A Murderous Tangle

Book 3: Seaside Knitters Society

by Sally Goldenbaum

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

While the Seaside Knitters get ready to showcase their new Danish-inspired event, locals can’t stop talking about Tess Bean—a bright-eyed environmental activist with a way of charming both animals and humans alike. Birdie’s granddaughter is mesmerized by ethereal Tess’ passion for saving the earth and ocean, and even Izzy’s old Irish setter becomes attached to the young woman’s gentle touch....

Except not everyone is a fan of Tess and her strong opinions, especially after she starts questioning the “clean” practices of small-business owners. So when a popular bar owner whom Tess publicly calls out for bad practices is found dead from a fall off his club’s deck, it’s not long before she tops the suspect list for murder....

In addition to a murderer walking their streets, the knitters are also grappling with an unusual wave of thefts up and down Harbor Road. Now as Birdie’s granddaughter struggles to protect her mentor’s reputation, the Seaside Knitters must solve a dangerous mystery that not only threatens to unravel the fabric of their community and the approaching holiday but also the lives of those they care about the most....

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Print pages: 320

Sample

It would be days later, after the December days took on a new kind of chill, that Gabrielle Marietti would look back on the episode in the cove with a clarity—and a fear—that would startle her.

But on that day—a chilly December afternoon—she felt no alarm or fear or foreboding. Instead, what she experienced was a powerful sense of nature: of deep blue-black water, the salty taste of the air, and the shiver of the cold breeze as it lifted the dark hair on the back of her neck. She’d felt the sun coming through the pine trees and the voices that traveled across the cove. The power of nature.

And then another kind of power. Girl power. That’s what Gabby had thought that day.

But in hindsight, the colors and sounds would change. The breeze turned sinister, the wintry chill a warning. And the memory would make Gabby close her eyes and will it all to disappear.

It was a school day, but her grandmother knew she liked to loosen her legs, wander a bit after being cooped up for too many hours in a classroom. Some days Gabby would wander around the docks, where Cass Halloran’s lobster crews kept their traps and boats, and colorful fishermen wandered around. She loved their stories and jokes and how they welcomed her as if she were ageless, like so many of them.

Other days she and her friend Daisy would head over to Izzy’s yarn shop to help unpack boxes of yarn or watch customers’ kids in the shop’s playroom—the Magic Room, they called it. But the outdoors was Gabby’s natural habitat. That was where she felt truly free. And that was where, one day after school, she’d discovered the private cove that she soon claimed as her own.

Her nonna Birdie said that when she was young, she was that way, too—needing space and time for being alone with her thoughts and feelings. Her nonna liked stretching her arms out wide and shouting into the wind. Something they both agreed didn’t play well in the middle of Harbor Road. But sitting in the cove all by herself, Gabby’s shouts were embraced fully by nature, sometimes with nature whistling or crooning right back at her. And she loved imagining her nonna doing the same thing.

It was through a different lens that Ella Sampson, Birdie Favazza’s housekeeper, saw twelve-year-old Gabby’s need to wander. “Your grandmother worries, Gabrielle Marietti. You keep in touch with her. Always. Always let her know your whereabouts.”

The housekeeper’s words echoed in her head as Gabby checked the time on her cell phone, then tapped in a message: Biking and writing—not at the same time. Heading home soon. What’s for dinner?

Gabby was never sure if the texts were for Ella or for her grandmother. Birdie had told Gabby often that she didn’t worry. Not really, she said. Or at least she tried not to. Pretended not to was Ella’s take. But Birdie was quick to coat both Ella’s comments and her own expressions with the fact that she trusted her granddaughter fully. She knew Gabby had common sense. She knew right from wrong. Gabby agreed.

But Ella had made Gabby swear on a Bible, anyway, promising to keep all worry away from her grandmother. Then Ella had hugged Gabby tightly and told her she loved her like her own child, but she loved her employer more. And if Gabby didn’t do as Ella said, she might be responsible for Birdie having a heart attack, painting the awful possibility vividly enough to give Gabby nightmares two nights in a row.

She loved her grandmother more than almost anyone alive, other than maybe her father. Killing her nonna was a seriously horrendous thought. But for a twelve-year-old who had mostly grown up in a New York penthouse with a globe-traveling father, no mother, and more freedom than God afforded birds (as the cook often told her), reporting in took great effort. But she did it. For her nonna.

And to escape Ella’s wrath.

