“I think it’ll be perfect to use for Willow’s sweater. It will be all the colors of the sea blended together. This will be perfect, and I know she will love it.”
“Willow?”
“Don’t you think so? We can take turns working on it if you’re too busy—our stitch tension is about the same. It’ll be a nice reminder of Sea Harbor—and a thank-you for sharing her art with us.”
“She’s still willing to talk to your customers?”
“Well, I’m not sure, actually. We were going to meet today, but she never showed up. I guess maybe she won’t want to, with all this craziness going on in her life. But Sam saw her today—she was over at Brendan Slattery’s house. It’s right near Sam’s new place—he was having it inspected and ran into her and Brendan bringing in some groceries. Anyway, she told Sam she might join us tonight.”
“So she stayed with Brendan all day,” Nell mused, half to herself. She had walked down to the guesthouse several times, worried about Willow after the morning’s trauma, though Ben had assured her that the Willow who drove off on the bike looked like she could handle just about anything that came her way. A beach house was probably a good place for her, Nell thought, away from the speculations that had already begun to spread around the town.
Cass looked over from the table, where she was cutting a fat wedge of Camembert. “So another mouth for our knitting feast?” She raised a questioning brow.
“Nell always brings too much food—you know that, Cass. Name the Thursday we didn’t have leftovers.”
“But the leftovers are the best part of it,” Cass grumped. “They’re my Friday lunch and dinner.”
Nell laughed at Cass’ feeble protest. For all her complaints, she’d be the first to invite someone to join them if there was a need. Though Izzy, Cass, Birdie, and Nell had met in the back room of Izzy’s studio almost from the shop’s beginning and were the Thursday Night Knitting Club, they never turned anyone away who needed company or a brief hiatus from their life. And they hadn’t yet been short on food, even when Cass went back for her usual seconds and sometimes thirds.
The group itself had formed by serendipity—a chance meeting on a lovely summer night of four women who shared a passion for knitting.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true, Nell thought. Cass had clearly come in that night because she smelled the lemon seafood pasta. Nell had brought it in for Izzy, who was working late. Cass’ own cupboard held a scanty collection of canned soup and ramen noodles, and the Thursday night feast had changed her life forever, she claimed. And even her knitting had changed—after a few seasons of knitting scarves and hats for nearly every fisherman in Sea Harbor and one wrap for her mother, Cass was hooked—and maybe ready to move on to socks, though the thought of turning heels still caused a slight tremor in the lobsterwoman’s hands.
Cass carried the plate of cheese over to the table and sat down in one of the leather chairs—one of Ben Endicott’s contributions to the backroom after Nell redid his den. “Actually, I hope she comes. We need to get the scoop on what’s going on.”
“Scoop?” Birdie Favazza walked down the three steps into the knitting room. “You must be talking about dear little Willow. Even the retirement home folks are talking about Aidan’s will. Goodness.” Birdie shook her head sadly. “It certainly gives Willow a motive for his murder, though I don’t think that little thing could hurt a fly.”
Birdie moved over to the fireplace and set her knitting bag in front of it. She pulled two bottles of chilled pinot grigio out of her backpack and displayed them on the square table in the middle of the sitting area.
“Light lemony-citrus flavor. Refreshing,” she said, giving her weekly wine review. “My Sonny used to order this from Italy by the case.” Though Sonny Favazza had died years before, he had been—and would always be—the light of Birdie’s life. Her true and forever love, she said. All subsequent husbands knew the rules of courtship and marriage early on—they could live in the three-story Favazza home—a grand stone structure that commanded a sweeping view of the sea and town of Sea Harbor. And Birdie would keep the name Favazza. All or nothing was Birdie’s credo.
“When is Willow coming?” Birdie continued. “I see our Cass is on her way to devouring the Camembert.” She leaned down and pulled a half-finished cap from her knitting bag.
“There’s another in the fridge,” Cass said, glowering at Birdie.
