Birdie sat a few tables down on the wraparound deck. Her yarn and nearly finished socks were on the table and a cup of Annabelle’s strong coffee sat in front of her. She was knitting without looking at her stitches, her short needles moving beneath her fingers like magic wands, knitting and purling. In front of her on a ring were index cards, helping her know where she was in the lacy knitting. But her attention was clearly focused elsewhere, though Nell couldn’t be sure on what. She was looking out over the treetops to the Canary Cove art colony below, or maybe to the blue waters beyond and the parade of boats making their way out to deep water. But what was going on in her head was hidden. Nell thought about Harold and the Lincoln. In his talk with the chief the day before, Ben had learned that he wasn’t the only one who thought he saw Harold Sampson at the club that night. The bartender swore he saw him sitting in the dark car, parked beneath a tree. Perhaps that was it.
Dan Brandley sat alone at the next table and Nell stopped and asked if he’d like to join them, rather than eating alone.
“Thanks, but I’m waiting for my folks,” Danny said.
“I know they’re enjoying having you back,” Nell said. “And how are you enjoying being thrown into the thick of Sea Harbor happenings, like neighborhood squabbles?”
Danny laughed. “At the great bulldozing of the concrete posts, I guess you mean.”
“Just another summer night in Sea Harbor.” Ben laughed.
“When Tommy offered to take me along, I jumped at the chance. You never know what’s going to be grist for the writing mill. But who knew I’d end up in the middle of a neighborhood feud? At best, I thought we’d catch some teenagers smuggling beer under the pier.”
“People didn’t like that pathway being blocked, as Jake clearly demonstrated.”
“I’m glad it was settled before the National Guard had to be brought in. Alphonso Santos does things like that, I hear.”
“His wife was the one who closed it off.”
“So Tommy explained.”
“Did you know Sophia Santos? I’m sure you’ve heard about her murder.”
For a minute Danny was quiet. Then he shook his head.
“I think Alphonso did the right thing,” Ben said. “It can’t worry Sophia now, and it’s a good thing for the neighborhood. People used the path for years.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Nell conceded, still bothered by Alphonso’s disregard of Sophia’s wishes.
At that moment Harriet and Archie walked up to the table, and before his mother could reach out, her thirty-nine-year-old son quickly brushed a wayward strand of hair off his forehead.
The Brandleys greeted Nell and Ben. “Isn’t it wonderful to have him back, Nell?” Harriet gushed with great enthusiasm.
Nell smiled. Harriet looked years younger. What amazing effects children can have on their parents. “How long will you be here, Danny?”
“We’ll hang on to him as long as we can,” Archie answered.
The whole town knew that Archie and Harriet’s secret wish was that Dan would someday take over Sea Harbor Bookstore, the store that meant everything in the world to them—second only to their son. Sometimes Nell thought Archie made changes in the store, not just for all the people who loved Sea Harbor Bookstore, but for Danny—so he might come back and fall in love with it the way Archie and Harriet had. In recent years they’d created cozy getaway places in the bookstore, places to curl up and read—or snooze, as some regulars often did. They added outlets for computers and sturdy tables to hold cups and laptops, had the building wired for Wi-Fi. Rather than compete with a friend, Archie bypassed putting in a coffee bar and instead encouraged customers to “get coffee from Coffee’s—but drink it here.”
“You’re here on assignment?” Ben asked.
“One of those drawn-out, investigative series. We have a team working on it, but since Mom and Dad live here—and some of the work involved talking to people up here—they asked me to do it. Saves on per diem expenses.”
“How is it coming? Interesting subject?” Ben asked.
Dan shrugged, noncommittal. “I’m actually inching my way out of it to have time for some other writing I want to do—and to spend some time with Mom and Pop. I’d forgotten what a special place this is.”
A waitress appeared, carrying a tray filled with platters of eggs and muffins, and began moving things aside to fit them on the table.
With a wave Nell and Ben left the Brandleys and headed to the table where Stella had already poured them mugs of steaming coffee.
