A Finely Knit Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Cass slathered butter on a roll. “I know—crazy, huh? He said he remembered the school from summers here and wouldn’t mind supporting the event. Make a donation. Be a good citizen, was how he put it.”

  “That’s generous,” Birdie said. “We’ll be happy to have him at our table.”

  “What’s he like? Do you like him?” Izzy asked.

  Cass stood up and brushed bread crumbs off her jeans, which Purl promptly cleaned up.

  “Like him?” Cass walked her now-empty plate to the kitchen alcove and returned with a new bottle of pinot gris. “If we’re going to explore my love life, I need another glass of Birdie’s wine.” She refilled all the glasses and sat back down. “I guess that’s where you’re going with this.”

  “We don’t mean to pry,” Nell began.

  Cass’s robust laugh lightened the lines of her face and brought the old Cass back. “Of course you do. But hey, I love you guys. It’s okay. It’s just that I don’t have much to say. Except lately I’ve been feeling a little restless—rootless, maybe. Not my usual peppy, Pollyanna self. Premenopausal? Midlife crisis? Who knows? And then this guy shows up at the Gull. I never went to the Gull alone before, but I did that night. And there he was, all alone, with this Tom Selleck mustache, a trimmed beard, and a hot car, and looking kind of sad—I’m a sucker for sad—so I thought, well, why not have a beer? Maybe have some diversion in my life.”

  “So, are you?” Izzy picked up the rest of the plates and stood next to Cass, waiting for an answer. Her words were soft, not threatening.

  “I suppose. He’s . . . what? . . . interesting, I guess. I really think he came here looking for a lost love or something and maybe it isn’t working out for him. Or, heck, maybe she’ll come around. But for now it’s surprisingly nice spending time with someone who has few expectations of me. It’s safe. It’s . . . well—”

  She didn’t finish the sentence, but all their thoughts turned to Danny Brandley. Cass had fallen in love with him—and she hadn’t felt safe. She had felt herself losing her footing. Being dependent, and jealous, even, an emotion she didn’t wear well.

  “Anyway,” Cass said, her voice lifting, “he’s nice. He likes boats. I like boats.”

  “A match made in heaven.” Izzy made a face at Cass again and then carried the plates to the table, returning with a stack of wet wipes.

  “I’m glad you’re getting out, Cass,” Nell said. Birdie had been right earlier—Cass hadn’t been herself for a while now. She was slightly withdrawn. Her generous laugh had gone down a notch. If Harry Winthrop was responsible for changing all that, it was a good thing. “You work hard. You deserve to have a good time.”

  Cass didn’t answer. Her eyes drifted over to the window that looked out onto the alley—and Danny’s parents’ bookstore across from it

  “Okay, then,” Izzy said, clinking Cass’s glass with her own and bringing her back. “I’m for good times, too. But mostly tonight I’m for getting Gabby’s dagnabbed project off the ground.”

  “Not Gabby’s project, my dear,” Birdie said. “It’s ours now. And these enrichment sessions are a wonderful addition to the curriculum. Cooking. Organic gardening. And what could be better than teaching knitting? It does marvelous things for developing brains.”

  “Well, all right, then. You all heard Birdie. We need to get our act together.”

  With that, the last of the dirty dishes was stashed in the sink, the big wooden table that centered the room wiped off, and chairs pulled out. Izzy carried a pile of bright, colored yarn to the table and spread the skeins out next to a stack of pattern books.

  “Gabby and Daisy have done their homework,” Izzy said. “Dr. Hartley e-mailed me the paper they’d presented in lobbying for this knitting class.”

  Birdie took the printed sheet from Izzy, slipped on her glasses, and began to read: “Knitting helps get both sides of the brain going, has a calming effect, and helps students in problem solving.” She looked up. “And at the bottom are a list of research references.” Her laughter was fluffed up with pride.

  “The question, then, is, are we ready for this? Elizabeth said she’s having to limit the number of participants because Gabby and Daisy have done such a great job of marketing the sessions.”

  “So, what do they want to knit?” Cass asked. “And be sure I get the kids who have six thumbs.”

