A Catered Halloween (8 page)

“True,” Marvin said.

“Of course, they did, anyway,” Sean said.

He and Marvin were silent for a moment.

Then Sean said, “Bessie’s death pretty much closed the school.”

“What happened to the owner?”

“George Marak killed himself. He’d put all the money he had, plus his wife’s money, into the place, as well as borrowing from his family and friends. He couldn’t stand the disgrace when it became clear that the school was going to have to close, so he shot himself in the garage. The note he left asked his wife to forgive him for the shame he’d brought on her.

“It would have been more considerate if he’d killed himself somewhere else, because she and his son found his body when they came back from grocery shopping. PS: The kid was in the front seat, so he saw everything. The wife never got over it. I dare say the
kid didn’t, either. The wife died in an auto accident six months later. She’d been drinking and ran her car into a tree. Their kid, poor thing, went to live with a relative in Texas or Wyoming, some place like that.”

“That sucks,” Marvin said.

“Doesn’t it, though.” Sean leaned back in his seat. “Like I said, the Peabody School has always been a bad-luck place. And now, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to take a drive up to Lexus Gardens and see if we can talk to Ed Banks and find out what Amethyst wanted from him.”

Sean could feel his gut tightening as Marvin zoomed away from the curb without looking or putting his signal light on. He’d faced coked-up guys and guys with loaded rifles in the line of duty, but they weren’t as scary as driving with Marvin.

B
ernie took in a breath of fresh air as she drove toward Zachery Timberland’s office. It was a beautiful late fall afternoon, and she was glad to be outside driving around instead of inside the shop. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was a little after three, and she figured she didn’t have to start up to the Peabody School until four-thirty, which should leave her more than enough time to talk to Timberland.

She drove slowly, enjoying the sensation of being in the car, imagining what fun a road trip to Vermont with Brandon would be. She was thinking that fall was her favorite season of the year when her cell phone trilled “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” It was her dad’s ring. She fished her cell out of her bag and answered it.

“Dad?” she said.

She got static.

“Dad?”

He was talking, but his voice sounded like a jigsaw puzzle—each syllable another piece. She couldn’t under
stand a thing he was saying. She tried calling back. Nothing. She’d just noticed she was down to no bars when her phone went dead. That was when she remembered she’d forgotten to charge it last night.
Drat and double drat
, she thought as she tossed her cell on the seat next to her. She wondered if her dad wanted to tell her something about Zachery Timberland. He was always a big one for armchair quarterbacking. Oh well. Too late now.

She knew Timberland well enough to say hello to. Her only memory of him was the time, last March, she’d met him at Laura’s place. She’d shaken his hand, and it had been unpleasantly clammy.

When she’d called around this morning, it turned out that none of her friends knew him either, not surprising when you considered that his family had moved away after the Bessie Osgood incident, and he’d just come back to town a couple of years ago. Couple that with the fact that Timberland had palled around with Amethyst and Inez back then and you had something interesting going on.

And then there was the fact that Timberland was a volunteer at the Haunted House, although according to her dad, he hadn’t been scheduled to work there when Amethyst had died, not that that meant anything. He could have easily come and gone without being seen.

When she’d called him, she’d told him she was interested in shopping around for a new insurance policy. It was a plausible story, but she was pretty sure he hadn’t believed her. She couldn’t say why she thought that but something in his tone of voice when she’d talked to him on the phone had led her to that conclusion. So, if that was the case, and she was almost certain it was, the question became, Why was he talking to her?

He probably had a pretty good idea of what she
wanted to talk to him about. Or maybe not. After all, she hadn’t known that he’d been friends with Amethyst Applegate until Jeanine had told her dad. Or with Bob Small. Or Inez. Or Zinnia. Which got her thinking about flowers for the dining room at the Peabody School. Maybe she should get some more pots of mums to put on the table. In her view, flowers were like diamonds. You could never have too many.

Bernie sighed as she made a left onto Avondale Place. Libby really hadn’t wanted to go back to the Peabody School by herself, and Bernie couldn’t really blame her. If what had happened to Libby had happened to her, she’d be thoroughly freaked out, too. Well, not really. Libby always overreacted to this kind of stuff, even though, according to her mom, she had the “gift.” Or maybe that was the reason she did it. Bernie was glad she’d never been blessed that way.

Usually, Bernie thought of Halloween in terms of crunching leaves underfoot, excited children, hot mulled cider, and pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream-cheese icing on top. But after what had happened with Amethyst, her thoughts were darker.

