Camille caught up with me. She was just checking on her scarf. “You don’t know what this means to me. This is the first time I’ve ever donated something I made. It makes me fee so authentic.”
I glanced at her dress. Like an actress at the Academy Awards, she was wearing a gown from the “Who are you wearing?” category. I looked down at my dress. Nobody was likely to ask me who I was wearing. More likely they’d ask, “What are you wearing?” in a tone that made clear it wasn’t a compliment. It was my standby black dress, which I now realized was dated. If I was going to go to more of these, I’d have to buy some new clothes. I stopped myself. If I was thinking about going to more evenings like this, then I was thinking seriously about Mason’s remark. Did I want to be his girlfriend?
The jury was still out when the evening ended. As we drove back to Tarzana, I turned my attention away from my future social life and refocused it on the information I’d asked Mason to get. He played his game again, trying to withold it until we went to his house, but I held strong and he backed down.
“Okay, here is what I found out. The property where Iris Stewart has her home and business is in the name Iris Woods, and she’s owned it for almost twenty-three years. Iris married Paul Stewart twenty-one years ago. Adoption papers were filed and Catalina Woods became Catalina Stewart.”
I was rushing to write down what he said. We were standing outside my car parked in his driveway. “It’s kind of cold out here. You must be freezing,” he said, looking at the lacy mohair shawl draped around my shoulders. “Wouldn’t you rather be doing that in front of a nice fire?” He tilted his head toward his house. Okay, maybe he had backed down, but he hadn’t given up. When I asked about Matt Wells, Mason shivered and said he was getting cold. I offered him the inside of my car, but he laughed and declined.
Mason gave in and repeated Matt Wells had been married three times and was currently single. He had four kids ranging from elementary-school age to late teens. “Which amounts to a lot of child support,” Mason said. “He’s currently living in a luxury condo in Encino, and his credit rating is kind of shaky.”
“In other words, he really needs a bigger piece of the dance studios,” I said. Mason nodded in agreement.
“Well,” I said, looking toward my car. “Thanks for all the info.”
“My pleasure,” he said, taking me into a warm embrace. Sharing his body heat felt good. Too good, and I knew staying wrapped in his arms was only going to lead to trouble, so I pulled away and said good night.
“YOU LET MASON BE YOUR SLEUTHING PARTNER again,” Dinah wailed. “I thought that was strictly my job.” She paused for only a second, then said the least I could do was fill her in on everything. I had driven to her house after leaving Mason.
On the coffee table Dinah had the usual stack of papers waiting to be graded, but there was something else.
“Yay, you’ve gotten past the kids leaving,” I said, holding up the form from Date-A-Lot. “You’re ready to work on your social life. Good for you!”
She deflected the comment by asking about Mason and me. I told her the truth. “He’s fun to be with, and the fact he doesn’t want to turn it into anything too serious is appealing.”
“And the downside?” Dinah prompted.
“I’m still getting over Barry. And it’s messy because of the dog and his son Jeffrey. Jeffrey leaves and we’re a couple, and he comes back and we’re not even friends. I did tell you he rejected the friend idea and even gave me back his key, didn’t I?”
“Several times,” Dinah said. “Okay, so what do you think the information Mason gave you means?”
“The most obvious is that Paul Stewart isn’t Ali’s father,” I said. “And somehow Iris had the money to buy the house for the nursery. Things were cheaper back then, but that was still a sizeable investment for someone so young.”
“Do you think she was blackmailing Mary Beth? Maybe that’s it. Mary Beth decided to go public so she couldn’t be blackmailed anymore.”
“I considered that, but Iris doesn’t seem the blackmailing type.” I wasn’t sure what the blackmailing type was, but I doubted that the hard-working owner of a plant nursery fell into the category. “Maybe Mary Beth gave her the money for the down payment.”
“That’s a lot of money to give,” Dinah said. “There must have been something she wanted in return.”
We went back and forth, getting nowhere. I had no choice but to go home and face the She La Las. Did those women ever stop practicing?
The weather had turned cold and damp by the time I drove home. I had narrowed things down a little. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the secret Mary Beth had wanted to settle focused on Ali. I was also sure Ali didn’t know what it was, but her mother did. How far would her mother go to keep the lid on it?
At home, I checked my phone messages. The third one made the hair on my neck stand up. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. Just a harsh whisper telling me I was asking for trouble.
My father came in and handed me a large padded envelope with my name written in red. He said it had been on the front porch when Lana and Bunny arrived.
I ripped back the top with shaking hands. Something slid out and hit the ground.
When I looked down, I screamed. A big dead fish with a marzipan apple in its mouth had landed on my foot.
