Seams Like Murder Page 11

  “How’s it going with Mason?” That question was not a surprise. Peter had introduced me to Mason and had been hoping we’d get together all along. Mason was a powerful attorney with a lot of celebrity clients who could be helpful to Peter’s career, but mainly I think he hoped Mason would keep me out of trouble.

  Cosmo and Felix were excited at having company and were sitting on Peter’s feet, looking up. Peter let out a sigh and then looked back at me, shaking his head in reproach.

  “You do realize that having this many pets limits your options for moving.”

  I remember thinking that when I grew up I’d be able to do whatever I wanted. What I hadn’t considered was what it was like to have adult children. Samuel, my younger son, wasn’t a problem. He seemed pretty nonjudgmental about whatever I did, though maybe he thought that was part of the deal when moving back home. It was a different story with Peter. He’d been unhappy with my life choices since I’d become a widow and probably even before.

  I think at the bottom of it all, Peter was unhappy with his name and blamed me. When he was born all I could think of was Peter the Great, and it hadn’t occurred to me that he would end up with the initials PP.

  “I stopped by to pick up my golf clubs,” Peter said. I’d seen them leaning against the wall in the entrance hall. He must realize that if I ever followed his advice and relocated to a smaller place, he would no longer be able to store his skis, kayak, golf clubs, collection of bats and who knows what else here.

  He looked at me. “I suppose you know what happened.” He didn’t have to say more. I knew he was alluding to Delaney Tanner.

  “No, I don’t,” I said as Peter followed me inside. He let out a sigh of relief until I added, “At least not yet.”

  “Not yet? Oh no, Mother, not again.” Poor Peter.

  * * *

  It was dinnertime when I returned to the bookstore. I waited on a few customers, and then the Hookers started to arrive. Whatever was bothering Rhoda seemed to have subsided, because she appeared upbeat as she methodically arranged her items on her section of the table. She had said more than once she wanted to do everything she could to make her felting class a success, but it wasn’t completely altruistic—it had been Mrs. Shedd’s idea to pay the teachers a piece of each student’s tuition for that class instead of a flat fee for teaching.

  Elise arrived next, pulling a small cart. The disconnect between her appearance and her personality still always came as a surprise. She looked like a strong breeze could carry her away but she was all about business and had brought a large assortment of her kits. To further get the message across, she was wearing a crocheted black-and-white striped tunic with a bloodred tassel. The white was for vampires’ pale skin, the black for their clothes, and the red—well, that was obvious. I didn’t have to look closely to know that the tunic was done in half double crochet stitches, or as she referred to them, vampire fangs.

  Eduardo Linnares would have stood out even if he weren’t the only male in the group. A former book cover model, he was tall and incredibly good-looking in a romance novel sort of way—long black hair drawn into a low ponytail, strong jaw, even features and a killer smile. He had left the leather pants and billowy shirts behind and now wore well-tailored slacks and sports jackets. The only leather was the tote he carried. It still amazed me how his large hands were able to manipulate a tiny steel hook and crochet thread to create dainty Irish crochet pieces. His grandmother had taught him well.

  Dinah found her spot on the end. Her class was on easy and quick crochet. Since she was a community college instructor, teaching was second nature to her and she seemed the most relaxed of the bunch.

  Adele waited to make an entrance. I’m sure she would have preferred to parade in when everyone was there, but my guess is she got impatient waiting for Sheila, or maybe she thought Sheila wasn’t going to show. Since Adele’s class was beginning crochet and the project was a basic scarf, she didn’t have much to put out. To make up for it, she was dressed like a crochet sample book. She wore a black cocoonlike shrug and had attached brightly colored swatches in all different crochet stitches. To highlight the special qualities of crochet, she wore a wide-brimmed hat she’d crocheted in yellow raffia. The hat band was covered in crocheted flowers that were all different colors and designs.

  I had arranged to have Sheila next to Dinah, but our tense crocheter’s spot was still empty. People were beginning to wander into the yarn department, and I had to take on my job as greeter and pitch person for the classes. Mrs. Shedd was watching from a distance.

  I was relieved when Sheila came rushing across the bookstore carrying a large tote. I’d had my doubts that she would show after last night.

  “Sorry, I got stuck at the store,” she said quickly as she passed. I saw that Dinah immediately started helping Sheila set out several versions of the hug. All of them had been done with three strands of yarn in blues, greens and lavenders, but she’d used different combinations of the colors in each of them. They made a beautiful hazy display. I think Adele was crushed when all the people at the table gravitated toward Sheila.

  I held my breath waiting to see what Sheila would do, but it turned out it was a waste of worry. She did fine, probably because all she had to do was hand out sign-up sheets and accept compliments. No teaching involved.

  There was a steady trickle of people coming through, and I registered quite a few new students. We started a waiting list for Sheila’s class, and it was suggested we just add another class for her. I groaned internally—now there were two classes I’d have to worry about her teaching.

