A Catered Christmas

by Isis Crawford

  “Sor-ry,” Bernie said.

  Then her dad started in again. “Marvin likes the excitement,” he said.

  As if she didn’t know her own boyfriend.

  “Even though he gets scared, he likes it,” her father continued.

  These people just didn’t get it.

  “That’s the point. I don’t want him to like it,” Libby responded.

  “Why not?” her father asked as he took another sip of his tea.

  “Because …” Libby stopped. She almost said, “Because I don’t want him to drive me crazy like you and Bernie do,” but that would have been rude. She finally came out with, “Because I don’t want him to get in trouble.”

  “A little trouble is good for the soul,” her father responded. “A man who’s never in trouble is a poor man indeed.”

  “You just made that up, didn’t you?”

  “It’s true just the same. So,” her dad continued, “are you at least going to tell me Brittany’s answer to my question?”

  “She started crying,” Bernie said.

  “At least let me tell it,” Libby told her.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you weren’t talking.”

  “Well, I am.”

  “Okay. What did she say?” he dad asked.

  “She said it was an accident.”

  “And what did she say when you asked about Hortense blackmailing her?”

  “She started crying louder.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. We had to be on the air.”

  “But she recovered pretty quick,” Bernie said.

  “Yeah. She did,” Libby said, although she didn’t want to agree with Bernie.

  Her dad raised his eyebrows. “Suggestive,” he said. “Very suggestive. And speaking of that …”

  She watched as he got up from his wheelchair and reached between the pieces of material that formed the seat.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as he groped around.

  “This,” he said, coming out with a file. “I’m doing this.”

  Bernie moved closer. “What is it?” she asked her dad.

  “I haven’t looked at it yet,” he said. “But it came from Hortense’s file cabinet.”

  “Neato,” Bernie commented. She grabbed the file out of her dad’s hand.

  In spite of herself, Libby moved close enough so she could look over Bernie’s shoulder.

  “This is interesting,” Bernie said as she flipped through the pages. “Very interesting indeed. Don’t you want to see it?” she asked her.

  “Later.”

  Libby glanced at the clock. She was sure it was interesting, but she still had to get her work done, and as of now, she was officially three hours behind schedule. No, actually it was more because she hadn’t factored in the time it would take the bread dough to rise, and rye dough was notoriously poky in that regard.

  “I’ve got to go down to the kitchen,” she said.

  There was a knock on the downstairs door.

  Libby looked at her sister. “I hope it’s not Bree Nottingham. I don’t think I could deal with her now.”

  “It’s not. It’s Rob and Marvin,” Bernie explained.

  “We can’t go out now,” Libby wailed. “There’s too much to do.”

  Bernie closed the folder. “I know how much there is to do. I’ve asked them over to help.”

  “Help what?”

  “Help cook and bake.”

  Libby groaned. “But they don’t know how.”

  “So,” Bernie said. “We’ll teach them. We’re not talking about brain surgery here.”

  “I don’t know,” Libby said. Over the years she’d found that it was usually easier to do it herself.

  “Well, I do,” Bernie said.

  Her dad leaned over, took the folder back, and began paging through it.

  “This really is interesting,” he said as Bernie left to go get Rob and Marvin.

  Chapter 25

  Libby looked around the kitchen and thought, I love this place. I love the way it smells; I love the way the cabinets look. She loved the fifty-pound bags of flour stacked on the floor next to the industrial mixer she’d gotten on sale. She unbuttoned her sweater. It was nice and warm. In the summer the kitchen was so hot she felt as if she would faint, but tonight, when it was eighteen degrees outside, it was delightful.

  Plus, the warmth would help the bread dough to rise faster. Which was a good thing. Especially since the bread should have been in the oven by five o’clock this afternoon. Six o’clock at the latest. Of all the Christmas breads in the world, why was she saddled making Swedish limpa? There was over a cup of rye flour in each loaf of bread, which, given the time schedule they were operating on, was bad news because, in general, rye flour took longer to rise than wheat or white flour did.

  I should have picked another holiday bread to make instead, Libby decided. Something with all white flour. Heaven knows there were enough recipes to choose from. She could have made something like stollen or something Italian like Panatone. Not that she really could.

  Strictly speaking, Swedish limpa wasn’t even a Christmas bread, but her mother had started the tradition of making it over the holidays when she’d opened the store and people had come to expect it to be there. Libby realized that she’d never asked her mother why she’d chosen that particular bread as her eyes strayed to Marvin. He had flour on his shirt and in his hair and vanilla icing on his breast pocket. He was cute, but his rolling technique left a lot to be desired.

  “No, no,” Libby told him.

  “No, no what?” Marvin replied. “I’m doing what you told me to.”

  “Not exactly. Here.” And she took the rolling pin out of his hand and showed him. “You apply steady pressure, and you try not to stretch the dough with your hands, because that activates the gluten and makes it tough.”

  “So they’ll be tough cookies. What’s wrong with that? What about Bette Davis?” Bernie commented as she dumped another cup of rye flour into the mixer.

  Rob looked up from peeling potatoes. “Ha-ha,” he said. “Very funny.”

  “I thought it was,” Bernie retorted.

