Trimmed With Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Charlie went through what he remembered from the week and Nell added confirmation to the parts she had played—finding Amber at the cemetery.

  Jerry looked at Charlie again. “When she wasn’t with you this week, where do you suppose she was?”

  Charlie frowned. He shifted his shoulders as if his shirt were too small. A look of frustration flashed in his eyes. “She spent time at the Cummingses’ office, like I said. They’ll tell you that, too. She was going through the books carefully, figuring out her inheritance. She was there late a couple nights and I picked her up. We’d go to the Gull for a beer. But when she wasn’t there or with me—”

  He shrugged again. “I don’t know where she was.” He lowered his head into his hands, and it was then that his body began to shake.

  Chapter 17

  Monday’s winds were slightly tempered by the bright sunlight that flooded Sea Harbor, belying the icy horror that was slowly enveloping a town.

  Nell and Ben were up early. They stood at the kitchen island, Nell refilling coffee cups and Ben checking messages on his phone. “Looks like a full day. Sam and I have a breakfast meeting at the club. Rachel and Father Northcutt want to meet sometime today, too.” He looked up from his phone. “They want to talk about the will—and what happens to it now.”

  “What does happen?”

  “We’ll check the legal fine points. I didn’t read the whole will, but I’m sure Rachel has been going over it carefully.”

  Nell nodded. Somehow a will that seemed important just a short week ago now was insignificant—except as a reminder that a woman mentioned in it was dead.

  “You’re distracted, Nellie,” Ben said.

  “I keep wondering about Andy Risso. I wonder if Jerry has talked to him. Why was he with Amber Saturday night? How did he even know her? And I’m sure from Charlie’s perspective, it looked like he knew her well.”

  “If you saw him talking to Amber that night, others did, too. Maybe Pete, the other band members. Jerry will hear about it and talk to him. But it’s not really so unusual, do you think? Andy had just been onstage. I saw Amber watching the band and listening to the music. She probably saw him up there, maybe liked the music and wanted to let him know.”

  That wasn’t what Nell saw. Nor Charlie. But Ben was right. It wasn’t out of the ordinary. It was so ordinary, in fact, that most people probably didn’t notice. But she wasn’t most people—and neither was Charlie.

  Ben read his messages again, then slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Do you need me, Nell? Is there anything I can do here?”

  “I don’t know what,” Nell said. That was the awful thing. What could they do? Except be there for Charlie.

  He had held himself together as best he could the night before, not moving from the chair until after the chief drove away. And then he had collapsed—his emotions raw and profound. He’d sat with Ben and Sam for a long time, drinking black coffee, trying to make sense out of a senseless act. Trying to find answers to a death they still knew so little about.

  Finally, much later, he’d walked back down to the guest cottage alone, his shoulders slumped, looking like someone who had no idea where he was or why he was going there.

  “Are you surprised at Charlie’s reaction?” Ben asked. He drank his coffee, his eyes moving toward the kitchen window as if to see down into the cottage. Then he turned back. “He knew Amber such a short time, yet this is tearing him apart.”

  Nell had had the same thoughts. But intuitively she understood. There’d been something there between Charlie and Amber—it was like what they had said that night at Izzy’s shop—relationships—love—couldn’t always be subjected to a clock. Something Charlie himself might not have completely understood. Aloud she said, “It’s difficult enough having someone you know die. But this—this brutality—makes it almost excruciating. Charlie is feeling that.”

  Ben took his car keys from the hook. “Sure, it will be difficult for him. But we can’t ease the way for Charlie. He’s not the little boy you played touch football with in Kansas.”

  Nell allowed a small smile. “You’re saying I hover. I’ll try not to,” she said. “But he’s family, Ben. He’ll need us. He’ll need Izzy and Sam, too. I don’t want him torn apart emotionally by rumors right now—and you know that will happen. So if I can protect him, I will—but subtly.”

  Ben kissed her on the forehead. “My wise wife. I love you. See you later.”

