Chapter 12
O
kay, Bernie thought as she glanced around the room Lionel Wrenkoski, once known as the great Laird Wrenn, had occupied. Now that she was here, where was what she was looking for? For that matter, what was she looking for?
There should be a blinking red light and a little sign with an arrow that said, “This way to the evidence,” and in a well-ordered world there would be, Bernie decided as she slid her silver and onyx ring up and down her finger. Now that she thought about it, the police had probably already taken everything worth taking.
Maybe Libby was right. Maybe she was crazy. She herself preferred the term impetuous, which conjured up visions of Rita Hayworth wearing a safari suit and standing in the middle of the African veldt fending off a pack of lions with a bullwhip. Even if Rita did have red hair and Bernie's was blond, that could change with a visit to the salon.
Joe had thought she was stark, raving nuts ever since she'd thrown a pair of his shoes out the window when he yelled at her for buying a Louis Vuitton bag on eBay. But he had treated her with more respect after that. At least for a while. The bag was practically an icon, for heaven's sake.
At a thousand dollars, it had been a steal. It wasn't her fault that they were short the rent. Joe should have told her. And he shouldn't have screamed like that. Had she known what he was going to do with Tanya, she would have thrown him out with his shoes.
Her therapist had informed her she had poor impulse control when she'd told him about the shoe incident. Like he was one to talk. She happened to know through a friend of hers that he'd bought the cherry-red Jag convertible he motored around in off the lot on his lunch hour because he'd been driving by and fallen in love with it. At least she just fell in love with shoes. Even if they were the five-hundred-dollar variety.
What she had never gotten her shrinkman to understand was that she did best when she operated on intuition. It was the long-range planning stuff she didn't do too well with. So be it. She stopped fiddling with her ring and took another step inside the room.
“Okay,” she asked herself as she took another look around. “What would Dad do in a situation like this?”
Now that was simple. He wouldn't be in it.
But if he was . . .
If she had her cell phone, she could call and ask him.
Hey, Dad. Howya doing? Libby and I have a question for ya. We were talking about what we should be looking for if one of us happened to wonder into Lionel's room. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Too bad her cell was in her bag, which was locked up in Libby's van.
Even so, she could hear his voice telling her that most people looked, but they didn't see.
Fine.
So she wasn't going to look. She was going to see.
Whatever that meant.
For a moment she felt like Jeff Spicoli in
Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Totally not there. Maybe she should rent it again, she mused. It was still one of her favorite Sean Penn flicks.
She shook her head.
Bernie, get a grip,
she told herself. She inhaled. Deep cleansing breath. One more.
Yes. Better. You didn't know anything about food styling when you started out either,
she reminded herself.
You learned on the job.
If she thought about it, she'd never had a job that she'd been qualified for. She'd talked herself into every single one of them. So if there was one thing she could say about herself, she thought as she assessed the room, it was that she was a quick study. And speaking of quick, she'd better stop chatting to herself and do what she'd come up here for.
Bernie decided the room looked like what it was: a guest bedroom. Everything in it, except for the dresser and the night tables, was color coordinated in different shades of blue. Light blue carpeting, dark blue chenille bedspread, and white-and-blue-striped voile curtains. Even the clock on the bed table was blue. Periwinkle. Probably Nigel's girlfriend, Janet, had helped put everything together.
Very nice. Very tasteful, very boring except for the set of fangs lying near the lamp, the black cape across the foot of the bed, and the small coffin on top of the dresser, all of which somewhat marred the effect of tranquility that Nigel and Janet had strived so hard to achieve.
Bernie went over to the dresser and opened the coffin lid. It was a jewelry case. A pair of gold cuff links were nestled inside. She picked them up and looked at themâTiffany's. Sweet. Good stuff. Nice and heavy. Then she picked up the coffin. It was enameled with a row of small rubies around the middle. On the inside of the lid was an inscriptionâ
May we be together for all eternity. Your slave, Tiffany.
Tiffany, Tiffany.
