Cate wouldn’t argue that. She expected Kim to add something putting blame on her mother’s matchmaking, but all she did was say it again, her tone turning softer and a little sad. “Wrong.”
A nurse came in to check Kim’s IV, and Cate backed away from the bed. “I’d better be going now.”
“Will you come back?”
“Yes, but I don’t know exactly when. I have a two-day surveillance job starting tomorrow. Uncle Joe is going to show me how to follow someone without getting caught or spooking the person. He thinks this will be a harder job than the one time I did a small surveillance job on my own.”
“That almost sounds like fun. Watching someone when they don’t know it. Why does this guy need to be followed?”
“His wife thinks he’s cheating on her. She’s going out of town and wants to know what he does while she’s away.”
Kim pleated the sheet again. “Maybe Jo-Jo should have hired a PI.”
Cate went back to the Mystic Mirage. The officers were no longer there, but no crime scene tape blocked the door. Kim’s Mustang was still parked on the street. Cate peered through the store window again, this time seeing the damaged doll and the fallen shield and books from a different perspective. Not a crime scene. Just a, as Kim had put it, stupid fall. A flying book had probably taken out the doll.
She went to the police station, hoping to find the officers who’d been at the Mystic Mirage, but she wound up telling a different officer about her mistaken accusation that Travis had tried to kill Kim. He wrote it all down, but she had the feeling that by the time she was done, she’d come off sounding like a Nancy Drew wannabe with serious credibility problems.
She didn’t mention Travis’s other crimes. She’d have better proof when she made the accusation about murder.
24
Cate spent the next two days sharing surveillance with Uncle Joe. Unfortunately, the wife’s suspicions proved correct. This was a cheating husband.
Cate showered as soon as they got home, then went to the hospital. She found Kim in a regular room now. No flowers. Kim’s arm wasn’t in a cast yet, apparently because of the surgery, but it was immobilized. She said she was doing okay, but she sounded jittery when she added that she wouldn’t be released until later in the week because they were still concerned about her concussion.
“I contacted Jo-Jo,” Kim added. It sounded like a decision she’d made reluctantly. “She’s taking over managing Lodge Hill temporarily. LeAnne is already gone.”
“Good. I’m proud of you. You’re taking charge.”
“She sounded nicer than I expected,” Kim admitted. “But don’t expect us to do the BFF thing. We aren’t going to be doing each other’s hair and texting twenty times a day.”
“You don’t have to be friends, but, at the moment, you need each other.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Hey, I remembered something. My head was too fuzzy to tell you when you were here before. Although it probably isn’t important anyway.”
“Remembered what?”
“When I was going through stuff getting ready for the closing sale, I found a little camera in a cardboard box by Mom’s desk.” Kim looked off into space thoughtfully. “Actually, it almost looked as if it were hidden there. It was down under some strings of Christmas lights we used in the windows last year.”
“Did you look at the photos on it?”
“I tried to, but I couldn’t figure out how. I’m not too good with figuring out how things work.”
Right. Kim was the woman who couldn’t figure out the coffeemaker in her own kitchen.
“Maybe it’s broken anyway, and that’s why she threw it in the box. Photography used to be a hobby of hers, but she hadn’t done much of it lately. I put the camera in the Mustang. Is the car still there at the Mystic Mirage?”
“It was the last time I looked. But I don’t have any way to get in it.”
“I think the keys are in the clothes I was wearing when they brought me in here. They’re in a plastic bag over there in the closet.”
Cate went by the Mystic Mirage as soon as she left the hospital. A minute later she had in hand the small camera Kim had tossed in the backseat. Cate was no camera expert. She tended to use her cell phone to take an occasional photo, and didn’t even own an actual camera. But this one didn’t look complicated, no fancy settings. She sat in her own car and expectantly pushed a little button labeled “Power.” What would she see? Something that incriminated Travis? This must be what he’d been searching for in Celeste’s apartment!
But what Cate saw was a little blank, dead screen.
