If Hooks Could Kill Page 4

  Was it my imagination or did Barry’s expression falter. “I don’t have an exact date. I’m still getting physical therapy and I’m not feeling ready to tackle all those stairs.” As if to make his point, he moved his leg and seemed to feel a twinge of pain. “But if we’ve overstayed our welcome, I’ll try to make some other arrangements.”

  “No, no. Stay until you can run up and down the stairs,” I said. I wanted him to go, but at the same time I didn’t want to push him out while he was still healing. What difference did a little more time make, anyway? I drained my cup and prepared to make my exit.

  Before I could say anything along the lines of good night, Barry laid the binder he’d been carrying under his arm on the table. “It’s the murder book for one of the old cases I’m working on.” He’d never even mentioned a murder book before, let alone put one in front of me. We both stared at it for a moment before he invited me to have a look.

  I’d become a bit of an amateur sleuth and happened on a number of bodies, but I wasn’t prepared for the photos. I guess I’d been lucky, the bodies I’d encountered hadn’t been that gory. I gasped at the photo of a man’s body sprawled in a pool of blood.

  “That’s from a murder five years ago. There were no suspects and it seemed like a home-invasion robbery gone bad. The guy worked at a liquor store. He did a lot of deliveries. The girlfriend said he didn’t have any enemies, and that all the customers liked him and sometimes invited him to join the events he’d delivered for.”

  Part of me wanted to close the book and go inside. But I couldn’t stop looking at the photograph. I noticed a band of skin on his wrist that was lighter than the rest of it. “It looks like they got his watch,” I said.

  Barry smiled. “Very good, babe, I mean, Molly. The girlfriend said he’d recently gotten a fancy watch. She wasn’t very good about listing what was missing. She thought some household goods had also been taken. The only thing she did say was that something had happened to change things for the guy. He had never given her details, just that he’d recently had some kind of uptick in his life. And that he’d also recently purchased a gun.” I gazed at the picture again and noticed something odd on the carpet. It looked like a plastic juice bottle, but there was black tape around the mouth and the bottom seemed to be missing. There was a plastic number next to it, I knew they used to mark evidence. I asked Barry about it.

  “The original notes described it as a homemade silencer,” he said. I knew very little about guns and even less about a silencer. Barry was only too happy to answer when I asked about them.

  “The obvious point is to muffle the sound of the gunshot. The homemade ones I’ve seen were made of two-liter plastic bottles filled with Styrofoam peanuts that were taped onto the end of the guns. It looks like this one was improvised at the last minute from the victim’s own bottle of juice.” He pointed to the mouth of the bottle and said the notes said they’d swabbed it for DNA and it had matched the victim’s. “The original investigators thought, judging by the bullets, that he’d been shot with his own gun, though they never found it.”

  I’d gotten so involved with the murder book and hearing what a silencer was, I’d forgotten I was trying to leave. Finally I set the binder back on the table and picked up my mug. “I better go in,” I said, getting up.

  “Oh,” he said. “I was going to tell you about the other case I’m working on.” I stopped in my tracks. I wanted to go, but I was curious about the other case. Barry had never shared like this before. And I liked being complimented on my sleuthing skills for noticing the missing watch. I sat back down. What harm could there be from spending a few more minutes with him?

  “Are there pictures?” I asked sliding back into my chair as I gazed at the binder.

  “I didn’t bring that binder home with me,” he said. “I’ll just have to tell you about it with no visual aids.” He started to tell me the details. The big difference with this case was the detectives who worked the case were sure who did it. The victim was a wealthy man who lived in a gated community in Chatsworth. He was single, entertained often and liked to surround himself with low-level celebrities. He’d been hit on the head with a large geode. This particular one had amethyst crystals inside, not that it mattered. When it had first been investigated, the detectives had found out that the victim had recently accused the housekeeper of taking pieces of jewelry and collectibles, one item at a time. Though she’d denied it, he had fired her. “It appears she came back, killed him and then took a bunch of collectibles and some valuable decorative items. The problem was, the detectives couldn’t get enough evidence to make a case against her, and no matter how they tried, she wouldn’t confess. And none of the stolen items ever surfaced.”

