Jeffrey called shortly after. It was hard for him to admit it, since he was trying to be such a man, but there were noises and he was scared. I couldn’t help myself. Like I said, when it comes to animals and children, I’m a total pushover. I went over to get him and left a message on Barry’s cell.
Jeffrey seemed a little embarrassed but looked relieved when he saw me. He was thirteen and still had that soft unfinished look, though he tried to hide it by gelling his hair into a spikey style. He was wearing jeans and a polo shirt and had grabbed a jacket. I suggested he bring along his pajamas and said he was welcome to sleep at my house.
Both Cosmo and Blondie were happy to see him and followed him into Samuel’s old room, which had recently been vacated by Morgan. I turned on the lights and told Jeffrey to make himself at home. He took me up on the offer of a snack. I think he and Barry lived on pizza when they were on their own. Jeffrey ate the scrambled eggs, toast and fruit with obvious hunger. I sat at the table with him while he ate, and he told me about the latest in his acting career. He’d gone on a casting call for a commercial and made it through the first cut.
“Next time, I think they’re going to tape me. It would be so cool if I got it.” He set down his fork. “Then maybe my dad would see I’m serious.” I listened and nodded. I thought it was going to take a lot to get Barry to accept Jeffrey’s aspirations. And he’d never accept his son changing his name to Columbia. Jeffrey was yawning by the time I gave him some vanilla ice cream with strawberries on top. As soon as he finished, I suggested he might want to go to bed. He nodded and got up. Before he walked away he turned back. “Thank you,” he said, coming back to hug me. I ruffled his spikey hair and hugged him back and wished him good sleep.
I didn’t hear anything more from him, so I guessed he’d gone to sleep right away. By now I was too wired to sleep. Between the news about Arnold Bullard and my surprise guest, my mind wouldn’t quit.
I found the Trader Joe’s plastic shopping bag with my shawl in progress. Then I dialed Dinah. It was late, but we had long ago agreed that no hour was too late if either of us needed to talk.
“Arnold Bullard is dead?” Dinah repeated after I’d told her what Barry had said. She’d sounded sleepy when she answered but was completely alert once I told her about the tall bald orthodontist. “But he was so high on our list of suspects. Now we’ll never know why he was so angry at Drew or if he’s the one who killed him.”
“I know,” I said. “And now there’s no way to get Detective Heather to consider him a serious suspect, which means she’s still going to focus on Sheila.”
“Have you told Sheila yet?”
I said I was going to do it in person in the morning. Sheila was in such a fragile state I was afraid of how she might take the news. “There’s no chance we’ll get to see the murder scene this time.” I’d told Dinah what Barry had said about it, but hearing a description of the scene wasn’t the same as actually seeing it.
“It sounds like someone wanted to get rid of a pest,” Dinah said, then yawned.
“But who? And isn’t it strange how soup played a part in both Drew Brooks’s and Arnold Bullard’s deaths?” I told her what Barry said about there probably being some kind of knockout drops in the Southwestern corn chowder.
Dinah yawned again. “Did Barry say where the corn chowder came from?”
“Are you kidding? I can’t believe he told me about the possible knockout drops.”
I looked down at the shawl. I’d done several rows while we were talking, but somehow the pattern made of double crochets and spaces, which were supposed to look like tiny windows, had gotten screwed up so that there weren’t any open spaces in some spots and in others they were so big they resembled sliding glass doors. When I finally hung up, I looked over my work and realized I had to tear out all I’d done. It made me so grateful for the ease of unraveling crochet. As I redid the rows, I kept thinking about what Dinah said. Where did Arnold Bullard’s soup come from?
I held up the shawl and realized it was big enough to lay on my shoulder and get an idea of how it would feel when it was finished. Even though it covered only one shoulder, the effect was comforting. Someday, when it was finished, it would offer comfort to somebody who really needed it. Knowing that made me feel proud of what I was doing. At the same time, I was thinking about the soup and the only expert I knew in making it. As soon as the Cottage Shoppe opened, I was calling Kevin.
In the morning, while I was making coffee, Samuel breezed in the back door. Before I could stop him he went in his old room. A moment later he was back. “Why is there a kid sleeping in my bed?” he asked incredulously.
Barry showed up about then, and I left them all to work it out.
As soon as I got in my car, away from prying ears, I called the Cottage Shoppe. Kevin answered.
After exchanging hellos with him and reminding him who I was, I went right to the point. “What kind of soups did you have yesterday?”
“Why do you want to know?” There was caution in his voice. Then he sighed and went on talking without waiting for an answer. “Look, I heard about Dr. Bullard. There was nothing wrong with the ingredients in my Southwestern corn chowder.”
“Then it did come from your place.” I tried to downplay my surprise, but I was practically high-fiving myself. Wow. I even impressed myself at how easily I’d found out where the soup came from. I was good. And then Kevin gave me even more.
“Dr. Bullard was one of our first to-go customers. He worked evenings a lot and needed something to give him a pick-me-up that wouldn’t tire him out. Soup was perfect.”
I didn’t want to bring up the fact that it hadn’t exactly worked that way this time. “So then, he got the soup himself yesterday?”
Kevin’s tone made it clear he thought it was a ridiculous question. “No. His wife got it for him.”
Pixie got it for Arnold? While I was digesting that fact, Kevin realized he’d been talking too much and asked the purpose of my call. I didn’t want to make him feel bad and inquired about the current soup offerings. I noticed there was no Southwestern corn chowder or tomato bisque. I guessed a death connection was a no-no in the soup sales department.
I put the soup issue on the back burner of my mind for the moment, determined to figure out what it meant later. I had to get to work, but I had to talk to Sheila first.
The women’s gym where she worked was at the other end of downtown Tarzana. I wondered if Sheila had already heard that her best chance of getting out of Detective Heather’s spotlight of interest was dead. I walked through the glass door into the bright plant-filled lobby and threaded my way through the women in black stretchy pants and sneakers who were coming and going.
I got the answer before I even spoke to Sheila. Detective Heather was standing at the reception desk talking to her. I was still getting used to Detective Heather’s sleek new hairstyle. The old curly do had made her look a little ditzy even though she definitely wasn’t. The new style gave her an ice-queen look of authority, which she turned on me when I came in her line of sight.
“Mrs. Pink, don’t move. I need to talk to you.”
Sheila looked close to tears. “Molly, I didn’t mean to tell her. It just sort of tumbled out.”
Before Sheila could finish, Detective Heather was in my face. “Okay, where’s the handkerchief?”
I closed my eyes and groaned. I should have realized Sheila would crack under pressure. Detective Heather abandoned Sheila and suggested we go outside. I followed her through the doors, and then she turned on me. “Are you aware of the terms
I looked around helplessly.
“Barry’s not going to rescue you this time.”
What could I possibly say? Maybe the truth.
“It was just a mistake,” I began. “Do you know what no-show socks are?” I felt a tiny bit of relief when she nodded. “Well, then you know how if they slip off your heel, they get all crumpled in your shoe.” Detective Heather looked impatient and annoyed. What happened to that inscrutable detective expression she was supposed to have? “That’s exactly what happened. Well, it was really only the left one that got jammed under my arch.”
“Do you suppose you could get to the point?” Detective Heather had obviously heard enough details of what happened with my socks and recognized it for what it was—a stall while I hoped one of us would disappear.
“I took off the sock and put it in my pocket, and when I saw something white on the floor, I thought my sock had fallen out and picked it up.”
Detective Heather leveled her gaze at me. “Where exactly did all of this take place?”
I was hoping she wouldn’t ask. I tried to sound nonchalant when I told her it was in Kevin’s office.
