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Authors: Sally Goldenbaum

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BOOK: The Wedding Shawl
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Sam ignored her. “We’ve cleared your schedules for tomorrow afternoon. Meet at Ben and Nell’s at one o’clock.”

Nell thought about the next day. “We’re helping Sheila …” she began.

“In the morning,” Ben said. “Afternoon is clear.

Cass looked at Pete.

“No problem, sis. Andy is going out with me on the
Lady Lobster
to set some traps. And those college kids we hired are doing a good job. You’re not needed.”

“Not needed?” Cass looked indignant; then she looked at Sam. “You don’t have us going to some spa or a Chippendales show or some embarrassing prewedding thing, do you?”

“Spa?”

“Chippendales?”

“Prewedding thing?”

The men laughed.

Izzy glared at Sam.

“Marriage is built on trust,” he said. He slipped a loose strand of hair behind her ear and leaned down, whispering, “Is this any way to begin our life together, Iz? Suspicion? Distrust?”

Izzy wiggled free and looked over at the others.

Nell chuckled.

And with that Ben offered Birdie a hand and helped her out of the chair. “Time to get the show on the road,” he said, moving toward the front door. “This body needs a bed. Tomorrow’s a new day.”

A new day, indeed,
Nell thought, following him out the door. She looked over at his face in the moonlight.

The sudden rush of emotion that swept through her had nothing to do with a new day. At that moment, the present was all Nell needed.

Chapter 23

B
en was ready to leave the house by the time Nell had showered and come down for coffee the next morning.

He had things to do, he told her with an enigmatic smile, then disappeared into the garage.

Nell waved him off. She was completely in Izzy’s camp. She didn’t much like surprises, especially right now when their peaceful life had been jarred by one too many. But she had no time to think about it now. She checked her watch. Time to go.

Nell skipped the coffee, found her purse, phone, and keys, and left the house. Claire was already in the yard, hose in hand, watering the gerbera daisies.

Nell waved, made a mental note to check in with Claire later, more to see what her mental state was than her garden state, then got in the car and headed down the hill.

She’d pick up Izzy, Cass, and Birdie along the way to the bed-and-breakfast.

Mae and her nieces had practically insisted Izzy not come in this morning. They’d handle the yarn studio just fine, thank you. Mae then reminded Izzy that she should be taking more time off and spending less time stocking yarn shelves. She should be getting ready for a wedding.
Her own,
Mae said with some emphasis.

Getting ready for a wedding.
That was what they should all be doing, Nell thought as she stopped in front of Izzy’s house. Thinking about the wedding. About picking up cocktail napkins and making sure the champagne had been ordered. Thinking about Izzy’s wedding shawl. That was what this glorious June was to be about. And here they were, for the second day in a row, packing up a dead woman’s belongings.

Izzy and Cass climbed into the car and in short order they pulled into Birdie’s drive, just as she came out the side door carrying a stack of flattened boxes and tape. “We probably won’t need these. Somehow I have a feeling we will be needed more for moral support than anything else. But maybe we’ll learn something along the way.”

Birdie was in her mover-and-shaker mode, Nell could tell. Things were moving too slowly for the octogenarian, even though she had tried to put it into perspective for all of them the night before. It had been a matter of only days, not months, since Tiffany was killed. And the police were doing a fine job. But they sometimes had restraints, Birdie said—like laws and rules that slowed them down.

Sometimes ordinary folks could speed things up a bit.

Sheila was waiting outside when they drove up the long Ravenswood-by-the-Sea drive, just across the street from Birdie’s estate. Mary Pisano stood beside her as the car pulled up. She walked over to Nell’s window and handed them each a travel mug of strong Colombian brew, while Sheila climbed in beside Izzy and Cass.

“Compliments of Ravenswood-by-the-Sea,” Mary said, waving them off.

Nell sipped the coffee gratefully, urging life into her still-sleepy body, and drove back through town.

The boardinghouse where Tiffany had lived was on Bell Street in an older neighborhood that now housed many rentals.

Nell pulled up in front of a once-grand three-story Victorian home. A sign in the yard read SUITE FOR RENT.

