A Catered Tea Party (24 page)

B
ernie got up, went into the bedroom, and got her laptop. The photos would be easier to see on that. She came out a moment later and put the laptop on the table. Everyone huddled around it while she downloaded the file. The first two images showed a large group of fancily dressed people holding drinks and talking. So did the third and the fourth ones.

“I hope this isn't going to be a waste of time,” Bernie said as the fifth image came into view.

Casper squinted and pointed to the picture. “Can you make this larger?”

Bernie did, and Casper tapped the screen. “There,” he said. Suddenly he was smiling.

Bernie and Libby leaned in.

“What?” Bernie asked. She still didn't see what Casper was pointing to.

“I see,” Libby said. A moment later, Bernie did too. It was Zalinsky and his partner. Libby turned to Bernie. “Is he with who I think he is?”

Bernie nodded. “Yeah. He is.” She went back to the earlier images. Now that she knew who she was looking for, she could see the couple in the third picture as well.

“I thought he was with Erin,” Libby said.

Casper laughed and pumped his fist in the air. “I was right. I was right all along. I thought I was crazy, but I wasn't.”

“About what?” Bernie asked.

“You'll see,” Casper said, with a smug smile on his face.

“I wonder if she's who he was leaving Erin for?” Libby mused.

“Even if she was,” Bernie pointed out, “I don't see how she could have had anything to do with Zalinsky's death. She wasn't at
Alice
.”

“Yes, she was,” Casper contradicted. “I saw her there. She was in the audience. First row, last seat on the left.”

“But she wasn't backstage,” Bernie said. “I would have seen her if she had been.”

“Not necessarily. Anyway, he was,” Casper said, pointing to a waiter standing off to one side.

“Is that Ivan?” Libby asked, bending even closer. “Ivan the bodyguard?”

“Sure looks that way to me,” Casper replied, his smile getting even bigger if that was possible.

“Maybe it's coincidence,” Bernie suggested.

“Doubtful,” Sean remarked, voicing his opinion. If his years in law enforcement had taught him anything, they had taught him not to believe in coincidence.

Bernie scrolled through more of the photos. There were twenty in all. In the eighteenth image, they found a picture of Alla Feldman, Zalinsky's partner, and Ivan talking off in the corner.

“Those two definitely know each other,” Casper observed.

“Really well, judging by the expressions on their faces,” Bernie said.

“Agreed.” Sean straightened up while Bernie scrolled down to the next photo.

Libby tapped the screen after Bernie had enlarged the photo. It showed Ivan and Alla still talking to each other, only they were standing closer now, almost shoulder to shoulder. “Look at their hands,” she instructed. Bernie, Sean, and Casper did. There was no doubt. Alla and Ivan were holding hands.

“That's suggestive,” Sean observed.

“Isn't it, though?” Bernie agreed.

Sean turned to Bernie. “What were these shots intended for?” he asked his daughter.

“PR stuff. Lucy Chin said they take them at all their events and archive them,” Bernie replied. She rubbed her chin with her knuckles. The name sparked a memory. The flowers, she thought, suddenly remembering what Lucy Chin had said about the flowers on her desk. Then she recalled the photos on the tea shop wall. The flowers were the key. They'd been growing in the garden, right there for everyone to see all along. “You're wrong,” she said to her dad. “Remember you said the poison is going to make things harder. It's not. It's going to make things easier.”

Then she looked at the grin on Casper's face.

“You knew,” she said.

“I suspected,” Casper said. He was having a hard time suppressing his glee.

“Then why didn't you tell us?” Libby demanded.

“You wouldn't have believed me,” Casper said.

“You could have tried,” Bernie told him.

“I tried. I pointed you in the right direction,” Casper said.

“No, you didn't,” Libby told him.

Bernie held up her hand. “He did,” she said, catching on.

Libby put her hands on her hips. “How?” she demanded.

“The tea,” Bernie said. “The tea was yellow.”

Casper nodded. “Like the flowers.”

“Are you crazy?” Libby demanded of him. “How were we supposed to figure that out?”

Casper bit his lip. “You're detectives. You're supposed to detect. I thought you'd get it. I did something like it in the last play I staged.”

“Only this isn't a play. This is real life,” Libby pointed out. She was having trouble keeping herself from yelling.

“How did you know?” Sean asked Casper before Libby could say anything else.

