A Catered Fourth of July Page 16

  “Oh, that’s fine then,” Marvin said quickly. “That’s really great. Absolutely great. Fantastic even. It’s very nice of you to take the trouble to do this. ” He realized he was starting to babble and shut up.

  “Good then,” Juno said. “I will call the sisters.”

  Sean stepped into the shade a maple tree was throwing off. Since he’d gotten older, he found he had less tolerance for the heat. “Given that you were at the reenactment, we were hoping you could shed light on what was happening before Jack Devlin’s death.”

  “Poor Jack,” Juno murmured. “He will be missed.”

  “Mostly by the female half of the town,” Marvin cracked.

  Sean threw him a dirty look and he shut up.

  “I was not really paying attention,” Juno told them as she twirled the rings on her right hand. “I was communing with my sisters in the fairy circle, but perhaps Hilda can tell us something.”

  “Excellent,” Sean said with a warning glance, cutting off any further comment Marvin might have been thinking of making. “What made you get Hilda?” Sean asked as Juno led them around the house to the backyard. “A pig is an unusual pet.”

  Juno smiled and moved her hands to her sides. “It was fate,” she explained. “I was out at the dog shelter when someone brought Hilda in. Or surrendered her, as they like to say there. When I saw her, I knew we were meant to be.”

  “What did your husband say?” Sean was curious. He couldn’t imagine what he would have said if Rose had walked through the door carrying a piglet under her arm.

  Juno stopped and turned toward Sean. Her features had hardened and she was clutching the edge of her caftan with her right hand. “He lost the right to tell me what to do awhile ago,” she informed in a stony voice.

  “I learned that my first year of marriage,” Sean quipped. “That’s when Rose and I started getting along.”

  Juno’s face relaxed a little.

  “So I take it he wasn’t happy about the pig,” Sean continued.

  “He’s not happy about a lot of things.” Juno caught herself and changed the subject. “Wicca has taught me that in order to be happy, it is to ourselves that we must look. It is in ourselves that the power resides.”

  Marvin jumped back into the conversation. “So Hilda is your familiar?”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” Juno said.

  Marvin retreated under her gaze. “I . . . just . . . I . . .” His voice trailed off.

  She drew herself up. “I don’t have a familiar. You’ve been watching too much TV.”

  “I just thought—” Marvin began, but before he could get very far Juno shook her finger in front of his nose.

  “Wicca is an old religion,” she informed him. “One of the oldest, if not the oldest. We utilize the principles of the creation. All creatures exist on the same plane. All creatures are made of the same materials. That is the reason I can understand Hilda and she can understand me. We are one.”

  “Sorry,” Marvin mumbled, although if you had asked him what he was sorry for, he couldn’t have told you.

  They had reached the backyard. Most of it consisted of a green rolling lawn that could have doubled as a golf course, as well as several flowerbeds that had been planted to resemble an English garden.

  “Nice,” Sean said, taking it in.

  “My husband’s pride and joy,” Juno replied.

  He looked to the left-hand corner where there was a long chain link fence connected to a door that went into the house. Hilda was there waiting for them, her body vibrating with excitement. “He can’t be happy about that,” Sean said, pointing to churned up dirt and dandelions growing in the pen.

  Juno shrugged. “Weeds are nature’s flowers. I believe in giving them a chance and as for the dirt, pigs like to root. It helps them get in touch with their primal nature.”

  “I thought they rooted because they liked grubs,” Marvin said.

  Juno glared at him.

  Again with the glare, he thought as he endeavored to look contrite and failed. He was hot, tired, and weirded out by Juno. He wished he’d stayed in the hearse like he’d wanted to.

  Juno ignored Marvin, walked over to the fence, and unlatched the gate. A minute later, Hilda scooted out of the pen and started running in frantic circles around the backyard.

  “Hilda,” Juno called.

  The pig ignored her.

  “Hilda,” Juno said, raising her voice.

  Hilda kept running.

