Twice as Dead

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  Dev Frye arrived almost at the same time as the police cars and took charge. I showed him to the cloakroom, where I’d left Greg to stand guard. The Orange County coroner had arrived with everyone else and followed us. Greg and I were quickly shuttled out of the way so they could work.

  The questioning of the guests and wedding staff went into the wee hours. Some of the guests had left earlier, and Zee had to produce a guest list so that they could be contacted. The police were about to head to the Four Seasons Hotel, where the newlyweds were bunked down for the night before leaving on their honeymoon the next day, but Zee’s tearful pleading moved Dev to wait until morning.

  Eventually, Greg and I were allowed to leave, but we stuck around until the police let the Washingtons go home. It was almost four in the morning when we dragged our sorry asses home. While Greg texted a buddy of his to let him know he would not be making their basketball game later that day, I fed our two cats, Seamus and Muffin, and Wainwright, our dog. It was way too early for their breakfast, but if I didn’t feed them, they’d be driving us nuts in a couple of hours. Mommy and Daddy needed their beauty sleep. Well, Mommy did.

  “Did the kids get off on their honeymoon?” I asked Zee as I chopped vegetables for a salad.

  It was Sunday evening. As soon as Greg and I had woken up, we’d had the idea of firing up the grill and inviting the Washingtons over for supper later. They’d been so wrapped up in the wedding preparations and now the stress of the murder, we thought they could use a little pampering. Seth and Zee readily accepted, but Jacob had plans with his friends. It was a simple meal of fresh vegetables and salmon cooked side by side on the grill and served with a large salad, followed by fresh strawberry shortcake—perfect for a warm June evening.

  Zee was sitting at the kitchen table, watching me work. I wouldn’t let her lift a finger. The men were chatting around the grill, beers in hand.

  “Yes, finally.” Zee let loose with a deep sigh of relief. “Good thing their plane to Maui wasn’t early in the morning, or they would have missed it.”

  “How did they take the news of Shirley Pearson’s murder?”

  “Hannah was very upset.” She took a drink from the glass of lemonade I’d placed in front of her. “Detective Frye was so nice to let us break the news to the kids first. We called them around eight this morning. They met the police at our house shortly before ten. They made their plane in plenty of time.”

  “I’m so glad.” I had just halved some baby corn and added them to the big salad bowl. “I hope Hannah, um, doesn’t blame me for this.”

  From the way Zee looked at me, then cut her eyes away, I knew the topic had come up amongst the Washingtons.

  “Come on!” I slapped the knife down on the counter. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Odelia, honey,” she started, then paused.

  Zee had put on her motherly comfort tone—the sort of voice used for telling a kid his guinea pig had just bitten the big one and gone to the eternal wheel in the sky. If she reached out to pat my hand, it just might end up in the salad. Her hand, not mine.

  “We know you had nothing to do with Shirley’s murder,” she continued, wisely keeping her fingers to herself. “But.”

  There it was—the but—and she wasn’t referring to my big butt. Or hers, for that matter.

  “But what?” I turned toward her and leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, waiting. Zee had her intimidating stance, I had my own.

  “But why do bodies always show up around you?”

  My nose twitched in annoyance. “Maybe you should have invited Dev Frye to the wedding after all? He could have taken my spot. Think how handy that would have been.”

  “Now, Odelia, don’t be like that.”

  Turning back to my work, I started fussing with a nearby tomato. It was round, red, and ripe, waiting patiently for its execution under my knife. I knew how it felt. Knife poised over the bright orb, I shifted my eyes to Zee. “It’s not like I killed the woman myself.”

  “No one is saying you did, Odelia.” Zee’s body rose and lowered as she emitted a another big sigh. “It’s just … well, it’s just that sometimes I wonder if somehow, someway, something unseen has chosen you to find these bodies.”

  I looked at my friend as if she had sprouted two heads. Zee Washington was a devout Christian, and I wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this. Me, I’m a fence sitter on spiritual things. “Are you saying God has me on some sort of ghoulish scavenger hunt?”

