A Holiday Yarn

by Goldenbaum, Sally

  Chapter 22

  Nell found Cass and Izzy sitting in the back of the Seaside Knitting Studio, contemplating opening Birdie’s last bottle of wine.

  “Finally,” Izzy said, jumping up. “Where’ve you been?” Without waiting for an answer, she launched into a description of the turmoil that had followed Henrietta O’Neal’s announcement in the knitting studio that morning. “It made me wonder what life before cell phones was like. There was a whole symphony of ring tones after all of you left. Dozens. And calls going out just as fast.”

  “People knew who Troy was, but not too many had a chance to get to know him,” Cass said. “It takes the edge off the fact that someone fell off a ladder and actually died.” She uncorked the bottle of wine.

  “I suppose that’s true,” Nell said. “When it’s impersonal it becomes exciting.”

  “Like reading People magazine,” Izzy said. “It’s not real.”

  “Except it is. Whether we knew him well or not, Troy DeLuca was killed in our friend’s backyard.”

  Izzy wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

  “Cass, that’s the last bottle of wine,” Birdie scolded, her boots connecting to the hardwood steps with a sharp click. “Mae is out there locking up. And here you three are, drinking my wine. It’s going to snow, you know. You should all be going home.”

  “Birdie, you sound like the weather guys trying to scare us into stocking up for three months, like bears.” Cass poured a glass of wine and handed it to her. “Here. Calm down.”

  “Another person is dead.” Birdie slipped off her gloves and took the wine. “And in poor Mary Pisano’s backyard. If I didn’t know better, I’d subscribe to Henrietta’s theory that evil spirits are attacking the old Pisano place. How much more can we expect that poor woman to take?” She stopped long enough to take a sip of the wine and sink into the nearest chair. Her coat bunched up around her until she was nearly invisible. “It has to end.”

  Nell poked life into the dying coals in the fireplace, put another log on the fire, and sat down beside her. “I realized today that I was nearly convinced Troy murdered Pamela. There were still some loose ends, but I thought—or maybe wanted to think—that he did it.”

  “Maybe he did kill her, Aunt Nell,” Izzy said. She placed a hunk of Vermont cheddar and baked pita bread on the table. “He’s dead now, but he was alive when Pamela was murdered—and we know he had a temper.”

  “That’s true. He had a terrible temper. Beatrice said he smashed a photographer’s camera. . . . ”

  “No,” Birdie said, sitting up straight and flagging her finger in the air. “I don’t think so. His motive wasn’t strong enough, even for an ornery critter. We know he didn’t know Agnes was going to take over the magazine before Pamela was killed. That motive may have carried a little more weight than the fact that Pamela insulted him. Besides, I don’t think Troy was the brightest crayon in the box, and somehow, if he’d done something like that, he would have left something incriminating. We’d know it.” She took a sip of wine, and then went on. “But here’s something to think about—what if he knew who killed her?”

  The fire crackled, and flames shot up, throwing shadows against the walls. Outside, the sky darkened and the wind whistled down the alleyway.

  Finally, Nell spoke. “I think Birdie’s right that he didn’t kill her. That reasoning makes sense.”

  She thought again about the moving curtain in the carriage house. She had finally dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. Now it came back, more vivid, flapping wildly in the window. “But he might have been there. He might have seen the murderer from the carriage house.”

  “So whoever killed Pamela might have killed Troy—”

  “Because he knew.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But who knew that Troy was painting yesterday?”

  “Lots of people.” Nell repeated her conversation with Nancy. “Anyone could have gone into that garage to cut the ladder rung. The garage was full of tools.”

  It could have been anyone. But the one they wanted to block out was Kevin. The nice, handsome man who made great coffee and cinnamon rolls in Mary’s kitchen.

  Kevin . . . dragging the heavy wooden ladder out to the backyard, getting it ready for Troy to climb to his death.

  “We need to talk to Kevin,” Nell said. “I tried to get some information out of Nancy, but she clammed up. She encouraged me to talk directly to Kevin, not put Mary in the middle.” And she had expressed it oddly, Nell remembered. Kevin has no one to protect but Kevin.

