Seams Like Murder (24 page)

“Thank you for everything,” I’d said as we stood in the entrance hall. At that moment, Samuel came in the front door with his suitcase and locked gazes with Barry.

“What’s going on?” my son asked.

“Your mother will tell you all about it. She had quite a day.” Just before he went out the door, Barry had turned back. “I’m glad I could be there for you.”

I didn’t bring up anything about Barry to Mason now, but I did mention that my mother’s tour had ended and my son Samuel was home, so at last I’d have some help with the animals.

Mason walked over and put his arms around me. “I am
so glad you’re all right. Even when you try to stay out of things, you end up in the middle of them.”

“About that,” I said. “You need to know that I didn’t take your suggestion to stay out of the investigation. I understand where your head is. You’re just about getting your client off.” I paused for a moment, knowing he probably wasn’t going to like what I was about to say. “And I am all about getting the bad guy caught, no matter who he is.”

Mason grinned. “I think we’re going to have some interesting conversations in our future. Speaking of which, I have something to tell you.” He leaned close and then looked to make sure no one was in earshot. “I found out why Brooklyn left San Diego in such a hurry to take care of me. Her life fell apart when she lost both her job and her boyfriend within a week. The good news is, she has a new plan. She liked working with me for those couple of days that Tony was a client, and she’s decided to go to law school here,” he said. I nodded in acknowledgment.

“I don’t think you understand,” Mason said. “She wants to go to school here in the Valley and stay here with me.”

“Oh,” I said.

“There’s more,” Mason said. He paused just like I had, and I had a feeling it was for the same reason. He knew I wasn’t going to be happy with what he had to say. “Jaimee says she’s a changed person after yesterday. She doesn’t want to go back to that house, ever. The
Housewives
people were on the phone with her this morning, rolling out the red carpet for her to come back—they didn’t even care when she said she wasn’t going to be living on Mulholland Drive anymore. Jaimee had out-drama-ed them all.”

“So, you’re trying to tell me she’s going to be staying here for the moment—or a lot of moments.” Mason nodded and watched as my expression wilted.

“Ah, but I saved the best for last. They’re here, but we can go somewhere else, for the weekend, anyway.” He kicked his leg out and shook it to show he had full use. “I was thinking a villa at the Del Coronado hotel. It’s the off-season, so we’ll have the island to ourselves. We can walk on the beach and finally watch a sunset.”

“That sounds great. It’ll be the calm before the storm of Yarn University next week,” I said. “When do we leave?”

Mason called Spike and grabbed his car keys. “How about right now? Before anything can happen to stop
us.”

Easy to make

S
UPPLIES
:

2 skeins Louisa Harding La Salute, dark blue, 79% kid mohair, 21% nylon (115 yds, 105 mtrs, 25 g)

1 skein Knit One Crochet Too Douceur et Soie, dark blue, 70% baby mohair, 30% silk (225 yd, 205 mtrs, 25 g)

1 skein Trendsetter Super Kid Seta, shade, 70% super kid mohair, 30% seta silk (230 yds, 212 m, 25 g)

Crochet hook P-15/10.00 mm

Tapestry needle

Stitch markers (optional)

Gauge is not important to this project.

Dimensions before sewn together are approximately 10 inches by 44 inches.

Note: Three strands of yarn are crocheted together throughout. It is easier to see the stitches on either end if they are marked with stitch markers.

Chain 21 using all three yarns.

Row 1: Single crochet in the 2nd chain from hook. Single crochet across. 20 stitches.

Row 2: Chain 1, turn. Single crochet across. 20 stitches.

Repeat Row 2 until piece is approximately 44 inches long, fasten off and weave in ends.

Finishing:

Lay flat and fold so that the A and B on the side match the A and B on the bottom. Use tapestry needle with all three strands of yarn to sew the matched A to B together. Weave in ends.

To wear, slip over head and arrange so point is in the middle.

Easy to make

S
UPPLIES
:

1 skein Lion Brand Homespun, Windsor, bulky weight, 98% acrylic, 2% polyester (185 yd, 169 m, 6 oz, 170 g)

Hook P-15/10.00 mm

Tapestry needle

Stitch markers (optional)

Gauge is not important to this project.

Dimensions before sewn together are approximately 10 inches by 44 inches.

Note: It is easier to see the stitches on either end if they are marked with stitch markers.

Chain 23

Row 1: Double crochet in 4th chain from hook (counts as 2 double crochets). Double crochet across. 21 stitches made.

Row 2: Chain 3 (counts as first double crochet). Double crochet across. 21 stitches.

Repeat Row 2 until the piece is approximately 44 inches long, fasten off and weave in the ends.

