Angora Alibi

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “This is it for the week,” Nell warned Ben. “I swear. No more food.”

  “That’s what I told Sam when we got home last night,” Izzy said. She checked her watch and frowned. “Maybe he took me seriously.”

  “He’ll be here. He’s such a perfectionist with that camera—and underwater photography can be tricky,” Ham said.

  His wife agreed. “Sam’s a true artist and he treats his photos with great care. But what’s up with this dive? I only heard snatches last night.”

  “The dive club that Andy Risso heads up is organizing it,” Izzy said. “Gus McClucken offered to take care of the equipment for folks who didn’t have their own. It’s a great deal if you like that sort of thing. And then, of course, Sam needed a buddy and someone to write down people’s names—so Danny got roped into going along. Sam wasn’t sure I’d make it down the rocky slope.”

  “Sam is wise.” Nell added a bit a maple syrup to her pancake.

  “He asked me to go along, too,” Jane said around a bite of pineapple. “But I told him the truth—if God wanted me to be at the bottom of the sea, he’d have made me a dolphin.”

  Soon the talk turned away from scuba diving and focused on summer concerts, gardens being planted, the upcoming shower for Izzy and Sam, beach cleanups, and other easy and pleasant Sunday-morning topics.

  When the waitress refreshed their coffee cups for the third time, Ham and Jane pushed their chairs back.

  “Ham would eat another plate of those,” Jane said. “But he’d also fall asleep in the hammock outside the gallery as soon as we hit home.”

  “Who, me?” Ham joked. He stood and helped Jane tug her enormous cloth tote from beneath the table. “But she’s right. Canary Cove is hopping on summer Sundays—and that’s just the way we like it.”

  Nell watched her dear friends make their way down the porch, greeting the Sunday-morning crowd, waving, hugging. Jane’s long peasant skirt swished around her legs as she walked. Minutes later they disappeared down the hilly path on their way to the art colony below.

  Father Northcutt caught Nell’s eye and waved. The priest was sitting with Cass’ mother, Mary, just as he did most Sundays. The truth was that it wasn’t the pastor but Mary Halloran who really ran Our Lady of Safe Seas Church, and she used their Sunday brunches to outline for Father Larry the events of the week, telling him where to be and when—and to watch his cholesterol. Farther down Nell spotted Lily Virgilio, not looking like a doctor today in a summery blouse and pants, her high cheekbones pinked by the sun, large sunglasses shading her eyes. She was eating alone, with a plate of pancakes in front of her and a book propped up against a vase.

  She looked peaceful in her aloneness, Nell thought. Most often Nell would catch sight of Lily in restaurants with Martin Seltzer. But today he was nowhere in sight and for some inexplicable reason, Nell was happy for Lily that she had some time alone. Without wanting to be a matchmaker, she hoped for a more lively companion in Lily Virgilio’s life. She couldn’t figure Martin out, and for unknown reasons, that fact bothered her. There was a bit of mystery about him.

  The day before, she had seen him walking down Harbor Road, his white coat flapping against his long legs, his shoulders slightly stooped. He stopped at the scuba equipment display in McClucken’s window, peering through the glass for a long time, as if choosing his gear of choice. He disappeared inside. But when he reappeared a few minutes later, all he carried was a bag of mulch.

  A gardener? Where would one garden at a clinic with no yard? she’d wondered at the time.

  At the end of the porch, Annabelle’s restaurant was shadowed by a thick stand of evergreens climbing up the hillside like sentinels, and that was where Henrietta O’Neal always sat. Henrietta was of some undetermined age—some said eighty, some thought older, and Henrietta thought they were all crazy for caring. Although she lived alone, the wealthy widow rarely ended up alone in public places. She loved to talk, loved to argue, and loved people of all shapes and sizes—even those, she was proud to say, who were dead wrong in their political leanings.

  The ringing of Ben’s cell pulled Nell away from her people watching, and she looked over at the offending phone as if to remind it that they were eating.

