Last Wool and Testament

Book 12: Knit & Nibble Mystery

by Peggy Ehrhart

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Mystery; Craft & Hobby Cozy Mysteries; Punny book titles

Synopsis

Spring has sprung in Arborville, New Jersey, and Pamela Paterson and Bettina Fraser are keeping busy with their knitting group, Knit and Nibble. But it looks like April showers have brought May murders . . .

Fiber artist Ingrid Barrick has just been found dead in her ransacked house, but the fact that she’d seemed a bit troubled lately—and had been obsessively doodling pictures of bees—has the Knit and Nibblers wondering if this was really a burglary gone bad like the police think. There had been tension with a neighbor who was fuming (and sneezing) over the ragweed in Ingrid’s garden—but allergies don’t seem like grounds for murder.
 
As they chat with a local beekeeper, learn more about Ingrid’s knitwear-designer ex, and look into a suddenly cancelled tapestry exhibit, Pamela and Bettina are intrigued to find more nature-themed sketches by Ingrid. The question is which of these many threads will lead to the truth about her unnatural death . . .
 
Knitting tips and delicious recipe included!

Release date: April 29, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

“Everyone was talking about the murder this afternoon at the salon.” Despite the serious topic, Holly Perkins’s usual ebullience was undiminished, her magnetic charm enhanced by her glowing complexion and raven hair. “It’s not every day that we have a murder right here in Arborville, let alone of a well-known artist like Ingrid Barrick.”

“News certainly travels fast,” Bettina Fraser commented. “The story hasn’t made it into the Register yet.”

“And our salon isn’t even in Arborville, but a lot of people from Arborville drive the few extra miles to Meadowside because they like the way Desmond and I do their hair.”

Holly’s appearance testified to her hair artistry and her aesthetic sense in general. Her raven hair was accented with a dramatic orange streak, a shade of orange that matched her metallic nail polish. Earrings like a silvery cascade dangled nearly to her shoulders.

“The people in the salon were just basing their understanding of what happened on rumors circulating around the listserv,” Holly went on, responding to Bettina, “but I’ll bet you know the real details. I’ll bet you’ve already talked to Detective Clayborn. Of course he’d want the ace reporter for Arborville’s weekly paper to be on top of the story.”

Pamela Paterson stifled a laugh. She knew perfectly well that Bettina’s access to Arborville’s sole police detective depended on his mood, and that more often than not, the Arborville Advocate remained unclaimed in people’s driveways for days.

Bettina, however, took her work seriously. “I did hear something,” she said, “though not from Clayborn.”

She ventured a glance at Nell Bascomb, who was sitting in a comfortable peach-colored armchair, busily at work on a knitting project. Not far from her, but seated on the hearth, Roland DeCamp was similarly engaged. The other four members of the Knit and Nibble knitting club had lowered their work to their laps in order to focus more attentively on the topic Holly had raised.

Nell met the glance with a glance of her own, made all the more stern by the steely gleam of her pale blue eyes in their nests of wrinkles. When she spoke, however, it was to say, “Don’t mind me. I don’t see any reason why people have to make shocking events the stuff of social conversation, but I know when I’m outnumbered.”

“A neighbor of Ingrid’s called the Advocate this morning,” Bettina said. “She—the neighbor is named Colette Dalrymple—was working in her yard when the mail carrier came around, and she watched him go up to Ingrid’s door, then she watched him push the door open. The next thing she knew, he was back outside—though she said Ingrid’s yard is such a jumble of random plants that he was hard to see because he was stumbling around. But he was looking kind of frantic and had his phone out.”

“Oh, my!” Karen Dowling raised a delicate hand to her mouth. “The scene inside the house must have been quite startling.”

“Ingrid was right there in the living room, sprawled out on the floor,” Bettina said. “At least that’s what the mail carrier told Colette. Then the police came and took him away for an interview, so that’s all she knew.”

At that, Roland DeCamp ceased knitting and set his work on the lid of the elegant briefcase that rested near his feet. He raised his left wrist and flexed his arm to expose the impressive watch that lurked beneath his flawlessly starched shirt cuff. He seemed about to speak. At the same moment that he opened his mouth, a male figure garbed in a flannel shirt and bib overalls, and with an apron tied around his bulky middle, appeared in the arch that separated the living room from the dining room.

As if in stereo, two voices announced, “Eight o’clock.”

One voice was that of Roland, whose self-appointed task it was to remind the Knit and Nibblers that an hour of knitting had passed and the “nibble” portion of the meeting was about to commence. The group was meeting that evening at the Frasers’ house, and the other voice belonged to Bettina’s husband, Wilfred.

