Knot Ready for Murder

by Mary Marks

  “Yet you called me, not him.”

  “You’re the homeowner. I called to let you know I’m releasing your home back to you. By the way, I enjoyed our little chat last night. We must do it again sometime.”

  I ignored his little flirtation. “Tell me this. Have you gone door-to-door in the neighborhood to find out if anyone saw anything yesterday?”

  “There you go again, Martha. Rescuing me from my own ignorance. Thanks for the tip.”

  “Never mind, Arlo. I’ll get my answers another way.”

  “You wouldn’t be the Martha everyone knows and loves if you didn’t try. But I should warn you. From the looks of things, the ones who abducted Mrs. Levy yesterday meant business. Don’t start poking around. You’ll be way out of your depth.”

  I returned to the dining room and resumed eating. “Arlo Beavers called to tell me we can go back to the house.”

  “Did they find anything?” Giselle asked.

  “He says he’ll only discuss the details of the case with her next of kin.”

  “Who’s that?” My sister seemed puzzled.

  I sighed and jerked my thumb toward Crusher. “Her husband of more than thirty years.”

  Crusher rolled his eyes.

  Fanya reached for the dish of jam and accidentally knocked over the saltshaker, spilling a small amount onto the table. Her eyes grew wide. “Oh no. Bad luck.” She pinched some of the spilled granules with the fingers of her right hand and threw them over her left shoulder. “Hamsa, hamsa, hamsa.” She murmured a chant against the evil eye.

  I cleared my throat. “You should call Beavers, Yossi. He said he will only talk to you.”

  “He’s playing some kind of manipulation game. I’ll wait for him to call me.”

  Crap! “I knew this would turn into a pissing contest between you two. What’s more important here? Finding Hadas or being the alpha male?”

  “Hmmm. Hard choice.”

  Fanya slapped her brother’s shoulder. “Not funny! Martha’s right. You need to take the high road and ignore his game. If Hadas is in danger, you’re not doing her any favors by turning her rescue into some kind of macho sporting event.”

  I wiped my mouth with the white cloth napkin and placed it on the table next to my empty plate. “We didn’t have time to take inventory before the police barred us from the house. I want to go back and see if anything of ours is missing. I also want to talk to the neighbors before any more time passes. Memory fades with time. It doesn’t become sharper.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Sissy. Do you need some help? I’ll get dressed and drive to your place.”

  “I appreciate the offer, G. I know how you hate coming to the Valley. But before we start questioning people, I want to check for missing items in my house. I’ll call and let you know when I’ll be ready to walk the neighborhood.”

  The traffic headed north on the 405 Freeway was unusually light and the three of us reached my house in Encino in forty-five minutes. I inserted the key to the front door and discovered it was already unlocked. “Oh great!” I frowned. “The police forgot to lock the door when they left. I’m going to give Arlo heck for this.”

  “Wait!” Crusher held out his arm to prevent us from going inside. He reached into the holster strapped to his ankle and pulled out a gun. As an agent for the ATF, he carried a weapon, even when off duty. “Let me make sure no one has broken in. Step back.”

  I grabbed Fanya’s hand and pulled her away from the front door. Crusher poked his head inside long enough to look around, then stepped through the front door into the house. “Federal agent!”

  We heard the door off the laundry room slam as someone bolted from the house. My property sat on a corner, so I ran across the front lawn to the side of the house in time to see a figure dressed in a black hoodie jump over the fence into a black Jeep Cherokee idling next to the sidewalk. The driver didn’t wait for his passenger to close the car door before speeding off. The whole thing happened too fast, and I only managed to see part of the license plate: 8BZN.

  Crusher barreled out the front door and around the corner, but he was too late to stop the getaway. “Damn! Did you get a look at the perp? The car?”

  “Only a partial on the plate.”

  Fanya looked at me curiously. “You sound like a law enforcement pro.”

  “Yeah, kind of. Except I’m not official, of course. But I do have a lot of experience.”

  Crusher called 911. Five minutes later a black-and-white appeared, with blue and red lights flashing on the roof.

