Murder in Merino

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Sergeant Tommy Porter,” Cass said. “He just got promoted. And it sounds like Sergeant Tommy Porter handled things well,” Cass said. “We actually heard the whole story from the horse’s mouth. Tommy came by here last night.”

  Izzy picked it up. “Cass and I were here late, just sort of, well, solving life’s personal problems without men around. Tommy was picking Janie up and saw our light on the way up to the apartment. He probably also spotted the beer and pizza on the table. He and Janie came in for a while.”

  “It was a careless break-in,” Birdie said. “That’s what Tommy said, done by someone who probably didn’t even know what they were looking for. Amateurish.”

  “Did he have any ideas?” Nell asked.

  “First he did a masterful job of calming Maeve,” Birdie said. “That young man is number one in my book. He will go far.”

  “But who does he think did it? And what were they after?” Nell asked.

  Izzy pulled out the section of the anniversary afghan she had almost completed. The soft red yarn coated her finger. “He wouldn’t commit to anything. He wouldn’t even say it was connected to the murder. But it must have been.”

  “Except,” Birdie said, “Maeve never locks her door. It could have been someone walking by, looking for cash. For food.”

  “In the den?” Nell said. Birdie was trying to calm everyone’s fears, and especially Nell’s worry over Birdie and Maeve’s close call. But the very thought of it caused the fear to worm its way back inside her. “Birdie, it could have been awful—you and Maeve, you could have—”

  Izzy spoke up. “Aunt Nell—you can’t live your life on what could have been. How many times have you said that to me? Birdie is fine. Maeve is fine.”

  “But there’s some creep out there who isn’t fine,” Cass said. “That’s what we need to be thinking about. And we still have some dribbles of pinot gris left to help us think it through.”

  She walked around and refilled glasses. Cass couldn’t sit still for long. Perhaps hours spent on lobster boats did that to her. But tonight she seemed especially on edge.

  Nell watched her circle the room, her Irish features—“black Irish” features, according to Mary Halloran—stunning. High cheekbones and a defined chin were the only traits that linked her to her mother, but those who had known Patrick Halloran said she was the image of her father in looks and temperament—thick dark hair, dark eyes, pale olive skin, and a stubbornness mixed with good humor that served her well as co-owner of the lobster business her grandfather and father had built all those years before.

  Nell took a drink of wine and pulled out a sweater she was knitting to add to Abby’s growing collection. Navy blue was difficult to knit on, but it would look wonderful with the baby’s blond curls and would be perfect in the coming months—a warm, cozy cardigan for stroller rides down to Paley’s Cove when the winds blew in from the northeast.

  “Tommy said they’ve run into a brick wall with their investigation,” Izzy said. She pulled out a loose stitch and redid it, smoothing it in place with a finger until the tension was perfect. “Actually, it was Janie who said it—Tommy tries to be mum about police business—but it wasn’t exactly news. I think everyone in town knows that there are no good leads.”

  “The police have talked to Don Wooten,” Nell said. “He and Jeffrey were having some difficulties with their partnership.” She told them about the night she’d been caught in the middle of one.

  “Don got angry? Geesh,” Izzy said. “I don’t ever want to go into business with a friend if that’s what it does.”

  “Pete and I argue all the time. It’s part of the game. But I’d never murder him so I could make all the decisions.” Cass paused, then joked, “Well, at least I’d give him a chance to behave first. Seriously, though, I can’t imagine Don doing that. He’s been such a success in the businesses he’s run, and you don’t get to be on top by being a temperamental schmuck. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Of course, that’s how all of us see it,” Birdie said. “Don is our friend—we like him and we’re crazy about his wife, Rachel—so it’s easy to decide that he couldn’t have done it. But what if you didn’t know him? What if all you knew about him was that he was Jeffrey’s partner and he didn’t like the way Jeffrey ran the restaurant—and he threatened him to back down or else. That’s what the police will look at. The facts.”