  Nell waved him off, then looked again at the newspaper that lay open on the island.

  CUMMINGS HEIR FOUND DEAD IN PARK

  Amber’s name didn’t even merit space in the headline, Nell thought. But maybe she was being unfair. Few people in town would have read an article that began with Amber Harper, no matter how big the font. Few people had ever heard of Amber Harper before now.

  The article itself said little. Apparently Chief Thompson had been able to keep most of the details under wraps. What the town now knew was what Cass and Danny saw. Amber covered with new-fallen snow, the snow marred only by a narrow river of blood. Although the reporter made it clear that the wound was not self-inflicted, how it happened was not clarified. And the word murder was ominously absent.

  Jerry had been vague the day before, protective of facts that needed a closer look before they threw them out for all to see.

  But as Ben walked the chief of police out to his car, Jerry had nodded sadly.

  It was murder. An awful one.

  But although the reporter who was dutifully tapping words into a computer might have suspected it, she couldn’t call it that; she didn’t know it for a fact. So she had to concentrate on personal tidbits, like Amber’s relationship to the Cummings family, and even that was scanty. A granddaughter who lived in another state, the article said, but Patrick, her father, was never mentioned. Nor was her mother. The fact that she had inherited one of the nurseries was covered in a brief history of the nursery chain and its founder, its success under the late Lydia Cummings’s leadership. And a paragraph about Barbara and Stuart Cummings and their generous contributions to Sea Harbor.

  Nell walked to the front door and checked the driveway to see if Charlie’s car was still there. She knew he was working at the free clinic today, but she wasn’t sure when. The BMW was gone. It brought unexpected relief to Nell. He’d be with good people in a wonderful place, helping others. Perhaps the perfect place for him now.

  Before closing the door, she looked up and down the quiet, sunny street. It was deceptively peaceful. Inside homes, behind doors, people were checking Internet news, reading the Sea Harbor Gazette headline, some shocked, others hungry for details, talking about a woman named Amber Harper.

  Before the day ended, the news would be spread everywhere, and then the rumors would begin in earnest. And maybe the worst part of all: the swell of fear would begin to build, to burgeon, to take over their lives.

  Nell checked her watch. It was time to go. She put on her down coat, picked up a basket of scones, and headed to her car. First to Birdie’s.

  Then on to a sad visit to the Gibson house. And on the way, Birdie filled Nell in on the strange conversation she’d had with Amber Harper, just hours before she died.

  • • •

  Esther lived close to downtown Sea Harbor in a small square house with a porch housing snow-covered rocking chairs. She was waiting at the door.

  Before Birdie or Nell could say a word, she welcomed them by collecting them as one to her ample bosom.

  “She was a good girl,” Esther said, pulling away. Her eyes were puffy and her face haggard from lack of sleep. “It’s a nightmare that I keep trying to wake up from. A horrible awful dream that won’t go away.”

  She turned and tapped her cane along the narrow hallway. “Come sit.”

  Nell and Birdie followed single file to a room that opened up at the back of the house.

&nb
sp; It was a messy room, with furry slippers sticking out from beneath the couch and newspapers scattered on chair cushions. A stack of small cloth napkins embroidered with tiny flowers and three empty teacups sat on the coffee table, next to paperback romances and a half-knit sweater. Embroidered pillows added color to overstuffed chairs. Esther’s handiwork. Everywhere.

  But what drew their attention were the brilliant, colorful knit afghans that hung over each chair and couch and the bright sunshine that poured through the wall of back windows. It was a room filled with Esther Gibson, warm and welcoming.

  “You were gracious to open your home to Amber,” Birdie said, looking around. “I look at this cozy room and I can imagine her right here. Feeling safe.”

  “Except she wasn’t.” Esther looked around the room, as if hoping she’d see Amber sitting in one of the chairs or standing near the windows in a pool of sunshine. Her eyes were damp and she shook her permed curls, held back from her face with a white comb. When she started talking, her thoughts were scattered, but the tension in her shoulders seemed to ease with the outpouring of words.

