Trimmed With Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  She looked toward Ocean View, then back to him. And then she felt several missing pieces land together with a heavy ka-chunk.

  “You volunteer at Ocean View,” she said, more to herself than to those standing around looking at her. Jake was so proud of his son, she’d heard it in his voice when he told her about it.

  Andy picked up her words and looked at Nell, surprised. “Yeah. Long time now. They have a hospice floor and they were good to my mom when she was a patient. Pop and I spent a lot of time there back then. I saw how it mattered to patients when they had visitors. I even thought it mattered if they didn’t know I was there.” He looked over at the monument with Ellie Harper’s name on it. “Like Ellie. The nurses would kid me about it, but sometimes I thought she knew I was there.”

  “You visited Ellie,” Birdie said.

  “Sure. Pop came with me sometimes. Sometimes I’d go in on my break when I was volunteering. Ellie was like a member of our family. She worked at the Gull. Then after the accident, Pop kind of adopted Amber. Lots of the shopkeepers knew her. She was a floater, sort of roamed the town more freely than most kids her age. And she’d end up in our place a lot. Sneaking in. She was kind of like a little sis.”

  They took her out in their boat, Esther had said. They. She meant Andy and his dad. Of course. She should have put those pieces together right away. Andy was like a big brother. Someone Amber knew and trusted and would hug tightly if she was worried or upset about something—exactly what she was doing the night she died.

  Andy was still looking at the monument, and then his gaze shifted to the empty space next to it.

  The three women had been so intent on sprucing up Ellie’s grave that they hadn’t noticed it before, but the area next to Ellie’s had been marked off with chalk, outlining the dimensions of a casket. The hole that Amber’s body would be lowered into.

  Nell rubbed her arms. Beneath her down coat she felt a sudden chill that rivaled the cold around them. It traveled in all directions, circling around her.

  Cass walked up and tucked an arm around her waist.

  Andy glanced at them, then looked back at the monument at the top of Ellie’s grave. “I’m glad Ellie didn’t have to know the gruesome way her daughter died.”

  His jaw was set, his usually gentle eyes lit with anger. “It’s an awful thing.” He shook his head as if denying it would negate the horror of it.

  “Amber visited her mother’s grave last week,” Nell said, watching his face. “We picked her up, gave her a ride home.”

  “I know. I saw you guys leave.”

  It was the answer Nell expected. And the explanation for how Amber was able to bypass Ocean View security. “I’m guessing you managed to get her inside Ocean View without a pass.”

  Andy stared down at his boots, a lopsided smile on his face. Then he said, “Sure I did. She had the right to come in and revisit this place. It was her mother’s home all those years. All the life she had with Ellie—at least what she could remember—was at Ocean View. So I got her a pass the first time. I just explained to the director that she needed some closure. He’s kind of a hard-ass, but he said okay.”

  “The first time?”

  Andy nodded. “It was soon after she arrived, a Sunday, I think. She had come into the bar the night before, that night she arrived in Sea Harbor. Nasty night. I came in late after our gig at the community center to help Pop close up, and there she was, as if she never left. Cold and wet and skinny. She told Pop and me what brought her back, how ambivalent she was about the whole Cummings will. What she really wanted, she said, was a look at the place where her mother died. She wasn’t even sure why, but could I call someone over there and get her in? She knew going over there might be upsetting, but she thought she should do it, that it’d be a good thing in the end. I agreed with her. I was going to be out there the next day anyway, so I called and arranged it.”

  “That was the day she missed the meeting with the lawyer.”

  “Yes. She didn’t mean to, but once she found the suite her mother lived in, she couldn’t get herself to leave. It upset some staff, I think. They didn’t quite understand.

