A Catered Tea Party

by Isis Crawford

  “We wouldn’t want that to happen,” a relieved Libby observed.

  “I go for the lighter firearms myself,” Bernie wisecracked. “Easier to carry around in my tote.”

  “You have gun?” Magda asked.

  Bernie shook her head. “I don’t like them very much.”

  Magda considered Bernie’s answer as she reached up and fingered the gold chain she was wearing around her neck. “I thought all Americans like guns.”

  “Not me,” Libby said.

  “Or me,” Bernie added.

  “I do not like them either,” Magda confided. “They’re too obvious.”

  “What do you mean?” Bernie asked.

  “The gun goes bang. Someone dies. You see this,” Magda replied.

  Bernie nodded encouragingly.

  “I think other ways of killing people, less . . .”

  “Obvious ways,” Libby said supplying the phrase Magda was looking for.

  “Da. Less obvious ways are better.”

  “Like what?” Bernie asked. “If you were going to kill someone, how would you do it?”

  For a moment, Bernie thought Magda was going to answer her question, but instead she said, “You are smartypants people, then you must figure it out. You must leave now. I have work to do.”

  “Your boss is dead,” Bernie observed. “How much work could you possibly have?”

  “Enough,” Magda said. “I told you this when you were here before.”

  “I’m surprised the police didn’t take Zalinsky’s computer,” Bernie said.

  “They took the ones from his house and his office, not the one here,” Magda informed her.

  “How come?” Bernie asked.

  Magda shrugged again. It seemed to be her gesture of choice. “I do not know. You have a problem with this?” Magda demanded.

  “No. My sister was just asking a question,” Libby said.

  “You and your sister are busy”—Magda hunted around for the correct word—“mouses.”

  “Bees,” Bernie corrected. “The phrase is a busy bee.”

  “Actually, we’re just here to get Jason Pancetta’s hat,” Libby said.

  “This is another lie,” Magda stated.

  “Why would I lie?” Bernie asked.

  “You still have not told me why you are here,” Magda said.

  “I think you know,” Bernie told her.

  “I do not,” Magda said.

  Bernie clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Magda, Magda. Now you’re the one who is telling fibs.” Bernie turned to Libby. “Of course Magda knows why we’re really here.”

  “How could she know?” Libby demanded.

  “How could she not?” Bernie replied. She pointed at Magda. “She’s not dumb. Maybe she found it already. In fact, given her new clothes, shoes, and hairdo, I think that’s a definite possibility. No, I’m figuring that’s a reality.” Bernie smiled at Magda. “I’m figuring you didn’t ask us what we were looking for because you’ve already found it.”

  “Did you?” Libby asked Magda. “Just tell us if you did.”

  Magda looked from Bernie to Libby and back again. “Vhat you two are talking about?” she asked, her Russian accent getting even thicker.

  “The teapot, of course,” Libby said. “The two-million-dollar teapot. What else would we be looking for?”

  “You don’t have to pretend,” Bernie told Magda. “We know you know that Casper stole the teapot.”

  “I didn’t,” Magda said, although Libby and Bernie could see from the way she was blinking her eyes before she got control of herself that she did in fact know.

  “That’s funny,” Bernie said. “I was positive that you knew and that you know that someone took the teapot from him.”

  Magda rebuttoned the top button of her dress, even though it hadn’t come undone, to give her hands something to do. “And you think that maybe this person is me?”

  “Why not?” Bernie said. “You had access, and you have a motive. I have to say,” she indicated Magda with a nod, “you’re putting the money to good use. You look really, really good.”

  Magda picked up the gun. “So what you are saying is that I kill Ludvoc and then Casper steal the teapot and I take it from him and hide it back here. This is what you think? This is the reason you are here crawling around on your hands and knees?”

  Bernie turned to Libby. “See, Libby,” she said, “I told you Magda was smart.”

  “And why are you thinking this?” Magda asked, waving the gun in their general direction. “Someone is telling you?”

