Moon Spinners

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Were she and the Delaneys friends?”

  “No. The Delaneys didn’t have much use for any of the family except Gracie. Awhile after Joey and Gracie separated, though, Joey used to take Julianne out for a drink sometimes when she’d come to town. I was very angry with him one night because he brought her back here drunk. He should have known better, though maybe it wasn’t his fault—Julianne didn’t need much encouragement to drink. It was after Christmas, I remember, because Julianne had to come into town for a meeting with the family lawyers and she stayed with me, like she usually did. I was her hideaway, I think. She was an awful mess that night and I put on the coffee to try to sober her up. Joey stayed, too, sitting with her. When Julianne drank, she talked too much. Sometimes it made sense, sometimes not. But that night I knew she was talking about things that she shouldn’t have been telling me.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “About money, legal things. She told me about the family meeting they’d just had, and how she’d finally be free of Sophia because on Gracie’s birthday, her daughter would not only receive her own inheritance from her grandparents, but she’d be in charge of Julianne’s trust.”

  Nell looked at Birdie. Part of that wasn’t a very well-kept secret. But they hadn’t known about Gracie’s inheritance until Julianne mentioned it just recently. Nell wondered now who else knew about it.

  “Do you think Julianne told others about Gracie’s inheritance?”

  “Who knows? She could have, though the next day—after she sobered up—she said she had spoken out of turn and not to tell Gracie. I ran into Gracie’s aunt one day at the Franklin restaurant and mentioned it to her because I thought she should know. She thanked me; that was about it.”

  Mandy disappeared for a minute and returned with a fresh batch of cookies. “I think I bake when I’m trying to sort things out. I’ve been so worried about Julianne and it’s resulted in enough cookies for the whole town.” She refreshed their glasses with ice cubes and lemon slices. “I suppose Gracie’s divorce will be final soon. I hope she watches her step with Davey and doesn’t let him wedge himself in there. He’ll try, mark my words.”

  “Gracie has stopped the proceedings,” Birdie said.

  Mandy’s brows lifted in surprise. Birdie and Nell both watched Mandy’s expression, but they couldn’t quite read it.

  “Well, that’s news,” she said slowly. “I suppose Gracie has thought this through. She’s a forgiving person.”

  “Forgiving?”

  “They had different interests, different lives, really. Joey was gone so much. Sometimes I thought Davey was here more than his brother. Once I teased Davey about Joey working so hard while he—Davey—seemed to have a plethora of free time. ‘Is that a fair division of company labor?’ I asked him.”

  “What did he say?”

  Mandy took a deep breath. “He said I should take my head out of the sand. But he said it far more colorfully than that. And then he walked out of my house like a wild bull. It was the first time—and fortunately the last—that I experienced Davey Delaney’s anger.”

  When they asked about the mysterious subcontractor, Mandy couldn’t explain to Nell and Birdie how the Sheridan name fit into the puzzle. She wasn’t familiar with the name—but she had some suspicions she wouldn’t mind sharing.

  And by the time the lemonade pitcher was drained and the pile of cookies had dwindled, they had learned enough about the Delaneys and Santoses to understand why they had come to see Mandy White—and that many of their suspicions had more grounding in fact than they realized.

  Chapter 34

  It was late when Nell finally pulled into her driveway, and she was exhausted. She checked her watch. They were supposed to meet Izzy and Sam a half hour ago.

  A note from Ben was stuck to the kitchen counter, written on a yellow Post-it.

  Sam, Izzy, and I went on ahead to the club. We’ll meet you there.

  Nell jumped into the shower. The hot water pelted her weary body, washing away the emotions of the day. She shampooed and rinsed her hair vigorously, wondering if the suspicions she and Birdie had pieced together made sense. A few holes remained, ragged and jarring. But they were smoothing out fast.

