Trimmed With Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Carly’s right,” Georgia said. “But this was kind of mysterious. There was an older nurse who no longer lives around here who confirmed that someone came in and sat by her bed occasionally. She suspected that the security guards were a bit richer after those visits, if you get my drift.”

  Georgia paused, looking as though she had something more to say, but then seemed to think better of it and excused herself to grab a sandwich before her shift ended.

  “Now, what were we talking about?” Carly asked.

  “I think we were talking about Amber wanting to be sure everyone who helped her mother was thanked.”

  “That’s it,” Carly said with a snap of her fingers, her eyes lighting up. “That must be why she wanted those files—so she wouldn’t miss anyone.”

  “What files?” Nell said. “Didn’t you tell us Amber was bothering the nurses about medical files, her mother’s medical records?”

  “Oh, no. She asked a lot of questions along those lines. But what Amber wanted to look at were the visiting records for that week. The log-in books. No one ever looks at those things, no one, but sweet Priscilla is dutiful about keeping them. Apparently she has been for years and years. Some poor volunteer spent a whole summer inputting them. And to this day, Priscilla insists every guest sign in.

  “But I don’t know why the nurses were skittish about giving them to Amber that day. Maybe they were busy and just didn’t want to take the time. Or maybe . . . well—” Carly looked embarrassed.

  She smiled and shrugged. “I think Amber was a little demanding with some of them. But she only wanted to thank people who had cared about her mom, and that’s all good, right? Maybe find out a little more about how peaceful her mother was that day. She had every right to do that. They should have helped her.”

  Carly took a drink of her Coke, then looked up and said with conviction, “And that’s why I said yes.”

  “You were going to get her the visitors’ log-in?”

  “No. I mean yes. I printed them out for her.”

  And then they realized what Carly was saying.

  “But never had the chance to give them to her,” Birdie said gently.

  Carly nodded, sadness clouding her eyes.

  “Do you still have them, dear?” Birdie asked.

  “Maybe. Oh, no, I don’t. I shoved them in my locker. It was a holy mess, and I finally cleaned it out a couple days ago and threw everything away. I’m so sorry. Was it something you’d want to see?”

  “We might,” Nell said. “Would it be too much trouble to print out another?”

  Carly checked her watch, then shook her head. “Not now. The business office is locked up tighter than a drum.”

  Nell hid her disappointment beneath a new topic. “There’s another thing we wanted to talk to you about, Carly.” She explained that they had gone through the box of Ellie’s belongings that Amber had left with Charlie.

  Carly remembered the box. “Yes, I was the one who took care of that.”

  “The box was packed with such care, Carly. We knew it was probably you.”

  Carly blushed. “I think I even remember what was in it,” she said. She thought for a minute and then said, “There were clothes, but I don’t remember them really, except that Esther Gibson had bought her some nice things. I just wanted her daughter to know that. That’s why I put them in the box. Esther wanted Ellie to feel pretty every single day. But what I remember most are the diamond earrings. Esther had told me the story about Patrick and Ellie—and I knew they must have been given to her by him, by Amber’s father. When I packed them away that day, I imagined Ellie’s daughter wearing them. The thought made me happy.”

  “There was a pillow, too,” Charlie said.

  “I remember. That beautiful pillow that Esther gave her. We kept it on her bed, tucked it in with her at night. It was always with her, kind of like a child’s blanket, you know?”

  “And this? Do you remember packing this?” Nell pulled the plastic bag from her purse.

  Carly looked through the clear plastic, frowning uncertainly at the jewelry. “No, I don’t think—”

  Then suddenly her eyes lit up and she pulled the brooch from the bag, running her finger over the mother-of-pearl. She turned it over. “Oh, sure, I remember it now. At first I thought this was a design on the back, and then one of the other nurses said they were initials. But they weren’t Ellie’s initials, so we figured they were her mother’s maybe,” she said. “So I put it in the box. But let me tell you where I found it. It was the strangest thing.”

