A Finely Knit Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “It’s pretty awful for everyone. But especially Elizabeth Hartley,” Nell said.

  She had only repeated the awful incident at the Tea Shoppe to Ben—but the memory of Teresa’s harsh accusations was still raw in her head. Elizabeth had been visibly shaken, then very quiet on the walk home. She had tried to get Elizabeth to come for dinner, but she had graciously declined.

  Nell suspected—or hoped—that Jerry would get over to see her.

  “I can’t quite get my arms around this whole thing,” Danny said. “Maybe because I wasn’t there like you were, but it’s also because some people seem invincible. Blythe was one of them.”

  “There’s that,” Jane said. “But didn’t Orwell address invincibility? Something about the person who’s winning at a particular moment always seems invincible. Maybe in some other part of her life, she wasn’t winning . . .”

  Jane’s words settled around them as they sipped Ben’s martinis and thought about Blythe Westerland. She was on top of the world. In charge. At least that was what they’d thought. But maybe she wasn’t?

  “My mom and dad were really disturbed about the whole thing,” Danny said. “Mom said they had walked down to the shore at the party. It was romantic, she said. A perfect evening. And then they heard the news this afternoon, what little there was of it. And it all fell apart. Memories of the party would no longer hold anything romantic. The perfect party wasn’t perfect anymore.”

  “None of us has a clear idea of what happened,” Birdie said, “other than that Blythe died from a blow to the head. But what time, exactly? And wouldn’t someone have heard a tussle? Lots of people were going back and forth to the shore that night.”

  Ben nodded. “That night. It seems like we’ve been living with it for a while, that it has had time to fester and ferment—but it hasn’t even been a full day.”

  “Most of what I found on the Internet focused on Blythe’s life,” Birdie said. “Her civic involvement, her townhome in Boston, and here, her beauty.”

  There had been no marriages, no children, and the friends quoted in the reports seemed somehow remote, Nell added.

  Ben mixed a new shaker of martinis and strained the cocktail into glasses. “Jerry is a good chief. Smart and careful. He keeps things close to his chest until he’s sure what’s going on. And it’ll take a couple days just to sort out what really happened. Even finding the murder weapon will be a challenge. There are hundreds of rocks around those boulders near the boathouse. Ones that could be picked up and held in a hand—or two hands. And if the rock that had been used by the killer was then tossed or rolled down into the water on its own, the tide could have taken it to God knows where by now.”

  “So they may never find it,” Nell said.

  “Probably not.”

  “So, then, where does one even begin?” Jane asked.

  “With Blythe,” Izzy said. “That’s where you start. She’s the only one who knows what happened. Her life needs to be picked apart, piece by piece.”

  Danny was listening carefully to Izzy. He leaned toward her, his elbows resting on his knees, nodding in agreement. The former lawyer and the mystery writer—their brains traveling along the same road. “That might take some work,” he said. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Even though she’s been spending most of her time here for the last couple of years, I’m not sure any of us knew her very well.”

  “Well, someone did. Someone knew her well enough to want her dead,” Izzy said.

  The thought sobered them into silence, and for a few minutes the only sounds were the wind whistling through the giant elms and the pounding of the surf against the shore. Gulls, foraging above the water, squawked as they dove for their dinner.

  Birdie shivered and pulled her sweater tightly around her. “There’s such cruelty in all this. Hatred. How can it become so severe that it propels one to kill?”

  Nell sat quietly in the chaise, her head back and her eyes nearly closed, thinking about Birdie’s idle comment. How did hate evolve into the need to kill? Did it develop slowly—a slow-growing cancer that eventually reached an unbearable level, propelling action? She supposed there was that kind . . . but she couldn’t for the life of her come up with an example. Or the opposite, a hatred that springs forth suddenly, maybe out of love, even—or fear. Or maybe it wasn’t hatred at all that killed Blythe Westerland.

