A Catered Mother's Day (9 page)

Chapter 17

T
he cat meowed and Bernie resumed scratching behind her ears.

“She certainly seems starved for attention,” Libby noted as she looked around.

The upstairs hallway was spacious and well lit. An oriental style runner ran down the center of the floor while a matched pair of antique Chinese Fu Dogs sat on mother-of-pearl inlaid tables across from one another and staring at each other. If the dogs had been meant to protect Clara Randall, they had failed miserably. The walls were dotted with photos and the sisters stopped to take a look at them. They were all family photos, most of them of Clara Randall when she was younger.

“She was attractive,” Bernie noted over the cat's purring.

“Very,” Libby answered, looking at a picture of Clara Randall. She and a girlfriend were hugging. Both of them were wearing white skirts and striped, long sleeve, boat-neck T-shirts and had their faces turned to the camera. They were both sticking out their tongues.

“I bet she was twelve or thirteen when this was taken,” Bernie said.

“I wonder what happened to her,” Libby mused. “She looks so happy there.”

“Whatever it was, I hope it doesn't happen to us,” Bernie said as she walked down the hall scanning the other photos.

They were all family photos of one kind or another. Some were in black and white, others were faded Polaroids. Most had been taken by amateurs, although a few on the wall had been taken by professionals. All of the pictures had been expensively framed and hung with great care.

There were pictures of Clara Randall with her dad and mom, at her high school and college graduations, and away on holidays at the beach and lake. The thing that struck Bernie the most as she looked at them was Clara's progression from happy to unhappy, which the photos showed. Clara Randall had started off a pretty girl with a brilliant smile and turned into a sour-faced, plain-looking woman. How had that happened?

Bernie was three-quarters of the way down the hall when she stopped in front of one of the photos. “Libby, come here.”

Libby walked over. “What's up?”

Bernie pointed to a goofy-looking kid mugging for the camera. He was sitting at a picnic table in what looked like Highland Park. “Isn't that Manny?” she asked Libby.

Libby squinted. She bent over to take a closer look. “It sure is,” she said after a minute had gone by.
Boy has he changed
, she thought again,
and not for the better.

Bernie studied the other people in the photo. There was Clara Randall sitting at the edge of the picnic table with her hands folded on the table, and between her and Manny were a stiff-looking, sour-faced, well-dressed, middle-aged couple. She pointed to them. “I'm betting they're his parents. Manny looks just like them.”

“Dad would know,” Libby observed. “Too bad we can't ask him.”

Bernie ignored the comment. “They don't look like much fun, do they?”

“I think you can safely surmise that anyone who names their kid Raymond Manford probably isn't,” Libby replied. She studied the couple's faces. “I bet they expected great things from their son.”

“Maybe if they had expected less, they would have gotten more,” Bernie observed.

“That certainly wasn't the principle Mom operated under.”

“No, it wasn't, was it?” Bernie said softly. Her sister, being the older one, had definitely borne the brunt of her mom's expectations.

She was thinking about that while Libby gently nibbled on the inside of her cheek and studied the pictures on the wall. “He looks familiar,” she said, pointing to a slightly older kid standing in back of Manny.

He looked familiar to Bernie too. She just couldn't put a name to his face. “We should get going,” she said after glancing at her watch. “The less time we're in here, the better. How about you take the rooms on the right side and I'll take the ones on the left?”

“Works for me,” Libby told her. She shook her head. She was still thinking about the kid in the picture with Manny. “I know I know that guy from somewhere.”

“It'll come to you,” Bernie reassured her as she started toward the second bedroom on the left-hand side. The cat jumped down and followed her.

Including Clara Randall's, there were five bedrooms in all on the second floor and one bedroom in the attic. It turned out that of the remaining bedrooms on the second floor, one was being used as a sewing room, while the next three rooms had no furniture in them at all. They were chock-full of racks of clothes and shoes and various accessories.

“Holy cow,” Libby said, emerging from her first room and joining Bernie. “And I thought you shopped a lot.” She gestured to the room she'd just been in. “There must be ten racks of coats and pants and suits in there.”

Bernie surveyed boxes of shoes stacked up against the wall and arranged by color and type. The middle of the room was filled with three racks of skirts and dresses, while shelving filled with sweaters and blouses and handbags lined the other walls.

“It looks as if Clara Randall never gave anything away,” Bernie said in a massive understatement.

Then she walked over and opened the closet door. It was packed with old clothes neatly hung on pink quilted hangers. The scent of lavender mixed with the smell of mothballs assaulted Bernie's nose. The cat must not have liked it, because she scampered to the other side of the room. She sniffed at the baseboards while Bernie quickly thumbed through the clothes. The dresses were from places like Saks and Lord & Taylor and Bergdorf's.

“Definitely oldies but goodies,” Bernie observed, shutting the closet door behind her. “There's a lot of money here,” she said, referring to the clothes, as she and Libby walked back out into the hallway.

