A Catered Mother's Day (14 page)

Chapter 27

S
ean put down his newspaper and glanced up at the clock on the wall opposite him. It was a little after three in the afternoon and his daughters were supposed to have been home slightly over an hour ago.

“What do you know, they're back,” he said to Cindy as Bernie and Libby walked through the door of the flat. Not that he was keeping track or anything.

The cat meowed in response.

“That took a while,” he told Bernie as she closed the door.

She took a step and almost tripped over Clyde's fishing tackle, which was leaning against the wall. “Jeez. What is this doing here?”

“Clyde dropped it off for me.”

“I see that. Can I put it somewhere else?” Bernie asked.

Sean shrugged. “Be my guest.”

Sean watched as Bernie relocated the fishing gear to the far corner by the window. At least, Bernie reckoned, it would be out of the way there. Not for the first time she wished they lived in a slightly larger space.

“So how did it go?” Sean asked her.

“Could have been better,” Bernie replied. “A lot better.”

Sean decided that both his daughters looked hot, tired, and extremely annoyed.

“Problems?” he asked.

“Frustrations,” Libby said.

Sean folded his newspaper and prepared to listen. “Tell the old man.”

“After we eat,” Libby announced. She trudged downstairs to rustle up a late afternoon snack for everyone.

“Bring up the deviled eggs if there are any left,” Bernie yelled to her sister as she plopped herself down on the sofa.

Cindy jumped off Sean's lap, jumped up on the sofa, and began rubbing herself against Bernie's leg.

“It was that bad?” Sean asked.

Bernie began stroking Cindy's ears. “I wouldn't say bad, I'd say Libby and I are annoyed, hampered, impeded, and flummoxed.”

Sean laughed. “It's nice to know your education hasn't gone to waste.”

Bernie nodded at Cindy “She probably knows what happened.”

“Too bad she's not telling,” Sean said, and he went back to glancing at the local paper, not that there was much of interest there, just notes from the garden club, a description of a high school soccer game, a report about a proposed property tax increase, and a long letter about a speed trap on Route 79.

Ten minutes later, Libby reappeared upstairs bearing a tray filled with a plate of deviled eggs, a bowl of homemade fruit salad, sliced cinnamon and raisin bread with butter, ginger snap cookies, and iced coffee for them, and a bit of poached salmon and some milk for the cat.

A bolt of lightning zigzagged through the sky as Libby set the tray down on the coffee table. “At least we didn't get poured on,” she commented as the heavens opened up and raindrops began pelting down.

“This is true,” Bernie said.

She levered herself up and closed the windows, while Libby dished out the food. The cat jumped off the sofa and began to lap up the salmon. No one talked for a few minutes. The girls were too busy concentrating on eating and Sean was waiting to hear what they had to say.

“So, Dad,” Bernie said after she'd eaten two and a half deviled eggs, “any luck finding out whether or not Manny married and divorced Daisy Stone?”

“Nope,” Sean replied. He got up and carefully spooned some fruit salad onto his plate. “Not that that means anything, my computer skills being what they are. Clyde said he'd ask his nephew to take a look, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.”

“How about locating Daisy Stone?” Bernie asked. “Did you have any more luck with that?”

Sean snorted. “Do you know how many Daisy Stones are out there?”

“A lot?” Libby hazarded.

“That is a major understatement. I need a DOB.”

Bernie finished off the last half of her third deviled egg. “I'll put it on the to-do list.”

“The ever-expanding list,” Libby commented as she contemplated the slice of cinnamon and raisin bread she'd put on her plate and wondered how melted squares of dark chocolate would taste on it. Pretty good, she imagined. Add a sprinkling of sea salt and it would probably be delicious.

Sean took a bite of his fruit salad, then gestured to the salad with his fork. “What herb do you have in here?”

Libby answered. “Lemon verbena. You like it, Dad?”

Sean nodded. “Very much. It's a nice change from mint.” He went back to eating.

For the next five minutes the only sound in the room was the sound of the rain on the roof and the cat lapping up the milk. Then the cat jumped back up on Sean's lap, and as if on signal, Libby and Bernie began filling Sean in on what had happened that afternoon.

Sean put down his fork, laced his fingers together, and listened intently. When his daughters were done, he leaned over, snagged a ginger snap, and nibbled on it while he considered what he'd been told.

“So where did Ellen go after you finished talking to her?”

Bernie propped up her leg on the corner of the coffee table and massaged her ankle. She knew she should get some ice on it because it was a little swollen again, but she was too lazy to move. “First she said something about driving around, then she said something about going back to the Riverview, then she wanted us to drive with her to the police station while she turned herself in.”

