Murder Wears Mittens

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Birdie set the paper on the wide arm of the chair, absently smoothing it into a fold.

  Cass’s brows lifted. “A vegetarian? Good to know.”

  “It sounds like this Richie guy is pretty sure it was a robbery. I wonder where he gets his information,” Izzy said.

  “The police seem to be keeping information tight,” Nell said. “Maybe the less people know, the less the disturbance to the town will be.”

  However, they all knew that people would be disturbed, no matter what was kept out of the papers. The sketchy details would gather momentum as the day wore on. Some of what was said and repeated, and repeated again, would be true, some facts would be embellished, and some would simply be made up to fill in the gaps.

  It wasn’t the anticipated rumors, however, but the details that had not made the paper that concerned the four knitters: a bike that had been found leaning against a tree near the victim’s home. A blue bike. And the woman who had been riding it.

  Jerry Thompson had held back about the bike and any connection between it and Kayla Stewart. She was a relative newcomer, barely considered a Sea Harbor citizen by some who demanded at least ten years’ residency to qualify. And she kept to herself—two things that might make her a target for suspicion if the bike details were known around the town.

  The chief was wise to contain the bike information. At least for now, Ben had said, and they all agreed. Although they had yet to meet Kayla, the faces of two small children were front and center in their minds.

  They sat in silence, the sea breeze lifting their hair and cooling their faces, the cawing of the gulls cushioning their thoughts as they tried to process it all.

  Finally, Cass said, “I saw her yesterday.”

  “Who?” Nell asked.

  “Kayla Stewart.” Cass explained about her trip to the school playground. “I didn’t know it then, but now I’m sure that’s who it was. She was alone, her body leaning against the schoolyard fence. She looked like her life was unraveling before her eyes.”

  “You went to check on the kids,” Izzy said softly. But her voice wasn’t teasing or judging; it was filled with empathy.

  Cass seemed not to hear. “She’d been watching the same thing I was, the kids playing, laughing, kicking balls. The kids had gone back inside but she was still there. Still looking. She was roughed up, like she’d been in an accident.”

  Cass went on to describe the woman’s short spikey hair, her slender, boyish frame. “She had a bandage on her forehead, and her face looked blotchy, swollen.”

  “Did you talk to her?” Birdie asked.

  Cass shook her head. “I felt like I’d be intruding at first—she thought she was alone.” Cass thought back to the scene at the fence. “Maybe subconsciously I did, I don’t know. I hadn’t been able to get those two kids off my mind. And this woman looked so . . . I don’t know, so unstable. If she hadn’t had the fence to hold on to, a sudden breeze might have knocked her flat. And she looked really sad, like something terrible had happened. Finally, I started to walk over to her, just in case she needed help, but as soon as she heard the noise and realized she wasn’t alone, she tore off in the other direction.”

  “Fiona had spent the night with the kids. She probably took them to school before she picked Kayla up at the hospital,” Nell said.

  “She’d have been desperate to see her kids.” Izzy’s voice was ragged.

  “Fiona could have called me to help,” Cass said abruptly.

  They all looked at her.

  “I mean, I could have helped out with the kids.” Cass twisted her head around and looked into their surprised faces. She managed a laugh. “I know, I know. I don’t even know the kids. But I feel like I do. I feel—weirdly enough—kind of responsible for them.” She waited for someone to tell her how ludicrous that was. All because she had found their clothes in her dryer?

  Izzy nodded. “I completely get it. Remember when I found that abandoned car seat on the beach before Abby was born? An abandoned car seat. No baby. I felt the same way about that baby, and I never even saw him. But in my heart I had this connection, this emotional tug toward whoever he was, like I needed to protect that baby somehow because I had found the car seat. I even dreamed about him.”

  “So I’m not completely weird.” Cass managed a smile.

  “Well . . .” Izzy smiled, her brows lifting into scattered bangs.

  “Of course you’re not,” Birdie said, reaching over and rubbing Cass’s hunched shoulders. “You’re simply compassionate and kind, Catherine, whether you like to hear it or not.”

