“And now you’re back again.”
Bernie nodded.
“Would that have something to do with why you’ve sworn off guys?”
Bernie took another sip of her beer. “It would.”
“Are you going to make me drag the story out of you?”
“It’s banal.”
“I want to hear it anyway.”
Bernie shrugged and told him.
“There’s a good side to this,” Rob said when she was done.
Bernie looked at him incredulously. “Like what?”
Rob took another sip of his beer.
“You’re here for your sister. It sounds as if she could use some support.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Bernie conceded.
“Besides, if you weren’t here, we couldn’t have met.”
“Kismet,” Bernie said.
“Synchronicity,” Rob offered. “Although, on reflection, Karma might be a more applicable word.”
“I agree,” Bernie said.
“After all, I used to be a writer.”
“Are you working on anything now?”
How sweet. He’s actually blushing, Bernie thought as he replied.
“A murder mystery.”
“Can I read it?”
“You really want to?”
“I really do.”
“When I’m done.” Rob studied the two men throwing darts for a moment, then turned back to Bernie. “I have some procedure questions.”
“You want to talk to my dad?”
“That’s where I was going.”
Bernie made a circle of peanuts on the counter and started eating them. “I’ll ask, but he doesn’t like talking to people he doesn’t know since he’s gotten sick.”
“That’s what my mom said.”
“She’s right.” Bernie finished her beer and signaled Brandon for another one. “Speaking of mysteries,” she said. “My sister found out who Janet was.”
“Who?”
“It’s not a who, it’s a what. Janet’s Automotive Parts.”
Rob groaned. “Do I feel like an idiot? It isn’t as if I haven’t seen that truck before. Obviously I should turn my hand to something other than a mystery.”
“Me too,” Bernie said. “I’m certainly not getting very far on this Tiffany thing.”
“Maybe because there’s no place to get.”
“Maybe,” Bernie conceded. “But I told Libby I’d help her until we’ve exhausted every possibility, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
Rob took another sip of his beer.
“I don’t know if I should tell you this or not.”
“And why is that?”
“Because your sister isn’t going to like this.”
“You’re not telling her, you’re telling me.”
“You’re not going to like this either.”
“I’m a big girl . . .”
“So I noticed,” Rob cracked.
Bernie punched his arm. “Just tell me, goddamnit.”
Rob rubbed his bicep. “That was pretty good.”
“I used to do Boxercize.” He’s so adorable, Bernie thought as she leaned towards Rob and whispered in his ear, “Tell me now or I’ll kill you.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Rob put his glass down and faced her. “About four weeks ago I came into Geoff ’s office, and there were Geoff and Tiffany going at it full tilt on top of Geoff ’s desk.”
“Geez.”
“But that’s not the worst part.” Rob finished off his beer. “The worst part is I was showing Geoff ’s wife, Mary Beth, in at the time. It was their anniversary, and she was dropping by to take him out to a surprise lunch.”
“Well, that would certainly explain some things,” Bernie said, thinking back to her conversation with Mary Beth.
Chapter 34
Bernie leaned against one of the kitchen cabinets and watched Libby rolling out the dough for tomorrow’s pies. I should never have told her what Rob said when I walked in the door, she thought.
She should have waited until tomorrow morning. At least then she could have gone to sleep. Of course, she reflected, she could go up now if she wanted to. Nothing was stopping her. She just hated to leave Libby alone when she was this upset.
“Libby, you should go to bed,” Bernie said for the third time. “It’s almost twelve, and you have to get up at six.”
“What’s the point?” Libby replied, her eyes fixed on what she was doing. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“How do you know until you try?”
“Believe me. I know.” And Libby gave the dough another half turn. “Anyway, it’s easier to do this at night when it’s cooler. It’s supposed to be in the eighties tomorrow, which will mean I’ll have to contend with softened butter.”
“I thought that’s why you had the marble slab and the fan.”
“They only go so far.”
“I could never get the dough to form a circle,” Bernie observed, trying to jolly Libby up.
“I couldn’t either when I started.”
Libby gave the dough another half turn.
“Actually, what Rob told me about Tiffany is a good thing,” Bernie told her. “You should be happy.”
Libby kept her eyes fixed on the dough.
“And how do you get that?” she demanded. “It gives Tiffany a motive for killing Geoff.”
“It also gives Geoff’s wife a motive for killing him. I mean, first he loses all their money and then she catches him in flagrante delicto with Tiffany.”
Libby finally looked up.
“Flagrante delicto?”
“From the Latin,” Bernie explained. “It means caught in the middle of the act.”
“Why can’t you talk the way other people do?” Libby complained.
“Like I should have used the good old Anglo-Saxon word, fuck? As in Mary Beth caught her husband and Tiffany fucking on top of his desk? Probably because I like a little variety in my vocabulary, not to mention other things.” Bernie hoisted herself up on the counter and sat there with her feet dangling. “No,” she continued. “Seeing something like that would be enough to drive anyone over the edge.” And who, she thought, would know better than she?
