A Finely Knit Murder (12 page)

F
or reasons she couldn’t explain to herself, Nell hadn’t talked more about Josh Babson with Jane and Ham during dinner or later in the evening, when the drop in temperature had brought them all inside, where they’d made themselves comfortable in the Endicotts’ open living space. Maybe it was because she didn’t know what to ask or to say.

Would she say that Josh had stared at them from outside the street, outside Jane’s Gallery? But Jane already knew that and she didn’t think it odd. The startling, unusual thing was Teresa’s screaming. It was the hurling of awful accusations. And Josh had nothing to do with that.

Was it that she didn’t trust him or that he made her wary or that he had a puzzling smile? That made little to no sense, not without reasons for her feelings. And she had none. Jane and Ham would have thought her a bit daft. Not to mention that she didn’t know Josh Babson well enough to feel any particular way about it—or him—at all. Even Birdie hadn’t totally shared her feelings when they talked about it on the way home. He was friendly to Birdie, and she had bought one of his seascapes for Harold because he loved the stormy colors Josh had used in the painting.

So she’d held her silence and didn’t mention his name until after the last car had driven away after midnight, and she and Ben coaxed their weary bodies up the back steps and to bed.

Ben listened in the dark, his arms folded behind his head.

“It’s a feeling,” she said.

“Your feelings have always been worth listening to.”

“Maybe not this time. I’m not even sure what my feeling is about him. He’s a talented artist. He said nice things about Gabby—and she likes him, too. Jane and Ham don’t seem to have reservations about him. They trust him in their gallery.”

Ben was quiet, knowing that Nell’s thoughts sometimes became clearer to her as she spoke them aloud to a trusted ear.

“On the other hand, he vandalized the yard. Blythe obviously had strong reasons for wanting him fired. Some, I suspect, she didn’t even tell us about. And he showed up at the party—less than a week after being fired and having shown his displeasure in a very graphic way. What does that say about a person? That he is arrogant and wants to prove a point? That he has a grudge that needs to be satisfied?” Nell listened intently to the night sounds as if they had the answer.

Ben was right. Saying it out loud helped, but the words didn’t put a period on anything. It was nothing but a feeling. But one that she couldn’t shake loose, even as she pulled the down comforter up to her chin and pressed herself into the welcoming curve of Ben’s side, his arm around her, his heartbeat right beneath her fingertips.

Even then.

S
unday’s paper featured the murder at the school, as everyone knew it would. Many Sea Harbor residents didn’t read news online, and their first grasp of the tragic happening—beyond that of rumor—would be the Sunday
Sea Harbor Gazette
.

Nell and Ben followed Annabelle Palazola out to the deck of the Sweet Petunia Restaurant, listening to the restaurant owner’s litany of rumors and comments and theories about what really had happened that Friday night.

“No one really knows, that’s the only thing that is clear,” was the restaurant owner’s conclusion as she ushered them over to their usual Sunday table—the one at the end of the narrow deck that allowed for expansion, depending on who joined them that particular day. “You already have company, by the way,” she said, then disappeared back into the kitchen through an outside door.

Cass was already at the table, the Sunday paper spread out in front of her and a half-empty cup of coffee next to it. Harry Winthrop sat across from her, his mustache perfectly trimmed and his large sunglasses reflecting the trees that towered above the edge of the deck. He seemed in another world entirely, his gaze on the sailboats just visible in the distant harbor.

Nell held back her surprise at seeing him. Birdie often showed up with a nonregular, as she called them. Why shouldn’t Cass?
Why, indeed? He was certainly welcome, as Ben had made clear the night before.

They both looked up as shadows fell across the table.

“You’re late,” said Cass.

Nell laughed. If Cass came at all, she usually dragged in last for Sunday brunch. Sleep, she claimed, sometimes trumped food. Not often, but sometimes. “You might be a good influence on our Cass,” she said to Harry.

Harry partially stood and shook hands, then sat back down. “She’s the one with influence,” he said. “She pounded on my door early today, telling me it was time for breakfast and I’d like this place.” He glanced around. “It’s nice. I don’t remember it being here when I was a kid.”

“Annabelle opened it after her husband, Joe, died at sea. She had five children to raise, a great talent for cooking, and lots of friends. This place was an old shack, up on this hill overlooking Canary Cove, and she literally transformed it.”

Ben filled their cups from the carafe on the table. “With the help of Joe’s friends—all fellow fishermen determined to help Annabelle through those rough days. They practically built this place with their own hands.”

“But we don’t normally let tourists know about it,” Cass said. “So you’re lucky, Winthrop.”

“You calling me a tourist?” he asked.

Cass just laughed, then turned her attention back to the newspaper. Across from her, Harry leaned one arm on the railing and sat back in his chair, quiet.

Nell watched him as he looked at something beyond the deck and the art colony at the bottom of the hill, beyond the harbor. He glanced over at Cass now and then, a look that said little to Nell—affection? Friendship? He seemed to like being there with her. Having a friend, being included. But he made little attempt to know anyone.

