Bernie got off the Metro-North and walked through Grand Central Station. I love this place since the city has redone it, she thought. I love the ticket sellers ‘ windows; I love the marble; I love the main ticket area with the constellations painted on the ceiling. And now with the Christmas tree up and the lights on it twinkling, the place looked even more festive than it usually did.
While she walked out onto the street, Bernie was thinking that when she was done she’d have lunch at the Oyster Bar. Even though she didn’t like oysters, she loved the atmosphere of the place, and they did make a mean shrimp scampi. The place was worth eating in, even if it was a bit expensive. Every time she went down there she felt as if she were being transported back into the thirties.
She stepped off the curb and hailed a taxi. Libby, she knew, would take the subway. But what the hell. Bree was paying their expenses, and even if she wasn’t Bernie would have taken a cab anyway. She loved seeing the lights in the city this time of year, which was why she asked the driver to go down Park Avenue.
Then she sat back and enjoyed the ride. She was of the firm opinion that it was the little luxuries that made life bearable. Take the boots she was wearing, for instance. They were Italian. Brown suede. Pull on. The heel was just right. Every time she looked at them she wanted to smile, just the way she wanted to smile at the trees decorated with white lights on Park Avenue.
Even though it was still early and Lexington and Seventy-fifth Street wasn’t a tourist locale, Bernie noted that the street was still more crowded than it would usually be at this time of the day. The holidays seemed to energize people.
Maybe I can do a bit of Christmas shopping as long as I’m down here, Bernie mused. If everything goes according to plan, I should have the time. Especially since the store she wanted to go to wasn’t more than six blocks away. She was thinking that she could get Libby a new bag.
She’d had the one she was carrying for as long as Bernie could remember. It was definitely time for a change. Something that wasn’t black or dark brown. Something that didn’t look like a satchel. Something smaller. Possibly in pink or light green. Well. She’d see what Porto had.
The taxi stopped in front of Pearl’s place. Bernie paid the driver, took the shopping bag with the blouse she planned on returning to Bloomingdale’s if she had time, and got out of the cab. She took a deep breath. This is it, she thought as she went into the brownstone next to the store. She hoped her plan worked. She hoped she’d gotten here before the police had roped everything off. Of course, she could have asked Clyde to find out, but he would have asked her why, and she didn’t feel like telling him, because he would tell her dad.
He definitely wouldn’t approve of what she was doing, Bernie thought as she stepped into the vestibule and looked at the names listed on the intercom. Pearl’s wasn’t there. I should have expected that, Bernie thought. Lots of times people didn’t bother changing the names on the intercom. Sometimes it was laziness, and sometimes they just didn’t want their names out where people could read them. In Pearl’s case, Bernie was willing to wager it was the latter.
Bernie twirled her ring around her finger. Improvisation always was her strong suit, she told herself as she headed out the brownstone door and went into Pearl’s place. She guessed she was going to see how good she was. Bernie looked around as she walked in. She was the only customer in the place, probably because they’d just opened. Bernie wished A Little Taste of Heaven could afford the luxury of opening around ten, but they couldn’t. They did almost one-quarter of their business before eight in the morning.
The girl behind the counter surprised her. Bernie assumed the wait staff in a place like this would be strictly prep, but the girl behind the counter was totally downtown with her pink hair done up in braids, her nose ring, and the heart tattoo on the base of her throat. She was definitely not the kind of help she expected to find in an uptown, expensive establishment like this.
Maybe she’s just filling in for the day, Bernie thought as the girl smiled at her. Either that or things on the Upper East Side were getting funkier. One thing was for sure though—she couldn’t put someone like that in back of the counter in her and Libby’s store. She’d never hear the end of it if she did.
“Hi,” Bernie said.
“Hi,” the girl replied. “What can I help you with?
” Bernie took a deep breath and started in with her spiel. She just hoped that her assumptions about the police were right and this trip wasn’t going to be a waste, but she guessed she’d find out soon enough.
