Behind the Seams cm-6

  Behind the Seams

  ( Crochet Mysteries - 6 )

  Betty Hechtman

  The Tarzana Hookers learn that the entertainment biz can be deadly.

  The crochet group's informal leader, actress CeeCee Collins, has a movie out, and thanks to the Oscar buzz, she's scheduled to appear on the famous Barbara Olive Overton Show. Molly and the girls tag along, but when CeeCee's niece Nell-a production assistant on the show-is accused of poisoning one of the producers, Molly and the Hookers must set aside their crochet projects to clear Nell's name. And if they don't soon, someone else will be the next Hollywood headline.

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Betty Hechtman

  HOOKED ON MURDER

  DEAD MEN DON’T CROCHET

  BY HOOK OR BY CROOK

  A STITCH IN CRIME

  YOU BETTER KNOT DIE

  BEHIND THE SEAMS

  Copyright © 2011 by Betty Hechtman.

  All rights reserved.

  Acknowledgments

  Once again, Sandy Harding has done a great job of editing. I am so glad to be working with her. My agent, Jessica Faust, amazes me how she manages to do it all so well. Natalee Rosenstein continues to make Berkley Prime Crime a great place to be. The art department has come up with another fantastic cover.

  I want to thank my team—Roberta Martia for crochet and yarn, Judy Libby for legal, LAPD officer Kathy Bennett for cop questions and Dr. Howard Marx for everything medical. Thank you, Michael Duffy, for sharing your rescue story. Burl, thanks for letting me tag along on all the backstage adventures. Max and Samantha, I wouldn’t have made it to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway without you.

  Linda Hopkins offered invaluable help with the crochet patterns. Thank you for your generosity and eye for detail.

  Rene Biederman, Connie Cabon, Najme Chawdhry, Alice Chiredjian, Terry Cohen, Tricia Culkin, Clara Feeney, Pamela Feuer, Lily Gillis, Winnie Hineson, Linda Hopkins, Debbie Kratofil, Reva Mallon, Elayne Moschin, Margaret Prentice, Tillie Sanchez and Blanche Tutt are my knit and crochet group. I keep learning so much from them. Paula Tesler has turned the group into something special.

  Burl, Max and Samantha, you guys are still the best!

  CHAPTER 1

  “OKAY, ACTION,” I SAID. “SORRY, I DON’T HAVE ONE of those little black chalkboards to click.”

  “Dear, those are only when you’re actually filming. This is just a run-through,” CeeCee Collins said. Whatever it was called, CeeCee instantly went into character and gestured toward the setup for a cooking demonstration spread out in front of her. A series of glass bowls with ingredients, a mixing bowl and a nine-by-thirteen pan, along with an assortment of cooking tools, sat on the dark wood trestle table in her dining room.

  She looked the picture of domesticity with her apron, and it was obvious she’d gone into character, because the real CeeCee didn’t know which end of a wooden spoon was up.

  “I’m so glad to be here,” CeeCee said, all smiles as she glanced over at us as if we were the audience. “And to be able to share one of the Collins’ family recipes is a real treat. I know this recipe so well, I could make it with my eyes closed.” She picked up one of the small bowls, checking the label I’d attached to it. “Let’s start with the cinnamon.” Before anyone could stop her, she’d poured it into the large bowl. Continuing to chat on about how she’d learned to cook by watching her mother, she added the contents of each of the small bowls to the larger one, then grabbed a spoon and began to stir everything together. We all cried out no in unison as she upturned the bowl and the clump of ingredients thudded into the baking pan amid a puffy brown cloud of cinnamon.

  My name is Molly Pink and the we are the Tarzana Hookers. That’s hookers as in crochet. And the Tarzana refers to the Southern California San Fernando Valley community where we meet. We’ve been together for a while now and our lives have become intertwined. That’s not to say we’re all sugary and sweet about each other, exactly. It’s more like a family—you have your differences but accept each other anyway. In lieu of our regular meeting at the bookstore, we had gathered at CeeCee’s, and instead of crocheting, we were playing audience for CeeCee. Only our one male member, Eduardo, hadn’t been able to come.

