A Catered Costume Party

by Isis Crawford

  “So what do you think?” Justin asked the sisters when they walked into the place and introduced themselves.

  Justin was tall and thin and wore skinny jeans, a buffalo plaid shirt, horn-rimmed glasses, and had a serious handlebar mustache. He was two shades away from being a hipster, Bernie decided.

  “I like the place,” Bernie said, telling the truth. “It has a nice vibe.”

  The place was tiny, with just enough room for the counter and ten small tables. Libby wondered what the place had been before. Maybe a small convenience store.

  “Good color scheme, right?” Justin asked anxiously. “Not too Starbucksy.”

  “Not at all,” Bernie assured him. The walls were painted a mint green, while the floor was green-and-white linoleum tile, and the tables were white Formica. Framed coffee ads covered the walls. “It’s got a fifties feel to it.”

  Justin beamed and almost jumped up and down with delight. “That’s just what I was going for. I own this place, you know.”

  “We figured,” Libby and Bernie said together.

  “I just opened up two weeks ago.”

  For the next twenty minutes, he and the sisters discussed the food business in general, and coffee sourcing and roasting in particular, while they sipped lattes and sampled Justin’s baked goods as they crowded around a table in front of the window and watched the world go by.

  “All your food stuff is good,” Libby told him, gesturing to the plate on the table that was overflowing with samples of the chocolate chip cookies, brownies, blueberry scones, cranberry-nut bars, cake pops, and mini black-and-white cookies that Justin sold. “But I especially like the cheddar cheese corn muffin and the walnut shortbread,” she noted. “Do you make everything yourself, or do you outsource?”

  “My girlfriend does all the baking, and thanks. We’re going to add more stuff, too. Like a couple of gluten-free options. And some dairy-free stuff.”

  “It’s tough these days,” Libby said, sympathizing. “So many people with so many allergies.”

  “It sure is,” Justin agreed. “Of course,” he said mournfully, looking around at the empty room, “it would help if we had some customers in here.”

  “They’ll come,” Libby said, trying to be reassuring. “The first year is always the toughest.”

  “Ninety-nine percent of restaurants fail during the first year,” Justin noted, quoting a well-known statistic.

  “But you’re not going to be one of them,” Bernie told him. “Social media,” she suggested. She took another sip of her latte. “It really does help. Not that we do it,” she admitted. “But my friends tell me it works. But then, you’re probably doing that already.” She felt foolish. Of course he was doing that. Anyone his age would.

  “That I am,” Justin told them. “At least my friends are coming,” he added. “And we have a couple of knitting circles, a crocheting group, and two book groups that are interested in meeting here, so that’s good.”

  “And they’ll bring their friends, who in turn will bring their friends,” Bernie told him. “The good thing about having a small place is that it doesn’t take many people to fill it up. Then people walking by see you have a crowd, figure it must be good, and come in, too.”

  Justin smiled. “I never thought of that. And at night I’ve got some people coming in who are doing acoustic guitar. I’m thinking of getting a panini machine and maybe offering some cakes, as well.”

  “See?” Bernie said. “You’re on your way.”

  “I hope so,” Justin said. “I’d hate to see my dad’s money go to waste.”

  “You did this with your inheritance from him?” Libby asked.

  Justin nodded. “It took a while to get the will probated.” His shoulders slumped as he thought about his father. “I really miss him. I guess I didn’t think I’d miss him as much as I do, because when he was alive, all we did was fight.” He straightened up. “But enough about me. How can I help you guys?”

  “Your dad’s chest of drawers,” Bernie said. “We want to know about your dad’s chest of drawers.”

  Justin finished off his corn muffin, brushed the crumbs off his shirt and into his cupped hand, and deposited them on the side of his plate. “Like I said on the phone, there really isn’t that much to tell.”

  “Tell us, anyway,” Bernie urged.

  “But I already did,” Justin protested.

  “I know you did,” Libby said. “But please tell us again. At this point any random shred of information could prove helpful.”

