Bernie made a face. “That’s kinda sad.”
“There’s no kinda about it,” Marvin retorted as he ate another peanut and took another sip of beer. “I guess they didn’t like her very much.”
“You could say that, but then, not many people did,” Libby replied. “Except for her cats. Her cats loved her.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t insist they attend the funeral,” Bernie said, thinking about the wedding.
Marvin shuddered. “I can’t even imagine.”
“I can,” Libby said, picturing this afternoon’s events.
“At least she didn’t want them killed and buried with her like the pharaohs did,” Bernie said. “You know, so they could accompany her into the afterlife.”
“People don’t do that kind of thing now,” Libby pointed out as she shifted her weight on the bar stool.
Bernie tossed her head impatiently. “I was kidding, Libby.”
Marvin corrected her. “Sometimes people do,” he said. “Not that we would ever honor a request like that,” he hastily added in response to the aghast expression on Libby’s face.
“Susie would have a fit if she were here,” Libby mused as she thought about the cat wedding and all the glitz and attention to detail that it had entailed. “I mean, Susie was nothing if not flamboyant,” she observed after she’d finished off the rest of her Jameson. “This is just zeroing her out.”
“That’s probably the point of the exercise,” Bernie said. “The niece and the nephew are finally getting their revenge.”
“I wonder if there’s going to be a fight over the body,” Libby said, contemplating whether someone would step forward and try and wrestle control of Susie’s burial away from Ralph and Grace. She was thinking of a recent court case involving a famous DJ that had been plastered all over the news.
“More to the point, I wonder if there’s going to be a fight over her estate.” Bernie ran her forefinger around the edge of her glass and raised her voice so she could be heard over the shouts of the guys playing pool. “Because it’s certainly worth fighting about.”
“We don’t know that,” Libby objected. Then she posed the opposite point of view. “Susie could be in debt.”
“Possibly, but not probably,” Bernie replied. “Look what she spent on the wedding.”
“Sometimes the people who spend the most have the least,” Libby countered.
“True,” Bernie concurred. She sighed. Running A Little Taste of Heaven had taught her that, if nothing else.
Marvin took another sip of his beer and said that he’d be surprised if there wasn’t a fight over the estate. “In my experience,” he continued, “tenth and eleventh cousins from Outer Mongolia come crawling out of the woodwork when you have an estate worth five thousand dollars, let alone an estate like this. You wait and see.” He paused. “The lawyers are going to have a field day with this one. There won’t be anything left by the time they’re done.”
Bernie reached for another handful of chips. “So, Marvin, do you know who does get the bulk of her money?”
Brandon answered the question instead of Marvin. “That’s easy,” he said.
Bernie jumped, her hand almost knocking over her shot glass. She looked up. Brandon was standing in front of her. “How come I never hear you coming?” she complained.
Brandon did a karate chop. “Because I’m stealthy like a ninja.”
“Yeah, a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound ninja,” Bernie cracked.
Brandon drew himself up. “Please. A two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound ninja.” Then he turned, grabbed the bottle of Jameson, and poured another shot for Bernie and topped off Libby’s glass.
“Okay, big guy, so who does get the money?” Marvin asked. He was fairly certain that Susie’s nephew and niece were getting something—after all, why else would they be tasked with Susie’s burial?—but they weren’t getting everything. Otherwise, they’d have been more generous. In his humble opinion.
Instead of answering, Brandon nodded at Marvin’s nearly empty glass. Marvin shook his head and covered it with his hand. He had a strict one-beer limit, especially when it came to Guinness. There was a reason the advertisements for it used to call a pint of the stuff a sandwich in a bottle.
Brandon nodded, returned the bottle of Jameson to the shelf, turned back around, and answered Marvin’s question. “From what I hear, the bulk of Susie’s estate is going to a variety of organizations having to do with cats.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Bernie said.
“I’ve also heard that she was buying up a lot of real estate,” Brandon added, “so there’s less in the estate than one would imagine. A lot less.”
