A Catered Birthday Party Part 15

"Foundation," Bernie corrected.

Sean gave an impatient wave of his hand. "As I was saying, your sister put enough make-up on Marvin's jaw to coat an elephant. I told her not to bother. I told her it would only attract more attention, but you know your sister. Once she gets an idea in her head there's no stopping her.

"Even Marvin agreed with me. For once. He went in the bathroom and washed it off. Of course, he'll need it today. Can't have a funeral director with purple bruises. It's too distracting. No. I bet his dad was really p.i.s.sed when he got a look at Marvin last night. You know Marvin's dad. It's all about the work."

Bernie swallowed another piece of the apple crumb cake. A few toasted walnuts on the top to add a nice contrasting crunch and it would be perfect. "So what's the story you guys came up with?"

Sean took another sip of his coffee and ate some more of his scrambled eggs. "Are the green flecks in the eggs chives?"

"Dad!"

"What?" Sean said in his most innocent voice.

"Tell me you didn't leave that to Marvin," Bernie pleaded. Marvin was good at many things, but coming up with alibis wasn't among his strengths.

"Well, I don't like to lie," her dad said.

Bernie snorted. "This is me you're talking to, remember?"

"It's true," Sean protested. What he did was interpretative speaking.

"Anyway," Bernie continued, "this isn't lying. This is an act of mercy. A mitzvah."

Sean gave his daughter an irritable glance. "Of course Marvin and I came up with a story. What do you think I am? We rehea.r.s.ed it too, so when his dad cross-examines him he won't get fl.u.s.tered." Sean paused for a moment to take a sip of Libby's freshly squeezed orange juice and allow the dramatic momentum to build.

Bernie leaned forward. "Tell me, Dad."

Sean put his gla.s.s down. "Fine. Marvin rescued Libby from a mugger as she was getting into his car and got punched in the jaw for his trouble."

"That works."

"Of course it works. How could you think that I wouldn't come up with something that works?"

"I actually never doubted you would for a second." Which was true. She hadn't.

Sean looked mollified. He ate another bit of his scrambled egg. "The bigger question is: What were you thinking when you put him in that situation?"

"You already asked me that."

"I'm asking again because I didn't get an answer the first time."

"Well..."

"I'll tell you why you can't answer...."

"Because you won't let me?"

"No. Because you can't think of anything to say. What you did was totally irresponsible."

Bernie mashed one of the crumbs on her plate with her fork. "Dad, you sound as if you're taking his side."

"I am. Poor Marvin," Sean said.

"Come on, Dad," Bernie protested. "Admit it. This was good for him. It broadens his worldview."

"Getting punched in the jaw does nothing for one's worldview. It may do something for the dentist who replaces your teeth. Like make him money. But that's about it. And I should know. I've been punched enough. Ask Brandon. He'll say the same thing I just did." Sean put his fork down and looked his daughter in the eye. "Bernie," he said, "you really have to think before you speak."

"I know," Bernie told him. "I'm working on it."

"You've been working on it since you were a little girl, and I don't see much progress in that direction." When she didn't reply, he told her, "I mean it. Words matter. They matter a lot. And you of all people should know that."

"You're right," Bernie told her father.

And he was. It was just that the moment she thought of something she tended to put it into action. Sometimes that was very good and sometimes, witness last night, it wasn't. She took another sip of her coffee.

"Marvin could have been really hurt," her dad continued.

"But he wasn't."

"But he could have been," Sean insisted. "And so could you, if we come down to it."

Bernie thought about Rick bursting through the front door of Leon's. He'd looked pretty angry. Pouring beer over Rick's head had been a satisfying but unnecessary thing to do, she had to admit.

"How did you know that Libby was going to be there at that particular moment?" Sean asked. "Exactly," Sean said when Bernie didn't say anything. "That's what I thought. I'm going to say to you what I used to say to my men: Planning is the key to everything. You have to know what you're doing before you do anything. Otherwise you're relying on luck and luck only takes you so far."

"Are you done?" Bernie asked, trying to stem the rising tide of irritation she was feeling at her dad's lecture. She hated when he kept on repeating things over and over. Like she didn't get it.

"Yes, I am," Sean said.

He ate another mouthful of home fries and scanned the front page of the local paper. Not that there was anything worth reading in it today, unless you were interested in the fact that Mrs. Gardenia had six cats living in her house, one more than the local ordinance allowed for.

A moment later, Libby came into the room. She was wearing a white terrycloth bathrobe and had a purple towel wrapped around her head.

"I don't know why you can't get white towels," she complained to Bernie as she reached over and took a sip of coffee out of Bernie's cup.

"Hey, get your own," Bernie told her.

"I will in a minute. Why do you have to get all of these weird colors?"

"Because that's what's on sale, that's why. Have you heard from Marvin yet?"

Libby shook her head.

"So that's good news."

"I guess so," Libby said. It was true. When something bad happened, especially something with his father, Marvin always called her. "But what happens if his dad wants him to file a police report? You know what he's like."

