Suddenly Trina flopped in the rocking chair with a loud sigh. “This isn’t going to work,” she lamented. “I keep seeing poor Mr. Drew with his head in the tomato soup.” She started getting worked up just thinking about it, and all the upset led to a case of the hiccups, which she explained, between the clacky noises, was what happened when she got upset. Dorothy noticed the shoppers’ uneasy reaction to Trina’s outburst, and in an effort to save the sale finally walked over to help them.
Realizing this was my golden opportunity, I offered to get Trina some water. I didn’t mention I planned to import it from the upstairs bathroom.
“Would you do that? I think it will help.” She got through the first sentence hiccup free, but then every other word was cut in two as she gave directions about the temperature the water should be. I was in the entrance hall when she got to the part about wanting the water in a blue glass as it gave off the right kind of vibrations.
Since Dorothy was busy with the baby-gift hunters and Kevin was tied up in the kitchen with the contractor, I headed for the stairs. Now there was a chain across them with a sign that said “Employees Only.” I had one foot over the chain when a voice startled me.
“What are you doing?”
I turned and saw it was Dorothy. Her expression had changed to a scowl. “Going past that chain is trespassing.”
I muttered something about getting Trina a glass of water, as I tried to step back over the chain. Unfortunately, my foot caught on it and I fell on my butt with a loud thud. I had a bad feeling the loudness of the noise was directly proportional to the size of my butt, but this was hardly the time to worry about that.
Kevin and Mr. Work Boots responded to the noise, and when they saw me on the floor with my foot caught in the chain, Mr. Work Boots untangled me and Kevin helped me up. His usual pleasant demeanor had gone dark. He pointed at the sign.
“Can’t you read?” Then he seemed to catch himself and his tone softened. “I’m sorry, but the upstairs is off- limits for customers. We’ve had some problems with people wandering up there.”
I really wanted to ask him for more details, like was the person he saw before with the black slacks a woman or man? As if there was any chance he would answer. Instead I just gave him the Trina hiccup story. “And with all your remodeling, I didn’t know if there was any place to get water down here,” I said, wearing my best innocent expression.
As I got up, Trina came in. To my relief, she still had the hiccups, which gave credibility to my story about looking for a glass of water. Then Mr. Work Boots whispered something to Kevin, after which he became very solicitous, wanting to make sure I wasn’t hurt. I assumed Mr. Work Boots had brought up the possibility of a lawsuit. I assured Kevin the only thing injured was my pride. After that I had only one option: leave. It looked as though my first chance at snooping was going to be my only chance. At least I had the hanky. Now to find out what it meant.
CHAPTER 14
AS SOON AS I GOT BACK TO THE BOOKSTORE, I set up for Romance Night and then headed for home. I called Dinah on my cell as I drove.
“It’s me,” I said when she answered the phone. “There’s good news and bad news.”
There was a pause before she responded. “Could you hang on a second?” I heard her tell someone to go talk to their father. There was a kid’s voice and then a male voice. The voices got softer, and I assumed Dinah was taking the cordless into another room.
“Sorry,” Dinah said softly. “Jeremy finally got back, and I was trying to impress upon him that Ashley-Angela and E. Conner are his kids and his responsibility. It’s not going well.”
In the background I heard the plaintive voices of both kids now wanting something from Dinah. Her voice went away from the phone, but I still could hear her as she sent them back to their father. Dinah rejoined our conversation. “That man is impossible. And no matter what I say to the kids about going to their father for stuff, they keep coming to me.” Dinah let out a loud, frustrated sigh.
“Okay, what’s the bad news?” she asked. It was our little game. Whenever we did the good-news-bad-news thing, we always went for the bad news first to get it out of the way.
I told her I had gotten caught before I could get upstairs at the Cottage Shoppe.
“And the good news?”
“I talked my way out of it, and I got some information that makes somebody besides Sheila look guilty.”
“Okay, spill,” she said. “Anything to get my mind off what’s going on here.”
I repeated what Dorothy had said about the money the brothers had borrowed on the building and how their arguments were over their two different plans for the store.
“People have killed for less,” Dinah said. “It sounds like the only way Kevin was going to get his soup emporium was if his brother was out of the way. Kevin must have brought the tomato bisque up to him. Maybe Drew’s head being in the soup was more than a coincidence; maybe it was his attempt at poetic irony. Drew wouldn’t agree to the soup, and so it became the cause of his death.”
“But I’m not sure how the hanky fits in,” I said, cradling the phone against my shoulder as I searched my purse for the house keys. I crossed my yard and opened the back door. Cosmo flew out and started running around the trees. Blondie did a little happy-to-see-me dance and then went out after Cosmo. He was certainly bringing her out of her shell.
“It might help if we knew something about the hanky. Like you said, it doesn’t look like it was meant for nose blowing,” I said.
Dinah responded with a few noncommittal uh-huhs, and I heard Jeremy’s voice in the background. At least he had finally shown up, but whatever he was saying inflamed her because even with her mouth away from the phone, I could tell she was yelling and heard her quite clearly tell him he better not go out the door or else. It was obvious our conversation was over. I said something about realizing it wasn’t a good time to talk, and as I was saying good-bye, she clicked off. I didn’t take it as being hung up on. Rather, she was too distracted to talk.
I stuck my cell into my purse and as I was setting down my things noticed the light was flashing on my house phone, which meant messages. Along with an offer of a discount on home repairs and a query from a Realtor interested in listing my house, there was a message from Patricia Bradford. Even on the machine her voice sounded cloying as she asked me to call her the moment I got home. She must want something, I thought, punching in her number.
Patricia didn’t have a machine. She had a maid. Before I finished explaining who I was, Patricia came on the phone. She seemed very happy to talk to me. She must want something big.
“We’re having some people in for cocktails. It’s a little get-together for some of Benjamin’s campaign people,” she gushed, “and I was hoping you could drop by.” She didn’t wait for a reply. “Before you worked at the bookstore, didn’t you do something in publicity? I was just telling Benjamin you’d be a real asset to our team.”
I hesitated. I was flattered by what she’d just said, but I didn’t completely trust her. Up until now, Patricia had treated me like a fixture. I was just the person at the bookstore who set up chairs for her demonstration and book signing and was part of the crochet group. “When is it?”
“Now. I mean, sixish. It’s business casual. I’d really like you to come.” She seemed flummoxed. “Sorry for the late invite. I thought I sent you an invitation, but I found it stuck in my purse.”
I didn’t buy that story for a second, and even though I was curious about what she wanted from me, I decided to decline since Romance Night started at eight. She read my silence and tried to win me over by reeling off the names of all the people who were going to be there. They were indeed the movers and shakers of Tarzana, and though I didn’t actually know any of them, I recognized most of the names, until she got to Byron Nederman.
“Who’s he?” I asked. She had said his name in such a glowing tone, I was curious.
“He shares Benjamin’s vision for things, and he’s been very, very generous. We’re glad to have him on the team. I’m surprised you don’t know him. He’s tall and quite good-looking. I wish Benjamin would ask him where he gets his suits. They always hang so perfectly. But I’m not so sure about the bald look. I know it’s in now, but personally I think it makes him look like Mr. Clean.”
She kept rambling, but my mind was clicking. This Byron was tall, a good dresser and bald. Could he be the
