Murder Wears Mittens

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Nell poured a heavy stream of cream into the coffee, watching expressions play across Marian’s face. “If there’s anything we can unearth that will help rid Kayla Stewart of the awful pall of suspicion hanging over her, it would be—”

  “Kayla?” Marian looked up. “Yes, it’s awful what that young woman is going through. I saw two ladies whispering about her this morning when she brought the kiddos in for story hour. They’re normally nice women, but this is a difficult time. People are grasping. And in their grasps, they can sometimes be cruel.”

  It was what Nell dreaded. “Does Kayla come in here often?”

  “Regular as a heartbeat. She and those two lovely kids. She’s a wonderful mother. You notice things like that as a librarian.”

  “I’m sure you get an eyeful,” Nell said.

  “Yes. Mostly I see nice, sweet interactions. People are inherently good, I think, but people parent differently. Kayla was very hands on, sitting on the floor with her kids, pulling book after book off the shelves. I never once saw her glance at a phone while she was with the children. She adores those two. And as for the rumors insinuating she might have been implicated in Dolores’s death? It’s simply people desperate to end this nightmare. But it’s hurtful and absolutely unfair.”

  Marian’s face was flushed, her calm librarian’s voice still intact but her eyes ready to take on some invisible foe. “I will be the first to vouch for Kayla. Not only do I like her, but Dolores did, too. And Kayla liked her. I’ll swear to that. And you don’t murder someone you like.”

  It was a thought they all wanted to believe but it wasn’t true. Sometimes people did murder people they liked. Nell set her coffee mug down on the table. “How do you know that they liked one another?”

  “Well, I just knew. For one thing, Kayla could coax a smile out of Dolores without even trying. And it changed that woman’s face, transformed it into the warm, affectionate person we now know she was. I knew them separately, of course—Kayla from all her library visits. Those little guys walking out of here with books piled high in their arms, acting like it was Christmas every Saturday. And of course I knew Dolores because she was in here all the time. Then, some weeks ago, Kayla and the kids had come in for a kids’ movie we were showing—Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I think. They were coming out of the children’s theater at the same time as Dolores was coming through the front doors. I was at the desk, about to wave hello to Dolores, when I saw her looking at Kayla—she saw Kayla before Kayla saw her, I think, and I had to look twice. Dolores’s face changed. It lit up, like a spotlight was on it, especially when she saw the children.

  “Then Kayla saw her and went over immediately. Unusual in itself. Kayla was smiling, the way you do if you see someone you care about but in an unexpected place. The kids followed their mom.

  “Dolores leaned over, one hand on her walking stick, and spoke quietly to each child in turn. The kids seemed mesmerized, and the older one, Christopher, must have asked something about the stick because Dolores held it in front of him so he could see it close up. She showed him the handle and let him touch it. He wrapped his small fingers around it, laughing. And Dolores laughed right along with him.

  “Frankly, I was the one mesmerized at this point. The interaction was so intimate. I know I’m probably imagining it, but from where I stood, I thought I saw tears in Dolores’s eyes. Happy ones. Dolores must have figured out that Kayla came on Saturdays, and I saw them together a few more times after that. Dolores liked those kiddos.”

  Nell hung on every word, the scene playing out in her head, frame by frame. She remembered Izzy’s telling of meeting Dolores one day when she had Abby with her. A similar tale of Dolores’ affection for kids. “That’s a lovely story. Thank you for sharing it.”

  “I thought it was lovely, too.”

  “So this Dolores was different from the one you saw other times?”

  “Yes. And Kayla was different, too. I suspect she is very warm underneath, but she usually stands slightly apart from the other moms, as if protecting herself. But there was a sincere warmth there when she was with Dolores.”

  “What was Dolores like when she was here alone?”

  “She was one of the most focused women I’ve ever met. I’d have gotten through college in two years instead of four with her kind of attention span. It wasn’t that she shunned other people. Dolores was always polite and pleasant. But she exuded a vibe that told everyone around her that she was busy, and that whatever she was doing was serious business and demanded concentration.”

