done without saying it exactly and he reappeared carrying a brown shopping bag loaded with smaller shopping bags and tissue paper.
He avoided looking at the bin of Kelly’s mail. “Did she send out a lot of little boxes like that?” I asked.
“Not at first, but then she’d started bringing one in every now and then. She never said anything about the contents. I tried to engage her in conversation, but she was always in a hurry.” He seemed a little disappointed. “I like my customers to feel like family, but she didn’t seem to have time to be friendly.”
He pulled out one of the shopping bags and showed off the Tarzana Hooker stickers he’d had made. We both gushed over them and thanked him a bunch of times before we went back to my car. “We need to go someplace and figure out what’s going on with that package,” I said.
“I’d suggest my place,” Dinah said as I pulled out of the parking lot, “but the helicopter cowboys are probably still buzzing my house.”
Since I was never sure who or what I was going to find at my place anymore, my house wouldn’t work, either. “How about dinner at Doc Hogan’s Burgerama?” I said. Dinah thought it was a great idea.
The place featured a play yard for the kids and old-fashioned fast food with no pretense of being heart healthy. It was dinnertime and the place was crowded and noisy. Someone had some sense and had set aside a no kids zone.
We sat down at one of the yellow striped red tables. Their fries were made from fresh-cut potatoes cooked in some kind of good-tasting oil and then served in brown paper bags that were immediately dotted with grease stains. No fancy dipping sauce here, just oodles of catsup.
We’d gotten a jumbo order, which was okay because we were sharing it. Besides, the motion of dipping fries in catsup and then transporting them to my mouth always helped me think.
“So what do we have?” I said to Dinah as she ripped open the paper bag making the hot fries more accessible.
“French fries and catsup,” she said giving me a puzzled look.
“I know that,” I said. “I mean what information do we have and what does it all mean?” We’d gotten colas to go with the fries, and not diet, either. Not even American ones. We’d gotten the Mexican version that was made with real sugar instead of the high fructose syrup stuff.
“Worth every calorie,” I said savoring the crispy fry with just the right amount of catsup. “Let’s recap what we know about the whole Kelly business. I’ll begin,” I said. Even with the no kid zone, it was still pretty noisy and we had to talk loud. “We know North lied about knowing her. And we know that there was a gun in the storage locker.” I wiped a dab of catsup off my knuckle. “But now it’s gone.” I groaned reliving the ride back with Detective Heather where she suggested maybe it had all been a dream. I assured Dinah I’d really seen the gun.
“I never doubted that you did,” my friend said. “We just have to figure out what happened.”
“Somehow Dan must have figured out that someone had been in the storage locker and realized he had to move the gun,” I said.
“And he took everything because then there was no chance any of it could be traced back to him,” Dinah added. She was curious about what else had been in there.
She already knew about the lamp. I chewed on a french fry. “That’s right,” I said amazed that I could have forgotten. “The crochet pieces we picked up. The ones with the bullion stitch that made Adele go nuts. They were in there.”
“So it wasn’t the junior shoplifters who took them from the bookstore. It must have been Dan,” Dinah said incredulous. “Remember he came late. He could have taken them while everyone was gathering in the event area. Now that I think about it, he had a plastic bag, but I thought it was just stuff from his store. But why would he have taken them?”
“I don’t know. When I saw them in the storage locker, the felt backing had been pulled apart.” I took a slug of my cola drink. “It’s just weird. And what’s with the package at Commander Blaine’s? I thought Kelly was selling gorgeous crocheted shawls in some pricey yarn, not little bags with quarters.” I paused for a moment,