  Juno frowned. “I don’t understand. Normally, she comes right over.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t have anything to say,” Marvin suggested.

  Juno compressed her lips and folded her arms across her chest.

  Looking at her, Sean knew that if he wanted to get any information out of Juno he was going to have go through the pig. That was the game Juno was playing and he didn’t see any alternative except to play along. He turned to Marvin and told him to go get the pig. After all, he certainly couldn’t.

  “Me? Why me?” Marvin pointed to Juno. “It’s her pig. She should go get her.”

  “That’s true,” Juno replied. “But you’re the one who wants to speak to her.”

  “A valid point,” Sean said.

  “We could wait,” Marvin suggested. “She’ll get tired soon. How long can she do this?”

  “A long time,” Juno said. “And I have to leave in half an hour.”

  Since Marvin couldn’t think of a good answer to that, he reluctantly started after the pig. “Hilda,” he cooed. “Good Hilda. Nice Hilda.”

  The pig stopped, cocked her head, and listened. Marvin, taking heart, slowly approached her. Hilda waited until he was a foot away and took off again.

  He took a deep breath to keep himself from uttering some very impolite phrases and tried again. “Pretty Hilda,” he cooed. “Cute Hilda.”

  Hilda sat down and waited. She allowed Marvin to get within six inches of her before she bolted. Sensing what she was about to do, he took a flying leap. Hilda slipped away and Marvin landed belly first on the ground.

  “Nice try,” Sean shouted, trying not to laugh and not succeeding very well.

  Marvin got up and brushed himself off. His knees hurt as did his wrists, which had taken the weight of the fall, but he wasn’t about to admit that, especially to Libby’s dad.

  “Keep going,” Sean called encouragingly. “You almost had her.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Hilda continued her game of chase. By the end, Marvin was so exhausted he could barely walk. He finally collapsed under the shade of a large oak tree, at which point Hilda came over and sat in his lap. She pushed her bristled snout under his hand. He was torn between killing her and petting her so he compromised.

  “Bad Hilda,” he said in as stern a voice as he could manage while he scratched her underneath her chin.

  She let out a contented oink.

  Juno came over. “Poor Hilda,” she cooed as she knelt down beside her. “You must be thirsty.”

  “Poor Hilda!” Marvin protested indignantly. “What about me?”

  “What about you?” She scooped Hilda up in her arms and rubbed her tummy. “Were you scared of the big, bad man?”

  “Big, bad man?” Marvin squeaked. “Are you nuts?”

  Juno ignored him and continued on. “Do you want to have a talk with Mommy?” she asked Hilda.

  Hilda oinked. Twice.

  Juno cocked her head to one side. “Really? You don’t say? You want to tell Mommy the rest of that in private?”

  Marvin would have rolled his eyes if he’d had the energy. He watched her walking away. She had Hilda firmly clasped in her arms. He wanted to go after her, but he couldn’t. His legs felt like logs. He didn’t think he had the strength to get up. In fact, he didn’t think he’d ever felt so tired in his life.

  He wondered if he had heat stroke; perhaps he was dehydrated. He should probably go to the hospital and get checked out, but he was too tired to move. He just leaned against th
e tree trunk, feeling the sweat run down his back, and watched Juno as she stood in the shade of a copper beech, murmuring in Hilda’s ear.

  After ten minutes, she came back and stopped in front of Sean. “Hilda wants to tell you something,” she said to him in a grave voice. “Something important.”

  Sean waited. Nothing.

  “Well?”

  “She needs a little more time,” Juno said.

  After another minute went by, Sean lost his patience. “I bet I know what she wants to tell me. She wants to tell me about Devlin taking your diamond ring and giving it to Monica Lewis.”

  Juno’s jaw dropped then she got hold of herself. “That old chestnut?” she scoffed. “Who told you that?”

  Sean smiled. “It came to me in a dream.”

  “It was Monica Lewis, wasn’t it?”

  “What if it was?”

