Behind the Seams cm-6

by Betty Hechtman

  “You can’t go in there,” a voice said in a clipped tone. The clerk had come into the consultation area. “Is there something I can help you find?”

  “Sorry,” I said, backing away from the open door. “I was looking for the powder room.” I’d found that saying you’re looking for the restroom was a great catchall for snooping. She apologized and said the restrooms were still under construction. As soon as we got back into the main store, I checked the photo on my BlackBerry. It was just one of the clerks, and it looked like she was putting away stock in the pharmacy.

  “This isn’t working. Maybe I’ll try coming back when they close and try to get a shot of him when he leaves,” I said.

  “What are you going to do, hide behind his car?” Dinah said with a laugh.

  “Well, at least I know which one is his,” I said, thinking back to the night I’d seen him leave Robyn’s. We started toward the front of the store, but before we’d taken more than a few steps, one of the clerks stepped in front of us. “You can’t leave without getting a sneak peak at the soda fountain,” she said in a forced friendly voice. She didn’t wait for an answer, but ushered us toward the entrance. The sign painter had finished and left the door propped open.

  Inside, she pointed out the authentic small white octagonal tiles with an occasional green one thrown in. She demonstrated how the stools at the soda fountain really spun.

  “Try them,” she said. She left us and went behind the soda fountain. “We’re still waiting for the ice cream, but we have phosphates. Let me get you each a complimentary one.” She grabbed two tall glasses.

  She rambled on about how Crown Apothecary was more than just a drugstore. “We want our customers to feel at home here,” she said. I asked for a cherry phosphate and Dinah a lime one. The woman handed us the drinks and started talking about all the services the store offered.

  Ty came in and greeted us and he started pitching their pharmacy. “We do compounding,” he said. “Great for kids. We can take the ick out of their medicine with their flavor of choice.

  “Come, ladies, bring your drinks,” he said. He nodded to the clerk and she walked away. “Let me show you our consultation cubicle.” Seizing upon the opportunity, I told him the store was so fabulous I’d really like to get a photo of it, and did he mind?

  He walked us into the cubicle and the door shut behind us with a click that sounded like a lock. He invited us to sit down in the wooden captain’s chairs and then asked us if we thought there was anything they’d missed in the design of the soda fountain. We both said it seemed they had everything covered and the drinks were great and we thought it’d be a big success. We set down our glasses as we both stood and started toward the door. I stopped and asked about taking the picture. He was agreeable, and I took several. I checked and they’d turned out. Mission accomplished.

  This time, I walked to the door and pulled on the handle, saying both Dinah and I had to get to work. “The door won’t open,” I said. I heard Dinah make a noise behind me. When I turned back toward the pharmacist, he had something in his hands. Before it could register, he’d pulled my hands behind my back and put plastic ties on them. I saw he’d already gotten Dinah. A moment later, I heard the clerk outside the door say, “They’re on their way.”

  “Who’s on their way?” I demanded.

  “The cops,” he said, pointing toward my purse. The clear bags of Red Hots were visible.

  “It’s just a misunderstanding. I was going to pay for them before we left.”

  Ty was unmoved, and both Dinah and I started straining against the plastic ties and making noise. Then it hit me maybe this was a good thing. I could show them the photo in my phone and tell them to show it to the director of the halfway house.

  “Donna remembered you came in here before,” he said, nodding toward one of the clerks. “Was that just a chance to case the place?”

  “Case the place? Yes, I came in here before because this place was the return address on the box of sweetener that poisoned Robyn Freed. That package was sent from here—by you—wasn’t it? I know who you are. You’re her boyfriend.”

  “Was. Was her boyfriend,” he said with a sigh. “What’s it to you anyway? You’re not trying to tell me you’re some kind of cops or PIs?”

  He realized what he said and laughed. “No, you’re definitely not cops. I don’t think LAPD is that hard up. You’re more like Agnes and Casey,” he said referring to a comedy cop show about two detectives who were also friends. “Cancel the part about private investigators, too. So what are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’re just after the truth. So why’d you kill your girlfriend and her brother?”