  Cass brushed some sand off her legs along with the compliment. “So, is Kayla all right? What’s with the memory loss?”

  “It’s not uncommon if there’s trauma involved,” Birdie said. “It will probably come back soon, the doctor in the ER told Fiona. Familiar things may trigger it. She recognized Fiona in the hospital room, and within a short time was able to put a name to her face.”

  “Fiona is going to stay at the house again tonight,” Nell said. “Just as a precaution. She wants to be sure Kayla is okay and can handle the kids. They have an appointment with Doc Mackenzie to check her over. The piece of memory that hasn’t come back—at least as of last night—is that chunk of time between leaving her house and ending up in the hospital.”

  “A big chunk,” Cass said.

  “Huge. It would include late Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning when she was wandering along the road,” Izzy said.

  “And even Sunday morning wasn’t completely clear in her mind,” Nell added.

  Izzy pulled her tan legs up on the wide chair, crisscrossing them like a dancer. “That’s a whole day to fill in. She left home. She rode her bike somewhere. And a day later she’s in a hospital with a concussion. So she was unconscious some of the time, wandering around the rest of it.”

  And during that time, a woman was murdered.

  “The doctor wasn’t sure how long she was unconscious,” Nell said. “If she was unconscious. There are many unknowns.” It was Ben talking through Nell, and they all knew it. The need to be circumspect and not let emotions color their perceptions.

  “But surely, as soon as Kayla’s mind clears, everything will be resolved,” Birdie said.

  Cass sat quietly, her eyes following a gull as it attacked a piece of toast marring the club’s manicured beach. In the distance, sailboats silently rode the horizon.

  “What are you thinking?” Izzy leaned forward, looking at Cass.

  “I was trying to imagine what might have happened during the span of time that Kayla can’t remember. We know her errand was important. Had to be, to take her away from those kids. So she was headed . . . somewhere. She hit a bump on the road and it threw her off the bike. She hit a rock. There’re granite boulders all over those back roads. That would explain the cut to her forehead and the concussion. And when she came to she didn’t know where she was.”

  “And her bike?” Birdie asked gently, treading lightly on what none of them wanted to address: Kayla’s blue bike leaning against a tree. And a murdered woman found lying on the floor of a house, just a few yards away.

  “Maybe she was near the Cardozo place when she fell. She wandered off and someone found the bike and moved it to get it off the road. They left it there so it could be seen when the owner came looking for it.” She wiggled her mug back and forth, pressing it into the sand, as if making it steady would steady her words. “I mean, what possible reason would Kayla have had to go to the Cardozo home that night? We’re old-timers here and we didn’t really know the woman. How would Kayla, a relative newcomer, have known her?”

  But even Cass was aware that her explanation lacked logic or believability, yet not one of her friends refuted it. Somehow, in the space of a few days, they were creating a strange shield around Kayla Stewart, protecting a woman they didn’t know—and all because of two children and a dog who had inched their way into their lives. An unspoken alliance had them denying out loud at least
one scenario one that was probably a part of a police report somewhere: They knew from Fiona that Dolores had money around her house—did Kayla know that too? And Fiona said that Kayla was in need of money. She left home on a bike that night, the same bike that was found leaning against a tree at Dolores Cardozo’s house.

  The same Dolores who was dead.

  A half hour later, Cass reminded everyone that she had a job running a lobster company and needed to get back. “Pete’s threatening to fire me,” she said.

  They laughed. Although Cass’s younger brother was officially co-owner of the Halloran Lobster Company, Pete rarely stepped inside the office, leaving anything with numbers on it to his older sister and CEO. The boats; the sea; his girlfriend, Willow Adams; and his Fractured Fish band—those were Pete’s passions. And not necessarily in that order, he’d be quick to say.

  “Fifteen minutes, that’s all I ask,” Izzy said, holding her hands up to halt Cass’s exit. “Mae will handle the nitty-gritty but we need to get it started.” Izzy’s shop manager could handle the world with one hand, they all believed. But she liked things handed over to her in decent order.

