Defying her dead cousin’s unfair words, Agnes Pisano stood tall and proud next to the photographer, oblivious to onlookers. Her fingers clutched a large leather notebook with the words Fashion Monthly flowing across the front in gold script, and Editor in Chief printed beneath.
Chapter 6
They stood in the shadow of the Christmas tree, watching the unusual vignette play out in front of them.
Laura Danvers was the talent scout, pointing out women in designer dresses, men in Armani, couples and people with ties to the museum. Agnes was the producer, nodding and pointing and speaking to the young woman beside her, who dutifully recorded names and notes. Beside them, the skinny photographer checked the lighting and exposure with each new shot.
Laura waved Nancy Hughes over to the group, and a shot was snapped of Laura and a reluctant Nancy. Then one of Agnes herself, standing between the Danverses, her arm around Laura’s waist, Elliott Danvers looking handsome and accustomed to having his photo taken. Next the mayor and his wife were ushered over, the details of her Vera Wang dress pointed out, and more photos taken of an array of beautiful gowns and equally beautiful women.
“Interesting,” Birdie said.
“Birdie, you can say more in one word than anyone I know.”
Birdie laughed. She picked up her small evening bag and looped the gold chain over her arm. “What do you make of it? Agnes seems to be picking up where Pamela left off and not letting any dust gather in the process.”
Agnes was one of the few Pisanos who lived in Sea Harbor full-time. A writer, she worked remotely, contributing to several of the Pisano periodicals. She lived alone in a lovely home near the sea, and those who knew her thought her to be pleasant, plain, and intelligent. The Agnes before them was a different person entirely.
“Perhaps we’re misjudging,” Nell said. “Since Pamela had committed to attending the party, Laura may have asked Agnes to fill in for her, though I admit, it would be an odd request to impose on a grieving family member.”
But Agnes Pisano didn’t appear to be grieving. Her face was flushed and her eyes alive with the air of someone who was exactly where she wanted to be.
“The three muses,” Ben said, coming up beside the women.
Ham Brewster and Jerry Thompson, Sea Harbor’s chief of police, were behind him.
“You three should be in line over there,” Ham said. He looked across the room. “Why are you hiding?”
Jane silenced him with a nudge to his side. “What do you suppose Agnes is doing here?” Jane asked.
“It looks like she’s organizing some photos for her deceased cousin’s magazine,” Jerry Thompson said.
The chief’s voice revealed nothing, but Nell noticed the deep furrow in his brow. His eyes remained fixed on the photo shoot.
“But . . . well, why?” Jane asked.
“I imagine a lot of people are asking that,” Nell murmured.
Ben nodded. “Her timing’s not great.”
Nell shook off a feeling of discomfort. She looked over at Agnes, but the image was blurred. What Nell saw instead was the image that had stayed with her day and night.
Pamela Pisano—still and lifeless in a white bed of snow.
Her palms faced the sky, and the fingers of one hand wrapped around the black grip of a pistol, its sight pointed to the right, to the words in the snow.
I’m sorry.
Nell squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
The image was still there.
A feeling of foreboding wrapped around her. She shivered.
“Cold?” Standing behind her, Ben spoke quietly. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close.
“Low blood sugar.” Nell forced a smile to her face.
“Easy solution for that. How about a piece of lemon and amaretto cheesecake?” His voice took on a dramatic flow. “Dribbled with melted Belgian chocolate and brandy, dusted with powdered sugar and toasted walnuts?” His brows lifted enticingly.
Birdie laughed. “If you ever tire of being the unofficial business and legal consultant for the entire town,” she said, “I would suggest you try the Food Network. They might have a spot for someone like you.”
Ben laughed and pointed toward a tray of desserts sitting on a glass-topped coffee table ringed with comfortable chairs. He began leading the group toward it.
Nell fell in step beside Jerry Thompson. “I’m glad you were able to come tonight, Jerry. These are tough days. A dose of good food and friends can be a good thing.”
“You’re right about the friends and food. And about the tough days. But it’ll come together.”
