Died in the Wool Read online

  “I’ll take it to Clayborn,” Bettina said. “That will be best.”

  “And besides,” Wilfred said with a chuckle, “then he’ll owe her a favor.”

  * * *

  Upstairs, Pamela sat down at her computer and removed Catrina from the keyboard. An email message from her boss at Fiber Craft awaited, with instructions to evaluate ten more submissions (attached) and advise for or against publication. She set to work, hoping to be distracted from this strange new development in the Randall Jefferson murder case. But she found it hard to concentrate. Whoever had left the Jefferson doll on her front porch obviously knew where she lived and had something on his or her mind.

  She pushed her chair back from her desk and gazed toward the window. At least the day was bright. It was hard to feel too threatened on a beautiful May afternoon, and Wilfred and Bettina were just across the street. She returned to the article she’d been reading, made a determined effort to focus, and labored steadily until a craving for coffee led her downstairs.

  With a cup of coffee reheated from breakfast in hand, she considered taking her break on the front porch. Through the lace that curtained the oval window, she could see green lawns, flowering shrubs, and tree branches swaying in the summer breeze—and no mysterious callers lurking nearby. But nevertheless she retreated instead to the safety of the kitchen table, where she pondered the article she’d just finished reading. Its author had traveled by bus to a Ghanaian city where Kente cloth was still made on traditional looms and had learned the techniques herself. How adventurous some people were!

  Back in her office, Pamela once again removed Catrina from her computer keyboard and wrote an enthusiastic recommendation that the Kente cloth article be published. She was deeply immersed in the world of contemporary lace-making when Catrina leapt from the windowsill where she’d been napping and cocked her ears toward the hall. The front door opened and Penny’s voice sang out, “I’m home—but I’m going out again!”

  Pamela checked the clock. Sun still glowed through the curtains at her office windows, but somehow it had gotten to be six p.m. She closed the file she’d been reading, arched her back and stretched, and made her way to the stairs. Penny stood in the entry, going through the mail.

  “Does anyone your age get snail mail anymore?” Pamela asked with a laugh as she descended.

  “Grandma sends me things,” Penny said. She was wearing the yellow dress with the parade of roosters at the hem. “Lorie and I are meeting one of her friends from her college. We’re going to the mall.” She set the mail back on the mail table. “Anything new?”

  Something was new. Pamela was debating whether to tell Penny about the shoebox with the mysterious contents when a tapping called her attention to the door. Through the lace that curtained the oval window she could see a short figure dressed in light blue, with a bobbing head topped by vivid red hair. Penny twisted the knob, the door popped open, and Bettina stepped in.

  “I’ve brought you some leftovers from the barbecue,” she said, setting a large plastic container on the mail table. She studied her friend for a few seconds. “Well . . .” She smiled. “You look like you’ve recovered.” She laid a gentle hand on Pamela’s shoulder.

  “Recovered from what?” Penny glanced from Bettina to Pamela and back to Bettina. The smile with which she’d greeted Bettina was replaced by a look of alarm. She focused her eyes on her mother. “Mo-om,” she said, her voice rising. “What happened that you’d have to recover from?”

  “Nothing, nothing!” Bettina reached her other hand toward Penny, but Penny stepped back.

  “You’re up to something. Both of you. And it has to do with that murder,” Penny said. “Am I the only person around here with any sense?”

  “It’s okay,” Bettina said. “I gave it to the police.”

  “Gave what to the police?” Penny sounded frantic. “Mo-om! I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  “Let’s all go in here.” Pamela took her daughter by the hand and started for the kitchen. Bettina followed, dodging Catrina, who had been waiting near the kitchen door.

  When they were all seated at the table, Pamela described coming home and finding the shoebox on the porch and the miniature version of Randall Jefferson inside, stuck full of pins.

  “Kids make them when they hate a teacher,” Penny said, nodding.

  Bettina agreed. “That’s what Clayborn said.”

  “So, does he think it’s a clue?” Pamela asked.

