The three women sat in silence for a moment. Then Bernie said, “How did you come to marry cats?”
Gladys smiled. “I saw a cat-marrying ceremony on Facebook and thought, I can do that, and Gertrude Van Trumpet was born. I have almost enough saved to move out of here.” The waitress came and refilled Gladys’s cup. Gladys added two more packs of sugar and took a sip before continuing. “I think Allison must have told Susie about me. That’s the only explanation I can come up with that explains how Susie knew. She called me up out of the blue and told me I had to do this or else. . . .”
“Or else what?” Libby asked.
“That she’d out me. If that happened, my business would disappear. Hell, no one will hire an ex-con to mow their lawns, let alone do what I do.”
Neither Libby nor Bernie disagreed, because they knew what Gladys was saying was true.
“How did Allison know?” Bernie asked.
“We were in a halfway house down in Yonkers together after I got released,” Gladys answered. She straightened up. “Now, if you want someone that hated Susie, I’d talk to Allison.”
“We’re planning on it,” Libby said.
“Allison lost everything because of her,” Gladys remarked. “Her job, her house, her boyfriend. And you know the worst thing of all?”
“No,” Libby said. “What’s the worst thing of all?”
“Susie wouldn’t let it go. Whenever Allison got a job, Susie found out and went in and got her fired. She must have had a private detective or something following her.” Gladys drained the last of her coffee from her cup, slid out of the booth, and stood up. “She really was a horrible human being,” she pronounced. “Susie, not Allison.”
“I figured,” Libby said.
“Whoever killed her did everyone a huge favor,” Gladys said. Then she walked away.
Bernie and Libby watched her go.
“What do you think?” Bernie asked Libby as the diner door shut behind Gladys.
“I think she could have done it,” Libby said. “But then so could have Allison.”
“So could have Charlene and Marie, for that matter,” Bernie replied. “Everyone had the motive and the opportunity.”
“And the means,” Libby added, thinking of the letter opener lying on Susie’s desk. “Don’t forget that.”
“And therein lies our problem,” Bernie said as she signaled the waitress for their bill. Her phone rang while the waitress was getting it. Bernie answered. It was Lucy, Longely’s stalwart chief of police, wanting an update on the progress she and her sister were making, so Bernie gave him one.
“You lied,” Libby told Bernie when she was done.
“I didn’t lie,” Bernie replied. “I exaggerated.”
“You said we’re making progress.”
“Speaking to people is making progress,” Bernie pointed out. “Anyway, what else am I going to tell him?”
“Good point,” Libby said. She watched as Bernie paid the bill. “So, he doesn’t have a clue, either?”
“Apparently not,” Bernie replied as she got up to go. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t be bugging us.”
Libby got up, too. “This is not good.”
“No, it isn’t,” Bernie agreed. Part of her didn’t believe Lucy’s threat to put her and her sister in jail, but the other part of her thought he would do it in a heartbeat. What would happen to her dad? What would happen to the shop? What would happen to her feet if she couldn’t get a pedicure?
“What now?” Libby asked Bernie, interrupting her thoughts.
“We work faster,” Bernie said as she and her sister headed for the door. “A lot faster.”
Chapter 30
Bernie and Libby had planned to do some errands on their way back to A Little Taste of Heaven, but in light of the conversation Bernie had just had with Lucy, they decided that sampling a new brand of olive oil, looking at coolers, and picking out paint swatches for the shop walls could wait for another day.
Instead, Bernie and Libby decided to take a detour and stop at what the police, if they’d been asked, would have referred to as Allison’s last known address, hoping that she would be home. The house Allison was staying in was really more of a shack. A rental on the outskirts of Longely, it was situated behind a UPS store, and if you didn’t know where the house was, you’d walk right by it, because it was located at the end of a narrow, unmarked path, a path that the landlord had ceased maintaining years ago.
