A Fatal Fleece: A Seaside Knitters Mystery

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Subdued chuckles passed through the crowd when Angus called Finnegan old. Angus himself—the Old Man of the Sea, as the kids called him—was old enough that no one even tried to remember the exact year he was born. Angus had been around forever, was the way people looked at it. And his generosity to the city made people not ask his age but defer to him instead.

  “No disrespect to you, Angus,” Beatrice Scaglia said, “but the place has become an eyesore, plain and simple—and that is our business.” One long red fingernail tapped on the table.

  “I suppose it’s not the best thing for Colony Cove,” Ham Brewster admitted. Ham spoke with reluctance. He liked Finn well enough, just as most of the Canary Cove artists did. Finnegan was their self-appointed watchdog and street cleaner, fixing shutters and cleaning up the paper cups and lobster roll wrappings that tourists sometimes tossed in the narrow streets of the art colony. Finnegan’s wife, Moira, had been an artist, he often told them—and it’s what she’d have wanted him to do.

  Nell watched Jane Brewster, a dear friend, cast her eyes to the floor. Jane agreed with what her husband said, but she didn’t like herself for it. She and Ham headed the Canary Cove Arts Association—housed in a very neat building on the other side of Finn’s land—and had worked hard to make the colony successful, safe, and beautiful. Finnegan’s land was becoming a deterrent to business and an eyesore to all of them.

  “And it’s a hotbed for riffraff,” Jake Risso, owner of the Gull Tavern, spoke up. Again, with some reluctance. “Not Finn’s fault, but when I’m out in the boat I can see ’em, bums trying to hunker down over there. They think it’s abandoned—”

  “And, therefore, theirs,” Beatrice said. “And it’s not good for Finn himself. Just two weeks ago someone showed up in that rotted building and Finn caused an awful ruckus.”

  The crowd turned to look at Tommy Porter, the young policeman who had stopped the fight. If he hadn’t, he’d told the reporter who dutifully wrote it up for the newspaper, the guy might not have seen the light of a new day. Finn was fuming mad, and the bum had a broken nose to show for it.

  Tommy nodded at the attention, but declined from adding to the discussion.

  Nell settled back in the chair, lulled by the buzz of conversation around her. She didn’t often come to council meetings, agreeing with Birdie’s evaluation, but Ben was chairing the new Parks and Open Spaces Committee, and his community garden idea was a brilliant one. She had come to support his plans, hoping it would overshadow the debate over Finnegan’s run-down property.

  But it hadn’t, and now the comments in the room were less about assigning garden plots, building pathways, and bringing in mulch, and far more about ousting an old man from his rightful property.

  Nell often jogged along the path that bordered the land in question. She understood clearly why people were upset. The whole area was seedy and unkempt. Beatrice Scaglia had hired teenagers to go in and mow the grass—a favor, Nell supposed, to townspeople who took their complaints to the councilwoman. Beatrice knew well that favors encouraged people to vote her way when election time came around.

  But then, a while back, the fence went up and Beatrice’s mowing stopped.

  Directly across the room from Nell, Cass Halloran stood with her back against the wall, next to Danny Brandley. She looked distant, as if she were there in body but not much else. Every now and then Danny would glance down at her as if her mood were passing from her body into his own. His expression carried worry. Worry for Cass, Nell suspected. The mystery writer’s affection for Nell’s favorite lobsterwoman had ripened right along with his own successful career, and what Cass worried about, he probably did, too.

  The burden of keeping the Hallorans’ lobster business alive and thriving was a heavy one. Not an easy task in today’s world.

  Izzy Perry, owner of the Seaside Knitting Studio, wasn’t at the meeting because her shop was still open and busy with vacationers getting started on knitting projects, but she’d promised to meet Nell and Cass and other friends for dinner. She sent her husband, Sam, to the meeting in her stead. Sam, as was his way, stood in the back, a camera hanging from a strap around his neck, just in case. Tonight Sam’s camera went unattended as he listened intently to the conversation.

  Birdie was absent, too, though she said she was coming. But when Nell had called earlier to offer her a ride, Ella, the housekeeper, said Birdie had received a phone call that sent her upstairs to shower, and then she was gone. Off without a word of explanation.

