A Catered Mother's Day (12 page)

Chapter 23

I
t was one o'clock in the afternoon the following day when Bernie and Libby left A Little Taste of Heaven and set out for Lisa Stone's house. The sisters had intended on getting an earlier start, but the dishwasher had backed up and they'd had to wait for the plumber to come, as well as deal with a rush order for several strawberry cream pies. The good news was that it had finally stopped raining, leaving the streets and the grass glistening. The bad news was that no one had heard from Ellen. Or if they had, they weren't telling Bernie.

On the way to Lisa Stone's house, Bernie spotted a rainbow over the Hudson River. “Look,” she said, pointing at it.

“That's nice.” Libby barely glanced at it as she kept driving. She just wanted to get this interview with Lisa Stone over with and get back to the shop. She had too much to do.

Ten minutes later, Libby pulled onto the winding road that led to Lisa Stone's residence. Sited on top of Fortescue Hill, the house had been built in the forties and was, as the real estate people liked to say, “loaded with charm.” It was fieldstone on the bottom and wood on top, with window boxes filled with pansies and greenery on the lower levels. A trellis with deep red climbing roses ran up in a narrow band on the left side of the house.

“Nice,” Bernie said as they drove up to the house past banks of daylilies and ferns.

“If you care for perfection,” Libby said sourly.

She did not do well on three hours' worth of sleep. She parked as close to the house as possible before getting out and climbing the stairs. Bernie joined her a moment later. Inside they could hear the sound of a Spanish soap opera on the television. Bernie rang the doorbell. A moment later, a heavyset Hispanic-looking woman dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt, and sneakers came to the door. She was holding a dust rag in one hand and a bottle of furniture polish in the other.

“Yes?” she asked in heavily accented English. When Bernie explained what she wanted she shook her head and replied that neither Mr. or Mrs. Stone was here.

“And Ellen?” Bernie asked. “Ellen Hadley?”

The woman looked at her for a moment. Then said, “Who this?”

“Mrs. Stone's business partner,” Bernie replied.

“Ah,” the woman said, her expression revealing nothing.
“Claro.”

“
Claro
what?” Bernie asked.

The woman looked at her as if she didn't understand what Bernie was saying, although Bernie had a feeling that she did.

“Ellen Hadley
está aquí
?” Bernie asked, using her high school Spanish.

The woman shrugged her shoulders.

“Es importante,”
Bernie said. The feeling she had about this woman became a conviction. Not only did this woman understand English, she knew something about Ellen Hadley. Bernie was positive of it.

“I go now,” the woman said, but she didn't move. Instead she smiled and looked Bernie up and down.

“Un momento,”
Bernie told her, having gotten what the woman wanted.

The woman crossed her arms over her chest and waited.

Bernie turned to Libby. “How much money do you have on you?”

Her sister's eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“How much?”

“A couple of hundred.”

Bernie held out her hand. “Give me a hundred.”

“Are you kidding me? No.”

“I'll pay it back,” Bernie said. She raised her hand. “I swear.”

“Use your own money.”

“I forgot my wallet in the flat.”

Libby made a face. “How convenient.”

“Please,” Bernie begged her sister, as the woman in the doorway looked with interest at the scene unfolding on the doorstep.

“All I can say is you'd better give this back to me,” Libby said as she dug into her wallet and handed Bernie five twenty-dollar bills.

“Ellen Hadley
está aquí
?” Bernie asked again, holding out a twenty-dollar bill.

The woman thought for a moment. Then she switched the furniture polish to her left hand, held out her right hand, and said in unaccented English, “I'll take the five twenties if you please, and by the way, your Spanish is terrible. It's
estuvo
not
está
. That is if you're talking about the past tense, which I take it you are.”

Bernie handed the money over. “Everyone's a comedian.”

The woman counted it and slipped it in her jeans pocket. “Thank you.”

Now it was Bernie's turn to cross her arms over her chest and wait for the woman to begin. After a minute she did.

She said, “Your friend was here about three in the morning. She rang the bell and woke everyone up. There was this big fight between Mr. and Mrs. Stone and your friend.”

Bernie uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. “What were they saying? What was it about?”

