Murder in Merino

by Sally Goldenbaum

The image of the tall, narrow housekeeper in bird-watching gear, a safari hat shielding her from the sun, lightened the mood.

  Cass leaned forward in her seat.

  “Garrett Barros moves to the beat of his own drum, my ma always said. Pete thought I was too hard on him.”

  “Pete knows Garrett?”

  “Oh, you know, everyone around here knows everyone. He and Garrett were in some youth explorers group once upon a time.”

  “He’s Pete’s age,” Nell mused. “Somehow I thought he was in his early twenties.”

  “No, closer to thirty,” Cass said. “He just looks young.”

  “Did you get to know him at all when you stayed in Izzy’s house?” Birdie asked.

  “No, not really—I wasn’t around much. That was during the time the lobster business was in turmoil. But I admit he gave me the willies sometimes. I’d see him out in the potting shed, fiddling around, or standing on the rocks out in the back with those binoculars. One time I asked to look through them, but he refused. He said he had to get a specially made pair, and he was the only one who could see through them.”

  “Why was that?”

  “He’s left-handed, he said, and had to get a specially modified something or other. Controllers, I think. He was very protective of them.”

  It sounded like an excuse, Nell thought. “So he knew that backyard well,” she said.

  “Sure. He had easy access, just like the Seroogys next door to you and anyone else who uses your backyard shortcut,” Cass said.

  Of course. That’s what neighborhoods in small towns fostered: sharing. The winding trail in her backyard was worn smooth by neighbors making their way to the beach. It was what one did.

  Cass continued. “If Garrett was home the day Jeffrey was killed and saw him walk around the house—and Garrett doesn’t miss much—it would have been simple for him to meet Jeffery back there.”

  “And he could have left the funeral early and rummaged through Maeve’s den, I suppose,” Nell said, though her voice lacked conviction.

  “So we need to find out how Garrett felt about his boss,” Birdie said. “At least for starters.”

  Cass sat back in the seat, looking out the window, quiet and thinking. Though as Nell caught a glimpse of Cass’s expression in the rearview mirror, she wasn’t sure she was thinking about Garrett Barros.

  When they pulled up in front of the yarn shop, Cass got out, looked over at the bookstore for a long moment, then followed Nell and Birdie past Izzy’s colorful window, filled with yarn and matching autumn leaves.

  Fall. A time of change.

  It was near closing time and the shop was nearly empty. Mae stood behind the checkout counter, talking with Laura Danvers as she scanned several skeins of soft yellow and deep blue merino yarn into the computer. They looked up as the bell chimed over the door.

  “You look like a posse,” Laura said with a grin. “Red Ranger rides again.”

  Nell looked at the stack of yarn Mae was loading into Laura’s bag. “And you look like you are outfitting the Sea Harbor fishing fleet. I hope you saved some for us.”

  Laura laughed. “I can’t resist. Besides, like everyone else around here, we’re spending more time at home these days and knitting is a great escape. Usually in the fall my girls love to hike over in Ravenswood Park—even Elliott—but it’s just too forbidding right now. The girls sense it, though we try not to talk about it in front of them.”

  Birdie nodded. “This, too, shall pass,” she said, touching Laura’s arm lightly with her hand. “It will.”

  Nell watched Laura’s eyes, the eyes of a mother bear protecting her cubs. And hating the atmosphere wrapping her family in fear.

  The bell above the door rang again and attention turned to Beatrice Scaglia, carrying a large Italian leather briefcase, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor.

  “I’m not too late. Good,” she said.

  Mae looked at her over half-moon glasses. “What are you not too late for? We’re just about to close—you know that.” In spite of her tone, Izzy’s store manager liked the brassy councilwoman in the ridiculous—in Mae’s opinion—heels. She found it amusing that Beatrice hadn’t completed a single knitting project in five years—and was probably less adept than Danny Brandley in mastering the stockinette stitch—but she was a store regular.

  As Mae often told Izzy, “She’s probably our best customer—she has more yarn stashed in her house than we have in the stockroom. If this place ever burns down we’ll set up shop in her basement.”

