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 plate 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.”
I nodded. I had my pride and wasn’t about to let on that the whole case was a disaster anyway.
Barry finished the noodle dish and moved on to the corned beef sandwich, potato salad and coleslaw I’d given him. I offered him something to drink. “I can help myself,” he replied, getting up. This was all too weird. So familiar and strange at the same time. He opened the refrigerator, and I saw him do a double take.
“Who’s the beer for? Your new boyfriend.”
“No, it’s for my father. He likes to drink a bottle at night. It helps him sleep. Feel free to have some.”
“How’s it going with the dancer?” There was an edge to Barry’s voice as he came back to the table with the amber bottle. Cosmo was following his every move.
“I’m not going out with the dancer,” I said, hoping to end it.
“Who then?” Barry was looking directly at me. He was Mr. Detective now, interrogating and confrontational.
“You don’t want to know,” I said, breaking eye contact and looking down.
Barry put down the sandwich. He didn’t have to say the name for me to realize he knew it was Mason. When he had finished eating and drank most of the beer, he looked down at the black mutt and ruffled his fur. His face softened for a moment, but it was back to tough cop when he looked at me. “Do you have any idea who the caller was or who might have left the gift?”
I groaned. There were so many possibilities.
“Just spread the word that you gave up,” he said, rising to leave.
There was an awkward moment while we stood facing each other and his gaze held mine. “I don’t know if it matters to you, but I contacted my daughter.”
He thanked me for the food and went to the kitchen door. Cosmo tried to follow, but Barry stepped out quickly, closing the door before the dog could get out. Then Cosmo sat down in front of the glass door and whined.
CHAPTER 28
THE PHONE CALLS, THE FISH AND MY PARENTS concern had gotten to me. Maybe it was time to drop it. So I did as Barry suggested; I told everyone I was stumped by Mary Beth Wells’s secret and who killed her and I was giving up. Only Dinah asked me if I was sure. Nobody even mentioned the crochet piece the next time the group got together. For once all we did was work with yarn and make small talk.
When I got home that evening, my mother was at the kitchen table drinking her hot water, lemon juice and honey. Her hair looked newly done and her nails manicured.
“Sit, sit,” she said after I’d taken care of the dogs.
I listened and the house was quiet.
“No one’s here,” she said. “We’ve practiced as much as we can. We’re as good as we’re going to get. Now we need to rest our voices and our feet so we’ll be fresh for the audition.”
I sat down on the bench across from her. She was nursing her drink and explained my father had gone out.
“I know our visit has been a little disruptive to your house, and I wanted to thank you,” my mother said.
I said the usual baloney about it not being any trouble, and she shocked me by telling me what a good daughter I was. I never knew she noticed.
“So fill me in about these murders you’ve been involved with,” she said, setting her cup down.
“You really want to know?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know,” she answered matter-of-factly. Apparently she had never noticed that we hadn’t had a lot of mother-daughter moments. I told her I’d been in the middle of a couple of murder investigations and solved both cases.
My mother’s face brightened into a laugh. “Who’d ever figure you’d end up as an amateur detective?”
I shrugged.
“Did you ever get sent a dead fish before?”
“No. This was a first.” I kept waiting for her to turn the conversation around to herself, but she seemed genuinely curious and asked for the details of what had led up to the special delivery. “Are you sure you really want to know?” I asked again. She rolled her eyes and nodded in response. I went into my work room and got the package with the crochet piece and the notes. I had stopped carrying it with me. What was the point? When I laid everything out on the table, she leaned closer for a better view.
“Oh, I remember this thing. That’s the Casino Building.” She examined the first panel and then glanced over the rest of them. “What about the others? What are they supposed to be?”
I started going over the filet crochet designs one by one. I pointed out the odd house with the cone-shaped roof and the three panels around it, all with cats. “I found this house a short distance from the Casino and there were cats everywhere.” I indicated what I’d first thought to be the Arc de Triomphe. “This fireplace is inside that house and now I’m pretty sure the mantelpiece has a secret compartment with something hidden in it.”
My mother’s fascination was obvious as I continued on. I explained I thought the motif of the figure with the bow and arrow was meant to signify Sagittarius and referred to a baby’s birth sign. “And I know this vase appears to be filled with drooping tulips, but they are supposed to be Irises and are a clue to the baby’s mother’s name.”
