Flynn grinned. “Just concerned citizens.”
“Caterers, actually,” Bernie said.
“I like the term concerned citizens better,” Flynn mused. “It has a nicer ring. Sounds as if it could have come out of a thirties B movie.” He straightened his hat. “But I thought Mr. Witherspoon hanged himself. Am I wrong? Because that’s what the papers said.”
“We think he might have had help,” Bernie said.
“I see,” the doorman said. He stroked his chin. “And you’re saying this why?”
“Because Darius left us a note asking us to look into the matter if he died . . . or words to that effect.”
Flynn stretched out his arm and pretended to read a headline. ‘Murder on Park Avenue’. I like it,” he said.
“Probably more than Darius did,” Libby observed tartly.
Flynn looked chagrined. “Well, there is that.”
“And it was Murder at the Berkshire Arms,” Libby said, correcting him.
“You’re very literal, aren’t you?” Flynn said to Libby. Then he went on before she could answer. “Of course, there was that thing in the papers about his wife. That’s fairly freaky.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Bernie replied.
“Were you the people that found her?” Flynn said, guessing. “The article said something about her being found hanging from a tree.”
“Unfortunately, we did,” Libby answered. “I don’t suppose you saw her around after she disappeared?”
“No, I didn’t,” Flynn replied. Libby decided he looked as if he was telling the truth, but he was an actor, so who knew? “Why,” Flynn continued, “would she turn up here, where everyone knows her, if she wanted to disappear?”
“Maybe she wanted something,” Bernie suggested. “Maybe she was the one who went through the hall closet.”
“She must have wanted whatever it was pretty badly to come back,” Flynn observed.
“It wouldn’t have been that big a risk,” Bernie countered. “She had a key. She could have come in at night through the service entrance. No one would have seen her then.”
The doorman thought for a minute. “Yeah, it’s possible. It’s true no one is officially on duty, but the night staff is around. She’d have to be lucky not to be seen.”
“Maybe she was seen,” Libby suggested. “Maybe she paid someone to forget her.”
Flynn lifted up his hands. “Hey, don’t ask me. I’m not on at night.”
“Of course,” Bernie continued. “It could be someone else. Has anyone else been around?”
Flynn didn’t reply. He studied a pigeon pecking around the bottom of a gingko tree instead. Then he shrugged. “How would I know?”
“Because you let them up,” Bernie guessed.
The doorman remained silent.
Bernie took a step closer. “Maybe I should tell the co-op board you’re doing a little business on the side.”
Flynn remained unfazed. “Here’s another explanation. Perhaps Mr. Witherspoon left the apartment that way when he went up to Longely. Maybe he was the one looking for something. Have you thought of that?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” Bernie told him. “So that’s your story, and you’re sticking to it?”
Flynn nodded. “Indeed I am.”
“So you deny that you or one of the staff here let someone into the apartment after Mr. Witherspoon left?” Bernie asked.
“And how would I be knowing that?” Flynn said, falling back into his brogue again.
“Because you’re the doorman, and doormen see all,” Bernie answered.
“But we don’t tell all,” Flynn replied.
Libby frowned. “We could go to the board,” she told him.
“Threats are a poor man’s game,” Flynn replied.
“What does that even mean?” Bernie asked.
“Frankly, I haven’t a clue. But two can play that game, you know.”
“What game?” Libby asked.
“Threats. I could call the police and tell them you were trying to bribe me to let you into the apartment.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Come to that, how do I know you didn’t make that mess in the closet yourself?”
“I guess we’re at a stalemate,” Bernie told him.
“I guess we are,” Flynn said.
Chapter 37
“I’ve been thinking,” Bernie said after Flynn had returned from hailing a cab for a mother with a three-year-old boy.
“Always a good activity to engage in,” Flynn observed. “So few people seem to be doing it these days.”
“We shouldn’t be fighting,” Bernie continued. “After all, we both want the same thing.”
“What? A cuddle and a kiss?” Flynn asked.
