You Better Knot Die (2 page)

I pulled off the last of the yellow tape that was still flapping on my front porch post as I finally dragged my suitcase inside. Barry was already on the phone calling the door contractor the cops used to repair mistakenly knocked down doors. In the meantime, he’d do a temporary fix. I had no doubt he’d be able to do it. Barry could fix anything, and besides, this wasn’t the first time my door had been knocked in by mistake.

“You couldn’t have used your key?” I said, looking at the light coming in through the broken door panel.

Barry made an uncomfortable face. “I guess I forgot about the key.” He sighed as he checked out the battered door. When he turned back toward me, his face was full of emotion and he took me in his arms. “I heard body at your house and I lost it.” He hugged me tighter. “I’m glad I was wrong.”

“You and me both,” I said. I apologized for not leaving him a message. “It’s just that I’ve been so busy. The holidays are always busy at the bookstore. We stay open later and there are more customers. And now we’re adding the yarn department. And there’s the launch party to plan for. It’s the Super Bowl of book events. I mean, how lucky can Shedd and Royal get? The Blood and Yarn series is the hottest of the hot.” I caught a blank look on Barry’s face. “You don’t know about it, do you?” I barely waited for Barry to shake his head before continuing. “The books follow the life of a supersexy vampire who uses crochet to control his blood-lust issues. The latest,
Caught Under the Mistletoe
, comes out next week. The trucks are delivering the books at midnight to bookstores all over, but only Shedd and Royal will have the author, A. J. Kowalski. But here’s the really exciting part: A. J. Kowalski is just a pseudonym and nobody knows who the author really is. It turns out he or she lives in Tarzana and has decided to reveal their true identity and sign books at the launch party. Do you realize what that means?” Barry nodded.

“I think it means you ought to take a breath or maybe two,” he said. “You’re starting to hyperventilate.” He glanced back toward the living room as though looking for something, then his eyes grew concerned. “Where are the dogs?”

“And cats,” I said, correcting him, referring to the newest residents. I explained that since my younger son, Samuel, owner of the cats, was on the road playing backup and I’d been in a hurry, I’d just boarded all of them. I took a few more breaths to make sure my breathing was back to normal. “So, how long has Bradley Perkins been missing?” I asked and felt his body stiffen.

“Look, babe, I know you like playing the amateur sleuth, but stay out of it.”

“Play?” I said with a darkening expression. “I wouldn’t call it play; I’ve solved a few murders.”

Barry stepped back, shaking his head. “Here we go again. Okay, babe, you’re not going to listen to me, but I’ll say it anyway. I’m sure the officers who took the report are dealing with whatever needs to be done. Besides, with all you have to do, why take on anything else? I’d like to have dibs on any spare moments.”

I didn’t say anything in response. He knew what my silence meant. He sighed and said he had to get back to work. It isn’t that I really planned to get involved. I just didn’t want to say something I might end up not meaning. My phone was ringing as he went back to his Crown Victoria.

“Mother,” my son Peter said. Only he could put so much disapproval in one word. My older son is a television agent, very ambitious and very concerned about his image. “What’s going on?” Before I could answer, Peter told me that something had shown up on YouTube that featured me and a lot of cops. Apparently he had some kind of alert set up that notified him if anything came up about any of his clients or me. I explained quickly, but when I got to the part about Bradley Perkins being missing, I heard Peter’s breathing change.

“Mother, you’re not going to get involved, are you?” When he got dead air as an answer, he groaned. In the past, some of my sleuthing efforts had ended up on the news, causing him all sorts of embarrassment.

“Barry said the same thing,” I said, finally. My son groaned again. Peter didn’t like Barry. At first I had thought it was just the idea of my dating he objected to, but when Peter kept trying to push me together with an attorney he’d been dealing with, I realized Barry in particular was the problem. I don’t know why I kept trying to smooth things over. It wasn’t like Barry was going to be Peter’s stepfather or anything.

