Moon Spinners Page 21

  “Unless she thought it was the right thing to do. Ella mentioned that she did it for her sister. It must have been important to her,” Nell said. “Do you think it could have had something to do with her murder? Jake seems to have had other ways around it, ignoring her, for one.”

  “Ella,” Cass and Izzy said together. “Ella might know. She worked hard to carry out Sophia’s wishes after she died. She even put herself in danger. I thought Jake Risso was going to plow her down right along with those posts the night she tried to stop him.”

  “But Jake is off the hook. His way of fighting back wasn’t murderous, thank heavens.” She told them about the timing of the fire in Jake’s restaurant.

  “One more off our list. That’s good,” Birdie said.

  “How would Sophia have reacted to Alphonso’s having an affair?” Nell pulled out her sweater and picked up where she had left off. She smoothed out a row on her knees and absently ran a finger along the ribbing design running the length of the sweater.

  “Sophia spent almost as much time as my mom does at Our Lady of the Seas—and adultery is considered pretty bad in the hierarchy of sins,” Cass said. “I think she’d have been praying for Alphonso’s soul, for starters.”

  Father Northcutt probably knew all about it, Nell thought. The affair, Sophia’s anguish over it. She thought about Sophia lighting candles the way Mary Halloran did. It would be a blaze of light—half the candles lit for Cass to find a man, and half to beg for forgiveness for Alphonso.

  “A divorce would have been hard for Sophia,” Cass said.

  “Even with a baby on the way?”

  They fell silent then, wondering what would tip the scale for Sophia—the sanctity of marriage or a baby raised by its mother and father. They each had their own thoughts about it, their own inner voices that helped them make such decisions. But what would Sophia Santos have done? What would her inner voice have said?

  “Maybe she didn’t know about the baby. Do we know for sure that she did?” Cass asked. “Maybe she only knew about the affair, and she made it clear to Alphonso and Liz that there would be no divorce. But the two of them already knew Liz was pregnant, so it put them in a terrible bind without options. No divorce.”

  “Ella certainly doesn’t like Alphonso, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t know about the baby. Or even the affair, maybe,” Birdie said. “Sophia was so private, but I guess we’ll have to ask Ella when we can.”

  As if in answer to their questions, a cell phone rang.

  “It’s mine,” Nell said, pulling her cell phone from her pocket. She looked at the name, then whispered, “Ben,” and pressed the talk button.

  She listened for a minute. Her face lit up and she covered the phone and whispered, “Ella’s awake. She’s on heavy pain medication right now, but she’s awake and talking.” Nell turned her attention back to the phone while Ben continued.

  “Oh, Ben.” Her smile faded.

  “When?”

  The room grew silent as they waited for Nell to hang up. Finally, after extracting a promise from Ben to wait up for her, Nell closed the phone.

  She looked at her three dear friends, sitting in a room crowded with as many questions as balls of yarn.

  “Ella is doing fine. They’ll cast her arm tomorrow when the swelling has gone down. She’s eating liquids and bearing up under the discomfort as we knew she’d do. She is already wondering when she can leave.”

  “Go on,” Birdie said. She spoke abruptly, knowing Nell was keeping something from them.

  “She’s her old self in some ways. Except for one important one. She doesn’t remember anything that happened last night. Not a thing. The doctor said she has lost her short-term memory, not unusual with a blow to the head. The last thing she remembers is telling Harold to wash out his socks last Sunday night.”

  Chapter 27

  Nell and Izzy had made arrangements the night before to meet early at Nell’s and head for the beach before the swimmers, body-boarders, and suntanners made their appearance.

  Izzy was right on time.

  “I haven’t run all week,” she said. She was bent over in the Endicott family room, her hands grabbing her ankles and pulling her body into an inverted U. She wore short Lycra running shorts and a black tank top. “We need it, Aunt Nell. It will clear out the cobwebs.”

