A Finely Knit Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Elizabeth seemed to deflate slightly from the kindness, her professional smile and demeanor slipping away with each of Nell’s words. What remained was an ordinary woman with tired eyes. A sad woman.

  “Would you join me for a cup of coffee?” she asked.

  Her voice told them the coffee didn’t matter a bit, but a few minutes with friends did.

  Yes, they could help, at least by being present, if nothing else.

  They walked through the empty outer office and Nell glanced at the tall counter and the small receptionist’s desk behind it. A white plastic rectangle read TERESA PISANO.

  Elizabeth followed her look. “Teresa didn’t come in yesterday. She showed up today but spent most of the time cleaning her desk and was clearly too upset to concentrate. I had the assistant headmistress suggest she take a few days off. She’s having a difficult time handling this.”

  Her sigh was resigned. “I think she came back because she was afraid I might look at her things or do something.” Her voice trailed off and she looked again at the empty desk as if it might have some answers for her. “Do something? I don’t know what I would do . . .”

  She moved on into her own office, her words trailing behind her.

  Nell glanced at the desk again and wondered briefly what motivated Teresa Pisano to hurl such awful accusations at her boss. Was it simply grief—or something more?

  The memory of Teresa’s rant rattled around in Nell’s head, and she imagined how clearly it must appear in Elizabeth’s. Had Teresa repeated those same words to others? To people who would cast them off as meaningless rants from a young woman grieving a friend, but would remember them later, wonder about them? Maybe even pass them along to others until they took on a life of their own?

  Nell and Izzy settled into the comfortable seating area at one end of the tasteful room. A coffee table held a pot of coffee and tray of mugs, some used, some clean.

  Elizabeth glanced at the table. “Please excuse this mess. I’ve had a parade of parents in today and haven’t had time to straighten up.”

  “Parents?” Izzy said.

  “They want to be assured their daughters are safe here.”

  “The police don’t think there’s a random crazy man out there,” Izzy said. “Why are they afraid?”

  “Because they are parents,” Elizabeth said, “I don’t blame them. Can you?”

  “No,” Izzy admitted. “You’re right. A part of me is logical, rational, and knows this was a targeted action. It had to have been a personal thing between Blythe and whoever did it and it doesn’t spill over into our lives. And yet I’m holding my Abby as close as I can. There’s no rationale behind or beyond my hugs. Just an umbrella kind of fear, I guess, until this person is behind bars.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “That’s the only thing that will end this nightmare.”

  “Blythe spent so much time around here,” Nell said. “I’ve been going over board meetings she attended, conversations I had with her. Anything that might point to someone or something that was bothering her.”

  “And you’ve come up empty, just as I have. Many of us had problems with her. That’s the hard part.”

  Nell thought about the recent firing of Josh Babson, and how Blythe had publicly blamed Elizabeth for it at the board meeting. It hadn’t made sense then, not entirely. Aloud she said, “She seemed concerned about Josh’s firing.”

  Elizabeth looked toward the lead glass windows. “Yes. She showed up in my office that day, wanting to be here when I fired the poor man. To help me, to make sure I did it right, whatever that meant. But I had moved the meeting up at the last minute and she missed it. What she didn’t miss was his dramatic departure. She had a ringside seat for that.”

  “The painting on the lawn?” Izzy said.

  She nodded. “We watched him, Blythe and me, from the windows over there. We could see the intense anger in his very posture as he walked across the lawn. Blythe assumed I had done it wrong—the firing, I mean. Somehow he should have been able to walk away with dignity, and instead he was filled with anger. I had messed up again, was her message.”

  “Anyone would have been upset,” Nell said. Blythe treated Elizabeth like a child, she thought. How utterly degrading. And yet . . . and yet there was a strength in the headmistress, despite how mild-mannered she sometimes seemed. Elizabeth Hartley had a kind of grit. The kind that would help her weather all kinds of Blythe Westerlands.

