A Fatal Fleece (10 page)

“He’s a doctor, right? So what kind of work can he do from here?” Cass wiped her hands on her jeans. “I don’t much like doctors. If I could have one on the other side of the country and check in on e-mail, I might consider checkups.”

Birdie chuckled. “He’s on the research staff at Stanford. And gives lectures all over. Sometimes back here at Dana-Farber. I suppose he’s working on a paper or computing data or whatever it is researchers do when not in their office. Computers make it easy to work anywhere.”

While Izzy headed for the storage shed hidden behind a clump of rhododendron bushes, Nell turned on the faucet and pulled the hose to the edge of the raised bed to water a patch of new seeds.

She turned the nozzle to spray and looked around, her mind moving to last night’s dinner, to a to-do list on her kitchen island, to the rich garden beds that now filled a once empty lot. Beautiful, healthy, smelling of rich, loamy earth.

Then her gaze shifted from beauty to the beast. There it was, as it always was. The rusted fence that guarded Finnegan’s land. The garden that sidled up to it was a pleasant reprieve, and the climbing vines and sprouting flowers along the roadside would help deter the mess from Canary Cove Road. But never completely.

In the distance, she heard the crunch of gravel on the invisible drive. Nell peered through the weeds.

A figure—a shadow, really, from where she stood—was visible just inside the gate. A man, well dressed.

Unable to get a better view and feeling a bit like a spy, she turned away. It was probably one of the many developers dreaming of where he would build a small inn or condominium complex when Finnegan came to his senses and gave up his land.

She turned off the water and called to the others. “I’m off to the market. Want a ride, Birdie?” She glanced back at Finnegan’s property, then shook off an uncomfortable feeling that chilled her, a sudden cold breeze, unexpected on a warm Cape Ann day.
Silly
.

Cass was already packed up and ready to leave, a backpack slung over one shoulder and her cell phone pressed to her ear. After a few words, she slipped it into her pocket, her smile gone. “Pete says the
Lady Lobster
’s winch is broken. One more thing to fix. Poor boat needs a trip to the spa.” She forced a smile to her face as she waved good-bye and followed Izzy to their cars.

Nell and Birdie waved them off and picked up their things. “I wish she’d let me help, but she’s as stubborn as her father was. It’s the Irish in her,” Birdie said.

Cass was indeed stubborn—and proud. But she was also a survivor. Somehow this would all work out, and the Halloran lobster business would climb back on its once-steady feet.

The two women climbed into the car and Nell backed out slowly, then turned the car toward Harbor Road.

“Wait,” Birdie said suddenly. She leaned forward in the seat, her hands on the dashboard, and stared through the windshield at Finnegan’s gate.

Nell slowed to a crawl, then stopped. They both looked across the road.

The yellow knit vest caught their eye first. And then his tall, skinny form. Finnegan’s stance was familiar, too—and defiant. One hand clutched the gate, the other a large stick. In front of him, his
face equally stern, stood the figure Nell had seen through the fence, his face visible now.

Finnegan’s angry voice lifted and carried across the street and through Nell’s open car window.

“You’re just like the rest of them,” he yelled. “There’s nothin’ for you here. I don’t care who you are in your fancy duds. Out, now!”

The pause that followed was as loud as the voices that came before. A chasm grew between the two men until one finally spoke, his head held high, one hand in the pocket of his tailored slacks. Casual. In control.

“I thought we could handle this nicely, Mr. Finnegan. I see you think differently.” The man spoke carefully, the voice of a man used to people listening to him. He started to walk away, then turned again toward Finnegan, his back to the car across the street, his words muffled. “What’s . . . mine . . .” The words were carried on the breeze, but separated from the rest of the sentence.

And with that, Nicholas Marietti turned away and climbed into a blue rental car.

Without a sideways glance and oblivious of the women watching him, he sped on down Canary Cove Road, a blur of blue disappearing out of their sight.

Chapter 10

P
arties at Sal and Beatrice Scaglia’s home usually had a political edge, though it was always subtly disguised. Tonight’s cocktail gathering was to celebrate their newly remodeled home—
cocktails with friends
, the colorful invitation had read—but no one ever doubted that the guest list included those who might offer a political assist, should one be needed down the road.

