A Catered St. Patrick's Day

by Crawford, Isis

  “I still can’t believe it,” Duncan said as he sat back down.

  When Bernie and Libby left he was sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands.

  Chapter 5

  “That would really suck if it’s true,” Bernie said to Libby when they were outside the guest Fpou tT house.

  “Yes, it would,” Libby agreed as she fished the car keys out of her backpack. “It would give things a whole new twist.”

  “It would, wouldn’t it though?” Bernie observed. “I’m calling Dad and seeing what he thinks.” And she whipped her cell out of her bag and punched his number in.

  He answered on the twelfth ring. As she waited for her dad to pick up Bernie pictured him looking for his cell and cursing when he couldn’t find it.

  “We need to get our house phone back,” Sean said when he finally answered. “This is ridiculous.”

  “You’re right, Dad,” Bernie agreed. “We do. And we will.”

  “Why did we ever get rid of it in the first place?” Sean asked, slightly mollified.

  “Because you wanted to save money,” Bernie said.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Sean told her. “Now tell me how your talk with Duncan went.”

  So Bernie did. By the time she’d finished talking with him she and Libby had reached the van.

  “What did Dad say?” Libby asked as soon as she heard Bernie say good-bye.

  Bernie lowered the phone. “He said it was an interesting hypothesis and that we should pursue it.”

  “And?”

  “That we’re out of crunchy peanut butter and we should pick some up.”

  “He didn’t say anything else?”

  “Like that it was a brilliant idea?”

  “Something like that,” Libby said.

  Bernie laughed and wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck. It was bright red, with orange flowers sewn on in random places, and she loved it. “Good luck waiting for that to happen,” she told Libby as she climbed in the vehicle. Once she was seated, she called Brandon.

  “I want to talk to you about what happened the night that Mike Sweeney was killed,” she told him.

  “Well, hello to you too, gorgeous,” Brandon replied.

  Bernie chuckled. “Flattery will get you anywhere.”

  “This I already know. That’s why I use it.”

  “What’s a good time to come over to the bar?”

  “I always have time for you, sweetheart,” Brandon told her, doing his best Bogart imitation.

  “When do you have time to talk?”

  “As opposed to other activities in the storeroom.”

  “That would be a good trick,” Bernie said, thinking about how packed full of supplies that place was.

  Brandon laughed. “Now would be a good time. We’re not into the evening rush yet.”

  “And when does the Corned Beef and Cabbage Club usually come in?”

  “If they come it’ll be within the next half an hour or so.”

  “Great,” Bernie said. “See you soon.” And she hung up, slipped her cell phone back in her bag, and leaned back in her seat.

  “You think that someone actually slipped some sort of knockout drops into Duncan’s beer?” Libby asked as she started up the van. She’d suggested it as a lark.

  The engine coughed, then fell silent. “Drats,” Libby muttered. She tried again. This time the engine spluttered for thirty seconds before quitting. On the third try, the engin Kry,mute finally turned over.

  Bernie patted the dashboard. “You go, girl.”

  “I think it’s time to start shopping around for a new vehicle,” Libby observed. Then she corrected herself. “A new, used vehicle.”

  Bernie put a finger to her lips. “Sssh,” she told Libby. “Not so loud. You don’t want to hurt Mathilda’s feelings, do you?” she asked as she buckled up her seat belt.

  “Definitely not.” Libby patted the dashboard. “Sorry, Mathilda,” she told the van. “We’re not going to put you out to pasture. We’re just going to insure you have a comfortable old age.” She turned to Bernie. “Is that better?”

  Bernie nodded. “Much. We are nuts.”

  “Some people talk to their pets, we talk to our van,” Libby said as she backed into a bush at the end of the driveway, before putting the car into drive and doing a U-turn. One of the van’s wheels slipped off the pavement onto the gravel. “Not a big deal.”

  “You know, I know what you and Marvin see in each other,” Bernie said suddenly, changing the subject.

