wanted to leave, but he wasn’t going to abandon his actors. Everyone else had looked on with discomfort. Mason, in an effort to save the day, suggested an extra tai chi session. The crowd seemed anxious to get away from all the discord and abandoned their wineglasses, eagerly following him.
The lobbylike interior of the administration building was empty except for the person behind the registration desk. Someone had left the TV on and I glanced at the happy wedding scene on the screen, which seemed at complete odds with how I felt as I flopped into one of the overstuffed chairs.
“Well, Pink,” Adele said, standing over me. “What are you going to do about my car?” Dinah came through the door and rushed over and hugged me with sympathy. She assured me that Mason’s tai chi session would work wonders to smooth things over. That’s the great thing about a good friend. She didn’t sit and lecture me on my mistakes, but just stepped in to help.
I put my face in my hands, thinking what a mess things were. Maybe Sergeant French was right. Who would sabotage a car with bubblegum and yarn, or murder somebody with a s’more? The line kept going through my mind. I thought back to the tai chi group and felt my stomach clench as I pictured Adele’s car stuck on the beach, surrounded by yellow tape. I started to get up. “Mason can’t take them to the beach.”
Dinah gestured for me to sit and said he was doing the session on the patio area outside of the Scripps building. I leaned back in the chair, and tried to forget about everything for a moment. It was useless; the background music on the TV swelled, and grabbed my attention. The happy music was annoying under the circumstances, and I got up to turn it off. Adele protested.
“This is my favorite part. Wait until they cut the first piece of wedding cake,” Adele protested. After what had happened to her car, I figured it would be a good idea to humor her, so I stood with my hand over the power button as the bride and groom did a whole number with the piece of cake while the three of us watched. Dinah made a
All of a sudden the inflection of Sergeant French’s line that kept going over in my mind changed. “I was wrong,” I said.
“You can say that again,” Adele said. “Mrs. Shedd is going to realize what a mistake she made giving you the rhinestone clipboard when she hears the mess you made. And you’re still not dealing with my car.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” I said, turning off the TV. “I was wrong about Nora. I just figured out who was on the beach with Izabelle and what happened.”
“Pink, haven’t you made enough of a mess?” Adele shook her head and tsk-tsked a few times at me.
“Maybe, but I think I can fix it. But I need your help.” I nodded at Dinah and Adele. “I need both of your help.”
Dinah was in right away, but Adele held back.
“I can’t do it without you,” I said to Adele. “You’re the key.”
“Me?” she said, standing a little taller. “Hmm, so I’m the key. Well, all I can say is it’s about time you realized my importance. Okay, Nancy Jessica Drew Fletcher Pink, I’m in.”
With the tai chi session over, our group headed for the dining hall. I watched from behind one of the tall Monterey pines as people began to congregate by the entrance, waiting for the dinner bell and the opening of the dining hall. I was relieved to see that the key players were all there. Dinah and Adele came down the stairs from the deck outside the administration building and walked toward the waiting group. The sound of their arguing got everyone’s attention.
“I’m telling you, Pink is the one responsible for the mess in my car. It’s her fault the floor mat stuck to the accelerator. I mean, if she was going to chew bubble gum, couldn’t she have at least wrapped it in some paper before she threw it on the floor? She must have thrown some of the yarn down there, too,” Adele said with a toss of her head.
Dinah bristled. “Molly doesn’t even chew bubble gum, and if she did, she certainly wouldn’t throw it on the floor. Adele, it’s your car. The bubble gum and yarn on the floor were yours. Accept the responsibility.”
“No way, Jose,” Adele said. “And I’m going to prove it.” She took on a huffy stance that was a little too convincing, and I began to wonder if she’d forgotten they weren’t really arguing. Adele did have a habit of getting carried away.
“This ought to be good,” Dinah said, throwing in an eye roll and a hand on her hip.
Adele took a defiant stance. “I’m going down to the beach before the tow truck comes, and I’m going to get that blob of bubble gum and yarn. Pink’s saliva is on that gum, saliva with her DNA. A good friend of my boyfriend, the famous children’s author, will be glad to do a test on it for me.”
“So long as you send a sample of your DNA with it, so he can see that it was really you who chewed the gum,” Dinah said, pretending not to be aware that the dinner waiters were watching.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to send along samples from the other presenters, so when Pink’s DNA matches, she can’t claim it was fixed. I got the plastic wineglasses and marked the names on them.” Adele sounded extremely proud of herself, which I knew wasn’t an act. I hoped nobody really thought about that last part, and realized it would have been impossible to do. There was more of an interchange between them, but I didn’t hear it. I had slipped from behind the tree and was on my way to the beach.
I heard the dinner bell ring as I crouched on the passenger side of the car, away from view. The yellow tape had broken loose and was flapping in the breeze.
I felt the vibration of footsteps in the sand and swallowed hard as my body tensed. I could feel them getting closer and my heart rate kicked up. But when a hand touched my shoulder, my heart almost jumped out of my chest.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Dinah said, reading my panicked body language. “But I couldn’t leave you here alone.” I waved for her to get down and put my finger to my lips. She’d barely hit the sand when we began to feel the vibrations of footsteps. They quickly grew in intensity and then they stopped. We both swallowed hard. This was definitely it.
The car rocked as the driver’s window shattered. There was more noise and motion as something pushed through the glass and the door was unlocked. The two of us popped up like jack-in-the-boxes just as the car door opened. I knew who we were going to see. Sergeant French was probably right. Most people wouldn’t think to use bubblegum and yarn to make an accelerator stick. But most people didn’t work on a TV show where the hero’s claim to fame was that he used everyday things in unusual ways. Bennett was already leaning over the seat toward the gas pedal. When he saw us, he jumped back.
“Ladies,” he said, actually making it sound like he was glad to see us. He was certainly good on his feet. “I heard you talking up by the dining hall. I thought I’d come down and see if I could help,” he said, as if we wouldn’t notice the broken window.
“I don’t think so,” I said as I walked around to the other side of the car. “I know what you did. I know how you did it. I’m just not sure why you did it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then he leaned down and pulled out the wad of gum and yarn and threw it toward the water. It made a splash as it hit. “I’ll be going now,” he said, but Dinah ordered him to halt.
Bennett began to laugh. “What are you two going to do, tie me up with your shoelaces?”
Dinah and I didn’t say anything. Bennett thought he was home free, but he didn’t know what was coming up behind him. We could see what was going to happen before he did. Suddenly a pouch bag slapped him in the cheek, swung out and came back and hit him again. “You? You’re the one who wrecked my car,” Adele yelled like a banshee, swinging the purple bag harder as Bennett tried to shield his face, yelping with pain. Adele kept swinging the bag, and no matter how he moved his hands, he couldn’t avoid injury. When he tried to leave, she was on him like cream cheese on a bagel, and he couldn’t get away. I had never realized Adele had such a good arm.
Bennett wasn’t the only one who could use everyday things for extraordinary purposes. Dinah and I raided the backseat and took out a one-pound skein of burgundy worsted yarn and began winding it around and around his legs. Not giving up, he tried to hop away while still trying to get hold of the pouch bag. He didn’t know who he was dealing with. Adele kept winding her arm and the bag kept eluding his grasp.
“You women are crazy! What are you doing now?” an angry voice said. When I looked up, Nora was jogging across the sand toward us.
Adele stopped swinging the pouch bag, but held it at the ready.
“What do you have in there, rocks?” Bennett asked, massaging his chin.
