Читать книгу Knit of the Living Dead - Peggy Ehrhart - Страница 11

Chapter 3

Pamela would have been happy to remain in bed until ten a.m., or even later. But, though she’d been a widow for the past seven years and her only daughter was away at college, she was not alone in her large house. The two beings with whom she shared it were at that moment crouched on her chest. Catrina, a lustrous black cat with amber eyes, was studying Pamela’s face intently, as if for signs of consciousness. Catrina’s daughter Ginger, whose name described her color, seemed similarly curious about Pamela’s state.

“Yes, yes,” Pamela murmured. The cats leaped nimbly to the floor as she pushed herself into a sitting position. “I know it’s past your breakfast time.”

Down in her cozy kitchen, wrapped in her fleecy robe and with furry slippers on her feet, Pamela scooped a six-ounce can of “fish medley” into a fresh bowl that the cats shared and broke it up into manageable morsels with a spoon. She set the bowl in the corner of the kitchen, where the cats were accustomed to receiving their meals.

Once Catrina and Ginger were crouched over their bowl nibbling at the glistening mixture from opposite sides, Pamela set her kettle boiling for coffee and headed out to retrieve her newspaper. After the distressing events of the previous night, the familiar rituals with which she always started her day promised to soothe.

It had been one a.m. before she was back at home again. When she and Bettina were finally summoned down to the children’s library, where the police interviews were being held, she’d had to repeat to Detective Clayborn the story she’d already told to one of the police officers who’d responded to Gus Warburton’s summons—how she heard the scream, stepped back among the trees, encountered the frightened teenagers, and followed Gus and the teenagers to the spot where the body lay across the path. Then when she and Bettina and Nell and their spouses left the library, the three women had been set upon by the County Register ’s ace reporter Marcy Brewer, no less perky for the lateness of the hour.

Back inside, she extracted the Register from its flimsy plastic sleeve and laid it, still folded, on the small table that furnished her kitchen. The table, just large enough to accommodate two chairs, was covered with a vintage cloth featuring fruit in unlikely colors—blue oranges!—that she’d found at one of her favorite rummage sales.

At the counter, she measured coffee beans into her coffee grinder, depressed the cover, and waited until the clatter of the beans smoothed into a whir. She slipped a paper filter into the plastic filter cone atop her carafe and transferred the ground beans into the filter. She was just about to reach for the kettle, which had begun to whistle, when the doorbell chimed.

The cats preceded her to the entry, streaking ahead and pausing in the middle of the thrift-store Persian rug that covered the floor’s ancient parquet. They stared at the door, and so did Pamela, but only for a moment. Through the lace that curtained the door’s large oval window, Pamela could see a woman, none too thin and not very tall, with hair of vivid scarlet. She smiled and opened the door to Bettina.

But Bettina, usually quick to smile, didn’t smile back. And the woman who dressed for her life in Arborville with the flair of a dedicated fashionista had crossed the street from her own house and climbed the steps to Pamela’s porch wearing a flowered flannel bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. Her face was free of makeup and her bright hair looked untouched by a comb.

“Have you seen this?” she inquired, the rising pitch of her voice reminiscent of a distressed Catrina. Bettina held out a section of the Register.

“I just brought mine in,” Pamela said. “I’m making coffee.” She stepped back and beckoned Bettina across the threshold.

Bettina shook her head vigorously. “I have to get dressed. We have to talk to Nell.”

Pamela felt a frown take shape on her forehead. She reached for the newspaper. What could the Register be reporting that was more startling than what they’d experienced firsthand the previous night? And surely Pamela and Bettina wouldn’t even appear in that day’s issue of the paper. Marcy would have filed her interview with them long after Sunday’s Register had gone to print.

“It wasn’t Nell’s neighbor,” Bettina said. “That body wasn’t Mary Lyon’s.”

“But the costume—” Pamela stopped. Bettina’s lips tightened and she shook her head again.

“The dead woman was Dawn Filbert.” Bettina was still shaking her head, and the uncombed tendrils of her hair were bobbing. “She owns—owned—Hair Today, the hair salon on Arborville Avenue. We have to talk to Nell.”

“But the costume,” Pamela repeated.

“That’s why we have to talk to Nell,” Bettina said, in the tone of someone stating the obvious. “Maybe the killer was trying to kill Mary.”

Pamela nodded. “Wandering around in the dark looking for the person in the Bo Peep costume. . .” She paused. “But the killer would need some reason to think the person in the Bo Peep costume was Mary.”

“She had the blog,” Bettina said. “The Lyon and the Lamb: Adventures in Woolgathering. ‘Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep’ and all that . . .”

“There’s a connection . . .” Pamela squinted and pursed her lips. “But would the killer make that connection?”

“That’s why we’re talking to Nell.” Bettina pulled her robe around her. “I can’t go like this and neither can you. Get dressed. I’ll call Nell and tell her we’re coming and I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.” Then Bettina was off, hurrying back across the street.

