Angora Alibi (14 page)

“Great candies,” Mae Anderson said as Nell handed her the bag. “We’re overrun with
mothers these days—I think it’s the wonderful display plus folks wanting to check
out Izzy’s progress. The little ones that tag along will love a special treat.”

“Is Birdie around?”

“Yep, and ready for an escape, in my humble opinion. When I stuck my head in a minute
ago, the talk was focused on the merits of drug-free childbirth and the wonders of
a father cutting the umbilical cord. My Jerry would have been flat on the floor at
the very mention of it.”

Nell laughed and headed toward the back room, following the iPod sounds of someone
singing about love, stars, and long summer nights. She stood in the archway for a
minute watching the activity swirling around the knitting room. Heaped on the library
table were baskets of needles, measuring tape, scissors, and markers. Pattern books
were strewn about, and groups of women sat at the table or on the couches and easy
chairs with balls of yarn at their side, knitting and purling tiny sweaters and hats.

Birdie sat near the open casement windows, relishing the brisk afternoon breeze. Purl
was curled up on her lap. Nearby, Laura Danvers and several of her friends sat with
piles of baby Suri alpaca yarn on the table between them.

Nell walked over and admired the half-finished sweater on Laura’s lap. “A baby sweater?”

Laura smiled. “Don’t even think it, Nell. Our two girls keep Elliot and me plenty
busy.” She held up the tiny garment. “This is for Uncle Franklin’s baby. It seems
early to be knitting something, but Tamara says it makes it more real to her. In nine
months we should be able to open a store with everything she’s suggesting we make.”

“Franklin seems overjoyed with this pregnancy.”

“It’s this
heir
thing he has. It’s so important to him. He really wants a boy.”

Franklin Danvers was a private man, but it was an often-repeated rumor that the lack
of offspring contributed to the failure of his previous marriages. “But there’s no
guarantee of that,” Birdie says.

“Exactly. So, what if it’s a girl?” one of her friends asked.

The question lingered there, then was silenced as Tamara Danvers walked into the room,
spotted them, and walked over.

Nell hadn’t talked with her since the morning Franklin had called the police on Justin
Dorsey.
Years ago—
that’s how it felt. But it wasn’t years; it was just a few days before he died. Tamara
had been agitated that day, or maybe upset by the commotion Justin had caused.

Today her color was better, her face composed, and her blond hair pulled back and
fastened with a wide gold clip at her neck. She wore sneakers and stretchy, formfitting
black pants with a pink tank top and a vibrant nylon jacket on top.

She held up a skein of angora yarn, bright blue, soft, and luscious, and looked at
Izzy. “Do you like it?”

“Another baby sweater, Tamara?”

“No. This is for leggings for when he crawls. Gwen Stefani’s boys wore leggings. I
read that she knit a pair herself.”

“Not angora, I bet. This isn’t strong enough. And it’ll have a halo effect, not great
for a bruising boy.” Izzy took the yarn and was back in a minute with a cotton acrylic
in the same majestic blue. “This’ll work better.” She looked at Tamara’s figure and
sighed. “I never looked like that. Even before I was pregnant.”

“I’m keeping up my routines. Exercise. I think it’ll keep things tight during the
pregnancy. It’s early, you know. I want to keep active.”

They knew. But no one told Tamara that she was dreaming.

“We may even try some diving this summer, though Franklin is afraid of every little
thing, as if I’m a china doll.”

“Diving . . . ,” Laura said quietly. “That’s not a pleasant topic around here right
now.”

Tamara took a sharp breath and fingered the yarn in her hand. “Of course it’s not,
that was stupid of me. It was right near our place, you know. Franklin dives a lot.
He could have been down there with the club that morning. He could have been the one
killed.”

Or Sam. Or Danny. Or Andy Risso. All wonderful men. But not men whom anyone would
want to kill.

“I don’t think the police think it was a random thing,” Laura said. “Someone wanted
to kill a specific person, not just any diver.”

“So who was he?” Tamara asked. “Franklin said the paper didn’t say much.”

“Justin Dorsey,” Izzy said. “You’ve met him, Tamara. He was the guy who came up on
your veranda that day. Franklin was upset about him being there, remember? He called
the police.”

Tamara paused for a moment, then said, “Of course, I remember now. I hadn’t made the
connection. Good Lord. Franklin was really mad that day. I thought at first the guy
was just friendly, someone with a board, walking the beach. But he walked right on
the terrace, as if . . . as if he had a right to be there. It was frightening. But
after Franklin called the police, he never came back. At least as far as I know.”

