I looked at Barry for confirmation and he smiled and nodded. “Yeah, we went to a sports bar and got some burgers. Some football game, huh, Mason?”
Hmm. I suddenly felt very left out.
“Molly, if you’re not going to answer your phone or call anybody back, you can’t expect us to sit here and starve waiting for you,” Barry said.
“I was working,” I protested.
“I know,” Barry said. “And now I get how you feel when I make plans and then don’t show up because I have to follow some lead.” He turned to Mason and made some comment about some great football play, but there was something in his manner that implied that Mason could now leave. Mason played Mr. Dense and walked through the kitchen toward the living room.
I retrieved my ice cream, which was quickly turning into mush. Barry followed both of us.
“I have the dog sweater in the car,” Mason said, gesturing toward outside. “I got to something that said decrease and I didn’t know what to do.”
I really wondered about that. It meant he was working on it on his own, and from what I’d seen, he only worked on Spike’s future coat when I was around.
“Molly’s had a long day. I don’t think she’s up for crochet lessons,” Barry said, putting his arm around my shoulder.
I heard the front door open. “Is this door ever going to get fixed?” Samuel said. He looked at the three of us in the living room. “What’s going on?” Ryder, the kid from down the street, came in behind him and waved a greeting with his video camera. At the same time Barry’s cell went off. It was his son, Jeffrey. He was done with rehearsal and going to get dropped off. When he heard where Barry was, he said he’d get dropped off at my house.
Mason looked at the bowl in my hand. “Was that your dinner?”
I nodded and he chuckled. “And we ruined it for you, huh?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, going back to the kitchen. “Look guys, I have baking to do for work.”
“Baking!” they all said together. So much for peace. Ryder had never seen anyone actually make something with yeast. Apparently, the best his mother did was a cake mix. He videoed the whole rising process and was going to do some time-lapse trick. He couldn’t capture the smell though. The yeasty smell mixed with the spicy scent of the cardamom spread throughout the house as the dough rose.
The front doorbell rang and then I heard a key in the lock. The door opened and shut, and a moment later, my older son, Peter, came in the kitchen. “What’s with the front door and do you know that a channel three news crew is out front?” he said. He looked at the flour-covered counter and Ryder videoing me shaping the rolls. It was hard to tell if Peter was coming from some event or just a long workday. Not a hair out of place or a wrinkle in his dress shirt. He certainly didn’t get that perfection from my side. I hadn’t realized at first that he wasn’t alone. A slender woman in a dark suit and heels so tall my feet hurt in sympathy was with him.
Explaining the door was easy, but not the news crew. Peter and his companion followed me into the den, where Barry and Mason were watching ESPN. I flipped to channel three and had the eerie encounter of seeing my street on the screen. Kimberly Wang Diaz was doing a remote. It turned out there was nothing happening next door, it was just the news style now to have field reporters do their stories in the area where something had happened. The story was an update on Bradley and his apparent suicide and the investigation into his business.
“More investors are coming forward,” Diaz said just before going to a tape of her standing in front of the building where Bradley had his office. An older woman I recognized as a bookstore customer came out holding her head down. Diaz asked her for a statement. The woman looked as if the wind had been knocked out of her. The reporter again asked her for a statement. The woman was probably too dazed to think about what she was doing and told the reporter she’d turned over her life savings to Bradley. “He was such a nice family man. And so helpful. I was trying to figure out my Medicare options and I was so confused. Bradley spent an afternoon helping me straighten it all out.” She sighed. “How can he have left his business in such a mess? Those investigators are saying all the money is gone. It just can’t be. It was all I had.” The woman’s eyes filled with water and, in a moment of humanness, Diaz touched her shoulder and said how sorry she was.
The tape cut to Diaz interviewing Nicholas in his store. He talked about how personable Bradley was. “But isn’t that the way it works with con men?” Nicholas said. He was angry at being taken in, but not devastated. Diaz had tried to interview Logan coming out of Le Grande Fromage, but he put his hands up, blocking the camera, and hurried away. Diaz filled in why he was in such a hurry.
“A number of the investors told this reporter that they invested with Perkins based on the recommendation of Logan Belmont, a well-respected local real estate broker.”
The tape ended with Diaz talking to the SEC investigator. “We still don’t know the complete scope of the apparent Ponzi scheme. The records are a mess. We’re trying to come up with a complete client list.” He looked into the camera. “We’d like anyone with information to come forward.” A number was flashed on the screen.
The story ended with a live shot of Diaz out front giving a list of tips people should think of before turning over their savings to anyone.
“She ought to add, ‘don’t do it,’” Peter said as if he thought he was being clever. I told him his comment was cold and how bad I felt for the woman who’d lost her life savings. Peter seemed grateful when the kitchen timer went off and ended our skirmish.
Everyone followed me to the kitchen, talking as they went. Peter made a big deal about introducing the woman to Mason. Not a surprise because he liked Mason and thought if I was going to be involved with any man it should be him. He introduced her to Barry, but it was perfunctory. I had finally acknowledged it wasn’t going to get any better between Peter and Barry. No matter what Barry said, I couldn’t ignore the friction. And I thought when you were as old as I was you got to do what you wanted.
Peter had stopped over to introduce Brooklyn to me, which I gathered meant he was serious about her. Though I think he regretted his decision. She was friendly enough, but I couldn’t miss the way she focused on the flour all over my apron or the way she stared at Jeffrey sleeping on the couch with the dogs. I don’t think Samuel and Ryder made the best impression, either. And to finish it off, Holstein jumped in her arms and got fur all over her immaculate suit.
She was still brushing the fur off as they went out the patched-up front door.
The rest of the crowd hung around while I finished making the rolls. And when I finally took them out of the oven and offered samples they all looked at me as if I was some kind of cooking goddess. Since this was just a run- through, I packed up to-go bags of rolls for all of them.
Samuel retired to his room. Ryder’s mother called him and wondered where he was. Jeffrey was still asleep on the couch. Barry and Mason kept standing around. It was pretty obvious what was going on. Neither wanted to leave before the other one. They even offered to help me clean up the kitchen. Like I was going to turn that down.
“Your boss wouldn’t say where you were this afternoon,” Mason said, taking a spray bottle and some paper towels and cleaning up the flour around my mixer. I started to hand wash the mixer bowl and all the spatulas. Barry dried them and put them away. I considered for a moment what to say. Why not throw it out in front of both of them and see what they thought I ought to do with the information?
I went through the whole thing about how I’d begun to think that Bradley might not really be dead. I brought up the watch and seeing it in the car. I didn’t mention the afghan. I was still having a problem figuring out why Bradley would want that anyway.
When I mentioned following Emily and Madison, I saw Barry’s jaw clench. I explained both theories—that Bradley just wanted them to run all over the place or that he’d seen me following them. “I realize the woman who came up to them at the Topanga Mall must have been sent by Bradley,” I said. I hesitated when I got to the second mall. Should I really tell them what happened or just say we followed them to The Grove? It wasn’t the same without explaining about the elf. I mean, he had seen who was passing the message. Hoping for the best, I brought up the elf. I saw Barry’s eyes roll up in his head. Mason skipped past a chuckle and went right to a laugh. “And when we got to The Grove, it was too late. The women didn’t have their packages anymore and Bradley was nowhere to be seen.”
“So?” Barry said.
“So, I’m wondering what I should do with the information. I’m sure those SEC investigators would like to
