Marriage, Monsters-in-Law, and Murder

by Sara Rosett

  “You’re talking about the ceremony?”

  “Yes. A brilliant idea.” The walkie-talkie crackled. “Now, you must excuse me, the rain is supposed to clear within the next hour, and we have to make up for lost time in setting up for the next event. Don’t worry about the wedding. It is all under control.” He turned away and spoke into the walkie-talkie as he moved through the rain toward the gazebo.

  “What brilliant idea?” I asked Mitch who had come to stand beside me. “What’s the plan?”

  “Don’t know, but apparently you don’t need to worry about it. Mr. Markham has it all under control.”

  “But I like to know what the plan is.” I watched Mr. Markham’s figure as he joined a group of several other raincoated people in the gazebo.

  “I’m sure Summer will let you know either tonight or tomorrow. Come on, we have enough to do as it is.”

  Mitch and I returned to the resort, crossed the lobby, and headed for the library. “You’re right. I need to shift gears. It’s definitely time to relieve Madison.” I knew I was a bit of a micromanager, but I was an organizer, after all. Organizing was all about the details, and I didn’t like being out of the loop.

  We entered the library and Nathan’s squeaky voice shouted, “Duck, Mom!”

  I lowered my head and a barrage of white paper airplanes hit the door frame near me while one sailed over my head and into the hallway near the grand staircase.

  “I win,” Nathan shouted. “Mine went through the door.”

  I looked up and saw that Nathan, along with several of his cousins, draped over the second-story gallery that ran around the library. They all turned and pounded down the circular staircase, which was located in the corner of the library, then they dashed across the room and retrieved the paper airplanes.

  I glanced around the large room, wondering how many irate people I was going to have to apologize to, but the room was empty except for the kids and Uncle Bud and Aunt Nanette, who sat on one of the sofas arranged on one side of the room. Queen was sprawled along the rug in a deep sleep. A long, modular desktop stretched across the other side of the room. It was topped with a row of computers as well as a couple of printers and formed the resort’s business center. The contemporary lines of the setup were at odds with the rest of the room’s sumptuous decor of ornate wood molding, embossed wallpaper, heavily brocaded drapes, an oriental rug covering the hardwood floor, and the leather-bound volumes that lined the walls on the lower level as well as the gallery.

  Madison smoothed out the tip of one of the planes that had been crushed on landing and handed it back to one of the kids. “We kind of ran out of things to do after they got tired of playing Old Maid and coloring. Uncle Bud said this would be fine.”

  “As long as no one else is in here, it’s fine,” I said, eyeing the railing that ran around the gallery. It would be about waist high on an adult, so it was plenty tall enough to keep the kids safe when they were up there.

  Mitch reached for his wallet. He handed Madison several twenties.

  “Oh, I couldn’t take this much,” Madison said. “I charge the Drakes ten dollars an hour to babysit for them, but that’s because their kids are terrors. Your kids are a piece of cake compared to them.”

  The kids raced back up the stairs and lined up along the gallery railing again, their planes at the ready. “Let’s aim for the recycling bin,” Livvy said, pointing across the room to the green-lidded container that sat at the end of the business center desk. “Ready, set, go.”

  “That’s great to hear,” I said to Madison, “but we were gone longer than we thought, and we didn’t intend for you to watch all the younger cousins.” And we’d also discovered there were two secrets to keeping good babysitters: return on time and overpay. We’d already blown the first one, but we could take care of the second.

  “Well, okay,” she said.

  “Consider yourself off duty,” Mitch said. “We’ve got it from here.”

  “All right. Thanks.” She turned to the kids, who were barreling down the stairs again to get their planes. “Bye, guys.”

  They waved distractedly, and Madison left the room, tucking the money into her jeans pocket. The kids trooped up the stairs again and picked a new target. The planes sailed through the air over our heads as Mitch and I moved to sit down across from Uncle Bud on another couch.

  “It was either paper airplanes or teach them to play poker,” Uncle Bud said.

  Mitch grinned at him. “Good choice.”

  “So how is Summer?” Uncle Bud asked.

