Yarn to Go (13 page)

I noticed Kris yawning and knew that she’d gone beyond the job she’d been hired for, and I appreciated it no end and told her. Then I mentioned I’d seen her being interviewed by the Channel 3 TV news reporter.

“Oh, that,” she said. “While you were all out on your walk, I needed to stretch my legs. The reporter was hanging just outside the gate and snagged me.” Kris smiled. “Just like Kevin St. John requested, I was discreet. When she asked about Edie, I just brought up the Retreat in a Box launch instead. You have no idea how important that is to me. And as for helping out tonight, this is the last time I’ll be doing a retreat like this, so I don’t mind doing something extra,” she said, sounding a little nostalgic. Her gaze moved over the group. “Between Joan not being here and with Edie’s death . . .” Her voice trailed off as she swallowed a few times.

“Edie was certainly the spark in the group,” Lucinda said. “She was a spark wherever she went. After she mentioned that she’d eaten at the Blue Door, I thought about it and it all came back to me. She made quite an impression. Well, most customers don’t ask to speak to the cook so they can suggest he try their Osso Buco recipe.” My friend reminded us of how Edie had brought up her meal at the restaurant when we first heard about Amanda. Lucinda held her knitting in mid-stitch. “She must have seen Amanda leaving for her walk just before she came to the restaurant.” Lucinda swallowed hard. “While Edie was raving about her Osso Buco, Amanda had probably already fallen and was lying helpless amidst the rocks.”

I asked if Edie was alone at the restaurant, and Lucinda had to think. “She had such a presence I almost forgot about her dining partner. She was with a man, but he seemed to be trying to hide in the corner.”

After the scene Lucinda had described, who could blame him?

“It was probably her husband,” Sissy said, but Kris shook her head.

“I don’t think so. Edie told me that these retreats were her chance to get away from home and all that went with it.”

“You don’t happen to remember what the guy looked like, do you?” I said. Lucinda stopped knitting and concentrated.

“No, I don’t. There was something that stood out about him, but I can’t remember what it was.”

“I wonder if that’s the same man I saw Edie with when I first met your aunt Joan. He kept kind of a low profile, so I didn’t get much of a look at him,” Melissa said.

“Do you think you both would recognize the man if you saw him again?” I asked. Neither seemed certain. “I think his name is Michael,” I said. “And he’s here at Vista Del Mar now.” The whole group seemed to suck in their breath. I told them about meeting him and his questions about Edie.

“Maybe you should talk to Lieutenant Borgnine and tell him about this Michael person. He sounds kind of suspicious to me,” Kris said. “Maybe he was just playing dumb when he asked all those questions about Edie.”

“So in case you’d seen them together, you wouldn’t think he was a suspect,” Lucinda said to me.

“Good thinking. Tell Lieutenant Borgnine about him,” Scott said. “Anything to get the heat off of us.”

I noticed he’d been staying out of the conversation. He had never moved from his position in the corner, so anyone passing through the area wouldn’t necessarily think the man in the preppy khakis and blue oxford cloth shirt was part of our group.

He was working on a square but was using two short needles with a cable between them. By now I knew enough to get that they were called circular needles. Kris had explained that they were used when knitting in the round, hence the name. They were also quite discreet compared to a long pair of metal needles, and could be slipped into the briefcase Scott used as a tote.

Something had been on my mind since I had talked to Dane. I decided to put it to the group. “Do any of you know anything about Edie taking sleeping pills?” They waited, expecting me to say more. I made a quick decision to spare them all the gory details. So I said nothing about the residue on the pillow and the fact that the knitting needles weren’t the cause of death. I just mentioned I’d heard the medical examiner thought she had taken sleeping pills.

“Edie take sleeping pills?” Bree said, starting to shake her head. “I can’t believe she did that.” Bree suddenly looked uncomfortable and stopped herself.

“You were going to say something,” I said. Bree fidgeted with her hoodie and looked down at her square, poking at the yarn.

“It’s just Edie was telling me what she thought of Olivia’s sleeping pills. Edie called them a crutch and said she would never take them, and well, she said we ought to make sure that Olivia didn’t take too many because she seemed so upset about something, she might . . .”

