If Hooks Could Kill

by Betty Hechtman

  I had hoped that Adele would be there and she didn’t disappoint. Lately, it seemed she was always hunched in the corner, working on perfecting the bullion stitch.

  Beyond us the bookstore was slow, and I assumed the production company people were all busy working. Even the café was quiet, and I hadn’t had to wait for my red eye.

  I asked Adele how it was going. She moved her arm so I could see her work. She was still struggling to get her hook through the multiwraps of yarn. “You can’t tell anyone how much trouble I’m having with this stitch. I’m supposed to be the expert, the go-to person for anything crochet.” She dropped her work in disgust. Then she pulled out a bright orange cowl and began working on it. Crocheting something she could handle easily made a huge difference in her demeanor.

  “So how’s your investigation going?” I asked. I was surprised to see Adele’s expression falter.

  “Eric thinks I shouldn’t pursue being a sleuth. He says one coplike person in a couple is enough.”

  “What do you think about it?” Dinah said. “I have never thought of you as being a give-in-to-your-man type.”

  Adele sat a little straighter. “You know that’s what I was thinking.” She turned to me. “You’re lucky, nobody cares what you do. I guess that’s how it goes when you don’t have a boyfriend in law enforcement.”

  “Do you ever think about what you’re saying?” Dinah asked. Adele gave Dinah a blank look.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Adele looked at Dinah, waiting for an answer. Dinah did her best to explain tact and thinking about how other people might have interpreted what Adele said. Adele listened but didn’t seem to understand. She turned back to me. “So, Pink, what’s up with your investigating?”

  “I don’t think I should tell you about it since you’re stepping down. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with Eric.” Adele fell for it and begged me to tell her what was up. Finally I told her what I’d found out about North Adams, and my dilemma.

  “No problem for moi,” she said pointing at herself in a theatrical manner. “I don’t have any connection to North to mess up.” She knit her brows and jiggled her head as if she was having an inner conversation. “I don’t care what Eric said. I have to take over—in the name of justice.”

  I was hoping she’d say something like that. “All you’d have to do is question him, but make it seem like you’re just talking to him,” I said.

  “I know what to do, Pink. I have my ways to get a man to talk.” She waved her hands in a way I think was meant to demonstrate a flirtatious move, but it came off like she was doing some kind of weird hand dance. I rolled my eyes. What choice did I have?

  Dinah had taken out some soft pink organic cotton yarn. Despite Adele’s efforts to get everyone to make cowls for the sale, Dinah was sticking to washcloths and making them in all different patterns. In the end, she was going to wrap each one around a small bar of scented soap and tie it with a lavender flower.

  I had brought out the off-white cowl I kept there and started to work on it.

  Adele was happily working on her cowl now and I had to nudge her to get her to tell me her plan.

  “I don’t know why you want to talk to him. Why not take some kind of action?” she said.

  “All you have to do is ask him if it’s true that he and Kelly had an affair. If he says no, you tell him you have it on good authority that they did and then ask him why he’s not admitting he knows her,” I said.

  Adele snorted. “I don’t need you to tell me what to say, or do. They’re doing a night shoot tomorrow. I’ll just go hang out with Eric and then say I want to watch. He doesn’t mind because, unlike some people, I’ve never made a scene. Then when there’s a break in shooting, I’ll move in on North.” The plan was, as soon as she talked to North, she’d come to Dinah’s and fill us in, and we’d decide how to proceed.

  Her last words were, “So I should stay out of the crime fighting business, huh? I don’t think so.” She picked up her things and went to the children’s department.

  “I never thought I’d be grateful for Adele’s help,” I said to Dinah.

  “Maybe you better wait until it’s mission accomplished before you speak,” Dinah said, giving me a knowing nod.

  CHAPTER 25

  Before Adele could do her detective work, we had to take care of some Hookers’ stuff. CeeCee had called a meeting at her house the next evening. The plan was we’d all look over what we’d accumulated for the street fair. “This way, if everyone can see what we have, then I don’t have to be the bad guy all the time, telling the rest of you we don’t have enough things,” CeeCee told everybody when she gave them the details. Due to everybody’s busy schedules the only time we could meet was at dinner hour. And Dinah and I, nice folks that we are, had volunteered to bring dinner for everyone. At CeeCee’s request, I’d promised to bring a pan of my “Mac, Cheese and More.”

