A Catered Halloween (20 page)

“At last we’re getting to the good stuff,” Brandon said.

Bernie clucked. “Don’t you ever think about anything besides sex?”

“No. Not really. What does she say about it?” said Brandon.

“This. ‘Dear Diary, This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this except with my cousin Jerome when I was six. I was really worried that Ken’s braces and my braces would lock, but they didn’t. We kissed for a long time. It was lots better than I thought it would be. We only quit because we heard someone coming. I’m meeting him tomorrow night in the kitchen, and I don’t care about the shadow woman, even if she is creepy. I can’t believe I made out. I never thought it would happen to me!!!!’” Bernie paused. “That was a four-exclamation sentence,” she noted.

“Then Bessie goes on and says, ‘Amethyst was up when I came back to my room. She was smiling at me, which she never does. Talk about creepy. Anyway, she
told me that she thought that Ken was real cute, and that I was very lucky to have a boyfriend like that, and maybe we could all go out together some time. I didn’t want to get her angry, so I told her that was a neat idea, even though I don’t think it is. I think it’s a very bad idea. Then she smiled at me again. I wish I had teddy.’”

“Trouble in paradise,” Libby commented.

“There always is,” Bernie observed, thinking back to some of her run-ins with women like Amethyst.

“Go on,” Clyde urged. “Tell us what happened.”

Bernie shook her head to clear it and continued. “Bessie’s next entry takes place the next day. It starts: ‘We met in the kitchen. It was really spooky. Lots of shadows, but Ken said I’m just imagining things. He says the shadow people are lots of bunk, so I shouldn’t be worried. I’m trying to do what he says, but I keep thinking I’m hearing somebody talking in my ear. I think she’s jealous that I’m going to be kissing Ken and she can’t kiss anyone. Or maybe shadow people do kiss, and we just don’t know it. We did lots of kissing, anyway. Ken says he’s going to get me a circle pin, and we’re going to go steady. That would be really neat.’”

Bernie looked up. “However, the next day she says, ‘I saw Amethyst talking to Ken at lunch. He was laughing. When I asked him what was so funny, he shrugged his shoulders and said she’d told him a joke and that he didn’t think she was as bad as he’d heard she was. I told him she was awful, and he said I was being silly and walked away. When I got back to my room, Amethyst was smirking at me. I told her to leave Ken alone, and she said, good grief, it was a free country, and that she was just talking to him. What was wrong with that? Maybe I’m being silly, but I don’t like this at all.’”

“I’d say her instincts are pretty good,” Sean commented.

Libby’s stomach rumbled. “Sorry,” she said, mortified.

Her dad laughed. “I think we could all use a little something to eat.”

“Cookies would be nice,” Clyde suggested.

“More than nice,” Konrad observed. “Especially the gingersnaps.”

That was the nice thing about baking, Libby thought. It made people happy.

For the next fifteen minutes, everyone helped themselves to the plates of chocolate chip cookies, gingersnaps, and molasses cookies, and to the decaffeinated tea and coffee that Libby and Amber brought up. Bernie got up, got a bottle of brandy from the bottom shelf of the cabinet, poured a little in her coffee, then passed the bottle around.

Konrad raised his cup. “A toast to Bessie,” he cried.

“To Bessie,” everyone repeated, and they clinked their cups and drank.

“To proving my cousin innocent,” Curtis said.

Everyone drank to that, too, but this time the response was less enthusiastic. Bernie poured another slug of brandy into her cup and passed the bottle around again. Then she took a sip, opened the journal back up to the page she’d marked, and began to speak.

“Okay,” she said. “The next page has more hearts with Ken’s and Bessie’s initials in them, except down at the bottom, where Bessie’s written Amethyst’s name and she’s drawn a hatchet through it. See?” Bernie passed the book around.

“Not a happy camper,” Clyde commented as he looked at the page.

“That’s because she knows what’s coming,” Amber said, “and she doesn’t know what to do about it.”

