Angora Alibi

by Sally Goldenbaum

  She shook her head and laughed. “Goodness gracious, I am a fuddy-duddy, aren’t I? And who am I to talk? I’ve been known to ‘accidentally’ overhear a conversation or two myself.”

  “That’s an understatement, Henrietta dear.” Gus McClucken walked out the front door of the hardware store carrying a giant bag of dog food. He set it down next to the bench and scratched the dog behind his ears. “I’ll get you home in time for lunch, Red,” he said, and then nodded at Horace. “He can come, too.”

  “All right, Gus,” Henrietta said, “tell us what you think about all these goings-on.”

  Gus’ smile disappeared in a flash. “It’s pretty damn awful, is what I think. It’s been a mess over here, with the police checking records, equipment, and what have you, trying to figure out who had access to it, that kind of thing. I knew Justin—he hung out in here because he loved all the toys, the surfboards and boogie boards and gear. He was dying to do a dive. . . .” He paused at the unfortunate choice of words, then said, “It’s a cryin’ shame. All of it.”

  Nell looked over at Horace. His watery eyes were on the street traffic, but she suspected the old man’s ears were tuned to the conversation going on beside him.

  The bell above the door rang again and Martin Seltzer walked out of the store, carrying a bag of fertilizer.

  “Hey, Martin,” Gus said, touching the bill of his cap.

  Nell smiled a hello, but Henrietta was more effusive, walking up to the doctor and touching his arm. She looked up and smiled warmly—though her words were pure Henrietta. “Martin, you’re skinny as a rat’s tail. I hope you’ve come down here to eat.”

  Martin frowned at her, then lifted up his bag and stared at it. “You think I eat fertilizer?”

  They laughed and Nell worked at swallowing her surprise. Martin Seltzer had a sense of humor. Who knew? But it was nice to see. Perhaps Henrietta brought it out of him, in spite of their disagreement at the market.

  “My buddy here’s a great gardener,” Gus said, his thumb pointing back toward Martin. “He’s one of the few that knows you get what you pay for. Always buys premium quality. Organic.”

  Henrietta frowned, as if she couldn’t imagine Martin planting anything but his feet.

  “You were talking about the kid who died—what Henrietta was saying was right. It’s all true.”

  They waited.

  “Lily thought he needed a break, so she paid him to work at the clinic—for doing nothing, in my opinion. I told her to fire him. He was no good, believe me, I know. He was a snoop, a common thief, a kid who didn’t know right from wrong. I’d like to have killed him some days. But Janie Levin stood up for him, too. Foolish woman. She’s a great nurse but a bad judge of character. That kid was bound to meet a bad end. And then he did. I warned him.” Martin’s face grew agitated as he talked and the toe of his long brown shoe tapped nervously on the sidewalk. When he spoke again, his voice was angry, his words carried on a wave of emotion.

  “Sometimes people ask for it. They’re warned, they don’t listen. And then they get what they asked for.”

  Up and down Harbor Road, people laughed and chatted and children walked by eating giant ice-cream cones. Cars honked. The smell of garlic and tomato sauce floated out of Harry’s deli down the street.

  In front of McClucken’s Hardware Store and Dive Shop, all was silent.

  A gravelly voice finally broke the silence. “Who asked for what, you crazy fool?” It was Horace Stevenson, leaning toward the group.

  They all looked over at the old man, his face carved by the years. His eyes were rheumy but his voice was strong.

  “We were talking about the young man who was killed,” Nell said. Horace lived a stone’s throw from the dive site. He must have heard about the murder.

  With a wave of his hand, he dismissed Nell’s comment. “I know what goes on,” he said. “Sometimes it takes a while for what I see to become clear in my head, to connect to my thoughts, you know?” He thumped his head with his knuckles as if knocking things in place. “But I was there . . . out on the beach. It was dark as doom. Shadowy. But the sounds were there. And the smells. Strong and tingly in my nose.

  “And I know this much for sure: no one has the right—no matter who they think they are—to go in that shack and fiddle with the gear. No one deserves that kind of end—to sink down there below that water, your breath cut off. No one, not even that crazy surfer.”

