Libby startled.
“What are you thinking about?” Bernie asked.
Libby explained.
Bernie leaned out the window and studied the railing. What Libby was suggesting was possible, but the person doing it would have to be extremely athletic. Then she noticed a small whitish mark on the railing. It looked as if the black paint had been rubbed off. She took off her stilettos, sat down on the windowsill, and pivoted around till her feet were touching the metal bottom. She pushed her right foot down and then her left. The small balcony creaked. She leaned forward so more of her weight was on it. The balcony groaned. She sat back.
“That thing is designed to hold plants, not people,” Libby observed.
“No kidding,” Bernie said as she leaned out the window and rested her chest on the metal railing. She heard another groan. “Hold my ankles,” she said to Libby.
“Are you nuts?” Libby demanded as the metal railing let out a deeper groan. “Get off of that thing.”
“I’ll be off in a minute. What I want to see isn’t that far.”
“That noise is telling you not to do this,” Libby said. “I’m not holding your ankles.”
“Fine,” Bernie told her. “Don’t. If I fall, it’s on your head.”
“Don’t try to guilt me. Anyway, I can’t hold you if the balcony gives way,” Libby replied. “I’m not strong enough.”
“It won’t give way, and I’m not going to fall. This is just a precaution,” Bernie told her.
“Then why ask me?”
“I’m doing you a favor.”
“A favor?” Libby was incredulous. “How’s that?”
“Because if anything did happen to me, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself.”
Libby stomped over and grabbed her sister’s ankles. “Happy now?”
“Yes,” Bernie said as she wiggled forward another couple of inches. “Actually, I am.”
There was another, louder groan.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Bernie conceded, reversing her course. “Do me a favor,” she told Libby when she was inside the window. “Find Manny and see if he has a tall ladder we can use.”
Chapter 15
It was a little after eleven at night, and Bernie, Libby, and Libby’s boyfriend, Marvin, were camped out at RJ’s, rehashing yesterday’s and today’s events. Since it was a weekday, RJ’s had emptied out a little before nine, leaving the jack-o’-lanterns and the zombies hanging on the walls with no one to scare.
There were only three groups of people left in the place. A noisy group of eight twenty-something-year-old men and women sitting at one of the round tables in the back, taking selfies, and drinking Jack Daniel’s; a group of five men, also in their twenties, who were drinking beer and having a raucous game of darts; and two women and a man dressed as pirates, who were shooting pool in the back and sipping Irish coffees.
Libby, Bernie, and Marvin were the only people sitting at the bar. They were sipping their beers, while Brandon was standing behind the bar, polishing glasses and listening to Libby and Bernie’s story.
“So you think this . . . ,” Brandon said when they were done.
“The killer,” Bernie said, finishing his sentence for him.
“The killer used a rope to shinny down from the second floor?”
Bernie nodded.
“Then why wasn’t the rope still there?” Marvin asked. He’d been following the conversation closely.
“He used a slipknot,” Bernie explained. “Then all he’d have to do is give it a jerk and the rope would untie itself, and he’d be good to go.”
Brandon turned down the sound of the TV behind the bar and came back. “How come nobody saw this?” he asked. “Everyone was looking out the window. I know that I was. I didn’t see anybody. Except for Darius, of course.”
“Libby and I figure he went down the narrow side of the balcony,” Bernie replied. “That way if he went to the left, he could go around to the parking lot, and the guests wouldn’t see him.”
Brandon shook his head. “I don’t know,” he told her. “Offhand, it sounds pretty far-fetched to me.”
Bernie ate a pretzel from the bowl sitting next to her. “Okay. Then what’s your theory?” she challenged.
Brandon wiped another glass as he thought it over. “I don’t have one,” he admitted.
“So you think he killed himself and we’re on a fool’s errand?” Bernie asked.
Brandon looked sheepish. “Actually, I do.”
Marvin took a sip of his beer and put his glass down on the coaster. “Remember Sam Otis?” he asked.