“No. He probably didn’t,” Nell said.

Laura frowned. “Uncle Franklin called the police? That’s crazy. Every kid in Sea Harbor
has surfed and boogie-boarded down there. It’s a great beach, gets good waves. And
nothing against you, Tamara, but most of the people who live up there rarely use the
beach.”

Tamara looked defensive. “Franklin was just trying to protect me from someone who
didn’t know how to take no for an answer.”

Laura was undeterred. “Maybe. But it’s still a little crazy.”

“Franklin thought he was a troublemaker.”

Nell watched the exchange and wondered about the relationship between the two women.
Tamara wasn’t much older than Laura, although their husbands were a generation apart.
Laura was already a prominent figure in Sea Harbor, no matter her age. She was devoted
to her family and nearly every charitable cause that reared its head in Sea Harbor.
People liked and respected the young community leader. Nell wondered if that was a
problem for Tamara.

But Tamara didn’t seem affected by Laura’s comments as she proudly passed her legging
pattern around for everyone to see.

When the conversation moved back to young motherly topics, Birdie rose from the window
seat, gave Purl a final pat, and gathered up her shopping bags. With a nod to Nell
and a wave to the group, she headed up the stairs.

Nell followed. Birdie’s manner of leaving was one of the things they all cherished
about her. None of those prolonged and awkward good-byes at a door. Birdie simply
got up, waved, and was gone. Sometimes squeezing a quick hug in between the two, depending
on whom she was leaving.

“People don’t know what to say about it all,” Nell said as they walked through the
shop.

“But ‘say’ they will, making up things, if need be. No matter, Jerry Thompson is a
smart man. He’ll get to the bottom of this soon.”

Nell nodded absently, looking into the Magic Room, the name Izzy had given the yarn
shop’s playroom. It was filled with the shop owner’s own childhood toys—dolls and
doll beds, puppets, stuffed animals, and Tinker Toys—along with newer ones donated
by the mothers who appreciated a place to leave their toddlers and preschoolers while
they picked out patterns and took classes. Mae’s nieces Jillian and Rose loved watching
over the kids, wiping noses, playing games, and retrieving mothers when needed. Today
they seemed to be cuddling their charges more, watching each child more closely.

It’s what happens when a town has been wounded in such a horrific way. Mothers all
over town were paying attention to their teenagers’ curfews, requesting frequent check-ins,
worrying about parties and days at the beach. The wonderful carefree things that made
up summer were now potential dangers, something to put under a magnifying glass.

Outside the yarn shop they paused, putting on sunglasses and adjusting to the bright
light.

“Humph.”

The two women turned toward the sound, and found themselves looking into the small
beady eyes of Mrs. Bridge, owner and manager of the Bell Street Boardinghouse, perhaps
one of the last remaining boardinghouses in North America. Justin’s last-known address.

Mrs. Bridge had a first name, but she never used it and over the years it had fallen
from everyone’s memory—even the postmistress couldn’t remember her mail addressed
to anyone but “Mrs. Bridge.”

“This is where Janie Levin lives, they tell me,” she said to Birdie and Nell. Her
chubby index finger pointed to the upper windows.

“That’s right, Mrs. Bridge. But she isn’t here right now.”

“It was her friend who was murdered,” Mrs. Bridge said.

“A distant relative,” Nell said.

“He lived at my place, you know,” she went on, as if Nell hadn’t spoken. “The police
have been by, of course, and they said there wasn’t much there. Old clothes, a surfboard.
They took what they wanted. The rest is right there.” She pointed to a cardboard box
on the sidewalk beside her old Chevy. “I’d like it to be gone.”

Her tone of voice indicated that the rest of Justin’s belongings would turn her house
into a deadly virus if allowed to remain.

“We’ll give it to Janie,” Birdie said. “Was Justin a problem?”

Nell picked it up and put it inside the yarn shop door to take deal with later.

Mrs. Bridge seemed troubled by the question. Then she said, “I shouldn’t speak ill
of the dead. But that young man wasn’t my kind of tenant. I told him he had to leave.”

“To leave?”

Mrs. Bridge looked down and rubbed her palms down the sides of her wide-legged polyester
pants. Finally she met their eyes again. “Yes.” She sighed heavily. “I banished him.”

