A Finely Knit Murder Read online

  “Maybe it was something else, not the firing at all.” Izzy took a bite of her burger. “Maybe there was something about Josh besides his teaching techniques that Blythe didn’t like. Maybe she was getting back at him for something.”

  On the table in front of them lay the tips for teaching knitting, and an educator’s theory of putting complicated pieces together. That was certainly needed here.

  “Revenge? That’s a good point, Izzy,” Birdie said. “We’re looking at surface facts. And we know so little about Blythe and what made her tick. Revenge sounds like something she wouldn’t be averse to.”

  “Even her cousin doesn’t seem to be able to offer anything concrete about Blythe,” Cass said.

  “I’m not sure about that,” Nell said. “I think we were all a bit stunned when we met him, unsure of his feelings, unsure of what to say. I talked to Ben this afternoon and he was at the courthouse when Bob came in. He liked him—and they all found him cooperative.”

  “Is he going to stay around?”

  “He’s staying at Ravenswood tonight. Ben said he was going back to Boston tomorrow morning for a meeting. But he’ll be back. Father Northcutt wants to meet with him, and the police will have more questions. Ben is trying to find a will. So there’s a lot going on.”

  “Does Bob know anyone here?” Cass asked.

  “Us,” Izzy said.

  Music began playing in the background, pumped from speakers above the bar and on the deck posts. People came and went as waitresses lit the hurricane lamps on the table. Nell waved at Andy Risso and Pete Halloran, lumbering up the steps and heading over to the bar. And then she looked again. Bob Chadwick was a step behind them, still in his khaki pants and knit shirt, following them to the bar and to the display of thirty-six brands of beer that Merry proudly advertised as being the most extensive selection in town.

  “Look,” Nell said. “Pete and Andy just walked in with Blythe’s cousin.”

  Cass looked over at her brother and his drummer friend Andy Risso. “Good for Pete. Sometimes he shows he has a soul. I told him about Bob and that he probably didn’t know anyone here. It had to be a rough day for him, and the only one working at the bed-and-breakfast tonight is Teresa Pisano. Somehow I wasn’t sure she’d want to go out for a beer with Bob.”

  “Or vice versa.” Izzy laughed, finishing her own glass and asking the waitress to bring coffee. “They probably figured the same thing we did, that Merry’s place would be a little out of the mainstream and they wouldn’t have to introduce Bob to curious people.”

  Pete spotted them, waved, then turned back to the bar and his old—and new—friend.

  “Cass,” Birdie said a minute later, her glasses perched on her nose. “Look over there. Another friend is joining them.”

  It wasn’t that no one else in Sea Harbor had ever grown a mustache or beard. Maybe it was his Clark Gable looks. But heads turned as Harry Winthop walked across the deck to the bar, greeted Sam and Andy, and accepted the bar stool they scooted over to him.

  But it was when Bob Chadwick turned around and was about to be introduced to Harry that the Knitters’ attention was piqued.

  Bob stood, shook his head in surprise, then man-hugged Harry like an old friend.

  Chapter 20

  T hey’d left the Artist’s Palate a short while after, intending to say hello to Pete and his friends, but the men were nowhere in sight.

  When they met the next day to teach knitting to a group of exuberant girls, Cass filled them in.

  “They decided to show Bob the town. Pete says he’s a nice guy.”

  “And what did Harry say?” Izzy asked.

  “He doesn’t say much. Maybe that’s why I like him.”

  “Why was he with them?”

  “He wasn’t. He stopped in to get a beer. He didn’t see us sitting at the side or he’d have come over. Or maybe he wouldn’t have. Like I said, he doesn’t like to talk much.”

  “It looked like he knew Bob,” Nell prompted. She dug into a box and pulled out a supply of wooden knitting needles. They were on the school’s veranda, grateful for the mild day, and pulling chairs and tables together before the girls arrived.

  “I asked him. He was kind of noncommittal, but he did offer that they belonged to the same tennis club in the Back Bay for a while. He didn’t stick around. He drank his beer and went back to his place to do some painting.”