  “Another thing that’s not in Don’s favor—he wasted no time at all in negating many of Jeffrey’s decisions, hiring back people Jeffrey had fired just days before he died. And he did it all before the body was even cold.”

  “What did he do?” Cass pulled her hair back from her face and fastened it with a rubber band. Dark strands escaped and curled around her flushed cheeks.

  Nell told them in detail about the conversation she and Ben had had the day before with some of the Ocean’s Edge staff.

  “Wow. That’s pretty sudden, don’t you think?” Cass asked. “I wonder if he’s making other changes that quickly, before Jeffrey is in the ground. It almost sounds like he’d thought them through and as soon as he had a chance, he went into action.”

  None of it sat well, of course—none of them truly believed Don Wooten could be on the wrong side of such a tragic situation. Yet Nell had been wondering the same thing as Cass, and so had Ben. Usually those kinds of business decisions took time and thought, both examined from an HR standpoint and looking at the legal ramifications. Don was a businessman. He would know this. Had he known for a while what he was going to do?

  Ben had been especially interested in the vendor accounts the two men had argued about that night. Vendor accounts in a restaurant business were very important, relationships to be nurtured and fostered. What happened there? Nell wondered. She made a mental note to check whether Ben had gotten more information. She knew Ben thought she should talk to Jerry Thompson about the conversation she had overheard. Yet it made her feel like a traitor, and she cringed at the thought of providing any information to the police or anyone else that would draw more suspicion to Don Wooten.

  “Who else are the police talking to? And who would have known that Jeffrey was going to be at the house that day?” Birdie asked.

  “Jules, of course,” Izzy said. “And maybe Don or others working at the Edge that day. He would have taken time from work.”

  “The police have probably covered that,” Birdie said. “But it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have lunch over there tomorrow.” She looked up, her eyes bright at the prospect of clam chowder, but brighter still at the thought that sometimes, as she often said, the devil was in the details. And often those details escaped the notice of professionals who weren’t encouraged to bend the rules.

  Nell held up the back of the soft sweater as she watched Birdie’s mind work. All the pieces of her sweater for Abby could be knit perfectly, but the trick was in piecing them together smoothly. And that’s what Birdie was thinking. The pieces of a murder. Gathering them, laying them out, and removing fear and danger from the town they loved.

  “If the person who killed Jeffrey ransacked his house, he was looking for something. Something that was worth killing for,” Izzy said. Her logical, orderly thinking had served her well as a lawyer in Boston—and in other ways, too.

  “So it was someone who skipped the funeral when he knew the house would be empty?” Nell thought of the waitstaff. They’d all been at the church, or so it seemed.

  “Not necessarily,” Birdie said. “Maeve stayed until the last person had left the church hall, as everyone knew she would. It was dark by the time Harold and I took her home.”

  “Then pair up the two things. It had to be someone who knew Maeve was at the church—someone who wasn’t at the funeral, or maybe left early—and someone who knew Jeffrey was going to Izzy’s old house that day, who knew where it was, who knew about the back way up the hill.” Cass listed the items, her knittin
g needles tapping out each one. She stopped and looked around.

  Izzy continued with Cass’s thought, with a fact none of them wanted to say out loud. “Someone who knows Maeve doesn’t lock her door. And someone who knows what a mess the back of the Ridge Road house was and that they could easily go up through the bushes without anyone seeing them. Someone who . . .”

  “Lives in Sea Harbor,” Cass finished.

  “Or . . .” Birdie said slowly, bringing a reality check to the discussion, “the break-in and Jeffrey’s murder behind the Ridge Road house might not be related it all. We need to be very careful that what we are knitting together is tight and even and doesn’t fall apart with a slight tug.”

  The room fell silent, save for the sweet sound of a saxophone cushioning their thoughts.

  Minutes later the silence was disrupted by tires on the gravel alleyway between Izzy’s shop and the bookstore, followed by the banging of a tailgate and the sound of voices. Izzy and Cass stood up and looked out the window; then Cass walked over and fiddled with the sound system while Izzy stepped outside.

