A Catered Costume Party

by Isis Crawford

  Michelle waved her hands in the air. “Well, it wouldn’t have been a big deal if you were at the shop, but you weren’t.”

  Bernie could hear the implied criticism in Michelle’s voice as she watched Lucy. He was standing in front of Penelope Witherspoon, talking on his phone. “What did they want?” she asked.

  Michelle shifted her weight from her left to her right foot. “Evidently, the Blitmans invited three more people over, and they wanted to make sure there was enough food for everyone. . . .”

  “There is,” Libby said.

  “And they wanted you to add a gluten-free dessert to the menu, because one of their new guests has a sensitivity to wheat.”

  “Not a problem,” Libby said. “We can do baked apples.”

  “Anyway,” Michelle continued, “when no one could find you, I called the Blitmans and told them not to worry, that I’d take care of everything. I hope you don’t mind. I asked your dad, and he said it was fine.”

  “You did what?” Libby asked, not believing what she was hearing.

  “I told them I’d take care of everything,” Michelle obligingly repeated. “And I’m so glad I did. Otherwise it would have been terrible for you. Having to deal with that”—she waved her hand in Lucy’s general direction—“and the Blitmans at the same time. I’m just glad I can help. You can buy me a massage as a thank-you if you want.” She laughed. “Just kidding. I just want you to know I’m always there for you if you need me.”

  “How comforting,” Bernie said.

  Michelle smiled. “After all, that’s what family is for.”

  “I think I’m going to puke,” Libby muttered.

  “What did you say?” Michelle asked, turning to her.

  “Libby said she’s so glad we have you,” Bernie told Michelle as she watched Lucy coming back. His phone was still glued to his ear, and he had a grim expression on his face.

  “He doesn’t look happy, does he?” Michelle commented as she watched Lucy approach. She looked at her watch. “Oh, dear. I didn’t realize it was so late. I’d better get going if I want to get the Blitmans’ dinner ready.”

  “It is pretty much ready,” Libby said, puzzled.

  Michelle put her hand to her mouth. “Oh. I’m sorry. Didn’t I tell you? I added a farro cherry salad and a baked salmon with black garlic, capers, and tomatoes.” She patted Libby on the shoulder. “Now, don’t you worry about a thing,” Michelle chirped. “I’ll be sure to convey your apologies. And now I think I’d better go over and tell the captain I’m leaving. That would be the smart thing to do,” she said, emphasizing the word smart.

  “She did it,” Libby said as Michelle walked away. “She locked us on the roof and called the cops.” She took a step after her, but Bernie grabbed on to her sister’s arm.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Libby.”

  Libby jerked her arm away. “I’m not being ridiculous.”

  “You are. You’re saying she murdered Penelope Witherspoon so she could steal one of our clients? Come on.”

  Libby rounded on her. “Then why is she here?”

  “You heard her.”

  “I don’t believe one word she says.”

  “I don’t like her, either. She may be many things, but a murderer isn’t one of them. Gus Moran is the more likely candidate. You said it!”

  Libby jutted her jaw out. “Well, I’ve changed my mind. I’m going with Michelle.”

  “What’s her motive?” Bernie demanded.

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure going to find out,” Libby retorted.

  “Lower your voice,” Bernie hissed. “Michelle and Lucy are coming back.”

  “Nice lady,” Lucy commented as he watched Michelle walk toward her car. Then he nodded toward Penelope Witherspoon. “I think you two have some explaining to do, and I think you should be doing that explaining down at the station.”

  “I take it that’s a request,” Bernie said.

  Lucy glared at her. “What do you think?”

  Bernie smiled brightly. “I appreciate the invitation, but as long as you’re asking, I think Libby and I would prefer to go home.”

  “Is that a fact?” Lucy growled.

  “Well, you asked, so I’m answering. And as long as you mentioned the word fact, I think it would be good if you got yours straight before you jumped to a conclusion.”