But Bernie and Libby had had a friend in high school who had lived there for a brief amount of time, and they’d visited. It had been the sisters’ first encounter with a wood-burning stove and an outhouse, and they had come away from their visit enchanted, anxious to convert their house to a similar configuration.
Libby was laughing, remembering the horrified look on her mother’s face when she’d begged her mother to install an outhouse in the backyard, as she and Bernie started down the path. It was narrower than Libby remembered. Sumac, box elders, and maples had taken over, cutting off the sunlight. Bernie had taken a few steps when she felt her Manolos start to sink. The ground was muddy from last night’s rain, and because there was no sun, the ground hadn’t dried out.
“Damn,” she said, taking her sandals off. She wasn’t about to ruin a five-hundred-dollar pair of shoes, even though she’d paid only two hundred for them. Then she remembered she had an old pair of sneakers in the van. “Be right back,” she told Libby and trotted off.
Unfortunately, her sneakers weren’t there. She recalled she’d put them back in her closet. But then she spotted Libby’s old loafers on the floor, along with a couple of used coffee cups and yesterday’s paper. Bernie debated for a New York minute before slipping them on her feet.
She knew Libby would be pissed because of the underwear incident—how was she to know that that had been the last pair of Libby’s clean underpants?—but what were the options? Go barefoot or come back here some other time. Neither of those would work. On her feet those loafers would go. Libby would just have to deal with it.
“Hey,” Libby cried when Bernie came back. “Are those my shoes you’re wearing?”
“Well, they ain’t mine,” Bernie replied, looking down at the scuffed loafers with worn-down heels. In normal times, she wouldn’t be caught dead in loafers, let alone shoes in this condition.
“You could have asked.”
“Sorry,” Bernie said. Then she lied. “I thought it would be fine.”
Libby drew herself up and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, it’s not.”
Bernie snorted. “Getting a little grumpy, are we? Forgot to eat your daily allotment of chocolate?”
“I’m not grumpy.”
“Then what would you call it?” asked Bernie, who believed that the best defense was a good offense.
“I would call it my being tired of your borrowing my stuff without asking,” Libby told her.
“I already said I was sorry about the underpants. Anyway, this is only the second thing I’ve borrowed this month,” Bernie retorted.
“That’s not true,” Libby replied. “What about my blue sweater?”
“I didn’t borrow it. I donated it.”
“You what?” Libby asked, aghast. She’d been looking for that sweater for the past three weeks.
“I said I donated it,” Bernie repeated, emphasizing each word.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“But I loved that sweater,” Libby wailed.
“That sweater wasn’t fit to be seen in public,” Bernie told her. “It had holes under the arms, and the collar was ripped. Even Goodwill wouldn’t take it. I gave it to the fabric consortium.”
“I had that sweater since my senior year in high school. Orion gave it to me,” Libby told her. Orion was her old boyfriend.
“Exactly,” Bernie replied. “It was time to let it go.”
Libby jabbed a finger in her direction. “How would you feel if I got rid of some of your things?” she demanded.<
br />
“I take care of my things,” Bernie told her. “I put them away in the closet.”
Libby put her hands on her hips. “And you’re saying I don’t?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Bernie pointed to the shoes on her feet. “These have been on the floor of the van for the past six months.”
“Maybe I wanted them there,” Libby told her. “Did you think of that? And if they weren’t there, you’d have to wear your precious Manolos. You should be thanking me for my foresight!”
One for you, Bernie thought, but she didn’t say that. Instead, she changed the subject and pointed to the path that led to the house. “Do you want to do this or not?”
“Do it,” Libby said grudgingly.
“Okay. Then let’s get going.”
“Fine,” Libby said, and she turned and reentered the path.
Libby squinted because it was dim on the path, the light filtering uncertainly through the canopy of leaves above them. The ground was slippery, as well, and Libby had to concentrate on avoiding the tree roots and the thorns on the black raspberry bushes that snaked their way across the path, not to mention the thick poison ivy vines that wound themselves up the trunks of some of the trees. She shuddered while looking at them, because she was violently allergic.