  “If you think it’ll be of assistance,” Justin said. He looked around and sighed. “It’s not as if you’re interrupting anything.” Then he repeated what he’d already told Bernie about Darius Witherspoon getting in touch with him after his father died and asking if he could have the chest of drawers as a memento.

  “Memento?” Libby asked. “That’s rather odd, don’t you think?”

  Justin shrugged. “I don’t know. I just assumed that Mr. Witherspoon wanted something to remind him of the trip he and my dad were on. He told me that they’d used that chest of drawers when they’d planned their trip to Paraguay.”

  “Really?” said Bernie, who was having trouble visualizing the scenario. “For what?”

  “Mr. Witherspoon told me that he and my dad had used it as their command center. They’d stored things they needed for the trip in it and put a picture of the place they were going to on it to motivate themselves. So I said, ‘Sure. Take it.’ I was just going to sell the thing on eBay or Craigslist, anyway.”

  “They were on a trip together?” Bernie asked.

  Justin nodded. “One of Mr. Witherspoon’s treasure hunts.” He frowned and sighed.

  “And you didn’t approve?” Bernie asked.

  “I thought it was silly. Grown men looking for buried treasure.” Justin pointed to himself. “It’s not my bag, but my dad liked that stuff—he lived for it, in fact—and he got a chance to go on this one for free. It was a very big deal to him.”

  “How come?” Bernie asked.

  “That he got to go for free?”

  Bernie nodded. “Yes.”

  “He’d worked in that part of the world as a civil engineer, so he had contacts down there, and he was familiar with the area Witherspoon was set on exploring.” Justin grimaced. “Which turned out to be a good thing. There’s a lot of jungle there, and you can get lost pretty easily.” Jason gulped down the last of one of the lattes he’d made for himself, Libby, and Bernie. “There are supposed to be gold caches all over the place. According to my dad, the locals spend a lot of time digging for Incan gold in the jungle. It’s like their national hobby. Sometimes Dad said they even find some.”

  “So I take it he and Witherspoon didn’t in this case?” Libby asked.

  Justin shook his head. “Nope. It turned out to be a bad trip. One of those ones where nothing goes right from the beginning, and you’d be better off having stayed home in bed.” He paused, and Libby and Bernie waited until Justin had finished off a piece of walnut shortbread and resumed his tale. “Evidently, there was one snafu after another. First, they missed their flight, and then the equipment wasn’t there when they landed. And when it did come, some of it was broken, and they had to jerry-rig it, after which my dad came down with dysentery, and then, to cap it all off, one of the workers on the expedition died, and his village blamed his death on Darius Witherspoon.”

  “And was it Witherspoon’s fault?” Libby asked.

  “My dad was in town when it happened, so he didn’t see it,” Justin replied. “But Mr. Witherspoon told him the man was drunk, he was playing around, and he fell off a cliff and broke his neck. But the locals thought differently. Darius and my dad had to get out of town. Left all their equipment and most of their camping gear behind. I guess it was pretty scary.”

  “Okay,” Libby said. “I get that. But what I don’t see is why that would make Darius Witherspoon want a memento of your dad.”

  “That’s because if it wasn
’t for my dad, Mr. Witherspoon probably wouldn’t have gotten out of there. They couldn’t go back to the village. It was too dangerous. So my dad and Mr. Witherspoon walked through the jungle for two days before they came to another village. Without my dad, Mr. Witherspoon would have died.” Justin shook his head. “Ironic that after the life he led, my dad gets hit by some guy making an illegal right on red down on Canal Street, isn’t it? He was real excited, too.”

  “About what?” Libby asked.

  “About this new venture that he and Mr. Witherspoon were planning. He said it was going to be the find of the century, the trip to end all trips.”

  “I don’t suppose you happen to know what it was?” Libby inquired.

  Justin shook his head. “My dad wouldn’t tell me. Said he was sworn to secrecy. Said he and Mr. Witherspoon had combined resources and had come up with something spectacular.”