  “Danny has a point. I see Blythe often, but I couldn’t name one friend of hers,” Izzy was saying. “She was usually alone—”

  “I disagree, Iz. More often than not she had a man on her arm,” Cass said.

  Cass was trying with difficulty not to look at Danny. Nell could feel it, and Danny could, too. She could feel his body tense beside her. Danny could have known Blythe better, but he had resisted her blatant attention—and everyone knew it. At the time, Cass had, at first, been worried, and then relieved, her interest in Danny just begining to blossom. Nell wondered how she felt about that now.

  Nell got up and began bringing out the salads and breads, filling the long outdoor table with their dinner and keeping one ear on the conversation moving at odd angles around the circle of friends. Then she refreshed the cheese platter and settled back next to Danny. Ben followed suit and took the ribs off the grill, piling them on a platter and adding them to the mix. Sam took over at the bar and refreshed drinks.

  Izzy was exploring Cass’s comment. “Okay. Sure—she seemed to attract men. But were those men her friends? Sometimes I got the feeling they were blings—accoutrements, you know what I mean? I was thinking of ‘friends’ in the way you and I are friends. Blythe was almost always alone when she came into the yarn shop, even when she stayed for a while in the back room. I have to say, though, that she was always pleasant—knitting seemed to bring out the best in her.”

  “As it does with many of us,” Birdie said sweetly. She reached into her bag and pulled out a partially finished hat of soft merino wool—a sample for next week’s class at the school. She stroked the yarn as if it were Purl the calico cat, and then began rhythmically knitting the vibrant colors into a round. It was difficult to think about hatred with yarn in your lap and your blood pressure being lowered with each stitch. The process stoked her memory and she looked up. “I do know of one friend she had.”

  Nell turned from the table. Of course. How had they forgotten the recent encounter at the Tea Shoppe? And it wasn’t a handsome man once seen on Blythe’s arm, but a nondescript woman who had raged in pain, flinging out hurtful accusations.

  Attention turned to Birdie. “Teresa Pisano,” she said. “You all know her, Mary’s cousin. She’s been secretary in the administrative office at the school for several years. That’s probably where she and Blythe met.”

  Cass scoffed and dismissed it. “Teresa? No. I went to school with her. Blythe wouldn’t have been her friend.” What she didn’t say spoke louder than her words. Mousy, sad Teresa Pisano was the most unlikely choice of friend imaginable for the glamorous Blythe.

  “We don’t know how long they had been friends or if it was even a friendship, but Teresa is clearly devastated by Blythe’s death. Mary was trying to console her today in Polly’s Tea Shoppe,” Nell said.

  Nell and Birdie both sat quietly, hesitant, wondering if repeating the episode that had happened outside the Tea Shoppe would be gossip or helpful. Nell looked at Jane Brewster. She looked as though she was wondering the same thing.

  “Were you at your gallery this morning?” Nell asked her.

  Jane nodded. “The door was open. And what I didn’t hear, Josh Babson repeated for me.”

  “Oh, yes, Josh,” Nell said. Josh had bothered her inordinately by his stance, his presence, and what she still imagined was a slight grin before he disappeared back into the gallery.

  Birdie went on to relate the brief but awkward encounter between Elizabeth and Teresa. “Elizabeth was shaken
but composed, as is her way,” Birdie said.

  “And Mary was chagrined by her cousin’s actions. I imagine Teresa got an earful, grieving or not.”

  “That’s the kind of incident that’ll find its way back to the police,” Danny said.

  “No. It was said out of grief,” Nell said, but her words came back to her, sounding hollow—just as she knew they did to everyone on the deck. Danny was right. The police would need to hear about the accusation, as outlandish as it was.

  She met Birdie’s look. The two of them, more than the others gathered on the deck, would know where Teresa’s outburst would lead.

  The accusation would lead to other things, to more questions—and eventually would wind its way to a recent board meeting.

  The board meeting in which Blythe Westerland had tried to get Elizabeth Hartley fired from the job she dearly loved.