Sean leaned forward. “So she confessed to killing Manny?”

“No, she didn't. What she says is this is all her fault—cosmically speaking.”

Sean shook his head in disgust. “Whatever you do, keep her away from Lucy. He'd have her in cuffs in a New York minute and it'll be hell getting her back out. You know how he is when he fixates on things.”

Libby licked a dab of butter off her finger. “I know. Hopefully we got her to understand that.”

“I think we did.” Bernie stirred a lump of sugar into her iced coffee.

Libby had made the iced coffee with coffee ice cubes and Bernie decided there was a big difference between using those and regular ice cubes. Definitely worth the effort, in her opinion.

Sean finished off his cookie and had a sip of his coffee. “So where is Ellen now?”

Bernie took another swallow of coffee and put her glass down. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. Hopefully, the coffee would help. “She's at the Riverview Motel. I think.”

Sean raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“I know,” Bernie said.

“Given the circumstances, I would think that would be the last place she'd want to go,” Sean observed. “Did she say why?”

“Something about not causing her family any more grief.”

Sean made a rude noise. “That's garbage.”

“I know. Then she told us she wanted to commune with Manny's spirit and apologize to him.”

Sean made an even ruder noise. “You know what I'm thinking?”

“That she's finally gone off the deep end and is making stuff up?” Libby asked. “That she needs serious tranqs?”

“Pretty much. Or she's searching for something.”

“Her mind?” Libby quipped.

“That's probably it,” Sean allowed. “Either she's really screwed up or a lot smarter than we give her credit for.”

“I'm going with screwed up,” Bernie said.

“Ditto,” said Libby.

Chapter 28

A
s Sean ate a ginger snap, he recalled that Rose had always called Ellen fragile. Maybe she was right. Of course, what had happened to her was enough to unhinge anyone. One thing was for sure, Sean decided as Cindy turned around on Sean's lap and settled back down, Ellen definitely wasn't presenting herself in the best possible light murder-suspect-wise.

“Why does she do that?” he asked as he automatically began petting the cat again.

“Because she's a cat and that's what cats do,” Bernie said. She finished off a piece of the cinnamon toast. She hadn't realized how hungry she was. Maybe that's why she was feeling so tired. Or maybe she was feeling so tired because she felt as if she was running around in circles. “So, Dad, what do you think about what Ellen said?”

“You mean about Lisa and Bruce?” Sean guessed.

Libby and Bernie both nodded.

“It's possible it's true; of course anything is possible.” Sean started to get up. The cat meowed and jumped down. “What?” he said to Cindy, who was looking at him reproachfully from the floor as he spooned some more fruit salad onto his plate. “Am I merely here for your convenience ?”

“That would be a yes, Dad,” Bernie answered.

“Which is why I never wanted a cat,” Sean noted as he sat back down.

“Well, you've got one now,” Libby replied as Cindy immediately jumped back up on Sean's lap and made herself at home.

“And whose fault is that?” Sean asked.

Bernie moved her leg to a more comfortable position. “Mine, of course. Everything always is.”

“I'm glad we're clear on that,” Libby quipped as she reached over for a ginger snap. The extra butter she'd added had made the cookies a little more crumbly and she decided she liked them that way. She liked the contrast between the sharp flavor and the soft texture although, she reflected, she supposed you couldn't call them snaps anymore. “At least it's not a mini potbellied pig.”

“Yeah, but we could eat that,” Sean said.

“Dad,” Libby wailed. “Eat Hilda! What an awful thing to say.”

Sean grinned. He liked the fact that he still had the power to get Libby going.

Bernie coughed and Sean and Libby looked at her.

“Can we get back to Ellen?” she asked.

“By all means,” Sean said. He extended his hand. “Please continue.”

“With pleasure,” Bernie said. “Personally, I'm having trouble believing what she was telling Libby and me. I talked to Brandon and he hasn't heard anything about Bruce and Lisa having an affair. In fact, he hasn't heard anything about Bruce having an affair with anyone; all he's heard about Bruce is that he's in deep financial doo-doo. Jeremy, on the other hand, seems to be doing well. Brandon said that rumor has it that he's involved in some big real estate deal.”

“Like what?” Sean asked.

Bernie shook her head. “Brandon doesn't know. He said he'd keep an ear out for more info about Jeremy and Bruce. Considering he works in gossip central, I figure if he doesn't hear about it, there's nothing to hear about, if you know what I mean.”

“Marvin hasn't heard anything either,” Libby said.

“Because people talk at funerals?” Bernie asked.

“More than you would think,” Libby replied hotly. “Don't be such a snot.”