  “He’s looking into it.” Bettina’s expression was noncommittal. “At least that’s what he said. Maybe he’ll have it checked for DNA, and compare the DNA with DNA from the rock.” She went on, “But I don’t know if it is much of a clue. Let’s say somebody made the doll because they hated Jefferson, and then they killed Jefferson. Wouldn’t it be stupid to then advertise that they hated Jefferson?”

  “Mean girls,” Penny said suddenly. Pamela and Bettina stared at her. “Arborville High is full of mean girls. The person who made the doll is most likely not the person who left it on the porch. What a great way to get your rival mean girl in trouble—let the world, or at least the Arborville knitting club, think that she might be the murderer.”

  “But then, wouldn’t there have been a note?” Pamela said. “Something like, ‘This doll was made by . . . whoever . . . because Mr. Jefferson gave her an F in American History, and she detested him.’”

  “Maybe there was a note,” Penny said. “Today was quite breezy. Maybe the breeze blew the note away.”

  Suddenly all three of them were on their feet and out the door. But a search of the yard turned up no doll-related messages.

  Penny hurried upstairs to change into jeans for her trip to the mall, and Bettina set off across the street. “Enjoy your barbecue leftovers,” she called. “No cooking for me tonight either.” Back in the kitchen, Pamela scooped a few tablespoons of cat food into one of Catrina’s special bowls. She watched as Catrina circled the bowl, tail erect, as if stalking a creature envisioned as a potential meal and contemplating the best angle from which to attack. Then, as Catrina settled down to eat, Pamela opened the plastic container Bettina had brought.

  After a dinner of leftover barbecued chicken and three kinds of salad, Pamela finished her work for the magazine then retreated to the sofa. She found a British cooking program on the television and picked up the nearly finished scarf she was making for Nell to give to the day laborers. Soon Catrina was perched nearby, forelegs tucked beneath her chest and half-closed eyes mere yellow slivers. The steady motion of the needles and the soothing British voices lulled Pamela into a similar state.

  She awoke suddenly to find that she’d dropped her needles, as well as several stitches. She shook herself awake, imagined the satisfaction with which she’d hand the finished scarf over to Nell the next evening, and got back to work.

  * * *

  Catrina had been bewitched. With her jet-black fur and yellow eyes, she’d always looked like a suitable accomplice to a practitioner of the dark arts. But since her adoption as a pitiful stray the previous fall, she’d seemed the most domestic of creatures. Now, however, she was rolling on the kitchen floor in a frenzy, uttering wails like nothing that had ever come out of her mouth before.

  Pamela watched her in alarm, coffee untouched and newspaper still encased in its plastic sleeve. The cat had spent the night in Penny’s bed, greeted Pamela when she stepped into the hall on her way to the bathroom, and followed her down the stairs at a sedate pace. She’d nibbled a few bites of cat food then looked up as if hearing an urgent call. Suddenly, she’d scooted across the room and tossed herself onto her back.

  Penny had already dressed and left to catch her bus, and anyway she knew no more about cats than Pamela did. Bettina had Woofus, but dogs were not cats, so Bettina would be no help. A vet would have to be consulted. Pamela opened a cupboard to retrieve the little directory of local businesses that appeared on the driveway every fall. She had no sooner opened to the V pages tha
n it seemed the spell had been lifted. Catrina flopped onto her belly, locked eyes with Pamela as if to say “forget you saw this,” and returned to her meal. Relieved, Pamela closed the little book and returned to her own breakfast and the newspaper.

  She’d finished the scarf the previous night, cast off, and woven the tails at the beginning and end back through the knitted fabric with a yarn needle. Now the scarf sat on the mail table, waiting to be delivered to Nell when the group met that evening at Karen Dowling’s house. The newspaper contained no update on the Randall Jefferson case, and the Jefferson doll had been handed over to Detective Clayborn. She’d checked her email before she came downstairs and found a message from her boss thanking her for the quick turnaround on the submissions she’d evaluated. But one question loomed.