  Dinah helped me shop and cook, and after leaving the extra mac and cheese for Barry and Jeffrey, we headed over to CeeCee’s. She hailed our arrival with great excitement. CeeCee might not cook, but she loved to eat. She sniffed the casserole dish of macaroni and cheese as I carried it in the kitchen. I popped the pan in the oven while I poured the dressing on the salad I’d brought, too. It hadn’t inspired the same excitement from CeeCee.

  “Thank heavens,” Rhoda said. She held up a glass of water. “This was all CeeCee could manage.”

  Sheila nodded with approval at the food scents and said something about being so busy at Luxe she hadn’t had lunch. She put down the cowl she was working on and started to help clear the table of yarn and crochet tools. Elise seemed off in dreamland as she added a red tassel to the vampire cowl she’d made. Adele rolled her eyes at the black-and-white stripes done in half double crochet, which Elise insisted resembled fangs. Eduardo let out a tired sigh as he set down the white thread cowl he was making. He’d added an Irish crochet flower motif as decoration. Between all of this, Adele kept giving me knowing looks and dropping little hints like the mission was a go. I was so close to telling her to forget it, but I knew that even if I did, she’d go ahead with her plan anyway.

  Adele wasn’t happy with the cowls everyone was making. She thought they ought to be all the same design, but done in different colors. CeeCee cut in and said at this point, she was just glad everybody was making something. After dinner she brought out the collection box and it did still look a little thin. “What happened to Kelly’s pieces, again?” CeeCee said. Dinah, Adele and I all started to talk at once, reminding her the shoplifter hooligans had taken them.

  “It was just vandalism,” I said with disgust. “They probably threw all the stuff in a trash can somewhere. After all, the e-reader turned up again. They were really just out for the thrill, not the actual goods.”

  CeeCee asked what we were going to do about packing up the items we sold. Dinah said Commander agreed to donate small shopping bags with stickers that said Tarzana Hookers on them.

  “I love it,” CeeCee said and wanted to know when she could see them. I explained we still had to pick them up.

  The meeting ended quickly, mostly because Adele kept saying there was something important she had to do. Adele, Dinah and I walked out last. As soon as we were outside, Adele pulled off the pink fuzzy vest she’d been wearing and I saw she was dressed in all black. She pulled out a black hat and put it on. Somehow Adele had confused the detective look with a ninja look. She pointed her foot, displaying her black cloth shoes and demonstrated a few karate kicks.

  “Wish me luck,” she said as she got into her Matrix and headed to the location.

  An hour later, when Adele hadn’t shown up, I couldn’t help myself. I started pacing across Dinah’s living room. What was taking Adele so long? Even though she’d objected, I’d coached her on what to say. All she really had to do, was start talking with North about Kelly and say she knew about their thing. And then ask why he hadn’t mentioned it to anybody. If she got the kind of reaction I
thought she would, I was going to find a way to tell Detective Heather.

  At last we heard footsteps coming toward the house and then someone rushing up the front stairs, followed by pounding on the door.

  I was at the door before Dinah could even get out of her chair. “Well?” I said as I pulled it open. When I looked at Adele, I sucked in my breath so fast I almost choked on it. She was holding a gun on a chopstick.

  The “Well?” turned into a “What?”

  “Shut the door, shut the door,” Adele said as she rushed inside. Dinah had joined me at the doorway by now and we both stood back giving Adele wide berth with the gun. She looked around the room hurriedly and finally deposited the gun on the coffee table with a loud clatter. I held my breath afraid it would go off, but thankfully it didn’t.

  Adele threw herself into the new chair Dinah had recently added. It was leather on a wood frame and had a slight capacity to rock. Adele made it rock for all it was worth, while fluttering her eyes and fanning herself with her hand.

  “What happened?” I demanded. “What did you do this time?”