She slipped her phone into a pocket of her backpack and pulled her knees up to her chest. The old dock rocked beneath the movement, the waves choppy as they hit the shore. Gabby shivered. Winter was in the air. The holidays beginning. She hugged her heavy jacket close.

“Wear this one, my darling,” Birdie had called out that morning, catching Gabby a second before she raced down the long circle drive to catch the school bus. She’d tossed the puffy down garment to her.

Gabby liked the cold—but was happy for the jacket. Her nose and cheeks were turning red and her black hair flew wild and damp from the windy spray.

She loved this hidden cove—her special place. The abandoned dock, beaten by winds into a wobbly plank. The paths, tangled and overgrown with shadbush and greenbrier that challenged her as she lugged her bike through the undergrowth and down to the water’s edge. She imagined what it would be like soon, covered in white, the trees bending beneath winter’s weight. Quiet. Amazing.

She looked out over the perfect half-moon of water, the curve of land dotted with bushes and trees tangled from decades of ocean winds and tucked into the granite boulders that formed a hill rising above the water. This was her place. Her earth, as Tess Bean would say to her and the rest of the class. Their earth, one they had to protect and care for.

A gust of wind swept across the water, sending shallow waves lapping against the old pier. Gabby tightened her hold on her long legs—deer legs, people said. Too long. Gabby thought it was a good description of her whole body. It was too everything. Her freckles were too dark and too many. Eyebrows too thick. And her baseball cap only pretended to contain the mass of dark, too-thick waves now damp with sea air. She didn’t much care, not usually, not often. The legs won track meets, and her nonna loved the freckles.

The harsh squawk of gulls broke the silence and pulled Gabby’s attention to the opposite side of the cove. At first, her eyes were drawn to the tide, darkening the boulders at the shore’s edge. And then, as if the rising tide had been but a harbinger, the sounds of foliage and birds scattering from danger drew her eyes halfway up the rocky incline, where a figure emerged from a stand of trees and tangle of sumac and bearberry.

She rarely saw people on that side, especially when the sea air grew heavy and the spray stung and colored cheeks. Gabby liked that—an isolated spot.

She leaned forward now, squinting to bring the intruder into focus. Another followed, emerging from the trees and following the other. Smaller. The first was clearly a man, tall and nondescript with a mud-colored hoody covering him like a monk. He seemed to be laughing at what the woman was saying behind him.

The woman’s head was bare and a heavy sweatshirt covered her whole body, disguising her shape.

Just then, a billowing cloud shadowing the cove moved on its way, allowing a ray of afternoon sunshine to light the woman from behind, her shaggy yellow-white hair shimmering like an angel’s halo.

Gabby’s mouth dropped open. And then she grinned.

It was Tess. Amazing Tess.

There was no mistaking her now. She had walked onto the smooth plane of a boulder close to the water. Her stance was familiar, resolute and strong, and it made her seem even taller than Gabby’s gangly height, even though Tess was shorter. The haircut was unmistakable. The same one that every seventh-grade girl at Sea Harbor Community Day School coveted: thick white and gold strands that looked like they’d been shaped by Ella’s pinking shears. A careless look—hair escaping from whatever she’d used to control it—hairpins, bands, a baseball hat. Gabby and her friends coveted its cool, exotic messiness, one they all wished they could mimic and that was made even more dramatic by the rumors that said Tess cut her own hair. She was most definitely the best part-time teacher the school had ever hired.

She stood just a foot or two beyond the man, talking, her small hands gesturing in sync with her words. Passionate words, Gabby guessed. Tess was a passionate woman. An occasional word broke free of a sentence and floated across the water to where Gabby sat.

Garbage. Killing fish. Spoiled. Always. Always.

Gabby frowned, not sure of what was happening. She started to get up, to wave at the woman whose convictions and wise words about clean water and wasted food and global warming were still rattling around in Gabby’s head—words she had heard earlier that day in science class. Words she had minutes before recorded on her tablet, along with other things Tess had taught them and her thoughts about it all.

The man seemed unperturbed by Tess’s tirade, uninterested in whatever the woman was saying to him. Maybe not even listening. Or laughing away the message. Cocky.

He took a step closer to the water’s edge, where the rising tide rose nearly up to his sneakers. He leaned over, picking up a handful of small rocks from the sliver of shore. Then, one by one, he tossed them into the water as if unaware of the woman standing a few steps away. Ignoring her in a way that seemed practiced. As if she weren’t there. Or didn’t matter.

