A Catered Tea Party (3 page)

“Extra specially?” Bernie repeated. “What kind of phrase is that?”

Libby gave her sister the evil eye, then continued on with what she'd been saying. “Someone,” she clarified, “who hated Zalinsky enough to kill him, and that's the person we have to find.”

“Y
ou think writing that list is going to help?” Bernie asked Libby once Casper was gone.

“Even if it doesn't,” Libby replied, “it'll give Casper something to do.”

Sean took a swallow of his iced coffee and put the glass down on the side table next to his chair. “I can see why Lucy likes Casper for this,” he remarked. Lucy, aka Lucas Broadbent, was the Longely chief of police.

“Casper wouldn't hurt a fly,” Bernie protested.

“You'd be surprised what people will do when pushed hard enough,” Sean told her.

“Not Casper,” Bernie repeated.

“So you keep saying,” Libby said.

“All the evidence is circumstantial,” Bernie told her. “All of it!”

“Agreed,” Sean said.

“Then why settle on Casper?” Bernie asked.

“The two notes,” Sean answered. “They sealed the deal.” He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair while he thought about how he would conduct the investigation if he were still Longely's chief of police. “If I were you, I'd start with the teapot,” he suggested after a minute had gone by. “I'd try to get a handle on where you'd unload something like that. And the security guys. I'd talk to them and see what they have to say.” Sean was about to say something else, but his attention was captured by the sound of the downstairs door opening and closing and someone running up the stairs.

Bernie was just thinking that they should really keep the downstairs door locked when the door to the flat opened and Sean's newfound friend Michelle came barreling through. Even though she was in her early fifties, to Bernie's mind she dressed as if she was in college. Today she was wearing a thigh-high denim skirt, which showed a lot of tanned leg, leg that Bernie had to admit looked pretty good, a tight black T-shirt, and flip-flops. Her blond hair was piled on top of her head in a loose bun—the hairstyle of the moment.

“Oh my God,” she cried, advancing on Sean. “You poor dear. I just got home from Cabo and heard about what happened at The Blue House. That must have been terrible for you. Seeing that.”

“And even worse for Zalinsky,” Libby couldn't help noting.

Michelle threw back her head and laughed, displaying a set of perfect teeth. “That goes without saying.” When she reached Sean, she bent down, gave Sean a hug, and kissed the top of his head. “I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you.”

“That's okay,” Bernie said sweetly. “Somehow we all managed to get along anyway.”

Michelle laughed again. “Of course, you did.” She grabbed Sean's hands and pulled him up. “If it's alright with you,” she said to Bernie and Libby, “I'm going to steal your dad away. It's such a lovely day that I thought he and I could go down to the Hudson and sit in one of the cafés along the water and soak in the summer. It's so brief in this part of the world, I feel it's a crime not to enjoy it. Oh dear.” Michelle looked around, taking in Bernie and Libby's expression. “I hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

“Not to be rude or anything, but as a matter of fact, you are,” Libby told her.

Michelle put her hand to her mouth. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. I just . . . got carried away. I should leave,” she said, turning to go.

Sean patted her thigh, a gesture that did not go unnoticed by his daughters. “Don't be ridiculous, Michelle,” he told her. “What we were talking about can wait.”

“But Dad,” Libby objected.

Michelle bit her lip. “I really don't want to cause trouble.”

“Believe me, you're not,” Sean said to her.

“Because you all looked terribly serious.”

“Which is why a break would be perfect right around now,” Sean told her. Then he turned to his daughter. “Libby,” he said. “We'll talk about this when I get back.”

Then before Libby could say anything else, he and Michelle were walking out the door.

“I just can't bear to be inside on a day like this,” Bernie and Libby heard Michelle trill, her voice floating upward, as she and their dad walked down the steps.

“That's exactly how I feel,” Sean replied.

Then Libby and Bernie heard the downstairs door close. A moment later, they saw Sean getting into Michelle's BMW.

“Where did she get that car?” Libby asked.

“No doubt from her last husband,” Bernie replied.

“I can't figure out what she wants from Dad,” Libby said. “It's not like he has any money.”

“Maybe she just likes his company,” Bernie replied.

Libby raised an eyebrow.

“Some women like older men,” Bernie pointed out.

Libby shook her head. “I remain unconvinced.” She brushed a strand of hair out of her eye. Her face was grim. “I think I may have an idea about what Michelle wants.”

Bernie stopped watching Mrs. Johnson walking into their shop and turned toward her sister. “What?”

“Although it's pretty far-fetched,” Libby admitted.