  “And then, a couple days after the will was read, she wanted to go back again. She was more insistent that time. She wouldn’t tell me why, but she said it was very important and she was so determined I figured if I didn’t get her in, she’d try to scale the fence and end up in the hospital—or jail. She didn’t want a tour guide. Just wanted to walk around. I could see how much it mattered to her, so I snuck her in. Not anything I’m proud of, but it seemed so important to her and I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything or anyone to go in a couple times. It was hard to say no to her, you know? I’d get her on the grounds, then go off and do my volunteer gig, leaving her to do whatever. I didn’t see her once I dropped her off, so I didn’t really know what she was up to. At first I thought she was still coming to grips with her mother’s death.”

  “But it wasn’t that?”

  “Maybe it was in the beginning. But her intent seemed to change a couple days later. I’m not sure why. When I asked her, she said she had lots of questions about her mother’s care here.”

  “What kind of questions?” Nell asked.

  “She was vague. Her mother’s care, medicine, her doctor, visitors. The cost of staying there and who paid for it.”

  “She must have known who paid for Ellie’s care,” Birdie said.

  “She did. But she said it wasn’t Lydia; it was the company itself. I’m not sure why that made any difference, but she seemed to need answers.”

  “She spent time in the Cummings business office,” Nell said. “Maybe she saw some invoices or checks.”

  “I heard Garrett talking about what a pest she made of herself over there,” Andy said with a short laugh. “No surprise. But it made sense. She wanted to know what she’d inherited. Maybe she wanted to know how ‘her’ company’s money was spent.”

  “That’s logical, but a little strange to obsess on a single expense like that,” Cass said.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t just that, though. Her whole obsession with Ocean View was strange. And I don’t think it had anything to do with seeing her mother’s room and putting things to rest—she was so mad at the Cummingses. Rightfully so, but I tried to get her to let it go. What good did being mad do? Somehow she seemed to want to blame them. But I’m not even sure for what. They had spent a ton of money making sure Ellie had the best care.”

  “Do you have any idea what she did at Ocean View?” asked Cass.

  “I heard from several staff members that she was asking questions. Bothering the nurses about what it was like when her mom died, was she in pain, how long did it take—questions that made the staff understandably uncomfortable. It had been three years since Ellie died and there’s always turnover in those places, so some of them didn’t know what she was talking about or who Ellie Harper was.

  “But some did, and at first they tried to be nice. Then the last time she went—it was that Saturday, the day she died. I had a shift that day, so I drove her over with me, but I had to leave early because we were rehearsing for the harbor gig that night. When it was time to leave, I couldn’t find her. So I left. Later I heard that someone found her trying to find some files or something and told the director. He had security show her the door, literally, and threatened to call the police if she ever returned.”

  “What do you think she was looking for?” Birdie asked, trying to conjure up the look on Amber’s face that night. It was sad and angry and determined. A mixture of disparate emotions that didn’t reside comfortably on the young woman’s face.

  Andy shook his head. “I don’t know. But when I saw her at the harbor party later that same night, she was clearly upset and very angry. She started crying when she saw me—something Amber didn’t do easily. She said it was wrong, all wrong.”

  Nell frowned. �
��Wrong?”

  “I don’t know what she meant. Something was tearing her apart in a way that being thrown out of a nursing home wouldn’t have done. I think whatever it was she was looking for at Ocean View—she thought she might have found it.”

  Chapter 27

  Ben found the Ocean View story interesting and troubling. “I wish she had felt more confident with us so she could have asked us to help,” he said.

  “I suppose when you are on your own at such a young age, you are less likely to depend on others.” Nell stood at a cutting board chopping onions, her eyes watering.

  “True enough. From what Andy said, it sounds like Amber thought there was a connection between Northshore Nurseries and Ocean View, something other than the fact that Lydia paid the bills.”

  “I don’t know. At the least the bills led her over there. And being there disturbed her.”

  “Hospital—medical places—can be off-putting, I suppose, especially if your mother died there.”

