Moon Spinners

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Teenage boys will do that to you,” she said. “And you loved every minute of it. And I, too, am spent, though from boys a whole lot older than the regatta team.”

  Ben didn’t press for details, and they said little on the trip home, each sinking into the privacy of their own thoughts. Decompression time, Ben called it. But whatever it was, it was one of those silent understandings between soul mates that never failed to fill Nell with gratitude.

  The exchange with Harold stayed there, playing at the edges of her thoughts. Troubling.

  He was tired, Birdie had said, and not talking sensibly.

  Or maybe they—Birdie and Nell—were tired, reading unintended things into the words of a man who clearly loved his wife—and thought he was losing her.

  Or maybe he meant exactly what he said.

  And maybe Harold Sampson was lying.

  An hour later, showered and comfortable in soft sweats, Nell and Ben lit some candles, slipped a Dave Matthews CD into the player, and wandered out to the deck. It was a ritual they held sacred when schedules and weather allowed, and on this cool Sunday evening, Nell knew the night would be kinder to her and sleep would come more readily, if deck time with Ben came first.

  She handed Ben a glass of Scotch, then sat down on the padded chaise next to him. They stretched out, side by side, looking up at the wide sweep of stars overhead. Some nights they sat in silence, content with the closeness of each other’s body and the constellations in the sky. Other times they rehashed the day and put worry or concerns to rest before they went inside to watch the news or head upstairs to bed. Tonight was for collecting thoughts. Putting things in order.

  The air was still, a change from the pleasant gusts that had propelled Ben and Sam’s team to victory. But chilly, the way June nights in Sea Harbor often were.

  “Was Liz at the club tonight?” Nell asked. Her mind had wandered over a long string of happenings and people vying for attention. The most disturbing, Harold’s outburst just hours earlier, was still so foggy in Nell’s mind that she decided to tuck it away. Maybe, as she and Birdie had both halfheartedly agreed, it would make more sense in the morning.

  “No. Liz wasn’t feeling terrific, the bartender said.”

  “Her pregnancy isn’t a secret anymore. It was mentioned at Izzy’s shop today, though she thinks people don’t know who the father is.”

  “No, probably not. I would certainly never have paired Alphonso and Liz up together. I imagine that will be a surprise.”

  “I was thinking about Alphonso giving Sophia the Ferrari. A gift of something he truly loved. I wonder what happened that night that made him do it. I wonder if Sophia had found out about their affair.”

  “Or the baby.”

  “It would have been a terrible shock to her.”

  “That’s what we would think, isn’t it? But the Sophia Santos I know from cocktail parties might not be who Sophia is—or was— at all. Maybe it wasn’t a terrible shock. We didn’t really know her, did we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ben thought for a moment before answering. “Didn’t you tell me Izzy said we’d be peeling off layers of Sophia, like an onion? I think maybe that’s right. The woman I knew was beautiful, gracious, and polite. The perfect hostess and a perfect mate for one of the most successful businessmen in town. But in just these few days, there’s another picture emerging, one of a woman who may have been all of those great things, but who was also strong-willed, rigid, forceful. And maybe things we are yet to know. Beatrice Scaglia was at the club today and had some strong words to say about Sophia. The mayor agreed that she was unbending. Always gracious, he said, but tough as nails. It was difficult for her to listen to others’ opinions. He considered Alphonso much easier to work with than Sophia.”

  “It’s uncomfortable to speak this way of someone who just died,” Nell said.

  “It is. But when someone’s been murdered, it’s probably not helpful to elevate him or her too quickly to sainthood. It can get in the way of the truth.”

  “Not that anyone is actually trying to find the truth.” Nell told Ben about Gracie’s visit to the jail. “Even Julianne is willing to go along with the police’s story of how this all played out. Why would anyone look further?”

  “There’s truth to that. You’re right. But Julianne may be telling her daughter she is innocent as one last attempt to look good in her eyes. How do we know for sure she didn’t kill Sophia? She’d been drinking that night. She hated her brother’s wife. I think we need more than instinct and Julianne’s word to write her off completely.”

