For Better or Worsted (11 page)

While I made the tea, Cosmo and Blondie went out in the yard, but the cats—there is something curious about cats. They seem to know when someone doesn’t like them. I don’t know if it was to try to win her over or to punish her, but Holstein and Cat Woman positioned themselves on the back of the couch on either side of Jaimee. I noticed she kept looking straight ahead as if her not seeing them meant they weren’t really there.

I brought in a tray with cups of Darjeeling tea and a plate of the cookie bars that Bob, our cafe’s barista, had given me to try to get the party-food business. Jaimee accepted both with gusto. I guess she forgot she’d told me she never ate anything with sugar in it. Thursday set down her crocheting and took a cup of tea. For a little while, the three of us sat there in silence.

Jaimee set down her empty cup and hesitated before leaning back on the couch, seeing that the cats were still there and staring at her. She stood up instead. I could see there was still something on her mind.

“Thursday, honey, I wish you would reconsider,” she began before turning to me. “The
Housewives
people are pressuring me to get some kind of mother-daughter thing. Like us shopping. The way it is, it looks like I have no family.” She explained that her other daughter had gone back to San Diego. She was talking directly to me now.

“But I thought the point of reality shows was they just followed you on your regular day.”

Jaimee touched my shoulder for emphasis as her eyes went skyward. “That’s what they want you to think. There may not be a script, but they create situations.” She glanced back at her daughter, who had picked up her crochet work again. “Thursday, I wish you would at least think about it. I really need your help.”

CHAPTER 15

J
AIMEE KNEW JUST WHICH BUTTON TO PUSH WITH HER
daughter. Asking for Thursday’s help was what finally got her to agree to be part of the
Housewives of Mulholland Drive
. Thursday told her mother that it was just a onetime thing and she insisted that I come along.

Why did I agree? I didn’t want the responsibility of ruining the peace between them, I had the morning off, and, well, I was curious to see the housewives in action. I dressed all in black, including the tote bag with my crochet stuff, hoping it would make me invisible, or at least hide any lumps and bumps.

“I can’t believe I let her talk me into this,” Thursday said, the little rasp in her voice made her words sound less serious than she probably meant them. She adjusted the blue-and-white-striped loose top she wore over white jeans. I knew she’d picked an outfit that would please her mother. We were walking through the mall to the center court where we were supposed to meet up.

“The only way to do one of these reality shows is with a sense of humor,” Thursday said as she looked up ahead to the clump of people with her mother in the middle. “And you may have noticed my mother has none. She can’t even see the absurdity of using too-small shapewear on her arms as an alibi.”

I knew the rules. She could say negative things about her mother to her heart’s content, but if I were to say anything, she would come to her mother’s defense. I only responded with a nod to show I was listening. Thursday’s meltdown had seemed to clear the air for her. Now that it was out, she really could start moving on, or so I hoped.

Even though Thursday seemed to know I was an amateur sleuth, I’d never mentioned anything about me investigating Jonah’s death. I was glad that Jaimee and Thursday had told me the details of what had happened at the wedding without me having to ask. It wasn’t that either one of them were suspects as far as I was concerned, but I didn’t really want them to know what I was doing. Despite my past successes in solving some cases, it made me seem like a Nancy Drew wannabe. But when I saw Paxton Cline on the other side of the walkway, I thought I might have to come clean.

This was my opportunity to ask her about him. I tried to come up with some reason to point him out and bring up his former status as best man. Nothing came to mind, so I finally just steered her toward him, hoping they’d see each other and make contact. Then I’d ask her about him afterward.

He looked in her direction and I could see recognition in his expression. He’d opened his mouth to speak, just as her gaze rested on him. Her eyes stayed on him for another moment, and then she quickly looked away and turned her attention to a display window we were passing.

It was not what I’d expected and I wasn’t sure what to do. “Did you know that guy?” I said at last. She looked at me with a blank expression before looking around as if to see who I was talking about. “Which guy?”

I mentioned his name and she kept the confused expression. She was so convincing, I began to think I might be wrong. I searched for a casual way to bring up her late groom’s former best man, but any chance for that ended abruptly as we reached the group from the reality show. Jaimee walked toward us, closely followed by a man with a handheld camera. A small throng of people were behind him. They all seemed to be trying to blend in with the mall crowd.

If I’d dressed to be invisible, Jaimee had done the opposite. The golden tan fitted pants and fuchsia top were hard to miss. Her blond hair looked professionally styled, as did her makeup. She crossed the space between us and embraced her daughter.

The embrace looked like the hug version of an air kiss—all arms with no real contact. “I can’t smudge the makeup, Thurs,” she said, keeping her head away from her daughter’s. “Thank you for doing this for Mommy.”

