“Good thought,” Bernie said. Then she groaned when she caught sight of Michelle pulling in behind Mathilda. Her dad’s fiancée was the last person she wanted to be dealing with at the moment.
Chapter 49
Michelle got out of her vehicle at the same time that Libby and Bernie got out of theirs.
“What a delightful surprise,” Bernie said, lying through her teeth. “Isn’t it, Libby?”
Libby didn’t answer.
Bernie repeated her question louder this time. “Isn’t it, Libby?”
“Definitely,” Libby answered, though the expression on her face suggested otherwise.
“I hope you don’t mind my dropping in like this,” Michelle trilled, “but your dad said you were out, and he didn’t know what time you’d be back.” She gestured with her chin to the container she was carrying. “So I’m bringing him some dinner. My special fried tofu and kale casserole and a quinoa, carob, and stevia brownie for dessert.”
Libby grinned. Her dad hated everything Michelle had mentioned. “I’m sure he’ll be so pleased.”
“Can’t have our guy go hungry,” Michelle chirped.
“No, we can’t, though he’s not exactly starving to death,” Bernie couldn’t help herself from pointing out. “He can always go downstairs and get something to eat, you know.”
“I know he can.” Michelle leaned over and gave Bernie’s arm a quick pat. “But I just thought this would be a nice thing to do, and it gives me a chance to see my snuggle bunny.”
Libby cringed, and Bernie thought her father would die if he heard himself referred to that way. She wondered if he knew.
“We want him to remain healthy,” Michelle continued.
“Are you saying our food isn’t healthy?” Libby demanded, taking the bait.
“Not at all,” Michelle replied in a soothing voice. “But you have to admit that superfoods and more fiber can’t be bad, right?” Then she flashed Libby a brilliant smile and started up the stairs, leaving Libby commentless.
Bernie and Libby followed behind her. The sisters spent the next hour watching their dad take teeny, tiny bites of Michelle’s meal while they told him what they’d found out.
“That’s fascinating,” Michelle said when they were through. She clapped her hands in a parody of excitement. “Going around. Talking to people. I envy you not having to stay in the shop all the time. It must be nice to feel so secure about your clientele. To not be worried that someone is going to steal them away, what with the competition and all. I know I’d be worried if I were you, but then I’m a worrier.”
No. You’re something else, Bernie thought but didn’t say. Neither, through a supreme act of will, did Libby. Both sisters could see from the expression on their dad’s face that he was grateful for their self-restraint.
“Can you get me a piece of pie?” Sean said to Bernie and Libby as soon as he heard the downstairs door close, signifying Michelle’s departure.
“What kind of pie?” Bernie asked.
“Any kind of pie will do. Apple first, and if that’s all gone, then pumpkin, preferably the one with the gingersnap crust.” He held out the dish Michelle had given him. Half of the tofu and kale casserole and all of the quinoa brownie remained. “And could you throw this out, too?”
“But, Dad,” Libby said. “If you don’t like this kind of food, why don’t you just tell her?”
Sean looked at his daughter as if she was crazy. “First of all, I don’t want to hurt her feelings. After all, she has my best interests at heart.”
Libby didn’t say anything, although she doubted it. “And secondly?”
Sean straightened up. “That’s simple. Because then she’d ask me what she makes that I do like, and I’d have to tell her I don’t like anything she makes, and I don’t want to do that.” Sean frowned as he thought about how wonderful his wife’s cooking had been. He really didn’t know how good he’d had it. Oh well. At least his daughters had inherited his wife’s ability. “Oh, and by the way,” Sean added, “could you add some whipped cream to the pie? And a cup of coffee wouldn’t hurt, either.”
“So what do you think?” Libby asked after her dad had finished eating.
“About the pie? I love your pie. You know that.”
“No, about Darius killing his wife.”
Cindy jumped up on Sean’s lap, and he began to pet her. “I think your theory has merit,” he said. “I just don’t see how you’re going to prove it.”
“We haven’t quite figured that out yet,” Libby admitted.
“You should take another look around the house where you found Penelope’s dress,” Sean suggested. “Maybe there’s something else there you didn’t see.”
“That’s what I said,” Libby replied. “Especially since no one has looked there.”
“That’s because no one figured Penelope for being around there,” Sean observed.
“No they didn’t,” Bernie agreed. “They figured she’d met with some kind of accident. . . .”
“Or foul play . . . ,” Libby added.
“In the city,” Bernie said, finishing the thought.
Cindy butted her head against Sean’s hand, and he rubbed her ear. “I’d like to come along, if you don’t mind.”
“Love it!” Bernie and Libby said together. They exchanged glances. This was a good sign. Ordinarily, he would have said something about having to check with Michelle first to see if they had plans. Maybe she was losing traction.
“We can always use another set of eyes,” Libby continued.
Sean grinned. “That’s what I was thinking, too.” He motioned to the atlas resting on the coffee table that Bernie had taken from Darius’s apartment. “I’d like to take a look at that if you’re not.”
