“Okay, why exactly were you fleeing the scene?” she said when she finally walked over to me.
“Fleeing is such a strong word,” I said, standing up. I tried explaining that I was concerned about the gate shutting on me, but she didn’t look sold.
“Why exactly were you here to start with?” she asked, taking out her pad and pen. “How do you know the deceased?”
It was the first time I was hearing it confirmed that she was dead. Even though it seemed pretty obvious when the ambulance left without her. Still, hearing it out loud unnerved me and my legs felt rubbery. I sat back down on the bench rather hard.
I held out the paper sack and told her the story about the crochet group finding it on our table and how I had tracked down Mary Beth Wells as the owner by the color of the thread.
She slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and took the bag. She pulled out the contents and set them on the bench. I pointed to the aqua thread, but she ignored me and examined the diary entry and the note. She looked ready to roll her eyes.
“Quite the amateur detective, aren’t you?” She had finished reading the note and the torn sheet from a diary and had set them aside. Her attention turned to the crochet piece. Detective Heather was an accomplished knitter, so I thought she would appreciate the filet crochet.
“I think the images in the crochet piece all mean something, like they are clues to the wrong she wanted to fix. You read the note,” I said, trying to sound friendly.
“Like some kind of treasure map?” Detective Heather held the piece at a distance. I could tell by the way she was moving it around, she was focusing on the images we couldn’t recognize. This time she did roll her eyes.
“Maybe somebody didn’t want her to reveal something and they—”
“Killed her to keep their secret safe forever and ever.” She said it in the dramatic tone I’d heard some of the romance writers at the bookstore events use when they read from their books. She turned toward me and gave her head the slightest of shakes that made it clear she thought my idea was far-fetched.
She put everything back in the bag and took it inside the house. A few minutes later she returned and handed it back to me.
“I showed it to the maid and she didn’t recognize it. I’m sure you think you were very clever, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to connect it to Mary Beth Wells.”
“But . . . but,” I sputtered.
Detective Heather impatiently rocked her head from side to side. “There is nothing on the note with her name. I looked around; there isn’t a crochet hook or even a stash of yarn. The maid doesn’t know anything about any secret. She also corroborated your story about just getting here. It looks like natural causes. The maid’s been off for two days, but she said the woman was feeling sick the last time she saw her.” Then Detective Heather stopped herself. “Why am I even telling you this?”
“You should check for poison.”
Detective Heather glared at me. Clearly, she didn’t like anyone telling her her business. She started to dismiss me, but then her expression changed to one of smug satisfaction. “Haven’t seen much of Barry lately, have you?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, because she knew what the answer was. “Not much fun being left behind all the time, is it? It’s hard for civilians to understand. That’s what I told Barry over dinner the other night.”
I knew the “dinner” was probably a couple of burgers in a paper sack from the local drive-thru during a break from interviewing a witness, but she had hit a sensitive spot. I could tell by the way her eyes lit up that I had been unsuccessful at hiding my flicker of upset.
“Is that really what you want?” she said as I got up to go.
She stood watching me as I began walking down the driveway. The sky was almost dark, and the canopy of laurel trees made it even darker and more sinister. I was sure the things in the bag belonged to Mary Beth, and I was sure the cause of death wasn’t natural. But most of all I felt terribly guilty. If only I’d gotten here sooner, maybe she wouldn’t have died. On top of the guilt there was something else. Detective Heather’s words echoed in my mind. Is that really what you want?
Was it? I had been asking myself the same thing.
This time I walked through the gate. Several news vans were setting up on the steep street, and before I could get to my car Kimberely Wang Diaz of Channel 3 News rushed over to me.
“You again,” she said in an excited voice as she shoved a microphone in front of me. Oh no, not this time. I was not going to end up on the news leaving the scene where someone died. My son Peter would be embarrassed and my son Samuel worried, and everybody else would think I’d earned the title “crime scene groupie.”
The reporter was dressed to be on camera and had on a thick layer of makeup to keep her from looking washed out. I had neither going for me. “So was it murder?” Diaz asked with all too much excitement in her voice.
For once I wised up. “No comment,” I said, stepping away and going toward my car.
I drove directly to Walter Beasley Community College and found Dinah’s classroom. I waited ten minutes before the bell rang marking the end of class. Before it had even stopped sounding, freshmen exploded through the door. I had a momentary distraction watching the fashion show. It made me glad not to be young anymore. What was with the boys in skinny jeans pulled so low they waddled and their underpants hung out? And the girls—I still didn’t get the gaudy tattoos and too many earrings in all the wrong places and hair that looked as if it had been dipped in melted Popsicles.
Dinah came out last with a good-looking young man whose face was twisted in upset.
“I just don’t understand why I can’t take the test now since I missed it,” he said, almost running to keep up with her.
Dinah appeared about to pop her cork. “Because, Vincent, we just went over the test answers in class after I asked three times if there was anyone who hadn’t taken the test.”
