The Wedding Shawl (35 page)

As good as new
, to be worn again, the night she died.

They walked slowly across the deck to the house, Nell cradling Izzy’s shawl in her arms. They hadn’t worked on it today as planned, but that was fine. They had the shawl. Finishing could wait.

Besides, they had other things that needed finishing first.

“Birdie, the thistles and berries that Claire found on the shawl that night?”

Birdie nodded.

“The old Markham Quarry was full of them when Andy took me out there. I wonder if that’s where she was that night.”

“And with someone other than Andy Risso.”

Nell nodded.

“So you think the Markham property might have been a meeting place for Harmony and someone? That she’d been there before …”

“It was one place the teenage crowd never went, Andy told me. A perfect place to meet if she didn’t want anyone to see her.”

“Or him.”

“Or him. And somehow, if it was a classmate she was meeting, I wouldn’t think he’d pick a place that might result in a charge of trespassing.”

Perhaps it was just like in the song. Had they been looking in all the wrong places?

And suddenly, the right places seemed ominously close.

Chapter 31

B
ut the right places didn’t appear magically with a twitch of the nose. They were the small dots that needed a magnifying glass, a steady hand to hold it, and keen minds to connect them.

But the magnifying glass and minds would have to wait a little bit longer.

Tonight was a festive gathering at the Seaside Knitting Studio—and it didn’t matter that the puzzle pieces rattling around in the four knitters’ minds had reached painful proportions. The show must go on, as Birdie wisely reminded each of them.

It was Izzy’s customers who planned it, and the same customers who talked Mae into reserving the back room. Harriet Brandley and Margaret Garozzo were leading the pack.

And, as Mae told Izzy, “It isn’t a wise business decision to alienate customers. Hush up and let them be.”

“But Mae,” Izzy had pleaded, “enough with the presents already. I’d rather everyone buy yarn to make something they’ll enjoy, instead of using their hard-earned money on presents for Sam and me.”

“I’ll see what we can do about that,” Mae said. And then she announced to Harriet Brandley that she had the go-ahead on the gathering. “A bridal shower at the yarn studio would be just fine. Izzy would be thrilled.”

In the end, they had all agreed that in lieu of gifts, each guest would knit a square for KasCare, to use in making blankets for children with the AIDS virus, or they’d make hats for Father Northcutt’s shelter. The gathering would be to celebrate the upcoming nuptials with food and drink and friendship. And nice, soft wooly hats and squares for charities Izzy loved. A cocktail party at the knitting studio.

“A lovely combination,” Nell had said when the e-mail invitation arrived several weeks before.

The night air was cool and crisp, a good thing, Birdie said. At least they’d be able to open the windows. She had suggested they have the party at her home to accommodate the number of people who might want to come, but Harriet had demurred. “This is home to so many of the ladies. They’ll be comfortable at Izzy’s.”

Nell showed up early that evening. The bookstore owner’s wife had insisted Nell not do a thing, but she came early anyway. Birdie and Cass were close behind her.

But Harriet had been true to her word. She’d sent Izzy home to change, and with Mae’s help, she and Margaret Garozzo had turned the back room into a festive scene, with music playing and a large punch bowl holding something Harriet labeled “wicked.” Soft drinks and tea were nearby, and miniature gourmet pizzas that the Garozzos had provided filled several trays. A hand-knit bride and groom atop a carrot cake decorated the table in the middle of Margaret’s amazing arrangements of yellow roses.

The group was a punctual one, used to coming in for classes that wouldn’t wait for latecomers, and by seven, the room was buzzing with voices, music, and people anxious for the sound of laughter.

“It’s been too serious around town,” a neighbor of Nell’s and an avid knitter said. “We needed a party. And Izzy is the perfect person to celebrate.”

When Izzy walked into the room, everyone clapped and broke out in a semblance of “Get Me to the Church on Time.” She laughed along with them, clapping her hands to the beat.

