First there had been the call from Bernie and then the call from Libby, not to mention the call he’d made to Paul. He hated asking anyone for favors. Once was bad. Twice was insupportable. No matter what the problem was, he would never have called Paul for himself, but he was the first to admit he’d always been a sucker for his girls.
“You’re sure she’s not going to run this time,” Paul had asked him.
Sean had looked at the quivering, sodden mess that was Tiffany standing before him and said, “I’m sure.”
“You’re positive? Because I don’t want . . .”
“Trust me on this.”
“Be there in ten,” Paul had told him before hanging up.
As Sean had studied Tiffany, he doubted that she’d even have the energy to climb back down the stairs to the street again, let alone jump out of another window.
“You want to tell me what happened?” he’d asked her.
But she’d just cried harder.
“Try pulling yourself together,” he’d urged, but that had only led to a fresh bout of sobbing. She’d still been at it when the patrol car arrived to take her into custody.
Sean sighed and turned his attention back to his daughters.
Libby was sitting in the armchair, her legs slung over the side of the chair, methodically eating her way through the plate of lemon bars that she’d brought up from downstairs, while Bernie was perched on the end of his bed alternately eating olives and making serious inroads into the pitcher of vodka martinis she’d mixed herself.
“So.” Libby broke a lemon bar in half. “Paul will represent Tiffany.”
“Someone in his firm will,” Sean corrected.
“And isn’t that person lucky,” Bernie observed. “Now he or she can defend Tiffany for two homicides instead of one.”
Libby put the first half of the cookie in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed, leaving a faint dusting of powdered sugar on her lower lip.
“She said she didn’t kill Holder and I believe her,” she told Bernie while she cleaned the sugar off her face with the back of her hand. Then she put the plate on the table next to her and swung her legs down.
“So you keep saying,” Bernie observed. “And I’d love to believe you, but she had the weapon that Holder was shot with in her possession.”
“She explained that. She found it near Holder’s body and reached down and took it with her.”
“Why? Because she thought it looked nice? The color appealed to her?” Bernie said.
Which was, Sean noted, what he’d been thinking as well, though he wouldn’t have phrased it in quite that way.
Libby leaned forward.
“Tiffany was scared,” she shot back. “She grabbed it on impulse and ran away. Haven’t you ever done anything like that?”
“No,” Bernie said. “I can’t say I have. But then, I’ve never been in her situation either. Here’s another question though. Why was Tiffany in Holder’s place of business?”
“I already told you. She said she got a call to come over.”
“From this mysterious woman who she can’t identify? Now let me get this straight. Here she is being looked for by the police and she hitches a ride out to Holder’s business and walks in the back way? It’s something I would definitely not do.”
“She’s not you,” Libby snapped.
“Thank God. And how did she get this alleged phone call considering she’s in the middle of the woods?”
“On her cell. Everyone has her number. She uses it to book her hair appointments.”
“The call shouldn’t be hard to verify,” Sean pointed out. “Paul can get a court order for the phone records.”
“Maybe we should hire a private detective to help with the defense,” Libby suggested to her father.
“I don’t think your friend has the money for that,” Sean replied gently.
He started to raise his glass to take another sip of his drink, but it began to slide out of his hand. He hurriedly put it back down on the tray before Bernie and Libby could see what was happening.
God, he hated this. He could feel one of his black moods descending on him when he saw tears rolling down Libby’s cheeks.
“What is it?” Sean asked, his problems suddenly forgotten.
“I shouldn’t have called you,” she said to her father. “If I hadn’t called you, Tiffany wouldn’t be in jail now.”
Sean made a soothing noise. “You did the right thing.”
“Not for Tiffany I didn’t,” Libby said.
“Bernie and I will do the best we can,” Sean told her. What else could he say in the circumstances? “Right, Bernie?”
“Right, Dad.”
Libby wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“You think there’s a chance?” she asked.
“There’s always a chance,” Sean answered. He closed his eyes. Suddenly he felt exhausted.
“We should go,” he heard Libby say.
“No.” He couldn’t bear the thought of his daughter going off like this. “Just give me a second.” A moment later, he opened his eyes to see Libby and Bernie staring at him in concern. “I’m fine,” he snapped.
“Like hell you are,” Bernie shot back.
He’d never been able to get the last word in with her, he thought. Not even when she was six years old.
He made a supreme effort to clear away the fuzziness in his mind and focus.
“I was thinking,” he said to Libby. “Most killers, unless they’re professionals, use one M.O., modus operandi. So the fact that Tiffany supposedly poisoned one person and shot another might work in our favor.”
“I hope you’re right,” Libby said. “I really do.”
“So do I,” Sean said. “So do I.”
Chapter 25
Libby was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, when her sister came through the door.
“Don’t I get any privacy?” Libby asked with her mouth full of toothpaste.