  They all agreed someone should talk to him. It might be nothing, as Mary insinuated. It might be something.

  Birdie nodded and repeated it, as if making a list: “Talk to Kevin.”

  “And there’s someone else we need to talk to.” Nell couldn’t shake free of the old affair that Tommy had told her about. There was someone out there, someone that they possibly knew, someone who had been obsessed with Pamela. “We need to find out who that was. If for no other reason, so I can get rid of this ghost that’s following me around. Someone whose relationship with Pamela was volatile enough that even Pamela worried about it and left town to get away from him.”

  A growling sound caused Purl to leap to the window seat, her tail in the air and her back arched.

  Cass laughed, a robust laugh that lifted the heavy air in the room, scattering it. “That was me, Purl. There’s no lion ready to pounce. But if someone doesn’t put food into me very, very soon, I may be out hunting for one.”

  Their plans came together in minutes—Birdie would use her magic to get them a table at the Ocean’s Edge for dinner—just the four of them. Time to talk and piece things together. The men would be on their own to enjoy one another’s company and a rerun of some football game they’d already seen several times, feasting on the Italian deli’s fried clams and chicken spiedini. Sinful . . . and delicious.

  They piled into Nell’s car, excitement fogging the windows. There was something in the air, not the least of which was the expectation that they were finally beginning to melt the abominable snowman thundering his way through their tiny town.

  As expected, the Harbor Road restaurant was crowded and noisy when the four women walked in, but a word from Birdie had the hostess leading them through the maze of tables to one saved just for Mrs. Favazza and her friends, the young woman said happily.

  Nell looked over the sea of people, hoping to catch sight of Kevin, but the bar area between the tables and the kitchen was packed with moving bodies.

  She spotted Father Northcutt settled in the same booth he had shared with her and Ben earlier in the week. He found it difficult to say no to his many invitations, especially if they centered around food. Father Larry loved to eat.

  Catching her look, the priest lifted a glass in the air and nodded, all the while continuing his conversation with Sal and Beatrice Scaglia.

  Nell’s smile fell away. What a sad day for the Scaglias. This certainly wasn’t the way they wanted to send Troy on his way. But they were in good company. Father Larry would say the right thing, make it as right as such a wrong could be made.

  “Coming, Nell?” Birdie tapped her on the arm and pointed toward the table. Izzy and Cass had already ordered baskets of calamari and Thai egg rolls.

  “Sit, you two,” Cass called out. “We ordered your fave—the spicy ginger plum sauce for the egg rolls.”

  Nell shook away the uncomfortable thought about Sal and followed Birdie to the table. Handsome married men. She had to stop seeing them all as potential murderers.

  The waitress brought the appetizers and warm hunks of sourdough bread, fresh from the oven, and Birdie ordered a bottle of wine.

  Cass swallowed a bite of egg roll and beamed. “Now I can think again,” she said.

  Izzy polished off several pieces of calamari and cleaned her hands with a hand wipe. She pulled out a half-finished square in the softest of pinks. “These squares for the knit-a-square blankets are the best
take-along projects we’ve ever done. Laura Danvers says she takes hers everywhere—pediatrician’s office, board meetings, even to her husband’s fancy law dinners. And it keeps me from devouring the entire basket of calamari.”

  Nell pulled out her own square. She’d nearly forgotten it was in her bag. Somehow they all thought more clearly with needles and yarn in their laps, fine food on the table, and wine at their fingertips. And needing clean hands to knit slowed down the evening and gave them plenty of time to think.

  “So where were we before my stomach so rudely interrupted?” Cass took a long drink of wine. “We’re operating on the assumption that whoever killed Pamela killed Troy. Right?”

  “It makes the most sense,” Nell said.

  The others agreed.

  “It will help move us along until something proves the theory wrong,” Izzy said.

