If Hooks Could Kill

CHAPTER 10


“Oh, dear,” CeeCee said in a distressed voice as she took her seat at the head of the worktable in the bookstore’s yarn department. She had arrived late and Sheila, Rhoda, Elise, Eduardo, Dinah and I were already working on our crochet projects. We all followed CeeCee’s gaze to see what had inspired her comment. Detective Heather and a uniform had just come into the bookstore.

“I’m afraid she’s looking at you, Molly,” CeeCee said. “That woman is relentless.” CeeCee knew that firsthand from some past dealings she’d had with the attractive homicide detective.

“Try to ignore her,” Elise said in her wispy voice. The small woman waved her hook at me to try to divert my attention as if not looking at the detective would make me invisible. Sure.

Dinah leaned in to me. “You could tell her you know North Adams,” she said with a smile. My friend had heard all about my weird encounter with the TV star and was as curious as I was about the whole episode. But my son Peter had simply refused to answer any questions.

A few days had passed since Kelly’s murder. The cops had finished processing the crime scene and had released the Donahue house, and allowed the L.A. 911 production to get back to work. Though the delay had caused the production people to redo their shooting schedule. Under the circumstances, they’d decided to wait until after the funeral to shoot the scene in the Donahue’s backyard. I hated to admit it, but all the information had come from Adele or as she had anointed herself—the new sleuth on the block. She insisted she’d been offering important insights on the case to her motor cop boyfriend who was still working security on the set. She was sure he’d been passing them on to the right people.

Not looking at Detective Heather didn’t work and a few moments later I sensed someone standing next to my chair. “Mrs. Pink, I wonder if I could speak to you,” she said in her formal police voice. Calling me Mrs. Pink bordered on the ridiculous. How many times had she questioned me? How many times had I ended up actually helping her? How many times had she hoped Barry would dump me and choose her? Well, she had a better shot at that part now. I was one hundred percent out of the way, even if he was still living at my house.

I got up from the table and we walked over to the corner. Detective Heather was a knitter, a very good knitter—I’d seen a pair of socks she’d made for Barry. Actually I’d even sold her the yarn. She implied that the real way to a man’s heart was through his feet. As I stopped next to a bin of some new novelty yarn we’d gotten in, I began to wonder about Barry’s feet and what they were wearing. I hadn’t been paying any attention to them other than to notice when his cast came off his left leg. Had she knitted him a whole wardrobe of socks? Were they caressing his feet even as he sat there drinking tea and telling me about his cold cases?

I forced the thought from my mind. Barry and I were done, so what he wore on his feet was no concern of mine. Once he left, I’d never think about it again.

Detective Heather noticed the novelty yarn and picked up a skein that was in various shades of blue. It looked like a flat strip, but when you pulled it open and knitted along the edge you ended up with tiers of ruffles. When I explained what it was, she dropped it like it had cooties. “Ruffles and a revolver just don’t go,” she said.

“So, what do you want to know?” I asked. I just wanted to be done with the questions and get back to the group.

She seemed to deflate a little at my question. It probably caught her off guard. I’m sure she was hoping I’d feel intimidated, but after all the times I’d been questioned by her, I had gotten a bit of a thick skin.

“Just tell me about the other morning at the Donahue house.” Detective Heather had taken out her pad and pen.

I figured why play games? Who knew what Adele had told Eric, who in turn had told Heather. I just gave her the whole story, explaining that Kelly had joined the Hookers, not that there was anything really official about it. All she had to do was give her information to CeeCee for our roster and she was in. Kelly had been all enthusiastic about the group and wanted to make things for our table at the Jungle Days Fair. But then she hadn’t come to the regular gatherings and nobody had seen any real examples of her work.

“We just went over there to see if we could count on her donations,” I said.

“And?” Detective Heather said.

“She gave us some pieces and we left,” I said hoping it would be the end of it. But Detective Heather jumped right into asking about Kelly’s husband Dan. Did I know if he was having money troubles with his store? Did they get along? Did he have an insurance policy on her? Poor guy, I wondered if he knew that Detective Heather was doing her best to close in on him.

After telling her that I didn’t know anything about his finances, other than I wondered if there really was a market for Suckers jam, even if it was only a dollar a jar, I looked her in the eye. “Have you considered he might not be the guy?” I brought up the robbery scenario and Detective Heather glared in response.

