Bree smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me, Birdie.”
“And Mayor Beatrice Scaglia is running again,” Izzy said, joining the group. “She’ll be difficult to beat.”
“No, Izzy. Spencer was going to win, not run,” Bree said. “That’s what he did. He won. No matter what it was he wanted, he would get it. It’s called entitlement. And on the rare occasion that he didn’t win, well, we don’t even want to talk about that.”
“That’s an interesting way to approach things, I guess,” Nell said.
“You’re nice, Nell. It’s a terribly arrogant way. But he had it all planned. He was going to be Sea Harbor’s next mayor. And after a term as mayor—during which he would make connections, position himself wherever it benefited him—he would move on to the next step—Massachusetts governor or state representative. And then Washington.”
“Those were his goals?” Nell asked.
Bree nodded. “Yes, Spencer always had a plan.”
“Is his running for office connected to why you were delaying a divorce?”
Bree frowned, as if the question was not easy to answer, not yes or no. “In part,” she said finally, “but not because I wanted to be Mrs. Mayor. You know me well enough to know that’s the last thing I would want. But Spencer and I had made a deal when I told him I needed to leave him. He had been paying for the nursing home my mother is in. It’s a really nice place, and some of them aren’t, you know. The nurses there are kind and wonderful to her. But it’s very expensive, and Spencer is covering all her costs. My siblings and I couldn’t begin to do that. My mom was a great mom, she deserves every bit of the care they give her—and more.”
“So if you stayed married to him, he would continue paying?” Nell asked.
Bree nodded. “But not forever. Spencer was practical—and I was disposable. I don’t think it mattered that much to him if I left. But the mayor’s race mattered, and getting settled here mattered. He somehow thought that with me at his side, it would all happen more easily, more efficiently. Maybe more effectively. I’d be his pretty hostess, sort of. And then, after two years, I’d be set free, just like a porpoise in the sea. He would give me an easy divorce, and the money I needed to keep my mother in the nursing home for as long as she lived.”
Although the circumstance was difficult to imagine, they all knew they’d do unimaginable things for those they loved.
Then Izzy asked the question that had been hovering over them. “Bree. I don’t get something. You’ve become our friend, we’ve gotten to know you and you’re kind and honest. But you married Spencer Paxton. I can’t imagine you marrying him unless you loved him.”
Bree listened, and looked almost grateful that Izzy had asked, relieved to have permission to talk about it with people she trusted and who would understand. Or if they didn’t understand, they would accept what she said because they had accepted her.
“I think I did love him, but I’m not sure who I loved. Spencer and I dated for a year before we married, and it was wonderful, a fairy-tale time for me. I was so young, and had always felt used by men. Because of my looks, I guess. I didn’t get that vibe from Spencer. He seemed to take my looks for granted—he had women around him all the time. He treated me well. And sure, I suppose I was taken by the attention. Plus, my mother loved him—he’d come to pick me up for some event but he would bring her flowers. But here’s the thing—”
They waited.
“People like Spencer Paxton let you see what they want you to see. And that’s what I fell in love with. What he let me see. But that’s not a very good foundation for the rest of your life because those other parts are bound to sneak out and rear their ugly heads. Those doors will eventually open.”
“Did that happen once you were here in Sea Harbor?” Izzy asked.
“Oh, no,” Bree said. “It happened early on.”
It was the first time Bree had told anyone the story of how her brand-new marriage had been challenged almost before the ink on the marriage certificate was dry. A sad story about the demise of a marriage before it had ever begun.
The first indication of Spencer’s hidden demons, as Bree called them, came very soon after the wedding, and the scars had never left her.
“I can still see it as if it were yesterday. It’s vivid. Etched into me. We were coming back from our honeymoon, driving down a beautiful country road. In the distance, I saw a gaggle of geese wandering out from the woods that lined the road. I spotted them right away, their black necks upright, their beaked heads proud. They were so beautiful. I pointed at them, warning Spencer to slow down.”