  Libby put down the rolling pin and went over and peered into the industrial-size mixer.

  “I hope the dough isn’t too sticky,” Libby told Bernie.

  “It’ll be fine,” Bernie reassured her. “I’ll just add some more white flour if it is.”

  Libby wanted to tell her that making dough was an exact process, not some sort of slapdash affair, as Bernie would say, but she didn’t; because if she did, it would just lead to their usual discussion about following recipes exactly versus throwing in a handful of this and a handful of that and how baking was different from cooking in that regard. She wasn’t in the mood for that, especially not at this time of night.

  In fact, Libby thought as she watched Bernie reach for her mug of the mulled wine Libby had made when all of them had come down into the kitchen, all she wanted to do was go upstairs, take a bath, and go to sleep. But that wasn’t an option. Not even close to one.

  “Nice,” Bernie said appreciatively after she’d taken a sip. “Very Christmasy.”

  “It’s the orange and tangerine peel,” Libby told her. She’d dried and made her own peel last winter. By the time she’d finished, she was afraid she’d given herself carpal tunnel syndrome, but the results had justified the effort.

  Bernie nodded absentmindedly as she turned off the mixer. Then she dusted the counter with flour and started scraping the dough for the Swedish limpa bread out of the bowl with her spatula. Bernie had been right about one thing, Libby decided as she watched her. It was nice working with Marvin and Rob, even if they weren’t doing things in the manner she would have.

  For example, Rob was taking half of the potato off with the peel, not to mention the fact that there were little pieces of potato peelings all over the floor. What a mess. Libby took a deep breath and tried to channel Bernie. She had to stay positive. She h
ad to remember that Rob and Marvin were doing the best they could. That it was nice of them to help out. She had to remember not to criticize.

  As she decorated the Christmas cookies, Libby’s mind drifted back to what they’d found in the file folder her father had snatched from Hortense’s mansion. She was still having trouble believing what was in it, but there it had been in black and white.

  “I guess Pearl wins the pool,” Rob said.

  “What pool?” Libby asked as she distributed some white sprinkles on the outer edges of the branches of the evergreen tree cookies. “What are you talking about?”

  Rob explained.

  Libby shook her head. Something about it didn’t seem right.

  “Guys really do have to quantify everything, don’t they?” Bernie observed as she sprinkled more flour on the dough.

  “I resent that,” Rob said.

  “But it’s true,” Bernie shot back.

  Libby shut her eyes for a moment.

  “What’s the matter?” Marvin asked.

  “Nothing,” Libby said, which was a big fat lie. She was feeling totally overwhelmed.

  “It’ll be fine,” Bernie said. “You’ll see.”

  “I hope so.”

  But Libby wasn’t so sure. All the things she had to do kept swirling around in her head like handfuls of windblown confetti. She was beginning to wonder how she was going to survive the holidays. Of course, she reminded herself, she thought that every year. But this time was worse, way worse.

  Being involved in the contest as well as the murder investigation had put her over the top. Normally those two items would be enough to fill her day; now they were a part of her day. Actually, not that she’d say this to anyone, but she was sorry that she and Bernie had won the cook-off against Reginald.

  It would have been better if they hadn’t. That way she would have had one less thing to worry about. And she still had the store and all the parties, and she hadn’t even started her Christmas shopping yet, much less made up her list or sent out cards. Maybe she’d just give food to everyone this year. That would be easy.

  And then Libby thought about what she’d read in the folder. If either Pearl or La Croix was in fact the person who had killed Hortense, that would be another thing off her plate. The investigation would be over, and she could go back to devoting all her attention to what she needed to do because the thing with a business like hers was that it demanded constant attention. You could never take a day off.

  But then Libby felt terrible for thinking that. Especially since her dad and Bernie thought Pearl was responsible for Hortense’s death. Of all the contestants, she liked Pearl the best. Maybe because she was the most like her. Well, there was no maybe about it. She was the most like Pearl.

  Libby cleaned some pieces of dough off the edges of her cookie cutter and put them with the other scraps on the side of the rolling board. Her mother had taught her never to waste anything, and it was a teaching she still tried to adhere to.

  “Well, I don’t believe it about Pearl,” Libby said. “I think La Croix is the guilty party.”

  Marvin looked up from the work board. “Your dad does.”

  “My dad’s been wrong before,” she said.

  “He doesn’t think that.”

  Libby laughed. “He just won’t admit it. There’s a difference.” She leaned over Marvin and scrutinized the dough. “One more roll and it’ll be done,” she told him. “You don’t want the dough to be too thin. It shouldn’t be thinner than a quarter of an inch.”

  As Libby watched Marvin nod, she felt a sudden rush of affection for him. He always tried so hard. He really was a good soul. Even if her dad couldn’t always see it. But that, Libby decided, was his problem. And then she realized she hadn’t turned the oven on. How could she have forgotten to do that? She was totally, completely fried, she decided as she went over to remedy the situation. She was turning the oven on when she heard a crash.

  She whirled around. Marvin was picking up one of the metal mixing bowls off the floor.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It just slid off.”

  Libby put her hand over her heart. It was still beating fast. For one second she’d thought the oven was exploding.

