You Better Knot Die Read online

  I took a ball of iridescent-flecked white bedspread-weight thread and a steel hook into the living room along with the instructions for a snowflake Adele had given me. Hers were more elaborate, but she said she was doing me a favor by giving me something more basic to make. There was probably a slap at my skill in there somewhere but by now I’d learned to just let it go. Mason moved next to me, saying something about it was a better arrangement if he needed help. He watched as I struggled to make a slipknot with the fine thread and do the beginning circle. My hook slipped and the yarn was hard to see. It always took me a little while to adjust to working so small.

  Mason took out the partially completed dog sweater and something else.

  “Is that for me?” I said, looking at the gift-wrapped package.

  Mason handed it to me and I commented that it was kind of early for a Christmas present.

  “No, this just something I think you really need. I had something grander in mind for a holiday gift. Open it,” he said.

  “Wow,” I said as the paper fell, revealing a box that said BlackBerry. Mason took it out and told me about all the features. He had even charged it up. He took out his own and called someone. After a few minutes of punching in some codes to the BlackBerry, he had activated it and it was now my phone.

  He showed me the calendar and said if I put stuff in, it would pop up as a reminder. “So no more missing our crochet evenings,” he said with a grin before he demonstrated how to use the camera feature. I got in a mind muddle after that. The BlackBerry just did too many things to take in all at once. I hugged him a thank-you and when I looked up he was looking back at me. The usual smile in his eyes was replaced by something else. What was it? Longing maybe. I pulled away and he returned to his usual self.

  I pointed to the dog sweater he’d laid beside him as I went back to my snowflake. “We better get crocheting.” He nodded in agreement and picked up his hook.

  “Too bad the detective hasn’t taken up crochet. It would do him good.” Mason worked a few stitches. “I suppose he doesn’t think it’s manly enough.” Mason paused a beat. “I’ve always thought real men don’t have to keep proving themselves.”

  “Different strokes for different folks,” I said vaguely, not wanting to get sucked into their competition. I changed the subject and brought up Emily and the break-ins. Mason was always a good sounding board. This was the first chance I had to put together all the discordant pieces and try to make sense of them.

  “If this kid wasn’t the one sneaking in your house, then who was?” Mason said. He seemed doubtful about someone going to so much trouble to find out the identity of an author.

  “You don’t know how people are about the Anthony books. It would certainly take the thunder out of our launch party if somebody disclosed the real identity of A. J. Kowalski first,” I said.

  The snowflake began to come together quite quickly, though the limp white stitches were hardly impressive looking. Starching them was what did the magic.

  Mason asked the obvious question. Did I know the vampire author’s real identity? And I gave him the same answer I’d given everybody else. No. No matter what I’d seen with Adele, the jury was still out on whether it was William.

  “Maybe you know, but you don’t know that you know,” Mason said, chuckling at his own tongue twister. He gestured toward the tote bag I’d been carrying back and forth. A file stuck out that had Holiday Events written on it. “What’s in there?”

  I pulled it out and showed him. Everything was about our multicultural holiday party. “See, there’s nothing in here.”

  He suggested maybe it was something I’d brought home a while ago. We looked over my desk and there was nothing there. I took him in the crochet room and I heard him chuckling behind me. “Someone ransacked this room, right?” He bent down and pulled a plastic grocery bag off his foot that had caught there. I explained I’d cleaned it up since then. This was normal.

  “You’re into crochet now, so you should understand this is how we roll.” I picked up the bag, looked inside, and pulled out a half-finished pale green shrug made out of some bamboo mix yarn. I put it with the pile of need-to-be-finished items while I explained he could look at them two ways, either as UFOs—unfinished objects—or as WIPs—works-in-progress.

  As we were leaving the room, Mason saw me glance out the window toward the Perkins’ house and asked what the latest was with my neighbor. I told Mason about Emily needing money, which didn’t surprise him. He was surprised when I mentioned her picking up the watch, particularly when he heard how she could have turned it into cash. I also mentioned the disappearing motorcycle. However I didn’t mention the situation with Mrs. Shedd’s money and the fragile financial state the bookstore was in, partly because I’d given Mrs. Shedd my word to keep it quiet and partly because it was too upsetting to think about.

