You Better Knot Die

by Betty Hechtman

  Enough sleuthing, I thought as I backed down the driveway. The light didn’t go on again, and I was just about to step onto the street when a hand grabbed my shoulder and I jumped straight up.

  CHAPTER 11

  “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?” RYDER LOWESTEIN, the kid neighbor from down the street, said. He peered at me as my breath came out in a ragged gasp; it felt something like when you jump into water that’s too cold.

  “You could have given me a heart attack,” I said.

  “Sorry, MP. I forgot I was dealing with someone older. You know you really can frighten someone to death. Something about the vagus nerve. I read about it—”

  “MP?” I said interrupting. Then I got it. Everything was down to abbreviations—even me.

  He nodded toward the driveway. “You doing some kind of reconnaissance?”

  It was too embarrassing to admit that I’d been snooping, even if Mr. YouTube was as nosey as I was. Instead of answering I asked him if he knew who the motorcycle belonged to. He couldn’t see it in the darkness, but I assured him it was there. Then I asked him what he was doing wandering around in the dark.

  He pointed down the street with his video camera in his hand. He’d been taping the holiday decorations at the different houses. He was going to sync it up to some music and give it to his parents to use as a holiday greeting on their Facebook page.

  We finally parted company and I watched him saunter off with his slightly shuffling walk.

  I retrieved my tote bag and purse from my car and walked into my dark yard. Something brushed against my leg and my breath immediately went back to that jumping-into-too-cold-water mode. It only got worse when more something touched me. Moving things with fur. I looked ahead toward my kitchen door, which only had a worse effect on my breath. Even in the dark, I could see it was ajar.

  I rushed ahead and reached inside the door and used the switch on the wall to turn on the yard lights. I saw that what I’d felt was the two cats making figure eights around my legs. They knew they weren’t supposed to be out alone at night and they were freaking out. Cosmo charged out of the bushes and started barking, which seemed kind of after the fact. Even Blondie had come outside and was sitting on a chaise lounge. She regarded all of the action with her usual calm expression.

  I took out my cell phone and called Barry. Within minutes a helicopter was circling overhead with its rhythmic thwack sound, bathing my yard and the bushes that marked the border with its spotlight. Barry arrived at the same time, along with two uniforms in a cruiser. They all went inside while the animals and I stayed in the yard.

  “Molly, you’ve got to stop leaving windows open,” Barry said in a frustrated tone when he came back outside. Whoever had been there was gone. There was no sign of forced entry and whoever had broken in had used the door to exit like before. “Why bother to break in when you practically put out the welcome mat for them?” Barry said, throwing up his hands.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about until he took me inside and pointed out the open windows in Samuel’s room. Mr. Detective hadn’t noticed the suitcases or the note on the bed announcing that Samuel was back from the road and had gone out to meet up with some friends. He said he’d opened the windows to get out the smell of the cat throw up and would I close them when I got home. There was a post script asking what happened to the front door.

  Barry led me to my craft room. All the grocery bags had been dumped on the floor. Everything on the shelves pulled out. And the containers holding the finished pieces for holiday gifts had been dumped.

  “Ugh,” I said when we got to the den. All the cabinets were open and the contents pulled out. “It was probably the same person as before,” I said. I tripped over a book, and when I picked it up, saw that it was Caught By the Hook. I showed it to Barry. “See, I told you someone thinks that I am hiding the identity of A. J. Kowalski here. They must have thought I kept it in here or with my crochet stuff.”

  “You must have some idea who it is,” Barry said, putting the box of photos back in the built-in cabinet.

  “Whoever it is obviously knows Cosmo is all noise and no bite,” I said as the black mop of fur raced through the den and stopped at Barry’s feet.

  Barry grunted, as if the comment about his dog was aimed at him. I couldn’t help but think Ryder showing up was just a little too coincidental. He probably figured he’d find out who the author was and then confront him or her, tape them and stick it on YouTube ahead of the book launch. Ryder had said he was looking for something that would make a splash on YouTube. I suppose he thought anything was okay in pursuit of a story. What did they call them? Gonzo journalists or something. I’d have to have a little talk with him. Barry read my silence.

