Trimmed With Murder (26 page)

“Why did they make her leave?”

“Some of the nurses were new and didn't know her mother. They were freaked out by her questions. It was understandable.”

“Do you know what she was asking about?” Nell asked.

Carly fiddled with a pencil, rolling it between her palms. “What any daughter in her position would want to know. How did her mother die? Was she alone? What was her last day like? Was she in pain? Amber had every right to ask those questions. She wasn't here when Ellie died. She needed to be as close to that day as she could, to live through it, hour by hour, with her mother. I understood it. It's exactly what I would have done if Ellie had been my mother. And I would probably have wondered, just like she did, why my mother died suddenly, without any sign of wearing down. Even though it sometimes happens with PVS patients, I would have wondered. So I tried to answer every question I could.”

They heard the compassion in Carly's voice. And could almost hear Amber pressing for answers.

Carly was quiet for a minute, as if weighing whether she should say more. Finally she did.

“And that's why I said yes.”

“Said yes?” Izzy asked.

“She asked me if I could find some records for her, and I said yes. I owed that to Ellie's memory. I told her I'd get them that night, and I'd give them to her the next day, on Sunday.”

They were all quiet, going back through the days, but it only took seconds to mentally put the calendar in order, only a few seconds to figure out what had happened between that visit and the next day.

Ellie Harper's daughter was murdered.

T
hey made one detour on their way home from Ocean View, a pleasant diversion from the tension of the day.

“I think Esther's knitting needles are what get her through those long shifts at the police station,” Nell said. “She knit some ornaments for our Harbor Green tree and asked me to pick them up. I think she has at least a dozen. She's putting us to shame.”

Esther Gibson was home as promised, but not alone. She and her husband, Richard, were sitting in the family room playing poker with Alan Hamilton and another good friend, Claire Russell. “It's our Sunday ritual,” Esther explained as they walked back to the family room.

Nell felt a sudden, grateful rush. She'd been hoping to run into Doc Hamilton—and here he was. Birdie's good omen was still working its magic. Hopefully it would stay with them, the wind at their back, until the “beast” was behind bars.

And hopefully that would be soon.

“We're interrupting your game,” Birdie said, eyeing the poker chips stacked at each place. She looked over at the doctor and said, “I don't mean to insult you, Alan, but they're beating the pants off you.”

Alan looked at her and joked right back—“Good thing Esther doesn't allow strip poker in her little casino.”

“Excellent thing!” Birdie said, with such punctuated enthusiasm that they all burst into laughter.

“Sit, sit,” Esther said.

“All we have is beer and bottled water,” Richard said. “Any takers?” He pointed to a makeshift bar.

Izzy went over and grabbed water bottles for Nell and Birdie and one for herself.

“So, has this been going on long? This little clandestine gambling casino?” she asked, perching on the arm of the couch.

“Blame it on Richard,” Claire said. “He's pretty good at it. They say he's taking Reno by storm.”

“Richard, I'd never have guessed,” Birdie said. The retired fisherman was quiet, usually letting Esther take the lead in conversations. Being a cardsharp didn't fit his profile.

Richard laughed at Birdie's surprise, but then confessed, “Esther keeps me on a tight leash. Reno's a special occasion. Usually I go to some of the casinos around here—but it's just for fun and with only a couple of fifties in my pocket. Esther's rule. That's it. When it's gone I come home. It's fun. Same expense as going out to dinner and a movie.” He grinned, warming to the subject. “Some guys joke that playing the slots is a sure way of getting nothing for something. Not true for me. I have fun with my buddies, drink a few beers. That's what I get. I stay away from folks I know out there who take it too seriously.”

“Who's that?” Claire asked. The landscaper had turned Nell's backyard into a paradise for Izzy's wedding, and she had been a cherished friend to all of them ever since.

“Oh, you know, other folks around town,” Richard said. “You get to know each other. You'd be surprised, some Sea Harbor folks have made a bundle off the slots, the cards. Lost a bundle, too. Not me.” Richard laughed again.

Esther filled in. “Gamblers are friendly folks. Our Reno trips are mostly because we can stay in a friend's lovely home and I can sit on the fancy porch and smell the trees and enjoy the free meals the casinos give us. We drink wine there, not beer. It's uptown.”

Richard snorted, his beer foaming over the rim.

Esther fussed at him and grabbed a box of tissues. “Enough talk about Reno. See what it makes you do?”

Nell pulled up a chair across from the doctor. “Alan, were your ears burning today? A nurse at Ocean View sang your praises to the sky.”