“I'm waiting,” Bernie said when a minute had gone by and Libby hadn't said anything,

“Really far-fetched,” Libby repeated. She was suddenly having doubts about confiding in Bernie.

“Tell me anyway.”

Libby took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, Debby . . .”

“The Debby from the Grist Mill?” Bernie clarified.

Libby nodded. “Last time I was there, she told me she'd heard that Michelle got her stretch bread recipe by cozying up to one of the bakers at Totonio's. Maybe she's after our cookie recipes.”

Bernie made a disgusted sound and went back to watching the street. “That's ridiculous,” she scoffed. “I know we don't like her, but let's get real here.”

“It's possible,” Libby countered.

“So is snow in July.” Bernie turned away from the window and started picking up the dirty dishes and putting them on the tray to take downstairs. “Or how's this? Maybe she just likes Dad. Maybe that's all there is. Maybe we
are
jealous.”

“Maybe you're right,” Libby conceded. But in her heart of hearts she wasn't convinced, not one single bit.

Chapter
5

A
s Igor Petrovich scowled and flexed his biceps, Bernie decided he looked even larger standing in the doorway of his Brooklyn apartment on Ocean Parkway than he did standing on The Blue House stage as a security guard.

“Why you want to talk to us?” he asked her. He was wearing a wife beater and a pair of khaki shorts. “Why are you here from Longely?”

So Bernie explained why they'd made the trek into the city.

Obviously she didn't do a good job because the next words out of Igor's mouth were, “This what happened is not our fault.”

It was the next day, and Bernie and Libby had taken the first part of their father's advice and gone to speak to the security guards Zalinsky had hired to keep an eye on the teapot. The two brothers shared an apartment on the sixth floor of a high-rise three miles from Coney Island in a building Bernie guessed had been erected in the 1930s.

“I'm not saying that at all,” Bernie replied.

Igor's scowl grew. “So you saying what then?”

Ivan, who was wearing the same thing as his brother, joined Igor. He was slightly shorter and wider, and his hair was wet, but that was where the differences ended. “We hired to look good, that's all Zalinsky wanted us to do.” He jabbed a stubby finger in the air to make his point. “He wanted us to look mean. That's what he said.”

Igor nodded. “My brother Ivan is right. We do exactly what Zalinsky wants.”

“Which was?” Libby asked.

“To make a show,” Ivan said. “To stir up interest. We didn't know anyone was going to be hurt. We don't do things like that.”

Libby clarified. “Hurt people?”

“Nyet. Be where people get hurt.” Ivan stroked his jaw. “My brother and I, we do not like this. Also we have to be careful of our faces.”

“I see,” Bernie said, even though she didn't. Now that Bernie was looking at the two men, she was surprised she hadn't seen the strong resemblance between them before, but at the time she hadn't been paying much attention to them.

“You must have thought there was a chance someone would get hurt,” Libby persisted. “You were wearing bulletproof vests.”

“Fakes,” Ivan said. “Not the real thing.”

“Fakes?” Libby repeated, nonplussed.

Both Igor and Ivan nodded their heads.

“How about the guns?” asked Bernie.

“Also fakes,” Ivan said.

“Really?” Bernie asked.

Ivan nodded. “They look real, no?”

“They look real, yes,” Libby said. “Why would you do that?”

“You ask this question for real?” Igor said.

Libby and Bernie both nodded.

“We are actors,” Ivan explained. “We hire ourselves for when people want to make themselves look important at nightclubs and other events. We become their bodyguards for the evening. We create . . . how you say . . . a buzz.”

“And there's a market for that?” Bernie asked genuinely curious.

Ivan and Igor nodded their heads again.

“Da,” Ivan said. “A big market. Everyone wants to be someone important. Sometimes we do some modeling too. Catalogs. That is why we have to be careful of our faces.”

“Out of curiosity, how much do you get paid to be a bodyguard?” Bernie asked.

Bernie whistled when Igor told her.

Igor's face darkened. “But we did not get that from Zalinsky,” Igor said. “He told us he didn't have the cash on him and he would go to the ATM afterward. But there was no afterward. How you find us anyway?” Igor asked, changing the subject.

“Casper . . .”

“The crazy little man in black shirt and black pants who is sweating like a mule all the time?” Ivan asked.

“Yeah, that's him,” Bernie replied.

Libby continued. “He said that Zalinsky hired you and that his assistant . . .”

“Magda?” Igor asked.

“Yes, Magda might have your address, so we talked to her, and here we are,” Libby said.

Bernie took a step forward. “May we come in?” she asked. “We'd really like to ask you about what happened that evening. Maybe you saw something that will turn out to be helpful, something that you don't even know is important.”

