A Catered St. Patrick's Day

by Crawford, Isis

  As he watched them forming the dough for the whole wheat bread into loaves and slashing designs on the tops of the bread with razors, he made up his mind not to disturb them—well, not to disturb Libby, really—with the details of last night’s meeting with Orion. He’d been asleep when Bernie and Libby had come in, so he hadn’t had the chance to tell them about Orion’s visit, and now that he did have the opportunity, he didn’t want to shatter the morning’s peace. Just hearing Orion’s name sent Libby into a tizzy. And really what was the point? It wasn’t as if Orion had given him any useful information about the investigation, because he hadn’t. In fact, Sean was beginning to believe that, truth be told, Orion had no useful information to give. If he did come up with something, Sean would tell Libby about it then.

  “So,” he said to Libby and Bernie, that decision having been made, “how did last night go?”

  “Interesting,” Bernie said. She stopped, painting melted butter onto the tops and sides of the loaf pans they were using, and told her dad about Duncan and Patrick and Patrick’s trip to Connor’s parents’ house and what Libby had found in Connor’s parents’ bathroom and hadn’t found in Duncan’s.

  Sean raised an eyebrow when Bernie got to the last part. “Interesting indeed,” he murmured.

  Libby rolled a portion of dough out, folded it into three, sealed the edges, plopped it in the pan, and cut three horizontal lines on the loaf’s top. “I thought so,” she said when she was done.

  “So we don’t know if the Oxis belong to Connor or Priscilla,” he said. “Not that it really matters—since the bottle was in the medicine cabinet either one had access to it.”

  “They’re definitely not that hard to get these days,” Bernie observed.

  “I wonder if Brandon would know,” Sean asked.

  “Why would Brandon know anything?” Bernie demanded. “What are you saying?”

  Sean raised a hand. “Peace,” he said. “All I’m saying is that Brandon is a bartender and bartenders know things. Call him up and ask him.”

  “But he just got to sleep,just gotlee’ Bernie protested.

  “So, he’ll go back to sleep,” Sean said. “Seriously. Call.”

  Brandon answered on the fourth ring. “What?” he rasped.

  “Quick question,” Bernie said.

  “It couldn’t wait?”

  “My dad wanted me to call,” Bernie said, laying the blame on Sean.

  There was a moment of silence, then Brandon said, “Go ahead.”

  “Dad wants to know if you know who was dealing Oxis to Connor.”

  “Probably Liza,” Brandon said promptly. “She offered some to me too, but I could be wrong.”

  “Ask him if the other guys bought them too,” Sean prompted, having been following the conversation.

  “You ask him,” Bernie said, handing him the phone.

  “No,” Brandon said when Sean was on the line. “Connor was the only one. The others just drank and did a little weed.”

  “Do you know where Liza got the stuff from?” Sean asked.

  “Some guy in Staten Island.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Nope. He used to just roll through here once in a while. Haven’t seen him lately.”

  “Thanks,” Sean said, and handed the phone back to Bernie.

  “Did that help?” she asked her dad after she’d hung up.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’m thinking that maybe we might want to explore Conner’s relationship with Liza a little more deeply. Also I think it’s significant that Patrick responded to what you said to him at the bar. I wonder if he went and visited Liam as well after you lost track of him.”

  “That’s what I was wondering too,” Libby said. “I’m thinking that maybe one of us should go ask him.”

  “Patrick or Liam?” Bernie asked.

  “Liam,” Libby said promptly. “He’s the only one we haven’t talked to yet.”

  Sean nodded. “It would be interesting to see what his reaction is. Nothing like stirring the pot a little more and watching what happens, I say.”

  “It couldn’t hurt,” Libby allowed.

  Sean took another sip of his coffee. “In my experience, catching someone first thing in the morning works pretty well in that regard.”

  “You mean like now?” Libby asked uneasily, thinking of the rest of her to-do list. After she got done with the bread, there were still cookies and cheesecakes to be baked, quiches and salads to be prepared, and vegetables to be chopped.

