Chapter 39
A
s Bernie set up the coffee urn in Susan Andrews' dining room, she reflected that, in a manner of speaking, she'd helped cater Lionel's death and now, three weeks later, she was catering his official send-off.
“Bernie.”
Bernie looked up to see Susan standing in front of her.
“What do you think?” Susan asked and showed her the collage she'd made in honor of Lionel's memorial.
“What do I think?” Bernie replied stalling for time.
“Yes.”
The words “aesthetically challenged” flitted through Bernie's mind. And she thought Susan's other pieces had been bad. This was in a league by itself. Had Susan become possessed by the bad art fairy? Bernie wondered as she examined the collage more closely.
Susan had taken the picture of Lionel from the back of one of his dust jackets and blown it up. Then she'd cut it into large pieces and combined them in a random fashion with bits of Lionel's capes, pieces of his fangs, pages torn from his books, the title
Damned to Death
cut from the spine of assorted dust jackets, assorted pieces of hand-woven fiber, and a doll-sized glass bottle.
Bernie was thinking that the dead, stuffed dove pasted in the center certainly provided the
pièce de résistance
when she felt something tugging at her foot. She glanced down. Bebe, Susan's fat, shaved miniature French poodle, was trying to chew through the strap on her pink sandal.
“Hey.” Bernie tried to shake the dog off her shoe.
The dog hung on.
“Bad Bebe,” Susan admonished.
The dog paid no attention.
Little monster,
Bernie thought as she reached down to grab her, but before she could Susan had scooped her up and cradled her in her arms.
“She just loves leather,” Susan explained gaily.
“That may be, but these are new.”
Susan cocked an eyebrow.
“You're not a dog lover, are you?” Susan asked.
“Not an unqualified one. No.”
Bernie was trying to figure out which was worseâSusan's artwork or her dogâwhen Susan said, “Would you like to know what the collage symbolizes?”
“Definitely,” Bernie lied.
Susan raised her free hand and gestured towards the collage.
“It's about Lionel's life and death.”
Now why hadn't she seen that, Bernie wondered.
“The dove symbolizes resurrection,” Susan explained when Bernie didn't say anything. “The drops of water”âSusan pointed to some blue spots on the clothâ“symbolize Lionel's death. I wanted it to be abstract but representational at the same time.”
Bernie cleared her throat.
“Well, you've certainly done that.”
“A synthesis of his life and death.”
Where was Libby when she needed her, Bernie thought as she watched Susan beam.
“I've been working on it ever since poor Lionel died.”
Bernie just nodded.
“I thought we could put it in the dining room next to the buffet table.”
“Uh.” Bernie looked at the table she'd just set up with its yellow linen tablecloth and white china.
I'd just as soon have Lionel's body in here,
she thought.
It would be just as appetizing.
“How about putting your collage in the living room?” she suggested. “That's where most of the people will be staying.”
“You think so?”
Not with that thing in the room, Bernie thought.
“Absolutely,” she said. “This way it will work as a centerpiece. Something for people to meditate on.”
“I was thinking of giving it to Lydia as a memento after the memorial is over,” Susan said.
“I'm sure she'll appreciate it.”
Susan ran her fingers down Bebe's naked back.
Bebe was not a thing of beauty, Bernie thought as Susan said, “Lydia did say she was coming.”
“Then I'm sure she will.”
“I hope so.” Susan fiddled with her earring. “She's been so busy with Lionel's new book on top of the
New York Times
best-seller list. It's so nice everyone is coming to the memorial service.”
In Bernie's humble opinion, memorial services had clergy; this was a party. But Bernie just nodded and glanced at her watch. She still had a lot to do before people started arriving. Susan followed her glance.
“Oh, my God,” she cried. “Why didn't you tell me it was so late. I have to go and get the flowers.”
Bree Nottingham had ordered arrangements of jonquils, sweet peas, white roses, and ferns from the local florist, but they still had to be picked up.
Susan put Bebe back on the floor and wagged her f inger at her. “You be a good doggie,” she told her. “I'll be back in a little while,” she told Bernie. Then she left the house.
Bernie looked at the poodle. The poodle looked at Bernie. Bebe growled. Bernie growled back. Which might not have been a good idea, Bernie reflected as Bebe lunged for her sandal.
