Dead Men Don't Crochet

by Betty Hechtman

  “He never met her,” Barry had said as his lips curved into a grin. He knew he’d gotten to me and was enjoying my upset. “It never got that far. She isn’t like you.” He tousled my hair and touched my cheek. “You are my comic relief, the person who shows me a life away from work,” he had said, wrapping me in his arms. “And you’re nice to cuddle with, and,” he added, licking his lips, “there’s always your cooking.”

  He was right, there. I never used anything-helper or packaged cake mixes. I was one hundred percent from scratch. And I knew I was a good cook. The extra padding on my hips was a testament to it.

  He’d said something about Detective Heather needing a cookbook to boil an egg. I’d wanted to ask how he knew. It sounded way past a cup of coffee to have gotten that kind of information. But I had decided it was better to just leave it be.

  “Well, well, look who’s here,” Detective Heather said when she finally walked up to me. Barry and Darren had left, and Rick Allen was talking to some uniforms.

  “I was just in the room with Drew Brooks. There were all those people, too.” I waved my hand over the crowd. “I’m not a suspect or a person of interest.”

  “That’s for me to decide and you to find out,” she said, taking out her notebook and pen. “I might just as well start questioning you now. Let’s start with the personal stuff, like your age and your weight. I know your name.” She made sure her pen was working. “Aren’t you like fifty-something?”

  “Forty-eight,” I corrected.

  “And your weight?”

  “What do you need that for?”

  “For identification purposes,” Detective Heather answered.

  “What? So you can tell me apart from all the other Molly Pinks running around Tarzana?”

  Begrudgingly, she said maybe she didn’t need that information after all. But she did need to know what I was doing there and what I’d seen. I tried to say I was there like everybody else to see the Hearston Estate items mentioned on the window banner, but she stopped me.

  “I saw you and your group here the other day. As I remember there was some kind of problem. Didn’t somebody say something about not getting away with something?” She turned away from me and checked through the crowd until she found Sheila. “She was the one making the threat, wasn’t she?”

  “I’m sure she had nothing to do with what happened to Drew Brooks. You should really be much more concerned about that tall bald man with the Harrods shopping bag.” I told her how he’d been in there the other day, and again just now. “And he was sure steamed about something,” I said.

  She scribbled in her notebook. “And his name is?”

  “Oh, I don’t exactly know,” I said with a shrug.

  Then she asked me to point him out.

  ‘He’s not exactly here,” I said, a little uncomfortable.

  “And maybe he doesn’t exactly exist,” she said.

  “Of course he does. I’m surprised you didn’t see him the other day. Go ahead and ask my friends. They saw him. They’ll vouch for me.”

  Detective Heather didn’t appear convinced. “Your friends would probably say they saw a bald green Martian in the store to back you up.”

  “Wow, you think they’re that loyal?” I said, surprised. There was something in Detective Heather’s voice. Was she jealous of my friends, too? “To put your mind at ease, just ask them when I’m not around.”

  “How about I just see what they say on their own.” She held her pen poised. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  I told her everything starting with the scream. She listened with an impassive expression as I told her how we’d found Drew and how Adele had tried doing CPR. She asked if I’d give my fingerprints and a hair sample. As soon as I was done, I was escorted to the edge of the parking lot, and the officer waited as I climbed under the tape and walked away. I’d have to catch up with Dinah later.

  Kimberely Wang Diaz zoomed up to me since apparently I was the first one let go.

  “I remember you,” she said, sounding too enthused. “Aren’t you the one they call the crime scene groupie?”

  CHAPTER 5

  “MOTHER, TELL ME THAT’S NOT YOU.” IT WAS MY son Peter calling my cell phone. Peter was a William Morris television agent who took his image very seriously and got upset when anyone in the family, which basically meant me and his younger brother Samuel, did anything he thought reflected poorly on him. He claimed he’d had the TV in his office on mute and by the time he turned it up, the story was over.

