“It’s fine,” Bernie assured her.
Jo Ann picked up her glass. “I think this should be my last margarita.”
“You should stop by our store,” Bernie told her.
“Love to.” Jo Ann turned to go, then stopped, and shook her head. “Bree, I almost forgot to tell you what I came in here for. Lucy called to tell me to tell you she’s on her way.” And with that she walked out of the kitchen.
Bernie watched her leave as Bree took the tarts out of their carriers and put them on plates.
“Nice lady,” Bernie said.
“Good job, too. She sells annuities. She must make half a mil a year, although I think she could cut back on the booze a little.” Bree took another look at the fruit tarts. “Libby’s really done an excellent job. Although I’m not sure I agree with the combination of kiwi and blueberries. Visually speaking, peaches and blueberries might have been a better bet.”
“The peaches were mealy.” Bernie began playing with her ring.
“So what did you think about Esmeralda’s boob job?” Bree asked suddenly. Bernie frowned. “Why?”
“Because I recommended the doctor. Do you think they’re a little large?”
“Maybe a tad,” Bernie allowed.
A slight frown creased Bree’s forehead. “I just wish she’d consulted me about the size, but if that’s what it takes to raise her self-esteem then so be it.”
“Which doctor?”
Not cheap Bernie thought when Bree mentioned one that was in all the fashion magazines.
“Now if I could just get her out of that nasty little apartment in Avalon and into something decent, I’m sure she’d feel so much better. I don’t think people realize how much their surroundings affect them. I tell you Esmeralda is almost as cheap as Jura and his brothers.”
“I’d hardly call Jura cheap,” Bernie objected. “Look at what he was spending on the wedding.”
Bree shook her head. “I thought you were savvier.”
“How do you mean?”
“First of all,” Bree explained, “the wedding was for show. Jura doesn’t like spending money on anything that doesn’t impress. And it was probably paid for out of corporate funds.”
Bernie thought about how the checks for the wedding dinner had been written.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Bree said.
“Yes,” Bernie said. “I think you are.”
“Exactly.” Bree placed an antique silver pie knife on each plate. “Like the house they live in. Almost all of their out-of-pocket expenses are paid for by their corporation, which includes the house and the staff.”
“Isn’t that unusual?” Bernie asked as Bree stepped back to admire her handiwork.
Bree moved one of the knives a millimeter to the right. “Not really. You’d be surprised how often it’s done. And speaking of moving . . . what about you? The daughter of a friend of mine is leaving for L.A. and she has the cutest little apartment out on Milbrook.
“It’s one of those grandmother apartments. A converted garage. It’s got the most cunning second floor. It would be perfect for you. You should think about it.”
Bernie nodded. “I will,” she promised but what she was really thinking about was the fact that Esmeralda liked to hunt.
Chapter 25
Sean studied his daughters. On his insistence they’d come up to his room as soon as they’d finished closing the store, and they didn’t look happy about it. He knew that the last thing they wanted to do at this moment was talk about what had happened this afternoon at the Raid Estate. But that was too bad. He’d waited long enough.
Libby was sitting in the armchair while Bernie was perched on the edge of his bed. He took a deep breath. They were his flesh and blood but sometimes he didn’t understand them.
He didn’t understand them at all. He’d never had this sort of trouble with his men. Ever. He’d always managed to communicate with them. So what was the problem here? What should he be saying that he wasn’t?
“Are you calm enough so that we can talk now?” Bernie asked him.
Sean wheeled his chair forward then wheeled it back to where it was.
“I’m always calm.”
“You weren’t earlier,” Bernie pointed out.
“Given the circumstances I thought I was admirably restrained. You two were supposed to talk to the shopkeepers that service the Raid Estate,” he told them. “You weren’t supposed to commit a felony.”
“Was what we did a felony?” Libby replied.
“What else would you call breaking and entering and stealing property?” Sean asked her.
“How about being enterprising,” Bernie said.
“Ha. Ha. I’m sure that the judge would allow that as a defense at your trial. That is if you didn’t get shot first.”
“Hey, we didn’t know we were going to discover a secret entrance into the house,” Bernie said. “Which turned out to be a good thing. Even you have to admit that. Plus you’ve always told us to talk to the main players first. We were going to talk to the shopkeepers next. Right, Libby?”
“Right,” Libby echoed.
“Don’t throw my words back at me,” Sean snapped. In spite of being right why did he feel as if he was on the losing end of this discussion? “What if you’d gotten caught? You’re already in trouble in West Vale.”
“But we didn’t get caught,” Bernie pointed out. “No one knows what we did.”
“That was only pure dumb luck,” Sean pointed out.
“It was skill,” Bernie insisted.
“No, it wasn’t,” Sean replied.
“Come on, Dad.” Bernie went over and rubbed his shoulders. “Admit it. We did great. For one thing we know now how whoever killed Leeza got out of the house to set off the remote control device without being seen.”
“I’m not admitting anything.” But Sean could feel himself begin to thaw. That was the problem right there. He could never stay mad at his girls long enough.
“You would have done the same thing in our position,” Bernie told him.
“I most emphatically would not.”
