He and Dinah’s gazes met and simultaneously, they both said they had a surprise for the other. I attempted to make my exit, but Dinah had grabbed my wrist and wouldn’t let go until I sank back into my seat.
“You go first,” Dinah said, taking the chance to stall. Commander looked at Dinah’s hand on my wrist.
“Molly seems to want to leave,” he said as if he thought Dinah wasn’t aware of this.
“No, she doesn’t,” Dinah said, still holding on to me. “In fact, she wants to ask you about somebody.” I felt her knee nudge me. Okay, telling your male companion that you were hosting your ex’s kids might seem a little hard to understand, but I thought she was making more out of it than necessary. Though as owner of the local mailing center, he did seem to be in the middle of the information flow and she had mentioned that he knew Bradley Perkins.
Commander seemed a little disappointed when I stayed. I’m sure he thought the kids would have left with me. But he knew Dinah well enough to just go along with it. So he forged ahead and brought out some sheets he’d printed off the Internet and laid them out on the table. “My business is at a standstill around the holidays. It’s an easy time for me to take some time off. You and me on a Christmas trip up to Pacific Grove to see the monarch butterflies. No conference center this time,” he said, referring to the place we’d held our retreat. “We’d stay at a cozy inn I know. Fireplaces in every room. How about it?”
Dinah squirmed and nudged me again. “Molly, didn’t you want to ask Commander about Bradley Perkins?”
“Uh, I was just wondering if you knew him,” I said as she nudged me again. I was definitely earning the title of wingman because I was certainly winging it.
Commander seemed disappointed not to have gotten a more enthusiastic response to his trip idea, but he nodded at me. “Someone else was asking about him.”
“Who?” I asked. Answering a question with a question was an old investigative standby I’d learned from Barry—not because he meant to teach it to me, but because he’d used it on me.
Commander Blaine took a moment to collect his thoughts. “It was a couple of investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Perkins used to rent a post office box from me. I offer the advantage of a real address instead of just a post office box number,” he said with a certain amount of pride in his voice. For some reason the kids looked up at his comment as if they’d noticed him for the first time and then in typical kid fashion figured whatever he was talking about was boring and went back to their coloring. If Commander noticed them staring at him, he didn’t let on.
I asked if it was a man and woman in suits and he nodded. Obviously the same people I’d seen.
“What did you tell them?” I asked.
Commander leveled his gaze. “Exactly what I knew directly about his business—nothing. Bradley’s a great guy. Friendly with lots of personality. Even after he stopped renting the box, he’d drop by and we talked about sports scores and how the soccer team was doing. I’m one of the sponsors, you know,” he said with a certain amount of pride. “But that’s it. He never discussed his work other than to say things were going really well.” Commander saw Logan and Elise heading toward the door.
“Now, Logan was always trying to sell me on Bradley’s business. He’d go on and on about what a genius Perkins was and I ought to think of investing some money with him. I never bothered with exact details of what Perkins was doing, but Logan said he’d made a bundle with him. Logan was like a one-man advertising campaign for the guy. You’d think he was making a commission or something.” I just nodded and listened.
“Then you didn’t join the investment club?”
Commander looked at me like I had asked him an absurd question.
“Nope. Call me an old fool, but when it comes to money, I’m conservative. Federally insured savings accounts are the way I go.”
I told Commander about Bradley’s suicide and his expression grew grave.
When I mentioned the note saying he’d gotten into some kind of trouble, Commander looked even graver.
“Makes me glad I never let Logan talk me into anything. Who knows what happened to all that money. I know what’s what with mine, which is why I can easily afford this trip.” He nudged the papers in Dinah’s direction again.
Before I could find out how my friend was going to answer, our cashier Rayaad came in from the bookstore and interrupted. The UPS guy was there with a delivery and needed a signature. I didn’t get a chance to see Commander’s expression when I walked away and the kids stayed behind.
The UPS guy was shifting his weight and glancing toward his truck. He swatted his electronic signing pad against his leg. A dolly with a stack of brown boxes stood next to him. He smiled expectantly as I approached and held out the pad for me to sign.
“What is all this?” I said, eyeing the boxes. Rayaad shrugged and said that was why she’d gotten me. She wasn’t going to take the responsibility for signing for them. I looked at the return address on the boxes and hesitated. Mrs. Shedd and Mr. Royal had left without mentioning a delivery. I was considering what to do when Joshua Royal came back into the store. He saw the boxes and his face broke into a happy expression.
“Good, the things I ordered have come,” he said. The UPS guy straightened and handed him the signing thing. No hesitation here; Mr. Royal signed quickly and the UPS guy pulled the dolly out from under the boxes and left.
Mr. Royal lifted the back of his leather jacket, exposing a knife holder hanging from his belt. I stifled a gasp as he pulled the knife out of the case. I wasn’t expecting anything so long and lethal looking. I suppose it was a leftover from all his adventuring.
“Would you clear off that table,” he said, pointing to the best seller table that was adjacent to the display of Anthony books. Rayaad and I did as he asked, while he used the knife to split open the box tops.
I was surprised to see the content was all Anthony accessories. “Does Mrs. Shedd know about these?” I asked, lining up the Anthony action figures. I had to admit they were appealing and very detailed. The figure wore Anthony’s trademark black turtleneck top and black slacks and had a crochet hook in one hand and a ball of yarn in his pocket.
“I don’t need her approval,” Mr. Royal said. I listened to see if there was an edge in his voice, as if to say he could do whatever he pleased, but there wasn’t any. I took it to mean that they were really partners. Apparently his days of being the silent one were over. The other boxes had mugs, tote bags, key chains and tee shirts—all with Anthony likenesses. There was still some space on the table when we finished putting everything out. He gestured toward the back of the store and the yarn department. “Why don’t we bring some crochet hooks up here and a few balls of yarn. Let’s do some cross marketing,” he said. There was something charismatic and fun about him and we all headed toward the back.
As we were setting up a selection of crochet hooks and skeins of yarn next to the action figures, I mentioned Elise’s vampire scarf to Mr. Royal.
“Do you suppose we could offer copies of her scarf pattern? Complimentary, of course,” he said. He held up a female action figure wearing a trench coat and carrying a laptop bag. “Who is she supposed to be—another vampire?”
“That’s Colleen. She’s a reporter—a human reporter. She’s been bringing Anthony’s story to the world since he decided to go mainstream in the first book,” I said. Rayaad obviously hadn’t read the books, nor cared to. The little shake of her head was filled with distaste, and she headed back to her domain at the cashier stand.
“Mainstream?” Mr. Royal said, holding up an Anthony doll. “Please elaborate.” Apparently Mr. Royal had no idea of the story line. I had to explain that vampires were supposed to stay in the shadows, out of the public eye, and when Anthony decided to become part of the regular world, it caused a stir among the humans and stirred up trouble with the vampires.
“You see, Anthony wants to do something for mankind during his immortality. He’s stopped drinking human blood ever since he began to crochet. Now he gets by on blood products from a hospital supply place and fills in with animal blood.”
Mr. Royal made a face.
“You eat meat, don’t you?” I said and he nodded. “Anthony just takes out the middleman. But the blood stuff isn’t that important in the story line. It’s really a love story. See Anthony has fallen for Colleen, though to her he’s just a story. You do know that vampires are always very, very sexy and incredibly attractive, don’t you?”
Mr. Royal said he wasn’t familiar enough with vampires to know that and smiled good-naturedly while I