“If you want privacy, close the door. So how was your date with Orion?”
Libby spat and rinsed.
“It wasn’t a date,” she said when she was done. “We had a drink together.”
“And?” Bernie asked as she folded her arms and leaned against the door frame.
“And nothing.”
“Don’t nothing me. What happened?”
“We had a beer at R.J.’s and split an order of wings.”
“And . . .” Bernie made a come-on motion with her hands.
“We went back to his house.”
“And?”
“He said, ‘This is like old times.’ ”
Bernie groaned.
“He actually said that?”
Libby nodded.
“And then?”
“We were sitting in the living room and he put his arm around me and kissed me.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Bernie,” Libby found herself saying. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I got the worst anxiety attack. Suddenly I had to get out of there.”
Bernie patted Libby’s shoulder.
“You were right. My advice, for what it’s worth, is—don’t go to bed with him. At least not for a while.”
“I’m not planning on it,” Libby said.
“Stay with that thought. Listen, Orion is in the middle of separating from his wife. For all you know, he could go back to Sukie—guys do that kind of thing all the time—and then how would you feel?”
“He doesn’t sound as if he’s going to.”
“You didn’t know he was seeing Sukie when he broke off your engagement either,” Bernie reminded Libby. “Just tell yourself, the goalie is in place.”
Libby crinkled up her face.
“The what is in place?”
“The goalie.” And Bernie pointed to between her legs. “Get it?”
Libby giggled.
“Don’t laugh. I don’t want to see you getting
hurt twice by the same person. You should be like me and make the same mistake with different people.”
Libby grinned.
“You know Dad offered to have him beaten up.”
“That’s comforting in a peculiar kind of way.” Bernie went over to the sink and removed her makeup. Then she reached in the medicine cabinet and took out a jar of moisturizer. “Try this on your face,” she said to Libby. “It’s got grape seeds and green tea in it.”
“Nice,” Libby said as she began patting it on her cheeks.
“It should be for what it cost.” Bernie took a dab and began working it into her skin. “By the way, have you ever heard of a Rob Sullivan?”
“Tall? Green eyes?”
“That’s the one.”
“He comes in the store about once a month and buys fried chicken, cole slaw, and chocolate chip cookies.”
“What else do you know about him besides his culinary preferences?”
Libby clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth while she searched her memory.
“Okay,” she said when she’d come up with the requisite facts. “He’s some kind of writer. He was working on a TV pilot out in L.A., but it got canceled and then his sister got killed in a car crash and he came back to be with his mom. She lives over on Edgemont and sells dolls out of her house. Why do you want to know?”
“Just curious.”
“You’re never just curious.”
Bernie grinned as she put the top back on the jar.
“We’re just going to have a drink. I met him today at Geoffrey Holder’s place.”
Libby rolled her eyes.
“Trust you to discover a corpse and meet a man at the same time.”
“It’s a talent. By the way, he liked the ginger muffins.”
“What’s not to like?” Libby observed, but her mind was on something else.
“What are you thinking about?” Bernie asked.
“Well, remember when I told you that Rob was a writer . . .”
“Yes . . .”
“That got me thinking about something Lydia said to me at her house.”
Libby stopped and busied herself cleaning out the soap scum in the sink basin. Bernie waited for her sister to continue. A moment later she did.
“Lydia said something about Lionel stealing his idea for his first book—or words to that effect—and I was thinking about what you told me about the book you found at Nigel Herron’s house and about his always wanting to be a writer.”
“Yes.” Bernie leaned forward.
“Well, what if Lionel stole Nigel’s idea. What if he stole his character? Think about it,” Libby said, warming to her theme. “All that money. All that fame. And it could have been yours. Wouldn’t that make you crazy with envy?”
“Envious enough to kill?”
“People have killed for less.”
“Granting that, why now? Why after all this time?”
Libby bit on her nail.
“Maybe something happened.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Libby said. “But I’m going to find out.”
“How?”
“You’re going to talk to Nigel and I’m going to have another conversation with Lydia.”
Bernie began brushing her hair.
“I told you that Nigel was Geoff ’s stockbroker, right?”
“Right.”
“And even though Mary Beth didn’t say so, I gathered that things weren’t going well.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Nigel has a connection to the two dead people.”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to see Nigel killing anyone. Maybe boring them to death . . .” Libby looked down at her feet.
Bernie studied her sister.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
Libby began pleating the towel lying on the edge of the sink. A minute later she blurted out, “I keep thinking that this whole thing is my fault.”
“Cut it out.”
“It is,” Libby insisted. “Maybe if I’d talked to Tiffany the first time . . .”
“Stop being like Mom,” Bernie told her. “You’re not responsible for the ills of the world.”
“I never said I was.”
“You’re right. You didn’t. You just act as if you are. And for God’s sake, not to mention for the sake of your hips, stop eating all those cookies.”
