Mrs. Shedd and I had decided that to make our yarn department stand out, we’d let people try it before they bought it. Each bin had a skein available to cut a sample from. We’d recently gotten in some variegated wool, worsted-weight yarn from Japan. The colors went from pumpkin to deep purple, with a lot of colors in between. I was curious how the colors would look when crocheted and cut a length from the sample skein. We kept a bunch of hooks and needles for the samples, and I pulled out a K–size hook and sat down at the table.
“There you are,” a male voice said. I turned just as Mason Fields reached the table. “I called your house and your BlackBerry and got no answer. I just happened to be picking something up at Le Grande Fromage and saw your car in the store’s parking lot.”
“You called my cell phone?” I said. My purse was sitting on the table next to me. It took a while to find the black phone in the dark cavity of my purse. But when I checked it, sure enough, it showed that Mason had called while I was in the store. I realized I’d heard some ringing but never associated it with my phone. When I told Mason the problem, he grinned and asked for my BlackBerry.
“I can fix that.” He walked away for a few moments and I resumed crocheting. When he returned, he handed back the phone and told me to bury it in my purse. Then he punched in the number.
Suddenly a high-pitched voice started squawking from my purse. “Hey, get me out of here. Help me, please! Somebody, pick me up. Hurry before it’s too late.” We both laughed and Mason explained he’d used the feature to record your own ring along with his best impression of a cartoon character in distress.
“Well, I certainly won’t mix that up with other people’s phones,” I said, taking the phone out and making the “ring” stop. “Thanks, I guess,” I said with a grin and a roll of my eyes.
“Why are you sitting here alone?” He slid into the chair next to me. I recapped the chain of events that had gotten me there, and Mason asked to see what I was making. As I held up the swatch of yarn, he caught my hand and looked at it.
“Still empty, Sunshine? The detective must be upset that the ring is still in the box hidden away somewhere.”
I pulled my hand back. Mason was a high-powered criminal attorney and my good friend. Though good friend sounded kind of weak. He was so much more than a friend. Unlike Barry, who always told me to stay out of things, Mason helped me get information and even helped in my sleuthing activities. When Barry and I had broken up, Mason and I had almost gotten together, but our definition of relationship had been different. He kept telling me that his definition wasn’t written in stone, but by then it was too late. Like Barry, Mason was divorced, but unlike Barry, he wasn’t looking to get married again. He had a solid build, earthy brown eyes and brown hair sprinkled with a little silver, a lock of which usually fell across his forehead, giving him an earnest look.
I was glad when he dropped the subject. I knew I was going to have to do something about the ring in the drawer eventually, but in the meantime, I didn’t want to think about it. “Why were you looking for me?” I asked.
“Oh, just to see what was up with you. If any dead bodies had fallen in your lap. If you wanted to get a cup of coffee.”
“So you just wanted to see me,” I said, and he nodded.
“And hopefully without an entourage,” he added with a grin.
“Molly, they’re turning off the lights,” Jeffrey said as he joined us at the table. He noticed Mason and they traded nods of acknowledgment. They knew each other from numerous get-togethers at my house. Both of them looked disappointed at seeing the other.
CHAPTER 3
“PINK, I THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T GOING?” ADELE said with a mixture of surprise and disappointment, leaning over the seat of her Matrix as I followed Dinah and got in the backseat. Sheila was already sitting on the passenger side in the front. The Hookers who were going to the show had decided to carpool and arranged to meet in front of the bookstore. Rhoda and Elise opted to take Rhoda’s car rather than have four of us squashed in the backseat. Adele sensed there was something up and grilled me until I admitted that CeeCee had asked me to come. I mentioned that she wanted me to be there to coach her, just in case. I did not mention that CeeCee had really been more concerned about me keeping the Hookers, well, Adele in line.
Doing this show was a big moment for CeeCee. It signified that she was back in the main spotlight.
