A Holiday Yarn (23 page)

Chapter 27

"
T
he man's
wife
," Izzy repeated the next afternoon as the knitters carved out time for a late lunch at Harry's Deli.

"The guy was goofy over Pamela, but he wanted to protect his
wife
. The dude should have thought of that before having an affair. But I suppose news of a restraining order would have been really awful for her," Cass said, piecing it together. "He saved her that, at least."

"Exactly. The affair would have been spread all over town."

That was the conclusion Nell, Ben, Sam, and Izzy had come to the night before, as well. After talking with Esther, they'd stopped for a drink and a sandwich before heading home. The small bar and grill over in Essex offered a little privacy along with great olive and fennel tuna melts.

Sam and Ben had listened while Izzy and Nell talked. They replayed Esther's comments and tried to fill in the gaps about the man who had fallen in love with Pamela Pisano, and a wife behind the scenes.

Ben was going to meet with Jerry Thompson in the morning. Even records that disappeared sometimes might not
really
disappear. Besides, he said with clear intent, the chief needed to know about this new direction in which they were heading. He might have a logical explanation for all their suspicions and be able to shred them to pieces in an instant.

Nell fervently hoped so.

She looked around the deli table at Izzy, Birdie, and Cass now. For days they had struggled with Pamela's murder, not finding a thread that would tie the clues together. Perhaps they were about to find it.

Thursday afternoons were normally quiet in the restaurant, but today there was a constant buzz as people ordered pastries and deli trays for the holidays, or took a break from holiday shopping for a cup of soup or grilled pastrami on rye.

"I saw Pamela's mother yesterday," Birdie said without preamble. She pulled a pad of paper from her backpack and set it on the table. It was filled with scribbled notes in Birdie's small scrawl. "Dolores Pisano is a lovely lady, even now."

"Did she know you?"

Birdie shook her head no. "She said she did, but then she called me Angela. She seemed to have a difficult time dealing with the present. But when I asked her about the past, like the summer she moved into the nursing home, she remembered things in excruciating detail."

They leaned in closer.

"Did she talk about Pamela? About her problems that summer with a man?"

"Not directly. I think Pamela protected her mother from the sordid details of her life. But Dolores did remember a few things that were odd. She remembered the day Pamela came to tell her she was going back to New York. Pamela told her it was important, that it was crucial she leave, even though she had promised her mother she'd stay another few weeks."

"Did she tell her why?" Izzy asked.

"I couldn't tell. I talked to one of the nurses who's been there as long as Dolores. She said Dolores was very upset when Pamela left early. She was just becoming comfortable in the nursing home, and Pamela's abandoning her was difficult. She took a turn for the worse. Wouldn't eat. Didn't want to be there. But then a strange thing happened, and she rallied."

"What was that?"

"Dolores told me about this herself. She started receiving beautiful bouquets of flowers, every single day. Enormous arrangements, roses and orchids, lilies and birds of paradise. Each day they were different, one arrangement more beautiful than the next. Dolores described them in amazing detail, like a photographer might. She remembered the kinds of flowers, how tight the buds were, the brilliant colors. It was amazing."

"Were the flowers from Pamela?"

"The nurse said no. Pamela was edgy when she heard about it, nervous that someone was sending her mother flowers, and she asked the nurses to check them carefully. They thought that was an odd request--but did as she asked. The flowers meant so much to Dolores, though, that they always gave them to her. The nurse said she'd never seen such beautiful blooms."

Birdie sat back in her chair as Margaret Garozzo set four bowls of steaming clam chowder on the table.

"Then another odd thing happened. One day, about a month later, the flowers stopped coming. Just like that. No notice. Dolores remembered the exact day. September 15. The nurse couldn't verify the date, but she said Dolores sometimes remembered obscure things from her past--like the exact date she had a tetanus shot. So she was probably right about the date. And she was absolutely right that the flowers never came again. Not after that day. Every single day, then nothing. The staff and residents missed them almost as much as Dolores did."

