Knot Guilty (20 page)

Julie didn't seem to want to let it go and did a final pitch for herself, reminding CeeCee that her jacket had really been meant for the knitting competition. CeeCee just smiled and nodded, and I realized it was my chance to ask Julie about K.D.

CeeCee gave me a dirty look when I invited Julie to join us. “It must be strange for you without K.D. here. You knew her pretty well didn't you?”

“I can't believe she's gone,” Julie began. “She had such a presence.” Julie became animated. “I've been part of the elite group at the yarn studio for a long time. Even though Thea Scott ran the store, K.D. usually made an appearance when our group was there.”

I noticed that she talked as if she were a permanent part of the group and as if the other day hadn't happened. I wondered how to broach the subject of her basically being asked to leave. There was no subtle way, but I suddenly had an idea how to find out some other information.

“I know you were upset when K.D. refused to accept your entry in the knitting competition. Did you try to get her to reconsider?”

Julie slumped in her seat. “You have to understand. There have been some changes in my life lately and I needed to find some work.”

I didn't let on that Thea Scott had already told me about Julie's young children and about her husband losing his job.

“I got a position teaching knitting, and I sort of mentioned that I'd won a top prize for the last five years running.” She turned to me. “I never got a credential as a master knitter, so being a competition winner gave me credibility. But when I wasn't even accepted in the knitting category this year—” She let it trail off. “Yes, I did try to talk to her.”

“Then you went up to her suite?” I said.

Julie looked panicked. “Shush,” she said, looking around. “Okay, I did go up there. But K.D. wouldn't even listen. I should have known. She is, or was, a hard woman. Look how she treats her own daughter.”

“I thought Lacey handled her social media for her,” I said. I noticed that CeeCee had edged away when Julie wasn't looking, but Dinah was all ears.

“We talked about it in the knitting circle. Lacey is in her thirties and riding in her mother's shadow. The social media thing is just like a bone K.D. threw her. I think Lacey thought she should have had the position Delvin Whittingham has. And as much as K.D. might have embarrassed me, it's nothing compared to what she did to Audrey Stewart. Thea wanted to let her pay for those needles and brush it under the rug. What's the difference if it was really a mistake or she took the needles?”

I was pretty sure that Julie wasn't going to go back to discussing her trip to K.D.'s suite since she looked horrified after she'd admitted that she had gone there. Dinah came to the rescue.

“I'm just curious,” my friend said in a noninterrogating sort of tone, “when you were in K.D.'s suite, had the champagne been delivered?”

Julie looked mystified. Then she got it. “No, there was no champagne there.”

“What about a crochet hook?” I said, still trying to pin down the time Adele's hook had arrived. Julie shook her head. “No champagne and no hook.” She suddenly realized that CeeCee had left the table and any chance to plead her case was gone. She got up rather abruptly and left.

“And the plot thickens,” Dinah said. “K.D. certainly didn't have a fan club.”

“Sort of the opposite. She had a long list of people who weren't fans. And it keeps getting longer. You heard Julie. It doesn't even sound like there was a bond with her daughter. And she'd certainly backed Audrey Stewart into a corner. Who knows how far Audrey would go to stay out of jail. Mason hasn't said anything about it.” I reminded Dinah of his attorney-client privilege. “But even with his skills, the way things are now I wonder if he would have been able to keep her out of jail. Not that she seems to have trusted him to take care of things.” Dinah nodded. She knew that Audrey had shown up without Mason the morning after K.D. had died and actually worked everything out herself even though Mason would be the one to make sure that the yarn shop followed through and dropped the charges.

“I just don't get how Barry can still be so focused on it being Adele,” I said. “We better get back.” I got up and took our cups to the trash and we started to walk back. When we got to the front of the aisle and reached Rain's booth, I saw the long blue vest on the dress form and remembered the shawl I wanted to show Dinah. Her birthday might really be a long way off, but I was going to get it for her if she really liked it.

