Angora Alibi by Sally Goldenbaum Page B

second cup of coffee.
    “She’s amazing, no?” Ben asked, pointing to the platters of warm crepes passing them
     by. He wrapped an arm around the owner and cook.
    “Who would have thought that you, Annabelle Palazola, would be perfecting Swedish
     pancakes?” Ham said.
    Annabelle laughed. When her husband had died at sea years before, the fisherman’s
     wife did what she knew how to do best—cook—and opened a restaurant that would provide
     for herself and her children, sending each to college. And she had succeeded beyond
     her expectations. The Sweet Petunia was beloved by all of them.
    Before they’d finished the freshly squeezed orange juice, Annabelle was back with
     the special, plates piled high and smelling of fruit, butter, and cream.
    Rolled around fresh lingonberries, the crepes were lightly browned and sprinkled with
     powdered sugar, then topped with dollops of sour cream and Annabelle’s promise that
     there were more in the kitchen.
    “More fruit, too,” she said, nodding toward the mint-lined bowl heaped full of melon
     balls, berries, pineapple, and bananas. Then she was off, back to her more comfortable
     place behind the cast-iron stove that Birdie had loaned her the money to buy all those
     years ago.
    “This is it for the week,” Nell warned Ben. “I swear. No more food.”
    “That’s what I told Sam when we got home last night,” Izzy said. She checked her watch
     and frowned. “Maybe he took me seriously.”
    “He’ll be here. He’s such a perfectionist with that camera—and underwater photography
     can be tricky,” Ham said.
    His wife agreed. “Sam’s a true artist and he treats his photos with great care. But
     what’s up with this dive? I only heard snatches last night.”
    “The dive club that Andy Risso heads up is organizing it,” Izzy said. “Gus McClucken
     offered to take care of the equipment for folks who didn’t have their own. It’s a
     great deal if you like that sort of thing. And then, of course, Sam needed a buddy
     and someone to write down people’s names—so Danny got roped into going along. Sam
     wasn’t sure I’d make it down the rocky slope.”
    “Sam is wise.” Nell added a bit a maple syrup to her pancake.
    “He asked me to go along, too,” Jane said around a bite of pineapple. “But I told
     him the truth—if God wanted me to be at the bottom of the sea, he’d have made me a
     dolphin.”
    Soon the talk turned away from scuba diving and focused on summer concerts, gardens
     being planted, the upcoming shower for Izzy and Sam, beach cleanups, and other easy
     and pleasant Sunday-morning topics.
    When the waitress refreshed their coffee cups for the third time, Ham and Jane pushed
     their chairs back.
    “Ham would eat another plate of those,” Jane said. “But he’d also fall asleep in the
     hammock outside the gallery as soon as we hit home.”
    “Who, me?” Ham joked. He stood and helped Jane tug her enormous cloth tote from beneath
     the table. “But she’s right. Canary Cove is hopping on summer Sundays—and that’s just
     the way we like it.”
    Nell watched her dear friends make their way down the porch, greeting the Sunday-morning
     crowd, waving, hugging. Jane’s long peasant skirt swished around her legs as she walked.
     Minutes later they disappeared down the hilly path on their way to the art colony
     below.
    Father Northcutt caught Nell’s eye and waved. The priest was sitting with Cass’ mother,
     Mary, just as he did most Sundays. The truth was that it wasn’t the pastor but Mary
     Halloran who really ran Our Lady of Safe Seas Church, and she used their Sunday brunches
     to outline for Father Larry the events of the week, telling him where to be and when—and
     to watch his cholesterol. Farther down Nell spotted Lily Virgilio, not looking like
     a doctor today in a summery blouse and pants, her high cheekbones pinked by the sun,
     large sunglasses shading her eyes. She was eating alone, with a plate of