Patterns in the Sand (23 page)

 

 

“I would have said, ‘Good morning. Lovely day, isn’t it?’ I certainly had as much right to be there as they did. What’s the matter with all of you? A person can’t take a stroll in Aidan’s woods any longer? I think Aidan would have loved me being there. In fact, I felt him right there beside me. And I told him his path needed tending. A body could trip on those ruts.”

 

 

Birdie was right, Nell thought. Aidan would have loved the image of the tiny white-haired woman with the huge walking stick climbing his hill. Especially if it brought them closer to finding out who killed him. And most especially if it cleared his daughter from suspicion so she could go on with her life.

 

 

“So what’s the upshot?” Cass sat on the window seat, her legs crossed kindergarten-style, with Purl purring contentedly in the circle formed by her legs. A gusty wind blew in from off the ocean and Cass reached behind her and closed one of the windows. “Why were Ellen Marks and Billy Sobel strolling through the woods together? Did you talk to them?”

 

 

Birdie pulled her needles from the bag. Her cap was half finished, a delicious seamless concoction of hand-spun cotton in shades of yellow, blue, and cherry. It was her fifth cap in two weeks.

 

 

“Yes,” she said, a satisfied look spreading across her lined face.

 

 

“Well?” the knitters’ voices rose up in the salt-scented air and melded together as one.

 

 

Birdie’s needles clicked to the beat of Elton John crooning about dancing in the sand. Without a pause, she pulled a ball of brilliant cherry cotton from her bag and slipped a strand around the needle, beginning a new row and a new color to the body of the hat. Though it was best to keep the caps smooth on the inside so they would be soft and comfortable, she’d decided to form tiny knit flowers to sprinkle on the outside.

 

 

“When I got to the end of the trail, they were sitting at the top on those lovely wooden benches the women’s club donated, the ones tucked off to the side, protected by that stand of arborvitae. They didn’t see me at first. Their heads were bent, but I could tell Ellen looked worried about something—Rebecca, maybe? I think she worried about her sister like a mother hen.

 

 

“Billy was two sheets to the wind, as you might imagine. He looked like he was struggling to keep up with what Ellen was saying, so she raised her voice, as if that would help him focus. And I heard her tell Billy what a good friend he’d been—and she knew he’d help her out if she needed it.”

 

 

“Why did she need help? What kind of help?” Cass pulled forward, not wanting to miss the punch line, and Purl jumped to the floor in a graceful leap. The fanciful child’s cap Cass had been knitting fell from her lap to the floor, the silky strands of yarn waving in the breeze like a peacock’s fan.

 

 

“I can’t really say.”

 

 

“Why?” Izzy and Nell chorused.

 

 

“Because I don’t know. They must have discussed whatever it was while I was still out of earshot. But they both looked upset—Ellen more worried, and Billy sad.” Birdie finished a band of cherry on the hat, then pulled out a lemony yarn, wrapped it around her needle, and worked it into the next row. “They could have been talking about Aidan.”

 

 

“Why Aidan?”

 

 

“Because when I first spotted them, they were standing at the trail head—the spot where that lovely little wooden figure of Aidan’s sits, right beside his house. And they were both staring at the house as if Aidan himself was about to walk out the door.”

 

 

“So Ellen was worried about Rebecca—or something.” Nell’s words came out slowly, inviting them all to make sense out of them.

 

 

“Something like murder?” Izzy pulled out the first assumption playing on each of their minds and laid it out in front of them.

 

 

“I can’t get my arms around that,” Birdie said. “Rebecca is emotional and spontaneous, but murder?”

 

 

“She certainly didn’t like Aidan. She told us that herself.”

 

 

“Why
did
they split up?” Cass asked, carrying a trayful of wineglasses to the table. “It happened abruptly, right? Aidan brought her to a Friday supper one week last month—they seemed reasonably happy.”

 

 

“Though Rebecca was quiet that night, I remember. And Aidan, too.”

 

 

“And then the next week Aidan came alone.”

 

 

“And he brushed off questions about it,” Izzy said. “I remember, because I asked him about her. But breakups happen, I guess. Especially with the Rebeccas of this world. Besides, I thought they were an odd couple to start with.”

