“I’m sure. I wasn’t at first, not until I saw him. When I was closing up Grams’ house I found some things—newspaper clippings, pictures, things that my mom had hidden away in the attic because my grandmother would probably have burned them. Grams hated this man so much, it just ate her up inside.
“I knew my father probably had some artistic ability—my mom couldn’t draw a stick figure, but I doodled and painted from the time I could hold a crayon. Anyway, the clippings were about a show a while back, and there were several people on it. I don’t know how my mom got it. But I did some snooping, went through every scrap of paper. I found some notes with the name ‘Peab’ in them. I guess they called him that in school. Peab.” Willow said the name as if she were holding it, examining it, then throwing it away. “For some reason, Mom saved them.”
And hid them from her mother, who would have burned them. Nell wondered about the origin of the anger in Willow’s small frame against a man she never met. Was it from her mother . . . or perhaps from a grandmother—an angry bear revenging her wayward young?
“So the paper trail finally brought me here. The fact that I had a loose connection here—” Willow nodded slightly at Izzy. Her hint of a smile was warm. “That would be you, Izzy—that e-mail you sent me a while ago, though I never thought I’d be using it this way. When I got it, I was so happy—thinking someone who lived on the ocean liked my art—or even just knew about it. It was like a ticket to the world. I’d never been out of Wisconsin—but my art had. And someone had seen it. And liked it.”
“Liked it a lot. Nell and I both did. That’s why I e-mailed you.”
“I could tell you liked it by what you said. I don’t know why exactly—but that note was the best thing. I kept it. Read it when things got bad with Grams. I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d someday get out there and get to see the ocean. Maybe meet the two nice ladies who took time to look at my art. And then write me about it.”
Willow paused and picked up a ball of Izzy’s cashmere yarn. She touched it carefully, like a delicate flower.
Birdie and Nell continued the click of their needles, Birdie’s hat narrowing as she neared the top. Nell’s sweater now had a first row and soon the moss stitch would appear, lovely ribs on the wide band. The only noise in the room was the click of their needles and Purl’s soft purr.
Willow went on.
“Knowing about your store somehow made it easier to show up here. I know small towns. Everyone knows everything. If I had a reason for being here, maybe people wouldn’t wonder about why I’d come or notice me. It would be easier.”
Easier to do what? Nell wondered. In one short week of knowing Willow, she felt sure the woman couldn’t kill anyone. But growing up beneath that cloud of hatred that her grandparents had nurtured in her could certainly do awful things to one’s mind.
“Do you need a lawyer, Willow?”
Willow shook her head vehemently. “No. I talked to Ben today. He was helping someone move into a house near Brendan’s and we talked a bit. He told me he’d find me a lawyer if I needed one.”
“Ben was helping our friend Sam,” Nell said. “So Ben knows what you’ve told us?”
“Yes. He said I should tell the police about the relationship thing, too, that it’d be better if I told them Aidan was my father rather than them finding out on their own. He said he’d help me deal with it.”
“Well, then, you’re in good hands,” Birdie said. Her needles were moving more slowly as the weight of Willow’s story settled in. She put her knitting down, sensing the end of the story. At least for now.
“And speaking of hands, I suggest we help ourselves to Nell’s feast. I, for one, am starving.” She reached for her wineglass.
Cass stood up, the mention of food a reprieve from the weight of the evening.
“You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.” Cass moved toward the food with a speed far greater than the lobsters that crawled into her traps.
Willow managed a small laugh at Cass’ quick rush toward food. “Heaven? I’ll race you, Cass.”
The shrimp satay lightened the mood considerably, and though Nell was swallowing at least a dozen questions along with the couscous and shrimp, she suspected the answers would come out in their own good time. Willow seemed to trust them now. Too many questions might disturb that trust.
Izzy settled herself back on the couch, a full plate in her lap, and looked down at Willow’s backpack. “You’ve been here a week, and I have yet to see any of your work.” She picked up a wooden stick holding a marinated shrimp and dipped it into the sauce that Nell had set on the coffee table.
