Читать книгу Knit of the Living Dead - Peggy Ehrhart - Страница 9

Chapter 1

Pamela Paterson was feeling unimaginative. The figures moving in and out of the bright circle created by the bonfire’s dancing flames resembled wizards, mermaids, medieval jesters, zombies—and here was her best friend, Bettina Fraser, as a very credible Raggedy Ann, with a red yarn wig replacing Bettina’s own equally vivid scarlet hair. Pamela had done her best with her costume, but the outfit she had come up with—black slacks, a black sweater, and a headband featuring cat ears—now struck her as woefully lacking. At least she could have added whiskers and a tail!

The event was Arborville’s much-anticipated Halloween celebration, a parade down Arborville Avenue that allowed everyone to show off their costumes, followed by a bonfire in the town park. As Pamela chatted with Bettina, they were joined by Bettina’s husband, Wilfred. His post-retirement uniform of blue denim bib overalls formed the basis of his Raggedy Andy costume, and a plaid shirt and red yarn wig completed the look. Bettina’s costume was more elaborate. She wore a long-sleeved cotton dress in a colorful old-fashioned print, topped by a ruffled white pinafore. On her legs were red-and-white-striped stockings and on her feet black patent leather Mary Janes.

“We’ve been so lucky with the weather,” Bettina observed as a woman in the flowing draperies of a Greek goddess strolled by. “It’s such a shame to put a lot of effort into a costume and then have to hide it by bundling up in a coat.”

“Here you are!” said a cheery voice from behind Pamela. “Hardly anyone looks like themselves tonight.” Pamela turned to greet Nell Bascomb who, along with Bettina, was a fellow member of the Arborville knitting club, nicknamed Knit and Nibble.

“You look like yourself, though, Pamela,” Nell went on. She stepped back to survey Pamela in the light created by the brightly blazing logs. “What are you supposed to be?”

Pamela tipped her head forward and pointed to the cat ears that completed her simple costume.

“Oh, Catrina!” Nell clapped her hands. “Your sweet kitty.”

Nell herself wore a filmy white dress that looked like it had once been a curtain, topped by a sky-blue cape and accessorized with a tiara and a magic wand.

“A fairy godmother?” Bettina suggested and Nell nodded.

The costume was appropriate. Nell, in her eighties, was Knit and Nibble’s oldest member, but her age gave her a gentle wisdom that was much appreciated by the other Knit and Nibblers.

Wilfred caught sight of one of his historical society friends and excused himself to say hello. Pamela, Bettina, and Nell moved closer to the fire, where they stared at the flames in companionable silence, enjoying the crackling of the logs and the aroma of wood smoke. Despite the fact that the night wasn’t cool enough to require bundling up, the air felt restless. Tree branches tossed by wind gusts sighed nearby, and overhead the moon was full and yellow. It wasn’t hard, Pamela thought, to share in the awe that had made earlier people see in the transition from summer to winter a time when the line separating this world from the other world blurred.

Despite the festive atmosphere and good cheer, the bonfire awoke feelings more appropriate to a pagan celebration marking nature’s mysterious powers. The flames illuminated rapt faces, dramatizing features and rendering the familiar unfamiliar. Pamela felt herself shiver despite the heat, and she was just as glad when, after a time, Bettina said, “I feel like I’m burning up. Let’s step back a little and let someone else have a front-row spot.”

They eased through the crowd, past the Greek goddess, a jester, a pirate, and several other costumed revelers, and meandered across the grass until they were near the little stand of trees that marked the northeast border of the park. A light on a tall pole illuminated that corner of the park, though—given the bright moonlight—it was hardly needed on this night.

“Harold is here somewhere,” Nell said, naming her husband. “He’s probably met up with Wilfred and their historical society pals.”

“How about the rest of the Knit and Nibblers?” Bettina asked. “I can’t see our straitlaced Roland in a costume, but Holly must be here somewhere. She’s one of Arborville’s biggest boosters and she’d never miss an event like this.”

Bettina took a few steps back toward the bonfire and Pamela followed her, peering toward the crowd. But the contrast between the darkness and the glare of the flames blurred her vision, and the point of the costumes was—after all—to disguise, so it was impossible to recognize any one particular person.

As they stood there staring at the shifting mass of revelers, a sound from behind her distracted Pamela. She grabbed Bettina’s arm and whispered, “What was that?”

“Someone screamed,” Bettina whispered back.

The sound came again, louder, establishing that it was indeed a scream, and that the person screaming was moving closer.

“It’s coming from back in those trees,” Pamela said. She turned toward the stand of trees at the edge of the park. Nell had turned too, her filmy dress catching the beams of light from the tall pole.

Pamela took a few hurried steps toward the stand of trees. A dirt path provided a shortcut to the tennis courts and to restrooms in a rustic stone building, and Pamela launched herself onto the path just as the scream came again. It was shadowy back among the trees, but the moonlight offered enough illumination to navigate by.

