Dinah had texted me that she’d meet me in the café. She lived barely a block from the bookstore and often met me for my break. I was looking forward to spending time with her as there was so much to talk about.
We both reached the entrance of the café at the same time She wore a pale yellow linen tunic and pants and looked as refreshing as a glass of lemonade. I noticed her usual long scarf was tied loosely around her neck. The ninety-something temperature was normal for August and not really the kind of weather where you wanted anything too tight around your neck. We hugged each other and grabbed a table by the entrance to the bookstore so I could keep an eye on things. I waited until we’d gotten our drinks to start talking. She expertly poured the coffee and steamed milk into her mug simultaneously, creating the perfect mix of the two hot liquids. I took a took a generous sip of my Red Eye I always said the coffee with a shot of espresso was like a windshield wiper for my brain, which I seriously needed that morning. So much had happened the day before, and I hadn’t slept well. If ever there was a time I needed something to clear my mind, it was now.
I started off by telling Dinah about the dog, since I felt confident I was off the hook. “I’m sorry for not telling you yesterday,” I said. “I wanted to keep it quiet until I talked to Sloan’s sister.”
“And is she going to come get the dog?” Dinah asked. I explained the situation and the fact that Donna was in San Diego. “I hope Princess realizes how lucky she is,” Dinah said when I’d finished.
“You should have seen Peter’s face when I brought her home.” I explained handing the dog over to him because I had to return the key. “I told him to keep her separate from the other dogs, but he ended up putting her in my room with the others and then told me to stay there too.”
“What?” Dinah said. “He sent you to your room?”
“Not exactly.” I hesitated, trying to think of another way to describe it, but there really wasn’t one. “Okay, yes, a bit. But not for being naughty,” I joked. “He was having some business people over to talk about a project. The sooner he gets something going, the sooner they move out.”
“If it happens again, you can always come over. The door to my She Cave is always open.” When Dinah and Commander Blaine had gotten married, they’d opted to live in her house. He was a widower, and his place still had too many memories of his late wife. And Dinah didn’t want to live with a ghost.
She’d discovered that she and her new husband had very different schedules. He went to bed early and she liked to stay up late. She’d worked out the situation by turning an added-on den into her “She Cave,” as she called it. We’d spent many an evening there drinking tea and eating cookies while Commander slept peacefully in the other part of the house.
“There was a complication,” I said. “Barry came over.”
“What?” she said, her eyes widening.
“Calm down. It wasn’t a social visit.” Barry had told me to keep it quiet that we were working together, but I didn’t think he meant to include Dinah in that warning. She was my best friend, and she knew that I had worked with Barry before. Besides, even if I didn’t tell her, she’d figure it out. “He suggested we work together on finding out who was behind what happened to Sloan. Of course, Barry didn’t exactly describe it that way,” I said, taking another sip of my drink. “But no way am I going to be the information provider and let him be the one to do all the detecting.”
Dinah let out a laugh when I finished. “Well, well, so he came up with a reason to see you,” she said.
“That’s not it,” I protested. “He realized I have better access to some information than he does.” Would Dinah ever accept that what Barry and I had was over?
“Admit it, you feel something when you see him,” she said.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell her about that buzzy feeling I’d noticed when I’d seen him at the crime scene. As an afterthought, I attributed it to a feeling of surprise when he was the one to take my information. I didn’t want to admit the possibility that it might be something more, even to myself. “Sure I feel some concern for him, just like I would for any friend. You know, if he looks tired, or if I’m wondering if he’s eaten.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dinah said, rolling her eyes. “You can say it’s just friendly concern, but it’s more than that.”
“It isn’t.” I shuddered to think it could be true. “It’s so much easier with Mason. We’re not always dueling. He’s just fun and more easygoing.”
“Then why don’t you accept his proposal?” she said.
“I’m thinking about it. It sounds romantic and exciting to be a pair of crusaders looking to free innocent people, but I also like my life the way it is. The bookstore, the Hookers, even Adele,” I said with a laugh. “And there’s you. I love our girls’ nights, playing the Sherlock Holmes game, and getting into mischief.”
I had been married for a long time before Charlie died. It was a new experience being on my own, and I liked it.
“Maybe you can keep things as they are,” she said. “He didn’t give you an ultimatum like the whole package or nothing, did he?”
“Not exactly, but the way he’s traveling now, I barely see him. And being part of what he’s doing now would be exciting. He’s become a hero and I’d be a heroine,” I looked at my friend, feeling a little panicky about the whole thing. “I don’t really want to think about it anymore right now. Besides, I need your help with the investigation.”
Dinah laughed again. “Poor Barry, he’s in over his head.”
* * *
“We’re going to get the yarn,” I said to Mrs. Shedd. Dinah and I were both carrying plastic bins. Mrs. Shedd ducked into her office and came back with the check.
“You will check the yarn before you give her the check. The news said something about a stink bomb.”
I promised my boss that I would give the yarn the smell test before I did anything.
“You don’t think it’ll be a problem that the yarn was part of a crime scene,” she said.
I assured her there was nothing to connect them.