  His face came alive as he talked, as if saying the words out loud was somehow clarifying some confusion in his own mind. As if murky thoughts were becoming clear, rational, connected. Even his weary eyes, cloudy with cataracts, seemed to be seeing something that was becoming clear in his mind. “Now it fits together.” Horace reached down and scratched his dog’s head, his words softening to a murmur meant only for Red.

  Gus nodded. “The old man’s right, Marty. No one deserves that kind of thing. Not even you.”

  Martin’s face faded to the color of the sidewalk. The vehemence of his own words seemed to have taken a toll on him. He coughed into his hand and stared at the ground.

  “I knew him,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t,” Henrietta said, tapping his arm with the handle of her cane. “But the one thing I do know is you better watch your tongue. I think you’re half starving and it’s affecting your brain. We’re going to get something to eat. Maybe it will turn you into a decent human being.”

  With that she picked up her cane, motioned toward Harry Garozzo’s deli, and began to walk in that direction, her cane tapping authoritatively on the cement. Follow me, it said.

  Martin Seltzer followed.

  • • •

  An hour later, Nell walked into Izzy’s yarn shop. She’d been to the post office and the cheese shop, then picked up old-fashioned candy dots from Lulu’s Sweets, the new candy store next to the bank. And all along the way she’d wondered about two men—the doctor and the old man who walked the shore—both who seemed to have unusually strong opinions about a young man’s death.

  Her last purchase was an impulse buy—the long chain of candy disks reminded Nell of Izzy’s colorful window display. The twins had created a nursery, complete with bassinet and rocking chair. And overflowing from the bed and chair were giant balls of alpaca, angora, dreamy cottons, and fine merinos in every color of the rainbow. Tiny infant sweaters, plush blankets, and hats—donated by customers for the children’s shelter—were a colorful background, hanging gaily from a white clothesline that stretched from one side of the window to the other. The candy disks matched the colors perfectly.

  “Great candies,” Mae Anderson said as Nell handed her the bag. “We’re overrun with mothers these days—I think it’s the wonderful display plus folks wanting to check out Izzy’s progress. The little ones that tag along will love a special treat.”

  “Is Birdie around?”

  “Yep, and ready for an escape, in my humble opinion. When I stuck my head in a minute ago, the talk was focused on the merits of drug-free childbirth and the wonders of a father cutting the umbilical cord. My Jerry would have been flat on the floor at the very mention of it.”

  Nell laughed and headed toward the back room, following the iPod sounds of someone singing about love, stars, and long summer nights. She stood in the archway for a minute watching the activity swirling around the knitting room. Heaped on the library table were baskets of needles, measuring tape, scissors, and markers. Pattern books were strewn about, and groups of women sat at the table or on the couches and easy chairs with balls of yarn at their side, knitting and purling tiny sweaters and hats.

  Birdie sat near the open casement windows, relishing the brisk afternoon breeze. Purl was curled up on her lap. Nearby, Laura Danvers and several of her friends sat with piles of baby Suri alpaca yarn on the table between them.

  Nell walked over and admired the half-finished sweater on Laura’s lap. “A baby sweater?”

  Laura smiled. “Don’t even think it, Nell. Ou
r two girls keep Elliot and me plenty busy.” She held up the tiny garment. “This is for Uncle Franklin’s baby. It seems early to be knitting something, but Tamara says it makes it more real to her. In nine months we should be able to open a store with everything she’s suggesting we make.”

  “Franklin seems overjoyed with this pregnancy.”

  “It’s this heir thing he has. It’s so important to him. He really wants a boy.”

  Franklin Danvers was a private man, but it was an often-repeated rumor that the lack of offspring contributed to the failure of his previous marriages. “But there’s no guarantee of that,” Birdie says.

  “Exactly. So, what if it’s a girl?” one of her friends asked.

  The question lingered there, then was silenced as Tamara Danvers walked into the room, spotted them, and walked over.

