Sean felt pleased with himself as he strolled along Ash Road. He listened to the birds singing, noticed the wildflowers growing along the road, and considered what he had learned about Susie Katz. It amazed him that she had needed to borrow money from Caputti, but he supposed that when you got to that level of wealth, you had an easy come, easy go kind of attitude when it came to cash. Or at least she had.
He was wondering how you could lose that much money when he saw the unmistakable profile of A Little Taste of Heaven’s van in the distance. Oh no, he thought as it came toward him. This was not good. This was not good at all. He let out a groan. His first thought was to run, but there was no place to go. The road was a straight shot. His second thought was to hide, but there was no place to hide, either, so he puffed out his chest and braced for the inevitable. He knew that Libby would not be pleased. Which turned out to be an understatement.
“I can’t believe you were going to walk the whole way,” Libby said after her dad had gotten in the van.
Sean could see that his daughter was quivering with suppressed emotion. If he was smart, he would just say sorry. But he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I was going to hitch when I got tired,” words he regretted as soon as they had left his mouth, given the look on his daughter’s face. Talk about making a bad situation worse.
“Hitch?” Libby squeaked, almost going off the road. “Hitch?”
“It would have been fine,” Sean countered.
“No, it wouldn’t have been,” Libby replied. “You could have gotten hurt. You could have been killed.”
“Let’s not exaggerate,” Sean retorted. “I used to hitch all the time back in the day.”
“But this isn’t back in the day.” Libby took two deep breaths to get hold of herself. When her dad did this kind of stuff, it made her crazy. That was why she’d sent Marvin with him in the first place.
Sean turned to her. “Listen, I just wanted to see if I could walk a couple of miles. Is that so hard to understand?”
“What if something had happened?” Libby asked.
“But it didn’t.”
“But it could have.”
“And a comet could plow into the earth and destroy it.”
“Come on, Dad,” Libby said, playing her trump card. “Be fair. I have enough to worry about without worrying about you, as well.”
“Sorry,” Sean said, now properly chastened. Then he muttered under his breath, “Guilt, thy name is woman.” It was an ability his wife had had and his daughters had inherited.
“What did you say?” Libby asked.
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” Sean hastily responded.
Libby gave him her patented “I don’t believe you” glance.
“I was trying to help,” Sean explained.
“Helping would have been talking to Marie,” Libby told him, still unable to let things go.
“Fine.” Insulted, Sean turned his head away and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Don’t sulk,” Libby said.
“I’m not sulking,” Sean shot back as he gazed at the scenery going by. If Libby wanted to be that way, it was okay by him.
Libby decided she had gone too far, and she forced herself to apologize, even though in her heart of hearts, she thought she was right. “Did you find anything out?” Libby asked, throwing a peace offering to her dad.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Sean said.
“Are you going to tell me?” Libby asked.
“I suppose,” Sean answered grudgingly, though he was dying to. Then he waited for Libby to coax it out of him. Five minutes later, he judged she’d coaxed enough, and he told her what he’d discovered by talking to Andy Dupont and Caputti, as well as his conclusions from seeing the murder scene.
“Interesting,” Libby said.
“Interesting?” Sean was miffed. “I think it’s a little bit more than interesting,” he replied.
“You’re right. It is,” Libby agreed.
They had ridden a couple of minutes in silence when another thought occurred to Sean.
“How did you know where I’d be?” he asked Libby, even though he had a pretty good idea what her answer would be.
Libby responded promptly. “ESP.”
“Right. Marvin told you, didn’t he?” Sean said as they neared the shop.
“Kinda.”
“Define kinda.”
“Okay. He did. He was worried about you.”
Sean snorted.
“Well, he was,” Libby protested.
Sean didn’t reply. He was too busy thinking about whether or not he should reveal the Snickers bar wrappers to Libby.
“And don’t you dare say anything to him,” Libby warned.
“Who, me?” He decided the Snickers bar wrappers revelation would probably backfire.
