A Fatal Fleece (35 page)

Ben looked at her curiously. “Henry Staab? That old man from the cemetery? I didn’t know he was still around.”

Nell shook her head.
Poor Henry. Buried before his time twice in one day.
“He’s very much alive. He was a friend of Finn’s. He showed us Moira’s grave over at St. Mary’s, complete with flowers Father Larry religiously puts there in her memory.” She paused. “So . . . the promise?”

Jane looked up from slicing bread. “A promise?”

“Intrigue,” Izzy said, moving to Nell’s side.

“Sure, if you think it’s important, I promise,” Ben said, “So, Moira is at St. Mary’s. That makes sense,” he prompted.

“Except she isn’t. There’s a grave there. But Moira’s not in it. I suspect no one is.”

Ben frowned. Then, slowly, the realization of Nell’s message sunk in and a slow smile spread across his face. “Well, I’ll be—”

Nell nodded. “Finn talked Henry Staab into pretending to bury Moira at St. Mary’s. He even had Father Northcutt do a graveside ceremony after the mass, saying a couple of prayers and blessing the casket. But after Father Larry left, instead of lowering it into the ground, Henry Staab and Finn lifted the casket into the back of Finn’s old pickup and moved her to the spot she loved more than any other place on earth.”

Izzy’s mouth fell open. Sam came up behind her, wrapping an arm around her, a smile on his face.

“Wow. That explains everything, doesn’t it?” Jane said. She smiled, too, then sniffed and pulled a tissue from her pocket. “What a loving man. It’s why he didn’t want people trampling around over there.”

“And why he let the place turn into a jungle pit.” Ham was smiling, too.

It was a love story that would be retold for a long time to come when memories of the old fisherman were brought up and passed around dinner tables. A story, Nell hoped, that would replace the more tragic one of Finn’s death.

“He couldn’t handle the thought of Moira being all the way across town, in a place filled with ‘strangers,’” Birdie said. “But the authorities and powers that be wouldn’t have taken kindly to a grave on private land, right next to the water, so it remained his secret, and he did what he had to do to keep it private and to keep his Moira close.”

Cass and Danny stood at the edge of the group, listening quietly.

Then Danny said, “Finn talked to me once about Moira, how much he loved her. His love was as real that day as if she were right there beside him. Finn loved. That’s what he did.” He looked at Cass. “He loved. Fiercely.”

And that said it all—except for what it didn’t say. The man who loved with a giant heart was dead. Murdered.

Hours later, they settled on the deck chairs, stomachs filled with grilled swordfish and brown butter sauce, and Norah Jones’ husky voice and nimble fingers playing in the background. It was almost normal.

Nell looked over at Birdie.

She was checking her phone. When she got up and headed inside, Nell followed.

“Nick just sent me a text message,” Birdie explained as they walked into the kitchen. “He’s coming over.”

“Now?”

“Yes. There’s been some news, he said.”

“About Gabby?”

“No. She’s home with Ella and Harold, safe and sound.”

Nell opened the oven door and Birdie pulled out the blueberry crisp, lifting it to the island.

“Is everything all right?”

“I don’t know. It was cryptic, short. But odd that he’d want to come at this hour. I was actually hoping to talk to him when I got home tonight about what we discovered this afternoon. Confront him about the office, I guess I mean, and demand he tell me why he was in that building.” She looked around for a spoon. “But Gabby’s fine, and that’s the important thing.”

Nell held the plates while Birdie spooned out the dessert, topping each helping with a scoop of ice cream.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this, Nell.”

Nell pushed away her own uneasiness. She pulled out a tray and began filling it with plates. “He probably just wants a piece of the dessert.”

But they both knew that it wasn’t Ella’s blueberry crisp bringing Nick out at this hour.

Birdie carried the tray outside while Nell waited at the front door.

She looked up at the moon, nearly full, its light casting shadows across the street and lawns of the neighborhood. In the distance, an animal’s howl broke the stillness. A plaintive cry.

Headlights pierced through the moonlight, and seconds later the blue Altima pulled up behind Izzy and Sam’s car.

She waited, holding open the screen door.

“Am I turning into a bad penny?” he said with a worried half smile, kissing Nell on each cheek.