At five foot eight, Nell didn’t usually have to look too far up to face male companions, but the chief of police, a basketball player in college, towered over her. Behind his height and strong frame, though, he was a gentle soul. Tonight he seemed relieved to be ordinary, to be himself—a gentle man.
“I hope so,” Nell said.
“Not a good time of year for this sort of thing.”
The way he said “this sort of thing” made Nell look up again, but Jerry’s eyes were unreadable. Again, the uncomfortable feeling passed through her.
It was then, when Nell pulled her gaze away from the pensive look in Jerry’s eyes, that she spotted Tommy Porter, his policeman’s uniform a contrast to the glittering jewels and long satin gowns around him. He stood just inside the door, scanning the crowd.
“I think your quiet evening may be coming to an end,” Nell said to Jerry, nodding toward the young policeman.
At the same time, Tommy spotted his boss and lifted one hand in the air.
Nell looked at Tommy, and as if he had answers written across his face, she knew what had been bothering her for the past twenty-four hours.
A collision of images came together in a split second, wound up as neatly as a ball of yarn.
She and Birdie, standing over Pamela’s frozen body.
Pamela’s hand reaching out, as if to grab the railing, an escape.
And in her other hand, a revolver pointing to the right, to the words written in the snow.
I’m sorry.
And playing beneath the clean white images of her mind were the words of Mae Anderson. She was appalled that we didn’t offer a special class for lefties.
Pamela Pisano—like her cousin Mary and her grandfather Enzo, like Ben Endicott and Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and a tenth of the population—was left-handed. If she had wanted to kill herself, she would surely have used the hand most likely to accomplish the task. Her left hand.
Chapter 7
The reporter who stood behind Tommy was excused from the small group that had gathered in the museum’s front office. Nancy Hughes unlocked its door and ushered them in, switching on lights and offering to have coffee sent in.
Jerry had suggested Ben join him. He mumbled something about legal things. But the real reason, they knew, was because Ben could handle people and the press with a finesse that bad news sometimes required. And in addition to the young local reporter standing behind Tommy Porter, there was one from Boston waiting in the wings.
When Ben returned to the party a short while later, the desserts were gone, but Ham Brewster had wisely filled a tray of brandy snifters and carried it over to the small gathering of friends.
“It wasn’t a suicide?” Nell asked softly. “She didn’t kill herself?”
“Not likely. Not that way, anyway,” Ben said. “A left-handed person—especially one not used to shooting guns, which we don’t think Pamela was—would have used their strongest hand. It doesn’t make a lot of sense not to.”
“How do reporters manage to find out things so quickly?” Cass asked. “I saw Ned Myers lurking in the shadows, looking like the cat that ate the canary.”
“It’s a good story for them,” Danny Brandley said. He sat beside Cass, one hand resting on her knee. A former reporter, Danny spoke with authority. His research for a new mystery novel only added to his ca
che of information. “Pamela Pisano’s name is newsworthy. The suicide angle in itself would sell newspapers. This is even bigger.”
“Maybe it was an accident?” Nell asked.
“Even if it was, that opens up a whole lot of other questions—why was she out there with a gun, for starters?” Ham said.
Ben nodded. “The left-handed thing was noticed quickly in the morgue. And the entry angle of the bullet was wrong, even if she’d been right-handed.”
“Murder,” Nell said softly.
Such an ugly word. Not a holiday word, not an anytime-of-year word.
All around them, partygoers moved on and off the dance floor, to the bar, laughing and dancing and sharing the joy of the night.
“It wasn’t completely a surprise. The suicide was too neat,” Ben said. “Mary never believed it.”
Too neat. Too convenient. But that meant someone had clearly intended to murder Pamela. And wanted people to think it was a suicide.
I’m sorry, the words had read. Who was sorry? Nell wondered now. For what?
She looked around, suddenly aware that the group was smaller than usual. “Where’s Izzy?”
Cass looked up. “Home.”
“Sam?”
“He took her.”
Nell looked hard at Cass. Words usually fell more readily from her mouth. “Why did she leave without telling us?”
Cass shrugged.