Libby shook her head. “I can't imagine staying in a house like this by myself,” she said, interrupting Bernie's train of thought. “It's too big. It would give me the heebie jeebies.”

Bernie smiled. That had been one of her mother's expressions. “Me too, but Clara must have liked it this way. She could certainly afford to move,” Bernie said as she slowly made her way back out into the hallway. The cat followed. “I guess she needed room for all of her stuff.”

She reached down and massaged her ankle. It was throbbing by now. The more she was on it, the more painful it became. She ignored the ache and limped toward the door to the attic. It was midway down the hall and qualitatively different from the other doors upstairs. This one was new. The other doors were solid oak; this was hollow core, and even though it had been stained, it didn't match the others.

“I bet Clara Randall got this at Home Depot,” Bernie said as she grasped the doorknob and pulled.

The door opened easily and the cat scampered up the stairs before Bernie could stop her.

“Great,” Bernie said, looking at the dark stairwell. She put out her hand and felt around until she found a light switch and turned it on. She sighed as she studied the stairs. They looked steep and the treads of the two middle ones were sagging.

“I'll go if you want,” Libby offered. “You can stay here.”

“No. I can do it,” Bernie said, gritting her teeth. After all, she'd been the one who had insisted on this. She grabbed hold of the banister and pulled herself up one step at a time. Libby came up after her to make sure her sister didn't fall.

The cat was sitting on a bed when Bernie got up there. It was one of those futons that converted into a bed. The bed was unmade, a bath towel was thrown on a chair, there was a backpack on the dresser and magazines on the floor, as well as empty candy wrappers, movie ticket stubs, and clothes.

“Someone is living up here,” Bernie said as Libby picked up a pair of jeans and held them up. “The question is: is it Manny?”

“These look like they could fit him,” Libby said.

“They are really big,” Bernie allowed.

Libby peeked inside the waistband. “The waist size is forty-two. I'd say that's pretty big.”

“Me too.” Bernie watched Libby going through the jean's pockets. She found some loose change, a crumpled up Snickers wrapper, and a receipt from the local CVS for a bottle of aspirin, but that was it.

“There's nothing of interest here,” Libby noted disappointedly.

Bernie grunted “We're not done yet,” she observed. Then she walked over to an old, battered desk set off in a corner. She ran her finger over a stack of old newspapers, then picked up a chess book lying next to them and opened the cover. There was Manny's name written in the corner in blue ink. “This is his room,” she said, holding up the book for Libby to see.

Libby smiled. “Well, at least we're right about that.” And she bent down and looked under the futon.

Meanwhile, Bernie went through Manny's dresser drawers. Aside from some underwear, socks, T-shirts, and a couple of hoodies, there wasn't much in there. Whereas Clara Randall had way too much, Manny Roget had practically nothing.

“You know what I don't see?” Bernie told Libby when she'd finished going through the drawers. “I don't see a laptop, or a tablet, or anything of that nature.”

“Maybe whoever killed him took it,” Libby posited.

“Maybe,” Bernie said as she walked over to the mesh basket that was full of clothes and began rummaging through them. A few minutes later, she held up a laptop. “Or not. It was buried under some T-shirts,” she explained.

“Odd place for it,” Libby observed.

Bernie grunted a response. Then she sat down on the futon, opened it up, and tried to log in, but she couldn't. It was password protected. Bernie cursed under her breath and began trying different combinations of Manny Roget's name, but nothing worked, and after five minutes of trying, she gave up and put the laptop back where she'd found it.

In the meantime Libby had opened up Manny's backpack. It was empty except for a couple of energy drinks, three packs of gum, and a folder containing order forms and a book of receipts, both of which had the word
Arf
printed on them. “Look at what I found,” Libby cried, holding up the folder for Bernie to see.

“I think we have a theme going here.” Bernie held up a large black T-shirt with the logo
ARF
written on it, which she'd found on the bed buried under a pile of smelly sweatpants.
Begging for More
was written underneath it
.
“You know what this means, don't you?”

“Offhand, I'd say it means that Manny was selling Ellen and Lisa's products,” Libby said.

“And the contestant wins the prize,” Bernie said. Then she snapped her fingers. “Hey. I think I know who the guy in the pictures is. The one you were talking about. It just came to me.”

“Who is he?” Libby asked.

“You're not going to believe this.”

“Try me.”

“It's Bruce, Ellen's husband.”

Libby crinkled her nose. “Seriously? Are you sure?”

“Maybe sixty/forty percent sure,” Bernie replied. She was about to say something else when the doorbell rang.

She and her sister froze.

They could hear the door open.

Someone yelled, “Hey, Miss Randall, are you home?”

Chapter 18

“T
old you we shouldn't be doing this,” Libby hissed at Bernie as she threw the Arf T-shirt back on the bed.

