Izzy’s comment sat there for a minute, spread out on the wide granite surface like butter on warm bread. One sentence stood out among the others.
If they believed she was innocent.
But did they?
There was silence. Even the water was still, the only sound coming from birds in the distance and a slight rustling of the trees circling the quarry.
Finally, Izzy spoke again, clarifying her own statement. “Yes, we believe Kayla is innocent of Dolores Cardozo’s murder.”
Izzy, the lawyer among them, speaking from a courtroom and in that same tone of voice. “Our belief isn’t based completely on emotion or the fact that Charlie is involved in that family’s life, or that the Stewarts have triggered something in my best friend—” She looked over at Cass, then turned away just as quickly. She was all business now.
“It’s a combination of everything. Sure, it’s what Cass said, that Kayla would never ever do anything that would separate her from her children. But it’s also based on facts—her small frame, for example. How could she hit Dolores hard enough to kill her, a woman at least six inches taller than she? And there’s her own injury. It would be difficult to inflict that on yourself, and even if she had tripped and hit the table, it wouldn’t have been enough to cause that degree of damage. And there’s the amnesia, authenticated by a doctor.
“Moreover, unless someone can prove she knew of her inheritance ahead of time, there’s no known motive. Is she a suspect? I suppose so. But getting a conviction? Right now the case would be full of circumstantial evidence, most of it flimsy. A long shot.”
But even long shots were disturbing—they all knew that. When a town was desperate to put a murderer behind bars so they could declare their streets safe again, long shots became shorter.
Izzy unzipped her backpack and pulled out a large paper bag with grease stains already spreading through. The smells coming from the bag were a welcome, brief diversion.
Cass stared at the bag. “Iz, you’re the absolute best. When you said you’d bring sandwiches I was expecting Abby’s leftover peanut butter and jelly.” She inhaled the garlic, vinegary onions, and sopressata aromas of Harry Garozzo’s deli specials.
“I know the way to your heart, Cass,” Izzy said, pulling the sandwiches out of the bag.
Cass unzipped her own pack, pulling out four bottles of water. She passed them around and took the first sandwich from Izzy, unwrapped it immediately. With a tip of her finger, she scooped up a dab of Harry’s secret and sinful sauce—a rosemary-laced whipped lardo that Cass sometimes dreamed about.
“Why you aren’t as big as a house is a mystery, Catherine,” Birdie said, shaking her head.
They attacked their sandwiches in silence, the sun warming the stone and their bodies, their minds mulling over the thought of Dolores Cardozo walking around the quarry, perhaps sitting in the same spot now littered with sandwich wrappings, apples, and water bottles.
Birdie wiped off her hands and took a long drink of water, looking over at the path that probably led to the Cardozo home. Maybe the route the murderer had come and gone along. “The Duncans claim Richie Pisano looked in the windows of the house while Kayla was inside,” she said. “Richie claimed he only saw the house from a distance. Why?”
Izzy painted the possible scenario again: Richie robbing the place, Dolores walking in on him. “Dolores wasn’t the type to play victim. She fought back, was killed, but before he could gather up the money, he heard someone coming in, so he hid in the bedroom or somewhere.”
Cass nodded, liking the story. “Maybe he escaped down that very path.”
“Motive, means, opportunity,” Izzy said, the last word drawing wry smiles. Richie was fond of opportunities.
“Ben mentioned that the police have talked to him,” Nell said. “Mary Pisano told me he seemed rather proud to have been questioned.”
“That figures,” Cass said. “But Mary also said work for Richie may have meant nosing around the police station and hospitals. Even if he was working that night he could easily have taken a detour to load up on fifty-dollar bills—”
“But would he have drawn attention to himself, then, by posting that announcement in the paper?” Nell asked. “And they didn’t find any prints that would place him there.”
That quieted them while they mulled it over, finishing lunch. They stuffed the remaining litter in a bag. But Richie Pisano stayed there in the mix, not discarded. Not yet.