  “Do you know what she worked on here? Birdie mentioned figures, accounting kinds of things?”

  “Yes. Of course I don’t know too much, only what I learned from her. Internet privacy is important here. We have software in place to protect anyone who uses our computers. Library cardholders’ activity is gone as soon as they log out. And at the end of the day, the servers are cleaned of the day’s activity. It’s important that everyone who uses the computers understands that their searches and words are safe.”

  “That’s a good thing to know—”

  “But you’re disappointed. I know you too well, Nell. At times like these it might be helpful if we could somehow crawl inside Dolores’s mind—or at least her search history. It might help.”

  “That’s it exactly, Marian. Even knowing the sites she visited might give us a glimpse into her life.”

  “Well, here’s the thing. Although the library provides security measures, Dolores was sometimes open with me about her searches, especially if she had a question about something. She wasn’t trying to hide anything. Like I told Birdie, she was both an accountant and an auditor. She was interested in how companies used their money, how it was spent, the financials, and so on. Now we know why—it makes logical sense. The organizations she gave to had to toe the mark. I suspect she didn’t suffer fools gladly.”

  Nell smiled. That was probably an understatement.

  “She spent hours on this work. I’d watch her writing down numbers, taking notes, frowning, then smiling, then simply looking like an accountant. Serious, you know?”

  “But you didn’t know at the time what she was looking for?”

  “Not completely. And I try not to guess people’s motivations when they use our computers. I’m just happy that people—especially seniors—are interested and keeping their minds sharp. But I was around Dolores so often, and she’d say little things now and then, that I came to understand she wasn’t just examining financial records to keep her mind sharp, like doing crossword puzzles. She was interested in how nonprofits were run. She’d talk to me sometimes about how important it was to be good stewards of other people’s generosity. She probably based some of her own giving decisions on that.”

  “That seems wise.” As a former nonprofit director, Nell had experienced groups being run in a sloppy manner. Often it was simply because they weren’t careful, or maybe for monetary reasons they hired people not entirely qualified for the job. It was rarely malicious; most often, it was simply a result of carelessness. But it happened.

  “A tightly run institution was important to her. I was acutely aware of that one day when she reacted in an uncharacteristic way. Uncharacteristic for her, anyway. She was usually so calm and genteel.”

  “What happened?”

  Marian got up and refilled their coffee mugs, then sat back down. “It was recently. I think it might have been the last time she came in here. Something she was doing on the computer was frustrating her that day. Sometimes she was so quiet I didn’t know she was in here unless she spoke to me. But that day I was sitting nearby, helping someone with a computer problem, and I could almost feel her tension. She had her ever-present calculator and a copy of the newspaper—one she’d brought in with her—next to her.

  “Every now and then she’d glance at the newspaper, grimace slightly, then go back to the computer or the calculator or scribble numbers on a yellow pad, then double-check them against the computer, then
jot more numbers down. Others probably didn’t notice anything strange because they didn’t know her. But I knew something was wrong.

  “Finally, she turned the computer off with such force I was worried about the keyboard for a minute. Next thing I knew she lifted her cane and stomped it on the floor with a bang. Dolores’s face was flushed, and at first I thought she was having a stroke, but I soon realized that it was plain old anger—something I’ve been known to express when people scribble in library books, but I had never seen Dolores get angry. In someone else, it might have seemed to be an angry ripple—an ‘oh, damn’ kind of thing—but in sedate Dolores it was like a tsunami. Her eyes flashed and everything about her tightened, even the skin over her high cheekbones. When she saw my worried face, she took a deep breath and released it slowly, her eyes closing briefly. In a minute or so, her reaction had been softened to one of disappointment. But a serious disappointment. She assured me, however, that she was fine. She simply had some things she had to take care of that were difficult and unpleasant. But then, well, then everything would be fine.”