“He wasn’t a good tenant?”

Again, Mrs. Bridge was silent. She shifted her considerable weight from one foot to
another. Finally she spoke. “There were the late-night rendezvous a while ago. He
let a friend ‘use’ his room, if you know what I mean. I heard about it, of course
I did. I looked the other way at first, then finally warned him I wasn’t running that
kind of place, and it stopped. As for his recent shenanigans? I’ve no proof, not now,
I know that. But I also know this. Justin Dorsey was a charming con man. He told all
my tenants he was on his way to being rich. And I don’t doubt it. As sure as I’m standing
here, he was helped along by the cash that went missing from my apartment last week—two
weeks’ worth of rent money, waiting for me to take it to the bank.”

“A
con man.”

Ben considered Mrs. Bridge’s words as he rummaged through a kitchen drawer, searching
for the grill lighter. “The romantic version of a con man is of a charming, likable
guy. Justin seems to fit that. Maybe that’s exactly who he was.”

“Harriet Brandley came out of the bookstore while we were talking. She didn’t say
much at first, just listened until Mrs. Bridge left. But then—very reluctantly, I
thought—she said that Justin didn’t do right by Archie, either, when he helped out
there a couple months ago.”

Nell set a bowl of basting sauce for the tuna on a tray and continued her story. “It
had something to do with the day’s cash not matching receipts or something. But it
happened weeks ago, Harriet said.”

“I wonder if people’s reluctance to call Justin out on things was because of Janie.
She was trying her damnedest to get him jobs and turn his life around,” Ben said.

“Probably.” Everyone in town loved Janie. “But all those things—none of them add up
to murder. You don’t kill someone for being a petty thief. At least Sea Harbor folks
don’t.”

A noise at the front door announced Birdie, Cass, and Danny. Cass’ brother, Pete,
and Willow Adams were close behind.

Birdie carried a platter of buttermilk brownies and lemon squares. “Sinful,” she said.
“And all made by Ella and Gabby—who, I am sorry to say, have become master dessert
makers.”

Although Nell and Ben never knew how many people would show up on the deck Friday
nights, they knew that good news or bad news was a magnet that pulled people together—to
hug or laugh or cry or simply to sit around a fire and
be
.

Tonight they’d be surrounded by friends.

“And don’t even ask if I made this sourdough bread,” Cass said, setting down two round
loaves. “No, of course I didn’t make it. Not only has Danny become a better knitter
than I, but he’s learning how to bake bread. Jeez.”

“Way to go, Brandley,” Pete said, and clapped the writer on the back.

“She’s right. I mastered cables this week. There’s no stopping me now,” Danny said.
He gave Nell a hug.

Jane and Ham Brewster followed soon after and Izzy and Sam brought up the rear.

“I tried to get Janie to come,” Izzy said. “Tommy was working tonight and I didn’t
want to leave her alone. She’s still not used to the apartment and . . .” Izzy paused.

But Nell knew exactly what she was thinking.

And we still don’t know who is out there, and if there’s anyone else he wants to kill
. Janie was too closely connected to Justin for them not to worry about her.

“Anyway, she said no. She was going to do some knitting, and then spend some time
with Dr. Lily.”

“What does she do with all of those baby things she knits?” Ham asked, handing Ben
a bottle of olives.

“Most of them go to the free health clinic. She loves to knit. She’s says it’s her
therapy,” Izzy said. “I get that. It’s mine, too.”

“The police talked to her again yesterday,” Ben said. “I know that’s taking a toll
on her. And Tommy’s miserable but can’t do a thing about it.”

“The police can’t possibly think she has anything to do with Justin’s murder,” Jane
said.

Ben shook a silver martini pitcher and poured the liquid into the glasses he’d lined
up. “Pretend you’re the chief,” he said, adding olives to each. “Janie said she hated
Justin. She’d gone out on a limb for him more times than she can count, and he messed
up every time. Apparently he even screwed up some things at the clinic, and Janie
loves that place. She must have been mortified.”

“But kill?” Ham said.

“Okay, sure, we know she wouldn’t, couldn’t. But the police need to look at it from
a distance.”

“Ben’s right. They called my dad down to the station this afternoon,” Danny said.

“Archie?” Jane said. “Good grief. What for?”

Danny repeated the story his mother had told Nell and Birdie earlier. “My dad had
misgivings about Justin from the beginning, even though my mom liked his smile. Dad
thought he was trouble and only hired him to help out because Janie asked him to.”

