Seams Like Murder Page 20

  “Was that at the Willises’ house?” I asked, and Lucille nodded.

  “It was quite the party, tented tennis court and all,” she said.

  “What was the occasion of the party?” I asked, and Lucille stopped to think for a moment.

  “I think they had recently launched their new business. I just went along with my husband. I’m sure Babs told you, Richard has his own business management firm, and he was hoping to network.”

  “Did you see Tony Bonnard there?” I asked.

  Babs suddenly seemed protective of Lucille and wanted to know why I was asking. Then before I could answer, she sucked in her breath as she realized why. “It was the same night that woman died at CeeCee’s!” She seemed upset that she hadn’t put it together before. She turned to her daughter-in-law. “Did you see him there?”

  “Is he the handsome guy with the white hair who used to play a doctor in that soap opera?” We all nodded yes. “I’m pretty sure I saw him, but I can’t say how long he was there. There were a lot of people.”

  I stopped mid-stitch, realizing it didn’t really matter if Lucille had seen him or not. “Being seen at the party really doesn’t give him an alibi. He could have made an appearance and then gone up to the guest apartment and killed Delaney. He could have even returned to the party after he did the deed.”

  “I’m here,” Sheila said. We’d all been so busy talking to Lucille, none of us had noticed that Sheila had come into the bookstore. Her voice sounded upbeat, but her brows were furrowed, and she looked tense.

  Mrs. Shedd was right behind her, which probably accounted for Sheila’s effort to sound upbeat. I was grateful to Babs, who started raving to her daughter-in-law about Sheila’s beautiful pieces and asked to show her some samples. Giving Sheila something to do took her mind off her nerves. Mrs. Shedd watched for a moment, then went back to wandering the bookstore to help customers.

  With Mrs. Shedd gone, I started to suggest Sheila take a shot at just doing the introduction to her class in front of us, but I was surprised when Sheila cut me off mid-sentence.

  “No. I’m not doing any more practice sessions.” I started to ask why, but Sheila just shook her head in a decided manner.

  Even with the talk of alibis and Sheila’s surprising surliness, we must have done something right, because by the time the group broke up Lucille had signed up for Adele’s class. She seemed pleased when Adele walked out with her, showing off her beanie with the big flower on it.

  At that point, Dinah and I were the only ones left at the table. It was dinnertime now, and the bookstore had cleared out. I let out a weary sigh and kept moving my hook through the wool yarn. I was glad it was a simple project. I really needed some mindless crochet.

  “What are you making?” Dinah said.

  “For now it’s just a long, skinny strip, but eventually I’m going to sew the ends together and make an infinity scarf.” I laid the long strip of purple stitches on the table and measured. It was five feet long. “Just a foot or so more and I’ll actually be done.” Dinah and I exchanged high fives. Dinah went back to working on a potholder in delft blue cotton yarn. It was one of the projects she was going to use in her class.

  She didn’t want to talk about her situation with Commander, and I didn’t want to talk about my issues with Mason. First it was that his daughter didn’t like me, then his ex moved in. Now, realizing he just wanted to get Tony out of trouble, without caring if he’d done it or not, bothered me. And then suggesting I stop trying to figure out what had really happened to Delaney Tanner? That was what it was really about for me. Getting justice for her.

  Maybe there was just too much baggage for either Dinah or me to have a happily ever after.

  Since we didn’t want to talk about the men in our lives, we talked about Adele and her wedding woes and why Eric didn’t seem to want to pin down a date and location. We both agreed Adele could be right. He was getting cold feet.

  The topic of Sheila came up next. “There’s nothing more I can do,” I said. “Maybe I pushed her too far. I’ve never seen her so resolute about anything before. She actually just said no to another practice.” I let out a sigh. “Maybe I’ll need Adele’s backup plan after all.”

  “Okay, enough stalling. Let’s talk about what’s really on our minds,” Dinah said. “Tony.”