Bernie shook her head as she put it back down and began to quietly open the dresser drawers.
You're even more screwed up than Libby and I are. At least,
Bernie thought,
she'd had the good sense to confine her presents to Joe to things like CDs and cologne. She hoped Tiffany had got this stuff on sale because Lionel was definitely not worth wasting serious money on. Let alone time.
What is wrong with us?
Bernie wondered.
Why do Libby, Tiffany, and I keep dating such losers?
Instead of thinking about the answer to that question, Bernie considered Tiffany's inscription. Slave. Now that was an interesting word choice. Were we talking metaphorical here? Literal? Bernie decided she really didn't want to know. Either one was bad.
She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she turned her attention to Lionel's dresser drawers. They were filled with his clothes. The man had certainly brought a lot of changes for such a short stay. By the time she was done Bernie knew that Lionel Wrenkoski had an unfortunate liking for maroon silk underwear and canary yellow socks, as well as a strange need to own five opera capes lined with red silk and carefully folded in tissue paper, all of which to Bernie's eye seemed to be exactly the same.
She closed the drawers and went over and picked up the fangs with the tips of her nails and held them up to the light. They weren't your average Halloween drugstore purchase, she decided. These babies had been custom crafted. One of Joe's friends out in Brentwood, a vampire wannabe, had had a pair made for him for four hundred bucks. These looked as good if not better.
She put them down and opened up the table drawer. In it was a book. She took it out. The cover featured a man chained to a four-poster bed, with a big-boobed vampire lady advancing on him fangs out, white diaphanous dress swirling around her thighs.
The title read,
Heaven in Hell,
by Nigel Herron. She checked the spine for the name of the publisher. It was a PODâpublished on demandâbook. Which meant Nigel had paid in the neighborhood of three hundred dollars, give or take a hundred, and gotten anywhere from five to ten books.
Guess Nigel is serious about being a writer,
Bernie thought as she opened the book to the title page. Perhaps he'd given the book to Lionel hoping that Lionel could help him get it published in hardback or mass market.
On the title page Nigel had written
, Lionel, remember this? I'm sure you do.
Bernie flipped through the book.
On page 25, she read:
Her breasts heaved as she felt the warm rush of blood stream into her mouth and down her cheeks. She savored the soft, salty coppery flavor on her tongue as if it was a fine wine.
The vintage was young but she liked them that way. Impudent. It made her conquest
so
much sweeter. She licked a trace of the vermilion substance off her lower lip with the flick of her tongue. Blood. Her right. Her due. Her father's inheritance.
“You are nothing,” she whispered in Stanislaw's ear as she tightened the restraints on his wrists. “Nothing but a vessel for my pleasure.”
He whimpered in pain as she drove her fangs deeper into his flesh.
“You go, girl,” Bernie said looking up from the page.
Well, one thing was for sure. Nigel certainly had an active fantasy life.
As for the writing, it was way too purple prosy for her taste. Although from the little she'd read of Lionel's books, they weren't much better than the one she was holding in her hand. Personally she preferred nonfiction. History. Philosophy. Sometimes biography. She was about to turn to another page when she heard a noise. She whirled around. The noise was muffled, but it was definitely footsteps. Someone was coming up the stairs.
“This is not good, not good at all,” Bernie muttered as her heart started doing the Macarena in her chest.
Okay,
she told herself.
Take a deep breath. It doesn't help to panic.
But somehow what she had told Libby about talking her way out of the situation didn't seem like such a good idea now that she was faced with actually doing it.
Bernie looked around the room. There was only one thing she could think of to do. So she did it. Even though it was totally undignified. Joe would be laughing his ass off if he could see her wiggling under the bed, she reflected as the carpet rubbed up against her arms and chest. Bernie was thinking that someone should sweep under the bedâthere were enough dust bunnies for Susan Andrews to weave into one of her piecesâwhen a pair of scuffed, two-inch white pumps appeared in the gap between the bed skirt and the carpet.
“Lydia,” Bernie murmured to herself. “Wonderful.”
