Behind the Seams (20 page)

“Thanks to you, Mr. Super Attorney,” I said, rubbing my wrist and doing shoulder rolls.

“I wish I could take the credit. I just got here,” he said.

Worried that they’d made a mistake in letting us go, the three of us hustled out of there in a hurry. Only later did I find out that the gang of can and bottle thieves thought we were up to some kind of bigger crime, and the whole time they were dealing with the cops, they kept insisting they had nothing to do with us.

“Thank heavens, no mug shot,” CeeCee said as we walked outside. She realized she’d spoken too soon; a bevy of photographers were hanging by the door. When they saw Mason, they started shooting. I don’t think they even knew who they were shooting at first, assuming if they were with him, they had to be somebody. I was surprised to see Pierce Sheraton in the crowd. You would think that as the host of an entertainment show, he’d be above hanging outside the police station in the middle of the night, but what set him apart from the others was that he got down and dirty to get a story.

CeeCee immediately started finger combing her hair and trying to stay behind Mason. That is until she realized they weren’t after her. They had focused in on Mason and wanted to know if he was there because the starlet Valerie Vancouver had been picked up on her third DUI.

As soon as she thought she wasn’t in the spotlight, she wanted it, and CeeCee stepped from behind Mason and started talking to the photographers about her false arrest.

It was a lot nicer getting into Mason’s Mercedes than it had been the cop car. It smelled much better, too. CeeCee took the backseat and sighed as she slipped in. “It’s so good to be free again.” She leaned toward the front seat. “Molly, do you have any of those chocolate samples in your purse? I’m feeling a little weak from our ordeal.”

“Don’t worry, ladies, I have it under control.” The streets were as close to empty as they got in the Valley, and after a fast ride on the 101, he pulled into Du-par’s parking lot. “I always say the best thing to have when you get out of jail are pancakes.”

There was just one other table of customers in the landmark coffee shop. Their pancakes were legendary and came soaked in a puddle of melted butter.

Insisting she was just trying to keep herself from fainting at the memory of our evening, CeeCee polished off a short stack with barely a crumb left over. Personally, I was too unnerved to eat. I kept wiggling my hands to make sure they weren’t restrained. Mason thought it was all too funny.

He dropped CeeCee off at her place first. The lights were on at my house as he drove up. He pulled into the driveway and his headlights illuminated Barry’s taupe Tahoe parked in front of the garage.

Uh-oh. Not again.

“I MISS ALL THE EXCITEMENT,” DINAH SAID AS WE walked into the bookstore café.

“I’m not sure that CeeCee would qualify it as excitement,” I said, thinking back on how she’d looked when we finally exited the police station.

There was a low din of conversations and the air had a strong enough scent of coffee. Just breathing it in made me more alert, which I sorely needed after everything that had happened the night before.

Bob started drinks for us—a red-eye for me and a café au lait for Dinah—while we found a table. Most of them were full. Interspersed with the people hovering over their computers, there were a few people actually talking to each other. I noticed that D.J. Florian was one of the computer hoverers. No doubt writing his blog. When we were situated, I opened my tote and took out the girl doll that had started the whole fiasco with the cops. The cops had taken both dolls, along with my purse, and then, since they weren’t bottles or cans hoisted from somebody’s trash, had given them back when we were released. I didn’t even want to consider what they must have thought about me carrying around a couple of dolls.

Lying across the table, she looked like a doll corpse, with her rosebud mouth and embroidered eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling.

“Okay, so what happened when you got home?” Dinah said. I’d told her everything up to finding Barry’s Tahoe parked in my driveway when Mason brought me home. I was glad when Bob brought over the drinks. I fortified myself with a sip of the strong coffee drink before I recounted what happened when I got home.

“My front door opened before I could get out of the car. Barry sure keeps in shape. He was across my lawn in a flash.” I took another long drink of coffee before continuing how Barry had reached the car just as I was opening the passenger door. To say he looked unhappy was an understatement. Why hadn’t I answered my cell phone? The phone got e-mails, did I ever look? What was my story this time?