  “And that is?”

  “You both drive the same.”

  Libby got all four tires back on the pavement. “Ha ha ha. Very funny.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I’m way better than he is.”

  Bernie waved her hands in the air. “Okay. Maybe that was a slight exaggeration.”

  “Slight? At least I stop for stop signs.”

  “I’ll grant you that.”

  Libby opened her window and readjusted the side-view mirror. “You realize you still haven’t answered my question.”

  “About the roofies in Duncan’s drink?”

  “Yeah.”

  Bernie gave an exasperated sigh. “I already said I think it’s a real possibility,” she told Libby as she pulled over to avoid hitting Bree’s brand new BMW, which had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “In fact, I think it’s more than possible. I think it’s probable. You have to stop second-guessing yourself.”

  “I know, I know,” Libby replied. And she did know. It was one of her worst habits.

  Bree waved and Libby and Bernie waved back.

  “Nice car,” Bernie commented.

  “I don’t think I’d want to drive something like that,” Libby said. “Too showy.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind at all,” Bernie said wistfully. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

  “At least not in this life,” Libby said. “You think Bree knows about Duncan blacking out?” she asked her sister as she got back on the road.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Bernie replied. “She has a way of knowing everything and admitting nothing.”

  “Especially to herself.”

  Bernie reached over and clicked on the radio. She got static. She tried another station. Same thing. She gave up and clicked it off. “Maybe that’s why Bree came right over. I wonder if Duncan’s told his lawyer about blacking out?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Me either,” Bernie said. “He had a hard enough time admitting it to us.”

  “Yeah. But if we suspected it, the lawyers certainly should have.”

  “We should tell them just in case,” Bernie said.

  “Really, we have nothing to tell except our suspicions,” Libby said.

  “Maybe we should hold off for a little while.”

  Libby nodded in agreement.

  “I’ll tell you one thing though. If what we’re talking about is real, it certainly makes everything a lot more complicated.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Libby said.

  The sisters fell silent for a moment. Then Libby spoke. “You know what this means if it’s true?” she said.

  “That we should have asked for more money?” Bernie asked.

  Libby ignored her.

  “Okay. It means that someone is trying to set Duncan up,” Bernie said.

  “Well, whoever did this certainly didn’t nominate him for the Citizen of the Year award,” Libby mused. She slowed down to take the turn onto Bradley. “Now the question becomes who hated Duncan and why.”

  “Maybe,” Bernie said, tapping her fingernails on the dashboard—she really had to get a manicure—“the question is who hated Mike Sweeney and Duncan? Or here’s another possibility. Is Duncan just some random stooge who was picked to take the fall?”

  Libby frowned. “I don’t know about that. You’ve really got to dislike someone to do something like this to him.”

  Bernie shrugged. “Maybe.
Or maybe the person who did it doesn’t have any feelings one way or another. Except anger.”

  A shiver ran up Libby’s spine. “That’s very cold.”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Bernie replied.

  Libby stopped at a stop sign. “Well, Duncan did say he was drinking with Liza, so if anyone put anything in his beer, she’s probably the one.”

  “Which might be why she disappeared.”

  “That would be my guess,” Libby said. “I hope Dad’s friend comes through with her whereabouts,” she added as the car behind her honked. “I’m going. I’m going,” she said as she went through the intersection.

  “I hope Dad’s friend comes through too,” Bernie said. “But even if he doesn’t, all is not lost, as they like to say in the movies.”

  “True. I’m sure Liam or Pat or Connor knows where she is. The trick will be getting them to tell us,” Libby reflected.

  Bernie grinned. “And it will be a good trick. Because the more thought I give this, the more I realize that this was a two-person job. I mean think about it. Even if we assume that Liza doped up Duncan, she didn’t kill Sweeney. She couldn’t have. He’s way too big.”

  “Maybe she doped him up too and led him to the barrel.. . .”