  I told her about Barry’s theory, which opened Pandora’s box. Now Dinah wanted all the details of our encounter.

  “It’s wasn’t an encounter, except maybe for the part when he apologized for stuff he did when we were together.”

  Dinah insisted on a complete replay of the conversation. “Sounds to me like he wants to win you back,” she said.

  “I don’t think so. More like stuff with his son is making him view his behavior in a new light.” I shook my head to get rid of the Barry topic. “We were going to talk about Tony, remember? I hate to say it, but what Barry said made sense. Tony is at a low point in his career. It doesn’t take long for people to go from saying Weren’t you in that show? to Who did you used to be? I don’t think it was his first choice to move in with CeeCee. Her career is on an upswing. I mean, she’s an actual Academy Award nominated actress. I’m sure they’re going to make a sequel to Caught by a Kiss. Tony’s ego was probably sagging and could have needed some bolstering.”

  Dinah seemed disgusted. “Maybe, but how low can you go? Meeting someone in the apartment over the garage? Even as jerky as my ex was, he wouldn’t have done that.”

  I moved my hook through the purple yarn. “And Delaney could have thought he really cared. Maybe he told her he was breaking up with CeeCee.” I reached the end of the row and turned my work. “And what if Delaney threatened to tell CeeCee? Tony’s trying to get that web series off the ground. CeeCee’s giving him a place to live, and they’re turning the guest quarters into a studio. Who knows what else she’s giving him?”

  Dinah finished the last row of the pot holder and reached into her bag to get her scissors to cut the cotton yarn. When she pulled them out, the strand of that variegated yarn was caught in them. It must have fallen from the table and gotten caught sometime during our session.

  I thought again about how I was sure Delaney’s vest had been made from that yarn, and that the whole group had denied taking it in the yarn exchange. Make that the whole group except for the one missing person—CeeCee. I didn’t have to say any of that out loud. Dinah seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.

  “Does that mean she was involved?” Dinah said.

  “I think we should stop by CeeCee’s and talk yarn.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “We better bring something,” Dinah said. “Remember Babs mentioned CeeCee needing medicinal chocolate.”

  There was no time to make anything, so we stopped in the café. This time of the evening was slow, and Bob was sitting at a table, hovering over his laptop. When he wasn’t making coffee drinks or treats, he was working on his screenplay. Something about aliens.

  Bob actually looked a little like an alien with that dab of hair below his lip. I know it was called a soul patch, but I called it a mistake in shaving. By this time of the day, there wasn’t much food left, but he managed to make up a package with some double chocolate bars.

  I wasn’t sure what kind of a reception we’d get at CeeCee’s, since we were basically dropping in unannounced and uninvited, but the chocolate offerings had gotten Babs access, so I figured it might work.

  Actually, CeeCee sounded almost tearful when she heard it was us. As soon as we came inside, she took us right into the living room. Tony was sitting in an overstuffed wing chair, writing something down. CeeCee took the package of sweets and looked inside. “It has been such a trying time—these cookie bars are just what I need. But if you want something to go with it, you’ll have to make it yourself. We’re having to rough it since I gave Rosa a couple of days off.”

 
We passed on the drinks but accepted her offer to sit down. CeeCee helped herself to a bar and then set the bag on the coffee table.

  “Tony is such a trooper,” CeeCee said. “He’s writing down notes from his experiences last night and is going to use them in his web series.” Tony looked up from his work.

  “Of course, I have to drama it up a bit. The truth is pretty dull.”

  “I suppose they questioned you,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Hey, I’ve been in enough television shows to know you get lawyered up right away. The thing that was so amazing was the way Mason Fields magically appeared when I said that.” He patted CeeCee’s hand. “It was brilliant thinking of hers to call him on the way to the police station.” I laughed inside at the comment. I’d been the one to call Mason, but I was fine with her getting the credit. He set the papers aside and gave his full attention to the group of us. “I was kind of surprised that when Mason and I had some time alone, he didn’t actually ask me if I did it.” Tony seemed to find that amusing, but CeeCee seemed upset.