The woman pointed to the garage. “I live on the second floor, so I didn't get most of it, although they did wake me up with their shouting. The only thing I did hear was Ellen yelling something about Manny's wife and that she knew that this would happen, and Mr. Stone was screaming it was none of Ellen Hadley's business, and Mrs. Stone was crying and telling everyone to calm down. Then the boys came down and wanted to know what was going on, and Mrs. Stone took them off to bed, and that was the end of that.”

“And afterward?” Libby asked.

“I'm not sure,” the woman said. “I heard the front door to the house slam, and then I heard a car take off. I presume it was Ellen Hadley's. Then nothing.” She shrugged. “I turned over and went back to sleep.”

“Are you sure you heard right about Manny's wife?” Libby asked her.

The woman nodded. “Pretty sure. It's not as if I was right there. And now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish my work before the señora of the house returns.” This time she turned and went inside.

Chapter 24

“M
anny married,” Bernie mused out loud as she and Libby climbed back into Mathilda.

“Interesting.” Bernie closed the van door. It stuck a little and she reminded herself to get that taken care of. “Not that there's any reason he shouldn't be. Maybe that's why he came back after all these years.”

“If that woman is telling the truth,” Libby said.

“Why shouldn't she be?”

Libby snorted. “Because she lied.”

“About what?” Bernie protested.

Libby pulled out of the driveway. “Not speaking English when she did.”

Bernie rolled down the window. It was getting warm out. “I'd call that playing the game.”

“And I'd call it lying by omission. Well, at least we know where Ellen was at three this morning.” Libby slowed down to let a doe and two fawns cross the road.

Bernie watched them disappear into a grove of birch trees. She knew they were annoying, that they ate everyone's plants, but she loved to watch them anyway.

“The question is where is Ellen now?” She'd tried calling her earlier in the day and gotten no response.

“Probably sleeping,” Libby guessed.

“But where?” Bernie said. They'd already driven by Ellen's hangout places and there'd been no sign of her.

“Hopefully Lisa will know,” Libby said.

“Hopefully,” Bernie said as she got out her cell, called their dad, and ask him to check out Manny's marital status. After Bernie hung up, she rolled the window down some more, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the smell of lilacs permeating the air.

“What are you thinking about?” Libby asked after five minutes had gone by.

Bernie opened her eyes. “Nothing,” she said, surprising herself with her answer. “Absolutely nothing. I'm just enjoying the sunshine and how sweet everything smells after the winter.”

“It was long,” Libby allowed.

“And brutal,” Bernie rejoined.

“This is true,” Libby said. It had been so bad it had gotten her thinking of moving to Florida.

There was no traffic on Route 76 at that time of the day and the sisters made it to Croton in a little under twenty minutes. Then they rode around for another ten minutes looking for the building that Lisa and Ellen had rented. They finally found it at the south end of the park hidden behind three warehouses, a storage unit, and a factory that made cardboard boxes.

“This must be it,” Libby said, stopping in front of an unnumbered, unmarked rectangular building constructed of cinderblocks and spray painted an ugly shade of gray. There was one vehicle, a Range Rover, parked by the door. Ellen's Subaru was nowhere in sight.

“I'm not sure I'd want to be here at night,” Libby commented as she got out of Mathilda.

“I wouldn't want to be here day or night,” observed Bernie. She pushed the van door open. “Too depressing. I'd want to shoot myself.”

As the sisters got closer to the door, they could hear the sounds of hard rock blaring out of the building.

“Not the music I'd choose to bake to,” Bernie observed as she knocked on the door.

When no one answered she opened the door and stepped inside. The space had been divided into a small, dimly lit hallway that led off into three work areas, two of which appeared to be vacant. The third space was occupied by Arf, as the hand-lettered sign tacked to the door made clear. This time Bernie didn't knock. She walked in. Lisa was standing over a prep table weighing out flour and pouring it into a mixer. Evidently, she and Ellen hadn't gotten a new one yet. Bernie looked around. The space was certainly larger than Ellen Hadley's basement. It was rigged out with three large commercial ovens, a dishwasher, two double sinks, and two large coolers.

“Nice setup,” Bernie said to Lisa's back. “You can certainly pump out a lot of product here.”

Lisa whirled around. “Oh,” she said when she realized who it was. “You scared me.”

