Angora Alibi

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Justin Dorsey, age nineteen, had been killed.

  The night passed in a blur. Izzy and Sam stopped by the Endicotts’ to report on Janie. They had stayed with her until Tommy showed up. She had eaten a little, Izzy said, but mostly sat in disbelief, her face chalky white and her hands shaking. Tommy told them he would spend the night there. Janie shouldn’t be alone. And who knew what kind of crazy person was out there? Who knew if he had further prey?

  They were all grateful. Janie had taken the news hard. First not believing it. Then trying to make sense of it. Which, of course, was impossible. One day she was arguing with him, telling him she’d like him to fall off the face of the earth.

  And the next day he did.

  “I feel like there’s an awful cloud over my head,” Janie had said. “And it keeps getting darker and heavier. If only the sun would come out, the blackness would all go away and Justin would come back.”

  Izzy and Sam had few reassuring words for her, and Tommy even fewer.

  No matter if the sun came out or a nor’easter reared its head, someone in Sea Harbor had wanted Justin Dorsey dead. And that was the awful truth of it.

  • • •

  The headline in the Wednesday morning Sea Harbor Gazette was intended to get readers’ attention. And it succeeded, though the facts were few.

  SCUBA DIVER MURDERED AT SEA

  It hadn’t taken the coroner or the diving equipment experts long to determine what hadn’t killed Justin—or what had.

  On first examination, he didn’t appear to have any health problems that would explain a death, according to the coroner.

  And it wasn’t an equipment defect, according to the mechanical experts who examined the diving cylinders and other equipment, although these would be scrutinized further.

  It was, in fact, a human deed—the clear manipulation of a piece of equipment that had caused Justin Dorsey’s death, so read the Sea Harbor Gazette.

  “It makes me wonder about Izzy’s premonitions,” Nell said as Ben spread Wednesday’s paper out on the island so they could see it together. “She’s been feeling that something wasn’t right. And now this.”

  The article was short, not more than a couple of inches of newsprint. No one knew much about Justin or his family, just that he was distantly related to Janie Levin, nurse at the Virgilio Family Clinic.

  Specifics of the equipment problem hadn’t been spelled out, but the thought was that someone had gotten a hold of Justin’s regulator and made sure it would get him down to the bottom of the sea—and not up again.

  And that was about it, except for a quote from Justin’s landlady, Mrs. Bridge, who respectfully declined from saying anything other than that he had lived at her boardinghouse for a time but had ceased his residency there on Saturday. She had added that she never spoke ill of the dead, and the reporter had dutifully recorded it.

  “It’s sad there isn’t more to say about his life,” Nell said.

  “It’s sad that someone disliked a nineteen-year-old boy enough to kill him.”

  “Dislike? Is that what you think killed him? Someone hated him?”

  “Hate is a strong motive,” Ben said.

  “But do you honestly think anyone in Sea Harbor knew Justin well enough to hate him? Janie knew him best and—”

  “And she said she hated him.”

  There was silence for a few seconds while Nell processed the truth of Ben’s statement. And then she punched at it.

  “That’s silly, Ben. And you know it is. Janie is young and she was very angry with him. But she wasn’t expressing the kind of hate that makes someone kill.”

  Nell could feel her cheeks reddening as the emotion of her words took hold. Of course Janie didn’t hate Justin. Not really. She was devastated by his death.

  Ben turned from the paper, set both their coffee mugs on the island, and pulled Nell to him, holding her close. His cheek pressed into her hair. “Of course she didn’t hate him that way, Nellie. You and I know that. But her words will be dissected now, pulled apart, and examined carefully. And anything anyone else said to Justin. Or about him.”

  Nell pressed closer to Ben, her heart sinking. He was right. It was the beginning of all that. The questions, the fears, the looking over one’s shoulder.

  And all this when preparing for the most joyous birth of a baby. She thought of Izzy’s comment about her sixth sense. “All’s not quite right in our universe,” she’d said. “And I don’t want my baby coming until it’s better.”

  Noises at the door and the slap of flip-flops across the hardwood floor brought Gabby Marietti into the kitchen. Birdie was close behind.