“I hope not,” Nell said. “Come. Everyone’s out back.”

Ben had already poured Nick a drink.

He took it gratefully, then sat in the chair Sam had pulled over from the dining table.

“It’s not good news,” he began.

The deck grew quiet and the moon seemed to grow in size while they waited. Its bright white light fell through the trees and across the deck. Nick’s face was lit, as if he were on stage.

Birdie was watching Nick with the same apprehension that rattled around inside Nell.
Nick’s lie,
whatever he was hiding. Was it
yet another disruption to their summer? She closed her eyes briefly, her words a whisper inside her head.
Do not be guilty of anything more than surprising Birdie with a grandchild, of bringing Gabby into our lives, Nick Marietti. Do not . . .

But Nick’s news had nothing to do with Nick. He leaned forward and began to talk, his distinctive accent filling the deck. “Gabby and I went out on the Scaglia boat today. On our way back in, we saw a couple patrol boats circling around, lights flashing. They were towing a boat back to shore. It looked like trouble, so Sal turned his yacht around and headed in the other direction to get us away from whatever was going on. That boat is fast, let me tell you, and quiet. He was protecting Gabby. But it’s hard to get anything past her. She spotted the boat, pointed to it. Even from a distance, she knew whose it was.”

He looked over at Cass.

“It was Finnegan’s boat,” he said.

The
Moira
, the boat that Beverly Walden had taken out to sea in a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.

Nick took a deep breath. “Well, we went on around, circled a few coves. Sal assured us the boat probably just ran out of fuel. Happens more than you’d think, he said.

“But when we got back to the club, the police were there. Some reporters were lurking around. There wasn’t any way to avoid the confusion, though Sal tried his best. Before we could stop her, Gabby climbed out and ran over to where they’d towed the boat. It was as if she wanted to claim the boat, protect it somehow.”

“Was Beverly there?” Cass asked.

“No,” Nick answered. “There was nothing there but the boat, picnic things—cheese, glasses, some beach towels, an empty, broken bottle of wine—and a piece of torn dress caught on a bolt on the side of the boat.

“They’re looking for a body,” he finished.

Chapter 34

I
t took the police until dawn to find Beverly Walden’s body, although the body actually found them, was how Tommy Porter put it. It washed up on shore right near the yacht club, as if looking for the boat it had lost.

And it took only a few hours more to piece together what had happened.

Beverly Walden had been poisoned.

“The wine was laced with enough phenobarbital to kill a horse,” Tommy told Izzy as they waited in line together at Coffee’s. “The chief said it was an amateur job, if someone was trying to make it look like a suicide. As if we wouldn’t find the poison. And it gets worse,” Tommy said. “They found things over on the island indicating someone else had climbed onto the boat when it was anchored. The body itself had bruises, probably from getting pushed over the edge—and a weight was tied to one ankle.

“It looked desperate, the chief said. Definitely not done by a pro.”

“I suppose there’s some relief in that,” Nell said. They were in their favorite back booth at Harry Garozzo’s deli, hoping Harry would be too busy on a Saturday to join in the conversation. He was a veritable font of rumor, and they had had their fill of that.

“Tommy was pretty sure Beverly had killed Finn,” Izzy added. “This sets them back.”

“I knew it wasn’t suicide,” Cass said. “Beverly wanted something desperately, but it wasn’t death.”

“Two murders . . .” Birdie said. “They have to be related, of course.”

“The police think so.”

“It’s difficult to put them together,” Cass said. “I’m not proud of this, but I think I wanted Beverly to be responsible for Finn’s death, maybe to justify the way I felt about her,” Cass said.

“You don’t need her to be a murderer to justify your feelings, Cass. You didn’t like Beverly because of the way she treated the man she thought was her father, a man you loved and respected. The way she acted was shameful,” Birdie said.

They all agreed. And the fact that anyone would cast even an iota of suspicion on Cass, who truly loved Finnegan, made it all the worse. But those suspicions were out there. And they would stay out there until the real murderer was behind bars.

“I don’t think any of us thought Beverly killed him. Not really,” Izzy said.

Nell agreed. “Finnegan was killed because he knew something that someone didn’t want him to know. It’s simple. Revealing what he knew—whatever it was—would hurt that person. So he or she killed Finnegan.”

