A Catered Birthday Party

by Crawford, Isis

  “This probably won’t take long,” Bernie said, more to convince herself than her sister.

  “You might be right,” Libby said. “If this visit follows the way we’ve been going, Joyce will probably throw us out of the house as soon as we say hello.”

  “Probably,” Bernie agreed. She was feeling much cheerier since her little encounter with Richard. Even if it turned into a Pyrrhic victory. What could she say? She liked winning. “But it’s worth trying,” she pointed out. “Joyce could tell us a lot, being Annabel’s best friend and all.”

  “True,” Libby said as she studied the house Joyce Atkins lived in. “But she would have to want to do that.”

  “There is that,” Bernie agreed. “But we know she was pissed at Annabel over the dog biscuits Annabel was about to start selling. That was pretty clear. Maybe she’d like a sympathetic ear.”

  “Maybe,” Libby said.

  Actually, she was sorry Joyce’s car was in the driveway. It was true she’d told Bernie she’d come to Joyce’s after they’d gone to Richard’s—no one had twisted her arm—but on further reflection she realized she hadn’t thought the whole scheduling thing out very well.

  “Still worrying about the time?” Bernie asked.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you were thinking it,” Bernie said. “You know,” she continued, “we have some meat raviolis in the freezer.”

  “So?” Libby said.

  “Well, if we’re crunched for time we can use those instead of the kreplach.”

  Libby gave her The Look.

  “It’s not so bad,” Bernie said. She was stung by Libby’s unvoiced criticism.

  “Bad? It’s terrible. How could you even suggest that?” Libby cried. The thought outraged her.

  Bernie gave a sheepish shrug. “I just wanted to save a little time. And raviolis and kreplach are pretty similar. Essentially, they’re both dumplings with a meat filling.”

  Libby pounded on the dashboard of the van. “They’re not similar,” she said. “Not at all. That’s like saying roast beef and roast pork are similar because they’re both meat.” Bernie opened her mouth to say something, but Libby steamrolled over her. “And aside from everything else, there is—as you know—a big difference between fresh-made and frozen anything.”

  “I don’t think most people can actually tell the difference,” Bernie said gently. “Especially with something like pasta.”

  Libby pointed at herself. “I can. And I would consider doing that a breach of everything our shop stands for. We don’t substitute ingredients and we don’t serve frozen food—even if it’s our own frozen food—when we tell someone we’re making it fresh. Especially for something like this. And you know what else? I bet Mrs. Stein can tell the difference between fresh and frozen. I bet she’d know in an instant.”

  “You’re right. You’re right,” Bernie said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Neither do I,” Libby replied. And she crossed her arms over her chest and went back to studying the house.

  The house at 106 Passerville Drive was a cute little cottage. The houses on the block had all been built in the thirties and forties. They mostly consisted of well-maintained capes and ranches with a few colonials thrown in. The street was lined with old maples and oaks, and in the summer it was positively Norman Rockwellian.

  “Quite a change from the Colbert place,” Libby observed as she took in the white stucco, the green tile roof, and the mint-green door of Joyce’s house.

  “And how,” Bernie said. “That place was like a barn.”

  “I wouldn’t mind living in someplace like this,” Libby said. She nodded toward the house.

  “It’s very quaint,” Bernie observed.

  Libby knew that quaint was a code word for kitschy in her sister’s vocabulary. But she didn’t care. She liked the place anyway. She liked the way the cobblestone path curved as it went from the sidewalk to the front door. She liked the snowman banner hanging from the porch pillar and the pinecone wreath on the door, things that Libby knew her sister considered beyond the pale design wise. She liked the way the foundation plantings were neatly clipped. Somehow she knew that in the summer and the spring irises and daffodils would be growing out front. To Libby’s mind, the cottage projected an air of calm self-sufficiency, of being comfortable without being sloppy.

  Libby pointed at the Hyundai parked in the driveway. “Nice car,” she commented.

  “Inexpensive car,” Bernie noted.

