“Wow,” Dinah said. “Do you know what that means?”
I didn’t mean to, but I squealed, “Omigod!” again. I knew exactly what it meant. Both the hanky and whatever had gotten caught on the drawer handle had both been in Drew’s office when he hit the soup. “It must be soup spatter,” I said, feeling a shiver. “And since it ended up in Kevin’s office, it kind of points the finger at him.”
Dinah nodded yes, and I felt another shiver. “Maybe we should turn it in,” she said.
“To who? Detective Heather? And how am I supposed to explain having it?”
“You have a point there,” Dinah said, wincing. “She probably wouldn’t take it well if she knew we sneaked into Kevin’s office.”
“I didn’t mean to pick it up, but as long as I did, it’s our clue. Though it might be better if we kept it on the down low.” I stopped to think for a moment. “What if there’s something else up in Kevin’s office—like that piece I saw hanging on Drew’s desk drawer?”
Dinah knew where I was headed. “We’ve got one good clue. That should be enough.”
“But there could be more. We already know somebody in black slacks went up there, too. I’m going back there now before anybody else has a chance to look.” Dinah said she saw my point and would go along. But then her cell phone rang. The babysitter had to leave. It looked like I was on my own.
I PARKED THE GREENMOBILE AT THE BOOKSTORE and walked over to the Cottage Shoppe. As I went inside, I noticed a contractor’s truck parked out front. A man in jeans and a white tee shirt was walking around the dining room, holding a clipboard and a tape measure. I recognized the footwear from the day I’d been under the desk. It was interesting to see the rest of Mr. Work Boots. I did a double take when I got to his head. It was shaved bald. Was he the illusive bald shopper? I looked closer and realized the man with the Harrods bag had been considerably taller.
I glanced toward the stairway, but there was no way I could sneak up there right now. Kevin was fidgeting around in the dining room and would have a clear view of me on the stairs. Though the tables and chairs had been stacked against the wall, the bar was still functional. Kevin took the lid off a large pot sitting on some kind of warming device. The smell was delicious enough to make my mouth water. When he saw me he offered me a sample.
The man definitely had a way with soup, and the taste lived up to the smell. His samples were generous, too. None of those little cups they give you for water at the dentist. He used coffee cups and provided a spoon. It was some kind of vegetable stew, thick with mini ears of corn and mushrooms and every vegetable I could think of simmering in a flavorful broth. There were also thick slices of sourdough bread and a bowl of foil-wrapped butter pieces.
“We’re doing mostly a to-go business now,” he said. “But when we finish the expansion it will be very pleasant to eat here.” He was all smiles now. I wondered what he’d fought with his brother about and thought of trying to ask him about it. But before I could come up with a strategy, he excused himself and went looking for Mr. Work Boots, who had disappeared into the kitchen. I considered making my run for upstairs then, but someone called to me from the living room area.
“Mrs. Pink, is there anything I can help you find?” Dorothy said. She didn’t wait for an answer, instead launching into an explanation about how due to the remodel, the consignment items were being rearranged. I was surprised to see Dorothy wasn’t alone and even more surprised when I realized who was with her. So, Trina had come back to work after all. Her dark red hair was done in a stiff style that didn’t move as she bent to gather a creamy beige poncho off a chair and put it on the shelf of one of the three lawyers’ bookcases with lighted interiors. These had been moved against the wall, apparently to be used as display cases.
All the living room furniture had been moved out except for one of the rockers in front of the fireplace.
Trina appeared very tense. She kept looking over her shoulder and dropping things. It was lucky she was moving unbreakable items. She dropped one scarf, then another. I went to help retrieve them, though not without feeling up the yarn. I recognized the even rows as knitting. Something about the color and style reminded me of the knitted small blanket I’d admired the other day, and I figured it was probably made by the same person. I looked at the tag thinking it might have the name of the artisan, but there was just a bar code.
Dorothy saw me staring at the black lines. “That was one of Mr. Drew’s brilliant ideas. The way his aunt did things wasn’t good enough for him. He didn’t seem to care that she had run a successful business for years by keeping written records of who brought in stuff and how much it sold for. He wanted everything computerized and had begun transferring over to using bar codes to keep track of things.” She glanced toward the torn-up dining room. Kevin was busy arranging the soup things. “That man is a soup maniac. Well, he finally is going to get his way.”
On a hunch I asked her if that was what the two brothers fought about, and she nodded.
“Mr. Kevin wanted to make this place more restaurant and less consignment shop, but other than computerizing things, Mr. Drew didn’t want to spend any money on the place.”
“Was there any money to spend?” I asked.
Dorothy checked that no one was listening. “Sure. Mrs. Brooks owned the land and building. Do you have any idea what this lot on Ventura Boulevard is worth? I heard that the first thing the brothers did was take out a large loan on the place. Mr. Kevin wanted to use the money to make some changes to the place so the restaurant area would be bigger. I think Mr. Drew just wanted to pocket the money, even though he claimed to he was going to use it to create an Internet business. I mean, how much can a Web site cost?”