“Do you think she’d make a good mayor?” Nell asked. Then she looked away from her question and out the window toward the churning sea. She was talking without thinking, uttering words while her mind was elsewhere. Idle chat. Something she didn’t often do with Ben.

Ben maneuvered the car along the winding drive toward the Scaglia home. It was a peculiar evening sky, strangely ominous, with threads of clouds floating in front of the emerging crescent moon. The air was heavy, and below the cliff a pounding surf sent frothy plumes into the night sky. Rain, the weatherman had predicted. But Ben and Nell had both agreed that it wouldn’t rain yet, not until after Beatrice’s cocktail party. She wouldn’t allow it.

“Mayor? Sure, she’d be fine.” Ben said. He took the turns in the road with ease. “Beatrice is bright, articulate. And she has her constituents’ interests at heart.” He glanced over at his wife. “What’s on your mind, Nellie? I’d guess it isn’t Beatrice Scaglia’s political future.”

“That’s not fair. At the least, I should be able to hide my thoughts
in the dark.” Nell shifted on the seat and pulled a knit wrap around her shoulders. A soft cashmere shawl, the color of the sea, and knit with love, Izzy had said when she gave it to her.

Ben reached over and rested one hand on her knee, his eyes on the road. He rubbed the silk fabric of her dress lightly. “Night, day. It doesn’t matter. You wear your heart—and your worry—on your metaphorical sleeve. At least the sleeve I have privy to.”

That was true enough. She could rarely keep things from Ben. He sensed her moods, her thoughts, sometimes even before they surfaced in her own consciousness. Ben just knew.

“It’s Birdie’s guest,” he said, continuing to mine her thoughts.

“He’s not really her guest.”

“Whatever he is, he’s here because of Birdie. Frankly, I think it’s great. He’s brought Birdie together with this little girl and given her a chance to be a grandmother. Birdie is loving the whole thing, and one week wasn’t long enough. But besides all that, I like the guy. And I think Birdie does, too. If you ask me, she did marry the wrong brother.”

“Yes, but—”
But what?
But they saw Nick arguing with Finnegan when Birdie thought he was working on a lecture at the B and B? That Izzy saw him at the courthouse? So? Somewhere buried in it all was the instinct to protect. But whom? And, good Lord, from what? Nell shook her head at her own foolishness. If there was anyone in this whole world who didn’t need protecting, it was Birdie Favazza, one of the strongest women she knew. She didn’t need it, and she certainly wouldn’t want it.

Ben’s voice was thoughtful. “As for seeing Nick talking to Finnegan, it can easily be explained. He’s protective of Gabby, and she was hanging around the old man. If she were my niece, I’d have been over there, too, checking him out.”

She looked at Ben’s silhouette against the darkening sky. The strong nose and square chin, graying sideburns and full brows. The warm brown eyes that still, after all these years, managed to stir sensations deep inside her. His expression was soft in the moonlight, but clear. It spoke to her, told her that he loved her.

And that she worried about things that were better off left alone.

Ben drove around another bend and onto Gull Drive. The neighborhood was built along an inlet that allowed easy boat access to beaches, Sunrise Island, Canary Cove, and the harbor beyond.

“Maybe Nick is interested in building a place up here on Cape Ann and went to city hall to get the lay of the land,” Ben said. “What if he wants a place to bring Gabby? That would be great for Birdie. As for Finnegan, the more people who approach him about that place of his, the closer we come to some kind of resolution. I sometimes think he’s holding out now just on principle. He doesn’t even have electricity half the time. It’s not a great place for an old man to live.”

Nell fell silent for the rest of the drive, allowing Ben’s words to settle and soothe. But it wasn’t easy. Birdie was happy that Nick was staying around a bit longer, but she’d been puzzled, too, by his encounter with Finnegan. And she said that Nick seemed different somehow, remote, not the friendly, gracious man who had brought his grandniece to Sea Harbor a week before. The trip to Italy had changed him.

Birdie had answered her own concerns with a logical explanation: he was worried about his mother—certainly reason enough for a man to appear slightly distant.

“Is Nick coming tonight?” Ben asked.

“I’m not sure. Birdie didn’t say.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

In the distance, the bright lights of Beatrice and Sal’s beautiful home lit up the tree-lined road like a fireworks display. The first party of the summer season—and the Scaglias would make it one to remember.

