The Wedding Shawl Read online

  “Right, no proof, nothing like that, but the chief is pretty up front with me. Tommy Porter is, too. I may act like life is a cakewalk, but I know what’s going on, and I know my picture is probably sitting in front of some Sea Harbor cop right this minute, wondering what they’ve missed. They called me last night, soon as they started working on the tire slashing. ‘Where were you at such and such a time?’ I guess I was lucky I took over for Pop—I had a dozen witnesses who wouldn’t have had a beer in their hand if I hadn’t been there. But I might not have. I might have been home alone. No alibi. Again.”

  The wear on Andy’s face grew more obvious as he talked. He had walked in with a smile in place that Nell suspected he worked hard at keeping there, probably for Jake’s sake. But once the smile was stripped away, Andy was in pain.

  “Andy, that night, the night she died,” Nell began.

  “Which one?” he said, and the sky seemed to darken with his words.

  Not which night. Which girl? he was asking. Nell looked out toward the yard and the guest cottage. Claire had turned off the music, gathered her things, and gone on inside.

  “The night Harmony died.”

  He nodded.

  “Did something happen that night that you haven’t told a hundred times?”

  “I doubt it. It’s kind of like you said, though. With the police, I told them every fact I could think of. But emotion wasn’t part of it, not like talking to you guys, or to my dad.”

  “Could you tell us, then?” Birdie asked. Her question brought with it enough compassion to wrap Andy up on a winter night and keep him warm.

  “Graduation. Somehow Harmony got her mother to sneak her out for the party that night, so we met up at school—Harmony, me, Tiff. But I was anxious that night. Things hadn’t been right with Harmony and me for a couple months.

  “We’d been best friends, inseparable since advanced algebra class. We were newbie freshmen and she was better at math than I was. She helped me get ready for a test.” He looked up at the sky, as if saying, Yah, you know you were, Harmony. “I don’t think we ever studied alone for a math test after that. She was . . . she was everything to me. My best friend, my girlfriend.”

  “But something happened?”

  “It was about the time I noticed my mom getting so tired—so it was spring, senior year. I remember because my mom liked Harmony a lot—and Mom missed her when she stopped coming around. She’d say she was coming over, and then I’d see her drive off in another direction.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. But she was pulling away. We were both crazy busy studying that last semester. I had band practice; she was on a basketball team. But something between us was strained. It was a hard time. For me, anyway.

  “Harmony and I had always told each other everything. I knew all about her crazy father, how hard her mom worked to make her life good, pushing her to study, to join the basketball team when she didn’t want to—and then she loved it, just like her mom said she would. She told me it was the best thing that ever happened to her. I knew how her mom scraped to buy her the kind of clothes she wanted. And then the talk stopped. Days would go by without us getting together, and then I’d see her at school and it would be like nothing happened. She’d hug me. Maybe come over after school that day.”

  “Do you think she was seeing another boy?”

  Andy was silent for so long, Nell thought he wasn’t going to answer, and she stepped in to ease the moment. “That’s probably hard to ans—”

  “No, it’s okay. For a long time I didn’t think so. I’d watch her at school, see who she talked to. Crazy, huh? One day I noticed she didn’t have her class ring on, and I asked about it. I thought maybe she’d left it at some guy’s house. She looked at me with kind of a startled look, then walked away. It was strange. Tiffany didn’t know what happened to it, either, but she still insisted that Harmony told her everything—they had absolutely no secrets and she’d be the first to know if there was someone else. And there wasn’t, she said. Finally, though, I realized that Tiffany was saying what she wanted to be true—but she was wrong. This was one thing Harmony wasn’t telling even her best friend.”

  “Why did you think that was?”

  “That’s a mystery. If she really liked another kid, her mom would probably have been okay with it, just like she was with me. And Tiffany would have been okay with it, too. She didn’t care who Harmony’s boyfriend was.”

  “But Harmony still came over to your house sometimes, even fooled Tiffany into thinking you were still together. You went with her to the dance that night.”