“This is so embarrassing,” Bernie said.
The girl waited, a slightly panicked look on her face. Clearly, she didn’t want to deal with anything that wasn’t in her job description. Bernie leaned forward slightly.
“You know what Pearl is like,” she confided.
The girl waited. She didn’t say anything. Bernie didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.
“Well, I promised I’d return her cookbook.”
Bernie lifted a shopping bag with her blouse to demonstrate. It wasn’t as if the girl was going to look or anything.
“Okay,” the girl said, looking slightly confused.
Bernie was relieved to note that nothing in the girl’s demeanor indicated that she knew that Pearl was dead.
“Well, she gave me the key to the apartment.”
“Okay,” the girl said again. She pulled on one of her braids.
“The key to where she lives.”
“I understand. And?”
“I’ve forgotten the apartment number.”
“It should be on the intercom next door.”
“I’ve already looked. It isn’t there.”
The girl nodded.
“So do you think you could tell me what it is?”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know what it is.”
Bernie wanted to shake her. “Do you know who does?”
Instead of replying, the girl turned and yelled into the kitchen. “Hey, Sandy, do you know Miz P’s apartment number?”
A moment later, Sandy came out front. Bernie decided he looked typical kitchen crew with his buzzed cut, multiple tats, and stretchers in his ears.
“She’s not there,” he said as he wiped his hands on the apron he had tied around his waist.
“I know.” Bernie dug the keys she’d lifted off of Pearl out of her bag. “That’s why she gave me these.” And she rattled them.
Sandy looked at her and thought. Finally he shrugged his shoulders. “What the hell,” he said. “It ain’t my lookout. It’s 2B.”
Bernie thanked him and walked out the door.
Pearl’s apartment was smaller than Bernie expected. She estimated that the tiny two-bedroom apartment was one-third the size of her father’s flat and probably three times as expensive. In addition, it was dark. All of the windows in it faced the back alley. Kinda like Rear Window, Bernie thought as she watched a Jack Russell terrier running around chasing snowflakes in the garden of the brownstone across the way from her. Then the dog’s owner came out.
She was watching the woman trying to get the dog inside when she heard a noise. Bernie put her hand to her mouth. Then she laughed as she realized the noise was coming from the store down below. But if she could hear the people downstairs, they could hear her. She’d better try and be quiet. And fast. She didn’t think Sandy would check up on her, but she’d rather not have to explain things to him.
She took a quick look around. The apartment was immaculate. Not that she’d expected anything less. The wood floors gleamed. So did the windows. The wood furniture had been polished to a high gloss. Even the Christmas ornaments shone.
The Christmas tree was one of those aluminum ones—no chance of needles on the floor. The lights spiraling down it were arranged exactly one-half inch apart. Bernie bet that if she took a ruler, she’d find the space between each and every one of them was equidistant.
The same was probably true of the blue Christmas lig
hts that festooned the door into what Bernie presumed was Pearl’s bedroom. Yup, Bernie thought, taking a look at them, whoever had killed Pearl had known her special form of craziness. He’d known it very well and had capitalized on it.
Bernie sniffed the air. It had a slightly stale smell to it. She wondered when the last time Pearl had opened the windows had been. She would have loved to have cracked one open. It was so hot she felt as if she were suffocating, but she reminded herself it would be better if she didn’t touch anything she didn’t have to. That’s the trouble with New York City apartments, Bernie decided as she took off her jacket and threw it on the sofa. You pay a fortune, and you can’t regulate the heat.
The word heat made her think of the police, which made her think of her dad. She’d just told him she was going to talk to Pearl’s employees. Somehow she’d forgotten to mention that she’d stolen the keys to Pearl’s apartment. Well, stolen was a harsh word. She’d borrowed them. It wasn’t as if Pearl would be using them again.
