Moon Spinners

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Now, in the bright light of Tommy’s spotlight, Alphonso pulled his brows together, but his face was expressionless. Nell watched, wondering if the famous Santos ire was making its way to the surface.

  Alphonso looked around at the gathering for the first time and nodded a hello. Nell thought his look lingered on her a second longer than the others, but there was no change of expression, no indication that he had seen her the evening before—in an out-of-the-way restaurant . . . with another woman . . . less than a week after his wife’s death.

  Alphonso turned to Tommy. “Who called you?”

  “Mrs. Sampson, sir,” Tommy said.

  Alphonso frowned. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and stared at the mess of busted concrete. “Ella Sampson,” he said quietly, “of course.”

  Nell watched his face and tried to detect an emotion. A thought that might accidentally slip out and play itself out on his face. But all she saw was a man deep in his hidden self, in thoughts that he had no intention of sharing. He looked like he was standing alone, without anyone else in sight.

  Finally, he looked over at Tommy. “Good job, Tom, but I think it’s under control now. I’m sure there are other needs in our fair city greater than this misunderstanding.”

  Misunderstanding? Nell looked at Birdie, whose puzzled expression matched her own. Jake Risso had destroyed Sophia’s clear attempt to keep her land private.

  Alphonso continued talking in his distinct, authoritative way. He started back toward the shiny new car, but turned his head so his words were clear. “Jake here will somehow get the other post out. Right, Jake?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “Then he’ll clean up the damn mess he made, and then, folks, drama is over. Curtain down.”

  He opened the car door and slid onto the leather seats. “The path is now open, folks,” he called out as he turned the key in the ignition. “Use it in good health.”

  Before anyone could respond, Alphonso revved up the powerful engine and stepped on the gas. He pulled the car back onto the road and, with the wheels spitting gravel in all directions, headed up the road to the Santos estate.

  Chapter 14

  Ben was already at the kitchen table, the Friday paper spread out in front of him, when Nell came down for coffee.

  “Restless?” Ben said. “You tossed and turned last night.”

  “I dreamed I was going to be bulldozed from here to Boston.” She had told Ben the saga of the cement posts when she finally arrived home the night before.

  Ben was as mystified as she was.

  “I’d much rather have you dreaming about me than Jake Risso and his foolishness.” Ben handed her a mug of coffee.

  Nell smiled. It didn’t deserve a response. She didn’t need to dream of Ben; she had him close by, a warm person to reach out and touch. “I’m still puzzled by Alphonso’s quick turnaround.”

  “One thing is clear—the closed access was Sophia’s pursuit, not Alphonso’s. But I agree that it’s strange for him to give in so quickly after her death, especially after that fuss he made with Rachel Wooten. There’s a civic planning meeting at the club today. Maybe Alphonso will be there and I can get his take on things.” Ben got up and rinsed his cup out. He walked over and kissed the top of Nell’s head. “I’ve got an early meeting with Sam about the regatta. But we’re still on for tonight, right?”

  “I think if we were to cancel two Friday deck suppers in the space of a month, worse things than being bulldozed by Jake Risso would happen to us.”

  Nell could see that she wasn’t going to have much time for herself today. What she’d like to do was go to the yacht club for lunch with Izzy or Birdie and accidentally run into Liz Palazola. She instinctively wanted to protect Liz—but from what, she wasn’t sure. Maybe she was wanting Liz to tell her that there wasn’t any way it could have been her in the Thirsty Scholar with Alphonso Santos. She had been working all that evening, right there at the club. Nell would breathe a great sigh of relief.

  That scenario, however, seemed unlikely, unless Nell’s latest vision check was completely wrong.

  But no matter, it wouldn’t happen today, not with grocery shopping, a meeting at SeARTS in Gloucester, a short talk to the library guild on the future of nonprofit organizations. No time, even, for a short hike or stopping by Birdie’s to figure out what in heaven’s name had happened last night. Additional information would have to wait until tonight.

  It was late when Alphonso had driven off, and they had all left promptly—Stella and Birdie going back to the house to figure out how to tell Ella what Alphonso had said, and Izzy and Cass catching a ride home with Nell.

