Death By Cashmere

by Goldenbaum, Sally

  Nell had waited up for Ben to come back, after the others had left, but once he got home and assured her that Pete was fine, that he hadn’t been arrested for Angie’s murder, and that he was safely back home in his little apartment on the edge of town, she was able to give in to the weariness of the day and sleep, pressed lightly into Ben’s comforting length.

  The details, Ben said, could wait until morning.

  Ben’s special coffee was gurgling in the kitchen when Nell came downstairs the next morning. She’d slept late, unusual for her. Emotion had taken a toll. But the strong aroma of the Colombian coffee lightened her step.

  “It’s strong enough to curl your hair,” Birdie often complained as she’d head for the cupboard and a bag of Earl Grey tea.

  Ben spotted Nell coming down the back stairs into the kitchen and filled a mug to the top before returning to his spot at the table. A soft breeze from the open windows ruffled the pages of the Saturday Boston Globe, already pulled apart into piles—front pages, business, sports, style.

  “So fill me in,” Nell said, settling herself across from him, her elbows on the table, her chin cupped in her hands.

  “Pete got rowdy.” Ben stirred his coffee and flattened the business section with his other hand. “Going to the Gull to avoid talk of Angie was a bad decision, it turns out.”

  “Who was there?”

  “The usual Friday nighters—lots of Pete’s buddies. But they weren’t the problem. There were others there who didn’t know Angie like we did, and they were talking about her. ‘What kind of girl would be drinking out on the breakwater?’ That kind of thing. ‘What was she looking for?’ Pete heard it. And after a few drinks, he lost it and started a fight.”

  “So Jake Risso called the police?”

  Ben shrugged. “Jake isn’t a bad sort. He tried to stop it, apparently. But he couldn’t risk getting the place all broken up. It was probably a good thing to do. It protected Pete from himself. He felt mighty sheepish by the time we got him home.”

  “And I don’t imagine Cass held back on letting him know how she felt about it.”

  Ben laughed. “Nope, you’re right about that. Sam Perry was a big help. He got Pete back in his apartment and even stored your pork chops in his fridge. Pete says thanks, by the way. Or at least it sounded sort of like that.”

  Ben took a drink of coffee and sat silently for a minute, his face growing more serious. “I ran into the chief while we were at the station. He repeated what we’d heard yesterday—that the likeliest scenario is that a stranger killed Angie, someone passing through. They’ve talked to people like Pete and Tony. But there are no likely suspects who could have been on the dock when they estimate Angie was killed. At least no one they’ve come up with. And the drug angle changes things, Jerry said. Those kinds of drugs—the ones used to immobilize people for whatever the reason—are foreign to Sea Harbor. It just doesn’t fit here. The police found nothing helpful in Angie’s apartment. No clues. No personal calendar or notes. There was little of Angie there, they said. It was almost as if she’d never intended to really move in and make it her own.”

  Nell nodded, remembering the few personal things she’d seen. Some clothes. A picture frame. But the apartment was Izzy’s, not Angie’s, filled with the things she had found to make it comfortable and cozy for the person who lived there. And Angie had added little to make it her own.

  “Jerry said that they’d have to talk to people who knew her, of course. But there were some beach bums who hung around the breakwater and beaches last summer, and Jerry suspected it might be something like that.”

  “That seems a big assumption, Ben.”

  “Maybe. The guys last summer robbed a whole string of cottages before taking off for parts unknown. And it presents at least the possibility that someone hanging around for no good reason approached Angie that night.”

  “Do you think that’s what happened?”

  Ben didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Thirty years of sitting across from him at the breakfast table had bred its own clear language. A careful look into Ben’s brown eyes told Nell his thoughts—and they matched her own.

  “There are so many loose ends, Ben. But the most absurd part of that hypothesis is the idea that Angie would have a drink with a stranger—and on a night when she had plans with one of the nicest men in Sea Harbor. And going out on the breakwater on a nasty night? It wouldn’t happen. Not ‘randomly.’ ”

  Ben rubbed the handle on his coffee mug absently. “No, it couldn’t. But there are people who know more about it than we do and hopefully they’ll figure all that out.”

  “We can hope.”