“I’m just teasing you. A sign of great affection.” Birdie held the soft cap up. It was a grassy green head-hugging hat, worked in soft cashmere with accents of fleecy eyelash yarn. It was bright and eye-catching, and as silky as a newly sprouted lawn.
“Birdie, that’s just wonderful.” Izzy leaned over and touched the soft fly-away yarn. “It will be our demo for my next cap class. You’re the best.”
“It’s cheery,” Nell said. “It’s perfect.”
“I already have a dozen people signed up for the next head-hugging class. I think we’ll have enough caps to fill the whole oncology center by summer’s end.”
Nell fingered the cap and thought about the good things Izzy’s shop had provided for Sea Harbor residents in the scant year and a half it’d been open. A place to be together and share one another’s burdens, to exercise that instinctive need to help someone else.
When Harriet Brandley, wife of the bookstore owner next door to Izzy’s shop, was being treated for breast cancer and lost her hair in the dead of a Sea Harbor winter, the Seaside knitters kept her comfortable and her head warm with a collection of brightly colored knit hats—some for bedtime, others for home wear and about town, and even a fancy golden cap for the annual Christmas party.
Seeing the caps lying around the back room, customers signed up by the dozens to help. And the cap class became a regular event in the Seaside Studio backroom. They’d explored other groups online, collected patterns, and instantly felt connected to women all over the country keeping bare heads warm.
“So you’ll do the sweater?” Izzy asked, her non sequitur going unchallenged. “Here’s a pattern I thought that would be perfect. It’s a fisherman knit—kind of—but more delicate and slouchy because of the fleecy blend. I think it will be absolutely perfect. And maybe you can do a hat if there’s any left over.”
Izzy handed it all over to Nell—needles and all—ready to go.
Nell looked at the picture and read through the pattern. She looked up. “It’s wonderful. You’re absolutely right. It will be the perfect gift to remind her of the good parts of her stay in Sea Harbor.” The sweater was a little longer than usual, and would be soft and comfortable to wrap up in on cold winter days. The broad waistband was worked up in a rickrack pattern for definition, and the main body design was a combination of cables—sand pattern, horseshoe, and shadow—with stockinette stitch in between. But it was the yarn itself that sold Nell. It would not only look amazing on Willow with her dark, thick hair and eyes; it would be a joy to knit. She let it slip through her fingers, the silky soft blend bringing with it a kind of comfort. This yarn and the lovely pattern it would grow into were about as far away from thoughts of murder as Nell could possibly imagine. Izzy was right. It was the perfect project—and Ben’s scarf and Birdie’s shawl would get done, too—all in good time. Nell measured out a stretch of yarn and began casting on for her gauge.
Voices in the outer room and the sound of Birkenstocks on the wooden floor signaled Willow’s arrival. Nell smiled to herself, strangely comforted by the fact that Willow had, in fact, come.
Willow walked down the steps and looked around the room. Her dark hair flew in wild tangles around flushed cheeks. Her voice was tentative. “Mae said I should just come on back.”
“That’s exactly what you should do. Welcome, Willow.” Nell put her knitting down and walked across the room to give her a quick hug. She wasn’t quite sure yet if Willow was a hugging kind of person, but no matter. Living in the Endicott guesthouse for almost a week and fainting on Nell’s kitchen floor surely granted Nel
l some kind of hugging rights.
Willow allowed the embrace, but Nell could feel the tension in her small frame. She was tight as the spring on Pete and Cass’ lobster traps. Nell held her apart and looked into deep black eyes.
“You’ve had quite a day, sweetie. Come, sit, and have a glass of Birdie’s pinot grigio. It will cure all what ails you.”
Willow’s brows lifted into an impromptu line of bangs. “I think it might take a whole case to do that, Nell.” She sat down beside Izzy and dropped her backpack to the floor. She looked around the room again.
