“And what did you do when you left the yarn store?” I asked. She’d finished demonstrating the single needle version of casting on and urged me to try. Actually, I was curious. After several muffed attempts, I finally got it and kept going until I had ten stitches on the needle.
A hint of annoyance moved over Jeen’s face, and she dropped her voice. “I taught a knitting class at Beasley Community College’s Extension Program.”
Okay, on one hand we had a woman just starting out who had managed to parlay her skill into a successful book, and an accomplished one who ended up teaching an extension class. Seeing how Jeen was so into rules and the proper way of doing things, I had to believe that didn’t sit well with her. I came right out and asked her how she felt about Izabelle’s success.
“I was happy for her,” Jeen said in a careful tone. “But she was never happy with herself. She seemed obsessed with changing her appearance. I gather she still was-those green eyes were brown when I knew her, and she weighed more.” Jeen picked up her needles and began doing a first row on what she’d cast on. She nodded, encouraging me to do the same, as she pushed a sheet of paper toward me that had diagrams and instructions on how to knit. I hesitated, but she nodded again and I picked up the other needle. The pair felt awkward in my hands after using a hook. Well, at least Jeen did what she expected of others. She gave me verbal instructions, the written ones, and then she demonstrated by slowly moving her needles. After a stitch or two, I got it and went on down the rest of the row.
“I really felt sorry for Izabelle. I think she kept going through husbands. And if she had any family, she never talked about them. She was all about making something of herself.” Jeen smiled. “I’m lucky to have a wonderful partner like Jym.” I took the mention of his name as an opening and asked if knitting was his full-time business, too.
“Oh, no,” Jeen said with a laugh, as if I’d just said the most ridiculous thing. “He’s a structural engineer.” She went on about how he’d taken up knitting so they’d have something they could do together. When she got to the part where he’d whittled special sets of knitting needles, I started to zone out, and when she took a breath, I changed the subject back to Izabelle.
“Besides the eye color and weight, what kinds of changes did Izabelle make in herself?”
“I don’t know what she did before I met her, but while we worked at the yarn store, she kept changing the style and color of her hair, and she went to a voice coach. It seemed like she was trying to reinvent herself.” I had reached the end of the row, and Jeen demonstrated by turning her work and beginning another row. She said she wanted to make sure I had the knit stitch down before she moved on to purl.
“The trouble was that no matter what she did to the outside, the inside was the same old Izabelle. I ran into her after dinner the first night. I tried to be friendly and ask about her new fusion craft, but she was barely cordial and in a hurry.”
“Why be in a hurry here?” I said, gesturing toward the tree-filled grounds. “There was nothing going on that night.”
“I think she was meeting someone,” Jeen said. “Or she might have just been trying to get rid of me. Izabelle was not a gracious person.” Jeen sighed. “Oh dear, and I wasn’t going to speak unkindly of the dead.”
“Did you know about her peanut allergy?” I pressed.
Jeen seemed to be getting tired of answering questions, particularly about someone she didn’t care for. She looked at her watch, readjusted some of the things on the table.
“Izabelle always made a big fuss about what she ate. I never thought about it, but it was probably a cover-up of her allergy.”
“Why did you tell Sergeant French you and Jym didn’t know Izabelle from before?” The question had been on my mind ever since Jeen had told me what she’d said to the police officer and asked me not to contradict her.
Jeen’s calm demeanor suddenly got agitated, and her movements were jerky as she wound the yarn around her needle. “It’s nothing, really. I just thought that since I’m sure neither Jym nor I was on the beach with Izabelle, why say we knew her at all? Why should we open ourselves up for a bunch of questions for no reason?” She glanced at me. “What’s with all your questions?”
I thought quickly and said I planned to say a few words in remembrance at the last night party, and since I didn’t know Izabelle, I was trying to get a feeling of who she was from people who did. I was going to use that as a spring-board to asking more questions, but there was suddenly another presence in the room. Someone whose outfit of shimmery white pants with a long white cowl-neck top finished off with a white turban could have been called fog.
Adele stood at the table, staring at my hands. “I can’t believe it, Pink. You’ve gone over to the other side.”
CHAPTER 18
“YOU’LL BE GLAD I GOT YOU OUT OF THERE, PINK,” Adele said as we stopped outside the classroom. I didn’t look back, but I was sure Jeen’s face probably still had the look of horror. Adele’s actions must have broken every rule of Jeen’s code of proper behavior. My fellow Hooker had snatched the needles out of my hand and thrown them down on the table with such force, they bounced. Then she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room as if she was rescuing me from being kidnapped.
Dinah came out of her classroom, holding the pen she’d been concerned about. “What’s going on?”
Adele answered before I could open my mouth and launched into a tirade about Jeen’s efforts to turn me into a knitter.
“She almost had Pink, too. First it was just casting on, then why not try a few rows, and the next thing you know, you’re making a baby blanket.” Adele adjusted her white turban that had gotten knocked off-kilter during my rescue.
“You really should thank-” Adele said, but I put up my hand to stop her as I gave her my rendition of CeeCee Collins’s cease-and-desist look. Nobody could carry it off with the same power as our crochet group leader, but whatever I managed was sufficient to make Adele close her mouth without saying anything more.
“Not that I have to explain, but nobody was getting me to do anything. I went along with learning how to knit to keep Jeen talking about Izabelle. It turns out they have a history.”
“Oh,” Adele said as her frenzied expression relaxed. “Why did you want her to talk about Izabelle?”
Dinah and I looked at each other, and Dinah gave me a why-not-go-for-it half shrug of one shoulder, so I told Adele I didn’t believe Izabelle had eaten the s’more on her own.
“You think somebody killed her?” Adele appeared stricken. “But you’re not telling anyone, right?” She grabbed my arm. “Look, Nancy Poirot Fletcher Drew, nobody else thinks it was murder, and you’ve got to leave it that way.” She made some loud dramatic sighs. “Pink, if the cops start looking for a murderer, you know their first stop is going to be me.” It wasn’t enough for Adele to just say it, she had to point to herself with both hands as well.
“You know I didn’t do it, right? I was just so upset when I saw she was wearing my work and calling it her own, I lost it for a minute. That’s all.” Adele tried to get me to promise to stop investigating, but I said nothing. I wasn’t going to lie to her, but telling her I planned to continue would only lead to more hysterics.
I had hoped to change into a more in-charge sort of outfit before breakfast, but when I saw people were already gathering outside the dining hall, waiting for it to open, the sweats were going to have to do it for now. By the time the three of us reached the building, the bell had rung, marking the start of breakfast, and people were already filing in.
The warm air inside carried the pungent aroma of coffee and bacon mixed with the slightly sweet smell of pancakes. As I watched people from our group head to the area we’d come to call our own, I noticed their animated faces and the friendly sound of their conversations. If there hadn’t been the fog emergency and Izabelle’s murder-no matter what anyone said, I was calling it that-this would have been an easy weekend. Asilomar took care of the lodging and food and provided a rustic backdrop. Commander Blaine was on top of activities. And the presenters were doing a good job tending to their groups. After registration, all I would have had to worry about was picking up sunglasses people left in the meeting rooms and replacing lost name tags.