Angora Alibi (24 page)

H
enrietta stood in the shadows at the top step to the knitting room, softly tapping
her cane in perfect four/four time. Her white head swiveled side to side as she took
stock of the room a few steps below.

Behind her, Mae Anderson bustled about, preparing to close the shop, one eye on the
back of the formidable five-foot-tall woman who had bustled into the shop minutes
before with fire in her eyes.

Unaware of being watched, Nell stood at the table, uncovering a pan of baked potatoes.
Steam curled up in front of her face. Nearby, Izzy turned up the vocals of Marvin
Gaye singing about mountains.

Birdie was seated in her favorite chair near the fireplace, talking to Cass. Her small
arthritic fingers moved rapidly, stitch after stitch, bringing shape to the remaining
arm in baby Perry’s romper.

Only sweet Purl, curled up on Cass’ lap, was watching Henrietta watch them.

Finally Henrietta increased her taps, now loud and insistent, drawing everyone’s attention
away from their business and to herself. Before anyone had a chance to say hello,
she moved down the steps and over to Nell’s side.

“Baked potatoes.” She frowned, peering into the pan. “Word on the street is that there
is a gourmet spread in this room every Thursday night. But baked potatoes?”

“Twice baked,” Nell said. “And stuffed with chunks of fresh crab in an amazing, if
I do say so myself, cheesy wine sauce. We have extra. Try one. It may surprise you.”

“Aren’t the Irish supposed to like potatoes?” Izzy asked.

“No,” Henrietta said, leaning her cane against the bookcase and eyeing the potatoes
again, “but I will try anything once, dearie. And I do enjoy fresh crab.”

In minutes they were seated around the table, plates of crispy-skin stuffed potatoes
and Caesar salad in front of them. Birdie had poured wine and water, and everyone
was glancing at Henrietta expectantly as they dug their forks into the creamy potatoes.
Why was she here?

“I’m barging in, now, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Cass said. “But you’ve been known to do worse, Henrietta. And you are always
fun to have around. But what’s up? Why are you here?”

Henrietta laughed, a booming sound that went straight up to the ceiling. “And wouldn’t
you know the frankness would come from a Halloran? We Irish understand each other.”
She winked at Cass and wiped a dribble of sour cream from her ample chin. Then she
put down her fork and took a sip of wine, and her round face grew serious.

“It’s this ridiculous notion that Martin Seltzer could have hurt anyone, much less
a young pip-squeak like Justin Dorsey or an old fogey like Horace. Of course he didn’t.
It’s ridiculous, so that’s why I’m here, though I suspect you had anticipated as much.
What are we going to do about it?” White eyebrows shot up above lively blue eyes.

Nell wiped her hands on a napkin. Somehow knitting seemed more satisfying right now
than eating. She took the baby blanket from her bag and settled it across her lap.
The sections were coming together now, tiny seed stitches bordering the soft yellow
cables.

Henrietta leaned over and looked at the yarn. “Lovely,” she said.

“What makes you so sure Martin didn’t have anything to do with either of those events?”
Birdie asked. “He had every reason in the world to want Justin out of the way.”

“Of course he did. The little upstart was stealing from him. Him and some other people,
mind you. But I won’t go into that. But to kill for that?” She wiped her hands and
leaned over to touch the silky angora blend Birdie was knitting into a hat to match
the baby’s romper. “Angora. Now, isn’t that the loveliest thing?” She touched the
working ball of yarn, her expression as soft as the yarn.

“He had motive, incentive, capability,” Cass said. “And what was his alibi?”

“Alibi, schmalibi,” Henrietta said, dismissing the thought with a wave of her hand.
“No one has much of an alibi for murders that take place in the dead of night. He
was sleeping. Just like all those other people the police have been questioning.”
She looked over at Birdie’s ball of yarn again. “They’re fuzzy alibis, all of them,
just like that angora yarn of yours, Birdie. Angora alibis, they are, the whole boatload
of them. You can see right through them. Give any one of them a strong tug and they’ll
snap apart. Unless Martin was by chance off for the night with some floozy and can
get her to stand up for him. But he’s not that kind of man, now, is he?”

She sat back, satisfied with her speech. Short chubby arms crossed over her chest.

