A Holiday Yarn (11 page)

Chapter 15

M
ary's words stayed with Nell as she moved through the morning. The repercussions of Pamela Pisano's murder were everywhere. Nell felt them while shopping at Shaw's, while attending the community center fund-raising meeting, and while walking beneath the canopy of crystal branches along Harbor Road.

She walked slowly, her eyes moving from one decorated window to the next. Windows sprayed with snowflakes, filled with pink and red poinsettias, garlands and green elves that looked out at her, oblivious of the lives unraveling around them.

Nell heard singing and looked down the street. A small circle of gray-haired ladies was gathered in the gazebo across from the historical museum, their voices lifting in holiday song and their breath white plumes against the cold blue sky. They were bundled in heavy coats with red and green knit caps pulled down on thinning hair. Nell recognized Moira Sullivan facing the group, directing the retirement-center chorus. She was smiling at the ladies, mouthing the words, her arms coaxing their voices--allegro, adagio. Crescendo.

It all looked so normal and lovely. She wondered whether Moira was aware of Kevin's problems. She hoped not--but suspected otherwise. She was probably worried sick about her son--in the agonizing way that mothers do. Praying away the nightmare of suspicion and rumor.

She turned away and pushed open the heavy glass door of McClucken's Hardware Store.

"Nell, my darlin', what can I do you for?" August McClucken, his thick arms lifting wide, stood behind the checkout counter.

The owner of the store looked like Santa Claus himself. His belly was full, his eyes twinkled, and his bushy white beard was carefully groomed in anticipation of playing the annual role he loved best--riding into the harbor on a lobster boat to hundreds of cheering children.

Santa Claus
would
come to town--Auggie McClucken would make sure of it.

"Printer paper and some cartridges, Auggie." Nell handed him the specifications and looked around the bustling store. "Hardware store" was definitely a misnomer, she thought. Space allotted for nails and screws vied with shelves crammed full of CD players, iPods, and GPS devices. On the opposite side of the store, shiny boat motors, paddles, and snowshoes were displayed in front of piles of rope and buoys.

Nell spotted Laura Danvers filling a shopping basket with Christmas ornaments. In the next aisle, Beatrice Scaglia examined two flat-screen televisions.

Nell walked over to Beatrice while Auggie filled her order.

"I think I know what Sal is getting for Christmas," she said, looking at the display of televisions.

Beatrice laughed. "We don't need a new television--who has time to watch those silly shows? But Troy insisted."

"Troy?"

"His farewell gift--along with a new laptop for me. It's for letting him stay with us, he said. The guy is full of surprises. I didn't think he had two dimes to rub together, and here he's buying us TVs."

"Troy is leaving?"

Beatrice nodded. "He's making plans--'big' plans. But he agreed to finish up that painting at Mary's first, at my insistence. Mary has enough on her mind without her workers leaving her high and dry."

"Mary must be paying Troy well if he's buying computers and televisions."

"Seems so. We told him to hang on to his money, but he just laughed and said he had plenty of money, not to worry." She rummaged in her purse and pulled out a neatly clipped roll of bills. She held it up in the air. "Who knew? He gave this to me for the gifts and said he'd be insulted if I didn't take it. Do you think Auggie McClucken will take cash? Does
anyone
take cash?"

Nell stared at the roll of one-hundred-dollar bills.

Beatrice dropped the money back into her bag and looked up at the TVs, then lifted her palms in a "What's a woman to do?" gesture. She smiled at Nell. "So, which do you think Sal would like better, Nell--the forty-five-inch or the bigger one?"

Nell paid for her supplies and walked out into the sunshine, pulling her collar up against the wind.

For reasons that seemed as frozen as the tree branches, Nell found the tidbits of conversation in McClucken's uncomfortable. Mary Pisano was generous and was probably using some of her inheritance to pay the crew handsomely. But Troy had been on the job only a couple of weeks--certainly not long enough to afford such extravagant gifts.

