How to Knit a Murder Page 10

  And all the while leaving the world’s problems—and even tiny Sea Harbor’s—temporarily out to sea.

  Appetizers were followed by plates of tender pork tenderloin with fresh apple chutney, warm chunks of sourdough and corn bread—and toasts to Nell and Ben’s ten-year anniversary in Sea Harbor, which hadn’t been forgotten by any of them, no matter what their hosts had thought and how cagey they had tried to be.

  As Danny pushed his chair back to take a breather, he spotted Stella Palazola, sitting alone at a table for two, staring at her phone with a studious look on her face. “Hey, there’s Stella,” he said. “She looks very spiffy tonight. But it looks like she’s all alone. We can’t let that happen.” He started to push back his chair.

  “Maybe she’s waiting for someone. A date?” Izzy said. She checked her watch. “But it’s kinda late.”

  “Geesh, I hope no one stood her up.”

  As if sensing their looks, Stella looked up from her phone and spotted them looking her way. She quickly abandoned her table, walking over with her phone still in her hand.

  “Hey. Hi, everyone. I didn’t see you sitting over here.” She tried for a smile that quickly failed, and replaced it with a worried expression, aiming it at Izzy. “Iz, have you seen Rose today?”

  “Sure. I saw her this morning. She said she had a full day of work ahead of her. And she described it as if she were going on a cruise to Hawaii instead of fixing up an old house. She’s loving this work, Stella. And she thinks you’re pretty great. You must pay well.”

  Stella didn’t seem to hear the compliment or the tease. “But you haven’t seen her since then?”

  Izzy shook her head.

  “Is something wrong, dear?” Birdie asked.

  “It’s probably a miscommunication. We were supposed to meet here about an hour ago for dinner.” She checked her watch. “More than that, really. We were going to celebrate her new job, my new employee. Good things. But she hasn’t shown up.”

  “You called her?”

  Stella nodded. “Maybe she didn’t see my texts or she forgot to take her ph—” The sudden sound of a phone message stopped her words and the worry lifted for a brief second as she studied the screen. But when she looked up again, her face was pale, her expression unreadable. She held up her phone.

  “This is about a house listing I have. I . . . I really need to go,” she said, and without explanation or her usual bright smile, she grabbed her purse and hurried through the maze of tables until she had disappeared from their sight.

  Chapter 12

  It wasn’t until Rose had stepped off the elevator and rushed out of the house and through the gate that she realized she had left her backpack inside. Her car keys. Her wallet.

  She stood for a minute, staring back at the house and the front door that had swung closed and locked behind her. Her eyes moving up to the third-floor room.

  The shuffle of leaves on the side of the house startled her. An innocent squirrel, she thought. Or a neighborhood cat.

  Fear, be gone, she commanded. There’s no room for you here. And her body obeyed.

  No, she couldn’t go back in, not now. With a farewell glance at the house, she turned and began walking down the winding street, finding herself smiling into the crisp fall night. Smiling.

  She looked across the street at the sound of bicycle wheels crunching leaves. A nice, normal sound. She wondered briefly if the woman she had seen earlier had left on a bicycle and was coming back. But the hunched-over figure was too long, the bike a collection of aluminum angles in the dark night. Then the biker rode beneath an old lamplight and she saw a flash of bright orange handlebars.

  Rose squinted, wishing she had her old glasses on instead of the contacts that sometimes failed her. The man on the bike looked familiar. Or at least the hair was familiar—light colored and flying beneath the helmet. Thinking she’d seen the man before, she started to raise her hand in the air, to wave.

  Then she realized she couldn’t really see much at all. The colors of the bike and the hair. Not to mention that it was dark out, the rider had a helmet on, and in the dark night she could barely spot the color of the cars on the other side of the street.

  It was wishful thinking. She wanted it to be someone she knew. Someone friendly who would say Hi, need help? Perhaps he’d have a phone and she could use it to call Stell.

