“How’s he doing?”
“The same as he was doing an hour ago.”
Sean shrugged. “Just asking. Did his father notice the hearse was gone?”
“No, thank heavens.” Given what Marvin’s father was like, that was something Libby didn’t even want to consider.
“Hmm.” Libby watched as her dad absentmindedly rested his palms on the wheels of his chair. “Not a very observant sort of fellow, is he? It’s kind of like not noticing a limo is gone from your garage.”
“Dad, forget the limo.” Libby tried to moderate her voice. “He told me what you did.”
“What I did?”
“With La Croix.”
Sean folded his hands in his lap and looked up at her again. Libby noticed that he was getting some noticeable lines around his eyes.
“I didn’t do anything to La Croix. He tried to do something to me.”
“You could have gotten stabbed,” Libby said.
“I think the correct word would be chopped, and I didn’t.”
“But you could have.”
She watched as her dad took another sip of tea and put down the cup. She noticed that his hand was trembling less than it had a year ago.
“Nice,” he said. “Nothing like a spot of tea during the Yuletide season. Is this the new Earl Gray?”
Libby almost burst out laughing. “You can cut the brogue out. You were born in this country. And don’t try and change the subject on me. I hate when you do that.”
Her dad gave her a look of total innocence.
“Me?”
“I don’t see anyone else in the room.”
Her dad looked around. “There’s the ficus tree your mom used to speak to. Doesn’t that count?”
“I’m not kidding.” Libby tried to not let herself be distracted. Her father was really good at that. “You provoked this man. You could have gotten badly hurt.”
Her dad brushed a speck of sugar off his sweater. “I appreciate your concern,” he said. “But the way I see it, what I did wasn’t any worse than what you did at Reginald Palmer’s place. In fact, it was better. At least I had someone with me,” he observed. “What would have happened if Reginald had caught you in his office? Best-case scenario, he would have had you arrested. That’s at best. As for the worst, I don’t want to think about that. Remember, we’re dealing with a murder suspect here.”
“Bernie told you,” Libby cried when her father paused to take a breath. She couldn’t believe she’d done that.
“I told him what?” Bernie asked.
Libby whirled around. Bernie and Rob were standing in the doorway. Why hadn’t she heard either one of them coming up? she wondered. Maybe she was going deaf. She should really get her hearing checked. But that, she reflected, like everything else, would have to wait till after the holidays.
“What did I tell him?” Bernie asked again.
“You told him about my going into Reginald’s office.”
“You make it sound as if that’s a bad thing,” Bernie replied. “You didn’t tell me not to.”
Had she? Libby tried to remember. My God. Maybe Bernie was right. Maybe she hadn’t.
“Actually,” Bernie said to her, “I think what you did took a lot of guts.”
Libby watched her dad move some specks of powdered sugar to the side of the plate. “Stupidity is more like it.”
Libby could feel herself bristling. “How come when Bernie does something like that it’s okay and when I do it, it isn’t?”
“Yeah, Dad,” Bernie chimed in.
Libby shot her sister a grateful glance, and Bernie winked back.
Her father was beginning to reply when Bernie interrupted him. “I mean, if Libby hadn’t gone into the office, we wouldn’t have known that Reginald has a drug problem.”
Libby watched her dad frown.
“I suppose,” he allowed. Then he turned toward her. “But, Libby, it’s bad enough worrying about her.” He pointed to her sister. “You’re supposed to be the sensible one in the family.”
“Well maybe I don’t want to be that anymore,” Libby snapped. “Maybe I’m tired of being sensible. Maybe I want to go off to Antarctica or hike through Death Valley or wear four-inch stilettos.” She faced Bernie. “And you don’t have to roll your eyes.”
“You will never wear stilettos.”
“How do you know what I’ll wear?”
“You are so PMSing.”
Libby was opening her mouth to answer when her dad’s voice rang out like a shot. “Girls.”
She shut up. So did Bernie.
“That’s better,” her dad said to both of them. “A lot better.” Then he said to Rob, “Whatever you do, son, don’t have daughters.”
Rob laughed, which made Bernie laugh, which made Libby laugh.
All right, Libby admitted to herself, maybe she was a little stressed out. Maybe her to-do list was getting to her after all. Maybe she was stretched a little thin right now. What she really needed to be doing was be downstairs making more Yule logs and Christmas cookies. Both were going so fast she couldn’t keep them in stock.
And she didn’t even want to think about Mrs. DeLitte’s pre-Christmas literary affair. Why she had agreed to make cookies in the shape of chimney sweeps was beyond her. She obviously hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time.
The shape hadn’t been the problem. She knew someone who had made the mold for them. And she’d already baked them. The cookies, gingersnaps with hints of cardamom, had come out wonderfully well. But now she had to ice the darned things with lemon-flavored icing.
She’d done a couple already, and outlining the broom straws had taken way longer than she had anticipated. In fact, she should be down there now doing that. So should Bernie for that matter. She was just about to tell Bernie that when Bernie held up a string of Christmas lights in the shape of chili peppers.
“You like?” Bernie said.
“I like,” Libby replied. And she did.
Bernie smiled.
