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Authors: Isis Crawford

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Chapter 15
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“D
o you believe him?” Libby asked Bernie once Duncan’s taillight had vanished into the traffic.
“About the pictures?”
“Yes, Bernie. About the pictures.”
Bernie folded her arms across her chest. “You know, Libby, I almost think that I do. It’ll be interesting to talk to the remaining members of the crew and hear what they have to say.”
“But not now,” Libby said, more forcefully than she intended. “We have to get back to the shop.”
“We will,” Bernie said as she turned and studied the guest house.
Watching Bernie study the cottage, Libby knew exactly what her sister was thinking. “Absolutely not,” she said.
“Absolutely not, what?” Bernie said, playing the innocence card.
Libby pointed to the ADT sign that was on the lawn in front of the main house. “That’s why not.”
“We don’t know Bree actually has a security system installed in the guest house,” Bernie told her. “She could have just put the sign up.”
“You’re right. She could have,” Libby said. “But knowing Bree, I find that highly unlikely.”
“I don’t. I think that’s exactly the kind of thing she’d do,” Bernie opined. Bree was one of those odd people who’d buy a Mercedes, but keep her house at fifty-five degrees because she didn’t want to spend money on the utility bill.
Libby bent down and retied her sneaker before she slipped and fell, something it would be just her luck to do. “I don’t want to find out if you’re wrong,” she told her sister after she stood up. “As far as I’m concerned one family brush with the law is enough for the time being. And anyway, Duncan is our client. You don’t do things like that to your client.”
“Is that written somewhere in the Detective Rule Handbook?” Bernie asked her.
Libby ignored her. “Now, do you want to drive or shall I?”
“I will,” Bernie grumped. “But we’re missing a good opportunity.”
“To get arrested,” Libby said, unable to resist the temptation to have the last word.
Bernie muttered something and stomped toward the van, with Libby following. They hit traffic on the way, so it took them a half hour to get back to A Little Taste of Heaven.
“Jeez,” Libby said when she walked through the door and saw how packed the shop was.
The moment she and Bernie had threaded their way through the crowd and stepped to the other side of the counter, Amber pulled them aside and told them they were running low on cookies. Someone Amber didn’t know had come in and almost cleaned them out.
“I guess it’s good we came back when we did,” Bernie said grudgingly as she and Libby headed into the kitchen and got straight to work.
An hour later, working as fast as they could, Libby and Bernie had finished making two batches of chocolate-chip peanut-butter cookies, a batch of snickerdoodles, a batch of pecan shortbreads, and two batches of mint-chocolate brownies with chocolate icing.
Libby was taking a short break and sampling one of the brownies that she’d just finished icing, while she admired the pies Amber had made. She was complimenting her on a job well done when the kitchen door slammed open and Bree came storming in with Googie, one of the counne iv witer boys, right behind her.
“I tried to stop her,” he told Libby. She noted Googie was practically wringing his hands in dismay.
“It’s okay,” Libby replied. She nodded to the front. “Go back and wait on the customers.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” Libby said firmly. Then she turned to Bree. “So,” she said. “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?” Not that she didn’t have a pretty good idea already about what Bree wanted.
As it turned out, Libby was one hundred percent correct.
Bree put her hands on her hips. Her face was flushed. “I don’t believe it,” she said.
Bernie put down the pan she was washing and came over. “What don’t you believe?” she asked Bree, noting as she did that today Bree was in head-to-toe hot pink Chanel.
Bree clutched at her pocketbook. “That you’re standing here doing nothing when they’re charging Duncan for Liza’s murder. I told him that girl was no good. I told him she was going to get him into trouble, and she has. But has he ever listened to me? No. And now that he’s gotten himself in trouble, I’m the one who has to bail him out,” Bree ranted. “My sister is positively useless. I have to take care of everything. Absolutely everything. My back is killing me and I had to miss my appointment with my massage therapist today because of this. It’ll be another week before I can get to see him!”
“Yes,” Bernie said dryly. “I’ve always found murder to be inconvenient in the extreme.”