  “Maybe the watch has some kind of sentimental value. She wants it to remember Bradley by,” Mason said.

  “I don’t buy that. I’ve been thinking about it all day. I remembered something Emily had said when she thought Bradley was just missing. He’d been upset with her about a lot of things and one of them was that she hadn’t picked up his watch. It’s some kind of James Bond Rolex. What if Bradley isn’t really dead and he wants his watch?”

  I mentioned what the SEC guy had said about them being tipped off before Bradley disappeared. “Bradley must have known he was going to get caught.” I told Mason about the money left in the checking account and that was what made the SEC guy believe Bradley was dead. “He thought Bradley would have cleaned out everything if he was planning to disappear. But maybe he deliberately left the money in the account because he knew that was what it would look like.”

  I thought back to how oddly Emily had acted the night I saw the disappearing motorcycle in her driveway. “And maybe Emily knows he’s not dead.”

  Mason and I went back into the living room and started to brainstorm with the facts. We came up with scenarios that had Bradley dead or alive. The dead scenario had Bradley mailing the suicide note on the way to Long Beach, leaving his car in the terminal parking lot where it wouldn’t be noticed because people often left cars there for a number of days, then getting on the boat with his one-way ticket and, somewhere in the middle of the journey, leaving his cell phone and wallet on a seat before jumping off the boat.

  We also came up with a faked-death scenario. In that one Bradley leaves his car but has some other mode of transportation. His Suburban was big enough to fit a motorcycle in the back. He gets on the boat with his one-way ticket. Somewhere during the trip, he leaves his wallet and cell phone on a bench. He gets off the boat in Catalina and then buys a ticket with cash and goes back to Long Beach. He takes the motorcycle and leaves the car. By the time Emily gets the suicide note, he’s long gone.

  I mentioned my parking-ticket issue. It worked with the not-dead scenario. He would have used the parking ticket to get out of the lot when he left on the motorcycle. I brought up Emily viewing the tape and not seeing him disembarking. That was an easy obstacle to overcome. He could have disguised himself or she could be his accomplice and merely said she didn’t see him. Mason asked me if I’d been watching the tape.

  “Yeah, but not that closely. I was looking for a guy in dress clothes. Suppose he brought along a change of clothes? If he put on jeans and a puffy jacket and a hat, I wouldn’t have recognized his form.

  “This is what I love about you, Sunshine, never dull conversation.” He sat forward, his eyes bright as he considered what I’d said. “Emily could have been an accomplice from the start. All of her talk about not really knowing much about her husband’s business might be a cover-up.”

  I was doubtful and he read my expression. “Or not.”

  It was fun being able to shoot ideas back and forth with Mason. Whenever I tried with Barry, I got the same response. “Stay out of it.” He wasn’t even interested in conjecture. I told Mason that Emily had seemed too convincing in her rea
ction to Bradley being missing for it to be fake. “Her emotions seemed to be on a roller coaster. First she was worried, then angry. I think if it were an act, she would have stuck with worried.”

  “But what if she didn’t know from the start, but found out later when he contacted her about the watch?” Mason offered.

  I slumped back on the couch. “But would he take the chance of hanging around for a watch, even if it was a collector-quality Rolex?” I glanced in the direction of my neighbor’s house. “Do you think he’s there now?”

  Mason grinned. “As your lawyer, I’m suggesting you don’t do anything illegal.”

  “But as my friend?” I said, matching his grin.

  “Probably the same,” he said, getting up. He put the dog sweater and yarn back in his bag. He’d done maybe two rows. At this rate, it wouldn’t be ready until summer. I walked him to the back door and was concerned to find it open. No break-ins this time, break-outs. The dogs had let themselves and the cats out. Cosmo and Blondie came in without problem. Cat Woman came in with the promise of some beef jerky, but Holstein was nowhere to be found.

