You May Now Kill the Bride

by Deborah Donnelly

  As he moved away, light on his feet for a man his age, Peggy’s self-assured manner fell away, and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Is it true that you found Guy?” She leaned toward me, looking into my face intently as if to read the answer there. “Did he . . . did he suffer? Did he say anything?”

  “Uh, well . . .” The switch from wedding cakes to sudden death was too much for me, and I groped for words. Then I fell back on a higher authority. “The police asked me not to talk about it. I’m sorry. Were you and he, um, friends?”

  She gave an eloquent little shrug. “We hooked up some. You know how it is.”

  “Not exactly. Was Guy—”

  “Shh! He’s coming back.”

  Peggy flitted away as soon as ZZ rejoined us, and soon the chef and I were deep into the rehearsal dinner menu.

  The mind is a funny thing. Half of mine was right there with ZZ, discussing barbecue shrimp and baby back ribs and “burnt ends”—those extra-tasty charred bits of brisket—and how much potato salad to allow per person.

  But the other half was pondering his granddaughter’s connection to the murdered man. Not to mention that little e-mail gizmo and the phantom footsteps I’d heard in my sleep. Who knows how many women had been tiptoeing through Guy Price’s life? And was he really dealing drugs? That might explain his murder right there.

  I was itching to ask ZZ for more details, but I didn’t want to antagonize him so I didn’t raise the question again. Make nice to the man who makes your food, that’s a good rule for most occasions. And Lily’s wedding was an occasion very dear to my heart. I just wished I could get Guy Price out of my head.

  The real question was, should I tell the police about Guy’s extracurricular activities with Adrienne, and the footsteps I might have heard in the night? ZZ’s accusations and Peggy’s love life, intriguing as they seemed, were none of my business. But if those footsteps weren’t Guy’s, and both sisters claimed to have been in their own beds all night, then someone was lying. And that someone was surely Adrienne Winter.

  But that didn’t make her a murderer, just a woman who’d been indiscreet. I haven’t always been the soul of discretion myself, so it hardly seemed grounds for getting her in trouble with the police. To tell or not to tell?

  Mulling this over as I left the restaurant, who did I see but the police themselves in the large and handsome person of Jeffrey Austin. ZZ’s place was across the street from the San Juan County courthouse, a blocky brick edifice, and Jeff was just coming out the main door. He waved and crossed over.

  “Hi! Feeling better today?”

  He stood close enough for me to smell that nice soap again. I rarely feel like a delicate little person, and now I was discovering that I didn’t mind the sensation at all.

  “I’m fine, Deputy Au—”

  “Make it Jeff. The state’s got the case now, so I figure I can relax.”

  “The state?”

  “Washington State Patrol. Their major-crime team is taking over from here.”

  “So will they be coming to the house too?”

  “I doubt it, but Owen agreed to leave the victim’s rooms sealed just in case. Mostly they’ll focus on the mausoleum area. It’s driving the forensics team crazy, though, ’cause they’ve already got tourists hanging around the perimeter trying to take snapshots.”

  “Ugh! How can anyone be so ghoulish?”

  “Most people’s lives are pretty ordinary, so they want a little thrill.” He gave a tolerant shrug. “They don’t mean anything by it.”

  He seemed so sensible and so fair-minded that I made my decision on the spot. After all, how could I face Mike Graham again if I withheld information about a murder case? And if it caused Adrienne some grief, well, that was just too bad. She was a master at dishing it out, now she could try taking it.

  “You know, Jeff, I did remember one other little detail. It probably doesn’t mean anything, but . . .” I told him about the wristwatch next to Guy’s bed, and also the footsteps in the night, making it clear that I hadn’t actually seen anyone in the hallway. “Maybe no one was there at all. I could have dreamed the whole thing. But I’m sure about the watch. The watch was Adrienne’s.”

  “Got it.” He nodded several times, busy with the ever-present leather notebook, then put it away. “You never know what’s going to be pertinent and what isn’t, so I’ll pass this on. You said you’ll be around till your friend’s wedding on Sunday?”

