Angora Alibi Read online

  OTHER SEASIDE KNITTERS MYSTERIES BY SALLY GOLDENBAUM

  Death by Cashmere

  Patterns in the Sand

  Moon Spinners

  A Holiday Yarn

  The Wedding Shawl

  A Fatal Fleece

  Angora Alibi

  A SEASIDE KNITTERS MYSTERY

  Sally Goldenbaum

  AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com.

  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Sally Goldenbaum, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Goldenbaum, Sally.

  Angora alibi: a seaside knitters mystery/Sally Goldenbaum.

  p. cm

  ISBN 978-1-101-61376-4

  1. Knitters (Persons)—Fiction. 2. Mystery fiction. I. Title.

  PS3557.O35937A83 2013

  813'.54—dc23 2013000646

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The recipe contained in this book is to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Sally Goldenbaum

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Cast of Characters

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Abigail’s First Baby Blanket

  Ben and Nell’s Grilled Tuna Steaks (a Friday-night favorite)

  For readers everywhere

  Acknowledgments

  My special thanks to Dawn Slugg, owner of Ruhama’s Yarn and Needlepoint Shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (www.ruhams.com). Dawn graciously designed the pattern for the baby blanket Nell is knitting in Angora Alibi.

  Thanks also to Nancy Pickard, who provided me with a shady deck, a duck pond, daily encouragement, and a comfortable brown leather chair, all of which were instrumental in writing Angora Alibi.

  And thanks to family and friends from Minnesota to Kansas City who imagine my story lines with me, explore the characters’ motivations, and help me keep the Seaside Knitters fresh. Their suggestions and ideas send me off in welcome new directions.

  Cast of Characters

  THE SEASIDE KNITTERS

  Nell Endicott: Former Boston nonprofit director, semiretired and living in Sea Harbor with her husband

  Izzy (Isabel Chambers Perry): Boston attorney, now owner of the Seaside Knitting Studio; Nell and Ben Endicott’s niece; married to Sam Perry

  Cass (Catherine Mary Theresa Halloran): A lobster fisherwoman, born and raised in Sea Harbor

  Birdie (Bernadette Favazza): Sea Harbor’s wealthy, wise, and generous silver-haired grande dame

  THE MEN IN THEIR LIVES

  Ben Endicott: Nell’s husband

  Sam Perry: Award-winning photojournalist married to Izzy

  Danny Brandley: Mystery novelist and son of bookstore owners

  Sonny Favazza and Joseph Marietti: Two of Birdie’s deceased husbands

  SUPPORTING CAST

  Alphonso Santos: Wealthy construction company owner; Gracie Santos’ uncle; now married to Liz Palazola

  Andy Risso: Drummer in Pete Halloran’s band; son of Jake Risso

  Annabelle Palazola: Owner of the Sweet Petunia Restaurant; Liz and Stella Palazola’s mother

  Archie and Harriet Brandley: Owners of the Sea Harbor Bookstore

  August (Gus) McClucken: Owner of McClucken’s Hardware and Dive Shop

  Ella and Harold Sampson: Birdie’s longtime housekeeper and groundsman

  Esther Gibson: Police dispatcher (and Mrs. Santa Claus in season)

  Father Lawrence Northcutt: Pastor of Our Lady of Safe Seas Church

  Franklin Danvers: Wealthy investor; Elliott Danvers’ uncle

  Gabrielle (Gabby) Marietti: Birdie’s ten-year-old granddaughter

  Harry and Margaret Garozzo: Owners of Garozzo’s Deli

  Henrietta O’Neal: Wealthy Irish widower

  Horace Stevenson: An old man who lives near Paley’s Cove

  Jane and Ham Brewster: Former Berkeley hippies; artists, and cofounders of the Canary Cove Art Colony

  Jake Risso: Owner of the Gull Tavern; father of Andy Risso

  Janie Levin: Nurse practitioner in the Virgilio Clinic; Tommy Porter’s girlfriend

  Jerry Thompson: Police chief

  Justin Dorsey: Eighteen-year-old distant cousin of Janie Levin’s

  Kevin Sullivan: Ocean’s Edge cook

  Laura Danvers: Young socialite and philanthropist; mother of three; married to banker Elliot Danvers

  Lily Virgilio, M.D.: Izzy’s obstetrician

  Mae Anderson: Izzy’s shop manager; twin teenage nieces, Jillian and Rose

  Martin Seltzer, M.D.: Works in Virgilio clinic

  Mary Pisano: Middle-aged newspaper columnist; owner of the Ravenswood B&B

  Mary Halloran: Pete and Cass’ mother; secretary of Our Lady of Safe Seas Church

  Merry Jackson: Owner of the Artist’s Palate Bar & Grill

  Pete Halloran: Cass’ younger brother and lead guitarist in the Fractured Fish band

  Tamara Danvers: Franklin Danvers’ wife

  Tommy Porter: Policeman

  Tyler Gibson: Esther Gibson’s grandson

  Willow Adams: Fiber artist and owner of the Fishtail Gallery

  The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together; our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipt them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherish’d by our virtues.

