Chapter 33
B
ernie looked at her watch as she walked into R.J.'s. It was a little after nine. She was on time but not too on time. Too on time would mean she was anxious, which was something she didn't want to give the appearance of being. Especially considering whoâor, if she was being grammatical correct, whomâshe was meeting.
The place hadn't changed much since she'd left, she reflected as she spotted Rob nursing a beer at the bar. Same paneling on the walls, same dartboard on the far wall, same pool table in the back, same sign in front of the bar proclaiming,
The Hell with Apples. Two Pills a Day Keeps the Doctor Away.
Since it was a weekday night, the place wasn't crowded. As Bernie made her way towards Rob, she estimated she knew maybe five people here. In days past she would have known everyone. She couldn't decide how she felt about that. Bittersweet would be a good word. That or conflicted.
“Not like L.A.,” Rob noted as Bernie sat down on the bar stool next to his.
At least he was on time, she thought. Joe had always been a half hour late. Usually more.
“That's for sure.” She surveyed the crowd. The people who frequented R.J.'s tended to be teachers and contractors and small shop owners. Unlike the bars she'd gone to in L.A., where everyone was in “The Industry” or wanted to be. “I like this better. It's more relaxed.”
“Me too.”
Bernie took a deep breath.
“There's something I should tell you before we proceed.”
Rob cocked his head.
“I'm listening.”
“I've sworn off men.”
“Really?” Rob said.
“Yes. Really.”
“What a coincidence,” Rob replied. “I have too. See. We have a lot in common already.”
Bernie laughed.
“Bad time out in L.A.?” Rob asked.
“You could say that.”
“Me too. See. There's another connection.”
Bernie could feel herself relaxing and she didn't want to.
This guy is way too charming,
she thought as the bartender came up.
“Hey, Brandon,” Bernie said to him. “I thought you'd be in Maui by now.”
“I was and now I'm here again. All that sun and surf began to get to me.” He smiled at Bernie. “I'd heard you were in town.”
Bernie spread her arms.
“And here I am back at the old place.”
“And looking really good too, I might add.”
Bernie grinned and made a mental note to thank Janet for selling her the skirt and top.
“I also heard,” Brandon continued, “that Libby wasn't too pleased about paying your cab fare.”
“You could say that. She's deducting it from my salary.”
“Harsh.” Brandon put his elbows on the bar and leaned on his hands. “Very harsh. You back for good?”
“For the summer at least.”
“Cool. It'll make life around here more interesting. Be careful of her,” Brandon confided to Rob. “She stirs things up.”
“So I've noticed.”
Rob grimaced and Bernie wondered if he was thinking of Geoff Holder's body as she indicated the bottle of Brooklyn Brown in front of him.
“I'll have what he's having,” she told Brandon.
“Another similarity,” Rob noted. Then he said to Brandon, “I'll have another one and some of those peanuts.”
Brandon nodded. A moment later he was back with their order. He set the beers, glasses, and peanuts down in front of them.
“How's Libby doing?” he asked Bernie.
“Okay,” Bernie said. “Considering . . .”
“She must be feeling bad about Tiffany.”
“Well, she's not feeling good.”
“The police were in here asking me and Mary about her before they arrested her.”
Bernie furrowed her brow.
“Asking what?”
“If she'd ever said anything bad about Lionel. Stuff like that. I told them no.”
“And had she?”
Brandon laughed. “Shit. Who hasn't?” And he moved away.
Rob watched him go. “That's helpful.”
“But true. Actually, no one but Tiffany has ever said anything nice about Lionel. At least not that I remember.”
Rob nodded absentmindedly. “I didn't know your sister was Tiffany's friend.”
“Best friend,” corrected Bernie.
“And that's why you were out at the place?”
“You got it.” Bernie poured her beer into her glass. “Did you know that an iced glass makes beer foam up more, not to mention kills the taste?”
“Why am I not surprised you know this?”
“I know lots of things.”
Rob raised both his eyebrows, then lowered them.
“I bet you do,” he agreed.
Bernie could feel herself flush.
Red alert. Red alert,
she told herself.
Change course.
She smoothed down her skirt, suddenly conscious that it was riding up around her thighs.
“So,” she said. “Where did you grow up?”
Rob popped a peanut in his mouth and poured his beer into his glass.
“Changing the subject, huh? That's okay. I'm a military brat so I grew up everywhere. How about you?”
“I've always lived here, and I've wanted to leave for as long as I can remember.”