“I have one piece here, almost finished.” Willow took a forkful of Nell’s couscous and bit into a creamy chunk of fresh mozzarella, flavored with the lemon, dill, and olive oil. She wiped a small grain from the edge of her mouth. Her eyes closed and she smiled contentedly. “Amazing,” she murmured. “Cass is right. Heaven. Grams was pretty much a potatoes and pressure-cooker pork cook. I never imagined food could be so tasty and light.”
“The backpack,” Izzy said, nudging Willow in the side.
Willow leaned over and unzipped the battered canvas bag and pulled out a mass of startling color. Brilliant blues, greens, and deep red yarn spilled from her fingers. And at the bottom, she pulled out the piece she was working on: handspun yarn fashioned into a work of art, not yet finished, but its shape already showing definition.
Nell reached over and touched a twisted row of kettle-dyed wool in as many thicknesses as shades of blue. The colors ranged from the deep blue, nearly black of ocean water at its purest, to the startling blue-green when sunlight and the ocean’s microscopic plants turn the water into a turquoise blanket. Willow had used sensuous silk threads—reds, corals, and shimmering gold—to bind the yarn together into a blend that resembled, in its flowing curves and hanging strands, an octopus or jellyfish, or strands of algae or plankton.
“It’s lovely, Willow.” Nell traced the graceful curve of the bound yarn. Some of the strands were knit together and others, chunky and sinewy, draped from the piece gracefully.
“It’s beautiful,” Izzy said.
Birdie and Cass chimed in, amazed at the wondrous art coming from the beat-up backpack lying on the floor.
“Do you have other pieces?” Nell asked.
“I thought about doing a series about sand and sea. Weird, huh? I’ve never seen the sea. But it was in me somehow. Something trying to get out.”
“You don’t need to be giving a talk to my customers.” Izzy rose from the couch and took her empty plate over to the coffee table. “Lots of people need to see these.”
Cass got up to help, dropping a half-finished bouclé hat on the chair behind her. Once Cass discovered that the handwoven yarn hid her mistakes like a bleach pen on coffee spills, she never went back to fine wool for the hats and scarves she doled out to her fishermen friends—and an equal number for the chemo caps. Even her mother was amazed at the chunky wear that came from Cass’ fingers.
“Your art has an ocean feel to it,” Cass said, talking around the last piece of shrimp. “It seems perfect for people who come to Canary Cove looking for regional art. Sam’s photos of my Lady Lobster have sold like crazy—and he took those shots as a favor to me. But people love that kind of thing. Canary Cove would love this.” She scooped up the napkins, wiped a few crumbs off the table, and took them into the galley kitchen off the knitting room, retrieving a cold bottle of Birdie’s wine on her way back.
“As long as you have to sit around here for a while, we might as well make it productive.” Birdie sat back in her chair and began to work on her cap, a satisfied smile on her face. “Who knows? Maybe we should plan a show.”
Nell looked up from retrieving a dropped stitch on Willow’s sweater. “Willow, sweetie, you haven’t said a word. Here we are, planning your future and not letting you get a word in edgewise.”
Willow folded her legs up beneath her, the pair of shorts looking slightly
too long on her legs. She looked down at her lap and fingered her work-in-progress. And then she looked back at the women who had taken her into their lives without question or judgment.
“You are kind of amazing. I don’t think I’ve met people like you, even in our little Wisconsin town—and people were pretty nice there. But think about it—I break into your store, Izzy, and take over Nell’s guesthouse. And Birdie and Cass treat me like family. And here you are, all of you, sticking your necks out for someone you don’t know at all. And what you do know isn’t all that wonderful.” Willow stopped and looked around the room, as if committing it to memory.
“But I can’t let you do that,” she said.
“And why not?” asked Birdie, her words carrying a touch of indignation. Her back straightened and she slipped her glasses into her smooth nest egg of gray hair.
Telling Birdie what she could or couldn’t do wasn’t a habit of people who knew her.
“Well, here’s why. Do you honestly think anyone—even in this nice town—is going to spend time looking at the art work of a suspected murderer? A . . . a . . . a Lizzie Borden? Think about it now.”
