2 A Christmas Wedding To Die For

by Pat Amsden

  Her grandmother continued to sob as Maxine held her hands and her mother rubbed Grandma Ellie's back.

  Chapter Eight

  It was light by the time Grandma Ellie, her mother, Walt and Maxine were allowed to leave.

  Statements had been taken from everyone still there. And the rest of the party goers would be waking up to a police man ready to question them.

  Her mother and Walt had taken turns sitting with Grandma Ellie that night. Usually able to handle anything life threw at her with her trademark wit and humor this had thrown her badly. Even after she'd fallen into a fitful sleep she kept waking and crying out.

  "I can stay with her," Maxine said, but her mother wouldn't hear of it.

  "You've been up since the crack of dawn yesterday and the next couple of days are going to be horrible for you. You need to sleep," her mother said refusing to take no for an answer.

  Except of course she couldn't. She kept reviewing the evening in her mind. Everything had been going so well...And then. The food fight started. She tried to remember who had started it and couldn't. Things kept slipping through her mind in a kaleidoscope of colors and pictures mixing together in nightmares of sound and color.

  Detective Shannon came over early the next afternoon, eyes blood shot and bleary from lack of sleep. His clothes, too, were uncharacteristically wrinkled.

  "Have you slept at all," Maxine asked although she wasn't much better. So far most of Victoria was still asleep, blissfully unaware of what had happened. She shuddered thinking of the headlines when they did wake up.

  Happy New Year.

  He shook his head. "We had to secure the crime scene and question everyone there. We'll question the guests that had left today."

  "It's as if there's some type of curse on me," she said gloomily. "I think I'm going to quit catering and just stick to running the shop. There's enough business to keep me going without the catering."

  "This has nothing to do with your catering," Patrick said harshly.

  "I don't know, every time...I can't keep doing this." She shook her head.

  "You can't let some killer take your dreams away," Patrick said darkly. "If you do he wins."

  "I was hoping I could find some clues into what happened to Julianna last night. We all were," she said brokenly. "You're right. I should stop being so nosy and just let you do your job."

  "I don't think that would've stopped this," Patrick said softly. "Whoever attacked Julianna in the first place is still out there. You may have stopped something happening sooner." He shook his head. "And hell, I was hoping maybe you'd find out something. It wouldn't be the first time." He gently put his hand under her chin, lifting her face to his. "Maybe you did," Patrick said looking her straight in the eyes. "Between us maybe we can come up with some answers."

  She just shook her head not looking at him.

  "It's worth a shot," He said roughly, pulling her to him.

  For just a minute she thought he was going to kiss her. Her heart sped up. She closed her eyes relaxing into him. And then he pulled away.

  She didn't want him to kiss her anyway.

  He pulled out a picture of a man. The dead man she thought, stomach queasy.

  She blinked, trying to focus, as her eyes blurred with tears. He looked familiar. Had he been around the fountain when the food fight started or when it had ended?

  "I don't know. I heard them talking about what everyone did for Christmas, the holidays, the game coming out, university, sports." She paused for a minute. "One of their friends wanted the inside scoop of when they were going public." She shut her eyes, squeezing them tight, trying to remember. "I don't know why, they all denied it-but somehow I got the impression AC Gamers IS going public."

  Patrick looked shocked. "That could be a big deal," he said. "If you hear anything more let me know."

  She felt a start of awareness, her eyes widened and she gave a small cry.

  "What?" he said.

  "Julianna was talking about flashes of her memory coming back. I took her aside. I told her it wasn't a good idea."

  "You may have saved her life," he said grimly.

  She only shook her head.

  In Grandma Ellie's her mother and Walt sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. They were supposed to be flying out later that day.

  "I'll phone and cancel," her mother said now. "We can't leave like...this."

  Detective Shannon nodded while Maxine found herself blurting out –"You can't cancel! What about your job, your-"

  "You need us," her mother said firmly. "Mom needs us." She looked sharply at Patrick. "You took statements last night. Surely we can let her sleep now."