Bernie leaned over his shoulder. Her hair touched his cheek. “Did you look at the folder we got?”
“Stole.”
“Okay. Stole,” Bernie allowed.
“Yes,” Sean said grudgingly. Originally he’d been going to throw the papers out in the trash as an object lesson to his daughters on the results of their folly, but given the circumstances he didn’t have that luxury.
“And?” Bernie said.
Sean didn’t say anything.
“They were interesting, weren’t they?”
“Mildly,” Sean admitted.
“Oh come on,” Bernie said.
Even though he didn’t want to, Sean had to admit that Bernie was correct. Perhaps he couldn’t interpret the fine points of what he was reading, but he could understand enough to get the general gist of the thing. According to what he’d read, upon his marriage Jura was deeding over almost a quarter of his portion of the company to Leeza. As his friend Paul had once said to him, there’s nothing stupider than a middle-aged man who falls in love for the first time with a younger woman.
“All right. It’s interesting in the light of what Ditas told me while he was here,” Sean allowed.
“Well, that’s a definite motive,” Libby said when her father was finished relating the conversation he’d had with Ditas.
“Yeah,” Bernie said. “Jura is giving Leeza all this money because he’s gaga over her and then he finds out she’s screwing around with his brother. It would piss me off.”
Sean made a face.
“What’s the matter?” Bernie asked him. “You don’t agree?”
“I don’t know. It’s too neat.”
“You like things neat. Remember you always say simple is better.”
“Yeah.” Sean bit his lip. “But . . .”
“But what?” Libby asked.
“Suppose Ditas is lying to me.”
“About having an affair?” Libby asked.
Sean nodded.
“But he was the one that was upset at the funeral.” Bernie pointed out. “He was the one that was upset after Leeza died.”
Sean bit the inside of his cheek. “But suppose that’s all an act.”
“Why do it?” asked Libby.
“Well, if you really don’t like your brother, if you hate him, it’s as good a way as any to get him in trouble.”
Bernie stood up and turned on the window fan. A picture of Ditas glaring at Jura flashed through her mind. But still.... “That’s a fairly elaborate con.”
“I know it is. I’m just exploring all the options.”
“It argues a real cold person. Almost pathologically cold.”
“Agreed.”
“So what makes you believe that about Ditas?” she asked her dad when she’d sat back down.
“I don’t know. A feeling in my gut,” Sean said slowly. “It’s probably nothing but it strikes me that Ditas gave it up too easy. Here’s this guy and he comes right up and he tells me with very little prompting on my part that he’s having an affair with his brother’s girlfriend. I mean that kind of thing makes you look really bad. He doesn’t have to tell me squat. Nada. So why do something like that?”
“To make himself feel better?” Libby asked. “You always used to say that confession is good for the soul.”
“And you always fell for it,” Bernie said to her sister.
“Very amusing,” Libby retorted.
Sean ignored his daughters. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his wheelchair. “No. The more I think about it, the more I don’t like this whole set up.”
“And let’s not forget about Esmeralda,” Bernie said. “She’s apparently in love with Jura, she working for him for all these years, and then Leeza waltzes in and takes over.
“And to add insult to injury, Leeza makes her serve as her maid of honor. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound. Then Leeza dies and she has Jura again, not to mention a raise.”
“How do you know about the raise?” Sean asked.
“Bree told me.”
“So it’s safe to say Esmeralda has benefited from Leeza’s death.”
“It certainly is.”
Sean watched a seagull perch on his neighbor’s roof. The damn things were everywhere now. They were the new pigeons. “You don’t happen to know if Esmeralda knows how to use a crossbow?”
“Funny thing you should ask,” Bernie replied. And she related what Esmeralda’s sister had told her in Bree’s kitchen.
Sean rubbed his forehead. Instead of getting clearer things were becoming muddier. He needed to clarify.
“Okay,” he began. “What do we have? All our suspects have a familiarity with all sorts of weapons. All of our suspects had access to a crossbow. All of our suspects had access to the scene of the crime and all of our suspects had a motive for murdering Leeza Sharp.
“Jura’s is jealousy. Or rage at being made a fool of. Ditas could also have been jealous because Leeza was marrying his brother. Esmeralda could have been jealous of Leeza because she wanted to marry Jura. And Joe . . . maybe Joe wants control of the business.”
“And don’t forget both brothers benefit financially from Leeza not marrying Jura, not to mention the fact that someone is ripping off the business by selling inferior caviar,” Libby reminded Sean.
“No. I haven’t forgotten. I think we have to narrow things down a little.” Sean studied the seagull. The thing had a beak like a razorblade. “For one thing I think it would be helpful if we could get a peek at everyone’s bank accounts.”
“See if anyone unusual shows up,” Bernie said.
“Exactly,” said Sean.
“And how are we going to do that?” Libby asked.
Bernie turned to Libby. Sean didn’t like the smug expression on her face.
“Easy,” Bernie told her. “One of Dad’s law enforcement buddies will take a look-see, right Daddy?”
Sean didn’t reply. Why had he said anything?