  “Sure. And he was upset. But he was a gentleman underneath it all. He sought me out at the Friday night party and apologized for slamming the door when he left.”

  “And the circles on the lawn?”

  Elizabeth managed a small smile. “No, he didn’t apologize for those. They weren’t meant for me, and Josh knew I knew that. Somehow he was aware that Blythe was up here watching. He probably saw her car in the lot or maybe saw her come in. I would never have mentioned her role in his firing, but somehow he knew without being told. I don’t know how, but I think those two had some bad blood between them.”

  She reached for her cell phone and turned to the film roll, found what she was looking for, and looked up. “Once Josh painted the yard and left, I went down to see the damage. I wasn’t sure at the time what we were dealing with, and both Blythe and I had seen something peculiar in one of the circles. It was more of a drawing, like a traffic sign, with a stick figure in the middle. So I went down to look, and when I saw what it was, I took a photo of it before Ira mowed it down.” She watched Izzy flipping through the photos of the yard. “I’m not sure what I was going to do with any of them. You get used to documenting things at a school—some for insurance reasons. Anyway, it seemed like something I should photograph. I knew Blythe blamed me for things, and—well, I’m not proud of it, but I suppose I thought maybe I should collect things that might protect me down the road.” She handed the phone to Nell and Izzy.

  Izzy used one finger to swipe through the photos of the bright yellow circles on the grass. She stopped at the last one, the circle Elizabeth—and Blythe—had seen from the window. The one that stood apart from the others.

  The yellow circle with a stick figure of a woman in the center, the bigger-than-life traffic sign in the middle of the school lawn. What they hadn’t seen from the window were the initials painted directly below the figure: BW. And slashed through the whole thing—a diagonal line, stretching like a threat from one edge to the other.

  The sign was clear. It wasn’t deer or trucks or skateboarders that weren’t allowed down that road.

  It was Blythe Westerland.

  Chapter 19

  N ell’s and Izzy’s phones both pinged at the same time as they left the school. Different message alert tones, but the same messages.

  Since the noontime meeting had been devoted not to teaching a knitting class, but to Bob Chadwick, Cass was calling for another session. There was no way she was going to face kids as precocious as Gabby Marietti and not have a better idea of what they were doing.

  Izzy called home. Sam was happy being home alone with Abby. They’d hang out, watch a Patriots game maybe, he said. Abby was suggesting pizza and beer. Baby food was for the birds.

  Ben was equally accommodating. He had some business to take care of and was taking Jerry Thompson out on the boat for a couple of hours to get him away from an increasingly frustrated force, not to mention the town. They weren’t making much headway, lots of dead ends, though each day they heard about someone new whose life was easier without Blythe Westerland in it.

  Izzy knew the back room in the yarn shop was already booked—Mae’s twin nieces were teaching a class to a Brownie troop to earn some kind of badge. Mae would oversee it all—and the shop—with her usual eagle eye.

  But it didn’t matter—no one wanted to cook, so Birdie arranged for Merry Jackson to save them a corner table on the Artist’s Palate deck in Canary Cove. It was a nice nig
ht and the Palate grill was a little more out of the mainstream than the Harbor Road restaurants. Privacy—at least a semblance of it.

  And she hadn’t had a perfect burger in at least a year.

  Merry had already set out her towering heaters, though they were on the lowest setting tonight because the breeze off the water was gentle, the air brisk but pleasant.

  “It’s a perfect evening to be outdoors.” Merry greeted them at the deck steps, flapping a handful of menus in the air. With her long blond braid bouncing between her shoulder blades, she led them through a maze of tables to one at the very edge of the deck. It was separated from the water by a sharp decline and a thick line of misshapen pine trees, the sea just visible in silvery streaks as the wind parted the heavy boughs.

  “I call this my ‘creative table,’” Merry said. “Danny Brandley has written all four of his bestselling mysteries right here, on this very picnic table. All four.” She tapped it with her fingernail, as if the words were still there, engraved in the wood. “So sit, eat, and think deep thoughts.” She grinned and disappeared, her energy palpable in the pine-scented air.