  Nell hadn’t talked with her since the morning Franklin had called the police on Justin Dorsey. Years ago—that’s how it felt. But it wasn’t years; it was just a few days before he died. Tamara had been agitated that day, or maybe upset by the commotion Justin had caused.

  Today her color was better, her face composed, and her blond hair pulled back and fastened with a wide gold clip at her neck. She wore sneakers and stretchy, formfitting black pants with a pink tank top and a vibrant nylon jacket on top.

  She held up a skein of angora yarn, bright blue, soft, and luscious, and looked at Izzy. “Do you like it?”

  “Another baby sweater, Tamara?”

  “No. This is for leggings for when he crawls. Gwen Stefani’s boys wore leggings. I read that she knit a pair herself.”

  “Not angora, I bet. This isn’t strong enough. And it’ll have a halo effect, not great for a bruising boy.” Izzy took the yarn and was back in a minute with a cotton acrylic in the same majestic blue. “This’ll work better.” She looked at Tamara’s figure and sighed. “I never looked like that. Even before I was pregnant.”

  “I’m keeping up my routines. Exercise. I think it’ll keep things tight during the pregnancy. It’s early, you know. I want to keep active.”

  They knew. But no one told Tamara that she was dreaming.

  “We may even try some diving this summer, though Franklin is afraid of every little thing, as if I’m a china doll.”

  “Diving . . . ,” Laura said quietly. “That’s not a pleasant topic around here right now.”

  Tamara took a sharp breath and fingered the yarn in her hand. “Of course it’s not, that was stupid of me. It was right near our place, you know. Franklin dives a lot. He could have been down there with the club that morning. He could have been the one killed.”

  Or Sam. Or Danny. Or Andy Risso. All wonderful men. But not men whom anyone would want to kill.

  “I don’t think the police think it was a random thing,” Laura said. “Someone wanted to kill a specific person, not just any diver.”

  “So who was he?” Tamara asked. “Franklin said the paper didn’t say much.”

  “Justin Dorsey,” Izzy said. “You’ve met him, Tamara. He was the guy who came up on your veranda that day. Franklin was upset about him being there, remember? He called the police.”

  Tamara paused for a moment, then said, “Of course, I remember now. I hadn’t made the connection. Good Lord. Franklin was really mad that day. I thought at first the guy was just friendly, someone with a board, walking the beach. But he walked right on the terrace, as if . . . as if he had a right to be there. It was frightening. But after Franklin called the police, he never came back. At least as far as I know.”

  “No. He probably didn’t,” Nell said.

  Laura frowned. “Uncle Franklin called the police? That’s crazy. Every kid in Sea Harbor has surfed and boogie-boarded down there. It’s a great beach, gets good waves. And nothing against you, Tamara, but most of the people who live up there rarely use the beach.”

  Tamara looked defensive. “Franklin was just trying to protect me from someone who didn’t know how to take no for an answer.”

  Laura was undeterred. “Maybe. But it’s still a little crazy.”

  “Franklin thought he was a troublemaker.”

  Nell watched the exchange and wondered about the relationship between the two women. Tamara wasn’t much older than Laura, although their husbands were a generation apart. Laura was already a prominent figure in Sea Harbor, no matter her age. She was devoted to her family and nearly every charitable cause that reared its head in Sea Harbor. People liked and respected the young community leader. Nell wondered if that was a problem for Tamara.

  But Tamara didn’t seem affected by Laura’s comments as she proudly passed her legging pattern around for everyone to see.

  When the conversation moved back to young motherly topics, Birdie rose from the window seat, gave Purl a final pat, and gathered up her shopping bags. With a nod to Nell and a wave to the group, she headed up the stairs.

  Nell followed. Birdie’s manner of leaving was one of the things they all cherished about her. None of those prolonged and awkward good-byes at a door. Birdie simply got up, waved, and was gone. Sometimes squeezing a quick hug in between the two, depending on whom she was leaving.

  “People don’t know what to say about it all,” Nell said as they walked through the shop.

  “But ‘say’ they will, making up things, if need be. No matter, Jerry Thompson is a smart man. He’ll get to the bottom of this soon.”