A woman who appeared in charge joined us and explained the scene was going to play out in a shoe store up ahead. “It’s just a mother-daughter shopping trip,” she said as somebody handed Jaimee a zebra-print tote bag with a tiny dog’s head sticking out of the top. Its fur was gathered into a topknot with a fuchsia bow that matched Jaimee’s shirt.

“You got a dog?” Thursday said, her face lighting up as she lifted the tiny dog out of the tote bag and nuzzled it.

“It’s just rented.” The woman in charge retrieved the dog and placed it back in the bag and instructed Jaimee to hold the bag close to her.

The employees were waiting in a reception line when we got to the high-end shoe store. We’d been joined by two women who looked like Jaimee. Blond hair, lots of makeup and clothes that drew attention. I didn’t need an introduction to figure out they were two more of the housewives.

“Okay, then, remember conflict, conflict, conflict,” the woman in charge said as she ushered the group into the store with the camera guy in close pursuit.

I sat down out of camera range in one of the chairs as did the rest of the throng while the action took place across the store. The setup seemed to be that the two housewives had run into Jaimee and Thursday. Jaimee set her bag on the floor and the group stood talking. It seemed as if there were just introductions going on at first, then the two other housewives surrounded Thursday.

“We heard about your wedding. How terrible. You were there right in the middle of everything, so you must know what really happened.” Thursday reacted by stepping back and turning to her mother. Before she could say a word, Jaimee put her arm around her daughter protectively and turned to the woman in charge.

“You said it was just a mother-and-daughter shopping trip. You promised no one would ask her about the wedding.” Jaimee had become the mother wolf protecting her cub. “You want conflict.” She pointed toward me. “She’s my ex’s girlfriend.”

The black outfit did nothing to make me invisible as all eyes turned my way. The two other housewives’ eyes lit up with malevolence, and they actually took a step toward me.

“Not girlfriend,” I said, trying to keep my voice from warbling. “More like friend who is a girl, well, it really should be woman. That whole girlfriend-boyfriend thing for adults sounds ridiculous.” I nodded to them, hoping they’d agree with my point.

But then the rented dog got me off the hook. A whirl of fur flew between me and the others with a red stiletto heel in its mouth. The shoe was almost as big as the dog, and it was amazing how fast it managed to run. It turned out rental dog had gotten bored sitting in the bag and jumped out while all the talking was going on. He was like a kid in a candy store, only it was shoes. He’d already left bite marks on a whole row of display shoes before he’d chosen the red one. While the shoe store owner complained that somebody was going to have to pay for the damage, the three housewives chased after the dog with the cameraman running behind them.

When the dust settled, it was agreed that the shot of me would be edited out, and pretty much the whole scene would revolve around the dog shoe thief. Thursday was awed by her mother’s defense of her, and the two of them went off to have lunch, with no cameras watching.

And I was on my own. As I crossed the center court, a flicker of color caught my attention. I looked and did a double take when I saw that the bronze statue of the girl and boy dancing through the large fountain now seemed to be wearing colorful ponchos. A smattering of people had noticed the change in the statues and stopped, too. As I stepped closer to get a better look, two mall cops on Segways zoomed up and began to circle the fountain. One of them had a man in a suit riding with him. I gathered that he was the mall manager, and he seemed very upset about the addition to the fountain. By now, I’d gotten a close enough look to ascertain that the ponchos were more of the random acts of crochet that had been popping up around Tarzana.

Two uniformed cops joined the group. One of them was the heavyset officer with the olive complexion I’d seen before. They looked at the fountain and began to talk among themselves. “The yarn bomber seems to be stepping up the targets,” the one I’d seen before said. The mall executive stepped off the Segway and joined them, saying rather loudly that while they were standing there discussing it, the yarn graffiti artist could be getting away. Meanwhile the two mall cops on Segways started circling the group.

The mall executive looked over the people watching the action. “Maybe it’s one of them.” He mentioned how arsonists like to watch the fire they set because they got some kind of thrill out of seeing the results of what they’ve done. “Maybe the yarn bomber is like those firebugs.”

Now they were getting ridiculous, trying to equate somebody who started fires with someone who’d merely added a little color to a couple of bronze statues. The familiar cop looked in my direction. His gaze fixated on me and I got a bad feeling. I recognized him from the other two yarn bombings and it seemed like he might have recognized me. Time to go. I turned quickly, but as I tried to make my exit, my tote bag caught on something sticking out of the shopping bag the woman next to me was holding. I tried to pull my bag free and keep going, but I lost my grip and it went tumbling to the floor—bottom up. The hooks fell out with a clatter, followed by balls of red and royal blue yarn.

