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  “Is this the person who lives here?” I asked, holding up the picture frame. Miranda appeared uneasy.

  “The owner didn’t want me to bring this up. He said it might make people feel funny about renting the place. But you two look like you’ve got both feet on the ground and know what’s what. It’s not like she died here.”

  I feigned surprise. “How terrible. She looks so young.”

  Miranda stepped closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Murdered. Right in the middle of work. The cops came by and talked to me. They were having a hard time finding her next of kin and wondered if I could help them with that.”

  Neither Dinah or I spoke or even breathed, afraid she’d stop talking just when she got to the important part.

  I’d learned long ago when I first started using The Average Joe’s Guide to Criminal Investigation that one piece of advice the book offered really worked. Dead air. It made people nervous and it made them keep talking. Miranda was no different.

  “I told him about her boyfriend.” She hit the hole in the picture with her finger. “That’s him. She went through all her pictures and cut him out. Kind of symbolic, I guess. She was cutting him out of her life.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “They broke up,” Miranda said like I was an idiot for not getting it. “Not that I miss him. He used to park his BMW so it just barely cleared my driveway. I couldn’t even call the cops on it, because technically he wasn’t blocking it.” Miranda knew that he smoked because she’d often seen him sitting outside at night smoking. She knew what brand of beer he drank. Apparently she taken it upon herself to check Robyn’s trash for evidence of scavengers, but she didn’t know his name. “Oh, please,” she said as if it was an absurd thought that she would know his name. “I’m not that kind of nosy neighbor.”

  We’d moved into the other bedroom that functioned as Robyn’s home office. She had one of those wipe-off boards hanging on the wall. Robyn had written in D. J.’s name, but most of the space was devoted to Becca Ivins and Derek Trousedale. She’d written in the perfect couple and then, underneath, things like wedding footage, what happened to their family, awards, a happy ending.

  “She worked on that BOO show,” Miranda volunteered. “When I found out that’s what she did, I asked her to get me some tickets. One of the shows where they give the audience something, like a car.” Miranda kept on talking about how Robyn hadn’t come through yet, then caught herself and said it was hard to think of her as dead.

  “What’s this?” I said, noting a girl and boy doll made out of yarn sitting on a shelf in the wall unit. They stood out from the rest of the house, which was all clean lines, bare floors and impersonal. The soft-bodied dolls looked as if they were a remnant from childhood and as if they’d been well loved. “They’re crocheted,” I said to Dinah after examining the arms on the girl doll. Miranda started to scowl, and I quickly explained that I was a crocheter and that was why I was so interested in it.

  “Personally, I’m a knitter,” she said with just a touch of disdain. “I never did get the hook business.” I picked up the doll’s foot and noticed something on the bottom. If there was such a thing as scribbling in crochet, that’s what it was. It seemed like initials, but I couldn’t make them out.

  Suddenly Miranda seemed to notice that we were spending more time looking at the things in the house than the house itself. She took the doll from me and put it back.

  “Don’t worry, the place will be cleaned out next week.” She asked if we wanted to put a deposit down. Dinah and I hemmed and hawed; meanwhile, she seemed to be studying our faces.

  “That’s it. I saw you at the square dancing event. You,” she said, pointing at me, “were dressed in a getup all wrong for dancing.” She made a sound as if she was astonished. “Who goes square dancing in pants unless you’re a man?” She turned to Dinah. “Now, missy, you had it right. All those crinolines.”

  We’d begun edging toward the door, realizing we’d gotten all the information we were going to. Dinah came through and said we wanted to look at some more places first. Miranda did a little sales pitch. Apparently we’d done too good a job at selling ourselves as potential neighbors, but she finally let us go. We hung on the sidewalk long enough for her to go back to her house. I was glad Nell had parked a distance away. Imagine the fuss Miranda would have made if she’d seen us getting into a car with CeeCee Collins.

