Silence of the Lamb's Wool (A Yarn Retreat Mystery) Read online

  Bree was frantic, urging them to hurry as she ran toward the boardwalk to lead the way. The pair of paramedics rushed after her. I was a step behind. When I looked back I saw a whole crowd of people trailing along. I was sure Kevin St. John was somewhere in the pack.

  Bree was running now, waving for the paramedics to hurry. Instead of going straight toward Sunset Avenue and the beach, she took a turnoff to the section of the boardwalk that twisted through the whole length of the dunes. The path went up a steep hill and then descended into a valley. Ahead, tall bushes obscured the view and it was only when we got close enough that I saw the bench next to the walkway. There was a woman sprawled on the ground. When I saw the aqua scarf artfully draped around her neck, I suddenly knew why Nicole Welton had never shown up.

  7

  “I’d gone walking to see if I could get a signal,” Bree said, holding up her cell phone. “Then I saw the woman on the ground. At first, I thought she’d fallen.” Bree still looked pale as we stood off to the side while the paramedics took over. “But when I asked if she was all right, she didn’t answer.” Bree’s face crumbled. “It was horrible. She looked like she’d been sick all over herself.” I could see that Bree was operating on nerves now and the words kept tumbling out. “I checked her pulse.” Bree explained that she’d learned CPR recently at her kids’ school. “I wanted to do something to help her, but you can’t do CPR on someone who’s breathing, can you?”

  I let Bree continue to spew while my gaze went to the action on the ground, even though I was still feeling the adrenaline rush I’d gotten from hurrying to keep up with Bree, having no idea who or what we were going to find.

  I knew I had only a few moments to get a look at the scene before Kevin St. John threaded through the crowd, trying to take charge.

  I’d learned from Dr. Sammy that people’s area of focus is really very small. The whole reason Sammy’s magic tricks worked was because of that fact. It was also why people missed all kinds of details outside their center of attention. I recognized that my eyes had locked on the two men in dark blue uniforms hovering over Nicole and I was missing everything beyond that. I forced myself to expand my focus and take in the bigger picture, making note of the details. I saw a smartphone sitting on the bench. Farther down almost to the other end I noticed a circle mark on the wood seat. I pushed my gaze to look at the ground, where a white-lidded red paper cup lay on its side. I noticed a small square-shaped glass bottle nearby. There was something else in the sand, but before I could step closer to see what it was, Kevin St. John stepped in front of me and blocked my view.

  “Ms. Feldstein, I know what you’re doing. There is no need for your amateur detective skills here. Now if you would gather your retreater and move along with everyone else and clear the area.”

  There was no choice but to follow his orders. I put my arm around Bree and joined the line of people heading back to the grounds.

  Bree and I had barely settled on the soft leather sofa in the Lodge when I heard the engine of the ambulance start up and the flashing red light reflect in the building. A moment later the siren went on as it left the grounds. Bree reacted to the sound, but I gave her a reassuring pat. “It’s a good sign that they’re in a hurry to get her to the hospital,” I said.

  I hadn’t broken the news to Bree about who Nicole was. I was barely facing it myself, convinced that she would recover quickly and be well enough to handle the weekend retreat.

  But this was no time to think about my problems. I felt for Bree. She had come so far on the last retreat, learning to be away from her family and to be on her own for a little while. And this retreat hadn’t even really started and already she’d been in the middle of an emergency.

  I tried reassuring her that she’d really risen to the occasion. First trying to help Nicole and then getting help for her. My comments cheered her a little, but she still looked done in. “Can I get you something to drink?” I said, wanting to do something.

  “A soda would be nice,” Bree said, brightening. “I feel a little weak in the knees. Maybe one with real sugar.”

  I met up with Jane on my way into the café as she carried in a brown cardboard box and set it down next to the rack of chips. “I saw the ambulance drive in and everyone heading into the dunes. Did someone get hurt?”

  When she heard it was Nicole, she sucked in her breath and stopped what she was doing. “Is she going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure they’re doing everything they can for her,” I said.

  “Does Will know?” she said, sounding frantic. “Someone should get in touch with him.” The words were barely out of her mouth when I saw him dash by and head for his blue pickup truck. It roared to life and pulled away.

  “It looks like someone did,” I said. Poor Jane seemed so upset, but then I’d heard that she’d gone through a lot taking care of her disabled mother and all this had probably hit a nerve. I took an extra minute to reassure her before I left with a chilled bottle of ginger ale made with real ginger.

  When I came back, Olivia and Scott had joined Bree. They both seemed confused.

  “I thought we were supposed to have a spinning lesson?” Olivia said. Scott and I went to the meeting room, but when nobody showed up, we finally went to the dining hall and had lunch.”

  “We heard sirens. Did something happen?” Scott asked. The two of them sat down and took out their knitting and began to work their needles while I tried to think of what to say.

  Bree rushed ahead and told them about finding Nicole. Then I told them all who she was.

  Bree got upset for me, but I urged her to take out her knitting, knowing it would help calm her. Frankly, I wished I had some yarn as well. I looked toward the gift shop and wondered if Gwen and Crystal had made their delivery. Telling the group I’d be right back, I went to the shop to find out.

