You Better Knot Die (12 page)

Okay, she was lying. I wasn’t crazy. There had been a motorcycle there and she knew it.

“SO YOU STILL HAVEN’T SEEN RYDER?” DINAH asked. We were standing outside the entrance to the bookstore. The sun had peeked through and added a little warmth to the damp air. Several days had gone by with no further break-ins at my place. I had forgotten another dinner Mason had set up so I could help him with the dog sweater. Barry was either sulking or had picked up a homicide because I’d heard nothing from him. Not that I had time to notice. Once I cleared up the crochet room, I finished the elephant, which was adorable, if I said so myself, and was going to brighten up some little kid’s Christmas. I was so pleased with how the toy turned out, I started on another—this time I was making a snow owl. In between I worked on snowflakes and swatches. I had discovered it was best to work on the knit swatches at home. I couldn’t take Adele’s endless grumbling when I tried doing them at the bookstore. Not that I’d had time there anyway now that the store was crowded with holiday shoppers needing help.

“No. But when I do I’m going to have a little talk with him. I know he probably thinks that’s the way to be a real journalist. The ends justify the means and all that. If he’s willing to stop sneaking into my house, I’m willing to drop it.”

Dinah considered what I’d said. “You better be firm,” she said, going into her teacher mode. “If you want I can be your wingman when you talk to him. I’ll get the message across to him. No more sneaking in windows or else. The secret is in the tone you use when you say the ‘or else.’ You have to fire up his imagination, which is much scarier than anything real you could threaten him with.” The kids weren’t with her and when I asked about them, she said she was meeting Commander later and she didn’t want to push the kids in his face. Conveniently her neighbor had invited them over for a play date.

I pushed the needles out of sight in my tote bag as we walked into the bookstore. The rest of the bag was filled with completed swatches. All done in the garter stitch, which meant knit only, no purl. The snowflakes I’d completed were starched and drying on my dining room table. I had finally brought in the ones Adele had made, but when Mrs. Shedd saw how few there were, she said it wasn’t worth hanging them until we had more.

I was looking forward to some crochet time with the Hookers. As we headed to the back of the store I saw that most of them were already at the table. CeeCee was at the head of the table and even at a distance I could see she was talking enthusiastically about something. Sheila had several blankets on the table next to her and was just beginning another. She seemed totally devoted to her work. Eduardo was sitting next to someone I didn’t recognize. A new recruit perhaps. He was showing her something that she didn’t seem to get. I almost choked when I saw what he did next. He got up and stood behind her, guiding her hands. Okay, it wasn’t a hot scene with him molding his body to hers or anything, but it did remind me of the scene in the first Anthony book,
Caught By the Hook
. I watched him for a moment. Eduardo had been on the cover of a lot of romance novels. Maybe he decided to write some. The Blood and Yarn series really were more or less romances, weren’t they?

Dinah saw me staring at Eduardo.

“What’s up?” I reminded her of the scene in the first book and her eyes lit up. “Wouldn’t it be something if Eduardo is A. J.?”

Before I could answer, Adele came bustling out of the children’s area. Just when I thought Adele couldn’t possibly top herself, she managed to. Story time had featured
The Rag Doll Chronicles
and Adele had dressed up as the chief rag doll, Clarissa, from the red yarn wig to the loose denim overalls with the giant yellow flower. Adele didn’t stop with just the clothes. She had blush circles on her cheeks and lots of eye makeup—the eye makeup wasn’t really part of the doll look, just her touch. Adele had finished with bright red lip color applied so it appeared she had large bow-shaped lips.

We all knew that Adele didn’t love kids and the only positive of being stuck with story time was that she had met William, but she didn’t usually look this discombobulated. “Pink, those kids are little hoodlums. Look what I confiscated from one of them.” She pulled out a black metal gun and started waving it around. I gasped and threw myself in front of Dinah to protect her.

“Relax, ladies, it’s a toy—a cap gun,” Adele said, looking at me with consternation. I tried to get it away from her, but Adele pulled away too fast, and to prove her point, she squeezed the trigger. I pulled Dinah with me as I darted behind the “New in Nonfiction” bookcase. There were a bunch of pops and that unmistakable smell of caps. Everyone in the bookstore froze at the sound. Even Bob ran in from the café, shouting should he call 911. I didn’t even want to think of a bunch of cops running in to find Adele in that getup, waving the gun. I made sure he knew there was no emergency.