“Ah, that's music to my old ears,” the doctor said, tiny laugh lines spreading out from his clear blue eyes. He took off his glasses and forked his fingers through his hair, strands of silver showing among the brown. “Better than those who want to cook my goose, right?”

“I can't imagine anyone wanting to do that, Alan,” Birdie said.

Nell agreed. Doc Hamilton had been the Endicott family physician for years and the man didn't have a mean bone in his body. She was happy to see he and Claire had linked up together recently. Two interesting, wonderful people. It was nice when they found each other.

“What were you doing at Ocean View?” Alan asked.

Birdie sat down on a chair Esther pulled up. “Following Amber, you might say. Walking in her footsteps.”

They put their cards facedown and turned her way. Birdie went on. “Amber had been pouring through the Cummings financial papers.” She looked over at Esther. “Esther knows all about that, so you may, too. We're just trying to figure out what her thoughts and emotions were that last week, why she did what she did, went where she went and why.”

Alan nodded. “Trying to help put an end to this difficult time,” he said solemnly. “I knew Amber stopped over at Ocean View. I ran into her one day. She was being rather abrupt with one of the nurses.”

“Amber could be abrupt,” Esther said.

“I was glad to see her. She didn't remember me, of course, but when she realized I had been her mother's doctor, she became more open. I tried to reassure her that her mother had had good care at Ocean View, and that her life there was peaceful. She asked a lot of questions about that last day, but that's understandable.”

“I'm sure it was comforting to her to talk with you,” Nell said.

“I think what she really wanted me to do was turn back the clock so she could have been there holding her mother's hand that night she died. Or better yet, have protected her—she kept saying that. It's hard sometimes—especially when the deceased isn't sick in the usual way—to understand how they could be alive one day with strong vital signs, then dead the next. It was really difficult for Amber to accept it. But it happens.”

“Did you tell her you visited Ellie often?” Izzy asked.

“Yes. She was glad that her mother had friends who came—Esther, me, Father Northcutt, Jake, a few others. She said she wanted to thank them, all those people who had ‘filled in' for her, as she put it.”

Amber's surge of gratitude surprised Nell. Not that she wasn't polite, but somehow she wouldn't have expected it to be a focus for her. But maybe she wasn't giving her credit. Amber returned to Sea Harbor older and wiser. And, perhaps, with a sense of gratitude for the good things that had been done for her mom.

“We met a nice nurse over there that said she assured Amber of the same thing. Her name was Carly . . . Carly something,” Birdie said. She felt inside her coat pocket. “She gave me her card. I have it here somewhere.”

“Carly Schultz,” Alan said.

“That's it.”

“She's a great nurse. She became attached to Ellie.”

“She said you visited Ellie the day she died,” Nell said.

Alan rested his head back and Nell could see his mind going back over the years to the day Ellie died. “The day, yes,” he said, nodding. “I wish I had been there that night instead so she wasn't alone. Carly felt the same way. Esther here, too.”

Esther nodded. “It was hard for Amber—it would be for any one of us. But she hadn't seen her mother in years. Details were important to make up for that.”

“Larry Northcutt had been there that day, too,” Alan said. “He and I relived that day a couple months ago when we met at the Cummingses' home, of all places. It was shortly before Lydia died. Lydia was quite ill by then and often requested visits with Larry. Confession was good for the soul, she'd say. Maybe it was, because she fell asleep peacefully while we were still there. But confessions must be hard on priests, because Larry looked old, less than peaceful. The two of us sat for a while talking quietly while Lydia slept.

“The conversation turned to Ellie Harper and the care Lydia had provided for her. And we talked about being there the day Ellie died.

“Father Larry didn't say much, which was unusual—you know him, he's never at a loss for words. But he seemed preoccupied with the woman in the bed. He looked over at Lydia a couple times. Bowed his head slightly. Maybe in prayer? Yet he seemed to be listening to me at the same time. Then he turned away from her and spoke softly, as if to keep his words away from her. His words were odd, especially since he'd just heard her confession, but maybe I heard him wrong. He said something about helping Lydia forgive. But I must have heard wrong, because that's what priests can do, right? They're the ones who grant forgiveness?”

Nell looked out the window, listening to Alan's story and remembering one of her own. A cold Thursday night when a burdened Father Larry stood outside the bookstore and talked about sins, and about forgiveness. Was it someone else who needed forgiveness?

Alan had switched the topic, uncomfortable with the puzzling memory. “Ellie's death that night was a surprise, but it was probably a blessing, as people say. In spite of that, though, it was difficult for those of us who had spent so much time with her. She had a hold on people, even then.”

