But I wasn’t here for sightseeing so I began walking back toward the mailbox, noticing an intercom on a stand just before the gate. I had the bag under my arm and pressed the button next to the speaker. A moment later I heard a voice say something, and I launched into explaining my mission. But all I got out was my name before I was interrupted.
A woman’s voice crackled out of the speaker, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. It sounded almost like gibberish, but I thought she repeated my name.
“Yes, yes, I’m—” There was no time to finish again as the gate made a noise and began to slide open. I walked through quickly and stood at the end of a long driveway that curved and disappeared. The laurel trees on either side were old and gnarled and made a canopy with their knife-shaped leaves. The treetops blocked out the light, making it dark and shadowy. My heart rate kicked up as I began to wonder what I was walking into.
The house didn’t come into view until after I’d rounded the curve. It was an old Spanish style—two stories with creamy stucco, lots of arched windows and a red-tile roof. My breath caught as a deer darted in front of me and disappeared down into the brush on the hillside.
I reached the other end of the driveway and walked up the path toward the house. A red-tiled patio ran along the front with an overhang for shade created by the second-floor balcony. It took my breath away just imagining what the view must be like from up there. It was probably even better at night with all the lights.
The large wood door opened, and a woman in jeans and a red blouse came out. She seemed distracted and was looking past me.
“Mary Beth Wells?” I said. I took the bag out from under my arm. Her eyes focused on it, then she nodded and grabbed my arm.
She was saying something in Spanish and I couldn’t understand her. She waved at the driveway and seemed to be looking for something, then dragged me inside.
The inside of the house was dark. I glanced around quickly, taking in the giant pots of mother-in-law tongues on the shiny dark wood floor. I only got a quick glance as we passed the living room. There was a light-colored sofa with a bright Native American blanket draped over the arm. By now, the woman was even more agitated; she gestured for me to hurry.
I followed her upstairs, where I was hit by a smell so bad I gasped. Just then, the woman pushed me in the doorway of what appeared to be the master bedroom. She finally seemed to remember English. “Fix her. She sick. When I got here. She like this.”
I heard the sound of a doorbell coming through the intercom receiver on the wall. The housekeeper—at least I assumed she was the housekeeper—frantically rushed to press the buttons.
I stayed back but could see there was a woman in the bed who didn’t appear to be moving. Pillows were propped up against the dark wood headboard, but she had fallen forward such that her face was obscured by her dark blond hair, which was spread out over the white chenille coverlet. A large stain marred the blanket.
As I took in the scene, I heard the whine of a siren and the rumble of a truck motor. Then flashing lights came through the window, and I understood why I’d been let in so quickly. The housekeeper must have called 911 and assumed I was the EMTs. No wonder she’d looked at me so oddly. She must have thought I had medical gear in the paper sack.
Even though I was across the room I had a feeling the person in the bed was beyond anybody’s ability to fix. Because of my extensive reading of The Average Joe’s Guide to Criminal Investigation, I automatically started checking out the surroundings carefully. The light next to the bed was still on, and a book appeared to have fallen on the floor. There was a carafe of water, still full, on the bedside table as well. Something next to the carafe caught my eye, and I actually took a step closer to get a better look. It was a clear plastic box of what appeared to be little apples. Several were missing.
The sounds of footsteps and voices jarred me from my observations. The housekeeper began to scream and the footsteps grew louder. Two men in dark blue uniforms rushed past me. That was when I realized what the things in the box were. Marzipan. I’d seen the almond-paste candy formed into all kinds of fruits and flowers before. As far as I was concerned, the taste never lived up to the presentation.
This seemed like a good time to leave. As I reached the top of the stairs, two firefighters came up and rushed past me. No one seemed to notice me as I headed down the staircase and toward the door. It seemed a safe guess that the woman in the bed was Mary Beth Wells. I hoped the paramedics would be able to revive her. In any case, it didn’t seem likely she’d be up for discussing a crochet piece.
I got outside and walked quickly past the ambulance and small fire truck. I picked up speed, but when I went around the curve of the driveway I caught sight of the solid blue-green gate. It was closed.
I knew most of those electric gates had some kind of electric eye that made them open when you got close. As I approached it, sure enough, it began to open, but since I was walking and the gate was timed for a car, I worried it wouldn’t stay open long enough. I began to run. Clutching the bag, I picked up speed. The slight downhill slope of the road only made me go faster.
The gate was still in the process of opening as I flew through it. It was only then that I saw the police cruiser pulled into the driveway waiting to come in. I had too much momentum to stop and went running past the black-and-white. Oh no. The doors flew open, and the two patrol officers jumped out and yelled at me to freeze.
I guess running out of there kind of gave the wrong impression.
CHAPTER 6
I SUPPOSE I SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR SMALL favors. The officers didn’t handcuff me—they just gave me a lift back up the driveway. Riding in the backseat of a cruiser was not exactly my favorite mode of transportation. The seat was hard plastic and had a residue of bad odors, and there were no window openers or door handles, which made me feel more than a little trapped.
They pulled around the ambulance and fire truck and parked on the grass. I guess if you’re cops you can do stuff like that. One of the uniforms opened the back door and escorted me to a bench on the lawn. Just to make sure I stayed put, he sat with me while his partner went into the house. My stomach fluttered when I saw the name on the badge.
Officer James turned toward me and studied my face. “Have I picked you up before?”
“Not exactly,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t pursue it. He’d been first on the scene of the very first crime I’d been involved with.
His eyes lit up with recognition, and then he appeared concerned. “You aren’t going to throw up, are you?”
Ah, so he did remember. I had rambled on and on that time, telling him I was afraid if I stopped talking I might throw up.
I assured him I had changed since then, and the conversation ended except for him asking me for fingerprint and hair samples and telling me I had to wait to talk to the detective. Since Barry was somewhere on the East Coast interrogating a witness, I knew it wouldn’t be him.
The one positive about waiting was I got a chance to really look at the view. It was better than thinking about why I was there, I decided, as I continued to clutch my purse and the paper sack. I knew there were houses below, but they were out of sight and I had an unobstructed panoramic view of the Valley. It was breathtaking, though I didn’t need any help having my breath taken. I couldn’t help it. Even though I was perfectly innocent, my heart was pounding in anticipation—and not in a good way. It was getting cold, too.
A blue Crown Victoria pulled up the driveway and stopped. By now the ambulance and fire truck had left. The fading sunlight reflected off the windshield and I couldn’t see who was inside. But I had that old sinking feeling in my stomach when I saw who got out. Detective Heather Gilmore didn’t look happy to see me, either.
We had a bit of history. More like a very short story. She wanted Barry Greenberg and I had him. I guessed her biological clock was getting into the red zone and she wanted to get married, so she’d zeroed in on him.
Usually, she
dressed in a well-fitting suit. But this time she was wearing jeans and a white turtleneck with a safari-style jacket over it. Something looked wrong, and I realized she must have gotten the call when she was off duty. Judging by the one hand with red polish and the other hand with none, she’d been in the midst of a manicure. Then I noticed the wet white blond hair sticking out below the scarf she had tied over her head. She must have been getting her hair done, too.
I noticed a thick belt around her hips when her jacket opened, revealing her badge and gun. Did she wear it to the beauty shop?
My companion patrol officer went over to talk to her out of my earshot. Detective Heather was glaring at me the whole time he spoke. Of course, I called her Detective Heather only in my head and to my friends since it sounded a little too much like calling her Detective Barbie Doll.
“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.
“Molly?” 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.
By Hook or by Crook cm-3 Page 6