If Hooks Could Kill (19 page)

C
HAPTER
28

It was very late when we left the storage place and headed back to Mason’s house. My car was still parked in front. “You look pretty tired. You’re welcome to the couch, or any of the bedrooms in the house,” Mason said as he pulled into his garage. He turned toward me with a good-natured smile. “No pressure.”

“Thanks,” I said. I opened the door to his car and got out. “But I think I’ll go home.”

Mason walked me to my car and gave me a last chance to change my mind. He leaned in the open window and kissed me. I guess he was hoping to sway me and he almost did, but I started the car and he stepped away.

I automatically turned off Ventura Boulevard as I passed the bookstore. I thought I would just drive past the Donahue house, but I didn’t get that far. Late as it was, I noticed the lights were still on at Dinah’s. I didn’t want to scare her by just knocking at the door, so called her on my cell. Even so, the middle of the night phone call jangled her nerves, but she recovered fast and told me to come in.

“I was just watching television and crocheting. I couldn’t sleep after our trip into North’s trailer,” she said.

“Ha, if you think that’s keeping you awake, wait until I tell you where I’ve been.” I told her about the storage locker and finding the gun. “I’m betting it really is the murder weapon. What a clever place for Dan to put it.”

“You went without me?” she said with disappointment in her voice.

“Be glad I did. Remember how we said that place was probably creepy at night, well it is,” I said and told her about the shadows and the herd of black bugs on the floor.

“So what’s our next step?”

I felt my mouth slide into a smile. I liked the way she said “we.” Dinah was a true-blue friend who had never let me down. Even with her relationship with Commander she found time for us. Everybody in the world should have one friend like her.

“Right now, I need some chamomile tea or I’m going to jump out of my skin,” I said. Dinah apologized for not having any. When I looked out her window, I saw that the night sky was getting lighter and suggested we go up the street to Le Grande Fromage, which opened when they started baking their day’s pastries.

The sky was still mostly dark as we walked up the street and the air felt cool with a touch of damp. I never saw this time of day and was surprised there was traffic on Ventura and people already on the street doing their early morning jogs. Le Grande Fromage wasn’t crowded, but had more people than I would have expected. Stone and his surfer posse joined some of the production crew in line at the counter and I overheard them all talking about getting an early start.

I found a table and Dinah got the drinks. The effects of staying up all night were beginning to hit me. I was leaning on my arm when she handed me the tea. “Do you remember that lamp that was in Kelly’s room? It had a pretty glass shade. The one I said was missing.”

Dinah finally nodded with recognition and I told her it was in the storage locker, too. “I wonder why Dan put that in there?” I was going to say more, but Dinah gave me a loud psst and pointed while hiding her finger with her hand. When I looked up, Dan had just gone up to the counter. I slunk low in the seat.

He was clean shaven and dressed for a day at the store. He seemed in good humor as he ordered his coffee and said something about opening the store early. He certainly had tunnel vision when it came to his business. I wondered what he would do if I dangled Kelly’s key in front of him.

I held my breath as he walked past our table and was relieved when he just waved a greeting before heading for the door.

When he was gone, we went back to talking.

“Why don’t you talk to Barry?” Dinah said.

“Are you kidding, after the episode with the PinchyWinchy. Do you think there’s a chance he’d take me seriously?”

“No, you’re probably right,” Dinah said.

“I have to get to Detective Heather. It is exactly what she needs.”

As the tea began to relax my nervous energy, my whole body began to ache for sleep. I told Dinah I’d call her later and used the last of my energy to walk to the greenmobile and drive home.

I walked in through the kitchen door, hoping I could make it to bed without falling asleep first. Barry was freshly dressed for work and making coffee. He looked up when I passed him.

“Mason called a few minutes ago. He said to tell you that you left your shirt at his place.” Barry scowled as he looked at my day-old clothes. I was too tired to even ask why he’d answered the phone. I responded with a shrug before dragging myself across the house and flopping on my bed.