  He gave a small smile. "I'm not a brute. I can wait until she wakes up. But I do want to talk to her. She's got an eye for detail and she doesn't miss much. I'm hoping when she's calmed down she'll be able to remember something. At the very least we can get a better idea of how many people and who were around the fountain area before she went inside."

  "Right now I was thinking maybe we could go over your statements again. Everyone was upset last night and it was late. We could have missed something."

  Neither of them could come up with anything. When Detective Shannon left they sat at the kitchen drinking coffee, too tired to move, their appetites non-existent.

  Outside, in garish contrast sun shone brightly, while birds sang merrily on trees, stripped down to their skeletal remains, until another spring sent them into bloom. The sky was a clear, cobalt blue and even a dusting of frost, now melting, couldn't change the brilliance of the day.

  Maxine's cell phone started to vibrate. She answered it, moving away from the kitchen table. It was Heath. He wanted know what happened and fill her in on anything she'd missed. She agreed to meet him at the Beacon Hill drive-in and go for a walk.

  "They let us take all the stuff from the kitchen upstairs. The fountain is still..."his voice trailed off. "I gave Sara and Danielle a bonus. The way they ran up and down those stairs last night they probably burned holes in their shoes. And this has shaken them up."

  She nodded as they walked through the park. Small children threw bread crumbs at the ducks as they swam lazily in the small ponds. "It's shaken all of us. I just can't believe..."she shook her head.

  "The kitchen was a dead zone. Except for things Sara and Danielle said when they were taking food up or down we might as well have been on Mars."

  "I was in the middle of it," she said gloomily. "And I didn't notice anything until it was too late."

  "At least Julianna is OK," he said with his trademark optimism.

  "For how long," Maxine said sharply.

  Later when she said something about AC Gamers going public Walt disappeared with a muttered, "I need to check something out."

  "Isn't he acting a little strangely," she asked her mother who shrugged.

  "We're all acting differently today. After all," she shook her head. "People don't usually die at a New Year's party."

  Except at hers. It hung in the air between them.

  "This was not your fault," her mother said. "Walt does a lot of investing. He's probably checking with his contacts to see what he can find out about AC Gamers."

  She blinked back tears as she gave her mother a hug. It meant a lot to her that for once her mother wasn't criticizing her. They heard Grandma Ellie in the bedroom.

  "I should go to her," her mother said quickly.

  "Give her a minute to wake up. She won't like being treated as an invalid," Maxine said.

  Her mother sighed but stopped herself from rushing to Grandma Ellie's aid. She was flipping through a magazine when her mother came out, fully dressed.

  Though she was dressed in a bright, pucci inspired tunic and leggings with her trademark glasses her face was drawn, her eyes not sparkling with their usual intelligence and wit.

  "Grandma," Maxine said going to her and hugging her. Her mother joined them in a group hug.

  Her Grandma drew back but she had a watery sm
ile back in place. "At least we're together. Although you'll be leaving in a few hours," she said, frowning as she looked at the wall clock.

  Her mother wiped a tear away from her eye. "I've already called and cancelled. Walt and I are staying, at least for a couple of days."

  Grandma Ellie brightened. "Well, I don't want you to change your plans on my account but I won't say I'm not happy," she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and sitting down at the kitchen table.

  "Have the police arrested anyone?"

  Maxine shook her head. "If they have they're not telling us. Patrick is coming over later to see if you can remember anything."

  Grandma Ellie shook her head. "I was out there all night. I only went inside for a minute..." Again she started slipping into sadness and Maxine grabbed her hand.

  "It's not your fault Grandma, but Detective Shannon was hoping maybe you'd noticed something. Maybe something you didn't even think of at the time-he said you had a good eye for detail."

  "Walt's checking on something now and I didn't remember talking to Julianna about her memory last night until I saw Patrick earlier."