She pushed more buttons, twisted a dial, clicked an up-and-down thing. Nothing. No lit-up screen. No hum of lens gadget opening. She gave the camera a couple of frustrated shakes.
Which didn’t, of course, make it work.
Maybe the camera was broken, and Celeste had just discarded it in the cardboard box. Uncle Joe would probably know how to tell. But he and Rebecca were already on their way to the coast, taking a few days off after the surveillance.
Okay, once again she’d have to call on Mitch for help.
Cate called Robyn at the flower shop first, ordered flowers for Kim’s hospital room, and told her about the change in managers at Lodge Hill. She was afraid Robyn might go hyper, but at the moment Robyn was more concerned about her arriving bridesmaids and where she was going to put them.
Cate stopped by the Computer Solutions Dudes office, but Mitch was out on a consulting job. That evening and Thursday morning, Cate was busy ferrying bridesmaids from the airport to the house. All were chattery and vivacious and suitably brunette.
At noon on Thursday, Robyn took the entire tribe of maid of honor and bridesmaids to lunch at Mr. K’s. It was a bubbly, giggly gathering as they reminisced about their college days together. Cate felt out of place, but she was more concerned about the restaurant.
Some definite glitches surfaced. The service was erratic, with their orders somehow mixed up with orders from another table. The garlic was so strong on the croutons in Cate’s Caesar salad that she had the feeling her breath could out-flame any stray dragons. Kim definitely had management problems here.
Over dessert, Robyn made the announcement, apparently as much a surprise to the other bridesmaids as it was to Cate, that the rehearsal that evening would be a full dress event. Except for herself, of course, since the groom couldn’t see the bride in her gown until the actual wedding. There were murmurs of protest that no one ever did it that way.
“It is my wedding, and I want to try out everything to be certain it’s all going to work,” Robyn countered, in her sweetly bullying way. “And Cate, you’ll wear your wig, of course.”
Cate’s wig. Which at the moment consisted of a plastic bag of cat-shredded brown stuff, suitable only as nesting material for some desperate bird. She’d planned to go by the wig shop Friday morning, and if the wig hadn’t come in by then, buy whatever was available in stock. Now she tweaked the timing. “Of course,” she murmured. “I’m looking forward to it.”
After Robyn paid the bill, she went to check with someone about the buffet for the rehearsal dinner that evening. She came back looking as if she’d stumbled over a horde of giant cockroaches in the kitchen.
Cate pulled her aside as they went out to the parking lot. “Is something wrong?”
“The main chef, the one I’d talked to about both the rehearsal buffet and the reception dinner, has quit and gone to Portland.”
So here was another person apparently thinking, like LeAnne, that with only Kim in control, it was time to desert the sinking ship.
“Will that affect the buffet tonight?”
“An assistant chef assured me everything is ‘under control.’ Wasn’t that what someone said just before the Titanic went down?”
“It’ll all work out fine,” Cate soothed.
Not, she hoped, Famous Last Words.
“Yes, it came in this morning.” The clerk at the wig boutique smiled brightl
y and pulled a round box out from under the counter. Cate was relieved that this was not the woman who had earlier seemed inclined to blackball her from wig ownership. “Would you like to try it on?”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“This wig isn’t exactly like the other one. They were out of that model, but the only difference is this one is a little longer. This model would normally cost considerably more, but because they couldn’t accommodate you with the model you wanted, the price is exactly the same!”
Yes, the same. Exorbitant. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
She consoled herself with the thought that she might find some undercover PI use for the wig eventually.
Back home, she called and talked briefly to Mitch. He was not happy about having to do the tux thing two nights in a row, but he was on his way to pick up all the tuxes from the rental outfit now. The guys could then all change into them at Lodge Hill. He said if Cate would bring the camera to the rehearsal, he’d take a look at it.
That evening, Cate draped the dress in the backseat of her car and set the boxed wig on the passenger’s seat. Octavia had batted hopefully at the box several times, but Cate had kept it securely taped shut to prevent a second wig demolition.