  She shrugged and drank some more lemonade. “You do help people in an odd, creepy way.” She paused, then added, “This never happened to you before Sophie died, did it?”

  “You know it didn’t.”

  Zee knitted her brows in thought. “It’s almost as if Sophie’s murder opened some sort of door linking you to finding murderers.”

  “Show me the door, Zee, and I’ll gladly slam it shut. And lock it. And throw away the key.” I sliced into the waiting tomato, glad I couldn’t hear vegetables scream.

  She looked at me in earnest. “But what if it’s your destiny to help these people?”

  Huh? I stared at my friend and wondered when she’d gone bananas. Had a year of wedding planning turned her brain to mush? “But I thought you weren’t thrilled with my being a corpse magnet.”

  “I’m not. It puts you, and often the people around you, in danger. But in the end, some real good comes out of it. Think about it, Odelia. Murderers are brought to justice. People who have lost loved ones get some sense of closure.”

  I finished dissecting the tomato and threw the chunks into the salad bowl. “So you’re okay with it as long as good is accomplished?”

  Another shrug was thrown my way.

  Turning to face Zee, I locked my eyes onto hers. “What if, one day, the bad guy wins?”

  The men called us out to the patio. Dinner was ready. Zee scampered out without responding to my question. Relieved, no doubt. After giving the salad a quick toss, I picked up the bowl and followed.

  We were just sitting down to eat when our front doorbell rang. Wainwright started barking and dashed for the door. I got up and followed, noting when I reached the door that Wainwright’s tail was wagging with enthusiasm. On the other side of the door had to be someone we knew.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Detective Dev Frye said when the door opened. “But I have a few more questions.” Wainwright whined with pleasure. Dev was one of his favorite people. Instead of his usual suit, the detective was dressed in chinos, and a dark blue knit shirt slightly strained across his muscular chest.

  “Come on in, Dev.” I unlocked the screen door and pushed it open, kneeing the big golden retriever out of the way so the even bigger detective could come into the house.

  “We were just sitting down to dinner,” I told Dev. “Please join us.”

  As Dev grinned, the skin on his neck turned pink. “It’s no accident I dropped by around your usual dinner time, Odelia. Hope you don’t mind.” He bent down and playfully roughed up the dog around his ears and head. Wainwright was in doggie heaven.

  “Zee and Seth are here, too. And there’s always plenty.”

  Dev stopped playing with the dog and straightened. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to intrude on guests. And I think the Washingtons may have had their fill of me today.”

  “Zee and Seth aren’t guests, Dev. Like you, they’re family.” I lowered my voice for my next comment. “But as far as discussing the murder goes, let’s see how they feel before mentioning it. Let them lead the way.”

  He nodded in agreement and winked at me. “Anything for a good meal.”

  I hooked an arm through one of his and tugged him toward the patio. “Hope you like grilled salmon.”

  “Love it.”

  Seth and Zee joined Greg in welcoming Dev to our dinner table. Dev declined a beer in favor of iced tea. When I returned to the patio after fetching an extra place setting, the topic of Shirley Pearson’s murder was in full
swing, with Seth pumping Dev for information. So much for tiptoeing around the Washingtons.

  “We don’t have much information on it yet,” Dev told us between bites of food. “We’re working through the guest list, questioning folks.”

  Zee groaned but said nothing.

  “We’re also talking to everyone who worked the wedding or at the club or with Ms. Pearson.”

  “Shirley owned the wedding planning service,” Zee volunteered. “It was called Rambling Rose. They handled anniversary and special occasion parties, too.”

  Dev nodded. “We know she had an assistant. Not sure of any other employees yet.”

  “Amber Straight,” Zee said. “That was her assistant’s name, I believe. At least that’s who we spoke to when we couldn’t reach Shirley directly. I think it was just the two of them. It was a small but well-respected operation.”

