A Catered Tea Party

by Isis Crawford

  Bernie interrupted. “That’s not much to go on.”

  “You didn’t let me finish. I also have this vague recollection of seeing the flash of something metal. Something round.”

  “The March Hare’s pocket watch?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. After all, it was pinned to his vest. I think you should look Jason Pancetta up on the Internet, and we’ll see what we can find.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Because you’re better at it.”

  “Only because you don’t do it.”

  “I will,” Libby promised.

  “When?” Bernie demanded.

  “Soon.”

  “We are living in the twenty-first century, you know.”

  “You do it faster.”

  “You would too if you did it more often.”

  “How about if I separate the eggs for the macaroons while you do that?” Libby suggested.

  “Fine,” Bernie said, bowing to the inevitable and going into the office. She came out ten minutes later. Jason Pancetta didn’t have a large presence on the Internet, but what she’d found was suggestive. “Remember what Adam Benson said about Jason and Erin?” she asked Libby.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, what he didn’t say was that Jason worked for the same firm Adam did before he quit, after which he went to work for Zalinsky. I wonder why he’d abandon a perfectly good job to work as an errand boy for the Russian?” Bernie mused.

  “Something tells me it wasn’t for career advancement,” Libby surmised as she covered the bowl full of eggs whites with plastic wrap. The egg whites had to be refrigerated for three days before they could be used for macaroons. “Interesting that Adam Benson, Erin, Jason, and Zalinsky all knew each other back in the day.”

  Bernie nodded. “Isn’t it, though?” she said. Then she took out her phone and texted Adam Benson. Not that she expected an answer, which was good because she didn’t get one. “We should run everything we have by Dad,” Bernie said, putting her cell down. Their father had a knack for clarifying things. “It would be interesting to hear what he has to say.”

  Libby squared her shoulders. “You can if you want to. I’m not going to.”

  “Don’t be like that,” Bernie urged.

  “Be like what?” Libby asked.

  “Like this.”

  “This meaning?”

  “Pissy, Libby.”

  “Maybe I am,” Libby answered, “but that’s the way I feel right now.”

  “You’re acting like you’re two.”

  Libby stuck her jaw out. “So what if I am?”

  Bernie sighed. There was no arguing with her sister when she got like this. “You know you’re just like Dad,” she told her.

  “No, I’m not,” Libby protested.

  “Yeah. You are. You’re just as stubborn as he is.”

  “He needs to apologize.”

  “You’re going to wait a long time for that.”

  Libby shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see. But I’m not going up to ask him for help.”

  “Fine,” Bernie said. “Don’t. I will.”

  Libby folded her arms across her chest. “And while we’re on the subject, I’m not going to the opening of Michelle’s store either. There’s no reason why we have to be there.”

  “Good luck with that!” Bernie told her.

  “I’m not,” Libby repeated.

  “I think you are,” Bernie told her. “Otherwise life around here is going to be total hell. In any case, that’s a ways away.”

  “Two and a half weeks, to be exact,” Libby told her.

  “More like four or five the way these things go.” Bernie reached in the bag of chocolate chips, grabbed a handful, and ate them. Normally she wasn’t an emotional eater, but she was making an exception in this case. “Fine. How about we forget about Dad and Michelle for now and concentrate on finding Jason and talking to him?”

  “Works for me.” Libby dipped into the bag again. At this rate, she noted, there wouldn’t be enough left for the cookies. “Okay then. Moving along. On the business front, how do you feel about using something like quinoa flour to make the chocolate chip cookies?” Libby asked as she swept the remains of the white flour into the wastepaper basket with the edge of her hand.

  “We could try,” Bernie said, although she had her doubts about how the end product would taste, but people were entranced with quinoa right now, so it was worth an attempt.

  “We’ll try them out on Dad,” Libby suggested, having thought over what Bernie had said and decided that peace might be the better alternative. “If we can get them by Dad, we can get them by anyone.” Their dad was a conservative eater. He didn’t like change.

