I bent over to pet the little black mutt, and he did a happy dance in response. I lobbed the ball far into the yard, then walked in, shutting the gate behind me. Cosmo ignored the ball and followed me.
“Didn’t you see my Tahoe parked out front?” Barry said. “I’d think you’d be used to my visits by now.”
“I guess I didn’t notice your SUV.” To me all SUVs looked the same; besides, I’d been thinking about Sheila when I drove up, and there was a part of me that didn’t want to see his SUV parked there.
“I left more food for him in the kitchen. As long as I’m here I might as well feed him.”
Barry was a homicide detective—and very clever and very stubborn. His idea of calling before coming over was using his cell phone at my door—a problem for me. His excuse was that the nature of his job made it hard to make advance plans.
As we walked into the kitchen, Barry pointed out the cabinet door he’d fixed. He was a master with his hands and repaired anything in my house that seemed broken.
“Where’s Jeffrey?” I asked. Barry had been divorced for a number of years, but only recently had his soon-to-be fourteen-year-old son come to live with him.
Barry gritted his teeth. “At a rehearsal.” Jeffrey wanted to be an actor and wanted to be known as Columbia Greenberg, which he thought was a star name. Barry hated the name and the idea, and kept trying to steer him toward some kind of criminal justice career.
So, why was Barry in my backyard with Cosmo? The only way Barry and Jeffrey could adopt Cosmo was if they had backup. The adoption people knew that homicide detectives often worked odd hours and almost fourteen-year-olds weren’t always dependable when it came to remembering to walk a dog or feed it. Since I had a house with a dog door and a big yard, and I was a total soft heart when it came to animals or kids, I’d agreed to be their backup.
At first Cosmo was just an occasional visitor, and I gave Barry a key so he could drop off the dog. Then Cosmo’s visits began lasting a few days at a time, and eventually he moved here full-time, but since he was Barry’s dog and Barry wanted to be a responsible pet dad, he kept the key and the right to come over whenever so he could look after his dog.
Quite frankly, though, this whole dog thing was as transparent as chiffon; I knew Barry was totally pleased with himself for figuring out how to get a key and full access to my house and my life.
Barry asked me about my day as he got the dog’s bowl, and I told him about Sheila’s problem. “That’s what small claims court is for,” he said. He didn’t seem happy when I didn’t jump at the idea. “Molly, don’t get involved,” he warned. “Just tell her to take it to small claims court.”
Blondie came into the kitchen when she heard Barry open the refrigerator. Blondie was my dog. I’d adopted her shortly after Charlie died. She was a strawberry blond terrier mix who had been in a shelter for a year and a half and had never quite adapted to life outside a cage. She mostly kept to herself and had adjusted to Cosmo’s presence by ignoring him.
Barry reached for a can of dog food, but his hand stopped on the amber bottles of Hefeweizen. “You should get rid of these; they probably aren’t any good anymore.” He started to take the bottles out, but I stopped him. He didn’t look happy. The wheat beer was Charlie’s favorite, and I’d bought it without thinking when I saw it on sale. It had been sitting in the fridge for months and months. Barry was probably right about it being bad, but I couldn’t bring myself to toss it.
He shrugged, took out the dog food and put some in Cosmo’s and Blondie’s bowls. Then he showed me some supplies he’d left for Cosmo and a bottle of wine he’d brought for us. He grabbed two wineglasses, and we went into the living room. He was dressed in his work clothes: a suit, blue oxford cloth shirt and striped tie.
“You’re still thinking about Sheila and the problem with the store, aren’t you?” he asked.
I nodded and told him how upset she was. Barry knew she was juggling a make-do job with going to school and that she had anxiety issues. He opened the wine and poured us each a glass, and we sat down on the couch. He pulled his tie loose and me close. “I think I know how to get your mind off of her,” he said suggestively while he checked his watch.
“Sure you can squeeze it in?” I teased. These days any time we had alone and naked was pretty much like fast food: standardized and over quickly. He always had to rush off to question some person of interest or take Jeffrey to the dentist or just be home with him.
“If you’d let me make an honest woman of you, there wouldn’t be any problem,” Barry said, kissing my ear. He put his hand on my thigh, reminding me of how good his hands were at other things beside cabinet repairs. But I also thought, here we go again. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him. Actually, I thought I loved him. But there were a few things that stood in the way of me going along with his plans. For one there was the issue of me trying my wings. I needed some solo flying time to see that I could do it before I shared the controls with somebody else again. And there was the issue of my freedom. Right now I had no one to answer to if I decided to take up juggling or jet off to Paris. Not that I had done either, but I knew that I could. And the final thing was Charlie. I figured that as long as I had his favorite beer in the refrigerator, I wasn’t ready.
But I wouldn’t say no to an afternoon passion pit stop. Barry slipped out of his jacket and pulled me toward him while I started to unbutton his shirt. He showed off his exceptional kissing skills, and I sighed. Then the doorbell rang.
“Ignore it,” he said in a low growl.
