Trimmed With Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Good grief,” Izzy said, her eyebrows shooting up. She looked over at Charlie. His eyes were wide.

  Ben nodded. “Yes. Those aren’t exactly the words Stu used, but it gets to the point. Needless to say, it was a surprise, and not a happy one for some. I’m not even sure how Amber felt about it. All the nurseries are part of one company, so they’re tied together from a financial and legal standpoint, at least until they can figure it all out. If one does badly, it affects the whole. Garrett O’Neal—I’m not sure what his title is, but he keeps tabs on all of them. I’ve never heard him say much, but he was clearly concerned.”

  “I don’t understand,” Nell said. She took some plates from the cupboard and brought out a bowl of fruit. “What are Amber’s choices here?”

  “That’s something that has to be figured out. Rachel asked me to meet with Stu, Barbara, and Garrett to go over some of the fine points. Garrett has been working with the company’s books a long time and he’s good at what he does. Lydia trusted him. But I suppose the real answer to your question depends on what Amber wants to do about it.”

  Izzy heaped some tuna salad on a sandwich roll and cut it in half. “So, what really happened at the meeting?” she asked. “I mean the drama, the emotion. Were Barbara and Stu friendly to Amber? Stu’s wife, Helen? Were they upset? Surprised?”

  Ben laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you, Iz, but there wasn’t a whole lot of drama, although Stu had some choice words to say later. He calmed down when Father Larry reminded him that this was his mother’s will, not some stranger’s. But there may be drama yet to come. There are decisions to make.”

  “Did they all talk? Hug? I mean, Amber is related to these people. Their brother was her father. Surely they acknowledged that.”

  Nell knew what Izzy wanted to hear Ben say. She wanted to hear that Stu and Barbara hugged their niece, pulled her into the family fold, and cast aside any memories or bad feelings that might have festered in their family over the years. She wondered if her own niece realized she hadn’t done a very good job of that herself just a couple of days ago.

  But today had been a better day for the Chambers family, and hopefully a harbinger of things to come. She wished the same for the Cummings family.

  Ben handed a distracted Charlie a beer and helped himself to one. “There wasn’t much interaction between the Cummingses and Amber. They sat on opposite sides of the room, Amber next to Father Northcutt and me, and no one talked much before Rachel started in. There were others there, too—another company lawyer, Garrett O’Neal, and Stu’s wife—Helen can be a leveling force if Stu gets excited. Rachel Wooten had brought an assistant. Once the will was read and Rachel had passed out copies, she asked them to bring signed copies to her office, and she’d be available to answer any questions once they’d digested all the information in the will. All I could read on Amber’s face was curiosity, a touch of surprise, and that bit of sadness that seems to appear when there’s any mention of her mother.”

  “That’s it?” Charlie said. “She must have been happy about this. It could have life-changing consequences for her.”

  “She could give up hitchhiking,” Izzy suggested.

  Charlie frowned at her.

  Ben thought back to Amber’s reaction. “She didn’t seem happy or unhappy. She listened intently; it wasn’t as if she didn’t understand what was going on. Amber impresses me as being very smart.”

  “What did she say afterwards?” Charlie asked. He fingered his phone, glancing down as if expecting a message to appear at any second.

  “As it turns out, she didn’t say anything. Rachel ended the meeting and people got up, moved around, like they do. There was lots of chatter going on, questions, shuffling of chairs, checking of phones. I went up to talk to Rachel for a minute, then looked back to make sure Amber was all right—everyone else seemed to have someone at their side—but she was gone.”

  Charlie frowned again. “Gone?”

  “Gone. Mary Halloran was sitting in the back of the room during the meeting and she said Amber rushed out like she had a train to catch.”

  Gone. Again. They’d tried to bring some meaning to Amber’s text on the drive home from Ravenswood Park, but they couldn’t make sense of it. Promises to keep? To whom? “She probably texted you right after the meeting, Charlie,” she said.

