A crime of a different s.., p.16
A Crime of a Different Stripe, page 16
Cass fumbled with a dropped stitch on the baby bonnet she was knitting, one that was now almost big enough to fit one of her fishermen. She finally broke the silence, bringing their thoughts out into the open room. “There has to be an explanation for this, Iz. One we’re just not seeing. As grumpy as he is, Rico wouldn’t kill anyone. And why? He’d have no reason.”
“Cass is right,” Nell said. “It’s certainly not because a party in the murdered man’s honor was too loud.” She brought out the ridiculous because there was nothing else there, no motive for Rico violently pushing someone down deadly steps.
At least none they knew about.
“We like Rico,” Cass said. “But we don’t know much about him, except that he amassed a fortune and his wife left him. And he and the mayor don’t much like each other.”
“Rico hasn’t exactly been nice to people,” Izzy said. “There are probably others on his bad list.”
“True. If he was the victim, the police would have their hands full deciding who didn’t murder him,” Cass said.
That lightened the mood slightly.
“I think Cass is right—we need to find out more about Rico,” Birdie said. “About why he was upset that there was going to be a reception for a photographer close to his house. Disturbing his peace.”
“I was going to check on Frodo, anyway,” Izzy said. “Make sure the veterinarian was able to give him some antibiotics. Maybe I can talk to him again.”
“In the meantime, there’s probably no need to give the police a reason to disturb the man and take them away from finding the true murderer. They have their hands full. The flyer probably means nothing. Maybe Rico spilled ink on it, or the dog messed it up,” Birdie said. But even Birdie knew that markers didn’t spill ink and old inkwells were no longer household staples.
“It’s the motive part of all this that puts up a roadblock,” Nell said. “It’s difficult to find one when no one in town knew the man.”
“Except for Sam,” Izzy said sadly.
Birdie sat up straight, her perfectly knit rows spread across her lap as she examined the square. She was knitting a supersoft blanket in shades of yellow, blue, and green. Sixteen squares, and each one bearing a heart, a flower, a bear. A quilt in knit form to warm a special baby.
But she was thinking about Izzy, not her blanket. And of Sam, her dear friends the Brewsters. And old Rico. A dear man under that thick layer of grumpiness. And all of them living beneath the cloud of murder. And perhaps living down the street or across town from the person who committed it.
“All right, then,” she said in a tone they all recognized. Her get-down-to-business voice. “We often say, ‘As far as I know,’ when we’re talking about this murder. So clearly, we don’t know as much as we sometimes think we do. Not us. Not the town or the police. So we need to find out what we don’t know.” She took a sip of water and went on. “The person who is dead was a stranger to us. The murderer may not be. Considering that, ‘not knowing’ is a frightening thought.”
Birdie realized she was close to lecturing, so she quickly got up and fetched the pot of coffee that was perking on a side shelf. Izzy brought mugs and cream to the table. Lecture or not, they were all mulling over Birdie’s words.
Nell pulled out a soft ball of yarn. Long stretches of marled colors that blended into each other, self-striping in sea-glass colors and as soft as a baby’s skin. But it was for Cass, not the baby. A warm cashmere shawl to wrap around her as she nursed sweet baby Brandley in the middle of the night.
Comfort, she thought, then looked up as Birdie offered her a mug of coffee and warned her not to let a drop of it touch the beautiful shawl.
Nell looked up, her fingers and needles still moving, magically casting on a row. “So Rico’s name has to stay up there, a credible suspect, though we hate admitting that. He was yards away when Harrison was killed. We need to know if he knew him. We need to know more about a messed-up flyer. We need to know more about Rico.”
“And why he might have had bad feelings about him,” Izzy added.
They nodded.
“Rico has been such a recluse over these past years,” Birdie said. “One of my mah-jongg friends lives near him. I wonder if she remembers anything about his early days in Sea Harbor. I shall ask.” She closed her eyes for a second, as if writing herself a note inside her head. Then she opened them again and smiled. “Done.”
