Chapter 28
Henrietta stood in the shadows at the top step to the knitting room, softly tapping her cane in perfect four/four time. Her white head swiveled side to side as she took stock of the room a few steps below.
Behind her, Mae Anderson bustled about, preparing to close the shop, one eye on the back of the formidable five-foot-tall woman who had bustled into the shop minutes before with fire in her eyes.
Unaware of being watched, Nell stood at the table, uncovering a pan of baked potatoes. Steam curled up in front of her face. Nearby, Izzy turned up the vocals of Marvin Gaye singing about mountains.
Birdie was seated in her favorite chair near the fireplace, talking to Cass. Her small arthritic fingers moved rapidly, stitch after stitch, bringing shape to the remaining arm in baby Perry’s romper.
Only sweet Purl, curled up on Cass’ lap, was watching Henrietta watch them.
Finally Henrietta increased her taps, now loud and insistent, drawing everyone’s attention away from their business and to herself. Before anyone had a chance to say hello, she moved down the steps and over to Nell’s side.
“Baked potatoes.” She frowned, peering into the pan. “Word on the street is that there is a gourmet spread in this room every Thursday night. But baked potatoes?”
“Twice baked,” Nell said. “And stuffed with chunks of fresh crab in an amazing, if I do say so myself, cheesy wine sauce. We have extra. Try one. It may surprise you.”
“Aren’t the Irish supposed to like potatoes?” Izzy asked.
“No,” Henrietta said, leaning her cane against the bookcase and eyeing the potatoes again, “but I will try anything once, dearie. And I do enjoy fresh crab.”
In minutes they were seated around the table, plates of crispy-skin stuffed potatoes and Caesar salad in front of them. Birdie had poured wine and water, and everyone was glancing at Henrietta expectantly as they dug their forks into the creamy potatoes. Why was she here?
“I’m barging in, now, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” Cass said. “But you’ve been known to do worse, Henrietta. And you are always fun to have around. But what’s up? Why are you here?”
Henrietta laughed, a booming sound that went straight up to the ceiling. “And wouldn’t you know the frankness would come from a Halloran? We Irish understand each other.” She winked at Cass and wiped a dribble of sour cream from her ample chin. Then she put down her fork and took a sip of wine, and her round face grew serious.
“It’s this ridiculous notion that Martin Seltzer could have hurt anyone, much less a young pip-squeak like Justin Dorsey or an old fogey like Horace. Of course he didn’t. It’s ridiculous, so that’s why I’m here, though I suspect you had anticipated as much. What are we going to do about it?” White eyebrows shot up above lively blue eyes.
Nell wiped her hands on a napkin. Somehow knitting seemed more satisfying right now than eating. She took the baby blanket from her bag and settled it across her lap. The sections were coming together now, tiny seed stitches bordering the soft yellow cables.
Henrietta leaned over and looked at the yarn. “Lovely,” she said.
“What makes you so sure Martin didn’t have anything to do with either of those events?” Birdie asked. “He had every reason in the world to want Justin out of the way.”
“Of course he did. The little upstart was stealing from him. Him and some other people, mind you. But I won’t go into that. But to kill for that?” She wiped her hands and leaned over to touch the silky angora blend Birdie was knitting into a hat to match the baby’s romper. “Angora. Now, isn’t that the loveliest thing?” She touched the working ball of yarn, her expression as soft as the yarn.
“He had motive, incentive, capability,” Cass said. “And what was his alibi?”
“Alibi, schmalibi,” Henrietta said, dismissing the thought with a wave of her hand. “No one has much of an alibi for murders that take place in the dead of night. He was sleeping. Just like all those other people the police have been questioning.” She looked over at Birdie’s ball of yarn again. “They’re fuzzy alibis, all of them, just like that angora yarn of yours, Birdie. Angora alibis, they are, the whole boatload of them. You can see right through them. Give any one of them a strong tug and they’ll snap apart. Unless Martin was by chance off for the night with some floozy and can get her to stand up for him. But he’s not that kind of man, now, is he?”
She sat back, satisfied with her speech. Short chubby arms crossed over her chest.