 

 

Nell retrieved Birdie’s chilled bottle of wine from the refrigerator and walked back into the room. “It didn’t seem like a traumatic breakup—you’re right. Aidan seemed fine. And Rebecca was out and about, flirtatious as ever. She didn’t act like her life had changed much.”

 

 

Nell was thoughtful for a minute, thinking of the few Friday nights that Aidan had brought Rebecca to dinner. She had the feeling from the beginning it was a relationship Rebecca had manipulated. And Aidan, for lack of other interests at the time, had gone along with it. Rebecca was beautiful. Witty.

 

 

She pulled out the cork and poured the pinot into the glasses on the coffee table. Izzy had put out a platter of crisp pita pieces and a round of Brie, some napkins, and small knives. A bowl of freshly picked strawberries made Nell smile with a touch of pride. Izzy had learned about balancing color and taste, sweet and tangy, from her many meals in her aunt’s kitchen.

 

 

As the others reached for the wine and spread buttery Brie over the pita chips, Nell walked over to the open window and looked out over a fleet of white billowing sails as the boats scurried back into the harbor beneath the gray sky. The wind was strong and the blue sky they’d enjoyed in the morning was gone, the sky heavy with gray clouds burdened with the weight of rain.

 

 

She breathed in the earthy, slightly iron scent, mixed with the salty breeze. It wasn’t far away. A summer storm.

 

 

A sudden flash of lightning lit up the darkening sky, and seconds later, thunder rolled across the water like an oncoming freight train. They needed the rain. And the timing was good, Nell thought. The rain would come tonight, and tomorrow Billy Sobel would have a clean, rain-washed day for the opening of his James exhibit. At least there were bright spots in the midst of the murkiness of murder.

 

 

And perhaps the rain would wash away some of the unanswered questions, too, and allow them to make sense of the puzzle pieces that were scattered right there in front of their eyes. Willow’s inheritance. Aidan’s relationships. Aidan and Billy Sobel . . . D. J. Delaney. And who? Who else could have wanted to end Aidan Peabody’s life?

 

 

When the bell above the front door chimed, Nell glanced at her watch, then looked over at the archway that led into the front of the store. The others looked, too, knowing Mae had turned off the computer and gone home for the day shortly after they’d arrived. She had waved at them from the doorway, her car keys in hand. “Don’t forget to lock up on your way out,” she’d reminded them.

 

 

Willow Adams appeared in the archway.

 

 

But it wasn’t the same Willow Adams they had seen just hours before.

 

 

Instead of long thick hair held in place with great difficulty, Willow bore a cropped, dark head of hair, wavy and full and short. It moved of its own volition, with thick curls and waves defining it irregularly. Raindrops glistened off the surface of a bright yellow slicker too big for her body, which covered her almost down to her ankles.

 

 

Although Nell could see at a glance that Willow had taken a scissors to her own locks—and perhaps without a mirror—the weight and robust body of her hair hid the defects and the results were stunning.

 

 

Her face, pale just ten days ago, was tan now from daily runs along the beach and riding Nell’s old bike across the cape and back again. She looked healthier, Nell thought, even beneath the burden of her father’s murder. A sprinkling of freckles formed a pattern across her cheeks and nose, and the mass of waves that now freely framed her face highlighted enormous dark eyes.

 

 

Beneath the open raincoat, Willow wore a gauzy cotton blouse that Nell suspected came from Izzy’s own closet. It was white as snow against her sun-touched skin. But it was her eyes that drew Nell’s attention. They were lit in a way Nell hadn’t seen since that first day, when they’d found a determined young girl with a mission, sitting in Izzy’s shop window. Flashing dark eyes.

 

 

“Wow,” Izzy said. “Willow, it’s great!”

 

 

“Come, sit, dear,” Birdie urged, wanting a closer look but reluctant to disturb the yarn or the kitten sitting on her lap.

 

 

“Terrific,” said Cass. “I think I’ll have you do mine.”

 

 

Willow allowed a smile, and touched her hair with her hand, then combed her fingers through it. “I got sick of people looking at me. Maybe they won’t recognize me now.”