  “Gabby suggested that each student work on two projects—something for herself and also a warm winter hat for kids in Father Northcutt’s community project or that one at the community center,” Birdie said. “Or maybe both.”

  “That’s our Gabby,” Izzy said, her voice sharing Birdie’s pride. “She’s a good kid, Birdie.”

  Good kid. Words that carried so much more meaning when said of Gabby. Not perfect, unusual in some ways, irritatingly precocious sometimes. She hadn’t had the most normal life so far, not with a series of stepmothers coming and going, and a father who loved her fiercely but who wasn’t around much. And even when he was, Christopher Marietti wasn’t always sure what to do with his wild filly of a daughter. But somehow, amazingly, it was working out.

  Izzy brought out more yarn, and they all reached for some, exploring the textures with fingers that understood a fiber by touch. Colors were critiqued and the darkest ones set aside as being too difficult to knit on for beginning knitters. Finally they chose several patterns that they’d present to the class—chic scarfs, and fingerless mittens for the girls—and a wild array of winter hats in brilliant colors for the kids in Father Northcutt’s community center program. Happy colors—crimson red, bright yellows, and neon greens—colors they knew would please Daisy and Gabby, who seemed to be calling the shots.

  Cass called it a night as they finished storing the yarns and needles in boxes. “This girl needs a good night’s sleep,” she said.

  “Too many late nights?” Birdie asked.

  Cass didn’t answer. Instead she leaned over and gave Birdie a hug. Then she waved good-bye to Nell and Izzy and slipped out the side door to the alley where she’d parked her pickup truck.

  Izzy checked her watch. “It’s still early, but I think we’ve done our duty here tonight.” She looked at Nell and Birdie. “Would you two be up for ice cream? I’m yearning for a double-chocolate cherry sundae.”

  In minutes they had locked up the shop and crossed over Harbor Road to Scoopers Ice Cream Shop. They could see before crossing the street that the line inside was short and the shop nearly empty. “A sure sign the summer people have left us,” Nell observed. “We get our ice cream shop back.”

  Inside they found one table occupied. Chelsey Mansfield and her daughter, Anna, sat close to each other at a table in the window.

  “That looks amazing, Anna,” Birdie said, gazing at the whipped-cream-topped confection sitting in front of the blond-haired youngster.

  Anna blushed and lowered her head, continuing to work on the mountain of ice cream in front of her.

  Izzy walked over and greeted Chelsey, then looked at Anna. “Did you know your mother was my teacher in law school? She was a wonderful teacher.”

  Anna looked at her mother and managed a small smile, then ducked her head away from the attention and back to the ice cream.

  “I can hardly remember those years, Isabel,” Chelsey said. “But I do remember how you excelled at everything you put your mind to. I must admit that when I later heard you had given up your spot at that law firm, I didn’t completely understand it.” She was quiet for a moment, her eyes looking over at Anna. When she looked back she smiled slightly. “But in recent years I understand it completely. Totally.”

  “I’ve never regretted it. And when I settled in here and opened my little shop, I once again became Izzy—the person I was before tailored suits and fancy offices.”

  “Izzy it is, then.”

  “So you don’t miss your career? Your life in Boston
?” Nell asked Chelsey. She didn’t know her well, but thought that she’d like her if given the opportunity. What she did know was that Chelsey Mansfield had been a respected professor at Harvard Law School and a successful partner in a law firm. But since moving to Sea Harbor a few years before, Barrett Mansfield’s wife had stayed out of the limelight, devoting herself completely to her daughter and the home Barrett had purchased and remodeled near the water.

  “Sometimes I miss teaching,” she admitted. “I was close enough in age to the students to understand their problems and career choices a little better than some of the other professors. But I figure I can always pick that up again. And at first, I even missed my practice—although the political posturing was never my thing. Then once we finally had Anna, everything changed, especially our priorities.”

  “That happens, for sure,” Izzy said.

  Chelsey nodded and looked at her own daughter, now buried in a book, the ice cream in her bowl melting into a brown sea. She reached over absently and touched Anna’s arm.

