“Here, here.” Their voices joined in the now-quiet air.
“It was a good group, though I can only imagine what Mary Pisano’s heel looks like—she scribbled on her pad of paper between every row.”
“If she wrote down everything people said about poor Sophia Santos, she’d have enough for a hefty book,” Nell said.
A movement outside the window caught her eye, and she walked over to the side window, peering out into the alley. Ben and Sam stood beneath the alley light, their hands in their pockets, their heads bent in conversation. Ben turned slightly, and it was then that Nell noticed concern on his face.
As if feeling her look, Ben stopped talking and looked up at the window. He waved halfheartedly, as if caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.
Nell frowned and opened the alley door. “What’s up?” she asked.
Izzy was right behind her. “You two look like you were caught sneaking a smoke or something.”
The two men walked across the gravel alley and up the three steps, pushing smiles across their faces.
“Is everyone gone?” Ben asked. His voice was low, as if to hide his presence from any knitting students still in the shop.
Izzy nodded. “Everyone’s gone.”
“So, like what?” Cass asked. “You’re acting weird.”
Birdie walked over and sat back down beside Purl on the window seat. She picked up her lacy sock and concentrated on starting a new row. Purl pressed against her leg.
Nell watched Birdie out of the corner of her eye. Knitting supported Birdie through so many of life’s events—happy, sad, distasteful, difficult, joyful. She wondered what vibe Birdie had caught that had sent her looking for her needles. She hoped it wasn’t the same one she was feeling herself.
“Were things lively at the Gull?” Nell asked, hoping her brightness alone could change the mood.
“Jake had a crowd,” Sam said. “Pete’s band was playing. It looked like a good time.”
“But not for you?” Izzy said.
“Not so much. Chief Thompson walked by. He spotted us coming out.”
“You were carded?”
Cass’ joke fell flat.
“Jerry was talking on his cell. He asked us to wait and then hung up a couple minutes later. It was a reporter, he said. The news was already out. Maybe we could help keep the talk sane and honest. And Sam, after all, had been there, seen it all, he said. People might listen to us when they digested the news tomorrow morning.”
“What are you talking about?” Nell asked. “What news?”
“It’s about Sophia’s . . . well, her accident. They finished the preliminary autopsy. They did two autopsies, I guess you’d say. And the results of one of them weren’t good.”
Ben paused, cleared his throat, and then continued.
“It seems it wasn’t really an accident. It looks more like Sophia Santos was murdered.”
Chapter 8
Murdered.
The word hung like a heavy cloud over the room. It didn’t fit into the beautiful summer evening. Nor the sun-drenched town. Nor the room that a short while before had held laughter and needles clicking together and piles of soft yarn being knit up into miniature socks.
“Food always helps.” Ben took out his phone and put an order in at Harry Garozzo’s deli down the street. Fried calamari, chicken cacciatore, and a Caesar salad. They would eat together, right there in the Seaside Knitting Studio. No one was up to a noisy, happy restaurant meal, but all the knitters needed more time together—and more answers than Ben and Sam had offered.
Nell walked over to the cupboard as the knitters busied themselves with ordinary things, things they understood and could control—pulling out place mats and flatware, putting yarn away to protect it from Harry’s tangy red sauce, getting out glasses and pouring water.
Sam had walked down the block to pick up their order, and when he returned carrying Harry’s thick white bags, he had added a couple bottles of wine to the stash.
Between bites of the crispy squid, the group dissected the bits and pieces of Chief Thompson’s conversation and worked their way through the heavy sadness they felt for themselves, for the town, for Gracie, and most especially for Alphonso Santos. No matter how they pulled apart the police chief’s words, the message always came out the same:
It hadn’t been alcohol that caused Sophia Santos to drive like a demon, just as those who knew her had insisted all along. Sophia could nurse a single glass of white wine through an entire cocktail party—and there would still be some left.