CHAPTER 27
“PINK, WHAT DID YOU DO?” ADELE DEMANDED, rushing up to the event table as I was setting up for the group. I stopped what I was doing and fortified myself with a big sip of my red eye.
I was still recovering from the previous night. It hadn’t been pretty. My father kept asking about the dead fish, and I didn’t have a good answer. Telling him it was some kind of joke didn’t work, partly because my son Samuel had told him I’d gotten involved in a couple of murder investigations.
“Molly,” he’d said, shaking his head. “I know you’ve had to make a lot of adjustments since Charlie died, but what are you doing getting mixed up with murder?” He shook his head again. “I’m not going to tell your mother.”
I had refrained from voicing my thought that she probably wouldn’t pay attention anyway. If it didn’t have to do with the She La Las and their upcoming audition, she wasn’t interested. Then I had told my father not to worry and that I had the business with the fish under control.
“Well,” Adele said, glaring at me from across the table.
“What are you talking about?” I said, putting the box of yarn out. Sheila arrived and took off the jacket of her black suit before stretching her arms and sitting down.
“I’m talking about Ali quitting the group. She wouldn’t give any details. She said you would explain.” Adele dropped into a chair. CeeCee put her things on the table and stared at Adele.
“What? Ali quit the group? She was such a nice addition. What happened?”
“Ask Pink,” Adele said with irritation.
“What’s going on?” Dinah asked as she set down her things and checked out Adele’s stormy expression. “Did somebody call us a knit group?” Dinah said, smiling. Adele glared in response.
CeeCee was used to people coming and going in the group and recovered immediately. She glanced up and down the table. “Camille’s not here, huh?” Letting out a sigh of relief, she announced, “I think I’ll go and get some of Bob’s special cookies and a latte with whole milk. Anybody else want anything?” When no one responded, CeeCee stayed put. All eyes were on me. They were waiting for an explanation.
“You remember how Ali mentioned that her mother’s name was Iris like the flowers in Mary Beth’s crochet piece?” Everyone nodded but Dinah. She already knew where I was headed. “I thought it might be just a coincidence, but I decided to talk to her mother.”
I described my visit to the cactus nursery and my conversation with Iris. “She denied knowing Mary Beth Wells and I proved she was lying.”
“Ouch,” CeeCee said. “Dear, that sort of thing never goes over well. I remember a role I had i
n The Devil’s Mistress .” She looked at us for recognition of the title and continued. “It was a period piece, all bustles and rustling dresses. Thank God that fashion hasn’t made a comeback. I played the sweet sister who got killed for doing exactly what Molly did. My sister in the movie kept saying she’d never met the grand duke, and my character found a letter the sister had gotten from him that proved she was lying. She smothered my character with a pillow.”
All eyes were back on me. “No pillows on my face last night, just a creepy whispering phone call and a dead fish with a marzipan apple in its mouth.”
That information elicited a couple of ewws. Sheila was the only one looking away. She was intent on her blanket, and I could see her stitches getting tighter with each movement of her hook. Suddenly she set it down, rushed over and started hugging me. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “You have to drop it, Molly. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
I hugged her back and told her not to worry. With her grandmother dead, Sheila was alone in the world and overburdened by work, school and an unpleasant living situation. The group was her family, and I was the one she felt closest to.
I could feel Dinah’s eyes on me. She’d known about everything except the dead fish and the phone call.
“That’s why I don’t get involved when people drop things like this on me. Just because I’m on a show about solving problems doesn’t mean it’s my job to solve them,” CeeCee said.
“I don’t think Mary Beth left it for you to figure out. From what I’ve found out, Ali is at the center of whatever Mary Beth was trying to fix. I think she left that panel piece with us because she saw Ali was in our group,” I said.
“Was in our group is the operative phrase, Pink,” Adele added. “It sounds like you’ve made a mess of everything. Let’s see. We lost a wonderful member of the group, you insulted her mother, someone is dropping off dead things at your house—and you still haven’t figured out what the crochet piece means.”
Sheila was still hugging me when Camille showed up. She was breathless and either ignored that she had arrived in the middle of something or didn’t notice. I was voting for the latter since she immediately launched into a speech telling everyone how much her scarf had gone for at the silent auction.
When they heard the amount, the group wanted details on the scarf, apparently thinking the quality and design had determined the high price.
CeeCee and I looked at each other over the table. We knew the scarf would have sold even if it had been made of knotted string. Camille’s name was the attraction, not the scarf.
Camille described how the person with the winning bid had come over to her and complimented her on her crochet work. Then she pulled out some photos and passed them around. An ambitious-looking dark-haired man was wearing the scarf and standing between Camille and her husband. The scarf guy’s eyes were on Hunter. “It was truly rewarding to feel something I’d made could do so much good,” Camille said, finishing her story.
