Chapter 5
The sun had set and the moon was a sliver hiding behind the clouds by the time Bernie and Libby pulled out of A Little Taste of Heaven’s parking lot. It was dark out, and it got even darker once they turned onto the roadway that led up to the Berkshire Arms.
The narrow two-lane road was full of hairpin twists and turns and lined on both sides with overgrown stands of oak, sycamore, and birch. The tree branches swayed in the wind, knocking against the streetlights and throwing dancing shadows across the road. Tonight, in honor of Halloween, the oaks and the sycamores were hung with plastic skeletons and leering severed heads, which twitched and jerked in the wind.
“Lovely,” Libby said sarcastically when the van’s high beams picked up a skeleton decked out in a top hat and an orange muffler, holding up a sign that read WELCOME TO HELL.
That was the first word either sister had uttered since they’d left the shop’s parking lot. Both women had been remembering the last Halloween Eve they were at the Berkshire Arms. When they’d catered a fund-raiser there, it had been called the Peabody School. The school, once an expensive boarding school, had closed suddenly due to the unexplained death of one of its students and had stood vacant for years, falling further and further into ruin, until someone had decided to stage a haunted house there. That hadn’t worked out too well, though.
“You were right. I shouldn’t have taken the job,” Bernie suddenly blurted out when she spied a head with an ax stuck in its skull grinning at her.
“No. I was wrong. You were right. You should have. We need the money,” Libby replied.
“Yes, we do,” Bernie agreed.
There was no arguing about that. Still, she should have tried harder to drum up more business. No. You’re being ridiculous, she told herself. She was giving in to hysteria. She and Libby had been up at the Berkshire Arms before to check out the facilities, and everything had been copacetic.
Bernie held on to that thought as their van rounded the last curve in the road and the turrets of the Berkshire Arms sprang into view. The developer who’d bought the place was based in New York City. He’d gutted the inside of the building, but he’d left the outside, which had been modeled on an old French chateau, intact. As Bernie looked up at the last turret on the left side of the building, she had an uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching her—a feeling she instantly dismissed. Get a grip, she told herself.
“Do you think she’s still here?” Libby asked, having gotten the same feeling. Libby didn’t have to explain whom she referred to. She knew that Bernie knew.
“No,” Bernie lied. “I don’t think she ever was here.” She corrected herself. “I mean, she was here when she was alive, but that’s it.”
Libby turned toward her sister. “I notice you’re not mentioning her name.”
“So?”
“So naming something . . .”
“Does not summon it,” Bernie said, having had this conversation before.
“Because ghosts—”
“Can we just drop the subject?” Bernie asked, raising her voice a little. “Seriously, can we do something a little more fruitful and concentrate on what we have left to do?”
“There’s no need to get huffy,” Libby replied.
“I’m not getting huffy,” Bernie told her. Bernie didn’t believe in ghosts, she really didn’t, but she couldn’t explain what had happened to them at the Peabody School any other way, and that made her uncomfortable, which, in turn, made her angry.
“Because I’m just saying,” Libby continued, undeterred, “that Halloween is when the membrane—”
“Between the living and the dead is thinnest,” Bernie said, finishing Libby’s sentence for her. “And all I have to say to that is blah, blah, blah.”
“Now you’re just being rude.”
“But accurate.”
“Then why are the crows here?” Libby demanded. The noise had become overwhelming.
“Plenty of trees, lots of bugs, not too many people,” Bernie said, raising her voice above the racket. “This is probably crow heaven.”
Libby humphed. “You know a flock of them is called a murder. A murder of crows.”
“What’s your point, Libby?”
“I read somewhere that the Greeks thought they were messengers of the dead.”
“I think you have your mythology mixed up. I think they’re Odin’s eyes and ears in Norse mythology. Or is that ravens? At any rate, there were two of them. Heckle and Jeckle. No. Those are a cartoon. Huginn and Muninn. I think. Actually, I don’t remember too well,” Bernie confessed. “It was a nine o’clock class, and I usually overslept.”