For a minute, the only thing Libby and Bernie heard were the chirps of the birds and the rustle of the squirrels jumping from tree branch to tree branch. Then, after a couple of minutes had gone by, Bernie extended an olive branch and spoke.
“I wouldn’t want to come through here at night to get home,” she observed. “Especially if I’d had too much to drink.”
“I wouldn’t want to walk through here, period,” Libby said. “Allison must be really broke to be living here.”
“How much do you think she’s paying?” Bernie asked.
“Got me,” Libby said as she rounded the bend and 305 Laurel came into view. The five cats that had been lounging in front of the house scampered away. “But whatever it is, it’s too much,” Libby added, taking in the house standing in the clearing. “Do you think this place looked this bad when we were here?”
“No, but it was a long time ago,” Bernie allowed.
“Fifteen years,” Libby noted.
“Scary how fast time goes,” Bernie said.
The house had always been a higgledy-piggledy affair. That was part of its charm. It was cobbled together from wooden pallets and random pilfered building materials, and Bernie had always thought it looked like the old man’s crooked little house in the nursery rhyme, what with the gingerbread tracery on the eaves, the window boxes hanging from the window sashes, and the faded light brown cedar shingles on the upper part of the house. It was a tiny place, probably no bigger than seven hundred square feet of living space. When Bernie and Libby had been there last, the place had had a slight lean to it. Now the lean wasn’t so slight. It was a definite tilt.
“The place looks as if it’s going to fall down,” Bernie observed, noticing the tiles missing from the roof and the lopsided door.
“All it would take is one big puff from the big, bad wolf,” Libby reflected. Then she pointed to the chimney, a metal pipe attached to the house with bands of steel, which was leaning to the left. “Remind me not to stand under that,” she said as she walked around three metal bowls full of dried cat food and a large metal bowl full of water. “I wonder how many cats Allison has.”
“A lot,” Bernie answered, taking a guess, as she spied a white one with a black spot on its nose peeking out from around a corner of the house. Bernie thought it was coming out to see them, but then Libby called out Allison’s name and the cat scurried away.
Allison didn’t answer. Libby tried again. The result was the same.
Libby looked at Bernie, and Bernie looked at Libby.
“It seems a shame to have come all this way . . . ,” Libby said, her voice trailing off.
Bernie indicated the door with her chin. “I don’t see a lock, do you?”
“Nice to know some things never change,” Libby said as she placed her hand on the door and pushed. Nothing happened. She pushed harder. This time the door swung open with a loud protesting groan. It had always had a tendency to stick, but since the house had settled, the door was more recalcitrant than it had been before.
Libby stepped inside, and Bernie followed. Since they’d last been here, the kitchen floor had developed a precipitous slope to the left and some of its tiles had rotted out, probably from a leak in the roof, and from where Libby was standing, she could see the floor had begun to separate from the walls.
“I’m surprised this place hasn’t been condemned,” Bernie commented. Nevertheless, the place still had a modicum of charm to it, Bernie decided, what with its light yellow enamel wood-burning stove, fabric-decorated walls, and mismatched kitchen cabinets. Then she pointed to the five-gallon jugs of water lining the wall and said, “Not having running water would make me crazy. I could do without the electricity, but I definitely couldn’t do without the plumbing.”
“I wonder why no one put a lock on the door,” Libby mused as she took stock of the place, inhaling the smoky campfire smell that lingered in the air.
“Why bother,” Bernie replied, “when you can go through the window if you want to get in?”
“Anyway, who would want to be here in the first place?” Libby said.
“I don’t think want is the correct verb in Allison’s case. I think has to be is,” Bernie responded. “You know,” she continued, “if I were Allison and I had had a job and a decent place to live and Susie did this to me, I’d want to kill her, too.”