  Beatrice bought yarn, but it was the conversations she overheard in the back room of Izzy’s shop that she stored away in her razor-sharp mind and memory—and that led to her claim that she was Sea Harbor’s most well-informed council member on women’s issues.

  And no one doubted that she was.

  “Oh, Mae. You’re so . . . so Mae.” Beatrice laughed, a well-controlled and lilting laugh that served her well on the campaign trail. “I’m here to give you some flyers and posters. You’ll thank me. You’re the first to know.” She looked around at the others. “All of you. I couldn’t have asked for a better crew to distribute these.”

  Laura frowned. “Distribute flyers?”

  “Flyers? What for?” Izzy walked up from the knitting room carrying a box of yarn.

  “Izzy, sweetie, come here,” Beatrice said, gesturing to the round oak table centering the room. She pushed aside a basket of yarn and replaced it with her large leather briefcase. Pulling out a stack of colorful flyers, she handed each of them a pile, then pulled out a large poster and handed it to Izzy. “For your window,” she said.

  Izzy scanned the poster. “A debate?” The headline was bold:

  SEA HARBOR’S DEBATE OF THE CENTURY

  Mae looked at the matching flyer, then pushed her glasses into her thinning hair. “This sounds formidable, Scaglia. What century are you talking about exactly?”

  Beatrice ignored Mae and looked at the others. “It’s a wonderful idea, don’t you think? I’ve reserved the community center. Everyone will come and decide for themselves whom they want as their next mayor. But I need to get the word out. It’s scheduled for next week.”

  “Well,” Birdie said, the single word seeming to take up an inordinate amount of time. Her eyes scanned the flyer. “I think this will be an interesting evening, Beatrice. How nice that you and Stan have agreed to have a public conversation.”

  Beatrice looked down at her bright red shoes. Then she lifted her head and smiled at the circle of women looking at her, the same smile she used when trying to convince the council of some unpopular project. “I haven’t talked to Stan about it yet. But he is such a broad-minded, intelligent man, how could he say no?”

  Chapter 29

  Ben laughed when Nell told him about the debate being planned. “There’s not much Stan can do about it now, is there?”

  “He told me he was cutting back on events like this. I wonder if Karen knows about it?”

  Birdie stood nearby, half listening. Her hands were flat on the stone railing of the yacht club veranda. Her look traveled beyond the terraced lawns to the carefully groomed beach. It was nearly empty tonight, even of stalwart twilight swimmers. The water temperature had finally given in to autumn, and it would be months and a new year before towels and blankets and umbrellas dotted the wide expanse of sand. North of the beach, sailboats, anchored in their slips, rocked gently in the breeze. “It’s so peaceful,” Birdie murmured. “So deceptively peaceful.”

  “The lull before the storm.” Ben excused himself to check on the others, who were watching the last inning of the Sox beating the Yankees on the wide-screen television in the bar.

  “Ben looks tired,” Birdie said, watching him walk away.

  The terrace was nearly empty, the breeze encouraging diners to eat inside. Nell pulled a pale blue shawl around her shoul
ders. “Some of it doesn’t deserve sympathy. He and Sam were sailing today and this wind created quite a challenge. But the other part is concern. He isn’t as convinced that Garrett Barros is entirely harmless. I think that’s one reason he insisted Jules come with us tonight. He wanted to talk to her about it.”

  Coming to the club for dessert and drinks wasn’t something Ben and Nell usually did. But tonight the management had asked board members to come to encourage attendance at their chocolate dessert night, and Ben found it difficult to explain that he’d planned an evening at home in sweats watching the ball game. Sam, too, had been recruited and was equally at a loss for an excuse. Cass, on the other hand, wouldn’t pass up a chocolate dessert buffet if her life depended on it.

  They’d found Danny in the bar alone, and he had joined them for dessert. He and Cass were cordial and friendly—and distant.

  “What will Ben say to Jules? Beware of the neighbor?”

  “I suppose something like that. He plans to ask Jerry about him at a meeting tomorrow.”