I was the first to admit I didn’t have a very good record with my cell phone. Something always seemed to happen. I forgot to charge the battery and the phone was dead, or it somehow set itself to silent, or I just didn’t hear it ring. Though with Mason’s custom “ring,” I didn’t think that was going to happen. How could you not hear a voice crying
get me out of here
coming from your purse? As for the other stuff the phone did, I wasn’t much for squinting at the small screen and pretty much ignored it.

“I didn’t exactly have it,” I said.

“You lost it?” Barry asked.

“Not exactly. More like it was confiscated.”

I guess Mason was used to speaking for his clients because he took over and explained my trip to the cop shop. He did a much better job than I would have done. He made it sound like CeeCee and I were just crossing the street and suddenly had been surrounded by the gang of bottle thieves.

Barry ranted on about being worried. I was sympathetic to a point. I guess it didn’t occur to him that when he was off chasing suspects, disappearing and reappearing without a word, that I might feel the same. Mason must have realized his presence wasn’t helping and, with a wave, left.

When Barry and I went inside, Samuel came out of his room. “You were out kind of late. Everything okay?” he had said.

“It was a weird feeling being on the other side of a comment on what time somebody got home,” I said to Dinah. She wanted to know what I’d said and I told her I did just what he and his brother had done when I said something similar about their late arrival. I just nodded and gave no details.

“And?” she prodded.

“Samuel went back into his room and then Barry wanted to hear all the details. He did a lot of head shaking and finally laughed when I described CeeCee’s disreputable appearance when she met the photographers hanging outside. After he took me to pick up my car, he left; he had to drive carpool.”

“So you never found out who was driving the BMW,” she said. I started to nod my head in dismay and then began scrounging in my purse.

“How could I have forgotten? I wrote down the license plate number.” I found the scrap and waved it around.

“Are you going to ask Barry to find out the name that goes with it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Are you kidding? He said he accepted my sleuthing activity, not that he would help with it. You have no idea how upset he was when he heard about our almost arrest. Well, upset, until he started to laugh. He might have said something about when you stick your hand in the beehive you shouldn’t be surprised when you get stung.” Besides, I figured with all Mason’s connections, he could probably find out and be willing to do it.

Dinah looked at the doll and lifted its crocheted skirt to see how it was made. “Oh, look, she’s wearing undies,” Dinah said. Not only did she have underpants, they had a little pink rosebud sewn on them.

Just then, CeeCee came in, or more correctly, made an entrance. She couldn’t help it, really; she seemed to automatically make a stir. She was wearing sunglasses and looked like she had a hangover.

She sank into one of the chairs with a loud sigh. “Going out with you is quite an adventure. I hope Nell appreciates what I did for her,” CeeCee said, looking over the top of her sunglasses at me. She made a weak gesture toward the counter as if she didn’t have the strength to get up and go place her order. One of Bob’s gifts as a barista was he knew how to cater to our clientele. He didn’t wait for CeeCee to even say anything before he was on the way to our table with a lemon bar.

“You’re a dear,” she said, extracting it from his hand. She savored the scent and took a big bite. She sighed with delight at the flavor. “There, better already.”

“You’re usual nonfat double cappuccino?” Bob said before he went back to the counter.

“I think you better use whole milk today,” she said. She turned to us and assured us it was for medicinal purposes.

I started to apologize for the previous night, but she held up her hand to stop me. “If you want to know the truth, I haven’t done anything nearly as exciting for a long time. Of course, when it wasn’t clear what was going to happen, I wasn’t quite so sure.”

I mentioned the press people hanging by the door when we left. She took off the sunglasses, and I could see her eyes had lit up. “It turns out that was a good thing. I talked to my publicist about trying to kill the story, but she was thrilled when she heard I got photographed leaving jail.” CeeCee appeared sheepish. “Maybe I embellished a bit. I had us in a cell with all sorts of lowlifes. Anyway, my publicist said that she’d already been getting all kinds of requests for my story. I kind of hate to have to say it was all a mistake. I’d get better street cred if I’d said I was researching a part and had been part of the bottles and cans gang.”