  “Good idea,” Bernie replied, refraining from further comment. In the meantime, she’d decided she was going to ask their dad to find out if Stan and George had any priors, something her sister didn’t need to know. As Bernie was about to turn off the light, she noticed that Libby had put some lemon squares on a plate, one of their dad’s favorites.

  “In case we get hungry,” Libby explained, even though Bernie hadn’t asked her to bring food upstairs.

  Bernie smiled. Maybe domestic harmony was about to be restored after all. At least until the next bit of Michelle drama. In any case, it was nice to end the day on a positive note. Especially this day. Now, Bernie thought, if the storm would just blow itself out, they’d be all set.

  Chapter 30

  The next day it took Libby and Bernie until early in the afternoon to track down Jason Pancetta. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. They really didn’t track him down. It was more like they bumped into him. He was going into The Blue House while Bernie and Libby were coming out. They’d just finished trying to talk to Magda and spectacularly failing at that endeavor when Pancetta brushed by them.

  “Hello,” Bernie said, noting that Pancetta was carrying a takeout bag from McDonald’s and wearing aviator-style sunglasses, black cargo shorts, a T-shirt proclaiming Drink Is Good, and flip-flops. Not exactly going-to-work clothes, Bernie thought, as she caught a whiff of suntan lotion coming from him. The smell made her want to go to the beach. Heaven only knows, it was hot enough for it. Unfortunately, the storm had arrived and departed without cooling anything down.

  Pancetta looked up, startled. “Yes,” he said, removing his earbuds from his ears.

  “What a coincidence,” Bernie said. “If you’re looking to talk to Magda, she’s not in a very good mood.”

  “She’s never in a good mood, and I’m not.”

  “Not what?” Bernie asked.

  “Not here to talk to Magda.”

  “So what are you here for?” Bernie asked.

  Jason scowled. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I came to pick up my baseball hat.”

  “Are sure you’re not picking up a teapot?” Libby asked him apropos of nothing.

  Jason scrunched up his face. “What are you talking about?” he asked Libby.

  Libby waved her hand in the air. “Never mind. Forget it. We need to talk.”

  “We are talking,” Pancetta pointed out.

  “She means about what happened the other night,” Bernie explained.

  “Then she should say what she means,” Pancetta observed.

  “And mean what she says,” Libby couldn’t resist adding.

  Jason shook his head. “You’re talking like a crazy lady.”

  “And you’re talking like a crank,” Libby told him.

  Jason shifted his McDonald’s bag to his other hand. “You’d be cranky too, if you didn’t get paid.”

  “What makes you think we have?” Bernie said to him.

  “As far as we can tell, no one has,” Libby said. “From what I understand from Hsaio, Zalinsky has no money in his bank accounts. None.”

  “He would if someone sold all that art stuff Zalinsky has,” Pancetta observed. “Then there’d be plenty of cash.”

  “I don’t think so,” Libby told him.

/>   “What do you mean?” Jason demanded. “Do you know how much that stuff is worth?”

  “If you own it,” Bernie said.

  “And Zalinsky was renting it,” Libby said.

  Jason blinked. “Get outta here!”

  “Seriously,” Libby said. She’d gotten a call from Clyde that morning informing her that Art Unlimited had called the Longely police department wanting to know when they could pick up their stuff.

  “Except for the teapot,” Bernie said. “Zalinsky owned that. Too bad whoever took the teapot won’t share.”

  “They will if I find it,” Jason growled. “You’d better believe that.”

  Looking at him, Bernie did. “So who do you think took it?” she asked.

  “How would I know,” Jason replied.

  “Just askin’,” Libby said. She snapped her fingers. “Hey. I have an idea. It could even be you. You could have it.”

  “I could,” Jason replied. “But I don’t. Now if you’ll excuse me,” he continued before Libby could reply, “I’d like to get my hat and have my lunch.”

  Bernie pointed to Jason’s bag. “Is that it?” she asked as she watched a yellow butterfly fluttering around a black-eyed Susan, one of many that had been planted in front of The Blue House. She didn’t remember them being there before, but maybe she just hadn’t noticed.

