Chapter 25
Libby was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, when her sister came through the door.
“Don’t I get any privacy?” Libby asked with her mouth full of toothpaste.
“If you want privacy, close the door. So how was your date with Orion?”
Libby spat and rinsed.
“It wasn’t a date,” she said when she was done. “We had a drink together.”
“And?” Bernie asked as she folded her arms and leaned against the door frame.
“And nothing.”
“Don’t nothing me. What happened?”
“We had a beer at R.J.’s and split an order of wings.”
“And . . .” Bernie made a come-on motion with her hands.
“We went back to his house.”
“And?”
“He said, ‘This is like old times.’ ”
Bernie groaned.
“He actually said that?”
Libby nodded.
“And then?”
“We were sitting in the living room and he put his arm around me and kissed me.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Bernie,” Libby found herself saying. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I got the worst anxiety attack. Suddenly I had to get out of there.”
Bernie patted Libby’s shoulder.
“You were right. My advice, for what it’s worth, is—don’t go to bed with him. At least not for a while.”
“I’m not planning on it,” Libby said.
“Stay with that thought. Listen, Orion is in the middle of separating from his wife. For all you know, he could go back to Sukie—guys do that kind of thing all the time—and then how would you feel?”
“He doesn’t sound as if he’s going to.”
“You didn’t know he was seeing Sukie when he broke off your engagement either,” Bernie reminded Libby. “Just tell yourself, the goalie is in place.”
Libby crinkled up her face.
“The what is in place?”
“The goalie.” And Bernie pointed to between her legs. “Get it?”
Libby giggled.
“Don’t laugh. I don’t want to see you getting hurt twice by the same person. You should be like me and make the same mistake with different people.”
Libby grinned.
“You know Dad offered to have him beaten up.”
“That’s comforting in a peculiar kind of way.” Bernie went over to the sink and removed her makeup. Then she reached in the medicine cabinet and took out a jar of moisturizer. “Try this on your face,” she said to Libby. “It’s got grape seeds and green tea in it.”
“Nice,” Libby said as she began patting it on her cheeks.
“It should be for what it cost.” Bernie took a dab and began working it into her skin. “By the way, have you ever heard of a Rob Sullivan?”
“Tall? Green eyes?”
“That’s the one.”
“He comes in the store about once a month and buys fried chicken, cole slaw, and chocolate chip cookies.”
“What else do you know about him besides his culinary preferences?”
Libby clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth while she searched her memory.
“Okay,” she said when she’d come up with the requisite facts. “He’s some kind of writer. He was working on a TV pilot out in L.A., but it got canceled and then his sister got killed in a car crash and he came back to be with his mom. She lives over on Edgemont and sells dolls out of her house. Why do you want to know?”
“Just curious.”
“You’re never just curious.”
Bernie grinned as she put the top back on the jar.
“We’re just going to have a drink. I met him today at Geoffrey Holder’s place.”
Libby rolled her eyes.
“Trust you to discover a corpse and meet a man at the same time.”
“It’s a talent. By the way, he liked the ginger muffins.”
“What’s not to like?” Libby observed, but her mind was on something else.
“What are you thinking about?” Bernie asked.
“Well, remember when I told you that Rob was a writer . . .”
“Yes . . .”
“That got me thinking about something Lydia said to me at her house.”
Libby stopped and busied herself cleaning out the soap scum in the sink basin. Bernie waited for her sister to continue. A moment later she did.
“Lydia said something about Lionel stealing his idea for his first book—or words to that effect—and I was thinking about what you told me about the book you found at Nigel Herron’s house and about his always wanting to be a writer.”
“Yes.” Bernie leaned forward.
“Well, what if Lionel stole Nigel’s idea. What if he stole his character? Think about it,” Libby said, warming to her theme. “All that money. All that fame. And it could have been yours. Wouldn’t that make you crazy with envy?”
“Envious enough to kill?”
“People have killed for less.”
“Granting that, why now? Why after all this time?”
Libby bit on her nail.
“Maybe something happened.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Libby said. “But I’m going to find out.”
“How?”
“You’re going to talk to Nigel and I’m going to have another conversation with Lydia.”
Bernie began brushing her hair.
“I told you that Nigel was Geoff ’s stockbroker, right?”
“Right.”
“And even though Mary Beth didn’t say so, I gathered that things weren’t going well.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Nigel has a connection to the two dead people.”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to see Nigel killing anyone. Maybe boring them to death . . .” Libby looked down at her feet.
Bernie studied her sister.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
Libby began pleating the towel lying on the edge of the sink. A minute later she blurted out, “I keep thinking that this whole thing is my fault.”
“Cut it out.”
“It is,” Libby insisted. “Maybe if I’d talked to Tiffany the first time . . .”
“Stop being like Mom,” Bernie told her. “You’re not responsible for the ills of the world.”
“I never said I was.”
“You’re right. You didn’t. You just act as if you are. And for God’s sake, not to mention for the sake of your hips, stop eating all those cookies.”
“I know. I know,” Libby moaned. “I can’t help myself.”
“Sure you can,” Bernie replied.
“Every time I get upset, I eat.”
“Drink martinis instead,” Bernie advised. “They have fewer calories.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Oh, yes, they do. I’ve compared calorie counts. Besides,” Bernie continued, “you’ll drink fewer martinis than you will eat lemon bars.”
“That’s because I like lemon bars better than I like martinis.”
“My point exactly,” Bernie said, stifling a yawn. “Two martinis or a pan of lemon bars. You do the math.”