“Pamela kind of ignored him at first. She picked up more earrings, a couple of necklaces, and put them in her ‘to purchase’ pile. But he kept after her, nudging her, flirting one minute, coaxing the next. All the while, the vein was throbbing. At first she was more patient than I’d have been. But then she finally told him to stop. She turned and looked him right in the eye, her hands out in front of her as if she were warding him off. He had other talents, she said—in a suggestive way, I thought. Then kind of laughed, you know, in a teasing way. And then she told him he needed to face the hard truth. He was too old—over the hill, was how she put it—to be in any reputable fashion magazine. It was time to put him out to pasture, she said. And that was that.”
“Over the hill? Out to pasture? Ouch. That must have hurt.”
“His face was as red as Birdie’s sweater, but he tried to hold it in. He swallowed hard and began flirting again, touching her, brushing up against her. He’s a real lothario, that one. He came on to me the other day; can you believe that?”
Of course they could believe it. Rebecca was one of the most beautiful women in Sea Harbor. A willowy blond artist with skin like an angel’s. But her relationship with Melanie Foster, a new fiber artist in town, seemed to be going well. Troy DeLuca wouldn’t have stood a chance for all sorts of reasons.
“He’s younger than Pamela, though I don’t suppose that matters. But Pamela is so classy and sophisticated. This guy—for all his good looks—is definitely not that. There’s something a bit . . . sleazy.”
Nell didn’t know Troy DeLuca at all, but Rebecca’s feelings mirrored her own.
“I got the feeling Pamela was playing with the guy. Flirting with him, but making fun of him at the same time, assuming, maybe, that he was too dumb to realize it.”
“How unpleasant,” Birdie said. She picked up her knit square.
“Maybe he thought he could still convince her, using a different approach. They left together, even after she’d insulted him right to his face.”
In front of the room, Izzy was holding up more squares. Rebecca turned back to listen and watch.
“Pamela probably met Troy at Ravenswood-by-the-Sea,” Birdie said. “The crew has been there every day.”
“I wonder how well she knew him.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
“You’re talking about Troy.”
Nell looked up.
Beatrice Scaglia was standing near a coat tree, her knitting bag hanging from her shoulder. She was pulling on a pair of leather gloves. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard ‘blond ponytail,’ and since one is living in my house, I picked up on it.” Beatrice managed a smile. “What’s he done?”
“Nothing, Beatrice, nothing,” Nell said. She hadn’t the faintest idea what Troy had done or not done, but Beatrice seemed to need an answer. “It seems your houseguest is sociable; that’s all. For being a newcomer, he’s meeting people just fine.”
“Sociable? He’s that, yes.” Beatrice slipped her purse over her shoulder. “He’s the youngest in his family. Spoiled rotten, if you ask me. He’s gotten by so far on his looks—lots of modeling jobs when he was younger. But at thirty-five, he’s getting rejected for jobs. And his temper doesn’t help him through such things easily. He’s a hothead. He told off a Boston agency and smashed a camera to emphasize his point. Sal and I are suggesting to him that there might be other ways to get through life, rather than relying on one’s body tone and looks. Something more lasting, perhaps?”
Birdie chuckled. “That sounds like good advice. It’s nice of you and Sal to help him out.”
“It looks like he’s lined up some jobs,” Nell said. “I saw him at the old Pisano place a couple times.”
Beatrice sighed. “Mary was nice to hire him. I think Sal and I are beginning to impose too heavily on our friends and neighbors—they’re starting to walk the other way when they see us coming. But Mary says he’s a decent painter, so I guess that’s working out. But who knows what will happen now?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s going to happen to the bed-and-breakfast? Henrietta O’Neal showed up at a council meeting and accused us of taking money to allow Mary to get the ordinances she needed to fix the place up. I thought she was going to poke a hole straight through me with that walking stick of hers. The accusations are ridiculous, of course. But Henrietta can cause trouble—she’s richer than sin and one of the feistiest eighty-year-olds I’ve ever met.”
