“Yeah. But now it’s over, over,” Libby said.
Somehow, Bernie had pictured a different outcome. “This is not turning out well.”
“You think?” Libby said, instead of saying what she really wanted to say, which was, “I told you so.”
“Of course, this might have an upside,” Bernie said as she twisted the doorknob. “Or not. It looks as if this is the kind of door that locks automatically.”
Libby stifled a yawn. The drink she’d had at RJ’s was catching up with her. “Time to go home,” she announced as she started down the steps.
“I suppose,” Bernie said as she followed her sister. She was just about to get into the van when an idea occurred to her. She held up her hand. “Give me a sec.”
“What now?” Libby asked.
Bernie pointed to the attached garage’s door. “It’s manual,” she noted.
“So what?”
“So, that means that unless it’s locked, I can open it.”
“And you want to do that why?” Libby asked in exasperation.
“Because I want to see what’s inside.”
“There’s nothing inside that’s going to be of any possible interest to us,” Libby said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I think it’s a pretty fair assumption. Let’s go home.”
“It’ll take me two seconds.”
“Bernie, Marie will be back any minute. What are you going to say to her when she sees you in there? ‘Gee, thought I’d take a tour of your garage and see what you’ve done with the decor?’ I mean, it’s not as if she’s not going to notice.”
“I’ll put the door down,” Bernie said as she walked over to the garage door. “She won’t see a thing.”
“You’re going to get us arrested,” Libby complained as she watched her sister take a step forward, plant both her feet firmly on the ground, bend down, grab the door handle with both hands, and yank upward. The garage door let out a groan and rose.
“Don’t be so negative,” Bernie told Libby before she took a couple of steps inside.
As she surveyed the interior, the phrase “A place for everything and everything in its place” crossed her mind. The inside of the garage was meticulous. The garden hose was neatly coiled around its holder; the lawn mower sat in the far left-hand corner, next to two large bags of fertilizer, a couple of bags of sphagnum moss, and a bag of rose food, while snow shovels, spades, hoes, and rakes hung from pegs on the wall. The two shelves in the back of the garage were neatly filled with gardening implements, cartons of mason jars, boxes of toilet tissue and paper towels, and boxes of cat food. But there was a smell in there, a smell Bernie couldn’t place. And then she saw its source.
“Libby,” she cried, turning to face the van. “You lose big-time.”
Chapter 35
“Good God,” Libby said as she stared at what lay in front of her.
“You were wrong,” Bernie told her.
“Apparently, I was.”
“There’s no apparently about it.”
“Fine,” Libby told her. “I was wrong. I admit it. Happy?”
“Very.” Bernie grinned. “I told you.”
“Don’t gloat,” her sister grumped. She hated being wrong. Especially this wrong. “It’s rude.”
“I’m trying not to,” Bernie said as she and her sister went back to staring at the cages over in the right-hand corner of the garage.
“And not succeeding very well, I might add,” Libby noted as she took a step forward to get a better look. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
“I can’t think of any other thing it could mean,” Bernie replied.
“But why keep them?” Libby mused as she continued to stare at the cages. “Given the circumstances, it seems like a stupid thing to do.”
“I can’t even begin to speculate,” Bernie said. She noted that the four yellow plastic cages were connected to each other with lighter yellow plastic pipes. Each cage contained a bowl of food, a water bowl, cedar shavings, a little house, and field mice.
Bernie counted twenty mice in all, but given the size of the cages, she bet there’d been more before. The mice had been sleeping when Bernie opened the garage door, but the noise and the light had woken them up. Now they were milling around, sniffing, their attention directed at Bernie and Libby.
“I bet they’re waiting to be fed,” Bernie said, and she started to look around for their food. She’d just spotted it on the top shelf on the back wall when Libby tapped her on the shoulder and called her name.
Bernie turned around to see Marie standing behind her. “No kitties?” Bernie asked, saying the first thing that came into her head.
“They’re in the house. More to the point, what are you doing in here?” Marie demanded.
“We were looking for your kitties, too,” Bernie lied. “We thought we heard meowing coming from the garage, and we knew you would want us to investigate.”
“They ran the other way,” Marie said.
“We thought they doubled back,” Libby said, coming to her sister’s defense. “Cats do that. But in this case, I can see that we were wrong.”
Marie glared at her. “A likely story,” she told Libby as she dabbed at a scratch on her arm. Her eyes narrowed. “You’re trespassing. I’m going to call the police. I’m going to call them right now.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Libby asked.
“And why wouldn’t I?” Marie asked.
Bernie pointed to the cages full of mice. “That’s why.”
Marie did a good approximation of shock. “Those aren’t mine. I never saw those mice in my life.”
“Maybe you saw them in your past one? This is your garage, isn’t it?” Libby asked. When Marie didn’t answer, Libby added, “So how could you have never seen them?”
Marie took her braid and moved it from her shoulder to her back before replying. Then she said, “I never saw them, because I never go in here. I park my car outside because the door is too heavy to lift all the time.” A fact Bernie could attest to. The door did weigh a ton, and she would do the same thing in Marie’s place. “And the lock is broken,” Marie said. “Anyone, and I do mean anyone, can come in.”
