“Is there anything else I can get you?” Libby quickly asked Esmeralda, trying to forestall a comment from Bernie.
Esmeralda gave her a tremulous smile and put her hand back down by her side.
“If it's not too much trouble, I'd love a half-decaf, half-regular, skimmed milk cappuccino.”
“I'll manage something,” Libby assured her. Surely they had to have an espresso machine around here somewhere.
Esmeralda dabbed at her eyes again. “Thank you so much. And oh yes, Theodora, that's the tall, thin, woman in the yellow taffeta dress, would like decaffeinated tea with a slice of lemon on the side and make sure Jura's coffee is decaf as well. Otherwise the poor man will be up all night, won't you, Jurie?”
Jura gave her a brief wintry smile, took the lid off the tin, and opened a drawer beneath the counter and took out a small horn spoon.
“One never samples caviar with a metal spoon,” Jura explained to Libby, pointedly ignoring Esmeralda. “In fact, you never put caviar anywhere near metal. It has a disastrous effect on the taste. The interaction of the metal and the roe is most unpleasant, but then I'm sure you already knew that.”
“Actually I do,” Libby said even though she could tell that Jura wasn't really interested in her answer.
In truth she would have said that even if she didn't know anything. The man was absolutely insufferable. She couldn't help thinking that Leeza and he had deserved each other.
“Actually,” Bernie chimed in. “Some people claim that metalâwell not silver as muchâaffects the taste of anything it touches. It can even change the color of some food as it cooks. Witness the effects of cooking tomatoes in an aluminum pan, and I won't even go into the controversy over aluminum and Alzheimer's disease.” She didn't even pause for breath before going on.
“And as for spoonsânow that's a really interesting subject. Some author, I forget who, wrote that spoons are the Ur eating utensil, if you will. I don't think forks were used until the seventeenth century, whereas spoons have been around for almost three thousand years. They've been found in various digs. Some were made of clay, others of bone and shell. So you see,” Bernie pointed to the spoon Jura was holding, “you're continuing a tradition that goes back three millennia. It's really amazing when you think about it, isn't it?”
Jura blinked several times in rapid succession. “Fascinating,” he finally commented as he turned his attention to the tin of caviar.
Libby watched as he dipped his spoon in the can and drew out a small mound of glistening dark gray eggs. Then he closed his eyes, slowly raised the spoon to his lips, and tipped the contents between his lips. He rolled the eggs around in his mouth and took a bite.
His eyes flew open. He reached for the tin and examined it. A slow line of color crept up his face. He whirled around and strode out of the kitchen. The swinging door almost hit Esmeralda in the face as she ran after him.
“Jurie, Jurie,” she trilled, “what's the matter?”
If Jura answered her Libby didn't hear it. Instead Jura called for his two brothers.
“Ditas,” he yelled. “Joe. Come here this instant. I have discovered something most disturbing. Perhaps you can explain this to me.”
Chapter 8
L
ibby turned to Bernie. “What was that all about?”
“I don't have a clue.” At which point Bernie went to the door and peeked out into the living room.
Jura was huddled in the far corner of the room with his two brothers. He was waving his arms up and down, while his younger brother Joe was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet and Ditas was shaking his head from one side to another. All three were ignoring Esmeralda.
“He seems really upset,” Bernie commented. “In fact this is the most emotion I've seen from Jura since we've arrived.”
“I think he's really creepy,” Amber said, bending down to retie her shoelace. “I wouldn't marry him no matter how much money he has.”
“Obviously, Leeza didn't share your opinion.” Bernie went back to the counter. “I wonder if they signed a pre-nup?” she mused as she reached for the spoon Jura had used, washed it off, dipped it into the can, and took a taste.
“This stuff is not good,” she said after she'd rolled the eggs around in her mouth. “I bet these are paddlefish eggs instead of sturgeon roe. Either that or the sevruga is actually a lower-grade caviar. Or the tin has been incorrectly stored, compromising the product's quality. Caviar spoils very quickly. In any case, one thing is for sure. The sevruga doesn't taste the way it's supposed to.”
