Authors: Isis Crawford

A Catered Wedding (7 page)

BOOK: A Catered Wedding

7.48Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

Libby, Bernie, and Amber spun around at the same time. They'd been so engrossed they hadn't heard anyone coming in. Now Eunice and Gertrude Walker were standing behind them. Their faces were wrinkled and they were so short they barely came up to the Simmons girls' chests. They were both wearing matching dresses made of some kind of pale green gauzy material and had hats on to match. But it was their hair that really made Libby, Bernie, and Amber blink. They'd cut it short, spiked it up, and dyed it turquoise.

“I told Leeza,” Gertrude said in a surprisingly strong voice.

“Yes, you did,” Eunice agreed.

“I told her this marriage was bound to end in tragedy.”

“Why?” Libby asked as she tore her gaze away from Gertrude's hair.

Gertrude looked at her as if she was a moron.

“Because, dear,” she explained. “Whenever a proletariat marries into the capitalist upper class, no good ever comes of it.”

Libby couldn't help it. Maybe it was the stress she was under. But before she could stop herself, even though her mother had taught her never to be rude to the elderly, the words “Give me a break” fell from her lips.

Eunice fixed Libby with a gimlet eye. “My dear,” she said in a frosty tone, “despite what you so obviously think, Marxism can be used to explain personal as well as economic issues. Bernie, I hope you can see that even if your sister can't.”

Bernie just grunted. Ordinarily, she would have said something about it being Leeza, the poor downtrodden proletariat, who had been acting like the Wicked Witch of the West, but now she had other things on her mind.

Like she'd just remembered that she'd seen a whole bunch of bows in a room in the estate.

Chapter 6

S
ean Simmons hung up the phone and turned to his friend Clyde Schiller.

“That was Bernie,” he told him.

“So I gathered.” Clyde patted his ample midsection then took another bite of a piece of Libby's homemade cherry pie. He sighed with pleasure. He was never happier than when he was visiting his ex-boss and eating his daughter's food. “Cap, you're lucky Libby is a good baker. If my wife cooked even a quarter as well, I'd die a happy man.

“The touch of cinnamon in the filling is inspired.” Clyde picked up a cherry with his fork and waved it around before plopping it in his mouth. “You don't find these in pies anymore. Most people use that nasty, gummy canned stuff. Where'd she find the sour cherries?”

“Turlington has some trees out on his farm. She gets them from him.” Sean studied his hands for a moment. They were shaking less today. Or maybe he just wanted that to be the case. Sometimes, the doctor had said, cases like his went into remission.

“Bernie checking up on you?” Clyde asked.

“Not exactly.” Sean pursed his lips for a second while he thought about what his daughter had just told him. What was it with Bernie and Libby anyway? They were like lightning rods for disaster. “She called to tell me there's been a homicide at the Raid Estate.”

Clyde raised an eyebrow. As a veteran police officer first down in the Bronx and now in Longely, he'd mastered the art of understatement a long time ago. “No kidding.”

“No kidding,” Sean repeated.

He could tell from Clyde's expression that his friend was thinking the same thing he was about his daughters and the way murders seemed to follow them wherever they went. Like Bo Peep and her sheep. Or whatever that nursery rhyme was. If Rose were alive she'd probably be blaming him for that, Sean gloomily concluded. Not that she'd ever have come out and say it directly mind you.

But she hated it when he'd talked about his cases at the dinner table, hated having his gun in the house. It brings bad luck, she'd said. And she'd always been after him to work at something more respectable. Even the fact that he was chief of police hadn't changed her opinion. But the truth was he'd enjoyed being a cop. Always had. He'd enjoyed being where the rubber hit the road. He hadn't realized how much he'd enjoyed it until he'd had to quit.

“Amber was the one who found the body,” Sean added as he watched Clyde center his plate, one of Libby's better ones, on the tray table in front of him.

“That's too bad.” Clyde dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Mrs. Centra won't be pleased.”

“No, she won't,” Sean readily agreed thinking unhappily of the call he was most likely going to get from Amber's mom when she found out. For some reason he couldn't get it through her head that he wasn't the chief of police anymore. “I don't like the new one,” she kept saying. Then he brightened as an idea struck him. Maybe he could pretend to be asleep. After all, being an invalid should be good for something.

He tapped his fingers on the arm of his wheelchair while Clyde speared another cherry with his fork and conveyed it to his mouth. After a moment of silence Sean continued. “According to Bernie, the bride caught an arrow in the heart. She walked into a booby-trapped crossbow someone set off with a remote-control device.”

“Very fancy, not to mention an interesting choice of weapon,” Clyde observed after he'd swallowed. “A crossbow, huh? Well, that's got to narrow the field considerably. Except for some hunters, not many people have those things around. Most people use guns.” Clyde absentmindedly tapped his fork on the plate. “The whole setup sounds real elaborate, definitely not the kinda thing you see in your average, everyday homicide.”

“For sure,” Sean agreed. “If I remember correctly, the fanciest we ever got around here was when Mrs. Quinn spiked her old man's tomato juice with arsenic and prune juice.”

Clyde laughed. “It was the prune juice that got me. It's hard to believe someone would drink something mud brown.”

“He was color blind.”

Clyde nodded his head. “That's right. I forgot.” He savored his next bite of pie for a moment before speaking. “Don't forget the guy that put ground glass in his boss's sugar bowl. Put the glass through a blender twenty times till it was fine as sand.”

“Yeah. But his boss never drank it, he'd switched to Sweet 'n Low, so it doesn't count.”

“But he was still indicted,” Clyde said. “So it does count.”