Bernie nodded her agreement as Libby handed the journal back to her. Bernie took another sip of her coffee and picked up where she had left off. “Dear Diary, I hate Amethyst. She says she wants to borrow the book on Norse mythology that Ken gave me. She says it’s so interesting, and maybe she and I can discuss it some time. I told her I didn’t want to lend it to her, and I guess she told Ken, because when I met him in the kitchen, he asked me why I wouldn’t give it to her. I tried to explain, but he said I was just being silly. He said she was just misunderstood, and that she had a really bad mother and lots of problems at home, and I had to be understanding, so I told him about the cupcakes, but he said that just proved his point. We spent all this time talking about Amethyst and almost no time kissing, and when we did kiss, it wasn’t very good. I could tell his mind wasn’t on what he was doing.”

Bernie turned the page. “The next day we have, ‘I think Ken likes Amethyst better than me. Yesterday I followed them. They didn’t see me, because I hid behind the bushes. And they walked down the path that Ken and I walked down. They were both laughing and talking. Amethyst doesn’t even like him. He’s not her type. And she has lots of boyfriends. She just wants him because I like him. It’s so unfair.’

“New entry. ‘Tonight I was supposed to meet Ken and take a walk. I got all dressed up and everything. I even set my hair in the rollers Mom brought me. Then he called on the house phone and told me he was sorry, but he couldn’t make it. Amethyst was really upset about her social studies test that was coming up—she didn’t understand the chapter—and he had to stay in
and help her. I’m so mad I don’t know what to do. Amethyst smirked at me when she came in.

“'My mom says I should just ignore them both. That I’m just playing into Amethyst’s hands by doing what I’m doing, and that boys don’t like girls that run after them. Then she said that I’m much too young to be in a relationship, anyway, and that I’m at the Peabody School so I can better myself. She just doesn’t understand!!!!’ That’s another four-exclamation sentence.”

Bernie turned the page and read, “When I got back this afternoon, Amethyst had her friends in our room. They were laughing and drinking and smoking out the window. I think one of them was smoking weed. One of them was even sitting on my bed. I told them they couldn’t do that, and they all laughed some more and said they could do whatever they want.

“I was so mad I stomped out of the room, but on the way, I think I saw something on Amethyst’s dresser that said Social Studies final. I’m not sure, but I think I did. I’m going to check when we go to dinner. I was right. I did see it. Oh my God. I bet she stole it. Or maybe Ken gave it to her. That would be too horrible to contemplate. I don’t know what I’m going to do! I wish teddy was here.”

“Then what?” Marvin asked as Bernie paused to eat a part of her chocolate chip cookie.

Bernie wiped her hands on a napkin before continuing and perused the page. “Let’s see. We have more angst. No more hearts and initials. No more Bessie Marak. Instead, we have, ‘Last night Amethyst came in and told me she and Ken kissed in the kitchen, and that they’d done other things too, things that Ken really liked. I started to cry, and she laughed and said he had told her that he went with me because he felt sorry for
me because no one else would because I was so fat, and that he doesn’t like me at all, and he thinks I smell bad, and all the kids are making fun of me.’” Bernie stopped reading for a moment and looked up. “You know, judging by the picture of her hanging on the wall in Amethyst’s apartment, Bessie wasn’t fat at all. She looked good.”

“Yeah,” Amber interjected. “But she didn’t know that. I bet Ken didn’t even say those things. I bet Amethyst made them up.”

“Possibly,” Bernie said. “No. Make that probably. Poor Bessie.” Her finger tapped the bottom of the page. “Her last entry on this page is, ‘I called Mom and told her I wanted to come home now, and she said I couldn’t, not until Christmas. I told her I had to and she should come and get me right now, and she told me that I had to learn to stand on my own two feet and take care of my own problems, and that I’d thank her later for doing this. Then she hung up. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’”

Bernie paused. “The next entry takes place two days later, which is the night before Halloween,” she said. “Here Bessie writes, ‘I’ve thought and thought, and I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to tell the headmaster all about Amethyst. I’m going to tell him about her drinking and smoking and sneaking out and not being in class and about the test and about how I think she stole teddy. Then they’ll kick her out, and things will be like they were before. I already told Ken, and I guess he told Amethyst, because she said I’d better not. I told her I would.

“'Then she said I wouldn’t dare. I told her I would do it tomorrow. She was trying on her costume for tomorrow night—she’s going as Lucy—and she turned to me and said, “No, you won’t.” Then she went back
to looking at herself in the mirror. I don’t know why I’m scared. I’m just being silly. There’s nothing else she can do to me. She’s already ruined my life, because I’ll never get over Ken.’”