Try as she might, she couldn’t get Amethyst’s head out of her mind. And even though she’d really disliked her, she wasn’t sure Amethyst had deserved to die that way. She wasn’t sure that anyone did. Although if they did, Amethyst would be up there on her list. She’d made bad things happen wherever she’d gone.

That much was not debatable. And there was a good chance she might have killed someone as well. Looked at in that light, whoever had killed Amethyst had done the world a favor. Not that her father or her sister would agree with that thought. And on that note, Bernie turned into the driveway of the house where the Timberland Insurance Company was located.

The house was a classic wooden, two-story Colonial, painted a boring shade of beige, with white trim. The two front windows had white blinds pulled halfway down. Bernie parked her car, walked up three steps, rang the doorbell, and walked in. The hallway was a different shade of beige. Obviously, Timberland had beige on his mind. Either that or he’d gotten a deal on the paint.

The receptionist’s desk, which was situated in what had been the sitting room of the house, was empty. Judging from the cup that was sitting there, someone had inhabited that desk not too long ago. She was probably beige, too, Bernie reflected. A moment later Zachery Timberland came out. When he looked at her, Bernie decided he resembled a shark. All teeth. She didn’t remember so many teeth from the last time she’d seen him.

“So you want to change your insurance policy, do you?” he asked.

Bernie smiled her charming smile. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Life?”

“No. Automobile. I told you that.”

Timberland put his palms outward. “Everyone makes mistakes. Some people make more then others,” he said, glancing pointedly in her direction.

Great
, Bernie thought as she kept smiling. “I’m sure that’s true.”

Timberland took a step closer to her. “I know it is.”

Bernie remained where she was. She was damned if she was going to move for this guy. She’d been hoping to start with the buying the insurance thing and to gradually work the conversation around to the Peabody School, but things didn’t seem to be going that way.

“So,” Bernie said, trying again, “can you give me a quote on a policy for my car?”

Timberland’s smile got bigger. Bernie decided he’d definitely gotten veneers on his teeth.

“No. But I can give you a quote on a life-insurance policy.”

“Really? You think I’m going to need one?”

“Everyone needs one,” Timberland said in a bland voice.

“Is that the case?”

“It certainly is.”

“So that’s not a threat or anything?”

“What a fertile imagination you have. Why would I threaten you?”

“I don’t know.”

“There you go.” Timberland leered at her. “I like the shoes.”

Bernie considered them for a moment. They were high brown suede boots with a thin gold chain threaded through the top. She’d gotten them at deep discount last summer, when she’d been looking for a convection oven on the Lower East Side.

“They do wonders for your ass,” Timberland said.

“Nice. You don’t want to sell me life insurance, do you?”

“You don’t want to buy life insurance, do you?”

“So I guess that makes us even,” Bernie observed. “By the way, those veneers on your teeth. You should have them redone. They look like Chiclets.”

Bernie was happy to see that Timberland’s smile was now slightly smaller.

“You’re not here for auto insurance,” he said.

“Then what am I here for?”

“To ask me questions about my relationship with Amethyst.”

“And why do you suppose that?”

“A little birdie told me.”

Somehow Bernie couldn’t believe that birdie was Jeanine. Maybe Inez? Most probably Inez.

The corners of Timberland’s mouth turned up at Bernie’s evident confusion. “But actually, it doesn’t matter,” he said.

“That you and Amethyst hung out together?” asked Bernie.

“So what if we did back in the day?”

“And that your family moved away right after Bessie Osgood went out the window?”

Timberland smirked. “Again, so what? I’m sure if you check, you’ll find that lots of people left around that time.”

“So maybe that has something to do with Amethyst’s death.”

Timberland’s smirk grew bigger. “I guess you’re behind the times.”

“Not me. I’m fashion forward,” said Bernie.

Timberland blinked for a minute, then recovered himself. “You mean, you haven’t heard?” he asked.

“Heard what?” Bernie replied. Now it was her turn to be puzzled.

“They arrested Bob Small this morning for Amethyst’s murder.”

Bernie shifted from one leg to the other. She wondered if that was what her dad had been calling her about. It probably was.

“So?” she said. “Your point is?”

“My point is that I want you to keep away from me. You have no legal authority.”

“Is that what you brought me here to tell me?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. I brought you here to tell you that I’ll have you arrested for stalking if you keep bothering me.”

Bernie couldn’t help it. She laughed. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Not in the least.”

“You could have said no when I called.”

