The Wedding Shawl (15 page)

“I thought if I came back here to face the reality of her death, and somehow, I don’t know, somehow release her spirit, let it fill me, I might find peace again—I might feel Harmony close to me. And for a few weeks, I thought I had made a good decision. Your garden, the beauty here on Cape Ann—it was good.”

Claire got up from the floor and moved over to a small table near an open window. The breeze moved the gauzy curtains, and sunlight rippled through, painting wavy stripes across the surface.

Nell pulled out the other chair and sat down.

“And then one night …”

Nell knew what Claire was going to say next. Of course. “You were at the bookstore that night, and you heard the cold-case discussion.”

She nodded. “I didn’t go there for that. I was browsing for books, but I lost track of time, and suddenly people were talking out in the open area. I stayed in the back because I didn’t want to walk in front of everyone.”

“It must have been painful for you.”

“No one intended it to be. No one even knew I was there.”

Nell heard her cell phone ring but pressed it to OFF. Across from her, Claire traced a band of sunlight along the tabletop with her fingertip.

Nell got up and came back with two glasses of water. “What happened to Harmony’s father? Were he and Harmony close?”

The silence that followed was so long that Nell regretted asking the question. Finally Claire began talking again.

“Richard Farrow—Harmony’s father—was very strict with her. She was a wonderful, amazing daughter, so smart and so beautiful. She was … she was perfect. But it never seemed enough. Richard wanted more … more piety, I’d guess you’d say. More devotion. He wanted church to be more important in her life.”

“Father Northcutt’s church?”

The tears had stopped, and while the pain was still deeply visible in the lines of Claire’s face and the inordinate sadness in her eyes, she seemed to want to talk. “No. Shortly after Harmony was born, Richard ‘found religion,’ as he put it. Some little group up in Maine, near his parents’ home. He had gone on a retreat up there and drank a kind of destructive Kool-Aid. At least destructive to our family. He wasn’t the same after that. When we moved to Cape Ann, he started his own little group, following the same strict principles. No dating, no parties. No drinking—or music or books that weren’t religious. No boys. Women shouldn’t cut their hair or dress a certain way. Somehow he allowed me my transgressions, but not Harmony. He wanted to raise her to be one of them, he said. He wanted her to go to a small church college instead of using her BU scholarship. He wanted so many things… .”

Nell was silent. She thought of Izzy and how she’d been raised. Her family had loved her unconditionally and allowed her the freedom to be herself. Even when she’d tossed aside a promising law career, her father had swallowed his disappointment and replaced it with pride when the yarn studio in Sea Harbor prospered.

“I tried to work around Richard’s rants and to give Harmony what I thought she needed. I was so young when I had her—nearly a child myself. But I threw myself into being her mother with every ounce of energy I had. I gave her lots of love. Support. Understanding. I was so proud of her.” Claire’s words caught in her throat. “I’d make up excuses of where she was so she could be with friends. Never, of course, at our house.”

Nell thought about Marie Risso and how she’d opened her doors to Harmony, and all because her mother bravely made it possible. That explained her having a boyfriend. A life apart from the one behind the closed doors of the Farrow home.

Nell could see exhaustion settling into the contours of Claire’s face. The lines in her forehead were deeper, and her eyes were red and swollen. But leaving her alone, suggesting she rest, didn’t seem a wise option.

“The new grasses are coming today, right, Claire?” she asked. Claire nodded.

“How about if I give you time to shower and dress, get something to eat. A little time for yourself. Then I’ll meet you in back with our garden tools this afternoon? I think we both need some time in the sun, time with the earth. What do you say?”

Claire managed a tentative smile and pushed back her chair. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she wore no makeup, and in spite of the burden weighing on her shoulders, she looked young. In fact, she looked very much like the young graduate peering out from this morning’s
Sea Harbor Gazette.

Nell walked toward the door, then turned back to be sure Claire was all right. There were lots more things to be said, but there’d be time.

Claire had headed to the bathroom. She turned, her hand on the knob, and looked at Nell. The semblance of a smile was still there, but beneath it was the raw pain Nell had seen earlier. “You’re being kind, Nell.”

