Mary Beth sucked her cheeks in, then blew air out between her lips.
“So where are you moving to?” Bernie prompted.
Mary Beth put on a smile that, Bernie reflected, looked as if it had been dipped in shellac; then her lips began to tremble and she started to cry.
“Oh Bernie,” she sobbed. “Everything is coming apart.”
Â
Â
Bernie called Libby once she was on the road again.
“The Holders are separating,” she told her. “They didn't hire you for the graduation party because I don't think there's going to be one.”
“How do you know?”
Libby's voice sounded staticky. Bernie adjusted her headset.
“She told me.” And Bernie reported the rest of the conversation.
“I wonder why Lionel was going over there for a drink?” Libby asked.
“Maybe Holder was making one last appeal to get things back on track.”
“And then Lionel doesn't show up after the wife goes out and buys an expensive bottle of port. That would piss me off. Could be the straw that broke the camel's back,” Libby mused.
“Could be,” Bernie agreed, following Libby's lead. “I'm kinda liking Holder for this myself in a hypothetical kind of way. The thing that I don't like is that this is the type of homicide you have to prepare for. So Lionel cancels him out at the last minute and Holder does what? Runs back and gets the cyanide that he conveniently has on hand and dumps it into Lionel's water? Sounds pretty sketchy to me.”
“Well, you said he had access to it.”
“No. I said he could have had access to it.”
“I stand corrected.” Libby paused for a moment. “Maybe Holder was planning to do it anyway. He was just giving Lionel a last chance to come around.”
Bernie stopped at a light. “Well, he's definitely three for three. He's got motive, means, and opportunity, which means, folks, he wins the Trifecta.”
“We should tell Dad.”
“Not yet.”
“When?” Libby demanded.
“We'll tell him when we have something a little less circumstantial.”
“And what would constitute that?”
“Evidence. A witness.”
“And how are we going to get those?” Libby asked.
“I'm not sure,” Bernie admitted.
Libby was quiet for a moment; then she said, “Are you still going to talk to Geoffrey?”
Bernie looked down at her second basket of treats.
“You betcha. I'm on my way there even as we speak.”
“What if he won't see you?”
“Of course he'll see me. Everyone always sees me. I'm too charming to refuse. Anyway, why would he say no? I'm just going to talk to him about the menu. By the way, have you heard from Tiffany yet?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Well, call me if you do.”
“You'll be the first. And Bernie, be careful. Geoff could have killed someone.”
“I'll be Cautious Connie.”
And Bernie clicked off.
Chapter 22
L
ibby stared at Lydia's face peeking out of the doorway of her mother's house. Lydia looked even more bloated than she had when Libby had first seen her in the high school cafeteria. Maybe she'd been drinking. Either that or eating a lot of salty things. Or was it her time of the month? How many days ago had she first seen her? It seemed like eons, even though it was more like a week.
“What do you want?” Lydia snapped.
Libby hoisted the basket she was carrying as if it were a white flag.
“I thought you might like something in your time of grief.”
“How kind,” Lydia said, and her hand shot out, grabbed the basket, and slammed the door in Libby's face.
The whole thing was over in three seconds.
“Great,” Libby said, pressing her finger on the bell and keeping it there. “Just great.”
At other times, she might haveâno make that
would
haveâwalked away, but that was not an option now. She was damned if she'd tell Bernie she couldn't get Lydia to open the door.
Finally, Lydia answered.
“Have you gone crazy?” she demanded, throwing the door open so hard that it banged against the outside wall. “Can't you see I'm in mourning?”
“Good,” Libby said. “You have time to talk.”
“I'm going to call the police if you don't go away.”
“Then I can tell them about the money you stole from Lionel's accounts,” Libby surprised herself by saying.
Lydia's mouth dropped open for a second. Then she recovered and said, “I don't know what you're talking about. Now get the hell out of here.”
But it was too late. Libby had already scooted inside.
“Sure you don't,” she said, closing the door behind her.
“What the hell do you want?” Lydia barked in Libby's face, but Libby folded her arms across her chest and stood her ground.
“I don't think Tiffany killed Lionel,” Libby told Lydia.
Lydia laughed.
“Which means you want to give them another suspect. Like me. Boy, that really makes me want to talk to you. You know, you need to work on your people skills.”
“Never mind me. You have a motive.”