Olivia snapped out of her usual oblivion and her eyes flashed. “Commit suicide? No way. I would never . . .” She threw the young mother an annoyed stare. “I just brought the sleeping pills to get through this weekend.”

“Maybe she gave Edie the sleeping pills,” Melissa said to the rest of us.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Olivia said, her voice rising in emotion. She rummaged around in her purse. “I didn’t give one to Edie or anyone else. I took one myself, and there were ten in the bottle.” She held up the bottle for them to examine it and then went to put it back in her purse. I noted that the prescription was for phenobarbital.

“Not so fast,” Melissa said. “Let’s see how many there are now.”

“You can’t be serious,” Olivia said. Her face was flushed with anger.

“I think you better let us see how many pills there are,” Kris said. “Just to end the discussion.”

Shaking her head with annoyance, Olivia poured out the contents on a piece of paper. Everyone stood up and gathered around, beginning to count.

A gasp went through the group as they all came up with the same number.

“That can’t be,” Olivia said. “I know I brought ten pills and I took one. How can there be only five?”

“Have we figured out who was the last one to see Edie alive?” Kris said. Suddenly Olivia pushed back her chair so hard it fell backward before she rushed off to her room.

15

FOR A MOMENT THERE WAS JUST SILENCE IN THE
wake of Olivia’s abrupt departure. Then Sissy looked around the group. “It was Olivia, wasn’t it?” Sissy said with a hush in her voice.

“That’s right,” Melissa said. “I didn’t even think about that when I told Lieutenant Borgnine that she had walked Edie back to her room because she seemed so wobbly.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but Olivia never touched her wine. Maybe she was trying to keep a clear head for a reason,” Kris said. “And doesn’t it seem odd that someone so indifferent to the group would have suddenly been so concerned that she offered to take Edie to her room?”

“So, nobody saw Edie after that?” Scott called from his corner.

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then a log in the fireplace made a popping sound and dropped with a soft thud, which made the whole group jump.

“You all stopped knitting,” I said. “We should continue on with our squares.” I tried to get them over the rough spot, but there was no going back to the cozy atmosphere of the knit-together.

“I’m going to call it a night,” Kris said, putting her things back in her tote bag. I had to remind myself that she had gone above and beyond her duties to help me with the knit-together and there was no reason she had to stay. Everyone else followed her lead and put away their knitting. Though it was ten o’clock, no one seemed to be thinking of going to bed. Melissa and Sissy said they were heading to the Lodge for a game of table tennis. I was glad I didn’t have to referee that.

Scott just waved as he walked outside, giving no indication of his plans. Bree grabbed her backpack with her tablet sticking out and said something about Wi-Fi being available only in the Lodge. I wondered if she was going to have her husband wake up the kids so she could read them a bedtime story.

Lucinda and I were the only ones left. “What do I do with the information about Olivia?” I said.

“You could pass it on to Lieutenant Borgnine,” Lucinda offered.

I shook my head with a decided motion. “Not unless I have proof she killed Edie. Otherwise it feels disloyal. And I thought of a reason why Olivia might not have touched her wine. She knew she was going to take a sleeping pill and she knew they didn’t mix.” I thought over what I had just said, but it didn’t make me feel much better.

“I suggest we let it rest and adjourn to my room.” Lucinda got up and stretched. I grabbed my bag and we went down the first-floor hall toward her room. I avoided looking at the housekeeping carts blocking Edie’s room.

Lucinda flipped on the lights and collapsed on the narrow twin bed under the window. Once again when I looked around the sparse room I thought of an old dormitory room or maybe something from a camp. Certainly not a hotel room. No soft mattress cover or mound of pillows or any hint of luxury. And yet it was the perfect room for someone going on a retreat. Weren’t you supposed to be stepping away from the world to a simpler place?

My friend motioned for me to sit, and I took the other twin bed. All of a sudden Lucinda leaned back and started waving her feet in the air until her Cole Haan sneakers went flying off her feet and landed in different corners of the room.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” she said with a giggle. “Tag would have a fit and probably be scrambling to put the shoes in a perfect parallel position under the bed. I know I should be upset about Edie, but I have to say I am really enjoying this weekend. Kris is brilliant the way she came up with an individual project for each of us. It’s just a little more than the first day and already I can purl.” Lucinda pulled out the square she’d started and waved it in front of me. “Look, I’m doing the stockinette stitch.”