Birdie put down her knitting and looked at the enormous watch on her wrist. “I’ve timed you two. It takes you fifteen full minutes to walk from the restaurant door to the table.”
Ben looked at Nell and lifted one brow. I told you so, his eyes said.
“Ben Endicott, you talk as much as I do.”
Ben held out her chair. “My bride has a hard time admitting when I’m right, Birdie. What do I do about that?”
“You keep it to yourself,” Birdie said. She took a drink of her coffee and fingered the silky yarn in her sock absently. “Stella has already decided we’re getting the special. It’s a lovely chard and wild mushroom something.”
Nell handed her menu to Ben and he stacked them, closed, at the end of the table. She slipped on her glasses to look again at Birdie’s sock.
“It’s a shouting match of fun, that’s how I see it,” Birdie said of the curving lines and lacy texture. “I’ve decided to give the finished pair to Ella. She needs someone to pull her out of this terrible state she’s in.”
Nell laughed. Somehow the lacy socks looked more like Izzy or Liz Palazola or Willow, someone who could carry off a slight edge to their attire. But who knew, maybe sassy socks were just what Ella needed right now.
“She’s grieving her friend, I suppose,” Ben said, pulling the sections of the Times apart. He put the stack on the empty chair and folded the Week in Review in front of him.
“Yes,” Birdie said. “And that’s certainly understandable. But it’s so hard on Harold. He can’t imagine her missing anyone when she has him. Especially someone like Sophia Santos, whom he didn’t like much. It’s very sad.”
Ben started to say something about Harold, but stopped when Stella appeared with a basket of warm corn bread, crusty and sweet on top and buttery moist, with a touch of hot pepper inside. She lifted three plates of cheesy chard omelets from her tray and put one down in front of each of them. Annabelle had drizzled a design over the top of each omelet with a mild hot sauce. It curved around the plate like a lazy river. Fresh sprigs of parsley and mint finished off the plate with a brilliant spot of green.
“Beautiful. Your mother is an artist, Stella.”
Stella looked at the platters and bit down on her lip as if to hold back a retort but failed in the effort. “Liz did that. She thinks Ma is too plain. I don’t think she’s plain at all.”
“Liz is helping out today?”
“Not helping. No, not much. She just comes in the kitchen and tries to take over sometimes. It’s the way she is.”
“She handles things at the club fine,” Ben said. “But no one can beat Stella when it comes to running Sweet Petunia’s.”
Stella’s smile didn’t quite make it to her eyes. Her sister’s artistry seemed to have blocked out Ben’s nice words.
“Whatever,” she murmured and set a small pot of sour cream on the table, then walked off to the kitchen.
“She was happier when we walked in,” Nell noted. She took a forkful of omelet and savored the taste of fresh tarragon mixed with chard and eggs.
“Sisterly rivalry, I suppose,” Birdie said. “Stella is an absolute dear and can do just about anything she sets her mind to. She’s smart as a whip. But following in Liz Palazola’s footsteps would be a formidable task for anyone, especially someone as conscious about how she looks as Stella is.”
“I think Stella’s proud of Liz deep down, but the more she comes into her own, the more she wants
that shadow to go away so she can just be herself and not beautiful Liz’s little sister.”
Birdie agreed, then nodded toward the doorway that led into the restaurant from the deck.
Nell twisted slightly in her chair, turning her head to follow Birdie’s look.
Liz Palazola stood just outside the door, talking to Dan Brandley.
She and Dan were probably in school together, Nell guessed, calculating their ages.
Liz was smiling her gracious smile, but she looked pale, Nell thought. She seemed to be trying hard to focus on what Dan was saying.
But the most striking thing about Liz, as was usually the case, was her appearance. Today she wore a canary yellow sundress with a low neckline and an Empire waste. The dress moved softly over full breasts. The color matched her cascade of hair, smooth and shiny and falling over her shoulders like sunshine. The look was that of an impressionist painting—all golden with soft and lovely curves.
“It’s canary yellow.”