“Was she buying it down in New York?” Libby asked.
“One would think so,” Brandon replied. “But no. She was buying stuff up around here.”
Bernie sat up a little straighter. “I wonder why.”
“Not a clue,” Brandon told her. “Maybe a big company is coming in. Although,” he reflected, “I haven’t heard anything like that, and I would have.”
Bernie frowned. “Neither have I.” That fact probably didn’t have anything to do with Susie’s death, but at this point any information was welcome. “Interesting. Was she buying commercial or private?”
“Both,” Brandon said. “At least that’s what Evan Molina told me.”
“He made us an offer on our building a couple of years ago,” Libby reflected.
“It probably wouldn’t hurt to go talk to him,” Bernie allowed.
Brandon pointed to a man walking out of the bar. “It also wouldn’t hurt to talk to him.”
Bernie raised an eyebrow. “Andy Dupont?”
“Why should we?” Libby asked.
“Why do you think?” Brandon asked back.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking,” Libby responded.
Brandon grabbed a bottle of water from under the counter, opened it, and took a sip before replying. “I hear Susie’s nephew owes him big-time.”
“From whom did you hear this?” Bernie asked.
“Leonard French was saying something to that guy Caster, the one that’s a TV sports announcer. But that’s all I heard, because they stopped talking when I put their beers down.” Brandon beckoned Bernie closer. “But I can find out the rest if you want. For a price. Of course.” And he twisted the ends of an imaginary mustache and leered.
Bernie giggled. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”
But before Brandon could answer, Libby cut into the conversation. “Why do you think it’s true?” she asked.
“Why would they lie?” Brandon countered. “Besides, I’ve seen Ralph and Andy in here together a fair bit.”
“Maybe Andy was selling Ralph a car,” Libby said, hypothesizing.
Brandon put the cap back on the bottle of water before replying. “Naw. I don’t think so.”
Libby waited for Brandon to explain. Fifteen minutes later, when he was done taking care of customers, he did.
Chapter 14
Brandon took another sip of water, checked the bar to make sure no one needed anything, and began where he’d left off. “So, as I was saying, over the past year or so Ralph starts coming in here once or twice a week, always looking for Andy, and when he finds him, the two of them go outside, in front of the tanning salon, which means they aren’t discussing cars.”
“Why not?” Libby asked, confused by the logical jump Brandon had just made.
“Seriously?” Brandon said.
Marvin intervened. “I don’t get it, either.”
Brandon shook his head. “I get why you don’t get it, Marvin, but Libby’s supposed to have the pulse of Longely.”
“Only Longely’s culinary pulse,” Libby shot back. She nodded at her sister. “I bet Bernie doesn’t know, either.”
“Of course, I know,” Bernie said.
“How do you know and I don’t?” Libby demanded.
“You’d know, too, if you got out more,” Ber
nie told her. Then she explained before Libby could say something about someone needing to mind the store. “Tommy,” Bernie said, referring to RJ’s owner, “told Andy that he didn’t mind him meeting people in the bar, but he couldn’t do business here. That way, the cops can’t bust RJ’s for gambling.”
Libby turned to Brandon. “That’s it?” she asked. “Because what you’re saying seems pretty flimsy to me. Maybe Andy deals. Maybe Andy is Ralph’s supplier.”
“Andy doesn’t do drugs,” Brandon said.
“How do you know?” Libby asked.
“Because I do.” Brandon put his water bottle down to punctuate his sentence. “Drugs would attract Lucy’s attention, but he’s willing to give gambling a pass. Even if Ralph was doing drugs, he was getting them from a different seller, but even if you’re correct and he was getting them from Andy, the result would be the same.”
“Which is?” Libby asked.
“That he owes Andy money,” Brandon answered. “And before you get started,” he went on, “a couple of weeks ago, I saw the two of them over at Andy’s dad’s car lot, and Andy did not look happy. He looked really pissed, and Ralph looked . . .” Brandon paused for a moment to find the right word. “Ralph looked scared. Put everything together and it seems as if what I heard was right. Ralph is into Andy for some big bucks.”
