If Hooks Could Kill

CHAPTER 13


Shedd & Royal Books and More was buzzing when I walked in after leaving Dinah at her house. The production group must have been on some kind of break, because I recognized a number of them coming out of the café.

Mrs. Shedd was pointing out our selection of e-readers to a customer. My boss urged the woman to pick it up and try it out. No sooner had the woman taken Mrs. Shedd’s suggestion, when an earsplitting wail started. All the activity in the bookstore stopped and everyone’s eyes were on the table, the e-reader and the woman holding it. The customer dropped the small device like it was a hot tamale and made a fast exit while Mrs. Shedd put her hands over her ears and looked around, asking for help.

After the incident with the neighborhood shoplifters, Mr. Royal had decided we needed some security measures on the devices. Though he’d been everywhere and done everything, he still occasionally overestimated his abilities. It was certainly true when it came to the do-it-yourself alarm system he’d bought at the hardware store. There was a plastic leash on each of the e-readers now and you were supposed to be able to pick one up and move it around without a problem. The alarm was only supposed to go off it someone tried to pull it free. Supposed to was the operative phrase here. “Where’s Joshua?” Mrs. Shedd said as the wail continued. “He knows how to shut this off.” She looked at me. “Molly, help! Can’t you do something?”

Suddenly Adele flounced through the gathered crowd and grabbed hold of the offending reader. She had something in her hand that she jammed into a little box on the leash and the awful noise stopped.

Adele turned toward all of us. “Look who saved the day—again.” She pointed toward herself. “Could it be me? Yes, I think it is.” She curtsied to the crowd and I rolled my eyes. With the noise stopped, the crowd went back to the café and browsing the bookstore.

“How did you do that?” Mrs. Shedd asked. Adele held up a key on an elaborate keychain with multiple pom-poms. “For some reason my house key fits into the slot,” she said, demonstrating just as Joshua Royal joined us. When he heard that Adele’s key fit in the alarm slot, he started trying to adjust it.

“Where have you been, Pink?” Adele said.

I was going to shrug off her question, but my evil twin took over. Between Eric giving her inside information about Kelly’s murder and now her fixing the e-reader alarm, Adele was getting too big for the room and I couldn’t take it any longer.

“You want to know where I was?” I said with a subtle touch of one-upmanship in my voice. “Dinah and I went to Dan Donahue’s store and we found out that Dan Donahue was upset that Kelly didn’t help out in the store. We also went to the Donahue house and we met Kelly’s brother.” I took a breath. “You probably don’t know anything about him. His name is Stone Thomasville and he’s some kind of surfer champion.” I went from there to telling her how Dinah and I had looked around the room where Kelly was shot. “And we found out that Kelly had an online business selling things she crocheted.”

I couldn’t stop myself. It was horrible. I was acting just like Adele.

“You’re going to get yourself in trouble,” Adele sputtered. “Eric told me that he’d get me all the info I needed, but that I could get in a lot of trouble if I started investigating on my own. Interfering with a police investigation or something.” Joshua Royal stopped working on the alarm and looked up.

“You met Stone Thomasville?” he said with awe in his voice. He went over toward one of the bookshelves and came back a few minutes later holding a large coffee table picture book. He opened to a double page with a photograph of a man riding in the curl of a gigantic wave. He flipped the page and showed me the copy as he told me what it said.

“He won the Pipeline Master four times. Pipeline is a beach on Oahu’s north shore. It has the world’s deadliest waves. Surfers have died there, but Stone was like magic.” Mr. Royal flipped the page and there was a shot of a huge wave forming a tube. A little figure was inside it and appeared to be upside down. “That’s called a barrel roll. Body boarders do it a lot, but Stone is one of the only standing surfers to have mastered it.”

It turned out that in addition to everything else Joshua Royal had done while he was traveling around the world adventuring, he’d been a surfer. He was awed to think Stone was staying right down the street. Adele had her storm cloud face. It was making her crazy that she was out of the loop.

“Do you think he’d be willing to come in and sign his photo in some books?” Then Mr. Royal considered what he was asking. “I suppose it might be in bad taste under the circumstances.”

“I can ask him,” I said. Mr. Royal brightened and said he’d check with the distributor to see if he could get in a stack of copies.

“What a wonderful idea, Joshua,” Mrs. Shedd said, noticing the hefty price on the book’s jacket. She’d joined us and overheard the plan.

I hadn’t noticed that North Adams was carrying one of Bob’s primo cappuccinos and was standing on the outskirts of our little group. The star of L.A. 911 held the coffee drink up as if making a toast. “The cappuccinos here are the best.” He took a satisfying sip and set the cup down on the table with the e-readers. “I couldn’t help but overhear.” He turned his attention to me. “You’re investigating that woman’s death? Are you some kind of amateur sleuth?” he asked.

Adele answered for me. “Pink likes to think she’s a modern day Nancy Drew. But some of us are the real deal instead of just imitation fictional detectives. Adele Abrams, ad hoc PI, at your service,” she said.

North looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or not, but then he seemed to figure out she wasn’t joking. Ad hoc private investigator? What did that even mean? “Maybe I can help. Being a detective on this show for all these years has given me some investigative skills.” His gaze went back and forth over both Adele and me.

Adele rolled her eyes, which luckily happened when North was looking at me. I thanked him for his offer and said I’d let him know when I heard anything new.

Later on Mrs. Shedd pulled me aside. “Good work, Molly,” Mrs. Shedd said. “Our goal is to keep Mr. Adams coming in here. If he wants to play armchair detective with you, we don’t want to stop him. But do what you can to control Adele.”

As if I could!