  One of the uniforms approached our little group of three. “You called in a burglary?” Crusher nodded and showed the cop his ATF badge.

  Ten minutes later, Beavers parked in front of the house. “I heard. Have you been inside yet? Do you know if anything is missing?”

  Crusher’s response was a terse “Negative.”

  “Have you secured the house?”

  Crusher nodded.

  Beavers called someone at the station and asked them to run the partial plate of the black Jeep Cherokee. He ended the call and inclined his head to the door. “Let’s go inside and take a look around.” He instructed the uniforms to search the outside of the house, including the backyard, while we led the way into yet another crime scene.

  CHAPTER 7

  As I stepped through my front door and scanned the inside of the house, my stomach dropped to my knees. Books had been flung to the floor from the tall bookcase in the living room.

  Fanya gasped. “Oy! Achalaria on them!” She cursed them with a case of cholera.

  I could barely speak with a mouth made dry by shock. “Did your people do this?”

  Beavers’s voice was gentle. “You know that’s not how we work, Martha. CSU finished at three this morning. Your house must’ve been vandalized after they left. My guess is the same people who abducted Mrs. Levy came back to finish their search. We can check the rest of the house. Try not to touch anything.”

  Fanya covered her mouth with her hands. “Is it even safe to be here?” She looked at her brother with wide eyes.

  “As long as you’re with me, you’re safe, Fan.” Crusher playfully reached for the top of his sister’s head.

  “Don’t!” Fanya pushed his arm away before he could ruffle her hair.

  Beavers answered his phone. He listened and then turned to me. “We got a match to the partial plates you saw on the getaway car. Unfortunately, they belong to a black Jeep Cherokee reported stolen yesterday.”

  “What does that mean?” I couldn’t stop wringing my hands.

  “It means since you caught them in the act, they’ll probably ditch the car and torch it to get rid of any trace evidence leading back to them.”

  Crusher grabbed my worried hands in his and held fast. “Someone was determined to get something they thought was hidden in this house.”

  Beavers peered at me with concern. “Do you think you’re ready to look at the rest of the house now?”

  I swallowed hard. “Let’s get it over with.”

  We walked past the mess in the living room and through the hallway.

  I heard a faint meow. “Did you hear that?” I squeezed Crusher’s hand and stopped. “Bumper.”

  My fluffy orange tabby must’ve heard my voice because he meowed again, only louder. “Sounds like it’s coming from the linen cupboard.” Generous built-in cabinets for sheets and towels lined my hallway. I began pulling out drawers and opening the cupboard doors. We found Bumper sitting on a pile of blue towels. I lifted him out and held him in my arms. He immediately began to purr. I scratched under his chin and buried my face in his silky fur. “How in the world did you get in there?”

  Crusher reached over and stroked his back. “Perps probably stuck him there to get him out of the way. He’s lucky. One of them must’ve been a cat lover.”

  Beavers started moving toward my sewing room. “I’m glad the cat’s safe, but we need to press on.”

  I stared at the floor, reluctant to look
, afraid all my beautiful fabrics and sewing notions had been pitched like the books in the living room today.

  Beavers indicated I should enter the room. “Is anything missing?”

  With a sigh of great relief, I scanned my sewing room. Nothing seemed disturbed. My fabrics sat folded neatly on the shelves, separated by color. My Bernina sewing machine rested on the sewing table. Even the scissors and sharp rotary cutter—potential weapons—lay undisturbed on the cutting mat. “Thank goodness they didn’t have time to toss this room. It would take me the better part of a day to put it back together. I don’t think anything is missing in here.”

  Fanya whistled slowly. “So many fabrics! You should live to use them all, keinehora.” She used the Yiddish expression meaning no evil eye said to ward off any jealousy or bad luck. “I’m in love with your quilts. I’d like to make one. Can you teach me how?”

  Nothing makes a quilter’s heart sing more than finding someone new to welcome into the sisterhood. “Yes! As a matter of fact, tomorrow is quilty Tuesday. You’ll get to meet my friends.”

