Bernie opened her mouth and closed it again. She couldn’t think of anything she could say on her or her sister’s behalf.
Sean finished his sandwich and made himself another one. “Maybe,” he said when he was done, “we should skip the blame game and focus on what to do now.”
Libby ate the last of her piece of cake and put her fork down on her plate. “Obviously, we have to find out who killed Susie.”
“Obviously.” Sean fed another caviar pearl to Cindy. “And how do you propose to do that?”
Bernie and Libby looked at each other. They didn’t have a clue.
“It’ll be fine,” Libby said.
Sean gave her the look.
“Okay. So, we do have a small problem,” Libby admitted.
Sean raised an eyebrow. “Small?”
“All right. It’s not so small,” Libby allowed. “We can’t account for anyone’s whereabouts.”
Clyde leaned forward. “How so?” he asked.
Libby replied. “Once the mice were let out of the box, the cats and people scattered. We were so intent on catching the cats, we weren’t paying attention to where everyone was,” she explained. She picked up her fork and started playing with it. “I didn’t really see anyone around me.”
“That goes for me, as well,” Bernie added.
“And you guys”—Clyde pointed at Libby and Bernie—“captured all the cats?”
The sisters nodded.
“Didn’t you think it was a little odd at the time that everyone apparently vanished?” Clyde asked.
“It occurred to me,” Bernie admitted. “But then, the whole day was odd.”
“And, frankly, we were too involved with what we were doing to give it much thought,” Libby added.
“So, you have no idea where anyone was?” Clyde asked. “Am I correct in that assumption?”
“Yes,” Libby and Bernie said together.
“But I do remember thinking that everyone showing up at the house at the same time was strange,” Bernie said. “An unlikely coincidence.”
“Meaning that you think that everyone had a hand in what happened?” Sean asked.
“I don’t know,” Bernie said. “It was just an observation.”
“Not true,” Libby said to her sister. “Everyone showed up except for Mrs. Van Trumpet.”
Bernie nodded. “Libby’s right.”
“So, what happened to Van Trumpet?” Clyde asked.
“As far as I know, she left,” Bernie said. “The last I saw her, she was leaning against a tent pole. I assume she just got in her car and drove off. She didn’t strike me as someone who did chaos very well.”
“You should talk to her,” Clyde suggested. “Make sure. She could have doubled back and gone into the house.”
Libby agreed. “Especially since the door wasn’t locked.”
“I don’t think she liked Susie very much,” Bernie reflected.
“No big surprise,” Libby said. “I don’t think anyone did.”
“Except Susie’s cats. Susie’s cats liked her just fine,” Bernie said.
“What makes you say that Mrs. Van Trumpet didn’t like Susie?” Libby and Bernie’s dad asked.
Bernie shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing, really. Just the way she acted around her.”
“Do you think she disliked her enough to kill her, Bernie?” Sean inquired.
Libby answered instead. “I don’t think so. As far as I know, Susie hired her for the wedding. I don’t think they knew each other before.”
“You should find out,” Clyde said. “And sooner would be better than later.”
“I’d say,” Bernie replied as she watched Cindy jump off her father’s lap and go over and start drinking out of her bowl of water. When she was done, she leaped on top of the sofa and settled herself near Bernie. Bernie nodded in her direction. “Too bad she can’t talk to Boris and Natasha and tell us what happened.”
Libby laughed at the idea. “I wish.”
“How about the mice?” Clyde asked, sitting back and stretching his legs out.
“What about them?” Libby asked.
“Well, you told Lucy you had no idea who the delivery boy was.”
“We don’t,” Libby said.
“Can you at least describe his vehicle?”
Bernie answered. “It was an old, rusted-out green Civic.”
Libby contradicted her. “It was gray.”
“No, Libby. It was definitely green, sage green. Which has gray undertones.”
“There were no undertones. The car was gray—”
“This is not helpful,” Clyde said, interrupting the sisters.
