One for the Hooks

by Betty Hechtman

  Barry took a moment for the information to sink in, though his expression barely flickered. “I’m sorry. You know that I value your help. Why else would I be here?”

  “For the food?” I said, trying to lighten the moment. I’d said too much.

  Barry rolled his eyes at the comment, then turned serious. “You’re not going with him, are you? What if this case isn’t settled by then?” He looked down at the two dogs at his feet and the cats who had settled on the bed and finally to Blondie and Princess in the chair. “You can’t just up and leave all of them. You’re not going to trust Peter to take care of them.”

  “I wouldn’t go unless everyone is taken care of. And no, I wouldn’t leave them to Peter’s care. I’ll just work faster at getting information for you.”

  “Okay,” he said with a grunt. “You wanted to know what Miami told us. She said she’d inherited the house and that she had hired Sloan as a consultant to help her set the place up for short-term rentals. When she was asked about the neighbors, she didn’t seem to know anything about them. She said she drove her car directly into the garage and never saw any paper signs or even knew that the sign out front had been knocked over. She had no idea where the drone came from or why someone would want to upset her.”

  “Really?” I said in total surprise. “Wow, she lied to you.”

  His cell rang and he picked up the call, walking to the corner of the room to talk.

  “You have to go, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but it’s not what you think. I told Jeffrey I was bringing dinner.

  “Bring him some pasta,” I said. I had a soft spot for Jeffrey. He was an interesting kid and had totally different interests from Barry’s. We’d been close when Barry and I were a couple, but had lost touch in the time since.

  “If it’s no trouble. I know he’d prefer it to another fast-food burger.”

  I made up a package of pasta for him to take home to Jeffrey and then helped him slip out the den door.

  After he left, I played a little solitary Sherlock Holmes and deduced something I’d missed before.

  Barry was driving the Tahoe, not a black crown Victoria like he did when he was working. He was coming to see me on his own time.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was going to be a busy morning at the bookstore. I picked up a Red Eye in the café and went right to work. Adele had story time, and I’d arranged another get together for the book club so they could have more time with Merry Riley. It wasn’t completely altruistic. I knew some of the members would bring their friends, who’d buy a copy of Merry’s book. We’d decided to do it on a Saturday, thinking we might get more of a crowd.

  Merry had an ulterior motive for her return engagement too. I knew she was hoping it would help launch the line of merchandise with her name on it that had come out of the book. I had arranged a larger display with a stack of the books and all the related stuff. There were journals, special chocolates for days when you had the blues, bath soaks, aromatherapy, and T-shirts that said “I’m with Merry.” I added a chair for our guest with a circle of seats for the book club people.

  I had to play traffic cop and arranged it so the book club people would be in their area before the arrival of the kids for story time. Merry and her husband, Mick, or M&M as I’d started thinking of them, were the first arrivals. There was something fresh and “girl next door” about Merry. She was wearing navy-blue capri pants and an untucked white shirt with a pair of flats. Her chestnut hair fell just past her shoulders. But all anybody really noticed was her smile. It seemed big and friendly and lit up her face. Mick gave off an easygoing vibe and was nice looking in a rugged sort of way.

  “Thanks for coming in,” I said to both of them.

  “I’m always glad to accommodate—any chance to meet up with fans,” Merry said. “If I don’t have a public, I don’t have a career.” She glanced around the bookstore as if she was remembering something. “Didn’t I see you talking to Sloan Renner?” she asked, and I nodded.

  Merry shook her head sadly. “I can’t believe what happened to her. How tragic to be caught up in a freak accident.” She straightened one of the journals on the table. “I didn’t hear all the details, just what was on the news.”

  Mick announced he was going to get her a cup of coffee, and I wondered if I should tell Merry that I was there when it happened. The decision was made for me when two women approached the table and greeted Merry, and our conversation ended.

  Mick came back with Merry’s drink and set the cup down where, even if it got knocked over, it wouldn’t do any harm. How nice to have someone so intuitive looking after you. But maybe I had that too. I thought about Mason and how he had anticipated my needs and gone the extra mile for me numerous times.

  Mick had moved off to the side and was looking at a book with fish on the cover. More people were coming in, and I was about to move on when I saw Ms. Mayonnaise. I really wanted to talk to her now that I’d seen Kimberly Wang Diaz interviewing her and knew she lived in the cul-de-sac. But I couldn’t interrupt now. I would grab her when they were done.

  I moved on to the children’s department. It was a separate area set off by a row of bookcases. The carpeting changed to cows jumping over the moon at the entrance. Adele was fussing around the child-sized chairs arranged to face her. Adele lived for story time. It had all the things she liked: people—in this case little people, who hung onto her every word—and costumes. The more outlandish, the better as far as both she and the kids were concerned.

  With her build and height, Adele stood out just being herself, but the costumes took her to a whole new level, which she adored. Today’s outfit was actually low-key for her. She was dressed as Engineer Sal who drove the train in Lewis the Caboose. She had on the striped denim cap with a bandana around her neck. Her attire was the traditional engineer look of striped denim overalls and Engineer Sal’s trademark red flower corsage. Adele had crocheted hers and made it even bigger than the book character’s.