“I didn’t hear you,” Vincent said. “I guess I fell asleep,” he muttered.
That didn’t seem to go over well with Dinah, and she threw up her hands. Then she saw me. I must have looked a little done in because her brows knit in concern. She told Vincent they were finished and no was her final answer. “If you have a problem with that, take it up with the dean. And be sure and mention the part about falling asleep in class,” she said before coming toward me.
“Omigod, what happened?” she said when she got close. I started to open my mouth, but she ordered me to hold my thought. “I have to pick up the twins from preschool, and if I’m late, they start charging five dollars a minute.”
I didn’t get a chance to talk until we’d picked up the kids with thirty seconds to spare and had gone to a Mexican fast-food place. Dinah was strictly ixnay on the kiddie meals and had gotten each of them a cheese quesadilla and half juice-half sparking water—her version of soda.
“I feel like it’s my fault. If I could have found Mary Beth sooner, maybe I could have done something.”
“But Yarnie’s was closed,” Dinah said, trying to make me feel better. But I persisted.
“If only I’d been able to talk to Mary Beth at least I could have found out who she was worried about and what all this means.”
“Did you consider that maybe Detective Heather was right? There really isn’t anything on here that says ‘Mary Beth Wells.’ ” Dinah had taken the grocery bag I was still clutching and was examining the contents again. She read over the papers and picked up what I’d started calling the “crocheted clue.” “It would be nice to know what all these things are supposed to be.” Dinah pointed to the panel next to the one with the rectangles. “It looks like a bunch of shapes that make no sense.”
My cell phone interrupted us as Ashley-Angela took the crochet piece from Dinah and turned it around. She tried to show us something, but Dinah just told her to finish her food.
Barry was on the phone. Apparently, he’d crossed paths with Detective Heather.
“Mol
ly?” He sounded concerned and exhausted. “Are you okay?”
“Am I ever going to see you again?” I said.
“Babe,” he said with a sigh of apology, “as soon as I’m done with this case, I’m yours.” Then someone called him and he signed off.
The kids took their cups and food wrappers to the trash and went off to play in the indoor playground. Dinah watched them go and then turned to me. “They’re going home. For real this time. Jeremy called this afternoon,” she said, referring to her ex-husband. “I’m almost afraid to believe it. I’m going to get my life back.” Then her normally perky expression drooped. “But I’m going to miss them. Suddenly I’ll have all that time—”
“Don’t worry. I know just what to do with it,” I said. The crochet piece was just where Ashley-Angela had left it. Leave it to a four-year-old to figure it out. All the motifs were upside down now except one. I traced the shape with my finger. Instead of looking like a bunch of odd shapes stuck together, it was clear what it was supposed to represent. Dinah saw me staring and followed my gaze.
“No connection to Mary Beth Wells—yeah right,” I said. Viewed at this angle it was clearly a wishing well with an MB embedded in the texture of the roof.
“Wow, there’s even an s to make it Wells,” Dinah said, pointing to the shape holding the bucket.
“I can’t just do nothing,” I said, not taking my eyes off the crochet work. “I’ll feel better if I at least find out what Mary Beth was trying to fix and take care of it for her.”
Dinah touched me to get my attention. “You know the secret and her death are probably connected.” I nodded and Dinah perked up. “Count me in. An investigation will keep me from slipping into the empty-nest blues.”
I turned the piece back around right-side up, and we both went over the motifs to see if the new information made a difference in understanding the whole. It didn’t.
“Didn’t you say Detective Heather said the death was from natural causes?”
“No. She said it looked like natural causes. I bet anything that when they do an autopsy they’ll find out it wasn’t.” I caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall and jumped up. “I have to go.”
CHAPTER 7
GOT HOME WITH BARELY ENOUGH TIME TO TURN on the lights and take care of the dogs before the grand arrival. I was fluffing the pillows on the couch when the SUV pulled up to the curb in front of the house. Who would have thought my parents would get a sport-utility vehicle?
I opened the door and waited for them. My mother floated in on the scent of Chanel No. 5 and hugged me. Then she stepped back and looked me over. They were hardly in the house and I was already girding for the onslaught.
“Molly, the last time I saw you, you were wearing the same thing. Is your whole wardrobe khaki pants and white shirts and a black something? You need some color, some pizzaz.”
Nobody would accuse my mother of lacking pizzaz. In fact, my mother, Liza Aronson, had pizzaz to spare. I wasn’t as obvious as she was, but I checked out her outfit, too. Unfortunately, there was nothing negative to say. It was depressing to realize my mother had more style than I did. She had on black jeans with a black turtleneck and a woven scarf of blues and purples wound loosely around her neck. An armful of silver and turquoise bracelets and long dangle earrings complemented the look, which she finished off with silver-toed black cowboy boots. I looked like queen of the frumps next to her. Even her hair was better. When I went for a cut, I just sat in the chair and let Gerardo decide how to snip. Not her. She always went to the salon with an exact plan of how she wanted her hair. It was a golden brown with mink highlights, cut to shape her face perfectly. But then, as she had always reminded me, she was a performer and I wasn’t.
