Yarn Over Murder (A Knitting Mystery)

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Maggie Sefton

KNIT ONE, KILL TWO

NEEDLED TO DEATH

A DEADLY YARN

A KILLER STITCH

DYER CONSEQUENCES

FLEECE NAVIDAD

DROPPED DEAD STITCH

SKEIN OF THE CRIME

UNRAVELED

CAST ON, KILL OFF

CLOSE KNIT KILLER

YARN OVER MURDER

Anthologies

DOUBLE KNIT MURDERS

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2014 by Margaret Conlan Aunon.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14031-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sefton, Maggie.

Yarn over murder / Maggie Sefton.—First edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-425-25842-2

1. Flynn, Kelly (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Knitters (Persons)—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3619.E37Y39 2014

813'.6—dc23

2014004133

FIRST EDITION:
June 2014

Cover illustration by Chris O’Leary.

Cover design by Rita Frangie.

Cover logo by axb group.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

I want to thank my Lambspun friend Mary Biggers for her kind cooperation in answering all my questions about her experiences during the High Park wildfire in June 2012. Mary lives in Cache La Poudre Canyon, and she was evacuated in the middle of the night when the wildfire came over the ridge and blazed down into the canyon. Along with the rest of her neighbors who lived closer to the tiny community of Poudre Park, Mary had to leave with just the clothes on her back. She was fortunate to have family in Fort Collins to stay with during the evacuation period. The other Cache La Poudre Canyon residents, along with the evacuees from Rist Canyon (Bellevue Canyon in the mysteries), Glacier View Meadows, and others relied on the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross shelters to provide lodging and hot meals. I made several donations to both these wonderful organizations that came to the aid of our northern Colorado neighbors.

I also want to thank the reporters and staff of the Fort Collins
Coloradoan
for their daily, detailed news reports during the High Park wildfire and the follow-up stories as well. I saved every newspaper from that period so that I could make a detailed day-by-day account of everything that happened. I knew that the newspapers would be essential for including accurate and telling detail in the next Knitting Mystery,
Yarn Over Murder
.

And to everyone else who answered one of my myriad questions, I say again, “thank you.” I hope you all enjoy the story.

Yarn Over Murder
takes place as Kelly and friends try to help Jayleen save her ranch in Bellevue Canyon. As I mentioned in the author’s note following the previous Knitting Mystery,
Close Knit Killer
, I don’t usually set my stories so close together in time. I was finishing that novel in early June 2012, almost ready to submit it to my editor, when the High Park wildfire broke out in Rist Canyon, just northwest of Fort Collins, Colorado, where I live (I call that canyon Bellevue Canyon in the mysteries).

Life as normal changed in Fort Collins and the entire area of northern Colorado at that moment. Even though Fort Collins was never in any danger of the wildfire spreading (a large, long reservoir lies between the city and the western edge of the mountains), we were all riveted by the fast-moving, capricious wildfire.

I realized then that I had to include that fire in the mysteries. So I totally revised
Close Knit Killer
to include Kelly and friends hearing about the wildfire breakout while at the Estes Park Wool Market—on Saturday, June 9, 2012, the actual day the wildfire was reported.

Yarn Over Murder
begins exactly where the previous novel,
Close Knit Killer
, left off, and the High Park wildfire plays a central role. I do not pretend that I have written a newscaster’s account of how the High Park wildfire affected all of our city and surrounding counties. But I did try to include real-life details of those life-changing, dramatic events of June 2012 as seen by Kelly and her friends and all of the folks at Lambspun. Jayleen Swinson has her alpaca ranch in Bellevue Canyon, so everything she’s spent the last fourteen or more years building is at risk. Kelly and all of the characters—the new ones, too—come to Jayleen’s aid. And, as always, a dead body appears, so there’s a murder to solve.

Kelly Flynn—
financial accountant and part-time sleuth, refugee from East Coast corporate CPA firm

Steve Townsend—
architect and builder in Fort Connor, Colorado, and Kelly’s boyfriend

KELLY’S FRIENDS:

Jennifer Stroud—
real estate agent, part-time waitress

Lisa Gerrard—
physical therapist

Megan Smith—
IT consultant, another corporate refugee

Marty Harrington—
lawyer, Megan’s husband

Greg Carruthers—
university instructor, Lisa’s boyfriend

Pete Wainwright—
owner of Pete’s Porch Café in the back of Kelly’s favorite knitting shop, House of Lambspun

LAMBSPUN FAMILY AND REGULARS:

Mimi Shafer—
Lambspun shop owner and knitting expert, known to Kelly and her friends as “Mother Mimi”

