A Crime of a Different Stripe

Book 4: Seaside Knitters Society

by Sally Goldenbaum

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Craft & Hobby Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

While no-nonsense mother-to-be Cass Halloran tries downplaying her pregnancy and her frequent doctor's visits as an "older" mother-to-be, a softer side of the lobsterwoman emerges as she joins the Seaside Knitters in knitting an abundance of delicate hats and booties. But in contrast to the happy news, terrifying events unfold at the town's art series that puts a real chill in their New England fall... Izzy Perry's husband Sam had reservations about inviting his one-time mentor Harrison Grant to speak at the opening reception, although he never imagined the famed and charismatic photographer would rudely embarrass his hosts that evening. But when a dead body turns up along the wooded shoreline the next day, startling secrets come into focus that could undo the tight-knit community of local artists... With a mysterious murder pitting neighbors against each other, Izzy, Birdie, Nell, and a vulnerable Cass find themselves entangled in a dangerous hunt for answers. Can four best friends somehow tie together scattered clues and pacify a list of potential culprits before a cascade of fallen foliage buries the pièce de résistance of a ruthless killer?

Release date: October 27, 2020

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Harrison Grant stood against the deck railing, watching the waves pummel the shore below, a narrow stretch of beach diminishing with each surge of tide. A gigantic moon played along the curve of the waves, nearly dipping into them. Mesmerizing. Otherworldly, he thought.

Although the ocean spray wasn’t cold tonight, it was needle sharp, uncomfortable enough to finally drive him back inside, where a fire at one end of the Beauport Hotel bar helped dispel the damp. He found an empty chair at the bar and resumed watching the drama playing out beyond the windows.

He had nearly forgotten the power of the sea.

Unrelenting. Frighteningly beautiful and unpredictable. Destructive and majestic.

Like life.

“A drink, sir?”

It wasn’t until the bartender asked again, this time leaning slightly toward him, one elbow on the bar and a silky tendril of blond hair falling over her cheek, that her words worked their way into his thoughts. She held a bottle of fine Scotch in one hand, a glass in the other, as if she knew he was that kind of man—the kind who drank fine liquor and was referred to as “sir.”

He looked up at the young woman, into intent, quizzical eyes.

She was smiling. And even though the hotel bar was crowded, with hands waving, demanding service, the woman stayed still, waiting.

Harrison returned the smile. A nod. He held the woman’s face in focus for a minute as she filled his glass. Without conscious thought, he framed her image in his mind’s eye—the long line of her nose, the low light falling over the curve of smooth cheekbones. A small dimple in one cheek. He felt the familiar weight of an invisible Canon EOS resting in his hand. As elemental as his own fingers.

A sudden mix of feelings swept over him. He took a quick breath.

“Sir, are you okay?”

He wrapped his fingers around the glass. “I am fine. As fine as this Scotch, my fair lady. Thank you.” He lifted his glass, as if to make a toast.

The woman behind the polished bar didn’t move away. She pulled her brows together, her eyes focused on the handsome silver-haired man in front of her. Her head tilted to one side, as if seeking another angle, while absently wiping a damp spot on the bar with a rag. “Have I seen you before?” she finally asked. “I have, haven’t I?”

“I suppose that’s always a possibility in this small world of ours. But no. I don’t think we’ve met. I’ve never been in this hotel before. It looks new. A beautiful place. Gloucester needed one in this area.”

“I don’t mean seeing you here. Somewhere else. Bigger. Like a TV show? Late night, Jimmy Kimmel maybe? Or in a movie? Lots of movies have been filmed on Cape Ann. Adam Sandler’s here a lot. Served him myself. Maybe I saw you on a set around town. Are you someone I should know?”

Harrison chuckled. “No, sorry.” A strand of hair fell across his forehead, and he pushed it back. It happened often enough that Harrison took it in stride. He’d never been in a movie, never doubled for George Clooney or Richard Gere or some British actor in an older film that the young woman might have seen her parents watching. And if she’d been around when he was last in the area, she would have been playing with dolls, and certainly wouldn’t remember people like himself.

