Died in the Wool Read online

  “Is that the thing that turns up at the end of the driveway every week?” he said with a laugh. “I usually run over it with my car.”

  “It’s the Arborville weekly,” Pamela said. “Bettina writes for it—most of the articles, in fact. Lots of people in town enjoy it.”

  “Oh”—he blinked, clapped his hands briskly, and looked around. “I think it’s time to go buy an aardvark,” he said. And he was gone. From the stage came the sound of horns as the band started up again.

  At the dumpling booth, Pamela waited her turn, watching as Jamie Chin tended a batch of plump dumplings and enjoying the tantalizing aroma of the smoke drifting up from the wok. She came away with two sets of chopsticks and a small paper plate containing four dumplings. Waving at Wilfred as she passed the historical society booth, she was soon back at Bettina’s side.

  “Richard Larkin bought an aardvark,” Bettina said before she even reached for the plate of dumplings. Then she captured a dumpling with a pair of chopsticks and conveyed it to her mouth. “Ummm . . . heavenly.” She smiled and reached for another.

  “How are we doing?” Pamela surveyed the table, where only a few clusters of aardvarks remained.

  “Eat your dumplings,” Bettina said, “then we’ll take stock.”

  “Bean sprouts and shrimp,” Pamela said, after biting into the warm, spicy tidbit. “Yum.” She finished off the first dumpling in two bites and started on the second. Meanwhile, Bettina opened the metal box that had been serving as the till. She counted the bills, mostly twenties, and announced that they had taken in $280.

  Pamela reached down to pull the remaining aardvarks from the cardboard box they’d arrived in and lined them up with the ones on the table. “Nine left.” She paused. “But wait—there should be more than two hundred and eighty dollars then. There should be three hundred and twenty dollars, for sixteen aardvarks sold.”

  “Two missing!” Bettina looked stricken, her hazel eyes wide. “I was here the whole time—except for the parade.”

  “But they were all still in the boxes then,” Pamela said, “tucked away inside the booth. We hadn’t set up yet.”

  “Someone has stolen two aardvarks.” Bettina’s lips twisted as if she was about to cry.

  “Dear wife, what has happened?” It was Wilfred, Bettina’s husband, his usually cheerful face mirroring his wife’s unhappiness.

  “Someone has stolen two aardvarks,” she repeated. “There are nine left but we only have money for fourteen.”

  “Misfortunes never come single,” Wilfred murmured and leaned across the table to pat Bettina on the shoulder. “But perhaps they went to children whose families couldn’t afford twenty dollars.” He slid his hand down her arm and grasped her fingers. “It’s not the end of the world. Come away with me, dearest, and say hello to the people at the historical society booth.”

  Pamela watched them make their way through the milling crowd, Wilfred’s white-thatched head bending toward Bettina’s. Husbands could be a great comfort, she reflected. But she was glad when a woman offering a twenty-dollar bill and claiming an aardvark distracted her from pursuing that thought to its logical conclusion.

  To distract herself further, she re-counted the money they had taken in so far. The recent sale had brought the total to three hundred dollars, but there were now only eight aardvarks waiting to be sold. Very puzzling. It was possible someone had gotten into the boxes while she and Bettina were at the parade. They’d made no secret of the fact that the boxes contained the aardvarks as people bustled here and there that morning preparing their booths. She’d chatted with someone from the Arborville Chamber of Commerce in the booth next door, and a few volunteers had been making sure the rock garden behind the library hadn’t sprouted any weeds since its completion. Joe Taylor had exclaimed, “Nice varks!” and complimented her on the clever idea of enlisting the knitting group’s support of the sports program.

  The next few hours passed quickly. Penny stopped by with Richard Larkin’s daughters to say that they were all going to walk to Richard’s house and hang out for awhile. Nell and Harold came by to check on sales and report that the historical society had recruited three new members. Pamela sold four more aardvarks. Bettina returned and insisted that Pamela take another stroll around the parking lot.