“What do you mean by that?” Bree snapped. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“Not at all,” Bernie murmured, having decided that maybe her mother had been right and there was nothing to be gained by being a smart-ass. “I’m sorry I misspoke.”
Mollified, Bree opened her bag, took out a Xanax, and popped it in her mouth. “I’m just so upset. So upset. I can’t believe this is happening to us.” She closed the bag with a loud snap.
Given the emotional tenor, Libby decided not to point out that whatever was happening was happening to Duncan, not to Bree. “So where are they holding Duncan?” she asked instead.
“At the cottage. He’s under house arrest. House arrest.” Bree’s voice rose at the indignation of it all. “He has to wear an ankle bracelet. It’s horrible. He shouldn’t be charged with any of this. The whole thing is ridiculous and it just keeps getting worse and worse.”
A sentiment Bernie was inclined to agree with. At least the getting worse part. “Well, I guess that’s better than being in jail,” Bernie said, trying for optimism.
Bree sighed and patted her chest. “I have to hire guards around the clock. Do you have any idea how much that costs?”
“A lot?” Libby said tentatively.
Bree’s nostrils flared. “That’s putting it mildly. I could take a three-month cruise around the world for what I’m shelling out for this.” Bree frowned. Talking about it had put her back in a terrible mood. She shook a finger at Libby. “I want you to do something about this. I want you to do something about this now. Not stand around and bake things, for heaven’s sake. This is an emergency.”
“What would you like us to do?” Libby asked.
Bree took a step toward Libby and poked her in her shoulder with her finger. “What do you mean, what do I want you to do? What kind of stupid question is that? Oionk abviously, I want you to find the killer and I want you to find him now, so we—meaning my family—can get on with our lives.”
“It could be a woman,” Bernie said, just to have something to say.
As Bree whirled around and faced Bernie, Bernie told herself that she never knew when to leave well enough alone. Then it occurred to Bernie, as she noted Bree’s complexion getting redder by the minute and the slight slur in Bree’s speech, that Bree might have stopped off for a cocktail or two or three along the way. After all, even though Bernie couldn’t smell the alcohol on Bree’s breath, that didn’t mean anything. Bree could be drinking vodka. Which made sense to her because if she was in Bree’s position, Bernie thought she might be inclined to hit the bottle right about now.
Bree waved her hands in the air. “Listen,” she told Bernie. “I don’t care if the killer is a man or a woman. I don’t care if the killer is a pink baboon. I paid you a large sum of money and I expect you to do your job, not make things worse.”
“But,” Bernie said, “we told you that—”
“I don’t want excuses. I want results,” Bree snarled. “Otherwise ...” She stopped. Then she whirled around and stalked out of the kitchen.
“Wow,” said Amber. “That was pretty intense. Was she drunk?”
Bernie clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Maybe so.”
“I’ve never seen Bree that out of control before,” Libby observed.
“Yeah,” Bernie said. “She was a tad upset.”
“A tad?” Amber said. “A tad? What do you think she meant by ‘otherwise’?”
Libby shook her head. “I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s nothing good.”
“Could she do something bad to us?”
“Like what?”
Amber shrugged. “I don’t know. Close us down.” Bernie laughed. “No. But on the other hand, it’s never good to have an influential member of the community mad at you if you’re a business owner.”
“See,” Libby said, “I knew this would happen if we took this case.”
“Whine, whine, whine,” Bernie shot back.
“So what are you going to do?” Amber cried.
Libby patted Amber on the back and said, “We’re going to try to get to the bottom of this. Just the way we were doing before.”
“Only faster,” Bernie added. “Here, have a snickerdoodle.” And she took one off the tray and handed it to Amber, then took one for herself.
The recipe was her mother’s and Bernie had never meddled with it because it was perfect. As she ate it she thought about the interplay between the cinnamon and sugar against one another. The clash of the sweet and the spicy really couldn’t be beat, she decided. But then salty and sweet weren’t too bad either. Witness the combo of milk chocolate and salt or caramels and salt.
Amber rubbed her hands together. “But what if Duncan is guilty? What if you can’t find proof that he didn’t murder those two people?”
“Simple. We’ll make some up,” Bernie told her.