  “It’s just Danny and Sam,” Cass said to the others.

  Nell and Birdie looked at each other. Then back to Cass, who was forcing a smile to her sad face. “Did Danny come to pick you up? I could have taken you home,” Nell said. The spacious house Cass had inherited recently wasn’t on anyone’s direct route home, but it was a drive they all loved. It sat beyond Canary Cove, up a winding road in a quiet neighborhood overlooking the water. The house was airy and bright, and Cass had put in new windows in a second-story den so that on a clear day, she said, Danny could see to the end of the ocean while penning his popular mysteries.

  “Ride?” Cass shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I . . . ah, I’ll drive my truck back when they’re through emptying it. I had talked all this over with Izzy earlier and should have said something to both of you. I meant to. But . . . well, it didn’t seem to fit into a conversation about murder very easily.” She forced a laugh and absently pulled the band from her hair, shaking it loose. She looked from Nell to Birdie. She smiled again. Then frowned. And finally finished her thought.

  “Okay, here’s what’s happening. Danny’s moving out. He’s going to stay in that little efficiency above his parents’ store, at least for a while. It’s not such a bad place. He can write there, too, and come over here to drink Izzy’s awful coffee. That’s it. That’s my news.”

  Chapter 18

  Cass’s words thudded to the floor, ponderous and unpleasant.

  Birdie and Nell got up and looked out the side window. Izzy was standing in the alley, talking to Sam. Danny was lifting cardboard boxes out of the truck bed.

  “Hey,” Cass said, pulling their attention back to her. “Danny didn’t die. I didn’t, either. It’ll all be fine. He’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

  Fine was Danny and Cass together. That’s what fine was.

  Birdie managed a smile that said it was Danny’s and Cass’s lives, not theirs, and that of course they were always here for her, no matter what decisions she made about her life.

  Nell said nothing, although questions were forming in her head, along with warnings to herself to give Cass some room. She was a private person in many ways, and even dear friends might need to keep some distance.

  Cass frowned. “I’ve never known you two to be at a loss for words. Come on, what are those faces?”

  “It’s a surprise, that’s all,” Nell said. “I suppose Jules Ainsley—not to mention her very recent purchase of Izzy’s old house—has something to do with all this. And her friendship with Danny.”

  Cass chewed on her bottom lip and seemed to be giving Nell’s words more attention than they deserved. Finally she said, “I don’t know. Jules and Danny are friends, and that’s about all I know. He doesn’t talk about her, except to say that’s all it is, and that he doesn’t even know her all that well. She asked him for some help, he gave it, he thinks she’s a nice person, he thinks I’m overreacting. That’s it. And I get it. Sam and I are friends, Andy Risso and I are friends, Ben and I are friends, I have lots of male friends. So why shouldn’t she and Danny be friends?”

  “That’s a thoughtful question,” Birdie said.

  Izzy walked in, bringing with her a fresh breeze and strains of music from some distant place. It eased the uncomfortable moment slightly. She tossed Cass the keys to her truck. “All done. He said he’ll see you later.”

  “See?” Cass said. She twisted the key chain around her finger. “This isn’t Armageddon. Danny and I are friends. He’s maybe the best friend I’ve ever had—well, except for you guys. And of course there was that goofy kid I hung out with in third grade.” She looked around for smiles. Nell managed a weak one and Birdie chuckled.

  It was clear Cass and Izzy had talked this through—Izzy was showing no surprise at anything that was being said. Nell was relieved that Cass hadn’t kept her feelings all bottled up inside her until her Irish temper finally got the best of her and she made a rash move or decision. Like bolting out of a relationship.

  Birdie leaned forward. “There must be a ‘but’ on the end of that sentence, dear. It’s just hanging there, without much meaning.”

  Cass smiled sadly. “You’re right, Birdie. Sure, there’s more going on. But it’s hard to talk about it. I promise I will, but not tonight, not with all this funeral and suspicion and awful murder stuff going on. But please know this: it has to do with me, not Danny, not really Jules, even—though I could have lived a long, long time without her barging into our lives. Enough said. More than enough, in fact. Birdie, do you have any more pinot?”