She paused for a minute as if the scene were playing out right in front of her. Then she went on, telling them about the day that sometimes still woke her up in the middle of the night.
Spencer had acted as if she hadn’t spoken. And instead of slowing down, he set his sights on the road ahead, on the elegant geese. He narrowed his eyes, and then he wrapped his fingers around the leather wheel tightly and pressed down hard on the gas pedal.
Three geese were left sprawled in a deadly pattern on the highway, the others squawking wildly on the side of the road.
“Spencer drove on,” she said, her voice barely audible as she replayed the haunting memory. “He was smiling, as if he’d just won some competition. And he never said a word. Not a single word.”
The image left all of the women in silence, thoughts of art shows and floating yarn art forgotten and replaced by something they wanted to forget.
Finally Birdie moved to Bree’s side and wrapped the much younger woman in her arms.
Bree buried her head in Birdie’s chest, and then she sobbed away five years of marriage.
Chapter 19
Sam was in Boston at a photo exhibit and Izzy couldn’t get a babysitter, so they all agreed to come to her. The first ever Thursday knitting night “on location,” she said.
Cass appointed herself driver and said she’d pick up Birdie, Nell, and pizza. As long as they were breaking from tradition, they’d give Nell a break, too.
Cass’s brother Pete had come to work that day with enough rumors to choke a horse, Cass said. Fishermen seem to be good at that sort of thing. “Dock talk,” they call it. She’d bring the talk with her.
Nell was carrying her own load of things she wanted to talk about, but they weren’t rumors. At least she didn’t think they were.
“And don’t forget about knitting,” Birdie said. She was about to rip out half the rows in a cardigan sleeve, something Izzy could do for her in a heartbeat.
But the pressing impetus was that they had other things to unravel. Dozens of questions—and concern about people they cared about. By the time they had shared information they were each privy to, Rose’s background and history were as known to each of them as their own. And Bree’s story as well.
How much the police knew was another story.
“The police have been working nonstop,” Nell said as they gathered in the kitchen, bringing out plates and napkins, a corkscrew and glasses. The Perrys’ house was one of her favorite places to be. It had been Sam’s bachelor pad—open, comfortable, and convenient. The inside had been transformed by Izzy into a white-walled area, with Sam’s photographs matted and hung, many ordered by Izzy to bring her favorite Cape Ann places directly into their home: a dramatic black-and-white of a lifeguard chair enveloped in fog; a sunrise over Canary Cove; stormy skies descending on the back bay. And with Abby’s birth, a wall dedicated to Sam’s photos of the curly-haired blonde who had stolen all their hearts.
But the deck was all Sam’s, his nirvana, where he’d bring little Abby on a clear night to visit Mars and Jupiter and the Big Dipper, her big eyes round with wonder.
And that was where Izzy led them all now, carrying trays and bottles.
The evening was cool, but a tall heater near the cable railing rippled the air, sending warm waves across the deck. Izzy passed out blankets just in case, their wooly warmth an invitation to hunker down in the d
eck chairs beneath the crisp fall sky. And knit. And talk.
Cass came out shortly after reading to her goddaughter Abby several good-night stories and piling her bed with a dozen favorite stuffed bears. She lifted the lid off the box of Garozzo’s pizza and passed it around. “I have no idea what’s in this or on it, but Harry promised me it will cure all our ills.”
“Let’s hope,” Izzy said, picking up a thin-crusted piece with cheesy lumps of something on top.
“Banana peppers and capocollo,” Nell said.
“You determined all that with a single bite?” Cass said. “You’re stealing my thunder.” She took a large bite of her own, then followed it quickly with a long drink of beer. “Wow. Spicy. But good. It’ll keep us awake, our minds sharp.” She licked some cheese off her fingers.
“I’m worried about Stella,” Birdie began, holding her bite to small nibbles. “She stopped by today and we talked for a long time. I can’t remember seeing her this upset.”
