A Fatal Yarn Page 18

  “I was going to ask Jack if he had a girlfriend.”

  “Bettina!” Pamela flopped a hand down onto the hood of the car and the hood responded with a metallic thump. “You’re a married woman.”

  “I liked his moustache.” Bettina’s lips shaped a mysterious smile.

  “And so what if he has a girlfriend? What does that have to do with Diefenbach?”

  Bettina burst out laughing, setting her earrings in motion. “Wilfred had one of those walrus moustaches when I met him,” she said after a bit, her face pink from the hilarity that had convulsed it. “I’ve always liked moustaches. But as to my interest in Jack Delaney, a girlfriend could provide useful information about his comings and goings—such as where he might have been the Monday before last at nine p.m. But now that door has closed.”

  Pamela felt her shoulders sag. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I should have realized you had a plan.”

  Bettina shrugged. “Water over the bridge, as Wilfred would say. At least we know he has eggs.”

  “And fancy chickens.”

  “And fancy chickens,” Bettina echoed as she unlocked her car. She slipped behind the steering wheel and reached over to unlock the passenger-side door.

  “He said he was a walrus,” Pamela commented as she climbed in.

  * * *

  The refrigerator door was open and Wilfred was bent over peering into its interior when Pamela and Bettina entered the Frasers’ kitchen. Pamela was carrying a foil-wrapped parcel. Woofus had been curled up in his favorite corner, his nose nearly touching the tip of his shaggy tail, but he raised his head in greeting.

  Wilfred straightened up and turned toward the new arrivals. “The larder is bare, dear wife,” he announced. “Except for the Easter ham, of course. I have been derelict in my duty.”

  Pamela held up the foil-wrapped parcel. “Leftover meatloaf,” she said. “If you have bread . . . and mayonnaise . . .”

  “Meatloaf sandwiches!” A smile creased Wilfred’s ruddy face and he rubbed his hands together briskly. “You have made my day, Pamela!” He turned back to the refrigerator and bent back down. “Mayonnaise,” he murmured, lifting it from a shelf. Bettina sprang forward, took it from his hand, and placed it on the high counter that divided the cooking area of the kitchen from the eating area. “And pickles.” He stood up, holding a portly jar in which dim greenish oblongs floated, and eased the refrigerator door closed.

  Pamela had already unwrapped the meatloaf and taken six slices from the half-loaf of Co-Op sourdough bread she found in the bread drawer. She placed the meatloaf on a cutting board and set to work on it with one of Wilfred’s sharpest knives, carving off two slices for each sandwich.

  Bettina fetched three of her sage-green plates from the cupboard and arranged them in a row along the high counter, then she began spreading a generous layer of mayonnaise on each slice of sourdough. Meanwhile Wilfred had joined Pamela at the lower counter and on a cutting board of his own was slicing a large pickle into careful slices so thin that they were almost translucent.

  When the bread was ready, Wilfred began to assemble the sandwiches, two slices of meatloaf for each, sprinkled with salt and a generous grinding of pepper, and garnished with two slices of pickle. Meanwhile Bettina was bustling between the cooking area and the eating area of her spacious kitchen, laying out placemats, napkins, and flatware on the scrubbed pine table.

  She looked up from her task. “What shall we drink?” she inquired. “What goes with meatloaf sandwiches?”

  “How about root beer?” Wilfred spoke as he completed the final sandwich by lowering the top slice of bread into place. “I think we still have a few bottles of that root beer Wilfred Jr.’s friend makes.” He cut each sandwich in half.

  Pamela delivered the sandwiches to the table, arranging the sage-green plates on Bettina’s colorful rust, cream, and maroon placemats, as Wilfred set off to the basement in quest of the root beer. Soon the three friends were settled companionably around the pine table, with bubbling glasses of root beer at hand to complement the hearty meatloaf sandwiches.

  The Frasers’ spacious kitchen was not original to their house, a Dutch Colonial that was the oldest house on Orchard Street. The kitchen, which they added when they bought the house early in their marriage, featured sliding glass doors that looked out onto the backyard. The view today was of a broad lawn in the early stages of turning green, shrubs that didn’t shed their leaves in the winter but looked woebegone nonetheless, and a splendid maple tree whose branches were dusted with the faint green haze of new foliage.

