Yarn to Go

by Betty Hechtman

  “It’s a welcoming party for the guests of an upcoming wedding.”

  “You have weddings here?” I asked, and he rolled his eyes.

  “Are you kidding? Mr. St. John wants to put on everything here. Next it will be funerals.” The man suddenly realized what he’d said and looked around to make sure no one had heard.

  “Don’t you mean he rents out the space for them to use and offers accommodations for their guests?”

  “No, he’s added wedding planner to his title,” the man said. “He wants complete control of everything that goes on here.” He nodded to me and said he better start serving because he wanted to keep his job.

  I was going to head for the gift shop and my coffee when the television screen caught my eye. The scene changed from the Channel 3 studio to an exterior shot. It only took me a moment to recognize the street that ran between Vista Del Mar and my house. I stepped closer as the field reporter began to talk. The shot grew wider, and I recognized Kris. I was practically standing in front of the screen now, trying to hear what they were saying. All I heard was something about a retreat.

  Suddenly the channel changed, and when I turned, I saw Kevin St. John with a remote control in his hand. He stepped closer to me. “Just in time,” he said, discreetly looking at the people in the area to see if they had heard. They barely seemed to notice that he’d changed the channel to an old black-and-white sitcom. “You don’t know the work that has gone into keeping the police investigation on the down low.” He stood a little taller and had a self-satisfied smirk. “But I managed it. I bet if you were to canvass almost everyone in this room, they would have no idea that someone died here this morning.” His expression grew stern. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”

  I almost saluted and said, “Yes, sir,” before he turned on his heel and walked away. I really needed the coffee now and made my way to the gift shop with my fingers crossed that they were still brewing. I smiled when I got my first whiff of the pungent scent as I walked into the small shop built into the back of the building.

  At least Louise, the girl who worked the counter, was happy to see me, for a moment anyway. She looked at me expectantly. “Did you bring muffins?” When I held up my empty hands, her expression drooped.

  “You don’t know how many people came in here asking for them. Somebody heard from somebody else that we sold these fabulous locally made muffins and they couldn’t wait to try them. All I could offer them were these,” she said, making a face as she showed me a shiny muffin in cellophane. When I looked at the ingredients it read like a shopping list for a chemistry class.

  I apologized and again explained the retreat and that I’d be back baking Sunday night. “That long? My customers aren’t going to be happy,” she said, wide-eyed.

  “You just made my day. I had no idea my muffins were that popular.” I asked her for a cappuccino with an added shot, and she went to work on the espresso machine.

  While I waited for my drink, I sensed a presence behind me and noticed a tall man wearing a baseball cap and looking at the T-shirt collection. Louise popped a lid on the cup and handed me the drink as I paid for it.

  As I turned to go, out of the corner of my eye I noticed the man in the baseball cap starting to follow me. He caught up with me as I went through the doorway into the main room of the Lodge.

  “I wonder if I could talk to you,” he said. Before I could answer, he continued, “Nobody will tell me anything, and I thought that since you seem to be in charge of that yarn retreat . . .” He let his voice trail off and sighed deeply. “What happened to Edie Spaghazzi?”

  I led him into a quiet corner of the room and looked at him intently. “And you are?” I said.

  “Just an acquaintance of hers. My name is Michael.” His face was hidden by the shadow of the hat, but it seemed that his eyes were darting around as if he didn’t want to be overheard.

  “You only have one name?” I said.

  “There’s no need for last names. Like I said, I was just a passing friend. We met in the dining hall last night. I didn’t see her in the morning and then I was gone all day. I heard some rumors.” He didn’t finish the thought and looked at me. He seemed nervous and took off the baseball cap and ran his arm along his forehead. I got a better look at him now that there was no shadow. He had a rather stubborn-looking jaw, but there was worry in his dark eyes. Mostly I noticed the white lock of hair hanging over his forehead.

