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.”
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?”
“Logan figures it’s millions. And there’s no body because Bradley jumped in the ocean in the middle of the channel,” Elise said. “It might still wash up.” Elise spoke to the group. “Logan feels terrible because he got all these people to put money in. The records are such a mess. Logan’s trying to help the SEC make a list of all the investors.” Her gaze swept the group. “Were any of you in the investment club?”
CeeCee spoke first. “My late husband lost all my money and I had to start over from scratch. He made foolish investments. I never would.”
Rhoda made another one of her snort sounds before she answered. “My Harold always says if something is too good to be true, it usually is—not true.”
Sheila put her hands up in a hopeless manner. “With what money?” Dinah and I both shook our heads. The new woman said she’d just moved to the area and didn’t even understand what we were talking about.
Everyone turned to Eduardo. His chiseled face was solemn and he finally nodded. He never talked much and I often wondered if he just tuned out all our chatter. He always did at least his share of any charity projects the group took on and generally seemed pleasant.
His eyes looked angry and he was holding a plastic size Q hook. He turned to Rhoda. “Your husband is right. I wish I had thought of that instead of being taken in by Bradley.” Eduardo said that men had a bigger window of time as models, but it didn’t last forever even for them. “I’ve been exploring other avenues,” he said. “I thought if I could grow my savings, I’d have a stake to start my own business.” His face grew impassioned. “I think what that guy did was terrible. It wasn’t my life savings, but I bet for some others it was. He deserves to be dead.” There was a loud snap and Eduardo seemed as surprised as the rest of us when we saw that he’d snapped the thick hook in half.
“But what if he isn’t really dead?” Rhoda said. I considered bringing u
p what I’d overheard the SEC lawyer say about believing that Bradley was really dead, but mentioning it would no doubt bring up questions about why I was investigating since I hadn’t invested any money. Questions that might lead to Mrs. Shedd and I’d promised to not tell anyone she’d been in Bradley’s club.
Elise pondered the thought for a moment.
“It happens,” Dinah said. “There was a guy who tried to fake his own death by bailing out of the plane he was flying. He figured the plane would crash and everyone would think he died in the crash.”
“So?” Rhoda said. “What happened?”
“He got caught. Somehow they figured out the plane was flying empty.”
Adele came up to the table. She was back in street clothes, but she hadn’t been able to get off all the makeup.
Rhoda handed Adele a shopping bag. “Here’s the afghan. Thanks for letting me look at it. You’re right, though, somebody doesn’t know about symmetry. I mean, if you’re going to put on tassels, you either just have one on one corner for accent or you put one on each corner. And if you’re going to scatter flowers on it, they ought to be balanced. You don’t crowd flowers on one square and then have none in the next. ”
Adele peeked inside the bag. “That’s exactly what I told William. Don’t give it to me. Give it to Pink. It belongs to her neighbor.”
“I think it’s lovely,” I said, pulling part of the blanket out to examine it. The green background was such a nice contrast to the different-colored flowers scattered over it.
“Whatever, Pink. I did what you asked and wrote down the directions for how to make one of the squares and how to do surface crochet.” She handed me a sheet of paper.
At my puzzled look, she pointed to the flowers. “That’s how they were done. With surface crochet, you anchor your yarn on the top and do chain stitches into the top. Once you finish the chain stitches, it’s just crochet as usual.”
I took the blanket all the way out of the bag and passed it around the table. Across the table, Rhoda shrugged. “One guy’s opinion of lovely is someone else’s of mishmash.” I explained that when I hadn’t been able to decipher the pattern, I’d passed it on to Adele to look at. It wasn’t the squares that had given me a problem. They were just single crochet, but I couldn’t figure out how the varied colored flowers had been crocheted on top of the background. After everyone admired it, I folded it up and brought it over to CeeCee. “Emily doesn’t want it back. She said to give it to a charity sale. Isn’t Hearts and Barks having some kind of holiday bazaar?”
“Yes, dear. I’m sure they’d be glad to add the afghan to the auction.” CeeCee repacked it in the paper bag and put it under the table.
“Finished,” Elise said, holding up the black-and-white scarf. The scarlet tassel flopped back and forth as she waved it.
“So what’s that about?” Rhoda said, catching the end as it swung over her head.
“It’s a vampire scarf,” I said, remembering what Joshua Royal had said. I asked Elise if she could write down the directions and if I could borrow it to put in the front with the Anthony accessory display.
She was breathless. “You want to put my scarf on display and call it an Anthony scarf?” She hugged it to herself as if she was hugging the handsome vampire in person. “Of course, you can use it. I’d be honored. I’ll type up the directions and bring them to you.”
“A vampire scarf? What does that mean?” Rhoda said, examining it.
Elise seemed to have forgotten all about her money troubles and explained the significance of the colors and pointed out the fang-shaped stitches. Elise swung the tassel that hung from a corner. “You must know what the scarlet is for.”
Rhoda rolled her eyes. “The foofie vampire barely even drinks blood.”
The conversation never went back to Bradley and I never got a chance to bring up the question I’d had before. Why would someone who was planning to kill himself take his parking ticket with him?