  “Hey there, ladies.” A faint but familiar voice floated up from the sand.

  They looked down toward the water’s edge, their eyes squinting against the sun as a runner waved at them in sweeping arcs.

  “Hannah?” Nell said, cupping her hands over her eyes.

  Hannah Swenson had slowed to a jog, then walked their way, her body glistening with sweat. She stopped at the fan of chairs and leaned over, her hands on her knees as she sucked in lungfuls of air. “I thought I saw familiar bodies over here,” she said between breaths.

  “Bodies at rest.” Birdie smiled. “Unlike yours, dear. You’re putting us to shame.”

  “This is a great beach to run on,” Izzy said.

  Hannah straightened up and took a drink from a water bottle, her long, muscular body stretching in the sun. “I love running here. It’s my therapy.”

  “It would put me in therapy,” Cass said.

  “My son’s a runner, too. He coaxed me into it.”

  “I remember,” Izzy said. “Jason and I did the Around Cape Ann race together a couple years ago.”

  Hannah smiled, then sobered as she spotted the paper next to Birdie. She pointed at it. “Now I understand why you looked so serious when I walked up.”

  “We’re slowly taking in the news,” Nell said.

  “I was in a meeting with Mary Pisano when she got a call from her paper. Did you figure out who she was? The lady who died?”

  “We realized we all knew her slightly,” Izzy said. “I’d see her when I was running mostly.”

  Hannah said she’d seen her while running, too, although it wasn’t until Mary identified her as the woman with the long white ponytail that she realized who she was.

  A silence followed, along with a desire to set aside bad news.

  Cass broke the silence, straightening her torso. She tucked some stray hairs beneath her baseball cap. “Hey, this is fate, or serendipity, or one of those things Birdie talks about.”

  Hannah’s brows lifted, a guarded smile meeting Cass’s words.

  Nell caught on immediately. “Cass is a genius. Hannah, you know every group in town, you’re a talented knitter on top of it—”

  “And we need help with a knitting project,” Izzy said brightly.

  “Yep. And if you help us out, I can get back to work before my crazy lobster crew comes after me. It wouldn’t be a pretty picture.”

  Hannah laughed, looking relieved that all they were asking of her were ideas.

  “We just need a few minutes,” Izzy said. “You already know about the HMS project.”

  Hannah nodded, and for the next fifteen minutes, talk of Dolores Cardozo was set aside and attention shifted to the fall knit-a-long project, with Hannah joining in and pitching dozens of ideas on how to meet the ambitious goal of filling the community clothing center with hats and socks and mittens and scarves: HMS. No heads bare, no fingers blue was Izzy’s motto.

  In short order they had listed more than a dozen groups to join in with the knitting, ranging from a group of incarcerated women that Esther Gibson, the police dispatcher, was teaching to knit, to book clubs and school groups.

  For those who didn’t know how to knit, Izzy was offering free classes. The town would be buried in soft luscious yarn—and hats, scarves, socks, mittens.

  Hannah unfolded her body from the sand and stretched, looking down at all of them. “You four are great. A true society of knitters,” she said.

  “Along with running, knitting is a perfect panacea,” Izzy said.

  And definitely a welcome diversion from thoughts of murder.

  * * *

  Hannah continued her run, and Izzy left minutes later with Cass, knowing her shop manager, Mae Anderson, could handle any catastrophe, but it was bound to be a crazy day in the yarn shop. If any place in town was ripe for an analysis of everything from town politics to raising children, it was the group of amazing moms who met in Izzy’s back room on Tuesday mornings. But on some days—particularly when the town had so recently been jarred by a tragedy—Mae might appreciate the owner’s help in calming things down.

  Birdie and Nell finished their coffee, returned the mugs to the club’s patio bar, and walked slowly along the flagstone path to the club’s parking lot. For a while they walked in that way friends do, silently, relishing the magic of the perfect Indian summer day. They were a duo in contrast—with Birdie’s diminutive figure and her silvery bob barely reaching Nell’s shoulder, and Nell’s comfortably slender frame and still dark hair, highlighted with smooth strands of gray, walking tall beside her.