  Along with being the leader of our group of yarn fans, CeeCee was our resident celebrity. Up until recently, she’d always been referred to as a veteran actress, which really meant career over. She’d had her own sitcom years ago, and then had been in some movies and television shows before her career slid into the occasional cameo appearance. Everything had changed when she became host of Making Amends. But the reality show turned out to be small change compared to the boost her career had just received from her new film. Though the role she’d gotten was as a secondary character, Caught By a Kiss was a hit movie from the moment it premiered a couple of weeks ago.

  CeeCee ignored our nos and, smiling all the while, headed toward the part of the table we’d designated as the oven—without any concern that all the ingredients were in a big mound in the middle of the baking pan.

  “Anybody got any yellow tape?” Rhoda Klein said. “Because this looks like a crime scene to me.” Rhoda was one of our newer members. She’d lived in Southern California for over twenty years but had never lost her New York no-nonsense attitude, or her accent.

  “I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?” CeeCee said, glancing around at us as I grabbed the pan and set it aside.

  The recipe for Apple Bumble Crumble was really my recipe, and even though I’d already shown her how to assemble the ingredients, apparently it hadn’t sunk in that everything didn’t get thrown in the bowl together. So far, the only part she’d excelled at was tasting the recipe at the end of my demonstration.

  While I prepared a new setup of ingredients, I tried once again to explain that she needed to spread the apple slices and raisins in the baking pan, then measure the cinnamon and sugar, then in a separate bowl cut the butter into the flour, and finally add the brown sugar, oatmeal and nuts. She reacted to the word cut like it was a foreign language. It wasn’t much better when I demonstrated with the pastry blender.

  “This is ridiculous. You should be doing a crochet demonstration,” Adele Abrams said. She’d popped out of her chair and glared at CeeCee. “You’re going to be on a national talk show with millions of viewers. Imagine showing off the wonders of crochet.”

  CeeCee sank into a chair. “Tell me about it. Do you think I would choose to do something I’m clueless about? Believe me, a cooking demonstration was not my idea. But getting on the Barbara Olive Overton show is a real coup. They’re devoting the whole show to me. Do you know what that means? So when they were insistent about having me do something on the show and they wanted cooking, I wasn’t about to make waves. I was told they wanted to have something to serve the audience at the end.”

  “I’m with Adele,” Elise Belmont said. Her voice was a little on the wispy side and we barely heard her. It didn’t help that she wasn’t facing the group, but instead was admiring the movie poster propped on a chair. It featured a photo of Hugh Jackman with just the hint of fangs, holding a crochet hook. The title, Caught By a Kiss, was in red letters across the top. They’d done something to the lettering to make it look like dripping blood. Under the information about the female lead, it said, “Featuring CeeCee Collins as Ophelia.”

  “I just think they ought to have you and Hugh on together. Maybe you could both crochet something.” Even before the movie, Elise had been enamored with the series of books featuring Anthony, the urbane, handsome vampire who’d learned to control his lust for blood by crocheting and was now trying to use his immortality to help mankind and also snag his love interest. She wasn’t the only one to love the series. It was sti
ll a huge seller at Shedd & Royal Books and More where I worked. Elise had just been a little more over the top than the rest of us.

  “I see your point,” CeeCee said, taking one of the apple slices out of the pan and dipping it in some sugar before eating it. “You’d think since I had such a great comeback-kid story and there was already Oscar buzz for me and the movie is barely out, that I’d have carte blanche to do what I want.”

  My late husband, Charlie, had worked in public relations and I’d helped out with his business, so I knew a bit about how things went. Barbara Olive Overton was the top talk show host. In the scheme of things, she trumped CeeCee in importance, so if she wanted CeeCee to cook, it was that or nothing.

  Adele saw her opening and went for it. She leaned her beanie-covered head toward CeeCee. As usual, she’d gotten a little carried away with crochet. The hat was so covered with flowers, it made her head look like it had lumps on top.