  “Did you ladies succeed in tracking down Jack Delaney?” Wilfred asked after the first few bites of his sandwich.

  “Indeed we did.” Pamela gave Bettina a look that was part teasing, part disapproving.

  “Pamela thought I was flirting with him,” Bettina said with a laugh.

  “You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar,” Wilfred remarked sagely.

  “He is the person who has the rooster that people complain about,” Pamela said. She had sampled her sandwich too, enjoying the interplay between the comforting taste of her none-too-adventurous meatloaf and the piquant vinegar-dill of the pickle slices. “Somebody left a basket of eggs on Diefenbach’s porch the night he was killed, eggs dyed like Easter eggs. Roland saw them, and we were thinking it might have been Jack Delaney—which could be a good clue about who killed Diefenbach.”

  “And we found out that Jack Delaney has hens too, besides the rooster,” Bettina added. “Rare breeds, he said. He’s quite proud of them. Funny names, like a . . . raucana, or something. And he eats their eggs for breakfast. But then Pamela came right out and asked him if Diefenbach liked his eggs and he got mad and we had to leave.” She picked up the second half of her sandwich. “He said some insulting things about the Advocate too.” She took a bite and chewed it thoughtfully.

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean them.” Wilfred reached over and rubbed Bettina’s shoulder. “Everyone in Arborville appreciates the Advocate.”

  “Delicious,” Bettina murmured after she had swallowed. “You make the best sandwiches, Wilfred.”

  “Credit where credit is due, sweet wife,” Wilfred said. “Pamela made the meatloaf.” He looked pleased nonetheless.

  “Jack Delaney has one of those moustaches, like you had when we met.” Bettina gazed at Wilfred as adoringly as if more than thirty years hadn’t elapsed since their courtship and marriage.

  “He seemed quite proud of his moustache too,” Pamela said. “He kept fingering it. And as we were leaving he said he was a walrus.”

  “Tell me more about these hens.” Wilfred had finished his sandwich. He reached for the remains of his root beer. “Rare breeds?”

  “With funny names.” Bettina nodded.

  “Araucana?” Wilfred asked.

  Bettina nodded again. “And ‘barn’-something. And one of them sounded like ‘favorite’ but not quite.”

  “Favor roll,” Pamela said. “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

  “The historical society had a speaker a while ago.” Wilfred leaned back in his chair. “She teaches animal husbandry at Rutgers, and she talked about the breeds of chickens that the Dutch and English farmers in Revolutionary-Era New Jersey would have known.” In his bib overalls and plaid flannel shirt, Wilfred himself resembled a farmer, though perhaps not from the Revolutionary Era. He paused and looked first at Pamela and then at Bettina as if to signal that a dramatic revelation was at hand. “Some breeds of chicken lay colored eggs.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” Bettina jumped up from her chair and darted toward the living room. Soon she was back, flourishing her smart phone. She lowered herself into her chair and began fingering the device, whispering “Araucana . . . araucana.” A few minutes passed, then she looked up with a delighted smile. “Turquoise eggs,” she sang out. “The hens lay turquoise eggs. Wilfred, you are a genius!”

  Wilfred beamed.

>   “And there’s a whole chart here,” Bettina went on. “ ‘Favor rolls’—that’s a breed called Faverolle. The eggs in the picture here look almost pink. And there’s a kind that lays ones that are kind of olive green, and some yellowish ones . . .”

  “Well!” Pamela leaned back in her chair. “We don’t know for sure, but it’s certainly tempting to think he’s the person who left that basket of eggs on Diefenbach’s porch. So that could put him right on the spot around the time Diefenbach was killed. And maybe Diefenbach comes out and says, ‘What do you think you’re doing? I don’t want your stupid eggs.’ ”

  Bettina took up the story. “They start arguing—we know that Diefenbach was a guy who lost his temper easily, and Delaney isn’t the calmest person either—”

  Suddenly Wilfred leaned forward, resting his hands on the edge of the table. “Jack Delaney did deliver those eggs to Diefenbach!” he announced.