“I thought they were fun in a tacky retro kind of way. They reminded me of the fifties and the whole pink flamingo thing.”
Libby shook her head. Why her sister couldn’t say anything in a straightforward manner was beyond her.
“I found them in the Dollar Store.”
“The Dollar Store?” Libby couldn’t believe it. “You went to the Dollar Store? Good grief.”
Rob grinned. “That’s my influence. I’m bringing her down in life.”
Bernie grinned back at him. “Anyway,” she continued, “I thought Rob and I would put them up in the store window, and if we have enough, we’ll put a few strings up here.”
Libby watched Bernie look around.
“What do you think, Dad?”
“I think it would be good.”
“How about this?” And Bernie whipped out a container of snow-in-the-can.
“Absolutely not,” both she and her dad said in unison.
“Why not?” Bernie asked. “I think it would be funny.”
“Well, I don’t,” Sean said. “Your mother would roll over in her grave. Besides, that stuff is impossible to get off.”
“Fine.”
Sean took the can from Bernie and put it down on the floor next to his magazines. Maybe he’d give it to Clyde. His wife liked things like that. He straightened himself up. “Now that we’ve got that settled, I think it would be good if we could go through what we’ve accomplished today.”
Libby sighed.
“It’ll only take a moment,” her father was saying when Libby heard the downstairs door open.
A few minutes later a “Hello? Anyone home?” came trilling up the stairs.
Libby looked at her sister and father. They looked at her.
“Bree Nottingham,” they all said in unison.
Her dad groaned. Libby was about to say something when Bree, resplendent in her mink coat, appeared at the doorway of her father’s bedroom.
“I hope you don’t m
ind,” she chirped. “But I was passing by and decided to stop and see what progress my detectives are making.”
The phrase “my detectives” made Libby want to strangle Bree, and from the look on Bernie’s face, Libby could tell she felt the same way.
While Libby was contemplating the pleasures of life without Bree, the object of her contemplation smiled at her and said, “I wonder if I could trouble you for a cup of tea.”
Libby watched as she lightly touched the hollow of her throat with one perfectly groomed nail, which of course made Libby think about the state hers were in.
“Of course,” Libby said.
“And a biscuit or two,” Bree added. “I haven’t had a chance to eat anything at all today.”
“Who wears fur these days anyway?” Bernie muttered in Libby’s ears as they trudged down the stairs.
“Maybe PETA will get her,” Libby replied as she and her sister entered the kitchen.
“I’d pay to see that,” Bernie said, taking one of the small two-cup teapots off the shelf.
“I’m sure lots of people would,” Libby agreed as she took some cookies out of their container and practically slammed them on the plate.
The last thing that she had time to do today was listen to Bree Nottingham. When she and Bernie returned upstairs, Bree was sitting with her father on one side and Rob on the other. If she had a hair out of place, Libby couldn’t see it.
Today she was resplendent in a black turtleneck sweater, a fawn-colored suede wraparound skirt, and high suede boots. Perfect as usual, Libby thought as she studied the boots. Her calves were probably too heavy to be able to wear something like that, she concluded gloomily.
“How nice,” Bree told Libby as she took the teapot from Libby’s hands. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble. A cup of Lipton’s would have done.”
It was all Libby could do to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
“Is this China tea by any chance?” Bree asked.
“Why, yes it is,” Bernie said before Libby could tell her it was from India.
“Good,” Bree said. “I always feel Indian tea is too heavy.”
Libby concentrated on the tree outside of her father’s bedroom window because she was afraid she’d start laughing if she looked at Bernie’s smirk.
“So how is my band of merry little detectives coming along?” Bree asked as she poured herself a cup of tea and took a sip. “Wonderful,” she exclaimed. “So restoring in this Christmas rush.”
Libby couldn’t decide whether she wanted to throw up or burst out laughing.
“We’ve made some progress,” her father informed Bree. And he told her what they’d found out so far.
Bree nodded. “That’s marvelous. I know Hortense would be pleased.”
“How is Hortense, by the way?” Libby heard Bernie say. “Funeral plans coming along?”
Bree gave Bernie a forbidding stare. “I assume she’s doing as well as can be expected given the circumstances, and yes, the arrangements are coming along quite nicely.”
Sean coughed. Everyone turned back to him.
“I was wondering if there was anything you could add about Hortense?” Sean asked her.
Bree put her cup and saucer down and took a nibble of her lemon thin. “Such as?”
“I don’t know. From what the girls tell me, you were her friend.”
Bree nodded. “Childhood friend.”
“I just wondered if you had any information that could help us locate her killer.”
Bree stroked her mink coat thoughtfully. “Hortense had a lot of enemies.”
“Makes sense to me,” Libby interjected before she could stop herself.
Bree shot her a dirty look.
“Well, it’s true. Even you said she was”—Libby searched for the word Bree had used—"problematic.”
Bree rearranged the folds of her coat. “No. That’s wrong.”
Libby was about to tell her it wasn’t when her dad intervened.
“I’m sure Libby misremembered,” he told Bree while he shot Libby a warning look. “Isn’t that right, Libby?”
“I suppose,” she said grudgingly.
