her and she didn’t have time to tell me much. Her partner had just come in and she had to go over some shop business with her. But then she was going to run out on an errand. She’d already wrapped my scarf around her neck.”

  “See,” Wilfred cut in. “That shows you how much she liked it.”

  “Was she upset about something that happened at the shop?” Pamela asked.

  Bettina nodded. “Someone—a man, I think—wanted the shop to carry his work. Millicent turned him down and apparently he became quite angry.” She reached for another undecorated wreath and bit into it.

  “It’s okay,” Pamela said. “We have plenty for tomorrow night.”

  Two large platters held cookie stars, reindeer, Santas, wreaths, and Christmas trees, carefully spread with icing in bright shades and garnished with silver balls, sprinkles, and colored sugar.

  “I’ll call her right now, while I’m thinking of it.” Bettina dusted cookie crumbs from her fingers. “My phone’s in the living room,” she added, and rose from her chair.

  Bettina had barely reached the kitchen doorway when from the living room came the jinglejangle of her phone. Woofus jumped up in alarm.

  “It’s okay,” Wilfred said soothingly, turning toward the huge, shaggy beast, who was cringing against the wall. “It’s just the phone.”

  Then they heard a voice. It resembled Bettina’s voice, but it quavered and then modulated into an urgent squeak. “Yes, yes!” the voice said. “She’s right here. We�
��re all right here.”

  Bettina appeared in the doorway, her face tightened by fear and her eyes wide. “It’s Penny,” she said, holding out the phone. “She tried your phone but you didn’t answer.”

  “It’s at home,” Pamela said—but at that moment the whereabouts of her phone was the last thing on her mind. Pamela reached for the phone and the words rushed out. “Penny? What is it? What’s happened?”

  Wilfred rose from his chair, bounded across the kitchen, and pulled Bettina into a comforting embrace. Her head nestled against his chest, her scarlet hair vivid against the faded denim of his coveralls. Looking around nervously, Woofus loped toward the dining room.

  “Mom?” Penny’s voice sounded small and faraway. “I’m down here at the nature preserve.” The nature preserve occupied the westernmost edge of Arborville, beyond busy County Road at the bottom of Orchard Street where Pamela and the Frasers lived. Penny went on, “I found a body, Mom. Someone is dead.” Penny stopped and it sounded like she was fighting back a sob. “I called the police.”

  “We’ll be there,” Pamela said, feeling breathless. “We’re coming, right now.” She handed the phone back to Bettina. “Someone is dead. In the nature preserve.”

  Bettina lifted her head from Wilfred’s chest to nod. “She told me.”

  Of course. Otherwise why would Bettina have looked so . . . stricken? Pamela took a deep breath and added, “Penny called the police.”

  A siren underscored her statement, beginning as a thin whine, rising to a peak, falling off, and rising again. In a whirl of activity, Pamela and Wilfred grabbed their jackets and Bettina her coat, and they all hurried for the door. Wilfred’s Mercedes, ancient but lovingly cared for, waited in the driveway next to Bettina’s solid Toyota Corolla.

  “I’ll drive, dear ladies,” Wilfred said, and helped his passengers into his car.

  * * *

  The police had already reached the nature preserve when Wilfred steered the Mercedes into the small clearing that served as a parking lot. A black-and-white car marked with the Arborville police logo stood empty at the head of a trail. The trail twisted among the dark trunks of the bare trees, their branches sketching complicated patterns against the gray sky.

  Pamela thrust the car door open before Wilfred had even turned off the engine. She launched herself down the trail, stumbling a bit on the thick layer of fallen leaves. Through the gaps between the trees she could see the crime scene up ahead. Penny’s violet jacket, a recent thrift-store find, stood out against the wintry tones of the landscape and contrasted with the subdued uniforms of the two police officers.

  Penny caught sight of Pamela when she was about fifty feet away and started to run toward her, but was stopped by one of the police officers. The officer turned and Pamela recognized the young, gentle-voiced man who she’d most recently seen directing traffic at Arborville’s main intersection on a morning when the traffic light inexplicably stopped functioning. The other officer was kneeling next to a bundled form that Pamela realized with a shock was the body.

  “Mom!” Penny called. From some distance behind Pamela on the trail Wilfred’s voice replied, “We’re here too.”

  In a minute Pamela was standing next to her daughter. Penny’s eyes were bright and her cheeks were rosy, and under other circumstances the effect would have been of a pretty young woman whose face showed the effects of a brisk walk on a wintry day. But the brightness in her eyes was caused by tears, some of which had dripped onto her cheeks, and her lips quivered and then tightened as if she was struggling to contain her emotions.

  Pamela reached out and gathered her into a hug, resting her chin on the woolly cap that topped off Penny’s ensemble. The officer watched but didn’t say anything. Pamela nonetheless felt bound to supply that she was Penny’s mother.

  “I was sketching, Mom,” Penny said, her voice a bit muffled by the hug. “And I came down here and followed that path and—” She gulped and a sob erupted.

  “I’m Officer Anders, ma’am,” the officer said, “and I’ll need your name.” He was already holding a pen and a little notepad.

