On the Hook Page 22

  With all the commotion, I was grateful to shut the door on the hallway that lead to the master suite. I stopped in the closet to pick out something to wear. This was supposed to be a special evening, so I decided to dress up. I pulled out my favorite all-around black dress. It was silk and cut on the bias and was light as air. I would top it with a recently acquired long floral print jacket. Ballet flats would have to do as footwear.

  As I went into the bathroom, I checked the handle and it was fine. Maybe I didn’t need a handyman after all, I thought, pleased with my fixit job. Occupied with getting ready, I pushed away all thoughts connected with Timothy Clark’s murder.

  “Don’t you look nice,” my father said as I crossed the living room.

  “Finally, some color,” my mother added. She went on for a moment about how she’d been advising me to add some pizzazz to my wardrobe. If anyone knew about pizzazz, it was my mother. When she and the girls weren’t in their sixties-style performance outfits, my mother had her own look. While living in Santa Fe, she had developed a love of silver and turquoise. She wore a lot of black, but it was mostly a backdrop for stunning jewelry and scarves in vibrant colors. And, of course, her signature group of silver bangle bracelets.

  “Where are you off to?” she asked.

  I had to keep from rolling my eyes. One thing was still the same as when I’d been a teenager—I wasn’t about to discuss who I was dating with her. Even though I knew she heartily approved of Mason.

  I was standing in the driveway when his black Mercedes SUV pulled in.

  He did a wolf whistle as he clicked open the door and I got in. “You look gorgeous.”

  I thanked him for the compliment and returned the favor. He reached into the back seat and pulled out a bunch of flowers.

  “I think this is appropriate behavior for a first date,” he said with a grin. “You’ll note that they are silk, so you don’t have to worry about finding a vase, which was a good move on my part since you stopped me from coming to the door.” He looked toward my house. “Who is it that I’m avoiding?”

  I explained about the rehearsal.

  “So you don’t want me to see your parents?” he asked. “Why? I thought Liza and Irv liked me.” He backed the large vehicle out of the driveway. “I get it. They think I broke your heart. You didn’t tell them you broke mine, did you?”

  He shook his head in a scolding manner as he put the car into gear and we drove down the street. But when he turned to sneak a look at me, he had a teasing smile and I knew he wasn’t serious.

  The disarming thing about Mason was that he was comfortable in his skin. He wasn’t racked with doubts about his life and actually seemed to enjoy it a lot. I loved his sense of fun.

  As he steered onto the 101, I asked where we were going, and all he would say was, “You’ll see. You’re going to like it.”

  I had my doubts when he pulled into the parking structure under an apartment building. But when he led me through a doorway, the delicious aroma let me know we were in a restaurant. Ahead, a wall of windows looked out on the ocean.

  “I picked this table especially for us,” Mason said as he pulled out my chair.

  I glanced up as I sat and could see why. We were in the corner of the large dining room with windows both in front of us and to the side. The water was all around us and it seemed as if we were on a boat. The sky was an inky black and merged with the water somewhere in the distance. A sliver of moon hung low in the sky and had a strange golden cast. When I looked back at the shore, I could trace the curve of Santa Monica Bay by the lights dotted along the sand.

  “Wow, good choice,” I said.

  He took the chair adjacent to mine so we could both enjoy the view and be close enough to talk.

  Mason and I liked to have appetizers as our meal. We gave the waiter our selection, and then we were alone with the view.

  “I was afraid you were going to bring Leo along,” Mason teased. “He was a lot less nerdy than I expected.”

  “Well, that’s because you saw him after the makeover. You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen him in the parka.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s over with. He’s not going to call you for a refresher course or anything, right?”

  I laughed. “I thought we were keeping this casual. Neither of us telling the other what to do. Our time away from each other is our time.”

  “Actually, I think that was all you. I don’t think I ever agreed to it, either. I can’t believe I’m saying this, particularly after the speech I gave you about never ever wanting to feel hurt again, but I think the concept of casual dating may be bogus. It only works when you first meet someone or if you don’t really like them that much.”

  “But you said you’d gone back to your old ways,” I protested.

  “I left out the part that it didn’t work. I have no interest in nice but not very good. And if I feel more for someone—” Our eyes met and he held my gaze. “Then it just isn’t enough.”

  I must have had a deer-in-the-headlights look. “Am I scaring you off?” he said with a laugh. “Relax. I’m not trying to corner you and say I want you to wear my class ring or anything. I just want to be part of your life—and not just when we’re on a date.”

  “Like we’re friends, but more?” I said.

  “How about we forget titles and just let it be and see what happens?”

  “I can live with that,” I said.

  “Enough with all this negotiating,” he said as platters of appetizers were set in front of us. “Let’s eat and then you can tell me what’s happening in your investigation.”

  The whole thing with Alexandra had made me so uncomfortable I had blocked it from my mind, but now it came back with a vengeance. I told Mason about my hopes for the meeting and how it had turned out.

