“I’m not sure that leaving you is such a good idea.”
“I’ll be fine. I swear I will,” Bernie promised when Libby hesitated. “I’ll call if I have a problem.”
“Promise?”
Bernie raised her right hand. “Sister swear.”
“You’d better.”
“I will.” Bernie gave Libby a gentle shove. “Now go.”
As Bernie watched her sister leave she thought about the disaster this evening had turned into and about how it was all her fault. She probably shouldn’t have come—Libby was right about that—but how could she not have? And now she was stuck with a sore ankle and a bunch of unanswered questions—questions she couldn’t let go of. Why had Ellen run? Who was the guy in the bed? What had happened to him? Bernie was still thinking about that as Libby trudged off to the Riverview Motel. Hopefully, she would arrive in time.
On the other hand, Libby wasn’t thinking about how she’d keep Ellen from getting the key if she got there first, or about the body in the bed, or even about her sister hobbling alone in the dark. She was thinking about how relieved she was to be getting out of the woods. She didn’t like places like this in the daytime, and in the nighttime she liked them even less. You couldn’t see where you were going, things kept hitting you in the face, you could hear strange rustles and creaks, and even though Libby knew there were no bears or wolves in Westchester, she couldn’t help thinking that there were.
And then there were the vampires—she could kill Bernie for bringing them up. She didn’t even want to think about them, but once she’d summoned them up she couldn’t get them out of her mind, which was why she picked up her pace as much as she could, not that that was saying a lot.
It had been a long day and she was exhausted. In addition, even though Libby’s eyes had become accustomed to the dark, she still had to feel her way along as tree trunks and rocks jumped out at her and vines and twigs tried to ensnare her feet. She paused every tenth step or so to untangle one of her flip-flops from a small branch or low-lying bush or take out a small rock or pebble that had gotten lodged in there, because the last thing she needed was to get injured the way Bernie had.
Ten minutes later, even though it felt like at least an hour to Libby, she could see the outline of the motel haloed in the dim light of the streetlights through the trees. When she squinted, she could see that the Subaru was still sitting next to their van in the parking lot. She had beaten Ellen after all. She didn’t know whether she was relieved or not.
“I’m right behind you,” Bernie said when Libby phoned to tell her the news.
“How far behind me?” Libby asked, but it was too late. Bernie had already hung up.
It took Libby another couple of minutes before she reached the edge of the woods. If she had been looking up she might have seen the three men silently crouched behind Mathilda, or the two police cars parked a little way off in the distance, or Ellen standing next to the squad cars. But Libby wasn’t looking up. She was looking at the ground because she was afraid she was going to trip and fall. Out of the corner of her eye, off to the left, she saw a flicker of light. When she turned her head and focused on it she saw what had made the flicker—a small, round metallic object at the base of a pine tree, about ten feet away.
As she got closer, she realized that what she’d spotted was a watch lying facedown on the ground. Maybe it belonged to the dead guy, she thought. Maybe their luck was about to change. Maybe the watch had an inscription on the back. She was reaching down to get it when she heard someone yell, “There she is.”
Libby froze and looked up. Then someone was shining a light in her eyes. It was so bright it blinded her and she put up her hands to shield her eyes from it.
“Got her,” Ellen’s husband yelled as he dug his fingers into Libby’s shoulders.
Then Libby heard Ellen yelling, “Leave her alone, Bruce. I told you she doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
Libby didn’t say anything. She was too dazed.
Chapter 8
Bernie called her dad at eleven thirty that evening. Sean, in turn, called Marvin and told him they had a situation and he needed him pronto. Then he hung up before Marvin could ask him what was going on. It took Marvin twenty minutes to throw some clothes on and get down to the Simmons’s place. When he arrived, he could see Sean sitting on the bench in front of the shop, impatiently jiggling his leg up and down. He was wearing a slightly wrinkled short-sleeved plaid shirt and a pair of frayed khakis and looked as if he’d dressed in a hurry.
“What happened?” Marvin called out to Sean as Sean levered himself up with the aid of his cane and started walking toward the Kia. “Are Libby and Bernie all right?”
“They’re fine,” Sean snapped. “Just dandy.”
Oh, oh. What have they gotten themselves into now? Marvin thought.
Sean pointed his cane at Marvin’s passenger. “What’s she doing here?”
“She wanted to go for a ride.”
“Hilda is a pig. Pigs don’t ride in cars. They don’t have ‘wants.’ ”
Marvin took his hands off the wheel and crossed them over his chest. “That’s what my dad keeps saying.”
“For once he and I are in agreement.”
Marvin sighed. “I already told you, Mr. Simmons, she’s used to people and Juno’s husband wouldn’t take her.”
“That doesn’t mean you had to,” Sean pointed out.
“Libby wanted me to, and really, I kinda like her. It’s like having a dog, only better, because she’s smarter. So what’s going on? Why did you call me?” Marvin asked, getting back to the important stuff.
Sean stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he sputtered. “Your girlfriend and her sister have about as much sense as a turnip. I should have gone with them. If I had, none of this would have happened.”
“None of what would have happened?” Marvin said, trying not to yell.
“In a moment,” Sean told him.