  What would she knit tonight? She refreshed her coffee. She had no project. After the Icelandic-style sweater for herself last fall, she’d made a sweater for Penny for Christmas. Then the aardvark project had come along, and she’d worked on aardvarks all spring. And for the past week she’d labored on the scarf—not challenging, by any means, but a worthy cause like all of Nell’s do-good projects.

  The sound of footsteps signaled that someone was on the porch, and the squeak of the mailbox cover identified that someone as the mail carrier. Pamela stepped over Catrina and made her way to the front door. No catalogs littered the porch today, but—she caught her breath—another curious package had appeared. A few envelopes protruded from the flap of the mailbox cover, but the package clearly hadn’t been part of the mail delivery. There was no postage, and the only address was the word PAMELA, written in a bold hand on brown paper that had been carefully folded and taped around the object, whatever it was.

  Pamela glanced quickly toward Bettina’s house. But, no—she could handle this on her own. Besides, the package was small, and flat, the size and shape of a not-too-large pizza. It was nothing like the package that had contained the Jefferson doll. She picked it up—it was not light, but not heavy either—and retired to one of her porch chairs to peel off the wrapping paper. Then she laughed. In her hands she held a deviled-egg platter, glossy green ceramic, with a dramatically colored rooster in the center, complete with a bright-red comb. She turned the platter over. Taped to the bottom was a note, in the same bold hand: “I walked past a shop yesterday that had this in the window. I thought you might like it for your collection.” It was signed “Rick Larkin.”

  Pamela glanced toward Bettina’s house again. No, she’d keep this to herself. Bettina was already hopeless enough on the subject of Richard Larkin. Upstairs, dressing, Pamela discovered that she was humming to herself. Perhaps she deserved a little treat, a trip to the yarn store in Timberley. That was where she’d bought the special wool for the Icelandic sweater, natural brown and natural cream, from brown and cream Icelandic sheep. She’d make something else for herself, perhaps even something fashionable, like the striking sweater Holly was knitting with the giant needles and yarn.

  * * *

  It was pleasant to be anonymous, to dawdle along the sidewalk and pause at a shop window with no fear of being accosted with a question or theory about the Randall Jefferson murder case. Timberley was a few towns to the north, larger than Arborville and with grander houses on grander lots. Its commercial district offered many diversions lacking in Arborville, including a clothing boutique featuring designer labels, a shop that sold only cheese, a florist, and—the object of today’s visit—a yarn store.

  It almost seemed that the walls were made of yarn. Shelves reached nearly to the ceiling, piled with skeins in every color and texture, each luring eyes and hands to marvel and touch. Every shade from deepest purple, in a soft mohair, to a delicate pink the color of early spring blossoms, was represented.

  “Hello,” said a stylish blonde woman from behind a counter. “Please let me know if you’re looking for something special. Otherwise—enjoy yourself !”

  “I want to make something for myself,” Pamela blurted out. “With fancy yarn.”

  “Shall we start with the yarn or the pattern?” the woman asked.

  “I don’t know,” Pamela said. Being in the shop was like deciding which crayon in a new, giant, box to use first.

  “How about a ruby red?” From a shelf behind her the woman reached a skein and laid it on the counter. “Such a glamorous color, and with your skin and hair . . .” She slid a mirror along the counter and offered Pamela the skein of yarn. Pamela lifted the yarn to her cheek—it was incredibly soft—and leaned toward the mirror. “See,” the woman said. Pamela studied herself.

  With her brown hair and brown eyes, she had always felt anything but glamorous. Pleasant-looking certainly, but not a person to draw stares from across a room. The deep red of the yarn, however, made her skin glow.

  “We import it from France,” the woman said. “Free-range sheep, and the dyes are all natural, made from organic ingredients.”

  “I’ll take it.” Pamela lowered the yarn to the counter.

  “And now the pattern.”

  “Yes,” Pamela said, “the pattern . . . for something . . . something ravishing.”

  “Let’s look in here.” The woman stepped out from behind the counter and selected a pattern book from a rack. The cover showed an ultra-chic model posing in a slouchy black and white striped sweater with a ribbed turtleneck in solid black. She paged through the book and paused to exhibit a page. “Something like this, perhaps?”

