Janine was gone like a shot. Apparently, they’d let her move into the guesthouse, because I watched her walk across the lawn and disappear into the small stucco building with a red tiled roof. Marianne offered me some sparkling water and then went to get it. It seemed important to her to play hostess, so I didn’t offer to help.
There was no tray this time or glasses of ice the way Janine had served it. Marianne carried in two bottles and set them down on the coffee table.
She opened hers and took a drink as soon as she sat down. It only seemed to give her momentary relief; a moment later it seemed like her mouth was dry again.
I opened mine and took a sip, mostly to be polite. “I thought we could make bracelets together.” I brought out two of the kits that Elise had made and offered her one.
She leaned forward and tried to pick hers up, but it slipped from her fingers. I was caught between wanting to help her and at the same time not wanting to make it seem like she was helpless. In the end, I let her work at it until she succeeded in picking up the bag and pulling it open.
I was still a novice compared to most of the Hookers, but this pattern was so simple I could do it without thinking. I got Marianne making the chain stitches and helped her keep track so we ended up with the right amount. She had given me an easy opening by bringing up how different things used to be for her.
Now that I knew what her problem was, I felt sympathetic. “Maybe it’ll get better. How long has it been like this?” I asked. She didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about, so I added, “How long has your timing been off?”
She stopped making chain stitches and seemed to be calculating in her head. “My brother is always telling me not to talk about it, not even to my ‘companion du jour,’ but keeping it in forever is hell.” She set down the hook as if it was too exhausting to hold it. “I’ve seen the way the Hookers look at me, and worse, talk to me. They always speak slowly and deliberately, but also extra loud. I just hate it.” She looked directly at me. “You don’t know how much I like your company. You’re the first person who has come over who wasn’t paid to spend time with me. Well, except my brother and his wife.”
She stopped again to collect her thoughts. “You asked me a question, and I just went off on a tangent without answering. What was it again?”
“I wondered how long it’s been like this for you.”
“Of course, that was your question, and I was figuring it out before I thought of something else. It’s been a little over a year and a half since my life crashed and burned. My life used to be so different. I had a great job in advertising and promotion, and then the company I’d been working for merged with another company and overnight my position disappeared. At the same time, my boyfriend announced he’d met someone else and they were getting married. This after telling me for ten years that he never wanted to be tied down.” She reached for the sparkling water and took a long sip. “I can’t remember the feeling I had when all that happened anymore, but I remember not wanting to think about it, and at the same time not being able to not think about it. I tried running away to Point Reyes Station. I loved it there, and I thought the long walks along the water and hikes among the trees would help. But I felt worse when I came back. I was so tired I couldn’t move and at the same time was having panic attacks. My brother is the one who got me to his doctor, and they loaded me up with drugs.” She looked like she was about to cry. “I thought it was just temporary and I could stop taking all this stuff, but they keep insisting I take all the pills.”
“What happens if you don’t take them?” I asked. She had to drink more sparking water before she could answer.
“It’s only happened one time. I kind of went crazy and felt like suddenly all my feelings were turned back on at once. Laughing and crying at the same time. Then anxious and depressed. But at least I felt alive.” She took another drink from the bottle. “I haven’t said that much in the longest time. The only companion who was any good was the first one I had. She seemed to care. But then I guess it was really just a job. I never heard from her again after she quit.”
Marianne looked so forlorn, I almost told her about Missy Z and the hand squeeze. She went to pick up her crochet work. “Here I am going on and on, and you came to help me with crochet.”
I excused myself to use the bathroom, and she directed me to a powder room off the hall. I used the facilities and then leaned against the sink for a moment to let everything she’d said sink in before going back to join her. I was halfway down the hall when I heard voices and stopped to listen.
“What are you doing having her over again? I hope you haven’t said anything about anything. That’s why we have the lawyer—to keep a lid on everything.” I recognized Errol’s voice, and he sounded almost panicky.
“I need to have company. I feel like a princess stuck in a castle.”
“You’re the one who insists on keeping the castle. You know we’re all for you selling this place.”
“And have me move someplace where they lock the doors and decide when and what I’m going to eat. I believe I’ll get better.” She paused, and I imagined her drinking some sparkling water. “I really don’t need a companion. I thought when Connie died that would be it and I’d manage on my own.”
“No, you need someone here. If something happens to Janine, I’ll just find somebody else.” His comment made me shiver. “Where’d your company go?”
“Bathroom break,” Marianne said.
“It seems like a long time.” He said something about going to look for me.
I instantly reacted, and I made a lot of noise clearing my throat and making loud footsteps to announce my arrival, and he stopped midsentence.
