“She used to work at the Coffee Grounds,” Marvin told them.
“Really?” Libby said.
“Yup. I remember her because she tripped and spilled the coffee she was carrying all over my shirt. She had purple hair then.”
Somehow Bernie wasn’t surprised. “Well, she was wearing a gray wig the last time I ran into her. She probably changes her hair color the way some people change their shoes. Do you know anything else about her?”
Marvin thought for a moment. Then he said, “I heard her mom died last year down in the city. She was involved in some sort of accident, so Samantha came up here to live with her dad, Robert Barron.”
Bernie raised an eyebrow. Robert Barron was a developer, although what he developed no one seemed to know. About six months ago, she’d read an item in the business section of the local paper about a deal Robert Barron was finalizing with Colbert Toys. That might explain why he didn’t want his daughter even peripherally involved in anything that had anything to do with any sort of scandal that would affect his business.
Marvin bent down and pulled up his socks. “Supposedly, she’s his kid from his first marriage.”
Libby put her program down on her lap. “I didn’t know he had a first marriage.”
Marvin straightened up. “It didn’t last too long.”
Libby took a chocolate bar out of her bag, broke off a piece, and passed the rest to Marvin. “Now I feel bad for the kid,” she said as the chocolate melted in her mouth.
“Why?” Bernie asked as she got out of her seat. “Just because her father is an egotistical, self-absorbed moron?”
“Something like that,” Libby replied.
“Wow,” Marvin said. “That’s quite a mouthful.”
“We did a dinner party for him a couple of years ago and never got paid,” Libby explained. “He’s very cheap. Not to mention the fact that he has these disgusting hunting trophies all over his house.” She looked up at her sister. “Where are you going?”
“To find Sam.”
“She didn’t say anything before,” Libby said. “Why do you think she’ll say anything now?”
Bernie reached up and repinned her hair. One of these days she was going to cut it all off. “As Dad says, ‘persistence is the cornerstone of good police work.’”
“You’re not a policeman,” Libby retorted. “You’re a caterer.”
“I never would have known,” Bernie said as she walked up the aisle.
The building housing the Longely Community Center was a small place composed of a large entranceway, the performance space, four rooms on the bottom floor and three on the top floor. Therefore, it didn’t take Bernie long to locate what passed for a green room. It was the second room on the left-hand side of the hall. Sam was sprawled out on a mustard yellow sofa that looked as if it had been dragged in off the street, listening to her iPhone and licking the vanilla cream from the middle of an Oreo cookie. Evidently she was taking her ushering duties as seriously as she took her cleaning ones, Bernie thought as she stepped inside.
It took a moment for Sam to notice her. When she did, she lifted herself into a sitting position.
“You can’t come in here,” she told Bernie, not bothering to take her earphones off. “This is for cast members only.”
“I had a part in The Wizard of Oz once.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. I was Glinda. And I was very good. You can ask Miss Grover, my fourth-grade teacher. No? You’re not going to? Fine. If it bothers you that I’m in here, we can step outside.”
Sam ate the last of her cookie and brushed the crumbs off her hands. “I don’t have to talk to you and I’m not going to.”
“Okay. I’ll just sit here till you do,” Bernie said. “That sofa looks awfully comfortable.”
Sam pointed to her ears. “I can’t hear you.”
Bernie took two quick steps toward Samantha, reached down, and yanked Sam’s headset off. “There,” she said, holding it up. “Problem solved.”
“You can’t do that!” Sam squawked.
“I just did.”
“Give them to me,” Sam demanded as she grabbed for her earphones.
Bernie took a step back. “I will after we’re finished talking.”
“They’re Bose. They’re really, really expensive.”
Bernie smiled. “I know. I have a pair.”
Sam glared at her. Bernie returned the favor.
“Well,” Bernie said after a couple of moments had gone by. “It looks like we’re at a stalemate.”
“What’s a stalemate?”
“An impasse.”
Sam put her hands on her hips. “My dad says I don’t have to say anything to you, so I’m not going to.”
“Who is your dad?” Bernie asked, wanting to hear what Sam was going to say.
“What do you care?”
“Maybe I want to call up this paragon of silence and talk to him. See if I can change his mind.”
An expression of alarm flickered across Sam’s face. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“I might,” Bernie said, thinking as she did how young and vulnerable Sam looked.
Sam thought for a moment before shaking her head. A triumphant expression replaced the one of alarm. “Like, duh. You must think I’m really dumb. You can’t call him. You don’t know who he is.”
“Actually, I do.”
“No. You don’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me.”
“I asked you because I was curious to hear what you would say.”
“How would you know?”
“This is a small town. People know things. Your dad is Robert Barron.”
The alarmed look on Sam’s face returned. She scrunched her eyes together as if she didn’t want to see what was going on in front of her.
Bernie pointed to the package of Oreos sitting on the table. “Mind if I have one?”
“You know something? You suck,” Sam cried.
“So I’ve been told,” Bernie replied as she went over and helped herself to one of the cookies. She twisted off the top, ate the cream filling, and then ate the cookie. God, she loved these. “Now then, why did your dad tell you to keep away from me?” she asked Sam when she was done eating. “If he did.”