“And where does Lionel fit in all this?” Libby demanded. “Why would Mary Beth kill him?”
Libby pried a piece of peanut from between her back teeth with her fingernail.
“Sorry about that,” she said when she was done. “Maybe Mary Beth blames Lionel for the family’s financial woes. From what Nigel said, the amusement park fiasco was what made Geoff start speculating in the market. Mary Beth might be thinking that if Lionel hadn’t pulled out of the deal, Geoff wouldn’t have lost the rest of his money in the market and Mary Beth would still have her house.”
“Losing your house, now that would be a biggie. So is the other thing. I can testify to that.” Bernie clasped her hands together and cracked her knuckles. “Of course, there is a question of timing,” she mused. “Why kill Lionel first and then wait on her husband? I mean, I nearly went in the kitchen and got a knife and stabbed Joe when I saw him in bed with that . . . person. That’s why I left. Because otherwise I would have.
“But now that I think of it, Mary Beth is a brooder, and I’m not talking about the hen variety.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
Bernie cracked her knuckles again.
“Remember when she found out that Brandon had taken her bike and dumped it in the bushes? She spent a month planning her revenge. I would have just walked up and popped him one in the jaw.”
“You did when he took yours,” Libby reminded her.
“So I did.” Bernie smiled in remembrance. “He had a nice black-and-blue mark.”
“Mother was not pleased.”
“No, she wasn’t, was she? But Dad thought it was great.” Bernie tapped her fingers on the kitchen counter. “So maybe Mary Beth saw them and went numb and then the more she
thought about what she’d seen, the angrier she got. But it was easier to kill Lionel first because she had some distance from him. Or maybe he was like a dress rehearsal for her hubby. And there is the fact that Mary Beth could have gotten the cyanide she killed Lionel with from her hubby’s shop.”
Libby shook her head.
“No matter what you say, I can’t see Mary Beth killing two people. She’s so . . . so buttoned down. She never raises her voice.”
Bernie cracked her knuckles again.
“And when people like that go, they go big time.”
“I’m sorry. I still don’t see her for this.” Libby picked up the piecrust, put it in the pie tin and began to crimp the edges. “Mary Beth strikes me as the kind of person that implodes, not explodes.”
“Well, we also have Lydia tied to the two murder victims,” Bernie added. “If Clyde knows what he’s talking about.”
“Of course he knows what he’s talking about.” Libby picked up a fork and began pricking holes in the dough. “Now, her I can see killing Lionel. Without him around, she doesn’t have to worry about being accused of stealing, plus I heard from Paul that she’s been named executor of his estate. So she definitely benefits from his death. But what does she get out of Geoff ’s dying?”
“Maybe she was jealous.”
“He was married when she took up with him. How could she be jealous?”
“Yeah. But that’s different. That relationship was already in place when Lydia started seeing him. I’ll bet you anything he started sleeping with Tiffany after he started sleeping with Lydia.”
“So it’s okay for him to be unfaithful to his wife but not unfaithful to Lydia?”
Bernie picked a fleck of flour off her new skirt.
“In essence, yes. This thing with Tiffany and Lydia reminds me of a woman I knew out in L.A. She was going out with this married guy, and that was okay with her because she wasn’t interested in the whole family/kid/dog thing. But then he brought someone else on board and she flipped out. She claimed it was disloyal.”
Libby rolled her eyes.
“It’s true,” Bernie insisted.
“People are so weird.” Libby swept the loose flour and rice-sized pieces of dough into the trash bin with the side of her hand. “There is another possibility,” she said.
“Which is?”
“Geoff was blackmailing Lydia. Maybe she got the cyanide out of his place and he found out and confronted her and asked for money. After all, he really needed it.”
“That would work,” Bernie said as she watched a moth flutter around the kitchen light.
“But the bottom line is this,” Libby said.
Bernie turned and looked at her sister, who was drumming her fingers on the rolling pin.
“Tiffany should have told me.”
“Would it have made a difference in what you did?”
“No,” Libby conceded. “But she should have told me anyway.”
“Maybe Tiffany was embarrassed to tell you,” Bernie suggested.
Libby snorted. “Lying never helps.”
Bernie didn’t say anything as Libby put the pie tin in the refrigerator and took out a second piece of dough, put it in the center of the marble slab, and picked up the rolling pin again. In this light she looks just like Mom, Bernie thought as Libby lightly scattered flour on the slab.
“Maybe she feels you wouldn’t have approved,” Bernie finally suggested.
“Well, she’s right about one thing at least. I don’t.” Libby started working. “Do you?”
“I don’t think it was the smartest thing to do,” Bernie replied carefully, not wanting to get into a discussion with Libby at this time of night.
“And that’s the difference between us,” Libby retorted.
“I suppose it is.”
Bernie watched her sister work. Her movements were precise and economical. In five minutes she’d rolled the dough out and had it in the pan.
“And even if what you say is true about Mary Beth and Lydia,” Libby said as she put the second crust in the refrigerator and started in on the third. “How does this help us?”