  Nell slipped her cell phone into the pocket of her version of running shorts—nearly to the knees and loose to accommodate what seemed like a daily reshuffling of her body fat. An old Art at Night shirt fell low on her hips. “I don’t know why you put up with me, Izzy. You’d get twice the workout if you didn’t drag an old lady along beside you.”

  Izzy straightened up. “You will never be old.” She frowned in an attempt to chastise her aunt.

  Nell laughed and gave Izzy a quick hug. “Thanks, sweetie—music to my ears.” Nell knew she’d gotten the luck of the draw when it came to genes that kept her reasonably trim, her skin taut, and enabled her to not worry about arms flapping like bat wings when she wore sleeveless tops. But she didn’t fool herself, either. She was sixty-three and her body seemed to have a mind of its own. Running with Izzy—at a slower pace, of course—and lots of walking and occasional visits to the gym had become necessary parts of her routine.

  They walked out the back door and down the deck steps to the deep yard behind the house. In the distance was the Endicott woods, as neighbors and guests had come to call it, and beyond that, the beach.

  Just at the near edge of the woods was the guest house, which always made Izzy pause and wave. “Such happy, happy days,” she said, looking over at the friendly gray cabin. “My first kiss was on that porch, right there, under the light.”

  “I thought it was out on the pier.”

  “Oh. There was one there, too.” Izzy wrinkled her nose at Nell and tucked her arm in her aunt’s.

  They walked along the narrow, windy path, worn smooth by years of Endicotts making their way to the beach. The shade of giant hawthorns and pine trees quieted the air, heavy with the fragrance of sea, wild roses, and pine needles.

  “Any news about Ella?” Izzy asked.

  “Birdie said Harold called early and she’s doing better this morning. She is headed over there now. She’s driving the practical Corolla that has been sitting idle in one of the garages for a long time. The Lincoln will need some cosmetic surgery.”

  “I wonder why Ella didn’t take the small car that night.”

  “Probably because Harold always used the big one, and at least she’d seen him drive it and could duplicate the movements.”

  “It’s such a mystery why she would head out like that. And then to be hit by someone on top of it.”

  Nell was quiet. They walked across a narrow road to the beach and stopped at a bench to stretch.

  “Okay, I’ve let you be quiet long enough. What are you thinking?” Izzy leaned over and pressed the flat of her hands into the sand. Her hair fell over her face and she tossed it aside, turning to the side to look up at Nell.

  Nell braced one foot on the edge of the bench and stretched from her waist. “It’s the hit-and-run scenario—it just doesn’t ring true. Doesn’t it seem strange that on an out-of-the-way road, someone would be barreling down and not see Ella struggling along the side of the road? Even though it was dark, she had on a bright white sweater—that little cap-sleeve sweater that Birdie knit her last year. Wouldn’t the headlights have picked that up?”

  Nell straightened and they began their slow run down the beach toward the breakwater, pondering the coincidences of life. And events that maybe just seemed that way.

  The tide was low and they ran along the flat sand comfortably, Izzy matching her stride to Nell’s.

  The yacht club was alive with early-morning sailors headed toward their boats to check the sails and scrub down decks. Looking up at the expanse of windows that filled the whole backside of the club, Nell thought of Liz, working there each day, being lauded for her competence. And she thought of
Liz’s mother, Annabelle, and how hard it must be to have a murder shadowing the birth of her first grandchild.

  It shouldn’t be this way, she thought. It should be a joyous time for all the Palazolas. And for all his indiscretion, she supposed it should be a happy time for Alphonso Santos, too. It was his first child, after all, a fact that was easy to forget both because of circumstance, and because he was nearly sixty.

  Up ahead, where the club beach ended and a bank of rocks heralded the beginning of the breakwater, they spotted a familiar figure sitting on a rock, looking out toward the horizon. She wore running shorts and a tee.

  “It’s Gracie,” Izzy said, and started to call out a greeting as they came closer.

