The Wedding Shawl (20 page)

At first Nell thought she’d say no. She suspected Sheila Ciccolo didn’t accept favors easily.

But in the end, she said yes. “I have to go over to Tiffany’s boardinghouse and clean out her things. I talked to the woman who runs it and she said I could come anytime. It … it would be nice not to go in there alone.”

They settled on a time—Sheila said Saturday morning would work best. She was seeing a lawyer on Friday and, frankly, needed some time to be alone and get her head on straight. It was difficult coming back, but from what she had seen of Ravenswood-by-the-Sea when she checked in, the bed-and-breakfast would be the perfect place to put her mind in order.

A rush of affirmation followed.

“It’s the perfect place for soothing the soul,” Birdie said. “You’ll be in good hands—and Kevin, the cook, makes one of the best breakfasts known to man.”

Sheila said she was grateful for their help. Having been gone as long as she had, she didn’t even know where the boardinghouse was. “All I know from Tiffany,” she said, “was that she hoped to be moving soon. She was ready to settle down, to get married, to have kids. It was time, she said. She had it well planned. She wanted four kids, and she needed to start now to have it all happen.”

They walked to the door, and Sheila turned to say good-bye. Then she hesitated and looked at the women gathering around her like a protective cloak, women who hours ago had been complete strangers. She gave each of them an awkward hug. “You’re good people, as my old aunt June used to say. Thank you.”

Nell and Birdie followed her out onto the sidewalk, lured by the cool night breeze. The stores up and down Harbor Road were closed for the night, but lamplights flickered and music streamed from the open doors of bistros and bars and the porch of the Ocean’s Edge restaurant. From above, the moon turned the street into a platinum river.

But even the moon couldn’t dispel the clouds of murder, Nell thought. The lights were the same, the music and laughter. The waves against the shore and summer breeze. All the same.

And nothing was the same.

“Are the police any closer to a suspect?” she asked Sheila. “Were you able to help them?”

“How could I help?”

“It sounds like Tiffany talked to you more than anyone. Maybe she said something that would help the police? Something that seemed unimportant but might have a connection.”

The quiet that filled the space between them was unsettling. Sheila seemed hesitant to speak, but Nell could feel emotion welling up inside her, pushing to get out.

“Sometimes Tiffany would get secretive, even with me, especially if she thought I’d be judgmental about it. And I felt that recently. But the only concrete thing I could tell the police was what I felt—what I
feel
—deep down inside me.” She brushed fresh tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. “I told them whose fault it was. I told them that there is only one man who could be responsible for this.”

They stared at her.

“It’s his fault that my sister is dead. If not for Andy Risso, she’d be alive today.”

Chapter 20

“T
hey can’t arrest Andy just because Sheila Ciccolo doesn’t like him. As much as all of us—including the chief—want this case behind us, that’s not the way anyone will go about doing it.” Ben carried the coffee carafe and mugs out to the deck, the morning paper stuck beneath one arm.

Nell followed with heaping bowls of her homemade granola topped with the leftover blueberries from the cobbler. “Of course not. But it doesn’t help to have Tiffany’s sister accusing him. The poor fellow is being punished for simply having women like him—the teenager Harmony and the grown-up Tiffany.”

“Did Sheila explain the basis for her accusations?”

“No.”

As soon as Sheila had dropped her comment at their feet, she had turned, missing the distress on their faces, and hurried across the street to her rental car.

“She was exhausted and emotionally drained, and I don’t think she’s aware that Andy is a friend of ours. Frankly, I don’t think she even knows who he is. She had run away from home before Tiffany was in high school, and that’s where she met Andy.”

“So it has to be something that her sister told her?”

Nell nodded. It had to be. But what that could have been was a total mystery. Surely Tiffany wouldn’t say bad things about Andy. Nell couldn’t have misread her that severely. Maybe a visit to Merry would help clarify Sheila’s strong reaction. Merry was astute, she’d been with Andy and Tiffany, and, most of all, Merry loved to talk.

Ben scanned the headlines as he spooned up Nell’s milk-soaked granola. “Damn good,” he murmured.

