A Catered Christmas

by Isis Crawford

  But if he was being honest here, the thought of driving with Marvin scared him more than any of those. It was Marvin’s total lack of focus that did it, but as Clyde would have said, “Drastic times call for drastic measures.” He took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and dialed Marvin’s number. Sometimes a man had to do what a man had to do. Anyway, he was damned if he was going to sit around while some moron was running around his town and knocking people off.

  Several thoughts were running through Bernie’s mind as she exited the taxi in front of the Union Square Barnes & Noble. The first one was that she probably shouldn’t have called her dad and told him about the message on Pearl’s answering machine, because now she was going to have some explaining to do.

  Well, not exactly explaining. She was positive her dad had figured out exactly what she’d done. What she’d have was—she stopped for a moment while she figured out the exact word—a lot of placating to do. She really hadn’t had a choice though. She couldn’t go see Consuela herself. She just didn’t have the time.

  But someone had to and with Libby pretty much trapped in the kitchen until the taping, that left her father. Of course, there was always Rob. He’d leave his job if she asked him to, but she was reluctant to do that except in times of extreme emergency. Well, in times of emergency, “extreme emergency” being a redundant phrase since by definition emergencies were extreme.

  Oh well. Bernie started playing with her ring as she walked around two smokers partially blocking the store’s entrance. The best thing she could do now was put her dad and Consuela out of her mind and concentrate on what she was going to say to Brittany. Earlier this morning she’d finally gotten an e-mail back from Amanda Worthy. Evidently she’d been on vacation in Sicily with her boyfriend. Poor baby. Being in publishing was a tough racket. Especially if you were a trust-fund baby so you didn’t need to live on the pitiable earnings the industry traditionally paid.

  What Amanda had said was interesting if somewhat disheartening, at least in relation to the book business. Brittany’s cookbook had gotten the glowing review it had because the woman who reviewed it was a friend of Brittany’s father. Another illusion shattered, Bernie thought.

  But she still wanted to speak to Brittany. She’d had a motive for murdering Hortense since Hortense was blackmailing her. But what about Pearl? Could she have a reason for wanting to get rid of her as well? Bernie didn’t know, but she intended to ask the question and observe Brittany’s reaction.

  Bernie shook her head to clear it, then opened the doors and went inside the bookstore. A sign posted at the entrance to the store informed her that Brittany’s signing was taking place on the fourth floor. Bernie took the escalator up. It didn’t take her long to spot Brittany. She was sitting at a table, copies of her cookbook piled around her in neat stacks, sipping coffee out of her paper cup, and talking on her cell.

  She’s spotted me, Bernie thought as she saw Brittany’s eyes widening fractionally.

  “Hi,” Bernie said.

  “Gotta go,” Brittany said into her cell. Then she clicked it off and rested it on the table. “What a pleasant surprise,” Brittany said.

  Bernie smiled. “Well, I was passing by and saw your name in the window and decided to stop and say hello.”

  “My name isn’t in the window,” Brittany said.

  Bernie shrugged. “I didn’t mean that in the literal sense.”

  As she studied Brittany’s face, she could see signs of fatigue. Even Brittany’s eye concealer couldn’t hide the circles under her eyes, and her jaw line looked a little droopy, as did Brittany’s shoulders.

  Brittany waved her hand around in the air. “You got me at a slow period. Twenty minutes ago the line was so long it was almost out to the escalator.”

  Bernie unzipped her jacket. “It must be gratifying writing a best-selling cookbook and all.”

  “Oh, definitely,” Brittany answered.

  “So how do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Write a best-selling cookbook.”

  Brittany giggled nervously. “You know, a little of this and a little of that.”

  “Like sugar and spice and everything nice?”

  Brittany giggled some more. “Something like that. So, are you ready for tonight?”

  Bernie nodded. Evidently the last thing Brittany wanted to do was talk about the cookbook. “At least Libby and I aren’t cooking.”

  Brittany let out with another nervous giggle. “I don’t know what happened to me last night.”

  “You were in shock.”

  Brittany giggled again. “People thought I was drunk.”

  Bernie remained diplomatically silent.

  “But seeing Pearl like that.” Brittany shook her head. “It threw me.”

  “It would throw anyone,” Bernie agreed. “It certainly threw me.”

  “She was such a nice lady,” Brittany added.

  “Evidently someone didn’t think so,” Bernie pointed out.

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

  “Ah … duh … because someone killed her.”

  Brittany tittered. “I suppose that’s true. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “Well, we don’t usually kill the ones we like. We reserve that for the ones we love … and hate.”

  Brittany took a sip of her coffee and put her cup down. She began fiddling with her pen.

  “So who do you think killed Pearl?” Bernie asked.

  Brittany shook her head. “I can’t imagine who would do such a thing.”

  “Not even a random, stray thought, a shred of an idea,” Bernie insisted.

  “Well, I don’t know.” Brittany scratched her cheek with her nail.

  Bernie could see it was chipped. A sign of stress perhaps?

  Bernie continued pressing. “Surely you must have some idea?”

  “No. Honestly I don’t.”

  “That’s funny,” Bernie told her. “Because if I was doing the thinking, I might think that you had something to do with it.”

