A Fatal Fleece (23 page)

“Hey, what’re you doing slumming down here with us working guys?” Pete was standing on the hull of the
Lady Lobster
, waving a dirty rag at them.

Gabby spotted the newcomers and jumped up, running over and wrapping her arms around Birdie, then Nick. She clutched a green striped buoy in her hand and a splatter of the same color competed with freckles across her nose. Nick ignored the green swipe left on his white knit shirt and kissed his niece soundly.

“So, what’re you up to?” Cass asked. “Want to help?” She wiped the perspiration off her forehead with the back of her hand.

Before they could answer, Gabby grabbed Nick’s hand and dragged him over to the line of Styrofoam buoys she was helping paint in Halloran colors—bright green Irish strips that progressed from a narrow band at the white-nubbed top to the broad one at the bottom. Nell looked at the dents and slashes in some of the older ones, thinking back to last spring. Cass had desperately needed a new supply of buoys and the expensive paint needed to cover them. But after purchasing new traps, there wasn’t enough money left to buy the materials.

Knowing she wouldn’t ask any of them for help, they’d thrown her a surprise birthday party at Birdie’s. Everyone wore old clothes and brought along a new buoy. Birdie supplied the paint, and they’d gathered in the huge garage that years ago had housed Sonny Favazza’s prized cars. Between chowder, crab cakes, and beer, they painted till dawn—and in a single evening, a new family of Halloran buoys was born.

She’d have no need for that anymore, Nell realized, looking around at the dented traps and frayed piles of rope. And while it would bring welcome relief to Cass, Nell felt a small twinge of regret, thinking of the good times they’d had.

“Are you here, Nell?” Cass asked. She pulled back her black hair and slipped it through the band of her Sox cap. “Whew. Warm day.”

“Ben called,” Nell began, pulling Cass a few feet away from the others, who, with Gabby in the lead, were now dragging Nick and Birdie onto the
Lady Lobster
.

“He asked me to stop by,” she continued. “And, by the way, your phone is out of batteries.”

Cass laughed. “Surprise, surprise.”

“Just plug it in every night, Cass. You need a working phone, especially when you’re down here on the dock.”

Cass accepted Nell’s motherly nudging without protest, though they both knew it would happen again, and probably soon. “So, you said Ben—”

Her sentence broke off and she took a sudden step to the side, looking around Nell and toward the parking lot. She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, squinting, a frown furrowing her brow.

“What’s the matter?” Nell turned around, following her gaze.

Beverly Walden stood at the end of the dock, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes boring into Cass.

She began walking toward them, her voice reaching out in front of her. “And what, exactly, did you have to do to steal my inheritance?” she called out.

“Beverly,” Nell began, but Cass shushed her.

“My battle, Nell,” she murmured, and she crossed the short distance remaining between them. “I’m sorry about this, Beverly. But apparently, it’s what Finnegan wanted to do.”

“Sorry? Right.” Beverly’s laugh was too high-pitched, and Nell could see she’d been crying. “He wouldn’t have done this if he had been thinking right. What was in that soup you took him? The lemonade? What did you do to him, Cass Halloran?”

“I was his friend,” Cass said quietly. “If it’s any help, this doesn’t make complete sense to me, either, but that’s all I did. I was his friend.”

Beverly’s smile was filled with a tangle of emotions Nell would think back to later, trying in her mind to sort them out, one by one.
Anger. Disappointment. Fear
. And a terrible anguish that Nell didn’t think had anything to do with losing a father.

She took a deep breath. “He owed me this. He had my mother. I had nothing. And I know he intended me to have it.”

Cass started to speak, but Beverly quieted her, holding both palms forward, pushing back her words. “Just know this. I won’t let you ruin my life. You will not steal my inheritance from me. I won’t let you.” She paused and took a breath, as if to gain courage to finish what she had to say. This time her voice had lost its hardness but her message was resolute. “It’s mine, I need it, and I will have it, one way or another.”

Beverly turned away slowly, as if departing quickly would bring harm to her, a bear at her back, ready to lunge.

Slowly, deliberately, she walked back to shore.

“I almost feel sorry for her,” Cass said, watching her walk away.

“There’s something desperate in her voice.”