  “On a slightly different note, you were right about something,” Ben said. “I did as you asked—got the name and number and put in a call to Amber’s lawyer friend in Florida. Stu hadn’t let any grass grow under his feet. He tracked the guy down the day Rachel told him Amber was in his mother’s will. He knew from day one that his niece didn’t have her own will. He knew before Rachel did.”

  “Which means he knew without Amber around there’d be no fuss about the nurseries, no threat to the company.”

  Ben nodded. “It’s strange that he pretended otherwise—that’s not like Stu. But it served a purpose, I guess. He avoided casting suspicion on himself.”

  “But it’s out there now. The suspicion, I mean. Unless Helen is a top-notch actress, which I doubt, she didn’t know about it. But Stu did, and he probably told Barbara.” Nell tossed the onions into a frying pan and wiped her eyes with a tissue. “Will you pass that information along to Jerry Thompson?”

  “I’ll mention it, although Jerry is going to wonder why we’re digging into this.”

  Ben had given in begrudgingly to Nell’s request to find the Florida lawyer. “Let the police do their job,” he’d insisted when she asked. But he’d obliged, just as Nell knew he would, and she also knew why: it kept her from doing it herself and being more closely involved in a murder investigation than she had any right to be.

  “I’ve been thinking about Stu a lot,” she said. “Even if he had done his own investigating, you were right about the more important fact. I don’t think it matters if Stu knew she had a will or not.”

  “You didn’t feel that way last night.”

  “No, I guess I didn’t. Or maybe I thought it was a loose thread that needed to be tied off no matter what significance it had, just so we would know. But I don’t think Stu Cummings would kill anyone, especially not over something his mother had decided to do. It would be an act of defiance, and I don’t think he would do that. Father Northcutt told me once he was truly devoted to his mother. He didn’t go against her wishes.”

  “I agree,” Ben said, repeating what he had said the night before. “Stu may not have liked what his mother did, and he may even be relieved now that he doesn’t have to deal with Amber being a part of the company, but he wouldn’t have killed her for it.”

  Nell added chunks of red and orange peppers and asparagus to the bowl and mixed in a stream of olive oil. She turned as she stirred and said with a slight smile, “Thank you for not saying ‘I told you so.’ But there’s another, more practical reason he couldn’t have killed Amber.”

  “And what’s that?” Ben’s eyebrows lifted as he took the olives from the refrigerator.

  “Stu was too visible at the harbor party that night. He spent the whole evening meeting and greeting and making people feel comfortable. Making announcements. It was his party, in a way—he was the host. And remember what he had on? That fire-engine red down jacket. He looked like Santa himself, minus the beard. It would have been next to impossible for him to have slipped into the wooded area without being noticed.”

  Ben listened, holding back a smile. Using Stu’s girth and attire as an alibi might not hold up in court, but it was a convincing argument.

  He started taking martini glasses from the cupboard and lining them up next to the shaker. “So we agree that Stu probably didn’t kill Amber. But I think you have more reasons for changing your mind than you’re letting on, Nell. I think it’s more than puffy red jackets.” He looked across the island, his eyes locking in to hers. Tell me, his eyes said.

  But Nell looked away. There was more. Things that seemed far removed from Stu Cummings. She hadn’t had enough time to sort through her thoughts about their visit to the cemetery and talk with Andy Risso. They were still frayed, like a poorly knit sweater, filled with images of Amber wandering the halls of Ocean View, trying to find the mother who had died without her.

  Her thoughts were muddy, too muddy to share with Ben just yet. He’d try to clean them up with practical surmises, things that she didn’t want to hear right now.

  She, Birdie, and Cass had talked nonstop on their way home from the cemetery. And then they’d sat in Birdie’s den for another hour, sipping herbal tea and eating Ella’s chicken wraps, replaying Andy’s words, sorting through images, trying to find reasons for Amber’s actions. They were following her, and she’d taken them to a nursing home.

  Why?

  As the last crumbs of their sandwiches had disappeared and their tea had gone cold, the decision was made. If they were truly going to follow Amber’s footsteps, they’d have to get across that fence themselves—and they sincerely hoped it wouldn’t cost Andy Risso his volunteer job to get them there.

