to start at the beginning of the whole thing. Mason’s eyes widened when he heard about me trying to tackle the actor. Then he laughed.
“I wish I’d been there for that. Anybody I know in the scene?” The Caesar salad had come, and he divided it up on our plates, and asked for fresh pepper.
“I don’t know the name of the actor I tackled, but North Adams was the guy I was trying to save.”
Mason nodded. “He’s a client of the law firm. I know him from charity events and such, but he’s never needed my services. At least, not so far.”
I mentioned our real destination had been Kelly’s. “There’s something weird there,” I said. Mason’s grin widened.
“Great. I love it when you play detective.” I rolled my eyes in response. But after being involved in solving a number of murders, I’d developed some skills. I had started to notice things more and infer things from them. I did it at the grocery store all the time and tried to figure out what the people were shopping for by what they were buying. Like the time I figured out someone was having a barbecue and one of the guests was a vegetarian because they had a bag of charcoal brickets, six Spencer steaks, and one frozen vegetarian entree. I’d actually asked the man and he’d told me I was right.
Mason laughed when I told him about the LUGOs. “I saw the store,” he said vaguely gesturing toward the street. “How’s it doing?”
“I think they’re struggling. The neighbor mentioned Kelly would do anything to make some money.”
“So tell me Sherlock what did you notice about the Hollar for a Dollar people’s house?”
It had gotten to be kind of a game with us. I told him about Kelly’s room and how it seemed like a haven. “It was different from the rest of the house and had nicer furniture and doodads.” I described the refinished library table she had her computer on. I mentioned that I’d seen a chair like her Mission-styled one in a store for a couple of thousand. “Adele knocked into a leaded glass lamp. Even the modern copies of those aren’t cheap. I wouldn’t think much of it if the rest of the house, or what I saw of it, went with the things in her room.” I stopped for a moment and in my mind’s eye, I was seeing it again. “And it wasn’t just the furniture. It was the yarn, too.”
Mason knew what a mess my craft room was. More than once he’d almost skidded across the floor after getting his fancy shoes caught in a grocery bag full of yarn. “No bags of any kind,” I said. Her stuff was all in plastic bins stacked neatly against the wall. I pictured Adele opening one of them and visualized the yarn she’d held up. “I recognized the brands. It was all pricey stuff.” Mason still looked a little puzzled.
“The point is, instead of a hodgepodge of stuff like the rest of us have, Kelly’s looked like stock. She had a whole container of the same kind of yarn.” Mason kind of shrugged and urged me on.
“So what do you think it means?’
“I don’t know. We don’t even know if she really crochets or is a crochet pretender as Adele called her. Either way, it seems odd she would invest so much money in yarn. It was funny, too, that she didn’t have any samples of her work sitting in the room.”
“So maybe Adele is right and she’s a fake. A fake with fancy taste,” Mason said.
“What’s the difference if she is or isn’t, anyway,” I said. We’d started on the thick slices of fresh mozzarella with tomatoes and basil, along with the stuffed mushrooms and grilled asparagus done in garlic and olive oil. “Now you tell me your problem.”
Mason’s face changed. The grin faded and he set down his fork. He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. “You know my daughter is getting married and you know the wedding invitations have gone out.” He watched as I nodded.
As I was agreeing, I was thinking that I didn’t even know either of his daughters’ names. He just called them my youngest and my oldest. And about those invitations— I hadn’t gotten one. I had dropped enough hints, but he’d shrugged them all off. As far as I was concerned not getting invited to the wedding was a definite sign our relationship shouldn’t be