I hadn’t been to a TV show taping in years, and I’d always gone with Charlie when he was there in a business capacity. That meant special parking, going in the backstage entrance, and hanging out in the green room, with its array of drinks and snacks, while Charlie schmoozed with his client. It was a little different when you were just going to be part of the audience.
We had to park a million miles away and didn’t even go inside the studio grounds. We had to line up on the street in front of the audience entrance. I must admit the Barbara Olive Overton show had everything well organized once we got inside. First up was signing a release that said we agreed to be seen on TV with no remuneration.
As we moved along the narrow hallway, we were relieved of our coats and purses and given a claim number. There were signs all over saying, “No phones, cameras or recording devices allowed in the show.” Still, when we went through the metal detectors, a number of them showed up. Excuses were mumbled as the staff member took them and promised to return them after the show. Personally, I was glad not to have mine and have to worry about answering it. Adele was in line ahead of me. It was hard to miss her. She didn’t wear clothes so much as costumes. Often I was inspired to give them names. Today’s was clearly ode to crochet. Adele never seemed to get that less was more. If the jacket had been black with granny-square pockets, it would have been striking, but instead, the whole thing was made of the squares, which had multicolored centers surrounded by black. She looked like she was wrapped in an afghan. Adele liked hats, they just didn’t like her. She’d worn a wide-brimmed black hat she’d made by mixing a strand of suede yarn with one of worsted-weight acrylic, so it had body. She’d trimmed it with a circle of loose-hanging hot pink pom-poms that bounced whenever she moved.
“Uh-oh,” Dinah said, and we watched as Adele went through the metal detector. We both held our breath, expecting some kind of alarm to go off because I was sure she had some metal crochet hooks stashed in her pocket. But she was all smiles and there were no pings or beeps.
After our trip through the metal detector, Dinah followed me into a narrow room with chairs around the sides, or what appeared to be the green room for the audience. Dinah glanced around. “Hmm, I guess we don’t get any perks.” I’d told her about my backstage experiences.
“What do you mean?” I joked, pointing toward the drinking fountain and restrooms. During our brief stay in the room, I noticed Adele showed off her outfit to several people. I nudged Dinah.
“Adele seems to be more out there than usual and I have a bad feeling. I don’t want anything to wreck this for CeeCee. She’s got enough worries keeping her bowls straight. If I sit next to Adele, maybe she’ll behave.” Dinah saw my point, and when we finally stood to file into the studio where the taping was done, she stayed behind with the other Hookers as I pushed ahead and more or less cut in line to get next to Adele.
I had promised CeeCee I’d try to sit in the front. It was no problem now that I was shadowing Adele. She charged through the crowd with me in close pursuit and nabbed seats in the very first row.
When everyone was seated, a guy in jeans, high-top sneakers and a suit jacket came out to warm up the audience. He told a few jokes, then launched into the rules. He tried to be funny as he listed them, but basically there was no talking during the taping. During the question-and-answer segment, anyone with a question was to raise their hand, then wait until someone came with a microphone.
There was a moment of silence afterward as everyone waited for Barbara to come out. It was as if everyone sucked in their breath at once. No sooner had she walked out onto
the stage when everyone started booing her. What was going on? The warm-up comedian seemed unconcerned as he left the stage. And the dark-haired woman with soft curves smiled at the crowd. Was she smiling to hide her embarrassment? I almost choked when Adele started pumping her fist and yelling along with the rest of the crowd.
I grabbed Adele’s arm to make her stop and she shot me a dark look. “What’s your problem, Pink?”
“My problem? You’re the one who’s booing the host of the show.”
Adele rolled her eyes. “Pink, you need to get out more.” She pointed toward the name of the show being projected on the blue wall at the back of the stage. “Barbara Olive Overton or BOO for short,” Adele said, shaking her head at my obvious stupidity.
Okay, I got it, but I didn’t join in the BOO-calling and was glad when it stopped. Adele had certainly snagged us good seats. We were so close I could see the white’s of Barbara’s eyes and figure out that all that poufy hair probably wasn’t hers.
