Chapter Thirty-Three. The Body in The Secret Hiding Place
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE BODY IN THE SECRET HIDING PLACE
The utility closet is roomier now that Felix and I have temporarily transferred most of the cleaning supplies to the pantry, but it’s still a tight squeeze with all of us inside.
The smell remains ammonia-forward, because Malia’s offer to light some incense sticks seemed incompatible with the “stealth” agenda, considering there’s an open patch of wall between our hiding place and the dining room.
Felix is stationed behind one of the painting’s eyes, and we have a phone duct-taped to the other, so we can get a video recording, which will also play on my laptop, so no one will be tempted to ask him to narrate.
Meanwhile, I’ll be on a voice call to Mervyn’s hidden phone.
We downloaded an app that will let us record it on my phone, though the odds that I have also installed spyware seem high.
We’re not exactly the NSA, but it was the best we could do with the technology at hand.
“No talking,” Grandma Lainey reminds everyone. She scribbles something on the dry-erase board we’ll be using for silent communication, then holds it up so Malia can read the message: AND NO SINGING.
Malia gives a solemn nod of agreement.
We all freeze at the familiar groan of the elevator descending.
I hit the button to call Mervyn, flashing a thumbs-up when it beeps to connect.
Both phones are on speaker but mine is muted, a setting I double-check yet again, because the last thing we need is for someone to sneeze in the utility room and cause Mervyn to utter a random “Gesundheit.”
Judging by the background static, his phone is sliding into the vase of dried flowers we placed on the table for this purpose, next to a tea service and plate of cookies.
Setting the table was the easy part. It took a solid hour of rearranging before we all agreed on the orientation of the furniture relative to the painting, with Mrs. A and Mr. Namura standing in for Bernie and Mervyn.
Here’s hoping she doesn’t go rogue and decide to sit somewhere outside the range of the camera because we are rolling.
I nod at Felix to let him know the image from the phone’s camera is also showing up on the screen of my laptop. He holds up both hands to show his crossed fingers. My stomach lurches. Maybe we should have kept one of the buckets back here, just in case.
Mervyn is muttering what might be a prayer or a vocal warm-up or lines he’s trying to memorize. The actual words are unintelligible.
There’s a flicker of movement on the screen of the phone; a second later, Mervyn clears his throat.
“Thank you for joining me.” His voice is reassuringly steady. He pulls out a chair for Bernie, who hesitates like she wasn’t expecting such a chivalrous gesture.
Nice, I silently commend Mervyn. He got her in the right chair and flattered her vanity.
“I was curious,” she says as she sits. “Why would you want to meet after stonewalling me for so long?”
“I’ve been thinking about your offer.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Circumstances have changed.”
“Took you long enough.”
Mervyn takes a few steps to the right, like he’s pacing with agitation, before adjusting his position to face the camera. “Maybe I don’t enjoy being blackmailed.”
Wait, Bernie was blackmailing him? Surely he could have found time to mention that detail? I’m tempted to unmute my phone long enough for a quick Mervyn, my dude. What the hell?
“Don’t be dramatic,” Bernie scoffs. “It was a simple statement of fact. You could either get out of the way or get on board—and earn a nice bonus.”
“A bribe, you mean.”
She shrugs this off like he accused her of littering. “It’s how deals get done.”
“By betraying the people I care about?” It’s a courtroom-style zinger that I hope Mervyn will follow up by turning the conversation to Bradley.
“It takes a strong stomach to succeed in business,” Bernie replies, not taking the bait.
“Is that what you tell yourself?” His line readings are a shade too stagey, but it’s not like his scene partner is super into naturalism. And it’s better for our purposes if he goes for it, instead of letting her dominate the conversation.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she sniffs.
Mervyn pulls out the chair next to hers. “You’ve already won, so let’s drop the pretense. Bradley came to see you that day.” He presents this as fact rather than a question, exactly as Grandma Lainey coached him. “Did he tell you about his plans for this place?”