  “That’s right.” Assuming he had another interview in mind, I said, “I’ll be working on that and visiting with my mother, but my schedule is flexible, so I’m available any time.”

  “Are you available to have dinner with me, say Thursday night? Just something casual.”

  “Oh. Oh. Well . . .” What would Aaron think? More likely, what would Aaron care? If he couldn’t even answer a damn e-mail . . . To hell with it, there’s no harm in a dinner. “Yes, I’d like that.”

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at six. No patrol car this time, I promise.”

  “And I promise not to pass out.”

  We said good-bye and I headed for my rendezvous with Mom in Fairweather Park, taking the stairway down to Front Street with a spring in my step. No harm at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  I found my mother seated on a low stone wall, gazing raptly upward at a remarkable outdoor sculpture. It was composed of two cedar columns, maybe twenty feet high, connected by a crossbeam to form a sort of gate against the soft blue sky. Each column bore a set of boldly carved figures, a stylized orca and two salmon on one post, a woman and a cougar on the other.

  “It’s called ‘Portals of Welcome,’ ” said Mom. “They’re traditional Coast Salish house posts, carved by a Native American woman who’s known around the world for her art. Aren’t they marvelous? Owen told me all about it.”

  She turned her face to me, and the girlish flush was back on her cheeks. “He’s so fascinated by the world around him, Carrie. I’ve never known anyone quite like Owen.”

  “Very impressive,” I agreed, and I suppose I meant the man and the sculpture both. “Sounds like you’ve been having a good visit.”

  “More than good. Sit down for a moment? I wanted somewhere quieter than the restaurant for us to talk.”

  I joined her on the wall and waited curiously while she took a deep breath, began to speak, faltered, and then tried again.

  “Carrie dear, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, but it seemed disrespectful to Guy to come right out and—”

  “He proposed!” I burst out. My jibe at Adrienne had come true. “Owen proposed to you on Orcas Island!”

  “On the way back,” she said, and the words gushed out in a happy torrent. “We were going to tell you girls in the morning but then the police came, and he gave me the loveliest ring but it’s too large so he’s having it resized, and—”

  “Oh, Mom!”

  I threw my arms around her, with my misgivings about the Winters vanished in the romance of it all, and we both had a fine old time laughing and crying at once. After we employed our handkerchiefs, Mom explained that they hadn’t yet set a date.

  “But Owen says that we’ll have any kind of wedding and honeymoon I want, and don’t spare the expense.”

  “The perfect bridegroom! Will you let me plan it?”

  “I wouldn’t let anyone else.”

  We hugged some more—Mom was getting good at it—and I asked, “How did his daughters take the news?”

  “He hasn’t told them yet, because of Guy. And because . . . well, they may not be pleased, not at first. But they’ll want him to be happy, won’t they?”

  “Of course they will,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Unsure of my success, I changed the subject. “Tell me again how you met Owen. Tell me everything.”

  I knew perfectly well how she’d met him, at an author reading at the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, but that didn’t matter. There is nothing,
but nothing, that a woman in love enjoys more than recounting her romance to a friend.

  And a true friend will listen attentively to every detail, no matter how small. I’d done it for Lily, she’d done it for me, and now that I was past my preconceptions about middle-age decorum, I was determined to do it for my mother.

  So we began with their very first conversation, as we strolled around the marina for an hour or so, and by the time we took the steps back up to the car we’d only reached their second date. I was being a good friend.

  I saw Jeff Austin again on our way out of town, coming the other way at an intersection. He was deep in conversation with another officer, but not so deep that he didn’t see us. And Mom, for her part, wasn’t so wrapped up in her story that she didn’t notice his wave, or my blush, as they drove by.

  “Isn’t that the—”

  “Yes.”

  “He seems very friendly.”

  “Jeff’s a friendly guy.”

  “Jeff?” she said, her maternal antennae quivering.

  “We were chatting outside ZZ’s,” I said defensively. “Just, you know, details about my statement. So, um, Owen took you to that concert, and then what?”

  Mom returned enthusiastically to her narrative and talked of nothing else the whole way back to Afterglow Drive. The theater dates, the dinners, the walks by the Boise River, I heard about every one of them.

