Which was when, Bernie told her dad later, things went south.
Neither Libby nor Bernie saw the inciting incident—as the police were calling it—because they’d been watching Charlene, who was looking at something on Susie’s desk. So they didn’t see whether Grace tripped and extended her hands to keep her balance and shoved Allison by accident, which was what Grace said, or whether Grace did it on purpose, which was what Allison said.
But there was no doubt about what happened next. Allison pushed back. Hard. Grace flew backward and slammed into Marie. This caused Marie to fall against a side table. The table overturned, and the vase sitting on it shattered, and some of the shards flew up and hit Marie in the leg.
Marie screamed. “I’ve been wounded. I’m bleeding,” she cried as a line of red dots appeared on her calf. “Call an ambulance.” But it couldn’t hurt that much, Libby decided, because Marie didn’t pause before starting toward Grace. She pointed to her leg. “Look at what you’ve done.”
“No, you look at what you’ve done,” Grace said, indicating her aunt. “You have no shame. None at all.”
“That’s funny coming from you,” Marie retorted as she clenched her fist and drew her right arm back.
Grace put her hands on her hips and jutted her torso forward. “What are you going to do? Punch me?” she challenged.
“Both of you stop it,” Bernie cried as she got between the two women, which, Libby later remembered thinking, was a bad idea. “Behave yourselves. You’re both acting as if you’re five.”
They didn’t listen. Marie took a swing at Grace, Grace ducked, and Marie caught Bernie with a glancing blow to the jaw instead. Bernie hadn’t been expecting that. Caught off balance, she took three steps back and plowed into Ralph. He in turn was propelled backward and collided with Grace with a resounding thud.
This is like dominoes falling, Bernie thought as Grace, caught off guard, took several steps back, her arms windmilling to keep herself upright. Meanwhile, Libby, who had been running over to help her sister, got smacked in the nose by Grace’s right arm. Libby gasped and put her hand up to her face. Blood spurted out her nose and started to run down between her fingers.
“Jeez,” she said, tipping her head up and feeling around for something to staunch the flow.
Meanwhile, Boris, who had been watching the drama unfold, decided he had had enough of human foolishness—they were interrupting his sleep—so he jumped down from the desk and started trotting out the door. Unfortunately, Libby took a step forward at the same time and tripped over the cat, who yowled indignantly and scooted out of the room as fast as he could. Libby tried to right herself, but to no avail. Despite her best efforts, she fell against the chair Susie was sitting in. The chair tipped over, and Susie landed on the floor, on her side. The impact had the effect of dislodging the letter opener in Susie’s throat. Then, to make matters worse, Libby fell on top of her, which provoked a fresh round of bleeding from Libby’s nose.
The room went silent. Everyone stopped doing what they were doing.
“You were right, Libby,” Bernie said as she helped her up. “We should have called nine-one-one, after all.” The police, she knew, would not be happy.
Which was putting it mildly.
* * *
As Libby had feared, Lucy, officially known as Lucas Broadbent, chief of the Longely police force, was apoplectic. In fact, Libby thought that in all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him achieve this level of fury. And that was saying a lot. His jowls were quivering with rage, and she honestly thought he was going to have a stroke. She wanted to tell him to calm down, but under the circumstances, silence seemed like the best alternative.
“Do you know what you just did?” he asked Libby, pointing at the place on the floor where Susie lay. “Do you know? Do you know?” he repeated, his voice rising with each repetition.
She didn’t answer, since he’d already asked the same question at least fifty times.
“I’ll tell you what you two did,” he screamed. “You compromised the crime scene.”
Bernie tried to intervene. “We didn’t expect—”
“I don’t care what you expected,” Lucy yelled, his voice getting even louder, a feat that Bernie didn’t think possible. “I don’t care what you thought. All I know is that I now have an impossible mess to deal with.” He shook a finger in Bernie’s and Libby’s faces. “I should arrest you two. I should march you off to jail right now.”