“That whole house thing must be playing on her. It was her listing—and someone died in it,” Cass said.
“Ben has helped her through that part of it. And as you know, Spencer had already bought the house before he was killed. A secret little deal he and Mario Palazola had cooked up. Don’t ask me why. Sometimes Mario doesn’t make logical decisions. But in the end, he may have been wise. Stella and Mario will get their hefty commissions and the company will be fine. Her major worry now is the mess Rose is in.”
“She and Rose have become close,” Nell said.
“Yes. And when traumatic things happen, time gets squeezed,” Birdie said. “Even though Rose hasn’t been here long, it seems like a lifetime.”
“Ben said Rose went through the ringer at the police station,” Nell said. “Tommy Porter did his best to make her comfortable, but it was a long couple of hours. It was tough. Rose is so central to everything that happened that night.”
“I wasn’t sure what to make of Rose at first,” Cass said. “But as this has rolled out, I understand her better, and why she was reticent that first night. She wasn’t there to make friends or confide in us. She was there because she had fixed Izzy’s pipe, and that was all. And she probably hadn’t intended to stay in town very long, either.”
“And she wasn’t lying to us about anything,” Izzy said. “She introduced herself the same way she would have anywhere. Her legal name. She wasn’t trying to hide Rose Woodley. Rose Woodley wasn’t the woman who was there.”
“There was one thing though,” Cass said. “When she and Stella went to the station the morning after, she didn’t say she knew Spencer. None of us knew it then. She should have said something right away.”
Their silence spoke agreement.
“Keeping something back from the police, even if it isn’t important, comes across as suspicious. If you know someone who has been murdered, and you were the last person to see him alive, you mention that,” Izzy said.
Birdie weighed in. “I don’t think she realized how important that would be. The Woodleys moved away when Rose was a freshman or sophomore in high school. After that, it took years of therapy to help her put what Spencer Paxton did to her behind her. She had to learn how to love herself. And she did. Not all children who are bullied are as successful as our Rose. And no doubt she didn’t want to revisit that time.”
“Of course she didn’t,” Izzy said. “He was awful to her. Frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d killed him. I think I would have, if he’d done that to my daughter.”
“But the fact is that Rosie’s name is all over this,” Nell said. “It’s concerning. Pretend you don’t know her. All you know is that she was at the house that night, she knew the man who was killed, and she certainly—as you just said, Izzy—had every reason to kill him. Not to mention the weapon was a pipe wrench from the toolbox Rose had left there.”
“Fingerprints?” Cass asked.
“None. Rose said she had never used the wrench. Whoever did this cleaned up after himself.”
“Or herself,” Izzy said.
Their emotions were like the tide below Izzy’s deck. Calm and smooth, then swept up and tumultuous, crashing against the shore. At one moment they were playing the prosecutor and in the next breath, the defense attorney.
But in their hearts, they were all defending Rose Woodley.
“She isn’t a murderer,” Birdie said.
They all looked at her, her short white hair a halo lit from behind.
“The police may disagree,” Nell said slowly. “She isn’t in a good place right now. Like Izzy said, she’d have every reason to do it. Spencer Paxton nearly destroyed her life. And she never showed up at the restaurant to meet Stella, which the police also know. Where was she after she ran out of the house?”
“Walking, Stella said. She didn’t have car keys, we know that, so she had to walk home,” Birdie said, an unexpected note of defensiveness in her voice.
“But she didn’t think anyone saw her,” Izzy said. “And both she and Stella agreed it was late when she got back to the apartment.”
“I agree that it looks bad.” Birdie put her pizza aside and picked up her glass of wine. “That means only one thing to me. It means we need to put our heads together and think like women. We need to forget about rules and boundaries and find out who really murdered Spencer Paxton. I know Jerry Thompson will turn over all the stones he can. But other eyes and ears are never a bad thing—assuming they are our eyes and ears.”
Birdie leaned back in her chair and looked up at the few stars that had made their way into the sky. “Star light, star bright,” she said, smiling. But her voice was serious when she continued.