When I got off the phone, I gave myself a few minutes to recover and then went back outside. The street was quiet and there was no hint of all the action that had been going on a short time earlier. The video camera kid was leaning against the wrought iron mailbox across the street. He looked up when I came out. He was at the end of his teens, and someday all his parts would probably fit together, but for now his features were too big for his face and his body was long and gangly. His black hair was tousled and deliberately cut to be uneven. When he saw me look toward the Perkins’ house, he shook his head.

“Not home,” he called. “She left right after the cops.” I walked across the street to where he was standing. Though his family had lived down the block for years, I really didn’t know them. I introduced myself and he stuck out his hand. “Ryder Lowenstein.” I asked if he’d posted something on YouTube and he seemed pleased at the question. “Pretty cool, huh? I sent it to the channel three news, too, though since there wasn’t a real body, I don’t think they’re going to use it.”

“So what do you know about Bradley Perkins’ disappearance?” I asked, glancing toward the neighboring yard. In the daylight the Santa’s sleigh and reindeer was almost invisible. The lawn decoration was really just an outline with colored lights. Icicle lights ran across the front of the roof and then hung down to the ground next to several boxes with more lights. Someone had obviously been in the midst of putting them up. Some pots of crimson poinsettias were on the front porch. The holiday decorations seemed at odds with the thick green lawn and palm tree in the front yard. But this was the San Fernando Valley and winter was when everything was the most green and lush.

At one time the houses along the two-block stretch had all been similar, kind of like brothers and sisters. They were ranch-style with mullioned windows and pastel wood siding, but over time, between remodeling and additions, the houses were now barely even cousins. The Perkins’ house had been given what I called a Mediterranean makeover. It had the trademark terra-cotta tile roof, flesh-colored stucco and an entrance porch that was too tall and too grand to be proportionate to the rest of the single-story house. The rectangular-divided pane windows had been replaced with tall arched ones.

“Not much. I tried interviewing the cops, but they blew me off. Something about not having press credentials.” Ryder shrugged. “But right after Mrs. Perkins left, a black sedan pulled up,” Ryder said. “A man and woman both dressed in suits went to the door. I don’t think they were cops, but they looked official. They hung around for a few minutes, looking in the windows and stuff, but finally left.” He looked up and down the street as if checking for any action and then turned back to me.

“Who was the cop in the suit?” Ryder asked. When I didn’t respond right away, he pushed the question. “He hung around too long for it to be official.”

Yikes, now I had a neighborhood busybody kid to answer to. I just used the boyfriend word, though for a moment I considered trying
relationship partner
.

“Boyfriend?” Ryder snickered.

“I couldn’t agree more that it’s a silly title, but what else can I call him?” Ryder nodded with understanding.

“It must be tough when you’re old and dating. I suppose you’re hoping he’ll want to upgrade you to fiancée.”

“Thanks for making me feel like I’m a hundred,” I said with a tiny groan. “And no, I’m not looking for an upgrade in title.” I made a move to go, but Ryder kept up with the questions. No doubt he was practicing his interviewing skills. The next thing I knew I was telling him how I’d been married to Charlie for twenty-five years when he died. And now I was enjoying being free. “Or as free as you can be with two sons, one living with you and the other constantly questioning every decision you make. And a mother who’s a backup singer—scratch that, was a backup singer, and now is back with her singing group, The She La Las, and enjoying a second chance at a career. A mother who also might show up at any time. And that’s not counting the two dogs and the two cats. It doesn’t matter that one of the dogs officially belongs to the cop in the suit and just resides at my house or that the two cats really belong to my son.” I looked Ryder in the eye. “And you know who really takes care of all of them.”

Ryder was beginning to get the too-much-information look on his face, but I kept going. I got his attention back when I mentioned being part of the Tarzana Hookers. Once he heard that
hookers
referred to crochet, his eyes began to glaze over again. But when I mentioned my job at the bookstore, he nodded. “That’s why you look familiar. I knew I recognized you from somewhere. You’re the one who puts on the author events. I came to the one for that book
Keeping Your Balls in the Air
.” I smiled, uncomfortably remembering that evening. The book was about teaching yourself to juggle and the author had given a lesson. Let’s just say it didn’t go well. Imagine a bunch of people stumbling into each other while throwing balls around. “I have a tape of it, if you’d like to see,” Ryder said. I declined. Going through my disasters once was enough.

