Read Online A Fatal Fleece by Sally Goldenbaum - Free Book Online Page A

the gate to the deck early in the morning. Hot coffee and orange juice for the Canary Cove artists before they rolled back their awnings and opened their gallery doors. That was her goal. Until the day she saw Ham Brewster munching down potato chips with his hastily drunk coffee. The next morning she added whole-grain muffins and slapped Ham’s hand hard when he reached for a bag of bar chips.
    “It just grew,” she said with a shrug when the Sea Harbor Gazette ran a feature article on her. Her homemade granola and fresh fruit were a hit. And the fact that it meant adding hours to her day didn’t seem to bother the diminutive bar owner.
    “So I heard you talking about Finnegan.” Merry leaned in closer, her body as nimble as a ballet dancer’s. A long blond braid fell over one shoulder. “His daughter’s over there, so keep it low.”
    She nodded toward Beverly Walden, sitting near the railing with several other Canary Cove artists.
    She seemed oblivious to the group around her, her eyes focused beyond the trees at the sea and a small island out past the point. She looked peaceful somehow, happy, as if she were spinning a perfect life for herself out on that little piece of land, or maybe off on one of the luxury boats that sailed out of the harbor and into the sea.
    Beverly was thirty-eight, according to the bio they’d seen at her art show. Not beautiful by Hollywood standards, she was, nevertheless, an interesting-looking woman with a curvy figure and a certain sensuousness about her. Streaked brown hair hung loose beyond her shoulders. She’d been back in Sea Harbor just a few months, but everyone knew who she was—Finnegan’s prodigal daughter, though rumor had it she hadn’t been as well received by her father as her biblical counterpart.
    “See that look on her face?” Merry said. “I’m thinking she has a boyfriend. Man friend, I suppose you’d say. She’s been wearing makeup, edgier clothes.” Merry’s mouth lifted in a mysterious smile. “I know the look.”
    “She’s nice-looking,” Birdie said, turning back to the table. “She looks like her mother, with that long nose and high cheekbones. Rather mysterious, I think. She certainly doesn’t look like Finnegan.”
    She was standing now, leaning on the railing that overlooked the sea in one direction and the parking lot in the other. When she lifted her hand in a wave, Nell followed its direction. Davey Delaney stood below on the asphalt, next to a Delaney truck. His hands were on his hips, sunglasses cutting the glare, and he looked up at her, as if maybe he’d been there watching for a while, hoping she’d look down.
    Merry moved in closer and Nell’s view was gone.
    “They’re probably both pleased that she doesn’t look like her dad,” Merry was saying. “There isn’t much love lost between those two.”
    “That’s the rumor. But how do you know?” Izzy asked.
    “Same way you know all the gossip at your end of Harbor Road, Iz. Your knitting customers talk, just like folks do out here on thedeck and at the bar. You keep your eyes open and the world spills out its secrets right in front of you.”
    Cass leaned in. “So spill it, Merry. What do you know?”
    Merry laughed. “I know everything, Cass. And mostly I know when there might be trouble. Like last night.” She paused for effect, then continued.
    “Beverly was in here alone, having a few beers. I worry a little when people are drinking alone, so I took her over a crab cake and sat with her for a minute, suggesting some of this great new tea I got in. She was nice enough and not offended. She assured me she was fine, she had a nice evening to look forward to and was not going to get sloshed and ruin it. Very fine were her exact words. She looked happy, instead of that ultraserious look she had when she moved here.”
    Mother Earth—that’s who Merry Jackson is turning into, Nell thought. When she took the microphone from Pete at a Fractured Fish performance, she