“She had a good reason, I’m sure,” Birdie said. “Probably a busy day in the shop, and Sam looked tired, too. She didn’t want to interrupt us with good-byes.”
Nell was forced to drop the subject.
Feeling the weight of the evening’s news, Ben suggested that he was winding down, too, and perhaps they’d want to follow Izzy’s lead.
Laura Danvers was effusive in her good-byes and suggested they all reserve their copies of Fashion Monthly soon. “They’ll fly off the shelves,” she said, hugging Nell tightly.
No doubt. But it might not be because of Laura’s Donna Karan dress or the Alberta Ferretti strapless gown that hugged Beatrice Scaglia. Or the pink peacock look that brought the photographer’s attention to the mayor’s wife.
It would be for a far less festive reason, as the next day’s Sea Harbor Gazette would boldly detail.
It seemed like a lifetime later when Ben and Nell finally turned out the lights and settled beneath the down comforter. “What’s going on in that head of yours?” Ben leaned up on one elbow.
A low light behind Nell outlined her shape beneath the blanket. “You,” she said.
“An interesting place to be, inside your head.” He ran one hand down the shape of her hip.
“Not so interesting. I’m just glad to have you here beside me.”
Ben leaned one arm across Nell and switched off the light, then pulled her close. “This whole mess is awful, no matter how you cut it, but the contrast with all that happiness tonight, the music and food and laughter, is jarring, obscene in a way.”
She nodded against his shoulder. “The holidays are a difficult time for some people, anyway. Even in the best of times. Now this, layered on top.”
“Nell, you’re a big stew of emotions tonight. They’re written across you in neon letters.”
Nell shifted slightly, resting her head on his shoulder. “I know. A part of me is so sad for the Pisano family. For Pamela. It’s not fair she died like this. And a part of me is angry. It’s not fair to Mary and what this will do to her, to the bed-and-breakfast.”
“And beneath it all you’re worried about Izzy. And she wasn’t murdered or hurt. Her life here is a good one, intact, full of nice people.”
Nell was quiet. She watched the shadows of moonlight fall across their bed and onto the wall, a hazy outline of snowy pine branches moving in slow motion. She thought about the way she and Ben crawled so easily inside each other’s heads and hearts. It was decades in the making, but there it was. It made keeping secrets difficult.
Ben knew she was worried about Izzy; of course he did. They both loved Izzy like the daughter they never had, and were forever grateful to Caroline Chambers for sharing her daughter with them in a lifetime embrace.
“Izzy is a wise and amazing woman,” Ben murmured beside her.
His breath was warm on her cheek. Nell closed her eyes. Yes, she is. And that would be enough for Ben, even if he sensed something not quite right. Izzy would handle it. It was a difference between them, a chasm that even all these years of marriage couldn’t breach. A male-female difference, maybe. She would forever be the mother bear, ready to right all wrongs, to fight for her young—even those loaned to her by her sister.
Ben, on the other hand, would rationalize the situation, analyze it until he was comfortable that it would be handled wisely. And then he would let it go.
She rolled her head on the pillow until she was looking at the familiar profile of his face.
Ben’s breathing slowed, then fell into the comforting rhythm of sleep. His chest rose and fell. His mouth fell open.
Next to him, Nell sighed. And then she began counting, and as the night slipped away, a whole farmyard of sheep moved before her closed eyelids.
Chapter 8
A holiday cookie exchange was such a normal, sane thing to do that Izzy called Nell to see whether she should cancel Monday’s gathering.
“The papers are filled with stories about Pamela Pisano. Not just the Sea Harbor Gazette—the Globe is all over it,” Izzy said. “It’s on everyone’s minds. A cookie exchange seems so . . . I don’t know, so frivolous.”
“Maybe that’s exactly why you shouldn’t cancel it, Iz.”
The knitting groups that Izzy’s shop hosted loved the holiday season—the warmth and delicious colors of yarn piled high in baskets all over the store, Izzy’s hot chocolate, the fire in the back room, and the festive gatherings of knitting, eating, chatting, and music. It was safe and happy. It was good.