  Izzy lifted one leg over the bench on one side of the table. Cass joined her while Birdie and Nell pulled out chairs on the other side.

  “Merry’s wrong, you know,” Cass said, looking down at the tabletop as if the young restaurant owner had punctured it with her finger.

  “Wrong?” Izzy looked sideways at her friend, a lock of streaked hair falling down her cheek. She pushed it back behind her ear.

  “Danny wrote two of those books at my house,” Cass said. “He proofed them here.” She followed up her words with a smug look that said, So there, before picking up a menu that she knew by heart and scanning the type, effectively dismissing the topic.

  Nell slipped on her reading glasses and looked over at Cass. Well, that was interesting. It sounded to her as if Cass had Danny on her mind.

  “Where’s Harry tonight?” Birdie asked.

  “He was thinking of coming by. I said I had plans. He’s going to get a beer somewhere. I’ll see him later.”

  That was healthy, Nell thought—that Cass was making her own plans. It didn’t sound like a committed relationship. But the relationship still mystified her. And Cass said little to demystify it. Ben said it wasn’t up to them to figure it out, his gentle way of telling his wife to back off. Nell was trying.

  Merry had sent a waitress back with a pitcher of pale ale. “Merry says this will help the process.”

  “Is it what Danny drinks?” Izzy asked innocently, but wrinkling her nose at Cass.

  The waitress looked confused, but Izzy quickly agreed they’d love the pitcher of ale. And some glasses, too, please.

  Rather than spend time on the menu, they stacked them up and let Birdie order for all of them. Grilled steak burgers on Merry’s homemade toasted buns, sweet potato fries, and arugula with goat cheese salads to mask the cholesterol surge.

  It was a slow night, but Merry’s deck never went without its regulars, mostly Canary Cove artists and gallery owners who considered the restaurant their own kitchen. Rebecca Marks waved from across the way, mouthing a hello as she lifted a large lobster roll in the air. She was joined a minute later by her roommate, Jules Ainsley, the Brewsters, Josh Babson, and Polly Farrell from the Tea Shoppe. Nell watched the odd mix of friends and shopkeepers and artists, all of whom were at home on Merry’s deck whether they knew each other or not. There was no such thing as a stranger at the Artist’s Palate. There was always someone to talk to, someone to listen. It was a community all its own—and she loved it.

  Izzy reached down into her bag and pulled out a few sheets of paper. Her nod to the reason why they were there—the knitting class. But it was an excuse; they all knew that. The real reason they wanted to be together was different. It was a reason, but more of a need. The need to share the cloud they’d been walking under and through and around for four days. The one that was beginning to hover with threatening darkness over people they cared about.

  “I printed out some knitting information so Cass won’t be intimidated,” Izzy said. “It’s simple. It’s mostly about being patient so they don’t get nervous. And hey, we’re all good at that.”

  “Gabby will be in the class,” Birdie said.

  “Gabby? She could teach it,” Nell said.

  “Which she shall,” Izzy said. “She’ll help, especially with the kids who are more experienced like herself.”

  The waitress brought their order and they pushed the papers aside, allowing the table to be filled with piles of fries and burgers nearly as big as the plates they were served on.

  Cass dug into her sandwich almost before the waitress had left the table. “I’m worried about Angelo,” she said, around a bite of meat. “And so is Ma.” The Garozzo family had been friends with the Hallorans for generations, the two families proving to all of Sea Harbor that chianti and Guinness could live together in perfect harmony—not to mention deep friendship.

  Drips of butter escaped Cass’s bun and she caught them with the edge of her napkin. “His brother came into the office today to order lobsters for the deli. He’s worried. He said Angelo hated Blythe Westerland, talked about her all the time—”

  Nell nibbled on a fry and listened. Hated was an awful word—so harsh and somehow irrevocable. It was difficult to take back once you had hurled it out there. And yet what she had seen in Angelo’s eyes that afternoon fit the description.