As Dinah and I headed to the door, Elise was about to walk into the bookstore. She looked at the plastic bins we were carrying.
“What’s up?” she asked. Dinah answered before I could signal her not to, and said we were going to pick up the yarn for the kits.
“You should let me help,” Elise said. I tried to dissuade her, but she insisted, and I finally welcomed her to join us. But there went my chance to talk to Dinah on the way over about what we might do to investigate. Despite Elise’s claim she was just there about the yarn, I knew she had something else up her sleeve.
I parked the Greenmobile in front of Miami’s. There were no police cars, and the Holiday House sign was lying facedown on the ground. Before we unloaded the bins, I pulled the sign up so Dinah could have a look at how it had been altered to read “Ho House.” Dinah had to stifle a laugh. I glanced at the houses on the cul-de-sac, now that I knew Ms. Mayonnaise lived in one of them. While Dinah and I were each grabbing a bin, Elise was already on her way up the pathway to the door. We rushed behind her to catch up.
“Come in, come in,” Miami said quickly as her eyes darted around the houses on the small street. I almost got the cuff of my khaki pants caught in the door because she was in such a hurry to shut it.
As we walked inside, I naturally looked toward the sliding glass doors along the back of the house. The white tent was gone, which I assumed meant that Sloan’s body was gone as well.
Elise was stuck to Miami like glue. She gestured toward the backyard as she used her other hand to touch Miami’s arm in a supportive manner. “What happened here was so tragic. Maybe you’ve changed your mind and would like to sell the place. I don’t think we’d have to disclose what happened here since technically it wasn’t in the house.” She patted her arm again. “I’d be happy to step in and help you with the sale.” I saw Elise reaching in her pocket and pulling out a business card. I knew
that Elise was focused and single-minded, but she’d outdone herself this time, both with her timing and her directness. Dinah and I both blanched at her moxie.
Miami looked at the card in Elise’s hand but didn’t take it. “No, I’m not going to sell the place. I intend to go ahead with the plan. I don’t care if the neighbors don’t like it. It’s my house, and I’ll do what I want to.”
“Have you considered talking to them?” I said.
“One of the neighbors stopped by the first time I came here. She wanted to let me know the street celebrated all the holidays. Next up is a Labor Day barbecue. Then she started asking me a lot of questions like if I was going to be living here, if I had a family and such. I kind of blew her off and told her I wasn’t into neighborhood things and that it was my house to do what I wanted with. After that I made sure I drove into the garage and went directly into the house.
“Sloan suggested I ignore them. She was convinced that once I had some short-term rentals and nothing terrible happened, they’d back off. I never imagined they’d do anything like …” she hesitated and looked toward the yard with a sigh. “Would do anything like they did.”
Now that she had opened that door, I stepped in. “Do you have any idea who did it?”
She shrugged. “Like I told you, I’ve avoided dealing with them. Sloan gave me their names once, but I lost the piece of paper.”
“Poor Sloan,” I said. “Did you know her very well?”
“Not really. She had access to some sort of list and found out that I’d inherited this place from my aunt. She contacted me and pitched me her real estate services. She said she was different from the other agents because she could help me clear the place out with estate sales and such. Then she’d do something she called staging to make the place look stylish. It sounded pretty good.
She explained her background and that she knew all about creating an image. I told her that I wasn’t sure about selling. I needed a place to live, and there was just a small mortgage. She asked me a bunch of questions and she came up with a brilliant idea. I could use one of the temporary rental apps to rent out the bedrooms over there.” She pointed to the area off to the side. “I could make the guesthouse a rental too. Still keep a private area for myself. We went back and forth about keeping the kitchen and the great room private or open to the guests.” She did a half twirl, indicating the big open area we were standing in. “I voted to keep it for myself.” She smiled at us. “I thought it was pretty cool how she’d figured out a way to make the house self-supporting and then some. The place was hardly set up for it, though. My aunt had a thing for fussy furniture and doodads.” We all looked at the jumble of stuff in the middle of the large room.
“Sloan said she could clear out the place, taking a cut from the proceeds as her payment, and use the rest of the money to furnish the rooms for the short-term rentals. She said she knew how to decorate them so they would photograph well. I guess people pick the rentals from pictures. She was annoyed about what the vandals did to the sign out front because she was planning to take some photos of the sign and the house as sort of a ‘coming soon’ thing, so we could start getting reservations before the place was even finished.” Miami sighed and looked around. “Now what?”
Elise didn’t miss a beat. “I can definitely help you.” She had her card out again. “I’ve learned a few things being in real estate, and I could certainly step in and take Sloan’s place. Do you suppose we could have a tour?”
Miami didn’t seem sold on hiring Elise, but she agreed to the tour. She took us through a door into the wing with the bedrooms. Elise checked the door handle as we went through. “We could put a lock on it, so you’d have options for whether guests could come in here.”
Dinah and I followed Elise and Miami. Elise continued doing her pitch as we looked around. An exterior door could be added to the wing, so guests could go in that way. The doors to the bedrooms were open, and they’d mostly been emptied of furniture.
“We had to junk a lot of the stuff,” Miami explained. “Sloan had a plan for the look of the rooms. It was all about how they would photograph for the listing.”
