By Hook or by Crook

She paused for only a second, then said the least I could do was fill her in on everything. I had driven to her house after leaving Mason.

On the coffee table Dinah had the usual stack of papers waiting to be graded, but there was something else.

“Yay, you’ve gotten past the kids leaving,” I said, holding up the form from Date-A-Lot. “You’re ready to work on your social life. Good for you!”

She deflected the comment by asking about Mason and me. I told her the truth. “He’s fun to be with, and the fact he doesn’t want to turn it into anything too serious is appealing.”

“And the downside?” Dinah prompted.

“I’m still getting over Barry. And it’s messy because of the dog and his son Jeffrey. Jeffrey leaves and we’re a couple, and he comes back and we’re not even friends. I did tell you he rejected the friend idea and even gave me back his key, didn’t I?”

“Several times,” Dinah said. “Okay, so what do you think the information Mason gave you means?”

“The most obvious is that Paul Stewart isn’t Ali’s father,” I said. “And somehow Iris had the money to buy the house for the nursery. Things were cheaper back then, but that was still a sizeable investment for someone so young.”

“Do you think she was blackmailing Mary Beth? Maybe that’s it. Mary Beth decided to go public so she couldn’t be blackmailed anymore.”

“I considered that, but Iris doesn’t seem the blackmailing type.” I wasn’t sure what the blackmailing type was, but I doubted that the hard-working owner of a plant nursery fell into the category. “Maybe Mary Beth gave her the money for the down payment.”

“That’s a lot of money to give,” Dinah said. “There must have been something she wanted in return.”

We went back and forth, getting nowhere. I had no choice but to go home and face the She La Las. Did those women ever stop practicing?

The weather had turned cold and damp by the time I drove home. I had narrowed things down a little. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the secret Mary Beth had wanted to settle focused on Ali. I was also sure Ali didn’t know what it was, but her mother did. How far would her mother go to keep the lid on it?

At home, I checked my phone messages. The third one made the hair on my neck stand up. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. Just a harsh whisper telling me I was asking for trouble.

My father came in and handed me a large padded envelope with my name written in red. He said it had been on the front porch when Lana and Bunny arrived.

I ripped back the top with shaking hands. Something slid out and hit the ground.

When I looked down, I screamed. A big dead fish with a marzipan apple in its mouth had landed on my foot.

CHAPTER 27

“PINK, WHAT DID YOU DO?” ADELE DEMANDED, rushing up to the event table as I was setting up for the group. I stopped what I was doing and fortified myself with a big sip of my red eye.

I was still recovering from the previous night. It hadn’t been pretty. My father kept asking about the dead fish, and I didn’t have a good answer. Telling him it was some kind of joke didn’t work, partly because my son Samuel had told him I’d gotten involved in a couple of murder investigations.

“Molly,” he’d said, shaking his head. “I know you’ve had to make a lot of adjustments since Charlie died, but what are you doing getting mixed up with murder?” He shook his head again. “I’m not going to tell your mother.”

I had refrained from voicing my thought that she probably wouldn’t pay attention anyway. If it didn’t have to do with the She La Las and their upcoming audition, she wasn’t interested. Then I had told my father not to worry and that I had the business with the fish under control.

“Well,” Adele said, glaring at me from across the table.

“What are you talking about?” I said, putting the box of yarn out. Sheila arrived and took off the jacket of her black suit before stretching her arms and sitting down.

“I’m talking about Ali quitting the group. She wouldn’t give any details. She said you would explain.” Adele dropped into a chair. CeeCee put her things on the table and stared at Adele.

“What? Ali quit the group? She was such a nice addition. What happened?”

“Ask Pink,” Adele said with irritation.

“What’s going on?” Dinah asked as she set down her things and checked out Adele’s stormy expression. “Did somebody call us a knit group?” Dinah said, smiling. Adele glared in response.

CeeCee was used to people coming and going in the group and recovered immediately. She glanced up and down the table. “Camille’s not here, huh?” Letting out a sigh of relief, she announced, “I think I’ll go and get some of Bob’s special cookies and a latte with whole milk. Anybody else want anything?” When no one responded, CeeCee stayed put. All eyes were on me. They were waiting for an explanation.

“You remember how Ali mentioned that her mother’s name was Iris like the flowers in Mary Beth’s crochet piece?” Everyone nodded but Dinah. She already knew where I was headed. “I thought it might be just a coincidence, but I decided to talk to her mother.”

I described my visit to the cactus nursery and my conversation with Iris. “She denied knowing Mary Beth Wells and I proved she was lying.”

“Ouch,” CeeCee said. “Dear, that sort of thing never goes over well. I remember a role I had in The Devil’s Mistress .” She looked at us for recognition of the title and continued. “It was a period piece, all bustles and rustling dresses. Thank God that fashion hasn’t made a comeback. I played the sweet sister who got killed for doing exactly what Molly did. My sister in the movie kept saying she’d never met the grand duke, and my character found a letter the sister had gotten from him that proved she was lying. She smothered my character with a pillow.”

All eyes were back on me. “No pillows on my face last night, just a creepy whispering phone call and a dead fish with a marzipan apple in its mouth.”

That information elicited a couple of ewws. Sheila was the only one looking away. She was intent on her blanket, and I could see her stitches getting tighter with each movement of her hook. Suddenly she set it down, rushed over and started hugging me. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “You have to drop it, Molly. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

I hugged her back and told her not to worry. With her grandmother dead, Sheila was alone in the world and overburdened by work, school and an unpleasant living situation. The group was her family, and I was the one she felt closest to.

I could feel Dinah’s eyes on me. She’d known about everything except the dead fish and the phone call.

“That’s why I don’t get involved when people drop things like this on me. Just because I’m on a show about solving problems doesn’t mean it’s my job to solve them,” CeeCee said.

“I don’t think Mary Beth left it for you to figure out. From what I’ve found out, Ali is at the center of whatever Mary Beth was trying to fix. I think she left that panel piece with us because she saw Ali was in our group,” I said.

“Was in our group is the operative phrase, Pink,” Adele added. “It sounds like you’ve made a mess of everything. Let’s see. We lost a wonderful member of the group, you insulted her mother, someone is dropping off dead things at your house—and you still haven’t figured out what the crochet piece means.”

Sheila was still hugging me when Camille showed up. She was breathless and either ignored that she had arrived in the middle of something or didn’t notice. I was voting for the latter since she immediately launched into a speech telling everyone how much her scarf had gone for at the silent auction.

When they heard the amount, the group wanted details on the scarf, apparently thinking the quality and design had determined the high price.

CeeCee and I looked at each other over the table. We knew the scarf would have sold even if it had been made of knotted string. Camille’s name was the attraction, not the scarf.