  “Miles is dead?” he said. It seemed like pretty genuine shock. “What happened?”

  “I’ll ask the questions,” I said, trying to act intimidating. It would have helped if I’d had a badge or a gun and hadn’t been handcuffed. “Just wait until the cops come and I show them the photo of you and they take it to the halfway house. Ha, you thought making all those photos disappear would get you off the hook.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What pictures?”

  “You also have access to all kinds of drugs,” I said, narrowing my eyes, “and probably stuff like cyanide, too. What was it? You were angry because she broke up with you and you cut yourself out of the pictures to hide the evidence.”

  “She didn’t break up with me; I broke up with Robyn. We’d been going together for a long time. She cut me out of the photos because she was angry. Robyn was always aggressive, but once she got the promotion to segment producer, she was impossible. The job consumed her, along with her desire to go even further. You can’t have a relationship if you never see each other. She worked twenty-four, seven.”

  “Geez, just like dating a detective,” I said, feeling a pang as I thought of Barry. “Did you know who her parents were?”

  “Yeah. At first she told me they were dead. Then she told me the truth, which was that they were dead as far as she was concerned. When I heard she was handling the Barbara show they were going to be on, I got concerned. Even more so when she started talking about going outside the box and doing something really flashy without telling anybody. It’s on live in some cities, and whatever Robyn set up couldn’t be edited out. She thought if she could do something that would catch everyone, including Barbara, off guard, the show would make a splash, and they’d make Robyn a higher-level producer. It was all she talked about for the last couple of weeks. Then I snapped. I thought there had to be more to life than a TV show. She didn’t take the breakup well. I think anything close to rejection brought her right back to the relationship with her parents. She told me when she was a kid, they were never there. Either they were off making movies somewhere or they were just busy with something else. It bugged her because they gave off this image of being such caring humanitarian types.”

  I heard the bell go crazy as the front door opened, and somebody said, “Back there.” A moment later, the cubicle was unlocked from the outside and a handful of uniforms came in.

  “I detained them for you,” Ty said. He stepped over to two of the uniforms and started explaining something. I saw him pointing to the pharmacy area and heard something about us having a meth lab. They had separated Dinah and me and someone grabbed our purses, and the next thing I knew, I was getting into the back of a police car. Again.

  Mrs. Shedd was not going to be happy when I didn’t show up for work.

  CHAPTER 33

  MASON WAS LAUGHING WHEN DINAH AND I WALKED out from behind the counter of the police station. A couple of the cops were laughing, too. I half expected Barry to pop up somewhere, but he didn’t. Though I was sure he’d hear about it somehow.

  “You’ll be hearing from us about false imprisonment,” Mason said, putting on his serious lawyer face. He was laughing again before we got out of the door.

  It was all a big mix up. Here’s what happened. Ty Holzer saw me walk th
rough the open door into the pharmacy. Unbeknownst to me, inside there was a box of cold tablet packets one of the clerks was putting away. They were not prescription, but they were kept behind the counter and you could only buy a limited amount and had to show ID, all because people were using them to make street drugs. I mean, really, could anybody think Dinah and I were drug queenpin masterminds?

  The clerk who’d been doing the stocking saw the Red Hots in my purse and thought they were the red cold pills. All the drinks and such were just stalls and tricks to get us in the consultation cubicle. Needless to say, when the cops took a really good look, or should I say sniff, of the “cold pills,” they realized the mistake.

  On the drive back, Mason shared some information he’d gotten. The medical examiner had determined that Miles had died from a drug injection, not from the pills in the doll, which turned out to be aspirin. No syringe had been found in the room, leading them to speculate that someone else had given him the drugs. They were still waiting on results of what was in his system. Lastly, he’d given me a piece of paper. “Sorry it took so long,” he said. When I unfolded it, it had the license plate number and Ty Holzer’s information. It turned out he lived in Tarzana, too.

