A Catered Christmas

by Isis Crawford

  This was strictly a fishing expedition. If he was still on the force and applied for a search warrant on these grounds, the DA would throw his ass out the door. But he wasn’t on the force.

  Sean took another deep breath while he figured out what he was going to say. “Okay,” he finally told Marvin after a couple of seconds had passed. “We’re looking for anything that has anything to do with Consuela or La Croix or Pearl or any of the other people on the show.”

  “You mean like employment records or health records?” Rob asked.

  Sean nodded. “Or bills or insurance forms or IOUs or anything that has anyone’s name on it,” he added.

  Given the circumstances, it was the best way for them to go. Not that they were doing anything wrong. After all, Lucy had invited them to investigate. And this was a murder scene. Except Lucy wouldn’t see it that way. He’d see Sean as having shown him up.

  Too bad he hadn’t gotten Sean’s message. That was the trouble with technology. It had a tendency to malfunction. Sean chuckled. It was terrible the way things disappeared in the … what was the word Bernie used? Ah, yes. The ethernet.

  Sean glanced at his watch again. It was getting up there. They had to hustle.

  “You know,” Marvin told him as Rob got Sean’s wheelchair out of the backseat of his SUV, “I saw this movie once where the bad guy had this little black notebook, and on each page it had the name of a person, and next to it, it had the amount of money the man was blackmailing them for and how much they’d paid him. It was a ledger.”

  “Sounds like someone with a very orderly mind,” Sean remarked.

  In his experience, people didn’t write down those kinds of things, at least not like that, not even people like Hortense. They tried not to make it easier for the cops if they possibly could.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Marvin said. “Maybe we’ll find something like that.”

  “Maybe,” Sean said. He hoped they would, but he wasn’t counting on it.

  “What’ll we say if we meet somebody?” Marvin asked.

  “We’ll say we’ve come to pick up Hortense,” Rob said.

  “She’s in my father’s basement,” Marvin pointed out.

  “I was just joking,” Rob said.

  “Oh.” Marvin stopped for a moment, thought, then said, “So what will we say?”

  God give me strength, Sean thought as he patted his jacket pocket to make sure he hadn’t dropped his wallet. He always seemed to be doing that these days, that or losing his reading glasses. Getting old was a distinct pain in the ass.

  Sean brushed the snowflakes out of his eyes. “What we’ll say is that we’re here to see Libby and Bernie.”

  Marvin nodded. “That’s good. That’s very good.”

  “I know,” Sean told him. “That’s why I said it.”

  After all, he should be good at this stuff, Sean thought. He’d been doing it for long enough. As he watched Marvin, he could see another thought was occurring to him, always a bad thing.

  “They can’t arrest us, can they?” he asked.

  Sean noted the hint of panic in Marvin’s voice. He decided lying would be kinder.

  “No, of course not,” he told him, even though technically they could be taken in for breaking and entering—but that was a big “could.” He motioned for Rob to unfold his wheelchair.

  “Come on, guys, let’s get going.”

  Marvin punched the air. “We’re on a mission. Well, we are, aren’t we?”

  Sean held back his sigh. “No,” he corrected. “We’re on a job.” Too much exuberance in these kinds of situations led to carelessness, which led to mistakes.

  Marvin nodded, but he looked so crestfallen that Sean heard himself saying, “Come on, Marvin. You can’t take everything I say so seriously.”

  “Yeah,” Rob added. “He’s just a grumpy old man.”

  Marvin grinned. Then he and Rob started walking toward the house. Ordinarily Sean would have left someone in the vehicle, but he needed both Rob and Marvin. After all, three people could look through things a lot faster than two people could, a third faster to be precise.

  He felt that old familiar jolt in his belly as he came to the door of Hortense’s house. The adrenaline surge wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t unpleasant at all. In fact, he’d liked it. Okay. He loved it. His wife had called him an adrenaline junkie, and she’d been right. That’s why he’d continued being a street cop long after he could have taken himself off of patrol.