Bernie put her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I wasn't being sarcastic. I was asking.”

“Sure you were, Bernie.”

“I was. I swear.”

“Then the answer is yes,” Libby told her, mollified.

Sean cleared his throat and his daughters turned to him. “Did either of you talk to Lisa?” Sean said. “Did you ask her?”

Bernie nodded. “We most certainly did. After we said good-bye to Ellen, I called up Lisa. I have to say she sounded pretty surprised when I asked her about her and Bruce.”

“She could have been pretending,” Sean said.

“She could have been,” Bernie agreed, “but she sounded pretty convincing. She said that Ellen had finally gone over the edge, or words to that effect.”

Sean bit into a strawberry. “And what did Bruce and Jeremy say?”

“We don't know,” Libby and Bernie chorused at the same time.

Bernie took over. “We have calls in to both of them, but neither of them have called back, not that I'm surprised. Actually, I'll be surprised if they do call. I'll tell you one thing though. Those are going to be interesting conversations,” she reflected.

“Might I suggest,” Sean said, “that's the kind of conversation you have in person. You want to be able to see their reactions when you ask the question.”

Bernie and Libby both nodded.

“That's what we figured,” Bernie said.

“Also,” Sean continued, “you might want to mention Daisy to Jeremy and see if he knows where she is.” He speared a piece of melon with his fork and ate it as he watched another flash of lightning bisect the sky. “After all, she is his sister.”

“And if he doesn't?” Bernie asked. “Or if he does and won't tell us?”

“Try Lisa,” Sean suggested. “She might have her sister-in-law's address and be more likely to give the information out, being less protective and all.”

“Anything else?” Libby asked.

“Since you asked,” Sean said, “it might be interesting to see if you can find out a little more about Manny. Like, for starters, why did he come back to Longely? I can't believe it's nostalgia given the way he left. There has to have been a fairly compelling reason, since this place holds nothing but bad memories for him.” Sean put his fork down on the plate and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Cindy opened one eye and closed it again. “And then there's the question of what Manny's been doing since he came back, aside from working for Ellen and Lisa, that is. Maybe that would prove a fruitful avenue to go down.”

“We'll ask around some more,” Libby told him. “But so far we haven't come up with anything. As far as I can tell, no one seems to have had any contact with Manny except for Ellen and Lisa, their families, Miss Randall, and the guy who's helping out at the Riverview Motel, and he just knows Manny to play chess with.”

“One thing is for certain,” Bernie added. “Manny didn't go to RJ's when he was alive. Brandon's never seen him.” Bernie shifted her leg. “He asked the guys on the other shifts and got a negative. He even asked some of the bartenders at Cliff's, Shifty's, and the Blue Elephant,” she said, naming the other most popular bars in town, “and no one remembers serving Manny.”

“Maybe he didn't drink,” Libby said. “Or maybe he liked to drink at home.”

“Or maybe he was keeping a low profile,” Sean said. “But if Manny's been back here for a while, someone has to know him. This is too small a town not to be noticed. For starters, how did he make his living? Unless he was on disability, of course.”

“Well, Lisa said he was on a striping crew before he worked for Arf,” Libby noted.

“Good. That's a start.” Sean rubbed his hands together. “See if you can find those guys.”

Bernie took out her phone and looked up striping on the Web. There was a long list of companies, none of them local. She showed the list to her dad. “I think that might be hard to do.”

“Maybe a little,” Sean conceded. “Okay. Then start with Clara Randall's neighbors and see what they have to say. After that, I'd work my way out to the closest fast-food shops and gas stations.”

Libby reached up and massaged the crick she'd developed in the back of her neck. “What do you think, Bernie?”

Bernie startled. She'd been staring out the window. “Sorry. What did you say?”

Libby repeated what her dad had just said.

Bernie nodded her head. “It seems like a good idea.”

“You don't sound that enthusiastic,” Sean observed.

“I am,” Bernie said with as much eagerness as she could muster. “I really am. I'm just tired. It's been a long day.”

But Bernie was lying. It was true she was tired, but that wasn't why she hadn't been listening. She'd been mulling over an idea that had popped into her head a few minutes ago, an idea she knew her dad and Libby weren't going to approve of. For a moment, she debated telling them and then decided against it. Why cause trouble and get everyone all riled up? No, she'd keep her idea to herself for the time being and save herself the ensuing drama.

She figured that she and Libby would go talk to Clara Randall's neighbors like her father had suggested and then, when they were done with that, they'd trot across the street to Clara Randall's house and scoop up Manny's laptop. If the police hadn't taken it already, that is. Of course, that was a big
if
.