Beatrice’s face colored slightly as she talked. She tapped one skinny heel on the floor nervously. “Now she’s saying the place is haunted. The devil at work. That’s why Pamela Pisano was murdered. The devil did it.”
“Henrietta lives alone,” Nell said. “It probably frightens her, the thought of murder in her own neighborhood.”
“It isn’t pleasant for any of us,” Birdie said. “But it will be solved soon.”
Beatrice’s face softened in relief. Somehow, if Birdie Favazza said it would be solved soon, it would be. She pulled her keys from her purse. “Yes,” she said firmly, as if nailing the coffin shut. “It will be.”
Nell watched the councilwoman walk off, a wicker basket filled with an assortment of cookies hanging from one arm and her knitting bag from the other. But the usual tilt to her head was missing, and she lacked the spring in her step.
Pamela Pisano’s murder was taking its toll, even in the middle of a festive Sea Harbor cookie exchange.
Chapter 12
Nell looked around the nearly empty room and pulled a broom out of Izzy’s utility closet. She began sweeping up cookie crumbs and stray pieces of cut yarn.
Outside, the sky was darkening and a strong wind rattled the windows.
“I’m glad you didn’t cancel the cookie exchange, Izzy, no matter what’s going on around us. People enjoyed themselves, the cookies were fantastic, and Ben will be overjoyed when I walk in with twenty different kinds of sinful delights. I think he looks forward to this annual gathering more than I do. And having everyone knit a square was a perfect complement to the festivity.”
Izzy began packing the finished squares into boxes. “You were right. It takes people’s minds off the ugly things.”
“Let’s toast to that.” Cass pulled several glasses from the cupboard and uncorked a bottle of red wine she’d taken from beneath the counter. “People had a good time, but I’m not sure they entirely forgot about the ugly. There was plenty of talk going on.”
Nell had heard it, too, and not just Rebecca’s story. With each comment, the portrait of Pamela Pisano, fashion editor, became more extravagant, with deep reds and purples covering over the classy, if a bit arrogant, woman that Nell suspected might be closer to the truth. The talk troubled her. There were pieces missing in the picture being painted about Pamela’s murder, and once rumors took root, they could so easily mask truths.
“I suppose it’s easier to accept murder if the person deserved it somehow,” Birdie said. “But that’s wrongheaded. No one deserves murder.”
“But the truth is,” Cass said, “Pamela Pisano could be mean. Even though she didn’t live here year-round, she hurt people who do live here. People we care about. Even her own cousins, like Mary and Agnes.”
“And don’t forget Tommy Porter’s older brother,” Izzy said.
“Trotting Eddie all over town, all that public affection, then tossing him aside so publicly—that was cruel.” Cass straddled a wooden chair, wrapping her arms around its back and sipping her wine. “I remember it well because it was the summer Pete and I officially started our business, and Eddie was helping us for a while. Four years ago or so.”
“Well, the way it ended was better than if she’d married him and then ran off,” Nell suggested.
“Tommy doesn’t think Pamela had any intention of marrying him. Eddie Porter is great-looking. Fun. Pamela was here that whole summer, moving her mom into the nursing home. Bored. Tommy thinks Eddie simply helped her pass the days. She was playing
with him, and Eddie pretty much knew it, but he was having fun, too. The odd part, as I remember it, was how she stopped so abruptly, then got really secretive. Rumors were she was having a ‘secret’ affair. But it wasn’t her usual modus operandi. Her usual way was what she did with Eddie, playing with him for the world to see.”
Playing with him. “That’s how Rebecca described Pamela’s interaction with Troy DeLuca,” Nell said. She dumped the crumbs into a wastebasket and put the broom away.
“The blond painter?” Cass asked. “How’d she know him?” She took a Christmas mint from the basket on Izzy’s table and popped it into her mouth.
There were probably dozens of blond painters on Cape Ann. But everyone already knew that “the” blond painter referred to Beatrice Scaglia’s relative.
“He’s part of the crew working on the bed-and-breakfast,” Nell said.
“He’d be hard to miss,” Izzy said. “Maybe he made the Pisano family meeting more palatable for Pamela.”
