Читать книгу A Catered Valentine's Day - Isis Crawford - Страница 10

Bernie looked out the rear window of Clayton’s limo. The view was not inspiring. It was gray and dreary. The sky was slate. The ground was frozen solid. Little patches of dirty snow remained from the storm they’d had two weeks ago. The trees were all bare. It reminded her of a Thomas Hardy poem. Depressing. No doubt about it, February sucked. It was the time of year when she wished she were back in L.A. No, make that Costa Rica or Cancún. Somewhere with sun and palm trees. Scratch the palm trees. She’d just take the sun and a couple of Cuba Libres.

February was her least favorite time of the year. Always had been. Spring was too far away to think about. Except if you were a gardener. Then you got to think about what you were going to plant. The holidays were all done, except of course for Valentine’s Day. Which was usually fun.

In grade school she’d made lace valentines and given out those little candy hearts to what her mom had called her “special friends.” Now, however, she gave her “special friend” different gifts. She’d gotten a great red thong and matching lace bra to wear for Rob. Except now she was mad at him.

Why had he signed up for the bachelor auction at the Just Chocolate benefit for Sudanese orphans? That had been totally unnecessary. She’d like to give him a kiss all right. A kiss with her fist. Pow. Right in the kisser. Rob had called her jealous. Which was ridiculous.

She didn’t have a jealous bone in her body. None. Okay, maybe her pinky. It was the principle of the thing. She just had to figure out which principle it was. She just wanted to spend time with Rob. Was that so bad? She’d tried to explain, but he hadn’t gotten it. Of course, he hadn’t gotten a lot of things lately.

All she knew was that Rob had better get her something really, really nice to make up for this. Like the pink cowboy boots she’d seen in Saks. Or dinner out at the new Moroccan restaurant down in Dumbo. Yes. That’s what she’d ask for.

The thought made her feel slightly better—having a plan always did—and she turned her attention back to the view. They were out of Longely now and heading down Townsend Road. Which meant they were heading either to Longely’s minimall or the cemetery. Considering the circumstances, Bernie was betting on the cemetery.

She leaned forward and tapped Marvin’s father on the shoulder. “Are we going to the Oaks?”

Clayton turned his head around and glanced at her. “You’ll see,” he said.

Then to Bernie’s relief he looked at the road, always a good thing for a driver to do, in her opinion.

“Because I’d prefer the mall,” Bernie said to the back of his head. “They have a sale on there at E.J’s.”

E.J.’s was a funky little shop that sold T-shirts and the odd sweater or two.

Marvin’s father grunted.

Bernie tried again. “I have a friend that teaches the chemistry of embalming.”

Nothing.

“Do you use pomade on your hair?”

“I don’t think you’re funny,” Clayton replied.

“Most people don’t,” Libby commented.

“Nice answer,” Bernie told her.

“But true,” Libby said.

Bernie sighed, sat back, and watched the trees going by. At least I’m not in the front seat with him, she thought. Things could always be worse. That was what her mother had always said. But then, they could always be better too. She glanced at her watch.

They had another hour to go before the repairman arrived at the shop. She hoped they’d make it back to A Little Taste of Heaven by then, but she had a feeling they wouldn’t. Whatever this was about had to be pretty serious, and in her experience pretty serious always meant time-consuming—extremely time-consuming. Of that she was sure.

Otherwise Marvin’s father wouldn’t be doing this. Normally, he didn’t even talk to her or Libby. She’d heard through the grapevine that he still wanted Marvin to marry Emily Funkenwagel. Her dad owned a chain of funeral homes. She was the heiress of the Funkenwagel Mortuary Places. Everything with Marvin’s father was all about the business. She felt bad for Marvin. There hadn’t been any goofing off time for him when he was growing up.

Bernie twisted her silver and onyx ring around her finger while she tried to figure out what this was about, but for the life of her she couldn’t. Oh well. She guessed she’d just have to wait and see. She bent down and readjusted the strap on her blue suede stiletto. The dratted thing kept slipping. But one thing she did know. Walking in the Oaks in these things was not going to be fun. If she had known where the day was going to take her she would have chosen a different pair of shoes.

The Oaks was the oldest cemetery in the surrounding area. It had been built almost a hundred years ago by a famous landscape architect and conceived of as a place where the dead could be buried and the living could come and visit them on weekends.

People did things like that a hundred years ago—linked the dead and the living. Unlike now, when people moved all the time and families, let alone communities, were fragmented. As a consequence, the old part of the cemetery had loads of winding paths that were way too narrow for cars. You had to hike up and down hills.

Bernie leaned forward and tapped Clayton on the shoulder again.