  “Who referred you to it?” asked Dev.

  “Kay Lorraine, a friend of Hannah’s, used Rambling Rose for her wedding. Hannah raved about how lovely it was, so when it came time for us to plan a wedding, we went straight to Shirley’s company. Everything was perfect.” Zee sighed and put down her fork. “Until …,” she trailed off.

  “It was a perfect wedding, Zee,” Seth assured her, placing a comforting arm around her shoulders. “In spite of everything.” Zee smiled at her husband, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.

  We fell silent for a few moments, eating quietly and enjoying the subtle ocean breeze from the beach a few blocks away from our Seal Beach home. Then Dev turned to me. “And how about you? How do you know Shirley Pearson?”

  “I don’t know Shirley,” I answered, a bit surprised by the question. “I only just met her at the wedding. Greg and I didn’t even go to the rehearsal dinner.”

  “We had a prior commitment with my parents,” Greg added.

  Zee shook her head. “I think you met her once before, Odelia. That time you came with me and Hannah to the bridal shop so Hannah could show you the dress she’d ordered. I think Shirley came into the shop while we were there.”

  I dug through my memory, replaying that day months before in my mind. “I think you’re right. I only vaguely remember it, though.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Zee added. “It was just a quick introduction, then we left.”

  Dev moved his eyes back and forth between Zee and me. “So you didn’t know?”

  “Know what?” I asked, going on alert. Zee had picked up her fork again, but it was now stopped halfway to her mouth as she waited for his response.

  Dev cleared his throat but didn’t speak. Everyone at the table was still, hanging in suspense.

  “What is it, Dev?” Greg urged, his voice eager.

  Finally, Dev wiped his mouth and made his announcement. “Shirley Pearson was a he—a man.”

  “No way!” Seth said loudly, his eyes wide with disbelief. He’d taken the words right out of my mouth and probably everyone else’s.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Dev looked straight at me to make his point. “I think the coroner would notice a little something like that, don’t you?”

  Without thinking, I let loose with “Was it really that little, or did he pack it tight?”

  Dev continued eating while the four of us snickered at my immature and tasteless remark. But in my defense, it did lighten the mood around the table.

  “All that time I spent with her—him,” Zee stumbled, “and I never noticed.”

  “Her,” Dev corrected. “It appears Shirley Pearson was living her life as a woman and had been for quite some time.”

  Greg drained his beer. “Did she have a sex change?”

  Shaking his head, Dev answered, “Not yet, but the coroner said it looked like the process was underway, at least hormonally.”

  With the rest of us still in shock, Dev took another bite of salmon, studying me while he chewed. Then he swallowed and took a long pull from his iced tea. “If you’d only met her that one time, Odelia, then why would she have your phone number? Did you give it to her at the wedding?”

  “My number?” I pointed an index finger at my own chest in surprise.

  “What’s this all about, Dev?” asked Greg.

  After wiping his mouth on a napkin, Dev reached inside his pants pocket and retrieved a folded piece of paper. He opened it to reveal a copy of a small handwritten note. He handed it to me to read. It was my name and cell phone number.

  I looked up from the note. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a note we found in the pocket of Shirley Pearson’s skirt.”

  Greg took the note from my hands and read it.

  I turned to Dev. “I know nothing about this, Dev. Shirley never said a word to me at the wedding.”

  I paused as a shard of remembrance knocked on my skull to come out. “Oh, wait.” I held up a finger, giving pause until I could hook the memory and reel it in like a flopping fish. “There was one time, during the reception, Shirley came up to me and asked if I was Odelia Grey. Said the guest list had me down as Odelia Stevens but that my first name was so uncommon, she had to ask. She was about to say something else when someone called her away.”

  Dev leaned forward. “Do you remember who?”

  I shook my head. “No. I only heard someone, a man, call Shirley’s name. The next time I saw her, she was dead.”

  Zee held out her hand to Greg. He passed her the note, and she read it with Seth looking over her shoulder. “I don’t think this is Shirley’s handwriting.”

