“The police probably can’t do much,” Ben said. He looked over at Izzy. “There’s not much damage, Iz. Mostly just a mess.” Ben rubbed his hand along the wall. “My excellent paint job is still intact.”
Izzy offered a small smile.
“We can clean this place up in no time,” Sam added, sounding more enthusiastic than any of them felt. “It already looks better than a lot of places I’ve lived.”
The concern on Izzy’s face was obvious. Nell hugged her. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she whispered. But it wasn’t okay—and all four of them were well aware of that. The earlier intruder had done nothing, just let in a sweet little kitten. It had bothered Nell, but there hadn’t been much upset and no aftermath that they knew of. But this destruction and disregard was truly frightening. Nell walked across the room and absently picked up some magazines from the floor, her thoughts disjointed and moving in several directions at once. She hoped Izzy couldn’t feel her fear.
What if Izzy had been in here? If someone had been here, she wondered, would they have been as carelessly thrown aside as the books and dishes and bedclothes?
“Someone was looking for something,” Sam said. “Something that could have fit in a drawer or beneath a mattress or behind a row of books, from the looks of the mess.”
“Or in a freezer,” Nell said.
“Which narrows it down to a million things,” Izzy said.
Sam picked up a plastic garbage sack and walked into the kitchen area. “Well, I’m claiming this room,” he said over his shoulder. “The rest of you are on your own.”
Nell watched him begin to sweep up the broken pieces of pottery and dump them into the garbage bag, then look around under the sink for other cleaning supplies. She didn’t know much about Sam’s family, but someone had definitely done a fine job of raising him. And for right now, in this place and time, she was awfully glad he was here.
The trout didn’t reach the hot coals of Ben’s grill until much later that night. But by the time Nell, Izzy, and Sam walked out of the Seaside Knitting Studio apartment a couple hours later, the rooms smelled of soap and lemon oil, the bed was stripped and the refrigerator emptied out. Once Eddy McClucken from the hardware store had finished putting in the new lock and after they’d stashed seven boxes of clothes, books, and personal items in the back of Ben’s SUV, the tired crew called it a day.
“I think showers can wait,” Nell announced, not leaving room for arguments. “It’s time to go home and feast on Colorado trout. I called Birdie to say we’d be late, but we’d be there. She’s in charge.”
As sometimes happened at the Endicott home, friends arrived before those who lived there, making themselves at home, and when the bedraggled foursome arrived, Ham had cleaned the fish, Birdie had lined up the martini mixings, and Cass had swept the deck clean of pine needles, lit the gas lanterns along the railing, and put a Norah Jones CD in the player. Archie and Harriet Brandley showed up with a loaf of sourdough bread and an enormous bowl of Harriet’s spinach pasta, and Jane had mixed together her special mayonnaise herb sauce for the fish. And Rachel and Don Wooten had come, too, reminded recently that Friday nights at the Endicotts were a fine ending to a long week.
Nell sank into a chair and gratefully accepted the glass of water Birdie offered her, along with the promise that once Ben got mixing, she’d have something better.
“What could Angie possibly have had that someone wanted so badly?” Jane asked after the story had been told and retold. “It doesn’t make sense to me. Could she have been in some trouble? Drugs?”
“Angie was honest, almost to a fault,” Ben said. He stood at the grill, an old checkered apron covering his shirt and shorts and a basting brush in one hand. The trout sizzled as he basted it with dill butter. “And she was plenty tough on anyone who wasn’t.”
“That’s the truth. I remember when Ted Archer lost his manager’s job at the Framingham plant,” Birdie said. “It was one of those layoffs to save money, so Tony’s grandfather took the higher-paid men and pulled their jobs right out from under them. No warning. It was right before Christmas, I remember. Angie was just a child—twelve or so—but Josie thought she was going to personally take out the old man’s eyes. She hated him.”
Archie nodded, remembering the story and the people affected by the layoff. “I think Angie held Tony Framingham personally responsible for his grandfather’s sins. She didn’t have much use for him, that’s for sure. And if Angie didn’t like you, you darn well knew it.”
