Angora Alibi

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Andy Risso walked out from behind the bar and waved the waitress away. “I’ll do it, Nell,” he said, piling the basket and glasses onto a tray and following her up.

  “Can’t say I blame you—it’s nice up here,” he said. Andy had always been one of Nell’s favorite Sea Harbor kids, ever since he was a young boy running errands for Ben’s father. And now he was all grown up and still one of her favorites. When he was studying English literature in college, he’d come home for vacations and sit with Nell on Coffee’s patio, discussing Gertrude Stein and other literary expatriates roaming around inside his head. She loved the intelligence and wit that lived beneath his drummer’s hands and blond ponytail. He was somewhat of a Renaissance man, not unlike her own husband—and that was the ultimate compliment, the young drummer had told her.

  “How’re things in the bar, Andy?” Nell asked, a mundane question. Fine, he would say.

  But instead, Andy said, “Not great. Too many rumors, too much talk about all the bad things coming down on us. And when it gets late, my dad and I worry about folks getting home okay. When you don’t know what’s going on, you think the worst. It’s like some evil shadow lurking around, just waiting to pounce. Can’t say I like it.”

  He set down the tray. “People are just plain wary, even in here where people come to relax and get rid of worries.”

  “What are the rumors?” Izzy asked.

  “I don’t hear everything, but when a kid is murdered and there doesn’t seem to be a logical reason, people make things up. Some think that Dorsey was murdered because he cheated someone. But no one knows who that could be, so people are looking at each other in a different light. Is it that guy? Or maybe him? Like who would kill a foolish kid, even if he was selling grass, if that’s what was going on. Who would do that? A madman. Someone deranged?” He looked around, waved at some people coming up on the roof, then leaned his palms flat on the table. “None of it computes, if you ask me. Most folks around here would rather have our fantastic beer than what he was selling, anyway.”

  “What about Tyler?” Izzy asked.

  “Gibson?”

  “Yes,” Nell said.

  Andy thought about it. “I’m not sure what you’re asking me. He’s a nice kid. Guys like him. Ladies love him. I even saw the ice princess flirting with him here one night.”

  “Ice princess?”

  “Sorry. Sometimes my dad’s crassness rubs off on me. That’s what he calls her because she never smiles at him. Tami Danvers. She was in here drinking with some girlfriends one night—this was weeks ago. She doesn’t come in here anymore. I think we’re too plebeian. Anyway, she thought Tyler was hot stuff. He charms ’em, young and old.”

  Cass frowned at him. “And who are you calling old, twerp? Tamara Danvers isn’t that old. And what’s with the ‘Tami’?”

  “You’ll never be old, Ms. Halloran.” He swatted Cass with a napkin. “And no, the lady and I aren’t on a first-name basis. Her friends were calling her Tami.

  “Anyway,” Andy went on, “Tyler is a good guy, but kind of a pushover. He’s up for anything, easily talked into things.”

  Several other parties clambered up the steps and Andy looked over, motioned toward an empty table on the other side of the roof. Then he looked back at the women.

  “I’m shirking my duty. I’d better send someone up to take orders. Peace.” He lifted one hand in the air, then disappeared down the stairs into a sea of bodies below.

  Sam came up to be sure they were all okay. He announced it was the top of the sixth, game was tied, and then he looked around, hoping someone would send him back down to the game.

  Izzy complied.

  They ordered BLTs, knowing a tie game could go on forever, and settled back into the night. Overhead a deep purple sky was slowly melting into an inky black canopy, the moon slipped into place, and Venus shone brightly. It was a magical night.

  And maybe a dangerous one.

  Cass nibbled on a piece of calamari. “Andy’s take on the murder is interesting,” she said. “It clearly makes no sense to him.”

  “We’re all trying to be logical, moving from point A to point B. That’s what we do—but maybe the path to the killer is a more circuitous one, like that complicated shawl we all knit for Izzy’s wedding. It went in a circle, not a straight line.” Birdie looked up at the sky. “What a wondrous vantage point those stars have. If only—”

  The sound of heavy steps on the staircase made them guess if it would be Sam or Ben bringing them an update that they weren’t very interested in.