  Gabby hugged them both. “Nonna said someone killed Janie’s friend,” Gabby said. Her dark blue eyes filled her face. “It’s awful and so sad. Why would someone do that? He was nice.”

  Birdie wrapped an arm around her granddaughter’s waist. Over the winter Gabby had grown taller, filling in the small difference in their heights, and now they were eye to eye. Granddaughter and Nonna on an equal plane. Both questioning the irrational and tragic happenings in life.

  “Yes, indeed, sweetheart,” Birdie said. “Why?”

  Harold had dropped her and Birdie off, Gabby said. And now they needed a ride to the market. Wouldn’t Nell like to come?

  “Ella needs a bunch of things and Nonna needs fresh air,” Gabby said.

  And she did, too, Nell realized. The whole town did. Fresh air.

  • • •

  The day was bright and cool, a contrast to the heated news that was being discussed up and down Harbor Road. The summer farmers’ market was set up near the Ocean’s Edge, on the great green expanse of grass that ran from the parking lot down to the water’s edge. It was already crowded, with people pulling out their cloth bags and filling them with early summer produce—lettuce and spinach and arugula, slender stalks of asparagus, carrots, and baby corn.

  But in between the stands of vegetables and fruit, people huddled together as small bits of information of a murder were passed along, inch by inch, like some insidious weed. A mixture of emotions washed across people’s faces—disbelief, curiosity, fear—all a sharp contrast to the fresh garden items around them.

  Gabby led the way to a stand with an abundance of green and buttery lettuce. “It looks like an oil painting,” Birdie said.

  Nell looked around as Birdie and Gabby examined the lettuce heads. Not far from the booth, on a slight rise of land, stood a white gazebo. Today it hosted a high school band playing an assortment of old Woodstock songs.

  Henrietta O’Neal stood in front of it, tapping her cane and singing along to an old Joan Baez tune.

  Farther down the greenway, apart from the market activity and closer to the water, stood a tall, lone figure, looking out to sea. Nell pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, squinted, and recognized Martin Seltzer. A lumpy market bag hung from one shoulder, and a bony hand grasped the back of a park bench.

  Henrietta noticed him, too, and immediately stopped her tapping and headed his way, her head leading her small round body as it bobbed across the grass.

  Birdie looked over and laughed. “My tea ladies told me that Henrietta has been trying to socialize Martin Seltzer. He’s her new project, they said. Do you think I should warn him?”

  “I suspect the man can hold his own,” Nell said, remembering the look he had given Justin that day in the clinic. Daggers with very sharp points. “If Martin doesn’t want company, I have a feeling Henrietta will know it very soon.”

  Martin turned as Henrietta approached. But before he could speak, she raised herself up on the toes of her sneakers and, waving one blunt finger in the air, let loose with a string of words that startled a group of gulls into flight. The distance was too great for Birdie and Nell to hear, but Martin clearly did. His head dropped at the torrent of words, but before he could reply, Henrietta spun around and walked back to the gazebo. In minutes she was mouthing along to an encore of “One Day at a Time” in true Baez f
ashion.

  “Hmm,” Birdie said. “So much for socializing the good doctor. I’ll have to see what my tea ladies think about that.”

  Nell watched Martin shift his market bag to the other shoulder, then walk slowly back up to Harbor Road. A part of her wanted to catch up to him, to talk to him about Justin. What would his thoughts be, now that the young man he had so clearly wanted out of the clinic was dead?

  “Life is interesting,” Birdie said, and turned back to see Gabby standing with Kevin Sullivan. The bearded chef was dressed in old jeans and his head was bare, his hair blowing in the breeze. He was holding up a bunch of arugula, explaining its merits to Gabby.

  “So this is why the Ocean Edge salads taste market fresh,” Nell said, eyeing the arugula. “They are.”

  Kevin grinned and nodded. But the smile gave way to concern as he stepped away from Gabby and lowered his voice. “Hey, I heard the awful news about that kid. He was Janie’s cousin, right?”

  “Distant. But yes,” Nell said.

  “That’s a tough one. Tyler said he was a good kid. A little goofy sometimes, but not, like some are saying, a bad kid.”