“I didn't know. I told you: I suspected,” Casper replied. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. He took a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Actually, ‘suspect' is too strong a word.”

“Well, I'm going to use it anyway,” Sean said. “Why did you suspect?” he asked, careful to keep his voice low and reassuring.

“I don't know. I was in Alla's tea shop, and I told her what I was doing. I was staging
Hamlet,
and I was talking about the poison in the ear scene, and she said in Russia they would use a flower, and then I complimented her about her photographs. Later I remembered seeing flowers like that down in South Carolina, where I was directing
Death of a Salesman,
and someone telling me to be careful because they were toxic.”

“Yes,” Sean said. “But what made you think that Alla had murdered Zalinsky?”

“It was something she said when I was in there buying tea.”

“I didn't know you bought tea there,” Libby interrupted.

“You had only to ask,” Casper told her.

“Go on,” Sean urged Casper.

“It was a line of Tennyson.” Casper closed his eyes and recited. “ ‘The honey of poison-flowers and all the measureless ill.'”

“She said that?” Bernie asked.

“No, I did,” Casper explained. “She responded with, ‘That works for me' or words to that effect. Then a couple of days later it just came to me. All the pieces fell into place.”

“I don't see how you went from there to her poisoning Zalinsky,” Bernie said.

“Because Stan told me she hated Zalinsky,” Casper said.

“And how did Stan know?” Libby asked, although she was almost afraid to.

“Because he and Alla were sleeping together,” Casper replied.

Bernie thought back to chasing Stan through the parking lot. She'd been right about his going to see Alla after all. “She was sleeping with Stan and Ivan and Zalinsky?”

“She was a busy lady,” Casper said.

“I'll say,” Libby replied.

Casper continued. “You can see why I didn't want to accuse someone if I was wrong,” he said, appealing to Bernie. “The whole thing was so nebulous, and I do have a tendency to invent stuff. I know that. I just thought if I nudged you in the right direction you'd figure it out.”

Sean leaned forward. “The important question,” he said, “is what are we going to do now?”

“I think I know,” Bernie responded.

T
he next morning turned out to be one of those perfect late-summer mornings. The rain had washed all the heat and humidity out of the air. It was seventy degrees and sunny at eight o'clock. The sky was cloudless, the trees, grass, and flowers all vibrant colors. It was a glorious day. A perfect day, Bernie thought, as she, Libby, and Casper drove over to Alla Feldman's house. They were all crammed together in the front seat of the van, and Bernie was going over the plan.

It was simple, really. Casper and Libby were going to knock on the door, and when Alla answered, he and Libby were going to tell Alla that Casper had had a change of heart and wanted to give her back the teapot, which he would do for a percentage of the sale price. While they were discussing that, Bernie would slip through the gate, go into Alla's garden, find a sample of the
Gelsemium elegans,
or flower of death, as Bernie had taken to calling it, photograph it, and leave. When she got back in the van, she'd call Libby, at which point Libby would feign an emergency, and she and Casper would head out the door. Then they'd all drive home, and Bernie would give what they'd collected to Clyde, who would blackmail Lucy into looking at the new evidence. At least that was the plan.

“It'll be fine,” Bernie was reassuring Casper as she passed Michelle's new shop. It still had a ways to go, she thought, as she warned Casper not to eat or drink anything Alla offered him.

“Of course, I'm not going to take anything from her. Do I look stupid to you?” Casper demanded.

Bernie wisely refrained from answering.

Casper rubbed his hands together. “In fact, I'm looking forward to this. It's about time Alla got some of her own back.”

“Let's just stick to the script,” Libby told him.

“I will,” Casper told her. “You can count on that.”

Libby hoped that was the case. Five minutes later, Bernie pulled up in front of Alla Feldman's house. It was a classic brick colonial, with the window frames and front door painted white. A riot of annuals and perennials bordered the house, while the lawn was a vivid emerald green. If there was a weed anywhere, Bernie didn't see it. Whatever else Alla was, Bernie thought, she was a good gardener.

“Luck,” Bernie told Casper and Libby as Libby started to get out of Mathilda. Then Bernie ducked down as Casper and Libby walked up to Alla's house and rang the bell. Bernie could hear the door open a minute later. Bernie couldn't hear what was being said, but a couple of moments after that she heard the sound of the door closing.

