Hooked on Murder: A Crochet Mystery cm-1 Read online

  But Ellen was against it from the start. She claimed Charlie'sclients were calling her and had no confidence in me. I always wondered whether it was the other way around-- like, maybe she had called them and talked me down.

  After less than a month, Ellen had dropped a check on my desk and said I could take it and get on with my life, or we could bring in lawyers. She insisted that buying me out was doing me a big favor. Charlie's death was still too raw for me to have the energy to fight her, so, I took the check. Before I had even cleaned out my desk, Natalie Shaw arrived.She wasn't going to be a partner, just an associate, which really meant doing all the work while Ellen got the glory. The firm was still called Pink Sheridan, but all the Pinks had left the building.

  I glanced at the crochet three again and debated what to do. True, it had been Mrs. Shedd who had invited them to move their meetings here, and they'd hardly needed me for the few weeks they'd been coming. But now that they were Ellenless, everything had changed, and I felt they were my responsibility. They were just sitting there with their balls of yarn and metal hooks lying idly on the table.

  "Ladies, how are you doing?" I said, walking up to the group.

  "Pink, I've got it covered," Adele said, giving me a look of dismissal. I tried not to clench my teeth at her calling me by my last name. She knew I hated it, which was why she did it. But why show her that it worked?

  Adele and I'd had a problem from day one. She had been hoping to get promoted to my job, but when Mrs. Shedd hired me instead, Adele hadn't taken it well. Mrs. Shedd had given her the children's department and story time as conciliation, but it had just annoyed her. Adele wasn't a kid person to begin with, and the idea of having to read stories and be friendly was a real stretch for her.

  I ignored her comment and glanced at the other two women. I recognized both of them. Sheila Altman worked as a receptionist at the gym down the street, and it was hard to miss CeeCee Collins's hair. It was that reddish-blondish,slightly acrylic-looking color that never occurred naturally.

  "It's just horrible about Ellen. She must have interruptedthe burglar," I said, shaking my head for emphasis. Adele gave me a dirty look when she realized I wasn't leaving.

  Sheila Altman glanced up, the line between her eyebrowssqueezed in tension. "They've already discounted the burglary thing. It was just a setup to make it look like that's what it was." She was drumming her fingers at an amazingly fast cadence on the table. No surprise, really. Sheila had a definite problem with her nerves. She came to every signing we had that featured a book with anything to do with de-stressing, dealing with anxiety, or learning relaxationtechniques. None of them seemed to help. But, then, she had a lot on her plate.

  We'd first met at the Dr. Wheel's Guide to Total Calm signing. I'd been giving out samples of chamomile tea, and when Sheila came back for seconds, she opened up and told me her story. Apparently the grandmother who brought her up had recently died and now Sheila felt adrift. She had a boyfriend, and seemed to be hoping for some kind of happily-ever-after with him, though it didn't sound as though it was going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime,she was juggling her job at the gym with classes in wardrobe design. Her dream was a career at one of the film studios as a costume designer. All she could afford was a rented room in a house in Reseda. It came with kitchen privileges, but as part of the rent she had to babysit the owner's kids on weekends.

  Sheila seemed to worry about everything, though, I gathered, mostly about not being good enough at things. And even when I told her that we all worried about that, it didn't help. Something about her seemed like a rubber band that had been pulled too tight and any second could snap.

  "How do you know they've discounted the idea of a burglar?" I asked, talking in time to her finger drumming. It was making me nervous.

  "One of the gym members' sister's husband's sister works in the West Valley Division of the police department. Everybody was interested in what happened. It kind of busts their image of living in a safe area when burglars go around offing people who get in the way of their business. The women were all relieved to hear it was a setup." Sheila paused a beat. Thank heavens, she didn't seem to be able to drum and talk at the same time and had finally let her fingersgo still. "Supposedly Ellen was strangled some kind of weird way." She looked at me. "I can't believe you don't know, since you were at the scene of the crime and all."

