Patterns in the Sand Page 14

  Izzy turned on the outer spotlights and the security system that Willow’s arrival had reminded her was needed. She held her keys in her hand.

  “Looks like time to call it a day.”

  “Ben is sailing with friends,” Nell said. “Anyone free for dinner? It’s either that or we sit down right here and regroup. There are enough rumors and innuendos going around right now to kill a moose.”

  “If we can do this with food, my brain cells will work much better. But I’m not cooking,” Cass said.

  Birdie laughed and patted Cass’ hand. “We second that, dear. You’re not cooking. And I agree, Nell. The police aren’t an inch closer, and each day Willow’s reputation sinks a little deeper into the swamp.”

  Izzy walked back from the corner of the room and snapped her cell phone shut. “Sam, it seems, is in the fishing and sailing group. We had tentative plans for tonight, but I’ve been upstaged by a halibut or cod or something. They are having way too good a time with their smelly fish to come home, so I’m a free woman. How about you, Birdie?”

  “My plans for tonight included watching Ocean’s Eleven and eating a BLT, wild thing that I am.”

  “Okay, then, where shall we go? A place where we can hear one another is my only criterion.”

  “And preferably a place with a fine wine list,” Birdie said.

  “Sam had a table reserved at Ocean’s Edge for the two of us. We can talk there—and they have decent wine. Let’s see if they can add two chairs to the saved table.” Izzy slipped her purse over her shoulder and dialed the restaurant while the group headed for the front door.

  They drove together, all four of them, in Izzy’s well-used Jetta—the little car she’d bought when she traded in her law-practice BMW two years before. She named the car Greta and loved it dearly, though a hybrid lurked on the edges of her mind.

  The Ocean’s Edge was a big white restaurant with enough windows to keep Shawn Lanigan, Sea Harbor’s top window washer, busy all year long. It clung to the rocky shore right in the middle of the village and was surrounded by grassy lawns that sloped down to the harbor and hosted picnics, fireworks, clambakes, and a gazebo, where local entertainers performed and young lovers met on warm summer nights. Nearby, Pelican Pier, dotted with gulls, fishermen, and strollers, jutted out into the water.

  The Edge had good food, a spacious porch that swung around the octagonal-shaped restaurant, and a waitstaff that had grown up in Sea Harbor and came back every summer to carry steamed clams and oysters on the half shell to eager customers.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Nell said as Gracie Santos, a childhood friend of Cass’, greeted them warmly and led them to a table on the deck. Though the restaurant was always busy on Saturday nights, Gracie found them a table on the porch slightly separated from the others by a large fern and colorful pots of daisies, argeratum, and zinnias. Tiny Christmas lights circled the deck, hanging from pillar to pillar and swaying slightly in the breeze coming in off the ocean.

  Gracie wrote down the wine Birdie selected, and Cass added a platter of calamari to the list. Gracie chuckled at her friend’s weakness for anything fried. “For you, Cass,” she said, “I’ll bring the extra large platter.”

  Once Gracie disappeared, Nell wasted no time. “It’s only been a week since Aidan died, but it’s been an eternity in Willow’s life. She needs to be able to mourn her father—no matter how she feels now.”

  “She certainly can’t do that with the police breathing down her neck.” Cass sat back in her chair.

  “None of us can mourn him properly,” Birdie added. “Aidan was our friend. This awful shadow is hanging over all of us. We need to bring resolution to it all. Walking around the cove is not the pleasurable stroll it used to be.”

  “Not to mention that someone did murder Aidan. And that someone may very well be walking down Harbor Road every day, right past the Seaside Knitting Studio. Sitting at a table next to us at Coffee’s—”

  Izzy ran her hands up and down her bare arms. “It gives me the chills.”

  “So what do we have so far?” Birdie asked. “I think better when I can see thoughts written out on paper.” She took a blank tablet from her purse pushed it in front of Izzy. “The light out here is lovely but not conducive to eighty-year-old eyes.”

  “Eighty?” Cass lifted one eyebrow.

  “Hush, Cass, dear.” Birdie paused to sip from the wineglass Gracie held in front of her. “Lovely,” she approved and turned back to the group while Gracie filled their glasses.

