Trimmed With Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  But it was a happy memory. Nell was pleased Esther had one in her collection.

  “Did you visit often?” Nell asked.

  “Oh, I’m not sure what ‘often’ means. After Amber left, I went when I could. I felt I was going in Lydia’s place, filling in. I liked Ellie. I swear she worked every shift, and she was always friendly and polite. Not exactly like Amber, but Amber might have been like Ellie if she had had her around to teach her. Anyway, after the accident, after it all happened, I’d visit Ellie, try to make her room a little brighter.” She looked down at the embroidered napkin in her hand and held it up. Tiny flowers highlighted each corner. “I even made her a soft pillow and embroidered some flowers on the slip. Something to make her bed a little special, not so hospital-like.” She fingered the roses on the napkin.

  “When Amber was old enough, I’d take her with me—she was always with a nanny those days, before Lydia arranged for boarding school. We’d sit and read books at her mother’s bedside.”

  Esther had leaned her head back against the high-backed sofa and partially closed her eyes. “I can’t get my arms around anyone hurting Amber. It doesn’t make sense to me. Oh, she was a rascal, that one. No innocence there. But she’d been gone from here for so long. So why? Why here? Richard and I were up all night trying to make sense of it.”

  “Jerry said he’d know more today, after he’d spent some time with the autopsy report,” Nell said. “But no matter what they find, you’re right, Esther. The death of such a vital young woman doesn’t make sense.”

  Esther’s voice grew stronger as she pulled out a reason that she could understand, no matter how painful. “It had to have been a drunken bum from the party—or someone who just wandered in and came upon her in those trees. Maybe a stranger doing something they shouldn’t be doing, and Amber surprised him. Or someone robbing her. A tragic accident . . .”

  Nell looked over at Birdie. Amber had told Birdie she had to meet someone that night. She tuned back in to Esther, who was trying to retrace Amber’s steps, to find something to help her through her grief.

  “Amber’d have fought back, though, wouldn’t she? She’d never let anyone take advantage of her. She’s a fighter. She’d have fought back.”

  And maybe she did. But she lost. Nell pushed against the image of Charlie’s injured hand until it disappeared.

  “Was Amber in touch with any old friends while she was here?” Nell asked. The image of Amber waving to the cyclist when they were leaving the cemetery flitted across her mind. Was that an old friend? Or perhaps she was simply waving to a stranger, the way one sometimes did when seeing a friendly face.

  “Old friends?” Esther smiled sadly. “Amber didn’t have any old friends. Boarding school was not a good match for her; she disliked it—and she didn’t much care for the wealthy girls who went there. They had nothing in common, she told me once. I asked her what she meant and she just looked at me, that small face so like her mother’s. Then she said with a sigh, ‘I meant that they all had pets. I always wanted a dog that I could hug.’” Esther shook her head, the irony of Amber’s words deepening the wrinkles in her kind face. “Imagine that,” she murmured.

  Birdie stirred a sugar cube into her tea. “So there were no phone calls for her here?”

  “Calls?” Esther’s frown lightened, as if Birdie had triggered a thought. “Yes. There was a call. But it wasn’t for Amber, at least not directly. Last week Priscilla Stangel called me at the police station when I was working. You know her, Birdie. She manages Ocean View. Or at least she used to. She was calling from there.”

  “Of course I know Priscilla,” Birdie said. “She’s in my group—the Ladies’ Classics and Tea Club.”

  Even Esther smiled at that. Most people in Sea Harbor knew or had heard about the infamous Sunday tea group, the “women of a certain age”—Sea Harbor’s collection of grande dames—who met at the Ocean’s Edge regularly. The group was decades old, as were its members, and at one time actually did meet over tea and crumpets and a discussion of the Great Books. But as the years went by the members unanimously agreed to replace the tea with sherry or Chablis, the crumpets with calamari. And the Great Books with gossip and “sharing wisdom,” as one of their members put it. The staff at Ocean’s Edge accommodated “their” ladies, still putting out the finest silver, the Spode china, and filling their Baccarat crystal wineglasses with the finest wine.

