She pulled out a hook and some cotton yarn from her bag and offered it to Ashley-Angela, along with a lesson on how to crochet. Okay, the rest of the table was all watching with their mouths open. Adele never ceased to surprise. E. Conner watched for a while then pulled out the coloring he’d brought along.
I took out the owl head and glanced at the pattern. I picked up some black yarn with a sparkle in it and connected it to the finished head and began to work on the body.
When Elise looked up, I gave her a reassuring nod. I was glad she had rejoined the group.
“What’s with this neighbor of yours, Bradley Perkins? He’s dead, he’s not dead, he’s really dead,” Rhoda said to me. “I saw on the news they found his body up in the mountains. I think even that Kimberly Wang Diaz called it a strange case with twists and turns.” Elise looked up at the comment. Her face seemed to tighten and she glanced around to see if anyone was staring at her.
“They’re saying his wife did it,” Rhoda continued. “You know her, don’t you, Molly?”
I nodded in acknowledgment and then explained why I wasn’t so sure she’d done it. All eyes were on me, particularly Dinah’s. Adele stopped with her lesson and got in the middle of the conversation.
“Okay, Sherlock Fletcher, then who did it?” Adele informed the table that Dinah and I had been following Emily when she went to meet her husband.
CeeCee seemed troubled. “Why were you following her?”
“You certainly get in the middle of things, Molly,” Eduardo said.
It was obvious at this point that there was a gap in information. If we were going to talk about it, it made no sense not to share the whole story so we’d all be on the same page.
“Good for you for trying to trap him,” Elise said when I’d gotten to the end.
“It’s kind of beside the point now,” CeeCee said. “The man’s dead.”
“Maybe somebody else saw Emily coming out of Luxe and followed her, too,” Sheila said.
“Yeah, like Nicholas. It’s his store so he must have known what she was doing,” Rhoda offered.
“Nicholas wouldn’t do anything like kill somebody,” Sheila said. Her comment got everyone’s attention.
“I didn’t know you were so chummy with him, dear,” CeeCee said.
Sheila stumbled over her words. She wasn’t chummy with him, but she’d been selling her blankets and other accessories in his store for a while and she thought that gave her some insight into him.
“Nicholas lost some money with the Perkins guy?” Eduardo said.
I said he appeared not to be that upset by it, but several other people threw out comments that it might have been an act. “Someone could have overheard me,” I said. “The bookstore was crowded. I thought I kept my voice down, but who knows?”
“What did the person on the mountain bike look like, Pink? Isn’t that the most obvious question?” Adele said.
“We didn’t get a good look. Whoever it was flew past us,” Dinah said, finally joining in. “They flew past Emily, too.”
Rhoda threw out a question about the bike. Did we know what it looked like or at least what color it was? Both Dinah and I had noticed only that it had wheels.
“If you want to know about mountain bikes, you can ask Logan. He knows all about them. He goes riding up in the mountains all the time,” Elise said. She didn’t seem to have any sense about what she’d just said. Everyone focused on her and I knew what they were thinking. If you wanted a suspect, Logan was a good choice. He’d lost money, his reputation and probably a lot of his real estate business. The implication of what she’d said finally sunk in and Elise looked horrified. “It couldn’t have been him. He wouldn’t do anything like that. Besides, he was ...” Her voice trailed off and then she muttered something about her being at Christmas bazaar all afternoon. She cut herself off abruptly.
Suddenly the big question was where had Logan been yesterday afternoon?
CHAPTER 23
DINAH AND I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT; AS soon as the group broke up, we checked the bookstore café for Logan. When he wasn’t there, we headed to Le Grande Fromage. Though I wondered if Logan would still be using a table as his portable office. Those two men had been pretty hostile to him and I was sure there must be others just as angry. I wanted to get there quickly, before Elise warned him to come up with an alibi. She’d rushed off to a hair appointment, so there was a chance she hadn’t talked to him.
The sun was burning off the clouds and shining in the window of the French café. The fragrant wreath wrapped in tiny white lights made it seem festive. The lunch crowd was clogging the place and the line at the counter went all the way to the back of the restaurant and blocked my view of the tables.
