A Finely Knit Murder (22 page)

A
short while later, Danny left. He pulled the heavy backpack over his shoulder and brushed hair off his forehead. “I’m going to find Ben and see what’s up with Bob Chadwick. Maybe I can help find the guy.”

They promised to keep one another in the loop and watched Danny walk toward his car, concern shadowing his face.

Danny was a surprise bedfellow, but in the realm of things, it couldn’t hurt to have a mystery writer to consult with.

Even Cass agreed. “But now I’m starving,” she said. “How about you two?”

Nell was planning on exactly that. Cass’s appetite never failed them. “I think we need to have a chat with Liz Santos over at the yacht club. How about a sandwich on their deck?”

*   *   *

It was a nice enough day to sit on the club’s terrace, provided one had a sweater on. The hostess found them a table just outside the open French doors with a view of the sea and sailboats.

Liz was in her office, the waitress told them, trying to straighten out some kind of mess. She’d have her stop by their table to say hello.

Cass began drawing lines on the tabletop with the tip of her finger. She looked up from her doodling. “What pain is that big?”

“I was thinking about the same thing,” Nell said, moving aside while the waitress set down a plate of pickles, olives, and slender bread sticks. “What could someone do to you that would make you kill them?”

“If someone were going to hurt Gabby, or one of you,” Birdie said, “I think I’d be capable of almost anything.”

They all sat silently, applying that to themselves, and to people they loved who might suffer at the hands of another. They’d do anything to stop it.

Just as Barrett and Chelsey Mansfield would do for their daughter, Anna . . .

“You are certainly a silent group.” Liz stood at their table, smiling. “Betty said you wanted to see me?”

“We always want to see you, dear,” Birdie said. “You brighten our day.”

The waitress returned with tea and water. They ordered the lobster rolls and salad, then turned their attention back to Liz.

“It’s busy out there on the water. You need a traffic patrol to keep the sailboats from colliding,” Nell said. “And in here. Everywhere.” She looked across the terrace and down to the water. The well-maintained yards were filled with strollers walking along tree-shaded paths that wound all the way down to the marina, the beach, and the yacht club dock and slips.

“It’s such a glorious time of year,” Liz said. “We’re getting the first of the leaf watchers and also the sailors trying to get in every gust of wind before the cold weather freezes them out. There’s a whole fleet going out today—it’s a parade of white.”

“That’s all good, right?” Birdie asked, catching a worried look that passed across the manager’s face.

Liz brought back her smile. “Yes, of course. We’re growing. That’s good. But sometimes growth brings glitches.” She looked at Nell. “We had a problem with keys to the boats this morning. Somehow the keys got messed up. We thought a set was missing; then it reappeared this morning. I’m going to call Ben and Sam
and get their committee together to figure it out. Those two guys never fail me.”

“What kind of keys?” Cass asked.

“Keys to the sailboats. It isn’t really that big a thing. I just don’t like confusion—and it was confusing this morning. Most of the owners keep a set of keys to their boats on a big board in the equipment building down near the slips. It’s helpful in case someone calls in and needs us to check something on a boat, move it for some reason or repair something. They got messed up, that’s all. But in answer to your comment, yes, it’s really busy around here right now. Weekends are crazy. In fact, our guesthouses are completely booked for the next few weeks.”

“That’s wonderful. Speaking of those little cottages, do you have time to sit for a few minutes?” Birdie asked. She held up her glass. “The mint tea is delicious. Have one.”

Liz laughed and pulled out a chair. “Sure. I’m headed home from here but always have time for this group. What’s up? Don’t tell me you have need to rent a guesthouse, Birdie?”

Birdie laughed, used to being teased about her eight-bedroom home. “Not just now. But Nell has many a question about the cottages.”

“Two, in fact,” Nell said. “Chelsey Mansfield was telling us how nice it was when they were in the process of moving to have one of the little cottages at their disposal. And it was especially nice for Barrett when he’d come check on the remodeling.”

“Sure. I remember that because the cottages were new and the club was trying to get the word out. I was a hostess, not a manager, back then, so I saw Barrett often,” Liz said. She was hesitant, unsure of what was coming next.

“You also mentioned that Blythe Westerland spent a lot of time here—” Nell purposely left the comment hanging. She didn’t want to push Liz into areas she didn’t want to go.