“What?” he snapped.

“Are we going to the new part?” she asked.

“The new part of what?” he demanded, turning back to look at her again.

“Car,” Bernie yelled as a Toyota came toward them. She could hear Libby shrieking up front.

“I see it,” Clayton told her as he turned his eyes back to the road.

Another person who couldn’t drive and talk at the same time, Libby reflected. At least she now knew where Marvin got his driving ability from, but that was the only thing he had in common with his dad. Bernie leaned her head back against the seat and decided that the only talking she’d be doing in the limo from now on was with her sister.

“So,” she said to Libby, “how are the chicken breasts coming?”

The chicken breasts were supposed to be made into a salad by now, but when she and Libby had left they were still marinating in their bath of yogurt, lime juice, cumin, and coriander. Some shops would just use precooked, prepackaged chicken breasts, but that wasn’t Libby’s style. Bernie smiled as she remembered the look of outrage on her sister’s face when the food salesman from Sysco had suggested it. You’d have thought he was asking her to use vanillin instead of vanilla or margarine instead of butter.

“I could call Amber and ask her to get the salad started,” Bernie suggested.

Libby didn’t answer. She probably hadn’t heard her, Bernie reflected. That’s because she had her nose pressed against the limo’s window. Bernie was just about to repeat her offer but decided against it. For some reason she had no desire to talk to Libby or anyone else in Clayton’s presence. He was, she reflected, like some negative force that just sucked the fun out of things. She’d noticed that Marvin was even more nervous than he usually was when he was around him.

The silence was beginning to get oppressive. Bernie decided it would be better to concentrate her energies on other things, so she sat back and closed her eyes and thought about how she and Libby were going to set up for the benefit at Just Chocolate.

Just Chocolate was obviously supplying the chocolate and they were doing the wine, but she and Libby were responsible for the food part of the operation. At latest count Bree Nottingham had sold over three hundred tickets out of a possible five hundred, but Bernie was sure that by the day arrived the event would be sold out. It was the perfect Valentine’s Day event.

She and Libby had the menu loosely worked out, but they had to refine it. And then they needed to figure out the numbers so they could phone their orders in. The benefit was only two weeks away and they needed time to prepare.

Of course they were doing the tried and true. Platters of strawberries and tangerine sections as well as baskets full of grape clusters and melon and mango slices. They were serving three different types of chocolate cake, not including cheesecake, all of them baked in heart-shaped pans, as well as eight varieties of chocolate cookies, among them chocolate cookies with black pepper and chocolate cookies with ginger, a combination she was particularly fond of, as well as a takeoff on a Linzer tart cookie.

Then they were making six different kinds of brownies, among them rocky road, cashew, mint, and double fudge. Just thinking about all the baking they had to do made her tired. But at least they weren’t doing pies or tarts. Those took forever.

Less obviously, she and Libby were doing figs stuffed with almonds and chocolate, a Portuguese delicacy. They were also doing chicken mole, a Mexican chicken stew made with about twenty ingredients, including chocolate, as well as a South American beef stew that used dark chocolate as a thickening and flavoring agent. With the stews, Bernie was thinking they should serve some sort of stretch bread to sop up the sauce.

Bernie thought again about what a tremendous amount of work they’d undertaken. They really did have to order and start baking now in order to be ready in time. At least they should. Fortunately, a lot of the stuff could be baked in advance and frozen, not that Libby would agree. Unfortunately, what with the oven and the building inspector and the construction, Bernie didn’t know how they were going to do that on top of their usual stuff, at least not if they didn’t want to work until three in the morning.

Bernie felt a stab of panic. What if the building inspector said they had to stop working until the exhaust system was installed? He had the ability to shut them down. Maybe she could bribe him. Ha. She wouldn’t know how to even start. Or maybe Bree could talk to him and plead their case. That would work better.

Bernie was beginning to think her mother was correct when she said, “In life it’s not what you know but who you know that counts.”

Bernie moved her ring up and down her finger.

Libby was right, though. It was important to go to Mrs. Vongel’s mother’s funeral, and now they’d missed it. This was all her fault. As usual. If she hadn’t taken so long putting her mascara on, they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry, and they would have noticed what the sign on the door said. She hadn’t even actually read it. She’d just seen the V and sailed right in.

Maybe if she baked Mrs. Vongel a cake. Scratch that. Like Bree Nottingham she was a size 2. She didn’t eat, she grazed. Maybe an expensive bottle of wine? Yes. That might work. Or better yet, a good brandy. Bernie was tapping her fingers against the seat, trying to decide what kind, when she realized Libby was speaking to her.

Bernie’s head went up.

“What?” she asked.