Birdie shifted her small body on the granite, working out the kinks. “I think Dolores knew the person who did this to her. Most victims do. And I think the murderer had a reason for killing her. We’ve come to know Dolores as kind and generous. But those traits don’t often lead to murder. Unless . . .” Birdie wrinkled her forehead, trying to find the rest of her thought.
“Unless someone was jealous, or Dolores had done someone an injustice—at least in that person’s mind. Something they didn’t think fair,” Nell offered.
“Other than money, what could it be?” Izzy asked.
“Well, let’s start with money,” Birdie said. “Dolores’s generosity. Her final will and testament. Sometimes murder isn’t complicated, just like Dolores’s will wasn’t complicated.”
Nell agreed. “Let’s assume that those in Dolores’s will didn’t know about her bequests. At least for now. So killing her to receive the money sooner wouldn’t be a motive,” she said.
They agreed halfheartedly. Murder for money was an easy motive and difficult to let go of—even though imagining Claire Russell or Father Northcutt or the woman who washed Dolores’s hair as murderers was equally difficult. And none of them wanted to put Kayla back in the mix.
“Joe Duncan. Motive, opportunity—” Cass said.
They thought about Dolores’s neighbor with the binoculars and the rifle—Joe Duncan—wanting to protect his wife from change, from noise. From other people.
Nell climbed off the rock, her feet finding solid ground, her thoughts on the man who had been so pleased with receiving home-baked muffins. “Joe claimed he was in town during the possible time of Dolores’s murder.”
Birdie took Nell’s hand and followed her down to solid ground. “I stopped by to see Elliott Danvers yesterday but he was in meetings. He needs to know about Joe’s claim on the land. If there is one, anyway. That poor man. He clearly loves his wife. I suspect his life isn’t always easy.”
Cass slid off the rock. “Which is why Danny thinks he might have snapped. If he really thinks he’s going to get possession of all this land now that Dolores is dead, he’d have a pretty solid reason to make it happen.”
“If the police thought he was a strong suspect, they would have checked his alibi,” Izzy said.
“Except for the fact that there’s leeway in the exact time of death. If Kayla’s memory is accurate, she would have gotten out here a little after dusk—” Cass said.
“While Joe was conveniently in town,” Birdie said.
“Maybe.” Izzy scooped up the empty water bottles and slid off the rock. “So many ‘ifs.’”
“Back to Dolores’s final will and testament,” Nell said. “We need to stretch ourselves as we explore Dolores’s life. What about people who weren’t in the will, people who maybe thought they should be and somehow found out they weren’t going to be?”
“Like nonprofits?” Birdie asked.
“Maybe.”
“That would give them a motive—anger, maybe,” Birdie said.
Cass shook her head. “No, that’s too far-fetched. If the money were owed to them, it would be one thing. But would someone really murder another person because they didn’t receive money that they weren’t really owed in the first place? Especially a nonprofit person. Aren’t they all nice?” Cass looked over at Nell.
“Of course we are.” Nell chuckled. “But who knows what people will do? I agree with Cass, though. It’s far-fetched.”
It seemed almost ridiculous when they turned it this way and that, the facet
s of a motive turning garish, or disappearing entirely.
Until Birdie reminded them, “Murder is a human thing. Who knows what goes on in another’s mind? What emotion can build up or actions be misinterpreted?”
“That’s where we go astray, isn’t it?” Nell said. “We want everyone to be nice and kind and generous—and nonviolent. But someone was violent.”
“No stone unturned then. That is how we need to look at this. I will check in with Elliott about the deed to the land, but there’s something else I want to get from him. He’s kept records of Dolores’s giving, going back a few years. It’s worth looking at. I’m not sure why, but there might be something there that would point us in a new direction.” Birdie mentally recorded the task, her bobbing head clicking items in place.