  "You know, dear, you looked pretty washed-out on television," CeeCee Collins said, giving me a disparaging glance. Her real name was Connie Collins, but everybody knew her as CeeCee. Easily recognized, she had been on television for years. She had starred in two sitcoms, then become part of ensemble casts on several long-running dramas.

  Lately she seemed to be doing only guest shots where she played somebody's eccentric great-aunt or something, and commercial-spokesperson things. She claimed the spokesperson jobs were just for fun.

  "Of course the lighting in the police car had way too much shadow," CeeCee continued. "I always wear this specialmakeup when I think I might end up on TV. You know, when you go to an award show or a premiere. It really does the trick. It doesn't have that thick orange look in person like so much of the stage stuff does, but it keeps you from looking pasty. I'll give you the name of it, if you'd like."

  I thanked CeeCee but told her I didn't intend to make showing up on the news a regular occurrence. Did she honestlythink I cared whether I looked pasty? To my thinking, if I hadn't looked bad, something definitely would have been wrong.

  "What exactly were you doing there?" CeeCee asked. She motioned to the other two. "We really should begin. Ellen would want us to." She turned back to me and waited for my answer. I rolled my eyes and repeated the Good Samaritan story for the millionth time as they picked up their tools.

  "Pink, we don't need you here." Adele glared, but I didn't move.

  A thought crossed my mind as CeeCee began working her hook. She was a client of Pink Sheridan.

  "This is a double whammy for you. You lost a group leader and a publicist," I said, touching her arm.

  CeeCee's bright expression dampened, and she put her head down. "Yes, Ellen's been handling my publicity for years. I don't know what I'm going to do without her."

  Her hook stopped in midstitch for a moment, as she appearedto blink back a tear. Then she swallowed and resumed by taking some black yarn and joining it to her work. Her dexterity was amazing. In the blink of an eye she had made a border of black stitches around a square with a blue and green pattern. It seemed almost automatic. She did the last stitch and put the square on a pile of similar ones. All had black borders and the same pattern of stitches and open spaces.

  Adele was working on some kind of a square, too. But hers was twice as large and also had a black border. The insidewas purple, and she was attaching a loopy pink flower. Funny how whoever you are shows up in everything you do. Adele's square was like her. She was wearing a flouncy full skirt with a pink, yellow and lavender design. On top, she had a hot pink camp shirt. Her voice had a look-at-me quality, too. It carried across the store even if there were all kinds of conversations going on. Of course, her voice was good for story time. Everybody could always hear her.

  Sheila had a strip of royal blue stitches in one hand and a crochet hook in the other. She seemed to be struggling, and her knuckles were white. Whatever she was making, it didn't seem to be going well. Her face was squeezed in frustration as she tried to force the hook into the yarn.

  "Dear, your stitches are too tight again," CeeCee said in her musical, sugary voice. She shook her head and reached out to touch Sheila's work.

  Sheila pulled it in close. "I can do it myself."

  "I was just trying to help." CeeCee looked from Sheila to me. "Ellen used to take her work and help her straighten it out."

  "She didn't help me. She just did it for me. And I hated it," Sheila said, cradling her work protectively. "It made me even more nervous. She'd be hovering over me, saying I worked too slow, and then she'd just snatch it away." Sheila's breath seemed uneven as she tried harder to force the hook into the line of stitches.

  "What are you making?" I said, hoping to lighten her tension. I made sure to keep my distance so she wouldn't think I was going to make a grab for her work. The way she was holding that hook, even with its round ends, I had a feeling she might do some kind of damage if I did.

  She looked up at me, her eyebrows squeezed together with worry, and held up a picture with a lot of directions under it. It showed a square with an intricate lacy pattern that to my noncrocheting eyes appeared impossible to make.

  "Nice," I said in my best calm voice. Sheila's face lit up with my tidbit of praise. Adele handed her a smaller hook and suggested she try it.

  "Take some deep breaths, dear," CeeCee said in an encouragingvoice. "We can't afford to have you freak out now. We have a deadline." She watched as Sheila easily poked it into the line of royal blue stitches.