“That, too, but I was thinking we might want something a little closer to home. We both want to go on doing what we’ve been doing, right?”
“I’m listening,” Flynn said.
“Neither one of us wants to get involved with the authorities,” said Bernie. “So how about we cooperate and you tell me—what would it take to get you to tell us what we want to know?”
Flynn rubbed his fingers together in the universal gesture indicating money.
“That’s ridiculous,” Libby huffed. “We already gave you way more than we should have.”
“And I fulfilled my part of the bargain,” Flynn told her. “I let you up. But now you want something different. That’s extra. After all, you don’t go into a restaurant, order dinner, then add an extra side and not expect to get charged.”
“You really have no shame,” Libby snapped.
Flynn laughed. “Look who’s talking. You can save the moral outrage stuff for someone else.”
“Twenty bucks,” Bernie said, naming a low figure. She’d decided Libby was right. The two hundred had been too much, and she wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
“Cheapness doesn’t become you,” Flynn said after he had opened the door for a couple coming out of the building.
“I’m not being cheap,” Bernie protested. “I’m being frugal.”
Flynn grinned. “A tad too thrifty if you ask me. One hundred. You’re asking me to break the confidentiality agreement I had to sign.”
“Thirty.”
“I’d have to pay thousands if I got caught,” Flynn told Bernie.
Bernie frowned. “Forty, and that’s as high as I go.”
“Ninety.”
“Fifty.”
“Seventy-five, and you have a deal.”
“But that’s all the cash I have on me,” Bernie lied.
Flynn smiled. “That’s why God invented ATMs.”
“Fine,” Bernie grumped. “But I still think this is highway robbery. You have my two hundred.”
“And my acting coach thanks you for it. If it’ll help, consider this your contribution to the arts,” Flynn told her. “When I collect my Oscar for Best Actor, I will thank you right after my mom, my dad, and my wife.”
“How sweet. I will await the occurrence with bated breath,” Bernie told him with a smile. “So who did you let up?”
“Whom,” Flynn said, correcting her.
“What are you? The grammar police?” Bernie asked.
“My mother is an English teacher,” Flynn explained. “I can’t help it.” Then he stopped talking and pointedly looked at the pocket from which Bernie had extracted two hundred dollars earlier.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Bernie asked as she slid her hand in her jacket pocket to get the money.
“How do I know you’re not someone from the co-op board sent to entrap me?” countered Flynn.
“You don’t,” Libby said.
“Exactly my point,” Flynn said. “I guess we’ll just have to trust each other.”
Bernie sighed. “I guess we will,” she said, handing over the seventy-five dollars. “So whom did you let up?”
“His partner,” Flynn answered promptly. “I let Darius Witherspoon’s partn
er up.”
“How long was he upstairs for?” Bernie asked.
Flynn thought for a moment. “He was in there for about an hour.”
Libby tucked a strand of hair back in her French knot. “When did he go up?”
“About ten in the morning. Right after I came on duty.”
“No. I mean, what day did he show up?”
“The morning after Mr. Witherspoon died,” Flynn said.
“Did he say anything?” Bernie asked.
“No. He just handed me fifty bucks and said, ‘I need the key.’ But then, he wasn’t a very talkative guy. No chitchat.”
“Fifty bucks!” Bernie cried. She’d always prided herself on her bargaining skills; evidently, they weren’t as good as she had thought they were.
Flynn shrugged. “The market bears what the market bears.”
“What does that mean?” Bernie challenged.
“It means you’re not getting your money back.”
“I kinda figured,” Bernie told him. “But it never hurts to try.”
“Did the partner come here a lot?” Libby asked.
Flynn shook his head. “Mr. Peabody? Hardly ever. And never when Mr. Witherspoon was here. I don’t think they got along. At all.” He turned to Bernie. “See, I’m throwing that nugget of information in for free, so you won’t think I’m a complete dick.”
