A Catered Halloween (14 page)

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” Inez said and gulped her drink.

“Come on,” Bernie told her. “You have to give me credit for this. You have to admit I’m good.”

“Yes, you are,” answered Brandon.

Bernie was startled. She’d been so engrossed in her conversation with Inez that she hadn’t realized Bran
don was standing in front of her, with another beer for Inez. She was always amazed at how quietly he moved for a big guy. She smiled at him and turned her attention back to Inez.

“That must have been hard, working for Amethyst. More than hard given the circumstances.”

Inez didn’t say anything.

“Did you do it so you could get back at her?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Actually, I think it is.” Bernie took a sip of her Coke and put it down. “So after you tried blackmailing her, I’m guessing Amethyst didn’t want you working at her place anymore.”

“She had no right to do what she did.”

“Are you talking about the fact that she broke up your home, the fact that you worked for her, or the fact that she fired you?”

Inez hunched her shoulders and took another swig from her glass. “A person’s got to live, doesn’t she?”

“So, what did you hear?” Bernie asked.

A cunning expression stole across Inez’s face. “Maybe it wasn’t something I heard. Maybe it was something I saw.”

“How much did you ask from Amethyst?”

Inez drained the last drop from her glass and put it down. “What difference does it make?” She leaned in toward Bernie. Her mouth twisted itself into a sneer. “You know what she did? She laughed at me. At me. Told me I was a loser and no one would ever believe me.”

“So what did you do?” Bernie asked.

“Guess,” Inez said.

“Got even?” Bernie said.

Inez laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Bernie asked.

“You are,” Inez replied, and she got up and started for the door.

“How about if I buy you another drink?” Bernie said.

“You think I’m that easy?” Inez said. “Well, screw you.” And she left.

“That went well,” Brandon said.

“Didn’t it, though.” Bernie tapped her fingers on the bar. “I should have offered her money instead.”

“Somehow I don’t think that twenty dollars would do it.”

“Are you saying I’m cheap?”

“No. I’m saying you’re broke.”

“Amethyst was a real piece of work,” Bernie said thoughtfully.

Brandon grinned. “That would be one way of putting it.”

“And the other way?”

“She was a sadistic little bitch.”

“These days people would say she had a personality disorder.”

“They’d probably say that about Hitler, too.”

Bernie chuckled. That was one of the things she loved about Brandon. He always made her laugh.

“You know what?” she said.

Brandon planted his elbows on the bar and supported his face with his hands. “What?” he said.

“I think I’m going to take a quick look around Amethyst’s place.”

“And the reason being?”

“Because maybe there’s something there that we need to know.”

“You’re thinking about what Inez said.”

Bernie nodded.

“The police have probably gone through it already.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time that they missed something.”

“You don’t have a key,” Brandon pointed out.

“I’ll use your credit-card trick.”

Brandon rolled his eyes.

“You’re just jealous that you can’t come,” said Bernie.

Brandon snorted. “Right. I really want to get arrested. Just don’t call me to bail you out.”

Bernie leaned over the bar and kissed him. “That would never even occur to me.”

“Right,” Brandon repeated.

Bernie flashed him her best smile. “Call me when you’re off, and I’ll meet you at your place.”

“I told you, you’d beg me.”

She picked up a peanut and threw it at him. Then she hurried out the door before he could get her back.

M
arvin and Sean stood in the room of the Haunted House that had the coffin that came out of the floor. No one was there yet, so it was eerily quiet.

“Should we be here?” Marvin asked Sean.

“No one said we couldn’t,” Sean replied.

“That’s because you didn’t ask.”

Sean didn’t answer. Instead, he stared at the ceiling. It was lower than the ceilings in the other rooms by a good foot or so. Sean was betting it was a dropped ceiling made with two-by-fours and covered over with plaster.

“You should return those keys,” Marvin told him.

“I will,” said Sean while he continued to study the ceiling.

And he
would
return the keys. He didn’t want Konrad and Curtis to get in trouble. He was just going to do it later rather than sooner. Obviously, they didn’t need the keys at the moment, or else they would have asked for them by now.

“Do me a favor,” he said to Marvin. “Turn on the
lights for me. The control switch is by the door, on your left.” He paused. “Left,” he said to Marvin as Marvin went to the right.

“You mean this way?” Marvin asked.

“Right.”

Marvin moved toward the right.

“Left,” Sean screamed.

“I did, and you said right.”

Sean took several deep breaths. According to Bernie, this was supposed to help him calm down. It didn’t. “Go to the left,” he said in as even a voice as he could manage. “That’s correct,” he told Marvin when he had.

“You should be clearer,” Marvin told him in an injured voice.

In this case Sean decided that silence was a virtue. So, he watched Marvin grope behind the wall hanging. “Farther in,” Sean instructed.