“Tony?” Jane said, surprised. “He was a cocky teen, but I thought he’d grown up all right.”
“Unless you crossed him,” Archie said.
“And Angie crossed him?” Ben said.
“She did something he didn’t like. I don’t know what, exactly, but Tony told her she’d be sorry she ever came back to Sea Harbor.”
“But why, exactly?” Izzy asked.
“Well, now that’s the question of the hour, isn’t it? Tony never finished his threat because yours truly showed up to escort him out of my bookstore, as you yourself personally witnessed, Izzy.”
Nell listened to the chatter, but none of the scenarios played out. Not tales of Angie’s childhood, her emotional response to injustices, unrequited lovers. None rested comfortably in her mind, nor held a motive for murder. Not even Tony’s threat. Although that was something she wished she knew more about.
Gideon, though, frightened her. Everything about him seemed darker since Angie’s death, and there didn’t seem to be any reprieve. Had he been that dark and sinister before, and they just hadn’t noticed? Or was Angie’s death creating a cloud over everyone, deserving or not?
By the time the trout was passed from grill to plates and the crispy bread and salad passed around, the only thing in the whole day that made much sense to Nell was the cool breeze, the deck full of lovely friends, and the thought that tomorrow was another day. She felt fairly certain that Tony wasn’t the kind of person who could ever hurt anyone, but then, she realized with some surprise, there wasn’t anyone in her town she thought capable of killing Angie Archer. But someone most definitely had.
Nell walked the Wootens to the door a short while later and thanked them for coming.
“Did your talk with Sal go okay, Nell?” Rachel asked. “I know he can be difficult to talk to. I think he’s so scared of his wife he avoids talking to most women. Angie was an exception.”
Nell paused, unsure of what to say. She didn’t want people who worked in the same building with Sal to think poorly of him. She chose her words carefully. “Actually, he didn’t have much to say. I think his mind was on other things. He seemed very busy.”
Rachel looked puzzled. “Sal? I don’t think Sal ever gets really busy. There’s an administrative assistant who works in the next office, and I think she does the bulk of the work. I don’t know if it’s entirely fair, but people think Sal was appointed to that job because of Beatrice’s connections with the city council and the chamber. She wields a lot of power over there. And she likes the title, Registrar of Deeds.”
“Well, he had a stack of papers on his desk and I think he was anxious to get back to work, for whatever reason. But basically he said he didn’t know Angie well. So he wasn’t the best person to talk to anyway.”
Rachel’s brows lifted and she looked up at her husband, Don, then back to Nell. She hesitated for a moment before she spoke.
“I don’t know how well Sal really knew Angie, Nell, but just between you, me, and a whole bunch of people who work at the county offices, Sal Scaglia was head over heels in love with Angie Archer.”
Chapter 22
This would be the last night he’d be dressing up like this—he was beginning to feel like a fool eel in the rubber suit, and it pulled on his crotch in a miserable way.
The man, cold and damp, ran one hand through wet, stringy hair. Seaweed, he thought, pulling out a greenish brown strand. Crap. He hoisted the heavy rubber sack over his shoulder and pulled himself
up on the uneven outcroppings of the breakwater until he reached the top.
It was hard work, but truth be told, it hadn’t been all bad. He’d gotten it down to a system. Not a bad job. Slipping down into the cold water late at night in his wet suit, finding the traps on the muddy bottom. Then pulling out those feisty red-crusted gals. It had its moments for sure. He could even understand why some folks did this for a living. And legally, to boot.
Hell, maybe that’s what he’d do—buy himself a fleet of lobster boats. Get a place in Gloucester or maybe up in Maine. He wouldn’t stick around this town; he’d said he wouldn’t, and he was a man of his word. As long as there was money attached, anyhow.
He’d torn that whole apartment apart for nothing, a darn shame. But finding the computer in the hot chick’s apartment would have been gravy—a bonus—he’d been told, just in case it pointed the finger at anyone. He’d still collect the money and hightail it out of town. That’s all that poor excuse for a human being wanted anyway.
