A Holiday Yarn

by Goldenbaum, Sally

  “Not so much. That was a while ago. What I remember from that summer is the other guy, like I said. The guy who was nuts about her.”

  “What do you remember?” Nell asked.

  “It was brought up again at the station when she was murdered. Some of the guys talked about how the guy was obsessed, but it’s not relevant to this case. . . . ” He paused, as if to say more, then thought better of it and took a drink of his coffee.

  “Why do you suppose everyone in town knew Pamela was hanging out with your brother, but the other affair was kept secret?” Izzy asked.

  “Easy, Iz. As my mom says, money can cover all kinds of sin.”

  “Money?”

  “They said the guy had money. He arranged it so things were kept under the radar. All quiet. Maybe his business might have been hurt if people knew? I dunno. Had a fancy vacation house somewhere up north, too, I heard, so he could get away from here with her.”

  Tommy checked his watch, then stood and slung a backpack over one shoulder. “I’m taking my girl to lunch at Harry’s Deli. Good to see you guys.”

  “Tommy.” Nell stopped him with a touch to his sleeve. “There’s one thing that mystifies me.”

  “What’s that?” Tommy lifted his brows.

  “Why would someone who was obsessed with Pamela Pisano, had an affair with her, and who lives right here in Sea Harbor not be singled out as a prime suspect in her murder?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Tommy said. He looked around at the three women and started to walk away as his words traveled back over his shoulder. “The guy’s dead.”

  A short while later, Izzy, Cass, and Nell piled into Nell’s car for the short ride to Ravenswood-by-the-Sea. They turned Tommy’s comments inside out, but the facts were clear, even Nell had to admit. A dead man could not have murdered Pamela.

  “But there’s still something fishy there,” she said as she pulled into the drive. “We can’t give up on this.”

  “I agree,” Izzy said. “At first I couldn’t figure out how something from her past figured in. But a man obsessed. That gives me the creeps. Remember Fatal Attraction? So scary. I think there’s more to the story.”

  “Like, why did the guy want the affair kept secret?” Cass said. “Pamela Pisano was a catch. Eddie Porter had no trouble being seen with her.”

  “And why was an affair a hot topic at the police station?” Izzy added. “It’s not exactly a crime. You’d think they had better things to do.”

  The renewed energy in the car was electric, and Nell felt a surge of adrenaline shoot through her. Her heartbeat quickened. The light at the tunnel’s end beamed brighter. She wasn’t sure how they’d get to it. But it was there, luring them on.

  Nell pulled up beside Mary’s parked car, and they got out, each lost in her own thoughts, playing with strands of yarn and trying to make them fit.

  It might take some head scratching, but they’d figure it out.

  And Nell had a good idea where they could start.

  Birdie was in the kitchen with Mary, keeping her company. They’d put on a pot of coffee and heated up a plate of Kevin’s cinnamon rolls. “No tour is worth its salt without a touch of cinnamon,” Birdie said cheerfully.

  “Is Kevin here?” Nell asked.

  “He’s at the restaurant today,” Mary told her. “He’s been on edge. It’s good he’s busy. But he’s moved into the carriage house. It’s a relief to have someone spending nights here until this is all resolved.”

  Nell wondered if Kevin had shared his conversation with them with Mary. She guessed not, and wondered briefly if that’s why he was on edge. But she’d ask Birdie later. “Resolved?”

  “I met with the lawyer and the insurance company this morning. The consensus is that we find the murderer before we officially open the doors to guests. Start fresh, was how they put it.”

  Mary’s voice was resigned.

  “So you’ll let the masses in as soon as we wind this up,” Cass said, licking sugar off her fingertips. “It’s not going to take long. My mother’s huge family will be here for Christmas. She always insists on putting Uncle Clancy and his crazy wife, Sheila, in my apartment. This year they are staying at Ravenswood-by-the-Sea. Or, better yet, maybe I’ll stay here. So, friends, let’s move it.”

  Cass left no room for argument, and all around the kitchen silent resolutions were made. The lights of Ravenswood-by-the-Sea would be shining brightly, welcoming guests, before Father Northcutt’s joyful bells beckoned his flock to Midnight Mass.

