If Hooks Could Kill - By Betty Hechtman Page 0,113
because the nasally New York accent tended to carry. A woman brought a little girl over who was flushed with the heat. CeeCee picked up on Rhoda’s cue and dowsed a bubblegum pink cowl with the rest of the water and asked the little girl if she’d like to try it.
“It feels nice,” she said and her mother gladly bought it. Rhoda called out to them that they could recharge the cowl’s cooling powers by dipping it in water.
Adele recovered and started swishing the cowls in the melted ice in the cooler to make colder cowls.
“I’ll take one of those.” When I looked up, Mason was grinning at me. He turned to the young woman next to him. “Which one do you want?” She pointed toward a cream-colored one. As I handed it to her, he said, “I’d like you to meet my daughter Thursday.” He gave me a knowing nod. “Thursday, this is Molly, my special friend. She crocheted that beautiful hankie for you.”
I was surprised when she leaned over the table and thanked me with a hug.
“This is great,” she said putting on the drenched neck piece. She showed it off to Mason and then reminded him that they had to get to a dress fitting. “The wedding is in a week,” she said.
“And Molly is going to be there,” he said.
“See you then,” she said with a smile. She moved on to another booth, but Mason hung back.
“Let’s see, I invited you to the wedding, and introduced you to my daughter as my special friend. I think that counts as including you in my family. That’s everything you wanted, right?” His eyes grew warm. “So, is the trip to Carmel on?” The best I could do was tell him the truth. I was still digesting what had just happened and I needed to think about it.
Detective Heather stopped at our booth. She was wearing a white sundress and it was the first time I remembered seeing her out of work clothes. She looked much less intimidating, almost girlish. She noticed me looking around and figured out I was looking for Barry. She pointed toward a bean bag game. Jeffrey and Barry were both trying their luck.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it looks like Stone is going to walk. Unless I can come up with something pronto, the DA is going to drop all the charges except threatening you. But Thomasville’s attorney will probably twist things around, and the worst he’ll get is probation.” She looked at me intently. “I never thought I would say this, but I sure wish you could come up with something.”
She bought a shell pink cowl and I chilled it for her. As I handed to her, I told her I wished I could, too.
As the day went on, the cowls kept selling. But so far Elise had kept the vampire ones she’d made out of the water. Finally somebody picked up one and asked for it wet. “I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do for that one,” she said trying to take it back.
“Anthony wouldn’t mind,” Eduardo said with a reassuring nod and Elise let it get the cold treatment.
Dinah had a marker in her bag and flipped the sign and wrote in “Chill with a Cool Cowl.”
Needless to say, we sold out.
* * *
With everything that had gone on, I hadn’t gotten a chance to get the rest of my stuff from the storage locker. It felt eerie to be back there, but I made sure I went in the middle of the day and I was relieved to see some other cars there. Regretting again that I hadn’t sprung for a locker that you could park in front of, I was making trips back and forth to the car when I heard someone call my name. I turned and was surprised to see Barry. He was in jeans and a tee shirt and had the sweaty look of someone who had been moving things.
“What are you doing here?’ I said.
He pointed toward a large locker. “You aren’t the only one who had to store stuff. I had to empty the condo when it sold. Well, some of my friends did it for me.”
I glanced down the driveway and saw a rental truck was parked in front of an open locker.
Barry wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve and I saw that he had a bottle of soda in his hand.