  “Maybe,” Nell said, her voice lacking conviction. “But we also need to look into all the others who could have done it. I think if we look into everyone who was at the club that night, who would have had a chance to tinker with Sophia’s car, who had a motive for killing her, we might be able to shed some light on it.”

  “You don’t think that’s someone else’s job?”

  “Whose, Ben?” Nell rolled her head on the chaise pillow and looked at her husband’s profile. “Who would do it? Not the police. Not now that Julianne is practically confessing.”

  Ben was silent. He drank his Scotch slowly, ice cubes clinking against the side of the glass. He pulled his brows together in thought.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Ben. It could be dangerous to nose about in this messy business. It was a murder, after all, not a traffic violation.”

  “That’s my worry, Nelly. Absolutely. Jerry Thompson helped us today with the regatta. He said the evidence right now is circumstantial, but there’s probably enough of it to convince a jury—witnesses who saw Julianne head off to where the car was parked, her tirade at the funeral. The things they found in her trunk. And simply the facts—that Sophia stopped the ready flow of Santos money into Julianne’s pocket, and she hated her for it.”

  “Gracie says she is all but accepting the guilt as if it’s her due, as if it’s God’s way of punishing her for being a bad mother. That’s wrong, Ben.”

  Ben agreed. “The chief says Julianne is not the beautiful, erratic, slightly crazy damsel we’ve seen the past days. Years, for that matter. She’s being pleasant, cooperative. Even sweet, Jerry said, which isn’t a word people have used much to describe Julianne Santos. She blames no one for anything, except herself. It’s making the force nervous. They don’t know how to treat her. They have to remind themselves that she’s an accused murderer, not a beautiful woman they’re bringing dinner to and being courteously thanked for doing so.”

  “Has Alphonso been very visible in all this?”

  “He’s paying for her attorney. It’s probably complicated.”

  Nell supposed it was. The family relationships involved were fodder for a Shakespearean play. “Margaret Garozzo heard Sophia say that only over her dead body would there be a marriage. Or something like that. Sometimes her words are a little difficult to understand. A divorce would have been hard for her.”

  “How do you know that?” Ben’s smile was one of bemusement.

  Nell felt the smile in the darkness. “Women just know these things, Ben Endicott. Just like I know you are about to fall asleep on me if we don’t move that big lug of a beautiful body upstairs.” Nell slipped off the chaise and picked up their glasses.

  “Hmm. Beautiful body?” Ben swung his legs to the side and looked up at Nell. “You like this body?”

  Nell glanced at him briefly in the light of the waning moon, a suggestive look lifting the corners of her mouth. Then she blew out the candle and walked slowly into the house.

  It was a while later that Nell finally slipped into a lovely sleep, wrapped with Ben in a tangle of sheets. And when sirens punctuated her dreams hours later, Nell pushed them into the deep recesses of her subconscious.

  These couldn’t be the sirens that spoke of danger. Not the sirens that changed lives.

  Nell slept.

  Chapter 21

  “Aunt Nell, it’s Izzy.”

  Nell c
arried her coffee over to the kitchen table, the phone cupped between her shoulder and ear. “Yes, sweetie?”

  “It’s about the restaurant,” Izzy began.

  Nell glanced at the clock. Eight a.m. What restaurant was Izzy talking about at this hour? She was usually in the shop by eight on Mondays. “Izzy, were we supposed to meet somewhere? I must have forgotten.”

  “No, it’s the Lazy Lobster. There was a fire last night . . .”

  There was a crowd hovering around the restaurant when Nell arrived at the pier. A policeman stood on one side of Gracie. Joey Delaney was on the other. Gracie wore a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt. Her blond hair waved carelessly around her flushed cheeks, and from all appearances, it had been a while since she’d slept.

  Nell spotted Pete, Willow, and Cass a short distance away talking to a fireman. She hurried over.

  “What happened? Is everyone all right?”

  “Everyone’s fine,” Alex Arcado, a tall ruddy-faced fireman, answered. “Seems someone saw a good place to sleep last night. Only problem was, he tried to build a fire.”

