stones with colors like turquoise or amethyst. When it came to watches, my only requirement was that it kept time. This store was filled with gold and diamonds and watches where keeping time was only a side benefit.
The salesman was pleased to bring out trays of cuff links for Dinah.
“I thought I saw Emily Perkins come in here,” I said, looking around with a innocent face.
A woman at the next counter looked up. “You just missed her.”
“She has such good taste. What did she buy this time?” I said, hoping they’d think I was implying I might buy the same thing.
The man showed Dinah some gold cuff links with onyx inserts. I heard Dinah choking when she glanced at the price ticket. He directed his attention my way momentarily. “She was picking up,” he said.
“Picking up?” I said, surprised.
“She brought in her husband’s watch to be cleaned and serviced,” the woman said.
“Really?” I said, trying to keep the surprise down in my voice. I asked if they’d heard about what happened to him. The man glanced toward the woman and they both nodded.
“I thought under the circumstances she’d want to sell the watch. It’s a Bond Submariner Rolex,” he said as if I was supposed to understand what that meant. “But when I offered to buy it from her, she said no without the slightest hesitation. She just paid for the service and asked if she could use the phone.” He sighed. “I really was hoping she would sell it. I’ve been trying to find one of those watches for a long time.”
Dinah kept looking at cuff links while I processed what he’d just told me. Or tried to. It simply didn’t make sense. She’d made it clear to Nicholas she was short of money. The watch sounded like it would have gotten her a hefty hunk of money. Was it sentimental value that was making her hang on to it or something else?
CHAPTER 14
“I SURE HOPE COMMANDER APPRECIATES THE GIFT,” I said as we headed toward Le Grande Fromage. Sheila had already gotten a table and was looking over the menu when we walked in.
“I still can’t believe I’m encouraging his fussiness by buying him cuff links. I should have bought him a sweatshirt with the arms cut off to help loosen him up,” Dinah said, eyeing the tiny shopping bag with the elegantly wrapped box.
The cafe was busy and there was a line at the counter waiting to place their orders. Logan was sitting at the back table with his portable office setup. He wasn’t alone. Two men were standing over the table, with their hands resting on it. It appeared they were trying to keep their conversation private. And judging from the expression on Logan’s face, whatever they were talking about wasn’t happy.
Pretending to be bothered by the closeness of the door to our table, I suggested we move. I chose the table next to Logan’s, but made sure to appear not to even notice him. Then I made a big deal about looking over the menu. Of course, it was all a ruse while I leaned back in my chair and tried to hear.
“I’m in the same boat with everyone else,” Logan said.
“You better take some responsibility. The only reason I turned over our money to Bradley was because of you,” one of the men growled.
“Everyone’s saying he must have given you some kind of commission,” the other man said.
Logan neither confirmed nor denied it but tried to convince them that he was in no way Bradley’s partner or involved with the stock dealing. He insisted he’d been duped by Bradley as much as everyone else. Both men objected and seemed convinced that Logan was more involved with Bradley’s business than he was letting on. Their voices flared as they both reminded Logan that just saying he didn’t know anything didn’t let him off the hook as far as they were concerned. Logan told them what Elise had told us—that he was helping the SEC people sort things out. The men didn’t seem to care. They were just angry that they’d lost all their money and they were looking for somebody to blame. Logan was that guy. The degree of their anger made my heart palpitate. I was afraid a fight might erupt. I was relieved when the men walked away. When Logan was alone, he banged on the table as he packed up his stuff and mumbled something about being ruined. Then in a voice that gave me a chill he said, “If Bradley wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him.”
“THERE YOU ARE, PINK,” ADELE SAID WHEN I GOT back to the bookstore. She stepped in front of me and put her arms on my shoulders, pushing me back toward the front door. “You have to do me a favor.”
I chuckled to myself. “You could say please.”
“Huh?” Adele said. Her confusion was real, definitely not faked. She had no sense about how to deal with people.
The favor involved helping her do a favor for William. He’d had a new dishwasher installed and the city permit guy was on his way to check it over. There was some complicated story about William’s car being in the shop and Adele letting him use her new car. She must really care for the guy to let him actually drive her Matrix. She would barely let me operate the windows. I offered her the use of my car, but she said she’d become too used to driving a new car and probably would strip the gears or something if she tried to drive the greenmobile. I resented her calling it an antique.
Adele made a face as she opened the passenger door. Maybe it did squeak a little bit, but I thought it was entitled. The 1993 190E Mercedes ran beautifully but was beginning to show its age in little malfunctions and weird noises. Adele got in as if she thought the car might crumble.
Technically this was supposed to be my day off, but I’d come in for the Hookers meeting, so helping Adele out wasn’t really a problem.
William’s house was in a Woodland Hills area called College Acres. The name came from its proximity to Walter Beasley Community College, I mean WBCC. I really needed to get my abbreviations down. Was I ever really going to start saying OMG and LOL out loud?
The streets around William’s house went by a different name at this time of year. I didn’t know when or how it started, but all the houses in the area went into decoration overload for the holidays. Everyone knew the area as Candy Cane Lane.
I had lots of memories driving through it when Peter and Samuel were young. Everybody turned off their cars’ headlights and crept through the streets with parking lights. I glanced up and down the street. The decorations were in the process of going up in the yards on either side. It seemed to me in the old days it went from right after Thanksgiving to New Years, but over the past years, it seemed to have been funneled down into a few weeks before Christmas until New Years.
Who could blame them? I thought of the congestion on the street. Heaven help anyone who lived in the area and wanted to pull out of their driveway after dark.
“Does Koo Koo know what he got into?” I said to Adele as we pulled into the driveway of William’s house. Next door two men were carrying a giant animatronic Santa into the center of the yard. I watched as they placed it on the lawn and plugged it in. The giant red-clothed figure began to wave and shout “Ho, ho, ho.” Adele let out a loud
The house was appealing from the outside, with its white-wood siding and green shutters. She struggled with the lock, one more indication she hadn’t done a lot of coming and going on her own. As much as she tried to give the impression that she and William were on their way to a permanent relationship, I began to wonder if it was mostly in her imagination.
Inside, the house smelled of fresh paint and new carpet. My first impression was of lots of light and very little furniture. I followed Adele down a short hall and through the service porch into the garage.
“Pink, William not only knows about the area, he’s all set with his own decorations,” Adele said as she flipped on the light. I stepped back and almost tripped over a bike. A giant wooden cutout of Koo Koo dressed as Santa was in my face staring back. The trademark giant red shoes showed from underneath the Santa suit. A freestanding toy bag sat next to the figure. I laughed when I saw what was showing out of the top. Apparently William had large mock-ups of all the Koo Koo books made and then positioned so they showed above the bag. Underneath the quiet exterior, William was apparently quite the marketer.
The doorbell rang and Adele said it must be the inspector. She started giving me some speech about how
