Izzy rolled back, then enlarged the headline running along the bottom:
A LONG JOURNEY INTO LIGHT AT SEA HARBOR HIGH
They smiled. “Happy news,” Izzy said, and began reading about happy times at Sea Harbor High. The article elaborated on student awards and school accolades and social outreach programs, honors convocations and award-winning faculty. A school awakening from “a seemingly endless winter,” the reporter wrote.
It was a human-interest article that went to an inside page, filled with photos that highlighted the school, its staff, and students in the nicest of ways.
It was an uplifting, pleasant article.
Until the end.
In rounding out his article, the reporter had brought the reader back to the tragedies that had burdened the school in the preceding years. Sad times that were now a part of the past. And at the end, he had tied it all together by paying tribute to those they had lost.
Across the page, filling the entire width, were photos of those the community had lost. One after another.
It was odd and slightly jarring, reading it from the distance of time. Seeing all those faces together as one would in a mass tragedy, which it hadn’t been.
Cass reached over and enlarged the photos, faces of some people she knew. And then she paused on one.
“Look at this,” she said sadly.
Birdie’s face grew sad, too. What she remembered was the sadness of those left behind.
The face wasn’t familiar to Izzy or Nell. But the name was.
Nell leaned closer. A disturbing sensation moved through her. Perhaps it was the power of distance that sometimes brought clarity. The fact that the years they’d just journeyed through reflected a town she hadn’t been a part of. She wasn’t as close to the events as Birdie and Cass. She didn’t have the emotional tug that sometimes colors logic.
She looked at the article again, and noticed Izzy staring at the same page.
In that moment she realized that going back to Sea Harbor High may have been the wisest thing they had done.
Then she asked Izzy if they could make a copy of it, but Izzy was already at work.
Chapter 30
Izzy and Cass ran hard, sand spraying up beneath their shoes, as if the sweat and punishing jog would purge them of thoughts of murder and death.
They ran along the curve of the shore, then up the hilly road into the Cliffside neighborhood, the wind against their cheeks, their legs running the familiar route on autopilot. Finally, where the road divided and went off in different directions, they slowed, then stopped and leaned down near a fence, hands on their knees, pulling in gulps of sea air.
Izzy pushed back a handful of hair that had escaped her baseball cap and stretched out one leg, then the other, her body welcoming the movement.
Beside her, Cass wiped the perspiration from her face and neck. “Do you feel you’ve just been brought back to life?”
Izzy made a face, looking behind Cass to the house across the street. “Funny you should say that . . .”
Cass turned around and they both stared.
The Bianchi house stood tall and imposing behind the low wall, and looked anything but alive. The iron gate was closed across the drive and bushes crowded the sides.
“Have you ever been inside?” Izzy asked.
“No. I’m not sure I’d want to, although they say the Bianchis used to have some wild parties up here. For some reason the Hallorans and the Bianchis didn’t run in the same circles.” She laughed and leaned her head way back, looking all the way up to the third floor as she stretched her back, her hands on her hips.
Izzy followed her gaze and for a long time they both stood there, imagining the people who once lived there, and the four old men who’d made the top floor their own private club.
And the man who died there.
The sound of a car coming up the road distracted them and they looked down the street. The car slowed down, and then a few yards before reaching them, the engine idled and Izzy and Cass watched as the electric gate at the Bianchi house began to open. The car moved into the drive and parked. Stella Palazola climbed out.
“Hey, Stella!” Cass shouted and waved.
Stella shielded her eyes against the sun, and then waved back. “Hey, guys, come on over,” she yelled. “Come see what I have.”
They picked up their water bottles and walked through the gate, looking again at the house, which seemed to have grown ten feet higher at close range.
“Yeah, it’s big,” Stella said, following their gaze.
“We run by here all the time,” Izzy said. “But it’s different now.”
“More foreboding?” suggested Stella. “I definitely get that.”
“What will happen to the house?”
