Behind the Seams (6 page)

My head pounded and I shivered as I waited. The people in the cars had nice little cocoons of temperature control, and silly as it seems, I felt like a lost child a million miles from home as I saw them go by. I watched a woman take a paper cup of coffee out of her drink holder. I could almost taste it as she held the cup to her lips. Her car moved on and I glanced down the street, hoping to catch sight of a bus. Another car inched in front of me, then slowed to a stop. Suddenly the tinted window lowered.

“Molly?” a male voice said. I thought I was hearing things, but then the black Mercedes came into focus and I saw Mason was the driver. “Get in,” he said with a quick wave of his hand.

Before anyone could even honk at the hold up, I was in the car pulling the door shut. As the car began to inch along, we both said, “What are you doing here?”

I let Mason go first. The eastern part of the Valley was home to a number of movie and TV studios, and he’d had a meeting at one of them. Mason was the high-level attorney naughty celebrities turned to when they got in trouble. He had a reputation for keeping them out of jail or at least keeping their stay short. He didn’t give me exact details, but he’d been at Warner Brothers talking to a client who was accused of hit-and-run involving a knocked-over “No Parking” sign.

“And you?” he said, giving me a concerned glance.

I spilled the whole story while he made a detour through a Starbucks drive-thru and got me a coffee and a roll. My stomach was growling loud enough that he could hear it across the car.

He listened without comment, but I knew what he was thinking—Nell Collins was in big trouble. She had motive. I had overheard her complaining about Robyn and wishing she was out of the way. No doubt she had expressed similar feelings to her coworkers, who were likely to be questioned by the cops. She had opportunity, since she’d been the one to bring the packet of sweetener, which she could have doctored. To cap it off, she had means. As a production assistant, she had to know how to do all kinds of things and get hold of whatever somebody told her to get. It wasn’t a stretch that she could figure out how to get some cyanide.

“Poor CeeCee. Nell’s the closest thing she has to a daughter,” I said. The coffee and roll had taken a little of the edge off my hunger and headache, but thinking about the situation made me feel bad all over again.

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Mason said and I nodded.

“I’m sure she didn’t do it. She couldn’t have,” I said. Mason caught my eye as we got to a stoplight, and again I knew what he was thinking. But what if she did?

The freeway wasn’t a good option as it looked like even more of a parking lot than the street, so Mason headed toward Burbank Boulevard. It ran across the Valley and through the Sepulveda Dam area, which was the flood area for the L.A. river and was empty of development except for a golf course and various parks.

By then it all began to catch up with me. Someone had died in front of me and I had been helpless to save them. It started with my eyes getting watery and ended with me sobbing. Mason pulled off the wide street into the golf course parking lot. There was a walking track around it and the after-work exercise crowd were getting out of their cars and stretching before they began their trek.

Mason offered just what I needed. A shoulder to cry on. He put his arm around me and handed me a wad of tissue. It all came out now. An appropriate place because I felt like the dam had broken and my tears just flooded out. When I was done crying, I felt a sense of relief. His assurance that I couldn’t have done anything to change the outcome helped.

He took his arm away and moved back into driving position. “Is there anything else on your mind?” I slumped and wondered if on top of all his other talents, Mason had become psychic. There had been an undercurrent of thought that had been percolating for a while. It had surfaced when Barry had shown up at the studio. Maybe I was being foolish. Maybe I should take the ring out of the box and just say yes.

“I have been thinking maybe I should just go ahead and become Molly Greenberg.”

I heard Mason choke. I guess his supposed psychic powers weren’t strong enough to have figured what else I was upset about. Mason took a moment to compose himself before he spoke.

“Speaking as your friend,” he began, “I can just say one thing. Don’t do it.” Mason had been divorced for a while and had managed to keep a decent relationship with his ex-wife. His kids were grown and had lives of their own, but he was always there for family celebrations. When I’d first gotten to know him, it was very clear he didn’t plan to get married again and was only interested in casual relationships. So, I could understand his reaction, though the emotion in his voice was a little stronger than I’d expected.

