Patterns in the Sand Read online

  With the help of several young waiters, they had folded Billy into the backseat of Izzy’s Jetta. Cass and Nell had generously agreed to take the other two seats in the back, and as Cass said later, if it hadn’t been so sad and so smelly, it would have been quite hilarious. They kept the windows open and drove the short distance to the Sobel home, located in a lovely neighborhood on the north shore just a short distance from Birdie’s estate. The front of the house was well lit when they pulled into the circle drive and at the sound of the car, Natalie appeared, a robe wrapped tightly around her waist and her face, without makeup, looking young and vulnerable.

  Without words, they pried Billy out of the car, maneuvered him through the front hall, and, following the point of Natalie’s red fingernail, into a den at the rear of the recently finished house. There they eased him down onto the cushions of a leather couch. He began snoring immediately.

  Only when they headed back toward the front door did Natalie speak. “He’s a good man, you know. I’ve known lots of men. My Billy is the best—he never cheats on me. He never hits me. He treats me like a queen.”

  Nell looked at Natalie and attempted a smile.

  “Billy is under a lot of pressure. He just isn’t himself these days.”

  For a brief moment, Nell was tempted to embrace Natalie Sobel. She hardly knew the woman—Billy had brought her back to Sea Harbor last Thanksgiving, like a prize, some thought. He announced they had gotten married in Atlantic City, and then threw an extravagant party in Sea Harbor to celebrate his much-younger wife. Not too many people had gotten to know Natalie. She helped in Billy’s gallery sometimes, but her favorite pastime seemed to be shopping. Nell often saw her browsing in the stores along Main Street in Gloucester, the antique shops in Rockport, or out at the mall, which she seemed to love. But last night, as she stood beneath her porch light, it was clear to Nell that what Natalie loved most was Billy Sobel.

  “Looks like Annabelle has quite a crowd today,” Ben said, looking through the door into the cheery restaurant.

  “Ben, you say that every Sunday.”

  “And it’s always true. It’s so nice to be able to be right at least once a week.” He smiled a satisfied smile and wrapped an arm around Nell as they walked into the cool interior of the restaurant.

  A wave of enticing smells—bacon, eggs, coffee, fresh fruit, and warm maple syrup—met them at the door. And Stella Palazola, Annabelle’s teenage daughter, was there to meet them as well.

  “I’ve got a table for you,” she announced cheerily. “You’re outside today because it’s so nice and sunny.”

  “Well, thanks, Stella. That’s mighty nice of you,” Ben said.

  Nell followed, finding herself basking in the familiarity of it. Stella said the same thing every summer Sunday, too—and Nell suspected she’d say the same thing even if they were having terrible weather and it was pouring rain.

  Annabelle’s restaurant was located on an unmarked lane that wound up a slight hill on Canary Cove. From the restaurant windows or the deck, one looked over the whole artists’ colony, the small lanes and gardens behind the studios, and the ocean beyond. The restaurant was nearly hidden—a fact Annabelle was just fine with. Though other Sea Harbor businesses relied on vacationers and tourists for their summer income, Annabelle did fine by catering to the artists who lived and worked on Canary Cove and the locals who couldn’t go longer than a week without one of her frittatas or eggs Benedict served on a layer of fresh spinach. Though Nell considered herself a good cook, she admitted that her hollandaise sauce paled next to Annabelle’s.

  As soon as they sat down at a table near the railing, Stella returned with the glass coffeepot and filled their mugs. Steam rose up and fogged her glasses but she didn’t seem to notice. “So,” she said, leaning over the table, “did she do it?”

  Nell looked up from the menu. “Do it?”

  “Kill him. Did that Willow girl kill Aidan? Or was it Rebecca? Aidan dropped her like a hot potato, you know. Or a stranger who disliked Aidan? Maybe someone he jilted, someone jealous of him. Or who?”

  “Stella, I don’t think that’s . . .”

  Stella went on as if Nell hadn’t spoken. “They ate here a lot when they were, you know, together, because she can’t cook— Rebecca, that is—and they argued about everything. Well, not Aidan so much, because he didn’t like to make a scene, but, like, it didn’t stop Rebecca. And then their affair was over.” Stella snapped her fingers. “Just like that—poof. And then he was dead.” Her brows lifted above the upper rim of her glasses.