  They laughed their way up the winding staircase, Cass insisting on trying out the electric seat fastened to the wall.

  “I’m glad someone is using it.” Mary laughed. “I never saw Grandfather use it. He managed these stairs like a teenager.”

  Nell walked behind Mary. The lightness in her step was refreshing. This was the tonic she needed today. Something that required no thought, just good friends and a dose of laughter.

  Izzy and Cass swooned when the doors to the suite opened.

  “Wow. Talk about a bed,” Cass murmured, running her hands across the top of the walnut headboard. “This is a whole tree house. An entire family could sleep here.”

  “He had this little stool built to help him up.”

  The small walnut stool stood at the side of the bed. Nell had missed it last time she was here. Swirling carved lines ran down its sides, fanning out like birds’ wings and outlined in gold. She looked closely at the stool. The craftsmanship was remarkable—and familiar. She’d seen it somewhere. . . .

  “Here’s the famous heart,” Izzy said. “Cass, come see.”

  The two leaned close to the headboard, fingers tracing along the carving.

  “Oh, Enzo, you fox, you,” Cass whispered, her fingers dancing along the surface.

  Behind her, Mary laughed. “He’d love this attention.”

  Nell examined the heart again. “E.P.” and “H” with a large round period. Held together forever in the crudely carved heart. She looked back at Mary. “What was your grandmother Helen’s middle name? Odelia, maybe?”

  Mary shook her head. “It was Mary. The family was big on Mary. Everyone had one somewhere in her name. Pamela Mary Elizabeth. Agnes Elizabeth Mary. Grandmother was Helen Mary Elizabeth Jane.”

  Izzy traced the letters with the tip of one finger. “I guess his knife slipped and made the period big. But it doesn’t change the message. Imagine someone loving you enough to mar a valuable antique.”

  “That was Grandfather, the great lover,” Mary said wistfully. “I wish he were here right now to help me with this mess. He gave me the idea, you know. It was shortly before he died. He said he could just imagine the pleasure people would have spending nights here. And I think he meant pleasure in every sense of the word.”

  “He’d be proud of you.”

  “I think he would. He’d like the updating, the freshness. Mostly he’d love life and laughter filling this house.”

  “It won’t be empty,” Birdie told Mary. She said it with certainty. “It will open to great fanfare—and soon.”

  Each of them knew better than to doubt Birdie.

  Later, when they piled back into Nell’s car, they felt the good vibes of Enzo Pisano’s sweet carved heart. A hopeful heart.

  Nell turned the key in the ignition. She waited, ramping up the heat and tapping her fingers on the wheel. Thinking about the house, the man who lived there. The carved bed and the lovely stool. A romantic to the core.

  Next to her, Birdie’s brows were pulled together, searching for something in her head that she was having trouble finding. “That stool was lovely,” she said out loud. “It looked so familiar.”

  Nell nodded. “Carved walnut,” she whispered.

  Cass leaned forward, her fingers tracing an imaginary line on the back of the front seat. “Are you all thinking we’re missing something here?”

  “The carving,” Izzy said softly. “Of course.”

  “The initials. I knew that darn perio
d was an ‘O,’ ” Cass said.

  Slowly, Nell stepped on the gas and began driving down the drive, the air heavy with their thoughts and the enormous satisfaction of puzzle pieces slipping smoothly together. “It fits,” she said.

  “Perfectly,” Izzy added gleefully. “Who would have thought?”

  It was like a wonderful complicated cable sweater that looked so confusing, and suddenly, with one stitch, it all fit together and completed the twist in an amazing way.

  “Nell, stop the car. Look over there.” Birdie pointed toward the Ravenswood-by-the-Sea sign, refinished and free of Henrietta’s red paint. The gold letters popped bright in the sunlight.

  Nell pulled to the side of the drive.

  A few feet in front of the Ravenswood sign stood Henrietta O’Neal, her unbuttoned coat flapping in the cold breeze. A sharp wind whipped blue curls about her head.

