A Catered Mother's Day Page 11

  “And the contestant wins the prize,” Bernie said. Then she snapped her fingers. “Hey. I think I know who the guy in the pictures is. The one you were talking about. It just came to me.”

  “Who is he?” Libby asked.

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Try me.”

  “It’s Bruce, Ellen’s husband.”

  Libby crinkled her nose. “Seriously? Are you sure?”

  “Maybe sixty/forty percent sure,” Bernie replied. She was about to say something else when the doorbell rang.

  She and her sister froze.

  They could hear the door open.

  Someone yelled, “Hey, Miss Randall, are you home?”

  Chapter 18

  “Told you we shouldn’t be doing this,” Libby hissed at Bernie as she threw the Arf T-shirt back on the bed.

  “Miss Randall,” the voice called again.

  Bernie recognized the voice. She held out her hands, palms down. “Calm,” she told Libby.

  “Calm down?” Libby’s voice rose, despite herself. “Are you nuts?”

  “No. It’s Ethan,” Bernie said.

  “You’re sure?” Libby demanded.

  “I’m positive.”

  Libby took a deep breath. This was bad, but it could be worse. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “Haven’t got a clue. Let’s go ask him. Well, we don’t want him to come up the stairs, do we?” Bernie said in the face of Libby’s hesitation.

  “No, we definitely don’t want that,” Libby agreed.

  “You go first. It’s going to take me longer. Go,” she said, giving Libby’s shoulder a gentle shove.

  “I’m going,” Libby said. The last thing she wanted was for Ethan to see Clara Randall lying there like that. He’d probably have nightmares for weeks. She knew that she would have at his age. She turned and hurried down the stairs. “Ethan,” she yelled, “stay where you are. I’ll be right down.”

  Bernie grabbed the T-shirt Libby had been holding up and the folder she’d found and stuffed both of them in her bag. “Okay,” she said to the cat. “Let’s go.”

  The cat looked at Bernie and yawned.

  “Seriously,” Bernie told her. “We have to leave.”

  The cat yawned some more. Bernie went over to pick her up but the kitten growled at her. Bernie threw her hands up. “Okay. Suit yourself.” And she turned to go. At which point the cat jumped off the bed and scampered down the stairs ahead of Bernie. “I bet you think you’re funny,” Bernie told her as she went by. The cat meowed her reply.

  Ethan was in the hallway when Libby came down the stairs. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I could ask you the same question,” Libby replied.

  Ethan wiped a drop of rain off his cheek. Libby could see that his hair was damp and his polo shirt was wet. He sneezed. Then he said, “I came to see if Miss Randall would pay me the money she owes me.”

  “For what?” Libby asked.

  “For cutting the grass.” He caught sight of the tabby coming down the stairs and knelt down. The cat made straight for him and started purring. “Boy, Miss Randall is going to be pissed when she sees the cat inside.”

  “Does the cat have a name?” Libby asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ethan said. “I don’t think so. Old Lady Randall just calls her the cat. She lives out in the garage. Miss Randall said she doesn’t want fur on her rugs.”

  “Really?” Bernie said, who’d just joined them. “That’s not very nice.”

  “That’s what I told Miss Randall,” Ethan said.

  “And what did she say?” Bernie asked.

  “That the cat was lucky she didn’t take it to the ASPCA and have it put down. She didn’t even want to keep the food in the house. Said it attracted mice.”

  “We found a whole bag of food in the kitchen,” Bernie told him.

  Ethan hitched up his shorts. “Well, she changed her mind when the raccoons came into the garage, ripped open the cat food, and ate it.”

  Bernie nodded. “Makes sense to me.” Suddenly she realized that her throat was feeling scratchy. She hoped she wasn’t getting a summer cold. They were the worst. “I’ll be back in a second,” she told Ethan and Libby.

  “Where are you going?” Libby asked her.

  “To the kitchen to get a glass of water to take my zinc with.”