  “I believe Priscilla primarily has social duties at Ocean View now,” Birdie said. “Greeting people. She has a lovely handshake. Why did she call?”

  “She thought she saw someone sitting in the room that had been Ellie Harper’s for all those years.”

  “Is that unusual? Surely they haven’t kept the room empty?” Nell asked.

  “No, no, they haven’t. But it happens it’s vacant now because it’s being refreshed or remodeled or something.”

  “Why was that information worth a phone call, and why you?” Birdie asked.

  “Priscilla swore the woman looked just like Ellie. At first she thought she saw a ghost, she said, and then someone told her that Ellie’s daughter was in town. So she decided it must have been her. She told me guests needed to know someone there to be admitted. Did I know why Amber was sitting in her dead mother’s room?”

  Birdie chuckled. “It sounds like Priscilla’s cataract surgery wasn’t entirely successful.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought, too, but of course I couldn’t say as much to her. You know how she is. So I listened politely and told her she must have been mistaken and then I reminded her how excellent the security at Ocean View is and that no one could get in without a visitor’s pass, everyone knew that. And I complimented her on what a wonderful asset she is to Ocean View. She called once more a day or so later, when I was at work, and left a message saying essentially the same thing—that she had spotted Amber again and that she was bothering the staff and I should do something about it—but I never followed up. I think she was still seeing ghosts and I didn’t want to deal with it.”

  “You are the epitome of diplomacy, Esther, dear,” Birdie said.

  “Was that the end of it?” Nell asked.

  “Yes. Amber had been to Ellie’s grave; someone probably saw her there and Priscilla was confused. I thought about mentioning it to Amber, but when I saw her a day or two later, I decided not to bother her with something that didn’t affect her, but might bring up sad memories. And good grief, the poor woman had had her share of those.”

  “That sounds like a good decision, Esther.” Birdie patted her knee.

  “I suppose,” Esther said, although she didn’t sound completely convinced that she’d done the right thing. Or if she had even remembered the phone call clearly.

  “But as far as you and Richard were aware, Amber didn’t reconnect with people while she was here?”

  Esther shook her head. “I don’t think she had any intention of doing that. She seemed focused on meeting with the people involved in why she’d come—Rachel, Father Larry. And of course she saw all of you. Jake. And the Cummingses.”

  “Maybe the one who actually got closest to her and knew the Amber who came back after all those years away—”

  Birdie and Nell realized where Esther was going before she got there.

  “Well, it was your nephew, Charlie, Nell. He was the one Amber seemed to want to see. The one who picked her up and dropped her off. I think—though of course we didn’t talk about it—I think that maybe Amber was beginning to care for him, at least as much as Amber could care for anyone.”

  Birdie gathered up her purse as Nell cleared the table, taking the cups into the kitchen and thinking of Esther’s words.

  Charlie. The one who picked her up and dropped her off.

  She retrieved their coats from the hall closet and when she returned to the family room to say good-bye, Esther was standing, leaning on her cane and
smiling. She was somehow warmed by the company, or maybe her thoughts of Charlie and Amber. The comforting thought that maybe Amber had cared for someone. And that someone might have cared for her.

  But instead of the sweet emotion on Esther’s face at the thought of Charlie and Amber together, something else—a cold fear—wormed its way inside Nell. She was nearly thrown off balance by it. A feeling so strong she had to wrap her arms around herself to keep from shaking.

  Charlie was the closest to Amber, not a husband, of course, but the one person she had let into her life. And in murder cases, who was it they looked at first?

  Chapter 18

  They headed next to Coffee’s, where Cass said she’d be waiting in the booth in the far back section of the shop. The Monday ritual on the lobster company owner’s day off. Strong coffee. Good friends.

  “Izzy!” Nell said, surprised to see her niece sitting next to Cass. Four of Coffee’s oversize mugs sat on the table, steam curling up from the cream-laden brew.