  But it was neither.

  Coming through the rooftop door, his hands shoved in his pockets and his blond hair covered with a crooked Sox hat, was Tyler Gibson. He looked over at their table, his face somber.

  “Andy said you guys were all up here,” he said.

  “Andy was right,” Birdie said. She smiled warmly at him, and Tyler, looking more confident, walked over to the table.

  “Would you like to sit down?” Birdie said. “We have a few pieces of calamari left. That doesn’t often happen with Cass around.”

  Tyler looked over at his old babysitter and tried to smile, but it came out crooked, uncomfortable. “No, thanks,” he said.

  He was the lone kid called into the principal’s office, and standing offered a faster escape once the riot act was read.

  “I came up to say I’m sorry,” he said, meeting their eyes this time. “I was stupid to leave you both sitting there at the bar.”

  “It wasn’t a very smart thing to do,” Birdie said.

  “I just didn’t know what to say to you, is the thing. I didn’t know what you knew or what you didn’t know, or what you wanted to know. And my grams is going to shoot me when she finds out about this.”

  “Esther Gibson is one of the most fair and loving women I know,” Birdie said. “Don’t sell your grandmother short.”

  “Maybe we should start at the beginning,” Nell said. “What is it you don’t want her to know?”

  “This whole mess. Grams is the best. She does a lot for me. This won’t go over well.”

  “What mess?” Nell asked.

  He took a deep breath, and for a brief moment they could picture him in front of Cass the babysitter, getting caught stealing beer from his parents’ bar.

  “Okay, you already know that I knew Justin Dorsey. He was all over town, always trying to make an extra buck, trying to sell us watches he’d hocked from somewhere, just weird things. He was all about making money. Had big plans to open a dive shop, he said.

  “Then one night he saw us down at the beach and he told some of the girls that he could get some grass, if they wanted it. It’s summer, there were parties on the beach, so they teased him a little, then said sure, but Justin had devised this crazy plan of delivering it that they wouldn’t go along with. So they asked me if I’d get it for them. They were afraid of getting caught, I guess. They said they’d give me the money. So I said sure. Justin’s crazy scheme was to put it in a kid’s car seat at the beach. Then I’d put money there in exchange. Cover it up with the blanket, he told me. Goofy, we all thought, but we humored him.”

  “Where was he getting it?” Birdie asked.

  Ty lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. “I don’t know. It was small amounts. There wasn’t much money involved.”

  He shuffled his weight from foot to foot. “It was foolish.”

  Birdie agreed. “And what raises this to a level much higher than being ‘foolish’ is that the young man was murdered. When you left the restaurant today, it made you look guilty. Didn’t you think of that?”

  Tyler looked around, nodded to some girls at the next table, then let his smile fade into nothingness. He looked at all of them, but finally focused on Birdie, his eyes locking into hers.

  Believe me, his eyes said.

  “I heard that Izzy had found the car seat. And I knew you were all asking questions about it. I thought . . . hell, I don’t know what I thought. Everyone’s
talking about Justin being murdered and who might have done it. I may have been the last person to see him the night before he died. Me or the old man.”

  “Old man?” Nell asked.

  “The guy who died. He was down there all the time, like a guard or something, walking the beach.”

  “Do you think he knew what was going on?”

  “Maybe, but what he really didn’t like were the bonfires and beer cans and sometimes there’d be some fireworks. I think they hurt his dog’s ears. He said that it was his beach and we were desecrating it with our noise. He couldn’t see much, but I’m pretty sure he smelled the girls smoking the stuff.”

  They listened and filed the information away. Then Birdie said, “All right, then. Go on with why you disappeared from the bar today.”

