Knit Your Own Murder (3 page)

B
etsy
had stayed after closing that Friday. The auction was tomorrow, Saturday, and she had some packing up to do. Over the past few weeks, Betsy had filled two big cardboard boxes with over a hundred knitted animals. She brought them up from the basement to the front of the shop. She had put some of the best ones on display in the shop and was now going around collecting the last of them and putting them with the others in a row in front of the boxes.

The Irene Potter Jabberwock piece had been taken into custody by the auction committee and was never on display in Betsy's shop.

Other stores in town had been collecting toys made of fabric and, in one case, wood. There was a secondary movement afoot for many of the toys' new owners to donate them again to hospitals, day care centers, and charities. Betsy was pleased that Crewel World had outpaced them in donations.

She had just put the last toy, a giraffe, on the table when the door to the shop sounded its music. The door had been left unlocked in anticipation of the arrival of someone from the committee to pick them up. Betsy turned and saw Bershada. With her was a short man of stocky build with a fringe of yellow hair around a bald head. He was wearing white running shoes, pale blue jeans, and a blue blazer over a tan T-shirt, and he was smiling broadly. He looked around the shop with interest, taking in the many spinner racks of floss, the long white cabinet full of needlework books and gadgets, the wall hangings of finished needlework projects, and then returned to Betsy. He was still grinning, prepared to be pleased to meet her.

Bershada said, “Betsy, this is Max Irwin, the auctioneer I've been telling you about.”

Betsy put her hand out. “I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Irwin.”

“Max, call me Max,” he said, taking her hand in a warm grip. His voice was rough-edged, probably from years of loud and fast talking.

“All right. Max. I hope Bershada has prepared you properly for this auction. It's kind of different from the usual.”

Max laughed. “Ma'am, they're all different. No two alike. That's what keeps me going, the variety.” He gestured toward Bershada. “This kind lady knows her stuff. She has her eye on the goal and takes dead aim at it. This is going to be a great auction.”

Betsy said, “I hope you're right. I guess I'm a little nervous, worried they might end up selling all these beautiful toys for a quarter apiece. People have been working very hard on them.”

Bershada said, “Trust Max. That is not going to happen.”

“That's right,” declared Max, one hand on his chest, elbow out. “Trust me.”

“Max wanted an advance look at what we're auctioning off,” said Bershada, “so I brought him here.”

“All right,” said Betsy. She gestured at the toys she'd been picking up, about a dozen of them. They were standing in a row on the library table. “Here are some of the best examples. I've been using them as displays in the shop, both to encourage customers to knit and contribute some, and to sell the books of instruction I have in stock to make them.”

Max went to the table and picked up Godwin's leopard. “This is nice, real pretty. I bet it took some talent to make it.”

“Yes, it did. My store manager knit it. I'm thinking of bidding on it myself so I can keep it on display next to
Knit Your Own Zoo
, the book he got the pattern from.”

Bershada reached around Max to pick up the red rooster. “Oh, I think you should bid on this—it's more of an eye-catcher.”

“No, I'm going to knit another one. It'll be easier to talk about it to a customer if I've done two of them.”

Max eyed her sideways. “You did this?”

“Yes. I find I have to at least try to work the kinds of patterns I'm selling, so I can answer questions about them. But Godwin's my real expert; he can do just about any kind of needlework.”

“Where is this paragon?” asked Max, looking around.

“Gone for the day. He and his partner are going to a concert in Saint Paul, so I let him cut out early.”

“Ah,” said Max. He picked up a pair of very small
penguins. “I don't think these come from the same book as the leopard.”

“No, they're from a book called
Mini Knitted Safari
. And there are other books by the same author, too. Quite a few children knitted toys designed by her.”

“Maybe we should auction these in lots,” he said.

Bershada said, “My son Chaz made a wooden model of the Ark, and I'll finish knitting a figure of Noah tonight. You're right, and there are duplicates of many of these tiny animals, so I'm going to put a group of pairs into one lot with the Ark and Noah.”

“Wow, what a great idea!” said Betsy. “Be sure to tell Mount Calvary about that. They might want it for their Sunday school.”

“Yes, that's a terrific idea.” said Max. “Divide some of the rest of these little bitty ones into lots, so maybe others will get the same idea.”

Bershada said to Betsy, “See? I told you he was good!”

Betsy said, “And maybe I can hire Chaz to make me an Ark and sell me the pattern. That should sell more copies of the books—the author has others in addition to that
Safari
one.” Betsy was always on the lookout for ways to improve sales.

M
ount
Calvary Lutheran Church was on the southwest side of Excelsior. The church was relatively new, but not so modern it couldn't be recognized as a church at a glance. It was built in Gothic style, of pale stone, with lots of parking in back and multiple entrances to the large hall.

The atrium was large and beautiful, circular in design, with offices, classrooms, a hallway to the kitchen, and another to the restrooms off it. There were lots of tall windows, and there was a big skylight in its slightly domed ceiling. The floor was light-colored tile, currently covered with padded folding chairs in a crescent pattern, facing a lectern. The lectern was flanked by two pairs of long tables, each pair heaped with toy animals, mostly knit, some crocheted, several made of wood.

On a small, long-legged table by itself was a glass case, and inside it was Irene Potter's strange vision of the
Jabberwock. Behind the lectern and tables was a single row of seven folding chairs.

