Ryder was beginning to get the too-much-information look on his face, but I kept going. I got his attention back when I mentioned being part of the Tarzana Hookers. Once he heard that hookers referred to crochet, his eyes began to glaze over again. But when I mentioned my job at the bookstore, he nodded. “That’s why you look familiar. I knew I recognized you from somewhere. You’re the one who puts on the author events. I came to the one for that book Keeping Your Balls in the Air.” I smiled, uncomfortably remembering that evening. The book was about teaching yourself to juggle and the author had given a lesson. Let’s just say it didn’t go well. Imagine a bunch of people stumbling into each other while throwing balls around. “I have a tape of it, if you’d like to see,” Ryder said. I declined. Going through my disasters once was enough.
“I’m coming to the vampire book launch party.” He held up his tiny camera. “I bet my video will get a zillion hits. If only I could get on the YouTube top ten.” He gazed skyward with a dreamy look.
Then Ryder offered to show me his video portfolio, but I told him maybe later. Time was ticking away and I had to pick up the animals.
DRIVING ONTO THE CAMPUS OF WALTER BEASLEY Community College was like driving into the country. Calling it by its full name was really old school. These days everybody called it WBCC (pronounced Wibk). Did it really take so much longer to actually say the letters? I thought all this shortening things was due to texting, which I didn’t get, either. Instead of all that typing, why not just call? It was easier, faster and less prone to misunderstanding. I guess that made me a dinosaur, though these days it was probably shortened to dsaur. The campus of WBCC was set on four hundred acres, most of which was set aside as an agricultural school. So there were fields of crops, livestock, barns and a farm store. I pulled into the parking lot close to the traditional classroom buildings, walked through a forest of tall pines trees to the bungalows and checked my watch. I’d timed it just right. As I stopped at the end bungalow, the door flew open and students flooded out. Dinah Lyons came out last, talking to a girl dressed in what was probably the current fashion, though to me it looked strictly bag lady. Dinah finished with the girl and rushed over to me. As always there was an aura of energy about her.
“Just a little longer, then I give them their finals and send them on their way and we all get to enjoy the holidays,” she said with a happy smile. Dinah taught freshman English to what could best be called reluctant students. WBCC accepted everyone and Dinah got them raw from high school. She had a reputation for turning newbies into real college students—if they survived the semester. She was also my best friend. “I’ve got news,” Dinah said.
“Me, too,” I said. There was a ministandoff as we each urged the other to go first. Dinah won and I told her about my homecoming.
“Geez, not again with your front door.” Then she laughed and touched my arm. “It’s lucky you have a sense of humor. Which I’m sure was sorely tested during your trip with Adele.”
“That’s the truth,” I said with a laugh. Dinah knew all about the difficulties I had with her. Although Adele had been at the bookstore longer than me, and had coveted the job of event coordinator, Mrs. Shedd had hired me instead. Adele had tried to upend me many times. Just when it seemed Adele had finally accepted that I was the event coordinator, Mrs. Shedd decided to add the yarn department and asked me to oversee that as well. I’d be the first to say that Adele was much more qualified to run it than me. She had years more experience crocheting and knew much more than I did about yarn. There was just one stumbling block. Maybe calling it a stumbling mountain was more accurate.
Adele had a problem with knitters. It didn’t matter that I now understood there was a real basis for it from her past. If Adele ran the department, there would be no needles, no knitting accessories or pattern books. No mention of the word knit. All swatches hanging on the yarn bins would be crocheted. Mrs. Shedd was a business woman and didn’t want to leave out customers. So she put me in charge, with Adele as my assistant. “It’s like when I’d first started working at the bookstore all over again,” I said.
“I don’t suppose Adele acknowledges there’s a real reason Mrs. Shedd put you in charge of the new department,” Dinah said.
I choked on a laugh. “Are you kidding? You know Adele; she just thinks she’s gotten the shaft, again.” We’d gotten to my car. Dinah was riding shotgun while I went to pick up the animals. Thanks to spending time with my pets, Dinah was finally becoming an animal person. Before, her idea of a pet had been maybe a goldfish.
