Knot Guilty (13 page)

One of Adele's problems was she didn't pick up on cues from people very well and apparently didn't notice how the woman she wanted to be her mother-in-law stiffened at the name Adele called her. Could you blame her? Mother Humphries? And then it got worse.

Adele attempted to speak to the crowd, but she seemed focused on Leonora. “There might be a rumor floating around that a very precious hook of mine disappeared and then showed up in K.D. Kirby's room.” In case there was any doubt about who K.D. was, Adele pointed to the wreath at the front of the large room and explained that she'd been killed just before the show opened. “I want to make it clear that I had nothing to do with her death and either the hook is an imposter or someone is trying to frame me.”

Leonora Humphries fluttered her eyes in dismay and walked away.

Rhoda Klein came back into the booth late in the afternoon. She had a guilty look as she took a seat at the teaching table and slid her tote bag under it. Sheila joined us a short time later. She spread some of the kits she'd made in front of her spot, and I noticed she was wearing a mohair shawl in the Impressionist shades of blues.

I watched as people complimented her on her shawl and she directed them to the kits. Working in the lifestyle store Luxe had definitely helped her confidence, though I did still catch her taking out a hook and some yarn and soothing her nerves with a few minutes of crocheting.

As things were winding down, Dinah and I did another coffee run and toured the large room. It took all my willpower not to buy some of the handspun yarn with the sparkle. For once the catwalk and stage were empty. Delvin had finally closed up shop for the night and left the microphone. When we passed the administration table, K.D.'s daughter Lacey was sitting there sending out a last tweet. The rest of the table was empty. We went into the room with contest entries. Delvin was looking them over.

“I'd forgotten that K.D. was supposed to judge the knitting competition.”

“You're doing this, too?” I said. Delvin stopped what he was doing and let out a tired breath. Up close his outfit seemed even more like a costume. He had all the layers of shirts and a vest with a bunch of chains hanging out of his pocket. He'd stuck with the white fedora with the black band and red feather.

“You should only know,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I suppose I can say it now.” He leaned closer as if to be sharing a confidence. “I have been more than K.D.'s assistant for years. Her name might have been listed as editor and publisher, but I did most of the actual work. I think she was finally going to give me my due.” He dropped his voice even lower. “And I think somebody didn't want her to do it, if you know what I mean. It seems coincidental that right after she says she's going to make a big announcement, something happens to her.” He adjusted the sleeve of a pink sweater. “I just hope she left something in writing. Everything is on hold until the end of the show. Then the lawyers will straighten everything out.”

“I suppose you told that to the cops,” I said. Delvin made a face.

“Several times, to several different cops,” the man said.

“They probably wanted to know if K.D. had any enemies.” I let it hang in the air and then he took the bait.

“I didn't call them enemies. I just said that K.D. had standards and not everybody agreed with how she did things.”

“You mean like embarrassing a customer because she wasn't using yarn from the store,” I said and pointed toward Julie's entry in the crochet contest.

“I believe that when Julie brought in that cheap yarn, she no longer fit the description of a customer, at least in K.D.'s eyes,” he said.

“What about Audrey Stewart?”

Delvin shrugged. “What about her?” He looked over another entry, a wine-colored shawl that was thick and scratchy looking. The distasteful shake of his head made it clear that piece didn't have a chance. “Do you mean the stolen needles? Yes,
stolen
needles. I'm not going to say alleged stolen needles no matter what that attorney of hers keeps saying. K.D. wanted her to see jail time. Personally, I thought K.D. was being a little extreme. All along, Thea Scott had been saying that as manager of the store, it should be her call, and she was in favor of letting Audrey pay for the needles and then let the whole issue die. I'm sure that's what will happen now.”

“Was the bubble bath and champagne ritual of K.D.'s common knowledge?” I asked. By now Delvin's patience seemed to be wearing thin. It had just seemed like we were sharing gossip at first, but now he appeared a little wary.

“Don't tell me you're one of those amateur sleuths who thinks they're smarter than the cops,” he said.

“Me?” I said with my best absurd laugh. “Of course not.”

“There were so many more questions I would have liked to ask Delvin,” I said as we walked into Dinah's house carrying bags of food from the local Italian restaurant. The family-run neighborhood eatery had been about to close when we got there, and we had to get the food to go.

“There's always tomorrow.” She set the containers down on the coffee table in front of her chartreuse sofa and went to get some plates. “And finally time to play our Sherlock Holmes game.”

Dinah's house was within walking distance of the bookstore. It was nicely sized for one person with occasional guests like her ex's kids. Yes, her ex's kids. They had been there for the holidays. Her jerk of an ex wasn't with the kids' mother anymore and had gone off with his new girlfriend. The fraternal twins' mother had a new boyfriend who thought the kids were in the way. The situation for those kids would have been a mess if it hadn't been for Dinah. It showed what kind of a heart Dinah had. She loved those kids despite who their parents were, and the fact that the only way they were related to her was that they were Dinah's kids' half siblings.

