A Fatal Fleece: A Seaside Knitters Mystery

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Nell and Birdie waved them off and picked up their things. “I wish she’d let me help, but she’s as stubborn as her father was. It’s the Irish in her,” Birdie said.

  Cass was indeed stubborn—and proud. But she was also a survivor. Somehow this would all work out, and the Halloran lobster business would climb back on its once-steady feet.

  The two women climbed into the car and Nell backed out slowly, then turned the car toward Harbor Road.

  “Wait,” Birdie said suddenly. She leaned forward in the seat, her hands on the dashboard, and stared through the windshield at Finnegan’s gate.

  Nell slowed to a crawl, then stopped. They both looked across the road.

  The yellow knit vest caught their eye first. And then his tall, skinny form. Finnegan’s stance was familiar, too—and defiant. One hand clutched the gate, the other a large stick. In front of him, his face equally stern, stood the figure Nell had seen through the fence, his face visible now.

  Finnegan’s angry voice lifted and carried across the street and through Nell’s open car window.

  “You’re just like the rest of them,” he yelled. “There’s nothin’ for you here. I don’t care who you are in your fancy duds. Out, now!”

  The pause that followed was as loud as the voices that came before. A chasm grew between the two men until one finally spoke, his head held high, one hand in the pocket of his tailored slacks. Casual. In control.

  “I thought we could handle this nicely, Mr. Finnegan. I see you think differently.” The man spoke carefully, the voice of a man used to people listening to him. He started to walk away, then turned again toward Finnegan, his back to the car across the street, his words muffled. “What’s . . . mine . . .” The words were carried on the breeze, but separated from the rest of the sentence.

  And with that, Nicholas Marietti turned away and climbed into a blue rental car.

  Without a sideways glance and oblivious of the women watching him, he sped on down Canary Cove Road, a blur of blue disappearing out of their sight.

  Chapter 10

  Parties at Sal and Beatrice Scaglia’s home usually had a political edge, though it was always subtly disguised. Tonight’s cocktail gathering was to celebrate their newly remodeled home—cocktails with friends, the colorful invitation had read—but no one ever doubted that the guest list included those who might offer a political assist, should one be needed down the road.

  “Do you think she’d make a good mayor?” Nell asked. Then she looked away from her question and out the window toward the churning sea. She was talking without thinking, uttering words while her mind was elsewhere. Idle chat. Something she didn’t often do with Ben.

  Ben maneuvered the car along the winding drive toward the Scaglia home. It was a peculiar evening sky, strangely ominous, with threads of clouds floating in front of the emerging crescent moon. The air was heavy, and below the cliff a pounding surf sent frothy plumes into the night sky. Rain, the weatherman had predicted. But Ben and Nell had both agreed that it wouldn’t rain yet, not until after Beatrice’s cocktail party. She wouldn’t allow it.

  “Mayor? Sure, she’d be fine.” Ben said. He took the turns in the road with ease. “Beatrice is bright, articulate. And she has her constituents’ interests at heart.” He glanced over at his wife. “What’s on your mind, Nellie? I’d guess it isn’t Beatrice Scaglia’s political future.”

  “That’s not fair. At the least, I should be able to hide my thoughts in the dark.” Nell shifted on the seat and pulled a knit wrap around her shoulders. A soft cashmere shawl, the color of the sea, and knit with love, Izzy had said when she gave it to her.

  Ben reached over and rested one hand on her knee, his eyes on the road. He rubbed the silk fabric of her dress lightly. “Night, day. It doesn’t matter. You wear your heart—and your worry—on your metaphorical sleeve. At least the sleeve I have privy to.”

  That was true enough. She could rarely keep things from Ben. He sensed her moods, her thoughts, sometimes even before they surfaced in her own consciousness. Ben just knew.

  “It’s Birdie’s guest,” he said, continuing to mine her thoughts.

  “He’s not really her guest.”

  “Whatever he is, he’s here because of Birdie. Frankly, I think it’s great. He’s brought Birdie together with this little girl and given her a chance to be a grandmother. Birdie is loving the whole thing, and one week wasn’t long enough. But besides all that, I like the guy. And I think Birdie does, too. If you ask me, she did marry the wrong brother.”