“Good question. Ben suggested that we wait for things to settle before talking to Bree, but the house is hers. I don’t know if she’s even looked at Spencer’s will, but I know this was to be hers. He added it in after he bought it.”
“That’s almost cruel. She doesn’t even like this place.”
“I know a good Realtor who could sell it for her.” Stella laughed. Then she turned back to her car, excitement lighting her face. “But forget about that for a minute. Come see what I have.” She motioned to the back door window and stepped aside, letting Izzy and Cass look in.
A grocery store box sat on the backseat, its floor cushioned with an old towel. And inside the box sat two kittens looking curiously at the eyes staring in at them.
“What?” Izzy and Cass shouted in unison.
“I know. Crazy, right?”
“Where did they come from? They’re adorable,” Izzy said.
“Yes, they are,” Stella said. “I found them in the garage of a new listing I got. They were abandoned, meowing up a storm, waiting for me to save them. So I did.”
“What are you going to do with them?” Cass asked.
Stella looked at her as if she were crazy. “Do with them? They’re for the office. They’re for Rose. For us.” Then she smiled enigmatically and said, “They’re an omen.”
Stella smiled at her own words and repeated them. “That’s what they are. An omen.”
Cass and Izzy smiled, not sure of how to respond. But Stella was clearly happy, so they were too. They turned away from the car and looked over at the house.
“So what are you doing here?” Cass asked.
“I came to remove a couple photos that the Bianchi kids forgot. Want to come up with me? The house still spooks me a little when I’m alone. I didn’t want to ask Rosie to come with me, though. That third floor isn’t her favorite place.”
Cass and Izzy were happy to fill in for Rose, and in minutes the elevator was taking them up to the top of the house to a room that had been rambling around in their imaginations for days.
Izzy looked at the brass key ring Stella held. It was just like the one she had seen in Bree’s house. “How many keys are there to this place, Stell?”
“I’ve been asked that a lot lately. Eight of these rings. And they’re all like this one, with numbers on the dangly doodad. Only five, though, had elevator keys in addition to the house keys. My uncle says Anthony Bianchi had an obsession with keys and was very particular about who had access to the elevator. He had grandkids and worried about them getting on it and pressing buttons. We got all the key rings when we got the contract on the house. My uncle forced me to give two to Spencer—he wanted to present the house keys to his wife as a special surprise apparently. Some surprise, right? I had a full set. Rosie had the fourth, because she was working up there. And I gave the fifth to a security guy I hired to check the house. That’s it. And I have recorded each one dutifully. None ever went missing. So it’s a mystery how someone got up there. Unless . . .”
“Unless Spencer let the person up. Maybe he was expecting someone?”
“Someone who killed him? A possibility maybe, but it doesn’t seem likely. Rosie took the elevator down, so Spence would have to press the button to bring
it up, then get in and take it down again, then bring the person up,” Stella said. “If Spence had been expecting someone, why didn’t he just wait downstairs for that person?”
“Could someone have made a copy of the key?”
“It’s an unusual key. Only the elevator company could have done it and I think the police have looked into that. I wondered if there was a key we never knew about, but Uncle Mario thinks that’s highly unlikely. The room was Anthony’s haven—well, his and his three buddies—and it would have been a betrayal—Unc’s words—if Anthony had not told them about extra keys.”
“So the other men didn’t have keys?”
“No. I guess that’s odd, isn’t it? But maybe not. Though they claimed the room, it wasn’t their house, and the guys wouldn’t have come over here unless Anthony was home, right? So they wouldn’t have needed keys.” The elevator bounced slightly, then came to a stop, and the doors opened.
“Welcome to the tree house,” Stella said as they walked into the sun-soaked space.
“Wow. What a place. Unexpected for sure. From the outside and entryway, I expected something more formal.” Cass walked over to the large back windows and looked out over the ocean, then down to the patio below. “This is where Rose saw him that night?”
Stella nodded.
Izzy joined Cass and looked down, imagining how Rose must have felt when she realized who it was, standing on the patio.