  Sean put down his mug on the counter. “Like my mama always used to say—ain’t no time like the present to do what you got to do.”

  “Grannie Simmons did not say that,” Bernie protested. Her dad’s mother had been a grammar Nazi, constantly vigilant for any infraction.

  Sean laughed. “Well, maybe not in those words, but the intent was the same.”

  Bernie looked at the clock on the wall. “I think Liam takes the six fifty-eight into Grand Central.”

  It was now 7:15.

  “You think?” Sean asked.

  “I know,” Bernie said, correcting him.

  Sean shrugged. “Oh well,” he said, clearly disappoi eariv nted, having had visions of charging over there. “There’s always tomorrow morning. Or we can talk to him tonight when he gets back.”

  “We could,” Libby said. “Or we could do this.”

  Sean and Bernie turned to look at her.

  “What’s ‘this’?” Bernie asked.

  “‘This’ is that Liam’s wife works out at the gym in the morning,” Libby continued. “I know Katrina takes a nine o’clock Strength and Power class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and today is Tuesday.”

  “How do you know?” Bernie demanded.

  “Misha mentioned it to me when she was telling me about the class and what jerks Katrina and her friends were.”

  Bernie grunted. Misha was a gym rat who took every class the place had to offer. “That’s no big surprise,” she said, speaking of Katrina, who in Bernie’s humble opinion thought way more of herself than she should.

  “So,” Libby continued, “since we can’t get Liam maybe it would be good to talk to his wife and see what she has to say. Who knows? It might be interesting.”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea, Libby.” Sean finished his coffee and went over to fill his cup back up from the thermos, but before he could Bernie beat him to it.

  “I think it’s an excellent suggestion too,” Bernie said, smiling. “Katrina is definitely a Chatty Kathy.”

  Libby did not like Bernie’s smile.

  “I’ll make the muffins so you can get ready for class,” Bernie said.

  “Me?” Libby squeaked. “I don’t do gyms.”

  “Well, it was your suggestion,” Bernie pointed out, all sweet reasonableness. “And you surely can’t expect Dad to go.”

  “Hardly,” Libby said, while her dad laughed at the suggestion. “I was thinking you would. This is your kind of deal.”

  Bernie sighed. “If I could I would. But I can’t. So sorry.” “And why is that?” Libby demanded.

  “Simple. Because Liam’s wife doesn’t like me.”

  “Since when?” Libby asked.

  “Since she almost ran me down in the Target parking lot and I told her to watch where she was going—only a little less politely. Remember, Libby? I told you about it.”

  Libby vaguely recalled the incident. However, she didn’t think the interaction between the two was as bad as Bernie made it out to be. It couldn’t have been. Otherwise she would have remembered the story. Or heard about it from someone else.

  “Anyway,” Bernie continued before Libby had a chance to frame an adequate reply, “going to the gym will do you good.”

  “Do me good? Are you saying I’m getting fat?” Libby demanded, immediately making the worst possible interpretation of Bernie’s comment.

  Bernie shook her head in disgust. “No. I’m no
t,” she told her sister.

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “Let’s not have this conversation, Libby.”

  Libby put her hands on her hips and began tapping one of her feet on the floor. “No. I want to know.”

  “Fine. As long as you asked, I don’t think it would hurt you to get into a little better shape.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” Libby retorted.

  Sean quickly inserteuicined himself in the conversation before things totally unraveled. “Your sister just means that it’s good to exercise, isn’t that right, Bernie?”

  Bernie didn’t reply immediately.

  Sean gave Bernie the evil eye. “Well, isn’t it?” he repeated more loudly.

  “Yes,” Bernie reluctantly said after waiting a few seconds longer than she should have to reply.

  “That’s right,” Sean said. “It’s a well-known fact. Exercise gets the blood flowing. It puts one in a better mood.”