“Beverly must have known the same thing that Finnegan knew,” Izzy said.

“Or caused it, perhaps? Been involved in it? Remember, he was furious with her,” Birdie said.

“That’s right,” Nell added. “So Finnegan knew whatever it was and was going to do something about it. He was murdered to stop him. For some reason, Beverly wasn’t a threat to the murderer at first. Then maybe . . . maybe when it became known she didn’t have any money, she wasn’t needed, either?”

“But to kill someone because they lost an inheritance? There has to be more to it,” Cass said.

They fell silent, sipping iced tea and trying to capture random thoughts, forcing order or sense into them, while the background din of Harry’s deli offered a comforting, familiar grounding.

“Let’s go back to Finn again,” Izzy said. “We know Finn was
upset with Beverly, something she was doing. But she wasn’t afraid of Finn. And his threats didn’t seem to deter her.”

Izzy’s analysis seemed to fit the conversation Merry overheard. And also the one Gabby heard between Finn and Beverly. “So if Beverly wasn’t threatened by Finn, who would be?” Nell asked. “Who was threatened enough by Finn to kill him?”

Margaret Garozzo appeared with four grilled tomato and mozzarella paninis, each with a cup of cold cucumber soup on the side. The smell of fresh grilled tomatoes and basil filled the small booth.

“You’re keeping Harry away, aren’t you?” Birdie smiled.

Margaret just chuckled and walked away to refill iced-tea glasses at a nearby table.

Izzy picked up the conversation. “Okay. Beverly and Finn argued. What was it Merry heard him say? She was ruining someone’s life?”

“But she was such a loner. Whose life could she possibly have been ruining?”

“And why? I didn’t like her, but I didn’t think she was malicious. If she were, she would have done more to me. Don’t you think?”

Birdie nodded agreement.

“Willow said Finn was their self-appointed night watchman,” Nell said. “When he couldn’t sleep, he patrolled Canary Cove.”

“He also went out in the
Moira
when he couldn’t sleep. He told me once he’d cruise around the cove and look up at the stars, and Moira would talk to him. His midnight love, he called her. So he could have picked up on any late-night trysts. I bet he knew plenty that was going on.”

“And since Beverly was Moira’s daughter, he would have latched on to her behavior aggressively, wanting to be sure it honored her mother, not disgraced her,” Izzy said. “Her indiscretions would have been way more personal than those of the old mayor he threatened.” She took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. Tiny flecks of basil floated onto her plate.

“Even if it was none of his business,” Birdie added.

“That’s right,” Nell said. “Angus said it was a horrible habit Finn had, minding other people’s business.”

“Infidelity, in Finn’s religion, was one of the deadly sins.”

“Do you suppose anyone else around Canary Cove noticed anything? Ham and Jane haven’t said much, but what about the neighbor, the one who saw Beverly leave in the boat?”

Cass put her sandwich down. “That’s Jake Risso’s aunt June. Pete and Andy used to mow her lawn. She’s kind of a shut-in, Andy says.”

“Shut-ins need visitors.” Izzy’s brows lifted with suggestion.

Cass looked around the table. “Okay. I’ll go talk to her if one of you comes with me. Sometimes I can be . . . how should I say . . .
indelicate
?”

They all laughed, and Cass laughed, too.

Then Nell grew serious. “I sound like Ben, but we need to remember that we’re talking about a murderer. Someone who took two people’s lives. No one should go anywhere alone.”

The thought that two of them could defend themselves when one couldn’t wasn’t entirely reasonable, and they all knew it, but it didn’t matter. There was comfort and security, if not real safety, in one another’s company.

Nell took another bite out of her sandwich and looked around the restaurant. It was rare to have this kind of privacy during lunch—especially with the news buzz blanketing Sea Harbor like a nor’easter. She was sure that in quiet corners and not-so-quiet patios, all talk focused on the artist from Canary Cove who had been swept onto the shore last night. Finn’s almost-adopted daughter. Murdered.

Somehow the relationship between the two would bring a certain comfort to people, Nell suspected. It was a family affair. Those outside the family were safe. Not many people knew Beverly Walden, and although everyone knew Finnegan, few called him a close friend. So the crime could be removed, set apart, and talked about from a comfortable distance.