“If you think you are eating my new Robert Clergeries, you have another think coming,” Bernie told the dog as she grabbed it by the scruff of the neck.
The little dog snapped and snarled like a thing possessed.
“You're the spawnâokay, spawnetteâof the devil,” Bernie told Bebe as she deposited the little monster in the laundry room and quickly closed the door.
Bernie stood there for a moment listening to Bebe hurl herself against the door. When that didn't work, she started howling. Really loudly. Bernie went over and turned on the radio. Bebe continued to howl. Bernie briefly considered throttling the little beast but reminded herself that Libby and her spiritual advisor back in California would frown on that behavior.
“Deep breath, deep breath,” she said out loud.
When she felt slightly calmer, she took off her sandal and examined the strap. There were a few tooth marks but nothing that couldn't be fixed.
The hazards of catering no one tells you about,
Bernie thought as she put her sandal back on and ran through her to-do list in her mind.
She and Libby had already set up the tables, both the ones inside and the ones in the backyard, and covered them with tablecloths and placed little vases filled with yellow tulips on each table. Then Libby had helped her set up the chairs before she'd taken the van and gone back to the store to finish getting ready.
The food was also under control. Or as under control as it ever got in situations like this. Bernie and Libby had already made and frozen the spanakopita and the cheese coins, which were a nice old-timey recipe made of butter and flour and sharp grated cheddar and rolled into little logs, then sliced and baked.
And of course there were the store's wontons, which Libby filled with a mixture of tofu seasoned with ginger, sesame seed oil, pepper, and soy sauce. Googie was still working on the grape leaves, and this morning she and Libby had arranged the platters of fruit and cheese as well as baskets of bread, not to mention six kinds of cookies for people who liked something sweet.
The nice thing about the spanakopita and the wantons, of course, was that they were frozen in advance so all you had to do was heat them up as you needed them, thereby reducing the wastage factor, which was especially important in an event like this where anywhere from fifty to one hundred and fifty people could show up.
So all that remained to do was set up the hot-water urn for those who preferred tea and pipe the crème fraîche into the cherry tomatoes and put dabs of crab and artichoke dip on endive leaves and plate them. But before she did that, she had to clean off the counters in Susan's kitchen and do the dishes in the sink, which would probably take her a good half hour.
Between the art supplies, weaving supplies, random pieces of wool, stuff left over from a plumbing job, cookbooks, kitchen gadgets, mail, dog food, and heaven knows what else, there wasn't much work room left. Libby had been appalled when she'd seen the mess, and for once Bernie had agreed with her.
Most people would have had the sense to clean up before Libby and Bernie arrived, but not Susan. She'd just laughed when Libby had looked at the counters and said her collage had taken all of her time. Of course now that Bernie had seen the collage, she thought Susan would have been way better off on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor.
“Fine,” Libby had said to Bernie as Bernie walked her out to the van. “We'll just charge her extra.”
So be it,
Bernie thought as she rinsed off what looked like three days worth of dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Then she scrubbed the pots and placed them on the drying rack.
Next she stacked the cookbooks and put Susan's mail into a neat pile.
Could you have any more gadgets?
Bernie wondered as she threw the cherry pitter, the zester, the fat drainer, and the kitchen-sized blowtorch in a wicker basket and put them on the counter near the door.
In Bernie's humble opinion, gadgets were the mark of a bad cook. All you really needed were some decent pans, a set of sharp knives, and the right ingredients. Take this stupid mini-blowtorch that people used to brown their créme brûlées. How many times were you ever going to use that? Once a year? A broiler worked just as well, Bernie thought as she started gathering the magazines into a pile. She glanced up at the clock on the wall. She'd been at this for twenty minutes already. Too much time.
Nevertheless, Bernie's eyes fell on a recipe as she put Susan's papers into a pile.
Lesson One
was typed across the page.
I bet this is from the Chinese cooking class Libby took,
Bernie thought as she automatically scanned the recipe for stir-fried beef with bamboo shoots.
And then it hit her.
Oh, my God.
She couldn't believe it. It was too incredible.
She put the recipe down and walked over to the phone and dialed the shop.
Googie answered.
