Death by Cashmere (16 page)

"The explanation is that they want it to go away, Margarethe," Nell said. "Just like so many in this town. I want it to go away, too. So do Izzy, Cass, and Birdie. But it won't disappear until we know what happened that night. Pete needs that closure. We all do."

Nell hoped the conversation would end there. She didn't want to get into the fact that Tony had also been with Angie that night. Another complication. Tony could tell his own story, surely. And enough people saw him with Angie that the police must know.

As if reading Nell's mind, Birdie said, "It's good to see Tony around town, Margarethe. You must be happy to have him back."

Margarethe sat straight, her spine not touching the couch back. She seemed to be giving Birdie's words exaggerated attention. Nell watched expressions flit across her handsome face. Margarethe probably worried about Tony just like Nell worried about Izzy and her brothers. It was what you did, no matter your children's ages.

Finally Margarethe's face softened with a smile, and she said, "Yes, Birdie. You're right. Tony is a good son. It's always good to have him here."

"It's nice when the young folks move back."

"Tony hasn't moved back, Birdie. He's just visiting. He has business in New York and Boston, a life there. He'll stay for the benefit Saturday night, of course, but then he will be on his way." She rose from the couch and slipped her bag over one shoulder. "I'm happy that the three of you are coming. It's for such a good cause. And that talented Sam Perry tells me that he is an old family friend of yours, Izzy. How delightful."

Izzy nodded. "Sam was like a brother to me. With all the baggage that brings."

Nell watched her niece's expression. She couldn't tell if Izzy felt delight or not. But Nell suspected a level of comfort came from having an old familiar friend around during a rough time.

Margarethe began to walk toward the front of the store, then stopped just as she reached the archway and turned back. "What was Beatrice Scaglia doing here?" Margarethe's words snapped like a rubber band.

Izzy frowned. "She was here for the class, just like the other--"

"Curious," Margarethe said. "Beatrice doesn't knit. Never has. Never will." With a slight look of disdain flashing across her face, Margarethe turned and walked through the store.

"Nell, dear, wait for me." Birdie scuttled after Nell as she stepped through the back door of the Seaside Knitting Studio. "I need a ride, and since Ben Endicott seems to have appointed himself my chauffeur--and he's utterly derelict in his duties by fishing in Colorado--I think you, my dear, must pick up the slack."

"My car's just across the street, Birdie--it will give us a chance to catch up."

Birdie nodded. "My sentiments exactly."

Nell and Birdie stepped out into the alley, squinting against the glare of the late-afternoon sunlight. It was a few seconds before Nell spotted the figure standing at the foot of the steps, still as a statue.

She stopped on the step, startled for a moment. "Gideon, you frightened me."

George Gideon stood next to the open shop window, leaning against the weathered building. He pushed away from the side as Nell and Birdie stepped onto the gravel.

"Sorry, ma'am," Gideon said, his fingers touching the bill of his baseball cap. "Didn't mean to scare you."

Music from Izzy's CD player filtered through the window, the sound carrying into the alley, and Nell wondered if Gideon had been listening to their conversation. She shook off her suspicion.
He'd surely have no interest in listening to a bunch of women talk.

"It looks like you're still keeping us safe," Nell said. "You mentioned you might be switching jobs."

"I didn't say that exactly, now, did I?" Gideon grinned. "I'm thinking of buying a business. Maybe a bait shop or a bar. The Gull isn't as high-class as it used to be."

Birdie's eyebrows lifted into her silver bangs. "A bait shop? A bar? Those things cost money, George Gideon. Did you rob a bank?"

Gideon looked down at Birdie, and a tinge of discomfort flashed across his face. "No, ma'am," he mumbled.

"Well, good," Birdie said. Her eyes lowered to his bare arm, muscular and tan with a fish tattoo on the bicep. Her eyes widened. "Gideon, what in heaven's name did you do? You look like you've been in a cat fight."

Nell looked at the back of Gideon's hand and forearms. They were crisscrossed with scratches, now crusted over and forming a tiny roadmap of red marks across his weathered skin.