Nor was it drugs—which was a crazy idea from the beginning, Gracie had told them. The idea of Sophia doing drugs was about as believable as Sophia mud wrestling. Having ruled out the list of things that didn’t cause Sophia’s death, the rest of the coroner’s initial report on Sophia Santos was plain and simple:
Alphonso Santos’ beautiful Argentinean wife was as clean and pure as holy water. Clean of drugs, of alcohol, of poison. She was clean of any unusual substance other than the Sea Harbor Yacht Club’s fine lobster stew—which, the club chef admitted, had a sprinkling of fine sauvignon blanc in it.
But the second autopsy—the one on the Santoses’ brilliant red Ferrari—the love of Alphonso’s life, or so some people would say—did not bode so well.
Tampered Brakes, read the official report—and a fine job of it, one that left the Ferrari’s prized Brembo brakes useless.
As police chief Jerry Thompson predicted, the newspaper and radio were filled with the news, and by the next morning, the talk along Harbor Road had abruptly switched from Sophia driving while drunk to a rumored plot to ruin the Santos Company, to reports that a fired worker thought it was Alphonso driving and had tried to off his boss, to a radio talk show caller declaring that the Boston mafia had intended to kill Alphonso for taking away union construction jobs. “It was their modus operandi,” the young man declared.
“That was Gus Egan. I recognized his voice,” Cass said. “He went to Latin school for a year and has probably been waiting his whole radio life to use those words.”
They sat on the pier in the late-afternoon sunshine—Cass, Izzy, and Gracie. They were lined up like fishermen, their bare feet hanging over the edge. Painting was the excuse, but holding off the rest of the world, the gossip and sadness, was the intent. Cass and Gracie had spent the afternoon working on Gracie’s lobster café, cleaning up debris, sanding, and planning table placement. Gracie said working held her together and might keep her sanity intact.
Izzy had walked over as soon as she could get away from her yarn studio. She sat next to three open pints of paint, color samples Gracie had brought out for her to look at. She swirled a paint stick absently in one.
Birdie and Nell had come by, too. They’d come to help, they said, but more than that, they had come to assure themselves that Gracie was okay. They sat next to each other on a weathered bench near the three younger women. Behind them was the rough shadow of Gracie’s lobster café, its walls uneven and gray, the glass in the windows bearing the manufacturer’s stamp, and a pile of lumber leaning up against the front of the restaurant. Paint cans stood on the front steps.
Gracie’s eyes were swollen and red, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that settled between her shoulder blades like a long question mark. “It isn’t like I’ve lost a mother—Sophia never tried to be that. Or even a friend. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. But she was a decent lady, and my uncle—for all his faults—is having a hard time with this. I can’t imagine anyone wanting Sophia dead. Wouldn’t you think you’d have to really hate someone to want that person dead? People didn’t know Sophia well enough to hate her.”
“Does Julianne know this latest news?” Cass asked.
Nell was wondering the same thing. She supposed Birdie and Izzy were, too. Whether or not Julianne knew Sophia well enough to hate her, she had let an entire gathering of the Santoses’ friends and neighbors know exactly what she thought of Sophia Santos. Di
d Gracie’s mother know that someone had murdered the woman she’d proclaimed to want dead?
“Joey said she knows. The police are telling anyone connected to the family to stick around the area until they get the information they need. Can you imagine containing my mother anywhere longer than a day or two? That’ll be harder on her than a prison sentence would be. Joey found her. She’s been in Gloucester, staying with our friend Mandy White—not Alphonso, which is a wise move. A little distance between the two of them will be good.”
“Ben saw Jerry Thompson at a meeting this morning. The whole thing baffles the police. Some think the target must have been Alphonso, not Sophia. They connect a Ferrari with a man, I guess. And Alphonso had probably made his share of enemies as he grew his business. Power does that.”
“But everyone knows that Alphonso didn’t drive that car,” Izzy said. “Customers sometimes joked about it. It was Alphonso’s dream car, but it was Sophia who drove it to garden club meetings and church.”
“And yacht club parties. You’re right, Izzy. It was strange,” Birdie said. “I would see him out there in his driveway, alone or with one or two of his groundsmen, polishing that car like it was going to be in a parade.