Finishing:

Lay flat and fold so that the A and B on the side match the A and B on the bottom. Use tapestry needle with yarn to sew the matched A to B together. Weave in ends.

To wear, slip over head and arrange so point is in the middle.

Package of Lawry’s Beef Stew Spices & Seasonings mix

2 tablespoons olive oil

12-ounce bag frozen pearl onions

½ cup sliced leeks

1 cup celery hearts, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 cups mushrooms, sliced

1 cup baby carrots

2 cups gold potatoes, cut in quarters

8 half cobs of corn

6 cups water

10-ounce bag frozen baby peas

Sour cream for garnish

In a large pot or Dutch oven, mix the seasoning mix, oil, onions, leeks, celery and mushrooms. Cook, stirring often, for approximately 10 minutes. Add the carrots, potatoes, corn
and water. Bring to a boil then simmer for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Turn off the heat and add the baby peas. Cover the pan and let sit for 10 minutes. Add a generous tablespoon of sour cream as garnish. Serves 8.

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons non-aluminum baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons butter

1 cup buttermilk

Sift the dry ingredients together. Work the butter into the flour mixture until crumbly using a pastry cutter, fingers or food processor. Make a well in center. Pour in buttermilk all at once. Stir until the flour is just moistened. Drop by spoonfuls into muffin tin. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and bake for approximately 10 minutes. Makes 12
biscuits.

Turn the page for a preview of Betty Hechtman’s next Yarn Retreat Mystery . . .

G
ONE
WITH THE
W
OOL

Coming in July 2016 from Berkley Prime
Crime

Why hadn’t I realized this problem before? The bright red tote bag with Yarn To Go emblazoned on the front fell over as I tried to cram in the long knitting loom for my upcoming yarn retreat. My selection of round looms rolled across the floor before falling flat on the floor. The other long looms scattered at my feet. Julius, my black cat, watched from his spot on the leather love seat in the room I called my office as I gathered up the odd-looking pieces of equipment.

I might be able to get them into the bag for my meeting, but it would simply not work to hand out such ungainly and heavy bags to my retreaters as they registered.

Julius blinked his yellow eyes at me. “I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “This is the fourth retreat I’m putting on and I should have figured this out already.” The plan had been that after my meeting, I was going to pick up the boxes of looms and stuff the bags for the retreaters.

I looked around the small room, as if there might be an answer for me. There were reminders of my aunt’s handiwork with yarn everywhere. My favorite was the crocheted lion who patrolled from the desk, though his face was too amusing to appear threatening. And then there was the sample of my handiwork that I was the most proud of. It had taken me a while, but I’d finished making the Worry Doll from the last retreat. I loved the doll and the concept. You were supposed to give her your worries and she would take care of them. I’d given mine a face with an attitude, which made her appear up for the job.

“Worry Doll, how about some help with this?” I pointed at the bag, which I had smartly propped up at my feet when I’d refilled it. It fell over on its side anyway.

“I’m talking to cats and dolls,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief as I grabbed the handles and lugged the bag out of the room.

Julius followed me to the kitchen, making a last play for a serving of stink fish. I started to ignore it, but such a little effort made him so happy, and eventually I gave in. The can of smelly cat food was wrapped in plastic and then in three layers of plastic bags, yet somehow the strong smell still got through. I held my nose before giving him a dainty portion and then starting the involved job of rewrapping and resealing it. He was busily chewing as I went out the back door.

Julius and I had only been companions for a short time and he was the first pet I had ever had—though I was beginning to think he viewed me as the pet. He had definitely chosen me, and he seemed to be doing a good job of training me to give him the care he desired. I’d wanted him to stay inside initially, but he’d had no intention of being strictly an indoor cat and had pushed open a window to show me how
to leave it open just enough so that he could come and go as he pleased.

Outside, the sky was a flat white. That was the average weather here on the tip of the Monterey Peninsula. White sky, cool weather, no matter the month. It just happened to be October, though you couldn’t tell by looking around. There were no trees with golden leaves—mostly, there were Monterey pines and Monterey cypress, which never lost their foliage and stayed a dark green year round. The cypress tree on the small strip of land in front of my house had a typical horizontal shape from the constant wind. Somehow it made me think of someone running away with their hair flowing behind them. It seemed funny, since I had run here to Cadbury by the Sea, California.

My name is Casey Feldstein and to make a long story short, I’d relocated to my aunt’s guest house in Cadbury when I was faced with moving back in with my high achieving parents (both doctors) because I was once again out of a job. Sadly, my aunt had been killed in a hit and run several months after I moved in. She’d left me everything—a house, a yarn retreat business and, as it was turning out, a life.

