darkest shades of each of her three colors and said she intended to do the same stitch in the opposite corner with the lightest shades of the same three colors.
Sam's consisted of fairly boring colors, and he'd stitched a little too tight, but he'd tackled some very complex stitches. 'Don't worry,' he assured the rest of them. 'I know the first ones I did need to be ripped out.'
Shelley had tried to catch up with Jane and had done an elongated cashmere stitch with her medium colors.
What most surprised Jane was that Elizabeth's looked the best, in spite of the muddy oranges, greens, and reds. She was way ahead of everyone else. She'd completed nearly a quarter of her project and used what looked like the most difficult stitches in the pattern book. There was an impressive Scotch plaid rectangle, which adjoined a long thin triangle of French knots.
Jane smiled at Elizabeth, who was, in this case at least, every bit as competitive as Shelley.
After everyone had oohed and aahed over one another's work, Elizabeth said to Ms. Bunting, 'Those cute toys must be for your great-grandchildren.'
'No. They're for my daughter's children.' 'My goodness. She must have had them quite late in life.'
Ignoring the obvious suggestion that Ms. Bunting must be at least in her nineties, Ms. Bunting said, 'No, it was I who had my daughter late in life. I'd always wanted children, but suffered three miscarriages early in our marriage. I'd given up ever having children. Then, when I was forty-two, and doing a very silly movie in England, I found myself pregnant again. It was the worst movie I was ever in, but I was taking such good care of myself that I wasn't paying attention to what was going on around me.'
She continued, 'John, of course, was deeply embarrassed at becoming a father at forty-three. I don't think, frankly, that he'd have enjoyed the role at any age.'
'So, was your daughter born in England?' Elizabeth persisted.
'Unfortunately not. She was born on the ship on the way home. I was afraid to fly. By the time the terrible, endless film was done, I was seven and a half months along.'
'It must have been hard, raising a baby at that age. Did you keep acting?' Elizabeth asked.
'I had to. It was the only skill I had,' Ms. Bunting said, picking out colors for her next sampler block. 'Besides, John and I earned our living acting together. I took along a day nanny and a night nanny, then later both nannies and a teacher. It was very expensive and we had to work even harder to afford the help. I came as close as this,' she said, holding her forefinger and her thumb a half inch apart, 'to having a nervous breakdown once.'
Ms. Bunting abruptly changed the subject. 'I think these colors will go well together. Do you agree?' She was holding up three skeins — two light and one medium colors.
Jane leaped in and asked, 'What would it look like if you used the darkest instead of the medium?'
This was enough to cut off any more personal
questions from Elizabeth. Jane thought it was about time Elizabeth's snoopiness was squelched.
The conversations shifted back to color and pattern choices, with Martha as busy as a hen advising various students. It drifted off into recipes for a bit, then to having pillows made of their work when it was done or having them mounted in acid-free paper and double glass, front and back.
An hour later, packing-up commenced. Ms. Bunting was spending the afternoon with her grandchildren to give them their toys. Elizabeth asked Jane, Shelley, and Ms. Bunting where they had found the wonderful jewelry bags in which they kept their floss, scissors, and needles. Shelley explained about the department store and that they were meant for jewelry.
Jane and Shelley were going home, Shelley intending to get ahead of Jane in the needlepoint ranks.
Jane planned to work on her second book. Elizabeth, not surprisingly, was headed to a Junior League planning committee.
Tazz was on her way to her warehouse to find the right size costumes.
Sam had to pick up his truck from the garage where he had left it to have the tires rotated while he was in class. He asked Martha if she had a paper bag without the needlepoint shop logo he could put his things in. He didn't want the mechanics to see what he had along.
When Jane returned home, she decided she had to monitor her time. She'd have to put in two hours on her book for each hour of working on her needlepoint. Over a ham sandwich and Fritos, she made notes of what Letitia would be doing next. Then she'd do at least half a chapter and still have time to do a bit of needlepoint before dressing to go out with Mel at five to his favorite steakhouse restaurant. Detective Mel VanDyne and Jane had been friends and lovers for a long time.
But shortly after noon, Mel called. 'I'm going to have to stand you up. I've got a murder victim at a theater.'
Jane asked warily, 'What theater?'
'Why does it matter?'
'It just does.'
'It's that one that belongs to the college drama department.'
'Who's dead?'
'Jane, I don't even know that yet. I'm still five blocks away. You might want to let Shelley know. Isn't that the building her husband donated to the college?'
When he hung up, she immediately rang Shelley. 'You're going to have to cancel the caterers this minute. I just heard from Mel that someone's been murdered at the theater.'
'Who?'
'Even Mel doesn't know yet.'
'I'm hanging up and calling the caterer right now. Thanks for letting me know.'
Jane's afternoon was shot. She couldn't keep her mind on her book or her needlepoint and sat down to watch the Home and Garden channel to clear her head of this news. She couldn't, however, help speculating about the identity of the victim. Her best guess was Professor Imry. He'd made enemies of almost everyone involved.
He'd mildly insulted Shelley, and he'd irritated both John and Gloria Bunting with his silly insistence on calling actors by their script names at all times. He'd come out on the wrong side of a tiff with Denny Roth about grammar. But who would kill him for getting his grammar wrong? That wasn't even close to being a motive for something so horrible.
And what if it wasn't Imry? Who else could it be? And how was Mel certain it was murder when he hadn't even reached the scene yet? Maybe someone had just had a terrible accident. A fall. A stroke. A heart attack.
She turned the television off, suddenly horrified that it might be Gloria Bunting who was the victim. It would break Jane's heart if it was. She would also be sad if it was Tazz.
The phone rang again. This time it was Shelley. 'I caught the caterers before they'd started the preparations, so all I've lost is my deposit. This is clearly going to close the theater for at least a day,maybe longer. Do you think I should warn the next one in line?'
'I would if I were you.'
'Have you heard back from Mel? Who was murdered? Was it really murder or was it an accident?'
'I don't know anything else. But I've also wondered as well.'
'Couldn't you call Mel on his cell phone and ask?'
'That would be worth more than my life is. He'd be furious. Call your other caterer, then let's rent a movie and order a take-out dinner for the two of us and our kids.'
'Sounds like a good plan. But we'll have to make sure to catch the local newscasts. Maybe some reporter
