A Catered Birthday Party Part 14

Rick looked back at her, a puzzled expression on his face. "Why?" he finally said. "That wasn't very nice. That wasn't nice at all. In fact, it was downright mean. What did I ever do to you? That's what I want to know."

"Nothing," Bernie told him. "You've never done anything to me. I just wanted to get some information. I figured that this would be a good way of getting you talking."

"You could have just asked," Rick said. "That would have been easier."

"Agreed," Bernie said. "It certainly would have been easier on poor Marvin."

"What you did is not good for me," Rick went on as if Bernie hadn't spoken. "I have trust issues. And this whole thing has reactivated them. It's going to make it difficult for me to sleep, which is bad for my immune system. I'm going to have to call my therapist. In fact, I could call my lawyer and sue you for emotional distress."

"Do you have a lawyer?" Bernie asked him.

Rick hesitated a moment too long before saying, "Of course I do."

Bernie leaned back slightly. "That's good," she said. "Considering you might need one when the police find out about you and Annabel."

"There's nothing between me and Annabel," Rick cried.

"That's not what I heard," Bernie retorted. "But I guess I got my info wrong. I guess you weren't the go-to guy for her."

Priscilla scowled. "Why do you want to know about her?" she demanded of Bernie.

"Are you his lawyer?" Bernie demanded.

"No. I'm his friend. His good friend," Priscilla said, emphasizing the word good, in case Bernie didn't get it.

"Fine then," Bernie replied. "I'm asking because she was murdered and I'm investigating her death."

"She wasn't murdered," Priscilla said. "The papers said it was an accident."

"Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't," Bernie said.

"Well..." Priscilla began but Rick interrupted.

"Whatever it was doesn't matter," he said. "Because I didn't have anything to do with it."

Bernie raised an eyebrow. "But you were involved with her."

Rick a.s.sumed an injured expression. Bernie was surprised he wasn't holding his hands to his heart and crying, "Oh, the calumny of it all."

"She was my patron," he said. "She believed in me. She believed in my craft. So if you want to call that being involved, then yes, we were involved."

"How touching. I didn't know she had an artistic side. Tell me, does paying for your chest implants qualify as helping your acting career?" Bernie asked.

"Your what?!" Priscilla shrieked.

Everyone in the bar turned around.

"It's nothing," Rick told Priscilla as he hushed her. "Everyone does it these days."

"I don't think Laurence Olivier would have done that," Bernie observed.

Priscilla and Rick ignored her.

"Rick," Priscilla said, "you told me you got your body working out at the gym every day-that's why you needed me to pay for your training."

"Priscilla, darling," Rick told her. "My sweet. I do need the gym every day. I need my trainer and my ma.s.seuse. It's just that sometimes people need that little extra edge. That's all. It's not a big deal."

Bernie ran her finger around the edge of her beer can. "I bet Annabel thought it was. I mean, she must have liked you a lot to fork up that kind of dough. So I'll tell you what interests me. What interests me is that I hear she was cutting you off. No more money for Rick. So what did you do to p.i.s.s her off? That's what I want to know. Or maybe she found someone else. Someone with a little more...on the ball."

Rick's face started to get red. "That's a lie."

"She gave you money?" Priscilla demanded.

"No. No. No," Rick said to Priscilla. "You don't understand."

"That's not what your ex told me," Bernie said, adding fuel to the fire. "She told me she gave you plenty."

"That b.i.t.c.h," Rick spat out. "I might have known. You can't believe anything she says."

"Like the fact that you owe her thirty thousand dollars."

Rick snorted. "What a crock. She gave me money for a business and I invested in one." Rick poked himself in the chest. "Me. I'm the business. I'm a gilt-edged investment. I've told her that when I get famous I'll pay her back, but she can't hear that because she's jealous that I'm going someplace, that I'm going to be rich and famous, while she's stuck in some stupid, pathetic day job...."

"Hey. I have a day job," Priscilla cried.

"Not you, babykins." Rick gave her a peck on the cheek. "I wasn't talking about you. You've got...soul. You've got theater in your blood. Joanna is a civilian."

