How to Knit a Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Ugh,” Izzy said. “Walking in that guy’s shoes is not a pleasant thought. But I think you’re right. If we are willing to assume Bree is innocent, even though her alibi for that night is suspicious, and we know she had a key and was even there that night—”

  “The same goes for Rose. It’s only her word that tells us what happened that night. She was in the room. He was in the room. And she had a compelling reason to kill him,” Nell said.

  “Okay, they both could be guilty. But I have to think they are not the only people Spencer Paxton has hurt in some way,” Izzy said. She wiped a dollop of Harry’s spicy mayo from the corner of her mouth.

  “Which brings us back to shoes,” Birdie said. She looked up, startled by a sudden thundering, rumbling sound, a squealing of tires, and a flash of black as a motorcycle sped off down the pier toward the parking lot.

  “Hmm,” Cass said. “I hope he bills me.”

  “Did we drive him off?” Nell asked. “I wonder if our questions upset him.”

  Cass shrugged. She took a drink of soda and screwed the cap back on. “I doubt if he put it all together. Besides, writing that rag because Spencer asked him to isn’t a crime, right? And he was probably finished with my computer fix. Robbie isn’t one for long good-byes. Now where were we?”

  “Shoes,” Izzy said.

  They settled back against the benches while Cass checked the last bag for crumbs or special treats that Harry sometimes hid inside the bag for people he especially liked.

  “Yes!” she said, pulling out four of the baker’s special biscotti—his mother’s recipe that he guarded with his life. Crisp, airy, and almond sweet.

  “I love Harry Garozzo,” Izzy said, snatching one up quickly.

  Cass passed one to Birdie and the last to Nell, along with napkins.

  “I ran into Rose and Stella this morning,” Nell said. “They were headed over to a new listing Stella has. She’s trying to keep Rose busy, I think. She is so fond of her. I am not sure which one of them is in more pain.”

  “I’d vote for Stella,” Cass said. “Rose is kind of amazing. She seems to have this ability to zone out, to calm herself down. She’s like a Buddha, taking herself to a peaceful, calm place.”

  “She said it took years of therapy,” Izzy said. “She has a spot in the apartment—near that back window that looks out over the water. She sits in front of it on a pillow and meditates every morning. It helps ground her.”

  “And that leaves poor Stell to do the worrying. She wants so much for this to be over for Rose,” Birdie said.

  “That brings us back to finding Spencer Paxton’s murderer,” Nell said.

  “Shoes,” Izzy said.

  “Shoes,” Nell agreed. “There’s the Spencer who’s been walking around Sea Harbor for the past few months, making plans. Doing things. And then there’s his past, the preteen and teenage Spence—”

  Birdie nodded. “His parents moved away after he graduated from high school. Rosie moved away before that, at the end of her freshman year. Maybe those are the years that we need to investigate.”

  “Exactly. We know a lot about the here and now. But not the then.” Izzy sat forward on the bench, her voice lifting as if they had been in a horrible mess of quicksand and were finally crawling out.

  Nell agreed. “That’s where we should go, then. Follow him back to his school days. Maybe those are the shoes we need to put on.”

  “Makes sense,” said Cass. “We know people who don’t like him now. We need to find out the ones he might have hurt or irritated or betrayed back then.”

  “Hurt or injured severely enough to murder him all these years later . . .” Nell didn’t put a question mark at the end of her sentence. She felt instinctively they were moving along the right track.

  And silently she hoped they weren’t being blinded by something right in front of them.

  Birdie straightened her back and lifted her chin. “That is exactly where we need to go.”

  “So, what do you say? It’s back to school, Peggy Sue.” Cass grinned.

  Chapter 23

  Cass was nostalgic. “It smells exactly the same,” she said. “Weird.”

  “Except you didn’t have to walk through metal detectors back then.” Nell glanced back at the devices on each side of the door. “I know it’s for protection, but it makes me sad every time I walk through one.”