  “To our well-knit friendship,” Birdie said, holding her glass in the air.

  “To friends,” the other women chorused.

  The crisp calamari appeared in the next minute, served with a tangy Thai lime dipping sauce. “Try it,” Gracie urged. “You’ll love it.”

  And they did, sticking the slivers of fried squid into the cilantro, basil, and mint sauce. Sips of wine soothed the spicy after-taste, and after ordering dinner, Nell brought the group down to business once again.

  She tapped her finger on the table. “We need to step back. We’re in the middle of the forest and not seeing the trees,” she said. “I think that there’s something going on over at the cove that is flying right by us.”

  “The key is to find others who might have wanted Aidan dead,” said Izzy, looking down at the yellow pad. “D. J. Delaney for sure. Frankly, he bothers me. A lot of people are having trouble with him. Natalie Sobel said the house he built for them is a mess.”

  “His motive is strong—he’s been hungry for that land as long as I’ve known him and was mad as a hatter when Aidan bought it up right in front of him those years ago. He didn’t have the money then to buy it himself, but he never got over it. And never had nice things to say about Aidan because of it. I think he’s always resented him.”

  “Not to mention that the Delaney company is having trouble right now,” Cass added. She looked around to see if Gracie was within earshot. Married to D.J.’s son, Joe, Gracie often shared Delaney family gossip with Cass. “Gracie says he’s not a bad guy—but when push comes to shove, his company and pocketbook come first. I’ve heard lots of stories from my fishermen buddies about D.J. trying to turn a piece of land into something that will pad the pocket. And he’s not above cutting corners where it suits him. Rachel Wooten has seen a lot of complaints come into the city offices. He’s always looking for new places to develop.” Cass piled more calamari on her plate and then licked off her fingers.

  “And it’s often at the expense of a beautiful park or playground or preserve. I think that’s why Aidan clung to his land so tightly. It afforded Canary Cove a bit of green space.”

  “So D.J. has motive. Could he have actually done it?” Izzy doodled around the words on her pad of paper.

  “I think that’s what makes this so hard for the police,” Nell said. “Ben talked to Chief Thompson, and he said anyone could have put the poison in the drink. Canary Cove was crawling with tourists, vacationers, and residents that night. And Aidan’s gallery was packed, just as it always is. It was hot, and everyone had a glass or bottle of water or beer or wine in hand. Aidan had been working a couple of hours before we saw him. I suspect that the drug was dropped early in the evening because by the time we saw him, he was feeling terrible—we just didn’t know how terrible.”

  “And then there’s Rebecca,” Cass said. “I think she knows more than she’s saying. There was something off about her today when we talked at Coffee’s.”

  “She seems so absolutely sure that Willow did it—that’s what’s odd to me,” Nell added. “She doesn’t add anything to what we know—that Aidan was Willow’s father, and Willow yelled at him that day, but there’s a certainty in the way she talks.”

  “What about Ellen?”

  Izzy chewed a piece of calamari thoughtfully. “Ellen comes into the shop often—she’s a great knitter. And sometimes we get a chance to talk briefly. She was in a couple weeks ago, right after Aidan and Rebecca broke up, and her reaction to
the breakup was odd. I don’t think she cared much that Rebecca and Aidan weren’t a couple any longer. And she indicated Rebecca didn’t care much either. ‘She can have anyone she wants,’ was her take on Rebecca and men. That’s probably true.”

  “Killing someone for breaking your sister’s heart may have been a motive in early historical romances, but it seems a rather unlikely motive now,” Birdie said.

  They laughed.

  “True,” Nell said. “I think Ellen, like a lot of the others, thought Aidan was a little too pushy when it came to the council meetings. Jane said that some years, depending on who was leading the committee, the meetings were pretty tame. But somehow Aidan managed to inject a little spice into things. But that was Aidan. If he was going to do the job, he’d do it right, even though I suspect he didn’t even like being head of the group. He just figured it was his turn and he was paying his dues.”

