“Julianne was acting strange,” Izzy said.
“Strange, how? It would certainly be understandable if she was depressed.”
“No, that’s the strange part. It’s just the opposite, Gracie said. She was calm, coherent, and a totally different person than most of us know. She seemed resigned to the fact that people in the town are happy to have her be the murderer.”
“But that’s not true,” Nell began.
“In a way, it is,” Izzy said. “She’s been around Sea Harbor so infrequently that I think people view her as an outsider. They don’t know her. And it’s much easier to think of an outsider murdering Sophia.”
Nell closed her computer and set it aside. “You may be right.” Harry Garozzo had voiced the same opinion. “Did Gracie say if Alphonso’s been to visit her?”
“He’s been too busy,” Cass said. “Or so he told Gracie.”
“I see,” Nell said. Too busy, though he’d just spent a morning relaxing on the deck of the Sweet Petunia restaurant. Again, Nell held herself in check. Who knows what he was doing with his phone? Texting Julianne’s lawyer, maybe. Building a team to protect his baby sister. Preparing for a future without his wife.
“Why did she want to see Gracie?”
“That’s what bothered Gracie the most, I think. Julianne told her that she was at peace and that Gracie should be, too. Although she didn’t kill Sophia, she deserved to be punished. That’s what she wanted Gracie to know.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You don’t take a murderer’s punishment because you’ve made bad decisions in your life.”
Cass nodded. “Exactly. Gracie argued with her, told her that was ridiculous, but Julianne told her—very calmly, Gracie said—that this was as it should be. She’d done many terrible things in her life, and the worst of them all—worse than murder, she said—was that she’d never been a mother to her only child. And there was no punishment great enough for that crime.”
Nell looked away for a moment, swept away by the emotion that must have filled Gracie to the brim. “How terribly sad,” she murmured.
“Gracie thinks Julianne might even confess to the crime to speed things up.”
“And the worst part is, no one seems too interested in who else might have done it,” Izzy said. “It’s awful that the real killer could be walking the streets. And awful that an innocent person might be punished for it.”
“It ups the ante,” Cass said. “If Julianne didn’t do it, who did? That’s the only thing that will resolve this.”
Nell was silent for a long moment. Her thoughts went back to Liz Palazola. The overheard conversation had been a quiet one, but maybe important, in the light of things.
“Aunt Nell,” Izzy said, leaning forward and touching Nell’s arm. “You have something on your mind, and I think I know what it is. Did you talk to any of the Palazolas today when you and Ben went for breakfast?”
Her eyes met Nell’s.
“Yes, you did.” Izzy answered her own question. “You’re wonderful at keeping confidences, even when you’re not asked to, but it’s not a secret about Liz. Laura Danvers came in the shop today. She’s pregnant again—number three. Can you believe it? She saw Liz in the doctor’s office.”
“That doesn’t mean . . .” Nell began.
Izzy shook her head and a tangle of waves fell across her cheek. She forked her fingers through her hair, pushing it back. “No, normally it wouldn’t. Except Liz got sick in the waiting room, and Laura took her to the restroom. She told Laura that she was almost three months pregnant.”
Nell settled back in the chair. She repeated the conversation they’d heard at Annabelle’s. “It was disturbing,” she said. “An affair is one thing, but a baby takes it to a new level. They’d have known about the baby for a while.”
“Long enough to ask Sophia for a divorce.”
“Which she might not consent to.”
No marriage, Sophia had whispered in Harry’s deli. No marriage . . . for Alphonso and Liz?
“Having a baby should be such a happy time for her,” Nell said out loud.
They fell silent then, the thought of an innocent baby somehow caught up in the tragic drama unfolding around them.
“My tap dancing class went well.” The non sequitur was from Birdie, standing in the open doorway. “I’m knitting each of the ten ladies in my class a pair of fake fishnet stockings. And then we will have a performance, and you will all be invited.”