Gideon looked down at his hand and arms as if they belonged to someone else. He looked up, then nodded slowly. "Cats," he said. Then, without further talk, he turned and for the second time in as many days, walked away from Nell and down to the water's edge.

Nell and Birdie drove through the center of town, past the Ocean's Edge Restaurant and Lounge, over the small bridge that gave sailboats entry to the river and fine homes west of town. Nell turned onto a hilly street in the oldest neighborhood in Sea Harbor, once home to sea captains and merchants, and entered a wide drive, flanked on both sides by a thick stone wall that marked the one boundary edge of Birdie's property. The ocean marked two other sides, and a thick woods on the south side separated her land from the neighbor's. Built a century earlier by Captain Antonio Favazza, Birdie's three-story stone home sat above the water on the south end of town. The Favazza place was a landmark--the Stone Castle, some called it--and though it could easily have been turned into an inn or high-end condominiums and was an unlikely dwelling for a woman just this side of eighty, Birdie had made it clear to anyone who dared broach the topic that she would never leave her home, not while her heart continued to pump blood through her body. Topic closed.

For the brief time they were together, Sonny Antonio Favazza became the true love of Birdie's life, and though she married four times after his untimely death nearly forty years before, Bernadette Favazza never changed her name again nor moved from Sonny's home. The home and the name stayed, she told each subsequent suitor. A package deal.

Nell turned into the estate and drove around the parking circle, parking near the heavy wooden front doors. Off to the right, back near the woods, was a long garage and above it, accommodations for help. But Birdie didn't like live-in help, except for Harold Sampson, the gardener, and his wife, Ella. Harold was nearly as old as Birdie, but he dutifully worked each day, trimming bushes, planting flowers in season, and mowing the lawn on the John Deere tractor that Birdie had bought for him.

Nell knew not to scrutinize or talk about what Harold actually did. After fifty years of service to the Favazza family, Birdie felt she owed it to him and Ella to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. And that was that.

"Turn this thing off and come inside," Birdie said with a wave of her hand. "And I have an exquisite Pinot uncorked and waiting for us. We need to talk, to catch up."

A half hour later Nell and Birdie were seated on the stone patio that circled out from the house on the harbor side, high above the water. Soft gaslights cast shadows across the granite floor. The two old friends sat in ocean-liner chairs, refurbished and polished until the teak arms were slippery beneath their touch. On a low iron table sat a platter of cheese, crackers, and warm rosemary herb bread, thin slices of smoked turkey, and two glasses of wine that Ella had quietly carried out.

Nell took a sip of wine, then sat back in the chair and pulled her knitting onto her lap. She looked out over the sea. "It's a perfect night," she murmured.

Across the harbor, flickering lights reflected off the black water like fairy dust. And where the land snaked out farther, the lights of Canary Cove art colony outlined the galleries and cafes. Music from a small combo on the deck of a bar near Ham and Jane's traveled across the water to where they sat.

"You can see everything from here," Nell said. And she knew Birdie did just that. A well-used telescope sat in its sturdy mounting below the patio awning.

"Margarethe and I were talking about that today. I anchor the land on the south, and Framingham Point reaches from here to forever on the north end."

They both looked northeast, beyond Canary Cove to a chunky piece of land that jutted out into the ocean, surrounded by water on three sides. And at the end of the thumb was the magnificent Framingham home and grounds.

Nell checked her scarf and counted the stitches to be sure she hadn't lost any. She took a bite of cheese and rested her head back against the cushions. "At times like this, sitting here beneath the sky, the world is soft and peaceful. Safe. Angie's murder seems so very far away."

"But nothing's far away, of course. Everything is still here, hidden in the darkness." Birdie pulled a shawl around her shoulders.

"I think I dislike the suspicion most of all--these are our friends and neighbors, Birdie, and one of them killed Angie." Nell looked up at the sky. It was a bright night, with a wash of stars that swept across the blackness like a lacy knit scarf. "We are all looking at one another, wondering, trying to patch together a picture that explains Angie's murder."

