“So what do you plan on doing? Hiding the body until after the ceremony? Finding the murderer yourself in the midst of the festivities …” Kathleen took a good look at Susan’s face. “Oh no! Susan, you’re not thinking about that! Tell me you’re not thinking about that!”
“Kathleen, listen to me. We don’t know who this woman is, do we?”
“No, but …”
“She might be someone connected with the wedding, right?”
“It’s possible, but …”
“Oh, my God, maybe I do know who she is!” Susan pushed Kathleen aside and stared down at the body. “At least who she could be. What do you think about the clothes she’s wearing?”
A multicolored silk batik tunic hung over slim raw silk slacks, and elegant high-heeled sandals completed the dead woman’s outfit.
“She looks nice. Casual. Maybe sort of artistic—you know, the aging-hippie look, assuming the aging hippie happens to have a non-hippie type income …”
“How old do you think she is?” Susan asked, still staring intently at the dead woman.
“Around fifty, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. She has wrinkles around her eyes, but she may have been one of those women who spent hours in the sun when she was young.”
“Like in California?”
“I suppose … You think you know who she is?”
“Chrissy’s future mother-in-law!” Susan announced dramatically.
Kathleen squinted down at the body. “Well, her hair is the same blond as Stephen’s hair, but I think hers is dyed. I suppose she’s old enough to be his mother. You said you hadn’t met the Canfields. Did you see a photo of them or something?”
“No, but look. She’s the right age. She’s chic, but casual and sort of liberal—you know, like she’s from California—and … um …”
“Too bad her murderer didn’t pack up her purse and tuck it in beside her,” Kathleen suggested. “Then we could have looked in her wallet for an ID.”
“That’s a good point. We don’t know where she was killed, do we?”
“We don’t know anything, Susan. And it’s not our job to find out.”
“It’s my job to give Chrissy a wedding day she’ll always remember. And I’m talking about good memories, Kathleen.”
“And how does a murdered mother-in-law fit in with your plans for this festive occasion?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know.” Susan sank down on the couch beside the box and put her hands over her eyes. “I just know I have to try to make tomorrow a wonderful day for Chrissy—” She was interrupted by a hammering on the bathroom door.
“Hey! Everyone all right in there?”
Susan grabbed Kathleen’s arm. “It sounds like Brett!” she hissed.
“We’re fine. Just taking care of some small female problems,” Kathleen called back. “We’ll be out in a few minutes!”
“Great! I’m heading back to the station. If I don’t see you again until the reception, have a good wedding, Mrs. Mother of the Bride!” Brett called through the door.
“Ha. Ha.” Susan suspected her laughter sounded artificial. “See you tomorrow!” she called out, then turned to Kathleen and hugged her. “You didn’t say anything! Thank you! Thank you!”
“This doesn’t mean I’m necessarily going to help you hide this body,” Kathleen insisted.
But Susan knew it did, in fact, mean just that. She sighed her relief and then giggled. “Small female problems? What in heaven’s name does that mean? Hot flashes? Labor pains?”
Kathleen grinned. “Who knows? But you know how men hate any suggestion of that sort of thing. He certainly wasn’t going to ask more questions. Why are we standing here talking? Susan, what are we going to do about this woman?”
“She is a problem, isn’t she?” Susan agreed, looking down at the body. “I guess we’ll have to wait until everyone is gone this evening to move her.…”
“Move her?”
“Well, we can’t hold a reception without letting women use the ladies’ room, and I don’t think we want our guests confronted with a dead body every time they come in to put on more lipstick or use the john.”
“Maybe we could find a large roll of wrapping paper and wrap her up like a wedding present and stand her in the corner of the room.”
“Do you think that would work?” Susan asked, excited until she got a good look at her friend’s face. “Oh, you’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Of course …” Susan continued to stare at the body. “She probably isn’t Mrs. Canfield. She might not even be connected with the wedding party.… What’s that thing hanging out of her pocket?” Susan leaned over for a closer look, but didn’t touch any part of the body or the box.