  Nell had almost called Ben from Gloucester and asked him to cancel the club plans in favor of sandwiches at home with friends. The need to share her suspicions and fears was nearly painful. She dried her hair and slipped into a pair of slacks and a light blue sweater. As she pulled her sweater from the closet, a pair of pants fell from a hanger and landed on the floor with a clunk. Nell picked them up and pulled a key chain from the pocket. She stared at it for a minute, then realized it was from Gracie’s fireplace the morning after the fire. Had anyone missed the key? It was odd-looking, not exactly like a car key. It didn’t seem likely it belonged to the vagrant who set the fire to Gracie’s café. And then a second thought ignited a stab of fear. If the fire had been set intentionally, the key might tell her exactly who set it. She hurried downstairs, pushing the fear that pressed for attention to the back of her heart—and the key to the bottom of her purse.

  When Nell showed up at the Sea Harbor Yacht Club, a waitress ushered her over to the low round table near the window. Sam, Izzy, and Ben were already there, intent in conversation—with Alphonso Santos.

  Alphonso stood and greeted Nell with unusual warmth. Izzy and Sam hugged Nell as well. It wasn’t the usual casual night out. There was an urgency, even to their hugs.

  “Alphonso was talking about Julianne,” Ben began.

  Nell smiled to cover her thoughts. What about Julianne? The poor woman was behind bars, in a small cell, willing to be prosecuted for a crime she didn’t commit. And what Nell wanted more than anything right now was a private place to talk to Ben, Sam, and Izzy about exactly that.

  “Alphonso knows his sister isn’t guilty, just like we do,” Izzy said. “He wants to get to the bottom of it.”

  “But I want you to know something first,” Alphonso broke in. “I don’t talk easily about my personal life. But for whatever reason, you’re all connected to this mess, and I know how some things look to you.” He waved a waiter over and ordered drinks for everyone.

  “Frankly,” he went on, “I don’t give a damn how I look to anyone. But I do give a damn about Liz. And her mother and family. They’re good people.”

  “We know that,” Nell said.

  He went on. “I care more than life what kind of world my baby is brought into. I love Sea Harbor. I don’t want it tainted by my actions or by murder or by anything else. It’s the best place on earth, and I want my child to be brought up here, healthy and strong and loved by all of you. So I need to talk about all this.”

  He took a stabilizing breath, then continued as if telling a story. “Sophia and I had not loved . . . not in that way . . . for a long time. We respected each other, but she had become very involved in her spiritual life. I sometimes thought that the life she really wanted was to live in a monastery. Her sister’s death was probably the beginning of it, but I didn’t realize the depth of guilt she felt until years later.”

  “Her sister’s death?” Sam asked.

  “She had a younger sister who drowned on a beach behind the family estate in Argentina. Sophia always felt responsible—she was watching her sister that day—and spent years going to retreats and to religious leaders to figure out how to reconcile with God.”

  “That’s why she closed off the access,” Nell said, more to herself than to the group. “Of course.”

  Alphonso nodded. “Our bedroom windows overlook the cove, and that access pathway kept her awake at night. She couldn’t sleep with worry. And when the opportunity came to buy Pisano’s strip of land, she snatched it up. And that’s why I backed her while she was alive. It allowed her to sleep. But she didn’t want the reason for her decision bandied about like a cheap rumor—it was so personal—so we kept it private.”

  But Alphonso also knew that the cove was a safer place for children t
o swim than some of the other beaches, and once Sophia was gone, he opened it to the neighbors who loved the spot. It made perfect sense to Nell. Alphonso quietly did what seemed right—both times.

  “I’m not sure why she didn’t enter religious life, but she didn’t. Perhaps she wouldn’t have fit in, I don’t know. But we fell in love. Somewhere along the way, though, I was competing with a greater power. And I didn’t stand a chance.”

  Nell watched a mixture of emotions pass across his strong face.

  “That doesn’t mean that Sophia wasn’t hurt when she found out about Liz and me,” he continued. “She was—and I deeply regret that. And I regret that Liz—who fought the attraction with a ferocity that amazed me—was put in such a bad position, too. She didn’t want to fall in love with me.” Alphonso took another drink and set his glass down. “God only knows why she did.”