  “You sure, hon?” Seth asked.

  “It’s difficult to say because it’s mostly numbers, but I’m almost positive. I saw Shirley jot down a lot of notes during the past several months, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t her writing. Hers was smaller, more like printing than cursive.”

  She handed the note back to Dev after it had made a complete round of our redwood picnic table. Zee got up and went into the house. When she returned, she held her handbag and was rummaging through it.

  “Great,” she exclaimed upon pulling out a small notebook. From it she extracted a folded piece of paper, which she turned over to Dev. “This is a short list of things Shirley wrote down for me. Things I needed to remember for the rehearsal and wedding.”

  Dev held the list by its edges and looked it over. Zee stood at his side and pointed out several things. “See, her handwriting is much more concise than on that note. Even her letters are formed differently.”

  Dev nodded as he compared the list to the note found on Shirley’s body. “Good work, Zee. They are totally different. May I take this list with me?”

  “Of course.” She returned to her seat next to Seth.

  “What about the knife that killed the woman?” Greg asked.

  “The knife belonged to the caterer,” Dev told us. “We’re processing it right now for prints. The owner of the catering company doesn’t recall it missing or any of his staff being unaccounted for during the evening, but there was a lot going on. The knife was long and had been thrust in hard and deep, possibly wielded by a man or very strong woman. And there was little struggle on the victim’s part. We believe she might have known her attacker and was taken by surprise. It looks like she was pinned against the storage containers, then slid down to the floor after the attack.”

  Greg looked at Dev with great interest. “You mean she might have gone into the cloakroom to meet whoever killed her?”

  “Most likely. There was no sign of her being killed or wounded elsewhere, then being dragged into the room.”

  “Shirley couldn’t have been dead long,” I said. “When she spoke to me, it had been near the beginning of the dinner service.”

  “Do any of you recall seeing her after that?” Dev asked.

  The four of us looked around the table, each questioning ourselves silently about Shirley’s whereabouts during the reception. All our faces were blank, then Zee spoke up. “The caterer came to me and asked about cutting the cake,” she recalled. “I told
him to find Shirley, but he said he hadn’t been able to locate her. I didn’t think much of it at the time and herded Hannah and Rob toward the wedding cake myself.”

  Dev finished eating and pulled his small notebook out of his pocket. He started writing down the information. “About how long was this after the dinner started?”

  Zee shrugged. “About an hour, maybe a little more.”

  Seth shook his head. “More like an hour and a half to two hours. After dinner, the band started playing and people started dancing. The band had been playing awhile before the cake was cut. I remember because I wanted a piece of cake and had to wait.”

  Everyone at the table laughed except Seth. “Hey,” he said, his brow furrowed. “If you knew what that damn cake cost me, you’d understand. I wanted to know what money tasted like.” That brought more laughter.

  “I feel your pain, Seth,” Dev told him with a grin. “I married off a daughter myself.”

  “What about the photographer?” I asked. “It’s a long shot, but maybe he caught something on camera.” I turned to Zee. “Wasn’t he taking both video and still shots?”

  “Yes, he was doing both,” answered Zee.

  “The photographer is already cooperating,” Dev assured us. “As is everyone else connected to the wedding we’ve contacted so far.”

  When I went inside to fix the strawberry shortcake, Dev offered to help. The others, sensing he had more questions for me, stayed on the patio.

  “You’re sure you can’t think of anyone you know who might be connected to Shirley Pearson?” He rinsed off the dinner plates he’d brought in and started to put them in the dishwasher.

  I stopped him. “Don’t, Dev. I’ll take care of the dishes later.” I dropped a dollop of whipped cream onto a dish of fresh strawberries and sponge cake. “And yes, I’m sure. I can’t for the life of me think of anyone who might give Shirley my number.”

  Later that night, when Greg and I were climbing into bed, I was still combing my tired brain for who could have given my cell number to Shirley Pearson.