A Catered Halloween (12 page)

“That’s what he said about himself,” Libby commented.

“Well, it looks as if he was telling the truth,” Sean said. “So there you go.”

As Clyde headed down the stairs, Sean reflected on how nice it was to be working with him again. That was probably the thing he missed most from his days on the force.

L
ibby walked into the class, hung up her jacket, and looked around. It was seven-thirty in the morning, and everyone in the class looked disgustingly perky, but then they probably hadn’t been up since five making lemon squares and chocolate chip cookies.

And then there were the clothes. Everyone was wearing cute little yoga outfits, the kind that cost a couple of hundred dollars or so, while she was in her old stretched-out sweatpants and T-shirt. It was true she could have gone and bought one of those outfits—nothing was stopping her—but she hated spending money on stuff like that. Okay, that was a lie. What she hated to do was wear stuff like that. Even trying it on was painful. One look in the mirror and she wanted to reach for the cookies—not exactly a productive response given the circumstances.

She was taking this class to tone up, but she didn’t know how long she could stand it. The ad had promised results in three sessions. Well, this was her third session, and she had yet to see any results. She surrep
titiously pinched the roll of fat on her belly. Yup. It was still there. She felt especially depressed as she scanned the rows of women rolling out their yoga mats. They were all so trim and taut, and she was so…so not. Even their mats looked better than hers.

Libby sighed. Everyone was doing their warm-up stretching. Little tinkling bells chimed in the air. There was incense burning on the front table, where the instructor, an impossibly lithe woman wearing adorable yoga pants and a bralike top that showed off a midriff with no fat at all, was talking to someone. A sign that said,
BREATHE! BREATHE!
was hanging on the wall.

She spotted Timberland’s sister in the fourth row and reluctantly headed for her. Why couldn’t Ramona be in the back? Why did she have to be up front? God. Libby reminded herself she was here to do a job and that no one was looking at her—yeah, right—as she unrolled her yoga mat and plopped herself next to Ramona.

“Hi,” she said.

Ramona smiled. She had perfect blond hair and white, white teeth, and was extremely flexible. “Hi,” she said, with her head down almost to her right thigh.

Libby, who couldn’t even touch her toes and hadn’t been able to since high school, hated her.

“How are things going?” Libby asked. General questions were always best in situations like this, her dad had taught her.

“Good. We’re all going to the Haunted House tonight. Which waffles would you recommend?”

“The pumpkin ones are my favorite,” Libby replied promptly. “But lots of people like the chocolate ones.”

Ramona switched to her left thigh and held the stretch for a moment. “This class makes me feel so alive.”

“Me too,” Libby lied as she followed Ramona’s lead. What it really made her feel was sorer than anything she’d ever done.

A moment later Ramona put her left arm up, bent it toward the middle of her back, and grasped her right arm with it. Libby did likewise. She could hear her shoulder pop. She ignored it. All the same, it wasn’t a good sign.

Ramona looked around the room for a moment, then scooched closer to Libby and whispered, “Did you really find Amethyst’s head?”

Libby nodded. She had an idea that this wasn’t exactly yoga-class discussion material.

“It must have been horrible,” Ramona said.

“It was.”

“You know my brother knew her,” Ramona continued as she stretched out her other shoulder.

“Yeah. He told me they used to hang out back in the day,” Libby lied again.

Ramona set her mouth in a thin line.

Libby waited. Ramona remained silent.

“He didn’t seem that sorry,” Libby ventured after it became obvious that Ramona wasn’t going to say anything else.

Ramona snorted and worked her legs into a lotus position. Libby tried to emulate her and failed. Her calves didn’t seem to want to do that.

“I don’t think anyone is that sorry about Amethyst,” Ramona observed. “Are you?”

“Not really,” Libby confessed.

“Exactly my point.”

“But I thought she and your brother were friends.”

“Zachery thought they were friends, too,” Ramona said.

“So what happened?”

“What happened?” Ramona repeated. She took a deep breath and let it out. “What happened was that Amethyst didn’t have any friends. She had people she used, and she had people she was going to use.”

“You don’t sound like a big fan of hers, either.”

“I’m not.”

Libby started to lean over to ask Ramona why, but the instructor stared at her, brought her hands together, gave a slight bow, and chirped, “
Namaste
.”

“
Namaste
,” the class replied.

Libby took a deep breath. Her questions would have to wait. Class was beginning.

