A Catered Book Club Murder by Isis Crawford

Author:Isis Crawford [Crawford, Isis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2020-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Brandon helped Bernie and Libby walk Chung outside—well, not walk really, more like drag—and load him into Brandon’s old Volvo station wagon. It was lower and had more space than Mathilda did, not to mention a back seat.

“Just don’t let him puke in it,” Brandon pleaded.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Bernie replied.

“I don’t know how you’re going to get him out of the Volvo and into his house,” Brandon said. “It’s taken the three of us to get him this far.”

“I don’t know, either, but we’ll manage,” Bernie said.

“You could call an Uber,” Brandon suggested. He was having second, third, and fourth thoughts about loaning out his car. It was a classic. Well, not really. But he loved it. The seats were leather. Just contemplating what Chung could do inside the Volvo made Brandon shudder. But using Mathilda was out of the question. Chung was out cold. And he was a big guy. Maybe two hundred and twenty pounds. They’d never get him in there.

“The driver probably wouldn’t take him in this condition,” Bernie replied, interrupting Brandon’s thoughts. “I know I wouldn’t.”

Brandon had to admit he wouldn’t, either.

“Do you know where Chung lives?” Bernie asked.

Brandon told her. It was about five minutes from RJ’s. Not far at all.

“And, besides, it’s good to be neighborly,” Bernie concluded.

“Is that what you’re calling this?” Brandon said to Bernie as he watched her go through Chung’s pockets.

“In a manner of speaking,” Bernie replied.

Brandon nodded toward RJ’s. “I have to get back in there. Shorty can’t handle things by himself. What are you looking for, anyway?”

“These,” she said, holding up Chung’s keys. There were a lot of them on his key chain.

“What are you thinking?” Brandon asked as Bernie studied them.

“You don’t want to know,” she told him as she stowed them away in her bag.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Brandon said, although he had a pretty good idea what Bernie was contemplating.

“Why doesn’t he want to know?” Libby asked Bernie.

“It’s called plausible deniability,” Brandon told her, answering for Bernie.

It took a few minutes, but the three of them managed to load Chung into the Volvo’s front seat. Brandon watched as they set off in his car. Bernie was driving, and Libby was sitting in the back.

“Good luck,” he called out to them. “They’re going to need it,” he said to himself, opening the door to RJ’s. A wave of noise hit him when he stepped inside. He hurried toward the bar. He could see from the doorway that Shorty was in the weeds.

As it turned out, Brandon was wrong. The drive to Chung’s house took fifteen minutes, not five, because they had to stop on the side of the road so Chung could throw up. They drove the rest of the way with all the windows open.

Bernie turned onto Edgewater Road. Chung’s house was on the outskirts of Scottholm, a development comprised of cookie-cutter ranch houses and capes built in the fifties and sixties. The houses were set back from the road, each isolated in

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