  “Did Bob talk about his cousin?” Birdie asked.

  “Not much. The guys let him take the lead and he didn’t seem to want to go there. He seemed sad, Pete said. Blythe had been dealt a rough hand in life. She had a heap of neuroses generously given to her and nurtured by being raised a Westerland. In Bob’s mind, that excused a lot of her behavior toward people.”

  How little they knew about this woman. There were probably layers and layers to peel off before the Blythe they had known—and the things she had done—would make sense.

  And only then would they know why someone killed her.

  Izzy put out several baskets of yarn on the supply table, along with the needles and a pile of printed patterns. Each of the knitters had knit up a sample—Cass, a winter hat that she had perfected over the years. She knit one for not only every member of the Halloran lobster fleet, but any fishermen she spotted around town who had a bare head in cold weather. Birdie knit a top-down poncho in soft wool that required no seaming, and Nell and Izzy were adding a collection of dramatic scarves that would make the girls feel like accomplished knitters in no time. And to go along with the scarves, a pattern for fingerless gloves.

  “You’re here!” Gabby came out a side door and flew across the veranda, her pleated uniform skirt flapping in the breeze. Daisy was in close pursuit, her shorter legs working overtime to keep up with Gabby.

  “Of course we are.” Birdie beamed, embracing her granddaughter.

  “Daisy, this will be old hat to you,” Izzy said. “I remember when you took your first knitting class at the shop.”

  “It was a cool class,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “My mom says I can knit as well as she does because I had such a great teacher.” She grinned.

  “Well, that expertise makes you and Gabby our helpers today. And I promise some time for your own project.”

  The two friends had already picked out what they wanted to knit—fingerless gloves for Daisy, and a fringed poncho that Gabby would wear with great flair.

  Elizabeth Hartley was the next to arrive. She carried a class list and handed it over to Izzy while Daisy and Gabby took over arranging the supplies.

  “A couple of students won’t be here, so the class today will be smaller,” Elizabeth said.

  “Just for today?” Birdie asked.

  “No, permanently. They’re leaving.”

  “The school?” Nell asked. The concerned tone in Elizabeth’s voice was telling.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said, then forced a smile to her face and added, “The good news is we have a waiting list for this class, so we’ll fill the spots by next week’s class. It will make a couple of girls very happy. You’re in demand.” Her smile attempted to cover up concern, but her brown eyes betrayed her, even when she slipped on her glasses to read the agenda items Izzy had printed out.

  Nell looked over at Birdie. Parents were taking their children out of the school.

  Birdie’s concerned expression mirrored her own.

  But Nell tried—as Ben often urged—to put a stop on her emotions until she knew all the facts. Often things weren’t as they seemed. Families moved away sometimes. Circumstances changed—Gabby herself was proof of that, starting school a bit after the semester began. But from the look on Elizabeth’s face, it wasn’t as simple as that.

  Elizabeth looked at her watch. “I have an appointment downtown shortly. But Mandy White is in her office and can help with anything you need.” She took
a deep breath, as if bracing herself for something unpleasant, then turned and disappeared into the cavernous school.

  A dentist appointment might explain the headmistress’s expression, Nell thought. But Elizabeth didn’t seem like the kind of person to schedule dentist or doctor appointments during a busy school day. An appointment downtown at one in the afternoon could mean only one thing.

  Elizabeth was going to be questioned by the police—again.

  * * *

  The class sped by, a roller-coaster ride with energetic fingers tangling and untangling yarn, pulling out stitches, laughing and giggling and gossiping, girls seemingly untouched by the more serious events going on around them.

  “It’s refreshing,” Nell said to Izzy as they watched the girls from a few feet away. “A brief interlude.”

  “I heard two of the girls talking about their parents’ new house rules, and the fact that they can barely step out the door without armed guards—I guess those are parents—a few feet behind them.”