  “And you don’t have any idea what it was?”

  “Nope. The only thing he said was that I’d be surprised when I found out where it was.”

  “Where it was?” Libby repeated.

  “That’s what he said,” Justin told her.

  “And you have no idea where he meant?” Bernie asked.

  “Absolutely none.” Justin scratched his chin. “My dad had a big collection of old maps and books and stuff like that. Maybe they found something in one of them.”

  Bernie leaned forward like a beagle scenting a fox. “What happened to the collection?”

  Justin shrugged apologetically. “I was going to auction them off, but the guy who came by to give me a price on my dad’s stuff said his books weren’t worth anything, so I threw them in the Dumpster. Except for the atlas in the dresser. Darius asked me for that, as well.”

  “How come?” Bernie asked.

  Justin shrugged again. “Same reason as the chest of drawers. Sentimental value.”

  Libby slipped out of her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair. “So it wasn’t worth anything?”

  Jason laughed. “Not at all. The atlas was my dad’s. He found it in a used bookstore somewhere. He thought it was valuable, but actually it turned out this guy—I forget his name, but he was some sort of savant—had drawn all the maps and then had paid to have them made into a book and published. He just enjoyed looking at it, and I think Mr. Witherspoon did, too.”

  “And the notebooks?” Bernie asked after she’d explained about them.

  Justin shook his head. “They must have been Mr. Witherspoon’s, because my dad never took notes. He prided himself on his memory.” He stood up. A customer had wandered into the store. Justin started walking toward the woman, who was reading the menu.

  “One last question,” Bernie said.

  Justin paused.

  “Do you happen to know how your dad and Darius Witherspoon met?”

  “I think my dad wandered into Mr. Witherspoon’s gallery one day and they got to talking. Some random thing like that.”

  Chapter 48

  “So maybe this whole thing is about a treasure hunt gone awry,” Libby observed on her and Bernie’s way back up to Westchester. “Maybe the atlas actually did contain a clue to the treasure’s whereabouts, and maybe Darius actually found it, and one of his partners killed him for it.”

  “How very x marks the spot,” Bernie said as she slowed down, then sped up again. “On the other hand, this whole thing could be about something else entirely.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. However, I think we’re overcomplicating this.”

  “I think you may be right. We should start with Penelope’s disappearance,” Libby suggested as Bernie spotted the end of the roadwork and picked up speed. “After all, that’s where everything began.”

  Bernie nodded. “Begin at the beginning,” she said, quoting one of her dad’s many maxims. “When you get stuck, go back to square one. The answer is usually there.” Which she’d found was usually true.

  Libby smiled. “Exactly. We just got swept up with all the other stuff.”

  “So what if we turn things around?” Bernie proposed after a moment of thought. “Let’s say that Septimus was telling the truth—he had a fight with Penelope, but that was as far as it went—and that Darius’s story to Flynn about Penelope being in mortal danger was a lie.”

  “Because?” Libby asked.

  “Because he was covering his tracks.”

  “And he was doing that because he knew his wife was going to disappear,” Libby said excitedly. “And he wanted an alibi.”

  “Precisely,” Bernie continued. “And he knew she was going to disappear because he was going to make it happen.” Bernie thought about the Missoni dress and the shopping bag she’d found in the cottage down by the river, the dress she was almost positive had belonged to Penelope Witherspoon, because you didn’t just find those lying around.

  Then she thought about what Phil Craven had said about seeing a woman coming out of the water. At first, she hadn’t believed him, as his story was too fantastical, but now she was inclined to. “Okay. This is a big leap, but let’s suppose that Darius wants to kill his wife—”

  Libby interrupted. “Motive?”

  Bernie took her hand off the wheel and made an impatient gesture. “I don’t know.”

  “Guess,” Libby said.

  “Several things come to mind. Maybe Darius wanted her dead because he’s about to come into the find of a lifetime and he doesn’t want to share it with her, or maybe there’s something illegal about it and she’s going to rat him out. . . .”

