A Finely Knit Murder (9 page)

“One of you needs to remain standing and accept your own round of much-deserved applause,” Laura said graciously, peering out into the crowd.

Nell looked at Birdie. “That’s generous of her.”

Birdie nodded. “Our Laura knows people. And she knows how much Blythe covets attention. It will put her in good stead.”

How true. And how wise of Laura. Surely Elliott kept her attuned to some of the more dramatic meetings of the board. This might be one good way to calm Blythe down.

“Blythe Westerland, please come up and take a well-deserved bow.” Laura looked out over the sea of heads toward the mayor’s table, where Blythe had been sitting. Mayor Beatrice Scaglia shrugged and nodded toward an empty seat.

“Blythe hasn’t been off her feet all night,” someone murmured from a table near Laura. “She’s everywhere.”

Laura picked up on the remark. “That’s true—Blythe hasn’t stopped for a minute. She’s probably helping with the dishes.” The image brought a wave of laughter, waving off the awkward moment. “Be sure you seek her out before you leave tonight and let her know what a superb hostess she’s been. Now let’s get on with a
wonderful wind-down to the evening. Please enjoy the rest of your pie, help yourself to the coffee bar, and drive home safely.”

Within an hour the crowd had thinned to just a few dozen folks, some helping Laura collect stray programs and others simply reluctant to call it an evening while the wine was still flowing. Ben noticed the tired lines on Birdie’s face and the slowness of her step. “It‘s time to go,” he said.

Birdie gratefully agreed and gave a farewell wave to Angelo, who was bending over to pick up stray napkins, the pants of his neat dark suit straining against his girth. “You never rest, do you, Angelo?” she called out as he straightened up and called back, “Keeps me outta trouble, Birdie. You know that.”

He laughed, waved, and then began barking orders to the crew to take down the tables, clean the lawns, make sure stray sweaters and glasses and scarves were collected with care, and snuff out every single hurricane lamp, all the way down to the water, so the place wouldn’t burn down.

The parking lot was a jumble of good-byes, hugs, and brief conversations about the evening.

A
perfect
party, Harriet Brandley said.

Esther Gibson agreed as she ushered her husband over to their truck, waving good-bye to Ben and Nell. “Not a single emergency call,” the alert dispatcher called out to Ben. “The guys spent the evening playing chess at the station. Now, how perfect a night is that?”

Ben and Nell laughed, knowing that, of course, Esther would have called in not once, but many times during the evening. Whether she was on duty or not, the dispatcher’s thoughts were with the Sea Harbor men in blue and keeping the town safe, even though if there
had
been a disruption, it most likely would have been something as severe as a fight in Jake Risso’s Gull Tavern over a baseball score, or a rowdy party down on one of boats. Or maybe a firework or two being set off in a quiet neighborhood.

Disruptions were mild in Sea Harbor. Almost always.

Ben dropped Birdie at her home and he and Nell drove through the quiet night to their house, their bodies weary, but with the contented slowness that an enjoyable evening brought about. Along Harbor Road, shops were closed and lamplights lit the way for late-night diners and revelers meandering out of Jake Risso’s bar or the Ocean’s Edge restaurant.

Ben had almost reached the corner of Sandswept Lane when the sudden sound of sirens pierced the stillness. Startled, Nell pressed forward against the seat restraint as Ben pulled the car over to the side of the road.

They looked around, unsure of where the alarms were coming from or in which direction the ambulance would be speeding.

Suddenly the night was filled with what seemed like hundreds of sirens—although there weren’t that many police cars on all of Cape Ann.

In the distance, spinning lights lit up the dark sky.

And in that single instant, a perfect evening was shattered.

T
he ringing of the doorbell at two a.m. would have paralyzed Nell on a normal night, jarring her out of a deep sleep and causing her heart to skip a beat.

But neither she nor Ben had slept much. They’d stood on the back deck, watching the sky light up as police cars and emergency vehicles headed north along the shore road.