“I had a friend when I was in school a thousand years ago. She marched to her own drummer and some thought her odd. I thought her nice. Clever. Smart. She had a lisp, and her lip was slightly deformed. She was bullied by a group of girls for her looks and for her lisp, way back then. They left mean notes on her desk and painted a caricature of her face on her locker. Bullying’s not a new thing, you know. It damaged this girl to the core. She refused to talk in class, and then finally she dropped out of school and ran away. I never knew what happened to her.”
The story sobered them.
“Rose was able to repair the damage that was done to her,” Birdie continued. “And I can’t bear the thought of all that incredible work Rose and her therapist did over all those years being torn down and thrown away. I can’t bear the thought of Spencer Paxton—even in death—turning Rose Woodley into a victim again.”
Rose mattered. And she mattered to Stella. Her story mattered, too.
Finally Cass spoke. “You were really a kid?”
“Oh, shush, you,” laughed Birdie, waving her hand at Cass.
Izzy took a drink of wine and set her glass down a little too hard, red drops sloshing down on the napkin. “Here’s a selfish take on it, one that doesn’t even take into account the lives affected by this man. I am furious with Spencer Paxton for ruining this beautiful time of year. I didn’t like him when I was practicing law, and I didn’t like him when he was parading around Sea Harbor these last couple months, and I like him even less now that he’s dead. He’s messing with us.” She sat back in the chair, pulling a striped blanket over her. “There. Now I’m over it. But I want it all gone—the investigation, the finger pointing, the rumors, the sadness in that real estate office across the street and above me, in Rosie’s apartment. All of it. I want my autumn magic back.”
Cass clapped, they laughed, and the mood lightened. But the resolve was as strong as the ocean currents just yards away.
“We’ll do a lineup,” Birdie said. “If Rose didn’t do it, who else had a good reason? We need to know whom we’re talking about. And then we need to get to Spencer Paxton . . . and find out what he did to one of these people that drove them to murder.”
The list came easily. Spencer himself helped them out with that. His charming, charismatic veneer was as thin as plastic wrap, and
beneath it, he had made plenty of enemies.
“Beatrice Scaglia would be on it,” Nell said. “Ben ran into her today. She was walking through city hall looking more chipper than he’d seen her in a long time. ‘The happy mayor,’ he called her. But later, as he was leaving, he saw her again. The smile was gone and she told him that she’d gotten a call from Jerry Thompson, who wanted to talk to her. Her. She was incensed. Someone had told the police about her minor altercation with Spencer at the club.”
“It wasn’t exactly minor,” Birdie said.
Izzy leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Her face pulled together as if trying to work through a difficult thought. “Spencer messed with Beatrice, too, not unlike what he did to Rose. He bullied Rose into thinking she was worthless. In a way, it was the same with Beatrice—but different.”
Izzy shook her head at her own confusing statement. “Uncle Ben called her ‘the happy mayor.’ That’s who she is. Her whole identity is wrapped up in being mayor of Sea Harbor. Everyone knows that. And in comes this guy who was going to strip her whole identity away. Just like that.”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that. You’re smarter than you look, Iz,” Cass said. She walked around the deck, picking up empty plates. “He could have done serious damage to our mayor. I agree.”
“Yes, he could have,” said Birdie. “Beatrice is strong in some ways—certainly in pushing for the things she thinks are important to Sea Harbor. But in other ways she is fragile.”
“Perhaps we are all like that. We have a secret place that when touched, can cause other parts to crumble,” Nell said.
“Spencer probably didn’t know Beatrice well enough to know how important that position is to her,” Birdie said. “But then, he probably wouldn’t have cared. It’s clear he did what was best for himself, no matter what bodies he left in his wake.”
“Do you think Spence sent out that newsletter or blog or whatever it was that dug up Beatrice’s past?” Cass asked. “It was hurtful.”
How to Knit a Murder Page 15