  Pamela and Bettina stared at him.

  “He said he was the walrus,” Wilfred explained. “That means he’s also . . . the egg man.”

  “The Beatles!” Pamela slapped the side of her head. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Wilfred gazed toward the sliding glass doors and the yard beyond. His lips curved into a secret smile. “The Magical Mystery Tour.” His tone was reverent. “The music of my youth.”

  “I’m seeing Clayborn in the morning,” Bettina said. “I’m definitely going to ask him about the basket of eggs. If they were still there, the crime scene people should have taken them as evidence. And if they can be traced back to Delaney . . . even if the police have already questioned him once—and we don’t even know that—the eggs should be grounds to question him again.”

  * * *

  Catrina and Ginger crept in warily. Pamela kept the door to Penny’s bedroom closed when her daughter was away, but it was Friday morning. Penny was due home this afternoon and Pamela had flung the door open wide. The cats tiptoed here and there, peering around corners, sniffing and probing, and Pamela stood in the doorway, surveying her daughter’s room with the same satisfied pleasure she’d felt when she and her husband put the finishing touches on it so long ago.

  They’d splurged on the luxury of wallpaper, pale blue wallpaper with tight little pink rosebuds, and put it up themselves. Though Pamela wasn’t a seamstress, she’d managed the simple white eyelet curtains, practicing first on the set that still hung at the windows in the master bedroom. The dresser had been a thrift-store find that Michael Paterson had freshened up with a coat of glossy white paint. Later a small desk and chair had been added, painted glossy white to match the dresser. Gradually the room’s décor had come to include examples of Penny’s own handiwork: oil paintings, sketches, and watercolors—produced in art classes, on rambles around town, or during impromptu sessions with friends and relatives as models. A portrait of Pamela depicted her as looking rather forbidding, though the need to sit absolutely still for what had seemed an endless amount of time might have inhibited a more mobile expression.

  But there was work to be done. Furniture and window sills would need to be dusted, dust bunnies routed from under the bed, and rag rugs shaken. The bed would need to be made up with fresh sheets, and the down comforter and patchwork quilt smoothed back into place.

  Pamela folded the two rag rugs and set them in the hall, to be taken outside for a good shaking. Then she set to work with her dust cloth. Once the dust-cloth dusting was done, she tackled the floor with her dust mop. This activity sent Catrina scurrying from the room. Ginger, however, had managed to bound up onto the bed. Now she was stretched out atop the hump formed by the pillow like an elegant fur piece, watching Pamela’s industry with particular absorption.

  Perhaps, Pamela reflected, as Ginger explored she’d come to recognize the room, and the bed, by means of smells too subtle for a human nose. During Penny’s Christmas visit home, Ginger had discovered she could have a bed and a human of her own, leaving Catrina full claim to a share of Pamela’s bed.

  When the floor had been adequately dusted, Pamela fetched sheets from the linen closet in the hall. A sachet of lavender buds hung on the inside of the door, and everything that came from the closet carried with it the dusky sweet aroma of lavender. She lifted Ginger gently from the pillow and set her on the floor, receiving an annoyed stare in the process. But the bed had to be changed.

  She folded the quilt as gently as she’d handled Ginger. It was an heirloom that her own grandmother had made for her when Pamela was a child. On a white background, squares cut from ancient tiny prints faded to pastel formed interlocking circles to create the quilt pattern known as Double Wedding Ring. She laid the quilt on the desk, piled the down comforter on top, and stripped the sheets from the bed. They, along with the pillow case, joined the folded rugs in the hall.

  Then she smoothed the fresh lavender-smelling sheets onto the bed, added the comforter, slipped the pillow into a fresh pillow case, and nestled it into place at the base of the headboard. She gently replaced the quilt and paused to see if Ginger wanted to reoccupy her comfortable lounging spot. But the cat was nowhere to be seen.

  The final touch was to fetch the lilac tunic and arrange it on the bed. Pamela studied her handiwork with satisfaction. The separate pieces of the tunic had come together nicely—unlike the puzzle pieces that still refused to coalesce in a solution to the murder of Bill Diefenbach.

  Chapter 20

  “Cassie Griswold was murdered!”

