You Better Knot Die

by Betty Hechtman

  “Okay, what happened this afternoon that changed everything?” Barry said, leaning on the table.

  I explained about going home in the middle of the day to pick up the snowflakes, which as it turned out never got picked up. I described the scene with Emily and the paramedics.

  “She told me that Bradley was dead, and then as they were loading her in the ambulance, she said her daughters needed to be picked up from school.”

  “And you volunteered,” Barry said.

  “What else could I do—leave the girls stranded at school? The couple in the suits certainly weren’t going to do it. They were already in their car.”

  “Who were they?” Mason asked. I didn’t have an answer. They were gone before I had a chance to ask them and Emily had a few other things going on.

  “So, what happened to the Perkins guy?” Barry prodded.

  “I didn’t find out until later. I picked up her girls and went by the hospital. Emily was ready to be released. They’d determined she hadn’t hit her head and had just passed out from shock.” I described driving them all home with a side stop at a fast-food drive-thru.

  “She told her daughters she’d taken a misstep off a ladder while trying to finish putting up the Christmas lights. She didn’t say anything about Bradley to them, so I guess they still thought he was away on a business trip. They bought the story about the ladder and she got them to take their merry meals into the den. When we were alone she dropped the cheerful pretense and took a letter out of her pocket and handed it to me. The torn envelope looked benign. It was addressed to her and postmarked Long Beach. The letter was anything but benign. Emily began to cry as I read it over.”

  I took a deep breath, feeling my stomach clench at remembering the note. “It was a suicide note. He said by the time she read it, he’d be gone. That’s why he bought the one-way ticket on the Catalina Express. He knew it would be dark and not crowded and nobody would notice him go off the back of the boat. And why? He said he’d gotten in over his head with his business and this was the only honorable thing to do.”

  I described how helpless I felt watching her holding herself and rocking back and forth. How I wished there was something to say to comfort her. Charlie’s death had been sudden and it had been hard to deal with, but he’d had a heart attack. Not the same as choosing to die.

  “She had a momentary glimmer of hope. The note had said what he planned to do. Maybe he’d changed his mind. But when she checked her phone messages, there was one from the customer service people at the boat company. A wallet and cell phone had been found left on the evening boat the night before.”

  I told them that Emily called the police officer she knew. He was the one who’d been there when the meter reader had mentioned the smell coming from my house. Since he knew Bradley from his daughter’s soccer team, she thought he could help her. I leaned back in my chair and tried to summon some energy. “I didn’t get back to the bookstore until this evening.” I didn’t mention how I had doubted Emily’s story before. Her reaction to the letter seemed genuine and the balance went toward believing her.

  In my peripheral vision I noticed William had come up to the table.

  “Somebody probably got in touch with the coast guard. I imagine they made a sweep,” Barry said. “But after that amount of time, and that amount of ocean, and sharks ...” Barry’s shrug said it all. They wouldn’t find anything. I was surprised when he offered to check it out to be sure. Mason didn’t take that information well. I think he was happier when Barry told me to stay out of things and Mason got to be the ear I turned to and my source for information.

  Barry pulled out his phone and went off into the corner. William was too polite to interrupt and only now, when there was a lull in the conversation, said hello.

  “If you’re looking for Adele, she isn’t back here,” I said.

  “She’ll probably show up here any minute,” the clown author said with a knowing smile. “What’s going on? I heard you say something about the coast guard.”

  I started to explain about Bradley, but as predicted Adele swept into the department and latched arms with his. I finally got it all out, even what was in the suicide note.

  “That’s terrible,” William said.

  “You’re so right, honey,” Adele added. “Those poor little girls, even if he wasn’t their real father. He won’t be there to take them to your next Koo Koo event.” She gave William’s arm a tug. “We better go if we’re going to make our dinner reservation.”

  Barry returned just as they were walking away and said the coast guard had initiated a search by boat and aircraft for a possible person in the water and so far had found nothing. “There’s nothing more for you to do.”

  Mason nodded in response to Barry’s comment, though Barry was trying to ignore his presence. Sheila had stopped crocheting as she listened to the story and the tension showed in her eyes.

  “How strange. I just heard somebody talking about Perkins this morning, Sunshine,” Mason said. “I was getting a coffee to go at the French café and overheard two guys at one of the tables. One of them had funny hair and was telling the other one that Perkins had some magic system with investments. I remember thinking it sounded like the guy with funny hair worked for Perkins. You know, drumming up business.”

  Barry grimaced both at the nickname Mason called me and the information he was offering.

  I sat back and looked at my elephant project. I’d started working on the head, but the last round was inconsistent. “That’s it. Time to go. I can barely see straight and my stitches are horrible,” I said. I packed up my yarn work to take with. Barry said he’d follow me. Mason claimed to be at a crucial spot with his dog sweater and said he needed help and asked if he could follow me, too. Sheila had a forlorn look as the three of us got ready to leave.