  “She’s a pathological liar,” Juno spit out. “You can’t believe anything she tells you.”

  “So it’s not true?”

  “Absolutely not,” Juno declared. “I found the ring a couple weeks later in my washing machine. It had slipped off my finger and I hadn’t noticed.”

  “You must have been glad to get it back,” Sean said gravely.

  “Oh yes.” Juno touched the base of her throat lightly then brought her hand down.

  “But you’re not wearing it,” Sean observed.

  “Now I only wear it on special occasions,” she explained. “I wouldn’t want something like that to happen again.”

  “Understandable Though I have to say, my wife always found it inconvenient to have to go to the bank every time she needed a piece of jewelry.” A lie, since the only piece of jewelry Rose had ever worn was her wedding band, which she’d never taken off.

  “Fortunately, we have a safe in the house,” Juno told him.

  Sean nodded. “I’m puzzled though.”

  She cocked her head and waited.

  “Why would Monica say something like that?”

  Juno ran her fingers through her hair. “Because she’s jealous of me. She’s always been jealous of me.”

  “And why was that?”

  “Simple. I got all the boys and she never did.”

  “You both got Jack Devlin,” Sean pointed out.

  “What an infelicitous phrase,” Juno remarked.

  “Killing him would be even more infelicitous,” Sean said.

  “What are you implying?”

  “What do you think I’m implying?”

  “You’re accusing me?” Juno’s voice rose in disbelief.

  Sean nodded.

  She clutched her breasts. “What a terrible, terrible thing to say. I would never do something like that. Ever.”

  “And why is that?”

  Her eyes widened. “Because I believe that when someone does something bad it comes back to them sevenfold.”

  “Fair enough,” Sean said. “In that case, did you happen to see anything that could help me out?”

  She shook her head. “I was in the rose garden along with everyone else helping manifest an Aga.”

  “The stove?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The stove that costs twenty thousand dollars?”

  “Yes. That one.”

  “What happened to the spiritual side of things?”

  Juno drew herself up. “Everyone is entitled to both.”

  Sean managed not to laugh. “Perhaps Hilda saw something?”

  “Perhaps that’s what she wants to speak to you about.”

  Chapter 25

  “So let me get this straight,” Bernie said to Libby as she swatted a mosquito away. They were waiting for the 7:15 Metro North to get in from New York so they could talk to Rick Evans. “According to Hilda the pig, either Tony Gerard or Rick Evans handed Jack Devlin the musket, but she’s not quite sure which one it was.”

  “That’s what Dad said that Juno said that Hilda said.” Libby leaned back against the van. She decided she liked this time of day. Everything became softer in the waning light.

  “I know what he said. I was there when he said it.”

  “I know you were. I was there, too.”

  Bernie shook her head. “You know, I always thought Juno was nuts, but now I’m sure of it.” She bent down and removed a pebble from her sandal. “I’ve heard the expression when pigs fly, but when pigs talk?” She straightened up. “I don’t get why Juno can’t come out and just say what she has to say.”

  “Maybe she’s afraid to, like Dad suggested.”

  “Afraid of who?”

  “Either Rick Evans or Tony Gerard or both.”

  Libby pictured both men in her mind. Neither seemed particularly threatening to her. Rick Evans was annoying, pompous, egotistical, and ambitious. But scary? Hardly. As for Tony Gerard, the adjective that came to mind when she thought of him was nondescript. He was average height, average weight, brown eyes, brown hair. The only thing that distinguished him was that he was a diehard 49ers fan.

  “I wonder what Tony Gerard will say?” Bernie mused. She was planning on talking to him tomorrow morning with or without Brandon.

  “About vacuum cleaner bags?”

  “Ha-ha. No. About what Hilda said.” Bernie grinned. “I’ll be interested to see his reaction.”

  “And Rick’s,” Libby said.

  “Yes. Rick’s too,” Bernie agreed.