Holly jumped to her feet, followed by Karen, who was her best friend despite the contrast between shy Karen, with her fair hair and unassertive features, and Holly’s vibrant exuberance.

“Let us help!” Holly exclaimed, speaking for both of them. “I can’t wait to see—and taste—the treat you’ve got in store for us tonight.”

“Everything’s ready,” Wilfred said with a contented smile, as he folded his arms across his chest. The aromas wafting from the dining room made that clear—dark and spicy mingled with sweet and fruity. “Come in”—he beckoned—“come in and help yourselves.”

Holly and Karen led the way, with Bettina stepping aside to let all the guests precede her.

Wilfred had clearly been busy. An oval baking dish in the center of the Frasers’ dining room table held a cobbler, its exact nature hidden by the puffy rumples of its cobbled topping. Next to it was a quart-sized tub of vanilla ice cream on a small tray. A stack of dessert plates from Bettina’s sage-green pottery set awaited servings of cobbler, with forks and white linen napkins at hand. A tall chrome carafe held coffee, and a squat teapot held tea, with seven sage-green mugs lined up nearby, along with a matching cream pitcher and sugar bowl.

Wilfred picked up a large serving spoon and scooped a generous portion of cobbler onto one of the dessert plates.

“Ice cream?” he inquired of Nell, who had been steered to the front of the line.

“Yes,” she said, “but just a bit—and that’s so much cobbler . . .”

“It’s mostly fruit,” Wilfred responded with a wink. “Very healthful, really.”

The fruit in question, from what Pamela could tell based on Nell’s serving, was strawberries and rhubarb. The motion of serving had inverted the scoop of cobbler. The ruby-red berries and the deep-pink chunks of rhubarb now lay atop the pale, cobbled crust, which was bathed in their fruity syrup.

Wilfred continued to serve the cobbler, adding spoonfuls of ice cream, as people clustered around the table helping themselves to coffee and tea. Soon the knitters were back in the Frasers’ comfortable living room, with the addition of Wilfred, who had perched on the hearth next to Roland. For a few suspense-filled moments, forks hovered in the air, then they dove toward plates and ascended to eager mouths.

“Delicious!” was the first verdict, from Holly.

“Excellent!” Roland gave a judicious nod, as if approving a legal argument. He was a corporate lawyer, and his reaction was in keeping with his pin-striped suit and serious demeanor.

“Local rhubarb?” Nell inquired. “It used to nearly grow wild in Arborville, and I still have a patch in my yard.”

“It’s from the community gardens.” Bettina spoke up. “I did a story on the gardens for the Advocate last week, and one of the gardeners I interviewed sent me home with a huge bag of rhubarb.”

“Awesome!” Holly, sitting next to Pamela on the sofa, gave an excited wiggle. “And Wilfred knew just what to do with it.” The smile that accompanied this statement displayed perfect teeth and brought Holly’s dimple into play. She positioned her fork for another taste of cobbler.

Pamela, too, was teasing off another bite from the serving on her plate. She made sure to include a bit of the pillowy crust, a strawberry, a sliver of rhubarb, and a dab of ice cream before she raised her fork to her mouth. Wilfred had used plenty of sugar, but not so much as to cancel the pleasing tartness of the rhubarb or the acidity of the strawberry, which the cool and smooth vanilla ice cream balanced out.

“Are the strawberries from the community gardens too?” Karen asked.

“Not quite,” Wilfred responded, “but they are New Jersey strawberries. I got them at the Newfield farmers market.”

“Such a perfect time of year,” Bettina remarked. “Everything’s blooming, and the air smells so sweet.”

“And the deer are coming around, helping themselves to anything green that they feel like eating.” Roland’s frown contrasted with Bettina’s sunny expression.

“You can plant things they don’t like,” Karen ventured. “They hate daffodils.”

“They’ve already eaten all of Melanie’s lilies, and the buds hadn’t even opened yet.” Roland’s frown deepened. The plate that had held his cobbler was empty but for a few streaks of ice cream and pink dabs of cobbler syrup.

“They were here before we were,” Nell pointed out.

“But we’re here now.”

Nell’s melancholy nod seemed a weary acknowledgment that Roland’s view was typical.

“And if deer eating our plants wasn’t bad enough,” Roland went on, “allergy season is starting.”

“Are you saying, then, that you prefer winter?” Bettina’s gaze, featuring raised brows and a half smile, implied skepticism.