“The kid who made Mrs. Diver crash her car into her fence when he hung himself from the lamppost in front of her house?” Libby replied.
“Yes, that one,” Marvin replied.
“And then he started talking to Mrs. Diver from the lamppost, and she ran screaming down the road,” Brandon said. He started laughing at the memory.
“What’s your point?” Bernie asked Marvin.
“My point is that maybe that’s what Darius had intended to do,” Marvin said. “And he made a mistake with the knots on the rope and killed himself.”
Bernie reached over, took another pretzel, and broke it into little pieces. “My dad told me Sam had a harness under his shirt,” Bernie said as she began picking each pretzel piece up with the tips of her fingers and eating it.
“Darius wouldn’t be that stupid,” Brandon said.
“You’d be surprised how stupid people can be,” Marvin said. As the son of a funeral director, he’d seen some unbelievably dumb stuff.
“Then how do you explain the scuff marks on the railing?” Bernie asked him.
“They were probably there before,” Marvin said, hazarding a guess.
“The maintenance man said they weren’t,” Libby replied. “We asked him. He told us he’d painted the railings a week ago. Plus, that balcony is really loose, unlike the other two. The bolts on that balcony are almost coming out of the wall.”
“Of course they would be, given the fact that Darius Witherspoon hung from it,” Marvin said.
Libby corrected him. “Darius hung himself from the plant hook.”
One of the dart players caught Brandon’s eye. “Excuse me,” Brandon told Libby. Then he went over to the taps, pulled five glasses of Guinness, and set them on the bar. “You know,” he said to Bernie and Libby after the dart players had paid for and collected their drinks, “if what you say is true, whoever killed Darius Witherspoon had to be incredibly fast and strong. And agile.”
“Too bad the circus hasn’t come through here,” Marvin noted as he reached over and took a handful of pretzels out of the bowl and proceeded to pop them in his mouth. “Then you’d be all set suspect-wise.”
Brandon reached under the counter, picked up the bag of pretzels, and refilled the bowl. “He or she—notice I’m being diverse here—could be a rock climber or a gymnast.”
“True,” Libby said as she stifled a yawn. The day was catching up with her. “Maybe the killer strangled Darius first,” she suggested. “If he pressed on his carotid artery, Darius would have been unconscious in seconds. Or maybe the person he was eating with slipped something in his drink.”
“We didn’t find a glass on the table,” Bernie reminded her sister.
“Maybe that’s because whoever killed Darius took it with him,” Libby countered.
Brandon looked from Bernie to Libby and back again. “A tox screen will settle that, won’t it?”
“It would,” Bernie replied, “but the powers that be have already declared Witherspoon’s death a suicide. They’d have to reverse that to order a tox screen, and they’re not going to do that.”
“They’d have to move pretty fast if they wanted one,” Marvin said.
Libby raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?”
“Because the coroner is releasing the body to us tomorrow, and it’s going to be cremated,” Marvin told her.
Libby
leaned forward. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” Marvin said. “My dad was in touch with Witherspoon’s only living relative, and that’s what she wants done. In order to stop that, you’d need a court order.”
“Maybe I can talk to her,” Bernie said.
“Good luck with that,” Marvin replied. “She’s eighty-eight years old, hard of hearing, and lives in an assisted-living facility somewhere down in Florida.” He looked at his watch. Pretty soon he had to go home and make sure his pet pig hadn’t destroyed the house. “Frankly, I don’t think a tox screen would matter, anyway.”
“Why do you say that?” Libby demanded.
“Because,” Marvin replied, “from what I’m hearing, I’m inclined to say that Darius Witherspoon killed himself. Sorry. But that’s what it sounds like to me.”
“Me too,” Brandon said, shrugging apologetically. “But, hey, I could be wrong. It’s happened before. Occasionally. Once in a really long time.”
“But what about the money and the note?” Libby asked.