  “I had hoped she’d tell me things about Deana, but all she did was defend herself before she got into taking about a plot for a horror movie that involved a nosy person becoming a human voodoo doll.” I described the double-pointed needles she was fingering as she talked about it and how she had seemed to enjoy stabbing a ball of yarn. “I even thought it might be some kind of threat.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. Do you think she could have been the one who left the drink and stuck the note on your car window?”

  “Maybe,” I said. Then I told him about my meeting with Mikey and how he’d been so familiar with how to add almond flavoring to a drink. “He seems like a nice guy, but who knows? He could have been the one who left the drink.” I poked at a stuffed mushroom. “There’s more. I told you about the line on the calendar about making someone an offer—”

  Mason nodded.

  “Well, after I tell you about my conversation with Logan, you’ll see it has a whole new meaning.” I explained the situation with the house.

  “Clark could have wanted the house back or to keep them from selling it so he could keep living there. The note in the calendar might have been sarcastic. Maybe he had some information that would keep Logan and his friends from selling it? And Logan killed him to shut him up. I don’t know about the others, but Logan had taken the money from his retirement account and planned to replace it without ever telling his wife what he’d done. I’ve always thought the way he was the one to find the body might have been a setup.” I looked out at the darkness and noticed that the sliver of moon had slid down in the sky. “Not the most romantic topic for this beautiful setting,” I said with a rueful smile.

  Mason chuckled at the remark and urged me to continue.

  “But then I keep coming back to Deana. She’s a real diva, and I bet she thought she was going to be like the girl in the vegetable commercial or the one in the sitcom—the next student to strike it big.” I stopped. “It is weird that Timothy only mentioned them by the parts they got and never by their names.”

  Mason had stopped eating and was giving me all his attention. “All that means is that he didn’t care about them as people but only how they could bring hi
m business—well, new students. If you want their names, I can find out,” Mason said. He reached out and touched my hand. “I love being able to help you.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But what beef could either of them have had with Timothy? They got their dreams. Deana could have thought having an affair with him was going to get her special treatment, and when it didn’t, maybe she flipped out and wanted revenge. Who knows what power she thought he had? She works for a drug company; getting cyanide probably wouldn’t be a problem for her, and the person who bought the ring was wearing a straw hat, which Adele says is Deana’s thing.”

  Mason looked out at the dark sky. “Will you look where the moon is now? I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It looks like it’s going to just drop into the ocean.” He smiled at me warmly. “I wish I could say I had specially arranged this for us,” he said with mock disappointment.

  We’d abandoned our food and were mesmerized watching the moon slide lower in the sky.

  “Look at it now,” he said as he pushed his plate away.

  The moon seemed to be dipping its toe in the ocean, and the golden glow reflected in the watery darkness. We both watched silently as the moon was swallowed up by the water and the sky became totally dark.

  When the server came to collect our plates, I expected Mason to ask for the dessert menu, but he just asked for the check.

  “No dessert?” I asked, sounding disappointed.

  He smiled. “I thought we’d have it somewhere else.”

  “Where?” I asked as we left the restaurant.

  “You know me. I love to make it a surprise.”

  He drove back to the freeway. By now the traffic had quieted and we flew down the road and between the dark mountains as the freeway went through the Sepulveda Pass.

  Back in the Valley, Mason turned into an unassuming strip mall and I looked around.

  “Okay, time for the big reveal,” he said. “I thought we’d get ice cream and take it back to my place.” He pointed to a small ice cream shop with a long line. “And it’s not just your average strawberry and chocolate.”

  When we got inside the small shop, Mason leaned in close to me. “I call this millennial ice cream. You know how millennials are all about the experience?” He pointed to the flavors. They all had odd names and unusual ingredients. I mean, who thinks of black pepper in ice cream? I went for Globetrotter, which was made from vanilla beans from five different countries and mascarpone cheese. Mason got Smokey Road, containing high-end chocolate mixed with vanilla bean marshmallows, smoked almonds, and wood-smoked sea salt.

  “Here or to go?” the hipster behind the counter asked, and Mason looked at me with a question.

  “Your call,” he said.

  “To go, please,” I answered.

  Mason pulled into the garage, and we entered the house through his kitchen. Spike knew the sound of the garage door opener and was at the door waiting. He gave us both the royal welcome, though a little more so to Mason.

  “The ice cream got a little soft on the way home. I’ll put it in the freezer,” he said. “Go on in the den and make yourself at home.”

  I had always thought of the den as being the heart of his house. I found a comfortable spot on the leather couch and Spike jumped up to join me. Mason came in and turned on the fireplace. Flames danced around the logs that would never burn and gave off a cozy warmth.

  A wall of windows and glass doors overlooked the yard. A rock waterfall sent water cascading into the dark-bottomed pool. The rest of the yard had an area of grass and lots of flowers, all of which was artfully illuminated.

  “I’ll get the ice cream when we’re ready,” Mason said, sitting down next to me on the couch.

  There was no pretense of keeping a distance between us this time, and he leaned in next to me. It felt familiar and nice.

