Moon Spinners

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Nell laughed. “No buildings today, Janie. We were hoping to see Maeve Delaney. Is she in?”

  “Mrs. Delaney? Sure. I just put a call through to her. Just a sec.” Janie spun around and disappeared down a hallway of offices. She returned a moment later.

  “You can go back. Third office on the left. Want some coffee?”

  They passed on the coffee and walked down the hall toward an office with a magnetic nameplate that read: MAEVE DELANEY, RECORDS.

  The door was open and Nell knocked lightly on the frame. “Maeve? Are we interrupting?”

  Maeve waved them into the small office. “Of course not. What a surprise. What are you two doing out in this neck of the woods?”

  “We’ve never seen your plant. All these years, and I’ve never even passed by the entrance,” Birdie said.

  “We’re off the beaten track,” Maeve said. Her small face was smiling, but she seemed nervous. “It’s always a pleasure to show it to people. But usually it’s schoolchildren on a field trip. I’m surprised at your interest.” She motioned toward two chairs with a small table between. Behind them was a wall lined with filing cabinets.

  “Actually, Maeve, we do have some business,” Nell began. “It’s about Sophia Santos’ death.”

  Maeve slipped off her glasses and set them on the desk. “My heart goes out to Alphonso. His wife dead, and his sister a murderer.”

  “Maeve, Julianne may not have done it.”

  “We talked about this the other day, Nell. I thought the police had settled it,” Maeve said. Her smile had disappeared, and a frown deepened the lines in her forehead. “So whoever did this may still be around. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “That’s right,” Nell said. “We’re trying to tie off some loose ends, hoping that it might help exonerate Julianne.”

  “We found a journal of Sophia’s,” Birdie said. “We thought it would be helpful to clarify some of the notes she made that last week or so.”

  “What do her notes say?” Maeve’s voice had an unpleasant edge to it. “Sophia wanted our accounts examined. She was looking for something, spreading awful rumors. Was that in her journal?”

  “No, not exactly. But she had some appointments listed in it. And your name was on the list. We thought that knowing what you two talked about—if it wasn’t too personal—might be helpful.”

  Maeve started shaking her head. “We didn’t talk about anything. I never met with her.”

  Nell frowned. “What happened?”

  “She said she’d like to have tea with me. I thought maybe it was about the club party that night—maybe a gesture of goodwill. I thought that was nice of her, in spite of the timing being inconvenient, so of course I said I’d come. Janie put it on our calendar out front, and I was planning on going.”

  “But you didn’t?” Birdie asked.

  “She canceled the appointment.”

  “Sophia canceled?”

  “Yes. Janie took the call. Anyway, I had plenty to do that day, getting ready for the dinner, making sure the boys had clean ties, and all those other things that seem to fall on mothers. So in the end, it was for the best.”

  For the best. Except that it happened to be the night that Sophia was murdered. Would having tea that afternoon with Maeve Delaney have changed the outcome of the evening?

  “It must be nice to have your boys working in the business with you,” Birdie said, changing the topic.

  Maeve nodded. “D.J. takes great pride in the boys being a part of it all. Davey loves it as much as his father.”

  “So will he take over someday?”

  Maeve seemed to consider the statement carefully before answering. “He’s good at working with the crews and has a passion for building the company.”

  “Would Joey mind if Davey took over?” Birdie asked tentatively.

  Maeve looked uncomfortable with the question and Nell wondered if they had pushed Maeve’s goodwill too far.

  But Birdie went on. “Davey seems to be the passionate one regarding the business. But sometimes that can cause problems with the others. My second husband had a family business with several sons involved. I can’t begin to tell you the difficulties they had.”

  Maeve smiled now. Birdie Favazza’s understanding pleased her. “Joey could have been a bank president or a lawyer, I always thought. But the ‘Sons’ in Delaney & Sons has always been very important to D.J. You know how that is.”

  “You want to treat them all the same,” Birdie said. “Sometimes that’s hard.”