  They left Jake sitting on his tractor, stunned at his unexpected good fortune.

  “Good things come to him who waits,” he said to the knitters as they walked away.

  “I didn’t see you doing much waiting, Jake,” Cass shot back.

  “But it’s finally settled,” Nell offered. “That will be good for everyone.”

  “Not quite everyone,” Izzy murmured.

  “Not so good for Ella,” Jake said, answering Izzy’s unheard words. “That lady’d like to see me disappear right off the face of the earth. Send me to the moon. Now she can spit out her murderous venom on Santos.”

  Which is exactly what the knitters figured Ella would do.

  “Ella’s very upset,” Birdie confirmed that night when she arrived for dinner on the Endicotts’ deck. She handed Nell a bag of sourdough rolls that Ella had baked that day. Baking and cooking proved to be an anger-management tool for Ella, and Birdie heartily supported it.

  “I never thought of Ella as a crusader. She’s always seemed so quiet.” Izzy pulled herself up onto a kitchen stool, her long tan legs straddling it.

  “She has spunk,” Sam said. “That’s not all bad.”

  “No, but this new zeal seems a bit over the edge. I was almost afraid to leave her alone tonight. If Alphonso ends up dead, there will be absolutely no question in my mind who did it.”

  “Her feelings are understandable, though,” Izzy said. She picked an olive out of a bowl and popped it into her mouth, her face thoughtful. “Sophia was her friend, and it was her wish the road be blocked off. Now that she’s dead, Ella is carrying her torch. And then Sophia’s husband turns around and goes against his wife’s wishes and there’s nothing Ella can do about it.” She looked up at Sam. “Don’t ever think of crossing me when I’m dead, Perry. I will come back and haunt you something fierce.”

  “I’m afraid to cross you in life, Iz. No way I’d do it in death.”

  Izzy smiled, satisfied, and Sam dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

  “Hello, ladies—you, too, Sam.” Ben walked in from the deck with Cass trailing right behind him. They each held a martini glass. “We didn’t know you had come in. Cass was just filling me in on Tommy’s traveling companion last night.”

  “Geesh, there’re no secrets around here,” Cass said to Ben’s back.

  “What secrets?” Ham and Jane Brewster walked across the family room, carrying a basket of peaches they’d picked the day before.

  Cass added an extra olive to her martini. She had pulled her dark hair back tonight and it hung in a single fat braid down her back. A fitted blouse and jeans showed off a figure firm and tan from dragging traps and hauling lobsters.

  “Ben may make the best martinis in the universe,” she said, “but the man does not have bartender potential. He can’t keep a secret. But here’s what I told him, lest your imaginations do harm to my fine reputation. I asked Ben if he knew that Dan Brandley was back in town. You know—Archie and Harriet’s son. He life-guarded at the club when we were wild teens, Iz. And, as Stella Palazola so delicately put it last night when he showed up on Ravenswood Road in a police car, ‘He’s hot.’ ”

  “Hot?” Ham speared a tiny onion out of his martini.

  “Archie and Harriet’s son?” Jane said. “He was working on his computer on the Palate deck the other day. A nice
guy. I haven’t seen him since he was a teenager.”

  “He was at the yacht club party, too, with his parents,” Nell added.

  “Now, how did I miss that?” Cass spied a platter of rosemary crackers on the island and took one.

  “He works for the Globe,” Nell said. “Archie is very proud of him. I think he’s doing some writing while he’s here.”

  “So he’s not a real policeman?” Izzy set out a bamboo tray with a round of Camembert and the basket of rosemary flatbread.

  “No,” Ben said. “He’s a special-assignment reporter. He probably wanted to see how things worked on a patrol just in case he ever had to do a story about it. A Boston cop might not be as amenable to it as Tommy Porter.”

  “He handled things nicely last night without showing up Tommy Porter,” Birdie said.

  “I thought so, too,” Cass said. “That’s what I was telling bartender Ben.”

  “You’ve lost me. What brought the police to Ravenswood Road last night?” Jane asked. “Is there news on Sophia’s murder?”

