Behind the Seams (29 page)

I was too tired to mention my thought that someone might not have wanted me to hear what Miles had to say.

In the midst of it, my other son arrived. Peter surprised me by giving me a hug. He was usually more standoffish. He was older than Samuel and so wrapped up in his career as a talent agent that I’d barely seen him lately. I realized Samuel must have called him. I noticed Peter hadn’t brought his girlfriend with. He’d brought her over once and I don’t think I made the best impression.

“Sorry about the detective,” he said. His comment surprised me because Peter had been so open about not liking Barry. His somber expression disappeared when he held out his hand to Mason. If Peter had been rooting for me to be involved with anybody, it had always been Mason.

The three of them began talking, and even with the coffee, their words began to swim in my tired mind. Somewhere in it all, I put my head down on the table and went to sleep on my folded arms.

I awoke in the dark and for a moment didn’t know where I was. Then my room came into focus. I was still dressed, on top of the covers, with an afghan draped over me. Cosmo was cuddled next to me and the two cats were on the pillow next to my head. Blondie was in her chair. Vaguely, I remembered the three of them helping me across the house. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

 

BY MORNING, I FELT ALL BETTER. NOW THAT MY mind was clear, all kinds of issues surfaced. I realized I had no idea what had happened to Miles beyond that he was dead. I kept thinking about his phone call to me and wondering if it was related to his death. I shuddered when I realized that when I’d called him back, he was probably already gone. Were Miles’ and Robyn’s deaths related? Since they were brother and sister, it seemed likely. It also seemed likely that if their deaths were related, there was a good chance their parents were involved. Hadn’t Annie said Miles was still hoping for a relationship with his parents, but it was a Pandora’s box they weren’t going to open. Maybe they or someone acting for them had decided to make sure that box never got opened.

I was sure the nanny had more information and regretted that I hadn’t gotten a phone number from her. But then I knew where she would be that morning, I thought, getting up.

After a quick shower and a fruit smoothie, I was out the door on the way to Tarzana Park. I left my car in the parking lot and headed for the playground, hoping she hadn’t varied her schedule. Sure enough, Annie was on the bench with her crocheting out and the two kids were busy in the sandbox with trucks and pails. As soon as she saw me, she started to apologize. She hadn’t meant to sic the sheriff’s detective on me. All she’d done was answer their questions about seeing Miles. As soon as they’d heard Adele and I were with her, they wanted to talk to us. I shrugged it off. Getting questioned was no longer a big deal for me. Now it was my turn to talk.

“What happened to Miles?” I said as I sat on the bench next to her.

She’d been keeping an upbeat demeanor, but she let it down as she began to talk. She’d gotten a call the morning after we’d been there. The director of the halfway house had been concerned when Miles didn’t show up for breakfast. They checked his room and found him unresponsive and called the paramedics. She said they’d found the crocheted doll I’d brought. Annie hesitated. “The doll’s body was cut open and there were some pills hidden inside it. The director wanted to know where the doll came from. . . .” She let it hang in the air.

“You can’t think I put drugs in the doll.”

“I don’t know what to think. I just told the detective what I knew—that you’d helped with the crochet group and had brought him the doll.”

“I certainly didn’t put anything in the doll, and the Hookers checked out the doll to see how it was made. If it had been cut open and sewed up, one of us would have noticed,” I said. “I think someone tried to make it look like there were drugs in the doll. I wonder who else had access to his room.”

“The director admitted that although they try to keep track of visitors, it’s possible for a counselor to bring somebody in without signing in.” Annie stopped to regroup, and it appeared she was having a hard time keeping it together. “I know he was upset about his sister, but he has been doing so well. I don’t believe he threw away all his hard work and went back to drugs, even though the detective told me they are treating it as a self-administered accidental overdose.”

“Overdose of what?” I said and she shrugged.

“They wouldn’t say. Maybe they don’t know until they do all their tests. They did say if they find the person who gave him the drugs, they’re going to charge them with something.”

