Dead Men Don't Crochet

by Hechtman, Betty

  Patricia bent down quickly and scooped them up. When she looked at the copy Pixie had given me, Patricia nodded in an annoyed fashion. “So Dr. Bullard made a copy of the brochure. Well, it doesn’t matter anymore.” While she was distracted I tried to edge around her and head for the door, but she blocked me and pointed the gun at me.

  “There wouldn’t have been any problem if that orthodontist hadn’t demanded a refund. How could you understand? You’ve never been a single parent wondering how you’re going to keep your children in private school.” She set the papers on the shelf and sighed. To my surprise she lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke.

  “Yeah, I smoke, so go on, give me a lecture.” She took another drag. “I was working two jobs and selling off my jewelry, but it still wasn’t enough. I had to do something to get money for the kids’ tuition. At first I thought of crocheting some things and selling them.”

  “But I thought you didn’t crochet.”

  “Are you kidding? Me, queen of the crafter, not crochet? The hardest thing was pretending I was having trouble. It’s kind of like if you’re an opera singer and you have to sing bad. I was watching one of those antique shows on TV and noticed that who something had belonged to affected its value. That’s when I got the idea for Lady Ratcliffe. At first I thought I’d make the pieces myself, but it was too time consuming, even with my skill. I found a place online in China that would create items to my specifications. They attached machine-made motifs to a ready-made backing for pieces like the collar and used machine-made trim for the hankies. Once I got them, I washed them in weak tea and rinsed them in fabric softener to age them, and I was ready to go.

  “I made up a whole story for Mrs. Brooks about how I was distantly related to Lord and Lady Ratcliffe and had some family heirlooms that I wanted to sell. I showed her the brochure I’d created. All I needed was a wig and a costume and I became Lady Ratcliffe. It’s amazing what you can do with a digital camera and a computer photo program. Once she read the story and saw the photo of Lady Ratcliffe wearing the Irish crochet collar, she believed the whole lot were real heirlooms. She didn’t even notice my resemblance to Lady Ratcliffe. If she had, I would have just said it was because we were distant family.

  “I guess all the buyers believed the brochure, too, because the items sold. And I might add, nobody but that unpleasant orthodontist complained or tried to return their heirloom.”

  I was trying to think of a way to get out of there. Between the gun and the confession about making fake antiques, I didn’t feel optimistic about the odds of her just taking the papers and leaving. I looked around the storage unit for some kind of help. If only I’d taken my cell phone.

  Now that Patricia had started talking, she kept going. “When Bullard demanded the refund, Drew got curious and went through his aunt’s records. When he saw how many other pseudo heirlooms were in the batch and that none of them had come back, the greedy so-and-so got an idea. He gave Bullard the refund to get back the Irish crochet collar and handkerchief so he could use them to blackmail me. Can you believe he threatened to go to the media and tell them what I’d done if I didn’t keep providing him with fake antiques for his new Internet store?

  “Benjamin would have dropped me like a bomb. I couldn’t let it come out. After struggling on my own with the kids I’d hit the jackpot with him. He’s rich, actually a nice guy, and he’s going to get elected. I couldn’t let that rat Drew ruin it for me.” She let out her breath. “It feels good to finally talk about it.” She looked at me and her eyes seemed kind of crazed, though she still didn’t have a hair out of place, nor a speck of lint on her black slacks. Black slacks? It must have been her slacks-covered legs that Kevin saw on the stairs.

  “I didn’t intend to kill Drew, you know. I just wanted to knock him out so I could get the crocheted pieces. I figured that without the items there was nothing he could do. By the way, it may look easy to knock somebody out, but it isn’t. I had to smack him a whole bunch of times. How was I supposed to know he’d fall in the soup?”