Every now and then Cass looked up, smiled at him. She was
comfortable. Relaxed. And she seemed to have taken a little more time with makeup and clothes than she usually did for breakfast with her friends. Her T-shirt was gone, replaced by a vibrant yellow blouse and colorful lace scarf that Nell had knit for her last birthday. Her thick black hair was loose, the waves dark and dramatic against her tan skin.

“Your omelet’s getting cold,” Ben said gently, tugging her out of her thoughts. He turned to Cass. “Is there anything new in the paper?”

“No. It’s all hearsay. And irritating, that’s all,” Cass said. She pointed to the largest photo accompanying the article about the murder, the one of the school. “The school doesn’t need this kind of attention. The murder probably had nothing to do with the school. Why focus on it?”

Beneath a full photo of the school was the caption
S.H. COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL: A SEA HARBOR LANDMARK MIRED IN MURDER
.

“They used the old name of the school in the headline,” Nell said with her own touch of irritation. It was almost a silent protest. Elizabeth, with the approval of most board members, had changed the school’s name to indicate the emphasis on community involvement—and Blythe Westerland had led the charge in objecting to the change, but she had lost that fight. And now some reporter, although he mentioned the new name later in the article, had put it back out there in large print, almost as if giving Blythe the last word. What must it be like for Elizabeth to wake up to this and find the school she loved so clearly advertised in such a tragic way?

Birdie walked over to the table. Gabby was a step behind, comfortable and smiling in her customary jeans and T-shirt.

“I finally got my granddaughter back,” Birdie said as Ben added two chairs to the long table. “I thought the Danverses weren’t going to let her go, but Harold and I went over and claimed her this morning. He and Ella were falling into a depressed state without Gabby in the house. ‘It’s a tomb,’ Ella told me, and we certainly can’t have that.”

Gabby’s laugh was full and contagious, unrestrained. And as it always did, it drew smiles from everyone.

“It’s awful about Ms. Westerland,” she said, taking a fried apple biscuit from the basket. She dug a spoon into a jug of Annabelle’s homemade apple butter and spread it on the warm yeast roll.

Birdie watched her devour the pastry. “How will you ever leave Sea Harbor? You’re addicted to those biscuits.”

“Annabelle promised to teach me how to make them. She’s doing a cooking class at school as part of our enrichment program, and these are what we’re making.” She wiped the flakes of fried dough from her mouth and looked over at Cass’s newspaper. The old boathouse was pictured front and center.

“Dr. Hartley sent us all e-mails,” Gabby said, her eyes on the newspaper photo. “Every person in the whole school.”

A wise thing to do, they all agreed. The students would get their information one way or another, and it was best coming from the woman who was at the helm of their school—and who cared deeply about the girls under her roof.

“That old boathouse is such a cool place,” Gabby went on, pointing to the photo. “Daisy and I wrote a proposal that it be an art place and we gave it to Dr. Hartley.”

“Art place?” Cass asked.

“Yeah, like a studio, sort of. Mr. Babson took us down there sometimes to paint. It was very cool. He kept some easels there for us and sometimes we’d climb on the rocks to paint the ocean. Daisy liked to paint the boathouse and he told her maybe it would become a famous Sea Harbor motif, like that red shack—the Motif #1 over in Rockport. He told Daisy maybe she’d be famous for starting the trend.”

Ben laughed. “Maybe so. You’re talking about the art teacher, right?”

“Uh-huh. He used to be, anyway. He was way cool. Did you know he was at the party Friday? Daisy and I walked down to the boathouse with him that night and talked about how great it would
be to fix it up. He still thinks it’s a good idea even though I guess he doesn’t have much say about it now. Unless . . . unless maybe they’ll hire him back.”

“Did he say that he might get hired back?” Birdie asked.

“Not exactly. But sort of. Like maybe Dr. Hartley would reconsider. But anyway, we gave our idea to Teresa to give to Dr. Hartley.”

“Dr. Hartley pays attention to her students’ ideas,” Nell said. “She mentioned some of them at a board meeting.” She managed a smile, keeping to herself her surprise at Josh Babson’s thinking he’d be rehired
now
.

“You’re right, Aunt Nell. She’s nice. She listens to us. To everyone. Usually.”

“Usually?” Cass asked.

“Well, yeah. Daisy and I talk to her a lot. She likes us. But some other people, not so much.”

A waitress appeared with the Sunday special: roasted fall vegetables picked from Annabelle’s garden—spinach and tiny peppers, thin slices of radishes, and late-blooming heirloom tomatoes—blended with cream, basil, eggs, and Gruyère cheese.

Ben beamed at his Sunday indulgence, one Nell allowed him but only with the firm warning that he’d be eating grilled fish and roasted vegetables for the rest of the week. She was not about to contribute to another heart attack, like the one years before that had convinced them to move to Sea Harbor and slow down their lives.

“Harry, you’re quiet,” Nell said. She picked up her fork and looked over at him.

