Patterns in the Sand

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Izzy went, but not alone.

  In a flash, Ben had his car keys out and ushered Nell and Izzy to his car and the four-minute drive down the hill to the Seaside Knitting Studio. The others stayed behind to clean the dishes, douse the remaining coals, and wait for news.

  The police arrived at number 7 Harbor Road at the same time Ben’s CRV pulled up to the curb. The two young officers tumbled out of the car, hands on their pistol handles. Harry Garozzo stood near the curb, scratching his bald head with his thick baker’s fingers.

  On the other side of the window, Purl, awakened by the racket, stood on all fours, staring at the scene unfolding on the sidewalk. She mewed loudly and arched her back.

  Nell’s gaze immediately shifted to movement next to Purl. A young woman, small in stature, lifted her head, then tugged herself up to a seated position. The woman squinted against the bold glare of the flashlight, her hand shielding her eyes, and from the expression on her face, Nell suspected she had no idea where she was.

  But the important thing, Nell thought, was that she was most definitely not dead—and surely incapable of extreme violence.

  “Izzy, do you have your keys?” Nell asked, hurrying toward the door. The police, she knew, had faster ways of getting inside if they thought a robbery was in progress. There was no reason to damage the door.

  “We’ll take care of it, Miz Endicott,” Tommy Porter said. “You just stand back—we have it under control.”

  Izzy slipped a ring of keys from her bag and followed Nell to the door as Ben blocked the pathway.

  “It’s all right, Tommy,” Ben said. “The gal doesn’t look dangerous. Let Izzy unlock the door, and we’ll see what’s up.”

  “Is she a . . . a friend of Izzy’s?” Tommy asked. A lifelong crush on the shop owner made helping Izzy Chambers a priority in the young policeman’s life. A friend of Izzy’s would be a friend of his as well, burglar or not.

  Ben shrugged. “We’ll find out, Tommy. But at least she’s not dead. That’s a good thing, eh?”

  “Sure looked dead to me,” Harry Garozzo said from his stand at the curb. He clasped his hands in front of his ample belly, his legs spread apart. “I’d just closed up the deli and was on the way home when I spotted her. I knocked on the window once or twice but the body didn’t move. Looked dead, Ben. Sure did.”

  Ben nodded. “Good of you to check, Harry. I appreciate you keeping an eye on Izzy’s shop.”

  “Well, you can’t be too careful—that’s what I say. Summer folks can do crazy things.” Harry scratched his head again and yawned. “Looks like you have things under control. I’ll be getting myself home now. Saturday mornings start at four.” The deli owner gave a small nod to Ben and shuffled on down the street toward his home, a short walk away.

  From the doorway, Nell motioned Ben inside. “I’m surprised we haven’t frightened this poor girl half to death,” she whispered.

  Ben nodded. “Why don’t you help Izzy handle things here? I’ll call home and let them know the body is up and yawning.”

  Behind Nell, Izzy had switched on a light and walked over to the window, moving the display stand to the side. Purl jumped out of the bay window and rubbed against Izzy’s bare legs, her summery skirt swirling around the cat’s head.

  Following close behind the kitten, Willow slowly swung her legs to the floor and sat on the edge of the bay window, her eyes adjusting slowly to the light. A well-worn Birkenstock dangled from one toe.

  “Hi,” she said. Her eyes went from Izzy down to Purl, then traveled to Nell and Ben. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her body. “I . . . I was asleep.”

  Just outside the door, Tommy and his partner waited patiently.

  Nell wasn’t sure what she expected the young woman’s voice to reveal—fear? Embarrassment? But neither fit the low and slightly husky voice. It was soft but held an odd determination. And not what one would expect from a trespasser who had just broken into a shop and could be spending the rest of the night in a jail cell.

  “Who are you?” Izzy asked.

  “I’m Willow. Willow Adams.” She looked at Izzy as if her name somehow explained why she was sitting in her window.

