“A cappuccino would be nice, with low-fat milk, of course,” CeeCee said. Once she’d opened the door, the rest of us spoke up. Kevin made the coffee drinks, set them up on the bar and invited us to help ourselves to the pastries. CeeCee muttered something about not wanting to be rude as she took a raspberry croissant. We carried our goodies back to the table. I was pleased when my red eye was nice and strong and a perfect complement to the sour cream danish.
“Then everything is fine now?” Kevin Brooks said, coming by to check a few minutes later.
Sheila surprised us all by hitting the table with her fist and saying it wasn’t. “If you think giving us a caffeine-and-sugar rush is going to make me go away, you have another thought coming. My friends and I’ll be back, and your brother better make good on what he owes me or else.”
Kevin took a step back and appeared uncomfortable with her outburst. I was also surprised by it. Sheila always seemed soft spoken, with her head down and her hair covering her face. I didn’t know she had the ability for such a confrontation. The other customers had heard her, too, and we suddenly had become the center of attention.
“I think it’s time to go,” CeeCee said, scanning the crowd for anybody with a camera. These days, with everything on the Internet in a few minutes and the public hungry for anything embarrassing about celebrities, she was always on guard.
As we filed into the entrance hall, Sheila said she really meant what she’d said: She was coming back, and next time Drew Brooks was going to have to deal with her or else.
“We’re with you,” Adele said. “That was a fabulous cappuccino, just the right blend of foam and espresso, but it’ll take more than that to buy me off.”
CeeCee was hesitant about agreeing to another go-round, but she finally patted Sheila’s hand and said she was in. Dinah’s eyes were flashing, and she told Sheila she’d done good by standing up for herself. Of course, she’d be back. There were some problems with us meeting at the shop the next day, so we decided to do it the day after at the same time. We’d started out just wanting to help Sheila, but now Drew Brooks had gotten all of us mad.
Patricia excused herself, saying she had to get to some volunteering thing at the hospital and left ahead of the rest of us.
As we were leaving, I noticed a familiar face admiring the heather blue knitted blanket I’d noticed earlier. She looked up and our eyes met.
Detective Hea—I mean, Gilmore,” I said. Her face showed recognition but not the open smile of someone really glad to see you. No wonder—we weren’t exactly friends. We did have something in common. Barry Greenberg. She wanted him and I had him. And it really bugged her.
“Were you with the brown-haired woman making the scene?” she asked.
I tried to shrug it off, but she stuck with it. “Didn’t I recognize the crochet group? What is it you call yourselves?”
“We’re the Tarzana Hookers,” I said in a low voice, realizing that seeing her shopping like a regular person was weird. Detective Heather was dressed in a dark suit with a pencil skirt and heels, and had pulled her white blond curls back into a more serious style. I only called her Detective Heather in my mind and to my friends. Saying it directly to her sounded too much like calling her Detective Barbie Doll. She already didn’t like me, and I didn’t want to make it worse. The truth was, she had a lot going for her. She was not only hot looking, but also very smart and a good detective, according to Barry.
Detective Heather asked what the problem was. I knew it was foolish, but since it wasn’t for me, I explained, thinking she might do something, like wave her gun at the nice Brooks brother and get Sheila her money. No such luck.
“Tell your friend to take him to small claims court,” she said, brushing some lint off her purse. I didn’t have to ask to know she’d knitted it. It was the replica of some bag featured at Neiman Marcus that you’d have to take out a mortgage to buy. Detective Heather was knit only and no fan of crochet or the people that did it.
CHAPTER 4
TWO DAYS LATER, I WAS AGAIN WAITING OUTSIDE the Cottage Shoppe, but things were different. According to the banners on the windows, the Hearston Estate items had arrived. I didn’t know what they were, but they seemed to have attracted a crowd. People kept passing me and going inside. I thought the crochet group had agreed to meet outside, but after standing alone for a while, I began to wonder if I’d misunderstood, so I went inside, too.
