Brides have always wanted to look their best, but to my mind a lot of them were going overboard these days. A manicure is one thing, emergency liposuction is another. Botox, nose jobs, crash diets—inflamed by celebrity weddings and hounded by magazine covers, some brides were approaching the wedding day less as a happy ritual and more as a terrifying test of physical perfection. Not a celebration, but a photo op.
Lily James, I’m happy to say, was not one of those brides. She fussed mildly about her hair as we wound it into an elegant upsweep, and she swore like a sailor when the champagne bottle wobbled off the table and she cracked a fingernail saving it. But she giggled as we fixed the nail with superglue, and when a few stray curls kept escaping, she decided to let them escape.
“Mike won’t care,” she said serenely, as she fastened the amethyst earrings that were his wedding gift. “I bet if I ask him tomorrow he won’t remember what color my dress was.”
“Believe me, this dress with you in it is unforgettable. Watch out for the hem.” I held the folds of royal purple satin aside as she stepped into her gown, and fastened it up the back as she adjusted herself into the bodice. Then I stepped aside to survey the result. “Hum baby! You’re magnificent, Lily. Take a look.”
The mirror inside the closet door threw back Lily’s image, tall and statuesque, her lush curves caressed by the silk and outlined by the fall of satin ruffles down one hip. With her hair swept up and her stately shoulders bare, she looked like royalty.
“Oh,” she said weakly. “Oh, my.”
I slipped on my own slender column of peach-colored silk, gave my hair a shake, and took my place beside her. The narrow glass barely held us both, and we moved back to view ourselves head to foot.
“Peace on earth,” I said, “and good tall women. As Marcus would say, we rock. Now, where’s your stole? Don’t move, I’ll find it.”
But the gossamer stole, when I found it, was in sad shape. It had slipped from the hanger and been kicked into a corner, probably by Aaron as he made his exit last night. I held the length of violet gauze up to the window. Not torn or soiled, thank goodness, but sadly twisted and crumpled.
“I’m so sorry, Lily! But it’s OK, it just needs ironing.”
“Are you sure?” The first sign of worry appeared in her eyes. “Have you got an iron?”
“No, but the Coes must have one I can borrow. Back in a sec. Here, have some more champagne. Yikes, did we really go through the whole bottle?”
I tipped the last fizzing drops into her glass and hastened out the door into the morning sunshine, realizing as I went that I was just a tad tipsy. The path through the trees seemed bumpy underfoot, and I heard myself humming “Here Comes the Bride” a little off-key. Steady, there. I cleared my throat and trod more carefully, enjoying the liquid flutter of the long skirt around my legs.
The Coes were out, but their cottage door was unlocked. I left it ajar as I went in and gave a wide berth to Lampus Horribilus where it frowned from the end of the reception counter. I peeked into the laundry room beyond. Industrial-sized washer and dryer, shelves of linens, a clutter of cleaning products—and at the back, an ironing board and a big battered steam iron with a heavy-duty cord. Thank you, Pamela.
I took the iron but left the board after a doubtful examination of its scorch-marked cloth cover. Better to use a bath towel on the floor than risk a stain on Lily’s stole, and anyway it was getting late. I rushed back though the office, humming double-time.
“Tum tum ta tum, tum tum ta—ack!”
As I rounded the counter, my toe caught in a loose edge of carpet and I nearly went flying. Instinctively, I grabbed for the counter’s edge with my right hand. But that hand held the iron, which clanged heavily against the ceramic owl.
“Dammit!”
I managed to stay upright but lost my hold on the iron. It went skidding away to disappear behind the counter, the cord whipping behind it like a startled snake. Meanwhile, the tall cylinder of the lamp rocked on its base and then toppled over, a hideous tree surrendering to the ax. Timberrr . . . The owl plunged to the office floor and smashed into a jagged mess of green and brown shards.
“Oh, hell.”
I gazed at the wreckage and giggled, torn between chagrin at destroying Pamela’s property, dismay at the delay this would cause, and a certain primitive glee at killing a creature that was too ugly to live. Then I heard voices from outside that erased the glee: Donald and Pamela, approaching the cottage door.