Bernie jumped off the bed. “And you’re saying what we did was illegal.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Yes, it is. So when you do it, it’s okay. When we do it, it isn’t?”
“Hey,” Sean protested, “this is a gray area here.” But even to Sean’s ears that sounded lame.
“I call that a double standard, don’t you Libby?” Bernie said.
“Absolutely,” Libby agreed.
“But what I’m doing isn’t dangerous,” Sean objected as Bernie folded her arms across her chest and stared at her father.
He stared back and was mortified when he turned away first. That never would have happened five years ago. Five years ago he could have stared down anyone on his force.
“I tell you what,” Bernie said. “How about we compromise? We’ll be a little more careful and you’ll be a little less protective?”
“Seems fair,” Sean finally said although he wondered about how Bernie would define the concept of more careful. But this did not seem the time to engage in that discussion.
Bernie and Libby were both hugging him when he heard the side door open downstairs. A “hello” floated up the stairs.
Sean looked at his daughters and they looked back at him.
“Oh no,” he whispered. “It’s the Walker sisters.”
Chapter 26
As Bernie watched Eunice and Gertrude settle themselves in the armchairs across from her father she thought that this time, in her humble opinion, they’d gone too far with the color thing. The two of them were sporting flaming orange hair tipped with yellow, purple dresses, and red Converse high top sneakers. It was not a pretty sight.
Maybe, Bernie thought, the English kings and queens knew what they were doing with their sumptuary laws. Maybe commoners shouldn’t wear purple. Maybe they shouldn’t have access to too many bright colors at once. Just looking at Eunice and Gertrude was causing her visual distress.
“So,” Gertrude said as she helped herself to one of the chocolate chip cookies Libby had brought up from downstairs. “I hope you don’t mind us dropping by like this.”
“Not at all,” Bernie lied to cover for her father who couldn’t seem to get those words out of his mouth.
“We were in the neighborhood,” Gertrude said.
Eunice reached for a chocolate chip cookie. “Which is why we decided to pop up. It seemed silly not to. Especially since we have an appointment down in the city tomorrow. These are wonderful my dear,” she said after she’d taken a bite.
“Indeed they are,” Gertrude said. “You’re almost as good a baker as your mother.”
“She’s better,” Sean said.
Bernie watched Libby give their dad a grateful smile.
Eunice dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “I suppose you know best, although no one will ever equal Rose’s lemon meringue pie. That was a work of art.”
Gertrude leaned forward. “But we haven’t come to discuss Libby’s baking.”
“Indeed not,” Eunice said. “We’ve come to find out how the case is proceeding.”
“Yes, we’re most interested,” Gertrude said.
Both sisters looked at Sean expectantly. Like birds looking at a big, fat, juicy worm, Bernie decided.
“Well,” her father began, “we are turning up some interesting potential leads. We’ve found that . . .”
Gertrude lifted up her hand palm out. “What we want to know is: Have you found Leeza’s murderer or haven’t you?”
Bernie jumped in. “If you let my dad finish, he was just trying to explain—”
Eunice cut Bernie off. “Because we have.”
“You have?” Sean, Bernie, and Libby chorused.
“Yes,” both Eunice and Gertrude said together. “We believe it is Vladimir Meyers.”
“Jura’s assistant?” Bernie asked.
Eunice and Gertrude nodded their heads vigorously.
/> “That’s the one,” Gertrude said.
“But why suspect him?” Sean asked.
“He’s not on our list,” Bernie said.
“Well he should be.” Eunice punctuated her remark with a bite of her cookie. “It has come to our attention that he had . . . ah . . . relations with Leeza after which he became consumed with jealousy.”
“Gee, whatever happened to casual sex,” Bernie interjected as her father shot her a warning glance.
“Casual sex as presently constituted is nothing more than the commodification of the female species,” Eunice snapped.
“Really?” Bernie said.
“Yes, really,” Eunice asserted. “If you read your Marx you would know this.”
“And how do you know about Meyers?” Sean asked the sisters before Bernie could reply.
“The cook’s daughter told us.”
“How do you know the cook’s daughter?” Sean asked.
Eunice drew herself up. “I told you we know everyone. She goes to school with one of our nieces. At the University of Pennsylvania.”
“No,” Gertrude corrected. “Pennsylvania State University.”
“I always get those confused,” Eunice said.
“Have you spoken to the cook directly?” Sean asked the sisters trying to get the conversation back on track.
They looked at each other.
“We haven’t had the time,” Gertrude said. “We’ve been too busy learning how to make sculptures with a chainsaw.”
“Chainsaws?” Sean couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
“You’re using chainsaws?”
“They’re smaller now,” Eunice said. “Much easier to control.”
“I know what they are,” Sean replied.
“Good,” Eunice went on. “I’m glad you do, but rather than concerning yourself with our artistic endeavors you need to find proof that Vladimir Meyers murdered Leeza.”
“I thought you hired me to find out who killed Leeza.”
“We just told you who did,” Eunice snapped.
“Have you considered the fact that he might not have done it?”
“No. He did,” Gertrude said. “We’re positive. And we want him brought to justice.”
“Because,” Eunice said, “if you don’t get him, we will.”
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