Nell looked over at Birdie's notepad. "What's that?" She pointed to a name written out and underlined.

Birdie looked down. "That's the name of the florist. The staff loved the flowers so much that they remembered where they came from and started using the florist for holiday events."

Birdie looked up to see Mary Pisano and Nancy Hughes, weaving their way between the tables. Their faces were somber. Nancy said something to Mary, then walked toward the rest-room. Birdie waved Mary over to the table.

"How are things going?" Nell asked. It was one of those things you say, but you already know the answer.
Things are fine--as fine as they can be.

Not so fine at all.

"It's not been a great day," Mary began.

"What?" Cass asked.

Mary sighed. "Jerry Thompson had us come down to the station again. He's trying to tie up some loose ends, he said. It's distressing."

"What kind of loose ends?"

"Random questions. And repeating the same things we've told him before. Nancy and I each talked to him this morning, separately, as if we'd have different stories, imagine. They've talked to family members again. And Kevin just texted me that he's headed down to the station now."

"Kevin?" Izzy said. "Why?"

"He doesn't know any more than we do. Just confirming what we don't know, I guess."

"But on the up side of things, Kevin has a month's worth of breakfast menus made up. And as soon as the police nail this, maybe I'll actually have overnight guests to enjoy them."

"I think they're close," Izzy said.

Mary's smile was slow to come. "You do?"

"We hope so. And I know you do, too." Birdie's calming voice brought a genuine smile to Mary's lips. "And I wouldn't worry about the questions. It's just what they do. Dotting i's and crossing t's."

"There may be a connection between the married man Pamela was involved with that summer and the murder," Nell said.

"Married? I didn't know he was married," Mary said.

Nell nodded.

Mary was quiet, frowning. "Married," she said again, as if processing its significance. "What would Troy's connection be?"

"Maybe he knew who murdered Pamela; at least that's a possibility."

"So . . . blackmail?" Mary said slowly. "That's plausible. Troy was different after Pamela died--but not in a grieving way. He was even cockier, more arrogant than before. And it would explain all that money. I often wondered why he even stuck around to paint the eaves for us, but somehow Nancy talked him into it. Do you think the man Pamela was involved with still lives on Cape Ann?"

Nell started to shake her head but was saved from answering by Nancy's return and the arrival of the beefy deli owner.

Harry Garozzo wedged himself in between Nancy and Mary, wrapping an arm around each of them. "How am I so blessed?" he said. "Six of Sea Harbor's most ravishing ladies in my deli at the same time. God is good."

"You're just a lucky man, Harry. A heck of a lucky man," Cass said.

"Come, come," Harry said, and he ushered Mary and Nancy to the front of the deli, his arms still around their waists, guiding them toward a festive display of cheeses, wines, and flatbreads. "The perfect welcome for Ravenswood-by-the-Sea guests," they heard him say. "A beautiful guest basket--"

They pulled their attention back to the table, trying to bury their increasing anxiety beneath slices of Harry's strawberry cheesecake. A married man. A wife. In hushed tones and with heavy hearts, they tugged at the loose strands.

Izzy was the first to stand up. "I have a class to teach. But it's Thursday--knitting night. Will I see you later?"

"Knitting night," Nell repeated, startled at the loss of time.

Birdie checked her watch. "I think Nell and I will do a little investigating. But we'll be back in time. We've tossed all these things in the air. We need to bring them down calmly. One by one."

Nell nodded. "But I'm not sure I'll have time to fix food for us."

"No problem," Cass said. "We'll order lobster rolls from Gracie, if need be."

"That would be lovely," Birdie said.

They bundled up and hurried off in different directions, with promises to meet at the usual time. But it wouldn't be a usual Thursday night. They all knew that.

Nell and Birdie sat in the Endicott CRV with the engine running, forcing heat into the car and gathering their thoughts.

"The florist?" Birdie said. "It's a long shot, but maybe they'll have some record of Dolores Pisano's flowers."

