Aunt Bessie Finds (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 6) (25 page)

“Just snacks and things,” Mary said.
 
She bent down and picked up one of the boxes.
 
Bessie grabbed another and they carried
them into Bessie’s kitchen.
 
Pulling
open the one she’d carried, Bessie was confronted by huge tubs of various
summer salads.
 
Mary opened a box
and Bessie looked at trays of sliced meat and cheeses and sighed.
 

“There are only going to be a handful of people here,” she told
Mary.
 
“Even if I didn’t already
have food, there’s far too much here.”

“Maybe they’ll all be happy to take some of it home with them?”
Mary suggested.
 
“I’m really sorry,
Bessie.
 
The caterers left all of
this in the kitchen and our chef was screaming about it all morning.
 
She hates mess in her kitchen, so I told
her to box it all up and I’d take it with me.
 
I suppose we can just throw it all
away.”

Bessie shook her head.
 
“Don’t be silly,” she said.
 
“That would be a terrible waste.
 
We’ll put some of it out for the party and then donate whatever’s left
at the end of the afternoon to one of the
organisations
that feed the poor.
 
I know the
woman who runs one in
Laxey
.
 
I’m sure she’ll be able to tell me who
to ring here in Douglas.”

“What a great idea,” Mary exclaimed.
 
“Why didn’t I think of that?”

“I suspect you’ve rather too much on your mind at the moment,”
Bessie told her.

“We can’t donate away the drinks, though,” Mary said.
 
“I’ve brought wine and beer and gin and
scotch and vodka, and probably a bunch of other things as well that I can’t
even remember.”

Bessie helped her carry in the smaller but heavier boxes that
contained the various drinks.
 

“I’m sorry that I brought all of this,” Mary said with a sad
smile.
 
“But I didn’t really want it
in the house.”

Bessie looked at her sharply.
 
“Why not?” she asked gently.

“George has been drinking a bit more than normal,” she
replied.
 
“I thought it was best to
eliminate some of the temptation.”

Bessie nodded and stifled a sigh.
 
It looked as if she now had a fully
stocked bar.
 
Well, her new
neighbours
would probably be impressed.
 
Or think she was a drunkard.
 

Mary helped Bessie unpack all of the food.
 
She just about managed to find space for
everything in her small kitchen and dining room area.
 
The boxes of cakes and
pies which
Mary had forgotten to mention, she carried into
her bedroom and piled on the floor near the door.
 

“Do remind me these are here,” she told Mary.
 
“I’ll start putting them out as people
eat
their
way though the food.”

“I’ll try to remember,” Mary said.
 
“But if you forget to put out the
chocolate cake, well, I’ll happily volunteer to help you eat that tomorrow.”

Bessie laughed.
 
She
couldn’t stay angry
at
Mary, who was genuinely trying
to be helpful.
 
Besides, the food
all looked delicious and it wouldn’t hurt to be very generous with her new
neighbours
and her old friends.

With Mary’s help, Bessie rearranged the bar area, until Bessie
thought it looked like something that ought to be in a restaurant.
 
There were bottles of things she was
sure she’d never heard of before.

“I don’t even know what half of these are,” she told Mary.

Mary shrugged.
 
“The
theme was Texas barbeque, so the caterers brought in an expert on American
cocktails.
 
I haven’t any recipes,
though, just bottles and bottles of drink.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“I
guess people will just have to mix up their own concoctions,” she said.

“That’s a thought,” Mary said, studying the array of bottles.

“Oh, do help yourself,” Bessie said.
 
“Or just open a bottle of wine.
 
Whatever sounds good.
”

Mary gave Bessie a wicked smile.
 
“It’s rather early to be drinking,” she
said.
 
“But a glass of wine would be
about perfect right now.”

“We’ve worked awfully hard, setting everything up,” Bessie
said.
 
“And it is a party, after
all, or it will be soon.”

“One of my staff brought me over and carried all of the boxes up
for me,” Mary told Bessie.
 
“I
didn’t have the nerve to knock on your door until it was all up here,
though.
 
I was afraid, if my driver
was still here, you’d send it all back with him.”

Bessie gave her friend a hug.
 
“Please don’t ever feel uneasy about anything with me,” she said.
 