But the fact that the young woman could have seen a photo of him wasn’t lost on Harrison, either. Not likely, he suspected, but possible if she read magazines featuring famous people. He’d photographed plenty of them, and sometimes a sidebar of the photographer was attached to the article. His name mentioned. Or maybe the society pages—Vanity Fair, the NYT, “Page Six.” As his professional reputation had grown, so, too, had his personal notoriety, and with that had come coveted invitations. “H. Grant is right up there with Annie Leibovitz,” a generous critic had once penned.

“Somewhere,” the bartender persisted. “I know it.”

A couple sitting nearby called for beers and martinis, forcing the reluctant bartender away. She glanced back once, seemingly unconvinced that the man at the bar with the strong cleft chin, thick hair, and deep-set eyes wasn’t someone she could tell her friends about when she got off her shift. She caught his eye, and her smile grew mischievous. Flirtatious.

For a brief moment, Harrison considered his response. Not a consideration, really, but a familiar impulse. Possibly there’d be a phone number on his check. But a deep breath put the night, the journey, back in perspective and the old habits at bay.

He took a drink of Scotch and looked again toward the ocean. Flames from the outdoor firepit were dramatic against the now-dark sky, a huge autumn moon holding it all together.

He let himself sink into the scene, the din in the crowded room forming a cocoon around him, blocking out, for that moment at least, the past or the future.

Finally, one drink later, he stood and stretched, trying to release the kinks in his back. A photographer’s plague. He was tired. Perhaps a walk would help everything. The kinks, the mind, the spirit. He’d come to Cape Ann early, and sitting in a safe, comfortable hotel suite wasn’t the reason. What he needed was thinking time, and not for next week’s lecture series at the small art colony. The lectures could write themselves. But his life couldn’t. He needed to write that himself page by page. Finally. Time to deal with mistakes, with life. With death. All those lofty things.

Harrison walked over to the windows, nursing the last of his drink, the hours ahead playing out against the night.

The invitation from Sam Perry had come out of the blue. A gift from the gods. Or the devil, maybe. Who knew? Sometimes he found it hard to differentiate. What he did know was that he had planned to come to Cape Ann, anyway. It was on his list. His last stop. But fate, in the person of this former student, had set things in motion, bringing him to the island a few weeks earlier than planned. Fate sometimes took away the need to make decisions. A relief.

A lecture series for the Canary Cove Art Colony. In the art association’s new magnificent old house on a cliff. He didn’t deserve it, but he’d accepted the invitation almost immediately.

Although he and Sam Perry hadn’t kept in touch personally, they would run into each other at events occasionally. He’d see the younger man’s name in the press, an award here, a lecture there. A new photography book.

He remembered Sam clearly from that long-ago workshop, back when Harrison himself was inflating his worth to anyone who would listen. Teaching workshops at prestigious locations brought him attention and contacts and something else he needed way back then—money to live on. An additional bonus was that now and then he’d have a student like Sam Perry. Harrison recognized the young man’s talent immediately. A fledgling photographer who had that innate gift—the eye, the ability to see things through a camera lens that were invisible to ordinary people. Perry had that talent in spades. Harrison knew it. And used it. And, as he suspected would happen, Perry had done just fine in spite of his instructor’s interference. And somehow, that made whatever he did okay, although the old Harrison Grant wouldn’t have cared either way.

He looked down at his watch, a despicable habit he couldn’t shake.

No messages. He shrugged. No one was expecting him for a couple of days. There was no reason to let the lecture organizers know he had arrived in Cape Ann early. Or anyone else. He had no obligations before Friday. It gave him time.

He put some bills on the bar and anchored them with his glass. He’d be back home soon, wherever that might be. New York for starters, Paris maybe. He liked this new sense of freedom, for however long it lasted. Cleansing the soul had done even more for him than he’d anticipated. A feeling that he could fly.