  The waitress appeared, and the women fell silent, quickly perusing the tall menu and ordering a mix of seafood with drawn lemon butter, monkfish, corn and lime salsa, Asian salad, and lobster ravioli. Once the waitress was out of earshot, they continued.

  “Troy saw the murder and the murderer knew it.”

  “But wouldn’t he have killed Troy right away? Why days later?”

  They fell silent.

  “Because maybe he kept it from the murderer at first. And he found out only afterward? Or maybe there was a reason the murderer didn’t think Troy would say anything.”

  “Like money?” Nell said. Like the sudden windfall that brightened Troy’s life.

  The restaurant crowd began to thin out as the knitters divided their time among eating, thinking, and tossing ideas into the air to be mixed and seasoned like the spicy sun-dried tomato linguini disappearing from Cass’ plate.

  Over key lime pie they talked about Henrietta. “That’s a mystery in itself,” Birdie said. “We need to find out what has changed that lovely lady into a troublemaker.”

  “If I ever run for office, she’d be my first pick for a campaign manager,” Izzy said. “She’ll do anything to meet her goal.”

  “Let’s hope not—her current goal is to shut Mary down. And that would be awful.”

  Nell looked around the restaurant while Birdie talked, watching the waiters efficiently wiping tables, turning the music down a notch as the evening grew late. At the bar, Jeffrey wiped water spots off glasses, listening with one ear to stragglers sitting on the high stools, unburdening their woes.

  She spotted Kevin coming through the kitchen door, car keys in hand. Her eyes followed him as he made his way to the bar. He talked with Jeffrey briefly, one elbow leaning on the polished surface. It was when Jeffrey walked away that Kevin spotted Nell in the mirror, watching him.

  He turned, nodded a hello. He paused a minute, looking down at the floor as if seeking an answer. Then, perhaps finding it, he took the beer Jeffrey held out and walked in their direction.

  They welcomed him warmly and invited him to sit.

  Kevin squeezed in between Nell and Izzy. “I heard about DeLuca. It’s been hotly discussed in here tonight. Jeffrey has five versions. Said I could pick my favorite.”

  “I don’t know if I want to know what they are,” Birdie said.

  Kevin’s head dropped, weary from hours in the kitchen—or maybe the burden of yet another murder occurring far too close to home. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard any legitimate news? Do the police know anything?”

  “It’s so soon,” Nell said. “They know the ladder was tampered with.”

  “The ladder I nicely carried out for him.” He grimaced. “The crew had taken the metal ladder away. But this one looked okay to me. Nancy thought it’d be fine to use it for that little bit of touch-up work. She’d used it herself to fix some Christmas decorations on the carriage house.”

  He took a swig of his beer and continued talking.

  “I thought for a while DeLuca killed Pamela. Then maybe stuffed the wallet in my locker to get the spotlight off him. But I don’t know—maybe it was just because I didn’t like the guy.”

  Nell listened and knew they were all thinking the same thing. Troy probably did put the wallet in Kevin’s locker to shift attention from himself so he could more easily go about his business of blackmailing. He knew he’d be a suspect. And if he’d been in the carriage house that night, he could easily have taken it from Pamela’s purse. How else could Troy have known about the wallet? Ben had confirmed to Nell that it wasn’t public knowledge.

  “Was Troy around the night Pamela was killed?” Izzy asked.

  “Yeah. He was there in the afternoon. He told me he’d seen Pamela that morning. I’d already heard about it—rumors fly around this town. She’d teased him publicly in a nasty way, I heard. I couldn’t stand DeLuca, but I don’t like cruelty much, either.”

  “So he came back to Mary’s after that?”

  “Yeah—rode in on his bike. The Pisanos were in the library, finishing up the meeting.”

  “Was he there to work?”

  “Nope. He wanted to see Pamela. To make things right, ‘to talk some sense into her’ is what he told me. He asked when they’d be through with the meeting.”

  “Which was?” Cass asked.

  “You never knew with that group, which is what I told him.”

  “So he left?”