  I didn’t believe his relationship with Edie was quite as casual as he was making out. He seemed much too concerned to have just had a conversation about cypress trees or something the night before. I didn’t want the responsibility of telling him the truth, so I offered him Lieutenant Borgnine’s card.

  Michael pushed the card away and shook his head vehemently. He quickly replaced the hat, clearly wanting the safety of the shadow to hide in, then backed away a few steps before he turned and took off.

  I was left wondering if I’d handled it wrong. I considered going after him but realized I wouldn’t know what to say if I caught him.

  Somewhere in the midst of our conversation the dinner bell had rung. When I looked around the large lobbylike room, I noticed it had already cleared out. I walked toward the door.

  The dining hall was already busy when I got there. Though I’d never said anything about it, the group had automatically continued going to the same table. I saw that Kris was already seated next to Olivia. Melissa and Sissy were a few steps ahead of me and were pulling out chairs by the time I got to the table.

  I wanted to sit next to Lucinda, hoping we would get a chance to talk. I recognized her Prada bag and grabbed the chair next to it. A moment later, I saw her coming from the serving area, carrying a basket of rolls.

  “These should be much better,” she said, setting them on the lazy Susan in the middle of the table. She leaned toward me as she took her seat. “Kevin St. John should stop hassling you and attend to his kitchen. Those rolls were stale.” Lucinda spun the centerpiece so the rolls were near Melissa and Sissy. Ever the restaurant person, Lucinda explained that she had gotten the kitchen staff to split open the rolls, spread them with garlic butter and then toast them a moment.

  “Well?” she said expectantly as Melissa took two of the rolls and pushed one on her daughter.

  Sissy seemed exasperated with her mother, but then that was pretty much a constant. I think she would have liked to toss the roll back in the basket and make some haughty comment to her mother. Let’s just say, been there, done that with my mother. But Sissy glanced at Lucinda’s face and must have decided it was better to be considerate than to fuss with her mother. She took a bite, and her eyes said it all. Lucinda had scored a hit.

  “What did Tag want this time?” I said when Lucinda had finished watching everyone taste the rolls. She turned to me and chuckled.

  “I’m so glad to be here. I love that man, but he makes me crazy.” She rocked her head from side to side and rolled her eyes in amused exasperation. “Okay. Here it is. He’s upset because the menu says to check out our daily homemade desserts. Since there aren’t any of your desserts this weekend, he’s serving ice cream sundaes. He says it’s false representation because neither the ice cream nor the sauce is homemade. The fact that the whipped cream is whipped at the restaurant wasn’t enough for him.”

  “But that’s my fault,” I said, suddenly feeling guilty for not at least baking some things in advance. Lucinda was in the process of telling me that was nonsense when we were interrupted as Bree rushed up to the table. Her brows were knit, and she seemed like a rubber band that had been pulled too tight. Even her blond curls looked tense. “I have to talk to that police officer. I can’t stay here for the rest of the weekend. My boys need me. I just talked to them and my husband took them out for chili dogs and then to a carnival in a church parking lot and let them go on a roller coaster. I’m sure he didn’t bring their litt
le jackets or hand sanitizer.” Her lips began to tremble, and a big tear rolled down her cheek. Just then her phone chirped, letting her know it was a walkie-talkie call. She put it to her ear and tried to swallow back her tears. “Oh no,” she said, rolling her head hopelessly. “That was my youngest. He just threw up. I knew the combination of the chili dogs and the roller coaster was a disaster.” She laid the phone down on the table and sank into a chair. “This is all so traumatic for me,” she said between sobs. “Being away from home alone, leaving my boys for the first time and then Edie getting killed.” She seemed about to cry again but swallowed it back. “You don’t think that police officer really thinks I’m a suspect?”

  The whole table tried to calm her down. Even Scott looked over from his usual spot at the table behind us. She finally seemed on an even keel and not like she was going to split any second, but I was still concerned.