  “Game is boring.” It was Izzy, coming up behind them.

  Jules and Cass trailed a few steps behind, carrying on an animated conversation. Nell was pleased to see the ease with which Cass greeted her, and the easy conversations that flowed between them during the dessert buffet.

  “Try banding lobster,” Cass was saying. “I always try to get the left-handed ones.”

  “You’re talking Jules into banding lobsters?” Izzy said. “Don’t do it, Jules. I almost lost a finger the first time she and Pete took me out.”

  Jules laughed. “No. Cass kept knocking into me during dessert. I thought she was still huffy with me, but it turns out she’s left-handed. Now she’s trying to convince me that some lobsters are left-handed, too, and I should go out on one of her boats and see for myself.”

  “Honest,” Cass said, taking in their looks of disbelief. “Some lobsters are left-handed crushers. Like me.” She clenched her jaw and left hand fiercely.

  They laughed at the sight of the lobsterwoman, dressed in a silk blouse and skinny jeans, forcing a Rosie the Riveter pose. It was a contradiction that Nell often marveled at. Although Cass did much of the office work now in managing the family lobster business, for years she was out on the boats hauling in traps, checking buoys, banding lobsters—and Nell could never quite reconcile that woman with the attractive one she saw every day. Even back when Birdie had to remind Cass to shower before showing up for knitting night and make her promise not to touch a single strand of yarn until she had. She obeyed Birdie’s dictate. But she was always Cass, always the intriguing, dark-haired woman who looked less like she could tend hundreds of lobster traps than the man in the moon.

  The laughter traveled across the terrace.

  Don Wooten, standing with his wife a few yards away, turned around at the sound. Nell caught his look and waved them over.

  “I thought it was an all-woman’s enclave,” he joked.

  “It is,” Cass said. “But you’re allowed.”

  “Game’s over, Sox win another,” Sam announced. He and Ben walked up to the group. Ben carried a tray with glasses and a bottle of port, another of cognac. “Coffee and Baileys are on the way,” he said.

  “They’ve hired you, Endicott?” Don said. “About time you got a real job.”

  “He’s in training,” Sam said. “Be patient with him.”

  The mood passed through the group, jovial and welcoming, and for a brief time they felt safe, cushioned by friends, the ocean breeze, and a sky littered with millions of stars.

  How could evil exist in this place? Nell wondered, her eyes examining the canopy above her. She looked over at Don Wooten. He looked tired, not entirely himself, but putting up a strong front. The kind that says everything is normal. Everything is good. But maybe it’s not.

  When the group moved on to replaying Cass’s claim of left-handed lobsters, Nell pulled him aside. “About earlier today—”

  “I’m sorry about that. Garrett was out of line.”

  “I think he was trying to be helpful.”

  “It’s not very helpful to spy on people. I talked to the police today. I’ve never had reason to not trust the guy, but everything needs to be checked out now. Even me.”

  Nell looked at him, her brows lifting.

  “You’re not surprised, Nell. You heard firsthand how Jeffrey and I got along. I know he was a tradition at the Edge, and he was loved by lots of people for good reason. But frankly, he wasn’t much of a businessman. He wasn’t a good owner. And he was a terrible partner.”

  “Maybe it was just a matter of different methods, Don. Maeve said you wanted to buy him out. Is that true?”

  He looked surprised. “Yes. I thought it was the only way to save the restaurant.”

  “And he said no.”

  “You know a lot about this, Nell.” His tone had changed, his words defensive.

  Nell was quiet.

  “Yes, you’re right. He said no. I think in time he’d have changed his mind.” He looked out over the sea, took a drink of the brandy Ben had handed him, and looked back at Nell. “Jeffrey and I did things differently. He changed when he became an owner. He thought he had to make strong decisions or he wasn’t carrying his weight. But his decisions were driving off some vendors and creating staff problems—and you can’t get away with that in a small town like this.”

  “And he didn’t get away with it,” Nell said quietly.

  Don clenched his jaw. He took a deep breath and leveled a look at her, his voice more weary now than defensive. “Nell, we’ve been friends for a long time. Do you think I could have killed Jeffrey Meara?”