With the forlorn hope of salvaging something, I knelt beside the debris. The owl’s face was still mostly intact, one malicious black eye staring up at me accusingly as I lifted it. But then a glitter of reflected light caught my attention and I tossed the fragment aside.
The glitter came from the long blade of a knife that had been concealed within the lamp. And the blade showed faint brown traces that looked very much like dried blood.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“We shoulda had that transmission looked at before.” Donald’s voice, coming through the half-open door, was childishly petulant. “Now there’s a tow truck to pay for on top of the mechanic. Didn’t I say we shoulda had it looked at?”
I heard Pamela’s softer tones, but the words weren’t clear. Nothing was clear, nothing but that long wicked blade winking up at me from the carpet. With my wits dulled by the champagne and the shock, all I could think was Don’t let them see it.
I was slow to sort out the implications of the weapon and its hiding place, but that much at least seemed plain. So I hurried to the doorway with no conclusion, no plan, and not much of a coherent thought in my head.
“Hey there, Carnegie,” said Donald from the foot of the porch steps. He flipped up his flip-up sunglasses and put his hands in the pockets of his appallingly plaid Bermuda shorts. “Why aincha at the arts fair? Everybody else is. They got painting and carving and all sorts of stuff . . .”
As he burbled on, it came to me that I hadn’t heard the voices of the other Owl’s Roost guests since earlier this morning. That must be why. Did that mean Lily and I were alone with the Coes, here at the end of the road? If only Donald would shut up so I could think. If only I hadn’t drunk that champagne.
“. . . even a blacksmithing demo, isn’t that something? You oughta drive over there, it isn’t far. Watch out for our buggy, though, it’s dead in the water right there where the driveway turns.”
Pamela, behind him, sent me an amused and apologetic smile. “She’s not going to the fair, Mr. Coe. Today’s her friend’s wedding.”
“Hey, that’s right, Pen! Don’t know how I forgot.” He blinked up at me from behind his fish-tank lenses. “Shoes and rice, huh?”
“What a lovely dress,” Pamela continued, coming up the steps to stand beside me. “Is it silk?”
“Thanks,” I said reflexively. “Yes, it’s . . . did he call you Pen?”
“Nickname from way back,” said Donald. “Penny-Pinching Pamela, ’cause she never spends a dime. Penny for short, Pen for even shorter! Isn’t that something?”
I stared at Pamela as if for the first time, at her lush figure and dark eyes and rich auburn hair. She wore baggy khakis today and a matronly blouse, but she was an attractive woman, perhaps a sensual woman. It all clicked. I had told Aaron I didn’t know many sexy young women on the island, but what about a handsome woman of forty?
Pen. Penny. Just as I had with my mother, I’d let my preconceptions about middle-aged decorum get in the way and never considered Pamela Coe. Pamela, trapped here with a tedious husband, and a good-looking womanizer like Guy Price just up the road. The memories rushed in: Pamela blushing when her husband called the caretaker queer, and the mention of Guy’s repeated visits to fix her clocks, and how upset she had been on Monday morning.
But was she upset because her lover was dead, or because she herself had killed him? Did she go to that rendezvous with a knife, to avenge herself for Guy’s infidelity, or did Donald bring it when he trailed along behind her in the darkn
ess? And which of them used a master key to plant the e-mailer in my purse while I was out on the dock with Lily yesterday?
The questions were colliding in my mind while my feet stayed rooted to the doorstep. What should I do? I could run back to my room and call Orozco, but the minute they came inside and found the lamp, whichever one was the killer would realize that I’d seen the knife—and the other would be left at the killer’s mercy.
“Folks,” I managed to say, “could the two of you come over to 6C just for a minute?”
Pamela frowned gently at me with her usual mild solicitude. “Why, what’s wrong, Carnegie?”
“Ya need something fixed?” Donald trotted up the steps and slipped into the office before I could stop him. “Let me just get my— What in the wide world?”
Pamela followed him inside and I did too, but whether to protect husband or wife I still couldn’t decide. Then, as the door swung shut behind us, I thought I had my answer. Donald was squatting on his haunches, looking at the knife with a baffled expression on his pudgy features.
