Patterns in the Sand (3 page)

 

 

Nell saw the expression on Aidan’s face turn sour at the mention of the Sea Harbor developer’s name.

 

 

“D.J. is . . . how shall I say it . . . ambitious?” Ham said. “He is determined that his construction and development company own the Cape, I think ” Ham looked over at Aidan. “ Rumor has it that he plans to get his sticky hands on your extra land and turn it into a nice, fancy, moneymaking inn for art collectors and tourists.”

 

 

“And he talks like he’s almost there,” Rachel added, walking back over to the group and joining into the conversation. “He’s been doing some title searches over at the county offices. Are you making a deal with D.J. that you haven’t told us about, Aidan?” She lifted her brows in a teasing fashion, knowing, as they all did, that selling the lovely treed acreage behind his studio and home would be the last thing Aidan Peabody would do.

 

 

“Over my dead body. He came to the council meeting this month and threw that plan on the table as if he had sense. Can’t you see his marketing plan? ‘Come see the artists at work.’ Monkeys in a zoo.” Aidan shook his head in disgust. “He’s a damn fool, and I told him as much.”

 

 

“As you said, Aidan, each to his own opinion.” Nell picked up a plate of truffles and passed it around, trying to soften the conversation. Nell didn’t mind conflict, but not around good food.

 

 

“What exactly does that arts council do?” Brendan spoke up from the side of the deck.

 

 

“Jane and Ham are really the experts,” Aidan said, nodding to his friends. “They set it up some years back as a way to keep the colony strong. All the artists contribute some of their earnings to the council treasury—and we do repairs, make sure the city keeps our streets clean, help out new shops, that sort of thing.”

 

 

“We have something to say about new shops coming in, too, and what kind of improvements are made to galleries, how exhibits are handled. It’s a little like a homeowners’ association,” Jane added. “It helps all of us in the long run, though there are some mighty heated conversations in the process.”

 

 

“Of which Billy is a fine example,” Ham added. “And D.J. Everyone gets their say. And we take turns as chair. This happens to be Aidan’s year.”

 

 

“And the council is responsible for starting the Arts Foundation, too,” Nell said, pointing out a wonderful entity begun a couple years back. In addition to scholarships and grants, a summer arts academy for kids had been started the year before, thanks to Foundation money. Nell herself spent time writing grants for it and sitting on the board.

 

 

“But . . . ,” Aidan started to add a comment, then stopped abruptly and sat back in the chair, holding his silence.

 

 

“Tony Framingham has contributed heavily to the Foundation,” Ham said.

 

 

Nell nodded. The young businessman, wealthy by default—because of the dishonest dealings of his family—had tried to make up for some of his family’s devious and tragic past by contributing to Sea Harbor causes, especially the Arts Foundation. “And that money will be put to good use, as Tony intended.”

 

 

Izzy spotted a lull in the conversation and walked over to the group, carrying a stack of flyers. “Did everyone see the posters Brendan brought?” She spread them out on a low table near the chairs, then smoothed one of the pieces and held it up. The poster read:

 

 

Art at Night
Join us one and all.
Sunday at dusk . . . and beyond.
Canary Cove

 

In broad colorful strokes the poster announced the next open-studio night of the summer, inviting the whole town to gather in the Canary Cove neighborhood to support the artists’ work, to experience art beneath the stars, and to eat, dance, drink, and be merry. Beneath the words was a soft watercolor of the quaint old galleries and shops clustered together along the windy lanes at the edge of the sea. It was a night scene, and tiny lights—like the smallest Christmas tree lights—twinkled out from the print.

 

 

“This is beautiful, Brendan,” Jane said, rising out of her chair and moving to Izzy’s side. She picked up another poster. “Just lovely. I’m tempted to frame one. We will ask storekeepers to keep them, and put them up each month.”

 

 

“We can plaster the town with them,” Cass said, looking over Jane’s shoulder. “My fishing buds will hang them in every tavern in town.”

 

 

The others laughed and passed the posters around the admiring group.

 

 

Aidan pushed himself off the chaise and walked over to look at the poster. “Good job, Slattery,” he said. “These should help get the good word out. Thanks.”

 

 

Brendan shrugged, seemingly embarrassed at the attention. “Opening the studios and shops to everyone is a good idea.”