“A Taste of Heaven. How may I help you?”
“Get Libby,” Bernie ordered.
“She's upstairs.”
“Get her anyway.”
“Fine,” Googie said. “No need to be rude.”
Bernie paced until Libby got on the line a few minutes later.
“Yes?” she said.
“When was the Chinese cooking class you took?”
“Three or four days ago. Maybe more. With everything that's going on, I've lost track of time.”
“No. The first one.”
“Sometime in May. Why?” Libby asked.
“Did you make stir-fried beef and bamboo shoots?”
“It was the first thing we cooked.”
“Were the bamboo shoots fresh or canned?”
“Fresh. That was the whole point. Using fresh ingredients. Only the teacher had already boiled the shoots, because otherwise we wouldn't have had time to do everything we needed to. Why?”
Bernie was just about to tell her when she felt something wet on her back and smelled something awful. She spun around. Susan Andrews was holding an open can of silicone lubricant in one hand and that goddamned kitchen torch in the other.
Susan splashed more lubricant on Bernie's T-shirt and turned the container so that Bernie could read the words,
Extremely Flammable,
which were written on the can in big red letters.
“Now do what I say,” Susan mouthed.
Bernie nodded. Alcohol would burn off her skin, but the stuff she had on her would stick to it. Which meant she wasn't in a position to argue.
Chapter 40
“B
ernie, are you all right?” Libby asked, retying the belt on her robe.
“I'm fine,” her sister told her. “I'll talk to you later.” And she hung up.
Libby stood there with the receiver in her hand for a moment, then turned towards Googie.
“Did my sister seem weird to you?” she asked him.
He looked up from the grape leaves he was filling.
“She's always weird.”
“Did she seem upset?”
“She was definitely uptight.” Googie wiped his hands on his apron. “I'm going to wear a white T-shirt if that's okay with you, because my brother borrowed my white shirt last night and puked all over it.”
Libby nodded absentmindedly.
“Did you hear what I said?” Googie asked.
Libby made an uh-huh noise.
Bernie's call bothered her, but she couldn't explain why. It wasn't the randomness of the question about the recipe that bothered her. Bernie was always asking random questions. Libby ran her fingers through her hair. Maybe it was the tone in her sister's voice. Bernie had seemed excited. But then she was always excited.
Libby paced back and forth for a few seconds and then picked up the phone and called Bernie again. Bernie answered on the first ring. She sounded normal enough, Libby told herself when she hung up. She looked at her watch. She had half an hour to take a shower, get dressed, and get over there and help Bernie finish setting up.
“I'm going back upstairs,” she told Googie.
He nodded distractedly. But when Libby had climbed the steps, instead of taking a right and going into the bathroom, she took a left and went into Bernie's room. Libby looked at Bernie's old teddy bears and the movie posters of
The Breakfast Club
and
The Lost Boys
she still had on her wall.
For some reason Libby's throat started to constrict. She could feel the tears starting to come.
This is ridiculous,
she told herself. Maybe it was, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong as she went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The feeling wouldn't go away. She tapped her fingers on the shower curtain. There had to be something behind it. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
Nothing. And then Susan Andrews' face popped into her head. She heard her talking in the store the morning after Lionel's death about Lionel asking her to put a stake through his heart. She'd thought then that it was an odd thing to say. But Susan said lots of odd things. Now she wondered if it were wishful thinking.
Another picture flashed through her brain. Lionel's picture hanging on the wall in Susan's library. The black candles under it. And now that she thought about it, Susan seemed to be deriving a lot of enjoyment from having the memorial service for Lionel in her house. Normally she hated having large groups of people over and had since her husband died.
So she had a change of heart. So what?
None of this added up to anything, certainly nothing she could call the police about.
And yet . . . Libby took a deep breath.
“Screw it,” she said.
She turned off the shower and put on the shorts and T-shirt she'd just taken off. Then she slid her feet into her sandals and ran for the hall closet where her father kept the gun she wasn't supposed to know about.
So she'd lose another customer, maybe even several, and she'd look like a fool.
Big deal.
Better that than a dead . . .
No,
she told herself as she ran down the steps.
Don't even think the words. Just concentrate on getting to Susan Andrews's house.