“But how did you do that, dear?” Birdie asked, her brows lifting into a maze of tiny forehead lines. She gestured toward the galettes and the salad. The quichelike pastries were perfectly formed round bowls with scalloped golden-brown edges. Picture perfect. “This is fancy—and time-consuming. We don’t expect this, Nell.”
“It was therapy. I opened the windows, put on a little Joni Mitchell”—she ignored Izzy’s and Cass’ grins at her musical choice—“and put my mind and energy to cooking . . . and to thinking. It was time well spent. At least I think it was.”
She slid a spatula beneath each pastry and placed them on plates, then motioned toward the salad bowl. Birdie took care of the wine, and in minutes they were curled up in their favorite chairs, Izzy’s iPod filling the air with a medley of old cover songs. At first the only other sounds were sighs of satisfaction and the clink of forks against stone plates.
But once the initial edge of hunger disappeared, Nell looked over at Cass and Birdie. “You two have something on your minds. And I do, too. Let’s get it out there in the open, and maybe there’s something we can do about it.”
Cass picked up Nell’s thread without a pause. “Pete and I were out in the boat today and had a long time to talk. Andy’s falling apart. We need to do something, throw him a line. Help him.”
“Jake says the same,” Birdie reported. She repeated the conversation she’d had with him that morning.
“Tiffany was crazy about Andy. We all could see that. But she was sweet, harmless—”
“And for a while, anyway, she and Andy were together,” Izzy added.
“But he certainly had nothing to do with her death,” Cass said.
“I keep thinking back to that night, the night she died. It was just like tonight; we were all sitting here knitting, a normal night,” Izzy said.
“But not so normal across the street,” Birdie added solemnly. She leaned forward and poured herself a glass of water.
“The Fractured Fish had band practice scheduled that night, the night she was killed.” She paused, then said carefully, “But Pete mentioned that Andy didn’t show that night.”
They were silent for a minute.
Nell felt the familiar knot in her stomach. She cared about these people—Andy. And Claire, too. M.J. and her staff. And whoever else in this town was affected by Tiffany Ciccolo’s death.
And she cared about her niece’s marriage.
She wanted to make all the unhappy things go away.
“Has Andy said where he was that night?” Izzy asked. She looked at Cass.
“He told Pete he went looking for Tiffany, over at the boardinghouse where she lived. He needed to apologize for something, he said. But she wasn’t there. No one had seen her that night.”
“Where did he go after that?”
“He went off, alone. He said he had some things he needed to think about.”
“That wouldn’t be a very satisfactory explanation for the police,” Birdie said.
But they all believed him—because they knew him. Knew his family. Cared about them. Nell played with the thought, then asked rhetorically, “But would we be so quick to believe him if he were a stranger in town, or a worker on a boat whom we’d never met?”
“But that’s the point,” Cass insisted. “We do know him. And we know without a doubt that he could no more murder anyone than speak in tongues. It’s just not Andy.”
“But it won’t go away until we figure out who did it,” Birdie agreed. “And it’s not right that Andy go through this again. We need to put our heads together and make this whole thing go away.”
They were all thinking the same thing, but no one would say it out loud. Just short weeks ago they were moving into a glorious Sea Harbor summer, to be capped off with the joyous celebration of Izzy and Sam’s wedding.
Now, suddenly, their lives were caught up in a murder.
And they all wanted the glory days back in a desperate, urgent way.
“Dessert,” Nell said, gathering up the empty plates and pulling a pan of blueberry cobbler from a bag. “No butter, skim milk. And it’s delicious,” she said, spooning small mounds onto dessert plates.
In the distance they could hear Mae whistling as she shuffled boxes and papers. Occasionally they’d hear voices and presumed Mae was listening to Prairie Home Companion on the iPod—or talking to herself, something she often did when alone in a room.
“I think I’ll take Mae some cobbler,” Izzy said. “She’s been here all day.”