“Libby and I were hoping you would. Maybe you’ll find something in it that we haven’t,” said Bernie, handing the book to her dad. Although she and Libby had leafed through it, nothing had popped out at them.
“Geography used to be my favorite subject, so maybe I will,” Sean replied.
Libby stood up. “For my part, I’m going to go downstairs and get the cinnamon-raisin bread and the apple-walnut muffins started.”
“I guess that leaves me with the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and the olive oil carrot cake with chocolate ganache frosting,” Bernie observed.
“God, they all sound good,” Sean remarked as he opened the atlas.
A moment later, he’d become totally engrossed in the maps he was looking at. He smiled as he turned the pages. The names were fanciful, and given the monsters inhabiting the oceans, the maps looked as if they had been drawn in earlier centuries. Much earlier centuries.
But as Sean looked at the maps more carefully, he realized that wasn’t true. The maps were actually based on ones from the twentieth century. The cartographer had taken maps from various periods in time, combined them, and renamed them. Thus the title The Atlas of Implausibility. He’d done a good job, too.
But if you knew what you were looking for, you could spot the original impetus. There was no index, but it didn’t take Sean long to realize the maps were grouped by continent. As he looked through the maps having to do with North America, he remembered a story his mother had told him, a story her brother had told her, and he wondered if it was true.
He rested the atlas on his lap. “Hey,” he said to Bernie. “Do you think you could get me my magnifying glass and look up something for me on the computer before you go downstairs?”
“Of course,” Bernie replied, standing up.
“In fact,” he said, “could you bring me everything you got out of both Witherspoon apartments?”
“With pleasure,” she said, and then she set about collecting the materials her dad had asked for.
Later, after she was done helping him, she had something she wanted to look up. She knew it was a long shot—that was why she wasn’t telling anybody—but if it panned out, it would explain a lot.
Chapter 50
The
Hudson was choppy at ten in the morning, the water beating against the river’s bank in fitful little waves. The sky was gray, the color reflected in the water. A stiff breeze was blowing off the river, making Libby glad that she’d brought along three large thermoses of hot chocolate. It helped with the chill.
Sean took the thermos and the breakfast sandwich Libby had made for him—two strips of bacon and an egg fried in coconut oil, topped with slices of avocado and wrapped in a freshly made corn tortilla—and started down toward the riverbank.
“Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?” Bernie called after him.
“I’m fine,” Sean said over his shoulder.
“Are you sure?” Libby asked.
Sean stopped and turned around. “This is just a hunch,” he told them. “If I find anything, I’ll yell.”
“Because we can—” Libby began, but Sean cut her off.
“I know,” he said, the irritation in his voice coming through. “But I just want to do this by myself.”
“Okay,” Bernie said.
“Good hunting,” Sean said. Then he turned and continued down toward the river.
Bernie watched him go. “He wants to sneak a smoke,” she said to Libby when she couldn’t see her dad anymore.
Libby gave Bernie her thermos and breakfast sandwich. “That’s what I figured. I keep on thinking we should do something.”
“Like what?” Bernie asked, unwrapping the sandwich and taking a bite.
“I don’t know,” Libby admitted while she started eating hers.
“Exactly. He’s seventy-three. At seventy-three, I figure he’s earned the right to do what he wants.”
“I guess,” Libby said, although she wasn’t convinced.
Then she and her sister finished their sandwiches and got to work. They’d decided to look through the falling-down cottage again before they searched the surrounding area, on the theory that there might be something they missed in the dark. After half an hour they had to admit they hadn’t found anything that shed more light on what happened to Penelope Witherspoon.
“This is even grosser in the daylight,” Libby commented as she stepped around something that looked like a pile of dried vomit. “I’m glad I didn’t step in that,” she said, pointing to it.
“Ditto,” Bernie replied.
The place hadn’t been that bad when she and her friends had come down here. Now the floor was literally covered with trash. There were fast-food wrappers, half-eaten packs of dehydrated camping food, empty water and beer bottles, empty bottles of cheap vodka, Styrofoam coffee cups, cigarette butts, and charred pieces of wood from extinguished campfires.
“It looks as if someone was living here,” she said, picking up a moldy sleeping bag and turning it inside out. “Not just partying.”
“Penelope Witherspoon?” Libby asked.
Bernie squinted at the inside of the sleeping bag. A name was written in indelible ink along the top. “George Washington,” she read out loud. “Please return to owner.”
“So not Penelope’s.”
“Definitely not.” Bernie thought of the Witherspoons’ apartment on Park Avenue. There was no way she could visualize Penelope staying here. She would rather have died. Well, maybe she had. With that thought, Bernie dropped the sleeping bag back on the floor and stepped outside. Libby followed.
“This is a big area to search,” she noted.
“Larger than a football field,” Bernie said.
“What does that mean?” Libby demanded.
“That it’s a big space.” Bernie took a slug of hot chocolate, then screwed the top to her thermos back on and put up the hood on her hoodie.
“It would help if we had more people,” Libby observed. “A lot more people.”
“And a couple of dogs,” Bernie said. “But we don’t, so we’ll just have to make the best of what we have.”