She looked intently into each one of their faces, her black eyes flashing. “Well, do you?”
The irony of it was, Nell told Ben as they sat down to coffee the next day, that Willow Adams’ words matched—if not exactly, very closely—a headline in Mary Pisano’s “About Town” column in the Sea Harbor Gazette the next morning:
Is there a Lizzie Borden in our midst? Mary asked her readers.
Chapter 14
“So, Nell, whattaya think?”
Harry Garozzo leaned over the small deli table, his square hands pressed flat on the surface and his nose hovering perilously close to Nell’s.
Nell pushed back in her chair, not wanting to offend Harry but requiring a slight distance. “About what, Harry?”
One blunt finger pointed to the newspaper lying next to Nell’s mug of coffee. Wisconsin woman a suspect in artist’s murder, the headline read.
“They’re talking about our little friend. One week ago I find this flower child asleep in Izzy’s window. Today she’s maybe a murderer? What gives, Nell? What gives?” The furrows in his brow deepened in concern.
A breeze blew in the open deli window behind Nell, carrying the sounds of a Sea Harbor day—charter boats carrying tourists over to Tillie’s Ledge or Wildcat Knoll to snag a striped bass or bluefish for dinner. Captain Jeremiah’s whale-watching boat chugging out to the open sea, filled to the brim with tourists hoping for a humpback sighting. Cass and Pete would have left the harbor hours ago, taking the Lady Lobster out to check and bait their traps.
A normal day.
But it didn’t seem normal at all.
Willow’s demeanor the night before hadn’t fooled any of the knitters. Beneath the bravado hovered a vulnerable woman who had stumbled into a most unfortunate situation.
“She’s not a murderer, Harry. She’s a frightened young woman who came to Sea Harbor looking for her father.”
“And found him dead? What. A coincidence?” Harry’s thick brows lifted up into his receding hairline. “A coincidence, Nell?”
Nell looked out the window. A coincidence. Yes. That was exactly what it was, Nell felt sure. And a deadly one.
“I’ve heard talk, Nell—” Harry went on.
“Of course you have, Harry. There will always be talk.”
“Harry Garozzo, what are you stirring up here?” Birdie Favazza walked up behind him and placed her small hand on his wide back. “Gossip? Shame on you, Harry.”
Birdie pulled out a chair and sat opposite Nell, a sweet smile followed her chiding to the deli owner.
“Birdie, my love, the only thing I’ll be stirring up today is my cold strawberry soup. You come back in an hour and I’ll have you some.” He grinned at Birdie, then dropped the smile to accommodate more serious conversation. “As I was just saying to Nell, people talk in my place. And Willow Adams’ name is being bandied about between bites of my Italian egg sandwich like I dunna know what.” He looked at Birdie and touched his lips with two fingers. “Your Sonny, he woulda loved them, Birdie Favazza: thick rustic bread, my marinara sauce—”
“I’m sure he would have, Harry. And I will indulge at a later date. Now you were saying?”
Harry dropped his hands back to the table and looked from one woman to the other, his thick brows pulling close together until they formed a single line across his face. “Rebecca Marks was in this morning to pick up a box of my taralli, and her pink tongue was wagging like the flag at Pelican Pier.” Harry looked around at the tables on either side to be sure no one was listening, but most of his midmorning customers were summer people more interested in Harry’s chocolate chip connoli than in town gossip. He turned back to Birdie and Nell.
“Rebecca says that we all shoulda known Aidan had a secret life. He was the kind who’d have a kid hidden somewhere. A love child, she called it.”
“Her, Harry. Willow is a person.”
“Sure. Her. Of course she’s a person. I even kind of like the little thing. But people are pulling out facts, not letting their hearts rule them like you sometimes do.”
Nell frowned at him.
“That’s a good thing, Nell. You care about people. But no matter—rumor has it that the young girl was probably driven to her crime by her own father’s misdeeds.”
“Now that’s downright foolish.” It was Birdie, speaking in the voice that sank ships, as her Sonny used to say.