Adele looked around at the stir she caused and laughed. “Looks pretty real, doesn’t it? It just shoots caps,” she said, showing the red strip hanging out of the gun. Everyone stayed put and she made a move toward a couple crouched behind the “Great Gifts for the Holidays” table. They backed toward the door and ran out. I hooked my arm in Adele’s and pulled her toward the office.

“Yes, it does look real. So real it’s scaring everyone,” I said. “Please stop shooting it and put it away before somebody looks in the window and thinks you’re robbing the place. In fact, don’t put it in the office; someone may see it there and freak out. Put it in your car,” I said. “And don’t go waving it around in the parking lot, either.”

We also debated about whether or not she was going to give it back to the owner. Adele stuck to no. “I told them no video games, whoopee cushions or toy guns. And I made it clear they would be confiscated and not returned. How will they learn if I give it back?”

She had a point and I decided that if the irate parent showed up I was going to sic them on Adele.

It took a few minutes for everyone to calm down after Adele’s Annie Oakley routine. When Dinah and I joined the others at the table I introduced myself to the new person and made sure to explain what had just happened wasn’t typical of the bookstore.

“Dears, you missed my news,” CeeCee said to Dinah and me. “I was just telling everyone I got my Christmas present early. I’m finally going to be back where I belong.” She sat a little straighter. I knew her reality show had finished shooting and was on hiatus. She’d mentioned she was being considered for something else, but hadn’t wanted to jinx it by talking about it. “You know they’re making a movie out of the first Anthony book,
Caught By the Hook
? I got the part of Ophelia, Anthony’s neighbor and confidant,” she said with a proud shake of her head.

“Yes, I’m back in the movies.” CeeCee tried to give Dinah and me high-fives, but we didn’t realize what she was doing and there was an awkward missing of hands.

“Who’s playing Anthony?” Sheila asked.

“Hugh Jackman,” CeeCee said in an offhand manner.

“Hugh Jackman?” Rhoda said with a snort. “He’s too foofie for a vampire. But then Anthony is too foofie for a vampire. If I was casting the part, I’d give it to Quentin Tarantino.”

“He’s a director,” CeeCee said with a hopeless roll of her eyes.

Rhoda seemed unconcerned. “He could direct himself in the part.”

Surprisingly Elise never looked up but was intent on crocheting the black-and-white scarf. She seemed close to being finished and I noticed she’d already made a scarlet tassel to put on the end.

Rhoda looked at Elise. “Hey, how come you aren’t saying anything? Usually you’re in the middle of anything about the foofie vampire.”

Elise looked up with a slightly vague expression. “Sorry, I’ve been a little preoccupied.” She turned toward me. “That neighbor of yours—he’s the worst thing that ever happened to us,” she said with disgust in her voice. How strange. The last time she’d been talking about Bradley, her husband had been saying Bradley was the best thing that ever happened to them. Elise told the group about Bradley being presumed dead and how word of it had spread around Tarzana. Everyone who had been part of Bradley’s investment club had tried calling Bradley’s office, and when they got nowhere, tried the Perkins’ house. All they got there was a voice mailbox so full it wouldn’t take any more messages.

“They all started calling Logan and expected him to take care of everything. They seemed to think Logan and Bradley were joined at the hip or something. Our life has become a living hell,” she said.

Sheila had a blank look. “Did I miss something? What happened? Last I heard Molly’s neighbor was just missing.”

Rhoda made a noise between clearing her throat and a snort. “My Harold thinks he pulled off a Ponzi scheme. The way it worked was Bradley kept collecting money he was supposedly going to invest. Only he never invested any of it. He used the money he was taking from new people to pay anyone who wanted their dividends or to give people their money back if they wanted out. But he was so smooth and made it look like his investments were making such huge profits, most of the investors left their dividends in the fund to make even more money.” Rhoda looked at Sheila. “Are you getting it honey?” Sheila nodded.