  Anna jumped, surprised, then pulled back and quickly resumed her reading.

  “The bustle of Boston no longer suited us. Nor the time our professional lives consumed. But most important, it wasn’t the best place to raise and educate Anna. She needed some extra help in school—and we had an amazing tutor there—but as Anna grew, we realized that the quieter, less frantic environment Cape Ann offers might be better for her . . . and for Barrett and me, too. It’s a good place for families, as you all know. So here we are. Barrett somehow manages the commute fine and even has time to be involved on the school committee. He’s an amazing man. I don’t know how he does it, but he says it’s worth every mile of the commute to live here—and he’d do anything for Anna. Sea Harbor Community Day School is a godsend. All three of us think so.”

  “It’s a good place. My granddaughter loves it, too.”

  Anna looked up. “Who’s your granddaughter?”

  “Her name is Gabby Marietti. This is her first year at the school.” Birdie looked over at the young girl. “I think she knows you, Anna.”

  Anna’s eyes lit up. “Oh, sure, I know Gabby. She’s, like, a year older . . . but sometimes she eats with me. She doesn’t like the cafeteria, just like me. Sometimes we go outside.”

  “It’s probably very noisy,” Birdie said, nodding. “If I were there, I’d probably be out on the patio with you.”

  Nell and Izzy listened, remembering the story Gabby had shared with them about Anna Mansfield. It was during Gabby’s second week at the school and she and Daisy Danvers had already found each other. One noon they spotted the younger girl sitting at the end of their cafeteria table. She was holding her ears, and tears ran down her face. So the two of them scooted their trays closer toward her, nearly frightening Anna onto the floor. But they’d finally convinced her that they thought it was really loud that day. And did she want to eat outside with them? The fifth graders were allowed to do that, Gabby said, so they took Anna as their “guest.” Once outside, the shy Anna calmed down, wiped her eyes with a napkin, and finished her lunch.

  “We got in trouble with the cafeteria lady for bringing Anna with us,” Gabby had said. “But the headmistress had walked by, and Dr. Hartley was all over it. She said that since Anna was with two fifth-grade girls, eating outside would be okay now and then.”

  It was clear Anna’s mother had heard the story, too. And that the headmistress knew and understood Anna’s difficulty in certain situations. Chelsey smiled at Birdie as if she herself had saved her daughter. Then she added, her voice adopting a lawyerly tone as if arguing a case in court, “There’s no one who understands children better than Dr. Hartley. She is that school’s savior, and losing her would destroy so much.”

  “Losing her?” Nell asked.

  Chelsey glanced at Anna, and then she lowered her voice. “I know that Dr. Hartley’s job is being threatened.”

  Birdie waved one hand in the air as if brushing away the irrelevant words. “I don’t think you should worry about it. I’m not the only one who agrees with you that Dr. Hartley is doing a fine job.”

  Chelsey listened, but the worry that had come with her words lingered in the fine lines of her forehead. She straightened up, forced a smile, and turned her attention back to Anna as if she might otherwise disappear.

  The young man behind the counter hollered that their ice cream was going to melt if they didn’t get with it. So they did, with good-byes to the Mansfields and picking up a stash of napkins along with the tray of sundaes.

  They moved outside to one of two small tables in the gravel alley that Myrna Sheridan, Scoopers’ owner, had designated as her patio. Since it bordered a nail salon, she had little opposition, and Scoopers Patio it became.

  “A perfect people-watching place,” Izzy said. “We can see the people walking by, but all they see is a dimly lit alley with scary, shadowy figures—”

  “Eating ice cream,” Birdie added.

  They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the breeze and listening to the faint strains of a guitar coming out of a small lounge farther down Harbor Road. The nice weather had brought a larger than usual number of strollers and window shoppers. Across the street, Archie Brandley’s bookstore was still lit up and the door held open, something Archie often did when there were still people walking by or he simply wasn’t ready to go home and welcomed the company a browser would provide.

  “Isn’t that Elizabeth?” Nell sat tall in her chair and pointed toward the bookstore.