Nell watched him with a smile, enjoying the fact that he found pleasure in ingredients he’d probably avoid if he knew what they were—flaxseed and coconut flakes, oats and figs and prunes. She lifted her coffee mug, the strong aroma awakening sleepy senses. Through the steam she looked down toward the guesthouse, her thoughts wandering easily from Andy to cereal to Claire Russell.

The windows were open, and the pleasant sounds of NPR’s
Morning Edition
floated up from a radio. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Claire the day before, and wondered now about her talk with the police. Hopefully it was short and unemotional for Claire.

“I saw Claire yesterday while you were at Izzy’s place,” Ben said, looking up from the paper and stepping into her thoughts. They sat at the table, looking out over the lawn. “She’s quite a gardener. It’s an art form for her. Like a landscape in which the colors have to be perfectly blended, the shades of green contrasting with the rest of the painting. We walked around, and she showed me a whole plot of grasses that she’s going to replant somewhere else because the balance and contrast aren’t quite right.”

Nell chuckled. What her diplomatic Ben was
not
saying was that her own gardening prowess was definitely in contrast to Claire’s. She loved it, the feel of the earth, the smell of rich, loamy soil. But once something was in and surviving, it was there to stay. And she often buried a handful of unknown bulbs in a worked bed in the fall to see what surprises would pop up in the spring. The survival of the fittest was a fair garden mantra for Nell.

“Speaking of balance, did she mention her visit to the police?”

A flash of sunlight on a shiny spade drew their attention to the back of the yard. Claire, dressed in her usual jeans and T-shirt and floppy hat, waved up to the deck.

Nell stood and called down to her. “Coffee?”

Claire hesitated for just a second, then pulled off her gloves, tossed them into the wheelbarrow, and joined them on the deck.

“I feel like a broken record, but it looks amazing, Claire,” Nell said, handing her a cup of coffee.

Claire surveyed her work, then pulled her brows together critically. “It will. Not quite there yet. It has to be perfect for Izzy.”

“I apologize for not being much help these days. It’s been a busy time. And somehow, the aftermath of Tiffany’s murder seems to eat up chunks of time, though I couldn’t tell you how or why. It’s a disturbing distraction, at the least.”

Claire sipped her coffee, any emotion hidden beneath her calm exterior.

“I don’t suppose the police shed any light on it when you talked to them?”

“No. My meeting was short. They brought up Tiffany and Harmony’s friendship, as we supposed they would. And I told them what little I could. They were teenage friends. And along with Andy Risso, they were a threesome. I explained that Andy was Harmony’s boyfriend, though we kept it secret from her father.” Her voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “What secrets. What lies …”

“You were doing what you thought was best for your daughter.”

“We’ve all done a little of that in our lifetimes,” Ben said. He took a drink of coffee and sat back in his chair. “You were protecting her. That’s what good parents do.”

Claire poured another stream of half-and-half into her coffee. “Yes, that’s what we do, I suppose, for better or for worse. There are plenty of days I wonder why I didn’t leave him and raise Harmony alone.”

“Did you consider that?”

“Now and then. But I was afraid, I suppose. Where would I go? I had no family except for my sister in Texas. Richard paid the bills; we had a house, an income. I had the garden to work in. But the real truth, I suppose, was that I wasn’t strong enough back then.”

But strength seemed to have come to Claire Russell over the years. Strength and a determination to not let her life slip by. Nell could see it in the set of her jaw, the steely look that sometimes lit her eyes, even as they fell into sadness when difficult times were brought to mind.

“So at least the time with the police went smoothly?” Nell said. “That was probably all they needed from you, affirming the relationships. Covering all their bases, I suppose.”

“I suppose. But they asked me to stay around for a few days in case they had more questions. I told them where I was staying, which brought a nice smile from Chief Thompson. He told me I was lucky to have such friends. I said I was completely and totally aware of that.”

“He’s a good man,” Ben said. “He has kids, grown now. But he understands how hard reliving this must be for you.”