Nell repeated Rebecca’s encounter with Troy and Pamela. “Who knows?”
“I wonder if the police have made a connection between Troy and Pamela. They’d want to talk to Troy, I’d think.” Birdie picked up Purl and rubbed her cheeks.
“If they haven’t, I suspect they will. They’ve already put sweet Kevin Sullivan on the hot seat,” Izzy said.
“What?” Cass said, annoyance coloring her words. “Kevin couldn’t hurt a fly.”
“No, but he worked for Mary,” Nell said. “They probably just wanted to make sure he hadn’t seen something that might be important.”
But Kevin wasn’t there that night—even though Birdie had thought he would be, getting ready for breakfast the next day. Where was he? And where was everyone else? The emptiness of the house preyed on her, a house that just hours before had been bustling with people. The staff. Workmen. The Pisanos. Then no one.
Except for a lonely dog, cold and frightened, and a dead body in a snowbank.
And a murderer. Yes, there would have been a murderer there, too.
A familiar chill ran up and down her arms. She thought of Mary’s distress and the look in Kevin’s eyes. Mary needed resolution to this soon. They all did.
The rattling of the alley door caused them all to jump.
Darkness had snuck up on them. Outside a cold wind rattled windows, and crusts of snow blew up against the side of the old building. Izzy pulled the curtain back from the window in the door, frowned, then opened it. “Come in. Hurry.”
Sam and Ben stepped in, along with a bone-chilling breeze.
Izzy quickly pushed the door shut behind them.
“We saw the lights,” Sam explained. He kissed Izzy on the cheek. “Miss me?”
“We’ve been busy,” she said, wiggling out of his embrace. She pushed strands of streaked honey blond hair from her eyes.
“Looks like it,” Sam said, eyeing the wineglasses.
Nell watched the exchange. Poor Sam. Not much of a welcome home. She watched Izzy’s face. A forced bright smile betrayed the message in her eyes. She looked so much like her mother, Caroline, at that instant—hiding every inch of vulnerability beneath a protective facade that dared anyone to broach it. Stay away, the look said. Don’t touch.
Nell’s younger sister had perfected that look, and she threw it away only when she had her own three children and realized children didn’t allow facades.
“Sam and I were thinking you gals might like to grab a burger down at the Gull,” Ben said. “My treat.”
“The Gull?” Nell hesitated. The Gull had decent bar food, but it also had packed crowds of noisy drinkers, screaming-loud music, and the distinctive smell of fishermen who, unlike Cass, didn’t always shower after being out on the water.
“The Fractured Fish are playing,” Sam said.
“That settles it, then,” said Birdie, getting out of her chair. Purl jumped to the floor. “I haven’t seen Peter Halloran play in weeks. Besides, we’ve finished this bottle of wine.”
As expected, the Gull was packed, the bar two deep, the ledge and stools along the window filled shoulder to shoulder with hungry customers devouring baskets of calamari and fried oysters, burgers and sweet potato fries, and a rapidly accumulating line of empty beer bottles filling the countertop.
From his post behind the bar, Jake Risso spotted the group.
“Hey, you guys.” He waved one hairy arm over the heads of customers and with the other motioned for a waiter to wipe off a messy table in the corner.
“Haven’t seen you in here in forever. Welcome to my humble abode.” He came around the bar, wiping his hand on a rag, his balding head shiny with perspiration.
“Jake, there was never anything humble about you,” Nell said, laughing. “But thanks for getting us a table. Makes us feel like royalty.”
Jake’s raucous laugh made barely a dent in the noisy bar. He leaned into the middle of the group, talking loudly. “The kids are about to start their first set. Your brother’s quite a singer, Cass. You enjoy. I’ll send over some sustenance and libations.”