I might have moved almost two thousand miles away from Chicago, but that didn’t mean I had severed my ties with my parents or, I was sorry to admit, my need for their approval. It still stung when my mother ended our conversations with her usual, “When I was your age I was a wife, a doctor, and a mother, and you’re what?”

So, maybe I was thirty-five and it’s true that I’ve had a rather spotty career history that, until recently, seemed to be headed nowhere. Of all the things I had done, my two favorites were the temp work at the detective agency, where I was either an assistant detective or a detective’s assistant, depending on who you talked to, and my position as a dessert chef
at a small bistro. I would have never left either of those jobs—they left me.

Though my mother had a hard time acknowledging it, these days I did have an answer for her usual comment. I had taken over my aunt’s yarn retreat business, even though I hadn’t known a knitting needle from a crochet hook when I’d started. And I’d turned my baking skills into a regular job as the dessert chef at the Blue Door restaurant, plus I baked muffins for the assorted coffee spots in Cadbury.

I started to walk past the converted garage that had been my home when I’d first moved here and then made a last-minute decision to go inside and check the supply of tote bags, as if the new ones I’d had made up might somehow be bigger than the one I was carrying.

The flat light that made it through the cloud cover was coming in the windows and illuminating the interior. The stack of bags sat on the counter that served as a divider between the tiny kitchen area and living space. I folded one out and measured it against my stuffed one. No surprise, they were the same size. As I flattened the bag and put it back, I noticed the worn manila envelope that had been sitting there for months. I still hadn’t figured out what to do about its contents.

I hadn’t told anyone about the information the envelope contained, not even my best friend Lucinda Thornkill, who owned the Blue Door with her husband Tag, so there was no one to go to for advice.

There was no reason to deal with it now, except to procrastinate from dealing with the bag issue. I guess there was
one
person I could go to for advice. It was two hours later in Chicago and, even though it was Saturday, my ex-boss at the detective agency was probably leaning back in his office chair considering his lunch options, which meant it was a good time to call.

I punched in the number and he answered on the third ring.

“Hi Frank,” I said. Before I could say more he interrupted.

“Oh no, Feldstein. Don’t tell me there’s another body in that town of yours, with the name that sounds like a candy bar.” It was true that when I had called him in the past, it was to get advice about a death—well, a murder in town, to be exact.

“No, no, Frank. No dead bodies this time. All the citizens of Cadbury by the Sea are alive—as far as I know. I wanted to ask your advice on something else.”

“Okay, Feldstein. I get it. You’ve got boy trouble again. Shoot.”

I laughed. I’d never called him about boy trouble, as he called it, or ever would. “It’s something else,” I began. “Do you remember I told you I had some information that would shake up the town? Well, now I have even more. I know who it is—”

“Who what is, Feldstein? You’re going to have to bring me up to speed if you want my advice. You do know I have a life here that has nothing to do with that town you’re living in, right?”

I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to start from scratch, but I could see his point. What was going on in Cadbury was hardly of earth-shaking importance to him. I began by telling him about the Delacorte family, who were the local royalty. The family owned lots of property around town. Vista Del Mar, the hotel and conference center across the street from my house, where I held the yarn retreats, had belonged solely to Edmund Delacorte.

When Edmund had died, it had been very specific in his will that Vista Del Mar was to go to his children. His only
son had died in an accident a year or so after Edmund’s death, and since it seemed there were no other children, the hotel and conference center had gone back into the family estate. All that was left of the Delacortes now were two sisters, Cora and Madeleine. I explained all of this to Frank.

“It only
seemed
there were no other children,” I said. I debated with myself if I should go into the whole story of how I’d come to the conclusion that Edmund had a love child. Frank only had limited patience and I was afraid it would run out if I went through telling him I’d found an envelope of photos that was marked “Our Baby” in a dresser that had belonged to Edmund. The baby was clearly a girl and, as far as everyone knew, he had only had a son. Even though Frank had helped me figure out that Edmund had made money drops to the mother through them both accessing a safety deposit box, I didn’t bring it up and got right to the point. “I found out that Edmund had a love child, but I didn’t know their identity, not until I found some evidence that made it clear who the baby is. Well, she’s not a baby anymore. All I have to do is tell her who she is, and then she can get a DNA test. I have samples of both Edmund’s and the baby’s mother’s DNA.”

“Details, Feldstein. What kind of samples?”

I didn’t have to look in the large envelope to know there was a sample of Edmund’s hair with the roots I’d gotten from an old hair brush. It was amazing—you could be dead for years, but hair stuck in an old hair brush survived. The mother had licked an envelope and I had that. I listed them off to Frank with a certain amount of pride in my detective skills.

“Okay,” he said. “Now what evidence led you to the baby’s identity?”