  “That doesn’t work,” Libby said.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Bernie told her, and she limped off leaving Libby to deal with Ethan.

  Libby turned toward Ethan. “Did you ever see the man who was living here?” she asked.

  Ethan shook his head. “I never saw anyone here except for Old Lady Randall. But I’m not here that much.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Ethan considered the question for a moment before answering. “Maybe a week ago. She was supposed to pay me then for mowing the grass, but she told me she didn’t have any cash on her and that I should come back. I rode my bike over here yesterday and knocked on the door but she didn’t answer, so I figured I’d try today.” He sneezed again. “How come you’re asking me all these questions? Is something wrong?”

  “You could say that. Miss Randall had an accident,” Libby said as gently as she could.

  Ethan’s ears perked up. He leaned forward. “What kind of accident?”

  “A bad one.”

  Ethan blinked. “You mean like the kind that makes you dead? That kind of accident?”

  “Yes, Ethan. That’s exactly what I mean.”

  His eyes widened. “Were you upstairs investigating?”

  Libby nodded.

  “Wow. That is so cool. Not about Old Lady Randall, of course,” Ethan said hastily, realizing what he sounded like. “So what are you going to do now? Look for more clues? I can help you, you know.”

  “We’re going to call the police,” Libby said.

  “Can I go upstairs first?” Ethan asked.

  “No,” Libby said.

  “But I’ve never seen a dead person,” Ethan protested.

  “You will soon enough,” Libby told him.

  “Please?”

  “I said no.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so,” Libby told him, her mother’s words flying out of her mouth.

  She was in the middle of calling the police when Bernie rejoined them.

  “Okay. I’m all set,” she said.

  Ethan tugged at Bernie’s sleeve. “Does this mean I won’t get paid?” he asked, looking mournful.

  Libby and Bernie exchanged glances.

  Libby patted his head. “Maybe we can work something out,” she told him.

  Chapter 19

  Bernie, Libby, Ethan, and the cat watched the rain drizzling down on the geraniums as they waited on the porch for a Longely squad car to arrive. Fifteen minutes later one did. This time things went better. The fact that it was Chris Bright, a regular who bought coffee and scones from A Little Taste of Heaven at least four times a week, helped.

  “Unbelievable,” Chris said once he was on the porch. “What is it with you two and dead bodies?”

  Bernie smiled. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  Chris smiled back. He took out his notebook and pen. “Tell me the story,” he instructed.

  So Bernie did. More or less. The trick to being a good liar was sticking as close to the truth as possible. She began by explaining to him that they’d had an appointment with Clara Randall concerning a party she’d been thinking of giving—a small untraceable lie—and that she and Libby had become alarmed when they’d rung the bell and no one answered the door. Then they’d become even more alarmed when they’d peeked through the front door window and saw the mail lying on the floor.

  They were about to call the police—“honest” Bernie said when Chris raised an eyebrow—but they thought they heard a noise. A noise that in retrospect turned out to be the cat, but at the time sounded like Miss Randall in d
istress. Naturally, they rushed inside to see if anything was wrong.

  “Naturally,” Chris echoed gravely.

  Bernie smiled placidly and continued. “Once we were in the hallway we realized that the noise we’d been hearing was coming from upstairs, so we ran up there. The noise was even louder when we reached the landing.”

  “Then what?” Chris asked.

  “Then we looked and saw that the door to the first bedroom on the left was open, so we went inside. That’s when we found Clara Randall lying on the floor with her cat meowing beside her. One look at all that blood and we knew she was dead.”

  Libby nodded. “But I took her pulse just to make sure.”

  “Did you touch anything?” Chris asked.

  Both Libby and Bernie shook their heads.

  “No. Absolutely not,” Bernie said. “We didn’t stop to look at or touch anything in Miss Randall’s room. We know better than that. Really!” Bernie put a lot of indignation in her voice. “Chris, I’m shocked that you would even suggest such a thing.”

  Chris suppressed a smile. “Go on.”