Bob brought her the foamy coffee drink. When he set it on the table, she noticed the girl doll for the first time. “You’re why we almost went to the pokey?” she said, picking it up. She lifted the skirt and there was a small burst of her musical laugh when she saw the underpants. “Look at all the details,” she said, indicating the tiny pink flowers crocheted out of fine thread along the hem of the moss green full skirt. She showed us how it was made and commented on the high quality of the workmanship. All the while, she looked like she was thinking of something but couldn’t quite grasp it. She finally set the doll down.

“I’ve seen a doll like this before. Not exactly, but the flowers, the underpants with the rosebud.”

I lifted the bottom of one of the doll’s black Mary Jane–style shoes and showed CeeCee the scribbles on the bottom done in surface crochet.

CeeCee sat forward suddenly. “I know where I saw a doll like it before.”

Adele interrupted CeeCee’s thought as she stood next to the table. “Where’d the doll come from?”

We all ignored her as I cajoled CeeCee into continuing. “It was a sale we had for Hearts and Barks. All the things were made by celebrities. You know how that can jack up the price we get.”

“That was made by a celebrity crocheter?” Adele said, her voice quaking with excitement. “Who? We have to get her to join us. Nothing personal, CeeCee, but I knew you couldn’t be the only other celebrity crocheter besides Vanna White.”

We all looked at CeeCee expectantly, waiting for the name, though for different reasons. I was looking for clues into Robyn’s life and Adele was after publicity.

CeeCee said she didn’t know offhand and would have to ask around the charity group. She picked up her drink and then set it down with distaste. “I think my cappuccino needs some sweetener.”

I volunteered to get it for her. When I went behind the counter, I saw the box of Nature’s Sweetie that Bob had bought for Robyn. I grabbed a packet and asked if it was okay if I gave it to CeeCee.

Bob gave me the go-ahead and said I might as well leave the box on the counter. Just as I was about to hand it to CeeCee, out of left field, D. J. came bolting over from his computer and grabbed it, yelling, “Don’t!”

I let go at the same time he did and the packet fell to the floor. Before I could retrieve it, the author had picked it up by the tiniest edge. He dropped it on the table and told all of us to stay away. Then he brought over his laptop and pointed out the news story he was reading. In big letters, it said, “Nature’s Sweetie Recalled After Another Tainted Box Found.”

I’M NOT SURE WHOSE IDEA IT WAS TO CALL 911. WE could have just taken the box back to Crown Apothecary where Bob got it. It wasn’t like it was going to blow up or anything. As long as nobody used it, it seemed like we would be safe.

Three cop cars squealed to a stop in front of the café and two officers came in, guns drawn, and ordered us all to freeze. Okay, I also don’t know what whoever called had said, either.

When Bob pointed with his head and said, “It’s over there,” and they saw that it was a pyramid-shaped sweetener packet in the middle of the table, the two serious-faced uniforms cracked a smile.

The arrival of the police brought a sudden surge of attention to the café. I think the fact the cruisers had their lights and sirens on had something to do with it.

The extra officers held back the lookie-loos who’d drifted in from the bookstore, while D. J. explained the problem with the box of Nature’s Sweetie by showing one of the uniforms his computer screen.

The cops did a bunch of conferring by radio. The lookie-loos left after a few minutes once they saw the source of all the action and realized they couldn’t even order a drink. Mrs. Shedd and Mr. Royal came in and had to fight through the exiting crowd like fish swimming upriver.

A police supervisor showed up after a while and looked over the situation. She, in turn, put in a call to somebody else. That’s when things got really strange. She decided they should move everybody outside and hustled us out the door. Not even the cops stayed inside.

An awkward-looking black truck rumbled in front of the cop cars and parked directly in line with the café. I waited to see who was going to get out. After what seemed like forever, two people exited the truck. I say
people
because no way could I tell if they were men or women, or one of each. They were totally suited up in white space suits complete with their own air supply. They didn’t so much walk in as lumber. One of the cops stood at the glass door and pointed out the packet of sweetener and the box on the counter. The suited-up pair went inside, and I watched as one of them picked up the packet and the other the box. Once the packet was back in the box, they lumbered back to the door and onto their reinforced truck.