Two women came in and said they were looking for new baby gifts. All I needed was for Dorothy to get occupied helping them and I’d get my chance to run upstairs. Trina was no threat. She seemed lost in her own world and probably wouldn’t have noticed me on the stairs if she was staring right at me. But instead of assisting the customers, Dorothy just pointed them to a box of things she was in the process of putting in the case. The women moved over and began to unfold blankets and tiny sweaters, discussing their merits among themselves.
Suddenly Trina flopped in the rocking chair with a loud sigh. “This isn’t going to work,” she lamented. “I keep seeing poor Mr. Drew with his head in the tomato soup.” She started getting worked up just thinking about it, and all the upset led to a case of the hiccups, which she explained, between the clacky noises, was what happened when she got upset. Dorothy noticed the shoppers’ uneasy reaction to Trina’s outburst, and in an effort to save the sale finally walked over to help them.
Realizing this was my golden opportunity, I offered to get Trina some water. I didn’t mention I planned to import it from the upstairs bathroom.
“Would you do that? I think it will help.” She got through the first sentence hiccup free, but then every other word was cut in two as she gave directions about the temperature the water should be. I was in the entrance hall when she got to the part about wanting the water in a blue glass as it gave off the right kind of vibrations.
Since Dorothy was busy with the baby-gift hunters and Kevin was tied up in the kitchen with the contractor, I headed for the stairs. Now there was a chain across them with a sign that said “Employees Only.” I had one foot over the chain when a voice startled me.
“What are you doing?”
I turned and saw it was Dorothy. Her expression had changed to a scowl. “Going past that chain is trespassing.”
I muttered something about getting Trina a glass of water, as I tried to step back over the chain. Unfortunately, my foot caught on it and I fell on my butt with a loud thud. I had a bad feeling the loudness of the noise was directly proportional to the size of my butt, but this was hardly the time to worry about that.
Kevin and Mr. Work Boots responded to the noise, and when they saw me on the floor with my foot caught in the chain, Mr. Work Boots
untangled me and Kevin helped me up. His usual pleasant demeanor had gone dark. He pointed at the sign.
“Can’t you read?” Then he seemed to catch himself and his tone softened. “I’m sorry, but the upstairs is off-limits for customers. We’ve had some problems with people wandering up there.”
I really wanted to ask him for more details, like was the person he saw before with the black slacks a woman or man? As if there was any chance he would answer. Instead I just gave him the Trina hiccup story. “And with all your remodeling, I didn’t know if there was any place to get water down here,” I said, wearing my best innocent expression.
As I got up, Trina came in. To my relief, she still had the hiccups, which gave credibility to my story about looking for a glass of water. Then Mr. Work Boots whispered something to Kevin, after which he became very solicitous, wanting to make sure I wasn’t hurt. I assumed Mr. Work Boots had brought up the possibility of a lawsuit. I assured Kevin the only thing injured was my pride. After that I had only one option: leave. It looked as though my first chance at snooping was going to be my only chance. At least I had the hanky. Now to find out what it meant.
CHAPTER 14
AS SOON AS I GOT BACK TO THE BOOKSTORE, I set up for Romance Night and then headed for home. I called Dinah on my cell as I drove.
“It’s me,” I said when she answered the phone. “There’s good news and bad news.”
There was a pause before she responded. “Could you hang on a second?” I heard her tell someone to go talk to their father. There was a kid’s voice and then a male voice. The voices got softer, and I assumed Dinah was taking the cordless into another room.
“Sorry,” Dinah said softly. “Jeremy finally got back, and I was trying to impress upon him that Ashley-Angela and E. Conner are his kids and his responsibility. It’s not going well.”
In the background I heard the plaintive voices of both kids now wanting something from Dinah. Her voice went away from the phone, but I still could hear her as she sent them back to their father. Dinah rejoined our conversation. “That man is impossible. And no matter what I say to the kids about going to their father for stuff, they keep coming to me.” Dinah let out a loud, frustrated sigh.
“Okay, what’s the bad news?” she asked. It was our little game. Whenever we did the good-news-bad-news thing, we always went for the bad news first to get it out of the way.
I told her I had gotten caught before I could get upstairs at the Cottage Shoppe.
“And the good news?”
“I talked my way out of it, and I got some information that makes somebody besides Sheila look guilty.”
“Okay, spill,” she said. “Anything to get my mind off what’s going on here.”
I repeated what Dorothy had said about the money the brothers had borrowed on the building and how their arguments were over their two different plans for the store.
“People have killed for less,” Dinah said. “It sounds like the only way Kevin was going to get his soup emporium was if his brother was out of the way. Kevin must have brought the tomato bisque up to him. Maybe Drew’s head being in the soup was more than a coincidence; maybe it was his attempt at poetic irony. Drew wouldn’t agree to the soup, and so it became the cause of his death.”