Bernie reflected that she didn’t exactly know what she was looking for, but that was okay. She was counting on the fact that someone like Pearl kept meticulous records. Maybe there was something in them that would give her a clue for the motive behind Pearl’s death. She hoped so, because motive was all they had left to go with.
They couldn’t do a time-of-death line—the wire could have been tampered with at any time after the last show or the start of yesterday’s. In addition, there wasn’t any physical evidence of note—no fingerprints, no special knife, no fiber samples that they could send to the lab to have analyzed—at least nothing Lucy’s men had turned up, so they were stuck with trying to find a motive for the two crimes.
“Find the motive and you might find the answer,” her dad had said. “Concentrate on Pearl and work back from there.”
And that’s what she was doing. She decided to start her search in the kitchen because, according to her dad, you had to look through the whole place. At least the place was small. It shouldn’t take her a lot of time to go through everything.
The kitchen was like a ship’s galley. The phrase “A place for everything and everything in its place” popped into Bernie’s mind as she opened the cabinet drawers. Everything in them was arranged alphabetically. In the refrigerator, all bottles, food, and produce were evenly lined up. The glasses in the cabinets were all stored in their own little plastic bags. The dishes had separators between them.
“Nothing here,” Bernie said out loud as she walked into the living room. It turned out there was nothing in there either. Next she went into Pearl’s bedroom. There had to be something here that pointed to a motive for Pearl’s murder. Some hint. Something. But there wasn’t.
Bernie sighed. Pearl’s office was next. If she was going to find anything, this was where it was going to be, she told herself. Bernie sat down at Pearl’s desk and opened up the drawers. Absolutely nothing of interest unless seeing paper clips stacked up in neat little piles could be considered fascinating. So much for that, Bernie thought as she tackled the file cabinet.
She started thumbing through the files. There were files for insurance, files for repairs, files for her taxes, recipe files, a file labeled BOOK REVIEWS, files for each employee. Bernie pulled those out and gave them a quick once-over. Nothing jumped out at her as she flipped through them. She put the file back and opened one up called EXPENSES.
Nothing there either as far as she could see, but she decided it wouldn’t hurt to take another look at them in a more leisurely fashion. In fact, Bernie thought that could hold true for Pearl’s tax forms and employee files. She took them out and put them in her shopping bag too. At least I did something, Bernie thought as she got up to go.
She was collecting her coat from the sofa when Pearl’s phone began ringing. A moment later the answering machine picked up. A cheery voice floated out in the air from the kitchen telling Pearl that she’d won a free all expense paid vacation to Orlando, Florida. And all she had to do to collect was call this number toll free.
“She’s not calling you back,” Bernie said to the answering machine as she headed for the door.
She was almost there when she realized something. The answering machine. She’d forgotten to check out the messages on it. How pathetic was that! She went over and pressed the PLAY button. The first three messages were from Pearl’s accountant, laundry supply company, and dentist confirming her appointment for the next day. But the last call was from Consuela.
“We need to talk. We need to talk now,” she said.
Bernie pressed REPLAY. Interesting. Did Consuela sound desperate? Scared? Angry? Bernie couldn’t decide. She played it one more time. Maybe angry. She was just about to call her dad and play the tape for him over the phone when the doorbell rang.
Bernie froze for a moment. The doorbell rang again. And again. She had to get it.
She opened the door. Sandy, the guy from Pearl’s shop, was standing there. Uh-oh, Bernie thought.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sandy demanded.
“I told you. I’m returning a book to Pearl.”
“That was twenty minutes ago.”
“Well,” Bernie ad-libbed, “I was just looking at her cookbooks.”
What a stupid thing to say, Bernie thought as Sandy said, “Pearl doesn’t have any cookbooks.”
“Yes, she does.”
I hope I sound convincing, Bernie thought, but she guessed she didn’t sound convincing enough, because the next thing that Sandy said was, “Show me.”