  “I never thought of Aidan as pushy or dictatorial.” Birdie looked up and smiled as Gracie appeared again, this time carrying a broiled seafood platter, mounded with stuffed shrimp and oysters, chunks of fresh lobster, and the Edge’s special crab cakes. Grilled corn on the cob lined the platter. A fellow server removed the appetizers and set a clean plate in front of each of them.

  “Enjoy, ladies,” Gracie urged, positioning the platter in the center of the table.

  Birdie refilled wineglasses as Gracie disappeared inside. “So what were the complaints about Aidan?”

  “Like Nell said, he took the job seriously,” Cass said. “We had a drink together one night at the Gull and he told me that everyone had a different agenda. Rebecca and Ellen—and Bill Sobel, too—wanted out-of-town advertising, that sort of thing, which would bring in more tourists. Sherrie Steuben, who owns that new handmade paper shop, couldn’t begin to pay for advertising in the Globe or Times. Aidan understood that and sided with the artists who weren’t as interested in reaching the whole world. He thought their dues would be better spent on things like fixing up that old dock so no one would break their neck on it.”

  “A good idea,” Nell said. “Ben and Sam docked there one day to catch a bite at the Palate and nearly fell off the end. It’s rocky and very deep out there. Falling through rotted wood wouldn’t be a good thing.”

  Izzy looked up from her scribbling on the pad. “So Rebecca? Does she make the list or not?”

  “I suppose,” Birdie said. “At least until we have a chance to gather information that says otherwise. Though I still say being dumped is a weak excuse for murder.”

  “But I think that Rebecca knows more than she’s saying.”

  “I agree. And don’t forget Mary Pisano’s column—someone was in Aidan’s house snooping around last night. I bet it was Rebecca. And she probably had a key since they were an item for a while.” Cass picked up a crunchy cob of corn.

  “But what would she have wanted from Aidan’s house?”

  The group had no answer.

  “Maybe a talk with Mary Pisano should be on our to-do list,” Nell suggested.

  They were all silent for a bit, knowing that if the leaps they took were too wide, they could fall into the chasm.

  “Rebecca was in the shop the day Willow was there. She said she was there because she needed to talk to Aidan about something. I wonder what that was about.”

  “I’ll ask Ellen,” Izzy said. “She comes in the shop a lot.”

  “Should Billy Sobel be a suspect?” Izzy asked.

  Nell had been wondering the same thing. She remembered the look on Billy’s face at the funeral. Sad. Distraught. Maybe even a touch of guilt. And Aidan had given him a hard time about his exhibits, apparently, making him jump through hoops. Sometimes it even seemed a little unfair to Nell. And it certainly must have seemed that way to Billy and Natalie.

  “The police have talked to him, according to Hank,” Birdie said. “Not a lot goes on over there that the Jacksons don’t see or hear from the Palate deck. Merry saw the police go into the Sobel Gallery and promptly took herself over there to check out a new Rhodes photograph he’d gotten in.”

  “And to eavesdrop.”

  “Well, mostly that, yes.”

  “Billy was upset, Merry said. And extremely nervous. He stumbled over his words, gave silly answers, admitted that he and some others didn’t like the way Aidan Peabody was dictating to the artists and dealers in the cove.”

  “Dictating?” Nell broke in. “That’s silly.”

  “Billy started out calm, Merry said, but the more he talked, the redder his face got and he kept fiddling with those gold chains around his neck. He was perspiring like crazy, she said. Well, she didn’t actually say ‘like crazy.’ Merry is a bit more colorful in her descriptives.”

  “Well, frankly, if Billy was going to kill anyone, I think it’d be his wife,” Cass said lightly.

  “Catherine, shame on you,” Birdie chastised. “But Natalie can be difficult, can’t she? Colorful, to say the least, though I like her. She adds a bit of color to the cove.”

  “She just signed on with a decorator from Beacon Hill to redo the whole gallery,” Izzy said. “She asked me for names. I guess she thought because I lived there once, I’d know all the decorators.”

  Nell held back a smile as memories of Izzy’s Beacon Hill apartment popped into her head. A kitchen table, a bed, and a couple of chairs from the Beacon Hill home she and Ben once lived in—that was about it. But Izzy was not into decorating at that time in her life—she was into keeping up as a fledgling lawyer in a powerful law firm.