  A whoop of excitement came from the table, and when I looked, Adele had come around the front and was greeting two people. It was hard to miss Eric Humphries, her fiancé. He was very tall with a barrel chest—imposing-looking was an understatement. At least he wasn’t in his motor officer uniform. The woman with him was Mother Humphries, as Adele kept calling her, which might explain why the older woman wasn’t in favor of the union. Adele had let us know that her future mother-in-law was visiting from San Diego, again, and making things difficult for Adele.

  I went to stand near the table to get an idea of how people were reacting. A small, intense-looking woman moved down to Rhoda’s display. Very smartly, Rhoda had put out a skein of variegated yarn, a crocheted swatch of that yarn and a crocheted swatch that had been felted, along with the pouch bag that was the project for her class.

  It was amazing to see the difference in how the colors looked on the skein, the first swatch and the felted swatch. I stared at the first two for a long time, and it stirred something in my mind while I listened as Rhoda explained the felting process. Basically the item to be felted was swished around in very hot water, which caused the fibers to twist together. The end result was a solid piece with no hint of the stitches that had made it.

  The woman seemed interested and picked up the felted piece to examine it as I was about to offer her a sign-up form. “Can you use any yarn?” the woman asked.

  “Sure, so long as it’s wool, and not the washable kind.”

  “Wool?” the woman squealed, dropping the swatch like it was flaming. She began scratching her hand frantically. “I’m allergic to wool. One touch is all it takes.”

  I heard Adele say something about an emergency and that Eric was a trained first responder, and the next thing I knew, the large man was towering over the woman, who seemed to be itching even more frantically.

  “Can you breathe?” he asked. “Do you need an EpiPen? I know how to do a tracheotomy with a pen. Don’t worry, you’re going to make it.” He turned to the crowd around the table. “Get back, everyone! We have a woman in crisis here.”

  He ordered our group to clear the table of their displays, and then he picked up the woman and laid her on it while she continued to scratch at her hand, trying to tell him something.

  Adele was acting as his assistant a
nd handed him his phone, presumably to call for help. The crowd might have moved back, but I stayed close to the table to see what was going on. The woman seemed overcome, but I had a feeling it was more from all the attention than her allergic reaction. “I just need some antihistamine cream. It’s in my purse,” she said to Eric, then to me. Eric hadn’t seemed to have heard and pulled out a pen.

  While Eric felt for the pulse on her neck, I got the purse, found the cream, and slipped it to her. A moment later, she pushed back his hand and sat up. Then she stood and announced to all that she was okay.

  “My fiancé saved her! Isn’t my Cutchykins wonderful?” Adele said proudly. The crowd hesitated a moment, then gave him a round of applause. Meanwhile, the woman slipped out the side door. I crumpled up the sign-up sheet I’d had for her. I didn’t think we could count on her being a student.

  CHAPTER 13

  I had finally thought to look at my phone as I was clearing up after the end of the preview. We’d gotten quite a few sign-ups, so I considered it a success. As I scrolled through the messages, I noticed one from Mason saying he couldn’t wait to see me and that he had a surprise for me. I finished up quickly and headed for his place. I was really curious about the surprise. It couldn’t be too much with his ex and daughter around. It was dark when I parked in front of his house. I still felt funny about using the key he’d given me, so I rang the bell. Instantly Spike began to bark and I could track Mason’s progress to the door by the increase in volume of the yipping.

  “Sunshine, you’re here, at last,” Mason said with a happy grin when he opened the door. “Come in.” He made a flourish with his hand as he scooted back, giving a couple of tugs on the bell on the scooter handle. “Hooray, Molly is here.”

  I walked and he pushed himself on the scooter as we went down the hall to the den. Spike was running along, trying to stay in the middle of things. I told him about the Yarn U Preview, and he laughed when I got to the end.

  “It sounds like first responder Eric was having an adrenaline rush. That poor woman.”

  “I have to admit that I got a little nervous myself when I saw him take out the pen, since he’d just talked about tracheotomies. But it turned out he was just going to write down her heart rate.”

  “I wish I could have been there. I wish I could have been anywhere.” He looked skyward with frustration. “I hate being stuck here.”

  “You mentioned having a surprise,” I said, trying to change the subject. It seemed like a better thing to say than my usual, Don’t worry, you’ll be back on both feet soon. “Where is it?” I asked, looking around.

  “You’ll see,” he said. We’d reached the room that faced the yard and pool, and there was no burst of confetti or a net of balloons falling down. Everything looked the same as usual. The TV was on, and Spike had already reclaimed his seat on the arm of the leather sofa. Just to be sure I hadn’t missed anything, I gave the room another once-over and then shrugged.

  “I give up. I don’t see anything different.”

  Mason chuckled. “You’re looking at it the wrong way. It’s not what is here; it’s what is not here.” My brow furrowed, and I checked out the room again, wondering what was missing.

  “Never mind guessing. I’ll tell you. The surprise is we have the place to ourselves. I gave Jaimee an invite I had to a charity dinner. Jaimee heard that some of the people from The Housewives of Mulholland Drive were going to be there, and she talked Brooklyn into being her date.”

  He had a merry expression as he glanced around his house. “It’s like we’re teenagers and our parents are away. We can get into all kinds of trouble. Although we could have gotten into much more if you’d gotten here earlier,” he teased.

