Again, the crackling of branches stirred the night air, cutting through the silence. And then the murmur of a voice, and Nell realized that a figure was walking slowly down the flagstone pathway to the guest cottage at the back of the Endicott backyard.
Willow, she thought, and instinct drew her forward in the chair, ready to call out to be sure the young woman was all right, to offer her some nighttime tea. Or to talk.
But the deeper tone of a second voice stopped her.
Nell watched as the dark figures, arms wrapped around each other, passed in front of the low solar lamps lighting the pathway. They walked on down to the cottage, talking to each other in soft, muted voices.
Nell hesitated, not wanting to get up and go inside for fear of frightening them and creating an awkward moment. But sitting in the darkness, a ghost in the night, was also uncomfortable and a seeming invasion of their privacy.
Before Nell had a chance to make a choice, the couple paused at the edge of the cottage, just beneath the low security lamp attached beneath the eaves. And before Nell could turn away, Brendan Slattery’s tall figure bent low over Willow’s diminutive form and wrapped her closely in a hug that spoke of a familiarity Nell knew she had no right viewing. They embraced for a long moment, and then the two figures slipped noiselessly through the door and were lost to sight. Only the sudden soft yellow haze of a light beyond the window convinced Nell that Willow had, indeed, come home for the night.
Chapter 11
Nell was still in the sleeveless tank top and light knit pants she had worn to bed when Izzy appeared at 22 Sandswept Lane.
Birdie had arrived minutes earlier and was sitting with Nell at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in front of her. Her short white hair was mussed from riding up the hill on her bike, and she raked her small hands through it, seeking some order.
“Birdie, what are you doing here?” Izzy breezed in without announcement. “It’s not even eight o’clock.” Izzy poured herself a glass of water from the sink. Her sun-streaked hair was pulled back in a ponytail and looped carelessly through the band of a Red Sox cap. Her tank top and bare tan shoulders were damp and shiny.
“Is Willow up yet? Did you see her last night? She’s here, isn’t she?”
“Good morning to you, too, Izzy,” Birdie said.
Izzy laughed and Nell shook her head. “Not up—as far as I know.”
Nell had told Ben that Willow had come in last night—early morning, really—with Brendan, but there was no reason to spread the details around. Nell had gone to bed herself, immediately after Willow and Brendan went into the cottage, and she had no idea when—or if—Brendan left. But, as Ben had said earlier that morning, Willow was going to need friends—and Brendan Slattery was a decent choice.
“Don’t you work today, sweetie?” Nell asked.
“Mae opens the shop on Thursday so I can run.” Izzy leaned over Nell’s shoulder and peered through the kitchen window, looking beyond the deck and down the sloping lawn toward the cottage. “You can’t see anything from here, can you?”
Nell reached up to touch Izzy’s arm with her fingertips. “Izzy, Izzy.”
“Well, I hope she’s okay, that’s all. I feel responsible in a way. After all, Willow showed up here because I invited her.”
“Maybe,” Nell said.
“What do you mean, maybe?” Izzy straightened up and pulled out a chair. Her nylon running shorts slipped across the wooden surface.
“She might have had other reasons, too.” It was Ben, walking down the back stairs and across the kitchen, fresh from a shower and dressed in his summer uniform of khaki shorts and a knit shirt. “But whatever the reason, we’ll get it straightened out today. Sleep has a way of leveling concerns, and I think once we talk to Willow, we’ll have some answers.”
“You never told me where the will was found, Ben,” Nell said.
“That’s interesting,” Ben said, “but not unlike Aidan. The police found it in one of his sculptures—that carved figure of the old fisherman that stood by his desk in the studio. You’ve seen it, Nell.”
“I have,” Nell said. “I believe you tried to buy it.”
Ben laughed. “It’s a great old guy. Aidan captured the fisherman stance perfectly. He has this wise, knowing, longing-for-the-sea look. If you pull on the fellow’s gnarled hand the front of the wooden sculpture opens up, and Aidan kept papers and things on the shelves inside. There was an envelope with my name on it. Inside it was the will. He’d even gotten a couple of fishermen over in Gloucester to witness it.”