Dinah pushed over the toy chest left from their visit. “I have to put all this stuff away,” she said a little wistfully. “It was such fun having Ashley-Angela and E. Conner here.”

Dinah's own kids were grown, and both had moved to the East Coast and were busy with their careers. Neither had produced any grandchildren yet.

Dinah brought back plates and silverware, and we both helped ourselves to the food. I didn't know about her, but I was starving. I vaguely remembered eating something before I left that morning, but the rest of the day had been fueled solely with coffee. We started off with Caesar salad with their homemade dressing and moved on to mounds of ravioli in pink sauce. We practically inhaled the garlic bread. And then her phone rang. My friend was now in a committed relationship with Commander Blaine, and they usually spent Friday evenings together putting on a fun program at the local senior center. He was calling to give her a report and see how her day went.

While she was talking I almost jumped at the sound coming from my purse. I'd actually heard my cell phone ring for once and started diving through my purse trying to get hold of it before it stopped. Anyone who knew me never depended on reaching me by cell phone.

I tried not to take it personally, but my smartphone just didn't work well for me. The ringer would mysteriously change to silent. Or if someone left a voice mail, my BlackBerry rarely let me know, which meant I'd hear reminder messages for dental appointments weeks or maybe even months after the fact.

“Hello,” Mason said in a surprised voice. “Is that actually you, Sunshine?” I could hear the laugh in his voice and, even without seeing him, bet his lips were curved in a grin.

I assured him it was really me and not my voice mail, and he said he'd tried my house and gotten no answer. “It seemed like a shot in the dark, but I'm glad I tried your cell.”

“Are you still shadowing Audrey, trying to keep her out of trouble?”

“No,” he said. I expected him to elaborate, but one word turned out to be his whole answer. He changed the subject back to me and asked where I was.

“Dinah and I just crashed at her house with some food from the Italian place. Then we're going to play Sherlock Holmes. The cops seem to have focused on Adele,” I said. I was careful to say cops instead of mentioning Barry's name. I'd seen the look on Mason's face when Barry had shown up at the booth. No reason to start a problem.

“I'm assuming you two don't agree with them,” Mason said. “From what I heard a hair dryer was thrown into K.D. Kirby's bubble bath. It sounds like it took minimal planning. It could have even been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Something done in the heat of anger. I suppose they have some evidence that points at Adele.” Was it my imagination or did he put a weird emphasis on the word
they
? I guess he didn't want to bring up Barry's name, either. There was silence on the phone, and for a moment I thought we'd been disconnected.

“I just wanted to make sure you haven't changed your mind about us,” he said. There was no laughter or teasing in his voice now. It was a legitimate question, because I had sort of done it in the past. I rushed to assure him that we were still one hundred percent a go.

“When you hugged me, it felt like home,” I said.

“Good,” he said, adding a
whew
at the end. He was back to his fun self. “I hope that is a home full of excitement and passion, not a couple of rocking chairs on the front porch sort of home.”

“I'm with your first description of home,” I said with a laugh.

“Glad to hear it,” he said. “And don't worry about Adele.”

“I can't help it. They have real evidence against her. And more than once she's told me that I'm her best friend.”

Mason laughed. “She has a weird way of showing it.”

“Adele is just Adele. We're trying to come up with possible suspects, which is no problem. It turns out a lot of people had problems with K.D. Kirby, including your own Audrey Stewart.”

There was dead silence on the phone. This time I didn't think we'd been disconnected, because I heard Mason take a breath before he spoke. “I wish you hadn't said that.”

“Why?” I asked, mystified.

“I was going to suggest we get together tonight. Even for just a few minutes. But Sunshine, you know about attorney-client privilege. I can't say anything about her. And now I can't possibly spend any time alone with you. At least until they arrest somebody, hopefully not Adele.”

“I don't understand,” I said.

“I have great self-control; the best example is how long I've hung around waiting for you to make a decision. But even with my best of intentions, if we were together and you started to ask me stuff, which I'm pretty sure you being you, you would, I'm afraid I'd melt.”

“What if I promised not to say anything?” I protested.

Mason chuckled. “I know you, Sunshine. You're determined to help Adele. You wouldn't be able to help yourself.”

“Maybe you're right,” I said. “Though the idea of a midnight rendezvous sounds romantic and exciting.”

“I've got to hang up now, before I weaken. We don't want me to get disbarred,” he said. He added a hasty “Love you” before he clicked off.

I sat back on the couch and looked at the phone, thinking about Mason and sorry that I wasn't going to see him. Dinah had taken her phone into the other room. When she rejoined me, she noticed there was something wrong. “Wow,” she said when I explained about the obstacle with Mason. “All the more reason we hurry up and figure something out and get this case closed.”