“She’s not going to have the chance,” Amber said.

“What does she write next?” Sean asked.

Bernie thumbed through the pages. “Nothing. She wrote her last entry the evening before Halloween. She died the next day.”

Everyone fell silent.

L
ibby looked at the clock on the wall. It was a little after eleven, and from the way things were going, she wouldn’t get to sleep for quite a long while. She’d been up since six in the morning and had wanted to be in bed an hour ago. The good news was that Konrad, Curtis, and Amber had finally left, which gave everyone a little more breathing space, not to mention giving her ears a rest.

“I’m glad we don’t have to listen to the tape again,” Libby said. Once was enough. Twice was definitely way too much.

“I can’t imagine why,” Bernie retorted. “I love hearing static at ear-piercing levels, don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” Marvin said. “And I’m sure Amber’s mom will feel the same.”

“Yes, she’s going to be very welcoming,” said Bernie. She could see Amber’s mom’s prune face now. There was no way that Konrad and Curtis and the tape deck were going to get into Amber’s house at eleven o’clock at night.

Clyde reached for another chocolate chip cookie. “A definite case of the emperor’s new clothes, if you ask me.”

“Well,” Libby said, stifling a yawn, “Amber claims she heard Bessie saying, ‘That’s private. Don’t read my journal.’”

Bernie snorted as she slipped off her boots and lined them up next to the sofa. “First of all, she wouldn’t have said
journal
. She would have said
diary
. And secondly, you’d think she’d want us to read it.”

Marvin leaned forward and snagged another cookie from the platter on the coffee table. “She probably thinks it makes her look bad.”

Libby turned and stared at Marvin.

Two dots of color appeared on Marvin’s cheeks. “That’s what she’d be feeling if she existed,” he stammered.

“But she doesn’t,” Sean said. “She did, but she doesn’t now. Otherwise, we might as well consult the Ouija board. It would be faster.”

“My dad has one of those in the attic. I can get it if you want,” said Marvin.

“I’m kidding, Marvin,” said Sean.

Sean patted the pocket in his pants where his cigarettes were hiding. He would give anything to have one now. They’d always helped him think. Picked him up and clarified his thoughts. In the old days, he’d tell Rose he was going to answer an emergency call, and then he’d drive a little ways, park on one of the town’s side streets, light up, and stare into nothingness. He’d always gotten his best ideas that way. Now, of course, that was impossible, because one or another of the girls was always hovering over him.
At least
, he thought,
I’m well enough now, so I can walk down the stairs if I hold the banister and use a cane.
Remission was a beautiful
thing, and he was going to do as much as he could for as long as he could.

“What’s the matter, Dad?” Libby asked.

Sean looked at her. “Why should anything be the matter?”

“Well, you were sighing. I just thought you might need something,” replied Libby.

“I’m fine,” Sean lied.
Drat those cigarettes
. Okay. He knew they were really bad for him, but that didn’t help. He could taste them. “I was just thinking about poor Bessie and wondering who buried the journal.”

“I guess she couldn’t have,” Marvin observed.

Sean moved his wheelchair so he could be nearer to the cookies. He particularly liked the lace oatmeal ones. They’d been his wife’s specialty. At one time they’d been popular, but to his knowledge, his daughters’ shop was the only place that made them anymore, mostly as a favor to him, he suspected.

“No. I don’t think Bessie could have,” Sean remarked. “Dead people don’t usually do things like that.”

Brandon grabbed another cookie and took Amber’s place on the floor. “So who do you think did, Mr. Simmons?”

“My first guess would be Felicity Huffer. I think she found the journal and read it and didn’t know what to do with it, so she buried it and drew herself a map so she wouldn’t forget where it was.”

Bernie rubbed her feet. She loved the boots she’d been wearing, but if she wore them for too long, they pinched her toes and gave her blisters. “When I spoke to her, she did say she couldn’t tell anyone what had happened, because she was afraid she’d lose her job. She said that Amethyst’s parents exerted a lot of influence at the school.”

Marvin sneezed. “There’s nothing that incriminating in the journal.”

“There’s enough stuff in there to get Amethyst thrown out of school,” Bernie countered.

“Yeah,” Marvin replied. “That’s true. But I’m talking in the criminal sense.”

