A Catered Christmas

by Isis Crawford

  “She helped,” Libby said.

  Sean looked down so Rob wouldn’t see him smile. Bernie’s pie crusts were so tough you couldn’t get a fork through them.

  “I don’t know what she does to get them that way,” Rose had said to him after she’d thrown one in the garbage. “I swear I don’t. You should take them to the office and use them as weapons.”

  Such is the power of love, Sean thought as he heard Rob say to Bernie, “You’ll have to teach me how to make a pie crust. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted. How do you do it?”

  “Well—” Bernie was saying when Libby broke in.

  “It’s a family secret—”

  Bernie finished the sentence. “That’s been handed down for generations.”

  She flashed her older sister a grateful grin, and her sister smiled back.

  Those two might bicker a lot, but they didn’t hold grudges, Sean reflected. Thank heavens.

  “So,” he said to Marvin. “Changing the subject. Tell us about Hortense.”

  “Yes,” Bernie said, “enquiring minds want to know.”

  Sean watched Clyde lean forward.

  “Yes, they do,” Clyde echoed.

  “Well …” Marvin stammered, “there’s really nothing much to tell.”

  “As in once you’ve seen one dead body you’ve seen them all,” Bernie quipped.

  Libby bristled. “Bernie, Marvin just said there’s nothing to say.”

  “Libby, he can take care of himself.”

  “I know,” Libby began when Sean held up his hand.

  Enough was enough.

  Miraculously, his daughters quieted down. He turned his attention to Marvin, who was sitting there looking miserable.

  “But Hortense is in your father’s place, right?” Sean asked.

  Marvin nodded.

  “He wouldn’t like me talking about it.”

  Libby leaned over and patted his knee. “He’s not going to find out.”

  Good girl, Sean thought.

  “How did she arrive?” he asked.

  “The usual way,” Marvin muttered.

  “You mean in a hearse.”

  “Well, he didn’t mean a Mini Cooper,” Bernie said.

  Sean glared at her.

  “What is wrong with you today?” Rob asked.

  “You wouldn’t be in a good mood either if you’d just seen someone being killed,” Bernie shot back.

  Sean watched Rob’s eyes widen. “Did you actually see it?”

  “No. But we were in the next room. That’s close enough for me.”

  “Me too,” Libby said. “Especially when you consider it could have been me.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Bernie pointed out.

  “But it could have been.”

  “What do you mean?” Marvin asked.

  It took Sean five minutes to get the conversation back on track. “How did the other people react when they heard the explosion?” Sean asked when he had.

  He watched while Bernie and Libby considered their answers. They looked at each other.

  Finally, Bernie said, “I don’t know. We all dropped what we were doing and ran inside.”

  “Who was first?” Sean asked.

  Libby bit the inside of her lip. “It was like we were in a great big knot.”

  Bernie tapped the heels of her feet on the floor. “I think Estes was first, then La Croix, and Consuela. But I’m not really sure.”

  Libby looked down at her cup. “I remember Pearl was last because I turned and saw her coming through the door.”

  Sean nodded encouragingly. “Very good.”

  “And the rest were sort of in this mass in the middle.” Libby raised her eyes. “This is off topic, but shouldn’t Hortense be having an autopsy?” Libby asked. “I mean, isn’t that a legal requirement?”

  “I believe that is scheduled for tomorrow,” Marvin said. “Although the cause of death is fairly self-evident.”

  As he leaned over to get his piece of pie, Sean held his breath. He could see the chair begin to tip. Marvin grabbed the table for support.

  “Don’t!” he yelled.

  But it was too late.

  The chair, Marvin, and the table all went crashing to the floor.

  Chapter 10

  The next twenty minutes, as far as Sean could see, were devoted to his daughters cleaning up the mess Marvin had made and building Marvin’s ego back up—in so far as that was possible. If the kid said he was sorry one more time, Sean decided he was going to run him over with his wheelchair. He was sure Clyde would vouch for a justifiable homicide motive if it came down to it.

  The hell with Hortense’s killer, Sean thought. He had a bigger menace right here in his bedroom. The kid shouldn’t be allowed out in public without some kind of warning device on him. That way people could get away from him.

  “It’s such a shame,” Marvin said when they’d finally gotten back on topic. “I used to watch that show almost every day.” Then he realized what he’d said and blushed. Again.

  “That’s okay, Marvin,” Libby said. “My dad does … did … too.”

  Marvin turned to Sean. “You did?”

  Sean looked daggers at Libby whom, he noted, avoided his eyes. “Absolutely,” Sean said. And he had, but Libby knew he hated admitting something like that in public.

  “Me too,” Clyde said. “I especially liked the show where she taught you how to stuff and roast a chicken.” And he sighed wistfully. “I wish my wife had watched it. She says she has no time for stuff like that.”

  “You could learn how to cook,” Libby told him. “I could teach you if you want.”

  Clyde looked doleful. “Thanks for the offer, but my wife doesn’t want me in the kitchen. Says I make too much of a mess.”

  Rob butted in. “Excuse me,” he said, “but are you guys involved in this?”

  “You bet your bippie,” Sean said.

