Dead Men Don't Crochet

by Betty Hechtman

  “Bald guy? I don’t recall seeing a bald guy anywhere,” CeeCee said. “Thank heavens I didn’t go upstairs with the rest of you. It must have been awful.” She turned toward me and made a strange segue. “Molly, I saw you on the news. Dear, when are you going to take my advice and get some of that makeup that doesn’t make you look so pasty? I always wear it when I think I might end up on camera.”

  I shrugged off her comment. Not only had I not been expecting to end up on the news, but in my book, if you’d just seen a dead person with his face in a bowl of tomato bisque soup, it would be weird if you didn’t look pasty.

  CeeCee didn’t seem to notice that I didn’t respond, and continued on. “Luckily, that Detective Gilmore helped me slip out through the alley so I didn’t have to deal with the press.” CeeCee took out some printed papers and handed them out. “Let’s move on to why we’re here. This is a pattern for a basic shawl. It’s easy enough even for a newbie like you,” she said to Patricia.

  “Well, you certainly must remember the bald guy,” I said to Sheila. She shook her head and looked over the instructions, listening as Adele suggested it would be best to use a worsted-weight yarn.

  I expected Adele to have something to add about Drew’s death, but she was uncharacteristically quiet. Was it my imagination or was Adele keeping a low profile? She’d said nothing about seeing or not seeing the bald guy or about anything else for that matter except her yarn suggestion. I had a feeling it had to do with the upcoming children’s author appearance and her concern that I might try to step on her authority.

  “Mrs. Shedd gave us the go-ahead on the Women’s Haven project,” I said as Dinah finally arrived and slid into a chair.

  “You remember the tall bald guy, don’t you?” I was relieved when she nodded. “We have to talk,” I said. Then I noticed there were a couple of children standing a little behind her chair.

  “Are they with you?” I asked, joking, but my smile faded when she nodded in agreement. I thought back to the background noise from a couple of nights ago and rethought my impression that Dinah had had a hot date. “Okay, then, who are they?”

  Dinah looked over at them and introduced Ashley-Angela and E. Conner to everyone, but she didn’t explain who they were. The both appeared to be about four years old, though the girl seemed more mature. Dinah looked at the table longingly but said she couldn’t stay. Then she took the shawl instructions and left. I mouthed “call me” as she walked away with the kids in tow.

  Once they had left we started discussing Drew Brooks again.

  “Oh, lets focus on something more positive,” Patricia said, making a slip knot with some yarn CeeCee had given her. She was still crocheting practice swatches. The rest of us took out our own projects.

  CeeCee was working on something round and white. I laughed when she said she was making a birthday cake. CeeCee didn’t bake them, but apparently she did crochet them. “Best of all, it has zero calories,” she said, sliding the directions across the table. Actually it was crocheted, then glued to cardboard. When finished it would have pink roses on top and Happy Birthday embroidered on it. It was another donation for the Not Exactly A Bake Sale.

  Sheila was quiet. She had been more involved with Drew Brooks than the rest of us and probably was still processing all that had happened. I wondered if she had noticed the scarf on the desk in his office. She seemed to be staring into space while her fingers worked the same royal blue yarn she used at our last meeting. Her stitches weren’t tight this time. If anything they were inconsistent, one loose, the next one tight, and the edges were completely uneven.

  “Sheila,” I said gently, pointing out how the side seemed to be getting bigger. Her gaze went down to her work and she almost jumped.

  “What am I doing?” she mumbled and began unraveling.

  “You probably have a lot on your mind,” I said, getting dirty looks from CeeCee and Adele, since they were usually the ones who gave her smaller hooks or comforted her.

  “You have no idea,” she said, putting the hook and yarn down.

  “Then why don’t you tell us, dear,” CeeCee said.

  “I think I might be in trouble,” she said softly. “My fingerprints are on the murder weapon.”

  Everyone’s head shot up. “Murder weapon?” we said in unison.