  “Pamela Paterson,” she answered, and gave her address for good measure. “My daughter is home from college for the Christmas holidays.”

  “And I’m Wilfred Fraser and this is my wife Bettina Fraser—F-R-A-S-E-R,” added a new voice, and Pamela felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She released Penny, who looked slightly less stricken now that reinforcements had arrived. Wilfred had hurried into his jacket without bothering to remove his apron, but the apron didn’t detract from the comfort offered by his bulky presence.

  Officer Anders bent to his notepad but then looked up without writing. Nearby a siren had been interrupted in mid-squeal, subsiding into a drawn-out moan. The police reinforcements had arrived.

  Bettina meanwhile had ventured a few steps in the direction of the bundled form resting on the thick bed of brownish leaves that covered the ground. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed suddenly, whirling around. “Wilfred! It’s Millicent Farthingale.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” Officer Anders had returned to his note taking but now looked up again. “Are you saying that you recognize the deceased?”

  “It’s my friend Millicent Farthingale!” Bettina made a striking figure with her vivid hair and her pumpkin-colored coat, her hazel eyes wide with alarm.

  “Are you sure, ma’am?” Officer Anders managed to look both quizzical and sympathetic. “The body is . . .” He waved uncertainly toward the bundled form. “You can hardly see . . .”

  “That’s her coat and those are her boots and that’s her hair—she’s blond, though not naturally of course—and she’s small like that, slim and not very tall.” Officer Anders nodded and Bettina went on. “I just saw her this morning at her shop. She owns”—Bettina gulped—“owned . . . a craft shop in Timberley.”

  Officer Anders wrote furiously. Meanwhile the officer who was kneeling by the body when they arrived had stood up. She positioned herself—the officer was a woman—as if standing guard over the person who had now been identified as Millicent Farthingale.

  The reinforcements whose arrival the siren had announced proved to be another uniformed officer and Arborville’s lone police detective, Lucas Clayborn. He acknowledged Officer Anders with a curt greeting and directed a nod in the direction of Pamela, Penny, Bettina, and Wilfred.

  “We have an ID on the body, sir,” Officer Anders said. “Ms. Fraser recognized the woman as a friend of hers”—he stared at his notepad—“Millicent Far . . . thin . . . gale.”

  “Is that true?” Detective Clayborn frowned at Bettina. His lived-in face was as nondescript as the dun-colored three-quarter-length coat he wore. Pamela thought he could have been a little more cordial, given that as chief reporter for Arborville’s weekly paper, the Advocate, Bettina interviewed Detective Clayborn every few weeks for some article or another.

  “Yes, yes.” Bettina nodded vigorously. “I was with her this morning. This is exactly what she had on . . . except”—Bettina’s eyes widened, and she lifted a hand to her mouth—“she was also wearing a scarf, a knitted scarf, red with green stripes at the ends.” Bettina’s voice faltered and her brightly painted lips twisted.

  Wilfred had taken a few steps toward Bettina. Now he pulled her toward him. “It was a beautiful scarf,” he said.

  “I made the scarf,” Bettina explained, “and I had just given it to her, and she liked it so much she put it on right then and there—” A large sob completed the sentence.

  Detective Clayborn’s homely features rearranged themselves into a vaguely sympathetic expression. “Officer Anders will take your statement,” he said, “when you feel ready.” Officer Anders nodded. He was still holding his little notepad. “And now”—Detective Clayborn fixed his gaze on Penny—“I understand it was you who found the body.”

  “Yes,” Penny replied in a tiny voice, and Pamela rested a hand on the shoulder of the violet jacket.

  “Your mother wasn’t
with you?” The skin around his eyes tightened. Pamela recognized the look. Detective Clayborn could be more perceptive than his usual expression suggested. She knew why he’d asked the question. For such an idyllic little town, Arborville had a curiously high murder rate, and for some reason Pamela Paterson was often on the scene when a body was found.

  “No,” Penny said. “I’m home from college for Christmas. I’d gone out sketching.” As if suddenly remembering something, she looked around and gestured toward a spiral-bound pad open to a graceful pencil sketch of bare trees with branches interlaced against the sky. “We don’t live far . . . just across County Road and halfway up Orchard Street.”

  “I know where you live,” Detective Clayborn said. He pulled a notepad and pen from his coat pocket. “Let’s start at the beginning. Your full name, please.”

  Twenty minutes later, Pamela, Penny, Bettina, and Wilfred were climbing into Wilfred’s ancient Mercedes. As they pulled out of the clearing at the edge of the nature preserve, the huge silver van from the county sheriff’s department arrived. “It will all be in the Register tomorrow,” Bettina said. “I’m glad we’re getting away before that overly energetic Register reporter shows up—or the radio and TV people.”

  “They’ll find us though.” Pamela reached over to take Penny’s hand.

  “I’ll have to write something for the Advocate,” Bettina said from the front seat, swiveling around to face them. “I’ll have to mention Penny.”

  Pamela nodded. “But you’ll be talking to Detective Clayborn soon, and he’ll know things. That was the crime-scene unit arriving.”