Died in the Wool Read online

  “You were helpful in that murder case last fall,” he said, “but let’s not make a habit of doing our work for us.” He even managed a little chuckle. “That’s what you pay taxes for.”

  “Hey, Mom!” a voice called from the edge of the crowd that still lingered at the edge of the parking lot. Pamela looked over to see Penny waving and looking worried.

  “Is it okay if I go home now?” Pamela asked. “My daughter has come for me.”

  Detective Clayborn smoothed the pages of the little notepad back into place and closed the cover. “We’re finished for the present.”

  Pamela took a few steps toward where Penny waited. Then she turned back toward Detective Clayborn. “There’s blood on one of the rocks in the rock garden,” she said. “The one shaped like a yam, at the edge near the memorial bench. I didn’t touch it, but somebody did. The dirt around it has been disturbed.”

  The skin around his eyes tightened. “We’re finished for the present,” he repeated.

  Pamela looked around to see if Bettina and Wilfred were still there, but it seemed they’d been dismissed too.

  Under the watchful eye of a third officer who had apparently been summoned to keep the crowd at bay, Penny ventured to the center of the parking lot to meet Pamela. She reached her arms out for a hug, and Pamela pulled her close, letting her chin rest on her daughter’s curly hair.

  “What a day,” Pamela sighed.

  Penny stepped back and surveyed her mother. “One of Laine’s friends texted her and said the police were all over the parking lot. Somebody put a dead body under the knitting club booth.”

  The officer tending the crowd approached, a warning expression on his young face. Pamela and Penny headed toward the driveway that led out to the street, Penny’s arm around her mother’s waist. Before they turned the corner, Pamela looked back and noticed one of the people in the white outfits lifting the yam-shaped rock into an official-looking bag.

  * * *

  At home there was a phone message from Bettina saying they were welcome to come across the street for dinner—other wise she’d be over first thing in the morning.

  But Penny got busy in the kitchen, and soon she’d put together a salad with leftover chicken and toasted some whole-grain bread. After they ate, Pamela settled down with her knitting and found a documentary about foxes on the Nature Channel.

  “Foxes, Mom?” Penny said, laughing. “Okay, I’ll keep you company.” Catrina the cat joined them on the sofa, sleek and contented—and a far cry from the forlorn kitten Pamela had rescued the previous winter.

  Chapter Three

  Pamela had already dealt with the reporters that arrived just as she ventured outside to retrieve the Register from the front walk. Now she was unfolding the newspaper on the kitchen table as she waited for water to boil for her coffee. A slice of whole-grain bread sat ready near the toaster. Catrina, with considerably more appetite than Pamela’s, was noisily finishing off a few spoonfuls of cat food.

  Penny stepped in from the entry. “There’s coffee at work,” she said, in answer to her mother’s unspoken question.

  “But you need more than that.” Pamela jumped up and reached for a knife to slice off another piece of bread.

  “I’m really okay, Mom,” Penny said. And she looked okay, despite the startling experience of the previous evening. Her eyes were bright and her skin, set off by her dark curls, glowed.

  “Have I seen that outfit before?” Pamela asked. Penny was wearing a bright yellow dress with a gathered skirt. A parade of red roosters marched around the skirt’s hemline, and a necklace of large red beads set off her pretty neck.

  “The dress is from Laine’s favorite thrift store. We found it when I went into the city with her last weekend.” Penny cocked her head toward the entry. “I think there’s someone—” she began, but her words were interrupted by the doorbell.

  Pamela started across the kitchen, but by the time she stepped into the entry, Penny had already opened the door and Bettina was inside. She carried a large shopping bag.

  “Off to work, I see,” she exclaimed, surveying Penny with a smile. “And how’s the job?”

  “Great,” Penny said. “I’m learning a lot.” Penny had a summer job at an upscale home furnishings store in Manhattan. “And I’m going to miss my bus.” Penny slipped past Bettina and hurried down the front walk.

  Bettina turned to Pamela. “And you,” she said. “How are you, my dear?”

  “Strange dreams,” Pamela said. “How about you?”