“We’re friends, Claire. It’s what friends do.”

“But you don’t know everything, and right now, that seems unfair. If you’re my friend, you need to know the truth. Richard knew it—and that’s why he left me.” She paused, choosing her words carefully.

“You need to know what really happened that night,” she said. “I did it. I’m the reason my daughter died.”

Nell walked slowly up to the house, her heart heavy.

Claire hadn’t finished her last thought. Hadn’t explained it to Nell. She had simply stopped talking, as if no explanation were necessary. And then she had turned the other way and walked into the bathroom, and Nell had heard the sound of the shower spray beating against the tile. Beating against a woman who felt she needed to be punished.

Nell’s mind was fuzzy; parts of the conversation with Claire were disjointed. By the time she reached the deck she had chosen to abandon Claire’s last words entirely. They didn’t make sense. Until Claire explained more fully what she meant, Nell would ignore them and concentrate instead on a mother coming back to Cape Ann to heal herself. To somehow find her daughter’s spirit. To find peace.

She thought about Claire’s journey. About her former husband. Her daughter. A family ripped apart in the cruelest way.

When she walked into the kitchen, the ringing of the phone pulled her from her thoughts.

Ben wondered if she was there. He said he’d be home shortly for lunch.

He’d had an interesting morning, and there were some things he needed to talk to her about.

Chapter 16

A
lthough the robbery motive is still out there, the police are looking seriously at other possibilities. It’s going to affect people we know.”

Ben leaned against the counter in the kitchen, watching Nell cut an avocado into thin strips. Izzy straddled a stool on the other side of the island, checking messages on her phone.

A morning meeting at the courthouse had ended in a long conversation with Ben’s good friend Jerry Thompson. Often Ben and Jerry used each other as sounding boards, playing on each other’s strengths. They also knew the other’s word was good. Things that should remain private, would. This turn of events, Ben said, was probably already on blogs and the local talk show or running along the bottom of the soap operas like school closings in the winter—a mini news flash. People would know that the police were trying to find someone who wanted Tiffany dead.

“Why the sudden change in thinking, Uncle Ben?” Izzy looked up from her phone. She’d stopped in for lunch, too. She was starving, she said, and though the yarn shop was busy, Mae insisted she leave and find food somewhere—her growling stomach wasn’t good for business. “Go to your aunt’s,” she’d commanded, pointing at the door. “She’ll have food.” And Izzy had happily complied, sprinting up the hill to Ben and Nell’s home.

“It’s different things,” Ben said. “Though I think the robbery idea was put out there without much logic to it. It was a motive for people to latch onto until the police had time to do some more investigating. Robberies aren’t that uncommon, which makes them easier to live with, I guess. It’s awful if it ends in murder, but it seems more accidental, less frightening, and people see it on TV all the time.

“But then the investigators started asking the obvious questions. Why would someone take a cell phone but leave a television or fancy CD player? And why the salon and not a bar or McClucken’s Hardware? Things we were all thinking. A few conversations with staff at M.J.’s led them to consider Tiffany more closely, and that she might have been the target, not the few items stolen. They’ll look at everything, of course.”

“Tiffany was sweet. Ordinary. It’s awful to think that someone might have wanted her dead,” Izzy said. “I hate that thought.”

“I wonder what talk at the salon turned the police in this direction,” Nell said. She set a platter of tomatoes, watercress, avocado, pickles, and slices of chicken and provolone on the island. A small bowl of spicy yogurt-dill-mayo sauce sat beside three plates. “This is a help-yourself lunch.”

“I suppose whatever was said was more than gossip?” Izzy offered, taking one of the plates.

Nell glanced at her, having had the same thought. Tanya wasn’t one to hold back, and she didn’t much like Tiffany; that was clear to everyone.

Ben poured them each a glass of iced tea. “It seems Tiffany was upset that week about something—and that wasn’t normal for her. She was usually on an even keel. But recently she was forgetting appointments and not her usual efficient self. That was one thing.”

Nell and Izzy looked at each other. That certainly matched their experience with Tiffany.

“There’s not much information, not yet, but they’ll be talking to other people, too. Tiffany and Andy Risso had some kind of a relationship. And we know they had an angry exchange that night at the Palate.”