A new voice joined Mae’s, one louder and more present than Garrison Keillor’s or Guy Noir’s. Izzy checked her watch. The store closed at seven on Thursday nights. “Mae must have left the door unlocked,” she said and walked over to the steps. “She’s like Archie at the bookstore—she can’t turn a potential customer away.”
Izzy took the plate of cobbler and walked up the steps to the front of the shop. “Sweets for the sweet,” she said, laughing.
Mae met her at the archway. “Maybe. But first, there’s a gal out front—she’s been here for a while, just wandering around. Doesn’t say much. Kind of a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ sort of person, if you know what I mean. I thought maybe she was lost or about to rob the store or something, but so far no guns have been pulled. She doesn’t seem to want to talk to me. Never saw her before in my life.”
Their interest piqued, the others followed Izzy up the stairs.
Though there was no need, Mae pointed to a woman dressed in expensive-looking slacks and a sweater walking slowly around the yarn displays. She examined the yarn cubbies and the racks of needles, then looked at the table displays with great interest and longing, the way knitters did, her hands scrunched into balls to keep from touching the skeins of cashmere on the center table, the summery cotton and silk next to it. Her sweater spoke of a knitter, too—a cashmere blend in a brilliant shade of red, worked up with a ruffled edge and beautifully put together.
She looked familiar to Nell—a tall woman, brown hair and freckles. A firm jawline. Determined.
And sad.
“May I help you?” Izzy asked.
Nell, Cass, and Birdie were close behind.
The woman looked up. “How long has this yarn shop been here?”
“Just a few years,” Izzy said.
“That explains it.” She looked around again. “I haven’t been here for a while, in town, I mean.” She slipped a plastic bag of walnut needles from a hook and examined them.
“Do you have family in Sea Harbor, dear?” Birdie asked.
The woman looked at Birdie curiously, as if the question was odd or out of place.
“No,” she said. The word had an abruptness to it that said, “Don’t mess with me.” She placed the needles back on the hook and looked back at the small white-haired woman who was looking at her kindly.
But it was kindness mixed with Birdie’s soft intensity and relentlessness.
Nell could see the woman’s thin coat of armor begin to fall away.
“Well, I suppose I do have family here,” she said, then added, “But not really.”
Birdie nodded and smiled, as if the answer made perfect sense. “Well, then,” she said, “let us show you around Izzy’s shop. It’s one of the loveliest yarn shops in this hemisphere.”
That drew a smile, and Mae stepped forward. “Do you need some yarn?”
The woman shook her head. “I have a closet filled with yarn, and a knitting bag with three projects in it back in my room at the bed-and-breakfast. I knit when I need to calm down. Or to help me through things that are difficult. Knitting is my therapist.”
“And this is difficult for you?” Again it was Birdie, the “this” going undefined.
“Oh, not this.” The woman spread her hands, taking in the shop. “This is . . . this is a bit of heaven.”
“Then . . . what?”
Again the woman’s eyes found Birdie’s. “Being back in Sea Harbor. That’s difficult for me. I never thought I’d come back. But no
w I have. I’ve come back.” She looked around again, then back to Birdie.
“I always said coming back here would be over my dead body. I never in a million years thought it would be over my sister’s.”
Chapter 19
Sheila, Ciccolo was thirty-seven years old, five years older than her sister, Tiffany. She had run away from an alcoholic father and spineless mother when she was sixteen, she said, and she’d never come back. Not once. Not until today.
“But if I had known about the Seaside Knitting Studio years ago, I might never have left,” she said, but the grave sadness in her eyes said otherwise.
Purl had welcomed Sheila immediately, curling up on her lap.
Mae locked up and went home, carrying her cobbler in a plastic container, and the others settled in the knitting room, Sheila in Ben’s old leather chair with a warmed-over galette in front of her and a cup of coffee next to it. It had taken little encouragement to suggest she sit for a while. She’d left home at dawn, then had a delayed flight and two plane changes. Her drive from Logan Airport got her in town just in time for her appointment with the Sea Harbor Police. It had been a grueling day.