  He tried the door. It opened. Which was good, but in case it hadn’t, he’d stopped by his house and gotten the old set of lock picks that he’d taken off a kid called the Loose Goose twenty years ago. Preparation for things was key. He guided the wheelchair inside and motioned for Rob and Marvin to follow him.

  Okay, Hortense, Sean said to himself. Let’s see what you got cooking.

  Chapter 23

  Sean looked around Hortense’s bedroom. It was in line with what he’d seen of the rest of the house size-wise, he decided. What anyone would want with this much space was beyond him. The room was as big as some of the bowling alleys he’d been in and just about as cozy. Even the fireplace looked as if it belonged in a European castle. And those andirons. Was Hortense planning on deforesting the town?

  The fact that everything was white certainly didn’t help the warmth factor. He knew from Bernie that white was a cold color. Jeez. Even the Christmas decorations were white. White candles in the windows, a white wreath near the mantle, white lights strung around the walls.

  He felt as if he was in the lobby of a fancy office building. Although, he had to say he did like the plasma TV screen hanging on the far wall. He wouldn’t mind having one of those in his house. He was sure the girls wouldn’t mind either. Unfortunately, even if he could afford it—which he couldn’t—something like that was too big for his room at home. Actually, it was too big for any place in his house.

  “I feel as if I’m in the North Pole,” Rob whispered.

  “Yeah. All we need are the elves,” Marvin whispered back.

  Sean nodded. Given the snow falling outside, Sean could understand why Rob felt that way. White outside. White inside. It was like Antarctica. If he wasn’t careful, he’d get snow blindness. He took another look around. Given the size of the room, the place really had very little furniture, just a four-poster bed draped with some sort of white gauzy material that he didn’t know the name of. But Bernie would. Not that it mattered.

  Sean studied the bed for a moment. It was large enough to accommodate three adults comfortably, possibly even four. Sean couldn’t imagine sleeping in something that huge. A person could get lost in there and have to hike out. As for the embroidered comforter, he wasn’t sure, but it looked like white silk.

  Personally, he liked something you could wash. He wondered if you could even dry clean this thing. Probably not. Probably when it got dirty Hortense would just throw it away and get something else. He took in the rest of the furnishings. Two night tables, two dressers, and a settee. All of them built to scale. But big as they were, there wasn’t too much to look through in this room and that was good.

  He sniffed. Among the scent of evergreens he caught the faint scent of stale liquor and remembered about Hortense’s drinking. His eyes roamed around the room again. He was betting Hortense had her bottles stashed somewhere and that somewhere was one of two places, under her bed or in the closet.

  “Hey, Rob,” Sean said. “You want to do me a favor and look under the bed for me? See if there are any cartons.” He felt gratified when Rob pulled one out.

  “There are lots more under there,” Rob informed him.

  Sean lifted an empty bottle of Grey Goose out of the carton. Even if it wasn’t evidence, it was nice to know he hadn’t lost the magic. He wondered if there were more empties in the closet. He motored over to it and opened the door. It was larger than his bedroom.

  And it was filled to the gills. Evidently, Hortense had had enough clothes and the stuff that
went with them to outfit a department store. In fact, the closet looked like a department store, or rather it looked like one of those boutiques Bernie was always buying her stuff from.

  Everything was in apple pie order. All the shoes were shelved, as were all Hortense’s bags. Hortense’s clothes were arranged by season and category. It would take hours to go through everything, Sean reflected. But his gut told him that what he was looking for wasn’t in here. It was in her office. From her TV show and looking at her house, Sean had gotten the impression that she was the kind of woman who lived by the adage, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”

  Nevertheless, he’d give the shebang a once-over just the same. People thought police work was exciting, but it wasn’t. It was just tedious. And methodical. You got on a trail and you checked everything on it. That was the drill. Always had been, always would be. He told Rob to take the closet, Marvin to take the dressers, while he took the nightstands.