  Chapter 13

  F or reasons she couldn’t explain to herself, Nell hadn’t talked more about Josh Babson with Jane and Ham during dinner or later in the evening, when the drop in temperature had brought them all inside, where they’d made themselves comfortable in the Endicotts’ open living space. Maybe it was because she didn’t know what to ask or to say.

  Would she say that Josh had stared at them from outside the street, outside Jane’s Gallery? But Jane already knew that and she didn’t think it odd. The startling, unusual thing was Teresa’s screaming. It was the hurling of awful accusations. And Josh had nothing to do with that.

  Was it that she didn’t trust him or that he made her wary or that he had a puzzling smile? That made little to no sense, not without reasons for her feelings. And she had none. Jane and Ham would have thought her a bit daft. Not to mention that she didn’t know Josh Babson well enough to feel any particular way about it—or him—at all. Even Birdie hadn’t totally shared her feelings when they talked about it on the way home. He was friendly to Birdie, and she had bought one of his seascapes for Harold because he loved the stormy colors Josh had used in the painting.

  So she’d held her silence and didn’t mention his name until after the last car had driven away after midnight, and she and Ben coaxed their weary bodies up the back steps and to bed.

  Ben listened in the dark, his arms folded behind his head.

  “It’s a feeling,” she said.

  “Your feelings have always been worth listening to.”

  “Maybe not this time. I’m not even sure what my feeling is about him. He’s a talented artist. He said nice things about Gabby—and she likes him, too. Jane and Ham don’t seem to have reservations about him. They trust him in their gallery.”

  Ben was quiet, knowing that Nell’s thoughts sometimes became clearer to her as she spoke them aloud to a trusted ear.

  “On the other hand, he vandalized the yard. Blythe obviously had strong reasons for wanting him fired. Some, I suspect, she didn’t even tell us about. And he showed up at the party—less than a week after being fired and having shown his displeasure in a very graphic way. What does that say about a person? That he is arrogant and wants to prove a point? That he has a grudge that needs to be satisfied?” Nell listened intently to the night sounds as if they had the answer.

  Ben was right. Saying it out loud helped, but the words didn’t put a period on anything. It was nothing but a feeling. But one that she couldn’t shake loose, even as she pulled the down comforter up to her chin and pressed herself into the welcoming curve of Ben’s side, his arm around her, his heartbeat right beneath her fingertips.

  Even then.

  Chapter 14

  S unday’s paper featured the murder at the school, as everyone knew it would. Many Sea Harbor residents didn’t read news online, and their first grasp of the tragic happening—beyond that of rumor—would be the Sunday Sea Harbor Gazette.

  Nell and Ben followed Annabelle Palazola out to the deck of the Sweet Petunia Restaurant, listening to the restaurant owner’s litany of rumors and comments and theories about what really had happened that Friday night.

  “No one really knows, that’s the only thing that is clear,” was the restaurant owner’s conclusion as she ushered them over to their usual Sunday table—the one at the end of the narrow deck that allowed for expansion, depending on who joined them that particular day. “You already have company, by the way,” she said, then disappeared back into the kitchen through an outside door.

  Cass was already at the table, the Sunday paper spread out in front of her and a half-empty cup of coffee next to it. Harry Winthrop sat across from her, his mustache perfectly trimmed and his large sunglasses reflecting the trees that towered above the edge of the deck. He seemed in another world entirely, his gaze on the sailboats just visible in the distant harbor.

  Nell held back her surprise at seeing him. Birdie often showed up with a nonregular, as she called them. Why shouldn’t Cass? Why, indeed? He was certainly welcome, as Ben had made clear the night before.

  They both looked up as shadows fell across the table.

  “You’re late,” said Cass.

  Nell laughed. If Cass came at all, she usually dragged in last for Sunday brunch. Sleep, she claimed, sometimes trumped food. Not often, but sometimes. “You might be a good influence on our Cass,” she said to Harry.