“You’ll have to ask Pearl about that,” Bernie told him as she began edging around him and out the door.
Sandy put his arm across the entrance to the door. “No. I want you to show me.”
“Hey,” Bernie said, “don’t make me call the cops.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.” Bernie decided that the correct word for the expression on Sandy’s face was incredulous as she ducked under his arm. “No. I’m not.”
Then she was out into the hall and heading down the stairs. Don’t run and don’t look back, she kept telling herself. She expected to hear Sandy behind her and feel his hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t. Maybe he’s calling the police, Bernie thought. But then she was out on the street. A taxi pulled up on the corner and a woman got out. Bernie ran to get it.
“Union Square,” she told the driver as she got in.
It wasn’t until the cab was pulling away that she realized she’d left her shopping bag with her blouse and the documents she’d collected from Pearl on the sofa.
Chapter 31
Sean hung up his phone and looked out the window at his neighbor across the street, who was trying to string Christmas lights on the bushes in front of his house and doing a bad job of it from what he could see. Ned had been trying to get them lit for the last two hours, and he seemed to be just as far along as when he started. Of course, throwing the lights across the yard probably hadn’t helped matters any.
Sean stared at the phone for a moment. Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. Why are you always doing this to me? He could tell from her tone of voice she’d just done something she wasn’t supposed to. And from what she’d told him about the message on Pearl’s answering machine, he could guess what it was. He wanted to kill her for not listening to him. But then, when had she ever?
He reminded himself things could be worse. At least he didn’t have to go down to the city and bail out his youngest daughter. At least she was in a taxi heading toward Union Square to speak to Brittany instead of in a holding cell. As Rose used to say, “Things could always be worse.” He’d pointed out on more than one occasion that things could also always be better. His wife had not been amused.
But the question remained: What to do about the message Bernie had heard on Pearl’s machine? There were two possibilities. He could either do nothing or he could ask Consuela what was going on. Actually, there was no choice. During the course of his being the Longely chief of police, he�
�d always observed that it was better to shake the tree than wait for the apple to fall. At least then you weren’t standing there when it fell on your head.
And at least if he talked to Consuela, he wouldn’t have to sit here and watch Ned trying to put those dratted lights on his bushes. It was making him crazy. He wanted to go down there, rip them out of his hands, and show him the way to do it. Three years ago, he would have. Now, of course, with things being what they were, he couldn’t.
He took a bite of one of Libby’s lemon squares and chewed slowly. She said she’d made them with Meyer lemons, which she’d carefully explained to him weren’t really lemons at all. They were hybrids and had originally come from India or somewhere in that part of the world.
Their claim to fame was that their juice was less acid than that of regular lemons. Libby had wanted to know if he could taste the difference, but honestly he couldn’t. These lemon squares tasted the same as the ones she always made.
As he took another bite, he found his mind drifting back to the problem at hand, which was whether he should or should not go talk to Consuela. The first obstacle was geographic. Consuela was in Hoboken, New Jersey, and he had no way to get down there unless someone drove him. Since everyone else was busy, that someone probably was going to be Marvin. Strike the probably. Was going to be Marvin. But no matter what, he wasn’t going in that hearse again. Why court bad luck? There was enough of it out there already.
The second obstacle was that he was uninformed as to Consuela’s whereabouts. For all he knew, she might not be in her store. She might be out doing errands. Of course, that situation was an easy fix. All he had to do was make a couple of phone calls. He picked up the phone and punched in the number for information.
Twenty minutes later, he knew that Consuela was going to be in her shop until 4:30 in the afternoon. He went back to considering his ride possibilities. He’d sworn to himself after the last time that he’d never ask Marvin to drive him anyplace, ever again. Marvin on the Jersey Pike. Now there was a thought to chill a man’s blood. He reminded himself he’d gone into crack houses, faced down deranged husbands waving 9-mm Glocks around, and disarmed a crazed bank robber wielding a butcher knife.
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