  “It must have been someone sleeping along the beach. They walked out here and saw an easy way to enter.” Pete pointed to a window hoisted up and then left open.

  “Built a fire?” Nell looked skeptical.

  “It got a little chilly in the middle of the night,” Alex said. “Especially when the wind picked up again. I suppose he saw the fireplace. Might as well light one. We found traces of a pizza box and some old newspapers.”

  “He?”

  “It’s usually guys who bum around the beach in the summer. Safe as Sea Harbor is, I wouldn’t want my daughter out there,” Alex said. “But I don’t think the police know who did it. It’s probably not a high priority. Not too much damage done, and the fire was most likely an accident.”

  “It was primarily smoke damage,” Pete said. “The fireplace is a mess. The guy wasn’t too bright. He didn’t know enough to open the flue.”

  “Someone spotted the smoke and called us quick,” Alex said. “That’s what saved the place.”

  “That would be me,” Birdie said, walking up beside Nell. “I couldn’t sleep last night—I had too many things on my mind—so I went into Sonny’s den to relax and look out over the water.”

  Nell imagined the scenario. What relaxed Birdie more than anything was gazing through Sonny’s telescope—sometimes at the sky or out to sea, but most often swiveling the brass neck over toward Canary Cove, and without much effort, Birdie could check on teenage parties at Anja Angelina Park, not to mention interesting late-night activity around the harbor.

  “I’m sorry for your loss of sleep, Miss Favazza,” Alex said, “but it was a mighty good thing for all of us that you were awake. Not too many people are up at three a.m.”

  “You’re a fine bunch of men. You do a good job, and we’re exceedingly proud of you.” Birdie patted the sleeve of his yellow jacket. “Now you’re the one who needs some sleep.”

  Alex tipped his helmet toward Birdie, a slight blush adding to his perspiring forehead and cheeks. “I expect I will do just that. The place is safe now. Just needs a little cleaning up and that fireplace’ll need some work. This is the second small fire this June.”

  “Another restaurant fire?” Nell asked.

  “Yeah. A stove over at Jake Risso’s Gull. Poor Jake burned some of his hair trying to put it out. Not that he has any to spare.” The fireman touched his helmet again and was off down the pier, dragging an ax and a fire extinguisher with him.

  Nell followed the others into the restaurant to assess the damage. The firemen had opened all the windows and the wide doors at the back to help release the fumes. “The smoke smell is still strong,” Willow said. “But we can get a professional fire-cleaning service in here to take care of that. Maybe some fans would help. I have some in my studio I’ll bring over. Come on, Pete, let’s check the deck.” She walked away, small as an elf, her short self-cut mass of thick dark waves bouncing about her head. Next to her, Pete Halloran looked oversized, a tall, gangly man. But watching them standing out on the deck, Nell suspected that the difference in their height was the furthest thing from their minds.

  Nell walked over to the fireplace for a closer look. The fireman was right—it had seen better days but could be repaired. The smoke and flames had curled over and up the granite wall, scorching it. In places, the grouting was loose and chunks fell out onto the hardwood floor. Gracie had been so proud of it. She looked at the debris still in the fireplace and could see the edge of the pizza carton sticking out. The trespasser must have eaten, drunk a few beers, then settled down in front of the fireplace to sleep. When the night grew cold, it just made sense to light a fire and warm himself up, she supposed.

  Cass walked over and picked up a broom. “Izzy had to go back to open the yarn studio but said you should check in with her later—and not to forget about the socks class today.”

  Nell nodded and rubbed her finger across a thick swatch of soot coating the granite fireplace.

  “Imagine the guy’s surprise when the room filled with smoke. It must have scared him half to death.” Cass began to sweep the fireplace debris into a pile.

  Nell nodded. “He probably got out in a hurry. It’s too bad Birdie didn’t catch his escape.” She found a trash bag and dustpan nearby and crouched down beside Cass. “Has Joey seen the damage?”

  “Gracie called him as soon as she got the call from Esther Gibson.”

  “He’s been a good person to lean on.”