  “Nell?” Ben said, bringing her back to the kitchen and the fragrant odors coming from the stove.

  “Sorry.” She smiled, changing the subject. “Do you know if Charlie’s coming tonight?”

  “I think so. I saw him around noon. He said he had a midday shift at the clinic but would come over afterwards. He dropped off a portfolio with some papers in it and a few books of Amber’s he said you wanted. He was about to toss the papers in the trash when he remembered. They’re in the den.”

  “I must have brain overload, I guess. I completely forgot about those papers. I’ll look at them later. Thanks. The papers, but also the box that Esther had given Amber. She kept meaning to ask Charlie about it, but the thought usually came when she was in the shower or some other inopportune time. If Amber had thrown it away, she might have mentioned it to Charlie.”

  “I checked the book titles,” Ben said. “They were interesting.”

  “Oh? Archie said they were mostly business, financial manuals. That doesn’t sound interesting at all, at least to me.” She smiled, her ongoing feud with math a running joke.

  “Yes, there were a couple of business-related books—running a business, financial statements. Not exactly bedside reading. Seeing them made me wonder if Amber was actually thinking about running the Sea Harbor nursery that she’d inherited. And thinking about that reminded me . . .” Ben’s voice grew husky, and he frowned at his own emotion, but went on. “It reminded me that Amber had just finished business school. She was smart, healthy, vital. A whole life ahead of her. And then in an instant, her dreams and ambitions, her chance for loving someone, for giving life, for experiencing getting older and wiser—all of that was cut off because someone decided to end her life. Just like that. Robbed her of a future. In one cruel moment.”

  Nell looked over at the anger and sadness that mixed together in her husband’s pained face.

  And her heart swelled with all the things she loved about him.

  She hid her own emotion in the heat of the oven, checking the pork tenderloin, sprinkling wine into the pan. She spread the vegetables out on a cookie tin and slid it onto the bottom rack beneath the tenderloin, then closed the door.

  Ben had busi
ed himself mixing a small batch of martinis, the icy silver shaker held tightly in his hands as he brought his feelings under control. “These are for you and me, babe,” he said, smiling at his wife as he poured the mixture into two chilled glasses.

  Nell moved to his side, took her glass, and touched its rim to Ben’s. Their eyes met in a toast that didn’t need a single word.

  “Okay, then,” Nell said, setting her glass down and moving away from the shared emotion before the others arrived. “Back to the book. Archie said there was one that had nothing to do with financial gobbledygook. What is that one about?”

  Ben thought for a moment, one ear tuned to a car pulling into the drive. “It was a medical text or manual. Mayo’s maybe? Amber didn’t mention health problems, did she?”

  Nell’s surprised response was shattered by the sound of heavy boots, light ones, and the tip-tapping of Red’s nails on the hardwood floor. She wiped her hands on a towel and hurried across the room to capture Abby in a hug. Recently little words were coming out of her perfect heart-shaped mouth, and Nell knew without question Abby was telling her grand-aunt how much she loved her. Danny, Cass, and Birdie came in before the first set of gloves and coats were piled in the den, and the Brewsters arrived shortly after.

  Cheese and crackers, stuffed mushrooms, and a basket of rolls filled the island while Sam and Ham Brewster headed toward the fireplace to pile on a few more logs in the hearth.

  Cass had her iPod out, searching for the new Sam Smith album, hurrying to get it in place before Danny had a chance to plug in his old eighties favorites.

  Jane Brewster handed Nell the salad she had made, and Nell gave her oldest friend a hug. “I needed that, and you need one, too,” Jane said, her full head of streaked gray hair swirling freely around her face as she looped one arm around Nell and drew her over to the sink.

  “How is Charlie doing?” she asked.

  “He’ll be as happy as all of us when this nightmare ends. I suppose that’s how he is.”