Burt Parker—
retired Fort Connor police detective, Lambspun spinner-in-residence

Hilda and Lizzie von Steuben—
spinster sisters, retired school-teachers, and exquisite knitters

Curt Stackhouse—
Colorado rancher, Kelly’s mentor and advisor

Jayleen Swinson—
Alpaca rancher and Colorado Cowgirl

Connie and Rosa—
Lambspun shop personnel

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Kelly
Flynn steered her boyfriend Steve Townsend’s truck down the main road running from Rocky Mountain National Park into Loveland, Colorado, just south of Fort Connor. Her friends Megan and Marty Harrington said they would meet her with a horse trailer in a shopping center along this street. Scanning a big box parking lot ahead, Kelly thought she spotted Megan and Marty waving at her from the parking lot. Alongside them, there was a large two-horse-sized trailer waiting to be hitched behind Steve’s big red truck.

Kelly had never hitched a trailer before, so she was glad Marty was there to help. Like Steve, Marty came from a ranching family and was familiar with hauling animals around. Kelly’s sporty car didn’t haul anything larger than groceries and potting soil. But today, Steve’s truck was needed, as Kelly and her friends hurried to help their friend Jayleen Swinson rescue her alpaca herd from the wildfire that blazed in Bellevue Canyon, northwest of Fort Connor. Hopefully some of Jayleen’s possessions could be tossed into the truck bed as well. But that depended on how fast the wildfire spread.

First discovered earlier that June Saturday morning, the wildfire was raging, according to the scant news reports Kelly had caught on the truck radio while she drove from the annual Wool Market in Estes Park. She and Steve were by Jayleen’s alpaca stalls in the livestock exhibition area when the news spread about the wildfire in Bellevue Canyon. Steve volunteered to drive Jayleen’s truck and trailer so he could help Curt and Jayleen rush to her ranch in the canyon and rescue her herd.

Meanwhile, Kelly phoned Megan and Marty as well as Lisa and Greg, alerting them to the emergency situation. They could borrow trucks and horse trailers and drive to Bellevue Canyon. Jayleen would need lots of help to move her herd of alpacas down the canyon to safety. Kelly hadn’t heard a word from Steve since. Driving in Colorado’s beautiful canyons often meant no cell phone signal.

She turned into the shopping center lot and pulled up beside the horse trailer. Marty and Megan already had a trailer hitched behind an old faded blue pickup. “Thank you so much for meeting me, guys,” Kelly said, stepping down from the truck. “Did you get that truck and the trailers from Steve’s dad?”

“Naw, my mom and dad brought them over. They’re driving up to Jayleen’s now. So are my aunt and uncle. Jayleen’s gonna need a lot of help,” tall, skinny Marty said as he reached out. “Gimme the keys and I’ll hook this baby up for you. We gotta move fast. I finally reached Steve, and he and Curt and Jayleen just barely got through on Stove Prairie Road, going up the back of Bellevue Canyon. The fire started near there, so the cops are gonna shut down that road soon.” Marty climbed inside Steve’s truck.

“Oh, no, I was hoping we could drive that way to Jayleen’s. It’s much faster than going into the canyon from the northwest entrance in Bellevue.”

“Don’t worry. Marty has some shortcuts,” Megan said, handing Kelly a fast-food takeout bag. “I got you a burger and an iced coffee. We’re all having lunch on the run today.”

“Hey, thanks,” Kelly said, accepting the bag with the familiar logo. She opened the wrapper containing the juicy burger as she watched Marty expertly back Steve’s truck into position right in front of the horse trailer hitch.

“Have you heard from Greg and Lisa yet?” Kelly asked before taking a big bite of burger.

“Yeah, they took Greg’s truck over to Steve’s parents place and hitched up a trailer. They’re already on the way to Jayleen’s ranch, too. That road is gonna be crowded for sure.” She peered toward the foothills beside them. “We spotted white smoke when we drove over.”

White smoke
. That was the first sign of fire. Then the smoke would quickly darken as it started to burn trees, especially pine trees with sap in them. Kelly anxiously peered over the uneven rocky ridge called Devil’s Backbone that blocked a good view of the foothills. She couldn’t see smoke yet.

“Burt is watching over Jayleen’s alpacas at the Wool Market, along with Cassie and Eric,” Kelly said. “Mimi and Burt will take care of everything up there. Thank goodness Jayleen’s got a third of her herd there.”

