“Only faster,” Bernie added. “Here, have a snickerdoodle.” And she took one off the tray and handed it to Amber, then took one for herself.
The recipe was her mother’s and Bernie had never meddled with it because it was perfect. As she ate it she thought about the interplay between the cinnamon and sugar against one another. The clash of the sweet and the spicy really couldn’t be beat, she decided. But then salty and sweet weren’t too bad either. Witness the combo of milk chocolate and salt or caramels and salt.
Amber rubbed her hands together. “But what if Duncan is guilty? What if you can’t find proof that he didn’t murder those two people?”
“Simple. We’ll make some up,” Bernie told her.
“My sister’s kidding,” Libby said, catching the expression on Amber’s face. Then she tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry. If anything is there, we’ll find it.”
Amber looked dubious.
“What?” Bernie asked Amberie is. “You don’t think we will?”
“It’s not that,” Amber told her as she nervously wound one of her pink pigtails around her finger. Last week her hair had been bright orange.
“Then what is it?” Libby asked.
Amber fidgeted some more.
“Well,” Bernie said.
“I think you will ...” Amber replied.
“But?” Libby said.
“But not everyone does,” Amber said.
“And who would everyone be?” Bernie asked.
Amber let go of her braid. “Okay. You know how I delivered that big tray of cookies to the school fund-raiser?”
Bernie and Libby both nodded.
“Well,” Amber went on, “there were two cops there and they were talking. The big one, the one with the short hair and the kinda funny nose who always buys two cranberry-orange muffins and a light coffee to go with two sugars ...”
“Don Rhodes,” Bernie said promptly. “What about him?”
“I think I heard them betting on finding evidence, and Rhodes said you were going to lose. The other cop said you were going to win.”
“Who was the other cop?” Libby asked.
Amber bit her lip while she t
hought. After a moment she said, “He was kind of a short guy.” Amber touched underneath her eye. “Has some kind of scar there. Comes in occasionally for ginger chicken and potato and leek soup.”
“Cole,” Bernie said promptly. “I always liked him. I wonder how big the betting pool is.”
“Bernie,” Libby warned.
“I was just thinking, Libby.”
“Well, don’t,” Libby told her sister. “I think we have enough drama around here as it is.”
Chapter 16
As Sean hung up the phone, he thought about what Orion had just told him. It was certainly interesting, but he wasn’t prepared to share the information with Libby and Bernie yet. He wanted to check some things out first. Orion could be lying. Although he really had no reason to. But then, Sean mused, sometimes people did anyway. Heaven knows he’d seen enough of that.
On the other hand, Orion had called him back and he didn’t have to. There was that. Oh well. Eventually everything would sort itself out. It always did, given enough time. And on that thought Sean clicked on the television and settled in to watch the six o’clock news while he wondered what was for dinner.
Despite Bree’s outburst, progress on the Duncan case came to a halt over the next two days. Even though Bernie and Libby needed to talk to the remaining members of the Corned Beef and Cabbage Club ASAP, that wasn’t possible. They were going to have to wait until Monday morning since Liam, Patrick, and Connor and their significant others had gone to Vegas for a long weekend and weren’t scheduled to return to Longely until late Sunday night. This left the Simmonses with little to do regarding the investigation.
By Sunday morning Bernie was suffering from a severe bout of impatience. She felt she had to do something. In addition, the bet between Rhodes and Cole gnawed at her. She couldn’t seem to let it go. Especially because she kept t a Xidth="1em"seeing the smirk Don Rhodes had given her when she and Libby ran into him at the supermarket on Saturday afternoon. Libby told her she was imagining things, but Bernie knew she wasn’t.
When Bernie broached the subject of their lack of progress in the case to her dad, he waved her off, telling her that he was working another angle and that he’d fill her in when he knew more. That annoyed her. Then he told her to calm down, and that annoyed her even more. But truth be told, at that moment everything annoyed her.
