Death by Cashmere (33 page)

Tony frowned. "He had a heart attack. That happens to old men."

"He was poisoned, Tony."

Tony took a step back. For a minute he stood in silence, staring at her, his feet planted apart as if Nell had hit him and he was striving for balance. He took in a lungful of air, then let it out slowly, his composure in place. "I think the town will be a better place if you mind your own business, Nell. You're going to hurt people. And I know you want Izzy safe, don't you?"

Before Nell could answer, Tony turned and began again to run down the beach. He ran faster and faster, beating the ground with his running shoes, bits of sand spitting up in his wake and his arms pumping against the sides of his body until he rounded the curve beyond the breakwater, and Nell couldn't see him anymore.

Nell turned and began her walk back home. Her heartbeat was fast, but not from running now. This time it raced from Tony Framingham's veiled threat.

A brisk shower calmed Nell and brought normalcy back into her thinking. By the time she was through, she wasn't sure what Tony had actually said to her. Had she imagined a threat? For a moment she thought of calling Margarethe and talking to her about it, then quickly squelched the thought. That's what you did when your second-grader was hit by the biggest kid in the class. How did you tell a mother her son might be involved in something sinister?

Nell toweled off, rubbing the blood back into her limbs, and pulled on a T-shirt and slacks. The threat, if it was a threat, was vague, ill-formed. She would forget it and rejoice in the news that Angus McPherron had a fighting chance.

The morning allowed Nell little time to think more about Tony. Or Angus, for that matter. With three back-to-back meetings, she would have to wait until later to think any more about Tony.

It was well after lunch when Nell managed to slip into Harry's Deli for a turkey-pastrami on rye. The news of Angus's waking up was circling Harbor Road. There was genuine joy moving from table to table in the small room, and Nell watched it with surprise and pleasure. People cared, and she wondered if Angus knew that. She wasn't sure she herself was aware that the town considered the old man of the sea
their
old man of
their
sea. Sometimes it took something bad to bring out the very best in people, she thought. On impulse, she ordered a couple extra sandwiches. She'd stop by the knitting shop and, if there were no takers there, Ben had never in his lifetime turned down one of Harry's spicy concoctions.

Birdie was standing at the counter with an armful of yarn when Nell walked in the door. A project for the hospital waiting room, Nell supposed. The studio hummed with activity.

"There you are," Birdie said, spotting her. "I tried to call you." She spoke in a voice that made Nell feel she had done something frightfully wrong.

"We need to talk," Birdie said. "Izzy's in the back." She gave Rose her credit card and told her not to lose it, then cupped Nell's elbow in her hand and ushered her into the back room.

Izzy and Cass sat on the window seat, legs folded up beneath them. Cass's shawl was spread across their laps and Purl was nestled in the center of Izzy's crossed legs. "We're already on the shoulders," Izzy said. "Mary will be so pleased."

Birdie crossed the room and pulled a bundle of letters from her backpack. She dropped them unceremoniously on the coffee table.

"Are you working at the post office now?" Nell asked.

"When Angus asked for mail I thought he was slipping back into that private world of his. But Ella told me he actually did get mail at our place recently, though she'd never known him to look at it. So she stacked it neatly on his dresser when she cleaned his rooms and it usually went untouched. I went through it last night and pulled out the obvious junk. There wasn't much else, a few credit card applications and letters to resident. Except for these." She pointed to two letters bound together with a rubber band. "They're from Angie Archer," she said.

"Angie?" Nell picked up one of the envelopes and looked at the typed address.
Mr. Angus McPherron,
it said.

"The postmarks aren't right. One came yesterday, one last week, Ella said. Angie didn't know Angus lived with me, so she sent them to his place outside town. By the time the post office figured out where Angus was and passed them on, time had passed."

Across each envelope was the word "Personal" printed in block letters. And at the bottom it read "Important," as if Angie were pleading with Angus not to throw the letters away. The return address was the small apartment above the Seaside Knitting Studio.

"You need to take these to Angus," Izzy said. "You go. I need to be here this afternoon."