A familiar scenario. Janie had asked her friends to help him—and Justin had screwed
up. For a brief moment, Nell wanted to kill him herself. She took the tray of marinated
tuna steaks out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter.

“Justin made bad decisions,” Ben said.

“And that’s probably what got him killed,” Sam said. “But if everything we’re hearing
is true, there were lots of people who might not want him around. People here are
generous—but they don’t like being played for fools.”

“But here’s a funny thing you should know,” Ben said. “I had a meeting with Father
Larry a few days ago—before we knew the whole story of Justin’s death. We were talking
about the church’s project for underserved youths, some of them orphans. He said he
didn’t normally reveal people’s contributions, but he felt this was appropriate, and
he told me that Justin Dorsey had come by Our Lady of Safe Seas last Saturday—the
day before he died—and given him a contribution envelope marked for the project. When
Father Northcutt opened it later, he found ten one-hundred-dollar bills inside—a thousand
dollars.”

Nell’s eyes widened. She pulled a stack of napkins from beneath the island.

“Where would he have gotten money like that?” Cass said.

“You think Justin had a little bit of Robin Hood in him?” Sam asked.

Robin Hood.
It somehow fit this young man who had mastered the art of making bad decisions and
yet could win people over with a charming, sweet smile and then give money to kids
who, like himself, didn’t have a very good start in life.

“It could be a dangerous profession,” Ben said.

Nell handed Izzy a platter of shrimp rolls, picked up a cheese and fruit platter,
and ushered everyone out to the deck. “Fresh air,” she said.

Ham Brewster shuffled through a stack of Ben’s old CDs until he found some old seventies
tunes and let Simon and Garfunkel sing to them of peace.

Drinks and appetizers were passed around, chairs and chaises pulled together, and
the same Friday night magic that had embraced the group through births and deaths,
through the best of times and the worst of times, took hold.

“Janie’s the one suffering through all this. Not only is she suffering from having
to be questioned about his murder—as if she might have had something to do with it—but
she is convinced that if she had done more for Justin, he wouldn’t have done whatever
he did to get himself killed,” Izzy said.

“I wonder if Janie knows about the donation he made to the church,” Nell said. “I
think she’d like hearing that.”

“But where did he get that kind of money to give away? Certainly not from the hodgepodge
of part-time jobs he had—or even the kind of petty theft he seemed to have enjoyed,”
Jane said.

“Did you hire him, Jane?” Nell asked, remembering the beautiful set of hand-blown
pottery Justin had given Janie. “Was that how he paid for the dishes he gave Janie?”

“I almost forgot about that. He came in the other day—it was Saturday morning, I think—and
was looking at the most expensive collection I had. I tried to steer him away from
them, but he refused to budge. He wanted the best, he said. So I suggested maybe he
could help out in the gallery—we’re always in need of people to mail things for us,
take orders off the Internet. He said no, he was busy— he might be getting into business
for himself.”

“What?” Ben said. “What kind of business?”

“A surf shop, I think he said. Can you believe it? Some crazy thing that would cost
a lot of money. Anyway, he said he’d pay for the pottery with cash. And he did. Lots
of it. He had a fat wad of bills, all shoved in a fanny pack.”

“He didn’t even give Jane a chance to give him a discount, which she would have done
because he had a nice smile and my Jane can’t resist dimples.”

Jane wrinkled her nose at her husband.

But it was true. The Brewsters’ generosity to friends and family was limitless, and
Ben sometimes wondered how they made any money.

“Okay, so somewhere, somehow, from someone, Justin was getting cash,” Danny said.

“And from what we’re guessing, it wasn’t through legitimate means,” Pete said.

“But some of it went to good things, like the children’s fund,” Izzy said.

“And dishes for Janie.”

“Birdie, I’m still curious about Justin wanting to see you,” Willow said.

“Now that I know he lost his room at Mrs. Bridge’s boardinghouse, I’m wondering if
he was wanting a place to stay.”

“I don’t think so,” Ben said. “Even for a young man who somehow thinks the world will
provide for him, that seems a bit presumptuous.”

Birdie agreed. But the young man had
something
on his mind, something he thought she could help him with. And that befuddled her.

Ben put the bluefin tuna steaks on the grill and brushed each one with the basil,
garlic, and lemon butter sauce Nell handed him. The conversation fell silent while
the intoxicating aroma of the fish and herbs wafted up from the grill in a white smoky
cloud.

