Trimmed With Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Helen,” Stu tried again. But his voice was choked and the word fell to the floor.

  As if suddenly waking up, Helen’s voice grew stronger. “Watch me, Stu.” She waved the knife in the air. “Soon you’ll have two dead women. Will you love me then?”

  Nell looked away, just in time to miss seeing Helen Cummings fall to the floor, the knife slipping away as her head hit the marble, where she fell into a sound, unconscious sleep.

  One she wouldn’t wake up from until safely behind bars.

  • • •

  Jerry Thompson showed up with Ben and the others at the same time as an ambulance and police car. No one knew for sure what was happening in Father Northcutt’s sanctuary.

  Stu slumped down in one of the pews, his head in his hands. Nell sat down beside him. She had decided not to tell him she had seen him at Ellie’s grave. He’d had enough sadness in one day to last the next one hundred.

  But she understood now the mixture of sounds that carried his emotions earlier. Love and guilt, sadness and pain.

  Suddenly she felt enormous sadness for Stu Cummings. She leaned over and wished him peace. Then silently followed the others out of the church.

  • • •

  They left the church as solemnly as if leaving a requiem Mass. And without an actual plan, they straggled into the Endicott kitchen a short while later.

  Charlie put on coffee while Sam pulled several beers out of the refrigerator and uncorked the wine.

  Ben brought out a bottle of scotch.

  “It’s over,” Birdie said. “This time it really is.”

  But there was no joy. Lives were wounded, upended, and an unstable woman would never live in her comfortable world again.

  “Amber was so sure her mother didn’t die naturally,” Ben said.

  Nell shared with them the call she’d gotten from Georgia, the night nurse. “That little bit of encouragement might have been all she needed. No one else would listen.”

  “Don’t you think her doctor, or Father Northcutt, maybe, wondered, too? But because Ellie’s life was so limited, it wasn’t something that would be looked into. The only one who might was a daughter who regretted not being here when her mother died.” Birdie looked out the window into the night. “There’s nothing happy about any of it. It’s all so sad.”

  “I think we were right that Amber probably suspected Barbara, at first, thinking she did it for the money,” Cass said. “Amber knew so much from the Cummingses’ financials. It was like reading a diary for her. She knew how much money they’d save if they didn’t have to pay for her mother’s care; she knew about Barbara’s gambling debts, her need for money; she knew about the bonuses Barbara paid Garrett to continue his doctoring of the books—”

  “I think Garrett would have done it for love, if Barbara would have given him that,” Nell said.

  Ben poured the scotch. “Well, I think the gambling and embezzlement issues are going to be taken care of outside the law,” he said. “Garrett did it for Barbara, not himself, not really. And the truth is that it’s the family itself that would bring charges. Stu won’t do that, not if Barbara gets treatment and Garrett shapes up. They’re damn lucky.”

  Cass puffed up. “Yes, they are.”

  Danny patted her on the back. “Good job, Sherlock.”

  They laughed, tired, weary laughs that sent them to finishing drinks, rummaging around for gloves and keys and coats, and heading into the night for well-deserved long winter’s naps.

  Chapter 39

  Father Northcutt had been true to his word, allowing Esther and Charlie to plan a suitable memorial, something to remember the woman one of them had known nearly her whole life, and the other had known just a week. A week that would have a lasting effect on Charlie Chambers. A week spent with a woman who had helped him open his heart from its long slumber.

  They gathered together in the sanctuary of Father Larry’s church late one afternoon, just as the last rays of sunlight poured through the stained-glass windows, casting colorful bands across the marble floor. Lined up along the steps were all of Esther’s framed photos of a young Amber. A pot of wildflowers sat beside them, flowers that Esther Gibson seemed to have miraculously produced in the middle of winter.

  No one knelt or sat, instead choosing to stand in a semicircle, arms looped around shoulders and waists, memories filling the space. After a brief prayer by Father Larry, Jake and Esther spoke of the little girl they had known and loved—one who had grown into a young woman who would have made her mother proud.