Knitting was pulled out, and the stack of eight-by-eight-inch squares quickly grew into a mountain. Small hats appeared, soft and warm, just as Harriet had ordered. Purl was in the middle of it all—a cat in paradise, surrounded by colorful stray strands of yarn that she scampered after with abandon.

“I snuck in,” Merry Jackson said. “My knitting is worth squat and I spend little money here, so I’m not much of a customer. But I try, I’m getting better, and mostly I just wanted to come.”

Nell hugged her. “That counts. Trying is good.” She stood back and looked at Merry again. “Are you all right?”

Merry shrugged off Nell’s concern. “I’m fine. Fit as a fiddle, as Birdie says. Working too hard, I guess.”

“I’ll have to talk to Hank about that.”

“Believe me, I have. I told him possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but not of a marriage.” Her face grew serious. “Actually, it’s Hank who works too hard. But he loves me to be with him. Not working, necessarily. Just with him.”

“He loves you.”

She shrugged. “How silly can you be to complain about someone hugging you too much? What’s wrong with me?” Her smile returned, and she dropped her keys and purse on the table. “Let’s party,” she said, and did a little dance, her fingers snapping in the air and her body twisting its way over to Izzy.

Laura Danvers slipped in late, in the middle of Harriet’s welcoming speech.

“You forgot the photos for Claire,” Laura whispered, coming up behind Nell and slipping the envelope into her hand. Nell mouthed a thank-you and pointed to her forgetful head. Then she looked at Laura again, remembering something else in her purse. With a crook of her finger, she asked Laura to follow her back up the step into the shadows of the archway.

“What’s up, Nell?” Laura whispered.

Nell pulled the velvet bag from her purse. “You know everyone and everything in this town, and if you don’t, your parents do. Do you have any idea what the lines on this medallion mean? A civic group or club maybe? A boys’ club?” She slipped it from the bag and held the chain in her fingers, the gold rectangle dangling from it. “It’s some lines with a crooked fence at the bottom,” she said.

“Strange.” Laura looked closer, then lifted the charm into the palm of her hand. She turned it this way and that, and finally her confusion faded away. “Of course. It was sideways; that’s why you couldn’t read it. It’s not a civic club. It belongs to a Pike.” She grinned. “Crazy Pikes. Looks like it was taken from a keychain and made into a necklace.” She gave it back to Nell and started back to the party.

“Pikes? As in Pikes Peak?”

Laura covered a chuckle with her hand. “No. The fraternity. Pi Kappa Alpha. Those are the Greek letters. See?” She held it sideways and pointed to each one.

Merry stood in the archway and strained to look at the necklace in Nell’s hand. Nell handed it to her and she laughed. “Yep, crazy Pikes,” she agreed, handing it back. “Was Ben a Pike?”

“No. We found it with Tiffany’s things. It belonged to her friend Harmony.”

Beatrice Scaglia was talking as they turned their attention back to the party. “This shop is a special little community, all its own,” she was saying. “It’s our own little therapy haven. Trouble with cranky husbands? Unruly kids? Neighbors who don’t cut their grass? Come to Izzy’s, pull out your knitting, and your troubles will evaporate in a heartbeat.”

“Give me a lifetime membership,” Merry Jackson joked, and they all cheered.

The music was turned up and people did as Beatrice ordered, pulling out balls of wool and needles. In minutes the room was filled with needles clicking and the happy chatter of friends and neighbors whipping up soft wool hats and squares, happy to have an excuse to celebrate.

Nell found her purse and slipped the envelope of photos into the back pocket. She looked down at the velvet bag in her hand.
A fraternity. Could Harmony Farrow have been dating a college guy?

She leaned against the wall between Cass and Birdie, not hearing a word of the tributes to Izzy spinning around the room.

“Your shop is like a womb,” Cass was saying to Izzy. They were looking around the room at the crowd of people who had made the Seaside Knitting Studio a part of their lives. “People feel safe and secure here.”

“Sometimes too safe. Mae says she could blackmail half the town because of the things she hears in here. She’s threatening to write a book.”