  If you’re watching Channel 3, it is,” I said, relieved he had the sound off and had missed the “crime scene groupie” comment. It was ridiculous to have that label just because I happened to show up at a few crime scenes in the past. By now I’d walked down the street to the bookstore parking lot and gotten in my car.

  “Mother,” he said, stretching it out to two syllables of disapproval. I explained what had happened and assured him I was fine, even if I was still feeling a little fuzzy headed over it all.

  He gave me a minilecture about “that’s what happens when you start dating cops.” Peter wasn’t happy about Barry and used any opportunity to try to knock him out of the picture. At first, I thought it was the idea of my dating that bothered him, but when he tried to fix me up with Mason Fields, a lawyer he was working with on a reality show, I began to think it was more about who.

  “Mother, you’re not a suspect, are you?”

  Finally something I could answer in a way that would make him happy. “Of course not,” I said, trying to sound peppier than I felt. The whole experience was finally getting to me.

  “Maybe you should talk it over with Mason. Just in case,” Peter said. Mason and I had a little flirting thing going, and I did like him. He had a sense of humor about being a lawyer, he was fun and he seemed to like me. But I wasn’t quite up to juggling men, and so far I hadn’t taken him up on his offers of dinner. I told Peter I’d keep it in mind and clicked off.

  Then I called Dinah’s cell to see what had happened to her. I got her voice mail and left a message to call me ASAP. It was about then that it struck me: I’d gotten in my car as if I were going to go somewhere, but I was on my way to work and the bookstore was in front of me. Chalk it up to being unnerved by the morning’s occurrence.

  Adele called in to say she had to go home and change since her clothes had gotten messed up when she was working on Drew. When she finally came in, she spent most of the day in the bookstore’s café telling everyone how she’d tried to save Drew Brooks. I was glad she wasn’t wearing Gloria Hearston’s hat.

  Luckily it was a slow day because I was definitely not my usual self. I’d be okay for a few minutes, but then I’d get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as I relived walking into Drew’s office and seeing him. Along with the eerie flashbacks, one thought kept surfacing: What had really happened?

  I left Shedd & Royal in the late afternoon and drove home, still not having heard from Dinah. By some quirk of timing Barry and I arrived at my driveway at the same time. He pulled his Tahoe in behind the greenmobile. The sun was fading, turning the sky a soft apricot as we walked into my yard together. For once I didn’t care that Barry had just dropped over.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, putting his arm around my shoulders.

  “I’ve had better days.” It felt nice to have some support, and if anybody could understand how I felt it was Barry. He dealt with crime scenes all the time.

  “You couldn’t get your mind off seeing Brooks, right?” When I nodded, Barry squeezed my shoulders. “The best thing you can do is concentrate on something else.” He glanced around the yard. “Think about how beautiful those flowers are,” he said, pointing at the orange and yellow pansies filling the planters that ran along the patio. “Think about your friends, your crochet stuff—me,” he said, as his lips curved into a grin.

  “Actually there was something I kept thinking about,” I said. His expression warmed—he obviously assumed it had to do
with him. It did, just not the way he thought. “I bet you know all kinds of inside information about what happened to Drew Brooks,” I said.

  “You call that thinking about something else?” He shook his head with dismay. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you just liked me for my information,” he teased, putting the bag of dog toys down on the patio table. I suspected he had just picked them up on his way here as opposed to having purchased them this morning, when he’d mentioned needing to drop them off.

  “I just wondered what happened after I left. Well, you left, too, but you must have found out how Drew Brooks died and who Detective Heather thinks did it.” I opened the kitchen door, and Cosmo ran out the door and tried to decide who to greet first. Clearly the dog knew which side his toast was buttered on because he rushed up to me, putting his floppy paws on my knees.

  Barry appeared hurt. “Have you forgotten who your daddy is?” he said, holding up a rawhide chew. Cosmo was a regular dog diplomat. After a quick hello lick to me, he ran over to Barry and grabbed the chew. Blondie came out to see what was going on. Barry offered her a chew and she snatched it and ran back into the house.