Stella took several framed photographs off the wall, wrapped them in bubble wrap that she pulled from her bag. “That’s it for me. Anything else you want to see? I don’t think the owner would mind.”
“We’ve seen more of the place than Bree has already,” Izzy said.
“Oh, there is one thing you have to see. Rosie and I had a good laugh over it. Okay, first, imagine Gus, Mario, Anthony, and Harry Garozzo up here—four good-hearted geezers.” She waved for them to follow her and walked to a bookcase not far from the pool table. She moved a fat book aside and pushed a button.
And the mirrored bar appeared like magic. “Some private club, right?”
They laughed and decided the four friends had the right idea. It wasn’t totally unlike the yarn shop’s back room, although without the bar. But it was the same. It was about being friends, sharing life. A much nicer image to carry away than a man being murdered on the smooth cherrywood floor.
They walked over to the elevator and Stella pressed a button to open the doors.
“Stella, what spooks you most about this place, about being here alone?” Izzy asked. She looked back into the room while Cass kept the doors from closing.
Stella looked at the tall ceiling, the windows, imagining the old men playing cards and drinking whiskey. And then her face turned serious and she looked around again, then back to the elevator.
They all stood there for a minute, Izzy’s question hanging in the air. But each of them shared one single image: It was of Rose Woodley, standing in front of the elevator, waiting for it to come up, to stop, for a man to get off. And having no way out.
“It’s this elevator,” said Stella, her words echoing ones Bree had uttered without ever having seen the inside of the Bianchi house. “I mean, who does this? Who just has an elevator to take you up and down? What if there was a fire or something? There’d be no escape.”
* * *
Once outside, Stella offered them a ride home. Cass and Izzy answered in unison.
“Great,” said Cass.
“No thanks,” said Izzy.
A minute later they climbed into Stella’s SUV. “For giving in, Iz, I’ll let you ride shotgun,” Cass said. “Besides, I want to sit back here and love these kitties.”
“Such a magnanimous person,” Izzy said to Stella, buckling herself in.
Stella laughed and turned her head. “Hey, Cass, sorry for all the junk back there. Just shove it aside. Tools of the trade. But treat those little kittens with care.”
Cass put the kitten back in the box and looked over her shoulder at a trunk full of FOR SALE signs, piles of posters and pamphlets, a camera and some tools.
“I know, I know. It’s a mess,” Stella said, pulling out of the drive.
“Hey, you should see mine. At least there aren’t any lobster traps back here.” Cass looked at a stack of thick, familiar-looking books scattered across the backseat and the floor. A sock was stuck to one of them. She picked up the top one and pulled off the sock. Sea Harbor High was embossed across the top in a fancy scrolled font.
“Yearbooks, Stella? What is this, a trip down memory lane?”
Stella laughed and Izzy turned and craned her neck, one elbow across the seat as she tried to see what Cass was talking about.
“I love yearbooks,” Izzy said. “But why are they in your car?”
Stella gave them an abbreviated version of Gus cleaning out a storeroom and dumping it all in her office. “Most of what we were storing over there was disposable, but I had taken these books from my mom’s home when I was moving, intending to take them to my apartment, but somehow they didn’t get further than the office and ended up in storage. Gus was frustrated that day—he and Robbie had had a blowup a few days before, and I think he was still kind of upset about it. Anyway, he kind of dumped the books on the floor. And you can’t see an old yearbook lying on your floor and not open it, so I did.
“And that’s the day I found Rose Woodley. It was a good day, finding Rosie.” Stella smiled, her voice catching. “And they’re in my car because I hate messes in the office. I know, my car doesn’t show it, but I do like to keep things in the office organized. Rosie does, too. Uncle Mario? Not so much. But I didn’t want to throw these out, so I threw the boxes in the back of my car. Let’s say they’re in transit to my apartment. I’m just not quite as fast a delivery as UPS.” She laughed, then honked and waved as she spotted a friend at the next corner.