  “You shouldn’t joke about that,” she said. “This is serious.”

  “I’m not worried. Mason Fields is the best. He doesn’t think they have much of a case. And do you have any idea how much publicity I’m going to get for my series?”

  “You and that series,” CeeCee grumbled.

  I could almost hear Mason telling me to let things be, but I ignored the imagined comment and plowed ahead. “Why did you say you didn’t know Delaney Tanner?” I asked Tony.

  “Because it was the truth,” he said casually. “The cops gave me her name first, and I didn’t recognize it. To be honest, I barely glanced at the photograph they had. It was only when the cops brought up the business card and said she’d worked at the bank that I realized who she was.”

  “Tell them how she got your business card,” CeeCee prompted.

  “I have a business account at the bank. With all that bulletproof glass they have now, I barely noticed the teller I was dealing with. But she recognized me. She was a big fan of the soap I was on and kept telling me how great I was in it.” He put up his hands in a helpless pose. “It was music to my ears, particularly since things weren’t going so well. She wanted to hear about the web series, and I was glad to have a willing ear. I had forgotten, but last week when I went in there, she said something about how it would be a dream come true if she could be an extra on the show. I gave her my business card and told her to call and leave a message. Whatever was on the back of that card came from someone else.”

  “You’re being awfully cavalier about this,” CeeCee said. She seemed upset and medicated herself with another cookie bar.

  “I will tell you this,” Tony continued. “Delaney bordered on being too friendly. I was happy to talk about the web series, but I was a little uncomfortable when she made comments about the checks I was depositing and then talked about other customers. If she talked about them, she’d talk about me. I wasn’t sure I wanted it on the street how much I was struggling. I said something about my small deposits, and she brought up Evan Willis and his partner, saying they came in a lot to deposit cash.”

  Tony suddenly looked embarrassed. “It was a lot easier when somebody was paying me. I asked her about what he was doing, thinking maybe he’d want to have a piece of my web series. She told me the name of his business. I was expecting something in the entertainment industry, but it was a day spa or something like that. She could have said there was a chain of them; I’m not sure.”

  For a minute I just sat there thinking about Kelsey Willis and how she had acted so high-handed. There was a world of difference in status between being an executive in a studio and owning a massage parlor. What Tony said sounded like it could be true, but there could also be more to the story. Like maybe he was meeting her to give her “acting lessons.”

  Dinah nudged me to remind me of the reason we’d come, and I took out the length of yarn I’d found earlier and put it on the coffee table. “I was just wondering if you had any more luck in working with this yarn than I had,” I asked CeeCee.

  CeeCee had a blank look on her face. “Remember, you took it at the yarn exchange?” I said.

  CeeCee picked up the length of variegated yarn and examined it more closely.

  “Oh, that wool yarn you didn’t want,” she said finally. “Now I remember. I believed Adele when she said she was sure that the yarn would work for crochet.” CeeCee turned to me. “Dear, I know you said it wouldn’t work for you, but I have been crocheting a lot longer than you, and I have wrangled with some tough yarn.”

  “And,” I coaxed, “what did you make with it?” CeeCee responded with another blank look.

  “I’m not sure. Let me look at my yarn stash.” Dinah and I followed her to the den, which looked out on the yard. She had a closet with shelves for her yarn supply. It was far neater than mine. She looked through all of it. “That’s right,” she said. “I realized I was never going to use it, so I gave it to Rosa.” She looked at me squarely. “Why is it so important?”

  * * *

  “Do you think she really knew why we were asking about the yarn?” Dinah asked. We were back in the greenmobile on the way home.

  “She seemed genuinely surprised when I mentioned the vest Delaney Tanner was wearing was made out of it.”

