Knitty Gritty Murder, page 12
Penny took up the long strand of trailing yarn and wound it neatly around the ball as Pamela reclaimed her seat and set the knitting needles on the coffee table. She picked up the magazine and studied the pattern.
The first step would be to cast on. The needles were quite large and the yarn was quite bulky, but Penny was quite small. So even though the sweater was meant to be loose, only forty stitches needed to be cast on.
With Penny at her elbow watching, Pamela demonstrated the long-tail cast-on process—not the easiest way to cast on, but Pamela thought it made for a nicer edge and Penny might as well learn it now. She fastened the yarn to a needle with a slipknot and then formed a sort of cat’s cradle with her left hand, using two fingers and her thumb.
She dipped the needle in, looped a twist of yarn over it, bobbed the needle out, and the first stitch was cast on. She demonstrated a few more times and then Penny took over. After a few tangles and fumbles, she settled into an easy rhythm and soon forty neat stitches were lined up on the long needle.
The garter stitch was a good choice for a beginner because it required only knitting at its most basic: the stitch called “knit,” and “knitting” was actually easier than casting on. Pamela demonstrated, thrusting the empty right-hand needle into the first cast-on loop on the left-hand needle, looping a twist of yarn around the needle—and then the graceful motion that knotted the twist of yarn into a stitch and slipped the new stitch onto the right-hand needle.
Soon Penny was eager to take over. After she had finished out the row and Pamela had helped her get started going back the other direction, Pamela left her contentedly knitting and returned to her cake-making project.
The filling was basically a buttercream icing made fruity by the strawberry puree. The butter was plenty soft by now and Pamela creamed it until it was smooth, the beaters clanking against the sides of the deep bowl. She added powdered sugar a few scoops at a time and continued beating. When all the sugar had been beaten in, she retrieved the strawberry puree from the refrigerator, tipped the plastic container over the bowl of butter cream, and blended it in.
To make the cake’s icing, Pamela followed the same procedure, except that in place of the puree she added the rest of the boiled-down champagne.
Assembling a cake was always the most fun. Instead of using a wedding-china plate, Pamela took a large round platter, pale blue and a thrift-store find, from the sideboard in her dining room and set it on the kitchen counter. She ran a knife around the edge of each of the three layers, which were still in their pans on the stove top, and inverted one of them onto the platter. She held her breath as she tapped gently on the bottom of the pan and gave an experimental tug. The pan lifted easily, leaving the cake’s first layer centered on the platter, a pale disk glowing against the platter’s blue glaze.
Pamela removed the other two layers from their pans and set them aside on a large cutting board. She peeled the parchment paper from all three layers, then she spooned half of the butter cream strawberry filling onto the first and spread it evenly to the edges. Using two spatulas, she positioned a second layer atop the first.
The cake went together nicely. After a few minutes, the structure was complete: three layers of the pale, fine-crumbed cake alternating with narrower layers of the lustrous barely pink filling. Pamela scooped the icing onto the top, using her rubber spatula to coax the last bit from the bowl. With a table knife, she gently sculpted and smoothed until the creamy icing covered every inch of the cake’s surface.
To make the point that the cake indeed involved strawberries, Pamela took the whole berries she had set aside and, with their leafy caps still attached, arranged them at random on the cake’s top as if they’d just spilled from a berry basket.
When she peeked through the arch that separated the entry from the living room to see how Penny was doing with the knitting, she smiled at the sight. Penny was intent on her task, Precious was cuddled up next to her on the sofa, and Ginger was watching them both from the platform at the top of the cat climber.
* * *
It was going to be a barbecue. That much was clear, though Bettina had given no hint of what delights were in store for the evening—but as Pamela and Penny approached the Frasers’ driveway, the aroma of charcoal set ablaze wafted toward them. Before they reached the walk that led from the driveway to the Frasers’ front door, Bettina called to them from the other direction and they turned to see her standing at the corner of the garage.