  There wasn’t any more wine. And there didn’t seem to be enough air in the back room, either. It had become still and stifling in the last hour.

  Nell folded up Abby’s sweater and put her knitting back in the basket. It was still early by Thursday-night knitting standards, but no one made a move to return to their balls of yarn and patterns. Although knitting had taken the four friends through deaths and births, sorrow and pure joy, weddings and anniversaries, tonight they needed something else. Their bodies needed to move; minds needed to be refreshed.

  Sam walked in through the side door. “The night is young. There’s lots of life out there on Harbor Road. And great music, too. Pete and the Fractured Fish have set up shop in the park across from the museum. Ben said he’d walk down and meet us there if anyone wants to mosey over that way.”

  Of course they did. Music, a big golden moon. And being together.

  Izzy went up and kissed him full on the lips.

  It took minutes to put things away and turn out the lights. Grabbing sweaters and bags, they moved out the side door, up the short alley, and onto the sidewalk.

  It seemed it was what the whole town needed. Laughter. Talk.

  And everyone in groups of at least two or three. Safety in numbers.

  Across the street, the line outside Scooper’s Ice Cream Parlor stretched down Harbor Road toward the Gull and the Ocean’s Edge. In the other direction, Gus McClucken stood outside his store, greeting and gossiping. And a half a block farther up, in the tiny patch of green across from the historical museum, Pete Halloran’s voice belted out sing-along songs that pleased the gathering crowd.

  “And he’s not even getting paid for this,” Cass said. “Let’s make sure that’s really Pete.”

  Willow Adams, Pete’s girlfriend, stood on the fringe of the growing crowd and assured them it really was Pete. And Merry on the keyboard, and Andy Risso on the drums. And no one was paying anyone. “Goodwill,” she said. “And it’s working. Look at the smiles.”

  The patches of green between the crisscrossing pathways were filled with people sitting on benches or grass, or standing together, mouthing the words and leaning into each other as the music took hold and somehow made things seem better.

  “The universal language,” Birdie
said, her small body swaying as the whole crowd joined Pete and Merry in a robust rendition of “Sweet Caroline,” as loud and raucous as if they were standing in Fenway Park during an eighth inning.

  Nell looked around for Ben, and spotted him just as he stopped to talk to someone hidden from her view by a lamppost. Ben looked over and saw her. He waved for her to join him.

  She circled the back of the crowd to where Ben was standing, talking with Jerry Thompson.

  Nell gave Jerry a hug. “You need some sleep,” she said. In her opinion, he also needed someone special in his life. Someone with whom to share the burdens of his job—and the good things in life, too. Tonight he seemed especially alone.

  “Sleep?” Jerry said with a laugh. “What’s that?”

  Ben wrapped an arm around Nell’s shoulders. The night air was chilly and his arms brought immediate warmth. She leaned into his side. “This is tough, isn’t it, Jerry? Do you have any leads?”

  “Oh, sure. Lots of them. But they’re about as thin as Harry’s angel- hair pasta. But we’ll find the person who did this. There’s not a doubt in my mind.”

  “It must be difficult probing into Jeffrey’s life—someone we all liked.”

  “Well, not everybody liked him. And that’s coming out in spades. Lots of disgruntled employees at the Edge.”

  And owners, too, Nell thought. But she kept the thought where it belonged. In her head. She knew nothing more than what she had overheard—a conversation that probably had layers to it that she didn’t understand.

  “But mad enough to kill him?” Ben asked.

  “I guess that remains to be seen.”

  “And the break-in at Maeve’s house?” Nell asked, knowing full well that Jerry wouldn’t offer up any information. But the break-in had already been the subject of Mary Pisano’s morning “About Town” column, in which she took full liberty in chastising anyone who would dare trespass in a grieving widow’s home—her private, personal space, as Mary put it. It was a despicable act.