  “But remember, pretending is her business,” Dinah said, and I nodded in agreement. “I hate to say it, but CeeCee’s not remembering and then looking around for it could have just been a stall while she figured out something to say. It seems very convenient that she claimed she gave it to Rosa, who wasn’t there. And then when you suggested calling her, CeeCee refused to let us bother her during her time off.”

  “All we can do is wait to talk to Rosa,” I said.

  The streets of Tarzana were quiet, and I was in front of Dinah’s in no time. “I guess that’s a wrap for tonight,” I said. Dinah opened the door but hesitated before getting out.

  “I can’t keep telling Commander I’m thinking about it. I don’t want to keep him dangling. I care about him too much. I’m going to call him right now.” She shut the door to the car before I could ask her what she was going to say. I planned to keep plenty of tea and sympathy ready in case things didn’t go well.

  CHAPTER 26

  As expected, Dinah called me in the morning and wanted to meet up. She wouldn’t give me a clue about how things had gone with Commander but just told me to meet her at Le Grande Fromage. It was amazing how as soon as the sun came out, the rain was almost forgotten, even though the cold air still smelled of wet earth as I crossed the yard. I had finally learned not to look back once I left the house. That way I wouldn’t see Felix with his paws up on the glass door with a look beseeching me to take him along.

  The windows on my car were fogged up from the chilly dampness, and I had to wipe them all down before I could drive anywhere.

  I left the car in the bookstore parking lot then headed down the street to the neighborhood bistro. I passed Luxe, which wasn’t open yet, and noted a display in the window. The hazy blue color of the blanket was an instant giveaway that it was one of Sheila’s pieces. One of the flyers was lying next to it. I hoped that meant she wasn’t expecting to bail out on the class.

  I had snagged a table and ordered breakfast for us before Dinah arrived in a flash of brightness with her long, rainbow-colored scarf.

  “Well?” I said as soon as my friend had sat down. She certainly knew how to build up tension. Other than greeting me, she didn’t say anything else as she surveyed the café au lait I’d gotten for her along with a croissant sandwich.

  “I can’t take the suspense. Did you tell Commander you would marry him?” I said.

  Dinah took a sip of her coffee and smiled. “I didn’t tell him anything yet, but I have decided that I’m thinking of telling him that I will marry him.”

  I was abou
t to say something, but Adele swooped in, apparently hearing the end of Dinah’s sentence. “You’re going to get married?” Adele plopped down in the chair and immediately went into full pout. “It’s not fair if you get married first.” She set the crochet magazine that seemed to be her ever-present companion on the table.

  Dinah and I rolled our eyes at each other, then Dinah took a deep breath and tried to console our fellow Hooker. “Adele, I just said I was thinking of telling Commander I would marry him.”

  “How come nobody told me that he asked you in the first place?” Adele turned to me, and I waited for her to bring up our French toast sister thing and reproach me for not sharing. Thank heavens Dinah stepped in and said she had only told me and insisted I not tell anyone.

  As soon as it seemed clear that Dinah’s possible nuptials weren’t going to steal Adele’s thunder, she brightened up and opened the magazine to show us a picture of a bride’s hands encased in lacy crocheted gauntlets. “What do you think?” she asked. I started to say the hand covering was pretty, but Adele tapped the bride’s nails, which had been painted white with a flower stenciled on them. “I was thinking I’d do this, but in mauve. I’m going to show the picture to the place down the street to see if they can do it.

  “You should come with me, Molly,” she said in a possessive manner. “You could get your nails done, too.” She flipped the page and showed me a photo of the bridesmaid’s hand. Her nails were done in stripes of magenta with glitter in between. I looked at my plain nails and swallowed a laugh.

  Since they hadn’t even set a date, it did seem a little premature to worry about getting my nails done, but sometimes the best way to deal with Adele was just to go along with whatever she said. “Sure,” I said.

  Dinah said she’d go with us. “Who knows, maybe I’ll want one of those fancy manicures, too.” She saw Adele’s expression fade and quickly added, “If and when I actually get married.”