“Why don’t you believe in ghosts?” Libby asked, changing the subject.
“Because I believe that the dead stay dead,” Bernie replied. “I don’t believe that they get up and go traipsing around, bothering people.”
“So then how do you explain what happened?” Libby demanded, pointing at the Berkshire Arms.
“I can’t,” Bernie admitted.
“And there you have it,” Libby crowed. “An admission.”
“However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a rational reason for what occurred,” Bernie countered. “Maybe ghosts are like electricity. Five hundred years ago, people would have thought electric lights were magic. Maybe ghosts are like that. Maybe they’re a natural phenomenon. Maybe some scientist will discover why they exist—if they exist—one hundred years from now.”
Bernie tapped the face of her watch with a maroon fingernail. “We have an hour and a half before the guests start arriving. I think if we’re smart, we’ll stop talking about ghosts and goblins and start concentrating on our prep. I think the only thing we should be thinking about now is figuring out when Darius wants the dessert served and where we should put the spiced nuts.”
Libby nodded. She hated to admit it, but Bernie was correct. At least about this. She needed to focus on the job. She took another look at the turret as she stopped the van. That person whom she couldn’t bear to name, the person who she thought was watching them from the turret—well, she wasn’t there now. Probably never had been. Her mind was playing tricks on her, that was all. At least, that was what she was going to keep telling herself. It was the wind and the dark and the jangling skeletons that were freaking her out.
Halloween was just doing a number on her head this year, and that was due to a confluence of unfortunate incidents, the major one being having to be at the Peabody—no, she corrected herself, the Berkshire Arms—tonight. It was just bringing back too many bad memories. She was PSTDing. Or was it PTSDing? She could never get the order straight. In either case, there was the explanation. Problem solved. Libby took a deep breath and let it out, counted, and repeated the process. After a few times she felt calmer, at which point she turned her attention to her to-do list—which was fairly extensive. If she wanted to get hysterical about anything, she told herself, she could get hysterical about that.
Chapter 6
Darius Witherspoon’s costume party was taking place in the common room of the Berkshire Arms. It was the new thing, Bernie had informed Libby. Residential spaces were being built with individual units upstairs and shared spaces below. In past times, Libby reflected, the area they were giving the party in would have been known as the ballroom, with its chandeliers, gleaming hardwood floors, and French windows opening onto a garden.
Whoever had designed the space had done a good job. It was warm and welcoming, fulfilling its multipurpose-use mandate. It worked for upscale birthday parties or more informal shindigs. For openers, the space was sited right next to the kitchen, which meant it was easy getting food in and out. In addition, the room was large but not large enough to feel lost in, and to make sure that wasn’t the case, the interior designer had visually divided the room into two parts. The first half had scattered area rugs, cozy leather club chairs, and a fireplace; while the second half, the half closest to the garden, the half Darius Witherspoon had reserved, was
all shiny wood floors, which made the space perfect for dancing.
Darius had arranged for the maintenance man to set up the buffet tables near the French windows and the ten six-tops around the room’s perimeter, which left the center of the floor clear for dancing. Dinner, according to Darius’s desires, was on the simpler side, more fall than Halloween themed, and was self-serve style.
Which was fine with Libby and Bernie, because it meant they didn’t have to hire extra staff. This way they could manage with just the two of them, and with Brandon, Bernie’s boyfriend, as the bartender, even though a masked party conjured up images of formal dining. At least it did in the minds of Bernie and Libby.
The menu the sisters had worked out with Darius was equally informal and featured cider-braised beef short ribs with leeks and parsnips, scalloped potatoes, a green salad with sliced pears, walnuts, and blue cheese, plus fresh baked corn bread, challah, and warm cracked-wheat rolls served with salted butter made at a local dairy. Dessert consisted of a devil’s food cake, a salted caramel apple cake, French macaroons, coffee, and a variety of liqueurs.