“I can’t.” I pulled away from him and pointed to the open shutters on the large window. We couldn’t see who was at the door, but they surely had seen us. Maybe not clearly enough to know what was going on, but enough to know somebody was home.
Cosmo flew to the door in a barky fury. Blondie walked behind him, letting him do the talking. I walked past the dogs, and Barry stayed on the couch, hoping it was just a FedEx delivery.
When I opened the door, a young woman was standing there, holding a suitcase. Barry wasn’t going to be happy. This wasn’t just a package to take in and then shut the door. I had met the young woman only a few times, but I recognized her as Morgan, my younger son’s girlfriend.
These days my sons usually kept me out of the loop because in the past I had gotten too attached to some of their previous girlfriends and it had made them uncomfortable.
“Didn’t Samuel call you?” she said, picking up on my surprise.
I explained I’d just gotten home and suggested maybe he’d left a message. What could I do but invite her in?
“Hey, babe, the couch is getting cold,” Barry called from the living room. And time was running out before he had to pick up Jeffrey. He did a double take when I walked in with Morgan and her suitcase.
And sure enough, when I checked, Samuel had left a message on my house phone. I had a feeling he’d avoided calling me on my cell because he didn’t really want to talk to me directly. The message was vague on exactly why, but Morgan needed a place to stay for a couple of weeks. Samuel said she couldn’t stay with him because he was sharing a place with three other guys and there were already too many people. So he asked if she could stay with me. Like I said, I’m a total soft heart for animals and children, even when they are grown up.
“Morgan’s going to be staying with me,” I announced in a slightly forced bright tone.
Barry was already picking up his jacket and tie and heading for the door.
“I’ll take a rain check,” I said, following him to the back door. I kissed him long and deep enough to remind him of what he was missing. He threw a hopeless look toward Morgan and offered me one last bit of advice.
“Remember, small claims court, and you stay out of it with Sheila.”
CHAPTER 3
BARRY JUST DIDN’T UNDERSTAND. NO WAY WAS I going to stay out of it with Sheila. She had turned to the Tarzana Hookers in her time of need. I wasn’t totally discounting the small claims cour
t idea, just putting it off on the back burner in case nothing else worked.
I had shown Morgan to Samuel’s room. He thought since he was offering his old room to her, it wasn’t really an imposition to me. In his mind, no matter where he lived, his room would always belong to him. Luckily Peter didn’t feel the same, or he would have had a fit with what I’d done with his old room. I had taken out most of the furniture and all his sports trophies and stuck them in the garage along with all the sports equipment he insisted on leaving here. Then I’d turned the room into my crochet space.
I’d also shown Morgan the kitchen and told her to help herself to anything. She took a glass of water. From the first time I’d met her I suspected she might have an eating problem. She had that sort of waifish thin body dancers often had, but reminding myself to mind my own business, I headed for the phone.
“We have to do something for Sheila,” I said to Dinah. I had already told her about my houseguest, expecting some kind of comment, but Dinah had said nothing. That wasn’t like Dinah as she usually had something to say about everything. She mumbled something about not being able to deal with Sheila’s problem just then. I heard noise in the background. How stupid of me to assume she was alone.
Dinah was divorced and unlike me, anxious to find a new partner. She’d been trying online stuff and coming up with nothing but duds. Maybe her luck had changed. I apologized for interrupting and said I’d thought maybe we could all go to the Cottage Shoppe with Sheila the next morning to give her moral support. I suggested we arrive when the store first opened, and I ended by telling her with a wink in my voice to “have fun.”
All she said was, “It’s not what you think,” before she hung up.
I tried CeeCee next. She was gung ho about doing something for Sheila as long as she didn’t have to be part of it.
“Dear, I have to be concerned about my image. And there’s the issue of the paparazzi. All I need is someone to get some photo on their cell phone of me in the middle of some kind of fracas. Sometimes being a celebrity is such a pain.”
I gave her the details anyway, even though I wasn’t sure she was listening.
I didn’t know whether to include Patricia since I wasn’t even sure she was really going to join the crochet group, but I didn’t want her to feel left out, so I called her. Someone answered the phone and took a message.
I had put off calling Adele until last. Things never went smoothly with her, and this was no different. When she heard I’d basically been turned down by everyone, she said, “I guess majority rules, Pink. You’re on your own.”
I was glad I hadn’t called Sheila first to propose the idea. It would have been a real punch in the gut to tell her everyone was going to come and then have to call her back and say they’d all begged off. So, I called and just offered my services.
“Oh, Molly, thank you,” she said with a gush of relief. “I want to confront Drew Brooks, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do it. He’s a nasty guy. But if I know you’re there, it’ll be easier to face him.”
THE NEXT MORNING AT THE APPOINTED TIME, I stood outside the Cottage Shoppe. Banners on every window blared enticing messages. One urged people to come in and check out the unique merchandise, another mentioned there were new arrivals daily, and the last one announced the coveted items from the Hearston Estate were coming soon. I didn’t remember Mrs. Brooks being so hard sell.