  Harry partially stood and shook hands, then sat back down. “She’s the one with influence,” he said. “She pounded on my door early today, telling me it was time for breakfast and I’d like this place.” He glanced around. “It’s nice. I don’t remember it being here when I was a kid.”

  “Annabelle opened it after her husband, Joe, died at sea. She had five children to raise, a great talent for cooking, and lots of friends. This place was an old shack, up on this hill overlooking Canary Cove, and she literally transformed it.”

  Ben filled their cups from the carafe on the table. “With the help of Joe’s friends—all fellow fishermen determined to help Annabelle through those rough days. They practically built this place with their own hands.”

  “But we don’t normally let tourists know about it,” Cass said. “So you’re lucky, Winthrop.”

  “You calling me a tourist?” he asked.

  Cass just laughed, then turned her attention back to the newspaper. Across from her, Harry leaned one arm on the railing and sat back in his chair, quiet.

  Nell watched him as he looked at something beyond the deck and the art colony at the bottom of the hill, beyond the harbor. He glanced over at Cass now and then, a look that said little to Nell—affection? Friendship? He seemed to like being there with her. Having a friend, being included. But he made little attempt to know anyone.

  Every now and then Cass looked up, smiled at him. She was comfortable. Relaxed. And she seemed to have taken a little more time with makeup and clothes than she usually did for breakfast with her friends. Her T-shirt was gone, replaced by a vibrant yellow blouse and colorful lace scarf that Nell had knit for her last birthday. Her thick black hair was loose, the waves dark and dramatic against her tan skin.

  “Your omelet’s getting cold,” Ben said gently, tugging her out of her thoughts. He turned to Cass. “Is there anything new in the paper?”

  “No. It’s all hearsay. And irritating, that’s all,” Cass said. She pointed to the largest photo accompanying the article about the murder, the one of the school. “The school doesn’t need this kind of attention. The murder probably had nothing to do with the school. Why focus on it?”

  Beneath a full photo of the school was the caption S.H. COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL: A SEA HARBOR LANDMARK MIRED IN MURDER.

  “They used the old name of the school in the headline,” Nell said with her own touch of irritation. It was almost a silent protest. Elizabeth, with the approval of most board members, had changed the school’s name to indicate the emphasis on community involvement—and Blythe Westerland had led the charge in objecting to the change, but she had lost that figh
t. And now some reporter, although he mentioned the new name later in the article, had put it back out there in large print, almost as if giving Blythe the last word. What must it be like for Elizabeth to wake up to this and find the school she loved so clearly advertised in such a tragic way?

  Birdie walked over to the table. Gabby was a step behind, comfortable and smiling in her customary jeans and T-shirt.

  “I finally got my granddaughter back,” Birdie said as Ben added two chairs to the long table. “I thought the Danverses weren’t going to let her go, but Harold and I went over and claimed her this morning. He and Ella were falling into a depressed state without Gabby in the house. ‘It’s a tomb,’ Ella told me, and we certainly can’t have that.”

  Gabby’s laugh was full and contagious, unrestrained. And as it always did, it drew smiles from everyone.

  “It’s awful about Ms. Westerland,” she said, taking a fried apple biscuit from the basket. She dug a spoon into a jug of Annabelle’s homemade apple butter and spread it on the warm yeast roll.

  Birdie watched her devour the pastry. “How will you ever leave Sea Harbor? You’re addicted to those biscuits.”

  “Annabelle promised to teach me how to make them. She’s doing a cooking class at school as part of our enrichment program, and these are what we’re making.” She wiped the flakes of fried dough from her mouth and looked over at Cass’s newspaper. The old boathouse was pictured front and center.

  “Dr. Hartley sent us all e-mails,” Gabby said, her eyes on the newspaper photo. “Every person in the whole school.”

  A wise thing to do, they all agreed. The students would get their information one way or another, and it was best coming from the woman who was at the helm of their school—and who cared deeply about the girls under her roof.