A Catered New Year's Eve

by Isis Crawford

“No. Your mother was right,” Sean said.

  “She usually was,” Bernie noted.

  “And yet here we are,” Sean said.

  “Yes, here we are,” Bernie said, repeating her father’s phrase.

  Libby looked from her sister to her father and back again and decided it was time to change the conversation. “It’s late,” Libby announced. “And dinner is ready. How about we call a ‘time-out’ and eat,” she suggested. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

  Sean nodded. He realized he was hungry, too.

  “Works for me,” Bernie said, and she and Libby headed downstairs to bring up the dinner they’d prepared.

  Sean brightened when he saw what his daughters came back with: roasted chicken with roasted potatoes, carrots, onions, and parsnips; a green salad; French bread; and apple pie for dessert. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

  This was one of his favorite meals. He knew that the chicken skin would be crispy; the meat would be juicy and flavored with rosemary, garlic, and lemon; and the vegetables would be cooked in the same pan, which meant they would be caramelized on the outside, soft on the inside, and bathed in the chicken’s juices. Then there was the French bread to tear apart and dip into the juices and the green salad and a juiced apple pie for dessert. It was the perfect winter meal, the ultimate comfort food.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “My pleasure,” Libby replied.

  “Tell me, did you make this meal before you got the phone call from Ada or after?” Sean asked his daughters.

  They both laughed.

  “We can neither confirm nor deny,” Bernie said as she handed her dad his plate.

  “That’s what I thought,” Sean said, taking the plate and sitting down in his chair. “This almost makes me glad Ada called,” he said as Cindy climbed up on the arm of his chair and waited to get something to eat.

  Chapter 11

  For the next ten minutes, the only sounds in the Simmons’s flat were the sounds of Bernie, Libby, and Sean chatting about the weather forecast for the next week, the clink of cutlery on bone china as they ate, and the hoot of a freight train as it went by the town. Then Sean started the conversation about Ada back up.

  “So why did you say you’d help Ada out?” Sean asked in a milder tone as he got up and tore off a piece of French bread from the baguette Libby had placed on the coffee table.

  Bernie speared a piece of potato and ate it. Perfect. “You really want to know?” she asked her dad as she hunted around for another one on her plate. She didn’t know why people called potatoes lowly. Cooked properly they were one of the better things in life.

  “Yes, I really do,” Sean replied.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” Bernie admitted as she cut her next piece of potato with her fork. She’d used Idahoes. She still liked them best for pan roasting. They browned up nicely and remained somewhat floury inside. “Ada was hysterical. It was the only way I could think of to calm her down. She still is hysterical,” she concluded gloomily, remembering her phone conversation with her.

  Sean sat back down, took the bread, sopped up the juices on his plate with it, and bit into it after he’d fed a small piece of bread and chicken to the cat, who jumped off the chair and took her booty into Sean’s bedroom to eat. “Did you tell Ada to go home?” Sean asked Bernie after he’d swallowed. “Did you tell her the police want to talk to her?”

  “Of course I did,” Bernie replied, offended. “I even told Ada I’d get a lawyer for her so she wouldn’t have to go in and talk to the police by herself.”

  “So, what did she say?” Sean asked after he’d eaten the last piece of chicken on his plate.

  “She said she was afraid that someone was going to kill her,” Bernie replied. “She said she wasn’t going to go back until this thing was solved.”

  “She’s talking about her family, right?” Sean clarified.

  “That’s what I’m assuming,” Bernie replied.

  “The Sinclairs give the Medicis a run for their money,” Sean observed as he finished off his bread. He thought about eating another piece but remembered the apple pie and decided he needed to leave room for dessert.

  “That seems like a slight exaggeration,” Bernie observed.

  “Poetic license,” Sean shot back. “By any chance did Ada tell you where she was?” he asked his daughters.

  Libby shook her head. “She didn’t say.”

  Sean cast an eye on his children. “Are you sure?”

  “We’re positive,” Libby and Bernie said together.