  Ben glanced at the caller’s name, scratched the side of his head, then stood and stepped away from the table to take the call. He moved out of earshot, over to the service area, but the others at the table watched and saw the concerned look that fell over his face. “That was Sam,” he said to the table of expectant faces. He motioned for the waitress and handed her his credit card.

  “Sam?” Izzy pushed herself back from the table. A flash of fear lit her brown eyes. “What’s wrong? Is Sam all right?”

  “He’s fine, Izzy. But he and Danny won’t make it for breakfast. There’s been a delay. They asked us to meet them back at the house.” Ben took a deep breath, then cleared his throat, an uncomfortable sound in the expectant silence.

  “Our house?” Nell said finally, though her question was rhetorical. She began gathering her things, trying to convince herself it was a normal request. Danny and Sam were too late for breakfast at Annabelle’s—they wouldn’t want to tie up the table any longer. So they’d have coffee with all of them back at the house. And then they’d all be off and about their Sunday. It made sense.

  And yet it didn’t.

  “Why?” she asked quietly.

  “There’s been an accident,” Ben said, starting toward the door.

  Izzy, Cass, and Nell stood at the table, refusing to move.

  “Speak to me, Ben Endicott,” Nell demanded. “What kind of accident?”

  Ben paused and turned back to the table. His voice was low.

  “Justin Dorsey is dead,” he said.

  Chapter 10

  Sam and Danny were already sitting at the kitchen island when the others arrived at the house. The smell of coffee filled the air. Sam got up and met Izzy in the middle of the family room, wrapping her in his arms as if to protect his unborn baby from tragedies and bad news.

  “Justin . . . ?” Cass moved to Danny’s side.

  “But he can’t be . . . ,” Nell began, then realized there was no “because”— no reason she could give that it couldn’t be true.

  Suddenly her thoughts turned to Janie, the harsh scene between her and Justin the night before flashing across her mind.

  “Janie,” Izzy said softly, as if reading Nell’s mind.

  “Tommy came to the dive site along with the ambulance. He wasn’t on duty. He just heard the sirens. It’s like a moth to light, I guess. He headed over to talk with Janie as soon as Chief Thompson got there,” Sam said.

  “Birdie was supposed to have coffee with Justin later this morning, after the dive,” Nell said. “I should call her.”

  As if responding to her name, Birdie walked into the room from the front hallway, her face already lined with worry. “What’s happened? I heard sirens earlier. Harold was out getting the Sunday paper. He has this uncontrollable urge to follow fire trucks. So he did. They went to the cove, he said, but he couldn’t get close enough to see, so he came home. Is it old Horace Stevenson? Did something happen to him?”

  She frowned, took in the somber faces around the kitchen island, then looked over at the coffeepot. “Ben, I need a strong cup of coffee. No cream. And then I need someone to tell me why Justin never showed up at my house this morning.”

  Ben piled the coffee mugs on a tray as Nell ushered them out to the deck. Perhaps the warmth of the morning sun would cut through the chill that had filled the kitchen with Sam’s news.

  “Justin was so excited about this dive,” Sam said. “Most of the divers—especially at that early hour when they’re still shaking off sleep—are kind of quiet before a dive. But not that kid. He talked a blue streak—about how good a diver he was, about wanting to buy a surf shop, about how people would see him differently now that he could afford things. How he raced over to McClucken’s to sign up. Nonstop magpie. He had
everyone laughing. I finally had to shut him up to find the equipment Gus was loaning him.” He took a drink of coffee and continued.

  “Gus and Andy Risso had brought down the extra equipment the night before and locked it up in that boathouse the dive club uses. Everything was marked with the diver’s name and ready to go. So Andy gave his little safety spiel, some basic instructions, and then we all went down. I got great photos. Tons of mussels, anemones, lobsters. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s who down there, but I tried to get everyone in a shot. I know Justin was right along with the rest of us, swimming with the fish.”

  He looked over at Danny, who agreed and added, “Being the wimp I am, I mostly stayed close to Andy—I figured the dive leader oughta know what he was doing. Justin went by us a couple of times. His suit had the McClucken mark on the back, so I knew it was him.”