But he did know she was there. Of course he did. Finally he lifted his head and stood up, looking over at her and raising his own hand. He spoke loudly, his words carried on the breeze.

“A tree-hugging babe,” he said. “Bean-babe. Geesh, trees? Plastic?”

His laughter followed his words, rolling across the cove like a bowling ball. Gabby tensed up. The man laughed again and took a step in Tess’s direction, his hood falling around his neck as he moved.

The scene was surreal. Gabby bit down on her bottom lip and willed herself still.

But Tess didn’t look frightened at all. She took a step closer to him and cut his words off sharply, slicing the air with her hand like a machete.

The man didn’t look deterred, his words muffled now. His back was straight and his shoulders broad, nearly blocking Tess from sight. He took a step toward her.

The wind picked up and Gabby felt something building deep inside herself, even more powerful than the beating of her heart. She pulled herself upright and stepped to the end of the old dock.

She stared intently across the water. But before she could frame her emotions sensibly, before she could yell out for Tess to do something—to run or hide—before she could do a single thing, Tess took over. She shouted at the man, a sound that reached Gabby’s ears like an animal sound. Angry and loud. The man didn’t move, not even when Tess took the next step—a long one that brought her inches away from the man facing her.

Tess wasn’t afraid. Not at all. Gabby could see that clearly now, even from her distant post. Just mad. She’d seen it before, how she could stand up to people who were refusing to correct their ways. Fearless. Bold.

Gabby grinned and shielded her eyes from the late-afternoon sun, peering intently at the drama being played out across the cove. A drama, for sure. She wondered what act this one was? And what would the last act be?

She watched as Tess raised her hands out in front of her, and with a strength that betrayed her size, she placed her palms flat on the chest of the man in front of her. And then she pushed.

At first, the man teetered like a wobbly set of dominoes, arms and legs not connecting to his body. Seconds later, he arched backward, arms flailing, and his long body flying into the shallow, freezing water of the cove.

A spray of water rose up to where Tess, still watching silently, stood. Her words were loud, intended to reach the flailing man. “That’s my thanks. For nothing.”

Gabby’s breath came out in a whoosh. She snapped her mouth closed and squinted so hard her eyes hurt, forcing the scene into focus. The man’s hoodie billowed like a balloon around him as he lay on the shallow rocky bottom. Tess leaned forward, her hands on her knees, watching while the man grabbed an outcropping of weeds and began to pull himself safely from the frigid water.

Gabby waited, her breath caught in her chest, her eyes moving from the creature rising from the sea, spraying water wildly, to the woman pulling herself upright, still watching as the man regained his footing.

A stream of profanity floated up as the man tugged at strands of seaweed caught in his sodden jeans and sweatshirt.

But Tess didn’t move. Just looked, watching while the man regained his balance.

Then one word traveled down to the man, and across the water to where Gabby stood, listening, watching, waiting for the next act.

“Payback,” Tess said. And then she calmly turned and climbed back up the rocky incline, through the scrub bushes until the evergreens at the top seemed to part for her, then close gently behind as she disappeared into the fading day.

Gabby stood frozen on the dock, processing the scene that had played out in front of her.

She watched the man strip off his soaking sweatshirt and stare into the trees after her, making no move to follow. He was shaking his head, as if in wonder. Or terrible anger. She couldn’t be sure.

Had he looked the other way, he might have seen Gabby standing there on the dock, her face registering awe and amazement and pleasure at what one heroic woman had done.

“Girl power,” Gabby whispered, a smile filling her whole face.

Birdie Favazza brushed a speck of dirt from her wool pants and wrapped her fingers around the door handle of the Lincoln Town Car, hushing her driver’s desire to race around and open the door for her. Her age didn’t equate to feeble, she had told him more times than she could count. And the fact the Harold Sampson, her groundskeeper, chauffeur, and a multitude of other things, might still be adequate behind the wheel of her Lincoln, he himself was slightly more stooped than Birdie, and no spring chicken.

“It’s cold out there, dear,” she said, patting Harold’s arm. “I certainly have enough strength in this seasoned body to open a car door.”

And then she paused for a brief moment, taking a moment to breathe in the familiar scent that lingered in the car.

Even after all these years, the grand old car still smelled of Sonny Favazza, dead for decades but leaving behind the sweet scent of cherry pipe tobacco. It was still there, hiding in the creases of the aged leather seats. Right alongside a passel of memories and emotions that fueled Birdie’s soul.