Birdie laughed. She’d finished her squares and put away her needles for the night. “A knitting exposé. I’d buy it.”

The evening moved along quickly, and not until Izzy herself turned the music down a notch did the group consider winding down.

The punch bowl had been drained, leaving nothing but small threads of lime peel on the bottom, the pizza platters were reduced to scraps of spinach and tiny pieces of crust, and Harriet was plugging in the coffeepot.

“A very nice party,” Esther Gibson said, gathering up her things.

“I’m glad you could come, Esther. You work too much,” Izzy said.

“Nonsense, Izzy. I’m cutting back, but someone has to keep those boys in blue in check.”

“Are things busy at the station?” Birdie asked.

“Birdie Favazza, I know you like the back of my hand. What you’re asking is, ‘What’s going on with the Ciccolo investigation?’ ”

Birdie smiled.

“It’s slow moving—they’re turning over every stone. But I’m dreadfully afraid it will be shelved. As much as I want that to happen, to just let it all go away, we can’t let that happen again.” She looked around at all of them. “We simply can’t.”

The resolve was unspoken, but it was in each of their eyes. An answer to Esther. No, they couldn’t let it happen again. Cold cases warmed over were sometimes the worst kinds of all.

Esther was the first to leave the party, but others followed, and soon Izzy, Birdie, Nell, and Cass stood alone in an empty back room, swept clean and free of crumbs and punch bowls and paper plates.

The party had been a success.

“And now,” Birdie said, “we need to unwind.”

They sat around the fireplace, weary, needing to talk, but finding comfort in the silence.

“So who?” Cass said finally.

“Who?”

“Who was Harmony hooked up with? Who got her pregnant? It’s looming over us like a hot-air balloon, and yet we can’t see it.”

“It wasn’t Andy. If you had seen his eyes the other night, you’d be as sure of that as I am,” Nell said.

“And Tiffany’s role? It doesn’t sound like she knew about the other guy, but she had something that could have opened the case up all over again.”

“The lab report, for starters. Harmony had requested it from the lab, which means she anticipated someone might want proof of the pregnancy.”

“That’s right,” Izzy said, jumping into the conversation. “And if a guy demanded proof, he probably didn’t want to become a father.”

They nodded. Certainly a motive.

“It’s also possible that going out to the quarry wasn’t a onetime thing.” Nell told them about Claire finding Harmony’s shawl full of thistles and berries, and the possibility that she was more familiar with the Markham Quarry than anyone had thought.

“She’d tell her mother she was going to Andy’s—but wouldn’t show up,” Cass mused. “She went somewhere. And it seems likely it was to meet a guy.”

“Her beautiful shawl, covered with thistles,” Izzy murmured, the image vivid in her mind.

“But why there?” Cass asked. “No one ever went out there. The lady who owned it was crazy; at least those were the rumors when we were in high school. She’d come up from her Boston mansion sometimes to stay in a little house out on the property. A story went around that some guys snuck into the quarry one night to skinny-dip, and she took a pellet gun after them. Actually hit one of the guys in the butt. It was off-limits after that.”

Birdie laughed. “I heard those rumors, too. Penelope Markham was her name. She was a character. No one really knew her—she was a recluse when she was up here—but there were certainly stories that spun around her.”

“So there was a house out there on the land?” Nell asked.

“A small cabin, as I remember,” Birdie said. “No one lived in it, except when she came up. The lady could have built something lovely, but for some reason, she never did.”

“Have you ever seen it? Was it near the quarry?”

“Could it have been a love nest?” Izzy said, jumping on Nell’s thought. “No one ever saw this couple together, at least as far as we know. What better place to meet than a cabin hidden in the woods?”

Birdie was silent, thinking back. “I wish I were better at dates. I remember that the cabin burned down one summer. But I can’t remember when that was or when the woman died—or when she stopped coming up here.” Birdie pulled her brows together, thinking. “I’ll check into that. I agree with Cass that if they were meeting out there, it seems like an odd choice. Penelope Markham wouldn’t hesitate to press charges against trespassers.”