A Finely Knit Murder - Couverture souple

Goldenbaum, Sally

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 045147161X ISBN 13 : 9780451471611

Editeur : Penguin Publishing Group, 2016

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Chapter 1

Monday, early autumn

The glass in the headmistress’s door rattled, but it was the chilling echo of footsteps on the polished floors that rattled Dr. Elizabeth Hartley’s soul. She stood still at the office door and stared through the reception area and into the round entry hall.

Captain Elijah Westerland, the subject of the school hall’s gigantic painting, looked in at her, his bushy eyebrows pulled together, his eyes black and small and piercing. Judging eyes.

What had she done now? This woman who held his beloved home in her hands?

But that was foolish. It was a painting, after all, and the captain had been dead for nearly a hundred years. Moreover, his home was no longer a home, but a wonderful school.

She took a deep breath and tried to shake off the unease. Elizabeth hadn’t anticipated the volcanic anger or the teacher’s abrupt departure. Maybe the captain hadn’t, either. But neither of them should have been surprised. Of course he’d be upset. People didn’t like it when you messed with their livelihoods—and Josh Babson was soon to be out of a teaching job in a town with few openings.

But the decision had been taken out of her hands. Josh’s recent absences were known to the board, his faint excuses not very credible. And although he had a charming manner, he could be prickly.

Elizabeth had attributed it to his artistry. Weren’t artists supposed to be temperamental? The few paintings she had seen of his were lovely, and his students liked him. If only he had toed the line a little more precisely.

She’d tried to reason with him as best she could, hoping to help him see that missing work and confronting board members didn’t go over well at Sea Harbor Community Day School. She needed the art teacher to be there when the bell rang, when eager students filed into his classroom. And he was getting better, paying closer attention to the artist’s clock that sometimes kept him painting at home after the magnificent girls’ school on the hill opened its doors, preparing for a new day.

Josh was getting better . . . but once a few of her board members got involved, it was too late. It wasn’t within the purview of her position to rehabilitate the teachers or staff, one had pointed out to her.

Controlling his exit, however, was her job.

And that had gone badly.

On the other side of the administrative suite, the door to a smaller office opened and the assistant headmistress stepped into the reception area. Mandy White stood tall and composed. She glanced at Teresa Pisano, who was shuffling papers behind the reception counter, trying to look busy. “What’s going on?”

The school secretary lifted her bleached-blond head and shrugged one shoulder. It was an off-putting mannerism, one Teresa had recently developed.

Mandy looked back at the headmistress, still standing in the doorway. “Do you need help, Elizabeth?” she asked.

Elizabeth met Mandy’s look and offered a half smile and a slight shake of her head.

I’m fine, the gesture said. Everything was under control.

Before Mandy could pursue the issue, Elizabeth closed her office door and moved back into the safe shadows of the room.

The elegant office seemed tarnished by the anger and harsh words that had filled it moments before. In spite of the faded drapes and worn Oriental carpet, the room seemed to demand quiet and respect, intelligent conversation. Not the hand waving that had scattered the paperwork she had carefully put together to document her decision.

Elizabeth looked down at her computer and checked the next appointment. Ten minutes to collect herself.

And it was just the beginning of the week. If she had had her way, she would have waited until Friday to talk to Josh. Then he would have had the weekend to come to grips with being fired, and he could have come back on Monday to finish up the remaining week in the quarter. Then depart from his students gracefully. She had suggested he tell the students he was moving on to other opportunities. He was talented, she said to him. He shouldn’t forget that. There was a life beyond teaching. And she would help him in any way she could.

Sea Harbor was a small town; she owed him some support.

But her plan to wait until Friday was thwarted by the planned Tuesday board meeting, and Elizabeth was asked to tie up this loose end so she could report on it at the monthly meeting the next evening.

Tie up this loose end . . .

Was that what she had done?

Or had she created another loose end, a life left frayed and dangling?

Elizabeth set her glasses on the desk, rubbed her temples, and walked over to the lead glass windows fronting the school. The view beyond the windows was a tonic. She would have given up the ornate desk and elegant bookshelves in a heartbeat. But the view? That she would never give up.

From the day she had arrived in Sea Harbor, the magnificent seaside had soothed her, helped her acclimate to the new headmistress position, helped her through rough days of budget negotiations, decisions to reduce staff and adjust protocols, and dealing with student problems and board disagreements.

She pushed away the sliver of fear that had come with the slamming of the door. The parents and board didn’t think of her as fearful. Audacious. Brave. Intrepid. Those were the words some of them used—although she sometimes had to stop herself from saying, “No—that’s not me. Not really.” Fear wasn’t a stranger to Dr. Elizabeth Hartley, and it often surrounded the tough decisions she had to make. She was good at this job. Very good.