&nbs
p; —SHAKESPEARE

  Chapter 1

  “These are the glory days. A unique and special time in your life.”

  “You’re glowing, Izzy.”

  “Radiant with life.”

  Izzy pulled the blue fleece tight across her heavy breasts and jogged along the wet sand. She welcomed the salty spray that slapped her cheeks like a reprimand, forcing her into wakefulness.

  Special.

  Miraculous.

  Joyful.

  Everyone agreed.

  And everyone was right. Of course they were right. That’s exactly how she had felt. For months and months.

  Ever since the day that innocent-looking little stick had turned pink and she and Sam, dizzy with thoughts of having a baby, walked the beach for hours, hand in hand, wrapped in dreams. When nightfall came, they wrapped themselves in a Hudson’s Bay blanket on the deck and watched the stars come out, marking the day that began a new chapter in their lives. The day their world changed and their hearts grew so full they thought they might burst.

  A heady, joyous time.

  The joy was still there. But dim, restless. Fuzzy.

  And Izzy had no concrete idea why.

  As her body grew, so, too, did the number of her visits to Dr. Lily Virgilio, until lately she found herself in the clinic once or twice a week, feeling a kinship with the doctor and with the office staff. It was a place filled with people whose only concerns seemed to be for her and for the life growing within her. That was how it had been.

  “No worry,” Dr. Lily assured her, explaining her scheduling of frequent visits. “The baby is fine. I just want to keep a close watch on your blood pressure. And I want you to relax.” Her liquid voice and warm smile comforted Izzy as the baby rolled from side to side inside her.

  But Izzy wasn’t really worried about the baby. She knew this baby intimately. And she knew that he or she was strong and safe and content in the warm cocoon of her womb.

  It wasn’t the baby who was playing with her blood pressure.

  If not the baby, what? Sam had asked with increasing frequency.

  And then he’d answered his own question, knowing none would come from his wife. Hormones. He had read up on them. They happened to moms-to-be. Changes in the body’s chemistry could cause all sorts of things.

  Izzy only half listened to him. Maybe it was hormones. The pile of books stacked beside her bed told her that pregnancy was an emotional ride. Tension and anxiety came and went. Moods came and went.

  Running helped some. Working in her yarn shop was therapy, too. And Thursday . . . Thursdays were a cure-all. Knitting night with dear friends whose love alone could surely ease the irrational emotions squeezing her heart.

  And they would ease the feeling that something in the universe—something out there—wasn’t at all right. A feeling. A premonition.

  Izzy slowed her jog, then stopped along the edge of the half-moon beach and sucked in huge gulps of air, her fingers splaying around her ponderous belly. It was a natural position these days—cupped hands embracing her unborn baby.

  Somersaults beneath a thin layer of polyester responded to her embrace—a rippling wave that rolled from one side of her belly to the other.

  Izzy patted what felt like a tiny heel. She lowered her head and whispered intimately, “Soon I’ll give you a whole world to move around in, my sweet baby. Be patient.”

  A peaceful, safe world.

  But the world wasn’t ready yet. She felt it in her bones. Not ready to welcome this tiny babe with gentleness and peace.

  At this far edge of the cove, the beach narrowed to a path, then disappeared around a pile of boulders, where it threaded its way up a hill to a neighborhood of elegant homes hugging the sea cliffs. Most of the houses were old estates, many renovated, with extra rooms and porches, guest cottages, and boathouses making the already enormous spaces even larger.

  Izzy looked up at them for a few minutes, then turned away and picked up her pace again, heading back in the direction from which she’d come, her ponytail flying between her shoulder blades, her head held high.

  Step after step after step along the seaweed-laced sand.

  She waved to another jogger, picked up speed, and didn’t slow down again until she reached the steps to the parking strip that ran alongside the road. With one foot on the bottom step, she breathed deeply again, her head low.

  It wasn’t until her heartbeat slowed that she forced herself to look.

  It was still there.

  Sitting on the sand next to the low stone wall, as patiently as a well-trained pup.

  A baby car seat. With a corner of a yellow knit blanket peeking over the side of the padded seat.

  Yellow. Angora, Izzy suspected. A blend—the kind she sold every day to young moms and grandmothers wanting fuzzy hats and mittens for the cold Sea Harbor winters.

