On the Hook

by Betty Hechtman

  On the Hook

  A CROCHET MYSTERY

  Betty Hechtman

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my editor, Faith Black Ross, for her invaluable help with this book. Her suggestions were perfect. I am eternally grateful for Jessica Faust’s help in keeping this series going. Jenny Chen has been a pleasure to work with. The Crooked Lane art department came up with a fabulous cover.

  Thank you to Linda Osborn for suggesting I include who went on the Hawaiian trip with Barry. Explaining it made for a nice moment between Barry and Molly.

  I am forever grateful to everyone in my knit and crochet group for their friendship and yarn help—Rene Biederman, Terry Cohen, Lynn Dubrow, Sonia Flamm, Lily Gillis, Winnie Hineson, Reva Mallon, Elayne Moschin, Vicki Stotsman, Paula Tesler, and Anna Thomeson. We all miss Linda Hopkins, and I know that she is with us in spirit.

  Roberta Martia remains my staunchest cheerleader.

  Thank you to Jakey for being my baby-blanket tester and for giving me someone new to love. Burl, Max, and Samantha—as always, you guys are the best.

  Chapter One

  “I’m telling you, we Hookers have gotten away from our core business. We used to be more concerned with giving service instead of just pleasing ourselves.” After years of being an actor, CeeCee Collins naturally projected her voice. The trouble was, she didn’t realize how it carried—or notice how the diners at the next table were reacting to what she said.

  The three thirty-something women wearing bowling shirts that said “Wilbur Avenue Elementary” on the back were nudging each other and snickering as they stared at the five of us around the small table. They all looked similar with their assorted shades of blonde hair, trendy clothes, and attitudes that said they knew it all. Though obviously they didn’t, since it was clear that they were taking what CeeCee was saying way too literally.

  “Isn’t it sad to see what she’s turned to now that her career is in a downward spiral?” one of the bowling team said.

  Totally oblivious to them, CeeCee continued, only making things worse. “I wish our whole posse was here,” she said. “I’d like to get everyone to agree to go back to our old ways. Just think of all those people we made happy.”

  The women started checking out the rest of us at the table. “I wonder who their customers are,” one of the women said.

  All I had to hear was something about a retirement home and old geezers and I was out of my chair. I should have just let it go, but I have never been good at minding my own business or staying out of trouble. So, before I thought it through, I barged into the three women’s conversation. “You can’t honestly believe CeeCee is some kind of streetwalker. I mean, really, she’s an Academy Award–nominated actress, and she’d be playing Ophelia again if there was going to be another one of those ‘vampire who crochets’ movies. But everyone knows that vampires are pretty much yesterday’s news now.” I pulled out a red metal crochet hook from my purse and waved it in front of them.

  “When CeeCee said Hookers, she meant as in the Tarzana Hookers. I’m sure you understand the Tarzana part,” I continued, using my other hand to indicate the area of the San Fernando Valley we were in. Surely they knew that Edgar Rice Burroughs had owned the land in the area at one time and had named it after his star character.

  “And the hooking we do is all about crochet. We used to use our get-togethers to work on projects to give to charities, but lately everybody seems to have gotten more into working on their own projects. And this woman you were whispering about wants us to get back to making things to help others.”

  “I’m sorry,” one of the women stuttered, trying to distance herself from us. “I’m glad to hear that what we thought isn’t true.”

  “And there is no need for sympathy about my acting career. I’m doing just fine, thank you very much,” CeeCee added. “Actually, we’re here for the unveiling of a dish named after me.” She pointed to an open spot on the wall of photographs. “Next time you come in, there will be a picture of me and the CeeCee Collins Mélange.”

  Restaurants that served only breakfast and lunch had been popping up along Ventura Boulevard, but the Petite Café had been around way before the trend. As its name implied, it was small, and the tables were close together. It had an interesting clientele. The photographs covering the walls were a testament to its many entertainment business customers, but you were just as likely to see average Joes who lived or worked in the area.

  As if on cue, the owner of the Petite Café brought over a plate of food and set it in front of CeeCee. He had no idea what was going on between the two tables and, after he set the bowl down, stood behind her to pose for a picture. CeeCee did a little hand fluffing of her brown hair. She had smartly stayed with the same simple style throughout the years, which gave her the appearance of never aging. Her makeup seemed a little overdone in person but would be perfect in the photographs. She struck a pose with her merry smile and held her fork above the large bowl.

  The “mélange,” as CeeCee called it, was basically a salad made with organic baby lettuces, fresh sprigs of dill, sugar plum tomatoes, and shredded carrots, topped with a couple of poached eggs and a drizzle of balsamic dressing. There were several more photos with CeeCee holding her fork over the bowl before the owner and the server taking the photos went back to their duties.

  Meanwhile, I continued the conversation with the women. “We meet at Shedd & Royal Books and More.” I mentioned that there was a yarn department. “It’s part of the ‘more,’” I explained. Then I held out my hand to introduce myself. “I’m Molly Pink, and I’m the assistant manager of the bookstore and in charge of the yarn department.”

  “You mean that bookstore has a knitting department?” one of the women said.