I sat down on the bench beside her. I didn’t know Miles other than seeing him during the crochet group, but I had to agree with her that he seemed to be doing okay. “He did seem to have a purpose helping the other residents. But if he didn’t backslide, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Oh, there was something else the director told me. He said he’d found a bunch of broken picture frames on the floor. The photographs seemed to have been removed and cut up in confetti.”

I felt a shiver go through me and told her about the photograph he’d shown me. “Miles said Robyn was strange about it. Then he called me and left a message that he’d remembered something about the photograph.” My voice dropped as I said how sorry I was I had missed his call. I stared at her intently. “Do you know who was in the photos that got cut up?”

Annie took a moment to think. “Miles was very sentimental. He kept thinking his parents would wake up one day and realize they wanted him in their life. He had some pictures with them from when he was small. Robyn was the one who really acted like family, so he had a number of pictures of her. Some alone and some with her boyfriend.” Annie stopped and swallowed. “And he had a picture of me.”

“Why would he cut up the photos?” I said. “Unless—somebody else did. Was there something in those pictures somebody would want to hide?” Annie started to shrug as an answer, then her face lit up.

“The director told me something else. One of the residents thought they saw a stranger in the hall.”

“Did they give any description?” I asked, but Annie said she didn’t know. This time it was my face that lit up. “Maybe the stranger in the hall was the person who shredded the photographs and they did that because they were in the pictures but didn’t want anyone to be able to identify them.”

I mentioned the picture Miles had shown me with the hole next to Robyn and said it was similar to one I’d seen in Robyn’s former office. “It seems the person cut out of the pictures was her boyfriend—or ex-boyfriend,” I said and then asked if she thought it was the same boyfriend who was actually in the other photos Miles had. She nodded, saying they’d been going together for a while.

“Do you know who he is?” When she nodded again, I wanted to kick myself for not thinking to ask her about him before.

I heard her suck in her breath. “You don’t think it was him?”

I took a deep breath and asked for his name.

“His name is Ty Holzer.”

Why did that name sound familiar?

I CALLED DINAH AS SOON AS I LEFT THE PARK. IF I hurried, I figured Dinah and I could meet and do some sleuthing and I’d still be to the bookstore on time. “So what do we do? What do we ask him? Who is Ty Holzer anyway?” Dinah sounded excited and happy to be included in the adventure.

It hadn’t been until I was getting into my car that I put Robyn’s boyfriend’s name together with a face. Not a face really, more like a white jacket and a placard that read, “Ty Holzer, Pharm. D.”

“He’s the pharmacist at Crown Apothecary,” I said to Dinah. “Think about it. Crown Apothecary was the return address on the box of sweetener sent to Robyn. Who better to get drugs than a pharmacist? I’ll be at your place in a few.”

Dinah was waiting outside when I got there. Pulling her long yellow scarf behind her, she got in the passenger seat and shut the door of the greenmobile. “What if Ty got rid of all the photos because someone could identify him as the guy in the hall if they saw them?” she said, continuing our conversation.

“That’s what I thought, too. What’s that cliché about great minds thinking alike?” I said. “So, all we have to do is take a picture of him and show it around to everyone at the halfway house.” Dinah nodded in agreement. “That should be easy,” I said with an expectant smile. I should have known, nothing ever is.

We drove to the Crown Apothecary in Encino. We might have opened the door a little too enthusiastically and the bell rang with a frenzy. Workmen were painting a sign on the glass door that led to the soda fountain. I had hoped it would be busier so we could blend in with the crowd, but there were just a few customers in the store. Someone was waiting by the pharmacy and the others were browsing. The clerk I’d seen before stepped forward and asked if we needed help. I was relieved to see she didn’t seem to recognize us, and I quickly said we were just looking. “This place is so wonderful, I could look for hours,” I said, hoping she would go away and leave us alone.

How do you take a picture of someone without their knowing? Even if I used my BlackBerry, I still had to hold it up, and I wasn’t always so good at finding the button to push when I wanted to take a picture. I was more likely to hit it by mistake. It wasn’t an issue anyway, because the pharmacist was in the partitioned-off area and only visible when he passed the customer window.

