Murder, She Knit Read online

  Karen blinked in confusion. Her cheeks had become noticeably red. She looked down at the plastic needles in her lap, one of which sported a series of even loops fashioned from the bulky navy blue yarn she had cast on for the new project. She murmured something inaudible and her cheeks became even redder.

  “What was that, dear?” Nell asked kindly.

  “My husband is allergic to wool,” Karen said unhappily. “I should have asked him first, before I spent so much on the other yarn. And those skinny metal needles are impossible to work with. So slippery.”

  Karen had joined Knit and Nibble only recently and was much younger than everyone else in the group, looking barely out of her teens with her pale, silky hair and wide blue eyes. She and her husband owned an old house in Arborville and were renovating it as finances allowed.

  “I’ll take the metal needles,” Roland said. “I can handle them.”

  “Are you sure?” Bettina said, looking up from the pink granny square her crochet hook was busily shaping. She wasn’t actually a knitter, but, as everyone agreed when she asked to join, yarn is yarn. “You’re not doing so great with that cable sweater.”

  “I can handle metal needles,” Roland said. “I assure you.”

  Karen pulled her knitting bag onto her lap and dipped into it, pulling out several skeins of navy blue yarn and tossing them onto the sofa. “They’re in here, I know,” Karen said, bringing up more yarn, a scissors, and a giant plastic knitting needle. She continued to dig until the space between her and Roland was piled with enough yarn and knitting supplies to stock a small shop.

  At last she raised her empty hands and sighed. “No luck. And I keep everything in this bag. I have no idea where those needles could have gone.”

  Roland picked up the booklet of knitting patterns he had tossed aside and resumed paging through it.

  Pamela was soon engrossed in her own project, an Icelandic-style sweater in natural brown wool with a white snowflake pattern. Snowflakes gradually took shape under her needles, and conversation swirled around her in a pleasant hum.

  “I hope you and Penny have plans for Thanksgiving, dear.” Nell beamed a kindly smile in Pamela’s direction. “If not, please join Harold and me. We’ve got the whole family coming, but we can easily set two more places.”

  Pamela looked up from a snowflake. “You’re absolutely sweet,” she said. “And I’d love to see your family again, but we’re invited to eat with old friends in Timberley.” The old friends were the Nordlings, who had invited Pamela and Penny for Thanksgiving turkey every year since Pamela became a widow.

  Discussions of people’s plans for Thanksgiving—which was coming up soon—segued into recommendations for landscapers to handle fall leaf cleanup and observations that Christmas decorations would be up on Arborville Avenue before anyone knew it. The conversation moved on to the town’s recent decision to replace all the street signs, leading Roland to snort, “Your tax dollars at work.”

  “You can afford it,” Nell observed mildly. Roland was a high-powered corporate lawyer whose doctor had recommended knitting to lower his blood pressure. He certainly fit the lawyerly mold, with his close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, his crisp white shirt, and his expensive tie, knotted as firmly for the knitting club as for a court appearance.

  An hour had passed, and it was time for apple cake. In the kitchen, confronting the cups and saucers arrayed on the cheerful tablecloth, Pamela realized she had forgotten all about Amy Morgan.

  “Where’s our new member?” Bettina said as if reading her mind. She stepped through the door and busied herself at the counter, pouring the ground beans from the coffee grinder into a paper cone and setting a kettle of water to boil. Then she began arranging Pamela’s cut-glass sugar bowl and creamer on a tray, along with napkins, forks, and spoons.

  “She’s probably very busy at Wendelstaff,” Pamela said. “She’s the head of the School of Professional Arts and has a full teaching schedule besides. I suppose she couldn’t get away from her office.”

  Pamela began to slice the apple cake, which she had baked in a ring pan and dusted with powdered sugar instead of making icing. The seductive smell of brewing coffee began to fill the kitchen.

  “Roland says only a small slice for him,” Bettina said. “I’ll take a big slice. It looks heavenly. I don’t understand how someone who’s such a good cook as you are can stay so thin.” Pamela was thin, and tall, though in her customary uniform of jeans the effect was more boyish than glamorous. She and Bettina were an unlikely pair. Bettina was neither thin nor tall, but she loved to shop, and she dressed for her life in Arborville with great enthusiasm and flair.