“I just saw your name on today’s calendar.”

“Even so. You could have called and cancelled.”

“I wanted to tell you in person.”

“How considerate.”

“I’m a considerate guy.”

“I don’t know…,” Bernie said.

“That’s obvious.”

Bernie talked over him. “For someone who is in the clear, you’re certainly going to a lot of trouble to tell me to lay off. Why is that?”

Timberland took another step toward her. “You and your sister have a reputation for causing trouble.”

“It depends on your definition of
trouble
. And, anyway, what could we do to you? You just told me you had nothing to do with any of this.”

Timberland went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “If you’re smart, you’ll stay out of my way.”

“You want to tell me about your daughter?”

Timberland flushed. “You’ve been warned,” he growled.

“I guess you don’t like talking about her.”

“Get out before I have you arrested.” Timberland took his cell off the clip on his belt. “I’m dialing.”

“I’m going. I’m going.”

Well, that had been a complete waste of time, Bernie thought as she got back in her vehicle. She shook her head in disgust at herself. She’d let him lead the conversation from the get-go. Bad. Bad. Bad. The only thing she did know was that the daughter was a definite sore spot. She sighed and looked at her watch.

She had another hour before she had to meet Libby at the Haunted House. She decided to use it to pick up more potted mums at the garden center. If she recalled, they still had some left. And as long as she was there, she could ask Kathy about Zinnia. They were the same age. Maybe she’d know something about her.

Then if she had any time left over, she’d buy some more napkins. She’d seen some really cute ones with ghosts on them in the dollar store over on Grand Avenue. And maybe they had some other Halloween stuff as well. That was the thing with the dollar store. You never knew what you were going to find.
Kind of like life
, Bernie decided. She shook her head. She was definitely getting sappy in her old age.

Kathy’s Garden Shop was located in a mini strip mall three miles off of Longely’s main road. The strip mall had been built recently. There was more and more mall sprawl lately, taking up land that, in Bernie’s judgment, should have been left alone. After all, how many Home Depots and Staples did you need?

Kathy’s Garden Shop was located between a drugstore and a place selling chicken wings, but as Kathy had pointed out to Bernie, the rent was cheap, the utilities were fairly low, and there was plenty of parking. Like Bernie and Libby, Kathy managed to compete with the chains by charm, customer service, and interesting merchandise. So far she’d done pretty well for herself.

When Bernie got out of her car, she was happy to see there were eight pots of mums sitting outside of Kathy’s shop.

“You want to do a trade?” Bernie said when she went inside.

Her friend Kathy looked up from behind the register. Today her hair was in cornrows. She had light brown skin and large green eyes. It was a smashing combination.

“What kind of trade?”

“You let me borrow the mums to decorate the tables up at the Haunted House, and I’ll give you three apple pies.”

“Apple and cranberry and throw in a parsnip pie and you got a deal.”

“You are the only person I know, except for me and Libby, that likes parsnip pie.”

“That’s because you’re making my grandmother’s recipe.”

“No. It’s my grandmother’s. We’ve had this discussion before.”

Bernie pointed to the display of orange and lemon trees. “Those would look nice in my bedroom.”

“And I would sell them to you,” Kathy said, “if you didn’t have a black thumb.”

“Gray thumb.”

“Black,” Kathy said firmly.

“All right. Black.” It was true. Bernie had yet to keep a plant alive. She simply forgot to water them. “By the way, do you remember Zinnia McGuire?”

Kathy put her pen down. “Course, I do. She used to pal around with Zachery Timberland, Bob Small, and Amethyst Applegate. Now there was a nice crew.”

“Whatever happened to her?”

“She died in an automobile accident down in Coopersville. Hit-and-run, if I remember correctly. Some guy went right through the stop at Elves and Ash and T-boned her. He must have been going really fast, from what I understand.”

Bernie raised an eyebrow. “And no one saw anything?”

“It was three-thirty in the morning. You know what that place is like. It’s even worse than Longely. A neighbor called it in. She said the crash woke her up.”

“I wonder why Zinnia was there?”

Kathy shrugged. “She was probably doing the typical druggie high school dropout thing.”

“Did Zinnia ever say anything?”

“Nope. She died on the way to the hospital. I guess she was in pretty bad shape when the police got there. It’s really too bad.”

“How’s that?”

“Because she was getting her act together. She’d given up the stuff she was doing—the coke and the weed—and was talking about going back to school.”

“How long after Bessie Osgood died was she killed?”