  And Miss Birdie rarely showered in the middle of the day, Ella had shared.

  Nell smiled as she recalled the tone in Ella’s voice. Crisp and disapproving. Ella usually knew exactly where Birdie was, and that’s the way she—and her husband and groundskeeper, Harold—liked it.

  But Birdie and Izzy were among the minority missing the meeting. Many of the Canary Cove artists were there, and one whole row was filled with longtime residents who lived in the neighborhood above Canary Cove—the old captains’ homes that had been redone and refurbished into coveted family homes—and a newer neighborhood just across the cove.

  At the end of the row was Sal Scaglia, who with his wife had recently renovated one of those homes and turned it into a Sea Harbor showplace. He sat with a notebook on his lap, his dark-rimmed glasses in place, and his attention focused on his wife, Beatrice. He reminded Nell of a faithful pup, although she knew Sal wouldn’t find that flattering. But he was exactly that: always there at the meetings, always at Beatrice’s side during her campaigns and civic commitments. Appearing at cocktail parties and ribbon cuttings and store openings—the quiet, loyal man behind the successful and ambitious woman.

  Beatrice was still tapping her fingernail, waiting for some overt agreement that the group as a whole needed to take immediate action. Silence stretched across the room like a taut rubber band ready to snap.

  Finally, the awkward moment was broken by sounds coming from the back of the room.

  Nell welcomed the distraction. She looked toward the noise.

  Beatrice Scaglia peered over her microphone, straining to see into the shadows at the back of the room. Finally, she stood.

  Bodies shifted on the benches and chairs, eyes moving toward the commotion.

  Davey Delaney, the construction company owner’s son, was standing just behind the last row of chairs. He was alone, as he usually was, leaving his wife, Kristen, home with their three children. Davey was the image of his father as a younger man—ruggedly built with a barroom-handsome face, muscular body with just the faintest beginning of a beer bulge. His thinning auburn hair had been bleached by the sun and was more red than brown. His piercing blue eyes were staring, but not at the council table in the front of the room. Instead, he had turned his broad shoulders sideways, his stance that of a tiger ready to pounce. He was staring into the shadows near the back door.

  Nell followed his look.

  A dozen feet away, just inside the wide council room doors, stood a slender man with a prominent nose and shadowed jaw. He stood apart from the others crowding the room. A Sox cap was pulled low on his forehead, partially covering a white bandage across his cheek, and an old denim shirt hung loose from his bony shoulders.

  The man was conscious of Davey’s glare and met it head-on. He scratched an unshaven chin, his expression unreadable.

  Except for the microphone picking up the tapping of Beatrice Scaglia’s fingernails, the room was quiet.

  “I never liked you much, Delaney,” the man finally said, breaking the silence. His robust voice was a contrast to the deep furrows of age that defined his face. “But I give you your space. Now, don’t I do that? Your old man, too. Sure, I do. I always done that, even when you were a young upstart raidin’ our traps out near the island, tangling lines, creating trouble. So now it’s time you give me my space, Davey Delaney. You know what I’m saying here?”

  The older man pushed his body away from the wall, standing tall now, his fingers curling into a fist at his s
ide.

  Although the man weighed half that of the hefty Delaney son and would likely have done little harm, Ben spotted the clenched fist and began moving toward the back of the room. Across the room, Ben’s friend Ham Brewster did the same.

  But when the man’s arm rose, his fingers relaxed and went to his own head, not to Davey Delaney’s. Slowly, he clasped the bill of his cap with gnarled fingers and removed it, inclining his head slightly to the dozens of people looking at him. He scanned the crowd, surprised at the attention coming his way.

  “I just stopped by to be sure no one was robbing the place, maybe to see what all the hullabaloo was about, that’s all,” he said. He managed a lopsided smile. “Damned if it wasn’t about me.”

  Davey Delaney ignored the man’s words and his smile and took a step closer, his eyes flashing and a fire-engine blush crawling up his thick neck. His legs apart, his hands clenched, he leaned forward. “You hear this, old man. Mark my words. That land’ll be ours someday and we’ll treat it a damn sight better than you do. We’ve got some respect for the people living around it.” Davey tried to keep his voice low, but it refused to whisper and the words passed across the hushed room.