  “Yes, but—” But what? But they saw Nick arguing with Finnegan when Birdie thought he was working on a lecture at the B and B? That Izzy saw him at the courthouse? So? Somewhere buried in it all was the instinct to protect. But whom? And, good Lord, from what? Nell shook her head at her own foolishness. If there was anyone in this whole world who didn’t need protecting, it was Birdie Favazza, one of the strongest women she knew. She didn’t need it, and she certainly wouldn’t want it.

  Ben’s voice was thoughtful. “As for seeing Nick talking to Finnegan, it can easily be explained. He’s protective of Gabby, and she was hanging around the old man. If she were my niece, I’d have been over there, too, checking him out.”

  She looked at Ben’s silhouette against the darkening sky. The strong nose and square chin, graying sideburns and full brows. The warm brown eyes that still, after all these years, managed to stir sensations deep inside her. His expression was soft in the moonlight, but clear. It spoke to her, told her that he loved her.

  And that she worried about things that were better off left alone.

  Ben drove around another bend and onto Gull Drive. The neighborhood was built along an inlet that allowed easy boat access to beaches, Sunrise Island, Canary Cove, and the harbor beyond.

  “Maybe Nick is interested in building a place up here on Cape Ann and went to city hall to get the lay of the land,” Ben said. “What if he wants a place to bring Gabby? That would be great for Birdie. As for Finnegan, the more people who approach him about that place of his, the closer we come to some kind of resolution. I sometimes think he’s holding out now just on principle. He doesn’t even have electricity half the time. It’s not a great place for an old man to live.”

  Nell fell silent for the rest of the drive, allowing Ben’s words to settle and soothe. But it wasn’t easy. Birdie was happy that Nick was staying around a bit longer, but she’d been puzzled, too, by his encounter with Finnegan. And she said that Nick seemed different somehow, remote, not the friendly, gracious man who had brought his grandniece to Sea Harbor a week before. The trip to Italy had changed him.

  Birdie had answered her own concerns with a logical explanation: he was worried about his mother—certainly reason enough for a man to appear slightly distant.

  “Is Nick coming tonight?” Ben asked.

  “I’m not sure. Birdie didn’t say.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  In the distance, the bright lights of Beatrice and Sal’s beautiful home lit up the tree-lined road like a fireworks display. The first party of the summer season—and the Scaglias would make it one to remember.

  They parked and walked up the flagstone path, warmed by lights, laughter, and the sounds of Pete Halloran’s band, the Fractured Fish, playing from a veranda that wrapped around two sides of the house. Through the front windows and open doors they spotted Izzy and Sam talking to Archie and Harriet Brandley in front of a white, floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Archie was probably evaluating the collection. He told Nell once that he had the bad habit of sizing up people by the books he found in their home. And a home without any books? He’d never go back. It was probably haunted, he said.

  The Brandleys’ son, Danny, stood a short distance away, a serious look on his face as he and Cass talked, their heads lowered. He’d just come back from a successful book signing, according to his parents. Lines out the door in New York City, Archie had said. Nell made a mental note to congratulate him, though i
t didn’t look as if Cass was doing exactly that.

  People drifted in and out of view as Beatrice’s hired staff for the evening—college students home for the summer and eager for work—moved through the crowd, offering drinks and delicate seafood appetizers to guests.

  Beatrice, in a pair of Jimmy Choo platform sandals that made the diminutive hostess nearly as tall as Nell, welcomed them effusively at the door, urging them toward the food and drink. Standing a step or two behind her, her husband, Sal, smiled a greeting, and Nell smiled back. The man never gets in two words edgewise, she thought. On the other hand, he seemed content to stand in the shelter of Beatrice’s dominant shadow. An odd pairing that seemed to work.

  Davey Delaney walked up beside her, a bottle of beer gripped in one hand. “Evening, Nell,” he said.

  His mother, Maeve, stood a few steps away with D.J. The family seemed to travel as a unit. A fortress. Nell smiled. “How’s your wife? Is she here?”

  “Nope.”

  Nell nodded, feeling at a sudden loss for words. And Davey wasn’t helping. Standing there, a half smile on his face. Silent as a stone.