“On what gr . . . ,” began Bernie, but as she watched Lucy literally turning purple—she’d never seen a person do that before—she decided silence would be more prudent.
“Do you know who this lady is?” Lucy screamed. “Do you know what she’s worth? Do you know how bad I’m going to look if I can’t solve this thing?”
Now it was Libby’s turn. “That’s why—”
“That’s why I’m giving you a week to get me some answers.” Lucy stuck his face in Libby’s. His breath was most unpleasant. “One week. And if you don’t, I’m throwing you and your sister in jail.”
“Can he do that?” Libby asked Bernie once Lucy had stalked out of the study.
“Yeah, Libby,” Bernie replied. “I’m afraid he can.”
Chapter 11
Day one . . .
Six hours had elapsed since the wedding fiasco, and Bernie, Libby, and their father, Sean, were sitting in the living room of their flat, having a snack. Usually, the noises from A Little Taste of Heaven percolated upstairs, but it was quiet now, since the store had closed for the night half an hour ago, and the staff had finally departed.
As Sean listened to his daughters’ recitation of their day’s events, he sat back in his armchair, stroked Cindy the cat, who was, as per usual, sitting on his lap, fed her bits of salmon and caviar, and watched his neighbor across the street dash into his house with a newspaper over his head in a fruitless effort to keep the rain off him.
“Well,” he observed when Bernie stopped to take a breath, “you’ve certainly had quite the day.” Given what he was hearing, he couldn’t decide whether to commend his daughters for their actions or remonstrate them for their foolhardiness. Caught in indecision, he stopped petting Cindy, leaned forward, buttered a square of homemade pumpernickel, and carefully laid a piece of smoked salmon on it.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Libby replied as she bit into a slice of chocolate mousse cake with hazelnut frosting and poured herself another glass of milk. Ordinarily, she would be eating the salmon, too, but she needed the chocolate. For her nerves. Also, at the moment she couldn’t deal with anything that reminded her of the afternoon.
“Who would have thought a cat wedding would lead to mayhem?” Sean mused. “I guess it turned into a real catfight,” he said, chuckling at his own joke.
“Not funny, Dad,” Libby said after she’d swallowed.
“I rather thought it was,” he replied as he took a bite of the open-faced sandwich he’d just made himself. “This is really quite good,” he noted after he’d tasted it.
“It should be, given what the stuff cost,” Bernie observed as she poured herself a cup of mocha java from the French press sitting on the coffee table and added a goodly amount of cream and one lump of demerara sugar to it.
Next, she made herself a sandwich like her dad’s, sprinkled some capers and a little bit of chopped tomato on top of the salmon, and ate it. She sighed with pleasure. Scotch smoked salmon really was excellent, she decided. And afterward she was going to have the two hazelnut French macaroons that hadn’t sold for dessert. This was, she thought, the perfect mid-evening snack. Or late dinner. Because, what with everything that had happened, she and Libby hadn’t had time to eat.
Libby and Bernie’s dad pointed to the platter sitting on the coffee table. “Is this the salmon you bought for Susie?” he asked.
Bernie nodded and took another bite of her sandwich.
“So what are you doing with the rest of the food from the wedding?” Sean aske
d before he started asking the more important questions.
Bernie answered. “Salmon croquettes, salmon Florentine, salmon BLT sandwiches. You get the idea.”
“And the caviar?” he asked.
“We have just enough left for us. The other two tins were gone by the time we got back to the tent,” Bernie told him.
“You think one of the guests snatched them?” Sean asked.
“Well, I don’t think it was a strolling chipmunk,” Libby answered after she licked a spot of icing off her fork.
Sean took another bite of his sandwich. “Did you report the theft?”
Bernie shook her head. Given everything that had happened, the theft of two tins of caviar seemed minor.
“You should have called nine-one-one,” Sean said, taking a dab of caviar, putting it on the tip of his finger, and holding it out for Cindy. Personally, he’d never been a big fan of the stuff.