She knew what her father was doing, but it irked her all the same. Even if he was right and even if it was in her best interest to not get into an argument with Bree. She had too much to do, and once Bree got started she never shut up. She just went on and on and on.
Bree nodded her head in what Libby supposed was a magnanimous gesture. She was always gracious in victory.
“What I said,” Bree continued, emphasizing the word said, “was that a lot of people had problems with her. Most people don’t like powerful women. I myself can attest to that. They feel threatened by them.”
“Can you be more specific?” Sean said. “We are on a tight schedule here. I’m sure it won’t be long before the media catches wind of this. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t already.”
Bree inspected her fingernails. “Well, there is always Consuela,” she said. “She and Hortense absolutely loathed each other.”
“Why is that?” her dad asked before either Bernie or Libby could.
Bree told them.
Chapter 17
Bernie looked at Hortense’s house as she and Libby drove up the long driveway and hung a left into the parking lot that Hortense had used for her studio. The house was huge. Or maybe gigantic would be a better word. Or possibly enormous. Bernie couldn’t decide which word would be better.
It was also landscaped within an inch of its life, but the landscaping was made to look as if it had just happened, which Bernie knew from her days in L.A. was the most expensive kind of landscaping there was—and the most difficult to accomplish. It was kind of like make-up, Bernie reflected. The best kind was the kind that made you look good but didn’t call attention to itself.
Bree had told her that Hortense had spent ten thousand dollars decorating her house with wreaths and evergreens for the holiday season. Ten thou was a lot, she and Bree had agreed. Bree hadn’t been sure about the big red bows on the windows, but Bernie thought they were a nice touch. Whatever else you could say about Hortense, she had a good eye for detail.
“The place is big enough to house a small village,” was the way Bree had described Hortense’s house to her.
It was true, Bernie decided. It was big enough to house a small village, maybe even two. If I had that kind of money, Bernie reflected, I’d rather spend it on clothes and travel. But since she never would have it, it wasn’t going to be an issue. But still, it would be nice to live in a place with more than one bathroom. She loved her house. She just hated sharing the bathroom with her dad. He couldn’t seem to understand her need for three kinds of shampoos and four kinds of conditioners.
Oh well. There are worse things in life, she thought as she watched Libby concentrate on maneuvering the van into the space between the Ford Explorer and Consuela’s BMW. The lot was almost full, which meant Libby was going to have a fit because she always liked to be one of the first to get there instead of one of the last.
Well, actually, she’d already had her fit. And, of course, Libby had blamed their tardiness on her. But it wasn’t her fault that her mascara had rolled off the sink and landed behind the towels on the floor and hence was invisible, or that her pink gloves had ended up in the pocket of her brown leather jacket, which was the last place she would have expected them to be.
That was the trouble with being near someplace, geographically speaking, Bernie decided. It was like going to your neighbor’s party. You always thought you had plenty of time, so you futzed around and got there late, while the person who had to come from an hour away was always on time. But at least Libby had calmed down. Especially once Bernie had pointed out that screaming at the top of her lungs didn’t do good things for her powers of speech, which she was going to need once they were on the air.
“Not bad,” Bernie said, nodding in the direction of Consuela’s car.
The vanity pla
tes on the black BMW read CNSUELA.
“She must be doing pretty well,” Libby observed as she pulled into the space and killed the engine. She patted the van’s dashboard. “We love you anyway,” she crooned to it. “We love you even if you are old and beat up.”
Bernie took off her hat and ran her fingers through her hair. “I bet she leased it.”
“Could be,” Libby said.
Normally her sister would have been very interested in the status of Consuela’s car, but Bernie could tell from the expression on her face that she was preoccupied with something else.
“You’re still thinking about what Bree told us, aren’t you?” Bernie asked.
Libby turned toward her. She was frowning.
“At least now I know what Reginald meant,” Libby said. “I just can’t believe she’d do something like that. It’s terrible.”
Bernie laughed. “You sound as if you’ve just found out Hortense was a serial killer.”
“This is worse.”
Bernie sighed. Her sister was such an unbelievable dork sometimes.
“Okay,” Libby relented. “Maybe that was an overstatement. But still. Using prepackaged pie crusts!”
Bernie put her hands over her heart. “Oh, the horror of it all.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are. That’s what’s so scary.”
Libby made a face at her. “No. Really. You have to admit that’s pretty bad. Especially coming from the original ‘do-it-from-scratch’ person, the person who suggested that everyone make their own homemade butter because it’s so much better.”
Bernie reached over and brushed a speck of dirt off of Libby’s cheek. Sometimes she forgot how naïve Libby could be. She’d believed in Santa until she was ten years old and the tooth fairy until she was twelve.
“No. I don’t suppose you would, would you?” she told her.
“What’s that suppose to mean?” Libby demanded.
“Nothing,” Bernie said.
“Then why did you say it?”
Bernie pulled down the mirror on the passenger side so she could apply her lip gloss. The holidays certainly didn’t bring out the best in her sister, that was for sure. Neither did public appearances, for that matter. Combine them both and you got someone who was impossible to deal with. She turned to look at Libby again. She was picking at her nails.
A Catered Christmas Page 13