  She concluded with a description of Sunday’s boat trip to Orcas Island just as we reached the veranda of Owen’s house. If I knew nothing else by then, I knew that my mother was absolutely thrilled with her new man. Dad was the cherished past, but Owen was the present and the future. Any reservations I had—and they were very slight—would be best unspoken.

  The wonderfulness of Owen got a little old, I have to admit, given the trouble I’d been having with Aaron. But then, Aaron might be moving out of my life now, and new men might be moving in. In any case, how many hours of adolescent swooning had Mom tolerated from me? Fair is fair.

  The veranda was empty, of Winters or police, and so was the house.

  “They must be in back,” said Mom. “Have you seen the clematis arbor? I was so sorry not to be here when you arrived on Sunday, but Owen has made some nice plans for us this week—”

  “We’re out here, Lou!”

  We followed Owen’s voice to the hot-tub terrace. He and Kimmie, who was swathed in a fluffy white robe, were sitting in the sunshine with a tray of iced tea and sandwiches between them. The breeze had died down and the starry pink clematis flowers suffused the air with the delicate scent of vanilla.

  Owen, ever the gentleman, rose at our approach and kissed Mom on the cheek. “Did you tell her?”

  Mom nodded, and I proved the point by stepping up to give him a big hug.

  “Congratulations, Owen. I’m sure you’ll both be very happy.”

  Owen beamed—no angry grimace this time—and drew up chairs for us. As he pressed a glass of tea into Mom’s hands, he kept his own hands over hers for a moment and mouthed the words Love you.

  Kimmie watched the two of them without speaking, and I didn’t like the look in her eye.

  “I was just telling Kimmie,” said Owen, settling back into his chair, “that the weather should be good all week, so we’ll postpone our picnic a few days. If you think you’ll still want to go, Lou, after this awful business?”

  “Of course we will,” Mom said stoutly. “We can’t just sit here and brood.” She turned to me and explained, “Owen has this lovely little island on the other side of Speiden Channel—”

  “It belongs to Dree,” said Kimmie, her tone not quite rude. “Daddy gave it to her for her birthday, to build a cottage on. It turns out she can’t, but technically it’s still her island.”

  “That was my mistake, about the cottage.” Owen’s smile was a little too hearty as he glossed over his daughter’s petulance. “You see, a pair of bald eagles are nesting in a tree on the only level spot on the island, and since you’re not allowed to build too close to an active nest—”

  “Dree’s cottage would have to go on stilts in the water,” Kimmie completed. She stood up and trailed a toe in the hot tub. “So all you can do is picnic there, you and Lou and Carrie.”

  She pronounced our names with mocking distaste.

  “Perhaps you can come with us,” said my mother, getting an A for effort. “We haven’t seen very much of you—”

  Kimmie dropped her robe abruptly, and the three of us saw a great deal more of her than we expected. She was stark naked underneath.

  “Kimberly Winter!” said Owen.

  But he stopped there, unsure what to do or say. Slowly and insolently, his daughter stepped down into the steaming water, turned about to face us, and lowered her gorgeous form so that her breasts were right at the waterline.

  “No thanks,” she said. “I hate picnics.”

  Make that an A-plus. Mom calmly set down her glass, and if her face was scarlet, her hand was almost steady. I could have cheered.

  “What a shame,” she said. “Owen, I believe I’ll go upstairs and—”

  “There you are, you bitch!” The back door slammed as Adrienne came marching out. She halted at the edge of the terrace in that same fierce arms-folded posture. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  She hardly spared a glance for her sister, nude or not, because she was glaring daggers at me. My own glance went straight to Adrienne’s wrist. But I wasn’t mistaken, that was the watch I’d seen. Thank goodness. I’d feel like a prize idiot if I gave the police a false lead.

  “For God’s sake, Dree,” said Owen, “what on earth—”

  “I’ll tell you what on earth,” Adrienne spat out. “Your girlfriend’s daughter went to the cops and accused me of murder.”