Nell leaned forward, her fingers working on another section of seed stitches. “I have a question, Henrietta, which may or not be relevant. But I saw you go up to Martin at the Fractured Fish concert Saturday night, and you all but swatted him. It seemed to me he’d be the last person you wanted to stand by. You seemed very angry, as if Martin had done something awful. And now you’re saying that’s not possible.”
“Well, he had done something . . . and he hadn’t. But neither the had nor the hadn’t equaled murder. I had smelled it on him that night—the pot. Once you understand that scent, it stays with you. And I was fiery mad. He was going to get that lovely Lily Virgilio into trouble, smoking pot in her clinic. So I gave him hell and he just stood there and took it. Then he came around to me later and told me privately what was up with it, that he was fighting the pain of his cancer, and I understood. In fact, I told him to move his little garden to my house if it would be safer. He was considering it.”
Nell held back a smile. Henrietta’s familiarity with the product might well have come from a rather wild youth.
“Esther Gibson called me first thing today and told me that the police had Martin in the station all morning long. All morning, can you imagine? The poor man doesn’t eat as it is, and there he sat, being pummeled with questions.” She took a drink of wine, but it was clear she wasn’t finished, so the others busied themselves finishing up and knitting, waiting.
She looked at Nell. “I know our dear Ben has some influence with the chief of police, whom I’ve always supported, by the way, even though his political leanings are sometimes askew.”
“They’re friends, Henrietta, but he doesn’t have any influence on him. Besides, Jerry isn’t that kind of person—nor is Ben. Jerry is investigating this as best he can. If Martin is innocent, he will find that out.”
“And in the meantime the poor man will waste away to nothing. But I understand about Ben not interfering, of course I do. I’m not suggesting anything like that. I’d never risk my relationship with that dear husband of yours by asking him to compromise himself. So I’ll ask the rest of you instead.”
Cass laughed out loud.
Henrietta went on as if she hadn’t heard. “You’re right that Jerry Thompson will eventually find Martin innocent because he is, but in the meantime we’re all in this miserable state and it simply has to end.” She pointed at Izzy. “Just look at you, Izzy, about to give birth to a darlin’ baby boy—and what with Sea Harbor in this sorry state. It’s not right, not healthy.”
“We all agree with you,” Birdie said, working a row of mint green yarn into the tiny hat. She squinted through her glasses as she counted her stitches. “At least about the fact that this needs to be settled soon. As for the sex of Izzy’s baby, unless you have access to some secret source unavailable to us, we don’t know that it’s a boy. And as for Martin Seltzer, I want to believe he is innocent. But I think we need more information before that happens.”
“Then we shall get it.” Henrietta pushed herself from her chair and worked her way across the room toward her cane, talking loudly as she went. “We’ll put our heads together and we’ll find out who did this.” She stood at the bottom of the steps, about to take her leave, puffed up, like Patton leaving his troops. “You know what they say,” she said. “It takes a village to do whatever. And we’ll do it soon.” And then she was gone, tapping her way toward the front door, where Mae patiently waited for her to leave, then locked the door behind her.
Cass held out her glass. “Birdie, after that, I need another splash of your pinot.”
Izzy was already wiping off the coffee table to make room for yarn and needles and scissors.
She sat back down and pulled out the hooded sweater she was working on. With five pair of booties wrapped in tissue in the baby’s room, she needed diversion—and a slouchy sweater would be the perfect thing to wear while rocking baby Perry on a breezy fall day. “Everything in me wants to agree with Henrietta and Dr. Lily about Martin Seltzer,” she said. “But the odds are sure stacked up against him. Whether it’s instinct or emotion—or maybe all the little things that don’t add up—I don’t know, but nothing in me says he’s our guy. Janie said he was great with patients, so understanding. Franklin Danvers even spent time with him, she said, and he listened like a schoolkid, even taking notes.”
“That’s an interesting mental image, isn’t it?” Birdie said, smiling. “What about Tamara?”
“Oh, she was another one of his fans. He even stayed late one night, just because Tamara needed to talk.”
“We were so sure that finding Justin’s supplier would be the beginning of the end. Now we’ve found his source—and he wasn’t that at all, at least not in the official sense of the word,” Birdie said. “But I still think we’re moving ahead, not totally losing ground.”