  “I was grating apples forever,” Pamela said, slipping a slice of cake onto a small plate from her wedding china. She continued until five servings had been delivered to the living room by Bettina. “Three teas and two coffees,” Bettina said upon her return.

  Soon everyone was settled with their cake and coffee or tea. Conversation returned to the topic of the upcoming holidays. Nell mentioned that she was recruiting volunteers to work on knitted animals for the children at the shelter, and Pamela and Karen offered to make one elephant each. Bettina asked if the elephants could be crocheted. Jean offered again to donate money, saying she could hardly imagine the difficulties faced by women who had to take refuge in the shelter. Roland wondered aloud how much it cost the town to put up and take down Christmas decorations every year.

  Dishes were cleared away and projects resumed. Roland picked up his knitting, which had sat untouched through the first half of the evening as he paged through his booklet of knitting patterns. He observed to Karen that the pattern he was trying to follow made no sense and there was no guidance to be found elsewhere in the pattern booklet. So far he’d produced a piece of knitting about twenty inches wide and four inches long, with a twisted ridge of raised stitches snaking through at an odd angle.

  “Maybe a cable-knit sweater is a little ambitious for somebody who’s just starting to knit,” Karen observed, the mild expression on her sweet face making it clear that she intended no irony.

  There was no reply. Karen asked Pamela when her daughter would be arriving for Thanksgiving. Pamela’s answer and the smile that accompanied it brought forth a smile from Nell and a sympathetic “You must miss her.” Conversation slowed, lapsing into occasional comments and then silence. A few people yawned.

  “I should have drunk more coffee,” Roland said. His four-inch swatch had grown to five inches, and the ridge of raised stitches had changed direction.

  Bettina jumped up, saying, “There’s more out there.”

  “Do you want to give me insomnia?” he asked with a frown.

  “I’m a little tired too,” Jean said. She laid one needle parallel with the other, carefully folded the smooth expanse of knitting that hung from the second, and slipped needles, knitting, and yarn into the large knitting basket she stored her supplies in. She looked over at Bettina. “You’re really making progress with those squares. How many did you do tonight?”

  “Seven,” Bettina said, smiling with pleasure. “Only about ten more to go.”

  “And when’s the baby due?” Nell asked.

  “Just next month.” Bettina’s second son and his wife were expecting their first child, and Bettina was making a pink granny-square blanket to greet the new arrival. She scooped the small pile of pink squares into her knitting bag.

  The others tucked their work away too. Roland reminded Karen that he’d take her metal needles off her hands if they turned up. Bettina helped with coats, and soon she was bidding Pamela good night and heading across the street to her own house. Catrina was long gone, returned to whatever makeshift shelter she’d discovered when she took up residence in Pamela’s neighborhood. Pamela glanced around for the cat-food dish. It was nowhere to be seen on the porch. Reluctant to have a plastic dish littering her yard as early risers passed on the way to bus stops or school, she headed down the steps.

  Between the fu
ll moon and the streetlamp, the yard could be seen clearly. The front walk was a silver ribbon of concrete, with a few fallen leaves scattered here and there. The lawn was a soft gray, mottled with more leaves. That soft gray darkened into the shadows along the hedge that divided Pamela’s yard from the property of the church next door.

  Pamela ventured onto the lawn, puzzled about where the dish could have gotten to. Catrina was often so enthusiastic about her food that Pamela had watched through the oval window in the front door as the cat nudged the dish across the porch floor and down the steps. Well, she decided, the dish clearly wasn’t littering the lawn. It would turn up in daylight, and if not, a plastic dish was no great loss.

  But as she turned toward the house to go back in, she noticed a flash of white among the shadows under the hedge. Pamela’s porch spanned the front of her house, and between the porch and hedge there was only a narrow corridor leading past the side of the house and into the backyard. Had Catrina pushed the cat-food dish all that way in search of a private place to enjoy her meal?

