“I must ask you to go now,” he told Bernie and Libby.
And then before Bernie could think of anything else to say, Joe Raid was shooing them out the door.
“At least it stopped raining,” Libby said when they were outside. “But it's sticky as hell. I hate it when it gets this humid.”
Bernie grunted and moved her ring up and down her finger. Unlike her sister, she believed in ignoring the weather. Short of a major blizzard she never dressed for it. That, she believed, would be giving in.
“I guess Joe didn't think a whole lot of Leeza,” she observed.
“Except for Ditas no one seems to have.” Libby started back to the van. “Not even Jura,” she added.
“Sex and money,” Bernie mused. “Sounds like the making of a classic short marriage to me.”
“Well, at least Jura saved on a divorce lawyer,” Libby observed.
“Not to mention saving on the funeral,” Bernie said thinking of what Marvin had told her. She opened the box of cookies she was carrying, took one out, and then offered the box to Libby. “Did you add coffee flavoring to these?” Bernie asked after she'd taken a bite of the chocolate-chip macadamia-nut cookie.
“Do you like it?” Libby asked.
“It definitely works.” Bernie finished the first one and reached for a second. “These are addictive.”
Libby grinned.
“You think people will pay five cents more a cookie for them? Otherwise they're not worth making because of the macadamia nuts.”
“I would.” Bernie broke the new cookie in two and ate it. “What kind of chocolate did you use?”
“Lindt.”
Bernie nodded her approval at her sister's choice. “Did you know,” she said suddenly, “that chocolate has a melting temperature of between 86 and 97 degrees Fahrenheit? That's why chocolate has such good mouth feel. It really is a miraculous substance,” she added as she took another cookie out of the box and ate it. “No wonder the Mayans worshipped it.”
Bernie brushed the cookie crumbs off her hands and turned and considered the Raid Estate. “This really is a large place, isn't it?”
Libby nodded.
“Three brothers living in the same house and working in the same business and then this woman walks in the door trailing trouble behind her and everything goes to hell in a hand basket, as Mom liked to say,” Bernie mused.
“You're making this sound like one of those old black-and-white movies Dad is always watching on TV,” Libby observed.
“When you come down to it, I'm not so sure it isn't.” Bernie crossed her arms over her chest and continued to stare at the house. “I wonder who would know if Leeza Sharp was getting part of the business when she and Jura married,” she mused.
Libby moved a pebble with the toe of her sneaker. “Maybe Esmeralda. She seems to know all of Jura's business.”
Bernie rested her chin on the back of her hand. “I bet Leeza's getting a piece of the action didn't make her happy either.”
“Personally, I think it was Leeza getting a part of Jura that made Esmeralda unhappy. I don't think money had anything to do with it.”
Bernie tapped her ring against her front teeth. “You may be right,” she said.
Libby clutched her chest. “Ohmygod. I'm having a heart attack from the shock.”
“Very funny, Libby. Very funny.”
Chapter 21
A
s Libby drove towards the gate, she decided that she was glad to be getting out of this place. The Raid Estate made her uneasy. Bernie would say the place had bad karma, but you could pretty much say that about any place where someone was murdered.
The question was which came first: Was a person killed because the place had bad karma, or did the killing create the karma? Libby was trying to decide when Bernie pointed towards the vee in the road they were coming up on and asked her to bear left.
“I want to take another look at the murder scene,” Bernie explained. “As long as we're here it seems silly not to.”
“Not to me. Anyway there isn't going to be anything to see,” Libby protested. “The police will have swept the place clean.”
“I know. I want to see it anyway to make sure I have everything straight in my mind. It'll just take a few minutes.”
Libby thought about her to do list. They were already running behind. “If you want to talk to the shopkeepers we need to do that now so I can get back to the store. I have three fruit tarts I have to deliver to Bree Nottingham's house by 7:30.”
Bernie looked at her watch. “We have plenty of time.”
“No, we don't,” Libby countered.
“If you're that concerned about the fruit tarts call Amber and tell her to make them,” Bernie suggested.
“She can't do crusts.”
“Then have her buy some ready-made ones.”
Libby gasped and slammed on the brakes. That was like suggesting she use instant mashed potatoes. “Are you insane?” she cried.
Bernie rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I forgot I was talking to the domestic goddess incarnate for a moment.”
“How would you feel if I told you to get your shoes at K-Mart?”