“I was just saying that we’re here.”

“Indeed we are,” Bernie replied as they entered the front gate of the Oaks.

“Remember good old Charlie?” Libby asked her.

“How could I forget him?”

“What you did was really mean.”

“Mean?” Bernie retorted. “I was mean? What about him?”

When she was in high school she’d come up here with Charlie Quincy and they’d made out on the bench next to Elizabeth Engel’s grave. They’d done that three times when she’d heard a moaning noise behind them. Then something that looked like a ghoul had come at her. At which point she’d done what any normal person would have. She’d spun around and clocked the thing over the head with her backpack. He’d screamed and grabbed his nose. Who knew you could break a ghoul’s nose?

The ghoul turned out to be Chris Parker, Charlie’s pal. Charlie had hired him to scare her, figuring that he’d play the big hero and she’d be so grateful that he’d get into her pants later that evening. Ha, ha. Not happening. She’d felt a little bad about Chris’s nose, but she was really pissed at Charlie. And she’d gotten him back.

When she’d walked out of his closet at three in the morning he’d let out the loudest shriek she’d ever heard. Maybe it was because she’d painted herself with phosphorescent paint. She glowed in the dark—except for her face, which she’d blacked out. It had been hell to get off—she’d had to scrub herself with a brush—but it was all worth it.

Bernie smiled as she watched the limo drive up and down the meandering paths. In the spring, the place was lovely, but now it was spooky. Her counter girl, Amber, would love it. Whenever she saw a horror movie—and she saw them all—she insisted on telling everyone else in the kitchen the plot. Nothing like prepping chicken for chicken salad to a detailed description of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

“Where are we going?” Bernie heard Libby ask as they drove by the angel holding the lantern.

“You’ll see,” Clayton said.

As Bernie watched they drove by the mausoleum of the founder of Longely. It was built along the lines of a Roman temple. They passed the monument to the people who died from the flu in 1918. They passed Bernie’s favorite monument, the statue of a cocker spaniel with a young man. The placard read LOVE IS ETERNAL. Then they were through the old part of the cemetery and into the new part. Here the land was much straighter and the graves were arranged in orderly rows. There were fewer statues—no angels, no dogs, no large symbols, and no mausoleums.

“I like the old part better,” Bernie commented to Libby.

“Pain in the ass to dig in, though,” Clayton answered. “Too many tree roots.”

“I thought people used backhoes for that,” Bernie observed.

“I’m talking about in the old days,” Clayton replied.

This time Bernie was relieved to see that he didn’t turn around while he spoke. They kept driving. Now they were at the new part of the cemetery. Bernie wondered where they were going because they were coming to the end. When they got to the groundskeeper’s house, a small yellow cottage, Clayton’s father took a hard right.

“I didn’t even know there was a road here,” Libby said to him.

“Me neither,” Bernie agreed.

Marvin’s father laughed. Snickered really. “I thought you famous detectives knew everything.”

“Almost everything,” Bernie told him.

“She has a photographic memory,” Libby added.

“Semiphotographic,” Bernie corrected.

Clayton grunted and kept driving. Now they were on a narrow unpaved road. As they traveled along, Bernie noticed rows of small crosses on either side. They had a homemade look about them. Despite her vow she tapped Marvin’s father on the shoulder again.

“Who is buried up here?” she asked him.

“People who can’t afford a funeral.”

“So this is a potter’s field.”

Marvin’s father didn’t answer.

Bernie looked around. She’d read about them, but she hadn’t known they actually existed in this day and age.

“Well, is it?” Bernie repeated.

“We don’t use that name,” Clayton said.

“I wonder where the word potter comes from,” Bernie mused. “Of course in old Scottish dialect a pot used to mean a deep hole, and then there’s going to pot, which means going to ruin, in the sense of deteriorating which is what bodies do.”

“Fascinating,” Clayton commented.

Bernie ignored the sarcasm and continued. “Now, the concept itself comes from a verse in the Bible, Matthew, I believe, which states that there’s supposed to be a place of burial for the stranger and the friendless poor.”

“You’re just a mine of useless information, aren’t you?” Marvin’s father noted as he pulled the limo to a stop.

For once Libby was in agreement with him.

“I guess it depends on your point of view,” Bernie told him.

“We’re getting out here,” Clayton said.

“Why?” Bernie asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“There.” He pointed. Bernie followed his finger. “We’re going up there.” And with that he got out of the car and hurried toward what looked like a mound of dirt.

Libby got out of the car as well. Bernie joined her.

“I think that’s a grave site he’s heading to,” she said to her sister.

Libby pulled her jacket around her. “I think it is too. Yuck.”