“Well,” Clyde said as he wiped cookie crumbs off his leg and into his cupped hand and dumped them in the saucer in front of him, “I’m not so sure about that. If I had what I thought was an accidental death or a suicide and I read that journal, it would definitely get me thinking in a different direction.”

Marvin sneezed again. Whenever he got wet, he got sick. “Then why not just destroy it?” he asked. “That would have been lots easier.”

“Felicity’s conscience probably wouldn’t let her,” Clyde responded. “This way she could always tell herself that when the time was right, she’d show the journal.”

“Which she did,” Bernie said. “Never mind that it’s a little late to do any good.”

“Of course, there’s another possibility,” Sean said. “Someone else could have buried it. Like Amethyst or Ken Marak.”

“And Felicity saw them do it and drew the map,” Brandon said.

Sean nodded. “Exactly.”

Clyde said, “This is all very fascinating in the academic sense, and Bessie’s journal is very sad, but I don’t think it helps us any.”

Bernie looked at her dad. “What do you say, Dad?”

“My gut tells me there’s something here,” said Sean. He pointed to Bessie’s journal, which was now resting on the coffee table, next to the cookies. “I just don’t know what.”

“I don’t see anything that fits with what we already know,” said Clyde.

“Clyde, you don’t know that for a fact,” Sean objected.

“I think I do,” Clyde insisted. “The only facts we know for certain are that we have three people with pretty good motives for killing Amethyst, and each one of them had access to the place where she died. We know that the person that killed her had to have had some facility with tools or been some place where they’d seen a fiber-optic laser cutter at work, which actually isn’t much of a lead, because they’re used at construction sites and in body shops. But most importantly, we know that Amethyst wanted to use Lexus Gardens as the site for a wedding ceremony. Now whether—”

“Excuse me,” Libby interrupted. “How do we know this?”

“I finally got hold of Banks’s personal assistant,” said Clyde.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Bernie demanded.

“We were going to,” her dad said, “but you guys came running in here, and we never got the chance.”

“Wow,” Bernie said. “Married. The ceremony had to be for her.”

“That’s what I figured,” Clyde said. “By the way, Banks refused the request. He didn’t want a ceremony, a reception, or anything at his place. He really did like to keep to himself.”

“And this ties in with his death how?” Libby asked.

“It’s a stretch,” Sean hypothesized, “but the only connection I can see is that Ed Banks was killed because the person who killed her didn’t want it known that Amethyst was getting married.”

“That’s a big stretch,” Libby said.

“It’s a huge stretch,” Sean agreed.

“Which leaves us in the same position we were in before, with Bob Small as our primary suspect,” Clyde said.

“Well, Amethyst certainly wouldn’t be marrying him,” Bernie said. “He has no money.”

“Neither does Inez,” Brandon observed.

“Inez is a woman,” Marvin said.

Brandon just looked at him. “Really? I hadn’t noticed. For your information, Inez goes with whatever moves.”

Marvin blushed again.

“Which leaves Zachery,” Bernie said.

“But he hated her,” Libby protested.

“What better reason to marry and kill her?” Bernie asked.

“Someone would have to be really cold-blooded to do that,” Brandon said.

“Maybe he is. I’ve known some psychopaths in my time. They act like everyone else until you get to know them real well,” said Bernie. She screwed up her face while she thought. “I think I should go have another talk with him.”

“Why? We’d know if they got married,” Libby said. “We would have heard.”

“Not if it was a secret,” Sean said. “Not if they went away and got married somewhere else.”

“But we would have heard that they were living together,” Bernie objected.

“Maybe they weren’t,” Marvin said. “Maybe they were living in separate residences.”

“Then why bother marrying?” Libby asked. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

“It makes as much sense as everything else about this case does,” said Bernie as she picked up her cup and put it down again. “Here’s another thought. What if
Amethyst was getting married to Ed Banks? What if they got married? Then killing him makes a lot more sense. It means that someone needed to kill them both.”

Clyde snorted. “How do you come up with that?”

“What, exactly, did you ask Banks’s personal assistant?” Bernie inquired.

“First, I asked him if Amethyst Applegate had talked to his employer, and he said she had,” said Clyde. “Then I asked him how he knew, and he said she’d come up to the estate, at which point I asked him what the conversation had been about. He said he heard his employer saying that he didn’t want the reception held here, and then Banks shut the door, and he couldn’t hear anything else.”