  “We have to do something. The knitters”—Adele interrupted herself with a harrumph sound as she threw up her hands in frustration—“have all kinds of people. I read that Sandra Bullock keeps calm by knitting, and Julia Roberts knits. Even Russell Crowe. And the list goes on and on. Just think if you could teach Barbara how to crochet on the show. I’m telling you, we need more celebrity crocheters. All we have is Vanna White,” Adele said.

  “Excuse me,” CeeCee interjected.

  “Right, we have you, too,” Adele said. “But we need more. We need someone big and splashy.”

  Nell Collins, CeeCee’s niece, came in at the end of the interchange and stopped in the doorway. Adele saw her and her face lit up.

  “Can’t you do something about getting your aunt to do a crochet demonstration on the talk show? You work on it, don’t you?”

  Nell looked like a much younger version of her aunt. Only the brown of her long hair was all natural. She had come out from Ohio a few months ago with the idea of getting into the entertainment industry and was staying with CeeCee. But unlike her aunt, Nell was really interested in working on the production end rather than in front of the camera. She laughed at Adele’s comment. “I’m a production assistant, which basically means I’m a gofer. I already get a lot of grief because some people think Aunt CeeCee got me the job, so I try not to bring up any connection.” Nell sighed. “But I think I know why they didn’t want you to teach Barbara how to crochet. I heard one of the segment producers has a show coming up in a few weeks with some celebrity knitters, and they’re going to teach Barbara how to work her needles on the show. Everybody knows about Barbara’s battle with her weight, nail biting and general anxiety. The knitters claim to have a cure-all for that.”

  Adele jumped up at the word knitters. We all understood Adele had her reasons for seeing it as being the crocheters versus the knitters. It went back to a Cinderella-type stepmother and stepsisters who were all aggressive knitters who shamed Adele about her yarn hobby. We all loved crochet but weren’t as reactionary as Adele. Still, this time I could see her point. It irked me that the knitters were getting a platform on the show but the crocheters weren’t.

  “I’m telling you that host needs a crochet intervention. She’s always going on about her weight problems and her nail biting. Knitting isn’t going to help that. All those clacking needles will just make her more nervous,” Adele said.

  Sheila Altman said, “Hear, hear” from the corner. If anyone knew about the therapeutic aspect of crochet, it was her. Sheila had sensitive nerves and she’d learned to handle her anxiety attacks with crochet. In fact, this whole discussion seemed to have stirred things up for her, and I noticed she’d taken out a hook and string she always carried. She didn’t even have to look as she made a bunch of chains and went back over them with single crochet stitches.

  “Ladies, we’re getting off track here,” Dinah Lyons said. Along with being a fellow hooker, she was my best friend. She taught English at a community college to reluctant students and knew how to keep things on subject. “The show is tomorrow and CeeCee needs to get this recipe down cold.” Dinah bristled with energy as she looked over the setup. She added numbers to the labels on the small bowls, showing the order they should be used. I wrote out a list of steps and put it next to the large bowl. It still took a few more tries before CeeCee ended up with a pan of apple slices correctly covered with the bumble-crumble topping. This time, she put it in the real oven—with us looking on to make sure she did it right. It came out smelling delicious. We all congratulated CeeCee on her success at cooking, and she triumphantly put some on plates for all of us.

  “It seems a little plain,” CeeCee said, looking at the serving she’d taken for herself. “Can’t we jazz it up a little. How about whipped cream?”

  CeeCee was astonished to hear there was a way to make it besides squirting it out of a can. I made a fast grocery store run and came back with some heavy cream. Luckily I got several containers, knowing CeeCee was likely to have a problem. She went wild with the hand mixer and ended up turning the first attempt into butter.

  “Dear, this is fascinating,” she said, taking a taste of her creation and deciding it would be tasty on scones. She went slower with the next batch and stopped when it was still whipped cream. CeeCee added a dollop to each of our plates, and we all dug in. “This is wonderful. I can’t believe I actually made it,” she said, punctuating her comment with her musical laugh.