  Sheila explained that one of the gym members’ close relatives worked at the West Valley Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. “When she came in this morning, she told me she’d heard they thought Drew had been knocked out with a paperweight before he fell in the soup.”

  “So that’s what happened.” I told the group about seeing blood on the back of Drew’s head. “I saw a bunch of paperweights on the desk. How do you know your fingerprints were on the one that hit him?”

  Sheila let her breath out and sat back in her chair. “When I went up to see Drew about my money, I was really nervous. You know how I sometimes tap my fingers? Well, I was trying not to do that, so I picked up one of the paperweights. But before I could stop myself, I started tapping it. So, I put the first one down. It was very heavy and large. I picked up the next one, and then I was tapping again. You get the idea. I went through all of them.

  “I shouldn’t say this, but I was mad enough to do it. He just laughed at me when I asked for the correct amount. He said where else was I going to sell my scarves. The worst part is he was right. I could try to sell them online, but unless you see them and touch them, they don’t seem that unique.”

  “Nonsense, dear,” CeeCee said. “Your scarves are lovely and special. I’m sure you could sell them somewhere else.” CeeCee did a few stitches on the birthday cake. “So they think Drew died from a blow to his head?”

  “She said they won’t know for sure until the autopsy, but they think he drowned in the soup. Still it was getting hit with the paperweight that made him fall in the bowl.”

  There was a collective gasp in the group.

  “Oh my,” Patricia said. “It’s true a person can drown in just an inch or so of liquid.”

  Sheila stared at the table. “I don’t know if the rest of you noticed, but one of my scarves was on his desk.”

  “Does Detective Heather know about your fingerprints?” I asked, laying my hands over Sheila’s.

  “Maybe not, but she’s going to. After an officer questioned me, he asked if I’d let them take my fingerprints and a hair sample. I said sure when he explained it was so they could exclude my fingerprints when they were looking for the suspect. It’s just a matter of time before they match them up.” She looked up at me. “I’m scared.”

  And Sheila didn’t even know that Detective Heather had overheard her threaten Drew.

  CHAPTER 6

  THROUGHOUT THE REST OF THE MEETING THE crochet group did their best to reassure Sheila that nobody could possibly think she killed Drew Brooks. After everyone left, I took down the long table and set up rows of chairs and a demonstration table for the evening’s event. Then I left the bookstore and headed to Dinah’s house. I had decided not to wait any longer to find out what was going on with her. When I saw her car was in her driveway, I pulled up behind it.

  Dinah’s house was in an area called Walnut Acres, largely because at one time it had been a walnut farm. Just as there were orange trees in my backyard left from when the whole area had been an orange grove, there was a walnut tree in her front yard.

  I knocked on the door, and a moment later she opened it.

  “You can’t hang up or run off this time,” I said, trying to seen inside.

  She opened the door wider and motioned me in. “I’m sorry. I should have explained at the crochet meeting.” She looked worn out. Even her spikey salt-and-pepper hair seemed deflated.

  Like Dinah’s clothes, her house had an arty look with interesting color combinations. She had a deep purple couch with a chartreuse throw over the arm and colorful pillows. There was a wing chair with a floor lamp next to it and a side table that held a stack of books and her cr
ocheting. However, the coffee table had been cleared of the usual items. I wondered at first, but when I heard the giggly voices from the other room, I realized she had kid-proofed the place.

  I glanced through to the added-on den. The walls were lined with bookcases, and there was a TV and a soft leather couch in a warm chestnut. A sliding glass door at the back of the room led to Dinah’s compact backyard, which she kept low maintenance by having a garden of native plants. I sat down on the couch, and she walked over to one of the bedrooms, looked in and then came back.

  “Okay, who are they and why are they staying with you?”

  “This is so embarrassing,” Dinah said, sitting on the arm of the couch. Being embarrassed was so unlike her. She was the gutsy one, the one not afraid to tell her students that when it came to her class she was queen and they followed her rules or they flunked. What could possibly make her embarrassed?