  “Sophia’s sense of righteousness must have made it difficult for her to accept the relationship,” Nell said.

  Alphonso nodded. “Of course. I was a married man. She wanted everyone’s life to be lived the way she lived her own—according to certain standards, her values and rules. None of us escaped that—Julianne, me, Gracie. I think the only person close to her with whom she was flexible was her friend Ella Sampson.”

  Nell thought of Ella’s journey that night, out in a car she didn’t know how to drive, determined to right the wrong that had been done to her friend. It was touching—and nearly tragic.

  Izzy leaned forward in her chair, her brown eyes focused on Alphonso. “Did Sophia have problems with Gracie?” she asked.

  Alphonso thought for a minute. “Not problems. In fact, Sophia used to go over to Gloucester now and then to check up on her. She was married to a Delaney, after all, and Sophia didn’t have the greatest trust for that family.”

  “Did Gracie mind that?”

  “Probably not as much as Joey did, though Sophia said he was rarely there. Traveling, she said. When we heard about the divorce, I worried about Gracie, but Sophia didn’t—even though divorce wasn’t easy for her.”

  “I know Sophia and Davey had problems,” Izzy said.

  Alphonso nodded. “In the month or so before she died, she was almost obsessed with the Delaneys. She wouldn’t talk to me about it, but said she would when the time was right. I think she was a little afraid of Davey—he yelled at her one night in a restaurant and I had to suggest to D.J. that he keep him away from her.”

  Alphonso settled back in his chair as if he were finding surprising relief in the conversation. “Now that she’s gone, I find myself wondering about a lot of things, but I was pretty preoccupied myself. She asked me about company things—and she never cared about any of that before. She asked me about a subcontractor and then was almost angry when I had never heard of it.”

  “Sheridan Consulting?”

  Alphonso looked at Ben, surprised. “I think that was it. Never heard of the group, but there are hundreds of subcontractors used in construction—electrical, environmental groups, you name it. But why she wanted to know about it is a mystery.”

  Ben nodded. Nell read his face carefully, wondering what he knew about Sheridan Consulting, but he didn’t say.

  “Alphonso, do you have any idea who killed Sophia?” Sam asked, shifting the conversation. He rested his forearms on his knees, his fingers wrapped around a stubby crystal glass of Macallan.

  Sam was trying to move around the pieces to the puzzle just like the rest of them. Like the shifting tide, new things came to light as sand was swept clean.

  “I know who didn’t kill her,” Alphonso said. “I know I didn’t. Nor did Liz Palazola. I didn’t go five minutes that night without catching Liz’s eye. I was worried about her. She wasn’t feeling good from the pregnancy but insisted on working that party. Her staff knew where she was at all times, too. There are plenty of people who would testify to that.

  “As for Julianne—she had no motive. Frankly, I thought this whole thing would blow over quickly—I never expected the police to seriously charge Julianne or I would have raised hell sooner.”

  “How long has Julianne known about the change in administering her trust?” Ben asked.

  “She found out at the same time Gracie did. A family meeting in the attorney’s office—Sophia, Gracie, Julianne, and me. It was late last December, six months before Gracie’s birthday. My parents’ will even dictated the date at which Julianne and Gracie would be told about the trusts. I had controlling parents, I guess you’d say.”

  Alphonso took another long drink of Scotch.

  “You talk about more than one trust,” Nell said. She felt a twinge of guilt, questioning Alphonso on something to which she knew the answer. But it was a way to get it on the table for the others to hear.

  “My parents provided very well for Gracie. They adored her. My father had decided she should come into her inheritance when she was thirty-six—that was the age he was when he made his first fortune so I guess he and my mother thought Gracie would be able to handle it at that age. The truth is that she could have handled both trusts when she was eighteen. She’s a bright, capable woman.”

  “Who else knew about those trusts?” Sam asked.

  “No one. Just family. Julianne was okay with the switch, as you can imagine. She was also grateful that Gracie would be taken care of since she herself had never been able to do that. The café is being funded by loans using the trust as collateral—it’s her money, not mine. And soon Gracie will have direct control over it.”

