She thought back to the expression on his face last night. He hadn’t regretted his words nor had he tried to hide his feelings. Would a murderer be so open? Admit to hating the woman who died? Accuse her of ruining his life?
“Who knows what pushes someone over the edge,” Cass said. “Maybe we’re all capable of violence, I don’t know.”
But the thought of Harold Sampson doing anything so vicious was almost as difficult to imagine as thinking Father Northcutt had done it.
“We know Harold was there,” Birdie said. “We know he had motive.”
“What time did he say he left the club?” Cass asked.
Birdie thought back. “Early, he said. Around eight.”
Cass thought about that for a minute. “If he left at eight, Harold is innocent.”
“How do you know that, Cass?” Birdie asked.
“Being around trucks and boats and jalopies all my life, I know a little about leaky fluid. Tommy Porter told me that there wasn’t much fluid on the parking lot where Sophia had parked.”
“So?”
“So there would have been, if Harold had done it early in the evening. Whoever did it, had to have done it between eleven and when Sophia left, which was about midnight. Tommy says that’s the time frame the police are working from.”
“You’re brilliant, Cass,” Birdie said.
“If that’s really when he left. Harold lied to us about being there. He could be lying again,” Nell said with regret.
They were silent for a minute. Then Cass said, “So we’ll come up with a way to prove he left when he said he did.”
And they would. The thought of gentle Harold Sampson killing Sophia was more than the knitters could dwell on for long. Cass’ reasoning was hopeful, but unfortunately they needed more than his word.
“All right, moving on,” Birdie said. “We know Liz and Alphonso were there, and they both had motive.”
“Liz couldn’t have done it. I feel sure of that after talking with Ben. He said almost every second of her time that night could be accounted for. She was putting out fires, correcting waitstaff—”
“Preventing Julianne from bludgeoning Alphonso with a beer bottle,” Cass added.
“Right. So I think we can cross her off. Someone would have noticed if she had disappeared for that long.”
“Alphonso?”
“That’s tougher,” Nell admitted. “Lots of loose strings. And we also have Danny Brandley who—if in fact he’s the person Jillian saw picking Sophia up at the high school—may have misled us about knowing her . . .” Nell put down her wineglass.
“I think we need to look into Gracie’s fire.” Cass put the thought out there, happy to move away from Danny Brandley as a suspect.
“I don’t know how the fire could be connected to Sophia’s murder, dear,” Birdie said.
“Me either,” Cass said. “But it’s another bad thing happening to the same family. Gracie’s aunt murdered. Gracie’s mother in jail. Gracie’s restaurant burned. If Birdie hadn’t seen the smoke, the whole thing would have burned to the ground. It doesn’t add up. It wasn’t even that cold out. And wouldn’t he have known someone would see the smoke out of the chimney?”
Cass finished her wine and began slathering the creamy Gouda-like cheese on a piece of flatbread while the others digested her words.
Cass was right. Nell wondered suddenly why they’d all bought the explanation so readily. Was it because they didn’t want anything else bad to happen? Was that why they’d greedily taken in the simple, benign explanation?
“Well, we know one thing for sure,” Izzy said, breaking the silence. “Julianne didn’t set that fire. She has an airtight alibi.”
“And it still could have been exactly as the police described it,” Birdie added. “But we should tuck it away with the other loose ends, at least until we’re sure there’s no connection. Frankly, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt Gracie’s business. It’s not like we have competing lobster cafés. And who in their right mind would want to hurt sweet Gracie Santos?”
“So let’s go back to Sophia,” Cass said. “She didn’t like Delaney & Sons—and from what Gracie said, they weren’t too crazy about her, especially Davey.”
“But if someone from D.J.’s company didn’t like the Santos Company, why kill Sophia? Why not Alphonso?” Nell asked.
The group fell silent, caught up in their own thoughts. Nell fingered the Ravenscar cardigan in her lap. She’d almost finished a front panel and the all-seasons cotton yarn was comforting to the touch, not stiff, like some cottons. Comfort. That’s what they all needed.
