Hooks Can Be Deceiving

by Betty Hechtman

  “After all this, I hope you have something to tell me,” he said. “Despite that the radio wasn’t exactly tuned to a station and that the sound was turned off, the powers that be seem to be settling on that it was a freak accident because the gardeners wanted entertainment while they worked. Heather is still hanging on to the idea that Marianne Freeman somehow masterminded it to get rid of her caretaker.”

  “What about you?” I asked, and he smiled, hopelessly rocking his head.

  “You’re into the questions already? I’m interested in finding out the truth, which is why I’m here.”

  “Wow, you sound like one of those determined underdog detectives on TV,” I said.

  “So, are you going to help me be a hero?”

  He seemed different this visit. There was no pretense of his cop face and keeping everything professional. I liked this unplugged version of him.

  “Shall we talk over tea?” I chuckled this time, catching myself answering his question with one of my own.

  “What kind?” There was a gleam in his eye as he kept the question game going.

  “Earl Grey or Constant Comment?”

  “What do you think?” The gleam was still there.

  I threw up my hands. “You win. All the questions aren’t getting us anywhere. I suggest Earl Grey. Is that okay?”

  He let out a real laugh. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”

  “No more than you can,” I said. “See, no question that time.”

  Cosmo and Felix had joined us and were unrelenting in trying to get Barry’s attention and a treat. He finally offered them both and then went into the living room with the dogs close at his heels. They surrounded him when he sat down on one of the couches. I watched Barry lean back and close his eyes with what seemed like some kind of relief.

  The citrusy fragrance of the tea wafted up as I brought in the tray. He took one of the mugs and set it on the coffee table. I went to the other couch and set down mine.

  Of course, I’d added some food to the tray without even asking. At this time of night, it was a given that he was hungry. “It’s just a cream cheese, tomato, and cucumber sandwich.”

  I’d barely gotten the words out before he was already working on the sandwich. It was really a little more than that. I’d sprinkled some Trader Joe’s Everything but the Bagel seasoning on top that had all sorts of seeds and spices. It took the sandwich from bland to delicious as far as I was concerned.

  The sandwich was gone in a couple of bites. He finished it off with a slug of the tea. “We ought to get down to business. What have you got for me?”

  “I suppose the biggest news is about Rory Graham.”

  Barry suddenly sat up straight. “How is she involved?”

  “Connie Richards worked as a food companion for her.”

  “A food companion? What’s that?” he asked.

  “Rory didn’t explain what it meant, exactly, but I’m guessing it was to keep her on a diet. But there’s more.” I explained how Dinah and I had found out who the food companion was. “Rory never let on that she had any connection with Connie when the Hookers were talking about her death. When I mentioned the TV show, she abruptly ended the conversation and told me not to mention it to anyone. And there’s even more besides that. When Rory was talking about having a companion, she said something about them being in the middle of your business and, as she put it, ‘knowing where the bodies are buried.’”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised at his comment.

  “You’re doing exactly what I’d hoped for.” He paused and drank some of the tea. “Everything you said is useful, but not enough. Could you find out more?”

  “I can’t believe you actually said that. I’m so used to you telling me to stay out of everything, and here you’re telling me to get in the middle of it.” If there had been any chance I was going to tell him about the radio in the bag, it was over now. “I’m on it,” I said.

  He drained his mug and set it down. “Unless there’s anything else,” he said, standing.

  “That’s all I can think of for now,” I said, getting up and walking him to the door.

  He had his hand on the handle. “Jeffrey has suddenly become the concerned dog owner. My son is concerned that he hasn’t seen Cosmo in a while. He might want to come over on the weekend. We have a key and all, but I wouldn’t want to interfere with any plans you have.”

  “Don’t worry, any plans I have wouldn’t be taking place here,” I said.

  It was hard to tell in the shadowy light of the entrance hall, but it looked like Barry’s expression dimmed.

  “Well, thanks for the tea and food.”

  I thought he was going to leave then, but he turned back and looked at me, and I sensed he was trying to figure how to say good-bye. His final choice was a complete surprise as he reached out his hand to shake mine.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Any plans for some weekend fun with Mason got trimmed down to brunch on Saturday. He picked me up and we went to a restaurant in Agoura Hills that looked out on the mountains. It wasn’t that far away from Tarzana, but it felt like a different place. We sat outside with a view of a tree-lined creek that ran below the patio. The wind rustled the trees above us and the shadows of the leaves seemed to dance over our table.

  “Alone, at last,” Mason teased. “I don’t suppose you could play hooky for the rest of the day and night.”

  “I wish, but the author event is my responsibility.” I thought about what I’d just said and laughed. “I’m afraid I’ve become a very dull girl.”

  “Never,” he said, reaching across the table to put his hand on mine. “You are one adventure after another. I would never ever think of you as dull.”

  “This book signing sure isn’t going to be dull. Maybe you want to come and hear the mysterious Missy Z read from her book. It’s supposed to be so hot the words sizzle off the page.” The server came just then and handed us menus.