Harrison took off his jacket and swung it over one shoulder. He made his way through the bar toward the crowded lobby. It was still early. Maybe he’d take a walk along the water, revisit the beauty of the harbor. See if his memory was triggered by the streets. Think it all through.

He glanced back at the bar. The bartender looked over the top of a customer’s head and nodded her thanks for the oversized tip he’d left. He nodded back, then turned his thoughts to the rest of his evening. The old address, which certainly would be useless after all these years. He’d given up rights to the place.

The bar and the hotel lobby melted into one another, a sea of activity. Harrison stood between the two, looking over a maze of faces. At one end of the lobby was another fireplace, where cheery flames cast light and shadows across a wide circle of chatting groups, their faces blending together like in an impressionistic painting. People sat or stood, laughing, greeting, hugging farewell. Harrison stood quietly, enveloped in the lives of others.

Finally, he looked once more through the bar’s wall of glass, toward the dark night. An unexpected chill ran through him, causing his shoulders to twitch.

Nerves?

No. He was known for many things, but nerves weren’t one of them.

Yet the chill lingered. Harrison Grant was an intuitive man. Perceptive. Important traits for a photographer, he would tell his students. It’s what’s behind the face, the eyes, that your lens needs to capture. It’s what your eye and your camera can see, and what others miss.

But this night, as a giant moon hovered over the ocean and the town, the photographer chose to ignore the sensation that all wasn’t right. He chose not to look into the crowd. But if he had, the source of the strange slither up his back might have been made clear. His keen eye would surely have spotted the lone figure near the fireplace, would have framed it in his mind’s eye.

A heart-stopping portrait of a shadowy face. Piercing eyes staring into his imaginary camera lens.

Staring at Harrison Grant.

The hostess showed Izzy and Cass to the window table in the Franklin Cape Ann, leaving Danny behind, chatting with a friend on the other side of the cozy restaurant.

Cass sighed, shrugging free of a large, worn military-style jacket.

“You can double that sigh,” Izzy said. “But the reception’s almost ready.”

Cass nodded. “But for the record, I’m not much of a party planner. This was it.”

“I never wanted you helping with this. You know that. The last thing you need to be doing right now is carrying things, moving chairs around, standing on ladders. Jeez, Cass.” The irritation in Izzy’s voice was masking what she really felt. Concern. Cass looked tired and uncomfortable. She seemed to deny the fact that pregnancy could affect one’s life in a multitude of ways. But when Izzy and Nell had offered to plan the lecture series opening reception, there had been no keeping Cass out.

Cass lifted one hand to stop Izzy’s words. “You’re right. No more ladders. But I’m not an invalid, Iz. And I’m not about to let people make me feel that way.”

Izzy’s voice softened. “I know.” What she also knew was that Cass was stubborn and refused to let up on anything. Including the stress and work involved in running a lobster business.

“But, hey, wipe away the concern, Iz. I’m relaxing. I’m even getting into that yoga, which you tell me cures all ills. It’s good.” She looped the heavy jacket across her arm.

“Harmony Fairchild’s class, right? Yes, she’s great. One of my customers says taking her class is like going to church. Does your little fisherman’s wife like it?”

“The fisherman is big and bulky. It’s the wife who’s little. Her name, as you well know, is Elena.”

Before Cass could expand on her yoga partner, Danny Brandley walked over to the table, carrying a basket of warm bread and the restaurant’s lemony hummus.

“Stole this from the waitress. I told her my pregnant wife might start eating silverware soon if she didn’t have sustenance.”

He noticed the trace of a frown on Cass’s face and attempted a tease to lessen it, pointing to the jacket she was holding. “Hey, isn’t that mine?” He set the bread on the table and took the jacket from Cass’s hands, then shook it out dramatically in front of Izzy. “Mine, Iz. The woman has taken everything I own. My jacket. My sweats. My pj’s. The last straw was my Wicked Tuna shirt.”

