A Fatal Fleece: A Seaside Knitters Mystery

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Beverly touched her hair lightly, as if making sure it was still there. She started to walk away when Nell touched her arm, stopping her.

  “I meant to ask Father Northcutt about your father’s funeral, but perhaps you would have the details. Are there any plans?”

  Beverly paused, as if trying to recollect who her father was. But her answer was cordial. “Yes, actually. I think it will be soon. Things are finally moving to closure, thank God. I just received a call, in fact. Apparently, the priest received the final packet of Finnegan’s papers this afternoon and wants to go over them with me immediately. I have plans, but he was insistent and said it wouldn’t take long. My lawyer is coming, too. Actually, it’s perfect timing. It will be good for everyone to have this mess over with. It’s time.” Her parting words were unemotional—and definite.

  They watched her walk down the street, a new confidence in her stride.

  “I must say, I don’t like her calling Father Larry the priest,” Birdie said. “She can be . . . rather unlikable.”

  “I think she only lets us see a tiny bit of who she is.” Nell watched Beverly cross the street. “I wonder what the meeting she mentioned is really about.”

  “She could be right. Maybe something’s happened that will put the ball—and Finn’s property—in her court.”

  Nell looked down and read a message from Ben. “Could be. Ben is going to be there, too, he says. Perhaps Beverly’s right and the additional documents have changed everything. Poor Cass. This has been such a roller-coaster ride for her.”

  Birdie was worried, too. Beverly was so confident. Too confident. “I don’t mean to be unkind, but she unnerves me,” she said to Nell. “She doesn’t make it terribly easy to be around her.”

  An understatement, Nell thought. Both she and Birdie knew exactly why she unnerved them and why it was uneasy to be around her.

  A father dead. A child alive. And very greedy.

  Birdie insisted on bringing Ella’s prized empanadas to knitting that night. The recipe was from her Argentine friend, Sophia Santos. “Ella loves making them, and we will love eating them—and you have no time today to cook, dear friend.”

  Nell was grateful for the offer and didn’t put up a fuss. She had plenty of vegetables in her home garden to make a salad. Arugula and escarole, red pepper, cucumber, and mushrooms, a handful of chopped-up hearts of palm and some sugared pecans. A little lemon basil dressing to bind it all together. Someone would bring dessert. And if they didn’t, it would serve all their waistlines well.

  She left Ben a note in case he forgot what day it was, and headed to Izzy’s shop. Her head felt too full, as if she’d eaten too much and was having trouble digesting it all. Perhaps that was their problem. They were all too full, too close to a hundred things running through their minds.

  Izzy and Cass had put out plates and glasses, opened the windows, and had an old Martin Taylor piece humming in the background when she walked in.

  Birdie was close behind, carrying a heavy glass dish.

  In the front of the store, Jillian and Rose busied themselves stocking a new shipment of cotton fleece that had come in. Over the music, a male voice joined the teenage laughter.

  “Rose’s new boyfriend,” Izzy explained. “At least for today. Oliver Porter, Tommy’s cousin.”

  “Oliver? Wasn’t he with the group that watched the intruder going through Finn’s house?” Birdie asked. “The intruder who was probably one Nicholas Marietti?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she climbed the steps and disappeared into the front of the store. Her voice trailed back as she questioned the embarrassed teenager about fishing off Finn’s dock.

  The words came back down the stairs in pieces. “Flashlight. Yah, Miss Birdie. Nah, he wasn’t upstairs. The light was coming through the windows downstairs. We thought about telling him Finn’s place was on top, but then, you know, that woulda been so dumb. We’d a been caught.” He laughed nervously.

  Minutes later, after assuring Oliver he wasn’t in trouble and had been a big help, Birdie reappeared in the back room. “So,” she said, her eyebrows lifting quizzically, “was Nick lost? Did he think Finn lived on the first floor?”

  “Or not,” Nell said, reading Birdie’s thoughts and recording the new information in her head. Perhaps Nick knew exactly where he was. Perhaps he wasn’t interested in Finnegan’s apartment at all.