  “No one told us anything,” Bernie said hastily. “We’re just guessing. But if you put the gun back down and if you haven’t sold the teapot, perhaps we can help,” Bernie said.

  “That’s right,” Libby seconded. “That way your kids won’t have to go to a community college . . .”

  Magda interrupted. “Why you say this about my children?” she demanded. “You think they are stupid too?”

  “Not at all,” Libby said. “We know that they’re very smart. It’s just that colleges cost money, lots of money.”

  Magda stood up straighter. “They will get big scholarships and go to an important school.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Libby went on. “The only reason I’m saying that is because I heard that Zalinsky had promised to pay for your kids’ college education and then he reneged.”

  Magda glared at Bernie and Libby. “He was not a good man.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Bernie agreed. “I wonder what happened to all his money.”

  Magda lowered the gun. “I do not think he had any,” she confided. “I think he fool everyone.”

  “But he had to have money to pay for this,” Libby waved her hand around, indicating The Blue House. “Not to mention his house. And his art collection.”

  Magda shook his head. “I think he use money that wasn’t his. I think he borrow lots and lots of it.”

  “And you know this for a fact?” Bernie asked.

  “I know he was getting lots of calls,” Magda replied, echoing what Hsaio had told them. “Everyone wanted their money. They all say things about going to court, but Zalinsky, he just keep telling them everything will be fine, and he’s working on getting their money to them.”

  Libby turned to Bernie. “Well, that would explain the go bag.”

  Magda looked at Bernie and Libby. “What is this go bag?” she asked.

  “He was getting ready to get out of town,” Libby explained, “and take the teapot with him. It was his insurance policy. He just didn’t count on being dead, but then who does?”

  Bernie turned to Magda. “So did you find the teapot?”

  Magda made a dismissive noise. “If I find the teapot, why I still here? Explain this.”

  “Because leaving would make you look suspicious,” Libby replied.

  “And there are your new clothes,” Bernie said.

  Magda raised her gun again. “So I take some money from Ludvoc’s account. So vhat? He owe me.”

  “I thought you just told us Zalinsky didn’t have any money,” Libby said to Magda.

  “He have some, a little.”

  “How little?” Libby asked.

  Magda smiled, but didn’t reply.

  “Maybe we can help you out,” Bernie said, deciding to try a different tactic. “Maybe Libby and I can help you find a buyer for the teapot for ten percent—assuming, of course, that you have it.”

  “Twenty, Bernie,” Libby said. “We’ll do it for twenty percent.”

  Magda’s eyes widened. “I thought you are finding out who killed Ludvoc for your friend.”

  Bernie gave a casual shrug. “I am. We are. But hey, this is America. Who’s to say you can’t make a couple of bucks in the process. Right?”

  “Right,” Magda said, lowering the gun for the third time. “You leave,” she told Bernie. “You leave now.”

  Bernie and Libby both nodded.

  “With pleasure,” Libby said—
and, boy, did she mean it.

  This time the sisters left through the front door. As they were going out, they passed Magda’s office. Bernie’s eyes widened when she saw what was sitting on Magda’s desk. Judging by it, she figured that the money left in Zalinsky’s account wasn’t so “little” after all.

  Chapter 33

  “Wow,” Bernie said once they’d gotten outside. “That’s certainly interesting.”

  “The gloves?” Libby asked, glancing at her sister after she’d scanned the sky. It had gotten cloudy and looked as if it was going to storm soon. Again. First, they’d had no rain, and now it was raining every day. It felt as if they were in the middle of monsoon season. Okay. Slight exaggeration.

  “Those too, but I was referring to the Birkin,” Bernie replied.

  She took a deep breath, taking in the odors of grass and the tang of the Hudson River and thinking about how nice it was to be out of the suffocating heat of The Blue House. She didn’t know how Magda stood it. The building had been constructed with air-conditioning in mind. Without it, there was no air movement at all.

  Libby brushed a mosquito off her polo shirt. “The Birkin? What the hell is a Birkin?” she asked. “It sounds like a disease. You know, she came down with a bad case of Birkinitis.”