Next my father came in carrying some bags. I offered to help, but he insisted he had it under control. He wore slacks and a blazer, and though his hair was almost white he still had a nice head full. He dropped a bag of samples on the table. “I brought some of this great new sunblock,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he studied my face. I knew the look. He was checking my skin. It was second nature to him. He was always on the lookout for skin cancer. He seemed satisfied with what he saw and asked where to take their luggage.
“I suppose you’re going to put us in one of the boys’ rooms,” my mother chimed in. Before I could stop her, she headed for Peter’s old room. When she turned on the light, she yelped in surprise. The last time she’d seen it, there was a pullout couch, a dresser and a bookcase full of sports trophies. Now it was a riot of color and plastic grocery bags. When I’d first turned it into my crochet room, I’d kept it orderly. All the yarn was in the bookcase, arranged by color. But then I’d gotten more yarn than there was shelf space for, and even though I had tried to squeeze it in, it had popped out and sort of landed everywhere. Then there were the projects. I’d start something and work on it for a while, then something else would excite me and I’d set the first one aside thinking it would just be for a moment until I got the next one started. And on and on. I’d discovered the best way to keep track of my works in progress was by putting each in a plastic grocery bag along with the instructions, notes on what I’d completed, a yarn wrapper and a hook. The grocery bags seemed to have multiplied like rabbits.
“See, I do have some color in my life,” I said as I prepared to turn off the light.
“What’s all this?” my mother said with concern in her voice as she stepped farther into the room and poked into the grocery bags. “You know, disorder is a sign of mental illness.”
What? My mother was barely in the door and already she was calling me crazy.
“It’s my crochet room.” I left the light on and proceeded to show her how sane I was. Would a crazy person be able to follow the pattern for an afghan that was finished except for half the fringe? I didn’t think so.
“You made this?” My mother actually sounded impressed, and I figured she was now clear that I wasn’t nuts.
“What about this?” She didn’t sound so impressed anymore, and when I looked to see what was diminishing her opinion of me, I saw that she had picked up Mary Beth’s piece. “Is this some kind of art piece? Were you trying to mix representational art with abstract?”
“I didn’t make it, so I don’t know.” I debated whether I should tell her about Mary Beth being dead and my thinking it was some kind of clue map. But considering that she already seemed to have some doubts about my mental health—well, even I knew it sounded kind of crazy.
“What is all this supposed to be?” my mother said, turning the piece around as if a different view would change things. “I recognize this—it’s the Casino Building on Catalina Island.”
“Huh?” I said, looking over her shoulder. Then I saw she was right. I’d seen the round-shaped building countless times during the weather segment on the news. Here she didn’t even know anything about the mystery and she’d already turned over a clue. A bath-powder box, indeed. I almost wanted to hug her.
My mother lost interest in it after that. “Then I suppose we get Samuel’s old room,” she said, heading down the hall.
“No. I’m putting you and Daddy in my room,” I said. “Just stay here for a moment.” I dashed across the house to make sure I hadn’t left anything embarrassing around. Sure enough, there was the bottle of ylang-ylang pleasure oil next to my bed that Barry had brought over. I slipped it in my pocket just as I heard footsteps in the hall.
“Irv put the bags in the hall,” my mother called to my father before coming in. She looked around with interest. She’d never spent much time in here before. When my parents had come to visit while Charlie was alive, our room had been our domain.
It was really a wonderful large room with vaulted wood ceilings and a fireplace. There were large windows on two of the walls and a glass door leading to a little private patio. The bathroom was roomy with a window looking out on the same patio, and there was a hall with two closets and a door at the end. With the door shut, the bedroom suite became like a s
eparate world from the rest of the house.
I had gotten a new bedspread with pink flowers on a green background; an abundance of pillows complemented the decor. They also made the bed seem like a wonderful sleep nest; I was going to miss nestling in there. I closed the shutters on the windows and pulled Blondie’s chair with me. The two dogs followed me out. As I was going, my mother wanted to make sure the bed had the all-cotton sheets she’d asked for. “Yes, and I washed them three times in the organic soap,” I called out.
As soon as I got across the house to my office—the tiny bedroom off the laundry area where I kept my computer—I turned it on and typed in Catalina.
CHAPTER 8
“SO YOUR MOTHER HAS NO IDEA THAT SHE UNCOVERED a clue?” Dinah said. It was a few days later and Dinah and I had met for a pregroup breakfast. Truthfully, we both needed a diversion. Her ex had picked up the twins the day before and her house felt too empty. My mother was in diva mode and my house felt too full.
By Hook or by Crook Page 7