  Pamela hurried across the lawn toward the white spot, laughing to herself about the proclivities of this wild little creature that had come into her life. But as she got closer, she stopped. She wasn’t looking at a plastic dish, but at a human hand, palm slightly cupped and facing upward. Too shocked to feel frightened, she bent to look closer. The hand emerged from a sleeve whose dark fabric blended with the shadows.

  She pushed the unruly branches of the hedge aside, and moonlight illuminated the motionless face of Amy Morgan, still beautiful even in what was quite obviously death. Amy’s coat had been unbuttoned and peeled back, revealing a pale sweater whose distinctive texture showed it to have been knit by hand. But its pale color had been stained by a large, dark patch centered to the left of the buttons that marched down its front. Protruding from the center of the stain was what looked like a knitting needle. Pamela bent closer. Yes, it was undoubtedly a knitting needle, its metal surface gleaming in the moonlight. She pushed more branches aside, and Amy’s legs and feet came into view.

  She’d have to call the police. But just then she couldn’t move.

  Chapter Two

  At last Pamela let go of the branch she was holding, and it fell into place with a shiver of leaves. She backed up. The scene seemed both unreal and all too real, as if she was floating and observing herself from above. She felt a tingle of sweat on her brow, though it was a cold November night and she’d stepped out without a coat, expecting only to retrieve the cat-food dish and hurry back inside.

  She staggered. Her head was full of buzzing, leaving no space for coherent thoughts, and a commotion in her chest was invading her throat. She continued backing up, half staggering, until she reached the steps leading up to the porch, where she grabbed the railing to steady herself. The wooden railing was cold in her hand, but its coldness was comforting, a familiar sensation tugging her back to reality.

  She climbed the steps, leaning on the railing, then paused as a small streak of black fur dashed past her.

  Her hands were shaking so much that it took three tries to punch 911 into the phone’s keypad, and when a voice responded, the buzzing in her head made her speechless. Finally she blurted out her address and said, “There’s a body in my yard.”

  Not sure what to do next, and somehow nervous in the empty house, she shakily returned to the porch, still coatless, and lowered herself onto the top step. The porch chairs had been put away the day after the first frost.

  From blocks away came a faint high whine. It rose in volume, cutting through the chilly silence. Flashing lights appeared at the top of the street, coming closer, as the siren competed for attention with the buzzing in her head. A police car glided up to the curb, and the siren broke off with a guttural snarl. The lights remained though, more blinding than a camera flash, and illuminating first the church, then Bettina’s house, then Pamela’s yard, around and around, as they blinked in succession.

  A police officer emerged from the car, running, a small officer but speedy. Surprised, Pamela realized it was the young woman officer whose usual assignment was watching over the children crossing Arbor ville Avenue on their way to the grammar school.

  “I’m Officer Sanchez,” she said, stopping when she was a few feet from Pamela. Pamela stood up and walked down the steps, a little less shaky now. Out in the yard another officer, a man, was standing in the middle of the lawn. “Are you the homeowner?” Officer Sanchez asked.

  Pamela nodded and gave her name.

  “And where is the body?” Officer Sanchez raised a foot as if to start up the steps.

  “Not inside,” Pamela said. “There—in the hedge.” She pointed toward the church. “Back by the edge of the porch.”

  Officer Sanchez turned toward the officer on the lawn. “In the hedge,” she called. “Back by the edge of the porch.”

  A flashlight beam zigzagged along the hedge, dancing over the glossy dark-green leaves.

  “Here,” the other officer called, and Officer Sanchez hurried toward him.

  Now Pamela could see two flashlight beams intermingling as the two officers bent toward the hedge. Leaves rustled as they pushed branches aside. After a few minutes, the male officer took off at a trot, flashlight beam leading the way, heading into Pamela’s backyard.

  Officer Sanchez returned. “Do you know this individual?” she asked.