  Apparently when she’d heard Trina coming up the stairs, Patricia had slipped into Kevin’s office. Well, now I knew how the handkerchief got there and how the lacy piece had ended up hanging off the drawer handle. Patricia had ripped the collar as she made a hasty exit. She didn’t seem to care that Detective Heather had the hanky now, since the only thing that could connect her with the fake heirloom was the paper in her hand and me. I felt a strong uh-oh go off in my head. Maybe she didn’t plan for either the papers or me to get out of there.

  She dropped the cigarette and stamped it out, reached in her purse and pulled out a huge roll of silver duct tape with a cutting edge attached. “You have no idea how many things you can do with this stuff. I never go anywhere without it—I’m doing a whole chapter on it in my next hints book.” She secured the roll under her gun arm and pulled a long piece off with her free hand, snapping it off against the sharp edge. She wrapped it around my wrist and then pulled it against the other one, binding them together. “You can roll it up and use it for shoelaces or hair ties and even do an emergency repair on a hem.”

  She ripped off another piece and kneeled in front of me. She put the gun down and quickly tried to wrap the tape around my ankles. Seeing the gun on the floor, I attempted to kick it away. She grabbed it back and pointed it at my head.

  “I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. Although, I think I’ve come up with a better all-around solution.” She surveyed the small space crammed with stuff. “This place is a fire trap.” Having secured my legs together, she dropped the gun in her purse and stood.

  I hadn’t realized she’d cut another piece of tape until she was about to stick it over my mouth. I felt light-headed at the prospect and thought by talking I might be able to keep her from doing it.

  “Before you do that, I’d like to ask you a question.” I was using as many words as possible since as long as I was talking I didn’t think she’d slap the tape on me. “The question is—well, maybe it’s actually a couple of questions.”

  Patricia looked impatient and I realized I better get to the point or she’d put the tape on me just to shut me up.

  “Why kill Dr. Bullard?”

  “Who said I did?” she said with her eyes flashing. Then her expression changed to a thoughtful one. “It was perfectly done, wasn’t it? But I had a chance to plan, unlike with Drew.

  “Dr. Bullard recognized me at the book signing. He got in touch with me and started to lay into me for causing him and his wife embarrassment. I knew he could be trouble when he mentioned he still had the brochure I’d made up.” Patricia smiled. “I’m good. I really am. I told him I was oh, so sorry about the whole thing and wanted to make it right. I said I had the real piece of Irish crochet I’d used as a model for the fakes and wanted to give it to him. I asked if he’d give me back the brochure so I could put the whole thing behind me.” She shook her head with disbelief. “He said yes. I actually don’t think he would have ever turned me in, and he never mentioned Drew’s death, so I don’t think he connected it with the fake antiques. All he cared about was having something real to give his wife. But I didn’t have any authentic Irish crochet to give him. So, I had to get him out of the way.”

  Patricia didn’t seem to feel any remorse about what she’d done. But she did seem pleased with the perfection of her planning. She’d arranged to meet Bullard in his office in the evening. “I pretended to be his wife and ordered the soup and had it left in the reception area. When I arrived, it was there waiting. I dropped a roofie in it. They are way easy to get hold of,” she said as an aside. “I said he must be hungry after a long day and offered him the soup as a goodwill gesture.” She snorted out a laugh. “He actually thanked me for it and said he’d missed lunch. A few spoonfuls and he was out cold. I grabbed the brochure, set off the bug bombs and I was out the door.”

  She looked at her watch. “I really must be going.” She lit another cigarette. “My, I am surprised they sto
re something as flammable as this,” she said, pouring some citrus cleaning liquid on some rags and dropping them on the floor.

  “Sorry I don’t have another roofie.” She found the box of paperweights and took out the one shaped like the bust of Teddy Roosevelt. “I think I have it down now. I should be able to knock you out with only a few smacks.” To demonstrate, she swung her arm with the paperweight a few times. I flinched and tried to move. She got ready to do it in earnest, but then the cigarette fell out of her hand and hit the rags, and they began to smoulder.