“We tell the police everything we see. They already have talked to us,” Ivan objected.

“I'm sure they have,” Bernie told Ivan. “But we were hoping you could run through everything again for us.” As she was speaking, Bernie thought she saw a flash of something inside the apartment—maybe a woman—moving across the hallway.

Igor rubbed the tattooed star on his bicep. “You are the caterers at the play, yes?” he asked.

“Yes,” Bernie told him as she looked again. There was nothing there.

“So why you want to know about this?” Ivan asked.

“Sometimes we help people out,” Libby told him.

“Help them out how?” Ivan asked, looking puzzled. “You bring food to their houses when they are sick?”

Bernie laughed. “No. We help them out when they're in trouble with the law,” she explained.

“So you are police too?” Igor asked. “You cook, and you do policing?”

“No,” Bernie said.

Igor cocked his head. “Then you are like the private detectives I see on TV?”

“Kinda,” said Libby, stretching the truth.

Igor scratched his arm. “So who is this person in trouble?”

“Casper,” Bernie said.

“How he is in trouble?” Ivan asked.

“The police think he might have had something to do with Zalinsky's death, and we don't think that's the case,” Bernie explained.

“So can we come in and talk to you?” Libby asked again.

The brothers exchanged a look, the kind of look she and Libby exchanged when they were about to make up an excuse for not doing something.

“Our apartment is a mess,” Igor said.

“We would be ashamed to invite you in,” Ivan agreed.

“Forgive us. But we will talk to you,” Igor said, “if you want to meet us at the Kebob Shack in a half hour.” Then, before Libby and Bernie had time to say anything else, Igor gave them the address and closed the door in their faces.

Chapter
6

“W
hat do you think that was about?” Libby asked, staring at the closed door. She wanted to ring the doorbell again, but decided there probably wasn't any point in it.

“I think there was someone else in there,” Bernie said to her sister as she turned and walked toward the elevator. She trailed her fingers against the plaster wall as she went, enjoying the sensation of the coolness seeping into them. “Someone they didn't want us to see.”

“I didn't see anyone,” Libby objected.

“I think I did,” Bernie replied.

“Who was it?” Libby asked.

Bernie shook her head, “Not a clue. Maybe a girlfriend. I didn't get a good look.”

“So you don't think they're just giving us the brush-off?”

“No, I don't, but I guess we'll find out if they don't show up at the Kebob Shack,” Bernie told her, although that was the last place she wanted to be. An ice cream parlor, yes; a kebob shop where there was a griddle going, no. On the other hand, she didn't want to have to drive back to Brooklyn again either. The Belt Parkway had been a nightmare.

The shop Igor had mentioned was located five blocks away on Coney Island Avenue. By the time Bernie and Libby found another parking space near the restaurant, twenty-five minutes had elapsed. At that point, Bernie would have been happy to pay to park in a garage, but there were no garages in the area, so Bernie had endlessly circled the neighborhood until she found a parking space. It was tough to find one large enough for Mathilda.

“It would have been faster to walk,” Bernie groused as they entered the restaurant.

“Yeah, but at least the van sort of has air-conditioning,” Libby observed, referring to the fact that the Kebob Shack didn't. “This place feels like an oven.”

It was in the eighties outside, but to Libby's mind with the heat radiating off the sidewalks it felt as if it were in the nineties. The Kebob Shack was empty, and as Bernie and Libby entered, the smell of old grease from the griddle rose to meet them. The word
shack
perfectly suited the place. It was a hole-in-the-wall with a grill, a Formica counter, a scuffed black-and-white tile floor, and five small round tables with two chairs apiece pushed under them. The menu tacked above the counter was in Hindi, and the walls were decorated with pictures of Pakistan. A fan whirred up above, and the door was open to let in any breeze that happened by.

Bernie and Libby had just ordered coffee, and Bernie was fanning herself with a takeout menu when the two brothers arrived. They'd both shaved, slicked back their hair, and changed into khaki pants and tight-fitting, black T-shirts.

“We don't have much time to talk,” Igor said.

“Then why did you tell us to meet you?” objected Libby, who was aggravated at having to be down here at all.

“Because we just got another job,” Ivan said. “Last minute. At the Tatania. It's a big club in Brighton Beach. We have to get ready. At the time when we told you to meet us, we did not know this would be the case.”

“I've heard of the Tatania,” Bernie said as she took a sip of her coffee. It was surprisingly good. She sat down at the table in front of the window. “So how did Zalinsky get your name?”

“We are well known in the community,” Igor replied.