Although other men had shared Birdie’s life after Sonny’s early death, he was her complete love, the one who filled her heart fully and remained there always. It was Sonny who walked through life with her. The one she talked to first when she needed advice or a listening ear. The one she whispered a Godspeed to before closing her eyes every night of her life. And the one she awoke to each morning, as if Sonny had been beside her all night long, holding her close beneath the down comforter. Sharing her life, her day.

Like she had done that morning—and again, now on the ride to Izzy’s yarn shop. Harold sat in the front, humming along to an old tune on the radio and leaving Birdie with quiet time.

Sonny hadn’t been much help that morning, though, but she couldn’t blame him. He was surely as confused as she was at being the grandparent of a twelve-year-old child. Burgeoning on young womanhood, really, but still a child in so many ways.

“It’s a challenge, my dear love,” she whispered. “Help me to listen, to guide, to be as wise as you . . .”

Harold had pulled over and double-parked in front of the yarn shop, waiting patiently. Finally Birdie opened the door and stepped out into a bracing wind, but she held on to the car door for another minute—and on to the thoughts of Gabrielle Marietti.

When Gabby had come into Birdie’s life unexpectedly a few years before, Birdie’s heart had soared. The skeleton in her closet, some townsfolk had affectionately teased. Birdie ignored them. Her last husband had died without knowing he was a grandfather. And Birdie a step-grandparent, though the step had never entered into her relationship with Gabby. Not once. And it never would.

But what was more unexpected than Gabby’s surprising appearance in Sea Harbor those years ago was the love that had swallowed Birdie whole, jarring her with its intensity. Filling her up like a balloon.

The love between the two of them had grown into a force that Birdie thought would keep her alive forever. And the bond seemed to grow deeper and more profound as Gabby grew.

But this year Birdie had sensed something different about Gabriella Francesca Marietti. Her granddaughter had made the choice to come back to Sea Harbor and to attend Sea Harbor Community Day School rather than a school in Italy while her father built a new factory there.

Gabby was taller than she had been the summer before. That was to be expected, of course. Birdie’s chin required an upward tilt now when she talked to her granddaughter. And the whites of her eyes were still very clear, the irises bachelor button blue. Arresting eyes.

But changes were there, subtle differences. Gabby’s long black braid still hung down between her shoulder blades, wisps escaping as if the braid was well-worn, like a frayed knit sweater. But these days it was streaked with a lovely band of pink.

“For breast cancer awareness,” Gabby had explained to Birdie.

And as for breasts, Gabby had the beginning of those, too. The small buds of a year ago were no longer invisible, hiding beneath worn T-shirts. Now they changed the contour of sweet Gabby’s body beneath her cotton shirts. And even the T-shirts were different, especially the ones her granddaughter favored—the ones her school environmental club was silk-screening, emblazoned with messages like Think Green, I Speak for Trees, and Save Our Ocean. Gabby had even made one for Birdie. It featured three happy little yellow bees with their message: If we die, we’re taking you with us.

Gabby. Her Gabby. This wonderful little person who had changed her life. Now if only Birdie’s decades-old mind and body could keep up with this gift she’d been given.

Behind her, Harold’s voice and a honking horn caused Birdie to jump. Only then did she realize she was standing still beside the car. In the street. In the cold. With Sonny’s mighty Lincoln blocking traffic.

“You all right, Miz Birdie?” Harold had rolled down the window and was leaning out the window, concern deepening the hollows in his long face.

Birdie shook her small head. “Of course I’m all right, Harold. Why wouldn’t I be? Now off with you,” she said, waving her small hand in a queenly way. “I am fit as a fiddle.” For emphasis she straightened her small back, rising to her full five feet and stepped briskly away from the car and up the curb.

She waved at Father Northcutt, the local priest, who was coming out of the bookstore next door, a bright red scarf flapping about his chins, his jowled face filled with a kindly smile. Then she turned and walked toward the bright blue door of Izzy Perry’s yarn shop, wrapped in ropes of greens and tiny white lights.

Birdie paused briefly at the door, images of Gabby still spinning about her. My granddaughter. Imagine that. A sudden rush of cold wind ruffled her short white bob as she pressed a thin blue-veined hand against her heart. She looked down as her hand moved slightly with the beat. In and out. In and out.

Goodness, she thought. Who ever thought one’s heart could grow so large?

