Knot the Usual Suspects (8 page)

“T
wo meetings?” Mel Gresham said when I told her the posse was back in business. She'd arrived early for the yarn bomb meeting, bearing her project bag, a bakery box, and an insulated carafe. Ardis hadn't been kidding when she said Mel was busier than any two of us combined, and I felt bad for making her green hair spikes droop. “I'm not thrilled. But for you, Red, and because I feel a sense of duty to the posse, to this town, and to anyone who finds himself dead in his kilt, I'll stay and hear you and Ardis out. Who's coming for the first meeting?”

“It's easier to say who isn't. Joe and Rachel can't make it. As far as I know everyone else will be here.”

“Rachel Meeks,” Mel said. “That tickles the tar out of me. Who knew Rachel the banker had a sense of adventure, much less a desire to creep around town committing fiber graffiti?”

*   *   *

We held our meetings in the TGIF workroom on the second floor of the Weaver's Cat. Granddaddy had made the
airy space by taking out the wall between the two back bedrooms. Granny had filled it with oak worktables, half a dozen comfy chairs, and a parade of mismatched Welsh dressers for storage around the walls. The members of TGIF kept the room filled with all manner of fibers, fabrics, colors, textures, and a healthy amount of laughter. Mel generously kept any meeting she attended from going hungry by bringing treats from the café.

“Generous nothing,” Mel said when I thanked her. She opened the bakery box, which smelled of apple and cinnamon. “My contributions are a totally mercenary gesture. This is advertising through free samples.” She set a plate of something that looked crusty, flaky, and warm on one of the Welsh dressers. “But if you want to call my gesture ‘spreading the love,' that's okay by me.” She wore a pair of black-and-white houndstooth chef's pants, a white T-shirt, and an apron that matched her hair.

“Do you get your aprons dyed to match your hair or vice versa?” I asked.

“Trade secrets.”

Ernestine arrived, puffing from the stairs, in time to catch and misinterpret Mel's answer. “Oh no, let's not trade secrets yet,” she said. She held on to the doorframe with one hand and put the other to her chest as she took several gasping breaths. “I've kept a few bombs secret to surprise all of you. And I'd still like to be surprised by everyone else's secret bombs. So let's not trade secrets and spoil the fun.”

“I was talking about my hair, Ernestine.”

“Were you?” Ernestine peered at Mel, and Mel ran her fingers through her spikes, giving them extra lift. “Well, I've always liked your hair, so that's all right, then.”

Ardis and John Berry had come up with the idea of secret bombs. After Thea's slide show and some Web surfing, they'd decided it would be fun if we each planned to hit extra targets on our own, with more than the basic strips and rectangles. That way, when the rest of Blue Plum woke up Friday morning and discovered the results of our creativity, the bomb squad could share the fun by looking for the touches and embellishments we'd added behind each other's backs.

“I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to tomorrow night,” Ernestine said. She let Mel take her project bag and her arm and walk with her to one of the comfy chairs arranged for the meeting. She settled in the chair and Mel handed the project bag back to her. Ernestine smiled sweetly at the empty chair next to her and flashed her thick lenses at the other empty chairs and around her. “Hello, everyone,” she said.

Mel sat in the chair next to Ernestine's and took what looked like a striped scarf—or a psychedelic boa constrictor—from her own project bag. “I'm pretty sure I knitted fifteen yards of this stuff in my sleep last night,” she said. “That's not good for my sleep or my baking. Plus, my baby hat production is suffering.” She pointed one of her needles at me. “Not to worry, though, Red. I bet I still finished more hats this week
and
more yards of ordnance for the bombing than you did.”

“Thanks, Mel. If someone has to make up for my deficiencies in knitting, I'm glad it's you.”

“Baking, too. Don't forget that.”

“No question.”

“Glad we've got that straight. Now, where is everyone? Let's get this show on the road.”

“Isn't Ardis here?” Ernestine asked. “She was coming up the stairs behind me.”

“I'm here,” Abby, our Goth teen, said from the door. “Ms. Buchanan said she'll be just a minute. She went on up there.” She pointed toward the attic and the study.