“Plans? Bradley? Please.” There isn’t an ounce of amusement in her laugh. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Bradley had no idea what he was doing. He was not a serious person. I suspect he would have been a liability to the project, had he lived.”
“I suppose so, considering he wanted to replace it with something completely different.”
Her glare is so fierce, you can almost feel the heat of it through the wall. “That was a silly idea he would have forgotten about in time.”
Mervyn settles back in his chair with a considering hmmm. He is really working the Sherlock vibe, like he knows everything and is waiting for her to catch up.
“Did you argue?” he asks.
“Did I argue with Bradley? Why would I do that?” Despite the eye rolling, it’s not quite a denial.
“When he came over that morning to tell you about his vision. That must have been upsetting. To think you were so close to getting what you wanted, only to lose it all.”
“It was childish nonsense! No one was going to take that seriously. A frat house for adults? Honestly. His father would have shut him down.”
“And yet I heard he was ready to greenlight brO Town.” To Mervyn’s credit, he stumbles only slightly over the name.
“You didn’t know Bradley. As soon as something new caught his eye, that would have been the end of it. I asked him to do one small favor for me, and he bungled it. Who doesn’t know the difference between an antiques dealer and a thrift store?”
Felix grabs my arm and squeezes. I’m sure we’re both thinking the same thing: his grandfather’s painting! Though that doesn’t solve the mystery of what happened to the rest of them.
“Still, it must have been upsetting. Tea?” Mervyn holds up the pot, his voice soft and solicitous. It’s like he’s doing a one-man good cop/bad cop.
Bernie inclines her head. “No sugar for me. I’m sweet enough.”
Beside me, Felix mimes sticking a finger down his throat.
“So what happened?” Mervyn asks, handing her the cup. His tone is coaxing, like he knows she has the good gossip.
Bernie hesitates before taking a sip. “How should I know? Ask the police.”
“And your cup?” he asks with a suddenness that tells me he’s trying to catch her off guard.
“What do you mean?” Bernie frowns at the teacup in her hand.
“The one you always carried everywhere. Until you suddenly stopped.”
Here we go. My hands are twitching with nervous energy. I bite a knuckle to offload some of the tension.
“The handle broke,” she says after a deeply unconvincing pause. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Isn’t it?”
“What’s gotten into you anyway? You’re acting very strangely.”
Mervyn crumbles the corner of a piece of shortbread he has yet to taste. “It’s different when you have nothing left to lose.”
“Don’t be a whiner.” She helps herself to a cookie, dunking it in her tea before taking a bite. “You’ll come out of this just fine.”
“Unlike Bradley.” He lets that settle before continuing. “I guess it’s lucky for me I didn’t get in your way.”
“I see what this is.” She sets down her cup and pushes back her chair like she’s about to stand. “You’re trying to pin this on me. Were you the one who put the EpiPen in my purse?”
His mouth opens in an expression of shock even Bernie recognizes as the real thing. “Bradley’s EpiPen was in your purse?”
I hear the sudden intake of breath as Mervyn puts two and two together. His gaze strays to the painting before jerking back to Bernie. “You planted it outside, didn’t you? To throw suspicion on Lainey.”
“Tampering with—” Mr. Namura starts to whisper, before everyone shushes him. He grabs the whiteboard and writes EVIDENCE.
“Why would I tell you anything?” Bernie huffs. For once, unfortunately, I can see her point.
“Because I need to know my legal exposure before I agree to help you,” Mervyn replies, not missing a beat.
“I’m not sure we need you anymore.” She manages to sound both pouty and stuck-up, though the fact that she’s still sitting there tells me Bernie is not as over it as she’s pretending.
“I think you’ll find I have certain information you’ll want to hear.”
When I glance at Grandma Lainey, expecting her to be impressed by Mervyn’s quick thinking, she’s focused on the laptop screen, mouth pursed.
“Fine,” Bernie says. “I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
The squeak of a marker draws my attention to Mrs. A, who holds up a whiteboard message reading, WRONG!
“I’m sure you know they were out to get me,” Bernie continues. “That was probably the plan all along—kill Bradley and blame it on me; two birds, one stone!”