  Barry seemed more animated than I’d seen him in a long time. “I’m going to have another go at the housekeeper. After all this time, she won’t be expecting it.” I nodded to show I was listening, though I wanted to make my getaway. I made a move to get up, but Barry continued talking. “I found out some things the earlier guys missed. It seems the liquor store guy delivered to the other victim’s house and there’s something similar about the items taken.”

  I heard the clank of the gate by the driveway and a moment later my son Samuel came through the yard. He was carrying a guitar case and looked happy. When he saw Barry and me sitting together with the binder open to a grisly picture, his smiled faded. To cover the awkward pause I asked him about his evening.

  “I had a gig up at the country club. All sixties music for a wedding anniversary,” he said taking off his sports jacket. Samuel’s move back home was only supposed to be temporary, too, but recently he’d gotten his hours cut on his barista job and his night gigs as a musician were undependable, so I didn’t think he was going to be moving out anytime soon. He tucked the jacket under his arm and focused in on me.

  “Tell me you didn’t tackle some TV actor with a fake gun,” Samuel said. When I looked embarrassed and made a little nod toward Barry, trying to tell my son that Barry didn’t know and I wanted to keep it that way, Samuel rolled his eyes and he shook his head with disbelief.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Only you would have been enticed by an offer to see a murder book,” Dinah said with a laugh. We’d met for breakfast at the Le Grande Fromage, the French café down the street from the bookstore, and I’d told her, no strike that, more like confessed, about the cup of tea with Barry.

  “I just want him to go home so I can get my stuff back from the storage unit and have my crochet room again,” I said. “It’s too confusing with him there. I’m angry at him for being so stubborn. If I wouldn’t marry him, we couldn’t even be friends? What kind of logic is that? I should never have offered to let him stay at my house.”

  “It sounds like he wants to be friends now,” Dinah said.

  “No, I think he appreciates that I let them live at my place and I think he was bored last night and had no one to talk to. Remember, he’s used to keeping crazy hours. He told me he’s working nine to five now.”

  “Did you tell him about the incident on the L.A. 911 shoot?” Dinah asked as one of the counter people brought over our food. I had a red eye and one of their freshly made cheese croissants. Dinah had ordered café au lait and a plain croissant. As usual, the airy place, with its round tables and black-and-white-checkered floor, was busy, and there was a line of people at the counter waiting to place their orders.

  “No. I just left a big silence after Samuel’s comment,” I said picking up the red eye and checking to see if it was too hot to drink. “Then I rushed inside and left Barry sitting under the stars.” The coffee drink needed a few minutes to cool, so I broke off a piece of the cheese croissant. “I suppose having the tea was okay. We just talked about the cases he’s working on. It wasn’t like it was anything personal. I’m just as ready to shut the door on our relationship as he is. Once he moves home, that’s it, we’re done.”

  “You had a busy night. Dinner with Mason first. How’s that goin
g?” Dinah simultaneously poured steamed milk and hot coffee into her mug. I told her about Mason’s problems with his daughter’s wedding. “But did he say anything about inviting you?”

  I made a face. “No.” I tried the coffee again and took a small sip. I started to defend Mason saying he had a lot on his plate, but Dinah interrupted me.

  “You know you could just tell him you want to be invited.”

  “I want him to do it on his own.” I explained what he’d said about taking baby steps. “At least, he’s trying.”

  “I’m just curious,” Dinah began. “You said Barry had a lot of people visiting him while he’s been staying at your place. Was Detective Heather one of them?” Heather Gilmore was a homicide detective and if she was aiming for perfect, she was succeeding. She was smart, beautiful and I heard she was great with a gun. She’d always had an eye on Barry.

  “I don’t know. There were all kinds of people coming and going—home health care workers, his cop friends, pizza delivery guys. I think he even got flowers. It’s not my business anyway.” I pulled off another piece of my roll.

