A Catered St. Patrick's Day (23 page)
Read A Catered St. Patrick's Day Online
Authors: Isis Crawford
But Duncan didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. He was totally and completely passed out. Bernie looked at him, with his head lolling on the pillow and decided he was down for the count. Or at least until tomorrow morning. Then she looked at Libby. “You know,” she said, “as long as we’re here, I think we should have a look around this place.”
“I thought we agreed not to do that,” Libby replied.
Bernie brushed a piece of lint off her designer denim shirt and rebuttoned a button that had come open before answering. “No. We agreed not to break into the guest cottage, but since we’re already here, it’s not the same thing.”
“That’s parsingat no it rather finely,” Libby observed.
Bernie grinned. “That’s why Mom used to say I should be a lawyer.”
“She didn’t mean that in a nice way, Bernie.”
Bernie grin grew. “Seriously? I always took it as a compliment.”
Libby rolled her eyes.
“Listen,” Bernie continued. “We’re here. Duncan’s out cold. We didn’t get a chance to ask him about the Oxi.”
“What if he wakes up?”
“He won’t, but just to make sure, you watch Duncan and I’ll do the looking. If he wakes u
p call me.”
p call me.”
“Fine,” Libby said. “But don’t take too long.”
“Me?” Bernie pointed to herself. “Miss Speedy Gonzalez.”
“You know,” Libby said as Bernie headed for the bathroom, “even if you do find them, that doesn’t mean Duncan’s story isn’t true. Lots of people get off on Oxis.”
“This is true,” Bernie replied. “But it would be good to know.”
“I guess it would,” Libby agreed.
The sisters walked out of the guest house thirty-five minutes later. Duncan was snoring.
“Maybe Duncan has Oxi,” Bernie told Libby as they headed to the van, “but if he does I’ll be damned if I know where it is. The guy doesn’t even take aspirin, for heaven’s sake. Just lots and lots of supplements.”
Chapter 26
I
t was gray and drizzly out at six the next morning and according to the weatherman it was going to stay that way for the next two days. As Sean happily inhaled the odors of coffee and yeast and butter and garlic swirling around the kitchen of A Little Taste of Heaven, he thought about how it would soon be light at this time of the day and about how the birds would be singing.
t was gray and drizzly out at six the next morning and according to the weatherman it was going to stay that way for the next two days. As Sean happily inhaled the odors of coffee and yeast and butter and garlic swirling around the kitchen of A Little Taste of Heaven, he thought about how it would soon be light at this time of the day and about how the birds would be singing.
Sean had spotted his first robin yesterday morning. It had been hopping around on the pavement outside the shop, pecking at a piece of corn muffin someone had dropped as he’d been sweeping up. Spring was definitely on its way. He could smell it when he stood outside. He liked getting up when it was lighter outside, although he got up when it was dark too. In fact, he got up at the same time every day. Between his job and Rose’s, he’d been rising early for so long that he probably couldn’t sleep in even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t.
As far as he was concerned early morning was one of the nicest parts of the day. When his wife was alive he’d loved coming downstairs and watching her get ready for the day before he went off to work. And the same held true for his daughters. He loved watching them work. It was so quiet and peaceful down in the shop before the store opened.
No traffic. No customers. No delivery guys stacking cartons in the backroom. No sales reps trying to get his daughters to buy something they didn’t want. No linen guy changing mop heads and counting out aprons. No Amber. No Googie. Just nice smells and the hum of the washing machine and the clank of the mixer and the sound of wooden spoons against sauce pans. And, of course, the sounds of his daughters talking. Sean liked those sounds best of all.
Sean sipped his coffee, a fresh roasted mocha-java made in a press pot, sat on a stool by the counter, and watched as Libby and Bernie finished making the featured soups of the day—a minestrone with almond pesto, and at n poa French-style fish soup featuring haddock, clams, mussels, anise, garlic, fennel, tomatoes, and white wine. He enjoyed watching his daughters chop and sauté while he inhaled the aromas of the onions and the fennel and the basil and the rosemary as they hit the warm olive oil and released their fragrances.
When Libby and Bernie were done and the soups were on the cook tops, they moved on to the new bread they were trying out. They’d started last night before they’d gone to bed because the dough needed two risings. First they’d proofed the yeast, then they’d added a bit more sugar, the whole wheat and white flour, butter, salt, chopped walnuts, and yellow raisins to the bowl.