Elise went on ahead to an open area at the end of the hall. “This could be a sitting area. Add some vending machines to give you a little extra money.” She noticed a door leading to the yard. “We should add some lounge chairs and an umbrella table.”
“Maybe you can put it on hold for now,” I said to Elise. I hated to interrupt her pitch, but I needed to deal with the yarn and get back to the bookstore.
We went back into the main room and picked up the bins. Miami walked us to the sliding glass door and pulled it open. “The guesthouse is open,” she said.
“Did the cops tell you anything about the stink bomb?” I asked.
Miami made a face, thinking about it. “They didn’t have to. I saw for myself that it was garbage with disgusting rotting fish heads, lobster and crab shells, and that casing with the eyes and legs that are on the outside of shrimp.”
I was holding my breath, expecting to get a shot of the stench, but when I stepped outside and took a tentative sniff, there was nothing, and I let out my breath in a gush. I understood why the smell was gone when I checked the lawn. The spot where the tent had been was dug up and had probably been shipped away as evidence. There was just an open space where the grass had been.
I had to admit that we kept looking up nervously, ready to duck if we saw a drone, but it stayed peaceful. I made another check of the yarn, and the only scent was a faint lavender odor. Sloan’s work. She’d probably deposited sachets around the guesthouse to give it an inviting smell. We packed the yarn into the wheeled bins. Elise supervised as Dinah and I pulled ours across the lawn, and we went back into the house.
Miami was watching a game show on her phone, yelling out the answers while doing a little dance. She looked up when we came in. I offered her the check and was about to say goodbye, but before I could get the words out, Elise was on her like butter on toast.
“It just so happens I have some time now to work on this place,” Elise said. “So, what do you think? Do we have a deal?”
“Elise, don’t you think you’re rushing it? Don’t you think you should wait a little while?” I said. Sometimes Elise kept her eyes too closely on the prize.
But Miami shook her head. “I don’t want to wait. The sooner I get things done, the sooner this house can start turning a profit.”
“Then we do actually have a deal?” Elise said, sounding surprised.
“You’re not worried about the neighbors …” Dinah said, letting her voice trail off.
“Not anymore,” Miami said, and then I understood.
“Because whoever sent the drone doesn’t want to do anything that could get them caught, and the others are afraid if they do anything and get caught, they’ll get the blame for the drone attack,” I said.
“Exactly,” Miami said. She turned to Elise. “When can you start?”
“Now,” Elise said.
“Remember, you’re going to make the kits.”
Elise looked at Miami. “I’m like Sloan; I can do a number of things.”
“She better hope she doesn’t end up the same way,” Dinah said under her breath as we retraced our steps to the door.
Chapter Eleven
“I thought we could start on the kits,” I said as I pulled into the parking lot behind the bookstore.
“Can’t do it now,” Elise said. She had the door to the car open before I cut off the motor. “I’m going to drive back over there. You heard Miami. She wants to start right now.” She was gone a moment later.
“I guess that leaves you and me,” I said to Dinah. We unloaded the bins and wheeled them in. I checked in with Mrs. Shedd, and then we continued on to the back of the store. The yarn department was deserted at the moment. Once we were situated, Dinah went to the café to get us our usual drinks.
“I have the small plastic bags to package the kits,” I said. “I th
ought we could do the yarn and then add the hooks and instructions later.” We spread out some of the yarn from one of the bins and I explained the plan I’d come up with. Some of the kits would have yarn that was different versions of the same color, but with a skein of something that contrasted or one that was a different texture and some would be a crazy salad mix of colors and textures.
“What are you going to tell Barry?” Dinah asked. She looked over the skeins of yarn on the table and picked out some that she thought went together.
“Nothing unless he contacts me,” I said. “He said he’d be in touch, so who knows. I’m not supposed to call him. It’s pure Barry. He wants to be in control.” I gazed at the selection of yarn and realized the difficulty of making up the kits—each one required decisions.
“I hope Peter doesn’t send you to your room again,” Dinah teased. “Or you’ll have to meet in your bedroom.” She looked at the small pile of plastic bags, three skeins of yarn in each. “Elise is an expert at making kits. I’m sure she’ll work much faster.”
I agreed and began choosing some skeins in shades of rust and orange and threw in a kelly-green ball of yarn for contrast. “If I’m going to be spending so much time in there, I’m going to have to make some changes to my room. Make it into more of a She Cave.” I made a face, thinking of my room. “Except with a bed in it.”
“I bet Barry won’t mind,” she said.
“As a matter of fact, he seemed uncomfortable. He was there on police business, and that room’s a little personal.”
“And probably full of hot memories.” Dinah drank some of her café au lait. Bob had premixed it for her this time, in a paper cup. “I bet he had trouble keeping his mind on police business,” Dinah said with a laugh. “He was probably afraid that he’d lose that iron control he has over his feelings,” she teased.
“I think it’s only hunger and tiredness he keeps at bay,” I said.. Dinah was convinced he was keeping other feelings under lockdown that had to do with me, but I wasn’t so sure.
One for the Hooks Page 9