“Come around this way,” she said. “We’re out on the patio.” She was wearing one of her jersey wrap dresses, in a festive print that seemed to include every color in the rainbow.
A pink-and-white-checked cloth made the patio table festive, and an array of snacks welcomed guests, as well as an ice bucket with the neck of a wine bottle protruding and four of Bettina’s favorite Swedish crystal wineglasses. For the quick trip across the street, Pamela had left the cake uncovered. Bettina’s quick inspection of the platter and its freight widened her smile, and she pronounced it “a perfect birthday cake.” She reached for the shopping bag containing wrapped gifts that Penny had been deputized to carry.
Wide sliding glass doors opened to the patio from the Frasers’ spacious kitchen. Though their house was a classic Dutch Colonial and very old, they had enlarged and modernized the kitchen when they bought the house long ago. The improved version of the kitchen featured a cooking area separated from an eating area by a high counter—and a view of their pleasant backyard through the sliding doors.
Bettina led the way through one of the sliding glass doors and Pamela followed with the cake, setting it on the high counter at Bettina’s direction. Bettina added the shopping bag with the gifts. On a lower counter next to the refrigerator, a package wrapped in white butcher paper had been opened and the wrapping smoothed out. Lying in a neat row on the paper were four steaks, thick ovals like deep red marble veined with white.
Penny had stayed outside to chat with Wilfred, who was watching the progress of the charcoal in the barbecue grill, where small flames still danced here and there among the glowing embers.
“And doesn’t Penny look all grown up!” Bettina exclaimed as she and Pamela stepped back out onto the patio. Penny was wearing one of the dresses she had rediscovered in sorting through her clothes that morning. Pamela recognized it as something Penny had brought home in triumph after a thrifting expedition the previous summer with Richard Larkin’s daughters.
It was a fifties-style sheath dress in a rich shade of green, sleeveless and with a scooped neck, fashioned from heavy cotton lace with a matching lining underneath. Despite Penny’s slenderness, the dress gave her figure a womanly air—and the wineglass she was holding added to the effect.
Penny did look all grown up, Pamela had to agree. This was probably the last summer her daughter would be home—home in the sense of still living in the house where she had grown up.
“Let’s have a glass of wine,” Bettina suggested.
“Yes, let’s!” That sounded like a very good idea at the moment. Pamela followed Bettina to the table and extended a glass as Bettina lifted the dripping bottle of chardonnay from the ice bucket.
On closer inspection the snacks proved to be a bowl of Bettina’s favorite pimento cheese, a bowl of creamy green dip that looked to owe its hue to chopped herbs, a basket of pita chips, and a small tray of carrot strips, celery, and baby tomatoes. Pamela and Bettina sat at the table, Penny and Wilfred joined them, and Pamela relaxed into an evening spent with her best friends in their pleasant yard as Woofus dozed under a tree.
The pimento cheese was a rich blend of mayonnaise and grated cheddar, made colorful by chopped pimentos and enlivened by a bit of cayenne. The neutral flavor of the pita chips didn’t distract from its flavor and they were sturdy enough to convey generous scoops of the pimento cheese from bowl to mouth. The creamy green dip hinted at chives, parsley, garlic and an elusive something that Wilfred, who had created it, identified as anchovies.
After they had chatted for a bit and sampled the pitas and pimento cheese and the raw vegetables and creamy dip, as well as permutations like celery with pimento cheese, Wilfred inspected the state of his coals and pronounced them ready for the steaks. He headed for the kitchen and returned bearing the steaks on a metal platter.
“Ten minutes,” he announced. “Maybe less.”
Bettina sprang to her feet and began to clear away what remained of the snacks. Pamela took up the nearly empty vegetable tray and Penny the chip basket and they followed Bettina through the open doorway into the kitchen.
Four of the plates from Bettina’s sage-green pottery set, as well as silverware and napkins, had been staged on the scrubbed pine table. Penny handed over the basket to Bettina and headed back through the doorway with the plates.