  “What do you suppose the anger—or the disappointment—was about?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Nell tried to fit what she was hearing into what she knew about Dolores. “Was that it?”

  “Almost. She told me she was going to go for a long walk and nature would help her put things in their proper order. It never failed her, she said, even when people sometimes did. And then she’d do what needed to be done. She managed a smile—sort of—to let me know she was okay, and suggested I should try long walks, too. It was the answer to many things.”

  “Do you have any idea what she was upset about?”

  “Not specifically. My cousin was an accountant, and he’d be upset for days when the numbers on his ledgers didn’t line up right. He’d act like the world had ended. Maybe Dolores was like that. Something was off kilter with one of the organizations. And it ruffled her need for things to be in order.”

  Nell nodded. But somehow Dolores’s response—at least as Marian described it—seemed rather extreme for numbers being slightly off, especially for small nonprofits. It could easily happen. Nell wondered if Marian was being kind—or if she had missed something.

  Marian slipped back into her shoes and got up, her eyes on the wall clock. “I guess I’d better get back to work—or I’ll have to fire me. It’s almost closing time.”

  Nell got up, too, and walked with the librarian into the main library. She said her good-byes, then headed toward the outer door, stopping halfway there. She turned and walked back to the desk where Marian was already busy on the computer.

  “Marian, this may sound like a silly question. In fact, it may well be a silly question. You mentioned Dolores brought a newspaper in that day. And she referred to it somehow?”

  “Yes. She stared down at it, her pencil in her hand. Angry, though I don’t think she was angry at the newspaper. It was what she was figuring out on the screen. Or maybe it was both?”

  “Did she take it with her?”

  “No. But I think she meant to. We have the daily newspaper here if she wanted to read one—but for some reason she had brought her own. I think she forgot it because her departure was so abrupt. I found it on the floor later.”

  “So it was thrown out?”

  Marian frowned. “Hmm, maybe not, now that you ask. I’d forgotten all about it until now. I hung on to it for a while in case she needed it the next time she came in. And then, well, then she died and an old newspaper was the last thing on my mind. It might still be in here.” She pulled open a cluttered drawer in the desk and rummaged through some lost reading glasses, a tangled mess of earbuds, and finally pulled out a newspaper, folded over to an inside page. She held it out. “This is it.”

  “May I take it?” Nell asked. “I’m not sure why, but I’m curious why she brought a newspaper in with her.”

  “Of course. It’s you or the recycle bin.”

  Nell knew she was grasping at straws, but she took the folded newspaper and tucked it under her arm. A yellow sheet of scrap paper poked out from the fold, numbers scribbled on it, but Dolores had left that, too. Sometimes the devil was in the details. In a matter of thirty minutes she had become closer to Dolores. Her death was more personal and intimate now. How did the chief of police handle such emotions when dealing with crimes, sometimes looking into the suspicious deaths of people he knew or cared about? Were emotions a hindrance or did it make you work harder? She couldn’t be sure, not even for herself.

  Once in the car, Nell dropped the newspaper on the seat beside her, started the car, and only then glanced down at the folded newspaper. It was an inside page that showed on top. A mix of neighborhood news: a fire over on Cedar Road, a teenager winning an award, a man arrested for selling illegal lobsters.

  Down at the bottom, a small headline caught her eye:

  NORTH SHORE DYNASTIES SUPPORT CAUSES

  And right below it, the reporter’s byline:

  Richie Pisano

  Chapter 30

  The ladies’ Sunday night out had been Ben’s idea, including making the reservations at the Ocean’s Edge himself, although he’d conspired with Danny and Sam for the special touches.

  At first Nell thought the idea might have been connected to tickets to a Sox game someone had offered Ben, but she misjudged her husband. Ben was going to stay home, eat soup, and pay bills; Sam planned to have a special evening with Abby, who was pretending her daddy was Lightning McQueen and she was Mater, pushing the tow truck up and down Sam’s back; and Danny was relaxing at home watching old West Wing episodes on Netflix.