  It was a moot point anyway; at that moment the man lowered his head and sped up, crossing over to the other side of the street. Heading in the direction of the house she’d just left. Then disappearing in the dark shadows of the night.

  Rose watched for a minute more, then turned and walked quickly away, past the elaborate homes and the wrought iron fences, the low granite walls, until the street sloped down to the sea and she came to a rocky stretch of shore.

  Above the water a white moon was taking its place among a blanket of stars. She continued walking along the gravelly shore until the rocks grew bigger, huge granite boulders flung from some giant’s hand and trailing out to sea. She walked out toward a smaller boulder, balancing one foot on an outcropping and pulling herself up to the top, then walking farther out as the boulders grew larger, reaching up to the moon. She continued on, one boulder after another, oblivious to the cold spray of the sea, the salty drops clinging to her ponytail. Small tide pools formed in the crevices along her way and she dipped the toe of her sneaker in one, then stepped across and moved on until she couldn’t go any farther. A smooth spot on the last boulder provided a comfortable seat, and she sat down, nearly surrounded now by the sea.

  In the distance the lights of the harbor were visible. She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt and wrapped her arms around her knees. Strands of damp hair crossed her forehead, and her eyes were bright from the sting of the sea.

  She looked out over the water for as far as she could see, tiny lights appearing here and there, the black sky and sea becoming one.

  Power. Majesty. The mystery of the sea. This was it, what her mother had loved her whole life long. What fed her spirit and lifted her soul.

  Rose smiled out into the dark, lovely night. “For you, Mom,” she murmured. And then she picked up a handful of loose rocks and tossed them, one by one by one, into the black water below, sending them to the bottom of the sea.

  * * *

  Hours later, Rose finally made it back to the yarn shop, thoughts of the cozy apartment and Purl’s soft purr—and Stella—quickening her step.

  At one point, after climbing off the boulders and back onto land, she had taken a wrong turn and ended up walking along a stretch of smooth beach where a late-night group of partiers had built a bonfire and sat around it in warm fleeces and blankets, singing old songs, their bodies close and intimate.

  She stood at a distance, invisible in the dark night, and soaked in their ease and friendship, dancing figures lit by the fire.

  Far away a siren had blared, its piercing sound nearly overpowered by the comforting, happy sounds so close to her that she felt a part of them.

  Finally she began walking again, toward the faint lights of Harbor Road.

  Downtown was quiet at this late hour, with just a few stray revelers making their way home. She stood for a minute in front of Izzy’s yarn shop, then walked around to the gravel alley, lit at the end by two spotlights and large chunky boulders that warned drivers to stop. Beyond the rocky barrier the land dropped away to the sea. The waves were gentle now, lapping against the rocks as the tide went out. A peaceful sound that seemed to rise up inside of her.

  She yearned for her mother, to tell her that at last she understood her mother’s love affair with the sea.

  She walked over to the steps and slowly made her way to the top. To the cozy apartment and Purl, who would be waiting on the windowsill just inside the door, ready to scold her for coming home so late.

  She wished she had her phone so she could have called Stella earlier, to tell her not to worry. To let her know that her prospective home buyer had decided to
take himself on an early tour of the house. But the house was fine. It would finally all be fine.

  And could we reschedule the dinner? My treat this time.

  As she neared the top, she stopped. Her fingers tightened on the rail and her breath froze. She stared into the shadows.

  A huddled form sat motionless on the platform beside the door. Rose stared into the darkness as the figure began to pull itself up.

  A moan filled the air as strong, quivering arms reached out and pulled Rose close.

  “Oh Rosie, Rosie, you’re safe.” Stella Palazola clung tightly to her friend, sobbing uncontrollably into the fabric of Rose’s sodden hoodie.

  Chapter 13

  It was Birdie who couldn’t let go of the look on Stella’s face and her sudden departure from the restaurant the night before.