“This is the first time I’ve seen this room without a crowd of Izzy’s customers milling around.” She took in the windows opening to the sea, the clean white walls and bookcases filled with books, magazines, an iPod playing soft strains of an old Melissa Etheridge song. The heavy wooden table, pocked from needles and scissors and the press of pencils on patterns, stood in the middle and Willow walked over to it, running her fingers along the surface.
“What a friendly place. It makes me want to curl up and never leave. I know why Purl loves it here.” She looked over at the sleeping cat on the window seat. “I think I want her life.”
“The Seaside Knitting Studio is a welcoming refuge for Sea Harbor knitters,” Nell said.
“Even the UPS guy likes coming back here and having a cup of coffee,” Cass added. “Though making coffee isn’t exactly Izzy’s forte, but the man in brown doesn’t seem to mind.”
“Quiet, Cass,” Izzy said. “Mae has pretty much taken that over. Our coffee has vastly improved.”
“Well, this whole place is cool,” Willow said.
As if on cue, Purl, having bided her time on the window seat, moved across the room and leapt up into Willow’s lap.
They all laughed. Purl to the rescue, breaking the awkward tension of a room filled with questions but dealing with pleasantries to cover it up. “Well, it looks like our Purl wouldn’t mind a room-mate,” Birdie said. She leaned over and poured Willow a glass of golden pinot. “And here you are, my dear. We don’t have a case at the ready, but one glass is a fine start.”
“So . . . you want to come in on Saturday and talk to folks?” Izzy asked, pulling out a pair of buttery yellow socks that she was knitting up as a demo for the next Sumptuous Socks class. “We get so many people in here on Saturday that we wouldn’t need to advertise.” Tentacles of soft yarn trailed across her lap.
Purl looked over with interest, then settled her head back on Willow’s lap.
“I dunno, Iz. I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
Nell watched as Willow reached over, as knitters do, and touched the squishy cashmere socks. Her face registered the pleasure of fingers on exquisite yarn.
“Willow, we’re friends here,” Nell said. “You’re safe.” The words came out without thought.
But the effect on the young woman—curled up like Purl, her Birks abandoned on the floor and her T-shirt sporting a faded image of the Beatles—was unexpected.
Willow’s forehead wrinkled first, and in the next instant, huge tears filled her black eyes and began to roll down her cheeks in rivers, dripping from her chin and dampening the worn shirt.
The four women leaned slightly forward, each ready to take away the sorrow that filled the young woman’s eyes.
“Dear,” Nell said.
Izzy’s arm instinctively wrapped around her shoulders.
Willow looked at the four women surrounding her like a fortress. “I didn’t kill him,” she said.
“Of course you didn’t,” Birdie answered in a tone that would have melted a prosecutor in one robust swoop. She handed Willow a tissue and repeated her words like a mantra, impressing it on each of them. “Of course you didn’t kill him.”
Willow took the tissue and shook her head. “I couldn’t have killed him. I wouldn’t have done that.”
She brushed the tears from her cheeks with the tissue, her head shaking from side to side to emphasize the truth to her words. And then she looked up, a calmness slowly returning to her body. “I wanted to kill him. I’ve wanted to kill him my whole, entire life.”
The women stared at her: Izzy from behind her cranberry cashmere sock and Birdie from the cast-on row of another soft cap—this one a bright canary color designed for a child. Nell set her finished gauge in her lap next to the balls of yarn that she could already picture Willow wearing.
No one said a word. They waited silently for Willow to continue.
Purl looked up into the tearstained face of the woman whose lap she had claimed and purred loudly.
Go on, it’s okay, she seemed to say.
Willow looked down at Purl and her voice grew strong again.
“I couldn’t have killed him. He was my father.”
Chapter 13
The dam had burst, right there in the middle of Izzy’s back room. Once Willow began talking, the words poured out.