Bernie went into the kitchen downstairs to whine to Libby about how their dad was acting, but Libby, who was knee-deep in making a terrine, didn’t want to hear about it.
“Dad’s correct,” Libby told her. “Everyone will be back in less than twenty-four hours. We can do what we need to do then.” She pointed to the office. “On the other hand, we are really behind on our book work. We have papers that need to be filed and forms that need to be filled out. Now might be a good time to do that.”
“You’re right,” Bernie admitted reluctantly, not being able to think of an alternative answer quickly enough. This, of course, was the last thing she wanted to do. She hated paperwork and there was a lot of it when you owned a business. Way too much, if you asked her.
Bernie went in and started in on the filing, but she kept on thinking of Mike Sweeney and what they knew and what they didn’t know about him and about how she could ask better questions of Liam, Patrick, and Connor if she knew what to ask. And what better way to do that than taking a peek inside Mike Sweeney’s house? After all, if you want to know about a crime, start with the victim. At least that’s what her dad always said. After about twenty minutes of staring at the invoices from Chocolates Inc., invoices that she was sure she’d already paid, she stood up and went into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Libby asked as she watched Bernie fill a large thermos with coffee and grab four muffins.
“I’m going out,” Bernie told her, heading for the door.
“I can see that. Where? To do what?” Libby asked.
But Bernie didn’t answer her.
Maybe she didn’t hear me, Libby thought as she turned back to consider the salmon and spinach terrine en croute that she was making. It was one of those complicated fussy productions that she made every once in a while only to rediscover that she really didn’t like doing things like this, which was why she didn’t make them very often. They tasted good, but not good enough to justify all the time and effort it took constructing them.
Bernie had heard her sister, however. She had just chosen not to answer her. Was it so wrong not to have a discussion with her sister or by extension with her dad on what she was about to do? What was the big deal? She was just going to walk into Mike Sweeney’s apartment and take a quick look around, for heaven’s sake. And with Brandon’s help that should be a piece of cake. After all, what good was a set of lock picks if you never used them? It was like having a pair of Manolos that you never wore.
Which is why Bernie had arrived at Brandon’s house at eight-thirty in the morning armed with a large thermos of French roast coffee, light on the sugar and heavy on the cream, and four muffins, two banana-chocolate-chip, one corn, and one blueberry, woke him up, dragged him out of bed, and into his Jeep. Half an hour later she was having second thoughts about the wisdom of her course of action.
“I changed my mind. You don’t have to do this,” Bernie told Brandon as they sat in his Jeep in the R Jee oite Aid parking lot, which was kitty-corner to the house Mike Sweeney had lived in. It was almost nine o’clock on Sunday morning and the lot was deserted. It was gray and raw out, the kind of day where people woke up, looked out the window, and rolled over and went back to sleep. Which was one of the reasons Bernie had decided to do this.
Brandon turned off the engine, took another sip of his coffee, and polished off the second banana-chocolate-chip muffin before saying, “Let me get this straight. You woke me up to as
k me to do this, dragged me out of bed under protest, and now you’ve changed your mind? What are you, nuts?”
Bernie sniffed. “There’s no need to be so insulting.”
“Insulting?”
“Yes. Insulting. I changed my mind because you’re being so grumpy.”
“Because I’ve had four hours of sleep.” Brandon thought for a moment. “No. Make that three and a half.”
“Whose fault is that?” Bernie demanded. “Yours obviously. Anyway, as I was saying, since you’re being so grumpy and after I brought you coffee and muffins too—”
“I’m not being grumpy,” Brandon protested. “I’m tired.”
Bernie tossed her head and threw her hair back. “Well, whatever you are, I’m changing my mind about having you help me.” She poured herself another half cup of coffee and took a sip. It was excellent if she had to say so herself. And the Demerara sugar she was using added just the right caramel undertone. “I’ll do this by myself.”