And then they had gone back inside and up the back stairs to get ready for bed because at that late hour there was no one to call for information, no one to assure them that everything was fine. No one to say that it was a minor car accident, but no one was hurt. A slow night for the police, so they sent out the whole crew. It was just a bad scare. Everyone—everywhere—was fine.

Sleep came reluctantly, and when it did, it was a slight, light sleep, dipping just beneath that thin layer that separates sleep from wakefulness.

Ben was out of bed in an instant at the first ring.

Pulling on sweatpants, he took the back stairs two at a time. Nell was seconds behind him, grabbing the sash of her robe where it hung loose, flapping against her leg.

Stars still lingered in the black sky, but not enough to distinguish the figure on the front step. Ben clicked on the porch light and opened the door.

Chief Jerry Thompson stood in front of him, disheveled, the
light catching his badge. Behind him, nearly hidden by his frame, was Elizabeth Hartley.

“Ben, Nell,” the chief began, his deep voice catching in his throat. He took a deep breath, moving slightly, and it was then that Nell saw Elizabeth’s face. It was pasty white, and filled with something unreadable. Something beyond fear.

Without a word, Ben pushed the door open wider, stepped aside, and ushered them in. Nell led the way to the kitchen, where she automatically filled glasses with water and pulled out the island stools.

“An accident . . . ,” Nell began, the question not really forming. But at least her friends standing on the doorstep were both safe. Able to walk away from whatever it was that had happened. Except for Elizabeth’s shock—that was the expression, she recognized it now,
shock
—they were unhurt.

Elizabeth still wore the dress she had had on for the party—a dark silky dress, a splash of turquoise at the neck. She had looked so pretty at the party. But that prettiness had been replaced by the circles beneath her eyes and the pasty look on her face.

She looked over at the chief. He, too, still wore the suit he’d gone to the party in. But instead of a handkerchief in the front pocket, it was covered over with a Sea Harbor police badge.

“You’re on duty, Jerry,” Ben said.

He nodded. “I have to go back to the school, but I didn’t want to leave Elizabeth at her dark house. It just seemed . . . well, since she lives just down the street—”

“Of course,” Nell said quickly, not knowing why they were there, but it suddenly didn’t matter. Elizabeth looked as though she needed comfort—and she and Ben could certainly supply that.

Ben took a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and poured Elizabeth a shot. She looked fragile, as if she needed something to bolster her up or she might crumble.

“The boathouse,” Elizabeth managed to say. She took a sip of the whiskey and swallowed it with a grimace as if it were medicine. “I knew we should have taken it down. It was such a wreck, but
teachers had ideas for it . . .” Her voice drifted off. It was a faraway voice, as if she were alone in the room and her thoughts had unintentionally taken the shape of words.

Jerry reached out and covered her hand. “Shh,” he said gently, then explained to Ben and Nell how the boathouse played a role in the middle-of-the-night visit. “The cleanup guys went down to extinguish the gaslights lighting the paths to the water. They were clear around the boathouse—people had wanted to see the old place, so the path around it had been lit, too, to keep folks from falling on the gravelly path and boulders. It’s a rocky shore in that spot.” He paused and took a drink of whiskey, and then went on.

“One of the hurricane lamps on the far side of the boathouse had been knocked down and the glass was smashed against the rocks. When they went to pick it up, they spotted a chasm between two boulders, less than two feet wide. The first thought was an animal, maybe a young sea lion, had been tossed against the boulders by the waves and was wedged into the space, buried there. But then the light from the moon hit the shadowy form and it sparkled, almost as if it were alive. When they got closer they saw immediately it was a body.”

“A body?” Nell said. She pulled out a stool and sat down, feeling suddenly weak. Had a swimmer been swept in by the tide? Someone none of them knew, caught in some dangerous undertow and pushed between the boulders while they partied up on the hill, oblivious of nature’s treacherous tricks.

Elizabeth had been staring down at Nell’s kitchen island as if gathering strength from the butcher-block top. When she looked up and spoke, her voice was steady. And very sad.