Bernie gestured to her sister and herself. “Like us?”
“Yes, like you,” Marie said. “I’m being framed,” Marie declared. “Someone is setting me up. Like you two.”
“And why would we do that?” Libby asked.
“To get yourselves off the hook,” Marie replied.
Bernie made a rude noise and tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. “Oh, please, spare me. Can’t you come up with something better? You’re embarrassing me.”
“It’s true,” Marie insisted. Her chin began to quiver. She wiped her hands on her jeans. “It is. Talk to Allison. She’s probably the one behind this.”
Bernie gestured to the mouse food on the shelf in the back. “What you’re saying is that Allison sneaks in here every day and feeds and waters the mice and cleans their cages? Is that what you’re saying? And you’ve never noticed?”
“She does it when I am out of the house,” Marie told her.
Bernie laughed. “Seriously?”
Marie stuck her chin out. “Okay, so maybe they are mine. Maybe I just like them and I can’t keep them in the house, because of the cats.”
“You expect us to believe that?” Libby asked.
“Why not?” Marie countered. “Some people like snakes. I like mice. In any case, you can’t prove that these mice are the ones that were at the wedding.”
“Not those exact ones,” Bernie replied. “But they look a lot like the mice at Boris and Natasha’s wedding, not to mention the ones that were so thoughtfully dropped off at our shop.”
Marie shrugged her shoulders. “Mice are mice.”
“No. They’re not,” Bernie said. “Each one has a unique DNA profile. All we have to do is compare the profiles of the mice that were present at the wedding and at our shop and
the profiles of these mice”—Bernie pointed to the mice in the cages—“and we’ll have our killer.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Marie said. “How do you expect me to believe something like that?”
“Because it’s true,” Bernie lied. She reached for her phone. “I thought you might want to explain, but, hey, if you don’t want to, that’s okay, too. I’ll just call the cops, and you can talk to them. I think this is about the time you get in touch with your lawyer.”
Marie looked from Bernie to Libby and back again. “Okay. Okay,” she said. “So, I was the one who sent the mice. I did it. I admit it. But I didn’t kill Susie.” Marie reached up and began massaging her neck with her right hand. “I was with Charlene. We went to her house and had a glass of wine to celebrate. Two glasses, actually. We killed the bottle.”
“So, Charlene knew what you were going to do?” Libby asked.
“Not only did she know,” Marie said, “she was the one who suggested it.”
“Really?” Bernie said as she folded her arms across her chest.
“Yes, really,” Marie replied. “She wasn’t serious, but once she suggested it, I couldn’t resist. Considering what Susie was doing to us, considering that she was making us attend that stupid wedding, I thought this was the least I could do. A kind of ‘punishment fitting the crime’ kind of thing.”
“And did Charlene think it was a good idea to send a little package to our shop, too?” Libby demanded.
“Yeah, she did,” Marie said.
“And you went along with it?” Libby asked.
Marie shrugged. “I told Charlene not to, but she insisted.”
“Why?” Bernie asked. “What was the rationale?”
“She figured it would make you think of Allison.”
Bernie shook her head. She didn’t get it. “For what reason?”
“Allison let a whole bunch of mice out at a cat show in Florida two years ago,” Marie explained.
“That’s news to us,” Libby said, pointing to herself and her sister.
“Charlene thought you knew,” Marie told her.
“Who delivered the packages?” Bernie asked, changing the subject.
“Charlene’s nephew. But he didn’t know what was in the boxes,” Marie swore. “He was just doing Charlene a favor.”
“Nice aunt,” Bernie observed. “Nothing like making your nephew an accessory to a crime.”
Chapter 36
“Do you believe Marie?” Libby asked Bernie as they got back in the van.
“About not killing Susie? I don’t disbelieve her, but then I don’t believe her, either. I think I’m on the fence,” Bernie told her sister as she inserted the key in Mathilda’s ignition and turned it.
“No. About the mice. About raising them as pets.”
“Absolutely not. I think she got the idea and then acquired the mice.”
“From Baker’s Supply?”
Bernie nodded while she listened to the engine cough and shudder. She had been doing some research online and had found that Baker’s sold animals, including deer mice, to labs.
“Come on, Mathilda. You can do it,” Bernie coaxed, while Libby crossed her fingers and said a prayer to the car gods. Bernie gave the engine a little more gas. The engine spluttered. Bernie silently cursed as she turned the engine off, counted to sixty, and tried again. This time the engine caught.
“We need a new battery,” Bernie observed as she pulled out of the driveway onto Victor Street. “Or a new starter.”
“Or a new van,” Libby said. “Maybe we should take Andy up on his deal.”
“When hell freezes over,” Bernie said, remembering her first car and the way it had caught on fire. The only good thing about it was that she hadn’t been in it when it happened.
“You certainly carry a grudge,” Libby remarked.
“Let’s just say I have a long memory,” Bernie told her sister as she turned left onto Eclipse Avenue. Charlene’s house was a little less than seven minutes away—if you knew where you were going. Bernie had a general idea, but the roads were confusing in the dark, winding this way and that to create a maze, and for some reason, Bernie’s GPS was off-line, which didn’t help matters.