Harry shrugged. “I’m just the messenger, ladies. But Rebecca was pretty convincing that once we all faced facts about Willow Adams, and cleaned up and sold Aidan’s messy gallery to some respectable artist, we could get on with our lives. That’s what she said in a nutshell. And she herself would promote doing that soon.”
“And just how is she going to do that? It’s not hers to sell.”
“You know Rebecca. She could move the Rockies to Cape Ann if she set her mind to it. And for all their nice gestures at Aidan’s funeral, Rebecca says there were lots of Canary Cove artists who share her suspicions and feelings. Even Jane.”
“Jane Brewster?”
Harry nodded, his lips pressed together as if guarding a secret, not something Harry did easily.
The sounds of the bell above the door and the bright chatter of customers brought Harry’s attention back to more immediate things. He straightened his stance and looked from Nell to Birdie.
“Now, ladies, for more pleasant concerns, what are you two wanting this fine Friday morning?”
“I’m waiting on a sack of sourdough rolls for dinner tonight. Margaret is getting them for me—they weren’t quite ready when I came in.
“And don’t worry your head, Harry,” Birdie added. “We’ll not hang on to a valuable table once your lunch crowd starts coming in. Nell and I are not for loafing today—we’re squeezing in a brisk walk.”
A brisk walk and time to collect their thoughts, but Nell wasn’t about to share that with Harry. Things weren’t moving fast enough to clear Willow’s name, and if the police weren’t going to do it, then Cass, Birdie, Izzy, and Nell were not above snooping around themselves.
Harry laughed and wiped his palms on the smudged white apron that covered his ample girth. “Well, you two girls be about your business then and have a nice day. Looks to me like the lunch crowd is early and Margaret will have my hide if anyone has to wait longer than a heartbeat.” Harry turned and walked over to greet a crowd of tourists, who were eyeing the meats and cheeses behind the glass of the deli case.
“Jane Brewster?” Birdie whispered when he was out of earshot. “Jane and Aidan were good friends. What do you suppose Harry was talking about?”
“There’s one sure way to find out,” Nell said. “Seems like Canary Cove might be a good destination for us. Who knows what rumors are starting—and once things percolate too long, they become truth in some people’s minds. We can’t let that happen to Willow.”
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The narrow road that ran through the center of Canary Cove was alive with people moving in and out of the small galleries and boutiques. The first building along the stretch was a small cottage that housed the artists’ association office and two small, one-room galleries. The association was manned mostly by volunteers, who handed out brochures, planned special art events, and gave the council a place to meet. Nell waved to Mary Pisano, who was walking inside to put in her volunteer hours.
Nell and Birdie walked briskly toward the heart of Canary Cove, down past the tea shop and a small pottery shop, heading toward the Brewsters’ gallery.
Ellen Marks and Billy stood together in front of the Sobel Gallery, and Nell waved across the street. The two were so deep in conversation that the wave went unnoticed. Billy’s brows were drawn together, his head lowered, and his hands on his hips. In front of him, Ellen spoke earnestly, her long hands gesturing as she talked. Finally Billy spread his hands wide, his palms up, and shrugged. He touched Ellen lightly on the shoulder, a gentle gesture that seemed to indicate regret, then turned and walked back inside his gallery.
Ellen looked after him, then turned and walked slowly back to the Lampworks Gallery.
“An odd couple,” Birdie murmured beside Nell.
“They’re longtime friends, I think. Ellen says Billy has a huge heart.”
“The big heart seems to be delivering unwanted news to Ellen. She looks disappointed.”
Ellen was walking slowly back to the Lampworks Gallery. Her head was lowered but her body language indicated Birdie might be right.
“And if Billy was so bighearted, what was the beef he had with Aidan? Bighearted fellows shouldn’t have beefs.”
“Good point.” But Nell supposed the disagreement between the two men was something they would have worked out, just as Aidan had indicated at dinner. It seemed more of a disagreement about how to exhibit Billy’s paintings—nothing too serious, Nell supposed.
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