A Catered Birthday Party Part 28

Brandon laughed. "Oh, to be rich and hated."

"It's not funny," Bernie protested.

"Sure it is," Brandon retorted.

"She was not a well-liked person," Libby observed.

Bernie snorted. "You think?"

Marvin built a man out of peanuts. "Well, it seems that knowing the motives is a kind of progress," Marvin said when he was done.

"It is and it isn't," Libby replied. "If everybody has a motive, it's like n.o.body has a motive-if you get me."

"Not really," Marvin admitted.

"I don't get it either," Brandon said. "After all, some people's motives have to be better than other people's motives. It's just a matter of ranking them."

"I don't think it's that simple," Bernie said as she swept the pile of empty peanut sh.e.l.ls she'd managed to acc.u.mulate onto the floor with the side of her hand.

"Try us and see," Marvin suggested.

"Yeah," Brandon said. "It's not as if we have anything else to do right now."

Libby put her hand out to Bernie. "You start," she said.

"Okey dokey." Bernie ate two more peanuts. Then she began. "Let's start with the husband, Richard Colbert."

"It's always blame the guy," Brandon interjected.

Bernie shot him a look.

Brandon held up his hand. "Sorry," he said. "Go on."

"Thank you. He probably has the biggest reason," Bernie continued. "According to Clyde, Annabel was going to leave him. Unfortunately for Richard, she had all the a.s.sets in her name. All the liabilities were in his."

"My aunt and uncle did something like that for tax purposes," Brandon said.

"As did the Colberts," Bernie said.

"So, you're saying that Annabel owned everything," Marvin said.

"Exactly," Libby replied.

"But why not get a divorce?" he asked. "He would still be ent.i.tled to a large part of the property. Wouldn't that be simpler?"

"Evidently not to him. He must have thought this was a more straightforward way of solving his problem," Bernie answered. "Divorces can be long and messy and very, very expensive. And then there was his string of infidelities. That wouldn't go over well in court. But poisoning someone...Hey. Problem solved."

"Not if you get caught," Marvin pointed out.

"Well, there is that minor inconvenience," Libby replied. "But so far no one has been. Annabel's death hasn't even been declared a homicide. And even if it was, the body was cremated. Basically, there's no way this is going to come back and bite Richard in the a.s.s."

"Next," Bernie went on, "we have Joyce, the best friend, who isn't really a best friend to Annabel at all. She seems to be consumed with rage and jealousy toward Annabel, because she thinks that Annabel stole her idea for the Puggables and got rich off it."

"Did she?" Brandon asked.

"I'm not sure. From the way Joyce tells it, yes. Absolutely. I'm sure Annabel would have a different take on the matter, but, unfortunately, I can't ask her. However, whether Annabel did or didn't steal Joyce's idea isn't really relevant. What is relevant is that Joyce believes that's the case. She claims that she made the actual models the Puggables are based on as a present to Annabel.

"And now, according to Joyce, Annabel was about to do the same thing to her all over again with the idea for the dog treats that Joyce had come up with. Joyce claims that Annabel promised to sign a contract with her, but never did. Joyce isn't that well off. And of course Annabel is-was-filthy rich, thanks to Joyce's ideas."

"What do they say?" Marvin asked. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

"My mom used to tell us that all the time," Libby noted. "In any case, you can see where Joyce would be a little bit annoyed at Annabel one way or another."

"Just a tad," Brandon said.

"Next," Libby continued, "we have Ramona, the dog trainer. She was about to lose her shot at mounting Trudy's campaign for Westminster. Annabel, for reasons we're still not clear on, had decided to replace her with someone else. Now this is a very big deal for Ramona. Mounting a campaign is serious stuff. If Trudy even got into the show, that would be a big step up for Ramona careerwise. Kind of like riding a horse in the Kentucky Derby. Plus, there's her house."

"What about it?" Marvin asked.

"The house comes with the job. If she loses her job, she'll lose the place she's living."

"That's not such a big deal," Brandon interjected. "She'll find a new place. People do it all the time."

"Ah, yes," Libby said. "There's only one problem. The cats."

"The cats?" Marvin echoed.

"Evidently, she's a cat person."

"And?" Marvin said. "So what?"

"Dad said she had twenty-"

"He said more like fifty, maybe more," Bernie corrected.

"Cats that she cares for inside her house. There are more outside. I'm guessing that leaving them-which she'd have to do if she moved-would be a wrenching experience," Libby said. "She told my dad that cats were her pa.s.sion. Given what he saw, that certainly seems to be the case."

"So she's one of those scary cat rescue ladies," Brandon said.

Bernie nodded. "Exactly. And she was about to lose her base of operations, a base that would be difficult to replicate. Next, we have Melissa, Trudy's breeder. Annabel was about to take her house away, possibly because she was sleeping with Richard. Well, she wasn't going to take her house away directly, but she was going to buy Forrester's Way and set up a camp for disabled children called Puggables' Paradise."

Brandon made a retching sound.