 

 

“It most certainly is,” Birdie said. “The whole town loves it.” Birdie picked up one of the posters and looked down her nose, through her glasses, at the painting at the bottom of the poster. “And you, young man, have done a lovely job of portraying the evening with your lovely brushstrokes. So you paint?” Birdie asked.

 

 

Brendan nodded. “Watercolors,” he said. “Plein air.”

 

 

Birdie’s white brows lifted again. “Oh? That impresses me. Painting from photographs and imagination is lovely, but I am most admiring of artists who get out there in nature and paint what is right in front of them. I’d like to see your work sometime. I’m always interested in promoting local artists.”

 

 

“You should take her up on that,” Jane said. “Birdie Favazza is the best friend an artist could have. She’s kind of an arbiter of taste. If she likes something, she tells her legion of friends about it—and they usually like it, too.”

 

 

“Kind of like Oprah,” Ben teased.

 

 

“Do you have favorite places to paint?” Birdie said, glaring at Ben to hush.

 

 

“Well, I’m a mountain biker—I take my paints with me and paint what I see up in the mountains.”

 

 

“There aren’t too many of those in Sea Harbor,” Izzy said.

 

 

Brendan laughed. “I’ll adapt. I’m not here forever.”

 

 

“Well, even though we are down here at sea level, your painting of Canary Cove is lovely,” Birdie said. “And a wonderful depiction of our festive Art at Night gathering.”

 

 

Opening the studios, galleries, and small restaurants to the whole town one Sunday night a month was Aidan, Jane, and Ham’s brainchild. Festive and upbeat, townspeople and vacationers alike packed the narrow streets and shops on the open-studio night—a perfect summer pastime—and a boon to the artists in the neighborhood.

 

 

“You’re all coming, right?”

 

 

“Are you kidding, Jane? We wouldn’t miss it,” Izzy said. “Not to slight the rest of you, but I’ve become addicted to Rebecca Marks’ handblown beads. They’re amazing . . . and Ellen Marks tell me they’re having a special sale every Art at Night.”

 

 

“Rebecca is terrific,” Cass said. “Or at least her art is. She can be kind of a pill. But I must admit I’ve bought more than my share of her beads—they’re miniature works of art.”

 

 

The magical glass beads had received several awards recently, and Nell found herself nodding in agreement. In just one year, the Lampworks Gallery had become a favorite Canary Cove studio. Rebecca was the artist and Ellen managed the shop, handling the business end. Nell sometimes felt sorry for Ellen for having to deal with the flamboyant, temperamental Rebecca, but she seemed to have infinite patience when it came to her younger sister.

 

 

“Seems they’re doing some remodeling over there, too,” Ham said. “Ellen tells me that Rebecca wants skylights. They pass your code, Peabody?”

 

 

Aidan passed up the truffles Nell passed around a second time and he sat back down at the edge of the deck chair. “It’s ridiculous,” he muttered, looking down at the floor.

 

 

The sharpness in Aidan’s voice went unchallenged, and Nell suggested a final call for seconds on dessert. She didn’t want the conversation to hover around Rebecca and Ellen Marks. Aidan had dated Rebecca for a short while, recently calling it quits. The fact that the Lampworks artist hadn’t come with him tonight added near certainty to the rumors. It was a short-lived romance, Nell thought, and perhaps explained Aidan’s sharp tone. But whatever the reason, though an evening on the Endicotts’ deck often stirred spirited conversation, Nell insisted it end peacefully.

 

 

Reading his wife’s thoughts, Ben walked through the group with two brandy snifters balanced between his fingers and a carafe in the other hand. “And on a more pleasant topic, brandy, anyone?”

 

 

Aidan rested his elbows on his knees, a crooked smile on his face, and reached out for a glass. “A half inch, perhaps. You know my weakness, Ben.”

 

 

“Well, one of them, anyway.” He smiled at his friend and poured the amber liquid into the snifter bowl.

 

 

“Speaking of weakness,” Ham said, blunt fingers smoothing his beard, “I’ve got to find me a bed. Saturdays are busy days in the cove.” He pulled himself out of his chair and reached a hand down to his wife. “Come, Janie, dear. Your chariot awaits. And Brendan, you, too. You’re on early duty at Sobel’s tomorrow—want a lift?”