“If that’s true, it would certainly make me anxious,” Libby observed.
“Especially since rumor hath it that Andy Dupont has ties to the mob,” Bernie said, not that you’d ever think that by looking at him. With his horn-rimmed glasses, Brooks Brothers shirts and suits, he looked like a Wall Street banker from the fifties.
“What do you think?” Libby asked.
Bernie snorted. “I think Andy spread those rumors himself. He’s Longely born and raised. Where would he get those ties?”
“How about from Leon Caputti, the guy that lives up on Willow Hill? I heard he served five to ten for loansharking. Maybe Andy is tied up with him,” Libby suggested.
“Or maybe Andy’s off on his own,” Bernie countered. “Dad says that Caputti always has been careful about keeping things out of his backyard—metaphorically speaking.”
Libby frowned. “So, you’re saying that Andy had that kid kneecapped last year all on his own?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Bernie said.
“What kid?” Marvin asked.
“Angie. The one who sold us our espresso machines,” Libby replied. “Googie told me he owed some serious money to Andy. And then there was the deli over on Grant that went up in flames. Googie said that Ron Tyson owed Andy big-time, too.”
“But you know what?” Marvin said.
“What?” Libby asked.
“It doesn’t matter whether Andy Dupont is or isn’t mobbed up.” Marvin jabbed a finger in the air for emphasis. “What matters is if Ralph thinks he is.”
“You may have a point there,” Libby said after a moment’s consideration. “If Ralph owes Andy money and he doesn’t know that Andy is having him on . . . if he is . . .” She stopped and spread her hands out. “Well, then, Andy having mob ties becomes the real deal, even if it isn’t.”
Marvin drained his glass. “Which would give Ralph a motive for killing his aunt. You know, hastening his inheritance along.”
“If he inherits,” Libby said.
“He inherits something,” Marvin replied.
“The question is, how much?” Bernie said. “Is it enough?”
Marvin ate another peanut. “I don’t think it matters.” Libby gave him a skeptical look, and he explained. “If you owe someone ten thousand dollars and you’re getting only eight, you’ll still go after the eight, figuring you’ll get the other two somewhere else.”
“Or,” Bernie said, another thought having occurred to her, “maybe Ralph was stealing from Susie, and she found out and was going to have him arrested.”
“Lots of possibilities.” Libby finished off the last bit of her Jameson. “But getting back to the original topic, who did Susie’s will?”
“That would be Bison,” Marvin said.
Bernie sighed. “Of all the lawyers in all the offices in Longely, he has to be the one. . . .” Bernie’s voice trailed off as she gave up trying to imitate a line from Casablanca.
“He’s definitely not a big fan of yours,” Brandon noted.
“No kidding,” Bernie replied. Bison didn’t like Bernie and Libby and their “shenanigans,” as he put it, and had made no secret of his feelings over the years, telling them that to their faces on several occasions. They had about as much chance of finding out something from him as they had of tunneling into Fort Knox. “Actually, I’m surprised Susie Katz used him,” Bernie went on. “I would have thought she’d have used some big-shot estate lawyer down in New York City instead of a local nobody.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Libby said. “Whoever she picked wouldn’t talk to us, anyway.” She flicked a peanut shell onto the floor. “But maybe Andy will.”
Bernie made a rude noise. “Why should he?” she asked, and then she answered her own question. “He won’t. There’s no reason why he should.”
“He might if there’s something in it for him,” Brandon suggested.
“Like what?” Libby asked.
“Like money,” Brandon said.
“Fear would work better,” Marvin noted.
“Yes, it would,” Libby agreed. “But not for us.” They weren’t exactly imposing figures.
“How much do you think it would take to make it worth his while?” Bernie asked Brandon.
Brandon made sure no one needed him before he answered. “At least a couple of thou.”