She went into the kitchen and came back carrying a cup of chai tea for each of us. “I think we've both had enough coffee for one day,” she said as she set them on the coffee table before taking her seat again.

“We didn't get to play the Sherlock Holmes game before, but we can do it now. So, let's start deducing.” Dinah was always up to helping me investigate. She found it interesting and exciting, particularly when we had to sneak around.

I recognized the eager look as she sat forward on the couch. “The obvious place to start is with K.D. It's not hard to deduce that she wasn't very popular. I barely knew her and I didn't like her. She was high-handed when it came to knitting over crochet, she didn't care about anybody's feelings, and I think her power had gone to her head.”

“Are you sure you didn't kill her?” Dinah said with a grin. She waited until I'd acknowledged her comment with a hopeless rock of my head before she continued. “Since you get along with most people, she must have been really bad and collected a lot of enemies.”

“I'm sure Sherlock Holmes would deduce there is something strange about K.D. adding crochet to the show,” I said. “It seems very halfhearted if you consider the facts. None of the fashion shows or demos had crochet. She was really over the top in her reaction to Adele's logo. And why would she react so strongly about a banner saying our booth was pro crochet?”

“Maybe she really is one of those people who talk about crochet as the C word,” Dinah offered. We knew there were lots of knitters who had contempt for crocheters, though neither of us had figured out why. And there were yarn stores that barely seemed to want crocheters' business, which really made no sense because crochet used more yarn than knitting.

“It's almost as if someone made her add crochet to the show and she did it begrudgingly.” I thought about it for a minute. “But is that a reason someone would kill her?”

“If it was, it would have to be some crazy crocheter who got in an argument with her. . . .” Dinah's voice trailed off as we both knew who fit that description.

In an effort to change the subject I brought up something that was jiggling around in my mind. “I wonder what Sherlock Holmes would deduce about Mason. Maybe that Audrey Stewart is guilty and Mason knows it or at least thinks it.” I answered my own question and my shoulders sagged. “I never thought his work would be a problem.”

“Why don't we look for other suspects. People we don't have any emotional thing going on with.”

“Good idea,” I said, brightening. “Chances are it wasn't Adele or Audrey Stewart. Why not start with Delvin Whittingham. He's the one who knew K.D. always took a bubble bath and had a glass of champagne before the show, which means he of all people would have known exactly where to find her. And getting me to go with him to her room could have just been a ploy to have somebody else find her body.”

“What about motive?” Dinah asked.

“I've heard him say several times that K.D. was making a big announcement. He was talking like it was something that was going to benefit him but that other people might not be happy about it. He implied they might be unhappy enough to try to keep her from making the announcement. What if he was really talking about himself? Maybe the announcement was really something that was going to hurt him and he kept her from making it.”

I thought about it for a moment. “About Adele's hook being found in K.D.'s suite. What if somebody figured out how to commit the perfect crime but wanted the cops to pin it on somebody else?”

“Why?” Dinah asked.

“Maybe they wanted the case closed. And maybe they had it in for the person they pinned it on.”

Dinah's eyes went skyward. “I know a lot of people find Adele annoying, but . . .”

“What if they wanted to really make sure their son broke up with her?” We both said, “Mother Humphries,” at the same time, and then I said, “But why would she want to kill K.D.?”

“It does sound like an extreme way to mess things up between Eric and Adele,” Dinah said. “What about considering the kind of person K.D. was?”

“It's pretty easy to deduce from her behavior that she was someone who had rules and standards and she didn't bend.” I brought up how she'd confronted Julie twice basically for breaking the rules that K.D. had made and described the encounters in the yarn store and at the show when Julie had tried to enter the knitting competition. “But K.D. was willing to rectify a mistake. When Rain talked to her about the mix-up with her booth, K.D. got Rain moved out of the horrible spot at the back of the room. Then there's the case of Audrey Stewart. The fact that K.D. wanted to press charges instead of just letting the actress pay for the silver needles seems vindictive.”

“It seems pretty obvious what Delvin Whittingham could have gained by killing K.D., but what would Julie have gotten out of it?” Dinah said.

I thought it over a moment. “Maybe K.D. humiliated her one time too many when she wouldn't accept her entry in the knitting competition and it pushed Julie over the edge.” I didn't really want to talk about Audrey, but I had to face facts. “And it's pretty clear what Audrey Stewart thinks she's going to gain by K.D.'s demise. I'm not sure who ultimately has the power to make the decision about pressing charges, but the manager of the yarn store, ah, I mean studio, seemed anxious to let the actress pay for the needles and let the whole thing go.” I thought over the scene I'd witnessed. “It was a little strange. Thea Scott seemed almost upset that Audrey had donated the needles to the auction rather than just return them to the store.”

All the deducing on top of the long day had left me with a headache, and we decided to call it a night. Dinah wouldn't even let me help clean up before I headed for home.