  I heard a shriek from behind me and, before I could stop her, Adele Abrams Humphries had popped out of her chair and was standing next to the woman who had made the comment.

  “Why would you call it a knitting department?” Adele demanded. She was tall and amply built and had a loud voice as well. The woman who spoke shrank back as Adele stood over her.

  “I just thought knitting and crochet were the same thing,” the woman said feebly.

  “Knitting and crochet, aren’t they the same thing?” another of them said.

  The poor women had no idea that the mere word knitting to Adele was like a red cape to a bull.

  “Knitting and crochet are not at all the same. One of them is so much better, and that is crochet, which is what we do.” As if to add a visual to the explanation, Adele modeled the tunic she was wearing. It was made of multicolored granny squares. It was attractive and over the top at the same time, but then, when it came to crochet and, well, just about everything, Adele was always over the top.

  I noticed that the women were all looking a little uncomfortable by now. They paid their check quickly and were already pulling on their coats when the server came back with the change.

  Just before they went outside, they all turned back and gave us a last once-over. “They’re certainly a rowdy bunch. I thought that people who sat around and”—the speaker’s eye stopped on Adele—“and did whatever with yarn were all sweet old ladies.” The woman made eye contact with me. “I suppose you overheard that too.”

  And then they were gone.

  “Sweet old ladies,” Adele repeated, starting to get up from the chair. I had to grab her tunic to keep her from going after them.

  “We’re certainly not sweet and for sure not old. They were right about rowdy, though,” Dinah Lyons said with a chuckle, looking out the picture window at the three women as they pulled their coats shut and made a run through the rain for their cars. It had been raining steadily for hours, but then it was February and the height of the ra
iny season in Southern California.

  None of us ever talked about age. Dinah thought it was better to leave people guessing about her age so they wouldn’t judge her once they knew. But since I was her best friend, she had told me she was fifty-eight. I couldn’t imagine, though, how anyone could consider her old. She was full of energy, and there was a dash of pepper in her personality. Her dark hair was sprinkled with gray, but the short spiky style she wore it in had an edge.

  Adele was one of those people who looked older than her years. It was partly her ample build and height but mostly her manner. If I’d had to say, I’d have put her at around forty.

  CeeCee Collins seemed ageless, but according to her online listing, she was “in her sixties.”

  The other Hooker at the table, Elise Belmont, had a fragile, ethereal look about her, as if a good gust of wind could knock her over, but the truth was she had an iron core that would keep her upright in a hurricane. She was forty-something.

  As for me, I’d turned the big five-O. But I didn’t care since fifty was the new thirty.

  Adele was eyeing the wall of photographs.

  “Are you looking at the spot for my new photo?” CeeCee asked, following her gaze.

  “No, I was thinking more about where a picture of me would go,” Adele answered.

  “You do realize they’re all photographs of performers who eat here,” CeeCee said.

  “You never know what the future holds,” Adele said with a secret smile. The other three of us looked at each other and shook our heads. What was Adele up to now?

  I had thought of the pictures as all being of celebrities, but what CeeCee had said was more accurate. They were all performers, but not all exactly A-list stars. There were a lot of people I didn’t recognize.

  “That was embarrassing,” Elise Belmont said, looking at the table the women had exited. “It doesn’t matter for the rest of you, but I have to be concerned about my reputation.”

  Huh? This was from a woman who had been so vampire crazy she had worn mostly black clothes with splashes of red for the past few years. Everything she had crocheted was done in what she called the vampire stitch, which was actually half double crochet, and I had to admit it did look a little like a fang. She had made a cottage industry of creating crochet kits for vampire-themed items we’d sold at the bookstore. All because she’d gone gaga over Anthony, the vampire who crocheted.

  Anthony was the main character in a series of books that had been red hot. So red hot that the first book had been made into a movie—the movie that got CeeCee her Academy Award nomination. But then readers had cooled on the books and moved on to the next hot topic. We didn’t even have the Anthony books in stock anymore.

  It all seemed like past history now. The kits had stopped selling, and I’d noticed Elise had begun to add some color to her wardrobe and broaden the types of stitches she used.

  Before Elise could give any more details about what reputation she was worried about, Adele took over the conversation and started talking about her newly wedded state. She alternated between the wonders of being with Cutchykins, as she called Eric Humphries, her motor cop husband, and the miseries of having his mother living with them in a condo townhouse. “Wherever I go, there she is. I mean, it’s hard for me and Cutchykins to have any privacy.”

  “You need a bigger place, a real house,” CeeCee said. She had smartly bought a mini estate a long time previously when she’d had The CeeCee Collins Show, and she had no idea what it was like to buy a house now.

  “I mentioned that to Eric, but, well, it’s turning out that he likes to save everything. He figures his mother will move to a retirement community someday and then the condo will be fine for us. He won’t even consider looking at anything bigger.” It was the first time Adele had admitted that everything wasn’t exactly going smoothly in her new life.

  I had seen their condo, and while the grounds around it were very pretty with lots of trees and even a pond, the best I could say about their place was that it was cozy.

  “Men are so difficult,” Elise said. She had a wispy voice, but she packed enough punch in the word that we all turned toward her in surprise.