  “Not even dreams.” Bettina indeed did not look like her usual well-put-together self. Aside from a dab of lipstick, her face was bare, and the dark circles under her eyes testified to a restless night. “I kept seeing his face, and his eyes staring straight up at nothing, and then the aardvark on his chest.”

  From the kitchen came a sudden insistent hoot. “It’s the kettle boiling!” Pamela led the way to the kitchen. “Coffee! Come on in.”

  Bettina followed. “By the way,” she said. “I saw Richard Larkin just now. Such a thoughtful man—he asked if you were okay, and he made a point of telling me how much he enjoys reading the Advocate.” She set the shopping bag on the table and moved the newspapers aside. “Have you looked at the Register yet?” she asked.

  Pamela answered from the counter, where she was pouring water from the kettle into a paper cone half-full of freshly-ground coffee. “I had just unfolded it when Penny came down, and then you arrived.” The promising aroma that arose from the moistened grounds lifted her spirits, but Bettina’s next words made them sink again.

  “I don’t know when the people from the Register showed up,” she said. “I certainly didn’t see any reporters yesterday. But here it is on the front page—the booth, the aardvark, and the headline: MURDER AT ARBORVILLE TOWN FESTIVAL. And right underneath, still in big letters: BODY OF HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER FOUND IN KNITTING CLUB BOOTH.”

  “A few of them were waiting for me this morning,” Pamela said.

  She had always felt that daily rituals were important—all the more so when normal life had been disrupted. So she reached down two cups and two saucers of her wedding china and set them on the table next to Bettina’s shopping bag. And because she knew Bettina liked cream and sugar, she moved the sugar bowl from the counter to the table and stepped to the refrigerator to pour a dollop of cream into the little cut-glass pitcher that matched the sugar bowl.

  “And, yes, I will have some toast,” Bettina said with a smile. “And jam, though I know you never eat it.”

  Newspapers and shopping bag out of the way, they concentrated on their breakfast for a few minutes. Toast finished, Bettina wiped her fingers and added a bit more sugar to her coffee. “At least they didn’t say, ‘well-loved,’” she observed.

  “Who?” Pamela had barely nibbled her toast, but she’d taken several swallows of coffee, appreciating its rich bitterness.

  “Randall Jefferson, of course,” Bettina said, sounding a little startled. “Not to speak ill of the dead and all of that, but no one could stand him. Didn’t you know?”

  “Penny never said anything. But I think she had a nice woman for American History.”

  “Well,” Bettina said, setting down her coffee cup. The resigned expression on her face suggested someone delivering necessary but unpleasant news. “He was completely full of himself, made no secret of the fact that he didn’t have to work—old family money and so on—and looked down on anyone and everyone.”

  “I guess you’re more in touch with what people talk about in town,” Pamela said.

  “The Advocate, you know. My finger is on the pulse of Arborville. Also there’s Wilfred and the historical society. It was obvious Randall Jefferson thought they were nothing but amateurs. So he didn’t have any fans there.”

  “Will you be seeing Detective Clayborn today?” Pamela asked.

  “I hope so,” Bettina said. “I’ve got to get something written up soon if there’s to be anything about the murd
er in this week’s Advocate.” She lifted her coffee cup and inspected the contents. “Is there more coffee?” she asked, already rising.

  “Help yourself,” Pamela said.

  “And more toast?”

  “Please do.”

  Bettina filled her cup, slipped a piece of bread into the toaster, and returned to the table for cream and sugar. “There’s really not much in the Register, aside from that photo and the basic gruesome details,” she said. “But by the time I get in to see Clayborn he might have heard from the ME about when Jefferson was likely killed.”

  “It had to be Saturday night,” Pamela said, “after dark and after the library closed. Everybody would have gone home from working on the booths, and the parking lot would have been deserted. And when you see Detective Clayborn, ask him about the murder weapon.”

  “It was something heavy, I imagine. Jefferson was clunked on the back of the head. That much got into the Register.”

  Pamela was just about to tell her about the rock when Bettina’s toast popped up and the doorbell rang.