  “I guess we were down there—what, Danny?—twenty minutes, tops, when Andy motioned us back up. With relatively inexperienced divers along, he didn’t want to stay down longer, he said.

  “But Justin didn’t surface with the others,” Sam said. “Andy always takes a quick roll call, and he just wasn’t there. Andy and I went back down right away, couldn’t have been more than a matter of minutes. And that’s when we found him. Down at the bottom, down between some rocks, his arms wide.”

  “How awful,” Nell said. “This will be hard on Janie, especially after throwing Justin out of her life last night.”

  Some eyebrows lifted, and Nell and Izzy repeated the episode in the apartment. “I think Janie was at the end of her rope. And when Justin’s careless behavior started to affect her friends, she couldn’t take any more,” Izzy said.

  “Tommy thought she should have sent him away weeks ago,” Sam said. “He was a nice enough kid, but he didn’t have much direction.”

  Birdie had been unusually quiet, her head back against the chaise and her forehead creased, listening and thinking. Finally she sat forward and asked, “Why did he die, Sam? I used to scuba dive with Sonny a thousand years ago. People don’t normally die unless something goes wrong or they have a health problem.”

  It was the question they’d all been toying with, the one hanging there at the fringes of their conversation.

  “Justin was just a kid,” Cass said. “He seemed as healthy as the next guy. But I suppose he could have had a heart condition no one knew about.”

  “We’ll know soon enough. They’ll autopsy him. Andy had Chief Thompson and the crew out there in minutes. They collected the equipment and took lots of notes,” Sam said. “Protocol, Jerry said.”

  “I’ve read plenty of stories of malfunctioning equipment,” Ben added. “But when Gus McClucken opened that dive shop in the back of his store, he insisted he’d only carry the most trustworthy equipment. Andy Risso and the dive club say his shop is one of the best.”

  “But it can still happen,” Sam said. “Justin himself could have inadvertently misadjusted his regulator.”

  “Was anyone around? I might have been running in that exact spot this morning if I hadn’t been lazy,” Izzy said.

  “I saw old man Stevenson,” Danny said. “He was walking his dog.”

  Sam nodded. “I talked to the old guy briefly. He’d been up all night, he said. The full moon keeps him awake. But his eyesight is bad. He wouldn’t have seen anything.

  “Franklin Danvers was a little way down the beach, too. That diving spot straddles the edge of his property, and Andy always lets him know when there’s going to be a dive. He lets the club use the storage shed for their equipment. Franklin’s a diver himself and appreciates the sport, so he probably came down to watch—or maybe the police lights brought him down to check.”

  “Franklin says walking that beach is better than sleeping pills,” Ben said.

  “Speaking of walking,” Danny said, pushing himself up from the chair, “we gotta go.” He turned and held out a hand for Cass.

  “We’re fixing some broken traps at the dock with Pete today,” Cass explained. “It might be good to be down there anyway, to put some reason to the rumors as they start rumbling around the boats. It doesn’t take long for rumors to grow.”

  “Cass is right,” Nell said to their departing backs. “It won’t take long for the word to get out. I wonder how Janie’s doing.”

  Izzy and Birdie began gathering up coffee cups and taking them into the kitchen. “Last night would have been her first night in the apartment,” Izzy said. “I was going to call her first thing, make sure everything worked. And now this—”

  When the doorbell rang a few minutes later, they all stared toward the front of the house. Rarely did anyone ring the Endicotts’ doorbell.

  Ben headed across the room. In minutes he was back, one arm around Janie Levin’s shaking shoulders. Behind her, Tommy looked helpless, as if he wanted to pick Janie up and carry her off to a place where bad things didn’t happen. Where divers dived—and didn’t die.

  Janie’s eyes were swollen, her hair flying haphazardly around her tearstained face. “I pushed him away.” She looked at Nell and Izzy. “You heard me. I told him I hated him. I wanted to kill him.” And then she began to cry, giant sobs that shook her slender body.

  Ben and Tommy guided Janie to the couch while Nell brought a glass of water and a box of tissues. Tommy sat beside her, his face sad and his arm wrapped around her shoulders.