They parked and walked up the flagstone path, warmed by lights, laughter, and the sounds of Pete Halloran’s band, the Fractured Fish, playing from a veranda that wrapped around two sides of the house. Through the front windows and open doors they spotted Izzy and Sam talking to Archie and Harriet Brandley in front of a white, floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Archie was probably evaluating the collection. He told Nell once that he had the bad habit of sizing
up people by the books he found in their home. And a home without any books? He’d never go back. It was probably haunted, he said.

The Brandleys’ son, Danny, stood a short distance away, a serious look on his face as he and Cass talked, their heads lowered. He’d just come back from a successful book signing, according to his parents. Lines out the door in New York City, Archie had said. Nell made a mental note to congratulate him, though it didn’t look as if Cass was doing exactly that.

People drifted in and out of view as Beatrice’s hired staff for the evening—college students home for the summer and eager for work—moved through the crowd, offering drinks and delicate seafood appetizers to guests.

Beatrice, in a pair of Jimmy Choo platform sandals that made the diminutive hostess nearly as tall as Nell, welcomed them effusively at the door, urging them toward the food and drink. Standing a step or two behind her, her husband, Sal, smiled a greeting, and Nell smiled back.
The man never gets in two words edgewise,
she thought. On the other hand, he seemed content to stand in the shelter of Beatrice’s dominant shadow. An odd pairing that seemed to work.

Davey Delaney walked up beside her, a bottle of beer gripped in one hand. “Evening, Nell,” he said.

His mother, Maeve, stood a few steps away with D.J. The family seemed to travel as a unit. A fortress. Nell smiled. “How’s your wife? Is she here?”

“Nope.”

Nell nodded, feeling at a sudden loss for words. And Davey wasn’t helping. Standing there, a half smile on his face. Silent as a stone.

“It’s too bad she couldn’t come. It’s hard to get babysitters, I suppose.”

“Nah, two of mine are almost old enough to babysit. But we have a nanny who stays with us. Works fine, especially at times like this. Kristen’s out of town—a weekend with girlfriends.”

It was the most Davey Delaney had said to her at one time in a while. “That’s great. Moms need that.”

“Dads, too,” Davey answered. He nursed his beer, his eyes watching Nell in a way that made her nervous.

She was about to excuse herself when he cleared his throat. “I know Ben didn’t like that tiff I had with Finnegan the other night. You probably didn’t, either, him being a friend of yours. I just want you to know it’s no big deal. I just wish the guy would wise up. We could make him rich.”

Nell nodded, unsure of where the conversation was going. “I think he feels rich already, Davey. Maybe it’s not to everyone’s liking, but he’s happy.”

Davey took a long swallow of beer, draining the bottle. “You think he’s happy living in a hovel?” He shrugged, his muscular shoulders straining against the fabric of a silky shirt open one button too many. “Maybe, maybe not. But it’ll get cleaned up one way or another.” He set his bottle down on a table and took another one from a passing waitress. Then he nodded once and wandered back to where his parents were standing.

Nell watched him for a minute, then walked away herself. Such a strange man.

She saw Izzy and Sam standing near the veranda doors, listening to Merry Jackson and Pete sing a medley of old tunes. Relieved to have a destination far away from Davey Delaney, she headed their way.

Izzy looked magnificent, a shimmering ice blue dress with tiny straps hugging her long, lean body. Nell’s breath caught in her throat as she watched the young woman whom she loved so fiercely it sometimes hurt. She would be grateful forever to her sister, Caroline, for sharing her only daughter so generously, without a trace of resentment. “She’ll always be my daughter,” Caroline had said to Nell the day of Izzy’s wedding a year before. “But she’s your soul daughter, and she’s a richer, fuller woman for it.” And then they had both shed copious tears and wrapped their arms around each other as Izzy walked down the garden path to her waiting bridegroom.

Tonight she was looking up at Sam as if he were the only person in the room. A year of marriage hadn’t tarnished the glow one single bit.

“What? What’s that look, Aunt Nell?” Izzy embraced her, then pulled away, rolling the edge of Nell’s shawl between her fingers. “It looks gorgeous on you. Just like I knew it would.”