“He said as much. He concentrated more on Tiffany, what she was like as a teen. I told them what I knew, though much of my information was through Harmony’s eyes, the things she used to tell me about her friend. She wasn’t the kind of teenager other kids would notice much. Plain. Always trying to please. She was good at basketball; I remember that—the kids played over at the old community center. I was glad she had something she was good at. She needed that. Oh, and Harmony told me once that she had a crush on Andy Risso—and I told that to the police, too.”

“Did it bother Harmony that Tiffany liked her boyfriend?”

“Bother her? Oh, no. For all the dysfunction surrounding her growing-up years, Harmony was self-confident. If I fostered that, maybe I did something right.” She stirred her coffee. “She knew Andy was crazy about her and that he put up with Tiffany because they were friends. Tiffany idolized Harmony.”

Nell watched the emotions play across Claire’s face as she pulled things from memory. Now that it was all out in the open, she seemed better able to deal with these unexpected forays back to a terrible time in her life. Claire Russell was a complicated woman, something Nell hadn’t fully realized in those early days of gardening, back when Claire kept her past tightly protected from outside eyes. She loved her daughter fiercely. And the image Nell had of this young woman she had never met was ever changing, like a slide show, gathering color and definition as it played on.

A smart, self-confident daughter. With an adoring boyfriend and girlfriend on either side of her.

And now two of the threesome were dead.

“I also told them that even though the three teenagers seemed inseparable, the allegiances died with Harmony, almost instantly, because after she died, I never saw either of them again. Nor heard a word from them.” The feeling of betrayal crept back into Claire’s voice, and she tried to cover it over. “I know that sounds childish. I need to let go of it, and I’m trying. It was hurtful—but they were just kids; that’s what I keep telling myself.” Claire took a last drink of her coffee and stood up. “Again, what would I do without you two?”

“Have less dirt beneath your nails?” Nell laughed.

“I love that dirt. It’s a badge of honor. Now I need to get back to it,” she said, and with a wave, she walked purposefully back to her tools and a waiting pile of mulch.

“Me, too,” Ben said, getting up. “I’m helping Auggie McClucken with some business things today. He’s thinking of expanding the hardware store and needs some advice.”

Nell followed him into the kitchen and piled the dishes in the sink.

“Don’t forget the deck is being power washed today. And Sam insists it’s his big chance to have Friday-night dinner at his place. A kind of thank-you, he said, for all the wedding preparations—though that’s totally unnecessary.”

Ben nodded, half listening, as he headed to his den.

Nell watched him walk off, already thinking ahead to her own day. So many of the to-dos involved Izzy’s wedding—candles, cameras, some painting touch-ups to the porch stairs she’d hired a teenager to do. RSVPs. But over it all hung a cloud so thick and heavy that if it fell, it might suffocate them.

Suddenly, making that cloud evaporate rose to the top of her list. There were still so many questions floating around, and Sheila’s unexpected appearance the night before had taken away their opportunity to come up with answers to some of them.

Nell rinsed the bowls and slipped them into the dishwasher. It was Friday. She might be able to catch Cass. She and Pete were hiring a few extra guys to help with their small lobster business, and it sometimes freed her up a little. And Birdie would drop most things—even her tap-dancing class—for an adventure. Izzy probably couldn’t get away. She headed to the kitchen island and her phone.

“Danny might be over at the Palate, too,” Cass said, pulling on her seat belt as she leaned forward in Nell’s car to talk to the two women in the front seat. “He spends a lot of time on the deck. I think Hank may make him honorary resident writer one of these days. Maybe put up a plaque when he’s famous.”

“Or a statue, like that Fitz Hugh Lane statue over in Gloucester.”

They laughed at the image of a bronze Danny, his laptop on his knees, staring out over the Palate deck.

“I imagine it’s a perfect place to write on days like this,” Birdie said. She looked out the open window, admiring the wildflowers that lined the narrow road to the Canary Cove Art Colony. “I would need more quiet, myself, were I to somehow find myself with the gift of spinning intriguing tales.”

“I know for sure you have a million tantalizing stories to tell, but I can’t imagine you secluding yourself to write, Birdie,” Nell said. “You’d shrivel up.”

She laughed. “That I would. Perhaps that’s why I was never blessed with that talent. I need the sounds of life and laughter around me. That’s what fuels my soul.”