  “They are so different, those two boys. Davey’s so protective.”

  “Maeve, was it just Sophia making Davey angry—or was Alphonso suggesting things, too?” The question had been needling Nell for a while now. It seemed out of character for Sophia Santos to be waging this vendetta against her husband’s rival. As far as Nell could tell, she didn’t care that much about the business, so what made her so interested in the Delaneys?

  “It was Sophia. She had an agenda. She even sent a reporter out here one day. Why?” Maeve lifted her hands in the air. “This is a family business. We work through our own problems.”

  Maeve’s eyes turned steely when she talked about her family, and for a moment Nell felt like she was talking with someone she didn’t know. It was the mother bear, protecting her cubs.

  “Problems?” Birdie asked.

  “We have many accounts, so many projects. It’s a challenge keeping things on budget, hiring the right subcontractors. Alphonso would know that, too. But it’s part of the business, and why Sophia thought she had any right to mess in that is beyond me.”

  Maeve tapped her fingers on the desktop, agitation showing on her face. “Sophia had the loveliest niece in the world. Why didn’t she concentrate on the good things in her life, rather than dragging her niece’s relatives through the mud?” She pressed her lips together tightly, as if she could keep evil out of their lives by sheer will.

  Nell listened carefully and something clicked into place. Sophia didn’t want to bring down the Delaney business. That wasn’t her plan at all. Sophia’s concerns were with people, not companies. Her pulse quickened. Sometimes the clearest facts are those that are the hardest to see. But once you look at them directly, all sorts of things begin to fall into place.

  “Gracie says that she and Joey are giving it another try,” Birdie said.

  Maeve’s mood lightened. “Yes. Gracie needs to be in a family that appreciates her.”

  “I think Sophia and Alphonso did the best they could,” Nell began, but Maeve wasn’t listening.

  “We love Gracie. Davey, D.J., all of us. She always made us feel welcome in their home.”

  “And you knew her landlord?”

  “Mandy White? Yes. She became a good friend.”

  Maeve looked at her watch, then at the stack of papers on her desk.

  Nell caught the look. “We should be moving on, Maeve. But it was nice to see your plant, and especially to see you again.”

  They left Maeve to finish her record keeping and walked back out where Janie was filing papers.

  “Janie,” Nell asked, “Maeve mentioned that Sophia called to make an appointment with her, then canceled it. Did you take those calls?”

  Janie wrinkled her forehead in thought. “That was the day Mrs. Santos died,” she said, recollecting the irony of it. She looked at a large calendar posted on the wall and moved her finger to the day. Maeve’s meeting with Sophia, the time, and the location were printed in the square. And then crossed out with a marker.

  She looked back at Birdie and Nell. “We’re not this backward, honest,” she said, pointing to the calendar. “We keep a company calendar on the intranet so people can see when others are out. But not everyone knows how to use it yet, so they mark things here, then I input them. Maeve, especially, likes to check it to know where everyone is. She’s a real mother hen. I remember that appointment because I wondered if Maeve would have time to get home, fix her hair, and get dressed for the e
vent that night if she met with Mrs. Santos. She was so nervous about the yacht club party.”

  “So anyone can look at this calendar and see who’s doing what?”

  “Not anyone . . .” Janie paused, and then said quickly, “Well, yeah, I guess anyone. I showed it to you, didn’t I?” She laughed at herself.

  “So Sophia called and canceled. That’s curious,” Nell said.

  “Well, no. Mrs. Santos called to make the appointment. Her voice is so distinctive, and I put her right through to Maeve. The cancellation call came over lunch, so the answering machine picked it up. I told Maeve about it when she came back and crossed it off the calendar. It wasn’t Mrs. Santos, though. It must have been someone who worked for her. Someone with a cold. I had to listen to him three times.”

  “Do you use the answering machine often? Ella Sampson called here, too, and left a message.”

  “She’s that poor lady who was hit by a car, right?”