“Okay, it’s all hitched. We’d better get going,” Marty said, striding toward the faded blue pickup. “There’s gonna be a ton of people on the road. We’re taking Taft Hill up to Overland Trail then Centennial Road beside the lake. Then cut through the side roads to the mouth of the canyon. Stay right behind me, Kelly, so we don’t get separated. Firefighters will be coming in from other counties, so we’ll have to fight our way through traffic.”

“You got it.” Kelly shoved the rest of the burger back into the bag and headed toward Steve’s truck. Meanwhile, she sent a fervent plea above that she didn’t crash into anything as she maneuvered the truck and trailer around narrow canyon roads.

Revving the engine, Kelly proceeded to follow Marty and Megan out of Loveland and north into Fort Connor. Once they turned onto Overland Trail, which hugged the foothills that ran along the western edge of the city, that’s when Kelly saw it. The smoke. White smoke billowing up behind the ridges in the distance. Puffy white clouds climbing into the sky. And nearby, other smoke billowed. Dark smoke, charcoal gray, almost black. The sight of it caused Kelly’s heart to lurch.

She followed Marty as he turned left onto a county road that went up into the foothills and skirted the long narrow Horsetooth Reservoir that lay between Fort Connor and the western edge of the foothills. Running nearly the length of the city, it was a popular recreational escape. However, Kelly noticed as many people lining the top of the reservoir this hot, ninety-plus degree Saturday afternoon as those boating and swimming in the waters below. People staring west into the foothills and the canyons beyond, watching the smoke billow and rise.

That fearful feeling stayed with Kelly as she drove along, leaving the reservoir behind as the road wound down into the Bingham Hill valley, usually a beautiful green space of pastures. This summer, barely green. Buffalo once filled this picturesque valley, according to accounts of early pioneers who gazed down from Bingham Hill above. But La Niña’s dry weather had chased away all of February and March’s normal snows and brought scant April rains. May and June were dry to crackling in the record-breaking heat, in the upper nineties day after day.

The road finally joined another that turned west and headed into the mouth of Bellevue Canyon. Marty slowed ahead, and Kelly watched several cars and pickups pass by. Others were doing the exact same thing. Coming to help out their canyon neighbors any way they could. Kelly stayed behind Marty as they wound their way up into Bellevue Canyon. The horse trailer rattled behind Steve’s truck, and Kelly wondered what it would feel like once two alpacas were loaded inside.

Although Kelly could no longer see the smoke plumes as they drove up into the canyon, she could smell the smoke in the air. Strong. Acrid. Pretty soon they would be able to see it. All those billowing clouds of white and black smoke would spread everywhere. All of Fort Connor would soon smell like smoke.

As the road climbed higher, getting closer to Jayleen’s ranch, traffic slowed as more trucks appeared. And the smoke got heavier. Cresting the hill right above the ranch, Kelly peered down the hillside. She thought she spotted Jayleen’s and Curt’s trucks and other trucks clustered below near Jayleen’s barn and pastures. Marty’s turn signal flashed and she followed suit as they slowed to turn into the long gravel driveway leading to the ranch yard. The horse trailer rattled even more on the gravel road. Curt waved at them and pointed to a place on the right side of the ranch yard where they could park.

Kelly waited for Marty to pull in and park, then she did the same. The acrid smoke smell irritated her nostrils as she breathed it in. Smoke hung in the air now. Steve ran up as soon as she exited the truck.

“Hey, good job,” Steve said as he pulled her into his arms for a big hug and kiss. “You guys got here just in time. Cops are gonna close the road soon. Fire has spread from Stove Prairie and jumped the canyon road. It’s doubled since this morning, they said.”

Kelly hugged him back hard.
Jumped the canyon road
. That means it would start spreading even faster into Bellevue Canyon. Only a couple of ridges separated Jayleen’s ranch from the downward slope that led to Stove Praire Road. The small hundred-plus-year-old Stove Prairie mountain school with its wooden building would be right in the wildfire’s path, if it wasn’t burned already. “I’m so glad you guys got through on that road. The canyon road is packed.”

“It’s gonna get worse. So we’ll have to load up and get out. There’ll only be time for one trip.” Steve looked over his shoulder. “Damn. Ash is falling already.”

Kelly looked up and saw tiny grayish flakes floating in the air above them. Her gut squeezed. That was a bad sign. Burning trees. Lots of trees burning. She brushed her hand across Steve’s sweaty, dirt-smeared face. Today’s upper nineties heat was even higher this close to the fire. “Do we have enough trailers to get the rest of the alpacas out? Jayleen had a whole bunch at the Wool Market. But most of them were still here, I think, including my six alpacas.”