  “Well, like I said, I didn’t know what you were going to ask and I was scared. Justin and I were mixed up in something that we shouldn’t have been—him and me. And then . . . then the kid gets murdered, and I’m right there with him then, too. Doing a dive down at the beach. Fiddling with the same equipment. So what kind of alibi could I possibly have? None.”

  He paused for a breath, and the shade of red on his cheeks deepened to crimson. He swallowed hard. His voice was heavy. “You gotta believe me, Birdie. I didn’t murder anybody. I couldn’t ever murder anybody. I liked the kid. I just did a dumb thing. Nobody got hurt.” He looked over at Cass. “You know me, Cass. You have to believe me.”

  “So that’s why you ran off today?” Birdie said. “We’re not the police, you know.” Her words carried a gentleness that drew Tyler’s attention back to her.

  He was silent for so long they thought he hadn’t heard Birdie. But finally he looked up, his face drawn and sad. “I didn’t want you to tell Grams. If I didn’t talk to you, you’d have nothing to tell her.”

  From the floor below, the crowd cheered wildly as the Sox hit one out of Fenway. The building shook all the way to the rafters, sending gulls flapping their wings wildly as they exited the rooftop bar.

  Birdie’s voice was matter-of-fact. Practical. And warm. “Esther will find out, Tyler. You know that. Justin has been murdered. Anything that touched his life these last weeks will be dissected, inspected, all those things. So she’ll find out. Even if she didn’t work at the police department, she’d find out. But don’t you think perhaps you should be the one to tell her?”

  Tyler listened carefully. Finally he nodded.

  “Did Justin give you any idea where he got the stuff?” Cass said.

  He looked down at the floor as he sorted through his thoughts. “It was . . . it just didn’t seem important. He said it was easy, no need to worry about where. He said something weird. He said the stuff was ‘organic.’ But the thing is, he got it, and we bought it. But he did tell me. . . .”

  The noise from the lower level settled down. On the roof the sound of returning gulls mingled with conversations.

  “Tell you what?” Cass asked.

  “That it was over.”

  “What was over?” Nell asked.

  “The whole thing. Everything. He came by the bar when I was working that night—the night before he died—and he told me that the pickup that night would be the last. He was pretty dramatic about it, like I might be upset, but the only reason we even played his game was that he made it so easy for us—he was like a salesman, giving us a deal. But this was it, he said. The end of the road.”

  They sat in silence for a minute. Finally Izzy asked, “Did he say why it was the last time?”

  Tyler nodded. “Yeah, he did. He said he had bigger fish to fry—and the fire was hot.”

  Chapter 24

  The appearance of a waitress had given Tyler an out, but instead of disappearing, he prudently suggested he leave them alone to enjoy their sandwiches, then excused himself.

  They’d all laughed a little, just to ease his discomfort, and Birdie suggested he go home and get some sleep; he looked exhausted.

  “Do you believe him?” Izzy asked as he disappeared below.

  “Which part?” Cass asked.

  “That it was all over anyway, and Justin had bigger plans. What did he say? Bigger fish to fry?”

  “Maybe he was desperate to change the subject and move the emphasis from what was happening at the beach to something that didn’t involve him,” Nell said. “We’d have absolutely no way of knowing if it was true.”

  “A possibility.” Birdie swallowed a bite of sandwich. “Do we believe him? Yes, we need to start with that question. Was Tyler just protecting Tyler? Or was he telling the truth?”

  They all liked him, which made answering the question more difficult. And his grandmother was a friend.

  Finally Izzy answered her own question. “I do. I believe him. I think he was so scared he wasn’t thinking clearly. Someone who would be that afraid of the four of us couldn’t possibly kill anyone. Right?”

  “Besides, what motive would he have?” Cass asked.

  “That’s true—it’s hard to come up with one. But that’s only true if you believe him,” Nell said. “If you don’t, if he’s lying about the friendly way he and Justin parted company, about the last deal being fair and square, then there might be a motive.”

  “What would it be?” Izzy asked.