Bernie and Libby had kept the appetizers simple, because neither one of them believed in a long cocktail hour when serving a full-course meal. The appetizers consisted of two different kinds of spiced nuts, mini crab cakes topped with micro greens, mini Vietnamese spring rolls, and freshly made butternut squash chips, which were always a big hit, because they looked pretty with their bright orangey color, tasted good, and were more or less healthy. The beauty of the menu, as far as Bernie and Libby were concerned, was that everything in it had been prepared ahead of time and could be reheated and replated with a minimum amount of fuss or loss of flavor.
It took Libby and Bernie half an hour to unload the van and put everything away. Then they got to work setting the tables, which the maintenance man had already set up. Bernie went over and lit a fire in the fireplace and put bowls of spiced nuts on the side tables, while Libby placed the three flower arrangements they’d purchased earlier in the day along the center of the buffet tables. She’d just put the last one down when she realized Darius was still upstairs.
She wondered where he was as she studied the arrangements. The new vendor they’d picked had done a good job. Lisette had combined sprigs of rosemary and Russian sage with dusty pink gerbera daisies, and the combination worked. It was unexpected, festive, emitted a pleasing odor, and set off the burnt orange table linens—burnt orange being a nod toward Halloween and as far as Darius was willing to go.
“I’d prefer to celebrate the holiday with a traditional bonfire,” he’d told her, “instead of with all this ridiculous folderol.” A reference, Libby was sure, to the decorations hanging from the trees surrounding the Berkshire Arms.
“Where is our client, anyway?” Libby asked Bernie. “I thought he was going to meet us downstairs.”
“I thought so, too,” Bernie said, stepping back to look at the buffet table.
It was all good. She liked the tablecloth with the oxblood-red plates she’d chosen. She’d debated about the color before showing her selection to Darius, but she needn’t have worried, as he’d been complimentary about the combination.
Libby moved one of the flower arrangements fractionally to the right so it would line up with one of the two French doors. “We need to talk to him.”
“I’ll text him,” Bernie said. Which she did.
Ten minutes later, Darius hadn’t answered, and Bernie tried again. Five minutes after that, when Darius still hadn’t responded, Libby volunteered to go upstairs and knock on his door. There were eight apartments on the second floor, and Darius’s was the last one.
A wide staircase, replete with an oak bannister and spindles, led up to it. The floor in the hallway was covered in wide-planked oak, but as she rang the doorbell, Libby couldn’t help remembering that it had been originally made of concrete and covered with a ratty green rug. When Darius opened the door, she stepped inside.
She’d been in the apartment once before. The developer had done a good job, Libby reflected again. He’d taken a dingy, claustrophobic space and turned it into something bright and cheerful. Darius’s apartment was spacious and well proportioned, its open floor plan making it seem even larger than it was.
The apartment had oak flooring, high ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling windows that afforded a distant view of the Hudson. The open floor plan allowed for maximum flow. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all interconnected, while the single bedroom was off to the left-hand side. It was a space made for entertaining, and Penelope had furnished the place with that in mind. The plump sofa and club chairs, the Navaho rugs and wall hangings were inviting, calling one to come in and sit for a while.
Darius frowned. “To what do I owe the honor?” he asked Libby.
“You didn’t answer my sister’s text,” Libby explained.
“Oh, dear.” Darius put a hand up to his mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t hear the phone ding. I probably turned it off and forgot to turn it back on.” He scratched his head. “I seem to be doing that a lot lately.” He glanced down at his watch. “You’re right. I did lose track of time. That’s another thing I seem to be doing a lot lately. Before Penelope went missing, I was the poster child for prompt.” He ran a hand over his cheeks and made a face. “Of course, before Penelope went missing, I never would have not shaved—or uttered a sentence like that, for that matter. I guess I should stop what I’m doing and clean up.”