  She seemed not to notice the car. She stared straight ahead at the house, her gaze frozen in place. In her hand, gripped tightly, was her walnut walking stick.

  But it was the expression on Henrietta’s face that mesmerized the four women watching her from the car and confirmed what they now knew to be true.

  It wasn’t the look of someone about to spray-paint a sign or mount inflammatory posters or destroy a neighbor’s property.

  It was a look of excruciating longing.

  A look of someone who had loved deeply and fully—and couldn’t bear the thought of it completely disappearing.

  Birdie pressed one hand against the dash. “Of course,” she said, her voice a whisper. “It’s love, not hate, that rules Henrietta’s crazy Irish heart.”

  Henrietta seemed not to mind when they packed her in Nell’s car for the short ride to her own home down the street. She seemed to be in another world, a lovely world that she didn’t want to leave.

  “A cup of tea?” she said when they pulled up in her circle drive.

  They all went in, and Izzy rummaged around in the kitchen of the stately old home, finding tea bags and cups, a match to light the six-burner stove, while Cass built a rousing fire in the living room.

  They settled Henrietta in front of the fire, a blanket covering her knees. She was chilled to the bone. Nell rubbed her hands between her own, bringing color back into her gnarled fingers.

  “This is lovely,” Henrietta said. “I should have worn my hat, shouldn’t I?”

  She didn’t ask where they’d come from or why they were there. But her eyes were clear and bright.

  Birdie settled in next to her. “You loved Enzo, my dear,” Birdie said. “That’s lovely.”

  Henrietta nodded. “He was the greatest love of my life.”

  “We saw the heart he carved for you on that lovely old bed. E.P. loves H.O. Henrietta O’Neal.”

  Henrietta rubbed away the tears that sprang to her eyes. She looked at the women who hovered around her, and the old Henrietta rose from the ashes.

  She sat up straight.

  “We loved each other,” she said simply and firmly.

  “Mary never knew,” Birdie said. “Why didn’t you tell her, Henrietta?”

  “Tell his granddaughter? His flesh and blood? Sweetheart, how could I do that? We were—how would you say it, Cass? Shacking up? Oh, my. I couldn’t tell anyone. What would my parents think?”

  “Dear heart,” Birdie said gently, “your parents have been dead for thirty years.”

  “And rolling over in their graves for some of them, don’t you know.” Henrietta shook her curls again. “The respectful thing to do was to keep it private. And don’t forget—Enzo was Italian. Italian! I can hear my father bellowing in shame, ‘An Italian, Henrietta? Italian!’ And what would the others say—my grandchildren? My great-grandchildren? Great-Nana Henny is . . . oh, for the sake of the good lord.”

  A noise from the hallway stopped Henrietta’s lamenting short. She looked at the doorway.

  “Henrietta, I had no idea.” Mary stood still. She nodded her head toward the door. “It was open. I came over to see if you were all right. I saw you out there, and it was so cold. . . . ”

  A deep red blush worked its way into Henrietta’s cheeks.

  “What a lovely gift you gave each other,” Mary said, her eyes moist. “Thank you, Henrietta.”

  Henrietta slowly released the air held tightly in her ample chest.

  “Your grandfather was a lovely man, romantic and charming.”

  Mary smiled. “I knew something special was happening to him those last years. I could hear it in his voice, but I didn’t imagine that he was in love. I should have known.”

  Henrietta seemed to puff up before their eyes. Her eyes sparkled. “One day the mailman told me he had the flu. That’s how it all started. So I brought him chicken soup. Who wouldn’t?”

  She looked around at all of them for confirmation, her head nodding.

  “One thing led to another; well, you know how that can be.” She paused, collecting her memories, sorting through them in her mind, and then went on.

  “When you haven’t been touched by someone for a while, it’s quite a lovely thing. A hug, a touch, your skin warmed by another. It brings fire into your soul. You come alive.

  “And then one night Enzo asked me to spend the whole night with him, to be with him. But I couldn’t, you see. I couldn’t make it up those foolhardy stairs. Not in a million years. So slick and steep. And so very many of them.”

  “So he installed the electric chair for you,” Mary said.