  “I think any time you’re dealing with money in this way, you’re at risk. Tyler was taking money from the women, then dealing with Justin—he was right in the middle. Maybe somehow Justin was cheating all of them—giving them something inferior, and he had put Tyler right in the middle of it.”

  “So he got back at him by murdering him?” Birdie said. “Why wouldn’t he simply find Justin and demand the money back?”

  That thought silenced everyone for a short while, though as they all knew, motives for murder didn’t always lend themselves readily to reason.

  Finally Nell said, “Perhaps he was concerned that Justin would threaten to tell everyone what was going on. Ty couldn’t bear the thought of Esther knowing.” But it was a flimsy motive, they all agreed.

  The night had turned chilly and Izzy shivered, pulling her loose-knit hoodie tightly around her. “He must be regretting the day he met Justin. I think Janie reached that point, too.”

  “We’re skirting the most interesting thing Tyler said,” Birdie took a sip of water and continued. “He said Justin had bigger fish to fry.”

  Nell nodded. She pushed the basket of calamari toward Izzy. “I agree. And I agree with Izzy. I don’t think Ty made any of it up. It doesn’t make sense for him to do that. And I can hear Justin saying those exact words. He had bigger fish to fry.”

  “If he was beginning to make money somewhere else—more money—it would explain some things,” Birdie said. She picked up the pitcher Andy had left on the table, and filled everyone’s glasses. “He’d been spending a lot of money in the few days right before his death. Money, according to Janie, that he couldn’t possibly have earned legitimately. A complete set of original stoneware, for example, that cost him hundreds of dollars. And a hefty donation to a charity. From what Tyler said, that wasn’t the kind of money that changed hands via the baby seat. Tens and twenties, he said.”

  “Jane said he paid for the pottery with one-hundred-dollar bills.”

  “Don’t forget the motorcycle he showed up on the night before he died,” Nell said. “You’re absolutely right, Birdie. He wasn’t getting that kind of money from the kids on the beach—and we know now he didn’t get it from your necklace.”

  “As big and gaudy as the piece of jewelry was, it wasn’t worth the kind of money Justin was spending.”

  “Suppose the person supplying him was moving on to something else? Some activity that was bringing in more money. It seems to go back again to the great unknown, the mysterious person in Justin’s life. Someone he knew. Talked to. Met with.”

  “Conspired with.”

  Their minds immediately went to work dissecting the town, the neighborhood, the artists’ colony, searching for so
meone they’d seen Justin with, someone who might have facilitated the whole awful mess . . . someone who might have killed him.

  But every single person who came to mind was someone they knew. Janie. Tommy Porter. Archie Brandley. Lily Virgilio. Dr. Seltzer. And now, rising like hot air to the top of the pile, there was Tyler Gibson.

  But targeting someone they might know—and even like—was a task that soon brought Izzy to her feet. “It’s time for me to roll on home,” she said, patting her stomach. “Junior and I can’t think anymore.”

  As if on cue, Sam appeared in the doorway. “Came to claim my best girl,” he said. “Ready, Iz?”

  It was time to call it a night, everyone agreed. They stood and made their way single file down the stairway into the mass of bodies below.

  Ben and Danny were waiting at the bottom, heatedly discussing the missed fly ball to left field, which they quickly tabled when the women appeared. Ben cleared a path through the crowded bar and out to the sidewalk. The smell of fried fish and fries diminished with each step.

  “A long day?” Ben wrapped an arm around Nell’s shoulder.

  She nodded and waved good-bye to the others. “They all seem long right now.”

  “Long and muddled,” Ben agreed, turning the key in the ignition. “Murder has a nasty way of doing that.”

  He made a U-turn, then drove north on Harbor Road, his CRV operating on instinct and heading toward Sandswept Lane. To home, to bed.

  As they drove past McClucken’s Hardware Store, Ben slowed down. “Look over there,” he said.

  Nell looked. Sitting on a bench in front of the store was a lone figure. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and his hands holding his head as if it would topple to the ground without support. Tyler Gibson looked as if he had just lost his best friend.