  The white bakery box in Bettina’s hands suggested she’d come prepared to chat, but the message she’d blurted out as soon as Pamela opened the door shifted Pamela’s focus from the box to Bettina’s face. Bettina’s eyes were moist and the buoyant cheer that plumped and rosied her cheeks had fled, leaving her wan and pale despite her careful makeup.

  “How on earth—?” Pamela stepped back and motioned Bettina over the threshold. “You’ve been with Detective Clayborn,” she said once Bettina was inside.

  Bettina nodded. “The autopsy results . . .” she managed to say before her voice thinned and then went silent.

  “Come into the kitchen and have some water.” Pamela took charge of the bakery box and helped Bettina off with the bright yellow trenchcoat. Then, carrying the box by the string with one hand, Pamela used the other hand to shepherd Bettina toward the doorway that led into the kitchen.

  “I hardly knew her,” Bettina murmured after she found her voice again, “but it was just such a shock to hear.”

  Pamela settled Bettina in a chair and furnished her with a glass of water. More water went into the kettle and the kettle went onto the stove with a burner alight beneath it. Pamela busied herself grinding coffee and arranging a paper filter in her carafe’s plastic filter cone. She glanced at Bettina from time to time, hoping that the comforting sights, sounds, and smells of coffee being brewed would restore her friend’s equilibrium.

  When the kettle began to hoot, Pamela poured the boiling water into the filter cone. She stole another glance at Bettina and was heartened to see that Bettina had untied the string on the bakery box and lifted the lid. Apparently sensing Pamela’s eyes on her, Bettina looked up.

  “Some people eat them with their fingers,” she said, “but they’re very sticky so I think we’ll want plates and forks.” Pamela peeked inside the box. Nestled side by side on a small sheet of waxed paper were four crullers, long twists of pale golden pastry.

  As the seductive coffee aroma infused the small kitchen, Pamela set out cups, saucers, and small plates from her wedding china, and added forks and napkins. She fetched the cut-glass sugar bowl and cream pitcher from the counter and filled the pitcher with the heavy cream that Bettina favored. Bettina meanwhile transferred the crullers to the plates, two on each.

  Pamela poured the coffee and took her seat. Of course she was longing to know the full story behind Bettina’s startling announcement, but she waited as Bettina sugared her coffee and then dribbled in cream, stirring all the while. When the coffee had reache
d the perfect tint and Bettina had sampled it, Pamela spoke.

  “Had Detective Clayborn told you earlier there was to be an autopsy?” she asked.

  “No,” Bettina said. “But Cassie had that lingering illness, and no one was able to figure out what it was. So apparently her doctor suggested that an autopsy could be valuable—if only to help in future diagnoses.”

  “But the autopsy showed she didn’t die of the illness . . . ?” Pamela had neither sipped her coffee or tasted a cruller yet.

  Bettina had picked up her fork but now she put it down. “The illness was that she was being slowly poisoned!” Pamela stared at Bettina. Time seemed to stop, like when a streaming video suddenly freezes on the screen.

  “With what?” she managed to ask after a bit.

  “They don’t know for sure.” Bettina shuddered. “There was damage to her heart and her lungs and her kidneys and all over—but slow doses of lots of things can do that.” She picked up her fork again, carved off the rounded end of a cruller, and lifted the glazed knob of pastry to her mouth.

  Bettina seemed to have recovered from the grim import of the news she had delivered. But Pamela’s brain was racing. She had gotten up that morning filled with anticipation, expecting the arrival of her daughter—and maybe some news from Bettina about whether the eggs from Diefenbach’s porch had been taken into police custody. But she’d hardly anticipated learning that a second resident of Arborville had been murdered—and that the second murder had actually happened before the first murder.

  The methods had been very different, but both of the victims had lived on the same street. Did that mean anything? And what were the implications for Roland? Would Detective Clayborn see a connection between the two murders?

  Her mind was racing and her coffee was getting cold—and now Bettina had finished her first cruller and was talking again—something about jam and . . .

  Pamela blinked a few times and shook her head, trying to settle the commotion in her brain. “What?” she asked, gaping at Bettina.