“Got it,” Marvin told him.

The lights didn’t come on.

“Obviously, you didn’t get it,” Sean replied.

“I got something,” Marvin said.

Sean was just about to tell him to try again when out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. He jumped back as what he now realized was a coffin rose out of the floor. Then he remembered what Bernie had told him about the exhibit, and his heart settled back down.

A moment later the skeleton sat up. It had a patch over one eye. “Soon you’ll look just like me,” the skeleton cackled. “Just like me. Eat, drink, and be merry. We don’t have six packs in the graveyard.”

“I told you I hit the wrong switch,” Marvin said.

“See if you can turn the sound off,” Sean said. It was impossible to think with that thing babbling on.

Marvin went back to fumbling with the wall switches. A moment later the skeleton shut up in mid-cackle.

Sean looked at the ceiling. “Marvin, how high would you say that was?”

“About eight feet.”

“That would be my guess, too. I want you to do me a favor and stand on the edge of the coffin and see if you can touch the ceiling.”

“But…”

“You should be used to them.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is?”

“I just don’t want to fall in and break the thing.”

“You won’t,” Sean said, with more confidence than he felt. After all, if it was possible to break something, Marvin usually did. “You can hold on to my shoulder for balance.” Also a bad idea, but the best he could come up with given the circumstances.

Marvin put one foot on the coffin, then stepped up with the other.

“Steady?” Sean asked when Marvin was standing on the edge of the coffin.

“I guess,” Marvin said.

“Now lift your hand up, and touch the ceiling.”

“Satisfied?” Marvin said as he made contact.

Sean nodded as Marvin started to tilt. He stepped away just as Marvin lurched forward and crashed to the floor.

“How tall would you say Bob Small is?” Sean asked Marvin as the younger man picked himself up and dusted himself off.

“Aren’t you even going to ask me how I am?” Marvin demanded while he rubbed his elbow.

“No. I’m not asking you, because you’re obviously fine,” Sean said. “Again. How tall is Bob Small?”

“I think he must be almost six feet. I’m five feet ten, and he’s about two inches taller than I am. Why?”

“Do you have a flashlight in your car?”

“No.”

“A penlight?”

Marvin shook his head.

“Don’t you keep an emergency kit in your car?”

Marvin shook his head again. “I can go out and buy one.”

“No. By the time you get back, there’ll be people here.” Sean thought for a moment. Then he took out his cell phone.

“Who are you calling?” Marvin asked.

“I’m not calling anyone,” said Sean. He opened up his cell and shined the light on the ceiling, directly above where Marvin had been standing. “Do you see anything?” he asked.

“It would help if I knew what I was looking for.”

“A crack in the ceiling.”

“Why do we care?”

“We just do,” Sean said. “Now concentrate.”

Marvin dutifully put his head back and stared at the ceiling. It all looked like a big expanse of white plaster to him. A moment later he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m getting muscle spasms.”

“Move down a foot, and stop complaining,” Sean snapped.

“I’m not complaining. I’m just telling you I have a hypermobile neck.”

“Keep looking, anyway.”

“Is this what you mean?” Marvin asked five minutes later.

Sean followed Marvin’s finger. There was what looked like a small indentation in the ceiling. He
smiled. Today was going to be a good day, after all. “Yes.”

“Good,” Marvin said. “Because I don’t think I can take much more of this. My neck is killing me. I’ll probably have to go see the chiropractor now.”

It took a lot of willpower on Sean’s side to not say anything, even though he would have liked to. Boy, would he ever. He could just imagine the reaction he would have gotten if he’d said something like that to his dad. He probably would have gotten a kick across the room. But that was what kids were like these days. Whine, whine, whine. How they managed to survive in the world was beyond him. Even though he thought Marvin’s dad was an asshole, he was beginning to feel a little more sympathy for him.

Sean plastered what he hoped was a pleasant expression on his face and said, “I just want you to do one more thing for me. I want you to get back on the rim of the coffin and see if you can push the panel forward with your hand.”

“What panel?”

“The panel that I think is in the ceiling.”

“I’m going to fall if I do this,” Marvin told him.

“I’ll stand next to you. You can lean on me.”

“That’s what you told me before.”

Sean looked at his watch. They didn’t have much time left before people started coming in to prepare for this evening.

“Please,” Sean said. “Try. This is really important.”

“For real?” Marvin asked.

“Yes. It might help us figure out who killed Amethyst.”

Marvin thought about it for a moment. Then he got up on the rim of the coffin and spaced his feet apart. Sean moved in so Marvin could lean against him. Marvin raised his hands and pushed. Nothing happened.

“Try again,” Sean urged.

Marvin did. “I think I felt something move.”

“Good,” Sean said encouragingly. “Just once more. If it doesn’t happen, then I’m wrong.”