  Henrietta nodded. “It was at Christmastime. A perfect gift to give one another, he said. And that darling man would walk up next to me, making sure I didn’t fall off, humming little tunes, all the way to the top. All the way to that magnificent bed.”

  “With the stepping stool that matches your walking stick,” Nell said.

  She beamed. “He had them both made for me. Georgia liked the stepstool, too. She’d climb up and sleep there in the bed, keeping our feet as warm as toast. Sweet pup. She still sneaks over to see me now and then.”

  Henrietta sighed and settled back in the chair. “It’s all I have left; don’t you see? Those memories. I couldn’t bear the thought of strangers in our bed. Strangers who aren’t even family. Enzo would have hated that. I had to stop you from doing that, Mary. You understand, sweetheart.”

  “Of course,” Mary murmured, more to herself than to the others. She stepped from the room for a moment, rummaging in her pocket for a tissue.

  When she returned, the others were gathering coats and boots, and Henrietta was ambling off to the kitchen to slip a frozen pizza in the oven and fix herself a Scotch and soda.

  “Now, shoo, all of you,” she said. “It’s been a long, long day, and this is our cocktail hour. I have some things I need to discuss with Enzo.”

  Mary gave her a kiss on her wrinkled cheek and whispered, “Me, too, Henrietta.”

  Chapter 25

  “One mystery solved. It gives me hope that the solution to the next one is just around the corner.” Birdie slipped out of the car, then looked back at Nell. “I can’t help but think it’s similar to this—it’s right there in front of us.”

  Nell nodded. So close they could touch it. Maybe Henrietta and Enzo’s sweet story would spur them on.

  The drive back to Izzy’s shop was quiet, Henrietta’s story replaying in their heads. Each of them absorbing it in a personal way.

  Enzo loves Henrietta.

  And so he had.

  Nell idled in front of the shop, and Izzy got out with a promise to call later.

  “Where are you headed, Cass?” Nell asked her remaining passenger.

  “A stop at the bank. Then home. And I’d love a ride if you’re offering one.”

  “Of course I am.” Nell drove the short two blocks down Harbor Road, pulling up in front of the bank while Cass ran inside. She kept the engine running, the heater blowing warm air around her legs and feet.

  Up and down Harbor Road people went about their Monday business, bustlin
g to keep the cold at bay. Shoppers were out in full force. College students home for the holidays, hugging old friends on the street. On the outside, so normal.

  Nell wanted to hold on to the magic of Henrietta’s lovely story. But it kept slipping away, blurred by the cold reality that in that same home—a home in which two people had loved so deeply—another two people had been coldly murdered.

  A tap on the window pulled her free of her thoughts, and she looked up into the face of Tommy Porter. He leaned close, straddling the seat of his motorcycle, his gloved hands gripping the bars. He had changed into his uniform, a heavy blue jacket and hat with thick earflaps keeping him warm.

  Nell rolled down the window.

  “You going to be here long, Nell? It’s a loading zone.” He pointed to the sign.

  “Just for a minute, Tommy. I’m waiting for Cass.”

  “Well, that’s a kind of loading, I guess.” He grinned and revved the engine.

  Nell started to roll up the window, then stopped halfway and motioned Tommy closer. “Tommy, I know I’ve been asking you a lot of questions lately, but there’s something you said to me the other day that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not the first time that’s happened.” Tommy laughed.

  “Why was the police department so interested in Pamela’s affair that summer? Not with Eddie, with the other man. Was it just gossip in the break room? Why did they even care?”

  Tommy thought back over the years. His eyebrows came together intently. “I was brand-new on the force back then. Not really in on things. But I kept my ears open like you do when you’re the new kid on the block.” His frown disappeared as his memory cleared. “Oh, yeah. I remember now. It was police business; that’s why they talked about it.”

  “How so?”

  “Pamela Pisano had filed a restraining order to keep the guy away from her—it was all very hush-hush.”

  Nell frowned. “So you know who the man was?”

  Tommy rubbed his cheek with a gloved finger. “Dunno. It seems the record of it disappeared. Weird, huh?”