Murder Wears Mittens

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Hi, Kayla,” he said. “I’m Charlie.”

  Kayla nodded. She was leaning against the examining table, picking at a fingernail.

  Charlie glanced at the older woman sitting on the chair in the corner. “And you are?”

  “Sister Mary Fiona Halloran. And who are you?” Fiona stood up before he could answer. She walked across the room, her brown Birkenstocks squeaking on the oiled wooden floor. She stood in front of Charlie, leaning forward and squinting as she read the words on the white plastic name tag. “Charlie Chambers, RN, MN, FNP-BC.” She looked up. “Good grief, what’s with the alphabet soup?”

  Charlie laughed. “I’m a nurse practitioner, new in this office. I don’t think we’ve met but I’m going to make a wild and crazy guess that you’re related to my good friend Cass Halloran. Everyone in Sea Harbor—at least anyone with an Irish name—seems to be. I’m Izzy Perry’s brother, Charlie Chambers.” He held out his big hand.

  Fiona’s face relaxed and she took it, shaking it warmly. “Well, sure you are. Though she’s better looking. It’s nice to meet you, Charlie. I heard you’d come back to town. Yes, I’m the aunt. And make no bones about it—and no matter what she’s told you—I love Cass, even when we sometimes—well often, really—don’t see eye to eye on things.”

  Charlie chuckled, knowing a little of the history between the two women. Then he turned his attention back to the slender woman with the tiny loops circling one ear. “I work with Dr. Mackenzie—he’ll be in soon. But I’d like to check some things first. Would you mind sitting up on the table?”

  Kayla wrapped her fingers around the edge of the table and pushed herself up, her face expressionless. She fiddled with a chain around her neck. “You don’t look like a nurse,” she said.

  “Oh?” Charlie pulled a slender instrument from his pocket. “What do I look like?”

  “A plumber or football player.”

  “Looks can be deceiving. I haven’t played football in over ten years. Plumbing? Probably never.” He fiddled with the instrument and started to lean forward, then stopped and stepped back again. He tilted his head, as if seeing something unusual on Kayla’s face besides the bandage running the width of her forehead. “Hey, Kayla, we’ve met before, right? Somewhere. But I can’t recall—”

  Kayla stared at him, squinty, thinking. “No,” she said finally. “I’d remember a football player acting like a nurse.”

  “Kayla is a waitress at the Ocean’s Edge Restaurant,” Sister Fiona offered from her chair across the room.

  “Nope, I don’t think that’s it,” Charlie said. “I’ve only been in town a few days and I haven’t made it over there yet. Soon, though. It’s one of my favorite restaurants. A good place to have a job.” His half smile was directed at Kayla.

  “The answer’s no, then,” she said. “We haven’t met.” She put her palms flat on the table behind her, her elbows locked, her back rigid, and her tone telling him she wanted to get the examination over with as quickly as possible. Cut the small talk, her straight back said.

  “I guess not, then.” Charlie turned on the ophthalmoscope light, bending forward as he checked her pupils. He slipped the instrument back into his jacket pocket, made a few notes on a nearby tablet. He set it down and snapped on a pair of gloves, turning his attention back to his patient, moving her slightly to see the back of her head. There was still swelling at the point of contact, but it was receding nicely. He touched it lightly.

  Kayla remained still.

  Dr. Glenn had gone over the day’s caseload with him before the office opened that morning, helping acclimate the new nurse practitioner to the clinic’s patients. Kayla’s case had risen to the top. Concussion. Amnesia. And the notes that had been added to her file after Glenn had talked with the police—and before they’d even met her as a patient.

  The police report indicated the blow to the back of her head had caused her to fall forward. Injury number one. When she fell, she’d hit the edge of a table, and that was what caused the nasty wound on her forehead. Double whammy, the policeman had said to Glenn. But he’d refused to say more.

  Carefully, Charlie began to pull the bandage loose from her forehead. He set it aside and examined the curled edges of the wound, probing them gently, checking for redness around the stitches. He felt a slight quiver beneath his fingers.

  For all her bravado, tough Kayla Stewart was frightened.