Forty-five minutes later it was over, and Libby was still smarting from having gotten stuck in the lotus position. Life was so unfair. She’d finally managed to get herself into the stupid position, and then she couldn’t get herself out of it. She closed her eyes and tried to blot out the memory of her tipping over and falling into Ramona. Someone else might have laughed. Ramona hadn’t. What she had done was look very annoyed.

“It will get better in time,” the instructor murmured in her ear as Libby walked by her. “You just have to practice, practice, practice. Remember if at first you don’t succeed…”

Libby nodded. Could you get any more clichéd, she wondered. She didn’t feel it necessary to tell the instructor there wasn’t going to be a next time. She had four more classes. Maybe Bernie would like to go in her place.

So much for self-improvement
, Libby thought as she walked out of the class. Aside from publicly humiliating herself, she’d learned absolutely nothing about Timberland, and now she was behind schedule at the shop. She was standing by her van, eating a piece of dark chocolate and thinking about the costume Bernie
wanted her to wear this evening—she was not going as a bowl of Special K!—when she saw Ramona walk to her car. She was talking on her cell and making angry gestures in the air with her free hand.
Okay
, Libby decided.
Maybe I should give this one more try
. After all, what did she have to lose?

Even though Ramona was half turned away from her, as she got closer, Libby could hear Ramona saying, “Listen, Madison, don’t do this. No. I don’t have an address to send a card. Neither does your dad. And for heaven’s sake, don’t ask him. He doesn’t need any more aggravation. I mean it, Madison.”

Libby bit her lip. Madison was the name of Timberland’s daughter. Someone had been talking about her recently. As she was trying to remember who it was, she watched Ramona glare at her phone.

“Great,” Ramona muttered under her breath as she flipped the phone closed and shoved it in her bag. She gave a little jump as she spotted Libby, but quickly recovered. “Just be happy you don’t have kids,” she said to Libby. “Even if they aren’t yours, they’re an epic pain in the ass.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Libby inquired.

Ramona looked at her. “That depends on what it is.”

This time Libby got right down to it. “It’s about why your brother disliked Amethyst.”

Ramona put her hand on the door handle of her Caddy Escalade. “Everyone disliked Amethyst. We already discussed that.”

“But your brother seems to have a special reason.”

Ramona threw Libby what her father would have called a measuring glance and said, “Go ask him.”

“You were going to tell me back in class.”

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

“Because you think that your brother had a motive to kill Amethyst?”

Ramona composed her mouth into a shocked O, only Libby wasn’t buying it. Too much drama. “Heavens no. What a terrible thing to say.”

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

Ramona shrugged again. “Because it’s none of your business.”

“True,” Libby told her. “It isn’t. But the fact that you’re not answering me will make other people curious.”

“And I should care why?”

Good question
. Libby improvised. “The police will care,” she said.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Ramona said. “The police already arrested Bob Small. They’re not interested in me.”

“How about if we make a deal,” Libby said.

Ramona arched one of her perfectly tweezed eyebrows. “Which would be?”

“You tell me what I want to know, and I’ll never come to your yoga class again.”

Ramona burst out laughing. “Good. But not good enough.” Ramona’s phone started ringing again. She took it out, looked at it, and grimaced. “Madison,” she said.

And all of a sudden, Libby remembered where she’d heard the name. It was from Amber, one of the kids that worked in her place.

“She’s your niece, isn’t she?” Libby said.

Ramona raised her eyebrow again.

“One of the girls who works for us went to school with her,” said Libby.

Ramona didn’t say anything.

“She was telling me about her. She dropped out of school.”

Ramona sighed. “It’s not that big of a deal. Lots of kids drop out.”

Libby closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on remembering the details of what Amber had said. “But she was at the head of the class. Number one. Editor of the school newspaper. Varsity track. Student council president. Had been admitted to Yale. People like that don’t usually do that type of thing.”

“Who knows what kids will do these days?” Ramona said, trying to sound casual and failing, as she opened the door of the Escalade and tossed her yoga mat into the backseat.

“Still, you have to admit it’s pretty unusual.”

Ramona shrugged.

“Your brother must have had a fit.”

“It’s true he was very disappointed. Everyone in the family was. He thought she was going to Yale and then on to law school. But what can you do.”

“I guess not much,” Libby said.

“If she wants to work as a waitress down in the city, that’s her business. I’m hoping that eventually she’ll come to her senses. And now, if you’re through, I have to get back to my house. My cleaning people will be there shortly….”