“My mom met him in college. At least he was in college. And that’s where he left her, too—in Madison, Wisconsin, in a walk-up apartment, a crummy studio that didn’t even have a window. It was the only place my mom could afford. He just walked off into the night. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. At first my mom told me she was in college, too. But later, one of my friends told me that she heard my mom never went to college. She got mad at my grandma one day and she and a friend ran away to Madison. She was still in high school. When she got pregnant, her friend called my grandparents and told them where they were. They showed up in the middle of the night and took her back to their farm near Green Bay.”
For a moment there wasn’t any sound except Purl’s purring. Finally Nell leaned forward, her thoughts jumbled as she tried to fit this new version of Aidan Peabody into the man she knew.
“So . . . did he . . . Aidan . . . know where she’d gone?”
Willow’s narrow shoulders lifted, then dropped. “I don’t know.”
“Did you know your father’s name?” Izzy asked.
“No, not until a couple months ago, after my grandmother died. For my whole life I heard about the man out there somewhere who had ruined my mom’s life. That’s what my grandparents said over and over and over. And when my mom died, Grams said that he had killed her.”
It was Izzy’s turn. “Killed her? Aidan Peabody killed your mom?”
Willow hesitated a minute before answering, as if she were choosing her words with care. She shifted on the couch and looked at Izzy. “Not like that. He didn’t use a gun or a knife or poison. But he destroyed her life, Grams said. He took her soul.”
“How old were you when your mom died, Willow?” Birdie tucked her glasses up into her hair and set the cap down on the table.
“I was six, but I remember it. It was cold out, and I remember the wind blowing through the cracks and making the shutters creak. I was scared that night. Then my mom came into my room and kissed me good night. She said she loved me. And I never saw her again. My grandparents didn’t think I knew what happened that night. They told me it was time for the angels to take my mom to heaven.
“But everyone knew what happened—you know how small towns are. I heard neighbors and kids on the school bus talking. I knew. My mom went out that night and she got drunk, and her car crashed into a tree. My grandparents never got over it.”
Nell resisted the temptation to wrap the young woman in her arms. At that moment, Willow’s pain seemed as acute as if she had lost her mother that very day.
Willow looked at the cap Birdie was knitting and touched the edging. “It’s so pretty, Birdie. I’d like to make one, too. Grams had cancer.”
“Well, my dear, of course you will make a cap with me,” Birdie assured her.
“It looks like I’ll have time.” A flash of anger lit Willow’s eyes, fighting against the sadness. “I wanted to leave. I don’t even know why I came. I guess . . . I guess to see this . . . person. To tell him how awful he was. How he killed my mom. He needed to know what he did. He just needed to know that. And then I was goi
ng to get as far away as I could and put my life in order. But then . . .” Willow paused.
“But then he died,” Nell finished.
Willow swallowed around the lump in her throat and looked up. “He’s still ruining my life—isn’t that the best part? The police said I can’t leave, not for a while. They don’t believe me, of course. They think I killed him.”
“Do they know Aidan Peabody is your father, Willow?”
Willow shook her head again. “I didn’t tell them. I was so mad that they would think I could kill someone that I didn’t tell them anything.”
“Sometimes the police have a problem sorting through things—that’s true enough,” Cass said. She’d been plenty annoyed with the Sea Harbor force when they took weeks to find the man pilfering her lobster traps the summer before. She leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees and her eyes, nearly as dark as Willow’s, looking at the other woman. “But they’re not bad guys, Willow. We don’t have a lot of murders around here. They try their best.”
“And, sweetie,” Birdie added, her voice laced with common sense, “Aidan’s death made you a relatively well-off young woman. In the law’s eyes, that’s a pretty strong motive for murdering the man. You need to face the facts that they are looking at. And then we need to show them that they are wrong.”
“I didn’t know he had a penny. And I don’t much care. I told the police that. In a way it makes it worse that he had money.”
It did make it worse, Nell thought, a lot worse. Though not in the way Willow meant. She was probably imagining how helpful that money would have been growing up—to her mother and to herself. To her, it was just another black mark on her father’s soul. “You’ll have to tell them that Aidan is your father, Willow. If you’re sure about that?”
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