  “Why don’t you join us?” I said. Before I’d gotten us out, she was on her feet, stuffing her work in her bag.

  A short time later the caravan of cars pulled in front of my house.

  As soon as we all got inside, Barry made me sit down on the couch. Mason said he’d take care of dinner. Sheila volunteered to take care of the animals. The events of the past few days had caught up with me big time and I felt exhausted. The doorbell rang a short while later and I caught a glimpse of a delivery guy bringing in a box. The smell of hot food wafted across the living room and my stomach responded with a hungry gurgle.

  Every time I started to get up to help, one of the three told me they had it covered. Mason had ordered from the local Thai restaurant. Sheila made up a plate of pad thai, curried rice, big noodles in gravy and yellow curry made with tofu and brought it to me. I wasn’t used to being waited on but had to admit it felt good. Mason, Barry and Sheila joined me in the living room with plates of food. The conversation went back to Bradley.

  “I don’t know where Perkins got the idea killing himself was the honorable thing to do,” Barry said. “More like the coward’s way out.”

  “I wonder if his wife realizes that whatever mess he made is probably going to fall in her lap,” Mason said.

  Sheila was quiet and I knew all this was stirring up her own issues. She’d been brought up by a grandmother who had died recently, leaving Sheila feeling abandoned. She always said the Tarzana Hookers were her family now. “Those poor little girls, losing their stepfather,” she said finally.

  Barry turned back toward me. “Fields is right. She is going to inherit the mess. I am going to say what I always say and you probably are going to ignore me, but, Molly, you don’t want to be associated with it. It’s great to be a nice neighbor, but you may find out you’ve just stepped into quicksand.” He put up his hands in feigned capitulation. I was stunned. Had Barry just agreed with Mason?

  Someone brought me a dish of ice cream after that, but my eyes started swimming before I tasted the first spoonful.

  When I awoke I was laying on the couch. My shoes were off and a pillow was under my head and a moss green croc
heted throw covered me. I glanced at the coffee table. Someone had cleared all the dishes. I thought back to the last few minutes of conversation before I’d nodded off. Maybe they were right about me not getting involved. But it was too late. I’d already agreed to go with Emily in the morning when she went to Long Beach to pick up Bradley’s things.

  CHAPTER 7

  I REALLY DIDN’T HAVE THE TIME TO GO TO LONG Beach. I was behind in swatches and snowflakes, and there were the plans for our holiday event and the book launch. That didn’t even count any personal preparations like sending out cards or shopping for gifts. But I couldn’t let Emily go to Long Beach alone if for no other reason than she was too distracted to drive.

  “Is there any family you can call to help you out? Or maybe some of your friends?” I said as we set out on our journey. She needed as much moral support as she could get.

  “There’s just my mother,” she said. “But she’s in South Carolina and we don’t get along. She barely remembers my girls’ birthdays.” Emily said Bradley’s parents were dead and the only reason she knew he had a sister was because she’d sent the afghan as a wedding present. “That was one of the things that drew Brad and me together. He said we were both alone in the world. I’ll have to look through Bradley’s things and see if I can find a phone number for his sister. I think her name is Madison.”

  “Then she didn’t come to your wedding?” I asked.

  Emily sighed. “It was just Bradley, me and the girls. He said the wedding didn’t matter; it was about all of us being together. Isn’t that romantic?” she said. I nodded, thinking his being romantic hardly seemed an issue under the circumstance.

  “What about friends? You seem to have lots of those,” I said.

  Emily nodded, looking down. “All the people we know are part of Brad’s investment fund. It might be awkward.” She left it hanging and I understood. They were more likely to be concerned about how his death affected them than to be interested in being supportive to her. I reached over and gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze. She really was all alone in this.

  I asked her about the couple in the suits.

  “They’re from the Securities and Exchange Commission. They wanted to talk to Bradley. They came to the house when they couldn’t reach him at the office. They said something about needing to clear something up. I think they called it a friendly interview. Bradley never discussed his business with me,” she said. “I mean I helped with bank deposits and I helped him send out statements, but he never told me what was going on . . . what he was doing. Whenever I asked any questions—you know trying to be the interested wife—he got impatient and said he didn’t want to talk about it. If only he’d told me about whatever problem he got himself into, we could have worked it out.”

  I collected a ticket and pulled into the terminal parking lot. We left the greenmobile and walked across the street. The Spartan building had been strung with some colored lights and the counter had several tiny decorated pine trees in pots.

  Emily seemed pretty shaky, so I handled things and told the woman behind the counter why we were there. After a moment a man in business attire came out of a back room and a woman in a dark pants suit got out of a seat and joined us. She introduced herself as Detective Brower from the county sheriff’s department.

  The man introduced himself and explained he was an executive with the ferry company as he led us into an office. Emily was looking more and more shaky as he invited us to sit. The detective told Emily the coast guard was continuing their search even as we talked. Then she asked Emily what Bradley had been wearing the last time she saw him. The wallet and cell phone were sitting on the desk. I saw Emily’s eye go to them and then look away as her breath caught. The two items might be her last connection to her husband.