Libby raised a finger. “Just one more thing. Amber said all this happened because your niece had an affair with an older woman, and she dropped your niece in a particularly not nice way.” Judging from Ramona’s expression, Libby knew that what Amber had told her was correct. “And,” Libby said, making the logical leap, “I’m betting the person she had an affair with was Amethyst.”

Ramona blinked.

“It was, wasn’t it?”

Libby watched Ramona’s hand come up and finger the heart-shaped locket she wore around her neck.

“So what if it was?” Ramona snapped. “That’s no reason for my brother to kill her. Other kids end up a lot worse off. If you want someone who had a reason to kill Amethyst, talk to Bob Small or Inez.” With that, Ramona got in her vehicle and drove off, missing Libby by inches.

“Maybe it’s not a great reason,” Libby said to herself as she walked back to her van, “but it’s good enough.”

Especially these days, when more and more parents are living through their children.

L
ibby looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It read twenty minutes past eleven.
Great
. Only an hour and a half behind schedule. She had to get the Rogets’ birthday cake done before three, as well as the chicken curry for the Mathers’ party, which meant she might not be able to make the two apple pies for the Haunted House, which she hadn’t gotten to last night.

Fortunately, she had a couple of lemon tarts in the freezer. They might not be very Halloweeny, but it was the best she could do. And she had made the black cat cookies, so they were ahead there.

She wiped her spatula off and went back to the pumpkin chocolate cake she was icing. This time she’d used a different kind of chocolate, one with a lower butterfat content, and the icing was not as shiny as she would have liked.

She was thinking about complaining to her supplier, who’d told her the results would be the same, when her dad darted in, came up behind her, scooped up a taste from the bowl with the icing in it, and ate it.

“Stop that,” Libby ordered.

Sean grinned. “But it’s so good, it’s hard to resist.”

“I wish it looked better.”

“It looks fine,” Sean assured his daughter as he finished licking the teaspoon. “And it tastes even better. After all, as your mom used to say, ‘The proof is in the eating.’”

“Yeah. But Mom didn’t have the Food Channel to contend with.”

“True,” Sean allowed as he stared wistfully at the icing.

“You can have the bowl when I’m done,” Libby told him, and then she told her dad what she’d found out from Ramona.

“Interesting,” Sean said. “Maybe that’s not the best motive, but it’s certainly up there. If someone had done something like that to you, I’d want to kill them.”

“Kill who?” Bernie asked as she stepped into the kitchen.

Libby explained.

“I guess it’s a motive,” Bernie said as she poured herself a cup of coffee and added cream and sugar.

Libby drew her spatula across the icing on top of the cake to even it out. “Amber said Madison’s dad was livid when he found out. Timberland wanted to press charges, but his wife told him she’d divorce him if he did. Of course, she left him, anyway.”

“And this was how long ago?” Sean asked.

“A couple of years,” said Libby.

Sean put the spoon in the sink. “So once more we come to the question, why now?”

“Opportunity?” Bernie said.

Sean shook his head. “That might apply to Bob Small, but not to Timberland. At least not as far as I can see.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Libby complained.

“We’re missing information,” Sean said. “We have too much on the one hand and not enough on the other.”

Bernie flicked a piece of lint from her turtleneck sweater. “And what about Banks’s murder?”

“The one that doesn’t have anything to do with Amethyst’s?” her dad said.

“Yes. That one,” said Bernie.

“We have even less on that one. Except for the fact that Amethyst was going to go see him, we have nothing to link the two events,” said Sean.

Libby put her spatula down.

“It’s kind of like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded,” said Sean.

“Good analogy,” Bernie said, and she leaned over and gave her dad a peck on the cheek. “I’m off to check something at the historical society, and then I’m going to see if I can talk to Inez.”

“When will you be back?” Libby asked.

“In a couple of hours,” said Bernie as she eyed her sister’s baggy sweatpants and stretched-out T-shirt. “Is that what you wore to yoga class?”

Libby put her hands on her hips. “So what if it is?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Bernie mumbled.

“But you were thinking it,” said Libby.

“What was I thinking?” Bernie asked.

“That I look like a mess,” said Libby.

“You’re always so defensive,” Bernie protested.

The comment only made Libby more annoyed, because it was true. She was. But Bernie couldn’t possibly understand how she felt. She always looked perfect. Then, to make things worse, Bernie reached over and patted her sister on the shoulder. “We’ll find you a nice costume for tonight.”

