Chapter 18
B
y the time Chief Lucas Broad had climbed the stairs to Sean Simmons' room, Libby had stowed Tiffany in the steamer trunk in her closet, piled her shoes and clothes on top of it, and run downstairs to get tea and cookies.
Five minutes later Libby took a deep breath and reentered her father's room.
I have to go back to exercising,
she thought as she carried in a tray on which rested three cups and saucers, a teapot, cream and sugar, and a platter full of cookies
. Otherwise running up and down these steps is going to kill me.
“Cookie? Tea?” she said, offering the tray to the chief, who was standing by the dresser.
He shook his head.
“You should try a cookie,” Bernie urged. “The chocolate chip and the nut bars are particularly good. Libby is known for them. She sends them to Texas and California.”
Lucas Broad reached out and took one reluctantly.
“Tea?” Libby asked brightly as he bit into a chocolate chip bar.
“No, thanks.”
“Gained a little weight in the gut, have you, Lucy?” Sean said as Libby put the tray down on the table next to him and began pouring a cup of tea for her father. “Must be sitting behind the desk. It'll do it to you every time.”
Lucy colored and shoved the rest of the cookie into his mouth.
It's lucky that I cut the bars small,
Libby thought, watching the chief as she surreptitiously paused to wipe her palms on the sides of her khaki shorts.
Otherwise we'd be performing the Heimlich maneuver now.
“So what brings you here?” Sean asked as Libby put the cup full of tea by her father's side and began pouring one for Bernie.
“Chief, are you sure I can't get you something?” Libby asked speaking at the same time her father was. “This tea is Oolong. Organic.”
“No doubt handpicked by happy natives,” Lucas snapped.
“All tea is handpicked,” Bernie said, donning her schoolmarm voice. “However, I can't attest to the happy native part. Actually, that's what makes good tea so expensive. It's labor-intensive. Of course the really good stuff, the tea made from whole leaves, goes to Germany. It sells there for twenty-five to forty dollars a pound. But I'm sure you're not interested in that, are you?”
“No. I'm not.”
Suddenly Lucy came to attention. Like a hound scenting his prey, Libby thought watching him.
“What was that?” he asked.
“What?” Libby asked even though she'd heard it too.
“That thud. Don't you hear it?”
“Oh,” Libby said. The noise was faint but unmistakable. “That.”
“We're baby-sitting my cousin's eight-week-old chocolate lab puppy,” Sean said, marveling at the way the lie tripped off his tongue. “We have him locked in Libby's bedroom. He must be trying to get out.”
“He might have gotten stuck in the closet,” Libby said. “You know how he likes to climb into that trunk of mine and then he can't get out.”
“Maybe I'd better see if he's all right,” Bernie suggested.
“Good idea,” her father told her.
Bernie smiled at Lucy. “I'll be right back.”
Lucy watched her go. Then he turned back to Sean.
“I didn't know you had cousins.”
“Twice removed. On my mother's side.
“How's your lovely wife these days?” Sean asked, happily sticking another metaphorical dagger into his nemesis' side, it being a well-known fact that Lucy's wife was an embarrassment to him. Rich and politically well connectedâwhich, it was said, was why he married herâshe had all the charm of a buffalo in heat.
“She's fine,” Lucy growled.
As Libby beamed at the chief, she couldn't help but remember what her mother, an avid reader of Henry James, used to say about good manners being an inviolable weapon.
“Are you sure I can't interest you in a cookie?” she asked, once again holding the plate filled with chocolate chip and nut bars out to Lucy.
“I'm positive.”
“I hope you don't mind if I do.” And Libby picked out a nut bar and put the plate down on the table near her father.
She was taking a nibble when Bernie reentered the room.
“You were right,” she said to Libby. “He just got stuck in the trunk. But I put him somewhere else and everything is okay.”
“So,” Sean said, turning to face Lucy. “Would it be fair to assume that you're not here on a social call?”
“It would.”
“Oh, dear,” Libby said as Lucy folded his arms over his chest, which had the unfortunate effect of making his belly bulge out even more.
“We're all ears, Chief,” Bernie said, which brought another scowl to Lucas's face.
“I'm here,” he intoned, “strictly as a courtesy. I want to warn you that any help given to Miss Tiffany Doddy in her flight from the law, or any attempt to interfere with the execution of the warrant for her arrest will be viewed in an extremely dire light.”