“Do I know the neighbor who disappeared?” Dinah said as she pulled on her seat belt and I started the motor of the greenmobile. I called my Mercedes 190E that because of its rare blue-green color.
“You’ve met Emily Perkins. I brought her to a few Hookers’ meetings when they first moved in. Then she realized she wasn’t into handicrafts. Remember that green afghan I brought into the group last week? It belongs to her. She couldn’t even tell if it was knitted or crocheted. Bradley Perkins is the original nice guy. The kind of guy who sees you pulling your garbage cans to the street on trash night and not only comes over to help, but insists on doing it for you. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would disappear.”
“You’re going to find out what happened, aren’t you?” Dinah said as we headed toward the vet’s.
“Barry told me to stay out of it,” I said and Dinah laughed.
“Like that’s stopped you before.”
“I tried going over, but Emily wasn’t there. I’ll try again when I go home,” I said. We pulled into the vet’s parking lot and got out to retrieve the foursome. “Emily is probably a wreck.”
Two dogs were a handful. Two dogs and two cats wasn’t a job for one person. Dinah helped get the cat cases situated on the floor in the back. The small black mutt and the medium-size strawberry blond terrier mix got the backseat and Dinah’s job was to make sure they didn’t drift into the front and jump in my lap while I was driving.
Ryder was sitting on the curb when I pulled into my driveway. He got up and followed my car, pulling out his camera as we unloaded.
“Wow, dogs and cats,” he said, stopping his filming long enough to ruffle Cosmo’s black fur. “My brother’s allergic so we could never have any pets.” Ryder looked at Dinah and his eyes kind of bugged out.
“You,” he said, pointing. “You’re that teacher at Beasley. The one they call the ...” He stopped himself and Dinah chuckled.
“I know they call me the terror.” She gave Ryder the once-over. “Do you go to Beasley?”
Ryder held up his hand. “I’ve already taken English 101, with Mr. Fenster.” He started telling Dinah about his YouTube uploads and his plans for being a video journalist/ documentary filmmaker. I watched with interest. Dinah might be known as the terror when dealing with students who slept in class or didn’t do their assignments, but she had a way with kids. She listened to him and his plans and nodded at the end. “Too bad you’ve already taken English 101; I would have liked having you in my class.”
“Really? Wow,” Ryder said, standing a little taller. Then he turned toward me and gestured toward the house next door. “She came home. I tried to ask her some questions, but she blew me off like the cops. Told me not to be a pest. But you have to be a pest if you’re going to get the story. Only thing I found out is she still hasn’t heard from her husband.”
Ryder gave us a good-bye nod, and the gangly figure sauntered back down the driveway.
“Nice kid,” Dinah said. We got the dogs in the yard and took the cat carriers inside and opened them up. The cats popped out and promptly went to check out their food bowl.
When I went to call the dogs in, I kept glancing in the direction of the Perkins’ house. The wall of greenery blocked the view. “You want to go over there, don’t you?” Dinah said. When I nodded, she grabbed my arm. “I’ll come with.”
The Christmas decorations were still as they’d been in the morning. I nodded my head towar
d the box of icicle lights and Dinah replied, “Looks like somebody didn’t get a chance to finish.”
Emily Perkins opened the door and had a hopeful expression on her face until she saw it was us, and her face fell. Then she caught herself. “I didn’t mean to make it look like I wasn’t glad to see you.” She had the potential to be very pretty, with her wavy dark hair, symmetrical features and angular face. All it would take was a little eyebrow shaping, maybe a stylish haircut and a little makeup and something more flattering than loose-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt.
“I wanted to make sure you were all right.” I vaguely waved toward the street to imply all the activity of the morning. “What happened?” I said, touching her arm in a supportive gesture. I felt funny about coming out and asking her directly about Bradley’s disappearance. Her brown eyes filled with water and she quickly blinked back her tears and glanced inside.