Kathleen used her handkerchief to pull the piece of paper from the pocket. The women examined it together.
“Is this what I think it is?” Kathleen asked.
“It is if you’re thinking it’s an invitation to the wedding tomorrow.”
Both woman silently stared down at the stiff envelope.
“Look, the small rsvp card was never returned,” Kathleen said, peering inside.
“Well, I guess this woman, whoever she is, will not be at the wedding tomorrow,” Susan said slowly. “If there is a wedding tomorrow, of course.”
FIVE
“Do you think she’s safe where she is?” Susan asked, as Kathleen’s antique Jaguar XKE roared out into the heavy Saturday afternoon traffic.
“I don’t know what else we could have done with her,” Kathleen said, glaring up at the driver of a green Land Rover. “What is wrong with these people? Doesn’t she realize she’s blocking my view? Does she think her damn car is transparent?”
“Maybe we should have tried stuffing her behind the couch …” Susan mused, when Kathleen didn’t answer her first question.
“Susan! She wouldn’t fit behind the couch. She wouldn’t fit under the couch. We did the only thing we could do. We’ll just have to hope it works.” Kathleen used one hand to tuck her blouse back into her sleek slacks. After a few minutes of panic, they had decided that the body must be hidden—at least until she could be moved. And she would have to be moved before the reception tomorrow afternoon, they both realized. But first things first, Susan had insisted. Where to put the body?
The door in the ladies’ room led to a slop closet equipped, unfortunately, with a large, deep soapstone sink. The only way the dead woman would fit in there was to remove her from the box and plop her in the sink. Without speaking, the women agreed that was a terrible idea. Susan, who had once claimed to have spent at least a month of her lifetime in lines waiting to get into ladies’ rooms, had come up with the idea of standing the box on one end and dragging it into a booth, propping it against the toilet, and then hanging an out of order sign on the door. “After all,” she had explained, “no one will think anything about it. Those signs are practically as standard a part of the decor in most ladies’ rooms as sinks and toilets.”
It had been a struggle, but they’d managed to stand the box on end, making sure it wouldn’t come open by tying it with a long length of peach silk (possible fabric for the mother-of-the-bride dress before Susan found one ready-made at Bloomingdale’s) from Susan’s commodious purse. The same purse had provided a roll of masking tape (necessary to attach balloons to her mailbox to identify her home to guests this weekend) that they used to hang the note on a sheet of paper tom from Susan’s Filofax (a week sometime in July—Susan figured that if she lived through the wedding, she’d spend at least a month in bed).
“We’ll go back tonight after the rehearsal dinner and move her when no one’s around,” Susan announced.
Kathleen didn’t answer.
“You think I’ll change my mind and tell Brett about her, don’t you?” Susan asked, once again scrounging around in her purse.
“To be honest, I don’t see how you’re going to be able to avoid it. Look, what’s going to happen when Mrs. Canfie
ld doesn’t show up for the rehearsal? Are you going to just pretend you don’t know what happened to her?”
“But maybe the dead woman isn’t Stephen’s mother.”
“You did send her an invitation, didn’t you?”
“Yes … just to show her what they looked like … Oh, my goodness! That’s why the rsvp card wasn’t returned—the Canfields certainly wouldn’t have done that. Oh, Kathleen, it is Stephen’s mother!”
“Maybe, but don’t get hysterical until we actually know something.”
“You’re right.” Susan glanced down at her watch. “Can you drop me off at BeBe’s?” she asked, mentioning the name of the most popular hairdresser in the county.
“I thought he was coming to your house tomorrow morning to do your hair as well as Chrissy’s.”
“Nope. Chrissy insisted on doing her own hair, so I thought I’d have mine done today and look decent for the entire weekend—I hope.” She glanced up at the sky. Those couldn’t possibly be rain clouds to the northwest! But Kathleen was talking.