  Nell watched the young woman with curiosity. She was taller than Birdie, but not long and bending in the breeze as her name would suggest. She looked to be in her early twenties, ten years or so younger than Izzy. Worn jeans and a long-sleeved yellow T-shirt covered her slight frame, unusual attire for the warm summer night. A thick mass of dark brown—almost black—hair was tangled from sleep and partially covered by a floppy hat that reminded Nell of the sixties and a few pieces of clothing she herself had worn, much to her mother’s chagrin. A smattering of freckles brought color to Willow’s cheeks and nose and made her seem even younger than Nell suspected she was. She had a look in her eyes that tempted Nell to wrap an arm around her shoulders and take her home to a bowl of chicken soup. “Waif” was the word she would use later with Birdie and Cass.

  “Sorry about the police,” Willow said. She looked over toward the door.

  “How did you get in?” Ben asked.

  And why? Nell wondered. She watched Purl leave Izzy’s side and jump back into the bay window, curling up familiarly on Willow’s lap. The knitting shop’s resident kitten seemed to have accepted this stranger in their midst easily.

  “I found a window that wasn’t locked. You should probably watch that. I think your latch is broken.” She smiled at Ben, as if she’d help him fix it if he wanted her to, and then she looked back at Izzy and Nell. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble, honest. I wanted to get here before the shop closed, but it took a while to hitch a ride up from Boston—”

  “You hitchhiked here?” Nell’s voice rose. What was this young woman thinking of? Thumbing a ride on the highway in the middle of the summer season. She remembered once when Izzy and two college friends had done the same thing after their car broke down on the way up to the Endicotts’ for a weekend break from studies. They’d arrived in Sea Harbor late at night. After feeding them, Nell refused to let them go to bed until she extracted firm promises that they’d never, ever do that again. Although she and Ben didn’t have children of their own, Izzy was as close as any daughter could be—and Nell had the furrows in her forehead to prove it. That night she’d added a few more.

  “I don’t understand,” Izzy said. She raked a hand through her hair and stared at the young woman sitting in her window, looking, somehow, as if she belonged there. “You hitchhiked from Boston to come to my store?”

  Willow’s heart-shaped face softened with a smile, and she looked at Izzy intently. “So you are Izzy. I wasn’t sure which of you was, though I supposed it had to be one of you. But you can’t tell from e-mails if someone is young or old, right?”

  Nell frowned, not sure how to accept the “old” designation.

  Beside her, Izzy said, “Yes, I’m Izzy Chambers, and this is my store that you’ve broken into.”

  “Oh, no.” Willow said. “No, no.” She shook her head to emphasize the point and her hands flew in different directions, her eyes round and begging Izzy to understand. “Sure, it might look that way. But you invited me to talk to your customers. So I didn’t exactly break in. Not really.”

  A confused look passed between Izzy and Nell. They looked back at Willow.

  “Talk to my customers?”

  “Or teach a class, whatever. You know, on fiber art.” Willow motioned to her battered duffel bag sitting on the floor beside the checkout counter as if it explained everything. “Remember? You saw some of my work in a coffee shop in Cambridge. And you e-mailed me that if ever I was in this part of the world, I should come by your shop. I was. So I did.”

  Recognition registered with Nell and Izzy at the same time. A small coffee shop in Harvard Square. They’d stopped in after shopping for a birthday present for Ben and admired a piece of fiber art that hung on one wall.

  “Sure. Of course. I remember now,” Nell said. “W. Adams, the flye
r said. Your pieces were beautiful. It was a year or so ago, right?”

  Willow nodded. “Yes. I don’t live around here. I’m not from here, so it took a while, you know?”

  Nell didn’t know, and neither did Izzy. The young woman wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, and Nell wondered for a moment if she was on something. But she remembered the young woman’s work. Bright, bold yarn, woven into interesting shapes and patterns and textures. The Harvard Square coffee shop owner had said that the artist didn’t live in the East, but she gave them each a flyer with her name, e-mail address, and some interesting information about her creative process.

  “I shouldn’t have shown up on your doorstep like this, but, well, here I am.” She offered another small smile and looked down at Purl, purring contentedly on her lap. “I guess I should say window, not doorstep.”

  Willow seemed totally focused on the kitten, her fingers rubbing Purl’s back and neck. Finally she looked up again. “But you invited me to come. Right?”

  Izzy nodded. “I guess I did.”