Cass nodded. “She’s a strange woman. There’s no telling what she might do. I wonder . . .”

“What?”

“She’s his daughter. If she contests the will, will she get it?”

“I don’t know, Cass.” Nell had the same thought. Beverly looked so determined.

“It sounds selfish, doesn’t it, my worrying about that? But for some reason Finn didn’t want her to have it. He was . . . I don’t know. He thought things through. And he must have thought long and hard about changing a will.”

Nell agreed. “He didn’t do things haphazardly.”

“I talked to my mother and Pete this morning. It will help us all, Nell—you know that. But it’s all so messy. And now this—”

She pointed to the spot where Beverly had stood minutes before, then looked back at her friend. “I don’t steal, Nell,” she said softly.

“Of course not.”

“How did Beverly know about the will?”

“The police called her in for questioning, and a policeman let it slip.”

Cass frowned in thought. “Questioning about the murder?”

“Yes. They always talk to family. But especially in her case. She wasn’t fond of him, and she thought she would inherit his money.”

“Two strikes against her, I guess.”

Nell nodded. They stood there for a moment, the silence cushioning thoughts playing out in both women’s minds. Cass toyed with the end of a frayed rope.

“But I’m the one who inherited the money,” she said finally. “And the whole town knows I need it. I was also one of the few people who had access to Finn’s land.”

Cass took a deep breath, then added sadly, “I was never very good at baseball, but is that three strikes?”

Nell was saved from commenting by Tommy Porter’s shadow falling across the dock as he walked toward the two women. He was in full uniform, Tommy on duty.

“Cass,” he said, his voice filled with regret. “Do you have a minute?”

Chapter 22

D
anny showed up at Nell’s alone. He walked in, looking like he’d lost his best friend.

“Do you know where she is?”

Nell stood at the kitchen island with Izzy and Sam, tossing a salad. Her face mirrored Danny’s concern. “She’ll be here in a minute. Sit down.”

Sam took a cold beer from the refrigerator and put it in Danny’s hands, then clinked it to his own. “We’ll have to rough it until Ben gets here.”

“Cass is with Ben,” Nell said. Birdie and Nick walked in next, with the Brewsters close behind. Nell paused while they bustled around, putting hunks of cheese on the island and flowers from Jane’s garden in a vase. There was no reason to tell the same story twice.

When the movement slowed, Nell picked up a glass of water, took a long drink, and looked around the island. “I guess it’s time to talk about the day,” she said.

She began with the police calling Beverly Walden in, moved to her confrontation with Cass, and ended with Cass and Ben’s absence.

“They’re at the police station. They called Cass in for questioning. Purely routine, Ben said, but he thought it’d be easier if he went down, too,” she said, trying to lighten the situation.

“What?” Danny was off his stool in an instant.

Sam put a hand on his arm. “Hey, it’s okay, Danny. It’s routine.”

Sam didn’t think it was okay. None of them did. But it was what it was and they needed to make the best of it. “They had to talk to her, Danny,” Nell said.

The others took in the regrettable news, knowing it was, indeed, a logical thing for them to do—an utterly awful thing.

Danny refused to buy it.

“Think about it, Danny. Pretend you don’t know her,” Izzy said.

Or love her,
Nell thought, but kept it to herself. The usually unflappable, laid-back Danny had genuine fear in his eyes.

Izzy went on. “She inherited everything that Finnegan owned.”

Nell nodded. “And Ben is finding out that it’s more than we thought. In addition to the land and that little house that Beverly is staying in, there’s a large amount in a savings account and some bonds that have grown considerably. Finnegan didn’t spend much money.”

“Certainly not on food,” Izzy said. “If it weren’t for Mary Halloran, he’d have starved to death.”

“The point is, it all goes to Cass, according to the will Finnegan wrote shortly before he died.”

Jane Brewster settled on another stool, her skirt flowing down around her ankles. “But,
Cass
, Nell? We’re talking about our Cass . . .”

“Of course. And it’s ridiculous to think she’d have done anything like this. But as Izzy said, if this was a stranger we were talking about—and that’s how the police will have to look at it—they’re seeing a person who had been very nice to Finnegan. Taking him food, gaining access to his property and his emotions.”