  If Hortense had anything of interest, Sean reasoned, it would probably be in there. Through the years, he’d found that most people use their nightstands as a combination medicine holder and loose change, telephone number, and odd note repository. But there was nothing of interest in Hortense’s nightstands, nor in her dresser drawers, nor in her closet. Sean was not surprised.

  “What now?” Marvin asked.

  Sean pointed to the door in the middle of the wall. “Now we go into her office. Maybe we’ll have better luck here.” He looked at his watch. They were going to have to hurry. The show would be over soon, and he wanted to be out and gone before that happened.

  Hortense’s office was considerably smaller than her bedroom. Sean estimated it was a quarter of the size. Unlike the other rooms, this one was strictly utilitarian. There were bad reproductions of Degas’ ballet dancers on the walls, plus a calendar from the gas station near R.J.'s.

  The desk, two file cabinets, a shelf full of cookbooks, and a couple of chairs all looked as if they’d come from somewhere like OfficeMax. Even the oriental rug on the floor looked cheap. Sean thought about what Libby had said about the green room and how Hortense never spent money on things that didn’t show. Maybe that principle was operating here.

  Sean took the near file cabinet, told Rob to take the far one, and gave Marvin the desk. He struck pay dirt almost immediately. The third folder in the top drawer was labeled CONTESTANTS.

  “It’s about time something went my way,” he muttered to himself as he took the folder out of the file cabinet. He was just about to open it up when he heard the sound of running feet.

  “Who is that?” Marvin cried.

  Sean turned and faced him. Marvin looked as if he was going to faint. “Lower your voice,” he hissed. “Otherwise they’re going to hear you.”

  “Sorry,” Marvin whispered.

  Sean tried to reassure him. “They’re probably going someplace else.”

  Marvin shook his head. “No, they’re not.”

  Sean listened for a moment. Marvin was right. Whoever was coming, was coming this way.

  This was not good. But it could be dealt with. Sean pointed to the door they’d come through.

  “Let’s go back into Hortense’s bedroom. We can get out that way.”

  Rob and Marvin both nodded. They were right behind him when he turned the doorknob. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing.

  Rob stepped in front of him. “Third time’s the charm,” he said.

  Sean gave him some room, and he did the same thing Sean had done with the same results.

  “Try your hip,” Sean told him. Sometimes doors got stuck.

  Rob did, but nothing happened.

  “It’s locked,” Marvin said.

  Sean just looked at him. The kid had a genius for stating the obvious.

  “Well, it is,” Marvin said. He had a mulish expression on his face.

  “I know that,” Sean retorted. Somehow the door had swung shut, locking itself behind them, and none of them had noticed. “Why don’t you guys go out the window? There’s no point in all of us getting into trouble.”

  Rob folded his arms across his chest. “Forget it,” he said.

  “I’m sticking too,” Marvin said.

  “Hey, you need to get the folder out of here,” Sean told them.

  Marvin and Rob just shook their heads.

  This is what came of working with amateurs. “You’re not helping,” he told them.

  Marvin put his hand on his shoulder. “We’re with you to the end.”

  “We’re not talking about my landing in a death camp here,” Sean replied. But even as he said it, he realized it was probably too late anyway. He needed to look for somewhere to hide the folder.

  He could always jam it in one of the books or behind the shelf.

  Or he could return it to the file cabinet, which was the most logical course of action.

  But if he did any of those things, he probably wouldn’t be able to get it back because the odds of him returning here to reclaim it were zero to none. And as for hiding the file on his person, that wouldn’t work either if whoever was coming decided to search him.

  No. There had to be another way. But what? That was the question.

  “What are we going to do now?” Marvin whispered.

  Sean shushed him. He had to think. But his mind was blank. Nothing was coming. He was telling himself to focus when Marvin bumped into his wheelchair.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whimpered as Sean grabbed the seat to keep himself from sliding out.