  Charlie moved his fingers even more gently, then stepped back. “It’s healing nicely, but still has a way to go. We’ll leave the stitches in for a few more days. Be sure you continue to take the antibiotics and keep it clean.”

  He applied a new bandage, keeping his voice matter-of-fact, his movements measured and assured. He felt instinctively that an unexpected gesture might send her flying off the table. Not that he could blame her. From what he’d been told, she’d been through a lot in a few short days. And from the looks of her, maybe before that, too.

  He felt an unexpected urge to protect this woman from something. Maybe it was the fact that she looked so much younger than the age listed in her file—younger but shopworn at the same time. She sure didn’t look like the mother of two kids, although he wasn’t sure what that assessment had to do with anything. Nor was he an expert in the field.

  Charlie knew about Dolores Cardozo’s murder; everyone in town did. And he knew from Cass, Sam, and Izzy that somehow this woman and her kids had a connection to the murdered woman. He typed some notes into the tablet, then lifted his head and looked at her again. She was staring down at her hands, her fingers playing with one another. The white gauze pad was in sharp contrast to the slender face and the almost pitch-black hair, shorter than his own—though that didn’t say much. His sister had told him daily since he’d been back to get rid of what she described as nearly ponytail length.

  He stepped aside when the doctor walked into the room. Glenn Mackenzie greeted Fiona warmly, then turned and introduced himself to Kayla, his pleasant manner seemingly lost on the patient sitting stoically on the examination table. Her legs just touched the floor, which is where her eyes were focused as she managed a hello.

  It was when he asked about Sarah Grace and Christopher that she lifted her head, her face opening up just a bit. “I gave a talk over at the school one day,” Glenn continued. “I remember your son because he was intrigued with some of the instruments I’d brought. He told me he was pretty smart and maybe he’d be a doctor someday. We settled in for what might have been a good long talk until Sister Fiona over there—” he nodded his head toward the nun as if he and Kayla were sharing a special secret from her—“pulled him away and suggested my time was up. Recess was calling, which Christopher was kind of into.”

  That brought a smile and a slightly more relaxed Kayla as he went over the notes that Charlie had added to the patient record. He looked up when he came to the kids’ names, checked to be sure they’d stopped by the clinic for their vaccinations, and then suggested Kayla bring them in for annual checkups. He’d like to see them again. “Good kids,” he said.

  Charlie stood nearby, scanning Kayla’s face as the doctor carefully examined her again. He was hoping to find something in her expression, although he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. She had warmed up a little bit when the doctor mentioned her kids’ names. Something he’d remember to do next time.

  Charlie was terrible at names, but he rarely forgot a face, especially one as distinctive as Kayla Stewart’s—sharp cheekbones, oval face, and a toughness that masked her emotions. Except for her eyes. Large, emerald green eyes—like the sea. Intelligent and wary. He probed his memory, scanning her face slowly. But his memory didn’t clear, refusing to allow him to place this woman anywhere in his life.

  Sometimes memory was like that. Evasive, playing games.

  But no matter, Charlie was absolutely certain that he had seen this woman before. And he would remember, eventually. He, too, was good at playing games.

  Chapter 12

  �
�Rarely are people murdered who are one hundred percent kind and generous. I read that somewhere. Isn’t there one person Dolores may have rubbed the wrong way? Someone who had a logical, if spiteful or hateful, reason for killing her?”

  Cass was on her bandwagon, determined to come up with a logical reason for Dolores’s murder. And to find the person who harbored that reason. But her ardor didn’t fool any of them. She wanted to put it all to rest so a young mother of two sweet kids could go back to a normal life, the worry-free life that kids deserved.

  Cass had gone soft on them.

  Izzy watched her friend with interest. She was concentrating so hard on her conviction that she hadn’t even stuck her finger in Nell’s Thursday night casserole. Cass would know exactly what was in the casserole, of course: macaroni and chunks of fresh lobster from Captain Joey’s tank—her favorite. Tonight the seafood and pasta were swimming in Nell’s thick wine and cream sauce, with melted Gruyere crusting the browned surface.