  “Me?” Brittany shrieked. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and looked around. No one was there. “Are you out of your mind?” she hissed. “People like me don’t do things like that.”

  “Really?” Bernie replied. She especially liked the “people like me” part.

  “Yes, really. Why would I do something like that?”

  Bernie wanted to say, “That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me,” but she didn’t. It would be a novel approach, but she wasn’t sure how successful it would be. Instead she launched into her spiel. “First of all, you had a good reason to kill Hortense.”

  “I did not,” Brittany said.

  “She was blackmailing you,” Bernie pointed out. “And don’t bother to deny it. It’s an open secret.”

  Brittany smirked. “I guess you don’t know as much as you think you do, because my daddy’s lawyer was getting ready to sue Hortense for libel. He’d already had a chat with her. If she said anything else about that thing that happened at the temple—”

  “That thing,” Bernie interrupted. “That’s an interesting expression, given the circumstances.”

  “That thing,” Brittany insisted. “This is America. People get second chances here. Anyway,” Brittany hurried on before Bernie could interrupt her, “Daddy’s lawyer was going to take her to court, but he was so mad, he was going to do even worse—”

  “Hire a hit man?”

  Brittany snorted. “Don’t be a moron. He was going to feed stories to Page Six and the National Enquirer about the fact that she liked Whoppers and ate baked beans out of the can with a plastic fork. He even got pictures of her doing that.”

  Bernie burst out laughing. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Brittany looked offended. “No. Of course not. Ask Daddy if you don’t believe me.”

  “That’s okay,” Bernie said. After all, who could make up something like that? “It’s ridiculous.” A libel suit was one thin
g, but releasing that kind of story to the media was something else entirely.

  Brittany drew herself up. “Not if you’re Hortense Calabash, it’s not. Not if your brand depends on never going near that kind of stuff. It would be like … like … an Orthodox rabbi eating roast pork.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Bernie conceded. She could hear Brittany’s father’s instructions to the PI. “Trail her until you get her going into a fast-food joint, the worse the better. I want shots of her eating a Big Mac.” The world was becoming very weird.

  “I mean,” Brittany continued, “the only reason my daddy paid Hortense in the first place was because he thought it would be cheaper than paying our lawyer, even though he told me he knew he shouldn’t. ‘People like that are greedy,’ he said. ‘Nothing is ever enough for people like that.’ And he was right. It wasn’t.”

  Bernie was about to reply when she saw a woman heading toward Brittany. Two women in fact. No. Three. Book buyers, Bernie thought. She sat there as Brittany nodded and smiled and said things like, “Thank you for coming. Of course, I’d love to sign your book. Whom should I make it out to?”

  “Now,” she said to Brittany when they were gone, “that still doesn’t answer my question about Pearl.”

  “Why should I kill Pearl?” Brittany demanded.

  “Maybe she was demanding money too?”

  Brittany snorted. “You really don’t know a lot, do you?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “With pleasure. If you did know anything,” Brittany said, “then you’d know there isn’t a reason in the world why I would want to kill Pearl. She’s the person who’s responsible for my book sales. She’s the one who wrote the glowing review in the book review section.”

  Bernie frowned. The woman must think I’m a moron.

  “Unless I’m mistaken, the person who wrote the book reviews is called Lulu Brandt.”

  “That was the name she wrote under. She started doing it when she was younger to make some extra money, and she kept on doing it.”

  Bernie closed her eyes. She could see the folder labeled REVIEWS in Pearl’s file cabinet. But she’d assumed they’d been reviews Pearl was collecting. But they weren’t. They were copies of reviews she was writing.

  “I thought the woman who reviewed your book was a family friend,” Bernie finished lamely.

  “She is. Pearl and my dad went to high school together.”

  “You and she didn’t seem that friendly to me when you were on the set.”

  “Well, I didn’t know who she was. My daddy never told me.” Bernie realized she must have raised an eyebrow because Brittany said, “He doesn’t tell me lots of things. You know how guys are.”

  “Yes, I do,” Bernie said, thinking about all the stuff her dad had tried to keep from her over the years. Tried was the operative word. But she’d wanted to know. She had a suspicion that Brittany didn’t want to. “So if I call him, he’ll confirm what you’re telling me?”

  Brittany nodded. “Oh, absolutely.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He owns F&B, one of the biggest ad agencies in the country.”

  “I know who they are,” Bernie told her. Everyone did. Besides, she’d done some work for them when she’d been in L.A.

  On the way out of Barnes & Noble she called Libby. “I think you can cross Brittany off our list—at least in the motive department.” As she clicked off, she consulted her watch. It was too late to go back uptown to shop for Libby’s Christmas present. And then she had an idea. She’d get Libby some really good aged balsamic vinegar, the kind that cost a hundred bucks a bottle; that and some farro should do the trick.

  She’d been talking about making a tart with it recently, and it was still fairly hard to find. Bernie had had polenta made with farro when she’d been in Tuscany several years ago, but it was only recently that the grain was showing up in restaurants in New York City.