“So that’s what Aidan wanted to talk to you about,” Nell said.
Ben nodded. “I’ve talked to Aidan a few times about financial things and this was an update, I guess.”
“There is no rest for the kindhearted, Ben Endicott,” Birdie joked.
“I believe the word is ‘wicked,’ Birdie,” Ben said.
“No matter.” Birdie’s fingers waved the air. “But it is a good thing you do, my dear friend.”
Nell smiled at Birdie, knowing she had sought Ben’s advice on an occasion or two. And the Canary Cove artists, especially, seemed to prefer Ben’s advice to a lawyer with LTD behind his name and an office with a polished lobby.
“What does the paper say, Nell?” Ben asked.
“Not much. It must have been too late last night when news of Aidan’s heir leaked out. There’s talk about other things, though—the problems with the art council, Aidan’s many romances, that sort of thing. I am sure the news will be leaking out in dribs and drabs. Mary Pisano seems to be devoting her chatty little column entirely to solving the murder.”
“Suspects,” Birdie said. “Everyone wants suspects.”
In the distance, Nell heard the sound of a bike crunching on gravel. She looked up and saw Willow pedaling down the side pathway toward the front of the house. She was alone and looked determined to get somewhere quickly.
“Ben, it’s Willow. Let’s not let her find out about her inheritance from some rumor making its way around Coffee’s or wherever she’s headed in such a hurry.”
Ben moved quickly toward the front door, opened it, and called to her. Minutes later, Willow appeared in the family room, her backpack hanging from one shoulder. She lowered it to a lump on the ground and cast a puzzled look at Nell. “What’s up?”
“First, have some coffee,” Nell said.
Izzy beat her to the counter and filled a mug halfway, then poured in half-and-half until the coffee turned a rich mocha color. “You seem like a cream kind of person.”
Willow smiled, her eyes still holding questions. “I was on my way to the knitting studio, Izzy. I thought I could help you so we can get this over with, like maybe Saturday. Then I need to leave. I’m moving on.”
“You may need to stick around for a bit, Willow,” Ben said. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“I knew there was something going on, with all of you sitting here like this, like a jury or something. What happened? Did the police decide to press charges because I slept in your window, Izzy? That was so dumb of me. Could Purl be my defense? She lured me in.” She attempted a smile. “If I go to jail, Purl goes with me.”
“No, of course not. No charges.”
Ben cleared his throat. “Willow, we found out last night that Aidan Peabody—the man who died last Saturday—”
“The man who was killed,” Willow said.
Nell looked over at Willow, surprised at her tone. It was more curious than the expected low, sad tone people used with deaths—planned or otherwise. But then, she reminded herself, Willow was a stranger in this town.
Ben nodded. “Aidan left a will.”
Willow leaned her back against the center island, her sandals planted firmly on the floor. She looked at Ben and held her coffee mug up to her lips so the steam rose in front of her face. “Is that unusual? People do that, right?” she said. “Most artists are starving though, I guess. His place was an awful mess. He probably didn’t have much.
”
“Actually, he had plenty,” Ben said.
Willow’s expression didn’t change. She leveled a look at Ben and said, “Oh?”
“And he left it all to you, Willow. Every last penny.”
Willow’s mouth fell open but no words came out. The only sound was the coffee cup that slipped from her fingers and shattered across the hardwood kitchen floor. Nell, standing near the island, was the closest to Willow. She reached out instinctively and, in one swift movement, was able to cushion her fall as Willow’s body slid down the side of the island and onto the floor in a silent, graceful faint.
Chapter 12
Nell’s first thought was to call the Endicott family physician, Doc Hamilton.
But in the next minute, Ben scooped Willow’s limp body from the floor without a puff of exertion and settled her on the couch in his den. Almost immediately her eyelids began to flutter, then pulled open to look blankly into the four faces staring down at her.
And then her eyes closed again, by design this time, Nell could see. She was blocking them all out briefly—a temptation Nell could completely understand.
