“She and my ex are friends of a sort. They always work on the Crystal Ball committee,” he said, referring to one of the top yearly charity events.
I explained Camille seemed committed to doing a down-to-earth kind of activity.
Mason found that amusing. “She’s spent her whole life with wealth, privilege and every advantage that money could buy. People always think the grass is greener on the other side.”
After dinner Mason drove me home and walked me to the door. He had suggested a detour to his place, but I said no and he didn’t argue. There was a comfortable feeling about being with him—maybe because he wasn’t always pushing the envelope, trying to talk me into more of a relationship than I wanted.
Through the window we could see the She La Las. They were doing their dance moves, which were showing improvement. I invited Mason in, but he took another look at the dancing trio and passed.
Who could blame him?
I went in quietly through the front door, but the dogs heard me and followed me to the kitchen door. Then they charged off into the dark while I checked the phone for messages. There were three from Barry. He wanted to tell me he was coming to feed Cosmo. The next message was after he’d left, saying since I wasn’t home he’d fed Blondie, too. The third call was just to say hello and tell me the new door was being delivered tomorrow.
“Barry was here while you were gone,” my mother said, coming into the kitchen to get some drinks for the group. “He’s pretty handy. We were having trouble with our microphones,” she said, showing me her headset. He knew just how to fix them. Then he stayed and listened and said we sounded great.”
Omigod, Barry was trying to soften up my mother.
And me.
When I went out into the yard to round up the dogs, I saw a vase of flowers on the umbrella table. The note said, “I know I’m sorry doesn’t cover it, but believe me I am.” And he signed it, “Love, B.” I came back inside just as my father was walking into the kitchen. “The doorbell just rang and I found this on the front porch,” he said, holding out a package to me.
I unwrapped the paper and saw it was a box of marzipan apples, with a note that said simply, “Enjoy!”
CHAPTER 17
“WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE CANDY APPLES?” Dinah asked. We were sitting around the event table waiting for the rest of the crochet group to arrive.
“I brought them with me,” I said, pulling the plastic box out of my bag to show her. “I couldn’t leave them home. Suppose my mother or father decided to try one. No matter where I hide stuff, she always finds it. Can you believe she found the bottle of love oil I hid in the back of the linen closet?”
“Love oil?” Dinah said with a chuckle.
“Never mind. Back to the apples. Obviously, I’m not going to eat them, but beyond that I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them. Even if I didn’t think they might be poisoned—marzipan, yuck,” I said with a shudder.
“You can leave them at my house,” Dinah offered. “Now that the kids are gone, I don’t have to worry.” She examined the box of almond paste candies. “Maybe you should get them tested.”
“I think someone gave them to me for the shock value. Besides who would I take the candy to?” I said. “I’m not contacting Detective Heather. If I showed her the candy apples, it would be like waving a red flag that I’m investigating. And I’m not calling Barry about anything.”
“I see your point. Nobody will bother the candy at my place,” Dinah said, tucking the package in her tote. She put her hand on my arm. “First the phone call, now the candy. Maybe you should think about dropping the investigation.
You never even met the woman, so why should you feel so obligated to take care of her business?”
“I know, but I keep thinking if I had been quicker on the uptake and found her faster, she might not have died.”
Dinah didn’t buy that as enough of a reason, nor did she think that either the She La Las practicing practically twenty-four hours a day at my house or my father’s martial arts skills were much protection. But best friend that she was, she was staying in it if I was. “It’s much harder to kill two people than one,” she said.
“So you made it back.” CeeCee pulled her wheeled craft carrier up to the table and then took the bag off her arm and laid it down. “You really left us in the lurch. It wasn’t until we got on the boat that we remembered you drove. I offered to call a car service, but Adele insisted her boyfriend would pick us up.” CeeCee appeared perturbed. “I don’t know what he does, but he has some weird stuff in his car. I had to ride next to a pair of giant red shoes.”
Adele arrived as CeeCee made her comment. She glared at Dinah and me and then her look changed to pleading. Adele always described William as being a serious author of important nonfiction topics when she mentioned him to the group. The way I looked at it, just because Adele was always trying to give me a hard time was no reason to do the same to her, so I said nothing.
Adele appeared relieved when she realized I wasn’t going to out her boyfriend. “William was wondering if the subject of Making Amends had to be a bookstore employee. He thought it might be an author—perhaps him.” Adele continued on about how William’s spirit had almost been crushed by his third-grade teacher and he was sure that now that he was a well-known author, she’d like to apologize and give him the grades he truly deserved on his workbook.
Once Sheila got close to the table, she rushed over and hugged me. “I’m so glad you’re all right. When I heard you got arrested—”
“Arrested? Who got arrested?” Camille stood at the head of the table, looking over all of us.
“Pink did,” Adele said.
CeeCee addressed Camille. “Maybe you want to rethink being in this group. I’m sure you don’t want to associate with jailbirds.”
“Wait a second,” I said, interrupting. “First of all, I wasn’t arrested, just detained. It was a misunderstanding.”
“What kind of misunderstanding?” Adele said with her hands on her hips.
I was going to try to talk around what had happened, but Dinah’s words about it being harder to kill two people suddenly rang in my ears. It would be even harder to go after a group. I decided my best defense was to keep them all in the loop.
There was a collective “ooh.”
I stepped next to Camille. “Did you know Mary Beth Wells?” I asked.
Camille swallowed hard. “I heard about her murder. I was shocked.”
“But did you know her?” I asked while Adele rolled her eyes.
“Here goes Nancy Jessica Drew Fletcher Marple.”
Camille ignored Adele and looked at me. “I’m not sure if this counts as knowing her. I contacted her a few years ago for donations for the silent auction for my children’s school—Welton Preparatory. They’re off on their own now. And not following in the family business, I might add,” she said. Her daughter was in med school with plans to work in a third-world country, and her son was a park ranger on the big island in Hawaii. “They won’t even come back for the party I’m throwing for Hunnie next week. My life coach said my children should be an inspiration to me. Like them I should branch out and try new things with new kinds of people. She particularly mentioned ordinary people, like you.” Camille gestured toward the whole group.
CeeCee blanched. I’m sure she didn’t like being referred to as ordinary. She hardly seemed ordinary to me. She’d had her own sitcom for years and was hosting Making Amends. It was CeeCee’s choice to act like a regular person and do things like run the crochet group. I watched CeeCee swallow her annoyance. As long as her future on the show was undecided, she wasn’t about to ruffle Camille’s rich feathers.