Angora Alibi (10 page)

Izzy waved out her window. “Count me in for sure.”

“Danny and I’ll come by after the dive shoot,” Sam said.

Sunday breakfasts at Annabelle Palazola’s Sweet Petunia Restaurant were sacred.

Ben looked over at Birdie, climbing into Sam’s backseat. “Pick you and Gabby up, Birdie?”

“Not tomorrow, Ben.”

“No?” Nell said. “Gabby loves pancakes—”

“Gabby is hanging out at Willow’s studio tomorrow, helping her get ready for the next
Art at Night event—and possible a baby shower. As for me, I have a date.”

They all looked her way.

She leaned through the window, her smile wide. “Oh, hush, the bunch of you. It’s not
that kind of date.”

“What kind is it?” Danny asked. “The kind in fruitcake?”

“It’s a
conversation
—that kind of date. A handsome young man named Justin Dorsey is coming over to have
coffee with me.”

Standing beside Tommy’s car, Janie Levin tensed at Birdie’s words.

Nell tried to read the expression on her face.
Embarrassment? Puzzlement?
She couldn’t be sure.

But she was sure of what she didn’t see there:
happiness
.

T
he pancakes
looked to be everything the blackboard at the restaurant’s front door described:
buttery, sweet, fresh. Sinfully delicious.

“That last description is for Father Northcutt. He likes straying every now and again,”
Annabelle said, leading them through the restaurant to their usual table out on the
deck.

The Brewsters and Cass were already there, enjoying a second cup of coffee.

“She’s amazing, no?” Ben asked, pointing to the platters of warm crepes passing them
by. He wrapped an arm around the owner and cook.

“Who would have thought that you, Annabelle Palazola, would be perfecting Swedish
pancakes?” Ham said.

Annabelle laughed. When her husband had died at sea years before, the fisherman’s
wife did what she knew how to do best—cook—and opened a restaurant that would provide
for herself and her children, sending each to college. And she had succeeded beyond
her expectations. The Sweet Petunia was beloved by all of them.

Before they’d finished the freshly squeezed orange juice, Annabelle was back with
the special, plates piled high and smelling of fruit, butter, and cream.

Rolled around fresh lingonberries, the crepes were lightly browned and sprinkled with
powdered sugar, then topped with dollops of sour cream and Annabelle’s promise that
there were more in the kitchen.

“More fruit, too,” she said, nodding toward the mint-lined bowl heaped full of melon
balls, berries, pineapple, and bananas. Then she was off, back to her more comfortable
place behind the cast-iron stove that Birdie had loaned her the money to buy all those
years ago.

“This is it for the week,” Nell warned Ben. “I swear. No more food.”

“That’s what I told Sam when we got home last night,” Izzy said. She checked her watch
and frowned. “Maybe he took me seriously.”

“He’ll be here. He’s such a perfectionist with that camera—and underwater photography
can be tricky,” Ham said.

His wife agreed. “Sam’s a true artist and he treats his photos with great care. But
what’s up with this dive? I only heard snatches last night.”

“The dive club that Andy Risso heads up is organizing it,” Izzy said. “Gus McClucken
offered to take care of the equipment for folks who didn’t have their own. It’s a
great deal if you like that sort of thing. And then, of course, Sam needed a buddy
and someone to write down people’s names—so Danny got roped into going along. Sam
wasn’t sure I’d make it down the rocky slope.”

“Sam is wise.” Nell added a bit a maple syrup to her pancake.

“He asked me to go along, too,” Jane said around a bite of pineapple. “But I told
him the truth—if God wanted me to be at the bottom of the sea, he’d have made me a
dolphin.”

Soon the talk turned away from scuba diving and focused on summer concerts, gardens
being planted, the upcoming shower for Izzy and Sam, beach cleanups, and other easy
and pleasant Sunday-morning topics.

When the waitress refreshed their coffee cups for the third time, Ham and Jane pushed
their chairs back.

“Ham would eat another plate of those,” Jane said. “But he’d also fall asleep in the
hammock outside the gallery as soon as we hit home.”

“Who, me?” Ham joked. He stood and helped Jane tug her enormous cloth tote from beneath
the table. “But she’s right. Canary Cove is hopping on summer Sundays—and that’s just
the way we like it.”