  "Maybe if we put our minds together we can stop anything else happening to Julianna. That poor child..."

  They turned on the evening news watching as Andrew Walters stood outside the gates of Julianna's house.

  "New Year's took a tragic turn at the party of Julianna Grant when a guest was found dead in the chocolate fountain.

  The guest, a thirty year old man, whose identity is being withheld from the public until the next of kin are contacted apparently drowned in the chocolate. Shouting was heard from the area earlier but most of the other guests appear to have been celebrating at the dessert bar or taking an early morning swim to celebrate the New Year..."

  The story went on to detail the tragedy which had befallen Julianna at her near wedding and Maxine's appearance in other high-profile cases earlier that year. At least they didn't appear to be blaming her or her chocolate. For now. But somehow she didn't think there was going to be a rush of new business in the near future.

  "I wonder who invited him," Maxine's mother said.

  She shook her head. "I don't know...but I do have a guest list."

  "With pictures?"

  "No, but maybe in some way it will help."

  Walt came out of the 'study' area.

  "I think I've got something," he said joining them as her mother gave him a cup of coffee.

  "Zeke was definitely looking into taking the company public earlier this year. One of my investor friends who works in a financial institution said they were putting together an IPO when he put everything on hold."

  "Why?" her mother asked.

  "They never got an answer out of him on that but it seemed to be when Rohan and Julianna became an item."

  "So – if Rohan and Julianna actually got married maybe the IPO would be put on hold permanently?" Maxine said.

  "Could be," Walt said.

  "That could be a lot of money," Maxine's mom said sharply.

  "You know what detectives always say," her Grandma Ellie said. "Follow the money."

  And this time Maxine had a hunch they were right. She gave Detective Shannon a call. "Not only is Grandma Ellie awake and ready to talk to you, we've come up with some new information."

  "I'll be over ASAP," he said. "But try not to get too excited. A lot of leads don't pan out."

  Some did though, she thought triumphantly.

  He wasn't so enthusiastic about the information when he talked to her. "We've already got a forensic accountant working on that information."

  He drew a deep breath. "What do you know about Kevin?"

  She looked at him confused. "What has that got to do with anything? Kevin wasn't even there."

  "But he was at the original event. He's the one who recommended your cake to Julianna originally."

  "Along with a few other caterers," she said. "We work in the same industry. And Kevin's good to work with. His events are always successful – unless, of course, you have something like the attack on Julianna. And that's not something he could control."

  "Did you know the dead man was a nephew of Kevin's?"

  "Oh no," she moaned. "Kevin's going to be so upset. I have to call him." She picked up her cell phone but Patrick stopped her.

  "He's gone Maxine. We checked his place. There's no sign he plans to return. We know he transferred a large sum of money to the Grand Cayman's and he bought a one way ticket there for early yesterday morning. The nephew had another one in his apartment."

  A wave of nausea hit her and she got up, making her way on unsteady feet to the bathroom. It wasn't possible. Kevin was her friend.

  After she returned to the kitchen she could only ask "but why? What would Kevin gain!"

  "That's what we're working on." His blue eyes held hers, an intensity to them that was unnerving. "Until we figure it out, please be careful. We don't want another death." He leaned forward giving her a light kiss.

  "And on a personal note, I'm not ready to lose you."

  Chapter Nine

  Julianna and Rohan greeted her at the door.

  "Thank you for coming," Julianna said and Maxine's heart went out to her. Red rimmed eyes she'd been unable to disguise with make-up and an unhealthy pallor spoke more tellingly than anything she could have said about how the death had affected her.

  Rohan too, looked sick with what had happened on New Year's Eve. "We appreciate you taking the time to look over all the photographs with us." He shook his head. "We can't even figure out who the guy is. I don't know who he came with."

  "Wouldn't that show in the pictures?"

  "I suppose," Rohan said. "But the police took all our phones and cameras at the start of the investigation. "This will be our first time looking at them too."