  Before we went inside Morgan drifted into the kitchen, Barry did a double take, then his expression dropped.

  “How long is Princess Sad Face staying?” he said in a low voice.

  He was right about the sad face part. Morgan always seemed to have a certain melancholy air about her. Today she was dressed in pink tights and leotard with a sweatshirt tied around her waist. When I did that it was to keep a sweatshirt handy. Morgan told me she did it to camouflage her hips—if you could call those tiny things hips. She went to dance class every day and worked at a kid’s gym and at an after-school program. Also, she went to auditions for music videos and stage productions. She had one coming up in the next couple of days.

  “Just for a couple of weeks,” I said, watching her open the refrigerator and take out three slices of apple on a plate and a bottle of sparkling spring water.

  Barry didn’t seem happy with the information. Her presence was a definite obstacle to his plans to show up spontaneously on my doorstep and then morph it into a whole other kind of encounter.

  “What happened to that whole thing about your freedom and wanting to live alone and have ice cream for dinner if you wanted?” he asked.

  “I still can, as long as I don’t make her eat any,” I said. “So, are you going to tell me about Drew Brooks, or not?”

  “Not. I don’t know anything. It’s not my case, remember?”

  “But you do know how he died—he drowned in the soup, didn’t he?” I mentioned seeing the blood on the back of his head. “I bet somebody hit him on the head and he fell in the soup.”

  “I’m not talking, and besides, until there’s an autopsy nobody knows for sure.”

  “Okay, then, if it was your case, who would you investigate first?”

  Barry groaned and shook his head. “Hey, Sherlock, I see where you’re going and keep out of it. Have you ever heard the term obstruction of justice? If Heather thinks you’re getting into things—” He grabbed my hand and pretended to handcuff it.

  “I was just curious, that’s all.”

  He rolled his eyes in response and carried the dog things inside.

  THE NEXT MORNING WHEN I WENT INTO THE bookstore office I was surprised to find Mrs. Shedd sitting at her desk. Our paths crossed only occasionally since she mostly came in before the bookstore opened or after it closed. She was in her late sixties, but her blond hair, cut to frame her face and strategically cover certain spots, made her look at least twenty years younger. The actual color was chemically enhanced, but the thick, shiny texture was all good genes.

  Everyone called her Mrs. Shedd. I only recently found out her first name was Pamela. I had never met Mr. Royal. Whenever she mentioned him, Mrs. Shedd gave the impression that he was on an extended trip. It was obvious he was her silent partner—very silent, like dead or nonexistent.

  A mug of coffee sat next to her along with a little pile of cherry-almond cookies. The newspaper was open on the desk. Even upside down, I could tell what article she was reading. It was the same one I’d already read about the Drew episode. Since it was a local murder, it was a big story on the third page. The article mostly described what I’d seen first-hand. The cause of death was still unknown pending the autopsy results, but the police were still investigating. There wasn’t a lot of personal information about Drew other than that he was divorced with no children. What a surprise.

  There was an accompanying picture that showed the crowd corralled in the parking lot, waiting to be questioned. Thankfully, the photographer had been more interested in catching how many people were there rather than who they were, and nobody’s face, including mine, was recognizable.

  “Talk about freaky,” I said, pointing at the article. “It was quite a scene.”

  “You were there?” Mrs. Shedd asked, perking up with interest. When I nodded, she wanted details, and I told her the whole story of Sheila and her scarves.

  “This didn’t have anything to do with the projects you’re doing at the bookstore?” Mrs. Shedd said, seeming concerned.

  “No. She made them all at home. She just brought them in so we could drool over them.”

  I mentioned that Patricia had joined the crochet group. Saying her name to Mrs. Shedd was like pushing the play button on a recording. Whenever I mentioned Patricia, Mrs. Shedd told the same story in the exact same words.