  “I think I was her front, her protection. And I couldn’t see it because I didn’t want to lose her. For whatever reason, she didn’t want to tell her mother—and it was fine for her to be with me. So I was her excuse.”

  “And the night of the dance?”

  “That’s when I knew for sure. We were there together. The three of us, just like always. But Harmony kept looking at her watch. Tiffany had gone off somewhere, and I asked Harmony point-blank what was going on with her. I needed to know. I had to know.

  “So she told me.”

  “She told you she had another boyfriend?” Birdie asked softly. Except for an occasional clink of a beer bottle against the table or the knife slicing through the cheese, the deck was silent.

  “Not at first. She started walking away, out to the parking lot. I followed her. I was mad, tired of it all. I demanded that she tell me. Yelled it at her back. People were looking at us, so she hurried up, and then I hurried up, all the way to the far end of the parking lot, where she’d parked her car. I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. I told her I had to know the truth.

  “She turned and looked at me like I was a stranger. She told me she was in love. It was for real, and if I loved her at all, I would turn and walk away. And then she jumped in her car, slammed the door, and locked it. I pulled on it—I don’t know why, I guess to stop her from leaving me, as if it would have done any good—”

  The fact that it might have saved her life was on everyone’s mind, but Andy was deep in the moment, and he went on.

  “She started up the car and tore out of the parking lot. She nearly backed over my foot.”

  “Did anyone see her racing out?”

  “I don’t think so. Some people were going into the gym and saw me chasing her to the car. And maybe someone saw the car tearing out of the lot. I took a shortcut through the bushes to my truck and went out after her, but I was too late. When I pulled out onto the street, she was gone. I drove all over the town all night. I was sure if I found her, I could make it all right.”

  “What about Tiffany?”

  “We just left her stranded at the gym. Cool of me, huh? I wasn’t thinking too clearly. Later that night I drove by her house to see if Harmony might have come back there. I saw Tiffany in the window, but Harmony’s car wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere.”

  She wasn’t anywhere. The words lingered as silence fell over the somber group.

  Andy rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and looking at none of them. “It took me a long time to come to grips with all of it. I think I put everything on hold while my mom was sick. Then I reached a degree of acceptance of it all. It was a bad time in my life.”

  “Was the experience something you could share with Tiffany?”

  The question seemed to startle Andy. “Tiffany?”

  “You had this shared experience, this mutual friend,” Birdie began, but Andy was shaking his head.

  “Our link was Harmony, sure. But when Harmony was gone, there was no link.”

  “Maybe to you, man, but not to her.” Pete’s comment was thoughtful, not judgmental. “My take is that even back then, Tiff probably had the hots for you, Andy. And once she did all that beauty school stuff, she decided to go for it. To go for you, I think is what I’m saying.”

  Andy half smiled. “I don’t seem to have the best luck with women,
do I?” He looked up through a swatch of blond hair that had escaped his ponytail and fell in front of his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t know. After Harmony died, she called a few times, but I never called back, and then she kind of disappeared. I didn’t even know she was around Sea Harbor until a few months ago when she appeared at one of our gigs. She was more assertive than the quiet girl who hung around Harmony. She’d lost weight, colored her hair. She seemed to be everywhere I looked.”

  “So what was that about?” Izzy asked. “Seems she was starstruck.”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s like Birdie said; she suddenly wanted there to be this link between us. It was uncomfortable at first, but then it was kind of nice. You know how that is. Sometimes you just don’t want to be alone, and she took all the uneasiness out of ‘dating.’ So we started being together. It was good. For a while, anyway.”

  “And then?” Nell said.

  “Then recently she started getting really possessive, like we were joined at the hip. Like she had some claim to me. She even mentioned marriage the other night at the Palate. It was probably partly my fault. I just went out with her for fun. To be with a woman. She was easy to be with. But she looked at it differently, and I didn’t see that at first. I was dumb. But when I did, I tried to explain, to back off.”