  Kevin shrugged. “He went out on the porch for a smoke first—I could see him through the window. I thought he left after that, but now that you ask me, I’m not sure. I had to move some things around in the garage for Nancy, then left to pick up my mom. I planned to come back later to get things ready for breakfast. He wasn’t on the porch when I left, so I assumed he’d gone.” Kevin paused, trying to remember. He shook his head. “I can’t say for sure. His bike might have been there when I left.”

  Kevin shifted on the chair and looked around at all of them. He took a long swallow of beer. Then he stared at the bottle, rolling the neck between his fingers. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I saw you all here—and I was feeling so lousy for Mary. She doesn’t need this.”

  “We’re glad you came over, and no, she doesn’t,” Nell said. She paused for just a moment, not sure of her timing. She looked around at the others, a safe group. And then she plunged in. “Kevin, I don’t want to barge in where I shouldn’t, but there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, something I think might help us understand Troy and Pamela. Maybe it won’t, but Mary is reluctant to talk about it. Nancy suggested we talk to you.”

  Kevin frowned. “About what?”

  “I’m not sure. But there was something going on between you and Troy. A disagreement? Maybe over Pamela?” She paused. Eavesdropping was awkward to admit, but she went on. “I was standing in the hallway that day you and Troy argued. Troy said that you were both glad she was dead. He talked about secrets.”

  Kevin clenched his jaw. He stared at the beer bottle, then picked it up and took a long swallow.

  “We know that Pamela made your life a little difficult, hanging out in the kitchen every chance she had—”

  Kevin put the bottle down. “She could be mean. She knew how to pull my strings. But it bothered Mary more than me. Pamela’d throw her arms around me, that kind of thing. But then she finally moved on to Troy and everyone was happy, for a day or two, at least.”

  “So nothing more happened?”

  Kevin drummed his fingers on the table. Finally, he looked up, his expression hard. “Yeah, something else happened. Pamela was a real pain in the you-know-what. She embarrassed me in front of the Pisanos right and left, even after she and Troy started fooling around. She’d put her hands on me, kissing me. I tried like hell to get rid of her, but she expected me to like it, to be flattered, you know? She told me I was playing hard to get and that excited her. One day she came in the kitchen, doing her usual act. I’d worked late the night before here, and my defenses were squat. So I told her to get away or she’d be sorry. She wouldn’t. I was so mad, I wasn’t thinking. I knew there was one thing about me that wo
uld make her leave me alone. Something she’d be the last person I should tell. But I was exhausted and mad as hell.”

  He took another drink, then continued.

  “So I told her what I hadn’t even told my own mother. I told her the truth. I told her I was gay. She wasn’t my type, I said.”

  Kevin looked up, as if waiting for a reaction.

  Izzy and Cass looked at each other as if waiting for the end of the story.

  “So, what does that have to do with Troy?” Izzy asked. “Or anyone, for that matter. At the least, you probably should have told Pamela a lot sooner. It might have saved you a lot of grief.”

  Kevin frowned. “Don’t you get it, Izzy? I’ve never . . . I’ve never talked about it before, never told anyone.”

  Cass drew her dark brows together until they nearly touched each other. “Kev, I’m not getting you, here. So what?”

  Kevin stared at her. “So what? So this will be really hard on my folks. My mother spends as much time at church as she does at home. And my pa? Can you imagine him when his buddies in the bar find out about this? Joke about it? It won’t be pretty for anyone; you know what I mean? He’ll blame my mother and make her pay for it. He could hurt her badly.

  “But Pamela? She thought it was a huge joke. Her mother is at the nursing home where my mother works. She was going to tell her she’d met her gay son, as she put it. And then she told Troy—who started in with the jokes and ridicule. I don’t know which was worse. I hated them both for it.” He sat back in the chair and welcomed the beer Cass had flagged from the waitress.

  “So that’s it,” he said. “Mary overheard the whole thing. She knew I was desperate that my pa would find out and do something stupid—or worse. I was trying to find the right time to tell my mother before Pamela did. And then Pamela was murdered—and it wasn’t as urgent anymore.”