  Nell nodded absently, looking into the Magic Room, the name Izzy had given the yarn shop’s playroom. It was filled with the shop owner’s own childhood toys—dolls and doll beds, puppets, stuffed animals, and Tinker Toys—along with newer ones donated by the mothers who appreciated a place to leave their toddlers and preschoolers while they picked out patterns and took classes. Mae’s nieces Jillian and Rose loved watching over the kids, wiping noses, playing games, and retrieving mothers when needed. Today they seemed to be cuddling their charges more, watching each child more closely.

  It’s what happens when a town has been wounded in such a horrific way. Mothers all over town were paying attention to their teenagers’ curfews, requesting frequent check-ins, worrying about parties and days at the beach. The wonderful carefree things that made up summer were now potential dangers, something to put under a magnifying glass.

  Outside the yarn shop they paused, putting on sunglasses and adjusting to the bright light.

  “Humph.”

  The two women turned toward the sound, and found themselves looking into the small beady eyes of Mrs. Bridge, owner and manager of the Bell Street Boardinghouse, perhaps one of the last remaining boardinghouses in North America. Justin’s last-known address.

  Mrs. Bridge had a first name, but she never used it and over the years it had fallen from everyone’s memory—even the postmistress couldn’t remember her mail addressed to anyone but “Mrs. Bridge.”

  “This is where Janie Levin lives, they tell me,” she said to Birdie and Nell. Her chubby index finger pointed to the upper windows.

  “That’s right, Mrs. Bridge. But she isn’t here right now.”

  “It was her friend who was murdered,” Mrs. Bridge said.

  “A distant relative,” Nell said.

  “He lived at my place, you know,” she went on, as if Nell hadn’t spoken. “The police have been by, of course, and they said there wasn’t much there. Old clothes, a surfboard. They took what they wanted. The rest is right there.” She pointed to a cardboard box on the sidewalk beside her old Chevy. “I’d like it to be gone.”

  Her tone of voice indicated that the rest of Justin’s belongings would turn her house into a deadly virus if allowed to remain.

  “We’ll give it to Janie,” Birdie said. “Was Justin a problem?”

  Nell picked it up and put it inside the yarn shop door to take deal with later.

  Mrs. Bridge seemed troubled by the question. Then she said, “I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But that young man wasn’t my kind of tenant. I told him he had to leave.”

 
“To leave?”

  Mrs. Bridge looked down and rubbed her palms down the sides of her wide-legged polyester pants. Finally she met their eyes again. “Yes.” She sighed heavily. “I banished him.”

  “He wasn’t a good tenant?”

  Again, Mrs. Bridge was silent. She shifted her considerable weight from one foot to another. Finally she spoke. “There were the late-night rendezvous a while ago. He let a friend ‘use’ his room, if you know what I mean. I heard about it, of course I did. I looked the other way at first, then finally warned him I wasn’t running that kind of place, and it stopped. As for his recent shenanigans? I’ve no proof, not now, I know that. But I also know this. Justin Dorsey was a charming con man. He told all my tenants he was on his way to being rich. And I don’t doubt it. As sure as I’m standing here, he was helped along by the cash that went missing from my apartment last week—two weeks’ worth of rent money, waiting for me to take it to the bank.”

  Chapter 14

  “A con man.”

  Ben considered Mrs. Bridge’s words as he rummaged through a kitchen drawer, searching for the grill lighter. “The romantic version of a con man is of a charming, likable guy. Justin seems to fit that. Maybe that’s exactly who he was.”

  “Harriet Brandley came out of the bookstore while we were talking. She didn’t say much at first, just listened until Mrs. Bridge left. But then—very reluctantly, I thought—she said that Justin didn’t do right by Archie, either, when he helped out there a couple months ago.”

  Nell set a bowl of basting sauce for the tuna on a tray and continued her story. “It had something to do with the day’s cash not matching receipts or something. But it happened weeks ago, Harriet said.”

  “I wonder if people’s reluctance to call Justin out on things was because of Janie. She was trying her damnedest to get him jobs and turn his life around,” Ben said.