Bernie gave it a couple more minutes, then she lifted up her head and peered through the window. Yup. Everyone was inside. Bernie waited another minute before she got out of the van and quietly shut the door. She kept the van between herself and Alla Feldman's house until she was out of range of the front window, after which she quickly followed the brick path that led to the backyard. A stockade fence surrounded the backyard, and Bernie had no trouble opening the bolt on the gate and letting herself in.

For a moment she stood there, overcome by the riot of color. Her first impression was a tangle of plants and flowers and vegetables. It took her a moment to sort things out. A very large vegetable garden was planted in the middle of the yard; to the left of it was an herb garden, and to the right the flowerbeds. Apple, cherry, and peach trees grew around the garden's perimeter, while a variety of houseplants, including a fig tree, sat on the patio absorbing the summer sun.

It was an incredible garden, and Bernie was wondering if she and Bernie might be able to grow their own vegetables—on a modified scale, of course—as she walked toward the flowers. Even though it was late in the season, the bed was filled with sweet alyssum, black-eyed Susans and coneflowers, asters, and heather, as well as petunias, snapdragons, impatiens, and a flower with purple fronds that Bernie didn't know the name of. Morning glories and climbing roses, intertwined with ivy, scaled the fence.

Bernie was thinking that somehow the whole thing worked, that the flowers formed a coherent whole, when she spotted the plant she was looking for. The
Gelsemium elegans
was hanging out in front of a bed of ferns near the stockade fence. The yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers glowed in the sunlight. No one, Bernie thought, would ever think those flowers were as deadly as they were. And yet, eating just half of one of them could kill someone.

She was reflecting on how deceptive appearances could be as she made her way toward it. She took out her cell and snapped ten pictures of the flower, after which she went about the business of getting a sample. She was breaking off a stem when she felt rather than heard someone come up behind her. Before she could turn her head, the person had their forearm across Bernie's neck, cutting off her breathing. She could feel the barrel of a gun jammed against the side of her forehead.
Dumb,
Bernie thought.
Really dumb. The garden shed. I should have checked it.

“What you doing here?” A man's voice, a voice she recognized as Ivan's, asked her.

She wanted to answer him, but she couldn't, because her vocal cords weren't working.

L
ibby's eyes widened as Ivan opened the sliding glass door that led onto the patio and frog-marched her sister into the middle of the living room

“Look what I found snooping outside,” Ivan declared, throwing Bernie next to her sister and pointing his gun at Libby and Bernie.

Bernie rubbed her throat. “I take it that weapon is real?” she asked, her voice coming out in a croak.

“No. Is fake,” Ivan snapped.

“I thought it might be a prop,” Bernie replied. “Like at the play. When you were supposed to be guarding the teapot but were actually planning on stealing it.”

Ivan straightened up. “You think you're so smart, but you not smart enough.”

“I think we can agree on that,” Libby said as she watched Ivan grab Bernie's tote with his free hand.

“Looking for something?” Bernie asked as Ivan rummaged through it. “If you want my lipstick, it's in my cosmetic case.”

Ivan ignored her and kept rummaging. “Aha,” he said a moment later, taking out her phone and holding it aloft. Then he went through the photos on the phone while keeping an eye on the sisters. “Why you taking this?” he demanded, showing Bernie the pictures of the yellow flowers.

“Would you believe I'm submitting them to a gardening magazine as the mystery flower of the month?” Bernie asked him.

Ivan didn't smile. Neither did Alla.

“Not funny,” she said.

“I thought it was,” Bernie told her. She held out her hand. “Now if you'll give me back my phone, we'll be going. I didn't realize we would be intruding.”

“You not going anywhere,” Ivan snarled.

“And how are you going to stop us?” Bernie asked him.

“Simple.” Ivan nodded toward the gun with his chin. “I shoot you.”

“Then you'd have to shoot all of us,” Bernie pointed out as she wondered where Casper was.

Ivan smiled. “Why not? I no see problem.”

“You're not helping the situation,” Libby told Bernie.

“I'm open for suggestions,” Bernie replied.

“You two be quiet,” Alla ordered.

“I guess you could,” Bernie observed. “After all, if you've killed one person, another three probably wouldn't matter. You know, in for a penny, in for a pound. Not that I know this from personal experience, you understand.”

