Knot the Usual Suspects Page 7

  “Sure.” Joe handed her a piece of Mel’s tunnel of fudge. “I’m hooked.”

  We all were—on yarn bombing and on Mel’s cake.

  “Can we produce enough material in a month?” I, the slowest knitter in Fast and Furious, asked.

  “We won’t need anything elaborate,” Ernestine said.

  “Unless I go in for the giant trout flies,” said Joe.

  “You just need to concentrate on the right activities, Red,” Mel said with a wicked smile. “Spend less time on extracurricular diversions.” She tried leering at Joe. He ignored her for a more meaningful exchange with his slice of tunnel of fudge.

  Ardis said she would invite our weekend high school help, Abby. Thea told us she’d spring the idea on the next unwary teens to cross the library’s threshold.

  “But let’s us go ahead and do it, even if you don’t get the teenagers,” Ernestine said. “I never heard of yarn bombing before today, but now that I have, I know it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

  We all agreed. After telling us she’d report back, Thea left the meeting looking pleased.

  A few days later, Ardis and I were closing up shop for the day when Thea stopped by, looking even more pleased. Geneva had been lying across the blades of the ceiling fan, listening to us and dangling her arm as though trailing it in water. When the camel bells at the door jingled, announcing Thea, she sat up. Thea came in, stopped near the door, and put her hands on her hips. Always a stylish dresser, she wore a mix of browns—from creamy to dark chocolate, including knife-creased trousers, a pair of killer heels, a creamy silk tunic, and what could only have been the stole she’d been knitting since spring.

  “I am awesome,” Thea said.

  “Hold your arms out and let’s see.” Ardis motioned for Thea to twirl.

  Thea’s turn was more of a stately rotation than a twirl, but she spread her arms, showing off the lacy leaf pattern and her fine handiwork. She’d used fingering-weight wool in a rich chestnut brown several shades darker than her skin. “Welcome to the debut of my mocha mousse stole,” she said, advancing on the counter and stopping with a shallow bow.

  Geneva clapped.

  “You’re right,” I said. “It is awesome. Will you think about letting the mannequin wear it for a week or two?”

  “Oh, please, please, please, please!” Geneva said. “I know I will look fetching sitting on its shoulder.”

  Somehow I didn’t think “fetching” would have been the first word to cross Thea’s mind if she’d been able to see Geneva preening on her beautiful stole.

  Geneva was right, though. Her gray mist would look good against that almost edible brown. But her near swoon over the stole put a thought in my head—I’d never asked her what she saw when she looked in a mirror or saw her reflection in a window. Did she see the hollow eyes I saw when I looked at her? Or did she see blue eyes looking back at her, and were her cheeks blushed with pink? For that matter, what did she see when she looked at her hand or her sleeve or skirt? If I ever dared ask, I knew I’d have to do it carefully. It was the sort of question that might make her prickle.

  “I’m kind of enjoying the mocha mousse too much myself right now,” Thea said, “but I’ll think about it. As for awesome, I wasn’t just talking about the stole. I was talking about the teens I caught in our web of artistic anarchy. I snared them and I signed them up for the bombing of Blue Plum. I am awesome, and fiber awareness will be elevated to new heights in our younger generation.”

  “Do your recruits know how to knit or crochet?” Ardis asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Thea said. “TGIF is equal opportunity, isn’t it? We’re here for people who can whip out a pair of double knitted mittens with their eyes closed and we’re here for neophytes who don’t know a crochet hook from a meat skewer. If the kids don’t know how to do anything, we’ll teach them. Or they can help put up and attach the stuff other people make.”

  “And do they know to keep quiet about the project?” Ardis asked. “Do you know to keep quiet?”

  Thea pulled the end of her chocolate mousse stole across the lower half of her face in a fair imitation of Zorro. “We are a closemouthed cabal of anarchic crocheters,” she said. “Quiet and quixotic. Watch and be amazed.” She left through the front door without making the string of camel bells jingle.

  “How did she do that?” I asked.

  “She is a librarian,” Geneva said. “They know how to be quiet.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Ardis said. “When they want to be.”

  “You’re right. Most of the time she is quite loud,” Geneva said. “But knowing when to be quiet is like a code of honor to librarians. She has impressive skills and knows how to use them.”

  “But knowing and doing are two different things.” Ardis went back to unpacking and checking in the newly arrived order of silk kumihimo cords and missed the look on Geneva’s face. It had shifted from sunny—for Geneva—to scowling.

  “In any case, I think Thea’s idea is going to work out fine,” I said. “Abby’s excited and the other teens will be a fun addition to the group. Oh. We should’ve asked Thea if her crew is coming to the next meeting. I’ll give her a call later.”

  “Ask her how many,” Ardis said.

  “Good thinking. We might need more chairs.”

  “And we’ll definitely need more refreshments.”

  * * *

  That had all happened at the beginning of September. Clod’s news of Hugh’s death came on the Wednesday morning before Handmade Blue Plum. We’d spent the intervening four weeks identifying and measuring bomb targets and preparing ordnance—“For our assault,” as Ernestine delighted in saying. Her eyes grew huge behind her thick lenses every time she said it.

  We had our final pre–bomb planning meeting that same Wednesday afternoon. I kept an eye on Ardis throughout the day, still concerned about her reaction to the shocking news.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to take off early?” I asked her. “I can take notes and drop them by your place later. We really only have a few details to iron out.”

  “The devil might be in those details,” she said.

  “True. On the other hand, we know we’re going to have to be flexible and ready to ad-lib, so if you’d rather . . .”

  “I’ll be fine, and this is important. Both meetings are important.”

  “Both?”

  “Final plans for tomorrow night,” Ardis said, “and initial plans for our investigation. We’ll have a quiet word with the posse members during the planning meeting. Let them know what’s going on.”

  “You’re not planning to involve the teens or the others in the investigation, are you?”

  “No. They can go on home before the posse meets.”

  “Okay.”

  “And then the posse can saddle up and ride again.”

  Chapter 9

  “Two 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 q
uestioning 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.