  “It’s too bad she couldn’t come. It’s hard to get babysitters, I suppose.”

  “Nah, two of mine are almost old enough to babysit. But we have a nanny who stays with us. Works fine, especially at times like this. Kristen’s out of town—a weekend with girlfriends.”

  It was the most Davey Delaney had said to her at one time in a while. “That’s great. Moms need that.”

  “Dads, too,” Davey answered. He nursed his beer, his eyes watching Nell in a way that made her nervous.

  She was about to excuse herself when he cleared his throat. “I know Ben didn’t like that tiff I had with Finnegan the other night. You probably didn’t, either, him being a friend of yours. I just want you to know it’s no big deal. I just wish the guy would wise up. We could make him rich.”

  Nell nodded, unsure of where the conversation was going. “I think he feels rich already, Davey. Maybe it’s not to everyone’s liking, but he’s happy.”

  Davey took a long swallow of beer, draining the bottle. “You think he’s happy living in a hovel?” He shrugged, his muscular shoulders straining against the fabric of a silky shirt open one button too many. “Maybe, maybe not. But it’ll get cleaned up one way or another.” He set his bottle down on a table and took another one from a passing waitress. Then he nodded once and wandered back to where his parents were standing.

  Nell watched him for a minute, then walked away herself. Such a strange man.

  She saw Izzy and Sam standing near the veranda doors, listening to Merry Jackson and Pete sing a medley of old tunes. Relieved to have a destination far away from Davey Delaney, she headed their way.

  Izzy looked magnificent, a shimmering ice blue dress with tiny straps hugging her long, lean body. Nell’s breath caught in her throat as she watched the young woman whom she loved so fiercely it sometimes hurt. She would be grateful forever to her sister, Caroline, for sharing her only daughter so generously, without a trace of resentment. “She’ll always be my daughter,” Caroline had said to Nell the day of Izzy’s wedding a year before. “But she’s your soul daughter, and she’s a richer, fuller woman for it.” And then they had both shed copious tears and wrapped their arms around each other as Izzy walked down the garden path to her waiting bridegroom.

  Tonight she was looking up at Sam as if he were the only person in the room. A year of marriage hadn’t tarnished the glow one single bit.

  “What? What’s that look, Aunt Nell?” Izzy embraced her, then pulled away, rolling the edge of Nell’s shawl between her fingers. “It looks gorgeous on you. Just like I knew it would.”

  “Yep, gorgeous.” Sam hugged them both. “My two gorgeous women,” he said. “How did I get so lucky? Every man in the room is looking at me right now with pure, unadulterated envy.”

  “True,” Izzy said. “You’re a lucky man, Perry. And don’t ever forget it.” Two fingers crawled up his chest.

  “Can’t you two keep your hands off each other?” Esther Gibson came up behind them and followed her words with a resounding chuckle.

  “Not working today, Esther?” Nell asked the gray-haired police dispatcher.

  “I told the chief I’d do the night shift tonight, so I’ll go in late. It’s such a lovely place to knit, and I sometimes get more sleep there than I do at home—my dear hubby’s snoring has gotten pretty bad.”

  “Things are quiet at the police station? That’s a good thing.” Sam lifted several wineglasses off a passing tray and passed them around.

  “That’s what I told Chief Thompson. ‘It’s going to be a calm summer,’ I told him. I feel it in my bones.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Nell lifted her glass and touched it to Esther’s. “Quiet is good.”

  “Except for Finnegan, of course. He hasn’t been very quiet lately. Now he wants a restraining order.”

  “Finnegan? Against whom?” Ben walked up behind Nell.

  Esther chuckled again, a delightful rolling sound that made all those around her smile, too. “Oh, everyone in general. Certain people in particular. Developers, council members—particularly our Beatrice—and even her poor husband, Sal. Can you imagine? Shy Sal. And his wife couldn’t hurt a fly. I told Finnegan as much.”

  “He’s just trying to make a point,” Ben said. “Beatrice got his goat at the city council meeting. But I saw him help her into her car the other day. Not a bad bone in the man’s body, though he likes to cause a stir.”