Izzy laughed.

Cass shook her head. “It’s your baby, too, buddy. This is the only jacket that fits. And little Hal here was cold.” She patted the baby bump, which had ballooned into a mountain over the months, and sat down, arranging her unfamiliar body as comfortably as she could on the chair.

“What if little Hal is a gal?” Izzy looked with unabashed affection at Cass’s transformed figure. Baby Hal was somehow already a part of their lives, already loved by this group of friends.

“Halloran Brandley. Hallie for short. Or Allie.”

“Or Loran. Or Brandley Brandley,” Danny said, shrugging out of his jacket.

Baby responded with a kick.

Danny sat down, staring at the slight movement in awe, then leaned in and said in a hushed tone, “Okay, no Brandley Brandley.” He stole one more glance at Cass’s now-quiet profile, then looked over at the empty chair. “So where’s our driver?”

“Good question.” Izzy looked out the window at Gloucester’s lively Main Street, packed tonight with cars and a parade of people out and about. “He’s probably still looking for a parking place. Kinda crazy for the middle of the week.”

“That’s good. We will be lost in the crowd, strangers in a strange land,” Cass said.

It was Danny who had suggested dinner in Gloucester, a short drive from Sea Harbor. He knew his wife’s emotions up close. Putting a few miles between them and the town in which Cass had been born and raised and knew nearly every person who lived there would lessen the chances of well-intentioned teasing. Or that was the hope.

“One more comment about it being triplets or late or early or next year and I think I might say things I’d regret,” Cass had complained.

Or you might cry, Izzy had thought. She remembered feeling the same emotions not that long ago, when Abigail Kathleen Perry had stubbornly refused to enter the world on schedule. In birth classes they didn’t teach one fully about how to handle dancing hormones. And right now Cass was dealing with all that—and pretending she wasn’t. Cass needed to feel safe these days. And loved.

They sat in the front window of the dimly lit, cozy Franklin Cape Ann restaurant, the sounds of laughter, conversation, and the smells of fine food circling around them like a finely knit blanket. The basket of warm bread and the hummus took the edge off their hunger. Danny ordered a bottle of wine and hot tea for Cass.

And then they saw Sam, his eyes peering through the window at them, his nose flattened, his phone held up in his hand.

Izzy waved him in.

The smell of the sea clung to Sam as he strode over to the table. He tugged off his jacket and dropped down next to Izzy, then stared at the now-empty breadbasket. “Did I miss dinner, too?”

“Almost. What took you so long?” Izzy asked.

“No place to park. I ended up at the Beauport Hotel parking lot. You’d think this was the last night of good weather. The whole town is out.”

Danny glanced out the window. “Maybe a concert down at the Harbor Loop.”

“Nope, I think it’s the weather. The moon, the ocean. Huge waves tonight, even in the harbor. And the light on the water is amazing.” Sam set his phone on the table.

Izzy picked it up. An image of a magnificent moon filled the small screen. She held it up for Danny and Cass to see. “We’ve been stood up for a photo op. It’s the story of my life.”

Sam took his phone back. “You’re lucky I didn’t have my Canon along. I’d still be down there. The moon is mesmerizing. It’s almost eerie, like it’s playing games with the tide. Teasing it, whipping it into a frenzy.” He paused, glancing out the window, then back, as if he didn’t want the moon to hear. “But it’s strange, too. Ominous.”

“Ominous, like spooky?” Cass asked. She craned her neck to see around Izzy and out the front window.

Sam shrugged. He sat back in his chair when the waiter brought hot tea and a bottle of wine to the table, then ordered a plate of appetizers.

“The moon can do that,” Izzy said. “Clouds drift in front of it, and you can read all sorts of things in the moon’s face. Sometimes on warm summer nights, Sam and I lie on the beach with Abby, looking up into the galaxy. Abby can already point out the Dippers, Mars. And she thinks the moon man looks a little like Uncle Ben.”