  She glanced down for a moment and gasped at the growing flames. But still, she stepped toward me with the Teddy Roosevelt bust poised. Any second now, it was going to fade to black for me. I was helpless with my hands and feet taped together. Behind her I could see the yarn swift on the edge of the shelf. I couldn’t do anything with my hands or feet, but I still had my shoulder. With all the power I could muster, I threw my shoulder against the shelves. They made a rattling sound and shook. At first I thought it hadn’t done any good, but as the shelves vibrated, the yarn swift toppled off.

  As it fell, it opened, revealing an inner structure like that of an umbrella.

  The rags were really beginning to flame, and Patricia coughed and squealed. She threw down the bust and took a step back to escape. As she did, she stepped right into the yarn swift and her foot tangled in it. Panicking, she tried to break free, but the more she tried to pull out of it, the tighter it became. She tried to walk with it on her foot and lost her balance. Frantically she reached for something on which to steady herself. The only things to grab at were the shelves. I had merely tapped against them, but Patricia grabbed them full force, and as the big unit began to totter from side to side, everything on them began to shake, rattle and then roll off toward her.

  I was feeling pretty panicky myself as the enclosure started to fill with smoke. Trapped by Patricia and the shaking shelves, I started to cough and choke.

  The jars of tomato products slipped off the top shelf. They missed Patricia but crashed on the floor, spattering both of us with blobs of red. The plastic gallon jugs of brown liquid came next. One after another they fell over, rolled off and hit Patricia on the head. She was right. It wasn’t that easy to knock somebody out. It took three of them smacking her on the head before she finally crumpled. And as the jugs finally hit the ground, their plastic caps broke off and the liquid poured out. I cringed, afraid of an explosion. But as I smelled the onion scent I realized it was soup base. It poured over the burning rags, dousing the flames.

  I didn’t waste any time getting out. Patricia still had the gun in her purse and her head wasn’t in a bowl of soup. She could come to. I tried to jump over her, but instead I fell on her and had to twist myself around to get my legs faced in the right direction. I hopped toward the door and finally outside—and collided with Adele.

  “Pink, I have to talk to you,” she said, throwing her arms around me. “You won’t believe what Eduardo did. . . .” Then suddenly it registered that I had my hands and feet bound together and globs of red stuff all over me.

  “Is something wrong?”

  CHAPTER 25

  “EDUARDO SHOWED UP WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND and her kids. He wanted me to get them into the tent,” Adele wailed. “I feel so betrayed.” We were sitting on the curb waiting for the police. We must have made an odd sight, she in her mortician beatnik look and me in my white shirt and khaki pants covered in blobs of tomato stuff. I thought betrayed was a bit much since the extent of their relationship seemed to have been one coffee date to discuss his bookstore program and several incidences of being chair neighbors. Adele knew how to squeeze every ounce of drama out of anything. Still, I comforted her and told her there was somebody out there who was much better for her.

  “Pink, you’re so right. There is somebody out there who is way better.” She went to hug me, but stopped when her eyes rested on the red blobs.

  It had been Kevin who called 911 and cut me free of my duct-tape restraints. And not without a certain amount of pain. He’d looked up from his soup making, seen me through the window and rushed outside.

  In the event Patricia came to before the cops arrived, I’d found the roll of duct tape in her purse and, after pulling the yarn swift off her leg, wrapped her ankles and wrists. I wondered if she would think it was such a great hint when she was the one wearing the duct tape. It was my second run-in with duct tape, and I hoped never to see the silvery stuff again. I made sure her purse with the gun in it was out of her reach.

  I heard sirens in the distance and as they grew louder, I prepared for the onslaught. Moments later, amid a lot of flashing lights and noise, a fire engine, rescue ambulance, several black-and-whites and a black Crown Victoria pulled up in front of us.

  Detective Heather got to me first. Her eyes took in a red speckle on my shoulder, and she waved the paramedics over, but I stopped her, explaining it wasn’t blood. She started to snicker when I said it was tomato stuff, but her expression changed when I brought her to the storage unit, explaining Patricia’s phony antique scheme and how all the pieces fit together to show she was the one who killed Drew Brooks and Arnold Bullard. I also mentioned she had confessed to me and then tried to kill me.

