For Better or Worsted (6 page)

Thursday stopped in front of a display of pens, journals and books about writing. I went back to what I was doing, but Dinah nudged me a moment later.

“Who’s he?” she said. I followed her gaze and saw that Thursday was talking to someone. His head was down, and it took a moment for me to register who the tumbling black curls belonged to.

“That’s Ben Sherman, our kids’ writing teacher, ah, I mean facilitator.” I still had a hard time with that term. It sounded pretentious, but then I guess the idea was that he was to help it all happen instead of teaching anybody how to do it. I stopped brushing off the snippets of leftover yarn while both Dinah and I watched them for a moment.

“Maybe it’s from being your Watson, but I’m deducing that they haven’t just met,” Dinah said, noting that he had touched Thursday’s arm.

“But they don’t want anybody to know it,” I said, pointing out that instead of facing each other they were both facing the display as if that was their focus.

“Ooh, aren’t we the detectives,” Dinah said, giving me a high five.

“There you are, Sunshine,” Mason said, coming into the yarn department. “Do you ever check your phone messages?” I was relieved to see him back to his usual self. The happy grin, the flop of hair over his forehead and the twinkle of fun in his eye. “I told Thursday I’d meet her for lunch so we could talk over her next steps. I left a message inviting you.”

“I can’t get away now. But Thursday is over there.” I pointed toward the display and noted with surprise that Thursday was now alone.

CHAPTER 7

“
FOOD!” I SAID OUT LOUD TO MYSELF AS I MANNED THE
customer service desk. The woman I’d been helping figure out when the next Anthony book was coming out looked up in surprise at my abrupt comment. I’d had a nagging feeling that there was something about the party I hadn’t thought of, and then out of nowhere the answer came. Dinah had left for an English department meeting. Thursday and Mason had gone off for lunch and I had gone back to work.

“Sorry for startling you,” I said with a sheepish smile. “We’re starting a new venture of putting on parties at the bookstore. We call them Parties with a Purpose. The first one is a girl’s birthday, and we’re going to teach them to crochet.”

I was on a roll now and probably giving her far more information than she wanted, but in the back of my mind I was also trying to get the word out about the parties. I explained I had just realized I hadn’t thought about the food.

“You know cupcakes are quite the thing these days,” she said. Then she said she’d be interested in hearing how the party went. “It sounds like a fun idea, and it might work for something I’m planning.”

I thanked her and gave her one of the store’s business cards after writing “Parties with a Purpose” on the back. More things I hadn’t thought about. If this was going to be a business, we would need to make up a brochure and add the information to our website. But first I needed to pull off Lyla’s party.

Cupcakes were a perfect idea. I considered talking to our barista and cookie baker Bob about doing them in-house. But for this first party, I didn’t want to take any chances and decided Caitlyn’s Cupcakes was the way to go.

As soon as I could take a break, I walked down the street and crossed Ventura. Caitlyn’s was on the corner. The building had housed several different businesses in the past, but had been redone to accommodate the cupcake bakery. The front had been made into a retail area with cases of different kinds of cupcakes. A number of tables shaped liked giant cupcakes were sprinkled around on the black-and-white tiled floor, and a bar with stools faced the window. The back two-thirds of the building was where they did the baking.

I had hoped it would be quiet when I went in so I could discuss all the possibilities with Caitlyn, but the place was crowded. A line of people were waiting to be served and all the tables were filled. It smelled delicious and reminded me that I’d missed lunch. The only thing I could do was join the line and wait.

It was a neighborhood place and the atmosphere was friendly, which meant that everyone was talking to everyone else while they waited. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the topic of conversation was Thursday’s wedding. It had all the makings of a conversation piece. It was local, it was weird and murder was involved.

“The TV newspeople are calling it ‘nuptial nightmare.’ Did you see the photo of the mother of the bride sitting in the wedding cake, holding the bloody knife?” a woman said.

“I heard her referred to as the murderer-in-law,” another woman said. “The newspeople love catchy phrases.”

Someone else brought up the shapewear defense, and someone else said the same thing had happened to her. “I couldn’t even lift my arms enough to dance with my son at his wedding.”