  Pamela made a slow circuit, pausing to watch the ponies climb up a ramp into their truck. The petting zoo was closing down as well, and one of the lambs scampered away as it was being led through the gate in the zoo’s temporary wire fence. It dashed across the grass and was captured at last near the tennis courts. Families trooped out of the park and along the edge of the parking lot, heading toward the street.

  Back at the booth, Pamela discovered that only one aardvark was left. “I think that’s it,” Bettina said. The asphalt area between the two rows of booths was emptying out as well, and booths were being dismantled. The chimes from St. Willibrod’s, the grand stone church on Arborville Avenue, sounded the hour. It was five o’clock, time to pack up.

  Bettina tucked the lone aardvark into one of the cardboard boxes they’d arrived in while Pamela climbed on a chair to detach the Arborville Knitting Club banner they’d strung across the front of the booth. She gently rolled it up, and then began to detach the canvas they’d tacked around the table the previous evening. But as she pulled the front panel loose, she stopped and stared. She felt her body twitch as if a tiny, local earthquake had affected the spot of parking lot where she stood.

  A person was under the table, a man. He was lying on his back, and on his chest was perched a knitted turquoise aardvark. She looked up. Bettina was cheerfully counting the money again, fingers busy as she slipped bills from one hand to the other.

  Bettina paused.

  “Pamela?” She raised her brows. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Chapter Two

  From behind her, Pamela heard another voice, the voice of an excited child. “Mommy!” the voice said. “There’s a dead person under there. The aardvark killed him.”

  “What?” Bettina raised her brows even farther. She hastily dropped the stack of bills back into the metal box, slammed the cover shut, and eased herself around the side of the table.

  Pamela had pulled off half the canvas panel. That section drooped in loose folds, creating an opening that revealed the top half of a middle-aged man, his legs and feet still hidden. The man was wearing a linen sports jacket in an elegant shade of gray, and a white dress shirt with a starched collar. A carefully knotted bow tie finished off the outfit, its blue and gray paisley complementing the gray of the jacket. The turquoise aardvark was balanced squarely on his chest.

  “How could this happen?” Bettina wailed. Pamela put her hands to her breast, as if to check that her heart was still beating. She closed her eyes and took two deep breaths. The earthquake sensation hadn’t lasted long, but she felt shaky and reached a hand toward the table to steady herself. She closed her eyes again. But the scene was so mysterious she had to look closer.

  She lowered one knee to the asphalt and ducked her head to clear the edge of the table. She knew enough not to disturb a crime scene by touching anything, but she stared at the aardvark, trying to determine whether it was hiding a wound. The smooth cotton shirtfront seemed undisturbed, however, and there was no sign of blood. She let her eyes wander to the man’s head. There were no injuries to his face that she could see, and the neat gray hair lay smoothly against his scalp. Her eyes were drawn to the tie. Who would wear a bow tie to a town festival, she wondered, and a dress shirt that had been starched and pressed to perfection by a professional launderer? The collar was especially crisp—but what was that near the back, above the collar of the perfectly tailored linen jacket? Something dark. She bent closer. It was a stain, a stain the dark red color of dried blood, like blood that could have trickled down from a spot on the back of the head.

  “That’s Randall Jefferson from the high school,” said a woman’s voice behind her. Simultaneously, a chil
d began to cry. Pamela stood up and turned. A blond woman in shorts and a T-shirt was stroking the hair of a little girl who was nestled against her bare legs. The woman was glaring at Pamela in an accusing way, as if Pamela was somehow responsible for the spectacle.

  Only a handful of people had remained in the parking lot when Pamela began deconstructing the booth. Now a small crowd began to assemble, composed of that handful plus the tenants of the other booths. Pamela watched as a man bobbed forward, stooped to look through the opening in the canvas, and then took off at a run toward the police station at the far edge of the parking lot. She looked back at the crowd, some faces awed, others just curious. “Randall Jefferson,” a few people murmured to each other. “From the high school, you know.”