Dinah was trying to keep the kids from getting jostled by the crowd. Finally the line moved up and I got a clear view of the area where Logan always sat. To my surprise it appeared to be business as usual for him. He had his laptop on the table and seemed to be reading something. I pulled Dinah and the kids with me and we made our way across the small restaurant.
“Mind if we join you?” I said, pulling out a chair. Logan did a double take as his empty table suddenly filled up. He stammered something about expecting someone, but I countered by saying we’d leave when they showed up. Dinah went to join the line to get food and the kids and I stayed behind. I made some small talk about the weather and the book launch party. It was to soften him up before I started asking the real questions and it was a stall while I tried to figure out exactly how to put it. I couldn’t very well just ask him where he’d been the afternoon before. I kept looking at him, trying to picture him on a bike with a helmet to see if it matched my slip of a memory. If only the rider hadn’t been wearing a helmet, I would have recognized Logan’s odd hairline if it had gone past.
One of the things Dinah had done was teach the kids how to take part in the conversation. Ashley-Angela pulled out the little crochet swatch Adele had taught her to make and showed it to Logan. The kids might have been accustomed to being included with adults, but Logan didn’t seem to feel the same about kids. He blew out his breath a few times and I knew he was wishing we’d leave.
“I have a bike, too,” E. Conner said. Logan didn’t seem to be listening, and I suddenly realized the kids were like loose cannons. Dinah was coming back with a tray of drinks and I was trying to get up from the table and take the kids. “What’s an alibi?” E. Conner said. I turned to Logan, hoping he was still tuning out as I tried to grab the kids and make a fast exit. “I can get up myself, Aunt Molly. That’s what Aunt Molly wanted to know if you had in case you were the one who killed that man on the mountain,” E. Conner continued.
Let’s just say we didn’t have to leave the table. Logan grabbed his stuff and pulled his jacket off the back of the chair and was out the door before Dinah even arrived with the drinks.
“Did I miss something?” she said, looking at the empty chair.
Dinah apologized for the kids a bunch of times and I told her not to worry. We’d just have to come up with another way to figure out if Logan was the killer. In the meantime, why not branch out and check up on the other list of possibles. I gestured toward Luxe, but Dinah looked at the kids. “After what just happened maybe you’d rather go alone,” Dinah said.
I wasn’t worried since we hadn’t said anything about Nicholas being the possible murderer in front of them; besides, they were good cover. Who would think we were investigating anything with a couple of kids in tow? There were a few customers in Luxe and I noticed that Nicholas had some additional sales help. “He could have left the store and followed Emily,” I said in a low voice.
A smile lit up Nicholas’s dark eyes as he came over to us. He pointed the kids to a low table with drawing supplies and cookies. Dinah seemed relieved to get the kids out of the way before they could say anything. “What can I show you, ladies?” he said. “Christmas is just around the corner and so is Hanukkah. Books are nice, but so is a silver bowl.”<
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Nobody could say I didn’t think fast on my feet. “Well, actually I was looking for some accessories for a mountain bike. I don’t know anything about them, so I’m not sure what kind of accessories there are.”
Nicholas seemed surprised. “The only accessory I can offer is a weatherproof jacket.” He took us over to a rack on the wall and pulled out a forest green one. “I think you’d be better off at a sporting goods store,” he said. Dinah gave me a tiny nod of approval as she saw what I was doing.
“Do you know anything about mountain bikes? I realize you might not have anything here, but maybe you could give me an idea of what to look for when I go to a sporting goods store.”
“A bike store would be even better,” he said. “I have a mountain bike, but I’m not really an expert in the accessory department.” I tried to hide my excitement.
“Really. Do you ride a lot?” I said, feigning polite interest.
He gave me a quizzical look. “Frankly, I don’t use it very often. I didn’t know you were so interested in bicycling.” The door opened and Eduardo walked in. He nodded in greeting to Dinah and me, and then gestured to Nicholas and headed to the back of the store. “If you need any other help, just talk to one of my assistants,” Nicholas said, walking away from us.