And why would Mary pay him in cash? She'd be the last person on earth to try to shortchange the IRS.

It didn't make sense. Pamela had been a wealthy woman. Had she helped Troy out before she died? Nell frowned, her mind cluttered, filled with square puzzle pieces that should be round.

"Nell, you're going to get yourself killed if you don't look where you're going. One funeral this week is plenty."

Nell looked up and felt a pleasant rush erasing her troubling thoughts. "Father Northcutt, if you aren't a sight for sore eyes."

"Well, now, and I've heard worse said to me, Nellie. May I rescue you from this north wind?" Without waiting for an answer, the older man cupped her elbow in his wide glove and began walking her down the street, his gait slow and steady. "I find myself needing a cup of the Ocean Edge's French onion soup, the one with all that cheese covering the top. And there's nothing that goes better with it than a fine person like yourself." Father Larry brushed back a swatch of gray hair, ruffled by the wind, and quickened his pace.

Nell laughed as she mentally rearranged her afternoon schedule. It was a serious character flaw, she often told Ben--how quickly she could be lured away from a carefully planned schedule.

Ben said that on the contrary, it intrigued him. Charmed him, even--the fact that rarely was anyone allowed to impose on Nell Endicott's life. People were always welcomed into it and made to feel she'd been waiting just for them. No, Ben said firmly, it wasn't a flaw. It was simply Nell relishing the moment--something she did easily and graciously. That, and a firm belief that what needed to get done would certainly find its way to the surface in due time.

Either that, Ben said with a chuckle, or he'd end up doing it.

She hoped that was true, because if it wasn't, the Thursday night knitting group might be sorely disappointed at the dinner they got that evening.

All the tables at the Edge were filled, it seemed, until they saw a familiar hand waving at them from a booth at the back of the restaurant.

"I've been stood up," Ben said, slipping from the booth. "Jerry Thompson and I had just enough time for a beer before he was called away. Mind if I join you?"

"Join us at
your
table?" Father Jerry replied with a chuckle. "Getting two Endicotts for the price of one is a pleasure indeed."

They settled into the oversized booth, shielded from the others by tall padded seat backs. Along the wall, windows framed the harbor waters, providing a moving panorama as lobster boats moved in and out, weaving between the occasional sailboats.

Father Northcutt ordered soup for them, and Ben detailed his aborted meeting with the police chief. "Jerry mentioned the Pisano murder before being called away. The police are baffled. Pamela had her naysayers and folks who didn't like her, but real motive and connecting someone to the crime scene is still out of reach. With the holidays so close, he's anxious to wind it up, but he says it might be one of those cases that goes cold. It just doesn't make a lot of sense."

Father Northcutt was quiet, stirring several spoonfuls of sugar into his tea.

"You're unusually quiet, Father," Nell said.

His warm Irish smile did little to hide the worry in his eyes. "I think it'd be a shame if it went cold and left everyone pointing fingers at everyone else. And especially if, in the process, the Sullivan family was tainted in any way. Or Henrietta O'Neal for that matter. I hear people talking about her crazy antics as if they could point to murder. Ridiculous. There are fingers pointing all around, a sad way to approach this blessed season." Father Northcutt pulled his white bushy brows together.

"What do you think? Do you think it was someone local?"

The pastor paused before answering, creating a lull that caused Ben and Nell to look at each other, wondering what thoughts were flitting across his priestly mind. Finally he spoke.

"I don't think a stranger killed Pamela Pisano. I think it was someone she knew, and someone we know. There's an urgency about this matter. I feel it when I meet people on the street, at the holiday parties, in restaurants. The longer this tainted energy pervades our town, the more chance of damage to those we care about." He took a drink of his tea. His eyes followed a tugboat chugging into the harbor. He looked back at Ben and Nell.