“You’re not going to do the amateur sleuth thing again, are you?” She said. When I didn’t answer, she looked even more annoyed. “Let’s see what I can arrest you for. Interfering with a police investigation, tampering with evidence, getting in my way,” she said in a terse voice.

“I have helped you in the past. You’ve even thanked me,” I said, but she stopped me.

“I was just humoring you. Barry said you were going through a tough time since you were getting close to being a half-century old.”

I rolled my eyes. She was only in her late thirties and she knew how to rub it in.

I was relieved when she left and I went back to join the Hookers. Everyone wanted to know what Detective Heather had said and we all started discussing Kelly’s business or what we knew of it.

“I think they were struggling,” Elise said. “Her husband is still just starting out with that dollar store.”

From across the bookstore, kids began filing out of the children’s area and rejoining whoever had brought them. Adele came out at the end and headed across the store toward us.

“I think Adele has outdone herself. Look what she’s wearing,” Rhoda said as we watched Adele approach. As usual, Adele had dressed for story time. Whatever she’d read must have been about plants because she was all in bright green, from the tights to the long tunic with crocheted leaves sewn on the long sleeves. When she got to the table, I saw that she had something on her head.

“What’s that?” Rhoda barked, pointing at the tiny green top hat sitting toward the front of her head on an angle.

Adele set down her tote bag and touched the mini hat. “It’s called a fascinator. Of course, I made it,” she said.

“For you or Kermit the Frog?” Rhoda said punctuating her comment with a laugh.

“I’ll have you know they’re all the rage now,” Adele said indignantly. “You people have no imagination, no umph in the style department. I made several and Eric thinks they’re adorable,” she said, her voice brimming with pride.

Sheila had been watching it all while continuing to crochet. She swallowed a few times before she spoke up. “We got a couple of fascinators in the other day. They are one of a kind and fit in perfectly with the kind of things Luxe sells,” she said. Though the ones in the lifestyle store were a little more elaborate than Adele’s. Sheila said something about one looking like a red rose with a bit of red veil and that the other had a bunch of feathers on it. Adele appeared stricken that something might be more showy than her tiny top hat.

Now that the group seemed to be coming to order, Sheila set down the rectangular shawl she was making in her signature colors of greens, blues and lavenders. The large hook she was using gave it a lacy appearance. She rolled up the completed portion of the shawl around the yarn and put it in the large tote on the chair next to her. “We’re working on things for Jungle Days, right?” she said looking through the contents of her bag.

“Yes, and we better get our hooks moving,” CeeCee said. “The street fair is in a couple of weeks and last time I looked in the collection box, I had a pretty clear view of the bottom. Ladies, this is the Tarzana street fair and we are the Tarzana Hookers. We don’t want to look bad to our fellow Tarzanians.” CeeCee hadn’t been hanging around the table as much as the rest of the group. Between the taping of Making Amends, and meetings she was having about a sequel to Caught by a Kiss, and thanks to the hum of Oscar buzz, she’d been pretty busy lately.

“What do you think of this look?” CeeCee said turning around so we could all see what her stylist had come up with now. The linen pants and long shirt were pale shades of peach. Rhoda shook her head. “It’s better than the mint outfit you had on the other day, but it still looks kind of blah. I wish I could say the same for the makeup.”

“What do you mean, dear?” CeeCee said, pulling out a small mirror. When she caught sight of herself, she looked a little stunned. “My, it is a little heavy isn’t it.” A little heavy was an understatement. What the outfit lacked in color had been more than made up by the makeup. The foundation made her face look too flawless, which didn’t go with the color or condition of her neck. The eyeliner was too thick and the eye shadow too much for daytime. The red lipstick was the final blow. CeeCee pulled out a tissue and wiped off the lipstick. Then she thanked the group. “What would I do without this group to keep me real. Now to get back on topic, I suppose we could ask Kelly’s husband for the things she made.” She glanced over the rest of us. “Or would that be bad form under the circumstances?”

I looked at Dinah and we both turned toward Adele expecting her to jump into the middle of the conversation and insist she had it under control and already had Kelly’s things. But Adele avoided our gazes and was strangely silent until Rhoda stepped in.

“Adele, you were making such a fuss about her being a crochet pretender. Didn’t you go over to her house to see if she had really made anything?” All eyes turned to Adele. She set down the ring of apricot yarn she was working on, took out a stack of completed cotton cowls in a rainbow of colors, and pushed them across the table toward CeeCee.