“Okay,” Marvin said.

Sean watched as Marvin rebalanced himself on the rim of the coffin, put his hands up flat against the plaster, and pushed. He could see something moving. Marvin pushed harder. The panel slid back some more.

Sean looked up at the eight inches of space Marvin had created. “There goes Bob Small’s alibi,” he said.

“Someone else could have done it, too,” Marvin said.

“I suppose,” Sean agreed. “But it’s highly unlikely.”

“But it’s possible,” Marvin insisted.

“It’s possible,” Sean agreed. “Possible, but not probable.” He sighed. “Of course, we won’t have proof positive until someone crawls up there and tests my theory out,” he added as Marvin turned the switch and the coffin disappeared back into the ground.

“Someone?” squeaked Marvin as he turned off the lights.

“Yes. Someone. Obviously, it can’t be me,” Sean told him as they walked out of the room, through the Chain-Saw Massacre Room, and out into the corridor that led to the outside. Sean paused to lock the outside door to the Haunted House. Then he pulled on the door to make sure it was locked. Test and retest. That was his motto.

“Obviously,” Marvin said to Sean’s back.

Sean grunted a reply.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” Marvin said to Sean, and then he ran to the car, which, on Sean’s advice, he’d parked behind the Haunted House. That way no one driving by would see them.

Sean looked at his watch. “Make it fast. People will be here soon,” he called.

Marvin broke into a trot. He got to his vehicle, put the key in the ignition, started her up, put the car in reverse, and immediately backed into the tree behind him. God. The more nervous he got, the klutzier he became. He jumped out and looked at the damage. Fortunately, it was just a ding in the bumper. He jumped back in his car, put the car in drive, and zoomed off to get Sean.

“What was that I heard?” Sean asked him.

“Nothing,” Marvin lied. “Absolutely nothing.”

A moment later they were driving out of there.
And not a moment too soon,
Marvin thought as he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Another couple of minutes and people would be coming up. Thank God they hadn’t gotten caught. If Marvin never saw this place again, he’d be ecstatic. As far as he could see, nothing good had ever happened here.

Maybe his dad was right. Maybe a funeral director was a good thing to be. No surprises in that, or at least not the kind of surprises that raised your blood pressure. All he wanted to do now was sit in the kitchen and talk to Libby and eat a slice of her warm apple pie with her homemade vanilla ice cream.

Instead, he was running around with her dad, doing things that could get both of them arrested. And if that happened, it would be his fault. He’d get blamed for it, because he always got blamed for everything that went wrong. That was just the way things were. Marvin sighed and slowed down for the steep curve coming up.

Maybe after Libby was through working tonight, they could go to R.J.’s and have a beer. It wasn’t as good as having Libby’s pie, but it would be good
enough. He had just finished taking another curve—the road to the Haunted House had more twists and turns than a bad soap opera—when he looked over at Sean and saw Sean looking at him, and somehow he knew exactly what Libby’s dad was thinking.

“I don’t like heights, and I don’t like small spaces,” Marvin told him.

“The ceiling isn’t that high, and the space isn’t that small.”

“I’ll fall through.”

“No, you won’t. Ceilings like that, built with drywall and two-by-fours, can support a considerable amount of weight.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve put them up.”

Marvin thought for a moment. “What happens if I get stuck?”

“You won’t get stuck.”

“But what happens if I do?”

“We’ll walk away and pretend we never met you.”

Marvin snuck a quick peek at Sean. He could never tell whether he was kidding or not.

“I was joking,” Sean said. “And you don’t have to do this. You’ve been more than enough help already.”

“Then who will?”

Sean shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find someone. If worse comes to worst, I’ll do it myself.”

Marvin groaned.

“Well, it’s the truth,” Sean said. “Or maybe I can get one of my daughters to do it.”

“Why don’t you twist the knife a little deeper?” Marvin asked him.

Sean grinned. “I’m good at guilt, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are.”

“It’s a talent I inherited from my mother’s side of the family.”

“Fine,” Marvin grumped. “I’ll climb up there. But if anything happens to me, it’s on your head.”

Sean laughed. “I think I can handle that responsibility.”

“When is this going to happen?”

“Probably tonight after the Haunted House closes.”

“What?” squeaked Marvin.

“Well, I am going to have to give the keys back to Konrad and Curtis. Or we could go over to the Home Depot in Thompsonville and get them duped. That might give us a little more leeway.”

“Leeway is good,” Marvin said.

“Always,” Sean said as he leaned over and turned on the radio. For a moment, both men were quiet as they listened to the music.

“So what do you think happened?” Marvin asked once they hit the main road. “How do you think Bob Small pulled this off?”

Sean sat back in his seat and told Marvin what he thought.