“Where are my manners? Come in,” she said, stepping away to clear the entrance for us. We followed her into the living room and I expected her to start talking about Bradley, but instead she told us to sit and offered us tea. Nothing in the room gave a hint that anything was wrong. There was a serene quality to the sofa and chairs covered in fabric the color of unbleached muslin. I liked the paver tile floor with the Indian throw rugs. A large window looked out on the nicely landscaped backyard.
“It’s some special soothing tea I picked up today. Nicholas recommended it.” We declined, but she went to the kitchen to pick up her cup. Dinah and I immediately looked at each other. Nicholas Hartman was the proprietor of a lifestyle store that was next to the bookstore. It had everything from unusual clothes and decorator items for the house to spices, teas and coffees. If there was one thing everything had in common, it was each item was stylish and unusual. I knew what Dinah was thinking. What was Emily doing shopping when her husband was missing? I sat down on the couch but realized I’d sat on something. It turned out to be a cloth doll that no doubt belonged to one of Emily’s girls. I went to set it on the bleached-wood table, but Dinah surprised me by picking it up. Generally she wasn’t that much of a toy person. She commented on how, with the skirt and head wrap, it looked like it came from some island.
“More like an imitation island,” I said, pointing to a tag on the doll’s foot that said Island Encounter in Las Vegas. I was going to ask Dinah why she was suddenly so interested in dolls, but Emily came back in the room.
She slipped into a low easy chair, sniffed the tea and then took a sip. “The tea is called When the Going Gets Tough. Nicholas said it’s some kind of cure-all. I hope he’s right. I certainly need something to help me.” Dinah and I nodded with understanding expressions but said nothing.
She turned to me. “I don’t know if the officers told you, but Bradley has gone missing.” She sat back and held on to the teacup, taking small sips.
“They might have mentioned something about it,” I said.
“He went to the office yesterday like always. When he didn’t show up at dinnertime, I called his cell phone and got his voice mail. I tried the office and just got voice mail there, too, since it was after hours. I kept thinking he’d show up, but he didn’t. When he wasn’t home by this morning, I called the police. I was much more worried before they came.” She explained that one of the officers actually knew Bradley. “His daughter is on the girls’ soccer team that Bradley coaches. He asked me a bunch of questions. Mostly he wanted to know if we’d been fighting.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t call it fighting exactly. You know what a nice guy Bradley is. Well, all of a sudden he seemed upset about everything. He fussed that the girls were making too much noise, he didn’t like what I’d made for dinner. I can understand him being upset that his watch wasn’t ready. It’s the only thing he has left from his father. I forgot to take it in to be serviced until a couple of days ago. But to be upset about the afghan his sister gave us.” Her gaze stopped on me. “That’s the one I lent you. You said you wanted to figure out how it was made.” She waited until I nodded with recognition before continuing. “When he made a fuss about me lending it out, that’s when I knew he was upset about something else. If he cared so much about it, why keep it shoved away in a drawer? He probably only noticed it was missing because he was pulling out Christmas decorations.”
The phone ringing cut into our conversation. She got up to answer it and came back a moment later, looking upset.
“Bad news?” I prodded.
“It’s hard to keep covering for Bradley. You and the police are the only people who know the truth. The story I’ve given everyone else is that he had a last-minute business trip.”
I got her back to talking about what the police officer had told her. “He said Bradley probably just went somewhere to cool off. He seemed sure that Brad would come back in a day or so. Of course, in the middle of it all the gas meter reader mentioned the smell at your house.” She looked at me intently. “There wasn’t really a body at your place, was there?”
I told her the real identity of the corpses and she rocked her head in sympathy. “And you ended up with your front door broken again. What a shame.”
Suddenly we all looked at our watches. I had to get to work, Emily had to pick up her daughters from school, and Dinah had to get home.
Emily thanked us for coming over and we all stood up.