  Nell was quiet. Andy had been so forthright. But they were all pushing him, and moving into areas that might be too private.

  Pete took a swig of his beer. “Okay, there’s an elephant in the room.” He looked at Andy. “People heard her at the Palate that night, man. She was loud. And she said something about having a baby.”

  An awful silence fell on the group. Oppressive and uncomfortable.

  Cass glared at Pete, but Andy just shook his head as if too tired to protest.

  “It’s okay. I figured someone heard her.”

  “Did Tiffany think she was pregnant?” Izzy asked.

  The question seemed to catch Andy off guard, as if it didn’t segue naturally into the conversation. He was quiet for a minute, as if processing Izzy’s simple query and trying to figure out why she asked it. And then, as if a light went on, he shrugged and looked at her.

  “I don’t know if she was pregnant, but I suppose the autopsy report will tell us for sure.” His lips lifted in a smile that wasn’t happy or sad. He looked defeated. “But if she was pregnant,” he said, “there’s one thing I know for sure. It wasn’t mine.”

  The words were said with the conviction of someone swearing on a loved one’s grave. Nell found herself breathing a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure what difference this information made in the scheme of things, but it was one less thing to weigh down the scale against Andy Risso. And that made her happy.

  Pete appeared with another cold beer and offered it to Andy, but he shook his head and stood up. “Nah. I need drums, not beer. Think Hank might let us steal Merry away for an hour?”

  “If not, we’ll fool around with some drum-guitar duos.” He grinned at Izzy. “How about that for a processional? Nice little drumroll and some sweet strings?” He strummed an imaginary guitar and in a wobbly falsetto, sang, “Here comes the bride.”

  Pete managed to escape the deck just seconds before Izzy’s plastic water bottle landed where his head had been.

  Chapter 28

  “Sheila is getting ready to leave town,” Birdie said the next day. She called Nell early, right after her morning bike ride. “I stopped by Ravenswood-by-the-Sea to check on her, and she said the police have cut her free. The autopsy report will be out soon, which they’ll mail to her if she wants it.”

  “What about the boxes of things at my house?” Nell asked.

  “She doesn’t want them. Not even the clothes and things from the boardinghouse. She’s giving it all to Father Northcutt for the homeless shelter.”

  “But she doesn’t even know what’s in the boxes you and I packed.”

  “I gave her a brief description, though I said we hadn’t looked through things carefully before stashing them in the boxes. She said no thanks. She doesn’t want books or knickknacks or old newspaper clippings. She and Tiffany weren’t savers, she said. Probably because there was nothing of their growing-up years worth hanging on to.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “But true, I think. So I assured her we’d go through the boxes and give the padre whatever we thought he could use. And if there was anything that we thought she should have, we’d mail it to her.”

  “That’s a good plan. Did you get her contact information?”

  “We can get it tonight. I invited her out to dinner. Gracie’s Lazy Lobster and Soup Café.”

  Nell chuckled. As always, Birdie picked the perfect place. Noisy and happy. Sheila would enjoy herself, and it might give her at least one good memory to take back to Nebraska with her.

  It was a good night for it, too. Ben was in Boston for a board meeting at the Endicott family company. Her quiet night would now have company.

  “Dinner is a nice idea. But, Birdie, I think we—” Nell began.

  “I completely agree,” Birdie said, breaking into Nell’s sentence. “We should look through those boxes before we meet Sheila for dinner. Just in case . . .”

  The “just in case” had all sorts of thoughts bundled around it. Just in case there was something special there, something Sheila should have, whether she wanted it or not. Just in case there was something there that brought more questions to mind to ask her before she left town. Just in case . . .

  “I’ll pick up some sandwiches at Harry’s Deli and be there at noon,” Birdie said. “That leaves you free for those endless meetings you seem to fill your Monday mornings with.”

