Seams Like Murder

by Betty Hechtman

  “Nonsense, dear. Sheila will show up,” CeeCee said, giving her mouth a dainty wipe. We had decided not to wait for Sheila to eat. Rosa had taken the presentation up a notch, putting the jam and honey in china bowls and the coffee in a silver pot alongside my basket of biscuits.

  “We might as well work on our own projects until Sheila gets here,” Rhoda said. She had already taken out hers. Babs examined the royal blue piece and asked what she was making.

  “Just a vest,” Rhoda said. When Elise inquired who she was making it for, Rhoda seemed almost perturbed and dodged the question by looking to the beige strip of crocheted yarn that Adele was taking out of her tote. “What’s that?” Rhoda asked.

  “It’s a bow tie for Cutchykins.” Adele turned toward Babs to explain who she was talking about, but before she could say anything, Rhoda spoke for her.

  “We all know your pet name for your fiancé,” she said.

  “When’s the big day?” Babs asked, eyeing Adele’s engagement ring.

  Adele’s face clouded. “Eric and I are still working on the date and venue,” she said, and she quickly changed the subject to the bath mitt she was making for her soon-to-be mother-in-law.

  Rhoda leaned toward Babs. “Eric’s mother is trying to put the kibosh on the wedding, so Adele’s attempting to win her over with crocheted gifts.”

  Adele overheard and was starting to argue that she didn’t have to win her over when we were interrupted by a white-haired man sailing into the room with Sheila in tow.

  “Look who I have,” Tony Bonnard said, unlinking his arm with Sheila’s and giving her a soft push closer to the group. I was never sure how to describe Tony’s relationship with CeeCee. It seemed absurd to call him her boyfriend, but I couldn’t come up with anything better. “She was outside the gate when I pulled in. I knew you were expecting her.” He didn’t say it, but I was pretty sure he’d had to coax her to come in. She looked tenser than usual, which was really something for her.

  If there was one word to describe Sheila Altman, it was anxious. She was the youngest in our group, so we were all like a bunch of mother hens looking after her and trying to help her deal with her nerves. Sheila had been brought up by her grandmother, who’d died not long ago, leaving her feeling abandoned. She was still trying to find her place in the world, though now that she’d started working at the lifestyle store, Luxe, down the street from the bookstore, she seemed more on track. The best part of the job was that the beautiful crocheted pieces she made fit right into the store, which featured lots of one-of-a-kind items. Customers always fell in love with the lush coloring of the blankets, shawls and scarves she brought in.

  With her new job, Sheila seemed to have given up on her previous desire to be a studio costume designer, despite all the classes she’d taken. The classes weren’t really a loss, though—it was probably through them that she’d come up with her distinctive Impressionist style. Most of her items were crocheted, and none of us liked to bring it up in front of Adele, but Sheila did knit some of the pieces.

  And now for the first time she was going to show others how to crochet one of her signature pieces using her method.

  “I’m sorry I’m so late,” she said, and she began reciting a list of excuses. It seemed she’d been so nervous thinking about doing the practice class, she hadn’t been able to sleep, but then she had fallen asleep and overslept, which gave her a whole new reason to be anxious. “I had to sit and crochet with string for a while just so I could calm down enough to get dressed.” She stopped long enough to take a deep breath. “Thank you for doing this,” Sheila said, pushing her chin-length hair behind her ears to get it off her face. She put on a brave smile, but her brow was still furrowed.

  Babs came up next to her and introduced herself. “I’m your volunteer student. I’m anxious to learn, and I know you are going to be great.” Babs put her arm around Sheila’s shoulder. If this was what they did in Iowa City, I was all for it. Sheila let out a deep breath and seemed to relax a little.

  Rosa had come in with two more plates and some biscuits she had smartly set aside, but Tony held up his hand. “None for me. I’m just here for a moment. No more cushy life of an actor for me. I’m a producer now. I just stopped by to pick something up. Then it’s errands to run and people to see.”

  “I can’t believe they canceled the soap you were on. I thought you were fabulous,” Babs said.