Bernie leaned forward and pointed a finger at Clyde. “So Banks and Amethyst could have been talking about holding a reception for their wedding on the estate grounds. I mean, it is a possibility.”

“I guess if you put it that way, then yes,” Clyde conceded.

“Would there be a record of the wedding in the town hall or somewhere like that?” Brandon asked.

“For the fourth time, not if they didn’t get married here,” Sean said. “If we’re following Bernie’s scenario, then it’s just as likely that they hopped on a plane to Reno or Vegas, got hitched, and flew back the next day. What do you think, Clyde?”

“I think Bernie should have been a lawyer, that’s what I think,” said Clyde.

Bernie stood up and took a mock bow.

“But I’m still sticking with what I said before, and all the fancy logic in the world can’t convince me otherwise,” Clyde told her. “What do you think, Libby?”

“I’m too tired to think,” replied Libby.

“Me, too,” Marvin said.

Libby turned and looked at him. His eyes were like slits. She was just about to tell him he should go home when her father beat her to it.

“Get some sleep,” Sean said to Marvin. “We have a busy day tomorrow, and we need to start bright and early.”

Clyde stood up, too. “That goes for me, too.”

Libby and Bernie walked everyone down the stairs and said good night. After Bernie locked up, she turned to Libby and said, “This is going to sound crazy, but I’m thinking about having a little work done.”

“Work done?” Libby echoed. “What kind of work?”

“Cosmetic surgery kind of work.”

“Are you nuts?” Libby asked.

“But see”—Bernie pointed to her forehead—“I’m beginning to get lines here.” She pointed to the area between her nose and chin. “And here. And look at the circles under my eyes.”

“You are nuts,” Libby told her.

“Look closer.”

Libby did. “I still don’t see anything.”

“That’s because the light down here is bad.”

“You’re having surgery?”

“Well, I’m hoping Botox will take care of everything for awhile. And, anyway, it’s not surgery. It’s maintenance.”

“I don’t care what you call it. It’s still injecting a deadly toxin into your body.”

“It’s not a big deal. Millions of people do it, and I think there’s something new on the market. That’s why I have a consult tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning?” Libby cried. “Why tomorrow morning?”

“Because they had a cancellation. Otherwise, I’d have to wait four months.”

“Maybe you should. It’ll give you time to think about it.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for almost a year,” said Bernie.

“You never mentioned it to me.”

Bernie shrugged. “That’s because I knew what you’d say.”

“Do you know how busy we’re going to be?”

“It’s always about you.”

Libby rolled her eyes. “I have an idea,” she said. “Why don’t we grow a little botulinum here, and you can do it yourself.”

Bernie ignored her. “I’ve got the first appointment. It’s at eight. I’ll be in and out of there in half an hour at the most, and then, if there’s time, I’m going to drop in on Zachery, and if not, I’ll come right back to the shop.”

“Have you told Dad about what you’re going to do?”

“I’m not doing anything. I’m going for a consult,” said Bernie.

“Fine, Miss Have-To-Say-It-Exactly-Right. Let me rephrase. Have you told him about what you’re thinking of doing?”

Bernie snorted. “What, are you crazy? He doesn’t even like it when I change my hairstyle.”

“I bet Brandon won’t be too pleased, either.”

“He’s not going to know. No one is.” Bernie fixed her eyes on Libby. “And you’re not going to tell them, either. Right?”

Libby studied the hallway light fixture.

“Promise me you won’t say anything,” said Bernie.

Libby folded her arms over her chest.

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

“Well?” Bernie said after a moment had gone by.

“Fine,” Libby said sullenly. “I swear. Satisfied?”

“Sister swear.”

Libby groaned. Sister swear was an unbreakable oath, the most serious oath there was between them. She might have known Bernie was going to pull this out of the proverbial hat.

“I mean it,” Bernie said.

“All right,” Libby said. “I sister swear it. But I think you’re making a big mistake.”

Bernie gave her a hug. “I know.”

Their dad barely looked up when Bernie and Libby came upstairs. He was too engrossed in reading Bessie’s journal.

“Do you want me to put the Scrabble game away for you?” Libby asked him.

Sean shook his head. “No. Leave it. I’m not done with it yet.”