They climbed out of the car and followed Sheila up the painted wooden steps.

A row of mismatched rocking chairs lined the porch, and pancake-sized flakes of gray paint fell from above the bay window. It was an old-fashioned place with some rough edges, but it looked comfortable. The décor, however, made Nell suspect that Tiffany had been several decades younger than the other residents.

The landlady—“Just call me Mrs. Bridge,” she told them—ushered them through the entry hall, muttering soft condolences to Sheila. “A lovely girl, a lovely girl,” she said several times.

Mrs. Bridge pointed with a chubby index finger toward a back hall and the kitchen—a public space for all residents, she explained—and the winding staircase that led to the upper rooms. “We have a lovely place here.
Suites
, you understand, not just a room like some other boardinghouses.”

Then she walked them through the parlor, a formal space with velvet chaises, lace doilies on gateleg tables, and a series of dusty porcelain angels gracing the mantel top. Heavy brocade drapes kept the room in semidarkness.

“Residents relax here or may entertain if they so choose,” the buxom woman explained. “Tiffany was a good renter,” she said, again lowering her voice. “She always paid her rent on time. I was sad that she was going to move out. Hoping to get married, she said. And then this horrible thing happened. Unbelievable. The residents were aghast.”

“Tiffany told you she was getting married?” Sheila asked.

“Not in so many words, but I knew there was a man in her life. She said they had something special between them. Course, I didn’t push her on that. None of my business. But I guessed she had some plans to settle down and start a family.”

Sheila’s expression didn’t change.

“Except for my place, hers was the only first-floor suite,” Mrs. Bridge went on. “It’s a lovely space, with an outside entrance as well as the hall door. She liked that, being able to come and go as she wanted without walking through the house and disturbing anyone. Sometimes she’d work late at night or would be out late because she went to listen to the band. She loved music, you know. Never missed a performance of that fish group.”

Sheila’s shoulders grew rigid.

Nell noticed the shift and stepped in. “It sounds like you and Tiffany were friends, Mrs. Bridge.”

“Friends? Friendly, maybe, I’d call it. Sweet girl. No trouble. And she’d bring me milk and bread when my bad hip kept me in on icy days.”

“Did Tiffany have friends over?” Cass asked.

“Not that I saw. Like I said, she wasn’t here much.”

Sheila smiled at the landlady. “You’ve been kind, Mrs. Bridge. We’ll make sure that the apartment is clean and everything removed.”

Sheila was anxious to get this over with. To pack up Tiffany’s things and move on. To put a sad, grueling week behind her. Nell could hardly blame her.

“Oh, there’s no cleaning you’ll be needing to do. Tiffany kept what few things she had here neat as a pin. I checked the place yesterday. Clean as a whistle. You would hardly know anyone lived there. It was always like that.” She took out her key and unlocked the door. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” she said, and lumbered down the hallway.

They stepped back, letting Sheila go in first.

Sheila took a deep breath, then opened the door and took a step inside.

She stopped suddenly, the movement so unexpected that Nell bumped into her from behind.

Her purse dropped from her shoulder and fell heavily to the floor.

“Good lord,” Birdie said, easing her body between Nell and Sheila.

They stood, frozen in place, staring in silence at the scene in front of them.

Tiffany’s room was average size, with a couch and chairs, television stand and desk. A galley kitchen at one end held cupboards and miniature-sized kitchen appliances.

But from one end to the other, the long room looked like a nor’easter had blown in one end, rearranged the room’s contents, and then flown out the other.

Couch cushions littered the floor, desk drawers were toppled from runners, and loose papers were tossed haphazardly everywhere. A floor lamp leaned precariously against the wall.

Through the archway at the other end of the room, they could see a bed, a dresser, and an open closet in similar disarray.

Cass was the first to pull her phone from her pocket.

“What are you doing?” Sheila asked.

“Calling the police.”

“Why?”

“Sheila,” Nell said softly, one hand on her arm, “someone has broken in here and ransacked your sister’s room. Someone who may have killed her. Someone who may still be walking around this town. The police need to come.”

“It won’t bring her back. What’s done is done.”

