Knit Your Own Murder Read online

  “Hey!” exclaimed Phil, hastily lifting his bat and shaking off the wisps of stuffing.

  She scowled at the ugly gray-black creature in his hands. “Good heavens, Galvin, who’s going to want to bid on that?” she asked.

  “Some strange little child is going to beg and beg her mother to get it for her,” asserted Phil with happy confidence.

  “Humph, I think not!”

  “Well, what did they put the pattern in the book for, if they thought no one would want it?” he asked.

  “Humph!” she said again. “Betsy, could you write me a receipt for these toys?” Maddy was generous but businesslike. She kept good records of her donations in order to make proper tax deductions.

  “Certainly. I can’t believe how many contributions you’ve made to the auction. More than anyone else, did you know that?”

  “It’s nothing. Got to do something with my hands to keep them busy.”

  Chapter Three

  The Knit Your Own series had been popular from the day two years ago Betsy first put Knit Your Own Dog out on one of the box shelves that divided the front of her shop from the back. Beside it she had put a knit boxer her boyfriend, Connor, had completed for her—Betsy wasn’t an expert knitter, and the pattern had proved more difficult than she anticipated.

  But later she had managed to knit her own rooster—she had an inexplicable fondness for chickens and found the pattern in Knit Your Own Farm, the latest in the series. The result was a red-feathered rooster with a typical arrogant look in his eye and a comb tipped dashingly to one side (an unintentional error—but she’d seen many a rooster with the same tilted comb). The rooster had brought on a little rush to buy the farm book, which was very gratifying.

  But it was last summer that Bershada Reynolds had come up with the idea of donating toy animals for an auction to raise funds to repair the elderly little brick building in Excelsior’s lakefront park, the Commons. The building contained restrooms on one side and a snack bar on the other. The electrical wiring needed replacement, the tile on the snack bar floor was so badly cracked it was impossible to clean properly, and the restrooms needed new fixtures.

  The fund-raiser committee was formed in September; by January donations had faded to a trickle, and the amount raised was insufficient.

  Bershada was in Crewel World that August looking at a richly colored cross-stitch pattern leaflet dating back to 1983 of Santa unloading his sack under a tree decorated with apples, pears, and oranges—Betsy had found it in the basement when clearing a shelf. The pattern was on a table of half-price items. Bershada decided to buy it and was going over to select the floss she’d need for it when she saw Betsy putting the new knit rooster beside the boxer.

  “Now that is a chicken!” she said.

  “Isn’t it nice?” agreed Betsy.

  “You know what? That thing would sell for a lot of money. A lot of the animals in those books would sell very well. We could use the money for the Commons’s snack bar repair fund.”

  “Are you suggesting I turn my needlework shop into a toy store?”

  “No, of course not. But we could sell them at garage sales or even open a little shop temporarily. No, on second thought, that would probably cost more money than we’d raise. Hmmm—wait, I know, we could do an auction.”

  “Who could?” asked Betsy.

  “We could—we should! We, the committee to repair the snack bar!”

  “An auction?” said Betsy doubtfully.

  “Sure! That’s what we should do!” Bershada’s boyfriend’s cousin-in-law was an auctioneer, she said, a bright and funny man, and, even better, an exciting person to watch in action.

  Betsy had been to a few auctions and knew how a good auctioneer could stir up the audience, persuading them to spend more than they planned on going in.

  “What do you propose to auction off?” asked Betsy.

  “What I said: these. Handmade stuffed toys,” replied Bershada. She picked up the rooster and gestured at the books with it. “Here are dozens of patterns we can use. Plus, I’ve got some more at home. I’ve even got a pattern for a knit sock monkey.”

  “Are you serious?” Betsy asked.

  “You bet I am. We’ve got some very talented knitters here in town.”