  I explained that we only let the cats out during the day and kept them in the yard. There were raccoons, skunks, rabbits and other critters in the yard at night that we worried the cats would mess with and be the worse for it. I heard a meow coming from somewhere.

  “There he is,” Mason said, trying to reassure me.

  “Yes, but where?” I said, turning around to see where the sound was coming from. Both Mason and I got it at the same time. It sounded like it was coming from the Perkins’ yard.

  I was going to go alone, but Mason insisted on coming with. I thought if we stood on the bench near the fence to their yard, we might be able to see the cat and maybe get him to come to us. It was easy to forget Mason was in his fifties and a high-powered attorney when he got a Tom Sawyer kind of expression on his broad face. He pushed the lock of gray-flecked hair that had fallen across his forehead and seemed unconcerned that he was wearing wool slacks and a cashmere pullover. I led him to the white bench that was almost against the ivy-covered fence between our properties. He climbed on it first and gave me a hand. Neither of us saw the cat, but we did notice there was a low shed just on the other side of the fence.

  “What’s your advice now?” I whispered. Mason let out a low chuckle.

  “You’re just trying to get your cat. As your lawyer, I think I should go along.” He reached toward the roof of the shed and used it to balance himself as he stood on the fence. He looked down into the Perkins’ yard and stepped on something a little lower than the fence. He waited until I got on the fence and saw where he’d stepped before leaving his perch. It turned out to be a hose holder and I held on to the fence as I jumped off it.

  It felt strange to be inside my neighbor’s yard. I heard another meow and we thought the sound was coming from across the yard. The lights were on in the house. I knew the den faced the backyard and had a sliding glass door. It was obvious by the amount of light shining on the patio that the curtains were open.

  We stayed low and checked the driveway. No motorcycle tonight. We moved on and peeked in the window of the garage. Mason conveniently had an LED light hooked to his key chain. The bluish light didn’t illuminate very well, but it was enough to see Emily’s black Element and Bradley’s Suburban she’d driven home in the garage.

  I made a move back toward the fence, but then I heard muffled voices coming from inside.

  We kept to the back of the yard, hoping to blend in with the ivy growing along the fence. When we got in line with the sliding glass door, we stopped and looked. Emily was pacing across the paver tile floor and another woman sat on the rust-colored couch. Her hands were moving, and when I looked closer, I saw that she seemed to be crocheting. The shopping bag from the jewelers was sitting on the bleached-wood side table. I waited a moment to see if anyone else would come into view, but it was clear it was just the two of them.

  I heard another meow and whispered Holstein’s name. Dogs are easier to retrieve. They’re more likely to stay put or come to you. Cats? They completely follow their own drummer. Holstein stuck his head out of the bushes, took one look at us and ran across the yard. I heard a rustle in the bushes, followed by claws on chain link.

  Mason and I were a little giggly now from our escapade as we slipped back across the yard. I climbed on the hose box, held on to the roof of the small shed and, with Mason close behind, I stepped over the fence and felt for the bench. Moments later I was standing on the bench and Mason came over and joined me on it.

  As I began to turn around the sound of someone behind me clearing their throat made me jump. Barry was standing in the shadow. He was speechless. Mason saw him and gave him a little salute.

  Barry had come back to make sure everything was okay. Translated that meant he wanted to make sure Mason and I were only crocheting. “I saw the back door open and nobody home ...”

  He left the sentence hanging.

  “Our girl and I were looking for the cat,” Mason said, clearly enjoying Barry’s consternation at the fact that we’d had some adventure together and that I had been referred to as their girl. I wasn’t so sure about being called “our girl,” either. As far as I was concerned I was strictly my own girl.

  “Really,” Barry said. I couldn’t see the expression of his eyes in the dark, but by the tone of his voice, I had a pretty good idea they had a bit of a glare. He pointed back toward my house and we all stepped closer. When we got near the French doors leading to the dining room, Holstein and Cat Woman were clearly visible lying on the cat tree. They both were sound asleep.