Alla got up and stood next to Ivan. “Ivan is a hot head. I'm not. Maybe I make you some tea, and we all feel better, yes? Then we can talk.”

“No,” Libby said. “No tea.”

“It's good,” Alla told her. “It's special.”

Bernie laughed. “That's one way of putting it. You should have stuck with rigging the teakettle,” Bernie informed her. “The poison was de trop.”

Alla wrinkled her nose. “De trop? What does that mean?”

“French words that mean over the top, too much,” Libby informed her.

“Told you,” Ivan said to her.

“You be quiet,” Alla admonished.

“Why?” Ivan asked her. “They no be speaking to anyone.”

“You can't kill us,” Bernie repeated.

“And why is this?” Ivan asked. “You just said I could.”

“That's not what I meant,” Bernie told him. “Anyway, think of the labor involved in getting rid of three bodies.”

“Not that hard,” Ivan said, grinning unpleasantly.

“In any case,” Bernie continued, “people know we're here. They'll come looking for us.”

“And we will tell them we don't see you,” Alla told her.

Bernie decided to change the conversation to a pleasanter topic. “So how long have you been seeing this guy?” Bernie asked Alla, indicating Ivan with a nod of her head.

“Magda introduced us,” Alla replied.

“You know Magda?” Libby asked.

Alla nodded. “Yes. She is my cousin. She gave me the idea for this.”

Wonderful,
Bernie thought. “Was that you in the apartment when Libby and I came to speak to Ivan and Igor?” she asked.

“Da.” Alla stroked Ivan's arm. “Ludvoc, he was a bad man. He promised everyone everything, but he didn't have anything to give. He rented everything.”

“Except for the teapot,” Libby said.

Ivan and Alla both nodded.

“We need to know where it is,” Ivan said.

“We are waiting for the short, fat one to come back.” Alla said to Ivan. “He will tell us.”

“I wouldn't call him that,” Bernie protested. “He's very sensitive about his weight.”

Ivan ignored her. “Where is he?” he asked Alla. “I thought you said they both come together.”

Alla nodded toward the hallway. “He is in the bathroom. He told me he drank too much coffee and he had to go pee because he had a nervous bladder.”

“We wait,” Ivan announced. Five minutes later, when Casper hadn't come out, Ivan announced that he was going into the bathroom to check. He handed Alla the gun. “You keep eye on them,” he instructed her.

Bernie looked at her sister and nodded imperceptibly. Libby nodded back and started her spiel.

“I told you this wasn't a good plan,” she said to her sister. “In fact, this is the epitome of a not-good plan.”

“Not true,” Bernie replied, taking a step closer to Alla.

“How can you say that?” Libby countered.

“I can and I am,” Bernie responded. “The problem with you is that you're too negative.”

“Negative?” Libby said indignantly. “You really are crazy.”

“Me crazy?” Bernie cried as she slowly inched closer to Alla. “I'm not crazy. You're stupid.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” Libby screamed. By now she and Bernie were within an arm's reach of Alla.

“I most certainly am,” Bernie told her as she prepared to shove Libby into Alla. She was just about to when Ivan came running back in.

“Casper no there,” he yelled. “He go out window. How you be so stupid?”

Alla flushed. “Me stupid?”

“Stupid seems to be the word of the day,” Bernie commented as she reached out her hand. She was just about to grab for the gun when she heard a noise. A loud noise. A loud noise that was getting closer. It sounded like their van, Bernie decided. And she was correct. It was their van.

Everyone looked up just in time to see Mathilda speeding over the front lawn. Casper was in the driver's seat, and he had a demonic look on his face. The van was heading toward the house. A moment later, Mathilda tore through the living room wall with a tremendous roar. Alla dropped the gun and ran into the kitchen. Everyone else scattered. Mathilda went a little farther and stopped with a jerk in front of the sofa.

Casper jumped out of Mathilda and ran toward Alla. “Now we're even,” he screamed at her as Libby picked up the gun Alla had dropped and turned it on Ivan, who had been stunned into immobility.

“I'll call the police,” Bernie said, taking back her phone from Ivan.

“You do that,” Libby told her as she watched Casper tackle Alla and bring her to the ground.

“You ruined everything,” he growled at Alla. “Everything. Now I'm going to have to go back to dinner theater.”