  Someone from the yarn shop had clearly been there because the gondola was full of yarn and supplies. It seemed foolish with all the yarn I had across the street, but I didn’t want to leave my people just now, and besides, you can never have enough yarn. I picked out a skein of kelly green cotton yarn and a set of circular needles. I’d made so many washcloths and bandannas, I had memorized the pattern.

  I rejoined the group and we all began to knit. Silently at first, but then the conversation started. Scott was thinking of joining a group of knitters back home. He was worried about being accepted since the group was all women. Olivia admitted to moments of intense anger toward her newly married ex, though they were fewer and farther between. Bree had been told she was a helicopter parent, which meant she hovered too much.

  “But look, I’m here. If I was hovering so much I’d never leave, would I?”

  After reassuring Bree she was right, they all looked at me. “My life is running perfectly,” I joked. Then, being honest, I said that Cadbury had begun to feel like home to me and that I liked what I was doing and left it at that.

  The ginger in the soda had a tonic effect and the color returned to Bree’s face. I think the knitting played a part, too. I sat with them for a while longer.

  I was so busy thinking about taking care of the three of them, I barely considered there was probably going to be a problem with the retreat program. Probably was an understatement, but it was all I could handle at the moment. My aunt Joan would have been proud of how well I was taking care of the others. It was a skill I was learning from these retreats. Before, my whole MO had been that I was barely able to take care of myself. The thing I’d done best was drop things and move on.

  When I saw Kevin St. John come from the office area behind the registration counter, I excused myself and went up to him. “Have you heard anything about Nicole Welton?” I asked.

  His usually placid face appeared disturbed. “The news isn’t good. She died shortly after she got to the hospital.” I bombarded him with questions about h
ow and why, but he said he had no details. “It’s troubling that her death is going to be connected to Vista Del Mar. Any idea of why she was on the grounds?”

  I was going to say there could have been many reasons, including meeting her husband, who was the caretaker, but I just came clean and said she was there to meet me. “She was going to run a program for my retreat. We were going to go over some things.”

  He shook his head with mock concern. “First the problem with the sheep shearing and now this. Some people might take all these obstacles as a sign that this yarn retreat business wasn’t for them.”

  I waited, expecting him to offer to take the business over as he’d done before, but all he said was that he hoped I had some kind of backup plan. I think I understood. He was just going to let me fall on my face and then when I’d given up, he’d pick up the pieces.

  “I’ll manage just fine,” I said defiantly. I sounded so sure of myself, I almost believed it. He tilted his head with a doubtful smile before he wished me a good afternoon.

  I didn’t relay the bad news to my people, but just told them I had something to do and would be back to have dinner with them.

  As soon as I was out of their view, all my confidence evaporated. What was I going to do? I didn’t even go into my house. I just hopped in my yellow Mini Cooper and drove into downtown Cadbury and parked in front of the Blue Door restaurant.

  It was getting close to the time they opened for dinner. As I passed through the first dining room, I saw that Tag was in the kitchen and caught a snippet of his conversation with the chef about the proper placement of garnish on a plate. All the tables were covered in snowy white cloths and place settings, waiting for the dinner crowd.

  In the second dining room I found Lucinda seated at one of the tables, inserting the dinner specials into the menus.

  I bumped into a chair as I passed and the sound made her look up. Her first reaction was a happy-to-see-me smile, then she saw the trouble on my face.

  “Come and sit,” she said, patting the empty space on the floral cushion that covered the wooden bench. “Did something happen?”

  “Did something happen?” I repeated with an intonation that made it obvious that something big had happened. I told her about Nicole.

  “She’s dead. I can’t believe it. Was it natural causes or foul play?”

  All I could do was shrug for an answer. “I heard the news from Kevin St. John,” I said, and Lucinda nodded with understanding.

  “Even if he knew, he probably wouldn’t tell you. I suppose he’s just concerned it happened on the grounds,” Lucinda remarked.

  “Exactly,” I said. I told her how he was almost gloating over my problems with the retreat.

  Tag heard voices and came into the room. Despite his fifty-something years, his hair was almost all brown and very full. If I hadn’t known him better, I would have thought he was wearing a wig. But a wig or anything artificial wasn’t Tag’s style. Nor were any sort of blue jeans or shorts. The restaurant was casual, but he still always wore a blue blazer over gray slacks.

  “Casey just told me that Nicole had some kind of seizure on the boardwalk at Vista Del Mar, and she died.” The words were matter-of-fact, but Lucinda sounded like she could barely believe what she was saying.

  Tag took the news with a hard swallow. He knew Nicole because The Bank was just a block away. Actually, Tag knew all the shopkeepers and coffee servers in the area. He took an exercise walk every morning at the same time and kept track of the goings-on of the street.

  For a moment we talked back and forth about how horrible her death was and then Lucinda brought up the retreat.

  “Not being able to get the sheep sheared at Vista Del Mar doesn’t seem like much of a problem anymore,” I said. “I should never have depended on Nicole so completely. I should have had her show me the process. At the very least, I should have made sure I knew how to spin yarn.”

