A Catered Christmas

by Isis Crawford

  Marvin flushed and got back in the vehicle.

  Damn this thing, Sean thought as he finally managed to wiggle the chair out of the backseat, set it on the ground, and open it up. He hated it. Of course, without it he wouldn’t be going too far. His legs were simply too unpredictable. One minute they’d be fine, the next minute they’d give out. He hated having to use the chair, but without it he’d still be in his house watching the Home Shopping Network. He managed to pull the door open and go inside.

  He counted five people working in the kitchen. The place was way bigger than the kitchen for A Little Taste of Heaven, not to mention better equipped. It had more ovens, more stoves, more sinks, more prep tables. No one seemed to be talking much. Everyone was intent on their tasks. Four out of the five people working were wearing headphones, moving their shoulders in time to the music they were listening to.

  Consuela was running an expensive operation. She needed lots of business to keep it going. He knew what Libby did with what she had, and he knew what it cost her. This operation looked as if it cost Consuela a great deal more. He was trying to put a number on it when he realized Consuela was approaching him.

  “I remember you,” she said.

  Sean nodded.

  “You’re Libby and Bernie’s father.”

  Sean bowed his head slightly. “Guilty as charged. Sean Simmons at your service.”

  “You’re the guy they arrested for breaking into Hortense’s files.”

  “That was a misunderstanding.”

  Consuela folded her arms across her chest and started tapping her foot; then, before he had a chance to speak, Consuela started in. “Well, it didn’t look like a misunderstanding to me,” she told him. “What do you want? I mean, I know why you’re here. You want to ask me questions about Pearl’s death, don’t you? Well, I have nothing to say to you. I don’t have to talk to you, and I won’t. So you can just turn that thing around and wheel yourself right out of here.”

  Wow, Sean thought as Consuela turned on her heels and began marching away, she’s got quite a mouth on her.

  “My daughter tells me you’re in a lot of trouble, financially speaking,” Sean called after her.

  Consuela whirled around.

  Bingo, Sean said to himself as he looked at Consuela’s expression.

  “That’s a filthy lie.”

  “That’s not what my daughter’s sources say. They say you have to pay cash up front for every delivery you get.”

  “I’ll sue you and your daughter for libel.”

  “Darlene, I hate to say this, but you can’t sue for libel for something that is true.”

  “My name is not Darlene.”

  “Darlene Brown. Bernie remembers you. And I had the guys at the station run your name through the system. They came up with some interesting stuff.” Which was a big fat lie, but you never knew what you’d get when you threw something like that out there.

  “Listen.” Consuela shook her finger in his face.

  “No. You listen,” he said as he grabbed Consuela’s wrist and pushed it aside.

  Suddenly one of the cooks was standing beside Consuela.

  “You okay?” he asked her.

  She nodded.

  “You want me to get rid of this guy?”

  Consuela fixed her hair. “There will be no need. He was just leaving, weren’t you, Mr. Simmons?”

  Sean nodded, although he wasn’t ready to go just yet. “I’m going,” he said. “You just want to tell me why you left the message you did on Pearl’s machine before I tell the police about it?” Well, they probably already knew, but he wasn’t going to share that information with Consuela.

  Consuela leaned toward him again. “Because she said she’d lend me money. Satisfied?”

  “Not really,” Sean said. “But I guess this will have to do, Darlene.”

  “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

  “I’d love to, but people are dying. Two people to be exact. I’d like to know why.”

  “You want to know why, ask Reginald.”

  “Reginald? Why should I do that?”

  “Ask him what Pearl and he did the night they were in the pantry at The Best. Go on. Ask him.”

  “I will.” And Sean left. He didn’t fancy getting thrown out again. At least not when Marvin was watching.

  “We have one more stop before we go home,” Sean said to him after he’d stowed his wheelchair in the back of the Taurus and had gotten in. “We’re stopping at Reginald Palmer’s place.”