Rain was all smiles and a long way from how she'd seemed when we'd first met. “Business has been great,” she said. “You're lucky I still have that shawl you admired in the color you wanted.” She went to get the light gray shawl for Dinah. “And there's still tomorrow, though it's usually pretty quiet.” Dinah tried on the shawl and modeled it for me. It seemed perfect for her.

“We better get it before it's gone.” I looked at the thin group of garments on the racks now. Dinah put up a fight when I took out my credit card and said it was her birthday present—a very early birthday present. Rain had handed back my card and I was putting it away when the crowd along the front of the room thinned and I saw Barry come in and go in the direction of our booth.

Dinah saw him, too. “Maybe he rethought his deal.”

“Or maybe he listened to me and he's still investigating,” I said. Dinah knew I wanted to find out what was going on and urged me to go ahead, promising that she'd go back to the booth.

When I caught up with Barry, he had stopped against the wall at the front of the room. His suit and tie stood out. Even Mason had gone casual and was now wearing jeans and a sports jacket.

I skipped a greeting and got right down to business. “What are you doing here?”

His eyebrows shot up and his mouth had a hint of a smile. “That's quite a welcome.” Typical Barry. He didn't answer my question, so I did it for him.

“You listened to me, didn't you, and you're still investigating.”

Barry nodded. “Right, that's why I'm here.” I didn't expect him to agree so readily. It felt fake and I knew it wasn't the truth, particularly when I saw how his gaze was locked on our booth. Then I began to understand what was going on.

“It's Adele,” I said. “You're not going back on our deal, are you?”

He shook his head with a look of consternation. “I don't know why I ever agreed to that, but no, I'm not going back on it. I went out on a limb for you, er, Adele, and I don't want to look like an idiot if she suddenly takes off for Brazil.”

“You're kidding, right? It's Adele. You can't really think she's guilty or taking off for parts unknown.”

Barry looked directly at me. “My job is to look at the facts. Her hook was found at the murder scene. She was heard making threats, and she has no witnesses who can confirm where she was during the time the victim was killed. And now that we've tipped our hand, who knows what she'll do.”

I blew out my breath, prepared to do battle with his facts. “How exactly have you figured out when K.D. was killed?”

“You know that I don't have to discuss this with you,” he said. But he took out his notebook and flipped through the pages.

“We know she was alive when the champagne was delivered and for at least an hour after that, because according to Delvin Whittingham, she sent him some texts.” I opened my mouth and he continued. “And yes, we checked his phone and hers. It was a little harder with hers because it was actually in the water with her. The time of death was some time after that but before you found her.” He looked intently at me.

“Hmm,” Barry said. “You didn't have a problem with Ms. Kirby, did you?” The little lift of his eyebrows made it clear he was joking.

“Have you talked to Ruby Cline?” I said.

He looked down the front aisle toward the imposing Cline Yarn International booth and nodded. “We talked to all of the vendors. There was nothing to imply that Ms. Cline was involved.”

“How about this? She and K.D. Kirby were college friends, and I'm pretty sure K.D. stole Ruby's boyfriend and married him.”

Barry stopped me. “I'm not even going to ask how you found all that out. I know what you're doing. It's really nice how you're sticking up for Adele.”

“I'm just saying you should keep an open mind and keep investigating and not be so sure it's Adele.”

“Really?” Barry said. I followed his gaze and almost choked. Adele had stepped out of the booth and seemed to be in the middle of a hissy fit. She picked up a ball of yarn with some knitting needles in it and threw it on the ground and then kicked it for good measure.

Oops.

“You know Adele. She's just a loose cannon,” I said and he nodded.

“Exactly my thought,” he said. “A loose cannon who could lose her cool and do something on the spur of the moment, like throw a hair dryer in a bubble bath. I hope you understand that I can't let it be personal. I have to do my job.” He let down his cop demeanor. “That was always the problem with us. My job. The hours and the undependability.” In order to hear each other over the noise we'd ended up standing very close together. Close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body and smell the telltale fragrance of the lemon soap he used. He was so familiar and so distant at the same time. It felt very strange.