“Oh my God,” wailed a horrified voice. “She’s dead!”

The next moment, Pamela found herself hugging a terrified young woman. She backed up the way she’d come, drawing the young woman along with her. After she’d progressed a few feet, two voices competed for her attention.

One voice was Bettina’s, calling her name, and the voice was soon complemented by Bettina’s presence. Bettina wrapped both Pamela and her young charge—who was by this time weeping—in a hug of her own, and the three of them paused amid the trees.

The other voice was not calling Pamela. It was a young man’s voice and it was calling someone named Misty.

A figure darted out from behind a tree, a figure not much larger than the young woman who was still clinging to Pamela, but the full moon provided enough light to reveal the newcomer as a young man—or, really, a teenage boy. And the young woman looked to be a girl, really, a girl of about thirteen or fourteen.

“Misty!” he called again, and the young woman pushed away from Pamela. She whirled around, and in a moment the boy—Pamela couldn’t think of him as anything other—was grasping her as intensely as she had grasped Pamela.

Bettina had by this time let go of Pamela as well. Now she stood beside Pamela and was the first of the two to find her voice.

“What on earth is going on?” she asked.

As the boy stroked the girl’s hair and the girl sobbed, Bettina’s words were echoed by another voice, Nell’s gentle voice. Nell crept up beside them, repeating her query.

“Someone is dead.” The boy’s arms tightened even more protectively around the girl’s back. His voice struck Pamela as an approximation of official voices in the crime dramas on television, as if he was trying to impress his girlfriend with his sangfroid.

“Dead! What do you mean?” Bettina’s voice was as frantic as his had been calm.

The girl twisted loose from the boy’s embrace and pointed farther along the path that wound back in among the shadowy trees. With a hiccupping sob, she moaned, “There’s a body back there. A woman.”

Pamela stared into the shadows, surprised to notice a beam of light emanating from behind her, bobbing among the trees. Footsteps approached from the rear and a deep, masculine voice said, “What’s the commotion about? Somebody got lost on the way to the restrooms? I keep telling them we need a decent light back here.”

Gus Warburton had joined them. He was one of the rec department stalwarts and a key organizer of the Halloween celebration. The beam of light had been cast by his flashlight.

“These . . . these . . . kids say there’s a body—” Pamela ventured.

Gus laughed. “People get up to all kinds of things back in these woods. Couples . . . looking for privacy, if you know what I mean.” He jabbed an elbow into Pamela’s ribs and she winced.

“No, no,” the boy stuttered, and it occurred to Pamela that he and Misty had perhaps been looking for privacy so they could get up to things undisturbed. “This was a body, just one person, lying there and not moving.”

Gus plunged forward along the path, his flashlight beam leading the way. As Pamela started to follow, she felt Bettina grab her arm—not to pull her back, but to assure her own footing on the none-too-smooth dirt path.

Nell’s resolute “I’m coming too” floated after them.

The small procession made its way through the trees until the stone building that housed the restrooms came into view. The path, however, was obstructed by the body of a woman. Gus uttered a brief profanity as his dancing flashlight beam picked out details. The woman was wearing a pink-and-white-striped dress in an old-fashioned style, with a scalloped overskirt in solid pink and a wide white organdy collar trimmed in lace. She had apparently once been wearing a blond wig, but that was now lying amid some fallen leaves a few feet from her head. The charming straw sunbonnet that had complemented the outfit had, however, been placed back on her head—though in a way that completely hid her face.

“What’s that?” Gus whispered, as if the circumstances now called for reverence. “Around her neck?” He aimed the flashlight at a spot below the edge of the sunbonnet’s brim and above the edge of the organdy collar.

Pamela stepped closer and bent down. Several strands of thick yarn had been wrapped around the woman’s neck. “Yarn,” she whispered.

“Strangled, looks like,” Gus pronounced sagely.

“That’s Mary Lyon,” said another voice. It was Nell. She had caught up with them and her tone was more wondering than shocked. “My across-the-street neighbor,” she added.

“Can’t see her face,” Gus said. “So how do you know?”

“Bo Peep,” Nell said, her voice starting to quaver. “That’s her costume—Little Bo Peep. Look!” Nell took Gus’s hand and guided the flashlight beam to a spot a few feet away from the woman’s feet. “There’s her shepherd’s crook.”

A long staff with a curl at the top lay in the dirt. Bettina squealed and reached for Nell’s arm.

Pamela had looked up during this exchange, but now she motioned to Gus to redirect the flashlight, and she bent toward the dead woman’s neck again. She knew not to touch anything at a crime scene, but she stared—hard. There were no marks on the woman’s neck and the ends of the yarn hung loose. It was as if the plan to strangle had been abandoned at the last minute—though the victim had clearly been killed by some other means.