Nell watched her dear friends make their way down the porch, greeting the Sunday-morning
crowd, waving, hugging. Jane’s long peasant skirt swished around her legs as she walked.
Minutes later they disappeared down the hilly path on their way to the art colony
below.

Father Northcutt caught Nell’s eye and waved. The priest was sitting with Cass’ mother,
Mary, just as he did most Sundays. The truth was that it wasn’t the pastor but Mary
Halloran who really ran Our Lady of Safe Seas Church, and she used their Sunday brunches
to outline for Father Larry the events of the week, telling him where to be and when—and
to watch his cholesterol. Farther down Nell spotted Lily Virgilio, not looking like
a doctor today in a summery blouse and pants, her high cheekbones pinked by the sun,
large sunglasses shading her eyes. She was eating alone, with a plate of pancakes
in front of her and a book propped up against a vase.

She looked peaceful in her aloneness, Nell thought. Most often Nell would catch sight
of Lily in restaurants with Martin Seltzer. But today he was nowhere in sight and
for some inexplicable reason, Nell was happy for Lily that she had some time alone.
Without wanting to be a matchmaker, she hoped for a more lively companion in Lily
Virgilio’s life. She couldn’t figure Martin out, and for unknown reasons, that fact
bothered her. There was a bit of mystery about him.

The day before, she had seen him walking down Harbor Road, his white coat flapping
against his long legs, his shoulders slightly stooped. He stopped at the scuba equipment
display in McClucken’s window, peering through the glass for a long time, as if choosing
his gear of choice. He disappeared inside. But when he reappeared a few minutes later,
all he carried was a bag of mulch.

A gardener? Where would one garden at a clinic with no yard? she’d wondered at the
time.

At the end of the porch, Annabelle’s restaurant was shadowed by a thick stand of evergreens
climbing up the hillside like sentinels, and that was where Henrietta O’Neal always
sat. Henrietta was of some undetermined age—some said eighty, some thought older,
and Henrietta thought they were all crazy for caring. Although she lived alone, the
wealthy widow rarely ended up alone in public places. She loved to talk, loved to
argue, and loved people of all shapes and sizes—even those, she was proud to say,
who were dead wrong in their political leanings.

The ringing of Ben’s cell pulled Nell away from her people watching, and she looked
over at the offending phone as if to remind it that they were eating.

Ben glanced at the caller’s name, scratched the side of his head, then stood and stepped
away from the table to take the call. He moved out of earshot, over to the service
area, but the others at the table watched and saw the concerned look that fell over
his face. “That was Sam,” he said to the table of expectant faces. He motioned for
the waitress and handed her his credit card.

“Sam?” Izzy pushed herself back from the table. A flash of fear lit her brown eyes.
“What’s wrong? Is Sam all right?”

“He’s fine, Izzy. But he and Danny won’t make it for breakfast. There’s been a delay.
They asked us to meet them back at the house.” Ben took a deep breath, then cleared
his throat, an uncomfortable sound in the expectant silence.

“Our house?” Nell said finally, though her question was rhetorical. She began gathering
her things, trying to convince herself it was a normal request. Danny and Sam were
too late for breakfast at Annabelle’s—they wouldn’t want to tie up the table any longer.
So they’d have coffee with all of them back at the house. And then they’d all be off
and about their Sunday. It made sense.

And yet it didn’t.

“Why?” she asked quietly.

“There’s been an accident,” Ben said, starting toward the door.

Izzy, Cass, and Nell stood at the table, refusing to move.

“Speak to me, Ben Endicott,” Nell demanded. “What kind of accident?”

Ben paused and turned back to the table. His voice was low.

“Justin Dorsey is dead,” he said.

S
am and Danny were already sitting at the kitchen island when the others arrived at
the house. The smell of coffee filled the air. Sam got up and met Izzy in the middle
of the family room, wrapping her in his arms as if to protect his unborn baby from
tragedies and bad news.

“Justin . . . ?” Cass moved to Danny’s side.

“But he can’t be . . . ,” Nell began, then realized there was no “because”— no reason
she could give that it couldn’t be true.

Suddenly her thoughts turned to Janie, the harsh scene between her and Justin the
night before flashing across her mind.

“Janie,” Izzy said softly, as if reading Nell’s mind.

