Behind the Seams

Barry picked up the brochures where Samuel had left them. “Everything will be different when we have our own place,” Barry said.

I was too tired to even tell him about my concerns. I took the path of least resistance and just apologized for everything. Who knew the word sorry would have such an aphrodisiac effect? I was too tired to fight, but not to make up.

CHAPTER 11

“I’VE GOT GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS,” MASON said when he called the next morning. The morning was overcast, with a silvery sky and flat light. There wasn’t a shadow to be found. I was leaning on my arm, nursing a cup of coffee. It was just regular brew, but what I really needed was the jolt from an added shot of espresso.

Barry and I had spent a lot of time making up, and then he’d gone home and I’d fallen into a dead sleep. This was my second cup of coffee and it still hadn’t cut through my sleepy fog. I yawned and Mason laughed. “Did the detective keep you up all night interrogating you about where you’d been and what you’d been doing?”

“More or less,” I said, reaching for my coffee.

“Hmm,” Mason said in a less happy tone. “Maybe I don’t want to know what was going on. Now for the news. The bad news is my calls about the package came up empty, but the good news is I have a plan for how we can get the information you want. I have everything worked out. I think you’re going to like this. Do you have a suit or something?”

He preceded to give me instructions on what to wear and we arranged to meet in Encino on a street corner. It was all very cloak-and-dagger and frankly kind of exciting. The only problem was it had to be today.

I stopped at the bookstore first just when I was supposed to start for the day. I found Mrs. Shedd putting out some new releases in the mystery section. When I said I needed to take a couple of hours off, her face stiffened. “You need to take more time off?” Mrs. Shedd said, sounding a little frantic. “I’ve always let you make your own hours because I always came out ahead. You spent more time here than I paid you for. But lately . . . Are you trying to make up for it? You know it doesn’t work that way. It’s not like you were putting hours in the bank.” She caught herself. “Oh, Molly, I’m sorry. I know you work far more than I pay you for. It’s just that I was hoping the bookstore would be back in the black by now and I’m worried.”

I assured her the Salute to Chocolate event would be a big draw and that, one way or the other, I’d figure out how to get a sign in the fake book signing. Then when I explained the time off was to help CeeCee’s niece, she totally backed down. “We’re all like family,” she said. “Go on.”

“ACTION,” I SAID UNDER MY BREATH. THIS TIME I really did wish I had one of those chalkboards to clap. Mason and I were standing outside the glass door that served as the public entrance to the BOO production offices. I had done what Mason had requested and gone into the back of my closet and found a Chanel-style suit with a boxy jacket and a pencil skirt. I’d pulled out heels and a white blouse. Finally I’d taken my shoulder-length hair and put it in a low ponytail and put on much more makeup than I ever wear.

Mason took a last look at the result of his suggestions and shook his head in disbelief. “I barely recognize you,” he said. “Let’s do it.” He pushed the door open and walked in brusquely, with me rushing after him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Sally. You’re supposed to follow up on things.”

“But I did, Mr. Fields. This is where I sent the package.” I gestured toward the reception counter.

“But did you check to see if it got here?” he said as though he was pushing me in a corner.

“I’m sure it got here.” I tried to say it with a wail in my voice and to look like I was about to cry.

Since it was Saturday, there was only a skeleton staff. Mason had chosen the day deliberately, figuring there was less chance anyone would recognize me as having been there before and more chance we’d be able to get what we were after.

The counter was manned by a young woman dressed the way Nell did, and it seemed a safe bet she was a production assistant. She didn’t seem happy to see us. Who could blame her? We looked like trouble.

It had been no problem to get a pass into the studio. Mason’s connections made that a breeze. All the way over, we’d gone over our story. Mason kept grinning and saying how much fun this was. He’d dressed in his work clothes: a beautifully tailored suit in midnight blue, a creamy white dress shirt and subdued silk tie that probably cost a fortune. Mason had thought out our style of dress. Thanks to dealing with defendants, juries and judges, he knew how clothes altered an impression.

“Think about it, Sunshine, a defendant with a few teeth missing, dressed in baggy jeans and an old tee shirt versus the same guy with a full smile, wearing a suit and tie,” Mason had said. “Our suits give off an air of authority. Watch, nobody will question we are who we say we are.” Now, I saw that he was right.

“What am I going to do with you, Sally?” Mason bellowed. “The client insisted that he was told the package never arrived. And now you’re admitting that you never really followed through.” He slammed his fist on the counter in supposed anger. Both the girl and I jumped. Then he continued to berate me. I began to slump as if the weight of his words were pushing me down. I stole a glance at the girl behind the counter. She gave Mason a dirty look, and when she glanced toward me, her expression said she felt sympathetic.

“Can I do something to help?” she said. I looked up at her as if she’d just thrown me a life preserver in the middle of the ocean. Mason had coached me on how to react. I stepped closer and dropped my voice, giving the impression she and I were now a team and he was the enemy.

“Look, I just need to prove to my boss that a package arrived here. Otherwise he’s going to fire me.”

She gave Mason another dirty look. “How’d you send it? Messenger or mail?” She held up the clipboard that I knew listed the things delivered by messenger. A little uh-oh went off in my head. We hadn’t considered this. I struggled to think of what to say, but my cohort didn’t hesitate. He took the clipboard from her hand and fluttered through the pages for a moment, then dropped it on the counter.

“It’s not on here.” Then he looked skyward as if this Sally was just too incompetent for words. “Don’t tell me you mailed it.”

Mason was doing too well at being obnoxious, and I wondered if there was a whole side of him I’d missed. But then he caught my eye and winked. I remembered that among Mason’s other talents, he could speed-read. I picked up on his cue.

“You said you were trying to cut expenses,” I said in my wailing voice. For a second I thought Mason was going to lose it. His mouth had started to quiver and slide into a grin, but he forced back the grim expression.

The girl leaned across the counter and whispered to me, “You can check the log in the mailroom.”

I threw her a grateful nod and she took me back into the inner sanctum. Mason, still in character, gave off an impatient snort and started to cycle through the messages on his BlackBerry.

I recognized the corridor that led through the offices from my previous trip. Most of the doors were closed and it was very quiet. Talia’s office still had the temporary sign. The large room the production assistants worked out of was almost empty. There was just one person off in the corner working on something. Just beyond was the mailroom. I felt my heart beating faster as we went inside. She handed over a clipboard with a stack of papers attached. I knew the window of time I was looking for and went right to those sheets.

My eye moved down the first page and found nothing. Ditto for the next couple. Then saw Robyn’s name on the following sheet. But when I looked at who sent it, it listed Crown Apothecary. Not exactly what I’d been hoping for. I was about to thank her and leave when I noticed there was a p next to it. Maybe it meant something helpful, as in the package came from someone named Paul.

I didn’t want the girl to see the entry I was looking at, afraid it might stir things up if she realized it was connected to Robyn, who had been murdered. I scanned the list quickly and found something with a blank in the spot for return address and a p next to it. I pointed to it enthusiastically and said that must be the package I’d sent. Then I asked what the p meant.

“The p means it was marked personal. No wonder they didn’t confirm they’d got it from you.” She pointed to the asterisk in the blank spot for a return address. “The asterisk means there was no return address,” she scolded. “Did you at least include a card?”

I shook my head and the girl gave me a disparaging shrug. But her mention of a card made me wonder. Would a murderer have put a card in the package? Maybe some little clever message like, Hope you