“And now you're back again.”
Bernie nodded.
“Would that have something to do with why you've sworn off guys?”
Bernie took another sip of her beer. “It would.”
“Are you going to make me drag the story out of you?”
“It's banal.”
“I want to hear it anyway.”
Bernie shrugged and told him.
“There's a good side to this,” Rob said when she was done.
Bernie looked at him incredulously. “Like what?”
Rob took another sip of his beer.
“You're here for your sister. It sounds as if she could use some support.”
“I hadn't thought of it that way,” Bernie conceded.
“Besides, if you weren't here, we couldn't have met.”
“Kismet,” Bernie said.
“Synchronicity,” Rob offered. “Although, on reflection, Karma might be a more applicable word.”
“I agree,” Bernie said.
“After all, I used to be a writer.”
“Are you working on anything now?”
How sweet.
He's actually blushing,
Bernie thought as he replied.
“A murder mystery.”
“Can I read it?”
“You really want to?”
“I really do.”
“When I'm done.” Rob studied the two men throwing darts for a moment, then turned back to Bernie. “I have some procedure questions.”
“You want to talk to my dad?”
“That's where I was going.”
Bernie made a circle of peanuts on the counter and started eating them. “I'll ask, but he doesn't like talking to people he doesn't know since he's gotten sick.”
“That's what my mom said.”
“She's right.” Bernie finished her beer and signaled Brandon for another one. “Speaking of mysteries,” she said. “My sister found out who Janet was.”
“Who?”
“It's not a who, it's a what. Janet's Automotive Parts.”
Rob groaned. “Do I feel like an idiot? It isn't as if I haven't seen that truck before. Obviously I should turn my hand to something other than a mystery.”
“Me too,” Bernie said. “I'm certainly not getting very far on this Tiffany thing.”
“Maybe because there's no place to get.”
“Maybe,” Bernie conceded. “But I told Libby I'd help her until we've exhausted every possibility, so that's what I'm going to do.”
Rob took another sip of his beer.
“I don't know if I should tell you this or not.”
“And why is that?”
“Because your sister isn't going to like this.”
“You're not telling her, you're telling me.”
“You're not going to like this either.”
“I'm a big girl . . .”
“So I noticed,” Rob cracked.
Bernie punched his arm. “Just tell me, goddamnit.”
Rob rubbed his bicep. “That was pretty good.”
“I used to do Boxercize.”
He's so adorable,
Bernie thought as she leaned towards Rob and whispered in his ear, “Tell me now or I'll kill you.”
“Why didn't you say that in the first place?” Rob put his glass down and faced her. “About four weeks ago I came into Geoff 's office, and there were Geoff and Tiffany going at it full tilt on top of Geoff 's desk.”
“Geez.”
“But that's not the worst part.” Rob finished off his beer. “The worst part is I was showing Geoff 's wife, Mary Beth, in at the time. It was their anniversary, and she was dropping by to take him out to a surprise lunch.”
“Well, that would certainly explain some things,” Bernie said, thinking back to her conversation with Mary Beth.
Chapter 34
B
ernie leaned against one of the kitchen cabinets and watched Libby rolling out the dough for tomorrow's pies.
I should never have told her what Rob said when I walked in the door,
she thought.
She should have waited until tomorrow morning. At least then she could have gone to sleep. Of course, she reflected, she
could
go up now if she wanted to. Nothing was stopping her. She just hated to leave Libby alone when she was this upset.
“Libby, you should go to bed,” Bernie said for the third time. “It's almost twelve, and you have to get up at six.”
“What's the point?” Libby replied, her eyes fixed on what she was doing. “I couldn't sleep.”
“How do you know until you try?”
“Believe me. I know.” And Libby gave the dough another half turn. “Anyway, it's easier to do this at night when it's cooler. It's supposed to be in the eighties tomorrow, which will mean I'll have to contend with softened butter.”
“I thought that's why you had the marble slab and the fan.”
“They only go so far.”
“I could never get the dough to form a circle,” Bernie observed, trying to jolly Libby up.
“I couldn't either when I started.”
Libby gave the dough another half turn.
“Actually, what Rob told me about Tiffany is a good thing,” Bernie told her. “You should be happy.”
Libby kept her eyes fixed on the dough.
“And how do you get that?” she demanded. “It gives Tiffany a motive for killing Geoff.”
“It also gives Geoff's wife a motive for killing him. I mean, first he loses all their money and then she catches him in flagrante delicto with Tiffany.”
