Angora Alibi (18 page)

B
y Monday, not only did the
Sea Harbor Gazette
have a front-page story about the awful murder of the quiet man who walked the beach,
but Mary Pisano had written a column about those involved. However, since so little
was known about the murder, Mary concentrated on the dog.

It speaks to the generosity of our fine town that in these sad times, dear Horace
Stevenson’s best friend and companion, Red, has found a home. Izzy and Sam Perry—who
are about to have a child of their own— have generously taken the orphaned golden
retriever into their loving home, where he will be treated with the same love and
respect that Horace bestowed upon him. These are the kinds of people who live in Sea
Harbor. This is our town. Loving. Compassionate. Generous. Openhearted.

And just as dear Red once saved a child from drowning off Paley’s Cove, we, the citizens
of Sea Harbor, must save our town from drowning because of the Paley’s Cove murders.
And we will. We will come together, we will examine everything we have seen and heard
in the last two weeks. No matter how small and meaningless it may seem, this is how
we will find the perpetrator of this crime and bring peace back to our amazing town.

“Dear Mary,” Birdie said. “Izzy and Sam will be embarrassed, but perhaps her words
will unearth something. Who knows?”

“She has more to say than the poor reporter who tried to write about the murder,”
Cass said. She sat across from Birdie and Nell on Coffee’s patio, steaming mugs of
dark roast and the morning paper on the table between them. Nell told them about the
vial Izzy found—and the results that it definitely held morphine at one time. Whose . . .
and how it got in Horace’s front yard . . . and whether it was the drug that ended
up in the glass of whiskey were still unknowns.

The article included a short paragraph that covered Horace Stevenson’s long life:
his marriage to his true love, Ruth Adams Stevenson, her death a few years ago. His
occupation as assistant manager of McClucken’s Hardware Store. His hobbies—bird-watching
and walking along Paley’s Cove with his dog, Red, tracking patterns in the sand.

And the rest was a reporter’s attempt, without any factual information, to connect
the murder of an old man, slowing down in life, to that of a young man, off and running
with the world at his fingertips.

“The only connection the reporter could make to the two was that Horace used to scuba
dive and Justin died while diving,” Cass said.

“And the location,” Birdie said.

“Jerry must have been very closemouthed to the press,” Nell said. “The article said
it was definitely a murder, but not how or where.”

“I suppose that’s best for now, though it will leak out. Those things do,” Birdie
said. She took a drink of her coffee, then held her head back to catch the breeze,
her eyes half closed. Spikes of white hair fluttered around her small face. “I liked
the old man,” she said. “And Ruth, too. His death in itself was sad, but that is the
cycle of life, and Horace had had a happy life. But now—turning that death into a
murder tarnishes all of it. It’s such an awful thing. It’s poisonous. It’s . . .”

“Scary,” Willow Adams said. She pulled out a chair and sat down, slipping a huge backpack
from her narrow shoulders. “Do you think there’s a connection, like that reporter
is trying to say?” Her thick eyebrows lifted into black bangs as she looked at Nell.
“What does Ben say?”

“Oh, sweetie, not much. It’s all up in the air right now, I think.” Nell patted Willow’s
hand in a motherly way. Ever since the young artist, lost and waiflike, had shown
up in Izzy’s yarn shop several years ago, the knitters had taken her into their hearts
and their lives. And there she stayed, moving into the studio her father had bequeathed
to her and becoming a successful artist in her own right. No one could remember now,
nor wanted to remember, a time when Willow hadn’t been a part of their lives.

“Horace hardly ever left Paley’s Cove. He was either sitting on his porch watching
birds or walking the beach with Red. He was a contented guy, or so it seemed to me,
anyway,” Cass said. “It’s hard to imagine him doing anything that would get him murdered.”

“But something did,” Birdie said. She looked beyond Willow to the table beneath the
maple tree, where Mary Pisano sat, her computer on her knees.