Nell looked at Cass. “And then there’s Deb, Eddie’s friend. You saw her with Harrison that night.”
“Up close. It was just the three of us talking for a few minutes. She liked him. And he didn’t object to how close she was standing or to the come-hither dress she was wearing. The pregnant lady—that would be me—was soon no longer a part of their conversation. They walked off together, went somewhere, deep in conversation.”
Deb. Nell began piecing some things together, thinking more clearly. She thought back to Eddie’s face, his puppy-dog adoration of the beautiful young caretaker. And Deb’s look when she met Harrison on Friday.
“Deb met Harrison hours before the reception,” Nell said out loud. She explained about Harrison’s arrival. “According to Eddie, Deb took his car that day, and she went off with Harrison. Showed him around town, apparently.”
“Dear Eddie,” Birdie said. “He has an oversized crush on the young lady.”
“I wonder if Eddie saw them go off during the reception,” Cass said. “He’s a good kid, but he sometimes seems younger than his years. He has had a hard time finding his place in life, I think.”
“He has some trouble controlling his temper, too.” Nell told them about the gnome that Eddie said he had tripped over and broken while parking cars. “He was embarrassed when I came out to see what had happened, and made up a story. It wasn’t an accidental trip. Shards of the poor gnome’s head were on the other side of the drive, and his shattered hat was in another direction. Eddie threw it. And Eddie is very strong.”
Strong enough to push a man down a flight of dangerous steps. Deadly steps.
And it had been at about the same time Jane was calling Harrison’s name inside, inviting him up to the microphone to greet their guests.
Their imagination saw Deb and Harrison walking off, Eddie standing in the dark, along a line of cars, watching them.
Eddie. Rico.
“What about Deb? She’s one strong lady,” Izzy said. “Physically, I mean, though maybe the other way, too. I’ve seen her running, and a couple of times at the Y. She spent time with him that day, and later, at the party. What if she thought she and Harrison might have a go at it, and he rejected her? I’m pulling at straws here, but people have killed for less.”
“It’s enough to put her on the suspect list,” Cass said.
There was something else about Deb that was niggling at Nell. And then she remembered. The odd visit to the Brewsters’ to return Harrison’s keys. The keys that should have been on Harrison’s body and instead were found . . . But she couldn’t remember where. She pushed the thought to the back of her head. She’d ask Jane.
“The thing is,” Izzy said to no one in particular, “we know these people whom we’re connecting to the murdered man. But we don’t know him, except maybe through newspaper clippings and the little Sam knows from being in his class.” She got up and refilled her coffee, then stood near Birdie’s chair. “Who is he? Who was Harrison Grant? How can we suspect people of killing him if we don’t know who he was?”
Her questions settled into each of them. They were good ones. How could they come up with motives for killing a man if they didn’t know what he was like? Honest and up front? A liar? Compassionate? Or did he use people? All four of them had thought Harrison Grant a nice, gracious man when they met him. Sam had a different take on it. But where was the truth?
Birdie was looking into the fire, the light reflecting off her lined face. Listening and thinking. Her thoughts going in different directions.
Nell sat back in her chair, wrapping her fingers around her coffee mug. She looked at Izzy. “That’s what’s missing, Izzy. You’re right. Birdie’s right. We need to walk in his shoes. The problem is he didn’t walk in Sea Harbor. At least not until Friday. That makes it more difficult.”
Izzy’s face brightened. “But he did, Aunt Nell.”
“Of course he did,” Birdie said, realizing where Izzy was going. “The affair that Liz Santos told us about. Harrison was in Sea Harbor before.”
Nell scolded herself for not remembering it sooner. Somehow, the thought of a long-ago affair was easier to consider, to think about. Above all, it removed suspicion from people they cared about.
“But motive,” Cass said. “Okay, Harrison had an affair with a married woman who lived around here. Then he moved on, leaving her behind. He comes back last week. She’s still here and decides she finally has a chance to get revenge.”
“Or the woman’s husband?” Izzy said. “Maybe he knew. Maybe . . .”