Bettina, meanwhile, was plucking four plump baked potatoes from the oven and arranging them in an oval serving dish. “They’ll stay hot,” she observed, “but just in case . . .” She added a cover to the dish and handed it to Pamela. “Come back for the butter and sour cream,” she said, “and I’ll follow with the salad.”
The table was set, and the potatoes waited in their covered dish with butter and sour cream nearby. Bettina appeared in the doorway with the broad wooden bowl that held the salad—crisp Romaine dressed with olive oil and droplets of balsamic vinegar and garnished with grated Parmesan.
Fragrant smoke rose from the barbecue, teasing with its note of seared meat, as the steaks sizzled on the grill. Wilfred leaned into the plume of smoke, flourishing a two-pronged fork on a long wooden handle. He tapped and poked, and then straightened up.
“Dinner is served,” he called. “Come and get it.”
Pamela and Penny each took up a plate and stepped across the patio onto the grass. Bettina followed with her plate.
Woofus had risen from his nap and was watching with great interest as Wilfred speared the steaks one by one and set them on the plates extended to him by eager hands. The surface of the steaks, which had been seared to a rich russet brown, glistened with melted fat, and the aroma, with its hint of char, promised mouth-filling meatiness.
“Ladies, dear wife, take your seats,” Wilfred urged, beaming with pleasure at his grilling achievement. “I’ll join you in an instant.” He returned the one remaining steak to the metal platter, picked up a knife, and sliced off a generous strip.
Pamela was halfway back to the table, but she turned at the sound of an eager yip from Woofus. Holding the steak strip between thumb and forefinger, Wilfred bent and extended it toward the shaggy creature. Woofus leaned forward and gently took it from Wilfred’s hand.
“That’s all for now, boy,” Wilfred said in a soothing tone as Woofus chewed happily on his treat. He fetched his own plate and claimed the rest of his own steak.
By the time Wilfred and Pamela reached the table, Penny had replaced the glasses from which they had drunk their Chardonnay with a fresh set and Bettina had brought out a bottle of red wine. Wilfred poured a few inches in each glass as Bettina added a baked potato to each plate.
“Salad with or after as you prefer,” she announced. “Help yourselves!”
The steaks more than lived up to their promise. “Rib eye,” Wilfred explained, “from a New Jersey farm, according to the Co-Op’s butcher.”
The meat was juicy and tender and just the right shade of dark pink—so tempting that everyone sampled a few bites of steak before slitting the dusky skins of their baked potatoes to garnish the steaming interior with butter and sour cream.
Conversation focused at first on the meal itself: Wilfred’s discernment in choosing exactly the right steaks and his skill in coaxing them to the perfect state of doneness, not to mention Bettina’s perception that simple baked potatoes with butter and sour cream would complement the steaks without distracting.
At this point attention turned to the salad. It sat precisely in the center of the table, accessible to all and furnished with wooden servers that matched the bowl. When the portion of her plate taken up by the steak had diminished enough to make space for it, Pamela had helped herself to a generous serving. The others had followed suit and first bites had been followed by general agreement that grated Parmesan was just the touch that romaine needed to make it worthy of accompanying a dinner of barbecued rib eye.
Pamela was happy to let the conversation flow around her then, and enjoy the food and the pleasures of the Frasers’ yard with its bountiful shrubbery and patio with its geraniums in colorful ceramic pots. Wilfred and Bettina were eager to hear from Penny about the courses she had just completed and her plans for the summer.
With plates empty and stomachs nearly full—but with room for dessert—everyone leaned back in their chairs. They stared at one another in contented silence until Bettina said, “I think there might be cake.”
“Indeed there might.” Pamela stood up. Penny did too, but Pamela waved her back into her chair. “It’s your birthday cake,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to serve it. And you”—she smiled at Wilfred and then at Bettina—“did so much work for this lovely meal. Please let me take over now.”
In a few quick trips, she cleared away the plates, the silverware, and the serving bowls and deposited them on the counter near the sink. When she stepped back around the high counter to access the cupboard where Bettina kept her sage-green pottery, she happened to glance toward the sliding glass doors. Visible beyond them was the table on the patio, and something was going on.