  “Well,” Betsy said, “not a great number. If you’re going to do a sale, you need a lot of things to sell. Now over here I’ve got another animal pattern book, called Mini Knitted Safari, by Sachiyo Ishii. Incredibly simple patterns, knit flat and then sewn into shape. Beginning knitters, especially children, love them. You could make a lot of them in a very short time.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen that book, but they’re so small, I don’t think they’d raise a lot of money auctioned one by one.”

  Another customer had come up behind Bershada. “That’s a beautiful rooster,” she said. “He’s got a real rooster attitude.” She raised her head, turned her mouth down, and gave an arrogant sniff. Then, laughing, she reached for a copy of Knit Your Own Farm. Paging through, she started making happy noises and nodding at the color photos of the animals: cow, pig, horse, goose with goslings, ram. Then she looked at the several pages of pattern that followed each photograph.

  “I like these, but the patterns look kind of hard,” she said.

  Godwin was immediately at her side. “Oh, you can do these, absolutely, Shar,” he said. “I’m thinking of starting a class.”

  “Well, all right, I’ll wait for the class.” She put the book back.

  But Godwin took it down again and held it out to her. “I’ll give you a hint you can use right now.”

  “A hint? What is it?”

  “Write out the pattern. You’re not an advanced knitter, but I bet you know most of the abbreviations used in knitting patterns. Like here.” He opened the book and quickly searched a pattern. “See?” He pointed to a line in a pattern, K2tog. “It means?”

  “Um, knit two together?”

  “Right. So take a sheet of paper and write in so many words, knit two together. That’s what I mean, go through the pattern you want to knit, writing the instructions. Translate those abbreviations. And also, when it simply says R-E-P, meaning repeat, go back and write out the instructions again—and again, as many times as the repeat calls for. It makes it easier to follow the pattern, plus helps get it clear in your head. I’ve seen your work, and if you use that method you can absolutely do these, even on your own.”

  “You think so?”

  “Absolutely.” He handed the book to her.

  “And when you finish one of the animals,” said Bershada, in imitation of Godwin’s confident tone, “I hope you’ll consider donating it to the auction.”

  And that was the start.

  In late February, near the end of the run-up to the auction, Irene Potter came into Crewel World with a large cardboard box. Irene had a lifelong addiction to stitching, and some years back she had begun designing her own needlework patterns. She had an unusual imagination, and her pieces often had eerie, overwrought images. The art world began to take notice, and Irene became famous, which she felt explained her eccentric personality. In Irene’s opinion, she had an “artistic temperament.” That, she said, was why ordinary people didn’t understand her work (though she failed to consider that perhaps her problem was that she didn’t understand ordinary people).

  “I heard about your wonderful fund-raiser,” Irene said, her shiny dark eyes keen, and her graying black curls trembling with excitement, “and I just had to make my own little contribution.”

  She had put the box on the library table in the center of the room and briskly begun tearing off the tape that held it closed. The box was a cube about fourteen inches on a side. As she tore the last of the tape off, its sides fell open to reveal a terrifying dragon in bright greens and deep purples, with splashes of orange, red, and yellow. It seemed to be made mostly of a comb
ination of knit and crochet laid over a wire form. The scales on its back and sides were outsize and lifted at the edges. It had a long, thin neck that sagged between its hunched shoulders and an unusually large head, which had stiff wires for whiskers. The creature was balanced on its kangaroo-like hind legs, which ended in big, sharply humped nails. The wings were tall and wide, of delicate crochet lace stiffened with starch, but the front claws on the small forepaws were out-of-proportion huge—and a short length of red silk floss hanging on one of them suggested a streamer of blood. The eyes were dull and stupid, and instead of lots of sharp teeth, it had rodent incisors, one of them gold. Its tail was very long, and there was a knot tied in the middle of it, as if it were there to remind the creature of something.

  All its contradictions, its combinations of materials—wool and cotton yarns, silk and metallic flosses, thin silver wire, even bits of gold and silver foil—made it an intriguing puzzle to look at.