Cass answered for him. “Harry’s contractor on the old house says it needs some structural repairs or it’ll fall off the cliff. He’s bummed. One more thing to be fixed before he can sell it.”

“Sell it?” Birdie asked.

“Yeah. Seems silly to keep paying taxes on it,” Harry said, looking up from his omelet.

“Oh.”

The fact that anyone would forsake a cottage in Sea Harbor
with such an amazing view of the water was unfathomable to every person sitting at the table.

Harry seemed not to notice.

“Are you staying there?”

He nodded. “In a bedroom filled with paint and plaster buckets. But it’s okay. It works.”

Nell looked at Cass to read her expression, but it was neutral. She had brought Harry to the party—and today to breakfast—but for the life of her she could not read Cass’s feelings about the man. Perhaps Ben would have some insight later. He was a good mind reader on occasion.

They all concentrated on the perfectly cooked omelet, enhanced by a gentle curve of melon slices and blueberries. Ben engaged Harry in stories about his and Sam’s sailing adventures, once he discovered something he had in common with the younger man. Cass went back to the newspaper, and Gabby and Birdie gabbed back and forth about Gabby’s weekend at the Danverses’, Gabby happily enthusing about Daisy’s sisters, her built-in bunk beds, and Mr. Danvers’s yacht.

And Nell listened.

In between, Gabby would answer Birdie’s well-placed questions meant to tease out feelings about the Friday night murder. Laura and Elliott had talked to the girls after the headmistress’s e-mail arrived. Whatever they’d said had satisfied the girls, although the thought of someone dying on “their” rocks was still an issue. Daisy had checked the statistics, and most people killed on rocks fell off them or onto them. Murder wasn’t as common, especially using one of the boulders as the murder weapon.

“We were right there, Nonna. Can you believe it?” Gabby said, her expression a mixture of awe, excitement, and utter horror. “What if we’d handed the murderer a program, what if we were so close to him we could touch him? What if we’d been down there, putting out the hurricane lamps, when . . . when he did it?”

Nell looked closely to see if there was another emotion on Gabby’s face, one that might mitigate somewhat the concern she saw
growing on Birdie’s face.
Fear
. Fear could be a deterrent in seeking adventure. In exploring places that might not be safe.

The excitement and awe and even horror were there, dwindling only when Birdie insisted on asking Gabby what she would like for dinner.

Fear never entered the picture.

And that worried Birdie and Nell in equal measure.

*   *   *

Cass and Harry left the restaurant soon after, but not before Ben promised Harry a turn at the controls of his and Sam’s forty-two-foot Hinckley. They set a time and it seemed to bring some life to Harry—at least the man was speaking now and then. Nell tried to analyze his mood in her mind, but finally gave up, realizing that she would have to know him better to determine if he was sad, depressed over his cottage, or simply someone who didn’t talk a lot. The strong and silent type.

Birdie and Gabby left next. Harold texted them from the restaurant’s parking lot. He was sitting in Birdie’s Lincoln and wouldn’t be the slightest bit disappointed if they were to bring him and Ella a sack of Annabelle’s fried apple biscuits and a jug of apple butter.

Warm, if possible.

Nell and Ben sat alone for a while after everyone else left, enjoying the breeze, the Sunday
Times
, and being alone with each other. It hadn’t happened often in recent days.

Nell’s eyes and soul were filling up with the picture-perfect scene in the distance—the sky and sea nearly seamless and a fleet of Sunday sailors heading out to open sea. The whale watching boats had already left the harbor, while small fishing vessels still tugged their way out around the shinier, fancier, bigger boats.

Ben finally put down the opinion page of the paper and looked over at her. “It’s just beginning,” he said.

A quiet voice at his elbow confirmed that to be true.

They both looked up into Jerry Thompson’s concerned face. He
stood alone, dressed uncharacteristically in jeans and a knit shirt, his thick hair brushed back with streaks of silver serving as attractive highlights. The Silver Fox, some of the girls at the station called him, Esther Gibson had told Nell, but he didn’t have quite enough gray for that yet.

“It’s going to be a mess,” Jerry said, and sat in the chair Ben pulled out.

Ben poured coffee. “Food?”

Jerry shook his head. “I’m here for breakfast takeout. I thought I’d take something over to Elizabeth Hartley’s—a peaceful meal away from crowds.” He glanced out toward the parking lot. “I didn’t intend to come farther than the kitchen door, but I spotted your car in the lot and Annabelle let me sneak out here through the kitchen.”

“It’s a rough time,” Ben said. “Everyone wants answers.”

“Yep. And when I can’t give any, folks make them up. Or put things together that really don’t fit.”

There wasn’t much to say. Jerry was right. Nell felt a slight twinge of guilt that they had done the same thing. In less than two days the facts and nonfacts of Blythe Westerland’s murder had been stacked up and scattered about haphazardly. Attempts to sort it out before there was enough there to create a pile.

“I understand it,” Jerry said. “Everyone wants the town to go back to the way it was a week ago, to make this thing go away. The problem is you have to be so careful. We can’t destroy more lives because we’re desperate for a semblance of peace.”