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“Hi, everybody,” Ali said as she sprinted up to the table and pulled out a chair. She might as well have made a recording of her apology for being late; then she could just hit the play button whenever she arrived anywhere. She could have included the part about having to leave early, too. The funny part was for once she was on time.

I didn’t care if she had time-management issues; she always made me smile. Something about Ali’s bright eyes, impish smile and interesting assortment of clothes made me think of a tall pixie. It was funny how styles had changed. In the days when I was her age, if I’d mixed all those patterns and worn all those layers, someone would have stamped me as weird with no taste. She came across as cute and original.

“You were saying how you knew Mary Beth Wells,” I said to Camille, trying to pick up the thread of conversation.

Camille took a moment to collect herself, then continued. “I got a donation of a dance lesson with Matt Wells himself.” She looked sheepish. “I remember it so well because my husband bought them for me at the auction. The school was starting a tango club and I wanted to join. Mary Beth is the one I contacted for the donation.”

“So she worked in the dance studio business?”

Camille shrugged. “I guess so because I called their corporate office and she was there. I never saw the office or the actual dance studio. Matt came to my home gym and did the lessons there.” She paused and appeared to be making some mental calculations. A flicker of realization suddenly crossed her face. “Does Mary Beth Wells have a house on Catalina? Is that the house you broke into?”

Break in is such a strong term. I climbed in through an open window.”

Camille seemed fascinated. I guessed her elite friends didn’t do stuff like that.

“Yeah, Pink. And how far along are you with unraveling the code?” Adele said with a snort.

“Molly’s doing great,” Dinah interjected, glancing sharply at Adele. “She’s already figured out what several more of the panels mean.”

“Well, Pink, and what great clues did you find in the house?” Adele asked snidely.

“For one thing,” I said, trying to be evasive, “Mary Beth Wells was certainly very fond of filet crochet.”

“What kind of crochet?” Camille asked. Eduardo had just joined us, and CeeCee told him to do the honors of answering her question since he was such an expert at it. While Eduardo talked to Camille, Ali showed us her latest creation. She’d made a crocheted cactus and stuck it in a terracotta pot filled with a hunk of green florist’s foam. Then of course, she had to leave.

AN HOUR LATER, THE GROUP WAS GONE AND I was putting away the table and setting up for the night’s program—a book called Unbreak My House. It was a guide to home repairs, and I wondered if it would attract much of an audience. Author Felix Lyndstrom was planning to demonstrate how to repair the inside of a toilet. He hadn’t exactly explained how he was going to do the demonstration. I certainly hoped water wasn’t involved, but I rolled out plastic under the demonstration table just in case.

“Mrs. Pink,” a voice said from somewhere in the vicinity of the chairs. I peeked out from under the table and saw Detective Heather. Today she was wearing another one of her suits, black with white pinstripes. She had on heels that made my feet hurt just looking at them and her makeup job was so perfect she seemed not to be wearing any at all. Her white blond hair almost touched her shoulders.

“I think you can call me Molly,” I said, getting up. “Is this about the dance lesson? It’s a public place, and I had every right to be there getting my complimentary lesson.”

Detective Heather put up her hand to stop me. “It’s not about the dance lesson.” I waited to see if what she was going to say would make it obvious Barry had told her about our breakup. But her attitude and tone were still just short of hostile, so apparently he hadn’t.

“I’m here to pick up the blankets your group made. Tell your group thank you,” she said in a gruff voice. She stopped a moment and her face softened. “They really help.” She went on to tell me that a man had been brought in for questioning about the death of his wife and he’d had his eleven-year-old son with him. She knew the man was going to end up being arrested and the boy would have to go to social services. They tried to give him some game to play with while the father was in the interview room, but the boy had withdrawn completely, no doubt over what had happened. “On a chance, I handed him one of the blankets. At first, he pushed it away. But I left it on the bench next to him. When I looked back, he’d picked it up and was holding it next to his face.”

I was stunned. This was the closest thing Detective Heather and I had ever had to a real conversation. I’d never seen her let down the hard exterior before, and I almost wanted to hug her. Almost.

Instead, I walked her up to the front counter and got the large plastic bag that held the next batch of blankets. As she turned to go, she paused and said, “I heard you were a visitor at the Catalina sheriff’s station because you were found inside the Wells house.” Detective Heather gave me an exasperated groan. “If I hear you do anything like that here, there’s going to be trouble. And I won’t let you off with a warning.”

I held my breath, waiting to see if she was going to ask for the filet crochet piece, the diary entry and the note, but either she’d forgotten about them or completely discounted their importance.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I said under my breath as she left. I was glad I hadn’t followed through with the hug.

CHAPTER 18

I HAD SOME TIME BEFORE THE EVENING PROGRAM, and I didn’t want to go home to watch the She La Las do their number again. Though they had gotten the lyrics down and were singing together, the dance steps were still an issue. My mother kept insisting it was like riding a bicycle and the synchronization would come back to them if they kept practicing. But they were getting panicky since the day of the audition was fast approaching.

Instead of heading home, I called Dinah. She loved having her house back to herself, but she still missed the kids, particularly in the late afternoon. We decided to go to Los Encinos State Park. It was a dual mission. Neither of us had to deal with what we were avoiding, and we got to look over the place where we’d first found Mary Beth’s package.

We met inside the gate near a low building by the natural warm spring that fed the guitar-shaped lake. The late afternoon sun glistened off the water as the ducks swam toward the fence where two women and three kids stood with bags of feed.

“Maybe she stopped writing so abruptly because she saw someone,” Dinah said, referring to the note accompanying the filet crochet in Mary Beth’s bag.

“If that was the reason, I bet that someone knew what the crochet piece meant.” I stopped for a moment as the full impact of what I’d just said sunk in. “And that someone didn’t want her to disclose the secret.” I choked on my breath. “And was probably right in front of us at the sale.”

A goose came chasing behind us, thinking we had food, as we walked down the long porch of the adobe house where the sale tables had been set up. I noticed a bench nearby. “I bet that is where she was sitting when she wrote the note,” I said, picturing her scribbling quickly while she looked around. “Whoever it was must have been nearby.”

Dinah looked wistfully over at the kids feeding the ducks. “Isn’t it amazing how they can have a good time doing the simplest of things?”

“Focus,” I said to her. “We’re trying to figure out a mystery here.”