“Yes, Blythe has always spent time here.” She hesitated just for a minute. “And I think I probably mentioned to you about her attraction to Barrett. The police know that, too.”

“Could you tell us exactly what happened? I don’t want to put you on the spot, but here’s why I’m asking. Blythe clearly didn’t like Barrett Mansfield. She seemed to be against anything he was for, including having his daughter in ‘her’ school, as she called it. And objecting to his choice for headmistress. I suspect it’s because Barrett refused her advances, because we know she had a problem with that and often managed to make people sorry if they made the unfortunate decision to move out of the relationship. But her grudge with Barrett seemed somehow extreme.”

Liz looked out to sea, thinking about the comment, formulating an answer. Finally she said, “You’re right. It was more than that. Her grudge was most likely because of what happened that night—and I’m sure it was intense. The whole incident is still clear in my head. For one thing, I was the hostess, so was ultimately responsible for smoothing it out. But also because I think everyone involved felt awful about what happened. Blythe seemed almost lonely that night, and she was determined that Barrett pay attention to her. Somehow she needed affirmation. But I think in her zeal, she had a few too many glasses of champagne.

“Barrett is always such a gentleman, but that night he had had it. When she refused to leave his table and began putting her hands on him, he said a few choice words to her, then got up to leave and go back to his guesthouse. She jumped up, but her dress caught on the table leg and she stumbled, then fell. She ended up flat on the floor, champagne covering her dress and her hair. She was a mess.

“The bar was crowded. Everyone was staring at her. And for someone who is always perfect, it was completely, totally humiliating. Awful. I felt terrible for her.”

“Geesh,” Cass said.

Liz nodded. “I know. You can imagine how she felt. Barrett, being the all-time wonderful gentleman that he is, tried to help her up. He felt bad, too, though he had nothing to do with her falling. But she slapped his hand away, said something to the effect that she’d get even with him even if it took the rest of her life, and then
somehow pulled herself up. We helped her clean herself up, called her a cab. And that was the end of that.”

“And the beginning of the poor man’s struggles,” Birdie said. “No wonder she was determined to get even, even though he didn’t cause it.”

“At least that explains her anger,” Nell said. “It makes it less mysterious. Sometimes the easiest way to get rid of embarrassment is to blame the other person. Not exactly admirable, but I suppose it’s a way to save face, if that’s the most important thing to you. And clearly it was to Blythe.”

“It also helps me understand Barrett’s patience with her, even when she was less than cordial to him,” Birdie said. “I’m sure he regretted her humiliation.”

“She bounced back, though,” Liz said. “The next time she came in, she looked perfectly gorgeous, every hair in place, and acted like nothing had ever happened.”

“It’s an admirable trait, I suppose,” Birdie said.

“Is there any update on finding the person who killed her? I’ve noticed the skittishness in our neighborhood. No one is jogging these days, at least not once the sun sets. It’s even getting hard to find babysitters. Moms want their kids home. Or they want to be with them—something I completely understand. Our nanny lives with us, and we consider ourselves fortunate.”

“I think it’ll soon be behind us,” Birdie said, almost without thought.

Nell looked at her with surprise, then realized that she felt the same way. It would be solved soon.

“That brings me to one more question. Liz,” she said. “You mentioned that Barrett wasn’t the only man that Blythe met here at the club. I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I got the feeling when we talked the other day that there was something or someone in particular you thought of mentioning, but then held back—”

“You don’t miss much, do you, Nell?” She smiled. “Yes. She was still coming here regularly, but often it was for meetings with the
mayor’s group or planning meetings for one event or another. The episode with Barrett was the last really aggressive flirting I saw Blythe do publicly—here, anyway. She didn’t really have to. Men liked her, if for no other reason than they looked better with Blythe on their arm. So recently it was more business related than anything else. In some ways she was quieting down a little.

“But last spring I saw her here several times with a man. It wasn’t a flirtatious kind of thing. It was almost as if they were a couple, though with Blythe it was hard to tell. But they came as a couple, if you know what I mean? It was during a really busy time, but they stayed in a guesthouse here a couple times.”

“Do you know who the man was?”

Liz pulled her eyebrows together, trying to think back. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“What did he look like?”