  And it was Birdie who showed up at the Endicotts’ the next morning, bringing her concern with her.

  Nell was sitting at the kitchen island reading the paper, the coffee gurgling in the background and the smell of scones in the oven. Ben was standing at the window, gauging the direction of the wind for a sail and checking his cell phone messages.

  Birdie slipped off her jacket and hung it across the back of a stool.

  “Have you heard anything from anyone?” she asked.

  “Stella?” Nell asked. She’d been expecting a morning call from Birdie, telling her everything was fine. Some kids crawled through a window in an empty house Stella was listing, or someone decided not to sell their house after all. People selling their homes often exaggerated emergencies.

  At first, they had all been relieved when Stella had muttered her brief explanation the night before. Problems with a house listing could surely be easily resolved. It was problems with people that caused true concern.

  But when Nell and Ben dropped Birdie off later that night, she had shared her feeling that Stella’s behavior indicated something else, and reminded them of an incident when Stella first joined her uncle’s company. It was one of her first listings, and the house had burned down the day she’d received an offer on it. Stella had handled the whole thing with a calmness that was extraordinary—and even a trace of pride in herself, knowing how well she handled emergencies. It had impressed them all.

  “Stella doesn’t frazzle easily,” Birdie said. “I called her before I went to bed last night, but she didn’t pick up.” She wrapped her cold fingers around the cup of coffee Ben handed her. “I know something’s wrong. I know it right here.” She pressed a palm over her heart and looked up at Ben. “What do you know, Ben?”

  Ben was checking the scones in the oven. He closed the door and chucked the oven mitts onto the counter. “Birdie, you give me way too much credit. Any earthshaking news I hear is from you and Nell or Izzy and Cass.”

  But Nell sided with Birdie. Ben did know a lot, especially when it involved areas they might not have access to. Like the police chief’s cell phone. “You’ve been checking your phone more than usual for this hour of the morning,” she said to him.

  “Just getting my day in order,” he said, looking down as another message came in. He read it and shook his head. “See? That’s why I check it. My whole morning just opened up.”

  “Aren’t you and the chief going sailing?” Nell asked.

  “Were,” he said. “This is a group text from the secretary down at the station. She’s clearing his schedule for the whole day. He must have some kind of bug. I hope he’s not sick from something he ate last night.”

  “Of course he isn’t,” Birdie said, straightening her back. “Police chiefs don’t get sick, and especially not from eating at the Ocean’s Edge.”

  Nell agreed, at least about the food poisoning. She reached for the newspaper again and began to scan headlines and the local hospital and police reports to find an event that might cause Jerry to cancel a morning sail. But the most she could come up with was a mother and her twins being locked in a toy store all night—the children’s dream come true—and a side story about a fisherman being pecked by an angry gull.

  But something wasn’t right, and Birdie’s mood had somehow made its way into her.

  Ben watched Birdie and Nell communicate the way they often did, without the need for words. They both had an uncanny sense of when the universe was tilting in the wrong direction. He knew never to disregard their feelings.

  He walked away from the kitchen island and across the family room, then put in a call to Jerry Thompson. Maybe he’d want to reschedule the sail? Or maybe Birdie and Nell were right.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night,” Birdie said to Nell, pulling herself up on a stool, her feet just reaching the rung. She poured another stream of half-and-half into her mug and stirred it slowly. “Stella Palazola is one of the sweetest, most unflappable young women I know. You know that, too, Nell. I don’t want to make mountains out of molehills, but I’ll feel better when she answers her phone.”

  “She did seem concerned last night, but her house listings are probably like kids to her. She needs to take care of them, especially if the sellers have already moved out. Empty houses can be prey to all sorts of things. But even so, at least an empty house is exactly that, empty. And people aren’t in danger. Besides, I think we’d have heard if she needed us or if something had happened.” Nell realized she was rambling, so she stopped and looked out the window at a parade of clouds skittering across a blue sky. Her words sounded vacant, even to her. Made-up words to ease worry.