Like I’m a little kid
, Libby thought resentfully. “I am not going as a bowl of cereal!”

“That was a joke,” Bernie insisted.

“It didn’t sound like a joke to me,” Libby told her.

“Well, it was,” said Bernie. She took a sip of her coffee and walked toward the door. “Wish me luck,” she called.

As Sean watched her go, he wanted to tell her that he’d changed his mind and she didn’t need to go to the historical society, after all. Then he realized that her visit didn’t preclude his later in the day. He could ask Jeanine about the stills on the View-Master Bernie had been handed by Felicity Huffer. Somehow he felt better. He was thinking about why that was when a horn beeped outside. His ride was here. It was time to go.

“That must be Marvin,” Sean informed his daughter as he put on his rain jacket. “We’re off to talk to Bob Small.”

Libby reached over and gave her dad two cinnamon spice cupcakes with mocha icing. “For the road,” she said.

Sean handed one to Marvin as soon as he got in the car. “Eat it now,” he instructed.

The idea of Marvin eating and driving at the same time didn’t bear thinking about. When Marvin was done, Sean said, “Bob Small’s house.”

Marvin turned to him. “And that would be where?”

“I thought you were supposed to look up the address.”

“I thought you were.”

“How would I know where he’s living?”

“I thought you knew everything.”

Sean glared at Marvin for a moment. A year ago he would never have said something like that. He was definitely getting entirely too comfortable. When Sean
judged that he’d conveyed his displeasure, he reached for his cell phone. Ten minutes later, he’d gotten the address from Clyde. As Marvin pulled away from the curb, Sean realized that he’d forgotten to bring the tapes that Konrad and Curtis had brought him. He was annoyed with himself, but not so annoyed that he was going to go back and get them.

According to Clyde, Bob Small was renting a place on the outskirts of Longely, about two blocks away from the train station—which was as slummy an area as Longely possessed. It was damp and chilly in the car, and Sean wished Marvin would put the heat on, but he wasn’t going to ask because, one, he was still annoyed with him and, two, that would be admitting he was cold. Instead, he concentrated on the scenery going by. Every other house had a skeleton hanging in the window or a group of tombstones in the yard.

They looked sad in the rain, Sean thought. The day was dark and gloomy, making them appear as if they were in a netherworld. He was still thinking that when they got to Bob Small’s house. The word that occurred to him when he saw it was
shack
. It had taken Marvin a moment to find it because it was hidden in the alley behind the dry cleaners. The place was a two-story house covered in asphalt shingles. A blue tarp was tied around the front part of the roof, presumably to fend off leaks. If there had ever been paint on the windowsills and the doors, it had vanished a long time ago.

As Sean studied the place, he couldn’t help thinking of Bob’s former house. It had been a good-sized Colonial on a half acre of carefully tended lawn, with a swimming pool and a gazebo and a four-car garage. And then there had been the wife and the two kids that had lived in that house, not to mention the two golden retrievers. As Bernie would say, Bob had had the sweet
life, and now, because of Amethyst, he had nothing. The woman had cost Bob Small everything that had mattered. If there was a better motive for murder, Sean couldn’t think of one.

“What are you thinking?” Marvin asked as he brought his car to a stop in front of the house.

“I’m thinking that if I had to live here, I would want to kill the person who put me here.” Sean nodded at the van parked by the side of the house. “It looks as if the Kurtz boys are here.”

“You want to come back another time?” Marvin asked.

Sean shook his head. “No. No. It’ll be fine.”

“Your call,” Marvin said as he turned off his vehicle and pocketed the key. “Tell me, do you believe in Bessie at all?”

Sean laughed. “People keep asking me that, and I keep saying I don’t, but I gotta tell you, the way things are progressing, she could just as easily have done this as anyone else. How about you?”

“No ghosts for me.”

But there was something about the way Marvin said it that made Sean turn and look at him. “Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Marvin said and got out of the car.

Sean watched Marvin go around the car to help him out. He wasn’t convinced that Marvin was telling him the truth, but he decided to let it go for now. At that moment he had to concentrate on getting from the car to the top of the steps. The ground leading to the steps looked uneven, and it was probably more so because of the rain. In addition, the two steps up to Bob Small’s apartment were sagging in the middle, and there was no banister to hang on to.