  “Anyway, why would we lie?” Libby asked.

  “Simple,” Sean said. “You’d lie because the Hollingsworth police like her for this and you don’t think she did anything and you don’t want to take a chance that I might call up one of my old acquaintances in the Hollingsworth Police Department and tip him off. Not that I would. I hope you know that. Unless, of course, you were in imminent danger. Then all bets are off.”

  “Good to know,” Bernie told her dad.

  “Ada thinks the police may be in on the frame,” Libby said as she ate a parsnip. They were such an underused vegetable. She wondered why because they were delicious. She made a note to herself to talk to Bernie about serving them more often at A Taste of Heaven. They could start with Michael Field’s recipe for parsnip pie.

  Sean rolled his eyes. “She is off the reservation, isn’t she?”

  “Ada is pretty far out there,” Bernie allowed. “I’ll give you that. But what if what she’s saying is true? What if even part of what she’s saying is true and she’s innocent?”

  “And what if pigs learn to fly?” Sean retorted.

  “They could with genetic engineering,” Libby pointed out.

  Sean shot her a dirty look. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  Libby ducked her head. “Well, it’s true,” she murmured and went back to finishing her dinner.

  “Given what you told me she said, she practically confessed,” Sean said.

  “She was extremely upset,” Bernie said. “I think seeing Peggy dredged up memories of her dad’s death.”

  “I’m guessing she felt guilty since she was the one who arranged everything,” Libby said. “Which is different from being guilty.”

  Sean snorted. “I know the difference, thank you very much. English is my native language.” He paused to eat a piece of carrot. “Since when are carrots purple?” he asked, referring to the one he’d just consumed.

  “They’ve been around for a while,” Bernie informed him. “We just decided to start serving them,” she explained. “They look pretty.”

  Sean speared another piece of purple carrot and ate that one, too. Then he sampled an orange one. “They both taste the same,” he observed.

  “Pretty much,” Libby agreed. “The purple ones are a little sweeter.”

  “I thought that I’d at least have you on my side,” he said to his eldest daughter after he’d finished everything on his plate.

  “Okay, I admit you were right about getting involved,” Libby said.

  “At least for that,” Sean said.

  “And I’m sorry we lost the bet. . . .”

  Sean grinned. “I’m not. You want to double down?”

  Libby ignored the question and said, “But for better or worse . . .”

  “Worse . . .” Sean responded.

  Libby ignored her dad’s comment again. “We’re involved now and for what it’s worth I stand with Bernie. I think there’s a chance Ada isn’t guilty, either.”

  “Really?” Sean asked.

  Libby thought about the expression on Ada’s face when she and Bernie had walked into the room. “Yes. Really.”

  Sean put down his fork and shook his head. “My daughters, the finders of lost causes.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Bernie told him.

  “I would,” Sean replied, putting his plate on the end table. “So, then tell me how would you explain her conduct,” Sean challenged.<
br />
  Bernie finished her potatoes and answered. “Like Libby said, I think Ada feels guilty. I think Ada feels that if she hadn’t set up this scenario then none of this would have happened.”

  Sean rubbed his chin. “You’re referring to Peggy’s death, I presume, when you said, ‘then none of this would have happened.’ ”

  Bernie nodded. “What else would I be talking about?”

  “So, was what Ada read compelling evidence that her dad was murdered?” Sean asked, going on to another piece of the puzzle—because he was sure that’s what this was. A very complicated jigsaw puzzle.

  Libby and Bernie looked at each other for a moment. Finally, Libby spoke. “I didn’t think so,” she said reluctantly.

  “Neither did I,” Bernie agreed. “Neither did anyone there, for that matter,” she added, “although Ada thought they were just pretending not to understand.”

  “And were they?” Sean asked.

  “Bernie and I didn’t think so,” Libby said, summoning up the expressions on everyone’s faces in her mind, “but Ada swore they were.”

  “Do you think Ada was, as they used to say, shining you on?” Sean asked.

  Both Libby and Bernie shook their heads.