  “I think I know everything I need to in that department,” Mason said with a chuckle before looking over the menu, which was the size of a book. We stuck to the beginning that had breakfast items.

  I ordered pumpkin pancakes and he ordered eggs Florentine with the plan that we’d share.

  “So tell me what else is going on,” he said. “I heard it looks like what happened to your Hooker’s helper might have been a freak accident caused by something with the gardeners.” It was a statement, but it came out sounding like a question.

  “That’s what I heard, too,” I said. “But I’m not buying it. The gardeners insisted they didn’t put the radio out there, and the sound was turned off.”

  Mason seemed surprised. “Really? How did you find that out?”

  I couldn’t tell him about Barry, but since I’d been to Marianne’s house a few times now, it was easy to pass it off as something I’d heard there. I didn’t like leaving Mason out of the loop, but it would only cause problems.

  There was nothing stopping me from talking about Rory, though. I told him the same thing I’d told Barry about the TV show and seeing Connie in the background. I added the bit about what Rory had said about how people working for her had access to information she might not want to get out. “Any idea what she could be hiding?”

  Mason rolled his eyes. “Probably so much, or for that matter maybe so little. You can’t believe what stupid stuff they don’t want the public to know.”

  “You seem to know all about her. Did she do something naughty and end up as one of your clients?” I asked.

  “No, I’ve never had the pleasure,” he said. “Is she doing any better with the crochet?”

  I told him about the rehearsal at the bookstore. “The worst is that she doesn’t seem to care. She thinks she can cover anything with her silly Dance Breaks. But it’s going to catch up with her.” I mentioned my chat with the producer and what he’d said. “By the way, he said to say hello.”

  The food came, and w
e were occupied with cutting things up and moving them onto other plates. Then we just ate and talked about the food and the view. Mason suggested we take a walk after breakfast, but I had to get back.

  “I’m telling you, I have become a dull girl.”

  He laughed and said there was always tomorrow.

  Mason seemed unusually thoughtful on the way back, and I asked what he was thinking about. “I had this thought that the incident with the radio and the wet grass seemed somehow familiar, and I was trying to figure out why. It just came to me,” he said, his tone changing to excitement. “It was in a TV movie. It was called something like The Grass Is Always something.”

  I typed THE GRASS IS into the search box of the movie and television database I’d pulled up on my phone, and a drop-down menu listed several titles that were similar.

  “Could it be The Grass Is Always Greener?” I asked, and he nodded enthusiastically.

  “That’s absolutely it.”

  I clicked on it, and a screen appeared with the synopsis. I began to read it out loud. “‘TV movie that follows the investigation of a wealthy heiress who dies in freak incident when a boombox electrifies the lawn.’” I scrolled down to look at the cast. “I can’t believe it,” I exclaimed. “Rory Graham played the heiress,” I said. “What would I do without you?”

  “I like the way that sounds.” He reached over and touched my shoulder affectionately.

  * * *

  He dropped me off at home, and I hurried to get myself together to go to the bookstore. I’d save the information about where the killer might have gotten the idea of how to set up the murder scene until I heard from Barry again, but in the meantime I wanted to share it with Dinah. Since she lived just off Ventura Boulevard near the bookstore, I made a quick stop there after I parked the Greenmobile in the parking lot that served Shedd & Royal and the other shops on the block.

  Cassandra answered the door and eyed me suspiciously. It was my first chance to see her up close. She had the same lean build as her father, but that’s where the resemblance stopped. Commander’s face naturally settled into a pleasant expression, but hers seemed unhappy. Dinah came to the door and told the younger woman that it was okay and Cassandra moved away, but not without giving me a last hard stare.

  Dinah closed her eyes with consternation and then invited me in. I naturally gravitated toward her lady cave, but she grabbed my hand and took me through the kitchen to a small eating area that looked out on the backyard. “It’s the closest thing to private these days,” Dinah said, offering me a seat.

  I turned down the offer of coffee or tea and told her I could stay only a short time.

  Her eyes lit up. “You have to get ready for tonight. I’ll be there.” She stopped to listen for a moment, as there was the sound of a sliding glass door closing. She looked at the wall that separated where we were from the lady cave. “She has a whole pile of things she gathered from the house. It’s almost all stuff that Commander brought when he moved in. Now he’s upset that she’s claiming it.”

  “How long is she supposed to stay?” I asked.

  “For more than another week. She would have left sooner, but then there’d be problems with her plane ticket. I’d be happy to give her the change fee,” Dinah said.

  “Or you could look at it as some time to use your Dinah magic to straighten her out.” Dinah didn’t get it at first, and then I reminded her of all the freshmen she’d brought around.

  “That’s an interesting way to look at it,” my friend said. “But I don’t think you stopped here to discuss Cassandra. What’s up?”

  I told her that Mason had come up with something interesting. Dinah’s eyes lit up, and she wanted details of our time together. She was disappointed that it had only been brunch.

  “It’s what happened on the car ride back,” I said, and then I told her about The Grass Is Always Greener. “Rory played the heiress who died. She could have gotten the idea from the script.”