  “Where are the juice boxes and cookies?” she asked, looking at the empty table near the entrance.

  “I’m glad I came to check,” I said and offered to go to the café.

  My coworker gestured toward the entrance, urging me to go. “I need some alone time to get into character.”

  As I left, I heard Adele begin doing vocal exercises. Our barista, Bob, apologized profusely for not having brought the snacks to the kids’ department and went to pack them up.

  When I started back with the tray of treats, I saw that the kids had started to arrive, and Adele was already at her post. It was strictly kids only for the reading, not that the parents really wanted to come. They were thrilled to drop their kids off and have a few minutes to themselves. But they also had to pick up their kids when it was over. Adele had arranged a membership log that required parents to give cell numbers and addresses. It worked two ways for Adele. She could reach parents if they were slow coming back for the kids, and the bookstore could send them coupons and lists of special events. It helped sell a lot of books, which made Mrs. Shedd happy and more than willing to put up with Adele’s shenanigans.

  As I got closer, I saw that Adele was holding her clipboard and glaring at a woman dressed in yoga pants and a tank top. The little girl with her scooted into story time, but the woman didn’t leave.

  An alarm went off in my head. What had Adele done now? I headed toward them, expecting to have to smooth something over. They both looked up as I approached.

  “Talk to her.” Adele pointed at me in an accusatory manner. “She’s the one who knows that woman and arranged the whole thing.”

  The woman turned her glare on me as I handed Adele the tray of goodies.

  “Can I help you?” I said in my customer-service voice.

  “It’s not about the bookstore,” the woman said.

  “She recognized me from the other day,” Adele said in a forced manner. She was making weird motions with her head, and I was sure she was trying to tel
l me something, but it wasn’t clear what.

  Finally, Adele couldn’t take it anymore and groaned. “Pink, could you deal with this? Somewhere else. Story time is about to start.”

  I gestured for the woman to move away from the kids’ department. I didn’t want her too near the book club either. I took her over near the shelves with the animal books.

  “Hi, I’m Molly Pink. What seems to be the problem?” I asked.

  “I recognized Queen Adele going into one of my neighbor’s houses, and when I asked her about it, she said it was your idea to go to that woman’s house,” she said.

  I knew the kids called her Queen Adele, but I didn’t realize she’d gotten the parents to do it as well. “Could you clarify who you mean,” I asked, still sounding customer-service friendly.

  “I’m not sure what her name is. It’s Orlando or Sarasota or something.”

  “Do you mean Miami?” I asked.

  “I knew it was someplace in Florida. Somebody needs to make her understand she’s ruining our street with her plans. Nothing seems to get through to her, not even someone dying in her yard. My husband checked the StaytheNight App, and the posting is not only still there but seems to have been updated. We’ve tried to talk to her, but she always avoids us. I thought that if Queen Adele knew her, she might have some influence. Or maybe you could talk to her, since it seems like you were there.”

  She didn’t give me a chance to respond and by now wasn’t even looking at me as she ranted on. “There are rules you know, but she’s probably not going to follow them since there doesn’t seem to be much oversight. Our cul-de-sac will be ruined. How can our kids ride their scooters or play ball in the street? There will be all kinds of cars and strangers in and out. My husband is livid.” She took a deep breath, seeming to try to calm herself. “You should tell her that’s she wasting her time. She can ignore the signs, but when the first guests show up, I bet they won’t ignore the protests from the neighbors. If you have any influence with her, you should tell her she better cut her losses and sell the place.”

  That sounded like a threat.

  “Do you have any idea who was behind what happened?” I asked.

  “Why are you asking?” she said. Then her eyes narrowed as she looked more closely at me.

  “You’re the one Queen Adele was talking about when she read the kids one of the Pixie Porter, Girl Detective books. My daughter said Queen Adele told them there was a grown-up version of Pixie who worked at the bookstore. She meant you, didn’t she?”

  I remembered the day Adele had read the kids The Case of the Missing Tiara. Adele had gone full trench coat and fedora. Pixie Porter liked to think of herself as a super detective, but to everyone else she was just a nosy kid. It figured that Adele would liken me to her.

  I answered with an uncomfortable smile.

  “You don’t think what happened counts as murder?” the woman said a little too loudly.

  “Accidental homicide,” I said, trying to sound professional.

  The woman put her face in her hands. “I didn’t think of it that way somehow. I just thought the woman died in the backyard all on her own.”

  I thought of what Barry and I had discussed about somebody having a guilty conscience, and wondered if she was going to blurt something out, but instead she pulled herself together and just repeated that I should advise Miami to sell the place, and I should not play Pixie Porter and get involved. Then she was on her way to the café, probably to meet up with the other mothers.

  Too late I realized I hadn’t gotten her name. Pixie would have been horrified.

  “I deal with people like her all the time,” Mick said, coming into my line of sight. “You did a good job of letting her vent.” We both began to walk back to the book club get-together. “When in this shindig supposed to end?” he said.

  “We had a beginning time but didn’t mention a stop time, so you can end it whenever you like.” I was checking through the clump of people now standing around the actor-author, looking for Ms. Mayonnaise, but she’d left. How could that be? She was always the one who got there early and stayed late.