“Harold said he heard Perkins started gambling with the money and eventually lost it all.”

“Personally, I think it’s a little strange how he supposedly dies, but there’s no body,” CeeCee said. “What kind of money are we talking—thousands? Millions?”

“Logan figures it’s millions. And there’s no body because Bradley jumped in the ocean in the middle of the channel,” Elise said. “It might still wash up.” Elise spoke to the group. “Logan feels terrible because he got all these people to put money in. The records are such a mess. Logan’s trying to help the SEC make a list of all the investors.” Her gaze swept the group. “Were any of you in the investment club?”

CeeCee spoke first. “My late husband lost all my money and I had to start over from scratch. He made foolish investments. I never would.”

Rhoda made another one of her snort sounds before she answered. “My Harold always says if something is too good to be true, it usually is—not true.”

Sheila put her hands up in a hopeless manner. “With what money?” Dinah and I both shook our heads. The new woman said she’d just moved to the area and didn’t even understand what we were talking about.

Everyone turned to Eduardo. His chiseled face was solemn and he finally nodded. He never talked much and I often wondered if he just tuned out all our chatter. He always did at least his share of any charity projects the group took on and generally seemed pleasant.

His eyes looked angry and he was holding a plastic size Q hook. He turned to Rhoda. “Your husband is right. I wish I had thought of that instead of being taken in by Bradley.” Eduardo said that men had a bigger window of time as models, but it didn’t last forever even for them. “I’ve been exploring other avenues,” he said. “I thought if I could grow my savings, I’d have a stake to start my own business.” His face grew impassioned. “I think what that guy did was terrible. It wasn’t my life savings, but I bet for some others it was. He deserves to be dead.” There was a loud snap and Eduardo seemed as surprised as the rest of us when we saw that he’d snapped the thick hook in half.

“But what if he isn’t really dead?” Rhoda said. I considered bringing up what I’d overheard the SEC lawyer say about believing that Bradley was really dead, but mentioning it would no doubt bring up questions about why I was investigating since I hadn’t invested any money. Questions that might lead to Mrs. Shedd and I’d promised to not tell anyone she’d been in Bradley’s club.

Elise pondered the thought for a moment.

“It happens,” Dinah said. “There was a guy who tried to fake his own death by bailing out of the plane he was flying. He figured the plane would crash and everyone would think he died in the crash.”

“So?” Rhoda said. “What happened?”

“He got caught. Somehow they figured out the plane was flying empty.”

Adele came up to the table. She was back in street clothes, but she hadn’t been able to get off all the makeup.

Rhoda handed Adele a shopping bag. “Here’s the afghan. Thanks for letting me look at it. You’re right, though, somebody doesn’t know about symmetry. I mean, if you’re going to put on tassels, you either just have one on one corner for accent or you put one on each corner. And if you’re going to scatter flowers on it, they ought to be balanced. You don’t crowd flowers on one square and then have none in the next. ”

Adele peeked inside the bag. “That’s exactly what I told William. Don’t give it to me. Give it to Pink. It belongs to her neighbor.”

“I think it’s lovely,” I said, pulling part of the blanket out to examine it. The green background was such a nice contrast to the different-colored flowers scattered over it.

“Whatever, Pink. I did what you asked and wrote down the directions for how to make one of the squares and how to do surface crochet.” She handed me a sheet of paper.

At my puzzled look, she pointed to the flowers. “That’s how they were done. With surface crochet, you anchor your yarn on the top and do chain stitches into the top. Once you finish the chain stitches, it’s just crochet as usual.”

I took the blanket all the way out of the bag and passed it around the table. Across the table, Rhoda shrugged. “One guy’s opinion of lovely is someone else’s of mishmash.” I explained that when I hadn’t been able to decipher the pattern, I’d passed it on to Adele to look at. It wasn’t the squares that had given me a problem. They were just single crochet, but I couldn’t figure out how the varied colored flowers had been crocheted on top of the background. After everyone admired it, I folded it up and brought it over to CeeCee. “Emily doesn’t want it back. She said to give it to a charity sale. Isn’t Hearts and Barks having some kind of holiday bazaar?”