  Pamela nodded. “She’s Amy Morgan. I knew her several years ago, but she just recently moved to Arborville. We were about to get reacquainted. I was expecting her at my house tonight for a meeting, but she didn’t show up. I came out here afterward to look for the dish I feed the cat in. And there she was.” Now Pamela could see glimpses of the other officer’s flashlight through gaps in the hedge, as if he was searching the grounds of the church.

  “Did you notice the murder weapon?”

  “A knitting needle.”

  “Do you have any idea why?”

  “We’re all knitters,” Pamela said miserably, and she started to tell Officer Sanchez about Knit and Nibble. But just then Pamela heard Bettina’s voice.

  “Pamela,” she cried from the curb. “What on earth is going on?” Pamela looked toward the direction of the voice, flinching and blinking as the lights on top of the police car blinded her. In the glare, she could barely make out Bettina’s figure until she was halfway up the front walk.

  “This is my neighbor, Bettina Fraser,” Pamela said. “She was here tonight too.”

  Officer Sanchez stepped aside and intercepted Bettina. From her pocket she took a small notebook. Pamela could hear her confirming Bettina’s name and address. Then she said, “We’d like to talk to you in a little while, if you can wait at home for now.”

  Meanwhile, the other officer had returned to the front lawn and was talking on the phone. Pamela became aware that she was shivering. “We can go inside if you like,” Officer Sanchez said gently.

  Sitting on the sofa, Pamela explained about Knit and Nibble as Officer Sanchez perched on a chair. It wasn’t a comfortable chair, Pamela knew. She had found it at a rummage sale and bought it more for its looks—carved wooden back and needlepoint seat—than its utility. But Officer Sanchez was small and light. She looked young to Pamela, very young to be doing this job, with a sweet, heart-shaped face and dark hair pulled into a neat twist at the back of her head.

  “I’ve heard of the group,” Officer Sanchez said with a half smile. “Sometimes the Advocate reports on your activities.”

  “Bettina writes for the Advocate,” Pamela said, twisting her head toward the door. “She’s the person who came across the street before. We don’t usually get much excitement on this block.” Pamela tried to give a little laugh but her throat twisted painfully and it came out more like a sob.

  Officer Sanchez wrote down the names of all the Knit and Nibble members and then led Pamela through the events of the evening, starting with the first arrivals for the meeting and ending with the moment Pamela came upon Amy’s
body in the hedge. Then she asked about Amy, pausing to make a note in her little notebook when Pamela mentioned that she’d met Amy as a colleague of her husband’s.

  Officer Sanchez returned to the front yard. Pamela followed her onto the porch and watched as the other officer strung crime-scene tape between stakes driven into the lawn. Two more vehicles had appeared at the curb, one of them an ambulance. The lights on top of the police car no longer flashed, but bright lights on metal poles illuminated a large patch of Pamela’s lawn, several feet of the hedge, and Amy’s body. Some branches of the hedge had been tied back so Amy’s entire body was visible. Pamela stared at the knitting needle protruding from the handknit sweater and then looked away. But the sight of the needle jogged something in her mind, and a thought struggled to take form.

  Someone else, someone in a white coverall, knelt by Amy’s body, bowing low as if to examine the site where the knitting needle emerged from the sweater. That person stood up and said something to the male officer. Then another person, also in a white coverall, began to take photographs, darting this way and that in the bright patch created by the lights on metal poles.

  Pamela went back in the house and stood at the sink to fill a glass with water. Officer Sanchez’s voice called to her from the front door. Pamela stepped into the entry, where Officer Sanchez introduced her to a middle-aged man shrugging his way out of a nondescript winter coat to reveal a nondescript sports jacket. He introduced himself as Detective Clayborn and offered his hand.

  “Shall we sit in here?” he asked, heading for the living room before Pamela could answer. She followed obediently and took a seat on the sofa.

  “I’ll be going over some of the things you told Officer Sanchez,” he said, facing her in the same chair Officer Sanchez had occupied, notebook and pen at the ready. In fact, “some of the things” were “all of the things,” asked with more of an edge than Officer Sanchez had mustered. He seemed especially interested in the fact that Amy had been a colleague of Pamela’s husband. “Are you and your husband still together?” he asked sharply.