  Tag listened and the idea that I had twenty people coming in two days expecting to learn how to make yarn and no one to direct it, made him crazy. “You’ll have to refund their money,” he said, shaking his head as he considered all the fallout. He was getting agitated and taking it all too personally. I knew I had to do something or he would end up driving Lucinda nuts with his worry.

  “I’m sure I’ll work it out,” I said. “I think I know what to do about the sheep shearing. It won’t have the same razzle-dazzle as having the sheep sheared in front of the bigger group. But I can just go to the ranch and pick up the wool.”

  Tag started to react again, thinking of all the wool I’d have and not know what to do with it. He had a hard—no, impossible—time being spontaneous. This time Lucinda stepped in and told him I had so much experience doing so many different things, I’d be able to pull off the retreat. She sounded so convincing, I started to believe it.

  I took out my cell, glad to have a signal, and called the rancher. My suggestion was fine with him and we agreed on a time for the next day.

  “Instead of the sheep coming to us, we’re going to them. I’ll take the early birds with me,” I said to the couple.

  “I’m coming, too,” Lucinda said. The restaurant is closed on Wednesday, so any time is fine.

  Tag straightened a knife on the table next to him. “Exactly how many of these so-called early birds are there?” he asked.

  “There’s Olivia, Bree, Scott, Lucinda and me,” I said.

  “You can’t get five people in that little car of yours, and where would you put the fleeces?”

  Before I could say anything, he continued. “We’ll take the restaurant van. I can put the seats back in.”

  “You’re coming?” I said, surprised.

  “Yes, give me the location and I’ll chart the course tonight.”

  I had never gone anywhere with Tag and wondered if I was making a mistake. But under the circumstances any and all help was appreciated, so I accepted and they said they would pick us up in the morning.

  8

  The reality of the situation began to sink in as I sat in my kitchen. What was I going to do? In a couple of days, twenty people were going to arrive here expecting an organized retreat.

  When I’d looked through my aunt’s notes for the Sheep to Shawl weekend, it sounded like such a good idea, particularly since I’d met Nicole and she had been so enthused about it. But all that had changed.

  Julius was sitting on the chair next to me, giving me a dirty look. I’d tried feeding him the leftover chicken breast Lucinda had given me before I left the restaurant, but he walked away with a plaintive meow.

  Maybe my mother was right. Maybe I had made a mistake and taken on more than I could handle. I shook my head, trying to get rid of that thought. Had I just said, even to myself, that my mother might be right? No way. But still I had that feeling of wanting to take off.

  But I couldn’t cancel the retreat; it was in two days.

  “When you get hungry enough you’ll eat it,” I said to Julius as I headed to the door. The early birds were expecting me to join them for dinner. The cat stared at me for a moment, flicked his tail and walked toward the bedroom.

  How could Nicole have died? She was only twenty-seven.

  The grounds of Vista Del Mar were quiet as I passed through on the way to the Sea Foam dining hall. The dinner bell had rung and almost everyone was already inside. I caught a whiff of the scent of hot food as I neared the building. Somehow in the mix of the day I’d forgotten about eating and my hunger had just shown up with a vengeance.

  I recognized the frizz of Bree’s blond curls as soon as I walked inside. She, Olivia and Scott were sitting at a table near the massive stone fireplace. Scott certainly wasn’t hiding that he knit anymore. Something partially done in a masculine shade of brown was on the table next to his place setting and I saw he had the needles in his hands and was working them as he talked to his
tablemates.

  They all looked up as I pulled out a chair next to Olivia. I was glad to see that the color had returned to Bree’s face and she seemed back to normal, but then she didn’t know about Nicole’s death yet.

  “What’s for dinner?” I said, glancing at their plates. Olivia pushed her plate closer to me.

  “Mushroom stroganoff,” she said. She showed me a card sitting on the table explaining that Vista Del Mar had adopted the plan of going meatless on Tuesdays. “It’s quite the green thing to do now,” she said. It must have been another of Kevin St. John’s changes. I suppose he’d mentioned it before I’d joined them the other day.

  Whatever it was made of, it smelled delicious and I went to get a plate. The plan was I’d eat and then break the news about Nicole. The only one whose reaction concerned me was Bree’s. I was afraid she’d feel it was her fault. I didn’t know the cause of death, but I doubted that Bree could have done anything to save her.

  I’d barely set my plate down and tasted a forkful of rich sauce over buttered noodles when I saw Lieutenant Borgnine and Kevin St. John come into the dining hall. Lieutenant Borgnine was built like a bulldog and either had a whole wardrobe of grayish rumpled-looking sports jackets or always wore the same one. His hair was mostly a dark gray and cut short to lessen the contrast with his bald spot. Kevin St. John had a somber expression that matched the look of his dark suit, white shirt and tie. The two men passed through the roomful of animated people in casual wear like a pair of dark clouds.

  I knew they were headed our way and reevaluated my plan. I dropped my fork and looked across the table to Bree.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Nicole, the woman you found, died.” Bree didn’t have time to react before the two men reached our table.