Libby put on her “I mean business” face. “I mean it, Dad.”
Sean pointed to himself. “I’d never do anything of the kind.”
Now it was Libby’s turn to snort. “He just has your best interests at heart.”
Sean knew this, but it didn’t help. He was still pissed. He opened his mouth to make a snotty comment, but then his survival skills took over and he shut up, as it occurred to him that he’d already made enough trouble for himself. He didn’t say anything for the last two blocks of the drive home.
“Ah, the prodigal traveler returns,” Bernie quipped as Sean descended from the van. She’d seen him from the store window and come out to lend her moral support in the face of her sister’s disapproval.
“I suppose you’re upset with me, too,” Sean said, grimacing.
Bernie laughed. “Not at all.”
Sean brightened. “Good girl.” Having one of his daughters mad at him was bad; two was worse, even if he was right.
“Do you know what he was going to do?” Libby demanded of Bernie as she walked over to where her sister was standing.
“Take a rocket to the moon? Rob a bank?”
Libby didn’t crack a smile. “He was going to hitch a ride,” she told Bernie.
Bernie shrugged. “So what?”
Libby put her hands on her hips. “What do you mean, so what?”
“Exactly what I said,” Bernie told her sister. “It’s not as if we’re living in the Southeast Bronx, for heaven’s sake. Longely is a pretty safe place. You know what the trouble with you is, Libby?” Bernie continued. “You worry too much.”
“Well, excuse me for being concerned when I saw Dad’s wallet and phone on the dresser after Marvin called,” Libby sputtered. “Excuse me for caring.”
“It would have been fine,” Sean insisted, now heartily sorry that he’d started this whole mess.
Bernie patted him on the shoulder. “I’m sure it would have been.”
“That isn’t the point, Bernie,” Libby objected. “The point is—”
Bernie interrupted her sister. “You know what? Let’s eat. We can discuss this later.”
“More food, less drama” was her motto.
“Yes, let’s,” Sean agreed enthusiastically, happy for a distraction. Also, he was hungry.
Libby agreed as well, albeit reluctantly.
Chapter 27
Bernie looked around the room and smiled. She’d made the right decision. Everyone looked happier. How could you not be when you were dining on poached salmon with dill sauce; new potatoes; and a tomato, cucumber, and avocado salad sprinkled with Maldon sea salt flakes and roasted pine nuts? It was a meal that said summer was coming. A meal that spoke to the heart.
“I guess I was hungry,” Libby admitted as she bit into a new potato. The combination of the crisp roasted skin, creamy inside, melting butter, and sparkling salt never failed to satisfy.
“Me too,” Sean said as he fed a small piece of salmon to the cat, then ate the rest of it himself. Copper River salmon. Nothing could beat it, and this piece was poached to perfection, a difficult feat to achieve. Sometimes, he thought, you can’t beat the classics. They’d e
ndured for a reason.
“I hear you had a nice chat with your old friend,” Bernie said, beginning the conversation about her dad’s afternoon adventures.
“He’s not my friend,” Sean protested.
“Acquaintance, then,” Libby said. She’d never liked the man. She didn’t like what he represented. Her mom had called him a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Actually, she’d called him a lot worse than that. For some reason, though, her dad had always liked Caputti.
“Anything interesting come out of the conversation?” Bernie asked Sean.
“I think so,” Sean said. And he told her what he’d told Libby.
“I find the fact that Susie Katz needed to borrow money interesting,” Bernie observed when her dad was through talking.
“It is,” Sean said. He waved his fork in the air, then speared a piece of avocado. “But, on the other hand, she wasn’t exactly without funds. After all, she put enough money in trust to support the running of her house, pay Grace and Ralph, and keep the cats in caviar—so to speak. Not to mention pay you. She did have money for the party. A lot of money.”