  “And what facts are those, if I may ask?” Lucy inquired. He was starting to grow a mustache, and Bernie decided it looked like a caterpillar.

  Libby stepped up to him. “For your information, someone locked us on the roof. We found Penelope Witherspoon like that when we finally came down.”

  “Really?” Lucy said, baring his teeth in a grin. “How convenient.”

  “That’s not the way I would put it.” Libby sneezed into her arm. She needed to take zinc immediately. “And I think it’s safe to say that whoever hung Penelope Witherspoon from that tree killed her and probably her husband, too, and is trying to frame us.”

  “And you know this because you’re gifted with second sight?” Lucy asked.

  “No,” Libby said. “I know this because I’m gifted with common sense.”

  Lucy turned and pointed to the roof of the Berkshire Arms. “How did you get down from there?” He sneered. “Jump? Float down on a magic carpet?”

  “Actually,” Bernie informed him, stepping back into the conversation, “we took the roof door off its hinges.”

  Lucy laughed. “With the screwdriver you always carry.”

  “No. With a nail file and a brick, if you must know. And maybe, just maybe you should talk to the couple we saw talking to Michelle earlier.”

  “And why should I do that?” Lucy asked her.

  “Because they were here when Libby and I came down from the roof,” Bernie said. “And my sister is pretty sure they were at Darius’s party, and I think they might have something to do with what’s going on now.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Lucy declared.

  “Let’s find out,” Libby said.

  “Let’s not,” Lucy said. “Let’s have a nice little chat. Just you, me, and your sister instead.”

  Chapter 28

  Bernie and Libby walked out of the Longely police station two hours later. It was dark out, and the wind had picked up, bringing the smell of winter with it. The wind made Bernie’s damp clothes feel even colder on her skin, and she rubbed her arms as she mulled over the conversation she and her sister had had with Lucy.

  He’d warned them to stay in the area, and Bernie had asked him to define the term area.

  “Here.” He’d gestured around him.

  “So you want us to live in the police station?” Bernie had asked, all innocence. “Do you have a shower here? Because I need to take a shower every day.”

  “In Longely,” Lucy answered through gritted teeth.

  “How about to Costco? That’s one block over in Harrison. Can we go there?” Bernie asked, enjoying herself.

  Lucy scrunched his eyes up and glared at her. Bernie reflected that he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Maybe he needed glasses. “Keep it up and I’ll have both of you arrested,” he snarled.

  “That’s hardly fair,” Libby told him. “My sister is just trying to understand what you’re saying, and now you’re threatening us.”

  “On what grounds?” Bernie demanded as she once again surveyed her shoes. She sighed. They really were ruined. “I think you’re violating my constitutional rights.”

  Lucy leaned forward and put his face, which was now beet red, an inch away from Bernie’s. “How about I book you on suspicion of murder?”

  “Oh, dear.” Bernie crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Whom are we suspected of killing?” Libby asked.

  “Obviously, Darius Witherspoon and his wife,” Lucy replied. “Is there someone else I should add to the list?”

  “And why did we do it?” Bernie inquired, taking a step back. “Refresh my memory.”

  “Gladly,” Lucy
said. “You were stealing money from Witherspoon, and he found out.”

  “Right,” Libby said. “I knew that. And we were hiding his wife in our basement, just waiting for the opportunity to kill her and put her next to our truck. Makes sense to me.”

  Lucy turned to Libby. He had an ugly smile on his face. “Another sister heard from.”

  “Better than our lawyer,” Libby replied.

  Lucy lifted an eyebrow.

  “You’re harassing us,” Libby explained.

  Lucy smirked. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s how the DA is going to see it,” he told her as he looked down at his phone.

  “You know what I’d do if I were you?” Libby said. “I’d start trying to figure out Penelope’s disappearance. I’m guessing there’s a link there between that and her husband’s death. How about you? Do you think so?” she said to Lucy.

  He looked up from the text he’d been reading on his phone while Libby was talking. “Excuse me. Were you saying something? I didn’t hear you.”