  Nell thought about the restaurant and all Gracie’s hard work. It was too bad her grandparents couldn’t see their granddaughter at work, with or without a trust fund.

  Ben took a drink of Scotch. “Do you think there’s anything to Sophia’s claims that Delaney & Sons might have bogus contractors?”

  It was a serious accusation that Sophia had made, and from the look on Ben’s face, she suspected he had done some homework and had his own ideas about it.

  Alphonso set his glass down and stared into the liquid thoughtfully. “She refused to discuss it with me. She said that I shouldn’t get mixed up in Delaney affairs. It would be bad for my reputation and my business. She was right about that.”

  “But she didn’t mind getting mixed up in it?”

  “She told me she had good reasons. And that I would thank her later.”

  “Did that strike you as odd?” Nell asked.

  “No. That was Sophia, plain and simple. She was a good person, but not an easy person. Most things were done her way. And this was one of them. Sophia would move mountains if she thought it was the right thing to do. But she would do it privately and quietly. There was one thing, though . . .”

  Alphonso paused as if searching for the right words. Then he finished his thought carefully. “Sophia didn’t really care much about business. That wasn’t what her life was about. She cared about the way people lived their lives. So she wouldn’t have gone looking at anyone’s business affairs because the company was a competitor of ours. She wouldn’t have cared at all about that. She would only have done it if it was somehow affecting someone personally—either someone she cared about or an innocent person who might be affected by those actions.”

  Nell sat back, a vague sense of comfort coming from the fact that Alphonso had verified her thoughts exactly.

  He left soon after, anxious to stop by Liz’s house to check on her. She was still queasy, he’d said. He wanted to be with her all the time, to move her up to the big house or to stay in her small cottage with her, but Liz had insisted that the most important thing was to get his sister out of jail—and to honor his wife’s memory by putting her killer behind bars. Then they could talk about the future.

  Annabelle had raised her children right.

  Chapter 35

  Sam and Izzy disappeared soon after Alphonso left. A party, Izzy had explained apologetically. She’d much rather stay in the quiet of their company, but Sam was insisting. She needed a night away from it all,
he said. A night with him. But she promised to meet Nell the next morning at the yarn studio to help her with her sweater that was taking on gargantuan proportions.

  Secretly Nell agreed with Sam. Maybe it was the disappearing moon that caused the foreboding feeling growing inside her. Maybe it was the growing certainty that they were one step away from Sophia’s murderer. But a night of partying—and a night with Sam—would be a good thing for her niece.

  A safe thing.

  While waiting for a take-out order from the club’s kitchen, Nell told Ben about the truck they’d seen in the Delaney yard.

  He’d have the chief look into it, he said. It could be something . . . or nothing.

  But Nell was through with coincidences. It’s something, she assured him, and from the concerned look on his face, he agreed with her.

  Over lobster rolls and wine in the quiet of their own home, Nell poured out the rest of her day to Ben. He listened intently, sorting through the pieces with her, and slowly they tried to link them together.

  But it was the Sheridan reference that weighed the heaviest on Nell’s mind.

  “I found something,” Ben said. “But not much. No Web site, no advertising. But I did find vague mentions of a company with that name, that address.”

  It made sense, Ben had to agree, that Sophia’s trip to Boston was somehow connected to that company. Danny Brandley hadn’t given her what she wanted, so she was finding it herself.

  “So I guess that’s what we need to do, too,” Nell said.

  Ben cleaned up their plates and began turning out the lights. “I need more time to look into it. At least find out a name connected to the company. That information has to be somewhere. But you’re right. It’s a question that needs an answer: Was the Delaney Company paying money to the Sheridan Consulting Group—or to someone—for services not rendered? And if so, why?”

  He just needed a little more time, he told Nell as they walked up the stairs to bed.

  But Nell wasn’t at all sure that they had a little more time. She stood at the window and looked up into the blackness of the night. It wasn’t just the moon that was disappearing from the sky. Somehow time, too, seemed to be at a premium.