“So what?” Lydia sneered. “Big deal. If it comes down to that, so do half the people in this town. And even if I do, which I'm not admitting, why would I want to chose a public place to kill Lionel when I have access to him 24/7? Why didn't I just slip something into one of his jars of Marshmallow Fluff if I wanted to off him and let the housekeeper take the blame? No. Face it. Tiffany killed Lionel. After seventeen years of stringing her along, he finally told her to get lost and she flipped out and did him in.”
“Well, I don't believe that,” Libby argued back.
“You never could deal with life the way it is.”
“Can it. For one thing, where would Tiffany get the cyanide?” Libby demanded.
“If that's what it was. Anyway, that's the police's problem.”
“It's mine too.”
Lydia looked at Libby and rolled her eyes.
“So now you're a private detective? Please. Do us all a favor and go back to cooking.”
“I can't.”
Libby watched Lydia take a deep breath. After she'd exhaled, she said, “This is your sister's doing, isn't it?”
“Actually, it happens to be mine. You can talk to me or you can talk to the police. The choice is yours.”
“And why haven't you told the police already?”
Maybe because they don't care,
Libby thought. But that was definitely not what she was going to say now. She thought about what her father would do in a situation like this.
“The reason is no concern of yours,” she told Lydia, bulling her way through. “But rest assured, I will if I have to.”
Libby watched Lydia study her face for a few moments. Whatever she found there must have made Lydia believe her because for a second she saw Lydia's shoulders sag. Lydia rubbed her hand over her face.
“So are you going to tell me?” Libby asked.
Lydia chuckled.
“Tell you what? That Lionel was a cheap son of a bitch? Tell you that I made him what he was? Tell you that without me he was nothing? So I took a little money from him. So what? In the scheme of things, it was nothing. He owed me. He owed me way more than I ever took from him, I can tell you that.
“He was a user. He stole ideas from everyone. Hell, he practically plagiarized his first book. The funny thing was that he was actually starting to believe his own press. He really thought he was a good writer, God help us all.
“He even thought he was a vampire. I mean, how weird is that? Sleeping in a coffin. Wearing a cape. Those fangs of his. All my ideas. He didn't even know what a vampire was until he was a senior in high school. Up until then, all he read was
Sports Illustrated
and
Popular Mechanics.
“He was nuts and I was crazier for staying with him. Once he found out I'd taken the money, he made me into his slave. I should have turned myself in to the police. It would have been better. I mean, look at me.” Lydia pointed to herself. “I'm a mess. My eating is out of control. I can't stop. At least in jail I'd lose weight.”
Jail as a weight-losing strategy.
That's a new one,
Libby thought as she asked, “If you felt that way about him, why didn't you leave?”
“And go where? He was the top. I thought if I stayed, somehow I'd be able to work things out. I'd be able to have it all. But you can't. You never can. All I've done is make myself into . . . well . . . I don't know what.” Lydia straightened up. “But I'll tell you one thing. There was a list of people who would have liked to see Lionel Wrenkoski dead. Some people spread joy. He spread misery wherever he went. But I didn't kill him. I didn't hate him enough to sacrifice my life for that.”
“So who did?”
Lydia crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at Libby.
“Why the hell should I tell you? Whoever did it should be rewarded, not punished.”
Libby thought about mentioning Tiffany, but said instead, “Because I brought you cranberry scones and ajar of homemade strawberry jam and because a long time ago I used to look up to you.”
Lydia cocked her head.
“You did?”
Libby nodded.
“Really and truly?” Lydia asked.
“Yes. I thought you were the most sophisticated person I knew. I wanted to be just like you.”
Maybe Bernie was right, Libby thought as Lydia turned and said, “My mother has some nice Kona beans that my cousin sent me from Maui. How about if I make us a cup of coffee.”
Maybe truth was an overrated commodity.
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Libby was mulling over her conversation with Lydia as she drove back to the store. She hadn't told her anything she didn't know, and after a few minutes Libby found herself thinking about Tiffany again. In truth, she hadn't stopped thinking about her since she'd climbed out the bedroom window of their house.
Libby had called everyone she could think of, as well as checked out every place Tiffany might be holed up in without any results. It didn't help that her father was holding her personally responsible for the fiasco, and what was worse was that she couldn't help agreeing with him.
Poor Tiffany.