“True,” Libby said as she tasted the salad. It was good. Not great, but good. Some fresh corn and ground black pepper might be enough to make it superlative. “If I had to guess, I’d bet,” she said after she’d swallowed, “that Susie put the bulk of her money in some sort of untouchable trust and then borrowed from everyone. And they lent it to her because they thought she had money to pay them back.”
“Which she had no intention of doing,” Bernie said.
“That’s why she was rich,” Libby said. “Always use other people’s money if you can. I read that in one of those ‘how to get rich’ books.”
Bernie sighed. “I wish we could pull that off.”
“Me too,” Libby agreed.
“I could see where that kind of thing would really piss people off,” Sean observed. “But that’s really not germane to why Susie was murdered. In this case, the motive was personal.”
“Exactly,” Bernie said. “I mean, think about it. Who did Susie invite to the wedding? People who hated her. Why did they hate her? They all had run-ins with her over cats. Allison tried to set Susie’s cats free at the cat show, Marie complained to the CFA’s powers that be about the lineage of Susie’s cats, cats Susie had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on, while Charlene went to the zoning board to complain about the number of cats Susie had in her house and asked that they be removed.”
“Don’t forget, she was going to take Charlene’s and Marie’s houses, as well,” Sean reminded them. “On the other hand, we’re not sure about the timeline for that, so let’s leave that out of the equation for the moment.”
“Agreed. Let’s discuss Grace and Ralph instead,” Libby suggested.
“Ralph’s easy,” Bernie replied. “He had gambling debts, he was being threatened with bodily harm, and his aunt, I’m assuming, could have helped him out and wouldn’t.”
Libby ate her last salad leaf. “And Grace?”
Bernie remembered the look on Grace’s face when she’d shown them the dress Susie had made her wear. “Maybe she was tired of being Susie’s trained seal. After all, with Susie dead, she gets her freedom.”
“Not exactly,” Libby said. “She still has the cats.”
“But she likes the cats,” Bernie reminded her sister. “And she gets the house and money to run it and no one to tell her what to do.”
Libby nodded. What Bernie had said was true.
“And as long as we’re talking about people, what about Mrs. Van Trumpet?” Sean asked, continuing the conversation. “After all, she was there, and you said you can’t account for her whereabouts between the time Susie opened the box of mice and Susie’s death.”
“I think she got in her car and went home,” Bernie said.
Sean sought to clarify. “Think or know?”
“Think,” Bernie replied.
“Her car was gone when you went into the house?”
“I think so, but I’m not sure,” Bernie confessed. “I don’t remember.” She turned to her sister. “Do you remember?”
Libby shook her head. “No. I didn’t look. I was just thinking of getting the cats back in the house before they got out of their carriages.” She ate the last piece of her salmon and thought about dessert. She was almost positive they still had a third of a peach pie left downstairs. “But why would she want to kill Susie?” she asked, taking up the conversational thread again. “Of everyone there, she has the weakest reason. She was getting paid to perform a service. She didn’t have a relationship with her.”
“Are you sure?” Sean asked.
Libby looked sheepish. “I’m pretty sure.”
“But?” Sean prodded.
“I’m not positive.”
“Exactly,” Sean said, and he sat back in his chair, satisfied that he’d made his point. “What do we know about her?”
“Aside from the obvious,” Libby replied, “not much.”
Bernie got up. “Let’s see what I can find out online,” she said, and she went to get her laptop.
“And I’m going to bring up the last of the peach pie,” Libby announced.
Sean rubbed his hands together and sighed in contentment. Libby’s peach pie was his favorite, but then so was her strawberry-rhubarb, blueberry, apple, and pumpkin. In his opinion, pie was the perfect end to a meal. Or the perfect snack. Or breakfast.
An hour later, every last crumb of the peach pie had been eaten, the coffee had been drunk, and Bernie had read everything online that she could about Gertrude Van Trumpet. There wasn’t much there. No Web site, which surprised Bernie. Just ten articles, all of them laudatory, but not one of them mentioned a way to get in touch with Mrs. Van Trumpet. Next, Bernie had tried several online phone books, but she wasn’t listed there, either.