 

 

Brendan stood and yawned. “Sounds like a plan.”

 

 

Aidan began unfolding his lanky body from the chair. “It’s contagious. I guess I ought to move along, too.”

 

 

Nell watched her old friends with affection. Ham and Jane had been fixtures in Sea Harbor since a rock concert drew them to Boston from Berkeley in the early seventies. A side visit to Sea Harbor changed their lives. They fell in love with the winding coast, the sleepy village, and the rock formations, and they never left.

 

 

Aidan Peabody came along a while later, a decade after the Brewsters. He bought up some prime real estate on the shore, right in the heart of the artists’ development, and became another rock in the community by the sea.

 

 

Good friends, all of them.

 

 

“I’ve wrapped up key lime pie for each of you,” Nell said, following Aidan across the deck. “Ben and I don’t want it around.”

 

 

“Meaning Nell doesn’t want me to eat it,” Ben said. He reached over and patted Nell’s arm as she walked by. “She likes me lean and rock-solid.”

 

 

Nell’s soft laugh trailed behind her as she headed through the French doors to the open kitchen. She liked Ben healthy, was what she liked. And a heart attack scare a few years earlier had changed their eating and living patterns, though a little bit of key lime pie on a moonlit Friday night could be easily walked off along the beach in the morning.

 

 

A muffled ring broke into strains of soft jazz coming from the speakers. Nell glanced at the clock above the stove, then down at a lumpy knit bag near the kitchen counter. Her heart skipped a beat. A sliver of worry cut into the evening’s peace.
Silly,
she scolded herself.

 

 

Just because she and Ben would turn out the lights and head upstairs as soon as the last car rolled down their driveway didn’t mean other people’s night ended. Cass and Izzy’s evening might be just starting—Brendan Slattery, too—and it was Izzy’s phone, after all. It was probably friends inviting her to meet them at the Gull. Or maybe the Edge over near Pelican Pier, where the thirties crowd often gathered to bring their busy week to a relaxing end.

 

 

“Probably Sam,” Izzy said, coming up behind Nell and bending low to dig through her purse for her phone. She looked up at Nell while her finger tips rummaged through the cavernous bag. “He’s coming back into town for a few weeks and usually calls when he gets in so I don’t worry if there are lights on above the shop.”

 

 

Of course,
Nell thought. Sam Perry, who had come to Sea Harbor the summer before and never left, at least not completely. Between tours for his book of photographs and simply doing his job as a photojournalist, Sam always managed to find his way back to the tiny apartment above Izzy’s knitting studio, where he was welcomed by Purl—and Izzy, too. He was the ideal tenant, she said. He was never there long enough to mess it up or have crazy parties, and he always paid his rent on time. Good reasons to welcome him back—but not the whole picture, Nell suspected, especially when she saw the light in Izzy’s eyes at mention of Sam’s return.

 

 

Izzy stepped out of the kitchen light and spoke into the sliver of her cell phone, her voice low.

 

 

But Nell caught the cadence, caught the fear in her niece’s voice. It sliced through the evening air like an ice skate on a frozen Pelican Pond.

 

 

“What did you say?” Izzy’s voice rose on the single question. And then it flattened into a tone that matched the next word out of her mouth.

 

 

“Dead?” she repeated after the caller.

 

 

And then, “No.”

 

 

Izzy’s tone was declarative and louder than before. “You’re absolutely, positively wrong.”

 

 

She snapped the phone shut.

 

 

“People don’t die in my knitting shop,” she said firmly to Nell. “They simply don’t.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

T
he call had come from Esther Gibson, a dispatcher at the Sea Harbor police station.

 

 

For her sixty-fifth birthday five years earlier, Esther had treated herself to knitting lessons at the Seaside Studio, and she was now one of the most prolific knitters in town. Esther had single-handedly filled the children’s wing of the Beverly hospital with knit bears and bunnies, knit up sweet little hats for the hospital nursery, and donated hand-knit blankets to the homeless shelter and the four-cell Sea Harbor jail. “Those men deserve some trace of human kindness, too,” she scolded the chief of police when he expressed reluctance to support her latest project.