Read A Catered Birthday Party for Free Online

cardiac incidents in his time to have an opinion. “They clutch their chests.”
    Libby thought for a moment. Then she said, “Women display different symptoms from men. There was a big article about that in the paper last month.”
    Bernie rolled her eyes. “Give it up, Libby.”
    “It’s a fact,” Libby insisted. “Go Google it.”
    Bernie snorted. “I’m not Googling anything. Annabel did not have a heart attack. Contrary to what Joanna said, Annabel did not collapse from hunger. She was poisoned. She drank the wine, grabbed her throat, and cried that someone had poisoned her wine. Then she keeled over and two days later died in the hospital, never having regained consciousness. How much more obvious can you get?”
    “The police didn’t see it that way. They didn’t treat the dining room as a crime scene,” Libby pointed out.
    “Of course they didn’t. Not when one of the richest men in Longely tells them his wife has had a heart attack,” Bernie retorted. “And anyway, Annabel wasn’t dead when they arrived, so it wasn’t a crime scene, then.”
    “If the police even had the remotest suspicion that it was they wouldn’t have taken our statements and let us go,” Libby argued. “What do you think, Dad?”
    Sean just sighed. Ever since he’d lost his top-cop job and Lucas Broadbent, aka Lucy, had taken over the department, law enforcement, as he knew the concept, had gone out the window. The department had become a handmaiden to Longely’s political folderol.
    “Clyde will call me with the postmortem results,” Sean said as he went back to eating his pancakes. “That should tell us something.”
    “That’s nice of Clyde,” Bernie observed.
    “Yes, it is,” Sean agreed.
    More than nice actually. Because if he was caught, his old friend could lose his job. But, as Clyde had said, that presupposed that someone over there was paying attention. Which no one ever was. And even if they did catch him, Clyde declared that he could talk his way out of the situation. If he couldn’t at this stage of his life, he deserved to be caught. In this case, though, Clyde did better than call Sean with the results. He brought them over in person ten minutes later. Bernie suspected that this was because he never lost an opportunity to eat there.
    “Hot off the presses,” he cried as he brandished a manila folder in front of Sean.
    “Does Lucy know you have these?” Sean asked as he opened the folder and began leafing through the pages.
    “Ha, ha,” Clyde said as he seated himself at the table. “Very funny. No one knows. Thank heavens for copiers. Anyway, he and Mrs. Lucy are off at a conference in Vail. Something about the transitional role of the chief of police in small towns.”
    Sean looked up. “Transitional? Does this mean that local law enforcement is on its way out?”
    “There’s a lot of melding and blending going on,” Clyde replied. “You’re lucky you got out when you did. I wish I had.”
    “I didn’t get out. I was thrown out, if you remember correctly.”
    Clyde waved his hand. “I was being polite. You’re still lucky.” He pointed to his friend’s empty plate. “Got any more of those?”
    Libby smiled as she got up. “I was just going to ask if you wanted any.”
    Fortunately, they had just enough batter for one more batch.
    “Have I ever turned down any offer of food?” Clyde asked.
    Bernie laughed. “Never,” she said. “That’s one of the things we love about you.” And she got him a coffee mug, filled it up, and set it down before him, while her dad read the report.
    Clyde took a sip. “This is heaven. What kind of coffee is this anyway? I’ll have to tell the wife.”
    Bernie told him. Not that it would make any difference, she reflected. His wife was one of those unfortunate people who couldn’t even brew a cup of drinkable tea or boil an egg without burning it.
    “That’s interesting,” Sean said when he got done reading. “The M.E. is calling the