He pointed to the stains on his pants. “After all, I certainly wouldn’t want my guests to see me like this.” He brightened. “Of course, I could always come as a gardener. Unfortunately, I don’t think gardeners usually wear masks. Not usually. Unless, of course, they’re spraying their plants with insecticide.”
“The dessert,” prompted Libby, who had no opinion about that question one way or another. “Remember, you said you wanted to talk about the timing for dessert.”
Darius waved his hands in the air. “Actually, I don’t remember what I had in mind, so whatever you want to do is fine with me.”
“Are you sure?” Libby asked.
“Positive,” Darius said. “Because, you know what? I really don’t care.” He checked the time again. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have a call I have to make. Then I’ll jump in the shower, shave, put on my jester costume—what could be more fitting?—and be downstairs in fifteen minutes. Hopefully. I might be a little longer, so don’t panic if I’m not down when everyone starts arriving. Just tell everyone I’ll be down as soon as I can.”
Libby nodded and turned to go. She heard the door lock behind her as she started down the stairs.
Chapter 7
“Darius said to do whatever we want about the desserts,” Libby informed Bernie when she ran into her in the hallway.
“Okay by me,” Bernie replied. She started calculating when she had to begin warming up the apple cake and caramel sauce while she placed a chunk of dry ice in a container near the entranceway. It was the only really Hal-loweeny thing at the party, and Darius hadn’t been sure about it. “What do you think?” she asked Libby as clouds of vapor began rolling out and creeping along the floor. “Too much?”
“Nope,” Libby said. “I think it sets the proper tone.”
“Me too,” Bernie said, and then she went off to consult with Brandon, who was busy setting up the bar, which was located off to the right side of the buffet. According to Darius’s request, Brandon was serving hard cider, sidecars, a good vintage French champagne, and old-fashioneds before dinner, and red wine during the meal.
“I like to curate everything,” Darius had explained when he’d told Bernie and Libby what he wanted to serve in terms of drinks. “I guess Penelope was right. I am a control freak.” Bernie remembered she hadn’t said anything at the time, even though she’d agreed with Penelope.
Twenty minutes later everything was good to go. The appetizers were plated, the salads were in their bowls, and the meal was warming in the oven. All
that was left for the sisters to do was light the Sterno, bring out the food, and put it in the chafing dishes.
Ten minutes after that, the guests started trickling in, and Bernie and Libby got busy hanging up coats, passing appetizers, checking to make sure the food in the kitchen was warming up properly, as well as apologizing for their host and assuring the guests he’d be down shortly.
Everyone had come as requested. The room sparkled with masked figures holding drinks and nibbling on appetizers. It reminded Bernie of pictures she’d seen of Venetian balls, even though no one was dancing. Everyone looked elegant, but there was a sinister undercurrent inhabiting the room, which she couldn’t explain.
Maybe it was the masks, she thought. They ranged from the kind you bought at a place like Michaels for two dollars and fifty cents to elaborate, expensive confections crafted out of silk, gold, and black lace. Some of the masks followed the contours of the human face, while others were designed to look like birds of prey, animals, or satyrs. But all of them turned the people who were wearing them into something else. As did the clothes they were wearing.
Most of the men were decked out in tuxedos, but there was a small percentage who had come in costume. The costumes were elegant, ranging from musketeers to Zorro. Half the women were wearing ball dresses, while the other half were wearing costumes that ranged from gypsy to leopard. Bernie thought that the ball dresses were particularly elegant. Some were backless, others had plunging necklines, while others were columns of lace, chiffon, and taffeta that whispered and sighed when the women walked. A few of the men and the women arrived wearing billowing hooded black cloaks that further hid their faces.
At one point, after most of the guests had arrived, Bernie thought she saw a tall, cloaked figure—she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman—floating down the hallway toward the stairs, but when she looked again, no one was there. She shook her head to clear it. It’s probably a trick of the light, she told herself as she focused on Libby, who was unobtrusively counting heads.
A Catered Costume Party Page 3