  “Okay, who are you thinking about?” he said in his best cajoling voice.

  “No one,” I said too quickly for it to sound real.

  “Molly,” Barry said, shaking his head. “Someone coming into your house is serious, even if all they’re after is some author’s real name.”

  If I mentioned Ryder, I knew Barry would go after him like gangbusters. Much better for me to handle it in my own way. I agreed that it was serious but held my ground and didn’t give up a name.

  “You should be more upset,” he said. “You should look pale and have a pounding heart.”

  “Gee, thanks for the good wishes,” I said. “By now I’m immune. First you thought there was a dead body in my house and broke the door down. Then somebody was creeping around when I was asleep. Someone just going in the window and throwing around my yarn seems like no big deal.”

  The helicopter was long gone and the cruiser had left, too. The den was picked up, but I said the mess in the crochet room was too much to tackle. Barry had pulled his tie loose and taken off his suit jacket. “Maybe I should stay awhile and help you calm down,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “There’s no rush. Jeffrey is at a friend’s. I don’t have to drive car pool.”

  I pointed toward my tote bag. “Yes, but I have stuff I have to take care of. I need to get those swatches done and make more snowflakes or Christmas will be over before we even get them hung.”

  He tried to say he wouldn’t interfere with my work, but I gave him a look of total disbelief. And I mentioned that Samuel might show up any minute. Barry finally left but not before giving me the speech that my sons were both adults and should certainly be able to deal with their mother having a boyfriend. He reminded me that while he’d been protective of his son Jeffrey at first, not wanting him to meet me unless we were at least engaged, he’d finally relented. “Jeffrey loves you,” Barry said. “I realize that isn’t going to happen between me and your boys, but they have to accept me.”

  He had a point, but it wasn’t just about Samuel and Peter. I’d been married a long time and this was like a second chapter of my life. I was hanging on to my freedom. I hated to admit it, but I was using my sons as an excuse to keep Barry from getting too close.

  I glanced in the crochet room again and sighed. The morning would be fine to start clearing it up. Through the window I saw the lights of the Perkins’ front porch. I thought of Emily. With everything she’d been through lately, her nerves must be shot. The helicopter and cop car must have sent her into freak-out mode. I ought to at least tell her what was going on, though I doubted she had to worry about my burglar branching out. And maybe I could find out about the mysterious motorcycle.

  Emily peeked out the window before opening the door. She looked wan and preoccupied, which under the circumstances seemed appropriate. She said the cops had knocked at her door and already filled her in on my break-in.

  I gave her my theory about what they were after and she barely reacted. She had only opened the door halfway and hadn’t invited me in. “Sorry, you probably have company.” I gestured toward the driveway. “The motorcycle.”

  For a moment she stared at me. “Motorcycle?”

  I fibbed a little. I left out going up her driveway and made it sound
like I’d seen it from the street. She appeared perplexed and led me out the front door. We went across the lawn. “Where did you see it?”

  I pointed at the spot behind the bush as the motion-sensor light illuminated the area, but now the spot was empty.

  “See, there’s nothing there,” she said. “You must have just thought you saw a motorcycle.”

  Okay, she was lying. I wasn’t crazy. There had been a motorcycle there and she knew it.

  CHAPTER 12

  “SO YOU STILL HAVEN’T SEEN RYDER?” DINAH asked. We were standing outside the entrance to the bookstore. The sun had peeked through and added a little warmth to the damp air. Several days had gone by with no further break-ins at my place. I had forgotten another dinner Mason had set up so I could help him with the dog sweater. Barry was either sulking or had picked up a homicide because I’d heard nothing from him. Not that I had time to notice. Once I cleared up the crochet room, I finished the elephant, which was adorable, if I said so myself, and was going to brighten up some little kid’s Christmas. I was so pleased with how the toy turned out, I started on another—this time I was making a snow owl. In between I worked on snowflakes and swatches. I had discovered it was best to work on the knit swatches at home. I couldn’t take Adele’s endless grumbling when I tried doing them at the bookstore. Not that I’d had time there anyway now that the store was crowded with holiday shoppers needing help.