  “I didn’t know where else to go. Tommy said we should come here, maybe you’d know something. He knew you’d be here, Sam—and you were there . . . down there . . . with Justin. . . .”

  Sam sat across from Janie. He leaned forward, his warm brown eyes focused on her face. “It was a freak thing, Janie.”

  “But he used to dive in California. He knew how to do it.”

  Sam nodded. “Was Justin’s health okay? Did he have any heart condition?”

  Janie shrugged. “I don’t know. I know so little about him. We’re related in one of those ways that people can never figure out. The second cousin of a third cousin . . . that kind of thing. Other relatives said he was kind of a castoff. I thought that was so sad. When he showed up for our family reunion, most people didn’t know who he was.” Janie took a drink of water, then pulled a band from her wrist and tried to capture a fistful of hair. “I’m rambling. I’m sorry. I’m just so sad.”

  “Of course you are,” Nell said, laying one hand on top of hers.

  “I don’t know what to do.” The tears began again. “Tommy had me call my mom to see if she could get some personal information that the police will need. Like where his mother is and where to send the . . . body.”

  When Janie and Tommy finally got up to leave a while later, Janie’s tears had stopped but her step was slow. She walked over and hugged Ben tightly, as if she’d somehow find protection in his strong arms.

  Sam looked at Ben, his eyebrows lifting with a silent question. Then he looked at Izzy and she nodded, knowing exactly what her baby’s father was thinking—and that today wouldn’t be spent putting the new crib together after all.

  “Hey, you two,” Sam said to Tommy and Janie. “I think the best place to be during troubled times is on untroubled water. With a glass of wine and takeout lobster rolls from Gracie’s Lazy Lobster Café. What do you say?”

  Izzy pushed herself off the couch and wrapped her arms around Sam’s waist, squeezing hard. “And you can’t turn this man down because he’s desperate to show off the new sail he and Ben just got for the boat.”

  Tommy looked relieved, as if Sam had just given him a great gift. Something far removed from the direness of the morning’s news. An escape.

  “Any other takers? All are welcome,” Ben said.

  Nell watched the scene with a lump in her throat and her body leaning comfortably into Ben. For that one moment, the sadness of the day was pushed into the shadows as she basked in the knowledge that her niece had quite possibly married the one man in all the world who was just about perfect for her.

  Nell couldn’t ha
ve chosen better herself.

  Chapter 11

  The news of Justin Dorsey’s death didn’t resound as robustly through the Sea Harbor community as it might have because many of the residents didn’t know the young man personally. There were some—like Archie Brandley and Mrs. Bridge—who knew him but didn’t like him much, and their reaction to the news of his death was one of slight guilt, as if their dislike had somehow played a role in his death.

  Moreover, townsfolk wouldn’t even be able to learn more about him at a funeral because he wouldn’t be buried in Sea Harbor.

  All things being equal, the news might have fallen off people’s radar within a day or two or three.

  But all things were not equal.

  • • •

  The tide began to change late Tuesday afternoon.

  Ben was at the yacht club when he got the call from Chief Thompson.

  Nell was standing in front of a room of well-dressed women at a late-afternoon library meeting, having finished a talk on writing grants, when she glanced down at her phone and read Ben’s succinct text.

  Birdie received Nell’s text while at the Ocean’s Edge Restaurant with a small group of white-haired women having tea, although the term tea was a holdover from the days when the matriarchal group really did have tea, instead of the afternoon sherry they were drinking today.

  Janie Levin didn’t get a text. She was back at work at the clinic, comforted by Dr. Lily and by the familiarity of the nursing job she loved. But she would receive the news very quickly.

  And Tommy Porter got word while on duty at Sea Harbor police headquarters. He was surprised when the chief called a special meeting, but more surprised when he found out why. He immediately called Izzy and Sam.

  Could they go over to the clinic—be with Janie until he was able to leave?

  • • •

  Justin Dorsey was murdered.

  He hadn’t been ill, he hadn’t been drunk, he hadn’t been any of the things that the rumor mill had bandied about since news of his death traveled through town.