  Izzy stood next to Charlie, her arm entwined with his. She looked at him, wondering whether he was going to speak.

  Instead he smiled and gave her a brief hug, then walked over to join Andy Risso and Pete Halloran, who were both standing near Esther Gibson.

  Andy pulled a drum stool from behind him and sat down as Pete picked up his guitar, then began strumming until the two had captured the beat. Esther grinned at Charlie, then wrapped one plump arm around his shoulders, and in the next minute the unexpected quartet filled the sanctuary in true Jimmy Cliff fashion with “I Can See Clearly Now (The Rain Is Gone).”

  Before they’d finished the final verse, everyone had joined in, sopranos and baritones alike, heads thrown back as they cast away the winter with song, welcoming the sun and assuring Amber Harper—and themselves—that it was going to be all right.

  Chapter 40

  The crowd in the Harbor Green a week later was the largest Nell could remember. A joyous gathering of children and parents, elves and carolers, and the ever-present Fractured Fish.

  Esther Gibson had brought out her Mrs. Santa Claus costume again and sat on the gazebo stage beside the band, passing out lollipops with the promise that Mr. Santa Claus would be coming into Sea Harbor on Christmas Eve.

  Charlie carried Abby over to the stage. Her eyes were bright, watching the twinkling lights hanging from the gazebo roof and delighting at the snowflakes landing on her mittens.

  “See this lady, Abby?” Charlie whispered into his niece’s ear. “She magical.”

  Esther’s smile spread across her lined face as she reached out and lifted the toddler onto her lap. “And so are you, my love,” she said to Abby, bouncing her a bit.

  Izzy stood nearby, beaming, as Abby reached up and touched the soft white ball at the end of Esther’s furry red hat. Her daughter’s world was filled with enchantment.

  In the next minute Abby turned and reached for Uncle Charlie to take her back, to play his finger puppet games with her and sing her silly songs.

  And he did, finding it difficult to be away from his niece for long.

  His niece, his family. His town. Charlie’s world.

  Izzy puffed with pride as she looked at her brother kissing the top of her daughter’s head. “He’s in hot contention with Red to be her favorite playmate,” Izzy had told everyone that morning when Charlie announced his plans to stay in Sea Harbor.

  “Doc Virgilio is short staffed, so I’m going to hang around for awhile,” he’d explained, but his arm around his sister and his eyes on his niece spoke to reasons that didn’t need a lot of words and had little to do with how busy Lily’s clinic was. There would always be a place for Charlie there, she had told him.

  “There you are,” Charlie said now, carrying a wiggly Abby over to her mom.

  “Come on, you two,” Izzy said. “Let’s go look at the ornaments.”

  Together they walked down the path toward the magical trees. They had been transformed that day by teams of zealous workers, hooking tiny ornaments to fragrant trees, bending their branches, and turning them into works of art. Tiny hand-carved wooden fishermen, boots, and clay running shoes the size of a thumb, with crocheted headbands and water bottles.

  Abby squealed as they stopped in front of a tree filled with knit fish and whales and tiny sailboats in reds and blues, gr
eens and yellows. “Daddy boat,” Abby insisted, pulling Nell’s version of Ben and Sam’s prized Hinckley sailboat from the branch and cuddling it in her hands.

  “Our tree’s the best, right?” Izzy whispered into her daughter’s ear.

  She looked up at Charlie. “Abby thinks we’re awesome.”

  Charlie laughed. “Yeah. I think so, too. But I dunno. Have you seen the blood pressure cuffs and stethoscopes on ours?”

  The sky was beginning to darken, and an expectant feeling hovered over the fairyland of trees. “Time to get back,” Izzy said.

  Once the sky was dark, the tree lights would be lit. And the holiday season would truly begin. They wandered back along the path, finding the rest of their crowd gathered near a fire pit.

  Father Northcutt sat on a bench next to Ben and Sam. “It will take more than a week to bring us all back to that safe and gentle place,” he said. “But this is certainly a good start.”