  Cass shrugged. “Gracie doesn’t talk about it much, but he’s certainly been around when she’s needed him.”

  “Do you know why they separated?”

  Cass stopped sweeping for a minute and leaned on the broom, thinking about Nell’s question. “I wasn’t in touch with Gracie much when they lived in Gloucester. I’d see her once in a while, but she was always alone. Joey was doing sales for Delaney & Sons then and was gone all the time. Gracie wanted babies, and Joey wasn’t interested. I think they argued a lot. But some of their problems had to be family-related. She didn’t just marry Joey. She married the whole clan.”

  “That included Davey, I suppose,” Nell said.

  Cass nodded. “Hotheaded Davey. He’s overprotective of his dad, as if D.J. needs protection—the man can be a bulldog if it means getting what he wants. Davey’s also a little bit paranoid. He’s always on the watch for someone trying to harm the company.”

  Nell remembered Ben’s comment about Davey taking over someday. It made sense that he cared about the company he hoped to run.

  Cass went on. “Davey acted weird when Joey and Gracie got married. He tried to blame it on the Delaney-Santos competition, that it couldn’t be good for the family. What if Gracie were a spy?”

  The thought of Gracie as a spy made Nell laugh. “Where was all that coming from?”

  “I think it was all cover-up. I think Davey wished Gracie had married him. In fact, I think he still feels that way.”

  “I wondered about that myself.”

  “Joey is the smart one in the family and that probably bothers Davey, too. I think he works extra hard so his dad will notice him. That’s probably why he comes out fighting when the company’s reputation is at stake. Pete said he was in the Gull a couple weeks ago ranting and raving and knocking over beer bottles. Jake finally made him leave.”

  “What was the problem?”

  “I only know bits and pieces, but there was a rumor that Delaney & Sons might be violating codes or something. Or maybe it was manipulating numbers, I don’t know. A reporter followed up on it and actually went to the plant, asking questions. Davey Delaney was furious about it. Uncontrollable, Pete said.”

  “Who would have made such a claim?”

  Cass began sweeping again, pulling ashes out from the corners of the fireplace. “I’m not sure. But he was throwing Sophia Santos’ name around, right along with the beer bottles.”

  Nell took a deep breath. So
many rumors. She looked through the window at the two figures standing just outside. The policeman was still talking to Gracie, and Joey was standing a few steps behind her. He looked angry, too, but not the kind that she imagined caused thrown beer bottles. He looked angry and protective at once.

  On the floor, Cass had gone back to her sweeping. She reached one hand up to Nell. “Would you hang on to these? Might be something Gracie needs.” She dropped a key ring into Nell’s hand and sat back on her legs. “It looks like whoever did this ate all the pizza. Only charred remains.”

  Nell took the items and shoved them into her pants pocket, then leaned over to hold the dustpan for Cass.

  Cass swept up the last of the ashes. “There, finished.”

  “We’re just in time, then,” said Gracie, walking through the door. She and Joey looked at the fireplace. “Thanks. The police and firemen say we’re lucky. The damage is light, thanks to Birdie. I hope she starts sleeping during the day and continues to watch over us at night.”

  Birdie came in from the deck and caught the end of Gracie’s sentence. “Do they know who started the fire?”

  “They think it’s a guy who comes through here every summer, poor fellow. No money, sleeps on the beach. He’s harmless.”

  “Well, this wasn’t harmless,” Joey said. He crouched down and peered into the fireplace pit. “Was there anything left in here?”

  “Part of a pizza box. We swept it all out,” Cass said.

  “This could have been bad, Gracie.” His brows pulled together, and when he straightened up, Nell saw the worry in his eyes.

  “Joey, do you think something else happened here?” she asked.

  Joey waited a few seconds before he spoke, but his answer was even and thoughtful. “No, I guess not, Nell. It’s probably what the police say it was. And the fireplace isn’t a problem. I can fix it. It’s just that this could have been a lot worse.” He looked over at Gracie. “It could have been more than a building that was damaged, Gracie. It could have been you. And I don’t know what I can do about it.”