“My sister’s kidding,” Libby said, catching the expression on Amber’s face. Then she tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry. If anything is there, we’ll find it.”
Amber looked dubious.
“What?” Bernie asked Amberie is. “You don’t think we will?”
“It’s not that,” Amber told her as she nervously wound one of her pink pigtails around her finger. Last week her hair had been bright orange.
“Then what is it?” Libby asked.
Amber fidgeted some more.
“Well,” Bernie said.
“I think you will ...” Amber replied.
“But?” Libby said.
“But not everyone does,” Amber said.
“And who would everyone be?” Bernie asked.
Amber let go of her braid. “Okay. You know how I delivered that big tray of cookies to the school fund-raiser?”
Bernie and Libby both nodded.
“Well,” Amber went on, “there were two cops there and they were talking. The big one, the one with the short hair and the kinda funny nose who always buys two cranberry-orange muffins and a light coffee to go with two sugars ...”
“Don Rhodes,” Bernie said promptly. “What about him?”
“I think I heard them betting on finding evidence, and Rhodes said you were going to lose. The other cop said you were going to win.”
“Who was the other cop?” Libby asked.
Amber bit her lip while she t
hought. After a moment she said, “He was kind of a short guy.” Amber touched underneath her eye. “Has some kind of scar there. Comes in occasionally for ginger chicken and potato and leek soup.”
“Cole,” Bernie said promptly. “I always liked him. I wonder how big the betting pool is.”
“Bernie,” Libby warned.
“I was just thinking, Libby.”
“Well, don’t,” Libby told her sister. “I think we have enough drama around here as it is.”
Chapter 16
 
A
s Sean hung up the phone, he thought about what Orion had just told him. It was certainly interesting, but he wasn’t prepared to share the information with Libby and Bernie yet. He wanted to check some things out first. Orion could be lying. Although he really had no reason to. But then, Sean mused, sometimes people did anyway. Heaven knows he’d seen enough of that.
On the other hand, Orion had called him back and he didn’t have to. There was that. Oh well. Eventually everything would sort itself out. It always did, given enough time. And on that thought Sean clicked on the television and settled in to watch the six o’clock news while he wondered what was for dinner.
 
Despite Bree’s outburst, progress on the Duncan case came to a halt over the next two days. Even though Bernie and Libby needed to talk to the remaining members of the Corned Beef and Cabbage Club ASAP, that wasn’t possible. They were going to have to wait until Monday morning since Liam, Patrick, and Connor and their significant others had gone to Vegas for a long weekend and weren’t scheduled to return to Longely until late Sunday night. This left the Simmonses with little to do regarding the investigation.
By Sunday morning Bernie was suffering from a severe bout of impatience. She felt she had to do something. In addition, the bet between Rhodes and Cole gnawed at her. She couldn’t seem to let it go. Especially because she kept t a Xidth="1em"seeing the smirk Don Rhodes had given her when she and Libby ran into him at the supermarket on Saturday afternoon. Libby told her she was imagining things, but Bernie knew she wasn’t.
When Bernie broached the subject of their lack of progress in the case to her dad, he waved her off, telling her that he was working another angle and that he’d fill her in when he knew more. That annoyed her. Then he told her to calm down, and that annoyed her even more. But truth be told, at that moment everything annoyed her.
Bernie went into the kitchen downstairs to whine to Libby about how their dad was acting, but Libby, who was knee-deep in making a terrine, didn’t want to hear about it.
“Dad’s correct,” Libby told her. “Everyone will be back in less than twenty-four hours. We can do what we need to do then.” She pointed to the office. “On the other hand, we are really behind on our book work. We have papers that need to be filed and forms that need to be filled out. Now might be a good time to do that.”
“You’re right,” Bernie admitted reluctantly, not being able to think of an alternative answer quickly enough. This, of course, was the last thing she wanted to do. She hated paperwork and there was a lot of it when you owned a business. Way too much, if you asked her.