“Knowing she died in her sleep probably brought some comfort to Amber,” Claire said.

Richard got up and brought back a couple of beers. “It's the way I want to go,” he said.

They all agreed, and Birdie, noticing that Richard was frequently looking down at his cards, also agreed that it was time for the four of them to get back to their game and confiscate the rest of Alan's fortune.

Esther chuckled, got up, and took a cloth bag of knit ornaments from the shelf.

“Don't forget these,” she said, handing the soft ornaments to Izzy and telling her to be careful not to drop the bag.

“We're going to need more than just one tree for your ornaments, Esther.” Izzy laughed. “A forest maybe.”

Esther sat back down and picked up her cards, fanning them like a pro, her mind already moving on to her next bid, but she smiled at the comment.

“Esther, one more interruption,” Nell said. “I promise we'll leave then. Did you take flowers to Ellie regularly?”

Esther looked up and set her cards down again. “You heard about those beautiful arrangements? No—I brought a vase in case it was needed. But those flowers arrived like clockwork.”

“They were beautiful. I assumed Lydia sent them,” Alan said.

Esther shook her head. “No, it wasn't Lydia. I asked her once. She said it was a foolish, expensive gesture. And she was quite adamant.” She looked back at her cards, then up once more. “Is that it?”

But before anyone could answer Esther was spreading her cards out on the table. “Royal flush,” she called.

In Esther Gibson's world, knitting and poker went a long way in easing the pain of difficult days.

•   •   •

The texts came in as they drove away from Richard and Esther's and headed home.

Cass had left it on all their phones, explaining that if any of them planned on feeding her that night, they were out of luck. She and Danny were having dinner with her ma, but she needed to talk to them ASAP. She was off the next day. Monday early, Izzy's back room? And would Birdie please bring some of Ella's cinnamon rolls?

•   •   •

The sun was already slipping away, the sky filling with darkness. They all agreed that packing another mind-taxing session into their day would probably not be fruitful, no matter how anxious they were to put it all together—and to find out what Cass had found.

“If texts were like voices,” Birdie said, “we'd have an inkling.” But the blandness around words on a tiny phone screen provided few hints.

“We're this close,” Izzy said, her thumb and index finger a yarn-width away from touching.

Nell and Birdie nodded, their emotions tangled as tightly as Purl's basket of play yarn.
Close
. But only if they were seeing things correctly, if their intuition and patching together the pieces Amber had laid out for them all fit neatly together, piece by piece, stitch by stitch.

Only if Amber's footsteps were truly leading them to the end of the road and not off the end of a shaky pier.

The woods were truly dark and deep.

And they had at least a mile to go before they'd sleep.

“I
think we are following Amber as closely as we can,” Nell said. “It's the fork in the road that we need to concentrate on.” She handed Izzy the bag of Esther's decorations and poured herself a cup of coffee with a thank-you nod to Birdie.

Birdie had not only brought Ella's cinnamon rolls to the Monday gathering, but had asked Harold to stop at Coffee's for a carafe of his Colombian dark roast. Coffee perked by Izzy might not start them off on the right foot.

Izzy came down the stairs with napkins and her laptop. “I don't know if we'll need this,” she said, “but it's a quick connection to the world.”

She set it on the table and walked back a step to check the calendar posted near the bookcase.

No classes until the afternoon. The shop would be quiet.

At the sound of Cass coming through the shop, Birdie peeled the foil off the cinnamon rolls and Izzy hurriedly made a place on the coatrack for her parka. “How was dinner with Mary?” she asked.

“Corn beef and cabbage,” Cass said. “And it's not even St. Pat's Day.”

She carried a stack of papers, covered with highlighter, that she put down on the table. “Where do we start?” she asked. Then she spied the cinnamon rolls, rotated her eyes upward as she gave thanks for Ella Sampson, and pulled out a chair. She grabbed a napkin and a couple of the yeasty rolls.

Nell began by filling Cass in on the journey to Ocean View. The snippets of conversation. And Carly Schultz.

“An ally,” Cass said, and Nell nodded.

Birdie, in the meantime, had pulled out her purple yarn and configured a map on the table. “Here's the problem,” she said, pointing to a spot where the yarn-road forked. “This one goes one way, and this goes another. But which way leads to the murderer?” Her question hung in the air, unanswered.

Amber's footsteps were not easily followed. The foci were clear: the Cummings business office and Ocean View. But the sinking feeling that when they got a hairbreadth away from where they were going, the path might end or split off in another direction, was always present.