  The Romans had eaten it. They’d done more than eaten it; it had fed the Roman legions. Historians had traced the grain back to Mesopotamia. Maybe she and Libby could work up a whole menu around it. It had a nice nutty flavor and a pleasing crunch. They used it in Italy in soups and salads, and if she wasn’t mistaken, she’d even seen a few desserts featuring it. Yes. Libby would definitely like that better than a new handbag. And what was even nicer, Bernie thought, was that she could order the farro and the vinegar online.

  Life is good, Bernie decided as she stopped at a newsstand to buy a copy of the New York Post and a pack of gum before heading uptown. As she was paying, she saw a key ring with a picture of the Statue of Liberty waving to two tourists. Since Rob had just started collecting Statue of Liberty stuff, she decided she might as well get that too. She liked getting surprises for people. It was fun.

  Chapter 32

  By Sean’s calculations, he and Marvin were about ten minutes away from Consuela’s place. He was just about to tell Marvin that when his cell rang. He picked it up. It was Libby.

  “Are you sure about that?” Sean asked Libby when she was done telling him what she’d phoned him to say.

  “Sure about what?” Marvin asked, turning his head to look at him.

  “Van! Van!” Sean yelled as the Taurus Marvin was driving started drifting into the other lane.

  “Sorry about that,” Marvin told him as he got back into his lane.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for Libby. The fact that Marvin had apologized might have given his daughter a clue about who was right here, but given what she said next, it obviously didn’t.

  “Libby, I’m not yelling at him,” Sean explained. “I’m speaking emphatically. Yes. It’s very nice that he’s driving me. No. I don’t need to apologize. He’s not offended.” Sean sighed. “Marvin, are you offended?” he asked him.

  Marvin shook his head.

  Sean held out the phone. “Say it.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Absolutely,” Sean said.

  “It’s okay,” Marvin said. “I’m fine.”

  “See,” Sean told his daughter. He shut his eyes briefly as Marvin passed a truck in the left lane with less than an inch to spare. If you didn’t see it, it doesn’t exist. “Everything is fine. Really. It’s all just peachy. Love you, too, darling.” And he clicked off. “Now that was interesting,” he mused. “It just confirms what we already know.”

  “What?” Marvin asked.

  Sean realized he’d spoken out loud. “That Consuela owes a great deal of money.”

  “How do you know that?” Marvin asked as he cut in front of a BMW and decreased his speed to fifty miles an hour.

  You could use this kid as a primer for what not to do on the road, Sean reflected. He could feel a headache coming on.

  “What?”

  “How does Libby know that?” Marvin repeated.

  Sean shook himself. “Before I left I asked her to ask around. Confirm what we heard. The people she asked told her Consuela owes money to all the vendors. That’s not good. You don’t pay your vendors and you’re out of business. They said she owes New York State taxes, too, but that could just be a rumor.”

  And with that Sean decided to close his eyes. If he was going to die, he didn’t want to see it coming since there was nothing he could do about it in the present circumstances. After a few wrong turns and a ride down the wrong way of a one-way street, they arrived. That wasn’t too bad, Sean thought as they stopped in front of the building that housed Consuela’s kitchen. Okay. It was terrible. But Marvin’s driving had gotten marginally better on the last leg of the trip.

  He surmised this because the volume of honking had gone down. And at least they weren’t in Marvin’s hearse. So that was a blessing. They’d borrowed Rob’s Taurus. It was rusty, and the rear driver side door didn’t work, but Sean didn’t care. It was still better than Marvin’s dad’s death-mobile, as he’d taken to calling the vehicle.

  “Watch it, watch it!” Sean yelled as Marvin narrowly missed a Ford Explorer that was p
ulling out in front of them.

  Marvin grunted. Sean could tell he was still unwinding from driving on the Jersey Pike.

  “I hope she’s here,” Marvin grumbled.

  “She will be,” Sean assured him.

  He’d been surprised to learn that Consuela had two places: her shop and the place where she did most of her food preparation. They’d gone to the first place and had been sent to the second, which was a little bit outside of town. Maybe that was one of the reasons she was having trouble. She was paying two rents, two utility bills, liability on two places. Things like that added up real fast.

  At least, Sean thought as he looked at the place, there’s parking. Even though it was obviously commercial, the place was laid out like a strip mall. It was nothing more than a row of one-story buildings lined up next to one another with room for cars and trucks in the front.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” Marvin asked.

  “No. I want you to stay in the car.”

  “But—”

  “Seriously,” Sean said.

  “But what if she attacks—”

  “Me with a dough hook?”

  “No. I was thinking of a knife,” Marvin told him, alluding to when La Croix had come running out of the store.

  “That was a cleaver,” Sean corrected.

  “Who cares? It was big, and it was sharp. Libby would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to me,” Sean assured him.

  “That’s what Bernie always says,” Marvin noted.

  Sean decided it would be better not to answer.

  “What’s your plan?” Marvin asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll figure something out when I get there.”

  “You mean you don’t have a plan?”

  “No,” Sean snapped. “I don’t.” He got out of the car. Marvin got out too. The kid was incorrigible. “What are you doing?”

  “Helping you get your wheelchair out of the backseat.”

  “Thanks. But I can do it on my own. Really,” Sean said.