Mary looked up, smiled, and took that as an invitation. She closed her laptop and
walked over, her sneakers silent on the brick patio. “I don’t know anything, if that’s
what you’re wondering. Esther Gibson said she took chowder and bread out to Horace
now and then and they’d talk while he ate. He didn’t always recognize her face, but
he knew her voice immediately—that and that Emeraude cologne she always wears were
giveaways, he told her. Recently she said he was complaining about things going on
in the cove.”

“What kinds of things?”

“I don’t really know, but Esther said she didn’t take him too seriously. She knew
that the college kids and friends would gather there at night sometimes, her Tyler
included. She assumed it was that. Probably innocent fun but too much noise for his
sensitive ears. Horace hated loud noises. But it was probably nothing. The thing is,
his murder
is
something
, something really bad. And coming so close to Justin’s, it has the whole town on
fear alert. What are we going to do about it?”

“Maybe you’ve done something already, dear,” Birdie said. “That was a lovely column
you wrote.”

Mary pushed away the compliment. “It was a great thing for Izzy and Sam to do, what
with the baby coming and all.”

“And speaking of Izzy, the baby, the dog . . . I promised her I’d help her get some
things she needs for Red. Like food, a bed.” Nell checked her watch.

Mary laughed. “Maybe we should have a shower for him.”

“No, no, no,” Birdie said, pushing back her chair. “Two showers would definitely send
Izzy over the edge.”

Mary hugged them off, saying she had to get back to work. Not only did she have a
bed-and-breakfast to run, but ever since her column went online, she was deluged with
comments that needed replies. And Mary would reply to every single one.

They made their way through the patio crowd, buzzing with today’s news, and studiously
avoided eye contact with neighbors and friends, knowing they’d draw conversations
they would rather avoid. No one knew much, and somehow talk about suppositions and
hypotheses didn’t appeal to any of them.

Willow grabbed her bike from the stand outside the patio gate and hopped on. “The
shower is next weekend. You all ready?” She wriggled her backpack into place and was
off, flying down the road toward Canary Cove.

Nell waved at Gus McClucken, leaning against his post outside the hardware store.

He waved back with a shake of his head. He’d heard the news, they could see.

“He looks older,” Cass said quietly. “I think it has gotten to him.”

But Gus mustered a smile as they came closer and called out, “I just talked to Izzy—great
dog. Good decision.”

They laughed and crossed the street to Izzy’s shop, hoping he was right.

Mae met them at the door. “Can you believe it? Now we have two mascots. Jillian and
Rose are beside themselves.”

She pointed to the steps leading to the back room. “The menagerie is that way.”

“I don’t know why I feel we should whisper,” Birdie said. “This isn’t a baby we’re
coming to see.”

Izzy appeared in the archway and waved them down. “Wait till you see this. Hurry.”

In front of the fireplace, on a stack of blankets Izzy had pulled from the closet,
was Red, looking like an advertisement for L.L.Bean. And curled up as tightly as a
calico cat could curl was Purl, her small body pressed against the dog’s chest.

“Shhh,” Jillian Anderson said. “They’re sleeping.”

Her twin sister, Rose, was sitting alongside the curled-up animals, snapping pictures
with her iPhone. “Can you like believe it?” she whispered between snaps.

“Barely,” Nell laughed. “Picture-perfect, that’s for sure.”

Izzy hugged Nell. “Isn’t Red beautiful? And Purl loves him, so we know he’ll fit in.
I just called Janie and she’s taking a break to come see the two of them.”

She looked at Nell. “And then we’re off? Mae says she can spare me. With Jill and
Rose here, I’m just a piece of furniture.”

The teenage twins laughed.

“We’re just better at helping Gabby with her class than you are,” Rose said. “We know
the lingo, Iz.”

It was true, Izzy had told them. There were plenty of teens who signed up for Gabby’s
new hat class, and having the high school twins around made Mae and Izzy both feel
better. They sometimes forgot Gabby was only ten.

“Who’s available to help me outfit my dog?” Izzy asked.

“It’s my day off,” Cass said. “What better way to spend it? But only if I get some
Red time at the end of it.”