I fell into a dead sleep for a couple of hours then forced myself up, showered and put on my work clothes before going to the bookstore. Bob took one look at me and automatically made me a black eye. He was right it was a two shots of espresso day for sure.

The jolt of caffeine went right to my brain and I was able to function. As I went through my tasks at the bookstore I considered how to approach Detective Heather. What was I going to do, call her and say, “By the way, last night I happened to be looking in Kelly Donahue’s storage locker and I noticed there was a gun, which probably is the murder weapon.” What if Barry mentioned the Pinchy-Winchy episode? After the look he’d given me when he’d seen me in the morning, anything was possible. Would it have made any difference if I’d explained to him where I’d been? Would he have believed me? I didn’t owe him an explanation anyway. We were just ships passing in the kitchen, I reminded myself.

*   *   *

It turned out I didn’t have to worry about contacting her, Detective Heather showed up at the bookstore. I saw her head back to the yarn department. On top of being hot looking, smart and a detective, Heather was an accomplished knitter and gave us a lot of her yarn business. She was dressed for work in a fitted navy blue suit and white blouse. I went back there and found her looking through our supply of circular knitting needles, which Adele kept trying to hide. I asked her if she needed help.

Detective Heather turned at the sound of my voice and then gave me a little laugh. “You could help me with something knitting related?”

“As a matter of a fact, I could.” I pointed to the knitted swatches hanging on the bins of yarn. “I did those,” I reminded her. Mrs. Shedd didn’t want to lose any business, so she’d convinced me that we needed to have knitted and crocheted swatches of all of our yarns. Adele wanted no part of anything that had to do with knitting, so I’d done the knitted ones with my limited skill.

I picked up a set of high-end circs, as people in the know called circular needles, and said they were the best and everyone said they were worth the added cost. Detective Heather took them from me and began to look them over. I suggested she take them out and try them.

I got a ball of worsted yarn we kept for such a purpose and laid it on the table. We both sat down together. She began to cast on some stitches while I tried to turn the conversation to the storage locker. There was no easy segue, so I finally just went at it straight on.

“I know where the gun that killed Kelly Donahue is,” I said and told her about the storage locker.

“The key was given to you?” she said with interest. “This could be good. If you let me in I wouldn’t need a warrant.” She wanted to go immediately. She talked to Mrs. Shedd and said she needed me on official police business.

It felt odd getting into her black Crown Victoria detective car and she was silent as I directed her to the storage facility. Even so, I could see a hint of excitement in her expression. The gun was just what she needed to tie the case up and get charges brought against Dan and prove she was right all along.

The storage place wasn’t nearly as creepy looking during the day. Though there still didn’t seem to be anyone around there. I had the invoice with the locker number and the key at the ready as we navigated through the low buildings. When I found the row Kelly’s was in, I felt my heart rate kick up. Detective Heather would have to say something like a thank-you when I handed her the missing clue in her case.

“What number did you say it was?” she asked as we walked past the row of blue metal doors. She was a few steps ahead and was clearly excited. I repeated the number and she stopped in front of a unit.

“Here it is,” she said. She motioned for me to open it. I held out the key and then noticed something alarming. There was no lock on it. Had I forgotten to replace it the night before? I swallowed hard and pulled up the metal door. And then we both looked in.

The locker was empty.

C
HAPTER
29

Late in the day, the Hookers gathered at the back table for a group session. Whatever benefit I’d gotten from the few hours of sleep had worn off. The episode with Detective Heather hadn’t helped, either. I was on my third black eye of the day. Since it wasn’t exactly our finest hour, Adele, Dinah and I had agreed there was no reason to bring up our fiasco with North’s gun, but I told the group about Kelly’s storage locker.

“Are you sure you went to the right one?” Rhoda said. I nodded and said I’d checked over and over.

“That’s horrible. How’d Detective Heather take it?” Dinah asked, looking up from her work. I choked on a laugh.