  He nodded, trying to make sense of the words.

  “She quoted part of that Frost poem about the snowy evening, dark and lonely woods,” Izzy said. “I imagine Amber has been in and out of those woods often during her life. Maybe she just meant she had some things to figure out.”

  “Miles to go before she sleeps . . .” Nell looked at Ben this time. “I hope she hasn’t left Sea Harbor.”

  Charlie listened in silence, his eyebrows pulled together. The frown finally loosened up and he took a deep breath, then drained the bottle of beer. He looked relieved. “The night I picked her up on the highway, she mumbled something about hating it here. And then she said she had made a promise. I think it’s why she came back when Esther contacted her. And I think I know where she went. She went to see her mother.”

  • • •

  The fact that Amber’s mother had been dead for three years was a given, and it wasn’t a surprise that Amber would want to visit her grave—assuming there was one.

  “Charlie might be right,” Ben said. He washed down the last of his salad with a final swig of beer. “There aren’t that many cemeteries around here. If the grave is here, it shouldn’t be hard to find it. The Cummingses should know.”

  Nell knew a more comfortable way. She called Esther Gibson, who was on duty at the police station. She knew exactly where Amber’s mother was buried. It was a small cemetery, adjacent to Ocean View, the place where Ellie Harper had spent the better part of her life. It was a lovely place, Esther said, owned and maintained by Ocean View. She had visited Ellie’s grave frequently, and had made sure the granite vase she’d put there was always filled with flowers. Sometimes she’d find blooms she herself hadn’t put there. “A secret friend,” she guessed.

  “Ellie Harper’s death caused barely a ripple in our small town—I don’t think it even made Mary Pisano’s ‘About Town’ column. It was almost as if she’d never existed. Father Northcutt buried her with Richard and me at his side. Jake. And her doctor. Lydia, of course, righteously paid for the plot.”

  “And Amber?”

  “Amber wasn’t here. There were times when I didn’t know where she was, and the year Ellie died was one of them. I couldn’t locate her in time.”

  Although she hadn’t yet heard, Esther wasn’t surprised when Nell told her about the will. Lydia was difficult to read, she said. But it was a terrible shame she hadn’t given the child more of what she really needed—a warm and nurturing home—when she was growing up. Far better than a plant nursery, in Esther’s opinion. “She was my friend, but her son’s death froze a part of her heart,” Esther said before hanging up and getting back to work.

  Ben left soon after for a late-afternoon meeting.

  The others piled in Nell’s car. The Ocean View campus was out near the quarries, at the end of a hilly road. With the sun slipping behind heavy gray clouds, a ride back would surely be welcomed by Amber, even though their presence might not be.

  They drove slowly along the lightly traveled road, aware of icy patches and a few dedicated bikers braving the cold. Around a slight bend, the tall wrought-iron fence and carved sign that read OCEAN VIEW came into sight. From a distance, it looked like a New England college campus, with small, tasteful structures, each one different and each one welcoming, protected from the outer world by a stone gatehouse standing alongside the closed electric gate.

  “Esther said to drive by the gate, then follow the road that goes back alongside the property and we’d come to the cemetery. Ellie is buried beneath a hawthorn tree. The cemetery is separate; there�
��s no need to go through security.”

  “Security?” Charlie said.

  “There’s a community of wealthy people from all over the north shore who bought houses on the Ocean View campus,” Nell said. “The assisted-care section is just one part of it. I remember being turned away once because the person I was visiting had forgotten to put me on the list. I imagine it helps keep theft at a minimum and makes everyone feel safe—families as well as those who live here.”

  It took less than a few minutes for Izzy to spot the area they were looking for. She pointed to a large tree in the distance, its spreading branches bare. In better weather they could imagine the cool shadows that would fall over the grave from the white-blossomed branches.

  Nell pulled over to the side of the road and they got out of the car, heading for a winding pathway.