“Of course not,” Roland muttered. “The ice can be dangerous.” He pushed his shirt cuff back to reveal his watch.

“And I suppose summer is hot.” Bettina’s gaze intensified.

Roland met her gaze with an intense gaze of his own. “No need to suppose.” His scornful tone highlighted the word. “Summer is hot, and no rational person would—”

He paused to shift his attention to Wilfred, who had moved a few feet closer and was staring attentively at his neighbor’s wrist.

“Look at that!” Wilfred exclaimed in genial tones. “I’ve been enjoying our chat so much that I’ve completely lost track of the time.” He rested both hands on the hearth to boost himself to his feet. “I’m sure all you knitters want to get back to your knitting.”

Watching Bettina from across the room, Pamela wasn’t sure whether her friend was pleased or disappointed that Roland hadn’t had a chance to explain why fall, too, was a season with nothing to recommend it. Wilfred, smiling to himself and chuckling occasionally, was stacking plates and gathering forks and napkins.

As he edged between the sofa and the coffee table and headed toward the kitchen, Holly hopped up, collected as many mugs as she could manage, and trailed after him. Her voice drifted back as they passed through the dining room, repeating her praise of the cobbler.

Pamela took up her knitting. She was at work on a new project, a sweater for herself. The shape was to be a simple pullover with a loose turtleneck, like a funnel. But the shoulders, upper chest and back, and the turtleneck would be knit in an ombre yarn that contrasted with the solid color employed elsewhere, creating a dramatically patterned yoke. And the sleeves would be edged with several inches of the same ombre yarn.

She and Bettina had visited the fancy yarn shop in Timberley, and Pamela had picked out a deep cobalt blue for the sweater’s body, and an ombre that shaded from orange to yellow to chartreuse for the other sections. Bettina had had her own errand at the yarn shop, coming away with patterns and materials to get started on pullovers destined to be Christmas gifts for her grandsons.

Seated in her armchair across from where Pamela sat on the sofa, Bettina was industriously plying her needles, from which a few inches of bright yellow knitting dangled. That yarn, Pamela knew, had been chosen for the younger grandson, Freddy.

In the companion armchair, Nell was equally busy. Departing from her usual projects, do-good works like knitted stuffed animals for the children at the Haversack women’s shelter, Nell was knitting a sweater, also destined to be a Christmas gift, for her husband, Harold. Since it was to be a surprise, she had explained that she would be working on it only during Knit and Nibble meetings and only when the group was not meeting at her house. The color was a bright and cheerful Christmas-appropriate red.

After a second trip to the kitchen with the rest of the mugs, Holly had settled once again into her seat on the sofa. Before taking up her knitting again, however, she turned to Roland.

“Are you going to make another one?” she inquired. Roland’s project for the previous several meetings had been a very labor-intensive argyle sock.

Roland looked up, his lean face blank with puzzlement, and said, “Another one what?”

“Another sock,” Holly responded cheerily. “You’ve been making a sock. Will there be a pair?”

“Of course there will be a pair.” Roland’s tone was withering. “This is the other one.”

“You’ve gotten so much faster,” Bettina observed, “and so much better. I remember when you first joined because your doctor told you to find a relaxing hobby. I don’t think any of us thought you would stick with it.”

“Of course I stuck with it, and of course I’ve gotten better.” Roland’s expression blended amazement with irritation. “Anyone who applies himself to anything will get better.”

Holly and Nell responded in chorus, “Herself.”

Once again, Roland’s lean face was blank. “Applies herself,” Holly said. “Anyone who applies herself . . . or themselves. It’s not always a he.”

Roland had lowered his knitting to his lap while this exchange took place. Now his gaze lingered on it as if he was longing to take it up again. He raised his eyes, scanned the faces of the people regarding him from armchairs and sofa, murmured, “Whatever,” and launched a new stitch.

Holly resumed her work as well. Her project, Pamela knew, was a knitted bikini, vibrant lilac in color and undertaken with the coming summer in mind. At present, the bikini top—or rather, half of the top—dangled from her needles in the form of a partial triangle. Emulating her friend, Karen had launched a bathing suit project as well, though more sedate in style.

Pamela was content to be entertained by her own thoughts as she knit, but conversations underway around her provided a pleasingly convivial hum. Holly and Karen were reminiscing about the previous summer’s outings to the Jersey Shore and proposing dates for the first shore visit of the current year. Across the room, Bettina and Nell were bending toward each other from their respective armchairs and trading notes on garden plans, though Wilfred and Harold were the chief gardeners in each family.