  Unlike the black-eyed Susans, the storm had flattened the petunias in The Blue House’s flowerbeds and splashed mulch out onto the newly growing lawn. It was just a couple of weeks since Zalinsky had died, but speedwell was taking hold in the grass, and deadly nightshade was growing in the flowerbeds. It wouldn’t be long, Bernie reflected, before the place began to look abandoned. The town was going to have to come to a consensus on what to do with The Blue House, and sooner would be better than later.

  “No. I got it to feed the geese,” Jason told her. “Of course it’s my lunch. Why? Do you have something to say about it?”

  “Why would I?” Bernie asked. She brushed a small leaf off her pale blue T-shirt. Today she’d paired her top with a vintage white linen skirt and white espadrilles. It was the perfect outfit for a summer afternoon as far as Bernie was concerned.

  “Because of the place you run,” Pancetta told her. “You know, everything there is organic this and locally sourced that.”

  Bernie laughed. “I was just going to say I like Mickey Dee’s apple pies. Of course, I liked them better when they fried them. The ones they bake, not so much.”

  Jason smiled despite himself. “It’s true. Fried was better.”

  “Sadly, healthier is not always tastier,” Bernie observed.

  “Maybe we could sit outside and you could eat your lunch while we talked,” Libby suggested, gesturing to a bench in front of The Blue House.

  “I already told you, I have nothing to talk about,” Jason replied. He used his forearm to wipe off the beads of sweat on his forehead.

  “How can you say that when you don’t know what we want to discuss?” Libby asked.

  Jason gave her an incredulous look. “Of course I know what you want to talk about. I’m not an idiot, you know. You’re helping out our erstwhile director, never mind that he’s a thief and a liar . . .”

  Bernie interrupted. “But not a murderer.”

  Pancetta ignored her and went on with what he’d been saying. “You want to talk about Zalinsky, and I have nothing to say about him.”

  “Fair enough.” Bernie smiled. “I could see why you would feel that way. I’d be embarrassed too, if I were you.” Earlier in the day, she’d managed to have an interesting conversation with Adam Benson’s assistant, Hillary John, about Jason Pancetta. It had turned out that the information Bernie had found on the Internet had been correct. Pancetta had worked for Smith and Miller too. Talking to Hillary, it had been obvious to Bernie that Jason had been engaged in some non-kosher activities at the firm, but what they were Hillary wouldn’t say, and Jason had either been forced to quit or had been fired.

  “Why would I possibly be embarrassed?” Pancetta demanded, attempting to keep his face expressionless and failing.

  Bernie enlightened him. “You know,” she said, “your losing Erin to Zalinsky, and then his making you work for him like he did.” Bernie could see Jason’s knuckles whitening as his grip on the takeout bag tightened. “I wouldn’t want to relive that either. What did he have on you that made you stay?” Despite her best efforts, Bernie hadn’t found anything on the Internet when she’d gone back to it. That didn’t mean there wasn’t anything there. It just meant she’d run out of time to look. “Did you stay because you were hoping to win Erin back? Or was Zalinsky blackmailing you because he knew about something you’d done?” Given what she’d learned about Zalinsky, she was betting on the latter scenario.

  Splotches of color appeared on Jason’s cheeks. “He didn’t have anything on me,” he snarled.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Bernie said, thinking about what Hillary had told her about Jason being let go from Smith and Miller. “What did you do that was so bad?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Jason protested.

  “Did you kill somebody?” Libby asked.

  Jason laughed. “You got me. I killed the president of Smith and Miller and threw his body in the Hudson River because he was about to complain to the SEC about his losses.”

  Bernie looked him up and down. “I don’t see you for a violent crime.” And she didn’t. “I see you as a lover, not a fighter.”

  Jason smirked and puffed out his chest. “That’s right, baby. Anytime you want a demo I’ll be happy to oblige.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” Bernie studied him some more. “I see you as more of a white-collar-crime kind of guy. A schemer.” She could tell from the expression on Jason’s face that she was getting warmer. “Embezzlement?”

