Chapter 18
By the time Chief Lucas Broad had climbed the stairs to Sean Simmons’ room, Libby had stowed Tiffany in the steamer trunk in her closet, piled her shoes and clothes on top of it, and run downstairs to get tea and cookies.
Five minutes later Libby took a deep breath and reentered her father’s room. I have to go back to exercising, she thought as she carried in a tray on which rested three cups and saucers, a teapot, cream and sugar, and a platter full of cookies. Otherwise running up and down these steps is going to kill me.
“Cookie? Tea?” she said, offering the tray to the chief, who was standing by the dresser.
He shook his head.
“You should try a cookie,” Bernie urged. “The chocolate chip and the nut bars are particularly good. Libby is known for them. She sends them to Texas and California.”
Lucas Broad reached out and took one reluctantly.
“Tea?” Libby asked brightly as he bit into a chocolate chip bar.
“No, thanks.”
“Gained a little weight in the gut, have you, Lucy?” Sean said as Libby put the tray down on the table next to him and began pouring a cup of tea for her father. “Must be sitting behind the desk. It’ll do it to you every time.”
Lucy colored and shoved the rest of the cookie into his mouth.
It’s lucky that I cut the bars small, Libby thought, watching the chief as she surreptitiously paused to wipe her palms on the sides of her khaki shorts. Otherwise we’d be performing the Heimlich maneuver now.
“So what brings you here?” Sean asked as Libby put the cup full of tea by her father’s side and began pouring one for Bernie.
“Chief, are you sure I can’t get you something?” Libby asked speaking at the same time her father was. “This tea is Oolong. Organic.”
“No doubt handpicked by happy natives,” Lucas snapped.
“All tea is handpicked,” Bernie said, donning her schoolmarm voice. “However, I can’t attest to the happy native part. Actually, that’s what makes good tea so expensive. It’s labor-intensive. Of course the really good stuff, the tea made from whole leaves, goes to Germany. It sells there for twenty-five to forty dollars a pound. But I’m sure you’re not interested in that, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
Suddenly Lucy came to attention. Like a hound scenting his prey, Libby thought watching him.
“What was that?” he asked.
“What?” Libby asked even though she’d heard it too.
“That thud. Don’t you hear it?”
“Oh,” Libby said. The noise was faint but unmistakable. “That.”
“We’re baby-sitting my cousin’s eight-week-old chocolate lab puppy,” Sean said, marveling at the way the lie tripped off his tongue. “We have him locked in Libby’s bedroom. He must be trying to get out.”
“He might have gotten stuck in the closet,” Libby said. “You know how he likes to climb into that trunk of mine and then he can’t get out.”
“Maybe I’d better see if he’s all right,” Bernie suggested.
“Good idea,” her father told her.
Bernie smiled at Lucy. “I’ll be right back.”
Lucy watched her go. Then he turned back to Sean.
“I didn’t know you had cousins.”
“Twice removed. On my mother’s side.
“How’s your lovely wife these days?” Sean asked, happily sticking another metaphorical dagger into his nemesis’ side, it being a well-known fact that Lucy’s wife was an embarrassment to him. Rich and politically well connected—which, it was said, was why he married her—she had all the charm of a buffalo in heat.
“She’s fine,” Lucy growled.
As Libby beamed at the chief, she couldn’t help but remember what her mother, an avid reader of Henry James, used to say about good manners being an inviolable weapon.
“Are you sure I can’t interest you in a cookie?” she asked, once again holding the plate filled with chocolate chip and nut bars out to Lucy.
“I’m positive.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I do.” And Libby picked out a nut bar and put the plate down on the table near her father.
She was taking a nibble when Bernie reentered the room.
“You were right,” she said to Libby. “He just got stuck in the trunk. But I put him somewhere else and everything is okay.”
“So,” Sean said, turning to face Lucy. “Would it be fair to assume that you’re not here on a social call?”
“It would.”
“Oh, dear,” Libby said as Lucy folded his arms over his chest, which had the unfortunate effect of making his belly bulge out even more.
“We’re all ears, Chief,” Bernie said, which brought another scowl to Lucas’s face.