  Above them, flocks of birds flew in erratic herringbone patterns as if wondering if heading south was really necessary.

  Finally, Birdie brought them both back to real life. “I suppose it’s because of all the unknowns,” she said, waving to a neighbor heading down to the sailboat slips.

  Nell knew she was speaking about Dolores Cardozo.

  “The scenario you and Izzy mapped out has some curious elements that I’m having trouble wrapping my thoughts around.”

  “Which parts?”

  “Fiona, for one. Her familiarity with the kids. Do you suppose Fiona is as familiar with every family at the school as she seems to be with the Stewarts? If so, I can’t imagine her ever getting anything done. And from what Mary Halloran says, Fiona has her fingers in every pie—the food kitchen and clothing center, running the school—and if we can believe our dear Cass, trying to run her niece’s love life. Mary Halloran tells me she even interferes in her job as parish secretary. And now Fiona is babysitting for a school parent? It seems excessive. Kind and generous, absolutely. But beyond the norm.”

  They had taken the path around the parking lot and headed toward Nell’s car, parked adjacent to the main clubhouse entry. It was nearly lunchtime now, and the lot was filling up.

  Nell rummaged around in her purse for her keys, thinking about Birdie’s comment.

  “Maybe it’s just me,” Birdie continued. “I gave up multitasking years ago. Maybe it’s just the way Fiona is.”

  “I understand what you’re saying. When we were talking last night, we took it for granted that Fiona knew the Stewarts from the school. She kept telling us what a good mother Kayla was, almost as if she’d had something to do with it. And the kids were clearly fond of Fiona; we saw that Sunday. There’s a connection there, for sure.”

  Voices close by hushed their conversation, and they looked up toward the clubhouse doors, just as they swung open.

  Father Northcutt and Chief Jerry Thompson walked out, heads bent in conversation. Elliott Danvers was a step behind them. The banker carried a leather attaché in one hand. His face was somber, matching that of the older men, as if the threesome had just come from a board meeting instead of lunch at one of the finest dining spots in Sea Harbor.

  The men continued their conversatio
n at the bottom of the steps, and the women continued toward Nell’s car.

  Finally, Father Northcutt looked up, rubbing his ample chin, his brow furrowed. It was when he lowered his chin slightly that his gaze fell on the two women walking to Nell’s car.

  Nell smiled and Birdie lifted one hand in a wave.

  “Ladies,” the priest called over, then began to walk their way, his arms already open in greeting. “And where will we meet next, Nellie?” he joked. “We seem to be stalking one another.”

  Nell laughed but the coincidence didn’t escape her.

  Elliott and the police chief dropped their conversation, looked up, then followed the priest across the drive, their expressions replaced with friendly greetings.

  “I thought I recognized your car when I drove in,” Elliott said. “It’s last election’s bumper sticker that did it, a clear giveaway, Nell.”

  Nell smiled and looked at the long black Eldorado parked next to her CRV. It hadn’t been there when she and Birdie arrived earlier or she would have known Elliott Danvers was nearby. Everyone knew the elaborate Cadillac his father had given him when he took over the family bank. Nell suspected Elliott would have gladly given the car away in exchange for a small Ford if the gesture would not have insulted his father.

  Elliott shook Nell’s hand, then Birdie’s, holding it a moment too long as he looked at her, opening his mouth as if to speak, then smiled instead.

  Birdie broke the awkward moment. “I hope the food agreed with the three of you. The yacht club’s chef usually sends diners out with a moonstruck look on their faces. I’m not seeing that today.”

  The police chief managed a chuckle. “Food wasn’t a priority today. Liz Santos gave us strong black coffee, soup, and one of her meeting rooms. It’s quiet here—certainly more so than a hectic police station or Elliott’s bank.”

  “A secret meeting,” Birdie said with a smile.

  Jerry nodded. “Sometimes one has to get far from the madding crowd to get anything done.”