Wilfred was not in evidence—though a glance to the left indicated he was tending the barbecue. Bettina had moved her chair to the same side of the table where Penny sat, the side that faced away from the glass doors. Head-to-head, they were staring at something in Penny’s hands.
CHAPTER 14
Pamela collected four dessert plates from the cupboard and set them on the high counter. She circled back around the counter to take four dessert forks from Bettina’s silverware drawer. She would deliver plates and forks and then return for the cake. It would be presented whole, in all its strawberry bedecked glory, and candles would be added and lit. Penny would blow the candles out and Pamela would slice and serve the cake.
She carried the plates and forks to the pine table and set them down for a minute so she could slide the glass door back. As soon as a narrow gap opened between the door and the doorframe, the conversation on the patio became audible.
The first words Pamela heard were “Brian Delano, photography professor at Wendelstaff College.” Curiously, they were uttered not by Bettina but by Penny.
Pamela slid the door back farther. Head-to-head, Bettina and Penny were unaware of their eavesdropper, but Pamela could see now that the object in Penny’s hands was her daughter’s smartphone.
“Yes,” Penny went on. “This is him, all right—and there’s a picture.” She handed the smartphone to Bettina.
“Cute!” Bettina exclaimed. “Your mother didn’t tell me that part.”
Pamela seized the plates and forks, stepped through the doorway, and reached the table in three long steps. Making no effort at stealth, she dodged around Bettina’s chair and set the plates and forks down with a thump and a jangle.
Penny looked up with an expression that reminded Pamela of a much younger Penny caught reading in bed long after lights were supposed to be out.
“I was just looking something up for Bettina,” Penny said. “She asked me if I thought Aaron might know anything about . . . about this professor she’d heard you mention. Aaron majored in political science, but Wendelstaff isn’t very big . . . and . . . Aaron is interested in art . . . and . . .” Penny’s voice faltered to a stop. With a quick swipe of a finger, she returned the smartphone’s screen to darkness.
“Bettina.” Pamela’s voice was severe. “You promised you’d never mention Brian Delano again.”
“Mention him to you.” The doubt in Bettina’s eyes suggested that she recognized this hairsplitting would not be well received.
“So it’s okay to . . . to . . . I can’t even think of the right word.” Pamela knew she was frowning in a fearsome manner but she didn’t care. “It’s okay to enlist Penny in your meddling schemes to . . . to”—Pamela’s voice rose in a howl—“get me married!”
Wilfred had been contentedly cleaning his barbecue grill by scraping the burnt-on grease into the still-glowing coals. Now he snapped to attention and focused his gaze on the patio. He hadn’t heard the whole exchange, but it was quite possible he understood what had led to Pamela’s outburst—because Bettina’s concern with Pamela’s single state had been an ongoing theme.
He carefully fitted the grill back into place and then strolled calmly across the grass. Penny was staring straight ahead but Bettina’s head had sagged forward. Even the tendrils of her bright hair seemed dejected.
“Here, here!” Wilfred exclaimed. “We have a birthday to celebrate.” He laid a hand on Bettina’s shoulder, then he addressed Pamela.
“She only wants the best for you,” he said. “We both do.” It was hard to remain angry in the face of Wilfred’s gentle magnanimity. “Water over the bridge, Pamela?” he inquired.
Pamela nodded.
“All’s well that ends well, then. Shall we have the cake?” Wilfred began setting out the plates and forks.
Back in Bettina’s kitchen, Pamela took the little box of candles out of the shopping bag that held the presents and arranged them on the cake, placing them here and there among the strawberries. She was happy to have this excuse to be by herself for a bit. It wasn’t Penny’s fault that Bettina had tried to enlist her as a fellow matchmaker, and Penny’s twenty-first birthday certainly shouldn’t be marred by an argument between her mother and the friend and neighbor who had been almost a second mother to Penny.