  “You really don’t care who did this, do you?” Libby demanded.

  “Oh, I care, all right,” Lucy answered. He slipped his phone in his pocket. “I’m quite satisfied I have the correct suspects. Now it’s just a matter of proving it. And I will. Don’t you worry about that. I’m tired of having you two running around, getting in my way, thinking you’re better than I am. Things are going to be different around here. I can tell you that.”

  Bernie snorted. “Get serious,” she scoffed. “Your case, if you want to call it that, will never hold up in court. It’s as thin as tissue paper.”

  “It doesn’t have to,” Lucy said sweetly. “You’ll still be in jail, awaiting trial. And it can take a long time to work up a case and bring it to court.”

  “Are you threatening us?” Libby demanded.

  “No. I’m telling you the realities of the situation,” Lucy replied. “And by the way, I spoke to William Moran. He wants you two to pay to fix the door.”

  “We should be suing him for damages,” Libby cried.

  “How do you figure that?” Lucy asked.

  “He should have a fail-safe mechanism on the door so what happened to us doesn’t happen again.”

  “I’ll let him know. I’m sure he’ll run right out and get one.” Lucy’s smile got bigger. “Just stay away from the Berkshire Arms, or he’ll put a restraining order out on you, and I promise you I’ll be there to enforce it.”

  Chapter 29

  “I can’t wait to get home and get out of these clothes,” Libby said to Bernie as they hurried across the parking lot to their van and got in.

  “We’re not going home. We’re going back to the Berkshire Arms to see if we can find out who that couple we saw is,” Bernie told her as she leaned over, opened the glove compartment, took her phone out, and turned it on. It worked!

  “Have you lost your mind?” Libby demanded as Bernie silently thanked the phone gods. “Didn’t you hear what Lucy said? He meant it. Do you really want to get arrested?”

  “We’ll be in and out before Moran sees us. I’ll be quick. I promise.”

  “That’s what you said the last time, Bernie, and look what happened.”

  “We got cold and wet,” Bernie said, having decided to take a more positive view of things.

  “We also got framed for murder,” Libby countered.

  “Attempted frame, Libby, and it’s a pretty weak one at that.”

  “But a frame, nevertheless,” Libby reiterated. “And”— she raised a finger—“let’s not forget we could have gotten struck by lightning up there.”

  “But we weren’t.”

  “We could have been. We could have been fried to a crisp.”

  “And yet here we are,” Bernie replied as she tucked her phone into her tote.

  Libby glared at her sister. Sometimes she just wanted to slap her. “Seriously, whoever locked us up there was sending us a message.”

  Bernie put the key in the ignition and started Mathilda up. “That’s great if it’s true.”

  Libby’s jaw dropped. “Great?” Libby repeated when she’d recovered enough to speak. “You call what happened great?”

  “I do. Because that means we’re getting closer. We’ve obviously hit a nerve.”

  “Whose nerve?”

  Bernie frowned. “That’s the part we still have to figure out.”

  “Oh, goody.” Libby clapped her hands. “I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel, Bernie. All I can say is, I’m never going up on the roof again.”

  “We’re not going up on the roof, Libby. We’re going into the building.”

  Libby crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her seat. “I don’t care. I don’t want to go anywhere near the place. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. The place is cursed. Nothing good has ever happened there.”

  “Fine. Then you stay in the van, and I’ll go in.”

  Libby turned her head away and studied the lights in the valley below through the side window. They were from the houses in the Orchard Estates development. Everyone snug in their homes. Like she and Bernie ought to be.

  “I don’t know,” Libby said to her sister, still looking at the view. “Maybe this time we bit off more than we can chew, metaphorically speaking.”

  Bernie reached over and patted her sister’s knee. “We can solve this thing. We will solve this thing. This person has killed two people. He might be getting ready to kill a third. If we don’t go now, those people will probably be gone.”

  “They probably are already.”