“Do you want the afghan back?” I offered. I certainly didn’t want to be caught in the middle of their problems. I’d seen it when I came over with a package I’d taken in for them. Emily was cleaning out drawers and had left it sitting on the dining room table. I’d been enchanted with it at first glance. She, on the other hand, had no use for the green afghan with the scattered flowers. It reminded me of a meadow, but all she said was that it didn’t go with their decor. I explained it was crocheted and asked if I could take it home to examine out how it had been made. When I couldn’t figure out how the three-dimensional flowers were done, I had passed it on to Adele to figure out. I was going to tell Emily that Adele had it, but I realized she didn’t care.
She shook her head and her mouth was set in anger. “I’m sure he could care less about it. He was just upset with everything I did. You said you wanted to figure out the pattern. Keep it until you’re done and then give it to some charity. I never liked it, and after the way Bradley acted about it, I don’t ever want to see it again.”
As she walked us to the door, Emily gritted her teeth. “At first I was worried about Bradley being gone—that something might have happened to him. Now, I’m just angry. How childish to run off because we had a fight. Why couldn’t he just have told me straight out what was bothering him?”
I only had a shrug for an answer. I told her to let me know if I could do anything. For a second her anger returned to worry. “I know the officer said just to be patient and let Bradley show up on his own, but it would be great if you could find him.”
“Branching off into locating missing persons?” Dinah asked as we crossed the lawn toward my place.
“All I said was that I would keep it in mind.” A thought occurred to me and I stopped just before we got to my driveway.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that she told me to give away Bradley’s afghan. It’s as if she knows he’s not coming back.”
“And maybe she just reported him missing as a cover-up,” Dinah said.
“And asking me to look for him is some kind of setup,” I said, my voice rising in excitement. Then we both looked at each other and rolled our eyes. “Or maybe he really did just take off and we have crime on the brain.”
We finally got to the greenmobile and I drove Dinah back to her car and then went on to the bookstore. It was only when I was walking into Shedd & Royal that I realized Dinah had never told me her news.
CHAPTER 2
WALKING INTO SHEDD & ROYAL BOOKS AND More was like going to my second home. The smell of books and coffee was comforting. Riding over the top was the scent of something chocolate, and I guessed Bob, our main barista and cooki
e baker, must have just taken some cookies out of the oven. As I crossed the front of the store, I looked in the café. A plate of brownies was sitting on the counter and the scent had drawn in some customers. One of the other counter people was waiting on them, while Bob sat at a table with his computer open. Whenever he had a break, he pulled out the computer and worked on his screenplay. He was secretive about the story. All any of us knew was that it was some kind of science-fiction piece. I stopped by Mrs. Shedd’s office. She used to come in to do her work mostly when the bookstore was closed. But lately she’d been spending more and more time there when the store was open. And now that it was our busiest time of year, it was all hands on deck. Particularly since Adele and I had been gone for two days, checking out the yarn store in San Diego. I laughed at the framed poster on the wall. It said I and then had a big red valentine-shaped heart before the word Vampires. The poster was a hot item among readers since vampire books were white-hot. It had a different meaning for Mrs. Shedd. She wasn’t a vampire lover. She loved what vampire books did for sales. We had a whole display set up for vampire books by different authors. They all did well, but for now the Anthony books were the star sellers and had their own table in the front.
Even though Mrs. Shedd had told me I could call her Pamela, it felt too strange. Kind of like calling your doctor by their first name. So, mostly I avoided calling her anything, but when I had to say something, it always came out as Mrs. Shedd. She was just clearing off her desk and shutting off her computer when I walked in.
I guessed she was somewhere in her late sixties, but her dark blond hair didn’t have even a strand of gray, and I was sure it was natural. Something about the pageboy style seemed timeless. I was a little on the breathless side from rushing. My tote brushed her desk and the knitting needles clanged together. Mrs. Shedd wasn’t into crafting, but she recognized the needles and chuckled.
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