  Tony smiled at her comment. “Thank you, but such is life. You have to make the best of change.” He sounded like he meant it, but who knew for sure. Acting was his trade. He certainly looked the part of a leading man with his square jaw and sparkling blue eyes, the collar of his tan polo shirt stylishly turned up. None of the other Hookers said anything, but we all traded glances. We knew that Tony and CeeCee had been a couple for a long time, but they’d always had their own homes. CeeCee hadn’t said anything, but lately it had seemed like Tony was living at her place. We thought it was rude to ask, but we did wonder what was going on.

  “I’ll leave you to your crocheting, ladies,” he said, stopping to kiss CeeCee on the cheek. He gave Sheila a pat on the back. “I know you’ll knock ’em dead.” He was halfway out of the dining room when he turned back. “CeeCee, don’t forget to tell them about your plan.”

  All eyes turned to CeeCee. “Well?” Rhoda said.

  “You heard Tony say he’s a producer now. He’s putting together a web-only series. We were talking about ways to keep the expenses down, and these days you can do so much with so little equipment. And now that my niece has moved out of the guest apartment over the garage, we thought we’d turn it into a studio. I thought we could use it to make crochet videos. Of course, I’d be the director.”

  “And I could be the host!” Adele said excitedly.

  “We can figure that all out later,” CeeCee said. “I just wondered what you all thought of the idea.” We were all enthused, and Elise wanted to see the space she was talking about right away. “I don’t want to take away from Sheila’s time. We can look at it another time,” CeeCee said.

  “Why not do it now?” Sheila said, obviously stalling. I really wanted to get her practice class done, but she was already leading the way to CeeCee’s front door.

  “I think filming something and putting it on the bookstore website would be a great idea, though I’ll have to talk Mrs. Shedd into it,” I said, getting up. “She’s resisting having too much of an online presence. She wants the bookstore to be a destination.”

  We all followed Sheila out the front door. “A video of me crocheting might bring people into the bookstore,” Adele said. “We could film me doing story time, too. That would bring in customers.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking, Leave it to Adele to figure out how to make it The Adele Show. Though I had to admit that she always made story time very dramatic and was known to wear costumes to match the characters she was reading about and to practically act out the books.

  “You’ll have to use your imagination, because we haven’t done anything to it yet,” CeeCee said as we walked across the front of her property. “We’ll add some lighting, and Tony wants to have a green screen so he can make it look like all different places.” As CeeCee talked, I looked around the yard. I loved the outdoor patio area, with its arrangement of chairs and string of lights overhead, though it seemed dark now because of the shadows from all the trees. It was almost hard to believe it was midday. We approached the garage, which was freestanding and had room for multiple cars, though CeeCee always parked in the driveway near the gate. The apartment was probably originally built to house live-in staff, but when CeeCee’s career had stalled, she’d gone to having a housekeeper who just worked days. Then CeeCee’s niece had moved into the space when she came out from Ohio. Nell was a bit of a sore spot with me. She had abruptly broken up with my son. I didn’t know the exact details, but I gathered that she didn’t want to be tie
d down and had simply moved on, leaving him heartbroken. My gray terrier mix, Felix, had originally been their dog. CeeCee went on about how her niece had been making a bunch of life changes—not mentioning that that included breaking up with Samuel, even though everyone knew—and had gotten a place in the Silver Lake neighborhood of L.A.

  There was a stairway along the side of the garage that led to the second-story entrance, and CeeCee took the lead in climbing it. “Before we do anything, we’ll have to clear out the old furniture,” she said. “We haven’t even bothered locking the door.”

  CeeCee rambled on about getting a director’s chair with her name on it and wearing a baseball cap like Ron Howard did, and I listened halfheartedly as the breeze blew a whiff of a terrible smell my way. I hoped it would go away, but with each step it seemed to get stronger.

  When we got to the top, CeeCee pushed the door open. It was as dark as a cave inside, and a blast of heat came out, intensifying the bad smell. CeeCee made a face. “Oh my God, what did Nell leave in here? And why did she leave the heat on?”