  Nell rubbed her cheekbone, a nervous habit, wondering what would have brought Izzy from her shop on a busy Monday when the back room would be filled with college students learning frantically how to knit holiday hats and sweaters.

  “Mae has the shop under control. Sam called.” She pushed two of the mugs across the table.

  Nell slipped into the booth beside Birdie. Her words were clipped. “Is Abby okay?”

  Izzy nodded, then gave Nell part of a smile. “I love that your first thoughts are of her, Aunt Nell. I love that you love her so much.”

  “I love her, too,” Cass said stoutly. “I’m her godmother, don’t forget.”

  The gentle talk about a well-loved toddler was welcome—and a stark contrast to whatever message Sam had relayed to Izzy, the one that had brought her to Coffee’s with a troubled look on her face.

  “Sam was with Ben this morning,” Izzy said. “Some planning meeting about the summer sailing club. They got a call from Jerry asking them to come to the station when they had a chance.”

  “Why?”

  “A couple of things. The news somehow leaked out about how Amber was killed. It was awful.” Izzy traced the pockmarks in the table with her fingertip, then looked up and got the words out quickly. “She was stabbed.”

  Cass took over when Izzy’s voice choked up. “Someone stabbed her with one of those heavy iron gizmos that were staked in front of the Christmas trees.”

  “The name placeholders,” Birdie said softly. “Oh, my—”

  The image settled in with a thud, vivid and awful. It would have been as lethal as a blunt knife.

  “Jerry wanted Cass and Danny and the rest of us to know before the news started spreading. And there’s something else.” Izzy took a stabilizing breath and expelled it slowly. When she began talking again, her voice was businesslike, methodical. Izzy the attorney, needing to get the information out efficiently.

  “It’s no surprise that the police are wanting to talk to anyone who was connected to Amber. People she talked to casually that night, as well as people more closely connected to her—the Cummingses, Rachel Wooten, even Father Northcutt. Esther and Richard. And all of us. The police are thorough and won’t give anyone an easy out. But they found a couple texts on Amber’s phone that concerned Jerry.”

  “Texts?” Nell said.

  “They were from Charlie. He sent them Saturday night.”

  Nell’s face fell, though she realized she shouldn’t have been surprised. He didn’t know where she’d gone that night. He would have tried to reach her, to find her. To get her home safely.

  “He was agitated—or drunk—when he sent them, at least as much as you can tell from texts. They rambled. But he said angry things. He said he was hurt, used. Jerry is concerned about it. It puts Charlie in kind of a bad place.”

  For a long minute they were all silent, each interpreting the news in her own way. Finally Birdie said, “Well, Charlie Chambers didn’t kill anyone. We all know that. He will explain the texts and that will be that.”

  Birdie’s tone of voice had difficulty matching her optimistic words, but they all nodded. That would be that. Of course it would.

  “Charlie brought Amber to the park that night,” Cass said. “They seemed fine. He was in a good mood when I saw him early on.”

  “Yes, he was,” Birdie said. “But Amber was clearly distracted about something or other. I don’t think it had anything to do with Charlie.”

  She repeated the conversation she’d had with Amber to Izzy and Cass. They all grew somber at the thought that Birdie was probably among the last to talk with Amber before she was killed—for sure the last among the knitters.

  “She was sad and angry all at once,” Birdie said. “I think she was trying to figure out what to do, some kind of dilemma in her head. Perhaps she thought talking it out with someone might help her clarify the issue.” She paused, her voice sad as the conversation replayed itself. “We were to talk Sunday.” Her words were soft with the irony and sadness of it.

  “It’s not surprising she wanted to talk to you,” Cass said. “People are drawn to you, Birdie, even people you don’t know very well. Strangers off the street. You better watch that. There’s no telling who you could get mixed up with.”