Birdie walked over to an empty chair and sat down. “In the meantime, fill me in.” She looked at Nell. “I heard from one of the ladies at the retirement home that it’s almost a closed case. Julianne has all but confessed. And I don’t believe one single word of that.”
Nell got Birdie a glass of iced tea while Izzy and Cass filled her in on Gracie’s visit to her mom and confirmation of Liz’s pregnancy.
Birdie looked over at Nell. “Stella ran some errands for me today, and she needed little encouragement to talk about it. It seems that she and Liz saw us and suspected we overheard their conversation.”
“Did Stella confirm the father?”
“No. Liz refused to talk to her about it.”
“I suppose she told Annabelle about the baby,” Nell said.
“Yes, who was loving and understanding—but angry, too, according to Stella. For her most responsible daughter to get herself in such a fix was hard for her to stomach. At least that was Stella’s take on it.”
Birdie paused, then pulled another sock out of her backpack and checked it against a copy of the pattern. She looked up as if to speak, then thought better of it and concentrated again on the sock pattern.
Nell saw worry play across her friend’s face and recognized the attempt to brush it away with knitting. A ploy that nearly always worked. But today the worry stayed. “Birdie, what are you not saying?” Nell handed Birdie the glass of iced tea.
“Nothing, probably. But this murder has touched everyone. And until there’s real resolution, people are going to be angry and afraid and accusing each other of things—”
“Are you talking about Harold and Ella?” Nell asked.
“In part. Ella is almost like a crusader these days. I see her walking along that path between our house and the Santoses’, coming and going. I don’t know what she does when she gets over there. She probably just sits and hopes that it’s all a grievous mistake and Sophia will walk out of the house and ask her to go for a walk. My sweet, lovely Ella has become militant. This has all taken such a toll on her. She’s determined that Sophia’s murderer be brought to justice.”
“She doesn’t think it’s Julianne?”
“No. She’s sure it’s not.”
“Why?”
“Because she has it in her head that Alphonso wanted to end his marriage and finally figured out a way to do it. And she thinks he’s getting away with murder.”
Chapter 19
Birdie quickly went on and explained that even though Ella believed it on one level, she had no proof. It was pure emotion on her housekeeper’s part. And frankly, Birdie was upset about the whole thing. Ella was coming close to harassing Alphonso on his own property and she wouldn’t blame him for having her arrested for trespassing.
But on another level, Birdie said, she thought accusing Alphonso came from Ella’s intuition, knowing that he hurt her friend.
Either way, it was unnerving.
Cass and Izzy left shortly after, and Nell suggested she and Birdie grab a bite to eat at the Ocean’s Edge.
The regatta coaches and team would be eating at the club, Ben said when he called. Their team had been victorious, and that called for a celebration. Nell could hear the pleasure and pride in his voice. The rough-edged gangly boys that he and Sam had rounded up from the Boys’ Club last summer didn’t know a jib from a daggerboard back then. And here they were, winning their first race of the summer.
“You’d have thought they’d just won the America’s Cup,” Ben had said like a proud father.<
br />
Nell climbed into the passenger side of Birdie’s Town Car thinking, as she sometimes did, of what a great father Ben would have made. But when that didn’t work for them, life moved in and filled that space in mysterious and sometimes surprising ways. Izzy, for starters, as close to them as any daughter could be. And his work with the Boys’ Club program, filled with kids without dads. Even Sam—who’d never known his own father—had formed a close bond with Ben that satisfied something important in him. And Ben’s sailing team could now be added to that list.
“I wouldn’t ever admit this to Ben,” Birdie said, “but I miss having Harold drive me around. I don’t enjoy driving this car anymore.”
“I imagine Harold misses driving it, too.”
“In the worst way. And he’d probably be fine driving, but it seems safer to wait until the brace is off. And by the way—he didn’t drive to the club that Friday night.”
Nell looked at Birdie in surprise. “Oh.”
“I asked him. He said if he was going to sneak the car out, he sure wouldn’t go to the yacht club.”