“I know. I know,” Libby moaned. “I can’t help myself.”
“Sure you can,” Bernie replied.
“Every time I get upset, I eat.”
“Drink martinis instead,” Bernie advised. “They have fewer calories.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Oh, yes, they do. I’ve compared calorie counts. Besides,” Bernie continued, “you’ll drink fewer martinis than you will eat lemon bars.”
“That’s because I like lemon bars better than I like martinis.”
“My point exactly,” Bernie said, stifling a yawn. “Two martinis or a pan of lemon bars. You do the math.”
Chapter 26
Okay, Libby. Where are you? Bernie wondered as she reached into the display case and re-centered the sign for the almond croissants. It was a little after eleven, and her sister still wasn’t back yet. She hoped Libby had just gone to the Studmeyer farm to get the goat cheese like she’d said she would and hadn’t stopped off to talk to Lydia, which she’d promised she wouldn’t.
The lunch crowd would be coming in soon, and Bernie didn’t feel like dealing with them by herself, although she supposed if worse came to worst, she could drag Amber away from skinning tomatoes out in the kitchen and put her to work waiting on people out front.
Bernie planted her elbows on the top of the display case, never mind that Libby would have a fit if she saw her do it, and watched a woman across the street trying to get a full-grown Newfoundland to heel. Maybe she should get a dog, Bernie mused. A small dog, a very small dog.
Something like a Yorkie maybe, something she could put in a tote bag and carry around with her. She was wondering what her father would say—he hated small dogs. Rats, he called them—when Rob Sullivan walked through the door.
As Bernie straightened up, she cursed herself for not putting on mascara this morning. Without it, she looked as if she had no lashes.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, cringing inwardly when she heard herself.
Wonderful, Bernie. Could you sound any stupider? As Rob smiled, she noticed that in the daylight his eyes were an even deeper green.
It’s axiomatic that no one with eyes that color is nice, Bernie warned herself.
And if I’m attracted to him, then he definitely isn’t nice even if he seems to be on the surface. I just haven’t discovered what’s wrong with him yet, is all.
“I came to get another ginger muffin,” Rob told her.
“Really?”
“Yes. Well, not really. I’ll take one and some coffee, but I really came to see how you were doing after yesterday.”
“And how’d you know I’d be here?”
Rob grinned.
“I’m brilliant.”
“Besides that.”
“My mom told me.”
“That I believe.”
“Would you believe that I came around to ask you out for that drink and also to tell you something you might be interested in.”
“Such as?”
“Patience. Are you really okay?”
Bernie nodded.
“Because the cops gave you a pretty rough time.”
“I’m tough.”
“No, you’re not. You just like people to think that.”
Bernie flushed because what Rob said was true.
“Tell me what you came to say,” she told him trying to get the conversation back on track.
“Well, this might be nothing, but I was going through Geoff ’s desk after the police left and I found a note scribbled on the top page of one of those legal ta
blets. It said ‘Janet? Eight-fifteen?’ I called and told the detective in charge of the case, but he didn’t seem too interested. He’s probably right—it’s probably just a random scribble—but I thought you should know. Anyway it gives me another reason to come and see you.”
“Do you still have the paper?”
Rob leaned on the counter.
“I sure do.”
“Good. I’ll relay the information to Tiffany’s defense lawyer,” Bernie told him, aware of the smell of his aftershave.
“My muffin?” Rob said.
“Oh, yes.” Bernie realized she’d been staring at him. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me this morning.” She handed him his ginger muffin and his coffee. “The milk and sugar are over there.”
“Did you really bake this?”
“With my own little hands,” Bernie said making a mental note to get the recipe from Libby.
“Tonight around eight at R.J.’s?” Rob said.
Bernie nodded. Remember, she told herself. The goalie is in place goes for you too.
“Eight it is.”
She was still staring at him walking down the street and telling herself that meeting him would only lead to the kind of trouble she didn’t need when Bree Nottingham breezed into the store.
“Where’s Libby?” she demanded.
Bernie pulled herself together.
“She’s out doing errands. Can I help you?”
Bree put her lips together in an O of disapproval.
“How inconvenient. When will she be back?”
“Soon, I hope.”
Bree indicated the display case.
“Are these cookies all made with butter?”
“Straight from the dairy farm.”
“Which one has the fewest calories?”
Bernie thought for a moment. Fortunately, this was knowledge she had at her fingertips.
“The lemon cookies. They have the least amount of shortening in them.”
“How many calories would you say they had?”
Bernie pulled a number out of the air.
“Fifty.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, we haven’t sent them to the lab for testing, if that’s what you mean.”
Bernie watched Bree click her tongue against the inside of her cheek while she thought. Make up your mind, Bernie wanted to tell her.
“Fine,” Bree finally said after agonizing a little longer. “Give me one and don’t bother to put it in a bag. I want it for here.”
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