They walked to the front of the store, nodding at a steady stream of customers filling
wicker baskets with skeins of yarn and new bamboo needles.

“Congratulations, Izzy,” Tamara Danvers called out from behind a display of supersoft
merino. “Red is a wonderful dog.”

“You know him?”

Tamara stepped from behind the display. She wore a strapless sundress, bright blue,
that showed off her golden tan. “The Stevenson house is just down the hill from us.
Horace and Red walked that beach all the time.”

“Sure, I forgot you lived close,” Izzy said.

Izzy waved good-bye to Mae and led the way to the alley. “We can take my car. Sam
brought it over this morning. We finally got it back from Pickard’s Auto. Sam said
I should probably drive it some.”

“What was wrong?” Cass asked.

Izzy explained about the broken trunk lock. “It seems ages ago, not just days. But
anyway, they fixed it. But not before agreeing with Sam that I must have taken some
serious tools to it when I was trying to open it.”

“Did you? You’re not very mechanical, Iz,” Cass said, walking over to the car.

“Thanks, Cass. But no, I didn’t. Jeez. But it was definitely messed up. I couldn’t
say anything to Sam because he would have called the national guard in, but I think
maybe he was right. It looked like someone tampered with it. But why would anyone
want to get in my trunk? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Janie walked across the street, her plastic name tag pinned
to a crisp white blouse. Her hair was pulled back today, and as much of it as possible
captured in a silver clasp. “I came to meet Red and see how Purl’s doing—and maybe
to take a quick twenty-minute nap before I go back to work.”

“Not sleeping, Janie?” Nell asked.

“Not so much. Just when it seems it might be getting better, something else happens.”

“You mean Horace?” Birdie said.

Of course she did. There’d be more questions, more distress.

Nell touched her arm. “It will get better, I promise.”

“Well, one thing that will make you smile is inside the shop,” Izzy said, pulling
out her keys. “We’re off to get Red some supplies.”

Cass looked back at the trunk. “Iz, you better try the trunk before we leave, just
to be sure. I don’t want to be carrying a dog bed on my lap. Those scratches look
serious.”

“Skeptic,” Izzy murmured, and walked to the trunk, opening it on the first try.

Inside, exactly where she had tossed it days ago, was an infant car seat, toppled
over on its side.

Izzy gasped.

“What is it?” Nell moved to her side and looked inside the trunk.

“Are you all right, Izzy?” Janie asked.

Izzy took a deep breath. “So much has happened the last few days that I had almost
forgotten about this. This infant seat . . . I kept seeing it when I was running over
on Paley’s Cove beach. It wouldn’t go away, it was there day after day and I couldn’t
get it off my mind. I started having nightmares about it. There was never a baby,
a mother. Just this car seat. Finally one night—it was raining, I remember—I couldn’t
stand looking at it anymore, so I drove over and tossed it in the trunk. And then,
a couple of days later, I couldn’t open it. And I nearly forgot about the car seat—”

By now they were all standing at the rear of Izzy’s car. Cass pulled the carrier out,
along with a handful of sand. A yellow knit blanket snagged on the lock and hung there,
wrinkled and dirty.

“It’s filthy,” Cass said.

“It smells,” Birdie added.

“It’s mine,” Janie said, her voice barely a whisper.

J
anie
looked unsteady, and Izzy suggested they take her upstairs, rather than into the crowded
shop.

Nell got a glass of ice water, Birdie a washcloth, and rather than leave it in the
alleyway, Izzy and Cass brought the car seat and blanket into Janie’s apartment.

“I’m fine, honest,” Janie said. She stared at the infant carrier, now sitting near
the coffee table. Finally she reached over and pulled it to her, then tipped it toward
her so she could see the top. “See this?”

They looked over at an orange oval-shaped sticker, stuck to the top. Someone had written
$5
on it with a Sharpie.

“That’s a garage sale sticker. I’ve bought lots of car seats—but for some reason,
I remember this one. It was almost new and I talked the lady down to three dollars.
Maybe that’s why I remember it. . . .”