I was glad I didn’t have Thursday with me. It would have been her worst nightmare.

The line moved up slowly, and then even when they’d gotten their cupcakes, people stood off to the side continuing the conversation. The place had become so popular that Caitlyn had hired more baking help and several part-time people to man the counter. Since I was a regular customer, I knew all the counter help. I saw that Kirsty Frazier was assisting Caitlyn today. It was nothing personal, but I hoped when my turn came I’d get Caitlyn, since she was truly a cupcake expert.

“I was at the reception,” the woman behind me said. Everyone turned to face her and began to shoot questions at her. I scrutinized her as well to see if I recognized her. She was blond with some help, somewhere in her forties with an overeagerness about her. It was obvious she liked being in the center of the discussion as she gave details about the event in the tent. Someone mentioned that she’d heard the cops thought it was someone who slipped in and pretended to be a server.

“It wouldn’t have been that hard. The servers looked like something out of that old video. The one with Robert Palmer and all the women musicians who looked the same. Someone came by with a tray of baby quiches, and I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.”

“Were the quiches good?” the woman next to her asked. The question caught everyone off guard and there was a titter of laughter as I finally stepped up to the counter. Just my luck Caitlyn was helping another customer and I got Kirsty.

“I’m not sure you can help me,” I said. Kirsty did a double take. She had dark brown hair pulled back with a headband that showed off her dangle earrings.

“You don’t need the boss to put some cupcakes in a pink box,” she said, making a tsk sound and rolling her eyes. She waved her hand over the counter. “Tell me how many you want total so I know the size box and then you pick what kind you want.”

“That’s just it. I’m not here to buy cupcakes, well, maybe one, but what I really want is advice,” I said.

Kirsty gave me an odd look. “What? You think cupcakes have taken the place of cocktails, and us counter people are like bartenders who you tell your problems to?” Then she apologized for being short. “Too many jobs, too little sleep,” she said with a yawn. “I guess I might as well get used to it. Med students are notoriously sleep deprived.”

All ears were on me now and eyes, too, though everyone was trying to act like it wasn’t so.

I began the story about the Parties with a Purpose, explaining that the first one was for an eleven-year-old’s birthday, and I was trying to line up the food and thought cupcakes might be the way to go.

“Absolutely,” Kirsty said. She pulled out a menu of party options and slid it across the counter. “Our newest are the filled cupcakes. They look nice, but they are a little pricey.”

“I’m not sure what Emerson wants to spend,” I said.

“Emerson Lake?” Kirsty asked, and I nodded. She looked toward the crowd. “She did the flowers for the wedding you’re all talking about.”

The woman behind me spoke up. “That’s right. She’s the hot flower person for events now. She’s known for her personalized service. Her trademark is decorating the cake with fresh flowers. She always does it on-site.”

“Even so, she had to dress like the rest of the servers,” Kirsty said. Caitlyn looked up from her customer and gave Kirsty a sharp look. Kirsty flinched and got back to business. “So, do any of those cupcakes work for you?”

All the choices were a little overwhelming, so I asked if I could take the menu and discuss it with Emerson and Lyla. I asked about how much time they needed and other details, and then bought a cornbread cupcake that almost passed as lunch.

One of the seats became available, and I sat down to eat my cupcake before going back to work. I was surprised when Kirsty abandoned the line and came out from behind the counter and over to me.

“Could you do me a favor?” she said, waving to the line that she’d be back there in a moment. She held out an earring. “Could you tell Adele I want another one like this?” She tried to hand it to me, but I was concerned that I might lose it. Instead, I offered to pass on the information to Adele. “Fine,” she said in an annoyed tone. “I’ll keep it in my cubby if she needs to see it.” She rushed back behind the counter, telling the fussing mob not to get their shorts in a knot. The blond woman who’d been behind me came up to me while she was waiting for her order. This time when we looked at each other, we recognized each other, at least sort of. She knew I worked at the bookstore, and I remembered her as the cookbook collector, but until now there had been no names involved. I gave her mine, and she introduced herself as Isa Susberg.

“Isa?” I said. “That’s an unusual name.”