  “It might not be so simple, Stella,” Nell began.

  Ben had already spread the Times out on the table and was deep into the “Week in Review,” his weekly protection against Stella’s chatter.

  But Stella, it seemed, had moved on as well, her gaze no longer focused on Nell, but looking beyond her to a couple sitting several tables down.

  “He’s here,” she said in a hushed tone. “And he’s with her.”

  “Who?”

  “My art teacher.”

  Nell turned slightly in her chair, trying, inconspicuously, to follow Stella’s gaze.

  Brendan Slattery and Willow Adams sat several tables down, tucked into the corner of the porch.

  “Is he not like the coolest?”

  “I didn’t know you were into art, Stella.”

  “Everyone is. We’re all trying to get into Mr. Slattery’s class. He’s not married. He used to live in Maine. And he’s an insomniac—did you know that? Sometimes he used to doze off in class and kids would take his picture and put them on the Internet. I have one above my bed. He’s so like hot.”

  Nell tried to squeeze into the mind-set of a seventeen-year-old. Brendan was attractive—that was true. He had a runner’s body and a shadow of a beard covering his strong chin. She watched him lean in toward Willow, dark, brooding eyes looking intently at his dining partner. She knew Brendan was over thirty—slightly old to capture teenage hearts, she would suppose. But apparently not. Nor did he seem too old to capture a twenty-two-year-old’s heart, if that was what was going on with him and Willow. It was hard for Nell to tell. They were spending a lot of time together, which Nell found comforting. Willow needed someone to lean on right now, and though she had the knitters and Ben behind her, it didn’t hurt a bit to have a tall nice-looking man beside her as well.

  Brendan spotted Nell, then, and waved.

  “He waved at me!” Stella said.

  Nell looked down at her menu. If a simple wave brought such pleasure to Stella, who was she to rob her of it?

  “I think I’ll take the special,” Nell said, folding the menu and handing it to Stella.

  Without acknowledging the order, Stella stuck her pad of paper into the pocket of her short, swishy skirt and walked off. Breakfast would come, but what it would be was anyone’s guess. The certainty was that it would be delicious.

  “Ah, here you are.” Izzy’s shadow fell across the table. “Room for two more?”

  “Sure thing,” Ben said, folding the paper over and pulling out a chair.

  Izzy’s hair was still damp from a recent shower, and she’d changed from running shorts to a soft cotton skirt and tank top. Her face was flushed and her eyes bright. “Had a great run.”

  “I have a hard time keeping up with her. Between Willow and Iz, I’m left in the dust.” Sam took off his sunglasses.

  “You ran with Willow?”

  Izzy nodded. “She was heading down to Sandpiper Beach when I left your house, so she joined me. Then we met Sam. I think Willow runs to block out the world. She’s really into it. Sometimes Brendan runs with her, she said, but he has trouble sleeping some nights, and last night was one of them.”

  “So we hear,” Nell said, nodding toward Stella. “Stella knows all.”

  Izzy laughed.

  “I think the running is good therapy for Willow.”

  “No doubt.”

  Sam agreed. “She tries to be blasé about everything
that’s going on, but when you catch her unguarded, she looks like the weight of the world is on her shoulders.”

  Nell nodded toward the table down near the kitchen door. “She’s here.”

  Izzy turned her head. Willow’s and Brendan’s heads were inclined toward each other, and it looked like they were deep in conversation. “We had invited her to come with us—but she was headed toward Brendan’s. I am sure it was Sam’s raving restaurant review that convinced her to bring Brendan over here.”

  “Any news on the murder case, Ben?” Sam asked. He picked up the coffeepot that Stella had left and refilled cups all around.

  “I talked to Jerry Thompson again today. The police are perplexed, frankly. He said they are looking into it being someone from out of town—someone from Aidan’s past, maybe. But they’re still unwilling to eliminate Willow as a prime suspect. Opportunity. Motive. Everything. That inheritance is hard to hide under the rug. And the fact that she showed up two days before Aidan died doesn’t look good, either.”