  I realized it was up to me to do something. Distraction was always good. It was another lesson I’d learned during my substitute teaching days. “Melissa and Sissy, we don’t really know much about you,” I said, hoping to change the subject. “How did you happen to sign up for this retreat? How did you even hear about it?” I asked. I instantly regretted lumping the mother-daughter team together when I saw that Sissy looked like smoke was going to come out of her ears.

  Sissy rolled her eyes upward and stuck her arm toward her mother. “It was all her idea.”

  The two women strongly resembled each other. Both were the same height with long, rambunctiously curly hair, but clearly in a effort to look different, Sissy had separated hers into braids while Melissa wore hers loose. I’d call the beige slacks and red and white pin-striped shirt that Melissa wore classic casual. Sissy had on jeans that purposely looked ragged, paired with a black-and-white striped low-cut tee that seemed to be constantly slipping off one of her shoulders, exposing the top of a tattooed rose.

  “I don’t know if all of you know that we come from Fresno,” Melissa said. She waved her arm in the direction away from the water to indication its location. “I handle customer service for an online company.” Sissy was making faces.

  “What she means is, she answers the phone in our kitchen and listens to people complain.”

  Melissa gave her daughter a forced smile. “Whatever. But it is because of my job that I found out about this retreat.” Melissa explained that since most of the people who worked for the online company worked out of their houses, they’d never met. “The owners put together a meeting here last year so we could see each other face to face and do some brainstorming. Our family vacations have always been to Yosemite, which, don’t get me wrong, is great. But I’m a sea person, and I took one look at this place and fell in love with it.

  “I was in the gift shop looking over their selection of yarn, and I saw your aunt. Well, I recognized her as the former Tidy Soft toilet paper lady, and when she saw me holding the yarn we got talking and she told me about this retreat. Edie came in, and Joan introduced us. There was something weird going on. Edie was nothing like she was yesterday. She was subdued and seemed to want to get away from us. I saw her winking at a man in the corner of the gift shop.”

  “Really?” I said. “Did you notice anything special about him?”

  Melissa shrugged. “He had on a baseball cap, and I wasn’t really paying that much attention to him. I figured he was probably her husband.” Melissa seemed perturbed as she continued. “You know, last night at the wine toast, I tried to remind Edie that we’d already met, but she claimed not to remember.”

  A guy in a baseball cap? Could it be Michael, the man I’d just met, who claimed to be barely an acquaintance of Edie’s?

  I tried pursuing the subject, asking Melissa what else she remembered, but Kris stepped in and pointed at her watch. “You better get your food before they stop serving.”

  Once everyone had their dinner, the conversation turned to the events of the evening. There was to be a short concert in the auditorium put on by a jazz chamber music group who were guests of the hotel and conference center. The schedule my aunt had made up showed there was a Nite Owl Knit-Together after that.

  Kris explained what it meant. “Your aunt always liked the group to do some communal project that could be donated.” I must have had that deer in the headlights look, because Kris said not to worry; even though it was beyond her duties as project designer and instructor, she’d handle it.

  I held on to Lucinda’s arm as the rest of the table pushed back their chairs. “I need to talk to you,” I said in a low voice.

  Out of habit, my friend began to put the dishes onto a tray behind us. “You’re off duty,” I said and got her to sit down.

  “You’re right. Tag’s obsession with things is rubbing off.” The rest of the dining hall cleared out, and soon it was just us and the kitchen staff cleaning up.

  “Okay, shoot. What’s on your mind?” she said. “Is it about Edie?”

  I nodded vehemently. “You have no idea what you’ve missed.” Lucinda listened intently as I told her about my call to Frank and his many suggestions. Her eyes got wide when I told her about the missing double-point knitting needles. “Do you think those are the ones . . . ?” She didn’t have to finish. I knew what she meant and nodded that I thought they were.

  “And you didn’t tell Lieutenant Borgnine?” she said.