  Libby watched two teenage boys doing ollies on the platform with their skateboards. “I don’t think I could ever have done that.” She nodded in their direction. “Not even in high school.”

  “You definitely take after Mother’s side of the family when it comes to klutziness.”

  “I know. But, at least I didn’t get her cankles.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  A moment later, the stationmaster came out and chased the boys away. They were laughing and catcalling as they skated down the road. Libby stretched. It had been a long day and she was tired.

  Bernie hitched up her bra strap. “You know—” she began then stopped.

  Libby turned to her. “What?”

  “I’m worried about Marvin,” Bernie blurted out.

  “Me too.” Libby’s lips started to tremble. “But we’re not going to let anything happen to him, right?”

  “Right,” Bernie said. “One way or another we will get to the bottom of this. This whole thing is just weird.”

  “Are you referring to Hilda?” Libby asked.

  “Yes. Who has a pig for a pet?”

  “They’re supposed to be very smart.”

  “I think I’d prefer a golden retriever.” Bernie waved away another mosquito. The smell of newly cut grass perfumed the air. “What does Marvin think?”

  Libby laughed. “He thinks Juno is nuts.”

  “Nobody is going to argue about that. But what does he think about her accusations? Did they jog his memory?”

  Libby shook her head. “No. He still says he can’t remember who handed Devlin the musket. If anyone did.”

  “Well, someone had to have handed it to Devlin. You don’t rig a musket to explode and just let anyone take it.”

  “Unless you’re a sociopath.”

  “A theory we’re not pursuing at the moment.” Bernie closed her eyes and pictured the scene. “Whoever handed Devlin the gun had to have primed it with shot.”

  “That’s the assumption we’re going on,” Libby said.

  “So whoever did this must have had the musket with them so they could hand it to Devlin, or they marked the musket so they could pick it out of the pile and hand it to him when the time was right.”

  “That is the more logical hypothesis. Too bad we can’t look at the muskets to see if that’s the case.” Libby took a drink of lemonade from her water bottle.

  “I bet the muskets are still in the evidence room.”

  “Maybe Craig could take a peek at them.”

  “He might if Dad asks him to.” Bernie shook her head. “I should have tried
harder to see them after Devlin was killed.”

  “You did try, but Rick Evans wasn’t having it.”

  “I should have been more forceful.” Bernie flicked a gnat away.

  “You were in shock.”

  “We all were, but that’s no excuse.” Bernie watched a blue jay fly by.

  Libby took another sip of her lemonade while Bernie consulted her watch. Five more minutes to go.

  “Did you know that Juno was a bond trader?” Bernie said suddenly. “A good one.”

  “Bond trader to Wiccan. That’s a big switch,” Libby observed.

  “Maybe she got bored. Maybe she had a vision.”

  “It must have been quite a vision.”

  Chapter 26

  The Metro-North was fifteen minutes late, pulling into the Longely Station at seven-thirty. Libby and Bernie watched the commuters descend from the train and walk past the station house, which had recently been renovated at a fairly substantial cost to resemble the original one from the early 1900s.

  Men and women stepped off the platform, briefcases in hand, and slowly trudged toward the cars they’d left in the parking lot earlier in the day. They all looked tired and rumpled from their long day at work.

  Watching them, Libby was glad that she worked and lived in the same place. She felt a rush of gratitude that she worked with her sister instead of sitting behind a desk in some big impersonal office in the city, and that best of all, she did something she loved.

  Rick Evans turned out to be one of the last people to walk off the platform and into the parking lot. He was walking slowly, seemingly on auto-pilot, with his eyes to the ground. A ring of sweat beaded his hairline, his white shirt was creased, and he was carrying his suit jacket in the crook in his arm. Libby and Bernie moved away from their van and went toward him.

  “Fancy seeing you here,” Libby said.

  Rick Evans startled and looked up.

  “We’d like to speak to you for a moment,” she said.

  A bead of perspiration ran down Rick’s cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. “This is about Devlin, isn’t it?”