  “As I was saying,” Bernie said, “I was about to call the police when we heard the downstairs door open and Ethan came in. He too was looking for Miss Randall, isn’t that right, Ethan?”

  Ethan nodded.

  Chris looked at Ethan. “Is that what happened?”

  “Yes,” Ethan whispered, looking down at the floor.

  “Why were you looking for her?”

  “Because she owed me lawn-mowing money.”

  “Anyway,” Bernie said, resuming her tale. “Then we called you and here we all are.”

  Chris looked at Bernie. “That’s it?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” Bernie replied.

  “Nothing else to add?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nice story.”

  “It’s not a story,” Bernie protested.

  “I meant that in the metaphorical sense.” And Chris called it in.

  Then they all waited.

  Ten minutes later the crime scene guys and Lucy arrived simultaneously. The crime scene squad went in the house and Bernie told the exact same story she’d told to Chris to Lucy.

  Lucy glared at her. He put his hands on his hips. Bernie decided he’d gained more weight.

  “You expect me to believe that?” he growled.

  “It’s the truth,” Bernie said, looking as pious as she possibly could.

  “You don’t know the meaning of the word,” Lucy snapped.

  Bernie didn’t say anything. She watched the rain dripping off the eaves of the porch.

  Lucy came a step closer and stuck his neck out, making him, Libby decided, look like a turtle.

  “For openers,” he said to both Libby and Bernie, “I can’t conceive of Clara Randall giving a party. The concept is ludicrous. She never had any visitors. She didn’t like people.”

  Bernie refrained telling Lucy about Manny staying in the house. She figured he’d find out soon enough. Instead she said, “Evidently, Miss Randall was having a change of heart. Believe me”—Bernie rested her hand on her own heart—“I was as surprised as you were by the request. But she seemed serious about it.”

  “So she called you?” Lucy asked. His tone was one of casual interest.

  Bernie avoided the trap. Although she didn’t think Lucy would go so far as to subpoena her phone records, she figured it was better to be on the safe side.

  “No,” Bernie said. “Actually she didn’t. She flagged us down when we were driving by her house.”

  “What kind of party was it?”

  “Nothing elaborate,” Bernie said. “She wanted to do something for the neighbors. She told me she wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “I see.” Lucy laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. One of his more annoying habits. He nodded at the road. “This is a little out of the way for you, isn’t it?”

  Libby jumped in. “It is, but we like to change things up from time to time.”

  Lucy turned to Libby. “So you agree with everything that your sister said?”

  Libby nodded. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Why indeed? I can think of plenty of reasons.”

  “How do you want us to respond to that statement?” Bernie asked.

  Lucy cracked his knuckles again instead of answering. A minute went by.

  Finally Bernie pointed at Ethan and said, “I think we should get him home, don’t you? His parents are probably worried about him by now.” Not only did Ethan need a ride, but Bernie figured it would be a good opportunity to have a chat with Ellen and Bruce.

  “Great,” Ethan said. He gestured to the bike lying on the front lawn. “I rode over here. What about my bike?”

  “Not a problem. We’ll take it with us,” Libby said. Then she went down the stairs, picked the bike up, and started walking it to the van. Bernie and Ethan followed. It wasn’t until they’d finished loading the bike in the back and closed the doors that they realized that the cat had jumped into Mathilda.

  “You can’t come,” Libby told her.

  She meowed, walked over to Ethan, and curled up in his lap.

  “You can’t leave her,” Ethan protested.

  “We can’t bring her,” Libby replied.

  “We’ll deal with the cat later,” Bernie told her sister. “Right now we need to get going before Lucy changes his mind and arrests us.”

  “Why would Lucy arrest you?” Ethan piped up.

  “I didn’t really mean that,” Bernie lied. She realized she’d have to be careful about what she said around Ethan.

  “Then why did you say it?” Ethan demanded.

  “I wondered that myself,” Bernie replied.