“What’s up with Dolores spending hours in the library?” Izzy asked. She wiggled into the straps of her backpack and started to follow Cass around the rock to a new path.
“Marian Brandley said she came in to use the computers, not to read. She also made sure I knew that Dolores wasn’t playing games like some of my old lady friends do over there. She was working, Marian said.”
“Working,” Cass repeated. She pushed a dead branch to the side of the path as the others followed her into the woods. “Working on what?”
“Figures, numbers. She loved numbers, their purity.” Birdie paused, trying to remember something else the librarian had said. She smiled as her memory cleared. “Dolores told Marian that numbers needed to be respected and shouldn’t be abused.”
Izzy laughed. “Don’t ever look at my unbalanced bank account.”
“I need to pick up some books I have on hold at the library,” Nell said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
They walked on through the sweet-smelling woods, sunlight filtering through the trees, guided along the path by an invisible woman.
A short while later Cass called back that they were getting close to the trailhead, though she wasn’t sure which one. In minutes they stepped out of the cool woods and into a pool of sunlight. They were near the far edge of Dolores’s yard, her house in the distance and the Duncans’ visible across from it.
“I hadn’t realized how deep these woods are,” Nell said. She looked down the road to Dolores’s house. From where they stood, it looked cold, desolate, without the heart and warmth a living person had so recently breathed into it.
“It looks lonely,” Birdie said.
“Hey, what’s that?” Cass asked, pointing to a moving spot in the distance, near the edge of the Cardozo house.
They all squinted, trying to bring the blur into focus.
“A deer?” Izzy wondered, taking a few steps down the road.
But the movement wasn’t the quick, agile gait of a doe or fawn. Instead, as their eyes adjusted for the distance, a round figure with frizzy, silvery blue hair came into focus. It was just a quick glimpse, but a distinct one. Then she disappeared around the back of Dolores Cardozo’s house, the strings of her apron flapping in the breeze.
Chapter 29
Nell dropped Izzy off at the yarn shop, Cass at her office, and, finally, Birdie at her home to meet with the banker. Elliott Danvers had promised to drop by to talk about Dolores’s donation records. Birdie promised him an even exchange—Ella’s lemon bars in exchange for the records. He assured her he was getting the better deal. There wasn’t anything new in the records.
Nell checked the time as she drove out of Birdie’s circular drive and headed back toward town, her mind playing with the different images of Marlene Duncan.
The woman who never left her place. There’d been no doubt in Birdie’s or Nell’s mind who the figure scurrying around the Cardozo house was. Even Cass, who had never met the woman in person, recognized her from Danny’s vivid description. “He’s a great writer, you know,” she had added with a lifted brow.
Birdie had chuckled. “And this just may be something for one of his books. What an odd thing to lie about. Agoraphobia or whatever it is. What was that other fear Danny mentioned?”
“Fear of loud noises,” Cass had said.
“I wonder if Joe is aware of Marlene’s shenanigans.”
Thoughts and words and suppositions had collided as they drove back into town, none of them making complete sense.
It was Birdie who had remembered Marlene talking about the color of Dolores’s couch. It was the same as her own, she had said proudly.
Spying through the binoculars, though, could have been the source of that information. But it didn’t explain the fleeing figure all of them had just seen. Nell put thoughts of Marlene aside and concentrated on Harbor Road traffic. She waved at Harry Garozzo, taking a break outside his deli, his apron displaying the day’s specials in vivid red and orange spills. At the next stoplight, she turned left, driving up the gentle hill to the Sea Harbor Library.
Built in the mid-1800s, the stone building with its steeple and pointed roof looked more like a small church than a library. It was one of Nell’s favorite places in all of Sea Harbor. Its grassy lot was bordered by a stone fence and a meandering walkway that led to the two welcoming wooden doors.