Before I could make a move, I felt myself surrounded by uniforms. “We got our yarn bug,” the cop said who’d been staring at me. “Here’s the evidence.” He put his foot on my J hook before I could pick it up. When I looked up, the two mall cops were doing figure eights around me on their Segways, high-fiving each other as their paths intersected.

* * *

“
YARN BOMBER?” MASON SAID, TRYING TO CONTAIN A
grin as he crossed the lobby of the police station to the bench I was sitting on. I showed off my non-handcuffed hands and got up to go. Mason was just there to give me a ride. I’d talked my own way out of it. It wasn’t that hard, because I don’t think the cops really wanted to go through all the paperwork that came with an arrest. I’d been given a stern warning that I’d better not do any yarn graffiti. I answered with a perfectly free conscience that I was telling the truth when I agreed. I mean, it’s not like I was the yarn bomber.

“Talk about making a fuss about nothing,” Mason said, shaking his head with disgust. I think he was sorry he didn’t get to use his attorney skills to free me. He would have had fun making mincemeat out of them for detaining me for having a few hooks and some balls of yarn. “They ought to give the person a prize for brightening up those dull statues.”

“Not according to the cops. It’s right up there with spray painting. Worse because the taggers never actually go inside a mall.” I slung my tote bag and purse on my shoulder and got ready to leave. The door whooshed open and Barry came in. His brow was furrowed as he glanced around the lobby, then his gaze stopped on me.

“So you’re already sprung,” he said, before explaining that one of his cop friends had recognized me and called him. Apparently, whoever it was didn’t realize Barry and I weren’t a couple anymore. His glance moved to Mason. “No reason to keep you from your lawyering. I can give her a lift.”

Mason had taken my arm and was holding on to it. “It’s no problem, you can go back to keeping our streets safe.”

I thought it was going to turn into a standoff, but Barry’s phone buzzed. Just before he answered it, he looked at me. “I just want you to know, I dropped everything to get here.” Before I could react, he was on the phone and back to his homicide detective persona. As Mason and I went toward the door, Barry glanced up from his cell and our eyes met. His eyes flared with warmth as he mouthed something I couldn’t quite make out, but I assumed was some kind of farewell. I was stunned. Barry had never interrupted a work call like that before.

If Mason noticed, he didn’t let on as he ushered me out the door into the warm sunlight. By now, it was late afternoon. I took a deep breath of freedom and thanked Mason for coming.

“I was looking for an excuse to leave early,” he said. “After what you’ve been through, you need a treat. Or maybe a medal of valor for dealing with my ex.” When I seemed surprised that he knew, he said Thursday had called him. “She rented a dog?” he said with a laugh.

Just before we got to his car, he turned to face me. “I am sorry that you have gotten sucked into my family’s drama.”

I told him I preferred it to the way things were before, when he’d kept his family separate from his single life. “I guess it turned out okay, at least on my end. Thursday is very fond of you,” he said. I assured him, I was fond of her as well.

“The treat sounds like a good idea,” I said. “Preferably something sweet.”

“How about going to Caitlyn’s?” Mason said, starting the engine.

A few minutes later we were standing in line at the cupcake emporium. As usual, it was crowded.

“I have so much to talk to you about,” I said.

“I hope it’s about the murder,” Mason said, trying to get a clear view of the cupcake cases as we moved forward. “Maybe you can figure out who stabbed Jonah Kingsley. The cops certainly aren’t getting anywhere.”

“Next,” Kirsty said in a tired voice from behind the counter. When no one answered, she waved at me to get my attention. “It’s you,” she said. “Are you here about the party order? We need to know what kind of cupcakes you want and the number.”

Oh, no, I realized I hadn’t brought that up to Emerson, or more accurately, Lyla. I told Kirsty that I’d have to get back to them on the party platter and that Mason and I were still trying to choose what we wanted. I suggested she take the customer behind us.

While Mason and I went back and forth between the German chocolate, chocolate with a caramel surprise and the vanilla ones with buttercream icing, the person behind us stepped forward.

“What do you have that’s dietetic? You know, sugar-free, low cal,” she said. I was surprised at her request because the woman was very thin, almost too thin.

“We only use real ingredients here. No fake food, artificial sweeteners, and no no-fat sour cream,” Kirsty said in a harsh tone. I thought she might have overreacted.

“Well, you should. All those calories. You must be crazy,” the woman said. Just then, Caitlyn came out of the back carrying a tray of fresh cupcakes. Diet woman was on her like cream cheese on a bagel, complaining about Kirsty and saying they ought to carry a dietetic line.