“I must say, it's very generous of you to take time out of your busy day and come down here in person to tell us this, but may I ask why you are?” Sean said.
“Obviously, I'm here because your daughter, Libby, is known to be a friend of hers.”
“On TV they always use the word associate,” Bernie said. “Actually, I believe the phrase is known associate.”
“It seems to me you're making unwarranted assumptions,” Sean told Lucas as he glowered at Bernie.
“I don't think so,” Lucas replied, reluctantly turning back to Sean.
“Why are you picking on Tiffany?” Libby suddenly demanded.
“We have witnesses that saw the suspect arguing with the decedent . . .”
“That's circumstantial evidence,” Libby protested, years of listening to her father discuss cases at the dinner table having given her a fairly good grasp of criminal law.
“There's other evidence as well which I'm not at liberty to reveal,” Lucy finished.
“Maybe that's because you don't have any.”
Lucy narrowed his eyes.
“Don't expect that just because you're the ex-police chief 's daughter, I'm going to cut you any slack. Because I'm not.”
“I wouldn't dream of it,” Libby told him. “In fact, I think the opposite is true.”
Before the chief could reply Sean moved forward slightly in his wheelchair and asked, “I take it this means you've lost Tiffany?”
Lucas Broad's face colored again.
“We'll find her soon enough.”
There was another thud.
What the hell is Tiffany doing?
Libby thought as she said, “Boy, that puppy really wants to get out.”
“He certainly does,” her father observed.
“Are you sure I can't interest you in a cup of tea or perhaps another cookie?” Libby chirped.
Lucas glared at her and shook a finger in her face.
“You've been warned,” he said to her.
“There's no need to be rude,” Bernie told him.
“I'm being nice.” And he turned, stomped down the stairs, and slammed the door behind him.
“He's not in a good mood,” Bernie observed a few seconds after he'd left.
Libby smoothed down her T-shirt.
“Probably because his diet is bad. I think Mrs. Lucy feeds him prepackaged food.”
“Well, that would explain it,” Bernie said.
“He's embarrassed,” Sean said, ignoring Bernie's sarcasm. “I know I would be if I were he.”
“Do you think he knows Tiffany is here?” Bernie asked her father.
Sean snorted.
“Absolutely not. He just came over for a look-see. If he even suspected she was on the premises, he'd be here with a team and a search warrant,” Sean replied as Bernie watched the chief of police walk to his car. “But you can be sure the patrols will be driving by here from now on. Nothing would please him more than nailing you guys to the wall.”
“Wonderful.” Bernie put her hand to her heart. “I nearly had a coronary when I heard that thump. Well, one thing I'll say about Lucy. He has good hearing.”
“What the hell was Tiffany doing?” Sean demanded.
“Lifting the lid of the trunk. It hit the back of the closet wall.”
“What was the second thump?”
“She fell getting out of the trunk.”
“Fell?” Libby repeated.
Bernie grimaced. “Well, it was pitch black in there and she doesn't really have the best sense of balance. She was in the middle of a major anxiety attack when I came in.”
“Great. So where'd you put her?”
“Under your bed.”
“I see.” Libby absentmindedly reached over for a cookie and took a bite, then wiped the crumbs off her mouth. “Before we get her, do you think we should come up with a game plan?”
Sean held one hand under the other to steady it and took a sip of tea.
“I've already thought about that. We call Paul Pine and ask him to come over here.”
Paul Pine was Sean's friend and a top-line criminal lawyer.
“What do we need him for?”
“We need him to call Lucy and negotiate terms for Tiffany's surrender.”
“You mean you're sending her to jail?” Libby cried.
“I'm afraid so,” her father replied. “Right now, with a warrant out for her arrest, it's the safest place for her to be.”
“Butâ”
“She doesn't have a choice,” Sean snapped.
Libby hung her head.
“Why don't you go get her?” her father suggested in a softer voice.
Chapter 19
S
ean took another sip of tea and wondered if Tiffany really believed what she was saying as he listened to her talk. According to her, Lionel Wrenkoski would be joining the saints in heaven.
“He was such a dear man,” she said. “Really sweet down inside. He sent me roses before he came up from the city.”
“I'm sorry,” Sean said, remembering his encounters with Lionel, “but that's not the way he impressed me. I didn't find him to be very nice at all.”
Tiffany flushed.
“That's because everyone picked on him in high school, so he thought he had to be tough.”