  The tantalizing odors were floating around Cass, making it hard for her to think. She picked up Purl, the store cat and rubbed her silky belly.

  “You’re probably right, Cass,” Birdie said. “I’m sure there are plenty of things about Dolores that the police simply haven’t uncovered yet. But they will.” It was Birdie’s “glass is half full” response. But she was also practical, and it showed in the extras lines on her forehead as she set out plates and wineglasses on the old library table in the back room of the yarn shop. Her own thoughts matched Cass’s closely. Somehow, in the space of a few days, they’d all become attached to a family they didn’t know. And that family’s ties to Dolores Cardozo—however fragile they might be—were troublesome.

  Nell applied her own guarded optimism. “As frightening as a murder is in a small town, the fact that Dolores lived on the edge of Sea Harbor has somehow made people less fearful. Most people didn’t know her, didn’t belong to clubs with her, and that creates a separation. When commonality is lacking, it takes some of the intimacy out of it. Therefore, the danger is remote, not close to home. And the murderer, too.” She carried a basket of warm rolls to the corner sitting area.

  Izzy scoffed, “There’s a horrendous fallacy somewhere in that argument, Aunt Nell.”

  “Of course there is. But if reasoning like that keeps people from drawing their curtains and double bolting their doors, it will do for now.” She carried her plate across the room and sat in an old leather chair near Birdie.

  “Missing premise or not,” Birdie said, “it may be partially true. The working thesis is that this wasn’t a random killing. Whoever killed Dolores meant to kill her, not anyone else.”

  “Which brings me back to my original point,” Cass said. She had put Purl down and piled her plate so high with food that she was nearly hidden behind the golden chunks of mac and cheese. “What in Dolores’s life could have provoked someone to kill her? We know now she was generous and all that—but what else did she do? What did she have in her life? Who was Dolores Cardozo?”

  They were silent for a moment, thinking of the ordinary questions, but ones that took on ominous tones when the person in question had been murdered.

  Izzy crouched down in front of the corner fireplace and poked at a small fire she had laid. “I know we don’t need this fire tonight—it’s for atmosphere. Knitting a zillion pair of mittens and hats for the clothing center needs at least the crackle and smell of a fire. Besides, talk about Dolores Cardozo’s murder is chilling. It gets right into my bones, even with the positive spin you two manage to put on its quick resolution.”

  “You’re right, Izzy,” Birdie said. “The fire is lovely—and murder is most definitely chilling. It was a good idea.”

  Cass was quiet, her half-empty plate the reason why. She lifted her head and looked over at Birdie. “So what’s going on with Dolores’s estate? When does the will get read?”

  Hearing that Kayla was mentioned in the will had upset Cass, even though Birdie had refrained from talking about it in detail. Cass remembered too clearly—they all did—how she had been in a similar position, having been named in an old fisherman’s will a few years before. When it was determined the man had been murdered, Cass’s own life had been turned on its head and scrutinized. Painfully. And, unlike Kayla, she had had an army of friends and family to support her.

  “It’s only in the movies that those shocking will-reading gatherings take place. Elliott, the lawyer, and I can decide how to distribute them—in person or by mail. But the police have suggested we bring folks together to distribute the copies. So we’re going to do that. I suspect Jerry wants to see if he notices any strange behavior. For our part, Elliott and I would like to offer our help if people have questions. Since there are no living relatives and Dolores lived a rather solitary life, it will mostly be people with little connection to her—directors of the organizations included in her will. And then the people she singled out as beneficiaries. Most of whom will be very surprised, I suspect.”

  “There’s something sad about having no relatives to mourn your death,” Izzy said. She refreshed wineglasses and passed around the basket of rolls.

  “I suppose it’s sad,” Birdie said. “Although I’m discovering that although Dolores could be blunt, she was definitely kind. People who felt that kindness while she was still alive are beginning to come out of the woodwork. Apparently her house was a favorite place to sell Girl Scout cookies or those huge candy bars to benefit some school drive. She bought dozens. No child was ever turned away.”