  Bernie rolled her eyes. Libby’s lack of sartorial knowledge never failed to amaze her. “The handbag on Magda’s desk.”

  “What about it?” Libby tried to remember it, but she couldn’t.

  Bernie redid her ponytail. “Only that they’re impossible to get. Magda probably paid at least ten for it.”

  “Dollars?”

  Bernie snorted. “Thousand.”

  Libby’s eyes widened. She couldn’t conceive of someone spending that kind of money on something like that. “You’re kidding.”

  Bernie shook her head. “Not at all. And that’s if she got it used. New they go for between fifteen and twenty-five. They’re the holy grail of bags. Of course, she could have rented it.”

  “Rented?”

  “Yeah, rented. As we know, you can rent pretty much anything these days,” Bernie said, thinking of Zalinsky’s car and the artwork in his house and office. “There are sites in Japan where you can rent a pet for a day.”

  Libby sniffed. “That’s terrible.”

  “Agreed,” Bernie answered.

  Libby turned to her. “Do you think Magda was telling us the truth about where her newfound wealth came from?”

  “I don’t know,” Bernie answered. “She could have pilfered from Zalinsky’s account. Or she could have found and sold the teapot. She would know who to sell it to. After all, she had access to Zalinsky’s correspondence.”

  Libby bit her lip.

  “What are you thinking about?” Bernie asked as she cut across the lawn to get to the van. The long grass brushed against her calves as she walked. She gave a wide berth to a stinging nettle, one of several, that was in her path. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. A zigzag of lightning cleaved the sky to the east. A dark cloud hovered overhead. The storm was moving faster than Bernie thought it would.

  “I’m thinking we should go get some more coffee,” Libby said. “We have about a two-day supply left.”

  “Yeah, we should,” Bernie agreed. “We can do that on the way back.” She could feel the temperature starting to drop and the wind pick up. A moment later she poked Libby in the ribs.

  “Hey,” Libby cried. “That hurt.”

  Bernie pointed to the front of The Blue House. Magda was coming out and trotting to her car. Her head was down, and she was talking on her cell, looking neither to her left or her right.

  “Now, there’s someone in a hurry,” Bernie observed. “I wonder who she’s talking to.”

  “Maybe she just got a call from one of her kids,” Libby hypothesized.

  “Or maybe we spooked her,” Bernie said.

  “Maybe,” Libby said.

  “Maybe she’s going to get the teapot or talk to the person who has it,” Bernie posited.

  “Let’s assume that what you’re saying is true—which I have my doubts about. Why wouldn’t she just pick up the phone?” Libby asked her sister.

  “Because some things are better to talk about in person.”

  “Who do you think she’s going to talk to?” Libby asked.

  “My money is on Jason. After all, we didn’t see his hat there.”

  “Not that that means anything,” Libby pointed out.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Bernie told her. “Still, it would be interesting to see where Magda goes.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t hurt,” Libby agreed as she scratched her upper arm. It itched. Probably a bug bite, she decided, looking at the welt.

  The sisters looked at each other and by common consent turned and hurried toward the van. By now Magda was at her vehicle and had the door of her car open. A moment later, Bernie and Libby reached their van. Magda still hadn’t looked up as Bernie and Libby opened Mathilda’s doors. They paused for a moment as the heat flowed out of the van.

  “We should get one of those silvery things that you put on the windshield to stop the van from getting hot,” Libby observed.

  “Yes, we should,” Bernie agreed. For some reason, they kept on talking about getting a sun visor, but they never did. By the time they got around to it, it would be fall.

  Chapter 34

  The van was still too hot when Libby and Bernie got in. Libby winced as the hot leather seat cover touched the back of her leg. “Damn,” she said.

  Bernie didn’t say anything. She was focused on watching Magda. Magda closed her car door, started up her engine, and drove out of the parking lot. Bernie watched her take a left onto Clarke before following.