“All right,” Bernie said. “You've made your point.”
“On top of everything else,” Libby added. “I don't think we should just go looking for trouble. Joe Raid won't like us driving around his estate.”
“He's not going to know.” Bernie indicated the road up ahead. “Once we swing to the right, we're out of sight of the house.”
Libby still wasn't convinced. “But what if he's phoned ahead to the gate and they're waiting for us to leave and we don't turn up?”
“So they'll come and find us and we'll leave. Big deal. Anyway, it's not as if we're going to be there that long.” Bernie touched Libby's arm. “Please.”
Maybe it was the “please” that did it but Libby could feel herself weakening. “Just a couple of minutes?” she found herself saying.
Bernie nodded.
“And you promise you'll help me with the pie crusts?”
Bernie raised her hand. “I gave my word, didn't I?”
Libby sighed as she veered to the right. Bernie reached over and gave her a hug.
“You're the nicest big sister ever,” she told Libby.
Libby grunted. She just hoped Bernie was right about Joe Raid not being able to see them.
“Swedish meatballs?” Bernie said as Libby slowed down to go around a pothole.
“Arby's?” Libby replied. “Murder?”
Both girls started giggling.
“Tell me,” Bernie asked. “If you were going to pick one of the brothers to go to bed with, which one would it be?”
“None of them,” Libby said. “I think they're all creepy in their own unique ways. How about you?”
“Hmmm. Maybe Joe. No. He's really cold although he might be good in bed. There's really something very intense about him. No. I'd have to go with none too.”
Libby turned her eyes back to the road. She could tell they were getting nearer the creek from the look of the vegetation.
“Do you remember where the tent was?” she asked Bernie. It all seemed the same to her.
“Not exactly, but Leeza had all those white roses planted around the tent so it shouldn't be hard to find.”
“I forgot about those,” Libby allowed.
“Maybe we should walk,” Bernie said as Libby maneuvered the van around yet another pothole. “I hate to think of getting stuck here now.”
Much as she didn't want to admit it Libby decided her sister was right, though walking was the last thing she wanted to do. It was hot and humid. Her T-shirt was sticking to her back. She just knew she was going to get poison ivy or get eaten alive by mosquitoes or catch Lyme disease. She pulled off the road and parked the van under a nearby group of trees. Why did she let Bernie talk her into this kind of stuff she wondered as she killed the ignition. She should know better by now.
Of course she was attacked by bugs the moment she got out of the car. “Can we do this fast?” she asked her sister as she swatted at a gnat.
“Just waiting for you,” Bernie told her as she began walking.
Libby could hear the creek off to the left and the call of some birds but other than that everything was quiet. Almost too quiet, Libby decided. She never thought of herself as a city girl, but the quiet out here bothered her, but maybe that was because of the circumstances.
“How far do you think?” she asked her sister, swatting at another flying thing.
“Not very.”
As Libby followed Bernie she couldn't help but admire the way her sister managed to pick her way over the roots and loose rocks in her espadrilles. She was tripping over them and she was wearing sneakers. She was such a klutz. Then the next thing she knew Bernie was striding down to the creek bed.
“What are you doing?” she hissed at her.
“Cooling off.” And Bernie took off her shoes and walked into the water.
“Stop that,” Libby told her.
“Oh, come on,” Bernie motioned for her to come down. “It feels great.”
“No.” Libby felt an overwhelming surge of anxiety mingling with resentment towards her sister. She hadn't wanted to be here anyway and now that she was, she wanted to do what they had to do and get out.
“You really don't know how to loosen up, do you?” Bernie asked her after she'd gotten her shoes back on. “You have to be in control all the time.”
“There's nothing wrong with that,” Libby shot back.
“Yes, there is.”
“What?” Libby demanded.
Bernie opened her mouth and closed it again without answering. Then she turned and marched up the path. For the next couple of minutes neither of them spoke. Which was okay with Libby. Then Bernie turned her head towards her.
“I think the tent is up there.”
She took two more steps and stopped. Her shoulders went rigid.
Uh oh
, Libby thought as she came and stood beside her sister. It took a moment for her to process what she was seeing.
“It's like someone took a backhoe to the area,” she whispered.
“I think some one did,” Bernie replied.