Marvin clenched his teeth and reminded himself there was no point in arguing. He got out to help Sean into the car, but before he got to him Sean waved him off.
“I can manage by myself, thank you very much,” Sean snarled.
Marvin took a step back. “Sorry,” he said, putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
Sean got in the Kia and slammed the door shut. Hilda oinked a hello, which Sean ignored. “At least she doesn’t have to sit in the front seat,” Sean complained when Marvin got in.
“She thinks she does,” Marvin replied, closing his door.
“Ridiculous,” Sean muttered. “She’s a pig.”
“She thinks she’s a person.”
“You’re crazy too.”
Marvin ignored the comment and asked where they were going instead. He’d learned that, in general, a good rule of thumb was not to pick a fight with your future father-in-law if possible, especially when said father-in-law was furious.
“The Riverview Motel,” Sean snapped.
Marvin put the Kia in drive and they took off. Sean nodded, lit a cigarette, opened his window, threw the match out of it, and stared at the passing scenery as he smoked his cigarette. Smoking calmed him down. That’s one of the things he liked about it.
“Is Libby okay?” Marvin asked after a moment of silence.
“Depends on how you define okay.”
“Is she hurt?”
“No.”
“Is Bernie hurt?”
“No.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“They’re being held for obstruction of justice,” Sean said.
“You’re kidding.”
Sean glared at him. “Do I look like I’m kidding, Marvin ?”
Marvin shrunk back in his seat. “No.”
Sean took another drag of his cigarette and thought about how he was going to handle the situation and what a pain in the ass his daughters were.
“So what happened?” Marvin finally w
orked up the courage to ask.
Sean took another puff of his cigarette and turned to him. “You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Evidently, Bernie’s friend Ellen concocted a phony ransom note ordering her husband to go to the Riverview with money or his wife would die. Naturally, Bruce called the cops and when they got there they found an unidentified white male Caucasian on the bed in the motel room and Ellen outside the motel getting ready to drive away.
“The police were questioning her, when a short while later Libby and Bernie arrived on the scene, and the police took them into custody as well. Any other questions?”
Marvin shook his head.
“Good,” Sean said. “Drive.”
So Marvin concentrated on the road and on keeping Hilda from sitting on his lap. She’d grown quite a bit bigger in the time since he’d gotten her and he was a little bit nervous about how large she was going to get, even though she was a mini Vietnamese potbellied pig and those weren’t supposed to get very big.
Traffic was light to nonexistent and it took Marvin a little less than fifteen minutes to drive down to the Riverview Motel. This time Sean didn’t correct Marvin’s sliding through stop signs. In fact, he didn’t say anything to Marvin and Marvin didn’t say anything else to him. There was no point. One thing was for sure though. Sean was really, really pissed.
Once he and Marvin arrived at the motel, it took Sean another twenty minutes to persuade the powers-that-be to release his daughters into his custody. He was only glad that his archenemy Lucas Broadbent, aka Lucy, chief of the Longely police, wasn’t there to gloat.
“Dad,” Bernie began when she and Libby got out of the squad car, but Sean put up his hand.
“Don’t say anything,” he instructed his daughters as they followed him and Marvin back to their van. “Not a word. I am not a happy man at this moment,” he added unnecessarily, that being fairly self-evident. He started walking toward the Kia as fast as he could manage while Marvin hung back.
“Are you okay?” he asked Libby.
Sean stopped and turned around. “She’s fine, Marvin. You two can talk later,” he rapped out. “Right now you need to get me home.”
Libby almost said, “I’m not fifteen, Dad,” but she had the good sense not to. Instead she motioned for Marvin to go with her dad. “I’ll call you,” she mouthed.
“Make it soon,” Marvin mouthed back. “I miss you and so does Hilda.”
“And I miss you guys,” Libby said.
Sean turned to Marvin. “Enough of that nonsense. Come on. I’m tired and I want to get to bed.”
Marvin blew Libby a kiss and hurried after Sean.
“Boy, Dad’s not happy,” Bernie observed when she and Libby got into the van. “I haven’t seen him this pissed in a long time.”
“Not since you totaled the Blazer, to be exact. I told you,” Libby said to Bernie once she had started Mathilda up. “I told you nothing good could come of this.”
Bernie rubbed her ankle. It was even more swollen than it had been. Walking on it probably hadn’t helped. “And you were right. Does that make you feel better?”
Libby shook her head. “Not even remotely.”
Bernie rested her ankle on the dashboard. At least that would help ease some of the pressure. “Too bad Bruce called the cops.”
“Can you blame him? What would you have done?” Libby asked her sister.
“I don’t know. Maybe call us,” Bernie answered.
“Have you thought that Bruce knew the note was fake? Has that occurred to you? Maybe he called the cops because he wanted to teach Ellen a lesson.”
Bernie sighed. “Well, she certainly got one, that’s for sure.” Then she changed the subject. “How mad do you think Dad is?”
“On a scale of one to ten, one being the lowest and ten the highest, I’d give him between an eight and a nine,” Libby answered. “He’s still talking to us.”
“Kinda.”
“It’s better than the ‘silence of death.’ ” That was when Sean didn’t speak to anyone for days.