Her heartbeat slowed as she pushed the heavy windows open and welcomed in the salty breeze. It lifted strands of brown hair from her forehead, cooling her flushed skin.

Just a short distance below the windows, tiers of stone terraces gradually gave way to a wide lawn that rolled down to the sea, its expanse broken only by the granite boulders that seemed to have been tossed haphazardly about the property by some giant prehistoric claw. Beyond the lawn was a narrow road, nearly empty at this time of day save for a jogger or two and an old man walking his dog. And across from it was the old boathouse wedged in among the giant boulders, once filled with the Westerlands’ oceangoing sailing vessels, canoes, and motorboats. Another thing on her to-do list. Tear it down? Fix it up? Turn it into a little theater or art studio as students and teachers had suggested?

The thought pushed Josh Babson back into her head. Although the run-down boathouse was used mostly to store odds and ends, there were reports that some—Josh Babson and others—had sometimes used it as a personal hideout to rendezvous with a beer or a woman or a joint.

Or so the rumors went.

But even the boathouse was a part of the view she loved, its history and gray weathered sides merging into the color of the sea.

The view continued on forever, across the boulders, over whitecapped waves—until finally it touched the sky and melted into one single masterpiece.

Peace. She had found it here.

And she would protect it with her life.

*   *   *

Just a floor below, mixing in with the familiar odors of a science lab and cleaning supplies, the lilting voice of a recently enrolled student filled the wide hallway.

“Angelo, my Angelo—”

The singsong words hung in the dusty air like a hummingbird, fluttering lightly.

Angelo Garozzo looked up from his desk as the long-legged girl with the infectious voice filled the doorframe of his office.

“What was your mom thinking to give you that name?” Gabrielle Marietti asked, a frown teasing the man behind the desk. “Angel? I mean, seriously?”

“Humph.” Angelo sneezed. His rimless glasses slipped down to the ball that formed the end of his nose.

Gabby leaned her head to one side, an uncontrolled mass of thick hair falling across her cheek. “But maybe it fits. You’re sort of an angel to me. My nonna thinks so, anyway. Even though you’re wicked cranky sometimes. I probably should have been more discriminating when I put in my order for a guardian angel.”

Angelo laughed at that, his head pressing back into his high-backed chair. Then he leaned forward and glared at his visitor. “Don’t you know New Yorkers don’t get to use the word wicked? You trying to fit in here or somethin’?”

Gabby loved Angelo’s accent, the absence of r’s. Sometimes she tried to think of questions for Angelo that would require only r word answers. “I went to a Sox game with Sam and Ben last weekend,” she said, walking into the small room. A slice of sunshine fell from the high casement windows onto her blue-black hair. “So that counts for something, right?”

She brushed a layer of dust from a folding chair and sat down. The small room was crowded with manuals and tools, shoved onto shelves that lined one wall. A single filing cabinet stood beside Angelo’s metal desk, a small table holding a coffeepot and lunch box against another wall. The only other furniture were Angelo’s high-backed office chair, a heavy table with a printer on it, and a few folding chairs.

But the bright posters lining one gray wall made the office wonderful in Gabby’s mind. Broadway shows performed at the local high school, Sea Harbor Community Day School productions, shows performed in a small theater over in Gloucester. Angelo himself had sung a tune or two in his day, he confessed to Gabby one time.

But no matter, he loved them all, and donated generously to keep their doors open.

And Gabby loved that he loved them.

“Whattaya doin’ down here, anyway?” Angelo growled. “Shouldn’t you be in class somewhere, learning how to behave like a lady?” He waved one fist in the air as he talked, his bushy eyebrows tugging together until they almost touched—a white caterpillar shadowing piercing eyes.

Gabby grinned and flapped a folder in the air. “I’m Miss Patterson’s errand girl. I was about to fall asleep in her history class and she took pity on me.”

Angelo tsked and shook his head. “You watchit, Marietti. Your nonna holds me responsible for you, God knows why. You get yourself booted out of here and it’s all on poor Angelo.”

His words were soft, his gruff expression fading into a lopsided smile. He picked up an envelope from the corner of his desk, half rose, and shoved it toward her. ”Might as well give you an excuse for coming down here. This gets put directly into Dr. Hartley’s hands. And don’t lose it, you hear me talkin’ to you?”

Gabrielle shoved it under her arm. “Do you doubt me for a second? Of course I’ll do your bidding, fair Angelo. Your wish is my command.” She stood and bowed elaborately, her arms stretching out and knocking a stack of papers off his desk.

“Outta here, pest.” Angelo shooed her off with a wave of his hand.

Truth be told, he loved Gabby Marietti’s detours to his office. He loved her sass and her smile. She’d come late to Sea Harbor Community Day School, missing the first few weeks of the quarter after moving up from New York. But no one would have known she was a newbie. In the brief time she’d been there, Gabby had made a place for herself, brought sunshine into the cavernous mansion that housed the old school. Or at least into the office of the chief maintenance engineer, as the black-and-white sign on his door so presumptuously declared. Sunshine was good.