At Lodge Hill, Cate’s Honda gave an unexpected cough and rattle when she turned off the engine. She felt a brief panic, but determinedly decided it was something to worry about later. No time for it now. She retrieved the gown from the backseat and carefully folded the skirt over the hanger so it wouldn’t drag. Gown in one hand, wig box in the other, she’d just started across the lighted parking lot when a pickup pulled out of the driveway leading back to Rolf’s cottage. She didn’t think he saw her until the pickup suddenly swerved and stopped beside her.
Rolf rolled down the window. “So, this is the night of the big wedding?”
“No, just the rehearsal dinner. Did you get the motorcycle moved over here okay?”
“Yeah, it’s out in my carport. If you ask me, Travis oughta junk it. Engine sounds like a garbage disposal grinding up bones. But I guess that doesn’t matter, since he’s in jail anyway.”
“He’ll probably be out on bail soon.”
“I hope he stays away from Kim. She has enough troubles without him hanging around.”
One point on which they were agreed, although all Cate said was, “It’s nice of you to help her out with the motorcycle.”
“That’s me, ever the nice, helpful guy.” He smiled. “Don’t forget how cooperative I am. Anytime. And I have this weakness for redheads.”
But I don’t have a weakness for guys with a God’s-gift-to-women complex.
Inside, Cate headed up the stairs to the dressing room, but she detoured when she spotted Jo-Jo and a woman in a Mr. K’s uniform setting out hors d’oeuvres in the main Chapel Room.
“It’s great of you to be here,” Cate said.
“I feel as if I’m fraternizing with the enemy,” Jo-Jo grumped. “Imagine. Me, helping Eddie’s new wife.”
“Widow,” Cate pointed out. “And you said you needed a job.”
“Ex-wives and current wives shouldn’t get along. It’s unnatural. Like a fox and chicken being friends.” Jo-Jo scowled as she arranged tiny crackers with caviar on a silver platter. “But she isn’t weird, like I thought she was.” Another pause and scowl. “Actually, I kind of like her.”
“Is everything going okay here?”
“The hors d’oeuvres are fine, and I made up a big bowl of punch, but someone from the restaurant called and said they had a problem with the van delivering the food for the buffet and it would be late. Then the minister called. I was just going to find Robyn and tell her he said he’d be late too.”
“I’ll tell her. You just take care of things here.”
“Okay. Oh, I wanted to tell you. I’ve started your redheaded doll. You are still my private investigator, aren’t you?”
“I’m kind of sidetracked with the wedding and all, but I’m definitely working on it.”
“Good.”
Jo-Jo’s cell phone rang, and Cate headed for the dressing room. Behind her, the photographer had arrived and was photographing the hors d’oeuvres.
The other bridesmaids, plus the maid of honor, Robyn, and Aunt Carly, were already in the dressing room. Cate noted that a small Band-Aid was all Robyn needed to cover the cut on her hand now. Robyn’s cell phone rang while Cate was hanging her celadon gown on a rack with the others just like it. Hanging there together, they had the strange look of oversized clumps of genetically altered celery, a salad experiment gone awry. But, Cate hurriedly reminded herself, her gown had looked great when she put it on.
Robyn pressed her phone to her chest. Her face had that this-can’t-be-happening-to-me look.
“That was the wife of the guy I hired as master of ceremonies and deejay for the reception. He was supposed to be here for the rehearsal tonight too.” She looked down at the cell phone as if it were some alien machine receiving unwelcome signals from another galaxy. “He has laryngitis.”
“What about tomorrow night?” a bridesmaid asked.
“His wife said he’s been sick like this before. It usually lasts four or five days.” She took a deep breath. “But everything is going to be all right,” she said, as if it were a mantra she was repeating regularly. “Surely nothing else can go wrong.”
Cate hated to have to tell her that more had gone wrong, but she repeated what Jo-Jo had told her about both the minister and the buffet being late.
“Should we get dressed?” a bridesmaid asked.
“Not yet,” Robyn said in her tone that suggested the entire wedding was on the brink of extinction. “I need to talk to Lance.”