The kettle was still on the stove and whistling furiously when Pamela returned to the kitchen. She turned off the flame, thankful that the kettle hadn’t boiled dry. There was no time for breakfast and the coffee she’d ground would serve for the next day. She’d store it in a ziplock bag when she returned from Nell’s, but she paused for a moment to unfold the Register and scan the front page.

“Arborville Hairdresser Murdered at Town Halloween Celebration” read the bold headline, and in smaller print below were the words, “Unaware, Revelers Frolic Around Bonfire.” According to the article’s first paragraph, Dawn Filbert had been killed by a blow to the head shortly before her body was found by two teenagers whose names were not being released. Pamela skimmed down a bit further, but there was no mention of the strands of yarn. She left the newspaper unfolded on the table and headed for the stairs.

Unlike Bettina, Pamela was not a fashionista. Up in her bedroom, she slipped into a cotton turtleneck and the same pair of jeans she’d been wearing all week. To the outfit she added a hand-knit pullover in a soft shade of brown and a pair of loafers. She was tall and thin, and the casual look suited her, but Bettina never stopped lamenting her friend’s lack of interest in the clothes Pamela’s figure could have shown off to advantage. In the bathroom, she ran a comb through her shoulder-length brown hair and she was ready to go.

* * *

“I started coffee as soon as I hung up the phone,” Nell said by way of greeting. She escorted Pamela and Bettina down the long hallway, decorated with souvenir art from the Bascombs’ many travels, which led to her kitchen, and invited them to take seats around the table. Holly Perkins, who embraced all things mid-century with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn’t actually lived through the era, never tired of expressing her delight in the Bascombs’ kitchen. Their house itself predated the 1950s by several decades, but the kitchen had been redone shortly before they bought it in the early days of their marriage and had remained the same ever since, with pink Formica counters and avocado-green appliances.

An ancient aluminum percolator gurgled cheerfully on the stove. “I’ve had my tea and my breakfast,” Nell added, “but there will be coffee soon, and how does homemade granola sound?”

“Or doughnuts?” came a voice from behind the door that led to the mudroom.

That door opened and in stepped Harold Bascomb, dressed for an unseasonably warm fall day in jeans and a flannel shirt faded to a pleasant greenish gray. He carried a white cardboard bakery box secured with a crisscross of white string.

“So that’s where you went!” Nell gave Harold a look that a fond but irritated mother might give a mischievous child. Harold responded with a broad grin that creased his cheeks and crinkled the skin around his faded blue eyes.

“I thought we could all use a little treat after last night,” he said. “Especially you.” He placed the box on the table, slipped off the string, and folded back the top. Inside were half a dozen plump doughnuts, glistening with a translucent sugary glaze. A look of concern replaced Harold’s grin and he gazed at his wife fondly. “You were certainly ready to go home by the time that cop came up and fetched me.”

“They had a lot of questions,” Nell said. “And I had to wait around while the crime scene people took pictures before they could lift the hat off her face. And then, of course, I could see right away that it wasn’t Mary. But I had no idea who it was until I saw the Register this morning. And sugar is not going to make me feel any better.”

But Bettina was eyeing the doughnuts. “I’d love one,” she said. The corners of her mouth lifted and she looked a bit more like herself. The aroma of the perking coffee, which had begun to fill the kitchen, might have also contributed to the boost in her spirits.

Nell sighed and her lips stretched into a defeated half smile. She reached into a cupboard, took out four small plates, and transferred them to the table. Like Nell’s kitchen, her dinnerware dated from the 1950s, with a coral and gold color scheme, now faded, and a pattern that evoked wildflowers and wheat.

“You’re wondering why I was so sure the body of that poor woman was Mary Lyon,” Nell said as she set plates in front of her guests, and in front of Harold, who had taken a seat. He put a doughnut on each plate, then jumped to his feet again.

“We certainly are,” Pamela said.

“It was her blog,” Nell explained. Harold motioned her into a chair and began bustling around the kitchen. As Nell spoke, he busied himself at the counter and then added napkins, spoons, and cream and sugar to the table setting. Nell went on. “Mary had posted photos of the costumes she and her husband planned to wear: Little Bo Peep and a sheep. So anyone who followed her blog . . .”

Pamela nodded. Harold appeared behind Nell and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. He bent toward Nell’s ear and whispered, “More tea, my dear?”

She turned and looked up at him. “Oh, Harold, yes,” she said. “That would be so sweet—especially if I’m going to eat one of your doughnuts.”

“So how did Dawn Filbert end up wearing the Bo Peep costume?” Bettina asked.

“Mary and Brainard had a fight and he stayed home last night,” Harold answered from the counter, where he was spooning tea leaves into a squat brown teapot. “That’s why he was nowhere to be seen at the bonfire—or later. Mary recruited her hairdresser—Dawn—to go as Bo Peep. She herself wore the sheep costume.”

“Harold talked to Brainard this morning,” Nell explained. “They were both outside first thing, collecting the Register.”

The teakettle began to hoot and Harold stepped toward the stove. He added boiling water to the tea leaves in the squat teapot and began serving the coffee.

“Sad,” Nell murmured as she watched her husband focus on these domestic tasks. “So sad when couples can’t get along.”