Gabby scooped up the papers and set them back on his desk. She wrinkled her nose at him, the freckles dancing on her fine-boned face. And then as quickly as she’d come, she spun around, arms and legs flying, and disappeared from Angelo’s view as she raced down the hall toward the staircase.

The urgent sound of boots on the hardwood stopped Gabby in her tracks just before she reached the bottom step.

“No running in the halls,” she imagined the person saying to her. “Decorum, my dear.”

But the sound on the steps was loud in the quiet hall, ominous, certainly not an administrator checking lockers or taking someone on a tour—and Gabby instinctively stepped back into the shadow near a utility closet.

The familiar figure that came barreling down the steps was mumbling fiercely, the sound pushing Gabby deeper into the shadows. She wanted to be invisible.

Mostly she didn’t want to embarrass Mr. Babson, the slender teacher who was teaching her to paint en plein air and never once considered her ramshackle watercolor of the old boathouse something that belonged in MOBA. Surely it would embarrass him to know a student was privy to the string of obscenities that filled the dusty basement air. Some of the words were ones Gabby had never heard before, even when she hung out at the fishermen’s dock, helping Cass and Pete Halloran repair lobster traps. These were unfamiliar, and seemed out of place coming from the mouth of the teacher.

Gabby backed up until she could feel the ridge of the firebox between her shoulder blades, dust motes filling the air in front of her. A sneeze was threatening to break her silence. She pressed one hand over her mouth, the other clutching the papers she was supposed to be delivering. One second before the tickle became utterly painful, Mr. Babson disappeared into the downstairs teachers’ lounge, his strangely animated voice trailing after him. Words like hussy and revenge were mixed in with the curses, until the door finally banged shut behind him, filling the hall with silence.

Gabby released a sigh of relief, pitying the final hour’s art class, who would have to face the angry teacher. It wouldn’t be pretty.

With a sudden desire to return as quickly as possible to the safety of her class and the trials of colonization, she raced up the steps to drop off the envelopes, pausing more briefly than she usually did in the lobby.

She always skidded to a stop here—even if she only had a minute—planting her feet on the striped hardwood surface and tilting her head back. The portrait demanded it. There was something about the austere expression on the man’s face that froze Gabby in her tracks. He’d had something like nine sons, her nonna had said. And they all lived in this house. She gave him her brightest smile. She’d crack that facade. Someday he’d smile back, she told herself.

Sure he would.

And then she rushed into the office suite, startling the secretary to attention.

“Gabrielle, where is the fire?” Teresa leaned over the tall counter and peered at the student, her long face somber.

“Delivering papers to Dr. Hartley.”

“I’ll take them,” Teresa said, reaching out her hand.

Gabby stared at her arm. It was thin, with knobs at her wrist. The kids talked about the secretary sometimes, but Gabby worried about her. She was so skinny, and had recently done something terrible to her light brown hair. It was a dull blond color and seemed to move in odd directions. Maybe it was just a wig, Gabby thought, somehow relieved at the idea.

“It’s okay, I told Angelo I’d deliver them—”

“And so you have. To me. You’re two seconds too late to see Dr. Hartley. An important board member beat you to it.” Teresa reached across the counter and took the papers f...

Revue de presse :

Praise for the Seaside Knitters Mysteries

“Goldenbaum once again shows her complete mastery of the combination of good friends, food, romance, and a puzzling murder that makes up a cozy. There is a large cast of supporting characters, but she makes good use of the eclectic mix, and she clearly defines existing relationships for the new reader. A knitting pattern and a recipe add the little extras that make cozies such fun reads.”—RT Book Reviews (4 1/2 Stars, Top Pick)

“Like the best marriages—mystery, romance, and lots of charm.” —Nancy Pickard, New York Times bestselling author

“A delight and a treasure—as engaging and unpredictable as a gorgeous New England afternoon.”—Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and Mary Higgins Clark award-winning author

“The characters ring true and clear.”—Carolyn Hart, New York Times bestselling author of the Death on Demand Mysteries

“A charming and delightful read. The book has a strong sense of place—so strong one can smell the seaweed. Delicious.”—Alexander McCall Smith, New York Times bestselling author

“Peopled with characters we come to care about. Add a cup of tea, a roaring fire, and you’ve got the perfect cozy evening.”—Rhys Bowen, New York Times bestselling author

“An intriguing mystery...Born of Goldenbaum’s fertile mind and generous heart, it’s as much a love story as a whodunit, and it satisfies discerning readers.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Penguin Publishing Group
• Date d'édition: 2016
• ISBN 10: 045147161X
• ISBN 13: 9780451471611
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 336