  The conversation, if you want to call it that, went downhill from there. It seems that one Lieutenant Orozco of the Washington State Patrol had just phoned Adrienne from Friday Harbor, having learned from “a source” that she might have had a “more personal relationship” with Guy Price. The identity of the source was obvious, and the nature of the relationship was strongly implied.

  “He wanted to go over my movements Sunday night,” said Adrienne venomously. “My movements! This bitch here must have told them I was screwing Guy, or killing him, or—”

  “I did not! I just reported what I saw and heard, that’s all.”

  “What business do you have reporting on my daughter?” Owen demanded. His face had flushed a dark, dull red, and his hands kept flexing into fists. “You are a guest in this house—”

  “Don’t take that tone with Carrie!” Mom broke in. Kimmie’s flagrant behavior had rattled her, I could see, and now she was really shaken up. “Of course she had to tell the police everything she knew.”

  “You stay out of this!” Adrienne blazed at Mom. “She doesn’t know anything, and neither do you!”

  “Dree, you will apologize to Lou this minute,” said Owen.

  “Like hell I will!”

  “Listen, bitch,” I began, but Mom put a warning hand on my arm and said, “Temper, dear.”

  I heard a snigger from the hot tub. Through all this, Kimmie had said nothing at all but simply sat there bobbing gently, a wicked little smile on her face. So what else could I do? I snatched up her fluffy white robe and dumped it over her silly blond head.

  As Kimmie splashed and sputtered I did some marching myself, upstairs to my bedroom. I was damned if I was going to explain myself to the Winters, and damned if I was going to stay in their house another night. If my mother wanted to marry into this clan of maniacs, that was her business.

  I was rooting around for my cell phone when Mom arrived, to hover in the doorway with a reproachful expression.

  “Oh, Carrie, how could you?”

  “How could I what?”

  “This is why you were talking to that deputy again, isn’t it? I know Adrienne’s been unpleasant to you, but don’t you think this is going too far?” />
  With a furious jerk, I upended my canvas tote bag onto the bedspread and pawed through the voluminous contents. I was learning that in a tote that holds everything, you can never find anything.

  “You think I did this just to get back at her? You think I lied to the police?”

  “I’m sure you didn’t lie, but if you implied something that cast an unjust suspicion—”

  “Look, Mom, I saw Adrienne’s wristwatch next to Guy’s bed, and I heard footsteps in the hallway when Adrienne claims she was sound asleep.” I picked up my cell and stabbed at it. “That’s all I saw, that’s all I told them, end of story.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Mom. Her voice dropped to an appalled whisper. “You don’t really think Dree is a murderer? That’s absurd!”

  “Maybe. But—”

  I stopped abruptly at the sound of someone coming up the stairs. Adrienne, looking murderous, brushed past my mother and into my room.

  “Just in case you’re interested in the truth,” she said acidly, and raised her left arm. For a split second I thought she was going to hit me, but instead she held her wrist—and her watch—close to my face.

  “This is a Swiss-engineered Raymond Weil timepiece. The movement is mechanical, which means it’s not mass-produced quartz like”—her gaze flicked to my wrist—“like yours. One of Guy’s hobbies was repairing clocks and watches, and he was fixing this for me. Satisfied?”

  Without giving me a chance to answer, she turned her back and descended the stairs.

  “Oh, dear,” Mom said again, while I stood there feeling like a prize idiot.

  Then I found my phone and tapped in a number.

  “Who are you calling?” she asked.

  “The Owl’s Roost. I heard they had a vacancy.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Donald Coe was overjoyed to offer me a room but effusively regretful that it wasn’t available until Wednesday. I thought about booking elsewhere, but with Mom so distressed that I was leaving at all, I decided to spend Tuesday night at Owen’s instead of departing in a huff.

  But the night wasn’t too bad, because Owen calmed down and took me and Mom out for dinner in Roche Harbor. His apology was implied, I implicitly accepted, and the three of us had a quiet but cordial evening. Best of all, Kimmie and Dree were nowhere to be seen when we got back. So I went off to bed early, too tired to remain vertical, and was deep asleep before they got home. Murder will do that to a girl.