  Izzy called shortly after Ben left the house for a Sox game at Fen-way. “The police are finished looking through Angie’s apartment, Nell. Josie suggested I just pack up her things.”

  Nell had talked to Josie that morning, too. Her neighbors and friends had rallied around her, and she told Nell she was okay—and that it was going to be all right. Angie was at peace, she repeated. And Nell heard in her voice that she believed that to be true. The police would release the body and she would bury Angie quietly—just a few neighbors and Father Northcutt.

  “She’ll lie down right next to Ted.” It was almost as if the news that Angie was murdered was lost to Josie—or wasn’t a part of her grieving process.

  “I think Josie was thinking more of me than of herself,” Izzy said on the phone. “She worried that having Angie’s things still in the apartment was uncomfortable for me, and that I might want to rent out the space. Can you imagine?”

  Nell could. That would be Josie’s way.

  “I assured her I wasn’t even thinking of renting the apartment for a while,” Izzy went on. “That it was the last thing on my mind. But the truth is, I think she wants this over with. Closure. So if your offer to help is still good, I know it’ll be easier with you there beside me.”

  Izzy had suggested around four, when things quieted down at the shop.

  Nell filled the back of her car with boxes and some old newspapers, and drove down to the village. From the brief time she’d spent in Angie’s apartment, Nell doubted if they would need half the boxes she’d collected.

  A parking spot opened up directly in front of the Seaside Knitting Studio. Parking karma, as Birdie would say, Nell thought, and turned off the ignition. The minute she stepped onto the curb, her eyes were drawn to Izzy’s shop window. It was a virtual rainbow of color. A rainbow in the middle of a terrible storm.

  Nell stood in front of the window and feasted on the visual effect Izzy had created. She’d filled the space with an ocean of yarn in colors that took Nell’s breath away. She pressed her fingertips against the glass, as if to touch the dripping skeins. Izzy must have gotten up at dawn to put it all together. Her own little attempt to dispel the gloom. And she’d done a magnificent job of it.

  Several old brass-cornered trunks were positioned at different angles in the narrow space, cushioned on a bed of silk petals. Nell recognized one trunk from an antique sale she and Izzy had gone to in Rockport last winter. Another was Izzy’s grandmother ’s—Nell’s mother ’s—steamer trunk. Izzy had cleaned it up and polished the brass fixings to a high sheen.

  Draped across the dark surfaces of the trunks, flowing gently over the sides and down to the floor was a waterfall of yarn that reminded Nell of a recent Monet exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The colors were irresistible and only the thick glass kept Nell from sinking her fingers into the hand-dyed strands of mossy green and soft coral, turquoise, and deep, watery blues. One skein, cascading down the center of the trunk, was a rich blend of saffron, goldenrod, and shades of yellow, reminding Nell of Izzy’s hair. It was beautiful. Sea yarn, the handwritten sign read.

  Nell smiled into her reflection in the glass, her cheekbones catching the sun’s reflection. And she knew before walking into Izzy’s shop that the trip to clean out Angie’s apartment was going to be an expensive one. Sea yarn, she suspected, didn�
�t come cheap.

  Nell greeted Mae and was told that the store had nearly sold out of the new, luxurious yarn. It was a good thing it was closing time, she said.

  “It’s a beautiful display.”

  “Sure it is. The girl has talent,” Mae said. She glared at the computer screen. “But this computer doesn’t. Darn things. You’re damned if you use ’em, damned if you don’t.” She snatched a calculator from the drawer and began punching in the day’s figures.

  “Almost sold out?”

  Mae chuckled and lowered her rimless glasses down to the slight bump on her nose. “No need to worry. Izzy knew you’d go nuts over those colors. She set aside a stash for you and has clear plans for how you should use it.”

  “This is a dangerous place, Mae. And where is the temptress? ”

  “In the back room. She was helping Harriet Brandley finish up some booties for the fourteenth grandbaby. Fourteen! Booties and sweaters for the Brandley babies alone’d keep us in business. Been crazy as all get-out in here today. Even Miz Framingham stopped by to see the display. Izzy talked her into staying for a class she was teaching on making scarves with the new yarn. Izzy could talk an Eskimo into buying ice.”