Libby finally looked up.
“Flagrante delicto?”
“From the Latin,” Bernie explained. “It means caught in the middle of the act.”
“Why can't you talk the way other people do?” Libby complained.
“Like I should have used the good old Anglo-Saxon word, fuck? As in Mary Beth caught her husband and Tiffany fucking on top of his desk? Probably because I like a little variety in my vocabulary, not to mention other things.” Bernie hoisted herself up on the counter and sat there with her feet dangling. “No,” she continued. “Seeing something like that would be enough to drive anyone over the edge.” And who, she thought, would know better than she?
“And where does Lionel fit in all this?” Libby demanded. “Why would Mary Beth kill him?”
Libby pried a piece of peanut from between her back teeth with her fingernail.
“Sorry about that,” she said when she was done. “Maybe Mary Beth blames Lionel for the family's financial woes. From what Nigel said, the amusement park fiasco was what made Geoff start speculating in the market. Mary Beth might be thinking that if Lionel hadn't pulled out of the deal, Geoff wouldn't have lost the rest of his money in the market and Mary Beth would still have her house.”
“Losing your house, now that would be a biggie. So is the other thing. I can testify to that.” Bernie clasped her hands together and cracked her knuckles. “Of course, there is a question of timing,” she mused. “Why kill Lionel first and then wait on her husband? I mean, I nearly went in the kitchen and got a knife and stabbed Joe when I saw him in bed with that . . . person. That's why I left. Because otherwise I would have.
“But now that I think of it, Mary Beth is a brooder, and I'm not talking about the hen variety.”
“I didn't think you were.”
Bernie cracked her knuckles again.
“Remember when she found out that Brandon had taken her bike and dumped it in the bushes? She spent a month planning her revenge. I would have just walked up and popped him one in the jaw.”
“You did when he took yours,” Libby reminded her.
“So I did.” Bernie smiled in remembrance. “He had a nice black-and-blue mark.”
“Mother was not pleased.”
“No, she wasn't, was she? But Dad thought it was great.” Bernie tapped her fingers on the kitchen counter. “So maybe Mary Beth saw them and went numb and then the more she thought about what she'd seen, the angrier she got. But it was easier to kill Lionel first because she had some distance from him. Or maybe he was like a dress rehearsal for her hubby. And there is the fact that Mary Beth could have gotten the cyanide she killed Lionel with from her hubby's shop.”
Libby shook her head.
“No matter what you say, I can't see Mary Beth killing two people. She's so . . . so buttoned down. She never raises her voice.”
Bernie cracked her knuckles again.
“And when people like that go, they go big time.”
“I'm sorry. I still don't see her for this.” Libby picked up the piecrust, put it in the pie tin and began to crimp the edges. “Mary Beth strikes me as the kind of person that implodes, not explodes.”
“Well, we also have Lydia tied to the two murder victims,” Bernie added. “If Clyde knows what he's talking about.”
“Of course he knows what he's talking about.” Libby picked up a fork and began pricking holes in the dough. “Now, her I can see killing Lionel. Without him around, she doesn't have to worry about being accused of stealing, plus I heard from Paul that she's been named executor of his estate. So she definitely benefits from his death. But what does she get out of Geoff 's dying?”
“Maybe she was jealous.”
“He was married when she took up with him. How could she be jealous?”
“Yeah. But that's different. That relationship was already in place when Lydia started seeing him. I'll bet you anything he started sleeping with Tiffany after he started sleeping with Lydia.”
“So it's okay for him to be unfaithful to his wife but not unfaithful to Lydia?”
Bernie picked a fleck of flour off her new skirt.
“In essence, yes. This thing with Tiffany and Lydia reminds me of a woman I knew out in L.A. She was going out with this married guy, and that was okay with her because she wasn't interested in the whole family/kid/dog thing. But then he brought someone else on board and she flipped out. She claimed it was disloyal.”
Libby rolled her eyes.
“It's true,” Bernie insisted.
“People are so weird.” Libby swept the loose flour and rice-sized pieces of dough into the trash bin with the side of her hand. “There is another possibility,” she said.
“Which is?”
“Geoff was blackmailing Lydia. Maybe she got the cyanide out of his place and he found out and confronted her and asked for money. After all, he really needed it.”
“That would work,” Bernie said as she watched a moth flutter around the kitchen light.
“But the bottom line is this,” Libby said.