Priscilla pushed him away. Judging from the expression on her face she wasn't convinced. "You were taking money from Annabel?"

Rick opened his mouth to reply, but Priscilla didn't give him a chance. "You told me you were broke. You told me you were going to be out on the street if you didn't get money together to pay your rent."

"It's true," Rick said. He raised his hand. "I swear. You can talk to my landlord if you want. In fact, I insist. Here, let me write down the number for you." He patted his shirt and his pants. "Drats. I don't have a pen."

Bernie smiled. "I do."

He glared at her as she handed him the pen and a piece of paper. He scribbled something down and handed it to Priscilla, who shoved it in her bag without bothering to look at it.

"How much were you getting from Annabel?" Priscilla asked, returning to the matter under discussion.

"I wasn't getting any money," Rick replied.

The key here is the word money, Bernie decided. "Priscilla, ask him about his car," she suggested, guessing that the BMW in the parking lot belonged to Rick.

Priscilla put both hands on her hips. "Well?" she demanded.

"She insisted," Rick said in a piteous voice. Bernie could have sworn she saw the beginning of tears in his eyes. "You wouldn't want me to have hurt her feelings, would you? She was so fragile. If I had refused she would have seen it as a rejection of her."

Bernie rolled her eyes. "Can't you come up with something better? That's so lame I'm embarra.s.sed for you. On the other hand, I have to give you kudos for the tears. They were a nice touch. In short, I'd give your material a D- and your performance a B+."

Priscilla ignored her. "Really?" Priscilla said as she spoke to Rick and pretended Bernie wasn't there.

"Yes, really," Rick said. "The only reason I didn't tell you was that I was afraid you would misinterpret it. And you have." He clasped both of Priscilla's hands in his. "You're my muse. You know you mean everything to me. Without you I'm nothing."

Bernie could see Priscilla start to fold. In another five minutes she'd give it up. Bernie was about to say that when Libby called and told her she was on her way. It was time to go. She'd gotten as much as she was going to get anyway. Bernie put on her jacket, picked up her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. Then she picked up her Bud Light, raised the can, and poured it over Rick Crouse's head.

"This is for Marvin," she said as she started walking away.

Rick froze. This was a good thing, Bernie decided. Otherwise he might have decked her too. He was still in shock when Priscilla grabbed a bunch of napkins off the bar and started blotting at his face and neck. Then he came out of it. He grabbed the napkins out of Priscilla's hands and pushed her away.

"Leave me alone," he snarled.

Bernie kept going.

"You come back here!" he screamed at her.

Like that's going to happen, Bernie thought as she picked up her pace.

"I'm going to sue you!" Rick yelled at Bernie as she reached the door. "I'm going to sue you for millions of dollars for the pain and suffering you've caused me. That's what I'm going to do."

Bernie turned around. "Go right ahead. And I'm going to countersue you for the pain and suffering and mental anguish you've caused by inflicting on me the worst performance of Brick that I have ever seen." Which wasn't quite true, but at this moment exaggeration seemed to be the order of the day. As Bernie watched Rick ball his hands up into fists, she decided she might have gone too far. "Okay, maybe I did overstate," Bernie told him. "But you shouldn't have done what you did to Marvin either."

It didn't seem to help. Rick took a step toward her and Bernie ran out the door. Luckily Libby was pulling up alongside the door just then.

"Go!" Bernie yelled as she yanked open the van door on the pa.s.senger side and jumped in.

"What's going on?" Libby asked.

"I'll explain later," Bernie cried. "Just move."

Libby tromped on the gas. The van lurched forward and they were off-at forty miles an hour. They were clearing the parking lot when Rick came bursting through the door with Priscilla in hot pursuit.

Libby checked the rearview mirror as they made a right onto Church Street. n.o.body was behind them. She sighed in relief. It would have taken all of two seconds for Rick's BMW to catch up with A Little Taste of Heaven's van.