And with that, the tears came, and Sheila Ciccolo folded up onto the floor and allowed herself to mourn for a life she had walked out on twenty-one years before.

 

Esther Gibson took Cass’ call and said she’d have men there in minutes—or less.

Cass told her there was probably no rush. No one was hurt or dying.

That had already been done.

Next, Birdie went down the hall and came back with a distraught Mrs. Bridge. She stood in the doorway, her hands covering her open mouth, her massive chest heaving in and out.

“The police are on their way,” Birdie said.

“We don’t know if anything was taken,” Nell said, “but someone was clearly looking for something.”

“She didn’t have much here,” Mrs. Bridge said when she found her voice. “No pictures, nothing. No valuables. She told me so herself. She got rid of it, I suppose. And I double-checked yesterday, just in case there was something, you know, that might be valuable.”

She had moved it all to her office,
Nell thought. That was why the basement room in the salon was so cozy—and the rooms they stood in so sterile. Even amidst the mess, it was impersonal and cold. Only her clothes spoke of the woman who had once rented the space.

Nell walked into the bedroom where Izzy was standing, staring at the mess but careful not to touch anything.

Izzy looked up.

Nell wrapped an arm around Izzy’s shoulders. She wished she could whisk her away from all this.

“I wish I had had the chance to know her,” Izzy said, and walked out of her aunt’s protective embrace.

Nell walked into the bathroom and looked at the pile of bottles in the sink. No drugs. A bottle of fish oil capsules. Vitamins C and E. That was it. She followed Izzy back into the living room just as the police arrived.

Tommy nodded familiarly at each of the women, then took time to talk with Sheila. This was an awful thing, he said. They’d find this person if it was the last thing they did. He knew how difficult it was for her.

Nell watched the young man she’d known since his paper route days. She remembered the teenage crush he revived each summer when Izzy came to visit. And then he had pulled it out in adulthood when Izzy moved to Sea Harbor permanently. But in recent times, Tommy had found a love of his own, a nursing student who reveled in Tommy’s strengths. And each year Tommy became more of a gentleman, more at ease in his policeman’s shoes, and more supportive and sensitive to the vulnerable people he sometimes had to deal with. Tommy Porter would be chief someday, was her silent prediction.

“Nell,” he said, coming up beside her, “I guess you can all leave. We’ll look around. See if we can pick up any prints. Sorry you had to come upon this. Geesh. One more thing, huh?”

Nell smiled.

“The intruder came through the back door. The lock’s been jimmied, but even a kid could have done it. Mrs. Bridge here says the lawn service people have been out back for hours. And they worked yesterday until about eight.”

“So it happened during the night?”

“Looks like it. We checked this place out thoroughly after Tiffany died. It was spotless, not much around. Nothing valuable. So I’m not sure anything was even taken during the break-in. The television is still here. An alarm clock in the other room. A flowerpot with some change in it. So what did he or she want?” He scratched his head.

“The big question,” Izzy said.

“Yep. The big question. And whatever it was or is or has been, was it worth killing a nice person for? That’s the real question, far’s I can see.”

 

They left quietly, leaving Mrs. Bridge on the phone with a locksmith.

Sheila had gratefully accepted Mrs. Bridge and Tommy’s generous offer to pack up Tiffany’s things once they were finished with their investigation. It was mostly clothes and makeup, as far as they could tell, but Mrs. Bridge would be on top of it, securing what was hers and treating Tiffany’s things with care.

Sheila asked to be dropped off at the bed-and-breakfast. She had another meeting with the lawyer. More paperwork. And after that, she said with a touch of embarrassment, she was going over to the nursing home to see her mother.

“A little overdue. She won’t know me.”

“But you’ll know her,” Nell said.

“Yes, I will.”

Father Northcutt was taking her. And they’d have a little dinner afterward. “I haven’t talked to him since Davey Delaney and I stole the vigil lights from the Blessed Virgin Mary’s altar in eighth grade. But I think this means he’s forgiven me.”

“I think it does,” Nell agreed. She shifted the car into reverse.

They waited until Sheila was out of earshot before dissecting the morning, but opinions had already been formed and gushed forth.

BOOK: The Wedding Shawl
10.71Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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