“That was a little abrupt,” I said to Dinah. “It was almost like he didn’t want to talk about his bicycle. Great. We’re two for two washouts now.” I went with Dinah as she got the kids. They got up from the table quickly and showed us their drawings. Ashley-Angela’s slipped from her hand and sailed to the floor and E. Conner accidentally stepped on it. She started crying when she saw the footprint on her picture of fairies. He started crying when she socked him. Dinah was a firm believer in kids behaving well in public—so we hustled them out fast.
Back on the street, Dinah tried to smooth things over. I took Ashley-Angela’s picture and tried to give the footprint a positive spin, which wasn’t easy. The tread of his sneaker pretty much took over the paper. I kept looking at it and it stirred something in my mind.
And then suddenly it came to me. I told Dinah we had to go somewhere quickly. Once we got in her car, I directed her back to the dead-end street. As she drove, I explained my sudden inspiration. “I looked at E. Conner’s footprint and it reminded me of the footprints on the dirt road. A mountain bike would leave an impression, too. An impression that could identify that particular bike,” I said. “We can’t very well make a plaster cast, but I could take a photo.” I held up my smart phone and sent a silent thank-you to Mason for giving it to me.
“I get it, I get it,” Dinah said in an excited voice. Dinah parked and we got out. The kids were excited at the prospect of an adventure.
We walked around the gate, past the sign marking it as part of the Santa Monica Mountain conservancy, and the kids ran ahead. As soon as I looked down at the short stretch of dirt road, my beautiful plan fell apart. Maybe if it had been a regular day at this time of year when the road was damp and the area quiet, the track of a mountain bike might not have been disturbed for a day or so. But yesterday had turned out to be anything but regular. “I forgot about the police cars and ambulance,” I said as we looked down at churned-up sandy dirt.
“It was a good idea,” Dinah said.
“Yeah, a good idea that didn’t work,” I said. I didn’t have the heart to ruin the kids’ moment, so we took them on a short walk—going in the opposite direction on Dirt Mulholland, while I tried to come up with plan B.
IT SEEMED LIKE I’D JUST COME BACK FROM MY lunch break/side trip to the mountains and then it was closing time at Shedd & Royal. The store was getting busier and busier as the holidays got closer and closer and time flew by. I’d just sent my last customer up to the cashier stand with an armload of books when I passed Mr. Royal standing by the travel section bookcase while a customer picked up a book on Burma. As Mr. Royal bent to point out another book, I noticed the leather sheath hanging from his belt. The image of Mr. Royal slashing open the boxers of Anthony accessories floated into my mind’s eye. More things surfaced. He’d been absent from the bookstore during the crucial time, and since Mrs. Shedd had told him about her loss putting the bookstore on shaky ground, Mr. Royal could have been very, very angry at Bradley.
Mrs. Shedd had already started turning off the lights as the last customers checked out. There was no time to talk to Mr. Royal now, but it was definitely on my to-do list.
As I was walking to my car, my BlackBerry rang and I pulled it out.
“You answered,” Mason said, sounding surprised and pleased when I said hello.
“This time I heard it,” I said with a little chuckle. He claimed he’d reached an insurmountable snag in Spike’s sweater. Could he come over? He’d asked me if there’d been any more incidents with Emily after he’d left, which made me wonder how much his coming over had to do with the sweater and how much a desire to protect me in case Emily came over again.
As an antidote to the recent events, I had planned to get snuggy in old sweatpants and a tee shirt and actually have the ice-cream dinner I’d planned before while I watched a romantic comedy. But I was good at changing plans in midstream.
Barry had only been able to call the previous night. He’d picked up a homicide. The call was short and I knew there were ears around listening, so it was very business-like. I had told him about Emily’s visit and he lectured me on leaving the door unlocked. I thanked him for calling Mason.
“I didn’t know what else to do. My hands were tied and I knew he’d be able to handle things, just in case,” he said. Then his voice got low, as if he didn’t want anyone around to hear. “He didn’t take advantage of the situation, did he?”