He thought about the apartment and the white sheets that he’d found on the bed, the silky underwear in the boxes. He should have made a trip up there while she was alive, that’s what he should have done. But no matter now. Miss Hotty Totty was worth more to him dead than alive. Not often he’d say that about a woman.
A huge moon filled the night with light, reflecting off the water and lighting his way along the breakwater as he headed back to the truck. On rainy, cold nights when the world was asleep, poaching was a breeze. But on nights like this, with the moon so big and round and people out late, strolling and doing whatever, teens on the prowl, looking for trouble, it was a challenge. And that was the part he liked best of all—the danger, the chance of besting everyone, sneaking those lobsters into his sack with no one knowing any better. That and the once-needed extra cash.
And damned if he wasn’t good at it. No one ever saw the black slinky figure as he slipped off the lower ledge of the breakwater and into the water. He was too slick for them—he’d never be caught. He’d hear them talking in Harry’s Deli or at the Gull, planning how they’d catch the poachers, fry ’em in hot oil if they could. And he’d sit right next to them, perched up on a bar stool at the Gull, and help them plot and plan how they’d do it. Jerks.
But tonight was sayonara. This last one was pure gravy. He’d promised his buddies a huge lobster bash and they’d get it. He could have bought the lobsters, had the whole shindig catered with the money he’d gotten so far. But he was smart. There were plenty more, more than he’d dreamed of. He’d soon be eating lobster for breakfast if he wanted. Have someone bring it to him on a silver tray. But for one last thrill he’d get them the old way. Slip on down there to lobster heaven—or was it hell?—and get them for free.
He laughed out loud and made his way along the breakwater to the beach, watching his steps so he didn’t trip. Wouldn’t it be a fool’s luck to fall and break his neck tonight, just when things were finally falling into place?
The heavy sack caused him to lean forward beneath its weight. Maybe he’d taken a few more than he needed, but better too many than not enough. He sucked in a lungful of air, straightened again, and made his way slowly across the beach. When he reached the dead-end gravel road, he turned toward a weedy parking lot near the boarded-up lighthouse. Folks had abandoned old cars in the lot and his truck fit right in, not noticed in the heap of rusting iron. No one would know he’d been there.
The sound of wheels on loose gravel made him shift the weight of the sack and quicken his pace. From behind him, a truck screeched and skidded as it came barreling down the empty road. Some fool teenagers out for a joy ride, he thought.
He moved to the edge of the road as the vehicle came closer, spitting gravel in all directions.
At first he thought it was the headlights, filling him with a blinding light so fierce his whole body filled with fire. Then, in the next instant, the light turned into moonlight, bright and glorious, and his whole being soared toward it, thrashing, and spinning, and whirling in the black night.
And then, abruptly, the night melted into nothingness. The air was still, the night dark and empty.
And the only sound left on the old lighthouse road was the frantic scurrying of dozens of crustaceans seeking release.
Chapter 23
At first, no one knew who the dead man was. His body was smashed up against a pole on a narrow gravel road north of town. He had no wallet on him and his face was badly disfigured, making identification difficult.
But what was of greater interest wasn’t the man’s name or his address. What grabbed the attention of the early beach-bound joggers who found him and the policemen and ambulance driver who were called to the scene were the scurrying lobsters emerging from the thick rubber sack.
“He h-h-had a whole rubber sackful of ’em,” Tommy Porter told Izzy as they stood in line at Coffee’s early Saturday morning. “Must have been a dozen keepers trapped in that sack.”
Nell and Izzy stood in line waiting for their order, listening to Tommy talk, and to three other conversations going on simultaneously in the busy coffee shop, most about the strange man who was found dead on Lighthouse Road.
“Do you think he was the poacher?” Izzy asked.