“That’s tough. It was a busy time with lots of people coming and going. And now that I have all these management duties, I spend more time in my office than doing the fun things, like talking to people. I suppose the reason I even noticed them was that . . . well, it was Blythe. It was always hard not to notice her. And I remember that together they made a very striking pair.”

“Was he from around here?”

“I don’t think so. He was handsome in a kind of all-American way. Dark hair—with that sexy five o’clock shadow, sort of like the guy in
Mad Men
? He didn’t keep a boat here, at least I don’t think so. Though they may have rented one a few times.” She furrowed her brow, trying to come up with something more helpful. “There are so many people who come and go,” she said apologetically.

“Of course. We understand.”

“I might be able to re-create it in my head, just give me a little time. I can also check the guesthouse log when I’m back in my office. I think they were here a couple weekends. I’ll be in touch.”

“That would be helpful. Thanks, Liz. It might be important.”

Cass listened to the conversation, then looked at Birdie, who
was doing the same. Listening. Processing. Trying to slip another piece of information into an already crowded picture.

Nell thanked Liz and watched her walk away, a sudden heaviness weighing her down. And in her head she thought she heard a noise, like a large thump, something falling into place. And she wasn’t at all sure if it made her happy or sad.

Liz left and they ate their lobster rolls in silence, the gentle waves a deceptive background as they thought about Blythe Westerland, about the men in her life, and about the reason why one of them might have killed her.

N
ell dropped Cass at the dock where she was meeting Pete to check something out on one of the lobster boats.

Pete was in the parking lot talking to Willow when they pulled up. He walked over to the car and leaned in through the open window.

“Hey, if you’re free and easy tonight, come on over to the Gull. Merry, Andy, and I are jamming. It’s for a good cause.”

“What is the cause?” Birdie asked.

“Us,” Pete said. “Jake Risso is getting dotty—or maybe it’s because his son is the drummer—but no matter, he pays us nicely.”

They laughed. Jake had owned the Gull for longer than anyone could remember, and in spite of his gruffness, he was a generous soul.

“Seriously, though, we’ll be passing a hat for that Big Brother sailing thing that Ben and Sam are doing next spring. You’ll feel like losers if you don’t come.”

“Of course we’ll come.” Somewhere along the way, Ben had mentioned it, and then they had both promptly forgotten about it. But they’d show up, even though a noisy bar might not be the way to end the week they had had.

“Hey, hairy Harry stopped by the dock, wondering if you’d moved,” he said to Cass. “Seems you’re elusive.”

“And you said . . .”

“That you’d be around. He said you had plans together tonight, but I told him you were coming to the Gull.”

Willow pulled him out of the window. “Sorry, Cass. I don’t know when your baby brother decided he’d make a good social secretary, but Harry was okay with it. He’d come, too, he said, and could you pick him up? His Bimmer is being checked.”

Cass shook her head as if dismissing her brother from her life forever. She slid out of the backseat. “It’s so nice to have guardians,” she mumbled in fake annoyance, and then she waved good-bye to Nell and Birdie.

*   *   *

Nell drove up Harbor Road toward Birdie’s neighborhood, maneuvering the twists and turns in the forested road as she wondered about Cass. She was so difficult to read sometimes. She had bantered with Danny, and seemed happy about seeing Harry. She seemed oddly content for reasons neither of them could fathom. But Cass was Cass. And they loved her.

Content would suffice for now. It was the only choice they had.

“Before you drop me off, let’s check to see if Mary is at the B and B,” Birdie said. “Perhaps Bob is back by now and we can relieve Danny’s mind. He seemed genuinely worried.”

Nell agreed and drove up the long driveway. She pulled into the small parking lot beside the sprawling bed-and-breakfast.

Mary’s car was there, along with several others with out-of-state licenses. And at the far end, Bob Chadwick’s Subaru sat in the shade of a gnarled old elm tree.

They parked and started walking across the lot when a back door slammed and Mary came out of the inn, meeting them on the back porch.

“No, he’s not back,” she said, before anyone could ask. “Are we to be worried about this?”

The diminutive inn owner wore jeans and a plaid shirt, looking as though she’d been cleaning. “Ben has called, then Father Larry,
then Danny, and now here you two are. This means ‘worry’ in my mind. She tapped her head, her short hair flying. She motioned for them to follow her through the back door.

“It’s simply odd, don’t you think?” Birdie said to her back.