“There you are, Sunshine,” Mason said, stopping next to me. He was all smiles, though I saw his expression darken when he looked at Barry.

Barry didn't wait for Mason to say anything and just explained he was there on official business.

“I was going for a coffee run,” Mason said, putting his arm on my shoulder in a subtly possessive gesture. “Would either of you like one?”

“No, thank you,” Barry said, straightening and stepping away. He took up his post a few feet down.

Mason didn't waste a moment talking about Barry but went right into how nice it was that we had a moment together. “It's torture seeing you and not being able to spend time with you,” he said. He glanced at his charge in the distance. Audrey Stewart was sitting alone knitting in the Knit Style booth. “I can't be gone long.” He turned to me. “How's it going?”

I assumed he meant the investigation and started to talk about Adele being a suspect and how absurd it was. “There are so many other people it could be. Even your—”

Mason looked crushed and put up his hand to stop me. “Sunshine, say no more.” He gave me a quick hug. “I can't wait until the situation is settled.” And then he was gone.

“Are you crazy?” I said to Adele. I'd rushed back to the booth to try to do damage control and leaned down to pick up the abused ball of yarn. “You couldn't have done anything worse for yourself. There I was proclaiming your innocence to Barry and he looks over and sees you attacking some yarn and knitting needles.”

Adele hung her head for a moment before she looked up with a big smile. “You were defending me. Thank you.” She grabbed me in a bear hug that squeezed the air out of my lungs.

It appeared that even with her almost arrest, Adele still had no sense of how much trouble she was in. Her story was she'd never gone up to talk to K.D., that the hook had been planted and there was no way anyone could really believe she was guilty of anything.

“You do realize that innocent people are found guilty all the time,” I said. It seemed like that finally got to her. “Why were you throwing the yarn, anyway? It's hardly very professional.”

Dinah had joined us and explained for Adele. “Leonora Humphries left a tote bag for her. There was a note in it saying that if Adele really cared about Eric, she would get out of his life. That there was a reason people who crocheted were called hookers and if Adele wanted to help herself, she should take up the real yarn craft of knitting like her fellow crocheter Rhoda. And to start Adele off on a new life, she'd included some yarn and needles along with a book called
The Average Joe's Guide to Knitting
.” Dinah took a breath and shrugged. “Adele didn't take it very well.”

“I didn't know there was an
Average Joe's Guide
to anything beyond criminal investigation,” I said. Dinah laughed.

Rhoda walked toward us, but when she got near Adele, she made a wide swath away from her and then spoke to her. “All I did was take a couple of knitting classes this weekend. It doesn't make me a traitor to our craft.” She joined Dinah and me and opened her oversize tote to show the projects she'd started in the three classes she'd taken. The knitting needles clanked together and Adele flinched.

“What's wrong with being ambi-stitcheral?” She threw a hopeless nod at Adele before turning back to us. “I'm going home to change and pick up Hal. He wants to see those silver knitting needles. You know he works in jewelry, right? He's going to see if there's a way to make us some silver jeweled hooks.” She looked back at Adele. “I hope you heard that. I'm trying to figure out a way for us to have fancy crochet hooks.”

Adele looked a little dazed and rushed to join us. “I'm sorry for calling you a yarn traitor. It's just . . .” Adele began to cry. I'd never seen her cry. She could barely admit to having a vulnerable side. “I know Leonora has poisoned Eric's mind about me. He's the yin for my yang. Getting arrested was the final blow.” We tried to console her and tell her we were sure she was wrong.

“He was supposed to come tonight,” she said, “but he sent me a text that he had to cancel because he had to work.” She struck a dramatic heartbroken pose. “It's just an excuse. I know it is.”

“It will be okay. We'll all sit together at the banquet,” I said.

“And I'll be the only one with an empty chair next to them. Dinah is coming with Commander, Rhoda is bringing her husband, and Elise for sure is bringing Logan. I heard Sheila even has a date. Eduardo's got his girlfriend. Everyone has someone,” she said with a sad pout. Then she stared at me. “Wait a second, Pink, who are you coming with?”