  “She’s doing better,” I answered as I gathered up the paper that the kids had left scattered over the coffee table, which was an accumulation of folded airplanes and crayon drawings.

  “It looks like she’ll be out of the hospital tomorrow,” Mitch said.

  “That’s wonderful,” Aunt Nanette said. “I’m so glad. I hate that all this has happened this weekend. It’s just terrible. Will they go ahead with the wedding or reschedule it?”

  I said, “Summer is determined to get married tomorrow, and at this point, I don’t think she cares if the ceremony takes place here or at the hospital. Tomorrow is the day, rain or shine.” I glanced toward the gray windows. “And I mean that literally.” I reached down to pick up several paper airplanes that the kids had left under the coffee table.

  “Glad to hear it,” Aunt Nanette said. “And how are your parents?” she asked Mitch. “Do they need a break from the hospital?”

  “No, I brought them back here today so they could get some rest,” Mitch said.

  His voice continued, and the conversation went on, but I had stopped listening. Most of the paper airplanes were made out of the resort’s thick stationery, but a few of them were made from thin printer paper and several of the sections were covered in closely spaced print. I pried the folds apart. It was some sort of real estate sale contract for a property in Sarasota. Scrawled in a large messy handwriting across the top margin were the words Attn: Graham Murphy. Ready to move on this. Need a response ASAP.

  Mitch clapped his hands together and called the kids down from the gallery. “Okay, kids, time for dinner.”

  Nathan pounded down the stairs and slid to a stop, his sweaty face only inches from mine as he gripped my hand. “Don’t throw those away.”

  “What? The drawings?”

  “No, the paper airplanes. We have to save them. And this one, too.” Nathan carefully flattened an airplane so aerodynamically sleek that it looked like some sort of exotic origami. “Uncle Bud folded these especially for me. See this one? It’s a fighter jet. And this one is a jumbo jet. We can keep them, right?” Several of the planes Nathan held were also made from the printer paper with small print on one side. I touched one of them. “Where did you get the paper to make these?”

  “After we ran out of the scratchy paper Madison brought from her room, I got some paper out of the recycling bin.” Nathan pointed toward the green bin. “I didn’t use any of the printer paper,” Nathan said, his voice serious.

  Recently, he and Livvy had gotten in trouble for using a huge pile of the paper out of our printer tray for their art projects. I’d told them it was okay to use old paper out of our recycling bin, but not the new paper.

  I stood and moved across the room to the recycling bin, which had a lid with a slot to deposit papers. The lid had a snap that locked into place, but it wasn’t engaged. SECURE SHRED: PAPER DEPOSITED HERE WILL BE SHREDDED was printed on the outside of the bin. “Not so secure,” I murmured. Nathan had followed me across the room and was repeating his question. “I can keep them, can’t I?”

  “Yes, as long as you put them in your suitcase,” I said. “Then you can put them in your room when you get home.” Since Nathan had zero interest in identity theft, I thought the papers would be safe enough.

  “Okay,” he agreed happily.

  We rounded up the rest of the kids and deposited them with their respective families, then headed for the dining room to order dinn
er. Mitch and I split a massive order of spaghetti with meatballs the size of Wiffle balls while the kids had chicken strips. Mitch nudged the last meatball toward me. “What’s that sad expression for?”

  “No, no more for me.” I put my fork down with a sigh. “I just can’t help thinking that we would be at Summer and Brian’s wedding reception right now.”

  Before Mitch could reply, Livvy, who had been twisted around backward looking out the window, swiveled back toward us. “Can we go swimming? It’s stopped raining.” The clouds still hung overhead, but I realized it wasn’t quite as dark and gray outside as it had been only a little while ago.

  “Maybe Mr. Markham’s weather forecast is right. Maybe the storm has cleared,” I said. The only water falling now was dripping off the trees when the wind shifted their branches. A small strip of bright sky glowed beyond the tree canopy. Mitch and I exchanged a glance, and I said, “It is early, and we don’t have anything else planned for tonight. I mean, now we don’t.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Mitch agreed. He checked the weather app on his phone and declared that the severe weather was out of the area. “So yes, we can go to the pool, but if it starts to rain again, out you come.”