Finally Nell said, “I think we need to think about this, keep our eyes open for something that will help us connect the dots. We have plenty of people who could have done it and had motive, but none of it feels solid. We need to peel off layers of lives of all these people. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a link or a piece of conversation or something we haven’t been looking at that will clear up the muddiness. Like Cass did with the brake fluid.”
Izzy stood and began clearing away the crackers and cheese. “That’s what we’ll do, then—I hear plenty in the shop. We’ll ask questions. Birdie and Cass did a great job of interrogating Jimmy Rodriguez before the socks class—and he didn’t even know what they were doing.”
“True, we found out more about Sophia—especially that she was agitated and worried that last week.”
“And left the school to visit the Delaney plant,” Nell said. “That’s odd.”
“Maybe once we can paint a more defined picture of her and what she did that last week we’ll find a more concrete answer to who killed her.”
“And why.” Nell stood up and took her empty wineglass into the galley kitchen.
Izzy followed with napkins and the cheese platter and Birdie and Cass straightened up the back room.
“Tomorrow’s a new day,” Birdie said, collecting her knitting and slipping the bag over her shoulder. “We’re all on edge, but things will be opening up. I feel it.” She straightened every inch of her five-foot frame and forced a smile to her lips, spreading a touch of strength to each of them.
Nell stood and watched her friend of so many years they’d stopped counting. Birdie was right. A new day was what was needed. It hadn’t even been two weeks, after all. But the fear would linger and fester until they knew for certain who had made the red Ferrari fly off the cliff and into a bed of granite rocks—with Sophia in the driver’s seat.
Archie was standing in the doorway of the bookstore talking to Jake Risso when Nell left the Seaside Studio and walked next door to pick up the book for Ben.
“Hey, Nell. How’s it going?” Jake asked. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
Jake was another one, Nell thought. He’d had motive, it seemed. And wasn’t one known for peaceful solutions. Nell pushed the thought away and smiled at Jake. “I heard a rumor about you.” She slipped on her glasses and looked at the side of his head. “It looks like it’s true. Burned the hair right off your head, Jake Risso. Were you trying to play fireman?”
“It was a hair-raising night, for sure,” Jake said, then guffawed, along with Archie, at his pun.
Jake touched the side of his head. “It was the damnedest thing. The burgers were too greasy and the fire got out of control. But those poor fellas at the fire station had a worse night than I did. They no sooner got through with me than they got called to that awful wreck.”
“What wreck?” Archie asked.
“The Santos crash. It was the same night what I got my new hairdo. The crew spent two hours with me, then headed over there to a real mess.”
Jake’s fire was the same night as Sophia’s murder—that probably explained why she hadn’t heard about it. It was pushed from the limelight. Nell thought back over that night. “Jake, what time was the fire at your place?”
“Started burning in the third inning of the ball game—Sox were ahead—so eight thirty or so? Took the fools tw
o hours to put out a simple grease fire. I’d’ve done it myself, but they wouldn’t let me.”
So Jake Risso was completely occupied, singed hair and all, at the same time as someone was tampering with the Santos Ferrari. Nell smiled in spite of herself. It felt good to cross Jake off the list. As ornery as he could be, she was quite fond of his son, Andy. She patted his hand gently. “It’s time to turn the Gull over to Andy and go fishing. Next time it might be your nose that gets singed.”
Archie chuckled and followed Nell into the store. “You gals knitting up a storm over there? Harriet says I’m going to be the proud recipient of argyle socks.”
“I’ll expect you to wear them with your Bermuda shorts so everyone can see her handiwork. Harriet is a wonderful knitter. And from what I understand, Danny may rival her handiwork.”
“Danny? Yep. And I have plenty of ties to show for it.” Archie chuckled. “That boy is a wonder.”