Bernie knew this because she'd noticed the shoes in the hallway when Lydia had come in and remembered thinking that one should wear white shoes only if one's feet were a size five. Otherwise they made your feet look like boats.
“Someone has been in here,” Lydia said as Bernie felt a sneeze coming on.
And it's not Mama Bear,
Bernie thought as she pressed a finger firmly under her nose to keep the sneeze in. After a few seconds the impulse passed.
“Nigel!” Lydia screamed.
Bernie held her breath. She didn't hear Nigel's feet on the stairs.
Lydia cursed and started out of the room.
“Nigel, I said get up here now.”
“Coming, Lydia.”
Okay,
Bernie told herself,
now you can panic.
She couldn't get down the steps she'd used to come up because Lydia was blocking them, and she didn't want to stay under the bed in case, for some strange reason, Nigel or Lydia decided to look under it. The thought of having to explain what she was doing under the bed in Nigel's guest bedroom didn't bear thinking about.
She wiggled out on the other side of the bed and crouched down behind it while she took stock of her situation. She could: A) hide in the closetâa possibility that presented the same potential for embarrassment that remaining under the bed did; or B) she could go out the window.
She crawled over and peered out the second-floor window. The sill was nice and wide. That was good. When she and Libby had pulled up to the house she remembered seeing a trellis with climbing roses about a foot away from the window. Also good.
Theoretically she could get out on the sill and reach over and step onto the latticework and climb down. Hopefully, it was firmly attached to the wall. And if it wasn't and she did fall, she'd land in the peonies, which wasn't terrible.
There was only one problem. She didn't like heights. Really didn't like them. She didn't even like climbing on a step stool to change a light bulb, much less climb out a second-story window.
“Hurry up,” Bernie heard Lydia say to Nigel as Bernie weighed her options.
Don't like heights? Face my sister?
Hum. Let's see.
Not even a close contest.
Bernie opened the window and clambered out on the sill. Belatedly it struck her that wedges were probably not the best shoes for climbing, that she should have taken them off, but it was too late for that now.
She reached out and grabbed the trellis. Then she put one foot on one of the side boards, inched over, put the other foot out, and put her right hand on the outside edge.
The trellis creaked. She took a step. The trellis made a cracking sound. It probably wasn't designed to hold a hundred and twenty-five pound person, Bernie decided. A vision of her ignominiously floundering around in the dirt, a piece of lattice around her neck, flashed through her mind.
No. The trick was to think positive. Her guru always said that negative thoughts led to negative results. Very, very slowly she began her climb down.
Chapter 13
M
eanwhile, Libby was in the kitchen arranging cookies on one of Nigel's platters and trying not to have a nervous breakdown while Amber washed the cocktail glasses and hors d'oeuvre plates.
“What's happening upstairs?” Amber asked her.
Libby lied.
“I don't know. I'm sure everything is fine.”
“Then why did that woman scream like that?”
“Maybe she saw a mouse.”
“No.” Amber wrinkled her nose. “Something else is going on.”
Libby tried to concentrate on getting the lemon snaps to line up.
“Even if there is,” she said, “the dishes still have to be done.”
Amber turned off the water.
It's nice to see how well she listens to me,
Libby thought as she watched Amber's eyes dart nervously this way and that.
“First Laird Wrenn dies and now this,” Amber whispered. “Maybe there's a mass murderer in Longely. Maybe he's in the house.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“Did you see
Scream
?”
“Fortunately, I missed it.”
Amber looked mildly disappointed.
“Well, in that movie this deranged killer gets in the house andâ”
“Amber, that's enough. Get back to work.”
“Okay, but I'm just trying to be helpful. Don't blame me if you faint when someone's head comes rolling down the stairs.”
“I'll bear that in mind.”
“Maybe the killer has one of those big Samurai swords.”
Libby gritted her teeth. Her sister was a dead woman.
“There is no killer.”
“You don't know that.”