  “You want me to tell you about the misunderstanding?” Jason asked her.

  “It would be nice,” Bernie allowed.

  “But we’ve already established I’m not a nice guy.” Jason moved a step closer to her. “So how about this? How about talking to me when you find the damned teapot. I might feel a little more inclined.”

  “Fair enough,” Bernie said. “I do have one more question, though.”

  Jason rolled his eyes. “I’ll say this for you: you are persistent.”

  Bernie curtsied. “I try. We talked to Adam Benson.”

  “Ah,” Jason said, frowning slightly. “Good old Adam. Now there’s a blast from the past.”

  “You two worked in the same firm.”

  “You know we did,” Jason told Bernie. “Is that your question?”

  “No. My question is why did Erin leave him for you?” Jason grinned. “Why do you think?”

  “Sex?” Bernie said. “Or money?”

  Jason’s grin grew larger. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s my ladies.”

  “So you were her backdoor man?” Bernie asked.

  Jason shrugged. “Everyone has a talent.”

  Bernie thought about Erin for a moment. She saw her as cold and calculating, a woman moved by money, not sex. “But you had to be making money too,” she said, musing out loud. “Probably a lot. Otherwise Erin wouldn’t have looked at you.”

  “Let’s just say we satisfied each other’s needs,” Jason said, miming sex with his hands.

  “I’m puzzled,” Libby said, jumping into the fray. “If that’s the case, why did Erin leave you for Zalinsky?” she asked.

  Jason flushed. His jaw muscles tightened. “It wasn’t her choice.”

  “Really? People always have choices,” Libby said.

  “What world are you living in?” Jason snapped.

  “Obviously not yours,” Libby snapped back.

  Bernie raised an eyebrow. “Is that what Erin told you? That she didn’t have a choice?”

  “No. That’s what I know,” Jason said, and he stormed off toward the parking lot.

  “Hey, you forgot to get your hat,” Libby called a
fter him.

  “You’re going to need it for Zalinsky’s funeral,” Bernie added.

  Jason didn’t answer. Instead he raised a middle finger.

  “Oh dear,” Bernie said while she watched him getting into a Jeep. “Maybe he didn’t hear us,” she suggested.

  “Somehow I doubt that,” Libby replied.

  “I do too,” Bernie remarked as she watched Jason zoom out of the parking lot and onto Seeley Road. A minute later he’d gone around the curve and was out of sight.

  Libby bent over and took a pebble out of her loafer. “I have to say he’s rather touchy about Erin,” she observed when she straightened up. She fanned herself with her hand. Bernie was right. She should have worn a sundress instead of Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt—a dark red polo shirt at that.

  “He certainly is,” Bernie agreed. “Or maybe he’s getting crabby because that bald spot on the back of his head is getting sunburned. We should give him his hat back.”

  “Yes, we should. We wouldn’t want him to get skin cancer or anything like that,” Libby replied.

  Bernie put her hand to her heart. “Heaven forefend, Libby. Heaven forefend.”

  Libby looked at the expression on her sister’s face. “You have a plan, don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure you’d call it that,” Bernie said modestly. Then she smiled and told Libby what she had in mind.

  Chapter 31

  “But why would the teapot be in The Blue House?” Libby asked Bernie when her sister was through talking. The longer Bernie talked, the more faults Libby found with her sister’s notion. Her plan seemed quixotic at best, disastrous at worse.

  “Can you think of a less likely place?” Bernie asked.

  “Yeah. Timbuktu.”

  “We can’t look there, but we can look here,” Bernie said, pointing to the structure.

  Libby shook her head at her sister’s logic or lack thereof.

  “And if it’s not there,” Bernie continued, “we can cross The Blue House off our list.”

  Libby widened her eyes. “List? What list? Do we have a list?”

  “I’m speaking metaphorically,” Bernie informed her.

  “Ah. How can I not have gotten that?” Libby asked.