  “That’s interesting,” Birdie said. “Billy had a slight cash-flow problem as of late, I thought. I wonder who’s paying for the decorator.”

  “Maybe this exhibit will take care of that. And maybe that’s why he was so mad that Aidan was slowing things down.”

  “Do you suppose Aidan objected to the remodeling plans for Sobel Gallery? The artist committee may need to approve that, especially if it involved outdoor changes. And knowing Natalie, the changes could be . . . well, perhaps a bit showy?” Birdie took a drink of her wine and motioned to a waiter to please bring another bottle.

  “Something doesn’t seem quite right with Billy, now that we’re talking about it,” Izzy said, drawing doodles around the “B” of his name. “He’s been kind of . . . well, skittish. Sam and I saw him that night Aidan died—we went into his studio because Sam wanted to see if the James paintings were there. Billy kind of barked at us when we asked, like he was fed up with people asking.”

  Gracie had placed warm sourdough rolls on each of their plates, along with cubes of sweet butter, and was now uncorking the fresh bottle of wine and asking if anyone needed anything else.

  “Goodness,” Birdie said, “we’re closing you down.”

  “Not quite, Ms. Birdie. I still have a few tables out here and some inside. And the bar is plenty full. Crazy in there tonight. But I saved you all some key lime pie. It’s on its way.”

  Between bites of the Ocean’s Edge’s sweet pie and sips of lattes, the knitters’ to-do list grew more organized. Besides the logical people to talk to, they would keep their eyes and ears open and remain tuned in to their suspicions as they went about their days. And in a town the size of Sea Harbor, that just might be enough to turn some of the murky gray areas into vivid Technicolor.

  Or Dolby sound.

  The shattering of glass broke into the soft music coming from the porch speakers. It was followed instantly by shouting from the bar and drew the knitters’ attention toward the open bar area at the front of the restaurant.

  “That’s a familiar voice,” Nell said.

  With that, the four women left their signed credit card receipts, leaving extravagant tips for Gracie, and gathered up purses and sweaters before heading across the porch, up to the open bar area.

  A young waiter, his stance uncomfortable and his eyes focused on the sea of broken glass littering the floor, stood beside the tall bar table with a broom in his hand.

  Sitting precariously
on the stool, his arms spread haphazardly in the spill of scotch across the table, his eyes as red as the blood on his cut hand, sat Billy Sobel.

  “Bill, are you all right?” Nell stood close to him on his other side, bending low so he could hear her.

  With great effort, Bill lifted his head and turned toward the familiar voice, trying to focus on Nell’s face.

  The smile that followed was weak and disconcerting. A smile that wasn’t a smile at all. A smile that held sadness.

  “Nell,” he said, his voice barely audible above the music from the bar. He paused for a moment, as if struggling to collect his thoughts. Finally his vision seemed to clear and he looked as steadily as he could at Nell.

  “I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

  His voice was slurred with alcohol and anguish. “Life’s a wicked mess right now. I shouldna done it. None of it.”

  And with that, his heavy head dropped unceremoniously to the table, his eyelids closed, and Billy Sobel gave in to the comfort of inebriated stupor.

  Chapter 19

  “How much of what a drunk man says can he be held accountable for?” Nell asked, a question that she had reworded a dozen different ways, hoping that one of them would bring an answer. She took the Sunday New York Times from the backseat of the car and walked beside Ben across the gravel parking lot to the restaurant.

  Though they didn’t make it every Sunday, breakfast at the Sweet Petunia was a treat Ben Endicott didn’t forgo lightly. Nell’s anxiousness over the episode with Billy Sobel didn’t come near to being a valid reason to give up Annabelle’s egg special of the day.

  “We’ll talk about it there,” Ben had assured her. “After one cup of Annabelle’s Colombian brew, we’ll be much better equipped to figure it all out.”

  None of the knitters had slept well, Nell knew. Birdie had called at seven, and Izzy had stopped by on her way to meet Sam for a run not long after.