“I’m coming to the vampire book launch party.” He held up his tiny camera. “I bet my video will get a zillion hits. If only I could get on the YouTube top ten.” He gazed skyward with a dreamy look.

Then Ryder offered to show me his video portfolio, but I told him maybe later. Time was ticking away and I had to pick up the animals.

 

 

DRIVING ONTO THE CAMPUS OF WALTER BEASLEY Community College was like driving into the country. Calling it by its full name was really old school. These days everybody called it WBCC (pronounced
Wibk
). Did it really take so much longer to actually say the letters? I thought all this shortening things was due to texting, which I didn’t get, either. Instead of all that typing, why not just call? It was easier, faster and less prone to misunderstanding. I guess that made me a dinosaur, though these days it was probably shortened to
dsaur
. The campus of WBCC was set on four hundred acres, most of which was set aside as an agricultural school. So there were fields of crops, livestock, barns and a farm store. I pulled into the parking lot close to the traditional classroom buildings, walked through a forest of tall pines trees to the bungalows and checked my watch. I’d timed it just right. As I stopped at the end bungalow, the door flew open and students flooded out. Dinah Lyons came out last, talking to a girl dressed in what was probably the current fashion, though to me it looked strictly bag lady. Dinah finished with the girl and rushed over to me. As always there was an aura of energy about her.

“Just a little longer, then I give them their finals and send them on their way and we all get to enjoy the holidays,” she said with a happy smile. Dinah taught freshman English to what could best be called reluctant students. WBCC accepted everyone and Dinah got them raw from high school. She had a reputation for turning newbies into real college students—if they survived the semester. She was also my best friend. “I’ve got news,” Dinah said.

“Me, too,” I said. There was a ministandoff as we each urged the other to go first. Dinah won and I told her about my homecoming.

“Geez, not again with your front door.” Then she laughed and touched my arm. “It’s lucky you have a sense of humor. Which I’m sure was sorely tested during your trip with Adele.”

“That’s the truth,” I said with a laugh. Dinah knew all about the difficulties I had with her. Although Adele had been at the bookstore longer than me, and had coveted the job of event coordinator, Mrs. Shedd had hired me instead. Adele had tried to upend me many times. Just when it seemed Adele had finally accepted that I was the event coordinator, Mrs. Shedd decided to add the yarn department and asked me to oversee that as well. I’d be the first to say that Adele was much more qualified to run it than me. She had years more experience crocheting and knew much more than I did about yarn. There was just one stumbling block. Maybe calling it a stumbling mountain was more accurate.

Adele had a problem with knitters. It didn’t matter that I now understood there was a real basis for it from her past. If Adele ran the department, there would be no needles, no knitting accessories or pattern books. No mention of the word knit. All swatches hanging on the yarn bins would be crocheted. Mrs. Shedd was a business woman and didn’t want to leave out customers. So she put me in charge, with Adele as my assistant. “It’s like when I’d first started working at the bookstore all over again,” I said.

“I don’t suppose Adele acknowledges there’s a real reason Mrs. Shedd put you in charge of the new department,” Dinah said.

I choked on a laugh. “Are you kidding? You know Adele; she just thinks she’s gotten the shaft, again.” We’d gotten to my car. Dinah was riding shotgun while I went to pick up the animals. Thanks to spending time with my pets, Dinah was finally becoming an animal person. Before, her idea of a pet had been maybe a goldfish.

“Do I know the neighbor who disappeared?” Dinah said as she pulled on her seat belt and I started the motor of the greenmobile. I called my Mercedes 190E that because of its rare blue-green color.

“You’ve met Emily Perkins. I brought her to a few Hookers’ meetings when they first moved in. Then she realized she wasn’t into handicrafts. Remember that green afghan I brought into the group last week? It belongs to her. She couldn’t even tell if it was knitted or crocheted. Bradley Perkins is the original nice guy. The kind of guy who sees you pulling your garbage cans to the street on trash night and not only comes over to help, but insists on doing it for you. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would disappear.”