She fingered the yellow blanket that had been tucked inside, a soft knit that was
now lumpy and matted from rain and sand. “Remember this yarn, Izzy? It was so beautiful.”

Izzy nodded. “We got it in last winter, right?”

“Yes. You received a whole shipment and Dr. Lily bought me some because I was so crazy
about it and she didn’t want me spending all my money on things I gave to the free
clinic. The twins had made a huge window display to show the yarn off. It came in
every color of the rainbow, and that’s how they featured it—a giant rainbow that spanned
the shop window—and all of it was created from skeins of this gorgeous angora yarn.
They had a yellow brick road beneath it.”

Izzy smiled, remembering it. The display had brought in more customers than expected
and they had sold out of the yarn almost completely, a bonus month for the small shop.

“It’s not so gorgeous now, I’m afraid,” Nell said, fingering the edges of the sad-looking
blanket. It was torn in several places, with frayed edges disguising the once-lovely
angora yarn. “I remember the yarn because it came in just as I was getting used to
the idea that Izzy truly was pregnant. I bought it in nearly every color to celebrate.”

“I made three baby blankets out it,” Janie said. “But only one yellow one. I thought
I’d lost it, or that maybe I was just forgetful and had taken it to the Community
Center.”

The question was sitting there in the middle of the room, unasked. The silence became
louder and louder—and finally Birdie looked at Janie. “How did your blanket and your
garage sale car seat end up on the beach at Paley’s Cove?”

Janie sat still, her back slightly bent and her eyes on the blanket as if it would
tell them everything they needed to know. When she looked up, her eyes held sincere
bewilderment. “I don’t know.”

“But . . . ,” Nell said.

They all knew the single word was really a question.

Janie answered, “But Justin always carted around my garage sale items for me. And
stored them in a room at the clinic. He knew where everything was, so he would be
the likely person to have taken it or given it to someone. And yet that makes absolutely
no sense.”

It didn’t make sense, not to any of them.

“Assuming he took it, there’s no easy explanation for how it ended up at Paley’s Cove,”
Birdie said. Her voice was gentle and firm at once, in that way Birdie had of laying
things out for consideration without being threatening. “Justin was a conundrum to
all of us. And why he’d leave an infant seat on a beach is a mystery we may never
solve. . . .”

Although the sentence ended, the thought did not, just as Birdie intended.

Janie perked up immediately. Her back straightened and her eyes and mind focused on
Birdie’s words. “No, I think we have to solve it, Birdie. If only to learn more about
Justin—who he was and what he was about and why he did the things he did. And maybe
that will help us figure out who killed him.”

Nell watched Birdie, her wise friend, who knew the decision to look into the car seat
further should be Janie’s decision—and not anyone else’s. It was Janie who should
decide to peel off more layers of the young man she had cared for and protected.

Janie ran her fingers over the padding inside the car seat. “I always wash these as
soon as I bring them home. They can be absolutely filthy. I remember washing this
one because it was really pretty clean and didn’t take long. It looked like it hadn’t
been used much, maybe a grandparent’s extra car seat or something—and it wasn’t out
of date, so we could still use it for moms at the free clinic. Then Justin helped
me stash it in the clinic room where Lily lets me keep things. And then . . . then
it left my mind.” She lifted the carrier to the coffee table while Izzy shook out
the blanket.

“It smells bad,” Izzy said.

“It does,” Janie said, wrinkling her nose. She unhooked the buckles that held the
cushion to the seat and pulled it out. Beneath the cushion, along with twigs and dried
leaves and mud, was a wad of bills—curled up and held together by a rubber band.

Janie took off the band and smoothed out a large stash of ten- and twenty-dollar bills.

Cass ran her finger along a row of crumbled leaves that had collected in the curve
of the seat. She lifted up her finger and sniffed the orange residue that stuck to
her skin.

She looked up. “You know what this is?” But Izzy wasn’t really asking a question.
She stared again at the residue on her finger and said carefully, “It’s pot.”