“We figured it all out.
 
That’s what friends do.”

Mary selected a bottle from the table and found Bessie’s
corkscrew.
 
Bessie pulled down wine
glasses from her cupboard.
 
“I
suppose I should put glasses out,” she said.

“Oh, I brought glasses,” Mary exclaimed.
 
She dug through the one box that Bessie
hadn’t opened.
 
It was full of
napkins, paper plates and plastic cups and glasses in every imaginable
size.
 
Mary pulled out a stack of
wine glasses from the box.
 

“The very finest in plastic wine goblets,” she said in a solemn
tone before giggling.

“Those will be perfect for the guests,” Bessie told her.
 
“But until they get here, let’s pretend
we’re grown-ups and use the real things.”

Mary laughed and took the glass Bessie offered her.
 
“Don’t tell me you sometimes feel like
you’re just playing at being an adult,” she said.
 

“Pretty much all the time,” Bessie admitted.
 
“Whenever I chop anything with a sharp
knife, I keep expecting someone to take it off of me.”

Mary shook her head.
 
“I
thought I was the only person past fifty who felt that way,” she told
Bessie.
 
“I’m still somewhat
surprised that my children trust me to babysit my grandchildren.
 
I never felt like I was grown-up enough
to look after them.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“And I
always thought I felt like a kid at heart because I never had children of my
own.”

A knock on the door startled both women.
 
“I thought the party didn’t start until
two?” Mary said as Bessie headed towards the door.

“It doesn’t,” Bessie replied.
 
“We should have another half hour or so to ourselves.”

Doona grinned at Bessie when she pulled the door open.
 
“I hope I’m not too early,” she
said.
 
“I was bored.”

Bessie laughed and pulled her inside.
 
“Of course you aren’t too early,” she
told her best friend.
 
“Mary and I
were just getting a little head start on the fun.”

Doona greeted Mary warmly.
 
The two women didn’t know each other well, but as the wine flowed, they
quickly became better acquainted.
 
By the time two o’clock rolled around, the three were having a wonderful
time and the first bottle of wine was empty.

Chapter Twelve

Just minutes before two, Doona and Mary got busy in the kitchen,
getting things that needed heating ready to go into the oven, while Bessie
paced back and forth, waiting for someone to knock on her door.

“Where is everyone?” she asked her friends at five minutes past
two.

“Be patient,” Doona told her.
 
“We’re here, at least.”

“And I’m ever so grateful for that.
 
But we have enough food for an army,”
Bessie complained.

“And Hugh’s away,” Doona said with a sigh.
 

“More’s the pity,” Bessie replied.
 
A moment later, a knock came and Bessie
scurried to answer it.

“Ah, Bessie, I do hope I’m not first,” Bertie said as he gave her a
hug.
 

“Oh, no, a few friends came early to help,” Bessie told him.
 
She was sure he looked momentarily
disappointed, but she didn’t have time to worry about that.
 
As she offered him a drink, someone else
knocked.

Doona quickly offered to oversee the bar so that Bessie could
handle the door.
 

Bessie pulled open the door and smiled at the woman on the other
side of it.
 
Muriel Kerry was just a
bit too large to be what Bessie would consider “pleasantly plump.”
 
Her white hair was again piled into a
messy knot that Bessie could only assume had started the day near the top of
her head, but it had now slid both down and sideways so that it seemed to stick
out from somewhere behind her left ear.
 
Her glasses were huge, with black frames, and they seemed to dominate
her face.
 
She was dressed all in
black, in a sleeveless shirt and long trousers.
 

“Hello, again,” she said now, her Scottish accent unmistakable.

“Mrs. Kerry, I’m so glad you’ve come,” Bessie replied.

“Ah, you must call me Muriel,” the woman said.

“Of course, and I’m Bessie.
 
Do come in,” Bessie invited.
 
“Bertie is already here.”

“Aye, he would be,” Muriel replied.
 

Bessie wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but before she could
ask, she heard a door open in the corridor.
 
A moment later Bahey and Howard were on
their way towards Bessie.

Muriel wandered into Bessie’s flat, while Bessie waited for her
friends.
 

“You look lovely,” she told Bahey, who’d obviously gone to some
effort for the party.
 