  “She’ll probably see us,” Libby noted as they reached the main road. “It’s not as if we’re inconspicuous.”

  “If she does, she does,” Bernie said, turning onto Clarke as well.

  She followed, careful to keep a three–car-length distance between the van and Magda’s car. As Bernie drove, she noticed that their van was pulling to the right. “I think we need to get the alignment checked,” she told Libby.

  “We did last month,” Libby reminded her.

  “Then they didn’t do a very good job, because it’s off again.”

  “Lovely,” Libby said as she fanned herself with the edge of her hand. It might be cooling off outside, but it was still hot as hell in the van.

  Magda made a sharp left onto Cliff Street, and Bernie followed a moment later. “Well, she’s not going home because this isn’t the way to her house,” Bernie remarked.

  “Maybe she’s got an appointment,” Libby suggested.

  “We’ll see,” Bernie said. “Doesn’t Jason rent a place around here?”

  Libby scratched at her bite again. “Yeah. I think he does.”

  Bernie grunted and concentrated on her driving. ”You know,” she said a moment later. “I think I can make a strong case for Magda killing Zalinsky.”

  “You can do that for everyone else as well,” Libby replied.

  “A stronger case then. Magda had access to his accounts. She was his personal assistant. She knew what he was doing. Maybe,” Bernie hypothesized, “she was syphoning money off from his accounts and he caught her and threatened her.”

  “With what? Jail?”

  “No,” Bernie said. “You don’t threaten someone with jail if you’re running a scam. You threaten them with bodily harm . . . or you threaten their kids . . . if the money isn’t put back.”

  “That would be a good motivator,” Libby said. “Especially if he threatened her children. It would make me want to send him off to a better place.”

  Bernie slowed down slightly. She didn’t want Magda to spot the van. “The teapot would be an added bonus for her.”

  “But when she goes to get it, it’s not there,” Libby said. “So she had to have seen Casper taking it.”

  “And maybe Jason did too.” Bernie turned the wheel
to keep the van from drifting to the right. “So they joined up. They probably looked through The Blue House, but it wasn’t there, so they assumed it was in Casper’s house.”

  “But it wasn’t there either,” Libby said.

  “Because someone else had taken it,” Bernie surmised. “But they didn’t know that. They thought that if they came back and left a note, that would spook Casper into retrieving the teapot.”

  “Casper’s house sounds like Grand Central Station,” Libby reflected.

  “Jason knows Adam Benson,” Bernie said.

  “And Adam strikes me as the kind of guy who wouldn’t mind buying something like that under the radar,” Libby observed.

  “In fact,” Bernie added, “it wouldn’t surprise me if Jason knew a fair number of people in that category. After all, he used to move in those circles.”

  “He did, didn’t he?” Libby said. She glanced up at the sky. It was getting darker outside; the wind was whipping the branches of the oak trees around and pressing down the stems of the Queen Ann’s lace and the loosestrife that grew in the ditch that ran parallel to the road. “Of course, Magda could have come into an inheritance. We don’t know. This is all conjecture.”

  “She pretty much told us where she got her money,” Bernie objected. “She told us she stole it from Zalinsky.”

  “She could have done both,” Libby said.

  “Indeed, she could have,” Bernie agreed.

  “I’d be tempted if I were her,” Libby noted. “Very tempted.” Then she pointed toward the sky. “It looks like it’s going to rain,” she observed, changing the subject.

  “Storm,” Bernie corrected. “It looks as if it’s going to storm.” She heard a buzz coming from her phone.

  Libby reached over, got it, and read the text message. “It’s a flood warning,” she informed her sister.

  “Terrific,” Bernie said.

  “Maybe we should go back,” Libby suggested.

  “We’ll be fine,” Bernie said automatically, her mind on the road in front of her. She was straining to see Magda’s Hyundai, which had just gone around a curve. Cliff Road was a series of curves, but there were no cutoffs until Ashcroft Corners, so Bernie was fairly confident she didn’t have to worry about losing Magda for another mile or so.