The galette was gobbled down quickly, followed by a second. And finally an ample helping of Nell’s cobbler. The food had relaxed Sheila, and they sat around the coffee table and talked comfortably about ordinary things—Sheila’s early life in Omaha with a kind Aunt June who’d taken in an unruly teen. Her scholarship to the university there. Her job in a bank, where she’d recently been promoted to ATM manager.
Jobs, the Midwest, the condo Sheila had just purchased.
But nothing was said about a younger sister who had been murdered in a basement, a hundred yards from where they sat.
It was the elephant in the room, waiting to trumpet its presence.
“I’d almost forgotten how intoxicating this place could be—the sea and boats and all. We don’t have much of that in Nebraska.” Sheila looked out the windows. The sky was dark now, but the sound of waves lapping against the stone wall behind Izzy’s shop was a familiar one. Beyond the wall, the harbor was dotted with moored boats, lights blinking in the blackness. “It’s beautiful. It was my life that wasn’t beautiful, I guess. And that’s what matters when you’re sixteen—not sea and sailboats.”
“But Tiffany stayed here, didn’t move on.” Birdie spoke the words carefully, like dropping an egg into boiling water.
At the mention of her sister’s name, Sheila’s voice changed tone, but she took a deep breath, as if steeling herself, keeping the emotion at bay.
“Tiffany’s life was awful, too. Our father was either drunk and screaming at us or gone out on some fishing boat. And our mother was either cowering or in her room with the door closed. No one ever cared where we were or what we did. We could stay out as late as we wanted. It’s a miracle that Tiffany didn’t turn out bad, or pregnant, or a runaway, like me. But we . . . we were different birds, she and I.”
“She was a sweet girl.”
“Sweet and shy and always trying to please. Tiff was chubby as a kid, big boned, and unsure of herself. She thought she was ugly. And there wasn’t anyone to tell her differently. I tried. But who was I? The troublemaker in the family.”
“You never saw each other, all these years after you left?”
“Just once. We met in Boston. I sent her some money and she took the train down. I flew in, and we stayed at a great hotel on the waterfront. She didn’t tell Ma. No one knew about it, except probably her friend Harmony. It was right before she graduated from high school. We had a great time. It was almost like we’d never been away from each other.”
“It must be difficult for you to be back here. But it’s good you came,” Nell said. “Apparently your mother isn’t able. . . .”
“No, she isn’t. She doesn’t know anyone anymore. I hear she just sits and stares at nothing all day long. My father’s lovely legacy, I suppose. Living with a mean alcoholic was a living death for our mother. Tiff used to visit her all the time, but recently she stopped. It was all too sad, she said.”
“It sounds like you and Tiffany stayed close,” Izzy said.
“Close from afar, I guess you’d say. We talked on the phone all the time. When I couldn’t reach her last week, I was scared. I knew”—she touched her chest—“in here, you know? I knew something was wrong. I could feel it. You know things like that when you love someone.”
“Did the police contact you? There was some concern about finding you.”
Sheila nodded. “They found an old birthday card I had sent Tiff, and my address was on it. It was on her bulletin board, they said.” She pulled a tissue from the box Izzy slid across the table and wiped away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “Sorry. It was an awful call to get. Even if I felt something was wrong, I didn’t think it could be this wrong.”
Sheila wiped her nose and went on. “The police wanted to talk to me. They had a lot of questions, and there were papers to sign. Arrangements.”
“M.J. said there wouldn’t be a funeral?” Cass asked.
“No. Tiffany . . . She wanted to be cremated; we both did. We talked about all those kinds of things—because of my mother, I guess, and having to make arrangements for what would happen to her. The police want to talk again—and there’s more paperwork. A lawyer. The cremation. So I guess I’ll be here a day or two; then I’ll collect her things and be gone.”