“What’s this doing here? It’s from our kitchen, isn’t it?” He glanced up at me, and then around him at the office, where nothing else was out of order. “I don’t get it. Were you trying to fix the lamp or something? I got all kinds of screwdrivers in the back there.”
“No, Donald,” I said gently. “I wasn’t fixing anything. That knife was hidden inside the lamp. I think it’s the one that killed Guy Price, and I think we’d better call the police.”
Pamela made a whimpering sound in her throat. I looked over at her, and as our gazes met and locked, a silent understanding passed between us. She sensed at once that I knew about her and her lover, and I sensed—or thought I did—the emotion in her widening eyes. Guilt and shame, but not rage, not violence. When the police came, Pamela would go quietly.
“But . . .” Donald rose to his feet, bewildered and pitiful. “What’s a murder weapon doing here, missus? What’s Price got to do with us? My lord, did you kill him?”
“Of course not,” she whispered, as if her voice had fled. “Why would I hurt him? I loved him!”
“What? You loved that queer?” Donald kept licking his lips, over and over, like an anxious dog. “You mean he wasn’t queer? Were you sleeping with him? Were you cheating on me? You betrayed me!”
His voice wobbled as bewilderment yielded quickly to fury—much too quickly, I realized, and with a false note sounding in every stilted phrase. No wonder the knife’s sudden appearance had taken him aback. He was the one who hid it away in the first place, to be produced in just the right incriminating circumstances.
Donald Coe was trying to frame his wife.
“So that’s why Price kept coming over here when I was out,” he went on abruptly, like an actor suddenly remembering his lines. “How could you do that to me, missus? How could you? And then you murdered him!”
It’s an age-old role, the cuckolded husband, but Donald Coe overplayed it badly. As he railed at his wife for my benefit, I knew I’d been a fool to believe, however briefly, that the woman who shed a sentimental tear over Lily’s wedding gown had brutally slain her own lover. Donald was just setting things up to look that way, and my breaking the lamp had simply accelerated his cumbersome scheme. But now he was rushing his performance.
“You sent Price that message to lure him to the mausoleum,” he said, sounding more and more scripted, “and then you killed him.”
That was Donald’s big mistake, mentioning the e-mail. But then, stupefied by champagne and adrenaline, I made mine.
“How would you know about the message,” I wondered aloud, “unless you sent it yourself?”
Donald turned his head slowly and stared at me. “No . . . no . . .”
I edged toward the door. No telling what this incompetent schemer would decide what to do next. But suddenly Pamela stooped into my path and snatched up the knife. She waved it wildly and I reared back, bumping into the macramé owl and setting it swinging like a pendulum.
“Guy made me happy!” she cried out in anguish. “He made me feel like a woman. You stole him from me . . .”
With a howl of pain, Pamela raised the knife and lunged toward Donald. She was moving blindly, and with no real force, but it was enough to frighten her husband. He skipped nimbly out of the way, reached behind the counter—and produced a handgun.
I gasped aloud, and Donald pointed the weapon at me. It was small, but the dark hole of its muzzle looked enormous.
“Surprised?” he asked in a swaggering tone, blue eyes bulging behind the thick lenses. “Out here in the woods, a man needs to protect himself. It’s loaded too, don’t think it isn’t, so you stay right where you are. You put that knife down, missus. I was gonna get your fingerprints on it somehow, you know, so now that’s done.”
He nodded busily, a man checking off his Things to Do list. Pamela dropped the knife and stood weeping softly, her face in her hands. Instinctively I moved to comfort her, but that set Donald off again.
“Stand still!” he snapped. “Just stand still and let me think.”
He had a lot to think about. He had the murder weapon with his wife’s prints on it, and an incriminating e-mail signed with her name, but he also had me to deal with. I would have bet money that Donald had seen some movie about a man framing his wife for murder. But in the movies these plots go smoothly, and if they don’t the plotter knows how to improvise. Clearly, improvisation was not his strong suit.