  At that moment, a man emerged from behind a pile of rocks and walked toward Gracie. His broad back was to Izzy and Nell, and at first they didn’t recognize him in shorts and a T-shirt. He lifted one foot onto the rock beside Gracie and leaned in, his words private.

  Gracie frowned and moved back against the rock. But the man moved with her, touching her arm as he leaned closer.

  “Stop it, Davey,” Nell and Izzy heard Gracie say as they came within earshot.

  “It’s not my fault. You just don’t get it, do you, Gracie?” The man’s voice was louder now. “When are you going to start making good choices? When, huh?”

  “Gracie?” Izzy called out, her hand waving as she sensed the tension ahead.

  Nell was happy the gesture was made by Izzy. At this point breathing was her priority—gestures would be difficult while running. How Izzy did it was beyond her.

  Davey Delaney stepped back and turned around. He frowned as Izzy and Nell came to a stop a few feet away. His brows pulled together in a stare that clearly accused them of meddling in someone else’s business.

  “Everything okay?” Izzy asked. Beside her, Nell took in a lungful of air.

  Davey looked back at Gracie, glared at Nell and Izzy, and then, without a word, his large running shoes hit the sand and took him off in the opposite direction.

  Gracie shook her head as she watched him disappear.

  “What was that about?” Nell asked. She slipped onto the flat side of a boulder and wiped her forehead.

  “It’s okay. It’s just Davey.”

  “He scares me, Gracie,” Izzy said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Gracie nodded. “He’s harmless, I think. He just gets a little too friendly sometimes, you know? Touching me and saying things like that.”

  Nell frowned. “Does Joey know?”

  “Not from me. There’s enough bad blood between those two lately.”

  “What did he mean about something not being his fault?”

  “He thinks he’s being blamed for something, projects being over budget or something, and doesn’t want me to think poorly of him.”

  “He has an off way of gaining your favor, coming on to you like that,” Izzy said.

  Gracie shifted on the rock. “Enough about the Delaneys. Tell me about Birdie’s housekeeper. I heard about the accident—how awful.”

  “I suppose everyone knows by now.”

  “It was in Mary Pisano’s column.”

  “Then it’s official—everyone knows.” Izzy lifted her palms in the air.

  “Mary had very harsh words for the person who drove off after injuring Ella. And she also scolded Ella, suggesting the Lincoln Town Car was simply too big a car for her and perhaps she should consider a small hybrid. It would be funny if it weren’t so awful.”

  “We think Ella was doing her own detective work, trying to find Sophia’s killer.”

  “It’s nice, I guess, that people are on Julianne’s side, thinking she’s innocent. But awful that she put herself in danger like that.” Gracie pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. She looked out over the blue water, as if contemplating people’s kindness to a mother who might not have done much to deserve it.

  “Gracie,” Nell said, pulling her back. “Remember when Sophia came over to our table at the yacht club that night?”

  She nodded. “Cass brought it up last night. So much has happened that I’d forgotten about it.”

  “You can only hold so much in your head. It’s understandable.”

  “She sounded urgent, that I remember—it was definitely not a ‘let’s get together for coffee’ kind of invitation. She had left me a couple messages earlier that day, too, though we never connected. For some reason, Joey had decided it was a perfect day for a picnic and we spent a good part of the day over at Peach Cove, even though I had a ton of work to do at the restaurant.”

  “But you don’t know what she was calling about?”

  “No. But as I thought back on it, I remembered that Sophia had been acting strange for a couple of weeks. She had been in Boston for a few days, staying at their brownstone on Beacon Hill, and when she came back, she asked me to meet her for lunch because she wanted to tell me about it. I thought it was odd because we weren’t exactly lunch friends. But then she canceled the lunch, saying she needed a couple more days.”

  “For what?” Izzy asked.

  “My question exactly. I have no idea. And I don’t really know what was so urgent the night she died. Cass, Joey, and I talked about it at the Palate last night. We threw out ideas and then picked them apart.