I turned the piece around so the wishing well in the adjacent panel was recognizable. “See the S hanging from the roof. If you add that onto well you get Wells, which is the last name of the person who made this.”
My mother found the MB and nodded with enthusiasm. “I get it. This was like her signature. Very clever of you to figure that all out,” she said. Had my mother just given me a compliment? I told her the rest of it—how the baby turned out to be somebody in the crochet group.
“And I thought your only problems had to do with dating,” my mother said when I had finished.
My mother fingered the stitches on the piece. “This is really crochet? I thought crochet was just used to make those multicolored squares and shawls.”
She picked up the diary entry and read it over:
The island is decorated for Christmas. All the colorful lights brighten up the short cold days, but it doesn’t help me feel any less sad. I hate to have to say good-bye even for a short time. I know things will work out and we will be back together again for keeps. Tomorrow I go back as if nothing has changed. I know I am doing the right thing.
“This is about heartbreak and hope,” she said. I must have given her an odd look. “Molly, it’s like when somebody gives me lyrics to a song. I read over the whole thing to see what it’s about before I worry about each line. Then when I go back it’s easier to get the meaning. The person writing this is sad about having to say good-bye to someone.” My mother flipped the page and read the line on the back. “Oh, she’s saying she’s going to miss the baby.”
“What?” I said, and my mother pointed to the line on the back: Catalina, I’m going to miss you.
Dinah and I had taken that line to mean the island. “You said that’s what the baby’s name was, didn’t you? But she has hope they’ll be reunited,” my mother said and then appeared confused. “If it’s her baby, why is she having to say good-bye anyway?” Before I could tell her that Mary Beth wasn’t the mother, my mother looked at the crochet piece again.
“What about these other panels?” Her hand brushed the square with the plain ring and then the divided circle before moving on to the double-sized panel with the aqua rectangle. Her finger traced the open area in the middle.
I raised my hands, palms upward, in the universal I-don’t-know sign.
My mother continued to study the panels and then scrunched her face in disapproval. “Why would somebody put a switch in with all this other stuff?”
Just as I got out a “huh?” my mother held the panel up next to the light switch in the kitchen. It took a moment of my eye going back and forth, but then I saw that the panel image and the light switch were an exact match. How could I have miss
ed it? “Mother, you’re a genius,” I said, kissing her cheek.
“I have my moments,” she said with a pleased smile. “As long as we’re playing detective—I think your father is having an affair with Belle Gladner.” When she got through laying out the facts, they were so ridiculous, I had a hard time not laughing. Her evidence: My father had gone shopping for a shirt without her and mentioned running into their former neighbor at the drugstore and noticing that her skin looked very good. My mother was back to thinking the world revolved around her.
DINAH MET ME AT CAITLIN’S CUPCAKES IN THE morning. “Think about it,” I said, discussing the crochet panel. “Switch. Like maybe switch Iris and Mary Beth and—”
“Ali’s mother is really Mary Beth,” Dinah said, finishing my thought. We were sitting at the counter that ran along the window.
“I think that’s Mary Beth’s secret,” I said.
“But there’s no way to prove it,” Dinah said. I looked out the window and down the street. I saw Ali and Iris heading toward the bookstore.
“Maybe there isn’t a way to prove it, but there is a way to prove Iris isn’t her mother.” I got off my stool. “I have a plan.”
“I guess that means you’re back on the case,” Dinah said, rushing after me.
It took some fast action, but when we got to the café at the bookstore I got Bob to make up a tray of iced tea samples. Then I got our head cashier, Rayaad, to carry the tray around the bookstore.
Ali and Iris were in the nature section, and I slipped behind a bookcase. As Rayaad headed in their direction, she glanced over her shoulder at me. I gave her the nod. I watched from my hiding place as our cashier stopped next to them and offered the samples. Other people came out of nowhere and took some of the small cups, but Ali and Iris shook their head. Rayaad looked back at me and I waved her back at them. She offered again, and persisted. They finally each took a cup and then walked away.
By Hook or by Crook cm-3 Page 21