Sam dragged the toe of her foot across the floor. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do.” Bernie watched Sam. It was obvious she wanted to talk. She just needed a nudge.
“You might feel better if you tell me,” Bernie suggested gently.
Sam mulled that idea over for a while. “I don’t really know anything,” she finally said. “It’s not like I saw anyone putting poison in Annabel’s wine, or anything like that.”
“Then what’s the big deal?”
“It’s just that Richard is a friend of my dad’s. My dad says it wouldn’t look good if I got”—she made quote marks with her fingers—“involved.”
“But you don’t think that’s the case?”
“My dad doesn’t have friends. He has business acquaintances. I mean he actually sleeps with his Blackberry. That’s why my mom left him. She said he spent all his time doing boring business stuff. She never saw him.”
“I’m sorry for what happened to your mom,” Bernie said to Sam as she watched the girl’s eyes mist over.
Sam looked down at the floor. “Stuff happens.” When she looked back up she had a smile plastered on her face, but her eyes remained hooded. “But me and some friends are getting an apartment in Fort Green in a couple of months,” she said brightly. “So that should be cool.”
“No doubt,” Bernie said.
“My dad doesn’t think so. My dad wants me to go into finance.” Sam made a face. “How lame is that?”
“Pretty lame,” Bernie conceded as she glanced at the clock on the wall.
“And he hunts. That’s even lamer. He has these disgusting heads on the wall.”
“I’ve seen them,” Bernie said.
“He’s
really proud of them, but I think they’re really yucky.”
“Me too,” Bernie said. And she meant it. Ten minutes to showtime. It was time to wrap this up.
“Okay, Samantha,” Bernie continued. “I just have one more question for you and then I’ll let you get back to work.”
If Sam caught the irony of Bernie’s statement, she gave no notice of it. Instead she cocked her head and waited.
“The guy who plays Brick,” Bernie continued.
“That’s Rick Crouse.”
“Well, I was just wondering, where does he hang out after the play?” Bernie asked.
“Why?”
“You saw the guy I came in with?”
Sam nodded.
“He’s from ICM,” Bernie amazed herself by saying. “He wants to talk to Rick.” Bernie touched her finger to her lips. “But don’t tell anyone, okay?”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Wow,” she said. “That’s huge. Aren’t they the biggest talent agency in the country?”
“One of the biggest,” Bernie said.
“I hope that happens to me one day.”
“It will,” Bernie assured her. She felt ridiculously guilty about the lie she’d just told. Why did she do things like this? Especially at times like now when it had been totally unnecessary.
Sam went over to the table and took another Oreo cookie. “Rick will be at Leon’s. That’s where everyone goes after the show.”
Leon’s. Bernie had forgotten all about that place. It had been years since she’d been in it. Bernie nodded her thanks and turned to go.
“That’s it?” Sam asked.
Bernie turned back. She could tell from Sam’s voice that there was something else she wanted to say. “Yes?”
Sam scratched her head. “It’s nothing. It’s just that I’m surprised…you don’t want to talk about the other thing.”
“Well, you told me you don’t want to.”
Sam corrected her. “I told you I can’t talk about it. That’s different. My dad told me he doesn’t want me getting involved.”
“So you said. I can understand that,” Bernie answered. “It wouldn’t be very good for him.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Sam said. “But, on the other hand, what happened to Annabel wasn’t very good either.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Bernie declared.
Sam ran her hands through her hair. “Have you ever been someplace where things just didn’t feel right?” she asked.
Bernie nodded.
“Well, that’s what the Colbert household was like. Everything was business. It was all dollars and cents. Poor Trudy. They spend all this money on her, and no one likes her. She’s an accessory to them. I was going to smuggle Trudy into our house, but my dad said he’d kick me out if I ever did anything like that.” Sam sighed. “I mean, when people get married they should stick together, right? They shouldn’t go off sleeping with everyone they feel like. I’m not gonna do that when I get married…not that I will.”
“You’ll get married,” Bernie assured her.
“Are you married?” Sam asked.
“Not yet,” Bernie admitted.
“How come?”
“I guess I haven’t found anyone yet.” Then Bernie thought of Brandon and said, “Although that may be changing.”
Sam smiled. “That’s nice.”
“I hope so,” Bernie replied, surprising herself by what she’d just said.
While she was still thinking about it Sam beckoned her closer.
“What?” Bernie asked.
Sam leaned over, cupped her hand over her mouth, and whispered in Bernie’s ear.
Chapter 12
“I’m going to be what?” Marvin yelped, turning his head to better hear Bernie from the backseat.
“A talent scout,” Bernie repeated.
She was glad that she’d remembered to save this bit of information for when they’d arrived at their destination. Unfortunately, Marvin was one of those people who seemed to need to make eye contact when conversing. This was an admirable trait most of the time, except when one was behind the wheel. And while her dad had made great progress extinguishing this habit, it was the consensus of opinion in the Simmons family that it was better to impart information to Marvin when he was stationary, if at all possible. Why take chances when you didn’t have to? Bernie reckoned.