  And then Carly Schultz leaned forward, and, as if telling good friends about a movie she’d recently seen, she told Izzy, Nell, and Birdie why it was the strangest thing.

  Another piece. But not a ka-chunk. Not yet. Not until they saw the list.

  • • •

  When they finally walked out the door of Ocean View, Nell’s head was spinning. It felt like midnight, though her watch said just a little after five. The winter sky was unusually dark at the early hour, with only a sliver of moonlight lighting the trees. Lamplights in the parking lot guided them to Nell’s car, where they piled in, turning up the heat immediately.

  Nell maneuvered the car toward the guardhouse and stopped, waiting for the iron gate to open.

  While they waited, Charlie took in the manicured surroundings of Ocean View, then leaned toward Nell and pointed to a painted sign just outside the entrance.

  Ocean View Cemetery.

  “Amber will be there, next to her mother, right?”

  Nell nodded. She checked her watch again. All each of them needed was a quick shower and time to dress before the eight o’clock caroling. It would work.

  “It’s a short detour. Should we drive past?” Although Charlie had been there once before, she suspected he needed to see it now, knowing it would be where Amber would lie.

  The others were fine with it, as long as Nell kept the heat on high.

  The gate opened, and once again Nell made her way down the narrow, winding road that led back to the carefully tended Ocean View Cemetery.

  The wind whistled through the trees as she pulled the car slightly off the road. A lamplight nearby offered little light, but Nell remembered exactly where Ellie’s grave was—beneath the old hawthorn tree.

  “Come,” she said. “Let me show you.”

  They left the car running and the others talking quietly in the backseat, processing the day. “It’s close, just around that curve,” Nell said.

  She thought she heard an animal howling, the sound of a wolf perhaps, and stopped for a minute, peering into the darkness. She simply wasn’t used to being in a cemetery in the dark, she thought, and began walking again, this time nearly colliding with Charlie’s back.

  He had stopped dead still in the middle of the path.

  “Charlie?” she said, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. “What’s wrong?”

  He turned partially toward her. “Shh,” he whispered, a finger to his lips. Then he wrapped an arm around his aunt and brought her to his side, one hand pointing ahead of them.

  If it hadn’t been for the shiny down jacket reflecting the single beam of moonlight, they might have stumbled directly on top of the man. But Charlie had heard the noise, too, and had stopped on the path.

  A short distance ahead, unaware that he wasn’t alone, a broad figure crouched down on one knee on the unforgiving ground beside Ellie Harper’s grave. His body rocked back and forth, arms wrapped around his chest, holding himself together. His head was low, cradled in his hands, and his body leaning toward the raised mound beside him.

  And pouring out of the shaking form, rolling across the gravestones and up to the night sky, was the unbearable keening of a man in the deepest depths of sadness.

  Chapter 37

  Charlie and Nell sat in near silence on the drive home, proces
sing separately what they’d seen. Or heard.

  They’d waited on the trail just long enough to know there was nothing they could do to help, and that making their presence known would be intruding on a fiercely private moment. Then they had quietly turned and walked back to the car and driven off. Only when they were well on their way to drop the others off did Charlie turn and tell Izzy, Cass, and Birdie what they’d seen.

  Or what they thought they’d seen.

  “Someone was crying at Ellie’s grave?” Izzy repeated.

  “Who?”

  “It was dark,” Charlie said. “And we only saw the back. Everyone kinda looks alike in the winter anyway. Big jackets. Hoods. Hats.”

  Nell was silent. The sound still echoed in her head. It had been raw and frightening, and she worked with it now, trying to interpret it. Grief and anger, the deep anguish of guilt or sin—strong emotions sometimes collided and twisted together. They were often difficult to separate.

  She turned into Birdie’s circle drive and idled near the front door.

  “Nell, you couldn’t tell who it was, either?” Cass said. “You should have sent Birdie to look. She knows everyone.”