“That’s weird,” Libby said. “You’d think she’d want to make it easy to get ahold of her.”
“Maybe she’s so exclusive that you need a personal introduction,” Bernie said, hypothesizing. “Like with Go-yard bags. You can’t buy them online. You have to go to a store. That’s how they keep their cachet. Limited access.”
“Well, Susie had to get the number from somewhere,” Libby observed.
“Perhaps it’s on Susie’s Rolodex,” Sean suggested.
“Rolodex? What’s a Rolodex?” Bernie asked.
Sean shook his head. God, did he feel old at times like these. He explained.
“Do people still have those?” Bernie asked in a faintly condescending tone.
“There was life before Google, you know,” Sean snapped. “People actually had to know things back then.”
Bernie apologized. “You think Susie had one?”
“I know she did,” Sean told her. “I saw it in her desk drawer.”
“And that Van Trumpet’s phone number is there?” Bernie asked.
Sean shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out. Call Grace and ask her.”
Libby did. Grace answered on the fourth ring, and Libby explained what she wanted.
“No problem,” Grace told her. “Hold on. I’ll check right now.”
She came back on the line a couple of minutes later with Mrs. Van Trumpet’s address and phone number. Sean couldn’t help smirking as Libby wrote the information down on the back of an old envelope. One for the old guys, he thought.
“I think you should go see her,” Sean said.
“Definitely,” Libby agreed. Over the years, she’d found that in person always worked best. “She lives in Great Hill.”
Bernie raised an eyebrow. Somehow, she’d expected her to live someplace swankier. “Interesting.”
“Not what I would have expected,” Libby noted.
“Not at all,” Bernie said as she collected the dishes to bring downstairs. At least, she thought, Great Hill wasn’t that far away.
“And while you do that,” Sean said, “I’m going to do a little more poking around and see w
hat I can come up with.”
“Just be careful, Dad,” Libby said.
“I’m always careful,” Sean huffed. Then he turned on the TV. As far as he was concerned, there had been enough discussion about his abilities for one night.
Chapter 28
Day four . . .
Contrary to its name, Great Hill was built on a stretch of flatland situated two miles in from the Hudson River. Maybe there’d been a big hill there once upon a time, but that had been a long time ago. Now the only hill in town was a gentle rise as you came off the highway onto Main Street.
The place had come into existence seventy years ago. It had been populated, and still was, by the people who worked for the rich folk in the surrounding area. If the town had a claim to fame, it was that the place was instantly forgettable. It wasn’t cute; it wasn’t awful; it wasn’t great. It simply was.
You could drive through there and not remember anything about it when you drove out, basically because there was nothing to remember. Bernie had always thought that that had been the town’s salvation, because while the other townships around it had fallen prey to housing hysteria as people who were priced out of New York City moved to Westchester, Great Hill had been skipped. Housing prices had grown at a snail’s pace. So far at least.
“It won’t be long before this place is discovered,” Libby predicted as Bernie looked for the street they had to turn onto.
“You said that last year,” Bernie pointed out. “But I haven’t seen an espresso bar or a farm-to-table restaurant yet.”
“But you will. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Everything is just a matter of time.” But what Libby had said was true. These days people were snapping up anything that was available, even if it was a two-hour commute into the city. Not for the first time, Bernie thought about how lucky she was to be living upstairs from where she worked.
“There,” Libby said, pointing to a sign that said Elm Street.
Bernie nodded and turned in. The street had an unloved feel to it. As if the people who lived there slept and ate there and nothing more. The houses looked as if they’d been built in the early fifties by one developer, because they all looked the same. Small colonials with three-step porches leading up to an entranceway painted white, with dark green trim. All the houses had postage-stamp front yards ringed with white picket fences. A few of the houses had foundation plantings, but most didn’t.
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