“I'm going solo,” I said. “Mason is on duty with Audrey.” I mentioned how he'd just taken a few minutes away from her to do a coffee run. My late husband Charlie had worked in public relations, so I was familiar with the drill when it came to dealing with celebrities. No matter how exalted your position, theirs was higher, which meant sometimes you had to be an escort or even do gofer duty. “Mason has to protect her from herself, making sure she doesn't make some offhand comment about the knitting needles or maybe something else.”

Adele's eyes widened. “You mean he thinks she's the one who threw the hair dryer in the tub?”

I shrugged. “He hasn't said it, but then he hasn't said anything about her. He can't. But I think he knows she really shoplifted the needles and that she might have killed K.D.”

Adele seemed a little less woebegone when she heard I was dateless and was relieved to hear I had a suspect in mind. “You can leave if you want,” I said to Dinah, Rhoda and Adele. “I'm staying in the booth until the marketplace closes. I brought my clothes with me.”

“I did, too,” Adele said. “Good, we can change together.” I noticed that Dinah rolled her eyes at Adele's comment, then wished me luck before she and Rhoda left.

The crowd grew thinner and thinner as the afternoon wore on until finally the only people going by were other vendors or the support staff for the show. Mason waved and said he'd see me later as he followed Audrey to the door. All the while Barry wandered around the perimeter, keeping an eye on Adele.

I was glad to finally put the cloth covering over the booth and head upstairs, even if it was with Adele. The room showed signs of a lot of people using it as a pit stop over the weekend—some spare vampire parts, a receipt showing the entrelac knitting class Rhoda had taken and a black suitcase. I went to have a look at it, but Adele pulled it back. “It's personal,” she said.

I decided I was never going to take a road trip with Adele. Sharing the room with her, even for that short time, made me crazy. The banquet was black tie optional, and I had definitely gone for the optional. A basic black dress and low heels were as far as I went. Adele wasn't satisfied and tried to pin crocheted flowers all over the bodice. We settled on one red mohair rose in the neckline center of the tank-style dress. I redid my makeup and jazzed it up by adding eye shadow and a lot of blush. I fluffed up my shoulder-length brown hair. It wasn't straight or curly—but it certainly had a mind of its own. I finished the look with a black mohair shawl that had some sparkle.

Adele had to give herself a facial and then use heat rollers on her hair before she got dressed. I was expecting some kind of over-the-top evening wear but was surprised to see a hanger with black pants and a black tunic. For Adele to forgo all color seemed very, very strange.

Since Adele seemed to be all over the room, I stepped out in the corridor to see if I could find a vending machine and get some bottled water. I glanced down the hall. At the end, the double doors of K.D.'s suite were still yellow-taped off. As I was looking at the doors, I was surprised to see a room service waiter pushing a cart that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He came toward me checking room numbers as he went.

I stopped him to ask about the vending machine and couldn't help but ask how he'd done the appearing out of nowhere act. He took me back down the hall and showed me the alcove that seemed to be an entry area for the suite. He pointed out the patterned wallpaper on the left. When I still didn't get it, he showed me a button that seemed to be part of the pattern. He pushed it and the wall slid open, exposing the service elevator.

“You aren't by chance the person who brought up the champagne. . . .” I didn't finish but instead pointed at the doors with the yellow tape. He swallowed so hard, I actually heard it, and then he gave me a small nod as an answer.

I crossed my fingers for luck. “Did you notice a large wooden hooklike thing and some yarn on the table?” I asked.

“You mean like a crochet hook?” he said, and my hopes shot up. For a second anyway. “My girlfriend crochets. She keeps trying to get me to try. It's supposed to be good for your nerves, and ah, sexy.” He leaned close. “She dragged me to that
Caught by a Kiss
movie, and Hugh Jackman sure has a way with a hook.” He went on about the Anthony character and how he'd made it seem cool for guys to handle a hook. I finally had to stop him and get his mind back on the champagne delivery. “Let's see,” he said, looking at the ceiling as he tried to think back. “The cops were more interested in what time I delivered it and if there was anyone else in the room. I said a woman with a knitted headband was just leaving when I got there.” He went back to trying to conjure up the scene in his mind's eye.