Across the room on a small raised platform, Pete Halloran stood with one foot lifted onto a chair, tuning his guitar. Next to him, Merry Jackson flipped her long blond ponytail and waved at her husband, Hank. As co-owners of the Artist’s Palate Bar & Grill in Canary Cove, Hank and Merry didn’t spend much time in the Gull, but playing her keyboard with the Fractured Fish trumped nearly anything. Merry loved to be onstage, and her older husband loved watching her. Andy Risso, Jake’s son, sat behind three drums, twirling a stick in his hand. His face was serious, his eyes on a list of songs scribbled on a piece of scrap paper, his long hair trailing down his back. And on each of their heads, attracting nearly as much attention as the Gull’s famous calamari, was a garishly loud, beautifully knit fish hat.
Cass pointed and broke into laughter. “I told you they’d love them.”
Dead fish hats. Cass had found the pattern on Knitty.com. And before the first north wind had pushed summer into memory, the knitters had worked up four stylish hats. With face openings where fish mouths would be and bright colored gills flapping along the sides, the hats became the Fractured Fish’s winter uniform.
Pete looked over at his friends and bowed dramatically. The fish on his head seemed to wink at them from round white eyes with an “X” in the middle.
In minutes the music had begun, and cover songs ranging from Beatles hits to John Mayer’s latest album filled the room. Izzy and Cass had lured Danny Brandley away from the bar, and the mystery writer sat next to them, one arm looped around Cass’ shoulders. Nell was squeezed between Sam and Ben, barely able to get her hands free to reach the basket of sweet potato fries. She turned toward Sam.
“How was your trip to Colorado?”
Sam kept his eyes on the band, his face neutral. He nodded, offered a slight smile.
“Good skiing?”
“No skiing. Family business. Had to check on some things.”
Nell sipped her beer, protected by the noise and crowd. No chance for awkward silences. Sam was raised near the Colorado-Kansas border, but that’s about all any of them knew about his foster family. Even Nell’s sister and brother-in-law, who adored Sam and had practically adopted him once he started spending weeks each summer at their ranch, knew little. The fact that he was a great kid and kept Izzy’s brother Jack out of trouble was enough for them. Caroline and Craig Chambers had met the couple who had raised Sam once—a nice older couple, Caroline told Nell. They had a farm not too far from the ranch. And they were fine with Sam spending most of his summers helping out on the Chambers’ ranch, even when he was a kid of eleven or twelve.
“Did you see Izzy’s parents while you were there?” Nell knew he hadn’t. It was winter—her sister and Craig were at their home in Kansas City, where Nell and Caroline had been raised. But it was conversation. Perhaps it would lead somewhere.
“Nope,” Sam answered, chewing on a piece of calamari. “It was a quick trip.” He wa
shed it down with a swig of beer.
On his other side, Birdie leaned into the conversation, her small body dwarfed by Sam’s winter jacket. “Well, we’re glad your trip was short,” she said. “We’re glad you’re back, Sam.”
Sam looked from one woman to the other, then allowed a crooked smile and spoke just loud enough for the two of them to hear. “You guys are like family. And you worry like family. But don’t. No need for worry.”
Later, when they drove Birdie home, Nell said Sam had added an “I hope” to the end of his sentence, but Birdie said she hadn’t picked up on that.
In her own mind, Nell was positive that’s what he’d said. “No need for worry, I hope.”
But the barroom conversation was brought to an abrupt end after that, because while Sam pried himself out from between the two women to get another pitcher of beer, Pete Halloran and Merry, sounding a bit like Judy Garland, began belting out the Fractured Fish’s rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Catching the spirit, the crowd began singing along and looking for spare sprigs of mistletoe hanging from the tavern’s ceiling. People hugged one another and swayed back and forth.
The words to the holiday song always brought tears to Nell’s eyes. The refrain “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” wrapped around her like a knit shawl, hugging her tight, holding her, just like Ben did at that moment.
Nell leaned into his shoulder and softly hummed the melody as Merry Jackson poured her whole heart and soul into the words:
Let your hearts be light.
From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.
Ben slipped a loose strand of Nell’s hair behind her ear. Then he whispered close, answering Nell’s thoughts as if she’d shouted them from the stage. “Maybe they’re not out of sight yet, but soon, dear Nellie. Soon.”
Chapter 13
A Holiday Yarn Page 9