“Well, Susie definitely didn’t know when to stop,” Libby observed. “Which I suppose is why someone stopped her,” she noted as she hugged herself and rubbed her arms. She was getting goose bumps. “It must be twenty degrees colder in here,” she complained.
“It’s the trees,” Bernie noted as she went over to a Formica table sitting in a far corner of the room and began looking through the stack of mail on the table. “I’d hate to be here in the winter.”
“Me too,” Libby agreed, thinking of how cold it probably got and all the wood you’d have to burn to keep this place warm. Then she said, “Maybe we should wait outside,” because she was having second thoughts about what they were doing.
Bernie looked up for a minute from the mail. “Why?” she asked.
“Well, in case Allison comes back . . .”
“We’ll apologize,” Bernie told her.
“I suppose,” Libby said doubtfully. “What are we looking for, anyway?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Bernie said cheerfully. So far, the mail on the table consisted of flyers, old magazines, cutout vegan recipes, and the only thing of interest, a brochure about the next cat show. “I wonder if she’s planning some sort of protest,” Bernie said as she held up the brochure. The date the show was going to be held on and the address had been circled in red.
Libby looked up from the kitchen cabinet she’d started going through. A cursory glance had revealed that the first two cabinets were filled with bags of cat food and cat treats, while the third cabinet contained a few cans of baked beans, a couple of packages of Oreos, and some ramen noodles. “When is the show?”
“End of the week,” Bernie said. “I mean, why else circle it like that if you aren’t planning on doing something? It’s not as if she has show cats, and she’s certainly not going there as a spectator.”
“Given what happened to Allison the last time she tried something like that, I’d have to say she’s certainly committed to her cause,” Libby remarked. She’d just closed the third cabinet door when she heard a pop, followed by a whistling sound. A pillow on the sofa near her exploded in a shower of feathers. She was staring at it when there was another pop and a second pillow blew up.
For a moment, Libby stood there frozen, unable to make sense of what was happening. “What the hell?” she muttered, not knowing what to thi
nk. It sounded like fireworks, but the pillows wouldn’t be exploding if it were. Then there was a third pop, and Libby understood. “Someone is shooting at us,” she cried as she hit the floor. “Call the police.”
“Are you sure?” Bernie asked. She hadn’t seen the pillows.
“No. I’m joking,” Libby said. “For heaven’s sake, get down!”
Chapter 31
Afew seconds later, Bernie saw a mug explode on what passed for the kitchen counter—two sawhorses and a couple of planks. “Holy moly,” she said. “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Libby told her as Bernie followed Libby down to the floor. “You think I’d say something like that for laughs?”
Bernie didn’t reply. She was too busy getting her phone out of her tote and dialing 911. Unfortunately, there was no service where they were. Libby was not pleased when Bernie told her.
“ ‘It’ll be fine,’ you said,” Libby told her, imitating her sister’s voice. “ ‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ you said. ‘No problem,’ you said.”
“You agreed,” Bernie said from under the shelter of the table. “In fact, you were the one who suggested it.”
Libby slithered closer to the sofa, figuring it was the bulkiest thing in the room. “But then, if you remember, I changed my mind,” she told her.
Another bullet hit the table where Bernie had been standing a few minutes ago. She watched as envelopes and flyers fluttered to the floor. “At least whoever is doing this is a bad shot,” she noted.
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Libby demanded.
“I’m trying to be optimistic here. You know, see the glass half full and all the rest of that nonsense.”
Libby stretched her leg out. She was getting a cramp. Then she rubbed her elbow. She’d knocked it on the edge of the wooden cabinet on the way down. “Who the hell is doing this, anyway?”
“Damned if I know,” Bernie replied. She took a deep breath and started belly crawling to the window. She cursed silently, hoping there wasn’t something on the floor that was going to permanently stain her vintage Pucci wraparound dress, which was one of her favorite dresses—not that she was shallow or anything.
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