  Mason dropped Dinah off at her house and me at the bookstore. “Should I give you a note, or do you want me to come in and explain?” he asked.

  “I’m a big girl. I can handle it myself,” I said, getting out of the car.

  Rayaad handed me a package when I passed the front counter. On top it said I’m Sorry in big letters, and inside was a selection of things from the Crown Apothecary, along with lots of coupons for complimentary hot fudge sundaes and a note saying he’d called the director of the halfway house and offered to go there in person and let the residents look at him to prove he wasn’t the one who had been there the day Miles was found dead. Ty had also called Mrs. Shedd and said the new owner had suggested that instead of just a rack of books from some distributor, that Shedd & Royal could have a rack of books for sale along with a sign advertising the store.

  “He must feel very bad,” Mrs. Shedd said. She looked at me and suggested that after what I’d been through, I might want to take a crochet break before I started dealing with work. It sounded perfect to me and I headed to the back table. No surprise, there was a group of people around it, including Adele. She looked up as I approached.

  “Pink, I heard you got arrested again,” Adele said. “How many times does that make? Let me see,” she said. I rolled my eyes. She made it sound like I was a regular at the police station.

  “Before any ridiculous stories start to circulate, this is what happened,” I said and told them about the Red Hots being mistaken for cold pills.

  “And you were worried about ridiculous stories circulating. What could be more ridiculous than that?” Rhoda said. Elise was sitting next to her, and in her birdlike voice, said she was just glad that Dinah and I were all right. Sheila appeared to have gotten nervous just thinking about us in plastic handcuffs. Eduardo shook his head. “Somebody is an idiot.” I was surprised at his anger. Eduardo was usually so mellow.

  CeeCee was speechless until she began talking about her own stint in jail.

  “Everybody is missing the point. Who cares if this Ty guy didn’t kill Miles? The cops still think I killed Robyn. They’re closing in. I don’t want to end up a Dateline story about how an innocent woman got sent to jail,” Nell wailed, and I could see her point. Just because we hadn’t seen Detective Heather lately didn’t mean she’d forgotten about Nell. Who knew what kind of case she was building. Once the prosecutor thought they had enough, they’d arrest her in the middle of the night. And who knew what a jury would believe. Nell could end up in jail for years, not minutes like I was.

  Dinah got a round of applause as she made a grand entrance and joined the group. Sheila surprised all of us by standing up and telling us we would all feel better if we’d focus on making something with one of the impatient crochet patterns for the donation box.

  “Crocheting will calm your nerves,” she said. “And thinking about making something to help somebody else will make you forget your own problems.”

  Nobody could argue with that.

  “Mom,” a voice called. Don’t they say that a mother always recognizes her kid’s voice? I knew it was Samuel before he’d said the second m in mom. He’d been trying to call me and only getting voice mail. He left text messages and e-mail messages. He’d gotten an out-of-town gig at the last minute and wanted to make sure I knew. As he was about to leave, he gave the group a dismissive glance until he saw Nell. She looked up at the same moment and their eyes met. Uh-oh. Samuel, who could care less about crochet, was suddenly so interested in what she was making. She wanted to know about his gig. The next thing I knew, they were headed toward the café. Well, at least it had gotten her mind off her troubles.

  I took out another cell sock I’d started. This time I’d tried some glittery silver yarn with the idea of making an evening cell sock. It was much thinner than the cotton yarn, and I was surprised how different the same stitches looked done in it. Though I tried not to, I started thinking about Barry. I knew without a doubt that he had to know about the episode in the afternoon. I thought he would call or something, but there was just silence. It still seemed so odd how everything had turned upside down in a couple of days.

  I worked until closing, still trying to make up for lost time. When I was turning off the lights and Mrs. Shedd and Mr. Royal were shutting everything down, I saw Mason standing outside. He remembered my car was still by the Crown Apothecary. When I came outside, I could see the effect of my presence on his face. He seemed very happy to see me.