Bahey rarely
wore makeup or fussed with her appearance, but today she’d not only put on
lipstick, but she was wearing a pretty summer dress and a pair of low-heeled
shoes.

 
“As do you,” Howard
told Bessie, after he’d kissed her cheek.
 
He was looking rather dapper in a pair of dressy trousers with a shirt
and tie.
 
Bessie ushered them into
the flat and left them in
Doona’s
capable hands.
 
Doona would make sure everyone was
introduced to everyone else, Bessie was sure of that.
 
Most of the
neighbours
ought to know one another, anyway.

Mary was bustling around arranging and rearranging the food, which
kept her from having to talk to people.
 
Bessie felt sorry for her shy friend, but before she could speak to her,
someone else knocked.

Marjorie Stevens, Bessie’s good friend from the Manx Museum Library,
smiled back at Bessie when she opened the door.

“I can’t believe you’ve actually moved into Douglas,” she told
Bessie, giving her a huge hug.
 

“Neither can I,” Bessie murmured.

Liz Martin, whom Bessie had met in one of Marjorie’s Manx language classes,
had come with her.

“Welcome to the
neighbourhood
,” she told
Bessie.
 
“I’m only a few blocks
away, so if you ever need anything, give me a ring.
 
I’m home with the kids and I always
welcome a few minutes of adult conversation.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“Thank
you,” she told the young woman.
 
She
escorted her friends into the flat.
 
She’d just begun introductions when someone else knocked.
 

“Ah, yes, well, good afternoon,” the woman at the
door
said stiffly when Bessie opened it.
 

Bessie hid a smile as she
recognised
the
woman she’d seen through the crack that the safety chain allowed at flat
nine.
 
Bessie reckoned that Ruth
Ansel
was so thin that she’d seen just about
all of the
woman through the tiny crack.
 
She was dressed in a summer suit that
was spotless and immaculately ironed.
 
As Bessie escorted her into the flat, she wondered if the suit would
have the nerve to wrinkle if Ruth were to decide to sit down.

A few moments later, Simon O’Malley arrived, escorting
Tammara
Flynn.
 
Bessie smiled at them both as she let them in.
 

“You’re looking smashing,” Simon told Bessie.
 
“That
colour
is perfect for you.”

“Oh, thank you,” Bessie replied.
 

“So many women seem to be afraid of
colour
,”
Simon said softly.
 
“But life’s too
short to wear black all the time.”

Bessie’s eyes inadvertently slid to Muriel, who was standing next
to Bertie and seemingly hanging on his every word.

Simon sighed deeply.
 
“I
could help her,” he whispered to Bessie.
 
“But she doesn’t want my assistance.”

“Never you mind,”
Tammara
said, slipping
her arm around Simon.
 
“You stick to
helping me.”

Simon laughed.
 
“But
you’re already perfect,” he told the woman.

“Ah, flattery will get you everywhere,” she said, giving him a
wink.

Bessie headed back to the door, expecting another knock, but all
was quiet at the moment.
 
By the
time she’d walked the very short distance back, Doona had already supplied
everyone with drinks and Mary was pulling the last of the food from the
refrigerator.

“Who needs fancy caterers?” Bessie whispered to Doona as her friend
handed her another glass of wine.

“I don’t know,” Doona said.
 
“But I think I’d quite like someone to turn up in a few hours to clear
everything away.”

Bessie couldn’t help but agree with that as she glanced around her
little flat.
 
It was already
beginning to look a mess and the party had just started.
 

“Please make sure to eat a lot,” Bessie told everyone.
 
“There’s far more food than we can get
through.”

Bessie let everyone mingle for a moment, while she sipped her
wine.
 
Then she wandered over to
where Simon and
Tammara
were fixing themselves plates
of food.

“Do you still have that mirror outside your flat?” Bessie asked
after a few innocent pleasantries.
 

“Mirror?” Simon looked confused.
 
“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“When I stopped by the other day, there was a mirror hanging
outside your flat,” Bessie replied.
 
“I’m only asking because it looked the same as the one that’s now
hanging outside my flat, but I don’t know where that one came from or why it’s
there.”

Tammara
laughed.
 
“That mirror!” she
exclaimed.
 
“The management keeps
moving it around the building.
 