“None of us are able to get our arms around this, no one.”
Sheila shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. I’m the kind of person people would want to kill. Not Tiffany. If she had a fault, it was trying too hard to get people to like her.”
“People did like her, though, whether she tried or not,” Birdie said.
“The last few weeks we were a little out of touch. I was traveling some for my job. But we’d catch up when we could. She’d leave me messages. She was a little short with me, though—like something was on her mind. And . . . well, maybe I was a little harsh with her.”
“Why?” Nell asked. It was hard to imagine someone being harsh with Tiffany.
“Tiffany was a dumbbell when it came to men.” Sheila got up from the chair and looked around for her purse. “Maybe, like I told the police, that was a big part of the problem.” She rubbed her eyes and held back a yawn. “I apologize for barging in on you like this. I can tell it’s time for me to get some sleep before I say things I regret.”
Nell carried her plate to the kitchen and returned with one of Izzy’s business cards with all their cell numbers scribbled on it.
“Is there anything we can do to help you while you’re here? We’ve all felt at a loss. When something like this happens, you usually go to the family to help. Take food. Run errands. Meet planes. But we haven’t been able to do anything. It’s a selfish thing, in a way. But now that you’re here, Sheila, please let us help.”
Sheila slipped the card into her purse and thought about Nell’s offer.
At first Nell thought she’d say no. She suspected Sheila Ciccolo didn’t accept favors easily.
But in the end, she said yes. “I have to go over to Tiffany’s boardinghouse and clean out her things. I talked to the woman who runs it and she said I could come anytime. It . . . it would be nice not to go in there alone.”
They settled on a time—Sheila said Saturday morning would work best. She was seeing a lawyer on Friday and, frankly, needed some time to be alone and get her head on straight. It was difficult coming back, but from what she had seen of Ravenswood-by-the-Sea when she checked in, the bed-and-breakfast would be the perfect place to put her mind in order.
A rush of affirmation followed.
“It’s the perfect place for soothing the soul,” Birdie said. “You’ll be in good hands—and Kevin, the cook, makes one of the best breakfasts known to man.”
Sheila said she was grateful for their help. Having been gone as long as she had, she didn’t even know where the boardinghouse was. “All I know from Tiffany,�
�� she said, “was that she hoped to be moving soon. She was ready to settle down, to get married, to have kids. It was time, she said. She had it well planned. She wanted four kids, and she needed to start now to have it all happen.”
They walked to the door, and Sheila turned to say good-bye. Then she hesitated and looked at the women gathering around her like a protective cloak, women who hours ago had been complete strangers. She gave each of them an awkward hug. “You’re good people, as my old aunt June used to say. Thank you.”
Nell and Birdie followed her out onto the sidewalk, lured by the cool night breeze. The stores up and down Harbor Road were closed for the night, but lamplights flickered and music streamed from the open doors of bistros and bars and the porch of the Ocean’s Edge restaurant. From above, the moon turned the street into a platinum river.
But even the moon couldn’t dispel the clouds of murder, Nell thought. The lights were the same, the music and laughter. The waves against the shore and summer breeze. All the same.
And nothing was the same.
“Are the police any closer to a suspect?” she asked Sheila. “Were you able to help them?”
“How could I help?”
“It sounds like Tiffany talked to you more than anyone. Maybe she said something that would help the police? Something that seemed unimportant but might have a connection.”
The quiet that filled the space between them was unsettling. Sheila seemed hesitant to speak, but Nell could feel emotion welling up inside her, pushing to get out.
“Sometimes Tiffany would get secretive, even with me, especially if she thought I’d be judgmental about it. And I felt that recently. But the only concrete thing I could tell the police was what I felt—what I feel—deep down inside me.” She brushed fresh tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. “I told them whose fault it was. I told them that there is only one man who could be responsible for this.”
The Wedding Shawl Page 15