“Alphonso practically slept in that car the first week he had it—and he drove it everywhere,” Birdie continued. “And then suddenly—nothing. The polishing continued, but as far as I know he never drove it again. It was always Sophia. Ella, my font of all knowledge, told me Alphonso gave it to Sophia—and that she surely deserved it.”
“Yes, he gave it to her,” Gracie said.
“So?” Cass asked. “What’s the story about that?” She pulled the bill of the Sox cap forward to shield her face from the sun. Her bare arms were tan and firm from the heavy lobster traps that she and her brother, Pete, maintained. “That’s weird, isn’t it? Why would he give the car he dreamed of to someone who didn’t want it?”
Gracie was quiet for a few minutes, as if wondering whether she was revealing family secrets. “I’m not sure why. It happened shortly after Alphonso bought the car last spring. He didn’t buy it for Sophia. It was his baby. He loved that car. And then one night there was some kind of an argument between Sophia and him. I was staying in the carriage house while my new condo was being painted.” She wrinkled her forehead and thought back over the months.
“I heard Alphonso drive in that night. It was late. I remember it because Sophia had been in Argentina visiting family and had been back only a couple days. And in my judgmental way, I was wondering why he wasn’t spending those nights with his wife instead of driving around in a Ferrari. But anyway, later Sophia came out on the terrace and Alphonso followed her. My windows were open and sound travels because it’s so quiet up there. Birdie, I’m surprised you didn’t hear it, too.”
Gracie pulled her feet up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “They were arguing, Sophia in Spanish—so I didn’t really know what the fight was about. It was unusual, though. Sophia rarely argued. It was almost, like, well, like, beneath her.
“The next morning I went over to the big house for coffee, and I saw a fancy key case on the kitchen counter—leather and elegant—with a diamond ‘S’ in a beautiful silver rectangle on it. And next to it was a cream-colored card.”
Gracie paused and her cheeks colored slightly. “Okay, I didn’t mean to read it. I don’t usually do things like that—honest. But it was sitting open, right next to the coffeepot. Being a klutz, I accidentally splashed coffee on it, and when I tried to blot it up, I recognized Alphonso’s fancy scroll. He wrote that the new car was the one material thing he loved more than anything in the world. And as proof of his respect for her and as testimony that he would always be there for her, he wanted Sophia to have it.”
“Geesh,” Izzy said. “Some makeup gift.”
“Proof of his respect for her? That’s an odd way to put it,” Nell said.
“Was Sophia happy with the gift?” Izzy asked.
“I don’t think so. She didn’t seem to like Alphonso as much after that either, although they were both so proper it was hard to tell. But as for the car, it frightened her a little. And she didn’t like the attention driving a fancy red sports car brought. But for some crazy reason, she kept it and drove the darn thing everywhere. In his take-charge way, Alphonso had donated her other car to some charity, so maybe she didn’t have a choice. I think it used to drive my uncle crazy, though, because people teased him that a Ferrari should always be driven at an absolute minimum of eighty miles an hour. But not Sophia. She never went over fifty on the highway. In town it was more like fifteen.”
Nell noticed that Birdie had grown quiet, listening to the talk around her but bringing her own unspoken thoughts to it.
“Birdie?” Nell said.
Birdie shook her head as if to shake away the thoughts. “Nothing. It’s an interesting story, is all. I know Alphonso loved the car. And why he’d give it to Sophia is a mystery. I do know that Harold would watch with pure unadulterated envy, though, when Sophia would pick Ella up for Mass each day. Imagine, riding to Mass in a Ferrari.”
The group chuckled at the thought of plain Ella Sampson riding up to Our Lady of the Seas in a red Ferrari.
“And going fifteen miles an hour,” Cass added.
“Speaking of Ella, how is she doing with Stella helping out, Birdie? She’s so quiet and efficient and in charge that it could be difficult for her to give things up.”