  “Hmm, this is interesting. We don’t have to pretend this is a legal-defense dinner. We can just do it for fun.” Mason caught my expression. “I know you’re still adjusting, but the best way to do it is get out there—”

  “And get back on the horse,” I said, finishing the cliché. “I need some time to just walk along the path for a while first,” I said. “Besides, until Nell is cleared and has her job back, I can’t worry about my social life. It’s her whole life we’re talking about.”

  We went to a busy sushi restaurant in Encino. While we were waiting for a table, Mason brought up his plan, apparently undaunted by my comment.

  “Okay, but once everything is settled, after all that you’ve been through and are going through, don’t you think a change of scenes would be good? I was thinking we could both take a few days off and drive up north. So many great places to choose as a destination. Personally, I love Carmel. Lots of cozy little inns and interesting little restaurants. But my favorite thing to do is to take a cappuccino to the beach and watch the sunset.”

  Hmm, it sounded nice.

  CHAPTER 34

  A WEEK WENT BY AND NO WORD FROM BARRY. IN the past when we’d split up, he’d still driven by at night to check that everything was okay. But now there was no Tahoe driving by in the middle of the night, at least that I saw. There weren’t any stops in the bookstore, either. There was just the big silence.

  Mason did his best to keep from looking too happy about the situation, but he didn’t succeed. He kept pointing out how he showed up when he said he would and never rushed off in the middle of a meal because he had to go chase down a lead. It was hard to feel glum with him around.

  Dinah and Commander included me in their plans to run karaoke at the senior center. I had to admit it was fun. In short, I barely had time to notice how quiet my house had become. Maybe it was because I was getting older and had been through Charlie’s death, but after the week with nothing, I began to really let go and stopped looking for Barry to show up.

  Mason found out the results of Miles’ autopsy and toxicology screens. He’d died of an overdose of heroin, but they’d also found Rohypnol in his system. Commonly known as roofies, the drug has the effect of knock-out drops. They traced it back to a bottle of fruit punch in Miles’ room. They surmised someone had knocke
d him out with the fruit punch and then administered the heroin. But the question was why. When they checked Miles’ cell phone records, they noted the call to me.

  Detective Henderson from the sheriff’s department got in touch with me and wanted to know why he’d called. She caught me off guard and I forgot about giving her the silent treatment and answered. “He wanted to tell me something. I’m guessing he thought it might help me find out who killed his sister,” I said. Big mistake. Apparently Detective Henderson called Detective Heather, and the next thing I knew, Heather got in touch with me.

  “You’re doing it again, Ms. Pink,” she said. “Interfering with a police investigation. If Miles had some information that pointed to his sister’s killer, it seems pretty clear who killed him. If you want to help Nell Collins, get her to tell us the truth.”

  It didn’t make me feel any better to realize the spotlight was off me.

  The next day, I broke the news to CeeCee and Nell as they came into the yarn department. “Oh, this can’t be,” Nell said. “Now they think I killed two people?”

  “Dear, we really should get you a lawyer,” CeeCee said. Both of us had been saying it all along, but Nell had continued to insist it made her look guilty. This time, she nodded in agreement.

  “Everybody thinks I did it anyway,” she said in a forlorn voice.

  I called Mason, and we made arrangements for her to come to his office. Nell wanted CeeCee and me to go with her. I could see that CeeCee was squirming. All of this made her very uncomfortable, but she said she would go. I wasn’t sure of the exact proportions, but the balance had changed. CeeCee was more concerned about her niece than her career—even with the Oscar buzz.

  I’d never been to Mason’s office before. Only to the building the time he’d picked up his briefcase. This time we parked and rode to the fortieth floor in one of the primo Century City office buildings. The law firm had half the floor. Mason had a corner office with a west-facing view. I could see the sun reflecting off the ocean as I stepped inside. I was surprised to see Spike. The toy fox terrier had his own area, complete with water, toys and his own blanket. He barked when we came in and gave us all the once-over before going back to his blanket and watching us. You had to love a man who would take his dog to work with him.