Sean persisted. “But people are still saying bad things about him.”
“That was his image. He sold more books that way,” Tiffany retorted. “And when you're a famous author like he is . . .” She gulped down air. “. . . was . . . everyone takes advantage of you. Everyone wants a little piece of you. He never knew who to trust. That was what he liked about me. I was there for him one hundred percent.”
“Even though he was marrying someone else?” Sean asked.
Tiffany dug the toe of her shoe into the carpet.
“I explained about that. That was Lydia's idea. It made good copy.”
“He didn't have to go along.”
Tiffany's mouth began to quiver.
“He loved me,” she protested. “He said he did. He said he'd always be there for me no matter what happened. He said that ours was a union of two souls.”
Union of two souls. Right, Bernie thought as she rolled her eyes. She was about to say, “Give me a break,” when she caught her father's look and decided against it.
“He even gave me a necklace,” Tiffany said and lifted up the chain around her neck to show off the silver heart dangling from it. “See, it's from Tiffany's, just like my name.”
Yes,
Bernie thought, recognizing the piece instantly.
It's from Tiffany's, all right, but honey, Lionel spent a hell of a lot less money on you than you did on those cufflinks that you bought him.
Sean didn't know how much the silver heart cost, but he did know that this line of questioning was getting him nowhere. It was time to try a different approach.
“Tiffany, who was trying to take something from him?” Sean asked softly as Libby offered her a cookie.
She nibbled on the corner of the nut bar, then put it on the side table next to the tray.
“Well.” Tiffany inscribed a circle in the rug with her toe. “You know. People.”
“Any specific people?”
“Lydia.”
“What was Lydia doing?” Sean asked encouragingly.
“Lionel told me she took money from one of his accounts.”
Bernie, Libby, and Sean leaned forward. This was more promising.
“Do you know how much?”
Tiffany shook her head.
“Lionel didn't like to talk business with me. He said our time together was too special for that.”
“Did he report the theft?” Sean asked while he threw another warning glance at Bernie, who gave all the indications of going into an eye-rolling paroxysm.
Tiffany shook her head.
“No. He said he'd take care of it privately.”
“Wonderful,” Sean muttered. “Do you know why?”
Tiffany twisted the edge of her shirttail around her hand. “They'd been together for a long time. Maybe he felt he owed her, although I told him he ought to get rid of her. A great artist like him. He shouldn't have had to be saddled with something like that. He had to be free to create.”
“So what did he do?”
“I don't know,” Tiffany said. “He never told me.”
“Obviously he didn't fire her,” Libby observed.
“No. But they were fighting all the time.”
Sean nodded encouragingly.
“Anyone else?”
Tiffany tapped her nails on the front of her thigh.
“Well, there was Geoffrey Holder. He was in some business deal with him, something about building a theme park, but Lionel said Geoffrey was an incompetent idiot and he wasn't going to work with him.”
Sean remembered hearing the deal had gone belly-up.
“Do you know why he said that?” Sean asked as he thought about Holder. An entrepreneur who'd made his money exporting plastic lawn furniture to Japan, then gone on to open a string of body shops, he had a bugaboo about skateboarders and had carried on an annoyingânot to mention ceaselessâcampaign to have them banned from everywhere in town. Dealing with people like Geoffrey Holder was one of the things he didn't miss about being chief of police, Sean reflected as he watched Tiffany hem and haw.
Finally she said, “Well, Lionel wanted to name the park Lord Ravenroot after one of the characters in his book, but Geoffrey wanted to call it Dracula Land.”
“Kind of like a Disneyland for good little Goths, Goth-ettes, and vampire wannabees,” Bernie observed.
Tiffany gave her a puzzled look.
“Ignore my daughter,” Sean commanded.
Tiffany turned back towards him.
“Tell me where this park was supposed to be.”
“I'm not sure. Somewhere north of here.”
“Anyone else Lionel was angry with?”
“I'm . . . I'm not sure.”
You're not sure about much, are you,
Bernie wanted to say, but for once she managed to bite the words back before they emerged.
“Try to remember,” Sean urged.
“It's just hard to think now.”
Tiffany's voice started to quaver. Libby moved towards her.
“Would you like to lie down?” she asked solicitously.
Tiffany nodded.
“I think she needs a break,” she told her father.
Sean nodded and Libby escorted Tiffany to her bedroom. Tiffany stretched out on the bed, while Libby lowered the blinds.