Libby looked at the scene in front of her. The path to the house was now partially obliterated. Small mounds of dirt stood here and there. Most of the white rose bushes that Leeza had had planted for the wedding were gone. Some were lying on their sides. Others were buried under piles of dirt. Broken branches and petals were scattered all over the ground. Like wounded soldiers, Libby thought.
Bernie shook her head.
“There must have been twenty rose bushes,” Libby observed.
“Well now there are three,” Bernie said. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
Libby turned towards Bernie. “Why would someone do this?” she asked.
Bernie nodded towards the three pallets full of slate that Libby had somehow missed. “It looks as if they're building a patio.”
Libby bit at her cuticle. “Remember when you had that pet guinea pig . . .”
“Gerda,” Bernie said.
“And she died when we were away at school and when we got home Mom had thrown out the guinea pig and the cage and the food and everything and you were so angry.”
“And then I couldn't stop crying. It was like she'd never existed,” Bernie said. “And Dad went to the dump and somehow or other he found her and the cage and brought them back and you and I and Dad buried Gerda in the backyard.”
“Mom never liked that guinea pig,” Libby said.
“She hated her. She always called her a rat,” Bernie recalled.
“I think that's the way whoever's done this feels about Leeza,” Libby said.
“Hating something is bad. But it's something. It's better then obliterating it,” Bernie said softly.
Libby nodded. Suddenly she felt very cold.
“Are you okay?” Bernie asked her.
“I'm fine,” Libby said.
But she wasn't. She could feel her heart starting to beat rapidly. She was having trouble breathing.
I'm having a heart attack
, Libby told herself. Then she thought,
No
.
I'm having an anxiety attack.
“Do you want to leave?” Bernie asked her.
Libby shook her head. God, how she hated these things. Why did she let everything get to her? Why wasn't she more like Bernie or her dad?
Bernie put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Why don't you wait over there,” she said, indicating a large maple tree. “I'll be done in a few minutes.
Libby nodded and started towards it. Her head was swimming. But once she had her back against the tree she felt better. Somehow the bark against her skin was soothing. She kept her eyes focused away from where the rosebushes had been, away from where the tent had stood. For a moment she watched as Bernie searched the branches for any evidence that Leeza's killer had left behind.
“Nothing there,” Bernie said as she got down and began studying the ground.
Two squirrels captured Libby's attention. One was gray and the other was black. They seemed to be playing tag with one another.
Probably teenagers,
Libby thought. They were chasing each other up and down the trees and around the woodland floor. Then they went up a maple tree, down the other side and disappeared from sight almost in front of her.
Libby wondered where they'd gone. She couldn't see them. It was very puzzling. She started walking over there.
“Where are you going?” Bernie called after her.
“Nowhere.” She kept going. Maybe she had rapid onset glaucoma. Maybe that's why she couldn't see the squirrels.
A moment later Bernie joined her.
“Find anything?” she asked her.
Bernie frowned and brushed a tendril of hair off her face.
“No. You were right. It was a dumb idea,” Bernie told her. “Especially considering. If there was anything of any interest there that the police didn't find it's not there anymore. What are you doing?”
“There were some squirrels I was watching,” Libby stopped. She felt stupid. “I just wanted to see where they went off to.” She started to turn. “Let's go.”
“No.” Bernie was gripping her arm and she had that expression on her face that Libby knew only too well. “Show me where the squirrels disappeared.”
Libby walked another ten paces or so. “Here. But why do you care?”
Bernie walked over to where Libby had been pointing. Libby watched her standing there moving her ring back and forth on her finger and muttering to herself.
“I don't know,” Libby could hear her saying to herself. “I just don't know. Maybe. It is possible.”
Libby joined her. “What are you talking about?”
“It's such a long shot,” Bernie said.
“What?” Libby demanded. “What's a long shot?” she asked as the two squirrels she'd been watching seemed to reappear from nowhere in front of them.
Bernie turned and hugged her.
“I love you and your anxiety attack,” she said. “And the squirrels.”
And with that Libby watched as her sister squatted down and slowly brushed some dirt away with the edge of her palm. Then she stopped, rocked back on her heels, and stared at the spot.
“What are you doing?” Libby asked.
Instead of answering Bernie leaned forward, made a fist, and rapped on the earth.
“It's sounds like you're knocking on a door,” Libby said.
Bernie looked up at her. She had a big grin on her face. “It does, doesn't it? Damn, I'm good,” she said as she went back to sweeping the dirt away with the flat of her hand.