  The kids let out whoops and that was pretty much the end of dinner. By the time we returned to the room, got everyone suited up, and found our way down to the pool, the requisite one hour since dinner had elapsed, and I waved the kids in. Broken clouds now covered the sky, but the patches showing through were pale blue.

  Mitch jumped in the pool, spraying both kids. I wasn’t ready to swim yet, so I settled into a poolside chair, but I’d barely got my swimsuit cover-up off before Livvy surged out of the water and ran-walked toward me, showering me with drops of water as she neared me. “Mom, I think I left my book in the dining room.”

  I wasn’t surprised she’d brought a book to dinner. Her reasoning was that there might be a few spare minutes, and she was all about working in a chapter or two whenever she could.

  I glanced at Mitch, who had swum over to the side of the pool near me and was listening with his arms propped up on the edge of the pool. “Rock, paper, scissors?” he asked.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “No, I’ll go. You stay here on pool duty,” I said as I pulled on my cover-up and flip-flops.

  In the dining room, I found the book under the chair where Livvy had sat during dinner. The table was empty, and I was able to get the book, then slip back out of the dining room without disturbing anyone’s meal, but I ran right into Patricia as I left.

  “You!” she said, pointing a finger at my nose. “I know it was you. Don’t bother to deny it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I took a half step back from Patricia’s pointing finger. “I’m sorry?”

  “You told that interfering detective that I was in the banquet room and handled the flower arrangements. Who else could it have been? I doubt the florist or that waitress even knows my name.”

  I knew that statement was wrong—Denise certainly knew Patricia’s name—but I didn’t say that. It would only agitate her more to know she had a reputation with the vendors.

  “He all but accused me of poisoning Summer, my future daughter-in-law. And”—her voice rose—“he wanted to know what my relationship was with Ned Blackson. Ned! The photographer. You’re so nosy. I’m sure you are to blame for that, too. Well, I won’t have it. It’s harassment, that’s what it is. I want it stopped now.” She pointed her finger at me again, bobbing it up and down to emphasize her point. “Do you understand me? As if I’d have anything other than a professional relationship with a photographer.”

  I don’t take being lectured well. Especially when the person doing the lecturing was as insufferable as Patricia. My resolve to keep my mouth shut evaporated. “Then why was he blackmailing you?”

  Patricia reared back as if she’d had an electric shock, and her expression immediately shut down. “That is not true,” she said, but her assuredness was gone.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think it’s true. And Detective Redding must think it’s a possible lead if he’s asked you about it.”

  She pinched her lips together, then sighed. All the tension and righteous indignation that had been stiffening her manner seeped right out of her. She glanced around the lobby. “So I suppose everyone knows . . . or will shortly?” She didn’t wait for a reply, but went on in a much more subdued voice than she’d used just moments earlier. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. All the plans I had for this weekend. . . they’re all ruined now.”

  “I haven’t told anyone but Detective Redding,” I said. “I felt I had to, after Ned died.”

  She stared at me a long moment, then rubbed her temple. I noticed that her fingers were trembling. “I need a drink. Come on, I’ll buy.” She turned and marched quickly into the bar that connected to the restaurant. I wasn’t really in the mood to grab a drink with her, but she looked a bit—and I couldn’t believe I was actually thinking this—fragile. I blew out a sigh and followed her into the bar. The last thing I wanted was for her to show up with a hangover in the morning.

  My swimsuit cover-up, a loose cotton dress, wasn’t what I’d pick to wear to the resort bar, but unless someone noticed the straps of my swimsuit at the neckline, no one would realize I was dressed for the pool. No one raised an eyebrow at my attire, but I was glad when Patricia sat down at a booth rather than on one of the bar stools. I slid onto a leather bench across from her. She’d already motioned the waiter over. “Scotch. Neat.” She looked at me with eyebrows raised.

  “Just soda water with a twist of lime for me,” I said as I placed Livvy’s book on the table. I wanted a clear head in the morning, too.