  Bernie frowned. “Are you all right?”

  Libby nodded. What had happened to Hortense must still be bothering her. Jeez. Why couldn’t she let things go like Bernie could? Nothing ever seemed to bother her. Libby took a deep breath. The oven is my friend, she told herself.

  And it was. She used it several times a day. It’s just that until Hortense’s death, she’d never thought of it as a weapon.

  “Libby.”

  She turned toward Rob.

  “Why don’t you think Pearl did it?” he asked.

  She was glad to answer. It took her mind away from ovens. “I just can’t picture her doing something like that.”

  “Why?” Bernie asked. “She did before.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Close enough,” Bernie said.

  “It was an accident,” Libby said.

  “Actually, the courts called it ‘criminally negligent homicide,'” Marvin said.

  “I know what the courts called it,” Libby told him. “I was with you when we found out, remember? She was a kid.”

  Bernie went over and ladled some more wine into her mug. “She was fifteen.”

  Libby shook her head. She knew the facts as well as Bernie, but she just wasn’t convinced. “It just doesn’t seem like her style. It seems like something La Croix would do.”

  Bernie took a sip of her wine.

  “She threatened Hortense.”

  “I bet other people did too.”

  “Maybe. But she’s the only one who wrote her threats down and mailed them to Hortense. ‘Dear Heavenly Housewife,'” Bernie recited, “'If you do not cease and desist, I will make sure that everything blows up in your face.’ And it did. You can’t deny that.”

  “But that could just be an expression she was using,” Libby protested. “She might not have meant that in the literal sense of the word.”

  Bernie ignored her and went on. “Listen, we know from the files Hortense was keeping that she’d already gotten sixty thousand dollars out of Pearl by threatening to expose her lack of taste buds. And we know that Pearl was up against the wall, financially speaking.”

  “You could say that about La Croix and Consuela as well,” Libby objected.

  “Yes,” Bernie finished. “But they didn’t kill anyone.”

  “We’ve been through this already,” Libby protested. “She tried to commit suicide by turning the gas on; then she changed her mind and closed the oven door, but she forgot to turn off the—”

  “Something I find hard to believe,” Bernie interjected.

  “So when the baby-sitter came in and lit up her cigarette—blammo.”

  “How could the baby-sitter not have smelled the gas?” Rob protested.

  Bernie ran the tip of her finger around the mug’s edge. “Well, there’s that too. I mean, Libby, come on. Don’t you think that’s suggestive? Haven’t you heard the expression about lightning never striking twice in the same spot?”

  “But it can,” Libby argued. “There was a story in the paper two months ago about a man who got struck by lightning twice.” She hurried on before Bernie could interrupt her. “And as for being a criminal, how about La Croix? He was in prison. He was paying off to Hortense as well.”

  “He was in jail on a burglary charge,” Bernie said. “Burglary and homicide are two different animals entirely.”

  “So now you’re an expert on criminal activity as well,” Libby retorted, even though she knew her sister was probably right.

  Libby watched Bernie’s face as she moved her silver and onyx ring up and down her finger. They’d been going for almost fifteen hours now, and Bernie’s eyeliner and shadow were still in place. How does she do it? Libby wondered. We both use the same products, and hers lasts and mine comes off in twenty m
inutes. It just wasn’t fair.

  “You know what interests me,” Bernie said.

  Libby shook her head to clear it. “What?” she replied, even though she knew it was a rhetorical question.

  “What interests me is how Hortense got Pearl’s police records. They were supposed to be sealed.”

  “I think supposed to be are the operative words,” Rob said. “If you know the right person, you can get anything you need.”

  “I’ll grant you that, but who did Hortense know to ask?”

  Rob looked at Bernie. “She probably Googled her. The story would be there if it was in the papers.”

  “You’re a genius,” Bernie told him.

  Rob grinned. “I like to think so.”

  Marvin cleared his throat. Libby turned toward him.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I just wondered what we were going to do next.”

  Libby pointed to the dough. “How about rolling out another piece?”

  “No,” Marvin said. “I meant about the investigation.”

  “Good question,” Bernie said as she went back to kneading the dough for the Swedish limpa.

  Libby could see that it was becoming shiny, which was a good thing. She could feel the small knot of tension in her neck easing.

  “Because I have a suggestion. I think one of us should talk to someone who was involved in that thing with Pearl,” Marvin continued. “You know, like a neighbor or a policeman. Someone like that.”

  “It’s a good idea, but how are we going to do that?” Libby asked. “After all, this thing with Pearl happened about twenty years ago.”

  “Twelve,” Bernie corrected. “It was twelve years ago.”

  “Whatever.” Sometimes Bernie could be beyond annoying, Libby thought.

  “I bet your dad’s friend knows someone who can tell us something about the incident,” Marvin went on.

  “You mean Clyde?” Libby asked.

  Bernie clapped Marvin on the back when he nodded.

  “You’re brilliant,” she told him as she brushed a bit of flour off the back of his shirt.

  Libby bit her tongue. It was a great suggestion; she just didn’t want to do it because it meant yet more work. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. Maybe she should have some of that mulled wine after all.