  While Fanya and I spoke, Beavers took a couple of pictures of the room with his smartphone. “Okay. Let’s move on.” He walked toward the bedroom I shared with Crusher. “What about your bedroom?”

  We stared at the queen-sized bed neatly covered the day before with an Ohio Star quilt.

  “Looks like nothing’s been touched in here.” Beavers squinted his eyes and gave me a look saying, I clearly remember when you once welcomed me onto that bed.

  Warmth rose from my chest to my cheeks, and I avoided looking at either man. I scanned the bedroom before stepping inside. “Everything looks normal.” I checked my jewelry box. “Nothing’s gone.”

  Crusher opened his gun safe, a strongbox with a heavy lock. “Nothing’s missing here, either.”

  The guest room was the last room to check. Fanya seemed reluctant to move across the hall to yesterday’s crime scene.

  I took her hand. “It’s okay. I’ll go in with you.”

  The room looked the same as it did the day before. Clothes were strewn all over, where the bad guys had thrown them. Fingerprint dust from the good guys covered most of the smooth surfaces of both the bedroom and the bathroom. I peeked in the bathroom, relieved to see CSU had taken the cloth soaked in chloroform.

  Fanya took a small plastic sandwich baggie from her pocket filled with salt and poured some into the four corners of the bedroom and the four corners of the bathroom, all while reciting the protective phrase keinehora, keinehora.

  Beavers, the only Gentile in the room, looked at me with confusion. “What is she doing?”

  “Exorcising demons,” said Crusher. “They don’t like salt.”

  I took a deep breath and puffed it out again. “I guess we should pick everything up.”

  “On one condition,” Beavers said. “CSU will return today to check for new fingerprints. Don’t touch anything else. Just the clothes. Keep your fingers off any hard surfaces.”

  With Beavers watching, I gathered the pieces on the floor while Fanya carefully sorted and folded them. When we finished, her face carried a puzzled look. “I couldn’t tell yesterday because of the mess, but these are all my clothes. There’s nothing from Hadas in this pile.”

  “I don’t see any laptops, tablets, or smartphones. Did Mrs. Levy bring any electronics?” Beavers asked.

  Fanya swiveled her head as she scrutinized the room. “Hadas brought a laptop and cell phone. I don’t see either of them here.”

  Beavers moved toward the bathroom. “What about in here?”

  Fanya brushed past him and briefly scanned the toiletries on the bathroom counter. “All these are mine. Thank goodness they didn’t take my little bottles of Ayurvedic oils.”

  “Oils?” We all spoke at once.

  “Oh, yes. They’re an important part of natural medicine developed by the Hindus. I can’t do without them. I brought only the basics on this trip: lavender for stress, bergamot and grapefruit for sore muscles and female things, and frankincense for when I meditate.”

  The guest room was now tidy enough to take a closer look at what might have been taken. I walked slowly around the room, looking for clues, and crossed my arms to keep from touching anything. “I can’t shake the feeling something else should be here, but I don’t know what.”

  Beavers announced, “I’ve requested another sweep for fingerprints. They shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. We’ll stay until they come. Then we need to leave them to their job. I’ll let you know when they’re finished. Probably by this evening.”

  We headed back toward the living room. Bumper stayed so close to my feet that I stumbled over him and almost fell. Crusher caught me and kept me upright while I hung onto his arm and regained my feet. An unwelcomed vision popped into my head of Hadas hanging onto Crusher’s arm as he wheeled their suitcases to the guest bedroom on Saturday.

  I stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Of course!”

  Three curious faces stared at me.

  “What?” Beavers asked.

  “I’ve been struggling to remember. I know what’s missing.”

  He nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “One suitcase!”

  Crusher asked, “What did you and Hadas do with your luggage, Fan?”

  She gasped and tapped her fingers lightly on her mouth. “Oy. You’re right. We kept them on the bench at the foot of the bed.”

  “Arlo, could you check with CSU . . .”

