The fog machine arrived, and the man concealed it behind a bank of flowers, aiming it so fog would gently envelop Pam and Michelle as they walked down the aisle. Except that when Michelle demanded a test of the equipment, what spouted from the foliage was more volcanic eruption than gentle mist.
“No, no, no!” Michelle yelled. “Not so much fog! We want an ethereal mist, not a blast that’s going to shut down every airport within fifty miles!”
The next emission of fog was suitably ethereal, and Michelle moved on to examining the huge candelabra set up behind the flower arbor and the rows of candles marching off in both directions. One candle didn’t meet her approval, and it met quick candle termination, of course. Then on to the reception area on the other side of the dividing flap. I followed, curious.
In the reception area she physically shoved tables aside as she stormed through. “I told you, there has to be space in the center for the ice sculpture. Move these tables back!”
By this time I didn’t see how she’d possibly have the time or energy to orchestrate some sinister murder plot.
Activity increased as show time neared. The ice sculpture arrived in a refrigerated van and was duly transported by forklift to its spot as centerpiece in the reception area. I stared at it in astonishment. I couldn’t see any specific resemblance to Pam and Sterling, but it was definitely a bride and groom. Sculpted in ice and set on a low pedestal, the joined figures seemed even larger and more formidable than real life. And . . . menacing. Like ice monsters, ready to burst into malignant life and do some ghastly ice-monster thing. A more practical danger, I decided, was that if the sculpture tipped over it might take out live bride and groom and a few wedding guests to boot.
I was careful to stay well back.
The cake arrived. Eight tiers topped with that oversized silver ornament, each tier separated by garlands of peach and white roses, with bridges to side tiers. Had a bride ever been done in by a falling cake, choked in layers of frosting?
Creative possibilities, but, as I pointed out to myself, too late. The demise had to come before the vows.
Except that the whole idea of a “demise” was surely right up there with danger of a sea creature rushing up from the inlet and wrapping giant tentacles around the entire wedding tent.
Caterers spread white tablecloths, with centerpieces of more peach and white roses. Rose gardens across half the state must now be denuded. Place cards, names delicately scrolled in silver, went by the place settings. The three-piece band for music during dinner and dancing afterward arrived. A small dance floor had been set up in front of them. I’d expected some stuffy group playing stuffy music, but these guys warmed up with Steppenwolf’s "Born to be Wild."
An unforeseen glitch turned up, something that Michelle, in spite of all her planning, had forgotten, and something she couldn’t correct by yelling louder. With the limo decorated, I couldn’t drive out to the inn to pick up guests and members of the wedding party. Michelle looked panicky for a moment, but she quickly regained her cool and phoned for a fleet of taxis.
The minister showed up early, having been given the wrong time. He was tall, blond, and photogenic, though a bit uncomfortable looking with a heavy brace holding his neck stiffly in place. Michelle planted him near the flower arbor to wait. The harpists who were to play for the processional arrived, looking appropriately angelic in floaty white gowns. I’d never heard of harpists for a wedding processional, but what did I know about a wedding of this financial caliber?
Michelle finally disappeared to get dressed. I had to admire her for allowing less than an hour for this. Especially when at this point her hair looked like blond seaweed washed up on the shore.
I sat in the limo at the foot of the front steps, ready to make the 300-foot drive from house to the white carpet leading to the flower arbor inside the tent. Cars arrived, and I realized there would be no shortage of local guests after all. Two tuxedoed guys showed drivers where to park on the grass. Taxis arrived and disgorged their occupants. Groomsmen in tuxedos showed people to their seats and issued beribboned programs. A lovely evening star came out from behind a drift of clouds. The harpists played sweet angel music. The video cameraman planted himself at the walkway to catch Pam and Michelle’s exit from the limo. Bridesmaids in dark peach dresses waited outside the tent, ready to fall in behind Pam and Michelle in the procession.
Three bridesmaids, three groomsmen, I counted. Which meant that Michelle had efficiently eliminated the dangling-fish one.
It only now occurred to me that there was neither best man nor maid of honor in this lineup. Perhaps because neither Pam nor Sterling had anyone close enough to play that role?