“I remember pushing some magazines over on the coffee table before I set down the bucket and the glasses. And a hotel key. They call them keys, but they're really plastic cards. But that was it. No yarn or hook.”

He'd started to push the cart down the hall, and I walked with him. “Did you see anyone loitering around the hall when you came out?” He shook his head and said the cops had asked the same question.

“I didn't know she was going to be murdered,” he said, “so I was just trying to do my job and get out of there.”

“Who has access to that elevator you showed me?”

“Guests aren't supposed to use it, but there's really nothing stopping them.” He began to pick up speed. “I better get this delivered. Nobody likes lukewarm soup.”

“I wouldn't want to get you in trouble,” I said. “Thanks for answering my questions.” He gave me a funny look.

“I get it, you're some kind of undercover investigator, right?”

“Yes, but way undercover, so if anyone asks you about me, you don't know anything.”

He seemed to like the intrigue and promised that it was just between us. “Crocheters rule,” he said as he rushed down the corridor.

I didn't really think he'd mention me or my questions to Barry or Detective Heather, but why take a chance. I glanced back the way we'd come, wondering about that service elevator and where it went. The room service waiter was way down the hall now and not paying any attention to me. I quickly went back to the elevator. If he hadn't pointed out it was there, I never would have seen it. Even so I had to feel for the button because it completely blended in with the floral wallpaper. It was a little creepy that there was no noise as the wall panel slid away and the elevator door opened.

Once I was inside, it was just like a regular elevator, though large enough to bring up furniture. I hit the ground floor button, and the elevator began its descent. It came to a silent stop and the door opened onto an industrial-looking corridor. As I walked into it, I smelled food and heard the clatter of noise from the kitchen. I was somewhere in the middle of the long hallway. Disoriented, with no idea what was where, I picked a direction. When I came to the end, I pushed through the doors and found I was right outside the entrance to the marketplace, which was completely deserted. I retraced my steps and then continued on to the other outlet of the corridor. This time it wasn't silent or empty. I was suddenly in the lobby, not far from the registration desk and the bank of elevators.

“Where did you come from?” Barry said, reaching out his arms to stop me before I backed over his feet. His voice startled me, and I flinched, wondering if he somehow knew I'd been snooping. When I recovered, I saw that he was leaning against a pillar near the bank of guest elevators.

I did what he did so much of the time. I answered his question with one of my own.

“What are you doing here?”

“What do you think I'm doing here?” he said. I shook my head with consternation and noticed there was just the slightest twinkle in his eyes. He knew what I was doing and was doing it back.

“It's not about Adele, is it?”

“What do you think?” This time it was kind of a question-statement combination.

“You don't seriously think she is going to try to take off for Switzerland?” I said.

His face said it all. He thought she might. “She's much more upset at Eric's mother,” I said. “By the way, the reason she was manhandling that yarn was because it was a gift from Mrs. Humphries along with a note about how unsuitable she thinks Adele is for her son. I guess it's standard operating procedure for mothers to think someone isn't right for their sons. But maybe not to that extreme. I can just imagine what your mother would think about me.”

Barry's face softened. “She would love you, particularly for the way you treat Jeffrey. And she would think you were way too good for me. She doesn't like me being a cop.”

The elevator door opened, and Barry's attention went right to it as he watched it unload.

“Believe me, she's still upstairs. You know Adele. She never does anything halfway.” I caught myself before I continued, realizing I was feeding right into his concerns.

“It doesn't bother you that Mason's work is requiring him to hang out with a young, hot actress?”

“How about young, hot suspect,” I said, hoping to drop the idea into Barry's mind.

“Aha, so it does bother you.” I realized he'd taken it the wrong way entirely and thought I was mentioning her possibility as a suspect because it did bother me. And if I tried to explain more, it would just reinforce what he thought.