  “I know I didn’t kill Edie, so why would I tell him something that might incriminate me? I might as well just hold out my hands and say, ‘Arrest me.’ My plan is to find who did it and hand them over to Lieutenant Borgnine, and then where the needles came from won’t matter.” I surprised myself by saying that, because up until that moment I hadn’t realized I even had a plan.

  Lucinda sat up and seemed very animated. “I love the idea of us playing detective.” She pulled out a piece of paper. “We should make a list of suspects.”

  “I’m more concerned about what we don’t know. How can we figure out who did it when we don’t even know for sure how Edie died.”

  I noticed Lucinda was looking out the window at the crowd of people on the path. “They must be going to that concert,” I said, and Lucinda nodded longingly.

  “You really want to go, don’t you? Jazz chamber music?” I said, making a face.

  “Tag and I never get to go anywhere. Owning a restaurant is twenty-four-seven, particularly when one of the owners is Tag. An occasional movie would be nice. So, yes, even jazz chamber music sounds appealing.”

  “Why don’t you go? We can talk about this later. Besides, I have an idea, and it’s something I have to do alone.”

  13

  WHAT WAS MY IDEA? IT WAS WHAT MY FORMER boss Frank had suggested—flirt with a cop. But what did I know about flirting? I’d be the first to admit that I didn’t have a clue how to pull off that hair-twirling, false-eyelash-batting girly stuff.

  I left the Vista Del Mar grounds and went to my place. I looked down the street and saw that Dane’s red truck was parked in his driveway, so I knew he was home.

  Since I wasn’t sure about pulling off the flirting thing, I armed myself with something I was sure of—freshly baked butter cookies. I always made a point to keep a couple rolls of dough in the refrigerator for just such an emergency. It only took a few minutes to preheat the oven and a few more to bake the cookies. Presentation counts, so I arranged them on a plate with a doily, grabbed an empty measuring cup and headed for the door.

  As I started down the street, I noted with relief that there weren’t a bunch of cars parked around my cop neighbor’s house or music blaring. Maybe Mr. Party Guy was taking the night off.

  As I walked up his driveway, I was suddenly enveloped in the most delicious garlicky scent, which made my stomach gurgle and reminded me that I’d been too busy dealing with my group to get my dinner. All I’d eaten was half of one of Lucinda’s doctored rolls. Trying to think of something clever to say, I kn
ocked on the door.

  I almost backed out and took off, but before I could take a step back, the door opened and Dane Mangano stood in the doorway.

  “I thought I’d take you up on the offer of a cup of sugar,” I said, holding up the empty glass measuring cup. “And I brought cookies.” I held them out and waved them under his nose.

  I didn’t have to worry about my flirting lack, because Dane took up the slack. His lips curved into a teasing smile as he gestured for me to come in.

  “Finally I get the chance to show you what a good neighbor I am.” He stepped aside and let me pass, taking the measuring cup out of my hands. “You can have all the sugar you want.” Inside, the garlic smell was even more intense. I glanced at his living room as we passed through. The feeling was very masculine—leather furniture and a big-screen TV—but the red Indian print blanket hanging on the arm of the sofa and basket of pine cones sitting on the old wood coffee table softened the look. The fireplace appeared to be used often, and a stack of wood sat next to it. A tall bookcase sat against one wall, and along with books, it had framed photographs and some kind of awards.

  He had me follow him to the kitchen, where I found the source of the wonderful fragrance. A big pot of tomato sauce was simmering on the stove. I noticed an oval platter of cooked spaghetti noodles sitting on the counter. Obviously I’d gotten there before the party started. At least he feeds them, I thought. And, well, I was salivating at the delicious smell. As I’d said, I was a master at dessert but a dud at the day-to-day kind of cooking. He put the measuring cup on the counter and took the plate of cookies from me, snagging one before he put them down. I could see how good they tasted by his expression.

  “Hang on a second,” he said, picking up a bottle of olive oil and drizzling some over the cooked spaghetti before tossing the noodles to mix it. “It keeps the spaghetti from sticking together,” he said, noticing that I was watching him.