Mary didn’t answer. They walked into the large kitchen that anchored a portion of the back half of the bed-and-breakfast. Mary kept coffee, muffins, tea, and whatever else had sounded good to her that day at the guests’ disposal. She poured three cups of coffee and pulled stools up to the long stainless steel counter that ran through the middle of the room.

“Bob got in yesterday, and he wasn’t his usual, friendly self. Nice, gracious, but he clearly had something on his mind. I asked if he was okay and he said he hadn’t slept well, so at first I left well enough alone. I try not to intrude on my guests’ personal business—or otherwise—but Bob is slowly becoming more than a guest. Maybe because of the reason bringing him here. It is difficult for him; I can tell.”

Nell poured a stream of half-and-half into her coffee and stirred it slowly. “We all desperately need closure. And Bob needs it in an even more personal way.”

Mary agreed. “I could tell he wasn’t quite himself the minute he walked through the door. He put his things up in his room and came back down for something to drink, so I made him some chamomile tea and sat down with him. We talked about Blythe—he hadn’t expressed much emotion before, but yesterday I could tell that he did care about her in his own way—sometimes blood does that. It’s like that with me and Teresa. She’s goofy sometimes, but she’s family. Anyway, maybe planning the funeral triggered Bob’s emotions. I think he understood Blythe, and knew that the life—the family—she was born into didn’t give her much of a start in life.”

“Danny said something similar,” Nell said. “Bob appeared a little cavalier when we first met him, but once he realized our intent wasn’t to shed a bad light on Blythe but only to find out who did this horrible thing, he warmed up a little.”

Mary agreed. “He mentioned Danny—he’s meeting him for dinner tonight, I think. Danny got him thinking about Blythe’s murder in a different way, he said. A more personal way. To look at ordinary things that might not have been ordinary beneath the surface. Appointments, meetings. Anything. Bob said it was good advice. He was up all night thinking about it and things were coming together. The dots were starting to connect.”

“That’s curious,” Nell said. “Do you have any idea what he meant?”

“No.” Mary sat thoughtfully, her feet barely touching the rungs on the stool. She held the string of her tea bag with her fingertips, dipping it in and out of the cup. “Blythe wasn’t
evil
, he told me. And even if it was painful and unfair to someone else, she did what she had to do for herself.”

“I wonder what it was he was referring to,” Nell said, echoing what each of them was thinking. He didn’t seem to be talking about relationships ending or an attempt to have a headmistress or teacher fired. They were pieces that didn’t fit smoothly into the puzzle, their edges too big or too small. She’d done something for herself, something that was painful—maybe unbearable?—to someone else.

Mary thought about the conversation more carefully. “Bob agreed that she treated people carelessly sometimes—much the way she’d been treated growing up. People didn’t like her because of that. But he also indicated she’d done something recently, something that would have been hard for someone to forgive. He seemed to fumble with the words, as if his own thoughts weren’t clear about it.”

“Someone who lives here in Sea Harbor?”

“I think so. And then he got up and said he needed to settle it. He shouldn’t be sitting around. He was resolute, determined. Not just a man going out for a sandwich. I reminded him to take his key—”

Birdie and Nell smiled. Mary’s thick gold rings with the name of her bed-and-breakfast on them, along with the room number,
were not always welcomed by her guests. They were heavy and bulky—and created lumps in men’s back pockets. But hard to lose, was Mary’s rationale.

“I heard him leave a little while later,” Mary said.

“So he was meeting someone?”

“Yes, he was going to meet with someone. And though I nudged, he didn’t mention who.”

She reached for a beat-up brown folder, tied with a cloth string, and pushed it across the shiny surface to Nell. “This was in his room. Danny and Ben’s names are scribbled on it. Along with a couple of meeting times.”

“He was having dinner with Danny tonight. And meeting with Ben tomorrow,” Nell said. And both men had encouraged him to bring some of Blythe’s personal papers with him.

“I thought there might be something in it to tell me where he went yesterday and when he was coming back. The inn is getting booked up with leaf peepers and he forgot to tell me how long he was staying this time. But it wasn’t helpful. It’s mostly a packet of bills, financial mishmash, papers.”