"Don't do this again," she told Bernie as she slowed down to thirty miles an hour, the speed the van was happiest at. The van could actually do fifty if pressed, but it began to get the wobbles.

"I won't," Bernie said. And she meant it too. For the moment.

Chapter 15.

It was a little after seven-thirty the next morning, and Bernie and her dad were sitting at the breakfast table talking about last night's events. The morning was cold and gray. The weather forecast had promised more snow later in the afternoon. For now, though, things were quiet.

As Bernie looked out the window, she could see the first of her customers filing in for their early morning coffee, m.u.f.fins, and scones. There was Mr. Ryan, Mrs. Cortes, and the Gleason twins. The twins always came in for one cranberry m.u.f.fin and one chocolate chip m.u.f.fin each, plus two large coffees with double sugar and skimmed milk.

Some of the shop customers, like old Mrs. Frederiks, had been coming here since Bernie's mom had opened the place. As Bernie watched Nathan Landow come in for his walnut scone and hot chocolate after his morning run, she decided that their customers-most of them, except for a select few-made all the aggravation of running a place like this worth it.

She would miss them if-G.o.d forbid-something happened. So many small businesses were going under these days, they were lucky they were hanging on. Well, they were doing better then just hanging on. They were paying their bills and having enough left over to put some aside, which was all you could ask for, really. She even had enough to indulge her shoe addiction from time to time.

As she thought about it, she realized she would miss more than the customers. She would miss the early morning risings when everyone was asleep and the world was hers. She would miss the sweet, rich smell of b.u.t.ter and sugar, the feel of the bread dough between her fingers as she kneaded it out, and the satisfaction of seeing the cookies lined up on the baking sheets like so many soldiers. She was thinking about how it had happened that she'd come to embrace the shop instead of running away from it when she became aware that her father was speaking to her.

"What did you say?" she asked her dad as she took a bite of the apple crumb cake she'd decided to eat for breakfast. She'd used half whole-wheat flour and half white. It had, as she suspected, resulted in a slightly more flavorful batter and a chewier crumb.

"I was saying that I thought what you said to Rick Crouse was ill-advised," Sean replied.

Bernie raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious. There's no point in going for a man's weak spot if you don't have to. Most of the time it just makes him madder. It's like cornering an animal. You always want to leave him a way out if you can."

Bernie took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. She'd heard this lecture before. Multiple times. "You would have said the same thing if you'd seen him onstage. In fact, you would have probably gotten up and walked out."

"Was he really that awful?"

Bernie automatically smoothed out a crease in the tablecloth before replying, "Yes, he was. And I wouldn't have said it if he hadn't punched Marvin. That went way over the line."

"Agreed." Sean grimaced. "That whole sticks-and-stones-may-break-my-bones-but-words-can-never-hurt-me thing. Whoever made up that saying got it backward."

"Well, he put on a terrific performance offstage. I will give him that. I can see how all the women love him. It's the onstage part that's the problem. Maybe I should tell him that."

"Maybe you shouldn't," Sean said as he took a forkful of home fries.

As he did he reflected that his girls always got the balance just right. The onions were slightly charred around the edges, the green pepper had a nice flavor, and the cubed potatoes were soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Add some fresh ground pepper and he could eat these every day of his life.

Bernie poured herself a tiny bit more coffee and added a smidgen of heavy cream. She was trying to cut down on both but wasn't having much luck. "I think I'm going to have to," she said after a moment's reflection.

"Then meet him somewhere public. It'll be safer that way." Sean ate another forkful of potatoes and chewed slowly. "On a different topic," he said after he'd swallowed, "let's talk about what happened to Marvin last night."

"That was a slight miscalculation," Bernie said.

Sean raised an eyebrow. "Slight? Is that what we're calling it now?"

"That's what I'm calling it. G.o.d only knows what Libby is saying."

"Nothing very nice."

"That's what I figured," Bernie said gloomily.

"How could you?" her father asked her.

Bernie didn't give him an answer because she didn't think her father was looking for one.

Her dad continued, "Libby put enough pancake make-up..."