  “With these eyes I might have mistaken him for Ellie’s tombstone,” she said, climbing out of the car. She waved good-bye, said she’d go get gussied up and see them in a couple of hours, and disappeared up the steps.

  • • •

  After dropping off Cass and Izzy, Nell and Charlie headed up Sandswept Lane.

  Nell was relieved to see the house lit up; Ben sometimes overdid it, but tonight the glow inside warmed her before she even opened the door.

  Charlie headed for the guest cottage, promising to meet them later.

  Nell waved him off, then glanced at her phone as she walked through the door. An unfamiliar number appeared on the screen.

  Nell answered to hear the friendly voice of Georgia, the nurse they’d met earlier that day at Ocean View.

  “I hope you don’t mind the call,” Georgia said. “I got your number from Carly Schultz and needed to get something off my mind.”

  Nell assured her it was fine, but Georgia’s tone puzzled her.

  “I didn’t mention this today, but I had talked to Amber Harper when she came to Ocean View. I recognized her right away. She looked a lot like sweet Ellie.”

  She went on then, quickly, as if her break was about to be over and she needed to get something out.

  “I’m worried that I might have caused her distress, or encouraged her in a way I shouldn’t have. But no one was paying attention to her, answering any questions—probably because they didn’t have any answers. I might not have had any answers, either, but I had an opinion and I shared it with her. I was on duty the night that Ellie died. I checked on her at eight o’clock that night. Her color was good, her breathing, her vital signs. In fact, she seemed in better shape than she had a couple weeks earlier, when she looked a little sallow. So I told Amber what I told the doctor and the director, the priest—and anyone else who asked me about that night. I told her that her mother was in fine shape—for Ellie, anyway. And that I agreed with her that there was no reason her mother should have died.”

  Nell’s mouth dropped open, but before she could say anything in response, Georgia thanked her for listening, then politely excused herself, saying she had to get back to work and hung up.

  • • •

  Ben was on a call when Nell finally took off her coat. She was glad for the opportunity to collect herself, to jump in the shower, and to be alone for a few minutes as she tried to process Georgia’s call.

  At first she wasn’t clear on what the nurse’s message was. But as water sprayed down on her face, she replayed it in her head without her own emotions intruding. It was something she sometimes found difficult to do.

  Georgia’s only regret in speaking openly with Amber seemed to be that she might have caused her distress. Could she have? Charlie had talked about Amber becoming obsessed with her mother’s death, and she wondered briefly if Georgia’s talk might have contributed to that obsession. Opinions can be bolstered by numbers, certainly. And if she had done that, it was clear the nurse was sad—and sorry. Nell hoped that the nurse would forget about the incident—she certainly had nothing to do with Amber’s being killed.

  But her call had added clarity to what might well have ended Ellie’s daughter’s life.

  • • •

  From downstairs she heard the sounds of Ben shaking a martini. She glanced at the bedside clock. Good planning. They’d have a little quiet time together—before a not so quiet evening. She dried her hair, dressed quickly in a soft blue dress, and hurried down the back stairs.

  “What’s all this?” Ben greeted her, motioning to the things littering the island. “A man can barely make a martini in the middle of this mess.” He kissed her on the cheek.

  “You’ll manage.” Nell kissed him back.

  “Hmm,” Ben said, then handed her a martini and pulled out a stool for each of them. “I suspect there are things sitting here that we need to talk about?”

  Nell looked at the box and realized suddenly that she didn’t know where to start. So much had happened. But Ben Endicott was the best listener in the world, and now and then, he even had the amazing ability to straighten out strands of purple yarn.

  Nell pointed to the yellow pad and the summary sheet Cass had given each of them and started in. She’d taken the big stack home for Danny to see, but would bring it over the next day for Ben to take a look at.

  When Nell had finished, Ben had a look of quiet disbelief on his face.