The harpists played on, but in spite of the angel music and lovely setting, what I heard in my head was a movie score building to a crashing crescendo as the moment of disaster approaches. Lurid imagination, I scoffed. Everything was going to go off exactly as it was supposed to.
Except I didn’t know what supposed to meant in Michelle’s plans. . . .
I made a quick call to Fitz, who with Matt was on the Miss Nora awaiting arrival of the newlyweds. He reported the flower people had been there too, and the sailboat could double as Cleopatra’s barge.
“Matt is grumbling about what we’re going to do with all these flowers when they start to wilt. He's afraid some Coast Guard boat is going to roar up and ticket us for contaminating Puget Sound.”
Fitz’s son Matt has his good points, definitely, but he’s also the kind of guy who’d grumble if he won the lottery. All those taxes, he’d complain.
“We’re just about to get going here,” I said.
“You okay? You sound a little breathless.”
“I feel more as if I’m . . . holding my breath.”
“Waiting for something to happen?”
I told him about Michelle’s unusual arrangement for the processional, having the bridesmaids and groomsmen follow her and the bride down the aisle. “It kind of worries me.”
“It would probably be a good idea to keep an eye on her, but it sounds more like a star-of-the-show thing to me. Michelle doesn’t want to be upstaged by a bunch of beautiful bridesmaids coming in ahead of her.”
“You’re probably right,” I agreed, feeling a smidgen of relief. “Everything is really quite beautiful. The harpists sound as if they’re on loan from heaven. The cake and ice sculpture are magnificent.”
“You want an ice sculpture when you get married?”
“I don’t have any plans to get married.”
“Plans change. Maybe you should be thinking ahead.”
I jerked the phone from my ear and looked at it in astonishment. What was Fitz saying?
I didn’t have time to consider the subtleties of this conversation, because Shirley suddenly ran out of the house.
“Gotta go,” I said hurriedly.
“Call me when you’re on your way with the newlyweds, okay? We have some old Don Ho wedding music we’re going to play to welcome them.”
The limo windows don’t open because of the bulletproof glass, so I shoved the door open to find out what Shirley’s problem was.
“Michelle wants you to come around to the back door.”
My nerves jumped. This was outside the schedule of events. Not good. “Why?”
“She doesn’t want the guests to see Pammi or her before their big exit from the limo.”
Milking every bit of drama from the occasion was Michelle’s style, so the change to the back door made a certain sense. No one could preview them coming out of the house and entering the limo. And yet . . .
Was this it? Was this how Michelle intended to arrange it so only Pam and I were in the limo?
“Hurry!” Shirley said. “Pam’s about to melt into a nervous puddle.”
Much as I was tempted to squeal out in a tempest of flying flowers, I couldn’t leave Pam back there alone with Michelle. Who knew what Michelle might pull, out of sight of everyone? A deadly shove down the stairs. A guns
hot out of nowhere, with some claim of a bushy-haired stranger.
No, no skipping out now.
I backed up and carefully pulled into the narrow gravel driveway that led between house and garage. A few blossoms fell along the way, but I doubted the loss would be noticeable. The limo carried more flowers than a casket. A comparison I wished hadn’t occurred to me.
The backyard lights were on, throwing shadows into the woods. Michelle and Pam stood on the small concrete patio at the back steps, Pam clutching her bouquet as if it were a lifeline.
I got out and opened the passenger door, but I was too nervous to give it my usual your-chariot-awaits flourish.
Pam looked beautiful. The laced bodice on the strapless white gown cinched her waist into almost willowy proportions, and a full tiered skirt flounced gently over her hips. Tiny beads edged each tier of the skirt and glittered in the white embroidery decorating the bodice. A filmy lace stole did lovely things for her shoulders, and the train lent a royal grandeur. A full veil flowed from the tiara planted on the smooth, upswept coil of her hair. And there was space, glorious space between a magnificent arch of eyebrows!
“Pam, you look gorgeous! So glamorous! And sophisticated!”
Pam pressed her lips together as if my honest compliment touched her, and she might even cry. “Glamorous?” she whispered doubtfully.
“Oh, yes. Cinderella glamorous,” I assured her.
But then the usual Pam poked through the new glamour. “Amazing what an expert can do with a comb and a little hairspray, huh?” She spread her fingers, which were still the old Pam: stubby and unpolished.