  Then recognition set in. “Why, it’s the Jabberwock!” Betsy exclaimed.

  Irene looked a little shamefaced. “Is that okay?” she asked. “I did start with the old pen and ink drawing from Through the Looking Glass, but I thought I made enough changes that I wouldn’t break any copyright laws.”

  Betsy said, “That doesn’t matter, I’m sure it’s long out of copyright. Anyway, you could say it’s—what’s the word?—an homage to the Jabberwock. And you say you want to donate this to the auction? Are you sure?”

  “Do you think I shouldn’t?”

  “I think you should do whatever you want. But your work brings very high prices, so this piece will earn far and away more than anything else up for bids. When people hear an Irene Potter work will be in the auction, I’m sure some will come just for a chance to acquire it. To the auction committee, that’s a good thing, a very good thing. But you do realize the money will go into the pot being created to repair the Commons’s snack bar? This isn’t going to be a sale for you.”

  This seemed an obvious point, but Betsy knew Irene didn’t always understand how the real world worked.

  But Irene nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes, I understand. That’s why I want to donate it. I like that dear little snack bar, but I no longer go into the restrooms.” Her small nose wrinkled. “Sometimes the floor is . . . wet.”

  Betsy nodded. “You’re right, the fixtures are leaking. It’s extremely generous of you to offer this wonderful work to the auction so they can make repairs.” Betsy walked around to the other side of the table, noting that the creature’s knotted tail ended in a tiny bit of red glass shaped like a heart. “This is amazing, Irene. Just wait till the auction committee sees it!”

  * * *

  Betsy called Bershada about the dragon, and she came in the next morning to see it. “Oh my goodness,” she said, awed, and a little alarmed, touching it on one of its raised front claws.

  “People are going to come just to bid on this,” she agreed. “It’s going to change the size and shape of the event. We’ll adjust our advertising, of course, and expect to get people who want this piece.”

  “I wonder if you’re not going to have to change the venue,” said Betsy. They’d planned to have the auction just up West Lake Street from her shop. Once a grocery store, now it was an art gallery that rented space for small events. “I’ve been to that gallery,” said Betsy. “It looks as if maybe fifty people could sit down in there. That’s adequate for what you initially expected, but you’ve been telling me how the number of expected attendees has grown. And now this! What if Irene’s offering doubles that?”

  “I’m sure it will—and from what we’re collecting in toys, we underestimated our original number anyhow. I’m going to cancel our reservation, then go over to talk to Kari Beckel, who is facilities director at Mount Calvary. There’s an atrium in their church hall that is spectacular—and if that proves too small, they have a full-size gym.”

  “Very wise,” agreed Betsy.

  “We were planning on raising a few thousand dollars, but now I’m thinking we should add a zero to that.” She frowned and walked around the table, looking at the dragon from all angles. “I don’t know whether we should offer Irene’s piece first, to clear the room of the collectors, or hold it till last so maybe they’ll also bid on the small pieces.”

  “I suggest last, because a lot of these toys are beautiful, made with lots of invention and talent.”

  Bershada turned around, eyes brightening. “Girl, you are right! That rooster of yours is amazing, and whoever gave us the feathered serpent deserves a special round of applause. Irene isn’t the only talent in the area. So, sure, I’ll recommend we offer Irene’s Jabberwock last. I’m getting a real good feeling about this fund-raiser.”

  Chapter Four

  Now the auction was tomorrow. The Monday Bunch decided that Maddy’s entrance with her bag of knitted animals marked the end of its special Friday stitching session. They began putting away their needles and yarn, stacking the finished toys at the end of the table—except Doris, who took her unfinished lion home with her, promising to bring it back in the morning.

  Bershada stayed after the others to sweep together the scattered excelsior and put it back in its drawstring bag.

  “Maddy—Ms. O’Leary,” she called, as Maddy was about to depart, “I want to thank you for changing your mind and agreeing to be honored with the other major donors at the auction tomorrow.”