  Dozens of benches circled an enormous fire pit that the Sea Harbor firemen were protecting. The crackling flames sent wafts of warmth their way.

  “These weeks have taken a toll on you, Father,” Sam said.

  “Added a few gray hairs maybe,” Father Larry joked. Then he grew somber, his smile fading. “Helen justified it all, you know. Mercy killing, she called it. But it wasn’t that, for sure. She never visited Ellie. Only that once. There was no mercy in her act, only jealousy, and a good deal of fear, I suspect. There was good in Helen, but there was also the other.”

  “And Lydia suspected,” Nell said quietly, finally understanding the cloud that had weighed down the priest all these months. She sat on an opposite bench, her elbows on her knees, wanting to clear the sadness in his eyes. “You carried all that, Father Larry.”

  “Ah, it’s what we do, Nellie.” He looked into the fire, the flames dancing off his glasses and warming his cheeks. “At first I was surprised at how hard Lydia took Ellie’s death. Some people called it a blessing and maybe it was. Who knows? These are difficult things to figure out. But I wondered about Lydia. And then she shared one day that she had an inkling—that was all it was, an inkling—of what Helen had done. It weighed heavily on her. At times I thought it hastened her own death.”

  Abby’s spinning laughter drifted over to where they sat. Charlie and Izzy, with Abby on Charlie’s shoulders, joined them and the mood drifted up into the flames above the fire pit.

  Izzy looked at the light dusting of snow and rubbed her mittened hands together. “It’s almost time,” she said.

  “For what?” Cass said. The words came out quickly, as if she was bewildered at Izzy’s comment.

  Danny pulled her down next to him on a bench.

  “The tree lighting, of course,” Izzy said, looking at her friend curiously. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  “Oh, that,” Cass said, and looked over at the gazebo where Pete, Merry, and Andy were tuning up. On the top step, Alphonso Santos tapped the microphone to life, and around the park, people hustled toward the action, children standing on picnic tables and benches. Waiting.

  Alphonso brought them all to attention. “It’s almost time,” he said in his deep baritone voice. “But first—a hand for the tree decorations and the amazing teams that have turned this park into a fairyland.”

  The crowd cheered wildly.

  “But there’s a slight change in procedure and I hope we don’t have disappointed tree trimmers tonight. I don’t think we will. Our conscientious judges have spent hours looking at the magic you’ve performed here. And they’ve come up with not one—but thirty-two winners!”

  The crowd screamed and Alphonso held up one hand to hush them.

  “It’s the truth. Thirty-two entries. All winners. And I don’t know if you’ll believe this or not, but some Santa somewhere in this town looked at all the donation sheets and added a fistful of dollars to each one. Each bid sheet—” Alphonso put on his glasses and looked down at a small scrap of paper. “Yes, that’s what it says here. Each one totaled the exact same amount. And need I say, a huge amount—one that will keep all our children healthy and the Sea Harbor Free Health Clinic in business for a long, long time.”

  The crowd cheered again, families clapping, too, but in the next minute the fidgety children began calling for lights.

  But Alphonso wasn’t through.

  “So it didn’t seem to be a year to pick a winner, this Santa said. We’ll save that for next year. But you need to know this: this year every single person who donated time and thought and love during a dark, difficult time to making these trees beautiful is a winner. That’s what Santa said. And who was I to argue?”

  Alphonso looked over to the edge of the gazebo, where the mayor of Sea Harbor, Beatrice Scaglia, was standing. Next to her, a short, hefty man in a red parka looked a little like the Santa of whom Alphonso spoke.

  Beatrice Scaglia stepped back and let the light shine on Santa as Alphonso held his hands out and directed attention that way.

  “My thanks to my close friend and our benefactor, Stuart Cummings.” And then he added in a voice that said more than his words, “Stu, you’re in our hearts.”