“I'm not going to argue with you.” Sean stifled a yawn. He hadn't slept well last night. Maybe Libby was right about not sleeping in the wheelchair.

Clyde frowned. “Raid, huh?”

“That's what I said.”

Clyde ate the last of the pie then put his fork down and loosened his belt a notch. “Didn't I just read about them in the
Wall Street Journal
? Three brothers. Run a caviar business. The paper called them the caviar barons.”

“That's them,” Sean said.

Clyde reached back and scratched underneath his collar. Why his wife kept insisting on putting starch on the collars of his polo shirts he would never know. “Your daughters are moving in some high-class company.”

Sean grunted. “It depends on the definition you give to high class.”

“That's a rather dyspeptic view.”

“Nice word,” Sean told him. “Bernie would approve.”

“She ought to. I got it from the
Learn a Word a Day
calendar that she gave me last Christmas. But you're right. I'm glad I don't have to deal with those people,” Clyde said. “In my experience taking statements from the rich and famous is never anything but a pain in the butt. They think they own everything and everybody.”

“Maybe because they do,” Sean said. He studied a squirrel scurrying across the cable wire outside his window for a moment before continuing. “The girls wouldn't even have this job if it weren't for the Walker sisters. I told Rose those women are nothing but trouble. Have been ever since I've known them.”

“Aren't they the anarchists?” Clyde asked.

“Marxists,” Sean corrected.

“What's the difference?”

“I'm not sure,” Sean admitted. “I keep forgetting.” Of course, Bernie would know. So would his wife for that matter. If she were alive he could have asked her.

Clyde frowned and waved his hand impatiently. “Never mind. It doesn't matter. My question is what are the Walker sisters doing with people like the Raids? I would have thought they would have steered clear of people like that.”

“They're related to the bride in some distant way,” Sean replied. “And they were friends with the groom's parents. I think they shared a railroad flat on the Lower East Side with them at some point or other.”

Libby had explained it to him, but he'd be damned if he could remember what she'd said. That kind of family stuffâwho was related to whomâdidn't interest him a whole heck of a lot.

Now it was Clyde's turn to grunt. Both men remained silent as they imagined the scene that must be unfolding at the Raid Estate. Sean stared out the window for a few seconds, before turning and facing Clyde again. Suddenly he was tired of his bedroom, tired of the view out his window, tired of hearing everything second hand, tired of relying on his daughtersâthey should be relying on him.

He was especially tired, if he was being honest with himself, of being at the mercy of his daughters' whims, especially the most recent one. He didn't need any strange female traipsing in and out of his bedroom, thank you very much. He'd loved his wife, but now she was gone and as far as he was concerned that part of his life was over and done with.

“Do you think you could get this wheelchair downstairs?” he asked Clyde impulsively, surprised at the words that were coming out of his mouth.

“Don't see why not,” Clyde said. “That's what you have that riding seat contraption for.”

“I'm thinkin' maybe we should take a drive over to the Raid Estate and see what's what.”

This time both of Clyde's eyebrows shot up.

“What's the big deal?” Sean said.

“The big deal is that people have been trying to pry you out of this place for three years, and you've flat out refused to go.”

Sean shrugged. “My girls need my help.”

Clyde chuckled. “No, they don't. They can do just fine without you. They already proved that.” Then Clyde stopped speaking. A look of comprehension crossed his face. “This isn't about them, is it? You're just using them as an excuse.”

Sean began studying his bedspread.

“If I recollect, isn't Ina Sullivan supposed to be coming over to make you a late lunch?” Clyde asked him.

Sean tried to look as if he didn't know what Clyde was talking about. “How should I know? My daughters set things like that up.”

“Ina's a nice lady,” Clyde said.

Sean kept his gaze fixed on the bedspread and away from his friend's face. “I never said she wasn't.”

Clyde smoothed what was left of his hair down with the palm of his hand. “The girls are going to be pissed.”

“Libby's been trying to get me out of the house for three years. She'll be happy.”

“No she won't.”

“Okay. She won't,” Sean allowed. “Let me worry about that. Are you going to help me or not?”

Clyde studied his old friend for a moment then slowly said, “I'd like to Cap, but I don't know if this is such a good idea for me with the chief feeling the way he does about you. What if Utley doesn't appreciate my being there and tells Lucy? You know what people are like when it comes to jurisdictional issues.”

Sean made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Oh come on. Don't be such an old lady. It's not as if you're there in any official capacity. You're just helping me out and I'm just a civilian, a concerned father come to check on the health and well-being of his daughters after the terrible discovery they made.”

Clyde scratched his neck.

“I guess maybe you're right.”

“You know I am.”

“But I still think you should have lunch with Ina. Despite what you think, you could use some female companionship.”

Sean put up his hand. He wasn't going to discuss this with Clyde. Or anyone else for that matter. He didn't discuss his illness and he didn't discuss his feelings. “Fine.”

“You'll do it this month?” Clyde asked.

“Now you're my mother?” Sean demanded.

Clyde shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

Sean cursed to himself. Clyde had him and he knew Clyde well enough to know that unless he agreed to his conditions Clyde wouldn't drive him.

“All right. I'll have lunch with her this month.”

Clyde grinned. “Okay then.” He got up and stretched. “Let me just call the missus and tell her where we're going. Lucky for you I'm driving her minivan.” He patted his hair down again. “Well, I guess this murder has one benefit.”

Sean looked momentarily confused.

“Like what?”

“It's getting you out of the house.”

“Somehow,” Sean said, “I don't think the victim would see it quite that way.”

BOOK: A Catered Wedding

7.48Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads