Moon Spinners

by Sally Goldenbaum

They’d all been wrong. Joey Delaney stood beneath the porch light, looking embarrassed.

  “Joey, come in,” Nell said, opening the door wider. “You’re just in time for dessert.”

  “Sorry for bothering you, Nell. I know this isn’t a good time to barge in, but I’m looking for Gracie. I got Pete on his cell, and he said chances were good she was over here.” He paused, then tried to lighten his tone. “Pete said next to a paying gig this was the only place to be on a Friday night.”

  “Well, Pete’s right. And you are welcome anytime. Gracie’s inside. Come in.”

  At the sound of her name, Gracie appeared in the hallway. “Is everything okay?”

  Nell could see as soon as Gracie posed the question that she didn’t think everything was okay. And the look on Joey’s face told them both that she was right.

  Joey looked down at the sisal rug beneath his boots. He shoved his hands in his pockets. He was nearly a foot taller than Gracie, a well-built man, but when he looked down at her, it was with a tenderness that belied the strong muscles visible beneath his knit shirt.

  “Hey, Grace, sure—everything’s fine. Alphonso is seeing what can be done. He called and asked me to look for you.”

  “What can be done? What do you mean?”

  Ben walked in from the deck. He stood in the hallway, just behind Gracie. “Hey, Joey. Can I help?”

  “Hi, Ben. It’s Gracie’s mom—Julianne,” Joey said. “They’ve arrested her for manslaughter. They think . . . Well, they say she killed Sophia.”

  Chapter 15

  Gracie accepted Ben’s offer to go with her to the police station. Joey seemed relieved—he’d come over to the Endicotts’ on his motorcycle—not a great way to get Gracie to the jail. But Gracie asked Joey to ride along with her and Ben, and he readily agreed, apologizing for leaving his bike in the drive. The police had arrested Julianne a couple hours before, Joey explained, and she’d used her one call on Alphonso. Probably a good move, considering his influence.

  Alphonso thought it wouldn’t be difficult to set bail. But he’d been wrong, an unusual happening for Alphonso Santos.

  When Ben returned from the police station later that night, he slid into bed next to Nell and leaned back against the downy pillows, tired to the bone. Nell slipped off her glasses and put down her book. She rubbed his arm.

  “Judge Wooten was called in,” Ben said. “Rachel’s father. He’s an honorable man. But a smart one, too. And as he so wisely put it, Julianne Santos was a bigger flight risk than a seagull.”

  And the crime, the judge reminded everyone, was a serious one.

  So there would be no bail, even with the murdered woman’s husband offering to provide both the money and the oversight.

  “Have the police found something? Is there a reason Julianne was arrested today?” Nell asked.

  Ben wrapped an arm around her, gathering her close to his body. “The police received an anonymous tip. The caller suggested they take a look at Julianne’s car, that they might be surprised at what they found. She’d been seen opening the trunk of her car at the club that night, though the caller never said who saw her.

  “So they went over to Gloucester where Julianne was staying—it’s the same apartment house Joey and Gracie lived in while they were married. Her car had broken down in front of the house and hadn’t moved, the landlord said, since Julianne arrived the night of the murder.

  “Julianne was coming back from a walk when the police drove up. She readily gave them the keys. She had nothing to hide, and they could have the car if they wanted it, she said. It didn’t work.”

  They checked the trunk as the caller had suggested, and that’s where they found the books, stuffed inside a cardboard box. Self-help manuals on everything you’d ever want to know about your car, from A to Z—and computer printouts of the most current information. Step-by-step solutions to every automotive problem, from fluid leaks to stalled engines to noisy mufflers.

  And highlighted with a yellow marker were sections on brakes. Domestic-made brakes. Foreign brakes. Even Brembo brakes. Dual cylinders in Ferraris. How to repair them. But of more interest to the police were the trouble-shooting sections outlining what can go wrong with brakes—and what the consequences are. There was even a subtitle in one, meant as a touch of humor, called “How to cut a brake line without breaking your fingernails.” Stuck in a paper bag behind it were a mess of things—a box of throw-away surgical gloves, a suction device, wires, a pointed metal probe.

  “Gracie is stunned,” Cass said the next day.

  She and Nell walked along the waterfront on Harbor Road, their heads held back to catch the morning breeze. The wind was gusty, lifting Nell’s hair from her neck and tossing it against her cheek. An invigorating June day.

  Cass wore a floppy gray cotton hat that Izzy had knit for her, and she pulled it down tight on her head, holding her mass of dark hair in place. “She doesn’t know what to think.”

  “Ben said it doesn’t look good.”

  Cass nodded. “A pile of books on how to screw up brakes. Plus a bunch of printouts from Internet sites that explain exactly how to do it. And top that off with her outburst at the club and again at the wake. No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  “But even with the books and tools and comments we all heard Julianne make, something is missing. Julianne was so wobbly that night that I don’t think she could have hit the side of a barn with a beach ball, much less dismantle the brakes on a sports car.”

  “Gracie said the same thing. Her mother didn’t learn how to drive until she was in her twenties. She hates cars, as is evidenced from that jalopy she drives. Maybe because her brother loved them so much. And she absolutely denied that the books and bag of tools were hers. Someone planted them there, she said.”

  Nell looked out over the ocean as if there might be answers floating along the incoming tide. The harbor was dotted with dozens of sailboats, their billowing white sails brilliant against the blue sky. “Everyone is taking advantage of this perfect day,” she said. “Even Ben and Sam, using Willow as an excuse. She’s determined to learn to sail the fancy Hinckley sailboat she inherited from her dad, and Sam and Ben immediately signed on as her instructors.”

  “It’s great to be out on the water on days like this,” Cass said. “But all this awful stuff in the air is enough to take the wind out of anyone’s sails.”

  Nell smiled, but Cass’ pun carried the sad truth. The vibrancy that she loved about early-summer days was dulled by Sophia’s death. The smells of summer—salt air laced with coconut oil, the perfume of wild roses spilling along the roadside, the sweetness of Scoopers’ cotton candy and rich ice cream. She’d hardly noticed them.

  It was too close to them—and not just Sophia’s dying, not just Julianne’s arrest—but all those tangled up in the web of her death.

  They walked past the Ocean’s Edge restaurant and along narrow, windy Harbor Road, past Jake Risso’s Gull Tavern and M.J.’s Hair Salon. Past all the small weathered shops with blue and green and yellow shutters framing the windows and colorful hand-painted signs above doors. All the mix of things that defined the town they loved fiercely.

  They reached Harry’s Deli, his windows decorated today with wrapped cheeses, bottles of olives, capers, and wine, all piled high in enormous wicker baskets. Scattered about the cheeses and baskets were arrangements of forsythia, purple cape daisies, and blue and yellow violas, freshly cut from Margaret Garozzo’s lovely garden.

  Nell looked in the window and saw her own reflection, wind-blown salt-and-pepper hair full and billowy around her fine-boned face. Her prominent cheekbones were pink from the salty gusts. She smiled into Harry’s bountiful display, masking her troubled thoughts, and pushed her hair back into place as best she could.

  “Your hair looks great,” Cass said, holding open the door. “I like the messy look. Sexy.” She followed Nell into the blended aroma of simmering broth with a trace of nutmeg and the smell of homemade bread baking in Harry and Margar
et’s stone oven. Nell looked over the counter to a pot of steaming soup. “Smells amazing, Harry.”

  The deli owner wiped his wide hands on a once-white apron. “Stracciatella, my dear ladies. Delicious. My mother’s own secret recipe—nutmeg, but also with a hint of cinnamon.” Harry pressed his finger and thumb together, kissed them loudly and flung his hand out into the steamy air. “The cold soups will come soon, but one finale of the season for my stracciatella. A table for two, ladies?”

  “For four, Harry.”

  “Izzy, Bernadette, and you two beauties, if I may be so bold as to guess. Right this way.”

  “Bernadette?” Cass spoke to Harry’s back.

  Nell laughed. “I don’t think there are too many people around here who know Birdie’s real name, Harry.”