Once I got past a clump of people in the entrance hall, I saw CeeCee standing in the dining room, admiring a three-tiered tray of scones.
“I thought we were going to meet outside,” I said, walking up to her.
“It’s so much more interesting in here, I came inside,” CeeCee said. I asked about the others, and she mentioned she’d seen Patricia looking around. “And here’s Dinah.” My friend stepped around a woman carrying a butter churn.
I was determined to get some information from Dinah this time about the other night. I’d since tried calling her a number of times, and either she hadn’t answered or she’d told me she couldn’t talk. Today she was wrapped in a rust-colored shawl and had on brass earrings that jangled when she moved her head.
“Okay, so what is going on?” I asked. Dinah hesitated. There was a buzz from all the chatter, and it was obviously not a good place to have an intimate conversation.
“I’m really not trying to stall you. I’ll tell you about it, but let’s take care of Sheila’s problem first.” A woman jostled Dinah as she showed off a crystal decanter to her shopping companion. “Here comes Sheila.” We waited while Sheila moved between some people and came over to us. She had a determined look on her face, but I noticed she was twisting her fingers, a sure sign she was nervous.
Adele waved and then came over. CeeCee came from the dining room and joined the group. We huddled and all agreed that Sheila’s best bet was to simply go upstairs to Drew’s office rather than talking to either of the saleswomen first.
“And be firm,” Dinah said. Sheila took some deep breaths and marched toward the stairs.
Adele held up her find to show us. It was some sort of deep purple turbanlike hat with a tall black feather. She modeled it, but it made her look like a kooky fortune-teller.
“It was Gloria Hearston’s. You know who she was, don’t you?” Adele directed her question at CeeCee, but the name didn’t seem to register. “She was this really famous silent movie star. I can’t believe you don’t know who she was. Her family just released a select number of her belongings.” Adele showed off a sheet of paper that had the Hearston story on it.
As I looked at Adele’s hat again, I noticed the tall bald man from the other day. He was wearing another well-tailored suit and had the same Harrods shopping bag. But his manner was different. He walked toward the door with an expression I could only call satisfied.
A few minutes later, Sheila burst into the middle of the group. She was close to tears and even deep breathing didn’t help. “He laughed at me,” she said, her voice cracking.
We moved into the empty dining room, where Sheila repeated the whole encounter with Drew as we tried to calm her. Kevin walked into the room and didn’t even seem to notice us. I didn’t care what he had said about it being all his brother’s domain. I reached out to grab his arm and get his attention when suddenly a hair-raising scream cut through the drone of conversation. It seemed to have come from upstairs. Everybody froze and glanced up just as another scream erupted.
I expected Kevin to do something, but he seemed glued to the floor, so I nudged Dinah and we took off toward the stairs, joined by half the people in the store. We stopped at the top of the stairs, confronted by a small hallway and several doors. A saleswoman stumbled out of one of the doorways, her eyes big with panic. She saw the crowd and screamed again and slumped against the wall. Dinah and I rushed into the room she had exited. A crowd of people came in behind us, and then there was a collective gasp. At a large desk in the center of the room, Drew Brooks was facedown in a bowl. Red stu
ff was splattered everywhere.
“Omigod, there’s so much blood,” I said, looking at the crimson marks on the rug, wall and desk.
Adele, still wearing her Gloria Hearston hat, pushed through the crowd. She looked at the desk and surroundings and shook her head at me with disgust. “Pink, it’s not blood. It’s soup.” She mumbled something about precious time being lost while we were standing there like idiots, and pulled Drew’s head up. It was covered with something red, which I now realized was too thick and lumpy to be blood. Adele was right. There was still soup in the bowl.
To her credit, she dragged Drew onto the floor and started CPR. By then the assembled gawkers all had their cell phones out and were calling 911, which apparently froze the system temporarily. Finally one person was designated as the caller.
A few moments later sirens filled the air.