This is what he hated more than anything
, he re
flected as Marvin helped him out of the car.
Being dependent on someone
. Sometimes things were okay, and other times they weren’t, and the hell of it was he never knew what was going to happen. He shook off those thoughts. They were of no use whatsoever. He should take a leaf from Rose’s book and look on the bright side of things. Of course, if he could do that, Sean concluded, he wouldn’t have been a cop. Cops never looked on the bright side of things. They were paid to be suspicious.

He was just thinking about where to put his foot on the step when the door flew open. “See,” Curtis Kurtz said to Bob Small. “I told you, you didn’t have to call him. I told you he’d be here.” He turned to Sean. “We have more recordings. Bessie lied the last time. Remember she said she did it. Only she didn’t. She just said that because she wanted to.”

Sean made the second step. “I didn’t know that ghosts lied.”

“Ghosts do and feel everything that people do,” Curtis told him.

“I didn’t realize that. So who did it?” Sean asked as Konrad Kurtz closed the door and took their rain gear.

“She’s not telling us yet,” Konrad said and hung the rain gear up on two pegs sprouting out of the hall wall. “But don’t you worry. We have a few tricks up our sleeve. We’ll get it out of her. Also, we have her new recordings. You can hear for yourself.”

Sean looked from one brother to the other. “You know, guys,” he said, “what I really need is a large coffee and two chocolate glazed doughnuts from Dunkin’ Donuts. It’ll help me concentrate better.”

Sean watched Curtis and Konrad exchange glances.

“That’s a ways away,” Konrad said.

“Fifteen minutes,” Sean said.

“Maybe twenty with construction,” Curtis corrected.

“Each way,” Konrad added. “That’s forty minutes.”

Sean smiled. “Which would be the amount of time I need to talk to Bob.”

“Oh,” said Konrad. “Why didn’t you say that?”

“I just did,” said Sean.

Curtis frowned. “So you don’t want to listen to the tapes?”

“I do,” Sean said. “But let’s listen to them when you come back.”

“Do you really want the coffee?” Konrad asked.

Sean thought for a moment. “If it’s not too much trouble, I do. And change the chocolate glazed to maple frosted doughnuts.”

“You got it,” Konrad said.

As Marvin and Bob gave their orders to Curtis and Konrad, Sean took a quick look around the living room. The place was just as depressing on the inside as it was on the outside. It smelled of old clothes, garbage that needed to be taken out, and rotting wood mixed with a faint undertone of cat urine. Two of the legs on the sofa by the far wall were broken, making the sofa lean alarmingly toward the floor, while the chair next to it had a broken arm. Sean’s eyes moved to the print hanging next to the lamp. It was a print of Van Gogh’s
Irises
.

“It’s the only thing I brought from home,” Bob said, following Sean’s glance. Then he gestured around the living room. “Nice place, huh?”

Sean couldn’t see any place to sit, so he leaned against the wall.

“Lovely,” Sean replied. “You should take the other two legs off the sofa.”

“I’m thinking about it. Maybe I will one of these days.” Bob curled his lips into a bad imitation of a smile. “Yeah. I can’t wait to come home every night.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sean saw Marvin walk into another room. Sean was just about to ask him where he was going when he reappeared, with a kitchen chair. Sean sank into it gratefully. He didn’t stand well anymore.

Bob went and sat on the lower end of the sofa, while Marvin leaned against the wall.

“So,” Bob said, “how are things going?”

“In relation to your case? Not well,” replied Sean.

“How come?” asked Bob.

“Because you have a motive and you had opportunity,” said Sean.

“But I didn’t do it,” Bob protested. “I’m the fall guy.”

“That’s not what the DA thinks,” said Sean.

“My lawyer thinks the case is circumstantial,” said Bob.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“He used those actual words?”

“Not exactly,” Bob mumbled.

“That’s what I thought.” In Sean’s experience, the DA didn’t usually charge people unless he thought he had a good chance of getting a conviction.

“I’m so glad you came around,” Bob said. “You’ve really cheered me up.”

“Do I detect a note of sarcasm?”

“Just a touch.”

“Listen, all I’m saying is in order to talk to the DA, we have to present him with evidence that someone
else did this, or at least outline a plausible scenario, which I haven’t come across so far.”

“Everyone else’s motive is just as good as mine. Look at what happened to Inez, for example. She lost everything, just like me,” Bob replied.

“But she wasn’t in the room next to Amethyst’s.”

“She was in the building.”

“She was next door,” said Sean.

“There’s supposed to be a passageway that runs between the buildings.”