Bernie slid down off the counter, went over to the kitchen cabinet, got out the cocktail shaker and began mixing up a batch of Cosmopolitans. Libby looked as if she could use one, and she wouldn’t mind a good-night drink herself.
“Well, for one thing,” she informed Libby as she measured out the cranberry juice, “it gives us two new suspects.”
“There’s no way we can prove or disprove anything,” Libby said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Bernie replied, handing her a drink. “I think we should talk to Dad.”
Sean heard Libby and Bernie coming up the stairs. Light and delicate they were not, he thought as he clicked off the infomercial he’d been watching on the television.
“Hey, girls, come and say good night to your old man,” he called out.
“We were just about to,” Bernie said as she and Libby trooped into his room. “When do you sleep?”
“Usually between three and six,” Sean conceded.
And that was if he was lucky.
Bernie handed him a Cosmopolitan.
“For you,” she said.
Sean took a sip and nodded his head appreciatively.
“Not bad,” he allowed.
“Better than Wild Turkey on a night like this,” Bernie observed.
“Your mom made a mean Manhattan.”
Bernie smiled.
“I used to like the maraschino cherries.”
Libby took a step forward. She worries too much, Sean thought as he noticed Libby tapping her foot on the floor.
“What’s going on?” he asked her, even though he had a pretty good idea what she was about to say.
“I thought we agreed that you’d get into bed by twelve.”
Right again, Sean, he told himself. Give yourself a pat on the back.
“No. We discussed it. I never agreed to anything,” Sean clarified. “Given what this wheelchair costs, I want to get the most out of it that I can.”
“The doctor said sleeping in it is bad for your circulation.”
Sean decided he wasn’t going to tell Libby he knew and didn’t care.
“So,” he said instead. “Tell me about life in the outside world.”
“If you don’t want to take care of yourself, it’s your business,” Libby huffed at him.
Sean held on to his temper.
“That’s right,” he said softly. “It is.”
“Drop it,” Bernie said as Libby started to reply.
Sean watched as Libby folded her arms across her chest and got that disapproving look on her face.
“So,” he said into the deepening silence, “are you girls going to tell me what’s happening or not?”
Bernie and Libby looked at each other.
Then Libby said to Bernie, “It’s your story. You tell him.”
Bernie sat down on the edge of the bed near him and tossed her hair off her forehead.
“Fine. I will.”
“You have to concentrate on Geoff Holder’s homicide,” he told them when Bernie was through with her recital.
“Why’s that?” Bernie asked.
“Because anyone could have had access to Lionel’s water from the time you labeled the bottles till the time he died, meaning it would be extremely difficult to establish a reliable table documenting everyone’s whereabouts given that there are only two of you. For that you’d need more manpower than we have in the entire Longely police force.
“And working backward from the cyanide to the murderer would also be difficult given our limited resources and unofficial status.” Sean moved his wheelchair slightly closer to the window fan. Funny, but now he liked the breeze on his face. He never had before. “The Holder homicide is the simpler of the two, and since they’re connected, solve one and you’ll solve the other.”
Libby leaned forward. She was standing, Sean noted. Which meant she wa
s still annoyed with him, but not as annoyed as she had been because she was asking him a question.
“Why is the Holder homicide simpler?”
“For openers, it’s got a smaller cast of characters to work with.” He took another sip of his Cosmopolitan. This thing packed more of a wallop than he thought it would. He wondered what the hell Bernie had put in it. “Okay.” Sean rested his glass on the table next to him. “What do we know about Geoff?”
“We know he was two-timing his wife,” Libby replied. “And that he was a bad businessman.”
“Besides that.”
“We know he had an appointment with Janet Automotive Parts at eight-fifteen in the morning and he never answered the door,” Bernie replied.
Sean smiled.
“And what time does the place usually open for business?”
Bernie fiddled with her ring.
“I don’t know exactly, but don’t places like that usually open between seven and eight a.m.?”
Sean nodded.
“Which means . . .”
“Which means,” Bernie continued. “He was dead before eight-fifteen.”
“Exactly.”
“Which also means,” Bernie continued, “we should find out what Mary Beth and Lydia were doing between . . .”
“Let’s say, for argument’s sake, between six and eight in the morning,” Sean found himself interjecting.
“Why not before?” Bernie objected.
“It could be,” Sean conceded. “I’m just going with the most likely scenario.”
Libby peeled a piece of dough off the tip of her finger.
“It would make life easier if we knew exactly,” Libby said.
“I guess I could call Clyde and find out,” Sean said reluctantly.
Libby smiled at him.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
Sean smiled back.
“And then we could talk to the neighbors and see if anyone noticed anything,” Bernie suggested.
“Yes, you could,” Sean agreed.
Bernie thought for a moment.
“Do we know them?” she asked Libby. “Because that would make it easier.”
“I know the people who live on either side of Lydia’s mom,” Libby volunteered. “I catered dinners last year for both of them.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Bernie said. “We could also talk to Lydia and Mary Beth.”
A Catered Murder Page 20