“What would it mean if it was paddlefish eggs?” Libby asked.
Bernie started tapping her fingers on the counter. “Oh a difference of seven dollars an ounce versus sixty-five to seventy dollars an ounce. At least that's what the prices were the last time I looked. Paddlefish is way cheaper because it's domestic. Actually I think there's a lot of virtue in getting something local versus something from far away. However, there's more cachet attached to getting some from Russia or Iran . . .”
Libby held up her hand. “Please, no lectures now.”
“Sorry,” Bernie told her.
Libby took the spoon from Bernie and tasted the caviar. She wrinkled her nose. “It's very salty.”
“Exactly,” Bernie said. “With the good stuff when you crush an egg between your teeth you should get a burst of a clean, briny flavor. It's almost like having a taste of the ocean in your mouth. It doesn't taste like this.”
“How do you know?”
Bernie shrugged. “I used to eat it out in L.A. all the time. It's great diet food. High in protein. Low in carbs. Lots of minerals. Spoon it on scrambled eggs and you're good to go. It's the perfect meal.”
“Caviar as a diet food. Why didn't I think of that?” Libby said.
“If you were rich you would,” Bernie replied.
Amber looked in the can. “I don't care how rich I was, I'd never eat that stuff. It looks gross.”
Libby handed her the spoon. “Here, taste it.”
Amber put the spoon down and moved away. “Fish eggs, I don't think so.”
Libby stared at the tin. “I guess we shouldn't serve this.”
Bernie indicated a skinny looking ginger tabby that had magically appeared next to her feet. “I bet she would like it.” And she scooped a half a cup of roe out onto a small plate and put it on the floor for the kitty.
“Jura's going to love that,” Libby observed.
“Well, it's just going to spoil,” said Bernie. “And anyway, he's not here.”
Libby watched the cat eat for a few moments while she pondered what she could put out for people to eat that she could pull together fairly rapidly. She started opening and closing kitchen cabinets. There wasn't much in the way of food there.
“Well one thing is clear,” she said to Amber and Bernie when she'd finished with her inventory. “Jura and his brothers don't eat at home a lot.”
“So what now?” Bernie asked.
Libby thought for another moment. “Open-faced sandwiches.”
Bernie wrinkled her nose. “Sandwiches?”
“Yes,” Libby said firmly. “Sandwiches.”
For openers, they were easy to make and they had other merits as well. Sandwiches were really comfort food. They had the merit of being familiar, they were homeyâeveryone's mom had made them sandwiches when they were a kidâand they were filling, which was good because Libby had observed over the years that death tended to whet people's appetites. And most importantly, you could make them out of anything.
Aside from the goose liver pâté Jura had asked her to serve, Libby had spied some fairly decent looking tomatoes on the far counter. She figured she could combine them with the mozzarella she'd seen in the fridge. Hopefully the cook wasn't planning to serve the tomatoes and the cheese later in the week. But if she were, she'd have to get over it. This was an emergency.
Of course the sandwiches would be better if the tomatoes were local instead of hothouse, but even so they wouldn't be bad. Mozzarella and tomatoes had to be one of the better combinations going.
Now she needed a third thing. Libby tapped her fingers on the counter while she weighed her options. Finally she decided on asparagus and smoked Gouda. That would look good and the smoky taste of the Gouda would make a nice foil for the sweetness of the asparagus. They could decorate the platters with the grapes in the fridge and they'd be all set.
Libby bit at her fingernail. “Okay we just need something for dessert.”
“We can always serve the wedding cake,” Bernie suggested.
“Ha. Ha. Talk about bad taste.”
“Somehow, I don't think the people here are going to care.”
Amber spoke up. “I saw some cookies in the pantry if that'll help,” she said as the kitty scampered away.
Libby nodded.
