A Fatal Fleece (34 page)

She gasped. “Oh, my lord,” she whispered.

Birdie and Cass were at her side in an instant. Nell handed Birdie the frame.

The photo was yellowed from sunlight and distorted by the broken glass, but there was no mistaking who smiled out from the frame. Birdie Favazza, dressed in a soft blue dress, standing
beside a handsome man who wore a flower in his lapel. His arm was wrapped around the woman at his side.

It was Birdie’s turn to gasp. She stared at the photograph. Then she looked around the office more carefully, stripping it of the dust and dirt, focusing, remembering. She looked at the photo again. “It was our wedding day.”

She rubbed the glass with a corner of her shirt, wiping it clean.

“Hello, Joseph,” she said, a soft smile filling her face.

Her eyes settled on the open filing cabinet and the footprints on the floor. “These two buildings, this one and the one across the drive, were identical. I’d simply imagined Joseph a few yards to the west. I suppose because as the years passed, it was the more respectable of the two. But this one . . . This one must have been his office. Of course—that’s why he knew Dr. Pulaski. Oh, my . . .”

Her eyes returned to the picture frame, then over to the empty cabinet drawer.

“Nicholas, Nicholas,” she murmured to herself. “What have you been up to?”

Daylight was fading when they walked back down Finn’s drive to Canary Cove Road, feeling a lightness that came with rediscovering the past. Finn’s Moira. And Joseph Marietti. More than they had bargained for.

“Have we been here an hour? A week? A day?” Birdie said. “When one is unburying the dead, time escapes. Does it not?”

Nell smiled. A day of revelations—and couched in the middle of them, one thing was becoming clear: Nicholas Marietti’s habit of harboring secrets was about to end.

They stopped at the end of the drive just as Tommy Porter appeared around the bend, his jacket tossed over one shoulder, his eyes tired.

Instinctively, Nell pushed the edge of the dental file farther down in her purse. She wanted to talk to Ben about the transfer of Moira’s casket before handing it over to the police. There were a
few promises that needed to be made before the story of Finnegan’s grave was told to the police.

“Tommy, you look like something the cat dragged in,” Birdie said. Perspiration dotted his forehead and spotted the front of his uniform shirt.

“Feel that way, too. What’re you guys doing here?”

“I’m just checking to see if these keys work,” Cass said.

Tommy looked at the key chain. “So . . . so, what’ll you do with this place, Cass?”

“It’s not really mine yet.”

“Sure, it is. It’s all paperwork now, but it will be yours free and clear soon.” He paused, then looked at Cass again. “I know this is a bad time for you, Cass. It isn’t fair. None of us think you’d do anything like what happened to old man Finnegan. No way. It’s just the process. We gotta find the guy who did this. Then everyone can breathe clean air again and be about their business.”

“You’re a good guy, Tommy,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Are you here on official business?” Nell asked.

“Sort of.” He looked at Cass again. “I s’pose you heard I let Beverly Walden take Finn’s boat.”

“I heard that.”

“Stupid thing to do. I know. But she was his daughter—or I thought she was, anyway—and I figured it’d all be hers. I found her back here, looking around. She wanted the boat in the worst way. She looked at me, her eyes all big and sad.”

Birdie smiled. “Tommy, I’m surprised at you, falling for such wiles.”

Tommy shrugged, a blush spreading above the collar of his uniform. He stuck a finger into the collar of his shirt, tugging at it. “I . . . I felt sorry for her, I guess.” And then his voice changed, his words edged with anger. “But no more feeling sorry for her, for sure. No more of that.”

“You sound mad,” Cass said. “What gives?”

“The chief told me to go get that boat back. He thought she might feel threatened or something and said to take someone along if I
needed backup, but I didn’t think I’d need it. So I called her yesterday, said I was coming by today for the boat. Told her exactly what time.”

“She was okay with giving it up?”

“No. She hung up on me. But I called again later and left a message so she wouldn’t forget.”

He looked over at the patrol car. “I figured I’d leave my car here, walk over to her place and drive the boat back. It’s yours, Cass, not hers.”

“Doesn’t matter, Tommy. If it means that much to her—”

Tommy interrupted. “Don’t go there, Cass. Hell, who knows what that woman may have done?”

They stared at him.