  The man said they had tapes of people getting on and disembarking the ferry that the items had been found on. The resolution wasn’t great and the picture was in black and white, but I heard Emily suck in her breath as she pointed to a figure in a light jacket walking onto the boat.

  “That’s him,” she squealed as the figure disappeared from the tape frame.

  The ferry executive stopped the video and began to play the one with passengers getting off in Catalina. She leaned forward, scrutinizing the people as they walked down the ramp off the boat. She pointed at a figure and said something. The man replayed the tape, froze it and enlarged the figure. But Emily slumped. False alarm—it wasn’t Bradley. When the last person went down the ramp, the man shut off the tape.

  He asked her if she was sure she hadn’t seen anyone that might have been Bradley. She shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry,” he said. No one said it, but I think we all knew there was only one other way Bradley could have left the boat.

  “What about his car?” I asked.

  “I was just going to bring that up,” Detective Brower said. There was just a hint of annoyance that I had beat her to the punch. The ferry executive offered to take us through the parking structure in a golf cart so Emily could check for Bradley’s Suburban.

  We found it on the second level. The doors were unlocked and the keys under the seat. Emily prepared to climb in, insisting she was fine to drive it home.

  “You’ll need the parking ticket to get out of the lot,” the man said. Emily checked the dash, around the seats and even the glove box, but there was no ticket. “Not to worry,” the man said. “I’ll follow you to the cashier and tell her to waive the fee and let you out.”

  At that point I headed for the greenmobile. I needed to get back to Tarzana.

  Before I went into the bookstore, I stopped by Dinah’s. She and the kids were folding laundry. E. Conner and Ashley-Angela looked like they were having fun.

  “Aunt Dinah, where does this go?” Ashley-Angela said, holding up a towel that was coming unfolded. Dinah pointed toward the hall closet she’d converted into a linen closet.

  She leaned close and whispered that it didn’t matter how perfect their job was; for now it was teaching them to take part in the chores of the house.

  Dinah had just made coffee and gave me a cup that I sorely needed after the Long Beach trip. She told the kids to take a break and she and I sat down together, while they went off to the den to work on puzzles.

  Dinah wanted to hear everything about everything and I started by telling her about my company the night before. “It’s about time those men waited on you,” she said when I mentioned waking up on the couch. I reminded her that Mason was always doing stuff for me.

  “I knew one of them needed to do something for you,” she said in a remark pointed at Barry. I was never one of these people who insisted chores be divided down the middle. I knew that Barry was often so exhausted he could barely stand up. I was hardly going to ask him to load the dishwasher when he was in that condition. Besides I preferred the help to come like this, unsolicited.

  When I told her about Bradley, she was shocked.

  “He jumped off the Catalina ferry?” she said in surprise. “Not my first choice of suicide routes, but who can figure?” I filled her in on all the details, including how the coast guard was searching the whole area between Long Beach and Avalon Harbor on Catalina.

  Finally I got to the part about finding Bradley’s Suburban in the parking structure. “Something about it doesn’t seem right,” I said.

  Dinah misunderstood and thought I was concerned that no one had noticed it was parked for so long, and she tried to explain. “People probably leave cars there for several days all the time when they stay over on Catalina.”

  “That’s not it,” I said. “It’s about the parking ticket. It wasn’t in the car.”

  Dinah shrugged. “He probably took it with him.”

  “That seems really odd,” I said. “If you were going to get on a ferry and jump off somewhere, and you went to the trouble to leave your SUV unlocked and the keys under the seat, why would you take your parking ticket with you?”

  Dinah started to speak and then realized s
he didn’t have a pat answer. “Yeah, why would you?”

  CHAPTER 8

  “MOLLY,” MRS. SHEDD SAID, GRABBING ME AS I rushed into the bookstore. “What happened to you yesterday? You were supposed to bring in the crocheted snowflakes. When I left for the day, there was no you and no snowflakes.”

  “I did come back to the bookstore. I’m afraid I’d forgotten all about the snowflakes, but when you hear what happened, I’m sure you’ll understand.” I walked farther into the store and she seemed very agitated as she walked with me.

  She gestured toward the entrance area. “I thought you were going to put up a sign for the holiday event and a countdown sheet for the book launch. We want to generate as much excitement as possible. It would be terrible if the trucks rolled in with the books and there was no one waiting for them.”

  I broke the news that I didn’t have the snowflakes with me this time, either. Mrs. Shedd sighed in frustration, but before she had a chance to chastise me, I stepped close to her.

  “It’s about Bradley Perkins,” I said and she let out a little yelp. Mr. Royal was watering the Christmas tree and looked up at the sound. She covered her mouth and seemed even more agitated.

  “Tell me it’s good news,” she said. “I’ve been trying to call his office and all I get is his voice mail or a woman who offers to take a message.”