Libby and Bernie stopped.
“I don’t suppose you got the license plate number of the vehicle?” Clyde asked.
“No,” Bernie answered. “We were too busy.”
“Do either of you think you could identify the driver if you saw him again?” Clyde asked.
“He was cute,” Bernie said.
“Great,” Clyde said. “Wonderful. I’ll put that out as an APB.”
“Sorry,” Bernie said, hunching her shoulders up.
“Is there anything you can tell me?” Clyde asked, begged really. “Anything at all?”
“Nope,” Libby replied. She’d been trying, without success, to picture the driver ever since the police had arrived on the scene. There had been nothing notable about him. He was just a big blur. “Maybe the mice were a practical joke,” Libby said, which was what she’d first thought when she’d seen them. “Maybe they didn’t have anything to do with Susie’s murder.”
“Do you really believe that?” Sean asked.
“Well, it’s possible,” Libby said, defending herself from the disbelief in her father’s voice.
“Anything is possible,” Sean shot back. “But is it likely?”
“It might be,” Libby said. “Think about it. There’s no way the person who sent them could have predicted what was going to happen. For all that person knew, the cats could have killed all the mice immediately or the mice could have been captured, and the wedding would have continued as planned.”
“Libby’s right,” Bernie said. She got up from the sofa and started pacing back and forth. “I think whoever killed Susie took advantage of the situation. It’s a big leap to go from disrupting the wedding to killing Susie.”
“Unless the mice were sent as a distraction, allowing the murderer to slip into the house,” Sean said.
“The time frame is wrong,” Bernie said.
“Not if the murderer was someone other than the people you saw there.”
Clyde shook his head. “Now you’re making things more complicated than they already are, Sean. Let’s just stick to the people who we know were present.”
“Possibly,” Sean said, unwilling to let go of the idea he was hatching.
Libby interrupted them. “This thing, that is, the murder, could have started out as a joke and gotten out of hand. Let’s suppose our unsub sent the mice to Susie as a practical joke and then saw Susie collapse. He or she got concerned and went to speak with her because she or he felt guilty and wanted to see if Susie was all right. And then let’s suppose that this person found Susie sitting at her desk and, for whatever reason, told Susie what she or he had done.
“So, Susie flips out and says whatever she says. Maybe she threatens the person, or maybe Susie says something unforgivable. In any case, our murderer flips out, picks up Susie’s letter opener, and stabs her with it. Then our murderer runs out the front door—leaving it unlocked—and goes . . . somewhere.”
Bernie stopped pacing. “At which point, Ralph comes in and finds his aunt.”
“Exactly,” Libby said.
“That would work,” Sean admitted.
“It seems the most likely scenario,” Bernie commented as she sat back down on the sofa.
“It’s plausible,” Sean reluctantly agreed.
“I think it’s more than plausible,” Bernie argued. She went on
. “After all, if the murder had been premeditated, whoever did it would have brought their own weapon to the wedding. But they didn’t. They used the letter opener on Susie’s desk instead. To me, that suggests a lack of intent.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Sean told Bernie. Then he smiled at his daughters as Clyde topped off his tea. He had no doubt that they would get to the bottom of this. It was just the time frame that worried him.
“Let’s recap, shall we?” Clyde said as he added another cube of sugar to his cup. “If I am correct, we have no idea where anyone was at the time of our victim’s death, we have no clear motive for her death, and we don’t have any forensic evidence. Does that about sum it up?”
Bernie and Libby both nodded.
Clyde continued. “The only thing we do have is the time frame, plus the strong possibility that this crime was not premeditated and that it was committed by someone who was present at the time.” Clyde looked from Bernie to Libby and back again. “Am I correct again?”
“You are,” Libby said.
“So,” Clyde went on, “given what we know, do you have an idea of how you and Bernie are going to proceed?”
Bernie smiled. She’d been thinking about it. “We do.”
“Would you care to enlighten us?” Sean asked when his younger daughter didn’t say anything else, although he had a pretty good idea what her answer was going to be.