"Unfortunately for Melissa," Bernie said, ignoring Brandon's antics, "her house and kennel are in the middle of the land that Annabel was buying. She'd have to move."

"So we have four people who are going to either lose their livelihoods, or be severely inconvenienced thanks to Annabel," Brandon summarized.

Libby nodded. "And then we have Joanna, now Richard's a.s.sistant, who once was Annabel's a.s.sistant. It turns out she had a grudge against Annabel because Annabel seduced her husband, Rick Crouse, for the pure fun of it. And lastly, we come to the aforementioned husband, Rick Crouse, the wannabe actor, who was getting money from Annabel for his 'art.'"

Brandon turned to Bernie. "How come you're not giving me money for my 'art'?"

Bernie rolled her eyes. "You don't really want me to answer that, do you?"

"Not really," Brandon said after a moment's thought.

"Good," Bernie told him.

"What happened with Rick Crouse?" Marvin asked.

"Annabel cut him off," Libby said, taking up where she'd left off. "So even though he didn't gain directly from her death, his ego-and it's pretty large-might not have been able to take the rejection."

"Hurt pride?" Brandon said. "That's a pretty good reason right there."

"Yes. The male ego is a fragile thing," Bernie said.

Brandon reached over and got his hot chocolate. "You wound Marvin and me to the quick."

Bernie laughed. "You both look it. And speaking of male pride, have we mentioned that Richard was sleeping with Melissa, and heaven knows who else while he was married to Annabel?"

"Yes, you have," Marvin said.

"What happened to Ramona?" Brandon asked. "Did you forget to mention her?"

"I think she may not worship at that altar, if you get my meaning," Bernie said.

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

"I see what you mean," Marvin said after he'd drunk some more of his beer.

"Okay on the motive," Brandon said. "Let's move on to the means."

"The means are simple," Libby said. "Someone put a c.o.c.ktail of insecticides in a bottle of Annabel's wine and then sealed it back up. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances it might not have proved fatal, but since Annabel had a heart condition it was enough to kick her over to the other side."

"And everyone knew about her heart thing?" Brandon asked.

Bernie ate another peanut. "Everyone who was at that dinner knew," she said.

"And Richard poured the wine?" Marvin asked.

Libby nodded. "That would be correct. He was also the one who opened the bottle."

"Then that seems pretty clear-cut," Brandon opined.

Libby stifled a yawn. It had been a long day and she was beginning to crash. "Not really. The wine was opened at the table in front of everyone," she said. "Someone had to have put the insecticides in earlier."

"How did they know which bottle to put it in?" Marvin asked. "Maybe the poison was meant for someone else?"

Bernie shook her head. "This was the only kind of wine Annabel drank."

"Who knew that?" Marvin asked.

"Probably just about everyone who was there. I think Annabel told me she'd been drinking it for a year. The bottle was very distinctive. And she didn't share."

"Where did the wine come from?" Brandon asked.

"Spain," Libby answered.

"No. I meant where was it bought?"

"At The Grape," Libby told him.

"Ah, yes," Brandon said. "The fancy schmancy liquor store that charges a thousand percent markup."

"Yes. That one," Bernie said.

"When was the wine delivered?" Marvin asked.

"Good question," Libby said. That would give them a timeline. "Unfortunately, we don't know the answer."

Bernie whipped out her cell phone. "This is true, but I know someone who might," she replied.

"And who might that be?" Marvin asked.

"Our man on the inside," Bernie quipped as she punched in Samantha's number.

"Sam," Brandon said.

"Does she come in here?" Libby asked.

"Everyone comes in here," Marvin said.

"Samantha," Bernie said. "Samantha, I can't hear you. The connection's bad."

Marvin, Libby, and Brandon stopped talking.

"That's better," Bernie said. Then she asked her question. "Sam says they didn't get any wine deliveries when she was there," Bernie repeated, for the benefit of everyone else. Then she added, "Since she says she got to the house a little after nine and The Grape doesn't open until eleven, it's a fair bet that nothing was sent over."

"Ask her about the day before," Libby said.

Bernie did. "She wasn't there the day before," Bernie told them after she'd said good-bye to Samantha.

"I have an idea," Brandon said as he picked up R.J.'s house phone and dialed.

Now it was Marvin, Libby, and Bernie's turn to wait. There were a fair number of yups and I sees from Brandon as Peter Mahir checked the invoices after Brandon asked him about deliveries to the Colbert house.

Peter Mahir was the owner of The Grape. A chatty kind of guy, he'd inherited the shop from his dad. It had been the kind of place that specialized in two-dollar wines and three-dollar bottles of the hard stuff. With the help of his wife and a.s.siduous attendance at all the charity functions and b.a.l.l.s, Peter had worked the store up to someplace that now catered to the rich and the superrich. Bernie figured it had to generate a million or so a year easy. Not that she was jealous or anything like that. Well, maybe just a tiny bit.

"The Grape has not delivered to the Colbert house in the past three weeks," Brandon announced after he'd hung up.