“Miss Randall,” the voice called again.

Bernie recognized the voice. She held out her hands, palms down. “Calm,” she told Libby.

“Calm down?” Libby's voice rose, despite herself. “Are you nuts?”

“No. It's Ethan,” Bernie said.

“You're sure?” Libby demanded.

“I'm positive.”

Libby took a deep breath. This was bad, but it could be worse. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“Haven't got a clue. Let's go ask him. Well, we don't want him to come up the stairs, do we?” Bernie said in the face of Libby's hesitation.

“No, we definitely don't want that,” Libby agreed.

“You go first. It's going to take me longer. Go,” she said, giving Libby's shoulder a gentle shove.

“I'm going,” Libby said. The last thing she wanted was for Ethan to see Clara Randall lying there like that. He'd probably have nightmares for weeks. She knew that she would have at his age. She turned and hurried down the stairs. “Ethan,” she yelled, “stay where you are. I'll be right down.”

Bernie grabbed the T-shirt Libby had been holding up and the folder she'd found and stuffed both of them in her bag. “Okay,” she said to the cat. “Let's go.”

The cat looked at Bernie and yawned.

“Seriously,” Bernie told her. “We have to leave.”

The cat yawned some more. Bernie went over to pick her up but the kitten growled at her. Bernie threw her hands up. “Okay. Suit yourself.” And she turned to go. At which point the cat jumped off the bed and scampered down the stairs ahead of Bernie. “I bet you think you're funny,” Bernie told her as she went by. The cat meowed her reply.

Ethan was in the hallway when Libby came down the stairs. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I could ask you the same question,” Libby replied.

Ethan wiped a drop of rain off his cheek. Libby could see that his hair was damp and his polo shirt was wet. He sneezed. Then he said, “I came to see if Miss Randall would pay me the money she owes me.”

“For what?” Libby asked.

“For cutting the grass.” He caught sight of the tabby coming down the stairs and knelt down. The cat made straight for him and started purring. “Boy, Miss Randall is going to be pissed when she sees the cat inside.”

“Does the cat have a name?” Libby asked.

“I don't know,” Ethan said. “I don't think so. Old Lady Randall just calls her the cat. She lives out in the garage. Miss Randall said she doesn't want fur on her rugs.”

“Really?” Bernie said, who'd just joined them. “That's not very nice.”

“That's what I told Miss Randall,” Ethan said.

“And what did she say?” Bernie asked.

“That the cat was lucky she didn't take it to the ASPCA and have it put down. She didn't even want to keep the food in the house. Said it attracted mice.”

“We found a whole bag of food in the kitchen,” Bernie told him.

Ethan hitched up his shorts. “Well, she changed her mind when the raccoons came into the garage, ripped open the cat food, and ate it.”

Bernie nodded. “Makes sense to me.” Suddenly she realized that her throat was feeling scratchy. She hoped she wasn't getting a summer cold. They were the worst. “I'll be back in a second,” she told Ethan and Libby.

“Where are you going?” Libby asked her.

“To the kitchen to get a glass of water to take my zinc with.”

“That doesn't work,” Libby said.

“I guess we'll find out,” Bernie told her, and she limped off leaving Libby to deal with Ethan.

Libby turned toward Ethan. “Did you ever see the man who was living here?” she asked.

Ethan shook his head. “I never saw anyone here except for Old Lady Randall. But I'm not here that much.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

Ethan considered the question for a moment before answering. “Maybe a week ago. She was supposed to pay me then for mowing the grass, but she told me she didn't have any cash on her and that I should come back. I rode my bike over here yesterday and knocked on the door but she didn't answer, so I figured I'd try today.” He sneezed again. “How come you're asking me all these questions? Is something wrong?”

“You could say that. Miss Randall had an accident,” Libby said as gently as she could.

Ethan's ears perked up. He leaned forward. “What kind of accident?”

“A bad one.”

Ethan blinked. “You mean like the kind that makes you dead? That kind of accident?”

“Yes, Ethan. That's exactly what I mean.”

His eyes widened. “Were you upstairs investigating?”

Libby nodded.

“Wow. That is so cool. Not about Old Lady Randall, of course,” Ethan said hastily, realizing what he sounded like. “So what are you going to do now? Look for more clues? I can help you, you know.”

“We're going to call the police,” Libby said.

“Can I go upstairs first?” Ethan asked.

“No,” Libby said.

“But I've never seen a dead person,” Ethan protested.

“You will soon enough,” Libby told him.

“Please?”

“I said no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so,” Libby told him, her mother's words flying out of her mouth.

She was in the middle of calling the police when Bernie rejoined them.

“Okay. I'm all set,” she said.

Ethan tugged at Bernie's sleeve. “Does this mean I won't get paid?” he asked, looking mournful.

Libby and Bernie exchanged glances.

Libby patted his head. “Maybe we can work something out,” she told him.