  “We’ll just have to see, now, won’t we?” Birdie said, determination backing up her words. She looked at Izzy. “And, by the way, Rose and Jillian have emptied all the boxes.”

  “Those teenyboppers are a step ahead of me. Pretty soon I’m not going to be needed around here.”

  Cass dropped her backpack next to a chair. “Want to come to work on a lobster boat? One with leaky nets, a scratched hull, and numerous mysterious ailments?”

  Nell set down the salad bowl and started shaking the dressing jar. She waited a moment, gauging Cass’ mood. Frustrated seemed to fit it best.

  “Have you heard anything about the will?” Nell asked.

  Cass nodded. “From the horse’s mouth. Though I think I’d use another animal if the twins weren’t listening to everything we’re saying.” She peeked up the stairs just as Jillian scurried out of sight.

  “Beverly informed me earlier today that her lawyer is speeding things up for all sorts of reasons. One, there was an earlier will in which she got the land; two, because she is Finn’s daughter; and three, because I am, basically, nothing. And for all those reasons she will make sure she wins the dispute. Soon. Any minute. She was on her way to meet with him.”

  She pulled the foil off the heavy glass baking dish Birdie had brought. It was filled with empanadas. “So you told Ella we were having the whole fishing fleet for dinner?”

  “You know how Ella is. It’s important to her that Gabby becomes an expert at making empanadas before she has to leave. It’s as if without that recipe, she’ll forget us. She’s even reluctantly agreed to let Gabby make some with spinach and cheese to suit her vegetarian tastes. So, as best I can tell, we have a little of everything here.” The tantalizing odors of garlic and parsley, sautéed onions and butter surrounded neat rows of crisp pastry pockets, perfectly browned. “We have potato and beef, shrimp and hearts of palm, spicy chicken and cheese. Marinated beef with caramelized onion. Shall I go on?”

  Cass opened two bowls of sauces and closed her eyes. “Chimichurri and one of unknown origin.”

  “Brilliant, Professor Halloran.”

  In minutes they were sitting around the coffee table, plates filled with salad and empanadas, a bottle of chilled white wine and water glasses nearby.

  “We do know how to live, don’t we?” Izzy said, piercing an empanada with her fork and releasing a river of white oozing cheese.

  A moment of bliss. Friendship and food. And the rest of the world faded away for brief, blessed moments.

  Then Birdie broke the spell. “I have something to say,” she said, deciding on the spot that there wouldn’t be time for eating, quiet time, wine, knitting, solving Finn’s murder, and small talk. The small talk and quiet time would have to go.

  Forks paused in midair.

  She waited for Cass to take a drink of her wine and settle back in her chair, then continued. “I’m worried about you, Cass, and about all of us.” Her arms lifted to circle them all. “It’s as if an insidious layer of air is blanketing us, getting into the nooks and crannies of our gentle town—and we’re having trouble stopping it.”

  “We have dozens of little pieces of the puzzle,” Nell said. “I know we do. And we’re getting close—I can feel it.”

  “Sure, we have all these tiny pieces, but we still don’t have a murderer,” Cass said.

  “But we will. We’ll let all the things in our head fall out on this table like strands of yarn,” Birdie said. “And then we’ll knit them into a magnificent . . . well, into something that makes sense and has no loose ends. I believe that glass of wine is wreaking havo
c with my analogies.”

  They all laughed.

  “Okay. For what it’s worth, this is in my head. I’m about to lose my never-been-touched inheritance,” Cass began. “Which isn’t the end of the world, but the person going after it frightens me. I don’t trust Beverly Walden, and I think she had something to do with her father’s death.”

  Birdie finished her first empanada—spicy chicken and cheese—declared it magnificent, and said, “I agree with you, Cass. I think she has an agenda that we know nothing about. She’s doing something behind our backs, and I think Finnegan knew it, too. There was a reason he cut her out of the will entirely.”

  “According to Gabby, Finn was upset because she was doing something dishonest or unethical—or something that was terribly offensive to him.” Birdie repeated the conversation they’d had with Gabby earlier in the day. “That sweet young girl doesn’t miss a thing.”