  “Old habits die hard.” Monday mornings were often busy. Some days her calendar was so full she thought she might as well be back at work in the Boston nonprofit she directed for years. Meetings. Followed by meetings. But then she’d remind herself that now on other days there were no meetings—nothing but a quiet beach to walk along, or a garden to tend, or an evening with Ben, looking up at the stars or sitting in front of a fire. And then she’d relish all over again their decision to retire to the roomy old Endicott home in Sea Harbor.

  Today’s meeting was with an arts group in Gloucester. It wouldn’t last long. She went into the den, collected her papers and purse, and told Tiffany’s boxes, stacked neatly in the corner, that she’d be back. She hadn’t forgotten them.

  Mondays were Cass’ sacred days. She and Pete usually worked their lobster crew on Saturdays and then took Monday off. Cass liked having a free day that wasn’t a weekend, she often told Nell. That way she could decide for herself how to use it and not be influenced by the city calendar or the newspaper lists of weekend events. Other people could go off to work on Monday and leave Cass alone to her own devices.

  “So, come help us,” Nell said into her cell phone. She was stopped at the railroad tracks on her way to Gloucester, waiting for the morning train to pass by.

  Cass was sitting at Coffee’s, her feet up, a coffee drink on the table in front of her and a book closed on the table.

  “I might as well. I can’t stop thinking about Andy,” she said. “Danny and I went over to the Edge last night, and it was like he was there with us, he was on our minds so much. The guy looks whipped, don’t you think?”

  Nell agreed. Even though he had smiled, even joked, after he’d purged himself the day before, there was a trace of defeat in the smile. A look that said, Just get it over with.

  “Jake came into the restaurant with Ham and Jane Brewster,” Cass went on. “The Brewsters had gone by and picked Jake up, insisting he go to dinner with them. He’s whipped, too. He said the police keep talking about circumstantial evidence, even though they can’t find anything concrete to link Andy to the crime.”

  Circumstantial evidence. Nell nodded. She and Ben had had a quiet dinner at home last night, then settled on the deck to talk while she sewed tiny beads onto Izzy’s wedding shawl. Ben brought up the same thing. Th
e police couldn’t ignore the awful argument that Andy had had those many years ago with Harmony. And then almost a repeat of the scene with Tiffany at the Palate. His anger. His accusing Tiffany of blackmail. His lack of alibis. A fling, if that was what it was, with Tiffany. And riding beneath it all, Tiffany’s obsession with him.

  But most of all, or so it seemed to Ben, the fact that there wasn’t anyone else left that they could bring in to question made Andy stand out. Young Tanya at the salon hadn’t liked Tiffany, had wanted her job, and they’d found her rummaging through Tiffany’s drawers, but she was seen at the Gull the night Tiffany was killed. And even though no one was sure when she left, there was something so naive about Tanya Gordon that Nell had a difficult time placing anything more weighty than gossip on the young woman’s shoulders. Claire didn’t have an alibi, either, but her motive didn’t hold much water. All that was left was Andy . . . or another cold case to file on a shelf in the dusty police archive room. The thought brought a shudder to Nell. The sight of her slashed tires was a reminder that there was someone out there, someone who had killed a young girl. Maybe two. And someone who quite possibly could kill again. There was nothing cold about that, not at all.

  They all arrived within minutes of one another. Birdie with wrapped veggie paninis that Harry had grilled minutes before, Cass with Izzy in tow.

  “The girl has to eat,” Cass said. “I scooped her up from the shop. Mae was delighted. She said Izzy’s getting entirely too bossy as the wedding gets close. And with everything on her mind, Mae’s afraid she’s going to forget to eat.”

  “Fat chance,” Izzy said, unwrapping the sandwiches and pulling a bag of chips from Nell’s cabinet. “Have you ever known me to pass up food?”

  They all admitted that they hadn’t, and of all the things that could happen before a wedding, Izzy starving was not one of them.

  They grabbed Cokes and iced tea with mint and in minutes were sitting cross-legged on the floor of Ben’s den. Birdie opted for the leather chair in the corner. “Just in case of fire,” she explained. “Getting down there is easy, but it takes a while to get up.” She settled into the chair, her feet barely touching the floor.