“Not well. She said she should have known better than to get sucked into one of my schemes. She rushed off and I had to run to catch up with her or she would have just left me there without a ride.”

“What about getting Mason to back you up?” Sheila suggested.

“Like a cop is going to believe a lawyer,” Adele said with a snort. “Face it, Pink, there’s nothing you can do. You might as well just drop the whole thing and give up the amateur detective act. You’re not going to be able to solve this one. And I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I’ve decided Eric is right after all. There is only room for one crime fighter in a couple.”

CeeCee interrupted and handed out some sheets of paper. “Since some people in the group seem determined to make cowls, I came up with a faster pattern.” She held up a sample she’d made before passing it around. Adele’s cowls were made of dense stitches, while CeeCee’s had lots of spaces. Adele seemed miffed when Rhoda said it seemed a lot more appropriate for summer.

When my workday ended, I practically crawled home from the bookstore. It wasn’t like the days when I was in college, when I could pull an all-nighter and still get through the day. I was walking across my yard, grateful that home was in sight when Peter called on my cell. My son wanted to know if I really did have the hots for North Adams. I could hear the relief in his voice when I told him I didn’t.

“But you won’t tell him that, will you?” Peter said with some discomfort in his tone. I assured my older son that I would be happy to play along with North’s fantasy just like I’d given him the rides, no questions asked.

“Just be nice to him, nothing more,” Peter warned before he hung up.

“No problem on that one,” I said out loud to myself as I walked into the kitchen.

I flinched when I heard a voice.

“Who are you talking to?” Barry asked. He was unloading white containers of Chinese food on the counter and had taken out a couple of plates.

“Just to myself,” I said. Jeffrey came in the room looking glum. He glared at his father with a hopeless expression and turned to me. I asked him if something was wrong. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Barry rocking his head and rolling his eyes.

“Autumn came back from camp, but she started hanging out with some other kids. Well, some other guy,” he added sadly.

Barry doled out a plate of food for him and said they could eat together in the dining room. Jeffrey sighed dramatically and said he’d eat in his room, that he wanted to be alone.

Barry sighed. “I’m trying to be understanding. I don’t know what to do with his moping around.” He gestured toward the containers. “There’s plenty. Help yourself.” He started to leave it at that, but then added with an edge. “I’m sure after being out all night you don’t feel like cooking.”

For a moment I thought of explaining, but then thought why should I? It was bad enough being judged by my sons, but now by Barry, too. We were just supposed to be like roommates. I gave him a “no thank you” on the chow mein and marched out of the kitchen with the last of my energy.

I was more tired than hungry, anyway, and just fell on my bed in my clothes. Mason called and I awoke long enough to talk to him. He was shocked to hear about the storage locker but I was so tired I was beyond sharing in his disbelief. Two seconds after we hung up I was out for the night.

In the morning I felt like a new person. I bounced out of bed, showered and got dressed. It was only as I was walking across the house that I thought about Barry. I hoped he was gone. I couldn’t handle another reproachful stare. No such luck. He was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, drinking coffee and eating some cereal while he checked the screen on his smart phone.

I was relieved when my house phone rang and it was Dinah. She said it had been bugging her about the lamp I’d seen. She couldn’t remember what it looked like.

“I didn’t take it out of the box and there wasn’t much light so I couldn’t make out the pattern in the leaded glass. But when I saw it at Kelly’s it had some kind of blue and green pattern. Flowers maybe. I don’t know.” We arranged to meet later and I hung up.

Barry looked up with a question in his eyes. I just cut to the chase. “Dinah wanted to know about a lamp I saw in Kelly’s storage locker. I suppose Detective Heather has told you all about it by now. How I took her on a wild-goose chase and led her to an empty storage unit. Well, when I went there the first time, it wasn’t empty.” I let out my breath in a huff. “How’s that decorating coming at your place? Will they be done soon?”

Barry had on his inscrutable cop face. “No, Heather didn’t tell me. It will just be a little longer until I can leave.”