  The old man turned toward him again, his smile disappearing in a flash. One bent finger pointed at the younger man.

  “My land?” he said. The words hung in the air, held up by incredulity. His finger shook and his voice rose, bringing the room to rapt attention.

  “You . . . get . . . my . . . land?” He paused for just one moment, then held Davey Delaney immobile in his stare. His words shot out like bullets. “Over my dead body, you will.”

  The age-spotted hand dropped to his side, and after another slight nod to the crowd, Finnegan the fisherman put his cap back on his balding head, turned slowly, and with an arthritic limp, walked out of the Sea Harbor City Hall and into the approaching night.

  Chapter 2

  “Both Davey Delaney and old Finnegan are full of hot air,” Ben said, motioning to the hostess that they’d probably need a table for six or eight. Izzy and Sam had followed them to the yacht club in their own car. Cass and Dan Brandley weren’t far behind, and there was no telling who else might show up. The heated discussion had heightened appetites, and the club’s Monday-night seafood buffet was the perfect way to satisfy it.

  “It was a surprise to have Finn show up like that,” Sam Perry said. “The guy’s a wanderer, though. I see him walking the beach, wandering around the harbor, offering advice to any fisherman who’ll listen. I’ve gotten some great shots of him around town.”

  “He must miss the days of being out on the water,” Nell said.

  Liz Santos, the club manager, caught Nell’s eye and waved her over to the lounge area. “I don’t mean to be nosy, Nell. I’m very careful to give club members privacy.”

  Nell frowned. “Of course. I know that, Liz. You’re always discreet.”

  “Well, usually, anyway.” She smiled. “It’s just that Birdie looks so happy, that’s all. And it made me wonder who the distinguished-looking guy is. I’ve not seen him around here before. Let me know. They need me in the kitchen.”

  Cass and Izzy walked over.

  “Did you see her?” Izzy asked.

  “Who?” Nell asked. “Where?”

  “There,” Izzy said.

  She pointed to a secluded area beyond the curved granite-topped bar.

  Nell peered around several large ficus trees with tiny white lights wound around the branches.

  It was Birdie. And a distinguished-looking man they’d never seen before. Her face was lit with pleasure.

  “So this is why she wasn’t at the meeting,” Nell murmured.

  “Who is he?” Izzy asked.

  A partial profile revealed a prominent nose and strong chin. His graying hair was slightly long, curling over the collar of his knit shirt. A handsome sports jacket hung over the back of his chair. He leaned in toward Birdie, said something, and then reached out across the table and touched her hand. His laughter carried back to them, rich and full.

  “She blushed!” Cass said.

  The couple at the table next to the ficus trees looked up. Cass mumbled an apology.

  “We’re acting like kids,” Nell said. “And I’m starving. Come.” She motioned toward the table where Ben was already settled, along with Izzy’s husband, Sam, Danny Brandley, and Cass’ brother, Pete.

  She looked back at Birdie. “It’s probably one of her lawyers or trust managers. Birdie says they use these meetings with her as an excuse to escape the city.”

  She started to walk away, urging the others to follow, but was one second too late.

  Birdie looked up and saw the women huddling behind the trees, pretending to be invisible, their eyes focused on her dining companion. A burst of laughter escaped the white-haired octogenarian’s lips, causing several people sitting at the bar to look up and smile. Her eyes lit up like the lights on the trees that separated her from her friends.

  Before anyone could react, she stood and waved her arms, beckoning them over to the table.

  “Go,” Cass said, giving Izzy a gentle nudge toward the table. “Birdie’s calling.”

  Nell walked up behind them. By the time they reached the table, Birdie’s dining companion was standing up. He was medium height, but as she looked into the lined, handsome face, it wasn’t his height that made the difference. It was the deep-set blue eyes that smiled at them.

  “Nicholas, these are my dear friends, Nell, Cass, and Izzy.” Birdie waved her hand, encompassing the group.

  Nicholas gently lifted each of their hands and warmed it with a brush of his lips. “Such a pleasure,” he said.