  Wilfred had been one of the first to arrive, and now he stood off to the side, stalwart in his plaid shirt and overalls. Bettina huddled next to him with her face buried in his chest, the fabric of her sundress bright against his denim.

  The heavy metal and glass door of the police station swung back, and two officers emerged, followed by the man who had dashed off to summon them. The officers trotted across the asphalt, and in a moment they were at Pamela’s side. Pamela recognized one of them as the officer she had most recently seen directing traffic around a crew that was repaving a section of Orchard Street. In a pleasant voice that struck her as more suited to telling children not to skateboard on the sidewalk, he ordered the crowd to back up.

  “It’s Randall Jefferson,” offered a middle-aged woman in yoga pants and sneakers. “From the high school.”

  The other officer bent down to examine the visible half of Randall Jefferson, then pulled out his phone.

  Once the crowd had moved far enough from the booth to satisfy the officer, he focused on Pamela. “I’m Officer William Anders,” he said. “Was it you who found the body?”

  Pamela nodded. “It’s my booth—our booth really.” She gestured toward where Bettina stood with Wilfred, watching the proceedings now, but with Wilfred’s arm tight around her bare shoulders. “We’re part of the knitting club. And we were selling these”—she took a few steps toward the opening in the canvas and pointed at the aardvark on the dead man’s chest—“aardvarks . . . to benefit the sports program.” Officer Anders had taken out a small notepad and a pen. He was looking at Pamela encouragingly, so she went on. “Halfway through the afternoon we noticed two were missing. We had money for fourteen but there were only nine left. We started out with twenty-five.” She dipped her head to look through the opening in the canvas again. “I guess this is one of the missing ones.”

  “Were you at the booth all day?” he asked, pen poised for her answer. Not only was his voice not the voice she’d expect from a police officer, but his rosy cheeks and light brows made her wonder if it was possible for him to ever look stern.

  “At least one of us was,” Pamela said. “Sometimes both. After the parade, that is. But we didn’t put any aardvarks out until we came back from the parade. They were in two cardboard boxes behind the table.”

  “And this canvas?” He pointed at the flap of canvas. “Did it go all the way around?”

  Pamela struggled to suppress a tiny laugh. “Of course. I think we would have noticed him under there otherwise.”

  “And when did the canvas go on?”

  “Yesterday,” Pamela said. “People came out after dinner to get a head start on setting up the booths. It stays light so late this time of year. Bettina and I worked on it, and her husband Wilfred helped.” Pamela looked toward them, and Wilfred gave her an encouraging smile. “We all went home at about eight-thirty. A few people were still working on the booths then, and the library was still open.”

  Officer Anders nodded. “Wait over there,” he said, pointing toward the space between Pamela’s booth and the remains of the Chamber of Commerce booth. The men who had been deconstructing that booth had joined the curious crowd at the far edge of the parking lot.

  Pamela didn’t move. “I noticed something,” she said, feeling a quiver of nervousness and wondering if it was quite her place to speak up. But before Officer Anders could answer, she went on. “There’s blood on his collar.” As the officer’s boyish face turned stern, sterner than she would have thought such a face could look, she raised her hands in self-defense. “I didn’t touch him,” she said. “You can see the blood if you bend down and stick your head under the table.” Now the officer almost looked amused.

  “You did that?” he said.

  “I was kind of in shock. I’m not sure I knew what I was doing.” She shrugged. “But anyway, someone could have hit him on the back of the head with something hard and heavy, and the blood started dripping while he was still more or less upright, and it dripped down onto his collar. Then when he collapsed they put him under the table.”

  “And added an aardvark?”

  “Maybe that came later.”

  Instead of making another note on the little notepad, Officer Anders stepped around to where the other officer was unrolling a ribbon of crime-scene tape. He leaned toward the other officer’s ear and said something, then they both returned to the front of the booth and bent down to look through the opening in the canvas. Officer Anders stuck his head under the table.

