by Laura Durham
Chapter 8
“Tell me everything you know about Cher Noble’s stalker,” I said as we waited to be seated at Blue Duck Tavern, the sleek and stylish restaurant inside the sleek and stylish Park Hyatt hotel in upper Georgetown. Midday light from the two walls of tall uncovered windows filled the restaurant, which held a mix of long rectangular walnut tables and smaller rounds surrounded by Shaker-style chairs and benches.
“Didn’t you hear what I said to the detective?” Fern asked.
“You mean when Leatrice dragged you back upstairs?” Kate asked.
My first-floor neighbor had been so startled by Fern’s shrieking, she’d rushed from her apartment and made a citizen’s arrest, escorting him back to my apartment in plastic handcuffs. No doubt it had been the highlight of her year.
Fern drew one finger across his eyebrow. “I’ve decided to forgive the old dear. I know she’s been unduly influenced by true crime TV.”
“Well, I missed everything you told Reese,” I said. “I was busy making Richard an ice pack and finding him the right shade of concealer.”
Richard touched a hand to his nose, which was still puffy from its impact with my floor. “I can’t believe I’m wearing drugstore makeup. Talk about insult to injury.”
I ignored Richard’s slight and inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of sugar coming from the open-air pastry kitchen where I knew they were turning out pecan sticky buns and homemade doughnuts glazed with bourbon maple syrup. My stomach growled in anticipation.
Kate patted Richard’s arm. “You can hardly notice your nose, by the way.”
“Really?” he asked, his eyes scanning the bustling restaurant buzzing with chatter from a mix of DC establishment and boozy brunch ladies.
I knew he was checking to see if any of the other guests were clients. An encounter with a DC society matron would be the last thing Richard would want on a day he was looking less than perfect. He shifted his man bag from one hand to the other, but it no longer bulged at the sides from the weight of Hermes. We’d left the pup with Leatrice, since she adored him, and we’d found not all restaurants welcomed dogs at brunch.
“Of course. Annabelle’s expired makeup did the trick,” Kate said. “Anyway, it’s good for all of us to get out and get our minds off things.”
“Anything is better than being dragged down to the police station.” Fern shuddered. “I suppose I owe your boyfriend one for not taking me in for questioning today.”
“You were lucky he wasn’t going in to work today,” I said, knowing the last thing Reese wanted to do after working a murder scene all day on Saturday was to deal with a hysterical hairdresser on his day off.
“Too bad he couldn’t join us,” Kate said.
Richard made a face. I knew he wasn’t sad Reese had opted out of brunch, but I hoped if I ignored his attitude he’d warm up to me seeing someone. This strategy had never worked before, mind you. When it came to juggling Richard and other men, I usually kept a Chinese firewall between the two.
“He has plans to watch some sort of sports with his brother,” I said. I also knew brunch with my crew was not Reese’s idea of a relaxing Sunday. Richard was so jealous he could barely look at him, and Kate couldn’t seem to stop herself from looking at him.
Kate’s eyes lit up. “How is his hunky big brother?”
We’d all met Reese’s older but equally handsome brother, Daniel Reese, when he’d done security for a past wedding. He’d also accompanied Mike to join us in Bali a couple of months ago, and Kate had planted a juicy one on him. It had been a spur-of-the-moment kiss and hadn’t led anywhere. A part of me was glad since I could imagine the potential awkwardness of the two of us dating brothers.
“He’s good, I guess,” I said. “I really haven’t seen him since Bali.”
“Too busy?” Kate nudged me.
Fern swiveled to face me. “I never did ask you, Annabelle. Why was the detective at your place this morning if he wasn’t planning on joining us?”
I opened and closed my mouth. “Looks like they have a table for us,” I said finally as a hostess in a snug black dress waved for us to follow her.