Interesting—I hadn't seen Ardis go past the door and head for the stairs. Not that she wasn't welcome in the study anytime. And she knew that, but she considered the study my private space, as it had been Granny's, and she rarely intruded. If she'd nipped up there thinking she'd have a quick, friendly chat with Geneva, though . . . my glance ceiling-ward, toward the study, must have been uneasy.

“Have you got your trade secrets up there, Red?” Mel asked.

“My embarrassing mess, more like. Come on, Abby, let's surprise Ardis and start adding up this week's production. Joe's not here, so I'll take the pictures.”

We were documenting the project from start to finish, so that we'd know what did and didn't work if we decided to yarn-bomb again. We kept track of the amount of material we produced and Joe took pictures of it. He planned to write an article about it for the paper in Asheville.

Abby took paper and a pencil from a drawer in one of the Welsh dressers and then sat on the edge of the chair opposite Mel and Ernestine. “Ms. O'Dell, what shall I write down for you?”

“Ten feet made from red acrylic leftover from some bygone Boy Scout project. If I remember right, that was the year a first-time den mother thought the boys would enjoy making poinsettias out of it, but they had more fun
making reindeer with glue and Popsicle sticks. Your daddy might have been in that den, Abby.”

“Gramma hangs the reindeer at the top of her tree every year,” Abby said. “Ms. Rutledge, how much for you?”

“A fifteen-foot strip of random stripes,” I said, trying not to sound as pleased as I felt for trumping Ernestine's output for once.

“That's wonderful, Kath,” Ernestine said. “You were a real powerhouse this week. Abby, dear, jot me in for twenty-five feet of random stripes, too.”

We'd decided our basic yarn bomb units would be strips—five inches wide and as long as we cared to make them. They could be knitted or crocheted. Stitch choice was anyone's fancy. I stuck to garter stitch for maximum efficiency and speed, and my output wasn't as shabby as Mel liked to joke, even if I didn't match Ernestine's. There were a dozen of us going at it, needle and hook, including some who were happy to knit and crochet, but who had no plans to join us after dark Thursday night for the actual deed. We planned to wrap the strips around lampposts and railings, and piece them together or hang them side by side to cover larger areas.

From idea to installation, we'd only had a month, but our mad preparations had put a serious dent in the yarn stashes all over Blue Plum. The colors showing up in our strips ranged from eye-dazzling, to appealing, to motley, to puzzling. It was no wonder Mel felt as though she'd been knitting strips in her sleep; we all felt as though we'd produced miles of the stuff.

“That old red acrylic was more fun than what I'm going to use next,” Ernestine said. She pulled a large ball
of grayish, yellowish chunky yarn from her project bag. “My daughter donated this to the cause. It'll work up quickly, but can anyone think why in the world she would have bought something this color? I have trouble making myself touch it.”

“Does that color even have a name?” Mel asked.

“OMG,” Abby said. “Old moldy gravy.”

“Let's hope we never encounter its namesake in real life,” Mel said. “Not in my café, anyway.”

Goth Abby had a sudden bright spark in her kohl-lined eye. “If you knit something flat and kind of like an amoeba with that stuff, it could look like a toxic puddle on the sidewalk. A puddle full of pathogens. Ms. O'Dell, if you don't want to use it, may I?”

“Won't that be a cheerful surprise outside someone's door in the morning?” Mel said. “But”—she caught Ernestine's alarmed look—“Abby, if a puddle of toxic waste is your surprise, remember, we don't want to hear about it.”

“Unless you tell us where you're going to put it so we can avoid tripping over it or looking at it,” I said.

“Good point,” Mel said. “And, Ernestine, don't worry. If anyone tries to spoil your fun by revealing any more secrets, I'll jab her with a knitting needle.”

Ernestine handed the ball of yarn across to Abby, who thanked her with an un-Goth-like giggle, took knitting needles from her backpack, and started casting on.

We heard John and Thea kidding each other as they came up the stairs, and then Ardis greeting them as she came down from the study. They trooped in, and I tried to give Ardis a questioning look without being too obvious. The look wasn't obvious enough, though; she put her arm
through John's and they brushed past me without a glance. But I saw her whisper in his ear, no doubt telling him about the posse meeting we'd called. John spoke quietly to Thea and then claimed his favorite comfy chair.

Ardis headed straight for the coffee carafe Mel had set next to the strudel. She poured herself a cup, standing with her back to us. More feet on the stairs distracted the others, and I didn't think they noticed her bowed head and silence.

