Behind the Seams

“Can you believe they call that news?” I said. “They play a meaningless scene over and over and offer a story I know is absolutely not true. Whatever happened to getting the facts?”

Dinah and I did a knuckle bump in agreement. Apparently somebody else in the restaurant wasn’t happy with the news, either, and the station abruptly changed to one of those entertainment news shows.

The waitress brought us another hot circle of bread. I pulled off a piece and dipped it in the garbanzo bean puree. “Look,” I said, pointing at the huge screen. The screen had flashed the show’s logo before going to a scene that looked similar to the news program we’d just been watching. Pierce Sheraton was standing on the street outside the studio. He was the hottest entertainment reporter at the moment—so hot that the show was called Pierce Sheraton’s Entertainment Zone. As was his trademark, the tall lanky reporter was wearing a black tee shirt over dark-washed jeans. He’d been known to show up at award shows in the same outfit with a tuxedo jacket thrown on top. He had shaggy hair and a smirky attitude. For a moment, the screen showed the Barbara Olive Overton show, and I was curious what his report on the incident was going to be. When the shot went back to the street, he’d been joined by a tall woman with sharp features and a severe, short haircut.

“Rumors are swirling about what happened at the Barbara Olive Overton show this morning,” Pierce said to the camera, “but once again, Entertainment Zone has the real story. This is Talia Canon.” He gestured toward the woman standing next to him. “She’s an assistant producer on the show and has the inside scoop. Talia, tell us what happened.” Pierce put the microphone in front of Talia, and she proceeded to explain that one of the segment producers on the show had died under suspicious circumstances. Pierce asked her for the person’s name, but she wouldn’t give it. She’d heard the cops were still looking for her next of kin and thought there was some kind of rule about not making a dead person’s name public until their family had been notified.

“Thank heavens for that,” I said to Dinah. “It would be awful if that was how her family found out.”

Pierce kept trying to find out as much as possible about the victim and who might have wanted to harm her. “You were telling me a production assistant is the one who gave the victim the poison.”

Talia suddenly appeared uncomfortable. “I said allegedly might have given the victim some kind of poison. And please, no names for the victim or the sus—alleged suspect.” Pierce tried to squeeze more details out of Talia, but all she would talk about was Robyn’s job.

“We call them segment producers to separate them from the other kinds of producers on the show. It’s their responsibility to get all the pieces together for the shows. Like, they take care of all the video background pieces we always have. Sometimes it takes a year to put one together if they’re following somebody’s progress at, say, losing weight.” Pierce wanted to know what kind of shows the victim had been working on. She hemmed and hawed and finally would only say she had been assigned two shows—one featured an author and one a celebrity couple.

“And you worked for the deceased woman?” Pierce said and she nodded. “Is it safe to assume that you’ll be taking over for her?”

Talia must have realized how cold all of this sounded, and she suddenly appeared anguished or tried to appear that way. She insisted the whole staff was brokenhearted over the loss. “But Barbara can’t just stop her show and let all her fans down. I’m going to be doing my best to step into Ms. X’s shoes.” Talia seemed done, then she looked back at the camera. “And for all you fans out there. Under the circumstances, we’re doing a repeat tomorrow, but after that, it’s back to our regular schedule.”

“Barbara is certainly not letting any grass grow under her feet,” Dinah said.

“I suppose it seems that way, but they can’t just close up shop,” I said. “I sure hope CeeCee isn’t watching this. If she hears anything about a suspect, she’ll have to figure it’s Nell,” I said as we got our leftovers packed up to go. I drove the greenmobile, as I called my old blue green Mercedes 190E, back to my house. Dinah pushed me to take all the leftovers and then got in her car and left.

I called Mason as soon as I got inside. He listened as I relayed how Nell seemed to think she was off the hook because they let her go, but then I’d just heard somebody on TV say the cops had a suspect. “Could it be someone other than Nell?”

“Anything is possible,” Mason said. “But I wouldn’t get too hopeful.” He repeated his offer to talk to Nell or CeeCee. “This must be a whole new experience for CeeCee—having to focus so much attention on someone else.” He realized that had sounded wrong and corrected his statement. “I didn’t mean anything about her personally. It goes with the territory. Lord knows I deal with enough celebrity types to see how they are. They get so used to being the center of attention it’s hard for them to consider somebody else.” He brought the subject back to me, remembering I’d been pretty worn when he dropped me at the bookstore.

“You sound exhausted, Sunshine,” he said in a caring manner. I was agreeing with him when Samuel came in the kitchen door carrying his guitar. I had left the bag of leftovers on the counter, intending to put it in the refrigerator. He opened the bag and pulled out one of the containers and some bread and headed for his room. The door opened again and Barry came in. He was in shirt sleeves with his tie hanging loose. He touched my shoulder in greeting and started poking through the bag of restaurant food. He tried to look intent on the food, but I knew he was listening to my call.

“Do you have company?” Mason asked.

“Yes,” I said, feeling inhibited.

“And you can’t talk anymore, huh?” Mason said.

“Right.”

“You know where to reach me if you need anything. Sleep well.” And then he hung up.

I put the phone back in the charger and Barry didn’t say anything at first. Like I was supposed to believe that he hadn’t noticed that I was off the phone. He had made a plate of food but left it on the counter as he came up behind me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

“You okay?” His hand began to massage the back of my neck. “I don’t get it. Only you go to a talk show and end up with a corpse. You better let this one go. No investigating. Let the cops handle it,” he said.

“You know something, don’t you?” I said.

“And I’m not telling,” he said.

CHAPTER 7

I WENT TO THE BOOKSTORE EARLY THE NEXT DAY to try to make up for the lost time. I picked up a coffee from the cafe and headed to the yarn department. Yesterday the group had hung out there almost until closing time, and I’d never gotten a chance to straighten up. We’d arranged the bins of yarn by color, and it was like being surrounded by a rainbow. Once I’d picked up the stray hooks and yarn bits off the table, I began to straighten out the bins so that all the skeins were where they belonged. I heard someone come into the area and turned to ask if they needed help.

“Oh,” I said, surprised when I saw that it was Detective Heather. She had walked over to the bins that we’d labeled “Just Socks.” She began taking out skeins and feeling the yarn. I had never made any socks and didn’t know how much help I could be but offered anyway.

“I don’t need any help,” she said with just the slightest edge. “I’ve been making socks for years. I’d like some really soft yarn, like a cashmere blend. You have no idea how sensual a pair of hand-knit socks can be. Men love them.”

“Oh,” was all I could croak out as she continued on going through our stock of yarn.

“I’m looking for something special for someone special,” she said, and then explained she was getting a head start on holiday gifts. On top of everything else, she had to be one of those organized people who probably had all her holiday gifts wrapped and ready to go before Thanksgiving. Not me. The night before Christmas, I would probably be trying to finish a scarf. Something in the way Detective Heather emphasized the phrase someone special gave me the feeling she was talking about Barry, but I couldn’t really ask.

“I suppose you’d have to be careful who you give handmade socks to. It might seem a little personal,” I said.

She looked at me dead-on. “That’s the point. Forget all this nonsense about the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Make his feet feel good and he’s yours.” She plucked two skeins out of the cashmere blend in