“What do you think this is about?” Bernie asked her.

Libby shook her head, “Nothing good.” The gesture said that she really didn’t know.

By now they were behind Clayton because Bernie’s heels kept getting stuck in the dirt.

“I told you not to wear those,” Libby said.

“Like you knew we’d be doing this,” Bernie told her.

Libby opened her mouth and closed it again. What was the point?

Marvin’s father had stopped by the edge of the pile of dirt and was waving at them impatiently to hurry up.

“Definitely a grave site,” Bernie said.

Libby shuddered. “On second thought,” she said, “I’m glad you’re wearing those shoes.”

Bernie grinned at her. “Me too. Let’s get a grip. How bad could this be?”

“About two bars of chocolate bad. No. Make that three.”

“I’d make it three shots of scotch myself.”

Bernie agreed. After all, what could be so bad? Being in a cemetery? An open grave? A distressed funeral director? You put them all together and you got something icky. Unless you were like Amber and liked this sort of thing. Now, she would be running up the hill.

Bernie stopped for a moment to pull her stiletto out of the dirt. And she was the one that had fixed Libby up with Marvin. She actually pushed the two of them together. If she hadn’t done that, then Marvin’s father wouldn’t be showing them whatever it was he was about to. Bernie shook her head. Sometimes even she admitted she went a little too far. Not too often, but sometimes. Okay, more than sometimes.

“Hurry up,” Marvin’s father called to them.

“I’m moving as fast as I can,” Bernie lied. Which wasn’t exactly true, but she wasn’t planning on breaking the heels on her Jimmy Choos.

Finally she and Libby reached the edge of the dirt pile. Yup. Just as she suspected. An open grave. Libby hung back while Bernie peered over the edge. She could see a casket lying there. The hole wasn’t very deep. In fact, it was pretty shallow—as if someone had dug it in a hurry. Libby came up and looked over her shoulder.

“The coffin looks flimsy,” she observed.

“Like a cardboard box,” Bernie said.

“Well, not that bad,” Libby objected.

Maybe, Bernie thought, but it sure didn’t look like the ones in Marvin’s father’s funeral home. Those were made out of mahogany and teak. They had brass fittings. The woods were polished to a high gloss. Some were lined with steel or lead and they all cost a lot of money. Bernie decided that if she was going to be buried at all, she’d like to be buried in a coffin shaped like a giant high heel, maybe a strappy wedge. Libby’s coffin, on the other hand, would probably be a chocolate bar or a blueberry muffin. She was just going to ask Clayton if that were possible when he coughed and started to speak.

“This is the problem,” he said as he pointed to the casket.

“Someone vandalized the grave?” Libby asked. “If that’s the case I think you should go to the police. I’m sure they’ll do a much better job than Bernie and I can.”

“That’s not the problem,” Clayton said.

“Then what is?” Bernie asked. “Grave robbing? That’s so nineteenth century.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Clayton answered.

Libby felt herself at a loss. What else could it be?

Bernie watched while Clayton rubbed his hands together. Did she detect a crack in his veneer?

“What I’m about to show you is strictly between ourselves. You are not to tell anyone about it,” he said.

Bernie looked at Libby and Libby looked at her.

“Well?” Clayton demanded when neither of the sisters answered.

“Maybe you shouldn’t show us,” Bernie said.

“We won’t tell anyone,” Libby said.

Clayton looked at Bernie.

“How can I promise when I don’t know what I’m promising?” she asked. It didn’t seem like an unreasonable question to her.

Libby took Bernie’s hand in hers. “Please,” she begged.

Bernie snorted. “If it means that much to you, fine.” She lifted her hand up. “I promise. Girl Scout word of honor.”

So what if she’d never been a Girl Scout? Big deal.

Clayton looked from one of them to the other and nodded.

“Fine,” he said.

Then before Bernie could say anything, he got into the grave.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“You’ll see,” Clayton said.

“I’d prefer I didn’t,” Bernie told him.

But Clayton didn’t listen. Instead he leaned over and began to lift up the coffin lid.

“Don’t,” Libby cried.

But it was too late. The coffin lid hit the ground with a thud.

For a second Bernie thought Libby was going to pass out. Instead she closed her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Bernie asked.

Libby nodded.

Bernie took a deep breath and let it out. Then she made herself focus on the man lying inside the coffin. She blinked. Then she blinked again. It wasn’t possible. She leaned forward to get a better look.

“It’s Ted Gorman,” Bernie cried. He looked a little worse for the wear, but given the circumstances who wouldn’t?

“I know who it is,” Clayton snapped. “What I don’t know is what the hell he’s doing here.”