Some people just didn't have any luck.
Libby rubbed her forehead and made a mental note to herself to drink only one Cosmo in the future. Her head felt as if someone were drumming on her skull. The Advil hadn't helped, and this line of thought was not making her headache feel any better. Libby tapped her fingers on the van's steering wheel as she slowed down for a stop sign.
She should get back to the shop. She had to phone her order in to the wholesaler and get going on the lemon chicken she was planning on serving tomorrow. Only she couldn't seem to concentrate on anything.
She took a deep breath.
“The hell with it,” she said to herself as she turned onto Townsend instead of making a right onto Green. Everyone would survive without her for half an hour. She needed some time out.
Ten minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of Elm Wood Park. The lot was empty, but that wasn't unusual. Since Longely had metamorphosed from a middle- to an upper-income place, few people came here anymore. Which was fine with Libby. For all practical purposes, she had thirty acres of woods all to herself.
She sat in the van for a few minutes and gazed at the Hudson River while she munched on one of the chocolate chip cookies she always carried in her backpack along with a Swiss army knife, a needle-nose pliers, a can of mace, Band-Aids, a fifty-dollar bill, and a bottle of water. Bernie always teased her about her emergency pack.
“So when's the world ending?” she always asked.
But it made Libby feel better to know she was prepared for whatever came along. As Libby wiped the crumbs off her hands, she wondered how fresh pineapple chunks would taste in the cookies. They'd probably put out too much moisture. But dried pineapple might not be bad. Better yet, dried apricots or mango slivers. Maybe even candied ginger.
I'll try that first,
Libby thought as she got out of the van and sat on one of the benches that faced the river.
I have half a pound of candied ginger in the pantry. Might as well use it up.
Then she thought about how nice it would be to be out on the water. No one could bother you there.
For a while Libby watched a tug going upstream and remembered how she, her mother, and Bernie used to picnic on the grass overlooking the river. Then she got to thinking about how she and Tiff used to come here when they were seniors in high school and spent hours watching the river and talking and eating M&Ms.
And then Libby remembered something else. She remembered the house Tiff had found in the middle of the woods.
“You've got to come and see it,” Tiff had told her, dragging her along. “It's really scary. It would be a great place to have a party.”
The hut.
I haven't looked in the hut
.
God, what an idiot she was.
I just hope I remember where it is,
Libby thought as she jumped up and headed for the trees.
This is ridiculous,
Libby said to herself as she slapped at a gnat. Tiffany probably didn't remember this place at all. In fact, she was probably in Southern California by now. Why the hell would she be here in the woods? She hated bugs. But Libby kept walking. This was the last place in town she hadn't checked, and she was damned if she wasn't going to dot every
i
and cross every
t
as her mother used to say.
“Blasted roots,” Libby muttered as she stubbed her toe on one.
The town should maintain this place,
she thought, pushing a branch away from her face. What the hell was she paying taxes for? And that plant she'd just brushed against. Was that poison ivy? Libby could never remember whether poison ivy had three or four leaves.
Then Libby realized it was getting darker. She glanced up through the branches. The sky was filled with rain clouds. Even better. Now she could get wet on top of everything else. If she were smart, she'd turn back, but instead she took a bite of the cookie she'd forgotten she was holding and tucked the rest of the bag in her T-shirt pocket and kept trudging on.
Even she had to admit these were good. No, they were better than good. They were great.
Most people used a half pound of butter in their batter, but Libby used an extra quarter stick and that, in her humble opinion, made all the difference. What people who didn't cook didn't understand was that recipes were living things. They evolved over time. She was thinking about whether she should add a little more butter to her lemon snaps when she spotted the hut through the trees.
Underbrush interspersed with high grass jostled up against the hut on three sides and part of the roof had fallen in, but then, after all this time, what had she expected? But obviously people still came here because someone had cleared a patch of ground in front of the hut. In addition, someone had hung a black plastic garbage bag from the opening. To serve as a door, Libby presumed, which meant someone had been living there. Or still was.
Whether it was Tiffany or not remained to be seen. Libby stopped. Now that she was here, she wasn't sure what to do. Maybe it would be better if she got her phone and called Bernie. In situations like this, two people were always better than one. Especially if the person in the hut was someone who would object to having his or her privacy intruded on, which, considering that the person was living in the middle of the woods, was probably the case.