“I’m sorry, Marianne, I didn’t realize how late it had gotten. I’ll have to give you a rain check on the crochet help.” I crossed the room to gather up my things, feeling his eyes on my back. As I grabbed my tote bag, the handle snagged on a stack of DVDs sitting on the table. They clattered to the floor, and I bent to pick them up. I began to replace them and swallowed hard when I saw the title of the one that hadn’t fallen. I thought of what Dinah had said when she did her Dr. Watson thing. Rory might have been in it, but millions of people had watched The Grass Is Always Greener, including, apparently, Marianne.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I think everybody must have come last night,” Mr. Royal said, looking around as the late afternoon sun threw shadows across the floor of the empty bookstore. “Pamela and I can more than handle things. You went above and beyond your duty last night. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” He nodded toward Mason, who was standing in the front of the store.
I’d run into Mason when I’d come back from Marianne’s. He was off doing errands and had stopped by to see if we could at least get a drink together. Mr. Royal’s offer was even better.
“We can leave,” I said, coming up to Mason and giving him a hug. He grinned at my show of affection and hugged me back.
“We’re just like a regular couple going to the grocery store and the cleaners together on a Sunday afternoon,” he said. No suit today; instead, he was wearing his usual casual wear of jeans and a Hawaiian shirt. The afternoon air was warm, no jacket required.
“I got an idea where we could go for a weekday trip,” I said when I got into his SUV. I told him about Point Reyes Station and how I’d happened to think of it. “Though it didn’t seem to work out that well for Marianne. Maybe I should find somewhere else,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean it would work out badly for us,” he said. He said he’d look into finding a nice bed-and-breakfast and was full steam ahead on making plans, but I reminded him that until things were settled with the show taping, I couldn’t make any plans.
When Mason heard that I’d skipped lunch because I’d gone to Marianne’s, he insisted we get food first. We got to the waffle place just before they closed and sat outside in the courtyard overlooking a pond filled with koi fish.
I told him all about the book signing and the surprising connection to Marianne. “It was the first time I’d heard anything much about Connie Richards.”
“Don’t you have enough on your plate with the show taping and the difficulty with Rory and her crocheting? It’s not as if Connie Richards was a close friend. Why are you so interested?”
I certainly couldn’t even hint that it had anything to do with Barry. And helping him wasn’t even my main motivation anymore. I just wanted to know what really happened. Though I wasn’t sure what I would do if it turned out Marianne had been behind Connie’s death. “You know me,” I said, “Always wanting to see how the pieces of the puzzle fit.”
After the food, we did errands. He had dry cleaning to pick up, a hardware store stop to make, and we both needed groceries. “Where to next?” I said. “I was thinking about tonight. Maybe we could do something fun.”
Mason suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I have a family thing. In fact, I have to buy a gift. I can drop you off first, if you want.”
“No problem,” I said, and suggested we go to Luxe. We went back to almost where we’d started, since the lifestyle store and the bookstore shared the same parking lot. I didn’t ask for any details about his family thing, and he didn’t offer any. It was best for everyone to keep us all separate.
Sheila came up to us as soon as we walked in. I let my fellow Hooker take over with Mason, and I went to wander around. When he was finished, he found me looking at the tea selection.
Sheila put up the CLOSED sign as we walked out the door. “Sunshine, you’re the best,” Mason said, slipping his arm in mine. “Thanks for the understanding. I will make it up to you.” I saw that he was carrying a gift-wrapped package. “I bought one of those beautiful blankets Sheila made.” I gave him a spontaneous kiss on the cheek. “What’s that for?” he asked, clearly liking it.
“Thanks for giving her the business,” I said. It was getting dark as we walked back to the parking lot, and I went to grab my groceries and move them to my car.
“Your phone’s ringing,” he said as I reached for one of the paper bags filled with food. He laughed when I seemed surprised before noticing the vibrating on my wrist and the music coming from my purse.
It was Dinah, and she sounded unusually discombobulated. I couldn’t even get in that I was close by her house.
“I thought the yoga classes were bad enough,” she said. “I’m actually talking to you in my yard. Cassandra invited over a bunch of relatives from her mother’s side. They all just got here, and you can imagine how they viewed me. I have to get out of here.”
“Come to my place,” I said, finally getting a word in. She issued a lot of thank yous and hung up.
“Maybe things are working out for the best. It sounds like Dinah needs you,” Mason said. When I seemed surprised that he knew what she had said, he pointed at the phone still in my hand. “I could hear both sides of the conversation. Who’s Cassandra?”
“Commander’s daughter,” I said, and Mason began to nod with understanding. I filled him in on the rest of it as he helped me transfer the bags of groceries to my car.
“It sounds worse than my situation,” he said. “At least Thursday likes you,” he said, referring to one of his daughters.
It was true we got along fine. She had even stayed with me at one point because of problems with her mother.
“I’m sure you’ll make it all better for Dinah.” He set the last bag in the Greenmobile and took me in his arms. I snuggled close, and he said we’d have to work out that trip up north. Then we had a long, lingering kiss in the dark parking lot.
* * *
Dinah was parked in front of my house when I pulled into the driveway. She got out of her car and walked up to me. “I couldn’t stay there,” she said as we carried in my packages. “There was nowhere to go to escape them. I have work to do.” She held up an envelope full of papers. “I don’t think she even told Commander she’d invited them over.”