  “Why do you think he felt that way?” Birdie asked. She wasn’t really aiming for an answer, but rather a discussion. “I sensed it, too, Friday night at the party. And even Gabby talked about it. She loves Angelo, but she sensed his anger. Blythe irritated him something awful, she said.”

  “I think he hated what Blythe was doing. She demeaned Elizabeth, objected to her plans for the school, made her life difficult,” Nell said. “He’s very protective of the headmistress.”

  “The police are sure to talk to him,” Nell said. “He’s a good man. But he wears his feelings on his sleeve, just like his brother. Big noisy Italians, both of them. And I saw him staring at Blythe that night. If looks could have done the deed, Angelo would have been responsible.”

  “But Angelo isn’t capable of killing anyone.” Izzy spoke definitively, but they all knew there was little meaning in her words.

  No one knew what another was capable of. Not until it happened. And then it was too late.

  “Gabby brought home some information today about a choir concert that the administrators and choir director are planning,” Birdie said. “They’re calling it a festival of some sort. It’s not completely defined yet, but Gabby is in the group and thrilled, of course.”

  Nell smiled. “It’s Elizabeth’s effort to erase the images people still hold about that night, about the school, and to replace them with something wonderful. Music is the perfect medium. Music and children. She’s a wise woman.”

  “According to Gabby, that’s what it will be. Wonderful. Joyful.”

  “But not unless we can drive away this fear before then,” Izzy said. “I doubt if anyone will want to gather on the front lawn of Sea Harbor Community Day School as long as Blythe’s murderer is still walking our streets. He was there, for heaven’s sake. Right there, on that lawn, or close by.” Her voice had slipped into the one Nell imagined her using in the courtroom, sensibly addressing a crime, the steps to a solution. Logical. Persuasive.

  But Izzy was right. The town was cowering, hesitant. Even though people went about their daily lives, they were looking over their shoulders, imagining evil in places where it didn’t have any right to be.

  Izzy went on. “It’s affecting Elizabeth Hartley in a terrible way. Aunt Nell and I saw it today.” She looked over at Nell, then repeated the talk they had had with the administrator that afternoon. “She’s a private person, but she’s in pain. You can see it in her
eyes.”

  “I think it’s going to get worse for her,” Cass said. “Pete says there’s talk down at the dock today that she’s going to be questioned again.”

  “Where do they get their information?” Nell asked with a touch of annoyance. But it didn’t really matter where. People listened, people talked. And people filled in the gaps with what might be.

  Izzy glanced across the room at Josh Babson, then told Birdie and Cass about the pictures Elizabeth had taken with her phone.

  “She needs to show those to the police,” Birdie said.

  “I thought the same thing,” Nell said. She followed Izzy’s glance to where Josh sat comfortably with his friends, draining a bottle of beer. His elbows were on the table, his head propped up by the heels of his palms. He looked serious, but calm. Certainly not guilt-ridden.

  She had gotten an e-mail from Jane the day before, or rather from the gallery itself, that the Brewster Gallery was going to be featuring some of Josh’s works. Ben wanted to go. Maybe that was a good idea.

  “I think Elizabeth has mixed feelings about saying anything,” she said. “I think she believes in Josh. And in a way she blames herself for his anger. If she had refused to fire him, things might be different.”

  “Do you mean Blythe wouldn’t be dead?” Cass asked.

  They were all quiet for a moment, the burgers taking center stage. What had she meant? Cass’s interpretation meant she was indicting the man. If he hadn’t been fired, he wouldn’t have killed Blythe? Picking the thought apart brought a realization of something that had been bothering her. “How would Josh have known so fast that Blythe was a powerful force behind his firing? He didn’t blame Elizabeth—he even apologized to her for showing some emotion that day. Elizabeth would never have told him about Blythe’s influence. She’d have taken full responsibility for it herself. Our board is also discreet.”