“Just because something happened once doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again,” Libby said as she looked out the window and tried to figure out which road they needed to take to get them to Charlene’s house.
“Fool me once, shame on . . .”
“You. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Libby said, finishing her sister’s sentence for her. “I know. I know. We’re never going to get a new van, are we?” she asked.
“Not until Jose tells us to,” Bernie answered. Jose was their mechanic. “He thinks Mathilda can make it to two hundred thousand.”
“Well, when we break down in the middle of nowhere. . .”
Bernie laughed. “In the middle of a raging blizzard . . .”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Libby replied.
“I won’t have to,” Bernie told her. “You’ll say it for me.”
“Cute,” Libby said, and since there was no point in continuing the van discussion, she went back to concentrating on which street they should turn onto. “I hate these kind of developments,” she groused. “It’s like they design these roads like this on purpose.”
“They do,” Bernie said.
“Why?” Libby asked as she bent down and scratched her ankle.
“To keep the riffraff out, obviously.”
Libby scratched some more. “That’s us, all right.” Then she leaned forward and squinted, trying to read the street sign they’d just gone by, but she couldn’t. Bernie was going too fast. “Slow down,” she said. “We’re going to miss the turnoff.”
“I’m going only ten miles an hour,” Bernie informed her.
“Then go five.” Libby started to scratch and balled her hands into fists to stop herself. “You do know that Marie has probably called Charlene by now to tell her we’re coming,” Libby said to distract herself from the itching.
“You’re right,” Bernie allowed. “We should have taken Marie with us.”
Libby bent over. She couldn’t resist. “And how would we do that?” she asked as she gave in to the urge. She groaned with pleasure.
“Tie her up and throw her in the van, of course.”
“Of course, Bernie. Why not? What’s a little kidnapping in the scheme of things?”
“My thoughts exactly,” Bernie told her. “And for heaven’s sake, stop scratching. You’ll spread the poison ivy everywhere.”
“I know, I know,” Libby said. “It just feels so good.” She saw the sign for Summit Street coming up. “Turn left here,” she told Bernie. “Two blocks and I think we’re there.”
“It’s not that long a walk—maybe twenty minutes—if you know where you’re going and you don’t go around in circles,” Bernie observed as she put on a little speed.
No one was out. As they drove down the road, Bernie could see some of the houses were lit up like stages, while other houses were dark, all lights off. Presumably, the occupants were in bed. Bernie thought Charlene would most likely be up. Even if she was an “early to bed” kind of gal, Marie’s phone call would have woken her. Libby was right about that. Why wouldn’t Marie call? If Bernie were in her position, she would.
“The walk from Marie’s to Charlene’s is just a little longer than the walk to Susie’s and back,” Libby noted as she spotted a doe watching them from the side of the road.
“Marie could be telling the truth,” Bernie mused. “Maybe she and Charlene just wanted to disrupt the wedding.”
“It’s also entirely possible that one or both of them returned to Susie’s house and got into a fight with Susie and stabbed her,” Libby said.
Bernie didn’t answer. She was too busy reading the numbers off the houses—at least the ones that were visible. Some weren’t. She was doing the math in her head and had just figured out that Charlene’s house was thr
ee houses down on the left-hand side of the road when she heard a noise. Libby heard it, too. They both looked in the same direction. A garage door was going up, flooding the house’s driveway with light. A moment later, a car backed out.
Libby elbowed Bernie in the ribs and pointed. “I think that’s Charlene in the driver’s seat.”
“I do believe you’re right,” Bernie said. She pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the van, and turned off the lights. “Especially since that’s Charlene’s house.”
Libby leaned forward so she could get a better view. “I wonder where she’s going at this time of night. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’s going off to a club.”
“Or meeting up with a hot date at the bar,” Bernie added as she watched Charlene make a left and drive down the street in the opposite direction from where they were parked. “Although we could be wrong.”
“Or she could be going to the grocery store to get a pint of ice cream.”
“She could,” Bernie agreed, thinking about the cinnamon ice cream she’d made this morning and hoping there would be some left when she got home. “But you can’t deny the timing. She leaves after Marie calls her.”
Libby corrected her. “Presumably calls her. We don’t know that Marie did. It could be a coincidence.”
“And the ice in the Artic isn’t melting.”
“You mean it is?” Libby said. Then another possibility occurred to her. “Or maybe Charlene developed a sudden desire to go to the Bahamas.”
“Maybe, but then she’d be carrying a suitcase,” Bernie commented as she watched Charlene’s vehicle get farther down the road. “Let’s find out, shall we?” Bernie said, and she started the van up but didn’t turn the lights on. If they didn’t follow her now, they’d lose her.
Once under way, Bernie was careful to keep well behind Charlene. Bernie had thought that driving without lights would be difficult, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy because the headlights of Charlene’s car provided enough guidance for her to stay on the road. Now the dark was their ally. In the daylight, Charlene would have spotted the van—it would have been hard not to, especially since the shop’s name was painted on Mathilda’s side—but the blackness cloaked it.
A Catered Cat Wedding Page 21