  She glanced back at Detective Shannon who was just coming in behind her now. He hadn't told them about the victim's connection with Kevin? Then again, maybe he was doing that for a reason. It would've been nice if he'd given her a head's up before she got here though.

  "At least he wasn't a member of the family or close personal friend," she said.

  Julianna brightened momentarily. "That's true."

  Detective Shannon was carrying a laptop with cameras. Julianna led them into a small study area. "My dad uses this as an office sometimes. We won't be disturbed here." She showed him where the outlet plugs and connections were while Rohan went out to get a couple of chairs.

  Finally when they were all seated in front of the screen with Detective Shannon off to the side where he could stop the pictures if necessary and watch to see how they were reacting he started the pictures.

  There were tons of pictures of Julianna and Rohan. Pictures of Rohan with his best buds and group pictures. Pictures of Julia with Kerry and her little sister. Pictures of Rohan's sisters. And then when their eyes glazed over, a picture of Kevin's nephew. Talking to Roger. Julianna's New York brother.

  Julianna's eyes widened, Rohan leaned into the screen and they both started peppering Detective Shannon with questions.

  "Why would Roger be talking to him? And why didn't he say anything?" Julianna shook her head. "He can't be involved. He just can't."

  "Maybe he didn't realize," Rohan said. "We wouldn't have known who he was or even that he'd been there if he hadn't-"

  "Ended up dead," Julianna said with a rush. "Roger's out right now meeting with old friends but as soon as he gets home I'll ask him and there'll be an explanation."

  Maxine didn't feel so sure but she didn't want to say anything. As for Patrick, that seemed to be exactly what he'd expected to hear.

  "I can stay here and wait," he said helpfully.

  "That's not necessary, is it?" Julianna said, her face clouding over. "I mean you don't seriously think he's involved do you? This is my older brother we're talking about! He's always been my biggest defender."

  "I'm sure you're right," Detective Shannon said. "I'll still need to question him.
At the very least he might be able to give us a new lead in the investigation we wouldn't have been able to come up with on our own."

  Julianna's face brightened at that thought as did Rohan's. "That makes sense. I mean you've questioned us and obviously we didn't do it. We'll call you as soon as he comes home."

  Maxine walked out with Patrick. "Are you crazy? He's got to have something to do with it. I didn't see Kevin's nephew talking to anyone else."

  "Which is why we'll have police cars outside the gate and why I've got one on the grounds right now. We don't want Julianna or anyone else spooking Roger before we have a chance to pick him up."

  "Oh," she said, eyes widening with the realization. "Should I stay?"

  He shook his head. "We've got it under control. Besides aren't you driving your mother and Walt to the airport?"

  She gave a small cry. "I almost forgot. Although if this is important..."

  "We can handle it," he said.

  As if there'd ever been any doubt. She smiled as she headed home. An end was in sight and though her mother had wavered on whether to stay or not, both she and Walt had decided Grandma Ellie would be OK on their own after the first couple of days had passed along with the initial shock.

  "I trust you to take care of her," her mother said now. "And you will call if you need us won't you?"

  "We'll be fine," Maxine said, hugging her tight. "I'll be out to visit before you know it."

  ***

  The airport was packed with other travelers returning home as well. It might not be the day after New Years but it was still close enough that family and friends taking a slightly extended vacation were returning now.

  "Your staff will be going into shock," Maxine said now as they waited for the flight that would have them into Calgary by seven o'clock that night with more than enough time to relax and prepare for the next day's return to work.

  "This has been a trip to remember," her mother said.

  Maxine rolled her eyes. "I'm not sure that's a good thing in this case."

  Her mother stopped, looking her straight in the eyes. "None of us would have chosen what happened New Year's Eve but I've finally realized you're a grown up now. And I'm proud to call you my daughter. You're beautiful, smart and intelligent. I couldn't ask for more."