Bernie turned and looked at her sister, who was drumming her fingers on the rolling pin.
“Tiffany should have told me.”
“Would it have made a difference in what you did?”
“No,” Libby conceded. “But she should have told me anyway.”
“Maybe Tiffany was embarrassed to tell you,” Bernie suggested.
Libby snorted. “Lying never helps.”
Bernie didn't say anything as Libby put the pie tin in the refrigerator and took out a second piece of dough, put it in the center of the marble slab, and picked up the rolling pin again.
In this light she looks just like Mom,
Bernie thought as Libby lightly scattered flour on the slab.
“Maybe she feels you wouldn't have approved,” Bernie finally suggested.
“Well, she's right about one thing at least. I don't.” Libby started working. “Do you?”
“I don't think it was the smartest thing to do,” Bernie replied carefully, not wanting to get into a discussion with Libby at this time of night.
“And that's the difference between us,” Libby retorted.
“I suppose it is.”
Bernie watched her sister work. Her movements were precise and economical. In five minutes she'd rolled the dough out and had it in the pan.
“And even if what you say is true about Mary Beth and Lydia,” Libby said as she put the second crust in the refrigerator and started in on the third. “How does this help us?”
Bernie slid down off the counter, went over to the kitchen cabinet, got out the cocktail shaker and began mixing up a batch of Cosmopolitans. Libby looked as if she could use one, and she wouldn't mind a good-night drink herself.
“Well, for one thing,” she informed Libby as she measured out the cranberry juice, “it gives us two new suspects.”
“There's no way we can prove or disprove anything,” Libby said.
“I'm not so sure about that,” Bernie replied, handing her a drink. “I think we should talk to Dad.”
Â
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Sean heard Libby and Bernie coming up the stairs. Light and delicate they were not, he thought as he clicked off the infomercial he'd been watching on the television.
“Hey, girls, come and say good night to your old man,” he called out.
“We were just about to,” Bernie said as she and Libby trooped into his room. “When do you sleep?”
“Usually between three and six,” Sean conceded.
And that was if he was lucky.
Bernie handed him a Cosmopolitan.
“For you,” she said.
Sean took a sip and nodded his head appreciatively.
“Not bad,” he allowed.
“Better than Wild Turkey on a night like this,” Bernie observed.
“Your mom made a mean Manhattan.”
Bernie smiled.
“I used to like the maraschino cherries.”
Libby took a step forward.
She worries too much,
Sean thought as he noticed Libby tapping her foot on the floor.
“What's going on?” he asked her, even though he had a pretty good idea what she was about to say.
“I thought we agreed that you'd get into bed by twelve.”
Right again,
Sean, he told himself.
Give yourself a pat on the back.
“No. We discussed it. I never agreed to anything,” Sean clarified. “Given what this wheelchair costs, I want to get the most out of it that I can.”
“The doctor said sleeping in it is bad for your circulation.”
Sean decided he wasn't going to tell Libby he knew and didn't care.
“So,” he said instead. “Tell me about life in the outside world.”
“If you don't want to take care of yourself, it's your business,” Libby huffed at him.
Sean held on to his temper.
“That's right,” he said softly. “It is.”
“Drop it,” Bernie said as Libby started to reply.
Sean watched as Libby folded her arms across her chest and got that disapproving look on her face.
“So,” he said into the deepening silence, “are you girls going to tell me what's happening or not?”
Bernie and Libby looked at each other.
Then Libby said to Bernie, “It's your story. You tell him.”
Bernie sat down on the edge of the bed near him and tossed her hair off her forehead.
“Fine. I will.”
“You have to concentrate on Geoff Holder's homicide,” he told them when Bernie was through with her recital.
“Why's that?” Bernie asked.
“Because anyone could have had access to Lionel's water from the time you labeled the bottles till the time he died, meaning it would be extremely difficult to establish a reliable table documenting everyone's whereabouts given that there are only two of you. For that you'd need more manpower than we have in the entire Longely police force.
“And working backward from the cyanide to the murderer would also be difficult given our limited resources and unofficial status.” Sean moved his wheelchair slightly closer to the window fan. Funny, but now he liked the breeze on his face. He never had before. “The Holder homicide is the simpler of the two, and since they're connected, solve one and you'll solve the other.”
Libby leaned forward. She was standing, Sean noted. Which meant she was still annoyed with him, but not as annoyed as she had been because she was asking him a question.
“Why is the Holder homicide simpler?”