“… timing.”
“Excuse me? I guess I wasn’t listening,” Susan admitted.
“I was just wondering how you planned this afternoon to go.”
“Well …” Susan pulled a notebook from her purse as she spoke. “Let’s see … I’m late for the hairdresser—I was supposed to be there at one-thirty. I’m not just having my hair done, I’m also doubling up for a manicure and pedicure—I know no one except Jed is going to see my toes in the next twenty-four hours, but I couldn’t resist …”
“And after the hairdresser?”
“Well, I wanted to get a facial, but I decided a nap would be just as good for me, so I gave myself an extra hour—of course that was over a month ago.”
“So?”
“So I took it away a few weeks ago and put in …” She paused, squinted at her notebook, and continued, “It looks like time with Mother. But that’s not possible. I couldn’t have actually planned to spend time with my moth— Oh, no, that’s Jed’s mother I’m supposed to be with—she asked me to spend some time with her and I suggested tea at that nice little place downtown. She wants to discuss the present she’s giving Chrissy and Stephen.”
“What is it?”
“What is what?”
“What is she giving them?” Kathleen asked.
“I haven’t the foggiest.” Susan frowned. “But I gather it’s a big deal. She and Chrissy have always been close, and you know how Claire can be.”
“Very enthusiastic,” Kathleen suggested tactfully.
“Highly likely to go over the top about almost anything,” Susan corrected her friend. “So I really don’t want to miss our meeting. If she is so concerned about the gift she’s giving them that she wants to speak to me about it. I’d better hear what it’s all about.”
“Can’t Jed meet her without you?”
“Nope. Jed wasn’t invited. Just me. Which is part of the reason I’m worried. Claire knows Jed would have no trouble telling her a gift is inappropriate so she comes to me first—”
“You know, you’re just as capable of saying no as Jed is.”
“Not to his mother. It’s always easy to say no to your own mother, but when was the last time you told Jerry’s mom that she was wrong about something?”
Kathleen grinned. “You’re right. So what good does going to this tea do, since you’re just going to agree with whatever Claire suggests?”
“Well, I’ll know what’s coming and I can warn Jed about whatever it is. Then he’ll take care of it all,” Susan said, her voice more doubtful than her words implied.
Kathleen chuckled. “Maybe. As I recall, stopping an enthusiastic Claire is like stopping an avalanche.”
Susan smiled. “True, but once Jed is involved, it won’t be my problem anymore.”
“So what do you have on the schedule after this tea party?”
“If I leave the restaurant before four-thirty and the traffic isn’t too bad, I should be home by five. Just in time to change my clothes and put the finishing touches on appetizers to go with the champagne we’re serving, and before we all head over to the church for the rehearsal—that is, once you buy the food.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll have the best munchies money can buy,” Kathleen assured her, before asking, “Are all the members of the wedding party invited to your house for drinks?”
“They all were invited, but they all declined. Chrissy and Stephen are going to see some sort of spiritual advisor that Stephen’s parents know, the bridesmaids are spending the afternoon at that day spa in Greenwich, and the ushers … well, I have no idea what the ushers are doing, but I figured I wouldn’t ask. I know Chad has something planned, but I don’t know what.”
“A date with that girl he’s so smitten with?”
“What girl?”
“Susan, you must have seen him riding around town on that silver BMW motorcycle with that sexy blond goddess driving. I heard she’s French—everyone’s been talking about the two of them down at the Field Club.”
“And I don’t know anything about her,” Susan admitted. “I’ve been so wrapped up in plans for the wedding that I guess I just wasn’t paying attention the way I should have been.” She frowned.
“Susan, the young woman is not only rich and beautiful, but she’s a sophomore at Harvard. I don’t think you have to worry about any sort of bad influence here.”
“He’ll be getting married next.”
“Don’t be sad about it.”