“Sure wasn’t dressed like a lobsterman. And there wasn’t a boat a sight,” Tommy said, in a feeble attempt at humor. His excitement seemed to ease the stuttering, and it was only an occasional word that came out in stops and starts. “We don’t know who it was yet. Sometimes those poachers move around from one little town to another. Probably no one we know.”
“How did he die, Tommy?”
“Someone slammed into h-h-him. His own fault, probably. H-HE had on a black wet suit. No one could have seen him, not on a dark road in the middle of the n-n-night.”
“It was that old lighthouse road near the breakwater?”
Tommy nodded.
“Who hit him?” Nell asked.
“Don’t know. Whoever it was didn’t stay around. Maybe somebody who doesn’t like poachers, which would be about the whole town.”
“Is that what people think?” Nell asked.
Tommy shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe a fella with a few too many pints under his belt.”
“Nevertheless, it’s an awful way for someone to die.”
“Maybe. But it’s b-been a rough time for Cass and Pete and the others. At least they can get back to lobstering.”
“I guess that’s right.”
“Two decaf lattes,” the girl behind the counter called out.
Izzy looked over Tommy’s shoulder and held up her hand. “That’s us.”
Tommy looked crestfallen, as if his big chance in life had been crushed by a decaf latte. “See you, Izzy.”
Izzy smiled brightly and picked up the lattes. She and Nell wove their way through the crowded store and out the door.
“I can’t imagine anyone would intentionally kill someone for stealing lobsters,” Izzy said. “People talk that way, but they don’t mean it.”
Nell drank the steamy latte, then brushed a line of foam from her lip. Of course people didn’t mean it, at least not Cass, who’d been very vocal in her threat to string the poachers up by her own pot warp if given the chance. But who knew what one might be capable of if a livelihood was being threatened? Sometimes you had to walk in those shoes, she thought, before answers were crystal clear.
“Lots of gossip around Coffee’s today,” Izzy said. “The poor guy who was killed, Margarethe’s gala tonight. The horrible and the extravagant. But at least it’s kept people from talking about the break-in above my shop.”
“I think the consensus was that some beach bum wanted a place to bunk for a while, and an empty apartment was fair game.” Nell took the paper cup from Izzy and the two began to walk down Harbor Road.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Yes,” Nell said and sipped her latte. The news of the hit-and-run victim had served as a distraction, but not enough to block out Ra
chel Wooten’s parting words the night before. “Izzy,” she asked suddenly, “did you ever notice Sal Scaglia hanging around the shop?”
Izzy thought for a minute. “Well, there was the other day when his wife insisted he come over to clean Angie’s apartment—”
“But not while Angie was alive?”
“I don’t think so, Nell. Why?”
Nell told her what Rachel had said.
“Nell, that’s so surprising, that shy man, in love with Angie?”
“Rachel seemed sure of it. Or at least he was infatuated with her. But somehow Angie made quite an impression on Sal Scaglia.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know, Izzy. But I think it’s something we all need to talk about. It throws another person into the picture, for better or for worse.”
“Nell, now that you mention it, I guess I did see Sal across the street a couple times, but I never thought anything of it. If you look out my shop windows long enough, you’ll see just about everyone in Sea Harbor.”
“Speaking of people hanging out around your shop.” Nell paused and pointed across the street to the front door of the knitting studio.
Izzy started to laugh, and then she and Nell crossed the street to the shop.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” Izzy asked.
Sam Perry sat on the front step, two duffel bags, a cardboard box of books, and several camera cases piled on the step beside him. His long legs were stretched out across the sidewalk, and his elbows rested on the step above. Orange Top-Siders brought attention to a pair of long feet, and an angled Sox cap and sunglasses kept the early-morning sun out of his eyes.
“Good morning, ladies,” Sam said, his face breaking into a smile. “I thought you’d never get here. Shouldn’t a knitting shop be open by now?” He glanced at his watch, an exaggerated frown creasing his forehead.
“Geez, Sam, it’s eight a.m.,” Izzy said. “I’m only here because Nell and I are going to finish up her scarf before the store opens.”
Death By Cashmere Page 17