Bernie went in and started in on the filing, but she kept on thinking of Mike Sweeney and what they knew and what they didn’t know about him and about how she could ask better questions of Liam, Patrick, and Connor if she knew what to ask. And what better way to do that than taking a peek inside Mike Sweeney’s house? After all, if you want to know about a crime, start with the victim. At least that’s what her dad always said. After about twenty minutes of staring at the invoices from Chocolates Inc., invoices that she was sure she’d already paid, she stood up and went into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Libby asked as she watched Bernie fill a large thermos with coffee and grab four muffins.
“I’m going out,” Bernie told her, heading for the door.
“I can see that. Where? To do what?” Libby asked.
But Bernie didn’t answer her.
Maybe she didn’t hear me, Libby thought as she turned back to consider the salmon and spinach terrine en croute that she was making. It was one of those complicated fussy productions that she made every once in a while only to rediscover that she really didn’t like doing things like this, which was why she didn’t make them very often. They tasted good, but not good enough to justify all the time and effort it took constructing them.
Bernie had heard her sister, however. She had just chosen not to answer her. Was it so wrong not to have a discussion with her sister or by extension with her dad on what she was about to do? What was the big deal? She was just going to walk into Mike Sweeney’s apartment and take a quick look around, for heaven’s sake. And with Brandon’s help that should be a piece of cake. After all, what good was a set of lock picks if you never used them? It was like having a pair of Manolos that you never wore.
Which is why Bernie had arrived at Brandon’s house at eight-thirty in the morning armed with a large thermos of French roast coffee, light on the sugar and heavy on the cream, and four muffins, two banana-chocolate-chip, one corn, and one blueberry, woke him up, dragged him out of bed, and into his Jeep. Half an hour later she was having second thoughts about the wisdom of her course of action.
“I changed my mind. You don’t have to do this,” Bernie told Brandon as they sat in his Jeep in the R Jee oite Aid parking lot, which was kitty-corner to the house Mike Sweeney had lived in. It was almost nine o’clock on Sunday morning and the lot was deserted. It was gray and raw out, the kind of day where people woke up, looked out the window, and rolled over and went back to sleep. Which was one of the reasons Bernie had decided to do this.
Brandon turned off the engine, took another sip of his coffee, and polished off the second banana-chocolate-chip muffin before saying, “Let me get this straight. You woke me up to ask me to do this, dragged me out of bed under protest, and now you’ve changed your mind? What are you, nuts?”
Bernie sniffed. “There’s no need to be so insulting.”
“Insulting?”
“Yes. Insulting. I changed my mind because you’re being so grumpy.”
“Because I’ve had four hours of sleep.” Brandon thought for a moment. “No. Make that three and a half.”
“Whose fault is that?” Bernie demanded. “Yours obviously. Anyway, as I was saying, since you’re being so grumpy and after I brought you coffee and muffins too—”
“I’m not being grumpy,” Brandon protested. “I’m tired.”
Bernie tossed her head and threw her hair back. “Well, whatever you are, I’m changing my mind about having you help me.” She poured herself another half cup of coffee and took a sip. It was excellent if she had to say so herself. And the Demerara sugar she was using added just the right caramel undertone. “I’ll do this by myself.”
“How are you going to get in?” Brandon asked her. “Break a window?”
Bernie straightened up and put her coffee cup in the holder. “I can pick a lock if I have to,” she told him.
“Not with my picks you can’t.”
“I can do it without them,” Bernie told him. Which was entirely untrue, but she was not going to admit the converse.
“If you had three hours, maybe,” Brandon scoffed. “And even then I doubt it.”
Bernie shook a finger at him. “There you go insulting me again.”
“I’m not insulting you.” Brandon eyed the blueberry muffin. “I’m speaking the truth.”
“Your truth, which is vastly different from everyone else’s truth.” Bernie put her hand on the door handle. “I don’t care what you think. I’m doing it.”
“Really?” Brandon said as he gulped down the remaining coffee in his cup.
“Yes. Really.”
Brandon raised an eyebrow. This he felt was not a good idea. For several reasons. The most obvious one being that Bernie would get caught and then he would have to try to explain to Bernie’s father how this had happened. It would not be a nice conversation.
“Does your father know what you’re doing?”
Bernie smiled. “Of course he does.”