Robyn hurried off, and the bridesmaids milled around, although Cate gave them credit for not being the kind of friends who made catty remarks the minute one of their group left the room. They just talked about how stressful this was for Robyn.
Yes, it was stressful, Cate had to agree. But it would be less so if Robyn would just lighten up about details and be glad she was marrying a great guy.
Then she had a different thought about the voiceless deejay, the late minister, and problems with the buffet.
Perfect timing.
25
Cate slipped out the main entrance and circled the hedged enclosure. She’d wanted the chance to see if the saddlebags on Travis’s motorcycle held anything useful, perhaps even the gun, and here was that chance. Rehearsal delayed, so no one would miss her for a few minutes, and Rolf was gone somewhere in his pickup.
A yard light on a tall pole lit up the area around Rolf’s cottage, but the light didn’t spill into the carport. It was a dark cavern of shadows, and Cate hesitated. But Travis’s bike was in there somewhere, and she made herself plunge into the darkness.
Once in the carport, her eyes adjusted, and she could make out dim shapes of the bikes that looked as if some motorcycle-hungry monster had been chomping on them. The place smelled of oil and paint and other unidentifiable scents of repair work. She touched something that made her foot jerk back … alive? No, just a tangled electric cord. Then her other foot hit a metal something, and down she went. Face first in the dirt.
She lay there a minute, disoriented by the shadows and her spinning head and the taste of oily dirt in her mouth. She finally squirmed to a sitting position and wiped a hand across her face. Her nose felt as if it had been squashed into a new shape. A little late, she remembered the bullet-sized flashlight on her key ring and groped it out of her pocket. Its tiny beam showed oily spots on the knees of her jeans and what looked like the remains of motorcycle warfare around her. Bike parts everywhere.
She tried to see a silver lining as she struggled to her feet. If the carport floor had been concrete instead of dirt, she and Kim might have had matching concussions.
She balanced herself with a hand on the skeleton of a motorcycle and flicked the beam around the carport. Travis’s bike stood near a counter along the back wall. She he
aded for it, picking her way through the booby trap of bike parts. Maybe future generations would drill for oil here. Rolf seemed to have spilled enough of it.
The first thing she discovered was that she couldn’t open the saddlebags. She leaned over to focus the flashlight’s tiny beam on the small lock. TV and mystery-novel PIs always seemed to know how to open or circumvent locks, but Cate had no such expertise. It wasn’t a formidable-looking lock, but poking at it with a fingernail resulted only in a broken fingernail. But another flick of her flashlight beam revealed tools scattered on the counter behind the bike. She grabbed a screwdriver.
She was trying to ease the screwdriver into the lock when she heard a car engine, and then the carport blazed with light. She looked up into a blinding glare of headlights. She squinted and held up a hand to dim the glare, and through a space between her fingers saw Rolf’s pickup stopped just outside the carport. A car, the red Camaro she’d seen at the motel, pulled in beside it. Cate’s first frantic thought was hide! The next thought was where? She didn’t look enough like a bike part to just blend in.
She flicked the flashlight off, but a moment later Rolf hit a switch by the door, and overhead fluorescent lights flooded the entire carport.
Her next thought was defensive. Why should she hide? She might not be handling this in the most orthodox manner, but there was nothing actually wrong in her doing this. Hopefully. Although the screwdriver in her hand felt as incriminating as a burglar’s leg climbing through an open window.
Cate expected immediate confrontation, but what Rolf said mildly was, “If you’re trying to hotwire the bike, I don’t think that’s the way to do it. But if you want to learn, I can show you how.”
Cate straightened from her bent position. “Well, uh, thanks. But I guess not. This is Travis’s bike, isn’t it?”
The blonde woman was out of the Camaro now, standing at the edge of the carport with a DVD case in one hand and a frown on her face. She wore tight jeans, high-heeled boots, and a black turtleneck decorated with sparkly stuff. “What’s going on? Who’s she?”
Dolled Up to Die Page 24