“The sock is a nice touch,” Cass said, picking it up with two fingers and dropping it back to the floor.
“Not mine. We all used that storeroom and Gus was in such a frenzy that he got some of his and Robbie’s things mixed in with mine. Like dirty socks. A torn necktie. Treasures,” she said.
“I bet you’re going to use those books to secretly target all your old classmates and put them on a mailing list. Prospective home buyers,” Cass said, leafing through one of the books.
“That’s not a half-bad idea, Cass.” She stopped for a red light and looked back at her. “I could use a thinker like you. Want a job?”
Izzy spoke up. “I’ll give you Cass if you let us borrow these yearbooks for a couple days.” Her voice held excitement, an idea forming in her head. “And would you mind dropping us at the Endicotts’?”
Cass looked down at the book in her hands, their hour in the morgue rewinding in her head. She smiled at the back of Izzy’s head, and wished she had made the connection herself.
* * *
Nell curled up in one of the cushy chairs near the fireplace. Ben and his friends were sailing for the day, and inside, the house was quiet. Reflective.
She stared through the large windows facing the deck. There was still a little sunlight left in the day, but what she saw instead were twisted shadows falling across the decking.
And playing across her mind was a photo in the old Sea Harbor Gazette article. A face that stared back at her. Unblinking.
But she wasn’t sure yet what to do with it.
Birdie walked over from the Endicott’s kitchen carrying glasses of tea and a plate of banana bread. They’d gone over the article Izzy had copied, knowing that they’d discovered the reason for Patricia Stuber’s difficult years. But what they were really looking for was a murderer.
There was more to learn from those years. There were lives that had been profoundly affected during that time. Families that were changed forever. And there was a student from those years who had been murdered. And the reason for that was there in that high school. Someplace. Just around a corner.
The article Izz
y had printed out sat on the coffee table.
Birdie glanced at it, and then looked away. “We’re close, but the bridge isn’t quite there.” And they weren’t even sure they wanted to get to the other side.
The noise at the front door was a welcome diversion.
“We’re here.” Izzy’s voice preceded her into the family room. She and Cass came in, still in running gear, still sweaty, and carrying two boxes of books.
“Yearbooks,” Birdie said, her face lighting up. “Where did you get them?”
“From Stella. How did you know what they were?” Cass asked, setting the box down next to the coffee table.
“At the morgue, after we looked at all those pictures of young people, I was reminded of the yearbooks I saw in Stella’s office that day. More faces. And somewhere behind all those faces, we’re going to find out why Spencer Paxton was murdered. I feel certain of it. I was going to ask Stella to drop them by.”
It was one of those moments. They’d had them before, those times when their thoughts, unspoken, came together without the need of texts or emails or phone calls. They were just there.
“Well, here they are. That’s good, then,” Izzy said.
Nell had also taken out Izzy’s Venn diagram, and positioned it in the middle of the table. She looked at the yearbooks. “I feel a little bit like I did that day at the high school. We are so close to something, it’s all around us, but we don’t know exactly what to ask, what to look for.”
“We’re closer now,” Birdie said. And Nell admitted she was right.
Cass pulled out Rosie’s middle school book, then the yearbook for her freshman year at Sea Harbor High, when Spencer Paxton was a couple years older.
They found Rosie’s class picture, so small the sadness was almost hidden in the black-and-white photo, but not quite. The activity section was active, but not for Rosie. “One photo in the whole yearbook,” Cass said sadly.
“Is there a photo of the Math Olympiad competition?” Nell asked. “It’d be the year before she was a freshman, but it was a high school competition, so there should be a photo somewhere.”
“The competition that humiliated Spencer Paxton,” Cass said. She found the correct year and searched through the activities section. Then she looked again. Finally she found it, a small picture in a collage of many others. It was a picture of the three finalists, so small the faces were barely distinguishable. And the names unreadable. It was clear there were two girls and a boy in the photo, but that was all. It wasn’t even clear who the winner was.
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