The doors to the hall opened at 1:15 p.m. People filing in for the auction were directed to a desk near the rear of the atrium to sign in and receive a deep yellow cardboard paddle with a bold black number printed on it. Most of the people signing in took a detour to get a closer look at the toys and the dragon before finding their seats.

The auction was scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. At 1:30, a musical duo consisting of a husband and wife playing an oboe and a double bass fiddle came in and performed a mix of music as odd as their pairing: some folk, some Renaissance, some original compositions, a couple of Irish jigs. The audience applauded, though more thinly as the hour approached for the auction to begin.

At 2:25 p.m. the duo quit and left the room as a group of two men and five women filed out of one of the hallways near the tables and lectern. The new arrivals were wearing dressy casual clothing—good shirts and blazers for the men, skirts and fancy blouses or sweaters for the women. Maddy O'Leary, in the middle of the row, wore her usual wool suit, this one a purple so dark it was almost black. Each of them carried a small, bright green canvas bag with the
CREWEL WORLD
logo on it and a pair of bamboo knitting needles poking out the top.

They paused in front of the row of chairs, turned to face the audience, then sat down. The audience, which had fallen silent at their entrance, murmured in bemusement.

Bershada Reynolds came out of the same hallway and stepped up to the lectern. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said,
“these seven people”—she half turned and made a wide gesture with one arm—“are responsible for nearly half of the items we are auctioning off here today. In fact, one of them—who does not want me to identify her, thank you, Maddy—knit twenty-six toys all by herself.”

The audience burst into applause. Maddy, seated in the middle of the row, kept her head down but blushed furiously.

“Now,” continued Bershada, “I would like to introduce you to our auctioneer, Max Irwin.”

She got no further.

“Hello, hello, hello, and welcome!” bellowed a man's hoarse voice, and Max came striding out from the same hallway, with his arms wide and a big grin on his face. He was wearing a red T-shirt under a brown blazer, blue jeans, and red high-top canvas shoes. “Wow, what a great turnout!” he continued, stepping behind the lectern. “Must be three hundred people here.”

The audience was slow to quiet down, so he slid the on-off button of the microphone back and forth a few times, making it pop, and suddenly his voice was a deafening roar: “Can you hear me now?” The audience yelled in protest, and he leaped back in mock astonishment. He stepped forward and said in a much quieter voice, “I guess so!”

The audience laughed, its attention fully captured.

“Are you ready for a chance to do some good for Excelsior?” he challenged them.

“Yeah!” replied many voices. “Right on!” said one, and “Bring it!” said another.

“Are you ready for some excitement?” he asked, louder.

“Yeah!” came the reply, also louder.

“Wanna have some
fun
?”

“
Yeah, yeah!
” they replied, at top volume now, and somebody whistled.

“Well, all right, let's get down to it. Let's raise a little money! Here are the rules: My assistant, Frankie—Hey, where is Frankie? Frankie? Frankie! Where are you? Come on out here!”

An extremely attractive young woman wearing tight jeans and an oversize red sweater came out from the hallway making such elaborate apologetic gestures to him and the audience that they laughed.

“Where you been?” he demanded.

She glanced at the audience and came to whisper in his ear.

“Oh,” he said, immediately mollified. The audience laughed again. “Okay. You ready to get to work?”

She nodded and smiled at the audience.

“Again, here are the rules: She's gonna hand me one toy at a time! If you want it, you hold up your paddle”—he held up a hand, palm forward—“and call out your bid. We're taking bids in dollar amounts only—no fifty-cent raises! There are people around this room—spotters—who will call my attention to your bid! Somebody else wants it more, hold up your paddle and call out a higher number! Highest bidder gets the toy! At the end of the whole shebang, bring your payment to that nice young lady right over there!” He turned sideways to point with both hands at Bershada, who was standing at the far end of the left-hand table. She held up a notepad and pen in one hand and pointed to a gray cash
box in front of her. “You pay her, she'll give you the toy!” he continued. “We take cash, checks, and credit or debit cards! Got it? Everybody ready? Then let's have us an
auction
!”

The audience, roused by his words, cheered and waved their paddles.

His assistant moved swiftly to the table on his right and grabbed a toy. It was a gray felt elephant with a cross-stitched red-patterned blanket on its back, its trunk raised gracefully to its forehead.

“Who's got the money, who's got the money, how much, how much, say ten dollar, ten dollar,” he chanted rapidly.

A paddle went up. “Five dollars!” shouted the owner, a man with white hair. A tall, thin man with red hair standing in the aisle nearby pointed at him.

“Five dollar, got five dollar, who'll make it ten, make it ten, five dollar, say ten, say ten,” chanted Max.

“Ten!” called a woman near the front.

Max instantly pointed at her. “Ho! Ten dollar, make it fifteen, fifteen dollar, fifteen, I got ten, make it fifteen!”

He was talking so rapidly his audience barely caught one word in three or four—those who had never heard auctioneer chanting before looked around, totally baffled. Then, one by one, they realized they didn't have to hear every word, just the numbers. The lower number was the current bid; the higher what he wanted to hear as a raise. The paddles started coming up faster, in greater numbers, and a kind of fever began to grow among members of the audience.

The elephant went for thirty-five dollars, a wooden camel on wheels went for fifty, and a knit pig for seventy-two. The Noah's Ark went for a hundred and twenty-five.