  “That jives with my encounters with her. She wasn’t effusive, but friendly enough. And she had a sense of humor,” Izzy said.

  “Have you notified the beneficiaries yet about the meeting?” Cass asked.

  “Elliott’s office is contacting them,” Birdie said.

  Cass emptied her wineglass. “What about Kayla?”

  “I will call her myself and let her know about it. She has so much going on, it seemed like it might be better that way. But I couldn’t reach her today. Tomorrow maybe.”

  “You won’t be a complete stranger to her,” Nell said. She put her plate down and told them about meeting Kayla at the Bountiful Bowl Cafe. “Even without Laura Danvers’s introduction, I would have recognized her. Your description was spot on, Cass.”

  “She volunteers over there?” Cass asked. “How does she manage that?”

  “That was my question,” Nell said. She held back the fact that Kayla wasn’t a regular volunteer. The fact still bothered her, and somehow repeating it without understanding it reduced it to rumor status. “I told her that I was one of the four women who invaded her home the other day. Hopefully, it dispelled any fears she had of strangers coming in when she wasn’t there.”

  “That’s good,” Izzy said. “I’m glad you did that. The thought of four strangers coming into my house when I wasn’t home is the stuff of nightmares.”

  “She was able to place each of you—Izzy, she knew about your yarn shop. She’s an amazing knitter, by the way. She was wearing an old sweater she’d made—it was intricate and gorgeous. And she knew about Birdie, too.”

  Izzy pushed her empty plate aside and sat back. “And you’ll meet her soon, Birdie. So I’m odd man out. Even my brother has met her.”

  “Charlie? How did that happen?” Cass asked. She reached down and pulled a ball of yarn and needles from her backpack.

  “She had her stitches checked at the clinic. Glenn Mackenzie is throwing Charlie into the practice headfirst and he’s loving it. He was interested in putting a face on what he’d heard about Kayla. He thought she was ‘intriguing.’ His word.”

  Intriguing. Yes, she was that. And the large bandage across her forehead, frayed at the edges, added a Charles Dickens element to the young mother of two. “I’m glad she had that wound checked. She was looking a little wobbly at the food pantry,” Nell said.

  “How’d she get there?” Cass asked.

  Birdie answered without really knowing. “Maybe her
guardian angel? Your Aunt Fiona.”

  Footsteps and a loud voice followed Birdie’s statement. They all turned and looked toward the archway that separated the main room of the yarn shop from the knitting room.

  “Fiona what?” The words reached them before Sister Fiona herself did. She came through the opening and stopped on the top step, her formidable shape silhouetted against the shop light behind her. She looked at them all for a moment, then proceeded down the three steps in an urgent way, explaining as she moved that Mae, the store manager, was just leaving and had let her in. “No need to call the police.”

  “She’s not supposed to let suspicious-looking strangers in, right, Iz?” Cass said, but she got up and pulled a chair over for her aunt.

  “Strangers or strange looking?” Sister Fiona said, managing a half smile. But it didn’t hide the worry pinching her face. She looked at their empty plates, then looked over toward the odors coming from the hot plate on the long table.

  Nell got up and patted the nun’s shoulder on her way to the food. “I insist you have some of this so it won’t go to waste, Fiona. We’re all stuffed.” She threw Cass a glance to silence her from claiming the leftovers were hers to take home. In seconds she set a full plate down in front of Fiona.

  The nun looked up gratefully. “You’re an angel, Nell Endicott. I’ve completely forgotten to eat today.” She looked around at the others and offered a slightly embarrassed smile. “I know this is your knitting night. And I’m sorry to interrupt it. Well, no, I’m not sorry. I needed wise, smart women to talk to tonight. So that’s why I came.”

  Birdie poured a cup of coffee and set it next to Fiona’s plate. “I don’t know about wise and smart, but we’re most definitely good listeners.”

  “I need to talk to someone about Dolores Cardozo’s death, God rest her soul.” She made a hasty sign of the cross over her chest that could easily have been confused with slapping away a fly. Purl thought the movement was meant for her and jumped up on the nun’s lap, rubbing her head against Fiona’s ample bosom.