  “They caught Beverly sneaking onto his land?”

  “Yes,” Nell said. “And she ended up threatening him. I guess that’s what bothers me the most. How far would Beverly take a threat?”

  “Here’s something else to weave in. We know that the Delaneys, several investors, Beatrice Scaglia, and my dear Nick weren’t the only ones in the public records’ office. Beverly spent a fair amount of time there, too. Thanks to dear Sal’s attention to detail, we know each time she was there and what she was looking at.”

  “Doing what?” Izzy asked. “If she was so sure she was inheriting everything, why look up the deed?”

  “Maybe trying to assess the value?” Cass said.

  “Could be,” Izzy said, “But there’d be more efficient ways to do that. Check with a Realtor, for one. The deed wouldn’t necessarily indicate today’s value, only what Finn bought it for a thousand years ago.”

  “It wasn’t just Finn’s property. She looked up a lot of deeds, some that seemed frivolous, almost like excuses to be using the computers.”

  “What do you think that was about?” Izzy asked.

  Nell shrugged. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  Cass slid several more empanadas onto her plate. “Jane said Beverly was active in the artist community when she first arrived, but seemed to have lost interest recently. They think it’s because she’s seeing some guy, but when Jane asked her about it, she was defensive and did everything but tell Jane to mind her own business. Some things should be private, she said, like what went on in one’s bedroom, and she would certainly never ask Jane about her life behind closed doors.”

  “She said that?” Izzy asked.

  Cass nodded. “Her main interest now, Jane says, is getting her hands on her father’s money, even to the neglect of her art.”

  “All right, then. Why? She’s certainly defensive about her life. Why does she care if people know she’s in a relationship?” Izzy asked.

  “Maybe she isn’t sure of the relationship and doesn’t want to be embarrassed if it doesn’t work out,” Nell offered.

  “Or the guy is married,” Cass said.

  They all paused. A possibility. And a reason for keeping it under wraps.

  “But what would all of that have to do with Finn’s murder?” Cass asked.

  “People do crazy things for love,” Izzy said. “If Beverly thought money would make the relationship work . . .”

  She might murder to get it?

  It seemed far-fetched, but it was possible. People killed for love. The thought hovered over them as they ate the empanadas and passed around the bottle of wine.

  Nell set down her glass. “Here’s another loose thread: the body in Finn’s yard.”

  “The rumors are awful and ridiculous,” Birdie added. “As if Finn would kill someone, bury him on his own land, and then live there, right next to someone he’d killed.”

  It was silly, but as Ben said, the police weren’t concerned about the emotional element. And the fact was he could have killed someone, and he could have kept everyone off his land so they wouldn’t find out.

  “So we need to figure out who was buried there and why. If it doesn’t reveal who killed Finnegan, at the very least we will clear Finnegan’s name,” Izzy said.

  Nell explained about the futility of using dental records to identify the long-buried body. “The whole thing is strange, but Birdie and I have a theory—”

  Everyone leaned in while Birdie and Nell spread their thoughts on the table, including the role of Timothy Pulaski, DDS.

  When they were through, Izzy clapped her hands. “Yes!” she said. “Sherlock Holmes has nothing on you two.”

  “The police would say we’re hopeless romantics, out chasing rainbows,” Nell said. “But sometimes that’s where the gold is. So let’s start with burials. Do any of you know someone we can talk to at St. Mary’s Cemetery?”

  “There’re lots of Hallorans over there, but it’s hard to get a word out of them.”

  “Living people, sweetie,” Birdie said.

  “I can provide living, too, because I love this idea. I think you are onto something. The grandpa of a friend of Pete’s has been the caretaker over there for a zillion years. I forget his name—Henry something. Pete and his buddies used to spend a lot of time over there, riding bikes and hanging out. The grandpa loved the company and even put up a rope swing for the guys.”

  Nell scribbled the name on a pad of paper and switched the topic to knives. “Both Beatrice and Beverly purchased rigging knives recently from McClucken’s. And they both insisted on buying the best he carried.”