  Nell smiled, but it was true. They were all drawn to Birdie’s wisdom and fairness and compassion. It wasn’t what she did; it was who she was. And the fact that Amber Harper had intuited as much made Nell silently appreciate Charlie’s friend’s sensitivity.

  “You don’t think she wanted to talk about Charlie?” Izzy asked.

  Birdie looked off into the coffee-scented air and revisited the conversation in her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “In fact, the way she treated Charlie that night makes me think she wanted to disconnect from him a bit, to maybe protect him from whatever was bothering her. I think she understood the feelings they shared for each other might not make him the most objective listener. She didn’t really say as much, but it’s what I thought.”

  “She was clearly preoccupied,” Nell said. And then she fell silent, remembering Charlie’s tension when he had stood beside her that night, remembering the fistful of anger she had sensed in her nephew.

  “Charlie and I went looking for her a short while after that. We finally found her over near the gazebo.” Nell paused, but just for a minute. “She was wrapped in Andy Risso’s arms.”

  Chapter 19

  Charlie’s car was noticeably absent when Nell finally drove into her driveway just before dinner. A meeting in Gloucester had blessedly taken her a few miles away from the pall settling over Sea Harbor like a suffocating storm cloud. But now she was home—and there was still a murderer roaming free, and the cloud still hovered.

  She realized when she saw the empty space that she was unexpectedly relieved. She wanted to see Ben first before she saw Charlie. Ben was her sounding board, the person who grounded her. Someone who would ease the anxiousness that had traveled with her to Esther’s and to Coffee’s, to Gloucester, and back.

  She wanted to talk to him about seeing Andy Risso with Amber. And a hug that sent Charlie off in a huff so angry he nearly broke his hand on a granite boulder.

  And Birdie’s conversation with Amber had rained even more confusion into their thoughts.

  She climbed out of her car, her thoughts as heavy as the bag of groceries she’d picked up on the way home, and glanced at a car parked at the curb in front of the house. Danny? She tried to read a mental calendar. Monday night. Was there something going on she’d forgotten about?

  She hurried inside the house, the day’s anxiety weighing her down with irrational worry. Danny was in and out of their house all the time; there was no need to be apprehensive.

  He was sitting at the kitchen island, his long legs wrapped around a stool, a laptop open in front of him. A half-empty bottle of beer sat next to the co
mputer.

  Nell dropped her purse on the couch and hurried across the room. “What’s up, Danny?” she asked, trying to hide the concern shadowing her face.

  Danny looked up, pushing his glasses into a thick mess of sandy hair. “No worries, Nell. Ben took his car into the shop. I gave him a lift back. He’ll be down in a minute.”

  From the floor above, she heard Ben in the bathroom, the sound of water in the sink, the familiar footsteps stomping across the bedroom and toward the back stairway.

  Nell shrugged out of her coat. “I’m sorry for seeming fretful, Danny. I’m a little on edge.” She walked around the island and gave him a good squeeze. “How are you doing? The past few days haven’t exactly been a picnic for you.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “What have you been up to?” Nell set the bag of groceries down and poured herself a glass of wine.

  Danny closed the lid of his computer and took a long swig of beer. “I worked in the bookstore some today, walked around town, then wrote in the library for a while. The peripatetic and oh-so-glamorous life of a writer,” he said, trying to draw a smile.

  Nell missed the cue and pulled out another stool, her face serious. “It’s good to have this day over with,” she said. “Get the news out there. Let people digest it. Then try to deal with it and move on.”

  Danny agreed. “You can feel the town tightening up, people looking at each other differently. Suddenly Amber Harper, a person lots of people around here had never heard of or seen before, is a bigger-than-life figure. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows her. And everyone seems to have seen her somewhere in the past week—at the Gull or in the bookstore or library or over at Cummings Northshore Nurseries—or hanging out with Izzy Chambers’s brother.”

  And the last was the one most people would find most significant. “Each sighting is significant, true or otherwise,” Nell said softly.

  “People just trying to understand it all,” Ben said, walking into the room.