"And I'll be out checking traps," Cass said. "But you'll call?"

Angus had been moved to a private room and his doctor was coming out as Birdie and Nell approached his door.

"Great old guy, strong as a stone cutter," she said, smiling back into the room. "He's weak, but he's going to be okay."

Nell and Izzy walked in to find Angus resting against the pillows, his white beard clean and combed and his eyes open.

"Well, ladies, will you look at this?" Angus lifted one hand and pointed to the walls and the windowsills, filled with baskets of fruit, cards taped to long ribbons and pinned to the walls, and stacks of magazines. His finger shook slightly as it moved.

"You have lots of admirers, Angus," Nell said.

His head moved on the pillow. "It seems so," he said. His voice was so soft Nell could barely hear him.

Birdie walked over and pulled a chair up to his bed. She took his hand in hers and smiled into tired eyes. "Well, you do, you crazy old coot. Believe it. And get better. You owe it to us."

He closed his eyes briefly, and when they opened, Nell and Birdie pretended not to notice the tear that rolled down his wrinkled face to the sheet beneath his chin.

Birdie rummaged around in her backpack and pulled out the envelopes. "I brought your mail," she said.

Angus rolled his head on the pillow and focused his eyes on the letters in Birdie's hand. Without lifting his head from the pillows, he read his name on the envelope, the return address. Angie Archer. "She said she would write," he mumbled. "Indeed." And then his lids fell again, heavy against his pale, tired face.

"Do you want me to read these, Angus?" Birdie asked. She held up the envelopes again.

For a minute he didn't answer and they thought he had fallen asleep. But a few seconds later he opened his eyes briefly. When he spoke, his voice was soft but definite. "Read them and save them for me. Go home now."

Then sleep took over his frail body, and Nell and Birdie slipped out of the room, looking back through the door just once to see a still figure, peaceful against the white sheets.

By the time Nell and Birdie picked up some supplies for Angus, dropped them back at the hospital and returned to Sea Harbor, daylight was fading, giving way to the gentle light of evening. A soothing light, Nell thought, looking through the window of her car. Even in the midst of all this turmoil, a Cape Ann evening could bring peace.

When they arrived at Nell's, Cass and Izzy were sitting on the couch, a plate of cheese and bowl of grapes in front of them. A pitcher of Ben's martinis was on the kitchen island.

"You didn't call," Izzy said, frowning at her aunt. "Is Angus all right?"

"He's much better," Nell said. "So much better today. The doctor thinks he'll be back to normal soon." She looked around. "Where's Ben?"

"He had to help Father Northcutt finish his financials for the church committee tomorrow. He said to tell you he'll be back as soon as he can." Izzy stood and gave Nell a hug. "What happened with Angus's mail? Cass came by when I was closing the store and since neither of us had heard, we came over."

Birdie set the legal-sized envelopes on the island and repeated Angus's request.

"So Angus wants us to read his mail?" Cass asked.

"That's what he said," Birdie answered. "He seemed to be expecting the letters. Angie must have told him she was sending them and that they were important."

The four women sat around the coffee table and Nell ripped open the first envelope. Down in the corner she noticed a small note.
1/3,
it said. Certainly not the date. Maybe the post office had coded it somehow. She pulled out several old newspaper articles, something Angie must have found while doing research at the museum.

The stories were about Angus McPherron and Anja Alatalo, Angus's beautiful Finnish wife. There was a faded picture of the two of them, toasting each other at a long table in a clearing filled with flowers. Behind the festive group, in a circle of rosebushes, a white-draped table held a wedding cake six tiers tall. The article was chatty and personal, in the way of small-town newspapers. It told of the handsome cutter Angus falling in love and marrying the rich Finnish quarryman's daughter. The reporter detailed the extravagant wedding Anja's father had given his only daughter. Nothing was overlooked, not the huge arrangements of flowers, the elaborate food and drink.

A copy of a legal document was stuck in the same envelope. Birdie unfolded it and read the ornate script at the top.
Certificate of Marriage
. It was a copy of Angus and Anja's wedding certificate, signed at the bottom in elegant script by the husband and wife, the witnesses and minister.