She reached into my bag and took out the little bit I’d done on my square and pointed out the difference between the two.

“Now I get it,” I said, noting that mine was the same on both sides, with rows of ridges and rows of smooth, but with hers, each side was completely different. One side was all smooth and one was all ridges.

Lucinda leaned against the wall and stretched out her legs on the bed before starting the next row. She seemed to enjoy messing up the bedspread with her stocking feet and knitting with abandon. “You don’t know what it’s like living in such precise order. If I did this at home, Tag would be straightening the bedspread as fast as I mussed it.”

“All I can say is thank heavens my aunt hired Kris for this weekend. Too bad she won’t be doing the retreats anymore. But then I guess it isn’t my concern anyway, since this is my first, last and only retreat.”

“These Petit Retreats must have been a lot of work for her. You have to remember, it’s a job to her. It sounds like the Retreat in a Box thing is definitely a step up. What a great idea,” Lucinda said. She repeated what Kris had said about being able to go into a yarn or hobby store and by filling out a questionnaire, have a project custom designed for you. “Aren’t computers amazing?” Lucinda said. “I’ll probably be one of her first customers.”

I didn’t say anything, but if Kris was depending on my business for her Retreat in a Box, she was going to be in trouble. I would work on the project she gave me, but then I planned to hang up my needles.

Eventually we ended up talking about Olivia again and whether she was really a suspect. “I think so,” Lucinda said. “We know she has something on her mind. We know that Edie said one of her stick-her-foot-in-her-mouth comments to her. Maybe Olivia was like a rubber band pulled too tight and Edie’s comment made her snap.”

“And somehow she got the sleeping pills in Edie’s wine, so when she got Edie back to her room she could smother her with ease.” I finished saying it and realized what I’d said. “Eeww, what an awful thought.”

But I needed to know more about Olivia to figure out if that scenario could be true. Then I thought of my aunt’s papers for the retreat. I had been carrying her purple file like it was some kind of shield, and only recently had I tucked it into the recycled plastic tote bag I’d found for the yarn and needles. I pulled it out and opened it, thumbing through the pages until I found the one marked
Olivia Golden
.

I had read through the sheets before the retreat and again as I was greeting people, but it was different now that I’d gotten to know everyone. I found Olivia’s sheet, hoping for some kind of clue, but it was as empty as I remembered it. Just bare-bones information, and it said the trip was a gift, but not from who.

“Maybe if we find out who gave the trip to her, it might help,” I said. I put the sheet back in and thumbed through the rest of the pages before closing the file. At the back, I found two pages had gotten stuck together. The top one was Bree’s information, but I hadn’t seen the other piece of paper before. It was filled with my aunt’s distinctive handwriting and seemed to be notes of a sort. She had listed the group and written strings of words that must have made sense to her but seemed cryptic to me. Like after Scott’s, it said,
BBB
.

“Look, here’s your name,” I said. I pointed it out, and next to it was
#344
. When I took it back, I swallowed hard when I saw my name was on the list, too.

I read over what it said.
S&SS.
“What does that mean, and why is my name on the list?”

Lucinda sighed. “Your aunt talked me into the retreat. I bet she planned to do the same with you. Whatever S&SS means, I’m sure it was something nice. You know she loved you.”

I am not a crybaby
, I repeated in my head as I felt my eyes beginning to well up. I tried to will the water back, but it kept coming. In an effort to hold back the dam, I avoided looking at my name on the list and checked what she’d written next to Edie’s.
2 at 1
. What did that mean? Olivia’s listing just had
lux
.

“I don’t know what any of it means,” I said to Lucinda, feeling full of regret. “Who am I kidding? I can’t take my aunt’s place even for this weekend.” I put the sheet back in the file, which dislodged a page at the back. I scooped it up and shook my head. “Here are the notes I took from my call with Frank,” I said, shaking my head in annoyance at myself. “If I’d had them when I saw Officer Party Hardy, I might have been able to ask him some intelligent questions.”