“WHAT THE—” A UNIFORMED LOS ANGELES police officer said after squeezing into the room and seeing Adele crouching on the floor, pumping Drew’s chest. When everyone tried to answer at once, he yelled for quiet so he could get on his radio.
His female partner pushed in behind him and then looked around, shaking her head. “We have to clear the room.”
As much as Adele and I have had our differences, I think Officer Lucy Hernandez could have been a little nicer to Adele when she pulled her off the floor. After all, Adele was trying to resuscitate Drew, but I guess seeing a big woman wearing a turban-style hat with a quivering feather, hovering over a body, with all of us as an audience, must have looked strange.
After Officer Hernandez moved Adele away, she checked Drew’s pulse and her expression dimmed.
The crowd was exiting the room, but I kept moving back so I could have a longer time to look around. I knew that right now all the clues to what had happened were right in front of me and once I left I wouldn’t have another opportunity like this. My first thought was that it wasn’t my problem, but a voice in the back of my head said to check it out anyway. And recently I’d been reading and rereading The Average Joe’s Guide to Criminal Investigation, so I was becoming more observant.
Like not all of the red stuff was soup. I’d seen the back of Drew’s head for only a moment before Adele pulled his face out of the bowl, and there was a lot of red stuff clumped in his hair. Then I looked at the desk. Along with the regular desk stuff, I saw a bunch of paperweights scattered on it. One seemed to be a globe and another a brass bust of Teddy Roosevelt. The rest appeared to be made of glass with colorful stuff suspended inside. One of Sheila’s scarves was lying next to the soup bowl. Instinctively, I almost made a grab for it, but just then Officer Hernandez came up next to me to make sure I left. As I took one last look at the desk, I noticed something white and lacy hanging off one of the drawer pulls. It looked as if something had caught on it and ripped. Even as I headed out the door, I kept my eyes on it, imprinting its details on my mind.
There were more uniforms downstairs, and they held us back while the paramedics rushed past. Barry had told me once that as long as the head was still attached to the body, the cops called for a rescue ambulance. I couldn’t blame them. It was better to err on the side of optimism.
Then we were escorted outside to the parking lot as yellow tape was strung around the perimeter, apparently to corral us in.
“Just stay put and no talking to each other,” another uniform said. “We need to get statements from all of you and fingerprints and hair samples.”
A police helicopter hovered overhead. The noise level grew as several helicopters from news stations arrived and hung in the air off to the side.
CeeCee was surrounded by a cluster of people who were apparently ignoring the no-talking order. I passed by close enough to overhear them and figured out they were wondering if this was all part of her reality show. Patricia was also ignoring the no-talking order and was handing out campaign buttons to two women. I heard her say something about Benjamin being serious about reducing crime. Dinah was helping Adele clean up. She had gotten soup on her face and arms and the hat. I guessed the shock of what had happened had set in and she was acting frantic and stunned. When I looked back toward the store, Kevin Brooks was talking to a uniformed officer. Even from a distance I could read his body language: He was in shock.
Beyond the yellow-tape perimeter, I saw the Channel 3 News van pull up. The door flew open, and Kimberely Wang Diaz got out, dressed in slacks and a blazer and wearing stage makeup. I was distracted from her by a black Crown Victoria pulling up behind two police cruisers. When I saw Barry get out, I waved.
He didn’t appear to see me. He was dressed in a suit, wore sunglasses and had a closed expression. Barry was totally serious about his job, and I was sure his mind was already ticking with whatever details he’d been given.
I’d asked him once how he could handle what he had to handle. I didn’t really even want to think about what he saw on a daily basis. At first, he’d been macho and said it was all in day’s work. Then he got real and said he’d had to learn to keep an emotional distance.
Even though he wore sunglasses, I knew he was looking over the crowd. When his head stopped moving, I knew he’d seen me. I waved again. He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand and shook his head. I saw him take out his cell phone as he stepped over the yellow tape and moved toward me.
“Tell me you were just on your way to the post office and you stopped when you saw the crowd and wanted to find out what was going on,” he said when he got close.