  On the way over he called Clyde and told him what he’d found out. Somehow that was easier than talking to Libby. Not only did Clyde ask fewer questions, he also didn’t ask him to do things like stop at the store and pick up an extra carton of eggs or a gallon of milk.

  “So,” he said to Marvin, “what are you getting Libby for Christmas?”

  Rose used to shop for the girls, and now that she wasn’t here and he had to do it, he was always at a loss. It would be so much easier if they’d just tell him. All he wanted them to do was make out a Christmas list. But they wouldn’t. Both of them were absolutely adamant on the point. They said it wouldn’t be the same if they knew. He didn’t get it. That way, he could get them what they wanted.

  He was thinking how much easier things were when Rose was alive when Marvin turned toward him and said, “I’m getting Libby food. Chocolate to be exact.”

  Sean brightened. Sometimes Marvin did come up with some good ideas. There was no such thing as too much chocolate as far as Libby was concerned, and even better, he bet he could find that on the Web.

  * * *

  Sean had been doing some thinking about what Consuela had told him as he and Marvin headed back to Reginald’s place. As far as he could see, there was only one interpretation. Reginald and Pearl had been sleeping together. According to what people were saying, Reginald had also slept with Hortense.

  The man had strange tastes, Sean thought. Very strange. No doubt about that. But more importantly, he’d slept with both women and now they were dead. Suggestive? Possibly. Or it could be just plain bad luck.

  “You think he’s the one?” Marvin asked.

  “Let’s put it this way. I wouldn’t be surprised.” Sean was riding with his eyes closed.

  “You think he’s a serial killer?” Marvin asked.

  Sean snorted. “No. Serial killers usually go about their business quietly.”

  “Maybe this is a different kind of serial killer.”

  Sean opened one eye. Things appeared to be proceeding normally. He opened the other eye. “I think having a murderer running loose is enough to deal with.”

  “But in the movies—”

  Sean cut him off. “This is not the movies.”

  “That’s true,” Marvin conceded. “Anyway, we don’t really know he did this, do we?”

  Sean conceded that they didn’t. But Bernie had mentioned something about Reginald being near the Christmas tree before Pearl was killed. At least he thought she had. He took out his cell and punched in her number. When she came on the line, he asked her.

  “Yeah. I told you. I remember he was moving away from the Christmas tree when Libby and I came in. We saw him. Why?”

  Sean told her what Consuela had just said.

  “Interesting,” Bernie said.

  “But still circumstantial,” Sean noted, and he clicked off.

  And that was the problem. Nothing that they were discovering was solid. Everything was circumstantial. It would be interesting to see what Reginald had to say, Sean reflected.

  Not much as it turned out.

  “I’d like to speak to you for a moment,” Sean said to him once he was in Reginald’s place.

  He noted that Reginald put the teapot he’d been rinsing out down and dried it before replying.

  “You’re speaking to me now,” he pointed out.

  “In private.”

  “Take over,” Reginald told the girl who was behind the counter. “I’ll be back
in a minute.” Then he walked out from behind the counter and stood in front of Sean.

  “I want you out of here,” he told him.

  “I haven’t done anything,” Sean protested.

  “You must think I’m a moron. I know who you are and why you’re here.”

  “And why might that be?”

  Reginald snorted. “Listen, I have to be at the studio in another hour. I don’t have time for these kinds of games.”

  “But you had time to have sex with both Hortense and Pearl and now they’re both dead.”

  Reginald shot his cuffs. “So you’re saying that I killed both ladies after I slept with them?”

  “Am I?”

  “Don’t play cute with me. And since when does sleeping with someone mean you go and kill them?”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

  Reginald slicked his hair back with the palm of his hand. “I really have to go.”

  “One last thing,” Sean said. “What did you and Pearl do in the pantry at The Best?”

  “Consuela told you to ask me that, didn’t she?” Reginald said.

  Sean decided not to reply.