  Dinah didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm. “As your Dr. Watson, I have to point something out. Millions of people watched that TV movie, too. Not only when it was on, but since. They probably came out with a DVD.”

  “You’re right. It’s hardly a smoking gun.”

  * * *

  I would have liked to hang out longer with Dinah, but I had to get to the bookstore. When I arrived, Mrs. Shedd was helping at the cashier stand and came over to me. We were usually busy on Saturday, but there was an extra buzz of customers, and my boss seemed a little frantic. “Molly, I’m glad you’re here. We’ve been getting calls all morning. And people have been coming in, too. It’s always the same—they want to reserve a book and a seat for tonight. The ones on the phone are paying in advance with credit cards.”

  She let out a nervous laugh. “We haven’t had so much excitement for a long time. I guess it’s true that sex sells. Joshua and I talked it over just now. We think we should have all the attendees purchase their book before the event. We’ve already put in an order for an emergency shipment that will come this afternoon. We don’t want to turn away any customers.”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  She went on to their office, and I went to check out the event area. There were scraps of construction paper with names written on them sitting on some of the chairs. The signing table still had a small placard touting the event, but the mock-up was gone.

  Mr. Royal came up next to me, and I asked him about the book cover. “It disappeared. Somebody must have taken it. I was going to replace it with a real copy from the books that came in.” He seemed bemused by all the frenzy. “We’re going to need more chairs.”

  He helped me push the chairs closer together, and then I made a hasty call to a rental place. They said we’d have the seats within the hour.

  The rest of the day went by in a flurry of unfolding chairs and unpacking books. We even took the chairs from around the table in the yarn department, since the Hookers didn’t have happy-hour gatherings on the weekend. By six o’clock, everything was ready. Even though the actual event had been planned for eight, people began coming in early. I stayed near the enclosure I’d created out of the bookcases and watched as they came in. We’d put up signs all over to tell the crowd they had to purchase their books first, and Mrs. Shedd was hanging near the front entrance telling people as they came in.

  The crowd was almost entirely women, and most of them came in pairs or groups. I was surprised to see Marianne arrive with Janine. Seeing her from a distance, I had this sense of someone locked behind a curtain. I had gotten so caught up in finding out Rory’s connection to Connie Richards, I’d forgotten I’d thought Marianne might have been the intended victim.

  I thought back to what Barry had said about Errol. He certainly had a motive for wanting his sister out of the way. Then he could do what he wanted with the property, since it seemed likely it would all go to him. And he wouldn’t have the burden of looking after Marianne. The way it was, it all fell on him. He had to step in during the companions’ time off, hire them, and deal with any problems that arose. He had to have felt resentful. His wife Kelly didn’t seem very happy about the current arrangement either. I remembered what Janine had said about problems between Errol and his wife. And there was no doubt that he knew about Marianne’s nightly walks.

  “What are you thinking about?” Dinah said. She’d already put her jacket on two chairs to save them and had come up to the front to join me. I tried to gesture toward Marianne without giving it away and told Dinah what had been going through my mind.

  “You’re right,” Dinah said. “Marianne could have been the intended victim. Her brother was very upset with her the night she came to happy hour without a companion. And his wife seemed annoyed that she’d had to step in for her husband. Life would certainly be simpler for them with Marianne out of the picture.”

  “And they’d be a whole lot richer. Can you imagine what that property is worth?” I looked at my friend. “But none of that is a smokin
g gun either. Now if I had some proof to hand over to Barry, it would be a different story.”

  Rhoda came in just then and waved. Dinah went to join her and show her the seats she’d saved. I almost missed seeing Adele slip into the last row. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of crochet and, instead of her usual bright colors, was all in gray. For once she didn’t seem to want to stand out.

  I made sure the lights were lowered just before eight o’clock. The seats were all full and people were still coming. I had been continually checking the enclosure to see if our author had arrived. So far, she hadn’t. Instinctively, I kept my eye on people coming in the bookstore, though there was no way I’d recognize her.

  All the seats were filled and there were people standing in the back. I had my fingers crossed she wouldn’t be a no-show. Mrs. Shedd had come back into the event area and gave me a worried look, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.

  People were rustling in their seats, and I could feel their impatience. Then I heard a loud psst coming from the opening to the bookcase enclosure.

  I followed the sound and found myself facing someone about my height, shrouded in a black veil that reached all the way to the floor. A hand came out from an opening in the netting and grabbed mine.

  “Missy Z,” a feminine voice said, shaking my hand. Her hand was slightly sweaty and her voice had a slight tremble, which made me think she was nervous. “I guess this is it,” she said.

  I went back out and picked up the small microphone and did my introduction, but all eyes were on the table next to me and the spot where the author would sit. Since she was going to be reading and had requested that the lights be low, I’d set up a book lamp that made a small pool of light to illuminate her reading material.

  There was a vibe of anticipation as the lady in black came out and some applause as she took the seat behind the table. And then I stepped away and let her take over.

  She spent the first few minutes talking about writing the book. The idea had come from an overheard conversation, and she’d been lucky enough to have a job that gave her time to write. When she opened the book, it sounded like the audience all sucked in their breath at once.