When no one responded, she repeated it. “It’s marijuana. Grass. Cannabis. Whatever
you want to call it. It looks to me like Justin Dorsey might have been delivering
pot on Paley’s Cove—and Janie’s innocent car seat was an accomplice.”

They all stared at the car seat, then the crumbled debris that lay in the bottom.
It was crazy, ludicrous. But the odor was distinctive and definitely coming from the
carrier.

Janie shook her head, a deep frown settling into her forehead. “No matter what’s in
that car seat, I know for a fact that Justin didn’t do drugs,” she said. “He got sick
once when he was in foster care—seriously sick. It turned out to be an allergy to
marijuana and some other plants that affected him internally. They made him bleed.
He went to Doc Hamilton for a checkup when he came to town, and he confirmed it. Justin
never touched it again. I’ve researched it, and it’s all true.”

They listened carefully to Janie. Then Cass looked again at the carrier. “We could
be way off base about this. But it seems he was collecting either the money or the
pot. And if you’re right, Janie, about him being allergic, it looks like he was on
the selling end.”

“But . . .”

There were too many buts to deal with, so they let them lie there, unanswered, but
another layer had been peeled off Justin Dorsey, one that only led to many more questions—and
a visit to the police.

“This might be exactly what we need to lead us to the killer,” Nell said.

Janie looked worried. “I wonder . . . where could he have gotten it? Justin spent
so much time around me, I would have known, I think, if he’d been meeting with someone
or growing something himself.”

She glanced at her watch, then yelped and jumped off the couch. “I need to get back
to work. We have a packed schedule today and I can’t leave Dr. Lily in the lurch.”
She looked down at the seat. “But I don’t really want to leave this here.”

“And you shouldn’t,” Nell said. “This needs to be in the proper hands.”

They were on an errand run anyway, so Izzy suggested they drop it by the police station,
along with the information they’d put together. And hopefully, the police would be
able to piece it together in a way that made better sense.

•   •   •

“But it makes
no
sense,” Ben said when Izzy had finished telling the story, complete with the car
seat being checked in at the police station as if it, too, might be guilty of some
crime.

They were sitting at a round table on the yacht club patio—Izzy and Sam, Ben and Nell,
waiting for the Monday Night Seafood Buffet to open. Danny and Cass had picked up
Birdie and arrived a few minutes late, but just in time for a tray of flavored teas
and cocktails to arrive at the table.

“It’ll be interesting to hear what Jerry says about this,” Ben said.

“What was Justin thinking?” Sam said. “Using a car seat to deliver pot? That’s the
craziest thing I ever heard.”

“I guess he thought it was a family beach—at least during the day—and a car seat wouldn’t
be noticed. Justin seems to have spent a lot of time at Paley’s Cove, so it’d be easy
for him to drop the product and collect the cash,” Nell said.

“It’s a dramatic way to do an exchange,” Cass said. “But then, Justin was a little
dramatic. He probably saw it on some TV show and liked the idea of an elaborate plan.
Besides, if someone found the seat and the stash, a surfer dude would be the last
person they’d connect to an infant seat.”

“Crazy, maybe, but it worked,” Izzy said. “I was the only one who paid any attention
to the carrier sitting there day after day. And I only noticed it because my hormones
were flying high and anything that reminded me of a baby sent me looking for one.”

“You never mentioned the car seat to me,” Nell said.

“No, I guess I didn’t mention it—though we walked down there together one morning.
I couldn’t bring myself to go down there alone that day, so you innocently came along—and
sure enough, there it was. I don’t think you even noticed it, but it was kind of like
a nightmare for me. It bothered me so much, but once I tossed it in my trunk, it was
as if the worry—and the car seat—was gone. From my mind, at least.”

“Do you remember what day you picked it up? Was it recently?” Cass said.

“It was Thursday night, after knitting. The night Janie, Justin, and Tommy moved things
upstairs into the apartment.”

“I remember that night,” Cass said. “It poured later on. Janie was trying to beat
the rain.”