  The answer was simple, but one I never would have expected. “Jeremy showed up,” she said, referring to her ex-husband. “And he wasn’t alone. E. Conner and Ashley-Angela are fraternal twins and his children with the new Mrs.—or should I say the new ex-Mrs. Lyons.” The irresponsible with the more irresponsible. What a couple.

  “He’s been living up north. He lost his job just about the same time his wife took off, leaving him with the kids. He’s down here about a job.” Dinah shook her head obviously upset with herself. “I can’t believe I’m letting him stay here. . . . Well, he’s actually gone now. He went to San Diego about a job. I must need my head examined to have let him leave his kids here.”

  “Well, who am I to talk? Samuel’s girlfriend is staying with me, and I think she’s anorexic.”

  Dinah knew about Morgan but not her eating problem. She looked at me with understanding and hugged me. “I was afraid to tell you. I thought you’d think I was an idiot.”

  “Or softhearted.” I smiled at her. “Or softheaded. Maybe that’s what we both are. Whatever. I’m just glad to have my friend back.”

  Now that her secret was out in the open, Dinah relaxed. After checking on the kids again, she made us some tea, and I told her about what had happened at the crochet group.

  “Are you sure Sheila didn’t do it? I mean, she is full of surprises. Who would have guessed she’d make those beautiful scarves?”

  “She couldn’t have. Besides, if she was going to do it, why would she want all of us to be there?”

  “Unless it was one of those disorganized crimes,” Dinah said. I had told her a lot of the stuff I’d learned from The Average Joe’s Guide. There were crimes that were carefully planned, and there were some that were totally spontaneous, and then there were some that were planned but something went wrong. The ones that were unplanned or went askew were called disorganized crimes.

  “If you’re so sure she didn’t do it, who did?” Dinah said.

  “We know who had opportunity. Everybody who was there.”

  Dinah looked at her watch. “I have a class and I have to get the kids ready to go. Thank heavens Beasley Community College has child care.” She got up and walked me to the door. “I wonder how many people have a motive?”

  “If he cheated Sheila, he probably did the same to other people. So anyone who sold things on consignment could have had it in for him. The bald man was sure mad at him. Kevin Brooks seems like a nice guy, but Mrs. Shedd overheard him and Drew in the middle of a bitter argument.” I thought back to the office. “And there’s something else. There was something white and lacy hanging off a drawer pull, as though something had caught on it and torn.”

  “I didn’t see that. Lacy like how?” Dinah said.

  I closed my eyes and conjured up the image. When I had been catching that last look at it, I had tried relating it to something familiar. What had I thought of? And then an image floated forward and grew clear. It reminded me of the doilies Adele had sewn on her skirt.

  DINAH WASN’T THE ONLY ONE WITH THINGS TO do. I had arranged to meet CeeCee later to buy the yarn for the shawls, but I stopped home for lunch first. Cosmo rushed toward the door as I came in, with Blondie in close pursuit. What a change. When I only had her, she sat in her chair all day unless it was walk time or I offered her some cheese.

  As I put my keys down on the counter, Morgan came out of her room and startled me. I’d gotten used to dog noises but not the sounds of another human. She came up and suddenly hugged me, wanting to make sure I was all right. I had told her about the murder the night before when my younger son Samuel stopped over during the break between his day job as a barista and his evening gig playing piano at a restaurant. He’d already gotten the basics about the incident from his brother.

  “As long as you’re okay,” Samuel said when I’d finished giving him the details. He had taken his father’s death harder than his brother, and I knew he worried about something happening to me. With that settled, he and Morgan had exchanged awkward glances, and then he had left to go to his night job.

  “I was going to have some lunch. Want to join me?” I asked, hoping my smile and cheerful voice would brighten her expression. She looked more melancholy than usual.

  “That would be nice. What are you having?”