  “Joey thought maybe she knew Julianne was going to show up that weekend, and she wanted to help me handle her, give me some advice. Maybe she had run into her in Boston?”

  “I suppose that would have been semiurgent,” Izzy said.

  “Except it had never been an issue before. I never knew when my mother would show up. So why was it an issue now?”

  They nodded, thinking, too, of the coveted hair appointment that had been canceled so she could meet with Gracie. Would an appearance from Julianne have merited that?

  “Then one of us—Cass, maybe?—thought it could have been that my birthday’s coming up, and she wanted to advise me of how to handle things.”

  “Advise you on how to handle your birthday?” Izzy wrinkled her forehead.

  “No.” Gracie laughed. “The trust Uncle Alphonso uses to pay Julianne would transfer to my name on my thirty-sixth birthday. It was in my grandparents’ will. I just found out about it myself six months ago when the lawyers called a meeting.”

  “That’s a huge responsibility,” Nell said. What were her grandparents thinking to place such a responsibility on their granddaughter? And how awful for Julianne, too. It was one thing to go to your older brother for money, quite another to be asking your child, however grown-up she might be.

  “It’s not that it’s my money or for my use. This trust is only for Julianne—the lawyers were clear about that. There were other things in the will, but that’s . . . that’s not the issue here.”

  Gracie hesitated for a minute, then went on. “Anyway, I can’t say I was looking forward to handling that. But now, now I guess I hope I get the chance.”

  They were quiet as the truth of the situation settled on them. If Julianne were sentenced to life in prison, she would have no need for money.

  Nell broke the silence, not wanting to dwell on the dire possibility. “As I understand it, Sophia didn’t think Alphonso always handled Julianne’s allowance the way he should.”

  Gracie nodded. “And she didn’t like the fact that Alphonso was losing control, that’s true.”

  “I wonder why she felt so strongly about it. Julianne wasn’t a blood relative and it wasn’t her money—and from what you’ve said, it isn’t yours either.”

  “That’s the way Sophia was. She wasn’t mean. But she had clear ideas on how things should be done. I honestly think Sophia thought it was her moral obligation to help my mother. And she thought one way to do it was to force her to grow up and get a job. Who knows? Maybe she was right.”

  “So her wanting to talk with you might not have had anything to do with her murder.”

  “I can’t imagine it did, Nell. And the explanation seemed logical
to all three of us. Everyone bought into it but Danny Brandley.”

  “Danny Brandley? Now where did he come from?”

  “The next table over. He had his computer with him, typing away like there was no tomorrow. He’s writing a novel, did you know that? Says he likes it better than his day job.”

  “So he joined you?”

  “Not of his own free will. Cass went and got him.” Gracie laughed as she recalled Cass’ assertiveness. “I’ve never seen Cass like this. She really wants to get to know this guy better. All she remembers about him from high school is that he was the editor of the school newspaper when she was a lowly freshman, and he never gave her the time of day. She’s determined that not happen again.”

  Nell was quiet. Danny Brandley was hiding something, and it was connected to Sophia Santos. And Sophia Santos had been murdered. The dots were too close for her to rest easy when his name was mentioned.

  “Danny seems nice,” Izzy said, glancing at Nell.

  “He is,” Gracie said. “He enjoyed talking to Joey. He said it was nice to meet a Delaney who didn’t hate him.”

  “Who hates him? D.J.?”

  “I guess Davey has something against him.”

  “What?” Nell asked.

  “Who knows? I think they were in the same class in high school. Maybe Danny caught more touchdown passes. Davey is competitive. And a hothead, as you may have noticed.”

  “What does Joey say?” Izzy asked.

  “Oh, he knows what Davey is like, but it’s his brother, you know? So he doesn’t say much. I think Davey always resented that Joey was smarter. He was like his mother, really good with figures. Davey tried to be but always messed up. He was better being the brawn, and Joey the brains.”

  Nell listened and wondered how Davey must have felt when Joey was also the one who got the girl. From the looks of things today, it might have been heartbreaking.