“Certainly,” Bernie replied. “Libby and I are going to get a drink.”
“At RJ’s?” Sean asked.
“Is there anyplace else?” Bernie replied.
The answer to that was no.
Chapter 13
There was nothing special about RJ’s. It didn’t have fancy drinks, offer obscure microbrews, great food, or an amazing decor. But people came. They came to have a quick beer and a burger at lunch, or to relax and have a beer on their way home from work, or to play a round of darts or shoot a game of pool, or just to hang out with their friends. They came because they felt comfortable there, and they came when they needed to find something out.
RJ’s was Longely’s gossip central, which was the reason Bernie and Libby were going there now. Of course, the fact that Bernie’s boyfriend, Brandon, was a bartender on the evening shift also helped, since bartenders, like hairdressers, were people who knew everything worth knowing about everyone.
By the time Bernie pulled into RJ’s parking lot, the rain had tapered off to a drizzle. The droplets reflected off the pavements, surrounded the street lamps with a soft glow, and added an aura to the blinking neon beer signs in RJ’s window, signs that had been there for as long as Bernie remembered.
“Not a busy night in Bean Town,” Bernie commented about the quarter-filled lot as she parked Mathilda off to the left, away from a large water-filled pothole. Then she turned Mathilda off, pocketed the keys, and hurried inside, with Libby following close behind her.
As Libby shut the door, Bernie smiled as she smelled RJ’s familiar mixture of hops, hamburgers, and floor wax. Looking around, she estimated there were thirty people in all. Not a lot. She saw six guys in the back, shooting pool, a man and a woman playing darts, and another couple hunkered down in a booth, having an earnest discussion, while the rest of RJ’s customers were sitting either at the bar or at the tall tables near the far wall.
Tonight, unusually, she didn’t know anyone here except Brandon, who was drawing a Guinness for a customer, and Marvin, Libby’s boyfriend, who had his head down and was looking at his cell phone as he sat alone at the bar. Normally, she knew half a dozen people from their shop—at least.
“I thought you said Marvin couldn’t come,” Bernie remarked to Libby as Brandon nodded to Bernie and she nodded back.
Libby corrected her sister. “No. I said he wasn’t sure.” She studied Marvin for a minute. He’s getting bald, she thought affectionately as she noticed the thinning patch of hair in the middle of his head. He also looked tired. Libby decided she wasn’t the only one who had had a rough day as she headed toward him. By the time she and Bernie reached him, their shoes crunching over the peanut shells scattered over the floor, Brandon had come over and was putting a couple of Irish whiskeys down in front of Libby and Bernie and a pint of Guinness in front of Marvin.
“I figure you’re going to need these, considering the day you guys had,” Brandon said.
“I see good news travels fast,” Bernie replied as she grabbed a handful of sweet potato chips out of the bowl in front of her and started eating. She wasn’t hungry, but she wanted—no, she needed—something in her mouth, something that crunched.
“Always,” Brandon said as he took the towel he had slung over his shoulder and mopped up a small spot of water he’d somehow managed to overlook on the bar. “Especially here. We don’t need social media. We have the Longely big mouth network.” Then he spotted a customer waving to him from the other end of the bar and raised his hand to show he’d seen him. “Be back as soon as I can,” Brandon told Bernie as he headed toward the guy.
Bernie watched him go, a big, burly, red-headed guy with a bad haircut, wearing an old, worn flannel shirt and baggy jeans, and was amazed again by the fact that she’d fallen in love with him. He was rough around the edges, not her type at all, but then her last forays into romance hadn’t worked out so well, so maybe he was her type, after all. In any event, she wasn’t here for that right now—although she was always happy to see Brandon. No. She was there to find out what, if anything, Brandon knew about the players in their afternoon drama, Brandon being the gossip king of gossip central.