  “Ten- and eleven-year-olds think they’re invincible,” Birdie said.

  Cass walked over. “The kids are stoked about that fall music event. The school must be playing it up. Gabby says they might even let Pete and the Fractured Fish open for them.”

  They laughed. It was a lovely diversion, something to look forward to, which most certainly was why the administrators had come up with it. Lighten the mood, bring families together under the magical spell of music.

  And by then, absolutely by then, there’d be a murderer behind bars.

  Cass walked back to several girls needing help with pulling out stitches. “My specialty,” she claimed.

  Nell spotted Angelo Garozzo at the far end of the terrace, talking with some teachers. He saw the knitters and walked in their direction, his gait slow.

  “Ladies,” he said, lifting a hand in greeting.

  “Your step is heavy, my friend,” Birdie said, walking over.

  “And I have a heart to match.”

  “It must be difficult for you to be watching this play out,” Nell said.

  “Worse.”

  “Has something happened?”

  Angelo looked off toward the sea. He shrugged. “I spent three hours today down at the police station, surrounded by guys I’ve known my whole life. Or their whole lives, I s’pose, since some are like that Tommy Porter, just young whippersnappers. But they’re good guys, fair men. And they’re trying every blasted angle they can think of, mapping out that school party like I don’t know what.”

  “Mapping it?”

  “Drawing lines on a huge blackboard. Who was where when, who talked to whom. It’s a tangled mess. We were all there, and plenty of us had the evil eye for Blythe Westerland that night. Plenty of us.”

  “Angelo,” Birdie said quietly, holding his gaze. “I have two questions for you.”

  Angelo nodded. He wasn’t the only man in town to stand up straight when confronted by Birdie Favazza. Nor was he the only man who would protect the small silver-haired octogenarian with his life. He leaned in slightly, listening carefully, his hands shoved in the pockets of his pants.

  “First, why did you dislike Blythe?”

  They all listened carefully for his answer. Although they hadn’t talked about it, Angelo’s feelings toward the woman seemed excessive sometimes, propelled by something they couldn’t quite put their finger on.

  At first Angelo didn’t answer. They watched a range of expressions flash across his face as he pondered the question. It was almost as if they could read his thoughts as emotion lit his eyes and clenched his round jaw.

  “Okay, you’re right. I never liked her, even before Elizabeth. She needed a life, is how I see it. She was livin’ her life to prove to a bunch of dead men that she was a woman, she was beautiful, and she was every damn bit as powerful as they ever were. Sometimes I’d see her looking up at old Elijah Westerland’s portrait in the school as if to say, ‘See? Who’s the best of them now?’

  “Anyway, right or wrong, that’s how I see it. But why did I dislike her? I don’t have nothin’ against powerful women. My wife Hildie’s one of ’em.

  “What got my undies in a bunch was the way she treated other people. And especially someone like Elizabeth Hartley, who was spending her life doing good things for the school and this town. Trying to get her fired. Saying bad things about her.”

  Nell listened. They all knew that, board members, even townspeople. “Who else didn’t she like?”

  “Is that the second question?”

  Birdie smiled sweetly. “No. Nell asked that one, not me. I’m still holding on to mine.”

  “There was Anna Mansfield,” he said slowly. The crevice in his forehead deepened, as if he was unsure of how far to go with his own opinion.

  “Anna,” Izzy said. “She’s a child. How could she dislike Anna?”

  “Right,” Angelo said. “Maybe she didn’t dislike her personally—though I don’t think she liked kids much. I asked her once if she wanted any kids and she looked at me like I’d asked her to eat rotten meat.”

  “But Anna . . . ?” Nell asked, pulling him back.

  “Blythe wanted the school to be perfect. She didn’t think Anna was perfect. It wasn’t so blunt. She just didn’t think the school should have to spend time on kids who weren’t status quo and smart. But between you and me and the bedpost, I think . . . I don’t think that’s what’s going on here at all . . .”