Nell looked up. Stella stood next to the table, clearing their empty plates.
“The dress, you were looking at her dress, right? It’s Liz’s favorite color. Her couch is that color, too, can you believe that? And she painted her kitchen yellow. Sometimes Liz can be obsessive.”
“It’s a pretty dress,” Nell said, moving beyond the awkward moment.
“I guess,” Stella answered, then brushed off the crumbs on the table with a towel. She glanced back at her sister, then refilled their coffee cups and disappeared down the deck.
Nell looked again at Liz, leaning against the door in her bright canary-yellow dress.
“Yes,” Birdie said aloud, reading into Nell’s thoughts. “The color of Alphonso Santos’ brand-new BMW convertible. Liz’s favorite color.”
It was over an hour later when they finally packed away knitting and newspapers. The deck was nearly empty, although Alphonso Santos still sat quietly at the back table, his head down, his long legs stretched out beneath the table. He held an iPhone in one hand and tapped into it with the other. His food was gone, the table cleared. He looked like he was settled in for the day.
Nell had tried not to be nosy earlier when Liz appeared on the deck—it was certainly none of her business, after all. But when Liz opened the door to go back inside, Nell looked up to see Liz pause for a moment, one hand on the door, looking back to the corner table. Alphonso’s answering look was intense. Nell wondered if the diners sitting between Alphonso and Liz had felt anything pass by their way. Sizzling electricity. Electric shock, perhaps.
“How about if we give you and your bike a lift home, Birdie?” Ben asked when they had made their way out to the parking lot. “I haven’t had my fill of your company.” Before Birdie could answer, he walked off to the metal rack to collect her bike.
“He’s a bossy one,” Birdie said, looking after Ben. “But don’t trade him in.”
Nell followed her husband with her eyes, took in his purposeful stride across the gravel lot. His attention to Birdie was unobtrusive—and always caring. The sun had warmed the air considerably while they’d sat on the deck, and the bike ride back to Birdie’s home involved several hills. Ben had decided four wheels back was better than two. “Trade him in?” she said to Birdie. “Not likely.”
The lot had cleared out considerably, and Alphonso’s convertible stood out even more than it had on the darkened road a few nights before. It was parked in the shade of a maple tree on the other side of the lot, its polished surface catching the filtered rays of sunlight.
“Our car is the other way,” Nell said. “Near the back door.” She pointed to the CRV nearly hidden in the shadows of the shed that held Annabelle’s Dumpster and garden supplies.
As they walked toward the car, Nell spotted Liz Palazola standing on the back steps of the restaurant, just beyond the shed. She was nearly hidden by overgrown bushes that shielded Annabelle’s back garden from general view. As Nell approached the car, she could see her more clearly. Her head was hung low, and she was gripping the side railing tightly, as if for support.
At first, Nell thought of walking out of the shadows and asking if she needed help, but before she could move, the screen door opened and Stella walked out.
Nell and Birdie turned away, toward the car, where Ben was fastening the bike to the rack.
Stella’s voice followed them.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked her sister. Her tone was harsh and unforgiving—a voice neither Nell nor Birdie had heard before.
“Stella, leave me alone,” Liz said. “Just go away.”
“How can you do this to Ma? What were you thinking? You’re supposed to be the perfect one.”
“I’m not perfect. I never pretended to be perfect.” Liz’s voice was soft.
“But this . . . this isn’t the way our pa would have wanted it. Not like this.”
Birdie slipped into the backseat of the car and Nell circled to the front, anxious to get out of earshot of the private conversation.
But just an instant before Nell pulled the door closed, Stella spoke again. This time the harshness in her voice had all but disappeared, and her words came out in plaintive regret.
“How could you do it? Not this way. A baby, Liz? A baby?”
Chapter 18
Ben sat with his hands on the steering wheel. He looked over at Nell, then turned to Birdie.
“A baby,” Birdie murmured as her eyes met Ben’s. “This complicates things.”
The voices in the distance grew softer, the words muffled. The opening and shutting of a screen door. Then silence.