"We both feel it--that sense of forboding?"

Nell nodded against the back of the chair. "Everything bothers me right now. Things I wouldn't have noticed before have become ominous somehow--like Gideon and the way he lurks around Izzy's shop. Tony's behavior. And all this talk about Angie leaving as soon as she finished a 'project.' We need to find out more about what Angie was doing. She lived and walked and talked right in the middle of us, Birdie. And look how little we knew about her."

"You're right, Nell. My point exactly. That phone call at Harry's for example? Now, I don't mean this in a bad way--I don't snoop--but there isn't much that I don't hear about from someone or another. And if there'd been something going on with a married man, I think I'd have known it."

"I don't think she was involved with anyone, Birdie. So don't worry. Your radar is still intact. From what Harry said, someone
wanted
to be involved with her. Maybe was obsessed with her. But it clearly wasn't reciprocated."

"It's certainly motive for murder, telling a wife."

Nell sipped her wine. Yes, that was true. A motive wasn't very helpful, though, not without a face or person to put it with.

"Everyone has secrets, I guess," Birdie said. "I think Gideon has a ton of them. And Angie. Tony." Birdie took a sliver of cheese, put it on a cracker, and handed it to Nell.

"We only know what people let us see."

"True. Look at Margarethe. She's as visible as Father Northcutt's church in this town. But what do you really know about her? She's powerful. She's kind and generous. She's rich."

"And she protects her son, just like we all would."

"But she has a past, too. Sonny knew her when she came to Sea Harbor--she was young, eighteen or so. She ran away from home, Sonny said. She told him once the only good thing that ever happened to her before she moved to Sea Harbor was a grandmother who taught her to knit. Knitting saved her life, she said. I tried to ask her about it once, but by then her past was off-limits. It wasn't worth talking about. She preferred to live in the present with the respect her role called for."

"She's like Josie. And Annabelle. Women who have survived, in spite of what they were dealt."

Birdie poured them each another inch of wine. "I talked to Tony today," Birdie said. "I saw him go into Coffee's so I followed him."

Nell smiled at the image of Birdie traipsing into the coffee shop behind the Framingham heir.

"I asked him what he and Angie were talking about that night in the bookstore. He said Angie was nosing around into things that were none of her business. But the instant he said it, I could tell he wanted to take the words back."

"So he was telling her to stop whatever she was doing."

"Yes. He said she wasn't going to make anything better for anyone, so why hurt people. And then he launched into a short lecture about people making saints out of the dead, no matter what they had done in life. That's what we were doing with Angie, he said, and we didn't know what we were talking about. 'A damn shame,' he said. And then he pushed back his chair and stomped off like the spoiled boy I remember from years ago."

"I don't think we've made Angie into a saint, Birdie. But it's only natural to put the good memories in place when someone dies before you dig up the bad ones. If for no other reason, the family needs that."

Birdie nodded. "That's true. But, Nell, darlin'," Birdie said, "I think Tony may have said one thing right. For good or for bad, we need to know more about what Angie did besides planning an exhibit for the Historical Museum's fall show. Maybe the time has come to dig in the dirt."

Nell's board meeting at the Sea Harbor Historical Society was scheduled for noon on Wednesday. The small group would have chowder and salads from Elm Tree Catering, the reminder e-mail had read. And they made wonderful chunky chowder. Sweet, with a touch of wine to brighten it up.

But chowder or not, Nell would have attended the meeting. She'd had lunch with Josie Archer on Tuesday and promised her that she'd pack up some pictures Angie had on her desk at work. And if there was anything else personal, she would take that to Josie as well.

But maybe there'd be more than pictures at the museum, she thought. There might be some answers, too.

Nell and Birdie had sat beneath the stars way too long Monday night--but the deep quiet had helped them line up the planets, as Birdie put it. Get their ducks in a row. And Birdie was right. They'd been looking all around Angie for some answers. Now it was time to look at Angie herself and see what she could tell them. And since she'd spent more time at the Historical Society than probably anywhere else, it seemed a good place to start.