  “Don’t believe her. She tried to kill me,” Patricia yelled. She’d come to and was sitting up, kicking her feet, and even with her wrists taped she was trying to grab at the shelf unit. She struggled to pull herself up, but everything that hadn’t fallen the first time started to fall now. For the first time since I’d met her, Patricia had a hair out of place. She was a mess.

  And when she heard Detective Heather tell her she was under arrest, she kept yelling they’d gotten it all wrong. A uniformed officer pulled off the duct tape and replaced it with real handcuffs. Patricia screeched and said she needed medical attention for the tape burns as the cop led her toward one of the cruisers.

  “We’re even,” Detective Heather said as she watched Patricia get in the backseat of the police car. “I’ll forget about the hanky tampering. There won’t be any obstruction of justice charge, either.” Our eyes met for a moment and I detected a flicker of respect. Then she turned away to make sure the storage unit was wrapped in yellow tape.

  Another plain car pulled up. The door flew open and Barry jumped out. I saw him take in the scene, and his gaze stopped on my shirt. I knew he was looking at the red spots. His eyes flared with emotion and betrayed his bland cop face as he double-timed it across the street.

  “Tomato sauce,” I said, pointing at the largest spot when he got within earshot. He rolled his eyes and I saw his shoulders relax. He seemed to let his breath out, too. Then he asked if I was really all right.

  When Barry was working he never gave hugs or did anything personal. But this time he stood next to me so that my shoulder rested against him and he took my hand and squeezed it. Detective Heather looked over just then. I saw her lip quiver when she spotted Barry’s hand holding mine.

  “Omigod. I have to go,” I said, pulling away. “I left Milton Mindell at the bookstore.” Messy clothes and all, I took off down the street.

  As I walked into the bookstore, the kids were just coming out of the tent. Two boys took one look at me and started pointing with happy horror faces. “Eww, it’s Rhonda the Zombie.” I gathered it was a character in the latest book, because other kids started saying the same thing.

  I glanced toward the table of presigned books and Dinah waved. She was already collecting tickets and handing out books. I blew her a kiss.

  Then I remembered the overflow kids I’d left with Adele. Worried that she’d abandoned them and they were taking apart the children’s section, I rushed over. Mason was just escorting Milton Mindell to the center of the group. When Mason saw me, he looked concerned and stepped away. Not that the kids noticed. They were looking at Milton like he was some kind of rock star.

  I told Mason it was tomato sauce on my shirt and then immediately began to thank him for helping out. “How did
you do it?” I said, gesturing toward Milton and the kids. Milton had always been a stickler about only dealing with the kids in the tent.

  “Are you really okay?” Mason asked, touching a dollop of tomato and rubbing it between his fingers. I nodded and his face relaxed into a grin.

  “I think after what I did you owe me,” he said. “If you want to know how I wrapped Mr. Mindell around my little finger, you’ll have to have dinner with me. Of course, you might want to change first.” I realized I’d been wrong about there being something starting up between Dinah and him. Later she told me all he’d done was ask her about me.

  I sensed somebody behind me, and when I looked over my shoulder I saw that Barry had caught up with me. When he saw Mason, he glared at him. Mason nodded and saluted Barry with a little raise of his eyebrows. It was the barbecue all over again.

  CHAPTER 26

  “IT WAS A NICE IDEA TO MAKE AN EVENT OUT OF presenting the shawls,” CeeCee said as we stood outside the Cottage Shoppe. The storage container was gone, and now that the remodeling was done, a permanent sign for Kevin’s Kitchen had been added. For tonight the whole place was closed for the private party. It was just going to be the women from the shelter, the Tarzana Hookers and a few guests. Kevin had made a special buffet of his soups and homemade breads, and I had provided the cheesecake cupcakes for dessert. The plan was that after everyone had food, we’d hand out the shawls.