When they were finished mixing the ingredients together, they cut and weighed the dough, kneaded each piece, and laid them down on the white, plastic dough trays. They got eight dough balls to a tray. Then they’d stacked the trays in the cooler and left the dough to rise overnight. Now they were taking the trays out of the cooler. Next they’d knead the dough again, form it into loaves, and put the loaves in pans for their second rising, after which they’d put them in the oven to bake.
Watching Libby and Bernie, Sean was once again filled with amazement at the grace both his daughters exhibited as they moved around the kitchen. Every movement they made had a purpose. They didn’t dither. They worked like their mother had. With style and grace and economy.
As he watched them forming the dough for the whole wheat bread into loaves and slashing designs on the tops of the bread with razors, he made up his mind not to disturb them—well, not to disturb Libby, really—with the details of last night’s meeting with Orion. He’d been asleep when Bernie and Libby had come in, so he hadn’t had the chance to tell them about Orion’s visit, and now that he did have the opportunity, he didn’t want to shatter the morning’s peace. Just hearing Orion’s name sent Libby into a tizzy. And really what was the point? It wasn’t as if Orion had given him any useful information about the investigation, because he hadn’t. In fact, Sean was beginning to believe that, truth be told, Orion had no useful information to give. If he did come up with something, Sean would tell Libby about it then.
“So,” he said to Libby and Bernie, that decision having been made, “how did last night go?”
“Interesting,” Bernie said. She stopped, painting melted butter onto the tops and sides of the loaf pans they were using, and told her dad about Duncan and Patrick and Patrick’s trip to Connor’s parents’ house and what Libby had found in Connor’s parents’ bathroom and hadn’t found in Duncan’s.
Sean raised an eyebrow when Bernie got to the last part. “Interesting indeed,” he murmured.
Libby rolled a portion of dough out, folded it into three, sealed the edges, plopped it in the pan, and cut three horizontal lines on the loaf’s top. “I thought so,” she said when she was done.
“So we don’t know if the Oxis belong to Connor or Priscilla,” he said. “Not that it really matters—since the bottle was in the medicine cabinet either one had access to it.”
“They’re definitely not that hard to get these days,” Bernie observed.
“I wonder if Brandon would know,” Sean asked.
“Why would Brandon know anything?” Bernie demanded. “What are you saying?”
Sean raised a hand. “Peace,” he said. “All I’m saying is that Brandon is a bartender and bartenders know things. Call him up and ask him.”
“But he just got to sleep,just gotlee’ Bernie protested.
“So, he’ll go back to sleep,” Sean said. “Seriously. Call.”
Brandon answered on the fourth ring. “What?” he rasped.
“Quick question,” Bernie said.
“It couldn’t wait?”
“My dad wanted me to call,” Bernie said, laying the blame on Sean.
There was a moment of silence, then Brandon said, “Go ahead.”
“Dad wants to know if you know who was dealing Oxis to Connor.”
“Probably Liza,” Brandon said promptly. “She offered some to me too, but I could be wrong.”
“Ask him if the other guys bought them too,” Sean prompted, having been following the conversation.
“You ask him,” Bernie said, handing him the phone.
“No,” Brandon said when Sean was on the line. “Connor was the only one. The others just drank and did a little weed.”
“Do you know where Liza got the stuff from?” Sean asked.
“Some guy in Staten Island.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Nope. He used to just roll through here once in a while. Haven’t seen him lately.”
“Thanks,” Sean said, and handed the phone back to Bernie.
“Did that help?” she asked her dad after she’d hung up.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’m thinking that maybe we might want to explore Conner’s relationship with Liza a little more deeply. Also I think it’s significant that Patrick responded to what you said to him at the bar. I wonder if he went and visited Liam as well after you lost track of him.”
“That’s what I was wondering too,” Libby said. “I’m thinking that maybe one of us should go ask him.”
“Patrick or Liam?” Bernie asked.
“Liam,” Libby said promptly. “He’s the only one we haven’t talked to yet.”
Sean nodded. “It would be interesting to see what his reaction is. Nothing like stirring the pot a little more and watching what happens, I say.”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Libby allowed.
Sean took another sip of his coffee. “In my experience, catching someone first thing in the morning works pretty well in that regard.”
“You mean like now?” Libby asked uneasily, thinking of the rest of her to-do list. After she got done with the bread, there were still cookies and cheesecakes to be baked, quiches and salads to be prepared, and vegetables to be chopped.
Sean put down his mug on the counter. “Like my mama always used to say—ain’t no time like the present to do what you got to do.”