Nell held back her surprise that Mary had gone through the papers—but then, maybe she’d have done the same thing if a guest in an inn she owned had disappeared and she had no idea if and when he was coming back—and if he was going to pay his bill. She picked up the envelope. “It’s some papers needed to finish up the will business. Bills, mortgages, that sort of thing. I’ll take it to them.”

Mary looked at the packet. “Good. But I think it’s more than bills. Maybe you can make some sense out of it.”

*   *   *

The crowd at the Gull was large, noisy, and sent even Pete’s most devoted fans to the roof of the popular bar. Because of an unexpected north wind, it was chilly and they had the wide space with the view of the harbor to themselves, for a while, anyway.

Ben and Nell settled in next to Birdie at the round rooftop table
next to a large heater. Izzy and Sam sat across from them. They had invited Elizabeth, but she was staying close to home. Nell wondered if perhaps Jerry was checking in after hours, ignoring the boundaries Elizabeth had set.

She hoped so.

“Cass and Harry are downstairs,” Izzy said. “They’re listening to the band up close for a while.”

“Making sure Pete knows they’re there,” Ben said.

“Probably. But Harry hadn’t heard the band before, and he wanted to get the full effect,” Sam said.

“And you don’t have to talk down there. It’s so dang noisy,” Izzy added. “Harry isn’t much of a talker. And Cass seemed to have something on her mind.”

Harry wasn’t much of a talker, that was true, but he had shared personal feelings with Nell, and she was nearly a stranger. She knew people often did that, shared things with strangers. Had he shared the same thoughts with Cass? Nell imagined her response, probably pulling away at the intimate conversation. Or would she have? None of them were sure of how she felt about the relationship. She’d been to his house, Nell knew. Even helped him fix some walls. But were they to the “do you want children?” stage?

Deep down, she hoped not, but it was Cass’s business, Cass’s heart. Not hers.

“He may not talk much,” Ben said. “But he sails.”

“Which covers a multitude of sins, I guess?” Izzy asked.

“Yep,” said Sam.

They tried to keep up the banter, to act as if life were normal, but in an hour it had grown old.

And beneath the words ran a silent river of thought of Bob Chadwick.

He hadn’t checked in with anyone. He seemed to have disappeared, leaving his car, his room, and a concerned innkeeper behind. Ben had called the chief but tried to act as though it was a personal inquiry—not a police matter.

But Jerry sensed his concern—and shared it. Bob was the only one with direct family connections to Blythe, and hopes still hinged on what he could tell them about his cousin. They weren’t finished talking with him. He understood why Ben didn’t want to exaggerate the man’s absence—there had been enough exaggeration and innuendo in Sea Harbor in the last few days to last several years.

They agreed it wasn’t unusual for a man to go AWOL for a couple of days, especially considering what was on Bob’s plate.

If only the Subaru had left with him, it would be so much easier to believe their own reasoning.

The conversation ended with a promise to keep in touch, and Jerry’s promise to do a little poking around on his own.

Danny had begged off the Gull gathering. He was still hopeful he’d get a call that Bob was just running late for dinner. They were going to meet at the yacht club. He was going to hang out there for a while and see if Bob showed up.

From the large speakers in each corner of the rooftop, the Fractured Fish—Pete, Merry, and Andy—entertained the crowd, encouraging sing-alongs with an array of tunes that hit every age group in the entire town. The hat was passed around several times, upstairs and down, and was full with each go-round. The Big Brothers sailing club would thrive.

Cass and Harry had come up to the roof, but sat at the end of the table, separated from the others by Harry’s quiet manner.

Nell moved down on the bench until she was just across from Cass. But it was to Harry she spoke. “How is the cottage coming?”

Harry rubbed his mustache with one finger. “It’s getting there,” he said. “I’m heading back to Boston soon.” He looked at Cass. “But I’ll be back often, you can bet on that,” he said.

“Well, good. I’m sorry you weren’t here at a better time, Harry. Fall is usually one of our favorite seasons. Filled with color and a sense of peace. This week hasn’t been like that at all. It’s been rough.”

He nodded. “Rough. Yes.” He glanced at Cass. She was actively
attacking a Gull double burger—and winning. He looked back at Nell.

Nell held his gaze and in the silence she saw something she hadn’t noticed in the time Harry Winthrop had been in Sea Harbor, sharing their days. The man who had moved into Cass’s life and seemed to be staying there.

What she saw surprised her.

She saw a profound sadness.