"Marvin will tell him he doesn't want to," Bernie said.

"But if his dad insists?" Libby said.

Sean shrugged. "Then Clyde will take it and it will conveniently be buried."

The things his eldest child found to worry about continually amazed Sean. She'd been like that ever since he could remember. At five she worried about what happened to the lightbulbs when they burned out. She didn't want Rose, their mother, throwing them out because she didn't want their feelings hurt. They'd had to sneak them into the trash at night.

"Because," Libby continued, "I would feel terrible if we filed something and the police picked someone up because of it."

Sean snorted. "I wouldn't worry about that if I were you. Things that happen around Leon's don't get investigated. That's just the way it is," he said, forestalling his daughter's next question. Even though they were older he still didn't like discussing payoffs with them. He knew this was ridiculous, but there it was.

"And I certainly don't want Clyde to get in trouble," Libby continued.

"He won't," Sean a.s.sured her. "Everything will be fine. Really." He rolled his wheelchair back from the table to give himself another inch of room. "Anyway, on a different note, did you learn anything from last night?"

Libby gave Bernie a bitter look. "Besides the fact that saying the first thing that comes out of your mouth is not a good idea?"

"Yes. Besides that," Sean replied.

"We learned quite a bit," Bernie said.

Libby sat down, took a piece of raisin toast off the plate set in the center of the table, and bit into it. There was the sweetness of the raisins, the nuttiness of the whole-wheat flour, the slight hint of orange rind, and the sharpness of cinnamon. The bread was so good it didn't need b.u.t.ter or cream cheese. They would just mask the flavors.

Libby took a second bite of toast and poured herself a cup of coffee out of the carafe sitting on the table. "I suppose we did."

"So?" Sean prompted.

He'd gotten a general idea of what had happened last night, but between Marvin moaning, Libby running up and down the stairs to get ice packs, and she and Bernie arguing, it had been difficult to sort out the particulars.

Bernie ate the last piece of her cake. "For openers, we learned that Rick Crouse has poor impulse control."

"A lot of guys would have done what he did given the circ.u.mstances," Libby objected.

"That's true," Bernie admitted. "But an equal amount of guys would have walked away or they would have said something, but they wouldn't have punched Marvin in the jaw."

"I thought it was a bad idea from the beginning," Libby told her. "Marvin thought it was a bad idea too. We told you it was."

"Then you shouldn't have gone along with it," Bernie shot back.

"We had no choice," Libby pointed out. "You didn't consult us. You'd already told Sam about Marvin being an agent."

"You certainly did have a choice," Bernie countered. "You didn't have to go into the bar if you didn't want to. Neither did Marvin. We could have turned around and come home. All you had to do was say something."

Sean brought his fist down on the table.

"Enough," he said as Libby opened her mouth to reply to Bernie.

"But..." she said.

"No buts," Sean told her. "Now are we going to try to solve this crime or am I going to have to spend the morning listening to you girls bickering?"

"Solve the crime," Bernie and Libby said in unison.

"Good," Sean said. "Let's begin again, shall we? Now, what else did you learn last night?"

Bernie cleared her throat. "We learned that Rick was sleeping with Annabel. That's number one."

Sean nodded. Bernie had told him that last night.

"She was giving him money, but according to Joanna, Annabel was cutting Rick off moneywise," Bernie said.

Sean nodded again. "Okay. Do we know whether Rick was getting any money from Annabel if she died, because if he wasn't, then he had a motive for keeping her alive, not the opposite."

"No. We don't know," Libby said.

"We should find out," Sean said.

"Yes, we should," Bernie said.

"So what else do we know?" Sean asked.

Bernie took a sip of her coffee. "We know that Rick and Joanna were married, that Annabel seduced him, and that in revenge Joanna seduced Richard."

"Wow," Sean said. "Talk about drama. And we know this how?"

"From Joanna," Bernie said. "It's one of the things she told me outside Leon's."

"Do you think she was telling the truth?" Sean asked.

Bernie thought for a moment. "Yes, I do. Why else would she have said it? I mean, she implicated herself by telling me that."

"Well," Sean said, "an alternative scenario could be that she said that because by doing so she would appear to be innocent."

"That line of thought seems a little too complicated," Libby objected. "Dad, haven't you always said that simple works best?"

"True," Bernie said. "But hurt pride in some people can be a powerful motivating force for revenge. Especially in a man. Which she is clearly not." Bernie shook her head. "Did I just say that?"

"It may be a good reason," Sean said, returning to the subject at hand. "In fact, gender aside, it is a good reason. But then the question becomes: Why now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, this thing with Annabel seducing Rick happened a while ago, correct?"

Libby and Bernie both nodded.

"So then why should Joanna pick now to kill her?"

"Maybe Joanna had managed to put this all behind her and something Annabel did brought it up again. Only this time it was worse than ever. This time Joanna decided to exact revenge," Bernie suggested.

"But we don't know what this hypothetical something is," Sean said.