“A teddy bear in the photos,” I said, imagining his
expression as I said it. He didn’t disappoint. I heard him choking on whatever he was drinking as we talked.

“A teddy bear,” he repeated in an incredulous tone. “I got to hear this one. How did a teddy bear give the kid’s identity away?”

Frank didn’t know anything about needle craft. Actually, I hadn’t known much either until recently. I struggled, trying to find a way to explain it so he would understand. “There was a one-of-a-kind handmade teddy bear in the pictures next to the baby girl. The style is distinctive, like a fingerprint. I know who made it and I’m sure the woman will recognize it.”

“Now it’s coming back to me,” Frank said. “I think I asked you before what was in it for you?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Then I recommend you sit on it. Those Delacorte sisters aren’t going to be happy with someone trying to claim part of their estate. From the way you describe that town, I don’t know that anybody would be happy with you for sharing your information.”

“I bet Edmund’s daughter would like to know who she is, and I happen to know that an inheritance would certainly help her out.”

“Don’t be so sure, Feldstein. My advice is to keep quiet a while longer. Once the cat is out of the bag you can’t put it back.” There was silence on my end and after a moment Frank said, “Is there something else?” His mention of a bag had brought me right back to my problem, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be any help there.

“That’s it,” I said finally.

“Then I’ve got to go, the delivery guy is here with my sub sandwich.” I heard a click and he was gone.

There was one thing he was definitely right about: the
whole cat in the bag thing. I left the envelope where it was. There was always tomorrow.

The red tote bag banged against my leg as I walked and I had to stop more than once to pick up a loom that tumbled out and force it back in as I walked to my yellow Mini Cooper, which was parked in the driveway.

My house was on the edge of Cadbury. The look was wilder here, with more trees, no sidewalks, and of course Vista Del Mar across the street. I glanced toward the hotel and conference center as I pulled onto the street. Something large and cumbersome was being pulled down the driveway. It was impossible to see what it was, as it was covered in blue tarps. This was the beginning of the biggest week of the year here in Cadbury and I had a feeling it was connected.

Cadbury by the Sea’s real claim to fame was not the moody scenery, but the tens of thousands of striking orange and black butterflies that arrived in October to overwinter in a stand of trees behind a pink motel. There was even a statue of a Monarch butterfly near the lighthouse. Tomorrow was the kick-off of Butterfly Week in Cadbury. There were going to be events each day, ending with a parade and the coronation of the Butterfly Queen.

I might live on the edge of Cadbury, but it was still a small town and it only took five minutes or so to get downtown. There was an authentic feeling to the place. No ye olde anythings—if anything was old here, it was because it had been around for a long time. The buildings were a mixture of Victorians that were built when that was the current style and some more streamlined mid-century style structures that looked plain in comparison.

Grand Street was the main drag in town. The two directions of traffic were divided by a park-like strip of grass and
trees, with some benches thrown in. I found an angled parking spot near my destination.

There was more than the usual Saturday morning activity on the street. Several people on ladders were putting up banners on the light posts, and the shops along the street were decorating their windows. The theme to all of it was the Monarch butterfly.

I lugged the bag out of the car, somehow managing to keep everything inside it as I threaded past all the activity and turned onto a side street that sloped down toward the water. I was so used to being able to see the Pacific from just about everywhere that it almost didn’t register. I’d also gotten used to the constant hint of moisture in the air and the background sound of the rhythm of the waves. “Of course,” I chuckled to myself—today there was a parking spot right in front of my destination, Cadbury Yarn.

The store was actually located in a small, bungalow-style house. As I crossed the front porch I noticed they had added a banner covered with butterflies that flapped in the ever-present breeze. Inside, the store seemed busier than usual. The table in what had once been a dining room was filled with a group of women chatting while they worked on their yarn projects.

Gwen Selwyn, the shop’s owner, was ringing up a sale at the glass counter in the center of what had been the living room. She looked up as I came in and offered me a welcoming wave. It was strange to realize she had no idea that she was the love child of Edmund Delacorte. I went over what I knew about her. It was obvious from her appearance that she was more interested in serviceable than stylish. She was somewhere in her fifties, and I would have laid down money that the nubby brown sweater she was wearing was her own creation. Making something like that was still only a dream to
me, but Gwen was one of those people who could knit without even looking at her work. I was sure that any color in her cheeks came from the cool damp air. She was not likely to wear makeup any more so than she was to do anything about the streaks of gray that had begun to show up in her short chestnut hair. Even though she was widowed, I’d also bet that she would never be caught hanging out in the local wine bar looking for a hookup. As far as I could tell, all her energy went into trying to keep the yarn store and her family afloat.