  “I could give you a tour. I think you’d like what I’ve done to my bedroom.”

  “I don’t know about seeing your bedroom. This is just our first date,” I said in a Southern belle accent. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”

  “I promise not to think less of you,” he said, standing and reaching out to help me up.

  “But our ice cream,” I said.

  “It’ll keep,” he said, nuzzling my cheek.

  I began to feel a rumble on my wrist. I thought it was just an email and was going to ignore it, but the vibrating continued, and when I looked at the watch face I saw that it was a phone call and it was coming from my house.

  “I have to take this,” I said, sensing that something was wrong. I hit the ACCEPT button.

  My mother’s voice sounded tinny coming out of the watch. I didn’t hear her at first, and she repeated the message.

  “Come home now. The cops are here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Two cop cars and a black Crown Victoria were parked in front of my house. Mason had barely pulled into the driveway when I got out and ran across the front yard. I opened the front door and left it ajar for Mason.

  My mother had somehow managed to keep them corralled and let out a sigh of relief when I came in. I screeched to a stop when I saw who was there. It wasn’t so much the four uniformed officers as much as who was with them.

  “Here’s Molly. You can talk to her.” My mother turned to me. “We put Felix and Cosmo outside, and the cats are hiding somewhere.”

  Detective Heather stepped forward and showed me some papers. “We have a warrant to search this property,” she said in a total cop voice without the slightest hint that she knew me.

  She looked exquisite as usual, dressed in a dark suit with a pencil skirt and fashionable shoes. Her hair was dark blonde now and done in a severe bun, which made her look more formidable than when she’d worn her hair loose around her shoulders. I glanced at her high heels, wondering what she’d do if I grabbed the papers and made a run for it.

  By then, Mason had come in. He’d lost the Mr. Fun look and was all serious business as he introduced himself and demanded to see the search warrant.

  Heather gave my outfit the once-over. “How convenient to be on a date with your lawyer.”

  She’d always had the hots for Barry and they had gone out for a while. I knew she somehow blamed me for them never having a happily-ever-after. I would have thought it might take a little heat off if she thought I was involved with someone else, but she still glared at me.

  “You know what we’re after. Why not make it easy on all of us and show us where it is?”

  I did my best clueless impression and said I didn’t know what she was talking about. But of course I did. She must have seen the scarf during Adele’s rap at the police station, though I wasn’t sure how she’d come here looking for it. And, honestly, had she really gotten a judge to give her a search warrant for a scarf?

  “Have it your way. I have to warn you we’re going to make a mess,” she said as she took my purse and handed it to one of the uniforms and demanded to know if my car keys were in it. She sent one of the other officers to my bedroom.

  “Wait,” I said. “One of my dogs is in there. She’s a terrier, but she won’t bother you. Please don’t bother her either.”

  The cop needed to be reassured a number of times before he finally followed Detective Heather’s order. She took the two other officers down the hall that led to the three other bedrooms.

  “Can’t you stop them?” I said to Mason. “Some habeas corpus thing.”

  “I wish I could, but I can’t. They have a warrant. But I’ll help you clean up,” Mason said, giving my arm a reassuring squeeze.

  One of the uniforms hustled us into the living room. My father and Bunny were huddled on the couch. I was actually glad to see that Samuel wasn’t there. Did I really want him to see his mother led out in handcuffs when Detective Heather found the offending scarf? Not that I wanted my parents to see it either.

  Now I regretted my hiding-it-in-plain-sight idea, and I expected her to come in triumphantly waving it any moment. But
when she didn’t, I figured she was holding off until her searchers had made the biggest mess possible.

  “What could they be looking for?” my mother said. “This has to be some kind of mistake.”

  “You’re not a drug kingpin or something?” my father said as a joke. The uniform glared at all of us.

  In the midst of my concerns about the date with Mason, I had forgotten all about the events of the morning and hadn’t mentioned anything about the scarf, but he was intuitive enough to pick up on the fact that I knew what Detective Heather was looking for. He took my hand and told me not to worry.

  The longer it took, the more my stomach churned. I was almost relieved when Detective Heather and her crew finally came into the living room. I pushed my hands behind my back, as if it would make a difference.

  “You’re going down,” she said. “Detective Greenberg might have looked the other way, but not me. I don’t know what you did with that scarf. But I saw it today, and I might not crochet, but I knit and I know about yarn. You might have bamboozled Barry, telling him it was common yarn, but I know the yarn those flowers were made out of has been discontinued for years, making it not so common after all. If the fibers fit, we can convict. I know you were there and I’m going to prove it, and then—” She made a gesture like slapping on handcuffs.

  My knees were ready to buckle by the time she left, but even so I rushed into the room where I kept all my yarn and looked at the scarf hanger I’d hung on the door. The scarf wasn’t there.

  Just then, I heard the kitchen door open. There was the sound of yipping dogs and voices calling out, “Pizza’s here.”

  I went into the kitchen as Samuel and Lana were setting their stack of boxes down on the counter. My eye went right to my mother’s singing partner’s neck.