“Which community is that?” Bernie asked.

Igor snorted as if the question was too obvious to answer. “The Russian community. We are asked for at many big parties. That is how Zalinsky hear about us. We think we make big money when he ask us to work for him. He is a big deal, very rich, and he would be having many parties, and many famous people would be at this play and see us, so we would get lots of business and that he would be paying us very well. But that's not what happened.”

Bernie leaned forward. “So what did happen?”

Ivan took up the narrative. “We did not get paid. We should have listened to Magda.”

Libby leaned forward. “You know Magda?”

“She is our cousin,” Ivan said. “She tell us not to take the job. She tell us a lot of times he doesn't pay people.”

“But we don't believe her,” Igor explained.

“Anyway,” Ivan said, “we think that even if he doesn't pay us it would be, how you say, good . . .”

“Exposure?” asked Bernie.

“Da,” Ivan continued. “Good exposure, because there be many people there, and they would see us and like us. So when we get there and Magda comes running over and says she is sorry but Zalinsky does not have money in his account to pay us, we are not upset. But then a few minutes later, he comes over and swears our cousin is wrong and he will pay us the next day. This we believe.”

Igor slicked back his hair with the palm of his hand and admired his profile in the window. “Magda, she was mad at us for coming. She tell us to go home.”

“How come?” Libby asked.

“Because she no believe what Zalinsky tell us, and if we no get paid, she no get paid,” Ivan said.

“She's your agent?” Bernie guessed.

Ivan nodded. “I tell her sometime you must give the cow away to get the milk.”

“But she no agree,” Igor said. “She say we no have any business sense, but we have good business sense. We talk to many people after the play and give out many cards.”

“She still mad at us,” Ivan confided. “But she always mad at everyone.”

Bernie sat back and resumed fanning herself. “Why?”

Ivan and Igor both shrugged.

“It is the way she is,” Ivan said. “She difficult person.” He shook his head. “She not sunny-side-up kind of person. She brood.”

“Aren't you Russians famed for that?” Bernie couldn't help asking.

Ivan burst out laughing. “Da.” He pointed to his brother and back to himself. “We, no. We happy people.”

“Can you tell us anything about Zalinsky?” Libby asked.

Igor thought for a moment. “I think he hard man to work for. I think maybe that is why my cousin is so unhappy.”

Bernie sighed and took another sip of her coffee. “Anything else you can tell us?”

Igor shook his head. “We just speak to him on the phone. He call us up and tell us what he want and when he want us, and I tell him yes, and then at that date Ivan and I go there.”

“Did you talk to Zalinsky before the performance?” Libby asked.

Ivan shook his head. “When we arrive, we come into the theater, but he was screaming at someone, so we left.”

Bernie pushed her coffee away. “Did you see who he was yelling at?”

“A little Chinese woman,” Igor said.

Bernie and Libby exchanged looks.

“Hsaio?” Libby asked.

“I do not know her name,” Ivan replied. “But she very upset. Almost crying. We did not want to embarrass, so we shut the door and left. Then we go find Magda to tell her we are there.”

“And what did Magda say?” Bernie enquired.

“She said we are idiots,” Igor said. “But I still think not. I think we get business out of this.”

Ivan nodded. “All publicity is good publicity.”

“I'm not so sure of that,” Bernie said. She looked down at the two addresses she had for Magda. “She lives around here, doesn't she?”

“She live with her babushka here,” Ivan said, “and rent small house in Longely.”

“Do you know if Magda's here now?” Bernie asked because Magda hadn't been at her place in Longely when she and Libby had stopped by.

“She still angry at us. She not talking to us now, so we do not know this,” Ivan said.

“I don't think she talk to you either,” Igor added.

“I guess we'll find out,” Bernie observed, starting to get up.

“One thing,” Igor said. “An important thing.”

Bernie sat back down and waited. “The pierogies that you make.”

“What about them?” Libby asked, even though she had a pretty good idea what Igor was going to say.

“You should not be making them again,” Ivan told her. “They are not good for your reputation.”

“This I know,” Libby agreed. “There's one thing that doesn't make sense to me.”

Now Igor and Ivan waited.

“How come he hired you to guard a two-million-dollar teapot?” Libby asked. “Wasn't he afraid it was going to be stolen?”

Ivan shook his head. “He tell us he taking care of everything. We just have to look good.”

“Do you know what he meant?” Bernie asked.

Igor shrugged. “I think he mean he's guarding it himself. Magda tell us he always take care of everything himself. He always think he know better than everyone else.”

“I'll go with that,” Bernie agreed.