“I mean . . . she sure had motive—or thought she did, anyway. She wanted Finn’s money in the worst way. So don’t go giving away boats, Cass. At least not to her.”

Cass looked back toward the dock. “So, where is it?”

“Gone.”

“The boat or Beverly?” Birdie asked.

“Both. She wasn’t there at the house, and the boat was gone. A neighbor said she’d gone out early last night carrying a picnic basket and a couple bottles of wine, and she hasn’t seen her since.”

Nell remembered the Cheese Closet sack that Beverly had with her in the tea shop. She had plans, she’d said. A celebration? But that was when she thought she had an inheritance to celebrate.

“She was dressed in a sexy outfit, the neighbor said. All dolled up, was how she put it. She said something about Jimmy Choos, whoever he is. Maybe the guy she was meeting.”

Nell smiled. “She was alone?”

He nodded. “She told the neighbor she was meeting a friend.”

“Strange,” Birdie said.

Tommy nodded. “I went by the galleries to see if anyone knew where she was, but no one had seen her since yesterday. So I walked back here to pick up my car.”

Tommy shuffled his feet, his polished shoes gathering gravel dust. “Chief’ll kill me,” he said.

“Why? Because maybe Beverly Walden had plans for a romantic evening? Spent the night with someone? It’s been done before,” Cass said.

Tommy looked at her blankly. Then he kicked a stone so hard it flew all the way over to the rotting door and bounced off into the brush.

“No. Because I may have let a murderer get away.”

Chapter 33

I
t was late afternoon by the time Nell dropped Birdie off and drove up her own driveway, crackers, milk, and fruit in a bag at her side. Ben’s car wasn’t in the drive, and she silently cheered his absence, knowing she desperately needed a shower—not only to wash away the stress and fatigue of the day, but to think. A few moments to put her thoughts in order. If, in fact, there was any order.

She put away the groceries and headed upstairs. Suddenly things were happening quickly, and with each new revelation, Finn’s murderer seemed to be walking closer to them, heralding his presence.

And he wasn’t coming out of the past, seeking revenge for a long-buried relative. The grave nestled in Finn’s circle of rosebushes was dug with tenderness, a testimony to an old fisherman’s love.

Nor, she felt sure, was the murderer a gracious Italian. The secrets he harbored were still there, still lurking like a blemish on a lovely painting. But she suspected they wouldn’t be hidden for long.

Leaving her clothes in a heap on the bedroom floor, she stepped into the shower and lifted her face to the spray. Slowly she began to relax, the water massaging her body, loosening her muscles. Clearing her mind.

She smiled into the heated shower, her thoughts moving back to the circle of rosebushes hidden in the forest that was Finnegan’s land. There, protected by his overgrown bushes, discarded debris, and no-trespassing signs, he kept his memories safe and his Moira close,
settling her in her favorite spot.
Did he spread rose petals down first,
she wondered,
a blanket of them to cushion her bed?
Nell’s smile lingered on the thought as the scent of ginger soap filled the shower and bubbles ran down her body in rivulets.

Finally, reluctantly, she stepped from the shower and into the steamy room, out of the fairy-tale story of Moira and Finn.

And into real life, where a murderer walked free in their midst.

Ben was in the kitchen when Nell came down, her hair still damp and curling around her cheeks. He was laying thick swordfish steaks on a baking sheet and coating them with spicy chipotle sauce.

“Compliments of our friends.” He nodded toward the deck, where Danny and Cass stood, side by side, talking.

“They’re doing a lot of that these days,” Ben said.

“Talking?”

Ben nodded. “Cass even seems to listen . . . sometimes, anyway. I had a long talk with Danny earlier today over a couple of beers. He understands Cass, I think—maybe even better than we do. He knows her life’s been a maelstrom these past months and that she needs her space. He gets it. So he’s there when she wants to talk. Disappears when he thinks she needs space. And she seems to be coming back for more. Leaning on him some. And learning that she doesn’t crumble in a million pieces when someone holds her up.”

Nell wrapped her arms around him, listening to his words and watching through the window as Danny teased smiles from Cass, and vice versa. It was a lovely dance—moving away, then back together, staying in step.

Ben breathed in the soapy smell of his wife. “I was tempted to join you up there, but something about the clothes on the floor and the somber silence in the bathroom made me think differently.”