“Yeah, I think so. Some more of Jayleen’s friends brought their trucks and trailers. Marty’s parents and Curt’s daughter and husband already got here, loaded up, and are gone. You probably passed them on the road but didn’t recognize their trucks.” He ran the back of his hand across his forehead, smearing the sooty dirt even more.

“Hey, you made it!” a familiar voice called from behind.

Kelly turned to see friends Lisa and Greg loading boxes into the back of a green truck. A horse trailer with two alpacas was hitched behind. “Where are we taking the alpacas?” Kelly asked as she raced over to her friends.

“To that woman’s ranch in Poudre Canyon,” Greg said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. He dumped the box into the flatbed.

“She’s a friend of Jayleen’s who lives up the Poudre. Andrea something. She and that guy were here when we drove up.” Lisa wiped a bandanna across her face, smearing the dirt. Even Lisa’s light blonde hair looked darker, dingy, Kelly noticed.

Kelly looked over at the man and woman who were loading a skittish alpaca onto a trailer. Or rather, trying to. The man, who was wearing a KISS concert tee shirt, appeared unsure of how to handle the alpaca as it danced sideways, clearly frightened by the smoke and smell and confusion. He grabbed for the rope and Kelly noticed a tattoo on his arm. The woman took the rope lead from his hands and started talking to the alpaca, soothing the animal so she could load it safely inside the trailer. When she moved to the side, Kelly spotted a similar tattoo on the woman’s arm that looked like a dragon. She figured they must be a couple if they had matching tattoos.

“Kelly, I’m going to grab more of Jayleen’s things from the house. We can fill up the back of my truck before we head out.” Steve started toward the ranch house.

“I’m gonna grab another load,” Greg said. “This will be the only run we can make out of here. Cops are gonna close off the canyon road if they haven’t already. You should grab another load, too.” He nodded to Lisa.

“Yeah, in a minute.” Turning to Kelly, she started to say something, but broke into a cough instead. “Man, the smoke is getting worse. You guys need to load up everything you can and head back. We can meet up once we’re out of the canyon. I already talked to Megan and Marty.” She coughed again.

“Sounds like a plan,” Kelly said as Lisa took off for the ranch house. Kelly’s eyes stung already, and she felt the acrid smoke burning her nostrils as she breathed.

The ranch yard was a riot of noise and people. Megan was carrying a box from the ranch house. Marty was loading an alpaca into the trailer behind the faded blue pickup. People she didn’t know were on the ranch porch. She spotted Jayleen standing in the corral surrounded by alpacas. Kelly noticed there were a lot fewer animals than usual.
Thank goodness
. Friends rushing to Jayleen’s rescue were thinning the herd. She scanned the remaining alpacas and didn’t see her six animals. Jayleen must have sent them earlier when Curt’s relatives came to help transport them to his ranch.

Curt stood next to the corral fence, clearly giving orders to people. He waved at Kelly, then handed off an alpaca to a bearded man and pointed toward her. The bearded man started walking Kelly’s way. He was wearing a faded Springsteen concert tee shirt. She smiled.
What was it with the concert shirts?
She didn’t spot any tattoos unless they were hiding under his beard.

“Are you Kelly?” the man called as she approached.

“Yes, I’m here with the guy in the green CSU tee shirt,” she said.

The man glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah, Steve. He was already here when I drove up. Said you were coming with the trailer. Which one is it? Curt wants me to load for you.”

“The red one,” Kelly managed before she coughed several times. She pointed toward Steve’s truck.

“Yeah, it’s gettin’ pretty bad out here. Cops will be starting to chase people away soon.”

“You mean evacuate?” Kelly said, as they walked toward Steve’s truck.

“Yep. I live up Poudre Canyon, and that’s what happened last year with the Crystal Lakes fire. People were all told to get out. We were lucky with that one.”

“This is it,” Kelly said, and opened the trailer’s back doors.

“Hold him for me while I set up the ramp,” the man said, handing Kelly the lead to the gray alpaca. It looked like Jayleen’s Gray Ghost.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Kelly soothed the animal, whose anxious gaze told her how frightening this situation was for gentle creatures who lived simply in the beautiful mountain scenery, grazing on grass surrounded by its fellows. Alpacas were herd animals and did not like being separated.

“Okay, here you go,” the man said as he took the gray’s lead again and beckoned the hesitating alpaca up the trailer ramp.

Kelly finally realized where she’d seen him before. When he mentioned he lived “up the Poudre” she remembered seeing him a year ago when she and Jennifer were meeting in a real estate client’s cabin. This man was the “shaggy guy” Kelly had seen hiding in the bushes outside, spying on them. Burt said he was the neighbor next door.