  Babs had come around the others and was just one step below CeeCee and me. “A mouse or something must have gotten in,” Babs said. CeeCee cringed at the thought and took a step back, somehow maneuvering me in front of her. The rest of the group had stopped where they were.

  CeeCee dropped her voice. “Babs must be right. It’s happened before.” Then she turned back to the others and gestured toward me. “Molly will take care of it. She has a lot of experience with dead bodies.”

  CeeCee followed behind me, hanging on to my shirt until I entered the apartment. “Is there a light switch?” I asked, touching the wall. CeeCee had backed away from the doorway and either didn’t hear me or didn’t know the answer. There were closed shutters over the windows, but enough light came through for me to be able to gingerly pick my way across the room. I tried to deal with the smell by holding my nose, but it was no help. The awful smell still got through. I pulled back the shutters and pushed the first window open. An old-fashioned heater was on the wall near the door. I made a beeline to it and turned the dial to Off. I looked for the source of the smell next, and I gasped when I realized it was something bigger than a mouse. Way bigger.

  A figure of an adult person was sprawled on the ground. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman, but I was very sure that he or she was dead and had been that way for a while.

  “Carbon monoxide!” Rhoda yelled from the doorway, pointing at a sensor on the wall. The battery must have worn down too much to sound an alarm, but there was still a flashing red light. “You better get out.”

  “Oh no,” CeeCee yelped, staring at the body on the ground. Her knees were beginning to buckle as she stood in the doorway, and she looked pale as skim milk. I grabbed her hand and pulled her out onto the stairway with me. Babs grabbed her other arm and helped me get her back down to the bottom of the stairs, where we had her put her head between her knees. In that moment, she was hardly the picture of an Academy Award nominee.

  Sheila’s eyes were as big as saucers, and she had taken out her hook and string and started to blindly crochet in an effort to calm herself.

  “Is it your niece?” Rhoda asked the slumped-over CeeCee. CeeCee shook her head.

  “She called me last night. There’s no way it’s her.”

  “Well, then, who is it?” Elise asked. “And how did they get there?”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Molly, you have to do something. I can’t have a line of police cars roaring up here with their sirens wailing like a bunch of banshees. What if the paparazzi latch on to them?” CeeCee said. “A body on my property!” And then something else occurred to her. “They’ll think I’m responsible. I’ll be arrested!” CeeCee had recovered enough to stand up, but now she was almost in hysterics as she thought through her predicament.

  We had taken a moment to evaluate the situation. We all agreed that the smell made it clear the person was beyond resuscitating and there was no point in calling the paramedics. Adele had stepped in and taken most of the group back to the dining room, where they were trying to recover from what they’d just seen. Poor Sheila was a total wreck now. In a surprise move, Adele had put a supportive arm around our nervous Hooker and reassured her that everything would be okay. When I said we were all mother hens to Sheila, I hadn’t meant Adele. Adele always seemed most concerned with herself, but maybe being engaged was changing her. Babs, trying to be the good neighbor, had stayed behind with CeeCee and me.

  “But you have to call the police,” Babs said. “You can’t just leave a body up there and hope it will disappear.” She took out her cell phone. “I’d be happy to do it.” She had her finger poised to hit the numbers.

  “Don’t,” CeeCee commanded in a shrill voice. “Molly has connections. Let her take care of it.”

  I hung my head. By connections, she meant my ex, homicide detective Barry Greenberg. We’d been kaput for a while, and since the friendship idea didn’t appeal to him—did that ever work, anyway?—I hadn’t talked to him for a month or so. Even so, his number was still listed under Favorites in my contact list.

  I hit the icon, and the phone dialed his number. It rang a few times while I reminded myself that this was all business.

  “Greenberg,” he said, clearly in professional homicide cop mode. I didn’t mean to, but I got butterflies in my stomach at the sound of his voice.

  “Is anybody there?” he said after a moment.

  “It’s me, Molly,” I said finally. I thought I heard a little sound of surprise, but when he spoke his voice was guarded.

  “Personal or professional?” he asked.