  At first they didn’t see her. But when they circled the low-hanging branches, Nell spotted the curved shape of Amber’s back as she leaned over a lightly frosted mound. It was no different from dozens of others lining the treed lanes in the small cemetery. A small monument marked the spot, and next to it was Esther’s granite vase, filled with white pine and fir tree branches, pinecones, and bright red berries adding a cheery color to the mix.

  Finally Amber looked up, as if she had known they were there all along. Her face was grave. Without a hello, she got up and brushed the frost off her jeans. She spoke to Charlie, her voice clipped. “I was about to text you for a ride.”

  She looked down at the slight mound. “Well, there she is. Meet my mother, Ellie Harper.”

  Nell walked over to Amber’s side, but sensed immediately that a hug wouldn’t be welcome.

  “I don’t much like cemeteries,” Amber said. “It’s just a place to bury dead bodies. But I came out here yesterday . . . it’s where I lost track of time, I guess, and why I missed the meeting.”

  And why you showed up at our home, with tears staining your face, Nell thought.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d come back. But I needed a place to think today. It’s quiet and peaceful here—”

  They nodded.

  “Do you need more time?” Izzy asked.

  She shook her head. “Not today. It’s odd, isn’t it?”

  They waited, not understanding where her thought was going.

  When she looked up, her eyes were moist. “When I was little and would visit her with Esther, there was nothing there. Just a still body. There wasn’t any connection. But now that she’s no longer trapped in that body, she’s real to me. We talk. We make promises to each other.” Amber took a deep breath and stood up, brushing away the sentiment that had softened her voice.

  Once in the car, she turned to Charlie. “I suppose you’ve heard that she gave me one of the Sea Harbor nurseries.”

  “We all heard,” he said.

  She pointed to her backpack. “I have a copy of the will. I read it again while I was sitting there with my mother. All the nurseries the Cummingses own are connected. So the health of one affects the health of the others. If I ran mine into the ground, there’d be a domino effect. What do you think she was thinking?”

  Her voice was filled with such emotion that for a minute Nell thought she might break down—but not over grief.

  Nell idled the car as they reached the stop sign at the end of the cemetery road while a line of cars passed by. She looked back at Amber. “You know we’re here to help if you need it,” she said, not even knowing what the words meant. But at that moment, her passenger looked lost.

  Charlie reached over and put one hand on her knee.

  Amber smiled, then turned away and looked out the window as if the answer to her future were out there somewhere.

  Along the road ran the tall wrought-iron fence and beyond it, the carefully manicured lawns of Ocean View Nursing Home. The sound of an engine revving up on the other side of the fence drew their attention to a man climbing onto a motorcycle near the service entrance. Tangled blond hair escaped from the edge of a helmet. He waved to the uniformed guard at the gate, and the man nodded, smiling.

  Amber watched the cyclist, her fingers playing lightly on the fogged glass. He spotted the car, and then the face peering out at him. He seemed to peer closer through the dark goggles, then grinned and lifted a gloved hand in greeting. Amber waved back.

  Nell watched through the front window, curious at the interaction, but the man, hidden behind his helmet and goggles, had revved the engine again and driven out, turning in the opposite direction. She watched the bike disappear in a plume of smoke.

  Izzy shifted against the seat belt and looked into the backseat. “Do you have plans, Amber?” she asked. “You probably haven’t had much time to think about it.”

  The question hung in the heated air of the car.

  “I don’t know,” Amber said simply. “The inheritance is kind of a blur. But I know what I’m going to do for my mother.”

  Nell glanced at her face in the mirror. It held little emotion, and her voice was eerily calm.

  Amber looked out the window, her breath clouding the glass as she spoke into it. “For the first time in forever, I feel some control over this family. They’ve controlled me, my mother. But no longer. I have no idea what I will do with this inheritance, but I’ll use it in whatever way I need to. You can bet on it.”