  “No. But when I do I’m going to have a little talk with him. I know he probably thinks that’s the way to be a real journalist. The ends justify the means and all that. If he’s willing to stop sneaking into my house, I’m willing to drop it.”

  Dinah considered what I’d said. “You better be firm,” she said, going into her teacher mode. “If you want I can be your wingman when you talk to him. I’ll get the message across to him. No more sneaking in windows or else. The secret is in the tone you use when you say the ‘or else.’ You have to fire up his imagination, which is much scarier than anything real you could threaten him with.” The kids weren’t with her and when I asked about them, she said she was meeting Commander later and she didn’t want to push the kids in his face. Conveniently her neighbor had invited them over for a play date.

  I pushed the needles out of sight in my tote bag as we walked into the bookstore. The rest of the bag was filled with completed swatches. All done in the garter stitch, which meant knit only, no purl. The snowflakes I’d completed were starched and drying on my dining room table. I had finally brought in the ones Adele had made, but when Mrs. Shedd saw how few there were, she said it wasn’t worth hanging them until we had more.

  I was looking forward to some crochet time with the Hookers. As we headed to the back of the store I saw that most of them were already at the table. CeeCee was at the head of the table and even at a distance I could see she was talking enthusiastically about something. Sheila had several blankets on the table next to her and was just beginning another. She seemed totally devoted to her work. Eduardo was sitting next to someone I didn’t recognize. A new recruit perhaps. He was showing her something that she didn’t seem to get. I almost choked when I saw what he did next. He got up and stood behind her, guiding her hands. Okay, it wasn’t a hot scene with him molding his body to hers or anything, but it did remind me of the scene in the first Anthony book, Caught By the Hook. I watched him for a moment. Eduardo had been on the cover of a lot of romance novels. Maybe he decided to write some. The Blood and Yarn series really were more or less romances, weren’t they?

  Dinah saw me staring at Eduardo.

  “What’s up?” I reminded her of the scene in the first book and her eyes lit up. “Wouldn’t it be something if Eduardo is A. J.?”

  Before I could answer, Adele came bustling out of the children’s area. Just when I thought Adele couldn’t possibly top herself, she managed to. Story time had featured The Rag Doll Chronicles and Adele had dressed up as the chief rag doll, Clarissa, from the red yarn wig to the loose denim overalls with the giant yellow flower. Adele didn’t stop with just the clothes. She had blush circles on her cheeks and lots of eye makeup—the eye makeup wasn’t really part of the doll look, just her touch. Adele had finished with bright red lip color applied so it appeared she had large bow-shaped lips.

  We all knew that Adele didn’t love kids and the only positive of being stuck with story time was that she had met William, but she didn’t usually look this discombobulated. “Pink, those kids are little hoodlums. Look what I confiscated from one of them.” She pulled out a black metal gun and started waving it around. I gasped and threw myself in front of Dinah to protect her.

  “Relax, ladies, it’s a toy—a cap gun,” Adele said, looking at me with consternation. I tried to get it away from her, but Adele pulled away too fast, and to prove her point, she squeezed the trigger. I pulled Dinah with me as I darted behind the “New in Nonfiction” bookcase. There were a bunch of pops and that unmistakable smell of caps. Everyone in the bookstore froze at the sound. Even Bob ran in from the café, shouting should he call 911. I didn’t even want to think of a bunch of cops running in to find Adele in that getup, waving the gun. I made sure he knew there was no emergency.

  Adele looked around at the stir she caused and laughed. “Looks pretty real, doesn’t it? It just shoots caps,” she said, showing the red strip hanging out of the gun. Everyone stayed put and she made a move toward a couple crouched behind the “Great Gifts for the Holidays” table. They backed toward the door and ran out. I hooked my arm in Adele’s and pulled her toward the office.