I let out a sigh of relief as we were led past the open pastry kitchen where individual apple pies sat cooling on the white-and-gray-marble island while chefs in white caps peeled bright-green Granny Smiths. We descended a couple of steps and were shown to a table for four against a window overlooking the restaurant patio. Even though the weather was still a touch too cool for my liking, and I wore a pink cardigan over my sleeveless green sheath dress, the cream-colored market umbrellas shading the outside tables were open, and a few guests sat underneath them.
“So tell me again why you didn’t break your fall with your hands,” I said to Richard as he took the chair next to mine and draped his jacket over the back of his chair.
“I’ll have you know not only is this suit couture, it’s Irish linen. If I’d bent my arms suddenly the fabric would have creased. Possibly permanently.” He patted my hand. “You wouldn’t understand since all your clothes are wash-and-wear, darling.”
Fern appraised the suit from across the table. “Is it Canali?”
“Ermenegildo Zegna,“ Richard said with a sniff.
“Are they speaking in code?” Kate whispered to me.
“You made the right call,” Fern said, adjusting the French cuffs of his shirt. “The jacket is perfection.”
“Thank you.” Richard dropped one of his hands to his lap and kept the other cupped around his nose. “I wouldn’t have fallen if Fern hadn’t been startled by Detective Reese.”
Fern fanned himself with his napkin. “For a moment I thought he was going to cuff me and drag me away.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Kate muttered from behind her menu.
A waiter in a black suit approached us and placed a ceramic bowl filled with sliced French bread in the middle of the table alongside a small square plate of butter. “Can I start you off with beverages? We’re featuring mango or strawberry sorbet mimosas and Bloody Marys for brunch, as well as Bloody Marias.”
“Bloody Marias?” Kate asked.
“A Bloody Mary with tequila,” the waiter explained.
“I should not do tequila.” Kate made a face. “It makes my inhibitions fly out the window.”
“I didn’t know you had any inhibitions left,” Richard said, giving her a sticky smile. “A sorbet mimosa for me, please.”
“Why don’t we do four sorbet mimosas?” I said before Kate could zing one back to Richard. “Two mango and two strawberry.”
I reached for a slice of bread after the waiter left and was pleased to find it still warm. I spread the soft butter across the surface and took a bite, savoring the yeasty crunch.
“Back to Reese.” Richard leaned back in his chair. “Why would he have arrested you?”
“He was not going to arrest Fern,” I said. “He only wants to question him about Cher Noble’s stalker.”
The waiter returned with our mimosas and set the filled goblets on the table. Scoops of red and yellow sorbet bobbed in the bubbly, and rock candy stirrers were submerged inside the cocktails. Kate picked the mango version and swirled the sugar stirrer around in her glass before taking a sip and smiling.
Fern picked a strawberry mimosa. “You know I’ve known Cher for years.”
Richard waved a hand to indicate I should take my pick of the final two mimosas. I selected the mango and swiveled the rock candy around the bottom. “How exactly did you get to know her?”
“I styled her wigs. Lots of the girls drop their hair off for me to work on after hours.”
It made sense. I’d never seen a drag queen set foot in Fern’s upscale Georgetown hair salon, nor had I seen him styling headless wigs. I remembered the day I’d discovered Fern was often called in by funeral homes to style hair for his dead clients, and I realized there was more to his job than met the eye. This was more evidence to the fact.
“So you’re in with the
drag queen crowd?” Kate asked.
“You could say that,” Fern said. “They’re a welcome break from the social climbing tramps I have to deal with in the salon.”
It no longer startled me when Fern referred to his clients—and members of my bridal parties—as tramps, hussies, or tarts. Even though I knew I’d get fired in a hot minute if I said the same thing, the women seemed to consider it part of Fern’s refreshing charm.
“So when did Cher mention she had a stalker?” I asked.
Fern drummed his fingers along his jaw. “It must have been two weeks ago. She was picking up her wigs, and I noticed her acting jumpy.”
Kate leaned forward. “Jumpy how?”
“It was in the salon after I’d closed, but she kept looking over her shoulder at the door like she expected someone to walk in,” Fern said. “I asked her what was wrong, and she said she thought she was being followed.”