They had seen enough movies to fill in the last “maybe” easily.
“The bigger problem is we don’t know who the woman or her husband is,” Cass said.
“But at least we can try to walk around Sea Harbor with Harrison. Where he might have walked those years ago, and then on Friday, when he went off with Deb,” Birdie said. “Who knows where his fine Italian shoes will take us? Maybe we’ll find everything we’re looking for. Walks have always served us well.”
And in the process, perhaps their friends and neighbors, people they cared deeply about, could go back to leading their decent lives.
Izzy was nodding, feeling more confident. “I think we’ve all been in hiding. A couple days ago we couldn’t imagine anyone who would have wanted Harrison Grant dead. Now look.” Izzy’s hand swept the air, as if the names were all there, written across the empty space like something out of The Hunger Games. Rico. Deb. Eddie Porter. And now these unknown people, not yet with names. A jealous husband. A woman who had an affair . . .
And among suspects, there was one they latched on to most tightly, one they liked more than the others. Because it wasn’t a proper name at all. It belonged to no one they knew. A nameless woman who had an affair. A long time ago. A motive, too. It was perfect.
Feeling some sort of direction, they allowed the knitting to take over, let thoughts of murder suspects settle, along with Nell’s mushroom casserole and the wine. Talk turned to the baby shower that was taking a hold of Sea Harbor knitters. A welcome diversion. Life instead of death.
“Mae told me that even people who aren’t coming to the shower are bringing in hats and sweaters and baby blankets for the hospital, the shelters,” Birdie said. “It’s good timing, according to Mae. Right before cold weather hits.”
“Oh, Cass, I almost forgot,” Izzy said, watching her friend put aside her oversized bonnet. “Those needles I ordered for you are up on Mae’s counter.”
Birdie and Nell glanced over at the growing bonnet. New needles were sometimes an incentive to start over. Or so they hoped.
Cass abandoned her knitting, suspecting her baby hat was doomed. She went up the steps to the semi-dark room, found the needles, then yelped as she collided with something hiding in the shadows. She leaned down and rubbed her ankle, looking at her assailant. A plastic storage container. An old one, from what she could see. She leaned in closer, checking it out more carefully.
“What’s this Iz?” she called out, but her words were lost in the music and crackling fire and conversation coming from below.
A piece of old wrapping tape held the lid in place. She turned on her phone flashlight and peered through the sides of the box. Newspaper articles?
More curious now, she used the flashlight to highlight items inside the box. As if drawn to the colors, the bright light focused on a small brochure, wedged up against the side of the box by the rest of the contents. An advertisement, it appeared, for a photography exhibit. She looked closer, straining to keep her balance. Was it Sam? In his youthful days? And then she saw the name on the brochure.
Cass picked up the box and balanced it against her round belly, then carried it down the steps to the knitting room.
The others looked up as she moved over to the fire. “I didn’t mean to be a snoop, Iz. Well, yeah, maybe I did.” She set the box down on the table. “What’s this?”
Izzy looked at the box, then laughed. “It’s nothing. No hidden treasure, Cass, sorry. It’s Abby’s smelly beach toys from last summer, probably wrapped in seaweed. Shelby Pickard found it in Sam’s trunk and thought Sam might need it. I was about to throw it out. ”
Cass directed her cell phone light on the box again, first the lid, and then moved it over the side. “I don’t think your box has smelly toys in it, Iz. Take a closer look.”
Izzy stood and looked.
She looked again.
And then she sat back down.
Hard.
Chapter 21
The name Sam Perry was scrawled on the side of the plastic storage box with a marker. Small and faint, but visible.
But what had caused Cass to bring the box down to the knitting room was someone else’s name. The name on a brochure wedged against the side of the box. The advertising piece was small, pamphlet size, and looked to be old and smudged. But what was clearly visible on the advertising piece was the name of an acclaimed photographer, one who was now dead.
Izzy’s first thought was to put the box in the car and take it home to Sam. It was taped shut, and his name was on it, written in a handwriting she didn’t recognize. It was clearly intended for Sam.