  “Beatrice Scaglia with a boat knife?” Cass laughed. “Imagine her in that spotless white suit, gutting a trout.”

  The thought made them laugh. But there were other uses for a knife than gutting fish, Birdie reminded them.

  “Surely no one wanting to kill Finnegan would walk into the only hardware store in Sea Harbor and buy the murder weapon,” Izzy said.

  “Unless that’s the best way to do it. What did Angus say? It’s those things in plain sight that we don’t see. It’s when you’re hiding something that you get the attention.”

  “Like the secretive Beverly,” Cass said.

  “Who also bought a knife,” Birdie said. “But she also confiscated a boat. Perhaps the two went together.”

  Nell pulled out Gabby’s sweater and smoothed it on her lap, listening to the conversation spinning around her. Beverly bought a knife, too. She replayed the conversation with Gus in her head. She’d been so taken with the image of Beatrice and a rigging knife that she hadn’t processed carefully what he had said about Beverly. It came back to her now, and, in hindsight, she realized something she’d almost missed.

  She looked up. “No, I don’t think the knife went with the boat, unless she was making plans to buy a boat of her own. According to Gus, Beverly bought the knife a few weeks ago, before her father died, so she wouldn’t have been buying a knife for her father’s boat.”

  Unless.

  The unspoken word hung heavy in the air. Unless she had a different use entirely in mind.

  It was a gruesome thought, and the jingling of the front door was a welcome relief.

  They could hear male voices, deeper this time, joking in the outer rooms, the twins bantering back. Minutes later Ben and Sam appeared in the archway. With hellos all around, they headed for the table and peeled back the cover from the Pyrex dish.

  “We’re in luck,” Sam said.

  “Weren’t you two headed to the Gull to watch the baseball game?” Izzy said.

  “Plans change,” Ben said. “My fault.” He looked hungrily at a dozen remaining empanadas. “Besides, these top Jake Risso’s greasy burgers any day.”

  “Hey,” Cass said. “That’s my week of dinners you’re about to inhale.”

  Birdie laughed and patted her knee. “Cass, dear, there are dozens more where those came from. Gabby can stock your freezer. Ours is already overflowing.”

  The two men filled their plates and pulled out two old library chairs, turning them
to face the women.

  “Okay, so why are you really here?” Izzy asked, handing them each a cold Modela. “It’s a Yankees-Sox game you’re missing. It takes more than empanadas and our amazing company to do that.”

  Sam grabbed her hand and pulled her down for a kiss. “Can’t a guy miss his woman?”

  “Woman? You’ve been reading too much Dashiell Hammett, Perry.” Izzy kissed him soundly and returned to her almost-finished pink socks.

  Ben made it through three pastries and a pile of salad quickly. He put down his fork, wiped his mouth, and took a long swig of the cold Modelo. “It’s been a long day,” he said finally.

  The women were silent. Their needles clicked as their heads turned in Ben’s direction.

  “But a good one,” he added. “At least for some. Not so much for others.” He looked over at Cass.

  “So, what’s the deal?”

  “Beverly’s case contesting the will is being thrown out. Or, to be more accurate, her own lawyer is telling her to let it go.”

  Cass moved to the edge of her chair. “Why?’

  “For starters, there was some question about whether Beverly was in a position to judge Finn’s mental capacity. The two rarely saw each other. And if she wanted to recruit allies, no one in this town—even those eager to grab his property—would argue that he wasn’t mentally competent.”

  No one moved. It was clear from the look on Ben’s face that he wasn’t finished.

  “There’s something else,” Nell said quietly.

  “All right,” Cass said. “Let’s hear it.”

  Nell’s thoughts ran the gamut, and she knew from Cass’ expression that she, too, was expecting the worst. The land was being foreclosed upon. There was another relative, another will uncovered. Or, perish the thought, another dead body.

  But Ben’s words were simple and unexpected.

  “Beverly Walden isn’t Finnegan’s daughter,” he said.

  Chapter 30

  The news landed like a grenade right in the middle of the knitting room.

  And then came the explosion, with voices colliding.

  “What?