"I'm worried about what this burden is doing to Mary, that little sprite of a woman. Her column is lacking its usual charm and wit. And I'm concerned for dear Moira Sullivan and the long look on her face at daily Mass. And I could go on. The list of those affected by this is long--and you are both on it. We all are. And the longer the unknowns are allowed to absorb us, the nastier and uglier it all gets."

"That sounds like a rallying call, Father," Nell said.

"Perhaps it is, Nell. Perhaps it is."

Ben pushed his water glass aside as the waiter set down three soup crocks, steaming hot and smelling of sauteed onions, wine, and Gruyere cheese that melted down the outside of the bowls in finger-tempting rivulets.

"And may I offer you each a fine glass of Trollinger, compliments of one of our staff?" The waiter looked back over his shoulder, beyond the mahogany bar, to the kitchen doors in the distance.

Ben, Nell, and Father Larry followed his look.

Kevin Sullivan stood just outside the doors. He gave an acknowledging wave, a nod of his chef's toque, then disappeared back into the kitchen.

"I'd say you may," Ben said to the waiter and allowed a small amount to be poured into his glass for tasting.

"Well, sure as I'm sitting here, this proves my case," Father Larry said after wine was poured all around. He swirled the liquid in his glass. "A common criminal would never recommend a Trollinger, now, would he?" He picked up his glass and examined the red wine, then looked at Nell and Ben across the rim, his eyes teasing. "Actually, a chap named Martin Luther was known to drink this particular variety, but I say we let bygones be bygones, all in the spirit of the season."

Nell and Ben laughed and held up their glasses.

"To friends."

"To bygones."

"And to reconciliation," Father Larry added solemnly.
Reconciliation.

Nell sipped her wine, playing with the priest's toast. A strange choice of words--but spoken with purpose. Was Father Northcutt trying to tell them something?

Reconciliation
. . . The church's sacrament of forgiveness. Nell tucked the thought away and dipped her spoon into the sweetness of the Ocean Edge's winter specialty.

Father Northcutt and Ben had begun a heated discussion of the Pats' season and Super Bowl dreams, and Nell listened with half an ear, itemizing a grocery list for the knitters' Thursday night dinner in her mind.

She set her napkin down and looked around the crowded restaurant, nodding to several neighbors. She thought she glimpsed Kevin across the room and slipped out of the booth. The wine was a sweet gesture and deserved a personal thank-you.

Jeffrey, the Edge's bartender for at least thirty years, told her that Kevin had just left for the day. Headed to the bed-and-breakfast, he said. "He's the hardest-working guy around here, moving between two jobs as if the world would fall apart if he didn't." Jeffrey shook his thinning head of hair and leaned across the bar toward Nell. "And who knows? Maybe it would. But no matter what they're saying, Nell, he's a good boy."

There it was again, Nell thought. Even if people didn't believe it, it was like a fruit stain that you tried hard to erase, but a faint trace of it remained, even if just in the mind's eye.

A flash of bright yellow caught Nell's eye as she headed back to her table. A wall of towering poinsettias--red and white and a glorious pink--marked a more private section of the restaurant.

Agnes Pisano sat on the other side, alone at a table for two. She held a martini glass in one hand, and the other rested on the table. At least she thought it was Agnes. Nell slipped on her glasses. Her hair was different, cut shorter and highlighted with sweeps of blond woven through the dull brown. It hung loose about her shoulders. She wore a daffodil yellow dress, cut low with perfect stitching and fit. Nell recognized it as one she'd seen on the cover of
Fashion Monthly
. A designer dress, expensive and beautiful.

Nell had never seen Agnes' hair loose--it was always pulled back, snug and efficient, fastened tightly at the back of her head.

But it
was
Agnes, her cheeks flushed and her long face lifted in a smile. She was smiling at the air, it looked to Nell.

Nell lifted her hand in a wave, but Agnes didn't seem to notice, the wide red leaves of a holiday plant granting her privacy.