Bernie was still thinking about Brandon when Marvin slid the bowl of salted peanuts sitting in front of him over to Libby. “Here,” he said to her. “Have one.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Libby said, smiling at him. “Thanks for coming out.”
He nodded. “You have but to call, my lady.”
Libby grinned. Marvin always made her do that. If you had told her three years ago she’d be going out with a guy who was a funeral director, she would have told you you were crazy, but it only went to prove you just never knew. Look at Bernie and Brandon, she thought. Who could have predicted that? And although she hated to admit it, she and Marvin were alike in certain ways. They were both a little chubby, a little schleppy, a little on the clumsy side. Maybe she felt so comfortable with him because she could relax and be herself instead of Miss Perfect.
“Is it true?” Marvin asked, interrupting Libby’s thoughts.
“Is what true?” Libby inquired.
“That Lucy’s going to arrest you?”
Libby took a sip of her whiskey. “Only if we don’t figure out who killed Susie Katz, aka Susie Abrams, by next week.”
“Not a problem,” Marvin said.
Libby made a pock-pock sound with her mouth. “Hopefully.”
“Definitely,” Marvin told her. “Does he mean it, do you think?”
“Oh, he means it, all right,” Bernie told him. “Of that I have no doubt. He’d be more than happy to toss us to the lions. It would definitely make his day.”
“Lucy really hates your dad, doesn’t he?” Marvin said.
“He does, indeed.” Bernie ate another chip. “So, moving along, what’s happening to Susie Katz?”
“I take it you mean her corporal entity?” Marvin asked.
“Considering you don’t have the scoop about what happens on the other side, yes,” Bernie replied.
“She’s at the medical examiner’s now. They’re doing an autopsy.”
“I figured,” Bernie said. “Not that there’s any doubt about how she died.” She paused for a moment as she pictured Susie Katz with the letter opener jammed in her throat. “Are you getting her body when they’re done?”
“As a matter of fact, we are.” Marvin took a sip of his Guinness and wiped a bit of foam off his upper lip.
“When?” Libby asked.
“When the tox screens come back.”
“They’re doing tox screens?” Berni
e asked. “Why?”
Marvin shrugged. “Protocol, I assume.”
Libby took another sip of her Jameson. She could feel the crick in her neck start to uncrick. “And then what?”
“And then the usual,” Marvin said. “We bury her.”
“In Longely?” For some reason, Bernie had expected Susie Katz to be buried in New York City.
“Yup. Right here,” Marvin said. “Right in our little old town.”
“Who’s claiming the body?” Libby asked.
Marvin took another sip of his beer. “The niece and the nephew.”
Bernie raised both eyebrows.
“Why are you surprised?” Marvin asked.
“Grace and Ralph seem awfully young.”
“I don’t think she has any other family,” Marvin replied. “Or if she does, they haven’t come forth and contacted us.”
“Maybe they will,” Libby said.
“They could, not that it will make any difference. We have a notarized letter from Ms. Katz authorizing her niece and nephew to take care of the burial arrangements,” Marvin explained. “Of course,” he added, “I suppose the letter could always be challenged in court if anyone wanted to. Anything can be.”
“Interesting.” Bernie took a gulp of her Jameson and sighed in pleasure as the liquor warmed her insides. “So, what kind of service do Ralph and Grace want?” She was curious given what she’d seen of their relationships.
Marvin took a handful of peanuts out of the bowl in front of Libby and began to shell them, dropping the shells onto the floor and popping the peanuts into his mouth. “They don’t want one,” he answered when he was done.
This time it was Libby’s turn to raise both eyebrows.
“They want a burial and that’s it,” Marvin clarified. “No service, no obit, no nothing. In fact, they chose the next to cheapest casket available,” he added.
“At least it wasn’t the cheapest,” Libby said.
Marvin frowned. “It comes pretty darn close, I can tell you that. Her niece and nephew probably would have her cremated and would shove the ashes in the back of a closet somewhere and be done with it if their aunt hadn’t specified that she was to be buried.”
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