“Grannie Simmons did not say that,” Bernie protested. Her dad’s mother had been a grammar Nazi, constantly vigilant for any infraction.
Sean laughed. “Well, maybe not in those words, but the intent was the same.”
Bernie looked at the clock on the wall. “I think Liam takes the six fifty-eight into Grand Central.”
It was now 7:15.
“You think?” Sean asked.
“I know,” Bernie said, correcting him.
Sean shrugged. “Oh well,” he said, clearly disappoi eariv nted, having had visions of charging over there. “There’s always tomorrow morning. Or we can talk to him tonight when he gets back.”
“We could,” Libby said. “Or we could do this.”
Sean and Bernie turned to look at her.
“What’s ‘this’?” Bernie asked.
“‘This’ is that Liam’s wife works out at the gym in the morning,” Libby continued. “I know Katrina takes a nine o’clock Strength and Power class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and today is Tuesday.”
“How do you know?” Bernie demanded.
“Misha mentioned it to me when she was telling me about the class and what jerks Katrina and her friends were.”
Bernie grunted. Misha was a gym rat who took every class the place had to offer. “That’s no big surprise,” she said, speaking of Katrina, who in Bernie’s humble opinion thought way more of herself than she should.
“So,” Libby continued, “since we can’t get Liam maybe it would be good to talk to his wife and see what she has to say. Who knows? It might be interesting.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea, Libby.” Sean finished his coffee and went over to fill his cup back up from the thermos, but before he could Bernie beat him to it.
“I think it’s an excellent suggestion too,” Bernie said, smiling. “Katrina is definitely a Chatty Kathy.”
Libby did not like Bernie’s smile.
“I’ll make the muffins so you can get ready for class,” Bernie said.
“Me?” Libby squeaked. “I don’t do gyms.”
“Well, it was your suggestion,” Bernie pointed out, all sweet reasonableness. “And you surely can’t expect Dad to go.”
“Hardly,” Libby said, while her dad laughed at the suggestion. “I was thinking you would. This is your kind of deal.”
Bernie sighed. “If I could I would. But I can’t. So sorry.” “And why is that?” Libby demanded.
“Simple. Because Liam’s wife doesn’t like me.”
“Since when?” Libby asked.
“Since she almost ran me down in the Target parking lot and I told her to watch where she was going—only a little less politely. Remember, Libby? I told you about it.”
Libby vaguely recalled the incident. However, she didn’t think the interaction between the two was as bad as Bernie made it out to be. It couldn’t have been. Otherwise she would have remembered the story. Or heard about it from someone else.
“Anyway,” Bernie continued before Libby had a chance to frame an adequate reply, “going to the gym will do you good.”
“Do me good? Are you saying I’m getting fat?” Libby demanded, immediately making the worst possible interpretation of Bernie’s comment.
Bernie shook her head in disgust. “No. I’m not,” she told her sister.
“Then what are you saying?”
“Let’s not have this conversation, Libby.”
Libby put her hands on her hips and began tapping one of her feet on the floor. “No. I want to know.”
“Fine. As long as you asked, I don’t think it would hurt you to get into a little better shape.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Libby retorted.
Sean quickly inserteuicined himself in the conversation before things totally unraveled. “Your sister just means that it’s good to exercise, isn’t that right, Bernie?”
Bernie didn’t reply immediately.
Sean gave Bernie the evil eye. “Well, isn’t it?” he repeated more loudly.
“Yes,” Bernie reluctantly said after waiting a few seconds longer than she should have to reply.
“That’s right,” Sean said. “It’s a well-known fact. Exercise gets the blood flowing. It puts one in a better mood.”
“Not me it doesn’t,” Libby declared with absolute certainty. “The last time I went to the gym I pulled my hamstring and it took weeks for it to heal.”
“The last time you went to the gym was when you were in college,” Bernie pointed out.
Libby sniffed. “So?”
“So things change, Libby.”
“Not in this case,” Libby told her sister. “I hate the gym,” she continued. “I hate everything about it.”
Bernie threw her arms up in the air. “I get it,” she said. “Really I do. But we’re talking about a forty-five minute class here. How bad could it be? Just hang out in the back and do a little something, then strike up a conversation with Katrina. That’s it. That’s all we’re as
king you to do.”
king you to do.”
“Please, Libby,” Sean said, weighing in. “Maybe you’ll get something out of her—which would be a good thing—because we’re definitely getting nowhere fast here. This case has been like walking through a field of molasses.”
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