  Chapter 11

  It was tacitly agreed that Charlie would stay on in the guesthouse. Ben and Nell had assumed from the start that he would stay there as long as he chose. And Charlie simply didn’t leave. They added a microwave to the small galley kitchen in the back of the cottage and told him the laundry in the main house was his to use and their meals his to enjoy whenever the spirit moved him.

  Dr. Lily Virgilio was thrilled to have Charlie helping at the free health clinic—Janie Levin was going to show him the ropes and as far as all of them were concerned, they would keep him as long as he could stay.

  “I can see already that he’s an excellent nurse,” Lily had told Nell when she saw her in the checkout lane at the Market Basket on Tuesday. “He met a group of kids this morning and they love him. He’s kind and gentle and very smart—just as I’d expect Izzy’s brother would be.”

  Kind and gentle and smart. Nell repeated the adjectives to Ben and Sam later that day. They all agreed that he was those things. And more.

  Sam had scratched his head. “There’s something else going on in that head of his that he needs to get rid of. It’s as if he’s locked up ten years of his life and thrown away the key. He might be better-looking now, but that young pimply kid I used to know when he was young had a spirit that seems to have dimmed along the way.”

  Nell questioned him on what he meant, but Sam just shook his head. “Izzy talks about it, too, about those years. The lost years, she calls them. Though he wasn’t really lost. Just not available, I’d guess you’d say. He doesn’t ask Izzy much about her life, law school, why she moved here, marrying me. It’s as if he’s afraid to go there—to open that conversation—because then he’d have to reciprocate. But if you ask me he and his sister are never going to completely mend the sibling bond Charlie has done his best to sever unless he gives Izzy the key to those years.”

  • • •

  On Wednesday night, Charlie pulled his car into the driveway just as Ben and Nell were leaving.

  “We haven’t seen much of you the past couple days,” Ben said, and insisted Charlie join them at the yacht club for a drink and food. “It’s the best winter buffet you’ll ever find anywhere, anytime. Sam and Izzy will probably show up, too. Sometimes Birdie. You just never know.”

  Charlie checked his watch, then his phone for messages, then finally agreed. But he’d follow them over in his own car. He was whipped and might call it an early night.

  Izzy, Birdie, and Sam were already at the club, greeting the hostess and waving to friends across the room. “Danny
and Cass are on their way,” Izzy said. She turned toward Charlie.

  “This is a middle-of-the-week pickup for us,” she said, then without thought looped her arm in his and followed the hostess to a table near windows.

  Nell looked into the lounge just as Barbara Cummings and Garrett O’Neal walked out.

  Barbara spotted Nell, waved, and walked their way. Her greeting was firm and pleasant, as was her way. She always looked the same, Nell thought, her short cropped hair perfectly groomed, her pantsuit dark colored and well made. Her expression businesslike, even in social settings. Ben saw it differently. She was difficult to read, he said—lots went on behind that composed expression, which probably fared her well in business. Who knew what was behind the smile and set jaw, the intelligent greeting?

  Garrett O’Neal stood next to Barbara. He was about the same height but seemed smaller in stature when standing with the nursery owner. He nodded politely to Ben and Nell and said a few words but seemed anxious to move on. He touched the rim of his glasses nervously, his eyes behind them seeming tired.

  “Are you here for dinner?” Ben asked.

  “Garrett and my brother, Stu, love this buffet,” Barbara said. “They insist on coming, even after grueling days at the office. Sometimes I escape—there are things I enjoy doing with my time off—but tonight Garrett insisted.”

  Nell suspected the last few days might have been especially grueling for all of them as they absorbed Lydia’s will and any changes it might mean for the company.

  Garrett’s attention had already drifted away from them as he looked around the room.

  Nell spotted the rest of Garrett’s party at the same time that he did. Stuart Cummings sat in quiet conversation with his wife, Helen. Beatrice Scaglia, Sea Harbor’s mayor and a good friend of the couple, sat across the table from them, listening attentively.