Adele was twitching in her seat, and it was making me nervous. She had something up her sleeve, but what? Maybe she was jiggling to keep the bright pink pom-poms on her hat bopping around to get people’s attention.
The audience cheered when CeeCee came out and cheered again when the host talked about how CeeCee’s career had been on the sidelines but now had come back full force.
“You know, there’s already an Oscar buzz about my performance in Caught By a Kiss,” CeeCee said. The audience applauded and CeeCee basked in all the attention. The only time her bright smile dimmed was when Barbara said something about how well CeeCee was doing for a woman of her age.
While they broke for a commercial break, they brought in the kitchen setup, and CeeCee and Barbara got ready for the cooking demonstration.
“You can tell us about your movie while you show off your recipe,” Barbara said after they were back on the air. I watched nervously as CeeCee put on her apron and stepped up to the counter and the array of ingredients.
“This is an old Collins’ family recipe,” she said. She glanced over the ingredients and I held my breath, afraid she was going to dump the cinnamon again. If I ever doubted CeeCee’s acting ability, I didn’t anymore. I believed it was an old family recipe. She showed off the pan that was already lined with sliced apples and raisins. She measured the sugar and cinnamon and then sprinkled the mixture over the apples. Then, as if she’d been doing it all her life, she dropped the hunks of butter in the flour and used a pastry blender to mix it in. She did just enough to show how to do it. They had another bowl with the butter already cut into the flour, and she just had to add the brown sugar, oatmeal and walnuts. She poured the contents over the pan of apples, telling the audience to be sure to spread it evenly. Forget the movie, she deserved an Academy Award for this. I felt my breath release when she put it in the fake oven. They already had a finished version off to the side, which they now brought in. Apparently, they’d cut corners, and instead of having her make the whipped cream, they just had a can.
“Well, tell us about your movie. And what it feels like to be thinking about an Academy Award,” Barbara said. “Vampires are everywhere. And now there’s one who knits.”
Adele was out of her seat before I could stop her. “He crochets,” Adele said in an indignant tone. CeeCee’s eyes flew up at the comment and she looked directly at me. I pulled Adele back in her seat as the talk show host chuckled and tried to cover the awkward moment. “Knit, crochet? What’s the difference? They both use yarn.”
The pink pom-poms on Adele’s hats were jiggling big time now. Her face was red and she seemed to be trying to restrain herself. Her hand shot up in the air. No one came with a microphone and I tried to pull her arm down and told her between gritted teeth that they weren’t taking questions now.
Suddenly, she couldn’t hold back anymore and jumped out of her seat again and started waving a plastic size P crochet hook. The fact that it looked like a minibaseball bat and was bright turquoise made it hard to miss. Adele glanced around her and tugged at me to stand with her.
“Crocheters unite,” she cried. “We will not be the stepsisters of knitting anymore.” She turned squarely toward the talk show host. “And crochet and knitting are not the same.”
CeeCee looked away from us and began to talk quickly about her movie and how wonderful it had been to work with Hugh Jackman.
A serious-looking woman with a Martha Stewart hairstyle and a headset appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Adele’s arm and started to pull her toward the exit. Adele wasn’t going to go easily. She clamped onto my arm, and the next thing I knew, she was dragging me along.
Adele might try to annoy me by calling me by my last name and slinging barbs at me all the time, but the minute there was trouble, I became her best friend. Before I could blink, we were going through the studio doors. I thought the woman was going to take us right to the street exit, but instead she led us to the audience waiting room and ordered us to sit. I had a sinking feeling. What if she was detaining us until the cops could get there?
It turned out to be much more mundane than that. They’d collected our stuff when we came in and there was no way to give it back during the show, so we had to wait around until the show finished.
“I don’t understand what the fuss was about. I was merely trying to correct Barbara,” Adele said. I rolled my eyes. Typical Adele. She never seemed to grasp the results of her behavior.