  “And he just meekly put his head under?”

  “To take a drink. She could have suggested that to him.”

  “She still wouldn’t have had the strength to hold his head under. Drugged or not, he would have started struggling when he ran out of air. That’s a basic instinct.”

  “So we’re looking for at least one guy,” Bernie said. “Maybe two.”

  “You’re postulating a conspiracy here between Liza and one of the guys at the very least,” Libby said.

  “Yes I am,” Bernie allowed.

  “Which would mean adva Kuld

  “True. Which,” Bernie said slowly, thinking out loud, “is very different than two guys getting into a fight and one of them killing the other on impulse and then running off.”

  “So which is it?” Libby asked her sister.

  Bernie shook her head. “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is,” Libby replied.

  “I don’t know. I guess we have to keep both possibilities in mind.”

  “Or here’s another thought,” Bernie said. “Maybe someone didn’t slip anything in Duncan’s drink. I mean he could be lying about that. That’s another big if.”

  “He could be,” Libby agreed. “But do you think he is?”

  Bernie thought back to the talk they’d just had and to the expression on Duncan’s face when he’d told them he didn’t remember anything. “No,” she said. “I don’t think he’s lying. He really didn’t want to tell us. I think he was incredibly embarrassed to have to admit something like it. It made him look like an idiot, and that’s something that Duncan doesn’t like to do.”

  “Still,” Libby said as she turned into RJ’s parking lot, “we do have to consider the possibility.”

  “Never discount anything,” both sisters chorused together, echoing one of their dad’s mantras.

  They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  “So what would make someone commit that kind of crime,” Bernie asked Libby when they stopped.

  Libby parked the van and turned off the ignition. “That’s simple,” she said. “Money.”

  “Or revenge,” Bernie said.

  “Or both,” Libby said.

  Chapter 6

  The only three people sitting in RJ’s when Libby and Bernie walked in were Otis, Megan, and Bruce. This made the place look bigger than it was. RJ’s had an allowable occupancy of two hundred, but on good days it ran way over that number.

  The place would fill up later in the day as people stopped by to get a drink on their way home from work, but for now the balls on the pool table were racked, no one was playing darts, and the TV was on mute. The only sounds were the occasional cackle from Megan laughing at one of her private jokes and Otis humming to himself while he downed his second gin.

  Bernie and Libby nodded to them as they moved on to their customary seats at the other end of the cherrywood bar. The countertop was Mulroney’s pride and joy and he never tired of telling the story of how he’d salvaged it from a bar in Vermont before the tax people had come and closed the place down.

  Bernie knew that Mulroney wouldn’t have approved of Otis, Megan, and Bruce sitting there and drinking. They weren’t the type of clientele he wanted, but since he was never there at that hour of the day it didn’t matter. Even though Longely didn’t have any town drunks, that designation being totally unPC—these days people had drinking issues—Otis, Megan, and Bruce came as close as anyone in town to filling that particular bill.

  Brandon always let them sit there and drink until the commuters came in, at which point he shooed them out, since they tended to be somewhat odiferous if you got close enough. Otherwise, everyone complained about their smell and their gener N there andally unkempt appearance.

  Over the years Bernie had noticed that Otis, Bruce, and Megan didn’t seem to mind their unofficial curfew. They always left willingly and Bernie thought they were just grateful to Brandon for letting them stay in RJ’s in the first place—since most of the other bars in Longely wouldn’t let them through the front door—as well as for the fact that Brandon could be relied upon to spot them a couple of bucks now and then when things got really tight.

  “My heroines,” Brandon called out as Libby and Bernie sat down on the bar stools near the window. He’d been restocking in preparation for the evening rush and had seen their reflections in the mirror hanging over the back shelves when they’d entered. He went over to the cooler and got them both bottles of root beer.

  “Good stuff,” he said, pushing the bottles across the counter after he’d opened them. “Artisan.”