“You’re lying. Your father would absolutely not approve of your doing this.”
Bernie flushed. “I’m not lying,” she told him even though she was.
“Right. I can always tell when you are.”
Bernie opened her eyes as wide as possible. “Why would I lie?” she asked.
Brandon snorted. “Don’t do your Miss Innocent look with me. I’m immune to it. Your dad would pitch a fit.”
“So what if he does?”
“So he would blame me.”
Bernie sniffed. “Excuse me. I’m not chattel, you know. I’m an adult.”
“Sometimes you don’t act like one,” Brandon observed.
“I really resent that,” Bernie said. “Furthermore, I think my reasons for doing this make sense.”
“You never told me your reasons.”
“Yes I did. You weren’t listening.”
“I was asleep.”
“That’s no excuse.”
Brandon sighed. “Okay. Tell me them again.”
So Bernie explained. Mostly. Leaving out the part about the bet, which might not even be true because Amber could be somewhat fuzzy from time to time.
“At this moment,” she told Brandon, who was finishing up the last of his coffee while he listened, “the only evidence the police have are the pics we found on Liza’s laptop.”
“So you’ve said.” Brandon stifled a yawn. He was so tired even the coffee wasn’t helping. “To my mind those point to Liam, Connor, or Patrick. Which is a good thing,” he added.
Bernie brushed a lock of hair out of her eye. “One would think. But if that were the case the DA wouldn’t have charged Duncan.”
Brandon frowned. “I know.”
“Which is why I want to look in Sweeney’s house and see if we can find some evidence pointing to someone else.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Brandon said, sitting back in his seat and turning the heater in the Jeep up a little to combat the chill. “From what I’ve seen at the bar, Duncan never struck me as the type of guy who would kill a woman over something like that. He’d just walk away and bad-mouth her on Facebook.” He shrugged. “But then you never really know what someone will do, do you?”
“No, you don’t,” Bernie said, thinking back to some of her less fortunate past encounters with the opposite sex.
Brandon was silent for a moment, then said, “There were no pictures of Sweeney on the laptop, right?”
Bernie nodded. “That is correct.”
“And the two murders are supposed to be related.”
Bernie nodded again. “That’s what the police are saying.”
Brandon took a sip of his coffee. “But you don’t think so?”
“No. I do.” Bernie ate the last bit of her corn-bread muffin.
“So then why did Duncan kill Sweeney? The police say it had to do with the photos. But Sweeney didn’t have anything to do with the photos. Unless he’s on another site. Or unless the police know something we don’t.”
“Exactly,” Bernie said. “Which I don’t believe is the case. At least, according to Clyde it isn’t. Which leaves us going back to the scenario of Duncan being set up.”
“And how will looking through Mike Sweeney’s house help to prove that?” Brandon asked.
Bernie bit her lip. “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess I can’t think of anything else to do.”
Brandon crumpled up the paper cup he’d been drinking coffee out of and threw it in the garbage bag on the floor of his Jeep. “What makes you think you’ll find something at Sweeney’s house that the police haven’t?” he asked.
Bernie turned and faced him. “But that’s thet t threw it point,” she cried. “The police haven’t been there yet.”
Brandon blinked. “I don’t believe it.”
“That’s what Clyde said and there’s no reason for him to lie.”
“That’s just too ...”
“Irresponsible?” Bernie asked.
“Why would they do that?” Brandon said.
Bernie shrugged. “I’m guessing because they think they have the culprit, so they don’t have to investigate further. That’s why I want to get in there now.”
Brandon sighed. Bernie smiled. She knew she had him.
“I should be shot,” he said.
Bernie leaned over and hugged him. “All you have to do is open the back door for me. Then wait in the car.”
“I don’t think so,” Brandon said.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Bernie told Brandon in her most pious tone as she pulled her hoodie up and zipped up her jacket.
“It’s a little late for that,” Brandon observed as he did likewise. “My dad always told me that women lead you astray.”
Bernie laughed and punched Brandon in the arm. Then he and Bernie got out of the Jeep and climbed over the metal guardrail that separated the pharmacy from the house that Mike Sweeney had been living in. It was showtime.

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