His mouth settled into a straight line when I shrugged in a hopeless gesture.
“I didn’t think so.” Directing his attention to the rest of the crowd, he spotted Dinah, CeeCee, Adele and Sheila. He knew who Dinah was, recognized CeeCee and figured who the others were. He got the picture.
“This is the store you were talking about the other day, isn’t it?” he asked. I couldn’t see his eyes because of the sunglasses, but I was sure he was looking heavenward with exasperation. “Molly, you didn’t tell your friend about small claims court, either, did you?”
“It was my suggestion of last resort. We thought if we all came here together Drew Brooks would just pay Sheila what he owed her and she wouldn’t have to go through the whole court hassle. Sheila’s kind of shy and gets nervous over anything. If she had to stand up and talk in front of a judge, even that TV guy who seems so friendly, she’d be a basket case. Drew Brooks is really dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. Then he sighed. “Yes.”
When I’d been upstairs with everyone else, my adrenalin had kicked in and I’d thought only of what The Average Joe’s Guide had said about being observant. That had helped me to keep a distance and pay attention to details instead of getting emotionally involved. But now, as the reality of Drew’s death began to sink in, I thought I was going to be sick. Barry must have noticed I’d gone green. He held my arm for support and told me to take some deep breaths, and he gave me a piece of peppermint gum. I chewed for a moment and with each deep breath felt a little more stable.
“It was murder, wasn’t it?” I said.
‘Not your problem,” Barry answered. I told him about the blood on the back of Drew’s head. “Also not your problem.”
Barry’s cell phone rang, and he turned and walked away a few steps. He was flipping it shut when he came back.
“I have to step down—again. I can’t be the lead detective if my girlfriend was in the room with the victim.”
“It wasn’t just me. There were lots of people up there. I didn’t touch him.” I pointed vaguely in Adele’s direction. She was still wearing the hat. “Adele’s the one who put him on the floor and tried to do CPR.”
He was shaking his head and probably rolling his eyes behind the sunglasses over the last part. “Yeah, but I’m not dating them, so you’re the only one who counts—or counts me out.”
“But I’m not a suspect or a person of interest. I was just an innocent bystander,” I said as he turned to go.
“We’ll talk about it tonight.”
“Tonight?” I repeated.
Barry had a smug set to his mouth. “I bought some dog toys for Cosmo, and I was going to bring them by.” Before I could make any comment about possibly having plans that interfered, he went back into full-out work mode, gestured to his partner Darren Keltner and pointed toward the car.
I should have figured who’d replace Barry as lead detective. He and Darren were leaning against their car when she pulled up. The first thing I saw was the white blond hair as Detective Heather Gilmore got out of the Crown Vic with her partner Rick Allen. He was no trouble; she was nothing but.
The four detectives had a conversation. Well, Darren and Rick listened while Detective Heather and Barry talked. Barry gestured toward the crowd, probably explaining something. Then Detective Heather looked my way. There was a certain déjà vu to all this, but this time there was no way she could try to pin the death on me.
Like I said, Detective Heather and I had issues. Well, one issue. She wanted Barry. Who could miss the way she flicked her hair and touched his arm as they talked? He had always claimed not to be interested. I was curious about why he wasn’t and had asked him about it shortly after we’d started seeing each other again following a brief breakup. She was blond, younger than I was, had a better body and was in the same line of work as he.
“She’s not my type. We had coffee once, twice, ah, a few times,” he’d stammered. “And it didn’t work out.”
I’d gone into shock mode when I realized he’d actually gone out with her. He’d always claimed not to notice she was interested. “What? You went out with her? When? How?”
“Remember when we broke up? I was a free guy then. You kept saying how you thought she had the hots for me, so I thought I’d see what was up.”
“What about Jeffrey?” I’d demanded, trying not to look pouty-faced. He was so protective of Jeffrey, at first not even letting me meet him because we weren’t in some permanent sort of relationship.
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