  And the thought that they were walking through metal detectors on their way to learn about a murdered man escaped none of them.

  School had let out, but students milled around, rattling locker doors, grabbing tennis rackets and shoes, talking loudly as they brushed by the three women walking down the hallway. A few looked at them oddly, others ignored them entirely.

  “I get the impression no one is mistaking us for new students,” Cass said, looking around. She waved at a teacher standing in the doorway of a classroom.

  “Are there still teachers here who taught you?” Nell asked.

  Cass laughed. “I doubt it. I think most of the staff retired after our class graduated. We were awful. But some kids I went to school with teach here now. That was one of them.”

  “What about the principal? Patricia Stuber has been here a long time, hasn’t she?” Birdie said. “She’s a nice lady.”

  “Oh sure. She’s been here since the beginning of time,” Cass said. She looked into another classroom as they walked past. “Math. I wasn’t very good at that.”

  Rose, with Stella’s help, had gone through every painful memory with them, grade school, middle school, and up through her first high school year. The math contest was central to it all, and they thought of Rose now, this shy, gifted middle school student competing against older kids.

  And the awful times that followed her victory.

  Cass pointed up ahead. “Ms. Stuber’s office is in there.”

  “She’s on the library board with me,” Nell said. “The woman has the patience of a saint.”

  “Which is probably a prerequisite to being a school principal. It’s nice of her to make time to see us,” Nell said.

  The office looked like every school office any of them had ever been in: a windowed wall looking out to the hallway, a counter with a receptionist behind it, and several small offices off to the side. A couple of students sat on chairs against the wall and the young receptionist, headphones on, answered phone call after phone call.

  Finally she stopped and looked over, grinning. “Hey, Cass. Hi. I heard you were coming.”

  “Hi, Peggy,” Cass said. “Peg’s brother Al is one of our lobster guys,” she said to the others. “I thought you worked at MJ’s Salon?”

  “I was allergic to their hairspray,” Peggy said, laughing. “Besides, this place keeps me on my toes. Makes me feel young again.”

  They nodded and laughed, not mentioning the fact that Peggy couldn’t be more than twenty-one herself.

  Nell noticed her sweater. “I recognize the sweater you’re wearing. Your mom made it in Izzy’s shop. It’s beautiful.”

  Peggy grinned again. “You guys are here to see Ms. Stuber, right? I heard her say something about Spencer Paxton, that guy who was murdered over in the Bianchi house. It’s really awful what happened to that guy. He went to school here, did you know that? Way, way long time ago, but people remember him. He was sort of a hero.” She looked out to the hallway and a wall of glass cases on the other side. “Lots of trophies with his name on them. I guess the trophies are famous now. Kids stop and look at them, point and tell all kinds of stories they heard somewhere, taking pictures with their cell phones. Some reporter was here looking at them, too.”

  At that moment a tall woman, almost totally gray and with a long, kind face, opened the office door. Her smile was warm and welcoming. “Please, come in, come in. Oh, Nell, it’s so good to see you. I’ve missed a few library meetings lately. Mostly I miss seeing friends like you.”

  She greeted Birdie warmly, then gave her warmest smile to Cass.

  “
Catherine Halloran. You are a wonderful sight for these tired eyes. I miss you and your class. And your brother Pete’s, too. Warms my heart to see you.”

  Patricia closed the door behind them and pointed to a circle of chairs around her desk. “Now sit, and tell me what I can do for you. Nell, you mentioned the awful Paxton murder when you called.”

  Nell nodded. “Have the police been out here?”

  “They haven’t, although I’ve talked to Jerry Thompson on the phone. He called as a courtesy, since Spencer attended both the middle and upper schools here. His parents were active in the PTO, and his father was on the sports advisory board that we used to have.”

  “I’ve been trying to remember the Paxtons,” Birdie said. “I knew who they were, of course, but for a town as small as this, you’d think I would have had more social contact with them. I was on one or two boards with Mr. Paxton, but our contact was minimal.”