I
think they must have some sort of strange plan for where it goes, but I can’t
quite figure it out.”

Simon shrugged.
 
“I
can’t say as I really noticed it,” he told Bessie.
 
“But maybe it wasn’t at my flat for
long.
 
I know
Tammara
mentioned something about it in the past, though.”
 

“It was across the hall from my door for ages,”
Tammara
told Bessie.
 
“And just when I
started getting used to it, it disappeared.”

“Strange,” Bessie murmured.

“It’s the building manager who’s strange,”
Tammara
told her in a confiding tone.

“Why?” Bessie asked.

“He flirts with all of the women in the building, for one thing,”
Simon interjected.
 
“They’re all
rather older than he is, but that doesn’t seem to stop him.
 
He was even dating Linda, the woman who
used to own this flat.
 
I can’t
imagine what she saw in him.”

“Me, either,”
Tammara
said.
 
“He’s creepy and odd.”

“He does seem rather odd,” Bessie agreed.

“He’s actually a very nice man,” Muriel said firmly as she began to
fill her plate.
 
“We’ve had dinner
together once or twice, not that we’re dating or anything, just as friends.”
 
She glanced over at Bertie to see if he’d
heard her, but he was chatting animatedly with Doona.

“He didn’t happen to explain why there’s always noises in the
middle of the night from flat five, did he?”
Tammara
asked.

Muriel shook her head.
 
“We didn’t talk about the building.
  
We talked about ourselves.
 
He’s had a rough time of it, with his
mother.”

“She’s not well,” Simon told Bessie.
 
“Sometimes she sits in the foyer with
Nigel, watching the people go in and out, but mostly she’s confined to his
flat.
 
She can’t get around without
a wheelchair and she’s usually quite mentally unfocussed as well.”

“It’s very hard for him,” Muriel said.

“Are you talking about poor Nigel?” Ruth asked.
 
“I did suggest that he try modifying his
mother’s diet, but he doesn’t like to risk upsetting her.”

“He told me she has a terrible temper,” Muriel said.
 
“I’ve never seen any evidence of it, but
that’s what he said.”

“He’s so dedicated to her,” Ruth said with a sigh.
 
“The poor man never gets to have any
fun.”

“He so enjoyed dinner with me, the last time we went out,” Muriel
said.
 
“And then, at the end of the
evening, he’d forgotten his wallet.
 
He was so embarrassed, but I didn’t mind treating.”

Ruth frowned.
 
“He
forgot his wallet when we had lunch together one day, as well,” she said
thoughtfully.

“You must be talking about Nigel,” Bertie said, joining the
conversation.
 
“Linda said he forgot
his wallet at least once a week when they were dating.”

“How very careless of him,” Bessie said quietly.

“As I said, I don’t mind treating for a meal now and then,” Muriel
said, her tone defensive.
 
“He has a
difficult life, does Nigel, and I’m sure money is quite tight for him.”

“He tried that trick on me as well,”
Tammara
said with a laugh.
 
“We’d only gone
for a
cuppa
, but I wasn’t falling for it.
 
I waited in the restaurant while he went
and got some money.
 
Funnily enough,
he hasn’t asked me to have a drink with him again.”

“He’s never asked me,” Simon said with a wicked grin.
 
“I guess I should be grateful.”

Bessie chuckled.
 
“I
don’t think he’ll be asking me, but if he does, I think I’ll politely decline.”

Another knock on the door interrupted the conversation.
 
Bessie hurried to open it.
 

“Hello, you must be Bessie,” the woman at the door said.
 
She was sturdily built with a kind and
friendly face.
 
Her grey hair was
cut in a short bob.
 
The frames of
her glasses were turquoise and matched her jumper almost exactly.

“I am, indeed,” Bessie answered.

“I’m Mabel Carson, and I’m just on my way to watch my grandson at
taekwondo, so I can’t stay.
 
I
wanted to pop around and meet you, though, and welcome you to the building.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Bessie replied.

“I wish I could stay and chat, although it sounds as if you have
quite the party going on,” Mabel said, waving a hand towards Bessie’s
flat.
 
“Tell everyone I said
‘hello,’ will you?
 
I’ll try to
catch you another time, but I’m rather very busy, really.”