  Unlike Annabel’s. She had driven around in a Beemer.

  “So what do we know about her anyway?” Libby asked Bernie as her sister took the key out of the ignition. “Aside from the fact that she was pissed about the dog biscuit business, that is.”

  “You want the gospel according to Clyde?”

  “If you please.”

  “Okeydokey. For openers, Joyce has no priors. Never even got a ticket, if you can imagine that.” Bernie certainly couldn’t.

  “Besides that,” Libby said.

  “Well, we know that Joyce has been on her own for a while. We know that her husband took off with a twenty-two-year-old hottie to New Mexico. We know that her daughter is a dog walker in New York City. We also know that Joyce used to work as a receptionist for a big insurance company in the city until they got bought up and downsized. Now she temps and sells Avon.”

  “She’s never bought much from us,” Libby said.

  “I don’t think she has much money. Her husband left her in pretty rocky shape financially when he took off. Although she was wearing that Chanel jacket,” Bernie said as she thought of what Joyce had on the day of the party. It was ratty but it was still Chanel, which told Bernie that Joyce had had money at one time in her life. Sometimes that made losing it even harder.

  “That’s it?” Libby said.

  “That’s all she wrote,” Bernie answered. “Ready?” she asked her sister.

  “Very,” Libby replied, with visions of Mrs. Stein’s kreplach dancing in her head. The sooner they got in, the sooner they would get out.

  “Then let’s go get her,” Bernie said, and she opened her door and stepped outside. Libby followed.

  It had gotten colder since they’d left Richard’s place. The wind had picked up. Maybe it’s going to snow again, Libby thought as they walked up the path and rang the bell. The weatherman had said it would be clear and sunny, but these days with the weather being so weird—one day it was hot, the next day it was cold—you never really knew. She was still thinking about that when Joyce answered the door.

  “I expected you sooner,” Joyce said as she beckoned them in. Joyce’s pug, Conklin, sniffed at their feet as they stepped inside the hallway.

  The comment struck Bernie as puzzling. Did Richard call Joyce and tell her we were coming? Bernie wondered as she handed her jacket to Joyce, who hung it up on one of the big metal hooks around the hall mirror. Libby followed suit.

  Bernie and Libby looked around. The small hallway they were standing in led directly into the living room, which in turn led into the dining room. The walls had been painted a light yellow and gone over with a varnish finish, the end result reminding Bernie of an old Italian villa.

  “Nice,” Bernie said as she gestured at the paint job.

  “It’s easy,” Joyce said. “I got a book out of the library and that was that.” She pointed to the oak baseboards. “I also stripped those—they had about forty-nine coats of white paint on them—and put up that tin ceiling. It had those horrible acoustical tiles. I also stripped that molding and the seat in front of the window, re-covered the cushion, and made the pillows.”

  “I’m impressed,” Bernie said. And she was. Her mother had been an avid knitter, crocheter, seamstress, and all-around do-it-yourselfer. On the other hand, Bernie was an avid shopper. It seemed as if the only gene she’d inherited from her mother was her cooking gene.

  Joyce shrugged. “I enjoy doing it. And anyway, when you don’t have lots of money it
pays to be handy. Fortunately, I discovered I had a knack for it when my husband took off.” At which point she led them to the living room and indicated they should sit down on the oversized tweed-covered sofa.

  “I should just tell you,” Joyce said as she sat down in the matching armchair and picked up the knitting sitting in the basket on the side table, “I’ve already talked to my lawyer.”

  “About what?” Bernie asked.

  “About my talking to you about Annabel, of course,” Joyce said as she started knitting. “It’s a sweater for Conklin,” she informed them without being asked. “I’m using a cashmere and mohair blend. The poor dear really can’t tolerate the cold.”

  “And what did your lawyer say?” Bernie asked.

  “He obviously said it was all right,” Joyce said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Obviously,” Bernie repeated. “And how did you know we’d want to talk to you?”