  “When in doubt grilled cheese sandwiches always work,” I said, washing my hands and starting to take things out of the refrigerator. She agreed to eat with me, but only if she could make her own. I stepped aside as she extracted a package of no-fat American cheese product, which was as close to cheese as plastic was to cashmere. She had some bread, too. Sliced so thin, light shown through it. It was extremely low in calories and high in fiber thanks to the secret ingredient. The label called it by some fancy name like cellulose specialo, but I looked it up. It was basically wood fibers.

  I used bakery egg bread and Muenster cheese. She made hers in the microwave, while I sizzled some butter in a frying pan, which filled the air with a delicious aroma. When I added the sandwich, it smelled even better.

  When our sandwiches were ready, we sat at the little booth in the kitchen and I asked her how things were going.

  “Not so good,” she said, taking a tiny bite of her sandwich. “I went on an audition for a music video this morning, and they said I didn’t look ethereal enough. That means five pounds too heavy.” She put down her sandwich as if it were its fault and drank some sparkling water.

  “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that you’re already almost too ethereal,” I said. “The next audition will go better.”

  She slumped and looked glum. I decided the best tactic was to let her know there were people who had worse problems. I told her about Sheila and how Drew Brooks had cheated her and she’d confronted him just before he got killed.

  “And now she’s worried because her fingerprints are on the paperweight that hit him on the head, and she doesn’t even know that this police detective overheard her threatening him. I’m just hoping the detective doesn’t start treating Sheila like a suspect.”

  “Wow,” Morgan said, sitting up. “I guess some people do have bigger problems. I bet I’ve seen her scarves at the Cottage Shoppe.” I asked her if she shopped there often and if she knew anything about the Brooks brothers.

  “ ‘Brooks brothers,’ that’s funny,” she said. It was amazing how much better she looked when she smiled. She said she had liked the store better when their aunt owned it. “She had all kinds of unusual and wonderful things. Somebody had made a shadow box out of an old dance program from Swan Lake. It was autographed by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. Next to it was a dried pink rose with the stem still on and a pair of her white satin toe shoes. They were even autographed.” Morgan almost swooned. “But it was way too expensive for me. And I saw this fabulous hanky that had belonged to Lady Somebody. It was really beautiful but completely out of my price range. I love all the handcrafted items. Did you see the knit blankets in the soft heather tones?”

  “They are beautiful,” I said. Since she liked the handcrafted things so well I thought maybe she’d
like to learn how to make some and asked, “Would you like to join the crochet group?”

  “That would be nice except I don’t know how to crochet,” she said. When I assured her someone would teach her, she said she’d come with me to the next meeting.

  Morgan had become all animated, and I enjoyed having a daughter-age person to talk with. The only down moment came when I got a cookie for dessert and offered one to her. You would have thought I’d offered her a cockroach.

  An hour later, with the dishwasher taking care of the cleanup, I left to meet CeeCee at the Super Craft Mart to buy the yarn for the hugs of comfort project. She was waiting by a display of craft books when I got there. She kept looking around as we walked back toward the yarn department, and I finally asked her what the problem was.

  She glanced down an empty aisle. “You have no idea how it is now. Everybody is looking to catch you doing something embarrassing and stick it on the Internet. Now that I have a hit show, it’s even worse.” She leaned close and lowered her voice. “I practically have to sleep in stage makeup. The other day somebody got a picture of me in my robe, getting the Sunday newspaper. My hair looked like I stuck my finger in an electric socket.”

  I hadn’t seen the photo she was talking about, but I could just imagine it. I’d always kind of laughed at CeeCee’s obsession with stage makeup and posing herself just right if there were any paparazzi around, but I suddenly saw it in a different light. Her situation made me glad I was a nobody.

  As soon as we got to the yarn department, she pointed out the worsted acrylic and said each shawl would take about six skeins. We both started counting skeins and eventually filled two carts with yarn.

  “We’ll start them in the group, but then everybody is going to have to do a lot of the work on their own. I promised the shelter twenty shawls,” CeeCee said, wincing. “That’s how many women are at the shelter now. Then I said we would keep providing them, so when someone new came, they’d have one to give her.” CeeCee seemed upset. “I hope nobody lets me down.”