  Nell found herself smiling kindly at the young woman. There was something guileless about her—yet beneath the surface, Nell suspected Willow Adams bore the weight of a life that hadn’t been totally carefree.

  “Will you be in Sea Harbor for a while?” Izzy asked. “I think we could plan something. When would you like to come in?”

  “I could do it now. Well not now. But soon?” Willow’s brows lifted again and her eyes opened wide.

  A hopeful look. “So you’re staying in Sea Harbor for a while?” Nell asked.

  Willow shook her head yes. “Well, a short while. Just a few days.”

  “We might be able to do something next week,” Izzy said, walking over to the checkout counter. She picked up the shop calendar. “I’d need time to send out an e-mail to our customers. We’d need to put up some posters along Harbor Road, get it in the paper.”

  “I think that means Ben can send the police away?” Nell asked Izzy. The young woman seemed harmless enough, though the fact that she had somehow broken into Izzy’s shop wasn’t totally overlooked.

  Izzy looked at Ben, who was now standing in the doorway, holding Tommy and his partner at bay. “I guess that’s fine, Uncle Ben. Please tell Tommy we’re okay. I don’t think there’s any damage.”

  “Oh, no. There’s no damage,” Willow said, holding one hand out in front of her. Her voice rose slightly. “I don’t steal. Honest, I don’t. It’s just that it was so late, I’d been on the road awhile, and I didn’t know where else to go.” She scratched Purl behind the ears while she talked, and Nell knew that if for no other reason, Izzy would accommodate Willow because she liked Purl. And the feeling was clearly mutual.

  “Where are you staying?” Nell asked. She was beginning to feel the late hour, her back giving notice that it had been a long day. It was time for bed. “We’ll give you a lift.”

  Willow set Purl down beside her in the bay window and stood up on the shop floor. She forced a smile. “I guess the window’s not an option? If it hadn’t been for kitty here, I probably would have settled on the couch in that back room. But the two of us were getting acquainted, and the next thing I knew, her purring put me to sleep.”

  Ben had returned from convincing Tommy and his partner to go on back to the station. There would be no charges pressed, he’d told them, much to Tommy’s dismay. Ben stood just inside the door, listening to the conversation. Finally he stepped forward, into a circle of light next to Nell.

  Nell looked up at her husband, and she knew what he would say before the words formed. Thirty years of marriage did that.

  “You can’t stay here, Willow,” Ben said. “This is Izzy’s shop. And someone else rents the apartment above. Come home with Nell and me. We’ve a guesthouse that happens to be empty right now. It has a bed that beats Izzy’s window—even with that ocean of yarn in it. It’s yours for tonight.”

  Before Willow had a chance to respond, Ben had lifted the lumpy duffel from the floor with one hand and threw Willow’s backpack over his shoulder.

  “But it’s now or never, ladies. This body needs a bed.”

  Chapter 4

  “Izzy, is Willow at your shop?” Nell walked out onto the deck, the phone pressed to her ear. She looked down toward the guesthouse, shielding her eyes against the early-afternoon sun. The gray, shuttered cottage was partially screened from view by sheltering hawthorn and pine trees and a giant oak that still held a children’s rope swing. The cottage nested cozily at the east end of the property, tucked up against a thick wooded area that was striped with paths worn smooth from years of Endicotts traipsing down to the ocean beach beyond.

  “Nope,” Izzy said. “But she was waiting on the front steps when I opened the store. She must be an early riser. She only stayed a half second and didn’t seem at all interested in talking about her art to me or anyone else. She just wanted to thank me for not turning her in to the police last night, she said, and then she was off again, balancing a cup of coffee in one hand and that lopsided old bike that I totaled more times than I care to remember. Where’d she get that?”

  “That old bike? Willow was riding it?” The bike had been hanging on a hook in the garage. Willow must have seen it when they drove in the night before. It was surprising that she had taken . . . well, had used it. It was fine, of course. But . . .

  Nell leaned against the railing. “I got up early for a run today and it was quiet down at the cottage. I assumed she was still asleep. The poor thing looked like she needed a few days of it. Ben went down later to invite her up for breakfast on the deck, but she was gone.”

  “The whole situation is a little freaky, Aunt Nell. Willow showing up like that. She seems sweet—and maybe just a little bit sad. But on the other hand, it’s all a little strange. It was nice of you and Ben to offer her a place to spend the night.”