I spent the day at the bookstore immersed in work. I didn’t want to think about anything else. Dinah came in just as I was finishing up.

“Let’s get far away from here.” She stuck her fingers in her ears. “It’s even noiser at my place.” The production crew was shooting a scene that had a helicopter landing up the street in the yard of the middle school. The thwack of the rotor was annoyingly loud even inside.

They weren’t actually filming any scenes with actors until later. Most of them had some time off and when we left the bookstore, they were hanging around the café. North was among them. He looked over at me and gave me what he must have considered his special wink. I offered a weak smile in return.

I still wondered why he had lied about knowing Kelly. Was there any way I could question him without him taking it the wrong way? No.

To say I was bummed out was an understatement. I’d lost the last shred of credibility I had with Detective Heather. And what had happened to the locker’s contents?

Dinah tried to cheer me up and said we might as well fulfill our promise to CeeCee to stop at Commander’s Mail It Center and pick up the packing supplies he was donating to our booth.

“It looks so much nicer if you get a cute little shopping bag with your purchase, and with a Tarzana Hooker sticker, no less,” Dinah said trying to sound cheery as I pulled the greenmobile in front of the Mail It Center. It was in a strip mall off Ventura Boulevard between a cell phone store and a nail salon. As we approached the small storefront, Commander saw us from inside and waved. More than waved. The minute he saw Dinah, his face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. I was so happy for my friend.

As we passed the post office boxes in the front part of the small storefront, I remembered that Commander had said Kelly had one, for her online business.

“What happens with Kelly’s box now that she’s gone?” I said.

“Interesting that you should bring that up. She was paid up through last week. I’m trying to decide what to do with the contents of her box. For now I just put it over there”—he gestured toward a small bin in the corner.

“Mind if I have a look?” I asked. He seemed uncomfortable with the idea, but finally agreed. There were some pieces of junk mail, several catalogs for yarn and a small box. I picked it up and examined it. Commander saw what I was doing and pointed out “Return to sender, No such address” was stamped on the front.

“Kelly dropped off packages for pick up all the time. She must have made some kind of mistake on this one.”

I held it up and shook it; something clunked inside. Yarn things didn’t clunk and I was suddenly curious about the contents of the box. Commander nixed the idea of opening it.

“But you said the rent on her post office box ran out,” I protested. He still seemed uneasy and said usually when someone stopped paying for a box, he just refused any packages, but he couldn’t refuse a box being returned. Dinah started to work on him, too.

Finally he put up his hands in capitulation. “I’m going to get the packet of shopping bags and tissue paper for your booth. You two watch the front while I’m in the back where I can’t see what’s going on up here,” he said in a knowing tone. “And make sure you put everything back the way it was.” He paused. “That is if anything were to just happen to open.”

As soon as he went to the back, Dinah pulled out a long letter opener and we used it to slide under the flap of the box and release the adhesive. “He must really love you,” I said. Commander wasn’t one to bend the rules and looking the other way was a big deal for him.

I don’t know why my heart rate had kicked up when it took some doing to get the box open. It wasn’t like he was trying to catch us. I suppose it was from the anticipation of finding out what was inside. Finally a small taped-up packet slid out. Dinah took what Commander had said seriously and used the knifelike letter opener to open the inner wrapping without tearing in. She handed it to me and I unfolded the bubble wrap, revealing two small green crocheted bags with drawstrings. I poked my finger into one of the bags to open it and emptied the contents on the counter. Two quarters fell out and pinged against the Formica.

“What’s that about?” I said, picking up one of them.

“Maybe she just wanted to put something in the crocheted bag to weigh it down,” Dinah said as I handed her the other one to look over.

“All the items she sold were pricey. How much could she make on a couple little bags? I quickly took a photo of the small bags and the coins with my BlackBerry before we put everything back. “That’s certainly not what I expected,” I said as I resealed the small cardboard box and dropped it back into the bin with Kelly’s other mail. Dinah called to Commander and let him know we were done without saying it exactly and he reappeared carrying a brown shopping bag loaded with smaller shopping bags and tissue paper.