  The three men had agreed a relaxing night out might ease some of the tension clouding the women’s faces. Coping with puzzling inheritances, the fate of a vulnerable mother, and the heavy dark cloud created by an unsolved murder was taking its toll. They’d been pulled into the morass in a personal way, far more personal than Ben liked.

  It was becoming an obsession, he had said over coffee that morning, expanding his point as Nell buttered the toast: “It doesn’t matter that the police say it wasn’t a random crime. It’s still murder, Nellie. Someone who kills once knows he has the power to do it. And if that person feels threatened, who knows what he might do?”

  Nell knew Ben was right, yet for reasons that escaped her, she wasn’t afraid. She had left the library the day before weary but with the certain feeling that they were closer to knowing why Dolores Cardozo had lost her life. And instead of fear, she was beginning to feel the outer reaches of peace, albeit one shrouded in sadness. Nothing about murder brought joy. Especially when it was so close to home.

  The library visit had brought to the surface what they’d been inching toward. A different path and opening the door to a different room in Dolores Cardozo’s remarkable brain.

  It left Nell once again assured that Kayla wasn’t complicit in a murder. Someone else was. Someone with more ties to Sea Harbor than the recently settled woman and her children.

  * * *

  “Meet at my place first,” Birdie had texted to all of them. “Cocktails at sunset in Sonny’s den before we go to dinner.” They all thought it was a brilliant idea. Loose ends were better tightened in privacy. And Sonny Favazza’s den was the perfect place.

  Birdie, Izzy, and Cass were already comfortable in the round paneled room that still carried the sweet scent of Sonny Favazza’s cherry tobacco. Or at least that’s what Birdie claimed. Maybe it was all in her imagination, she admitted, but it didn’t matter a whit. Sonny was there in the room with her, and had been all these years, ever since an undetected heart weakness took his physical body away. Usually the closeness she felt brought her joy and the intimate nearness of his spirit.

  But for a few days now, Sonny had perplexed her, a feeling she expressed out loud.

  “‘Perplexed,’ can that be a verb?” She looked up as Nell walked into the room.

  “If it works for you, I say go for it,” Cass answere
d from across the room. “Whoever thought that ‘googled’ could be a verb?” She and Izzy were standing in front of one of the six-foot windows, the entire town of Sea Harbor spread out before them. They never tired of the view. It worked a kind of magic, putting lives and loves—and even murder—into perspective. And it was why Birdie had suggested they meet there first.

  “So Sonny is perplexing you? That requires an explanation.” Nell poured herself a drink from a pitcher with lime slices floating on top.

  “Gimlets,” Birdie answered before Nell asked. “Ella says they’re good for solving difficult and thorny conundrums.”

  “Well, good, then. But back to Sonny?”

  “Here’s the thing. Sonny somehow had a role in Dolores appointing me to be her executor. I know that. And I don’t know if it has anything to do with her murder, but it’s a dangling thread so we need to find out.” Birdie’s clear gray eyes were bright, the thought of her Sonny joining them to solve a mystery a lovely one, perplexing or not. She took a drink of her gimlet.

  Cass settled into a soft leather chair. “Then let’s get to it. Let’s solve this thing, all parts of it. But first things first. Did Elliott Danvers bring Dolores’s records to you? Maybe that will help explain your role, Birdie.”

  “Yes, he did. The list of her giving goes way back.” Birdie pointed to the file of printouts on the low round table in front of her chair. “We also talked again about her appointing me executor. Elliott only remembers Dolores mentioning my name once, and that was tacked on to Sonny’s—Sonny and Birdie Favazza, like that. At least that’s all he could remember. She had come in for a meeting with him and it happened to be on the anniversary of the day her sister died. Her usual reserve was softened, Elliott said, no doubt moved by the memory.”

  “I forgot she had a sister,” Izzy said. She settled into a wingback chair, her bright silk blouse melting into the colorful print and her long legs, slim in skinny jeans, crossed at the knee.