Knot Guilty

by Betty Hechtman

  “How about this? She and K.D. Kirby were college friends, and I’m pretty sure K.D. stole Ruby’s boyfriend and married him.”

  Barry stopped me. “I’m not even going to ask how you found all that out. I know what you’re doing. It’s really nice how you’re sticking up for Adele.”

  “I’m just saying you should keep an open mind and keep investigating and not be so sure it’s Adele.”

  “Really?” Barry said. I followed his gaze and almost choked. Adele had stepped out of the booth and seemed to be in the middle of a hissy fit. She picked up a ball of yarn with some knitting needles in it and threw it on the ground and then kicked it for good measure.

  Oops.

  “You know Adele. She’s just a loose cannon,” I said and he nodded.

  “Exactly my thought,” he said. “A loose cannon who could lose her cool and do something on the spur of the moment, like throw a hair dryer in a bubble bath. I hope you understand that I can’t let it be personal. I have to do my job.” He let down his cop demeanor. “That was always the problem with us. My job. The hours and the undependability.” In order to hear each other over the noise we’d ended up standing very close together. Close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body and smell the telltale fragrance of the lemon soap he used. He was so familiar and so distant at the same time. It felt very strange.

  “There you are, Sunshine,” Mason said, stopping next to me. He was all smiles, though I saw his expression darken when he looked at Barry.

  Barry didn’t wait for Mason to say anything and just explained he was there on official business.

  “I was going for a coffee run,” Mason said, putting his arm on my shoulder in a subtly possessive gesture. “Would either of you like one?”

  “No, thank you,” Barry said, straightening and stepping away. He took up his post a few feet down.

  Mason didn’t waste a moment talking about Barry but went right into how nice it was that we had a moment together. “It’s torture seeing you and not being able to spend time with you,” he said. He glanced at his charge in the distance. Audrey Stewart was sitting alone knitting in the Knit Style booth. “I can’t be gone long.” He turned to me. “How’s it going?”

  I assumed he meant the investigation and started to talk about Adele being a suspect and how absurd it was. “There are so many other people it could be. Even your—”

  Mason looked crushed and put up his hand to stop me. “Sunshine, say no more.” He gave me a quick hug. “I can’t wait until the situation is settled.” And then he was gone.

  “Are you crazy?” I said to Adele. I’d rushed back to the booth to try to do damage control and leaned down to pick up the abused ball of yarn. “You couldn’t have done anything worse for yourself. There I was proclaiming your innocence to Barry and he looks over and sees you attacking some yarn and knitting needles.”

  Adele hung her head for a moment before she looked up with a big smile. “You were defending me. Thank you.” She grabbed me in a bear hug that squeezed the air out of my lungs.

  It appeared that even with her almost arrest, Adele still had no sense of how much trouble she was in. Her story was she’d never gone up to talk to K.D., that the hook had been planted and there was no way anyone could really believe she was guilty of anything.

  “You do realize that innocent people are found guilty all the time,” I said. It seemed like that finally got to her. “Why were you throwing the yarn, anyway? It’s hardly very professional.”

  Dinah had joined us and explained for Adele. “Leonora Humphries left a tote bag for her. There was a note in it saying that if Adele really cared about Eric, she would get out of his life. That there was a reason people who crocheted were called hookers and if Adele wanted to help herself, she should take up the real yarn craft of knitting like her fellow crocheter Rhoda. And to start Adele off on a new life, she’d included some yarn and needles along with a book called The Average Joe’s Guide to Knitting.” Dinah took a breath and shrugged. “Adele didn’t take it very well.”

  “I didn’t know there was an Average Joe’s Guide to anything beyond criminal investigation,” I said. Dinah laughed.

  Rhoda walked toward us, but when she got near Adele, she made a wide swath away from her and then spoke to her. “All I did was take a couple of knitting classes this weekend. It doesn’t make me a traitor to our craft.” She joined Dinah and me and opened her oversize tote to show the projects she’d started in the three classes she’d taken. The knitting needles clanked together and Adele flinched.