“It was Blythe Westerland, Nell. She’s dead.”

*   *   *

Jerry left soon after. He had to get back to the scene where his second-in-command, Tommy Porter, was winding things up. Ben walked him to the door.

“Most of the guests were gone when they found her,” Jerry said. He and Angelo were helping Elizabeth straighten up some things, making sure the cleanup crew had finished with their tasks.

“The scene?” he said. “You called it the scene—”

“I didn’t say
crime
scene. But we have to treat it that way. Right now all we know is that Blythe is dead. She had a nasty blow to her head. Either she somehow got in the water, lost her footing, and the waves smashed her into the boulder—or something else caused the blow that killed her. That’s what needs to be figured out.”

Ben stood on the step and watched his friend walk away.

The chief reached his car, then turned back toward Ben, one hand resting on the car handle. His voice was weary.

“But face it, Ben,” he said. “It was a hell of a time for Blythe to go swimming.”

A
s was the way of small towns, the news spread like floodwaters, rolling down the hills and valleys of the sleepy seaside town, waking up its residents to a brilliant fall day that would quickly lose its color.

“Gabby is still at the Danverses’. Laura called me before I had had coffee,” Birdie said, talking without pause as she walked through the family room and into Nell and Ben’s kitchen. She dropped her bag on the floor near the island. “Ben, coffee, please.”

It was clear from her face why Birdie was there.

Nell quickly filled her in on the little they knew.

“Elizabeth stayed here with Ben and me for a very short while, but she thought she’d have a better chance of sleeping in her own bed, so Ben walked her home.”

She and Ben had gone back to bed after that, the windows open and curtains fluttering in the breeze as slowly the sky turned into day. They lay together, finding comfort in the touch of each other’s body, and talked quietly, hearts heavy, as they remembered the party minute by minute.
When they had seen Blythe
. And then
when they hadn’t
.

It was a conversation that would circulate around breakfast tables all over Sea Harbor that Saturday morning.

Birdie’s thoughts were on the same page, repeating it aloud. “Blythe wasn’t around when Laura went to introduce her,” she said, pouring a hefty stream of cream into her coffee.

“Was Laura still at the school when they found . . .” Nell stopped.
Found the body
was too difficult to say. Too impersonal when talking about someone who was flesh and blood and beautiful, greeting guests, not twenty-four hours before.

“No. She had already left. Almost everyone had.” Birdie paused, then went on talking as if words would somehow make sense of it all.

“She called first thing this morning because of Gabby, thinking I’d be worried about her, but of course I didn’t know what she was talking about. Why would I be worried? I asked her, suddenly afraid something had happened to the girls.” Birdie stirred her coffee, the awfulness slowly settling in.

“And then she told me. But first she assured me that the girls were making pancakes and didn’t know anything about what had happened—there would be time for that. She hadn’t known, either, she said, until Elliott came back from his early-morning run along the water. He’d gone the long way around the shore because the weather was so perfect, and then came home past the school. That’s where yellow tape and flashing cameras made him stop. Tommy Porter was pulling out of the parking lot at the same time and told Elliott what had already been released to the press.”

A death. A terrible tragedy. Blythe Westerland.

Nell took a bowl of yogurt and blueberries from the refrigerator. “Blythe seemed happy last night. Playful, almost.”

“I’m not sure that’s what Angelo thought when he looked at her.”

Birdie looked over at Ben. “You’re unusually quiet, Ben.”

He was leaning against the counter, a pensive look on his face as he thumbed through messages on his phone. “Just checking with the outside world. Sam and I had a sailing date with Jerry this morning.”

“He couldn’t have gotten any sleep last night. I doubt if sailing is on his mind.”

“Probably not,” Ben murmured, his mind elsewhere as the messages passed quickly across the screen.