  “When Amber was little, she spent time here now and then. As fond of her grandmother as I was, I hated her ignorance of the child. Out of friendship, I suppose, I tried to right the wrong she was doing to Amber. Father Northcutt made her realize her responsibility from the spiritual side of things, but he couldn’t control her heart. Amber was frozen out of it. I kept in touch with Amber, off and on, after she left Sea Harbor. Some years more off than on.”

  “No matter, you gave her a place this last week. A week she sorely needed with people who cared about her,” Nell said.

  “But she was barely here, just to sleep. She gave me hugs as she came and went. She cared about us, I knew that. But like I told the chief, I didn’t see her enough to even know what was on her mind, what her plans were, where she was headed next.

  “I should have asked her. But she’s grown up now. We’d wait, let her come to us if she needed us. Richard said she acted like she was out to prove something at first. But what would Amber need to prove?” Esther’s face was filled with the awful wonder of what was going on right there in front of her, and of which she knew nothing. A young woman moving frantically through her days.

  And then she was dead.

  Birdie felt the pain in her voice. “Esther, what can we do for you?”

  “Hold me together,” Esther said. She dropped her cane to the side of the couch and lowered herself into it, urging Nell and Birdie to sit. “I made her come back to Sea Harbor. If she hadn’t come back, she’d be alive.”

  Before either of them could respond, she raised her hands and shook her head. “I know, I know, I know. I couldn’t have known what was going to happen, but it saddens me anyway. Let me be with my sadness.”

  “Rachel Wooten explained that it was important she come back. Lydia had stipulated she be here for the will,” Nell said. “You did what you had to do.”

  Esther twisted an embroidered napkin with her fingers. “I also wanted her here because I secretly prayed Lydia would have finally done the right thing and left the girl something worthwhile. And it turns out she did.”

  “How did you convince her to come?” Birdie asked. “Amber was strong-willed.”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe I wore her down. A sweet nurse at Ocean View who had been lovely to Ellie had given me a box of her things after she died. Carly—that was the nurse—and I had gotten to know each other those later years. I shoved the box in the closet, hoping that Amber might come back to visit and I could give it to her. I suppose I could have mailed it, but the nurse said there wasn’t much of value in it. Toiletries. Pictures of Amber I’d put in Ellie’s room. A pillow I’d made. A vase—apparently there were always fresh flowers in her room. I told Amber about the box. Maybe the thought of having something of her mother’s helped bring her back. Or maybe it was to find closure in it all.”

  “Did she open the box?” Birdie asked.

  “I’m sure she did. I hadn’t opened it—that was for her to do—but I had put it on her bed that night she arrived and I saw her pick it up and set it on a chair, as if there was something cherished inside it.”

  “Where is it now?” Nell asked.

  Esther shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not here. She might have thrown it away if there wasn’t anything she wanted to keep.” She frowned at her words, then said, “No. I would have noticed the box if it had been added to the trash. It was a decent size.”

  Nell tucked the thought away. Somehow she didn’t think Amber would have thrown anything of her mother’s away. Somewhere, she suspected, there was a box of Ellie Harper’s belongings, as insignificant as they might be to others.

  “People are intrigued that Amber didn’t care about her inheritance,” Birdie said. “Most people, when they find out they’re a beneficiary, jump on the next plane.”

  “Amber wasn’t like most people. She also didn’t think Lydia would bequeath her anything worth traveling for. She thought it might be some sort of embarrassing token. And coming back here, to a place that had so many bad memories, was painful. Especially since her mother was no longer here. But in the end, maybe that’s why she did agree to come. She had missed Ellie’s funeral. Maybe it was to claim her mother’s few belongings, to see the grave and put it all to rest? I suppose I’ll be wondering for a long time. And in the end, it won’t bring her back.”

  “Ellie’s death didn’t receive much attention,” Birdie said. “It never came on my radar. That’s unusual for such a prominent family.”