“Sorry, we didn't mean to,” Bernie replied, noting as she did that Lisa looked as if she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before or the night before that either. Her blond hair had a cowlick sticking straight up in the back of her head, her skin looked blotchy because she wasn't wearing any makeup, and her clothes were rumpled.

“We're looking for Ellen,” Libby said.

“Figured,” Lisa said. “So is everyone. Why should you be different?”

“So have you . . . ?” Bernie asked.

“Seen her?”

“Yes.”

Lisa weighed out two more scoops of flour and put them in the mixer. “Sorry, but I can't say that I have.”

“Can you say that you haven't?” Libby asked.

Lisa put down the scoop she was using and dusted off her hands. “I don't think I have time for word games right now.”

Bernie leaned against the prep table to take the weight off her foot. “Neither do we. So you would tell us if you'd seen her?”

Lisa's hand went up to her necklace, a large tear-shaped diamond on a gold chain. She began unconsciously moving the charm back and forth. “Of course I would.”

“So you definitely haven't seen her,” Libby said.

Lisa shook her head. She looked slightly annoyed. “That's what I just said, isn't it? How many times do I have to repeat that?”

“Or heard from her?” Libby continued.

“No, I haven't heard from her,” Lisa said exasperatedly.

“That's too bad,” Bernie replied. She was extremely impressed by Lisa's ability to lie. Nothing in her expression suggested she was telling anything other than the truth. If Bernie didn't know better, she'd believe her.

“Yes, it is,” Lisa continued. “It would be nice if I did.” She nodded to the prep table. “After all, these dog biscuits aren't going to bake themselves.” She frowned. “Ellen knows we have a big order due. She knows this is make it or break it time for us. I can't believe she isn't here.”

Bernie gestured toward Lisa's phone, then pointed to the overhead fan. “Do you think you could lower the volume ? I'm having trouble hearing.”

“Well, I'm not,” Lisa said.

Bernie leaned over, picked up Lisa's phone, and turned the music off. The silence was overwhelming. “Well, I am,” Bernie said.

Lisa let go of her necklace. “You can't do that,” she squawked.

“I just did. We need to talk.”

“Then make an appointment like any other normal human being,” Lisa spluttered. “You know, you just can't walk in here and invade my space.”

Bernie smiled pleasantly. “That description seems a tad extreme.”

“There's a law against that.”

“I doubt it, but I could be wrong. There are laws against lots of things,” Bernie observed.

Lisa sniffed. “I have a good mind to call the police.”

“Go right ahead,” Bernie told her. She could tell that Lisa's heart wasn't in the threat. “But consider this: if you answer our questions, we'll be out of here in a couple of minutes, whereas if you call the police it'll take a good deal longer. I can promise you I'll make sure of that. Think about it,” Bernie urged.

Lisa spent a minute weighing her options. She took a deep breath and let it out, after which she repeated the maneuver a second and a third time.
She looks like a guppy
, Bernie couldn't help thinking.

“Fine,” Lisa said when she had calmed down. “What do you want to know? I already told you I haven't seen Ellen.”

“Funny,” Bernie said, “but that's one of the reasons we're here. See, Libby and I heard she came by your house early this morning.”

“Who told you that?” Lisa snapped, her eyes suddenly alert.

“Ellen told me,” Bernie lied.

“I thought you said you hadn't heard from her.”

“No. I've heard from her. I haven't seen her. There's a difference.”

“A very fine one.”

“So what were you two fighting about?” Bernie asked.

Lisa gave a mirthless smile. “If you spoke to her, then I'm sure you know, so why don't you tell me.”

“You were fighting about Manny,” Bernie said, repeating what the housekeeper had told her earlier.

Lisa didn't say anything, but she didn't have to, Bernie thought. This time her face gave her away. She blinked several times, then looked down at the floor and back again. Bernie could see she'd gotten it right.

Gratified, Bernie continued. “Ellen knew who Manny was, right?”

“Obviously,” Lisa replied.

“Just checking.” Bernie moved her ring up and down her finger. “So why did Ellen tell me she didn't know who he was when she saw him lying on the bed in the motel?”

“You'll have to ask her that question yourself,” Lisa responded. “I have no idea. Who knows why Ellen does anything? I certainly don't.”