  A dark-haired man with a quick gait came into the café and went directly to the counter. He grabbed a coffee, and as he headed back toward the door I caught sight of his face and recognized the sharp features of Kelly’s husband, Dan. I didn’t really know him, other than he shopped at the bookstore and liked spy novels, but when he looked in my direction, I said hello.

  “The bookstore lady,” he said, setting his cup on our table as he checked to make sure the top was secure on his coffee. “And Kelly does some kind of activity with you, right?” He seemed a little overly cheery. The kind of cheery that grated on your nerves in the morning. I mentioned the crochet group and introduced Dinah. He picked up his coffee and seemed about to go, but then set it down again. “I want to run a few names past you. I’d like to get input from the locals. I’m not so sure Hollar for a Dollar is the best name for my store. I could feel Dinah twitching in her seat. It bugged her no end that he had misspelled hollar so it rhymed with dollar. Any day now she was sure some hapless freshmen in her English class would spell holler with an a and use the store as the reason why.

  “What do you think of The Dollar Den or Dollars to Donuts?” Before we could answer he went into an explanation. This store was his chance to tweak the concept before he turned them into a chain or franchised them. He was bright-eyed and enthusiastic and said something like every journey starts with a single step or in his case it was a chain or franchise starting with a single store. “Think about the names and come into the store when you’ve made up your mind. I’m putting a box in the front where you can vote for one of them. Before I even count the votes, I’m going to do a drawing. The winner gets a whole year of shopping at my store, whichever name wins.”

  “How about calling it More Bang for Your Buck?” Dinah said. “And all spelled the traditional way.” Dan’s face brightened even more if that was possible.

  “That’s it. I don’t even need to have a contest. Your idea says it all.” He hugged Dinah and then took one of our napkins and scribbled the name on it. “When you come in, you’re getting the prize. A whole year of shopping. We’ve got Paul Noman’s products, Gray Pooponit mustard, and Conniption dairy products. Just before he left, he pulled out a couple of coupons and gave them to me as a consolation prize.

  He left a whirlwind in his wake as he rushed out the door.

  When we finished our meal, we headed up the street to Shedd & Royal. My start time wasn’t until later in the day, but the Tarzana Hookers were having an official gathering in the morning. Dinah and I walked through the store to the yarn area. Almost everybody was already there and the table was covered with a colorful mélange of yarn and projects.

  Dinah and I took seats next to Eduardo and started to pull out our projects. Even though I’d been crocheting with Eduardo Linnares for a long time, I was still amazed to see how this former cover model with huge hands could work a small steel hook with such precision.

  He nodded a greeting to us, while I admired his work. Eduardo could crochet with any kind of yarn, but he preferred working with thread. He’d learned Irish crochet from his Irish grandmother and it was natural for him. He laid the white lacy bookmark in progress on the table and stretched.

  Rhoda Klein eyed him from across the table. She was a real no-nonsense sort of person. Her hair was brown and short and she didn’t wear makeup or trendy clothes. Loose pants and loose tops in neutral shades gave her a rather cylindrical shape. It was hard to judge her age, and I was too polite to ask, but I’d guess she was somewhere in her forties, though she was the type who looked older when she was young and ageless when she got older.

  “I don’t think the bookmarks are worth all that effort. Not enough perceived value. People want to buy something they can wear,” she said. She held up a summer weight shawl she was working on. She was using a thin cotton yarn and a big hook, which gave the shawl a lacy look and let lots of air through.

  “Where’s Sheila?” Rhoda asked. CeeCee said Sheila hadn’t been able to get away from the store down the street where she worked.

  Elise was sitting next to Rhoda. The two of them couldn’t have seemed more different. Elise was slight with a frizzle of brown curls. I always felt there was something a little scattered about her. Her tiny features and bright eyes went perfectly with her wispy, birdlike voice.