  Sean grinned. The seat. Of course. That was it.

  “I love you,” he told Marvin.

  “I don’t get it,” Marvin said.

  “You will.” Sean levered himself up.

  The seam that held the two pieces of fabric together that formed the seat of his wheelchair was frayed, frayed to the point where it was starting to unravel.

  “What are you doing?” Rob asked.

  Sean tried to grasp the thread, but his fingers wouldn’t work.

  “Pull on that for me,” he told Marvin.

  Marvin did. The hole got a little larger.

  “More,” he told Marvin.

  Marvin pulled again. More thread came out.

  “That should do it,” Sean told him.

  Hopefully the pocket would be big enough. He took a deep breath and prayed.

  He pushed the file into it and sat back down just as the door burst open. Two Longely policemen, guns drawn, came through the door.

  “Don’t move,” the first one yelled.

  “Ah, Longely’s finest,” Sean said. He started up his wheelchair.

  “I said don’t move,” the first cop repeated.

  Sean lifted up his hands and smiled.

  “So, guys,” he said, “how are things hanging?”

  Chapter 24

  Libby set a cup of tea and two gingersnap cookies in front of her father and tried not to glare at him.

  “What’s in the tea?” he asked.

  “Tea,” she replied. “What else would there be?”

  “How about a drop of whiskey?”

  Libby sucked in her breath. I will not say anything to him, she told herself. I absolutely will not.

  Her father looked up at her. Trying to look piteous, Libby thought.

  “I’ve had a hard day,” he said.

  Libby could hear Bernie snorting behind her. “Really? So have I.”

  “You could be a wee bit more charitable.”

  “And you can stop with the phony Irish accent. Fine,” she growled when he didn’t reply. “If you want to kill yourself, be my guest.” And she went downstairs, got the bottle of Jameson’s out of the liquor cabinet, went back upstairs, and slammed the bottle down in front of him. “Satisfied?”

  He gave her his the whole-world-is-against-me stare.

  “How was I supposed to know the rooms were alarmed?”

  “Nothing’s ever your fault, is it?” Libby asked him. She knew she was tapping
her foot, but she couldn’t help it. “Thank heavens we were done taping.” At least for that, Libby thought. The alternative would have been unthinkable.

  Her father smiled. “Hey, did I ever congratulate you on your victory? With everything that happened, I don’t think I did.”

  Libby didn’t say anything because if she did, it would be something really not nice.

  “Giving me the silent treatment, huh?”

  She caught herself before she said, “Yes, I am.” She was damned if she was going to reply this time.

  She watched her dad as he poured a shot of whiskey into his tea and stirred it. She noticed that his hands were barely shaking at all, but if he continued to drink, they’d start again. Well, it wasn’t her business. If he wanted to make himself into a cripple and shorten his life, so be it. He looked up at her again.

  “So the police came. So what?” he said to her. “It isn’t a big deal.”

  “It’s a big deal to me.” Libby realized she was shouting and lowered her voice. “You should think about other people once in a while,” she continued, even though she knew she sounded like a broken record.

  “I do,” he answered. “That’s why I was doing what I was. You and your sister were the ones who got me into this, remember?”

  His comments made Libby even madder. Especially since she couldn’t argue with them. Her father took a sip of his tea, then indicated the bottle of Jameson’s with a nod of his chin.

  “Maybe you should have a shot of this too. It’ll calm you down.”

  It probably would, Libby thought. But she wasn’t going to do it on principle.

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “Marvin was terrified,” she told her dad.

  He took another sip of his tea. “Marvin loved it.”

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “He most certainly did.”

  “I’ve got to agree with Dad here, Libby. Rob thought it was fun.”

  “Good for Rob.”

  Libby watched while Bernie walked over to where her dad was sitting and poured a slug of whiskey into her glass from her dad’s bottle.

  “Nobody asked you,” Libby told her.