“About the caviar?” Bernie asked, knowing full well that wasn’t what her father was referring to, but wanting to postpone, if only for a minute, the conversation she knew was about to ensue.
Sean gave his younger daughter his patented look, the look that had been known to elicit full confessions from hardened criminals when he was the Longely chief of police. “Really?” he said.
“I know, Dad,” Bernie said, capitulating. After all, given what had happened, there wasn’t much she could say to defend herself. “What we did wasn’t too bright.”
Sean snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“I get it, Dad,” Bernie told him. “Trust me, I get it.”
“So, why didn’t you?” he asked.
“Honestly?” Bernie asked.
Sean nodded. “Yes, honestly.”
“I don’t know,” Bernie told him. “I guess it was one of those ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’ kind of things.”
“I bet Lucy didn’t think so,” Sean observed.
“That’s the understatement of the year,” Bernie remarked gloomily.
“I’d be pretty pissed, too, if I were him,” Sean reflected of his archenemy. “I might even have carted you both off to jail for obstruction of justice and anything else I could think of. You’re lucky he didn’t.”
“I thought he was going to have a heart attack,” Libby recalled. “I’ve never seen anyone turn that color before. Thank God he didn’t drop dead.”
Sean shook his head. “What a mess,” he observed as Cindy got up, circled around, mewed, and sat back down on Sean’s lap.
“We know, Dad. We know,” Bernie said. “The question is, how can we fix it?”
“How indeed?” Sean replied. Then he stopped speaking, as he had spotted a car parking in front of the store. “Ah,” he said. “He’s here.”
“Who’s here?” Libby asked.
“Clyde,” Sean replied. “I figured he might be able to shed some light on what’s going on over in Lucyville.”
Bernie and Libby bounded up and gave their dad a hug.
“No need,” said Sean, waving his daughters away, although he couldn’t hide the grin on his face.
Clyde was Sean’s oldest friend and had remained with the Longely Police after Sean had been forced to retire as chief of police. Everyone listened as the downstairs door opened and closed and Clyde walked up the stairs.
“I’m here,” he called as he came through the door, his face glistening with rain. He pointed to the coffee table. “Is that caviar I see sitting there?”
Libby nodded. “Left over from the wedding.”
“And Lucy didn’t confiscate it?” Clyde asked.
“Lucy didn’t see it,” Bernie told him. “The tin was in the cooler out in the tent.”
“We weren’t going to leave it,” Libby said.
“Why would you have?” Clyde rubbed his hands together. “Well, I, for one, am glad you didn’t.”
“Shall I get you a plate?” Libby asked him.
“And some tea—Russian tea, if you have it—would be nice,” he responded.
Bernie got up. “And I’ll get you a towel.”
“That would be much appreciated,” Clyde told her as he settled himself on the sofa. He was a big man, six feet four and 250 pounds, and the sofa springs groaned under his weight. “You and your sister have certainly gotten yourselves into a pickle,” Clyde remarked when Bernie came back from the bathroom. She handed him a towel and watched him dry his face and hair with it.
“We certainly did,” Bernie agreed, sitting back down.
“Even worse than you usually do,” Clyde said as he folded the towel and laid it on the edge of the coffee table. Then he added, “This time Lucy is definitely out for blood,” not that Bernie didn’t know this already.
“So, Lucy hasn’t arrested anyone yet?” Sean asked Clyde.
“Nope.”
“Not even Ralph?”
Clyde smiled apologetically. “Not even Ralph. For the moment, Lucy is buying Ralph’s story.”
Sean frowned. “Lucy have any favorites in the race?”
“If Lucy has any, he isn’t sharing them with me,” Clyde told his friend.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Sean replied as he watched big, fat drops of rain splatter on the windowpanes.
“We’re really screwed, aren’t we?” Bernie asked Clyde.
“Well, let’s just say you have a lot of work ahead of you,” Clyde responded, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.
Chapter 12
Five minutes later, Libby came up the stairs, bearing a tray laden with the tea, cups, lemon slices, sugar, and cream. “It’s Russian,” Libby told Clyde, indicating the teapot with her chin.