“I wasn’t singing, you mean?” Nell kissed him.

“I mean that the vibe you left in your trail made me think you’d had a busy day, one you needed to pull apart quietly and alone.”

She kissed him again, letting the warmth of his body push away the uncertainty of her thoughts.

“Are you two at it again?” Izzy came across the family room. She
spread her arms around Nell and Ben and nuzzled her head into the space between.

Sam was behind her, carrying a large bowl of salad. He put it on the counter and laughed at the group hug. “Am I failing on the hug front? What am I—chopped liver?”

Izzy broke away and tilted her head back to Sam, encouraging involvement. He complied with a kiss.

“It seems that kind of day, doesn’t it? Hugs. Touches,” Nell said.

Ben already had the martini mixings going and moved back to it, the sound of his shaker greeting the next surge of friends.

Birdie set a blueberry crisp on the counter and gave Ben a tight squeeze. “Sounds like we’re just in time. And how intuitive of you, dear Ben, to know we might need a bit of your magic. It’s been what Gabby aptly calls an arduous day, although hers resulted in some lovely grave rubbings. Mine had a few lovely answers, but those were accompanied by a head full of troubling questions.”

“I think the questions hurt more the closer they come to resolution,” Nell said. “Where’re Nick and Gabby?” She looked at Birdie, wondering if they’d talked.

“They’re out cruising on the Scaglia boat,” Sam said. “Gabby was helping me scrub the trim when she spotted Sal’s boat. It seems she has an eye for expensive ones.”

“She asked Sal to take her out?” Nell frowned.

Sam laughed. “No. She told him. But in a very gracious way.”

“Did Beatrice go?” Jane Brewster asked. She walked over to the island, her arms filled with flowers from the community garden. Ham was close behind, a bottle of wine in hand.

“No. Gabby suggested it, but Sal explained that Beatrice gets seasick sitting on their dock. She’s not a big boat lover.”

“It’d be hard to wear Jimmy Choos on a boat, anyway,” Izzy said as Cass and Danny walked in the room, Danny’s hand on Cass’ back.

Jimmy Choos and boats. Twice in one day
, Nell thought, though Beatrice’s apparently would never be touched by salt water. Beverly, on the other hand . . .

Ben was watching her, reading her thoughts. He poured a
round of drinks. “I stopped by the station on my way home to ask if things were squared away with Beverly Walden. If she’d calmed down or caused any problems.” He looked at Nell, then Birdie and Cass.

“Tommy was there and mentioned seeing you three. He explained about the boat. It seems she’s gone off with it. No one knows where she is.”

“She’s missing, Tommy said.” Birdie took a glass from Ben.

“Missing?” Izzy asked. “What does that mean?”

They explained what Tommy had discovered, complete with a description of Beverly’s outfit.

“Jeez. Jimmy Choos?” Izzy’s brows shot up. “She must have been trying to impress someone in a big way.”

“Kind of a crazy thing to do,” Sam, the practical boatman, said. “So she was meeting someone? Picking someone up?”

“So it seems,” Ben said.

“It must have been important to her. She was supposed to give a report at our Arts Association meeting today but never showed up, and that’s not like her,” Jane said.

“The police think she may have taken off.”

“Why?” several voices asked at once.

“Maybe she felt the police were going to look at her more carefully—and she would have been right,” Ben said. “The money she thought she was getting when Finn died is a sound motive for murder. They need more—fingerprints, the murder weapon. Something. But the pressure is on, and Beverly is a prime suspect.”

“But why would she take off in a boat, wearing a fancy dress and taking along wine and cheese? Do you know how much those shoes cost?” Izzy said.

Ben resumed his ritual, shaking the container. “That’s the question of the hour,” he finally said.

Without an answer to the question, it faded away, and people began to move about, filling small plates with cheese, admiring a new painting Jane had brought to Nell, shaking off the uncertainty of Beverly Walden’s innocence or guilt, presence or absence.

Ben looked at Nell. “I have a feeling other things happened today.” There was concern in his voice.

“Yes, they did. But I need a promise from you before we talk about it. A solemn one.”

“A promise,” he repeated.

“I need you to talk to Jerry Thompson to make sure Henry Staab doesn’t get in one iota of trouble for something he did years ago to help a dear friend.”