“Don’t worry about Kelly’s pieces,” Adele said. “I have more of these at home.” Adele’s response reminded me of a politician who ignored a question they didn’t want to answer and simply spoke about something else.

Rhoda picked one up and tried it on. The ring of lacy stitches hung loosely around her neck. “It’s August, Adele. Nobody is going to want to buy these. Who wants to put something around their neck in all this heat?” Rhoda pulled it off and added it back to the pile. Adele seemed unmoved and kept stitching.

“You should have asked me if you thought Kelly was a crochet pretender,” Sheila said. She seemed a little surprised at her own voice. Sheila always got tense when she said something to the group. Her remedy was to pick up her hook and start to crochet. It didn’t matter what it was or if she’d have to rip it later, the rhythmic movement helped her get over her tense moment. “I could have cleared that up right away.” Sheila’s finger kept moving as she spoke. “She saw that we were selling some of the things I make at Luxe and wanted to know if we’d be interested in selling some of her crocheted items.” Luxe was just down the street from the bookstore and was considered a lifestyle store, which meant everything they sold was stylish.

“Kelly brought a piece in to give me an idea of what she made,” Sheila continued. “You should have seen it.” Sheila looked up at the group. “She’d crocheted a long tunic with hand-dyed yarn. It was a one-of-a-kind item. I told her I’d tell my boss about it. I think she was selling things some other way, too.”

“It sounds like she was looking for ways to bring in money.” Dinah said. “With the dollar store just starting out, I suppose she was trying to help out. That’s probably why she rented out her yard to the production and signed her house up to be used in the future.”

Sheila’s eyes darted around the group and she cleared her throat. She seemed to hesitate, but finally she spoke up. “When she came in the store, she bought a silver ruler.”

“That doesn’t sound like somebody who is trying to bring in money to help her family,” Rhoda said.

Eduardo had come in as Sheila was talking. He was a stark contrast to the rest of us, towering over us with his long raven hair pulled into a ponytail. He handed CeeCee several bracelets he’d made using thread. He’d used a granny square motif on all of them, but done them in different ways. One had the traditional several colors bordered by black, another was done in a cream-colored thread with an embellishment of pearls, and he’d made one all in black with some crystals that reflected the light. It was hard to imagine his large hands working with fine thread and a slender steel hook, but he was a master at it. His Irish grandmother had taught him well.

“Are you talking about Kelly Donahue?” he asked as he pulled out a chair. His handsome face appeared somber at the mention of her name. “It’s hard to believe she was in my store just a few days ago.” His gaze moved over the group. “She wasn’t a fan of the merchandise her husband was selling. She told me he kept bringing all this off-brand stuff home and it was awful. She was into quality and bought bars of Penhalgion’s Bluebell soap from my store. That’s the fragrance Princess Diana favored.”

Eduardo had all but given up his career as a cover model and sometime commercial spokesperson now that he’d bought the Crown Apothecary. It helped business that he spent time in the store and that everyone knew he owned it. People seemed to love to frequent stores and restaurants that had a celebrity connection.

He took some orbs of thread out of his bag along with a steel hook and laid them on the table. “I thought you all might want to try making the bracelets,” he said before pulling out a stack of sheets that had the pattern and handing them out.

“I’ve been helping with the investigation,” Adele said, taking out a little notepad. “Let me see now. You said Kelly told you she didn’t like the stuff her husband sold. And she had expensive taste.” Adele leaned closer to the group. “I’m going to pass these clues on through Eric. We already think it was her husband who did it. But what you just told me is the final corner in what we detectives call the golden triangle. One corner is for means. Dan had that. Eric said Dan owned a gun. The other corner is for opportunity. I bet Dan only claimed he discovered her body. He could easily have come by earlier, killed her and then acted all crazy and gone running to tell my boyfriend Eric.” Adele let out a satisfied sigh. “And you just gave me the motive that fits into that last corner. Dan the dollar king probably didn’t like it that she dissed his business.” Adele’s eyes grew brighter. “And that she was spending all their money on expensive soap and fancy yarn.” She closed her little notebook. “With this information, they’ll arrest Dan for sure.”

“Golden triangle?” I said to Adele. “What detective exactly, used that term?”

Adele sputtered and threw me an angry glance. “Maybe it’s my term, but I’m sure Eric will think it’s brilliant and pass it on, along with the information.”

“And what’s this about Dan’s gun?”

Adele sputtered again. “I know what you’re doing, Pink. This is my case. And I just solved it. Who’s the super sleuth now?”