  “Of course I know her real name. I knew Sonny Favazza, too, and her other three husbands.” He chuckled as they walked across the room. “Four husbands, imagine that.” His hand flew out in the air as he talked. “And all fine fellows, but none held a candle to Sonny Favazza, people say. I was just knee-high to a grasshopper when he died like that, so sudden. Who woulda thought? A heart attack for such a young man? But my parents talked about it, and the beautiful Bernadette, a new bride, like a ghost in that big house on the cliff. It was like one of them novels.”

  Nell imagined the spirited Birdie back then. Alone, devastated, building a life for herself without the love of her life. Of course she hadn’t known Birdie then, but she knew the woman she’d become. And she’d sat in the warmth of Sonny Favazza’s den and listened to Birdie’s stories, wandered through his ancestral home, and knew of the things Birdie’s husband had built for Sea Harbor—Pelican Pier, a library, a clinic. Through his home and his legacy, Nell suspected she knew Sonny Favazza nearly as well as anyone—except for his beloved bride. His Birdie, as he’d affectionately nicknamed her.

  Harry led them to their favorite table, right next to the back window where the gulls sat on the windowsill and the diners could nearly touch the top of sailboats pulling up to the moorings along the concrete wall.

  He pulled out their chairs, first Nell’s, then Cass’, then took a deep breath and leaned over the table, a serious expression pushing away his broad smile.

  “Julianne Santos is in jail,” he said in a low voice.

  Nell nodded, picking up a menu. “Yes, Harry,” she said.

  Everyone knew about the arrest; there was no reason for Harry’s whisper. It had been on the news and in the morning paper. Even Mary had written about it in her column, beseeching the “powers that be” to wrap it all up quickly and bring the summery days of wine and roses, as she’d colorfully put it, back to Sea Harbor.

  And then Mary had launched into a thank-you to Alphonso Santos for his generous, kind gesture, reopening the Ravenswood Road beach access just in time for tiny feet to find their way to the sandy cove. A gift for the whole town. Alphonso Santos was “a good neighbor,” Mary had written. “A generous man,” indicating clearly that others were not so kind.

  Mary hadn’t mentioned Sophia Santos at all.

  “People are relieved,” Harry said, taking Nell’s silence as encouragement for him to continue. “People are happy.”

  “Happy, Harry?” Cass asked, her eyes peering across the top of the menu. “Someone has died.”

  Harry nodded his nearly bald head solemnly. “Certainly Sophia Santos was a decent lady and she will be missed and mourned. She came in here often. She loved my gnocchi especially. Magnifica! she used to say to me. It is sad for Alphonso, sad for us to have lost this lady. But it’s a good thing to be rid of the worry and to stop wondering if there is a murderer walking our streets. Someone who could harm our children. Who knows why Alphonso’s sister did this awful thing? Maybe she had a good reason—jealousy or some personal thing, But whatever, it’s over now.”

  Izzy came up behind him and caught the end of his monologue. “It’s not over, Harry,” Izzy said. She pulled her brows together in a look that Nell suspected had driven opposing attorneys crazy when Izzy was in the courtroom.

  Squeezing her body around Harry’s ample girth, Izzy sat down in the window seat across from Nell and Cass and looked at Harry. “They didn’t say Julianne did it, now, did they? They said they think she might have done it. She’s innocent right now.” Izzy smiled, then, the generous wide smile that made people feel warm and wanted, even if her words were strong or contrary. She gathered her tangle of waves back from her face and slid a scrunchie around the fistful of hair.

  “It’s been a crazy morning,” she said to Nell and Cass. Then she took a long drink of water and pulled a half-finished sock from her bag. She lined up several balls of a soft wool-cotton blend on the table in front of her. “This will calm me down. I need calming down.” She picked up her needles, balanced them on her hands, and moved from one double-pointed needle to the next, the needles clicking like chopsticks.

  “Harry, dear. Please move so I can sit down,” Birdie said, coming up beside the baker and tapping him gently on the back.

  Harry looked down and greeted Birdie with a broad smile. He took a step back and Birdie settled next to Izzy, hooking her backpack over the chair.

  “Now,” Birdie said, looking up into Harry’s round face. She slipped her arms out of her light sweater. “I think we could use a glass of your fine mango tea and those delicious bread sticks to nibble on, don’t you?”