  Nell nodded. “Her memory is fuzzy and we’re trying to help her figure out where she was going that night. We know she called here and left a message for someone. It was last Wednesday.”

  Janie frowned, trying to remember. Then she wrinkled her nose. “Wednesday. Yeah. I wasn’t feeling so hot that day and stayed home. So the machine was on. Let’s see if it’s still there.” Janie pressed a button and started clicking back to Wednesday’s messages.

  The women were so intent on the messages, they didn’t hear the door open, nor notice Davey Delaney walking up and standing behind them.

  “What are you doing, Janie?”

  The sound of his voice caused Janie to jump. Nell and Birdie looked around.

  “Geesh, Davey, you scared the pants off me,” Janie said.

  “Hi, Davey,” Nell said. “We’re trying to help Ella Sampson piece back her memory. She’s been fuzzy since her . . . accident. We know she called here, and we thought whomever she spoke with might be able to fill in some gaps.”

  Davey listened, then asked simply, “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s still in the hospital,” Birdie said.

  “Found it,” Jane exclaimed. She pressed the button again and they listened. It was Ella’s voice, polite and cautious. “This is Ella Sampson. I am trying to reach David Delaney. Please call me at this number. It’s very important.” She went on to say she had a journal of Sophia’s and had found the number written in it.

  Davey frowned.

  “What did she want?” Nell asked.

  Davey was staring at the answering machine. “That’s the damnedest thing. Why would she call me? I don’t even know her.”

  “What did she say when you called her back?”

  Davey looked at both of them. His face was composed, his body still, as if he knew he had reached his quota of angry outbursts for the week. “I never heard this message. I never called that person back. I don’t think I ever met the woman. Good day, ladies.”

  Davey turned, walked past Janie’s desk, and strode down the hallway to his office.

  Janie shrugged. “Weird, huh?”

  Birdie and Nell didn’t answer.

  “Hey, it’s my break time. Want a quick tour? I do it for the grade school kids and can use the practice.”

  Nell looked at Birdie. “Maybe a short one, Janie. Then we need to get moving.”

  “Sure, short.” Janie pushed open the front door and they followed her across the parking lot, walking at a fast clip.

  She pointed out the warehouses and detailed their uses and contents in a quick, efficient staccato voice, then indicated a large building with pieces of new equipment lined up. “The kids love the tractors and trucks. We let them sit on them sometimes.” Janie walked around the huge building to wide fields behind. “And then there’s this mess—all the trash the guys can’t seem to part with. Maeve wants to get rid of the junk and put in picnic tables and a volleyball court. Cool, huh?”

  The area was bordered by woods and they could see Maeve’s vision, though at present it looked like a city dump, crowded with rusty equipment and old trucks. They walked along the fringes, then started back when Birdie slowed and pointed toward a truck.

  Nell followed her look and took in a quick breath.

  Squeezed between a backhoe and a front loader was a red Delaney truck. It stood out for two reasons. It wasn’t as old as the others, not rusty and leaning on airless tires. But it stood out also because of the bright silver scratches marring the paint—and a smashed rearview mirror, hanging at an angle more awkward than Harold’s broken ankle.

  Chapter 33

  Nell and Birdie drove away from the Delaney plant in silence.

  Finally, Nell said, “I think we haven’t seen the forest for the trees.”

  Birdie nodded. “And the trees are starting to line up.”

  Nell didn’t answer. She checked her watch. The day was getting away from her. She had a few errands, and cocktails at the club. But an uncomfortable urgency gnawed at her, just at the edges of her consciousness. It was a seize the moment kind of feeling.

  She glanced over at Birdie. “Are you up for a ride over to Gloucester?”

  “You read my mind.”

  Twenty minutes later Birdie and Nell sat on a comfortable couch in the Lone Gull Coffee Shop in Gloucester, drinking white mocha lattes. Neither Nell nor Birdie could articulate why Mandy White seemed integral to the unanswered questions littering their lives, but she did. It was as simple as that, Birdie said, and suggested that a stop for lattes at the Lone Gull would help them collect their thoughts.