“Ben, will you marry me?” Cass asked, her full attention given over to the appetite-enticing
aromas around her.

Willow and Nell disappeared inside, returning with Willow’s lobster risotto, Danny’s
sourdough bread, and a leafy avocado and pecan salad.

The dining table, already set for dinner and warmed by the glow of hurricane lamps,
was comfortable and worn, and nestled beneath the protective branches of Nell’s favorite
maple tree. They gathered around while Ben filled wine and water glasses, then held
one in the air. “Birdie, my love. Please do the honors.”

Birdie’s short silvery hair moved as she looked around to each person sitting at the
table. Her words were clear, filled with the moment. “We give thanks for friends,
for family, and for new life,” she said, her eyes lingering on Izzy and Sam. “And
to those we shall protect, no matter what. Peace.”

In minutes plates were filled with tuna steaks, the herbed aioli sauce was passed
around, and conversations picked up.

“So, Izzy dear, how did Jane and Willow ever talk you into this baby shower they’re
planning?” Birdie asked.

Izzy put down her fork and looked across the table at the two women in question. “Have
you ever tried to say no to those two?” she asked. Her dark blond eyebrows lifted
into streaked bangs as she glared at them. “I thought not.”

They laughed.

“Gabby is helping, too. It will be lovely and intimate and fun and make all of us
feel good for having done it, so that’s that,” Jane said.

“As long as we don’t have to play those crazy games, I’ll come,” Cass said.

“Are guys invited?” Danny asked, and the conversation escalated to a heated discussion
of whose baby was it, anyhow?

Nell half listened to the conversation circling around her and leaned back, looking
up at the impenetrable black sky, broken only by one or two flickering signs of a
solar system. A majestic and infinite sea of darkness.

“Nell?” Ben asked.

Nell focused on Ben’s voice, and only then on the sound of the doorbell. It was becoming
routine—interruptions to Friday-night dinners. At least when there was turmoil in
their lives.

“I’m up. I’ll go,” Ben said.

For the second time in as many weeks, Janie Levin stood at the Endicotts’ front door,
shivering, even in the warm June night, and was ushered inside.

She apologized for the intrusion, but she needed to talk to Birdie.

Janie’s face was pale as Ben led her to the deck. He pulled out a chair next to Birdie
and insisted she sit and have a glass of wine.

Birdie saw the stress in the nurse’s face. “We need to coax that lovely pink back
into your cheeks, Janie,” she said.

Janie sat down. She dropped her bag in her lap and took a sip of wine. “I think I
should get this over with or I may just drink the whole bottle of wine.”

“Would you like to talk in private?” Birdie asked.

Janie shook her head no. It was clear she’d been crying again, but for the time being,
the tears had stopped, and the determination on Janie’s face told them she would keep
them at bay as best she could. She looked around the table. “You’re all my friends.
I care about you—”

Birdie placed a blue-veined hand on top of Janie’s. “And we love you, Janie. You know
that. This is about Justin, I suspect. And we all have a soft spot in our hearts for
him, too. No matter what.”

“No matter what?” Janie said.

“Of course. He might not have been the most responsible person in the world. He made
some mistakes along the way. But the saddest thing about that is that one of those
mistakes may have got him killed.”

Janie looked down at her lap. Her fingers played with the buckle on her bag. “I don’t
think this mistake is the one that got him killed, Birdie. But I don’t know, had I
known about it . . . I might have been tempted. . . .” She managed a small smile and
wiped away a tear that had somehow escaped and threatened to roll down her cheek.
“But the thing is, Justin meant a lot to me. He was like a little brother, I guess.
And I think underneath it all, he was a good person. I don’t want you to hate him.
And that’s why this is all so hard.”

“Janie, that won’t happen,” Nell assured her. “Absolutely not.”

Janie took another deep breath and plunged in. “I was driving over to Dr. Lily’s tonight
and thinking about everything that’s happened, and of course I started to cry again.
So I pulled a tissue out of my glove compartment before going into her house. An envelope
dropped out with the tissue. I thought maybe it was from a checkup, but then I spotted
a scribble on the front that looked like Justin’s blocky print—and I remembered that
he had borrowed my car last weekend.”

“Yes, I remember,” Nell said. “We were with you that day.”

Janie threw her a silent thank-you. Somehow having all parts of her story believed
and verified seemed to be important to Janie.