  The garment being modeled was also ruby red, and the model had Pamela’s pale skin and dark hair and eyes. It was a sweater, but like many fashionable garments, seemed designed to subvert the very purpose for which it was intended. Of what use would a wool sweater with long sleeves and a high neck be if it left one’s shoulders bare?

  “Her shoulders look cold,” Pamela said.

  “The look is very on trend,” the woman said. “A charming look for après-ski . . . or holiday parties—winter will be here again before we know it. You can see, it’s more a tunic than a sweater. I’d wear it with black leggings. Or even high black boots. That would be stunning.” She backed up and studied Pamela from a few yards away. “With your figure you could definitely pull it off.”

  Ten minutes later Pamela was on her way back to Arborville. A shopping bag bulging with ruby-red yarn sat in the passenger seat. Beside it was a knitting pattern book whose cover featured an ultra-chic model posing in a slouchy black and white striped sweater.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You found a new egg platter?” Penny’s voice carried in from the entry.

  Pamela had been studying what remained of the barbecue leftovers, wondering whether there was enough to feed two people. There would be, she had decided, if she sliced the rest of the chicken and made sandwiches. There was plenty of the corn and bean salad left to go alongside, and she had a tomato in the bowl on the counter.

  Penny appeared in the doorway, holding the platter in such a way as to display the gaudy rooster at its center.

  “It was a gift,” Pamela said.

  “From Bettina?”

  “No.” Pamela transferred a chicken breast to the cutting board, picked up her favorite knife, and bent to the task of carving off sandwich-worthy slices. She hoped her obvious busyness would discourage further conversation. Just to make sure, she said, “I have knitting club tonight, so I want to get us fed as soon as possible.”

  “The rooster looks very self-confident,” Penny said, setting the platter on the kitchen table. “Are you going to make something for yourself with that red yarn in the bag in the entry?”

  “Yes,” Pamela said, tackling a second chicken breast.

  Penny went up to change and reappeared as Pamela was arranging napkins, silverware, and two plates on the kitchen table. She tucked the platter away in the cupboard where she kept the rest of her collection, making a mental note to write a quick thank-you to Richard Larkin the next day. She made sandwiches, spooned the remains of the corn and bean salad into a small
er bowl, and sliced the tomato. Catrina, seemingly herself again after her dramatic performance that morning, greeted the arrival of her dinner with becoming gratitude and nibbled delicately at what the can described as chicken-fish combo.

  Pamela and Penny chatted about Penny’s day at work, and Pamela described Catrina’s curious spell and her own visit to the yarn shop. “I needed a new project,” she explained. “I spent months on those aardvarks, and I thought it was time to make something for myself.”

  “The red is very dramatic,” Penny said. “What are you going to make?”

  “A sweater,” Pamela said. “Or more like a tunic, really.” The image from the pattern book came unbidden into her mind—the long sleeves with the little flare at the wrists, the high neck that called attention to the model’s elegant cheekbones, and the cutaway shoulders that seemed more tantalizing than a plunging décolletage. She could think about the shoulders when she got to that part, she decided. She knew enough about knitting to improvise a version of the garment that wouldn’t leave her shoulders bare.

  Pamela glanced at the clock. It was six-thirty, and Bettina would be ringing the bell at a quarter to seven. She hurried upstairs to comb her hair and put on a bit of lipstick, then back downstairs to slip the new pattern book, a skein of the new yarn, and a pair of size ten needles into her knitting bag. She perched on the chair next to the mail table, waiting to hear Bettina’s feet on the porch. Then from the kitchen came an unearthly sound, like a voice imitating an ambulance siren.

  Penny was upstairs, so the sound hadn’t come from her—and anyway, what in the safe environs of her mother’s kitchen would provoke such a dramatic response? Pamela jumped up from the chair, upsetting the knitting bag on the floor at her feet. She tiptoed to the kitchen door and peered hesitantly around the door frame. Catrina was crouching on the kitchen windowsill, back arched and tail erect. Her face was pressed against the screen.