“Not so much a boy, Archie. Though I guess in our hearts they’ll always be that. I’m surprised some gal hasn’t lured Danny into settling down.”
“Oh, they’ve tried, believe you me. But he just hasn’t taken the time, is how I see it. He has a truckload of interests. Marriage probably doesn’t fit into it yet. But soon. My boy turns forty next year, you know. Harriet keeps reminding him. She wouldn’t mind having some little ones to spoil.”
Nell smiled and walked over to the counter.
“But we’re proud of him whatever he decides. You know how that is.” Archie’s great effort to be positive played across his kindly, lined face. He threw up his hands as if chastising himself. “I know, I know. Sometimes I talk too much and you want to get home to dinner. I put Ben’s book in the back—they were going fast, though it isn’t as good as his last one. Back in a jiffy.”
Archie disappeared to the back of the store. Nell dug in her purse for a credit card and set it on the counter. It was then that she noticed a leather album sitting open on the counter.
Daniel Spencer Brandley, it read on the first page. She smiled at the sentiment. Harriet or Archie must have put together a scrap-book of Danny’s achievements, carefully placing them between plastic sheets for all posterity. What pride they had in their son. It was how she felt about Izzy, so inordinately proud and happy for even the smallest thing—a 4-H ribbon for best all-around horse-woman when she was ten, a published letter she wrote to the local paper when her beloved grade school burned to the ground, her first dance recital.
She opened the cover and flipped through the pages. There was a medley of achievements, articles for the high school paper, college and graduate school diplomas, an award for a series of articles Danny had written on the fishing industry. She turned several more pages and was about to close the book when a color photograph at the top of the next page caught her eye.
Sitting in an elegant living room, poised and distinguished, were Alphonso and Sophia Santos. The photograph looked like a realistic painting—had the photographer positioned Alphonso standing with his hand on Sophia’s shoulder, Nell would have sworn she’d seen it in the Museum of Fine Arts. A soigné Sophia Santos, her makeup perfect and every hair in place, wore a black dress fitting her to perfection. Alphonso was GQ-handsome, his Italian suit perfect and his smile as polished as his teeth.
THE NORTH SHORE’S POWER COUPLE, the caption read. The story had been a feature in the Boston Globe, an in-depth profile of Sophia and Alphonso Santos—their origins, their lives apart and together, their achievements, and their dreams. It had been written several years before, when Alphonso traveled frequently between his home on Cape Ann and the townhome on Beacon Hill, just as she and Ben had done when they still held full-time positions in the city.
The writer, the short italicized paragraph at the bottom explained, had spent several months interviewing the Santoses for this story. He had accompanied them on trips and spent time at the Santos Company, using the information gained to enlarge and enrich the most complete profile of the Santos couple to date.
And for the detailed, fascinating article, Danny Brandley had won yet another award.
Chapter 24
The next morning, Mary Pisano’s About Town column received more than its share of readers.
TROUBLE IN RIVER CITY?
The Summerfest is nearly upon us. And it’s time we hitched the wagon to the cart and cleaned up the mess of murder and distrust in our sweet town so we can welcome summer with open, loving arms.
Some questions remain that we need to ponder as we walk our beaches and stroll our lovely Harbor Road:
Who was seen running from the pier in the early-morning hours as a hometown woman seeks to open a lovely new café?
Is it love or war fueling the construction of the new community center at Anja Angelina Park? This columnist has word that arguments are as plentiful as gulls on any given day.
And speaking of love or war . . . how wonderful to see a leading Sea Harbor couple adding an heir to perpetuate the family’s generosity and goodwill.
Ben had the paper spread out on the kitchen table when Nell came down the back steps to the kitchen.
“Mary’s on the prowl,” he said. “You may need to read this.” He handed Nell a mug of strong black coffee.
She wrapped her fingers around the mug and sat down next to Ben, her shoulder touching his. Slipping on her reading glasses, she scanned the About Town column.