  "Now, make nice loose stitches." CeeCee said it slowly and stretched the word loose out as Sheila looped the yarn to CeeCee's rhythm. Even I could appreciate the looseness of the first stitch she produced with CeeCee's prompting. Sheila beamed with pride and started to pick up speed again, but CeeCee stopped her. She repeated the whole loose thing again, and Sheila produced another loose stitch. CeeCee kept pacing Sheila until she had picked up the rhythm on her own.

  "Pink, it's under control. Why are you still here?" Adele snapped.

  "It's my job to make sure things go smoothly, and now with Ellen . . ."

  "You can't lead the group. You don't even know how to crochet." There was definite triumph in Adele's voice.

  "Actually, I should lead the group," CeeCee said. She gestured toward the pile of black-edged multicolored squares on the table next to her. "I do have a
few more done than you." She glanced at the two large squares with loopy flowers in the middle. "And more experience. I learned how to crochet during all the waiting on my first show. You probably remember it--The CeeCee Collins Show." She did a few minutes on how they knew how to name a show in the old days. None of this Friends or Entouragebusiness. They went right for the name of the person who pulled in the audience. CeeCee finished by making sure we all realized her show was still on the Classic Channel;then she got back to the point. "Adele, dear, I know you mean well, but I was really so much better at helping Sheila."

  Adele got a huffy look. "I am the one who gave her the smaller hook so she could get out of the too-tight-stitch trap."

  Were they honestly arguing over who was going to be the leader of the three of them? Talk about all chiefs and no Indians.

  Meanwhile, immune to their fighting over who helped her the most, Sheila had settled into a steady rhythm of looping the yarn around the hook and pulling it through. Even yarn-challenged I could tell she was making loose, even stitches.

  CeeCee and Adele seemed to have come to some kind of truce. I suspected that each of them thought they had convinced the other they were in charge, and they had gone back to crocheting. CeeCee took some red yarn and made a little tail of stitches, then joined the ends, forming a circle. From there, she began making stitches around the circle. It was fascinating to watch the birth of a new square. She was like a machine and barely seemed to look at what she was doing.

  "What's with all the squares?" I asked. All three of them turned toward me, apparently surprised that I was still there.

  Adele rushed to speak first. "I can't believe you don't know. Being that you're the event coordinator and community-relations person." The edge in her voice grated on me. "The whole point of the group is that we make things for charity."

  "Yes, dear," CeeCee interrupted. "Ellen came up with the idea of us making an afghan with all different squares. The only common thread is that they are all edged in black. She donated it in advance to a charity she has"--CeeCee stopped and swallowed--"had as a pro bono client. You've probably heard about it: Hearts and Barks."

  Of course I had, and I'd seen the signs for their upcomingfair being held on the back lot of Western Studios, over in the eastern part of the Valley.

  Sheila took out a brochure that described the services Hearts and Barks offered.

  "I had no idea," I said after reading how Ruth Klinger had been faced with choosing between her meds and keepingher dog, Fluffy, until Hearts and Barks had come to her rescue. "How wonderful that they not only helped with Fluffy's vet bills, but her day-to-day food as well." There was a picture of Ruth hugging Fluffy. She looked so happy and relieved, I couldn't help but tear up.

  "Even though it's called Hearts and Barks, they help cats, too," CeeCee offered. "They do a lot of wonderful things, like sponsoring spaying and neutering clinics."

  "They're going to sell our afghan at the silent auction," Sheila added.

  "Isn't that four weeks from Saturday?" I asked, looking at the paltry supply of finished pieces.

  "It's actually three weeks," Adele said.

  CeeCee pulled out a sheet torn from a magazine that showed a large throw made out of what she called granny squares. She explained that theirs was going to be different.Instead of all the squares having the same pattern of stitches, they were making all different kinds of squares, and the result would look more like a crazy quilt. Since Adele's were clearly larger, I asked how they were going to fit in.

  "They may be larger, but they're proportionate. My squares are going to make up the center." Adele picked up her finished square, laid it in the center of the table and demonstrated how hers were going to be arranged with all the other smaller squares around them.