“But I’m not sure how the hanky fits in,” I said, cradling the phone against my shoulder as I searched my purse for the house keys. I crossed my yard and opened the back door. Cosmo flew out and started running around the trees. Blondie did a little happy-to-see-me dance and then went out after Cosmo. He was certainly bringing her out of her shell.
“It might help if we knew something about the hanky. Like you said, it doesn’t look like it was meant for nose blowing,” I said.
Dinah responded with a few noncommittal uh-huhs, and I heard Jeremy’s voice in the background. At least he had finally shown up, but whatever he was saying inflamed her because even with her mouth away from the phone, I could tell she was yelling and heard her quite clearly tell him he better not go out the door or else. It was obvious our conversation was over. I said something about realizing it wasn’t a good time to talk, and as I was saying good-bye, she clicked off. I didn’t take it as being hung up on. Rather, she was too distracted to talk.
I stuck my cell into my purse and as I was setting down my things noticed the light was flashing on my house phone, which meant messages. Along with an offer of a discount on home repairs and a query from a Realtor interested in listing my house, there was a message from Patricia Bradford. Even on the machine her voice sounded cloying as she asked me to call her the moment I got home. She must want something, I thought, punching in her number.
Patricia didn’t have a machine. She had a maid. Before I finished explaining who I was, Patricia came on the phone. She seemed very happy to talk to me. She must want something big.
“We’re having some people in for cocktails. It’s a little get-together for some of Benjamin’s campaign people,” she gushed, “and I was hoping you could drop by.” She didn’t wait for a reply. “Before you worked at the bookstore, didn’t you do something in publicity? I was just telling Benjamin you’d be a real asset to our team.”
I hesitated. I was flattered by what she’d just said, but I didn’t completely trust her. Up until now, Patricia had treated me like a fixture. I was just the person at the bookstore who set up chairs for her demonstration and book signing and was part of the crochet group. “When is it?”
“Now. I mean, sixish. It’s business casual. I’d really like you to come.” She seemed flummoxed. “Sorry for the late invite. I thought I sent you an invitation, but I found it stuck in my purse.”
I didn’t buy that story for a second, and even though I was curious about what she wanted from me, I decided to decline since Romance Night started at eight. She read my silence and tried to win me over by reeling off the names of all the people who were going to be there. They were indeed the movers and shakers of Tarzana, and though I didn’t actually know any of them, I recognized most of the names, until she got to Byron Nederman.
“Who’s he?” I asked. She had said his name in such a glowing tone, I was curious.
“He shares Benjamin’s vision for things, and he’s been very, very generous. We’re glad to have him on the team. I’m surprised you don’t know him. He’s tall and quite good-looking. I wish Benjamin would ask him where he gets his suits. They always hang so perfectly. But I’m not so sure about the bald look. I know it’s in now, but personally I think it makes him look like Mr. Clean.”
She kept rambling, but my mind was clicking. This Byron was tall, a good dresser and bald. Could he be the elusive man I’d seen at the Cottage Shoppe?
“Does he shop at Harrods? I think he’s just the man I’m looking for,” I said quickly, then held my breath waiting for her answer.
As soon as I heard her tone, I realized she’d misunderstood my interest.
“Molly, I know you’re single now and probably looking for a new husband. I’m sorry to dash your hopes, but Byron is gay.”
“But he’s coming to your party,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“Yes, Molly, I already said he was. You did hear what I said about him,” Patricia cautioned.
“Of course, Patricia,” I said, then I accepted her invitation on the chance he was the bald man I was looking for.
She’d said it was business casual. I guessed that was somewhere between the khaki pants and shirts I wore to work and black tie. In the back of my closet was a stash of clothes left over from the business parties I used to attend with Charlie. I found the classic black linen dress I’d always paired with a red blazer. I debated between black heels and ballet flats. The heels won, though I knew my feet would complain.
After a quick shower, a blob of hair gel and some time with a hair dryer, I slipped into the dress and jacket and put on more makeup than I had worn in a long time. The shoes were last along with a pair of subdued gold hoop earrings. I almost jumped when I caught sight
of my image in the mirror. Clothes definitely do make the person. I looked formidable and about ten years older.
I saw Patricia’s big white house almost every time I went out. It was perched on top of one of the ridges that ran south of Ventura Boulevard and was visible from all different angles. But I had no idea how to get on the street that led up to it. I went all the way to Corbin Avenue and back without figuring out the way in. I had to go home and check my street guide, and even then it was confusing to get through the maze of streets.
I whispered a wow as I finally pulled into the circular driveway that ran in front of the house. Of course there was valet parking. It seemed silly since the whole street was empty, but this was about image not reality. No wonder Patricia was hanging on to Benjamin for dear life. After her struggle as a single parent, she’d struck gold. I wasn’t sure where Benjamin’s money came from, just that his family was Bradford Industries.
A red-vested man opened my car door. He was discreet, but I did notice a slight look of disdain.
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