“Why change anything? If you were Mrs. Greenberg, would we even be sitting here now?”

I felt a slump coming again. I hadn’t wanted to consider it, but I knew he was right about that. Barry didn’t like that I was friends with Mason and would certainly
ixnay
it if we were married. And what about all the time I spent with the Hookers? He didn’t seem altogether happy with it now. If we were married and he felt he had a say in my activities—I didn’t even want to finish the thought. It brought forward all the reasons I didn’t want to get married again. I liked being in charge of my own life.

I saw Mason surreptitiously check his watch and I apologized for barging into his day. “You have someplace to be, don’t you?” I said.

“Sorry, Sunshine. But I have a dinner meeting.” He started the car and rejoined the traffic. He dropped me back at the bookstore where I’d left my car. “If anything comes up, call me. Anything—like you start thinking of wedding-dress shopping,” he said with a chuckle.

MRS. SHEDD CAUGHT ME AS I WAS COMING IN THE door of Shedd & Royal. “Molly, where have you been? You said you’d be here by noon.” She stopped and took a good look at me. I hadn’t seen my reflection, but judging by Mrs. Shedd’s expression, the long day, a tension headache, someone dying before my eyes and the sob fest with Mason must have left their mark. “Did something happen?” Now she sounded concerned.

I apologized for being late and not calling. By the time I’d gotten my phone back, calling to say I’d been delayed seemed kind of beside the point. I thought it would be better to just explain when I got to the bookstore. I began with Adele’s crochet moment, and Mrs. Shedd rolled her eyes.

“She didn’t mention Shedd and Royal, did she?” Mrs. Shedd asked with worry in her voice. A little laugh at the absurdity of her concern under the circumstances escaped my lips before I continued to describe the chain of events. I got as far as Robyn’s dying practically at my feet when Mrs. Shedd put her hand on my shoulder. “Not another dead body,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d be afraid to go anywhere with you.”

I suppose I should have been grateful she didn’t call me a crime scene groupie. She gasped when I mentioned that the victim was the woman she’d spoken to on the phone, and then gasped again when I mentioned that it seemed to be murder.

“The police don’t think you or Adele had anything to do with it, do they—or me since I did speak with her on the phone?”

I tried to reassure Mrs. Shedd. “Speaking to someone on the phone once hardly made you a suspect. I don’t think Adele or I are likely to be considered suspects, either.” My voice sort of trailed off at the end. I hated to, but I finally brought up Nell, and Mrs. Shedd sucked in her breath big time.

“That doesn’t sound good. CeeCee must be very upset,” she said. “Be sure and point out Nell next time she comes in.” Mrs. Shedd paused before she dropped her voice and added, “That is, if she comes in again.” I knew Mrs. Shedd was thinking about Nell getting arrested. I was going to tell her even if that happened, it wasn’t as if they were going to put her right in jail and throw away the key. She’d probably get bailed out in no time, making it possible for her to come in the bookstore again. But it wasn’t worth explaining so I let it be.

Mrs. Shedd said Mr. Royal had hung around, and between the two of them, they’d managed okay. He’d been a silent partner and out of the picture when I first started working there, and even though they were equal partners and both my bosses, I always thought of her as the one really in charge. Maybe it was because for a long time Mr. Royal had been such a silent partner I’d doubted that he really existed.

I laughed at that concept now. Once I’d gotten to know Joshua Royal, he seemed like the world’s most interesting man. It turned out he’d been everywhere and done just about everything during his time away.

“It’s already so late, Molly, take a little more time and get something from the café. You look like you need it.” I appreciated her concern and took her up on the offer. Mason’s coffee and roll had only been a stopgap, and I needed a second round.

Bob had done a double take when I placed my order but didn’t say anything about how I looked, though as he pushed the coffee with the shot of espresso across the counter, he’d added several chocolate pieces on a napkin. Facing him made it hard for me to ignore that hair growth below his lower lip. Should I call it a beardette?