“I’m here,” he intoned, “strictly as a courtesy. I want to warn you that any help given to Miss Tiffany Doddy in her flight from the law, or any attempt to interfere with the execution of the warrant for her arrest will be viewed in an extremely dire light.”
“I must say, it’s very generous of you to take time out of your busy day and come down here in person to tell us this, but may I ask why you are?” Sean said.
“Obviously, I’m here because your daughter, Libby, is known to be a friend of hers.”
“On TV they always use the word associate,” Bernie said. “Actually, I believe the phrase is known associate.”
“It seems to me you’re making unwarranted assumptions,” Sean told Lucas as he glowered at Bernie.
“I don’t think so,” Lucas replied, reluctantly turning back to Sean.
“Why are you picking on Tiffany?” Libby suddenly demanded.
“We have witnesses that saw the suspect arguing with the decedent . . .”
“That’s circumstantial evidence,” Libby protested, years of listening to her father discuss cases at the dinner table having given her a fairly good grasp of criminal law.
“There’s other evidence as well which I’m not at liberty to reveal,” Lucy finished.
“Maybe that’s because you don’t have any.”
Lucy narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t expect that just because you’re the ex-police chief ’s daughter, I’m going to cut you any slack. Because I’m not.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Libby told him. “In fact, I think the opposite is true.”
Before the chief could reply Sean moved forward slightly in his wheelchair and asked, “I take it this means you’ve lost Tiffany?”
Lucas Broad’s face colored again.
“We’ll find her soon enough.”
There was another thud. What the hell is Tiffany doing? Libby thought as she said, “Boy, that puppy really wants to get out.”
“He certainly does,” her father observed.
“Are you sure I can’t interest you in a cup of tea or perhaps another cookie?” Libby chirped.
Lucas glared at her and shook a finger in her face.
“You’ve been warned,” he said to her.
“There’s no need to be rude,” Bernie told him.
“I’m being nice.” And he turned, stomped down the stairs, and slammed the door behind him.
“He’s not in a good mood,” Bernie observed a few seconds after he’d left.
Libby smoothed down her T-shirt.
“Probably because his diet is bad. I think Mrs. Lucy feeds him prepackaged food.”
“Well, that would explain it,” Bernie said.
“He’s embarrassed,” Sean said, ignoring Bernie’s sarcasm. “I know I would be if I were he.”
“Do you think he knows Tiffany is here?” Bernie asked her father.
Sean snorted.
“Absolutely not. He just came over for a look-see. If he even suspected she was on the premises, he’d be here with a team and a search warrant,” Sean replied as Bernie watched the chief of police walk to his car. “But you can be sure the patrols will be driving by here from now on. Nothing would please him more than nailing you guys to the wall.”
“Wonderful.” Bernie put her hand to her heart. “I nearly had a coronary when I heard that thump. Well, one thing I’ll say about Lucy. He has good hearing.”
“What the hell was Tiffany doing?” Sean demanded.
“Lifting the lid of the trunk. It hit the back of the closet wall.”
“What was the second thump?”
“She fell getting out of the trunk.”
“Fell?” Libby repeated.
Bernie grimaced. “Well, it was pitch black in there and she doesn’t really have the best sense of balance. She was in the middle of a major anxiety attack when I came in.”
“Great. So where’d you put her?”
“Under your bed.”
“I see.” Libby absentmindedly reached over for a cookie and took a bite, then wiped the crumbs off her mouth. “Before we get her, do you think we should come up with a game plan?”
Sean held one hand under the other to steady it and took a sip of tea.
“I’ve already thought about that. We call Paul Pine and ask him to come over here.”
Paul Pine was Sean’s friend and a top-line criminal lawyer.
“What do we need him for?”
“We need him to call Lucy and negotiate terms for Tiffany’s surrender.”
“You mean you’re sending her to jail?” Libby cried.
“I’m afraid so,” her father replied. “Right now, with a warrant out for her arrest, it’s the safest place for her to be.”
“But—”
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Sean snapped.
Libby hung her head.
“Why don’t you go get her?” her father suggested in a softer voice.