  “Not me it doesn’t,” Libby declared with absolute certainty. “The last time I went to the gym I pulled my hamstring and it took weeks for it to heal.”

  “The last time you went to the gym was when you were in college,” Bernie pointed out.

  Libby sniffed. “So?”

  “So things change, Libby.”

  “Not in this case,” Libby told her sister. “I hate the gym,” she continued. “I hate everything about it.”

  Bernie threw her arms up in the air. “I get it,” she said. “Really I do. But we’re talking about a forty-five minute class here. How bad could it be? Just hang out in the back and do a little something, then strike up a conversation with Katrina. That’s it. That’s all we’re as

  king you to do.”

  “Please, Libby,” Sean said, weighing in. “Maybe you’ll get something out of her—which would be a good thing—because we’re definitely getting nowhere fast here. This case has been like walking through a field of molasses.”

  “A fact that Bree is sure to bring up,” Bernie threw in as the clincher.

  Which Libby knew to be true since they’d been getting calls from Bree for the last four days demanding to know what progress they’d made on the case. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been much to report. Libby sighed while she tried to think of an argument to get out of going to the gym, but she couldn’t, especially since on top of everything else the whole thing had been her idea in the first place. Which totally rankled. And that is how she found herself at the gym at 8:45 that morning. In Libby’s mind it wasn’t a fate worse than death, but it was coming pretty darn close.

  Chapter 27

  Libby had taken Bernie’s advice about being in the last row to heart, actually going her one better by skulking around in the room’s back corner. She’d gotten there fifteen minutes early but there’d been no Katrina in sight, leaving Libby nothing to do but try to avoid catching glimpses of herself in the mirror and fight down a rising tide of irritation. Finally, just as Libby was beginning to give up hope and the class was about to start, Katrina sashayed in.

  Katrina was tall and thin and blond. Statuesque was the word Marvin had used, much to Libby’s chagrin, when he’d seen her at RJ’s. She had no bulges anywhere, as the T-shirt and leggings she was wearing made abundantly clear. Her hair was always perfect and her makeup skillfully applied. Actually, she was a little like Bree in that regard. Both women spent way too much time and money on their appearance for Libby’s taste, but then her sister would say she didn’t put enough time in in that area. And like Bree, Katrina definitely thought she was entitled to first-rate treatment. At least that’s what it seemed like to Libby whenever Katrina came into the store to buy anything. Amber and Googie both referred toly on> her as She Who Would Like to Be Obeyed, as opposed to Bree, whom they called She Who Must Be Obeyed.

  Libby had just finished counting the number of women in the class waiting for it to begin. There’d been fifteen the first time she’d counted and there were fifteen the second time. Just then Katrina made her entrance. Unlike Libby, who had positioned herself as far out of everyone’s line of sight as possible, Katrina went over to the side, where she picked up her mat and her weights and her step and carried them off to the front row, greeting everyone as she went.

  Naturally, Libby thought as she watched her progress. She should have realized Katrina would pick the front row. So much for the whole being in the same row and leaning over and exchanging casual comments while doing the bicep curls thing. Libby would have to move up if she wanted to talk to Katrina. But then Libby realized that even if she were in the front row, the scenario she’d been imagining wasn’t going to happen anyway. The truth was she and Bernie hadn’t really thought this whole thing through. At all.

  How was she going to talk to Katrina? When was she going to talk to Katrina? She certainly couldn’t do it in class. At least not the kinds of questions she wanted to. Now that she thought about it, she’d be better off cornering her in the locker room. No. This was definitely going to be one of those “seemed like a good idea at the time” kind of deals.

  In fact, Libby decided maybe she could just wait for Katrina in the locker room and not even take the class. That would be even better. But that would be wasting the fifteen dollars she’d paid to take the dratted class and she hated wasting money. She hated wasting money even more than she hated being in the gym.