“Excellent,” Clyde said, rubbing his hands together. Then he took a piece of the pumpernickel and spooned a large amount of caviar onto it with the mother-of-pearl spoon Libby had provided. “Wonderful,” he pronounced after the first bite. “It reminds me of the time I worked on a cruise ship as a steward. We used to steal little bites before the plates went out.”
“You never told me you worked on a ship,” Sean said.
“You never asked,” Clyde told him.
“Because I didn’t know,” Sean retorted.
Clyde took another bite. “It’s all about knowing the right questions to ask, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is,” Sean said, thinking back to his investigating days. You had to know enough to ask the right questions or else be very, very lucky.
“I guess we have to do some research,” Libby said, jumping into the conversation.
“What has Lucy come up with?” Sean asked Clyde. After all, that was why Clyde was here.
“Not much,” Clyde answered. He leaned over, poured himself some tea, and added two sugar cubes and a touch of cream before continuing. “He’s just done the basics. Record-wise, everyone is clean. More or less. Marie has three unpaid parking tickets, Charlene is behind on her taxes, and so is Allison, who served two months in jail for disrupting a cat show and refusing to leave the premises. Susie brought the charges.”
“That’s what Allison said,” Bernie commented. “When was that?”
“Last year,” Clyde told her.
“Because it wasn’t in the local paper,” Bernie noted.
Sean leaned forward. “And Grace and Ralph?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Clyde answered. “They started working for their aunt after she came up here. They both graduated from Tompkins Cortland Community College. Grace has a boyfriend, and Ralph seems to be overspending on his credit cards. But that’s about it.”
“Nothing else?” Bernie asked.
“Well, Ralph got five parking tickets, and Grace got two,” Clyde said. “But they both paid them. Does that count?”
“Not really,” Bernie told him.
Libby sighed. Too bad, she thought. “Has Lucy looked into Susie Katz?” Libby asked.
“You mean other than the obvious sources?”
Libby nodded.
Clyde shook his head and took
a sip of tea. “His Highness is not happy,” he said. Then he explained. “If Susie Katz was your average nobody, Lucy wouldn’t care. But she’s not. She’s high profile, and the media is on his back already.”
“How did they find out?” Sean asked.
Clyde shrugged. “Don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Lucy needs to come up with answers, and he needs to come up with them fast. If he doesn’t, he’ll need someone to blame, and those someones”—he gestured to Libby and Bernie—“are you two. Unfortunately. This time you really went too far.”
“It’s not as if Libby meant to trip on Boris and knock Susie off her chair,” Bernie objected. “Who knew everyone was going to get into a fight? Things just got out of hand. Really out of hand.”
“Evidently. I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but that doesn’t change the situation.” Clyde took another bite of caviar. “This is the real deal,” he said appreciatively, changing the subject. “It must have cost a fortune.”
“As much as a small country,” Libby said. “Well, almost.”
Clyde whistled when he heard the price. “So, I guess money can buy happiness, after all.”
“If you like caviar,” Sean noted. “For myself, I’d rather have KFC.”
Clyde snorted. “I always knew you were a boor.” Then he added a little chopped egg to the roe and took another bite.
“So, you were saying about Lucy . . . ,” Bernie prodded after Clyde had swallowed.
“What I was saying about Lucy is that he’s not going to change his mind,” Clyde remarked. “He doesn’t have a clue—”
“He never has . . . ,” Sean said, interrupting.
Clyde glanced at Sean. “Unfortunately, that’s neither here nor there.” He looked at Bernie and Libby. “You should have called nine-one-one.”
“We know, we know,” Libby said.
“I already told them that,” Sean told Clyde.
“Multiple times,” Bernie added. “Not that you and my dad always followed the rules.”
“It’s true, we didn’t,” Clyde admitted. “But at least your dad and I knew enough not to contaminate the crime scene beyond redemption.”
A Catered Cat Wedding Page 7