Nell leaned forward, her fingers working on another section of seed stitches. “I have
a question, Henrietta, which may or not be relevant. But I saw you go up to Martin
at the Fractured Fish concert Saturday night, and you all but swatted him. It seemed
to me he’d be the last person you wanted to stand by. You seemed very angry, as if
Martin had done something awful. And now you’re saying that’s not possible.”

“Well, he had done something . . . and he hadn’t. But neither the
had
nor the
hadn’t
equaled murder. I had smelled it on him that night—the pot. Once you understand that
scent, it stays with you. And I was fiery mad. He was going to get that lovely Lily
Virgilio into trouble, smoking pot in her clinic. So I gave him hell and he just stood
there and took it. Then he came around to me later and told me privately what was
up with it, that he was fighting the pain of his cancer, and I understood. In fact,
I told him to move his little garden to my house if it would be safer. He was considering
it.”

Nell held back a smile. Henrietta’s familiarity with the product might well have come
from a rather wild youth.

“Esther Gibson called me first thing today and told me that the police had Martin
in the station all morning long
. All morning
, can you imagine? The poor man doesn’t eat as it is, and there he sat, being pummeled
with questions.” She took a drink of wine, but it was clear she wasn’t finished, so
the others busied themselves finishing up and knitting, waiting.

She looked at Nell. “I know our dear Ben has some influence with the chief of police,
whom I’ve always supported, by the way, even though his political leanings are sometimes
askew.”

“They’re friends, Henrietta, but he doesn’t have any influence on him. Besides, Jerry
isn’t that kind of person—nor is Ben. Jerry is investigating this as best he can.
If Martin is innocent, he will find that out.”

“And in the meantime the poor man will waste away to nothing. But I understand about
Ben not interfering, of course I do. I’m not suggesting anything like that. I’d never
risk my relationship with that dear husband of yours by asking him to compromise himself.
So I’ll ask the rest of you instead.”

Cass laughed out loud.

Henrietta went on as if she hadn’t heard. “You’re right that Jerry Thompson will eventually
find Martin innocent because he is, but in the meantime we’re all in this miserable
state and it simply has to end.” She pointed at Izzy. “Just look at you, Izzy, about
to give birth to a darlin’ baby boy—and what with Sea Harbor in this sorry state.
It’s not right, not healthy.”

“We all agree with you,” Birdie said, working a row of mint green yarn into the tiny
hat. She squinted through her glasses as she counted her stitches. “At least about
the fact that this needs to be settled soon. As for the sex of Izzy’s baby, unless
you have access to some secret source unavailable to us, we don’t know that it’s a
boy. And as for Martin Seltzer, I want to believe he is innocent. But I think we need
more information before that happens.”

“Then we shall get it.” Henrietta pushed herself from her chair and worked her way
across the room toward her cane, talking loudly as she went. “We’ll put our heads
together and we’ll find out who did this.” She stood at the bottom of the steps, about
to take her leave, puffed up, like Patton leaving his troops. “You know what they
say,” she said. “It takes a village to do whatever. And we’ll do it soon.” And then
she was gone, tapping her way toward the front door, where Mae patiently waited for
her to leave, then locked the door behind her.

Cass held out her glass. “Birdie, after that, I need another splash of your pinot.”

Izzy was already wiping off the coffee table to make room for yarn and needles and
scissors.

She sat back down and pulled out the hooded sweater she was working on. With five
pair of booties wrapped in tissue in the baby’s room, she needed diversion—and a slouchy
sweater would be the perfect thing to wear while rocking baby Perry on a breezy fall
day. “Everything in me wants to agree with Henrietta and Dr. Lily about Martin Seltzer,”
she said. “But the odds are sure stacked up against him. Whether it’s instinct or
emotion—or maybe all the little things that don’t add up—I don’t know, but nothing
in me says he’s our guy. Janie said he was great with patients, so understanding.
Franklin Danvers even spent time with him, she said, and he listened like a schoolkid,
even taking notes.”

“That’s an interesting mental image, isn’t it?” Birdie said, smiling. “What about
Tamara?”

“Oh, she was another one of his fans. He even stayed late one night, just because
Tamara needed to talk.”