Nell nodded. The address Birdie had found for Flowers by Frances was in Gloucester, a short drive along the coast. An odd request like theirs would be better asked in person. Credibility could be questioned over a phone line, but people rarely--if ever--denied Birdie Favazza anything when standing in front of the diminutive matron, face to face.

"Parking karma, as always," Birdie said as Nell pulled into a space in front of the florist shop. It was long and narrow, as was Frances, the owner, who greeted them just inside the door. She wore a flowery name tag on her thick gray sweater and a sprig of holly in her hair.

Birdie breathed in the fragrant air. "In my next life, I want to be you, Frances," she said.

Frances smiled back.

Birdie explained their mission, while Nell walked to the side of the store and made a quick call to Ben. When he didn't answer, she left a short message, trying to squeeze the new information into a few sentences. It was all beginning to fit together, the conclusion she knew Ben would come to, as well.

In the safe confines of the car, she and Birdie had laid out all the bits and pieces of information that they'd gathered for days now, moving around the pieces of information as if they were in a heated Scrabble game. An obsessive man. A wife. And Mary's bed-and-breakfast planted right in the middle of it all.

Nell frowned as the red light on her cell phone indicated a low battery. A distracting couple of days, she thought. If forgetting to charge her battery was the biggest thing she'd done--or not done--she'd be fortunate.

Frances didn't remember the exact dates they were asking about, but she certainly remembered the daily deliveries to the nursing home. The deliveries were arranged over the phone, so she'd never met the sender, but after a couple of weeks of daily deliveries, she had asked him about the occasion for sending the flowers.

"Did you get an answer?"

Frances nodded. The woman had had a setback in the nursing home. "Apparently she was almost adjusted to living there, but her daughter had to leave suddenly, and she relapsed. For some strange reason, the man felt responsible for the setback and thought the flowers might help her recover. He was a sweet man."

Nell wondered how the man knew about Dolores' setback, but a sensible answer came quickly. An obsessive person would have attempted to track Pamela down in New York. And never one to mince words, Pamela probably accused him of affecting her mother's health. The man was kind, the old chief had said. A good person. It worried him. Hurting his wife worried him. Like an alcoholic, destroying a family he loves.

"Do you have the man's name?" Nell asked.

Frances scratched her head. She was sure she did somewhere because it was a credit card order. But it might take a while. "I keep careful records," she assured them. "But that was a few years ago, you understand. Three or four."

And then she'd smiled, took Birdie's number, and promised to call if she found the name.

When they got back to Sea Harbor, the sky was dark.

"One more stop," Nell said, checking her watch. She pulled into the
Sea Harbor Gazette
's parking lot
.

They hurried through the cold, their coat collars pulled up to their ears, and found the records room and a bank of computers.

Obituaries
, Nell typed in, and together, counting on their fingers, she and Birdie came up with the year. Then Nell typed in
September 15.

They held their breath as they pounded the last nail in the coffin.

Chapter 28

M
ae had already locked down the day's receipts and left for the day when Birdie and Nell finally hurried through the front door of the Seaside Knitting Studio.

Izzy and Cass came in from the back. "Where've you been? We were worried."

"At the library, the newspaper. A florist over in Gloucester," Nell said, attempting to lighten the tension, but there was nothing light about how she felt inside.

Birdie leaned against Mae's counter, catching her breath. "We've pulled together what we need to know. The dates. Names. The coincidences that weren't really that at all."

Birdie held out the notes she had jotted on the pad of paper that afternoon while Nell had driven from place to place.

Dolores Pisano's surprise flowers had been sent to assuage a guilty conscience, Birdie explained to Cass and Izzy. The deliveries were stopped suddenly without an explanation.

"Why?" Izzy asked.

As if in answer to her question, Birdie's cell phone rang. She looked down at the unfamiliar number.

"The florist?" Nell suggested.

Birdie pressed the button, and Frances began talking. She'd found the records they were interested in, the dates. And the name of the generous, thoughtful sender.

He had stopped sending the flowers September fifteenth, just as Dolores Pisano had remembered.

Birdie hung up.

"That was the day he killed himself," Nell said.