  “I think she believed what she told us,” Bernie said.

  “Interesting,” Sean murmured. He tapped his fingers together as he thought. “What happened to the notebook?” He was thinking that it would be interesting to look at it if possible.

  “I don’t know,” Libby said. “We searched for it after the police left, and it was gone.”

  “So, we can assume that Ada took it,” Sean commented.

  “She said she didn’t,” Bernie said. “I asked when she called.”

  Sean lowered his hand and massaged his right thigh. For some reason, it was aching when he’d woken up this morning. “Do you believe her?”

  “Yeah, I think I do,” Bernie said.

  “Why?” Sean asked as he continued to rub his thigh.

  “Two reasons,” Bernie replied, eating the last bit of chicken on her plate.

  “Which are?” Sean prompted when Bernie didn’t reply immediately.

  “First, Ada’s tone of voice when she answered me. She seemed genuinely surprised when I asked her where it was.”

  “And number two?” Sean asked.

  “Ada brought it into the kitchen with her when she talked to us after she’d finished her reading,” Libby said, chiming in.

  Bernie nodded. “When Ada came in she put the notebook on the kitchen table. I remember because she set it right next to the bottle of olive oil and I almost knocked the notebook to the floor when I reached for the bottle to pack it up. And I don’t think she picked the notebook back up again when she went back to the living room. At least, I don’t remember her doing it if she did.”

  Sean leaned forward. “What about you, Libby?”

  “I didn’t see her pick the notebook up, either,” Libby said, backing up Bernie’s observation. “And she didn’t go back into the kitchen again,” she added. “She was in the living room, and then she ran outside, got into her mom’s car, and took off.”

  “Ergo, someone else who was there came in the kitchen and took the notebook,” Sean said.

  “That’s the logical inference,” Bernie said. “Which is one of the reasons I think Ada is innocent. I mean why go to the trouble of taking the notebook if there wasn’t something damaging in it?”

  “You may have a point,” Sean reluctantly conceded. “Although, there is another possibility. Maybe no one took it. Maybe the notebook got thrown out in all the confusion.”

  Bernie made a face. “I’m not saying it’s not possible, but I don’t think it’s very likely. Almost everything was packed up when Ada came in the kitchen, which meant we’d already taken the trash out.”

  “Or,” Libby hypothesized, “the notebook could have fallen on the floor and we didn’t see it and someone picked it up.”

  “Which leaves us where we were before, which is nowhere,” Sean said, embarking on a different train of thought. “Everyone there did New Year’s Eve together every year,” he noted as Cindy came back into the living room, jumped up onto his lap, circled three times, and plopped herself down.

  Bernie nodded. “That is correct.”

  “Do they all work at Sinclair Enterprises?” Sean asked.

  “Yes,” Libby said. “And everyone is coming into money when the company goes public.”

  Sean absentmindedly rubbed Cindy’s ears. She started to purr. “And, they do this Christmas popper thing every year, right?” asked Sean, continuing down his list.

  This time it was Libby’s turn to nod. “According to Ada, it’s part of their New Year’s Eve tradition.”

  “So, it would be easy enough to set up Peggy’s death beforehand,” Sean mused.

  “Yes, it would,” Bernie agreed. “In fact, you’d have had to, given it was cyanide. Then all you’d have to do was make sure that the right person got the poisoned popper.”

  Libby laughed. “I must say that’s quite the sentence. Can you say that fast, five times?”

  “I have a better one,” Bernie replied. “Can you say, ‘the proper person purloined the poisoned popper’, five times?”

  “How about we get back to what we were talking about,” Sean said.

  Bernie and Libby thought for a moment, then Bernie said, “I’m guessing Linda probably bought the same kind of poppers every year, so maybe everyone had a favorite. For example, Ada’s mom always took the red one, while Peggy always chose green.”

  “Thin,” Sean observed.

  “Agreed,” Bernie said, “but plausible. There may be another explanation, but I can’t think of it at the moment.”