Directly across the street, the police station and courthouse commanded a large hunk of public property but generously offered overflow parking spots to library patrons. Nell found a place and got out of the car, glancing back at the police department and adjoining jail. She imagined Esther Gibson taking her break from the dispatcher’s office and visiting her “girls” as she called the female inmates. She’d be sitting comfortably in the middle of them with baskets of yarn and needles at her side. Then, with fingers lifted and yarn looped around them, the lesson would begin, just as it did when she so patiently taught the children in Izzy’s shop. Nell could almost hear Esther’s singsong voice guiding the women with the childlike verse as they looped their yarn around fat needles, learning directions for the first stitch:
In through the front door
Around the back
Out through the window
And off jumps Jack.
And just like that, the first stitch was complete.
Nell stood in the middle of the lot, the simple rhyme gluing her to the pavement as it raced through her head. In through the front door . . .
And in the middle of it was Dolores Cardozo. Dead.
Is it the front door we need to go through to find the killer? Or around the back? Out through the window?
She shook away her confusion and crossed the street quickly, nearly colliding with a biker heading down the hill. She hurried up the library walk and through the double wooden doors into the safe and calming library.
The building wrapped her up in the familiar, comforting smells of childhood—of old books, polished wooden floors, and generations of readers whose presence lingered in the wood paneling of the tall-ceilinged rooms. Nell took a deep breath and smiled.
“Nell—over here.”
Nell looked into the main room of the library, the half-moon walnut desk, and into the welcoming wave of Marian Brandley. She stood near the checkout area, now almost totally automated, but it was where Marian stood to talk with anyone who wore a question mark. No matter their interest, Marian had the perfect book for them to read. Nell’s stack of books sat waiting on the shelf nearby.
“I spotted your reserved books and thought you might be by today,” Marian said. “And I’m glad—I was hoping to see you.”
“It must be karma. I wanted to see you, too. I hear congratulations are in order. Birdie told me about your good fortune.”
“Yes. That was gracious and surprising and generous of Dolores Cardozo. Totally undeserved by the way; this is my job, for heaven’s sake. But I’m even more thrilled with what she’s left to the library. It’s a huge bequest that will help us with so many things, all the things Dolores probably noticed in the endless hours she spent in here: better lighting, more computers, new study carrels. The list goes on. She’s been on my mind a lot. I think that’s why I was hoping I
’d run into you or Birdie. I’ve been wanting someone to talk to about everything that’s going on. A generous good woman—murdered.”
“That’s kind of why I’m here, too—trying to understand Dolores’s life a little better. To know her better. And just maybe, if we all put our heads together, to remember some forgotten conversation or something—anything—that might help us understand why Dolores died in such an awful way.”
“It makes absolutely no sense to me, Nell. None. It’s a travesty.” Marian glanced around, making sure staff and volunteers were meeting patrons’ needs. She motioned toward a door behind the desk. “Let’s go in here.”
The strong smell of coffee greeted them in the comfortable and cozy staff lounge. Marian walked over to a kitchenette counter and poured two cups of the very black coffee from a carafe, then handed one to Nell. “Break time. I need to get off these feet. I swear by afternoon they’re two sizes bigger.” She settled herself in an overstuffed chair and kicked off her shoes, motioning for Nell to join her.
About Nell’s own age, Marian Brandley was tall and slender and rarely stopped moving, which was one reason she was so trim and fit and looked ten years younger, big feet or not.
“This is the coffee Dolores loved. She drank it by the gallon when she was in here working.”
Nell sat down across from her and glanced at the pot of thick black brew. “In her death, I’m getting to know her—and now I know she loved the world’s strongest coffee. The more I learn, the more I think she and I would have been good friends.”
“Sure you would. I liked her, too. I didn’t really know her that well, though I helped her on the computer now and then. Mostly I got to know her by observing her, watching her mannerisms, her reaction to things. Maybe that’s the way we get to know many people.”
“What did you observe? What was Dolores like when she was here?”
Marian gave the question some thought. She crossed one leg over the other, cradled her coffee mug on one knee.
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