  “His wife was very quiet,” Patricia said. “Shy, maybe? I’m not sure. But Mr. Paxton was the opposite.” She paused, as if trying to find the politically correct way to characterize the parent of a former student. And then, deciding the circumstances called for simple honesty, she said, “Spencer’s father was controlling and difficult to work with.”

  “In what way?” Nell asked.

  “I don’t know how he was with the younger children, but he was tough on Spencer. You’re all aware of the caricature of the football dad? Clearly unfair to some dads, but Mr. Paxton fulfilled that title perfectly. And not just in football, but as I remember, in everything Spencer was involved in. Maybe it accounted for the fact that his son was one of the most competitive students in my memory. Spencer was bred to be better than everyone else.”

  “And was he?” Cass asked.

  Again Patricia’s face was thoughtful. She looked down at the papers on her desk, then at the women sitting in front of her. “I suppose you saw the trophies out there?”

  “Peggy pointed them out. She said Spence is kind of a hero now.”

  “Which would have pleased him. Spencer loved being the center of attention.”

  “As an adult, he could be charming. Too charming sometimes. We saw that when he came back to Sea Harbor,” Nell said.

  “That’s how he was as a student,” Patricia said. “He was one of those boys who knew how to charm the socks off people. At least adults.” She smiled. “Like me.”

  “But other students in the school?”

  Patricia paused, then spoke carefully. “He was in that group that every single class has—the popular group. Always in the middle of a big group. And very good-looking, so girls were attracted to him.”

  “And was he nice?” Cass asked. “There are nice kids in those groups.”

  Patricia nodded. “You’re right, Cass. Spence was calculating, I think. It was important to him that kids liked him, but sometimes at that age, kids think they rise in prestige when others are, well—”

  “Teased?” Cass said. “Harassed?”

  She nodded. “There was some of that. The thing is, with kids like Spencer, it wasn’t overt teasing. Now and then the school nurse got stories, especially from girls, about embarrassing situations—locker kinds of things, notes passed around. Awkward photos stuck on girls’ lockers. I’m not saying it was Spencer, but his group. Actions that certainly sound like bullying, although I don’t know if it would have been called that then. I don’t want to speak poorly of the dead, but Spence, back then, was an organizer and had a whole entourage of kids he hung out with. His place in his social group was important to him. And he’d do what he had to, to keep his place or to win this or that office. To be head man.”

  “I guess we can all remember some of that from when we were kids,” Cass said. “Trying to fit in.”

  “That’s right,” Patricia said. “Puberty, adolescence, self-image—it can be a messy, difficult time.”

  “Difficult on both ends,” Nell said. “How easily self-image can be torn apart by teasing and bullying. Did you ever see that kind of behavior in Spence?”

  “Well, the thing about him was what I said before. He was savvy. Or sneaky, maybe, although that seems harsh. As I said, he knew what to say to people in authority. And as for students reporting anything, well, you’ve all heard sad stories about a student—already unsure of him- or herself—who accused the most popular kid in school. Their lives could be made miserable. It’s such a difficult thing.”

  “Sure,” Cass said. “I get that. I’m sure there was some of that when I was here, but it’s funny that I can’t remember it.”

  “That’s because you weren’t one of them,” Patricia said, smiling at Cass. “You were well liked, popular in a good way.”

  They all got it. But it was a discomforting thought that a student who truly needed someone to intervene, like Rose Woodley, was denied the help because of her own fears in asking for it.

  “You have an amazing memory, Patricia,” Nell said. “I am impressed. You have so many students going through here, and yet you remember things so well.”

  “Some classes, some students, are easier to remember. Like Cass, here.” She smiled.

  “Do you remember a student by the name of Rose Woodley, by any chance?” Birdie asked. “A lovely young woman who has recently came back to town. She was younger than Spencer Paxton, maybe a few years behind.”