It was another silvery morning, and I was glad to have my jacket protecting me against the damp chill. I glanced around wondering if Sheila had gotten cold feet, and saw a woman approaching the shop.
“I know I said I wasn’t going to come,” CeeCee said, coming up next to me. “But I couldn’t leave you two alone. Sometimes my status comes in handy. Maybe it’ll mean something to that jerk.” She zipped up her amber velour jacket and glanced around. “Where’s Sheila?”
Before I could answer Dinah showed up. I opened my mouth to ask her about the background noise from the night before, but she beat me to the punch. “I’ll tell you about it later,” she said with a hint of distress in her voice. She looked around for Sheila, too.
Adele marched up with a knowing nod. “I knew it. I thought the rest of you would come, and I wasn’t going to be the only one who didn’t show. So, what’s the plan?”
“First, we need Sheila,” Dinah said.
I was about to say that perhaps she’d gotten cold feet, but CeeCee gestured. “Here she comes.”
Sheila was walking across the parking lot with Patricia.
“I was just giving her some advice,” Patricia said when they reached us. “I told her to just go in there with her mind set on the outcome she wants. And not to give up until he gives in. And if all else fails, maybe if we all came in it would help.”
“I want to speak to him on my own,” Sheila said. “But it really helps to know you’ll all be here.”
Adele led the way up the two steps to the tiny front porch. The bell on the door had a jingle fit from so many of us going in at once.
I told Sheila to go ahead and that we’d be hanging around waiting for her. I squeezed her hand for good luck, and with her hair swinging, she walked toward the sales desk. Rather than just standing around, we all started looking around the store. “If there’s something rotten going on here, it sure doesn’t show,” I said to Dinah. The inside of the store was as charming as the exterior.
Dinah and I stuck together as we walked into the first room. Since the shop was a house, the items for sale had been arranged in the rooms for which they were suited. We had entered the living room, where a pair of antique maple rockers sat in front of the small fireplace. Both had knitted throws draped over the arms. One was a heathery blue that was soft to the touch. I looked at it quickly, afraid Adele would make a scene if she saw me admiring it. There was also a wood bench with purple velvet cushions and shelves with all kinds of interesting doodads. I already owned enough doodads and kept my distance. In an alcove off the living room a gorgeous leaded glass lamp in shades of green sat on a craftsman-style table next to a love seat covered with needlepoint pillows. Everything had a price tag.
I pointed out Sheila’s scarves displayed on a mannequin and on top of a dresser in the “bedroom.” A case held some vintage jewelry pieces and an array of perfume bottles. Dinah admired a sequined evening wear top that was draped over one of the drawers. There were a few other articles of vintage clothing, all of which were unusual and in mint condition.
I had to admit it was a lovely store. Everything was displayed in an artful manner. Even the floors were nice—hardwood throughout with a dark stain and an occasional oriental rug.
“Whoever arranged everything did a wonderful job,” Dinah said, looking at a basket filled with picnic items complete with a compass and a book on local parks.
“I have a feeling it wasn’t Drew Brooks,” I said as we made a full circle of the display rooms and came back to the entrance hall. The dining room was across from us and had been turned into a small refreshment area. A number of wrought iron bistro tables and chairs were placed strategically about. A bar had been built into the room and was set up with a selection of bakery items covered with glass domes. It also featured an espresso machine and a chalkboard listing the coffee and tea options along with an announcement they now had “Soup by Kevin.” Today’s offering was lentil.
The door to the kitchen was behind the bar. Apparently it was actually functional rather than another display area for merchandise.
Dinah and I went in and found a table. Dinah still hadn’t discussed the night before and seemed tense, but every time I asked her what was wrong, she said it wasn’t a good place to talk. She laid her leather tote on the table and pulled out some papers and started to grade them.
Gradually the rest of the group drifted in and pulled up chairs. CeeCee took out her crocheting. She must have finished the donut pincushion because she was now working on an iridescent white baby blanket. Patricia was checking her watch and going over her cal
endar. Being a candidate’s wife appeared to be a busy business. Adele was crocheting red flowers out of the stuff that looked like string. Judging by the way she kept holding them up to her ear, I gathered they were going to be earrings.
Sheila reappeared a few minutes later. All of her good spirits were deflated.
“I asked to talk to him.” She was talking fast, the words tumbling out. “He and his brother have offices upstairs. One of the saleswomen went up there to tell him I was here, but he said he was busy and I would have to wait. I finally figured out it was just a stall.”
We all started talking at once, offering advice, but we were interrupted when a tall bald man wearing a well-fitting dark suit and carrying a Harrods shopping bag roared through the store. We could hear him bellowing as he found a salesclerk and demanded to talk to the owner.
“I guess that’s the kind of voice you have to use,” CeeCee said.
I saw one of the clerks come out from the small sales office and rush toward the stairway. Before she’d gone up three steps, the bald guy pushed past her and went up on his own. “I’m guessing you’re not the only one Drew Brooks tried to cheat,” I said.
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