When I saw him move from his work area into the consultation cubicle, I held up my phone, but I couldn’t get a shot of his face.

“What about if we take a picture of a picture of him?” Dinah suggested. Next to the shelves with jars of penny candy, there was a framed newspaper article about the store with a photo of Ty. The clerk gave us a hard look, and I was concerned if she looked long enough, she might recognize me from earlier. As a distraction, I grabbed one of the clear plastic bags they had for the penny candy and began to shovel Red Hots into it. When that was full, I took another and began to fill it. Dinah nudged me when the woman walked away.

“Don’t ditch the candy,” Dinah warned as I started to drop the bags near the jars.

“Right, it’ll look better if we buy something anyway.” Since I needed my hands free, I set the bags of candy in the top of my purse. Someone walked by us, and I stepped into the aisle and pretended to look at the array of natural-bristle hairbrushes.

Dinah poked me and pointed to the consultation cubicle. The door was open. “Maybe you can get a shot of him from in there.” We slipped up the aisle and went into the wood-lined enclosure. It was set up so the pharmacist could come in through a glass door that led to his work area in the pharmacy. I noticed that door was ajar and someone was moving in the work area. Assuming it was him, I stepped into the doorway and stuck my arm out with the BlackBerry, hoping I was hitting the right button.

“You can’t go in there,” a voice said in a clipped tone. The clerk had come into the consultation area. “Is there something I can help you find?”

“Sorry,” I said, backing away from the open door. “I was looking for the powder room.” I’d found that saying you’re looking for the restroom was a great catchall for snooping. She apologized and said the restrooms were still under construction. As soon as we got back into the main store, I checked the photo on my BlackBerry. It was just one of the clerks, and it looked like she was putting away stock in the pharmacy.

“This isn’t working. Maybe I’ll try coming back when they close and try to get a shot of him when he leaves,” I said.

“What are you going to do, hide behind his car?” Dinah said with a laugh.

“Well, at least I know which one is his,” I said, thinking back to the night I’d seen him leave Robyn’s. We started toward the front of the store, but before we’d taken more than a few steps, one of the clerks stepped in front of us. “You can’t leave without getting a sneak peak at the soda fountain,” she said in a forced friendly voice. She didn’t wait for an answer, but ushered us toward the entrance. The sign painter had finished and left the door propped open.

Inside, she pointed out the authentic small white octagonal tiles with an occasional green one thrown in. She demonstrated how the stools at the soda fountain really spun.

“Try them,” she said. She left us and went behind the soda fountain. “We’re still waiting for the ice cream, but we have phosphates. Let me get you each a complimentary one.” She grabbed two tall glasses.

She rambled on about how Crown Apothecary was more than just a drugstore. “We want our customers to feel at home here,” she said. I asked for a cherry phosphate and Dinah a lime one. The woman handed us the drinks and started talking about all the services the store offered.

Ty came in and greeted us and he started pitching their pharmacy. “We do compounding,” he said. “Great for kids. We can take the ick out of their medicine with their flavor of choice.

“Come, ladies, bring your drinks,” he said. He nodded to the clerk and she walked away. “Let me show you our consultation cubicle.” Seizing upon the opportunity, I told him the store was so fabulous I’d really like to get a photo of it, and did he mind?

He walked us into the cubicle and the door shut behind us with a click that sounded like a lock. He invited us to sit down in the wooden captain’s chairs and then asked us if we thought there was anything they’d missed in the design of the soda fountain. We both said it seemed they had everything covered and the drinks were great and we thought it’d be a big success. We set down our glasses as we both stood and started toward the door. I stopped and asked about taking the picture. He was agreeable, and I took several. I checked and they’d turned out. Mission accomplished.

This time, I walked to the door and pulled on the handle, saying both Dinah and I had to get to work. “The door won’t open,” I said. I heard Dinah make a noise behind me. When I turned back toward the pharmacist, he had something in his hands. Before it could register, he’d pulled my hands behind my back and put plastic ties on them. I saw he’d already gotten Dinah. A moment later, I heard the clerk outside the door say, “They’re on their way.”