  Adele sat forward and leveled her eyes at me. “I took care of things for you, Pink. The sign of a good freelance detective is that you improvise. I didn’t need that silly average Joe Shmoe book to figure that out.”

  Adele knew she had the spotlight and she was going to milk it for all it was worth. She made a pretense of removing her hat and smoothing her hair and adjusting her clothes as she prepared to speak.

  “I did just as I said I would. I hung out with Eric for a few minutes and then said I was curious about the scene they were shooting. He had to stay at his post because the crew was wetting down the street.” Adele’s tone changed as she explained they did that to add more contrast to the shot. I waved my hand impatiently at her to get back to the story.

  “I just thought you two would like a little inside info,” she said disgruntled at our disinterest. “I waited until they broke for a few minutes and then I went up to North. Of course, by now he knows me,” she said with an air of self-importance we had all come to know and be annoyed by. “I put what you said to ask him into my own words. Something along the lines of how old was Kelly when you started the affair with her?” Adele seemed proud of her word choice and explained she didn’t give him the option of denying it and it implied that maybe she was underage. “I thought that would shake him up.” She just looked at us for a moment.

  The silence hung in the air and I couldn’t take it anymore. “Well, did it? What did he say? Just get on with the story without all the theatrical pauses,” I said, wishing I’d never gotten her involved.

  “Pink, this is where you miss the boat. It’s not the story so much as how you tell it. I could just dump the facts on you and it would be pretty blah. But by throwing in a little suspense, it’s much better.” She actually nodded at us as if she was expecting us to agree. Dinah and I both jumped on her and said we didn’t care about the story quality, we just wanted the facts, and now.

  “You two are no fun.” Adele took a mirror out of her pocket and checked her makeup. “Would you believe that he just looked at me and said he didn’t know what I was talking about. He claimed he didn’t know who Kelly was. I pointed toward her house and said she was the woman who’d been shot. You better believe I left a long silence after I said that. And I gave him my best knowing look.” Adele gave us a re-creation of the moment and like everything else, it was over the top and looked comical instead of intimidating. She started to do the pause again, but Dinah’s and my expression kept her going forward. North had continued to deny knowing what Adele was talking about.

  “I told you I was more about action,” she said. “Your idea of talking to him was getting nowhere. I remembered that the gun that killed Kelly still hadn’t been found. I started thinking where I’d hide a gun if I was him and had just shot Kelly.” Adele started to do another of her dramatic pauses, but our glares got her to stop playing storyteller and get to the point.

  “If it was me and I had one of those nice RV dressing rooms all to myself, that’s where I’d put it. Everybody was busy on set and I remembered that Eric had been complaining that the locks on the trailers could be opened with a plastic card.” Adele pulled out a plastic card from her pocket. It was the kind they used for hotel keys these days. She held it like a saw and demonstrated how she’d pushed it back and forth and it had freed the lock. She shook her head with disbelief. “It wasn’t even hidden that well, but then as long as they’re filming here, nobody would go in there, but North, so I guess he felt safe.” She looked at the gun on the table. “So, I took care of it for you, Pink. I got the murder weapon. I didn’t touch it, so the prints are all intact. It’s up to you to get it to the cops.”

  “Why didn’t you just give it to Eric?” I said. “He was right there and he is a cop.”

  Adele hung her head and all her bravado disappeared. She didn’t want to talk, but I repeated the question. “I told you cutchykins said he thought one crime fighter in a couple was enough. He said he didn’t want me sleuthing anymore. Besides which, I kind of broke in to the trailer.” She didn’t have to say more, we got it.

  The three of us sat looking at the gun. “Adele, you got it from his trailer? Sorry to deflate your balloon, but it’s got to be a prop gun.” I explained what Barry had said about fake guns having an orange plug on the front. Adele got a stormy expression on her face as the three of us looked at the barrel of the gun. But then her face broke out into a triumphant smile. There was nothing orange or otherwise on the barrel of the gun.

  Adele started doing a happy dance and singing her own praises as a superdetective.

  Dinah and I continued to look at the gun, realizing it might very well be the murder weapon. “It has to have his fingerprints and they can match it up to the bullet casings,” I said. “We did it. We found the evidence to solve the case.”