“That won't happen,” Izzy said. “Sometimes patterns make no sense, not until you get further along. That's what's happening here. One step at a time.”

They would stay with the pattern; they wouldn't give up.

Not until the murderer was found. The “beast,” as Henrietta so eloquently put it.

Nell thought about Charlie. He'd seen the light in the kitchen that morning and stopped in before his early shift at the clinic. He was slowly reclaiming the man he was—the man he was becoming. She loved the light in his eyes when he played with Abby on the floor, the way his face softened when his sister teased him or gave him a hug. And the way his whole body came alive when he was on his way to help little kids with vaccinations and strep tests at the Sea Harbor Free Health Clinic. But the darkness would come back when things were quiet and thoughts became too heavy. When a police car went by or a siren broke the night silence. A shadow that wouldn't be stripped away completely until Amber's death was resolved.

Soon, my dear Charlie,
she vowed silently.
Soon this will end
.

She got up and refilled her coffee mug, then settled back at the table with the others, drinking coffee and sugaring up with Ella's pastries.

Cass looked at the pile of papers on the table. “I feel like I'm on a moving sidewalk and we're not getting off until we've figured it all out. It's coming together somehow. I think we're close.”

Izzy nodded and looked over at her aunt. “This reminds me of that afghan we knit for you and Uncle Ben,” she said. “It had those panels, separate pieces that had to be knit separately, then finally sewn together before we could see what it was going to look like.”

“Or see where our mistakes were,” Birdie said. “Yes, Izzy. It's very much like that.” She looked across the table at Cass, then at the folders she had brought. “And you look like you're sitting on one of our panels. Let's get it out before you explode.”

Cass licked the sugar off her fingers, then wiped them with a napkin. “Amber wasn't just trying to get her arms around what she inherited when she went through the business files. At least not once she got started. I can tell from her notes that she spotted things right off the bat, checks and balances that didn't balance. And she probably became intrigued by what she was seeing, just like I would have. Underneath the sheen, Cummings Northshore Nurseries had some secrets.” She looked down at some notes she'd scribbled on a yellow pad, then went on.

“Amber was a savvy, smart woman. I wish I had had a chance to know her. After going through all this, a part of me thinks that once she got into the puzzling parts of the Cummings accounting, her focus changed. She hated the Cummingses. Maybe what she wanted to do then was to put someone in jail. A sense of justice, maybe? And she might have found the way to do it.”

She passed a packet of papers to each of them. Neatly clipped together, the information arranged in neat columns. Cass had done her homework and then some.

“It's almost as if Amber was the project leader here, and she's handed it over to us to check all the facts, make sure there's proof of the things she found. You'll see what I mean when you go through it. What she found were suspicious billings—lots of them. Her notes indicate further documentation was needed. Maybe she ran out of time, or moved on to something else once she went to visit Ocean's Edge. I don't know. But what's missing is verifying the false reports. That's what Amber didn't get around to doing.”

“I'm not sure I understand,” Birdie said.

“Bogus companies were billing Cummings, and Cummings was paying the bills. Those billings were the ones Zack gave us that had been password protected.”

“The ones hidden behind the server?” Nell asked.

The slip of a smile revealed Cass's pride in what she'd pulled together. “Yes.”

The room fell silent as Izzy, Nell, and Birdie carefully read through the lists Cass had prepared. Copies of documents, checks, and bills, along with some notes from Amber, and plenty of notes from Cass.

Five sheets in all. “And there's more,” Cass said. “Amber went back several years, examining everything from salaries to expenses. Some of it, I think, was truly to access the company, part of which was hers—just as all of us thought. And then she turned to assessing how that company spent its money.” She looked at the list of allegedly bogus companies. “And finally, seeing some of the past expenses the company had because of Ellie's care at Ocean View, Amber's attention turned to the nursing home.”

Izzy stared down at the ledger sheets. “Why would they do it? I have expenses. I pay people. I have no reason nor desire to make up additional billings.”

But before her words were out they all knew why someone would do it. And Izzy knew why she loved Mae and the twins and her accountant. They had no interest in paying fake yarn companies and somehow benefiting from it. None at all.

Nell stared at the papers. Barbara had to have known if Garrett was embezzling money from the company. Garrett, her constant companion. Garrett, who wanted to marry her. She thought back over the days, the conversations, random comments that revealed people's private lives in a new light. Garrett O'Neal's new BMW.

A purl row with knit stitches thrown in haphazardly in the middle.

It didn't line up perfectly, but it would soon.