  Harry’s jowls swung slightly with the nod of his head and his smile grew as it always did in Birdie’s company. It was only his stance that showed his reluctance to leave an unfinished conversation. “Coming up,” he said finally, and moved his large frame slowly through the maze of tables, back toward the counter.

  “Sweet Harry,” Birdie said. “He means well, but he’s like a bee spreading pollen, taking bits of conversation from table to table.”

  “But what he says is usually the consensus of what he’s heard. Which means this morning’s crowd thinks Julianne is guilty and the case is closed,” Izzy said. She held up the sock cuff. “These socks are for you, Nell. They’re knee-high hiking socks. Perfect for the fall when we hit the Ravenswood Park trails. Or maybe if you take up biking with Birdie?” She pointed to the secondary yarns she would use on the narrow stripes around the calf. “Mellow yellow, ship-shape blue, and rich red. Perfect Nell colors.”

  “I’ll love them, Izzy,” Nell said. She reached over and fingered the soft yarn, then touched Izzy lightly on the cheek. “And biking isn’t out of the question.”

  “This is what’s keeping me sane,” Izzy went on. “I want to curl up in a corner and knit. The shop was nuts this morning. Mae and I spent half our time fielding rumors. I don’t know why people think we’d know anything—maybe it’s just that knitting can lend itself to lots of conversation, but it was wild.”

  “What are people saying?” Cass said.

  Before Izzy could answer, Harry’s wife, Margaret, came over to the table to take their order, a smile filling her small lined face. “Try the stracciatella,” she urged, already scribbling it on her clean pad.

  They all agreed, declaring her Italian soup the best in town and the flowers in the window gorgeous. Margaret left the table happy and discreetly, as was her way.

  “Both Rose and Jillian were working today, and they repeated the teenage scuttlebutt.”

  “That Sophia was having an affair and her lover killed her when she wanted to break it off?”

  “That’s the one,” Izzy said, pulling a bread stick from the basket. “I think it’s from some soap opera they watch. And Jillian says she saw this man, the lover, with her own eyes. And her best friend saw him, too. He picked Sophia up at the high school one day. He was ‘way cool,’ Jillian said. Younger than Sophia by a century, or maybe a decade, was her friend’s take.”

  “And the ‘he’ is?” Cass rummaged around in her backpack for the beginnings of her mysterious fish hat.

  “A mystery man. They didn’t have a clue who he was.”


  “I don’t think the police are looking into mystery men,” Nell said. “Ben thinks they’ll concentrate on building up their case against Julianne, and they have a pretty good start. It’s their job, of course.”

  “Even though she says she is innocent?” Birdie shook some sugar into her tea and stirred it with her spoon.

  “So many people heard her wish Sophia dead,” Izzy said. “And she had plenty of motive. With Sophia out of the picture, Alphonso would be much more generous in giving her money.”

  “We know she was at the club that night. And then there’s the box of books telling her how to do it, and tools to help her,” Birdie said.

  “But Gracie said her mother’s mechanical ability would fit in a thimble. If she wanted to kill Sophia, she’d have been far more likely to put some poison in her tea. She’d never fool with the inside of a car.” Cass ran a hand through her hair. “I think Julianne has been an awful mom to Gracie. I’ve always resented her for that. Living with that probably brings its own kind of life sentence. But I don’t think Julianne Santos could possibly kill anyone.”

  “You sound convinced, Cass,” Izzy said. She moved her yarn to the side as Margaret placed a big bowl of soup in front of each of them, then disappeared, as quiet as a kitten.

  Cass was silent for a moment, thinking about the lineup of things against Julianne Santos and trying to give them a fair shake. She picked up her spoon and played with the tiny threads of egg swimming on top of the soup.

  “Yes,” she said finally, “I am.”

  Birdie sat up straight in her chair, her spine not touching its back. “That’s good enough for me. I am with Catherine,” she said. “I watched Julianne Santos grow up. She had plenty of problems, that’s for certain. She was a beautiful little wild child—and her parents traveled so much there wasn’t anyone to nurture that spirit and make sure it developed in the right directions. She’s done crazy things and she’s been a terrible mother. But I would bet on my sweet Sonny’s urn that she could no sooner kill anyone than fly.”