He avoided looking at the bin of Kelly’s mail. “Did she send out a lot of little boxes like that?” I asked.

“Not at first, but then she’d started bringing one in every now and then. She never said anything about the contents. I tried to engage her in conversation, but she was always in a hurry.” He seemed a little disappointed. “I like my customers to feel like family, but she didn’t seem to have time to be friendly.”

He pulled out one of the shopping bags and showed off the Tarzana Hooker stickers he’d had made. We both gushed over them and thanked him a bunch of times before we went back to my car. “We need to go someplace and figure out what’s going on with that package,” I said.

“I’d suggest my place,” Dinah said as I pulled out of the parking lot, “but the helicopter cowboys are probably still buzzing my house.”

Since I was never sure who or what I was going to find at my place anymore, my house wouldn’t work, either. “How about dinner at
Doc Hogan’s Burgerama?” I said. Dinah thought it was a great idea.

The place featured a play yard for the kids and old-fashioned fast food with no pretense of being heart healthy. It was dinnertime and the place was crowded and noisy. Someone had some sense and had set aside a no kids zone.

We sat down at one of the yellow striped red tables. Their fries were made from fresh-cut potatoes cooked in some kind of good-tasting oil and then served in brown paper bags that were immediately dotted with grease stains. No fancy dipping sauce here, just oodles of catsup.

We’d gotten a jumbo order, which was okay because we were sharing it. Besides, the motion of dipping fries in catsup and then transporting them to my mouth always helped me think.

“So what do we have?” I said to Dinah as she ripped open the paper bag making the hot fries more accessible.

“French fries and catsup,” she said giving me a puzzled look.

“I know that,” I said. “I mean what information do we have and what does it all mean?” We’d gotten colas to go with the fries, and not diet, either. Not even American ones. We’d gotten the Mexican version that was made with real sugar instead of the high fructose syrup stuff.

“Worth every calorie,” I said savoring the crispy fry with just the right amount of catsup. “Let’s recap what we know about the whole Kelly business. I’ll begin,” I said. Even with the no kid zone, it was still pretty noisy and we had to talk loud. “We know North lied about knowing her. And we know that there was a gun in the storage locker.” I wiped a dab of catsup off my knuckle. “But now it’s gone.” I groaned reliving the ride back with Detective Heather where she suggested maybe it had all been a dream. I assured Dinah I’d really seen the gun.

“I never doubted that you did,” my friend said. “We just have to figure out what happened.”

“Somehow Dan must have figured out that someone had been in the storage locker and realized he had to move the gun,” I said.

“And he took everything because then there was no chance any of it could be traced back to him,” Dinah added. She was curious about what else had been in there.

She already knew about the lamp. I chewed on a french fry. “That’s right,” I said amazed that I could have forgotten. “The crochet pieces we picked up. The ones with the bullion stitch that made Adele go nuts. They were in there.”

“So it wasn’t the junior shoplifters who took them from the bookstore. It must have been Dan,” Dinah said incredulous. “Remember he came late. He could have taken them while everyone was gathering in the event area. Now that I think about it, he had a plastic bag, but I thought it was just stuff from his store. But why would he have taken them?”

“I don’t know. When I saw them in the storage locker, the felt backing had been pulled apart.” I took a slug of my cola drink. “It’s just weird. And what’s with the package at Commander Blaine’s? I thought Kelly was selling gorgeous crocheted shawls in some pricey yarn, not little bags with quarters.” I paused for a moment, looking down at the table. In my mind’s eye I was seeing the bin of bullion flowers when Adele had first let me see them. I had assumed that Kelly meant to add pin findings to the felt discs she’d used as backing. But now I was seeing them in a different light. The pieces were round and not much bigger than the coins. Even the name of the stitch. I mentioned it to Dinah. “When you hear the word bullion what do you think of?”