 

 

Nell held back a reply but her heart ached for the young girl. Willow, for all her efforts, was even more striking with the short haircut. Her enormous eyes were unmistakable. Even if people didn’t know who they were looking at, they would look. And Willow would feel their stare and think it was because they thought her guilty of a terrible thing.

 

 

But it would probably be because she was strikingly beautiful.

 

 

“I went to the police a few hours ago,” Willow said, shifting to a business tone and clearly wanting to divert their attention from her self-styled haircut.

 

 

“A couple of the younger guys were in there playing darts,” she continued, slipping out of the raincoat and hanging it on a hook. She sat down on the couch next to Birdie and kicked off her sandals. “So I asked them if they were going to arrest me. And if they were, I said they should just go ahead and do it. Right then and there. I was tired of waiting for the bomb to drop. One of the guys ran and got the chief from his office like he was afraid of me. Like he thought I’d drop poison in his Diet Coke if he didn’t behave.”

 

 

Willow looked up at Nell. “Ben was in the office with Chief Thompson. I hope he’s not in trouble.”

 

 

They laughed, and Willow laughed, too.

 

 

“I think we’re okay on that score,” Nell said, “though you never know about Ben.” He had gone over to talk to him about Billy before someone from the Edge did. The young waiter—and the bartender, standing nearby—had heard what Billy said as clearly as Nell.

 

 

Ben was convinced Billy would have a plausible explanation for his drunken words, but it needed to be addressed. And better from him than someone else. Rumors sometimes traveled at the speed of a sailfish in Sea Harbor.

 

 

“The chief said he couldn’t arrest me because he didn’t have enough evidence, but they were still checking things out, he said. He was nice, but that Tommy Porter cowers in the corner when he sees me. I swear he thinks I have an ax in my backpack.”

 

 

“Chief Thompson is a good guy,” Izzy said. “And Tommy has probably fallen in love with you. That’s how he shows it sometimes.”

 

 

“You’re right about the chief being nice. I told him if he wasn’t going to arrest me, then he needed to give me what was mine, and he didn’t bat an eye.”

 

 

“They had taken some of your things?” Izzy said.

 

 

Nell frowned. As far as she knew, the police hadn’t been to the guest cottage. And surely they’d have checked with her first.

 

 

Willow shook her head. She held up a silver ring. Keys dangled from the circle.

 

 

“Aidan’s studio?” Nell asked.

 

 

“My studio,” Willow said. “And my house. There’s even a piece of paper to prove it.” She forked her fingers through her short hair and looked at the four knitters intently, her enormous eyes still flashing. “So. Should we go?” she asked.

 

 

Willow’s hope coated her words. Somewhere, somehow, in Aidan’s small house or in the depths of his studio and gallery would be the puzzle piece that was missing. Somehow they’d find something that meant nothing to the police, but everything to Willow Adams.

 

 

Nell took a deep breath and wondered how much of Willow’s zeal was directed at discovering the murderer and clearing her own name, and how much was directed at discovering the father she never knew. A week ago she wanted nothing that belonged to this man who had never acknowledged her existence. Today she was claiming his property.

 

 

“I just thought,” Willow went on, “that maybe we’d find something there. All of us . . .”

 

 

“You shouldn’t go over there alone, I agree,” Nell said.

 

 

“That’s what Brendan said—but he’s helping over at Billy’s and can’t get away right now. He wants me to wait until tomorrow so he can go with me. But I thought . . . I mean, you all have been working hard to figure this thing out, and I thought if you weren’t busy . . .”

 

 

At that instant a crack of thunder shook the small shop and the lights flickered, then went out completely.

 

 

Izzy grabbed for a flashlight fastened to the wall and clicked it on. It was a lantern-style light, and she set it on the table. Soft, eerie shadows played against the wall. The lights flickered again, and the hum of the refrigerator greeted the lights’ return.

 

 

“The lights may be short-lived,” Izzy said, looking out the window at the harbor. One strip of lights, over near Canary Cove and the Artist’s Palate and pier, had not returned, and the pelt of rain was growing louder against the rocks. She pulled the casement windows closed. “It’s still partially dark on the cove.”