  Beneath the lamplight just outside the shop, the headmistress turned in the doorway and waved good-bye to an unseen Archie. She carried a stack of books and walked to her car, moving around to the driver’s side and carefully skirting a string of moving traffic.

  Nell raised an arm to wave her over for a bowl of Scoopers’ finest, but she was suddenly blocked from view by a small yellow convertible—hip high, as Birdie described it later—that pulled up and stopped, so close to Elizabeth that the three women gasped, wondering for a minute if Elizabeth had been hit. But she seemed to be fine, and turned slowly toward the car that now paralleled her own.

  Blythe Westerland rested one arm on the leather seat back and leaned toward Elizabeth, her engine idling. In the moonlight, her platinum hair appeared bright and perfect.

  She was saying something other than hello, but from their table in the shadows of the alley, her words were lost.

  The expression on Elizabeth’s face, however, was clearly visible.

  The usually calm and gracious administrator was furious.

  She started to turn back to her own car, her arms still clutching the books. It was then that Blythe leaned closer and her words brought Elizabeth’s face once more into view.

  At that precise moment, the breeze softened, the traffic stilled, and the music in the nearby bar was silenced.

  But Elizabeth’s words were not silent. They traveled at high speed over the hip-high convertible and into the alley where Nell, Izzy, and Birdie leaned forward in their metal chairs.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Elizabeth shouted. The words were coated with ice. Her steely voice grew even louder and colder as she glared back at Blythe. “You can’t get away with this.” She turned, fumbled with the door handle, and finally slid in and sat behind the wheel. In the car next to her, Blythe brushed her hair smoothly back over one shoulder, pushed the gas pedal hard, and sped down Harbor Road, a smile on her face.

  Chapter 6

  “L aura Danvers must have magical powers. This weather is near perfect.” Nell rolled the window down a crack as she and Ben drove down the long, winding driveway from Birdie’s house. A black sky lit by a harvest moon, a mild breeze that had shifted sometime during the last twelve hours, and enough stars to satisfy the whole town’s wishes.

  “Maybe the weather is a good omen. I certainly hope so.”

  �
�You think we need a good omen for a party, Birdie?” Ben stopped at the Harbor Road stop sign and looked back at his white-haired passenger.

  “It wouldn’t hurt, now, would it? There’s something not quite right, something in the air that makes me a little jittery.”

  “Any idea what it might be?” Ben asked. He picked up speed and drove down the town’s main street, already filling up with Friday night revelers.

  “Maybe it’s the incident with Josh Babson,” Nell suggested. “After all, it’s your granddaughter’s school.”

  “Elizabeth handled that paint situation well,” Ben said. “I’m sure Jerry Thompson offered advice. It didn’t even make the paper.”

  Birdie was silent for a moment and Nell looked over her shoulder. Their eyes met and she knew they shared the same thought: Blythe Westerland hadn’t praised the way Elizabeth handled it. But that was another matter entirely.

  “Well, good. It’s nice to have Jerry tuned in to things,” Birdie said. But she shook her head as she spoke, not convinced that the painting episode was the cause of her unrest. She pulled her silvery eyebrows together, searching for an explanation for her emotions. “I suppose it could be stray emotions from that contentious board meeting. Or simply my overactive imagination. Living with a ten-year-old can do that to one.”

  Nell thought back to the board meeting. It had left a bad taste in her mouth, too. And then last night’s episode on Harbor Road hadn’t lessened it any. Blythe was an interesting person, but she certainly wasn’t trying to win herself any friends. Not that she seemed to care much about that sort of thing. “Why do you suppose Blythe is so insistent on removing Elizabeth from her job? She has been so vocal at the board meetings.”

  “She doesn’t like the changes that are being made to the school, for one thing. That’s her prerogative, I suppose,” Birdie said. “But maybe it’s something else. Something we haven’t been privy to. It does seem a bit extreme. There’s nothing the man can say that pleases her.”

  Ben listened to the conversation quietly. Nell looked over at him. “What do you think?”