  “Nell, it’s your story,” Ben said. “We guys are off to poke some coals to life.”

  “And make another pitcher of martinis,” Sam added, following Ben and Ham onto the deck.

  Nell pulled a pan of pork tenderloins from the refrigerator. The fragrance of fresh garlic, ginger, and soy sauce filled the room.

  Cass sighed. “Have I told you lately that I love you?” She wrapped her arms around Nell dramatically.

  “And I love you, too, Nell,” Jane said patiently. “But I’d like to hear what happened last night.”

  A light knock on the front door, then footsteps signaled another guest. “I told Gracie to come by,” Cass said. “She needed friends. And she’s too skinny to run a restaurant—people will think the food isn’t good if we don’t fatten her up.”

  “Zip it, Cass,” Gracie said, picking up the end of the conversation. “Cooking expertise does not depend on body fat.” She handed Nell an arrangement of daffodils mixed with bright green fronds. They were cut low and nestled in a thick glass bowl with colored pebbles at the bottom.

  “How beautiful!” Nell took the flowers and placed them in the center of the butcher-block island.

  “I thought my café needed window boxes, so Joey built me some. These are my first plants.” She touched the tip of a bloom. “So now I have window boxes—but no place to put them.”

  “But you will soon, sweetie,” Birdie said.

  Gracie’s smile was halfhearted. The week had taken a toll on her. Cass was right—she looked thinner—like a reed blowing in the wind, and a strong one just might topple her.

  “I need to figure out some financial things with Alphonso before I can have the equipment delivered, but he has enough on his mind right now. I’m giving it a rest for a few days.”

  “You have paint. We can at least finish that up,” Cass said.

  “Come, Gracie, you need a touch of deck magic.” Nell picked up the bouquet and motioned toward the deck doors. “It heals all ills.”

  Gracie brightened. “I love your deck. I have memories of being out on here with Cass and Izzy one summer. Izzy was having kids spend the night after a swim meet—I think you had put up a tent in the yard. And, Birdie, you suggested that since I was six months older than Cass, I would be a great chaperone.”

  “Hah!” Cass said, holding open the door.

  “‘Hah’ is right,” Gracie said, laughing. “I was one of those kids who started the trouble but looked innocent, so I never got blamed for anything.”

  “I got blamed,” Cass said, passing around a platter of bruschetta dripping with chopped tomatoes, olives, and olive oil. “Even the nuns thought Gracie could do no wrong. I think it was because she had those silky golden waves when she was little, like there was a halo around her head. She got picked to be an angel for the Christmas play. Not me.”

  They all laughed and settled in deck chairs. Ben refreshed drinks and Izzy put out the platter of Camembert and crackers on a low glass-topped table.

  “So now,” Jane said, smearing cheese onto a cracker, “I want to know more about Cass’ hot Brandley guy and what he was doing on Ravenswood Road with the police.”

  Gracie leaned forward in her chair. “Police on Ravenswood Road?” she said.

  “See?” Jane said. “It’s not just me. Birdie, tell all.”

  Birdie explained the late-night event once more. “It was Ella and Jake causing the ruckus,” she added.

  “But the biggest surprise of the evening was when Alphonso showed up in a snazzy new car,” Izzy said.

  “A new car? You’re kidding,” Gracie said.

  “It’s gorgeous—a canary-yellow BMW.”

  Gracie choked on her martini, coughed, and set it down on a table. “Are you sure? Canary yellow? Alphonso is pretty much a red and black kind of guy when it comes to cars. I suppose he’s replacing the Ferrari.”

  The group nodded.

  Replacing Sophia’s car.

  The thought hung in the air, unspoken.

  “Seems kind of soon,” Gracie said finally, her voice soft. “He’s got other cars—”

  Nell knew they were all thinking the same thing. But Gracie was the only one who would be free to voice it.

  Nell went back in the house and returned with the platter of tenderloins, handing it off to Ben. Izzy followed carrying a large grill basket filled with fresh vegetables and a sprinkling of basil leaves. The meat sizzled as Ben dropped it onto the hot grate.