“How odd,” I said. “Why would someone be following her?”
“She wouldn’t say, but she told me one of her tires had been slashed a few days earlier.” Fern drained half of his mimosa. “Although, to be fair, she lives in a dodgy neighborhood.”
“Could it have been a hate crime?” I asked.
“Possibly, but she didn’t go around dressed as Cher unless she was performing, so I don’t know if anyone in her neighborhood would know about her alter ego.” Fern took another long drink and set his empty glass on the table. “In her regular life, she was a he who worked at the Department of Treasury.”
“I did not see that coming.” Kate took the last sip of her drink and put the glass next to Fern’s.
“So her death could be unconnected to the drag queen part of her life?” Richard asked.
“Maybe she was a spy and the Cher act was her cover,” Kate said, her voice lowered.
Fern shook his head as he waved down our waiter and signaled for another round of drinks. “I don’t think she was a spy. She’d been a drag queen long before she got a job with the government.”
Kate frowned. “Too bad. It would have been fun to be caught up in a spy caper.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I promised Reese I wouldn’t get caught up in any kind of investigation. I’m pretty sure undercover spy capers count.”
Fern looked at me. “You weren’t serious, were you?”
“Of course I was.” I licked my rock sugar stirrer to get the last few drops of mimosa as a waiter put a full replacement down in front of me. “Reese will kill me if he catches me poking around in his case.”
Kate raised her second mimosa in a silent toast. “Only if he catches you.”
“Which he always does,” I reminded her. “We aren’t great at staying undercover ourselves.”
Fern hiccupped. “But we owe it to Cher to find out who killed her. I can’t bear the thought of someone strangling her and getting away with it.”
I put my hand on top of his. “They won’t. I promise you the police will find the killer.”
Fern swiped at his eyes. “And if they don’t, we will?”
Kate put her hand on top of both of ours. “You know you can count on us.”
“I am not part of this,” Richard said, shaking his head. “Meddling in a police investigation is a crime, and I do not hear good things about the cuisine at the DC jails.”
“Are you all in trouble again?”
I recognized the Southern drawl and turned to see a pair of tall blondes walk up to our table, both with stick-straight hair and Louis Vuitton totes hooked on their arms.
Fern blinked hard and glanced at his two empty mimosa glasses. “These drinks are stronger than I thought. Is anyone else seeing double?”
“Botox Barbie,” Kate muttered. “And she brought a clone.”
The owner of Brides by Brianna flinched, and I knew she’d heard Kate. I forced myself to smile. “Hi, Brianna. What can we do for you?”
Brianna had burst onto the wedding planner scene the year before and had been nothing but a thorn in our sides ever since. If she wasn’t trying to steal our brides, she was spreading gossip about us.
“Nothing.” She waved a hand in the direction of the other woman. “I thought I’d introduce Tina Pink, owner of TP Inc. We’re here having brunch with our husbands.” She waved her hand at two dark-haired men at a table behind us who both looked like they could have stepped off the set of The Sopranos. “Like you.”
I could see Kate bristle at the implication Fern and Richard were our husbands, and I reached underneath the table and put a hand on her knee.
“What an unfortunate name for a company,” Richard said without looking up.
The second blonde flipped her hair off her shoulder as two splotches of red appeared on her cheeks. “My company is pronounced T Pink like my name, by the way.”
“What happened to you?” Brianna asked, gaping at Richard.
His hands flew to his nose. “The girls promised me it wasn’t noticeable.”
Briana laughed. “Well, they lied. You look like you could lead Santa’s sleigh.”
Fern gave Brianna a fake smile. “I thought maybe this was one of your new girls.” Fern used air quotations when he said the word “girls.”
Brianna glanced around her. “How many times do I have to tell you? Those call girl rumors were completely made up.”
Fern raised his shoulders and both hands as if he didn’t believe her, but I knew he did since he’d been the one to help spread the rumors Kate had made up.