“Alain Des Plaines brought the chocolate in,” Bob explained, referring to the guy who wrote the cookbook
Melts at Body Heat
, which was the centerpiece of Salute to Chocolate. “He wants to know what everybody thinks about him doing a demo of making these. I’ve tasted them, and they seem to be just what you need.”

Bob watched while I ate one. I bit into strong bittersweet chocolate before hitting something sweet with a smack of heat. “It’s chocolate-dipped candied ginger,” Bob explained, and I nodded with recognition at the flavor of the inner portion.

Bob was right about it being just what I needed. The kick of the ginger picked me up right away. I took a slug of the coffee and all the flavors blended nicely. “Alain gets a thumbs-up on these as far as I’m concerned.”

“Alain wanted me to tell you that he’s been getting some strange e-mails complaining that he’s only doing a chocolate demo. He said they even sent him a list of alternative recipes,” Bob said.

I put up out my hands in a gesture of disbelief. “That’s crazy. It’s called a Salute to Chocolate.”

“That was just about what Alain said,” Bob said. “I’ll pass along your agreement when I see him.”

I was about to leave the counter when Rhoda and Elise came in and dropped their canvas bags full of their crochet supplies on one of the tables. I called out a greeting and they suddenly noticed me.

“What happened to you?” Rhoda said. “We saw you get dragged out of the audience with Adele, and then as soon as the show finished, all these cops came in and started taking down everybody’s name. I must have asked five different officers what was going on, but all they gave me was the silent treatment,” Rhoda said. She gave off an air of authority, and I was surprised she hadn’t managed to get an answer.

Elise seemed a little distraught by the incident. “It was obvious something serious had happened. We decided the best thing to do was come here,” she said in her birdlike voice. “Sheila’s already back in the yarn department. I saw her when we walked in.”

“So, are you going to tell us what happened? What could Adele have possibly done to bring out all those cops?” Rhoda asked. I took my coffee and came over to their table, not wanting to broadcast everything over the café. A number of the tables were occupied and several people had already looked up and were eavesdropping on our conversation. A guy in jeans and boots passed me carrying a coffee mug. I was surprised to see him walk behind the counter and help himself to a refill instead of having Bob get it. But then the café wasn’t really my domain, so I didn’t know what kind of arrangements Bob had with regular customers.

Rhoda and Elise leaned close over the table as I repeated the chain of events in a low voice. Both of them looked like their eyes were about to fall out when I told them about what happened to the segment producer.

“Poor CeeCee, she takes in her niece and then Nell turns around and murders somebody. And of all times, when her aunt is doing the show,” Rhoda said.

“If she really did it,” Elise said.

Rhoda snorted. “Like who else could it have been? It was just Molly, Adele and Nell in there.”

Elise shrugged uncomfortably. “Remember, somebody is innocent until proven guilty. It’s not nice to jump to conclusions.” Elise had been on the other side of conclusion jumping and so was ultrasensitive. Rhoda gave her a hopeless shrug, and the two of them went to order their drinks.

The three of us took our drinks and headed for the back of the store. The café might not be my domain, but the yarn department was. At least if I was back there, I would feel like I was working. Ever since we’d added the yarn department and left the table up all the time, it seemed like there were always people around it crocheting. And even knitting, when Adele wasn’t around. Though right now, the only one at the table was Sheila. She was hunched over her work, and I was concerned that she was having an attack of her nerves, but when she sat up and I saw her work, I was relieved to see that she had nice even stitches on the heathery blue shawl in progress. Previously when Sheila got tense, her stitches turned into little knots and we’d had to get her a smaller hook to pry them open. She pushed her blunt-cut dark hair behind her ears to get it out of her face.

Her eyes were like saucers when she looked up at us. “I didn’t know what else to do but come here,” she said. “I couldn’t find Adele or anybody when the cops let me go.” She said she’d gotten a ride from some other audience member who was headed for Woodland Hills. Sheila held up about a foot of crocheted shawl with skeins of blue, green and purple yarn hanging off it. “I did this while I was waiting,” she said. Apparently she had turned her nervous energy into speed, which was more productive than the old tight stitches. She put down her work and jumped up to hug us all. “I was so worried. Where’s everybody else?”