  “I don’t get it,” Gracie went on. “What’s Alphonso thinking?”

  Nell and Izzy had shared that same thought earlier in the day when they’d talked on their cell phones, Nell parked in her car outside Shaw’s Market, and Izzy on her knees in the yarn shop, filling the pattern rack with new magazines. They were both trying to make some sense out of the evening before. Going against a dead wife’s wishes and buying a flashy new car somehow didn’t easily fit the mold of a grieving husband.

  But then, Nell reminded Izzy, there were no rules for grieving.

  Izzy wasn’t deterred. “It sounds more to me like a man who is feeling suddenly free. A man who is having an affair,” she had said bluntly. “It puts Alphonso right smack in the firing line of suspects, don’t you think?”

  Nell had agreed with Izzy, but they certainly had no proof of anything. Having dinner with a woman or buying a new car wasn’t proof of an affair. And even if it were true, an affair didn’t signify murder. At least not always . . . but it raised antennae.

  “Alphonso is difficult to understand,” Gracie said.

  Ben got up and tested a piece of meat with a fork. “I think your uncle likes people to think that. It gives him an edge in business. But some parts of Alphonso are right out there for everyone to see—he’s a brilliant businessman, articulate, interested in the community. Think about it—you’re all talking about the car, but no one’s talking about the fact that he quelled a minor riot among city council members and the neighbors up in his and Birdie’s neck of the woods—all who could buy and sell this town if they wanted to. He didn’t have to open that path back up and he gains nothing from it—except maybe a line about being a generous neighbor in Mary Pisano’s column.”

  “Line? Hell, he’ll get a paragraph for that,” Ham said.

  “That’s true,” Nell said, “but Alphonso is also going against his recently deceased wife’s wishes by opening it up. That’s the part that’s hard to understand. None of us knew why she felt so strongly about blocking it off, but it’s almost harder to understand Alphonso backing her while she was alive, and then so quickly disregarding her wishes after she’s gone.”

  “It all depends on how you look at it,” Sam said. “It’s difficult for those who believe that Sophia is still with us in some spiritual way. But for those who think that everything ends with death, it may not seem so awful.”

  “I don’t care what Alphonso believes or doesn’t believe,” Gracie said. Her eyes flashed with an
ger. “At least he could have waited until the dust settled on her grave.” She stopped and took a breath of air, then went on. “Or, while we’re on my uncle’s questionable actions, for going out and buying a fancy new car.”

  “And that brings us to something far more easily digested. Dinner, anyone?” Ben’s thick brows lifted humorously, and soon the mood of the evening changed to one of pleasure and happier thoughts—of Nell’s grilled vegetables with a tangy cucumber yogurt sauce, fluffy, fragrant basmati rice, and slices of pork so tender no knife was needed.

  While Izzy lit the hurricane lamp on the long teak table, a recent addition to the deck, Cass put in a new CD of an old Stephane Grappelli jazz album, and soon Grappelli’s fingers on the violin filled the night air with a lively version of “Blue Moon.” Sweaters were buttoned against the night air, chairs pulled out, and platters placed between the candlelight. Nell was the last to sit.

  Ben raised his glass and looked down the table. He smiled into Nell’s eyes first, just as he did before every toast. And then he looked around and brought in the rest of the group. “To dear friends, to family,” he said. “Shalom.”

  The group raised their glasses and echoed Ben’s words, just as they always did. Glasses clinked, smiles grew, and soon platters competed with one another as they were passed around the table to laughter and talk and the sounds of friendship.

  It was a while later—just as Nell was scooping up ample servings of cherry crisp with the buttery topping dripping down the sides—that the sound of a doorbell filtered out to the back of the house.

  Ben stopped in the middle of a story about a family vacation fiasco in Colorado. “The doorbell?”

  “Willow said she might come by . . .”

  “But she’d never ring the doorbell,” Izzy said.

  “Nor Pete,” Cass added. “And he has a gig over in Rockport.” She licked the buttery sauce from the tip of her finger.

  “There’s an easy solution. I’ll answer it.” Nell pushed her chair back and went inside, leaving the French doors open behind her.