“So your husband knew Manny,” Bernie said, abruptly changing topics.

Lisa placed her hands on her hips and jutted her chin forward. “What if he did? What's your point?”

“Nothing,” Libby said, stepping into the conversation. “We were just curious, my sister and I. How does Jeremy know him?”

Lisa shrugged. “It's a complicated story and I don't remember all the details.”

Libby reached over and moved a spatula away from the prep table's edge. “How about the details you do recall?”

“I really don't remember any,” Lisa hedged. “Like I just said, you'd better ask Jeremy.”

“We intend to,” Bernie said. She continued playing with her ring. “I guess I was surprised to see Manny back, considering the way he left. I mean if it was me, I don't think I'd want to come back here. Too many bad memories.”

“Neither would I,” Lisa conceded. “But I guess everyone's different.”

“I'm surprised you hired him given the circumstances. I'm not sure I would have,” Bernie said.

“Well, I don't think he did what they said he did,” Lisa replied. “I think he was framed by Melinda and Kitty, and anyway, that was a long time ago.”

“Is that what Ellen thinks?” Libby asked.

Lisa shrugged. “I have no idea. Not that it matters. She wouldn't have wanted to hire anyone even if he was the Angel Gabriel himself.”

Bernie laughed. “Really?”

“Yes, really. She's the kind of person who never wants to move forward. She always sees the glass as half empty instead of half full.” Lisa put her hands on her hips. “Tell me that isn't true.”

“It is,” Bernie admitted. “Ellen definitely has her issues. As do we all,” she hastily added.

“Exactly,” Lisa said, warming to the topic. “I mean it's one thing being friends, but it's another trying to run a business together. Ellen never sees the larger picture.”

Bernie made a face. “Eventually she does, but it takes a while. Libby and I are trying to help Ellen out but—”

Lisa interrupted. “I don't envy you.”

Bernie sighed. “It's been tough,” she admitted, feeling disloyal.

Lisa shook her head and put on a more sorrowful than angry face. “Ellen is her own worst enemy. Always has been as long as I've known her. But I don't have to tell you that. If you come to a turn in the road and going east is the good choice and going west is the bad one, Ellen will always go west.”

Bernie bit her lip. What Lisa was saying was true. Nevertheless that had nothing to do with what she and Lisa were discussing now. “Speaking of bad choices, did Ellen tell you about her plan?”

Lisa cocked her head. “Are you talking about a business plan, because Ellen doesn't have one. I can tell you that right off the bat. She's more of the ‘I'll-bake-and-they-will-come' school of business.”

“No,” Libby said. “My sister is talking about her plan to kidnap herself. Did she mention that to you?”

Lisa snorted. “Oh God. That stupid thing! I told her not to do it. I told her to go to Barneys and get a whole new wardrobe if she was feeling that way. That would certainly get Bruce's attention.... It always gets Jeremy's, but she wouldn't listen. Like I said, she really is her own worst enemy. What more proof do you need than that?”

“Do you know if Ellen told anyone else?” Bernie asked. She started playing with the spatula again and made herself stop.

“Of course she did,” Lisa replied. Her hand crept up to her diamond teardrop charm again. “You know how Ellen is. She gets upset, she just starts yakking away. She told everyone. The question is who didn't she tell?”

“Everyone?” Bernie repeated. “Could you be more specific ?”

Lisa dropped her hand to the prep table and began tapping her fingers on it. “Well, I know that she told me. I know that she told the woman who does her nails.”

“How do you know that?” Libby asked.

“Because we both go to Kim and when I went in there, Kim told me she thought that Ellen's kidnap plan was one of the stupidest things she'd ever heard and heaven only knows who she told. Given Ellen, she could have told the crossing guard at the school or the cashier at Whole Foods.”

Libby unwrapped a square of seventy percent dark chocolate that had been manufactured in Brooklyn and popped it in her mouth. Suddenly she realized she was hungry. Possibly because she hadn't had any lunch.

“So Bruce could have known about Ellen's plan?” Libby asked.

Lisa gave Libby an incredulous look. “Of course, Bruce knew about Ellen's plans.”

“Why are you so sure?” Bernie asked.