  “Yes, it does look real. So real it’s scaring everyone,” I said. “Please stop shooting it and put it away before somebody looks in the window and thinks you’re robbing the place. In fact, don’t put it in the office; someone may see it there and freak out. Put it in your car,” I said. “And don’t go waving it around in the parking lot, either.”

  We also debated about whether or not she was going to give it back to the owner. Adele stuck to no. “I told them no video games, whoopee cushions or toy guns. And I made it clear they would be confiscated and not returned. How will they learn if I give it back?”

  She had a point and I decided that if the irate parent showed up I was going to sic them on Adele.

  It took a few minutes for everyone to calm down after Adele’s Annie Oakley routine. When Dinah and I joined the others at the table I introduced myself to the new person and made sure to explain what had just happened wasn’t typical of the bookstore.

  “Dears, you missed my news,” CeeCee said to Dinah and me. “I was just telling everyone I got my Christmas present early. I’m finally going to be back where I belong.” She sat a little straighter. I knew her reality show had finished shooting and was on hiatus. She’d mentioned she was being considered for something else, but hadn’t wanted to jinx it by talking about it. “You know they’re making a movie out of the first Anthony book, Caught By the Hook? I got the part of Ophelia, Anthony’s neighbor and confidant,” she said with a proud shake of her head.

  “Yes, I’m back in the movies.” CeeCee tried to give Dinah and me high-fives, but we didn’t realize what she was doing and there was an awkward missing of hands.

  “Who’s playing Anthony?” Sheila asked.

  “Hugh Jackman,” CeeCee said in an offhand manner.

  “Hugh Jackman?” Rhoda said with a snort. “He’s too foofie for a vampire. But then Anthony is too foofie for a vampire. If I was casting the part, I’d give it to Quentin Tarantino.”

  “He’s a director,” CeeCee said with a hopeless roll of her eyes.

  Rhoda seemed unconcerned. “He could direct himself in the part.”

  Surprisingly Elise never looked up but was intent on crocheting the black-and-white scarf. She seemed close to being finished and I noticed she’d already made a scarlet tassel to put on the end.

  Rhoda looked at Elise. “Hey, how come you aren’t saying anything? Usually you’re in the middle of anything about the foofie vampire.”
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br />   Elise looked up with a slightly vague expression. “Sorry, I’ve been a little preoccupied.” She turned toward me. “That neighbor of yours—he’s the worst thing that ever happened to us,” she said with disgust in her voice. How strange. The last time she’d been talking about Bradley, her husband had been saying Bradley was the best thing that ever happened to them. Elise told the group about Bradley being presumed dead and how word of it had spread around Tarzana. Everyone who had been part of Bradley’s investment club had tried calling Bradley’s office, and when they got nowhere, tried the Perkins’ house. All they got there was a voice mailbox so full it wouldn’t take any more messages.

  “They all started calling Logan and expected him to take care of everything. They seemed to think Logan and Bradley were joined at the hip or something. Our life has become a living hell,” she said.

  Sheila had a blank look. “Did I miss something? What happened? Last I heard Molly’s neighbor was just missing.”

  Rhoda made a noise between clearing her throat and a snort. “My Harold thinks he pulled off a Ponzi scheme. The way it worked was Bradley kept collecting money he was supposedly going to invest. Only he never invested any of it. He used the money he was taking from new people to pay anyone who wanted their dividends or to give people their money back if they wanted out. But he was so smooth and made it look like his investments were making such huge profits, most of the investors left their dividends in the fund to make even more money.” Rhoda looked at Sheila. “Are you getting it honey?” Sheila nodded.

  “Harold said he heard Perkins started gambling with the money and eventually lost it all.”

  “Personally, I think it’s a little strange how he supposedly dies, but there’s no body,” CeeCee said. “What kind of money are we talking—thousands? Millions?”