  The evening at the Ocean’s Edge had been a lovely one, and yet she had had trouble sleeping, too. She’d heard noises in the night, branches slapping against the side of the house and shutters rattling. And farther away, floating up from the beach, were more noises, not ominous, not portending danger, but intruding on sleep. She had smelled smoke from a bonfire when she’d closed the bedroom window, and suspected a final beach party was in full swing. Fireworks sizzling up into the sky, and a fire on the beach keeping everyone warm. The beach gatherings were a weekend staple until the weather finally said no more. As she crawled into bed, something had cut through the partying sounds. A shrill, piercing sound. But she’d told herself it was probably an illegal bottle rocket that was whistling its way over the water. Shrill and piercing.

  Like a siren.

  She looked up and saw Birdie’s mind sorting through things, too, calming her mind.

  And at the other end of the airy living space, Ben stood still, one elbow leaning on the fireplace mantel and a phone pressed to his ear. He wasn’t saying much, but his face was serious and attentive to whatever he was hearing.

  Finally he walked back across the room, shaking his head once, as if to himself. Clearing his thoughts. He put his palms flat on the island and looked across to a quiet Birdie, who waited for him to speak.

  “Birdie, never, ever will I doubt your intuition. Nor Nell’s.”

  Birdie refrained from saying Of course you won’t. Instead she nodded as if to give him permission, as if to say, It’s all right, dear Ben. You can tell us.

  Nell put her coffee down and twisted her wedding ring around her finger, waiting.

  Ben sighed, then said, “The good news is that Jerry Thompson didn’t get food poisoning at the Ocean’s Edge last night.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” Birdie said softly. “Go on, Ben.”

  “And Stella is fine.”

  Birdie’s small chest rose and fell in relief.

  Nell looked at the sadness in Ben’s deep brown eyes. She walked around the island and touched his arm. “But there’s more,” she said softly, and he nodded.

  “The sad news is that a security guard Stella had hired found a body on the top floor of one of her new listings, one of those big houses out on Cliffside Drive.”

  For a few minutes, the only sound was the coffeepot gurgling and the steady swing of the pendulum in a grandfather clock.

  A body. So impersonal. Nell said a silent prayer it would stay that way. Impersonal, removed, someone I don’t know and wou
ld never know. Someone completely removed from everyone I love. A selfish wish, but a very fervent one.

  “That’s why the security guard called Stella at the restaurant.” Birdie spoke into the silence, ignoring the obvious question and connecting two dots instead.

  “Yes. He saw lights, so he went in to check. The door was locked, but Stella had given him a set of keys. He found the body on the third floor of the house.”

  “Did he know who it was?”

  “Not the security guard, no. But the police knew immediately. It was Spencer Paxton. He’s dead.”

  Chapter 14

  Ben waited for the news of a death to land with a crashing thud, then soften into an emotional reality when words would once again have meaning. Nell’s wish lay empty. It wasn’t a stranger or someone far removed from their lives. That would be sad, but easier to absorb.

  The fact that Spencer hadn’t died of a heart attack or a fall hadn’t been spoken out loud, but even before Ben spelled it out, they knew it wasn’t a natural death. Ben’s face said as much. They knew that Spencer Paxton had been murdered.

  The police were holding the details tight, Ben told them. They hadn’t been able to get in touch with Spencer’s wife last night. And although the usual police-chasing reporters had shown up at the Cliffside house, they were kept at a distance.

  “No statement will be released until they talk to next of kin,” Ben said. “That’s why there was nothing in the news today. Most likely there will be a statement later today or first thing tomorrow.”

  “Stella went out to the house right away, as we know. She didn’t know until she got there that someone had been killed. The police got the necessary information from her—her connection to the house, phone numbers of the owners, things like that—and then Tommy Porter sent her home and told her to get some sleep. There was a lot of work to do around the crime scene and he or Jerry would talk to her more today.”