“Let’s see,” he muttered to himself, and began to lick his lips again. He was sweating now, and the smell was rank in the room. “Let’s see . . .”
“Donald, listen,” I said. “Don’t make this worse than it already is. If we go to the police right now—”
“Shut up!” he shrieked. “Shut up or I’ll make you!”
He looked from me to Pamela, round-eyed and panting, close to panic, and I knew I’d been wrong to try and reason with him. The smallest incident could push Donald over the edge, the least little spark could set him off. . . . Just then, footsteps sounded on the porch.
“Carnegie, what’s taking so long?”
The three of us froze as the cottage door banged open and Lily walked in.
Chapter Thirty-Three
We see what we expect to see. Resplendent in her purple gown and preoccupied with her wedding, Lily didn’t even notice the gun. She just smiled and nodded at the Coes and then focused on me, asking what was up and where the heck was that iron?
At least that’s what she tried to ask, but Donald yelped in alarm and swung the pistol in her direction. Pamela leapt at him to spoil his aim, but they ended up grappling and falling heavily to the floor among the remains of the owl.
As they went over I tried to shove Lily out of the way, but then Pamela’s flailing legs caught the hem of my long dress and I too went crashing down. I cried out as my hand ground painfully onto a bit of pottery, I heard Donald grunting and Pamela sobbing aloud, Lily rushed forward to help me—and then the gun went off.
“Carnegie, no!”
I rolled free of the others, stunned by the sound, and as Lily called my name and lifted me to my feet I was trembling in shock. She patted me all over, the way you do a child who’s taken a tumble to see if he’s broken anything, and I couldn’t catch my breath to tell her to leave me and run for the police. By the time I did, it was too late.
“Sit on the floor, both of you.” Donald rose to his knees beside Pamela, the gun still firmly in his grasp. “Swear to God, I’ll shoot you. Sit on the floor!”
We obeyed, and with his free hand he shook his wife roughly by the shoulder. No response. Pamela had collapsed facedown, one arm twisted beneath her, one cheek pressed to the carpet, and her eyes hidden by that lovely auburn hair. As we watched, a rivulet of blood slid from under her hair to pool around Donald’s eyeglasses, which lay nearby among the fragments of the lamp.
Blinking and squinting his small, naked eyes, Donald patted the carpet till he found the glasse
s and held them up just inches from his face. One lens was cracked, but he wiped them on his shirt, leaving a bloody smear, and put them on. He was breathing hard, almost panting, but the pistol stayed steady.
“OK, then,” he said, his voice breaking like a teenage boy’s. He licked his lips and tried again. “OK, then. This is what we’re gonna do . . .”
We took the SUV, with me at the wheel and Lily right behind me in the backseat with Donald close beside her. The few cars that passed us saw two formally dressed women and their male companion, probably out to pick up a second gentleman for some Sunday event. Nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary.
Our captor wasn’t much for strategy—surely he’d be safer at the Owl’s Roost than out on the road—but his tactics were sound. He had forbidden us to speak to each other, and I didn’t dare speed or swerve or do anything else to attract the attention of other drivers. Not with a gun jammed into Lily’s ribs. For her part, Lily’s only hope was to keep still.
At least she was keeping her cool, and she knew that I would as well. We weren’t screamers, Lily and I. I could see her face in the rearview mirror, eye shadow and mascara still unsmudged, and when she caught my look she gave me a tremulous wink. I nodded, and without a word we’d said a lot. We’re going to stay calm. We’re going to deal with this. It’s going to be all right.
Looking into Lily’s eyes, I almost believed it.
Donald Coe was anything but calm. He shifted in the seat, muttering to himself, and the first time I slowed for an intersection he almost lost it.
“What are you stopping for?”
“It’s a stop sign, Donald.”
“I can see that. You think I can’t see that? OK, now keep going.”
That’s when I realized that he didn’t have a strategy at all—he was just trying to put distance between himself and Pamela. Donald hadn’t meant to kill her, I was sure of that, and when push came to shove he might even have abandoned his half-baked scheme to frame her for Guy’s death. It was a wonder he’d had the nerve to kill Guy in the first place.
You May Now Kill the Bride Page 21