Wanda Vance popped into the room followed by slouching Zach Aikens. Zach was one of the teens Thea had lured to our meetings with the triple enticement of outsider art, creeping around town after dark, and snacks. Zach and our part-timer, Abby, were the only ones who'd actually joined TGIF and stuck with us through the month of preparation—not the resounding success Thea had hoped for, but she declared it a good start. Several of us had gotten to know Zach, as much as one ever knows teenagers, when we volunteered for a high school history program at the end of the summer. He was whip-thin and inquisitive. He and Goth Abby got along well together.

Wanda Vance called herself “a member in lurking” of TGIF. She came to the membership meetings on the second Tuesday evening of each month and always had a knitting project with her—generally something small and unremarkable-looking. She blended into the group unremarkably, too, tending toward neutral colors in her clothes and not varying the simple cut of her mouse-brown hair. She never stuck around for the hospitality half hour after the meetings, and hadn't joined any of TGIF's small subgroups, but yarn bombing had piqued her interest. In her own quiet way she was almost as
excited about it as Ernestine. Ardis told me Wanda had retired from a career in nursing and the Army Reserve Medical Corps. “Reserve” was the right word for her; I hadn't gotten to know her any better during our planning meetings.

“All right, listen up, people.” Thea put her hands on Zach's shoulders and pushed him toward an empty chair. I slipped into the chair between Zach's and Mel's. “No Show Joe is busy with less important things like getting his booth ready for Handmade Blue Plum. Rachel's in her countinghouse counting out someone else's money. Tammie is babysitting the destructosaurus and the wailer, but was kind enough to not to bring them here. They'll be here tomorrow night. Tammie without the terrors.”

Tammie Fain, an indulgent grandmother of two under the age of three, had made the mistake of bringing her darlings to a meeting only once. It was a meeting none of us was likely to forget.

“First point of business,” Thea said, “when and where do you show up tomorrow night?”

“Excuse me, Thea,” Ardis said, turning to face the room, “but the first point of business is a bigger question.
Should
you show up tomorrow night?”

“What?”

Ardis went on as though Thea hadn't just exploded. “My answer is yes, and I'll tell you why, but each of you will need to make your own decision. By now, I'm sure you've heard about the death that occurred here in town last night.
I
will show up tomorrow night
because
of that death, to honor the memory of Hugh McPhee. Hugh was a student of mine, way back when, and he planned to
join us tomorrow night. But now, given the circumstances of his death, we'll understand if anyone would rather not participate in the yarn bombing. I'm thinking of our younger members in particular,” she said, looking at Abby and Zach. “And of your parents who might be worried.”

“Handmade Blue Plum hasn't been canceled, though, has it?” Thea asked.

“No.”

“Then why—”

“The question had to be brought up,” I said. “I agree with Ardis; we should go ahead with the yarn bombing, but no hard feelings if anyone has second thoughts before tomorrow night.”

“Good,” Thea said. “Let's get back to business. When and where do you show up tomorrow night? By ten minutes to ten, here. Back door only, though, right?” She looked at Ardis for confirmation, but Ardis was staring into her coffee cup.

“Right. Back door,” I said.

“And here's what to bring with you,” Thea said, reading from a list. “Backpacks with extra yarn, knitting needles, hooks, blunt needles with large eyes, scissors, and flashlights. If you have duct tape, that isn't a bad idea, either. We'll have the strips ready to go in black garbage bags. Any strips you haven't already dropped off here at the Cat, bring tomorrow night. In black garbage bags. No white. Wear dark colors tomorrow night. I won't call out the names of you with gray heads, but cover them.”

“Are the tags ready?” John asked.

Thea turned to me. “Kath?”

“Joe said he'll have them.”

Our pre-bombing research told us that yarn graffiti artists often tagged their work—as a way of claiming it without signing their names to it—just as paint graffiti artists did. Tags might be symbols, nicknames, or the name of the groups involved, and some bombers knitted or crocheted their tags right into their designs. We were working with so little lead time we'd decided to print our tags and tie them on like package labels. Joe had offered to design and make them, and he wasn't in the habit of letting people down, but he didn't always step into the same river of time as the rest of us.