  Nell pulled out her phone and called Ben. He knew his way around the Internet better than anyone. “It’s Sheridan Consulting or the Sheridan Company, or something like that,” she told him and repeated the note in Sophia’s journal. “It’s the same name Danny Brandley mentioned. I think it’s important, Ben,” she said.

  Nell checked her text messages, looking for the one Gracie had sent that morning. She’d not only sent her Mandy White’s phone number, but her address as well. It wasn’t far from the downtown area, off Washington Street, according to the waitress at the coffee shop.

  They drove slowly up Washington, then turned onto a side street of tall, practical houses built side by side with slender strips of lawn separating them.

  Birdie perched her glasses on the end of her nose and read the address aloud from the slip of paper.

  Nell spotted the house immediately. It was on the other side of the street, and somehow, even without the address, Nell knew they would have found it. A freshly painted front porch held a swing and four white rocking chairs. There were two front doors, one leading to the second-floor apartment, the other directly into Mandy White’s home. She pulled over to the curb.

  They looked across the street to the curb in front of the apartment house, the spot where Julianne Santos’ broken-down car sat for days while she was told not to leave the Cape. It had sat here, on this quiet side street, unattended, waiting for someone to come and pry open the trunk. Those early days after Sophia’s murder seemed a lifetime ago.

  “If someone tried to frame Julianne, how did they know where to find her car?” Nell asked out loud.

  “Maybe they followed her.”

  “The only time she drove here was the very night Sophia was murdered. Her car broke down and she didn’t use it again. Someone would have had to follow her from the club when she left.”

  “Or know where she would be staying.”

  The stillness in the car was nearly suffocating.

  “But why?” Birdie finally said. “Why kill Sophia?”

  “Because Sophia knew something and was going to act on it. The last piece of the puzzle,” Nell said.

  Nell looked back at the house just as a woman pulled into the driveway. She turned off the engine of a white Ford convertible, gathered some packages in her arms, and climbed out of the car and up the front steps. Her hair was carefully arranged, poufed, as Izzy would describe it, with touches of blond highlights woven into a salt-
and-pepper hairdo. She was of average height and medium build but carried herself in a way that made her attractive in a unique and special way.

  At the door, Mandy White turned the key and started to step inside. Then, as if knowing that two women were sitting across the street, watching her, she stepped back out and shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand as she looked across the street.

  And then she smiled. A warm and familiar smile. Her expression was one of welcome—and Nell understood immediately what Gracie had said about this woman—and why even cats and dogs seemed to take refuge with her.

  The visit with Mandy White was a gift, both Birdie and Nell agreed. It wasn’t just the information she provided. They’d met a truly fine person.

  Gracie had called ahead, not knowing exactly when Nell would go by—or even why. But Mandy had assured her that it didn’t matter. They would be welcome.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t come sooner,” Mandy said, hugging both Birdie and Nell as one would greet old friends.

  “We’ve met,” Nell said. “Somewhere . . .”

  “Almost,” Mandy said. “On the jailhouse steps. You were going to see my friend Julianne.”

  Mandy led them into her living room—a small but comfortable room with hardwood floors and natural muslin slip coverings. Spider plants and hoyas hung from the ten-foot ceiling and simple bookshelves were filled with novels and psychology texts and environmental works, lined up next to classics and current bestsellers. Fresh lemonade and homemade chocolate chip cookies appeared as if by magic.

  Nell knew instantly why Julianne Santos had come to Mandy to be safe.

  Mandy seemed to know why they were there more clearly than they knew themselves. And in the time it took to drink the tall glasses of lemonade, they learned about Mandy White, about why pets and people felt at home in her presence, about Gracie and the Delaneys and Maeve Delaney’s need for a friend.

  “Julianne thinks highly of you.”

  “She is a dear. I could tell that, even through the haze of her foolishness. I think she’s finally on her way to growing up. It takes some people longer than others.”