  “Lydia kept it out of the papers. Few people even knew Ellie existed, much less died. It was just a few years ago—three maybe. Father Northcutt conducted a small service at Ocean View Chapel, and then we buried her in the cemetery there. Her doctor, Father Larry, the Rissos, me—a couple of nice volunteers there who had watched out for Ellie.”

  “Jake was there?” Nell asked.

  “Oh, yes. Jake doesn’t forget people he likes, and he was very fond of Ellie. Patrick Cummings actually met Ellie in his bar. In fact, I think we were there that night. Back then, Richard and I rarely missed a Monday night at Jake’s. Football, you know.” She smiled as she slipped back into the memories of good times, easier times. “Stu Cummings was usually there, too.”

  “With Helen? Somehow that surprises me,” Birdie said.

  Esther laughed. “They’d been married half a dozen years by then—you know how that goes. Man’s night out. Helen didn’t usually come, though once in a while she’d surprise him, checking up on him, Jake would say.

  “Anyway, Stu brought his baby brother in one night to celebrate Patrick’s twenty-first birthday. Everyone was in love with Ellie—Stu, too. But when Patrick laid eyes on her that night, you could almost hear fireworks.”

  “Stu knew Ellie?” Birdie said.

  Esther nodded. “Sure did. All Jake’s customers did. And like I said, she was sweet to everyone, no matter who it was.”

  So Patrick, at least, had a brother he could confide in. Someone who knew the woman he loved. But she was saddened by the thoughts, too, wondering why Stu didn’t go against his mother’s wishes and create a better home life for Ellie’s daughter.

  “Like I said about Jake—he loved Ellie—and then her daughter, too. They’d take Amber out on that old boat of his and he’d tell her stories about her mom, what a good waitress she was. That crusty old galoot has a good soul.”

  Nell could imagine Amber out in the boat with Jake, listening to his tales. Then she frowned, replaying Esther’s words, and was about to ask her to clarify when Birdie asked a question.

  “Why didn’t Amber come back for the funeral?” she asked.

  “That was another regret of mine—and Amber’s, too,” Esther said. “I wasn’t able to reach her in time. She had taken a temporary job on some cruise ship off the Florida coast and it wasn’t u
ntil she got back to shore that she found my message.”

  “Ellie’s death was sudden?” Nell was surprised. She followed the whistle of the teapot in the kitchen, brought it back, and filled the three dainty cups. Birdie unwrapped the basket of scones they’d brought and passed them around. “I thought Ellie had been in the nursing home for years.”

  “Unexpected is a better word, I guess, because, yes, she’d been a patient there for a long time. But she had been stable, her vital signs strong. Then one night she just up and died.”

  “What was the cause of death?” Nell asked.

  “Most people with her condition die of a pulmonary infection or some other kind—and most die sooner than she did. Ellie was in good shape. The doc said her death was unexpected in that sense. But sometimes patients like Ellie die of no known cause. She had just turned fifty. It was a lonely death.”

  Lonely. And a death that caused barely a stir in the small town, Nell thought. Mother-and-daughter tragedies. One whose death went unnoticed by most of the world—and one whose death would not go gently into the night.

  “Who was her doctor?” Birdie asked.

  “Yours. Mine. Lydia’s. Half of Sea Harbor. Our good friend, Alan Hamilton. He told me Ellie was as strong as he was. But sometimes that’s how PVS patients die. It happens.”

  “Alan is a good doctor,” Birdie said.

  “That he is. And he had a wonderful bedside manner with Ellie. He’d sit and talk to her about politics, music, his dog.”

  “Did she ever respond?”

  “Who knows? I asked him that often. He’d say, ‘Are you asking the medical me or the other me?’ The doctor in Alan said she didn’t understand or hear anything. Yet she slept, woke. Yawned. She could swallow. And she’d blink now and again in a way that was unnerving—she couldn’t have known me, but sometimes her eyes seemed to say something different. I got one of those looks the day she died. A light in her eye when I mentioned Amber. I swear it. Most of the medical folks said I imagined it.”