  “Not too far a stretch, considering that was the way he supposedly did business,” Libby said.

  “Or maybe he found out that Septimus and his wife were planning on taking over the business and throwing him out. That would really piss me off,” Bernie observed.

  “Me too,” Libby agreed.

  “But you know what? Let’s leave the reason aside for the moment. What matters is that Darius wants to get rid of his wife, right?”

  Libby nodded. “Right.”

  “So he invites her down to the river on some pretext or other, incapacitates her—probably by hitting her on the head—and rolls her into the water. Then he makes his mistake. He leaves because he thinks she’s dead. As Dad would say, never assume. But she’s not. Somehow or other, she survives. She climbs out of the river. Then, when she can, she calls someone—a friend—and asks for help. Or maybe somebody out for a late run sees her and comes to her aid. No. I take that back,” Bernie said, thinking about what she’d just said. “In that case, the person would have called the police.”

  “And the person she called brings her dry clothes,” Libby said, following Bernie’s train of thought.

  Bernie nodded. “And she changes and leaves.”

  “But where does she go?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m guessing somewhere close by. Somewhere where she can keep an eye on her husband. A very close eye. Maybe that thing we saw on the turret as we were driving up wasn’t who we thought it was. Maybe it was her.”

  “Let’s assume you’re correct. Her husband has tried to kill her. Why doesn’t she call the police?”

  “Because she’s pissed, Libby. Very, very pissed.”

  Libby unwrapped a square of dark chocolate from Mexico and popped it into her mouth. “That has to be the understatement of the year,” she told her sister as the chocolate coated her mouth.

  “The decade, Libby. The decade,” Bernie replied, enthusiastically throwing herself into the narrative. “She wants revenge. She wants to kill her husband for doing what he did to her. Sitting in jail is too good for him. And who knows? Maybe by some miracle, he’d be found not guilty and walk.”

  “So she climbs into Darius’s window and kills him?”

  “No. She didn’t climb into the window. She got out that way, but that’s not the way she came in. I bet she came up the stairs and knocked on his door right after you came back downstairs. By that time we were so busy, we wouldn’
t have noticed anyone going up. And if Penelope was in costume, Darius might not have recognized her until he let her in and she took off her mask.”

  Bernie thought about Darius’s reaction. He would have been paralyzed with terror. It would have been easy enough to slip the rope over his neck, hook the rope to the plant hook, and throw him out. Or maybe not that. Bernie could see Penelope taking a step forward and Darius taking a step back, until he was right by the window. Then one push and out he goes. After all, she was bigger than he was.

  “Or maybe she had a partner,” Libby proposed.

  “Which would make things easier.”

  “And Darius wrote the note to us because?” Libby asked.

  “He wrote it because he knew something was wrong. Because he suspected that he hadn’t killed Penelope and that she was going to come after him, and he wanted to make sure she didn’t have that satisfaction. He wanted to make sure that at the very least she would rot in a jail cell for the rest of her life.”

  “Then who killed her?” Libby asked. “Certainly not Darius. I mean, at least we know he’s dead. It may be the only thing we do know for sure.”

  “Her partner,” Bernie said.

  “Who is?”

  “The same person who brought her the clothes she was wearing. The person who knew she was alive.”

  “That definitely narrows down the field,” Libby said sarcastically.

  “It does,” Bernie protested. “Almost everyone thought she was dead. So what do you think?”

  “About what you laid out?”

  “No. About world peace and climate change.”

  “Frankly, I think it’s pretty sketchy.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Bernie asked.

  “Not really,” Libby allowed.

  “Think about it,” Bernie said.

  Which Libby did. She spent the rest of the trip turning over in her mind what Bernie had said, and try as she might, she had to admit that Bernie’s version of the events had merit. “We should probably go through the house where we found Penelope’s dress in the daylight,” she suggested as they pulled up to the shop. “Maybe there’s something there we didn’t see at night.”