The phone was silent for so long that Nell wondered whether Izzy had hung up on her.
“Iz?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Would you like to think at Annabelle’s? Ben and I were about to drive over for brunch. Birdie will probably be there. Mae can open up the studio for you today.”
Again her words were met with heavy silence. Disturbing silence, Nell thought, but Ben would have countered her if she’d said that out loud. You can’t hear emotions in silence, Nellie, he’d say.
But she could. Some silences were peaceful, like sitting in the family room with Ben at night, reading. Or on Birdie’s deck during a snowfall, bundled up, just the two of them and two glasses of wine, the ocean stretched out in front of them and snow silencing the world. No words. Just peace.
Some were awful, like the silence after bad news falls from the sky. The silence when staring at a dead body in the snow.
And some were disturbing. Like the silence on Izzy’s phone call.
“All right,” Izzy said finally, and the click of the phone echoed in Nell’s ear.
Nell half expected Sam to follow Izzy out of her tiny house when she and Ben drove up to the curb. He’d push a shaggy lock of hair back from his forehead as he greeted them, and his slow, lopsided smile would warm the cold air.
But Izzy was alone, her down jacket zipped up to her chin and a thick knit cap pulled down over her ears. Her multicolored hair fell from beneath the cap and around her shoulders like a cape.
“A goat-cheese frittata with spinach and roasted peppers—fresh basil sprinkled on top. Maybe some avocado slices and a dollop of sour cream on the side. That’s what I want,” she said, climbing into the backseat. “Oh, and fried potatoes, too.”
Well, at least Izzy had an appetite. When Nell and Ben were negotiating their relationship—an odd word that strangely fit the process those many years ago—she sometimes found it difficult to eat. Her heart seemed to take over her whole body, leaving little room for anything else. She was head over heels in love—but determined that it be a fully responsible
, equal relationship. Not that Ben would have settled for anything else himself. But it was the sixties, a turbulent, changing time, and if only for her own self-respect and that of women everywhere, she needed to make her points, be clear on her feelings about relationships, equality. Looking back, it all seemed unnecessary. But at the time it was critical.
Beside her Ben was laughing, his eyes meeting Izzy’s in the rearview mirror. “Well, then, Izzy, you shall have it. Nothing is too extravagant for my favorite niece.”
Izzy laughed, too, and the ride over the narrow road to Canary Cove and Annabelle’s Sweet Petunia restaurant went by quickly—and happily.
In the winter, with summer people gone, Annabelle restricted her restaurant hours to just a couple of days a week. But Sunday mornings were sacred. And she risked a revolt from Sea Harbor residents should the Sweet Petunia not open its doors that day.
“It’s not quite the same without our Stella at the desk,” Nell said to Annabelle as the plump owner took their coats.
“She’s my baby. And in college now, can you believe it?” Annabelle wore her well-deserved pride for her children on her sleeve. Starting her own business after her husband died at sea, being mother and father to four kids and putting them all through college, was not for the faint of heart. Annabelle grabbed three menus. “So, where’s our Birdie?”
“She’s not here?”
“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her. She’s usually here before the blueberry scones are out of the oven. But the Favazza home is right over there near the Pisano place, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s it, then. All this terrible news about that place is disturbing people’s routines. It’s terrible.”
Disturbing routines. Murder had a way of doing that. Yes.
Nell followed Ben and Izzy as Annabelle led them over to a table near the windows.
“Maybe she overslept,” Nell said, sitting down and turning over her coffee cup. She looked around the room, half expecting Birdie to be following them.
Sometimes Birdie woke up in the middle of the night, then slept later the next morning to make up for it. It was Sonny who did it, she claimed. Her long-deceased husband would nudge her from bed, and she’d retreat to his den at the top of the house. The small room that had been Sonny’s sanctuary was still filled with his pipes and books and leather-topped desk. The smell of cherry tobacco rose from the leather chair when Birdie curled up in it and welcomed the familiar comfort of its creases. She’d breathe in the smell of him, and then she’d feel his arms around her, warming her.
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