I laughed. So much for the nice gesture.
The reporters were camped out in front of the Perkins’ house again and the pools of their lighting seemed strange on the dark street. The hoard ignored me, instead descending on Mason as he got out of his car. He parked on the street and was an easy target. I came across the lawn with the idea of rescuing him. When I got closer, I had to laugh at myself. What was I thinking? Mason was always giving out some kind of statement about some high-powered celebrity client who’d gotten in trouble. It usually went something like, when the full story came out, his client’s innocence would be confirmed.
Maybe I was a little bothered by how easily he lied on camera. Maybe it concerned me that stuff he said to me was more about winning—me being the prize—than about the truth.
By the same token, it was impossible not to like him. He was thoughtful—the kind of person who if he couldn’t personally bring you chicken soup when you were sick, would get it delivered. He was always willing to help with my sleuthing activities. He thought I was fun and cute. I liked the me I saw reflected in his eyes.
There was something else, too. Mason was closer to the world I was used to. High-profile lawyers and public-relations people like my late husband Charlie traveled in the same circles.
And the bonus was he didn’t want to corral me. For the first time, I was dealing with being in charge of my life—as much as anyone ever really is. I liked having my own identity.
For now, I liked having both Barry and Mason in my life. Maybe it was nice being regarded as the prize.
Mason made quick work of the reporters. Easy because they all knew him.
“Molly Pink always thought the Perkins were great neighbors. She’s in shock about Bradley Perkins’ death and the alleged issues about his financial business.”
Someone asked if it was true that I’d been one of the hikers who discovered his body and if I was a suspect.
Mason addressed the group with a warm chuckle and assured them I wasn’t a suspect. A gush of questions followed. Did I think Emily had killed Bradley? Had I invested money with him? Mason charmed them with his smile and answers that sounded good, but really said nothing. Ryder somehow got in the middle of it.
“If you want to know about the Perkins, check out my YouTube piece ‘Li
fe and Death in Tarzana,’ ” he said. Mason made points with him by actually paying attention to him.
Mason ended the media encounter by wishing them all happy holidays and walking across my lawn to meet me. “That should keep them satisfied and they ought to leave you alone.” He held up his leather tote. “Thanks for helping at the last minute. I’ve done something wrong, but I can’t figure out what.”
It was a relief to get inside away from the circus. Though hardly quiet inside. Cosmo was parked in the window barking at the reporters. The cats were stationed on either side throwing in an occasional weird meow. Blondie was silently watching from across the room. I closed the shutter on the big window and Cosmo gave up. I asked Mason why he’d deflected the question about me being one of the hikers.
Mason’s smile evaporated. “It’s information they don’t need to have.” Then he gestured his head toward the Perkins’. “Any more visits?”
“No,” I said. “The more I think about it, I might have overreacted. It wasn’t as if she actually picked up a knife and when I realized there wasn’t any blood on her clothes ...”
“Molly, you’re looking at her the way all these people who gave Bradley money looked at him. It’s the idea that someone you know couldn’t have done something bad. It works with my celeb clients, at least most of the time. They’re familiar faces so people find it hard to believe they did something awful.” Mason made a point of locking the door after I’d let the dogs have their yard run. “It’s better to be safe than sorry,” Mason said.
Mason made some comment about missing dinner and wondered if I had as well. I let go of my plans for ice cream and a movie and said I’d cook something. He followed me into the kitchen. I’d heard of being able to feel someone’s eyes staring at your back, but I could feel his smile. I’d never cooked anything just for Mason.
I suggested he get Spike’s sweater-in-progress and show me where he was stuck. When he showed me, I wanted to laugh. He’d made a mistake and was trying to rip out a row, but the yarn had snagged and stopped coming free. Fixing it amounted to a little tugging and separating two pieces of yarn. I handed it back to him and suggested he sit in the built-in booth and work on it while I cooked dinner. If he ran into another problem, I’d be there to help. He looked too pleased as he slid onto the wooden bench.
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