There was basically nothing to do but look at the photos of Barbara with assorted famous people that adorned the walls while we waited for the show to end. Adele took out the giant hook and a ball of purple yarn she’d kept in her pocket and began to crochet a loopy flower.
The woman who’d brought us in had sat down in one of the chairs and eyed us with a sour look. There was an air of authority about her, and I heard her talking into her headset, saying something about having better things to do than babysit a couple of troublemakers.
A door marked “Staff Only” opened and CeeCee’s niece Nell walked in carrying one of those cardboard drink holders with one lidded coffee cup in it. She seemed disconcerted and her gaze went right to our babysitter. “There you are.”
“I suppose it’s cold by now,” the woman said, reaching for the cup. “Such a simple job of getting me a hot latte and you can’t seem to manage it. Did you think because your aunt was doing the show, you could slough off?”
Nell’s face clouded and she seemed to be trying to restrain herself but lost the battle.
“Today at work is just like any other day to me, Robyn. The only reason I went into Ms. Collins’ dressing room was to tell her it was time to go on,” she sputtered. “And how was I supposed to know you’d be in here. You’re never in the audience pretaping room during the show,” Nell said, defiantly. I began to figure that Robyn was the woman Nell had been talking about to her aunt.
Robyn eyed her darkly. “Not that I have to explain anything to you, but our audience usually behaves. But these two,” she said, gesturing toward us. I belatedly realized that by coming with Adele, I was considered as naughty as she was.
For the first time, Nell looked at Adele and me long enough to register our identities. I suppose Nell thought she was already in enough trouble with Robyn and didn’t need the added burden of admitting that she knew us because she regarded us as if we were complete strangers. I had to nudge Adele and give her my best impression of CeeCee’s cease-and-desist look to keep her from saying anything.
No wonder Nell had been crying on her aunt’s shoulder about this woman. I was sure if she made this much of an issue about a possibly lukewarm latte, she was just looking to hassle Nell.
Finally Robyn took the coffee cup from the holder and looked at the empty spots around it. “Did you forget my sweetener?”
Nell appeared flustered and embarrassed as she rushed out through the door.
Robyn’s mouth seemed stuck in an angry expression, and I thought of telling her that being so upset wasn’t good for her h
ealth, but reconsidered, realizing she would probably just get angrier at the comment. She leaned back in the hard chair, pulled out her iPhone and began flipping through things. Adele had taken to staring at her and I was going to nudge her to try to get her to stop, but Adele spoke first.
“I knew you looked familiar. I’ve seen you in the café of Shedd and Royal.”
The woman barely nodded and Adele continued. “You know I could probably get you some coupons for free lattes. Bob would make sure they were hot.” Adele leaned closer and held up the rows of double crochets hanging off her hook. “I scratch your back. You scratch mine.” She punctuated it with a wink. “You’d be doing your boss a favor by putting on a show dedicated to crochet. She bites her nails, she’s always trying some new diet, and I heard her say she wanted to learn how to meditate.” Adele held the hook higher, and the stitched yarn swung back and forth. “All the answers are right before your eyes.”
Robyn responded with a dismissive shrug and a roll of her eyes. Adele got that crazed look again and I had to restrain her. Luckily Nell’s return distracted Adele. Nell took something out of her denim shirt pocket. I hadn’t noticed before, but there was a tiny darker blue motif made out of crochet thread sewn onto the pocket. CeeCee must have made it for her.
Robyn snatched the packet with an impatient groan and added the contents to her cup. She gave the drink a quick stir and picked it up.
I didn’t realize it at first, but I was already cringing, expecting some kind of outburst since the coffee drink couldn’t possibly still be hot.
Robyn put the drink to her lips and finally drank some. She appeared hostile as she turned to Nell. “It’s cold,” Robyn barked as she pushed the cup toward Nell. “Go and get me . . .” Her voice trailed off as the cup fell from her hand. It hit the floor and splattered, making a large beige puddle on the charcoal gray carpet. When I looked up, I was shocked to see foam coming out of Robyn’s mouth, and then she began to convulse.
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