Marvin scratched his head. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
“It’s the fly in the ointment, the bug in the bed, the mouse poop in the rice,” Brandon sang out.
Bernie shot him a look, and he shut up.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I got carried away.”
“It always comes back to the note,” Bernie continued. “Why would Darius leave us so much money if he didn’t think that someone was going to kill him? If he didn’t want his killer caught?”
“Because he was loony tunes,” Brandon suggested.
“He didn’t seem that way to me,” Libby said.
“Just because he didn’t seem that way doesn’t mean he wasn’t that way,” Marvin protested.
“True,” Libby said.
“I mean, what was he involved in that would make someone go to that much trouble?” Marvin asked.
“That is the question, isn’t it?” Bernie agreed.
“For all practical purposes, our killer could have just strangled him and left him in his apartment. Throwing him out the window was definitely overkill. Get it?” Brandon asked.
“A two-year-old would have gotten it,” Bernie told him. “Can we be serious for a moment?”
Brandon lifted up his hands. “Fine. Then maybe it was a message. Or a warning.”
“Yeah, but to whom?” Libby asked.
“Maybe to someone at the party,” Marvin replied, slipping on his jacket. As he buttoned it up, he realized there was a hole on the right side. He’d have to buy a new one soon. Winter was going to be here in the not too distant future.
“The killer was most likely one of the guests,” Brandon said, deciding to play the what-if game with Bernie and Libby. “Possibly someone Darius cheated out of money or some guy who had just found out Darius was carrying on with his wife.”
“Why are you saying that?” Bernie asked.
“Because murder’s always about sex or revenge,” Brandon replied. “Or both together.”
“Or money,” Bernie added. “Don’t forget money.”
“But, on the other hand,” Brandon said, continuing with his line of thought, “if that was the case, why invite that person to your party? I know I wouldn’t.”
“Because Darius wanted to lord it over him,” Bernie said, hypothesizing. “Or because Darius didn’t know that this person hated him.”
“How about the people on the guest list?” Marvin asked. “Have you tried Googling them? Maybe there’s something there.”
“I would if I could,” Bernie said. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the guest list. We didn’t send out the invitations. We just got a head count.”
“I don’t suppose you can get the list?” Brandon asked.
“I wish,” Libby replied.
“It was probably on his computer,” Bernie added. “Which I’m sure the police have, given that it wasn’t in his Berkshire Arms apartment.”
“Here’s another thought,” Brandon said. Now that he was thinking about it, he wondered if Bernie might be right about the cause of Darius’s death, after all. “I wonder if Darius’s wife’s disappearance had anything to do with his death.”
“As in someone wanted them both out of the way?” Bernie asked. “As opposed to him killing himself out of grief.”
“Exactly,” Brandon said.
“Interesting thought,” replied Bernie, who had been wondering about that herself. She tapped her fingernails on the bar. They made a rat-tat-tat noise on the copper.
“Isn’t it, though?” Brandon poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot behind the bar and added three sugars. “Boy, I gotta tell you,” he said, thinking back to Darius’s death. “That’s not the way I’d want to go.”
“Me either.” Bernie clicked her tongue against her teeth while she thought. “If what we’re saying is true, then Darius’s killer is a very clever man. . . .”
“Or woman,” Brandon said.
Bernie gave him a look, and he shut up. She continued. “He made sure that Darius’s death would be treated as a suicide and dismissed.” Bernie swiveled on her bar stool and looked out RJ’s window. The shops in the strip mall RJ’s was in were shuttered. The parking lot was practically empty. There were no vehicles on the street. Everyone was home. “It’s an efficient—if that’s the right word—approach to a problem,” she mused.
“But if Darius knew this man was coming for him,” Libby objected, “why didn’t he go to the police?”
“Maybe he was involved in something shady, and he didn’t want the police around,” Brandon suggested. “Or maybe he thought he could handle the situation himself and there was no need to involve anybody else.”