  “Who did Ada speak to about discovering her dad’s notebook in the attic?” Sean asked, changing course.

  Bernie frowned. “As far as I know just Libby and myself. The whole idea was to take everyone by surprise. That’s why Bernie and I were watching. But her mother could have seen the notebook and told someone else. I mean maybe Ada left it lying on her bed before she knew what was in it.”

  “It’s possible,” Sean allowed. He scratched behind Cindy’s ears.

  “Plus, I don’t believe in coincidence,” Bernie said.

  “Ada’s dad and Peggy both dying on New Year’s Eve, both poisoned, what are the odds?”

  “Not that high, if it’s true,” Sean admitted.

  “That’s what Ada is saying,” Bernie said.

  Sean lifted his arms above his head and stretched. He was getting sucked into this, despite himself. “I’ll have salad now,” he told Libby, pausing to gather his thoughts.

  She nodded and served him some on a salad plate; shaved a bit of parmesan cheese over the baby romaine, endive, arugula, and walnuts; and handed the plate to her dad.

  He smiled appreciatively. His daughters’ salads were always crafted with an eye toward balance and appearance instead of carelessly thrown together without any thought.

  “Excellent,” he said as he took a bite of an endive leaf coated in olive oil, lemon juice, and a small sprinkling of sea salt. Then he got back to Peggy’s death. “Next, we come to the most puzzling question, the question of the poison. Where did that come from?”

  “Maybe it’s a by-product of the Sinclairs’ manufacturing process?” Libby guessed.

  “Cyanide?” Sean said incredulously. “They’re manufacturing a hair restorer. How would cyanide come into that?”

  “I don’t know,” Libby said. “But they do use mercury to smelt gold.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Sean demanded.

  “Nothing, really,” Libby allowed. “I was just pointing out that industrial processes have by-products.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  “Well, the cyanide had to come from somewhere,” Libby observed. “So maybe it is a by-product. After all, you can’t order it on Amazon.”

  “Not yet, anyway,” Be
rnie observed. “But you could order it on the dark web.”

  Sean nodded. “Or make it.”

  “Seriously? How?” Libby asked.

  “Let’s get into that later,” Sean said. “I think the more germane question is why kill Peggy at that particular time and place?”

  “Obviously, someone was trying to send a message,” Libby posited.

  Sean nodded. “Exactly. Otherwise whoever did this could have killed Peggy in a less splashy manner.”

  “Splashy,” Bernie said. “Nice word.”

  Sean nodded his thanks.

  “Or,” Bernie hypothesized, “maybe we’re overthinking this. Maybe this was the only time and place the killer could be assured of getting to her.”

  Libby broke off a piece of the baguette, buttered it, shaved a little parmesan on top of it, and ate it. “Then the second question would be, who was the message intended for?” Libby asked after she’d swallowed.

  “If Peggy’s death was in fact intended as a message,” Bernie said.

  “Which we don’t know,” Sean told her. Then he went back to eating his salad. “So, where and when are you going to meet Ada?” he asked when he was done.

  “Ada told me she’d call and let me know,” Bernie said.

  “Just be careful,” Sean warned, picturing a secluded rendezvous out in the woods somewhere.

  “I’m always careful,” Bernie responded.

  Sean snorted.

  “Well, I am,” she insisted. “More or less,” she added in the name of full disclosure.

  “Mostly less,” Sean said.

  “Okay, I might have a high-risk tolerance,” Bernie admitted.

  “What does that even mean?” Libby demanded.

  “It means I didn’t mind getting in risky situations, unlike some other people I could name,” Bernie told her sister.

  “Oh,” Libby said. “You mean the ones with common sense?”

  Sean rubbed his chin with the knuckles of his right hand. “High-risk tolerance,” he mused, savoring the phrase. “I like it.”

  Bernie grinned as a thought occurred to her. “I’m glad you do, because in keeping with that, remember how you asked Libby if she wanted to double down on our bet?”

  Sean nodded. “Indeed I do.”

  “Well, Libby and I will take that offer.”