  CHAPTER 16

  “I WISH I COULD HAVE SEEN BARRY’S FACE WHEN you climbed over the fence,” Dinah said. Ashley-Angela and E. Conner were flanking her sides as we walked through the bookstore to the Hookers’ table. Dinah set them up at the end of the table with a shoe box of art supplies. She was a firm believer in getting kids to use their imagination instead of providing all kinds of electronic doodads. It seemed to be a good plan because the fraternal twins got busy with the shoe box as soon as they sat down. They took out piles of colored paper strips and a jar of paste and started making a chain.

  I set my red-eye on the table along with the box of thread snowflakes. After Barry and Mason had left together, I’d finished the one I’d started and made another. I’d starched and shaped them, letting them dry overnight. Even with the addition of the two, the amount was still light. I looked at the orb of pink cashmere yarn I was supposed to use to make a swatch. The yarn was beautiful but not easy to work with. Instead I pulled out the skein of white yarn with flecks of silver. I’d messed up on the increases for the owl head and unraveled it. This time I was going to get it right.

  Dinah showed off the scarf for our shelter collection she’d almost finished. Seeing it reminded me of the importance of the swatches. The ball of worsted multicolored yarn she was working with didn’t look like much, but when it was knitted or crocheted, it automatically made stripes. Momentarily I felt guilty for not doing the pink cashmere swatch, but my owl was much more interesting to work on.

  “Barry didn’t look happy,” I said. Then I laughed. “I kind of see his point. Mason and I were having way too much fun.”

  “So Mason thinks Bradley might be alive because of the watch,” Dinah said.

  “I can’t think of any other reason Emily would have kept the Rolex. The clerk offered to buy it and we know she needs money. But we both wondered if he’d risk coming back to their house to get it,” I said. Glancing at my owl, I saw that instead of being round, the head was taking on the shape of a cucumber. Obviously I couldn’t keep track of when a round ended and talk at the same time, so I set down my work and instead took out my BlackBerry to show it to Dinah.

  “Mason gave you this? How thoughtful. How’d Barry take it?” she asked, checking out all the icons. When I didn’t answer, she laughed. “You didn’t tell Barry, did you?”

  “No,�
�� I said. “It just would have stirred up more trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Rhoda said, pulling out a chair. “Who’s in trouble?”

  “Me, if I don’t get these swatches done,” I said, successfully changing the subject. Eduardo joined us next. He’d been a Hooker longer than Rhoda, but she still always gave him a strange look when he pulled out his hooks and yarn. He glanced around furtively.

  “Here, take these before Adele gets here,” he said, pushing a small pile of snowflakes across the table. He said he’d heard her harassing me about not making enough snowflakes.

  “Why does she have to hide them from Adele?” Rhoda asked. Before I could answer, Adele appeared from out of nowhere and wanted to know what was being hidden from her. For the moment everyone forgot about the snowflakes and stared at Adele’s sweater. She was known for wild get-ups, but the sweater was priceless. The background was black, with white trim around the end of the sleeves and the neckline and down the front. Maybe it was incorrect to call it a sweater. It was more like a canvas she covered with holiday decorations. The back had a Christmas tree, a couple of elves and a lot of thread snowflakes. Candy canes hung off the shoulders, along with icicles and dreidels. The front had Santa and Mrs. Claus, more dreidels, gold circles to signify Hanukkah coins, some weird brown things that might have been potato latkes, cookies with Christmas designs, holly and mistletoe. When she moved, everything swung.

  “Quite a jacket,” Rhoda said. Her tone said it wasn’t a compliment, but as usual Adele didn’t get it and took it the way she wanted to hear it.

  “Great, isn’t it?” Adele said as she turned, modeling the sweater for Rhoda. Adele explained she’d made the sweater years ago and then started adding new holiday things each year. I hadn’t noticed the little vampire with the sprig of holly on his black suit until Eduardo touched it. Adele gave me a knowing smile.

  “Elise is going to love that,” I said.

  “I should add a little black-and-white scarf,” Adele said when she stopped doing her modeling thing. She finally sat down and saw the stack of snowflakes on the table.