  “That woman always has been a bitch,” Reginald said. “She just can’t stand to see people having fun. So Pearl and I got a little drunk when we were working together. So we got it on in the pantry. So what? Things like that happen all the time in the kitchen. Ask your daughters. They’ll tell you.”

  Sean grunted. He wasn’t going to ask his daughters anything about that. “Here’s one thing they did tell me,” Sean said.

  “Only one?”

  “You were near the Christmas tree right before Pearl got electrocuted.”

  “And your point is?”

  “Maybe you were fiddling with the wire. After all, you were in a position to know how she’d respond to the lights being uneven.”

  “Me and everyone else,” Reginald replied. “And as for fiddling with the wire, why should I do something like that where everyone could see me? Why didn’t I come in and do it before everyone else arrived?”

  “Maybe you did,” Sean told him. “Maybe you were just checking up on your work.”

  “Listen, you can’t have it both ways. And for your information, I liked Pearl. We had a little something going on and then it ended. And that as they say, is that.”

  Sean watched as he turned and went behind the counter. So what had he learned from this little expedition? Other than the fact that Reginald had slept with Hortense and Pearl, not much. Not much at all. Maybe he’d call Clyde and relay the information to him and see if he could do anything with it. But first he should call Eric Royal and clear up a point that was troubling him.

  Chapter 33

  Libby averted her eyes from the spot where Pearl had died. Even though Pearl was now resting in Marvin’s father’s funeral home, the memory of what had happened still shook her. She took a deep breath and told herself to calm down. But she couldn’t. If she could, she wouldn’t be here. Actually, she shouldn’t be here because the Hortense Calabash Show was about to go live any moment, but she didn’t think she could sit through it without some chocolate.

  She really needed a taste of the 70 percent Lindt chocolate bar she kept stashed in her backpack for emergencies. Needed it bad. She had to face the fact she was a chocolate junkie. But, Libby decided, if she had to be addicted to anything, she supposed that there were worse things than chocolate.

  Just the thought of the chocolate dissolving on her tongue helped calm her. But the question was, where had she put her backpack? She thought she’d left it resting against one of the table legs, but she felt so unsettled, or as her mother’s Jewish friend would have said, so farblondjet, she couldn’t remember.

  Then she saw what Bernie disparagingly referred to as her hippy-dippy rucksack backpack leaning up against one of the chairs, and she sighed in relief. Thank God, Libby thought as she hurried over to it. She undid the buckle and reached in and came out with a notebook. What the hell? She hadn’t put a notebook in there. She peered in. There were a couple of packs of Kleenex, a clipboard with paper attached, some pens, a small metal pill case, and an open packet of disposable cameras, with only one remaining.

  “What are you doing?”

  Libby whirled around.

  Estes was standing right behind her.

  “Looking for my chocolate,” she stammered.

  “Well, you’re not going to find it in there,” Estes growled as he grabbed the backpack from her.

  Libby put her hand over her mouth as she realized she’d made a mistake. Even though this backpack was black like hers, there was a logo on this one that she hadn’t seen because that side had been against the chair. And then she saw hers. It was by the table after all, only someone must have pushed it because it had slid down and was lying on the floor.

  “You have to get out there,” Estes said. “The show is about to start.” He began pushing her toward the door.

  Libby started toward her backpack. “I’ll just be a second.”

  Estes’ grip tightened on her arm. “No,” he said.

  “But my chocolate,” Libby wailed.

  “I guess you’ll have to do without it,” Estes told her as he pulled her out of the green room and toward the studio.

  “Where were you?” Bernie whispered as Libby took her seat beside her. “Estes looks as if he wants to kill someone. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so pissed.”

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” Libby whispered back.

  She crossed her legs, realized that that made her thighs look big, and crossed her ankles instead. She just hated being on camera. And she hated the seat she was sitting in. It was incredibly uncomfortable. The back had no support, and she had to make an effort to remember to sit up straight because when she slumped you could see her stomach, which looked like a roll of dough.

