LITMIR.BIZ

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to help with the visit to Mary, Nell never approved of the lively discussions that community misfortunes often gave rise to, feeling that the impulse was more to titillate than to inform.

      But before she could say anything, Melanie stepped back into the living room. “He needs to keep an eye on his creation for about ten minutes, but he wants you to go ahead and start without him,” she said.

      The aroma of something rich and sugary baking had begun to drift into the living room from the direction of the kitchen.

      Bettina closed her eyes and sniffed, her brightly painted lips curving into a smile. “I’d say he’s come up with a winner,” she observed.

      Melanie ventured farther into the room. “It’s that ready-made cookie dough you buy at the grocery store,” she whispered, her carefully manicured fingers shaping a rectangular package. “In the refrigerator case, and you form it into cookies and bake them.” She smiled and held up a finger. “But don’t let on I told you.”

      Holly and Karen returned to their projects, which they had set aside during the brief discussion launched by Bettina’s question. Holly was making a stocking too. She was well past the heel and nearing the point at which the toe would be worked. She’d finished her ambitious color-block afghan a few weeks previously and had declared her intention to join Nell in the stocking project until inspired with an idea for her next creation. “Maybe Desmond would like a hand-knit sweater,” she had said, “but I’m not sure.” Karen’s project was, for a change, not a garment for her daughter Lily, who had been born the previous Christmas, but a baby blanket for a friend who was expecting her first child.

      Bettina’s knitting reposed on her lap, partly hidden by an open magazine that contained the pattern for an ambitious Nordic-style sweater, navy blue with red ribbing and bands of snowflakes in red and white. It was destined for Wilfred and had been in progress for a year. She was frowning and tracing a line of the pattern with a finger as she murmured numbers to herself.

      Pamela herself was engaged in an ambitious project, a sweater she intended to give her mother for Christmas. She’d spent a few weeks paging through pattern books and knitting magazines while satisfying the need to keep her fingers busy by joining Nell in her previous do-good undertaking—hand-knit infant caps to be donated to hospitals. At last she had settled on a design for a loose A-line cardigan with wide sleeves, and large buttons marching down the front. She had splurged on cashmere yarn in a cornflower blue and planned to use vintage silver buttons she’d come across at a tag sale. The back and one of the fronts was complete, and she was partway through the other front.

      As she knitted, enjoying the sensation of the extravagant yarn against her fingers, the smell of baking cookies had become more intense.

      “I think they’re done,” Bettina announced. She had been chatting with Karen about Lily’s latest doings, but now she swiveled her head in the direction of the kitchen. “I hope he’s paying attention,” she added.

      And, in fact, he was. A minute later, Roland emerged. “Welcome, everyone,” he said. “I apologize for my late entrance, but I was unavoidably detained.”

      Had he worn an apron for his cookie-baking? Pamela found herself wondering. He was dressed, as always, in a scrupulously tailored pinstripe suit, a starched white dress shirt, and a discreetly patterned, obviously expensive, tie.

      He strode across his living room’s luxuriant carpet, followed by a sleek black cat, and took his seat in the low-slung turquoise chair that matched the sofa. The elegant leather briefcase that served as his knitting bag sat ready at the chair’s side. As soon as he had settled into the chair, the cat leaped up beside him and snuggled against his thigh. The cat, Cuddles, had been adopted by Roland from the same litter that included Ginger.

      “Did you get many trick-or-treaters?” Holly inquired. “Or were all your neighbors at the parade and bonfire?”

      Roland looked up from the briefcase, which he’d hoisted onto his lap. “If by trick-or-treaters you mean the children asking for handouts of candy,” he said as he worked the latch, “they come around in the afternoon.” The briefcase top sprang open.

      “Ohhh!” Holly sounded genuinely heartbroken. “You don’t get to treat them then, and they’re so cute in their little costumes. Desmond and I miss most of them too, with our schedules at the salon.”

      Roland frowned. “I don’t see the point of it,” he said. He lifted a swath of knitting from the briefcase, along with the mate to the needle from which it hung, and a skein of camel-colored yarn.

      “But you have a scarecrow on your porch—and a very nice one too,” Bettina chimed in.

      “That’s Melanie’s doing.” Roland clicked his briefcase closed and lowered it back to its spot on the floor.

      “People enjoy Halloween,” Nell said, leaning forward from the depths of the armchair, “though I wish there was less emphasis on candy. Dressing up, however . . . it’s a chance for people to exercise their imaginations and become somebody they’re not.”

      “And dance around a fire like some kind of . . . of . . . barely civilized . . .”

      “Barbarians?” Nell suggested, the tilt of her lips hinting at a smile.

      “Yes!” Roland’s lean face was intense. “Barbarians.”

      “No one was dancing.” Holly’s tone was that of someone calmly correcting a factual error.

      “And you weren’t even there anyway.” Bettina’s tone was less calm.

      “I know they weren’t really dancing,” Roland snapped, sounding irritated that his description of the Halloween revelers had been taken literally. “But I didn’t have to be there to know what it was like. All these people out roaming around in the dark, and nobody looks like who they really are, and Arborville’s police force—which I support with my tax dollars—has to work overtime. And look what happened.”

      “Oh, Roland . . .” The hint of a smile vanished and Nell’s voice faltered. “That was a terrible, terrible thing, but it didn’t have anything to do with primal urges. Halloween is just fun for the children, as long as they don’t eat too much candy, and the community so enjoys the parade and bonfire.”

      Roland grunted and began to study his project. “You haven’t made much progress since last week,” Bettina commented from across the room.

      “I’ve made a lot of progress,” Roland said, raising his eyes from the rectangle of camel-colored knitting he was pondering. “This is the second sleeve. Last week I was working on the first sleeve.”

      Holly directed a dimply smile in his direction. “The second sleeve!” she exclaimed. “You’ve really been busy—and Melanie is going to love her sweater.”

      “She should,” Roland said. “She picked out the yarn and the pattern. But I haven’t been any busier than usual. I’m just very efficient.” He thrust his right-hand needle through the first stitch on his left-hand needle, caught up a twist of yarn with his right-hand forefinger, and soon was methodically creating a new row.

      “That’s a perfect color for her!” Holly wasn’t giving up easily in her effort to engage Roland in conversation. “Melanie is always so elegant.”

      “She is?” Roland looked up with a puzzled frown. He thought for a minute as the frown deepened, then he said, “Yes, elegant. I suppose she is,” and resumed his knitting.

      Holly sighed, laughed to herself, and gathered her knitting to migrate across the room and crouch by the side of Nell’s armchair. Soon the two of them were conferring about the steps involved in shaping the toe of Holly’s in-progress stocking.

      Next to Pamela, Bettina and Karen were comparing notes on babies—though the baby in question for Bettina was her Boston granddaughter. Pamela was happy to knit in silence for a bit, and grateful Roland’s mention of Dawn Filbert’s murder hadn’t given rise to a more extended discussion.

      Fifteen

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