“Tommy came to the dive site along with the ambulance. He wasn’t on duty. He just
heard the sirens. It’s like a moth to light, I guess. He headed over to talk with
Janie as soon as Chief Thompson got there,” Sam said.

“Birdie was supposed to have coffee with Justin later this morning, after the dive,”
Nell said. “I should call her.”

As if responding to her name, Birdie walked into the room from the front hallway,
her face already lined with worry. “What’s happened? I heard sirens earlier. Harold
was out getting the Sunday paper. He has this uncontrollable urge to follow fire trucks.
So he did. They went to the cove, he said, but he couldn’t get close enough to see,
so he came home. Is it old Horace Stevenson? Did something happen to him?”

She frowned, took in the somber faces around the kitchen island, then looked over
at the coffeepot. “Ben, I need a strong cup of coffee. No cream. And then I need someone
to tell me why Justin never showed up at my house this morning.”

Ben piled the coffee mugs on a tray as Nell ushered them out to the deck. Perhaps
the warmth of the morning sun would cut through the chill that had filled the kitchen
with Sam’s news.

“Justin was so excited about this dive,” Sam said. “Most of the divers—especially
at that early hour when they’re still shaking off sleep—are kind of quiet before a
dive. But not that kid. He talked a blue streak—about how good a diver he was, about
wanting to buy a surf shop, about how people would see him differently now that he
could afford things. How he raced over to McClucken’s to sign up. Nonstop magpie.
He had everyone laughing. I finally had to shut him up to find the equipment Gus was
loaning him.” He took a drink of coffee and continued.

“Gus and Andy Risso had brought down the extra equipment the night before and locked
it up in that boathouse the dive club uses. Everything was marked with the diver’s
name and ready to go. So Andy gave his little safety spiel, some basic instructions,
and then we all went down. I got great photos. Tons of mussels, anemones, lobsters.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s who down there, but I tried to get everyone in a
shot. I know Justin was right along with the rest of us, swimming with the fish.”

He looked over at Danny, who agreed and added, “Being the wimp I am, I mostly stayed
close to Andy—I figured the dive leader oughta know what he was doing. Justin went
by us a couple of times. His suit had the McClucken mark on the back, so I knew it
was him.”

“I guess we were down there—what, Danny?—twenty minutes, tops, when Andy motioned
us back up. With relatively inexperienced divers along, he didn’t want to stay down
longer, he said.

“But Justin didn’t surface with the others,” Sam said. “Andy always takes a quick
roll call, and he just wasn’t there. Andy and I went back down right away, couldn’t
have been more than a matter of minutes. And that’s when we found him. Down at the
bottom, down between some rocks, his arms wide.”

“How awful,” Nell said. “This will be hard on Janie, especially after throwing Justin
out of her life last night.”

Some eyebrows lifted, and Nell and Izzy repeated the episode in the apartment. “I
think Janie was at the end of her rope. And when Justin’s careless behavior started
to affect her friends, she couldn’t take any more,” Izzy said.

“Tommy thought she should have sent him away weeks ago,” Sam said. “He was a nice
enough kid, but he didn’t have much direction.”

Birdie had been unusually quiet, her head back against the chaise and her forehead
creased, listening and thinking. Finally she sat forward and asked, “Why did he die,
Sam? I used to scuba dive with Sonny a thousand years ago. People don’t normally die
unless something goes wrong or they have a health problem.”

It was the question they’d all been toying with, the one hanging there at the fringes
of their conversation.

“Justin was just a kid,” Cass said. “He seemed as healthy as the next guy. But I suppose
he could have had a heart condition no one knew about.”

“We’ll know soon enough. They’ll autopsy him. Andy had Chief Thompson and the crew
out there in minutes. They collected the equipment and took lots of notes,” Sam said.
“Protocol, Jerry said.”

“I’ve read plenty of stories of malfunctioning equipment,” Ben added. “But when Gus
McClucken opened that dive shop in the back of his store, he insisted he’d only carry
the most trustworthy equipment. Andy Risso and the dive club say his shop is one of
the best.”

“But it can still happen,” Sam said. “Justin himself could have inadvertently misadjusted
his regulator.”

“Was anyone around? I might have been running in that exact spot this morning if I
hadn’t been lazy,” Izzy said.

“I saw old man Stevenson,” Danny said. “He was walking his dog.”