  The waiter was back in moments, depositing the drinks on the small table between us. Patricia took a large slug of hers, checked that the booth behind her was vacant, then settled back in her seat. “I may have overreacted. Just a tad. When I think about it now, with everything that’s happened this weekend, well, what Ned threatened to broadcast . . . it’s not that important in the big scope of things, but several months ago . . . well, I didn’t want it getting out.”

  “Didn’t want what getting out?”

  Patricia sighed again, then leaned forward and lowered her voice a notch. “That Gus had joined one of those far right, extremist groups.”

  “You mean like a new Nazi party?” I hadn’t heard about anything like that going on, but I wasn’t exactly up on all the news. Being a mom and running a business—even a part-time business—took up most of my time and attention. I didn’t follow politics or the news as closely as I probably should. I sipped my bubbly drink and waited.

  “No. Worse. It was one of those conservative groups,” she said, lowering her voice so much that the last two words were barely audible.

  I shifted in my seat. “I’m not sure I understand,” I said, but I was afraid I did. I just wanted to be perfectly clear on what Patricia thought.

  “Well, you can imagine what a disaster that would be, if it got out. I mean, those people, they’re for guns and taking the country back—whatever that means—but it doesn’t sound peaceful, does it? And . . . well, I don’t know what else they’re for, but it’s not good. I know that.”

  She scanned the room again and must have been satisfied that everyone was out of range and continued in a low, confidential tone. “I mean, all the important influential people, all the people who matter, are on the other end of the political spectrum, if you know what I mean.” She raised her eyebrows at me and gave me a knowing look. “If word got out that Gus was participating in those . . . circles, well, Brian wouldn’t have even a ghost of a chance of making a political career.”

  I clamped my lips together. I’m not an apolitical person, but I make it a policy to never talk politics with clients or strangers. “I see,” was all I said, and I was quite proud of myself for my restraint.

  “Of course you do,” Patricia said comfortably.

  The thought tha
t I might not agree with her had never crossed her mind, I realized. But, in fairness, that was how she operated one hundred percent of the time on all subjects—her opinion was right and best and everyone should agree with her.

  Patricia picked up her glass for another drink and gulped some more scotch. “You know the ironic part? I invited him to our house. I thought it would save time.” She looked away and shook her head. “If only we’d gone to his studio it never would have happened. Ned never would have known. But no, I had to go and ask him to come to our house.” She twisted her glass around as she said, “Gus hates having his picture taken, but we needed a professional shot for the ballet program. We’re gold medallion sponsors, you know, and they always have their pictures in the program. I thought Gus would throw less of a fit if he didn’t have to go somewhere. Ned agreed to come to our house and took the pictures very quickly.”

  She signaled the waiter for another drink. “Another for you?” she asked me, but I declined. Patricia continued, “I had an appointment and had to leave immediately after the photos were taken. I left Ned and Gus chatting about football.” She widened her eyes. “You would think that would be a safe subject. Men can talk about that for hours. I never thought . . .” She trailed off for a moment, then said, “Apparently, Ned saw a flyer Gus had brought home, and asked Gus about it. Well, that was all it took. Gus is very passionate about politics. He told Ned about their group and Ned must have hinted he wanted to be involved because Gus invited him to the next meeting.” She reached across the table and placed her hand on my arm. “I found out all of this through Ned, who was only too happy to tell me as he showed me photos from those meetings. Ned had offered to ‘document’ the meeting for Gus—free of charge.” She laughed, a sharp braying sound. “Turns out, he planned on me reimbursing him.”

  “The art show,” I said as the waiter arrived with a tray and fresh drink.

  She took the new drink from the waiter but waited until he’d left before she spoke again. “Yes. That’s what he asked for, but I talked him into taking on Summer’s wedding. It’s a significant job. He agreed, but as soon as Summer signed off on Ned as the vendor, he came back to me about the art show again. Of course, I couldn’t have everyone know what Gus was involved in. It just wouldn’t look good, so I agreed to sponsor the show. I do lots of work in the arts community. It wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.”