“Weren’t you going to the café?” Dinah asked CeeCee. CeeCee glanced toward Camille and said something about having changed her mind.
Eduardo came in later and apologized all around for being MIA. But he hadn’t been idle. He had two of the blankets finished and lots of bookmarks. I was amazed how with his big hands he could maneuver the tiny hook and thin thread.
Dinah pulled her chair close to me. “What are you going to do?”
I sighed and told her I didn’t know. “The worst of it is, much as I hate to admit it, Adele’s right. I have made a mess of everything and gotten nowhere.”
Dinah tried to make me feel better and regretted she couldn’t hang around after, but she had office hours to get to. We promised to catch up later.
After the group left, I cleared away our table and chairs and then kept busy around the bookstore. While I was putting out copies of the newsletter I’d written I noticed Mrs. Shedd was in. Ever since the television show had arranged to film there, Mrs. Shedd had been around much more. In the past, she usually came in before we opened and after we closed.
I walked over to her as she was supervising the removal of all the easy chairs we had spread around the store. “They’re being upholstered,” she said, showing me a swatch. She’d changed the artwork, too. Before there had been some prints that I had barely noticed. Now there were framed photos of the store, some customers, Bob and his cookies and the transformation of the street over the years. I had to agree with her thinking. The local photographs made the bookstore feel more personal.
The one good part of having my parents staying with me was that my father was happy to take care of the dogs. So, I had no reason to rush home. I stayed until the bookstore closed.
It was dark and cold when I drove up my driveway. I felt a certain apprehension as I walked across the backyard. Would there be another phone call or gift on my door-step?
The house was quiet when I walked in. All the take-out food had been put away. I peeked in the living room, wondering if the She La Las had fallen asleep in midpractice. I wasn’t ready for who I saw.
The couches, tables and chairs were still piled in the den. The only seating available in the living room was a bunch of folding chairs up against the wall. My parents were in two of them, and Barry was in a third with Cosmo draped over his lap.
“What?” I said, walking in. My gaze stayed on Barry, and I supposed my expression wasn’t exactly welcoming.
“They called me,” he explained. He looked exhausted, his tie was off and his shirt open at the collar. His eyes were heavy and his beard overgrown. The black eye my father had inadvertently given him was fading but still visible.
“I was on my way home. Thirty-six hours straight.” His eyes met mine. My immediate thought was sympathy, but then I reminded myself that had we still been seeing each other, I would have been wondering where he was and probably worried. And, I also reminded myself, he had left out a huge chunk of his life.
My father got up, went to the kitchen and came back with a freezer bag. As he passed I saw the silvery dead fish with the marzipan apple still in its mouth. He showed it to Barry.
“I heard the phone message,” my mother said. “We were worried, so we called him.”
Barry blew out some air and looked at me. “What have you gotten yourself in the middle of this time?”
“She’s gotten in trouble before?” my mother said.
First, I was surprised and maybe a little pleased that my mother seemed so concerned. She’d always been self-absorbed, but with the She La Las rehearsals she’d gone over the top even for her. Then I was upset. I didn’t want my parents to worry, and it was embarrassing to have them call my ex-boyfriend about a dead fish with some almond-paste fruit stuck in its mouth.
I gave Barry a little shake of my head, hoping he wouldn’t start giving details.
“Didn’t you at least offer him some food?” I said, trying to change the subject.
Barry looked at the dead fish and made a face. “If that’s what you had in mind, no thanks.”
“Okay, intervention over,” I said to my parents. “I’ll tell Barry about it myself.”
They looked relieved and went into the bedroom. My father came back a minute later and pressed a tube of something in Barry’s hand.
“It’s moisturizer with a little color. It ought to camouflage your eye.”
“Makeup?” Barry said, eying the tube with discomfort.
“It’s not makeup,” my father insisted.
I took Barry into the kitchen. He was still holding the now-frozen dead fish and the makeup, and I wasn’t sure which one upset him more.
I pointed toward the trash, but he suggested I might want to hang onto it for now in case it turned out to be evidence. Then he opened the freezer and popped it back in, before putting the makeup on the counter and leaning against it. Cosmo had followed us into the kitchen and parked himself next to Barry’s leg.
I made him a pl
ate of the leftover take-out food and then heated up a square of the noodle pudding. The buttery smell filled the kitchen.
He nodded when I handed it to him. “Looks homemade. Your mother?”
I laughed. “No. Me.”
We sat down at the kitchen table, and he began to eat ravenously. I noticed he went for my noodle pudding first. He nodded as he chewed and sighed with pleasure. Then he went back to his tough expression. “I am not going to ask you what’s going on. I know that you’re still mucking around in the Mary Beth Wells case. The fish is a warning. Drop it.”
By Hook or by Crook Page 22