  A new show started on the TV and captured Mason’s attention. “Do you want to watch it?” I asked. He seemed mesmerized by the screen.

  Mason seemed distressed. “It isn’t the pain meds I have a problem with. I’m addicted to these shows! They’re all glorified soap operas that forever leave you hanging. This one is about a PI whose life is a mess. He’s gone over to the dark side.” Mason sat down on the sofa, continuing to explain the program to me.

  “The PI started working for some guy, laundering money. You’d think the writers would be more creative than having them launder money by owning a bunch of coin-operated laundry centers.”

  Mason watched for a few more minutes then shut off the TV. “I’m recording it. I can watch it later when I don’t have you here all to myself.”

  He patted the spot next to him on the couch. “All I can do is say how sorry I am that things are the way they are. I can’t believe I bent your ear about a stupid television show when you’re in the middle of a real mystery. How about we order an Indian feast and then you tell me everything?”

  It sounded like a good plan to me. I let Mason do the ordering, and in no time there was a man at the door with bags of fragrant food. It had been an eternity since lunch, and I was starved.

  Mason had been scooting around too much, and I knew that the pain was always worse at night, so I insisted he sit on the couch while I brought out the food. There was a mountain of tandoori chicken and vegetables in orange masala sauce; spicy spinach with cubes of mild cheese; rice with peas, raisins and cashews; and a circle of bread called paratha that had buttery layers. We made it into a mini buffet on the coffee table. Mason insisted on filling his own plate.

  “Where to begin?” I said between bites. “You know I found out the identity of the victim.” I didn’t mention it was because Barry showed me a photo. “The cops are all over CeeCee now, asking her what Delaney Tanner was doing in her guest apartment. CeeCee is insisting she doesn’t know the woman, but it seems like everyone else does. I know her from way back when the boys were in school, and I found out she used to work at the bookstore. Then, when I went to make the bookstore’s deposit at the bank, it turned out Delaney was a teller there.”

  Mason listened with interest as I mentioned meeting Delaney’s daughters and how they’d insisted she wasn’t depressed and told the cops so.

  “It sounds like they still haven’t decided if it was suicide or foul play,” he said.

  “It also could have been some kind of accident. The real question is who invited her to the guest quarters. I’d like to talk to Tony and the housekeeper, Rosa. One of them had to let her in.”

  “Is Tony living there?” Mason said.

  “CeeCee isn’t broadcasting it, but he is. I think it is just temporary.”

  “Maybe someone left one of the gates open and this woman was some kind of stalker and slipped in,” Mason offered. “And maybe in spite of what her daughters said, she was depressed and she was looking for somewhere to die. She had pills and booze with her and stuffed something in the heater vent and got ready to say good-bye. She chose CeeCee’s because it would get a lot of attention and she would be the somebody in death she hadn’t been in life.”

  “You need to get back to work. You are definitely watching too much television.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said with a melancholy smile. Mason sopped up some of the masala sauce with a piece of the paratha bread and fed it to me. “Or it could have been an accident. She was drunk and on pills and wandered in there and was cold and turned on the heat.”

  “There’s something that doesn’t fit,” I said. But when he asked what, I had to tell him I didn’t know.

  Even with all his casts and sore spots, we’d managed to cuddle quite close together, and he sighed with pleasure. “This is how it’s supposed to be.” He leaned forward and set his plate on the coffee table and then moved even closer, so that our cheeks were touching. “We could adjourn to the other room,” he said.

  A door slammed in the distance, and Spike instantly awoke from his nap. He took a guard dog stance on the couch cushion and began to bark. Mason and I reacted like two naughty teenagers and instantly pulled apart.
A moment later, Jaimee marched into the den, giving off a prickly vibe.

  “Ha! So those Housewife people thought there was no drama in my life,” she said. She took one look at us on the couch and squeezed into the space between us. Spike gave her a token bark before taking off for another part of the house.

  “Where’s Brooklyn?” Mason asked.

  “She went into the other room to change,” Jaimee said.

  “I’m sure you’re very tired from your evening out. . . .” Mason said. He let it trail off, hoping she would get up, but either he was too subtle or she simply chose to ignore it. All her attention seemed to be on the remains of our takeout on the table.

  She pulled off a piece of the tandoori chicken and nibbled on it. “The dinner was inedible,” she said, as if it was Mason’s fault. “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  “Not really,” Mason said with a grin. “But I bet you’re going to tell us anyway.” He put a little emphasis on the us since Jaimee seemed to be doing a good job of totally ignoring my presence.

  I had been to enough of these charity dinners to be able to picture the setting. It would have been at a ballroom in one of the nice Beverly Hills hotels, filled with round tables. There were always celebrities there since they got publicity for the event and were a draw for guests. There was usually a silent auction with things like walk-on parts on sitcoms or scripts signed by the cast of a current hit show, items with studio logos and donations that were advertisements for assorted businesses. I’m sure there was an open bar, a lot of networking and, as she’d said, an inedible dinner, followed by some entertainment.