“If I were you, I’d be worried about my own company’s reputation.” Brianna leaned close to me. “Especially since you can’t do a wedding without someone getting murdered.”
The two women flounced back to their table without a glance behind them. I glared at their retreating backs, hating them for being right. Dead bodies were not good for business.
Chapter 9
“How is it possible to hate someone so much after only meeting them once?” Kate asked as she wound her way through Georgetown traffic the next morning, honking her car horn if the drivers in front of her attempted to make a left turn.
I clutched the car door as we swerved around a double-parked delivery truck. “Tina Pink being besties with Brianna doesn’t help. Guilt by association.”
Kate made a face as she gunned it through a yellow traffic light while it turned red, and a cacophony of horns sounded behind us. “Brianna or no Brianna, I didn’t like the look of her. And how have we never heard of her before?”
I took a tentative sip of my to-go mocha as we drove past the Washington Harbor and underneath the Whitehurst Freeway, skirting the Potomac River on our right, the dark water glistening in the sun. I spotted a pair of kayakers cutting through the water and took another sip of coffee, glad for the warmth and the sweetness. Even though the weather was warming, I knew the Potomac was still freezing and felt glad to be inside a car with hot coffee and not out on the water.
“I’ll bet Richard will know more about her today,” I said.
We were on our way to the offices of Richard Gerard Catering for a tasting with Darla and Debbie, a mother-daughter duo we’d worked with the year before. Debbie’s wedding to Turner Grant the Third had been as over-the-top and alcohol infused as the bride and her mother, but the WASPy duo remained one of our favorite clients, because they had deep pockets and appreciated everything we did for them.
Not even a year after Debbie became Mrs. Turner Grant the Third, Darla called us to plan the baby shower for the expectant mother. Wedding Belles did not normally plan baby showers or first birthday parties or mitzvahs or anything involving children, but we always made exceptions for cherished clients. Especially ones who had a sense of fun and money to burn.
“You’re right.” Kate reached for her coffee in the center console’s cup holder. “Richard’s had almost twenty-four hours to get all the information on her. If there’s dirt out there, he’ll have it.”
I put a hand over my eyes to shield them from the bright sun as we ve
ered around the Lincoln Memorial and onto Independence Avenue. “Funny how quickly Brianna latched onto her. There must be something in it for her.”
“You’re right. Botox Barbie does not do things out of the goodness of her heart.” Kate took off the sunglasses perched on the top of her head and handed them to me. This still left the oversized tortoiseshell pair on her face. “You want to use these?”
“Do you mind me asking why you have on two pairs of sunglasses?”
She shrugged. “They make a great headband, but they’re much cooler than actual headbands. I mean, it isn’t the 90s anymore. Don’t worry. I wasn’t going to wear two pairs into the tasting. Richard would never let me live it down.”
She was right. Richard was our own personal fashion police, and I often got verbal citations from him. I was grateful he’d stopped handing out the written ones. I took Kate’s headband sunglasses, slipped them on, and let my eyes adjust to the darker view.
My phone trilled and I dug it out of my bag, groaning when I recognized the number. “Cara Cox,” I told Kate. “Wonder what she wants?”
“I don’t know,” we both said in unison and laughed.
‘I don’t know’ was this mother of the bride’s answer to any question. It had taken months for her to sign a single contract because she couldn’t make a decision, and we’d had so many walk-throughs at their venue the manager threatened to charge us the next time she tried to pop by.
“Hi, Cara,” I said. “How are you?”
“I don’t know, Annabelle. I really don’t.”
I pressed a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece so she wouldn’t hear Kate’s giggling.
“Do you think we should revisit the catering proposal?” Cara asked.
“I don’t think we need to revisit it, but I do know you need to sign off on the final menu. The wedding is in three weeks.”
Cara sighed. “I don’t know.”
“I know the wedding can’t go ahead without final contracts signed,” I said, trying to keep my voice firm. “Do you want the wedding to be called off because you didn’t have any vendors booked?”