“Oh, I’m not!” Susan assured her friend. “I was just wondering if, once the kids were both out of the house, I could talk Jed into taking a long trip to Europe. Like one of those canal trips through France. Or China! I’ve always wanted to go to China!”
“But first you have to get your hair and nails done,” Kathleen reminded her, pulling up in front of the green-and-white striped awning that led into BeBe’s shop.
“Oh, my goodness, we’re here. I still haven’t decided whether to wear my hair up or down. What do you think?”
“If BeBe’s the genius everyone says he is, you don’t have to worry. It will look wonderful either way,” Kathleen assured her. “I’ll be at your house around five to help set up for cocktails, okay?”
“Oh, Kathleen, I don’t know what I would do without you,” Susan cried. She thought Kathleen muttered something about her moving bodies by herself before the long Jaguar roared down the street in the direction of the Hancock Gourmet. Susan straightened her shoulders and tried to avoid looking at her reflection in the door of the salon. Well, she thought, hair up or down, she was bound to look a lot better when she left there.
Susan was greeted enthusiastically by the woman behind the front desk and taken to a small room at the rear of the shop. “First your manicure and pedicure. Then the wash and then BeBe will be ready for you!” the young blonde explained, as she dropped a pile of magazines into Susan’s lap and glided from the room.
Susan’s usual hairdresser had recently gotten a divorce, quit her job, and moved to a salon in the city, so Susan had never visited this particular place before. That it was classier than her normal shop was obvious in the choice of reading material—not only were the issues of Vogue current, but they were exclusively foreign editions. Susan picked up British Vogue and flipped through the glossy pages. There was a beautiful bronze dress that would have done wonderfully as her mother-of-the-bride dress.… But she stopped herself as she remembered that she had made that particular decision, and a beautiful dress was waiting in her closet that very moment.
But the thought of dresses led, of course, to Chrissy’s gown, and Susan was wondering about its whereabouts when two young women entered the room, each carrying a large pink tray.
“Hi, I’m Rita.”
“And I’m Meredith,” the other girl introduced herself. “We’re your hands and toenails. Now, did you bring a piece of fabric or something we can match?”
Susan thought about the rejected f
abric swatches unraveling in the bottom of her purse. “But why do you need … Oh, you mean that my nails should match my dress.”
“It’s up to you. Some women seem to prefer a contrasting color. Or some go a shade lighter or a shade or two darker. The lighter shades make your fingers appear longer and the darker shades are very dramatic. Of course, there’s the French manicure …”
“Just clear polish with white underneath the tips of the nails,” Susan said, catching onto something she understood.
“But that’s a rather Eighties look, don’t you think?”
“Maybe a light silvery peach …” Susan suggested, thinking of the color of her dress.
“Which one?”
Susan stared down at the tray of tiny bottles extended before her. There were probably two dozen colors of polish that might be described as peach; an equal number were probably apricot, and as for iridescents …
“This one is nice,” Meredith offered, picking up a pot. “It’s called Rosa Rubiate. Or maybe this one. Seashell Sienna. Or maybe Moonlight Moss.”
“I’ve always liked Damask Dream. Of course, there’s really no reason why your toes need to match your fingers—or your dress either. I have one client who always wants her toenails to match—or at least coordinate with—her underwear.”
Susan didn’t have all day—and she didn’t want white polish on her toenails. Besides, she did, after all, have a bottle of nail polish remover in her dressing table. She reached out and grabbed a tiny bottle, the color of a pale pink peony. “This for my fingers,” she insisted. “And this …” She picked one at random. “This one for my toes.”
“It’s a little greenish …”
“That’s fine. I plan to do a lot of walking on grass tomorrow,” Susan explained illogically, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. This might be her only chance to rest all day. Not that she could possibly relax when she had no idea where the wedding gown had ended up—to say nothing of the dead woman in the box.…
She woke up because someone was giggling.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone snore quite that loudly.”
Weddings Are Murder Page 4