  That pretty much put the kibosh on the conversation for a few minutes and no one was talking when they pulled out into the road and turned left to go to the Hadleys’ house. It was still drizzling and Libby turned on the windshield wipers. Two blocks down Ethan spoke.

  “Would he arrest you because you lied?”

  “I didn’t lie,” Bernie said indignantly.

  “Yeah, you did,” Ethan replied. “You told me you guys were upstairs investigating, but you told the police you weren’t. Isn’t that a lie?”

  “Not really,” Bernie said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “A linguistic quibble.”

  Obviously Ethan wasn’t buying it, because the next thing he said was, “My parents say lying is wrong.”

  “It is,” Bernie replied. “Most of the time.”

  Ethan digested that for a moment. Then he said, “Kind of like when I told Mom that Matt wasn’t at the Free-boughs’ party when he was. I mean, like he was just there because Kara was crying and called him up and said he had to come, otherwise she was going to take all these pills, but if I told Mom and Dad, Matt would have been grounded for like a century.”

  Bernie smiled. “Yeah. Kinda like that.”

  “I don’t get it,” Ethan said.

  “Get what?”

  “Why one kind of lie is okay and the other isn’t.”

  “If it’s any comfort to you, Ethan, neither do I,” Libby said as she turned the speed of the windshield wipers up.

  Everyone was silent until they reached the Hadleys’ colonial. Ethan was quiet because he was overwhelmed, and Bernie and Libby were quiet because the things they had to discuss, they couldn’t talk about in front of Ethan.

  Chapter 20

  It was raining harder now and Libby pulled up as close to the Hadleys’ front porch as she could get.

  Ethan looked at the cat. “I can’t take her. My dad’s allergic.”

  “It’s okay,” Libby said soothingly. “We’ll take care of her.”

  “You’re not going to take her to the ASPCA, are you?” Ethan asked, panic in his voice.

  “No, we won’t,” Libby said. Of course, that’s exactly what she’d been thinking they’d do.

  “Because they’ll kill her.”

/>   “She could get adopted,” Bernie pointed out.

  Ethan eyes began to mist.

  “Fine,” Libby said. “We’ll find a home for her.”

  “We will?” Bernie asked, surprised.

  “Yes, we will,” Libby said firmly before she got out. Then she went around to the back of the van and got Ethan’s bike out, while Ethan ran onto the porch and rang the doorbell. The cat surveyed the activity with interest.

  Ethan’s dad opened the door a moment later. The sounds of a video game spilled out.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Bruce asked his son. “You’re late for dinner.” Ethan started to stutter out an answer, but before he could complete his sentence Bruce caught sight of Libby. “Why are you here?” he demanded, his expression hardening. “What’s going on?”

  Ethan started biting his nails.

  “Well?” Bruce said, looking from Libby to Ethan and back again. “Someone answer me.”

  “I’ll explain,” Libby told Ethan. She leaned his bike against the wall. “You go inside.”

  “This better be good,” Bruce said to his son as Ethan scooted by him, giving his dad as wide a berth as possible.

  “It’s not Ethan’s fault that he’s late,” Bernie said, making her way slowly up the stairs. Looking at Bruce’s face, she decided she’d been right. Bruce was the kid in the photograph. He’d been considerably younger and skinnier and he’d had all his hair back then, but it was the same person.

  “Really.” Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and planted his feet in the doorway. “Goody. Another voice heard from. Ethan can speak for himself.”

  Looking at him, Bernie decided that Bruce Randall was one of those men who’d peaked in high school. He was big with a tendency toward a gut. When Ellen had met him, he’d been a blond, blue-eyed, star high school linebacker, but that had been a long time ago.

  “Clara Randall is dead,” Bernie announced as she searched Bruce’s face for a reaction.

  There wasn’t one.

  “And what does that have to do with Ethan being late?” Bruce asked.

  “He went there to collect his lawn-mowing money and came into the house at the same time we were discovering her body upstairs. So we had to wait till the police arrived. Once they came, we gave Ethan a lift back.”