Suddenly Sam sat forward and looked over at Izzy, the pieces coming together. “Your
trunk, Izzy—the damaged lock. It was around that time, right?”

Izzy thought back through the days. It wasn’t that long ago, yet time had taken on
strange proportions. “Yes, you’re right,” she said. “It was around that same time.
Maybe the next day.”

“So you tossed the seat into your trunk—
after
someone took out what they wanted and left cash in payment. And Justin, naturally,
wanted that cash.”

“But you messed it up. You interrupted an ‘operation,’ Iz,” Cass said. “Call in Rizzoli
and Isles.”

“That’s it. That must be what happened,” Sam said.

“Justin would have been worried about the rain that night. If the pot was there, it
could have gotten wet. And if the money was left and not secured—it could have been
washed away. Justin needed to get over there fast.”

Nell remembered the night clearly. She had watched Justin through the window of the
yarn shop. He had that fancy motorcycle he was trying out and seemed perfectly content
to ride off on it. Not being included in Tommy and Janie’s plans for that night hadn’t
bothered him because he had his own plans.

Izzy was tugging at her own memory of that night. “When I drove away from the beach,
I saw someone on a motorcycle—at least I thought it was a bike because it only had
one light, but it was raining super hard.”

“Someone was watching—probably upset—while a pivotal piece of the transaction was
tossed into a trunk,” Ben said.

“
Your
trunk, Izzy,” Sam said. “And someone—namely, Justin—would have recognized your car.”

“So later that night, he came to claim what was rightfully his,” Izzy said. “He tried
to break into my car that night. . . .” She glared at Sam.

“Okay, Iz. Apologies given. Sorry about the sledgehammer.”

Izzy smiled smugly.

“But how does this connect to Justin’s murder?” Birdie took a sip of wine and sat
back in the chair. “If people were paying him and he was delivering, who would want
to kill him?”

“We don’t know where he was getting the marijuana,” Nell said. “Janie has no idea
where it might have come from. Justin was with her so much of the time that she’s
sure she would have known if he’d been growing it himself. Not to mention there wasn’t
any place he could have done that. Mrs. Bridge would know immediately. She had a run-in
with a boarder about that very thing a year ago and has guarded her backyard diligently
ever since.”

“So who?” Cass asked. “Who could have been supplying it to Justin?”

“And why?” Ben said. “Why not just get rid of it yourself and keep the profits? Why
hire someone like Justin to be the middle man?”

They carried the unanswered questions to the buffet table, and returned with plates
piled high with crab legs, fried clams, fresh-boiled lobster, and lemon-baked cod.
Caesar salads appeared at their places, along with baskets of warm crusty rolls and
tubs of sweet butter.

Liz Santos, the yacht club manager and Birdie’s next-door neighbor, appeared at their
table. “I heard about Horace Stevenson. It’s so sad.” She looked over at Ben. “Jerry
Thompson is in the bar and looks haggard, as if he hasn’t slept in days. Poor guy.
It’s all weighing heavily on him. People are worried, anxious.”

“I’m glad to hear Jerry is at least taking a break,” Ben said. “Tell him I’ll stop
by to say hello.”

Liz nodded. She looked around at the dining tables, quickly filling up both inside
and on the veranda. “It’s strange how murder can be good for business, at least a
business like ours. I think people have this intense need to be together. We’re booked
solid tonight.”

Which is exactly what the group of them had done, Nell realized. “Did Horace ever
come in here?” she asked.

“Not often, not after his wife died. But he did come by a week or so ago. We had a
summer lunch on the patio with man’s best friend. The dogs got kibbles and the owners
got clam chowder. Red was in heaven. When I asked Horace how things were over at Paley’s
Cove, he became agitated. He said it wasn’t the way it used to be when his Ruth was
alive. Daytime was still for the kids, but he claimed there was too much going on
at night and early morning. He refused to elaborate, so I dropped it, but later I
remembered that the scuba diver died not far from his place. I thought maybe that
was what he meant.”