The rhythm of her needles had such a hypnotic effect that Pamela was surprised when she noticed that Holly and Karen had tucked yarn, needles, and in-progress bathing suits into their knitting bags and were climbing to their feet. Roland, on the hearth, was settling his partial sock, with its four double-pointed needles and dangling bobbins, into his elegant briefcase. She looked toward Bettina, who nodded and mouthed the words, “Nine o’clock.”

Some minutes later, Pamela and Bettina stood in the doorway of the Frasers’ house waving the other four Knit and Nibblers on their way. Merry good nights echoed through the mild air as Roland veered toward the white Porsche that awaited him at the curb, and Holly, Karen, and Nell headed for Holly’s orange VW Beetle.

Pamela’s house, with its welcoming porch light, beckoned from across the street, but she was happy to accept Bettina’s invitation to stay a bit longer.

“I suspect there’s some cobbler left,” Bettina said after she had closed the front door and they had retreated a few steps from the doorway. Without waiting for an answer, she led the way toward the dining room and the kitchen beyond.

The remains of the cobbler, an appealing vision of pale, crumbly crust and richly colored fruit, sat on a scrubbed-pine table in the Frasers’ spacious kitchen. Their house was the oldest on the street, a Dutch Colonial built by the long-ago proprietors of the apple orchard that had surrounded the house. The orchard was gone, replaced by more houses that were now themselves old, but its memory remained in the name of the street: Orchard Street.

The Frasers had added the kitchen when they moved into the house as newlyweds. It featured a cooking area and an eating area, separated by a high counter, and it looked out onto the Frasers’ patio and backyard through a pair of sliding-glass doors.

Bettina darted around the counter and collected a pair of dessert plates from a cupboard and a couple of forks from a drawer. Stopping by the refrigerator, she took the container that held what was left of the vanilla ice cream from the freezer.

“Oh, no—really.” Pamela held up both hands in a gesture of resistance. “I couldn’t begin to eat more.”

“Well, I could.” Bettina scooped a big spoonful of cobbler onto one of the plates. Then she opened the container and added an ice cream garnish to the cobbler. Sinking into one of the chairs that flanked the table, she picked up a fork. “And that’s why I will never be thin,” she said as she lifted a bite of cobbler topped with a dab of ice cream to her mouth.

Pamela was thin, and tall, though her simple wardrobe of jeans and casual tops certainly denoted an absence of vanity. Bettina had long since given up trying to interest her friend in the modish looks that her lanky body might have displayed to such advantage. She herself, however, was a confirmed fashionista, whose ensembles—shoes, handbags, and jewelry included—were coordinated to dazzling effect. Her scarlet hair, of a shade that she admitted was not found in nature, made the effect all the more dazzling.

“It’s odd,” Pamela commented, joining Bettina at the table, though not partaking in the cobbler, “that everyone jumped to the conclusion Ingrid had been murdered. Maybe she was home alone and had a stroke or heart attack or fell and hit her head . . .”

“The door was ajar,” Bettina said. “Otherwise the mail carrier wouldn’t have thought to look inside—in fact, he wouldn’t have been able to look inside. And he told Colette that the living room had been ransacked, as if the killer was looking for something.” She paused for another bite before she spoke again, adding, “Maybe the killer had been ransacking upstairs too, but the mail carrier didn’t venture farther than the living room.”

“That does sound like it was murder.” Pamela nodded.

“You know Ingrid Barrick’s house, don’t you,” Bettina said, “since you walk all over the place? It’s in the part of Arborville where that street curves down from Arborville Avenue and disrupts the grid system. The lots are strange shapes and sizes, and Ingrid let her yard go completely wild—but some times of the year, it’s full of butterflies.”

The white eyelet curtains at her bedroom windows were aglow with morning light when Pamela opened her eyes. She was alone in her large bed except for her cats, and at the moment she could feel one of them making its furry way up from the region of her feet. That cat, a black cat named Catrina, emerged from beneath the edge of the turned-back sheet to greet her mistress with a prolonged amber-eyed stare. Catrina was soon joined by her daughter, Ginger, perching beside her on Pamela’s chest.

Pamela had not always lived alone. As newlyweds, she and her architect husband, Michael Paterson, had bought their Orchard Street house as a fixer-upper. Working side by side, they had lovingly repaired the damage and decay that it had suffered in the more than a century since it was built. Then their daughter, Penny, was born, and the small family thrived—until Michael Paterson was killed in a tragic construction-site accident.

The cats were stirring, clearly eager for breakfast. Pamela gentl. . .