“It seems we keep making our way back to the clinic. . . .” It was Izzy speaking, her face pulled together in a serious thought. “But one thing Lily said last night has been troubling me. Something I’m sure the police have latched on to. She said her father had a prescription for morphine.”
Nell finished her row of seed stitches and ran her hand over the soft sunlit yarn, the small knots defining the blanket’s edge. “Yes. And morphine killed Horace,” she said, her voice as soft as the blanket. More dots . . . more connections.
Birdie set her knitting needles down, not liking the direction in which Izzy’s astute reminder was taking them. “So Martin Seltzer had access to the drug that killed Horace; that doesn’t mean he used it.”
Izzy looked over at Nell. “Remember that day Janie interrupted my appointment with Lily, telling her something was missing? Janie told me later it was a mistake, that it was a prescription Lily had for Dr. Seltzer and she had forgotten to sign it out. For a minute, Janie said, she and Lily both thought it was something Justin had messed up, but thank heavens, it wasn’t. It created tension in the clinic, though.”
Nell remembered.
“And then Janie mentioned medicine missing again—this time a few days after Justin was killed. The second time it was for real. Justin clearly was off the hook. I don’t know if it was resolved the second time. Janie would know.”
They looked up at the ceiling. Janie was home. They had heard the footsteps on the staircase earlier. Izzy reached for her cell phone and gave her a call.
Janie joined them in minutes, her sweats and shirt indicating she was in for the night. “I needed company tonight. Tommy’s working, so thank you. I was waiting for Purl to come up and join me.”
Birdie patted the chair next to her, and Janie curled up in it, accepting the glass of wine Izzy offered and making room for the calico cat that landed on her lap. She laid out her own knitting project, a soft cream-colored blanket with tiny alphabet blocks along the edge. Purl eyed the ball of yarn with great yearning—and minor restraint. Janie tsked him and removed his paw from the soft yarn.
Izzy came over and plopped a box down near the coffee table. “This isn’t why we invited you down, Janie, but I almost forgot about this. Mrs. Bridge left it—it’s what was left in Justin’s room. I keep forgetting to give it to you. She said it was just old clothes, but she thought you should be the one to get rid of it. Do you want me to do it?”
Janie stared at the box. She started to say yes, then changed her mind and pulled open the flap. “Maybe Father Northcutt’s clothing drive?” she said, pulling out an old shirt and some socks.
Izzy looked into the box. A glint of silver caught her eye and she pulled out a leather belt with a large silver buckle.
Janie looked at it. “That’s nice. I don’t think I ever saw Justin wear it—”
Izzy ran her fingers over the buckle. “That’s probably because it wasn’t his.” She held it up and read the initials. TAG.
Cass laughed. “It’s Tyler Gibson’s. Has to be. His middle name is Arthur and the kids used to tease him and call him Tag.”
Nell took the belt and looked at it. “It looks like Tyler,” she said.
“Do you suppose Justin stole that, too?” Janie said.
“It’s hard to steal a belt off someone, Janie,” Nell said. She slipped it into her purse. “But I’ll see that Tyler gets it back. Maybe they were at the beach or something and he left it behind. Justin was probably going to return it.”
They all nodded, as if they believed Nell’s explanation. But however the belt had ended up in Justin’s belongings, Tyler would now get it back. And Nell, perhaps, would get another bit of helpful information, whatever that might be.
“And I’ll take care of the rest of this stuff,” Izzy said, pushing the box aside.
“That reminds me of something,” Nell said. “Janie, do you remember that fanny pack Justin sometimes wore?”
“Sure. I got it at a garage sale. One dollar.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Janie shook her head. “I know he had it that Saturday when he left here. Oh, and we both saw him with it that night at the Edge. It wasn’t very attractive but he seemed attached to it.”
“Well, if you see it, would you let me know?”
Janie agreed and pulled out her knitting. “This is my therapy,” she said. “But then, you all understand that.”
“We do. It’s therapy and sometimes helps us put things into perspective,” Nell said. “It’s like thinking through a knitting pattern, looking at it from one side, then the other, imagining what it will look like in the end.”