They stood in stunned silence.

The dots. The connecting lines. All the loose strands of yarn that had been dangling for days were being knit together tightly--and making horrible sense.

All the way down to Mary's dog, Georgia, who had enough trust to follow the murderer out to the porch.

Nell tried again to get Ben, and again left a message. She managed to get the important words out before the battery went dead, this time for good. "Ben is very good about taking his phone. He just doesn't remember to turn it on," she murmured, as if somehow the phone was partially responsible for Ben's lack of attention.

"I almost forgot," Izzy said. "Mary Pisano called, looking for you, Birdie. She was upset. She wanted you to call."

"The police questioned her today," Birdie said, frowning.

"Nancy and Kevin, too," Nell added.

Birdie quickly dialed Mary's number.

Mary started talking without a hello.

Finally Birdie hung up and faced the others. "After Kevin was questioned by the police today, he went back to the bed-and-breakfast looking for Nancy. He was furious, Mary said, an anger so black she was almost afraid of him. He tore out of her house, mumbling something about Nancy and this being the last straw." Birdie paused. Then she said quietly, "Mary was afraid he might harm Nancy."

They piled into Nell's car and headed east toward Canary Cove.

Izzy called Sam, pulling him out of a meeting with the Sea Harbor Arts Council. She gave him the short version of the day and asked him to find Ben, to call Jerry Thompson, and to meet them.

Birdie and Cass sat in the backseat, suggesting that Nell slow down--the road was narrow and they didn't want to miss Christmas.

Lights were shining brightly on the trees lining the Hughes' drive. Nell pulled in and parked behind Kevin's beat-up Volkswagen. Inside, every room was lit, as if a holiday party was about to begin.

The front door was open, and Nell spotted Kevin through the storm door. His jacket was open, his brows pulled together tightly, his face beet red. His anger masked the Kevin she knew, distorting his features. He was walking across the family room, calling out Nancy's name.

Nell slipped through the open door. Cass, Izzy, and Birdie followed.

"What the hell were you thinking, Nancy?" Kevin's voice, thick with anger, rumbled through the house like a freight train.

They couldn't see Nancy at first, but from another room, her voice traveled to the front hallway, calm and controlled, as if the museum board were sitting in front of her, waiting for her monthly report.

"What do you want, Kevin? You shouldn't be here."

Her voice was coming from Dean's den.

"I want to know why you're crucifying me. You know I didn't kill Pamela Pisano. The police told me what you said, questioned me like a criminal--"

"I only told them the truth."

"That I hated her? That I threatened her? That she knew I was gay and was going to use it to destroy my family?"

"I had to tell them the truth, Kevin."

Kevin moved through the door of the den.

From the hallway, Nell watched Nancy's shadow as she moved to the glass case against the wall. Her breath caught in her throat. The hunting wall, the glass case filled with Dean's guns. Then she heard the click of the lock and the opening of the glass door.

"You told them I threatened Troy," Kevin continued. "That I was the one who knew where all the garage tools were. That I told the workmen to take the metal ladder away."

"You
did
tell them to take it away, Kevin."

Kevin exploded. "Sure I told them to take it away. I told them because
you
told me to. You said some deliveries were coming. I did what you told me to do. What are you trying to do to me, Nancy? What have I ever done to you?" His voice rose until it vibrated off the walls. "You all but told them I was the one who killed those two people--and you gave them reasons to believe you. Are you crazy? What's Mary going to think?"

"She's going to think that you killed them, Kevin," Nancy said calmly. "And then you tried to kill me."

At that moment, Nancy spotted Nell. The color drained from her face, and she stared at Nell and Birdie as they moved toward the wide den door. Izzy and Cass were a few steps behind them.

Kevin's head spun around, and then he looked back at Nancy. "What's going on . . . ?"

Nell's voice was quiet, a schoolteacher's voice, forcing calmness into an unruly classroom. "It's all right, Kevin. No one thinks you murdered Pamela and Troy."