  The thought of Margarethe taking Izzy’s class made Nell smile. Margarethe knew more about knitting and yarns than all of them put together. And she was used to giving instructions, not taking them. But Mae was right—Izzy probably could sell ice to an Eskimo, provided they could afford it. If not, she’d give it to them.

  Nell found Izzy standing at the bookcase in the back room, sorting through a pile of CDs. Purl was on a knit cushion in the middle of the table, curled into a sleeping ball. All around her, the table was littered with skeins of yarns, needles and scissors, and empty lemonade glasses.

  “Sorry it’s such a mess,” Izzy said, leaning over to peck Nell on the cheek. “We had a class today.”

  “So Mae tells me.”

  “Ah, Miz Framingham, as Mae calls her. She almost bought out my supply of sea yarn. I think I could retire off today’s sales.”

  “And she took a class?”

  “Yes, though she didn’t need to. She’s an amazing knitter. She knows more about yarn than anyone I know. I asked her how she knew so much. She was kind of reluctant to talk about it, but finally admitted that she had a grandmother who taught her how to knit. It was the one good thing in her childhood, she said. But anyway, she wanted to experiment with the sea yarn. Mostly, though, I think she needed her mind to be on other things.” Izzy scooped up a handful of spare needles and put them in a basket.

  “What do you mean?”

  “News that Angie’s death was a murder upset her terribly. She thought the media was unnecessarily frightening people.” Izzy picked up a sack from the table and handed it to Nell. “Here’s what I saved for you. Isn’t it beautiful? I decided we needed beauty in our lives right now. And I think that’s why Margarethe stayed around, too.”

  Nell opened the sack. It was filled with turquoise sea yarn in differing shades, one melting into another, until it looked like the sea on a perfect summer day.

  “I thought you could make a lacy scarf or shawl to go with your sexy black dress for next week’s benefit. I threw in a simple pattern—you can easily finish it by next Saturday.”

  “Dear Izzy. I don’t know how I managed while you were off being a lawyer. Thank you. And speaking of the arts benefit—”

  Izzy shook her head and held up one hand. “Nope. I won’t need your extra ticket, Aunt Nell. I was hoping I’d weasel an invitation out of Margarethe Framingham by inviting her to stay for the class. She seemed pleased that I brought up the event—all the women in the class assured her the town wouldn’t let Angie’s murder put anything on hold. “ Izzy picked up an engraved rectangle of cream-colored cardboard from the bookcase and flapped it in the air. “But for whatever reason, I am now an invited guest.”

  Nell smiled.

  “Maybe Cass would like your extra ticket—she probably can’t afford one, especially with all that poaching going on, and could certainly use a party. What do those tickets cost? Three hundred a pop? I’ll donate to the artists’ fund, but on my own terms, I’m afraid.”

  “What’s all this idle chatter?” a voice floated in behind Nell. “I thought we had work to do.” Birdie stood on the step in the arched doorway, nearly hidden behind a pile of cardboard boxes piled in her arms.

  “Birdie, give me those,” Nell said, taking a box off the top of the pile and setting it on the floor. “There, now I can see you. What are you doing here?” The question was a bit silly, Nell thought. One never knew when Birdie would show up. She didn’t miss a beat of the town’s pulse, somehow knowing what was going on before things actually happened. Nell suspected she protected more Sea Harbor secrets that Father Northcutt’s confessional box.

  Birdie set the other boxes down and brushed her small hands together, releasing a cloud of dust. “I saw your car, Nell, and the boxes in the backseat, and decided my visit to Ocean’s Edge for tea could wait. Those old ladies aren’t nearly as interesting as you two, and I didn’t want to miss out on anything.”

  Those old ladies, Nell knew, were a group of wealthy Sea Harbor residents of Birdie’s generation who, like Birdie herself, could buy and sell the town if they so chose. And the tea gathering was more likely a date with a bottle of sherry and a platter full of gossip.

  “Old ladies, my foot,” Izzy said. “You will never be old, Birdie.”

  “That’s true,” Birdie said. She brushed a shock of white hair back from her forehead, where age spots and freckles blended together. A maze of tiny lines, like a well-drawn road map, spread out from the corners of her eyes, which lit up her wise, lined face. “But I’m not here to talk about age, sweet pea. I presume these boxes are for Angelina’s things and there isn’t much else I can do for poor Josie. So let me help.”