  “Except she knew nothing about the inheritance.” Izzy frowned at Ben as if he were somehow to blame.

  “Who else are they looking at? There are certainly others with motive and opportunity—we have a whole list. Take Billy Sobel, for example.”

  Ben and Sam had both heard the story in detail. “Even through the haze of alcohol, his words were clear,” Nell said.

  “He said he was sorry he did it,” Izzy repeated slowly.

  “But can we jump from that ‘it’ to murder?” Sam asked. “Couldn’t he have been sorry for something else? Maybe simply for being drunk and making a scene. It was kind of embarrassing for a reputable art dealer.”

  “I don’t think so, Sam. He was clearly distraught,” Nell said. “And there was something not right about Bill at Aidan’s funeral, too.”

  “But why would he kill Aidan?” Izzy cupped her chin on her hands, her elbows on the tabletop.

  “Aidan was tough on Billy. Unfairly so, Jane and Ham thought. They tried to talk to him about it, but he always changed the subject. But something was going on. There was something peculiar about that whole exhibit planning.”

  Nell looked up as Stella arrived at the side of their table, balancing a tray with four plates. Each one was heaped full of cheesy vegetable frittatas stuffed with fresh tomatoes, asparagus, and peppers and topped with a dollop of sour cream with a wavy red line of hot sauce running through it like a river.

  Sam sat back and eyed the plates. “Stella, my love, I have died and gone to heaven.”

  Stella giggled.

  Sam took the plates from her tray and passed them around the table.

  Ben waited until Stella was once again out of earshot. “I’ve been thinking about Billy. He came to me not too long ago for advice on a business plan for the Sobel Gallery. Just wanted to know what I thought. He was wanting to increase revenue. The plan wasn’t half bad, but it wasn’t going to get him close to what he needed this year. I gave him some suggestions—a special exhibit, for one. But if Aidan interfered with his plans, and how he ran his business, there’s no telling what Billy might do.”

  “Or what any of us would do? How do you know until you’re there? People have probably killed for far flimsier reasons.” Nell added a few drops of cream to her coffee and stirred it thoughtfully. “Billy is a puzzle to me. He told me once that he spends a lot of time in Atlantic City at the casinos—which is where he met Natalie. He also goes to Foxwoods regularly. Although he didn’t actually give me an accounting, he indicated that he’d lost big on occasion. But on the other hand, when he does well and has a lot of extra cash, he gives it to others if they need it. Aidan told me he’d helped several artists starting up in Canary Cove, like that little stationery store. And when Merry and Hank started the Artist’s Palate, Billy was so excited to have his favorite beer close by that he gave them money to pave the parking lot. Even Lampworks Gallery has benefited from his generosity. I think Billy knew the Marks women before they moved here, although it didn’t seem to matter to him if he knew you or not. If you needed help and it was for a good cause, Billy was there if he could be.”

  “And now he has a new wife, who likes nice things—and that could cause some pressure.” Izzy told them about the array of things that had fallen from her purse in the knitting studio.

  Sam laughed. “I always wondered what women carried in those things. I’d like to go through yours someday, Iz. It’d hold a small hippo.”

  “In your dreams, Perry.”

  Nell wiped her hands on a napkin and pulled out a sleeve of the sweater that Izzy had sent her way. The peridot yarn was therapy for her fingers, soft and comforting. She found herself pulling it out late at night when she and Ben sat on the deck, and carrying it around with her.

  “Natalie came in for some yarn the other day,” Izzy was saying beside her, “and she told me she was taking over Billy’s books. Apparently she’d discovered his generous gestures and decided maybe she’d be a better captain of the bank account.”

  Ben shook his head. “I can’t imagine that is sitting well with Billy. But knowing him, he’ll find a way around it.”

  “She said they were having house problems. D. J. Delaney built it for them, and they’ve got a boatload of problems—plumbing, foundation, the whole works. Billy is furious, but also in need of cash because D.J. is calling it in. And Natalie is furious because she’s found proof that Billy has stupidly lent out more money than any sane person should ever loan to another human being. Her words, not mine.”