“How are you going to get in?” Brandon asked her. “Break a window?”
Bernie straightened up and put her coffee cup in the holder. “I can pick a lock if I have to,” she told him.
“Not with my picks you can’t.”
“I can do it without them,” Bernie told him. Which was entirely untrue, but she was not going to admit the converse.
“If you had three hours, maybe,” Brandon scoffed. “And even then I doubt it.”
Bernie shook a finger at him. “There you go insulting me again.”
“I’m not insulting you.” Brandon eyed the blueberry muffin. “I’m speaking the truth.”
“Your truth, which is vastly different from everyone else’s truth.” Bernie put her hand on the door handle. “I don’t care what you think. I’m doing it.”
“Really?” Brandon said as he gulped down the remaining coffee in his cup.
“Yes. Really.”
Brandon raised an eyebrow. This he felt was not a good idea. For several reasons. The most obvious one being that Bernie would get caught and then he would have to try to explain to Bernie’s father how this had happened. It would not be a nice conversation.
“Does your father know what you’re doing?”
Bernie smiled. “Of course he does.”
“You’re lying. Your father would absolutely not approve of your doing this.”
Bernie flushed. “I’m not lying,” she told him even though she was.
“Right. I can always tell when you are.”
Bernie opened her eyes as wide as possible. “Why would I lie?” she asked.
Brandon snorted. “Don’t do your Miss Innocent look with me. I’m immune to it. Your dad would pitch a fit.”
“So what if he does?”
“So he would blame me.”
Bernie sniffed. “Excuse me. I’m not chattel, you know. I’m an adult.”
“Sometimes you don’t act like one,” Brandon observed.
“I really resent that,” Bernie said. “Furthermore, I think my reasons for doing this make sense.”
“You never told me your reasons.”
“Yes I did. You weren’t listening.”
“I was asleep.”
“That’s no excuse.”
Brandon sighed. “Okay. Tell me them again.”
So Bernie explained. Mostly. Leaving out the part about the bet, which might not even be true because Amber could be somewhat fuzzy from time to time.
“At this moment,” she told Brandon, who was finishing up the last of his coffee while he listened, “the only evidence the police have are the pics we found on Liza’s laptop.”
“So you’ve said.” Brandon stifled a yawn. He was so tired even the coffee wasn’t helping. “To my mind those point to Liam, Connor, or Patrick. Which is a good thing,” he added.
Bernie brushed a lock of hair out of her eye. “One would think. But if that were the case the DA wouldn’t have charged Duncan.”
Brandon frowned. “I know.”
“Which is why I want to look in Sweeney’s house and see if we can find some evidence pointing to someone else.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Brandon said, sitting back in his seat and turning the heater in the Jeep up a little to combat the chill. “From what I’ve seen at the bar, Duncan never struck me as the type of guy who would kill a woman over something like that. He’d just walk away and bad-mouth her on Facebook.” He shrugged. “But then you never really know what someone will do, do you?”
“No, you don’t,” Bernie said, thinking back to some of her less fortunate past encounters with the opposite sex.
Brandon was silent for a moment, then said, “There were no pictures of Sweeney on the laptop, right?”
Bernie nodded. “That is correct.”
“And the two murders are supposed to be related.”
Bernie nodded again. “That’s what the police are saying.”
Brandon took a sip of his coffee. “But you don’t think so?”
“No. I do.” Bernie ate the last bit of her corn-bread muffin.
“So then why did Duncan kill Sweeney? The police say it had to do with the photos. But Sweeney didn’t have anything to do with the photos. Unless he’s on another site. Or unless the police know something we don’t.”
“Exactly,” Bernie said. “Which I don’t believe is the case. At least, according to Clyde it isn’t. Which leaves us going back to the scenario of Duncan being set up.”
“And how will looking through Mike Sweeney’s house help to prove that?” Brandon asked.