I guess it was the stress, but my eyes got watery again, and before I could push them back, tears started to roll down my cheeks. Embarrassed, I got up to leave, but Lucinda stood next to me and put her arm around my shoulders, which was a little bit of a reach since I was taller than she was. But it didn’t matter; the support felt good. She just let me cry, and then when I was done, handed me a tissue.

“Feel better?” she said.

I forced a smile and nodded. It was like after a storm when the ground is still wet but the air is all clear.

I put the sheets back in the file and shut it, noticing that Lucinda was trying to hide a yawn. I realized that while I was a night owl and normally would have just started to bake around now, Lucinda wasn’t. I packed up my stuff and wished her a good night.

When I left her room, I instinctively looked down the hall toward the blockade in front of Edie’s room. I was surprised to see that the door to her room was open and two men were standing in the doorway. The walls of the hall were dark wood, and the lighting wasn’t the brightest, so it was easy for me to disappear into the shadows and ease my way down the hall until I was close enough to hear them.

Even from the back I recognized Kevin St. John. Not only was he the only person wearing a suit in the casual atmosphere of the hotel and conference center, but there was something about his posture. He always stood very tall, and the way he held his head made it seem like he was looking down on all the little people. The man next to him was a little shorter, and there was something rumpled about his appearance.

“I’m sure you’ll want to pack up her things,” Kevin said, but the man kept staring in the room.

“The cops said she was alone,” the man said, “but did you see her with anybody?” Kevin started to explain the retreat, but the man stopped him. “I was thinking about something different. A man,” he said.

As much as I would have liked to hear more, I didn’t want Kevin St. John to catch me skulking in the hall. I slipped away without making a sound and then crossed into the living room area where we’d been knitting a short time earlier. The fire was down to embers, and all the chairs were empty.

Outside the air was cold and damp, and I zipped up my fleece jacket. There was a constant roar from the ocean just a short distance away. I followed the path back toward the heart of the conference center. I was about to turn onto the driveway that led to the street, when I glanced toward the Lodge. Light was pouring out of the windows, illuminating the area around them. It seemed like a beacon in the quiet darkness of the rest of the place. I was curious to see if anything was going on there and, like a moth, followed the light. I stopped at the first window and looked into the large room that served as a social hall. The table tennis and pool tables were both quiet. In fact, it seemed like the whole room was quiet except for the person manning the registration desk. Then I saw Bree. She was hunched into the corner of a couch in the sitting area. She had her arms wrapped around herself as if she were trying to hold herself together. Her tablet was sitting on the coffee table in front of her, but the screen was dark.

I wasn’t sure where my responsibility for the group ended, but after what happened with Edie, it seemed better to err on the side of overdoing it. I went inside and walked up to her.

“What’s wrong? Did your kids claim your husband is making them sleep in the doghouse?” I said, trying to lighten the moment. It didn’t work, and her eyes got big and round as she looked around the empty room.

“I’m afraid to go to my room. I’m afraid to stay in there all alone. What if I’m next?” She looked like she might start to sob at any second. I wanted to tell her there wasn’t some mad murderer on the loose and that it was personal to Edie, but the truth was, I didn’t know for sure. She repeated the whole story of how she’d never gone anyplace alone before, never stayed in a hotel room alone, that she was supposed to come with another of the Ewes, but she’d canceled.

“I didn’t sleep a wink last night and that was before . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“C’mon,” I said, reaching out my hand. “I’ll walk you to your room and make sure everything is okay.” I watched her shoulders relax as she put her tablet in her bag and prepared to leave.

She hung on to my arm as we walked back to the Sand and Sea building. When we got to the hall, the housekeeping carts were still on duty, but the door at the end of the hall was shut and the whole area was silent.

I walked Bree to her room and pointed out that she had people from the retreat as neighbors. But it did no good. She hung on to me even when we were inside her room. It was only when I offered to stay until she fell asleep that she finally let go. I sat on the other twin bed while she changed into her sleepwear.

“All this is easy for you,” she said. “You’re used to living alone. You don’t have to worry about your kids forgetting who you are when your husband starts acting like Peter Pan and they all have too much fun.”