  And talking about waste, it was definitely a waste of time for her to be taking a strength and power class. It really was totally ridiculous. This was the last kind of class she needed, given what she did for a living. If anyone wanted to bulk up, let them try lifting fifty-pound boxes of supplies in and out of the van, like she and Bernie had to do every day. Or let them empty forty pounds of dough out of the mixer once or twice a day. Hey, maybe people could pay them to do that. Maybe they could start a new fitness craze called Cooking Your Pounds Off. Now that was an idea.

  Libby laughed out loud at the thought. No. Her being here really was absurd. She’d just decided she was going to wait for Katrina in the locker room, fifteen dollars be damned, when the class instructor strode in and took her position in the front. Everyone stopped talking and snapped to.

  Libby was still thinking it wasn’t too late to quietly sneak out of class when the instructor spotted her in the corner. First she welcomed her, which in Libby’s mind was bad enough, and then she made her introduce herself, which was even worse. In truth, Libby hated the idea of being the center of attention. She always had. That’s why she’d made sure she sat in the last row in class in school.

  And it was especially true in this situation since all the other women in the room had on cute little matching outfits and she was wearing a T-shirt that was three sizes too big and a pair of sweats that even she admitted should be torn up for rags. And on top of that she needed to wash her hair. She should have listened to Bernie and worn something halfway decent—not that she would ever tell her that.

  As the class started doing their warm-up exercises, Libby found herself staring at Katrina’s hands. In fact, she couldn’t take her eyes off them. After about five minutes, when the class had graduated to squats, Libby’s personal bête noir, Libby realized why she’d been staring at Katrina’s hanatrt tds. Her fingers were bare. She wasn’t wearing her wedding band or engagement ring.

  Libby remembered hearing from Bree that they’d been expensive. According to her—and Bree was never wrong in matters like this—the engagement ring was a perfect two-carat pear-shaped number, while the wedding band had been platinum, studded with small diamonds.

  There might be a benign explanation for the rings not being on Katrina’s hand, Libby thought. For example, they could be at the jeweler being resized, but in Libby’s experience that usually wasn’t the case. Like practically never. So maybe coming here wasn’t going to be such a waste of time after all.

  Between the weights and the bands and the running in place and the hopping on and off her step and the jumping jacks and the sit-ups, Libby was ready to coll
apse by the time the class came to an end. Clearly she had made a mistake in her assessment of this class, she thought as she gulped down air. She was hot and sweaty and she had a headache and her arms and legs ached and her stomach felt as if someone had punched her in it. In short, she felt as if she was going to die. Or at least throw up.

  At the moment, the only thing she wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and then eat half a pint of chocolate-chip ice cream and take a four-hour nap. The one thing she did not want to do was talk to Katrina. Actually she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She didn’t have the energy. But after all, she reminded herself, that’s why she’d come. So she’d better. Otherwise she’d never hear the end of it from her sister and her dad. And, in addition, if there was one thing she knew, it was that she wasn’t going to do this again. Ever. For any reason.

  Libby told herself that she’d just have to dig deep and find the reserves to carry on, although she was convinced that as far as reserves went she was pretty clearly running on empty. Especially since she didn’t have any chocolate with her. While Libby was waiting for Katrina to come out of class, she pictured herself slogging across the desert under the burning sun, dragging a suitcase behind her, her lips parched, her body burning up. Maybe Bernie was right, Libby decided as Katrina came out and Libby fell in step beside her. Maybe she did have a tendency to overdramatize things.

  “This was my first class,” she said to Katrina, trying to make conversation as they both walked down the hallway toward the women’s locker room.

  Katrina didn’t say anything.

  “It’s a hard class,” Libby continued.

  Katrina gave a slight nod of agreement.

  “So how do you do it?” Libby asked her.

  “Do what?” Katrina inquired, looking at Libby for the first time.

  Libby decided Katrina didn’t like what she saw because she wrinkled her nose ever so slightly. “Keep from sweating,” Libby said.

  Katrina flashed her teeth and laughed as she reached up and gave her ponytail a tweak. “I never sweat. It’s just not something I do.”