  It was Wilfred. He gave Pamela a quick hug and followed her into the kitchen. Bettina looked up from the toast she was buttering. She greeted Wilfred with a smile, then a quick intake of breath. “Ooops!” she said, raising a hand to her mouth. “I forgot about the strawberries.” She picked up the shopping bag. “A gift for you, from Wilfred. He stopped by the farmers market in Newfield Saturday.”

  Pamela looked in the bag. “So many! Thank you. I hope you kept some for yourselves.”

  “We did,” Bettina said.

  Wilfred shook his head sadly. “We might have to ration them out, dear wife. Newfield is quite a ways away, and I’m afraid the Co-Op is going to be off-limits for a while.”

  “What on earth happened?” Pamela and Bettina exclaimed in chorus.

  “Randall Jefferson is the talk of the town, you might say.” Wilfred pulled out a chair and leaned on the table to lower himself into it. “Randall Jefferson and the Arborville knitting club. No one liked him, but he was an Arborville-ite, they’re saying, and a respected teacher at the high school”—Wilfred’s normally deep and pleasant voice modulated into the high-pitched whine that Pamela recognized as his impression of Arborville’s leading gossip—“and that knitting club has something to answer for even if they didn’t do it, and who can even be sure about that?”

  Bettina took a large bite of toast. Pamela jumped up. “I’ll make more coffee,” she said.

  “Not for me.” Wilfred stood up again. “I’ve got work to do at home. It’s best to keep busy.”

  “I’ll be along in a few minutes,” Bettina said.

  * * *

  When she was alone once more, Pamela lifted the strawberries out of the shopping bag. They were beauties, plump and rosy, and so ripe that the box that held them was blotted here and there with deep red strawberry stain.

  Pamela knew that the knitting club wasn’t responsible for Randall Jefferson’s death. Whoever murdered him, probably with the yam-shaped rock from the rock garden, had simply tucked the body under the nearest booth, and that booth happened to be the knitting club booth. Then, later (during the parade?), the murderer—or someone—had quickly reached under the table’s canvas skirt and placed an aardvark on the dead man’s chest. That was where things got odd. But still, what could the knitting club have to do with it?

  Pamela loved her life in the tiny town of Arborville, New Jersey, at least most of the time. She loved the walkability of the town that let her do most errands on foot. She loved the hundred-year-old wood-frame house that she and her architect husband had rescued from decline two decades ago and decorated with antique-store and tag-sale treasures. She loved the fact that she and her daughter had been able to remain there after the tragic construction-site accident that left Pamela a widow. She loved her work-at-home job as associate editor of Fiber Craft magazine.

  At the sink, Pamela rinsed the breakfast things. She’d make a plan for the day, and everything would feel normal again, and the police would figure out who killed Randall Jefferson. First, she decided, she would read the Register. It would be best to actually know what the media was reporting about the murder. Then she would take a walk, but not in the direction of the Co-Op. And she’d check in with her boss at Fiber Craft. Work was always a good antidote to worry. And finally, she’d browse through her recipe books for a shortcake recipe and surprise Penny with strawberry shortcake for dessert.

  She was staring gloomily at the Register’s front-page photo of the knitting club booth festooned with crime-scene tape—thank goodness she had at least removed the Arborville Knitting Club banner before she discovered the body—when the phone rang.

  An unfamiliar voice responded to her “hello.” Detective Clayborn would like to speak with her, the voice said. Could she come to the police station at her earliest convenience?

  That would be her walk, but not the restorative communication with nature that she had pictured.

  Should she change her clothes, she wondered. No, the jeans and cotton blouse she’d put on that morning were decent, as were the Birkenstocks. But upstairs in the bathroom she pulled her loose hair back into a low ponytail and added a bit of lipstick. Maybe earrings weren’t necessary for an interview with the police.

  * * *

  A knitted turquoise aardvark was perched in the middle of the desk, between an untidy pile of paper and an open laptop. It was the brightest thing in the room, except for the neon-orange flyer pinned to the bulletin board (and considerably out of date) announcing that alternate-side parking would be suspended for Good Friday.

