In Hot Water
A saleswoman stumbled out of the doorway, her eyes big with panic. She saw the crowd and screamed again and slumped against the wall. Dinah and I rushed into the room she had exited. A crowd of people came in behind us, and then there was a collective gasp. At a large desk in the center of the room, Drew Brooks was facedown in a bowl. Red stuff was splattered everywhere.
“Omigod, there’s so much blood,” I said, looking at the crimson marks on the rug, wall and desk.
Adele pushed through the crowd. She looked at the desk and surroundings and shook her head at me with disgust. “Pink, it’s not blood. It’s soup.”
“A delightful addition to the mystery genre.”
—Earlene Fowler,
author of
HOOKED ON MURDER
DEAD MEN DON’T CROCHET
Copyright © 2008 by Betty Hechtman.
All rights reserved.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Sandy Harding for all her help and for being so nice to work with.
This book wouldn’t have happened without Jessica Faust of BookEnds, LLC.
I would like to thank Leslie Henkel for all of her efforts on my behalf. And a special thank-you to David Brokaw and Sandy Brokaw of the Brokaw Company for their friendship and all their time and great ideas.
Sue Meyer of the Lace Museum in Sunnyvale, California, shared her knowledge and gave me the opportunity to see samples of Irish crochet up close and even touch the intricate stitches.
Paula Tesler remains my go-to person for crochet help and inspiration. The Crochet Partners online list has been a wonderful source of information and insight into the generous hearts of crocheters.
Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss are crochet goddesses whose books dazzle me with their possibilities.
Thanks to Homicide Detective Michel Carroll of the Fort Worth, Texas, Police Department for answering my questions. Forensic U put on by Sisters in Crime was fabulous. Where else would I see what a body that had been buried for three years looks like? A particular thank-you to Lee Lofland and Dr. D. P. Lyle for their great workshops.
Thank you, Roberta Martia, for all the support and crochet advice. Appellate Defender Judy Libby offered lots of cheers and explained a lot of legal stuff.
Betty Mehling and Diana Lang have been a constant source of good thoughts.
Thank you, Joe Sugarman, for making it possible for me to crochet in paradise.
And a giant thank-you to Burl and Max for always being ready and willing to join me on some wild adventure.
CHAPTER 1
“MY NAME IS MOLLY PINK AND I’M A YARNOHOLIC,” I announced to my crochet group, the Tarzana Hookers, as I put my stash on the table. Okay, maybe there wasn’t really any such organization as Yarnoholics Anonymous, and calling myself an addict was a bit of a stretch, but I was feeling a little guilty about the yarn I’d just bought. Even though I was new to crocheting, I couldn’t seem to leave a yarn store empty-handed. What was I to do this time? The recycled silk was beautiful, in limited quantity and at a special price. Besides, with the Tarzana Hookers meeting again, I was sure to find something fabulous to make with the three skeins. Well, six skeins if you counted the other three I needed to mix with the first three, because the woman at the yarn store said that recycled silk was too thin to go it alone.
The Tarzana part of our name referred to Tarzana, California. Technically the San Fernando Valley community was part of the city of Los Angeles, but the people on the other side of the Santa Monica Mountains—or over the hill, as it’s commonly referred to—looked at us Valleites as at least one step behind them in the sophistication department.
Our weather was a step behind in the comfort department. It was hotter in the summer and colder in the winter, though this May morning it was cool and cloudy on both sides of the hill. I dealt with it by wearing a white shirt with a sweater over it and a hoodie on top of that. As the day progressed and the sun came out, I’d start peeling off layers, then load everything back on as it got dark and the temperature dropped. It was standard operating procedure for May in Southern California.