  “Maybe a little of both.” I paused for a moment while I collected my thoughts. “We found a body at CeeCee’s. She’s worried about—” Before I could say the rest of it, he had interrupted.

  “A body. How is there a body at CeeCee’s?” He blew out his breath. “Who is it?”

  “We don’t know,” I said. “I’m not even sure if it’s a man or woman.”

  “I’ll be right there. Don’t touch anything, and don’t let anybody leave.” Just before he hung up, I heard him mutter, “You can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can you?”

  I sent Babs and CeeCee to join the others and hung around by the front gate until I saw Barry’s black Crown Victoria pull up. He was straightening his tie as he got out of the car.

  “What happened?” he demanded as I let him in the gate. There was a slight lift to his eyebrows as his gaze moved over my face, but other than that, his expression was all business. I hated to admit it under the circumstances, but I felt a kind of rush at his presence. I guess that never goes away. He looked tired, but that was how he usually looked, since he constantly worked long hours. He was clean shaven, but there were shadows under his dark eyes. He glanced at me again, and for just a moment there was a hint of emotion. Did he feel something, too?

  “Why didn’t you call 911? Where’s the victim?” He looked around the expansive property.

  I explained CeeCee’s desire to keep things quiet. “A rescue ambulance and fire truck with sirens wailing would have destroyed that plan,” I said. Immediately, I realized how ridiculous that sounded, and I added that once he saw the body, he’d realize there was no need to rush.

  “Let me have a look, then,” he said. He told me to lead the way. “You found the body?” he asked as we started to walk. When I nodded, he gave me a discouraging shake of his head. “You better tell me how that happened.”

  I’m afraid I gave him much more information than he needed. I don’t think he cared about Sheila’s lesson or CeeCee’s desire to be a video director. I couldn’t see his dark eyes now, but I’m pretty sure they were glazed over, though he snapped to attention at my next comment.

  “I think the cause of death is carbon monoxide poisoning,” I said.

  “Now you’re doing the work of the medi
cal examiner, too?” Barry made a disgruntled noise, and I guessed he was rolling his eyes at my assessment. He wasn’t fond of me playing detective and tried to discourage me whenever possible, so I didn’t wait for him to ask me how I was so sure, but rather went right into describing the heater being on and the sensor flashing.

  He stopped and turned to look at me. “And you went in there anyway?”

  “I didn’t see the sensor right away,” I said with a shrug. “Obviously I didn’t know there was a dead person in there, either. It was pitch-black.”

  “Are you ever going to learn to stay out of things?” he asked.

  “Probably not,” I said with a smile, and he groaned. I led him across the yard to the garage and pointed up at the open door. He went on ahead, and I followed him up the stairs.

  We stopped at the top while he looked in, and I pointed out the carbon monoxide sensor and the open window, reminding him that I’d turned off the heater. He gave me a hopeless shake of his head and then put his arm out to hold me back as he went in. This wasn’t his first go-round with the smell of death, and he pulled out a handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth.

  He made a dash across the large space to the sensor on the wall, removed it, and returned to the stairway. He conveniently had a 9-volt battery in his pocket, which he placed in the sensor before plugging it back in. It didn’t go off. Still, he opened all the windows to let more air in and checked the heater again to make sure it was really off.

  Barry walked over to the victim, examining the area. Now that all the shutters were open and he’d turned on the recessed lights in the ceiling, I got a better look at the whole place. I didn’t want to look at the body, but my eye kept going back there anyway. I glanced over the whole figure, starting with the shoes. The victim wore tan shoes that didn’t give a hint to the sex of the wearer. The soles reminded me of pink erasers, except for something dark at the front of the shoes. He or she also wore khaki pants and a multicolored vest. My eye stayed on the vest as I racked my brain, trying to figure out why it seemed familiar. The head was turned to the side, and all I could see was some rust-colored hair. The shaggy cut didn’t make the gender of the person any clearer, either. Barry was already on his phone as he headed back to the door, but he returned it to his pocket as he walked out. “I forgot to ask you the most obvious question,” he said, herding me down the stairs. “Who is it?”