“Willow, honey, I’m leaving a glass of water on the table,” she whispered. “And we’re in the next room if you need us.”
A slight nod indicated consciousness, and the group moved into the kitchen.
Minutes later Chief Jerry Thompson showed up in a police car, but without the circling lights that brought neighbors onto their porches.
“He did it as a favor to us,” Ben told Nell a short while later.
Izzy had left before the chief arrived, sprinting the few short blocks to her own home to shower and dress for work, and Birdie had climbed onto her bike and headed to the retirement home where she taught tap dancing on Thursdays. In the den, Chief Jerry Thompson sat with Willow behind closed doors.
“A favor, Ben?” Nell frowned. After fainting the way she had, Willow needed some orange juice, a spinach omelet, and some toast with jam, not the chief of police.
“He could have sent Tommy Porter or some other rookie to ask her to come to the station to talk. But he didn’t.”
“But why does he need to talk to her at all? Being in someone’s will is not a murderous offense.”
But Nell wasn’t asking a real question, and after more than a quarter century of being married, Ben knew that, too, and held his silence. She was protesting a situation she found awful, whether valid or not—that was all.
Willow was clearly surprised to be Aidan’s heir. Nell was surprised—they all were. In fact, it made no sense, and Nell would have preferred being the one to talk with Willow first about why a stranger would leave her all his earthly belongings, not the chief of the Sea Harbor police, as nice a man as Jerry Thompson was.
Ben said he’d handle the situation in the den and show the chief out when he was finished, and Nell gratefully escaped upstairs to finally take her morning shower. The clean spray refreshed her body and her spirit, and after rubbing her hair briskly, she felt far more ready to face the day. She glanced in the bedroom mirror and pushed her shoulder-length hair into some sort of order. Gray flecks melted into the warm honey brown waves like cinnamon and powdered sugar. Every once in a while Nell considered asking Mary Jane at the salon to put some college brown—as her friends called it—into her hair. But she never quite went though with it, deciding she was more comfortable letting come what might. Ben liked it—and they matched better, he said, his own flecked sideburns warmed with white highlights. But most likely it was avoiding the fuss of having to do one more maintenance task as she aged. And Nell liked keeping those at a minimum.
She pulled on a slim pair of tan cropped pants and a cornflower blue cotton sweater that Izzy had knit for her, and headed down the back stairs. She’d insist on making the spinach-and-feta omelet for Willow. They’d sit on the deck and talk. And things would fall in place.
But when Nell walked into the kitchen and family area, the house was eerily quiet.
The chief was gone, and a glance out the window told her his police car was blessedly absent from the driveway as well.
But Willow was gone, too—and the old bike she was borrowing no longer lay on the lawn where she’d dropped it when Ben called her in.
And Ben—much to Nell’s chagrin—Ben was gone, too.
Sometimes men have no sense, she thought. He should never have allowed Willow to get back on that bike without eating some breakfast.
But Ben had saved himself somewhat from Nell’s displeasure by leaving a sticky note on the kitchen island, right next to the portable phone. He had a meeting over at the yacht club, it read. And Willow had gone out to Brendan’s cottage to have breakfast with him. She had assured Ben before she left that she was fine, after drinking a full glass of orange juice to satisfy him.
A follow-up phone call, pulling Ben briefly from his meeting, gave Nell the details he had neglected to address. Willow had told the chief she had absolutely no idea why Aidan Peabody left her anything in his will. She had never met the man, she’d said. And, frankly, she didn’t really want any of his things—they could auction them off and give the money to a children’s foundation or something, she told Jerry.
Nor, Willow said, did she murder the man. A ridiculous suggestion, she had told the chief in very clear, somewhat colorful terms.
But in spite of her bluster, Ben thought he saw a dampness in the corner of her eyes. And he had no idea what that was about.
The interview, Ben said, had left Jerry Thompson frustrated. But it had brought color back to Willow’s cheeks, lit her eyes with fire, and by the time she set off on the bike, she had enough energy in her small body to ride from Massachusetts to Michigan or Wisconsin or wherever the hell she was from.