  “Because you promised Annabel that you would investigate her death, and since you think she was murdered, and I was in the room, and she said what she did, it makes sense that you’d want to talk to me.”

  Libby leaned forward slightly. She could feel the sofa material through her pants. “And you don’t think she was murdered?” she asked.

  Joyce shrugged her shoulders. “No. I don’t.”

  “Then what do you think happened?” Bernie asked.

  Joyce frowned. Then she crossed and uncrossed her ankles. “Frankly I think she set the whole thing up. It would be just like her.”

  “That’s what Richard said,” Libby told her.

  “Well, he’s correct,” Joyce replied.

  “That’s quite a statement,” Bernie observed.

  Joyce silently counted stitches before answering. “Not if you know her, it’s not. And I told that to the police, as well.”

  Bernie raised an eyebrow. “So, in essence, you told them you thought she committed suicide.”

  “That is correct.”

  “And that she accused everyone for no reason at all,” Bernie said.

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “That’s a pretty serious charge,” Libby commented.

  Joyce shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

  “Why would she want to do that?” Libby asked.

  “Because she was mean, and spiteful, and it would amuse her.”

  “I’m having trouble believing that,” Bernie told Joyce. “Setting something like this up is a fairly odd way to amuse yourself. I mean, it’s not as if she was going to be around to enjoy the results.”

  “Well,” Joyce said, “she was one of those people who would cut off her nose to spite her face. That’s just the way she was. And she probably thought she didn’t have long to live, with her arrhythmias getting worse. Her health problems just made her meaner. Some people rise to the occasion when they get a serious problem. Others don’t. Annabel didn’t. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Okay,” Bernie said. “Assuming she was that vindictive, you’re telling me that no one gave her any cause to be that way?”

  “That has nothing to do with the situation.”

  “I don’t agree,” Bernie said.

  Joyce put her knitting down. “She had no one to blame but herself for some of the things that happened.”

  “How so?” Libby asked. “She seemed nice enough to me.” Which wasn’t true, but she wanted to hear what Joyce would say.

  “That was the thing,” Joyce answered. “How nice she seemed. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t nice at all. She felt entitled to do anything she wanted.”

  “For example?” Bernie asked.

  “For example, Rick. She just had to have him. Had to. That’s all she talked about. I told her not to, but she wouldn’t listen. Then, of course, she made sure that Joanna found out—because what’s the fun of doing something like that if your victim doesn’t know? Which, of course, was why Joanna came on to Richard. Annabel didn’t even like Rick all that much. Annabel just liked the idea of being able to do it. She was like a cat flexing its claws.”

  Joyce’s description of Annabel reminded Bernie of some of the girls who’d called themselves her friends when she was in high school. “So given how you described her, why did you stay friends with her?” Bernie asked.

  “She was different in high school. Or maybe she was like that all along only I didn’t see it. I don’t know.”

  “So what made her change?” Libby asked.

  “I’ll show you.” And Joyce got up, went to the breakfront standing next to the wall near the dining room, opened a drawer, and pulled out a class yearbook.

  Bernie and Libby watched as she leafed through the pages. When she found the ones she wanted, she crossed over and handed the book to Libby and Bernie.

  “Here,” Joyce said.

  Libby and Bernie both looked. Across the top of the two facing pages was a banner proclaiming, SPANISH CLUB TRIP TO NEW YORK. Down below was a montage of photos arranged in a fan.

  The one on the far left consisted of three teenagers standing in front of Rockefeller Center. One was clearly Joyce, the second one was a skinny dark-haired girl wearing jeans and a parka, while the third one was Annabel. All three of the girls looked cold and unhappy.

  “Annabel was a lot heavier then,” Bernie commented. Probably over two hundred pounds, she thought.

  “She lost a lot of weight after her dad left them. To be honest, I don’t think she ever recovered from his departure. After that, everything had to be about her. I don’t know. I should have just walked away, but I didn’t. I felt sorry for her. I guess when it comes down to it I’m not very bright. Sometimes you see what you want to see, not what’s really there.”