“Oh, good grief, Ben,” she said when she finished reading the column. Her heart sank. “Poor Liz. What was Mary thinking? This isn’t like her. I can’t believe she’d do this.”
When she had finally arrived home the night before, she and Ben had tried to make sense of Danny Brandley’s actions. He had spent intimate time with the Santoses—and yet claimed he didn’t know Sophia. Nell was willing to dismiss Danny picking her up at the school as teenage fantasy. But a photo and published article made his relationship with the Santoses far more difficult to sweep under a carpet. What was he hiding?
Both she and Ben wanted it explained easily, benignly, perhaps as a misunderstanding. They had been friends with Danny’s parents for longer than they could remember. They were good, solid people. It made the assumptions Danny’s actions led them to uncomfortable and distasteful.
“Let’s go to the worst-case scenario: he had an affair with Sophia after that article was written,” Ben calmly asserted.
“Or during.”
“It’s a big jump from affair to murder.”
“But what if Danny loved her, and Sophia tossed him aside? People have killed for less.”
They finally tabled the discussion, uncomfortable with where it was leading them. They cleaned up the dishes and headed up to bed. Ben said he had a lunch meeting the next day with Chief Thompson. He wanted Jerry’s advice on some safety measures for the sailing program. Maybe there’d be time to talk about other things. He’d try, he promised.
“Mary, what were you thinking?”
Nell knew exactly where to find Mary Pisano. She’d become such an early-morning fixture on Coffee’s patio that locals studiously avoided sitting at the small round table beneath the corner maple tree. And if they forgot, one look from behind her large sunglasses would send them away, apologies drifting along behind them.
“Which part, Nell?” Mary looked up as Nell pulled out a wrought-iron chair and sat down across from her. The morning paper was spread out on the table.
Although she was in her late forties, Mary still bought her clothes in the preteen department, a fact of which she was inordinately proud. “Half the price,” she’d say, making her fisherman husband, Ed, smile and scoop her up in a brawny hug. Today, her knitted top and chambray skirt with the floral sash matched the brightness of her smile. Her brown curls bobbed as she greeted Nell.
Nell started to point to the last line of Mary’s column, then pulled her hand back. “I’m curious about all of it, I guess.”
Mary Pisano was opinionated and fancied herself an amateur sleuth on the side, but Nell
enjoyed her enormously and had always found her kind. Revealing personal information that might hurt someone was not her way. Nell was frankly puzzled.
“Where shall I start?”
“Well, the police didn’t tell Gracie someone had been seen running from the fire. Do we know they saw someone?”
“No. That’s why I was asking. It seems to me that if someone was inside the building and set a fire in the fireplace, and they weren’t there when the fire truck arrived, then they ran off. So I was simply asking all our responsible readers out there to let us know what they saw. People shouldn’t be camping in empty restaurants unless they have the owner’s permission.”
Nell couldn’t argue with that.
“Are the arguments at the community center something unusual?” she asked, moving on to Mary’s next contention. “None of us thought that building would go up peacefully, not with both Alphonso and D.J. involved in supplying crews and materials.”
“Well, I don’t know exactly, Nell. My source tells me that the Delaneys have been in an uproar. I don’t know why. Sometimes I think D.J. should be firmer with those bullheaded boys of his. They don’t think twice about giving you a piece of their minds, sometimes using words that belong in a barroom brawl, not a lovely spot like our new park. There’s a nice playground out there. Families picnic and children play. They shouldn’t be exposed to the anger of workmen. Davey Delaney sometimes doesn’t show good sense.”
All around them people chattered about the weather, the water, and the whales that were spotted the day before, out beyond the breakwater. And, of course, the trouble in river city. Nell sometimes wondered if Mary came to Coffee’s every day to hear firsthand what people thought of her column. Though it really didn’t matter as far as her job went—half the newspapers in the area were owned by the Pisano family, and Mary’s column was quite secure. Nell set her cup down. “I guess that leaves the last line, Mary.”
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