“Yes, she’s very proprietary. But she has her hands full with Harold. And both Ella and Harold needed more help. We’re trying to keep Harold from moving around too much until his broken bone heels. Crazy man should never have been cleaning out gutters on that rickety ladder. Now he’s spent nearly two months not doing much of anything. So I need Stella. But Ella doesn’t make it easy on her. For one thing, she speaks to her in Spanish, which Stella doesn’t understand.”
“Ella speaks Spanish?” Cass asked. “I thought she was from Boston.”
“Yes. But her parents were from Mexico and spoke Spanish at home. Harold doesn’t know a word of it so Ella rarely uses it. Just with Stella. It’s Ella’s nice way of telling Stella she doesn’t really need her. And the more time she was spending with Sophia Santos, the more she turned on the Spanish, because she and Sophia spoke it all the time when they were together.”
“I bet Stella handles it just fine. I can’t imagine her letting it get to her,” said Nell.
Birdie nodded, her face lacking its usual emotion. “Maybe,” she said. “But with Ella becoming the dominant one and Harold not wanting her to stray far from him, it’s a household to handle, believe me.”
“I think reinforcements are here,” Nell said, turning toward the loud footsteps walking down the pier.
“Ladies, let’s get this show on the road. I thought this was the work crew.” Sam shifted a camera hanging around his neck.
The three women on the edge of the dock twisted around. “About time,” Izzy said.
“We thought you’d be done by now,” Ben said. “Up and at ’em.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Cass mocked and scrambled to her feet.
“Just planning our approach,” Gracie said, lifting herself effortlessly from the floor. “Planning is all-important.” Her cheeks were flushed from the remaining rays of sunshine, and she started across the wide concrete pier to the future home of the Lazy Lobster and Soup Café. It was to be a lobster café, she’d told her uncle when discussing the investment with him. Unique. Delightful. Family dining at its finest.
“I hope you’ve brought beer,” Cass said.
“Pete was in charge of that. He’ll be here soon.” Sam wrapped an arm around Izzy’s shoulders. “So, beautiful, into tattoos now?” He touched her cheek, then tilted his sunglasses so Izzy could look into them.
She squinted, then wrinkled her nose and touched the streak across her cheek. “We’re testing colors. Like it?”
“Hmmm,” he said. “Terrific. My very own painted lady.”
>
“You say that to all the girls, Perry,” Izzy said. Then she leaned down and dipped her finger into a can of periwinkle blue paint. She straightened up and spread it delicately across Sam’s cheek. “Periwinkle Perry,” she said in a husky voice. “Who can resist him?”
Sam took her hand and held it behind her back, then gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Careful, Iz. A paint war would be a bad thing.”
“Yikes,” Gracie yelped. “Behave, you guys. Can you imagine my permit people wondering how the famous Sea Harbor Pelican Pier turned red?”
“Why the camera, Sam?” Nell asked.
“Have you ever seen him without it?” Cass said.
“Well, not when I have potential award-winning subjects all around me. Beautiful women. Blue water.” He slipped a camera from his bag and snapped a close-up of Izzy. “‘Girl with Yellow Cheek,’ I’ll call this one.”
Izzy tossed her head and laughed. “It’s wheat, Perry, not yellow. Some artist you are.”
Once inside, the group worked like a well-rehearsed dance team, grabbing old shirts from hooks along the wall, pulling on a collection of baseball caps Gracie had thoughtfully provided, and checking out the colorful swooshes they had applied to one wall last Saturday. Since then, the place had been deserted, but Nell suspected getting back to the task at hand was exactly what Gracie needed. Distractions were vital at times like these. Wringing hands rarely brought resolution.
“It’s shaping up, Gracie,” Ben said, grabbing a hammer and chisel from the wooden tool chest on the floor. “You’re doing a great job.”
Gracie smiled and pushed a strand of hair away from her cheek. “I hope so, Ben. I really want this to work. For me. And for Alphonso, too—I want to prove to him that I’m not like my mom when it comes to managing money. And I want the whole bunch of you who have pitched in to help to be proud of it.” She looked over at Cass, who was smoothing out nail holes with a sandpaper block. “Cass kinda had to—she’s known me too long to say no. But the rest of you didn’t.”
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