  Tyler turned at the sound of his name. He stood behind a nearby table heaped high with everything from beets to cabbages to fresh herbs. The smell of basil filled the booth.

  He smiled over at the group and gave a wave. “Hey, Birdie, Nell. And if it isn’t Gabriella Marietti!” Tyler rolled the rs in Gabby’s name, drawing giggles and a blush.

  “Gabby and I are old buds,” he said to Birdie. “She helped me pick my gram’s garden nearly clean the other day, didn’t you, gorgeous?”

  “So that’s where all this came from.” Nell laughed as she eyed the produce. “Esther Gibson’s plot in the community garden puts all the rest of ours to shame.”

  “Yeah, so you’ve seen it? Every doggone thing she plants comes up like it’s going to take over the earth. She gave a ton of this to Father Larry’s soup kitchen, but it just keeps coming.”

  “It’s like the loaves and fishes,” Gabby said. “That’s what Father Larry says—it keeps on multiplying.” She picked up a bunch of green onions and some arugula and dropped them in her basket while Birdie handed over a bill.

  Then Gabby’s eyes narrowed, her eyebrows pulling together. “Hey, Tyler, remember that day? Justin Dorsey came by to ask you to stop by the beach or something?” Her frown deepened. “Justin . . . and now he’s dead.”

  Tyler looked at her for a minute, as if doubting her recollection. Finally he nodded. “Yeah, Gabby, I think you’re right—he came by and helped us. Jeez, it’s awful, what happened. You don’t expect this kind of thing here in Sea Harbor.”

  “You and Justin were friends?” Nell asked.

  “Yeah, well, sort of. He was younger, but a friendly guy. He seemed to get around.” He shifted from one foot to the other, then looked back at Gabby. “Hey, look at these beets, Miss Italiano. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your whole life?” He held up a bunch and raised his eyebrows, drawing a new round of giggles.

  Gabby replaced her grin with a firm expression. She held out her hand, palm toward him, pushing away his words. “Italians don’t eat beets.”

  Tyler laughed and ruffled her dark mop of flyaway hair. Then he noticed a woman holding a head of Esther’s cabbage, gently testing the end for moisture, then lifting it to her nose and sniffing it.

  “Oops, business calls.” Tyler gave them a wave, then turned this attention to the woman, expounding on the merits of cabbage. A welcome escape.

  “Justin seemed to know everyone,” Birdie observed.

  “It’s like Tyler said, he was friendly. Kind of a wheeler-dealer, you know? Always wanting to make a quick buck, especially if it didn’t take much work.” Kevin examined some onions, then slipped the vendor a few bills and dropped them in his bag. “He’d come into the Edge now and then when Tyler or some of the college kids were working, just hanging out. Not drinking, though. Tyler’s good about carding kids. He knows all the tricks since he tried most of them himself at that age.”

  “We saw Justin there last Saturday night,” Nell said.

  “Yeah. I did, too. It was the night before he died, right? Eerie to think about it now. I asked Tyler about him that night because I noticed Justin flashing a roll of bills in the parking lot, like he’d won the lottery or something.”

  Nell remembered Justin pulling something out of that fanny pack he wore. He’d put it on the bar between him and Ty—a show-and-tell gesture. She supposed it could have been bills.

  “Who’d want to hurt a kid like Justin?” Kevin asked.

  “That’s the question, I suppose,” Birdie said.

  “The paper said he was from California. Maybe someone from there tracked him down here, someone with an ax to grind.”

  Nell half listened, knowing the stories were just beginning, all the possible things that could have happened that fateful morning. Strangers, vagabonds. Sinister outsiders. And even as people were clinging to those possibilities—to the assurance that Justin’s death was a freakish deed committed by someone no one knew, someone who had immediately left the area and would never come back—more rational minds were dismissing the tales as unreliable and without merit, without rhyme or reason.

  The more likely scenario, the one no one wanted to mention out loud, was that Justin Dorsey was killed by a neighbor or an acquaintance or a friend, or someone who at that very minute was wandering around the farmers’ market, looking for the perfect cabbage or bunch of beets.