  “So did she sleep with your husband too?” Bernie asked.

  Joyce laughed. “No. She was too old for him. He likes them young. Once they get over twenty-five they’re past their sell-by date. She would have been welcome to him, believe me. No. I wasn’t that lucky.”

  “You guys were still friends when she died,” Libby said.

  “I thought we were,” Joyce replied. “But evidently I was wrong.”

  “What happened?”

  Joyce took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re going to find out anyway so I’m going to tell you. She stole my ideas.”

  “Your ideas?” Libby echoed.

  “Exactly. The Puggables were my idea. In fact, I even sewed up a few of the original models. But Annabel never gave me any credit. More importantly, she never gave me any money. She used my ideas to make herself rich. If it wasn’t for me, Annabel and Richard Colbert would still be living in their little ranch on Buttermilk Drive.”

  “You could have sued her,” Libby pointed out.

  “It wasn’t that simple. First of all, I didn’t have any proof. Secondly, you have to have money to hire a lawyer. Thirdly, she made me doubt myself.”

  Now it was Bernie’s turn to lean forward. “What do you mean, doubt yourself?”

  “I mean this,” Joyce said. “I just sat down one night at my sewing machine and created this family of pugs out of some leftover fabric that I had. I made them for Annabel’s birthday, because I thought it would be this nice thing to do. I stuffed them, put bows around their necks, and gave them to Annabel. She loved them. In fact, she loved them more than she loved Trudy. I know for a fact she didn’t like the dog. In fact, Richard was talking about getting rid of her.

  “But they must have seen the commercial possibilities because the next thing I knew, I saw ads in the paper for the Puggables. Then they had to keep Trudy.” Joyce picked up her knitting again. “And while it’s true I didn’t name them, they looked exactly like the ones I’d made for Annabel.”

  “Didn’t you go tell her that?” Bernie asked.

  “Of course I did, but she told me I was wrong. That the ones I’d made were different. This all happened right around the time I was having trouble with my husband and mentally I wasn’t in a state to question anyone. I believe
d her—probably because I couldn’t bear to think she was screwing me over as well.

  “Later when I asked to see the ones I’d made for her, she told me she didn’t have them. That Trudy had ripped them to shreds.” Joyce spread her hands apart. “I suppose I was an idiot, but she was my friend and I wanted to believe her.”

  “Of course you did,” Libby said.

  “And then everything settled down. And she gave me stuff—like the Chanel jacket that I wore to Trudy’s birthday. Sometimes she’d take me with her when she went to Florida. Then last year I had this idea for the dog biscuits that we were going to call Trudy’s Treats. The recipe was totally unique. And we were going to make them into different vegetable shapes. Each vegetable would be a different flavor. And Annabel loved it. She said we’d sign a contract. We’d go into business together. I kept asking when that was going to happen, but she kept putting me off.”

  “So when did you find out that wasn’t the case?” Bernie asked.

  “At the party.”

  Libby cocked her head. “Not before?”

  “No. Not before.”

  “You’re sure of that,” Libby said.

  “Ask Ramona if you don’t believe me,” Joyce said. “Ramona,” she repeated. “Trudy’s trainer. In fact, if you want someone who had a motive to kill Annabel, talk to her. Yes. Definitely talk to her.”

  “And why should we do that?” Bernie asked.

  “Because two days before the party, Annabel told Ramona she was going to hire someone else to mount Trudy’s campaign for Westminster.”

  “So?” Libby said.

  “What do you mean, so? This was Ramona’s chance. Losing that was a real slap in the face. Everyone in the dog world would know. They’d figure something had to be wrong. Otherwise why would Annabel let her go? She’d probably never get another chance like that again. Plus, she’d lose the house she’s living in. The new trainer would move in. Not that Trudy had a chance of winning. This was just another one of Annabel’s vanity things—like the house that she built.”

  “And may I ask why you’re telling us this?” Bernie inquired.