“It’s really Isabella. I went by Bella for years, but then it became too common, thanks to some vampire books. I sure hope nobody names a character Isa,” she said with a smile. “I couldn’t help but overhear what you said about the parties you’re putting on. I’m hosting a baby shower and I was looking for something different. I think everyone is tired of the silly games. The idea of learning how to do something and actually making something sounds great. Could you handle a baby shower, or are you strictly kids’ parties?”

“We can do any kind of event,” I said. Unfortunately, she asked what kind of parties we’d done, and I had to tell her that Lyla’s party was actually the first one we were doing.

“Oh,” she said, sounding dubious. I sensed her backing away, and in an effort to keep the conversation going, I told her I’d been at the wedding, too. I asked if she was on the bride’s or groom’s side of the guest list.

“Actually, both. My husband does business with the Kingsleys’ company, and I know Jaimee Fields from our women’s club.” She confided that she’d been questioned by the police and asked to give a DNA sample. She wanted to know if I’d been asked for one.

“I came in after the event, so I guess they didn’t need one from me,” I said. What I didn’t tell her was that I’d been so close to so many crime scenes by now, I was pretty sure they kept my prints and DNA on file. Isa seemed uncomfortable with giving the sample.

“What if the cops make some kind of mistake?” she said in a concerned voice.

I assured her they were very careful about who they blamed and, besides, it would take forever to get any results for DNA stuff. By then they would probably have a suspect in custody.

“You didn’t happen to see anything strange?” I asked. It had become second nature to me now to ask those kinds of questions.

She gave me an odd look. “You must be the one I heard about. Tarzana’s answer to Nancy Drew. What’s this, the Case of the Wronged Wedding?”

I gave her an uncomfortable smile and said I’d been involved with some investigations, but that I never gave them names.

“I’ll tell you what I told the cops. I was there for a wedding. Everybody was standing around having drinks and appetizers. I wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen, so I wasn’t looking for anything weird. It just seemed like a regular wedding reception until the screaming started.”

I thought she was going to leave it at that, but she leaned in close. “I’m not a detective, amateur or otherwise, but I think there was something going on between the bride and groom. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he was holding her arm so tight that when he let go, it left a mark where his hand had been.”

CHAPTER 8

T
HURSDAY WAS WAITING OUTSIDE THE BOOKSTORE
when I finished for the day. She was more dressed up than I was used to seeing her. It seemed like she was going for a business look with the black jeans and rust-colored cotton jacket. She wore makeup down to lipstick, and her short brown hair looked styled. “Thank you for doing this,” she said as we walked to the parking lot and her car. “I need to handle this myself.” She glanced at me. “But maybe with some moral support.”

She’d come back to the bookstore after lunch with her father, and asked for my help. Part of the reason for their lunch together was to bring Thursday her lime green Volkswagen and to discuss her future. “I’m all for moving ahead and making a new start, but I can’t leave these loose ends hanging. I just want to talk to Jonah’s father and clear the air.”

I asked her again if she was sure she didn’t want to talk to her parents about it or have them accompany her, but she was insistent she wanted to do it this way.

“You’re an impartial bystander. My father would want to handle the whole thing, and my mother—she’s still so upset that Jackson Kingsley insisted the police detain her. You get the picture?”

I could see her point. Though I wasn’t totally impartial, either. I was curious to see what I could find out. She drove along Wells Drive past the turnoff for my house. I was glad she knew the way because as she turned from one twisty street to another, I lost track of where we were.

Finally she pulled into a steep driveway and cut the engine. I followed her up to a house that sat on a finger of land above Corbin Canyon.

The Kingsleys were expecting her and seemed surprised and not altogether pleased that she wasn’t alone. I checked out the house as they led us into the living room. It seemed to be all windows with a fabulous view of the valley. The furnishings were elegant without being gaudy, but it was a little too perfect for my taste. It didn’t look lived in.

Jackson Kingsley was a little too perfect for my taste, too. He somehow managed to make a pair of jeans look stiff and formal. Maybe it was the tucked-in dress shirt or the belt. His wife, who introduced herself to me as Margo, was friendlier, but then Jonah wasn’t her son, so there was less baggage.