  Ten minutes later she was still thinking about how much she needed that piece of chocolate while she watched La Croix chopping lobster meat into cubes so he could combine it with onions and garlic in the sauté pan before adding cognac to the pan and flaming it.

  “I don’t think I’d use lobster as a stuffing for a capon. It seems like a waste,” she said to Bernie. Maybe if she concentrated on what La Croix was doing, she’d distract herself.

  Bernie covered her mike with her hand. “Haven’t you ever heard of oyster stuffing? They do it down south all the time. This is the same principle.”

  “I realize that,” Libby said. “But I’ve never thought the concept of oyster stuffing is a good one. In my opinion, oysters are meant to be eaten raw or lightly stewed or not eaten at all. I’ll be interested to see what a lobster bread stuffing tastes like.” One thing was for sure, she reflected. It didn’t sound good when you said it out loud.

  “Me too,” Bernie agreed. “Actually, now that I think about it, lobster just doesn’t strike me as a good choice for a Christmas meal.”

  Libby pondered that for a moment. “It wouldn’t be my first pick. It’s impractical for a large family gathering both in terms of preparation and expense. But it is festive, and it’s certainly easier to work with than the venison we got.”

  “Yes, but venison is more traditional.”

  “Lobster is quicker and hence, for a contest like this, easier.”

  “On the other hand,” Bernie pointed out, “they have cardoons.”

  “This is true.” Libby had read about them, but she’d never actually seen or cooked them. She wondered where Eric Royal had gotten them from. She knew they were from the thistle family and that they were stalky like celery, but that was about it. Bernie had told her they softened as they cooked, and they had a flavor that was both bitter and sweet. At least she didn’t have to contend with them.

  She wondered if La Croix was going to use them as a base for his lobster sauté. It certainly looked that way. Well, she was curious to see what that tasted like.

  She was interested to note that Brittany was doing a lo
bster sauté as an appetizer. She had removed the meat from the shell and was boiling the shells in water, which she would no doubt reduce to make a sauce. Libby wondered what she was going to use as a base.

  Probably the Brussels sprouts Brittany was shredding. She’d give them a quick sauté, and then arrange them on the dish. Libby chewed her cheeks while she thought that through. The lobster and the Brussels sprouts both had an underlying sweetness to them. It might work if Brittany sautéed the sprouts really fast.

  But she’d need something for contrast. Something acidic. Like the blood orange she had. That would work. Libby was so immersed in trying to figure out how to present the dish she’d constructed in her imagination that she startled as she realized that Bernie was speaking to her.

  “The Italian Roman Catholics have that seven fish deal going on Christmas Eve, but I always associate Christmas with poultry or ham.”

  Libby nodded absentmindedly as she noticed Estes glaring at her. He made a stop-talking gesture by drawing the edge of the palm of his hand across his throat.

  “I think Estes wants us to be quiet,” Libby said to Bernie.

  “I know what he wants. Personally, I don’t see what difference it’s going to make given the general mess of the situation. But we know that disasters sell, so I guess the ratings for this show are really high.” Bernie moved her silver and onyx ring up and down her finger. “Although not as high as if someone got killed on TV.”

  “Don’t say that,” Libby chided. “Don’t even think it.”

  “You’re right. I apologize.” And with that, Bernie uncovered her mike and sat back in her chair.

  Libby tried not to think about what Bernie had just said, but she was probably right. She usually was about stuff like this. That’s probably why Estes had insisted that the contest still go on. In her view, it hardly made any sense since one of contestants was gone, but Estes hadn’t seen it that way, so here they were again. This was the third … or was it the fourth? night they were on.

  There’d been so much happening that the days just blended into one another. Libby stifled a yawn. For a moment she watched Estes clean out his backpack. Then she started thinking back to the cooking gaffe she’d committed earlier that day.