“Ha. Ha,” Bernie said. “Seriously.”
“I am being serious,” Brandon said, although he had no idea if what he was saying was true or not.
“A couple of thou?” Libby squawked. “What happened to a twenty?” she cried.
Brandon laughed. “Economy of scale. The price of everything is going up these days. Food, rent, information.”
“Ridiculous,” Libby huffed.
“He’s joking, Libby,” Bernie said to her sister.
“Mostly,” Brandon replied.
“I think I’ll ask him,” Bernie said, sliding off her seat. “See what he says.”
“Be my guest,” Libby told her.
But Andy wasn’t in the parking lot. He’d already left. As Bernie went back in the bar and sat down she realized that was fine with her. On her way to speak to Andy, the day had caught up with her, and she needed to go home and go to bed.
“We’ll talk to him tomorrow,” Bernie told Libby as she finished the last of her drink. “After all, it’s not as if we don’t know where he lives, so to speak.”
Chapter 15
Day two . . .
The Dupont car lot was situated on the outskirts of Longely. Jammed with rust-spotted vehicles that no amount of detailing work could turn into things of beauty, it was always getting code violations. It was a shady operation that specialized in cheap used cars and usurious financing, the kind of place that preyed on the poor and the uninformed.
When Bernie and Libby walked into the trailer that Andy’s father, Big Al, called an office, Andy was sitting with his chair tipped back, his feet up on the desk, and his cell phone glued to his ear. As Bernie looked around, she saw that nothing had changed since she’d bought her first car there fifteen years ago, a car she’d saved up her pennies to buy, a car that had burst into flames two months later—not that she held a grudge or anything.
The same three calendars featuring girls with big boobies in skimpy swimsuits were still tacked up on white walls that had only gotten dirtier with time. The venetian blinds on the windows were still sagging. The two desks on either side of the room were still piled high with papers, old coffee cups, and car magazines.
“Nice to see you’ve improved the place,” Bernie said as Libby closed the door behind them.
“One minute,” Andy mou
thed to Bernie, holding up his hand before turning back to his phone. “Listen,” he said to the person he’d been speaking to, “gotta go. I’ll call you back in a few.” Then he put his feet on the floor, sat up, straightened his shirt collar, and smiled his salesman’s smile.
“Come to get rid of that piece of junk you call a van?” he asked. “I have to say, it’s about time. I can make you a pretty good deal on a couple of 2016s. They’re in mint condition. Absolutely perfect. Less than ten thousand miles. Owned—”
“By a little old lady from Pasadena who drove it only on Saturday,” Bernie said, interrupting Andy’s spiel.
Andy’s smile grew a little less bright. “I was going to say, ‘Driven by a guy who ran a food delivery service for a month before he gave it up.’ ”
“Why did he do that?” Libby asked, not that she would believe what Andy was going to say. She just wanted to hear the story he was going to spin.
“He found out he didn’t like driving,” Andy answered. He got up. “Let me show you the vehicle. Maybe we can even give you a little something on a trade-in.”
“We’re not here for that,” Bernie said.
Andy stopped. He looked confused. “Then what are you here for?”
“To talk about Ralph.”
Andy squinched his eyes together. His smile had vanished to wherever his smiles went. “Who’s Ralph?”
“Ralph Abrams,” Bernie replied.
Andy mimed trying to remember. “Did I sell him a car?”
Libby shook her head.
Andy looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you mean.”
“Really?” Bernie told him.
“Yes, really,” Andy said. He glanced at his watch. “Listen, if you’re not interested in buying anything, I have work I have to get back to.”
Bernie leaned on the edge of the desk. “Let me refresh your memory. Ralph is a tall, skinny redhead. He lives, or did live, with his aunt on the old Connor estate. He and his sister take care of her cats.”
“Oh.” Andy snapped his fingers. “That Ralph, the one that lives with the lady who just got herself killed. I saw it on the evening news.”
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