  “What’s wrong with being ambi-stitcheral?” She threw a hopeless nod at Adele before turning back to us. “I’m going home to change and pick up Hal. He wants to see those silver knitting needles. You know he works in jewelry, right? He’s going to see if there’s a way to make us some silver jeweled hooks.” She looked back at Adele. “I hope you heard that. I’m trying to figure out a way for us to have fancy crochet hooks.”

  Adele looked a little dazed and rushed to join us. “I’m sorry for calling you a yarn traitor. It’s just . . .” Adele began to cry. I’d never seen her cry. She could barely admit to having a vulnerable side. “I know Leonora has poisoned Eric’s mind about me. He’s the yin for my yang. Getting arrested was the final blow.” We tried to console her and tell her we were sure she was wrong.

  “He was supposed to come tonight,” she said, “but he sent me a text that he had to cancel because he had to work.” She struck a dramatic heartbroken pose. “It’s just an excuse. I know it is.”

  “It will be okay. We’ll all sit together at the banquet,” I said.

  “And I’ll be the only one with an empty chair next to them. Dinah is coming with Commander, Rhoda is bringing her husband, and Elise for sure is bringing Logan. I heard Sheila even has a date. Eduardo’s got his girlfriend. Everyone has someone,” she said with a sad pout. Then she stared at me. “Wait a second, Pink, who are you coming with?”

  “I’m going solo,” I said. “Mason is on duty with Audrey.” I mentioned how he’d just taken a few minutes away from her to do a coffee run. My late husband Charlie had worked in public relations, so I was familiar with the drill when it came to dealing with celebrities. No matter how exalted your position, theirs was higher, which meant sometimes you had to be an escort or even do gofer duty. “Mason has to protect her from herself, making sure she doesn’t make some offhand comment about the knitting needles or maybe something else.”

  Adele’s eyes widened. “You mean he thinks she’s the one who threw the hair dryer in the tub?”

  I shrugged. “He hasn’t said it, but then he hasn’t said anything about her. He can’t. But I think he knows she really shoplifted the needles and that she might have killed K.D.”

  Adele seemed a little less woebegone when she heard I was dateless and was relieved to hear I had a suspect in mind. “You can leave if you want,” I said to Dinah, Rhoda and Adele. “I’m staying in the booth until the marketplace closes. I brought my clothes with me.”

  “I did, too,” Adele said. “Good, we can change together.” I noticed that Dinah rolled her eyes at Adele’s comment, then wished me luck before she and Rhoda left.

  The crowd grew thinner and thinner as the afternoon wore on until finally the only people going by were other vendors or the support staff for the show. Mason waved and said he’d see me later as he followed Audrey to the door. All the while Barry wandered around the perimeter, keeping an eye on Adele.

  I was glad to finally put the cloth covering over the booth and head upstairs, even if it was with Adele. The room showed signs of a lot of people using it as a pit stop over the weekend—some spare vampire parts, a receipt showing the entrelac knitting class Rhoda had taken and a black suitcase. I went to have a look at it, but Adele pulled it back. “It’s personal,” she said.

  I decided I was never going to take a road trip with
Adele. Sharing the room with her, even for that short time, made me crazy. The banquet was black tie optional, and I had definitely gone for the optional. A basic black dress and low heels were as far as I went. Adele wasn’t satisfied and tried to pin crocheted flowers all over the bodice. We settled on one red mohair rose in the neckline center of the tank-style dress. I redid my makeup and jazzed it up by adding eye shadow and a lot of blush. I fluffed up my shoulder-length brown hair. It wasn’t straight or curly—but it certainly had a mind of its own. I finished the look with a black mohair shawl that had some sparkle.

  Adele had to give herself a facial and then use heat rollers on her hair before she got dressed. I was expecting some kind of over-the-top evening wear but was surprised to see a hanger with black pants and a black tunic. For Adele to forgo all color seemed very, very strange.