“Good. Amber you go get them, I'll start on the sandwiches, and Bernie you make the coffee. I saw it in the top cabinet to the left of the window.”
Bernie nodded. “You want to use this?” she asked after she'd located it. “It'll just take me a couple of minutes to go get our stuff out of the garage.”
Libby shook her head, as she dug into her backpack. “Don't bother.” She didn't know why but all of a sudden she was overwhelmed with an urge for a chocolate chip cookie. As she looked for it, she decided maybe she was feeling this way because Esmeralda and Jura reminded her of the way things had been between herself and her ex-boyfriend, Orion. Even now, thinking about how she was always running after him made her flinch.
Finally she found the cookie at the bottom of her backpack. Perhaps I should save it, she thought as she took it out. But then she decided no. Eat it now. As she bit into it and her mouth was filled with the flavors of vanilla, chocolate, and sweet butter, she could feel her body relaxing. Suddenly she had a flash of insight.
This is how an addict feels,
she told herself.
I am addicted to sugar. I have to do something.
But then she pushed that thought to the back of her mind and concentrated on the present. Specifically what kind of coffee to serve.
“Use the stuff you found in the cabinet. It'll be faster,” she told Bernie after she'd taken another nibble of her cookie. Over the years she'd learned that most people in America were used to drinking something that was more akin to brown-colored water, than coffee. What counted was getting it made and getting it out there. Taste was secondary.
“It's sad, really,” Libby said to her sister when Bernie came back from setting up the coffee urn in the living room, “that Leeza doesn't seem to have had any friends.”
“Maybe that's because she was such a bitch,” Bernie replied.
Libby lifted her head up. “You shouldn't say things like that.”
Bernie snorted. “Why not? It's the truth.”
“You're not supposed to speak ill of the dead.”
“Why? Because they'll come back and haunt you?”
Amber stopped rubbing cloves of garlic over slices of French bread. “They will?” she squeaked.
“Jeez,” Bernie told her. “It was just a figure of speech. All I'm saying is that I've never understood why when someone dies they automatically turn into a saint.”
“Maybe it's because they can't defend themselves,” Libby replied.
“Why do you always have to be so namby-pamby?” Bernie asked.
“And why can't you use normal words?” Libby demanded. She patted the tomatoes she'd just washed dry, placed them on the cutting board, then picked up a knife, sliced one tomato, and put the knife down. “I have to say though that Jura seemed more upset about the caviar than he did about Leeza.”
“Exactly.” Bernie got out the creamer and began filling it.
Libby picked up her knife again and looked at the tomatoes. She didn't want to think of where this conversation was leading. She had enough to worry about. Like when were the police going to let them out of here. Like the muffins she had to bake for tomorrow morning for the store. Like what would they do with the food and the cake? Like would Jura pay her the rest of the money he owed her? At least she'd gotten most of it up front.
“I don't suppose anyone's seen any basil?” she asked.
Bernie and Amber both shook their heads.
Libby sighed. She was just thinking that the tomato and mozzarella sandwiches would have to get made without it when Bernie's cell phone rang. “That has the most annoying ring,” she said to Bernie as she retrieved her phone from the counter and placed it to her ear.
“Hi Ina,” she said. “How's lunch going?” There was a pause and then she said, “What do you mean he's not there?”
“Who's not there?” Libby asked.
Bernie turned her face from the phone to answer. “Dad. He's gone.”
“Gone?”
“Exactly what I said. Ina went upstairs with his tray and no one was there. Alice said she heard a noise on the stairs and when she looked out the window she saw Clyde loading Dad into his minivan.”
Libby could feel her chest constrict. She should have saved the cookie.
“Relax,” Bernie told her. “I'm sure everything is fine.”
Libby knew she was being ridiculous. She knew that Bernie was right, but her father hadn't left his bedroom since he'd gotten sick three years ago because he'd refused to be seen in his wheelchair. She told herself there had to be a reasonable explanation for his disappearance, but offhand she couldn't think of one.