  “We?” Adele said getting back to her usual self-importance.

  “Okay, you did, but it was a group plan,” I said.

  “Now, what?” Dinah said. “It’s great that we have the evidence, but we can’t do anything with it.”

  “I have an idea,” I said.

  CHAPTER 26

  Neither Dinah nor I knew anything about guns, and even though Adele claimed to be good at the shooting galleries in amusement parks, she was clueless about the real thing. Since we had no way of telling if it was loaded, no one wanted to touch it. Carrying it with the chopstick seemed a little risky because the chopstick was one of those disposable kinds you get at the grocery store and seemed like it might break at any moment.

  “The Pinchy-Winchy might work,” I said. Dinah had borrowed the device to pick up some icky stuff in the corner of her garage and still had it. She went off to fetch it.

  I had thought of calling Detective Heather, but nixed the idea. Instead of thinking we’d helped her, she might consider our having the gun as tampering with evidence.

  “This ought to be better than the chopstick,” I said when Dinah returned with the Pinchy-Winchy. I positioned the open claw over the trigger guard and let the claw hand shut. Carefully, carefully I lifted the Pinchy-Winchy and the gun dangled from it as I held my arms out so that the gun was as far away from me as possible. Slowly, the three of us headed for the greenmobile. Nobody wanted to take over holding the gun, so I got in the backseat and Dinah drove. Adele had gone from freelance detective to CSI expert and kept looking back to make sure I was dangling the gun, so it wouldn’t hit the seat and smudge the prints.

  By the time we pulled into my driveway, I was sweating. Dinah and Adele got out first and then I slid out holding the Pinchy-Winchy in front of me with the claw gripping the gun. Dinah led the way to the house, opening the gate to the backyard and then the kitchen door. Adele took up the rear.

  “Barry,” I called loudly as soon as I was in the door. I yelled his name again, and said I needed him. I heard footsteps and then he was in the kitchen. He started to tak
e in the scene, but his eye went right to the gun. I guess even though it was hanging upside down, it looked like it was pointed at him and his face went pale.

  I realized he was having an automatic reaction that stemmed from his incident with the shoplifter so I quickly moved the Pinchy-Winchy so the gun wasn’t pointing at him anymore. Before I could explain, Adele stepped in. “I found the gun that killed Kelly Donahue.”

  “I thought you’d know what to do with it,” I said. Barry’s color had returned and while shaking his head with disbelief, he told me to lay the gun carefully on the floor.

  While he moved closer and crouched next to it, Adele poured out her story of how she’d figured it all out and then checked North’s trailer, not mentioning that she’d broken in.

  Barry sat back on his heels and asked me to hand him a knife. He used it to pick up the gun without touching it as he continued to examine it. The head shaking started again and this time it was accompanied by a laugh.

  “North Adams might have killed Kelly, but he didn’t do it with this. Sorry ladies, but this isn’t the murder weapon. This is Jake Blake’s gun from the show.”

  “What?” I said. “I thought you told me fake guns always had an orange plug in them. And how do you know what Jake Blake’s gun looks like?” I said. Barry suddenly appeared sheepish.

  “Okay, I admit it. I watch L.A. 911.” He looked up at the three of us. “Just to see what they get wrong—which is just about everything.” Barry pointed out the gun was a .357 Magnum six-inch barrel. “Everybody knows his initials are engraved on the handle,” he said, showing us the engraved JB. “I said fake guns have a plug in them, but they can’t very well film them with a bright orange thing on the end.”

  He got a bamboo skewer from the kitchen and poked it inside the gun barrel. When he pulled it out, an orange plastic plug was hanging off of it. He stared at the three of us. We got more head shakes. And then Barry’s gaze rested on me. “How do you manage to get in so much trouble?” I was relieved to see he said it with a smile. “I’m going to miss all the comic relief.” He looked at the gun still lying on the floor with the red and yellow handled Pinchy-Winchy next to it. “I hope you have a plan for getting it back where it belongs.” He started to leave the room. “Don’t worry. I didn’t see anything.”