Mervyn shakes his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She leans forward to lob her next accusation. “Someone broke into my apartment. Why isn’t anyone investigating that? They knocked over a plant and just left it there, which was obviously a threat. But I had no idea he was allergic to Crystal Light!”
There is a resounding silence before Mervyn unfreezes himself. “Crystal Light?”
Felix looks away from the peephole long enough to catch my eye. I shrug, only slightly less clueless than Mr. Namura, who has grabbed the whiteboard from Mrs. A to write, KRISTAL LIGHT?
She takes the board back, crossing out the K and the I to correct his spelling before erasing the whole thing and writing, FAKE LEMONADE.
Back on stage (also known as the dining room), Bernie has given up any pretense of not wanting to go off. “You were there when I got the message he was coming over. It sounded important, so I rushed back, not even finishing my French toast.”
If I had the whiteboard, I would write, MERVYN WAS HAVING brEAKFAST WITH BERNIE??? But I can’t look away long enough for that, because the plot is still thickening.
“Bradley was usually so charming, but he was rude from the moment he arrived that day. I thought he must be on drugs, because he was completely hyper.” Bernie flaps both hands to demonstrate.
“He grabbed my cup like an animal and drank right out of it. He liked to tease me about it, pretending it was full of vodka.” Her scowl makes it clear she wasn’t amused by his jokes.
“He said he’d talked to his father, and things were really coming along.
I assumed he was talking about Manor Estates. Ha!”
“And then what happened?” Mervyn prompts, when she lapses into an annoyed silence.
“He wanted to see the penthouse. Plopped down on that horrible velvet sofa and started telling me he might keep the couch, even though it wasn’t leather. I told him he wasn’t making sense, because all of this was going away, and he said, ‘Nope, it’s just getting more awesome.’”
“That’s when he told you about the new plan,” Mervyn surmises.
“Like he expected a pat on the back! I wanted to go talk to his father, but Bradley was hell-bent on ‘shooting some pool.’ When I told him I didn’t play, he said, ‘You’re no fun, Miss Bernie. Guess you can’t live in brO Town.’”
“You went to the billiards room with him?”
“I still hoped I could talk some sense into him.”
BINGO! Mrs. A writes on the board. That confirms the first part of our theory: Bernie was there when it happened.
“And then?” Mervyn asks, more calmly than I would have managed at that moment.
“Bradley started playing pool against himself, but his eyes were all red and puffy, and he was sweating and belching, like it was already his frat house. He grabbed my cup again and started chugging, which was incredibly rude, even though I obviously wasn’t going to drink out of it again after he’d slobbered all over it.
He said something about his throat itching and the next thing I knew, he was choking.
” She turns to Mervyn like she expects him to share her outrage.
“How can someone die from drinking lemonade? It’s not even real juice! ”
“They can’t,” Mervyn says, but his voice is so low I’m not sure she hears.
“And then he started convulsing,” she complains, like Bradley’s death is something that happened to her, “and pulled out that thing. His allergy pen or whatever.”
“Why didn’t he use it?”
“How should I know? Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight.”
Felix nudges me, and I know we both caught it: Bernie looking down and to the side, which is the facial equivalent of flying a flag that reads, I AM LYING.
But about which part?
Mervyn stands and crosses to the mantel. It’s the slow walk of a lead actor who knows every eye is tracking his progress across the stage. After a dramatic pause, he delivers his next line.
“Bradley wasn’t allergic to Crystal Light.”
“Oh. Well.” Bernie shifts in her chair, rapidly adjusting to the news. “Then it’s like I said. It wasn’t my fault. He must have eaten something he shouldn’t have.”
“Colchicine and gloriosine,” Mervyn says.
“He was on drugs? I knew it!”
Mervyn shakes his head. “They’re from a plant. Gloriosa superba. Also known as the flame lily or tiger claw.”
“Was he smoking it?”
“No.” After another fraught silence, he finishes the thought. “It was in your cup.”