“There’s no Uncle Ben in this one. It’s a mysterious face, one that seems to be driving the tide crazy. A harbinger maybe.”

“Of what?” Izzy asked.

“Murder?” Danny suggested, his brows lifting up into the mop of brown hair that fell over his forehead, a few stray strands touching the rim of his glasses.

“Enough, Brandley,” Cass said, resisting the temptation to brush his hair off his forehead, like his mother always did. She shifted in her chair. “This is what happens when Danny’s in the middle of writing a new mystery. Even the moon becomes a suspect. And, hey, sometimes the old moon man did it. But don’t tell that to Abby. I don’t want my goddaughter scared of the solar system.” Cass tried to tilt sideways and plant a kiss on Danny’s cheek, but her lopsided figure got in the way.

Danny leaned over and gave her a hug. “See why I love this lady? She understands writers. Murder. Moons. All those things. What can I say? She gets me.”

Sam and Izzy chuckled, not yet used to the open affection that seemed to have developed along with Cass’s pregnancy. But liking it. Pregnancy was nicely rubbing off some of their dear friend’s callouses.

The waiter showed up and filled the table with platters of mussels and Thai spring rolls. While Izzy passed around small plates, Sam turned his head toward the window again and squinted, his brow creased.

“That moon has you in a spell, Perry,” Cass said. “You do know that it’s over two hundred thousand miles away, right? It’s not going to get you. Not tonight, anyway. What’s up with you?”

Sam turned back and shrugged, but a slight furrow in his forehead remained. He reached for the wine bottle and poured it slowly, as if trying to figure out his own thoughts. When he spoke, the furrow had smoothed out slightly. “When I was a kid spending summers at the Kansas ranch, being crazy and wild with Izzy’s brothers, drinking cans of beer behind the barn, I’d look up and imagine the moon was following us. I feel like that tonight.” He looked at Izzy, a half smile creasing his face. “It’s weird how strong that memory is.”

Izzy listened, trying to reach back into Sam’s memory, remembering when Sam had been her brothers’ friend, not hers. He’d been someone to be ignored, a pest or a tease, along with her bratty brothers. She had had her own world back then, one that hadn’t included any boys. Sam hadn’t been quite as bad as her brothers, Charlie and Jack, but he’d still been a boy. Back then, Izzy had much preferred horses and riding alone along the wooded edge of the Chambers family ranch. Her thoughts had been focused on Ella, her favorite mare, and the newest Nancy Drew book she’d begun. The fact that Sam had had his own world then, too, had never occurred to her. And here they both were in Massachusetts. No ranch, but each other. A baby. An ocean. And then a moon.

Somehow Sam’s thoughts seemed more immediate tonight. Closer to Cape Ann than to Kansas.

“I don’t think it’s just the moon tonight,” she said to Danny and Cass, then looked at Sam, her brows lifted.

Sam was quiet. He motioned to the waiter for another basket of bread.

“So what, then?” Cass asked in that way friends could do, ignoring quiet Sam and instead asking his wife.

“It’s about his old teacher—inviting him to be the guest of honor at the Art Haven weekend reception and the lecture series.”

“The infamous Harrison Grant,” Danny said. “I met him once, in the old days, when I wrote news features about real people, and not made-up ones about people being killed or brilliantly solving murders. When’s he coming? Soon, right?”

“Not for a couple days, just in time for the reception,” Izzy answered. “Sam is on duty to pick him up Friday morning, so he’ll have time to settle in at the grand Art Haven building, check out the town maybe, and get ready for the event.”