Bernie bit her lip. “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess I can’t think of anything else to do.”
Brandon crumpled up the paper cup he’d been drinking coffee out of and threw it in the garbage bag on the floor of his Jeep. “What makes you think you’ll find something at Sweeney’s house that the police haven’t?” he asked.
Bernie turned and faced him. “But that’s thet t threw it point,” she cried. “The police haven’t been there yet.”
Brandon blinked. “I don’t believe it.”
“That’s what Clyde said and there’s no reason for him to lie.”
“That’s just too ...”
“Irresponsible?” Bernie asked.
“Why would they do that?” Brandon said.
Bernie shrugged. “I’m guessing because they think they have the culprit, so they don’t have to investigate further. That’s why I want to get in there now.”
Brandon sighed. Bernie smiled. She knew she had him.
“I should be shot,” he said.
Bernie leaned over and hugged him. “All you have to do is open the back door for me. Then wait in the car.”
“I don’t think so,” Brandon said.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Bernie told Brandon in her most pious tone as she pulled her hoodie up and zipped up her jacket.
“It’s a little late for that,” Brandon observed as he did likewise. “My dad always told me that women lead you astray.”
Bernie laughed and punched Brandon in the arm. Then he and Bernie got out of the Jeep and climbed over the metal guardrail that separated the pharmacy from the house that Mike Sweeney had been living in. It was showtime.
Chapter 17
Mike Sweeney’s house wasn’t a very prepossessing structure as far as houses in Longely went. It was a plain, two-thousand foot, two-story colonial with a picture window that fronted the street, a brown double-shingle roof, a long driveway, and an unattached garage out in the back. The house had been painted all white and the backyard was half grass, half blacktop. From where Brandon was standing, he couldn’t see any shrubs or flower beds, which surprised him. Somehow he’d expected something a little jazzier from a man who had spent five hundred dollars on a pair of shoes for himself.
This was also bad news because there were no trees or shrubs to hide what he was planning to do. On the other hand, the house was bordered by two vacant lots on either side, which was good news be
cause that meant that there was less chance of being seen by the neighbors.
“They changed the zoning regs after they tore down the houses,” Bernie explained before Brandon could ask. “And now those lots are too small to build on.”
“Weird.”
“I know.”
Brandon held out his hand. It had started to drizzle. Great. Now he was going to be cold, wet, and tired. The perfect trifecta. He crossed his arms over his chest and went back to studying the rear of Mike Sweeney’s house. “So they just left them like that?”
Bernie shrugged. “Sometimes I don’t get the planning board at all.”
“Why’d they tear them down?”
“They weren’t up to code. At least that’s what they said.”
Brandon waited for Bernie to continue. After a moment she did. “But I heard that Pat Dwyer ...”
“... Your dad’s friend?”
“More of an acquaintance really ... I heard that he was the person who was instrumental in getting the buildings torn down, that he had a thing going with resenorethe owners of the houses.”
“Lovely,” Brandon said. “Real estate as a blood sport.”
“It might not be true,” Bernie said. “It’s just a story I heard.”
“It probably isn’t,” Brandon agreed, although he wouldn’t be surprised if it were. What Bernie had described sounded like a small town kind of thing and Longely was nothing if not a small town.
Bernie shivered. The cold was cutting right through her. She should have worn her leather bomber jacket instead of the EMS nylon shell she had on. “So, Brandon, how do you want to do this?” she asked, changing the subject.
But Brandon didn’t answer her. He was busy looking at the Jeep. He bit his lip as something occurred to him.
“What?” Bernie asked.
“I was just thinking that I don’t like leaving the Jeep in the lot,” Brandon told her. “We’re the only vehicle here.”
Bernie hugged herself tighter. “So?”
“So if the cops come by they might wonder what the Jeep is doing there. I’m going to move it somewhere where it will be less noticeable. I’ll be back in a sec.”
A Catered St. Patrick's Day Page 14