  A baby car seat.

  Without a baby in sight.

  Izzy scanned the cove just as she had in the days before. Some people called the cove the mothers’ beach, a small protected area that vacationers rarely visited. With low waves and boulders at each end of the carved-out area, it was an easy place to keep track of children as they skipped in the waves and built sand castles during the day. But the June weather had been too cold and the only people frequenting the area were scuba divers in their wet suits, some local fisherman who kept boats nearby, and strollers or joggers such as herself.

  No moms strolling the beach.

  No party leftovers from college kids who took over the sandy area at night.

  No children.

  No baby.

  Old Horace Stevenson, as predictable as the sunrise, walked near the water’s edge with his golden retriever, Red, at his side. Not a day or nighttime passed without the Paley’s Cove Sentinel, as the neighbors called the old man, walking the beach, his bare feet and Red’s paws making intricate patterns in the sand. Every now and then Horace tossed a piece of driftwood into the sea and Red dutifully waded into the cold water to retrieve it for his master.

  Horace’s eyesight was failing with the years, but his other senses, his hearing and smell and touch, were keen and sharp, and he always knew when Izzy was jogging along the beach. It was her scent, he told her once—and the particular slap of her tennis shoes on the sand. Today, as always, he tipped the bill of his Sox cap in her direction, then continued his slow walk down the beach. They were friends, she and old Horace, bound together by their love of this sandy cove.

  Izzy turned again toward the car seat, staring hard, as if the sheer power of her glare would make it get up and fasten itself into the backseat of a car, where it belonged. Welcome a baby into its safe curve and keep it safe.

  But the car seat didn’t move.

  Chapter 2

  Coming upon it from the west, the Anya Angelina Commu- nity Center looked as if it grew directly out of the land and thick woods surrounding it. There it stood, a beacon at the edge of the rise above the pounding surf. In daytime, sunlight reflected off its tall windows—glass stripes between stretches of cedar walls. But tonight the center glowed with hundreds of flickering candles that filled the windows and welcomed guests.

  “It looks like the whole town’s shown up tonight.” Sam Perry drove slowly past the center’s entrance. Inside they could see crowds of well-dressed guests milling around. He searched the lot for a parking place.

  “Over there.” Izzy pointed to a narrow space between Cass Halloran’s new truck and the edge of the woods.

  Sam maneuvered his car into the small space.

  “Good causes bring out good people,” Nell Endicott said from the backseat, where she was wedged tightly between her husband, Ben, and tiny Birdie Favazza.

  “Tonight’s event is definitely that,” Birdie said. “Bless that Lily Virgilio. Her free health-care program has grown like wildfire. She’s a gem and I hope this party raises a truckload of money to help it along.”

  Ben agreed. “Free screenings, children’s vaccinations, prenat
al vitamins—it’s an innovative way to use a part of this great facility. And from what I hear, Lily has corralled nearly everyone in town with an M.D., D.O., or R.N. behind their name to help her out.”

  “Your obstetrician has her hands in everything, Iz.” Nell touched the seat in front of her. “Good lady.”

  Izzy nodded. “Of course. Nothing but the best for this baby.”

  Sam looked over at his wife, his hand leaving the wheel to lightly graze her belly.

  Nell watched the intimate gesture from behind, saw Izzy lift Sam’s hand and kiss his fingers lightly before letting go and climbing out of the car.

  Izzy’s mood seemed to have shifted during the day. Earlier, when Nell dropped by the yarn shop, she had seemed unusually quiet. She’d brushed aside Nell’s concern. The shop was filled with customers. Payroll was due. She was busy, that was all.

  Tonight, her smile was larger, her laughter less forced. Ben told Nell she was watching Izzy too closely during her pregnancy, imagining emotions that maybe weren’t even there. Her niece had always been independent, and Nell needed to respect that.

  He was probably right. Of course he was.

  “Does the sweater fit, Izzy?” Nell asked, catching up to her niece in the parking lot. She touched the edge of the soft blue gossamer sweater. Nell had started knitting it the day Izzy announced her pregnancy. Something for summer nights, something that wouldn’t impose on Izzy’s changing figure. The short lacy knit was tied loosely in front, its abbreviated sleeves just long enough to ward off ocean breezes.

  Izzy looped one arm through her aunt’s and hushed the sentence. “You’re as transparent as this lovely sweater, Aunt Nell. Of course it fits. And what you are really asking me is how I am. I’m fine. Honest, I am.”

  On her other side, Birdie Favazza laughed, a rich, wind-chime laugh that always made those around her smile. “This baby is well loved, Isabel,” she said. “And sometimes love brings a bit of unnecessary concern.”