Harold slipped steaming cups of coffee in front of Pamela and Bettina. “That’s what comes of marrying after a whirlwind romance,” he commented. “Not like Nell and me.” He winked at Pamela. “She was elusive,” he said, pointing at Nell. “But I was determined. The Lyon-Covingtons, on the other hand—love at first sight, once he got a look at Mary. At least that’s how she tells it. Of course, he was already engaged to her sister—” He jumped up. “I’m forgetting the tea!” he said. He reached the counter in two large strides and with two more had delivered Nell’s tea.

They were barely settled and taking the first bite of their doughnuts when Bettina, uncharacteristically, reached into her purse and pulled out her smartphone. “I’m just too curious,” she said as her fingers danced over the little screen. After a few moments, she exclaimed, “Here it is!” She passed the smartphone to Harold, who glanced and nodded and handed it to Nell.

“That is the blog post,” Nell said, handing the phone to Pamela.

Laid out on what looked to be a bed covered with a smooth spread was a pink-and-white-striped dress. A scalloped overskirt in solid pink and a wide white organdy collar trimmed in lace gave it a charming old-fashioned look. Above the dress was perched a straw sunbonnet trimmed with a wide pink ribbon, and a shepherd’s crook lay alongside. Next to the dress was a lamb’s costume, like a long-sleeved, hooded jumpsuit sewn from a fleecy white fabric, with fleecy mittens attached to the ends of the sleeves. The hood featured ears. A separate mask lay atop the hood, a half mask, actually, with eyeholes and a lamb’s snout.

* * *

An hour later, Bettina swung into her driveway and parked her faithful Toyota next to Wilfred’s ancient but lovingly maintained Mercedes.

“Well,” she said, turning to Pamela. “That was interesting. It certainly sounds like the killer could have been aiming for Mary.”

“Could have been,” Pamela agreed. “With the blond wig and the sunbonnet—those hats really hide a person’s face from any angle except straight on. And it was dark. Anybody stalking Dawn Filbert to kill her would have had a hard time recognizing her. On the other hand, anybody who knew, or thought they knew, exactly what Mary’s costume was going to be . . .”

“I’m talking to Clayborn tomorrow, for the Advocate,” Bettina said. “I’ll see if he has any new tidbits. By then, the police will have interviewed people in Dawn’s circle. Maybe there was a jealous boyfriend . . . or somebody who hated the way their hair turned out . . .”

“I almost hope so.” Pamela reached for the door handle. “That would mean Dawn was the intended target and there won’t be any more murders.” She stepped out onto the asphalt of Bettina’s driveway, but then leaned back into the car. “I’m afraid there will be, though. That yarn around Dawn’s neck—I don’t think the plan was to leave it hanging loose. But then the killer got a good look at Dawn’s face and realized the woman in the Little Bo Peep costume wasn’t who he expected.”

Bettina’s eyes got large and she raised her carefully manicured fingertips to her mouth. “Oh my,” she whispered. “And maybe he thought—hoped then—that he’d only knocked her out, and so he didn’t carry through with the strangling. I’ll point that out to Clayborn. And about the costume too.”

“What time are you seeing Detective Clayborn?” Pamela asked, still leaning into the car.

“Eleven.”

“I’ll meet you at Hyler’s at twelve,” Pamela said.

“You know I never say no to lunch at Hyler’s.” Bettina smiled and Pamela waved goodbye.

* * *

It was a bright fall day, made all the cheerier by the convivial parishioners lingering on the steps and sidewalk of the church next to Pamela’s house. They chatted and laughed and called to one another, as if unconcerned about the fact that Arborville’s town park had been the scene of a startling murder less than twenty-four hours before.

Arborville was a charming small town, a town untouched by the social problems that afflict urban environments. But, curiously, Arborville had had its share of murders over the years. They weren’t committed by frightening people, but rather by ordinary people who one would never think could do such a thing—until they did. And even more curiously, Pamela and Bettina’s insights had frequently led them to solve murders that left the police baffled.

* * *

Pamela’s computer waited at the ready in her upstairs office, its keyboard warmed by the presence of a slumbering ginger cat. She’d checked her email first thing that morning, and now it took only a gentle click of the mouse to awaken the screen. She didn’t expect an email bringing work assignments on a Sunday—though her boss at Fiber Craft magazine seemed not to observe holidays or recognize weekends. But she suspected there would be an email from her daughter Penny. Penny’s college was in Massachusetts, but thanks to friends who emailed and texted, she often knew as much about the goings-on in Arborville as did her mother—or even more.

Pamela transferred Ginger to her lap, clicked to open her email page, and clicked again to open the new message from Penny Paterson.

“Mom,” the message read. “I slept late and now I am sending this to tell you I just found out what happened last night because lots of people on campus are from towns not that far from Arborville. I hope you and Bettina are not going to get involved in any way like you do sometimes if there’s something to do with knitting.”

Pamela thought for a minute as she scratched Ginger between the ears. Then she responded. “You do not need to worry,” she wrote. “There’s no connection between that poor young woman Dawn Filbert and Knit and Nibble and I’m sure the police will have everything figured out in no time. Love, Mom.”