  "Are you sure the three of you can manage all those squares in that amount of time?"

  "Ellen made a lot . . . and there's four of us," CeeCee said, gesturing toward a woman approaching the table. "This is Meredith."

  I'd seen her across the store but never met her. I introducedmyself. She appeared to be in her late twenties and was the youngest in the group. Her long, light brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she wore loose white cotton pants, a long top and an amethyst necklace.

  Sheila set down her work for a moment and stretched. She acknowledged Meredith with a somber nod.

  "It seems so strange without Ellen," Meredith said, taking out some yarn and hooks. "I just can't believe she's gone." After Meredith finished laying out her work, she looked towardthe cafe. "I'm going to get an herb tea. Anybody else want something?" The other women shook their heads, and she left to get her drink.

  "Meredith used to be a masseuse at the gym," Sheila said, moving back to the bigger hook.

  "Until Ellen found her," CeeCee offered. "Meredith was already doing this special massage she developed. Ellen showed her how to market herself and introduced her to a lot of people and . . ."

  "She got all these big-deal show-business types for clients." Sheila sounded impressed. "I've had her massages,and they're really great."

  I knew Sheila had tried everything to relax, so her endorsementmeant something. CeeCee explained Meredith'sunique hook: She took her massage chair and special aromatic oil to the exec's office. Her clients had to remove very little clothing and barely even had to stop working. "She calls her massages 'Refresh, Relax, Renew.' And that's how her clients feel when she's finished," CeeCee said.

  It sounded good to me.

  "Has anyone talked to poor Lawrence?" CeeCee asked. Everyone at the table shook their heads.

  Hmm, poor Lawrence indeed. He was Ellen's husband of a million years. When Charlie was alive, we'd been on the regular circuit of award shows and assorted events and run into him often. He was always Lawrence, never Larry. He and Ellen were a real power couple. She had the PR business and he was a talent manager who'd recently added TV producer to his title.

  For years, Lawrence had managed a stable of musiciansand comedians, all recognizable but not superstars. Then Jed Frank, a singer-songwriter client of his, ended up with a TV show, and Lawrence became a producer. The show was a monster hit, and it had fueled Jed's music careeras well. Suddenly Lawrence was at the top of the heap. Too bad he didn't have as much charm as he had power.

  Meredith returned with her tea and settled in to crocheting.

  "You're doing Ellen's favorite," Adele said, looking at Meredith's square. It was certainly beautiful. The center resembled a scarlet flower, and around it were airy white stitches. Meredith was just adding the black border.

  They all fell silent as their hooks moved through the strands of yarn.

  Suddenly I felt like an outsider. Adele picked up on it and glanced up at me.

  "Told you it was under control."

  I hated to admit it, but she was right. There was nothing for me to do. I looked back as I walked away from the table. Sheila had gotten into a rhythm of crocheting. She was mouthing the word loose, stretching it out with each stitch as CeeCee had done. Her whole demeanor said calm, something I'd never seen in her before. Suddenly I had an idea. If crocheting could relax a jumble of nerves like Sheila, maybe it could help me with my caramel corn problem.Instinctively I pulled at the waistband of my black slacks, willing them to be looser.

  There was just one major problem. I didn't know how to crochet. I could ask Adele. A possible lesson played over in my mind. Adele, with a superior smile, would seize the opportunityto lord her hook prowess over me. She'd hover over me, correcting my every wrong move, which I would undoubtedly make lots of, and do her best to make me feel as though I had two left hands.

  No way.

  A figure in a dark suit, with white-blond hair, slipped into my peripheral vision. My tension level kicked up a notch, and I was suddenly hungry for caramel corn.

  "Mrs. Pink, may I speak to you?"

  As if I had a choice.

  "Detective Hea--Gilmore," I said, catching myself in time. Calling her Detective Heather sounded too much like calling her Detective Barbie Doll, and would endear me to her even less. I lied and said it was nice to see her. Glancingback at the table of yarn ladies, I noticed that all four sets of eyes were locked on me.