  “They might be,” Bernie admitted. “But right now they’re all we have.”

  “And the Blitmans?”

  “We’ll call tomorrow, apologize, and send them a box of cookies.”

  “I guess that makes the most sense,” Libby reluctantly admitted. She raised her hand and checked the heat coming out of the vent on the dashboard. Anemic was the word that came to mind.

  Bernie smiled. “You’ll see. Everything will work out. We’re practically there, anyway. And this will just take a minute,” she assured Libby. She held up her hand. “I swear. And then we’ll go home.”

  “No longer,” Libby said as Bernie stepped on the gas and headed toward the Berkshire Arms. “You promise?”

  “I just did. Okay then,” Bernie said, and she reached over and turned on the radio. The sound of the Beatles filled the van.

  Libby sat back and closed her eyes. She was drifting off to sleep when she realized something. “The rope,” she blurted out, thinking of the hanging skeletons lining the road that led up to the Berkshire Arms.

  “What about it?” Bernie asked, keeping her eyes on the road. They had just begun their ascent to the Berkshire Arms.

  “Think about it,” Libby told her. “The Witherspoons were hanged. That’s an unusual way to kill someone.”

  “Penelope might have been killed another way and then strung up,” Bernie said.

  “You’re being too literal. What I’m saying is that the use of the rope is symbolic. The fact that they were hanged has significance.”

  “The Hanged Man is a tarot card,” Bernie said. She used to consult them when she was in college.

  “What does the card mean?”

  Bernie thought for a moment. “If I remember correctly, if the card refers to yourself, it means you’re at a crossroads, and if it refers to someone else, it means they are a traitor and you should beware of them.”

  “I wonder which one this symbolizes?” Libby said.

  “The second one,” Bernie guessed.

  Libby thought so, too.

  Chapter 30

  Bernie thought about what she and Libby had just discussed as she drove along the road. Could the manner of the Witherspoons’ deaths be a clue to a motive? Was it just coincidence? No. It couldn’t be. So obviously, the hanging did have some significance. But what was it? Was the tarot card interpretation valid? Now that she thought about it, it seemed like a st
retch. She was about to tell Libby that when her attention was drawn to the lights ahead of her. As she rounded the final bend, she saw spotlights illuminating the shed where she and Bernie had parked.

  “I should have figured the Longely CID would still be here,” Bernie muttered as she took in the yellow tape and the scurrying people, who looked antlike in the blazing light that was turning night into day.

  “The question is, did Lucy come back?” Libby observed.

  “Doubtful,” Bernie replied as both she and Libby scrunched down in their seats. “He’s probably home, watching TV.” Which was good, Bernie reflected; not that people wouldn’t know who they were, considering their shop’s name was emblazoned on their van. Luckily, no one looked their way. Bernie turned off the van’s headlights to make them less noticeable and drove over to the far side of the parking lot. She parked in between two cars, killed the engine, but left the key in the ignition.

  “I’ll be back in a minute, five at the most,” Bernie told Libby as she got out. She closed the door quietly and headed for the Berkshire Arms’s main entrance. She had a slight wobble as she walked, and Libby was reflecting that one of Bernie’s heels must be coming off—nothing like using it for a hammer—when she glanced at her rearview mirror and saw William Moran striding toward Bernie.

  “You!” he screamed.

  I knew we shouldn’t have come up here, Libby thought as she watched Moran close the distance.

  Bernie whirled around.

  “You,” he repeated, his face red.

  “May I help you with something?” Bernie asked. That only got Moran angrier.

  Moran pointed to the van. “Yeah. You can turn around and get back in your van, and then you and your sister can drive out of here right now.”

  Bernie put her hands on her hips. “Or?”

  “Or I’m calling the cops, having you removed, and charging you with trespassing. Didn’t the chief of police tell you not to come here?”

  “He might have mentioned it in passing,” Bernie lied as she put on her best smile.

  “So what part of ‘Don’t go there’ didn’t you understand?”