Nell absently scooped the yogurt into three bowls and sprinkled
each with granola, her mind trying to put the evening into focus. When had Blythe gone down to the water? And why? Had they seen her before they left the party? She was difficult to miss in that beautiful, glittering sheath. But already, in this short a time, the order of events, the conversations, the waves and hugs, had all started to merge together. She handed Birdie and Ben each a bowl. “Eat,” she said.

Nell ignored the frown on Birdie’s face—yogurt wasn’t her first choice for breakfast. She’d much prefer the buttery blueberry kolaches her housekeeper had probably made that morning. “It’s good for you,” she added.

“Of course it is,” Birdie said.

Ben was checking his watch, a spoonful of yogurt already on its way to his mouth. “Jerry left a message. He didn’t say much except to remind us to check in on Elizabeth. He was going to try to get over there later.”

“Of course. Birdie and I will walk up.”

“Poor Elizabeth,” Birdie said. “This will be so difficult for her. It’s as if it happened at her ‘house,’ at her party.”

Ben rinsed his bowl in the sink and headed toward his den. “Sam is picking me up. We have to file some registration papers for the boat and may drop in to check on Jerry, see if we can help.”

“How?” Nell asked. “How could you help?”

Ben shrugged. “Tackle an irritating reporter maybe? Sam’d be good at that.” He half smiled and when the horn honked in the driveway, gave Nell a hug that was tighter and lasted longer than the usual “see you later, dear” embrace. In the next second he was gone.

No sooner had the door swung shut than it opened again.

Izzy came in carrying Abby. Like Birdie’s, her voice announced her presence as she walked through the house and into the kitchen.

“Blythe Westerland wasn’t swimming,” she said. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Not with that four-thousand-dollar Julien Macdonald dress on.”

“Did you stop at the coffee shop?” Nell asked. As wonderful as
the coffee was—and the shaded patio—Coffee’s was a hotbed for rumors, sometimes spun by night workers, those grabbing early cups of coffee, practically before the sun was up, as they dragged themselves home after the night shift on the newspaper or hospital or some security job. People with access to overnight news.

“Sam did. He went out for doughnuts and coffee and came back with the awful news, sprinkled with some of the guesses being tossed around. It doesn’t take long—” She handed a giggling Abby to Nell and set a bag of bagels on the counter. Smothered in thick cream cheese, it was fast becoming Abby’s favorite snack.

“I agree. The swimming story is hogwash. It was just something to say. Blythe was taking her hostess responsibilities very seriously. I think she spoke to every single person at that party. Taking a dip in the ocean would not have been on her mind. That rumor will be pulled apart like strands of seaweed in no time. Even if she had enjoyed an ample share of champagne—which, from what I saw, was probably the case—she wouldn’t have embarrassed herself like that.”

“So, if it wasn’t the waves or the tide that threw her against those rocks, then what was it?” Izzy sat Abby on the floor along with a collection of Nell’s Tupperware containers.

Nell and Birdie were silent, letting Abby’s joyful squeals fill the air and block out the unease that floated around the room.

An easy explanation was that she slipped on the rocks. The boulders were perfect for climbing, for sitting on top and looking all the way to Boston. And they were slippery when wet. An unfortunate accident. That was what they wanted it to be. Tragic. Understandable. Nell herself had slipped on the back-shore boulders not long ago. She had lost some skin on her knee. But not her life.

How?

The answer came sooner than expected.

In the time it took for Nell to make another pot of coffee and to move Abby out to the deck to chew on a cream-cheese-covered bagel, Sam and Ben were back to pick up their sailing gear.

But their somber expressions as they walked out on the deck spoke less of sailing than of their recent visit to the county offices just off Harbor Road—and the adjacent police station.

“Blythe was killed by a blow to the head. But she didn’t fall on the boulders or slip. Someone crushed her head with a rock. The coroner said the blow probably killed her instantly,” Ben said.

Sam picked up Abby and kissed the top of her head. His baby daughter was his equalizer.

“And there are two hundred and fifty-seven suspects,” Ben said.

“There are . . . what?” Birdie frowned.

“The number of people on the property when Blythe Westerland was murdered.”