Nell wondered whether to say anything more, to mention that others had seen Birdie’s Lincoln there, too. Not just Ben. She finally decided it could wait. “Well, no matter who’s driving this car, Sonny would be pleased at the way you care for it.”
“Some traditions are hard to let go of, even if they are silly in this day and age. Sonny had his car polished, detailed, and the carpets shampooed the first Friday of every month, whether it needed it or not. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“And you do the same,” Nell said, knowing that even though Birdie had outlived three husbands after Sonny—and loved each of them sincerely—Sonny Favazza lived on in her life in a very special way. And so, it seemed, did his car.
They drove north on Harbor Road, passing by the shops and restaurants and Pelican Pier. Birdie had had a new brass sign posted in the green area near the pier that boasted the name in tall golden letters.
Sonny Favazza had named the pier himself after he’d spotted a lone brown pelican in the cove behind his house. Brilliant, he had said to Birdie, his eyes twinkling. For decades people will wonder why a pier in Massachusetts bears the name of a southern bird. His bird. And he’d gathered Birdie in his arms and sang to her of a pelican in Massachusetts, as they danced around the widow’s walk.
Birdie passed the Ocean’s Edge, a large clapboard restaurant with a wraparound deck, and saw at a glance it was packed. Sounds of laughing and conversation poured from the porch and open-air bar in the back.
“I have a better idea. Ella has been taking some of her anger and sadness out by cooking,” she said, passing the restaurant by and heading straight on Harbor Road toward the Ravenswood neighborhood. “We can make some chicken sandwiches. I swear she roasted ten chickens this week.”
“Better chickens than Harold.”
Birdie laughed. “Those two are like wet hens these days. Some days I think I should put them in time-out.”
Birdie pulled into her driveway and drove the car into the garage. When she pulled the keys out of the ignition, they slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor.
“Butterfingers,” she muttered to herself, running her fingers around the dark floor beneath the driver’s seat.
Nell pulled out her cell phone and made a quick call to Ben to pick her up at Birdie’s on his way home from the club. She walked around the car. “Find them?”
“Yes, and also this.” She pulled a rugged twill cap from beneath the seat. “It’s Harold’s.”
Nell recognized the cap. Ella had given the chauffeur’s cap to Harold as a joke when he started driving Birdie’s Town Car around town—and Harold had loved it, insisting that he wear it whenever driving the car. He’d had it for years, and treated it with great care.
“I wonder why it’s here,” Birdie said.
“He probably dropped it after driving somewhere.”
“No. Not unless he’s been driving in the past week. The car was detailed the day of the yacht club party. The first Friday in June.”
Birdie stood still, fingering the visor on the cap, thinking.
Nell looked up toward the house. She saw a light go on in the kitchen. Ella, expecting Birdie back, probably, and fixing dinner.
Birdie started walking toward the house and Nell followed. She could read her friend’s thoughts as clearly as if she’d spoken them aloud. Ben swore he had seen Harold driving the Lincoln the night of the party, but Birdie had been resolute that he was at home. Especially after Harold said he hadn’t been driving the Lincoln.
The cap suggested a different story.
Harold had been driving that day.
“It had to be that day,” Birdie said aloud. “Stella mentioned the keys being gone, so I looked for them the next day. I found them on the hook beside the door in the kitchen, right where they always were. I assumed Stella had overlooked them.”
They walked through the back door to the kitchen.
“I’m home,” Birdie called out to Ella as they walked through the back hall and into the kitchen.
Birdie’s kitchen was large and airy, a renovated space that held a commercial-sized gas stove and plenty of windows that looked out onto gardens and the ocean. A round table sat in front of the windows. Sitting at it, his long fingers wrapped around a glass of water, was Harold Sampson. Ella was nowhere in sight.
“Harold! You surprised me,” Birdie said. “I thought Ella was in here.”
Everything about Harold was long—his face, his chin, his arms and legs. When he lifted his head, looking at Birdie, even his attempt at a smile looked long. “Ella’s gone again. I thought it would stop. But she’s out, walking somewhere.”