  “Be still my heart. What did they do?” Bernie asked. “Go out and collect the roots?”

  “Yes, and they were wearing capes and carrying willow baskets when they did it,” Brandon told her. “Unless you want something a little harder. I figured it was too early for anything else, but I could be wrong.”

  “You? Never,” Bernie said in mock horror.

  “Let’s not exaggerate.” Brandon put a bowl full of unshelled peanuts between Bernie and Libby. “It has happened once or twice.”

  “Maybe even three times,” Bernie said teasingly. “No. This will be fine, thank you very much. Nice bottle,” Bernie said, picking it up and studying it before putting it back down. “Old fashioned.”

  “That’s the idea,” Brandon told her.

  “You know,” she said, “back in the old days root beer had a kick.”

  Brandon leered. “So do I.”

  Bernie took a sip from the bottle. “Are you comparing yourself to a bottle of root beer?”

  Brandon wagged his eyebrows. “I’m much better than that. If you want I’ll prove it to you.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll have to take a rain check on that,” Bernie told him. “We’re here on business.”

  Brandon put his hands to his heart. “I’m crushed,” he said.

  “That’ll be the day,” Bernie told him.

  “You don’t think I’m crushable?” Brandon declared. “Do I not bleed when you prick me ...?”

  “Enough,” Bernie cried, holding up her hand. “No mangled Shakespeare, please.”

  Brandon sniffed. “If you feel that way, fine, but I’ll have you know I was in Macbeth in college.”

  “Yeah. In the stage crew. Don’t even pretend that your feelings are hurt,” Bernie told him.

  Brandon smiled. He put his elbows on the bar and leaned in toward Bernie and Libby. “So I’m just guessing here, but I take it I owe the pleasure of your visit to Mike Sweeney’s unfortunate demise? Although I have to say, if you’re a drunk, maybe that’s the way to go.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Libby said. “I think his death falls under the ‘be car
eful what you wish for’ category.”

  “It’s probably not a good way to die,” Brandon conceded. “Drowning is drowning. They ran the story on the news earlier.”

  “Yeah, I saw it,” Bernie said. “They gave it a lot of play.”

  “Hometown boy kills hometown boy. Pretty unusual stuff up around here.” Brandon stifled a yawn. “Sorry. I have to start getting to bed earlier. How’s the investigation going?”

  Bernie nodded. “Slowly. Very slowly.”

  “I’ve got to say I’m a little surprised. Duncan was never one of your ...”

  “Biggest fans?” Bernie asked, finishing Brandon’s sentence.

  “Exactly,” Brandon said.

  “Duncan didn’t hire us,” Libby said.

  “So who did?” Brandon asked.

  Libby took a sip of her root beer. It was surprisingly good. No. It was great. She took another sip and thought about the old soda fountain on Main Street, and that got her wondering about whether or not they should serve root beer floats in the summer. She thought it would be easy enough to do. Maybe they could even make and sell their own ice cream. She’d have to remember to talk to Bernie about that. But that was for later. Right now she had more pressing concerns—like the Sweeney investigation.

  “Bree hired us,” she told Brandon, getting back to the matter at hand.

  “Ah,” Brandon replied. “The duchess must not be pleased about the situation her nephew has gotten himself into.”

  “You could say that about her royal highness,” Bernie said, thinking back to Bree’s behavior in their flat.

  Brandon leaned over, grabbed a handful of peanuts out of the bowl, and began shelling them. “Well, over the years she’s spent a lot of time and money keeping Duncan out of trouble. I’m not so sure she can do it this time.”

  “I guess we’ll see what we can turn up,” Bernie said noncommittally.

  “You think there’s a chance that Duncan didn’t do it?” Brandon asked.

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Bernie said. She took a peanut out of the bowl, shelled it, and popped it into her mouth.

  As he did likewise, Brandon said, “You know the cops were around a while ago asking for Liza.”