  “Does that mean you’re having a problem with Logan?” CeeCee asked.

  Elise leaned closer and dropped her voice, not wanting to share what she was about to say to the rest of the diners, though it had reached that slow time between breakfast and lunch and all the tables around us were now empty. “You would think he would be glad that I wanted to take up a new profession and work side by side with him.” She let out a discontented sigh. We all knew that Logan Belmont was in real estate and well known for it around the Tarzana area. “When I told him I wanted to get my license and then we could work as a team, he went nuts and said it was a bad idea. Can you believe he said I wouldn’t be good at selling real estate?”

  Given Elise’s persistence, she would have been good at selling anything. I mean, she had actually made a business out of vampire kits. I had a feeling it was probably more that Logan didn’t like the idea of working with her.

  “Well, he can’t stop me,” she said with a touch of defiance. “He doesn’t know it, but I got my license on my own. I figure I’ll sell a few houses and then he won’t be able to say no.” Elise stabbed the last piece of lettuce in her mélange and put it in her mouth, chewing with a vengeance.

  CeeCee turned to Dinah. “Dear, I noticed that you didn’t join in with the husband complaints. I hope that means the transition is going well.” Like Adele, Dinah was newly married. Actually, they’d had a double ceremony at the bookstore. Really, it had been a triple ceremony when, at the last minute, Mrs. Shedd and Mr. Royal had decided to join them in tying the knot. I had been the maid of honor for all of them. Well, matron of honor, according to Adele.

  Dinah gave the actress a Mona Lisa smile as an answer—her way of saying she didn’t want to talk about it. Dinah began to gather her things and said she had a class. She taught freshman English at Beasley Community College.

  Only I knew the truth. Dinah had been on her own for a long time after divorcing Jeremy, her skunky first husband. Dating Commander Blaine had been an awakening for her. It was hard for her to get used to the fact that he didn’t have a jerky bone in his body. But that didn’t mean that being married to him was easy. She was used to being the captain of her own time, whereas he thought she should stick to his schedule.

  CeeCee wrapped a scarf around her neck and pulled on her trench coat, saying she had to leave as well. “I have a meeting with my agent.” She looked to the owner, who was standing behind the counter, and bowed, holding her hands together. “Thank you for naming the dish after me.” She turned back to us. “When the Hookers meet this evening, we can talk about doing a charity project.”

  At that, she and Dinah went to the door, preparing to deal with the rain. Yes, we were wimps when it came to rain, but really, when it rained here, it poured. The street just past the tiny parking lot was flooded, and every time a car drove past, it sent up a huge spray of water. It was one of those times when rain boots would have been nice. The problem was, they seemed irrelevant when it was sunny, which was most of the time, and would be sold out by now.

  With CeeCee and Dinah gone, our gathering started winding down. As I was draining my coffee cup, Elise turned to Adele. “Maybe we can work something out that benefits both of us. I could help you find a house first; then you could talk Eric into it. And Logan doesn’t have to know anything until we’re ready to write up the contract. What a great idea, if I say so myself,” Elise said, perking up. She stopped for a moment and thought. “And I know just the house to show you. Logan just listed it. It has two stories with a bonus room you could turn into a separate area for your mother-in-law.” She muttered something about knowing the code to open the door. “The only thing is that unless you decide to buy the house, Logan can’t know that I showed it to you. It has to be just between the three of us.”

  “Fine with me. But we als
o have to agree not to say anything to Eric or anyone else that I’m looking at a place. If Mother Humphries found out, she’d use it against me,” Adele said. I agreed too quickly, and she seemed to think that meant I wasn’t sincere. “Pink, this is serious. If you talk, relationships could crumble and my future could be ruined.”

  You could always trust Adele to be overly dramatic, but to keep the peace, I didn’t chuckle at her drama and assured her I would keep everything under wraps. Adele was already getting out of her chair. “Let’s go.”

  “Good luck,” I said, draining my coffee cup and grabbing my coat.

  Adele appeared stricken. “You have to come with.” She and I had a strange relationship. We both worked at Shedd & Royal Books and More. By now she had gotten over the fact that I had been given the position of event coordinator that she had wanted. She was even dealing with the fact that I was in charge of the yarn department and that I had recently been appointed assistant manager as well. She still called me by my last name, though I don’t think she even remembered she’d started doing it to bug me when I got the position she was hoping for. But she seemed to have made peace with the fact that she was head of the children’s department. When she’d been given the job as a consolation after not becoming event coordinator, she’d been less than thrilled. Adele didn’t particularly like children, but it turned out they really liked her. Or at least all the costumes and drama she brought to story time.

  Somewhere along the way, Adele had decided that I was her best friend, but it was more about me being a friend to her than her being one to me. Whenever there was trouble, she dumped it in my lap. That’s why I was surprised it was the first I’d heard of the not-exactly-happily-ever-afterness of her marriage.

  I really wanted to beg off the house-hunting excursion. With all the “Don’t tell anyone” stuff, it sounded like a mess waiting to happen. But before I could say no, Adele looped her arm in mine and pulled me along as she walked to the door.