  “I don’t know how to reply to all this, what to say first. You’ve covered a lot of ground today.”

  “Ground” didn’t begin to describe it in Nell’s mind.

  “Nellie—” he began, a familiar look appearing in his eyes.

  She nodded. “It’s okay, Ben. Don’t worry. We’re not going to get hurt. That’s already been done.”

  Ben swirled the liquid in his glass. He glanced over at Cass’s notes. “Do you think Amber’s next step before she was killed was to confront the Cummingses about what she’d found? Maybe take this to the police?”

  “I don’t know. She almost seemed to lose interest once she’d figured it out and moved on to something else. I think it was more than that. There was a reason she became so interested in Ocean View.

  “Amber was goal-oriented,” Nell went on. “We thought all along that walking in her footsteps would lead us to her murderer. And I think that’s what is happening. The problem is she walked to two different places and we’ve been trying to find the connection between the two. We’re getting close, but maybe not in the way we thought.” She paused and considered her words. Maybe not in the way we thought. Of course. That’s exactly it.

  She shook her head. It happened like this so often—just thinking out loud to Ben made something that had seemed murky to her earlier suddenly become crystal clear in the telling.

  Ben looked over at the box that held Ellie Harper’s material possessions. And a lot more. It was a whole story in a box.

  “Ben.” Nell pulled his attention back to the yellow pad. “Do you think what Amber discovered at Cummings Northshore would be a motive for murder?”

  Ben nursed his martini for a while, thinking of the company he’d known to be strong and solvent and successful. The accounting problems had been a surprise. The reasons for them an even bigger one.

  Finally he said, “A motive? Maybe. Do I think that’s why she was murdered?”

  They both thought of what that meant. And who the players were.

  “These findings show that there is something going on over there that shouldn’t be. It’s definitely troublesome. But it’s not clear how it would all pan out.”

  “So,” Nell said.

  Ben laughed. “So what you�
�re asking me to do, Nellie, is to concur with you. You already know what you think. And you probably know what I think, and you knew it even before we began this back-and-forth.”

  “Of course,” she said. The comfort of knowing Ben’s thoughts and inclinations matched hers was dimmed only by the fact that they still didn’t have all the panels matched up. But they were only one small stitch away.

  • • •

  Ben went out to heat up the car while Nell put on her coat and gloves.

  As she clicked off the lights and walked out to the car, she realized she hadn’t mentioned the man at Ellie’s grave site to Ben.

  She stood with her hand on the car door for a minute, glancing up at the sliver of moon. The same moon that had lighted the way to Ellie’s grave a few hours earlier. She remembered the sound, hearing it all over again, the awful anguish that echoed in her head.

  Maybe she hadn’t said anything to Ben because it was too hard to describe.

  But maybe it was because she simply wasn’t ready to talk about it.

  No matter how dark and cold it was, Nell was certain about whom she had seen kneeling at Ellie Harper’s grave.

  And finally, at last, she understood who had killed Amber Harper—and why.

  • • •

  They solved the parking problem by texting Danny and Sam that they could all park in the alley next to Izzy’s yarn shop. The redbrick historical museum was just across Harbor Road and a short walk through the small corner park.

  “We certainly clean up nicely,” Birdie said, stepping out of the backseat of Danny’s car. She looked admiringly at Cass’s slinky, short dress. “You won’t catch many lobsters in that, Catherine.”

  “Or maybe she will?” Danny said, his eyes doing a Groucho Marx imitation.

  Izzy and Sam drove up a few minutes later, pulling up next to Archie’s bookstore. “Sitter problems,” Sam explained. “Izzy had forgotten to run the sitter’s résumé past Homeland Security.”

  Izzy smiled smugly, knowing her husband was very impressed with the fact that she’d transformed her tired, frumpy body into a tall, shapely one in a holiday red blouse and formfitting skirt. “I look great,” she’d said to him. “And I know it. Eat your heart out, Sam Chambers.”