Grilled shrimp satay with a light, tangy peanut sauce, toasted pearl couscous with lemon basil, tomatoes, and chunks of fresh mozzarella cheese from Harry Garozzo’s deli. That should do it, Nell thought. Birdie would arrive with chilled wine, and Cass had already put the pistachio ice cream from Scoopers into the freezer.
The food wouldn’t lessen the drama of the day, Nell knew, but it would definitely help. And Thursday night knitting without food and drink simply wasn’t Thursday night knitting.
Nell walked over to the wall of windows at the back end of the studio’s knitting room and looked out over the harbor and the sea beyond. This view from Izzy’s shop usually brought her peace on hectic days. From here she could see all the way to the breakwater and protected beach of the yacht club at the northern edge of the town. A tentacle of land below it jutted out into the sea and held a park that was special to the whole town, Anja Angelina Park—or Angus’ Place, as the locals called it.
And a little closer in, the shore swung around like a jump rope and embraced Canary Cove, its narrow roads dotted with the studios and galleries. She could see the old rickety dock below the Artist’s Palate. It looked empty today, though from this distance, Nell couldn’t really tell. Several small motorboats, probably belonging to artists from the cove, were moored to the side of the dock closest to her and bobbed in the water. For a minute, she imagined Aidan sitting at the end of it with Jane and Ham, their legs hanging over the edge, cold beers in hand as they mused about life, art, and love—and funerals.
Had Aidan thought of his will while sitting out there with his good friends? Had he entertained the thought of leaving everything he owned and had worked a lifetime for to a strange young woman named Willow? Maybe she had come into his studio that day as she wandered around Canary Cove. Maybe he’d looked at her with those deep, penetrating eyes—and he saw in the young woman the seeds of a talented artist, one without obvious means—and on a whim, he wrote her into his will. It was not a gesture most people she knew would make—but Aidan marched to a different drummer. There was no telling what Aidan Peabody would do.
Nell sat down next to Purl on the padded seat below two open windows. The cat was curled up tight and looked like a ball of calico yarn. Absently, she scratch
ed Purl behind her ears, thinking about Willow and half listening to Izzy and Cass in the next room—the cotton room, Izzy called it, because three walls were filled from floor to ceiling with white cubbies crammed full of soft and nubby, bright and muted skeins of cotton yarn. A new shipment of a cotton-silk blend had arrived today—an event not unlike Christmas morning for Izzy—and the two women were emptying the packing crates and filling the cubes, but not without touching and smelling and rubbing the fibers against their cheeks.
It was an addiction, Nell thought with some pleasure. There was far more to knitting and purling than making a sweater or scarf or pair of socks. Far more.
“There you are.” Izzy came into the room, taking the three steps beneath the archway as one. Her arms were filled with twisted skeins of yarn, rich blends of cotton and silk in shades of peridot, cornflower, and all the colors of a summer rose garden. Cass followed close behind and immediately headed over to the table, where Nell had set out a basket of pita chips and a round of creamy Camembert.
“Oh, my,” Nell breathed, taking in the beautiful colors of the yarn. She got up and walked over to touch the vibrant yarn.
“I know, Aunt Nell. Aren’t they beautiful?” Izzy dropped the yarn on the coffee table, then sat down onto the couch and began lining up the skeins. “They’re all hand-dyed. It’s so scrumptious you won’t be able to keep your hands off it. The colors are unbelievable. I brought an assortment for you to see, but it’s the peridot-and-cobalt blend that I think you should use for your next project.”
“Use?” Nell had more unfinished projects than she could count—a knitter’s badge of honor, Izzy told her—but she was trying very hard to finish the blue cashmere scarf for Ben and a wool shawl for Birdie’s birthday. The shawl would give Birdie some warmth during the long Sea Harbor winter—something to wrap around her shoulders as she curled up in Sonny Favazza’s den, Birdie’s favorite room in the seaside estate Sonny left her. And then there was the sweater she wanted to make for Izzy. “What am I going to use it for?” She braced herself for Izzy’s answer, suspecting strongly another project was less than a few inches away from her.
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