  “But a shawl takes much longer to make. Eduardo turns out those bookmarks in no time,” Elise chirped. She glanced at Eduardo’s work. “I bet you could make some of those vampire style.” Elise was still hung up on Anthony, the vampire who crocheted and was featured in a series of books and now a movie, and everything she made was what she called “vampire style.” It meant that she used black and white yarn, with a touch of red. And what she called the vampire stitch, which was really a half double crochet, but looked a little like a fang. Thanks to her obsession, Elise had taken to dressing vampire style, too, which meant all she wore was black, white and red. Eduardo just smiled and went back to his bookmark.

  CeeCee Collins sat at the head of the table. She was the official leader of the group, no matter what Adele said. CeeCee was our resident celebrity and was far more done up than the rest of us. Her mink brown hair was perfectly colored and styled. She’d gone from being referred to as a veteran actress, which was a nice way of saying over with, to being referred to as the comeback kid. It had started when she got the hosting job of Making Amends, a reality show about righting old wrongs, but the real change came when she was cast in the crocheting vampire movie Caught by a Kiss. The fact that there was Oscar buzz about her performance had put her back into the spotlight.

  “What do you think of this look,” she said, standing up so we could see the mint green linen pants and long white tunic. “This new stylist has a pallet of colors for me she calls pastels, but I call them candy colors. When I looked in my closet it was like looking at a box of those French pastel mint patties.”

  Nobody said anything, which I think was based on the idea if you can’t say something nice . . . Adele was a latecomer to the group and came in as we were all looking at CeeCee’s clothes.

  “What happened to you?” Adele said as her eyes moved up and down CeeCee’s outfit. “You look like somebody tried to erase the color of your pants.” Adele twirled for all of us. “Now this is green.” She wore a long dress with slits up past her knees. I would have called the color grass stain. She’d added a fuchsia-colored crocheted belt that hung low around her hips with a matching headband. Adele stopped the modeling move and looked up and down the table. She pursed her lips when her gaze settled on the empty chair.

  “Promised she’d come, did she,” Adele said, putting her hand on her hip. “I don’t think so. No matter what Kelly said, I don’t believe she has any pieces to give us for the Jungle Days Fair. I’m telling you, she’s a crochet pretender.”

  “Dear, sit down,” CeeCee said. “I think you’re being a little
harsh about Kelly. Though I am getting a little concerned she might be a flake, I would like to see what she’s got. We just have a few weeks before the fair. And since it’s a Tarzana fair and we’re the Tarzana Hookers, we want our booth to make us look good.”

  Dinah told the group what she knew about Kelly and all the things she had going on.

  “I’m going over there after the meeting,” Adele said. “And I’m not leaving with empty promises. Either she hands over something she’s crocheted, or I say we banish her from the group.”

  CeeCee gave me a worried look. “Molly, we don’t want Adele going there alone, do we? Dinah just lives down the street. The two of you could accompany Adele.” CeeCee’s voice sounded cordial, but her meaning was clear. No way was Adele going to be allowed to go alone.

  “How about the three musketeers going there together,” I said. Adele had come up with that title for us a while ago.

  “Pink, you’re so right. It would be much more powerful if I have backup when I pin her against the wall.”

  * * *

  “It’s only some crocheted items for a street fair,” Dinah said, trying to get some reality going in Adele’s mind. Good luck on that one. The three of us walked outside. The sun had moved up in the sky and was doing away with the last of the cool morning as we went around the corner.

  Whoever had planned this area, didn’t like grid-pattern streets. Each of the streets had a curve. I suppose the planner thought it made the area more interesting. The street that went down from Ventura, past Dinah’s house and on to the production area had an S curve and we could only see the beginning of the production equipment. Kelly’s street cut in just before Dinah’s house and curved around before running parallel.

  Adele was trying to walk ahead of us, but when she saw Eric sitting astride his motorcycle in the middle of the street, making sure no traffic tried to pass, she made a detour. Despite the heat, his uniform appeared meticulous. Every strand of his short, wavy brown hair was in place. Up ahead, two actors stood in the street as a car drove slowly toward them. The lights and reflectors were positioned around them, and the camera and a bunch of people were in the middle of the street. The caravan of trucks had been moved back and were blocked from view by the curve of the street further up.