It was eleven o’clock at night and they were parked in front of Leon’s, a dive bar on Catham Street. The place looked exactly as Bernie remembered it. The “e” in Leon’s was still out, the burnt panel on the lower part of the door where three drunk college kids had set a fire hadn’t been replaced, and the parking lot was still a deeply pitted obstacle course. It was nice to know that some things never change. They probably still had the same duct tape–patched uncomfortable booths in there and the same watered-down beer, Bernie thought.
Marvin turned the car off. He turned back to Bernie. “Did you say a talent scout?” he asked, hoping he hadn’t heard correctly.
“No. I said a goldfish bowl.”
“There’s no need to get snippy,” Libby told her sister.
“I’m not getting snippy,” Bernie said even though she knew she was. She always did when she felt uncomfortable with what she’d done. Her therapist had called it a defense mechanism. Her mother had called it pure pigheadedness.
Marvin shifted around until he found a slightly more comfortable spot. He just hoped that no one in the cast had used the funeral home recently, thereby increasing the odds of his being recognized. If his dad heard about this he would kill Marvin. He was always stressing that funeral directors had to be dignified. This was not dignified.
“And you want me to do this why?”
“Ah. Because I told Sam that you were.”
“And you told Sam that why?”
“Yes,” Libby interjected. “Why did you? You know what Marvin’s dad is like when it comes to this kind of stuff. He already thinks we’re crazy.”
Bernie sighed. “I know.” Unfortunately she’d forgotten about Marvin’s dad. What could she say? He was a forgettable person. Not that that was an excuse. Okay, so maybe this hadn’t been one of her best ideas, but they were stuck with it. “Frankly, I don’t know why I did it,” she admitted. “It was one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time type of things.”
“Not to me,” Marvin observed.
“It’ll be fine,” Bernie assured him.
Marvin just stared at her with those big soulful eyes of his.
“I just thought it would make it easier to talk to Rick Crouse,” she explained, feeling slightly guilty at what she’d done. “And I don’t think Sam would have told me where we could find Rick Crouse if I hadn’t said that.”
Marvin reached into his pocket, extracted a wadded-up tissue, and blew his nose. “Who is Rick Crouse?” he asked after he was done.
“Brick, of course. Didn’t you read the program?”
“I read it. I just don’t remember it,” Marvin said. “He was awful. He sounded like a New Jersey truck driver.”
“But gorgeous,” Libby observed.
“Movie star gorgeous,” Bernie agreed.
Marvin blinked. He turned to Libby. “You really think so?”
Libby squeezed his cheeks. “But not as gorgeous as you.”
“I’m not gorgeous.”
“No. You’re sexy.”
Marvin looked down at himself. His shirt was slightly stained, his pants were wrinkled, and he had the beginnings of a potbelly. And then there was his hair. Or rather the beginning loss thereof.
“Hardly,” he said.
“Well, you’re sexy to me.”
Bernie coughed. Marvin and Libby turned and looked at her.
“Folks, this is all very heartwarming,” Bernie said. “But let’s go over our plan.”
“We don’t have a plan,” Marvin pointed out.
“I have a plan,” Bernie said.
“Like what?” Libby demanded.
Bernie re
mained silent. Nothing was coming to her. Finally, she said, “Well, we’ll just have to go in there and see what happens, won’t we?”
“We?” Libby said. “What we? You don’t have a plan. Let’s go home. I’m exhausted.”
“Me too,” Marvin said plaintively. “We have two funerals tomorrow. Why do we want to talk to this Brick…Rick Crouse guy anyway?”
“Because Kevin O’Malley said we should,” Bernie replied.
“He didn’t say anything of the kind,” Libby reminded her sister. “He just gave us tickets. He could have been talking about anyone.”
“Not so. If you remember, he told us to watch Brick. And there’s something else as well.” And Bernie shared what Sam had whispered in her ear in the green room. “Sam thinks that Rick Crouse was having an affair with Annabel.”
“You’re kidding,” Libby said.
Bernie shook her head.
“That’s huge. Why didn’t you tell me when you sat down?”
“Hey, I’m not even sure it’s true. Sam said she just got the feeling when she saw them together.”
“Where did she see them together?” Libby asked.
“At Denny’s having breakfast.”
“When?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
Libby sucked air in through the space in her front teeth. “That’s not really indicative of anything,” she said.
“No, it isn’t,” Bernie agreed. “On the other hand, I don’t see Annabel at Denny’s eating The Grand Slam without a really good reason.”
“Maybe they were conducting some sort of business deal,” Libby hypothesized.
“You don’t conduct business deals at Denny’s,” Marvin interjected.
“I was just being the devil’s advocate,” Libby replied.
“Sam was pretty sure they were holding hands,” Bernie said.
“There goes that theory,” Marvin said.
“Pretty sure?” Libby asked. “What does that mean?”
Bernie unwrapped her scarf. “Sam thought they were holding hands under the table.”
“Excuse me,” Marvin said. “This is all very interesting, but what does my being a talent agent have to do with this?”
Libby turned to Bernie. “Well?” she asked in turn.
A Catered Birthday Party Page 8