Sam nodded. “I talked to the old guy briefly. He’d been up all night, he said. The
full moon keeps him awake. But his eyesight is bad. He wouldn’t have seen anything.

“Franklin Danvers was a little way down the beach, too. That diving spot straddles
the edge of his property, and Andy always lets him know when there’s going to be a
dive. He lets the club use the storage shed for their equipment. Franklin’s a diver
himself and appreciates the sport, so he probably came down to watch—or maybe the
police lights brought him down to check.”

“Franklin says walking that beach is better than sleeping pills,” Ben said.

“Speaking of walking,” Danny said, pushing himself up from the chair, “we gotta go.”
He turned and held out a hand for Cass.

“We’re fixing some broken traps at the dock with Pete today,” Cass explained. “It
might be good to be down there anyway, to put some reason to the rumors as they start
rumbling around the boats. It doesn’t take long for rumors to grow.”

“Cass is right,” Nell said to their departing backs. “It won’t take long for the word
to get out. I wonder how Janie’s doing.”

Izzy and Birdie began gathering up coffee cups and taking them into the kitchen. “Last
night would have been her first night in the apartment,” Izzy said. “I was going to
call her first thing, make sure everything worked. And now this—”

When the doorbell rang a few minutes later, they all stared toward the front of the
house. Rarely did anyone ring the Endicotts’ doorbell.

Ben headed across the room. In minutes he was back, one arm around Janie Levin’s shaking
shoulders. Behind her, Tommy looked helpless, as if he wanted to pick Janie up and
carry her off to a place where bad things didn’t happen. Where divers dived—and didn’t
die.

Janie’s eyes were swollen, her hair flying haphazardly around her tearstained face.
“I pushed him away.” She looked at Nell and Izzy. “You heard me. I told him I hated
him. I wanted to kill him.” And then she began to cry, giant sobs that shook her slender
body.

Ben and Tommy guided Janie to the couch while Nell brought a glass of water and a
box of tissues. Tommy sat beside her, his face sad and his arm wrapped around her
shoulders.

“I didn’t know where else to go. Tommy said we should come here, maybe you’d know
something. He knew you’d be here, Sam—and you were there . . . down there . . . with
Justin. . . .”

Sam sat across from Janie. He leaned forward, his warm brown eyes focused on her face.
“It was a freak thing, Janie.”

“But he used to dive in California. He knew how to do it.”

Sam nodded. “Was Justin’s health okay? Did he have any heart condition?”

Janie shrugged. “I don’t know. I know so little about him. We’re related in one of
those ways that people can never figure out. The second cousin of a third cousin . . .
that kind of thing. Other relatives said he was kind of a castoff. I thought that
was so sad. When he showed up for our family reunion, most people didn’t know who
he was.” Janie took a drink of water, then pulled a band from her wrist and tried
to capture a fistful of hair. “I’m rambling. I’m sorry. I’m just so sad.”

“Of course you are,” Nell said, laying one hand on top of hers.

“I don’t know what to do.” The tears began again. “Tommy had me call my mom to see
if she could get some personal information that the police will need. Like where his
mother is and where to send the . . . body.”

When Janie and Tommy finally got up to leave a while later, Janie’s tears had stopped
but her step was slow. She walked over and hugged Ben tightly, as if she’d somehow
find protection in his strong arms.

Sam looked at Ben, his eyebrows lifting with a silent question. Then he looked at
Izzy and she nodded, knowing exactly what her baby’s father was thinking—and that
today wouldn’t be spent putting the new crib together after all.

“Hey, you two,” Sam said to Tommy and Janie. “I think the best place to be during
troubled times is on untroubled water. With a glass of wine and takeout lobster rolls
from Gracie’s Lazy Lobster Café. What do you say?”

Izzy pushed herself off the couch and wrapped her arms around Sam’s waist, squeezing
hard. “And you can’t turn this man down because he’s desperate to show off the new
sail he and Ben just got for the boat.”

Tommy looked relieved, as if Sam had just given him a great gift. Something far removed
from the direness of the morning’s news. An escape.

“Any other takers? All are welcome,” Ben said.

Nell watched the scene with a lump in her throat and her body leaning comfortably
into Ben. For that one moment, the sadness of the day was pushed into the shadows
as she basked in the knowledge that her niece had quite possibly married the one man
in all the world who was just about perfect for her.

Nell couldn’t have chosen better herself.