Cass folded her hands over her loose top. “Grant is a big wheel in photography circles, even I know that. Some digital portraits of the rich and famous. Some arty stuff. He’ll be a draw, that’s for sure.” She looked at Sam. “And the cocktail party, thanks to all of us unpaid helpers, is going to be great. And those words come from me, someone who hates cocktail parties. So if you’re worried your famous teacher is going to be embarr—”

Sam stopped her words. “I’m not worried. I thought there might be better choices, that’s all. But Jane Brewster wanted this guy. She’s the boss, founder of our whole art world. I knew Grant. So I invited him. End of story.”

“That’s all true,” Izzy said. “I can vouch for that. He invited Grant because Jane asked him to, and who can say no to Jane? Mother Earth incarnate. And Sam’s a pushover, we all know that. He wouldn’t turn her down.”

That was a given. Everyone knew and loved Jane and Ham Brewster. Not only were they Izzy’s aunt and uncle’s close friends, but they had cofounded the Canary Cove Art Colony and were Mom and Pop to any artist in need. If Jane thought Harrison Grant’s presence would benefit the art colony and her artists and the town, Sam would do as she asked. They all would.

Danny took his glasses off and rubbed them absently with a napkin, his broad forehead creased in thought. “But, Sam, here’s what I don’t get—”

The waiter approached to take their orders, interrupting Danny’s sentence.

Sam’s relief at the interruption wasn’t lost on any of them.

But even the young waiter’s description of pan-seared salmon in a lemony basil sauce, the restaurant’s famous hanger steak and hand-cut frites in truffle butter, scampi, and braised short ribs couldn’t move Danny away from his question. As soon as the waiter had taken their orders and walked away, Danny picked up the conversation

“I’m curious why you didn’t agree with Jane’s choice. Who would have been better? Why is Grant a bad choice?”

Sam shrugged, reaching for the last spring roll.

Izzy spoke up, replying to Danny, but with her eyes focused on her husband. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. I see the man’s photo in Vanity Fair, places like that. He seems to end up on their party page. But that doesn’t disqualify him.”

Sam listened, tracing invisible circles on the table with his fork. Finally, he looked up. “I think you’re all making too much out of this. I don’t even know the guy that well. I took a semester workshop from him. That’s how we met. It was a coup to get into his workshop, even back then. And he was a good teacher—I’ll give him that. He pushed me to do better. Gave me lots of feedback—not always kindly, but always helpful. Some people in the workshop weren’t so lucky. Anyway, the guy was arrogant. Ambitious, huge ego.” He shrugged. “Not my kind of guy.”

“That’s true of a lot of talented people,” Cass said. “Not any of the talented ones at this table, for sure, but lots of other people.”

“Maybe I thought he’d embarrass Jane, the program. The guy used to like his drinks. I have a feeling about him. Unfair, maybe. People can change, I suppose.”

“But you gave in,” Danny said. “Why?”

“Like Izzy said, Jane wanted him. And what fledgling photographer wouldn’t want to learn from the guy? He’s made quite a name for himself. And besides—” Sam paused and finished off his glass of wine, then poured another.

“Besides what?” Cass asked.

“Grant hobnobs with the rich and famous—the beautiful people, the best galleries, the best . . . everything. Not communities like ours. When Jane insisted, I finally agreed to give it a try because I realized he’d probably turn down the invitation anyway. It would be beneath him. Then I’d help Jane find someone else.”

“So much for my prescient husband,” Izzy said, still sorting through Sam’s comments, which, frankly, made little practical sense to her.

Cass leaned as far forward in her chair as she could, then put her elbows on the table. “Okay, Perry, so do I have this right? A well-known photographer with a world-class ego has accepted an invitation to participate in our art colony’s lecture series and even grace us with his presence at a cocktail party—a good thing because many of the folks who are coming have money and will buy art, helping our starving, talented artists. But you were sure he wouldn’t accept your gracious invitation, because we’re not good enough for him. And you’re not crazy about him. Then, to top it off, the whole situation is causing the moon to do weird things. Am I right so far?”

Even Sam managed a laugh at Cass’s dramatic spiel. And soon t. . .