CHAPTER 13
WHEN THE GROUP BROKE UP, SHEILA STAYED AT the table, her hook flying through three strands of the mohairlike yarn. She looked up for a moment and seemed surprised that only Dinah and I were still there. She leaned back in her chair and dropped the hook on the table. She closed her eyes and began massaging her temples.
“I promised Nicholas I’d finish his order by today.” She sounded close to tears and the way her shoulders were hunched, I knew she was on the verge of an anxiety attack. It didn’t help that both Dinah and I said Nicholas would understand if she was one short.
“I know. That’s what makes it worse. He’s so nice, I don’t want to let him down.”
She checked her watch and said she didn’t have to be back at the gym for her receptionist job until late in the afternoon. She picked up the hook and muttered something about if she pushed herself maybe she could finish.
I stopped her hands. “Dinah and I will go with you to Luxe and explain the delay to Nicholas. Then you’re coming to get food with us. I bet you haven’t been eating.”
Sheila tried to argue, but when I pressed her, she admitted that maybe she had missed a few meals.
A hunk of downtown Tarzana was in the process of being rebuilt. The old Brown center had been demolished with the movie theaters and odd little stores and was being replaced by something called the Village Walk; I kept telling myself change was good. Along with reminding myself it was going to happen whether I liked it or not, anyway.
The bookstore, Le Grande Fromage and Luxe were in the old section of interesting low buildings. Nicholas had done wonders with the storefront when he created Luxe. He’d added a large fountain on one wall that spread good ions around the store. The mixture of soap by the slice, a selection of unisex colognes and the exotic spices in the food section gave the store a wonderful signature scent. The merchandise was equally enticing. It was an eclectic mixture of things, and the only thing they had in common was they all seemed to have style. Nicholas said he sold only what he particularly liked.
We set off a bell when we came in and he walked through a door from the back. He was as appealing as his store. He seemed to give off good ions like the fountain. Though just for a moment I wondered if he was really as he seemed. He was almost too nice, too concerned, too compassionate. It made me wonder if it was all a front and that big back area he kept so private was really full of dead bodies.
“Don’t worry about the other blanket,” he said, once I’d explained that Sheila was upset about being short one. He took the ones she’d completed and insisted on paying her even for the one she was short. While they conducted business, Dinah and I browsed the store.
We were admiring a hand-painted pasta bowl on a table when I looked out the front window. We were directly across from Tarzana Jewelers. Emily Perkins had just parked her SUV in front of it and was walking toward the store. I nudged Dinah. “It seems like a strange time to go jewelry shopping.”
Nicholas saw us peering out the window. “Anything interesting?” he said, standing next to us.
I pointed out Emily as she went in the store.
He watched for a moment before saying anything. “I don’t want this to sound like I’m gossiping. I’m only telling you because you’re her neighbor, but she came in here earlier. She wanted to return some things she bought last week.” He pointed out a silver hairbrush and comb set and a basket with bathroom accessories sitting on the table that served as a checkout.
“Was something wrong with them?” I said, examining the bathroom basket. Along with soap and some special organic bath salts, there was a selection of washcloths that I realized were crocheted. Sheila joined us. She was surprised to see the washcloths and said she’d almost forgotten that she made them. For a moment the conversation turned to crochet, and she said she’d made them in no time. They were all done in organic cotton in a creamy beige and sage green. “I can’t believe she’d return either of these; like everything else in the store, they’re great,” I said.
“It wasn�
�t because there was anything wrong with them,” Nicholas said. “She didn’t want the money put back on her credit card. She wanted cash. Normally I wouldn’t do that, but she seemed pretty close to the edge, if you know what I mean.”
He knew all about her situation. What she hadn’t told him, he’d heard on the street. “Suicide, missing money—it’s the topic of conversation wherever you go.”
“So then you weren’t part of Bradley’s investment club,” I asked.
He nodded with a joyless half laugh. “I got taken along with everybody else. After hearing Logan Belmont go on and on about what a magician Bradley was and talking about the remodel he’d done on his house with some money he’d made—you felt like a fool if you didn’t put some money in the fund, if you could get in. Logan had to put in a good word for me.” Nicholas did the mirthless laugh again. “I felt like a winner when Perkins took my money. Everybody knew Bradley. Who wouldn’t trust him?”
“I wonder why Bradley never tried to get me to join his fund,” I said.
“Under the circumstances I wouldn’t complain.” Nicholas sighed. “I’m trying to let it go and move on. It’s much worse for Emily. Anything Bradley left will get split up among the investors. They may take everything she has, too.” He mentioned how Ruth Madoff had to leave her apartment with nothing but her purse because of the huge Ponzi scam her husband had pulled off. Some customers came in and Nicholas left us to wait on them.
We watched Emily come out of the store carrying one of the jewelry store’s signature tiny shopping bags.
I turned to Dinah. “Didn’t you say you wanted to look for some cuff links for Commander?” She picked up on my drift and we told Sheila we’d be back in a few minutes.
Dinah and I put together our story as we went across the street. She’d ask about the cuff links while I worked on getting information about Emily. If they thought we were real customers, they would be more likely to talk.
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