  Chapter 12

  By Thursday, the news of Justin’s murder had created a rock-solid undercurrent of fear and suspicion—one fueled by gossip, innuendo, and the bits of factual information that made it onto the front page of the Sea Harbor Gazette.

  Or inside the paper, in Mary Pisano’s “About Town” column.

  “All right, Birdie, what does Mary have to say?” Nell stood at the old library table in the yarn shop back room, tossing a handful of spicy pecans into a salad. They’d all shown up early for Thursday’s knitting group, as if the week’s events had stretched out the days interminably and they were desperate for the comfort of Izzy’s back room. Although they talked and texted daily, nothing was as therapeutic as a lapful of yarn, a calming sea breeze, and being with dear friends. It was a formula that defied failure, and Nell’s seafood surprises and salads and pastas were icing on the cake.

  Birdie sat in her usual place near the fireplace, her enormous knitting bag beside her and an open bottle of chilled pinot gris on the coffee table in front of her. She smoothed out the newspaper on her knees and read aloud from the column, entitled “A Season of Hope.” After scanning the beginning she skipped to the last paragraph:

  Our beloved town has been rocked mercilessly with this recent tragic happening. Justin Dorsey was not a Sea Harbor native, but he was a Sea Harbor tragedy, and it is the responsibility of each and every one of us who loves our town dearly to right this awful wrong and bring the perpetrator to justice. We need to retrace our steps, to plumb the recesses of our minds for any strangers who might have crossed our paths in recent days or for any unusual happenings we may have overlooked, and report them promptly to the authorities. We shall all be citizen deputies until this is put behind us.

  It is the worst of times, as the Great Writer wrote, and it is up to each one of us to help our stellar police department bring back the best of times, and to make this summer our season of hope.

  Birdie took off her glasses and looked up. “So . . . ,” she said.

  “Mary’s gone literary on us.” Cass walked over to the table and tore off a piece of sourdough bread. “Do you think she forgot Dickens’ name?”

  “I think she just wants people to look it up on their own,” Nell laughed. “Mary fits more facts into that almost preadolescent-sized frame of hers than Wikipedia.” She walked over to the library table and began pulling food containers out of her oversized bag.

  Birdie agreed. “Mary is very
perceptive, and her heart is always in the right place. But I’m wondering how Chief Thompson feels about her plea to help the police department do their job.”

  “That poor guy,” Izzy said. She grabbed a handful of silverware and napkins. “Although by now he’s probably used to it.”

  “And who knows? Maybe Mary’s piece will actually draw some leads. Maybe someone saw someone down there near the beach, or saw Justin talking to someone, and will think twice about it,” Cass said.

  Nell put two wide forks into a large pottery bowl and suggested they fill their plates. She motioned for Birdie to take the first one.

  Nell never called the Thursday-night libations a meal, although Cass claimed that the leftovers kept her going for at least a few days. “Except those days may be disappearing,” she grumped. “Now that Danny is hanging around so much, it’s sometimes gone before it hits the refrigerator.”

  Tonight’s shrimp and fresh pea salad, which Nell spiced up with pepperoncini, capers, cilantro, and a light yogurt dressing, would be no exception.

  Izzy heaped salad onto her plate, added a chunk of warm sourdough bread and pat of sweet butter, and followed Birdie across the room. “Mae’s nieces were working here today and talking nonstop about Justin’s murder. Jillian and Rose said lots of them knew Justin, or at least who he was. Somehow the twins seem younger to me, but actually there’s only a couple years between them. And Justin loved the boogie boards and all their beach fun.”

  “This must be difficult for them. Teenagers think themselves immortal,” Birdie said. “And to have it be someone they knew is just all the more difficult.”

  Izzy nodded and swallowed a bite of salad. “The kids liked Justin. He was a regular guy, they said.”

  “And just enough older to make him seem cool,” Cass said.

  “Has anyone talked to Janie today?” Nell asked. “I wonder how she’s doing, poor thing.”

  “She’s been working. Lily Virgilio has become her surrogate mom. She loves Janie and feels so bad for her,” Izzy said.