  “She’s a genius. She got the pinot noir stain out of that blouse I had made in Paris. I don’t know what I would have done without her. You know I had that dinner with the mayor that night. She saved the day. Saved the day.” Mrs. Shedd always said “saved the day” twice. Then she went into the part about how she was happy to host events for Patricia because she knew from experience that the things in her book worked. I smiled and nodded, acting as if I were hearing this story for the first time.

  “You must have known Ramona Brooks,” I said, trying to change the topic. “I hadn’t thought about it before, but it only made sense since Shedd & Royal was just down the street from the Cottage Shoppe.”

  “She was a lovely woman,” Mrs. Shedd said. “And she adored that store. It started out as just an antique and vintage store. She had a knack for finding unusual items at garage sales and flea markets. Then she would add a little polish, display them to their best advantage and get a nice price. She started taking in things on consignment because it was easier. But she was particular about what she’d take. It had to be unusual and something that would pull in a big price. It was only recently she also started taking handicraft items on consignment. But they had to be special, like those scarves you mentioned.”

  “Did you go in there much?” I asked, hoping Mrs. Shedd would keep talking. Who knew what information she might have that could come in handy?

  She laughed. “Too much for a while, and I have the stuff to prove it. Ramona was a good saleswoman. She always pointed out that everything was one of a kind and that if you didn’t buy it when you saw it, the next time it probably wouldn’t be there.”

  “I suppose she knew all about antiques and the values of things,” I said.

  “She definitely knew a lot about the things she sold, but when it came to the consignment things, she really went by what the seller claimed.” Mrs. Shedd ran her thumb along her coffee mug and appeared thoughtful. “I was really sorry when she died. She was a lovely woman, unlike her nephews.”

  Mrs. Shedd described how she’d stopped in the Cottage Shoppe shortly after Drew and Kevin had taken over. “I wanted to introduce myself and wish them good luck. I ended up walking in and out in almost the same move. The two men were having a yelling match in the living room. It seemed so out of place with such a genteel backdrop. I couldn’t hear who was saying what. One sounded viciously nasty and the other just seemed upset. I didn’t hear the details, and frankly I just wanted to get out of there.”

  “
I’d bet money the really nasty one was Drew,” I said. “He told Sheila if she didn’t like what he was offering, she could take her scarves somewhere else. He knew there wasn’t another place like it around here doing consignment. Kevin seems more pleasant.” I shifted my weight. “Maybe you should tell that story to the police.”

  “I don’t want to get involved, and neither should you,” she cautioned. “You’re not a suspect, I assume, so the best thing you can do is keep a low profile.”

  I tried to look as though I agreed. Mrs. Shedd was my boss, after all. It was just about ten and time for the crochet group to begin. Needing her approval, I told her about our plan to make comforting shawls for the Women’s Haven. She liked the idea immediately and said to go ahead and get the yarn. As I walked toward the door, she casually said, “By the way, a local children’s author offered to come to story time. I told Adele to handle it. I hope you don’t feel I’ve stepped on your toes.”

  I just smiled and said I was sure it would be fine. As I passed the children’s department, I noticed the sign for story time had an extra sheet attached announcing in bright multicolor letters what Mrs. Shedd had just told me. Obviously, Adele had made the poster and whatever arrangements needed to be made.

  Why was I upset?

  THE CROCHET GROUP WAS ALREADY GATHERED around the event table when I got there. But when I saw Dinah wasn’t there, I began to worry. She hadn’t answered the message I’d left yesterday. Something was up that she really didn’t want to talk about. Everyone else was busy trading notes about the events of the day before and being questioned. While it appeared that life was going on, I think we all felt a little uneasy.

  I brought up the man I’d noticed both times we’d been at the Cottage Shoppe. “Did you tell Detective Heather about the bald guy with the Harrods shopping bag? I don’t recall seeing him in the parking lot,” I said to CeeCee.