“Omigod!” I shrieked. “You could be right.” Then I thought for a second. “If it was, it wasn’t the whole thing. What I saw looked like a small part of something, as if it had caught on the drawer pull and ripped.” I knelt next to the white ball. “Let me see if part of this is missing.” I went to put my hand on it but pulled back. While I needed to spread it out, I didn’t want to touch it anymore.
I got up and searched Samuel’s room for something he had as a kid. Thank heavens Samuel believed in hanging on to his stuff. The pinchy-winchy was stuck in the corner of his closet next to some old robot toys. It was a plastic claw from some cartoon show that came in handy for reaching things on high shelves. It also was perfect for picking up things you didn’t want to touch.
I grabbed an edge of the white ball of fabric with the pinchy-winchy and shook it until it opened enough to be recognizable.
“It’s a hanky,” Dinah said. She reached out to touch it and then reconsidered when her finger got near the red spots. “Though there doesn’t seem to be much space for nose blowing.”
I laid it on the kitchen counter. The center was small and appeared to be made of thin, white cotton. Most of the handkerchief was comprised of the lacy edging. I checked for missing pieces in the edging, but found it was intact.
“I guess that isn’t what you saw.”
“No, but I bet it’s somehow connected. It seems too coincidental that there was a piece of something similar to it hanging off a drawer handle and this shows up under Mr. Ke—” I rolled my eyes. “Calling him Mr. Kevin sounds way too pretentious—under Kevin’s desk.”
Dinah agreed. We both studied the edging, and I said I thought it was done with crochet like the doilies on Adele’s skirt.
“It certainly looks different than the things we’ve been making with yarn.” Dinah took the pinchy-winchy and picked the hanky up by the corner, eyeing the filigree-like trim. “I can’t even see the stitches.”
I told her about the steel hooks and thin thread I’d bought when I’d gone shopping with CeeCee for the material for the shawls. When Dinah set the hanky back on the counter, I examined the cotton center where the red splotches were. That’s I when I noticed there were some flecks of red stuff on the spots. “I don’t think it’s blood,” I said, pointing. “The flecks look like tomato skin. I bet it’s tomato bisque soup.”
“Wow,” Dinah said. “Do you know what that means?”
I didn’t mean to, but I squealed, “Omigod!” again. I knew exactly what it meant. Both the hanky and whatever had gotten caught on the drawer handle had both been in Drew’s office when he hit the soup. “It must be soup spatter,” I said, feeling a shiver. “And since it ended up in Kevin’s office, it kind of points the finger at him.”
Dinah nodded yes, and I felt another shiver. “Maybe we should turn it in,” she said.
“To who? Detective Heather? And how am I supposed to explain having it?”
“You have a point there,” Dinah said, wincing. “She probably wouldn’t take it well if she knew we sneaked into Kevin’s office.”
“I didn’t mean to pick it up, but as long as I did, it’s our clue. Though it might be better if we kept it on the down low.” I stopped to think for a moment. “What if there’s something else up in Kevin’s office—like that piece I saw hanging on Drew’s desk drawer?”
Dinah knew where I was headed. “We’ve got one good clue. That should be enough.”
“But there could be more. We already know somebody in black slacks went up there, too. I’m going back there now before anybody else has a chance to look.” Dinah said she saw my point and would go along. But then her cell phone rang. The babysitter had to leave. It looked like I was on my own.
I PARKED THE GREENMOBILE AT THE BOOKSTORE and walked over to the Cottage Shoppe. As I went inside, I noticed a contractor’s truck parked out front. A man in jeans and a white tee shirt was walking around the dining room, holding a clipboard and a tape measure. I recognized the footwear from the day I’d been under the desk. It was interesting to see the rest of Mr. Work Boots. I did a double take when I got to his head. It was shaved bald. Was he the illusive bald shopper? I looked closer and realized the man with the Harrods bag had been considerably taller.
I glanced toward the stairway, but there was no way I could sneak up there right now. Kevin was fidgeting around in the dining room and would have a clear view of me on the stairs. Though the tables and chairs had been stacked against the wall, the bar was still functional. Kevin took the lid off a large pot sitting on some kind of warming device. The smell was delicious enough to make my mouth water. When he saw me he offered me a sample.
The man definitely had a way with soup, and the taste lived up to the smell. His samples were generous, too. None of those little cups they give you for water at the dentist. He used coffee cups and provided a spoon. It was some kind of vegetable stew, thick with mini ears of corn and mushrooms and every vegetable I could think of simmering in a flavorful broth. There were also thick slices of sourdough bread and a bowl of foil-wrapped butter pieces.
“We’re doing mostly a to-go business now,” he said. “But when we finish the expansion it will be very pleasant to eat here.” He was all smiles now. I wondered what he’d fought with his brother about and thought of trying to ask him about it. But before I could come up with a strategy, he excused himself and went looking for Mr. Work Boots, who had disappeared into the kitchen. I considered making my run for upstairs then, but someone called to me from the living room area.
“Mrs. Pink, is there anything I can help you find?” Dorothy said. She didn’t wait for an answer, instead launching into an explanation about how due to the remodel, the consignment items were being rearranged. I was surprised to see Dorothy wasn’t alone and even more surprised when I realized who was with her. So, Trina had come back to work after all. Her dark red hair was done in a stiff style that didn’t move as she bent to gather a creamy beige poncho off a chair and put it on the shelf of one of the three lawyers’ bookcases with lighted interiors. These had been moved against the wall, apparently to be used as display cases.
All the living room furniture had been moved out except for one of the rockers in front of the fireplace.
Trina appeared very tense. She kept looking over her shoulder and dropping things. It was lucky she was moving unbreakable items. She dropped one scarf, then another. I went to help retrieve them, though not without feeling up the yarn. I recognized the even rows as knitting. Something about the color and style reminded me of the knitted small blanket I’d admired the other day, and I figured it was probably made by the same person. I looked at the tag thinking it might have the name of the artisan, but there was just a bar code.
Dorothy saw me staring at the black lines. “That was one of Mr. Drew’s brilliant ideas. The way his aunt did things wasn’t good enough for him. He didn’t seem to care that she had run a successful business for years by keeping written records of who brought in stuff and how much it sold for. He wanted everything computerized and had begun transferring over to using bar codes to keep track of things.” She glanced toward the torn-up dining room. Kevin was busy arranging the soup things. “That man is a soup maniac. Well, he finally is going to get his way.”
On a hunch I asked her if that was what the two brothers fought about, and she nodded.
“Mr. Kevin wanted to make this place more restaurant and less consignment shop, but other than computerizing things, Mr. Drew didn’t want to spend any money on the place.”
“Was there any money to spend?” I asked.
Dorothy checked that no one was listening. “Sure. Mrs. Brooks owned the land and building. Do you have any idea what this lot on Ventura Boulevard is worth? I heard that the first thing the brothers did was take out a large loan on the place. Mr. Kevin wanted to use the money to make some changes to the place so the restaurant area would be bigger. I think Mr. Drew just wanted to pocket the money, even though he claimed to he was going to use it to create an Internet business. I mean, how much can a Web site cost?”
Two women came in and said they were looking for new baby gifts. All I needed was for Dorothy to get occupied helping them and I’d get my chance to run upstairs. Trina was no threat. She seemed lost in her own world and probably wouldn’t have noticed me on the stairs if she was staring right at me. But instead of assisting the customers, Dorothy just pointed them to a box of things she was in the process of putting in the case. The women moved over and began to unfold blankets and tiny sweaters, discussing their merits among themselves.