“We were so sure that finding Justin’s supplier would be the beginning of the end.
Now we’ve found his source—and he wasn’t that at all, at least not in the official
sense of the word,” Birdie said. “But I still think we’re moving ahead, not totally
losing ground.”

“It seems we keep making our way back to the clinic. . . .” It was Izzy speaking,
her face pulled together in a serious thought. “But one thing Lily said last night
has been troubling me. Something I’m sure the police have latched on to. She said
her father had a prescription for morphine.”

Nell finished her row of seed stitches and ran her hand over the soft sunlit yarn,
the small knots defining the blanket’s edge. “Yes. And morphine killed Horace,” she
said, her voice as soft as the blanket. More dots . . . more connections.

Birdie set her knitting needles down, not liking the direction in which Izzy’s astute
reminder was taking them. “So Martin Seltzer had access to the drug that killed Horace;
that doesn’t mean he used it.”

Izzy looked over at Nell. “Remember that day Janie interrupted my appointment with
Lily, telling her something was missing? Janie told me later it was a mistake, that
it was a prescription Lily had for Dr. Seltzer and she had forgotten to sign it out.
For a minute, Janie said, she and Lily both thought it was something Justin had messed
up, but thank heavens, it wasn’t. It created tension in the clinic, though.”

Nell remembered.

“And then Janie mentioned medicine missing
again
—this time a few days after Justin was killed. The second time it was for real. Justin
clearly was off the hook. I don’t know if it was resolved the second time. Janie would
know.”

They looked up at the ceiling. Janie was home. They had heard the footsteps on the
staircase earlier. Izzy reached for her cell phone and gave her a call.

Janie joined them in minutes, her sweats and shirt indicating she was in for the night.
“I needed company tonight. Tommy’s working, so thank you. I was waiting for Purl to
come up and join me.”

Birdie patted the chair next to her, and Janie curled up in it, accepting the glass
of wine Izzy offered and making room for the calico cat that landed on her lap. She
laid out her own knitting project, a soft cream-colored blanket with tiny alphabet
blocks along the edge. Purl eyed the ball of yarn with great yearning—and minor restraint.
Janie tsked him and removed his paw from the soft yarn.

Izzy came over and plopped a box down near the coffee table. “This isn’t why we invited
you down, Janie, but I almost forgot about this. Mrs. Bridge left it—it’s what was
left in Justin’s room. I keep forgetting to give it to you. She said it was just old
clothes, but she thought you should be the one to get rid of it. Do you want me to
do it?”

Janie stared at the box. She started to say yes, then changed her mind and pulled
open the flap. “Maybe Father Northcutt’s clothing drive?” she said, pulling out an
old shirt and some socks.

Izzy looked into the box. A glint of silver caught her eye and she pulled out a leather
belt with a large silver buckle.

Janie looked at it. “That’s nice. I don’t think I ever saw Justin wear it—”

Izzy ran her fingers over the buckle. “That’s probably because it wasn’t his.” She
held it up and read the initials. TAG.

Cass laughed. “It’s Tyler Gibson’s. Has to be. His middle name is Arthur and the kids
used to tease him and call him Tag.”

Nell took the belt and looked at it. “It looks like Tyler,” she said.

“Do you suppose Justin stole that, too?” Janie said.

“It’s hard to steal a belt off someone, Janie,” Nell said. She slipped it into her
purse. “But I’ll see that Tyler gets it back. Maybe they were at the beach or something
and he left it behind. Justin was probably going to return it.”

They all nodded, as if they believed Nell’s explanation. But however the belt had
ended up in Justin’s belongings, Tyler would now get it back. And Nell, perhaps, would
get another bit of helpful information, whatever that might be.

“And I’ll take care of the rest of this stuff,” Izzy said, pushing the box aside.

“That reminds me of something,” Nell said. “Janie, do you remember that fanny pack
Justin sometimes wore?”

“Sure. I got it at a garage sale. One dollar.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Janie shook her head. “I know he had it that Saturday when he left here. Oh, and we
both saw him with it that night at the Edge. It wasn’t very attractive but he seemed
attached to it.”

“Well, if you see it, would you let me know?”

Janie agreed and pulled out her knitting. “This is my therapy,” she said. “But then,
you all understand that.”