  Bernie wrinkled her nose. “Bippie? What kind of word is bippie?”

  “It was before your time,” Sean told her.

  “But what does it mean?” Bernie demanded.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s going to bother me all night,” Bernie complained.

  “Let’s get on with this,” Sean said impatiently.

  Getting this group together was a little like trying to herd a flock of ducks. Everyone was waddling off in their own direction. He wheeled his chair around, faced the TV, and pressed PLAY on the VCR. The Hortense Calabash Show jumped back into life.

  “I look terrible,” Libby wailed.

  “You look fine,” Marvin told her.

  “No. I don’t. I look fat,” Libby cried. “And my hair is terrible.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Bernie said.

  “That is enough,” Sean said in a louder voice than he intended. Sometimes he wished he had sons.

  “Sorry,” Libby whispered.

  Sean grunted. Great. Now he could feel guilty as well as annoyed, a truly great combination. He couldn’t help it if he was used to dealing with guys. Guys didn’t take things personally—except for Marvin, that is. Better not to go there, Sean thought as he turned and gave the screen his full attention.

  Eric Royal was in midspeech, talking about the upcoming contest. He kept on touching the lapel of his jacket. Why would anyone wear something that color? Sean wondered. It was some kind of purple. Something that started with an L. Bernie would know. He almost asked her, then thought better of it. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to a ten-minute lecture on word origins right now.

  He bent forward a little more. Eric Royal looked ill at ease. So did the other people standing on either side of him. Of course, given the circumstances that was to be expected. Except for the Hispanic lady. Consuela. Sean drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. She looked very relaxed. Interesting. Especially since Bernie and Libby had said they’d caught her rifling through Hortense’s files. Very suggestive. Ve
ry suggestive indeed.

  He turned toward Clyde.

  “What do you think?” he asked him.

  “I think the Consuela dame looks like she’s on a beach somewhere.”

  “I think so too.”

  “Why is that bad?” Rob asked.

  “Because,” Sean explained, “lots of times innocent people are the nervous ones. Probably because they’ve had less experience with the law.”

  Clyde interrupted. “Hey, Cap, check out that Reginald person.”

  Sean followed Clyde’s finger. Reginald was standing next to Brittany Saperstein.

  “Is that a smile on his face?” Clyde asked.

  Sean focused in. It was slight, right around the corners of his mouth, but it was there.

  “I think you’re right,” he told Clyde.

  “Reginald was insisting he had to talk to Hortense, but he wouldn’t say why,” Libby noted.

  Sean pressed the STOP button on the VCR. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Well,” Bernie said, “Consuela implied that La Croix learned his cooking skills in prison. And,” Bernie continued, “Estes said something to Consuela about putting on a sanctimonious act, and I don’t think he was referring to our having caught her riffling through Hortense’s files, and I’m fairly sure she’s misrepresenting her nationality. She’s a middle-class Jersey girl, not a Dominicana.”

  “Why would she lie about that?” Clyde asked.

  “Because it plays better,” Bernie replied. “As in there are a lot of Jersey girls running around, but not too many Dominicanas who have battled their way up from the slums. After all,” Bernie added, “the food business is all about presentation, at least that’s what Mom always said, right, Dad?”

  “Right,” Sean agreed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Libby was picking at her cuticles, a sign that something was bothering her. “Do you have something to add?” he asked her.

  “Well, I don’t know if I should say this or not …”

  “Tell us,” Sean urged.

  “It’s gossip,” Libby said.

  “Gossip is good,” Bernie said.

  Libby picked at her nails for another moment.

  “Yes,” Sean said, “we like gossip.” He’d cracked half of his ongoings that way.

  “Well, I guess in this case it doesn’t matter,” Libby conceded.

  Sean leaned forward in his chair. Sometimes Libby’s voice was so low he had trouble hearing.

  “Howie, the guy who runs Veggies Are Us, told me that lots of times when he went over to Hortense’s house to deliver her order she was smashed. And that she came on to him. He says she told him that if he didn’t do what she wanted, she’d take her business elsewhere, and he told her to go ahead.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Bernie said. “She’s so high powered, and Howie’s such a schlub.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Sean said. And he should know. He’d seen them all. “Maybe she’s done that to other guys as well.”

  “That’s not grounds for killing someone,” Rob asked. “Some guys might even see it as grounds for gratitude.”

  Clyde laughed. “You’d think, but you never know what’s gonna set someone off.”

  “No, you don’t,” Sean said. “I remember this guy who shot his girlfriend—”

  “Ruffino,” Clyde said.

  “Yeah, Ruffino. Anyway, she was a weaver, and she went to some garage sale and bought this loom and set it up in their bedroom, and he came home, took one look at it, got his Smith & Wesson out of his night table drawer and that, as they say, was that.”

  “But why?” Libby asked. “That makes no sense.”

  Sean reached for the remote. “He told me he saw the loom as a sign of disrespect.”

  He started the tape. Everyone watched in silence. He was about to say something about Pearl Wilde. She seemed to be clutching something in her hand when Marvin cried out, “This is so exciting.”

  Sean caught Libby’s glance and with a great deal of effort on his part managed to refrain from saying what he had been going to.