“I don’t. I think you’re a prince among men,” Bernie told him. But she couldn’t help smiling.
“Why are you saying that about Darius’s partner?” Libby asked him.
Flynn shrugged his shoulders. “No reason, really. Just a feeling I got.”
“So then who did he go up there to see?” Bernie asked.
Flynn looked at Bernie as if she was stupid. “The wife, of course. He went up to see Mr. Witherspoon’s wife.”
“Interesting,” Bernie murmured as she wondered whether that would be a motive for murder. It could be, but the timing was off. You’d figure if that were the case, then Darius would have been the one to kill his wife, but he’d turned up dead first, so then who had killed Darius’s wife?
Darius’s partner? Had Septimus Peabody killed the wife and the husband? Had he been in the apartment to look for something that would link him to the double homicide? Love letters? Although, people didn’t write those anymore. Or maybe this was about something else altogether. Maybe he and Darius had been in the middle of some kind of business deal that he didn’t want anyone to know about, a deal that had gone sideways in a spectacular fashion.
“So are you saying the wife and the partner were having an affair?” Libby asked, wanting Flynn to clarify.
Flynn nodded. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“And you know this how?” Bernie asked.
“It’s obvious,” Flynn replied. “I mean, why else would the partner be going up there?”
“There could be other reasons,” Libby told him.
“Like what?” Flynn demanded.
“I don’t know. Maybe they were planning a surprise party for Darius. Maybe they were working on a Web site for the business.”
Flynn snorted. “Seriously?”
“It is a possibility,” Libby argued.
“An unlikely possibility,” Flynn countered. “In my experience, when the hubby’s away, the wifey will play.”
“Not everything is about sex,” Libby told him.
“No. Not everything,” Flynn replied. “Just most things.”
Libby was just thinking of a comeback when Bernie tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to her watch. It was almost four. Time to find Septimus Peabody and see what he had to say for himself.
Bernie asked Flynn one last question. “Did anyone else go up to the Witherspoons’ apartment?”
“Not that I know of,” Flynn replied. He raised his hand. “At least not on my shift. Scout’s honor.”
“Were you a Boy Scout?” Libby asked.
“No,” Flynn answered. “I just like the way it sounds.”
Chapter 38
The Caldwell Gallery was located off of Eighty-Eighth Street and Madison Avenue, on the ground floor of a prewar apartment building. It was fifteen blocks from Darius Witherspoon’s co-op to his gallery—a walkable distance, a walk Darius had taken twice a day, every day, since he was a man of regular habits. Bernie had wanted to walk there as well, but Libby had put the kibosh on it.
“Absolutely not,” she said, pointing to her shoes.
Bernie let out the sigh of the long-suffering, but she turned around and headed for Mathilda. “Just don’t blame me if we have to drive around for an hour looking for a parking space for the van,” she grumbled. “It’s not like she’s small.”
“Don’t blame me,” Libby retorted. “How about ‘Don’t blame you!’ You’re the one who made me wear these heels. You should have let me wear my flats.”
“You can’t wear those flats in public,” Bernie declared.
“Because the fashion police are going to come and take me away?”
“No. Because they’re a disgrace. They’re held together with Shoe Goo,” Bernie told her.
“That’s a slight exaggeration.”
“Not by much,” Bernie told her as she got in Mathilda.
But as it turned out, the parking gods were kind, and Bernie found a spot for the van half a block down from the gallery. What kind of offering does one give the parking gods? Bernie wondered as she paid the meter and headed for the Caldwell. A can of high-test? An air freshener? A super-luxe detailing?
A tall, ash-blond-haired receptionist glanced up from her cell phone when Bernie and Libby walked through the door. There was something familiar about her, Bernie decided. She was positive she’d seen her before. Recently. She just couldn’t remember where. But it would come to her eventually. It always did.