Birdie took a few steps toward Nancy. "It's over now, dear," she said. "Your nightmare is over." She stopped a few feet away, letting her words fill the space between them.

Nancy stared back at her, then the others, and then her body seemed to shrink, her shoulders slumping forward. The look of a trapped animal filled her narrow face. She stared at the gun in her hand. "This was the gun Dean killed himself with; did you know that? And this"--she flapped a piece of paper in the air--"this was the note he left for me. I told the police he didn't leave one, but he did, a private note, meant only for me." Her voice dropped, and she stared at the piece of stationery as if it had suddenly betrayed her.

Nell thought back over the years she had known Nancy Hughes. The composed, capable woman who did so much for the museum. She had changed after Dean committed suicide; they had all seen that. It was understandable, everyone said. Such a good man doing such a horrible thing, without any reason. But Nell never imagined the depth of Nancy's anguish--and what it had done to her. A terrible disease, eating away at her core.

Nancy looked up from the letter. "He said he was sorry. And he loved me--his smart, pretty wife. That's what he wrote." She looked down and read slowly, " 'But, my darling Nancy, I cannot function anymore. I have nothing left to give you. I'm empty. She's taken it all. I cannot live without her.' "

Nell thought of the words Nancy had written in the snow beside Pamela's lifeless body, hoping it would seem like a suicide to the police.
I'm sorry.
It's what she wanted Pamela to be for ruining her life. What Dean was for ruining hers.
Sorry
.

Nancy looked at the people surrounding her, her usual control lost in the confusing moment. Then she lifted the gun again and looked at it intently.

Birdie started to move, but Nell put her hand on her arm and pulled her back a step.

Emotion had drained from Nancy's face, and Nell remembered that same look at Dean's funeral. Nancy had never cried. People said she was brave, holding it together. An amazing, remarkable woman, dealing with terrible loss. A man who had every reason to live but threw it all away.

"Full circle," Nancy said, the words catching in her throat. "There's nowhere for me to go, is there?"

In the distance, Nell heard the sounds of cars on gravel, but Nancy seemed not to notice. She cradled the gun, as if it were a special gift.

"Nancy," Nell managed to say. "Don't . . . "

Nancy didn't seem to hear. It was as if she were alone in Dean's room. Just the two of them, talking as lovers. Her words were whispered. "I kept your gun, my darling. And I finally rescued you from her, just as I promised. You're free now, my love."

"Nancy, why don't you give it to me?" Birdie said softly. "You don't need it any longer."

Nancy looked at it. "She ruined people's lives. I've done a good thing. People will thank me."

Close by, Nell felt Ben's presence. And Sam's. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a sea of blue uniforms walking past the window, making their way into the hallway.

Nancy's hand was unsteady, but her voice was clear.

"Troy DeLuca thought I would support him for the rest of his self-indulgent life to hold his silence. He watched it all from the carriage house, waiting for Pamela to come to him that night. But instead of getting Pamela that night, he thought he'd gotten the mother lode. He rejoiced. He demanded a little bit one day, a lot more the next. And on and on and on. I had to keep him close, to watch him, until I figured out what to do. It would never have stopped." Her forehead furrowed as if it pained her to think about it.

"I'm truly sorry it had to be at Enzo's house; that's a deep regret. Ravenswood-by-the-Sea is a wonderful place. Pamela didn't deserve to die there." Her voice dropped, and she seemed to be speaking to herself. "And she didn't deserve my husband. . . . "

Nell saw the slight movement of Nancy's hand as she turned the gun toward herself. But before anyone could move, Kevin lunged toward Nancy.

The pistol clattered to the floor, the blow causing a bullet to explode and tear through the leather cushions of Dean Hughes' favorite chair.

Nancy's body began to weave, a hollow reed unable to support skin and bones and muscles any longer. In one swift movement, Kevin's arms grabbed her, cradling her shrinking body as she collapsed to the floor in a torrent of wrenching tears.

He stayed there for a moment, his arms holding her as her body shook with grief.

For the first time since Dean Hughes' tragic death, his wife grieved his loss.