  Nell was saved from answering by a sudden gust of wind off the ocean, tossing napkins in the air, sending scarfs flying. “Saved by the wind,” was how she would later describe the awkward moment to the knitters.

  Ben announced it was time to go, past his bedtime. An early morning was staring him in the face.

  Don helped Nell untangle the shawl that had whipped around her neck. “Sorry,” he said.

  Nell watched them walk away, not at all sure what her old friend was sorry for.

  Chapter 30

  Jane Brewster was dying to see Jules Ainsley’s painting. “Nell, I love you, but you don’t describe paintings well. I need to see it. And you mentioned there were others. I’d like to see those, too.”

  Jane was with art the way Ben was with a new sailboat, or Cass with a new lobster buoy, or Izzy with a new knitting needle. Tools of their trade—or their passions, as the case may be. And they would drive across heaven or hell to take a peek.

  “I don’t really know if it’s good. I just know I liked it very much. It was alive to me, and expressed something. As Jules said, ‘It’s a happy painting.’”

  “Good. Don’t we all need a little bit of that? Wednesdays are slow days and Ham can handle things at the gallery without me for an hour or so just fine. Let me know what time is good.”

  Nell hung up, checking her own calendar before going upstairs to shower.

  Ben had left at the crack of dawn, or so it seemed to her. “This is retirement?” she had murmured that morning as he’d dropped kisses into her tousled hair.

  They had both awakened early, reaching out for the other in the tangle of sheets. Nell wasn’t sure what woke them, whether it was the rattle of the shutters, the strong ocean breeze, or simply something more basic—a need to be together, their bodies pressed to each other. A need to be touched.

  With great reluctance Ben had finally left their bed, promising he would cut back on retirement commitments the first chance he got.

  But he wouldn’t do that. Of course he wouldn’t. Nell stepped into the bracing spray of the shower, smiling as the lovely morning wakeup played itself out again in the steam of the shower. He wouldn’t be Ben if he weren’t using the keen intellec
t she’d fallen in love with on a Harvard campus a million years ago. She’d often teased him that falling in love with him was all about the brain, the fact that he helped her through a dreadful symbolic logic course the semester they’d met. The intellect, the brain. And the kind, funny, gentle man who marched beside her in peace rallies and argued with her deep into the night about war and peace, good and evil, poverty and wealth. And the way he kissed her in the rain. Those things, too.

  Wednesday was busy, but not too busy to find time for Jane. And she felt sure Jules would like the company. She had been staying close to home, Izzy told her, painting and polishing, planting flowers along the front walk. She’d joined Izzy for a few runs, but mostly in the early morning or in the evening. When beaches were empty. There were plenty of things to do getting the house up to par, but Nell knew there were other reasons, too. Not the least of which was avoiding the stares of people who were frightened of anyone whose name had been connected to a murder. Frightened, cautious, and sometimes mean. It wasn’t about fairness. It was about fear.

  Birdie said she’d like to check in on Jules, too, as Nell thought she might. She had morning appointments but could be free by noon.

  “Perfect.” Nell would pick up Birdie first, then a seafood salad at the Ocean’s Edge. That and a sack of sourdough rolls and they’d be set.

  Besides, Nell had a question. And a stop at the Edge might satisfy more than their hunger.

  The restaurant was already busy when Nell and Birdie walked in. Tyler Gibson spotted them from behind the bar. He held up a white sack with a handle.

  “Our seafood salad?” Nell smiled.

  “The best in the world,” Tyler said. “Shrimp, mussels, sea scallops—and not a drop of mayo in sight.” He came around the bar and gave each of them a one-armed hug. The blond bartender considered Birdie Favazza his guiding angel for reasons none of them could figure out, though Nell suspected Birdie had kept some of Tyler’s earlier indiscretions out of reach of his grandmother’s ears. For whatever reason, his loyalty knew no bounds. “I threw in some calamari, too,” he whispered to her now. He motioned for another bartender to take his place so he could talk to “two of my favorite women.”