  “The guesthouse wasn’t being used. It made sense.”

  “But we don’t even know her. She could be another Lizzy Borden.”

  Nell laughed and took a sip of her coffee. “No one who creates such lovely pieces of fiber art can be an ax murderer. I dug up that old poster before I went to bed last night and was reminded how beautiful her pieces are. She has a unique design sense. Quirky, kind of unexpected.”

  “Quirky. Unexpected. That fits, doesn’t it?” Izzy’s full laugh traveled over the line. “Do you suppose that she has some of her creations in that duffel bag? She was wearing the same jeans and T-shirt today, so I don’t think it held clothes.”

  “She looks like she needs someone to care for her. But I agree. The situation is a little strange. Ben says to remember that she’s an artist and lots of our artist friends have idiosyncrasies.”

  “I asked her how she wanted me to advertise her talk, but she was in a hurry and didn’t want to talk about it much.”

  In a hurry? Nell wondered where she’d be hurrying to. Willow knew no one in Sea Harbor, or so she had insinuated last night. Nell’s gaze settled again on the quiet cottage in the distance. She wondered if Willow had enjoyed her night in the wide, high bed—so high that Ben had made a little foot stool for visitors to help them climb up beneath the cotton sheets. It had been Ben’s parents’ bed and Nell loved it. When Izzy was little and would visit her aunt and uncle each summer—a much-anticipated break from her rambunctious brothers back in Kansas—she’d always ask for a night in the stepping bed, as she called it. A night stretched out on the high mattress, with Aunt Nell beside her and the windows open to the cool, salty air.

  And Nell, herself, often slipped down to the small cottage porch to write or think or do yoga, the pounding of the ocean waves a lovely mantra in the near distance.

  Did Willow find that kind of peace last night in the cottage? Nell wondered. The little thing looked like she could use a dose of the guesthouse’s magic. Did she sleep soundly and feel safe from whatever had pushed her to hitchhike to Sea Harbor?

  “Aunt Nell?”

  Izzy’s vo
ice drew Nell back from her scattered thoughts.

  “Yes, sweetie, I’m here.”

  “I have to run—the shop is crazy today. Knitters by the thousands, and Mae is urging me to pay attention to them. I received a gorgeous supply of Mongolian wool and it’s like a stampede. I’ll save you some. Mae is about to take my phone away.”

  Click.

  Izzy was gone, rushing to help her shop manager satisfy a customer’s needs. Mae Anderson had been an amazing find for Izzy—she loved the shop and knitting nearly as much as its owner did. And with decades of retail experience supporting her no-nonsense style, Nell knew Mae was as integral to the Seaside Knitting Studio’s success as its smart and talented owner was.

  “Nell, where are you?” The front screen door banged shut and the light sound of Birdie’s tennis shoes pattered on the hardwood floor and out the open door to the deck. “So what’s this I hear about you taking in a sweet little hippie who broke into Izzy’s shop?”

  Birdie dropped her backpack to the deck floor and sat down on a reclining deck chair. She stretched her legs out in front of her. Her silver hair was damp, her cheeks flushed, and her forehead glistened with beads of perspiration. She took a few steadying breaths and pressed one hand against her bright orange T-shirt.

  “Birdie, are you all right?”

  “I rode my bike over, and I swear on my sweet Sonny’s grave that this hill outside your door is growing. Can’t you have dear Ben flatten it out a bit?” Birdie pulled a water bottle from the backpack and took a long drink, her gray eyes sparkling above the rim of the bottle. She wiped her forehead with the edge of a cotton scarf tied loosely around her neck.

  “There. I’m fine now, love. Come. Sit.” She patted the chair next to her. “Tell me about last night’s adventure.”

  Nell looked at Birdie carefully, making sure her breathing normalized. It was Ben’s encouragement that got Birdie to purchase the flaming red road bike. Before the bike, even teenagers had scattered when Birdie drove her 1981 Lincoln Town Car down Harbor Road. Ben had strongly suggested that it’d be better for everyone if the Town Car stayed in the garage more often than not. Good for the environment, he’d added with a convincing smile.