  Stu bowed his head as the crowd cheered, clapping their support of a generous man who was traveling through dark days—and letting him know that he wouldn’t be making that journey alone. It wasn’t how Sea Harbor worked.

  As the clapping died down, Beatrice stepped up beside Alphonso on the stage, her eyes damp. She took the switch from Alphonso’s hands and smiled out at the expectant crowd.

  Pete gave the nod, and as the band filled the air with “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” Beatrice flicked the switch and thirty-two trees turned Harbor Park into a blaze of holiday light.

  All around people oohed and aahed, and a band of carolers began singing along, urging the crowd to join in.

  “What power,” Cass said, looking up as the snowflakes seemed to listen to the song’s message and began falling more freely.

  They all sat together, the joy on Abby’s tiny face warming them more than the fire or lights could ever do.

  Janie Levin and Tommy walked by, the lights reflecting off their faces. “Zack just told me he got his job back,” Janie said. “Stu gave him a raise, too, and the promise of a job when he gets out of school. An early Christmas present.”

  “Christmas present!” Cass jumped up. “That reminds me. I have yours.” She looked down at Danny.

  Danny lifted his eyebrows suspiciously.

  “No, really,” she said. She looked up then as the snowflakes began to fall in earnest, their dancing magical as they fell on lifted faces.

  “Perfect,” Cass said, flakes collecting on her dark eyelashes. “I ordered the snowflakes.”

  “That’s my gift?” Danny asked.

  “Danny gets an early gift?” Izzy teased. “What about us?”

  Cass shushed her. She looked around at the circle of people who filled her life. “I have gifts for all of you, too, but they’ll have to wait until Christmas.”

  “So Danny’s special?” Izzy persisted.

  Cass nodded. “Yep,” she said.

  As if intuiting where the attention was, Abby pushed herself off Charlie’s lap and toddled over to Danny. He picked her up immediately and cuddled his goddaughter tightly, but his eyes were on Cass.

  “That’s okay, my Abby doll,” Cass whispered. “You’re a part of this, too.”

  And then Cass bent down on one knee onto the frozen ground, and she looked up into Danny’s face.

  Snowflakes floated down on her cheeks and nose and went unnoticed.

  “Okay, this is it, Brandley,” she said, and nervously pulled a small box out of her pocket.

  Izzy gasped.

  Danny frowned. “What . . . ?”

  But it took Abby to move the action forward. She took the box in her
chubby hands and lifted off the top, gleefully pulling out a braided circle of purple yarn. She held it up into the light of the trees for her godfather to see.

  “Wing,” she said.

  And then she helped her godmother slip it onto Danny’s finger.

  His wing finger.

  Izzy, Birdie, and Nell pulled out tissues.

  The men shook their heads in happy disbelief, clapping one another on the back.

  Father Northcutt uttered, “God bless ’em.”

  And Danny, Cass, and Abby hugged and hugged and hugged.

  Nell’s Sailboat Ornament

  My thanks to talented designer Linda Dawkins for generously sharing her sailboat pattern with the Seaside Knitters. Linda lives on a farm in South Africa with her husband, children, and many pets and other animals, inspiration for some of her beautiful patterns.

  Materials

  Chunky yarn for the boat

  8 mm needles for this chunky yarn

  2 double-pointed 4 mm needles to knit the I-cord for the mast

  Green yarn (or color of your choice) for the sail

  Needle for sewing parts together

  Pipe cleaner

  Boat Pattern (Knit 2)

  Cast on 10 stitches in chunky yarn.

  Row 1: Knit.

  Row 2: Increase into the first stitch, knit across the row, and increase into the last stitch (12 stitches).

  Row 3: Knit.

  Row 4: Increase into the first stitch, knit across the row, and increase into the last stitch (14 stitches).

  Row 5: Knit.

  Row 6: Increase into the first stitch, knit across the row, and increase into the last stitch (16 stitches).

  Cast off.

  Finishing

  Sew the two knit boat pieces, right sides together, on the sides and underneath.

  Turn inside out so that the right sides are on the outside.