When he saw the cap in Birdie’s hands, he frowned. “That’s my cap. Thanks, Miss Birdie. Where was it?”
Birdie set it on the table in front of him and opened the refrigerator door, moving around an assortment of plastic-wrapped bowls. “It was in the car,” she said, taking out a platter of sliced chicken and setting it on the long island. “You must have dropped it there last Friday.”
Nell stood near the counter, almost feeling sorry for Harold. He was clearly distressed.
“Were you driving on Friday, Harold?”
Harold focused on the hat, his brows pulled together in deep concentration, as if sorting through possible answers and wondering which ones would get by Birdie.
“It’s all right, Harold,” Birdie said. Her voice was firm but kind. “I just want to be sure your ankle heals. Where did you go?”
Harold looked at Birdie and took a deep breath. His chest rose and fell. “It was Ella,” he said. “She’s my life, you know. But she was moving away from me so quickly. Not around when I needed her. It had always been Ella and me. And then Sophia came and took her away from me. I had to do something.”
“They were friends, Harold,” Nell said gently. “That’s all.”
Harold shook his head in disagreement. “Ella changed when that woman came into her life. That Friday night I couldn’t find Ella anywhere. You were gone, Miss Birdie, and Stella was gone, too. I thought maybe Ella had gone to the yacht club with Sophia Santos. And I couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped. I wanted my Ella back.”
Birdie and Nell looked at each other, not wanting Harold to go on. Not wanting to hear what he was about to say to them.
But Harold went on.
“So I drove over there to bring her home. That’s where I went and that’s why. But she wasn’t there. I parked there for a while, not sure what to do, just watching people come in and out. Mr. Santos came out once—for a cigar I think. He saw me sitting in the car, so I asked him to go get my Ella for me, that she was with his wife. He told me she wasn’t there, that his wife had driven over alone. So I turned around and I came back home.”
“When was that?”
“Early. It was still light. Maybe eight o’clock or so?”
“And Ella?” Birdie asked.
&nbs
p; “She was home, mad as a hatter that I’d gone out in the car when you told me not to. I made her promise not to tell you.”
His eyes settled on a point beyond Nell and Birdie, near the kitchen door.
Nell and Birdie turned.
Ella stood in the doorway. “Are you all right, Harold?” Her eyes took in the platter of chicken on the island, then traveled back to her husband. She looked back at Birdie. “What’s going on?”
“We wondered where you were, Ella,” Harold said. “I never know these days. You’re here and then you’re gone.”
“I was walking in the woods, Harold. I came back, just as I said I would.”
Harold set his jaw. He looked frustrated and sad, Nell thought, unusual emotions for the even-keeled man.
“You won’t find her in the woods, Ella,” he said. “She isn’t anywhere. She’s gone, and she’s not coming back.”
For a moment, Nell wasn’t sure what Harold was talking about. But when she looked into his eyes, they were clear and focused, and she realized who “she” was. And that she was, indeed, not coming back.
Ella’s head jerked around and she glared at Harold as if he had let loose with a string of profanity. When she looked back at Birdie, an enormous sadness seemed to be pressing down on her narrow shoulders. “I will fix you some sandwiches,” she said.
“No, Ella. It’s fine. Nell and I will take care of ourselves. You and Harold can go back to the carriage house and relax.”
Harold stood up and walked across the kitchen, limping. His eyes were steady and focused on his wife, and he spoke softly, as if they were the only two in the room.
“She’s not coming back, Ella. Not ever. This was supposed to end it all, to give us our life back. We are finally rid of her.” He touched Ella on her arm as he walked past her, an oddly loving touch.
Ella stepped away.
Then Harold walked through the door and out into the night alone, his shoulders weighted with loneliness.
Chapter 20
When Ben picked Nell up a short time later, he was sunburned, tired, and not readily given to conversation. “I’m spent,” he said, leaning over and opening the passenger door. He kissed her on the lips.
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