Ben turned the key in the ignition and brought the engine to life. They drove away in the silence of their thoughts, past the galleries now alive with visitors and along the narrow strip of land near the bridge. The only sound in the car was that of the soft breeze blowing in over the granite outcroppings along the shore.
Liz Palazola was pregnant.
Ben was already slightly late for the regatta by the time they dropped Birdie and headed back to 22 Sandswept Lane. Sam was waiting at the house, and the two left together for the teenage sailing competition at the club.
After two hours of errands, cleaning, and other distracting tasks, Nell retreated to the deck. She poured herself a glass of iced tea and settled her laptop on her knees. It wasn’t just the cleaning and laundry that had taken a backseat this week. She’d barely begun to gather her notes for a talk she’d promised the Beverly Women’s Group. She could talk about nonprofit organizations effortlessly after years of directing a large Boston foundation. But she liked to customize her talks to the group’s interests. Add a touch of new life. The woman who called had asked her to talk about the basics, and Nell would give them exactly that. How to write a grant proposal. Where to find grant money. Who’s who in the foundation world.
Very basic indeed. Life should be so basic and simple. But the hows and whys and wheres that were tugging at her thoughts, distracting her from gathering her notes, were not simple at all.
The notes for the talk refused to come together. Each time she looked away from the computer screen, she saw Julianne Santos . . . in jail. Or Liz Palazola . . . her face pale and her fingers white as she gripped the rail to fight off morning sickness. Or a relaxed Alphonso . . . driving a canary-yellow convertible, while the tangled metal remains of a red Ferrari in a warehouse somewhere bore testimony to the tragic loss of his wife.
Nell looked over the tops of the trees that marked the back edges of the Endicott property. Beyond it, as the tree branches waved and bent in the late-afternoon breeze, she glimpsed the sea. Gulls swooped and dove in aerobatic perfection. Nell breathed in the tangy air and closed her eyes for a minute, soaking it in.
Comforting. Familiar.
She loved it all dearly. The changing colors of the sky, the sound of the sea, the smell of the salt, and the feel of the sand—the immense beauty that enhanced and informed the life they lived in this small seaside village.
Maybe
it was that startling contrast that made murder in this town so difficult to grasp—so wretchedly awful.
Or maybe murder was simply innately awful, all by itself.
Nell slipped a sweater over her shoulders. Whether from the disturbing thoughts or the chilly air, she couldn’t be sure, but the sweater was oddly comforting.
“Nell, where are you?” Flip-flops slapped across the family room floor. Izzy and Cass appeared at the doorway to the deck.
“The front door was open,” Cass said, then popped the last bit of an ice-cream cone into her mouth.
“And a closed door would have stopped you, Cass?” Nell lifted her eyebrows in a tease and pushed her glasses up into her hair.
“You’re happy to see me. You know it. We brought you a cup of double-chocolate fudge. It’s in your freezer.”
“Did you know it takes exactly one triple-scoop ice cream cone to walk from Scoopers to your front door?” Izzy sat down opposite Nell and curled her bare legs up beneath her. Her white shirt was decorated with a dribble of strawberry ice cream and Izzy dabbed at it, frowning.
“All right, you two. What’s on your minds? You didn’t walk up here to decide how big your ice cream cones had to be.”
“We came for several reasons. One is that we just left Gracie and she’s a mess.”
“Left her where?”
“At the Artist’s Palate,” Cass said. “Joey was meeting her there. But here’s what happened—the three of us were going to meet for a drink—”
“Because someone told Cass that Danny Brandley loved the Palate’s deck and often went there to write,” Izzy interrupted.
“Oh?” Nell said.
Cass threw Izzy a look. “No ‘ohs’ necessary. Danny was there. He bought us a beer. And then I lost out to a shiny aluminum Mac-Book Pro.”
Nell laughed.
Cass continued, hiding the faint blush behind a voice that was slightly too loud. “Gracie was late and she’d been crying, I think, something Gracie doesn’t do lightly. Her mom had asked her to visit.”
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