  From the street came the rising and falling whine of a siren. It grew so loud that Pamela flinched. Then suddenly it was silent, and a huge silver van with the logo of the county sheriff’s department careened around the corner. The crowd of onlookers scattered onto the lawn, and the van stopped just short of where they had been standing.

  Officer Anders moved off to talk to Bettina and Wilfred. The other officer watched as two people in loose-fitting white outfits climbed out of the van, and then he led them to the front of the knitting club booth. Pamela backed away until she was standing among the plantings behind the library. A man who she recognized as Detective Clayborn had joined the two officers and the people in the white outfits.

  Pamela wondered how soon she’d be able to leave. She was longing to be at home, in her safe, comforting house, maybe with Bettina and Wilfred there too—though Bettina might be longing to be in her own safe, comforting house. She watched the people in the white outfits make several trips between the van and what was now the crime scene, complete with yellow crime-scene tape strung from the supports of the booths on either side of the knitting club booth.

  As she watched the methodical way the police and the people from the sheriff’s department went about their work, Pamela gradually relaxed. The adrenalin jolt she’d felt when she discovered the dead man under the table had carried her through her impulsive inspection of the body and her interview with Officer Anders. But now the adrenalin had subsided, and she just felt tired. She’d been on her feet all day, either standing in the booth or exploring the other festival offerings.

  A pretty wooden bench was part of the library garden, donated in memory of a beloved librarian, as a notation engraved on its back testified. Pamela stepped around an azalea and settled herself on the bench, sighing and feeling her shoulders sag. From this new position she couldn’t see much of what was going on at the crime scene, so she entertained herself by studying the rock garden.

  When the enterprise was first proposed, a call went out on the town listserv for donations of rocks. Pamela herself had responded. Every time she did any digging in her yard she encountered huge chunks of the sandstone that had provided the building material for so many of the Revolutionary-Era houses in Northern New Jersey. She set them aside as trophies and over the years had collected quite a pile. Now she studied the rock garden, wondering if she would recognize any of her own rocks.

  One at the near edge looked familiar, like the one that had emerged when she spent an afternoon the previous fall planting a crepe myrtle. She had nicknamed the rock “the yam,” for its tapering shape. She stood up, took a few steps, and bent to examine it more closely. Yes, it was definitely her rock, a yam formed from dark pink sandstone—except something at the larger
end looked darker than the natural sandstone color. It looked almost black.

  She studied the area around the rock. The soil had recently been disturbed, as if the rock had been snatched from its original position in the artful border of the garden and then hastily tucked back into place.

  Pamela made her way through the shrubbery back to the edge of the parking lot, where she was greeted by Detective Clayborn.

  “I was just coming to talk to you,” he said.

  He had a lived-in face, a face that couldn’t have ever been handsome, even when he was young, and now it showed its years. But the slight tightness around his eyes suggested that he didn’t miss much.

  “Are you feeling okay?” he asked. “I understand you found the body.” Pamela nodded. He nodded back. “Officer Anders asked you some questions. I’d like to go over them.” He was holding a little notepad too.

  Pamela repeated her description of setting up the booth the night before and leaving for the parade with the aardvarks still in boxes inside the booth, and she insisted that once she and Bettina set the aardvarks out, at least one person was always at the booth.

  Detective Clayborn frowned. “But midway through the afternoon two of the aardvarks were missing.”

  “It was mysterious.” Pamela shrugged. “There were nine left, but we only had money for fourteen. We should have had money for sixteen, three hundred and twenty dollars.”

  “Who made the aardvarks?” he asked suddenly. Something about the upward tilt of his chin made the question seem like more than simple curiosity.

  “All of us,” Pamela said, trying not to act nervous. “There are six of us, but I made more than my share. I made ten.”

  When he looked up from whatever that answer had provoked him to write on the notepad, Pamela said, “Did they show you the blood on his collar?”

  Detective Clayborn’s face relaxed. Did he practice cultivating certain expressions, Pamela wondered, expressions suitable to different aspects of his job?