Another episode they’d personally experienced. Nell flashed back to the look on Tiffany’s face that night. Something was bothering her. But the exchange had seemed angry only on Andy’s part. At least from a distance. Tiffany had seemed earnest, at first, then distraught at Andy’s reaction to whatever she’d said.

And in love.

“So … do they have any theories?” Izzy piled her roll high with chicken, cheese, and greens, then slathered it with the sauce.

Nell glanced out the window, waiting for Ben’s answer. She hadn’t seen any movement in the cottage. She assumed Claire would prefer to be alone for a while, rather than join them for lunch. She’d go down soon, as planned. They could garden or talk or take a walk. Whatever Claire needed. And then later, she’d let Claire tell Ben her story herself. It was hers to tell, not Nell’s.

Ben was silent, chewing thoughtfully on his sandwich. He wiped a stray sprout from his mouth and finally shook his head. “No theories that I’m aware of. The police don’t exactly know where to go with the two girls’ friendship—but it’s an odd coincidence, everyone agrees. They’ll have to explore it. But the Farrows haven’t lived around here for years. Tiffany Ciccolo has no family here, just her mom, who is pretty far along with dementia, Jerry said. There are more dead ends there than anything else.”

Nell’s breath caught in her chest. Claire’s name wasn’t the same as her daughter’s. Fifteen years had passed. No one would automatically connect her to Harmony Farrow. But the police needed to know, at least. Although at that moment, Nell wasn’t sure why. Claire had been through her hell. Why put her through it again?

Nell looked over at Ben. He was scooping up the crumbs around his place, then walked over to the sink. “Sorry to eat and run,” he said over his shoulder. “I have another meeting, this one about the boys’ club program. This retiring is going to be the death of me.”

“I need to run, too. I promised Mae I’d be back in a jiff. A ride, Uncle Ben?” Izzy slid off the stool and put her plate in the sink.

They each gave Nell a quick kiss and disappeared out the door to Ben’s car, honking another good-bye as they backed down the drive.

Nell stood at the door, watching them disappear down the road. She suddenly felt disloyal, as if she were keeping a secret from Ben. But he had rushed out, and tossing after him the news that Claire Russell, their houseguest, was Harmony Farrow’s mother, didn’t seem quite right. She would tell him at dinner, when they would have time to talk about it.

But deep down a part of her was relieved she hadn’t told him. Nor Izzy. This was Claire’s information to tell. Not hers.

Claire. A mother who had suffered the greatest loss a mother could experience.

Claire …

Nell frowned, her mind playing with the shadows splashed across the driveway, moving this way and that as the breeze played with the branches. Claire.

She had barely mentioned Tiffany this morning.
That girl,
she’d called her once.

And then Nell remembered the look on Claire’s face as she’d sat in the Adirondack chair, staring at the deck door.

It wasn’t Izzy she was looking at. Nor a few minutes later when she stared at Izzy’s car.

It was Tiffany. Now it made sense.

And the look was one Nell would like to forget.

Nell cleaned up the kitchen, returned a few phone calls, and went upstairs to slip into jeans and a T-shirt. Claire wasn’t outside yet, either, so she took her time. The time alone was probably a good thing.

Things certainly hadn’t turned out as Claire had planned. She had come back to Cape Ann to put a life back together. Not to have an old life pulled apart all over again.

It occurred to Nell then that Claire hadn’t referred to Harmony’s dying as a murder. Nor made any reference to who might have done this to her daughter. Maybe that made it even more awful, more difficult to accept. Or maybe it was something else.

She grabbed two bottles of water from the refrigerator, then headed to the garage for her gardening gloves and a trowel. It was nearly two. Claire would be ready to work. There were so many things Nell wanted to ask, but she’d hold her silence and let Claire decide.

There was time.

Nell walked out the back door of the garage and into the afternoon sunshine.

It was a perfect day for gardening. Bright sunlight and a cool breeze.

The wheelbarrow was parked where she’d seen it that morning, just at the edge of the cottage. Claire’s gloves and tools were lined up neatly inside it. A sack of mulch was leaning against a tree.