  Since Adele seemed to be all over the room, I stepped out in the corridor to see if I could find a vending machine and get some bottled water. I glanced down the hall. At the end, the double doors of K.D.’s suite were still yellow-taped off. As I was looking at the doors, I was surprised to see a room service waiter pushing a cart that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He came toward me checking room numbers as he went.

  I stopped him to ask about the vending machine and couldn’t help but ask how he’d done the appearing out of nowhere act. He took me back down the hall and showed me the alcove that seemed to be an entry area for the suite. He pointed out the patterned wallpaper on the left. When I still didn’t get it, he showed me a button that seemed to be part of the pattern. He pushed it and the wall slid open, exposing the service elevator.

  “You aren’t by chance the person who brought up the champagne. . . .” I didn’t finish but instead pointed at the doors with the yellow tape. He swallowed so hard, I actually heard it, and then he gave me a small nod as an answer.

  I crossed my fingers for luck. “Did you notice a large wooden hooklike thing and some yarn on the table?” I asked.

  “You mean like a crochet hook?” he said, and my hopes shot up. For a second anyway. “My girlfriend crochets. She keeps trying to get me to try. It’s supposed to be good for your nerves, and ah, sexy.” He leaned close. “She dragged me to that Caught by a Kiss movie, and Hugh Jackman sure has a way with a hook.” He went on about the Anthony character and how he’d made it seem cool for guys to handle a hook. I finally had to stop him and get his mind back on the champagne delivery. “Let’s see,” he said, looking at the ceiling as he tried to think back. “The cops were more interested in what time I delivered it and if there was anyone else in the room. I said a woman with a knitted headband was just leaving when I got there.” He went back to trying to conjure up the scene in his mind’s eye.

  “I remember pushing some magazines over on the coffee table before I set down the bucket and the glasses. And a hotel key. They call them keys, but they’re really plastic cards. But that was it. No yarn or hook.”

  He’d started to push the cart down the hall, and I walked with him. “Did you see anyone loitering around the hall when you came out?” He shook his head and said the cops had asked the same question.

  “I didn’t know she was going to be murdered,” he said, “so I was just trying to do my job and get out of there.”

  “Who has access to that elevator you showed me?”

  “Guests aren’t supposed to use it, but there’s really nothing stopping them.” He began to pick up speed. “I better get this delivered. Nobody likes lukewarm soup.”

  “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” I said. “Thanks for answering my questions.” He gave me a funny look.

  “I get it, you’re some kind of undercover investigator, right?”

  “Yes, but way undercover, so if anyone asks you about me, you don’t know anything.”

  He seemed to like the intrigue and promised that it was just between us. “Crocheters rule,” he said as he rushed down the corridor.

  I didn’t really think he’d mention me or my questions to Barry or Detective Heather, but why take a chance. I glanced back the way we’d come, wondering about that service elevator and where it went. The room service waiter was way down the hall now and not paying any attention to me. I quickly went back to the elevator. If he hadn’t pointed out it was there, I never would have seen it. Even so I had to feel for the button because it completely blended in with the floral wallpaper. It was a little creepy that there was no noise as the wall panel slid away and the elevator door opened.

  Once I was inside, it was just like a regular elevator, though large enough to bring up furniture. I hit the ground floor button, and the elevator began its descent. It came to a silent stop and the door opened onto an industrial-looking corridor. As I walked into it, I smelled food and heard the clatter of noise from the kitchen. I was somewhere in the middle of the long hallway. Disoriented, with no idea what was where, I picked a direction. When I came to the end, I pushed through the doors and found I was right outside the entrance to the marketplace, which was completely deserted. I retraced my steps and then continued on to the other outlet of the corridor. This time it wasn’t silent or empty. I was suddenly in the lobby, not far from the registration desk and the bank of elevators.

