play ball, and people plant lettuce in their kitchen. I like what I do, but sometimes I just hit empty. When I see you, it’s like hitting the refill button.” He grinned. “You even help me not to be so upset about Jeffrey calling himself Columbia.”
It was hard not to be touched by what he said, particularly since I did care for him. But it was all about timing. Poppy Roeback was just coming in the door, pulling a wagon full of supplies. And there was someone else. Someone tall, bald and wearing a designer suit.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Was he the man from the Cottage Shoppe? The one who’d been so angry? True, bald seemed to be in these days, and frankly I can’t say I blamed men for going that way. If I had to choose between a bald spot surrounded by a fringe of hair that made you look insipid, or all-bald-by-choice that gave off a certain macho vibe, I’d go for the naked head. I strained to see better, which didn’t please Barry, particularly when he turned and realized I was looking at another man just as he had poured out his heart.
“He’s the one. I’m sure he’s the one,” I said, pulling away and moving toward the front.
“The one, who?” Barry said in close pursuit.
Poppy Roeback saw me and pulled her wagon in front of me. “Molly, I’m all set,” she said, pointing at the bags of dirt and stack of pots along with some flats of plants.
When I looked up again, the bald man was gone.
CHAPTER 8
I WAS STILL PICKING UP BALLS OF DIRT THE NEXT morning. No matter how much plastic I’d put down, the dirt had rolled farther. I was under the table trying to clean up as the crochet group began to arrive.
“Hey, there,” Dinah called, peeking under the table. “What are you doing?”
I explained that Poppy had gotten more enthusiastic during her book signing than she was on her PBS show. She had rolled the containers out into the crowd and demonstrated planting tomatoes with a trellis that could grow even in a sunny spot in a kitchen. She’d been using plants that already had fruit since she wanted the crowd to get the real idea, and some tomatoes had broken loose, and of course, somebody had stepped on them. She’d also used some special ball-shaped clumps of dirt that expanded when you added water, and some had fallen out of the pots.
“Sorry I missed it. Sounds like fun,” Dinah said, picking up a gigantic dirt ball. Now that she had unloaded about her ex, she wasn’t avoiding me anymore. What a relief!
“Jeremy called before I left. He’s going to be delayed coming back from San Diego. I want to see him get a good job, but his kids are wearing me out.” She did look tired around the eyes, and the spikes in her gelled hair seemed to be drooping again. “Those kids are out of control. Believe me, if they were staying longer, I’d have a thing or two to say.”
I could just imagine. Dinah was not sentimental and gushy about little kids. She’d been known to make caviar and cream cheese sandwiches for her own kids when she ran out of jelly. Even when they were small, Dinah’s children had manners and were nice to be around. They had interesting things to say and knew the world didn’t revolve around them. I was guessing E. Conner and Ashley-Angela thought it did.
“All I can say is thank heavens for Beasley’s child care. It’s really part of the preschool teacher program. They take in faculty kids to let the students practice on them.”
I filled her in on everything that was going on. She sparked on Barry and Jeffrey’s appearance.
“How can you fault the guy for showing up and saying all that sweet stuff?” she said, mystified. “All he wants is a serious relationship. Do you know how hard that is to find? I never had that with my ex even when we were married.” Dinah helped me up as I finished with the cleanup. “I know, you need your space,” she said, understanding even if she didn’t agree. That was the cool thing about best friends: You might not always agree but you backed each other anyway.
Morgan walked in the bookstore and I waved her over. As usual, she was wearing dance wear, this time with a skirt over it. She laid a bag from the craft store on the table.
“If only I could have talked to the bald guy,” I said to Dinah as Morgan situated herself. “I would have liked to ask him why he was so angry at Drew and what he had in the shopping bag.”
“Did you find out who he was at least?” Dinah had taken out some cotton worsted yarn and was starting another of her washcloths. This one had a cluster pattern, and she was doing it in a sea foam green that would go with her bathroom.
“I asked Rayaad,” I said, refering to our main cashier. “She didn’t even know who I was talking about. It’s kind of hard to find him without knowing his name.”
“Oh well, maybe you’ll see him again somewhere.”
Morgan had laid out a selection of crochet hooks and some cream-colored bargain yarn.
“Maybe you could show me how to crochet before the others come.” She was as bummed out as ever. Another audition hadn’t gone as she had hoped, and she was even more convinced if she were five pounds lighter she would have gotten the part. I suspected she was impatient to learn how to crochet because she thought it would burn calories.
Dinah and I looked at each other and I shrugged. “I’m afraid it’s kind of like the blind leading the blind, but I can show you how to do the basics.” I did a slip knot in slow motion and made a bunch of loose chains as an example. Once Morgan had done the same, I showed her how to dip her hook under the two strands of yarn, then yarn over and pull it through. “Then you just put your hook through both loops, and voila, you’ve done a single crochet.”
Morgan seemed to have a knack for it. Even more surprising, considering how hard it had been for me, she could do it while talking. “Does the bald guy have something to do with the murder at the Cottage Shoppe?”
When I nodded, she continued. “I was thinking about it. Whoever went up to Drew Brooks’s office last has to be the killer.” By now she had made a whole row of single stitches, and I showed her how to turn her work and begin another row.
“Good thinking, Morgan,” I said, noting that she had gotten right to the heart of the matter. She might look waifish and like her head was off in the clouds, but she was obviously smart, too. Not a surprise. My son Samuel had always gravitated toward girls with brains.
“So, who went up there?” Morgan said as she moved onto a third row. Her stitches were even and in the perfect place between too loose and knots.
I had to think for a minute. “Well, there’s the bald guy. I know he went up to Drew’s office the first time we were there, and I have a feeling he went upstairs the day Drew was murdered, but I don’t know when. The saleswoman went up there for sure. She’s the one who screamed. And Kevin Brooks probably did to bring up the soup. There were a lot of people shopping. Any one of them could have gone up there, too.”
“But certainly all those people didn’t want to kill him. Do you know anybody who had a reason?” Morgan asked.
“Shei—” Dinah said, but I put my hand over her mouth before she could get out the
While I was getting the yarn for the shawls from the office, CeeCee and Adele had arrived. When I got back to the table, I introduced them to Morgan. Then CeeCee took the yarn I’d brought out and began to separate it by color.
“I talked to the director of the Women’s Haven, and she’s very excited about the shawls,” CeeCee said. “She’d like to make some kind of an event when we give them out. I hesitated to give her an exact date since we really haven’t even started. I’m sure we’re all agreed we want to get them ready soon.”
I mentioned that now that we had a new member the work would go faster.
Adele looked at the practice swatch Morgan was making. “Who taught you how to crochet?”
When Morgan indicated me, Adele burst out with a sputtery laugh. “Pink taught you to crochet? She just learned herself and already she’s giving lessons.” Adele got in another laugh at the absurdity and then offered to