“Why do people always say, ‘We have to make the best of what we have’?” Libby mused. “Why not the worst?”
“I think we’ve stalled long enough,” Bernie said as she eyed the tangle of weeds and the low-growing brush in front of her. Hopefully, there was something else of Penelope’s out there, as well, something they could bring to the police. “Let’s do this thing,” she said to her sister.
“Let’s,” Libby replied. The question was how to do it in the most efficient way possible. In the end, they decided to try to walk in a straight line, keeping about twelve feet apart from each other until they came to the end of the Berkshire Arms. Then, when they reached the end of the building, they would make another pass, shifting downward toward the river. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best way they could think of given the thickness of the underbrush.
The sisters had just started their search when Sean reappeared.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“Not yet. And you?” Libby asked.
“I wasn’t really looking,” he admitted.
“We know,” Bernie said.
“I know you know,” Sean said as he pulled his watch cap down over his ears. “Thanks. So how are we going to do this?” he asked, changing the subject.
Libby explained. Sean listened and nodded. He had nothing to say, which his daughters took as a compliment.
The three of them started walking down their allotted paths, eyes sweeping the ground to the left, then the right, then the left again. They walked slowly, concentrating on the ground. The only sounds were their feet crunching the leaves, the cries of the seagulls, and the occasional toot of a tugboat going down the river. Once in a while, one of them would stop and take a sip of hot chocolate.
Ten minutes later, Libby noticed that Bernie had stopped, put her thermos down, and was poking at something in the underbrush with a stick she’d picked up along the way.
“Find anything?” Libby asked.
“I’m not sure,” Bernie said. “It’s probably nothing. Just a piece of trash.” But she bent down and felt around underneath the shrub just to make sure.
“I hope there’s no poison ivy under there,” Libby said.
“Always the positive thinker,” Bernie replied as her hand closed on what the stick had hit. She pulled it out. “Interesting,” she said as she brushed the dirt off a medium-size leather bag.
Sean and Libby crowded around her as she inspected it. The bag had been black once, but now the leather was a moldy gray. Bernie opened it. The inside was in better condition.
“This is a Burberry,” she announced, reading the label, as she looked through the compartments. “One of the newer ones.”
“Meaning?” Sean asked. His knowledge of women’s handbags fell into the minus category.
“Meaning it’s expensive,” Bernie replied. “Meaning it’s not something that you’d forget or throw away.”
“You think it’s Penelope’s?” her dad asked.
“Well, it ain’t Queen Elizabeth’s,” Bernie told him. “Penelope had a Burberry trench coat in the hall closet, as well as two Burberry totes that could be this one’s sisters.”
“Any ID?” Libby asked.
“Nope,” Bernie replied. “Maybe whoever took her bag threw her wallet around here somewhere.” She gestured to the ground.
“One can only hope,” Libby said as the three of them started looking through the bed of fallen leaves that lay underneath the bushes.
Five minutes later, Sean put his thermos down and pulled a wallet out from under a piece of wood. It, too, had once been black. Like the bag, the wallet was covered with mold and dirt. He idly ran his fingers along the material, cleaning it off. When he saw what was underneath the debris, he grinned.
“God bless monograms,” he said, showing them the remains of the letters. The gold letters had faded, but the P and the W were still visible.
“Penelope Witherspoon,” Libby cried.
“Exactly,” Sean said. “So she was here.”
“Okay,” Bernie said. “Which raises even more questions.”
“L
ike where was she between the time she came out of the water and the time that she died?” Libby said. “Not to mention the matter of who killed her.”
“Her partner killed her,” Sean declared. “I said that already.”
“We thought that, too,” Bernie said.
“Has to be,” Sean said as he put his collar up against the wind. “It’s the only thing that makes sense if we assume that the theory about Penelope killing her husband is correct.”
“I’m not so sure,” Libby objected. “For openers, we don’t know this person even exists.”
“Logic says he does,” Sean replied. “Someone brought Penelope clothes to change into, and someone gave her a place to hide out in. They had to have. Otherwise, she would have been spotted.”
Libby chewed on her lip while she thought over what her dad had said. “Then how did she get in contact with this person? She didn’t know she was going to get tossed into the river by her husband. If she had, she wouldn’t have gone along.”
“Her phone,” Sean replied, taking a guess. “Somehow, her phone didn’t go in the river with her.”
“I suppose it could have dropped out of her pocket,” Libby conceded after a moment of reflection. “Either that or it was in a waterproof case. Okay. So this person rescues her and does or doesn’t help her kill her husband, after which they have a falling-out.”
Sean nodded.
“But then why would this person kill her in such a public manner?” Libby asked. “Why not just kill her and get rid of her body?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Sean admitted as he opened the wallet and thumbed through it. It was empty. “We should look around,” Sean suggested. “Maybe whatever was in here fell out.”
“Let’s hope,” Bernie said as she got down on her knees and began going through the leaves and the dirt and the twigs on the ground with her hands. Libby leaned her thermos against a tree and joined her, while Sean remained standing. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get up again if he got down on the ground.
A Catered Costume Party Page 24