“That would be a guy thing,” Bernie said.
Brandon smiled. “Indeed, it would be.”
Libby leaned forward. “Then here’s another question. If Darius knew who his killer was going to be—and he had to have had some suspicion—why didn’t he tell us? Why didn’t he write it in the note he left us? There isn’t even a hint pointing us in the direction we need to go.”
“Good point,” Marvin said, eating another handful of pretzels.
Libby ran her finger around the edge of her glass. “I mean, he must have suspected something was going to happen. Otherwise, why leave us the money?”
“Maybe,” Marvin said slowly, exploring possibilities, “Darius didn’t really believe it. Maybe he was just leaving the letter as an insurance policy. To make himself feel better.”
Bernie nodded. That made sense to her. “I guess we’ll find out the answer when we find out who killed Darius . . . if anyone did.”
Marvin finished off the last couple of inches of beer in his glass and put it down on the coaster. He opened his mouth and closed it.
“What?” Libby said.
“Nothing.”
She frowned. “That’s so annoying when you do that, Marvin.”
“Fine,” he said. “I was just thinking about your father’s motto.”
“Which one?” Libby asked, since her dad had a long list of them.
“The one about the simplest explanation usually being the correct explanation. All of these permutations we’re discussing . . .” Marvin waved his hand in the air.
“Nice word choice,” said Bernie, complimenting him.
“Thank you, Bernie,” Marvin said.
“What about them?” Libby inquired.
“It’s just too complicated, and we haven’t even gotten to the why yet, let alone the who,” he said. Then, before Libby could answer, Marvin bent down, gave Libby a kiss on her cheek, told her he’d see her tomorrow, and headed for the door.
Ten minutes later Bernie and Libby left, as well, but instead of going home directly, Bernie took the long way round and ended up on Peck Hill, one of the highest points in Longely. She killed the engine and sat there. The fog had lifted, and looking down, she had a clear view of the Berkshire Arms. It reminded her of a malevolent spider squatting on its kill.<
br />
“What are you thinking?” Libby asked her sister after a couple of minutes had passed.
“I’m thinking that you can remodel that school as much as you want,” Bernie said, turning toward Libby. “It’s not going to matter. Something bad will always happen there.”
“Bad juju,” Libby said.
“Cursed would be another word.” Bernie turned the engine back on. “Let’s go home,” she said to Libby. “We’re going to have a long day tomorrow.”
Chapter 16
Sean Simmons walked into Harry’s market a little after ten the next morning, after having snuck in a smoke, something that was getting harder to do with Michelle in the picture, and headed straight for the office, where his friend Mitch Comitsky was waiting for him. He shook his head the way he always did when he came through the front door, because he could never get used to how big the store had gotten. He kept seeing it the way it was in the old days.
The place had started off as a hole-in-the-wall coffee and doughnut shop, and slowly through the years it had grown and grown, until the store took up half a block and had so many departments, you needed a map to find anything in it. Now Harry’s sold things Sean had never heard of and wasn’t much interested in learning about, either.
He’d liked it better when he was on patrol and stopped by for coffee and doughnuts. Then you asked for coffee and all you had to specify was whether you wanted medium or large. Now you had to say whether you wanted a pour over—which sounded to him like a bad hairdo—or a French press, and that was just for starters. He supposed his annoyance was a sign that he was getting old and cranky, but really, why did everything have to be so complicated these days?
He stopped for a minute and watched two store employees take down the skeletons, ghosts, and jack-o’-lanterns in the windows and put up pilgrims and turkeys, while a couple of other clerks were arranging mounds of pumpkins and smaller piles of decorative corn near the store’s entrance. The older he got, the faster time seemed to go, he reflected. He was thinking about why that was when he heard someone call his name. He turned around. Mitch was standing right in back of him. The man was built like a fireplug, Sean thought, and like the shop he managed, he seemed to get a little larger every time Sean saw him.
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