Izzy Perry knew she’d be late getting back to her knitting shop, but having Mae Anderson, the world’s finest manager on duty, eased her worry. If Mae were in charge of the whole world, it would run more efficiently. Or so the gray-haired, bossy Mae often reminded her much younger boss. Izzy’s bigger concern was that the Thursday-night knitting group might go rogue. Her very good friend Cass Halloran in particular.

Cass, who co-owned the Halloran Lobster Company, had been far more familiar with pearls found in oysters than a kind of knitting stitch when she joined the four-woman knitting group those years earlier. But when she walked past Izzy’s yarn shop one evening, and an aromatic wave of garlic and butter and wine were pouring out the door, she was pulled directly into the knitting shop’s back room. Forever more, Thursday-night knitting was a sacred part of her week. Although she had finally learned how to knit caps for her lobster crew, Cass came mainly for Nell Endicott’s savory soups and casseroles.

And although the dark-haired lobsterwoman was a trim and fit forty-year-old, she always ate enough for two. Izzy knew if she didn’t get back to the shop soon, she’d be scraping the bottom of the casserole, and the wine bottles could quite possibly be empty. She felt a definite need for the wine tonight.

It’s been one of those days, she’d texted to her husband, Sam Perry. Please wait up for me.

Sam had texted an image back to her: the cover of one of their daughter Abby’s favorite books: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

It had made Izzy smile and decide that maybe the day hadn’t been quite that bad. Or at the least, it would get better. Especially after Sam followed his first text up with an image of their little Abby’s magnificent smile hidden behind a piece of chocolate cake.

She glanced over at the passenger in her car. He was her “first child.” Wonderful Red. He’d come into her and Sam’s life before little Abby was ever born. A dog stranded after his elderly owner had died. Old even then, Red was now a collection of achy joints. And Izzy wanted desperately to make every single one of them feel better.

She drove into the small parking lot and found a space near the front door, right beneath the freshly painted sign: TURNER ANIMAL CLINIC AND KENNELS. The clinic lights inside were on, and outside, the building eaves dripped with lit icicles.

Red looked up at her with soulful eyes.

“I know—it’s cold out there,” she whispered, “but you’ll feel better soon.” Izzy switched off the engine and circled around to the passenger door. She pulled it open and slid one arm beneath the sixty-five-pound dog, ready to ease him off the seat.

“Hey, wait. Let me help.”

The voice came from behind Izzy’s shoulder, and before she could turn completely around, a small body was wedging itself between Izzy and the dog.

“Hey, wait—”

“No, it’s okay. I’m used to this. It’s his hips that hurt, right? Goldens have problems with that. But you’d better move out of the way before we both freeze our butts off, not to mention the poor dog’s.”

Before Izzy could protest, the younger and shorter woman had elbowed her completely out of the way. In seconds she’d wedged her arms beneath Red and carefully scooped him up, all the while murmuring indecipherable words into the dog’s ear.

Red seemed to be listening.

“Get the door,” she said to Izzy. And then, a muffled afterthought: “Please?”

Red didn’t seem to be objecting to the stranger, who was almost invisible now behind his bulk.

Izzy bit back the urge to grab her sweet dog from the arms of the bossy interloper. Izzy might be ten years older than this woman, but she was strong and fit and ran miles whenever she could fit it in. But she could see that the young woman knew where to hold Red comfortably. And she obviously had the muscles required to keep Red intact.

Once inside, the woman carried Red over to a nook on the far side of the waiting room. Here and there a poinsettia acknowledged the season, along with a contemporary version of “Jingle Bells” coming through corner speakers. Izzy remembered a magazine stand once filling the small alcove in the corner, but today, a round dog bed and a pile of soft blankets covered the floor area. The woman crouched down, settling Red on the pile.

Izzy looked at the woman’s strong back. Streaked blond hair was pulled back and secured with a rubber band, but the cut was irregular and short, and strands escaped, messy and haphazard. She wore jeans and a nubby green sweatshirt with some kind of symbol on the back, sleeves rolled up now as she began to massage Red on the top of his head, the pads of her fingers circling lightly. Red seemed to be answering back, his body relaxing beneath her touch.

Izzy recognized something familiar about the messy hair and the glimpse of the profile, but before she could put the image together in a meaningful way, the receptionist called to her from across the room.

“Mrs. Perry, yoo-hoo. Over here.” A youn. . .