  He was already speaking on the phone. “You sure? Right. Thanks.” He ended the call. “I’m reluctant to admit this, but it looks like you hit on something, Martha. CSU says they only saw one piece of luggage.”

  Fanya shivered slightly. “So those men took Hadas, along with her suitcase, all her clothes and electronics? Oy, Gottenyu!” She went into a paroxysm of spitting on the evil eye.

  Crusher put a comforting arm around his sister’s shoulders. “We can safely assume they thought something was hidden in her suitcase. When they didn’t find it, they came back for a second look.”

  “But why would they look through my stuff? I don’t own anything professional thieves would want.”

  “Well,” I said, “maybe they didn’t know which was yours and which was hers, so they took everything.”

  “Hadas could’ve told them.”

  “Not if she were unconscious,” I said. Or dead.

  While we sat in the living room waiting for the fingerprint guys, I called Giselle and told her we were postponing our house-to-house. Crusher and Beavers remained silent, each making a point not to look at the other. Fanya broke away from our little group. I could hear her banishing the demons as she salted the corners of every room in the house.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Martha.” Crusher gently shook my shoulder. “Time to rise and shine.”

  I groaned and snuggled deeper under the duvet.

  “It’s eight in the morning, babe.”

  “Go away,” I mumbled.

  “Isn’t Tuesday your quilting day?”

  I reluctantly opened my eyes and yawned. “Right. Thanks.” My whole body ached from the cleaning we did the evening before. I moaned as I forced myself to move. My neck and shoulders hurt from scrubbing off fingerprint dust. My hips and back throbbed from bending over a million times to retrieve the books and return them to their shelves in the living room. Even the bottoms of my feet hurt as I shuffled to the bathroom and headed for my meds.

  Fifteen minutes later I was dressed and in the kitchen pouring coffee.

  Crusher took one last gulp from his cup and kissed me. “Gotta go now. Have fun today.” He reached for the top of Fanya’s head but pulled his hand back. “Bye, sis.”

  Fanya sat at the kitchen table and slowly paged through an American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. One of a dozen such publications on the market.

  She smiled at me. “Good morning, sleepyhead. I didn’t know quilting was this popular!” She rattled the magazine at me for em
phasis.

  “You’re too young to remember the American bicentennial in 1976, but it was a big deal. Quilting and other American crafts enjoyed a revival. Since then, the demand for beautiful cotton prints, sewing notions, and specialized quilting machines grew into a huge multibillion-dollar marketplace. And as the marketplace grew, so did the number of quilters. And as the number of quilters grew, so did their appetite for inspiration and information. Hence the books and magazines, like the one you’re holding.”

  “I see a lot of notions and stuff advertised here.” She flipped the magazine to show me a picture of some major equipment. “What’s a longarm machine?”

  I sat next to her and leaned over to read the full-page ad. “Those are seriously commercial quilting machines. The machines can function in two ways. The operator can program in a design and walk away, knowing the quilt in the frame will be finished in a few hours. Or she can guide the machine with her own hands to quilt a custom design.”

  “If I took up quilting, I’d want one of these.”

  “Are you sure? Some of those longarm machines can cost thirty-five thousand dollars.”

  Fanya’s mouth fell open. “For a sewing machine?”

  I laughed. “And it isn’t even made by Rolls-Royce. Of course, you can buy one for much less. Maybe a thousand dollars. Or you can quilt by hand like I do. There’s a difference in the hand of a quilt, the way a quilt or piece of cloth feels when you hold it. To me, machine-stitched quilts feel a bit stiffer. But goodness knows a skillful longarm machine operator can produce beautiful quilting patterns. Anyway, I’m glad you’re looking at my mags. Have you seen anything to inspire you?” I sipped my coffee.

  “These are all beautiful, Martha. They all inspire me. How do you decide between every possibility?”

  “How does anyone choose which wallpaper to hang? As a paper installer, you must see thousands of patterns and prints in the course of your work. How do your clients decide which ones to use?”

  “They usually want a particular color and-or style, so I show them sample books from specific manufacturers. I don’t waste their time looking at designs that don’t meet their criteria.”