  When the coast seemed clear, Dinah and I ran down the street and jumped into the backseat of Nell’s car.

  “We’ve got to find out who Robyn’s boyfriend was,” I said as I pulled the car door shut.

  CHAPTER 18

  “A CROCHETED DOLL? WHO’S MAKING A CROCHETED doll?” Adele said as she came in at the end of the conversation. Almost all the Hookers were gathered around the table, and I was telling them about what Dinah and I had seen inside Robyn’s house. The group had felt protective of Nell before, but now that she’d started crocheting with us, they were even more so. Everyone wanted to see her get her life back.

  Dinah was a no-show. She had a freshman English class to teach. But the rest of us were working on one of Rhoda’s impatient crochet projects.

  “Nobody is making a doll. I was just telling them about what I saw when I went into Robyn’s house. It isn’t about the dolls so much anyway, but what they mean.”

  I had all their attention now. This was my big moment to bring out something I’d read about in The Average Joe’s Guide to Criminal Investigation. According to the book, when checking out someone’s surroundings, everything tells something about them. I called it the Sherlock Holmes effect. What could you deduce from things.

  “The point is that Robyn’s house was utilitarian and sparsely furnished. Her office was similar, or at least I think so from what I saw in the box of her belongings. So why would she have a crocheted cactus in her office and keep a couple of worn-looking dolls in her house?”

  “Because they meant something to her,” Elise said in her wispy voice.

  “I can’t imagine anything meaning much to her,” Nell said. “She seemed hard and cold.”

  “All the more reason those two things say something important about her,” I said. “And there’s something else to consider. The dolls look worn and seem like something from her childhood. The cactus appears newer and as though it was made for her office. Both of them had similar initials on the bottom, though I’m afraid I couldn’t read them. I think it’s safe to assume the same person made all of them, which means it’s somebody she’d known when she was a child but she was still in touch with.”

  “Ooh, that’s good,” Sheila said. She had taken a short break from her job at the lifestyle store, Luxe, to join us. Even though it was literally the next store to the bookstore, it was hard for her to get to the group. Not that she couldn’t take off time, she didn’t want to. She’d had enough bad jobs to treasure a good one.

  “Maybe it is someone from her family?” Eduardo said. His voice was so much deeper and masculine than the rest of ours, everyone did a little double take when he spoke. “My gran made a lot of toys for me.” The comment got an extra double take from Rhoda. She didn’t know Eduardo as well as the rest of us since she was relatively new to the group. You truly couldn’t judge Eduardo by his cover-model looks. He had learned how to crochet from the grandmother he’d just mentioned.

  He’d been missing a lot of our get-togethers and seemed like he had something on his mind. When I asked him if everything was okay, he assured me it was. When I asked for details, his almost-too-handsome face broke into a broad smile and he said all would be revealed in good time....

  “I heard Robyn’s parents died when she was young. Maybe she kept the dolls because they gave them to her,” Nell offered.

  “I don’t think finding out who made the doll is going to be any help in finding out who killed her. I think it’s a waste of time,” CeeCee said. “You said she cut her boyfriend out of some photographs. Well, I still think he might
have decided to cut her out of his life.”

  Without missing a beat, CeeCee took out a box of buttons and spoke to her niece who had begun decreasing to make the flap on the envelope-shaped purse she was making. “Next, dear, you should think about what you’re going to use as a closure. The button choice can make or break it.” CeeCee took out a handful and spread them on the table. If it was up to me, I’d have voted for the silver heart with a design etched in black.

  “Aunt CeeCee is right,” Nell said. “I bet her boyfriend is the killer.” Everybody looked at me.

  “I’m working on it,” I said, hoping no one asked for details. I agreed finding his identity was important; the trouble was all I had reached were dead ends. I was relieved when Mrs. Shedd came by the table carrying a stack of books and broke the chain of conversation.