  “Thank you for coming.” Detective Clayborn rose from behind the desk and extended his hand. His handshake was quick and efficient. The fluorescent lights were even less flattering to his homely face than the bright sunshine of the previous day had been. “Please sit down,” he added. The chair was a straight-backed wooden chair, as if the Arborville police station had been furnished a century ago and not altered since, except for electric lights, modern telephones, and computers.

  “The crime-scene unit has finished with this,” Detective Clayborn said, nodding toward the aardvark. Pamela reached a hand toward the creature. “But I haven’t,” he added. Then, “Go ahead—you can touch it.”

  She hesitated.

  “What I want to know,” he said, “is who made it. Was it someone in your group?”

  “Oh—” Pamela almost smiled. “You’re thinking the killer could have made it, separate from the twenty-five we made, and put it on the body right after he did the murder. So it sat there all night—no need to wonder if someone was sneaking around while most people were at the parade.”

  Detective Clayborn frowned. “I was thinking that, yes . . .”

  Pamela moved the aardvark to the edge of the desk and examined it closely, laying it on its side, bending its rabbit-like ears to-and-fro, and lifting its stubby tail. “It’s one of mine,” she said at last. “I dropped a few stitches on this one but it was the part that would be on the belly so I figured no one would notice. I’m usually very fussy, but we had a lot of aardvarks to knit and not much time.”

  Detective Clayborn reached across the desk. Pamela gave the aardvark a gentle shove until it was close enough for him to grab. He studied its belly. “I can’t see it,” he said. “But I’ll take your word for it. And this was one of the original twenty-five?”

  “Definitely,” Pamela said. “It was the last one I did. I finished it Friday night.”

  He stood again and stepped around the desk. “Thank you,” he said. “The department appreciates your help.” At the door, he thanked her again and then paused. “I should have bought one,” he said. “My nephew would have liked it.”

  Pamela smiled. “We have one left.”

  “Best not to complicate the case with a conflict of interest,” he said, a faint smile softening the folds that bracketed his mouth.

  Pamela paused. “By the way—” The door was open now, but she
didn’t step through. “Did that turn out to be blood on the yam-shaped rock?”

  The skin around his eyes tightened and the smile vanished. “We will release information to the media as it becomes available, and if it seems appropriate.”

  “Two aardvarks were missing,” Pamela said as she stepped into the hall. “I wonder where the other one will turn up.”

  * * *

  Pamela’s trip to the police station had been roundabout. She’d walked down the hill to County Road, the busy thoroughfare at the bottom of Orchard Street, skirted the nature preserve at the edge of town, and then climbed back up the hill when she reached the cross street where the library and the police station were located. A walk to town on her normal route would have taken her along Arborville Avenue and past the Co-Op Grocery, with the morning comings and goings of the town in full swing. If Wilfred had been accosted by people who should have been minding their own business, she would have been an even more likely prey.

  But now, stepping out onto the asphalt apron at the police station’s entrance and blinking in the May sunshine, she realized that she was starving, too starving to take the roundabout route back home. On a normal day, on her normal schedule, one piece of toast sufficed until she took a break from her computer at eleven or so. Today she’d barely nibbled her breakfast toast, and now it was after noon, and she was eager to make up for the breakfast she’d skipped.

  The police station was nearly at the corner of Arborville Avenue. She cut across the bit of lawn that separated it from the library and dashed across the street, hurrying to put Arborville’s commercial district behind her. Borough Hall, a small brick building, marked the spot where “downtown” Arborville became “residential” Arborville. She was happy to see no one at all on her side of the street except a handsome young man in jeans and a T-shirt. He was on his hands and knees in the patch of dirt between the sidewalk and the steps that led into Borough Hall, bending attentively toward a clump of salvia.

  Something bright glinted on the sidewalk, and she stooped to pick up a penny. The young man looked up, and she recognized him as Joe Taylor, the same person who had admired the aardvarks at the festival. “The knitter!” he said, rocking back into a kneeling position.