As we walked across the yard in the dark, she continued telling me how the guests had looked at her when Cassandra said who she was. We got to the door, and I struggled with my key and dropped it. As I leaned down to get it, I saw there was something else on the doormat. And then I screamed.
Dinah stopped midsentence and joined me in looking at the mat. And then she screamed. Even in the darkness, I could make out the small animal that was clearly dead. I managed to get the door open without the dogs running out and flipped the switch for the floodlights on the back of the house. I really wanted to go inside and pretend it wasn’t there, but I knew that wasn’t an option. I forced myself to look again now that the light illuminated the spot. It was a rat caught in one of those wooden traps.
“What are we going to do?” Dinah said with a squeal.
“We have to get it out of here,” I said. Picking it up was out of the question, and then both Dinah and I thought of the same thing at the same time.
“The pinchy winchy,” we both said. It was a long claw arm left from when my boys were younger. It was great for snagging socks that had fallen between the wall and the washer and also anything I didn’t want to get close to.
I went inside and returned brandishing the pinchy winchy and a red shoebox I was going to put the deceased in. I set the shoe box on a chair and then, with Dinah behind me for moral support, opened the claw and tried to grab the trap. I managed to lift the trap off the ground, but before I could move it, it broke free from the pinchy winchy. Several more tries ended up the same.
“What are we going to do?” Dinah asked from behind me.
“There’s plan B,” I said, putting the tool down. I had been hoping to avoid this, but it seemed there was no other option. I went inside and put on gloves and took the broom and dust pan outside. There was no way to do it without getting much more up close and personal than I cared to. As I crouched down and prepared to sweep the trap up, I noticed something strange about the animal. I took a chance and poked it with my gloved finger. Dinah saw what I was doing and squealed.
“It’s not real,” I said. She came closer and looked at it in the light. “It’s just a toy, though a little too lifelike for my taste. I’ve seen them at IKEA.” We both laughed at our hysteria.
But the relief lasted only until we got a look at the underside of the trap. You could walk into a trap next was written in blood-red marker.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The good news was that Dinah forgot all about Cassandra and her party for the relatives. The bad news was that the trap with the toy rat and threatening message was now sitting in the shoe box on the umbrella table. Even though we couldn’t see it, we couldn’t forget it was there.
We tried to distract ourselves by putting away the groceries and making some food, but as soon as we sat down in the dining room with the omelets and salad, we started to talk about it.
“Just a guess, but could your gift be connected to Connie Richards’s death?” Dinah asked.
“If the pieces fit, it must be it,” I said. “Connie walked into a trap, and somebody is saying there could be one in my future,” I said, trying to be light about it.
“Then I think it’s time for the Sherlock Holmes game,” Dinah said. “Dr. Watson at your service.” She gave me a salute.
“You’re right. Maybe we can get to the bottom of the whole thing.” The food was sitting on my plate untouched, as the gift had destroyed my appetite. “I don’t know how to begin, and I’m not sure what you know or don’t know.”
“Then the obvious is to begin at the beginning,” Dinah said. “We know that Connie Richards died, we know how she died, but we don’t know why she died.”
“Or if she was the intended victim,” I added.
We might have started at the beginning, but that didn’t mean we continued in any sort of order. I’m sure the real Sherlock Holmes would have covered his face in horror.
“What about we just skip to the threats,” I said. “We can go back to the rest of it
later.”
“Threats, as in more than the gift you just got?” Dinah seemed surprised. “Dr. Watson needs all the fact if she’s going to help, Sherlock.”
“I’m not sure one incident was a threat, and I didn’t get a chance to tell you about the other one.” I looked at the food on my plate and tried to will myself to eat something, with no success.
“Then give me the details now.” There seemed to be no problem with Dinah’s appetite, and she finished off the last of her omelet. I guessed that was a clue to how bad things were at her house—finding a fake rat in a trap at my back door was a step up on her day-to-day.
“There was a phone call with really heavy breathing, but it could have been a disgruntled telemarketer, annoyed that I didn’t answer their call.”
“Then it was a phone message, not a call?” Dinah asked. “I hope you saved it.”
“Hey, you’re talking to Sherlock Holmes here. Do you really think there’s a chance I would have erased it?” I might have been giving myself too much credit. It was more like an accident that I still had the message. I had just hung up the phone without punching in anything, which left the message on the machine as if it was unheard.
“Anything else?” she asked. I told her about the radio and the cord at the bookstore.
“That seems pretty specific,” my friend said. “It would be hard to call that anything but a threat. Maybe we should move on to who knew you were investigating. That might give us a hint as to who’s been leaving you surprises.”
“I’m afraid that includes a big group. Remember what Rhoda said right after it happened? I don’t recall her exact words or even who was present, but she said something about me looking into Connie’s death and that I was some sort of independent investigator.”
Hooks Can Be Deceiving Page 19