  As we ate, she took the list of steps I’d written out and said she’d make a cheat sheet on her hand for the show. She’d call her agent to make sure they wrote the ingredients on the bowls and to make sure they had whipping cream and a mixer.

  The baking smells must have wafted through the house because I heard CeeCee’s two Yorkies barking and scratching from the service porch where she’d put them to keep them out of the way.

  “I appreciate that you all want to come to the taping and give me moral support, but its really not necessary,” CeeCee said. I knew what CeeCee was really saying was that she didn’t want the group to come. Not that they got it. Everyone insisted it was no problem and was thrilled when Nell started to hand out the tickets.

  “Getting these is the only real thing I’ve done,” Nell said as she gave the last one out. Right after that, everyone took off. Even Dinah, which surprised me. My friend usually hung around until I left. I couldn’t help but wonder what was up with that.

  I hadn’t been sure what kitchen equipment CeeCee had, so I’d brought the ingredients, bowls and pan. I took everything in the kitchen and started to wash the dishes. CeeCee said I could have left them for her housekeeper to deal with in the morning, but I felt funny about giving her extra work.

  When everything was clean and packed up, I passed through the dining room and heard voices coming from the living room, and the tone sounded like somebody was unhappy. I peeked in the living room with the idea of saying good-bye. Nell and her aunt were sitting on the sofa, and the younger woman’s face was twisted in frustration. It didn’t seem right to interrupt, so before they saw me, I backed out of sight.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Robyn is on my case all the time. She keeps bringing up that I got the job because of my connection to you, or as she puts it, I took the easy way, while she got in all on her own.” Nell slumped farther. “She screwed something up and then made me take the blame. It’s just so unfair. My life would be so much simpler if she was out of the way.”

  CeeCee seemed at a loss for suggestions and uncertain about how to comfort her niece. She started to put her arm around Nell, then took it back. Finally, she sighed. “I didn’t get the job for you. I made some calls and my agent got you the interview. You got the job on your own merit.”

  Poor Nell. She was just out of college, where there was some effort to keep things fair, and she was getting her first taste of the unfairness of the world. Apparently, CeeCee was thinking the same thing. She told the girl she’d just have to deal with the woman who was causing all the problems. There was no magic cure.

&n
bsp; If anybody knew about things not being fair, it was CeeCee. When her dentist-husband died, she found out he’d lost all their money and she had to start over. CeeCee might be a little self-absorbed at times, but she wasn’t all fluff. Hidden behind the sparkling eyes and tinkling laugh was a will of steel. Though at one time she’d been the star of the CeeCee Collins Show, when that ended, she set aside her pride and had taken any small part or cameo role she could get. She had even hosted an infomercial. She made it a point to be easy to work with, knowing it would help her get more and hopefully better parts. Her determination had paid off.

  I waited a moment longer and made sure Nell was done before I walked in to say good-bye.

  “Thank you, Molly. What would I have done without you?” CeeCee got up and walked me to the door. Nell had let the dogs out and they were actively searching my shoes for crumbs. “You’re coming to the show, aren’t you?” CeeCee said, stopping in the foyer.

  “Actually, I wasn’t planning to. Adele has her heart set on going, and it’s hard for both of us to be gone from the bookstore at the same time.”

  CeeCee’s smile faded, and she grabbed my hands in a frantic manner. “You have to come. You really do. Molly, we can’t have the Hookers in the audience on their own. Who knows what they’ll do.” I knew she was really talking about Adele, and since I’d seen what Adele could do when left on her own, I agreed to work it out so I could go.

  I came home with the magic combination of food and animal scents, and my two dogs stuck to me like glue after I walked into my kitchen. Blondie, the strawberry blond terrier mix, and Cosmo, the small black mutt, were joined by Holstein and Cat Woman, the two cats my son had brought with him when he moved back home.

  I’d had my share of cats over the years and was always amazed at how distinct each of their personalities were. Holstein was more like a cat-dog. He joined the dogs in following me around the house and couldn’t get enough attention. Cat Woman was more like the generic idea of a cat. She tended to be more aloof except around food. She always sat at my feet and patted my leg with her paw until she got a taste.