“Why don’t you entertain Molly,” Jackson said to his wife, gesturing toward the living room. “Thursday and I can go into my office.” It was hard to read his voice, other than to notice how nice the deep quality was. He seemed cordial, but not kind. I looked to Thursday to see if she wanted me to stick with her.

“It’s a good idea for us to talk alone,” she said as she followed Jackson across the house. I had to admire the way she handled herself. She seemed to be ready to face him head-on.

Margo and I sat down in the living room. She poured herself a glass of red wine and offered me one. I declined, but noticed that she dropped several ice cubes in it. She saw me staring.

“It’s a habit I picked up from Jackson. He absolutely insists on ice in his wine.” She sat back down and glanced in the direction Thursday and her husband had gone. “He’s doing a good job of keeping it together, but he’s still broken up. Jonah was his only child,” she said.

“What about you? You’re Jonah’s stepmother?” I said, and she made a face.

“Stepmother sounds so awful. I never really thought of myself that way. I never thought of being any kind of mother to him. And Jonah wasn’t looking for a replacement. In case you didn’t know, his mother died when he was small. Jackson and I have only been married for five years. Jonah never lived with us.” She moved closer to me. “Jonah and I never really hit it off. He tried to bust things up with his father and me.” She suddenly realized what she’d said. “I didn’t mean that. Please forget I said it. What I really meant to say was that Jonah and I had a polite relationship. He was a wonderful young man.”

It was hard not to laugh when she called him a young man since I was pretty sure she was only ten years or so older than he was.

She drank some of her wine and quickly changed the subject to the bad job the police were doing. “Jackson is pretty upset with the police work. He’s pretty upset with everything. He’s being okay to Thursday right now, but I have to tell you, he blames her and her family for what happened to Jonah.”

“You mean he thinks that Thursday and her mother were involved in his son’s death?” I asked, and Margo nodded.

I asked her what she remembered from that night. She started to recite it as though she’d repeated the same thing many times. Someone had just replaced Jackson’s boutonniere. He had a glass of merlot and asked one of the servers for some ice cubes. The clumsy server put the ice in his glass, and then as Jackson was about to drink it, knocked it out of his hand, spilling the red wine all over their shirt and gloves.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“Jackson got another glass of merlot and a few minutes later all the screaming started.”

I asked if she knew who had put the fresh flowers in the lapel of Jackson’s jacket and she shrugged. “I wasn’t really paying attention,” she said, “and all those people looked the same anyway.” She thought a moment. “It was probably the same person who put the first boutonniere in his lapel before the ceremony.” I looked at her expectantly. “It was whoever did all the flowers.”

I wanted to ask her about Jonah’s job, but before I figured out how to segue into it, Thursday and Jackson returned. Neither of their expressions revealed how things had gone. Thursday just thanked him, and he gave her a wooden hug.

“What happened?” I said when we got into her car.

“I went there to tell him how sorry I was about everything. And to talk to him about returning the wedding gifts. I don’t know what the proper etiquette is in a situation like this, but it feels wrong to keep them. I let him know that I didn’t expect anything from Jonah’s estate.”

“That must have smoothed things over.”

Thursday drove on toward the bookstore. “I don’t think it really helped. He didn’t come right out and say it, but I think he believes that my mother and I plotted to kill Jonah and that my walking away from Jonah’s estate is just a ploy to throw everyone off the track.” She let out a heavy breath. “And we talked about Jonah’s funeral. Well, he talked about it. I have no say in it,” she said.

She drove me back to my car and followed me home. We both pulled into the driveway and parked so we wouldn’t block each other. “At least he said he’d have someone from his office handle returning the wedding gifts. I just don’t think I could deal with that right now.”

When we went inside, she took over the care of the animals, and I looked in the refrigerator for something to make for dinner.

“Let me help,” she said as she came to stand next to me. She was about my height and her demeanor had changed completely from when she’d picked me up. Then she had seemed hopeful somehow, but now she looked discouraged.

“I think we need comfort food,” I said. Her eyes brightened as she nodded in agreement. We finally made tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Please don’t tell my dad about tonight,” she said. “He told me not to talk to Jackson Kingsley. He was afraid I might make things worse with him, and I’m afraid I have.”