  “Maybe I can drive you around like I did the last time,” Marvin continued.

  Sean bit his lip. Not if he could help it.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  “That’s so nice of you to offer,” Libby told Marvin.

  Nice for him but not nice for me, Sean thought. Love is great and everything, but she should have some consideration for her old man.

  “So how does this investigation thing work?” Marvin asked.

  Sean noticed that his eyes were fixed on the screen.

  “How does it work? That’s simple. Never the way you want it to,” Clyde quipped.

  “That’s for sure,” Sean said. “We’re just looking at the suspects right now,” he explained to Marvin.

  Marvin nodded toward the TV screen with his chin.

  “How do you know it’s just these people?” Rob asked.

  “Because they’re the only people that were in the house,” Libby replied. “The crew came in later.”

  Rob took a swallow of his cider.

  “But someone could have snuck in and done this.”

  “That’s possible,” Sean conceded, “but not probable.”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “For openers, it’s not a crime of opportunity. People don’t disconnect the gas line and come up with a detonating device on the spur of the moment. It’s been planned and planned well.”

  “Maybe we should just look for someone who hates Christmas,” Clyde interjected.

  Bernie cocked her head. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because the murder weapon was a Christmas ornament,” Clyde replied.

  Sean nodded. The conversation was reminding him that he still had to get the tree decorated. Since Rose’s death, he’d pretty much lost what little holiday spirit he had, and the girls were so busy with the store that they didn’t have much time to do anything upstairs. He really should get them to get the ornaments out of storage.

  “In general,” he told Rob, “in an investigation, we start with the most likely suspects and go from there.”

  Bernie jumped up from her seat.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  Instead of answering him, she sang, “I got the motive.”

  Then Libby jumped up, pointed a finger at her younger sister, and belted out, “You got the means and the opportunity.”

  What is going on with her? Sean wondered as Bernie spread out her arms and went down to her knees.

  “We’ll just go for cop immunity,” she trilled.

  “You’re not a vaudeville act,” Sean said. He didn’t think anyone heard him, though, because Clyde, Rob, and Marvin were hooting and hollering.

  Bernie hopped up.

  “Bravo,” Rob cried.

  Bernie and Libby curtsied.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” they both said.

  “Did you just make that up?” Clyde asked.

  Libby and Bernie nodded.

  “I’m impressed,” Clyde said. “Very impressed.”

  Bernie turned to Sean. “What do you think, Dad?”

  “I think you’re in shock,” Sean said.

  Either that or both of his daughters were going crazy. His wife had warned him that prolonged exposure to the seamier side of life, as she phrased it, would have an effect on the girls. Evidently she was right.

  Rob scraped the last remaining bit of whipped cream out of the bowl with the edge of his spoon.

  “So what’s your take on this thing, Sean?”

  “Tell us,” Marvin said.

  Sean straightened his shoulders. At last, the voice of reason. Marvin did have his uses after all.

  “Hortense started baking the fruitcake about an hour before the show, so the oven had to have been rigged then—”

  “The Case of the Deadly Fruitcake,” Bernie said. “I like it.”

  Is it too hard for you people to stay on topic
? Sean wanted to scream. Is that too much to ask? Evidently it was. He felt like tearing his hair out. Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough to be able to do that.

  Libby sniffed. “I don’t see why everyone says such bad things about fruitcake,” she said.

  “Off topic,” Sean said.

  “Just a moment,” Bernie told him before turning back to Libby. “Modern fruitcakes are a bad concept,” Bernie said.

  “They don’t have to be,” Libby retorted.

  “But they usually are.”

  “That’s because they use that dreadful candied fruit from the supermarket.” Libby bit at her cuticle. “Mine isn’t like that.”

  “No one said they were,” Marvin told her. “I can’t believe that anything you make would be bad.”

  Sean watched Libby all but bat her eyelashes at Marvin. Marvin beamed.

  “Thank you,” Libby said. “That’s so sweet.”

  He was definitely losing control of the situation here, Sean decided. This would never have happened in the old days. He was just about to tell everyone to be quiet when Bernie started speaking again, and he realized he’d lost his chance.

  “Did you know,” she said, “that fruitcakes used to be considered healthy, nourishing food? They were invented in England. Originally they were called plum cakes because back then plum was the word they used for dried fruits. And here’s something really interesting.”

  Sean rolled his eyes.

  “That is so rude,” Bernie told him before continuing on with her lecture. “Dried fruits didn’t start arriving in Britain until the thirteenth century.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Rob.

  Like he really cares, Sean thought.

  “No, I’m not,” Bernie said. “Dried fruit came from Portugal and the eastern Mediterranean. The British didn’t have anything like that in their larders. It makes sense if you think about it.”

  “How weird,” Rob said.

  “Isn’t it, though,” Bernie said. “You always think of stuff like this as having been around forever and it usually isn’t. A lot of the foodstuffs we take for granted are the result of increased trade and migration patterns. Like you can trace the movement of the Moors through Spain by the prevalence of chickpeas on the menu. The most obvious example of this in modern times would be macadamia nuts. They come from Australia originally.”

  “Australia?” Marvin said.