“Just try to rest,” she told Tiffany.
Tiffany nodded and closed her eyes.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “I don't know what I would have done without you.”
“So what do you think?” Libby asked her father when she came back into his bedroom.
“I think the D.A. is going to nail her to the wall,” Sean said.
Â
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Paul Pine walked into the bedroom of Sean Simmons half an hour later. He was wearing khaki shorts, a light blue polo shirt, and Docksiders, and even though he was sixty-three, Bernie still thought he looked like a movie star.
Maybe his neck and chin were getting a little soft, but he still had piercing blue eyes and a kissable cleft chin. He also had all his hair, which was now a gorgeous shade of white, a killer tan, and a great grin as well as being smart, funny, and genuinely nice.
When she was younger, Bernie had had a major crush on him. Even though she usually didn't have a thing for older men, Bernie would have been prepared to make an exception in his case. Unfortunately, Paul Pine was also her father's best friend, and not to mention a happily married man of thirty years with five children. Too bad. But her fantasies were great.
“So what have we got?” Paul asked Sean in the booming voice that worked so well in court.
He whistled when Sean told him.
“Anyone see Tiffany come into the shop?” he asked Libby.
“I don't think so.”
“Good. I'll see what I can do with Lucy.” He gazed at the wall above Sean's head and thought out loud. “Okay. As luck would have it, Tiffany came in twenty minutes after Lucy left and, mindful of what he told you”âPaul pointed to Libbyâ“you immediately called me for advice and I rushed right over here and, doing my civic duty, called him to arrange the surrender. Right?”
“Right,” Libby repeated. “But couldn't weâ”
“No.” Paul cut Libby off, anticipating her request. “Under no circumstances.”
“Butâ”
Paul waved his hands in the air. “I'm sorry, but it's not possible.”
“How about representation?” Sean asked.
“There's a woman in my firm who's interested in doing some pro-bono work. I'll see if she wants to take this on.”
“Good. Good.” Sean watched a black squirrel running up the drainpipe attached to the side of the building across the way. “She can get the crime scene report and the witness statements, although I don't think either of those are going to yield a lot of helpful information.”
“Anyone could have put the poison in Lionel's water,” Bernie said. “The water was sitting on top of the carton by the back door.”
“And I put a Post-it note on the bottle with Laird's name written on it because Lydia was making such a big deal about it,” Libby said.
“Do we know what was in the water, officially?” Paul asked.
Sean tore his gaze from the window.
“Lucy didn't tell me, but Clyde mentioned the tox screen will come back positive for cyanide, and I'm betting he's right.”
“Then wouldn't the water smell of almonds?” Bernie asked.
“Only twenty-five percent of the population have the ability to smell that,” Sean said. “I'm surprised you don't know that,” he told Bernie.
“Why cyanide?” Bernie said.
“It fits the criteria. It's colorless, fast acting, and relatively easy to acquire.” Sean tapped the armrest of his wheelchair with his fingers. “Tiffany's defense lawyer will need to do two things. Find people who had a motive for killing Lionel and see if anyone has any connections with any businesses that use cyanide.”
“That's going to be tough,” Bernie said.
“Tedious,” Sean said. “Investigating is always tedious. Now, why don't you get Tiffany out here,” he told her. “I'll introduce her to Paul and explain what's going to happen.”
“Cookie?” Libby asked Paul as Bernie left the room.
He took a chocolate chip bar and bit down.
“These are so good,” he said. “I don't know how you guys keep from weighing two hundred pounds with things like this around.”
“It's a struggle,” Sean was saying when Bernie came back in the room. The fact that his daughter was alone did not make him feel happy.
“Where's Tiffany?” he asked.
Unwilling to be the bearer of bad news, Bernie hesitated for a moment before speaking. Then she said, “She's gone.”
“That's not possible,” Libby cried.
“Au contraire, mon ami,”
Bernie told her as she watched Libby's shoulders slump.
Paul interrupted. “What do you mean, gone?”
Bernie turned to the lawyer.
“Just what I said. Gone. Left. As in out of here. On to other things. Hitting the road. Scrammed.”
Shut up, Bernie,
she told herself.
He gets it.
“How did she get out?”
“She defenestrated.”
Paul wrinkled his brow. “Defenestrated?”
“Climbed out the window,” Sean explained grimly. “My daughter has a liking for ten-dollar words.” He turned to Libby. “You'd better find your friend ASAP.”