  “Of course you’re right,” Esther said, waving the air. “I just don’t like to see him getting ornery. It’s bad for his blood pressure. He doesn’t look all that healthy to me.” Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “He wants the police to keep his daughter away, too,” she said. “And that does bother me a bit. It doesn’t seem a good way to live, separated from family like that.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Nell said. And it didn’t sound like the Finnegan she knew. Whatever bad blood existed between him and his daughter, this was a drastic step.

  Esther smiled warmly as Cass and Danny joined the group. She put one hand on Cass’ arm. “But no matter how many people Finnegan shoos away, he specifically mentioned that Cass can come on his property anytime.”

  “Along with her mother’s cooking,” Izzy laughed.

  Cass agreed. “And with a boatload of warnings. ‘Walk here.’ ‘Don’t walk there.’ It’s crazy what I have to go through to give him a pot of stew.”

  Danny stood on the outside of the group, quiet, his eyes on Cass.

  Nell watched him watching her. And then, with a start, she touched her forehead, a light going on. Why, he’s in love with her. Danny Brandley loves Cass. It was suddenly as clear as day. Although they’d been spending plenty of time together, Cass had insisted—especially in recent weeks—that they were good friends. That’s all, she said in a voice that forbade argument.

  But the look in Danny’s eyes tonight spoke of something far deeper than friendship. Nell glanced at Cass as she took a sip of wine. Did she love him in return? Months ago Nell would have said yes. But tonight she wasn’t sure. Cass was difficult to read these days.

  She moved closer to him as the others discussed Finnegan’s strange directives.

  “You okay, Danny? I hear the tour was a success.”

  “Tour? Oh, the book.” He shoved his fingers through his thick blond hair. “Yeah, it was fine.”

  “But?”

  He looked over at Cass. She was talking to Ben, her face unreadable. “Sometimes I can’t figure her out.”

  “She’s very independent. But you know that, I suspect.”

  “I like that about her. But she has a loan coming due soon. It’s killing her. It’d be so easy for me to help now that I have some extra money, but she insists she doesn’t need my help. It’ll work out, she says.”

  Nell had no answer for him. Sometimes she wanted to shake Cass, too, to tell her that accep
ting help didn’t have a thing to do with being independent or less strong. But she suspected that when it came to accepting help from a man who clearly loved you, it added a new dimension to the situation, especially if you hadn’t sorted through your own feelings yet.

  “And the other love of that man’s life these days seems to be little Gabby,” Esther was saying to the group. She lifted a tiny crab cake from a tray and looked at it with great delight. “I suspect if she asked Finnegan for his whole raggedy piece of land, he’d give it to her, no questions asked. That sweet girl has brought a liveliness to the old man I haven’t seen since his Moira died.”

  With a wave good-bye, the dispatcher shuffled off to the other side of the room to monitor the appetizers her husband was piling on a small paper plate.

  Nell spotted Birdie talking with Ham and Jane Brewster just outside the veranda doors. She headed that way. Ben followed. “No Nick?” he asked to Nell’s back.

  Birdie heard the question. “No,” she said, rising on tiptoe to kiss Ben’s cheek. “He and Gabby had a date for dinner at Duckworth’s in Gloucester. Gabby suggested they invite Ella and Harold, too. They were thrilled, of course. Ella went out and bought a new dress.”

  Birdie’s face lit up as she talked, and the smile coming from her eyes told Nell that whatever concerns about Nick that she might have had earlier in the day, she’d put them to rest. At least for now.

  They moved to the edge of the veranda, a reasonable distance from the beat of Andy’s drums, Pete’s guitar, and Merry’s keyboard, and looked out over the sweep of green lawn that sloped to the water’s edge.

  Tiny solar lights lit the pathway, and at its end, Sal Scaglia stood alone on the dock, a drink in his hand, looking out across the water through his horn-rimmed glasses. Escaping, Nell suspected. He was a dutiful husband, but one more comfortable managing the dusty, solitary Registrar of Deeds’ annex than hosting a cocktail party. He stood near his brand-new yacht, not large, but equipped with every gadget known to man, Beatrice had told her recently. And Nell knew, as they all did, that the yacht was a gift to Sal from his wife. A well-deserved gift, many thought to themselves, for his patience and loyalty and willingness to always take a backseat to the vivacious Beatrice.