  “I found some more books with a chocolate connection,” she said, setting them down next to me. “See what you think.” As she was about to leave, she commented, “There was some more of that graffiti on the signs for the Salute to Chocolate.” Both of us looked in Adele’s direction.

  “I’m responsible for the kids’ department, not the kids,” she said. Mrs. Shedd didn’t seem happy with her comment. I started to get up to clean off the pen marks, but she said she’d already taken care of it.

  I set down the cell cover I was making. It was my first attempt at impatient crochet and was actually for my phone. I thought the cream-colored cotton might make it easier to fish out my BlackBerry from the dark cave of my purse.

  I looked through the books she brought and had to chuckle at the titles. I wondered how Tom Clancy would feel about The Hunt for Chocolate October. She’d found a cookbook that just had recipes for chocolate chip cookies, and one that featured chocolate drinks. There was a paranormal romance called The Clairvoyant Chocolatier, and a mystery called Bittersweet Death. The last book was Felix and the Fudge Factory. As soon as Adele saw me holding it, she jumped up and came around the table.

  “Why did Mrs. Shedd give that to you?” Adele had backed off a little from trying to take over my domain as event coordinator, but heaven help anyone who touched anything related to the kids’ department. She repeated to the group that it wasn’t her fault if kids were marking up the signs in the store.

  CeeCee was craning her neck to get a better view of the covers of the cookbooks. “Are you going to have samples?”

  “Luxe is providing chocolate tea,” Sheila said. I was pretty sure that wasn’t what CeeCee was thinking about. I mentioned the exotic chocolate bars and that Caitlin’s Cupcakes was bringing in bite-size pieces of their vampire cupcakes.

  CeeCee was practically drooling. The sweet tooth must have run in the family because Nell was gazing at the chocolate chip cookbook with a hungry eye.

  “I don’t know why Caitlin doesn’t just call them Anthony cakes,” Elise said. She almost had a swoon in her voice as she said the name of the vampire known for his crocheting. I saw Rhoda rolling her eyes. She’d softened a little about the vampire character but still thought he was too foofie. Elise had been over the top about Anthony from the books, but when the movie came out, it had only gotten worse. Now she had a real face to put to the character. I had expected to hear that she was stalking Hugh Jackman.

  I started looking into the bookstore, picturing how we should set up the chocolate festival so we could use it for the fake book signing as well. Someone walking through the area caught my eye. Barry? He was carrying a bag of something and looking for something. Me, maybe?

  I left the table and walked toward him. As soon as he saw me, his face opened into a warm smile.

  I was glad for the smile. Usually when he just showed up at the bookstore, it was because there was some kind of problem.

  He held up the bag. “I brought lunch.” He asked if I could leave and suggested we take the food to the park. I must have looked surprised at his impromptu plan.

  “I thought it would be fun, babe,” he said. “I had some time before I had to go to the morgue.” Fun and morgue so close together seemed a little odd, and Barry did sound like he almost choked on fun, but he certainly got credit for trying. Even though I had to believe it had something to do with my adventures with Mason.

  Mrs. Shedd was okay with me taking my lunch break then. I left my crochet project and grabbed my purse.

  The May gray clouds had burned off and the sun was shining. We went to the Los Encinos State Park, which was like an oasis in the midst of busy Ventura Boulevard. We ignored the old ranch house that had been turned into a museum and found a bench that faced the guitar-shaped minilake that was fed by a natural underground spring. The ducks and geese saw the promise of food and gathered around us.

  Barry sat down with a sigh and I knew he was tired. It made me appreciate this gesture even more. He’d gotten wrap sandwiches and some containers of different salads that we shared.

  “This is nice,” he said. He sat so we rested against each other. We passed the containers of salad back and forth, and I tossed bits of my sandwich to the visitors at our feet. After his initial comment, Barry was suddenly silent, which was like a neon sign saying there was something on his mind. It took a few minutes of listening to him breathe before he finally got it out.