Izzy fingered the dry strip of tape. It was brown and curled at one end, added to keep the old lid from popping up—not necessarily to keep people out. It was loose, about to fall apart. Izzy looked at the others, then back to the box.
She ripped off the tape and lifted the lid.
Dust wafted up from the box. The contents were messy and appeared to have been haphazardly tossed inside. It reminded
Izzy of a drawer in her house, filled with random things she didn’t want to throw away but wasn’t sure what to do with. Abby’s baby cards, photos, sweet notes from friends.
At closer glance, she could see that some of the papers were actually photos, old photos, like the kind someone had developed in a dark room. Not clear and crisp, but like the ones Izzy remembered from a photography class she’d taken in high school.
But on top of the messy heap was a cream-colored envelope that stood out—a clean, crisp envelope of good quality, the kind used for wedding invitations or elegant events. It looked new, and printed on the envelope’s left corner was an elegant logo and a name—Harrison Grant Photography. And in the center of it was a scribbled note:
Give to Sam Perry—old workshop photos, etc.
Izzy took it out and stared at it.
By now the coffee table had been cleared of mugs and knitting needles, and the box sat open and exposed, the envelope resting in Izzy’s palm. It was sealed.
“Iz, where did Sam say he got this?” Cass asked, looking at the box.
Izzy tried to think back. “He never mentioned it. Shelby found it in his trunk. That’s all I know. I didn’t give it much thought. I figured Sam must have forgotten to take the beach toys out of his trunk.”
“Sam had Harrison’s things in his trunk on Friday,” Nell said, thinking back to their arrival at Art Haven that morning. Sam had brought some things inside. She remembered seeing them in the foyer—photographic equipment, a briefcase, a suitcase and computer case. Deb Carpenter had shown up, too, and had helped carry things upstairs.
“Hmm,” Cass said, reaching into the box and pulling out the brochure she’d seen on the side of the box earlier. “It’s an old brochure of his.” She tossed it back in the box.
The “his” no longer needed a name. Harrison Grant was in the center of their thoughts. And Sam wasn’t far behind.
It was the envelope in Izzy’s hand that drew their attention. It was clearly Grant’s professional stationery—and intended for Sam. It had rested on a jumble of pictures, notebooks, some magazines, all seemingly thrown together. Random things.
Izzy carefully set the envelope aside. It had been sealed shut. Opening a sealed envelope with someone else’s name on it still made her feel that the United States Post Office would be after her, and her face would soon appear on one of those wanted posters on the post office wall. It was definitely private.
Nell pulled out a photo near the top of the box. It was large and protected in a clear plastic sleeve. A black-and-white closeup of three men coming out of a coal mine, their faces hardened and blackened with dust, their eyes old. Stark and arresting. “This is beautiful. And awful.”
Birdie took the photo from Nell and held it up. She slipped her glasses out of her hair and put them on. “This is quite amazing. Truly fine work. It reminds me of Dorothea Lange.”
Izzy looked over at it. “Sam and I went to an exhibit of Lange’s photographs at the MFA a few years ago. He admires her work greatly.”
She took the photo and looked at it again, touched it gently with the tip of a finger, then turned it over. Sam Perry was written in pencil at the bottom of the print in his familiar scrawl. A number. And a date.
Izzy took a deep breath. “This is Sam’s. Of course it is. He took this photo. It’s amazing.” She passed it around.
“Maybe the guy was cleaning house and found these,” Cass said.
Nell nodded. “And wanted Sam to have them. A gracious gesture.”
Izzy took the photo from Nell and looked at it again. “It’s an amazing photo. But why do I think—”
“Think what?” Nell asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just that the workshop was a long time ago. Why would Grant have these photos? This seems odd to me.”
“Well, even if it was a long time ago, it’s a lovely photo to have,” Birdie said. “I’ve been wanting to buy one of Sam’s photographs for a long time. I shall remind him of that. Although, this kind of photo belongs in an exhibit somewhere, for people to stop and ponder, to learn from.”