  He looked up, the frown disappearing as if the real answer had come to him as he talked. “I think it was Anna’s father she disliked—and targeting Anna was the best way to get to him. It wasn’t Anna at all.”

  The thought settled in with a thud.

  Izzy looked over at the girls, worried that one of them might have heard. But they were happily knitting and purling with determination in their fingers and sitting as straight as only ten-year-olds can sit. Izzy walked back to them, a shepherd protecting her flock from all cruel thoughts—and from grown-ups who do cruel things.

  “Just my opinion, you know,” Angelo said, watching her walk away.

  Several of the girls now looked as though they could use an accomplished knitter nearby and Cass followed Izzy, knowing “accomplished knitter” was a relative term when coming from a ten-year-old.

  “I need to move along, too,” Angelo said. “You nice ladies are going to get me fired for all this lollygagging.” He turned to leave.

  “There’s still that last question, Angelo,” Birdie said, pulling him back.

  “One more. Okay. One. Throw it at me, Birdie.”

  “Why do you think Blythe Westerland was killed?”

  Angelo stared at Birdie as if she’d asked him if he loved his wife. Or his job. Or Sea Harbor. It was as clear to him as the sun or moon or the stars he and Hildie watched through his telescope. Finally he answered, “Blythe hurt lots of people. But that night, the night of that party, she must have caused in someone a pain so awful that it killed something in that person. A pain so great, it drove that person to retaliate. To take a life.

  “Hers.”

  Chapter 21

  I t was the only free night they had all week, Ben was quick to remind her. And he needed some fresh air. Art, fresh air. Who could say no to that?

  Nell was tired, bone-weary. Maybe it was trying to keep up with the frenetic energy of young girls in the knitting class. Or maybe the strain of the worrisome days. Her head was full of frizzled, dried-out thoughts.

  What she wanted to do was curl up on the couch with Ben’s comforting arm around her, a glass of wine nearby. And let the quiet of their home seep in and soothe her body and spirit.

  But mostly she wanted to be with Ben. So she said, “Sure. Fresh air is good,” and slipped on a sweater to ward off the evening chill. “I’ve been wanting to see Jane anyway.”

  “But not Jo
sh Babson,” Ben said, grabbing his keys.

  Nell smiled, following him out to the car. “Oh, sure. Why not?”

  Ben backed out of the drive and they headed down Sandswept Lane. “I left Elizabeth Hartley a message early this afternoon saying we’d stop by later tonight with sandwiches. She texted back, saying she’d be home. This couldn’t have been a good day for her.”

  Nell was silent, feeling a wave of guilt. Between the knitting class, the girls, and the uncomfortable talk she had had with Angelo, she hadn’t given Elizabeth another thought. Until now.

  Elizabeth had left school in the middle of the afternoon. Off to an appointment, she had told them. And they all knew—or thought they knew—with whom she was meeting. Of course she hadn’t had a good day. How could being questioned by the police be good?

  “Did she say how she was doing . . . ?” Nell began.

  Ben was quick to answer and change the conversation. He’d only be guessing, he said. “Let’s wait and see for ourselves.”

  They drove in silence for a block or two, trying to do as Ben suggested. Wait and see.

  Finally Nell said, “Have you had any luck finding Blythe’s will?” Facts, mundane tasks, were easier to deal with than emotions and a woman’s spirit being slowly eroded.

  Ben nodded that he had. “Bob looked through her things and found the lawyer she used. Apparently she switched her entire inheritance away from the Westerland financial advisers just as soon as she could. I talked to someone in one of the Boston firms that represented the family. He said that before the dirt had settled on her father’s grave, she effectively took every cent, every investment, and moved it as far away from Westerland lawyers as possible.”

  “Was she the only heir?”

  “There were a couple families that broke away a long time ago and never lived up here. But Blythe is the only one from the Boston branch. The rich branch, as one of the lawyers so delicately put it. She was the only woman and the sole heir, something the lawyers thought would turn old Elijah and his progeny over in their graves.”