The only good thing, as Bernie remarked, was that Sean got over things pretty quickly. Most of the time. The sisters just hoped that this was one of those times.
Chapter 9
Sean didn’t say anything when he and his daughters went upstairs. He didn’t say anything when Libby went to get Bernie an ice pack and she and Bernie something to eat. He didn’t say anything until after his daughters sat down on the sofa and Bernie put her foot up on the coffee table and draped the package of frozen peas over it.
“Feel better?” he asked Bernie.
“Yes, thank you.”
Sean gave a curt nod. “Good.”
“Can I get you anything?” Libby asked her dad. “A brownie? There are a couple of pieces of rhubarb pie left.”
Sean shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
“Coffee?”
Sean glared. “I said nothing.”
Libby shrugged. “I was just asking.”
She and Bernie exchanged a glance. Their dad was talking a little, but he wasn’t eating. What did that mean? This was a new one on Bernie and Libby. He’d never, ever said no to something they’d made.
The atmosphere in the room was glacial. No one said anything. Five minutes went by. Libby watched the second hand of the clock on the wall going round. She listened to its ticking and the occasional car going by outside. She could hear Bernie shifting around, trying to get comfortable, and her father tapping his fingers on the arm of his easy chair. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She leaned forward.
“Dad,” she began. “We’re sorry—”
Which was as far as she got before Sean cut her off.
“You’re sorry?” he asked, each word encased in a block of ice. “You’re sorry?”
Libby and Bernie looked down at the floor. They felt as if they were ten again.
“You could be sitting in jail right now. You could still be sitting in jail. That’s a real possibility because you’re not out of the woods on this yet. Not by a long shot.”
Bernie looked up. “It’s my fault.”
Sean shook his finger at Bernie and then at Libby. “No. It’s both of your faults. I expected better from both of you. Neither one of you should have touched anything. You know not to. You should have called the police as soon as you walked into the room and saw that man lying on the bed. Then you should have gone outside and waited for them to arrive.”
“What about Ellen?” Bernie asked.
“What about her?” Sean threw back. “You should have dragged her out with you.”
“Hey, you haven’t always followed the straight and narrow,” Bernie pointed out indignantly.
Sean glared at her. It was a glare that in Sean’s day had reduced the men under his command to quivering lumps of Jell-O.
“Okay,” Sean said slowly. “If that’s the tack you’re taking, we don’t have to talk about this at all. Good luck. Let me know how it all turns out. I’m going to bed.” And he started to get up.
“No, no,” Bernie said quickly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“We’re sorry,” Libby amended. “For everything.”
Sean’s expression softened. “As well you should be.” He lowered himself back down.
Bernie bit her lip. “We were wrong. We shouldn’t have done what we did.”
“So why did you?”
“I just . . .” Bernie waved her hand around while she thought about how she was going to frame her next sentence. “I guess . . . things got away from me.”
Sean raised an eyebrow. “Really?” His tone was not congenial.
“We were surprised,” Bernie explained.
“Stunned really,” amplified Libby.
“Everything happened so fast. We got Ellen’s phone call and ran over there. . . .”
“And then we saw the body on the bed,” Libby added. “It was the first thing we saw and then Ellen was crouched down by the bed,
half hidden. We didn’t see her immediately, and when we did, we thought she’d been hurt.”
Bernie shifted the package of frozen peas on her ankle. “We didn’t know what to think.”
“I see,” Sean said. But he didn’t. Not really. By the time he’d gotten to the Riverview, the man’s body had been bagged and tagged and in the ambulance and the CID squad was working the room. “You’re talking about the body Ellen claims to know nothing about, correct?”
Bernie nodded. “Correct. And Ellen was hysterical.”
“She really was, Dad,” Libby reaffirmed. “We couldn’t get anything out of her.”
“She’s always hysterical.”
Bernie left off with the peas. “That’s exaggerating a little, don’t you think?”
“Really?”
Bernie leaned over and rubbed her ankle. “Okay. It’s not.” If Ellen wasn’t a total Drama Queen she was pretty close to it. “But not like this.”
“So her plan didn’t exactly work out, did it?” Sean continued.
Bernie licked her lips. “No, it didn’t,” she allowed.
“Well, she did want attention,” Libby observed.
“Yeah, but she didn’t get the kind she was aiming for,” Bernie replied.
“Amazing,” Sean said. “Truly amazing.” He tut-tutted. What people came up with never failed to amaze him.
“Ellen probably thought Bruce was going to break down in tears or something when he got to the motel room and found out she was okay,” Libby observed.
Sean thought of his response if his wife had pulled a stunt like that. Breaking down in tears would most emphatically not have been what he would have done. Wringing her neck would have been more like it. “She’s definitely living in a fantasy land, I’ll say that for her.” Sean leaned back in his chair. “Why would Ellen do something like that?”
Bernie repositioned the frozen peas. “Because she felt neglected. She felt that no one in the family paid any attention to her.”
“Couldn’t she find something a little less dramatic to make her point?” Sean asked. “Your mom used to order pizza from Domino’s when she felt like that.”
A Catered Mother's Day Page 5