  “Where did you come from?” Barry said, reaching out his arms to stop me before I backed over his feet. His voice startled me, and I flinched, wondering if he somehow knew I’d been snooping. When I recovered, I saw that he was leaning against a pillar near the bank of guest elevators.

  I did what he did so much of the time. I answered his question with one of my own.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think I’m doing here?” he said. I shook my head with consternation and noticed there was just the slightest twinkle in his eyes. He knew what I was doing and was doing it back.

  “It’s not about Adele, is it?”

  “What do you think?” This time it was kind of a question-statement combination.

  “You don’t seriously think she is going to try to take off for Switzerland?” I said.

  His face said it all. He thought she might. “She’s much more upset at Eric’s mother,” I said. “By the way, the reason she was manhandling that yarn was because it was a gift from Mrs. Humphries along with a note about how unsuitable she thinks Adele is for her son. I guess it’s standard operating procedure for mothers to think someone isn’t right for their sons. But maybe not to that extreme. I can just imagine what your mother would think about me.”

  Barry’s face softened. “She would love you, particularly for the way you treat Jeffrey. And she would think you were way too good for me. She doesn’t like me being a cop.”

  The elevator door opened, and Barry’s attention went right to it as he watched it unload.

  “Believe me, she’s still upstairs. You know Adele. She never does anything halfway.” I caught myself before I continued, realizing I was feeding right into his concerns.

  “It doesn’t bother you that Mason’s work is requiring him to hang out with a young, hot actress?”

  “How about young, hot suspect,” I said, hoping to drop the idea into Barry’s mind.

  “Aha, so it does bother you.” I realized he’d taken it the wrong way entirely and thought I was mentioning her possibility as a suspect because it did bother me. And if I tried to explain more, it would just reinforce what he thought.

  As for if it really bothered me—no. My late husband had worked in public relations and dealt with many versions of Audrey Stewarts. I was used to it.

  “Maybe his work is going to be a problem, too.”

  “It was more than your job,” I said, quickly, then regretted it. It was pointless to discuss it.

  Barry seemed surprised. “Then what was it?”

  “How about how you just did things without consulting me?”

  “I’m used to being in charge,” he s
aid.

  “Exactly.” I left it at that. This was getting way too personal. “I have to go.” I switched the subject back to Adele. “You’re not really going to sit outside her condo all night, are you?”

  “I called in a favor and someone is taking over the night shift.” I think he was as relieved as I was to be talking about Adele again. I rolled my eyes and turned to go.

  “You look nice,” Barry called after me.

  “Pink, where have you been?” Adele said when I came back into the room. I doubted she really wanted to know and thought it was better to leave her in the dark about the fact that she was being watched. She was putting the finishing touches on her hair. She had tried to give her brown locks the tousled curl look.

  She went to working on her makeup, muttering that when you were going to be on the stage, more was really more. Adele had a way of taking over the room, and it seemed very crowded.

  “It looks like you’ll be a while,” I said, edging my way back to the door. “I’ll meet you at the banquet.”

  Adele seemed disappointed. “I thought you could help me with some stuff, but never mind.” She said it in a tone straight out of an old black-and-white melodramatic movie.

  * * *

  The banquet was held in a ballroom that had been set up with a stage and a short catwalk. Black drapes had been pulled along the side walls, and the center of the large room was filled with a multitude of round tables with white tablecloths and floral centerpieces. People had already begun arriving. There was a table up front that had a big reserved sign, but beyond that it was open seating. I looked over the tables for a familiar face. Dinah stood up at one near the front and waved me over.

  She had gone home to change and pick up Commander Blaine. Even now none of us knew if his first name was really a title, a nickname or the name he’d gotten at birth. I suppose if they ever got married, we’d find out. He’d taken the black tie suggestion seriously, and his traditional black tuxedo made his thick shock of white hair seem even brighter. Dinah had re-gelled her spiky hair and changed into a silvery gray outfit. The shimmery fabric with a touch of sequins caught the light and reflected on her face.