Nell smoothed the papers out and put them on the coffee table. She opened the other envelope, slightly bigger than the first, with neat, careful numbers on the bottom in small print:
2/3
.

There was one document inside, an old yellowed deed. Nell looked at it carefully and passed it to Birdie. "It's a land deed granting rights and ownership."

Birdie slipped on her glasses and looked at it carefully. The name "McPherron" was written on the top of the yellowed piece of paper, and a description of the small plot of land out near the highway where Angus had lived all these years.

Nell looked at the envelope again and the small notation on the bottom.
2/3. Two out of three?
A reminder to Angus that he'd be getting three envelopes in the mail. "Was there another envelope? " she asked Birdie.

"Not that I could find. But these are postmarked a day or so apart. I suppose there could be one still to come," Birdie said.

Nell looked again at the land deed, similar to many that the museum had compiled for exhibits of early Cape Ann settlers-- stories of fishermen and cutters from around the world who made Cape Ann a rich ethnic blend of nationalities.

Izzy read parts of the story of Angus's wedding to Anja Alatalo out loud. She was a beautiful young woman, the reporter wrote, with wavy brown hair that fell to her waist.

Nell listened, and thought of the still body lying in the hospital bed. His life with Anja, however short, must have been a wonderful one, she thought. As she lifted the envelope, another article slipped out. Nell slipped on her glasses and read the story slowly. It was the tragic tale she'd heard from Ben's parents, the sad story of Anja and her father being killed on his land. A dynamite explosion gone awry, Ben's mother had told them.

Nell looked again at the old photographs, remarkably preserved--Anja and Angus, Angus and her father, and pictures of the quarries that Luukas Alatalo had worked with his father. She held the clippings beneath the table lamp and squinted to bring them into focus. There was something familiar about the photo, a view she had seen before, maybe in her hikes around Rockport, Halibut Park, perhaps? Nell tugged at her memory, but clarity stayed at the edges of remembering, nudging her, irritating her, like a pea beneath the mattress.

The growling of Cass's stomach indicated it had been a while since any of them had eaten, and she and Birdie headed for Nell's refrigerator.

"Whatever you find is fair game," Nell called out from her chair.

Birdie took out some leftover pasta and grilled vegetables and heated them in the microwave. Cass helped, heating up a platter of Italian sausages and sauteed mushrooms.

"There're some sourdough rolls from Harry's Deli on the counter," Nell said, her attention still on the photos.

They filled their plates from the bowls and platters on the center island and gathered around the kitchen table, elbows propped up on the wood surface, the yellow papers scattered across the tabletop, and their thoughts on Angus McPherron--and Angie Archer.

"Why do you suppose Angie sent these to Angus?" Birdie asked. "She saw him all the time."

"I think it was safer to send them," Nell said. "Angie knew better than any of us that Angus didn't always tend to things. If she had handed these things to him while they sat down at the harbor or walking along the beach, they probably would have ended up in a refuse heap--or tossed to the wind."

"And maybe she knew she was in danger," Cass added.

Nell nodded. "That's a possibility, I guess, but I hope not. The thought of Angie in danger and not asking for help would be hard to live with."

"I was tough on Angie, especially that last night." Cass's high cheekbones were flushed with emotion as she spoke.

"We all may have misjudged her some, Cass," Birdie said. "But that doesn't change anything. Angie was trying to do something, probably something good."

"And it cost her her life." Nell poured a cup of tea. The room had grown suddenly chilly. The mood somber.

"Okay," Izzy said. "So what's missing here?" She looked down at the array of papers on the table.

"We're missing the third piece.
The three of three
," Nell said. Yes, that had to be it--it was an Angie kind of thing to do, keeping track of the documents in order, helping Angus order his life.

"I don't understand why she sent the deed," Cass said. "We knew that the land Angus lived on was his, so this deed doesn't really tell us much. It's nice for Angus to have, just in case he wants to see it someday. But that's about it. And why did she send the wedding license--and the articles?"