“Okay. There's no killer in this house. Now please peek into the dining room and tell me if I should clear the table.”
Amber opened her mouth.
“Now,” Libby ordered pointing to the dining room.
“Fine. If that's the way you want to be.” And she trotted off. A few moments later she was back.
“No one is in the dining room. They're all in the hallway. Waiting for Nigel and Lydia to come down. Maybe we should call the police.”
“Absolutely not,” Libby snapped. “It's not our place.”
“It would be if someone were dead.”
“But they're not.”
“You don't know that.”
“Amber.” Libby took a deep breath. “You are going to finish the glasses and start brewing the coffee while I finish the cookies and bus the table.”
Amber shrugged. “Whatever.”
As Libby put three more lemon snaps on the plate, she tried not to glance at the back steps, tried not to think of Bernie being dragged down the stairs, tried not to think of the public disgrace. What exactly was she going to say? she wondered as she put a doily on the second platter and arranged more cookies.
Maybe she could use the drug defense. Bernie had just taken a new anti-depressant and had become momentarily crazy. Or Bernie was jet-lagged and had taken an over-the-counter sleeping pill and become momentarily crazy. Or Bernie was in the process of grieving for her lost wardrobe and had become momentarily crazy. Or Bernie wasn't her sister after all. An evil elf had spirited the real Bernie away and left this one in her place.
Libby was thinking that that was a possibility when Bernie came through the back door.
“I got the soda you wanted out of the van.” Bernie handed her a six-pack.
“I will never forgive you for this,” Libby hissed while she smiled at Bernie for Amber's benefit. “Never.”
Bernie smiled back.
“You have to learn to trust in the universe.”
“Don't patronize me.”
“I wasn't.”
Before Libby could answer, Lydia Kissoff came down the steps Bernie had recently gone up. She was followed by Nigel and Susan Andrews. The remaining guests surged through the other door.
“What happened?” Bree Nottingham demanded.
“Someone,” Lydia said, holding up the book Bernie had found in the drawer, “tried to steal this.”
“That's terrible,” Bernie said realizing that she must have dropped it on her way out the window. In her panic she'd forgotten she even had it. “Simply terrible.”
“Isn't it though?” Libby agreed.
“The window was open. They must have gotten away through it,” Lydia said. “You didn't happen to see anyone, did you?” she asked Libby.
“No,” she replied.
“I was out at the van getting some more soda and I didn't see anyone either,” Bernie volunteered.
“Really?” Lydia's eyes rested on Bernie's forearms. “Those scratches look nasty.”
Bernie tried for a rueful laugh, but came out with a snort instead.
“They do, don't they? It's what I get for being in a hurry. I tripped on the way back in.”
Lydia raised an eyebrow.
“You should be more careful. How did you fall?”
Bernie pointed to her shoes.
“I think I must be developing weak ankles in my old age. I should really start wearing shoes like yours. You know. Sensible. Mine are too high,” Bernie said, at which point Libby quickly stepped in front of her.
Nigel looked around unhappily. “I guess I should report this to the police,” he said. “But then we'll be here forever. And they make such a mess.”
“After all,” Bree Nothingham pointed out. “Nothing was really taken.”
“True,” Lydia agreed.
“It was probably some teenage boys doing it for the hell of it,” Bernie suggested.
“They probably wanted a souvenir,” Nigel said. “Something from Laird.”
“I wouldn't be at all surprised,” Bree Nottingham agreed.
Libby didn't say that she thought that Laird Wrenn's fan base was more apt to be female than male. Instead she looked at everyone standing around and thought about how lucky she wasânot to mention Bernie, of course.
“Why don't I make everyone a round of iced Irish coffees to go with dessert?” she proposed to the assembled guests. Thank heavens she'd brought extra cream and brown sugar along. And she always had Jameson's and chocolate in her emergency catering kit because, as her mother always said, you just never know. “You guys look as if you could use something that packs a wallop.”
Then she forced herself to smile, which is difficult to do when you are harboring homicidal thoughts about your sister in your heart.