  Birdie continued, “And they are beside themselves with curiosity, wondering who in heaven’s name you are and what delicious fortune brought you to Sea Harbor.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell,” Cass said.

  Nicholas’ laughter joined with Birdie’s.

  “A disappointment, I fear,” Birdie said. “I’m sure your imaginations have conjured up something far more elaborate than the truth. Nicholas Marietti is my brother-in-law.”

  “Brother-in-law?”

  “Brother-in-law?”

  “Brother-in-law?”

  The women’s words collided in the air.

  Brother-in-law. Nell hadn’t known any of Birdie’s three husbands. That had all been before her time as a permanent Sea Harbor resident, but her in-laws had known them all. And so had friends and neighbors who had lived in Sea Harbor their whole lives. So Nell had heard stories about the handsome men who had fallen beneath Birdie’s spell. Her mind worked to fit names in slots. Marietti. Joseph Marietti. Birdie’s last husband? An Italian businessman who came to New York on family business, vacationed in Sea Harbor one summer, and fell in love with Birdie Favazza. That sounded right.

  A massive heart attack took him from Sea Harbor, from Birdie, and from life just three years into their marriage.

  Birdie looked around at her friends. “I can read your thoughts, you know. You’re all remembering that Joseph Marietti’s family in Italy was certain he’d married a woman of questionable mores—anyone named Birdie, of course, would be such a hussy. And they had nothing to do with me for the rest of Joseph’s life.”

  “Shameful,” Nicholas said beside her. “They were so far away, so stupid. They didn’t understand that Joseph had found himself a dazzling diamond.”

  Birdie patted his arm. “Hush with the dramatics, Nicky.” She looked at the others. “But, yes, except for Joseph’s baby brother sitting here, the Marietti family didn’t have much to do with me. But sweet Nick came to our wedding and kept in touch with us. We even went out to California to visit him once. When Joseph died, he was the one who came back to help me bury his brother.”

  Nick had lowered his head as Birdie talked, and Nell could feel the memories passing between them.

  “A long time ago, Birdie,” he said finally. “A long time.”

  “Not so long, d
ear.” Her smile was met with the faint ring of a cell phone.

  Nicholas pulled a phone from his pocket, glanced at the screen, then excused himself with an apology. “It’s family,” he explained, and quickly walked over to a corner in the lounge.

  “What a lovely man. Where did he come from? Why is he here?”

  “I was just finding that out when I saw the three of you spying on me. He showed up unexpectedly—a whim, he said. He’s on a vacation trip, headed north to see beautiful things. And it struck him suddenly that Sea Harbor needed to be on the list. He’s with someone—a woman friend, I suspect, though he’s been secretive—and wants me to meet her. Nicholas has always been quite the ladies’ man.”

  “Where is she?” Cass asked. “He left her in the car? That doesn’t bode well.”

  They laughed, and Nell looked over at Nick. His hand covered one ear to block out the din of conversation in the lounge. The other gripped a cell phone and pressed it tightly to his ear. His face was intent, the charming smile dissolved by the rigid set of his jaw and deeply furrowed forehead.

  “Of course not, Cass. She’s at Mary Pisano’s bed-and-breakfast. They’re spending the night at Ravenswood-by-the-Sea—though I told him how silly that was. I have more bedrooms in my home than the inn does, but he said they were already settled. Perhaps they wanted more privacy—who knows? And you know how charming Mary’s place is. They’ll love it. His companion had a bit of carsickness, Nick said. I don’t suppose that bodes well for a romantic car trip up the coast. But hopefully she’ll feel better tomorrow. I shall meet her for breakfast, and then they’ll be off again on—”

  Nick’s reappearance and the somber expression on his face cut off Birdie’s words. “Nicky?” she said, looking up.

  “I am so terribly sorry.” He bowed his head slightly as he spoke. He lifted Birdie’s shawl from the chair back and wrapped it around her shoulders. “We need to leave right away, Birdie. It’s an emergency. I need to talk to you about some things. I will explain on the way—” He looked at Nell, Cass, and Izzy and bowed his head again. “Please forgive my abruptness, ladies.”