Bernie estimated the receptionist’s age to be early twenties, but between the heavy foundation she was wearing, the bright pink eye shadow, and the black-rimmed eyeliner, it was difficult to tell. As she looked at her, Bernie’s impression was one of angularity, and the heavy silver and turquoise necklace and matching cuffs the receptionist was wearing reinforced that impression, as they made the receptionist’s arms and neck seem even longer than they were, and emphasized her knife blade–sharp cheekbones.
The slate-gray metal desk the receptionist was sitting behind echoed her angular lines. The desk was an ode to minimalism—not a good thing in Bernie’s mind. In fact, Bernie decided, the desk looked like the stainless-steel prep tables they used in the kitchen, although she was willing to bet that this one was a lot more expensive than the ones she’d bought from the restaurant supply house. The desk’s surface was completely bare except for a bulbous-shaped black metal lamp and a small metal nameplate. As Bernie looked around, it crossed her mind that she’d seen operating rooms that were cozier than this place was.
“Astrid,” Bernie said, reading the receptionist’s name off the nameplate. “Is that Swedish?” It never hurt to start off pleasant.
Astrid’s cell phone pinged. She held up a hand, then looked down at her cell, read the text, and began to type in an answer. Obviously, Bernie’s question wasn’t worth answering.
“Is Mr. Peabody in?” Bernie inquired, wondering as she asked if she’d been this obnoxious when she was in her twenties. Probably yes. The phrase too cool for school echoed in her head.
“You want to talk to him?” Astrid asked, not bothering to raise her eyes from her phone.
“No. I want to have wild, passionate sex,” Bernie replied.
Astrid kept texting and didn’t look up.
“An orgy.”
Nothing.
“A threesome.”
Still nothing.
“Yes, I want to talk to him,” Bernie said, conceding defeat.
“He likes people to leave messages,” Astrid informed her, still texting, her tone suggesting that only morons who were totally out of touch with the universe didn’t know that.
&
nbsp; “That’s not going to work for us,” Bernie replied.
Something in Bernie’s voice penetrated Astrid’s consciousness and made her glance up.
Bernie thought she saw a flicker of recognition pass over Astrid’s face, but then it was gone, and Bernie didn’t know whether she’d imagined it or not. “We need to talk to him,” Bernie explained, trying to control her temper. “We have something he’s going to want to see, something he’s going to want to buy.”
Astrid shook a stray lock of hair out of her face. “He’s not acquiring anything right now,” she announced, a smug tone in her voice. Unsaid was, “How could someone like you or your friend have anything my boss would be interested in buying?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s going to want to see this,” Bernie told her. She could see from Astrid’s expression that she was not convinced.
“Like I said, I’ll give him the message,” Astrid replied, looking down at her cell phone again.
Libby stepped in and took over. “This is a time-sensitive matter,” Libby told her.
Astrid frowned. “I said I’d tell him, didn’t I?”
Libby was sure Astrid wouldn’t do anything of the kind. On general principles. “How about writing it down?” she said.
Astrid gave her a blank look.
“The message. On paper,” Libby said. “With a pen.”
“We’re paperless,” she announced as she went back to her texting.
So far the exchange had definitely gone in Astrid’s favor, Libby noted. She took a deep breath and let it out. “Do you have the back of a sales receipt I can use?” Libby asked, trying and failing to get the advantage back.
“We e-mail our receipts,” Astrid informed her, not looking up from her phone. “Everyone does these days.”
“Not everyone,” Libby told her. “We don’t.”
Astrid didn’t bothering answering. As Libby watched her, she wondered how the Caldwell Gallery did business. Especially with Astrid acting the way she was. What did the gallery sell, anyway? She knew it was supposed to be antiques, but she couldn’t see any on display. Well, that wasn’t quite true.
There was the spotlight-lit ceramic bowl in a niche over on the left wall. Libby went over and looked. It had an octopus painted on it. Then she read the neatly typed card enclosed in plastic next to it. According to the information, the bowl was Minoan. Four thousand years old. Found on the island of Crete. Price on request. Of course.
A Catered Costume Party Page 18