  “Me, too,” said Cass, coming in from the front of the store. “Mae said you were all back here. I don’t need yarn, but I sure need all of you.”

  “Well, then, grab a box,” Izzy said.

  “Izzy Chambers, are you back here?”

  “One more minute and we would have missed her,” Cass mumbled under her breath.

  Beatrice Scaglia swept into the room. Even on Saturdays Beatrice was dressed for a power meeting or luncheon. Her pink summery suit, a size four at the most, Nell guessed, matched her two-inch heels perfectly, and as always, every hair was in place.

  “It’s that gorgeous yarn, Izzy,” Beatrice said, smiling at the circle of women. “I must have it.”

  “The sea yarn?” Izzy asked. “Mae would be glad to help—”

  “Izzy dear, Mae Anderson is a charming woman. You”— Beatrice pointed a long red fingernail at Izzy—“are a fiber artist. I knew that from the start, which is why I helped push your license through for this shop. And I found your class so interesting last week that I may actually take up knitting. The new yoga, my friends call it. So therapeutic, they say.” Beatrice’s red lips formed a perfect smile.

  She probably will be mayor someday, Nell thought, listening to the exchange. According to Ben, that was Beatrice’s goal. The diminutive powerhouse already drove nearly every council meeting and knew every newborn, every aging Sea Harbor resident by name. Watching her in action, Nell understood completely why her sweet husband, Salvatore, never said a word.

  “Are you moving?” Beatrice asked suddenly, looking at the stack of boxes.

  “No,” Nell said. “We’re cleaning out Angie Archer’s apartment. ”

  Beatrice looked up at the ceiling. “Why?” she asked. A strange look crossed her face. “Now?”

  “Yes,” Izzy said. “But I think Mae has a few skeins of the yarn left if you’d like some.”

  Nell thought Beatrice looked slightly pale. Tiny beads of perspiration dotted her forehead. “Are you all right, Beatrice?”

  Beatrice pushed a smile into place. “Of course I’m all right. But you can’t do it alone. I
’ll help.” She leaned over to pick up one of the boxes.

  “No, Beatrice,” Izzy said.

  “Yes,” Beatrice answered, and without another word, she walked to the back door and up the back steps.

  Chapter 12

  It was a strange little cleaning quintet, Nell told Ben as they drove over to Sweet Petunia’s the next morning. But having Beatrice there certainly kept cleaning out Angie’s things from being the emotional task it might otherwise have been.

  Beatrice talked nonstop, Nell said, demanding that she sweep, then dust, then clean out drawers. Midstream, without the others hearing, she had stepped outside and called her husband, Sal, insisting he bring over a bottle of chilled white wine to refresh them. Sal arrived at the door looking sheepish, his thick dark hair mussed and his face quiet and serious as it always was. It was clear to Nell he wanted to be anywhere but in the middle of five women cleaning a murdered woman’s apartment. He was embarrassed doing far simpler things, like lighting candles for the Christmas pageant or passing the basket for offerings at church—all tasks, Nell suspected, Beatrice dictated he do. It must have been almost painful for him—Beatrice insisting he come in and help. And Nell understood in a fresh way why Sal Scaglia liked his job at the county offices so much—the paper shuffling and filing required must have provided a pleasant haven for him.

  By the time Angie’s clothes and books, and a few other personal things—her orange earphones, an iPod, and some photos— were packed and stacked neatly in the closet, Beatrice’s pink suit was smudged, one heel broken, and poor Sal had finished off the wine, sitting alone on the back step.

  “A Scaglia moment,” Ben said, amused at the story. “Beatrice is a character. So the boxes are still up there?”

  “Yes. Josie wasn’t home, so we’ll just wait until there’s a good moment.”

  Ben pulled into Annabelle’s parking lot and found a spot at the edge of the lot.

  Even though the talk would be of Angie’s murder, Ben wouldn’t be robbed of breakfast at Sweet Petunia’s. Sunday mornings were for Annabelle’s, the New York Times, and Nell’s knitting. They couldn’t control gossip about the latest developments in the murder case, he admitted, but they could still enjoy a moist frittata.