  The talk of plumbing problems turned the conversation to Sam’s new place, and he and Izzy began discussing the things that would need to be done.

  Ben quietly opened the paper and slipped his reading glasses out of his pocket while Sam and Izzy bantered over paint colors and throw rugs.

  Nell leaned back in the comfort of their company, lulled by the conversation that required nothing from her, and let the soft cashmere yarn and rhythm of knitting soothe her spirit. None of the talk about Billy’s finances had moved them any closer to what had happened to Aidan, nor what had caused Billy’s binge drinking the night before.

  She looked over the porch railing, over the treetops and tightly knit neighborhood of Canary Cove. She and Ben usually ended up at the other end of the porch, a table closer to the door. From this vantage point, her view of the galleries and shops and ocean beyond was slightly different. The woods just below the deck were more dense, and the path that meandered through them nearly invisible. Nell followed the path down toward the shops and realized with surprise that on this side of Annabelle’s, the woods that separated the hilltop restaurant from the occupied shops was Aidan’s land—the lush property fragrant with pine trees, wild roses, and honeysuckle vines. She looked down the side of Annabelle’s gray-shingled restaurant, thick with climbing hydrangeas and wisteria, and looked along the well-worn path. Aidan’s small home was visible in the distance and, beyond it, slightly to the side, the private garden, bordered by crape myrtle and filled with lush plantings—purple-blue hydrangeas, filmy sea grasses. Looking down on it, she could barely make out the tended flagstone path and the stone bench where she’d last seen Aidan Peabody, but it was as clear in her mind’s eye as if she were standing right in the middle of it. She rubbed her bare arms against the sudden chill the thought of that night brought on. Just a week ago, she thought. One short week.

  So intent was Nell on the garden that she saw little else until movement at the edge of her eye brought her focus back to the path that led from the galley to the garden, then wound past Aidan’s cottage and up into the hilly woods. Two figures walked slowly away from the cottage, up the small hill.

  When Aidan was alive, people often walked there, away from the artists’ colony to the upper road and beach on the other side of the cove. Aidan even kept the rutted path tended for folks who liked to take a gentle hike through the wooded area, a gesture once complimented in Mary Pisano’s “About Town” column.

  �
�Aidan Peabody deserves a certificate of appreciation for his largesse,” Mary had written. “When the mile-long path through the Peabody woods became overgrown and hikers had difficulty traversing the rise, Peabody hacked away roots and vines, added small granite slabs in the roughest spots and marked the beginning of the trail with one of his fanciful wooden sea urchins. A true citizen.”

  Nell smiled at the memory. They had teased Aidan about it, accused him of running for city council, but it didn’t surprise any of his friends, not really. He did what he thought was right for the people of Sea Harbor—and stubbornly stood up for what he deemed wrong or inappropriate. A trait that had earned him dear friends. And enemies.

  Nell watched the hikers without much thought and saw them pause in a small clearing, just visible from Nell’s vantage point. One of the figures waved an arm in the air as if to make a point, an animated gesture that could have indicated pleasure—or anger. The sun, falling on the tiny open space like a spotlight on a stage, caught the glint of a familiar gold chain. Billy’s beefy arm was dark with hair, his head nearly bald. In the patch of sunlight, it was clear that it was the owner of the Sobel Gallery.

  And beside him, her hands at her side, stood the slender figure of Ellen Marks.

  “An interesting friendship,” Nell murmured, more to herself than aloud, but Izzy heard and followed Nell’s gaze beyond the railing and through the woods.

  “Well, I’ll be,” she said. “Are Billy and Ellen friends?”

  Nell sat back so Izzy could see better. But Billy and Ellen had begun walking again and soon disappeared in the trees as the path rose up the hill.

  Nell nodded. “Rebecca’s not crazy about Billy, but I think he finds Ellen levelheaded and a nice person to talk to—and Billy helped them out when they opened their shop, just like he helped a lot of other people.”

  “I wonder where Natalie is. I can’t quite imagine her traipsing through the woods.”

  Nell laughed, thinking of the many pairs of stiletto heels she had seen Natalie wear around town. “No, she doesn’t seem the woodsy type.” She looked back toward the woods.