“So you do that with life.”
“And, unfortunately, death,” Birdie said. “We’re trying to figure all this out. You have certainly been thrown into the middle of everything once again. These last couple of days must have been difficult.”
“It’s poor Dr. Seltzer I feel sorry for,” Janie said. “I don’t know him very well—and I sure didn’t know he was Dr. Lily’s dad—but this is all scary. Tommy says it will work out. But how can it? Everything points to him. He certainly made it known how he felt about Justin. And now we know he had good reasons for his feelings.”
“Do you think he killed him?” Birdie asked gently.
“No.” Her response was quick, the kind that comes from the heart and not always the mind. “I love Dr. Lily, I guess that’s why. But I can’t imagine . . . I can’t let myself imagine he did it. He has this other side, you know. He didn’t talk much to me, but some of our patients really liked him. He was a great teacher and loved medicine, so he’d sit and answer questions about all the different tests and blood work results. Some of them confided in him about worries and things. He was like a priest or something. He could talk medicine all day long. It sounds crazy, I know, because he wasn’t the best conversationalist outside of work. But give him a patient with a question or problem and he would talk for hours. It pleased Dr. Lily so much, and I didn’t know why. But now I do.”
“You told us the other night that things had been tense at the clinic,” Izzy said. “I used to think of the clinic as my little island of repose. I’d walk through those doors and forget everything about my real life. All of you were comforting and you cared only about me and my baby. But it changed. . . .”
Janie was nodding across from her. “The last couple weeks, things were strained, I know. Part of it for me was Justin. And maybe you felt that. Now we know there was more going on—the garden, Justin helping himself. But there was more, I think. I can’t put my finger on it—”
“You mentioned missing medications,” Nell said.
“Yeah, there was that—just a week ago. It was Friday, I remember, because we had a lot of patients scheduled, both for Dr. Lily and people who wanted to talk to Dr. Seltzer. I hadn’t slept the night before and was so tired. Then that—that drug disappeared.”
“Do you think Martin took it?” Nell asked
Janie looked up, surprised at the question. “Oh, no. It was taken from his office. Dr. Lily had me pick it up from the dispensary and put it on his desk that morning. It was his medicine, even though we know now he didn’t often take it. But it disappeared from his desk. He noticed it that afternoon.”
“Did you ever find it?” Birdie asked.
“No. We searched everywhere. It was definitely gone.”
“What medicine was it?” Cass asked.
“Morphine.”
• • •
“So the morphine that may have been used to kill Horace may have come from Martin Seltzer’s office,” Nell said after Purl and Janie had gone back upstairs.
“Assuming what Martin said was true and he wasn’t just covering his own tracks,” Birdie said.
“But why would he even need to do that? Lily thought he was using the morphine for himself—so he could have used it on Horace and no one would have known the difference. He had it legitimately. Reporting it was a responsible thing to do. You don’t want morphine disappearing out the clinic door without knowing who has it.”
“That’s right! Cass, you’re so smart,” Izzy said.
“And beautiful,” Cass said.
Birdie laughed. “All right, then, who would have had access to Martin’s office?” Her needles worked along the rim of the baby hat. “Clinic staff, cleaning staff, patients, delivery people?”
“It’s really a busy place,” Izzy said. “And Janie said it was especially busy that Friday. Sometimes Dr. Lily’s patients bring family members or friends, too—like Nell and Sam came with me.”
“And Red,” Nell said.
Izzy laughed. “Yes. And Red. And this summer Lily has some medical students coming in a couple times a week. There’s a parade of folks in and out. I often schedule late appointments so I can avoid the frantic times, but I know from Janie how crazy it gets.”
“So we know someone in that parade left the office that day with morphine.”
“Janie said it was the Friday after Justin died,” Cass said.
Izzy glanced at a calendar on the wall. It was filled with happy events—knitting classes, knitting nights, special yarn studio events. But the Friday after Justin was murdered was blank. Nothing going on at the yarn shop that day.
It was Friday—dinner on the Endicott deck.
And the night that Janie came by with Birdie’s stolen necklace.
The night that Horace Stevenson was killed.