  “Woodley?” Patricia considered the name. “The name is vaguely familiar, but no, I can’t put a face to the name. I guess my memory isn’t so amazing after all. It depends, doesn’t it? Memory is a peculiar beast. Some years I remember because they carry greater burdens. I remember the years that Spencer Paxton was here, too—they weren’t the easiest years by far.”

  “Because of the students?” Cass asked.

  A shadow fell across the principal’s face and her eyes grew sad, as if something had crossed in front of them. Something she wanted to forget—but couldn’t. And the conversation today was bringing it up in hurtful ways.

  She looked out the window, as if collecting her thoughts. Finally she looked back, composed.

  “You were saying some years were hard because of the students?” Birdie said gently.

  “The students?” she said vaguely, then collected her thoughts. “Not in that way, not what we’ve been talking about today. But as principal, well, in a way these children are mine for four years. You want to watch over them, to watch them grow into healthy adults. And there were a couple of years back then that were simply . . . well, difficult to get through as a person.” She put on a pair of glasses sitting on the desk in front of her, as if changing the temperature in the room. She folded her hands and smiled.

  “Now,” she said, “is there something else I can help you with?”

  “Just one thing,” Birdie said. “Did you happen to see the email that circulated recently about Beatrice Scaglia?”

  “Oh, Birdie, that was such trash. Poor Beatrice. We spoke afterwards. She was devastated.”

  “We think Spence might have been behind it,” Cass said. Then she corrected herself. Patricia Stuber wasn’t her principal anymore, and she wasn’t a student ratting on a kid. “He was behind it.”

  Patricia looked surprised. “Beatrice told me that he was filing to run for mayor—she was very upset about it—but I hadn’t heard he was responsible for that awful email newsletter.”

  “You mentioned that he did what he had to do to win,” Nell said. “Do you remember how a younger Spencer Paxton reacted when he didn’t win?”

  “Well, I suppose I’d have to think about it. It probably didn’t happen often.” She frowned, tugging at a memory. Her head nodded and her face changed, as if she were replaying a video.

  “Yes, I do. I remember one time that Spencer Paxton lost.”

  And though she couldn’t remember all of the details, she remembered that it involved a math competition. She couldn’t remember who won the competition, but she remembered clearly who had lost.

  Spencer Paxton III.


  And when the trophy or medal was presented, Spencer’s father got up from his front-row seat, looked up to the stage, and called his son a loser. Not a shout, but loud enough for all those nearby to hear. And then he walked out of the auditorium in front of the entire school.

  “Yes, now I remember it clearly,” Patricia said. “It was an awkward, awful, and unfortunately memorable moment.”

  They hadn’t intended to talk about Rose. They were there to talk about Spencer Paxton. And were getting ready to leave.

  But the gate opened with Patricia’s memory of the unfortunate moment.

  Birdie sat back down and said quietly, “Remember the young woman we mentioned earlier? Rose Woodley.”

  Patricia frowned for a minute, then sat back in her chair and took off her glasses, setting them slowly on the desk. “The girl who won that competition.”

  They took turns telling the story, filling Patricia in on a shy student who was gifted in math, and suffered for it.

  A story of a quiet student who was as adept at being invisible as Spencer Paxton was at being conspicuous.

  Chapter 24

  Nell had set everything out on the kitchen island, a nod to the bracing evening air: roasted sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, and sides that Jane Brewster and Danny and others had brought: corn muffins, Jane’s coleslaw, gherkins and olives, and a green salad with apples and avocados. All waiting for Ben’s tuna steaks and lemon caper sauce to make their entrance. It was going to be an “in or out” buffet, Nell told everyone, something appropriate for the weather and a busy day that began with a class—and ended in a principal’s office.

  It had been a long, muddled day, but at its end, when Cass, Nell, and Birdie had walked out of the familiar school on the west side of town, they were tired but strangely invigorated. Finally feeling as if they’d found a path. It might be winding or crooked or one that would eventually divide in two, but at least it was a direction. Where it took them would work itself out.