  “About that,” said Maddy, turning and approaching Bershada, “I’ve changed my mind again. I’d prefer to just sit in the audience with everyone else.”

  “Oh, but you can’t!” said Bershada. “You agreed to sit with the other six people who are the top knitters donating toys!”

  “I know, I know. But I just . . . can’t. All those people, staring at me. I just can’t.” Her usual truculent expression was overridden by something like fear.

  And suddenly Betsy gained a new insight into Maddy O’Leary, she of the rude tongue and haughty attitude: She was actually shy.

  But Bershada persisted. “They won’t be looking at you, they’ll be watching Max Irwin in action, calling on people to raise their bids.” She made an attempt to imitate an auctioneer’s chant. “Hey, now here’s a ten, a ten dollar, do I hear twelve, say a twelve, say a twelve!” She waved her arms as if pointing at individuals in a crowd and took a few steps back and forth. “Twelve, I’ve got twelve dollars—sold!” She continued in her usual tone of voice, “No one will be paying any attention to the seven of you, trust me!”

  “Then why ask us to sit there?”

  “Because we will introduce you at the start—”

  “See?” interrupted Maddy.

  “But that will take maybe three minutes, spread over seven people. That’s what, ten seconds of focus on you? And remember, as I told you long ago, we’re giving each of you a ball of yarn and a pair of knitting needles. You don’t have to look back at the audience. You can concentrate on your knitting. I told you that, and you said okay, that you’d just sit there and knit.”

  Bershada fell silent, and Betsy bit her tongue. Maddy kept drawing a breath to say something, then didn’t say it, but finally she tossed her head and said in a hard tone, “Very well, you’re right, I did say I’d do it. But I’m not happy about it.”

  “I understand. And thank you. The amazing number of your contributions will go far to make this auction a success.”

  “Well, if I’d known you were going to make such a fuss, I wouldn’t have given you anything.” And on that ungracious note, Maddy turned on her heel and left the shop.

  “That was well done!” said Betsy. “She’s a difficult person, but you handled her beautifully!”

  Godwin asked, “Bershada, are you all in a swivet about the auction tomorrow?” He liked finding and resurrecting old-fashioned terms.

  “Swivet?”

  “You know, nervous.”

  “Not now,
because I’ve nailed Maddy to that chair at the front of the room.”

  “That was a great idea, giving those seven honorees balls of yarn and needles to keep their hands busy during the auction,” said Betsy. “You and the rest of the committee are doing a fine job. This is going to be a real success.”

  “I sure hope so. We’ve been working hard. Thank you, by the way, for donating the yarn, needles, and little canvas bags to hold them in.” Bershada had come up with the idea nearly a month ago, giving Betsy the task of calling the honorees to see what kind of yarn they wanted in their bags.

  “The bags say CREWEL WORLD in nice big letters, so I’m calling it an advertising expense,” said Betsy with a smile.

  “Nevertheless, thank you,” repeated Bershada. “Now I’ve got to run. We’re setting up the chairs in the atrium today.”

  After she left, Godwin said, “Whew-ee, I’m glad I didn’t get nominated to that committee! Way too much work!”

  Chapter Five

  Betsy had stayed after closing that Friday. The auction was tomorrow, Saturday, and she had some packing up to do. Over the past few weeks, Betsy had filled two big cardboard boxes with over a hundred knitted animals. She brought them up from the basement to the front of the shop. She had put some of the best ones on display in the shop and was now going around collecting the last of them and putting them with the others in a row in front of the boxes.

  The Irene Potter Jabberwock piece had been taken into custody by the auction committee and was never on display in Betsy’s shop.

  Other stores in town had been collecting toys made of fabric and, in one case, wood. There was a secondary movement afoot for many of the toys’ new owners to donate them again to hospitals, day care centers, and charities. Betsy was pleased that Crewel World had outpaced them in donations.