“Gaining his trust,” Izzy added. She was back in the courtroom, pleading cases. Convincing jurors. Playing the system. Her hands moved with her words, her fingers miming quotation marks. “What if Finnegan had told this ‘stranger’ that he was going to leave her everything he owned? But there was a daughter in the picture, one who, let’s just say, was trying to win back her father’s favor? And our ‘stranger’ needed money badly, and if the daughter had enough time to ease back into favor, the stranger might not get anything. What if . . . ?”

“It’s foolishness. Cass is no stranger. Cass is . . . Cass is one of the most amazing women I know.” Danny’s voice was hoarse.

The room was silent. Of course she was. Amazing, honest, funny, and all sorts of other things. They loved Cass.

But the people trying to track down Finnegan’s killer could not be so moved. It was the facts they were looking at, not the character of a passionate, lovely lobsterwoman.

Danny’s forehead wrinkled into a frown so deep it looked painful. “Saturday night? Is that when the old man was killed?” He spoke to himself, mumbling aloud as he thought back over a week that was now a lifetime long.

Izzy nodded and spoke his thoughts for him. “Sam and I took Cass home that night, Danny. You two had argued at the Scaglia party. You went to your place. Cass went home alone to hers.”

So Cass’ likely alibi had spent the night in a lonely apartment above his parents’ garage. Clear across town from the woman he’d give his life to protect.

Danny’s shoulders slumped.

The sound of Ben’s car in the driveway turned all heads toward the front of the house. Cass walked in first, then stopped at the silent faces looking at her from across the family room.

“What?” She held out her hands. “You’ve never seen a ‘person of interest’ before?”

Her greeting turned the sound back on, people moving, talking, and Izzy hugging her friend in a squeeze that took Cass’ breath away.

“What crap,” Izzy whispered.

“I double that.” Cass pulled away slightly and forced a smile to her face. “Can you believe it? From poor and distressed to rich and . . . and . . . Jeez, I don’t even know what it is I am.”

“Innocent,” everyone in the room shouted in unison.

Ben was already taking the ice out of the freezer and moving like a man on a mission. “Don’t even honor it with thought, Cass. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s what the police have to do. It’s their job. They’ll find the guy who did this soon and then this damned
awful mess will be behind us. They’re still looking for the man who robbed Finn’s house that night.”

Nell watched Ben as he talked, his hands moving automatically. Rote movements—pouring, lifting, shaking. But his thoughts were on Cass. And Nick Marietti. And how many other innocent people who might be pulled into this net of suspicion. She looked over at Nick. He had been quiet since he arrived, listening to the conversation, a thoughtful look on his face. This might ease things up for him, one more person for the police to look at. Spread the suspicion around. Is that what he was thinking?

As the group scattered about the kitchen, he walked over to Cass. He smiled in that confident way that he had, but this time it was colored with understanding, the kind that comes from walking in another’s shoes. He placed one hand on the small of her back and said something, something that brought a smile to her face. And then, in an uncharacteristic move, Cass gave him a quick hug. In the next minute she disappeared out on the deck, following Danny and Ben and a tray of martinis.

Nell moved to his side and spoke quietly. “I don’t always understand you, Nick Marietti. But anyone who can ease Cass’ worry can’t be all bad.”

“Not all bad, Nell. That’s probably the truth.” He smiled again, then followed the others out to the deck.

Willow and Pete showed up with dinner—a cooler filled with crab, squid, and some small lobsters Pete knew they’d have trouble selling. If Nell would heat up plenty of lemon butter and slice a bunch of lemons, they’d throw everything on the grill and be in business, he said.

Nell had thanked them profusely when they’d called earlier with the offer. She’d had little time to go to the market or cook. A bag of baby potatoes was about all she could offer, along with cheese and fruit. And lemon butter, of course. A potful.

But nothing stopped Friday-night dinners at the Endicotts’. Rain or shine, snow or sleet . . . deaths or births.
Murders
.

Willow brought coleslaw; Jane a half dozen baguettes. And
Birdie managed to pick up an apricot crisp that would send everyone home happy.

By the time Izzy had turned on some upbeat music—a little Dave Matthews Band and some old Aerosmith—and Ben had refreshed martini glasses, the mood had almost returned to a normal Friday night on the deck.