At one point, Nell looked over the top of her glasses at Cass and pointed to a comment Cass had made on one of the sheets. “Reno?” she asked, her voice more amazed at the coincidence than shocked. They'd been talking about Reno just hours before.

Birdie said there were no coincidences. She wondered if it held true in this case.

“A company in Reno is billing Northshore. Check out what the company in Reno does,” Cass said.

Nell did. “They make green therapeutic devices. They're expensive, the green devices.”

“Very,” Cass said facetiously. “When no one answered the phone, I checked the company address on Google Earth. It happens to be a beautiful vacation house outside Reno, Nevada. The original sales description on Zillow says it has four bedrooms, three baths, and an amazing deck that overlooks the mountains and nearby casinos. I suspect the only green thing they make there are margaritas.”

They went back to work. One by one billings were checked, accounts checked by phone or Internet, company names looked up and crossed off, their brains kept alive by too many cups of Colombian roast.

“It's creative accounting at its finest,” Izzy murmured. She highlighted another company that seemed to have a paper existence, its product manufactured only in someone's mind. And Northshore Nurseries dutifully sending it monthly payments.

No one even noticed when Mae came in, nor when the store opened for business. Nor when the shop began to buzz with greetings and conversation, the clink of change, the heavy door opening and closing. Not even the laughter of children playing in Izzy's magic room filled with toys and books.

When they finally came up for air, they noticed a tray of deli sandwiches at the end of the table and a fresh pot of coffee.

“Saint Mae,” Izzy murmured.

It wasn't yet noon, but they'd started early and accomplished much.

And they were starving.

Birdie stood and stretched, then settled back at the table, a concerned look on her face. “Do you think this is what Amber was looking for?”

“No. I think it's what she found,” Cass said. She passed the sandwiches around and began unwrapping a turkey on rye.

Nell rubbed her eyes. Numbers swam in front of them and asked the bigger question, the one that hovered there in the air, wobbling. Not sure if it had an answer.

“Do we think this is why Amber was killed?” Birdie pressed.

They had facts and figures.

But could one easily jump from figures on a sheet of paper—even from embezzlement—to murder?

People had killed for less.

But something didn't feel right. The yarn was still tangled, loose.

“There's a big piece missing in all this,” Izzy said. She finished her sandwich and began to scoop up Cass's papers and put them back in folders. “How is any of this connected to Ocean View? Or is it? Charlie said that except for visiting her mother's grave, Amber was totally focused on the financial records that first day or two. But then her attention shifted to the nursing home.”

“And she didn't finish what she'd started here,” Cass said, pointing to the folders.

Nell had been thinking the same thing. And then she thought of the afghan and the panels. Each one different until you saw them together.

Birdie spoke up. “Amber went back several years in comparing figures and she saw the checks written out to Ocean View in the ledgers. Lydia also sent donations, it seemed. She was generous. In fact, Amber had highlighted a check to Ocean View whenever it came up. They were all reminders of Ocean View and that the Cummings money had paid for her mother's care—all legitimate. All generous.”

“And possibly that's the only connection,” Nell said. “It reminded Amber of her mother. And maybe she was through with examining the Cummingses' affairs and needed to move on to what was really important to her—visiting her mother's grave and where she'd spent her last days.”

But they all knew it was more than that. Nothing in Amber's behavior had been a gentle quest to say good-bye to her mother. She had promised her mother something, a promise she wasn't taking lightly.

Birdie remembered her final conversation with Amber. “She was on her way to collecting enough financial information to act on it if she wanted to. To do something to the company—which was now partly her company. She could have chosen to be vindictive—or not,” she said. “That could have been what she wanted to talk to me about. She mentioned something about making decisions, doing the right thing. Exploring different ways of handling something. She had options—”

Until she didn't.

“But it doesn't sit right, does it?” Izzy asked. “The Amber you described that last night seemed more anguished. Would fake billings have done that to her?”

“And Charlie has insisted all along that money wasn't something Amber paid much attention to.”

They all agreed; it didn't sit right. Something was off-kilter. A row that needed to be pulled out and restitched.

They looked down at the folders on the table, filled with facts and figures about the Cummings Northshore Nursery, figures that hadn't been intended for anyone to see.

They didn't know how it fit into the big picture. But they knew they couldn't discount it. At least not yet.

“Remember what Amber told Charlie about math?” Izzy asked. “She liked it because things added up. It gave her the sense that there was order in the universe. Math made her feel safe.”

The irony of her words settled in with an echoing thud.

There was nothing in any of this that made anyone feel safe.