  “How about now?” he asked.

  I zapped back to the present and smiled. “Do you want to step in or should I?”

  He smiled in a light, friendly way. “I think I’ll let you be the one,” he said.

  As before, the group was hanging onto everything Merry said. I noticed quite a few of them were holding onto books or merchandise that she had signed. “We’d like to thank Merry for coming back,” I said. “And now if you will all take your purchases to our cashier, Rayaad will take care of you.

  The group reluctantly followed my orders, though one woman reached out and grabbed Merry’s arm. “We love you. It’s so refreshing to see that you are just as wholesome in person as you are on the screen.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Without that woman’s name, I’ve got nothing,” I said to Dinah, feeling dejected. “Even though I’d bet she lives in the house we named the All-American.” I fretted some more. “On top of everything else, how could I have let Ms. Mayonnaise escape the book club meeting?” I told my friend about seeing her on the newscast. “She’s clearly a resident of the cul-de-sac. I’d bet the Original is her house.”

  It was hours later, and Dinah had come by the bookstore early for the Hookers’ gathering. We were already sitting at the dark wood table in the yarn department. She’d taken out her latest project. Even though it was summer now, she was thinking of the winter and the drafty classroom where she taught, and was mixing furry-looking yarn with a strand of mohair and making herself a generous cowl that could go over her shoulders to keep out the chill. She was making it in black, which I thought would show off her spiky salt-and-pepper hair.

  “You could just tell Barry what you think you know,” she said. “I’m sure he’d be glad for a reason to come over.”

  I rolled my eyes at my friend. Did she really think Barry asked for my help just to see me? I highly doubted it.

  “He’d probably be delighted to spend some more time in your bedroom,” she teased.

  “I told you, he seemed uncomfortable.”

  She laughed. “Probably because it was too tempting and he was afraid he’d lose his cool.” I made a face and she continued, “I know, I know—he’s a master of control.”

  “As a matter of fact, I told him what you said about him having a huge reservoir of bubbling emotions that he kept tamped down.”

  “You didn’t really say that,” my friend, said giving me a pretend swat.

  “Okay, maybe I didn’t use such dramatic words, but I did say you thought he kept more than just hunger and tiredness under control.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He denied it. He agreed about the hunger and tiredness, and he said when he had to break the news of a death to someone, he couldn’t show anything more than professional consideration. He didn’t use those words, but that’s clearly what he meant.” I crocheted a few stitches. “The point is, without giving him the woman’s name, the information is pretty useless. And, well, I already told him about somebody else I couldn’t identify. I’ve been promoting myself as this super detective.” I cringed. “I think even Pixie Porter would have done better.”

  “Who’s Pixie Porter?” Dinah asked. She laughed when I told her about the kid detective.

  “I get it,” she said. “Can’t you just ask Adele?”

  “No way. I’d really never hear the end of it from her about what a lousy detective I was. Plus she’s all secretive about her list anyway. She’s always saying its classified information.”

  I knew what Dinah was going to say next. “And no, I can’t go looking for it after she leaves. She takes it with her.” I grumbled to myself. “If I saw the list I’d be able to figure out who she was right away. Adele lists addresses, and all I’d have to do is look for the one on Starlight Court.”

  “Good, you’re here,” Elise said, coming up to the table a
nd interrupting us. She pulled out the chair next to me and sat. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to make the kits. When I said I could, I didn’t have this gig with Miami. But I’m sure you can get the group to put them together.”

  “What?” I said, surprised.

  “I tweaked the pattern you had.” She handed me a pile of sheets with the revised pattern and a flash drive with it. “I’ll bring you the hooks, and you have the bags. I’m sorry,” she said with a slightly fake-looking regretful shake of her head. “Working with Miami is really important for me. I’ve helped clear out a place before and advised a few people on how to rearrange their furniture to make their place more appealing to a buyer, but designing rooms is something new. Even though”—she leaned closer to me—“it’s probably a waste of time. Miami’s neighbors are not going to give up trying to sabotage her plan.”

  * * *

  Elise had taken out her work. She was working on an afghan that was basically a giant granny square. She made them all the time, and this one was for one of the rooms at Miami’s. “I’m calling it Yarn Lovers’ Paradise. I’ll win either way. If she manages to go ahead with the short-term rentals, I’ll help her manage them, as Sloan was going to do. I already updated the postings on the short-term apps, adding the lounge I suggested.” She pulled up a loop of the yarn with her hook. “And if it goes bust, I’ll help her sell the place.” Elise’s ethereal aesthetic and wispy voice didn’t go along with her inner steel core.

  The rest of the Hookers were starting to arrive, and we dropped the subject.

  Eduardo took his seat and pulled out a filet crochet piece he was making in ecru crochet thread. The filigree pieces would be a display shelf lining in his drug and sundries shop he was calling The Apothecary 2.

  “I have something for you,” Rhoda said with a twinkle in her eye.

  She leaned across the table and pushed a folder to me. “Now that you’re going to be a grandma, I thought you might want to start making baby things.” She noticed my surprised look and said that Dinah had told her.