  “So, have you thought any more about the condo?” he said. He didn’t leave a space for me to answer, but described his plans for the place. The shelves he was making for my yarn would fit in the third bedroom. He would make built-in cabinets for the den to make it seem roomier. And he realized he’d forgotten to show me the space for a laundry setup in the garage.

  All I could do was to tell him the truth. The condo was very nice, but it wasn’t the right time for me to make that kind of change. Barry didn’t say anything. I just heard a little grunt of displeasure. Of course, I felt the need to smooth things over and started telling him I was so distracted because of Nell. I mentioned going to the dead woman’s house and Barry sighed and shook his head.

  “No breaking and entering,” I said before explaining the place was for rent. Barry surprised me by chuckling. I was expecting some kind of admonishment about keeping my nose out of things.

  “I know I have to accept that my son wants to be an actor and has a girlfriend, and I have to accept your sleuthing.”

  I seized on the opportunity. “What would you think if you saw your victim had a bunch of photographs with someone cut out of them?” When he didn’t answer, I answered for him. “The obvious question is why not just toss the photos. I think she was trying to tell herself she didn’t need him in the picture of her life. Did I mention the missing someone was her boyfriend? Don’t you think he’d be a likely suspect?”

  “I said I needed to accept it. I didn’t say I would help.” He started to pack up the food items and tossed some leftovers to the ducks. “I heard they had some trouble notifying next of kin. Heather found the boyfriend. If he’s a legitimate suspect, I’m sure she’s on it.”

  “I don’t suppose you know his name.”

  He squeezed my shoulder in an affectionate manner. “No one can say you’re not persistent. I don’t know the guy’s name. Remember, it’s not my case and you don’t need to know it anyway. Have you ever heard of the charge for interfering with a police investigation?” Barry said. “Heather would just love to pick you up for that.”

  From deep in his jacket, Barry’s cell phone began to ring. No hotsy-tots musical rings for him. His was just no-nonsense and jarring. As soon as he answered it, he moved to the edge of the bench, and I could see the change in him. It was like doors closing everywhere and he was back to a homicide detective. I gathered from his end that whatever was going on at the morgue had been pushed up and he had to hurry.

  I finished gathering up the food items, and by the time he hung up, we were already walking toward the gate. A few minutes later, he dropped me back at the bookstore. Disgruntled that I still didn’t know the identity of Robyn’s boyfriend, I got out.

  CHAPTER 19

 
; A WEEK WENT BY AND DETECTIVE HEATHER talked to Nell twice. Supposedly it was just to clarify something, but we all knew Heather was hoping Nell would confess. The good part of that was it meant Heather still didn’t have strong enough evidence to make a case. But even if she never got strong enough evidence to arrest Nell, it would hang over Nell’s head forever and ruin her future. What could she put down as the reason she left her job—that she didn’t do it but was a suspect in the murder of one of the people she worked for?

  On the positive side, the donation box was filling up. Everyone was in love with impatient crochet. It was the perfect take-along kind of project. Most of the finishing touches were done with the group, though. We had fun picking out buttons and flowers to add or some kind of trim. My cell phone cover was done and in use. At least now, if I heard the frantic voice Mason had recorded as a ring, I could find the phone in my purse.

  CeeCee came in when I was straightening up the yarn department. I was surprised to see her alone.

  “Where’s Nell?” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

  CeeCee put a reassuring hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, Molly, she wasn’t arrested. She went out with Sheila.” CeeCee seemed relieved. “I feel guilty for saying this, but I’m glad to have some time off.” I could see her point. Nell had been pretty needy and CeeCee wasn’t used to that kind of giving.

  “Tony’s with me,” she said, gesturing to the almost-too-handsome man looking over the new-release table. She referred to him as her boyfriend, but I wouldn’t. But then I don’t think manfriend sounded any better. “I’d like to take my time looking at yarn. You know men. They say take all the time you want, but all the while, they’re looking at their watch and tapping their foot. If I stay until you close, could you give me a lift?”