“They wanted to put those fake fingernails on me, but I said no. . . .” Her voice trailed off as if she didn’t understand that reasoning herself.
But I thought I did. She’d let herself be made over into something she wasn’t for this wedding, and she half-liked, half-hated the results. But she’d had to draw the line somewhere, and she’d drawn it at the fingernails.
Now she stuck out a foot clad in a silvery high-heeled sandal. “And if I don’t fall flat on my face in these, it’ll be a miracle.”
“You’re not going to fall. You’ll do just fine.” It wasn’t my place to say anything, and yet . . . “Doesn’t the veil usually cover the bride’s face until it’s thrown back for the big kiss?”
“Cover that 500-dollar hair and makeup job with a veil? No way!” Michelle cut in.
Pam smiled self-consciously but didn’t argue, and, for a change, it looked as if they agreed on something. The new Pam was worth displaying. A good omen, I thought gladly.
Pam gathered her train, and I helped scoop it all into the limo with her.
Then came a tense moment. Good omen or not, this was Michelle’s opportunity to back out and . . . do what?
Michelle, belying my suspicions, immediately gathered her own skirt and stepped in behind Pam.
“You look gorgeous too,” I said a little lamely.
The Seattle experts had worked a hair-and-makeup miracle on her in that hour. But Michelle usually looked at least semi-gorgeous, so the change was not so startling with her as it was with Pam. Her gown was pale peach, also strapless, her hair upswept into a froth of blond curls with flirty tendrils escaping near her diamond-clad ears. Her trademark perfume scented the limo with a fragrance identifiable even over the scent of the engulfing flowers. But her expression was definitely dour as she settled into the rear seat.
“Did you see the minister? I picked a Mr. Gorgeous, and what do I have now? A guy with a neck brace big enough to hold up the tent. It’s going to ruin the photos.”
“We’ll tell the photographer to just take him out of the photos if necessary,” Pam soothed. “They can do that with the computer.”
“Okay, everyone ready now?” I asked as I started to close the door.
“Would you like to come inside the tent for the ceremony?” Pam asked me. “There’ll be extra seats in back. Shirley’s going to be there.” Almost shyly she added, “I’d really like it if you would.”
I looked doubtfully at Michelle. A chauffeur in black uniform cluttering up her color scheme?
“Sure, why not?” she said. She lifted her hands airily. “We’re all just one big, happy family, aren’t we?”
I blinked, but she was smiling, and I didn’t hear even a trace of sarcasm in her voice. A mellow Michelle? I went around to my driver’s seat wondering if I should search the sky. Maybe pigs were flying tonight too.
I steered the limo back down to the concrete driveway and, trailing streamers and flowers, inched majestically toward the white carpet. I opened the door, and Michelle slid out first. The video camera whirred.
The groomsmen rushed forward to help. The one who gave Pam his hand actually did a double take when he saw her. The procession lined up on the carpet, and one of the bridesmaids spread Pam’s train to its full length. Someone must have given the harpists a signal, because the ethereal music suddenly revved up to a more processional level. The lights in the tent dimmed until only flickering candlelight remained.
The procession started, Pam and Michelle in the lead. I surreptitiously circled the lineup of couples and stood near the tent opening, ready to slip in behind the last bridesmaid and groomsman and grab a seat next to Shirley. Sterling and the minister, looking acceptably gorgeous in spite of the neck brace, rose from wherever they were sitting and stood at the flower arbor waiting. I spotted Phyllis Forsythe’s limp blond hair in the front row. And there were the Steffans sitting along the aisle, he in those sunglasses, she in another of her flowered creations that made her look like a walking bouquet. There were MOBs and husbands too, plus a lot of people I didn’t recognize.
The procession moved majestically down the aisle. The crowd stood. An ethereal drift of mist wafted from the fog machine.
And then it wasn’t just a mist. It was a blast, an eruption, an avalanche of fog, enough fog to inundate the Space Needle! The wedding procession and the crowd disappeared into it. It filled the inside of the tent like a storm cloud and boiled out the opening. Screams erupted.
And stink! Stink like I’d never smelled before. Garbage dump, pig sty, rotten eggs, outhouse!
I backed away, but not quickly enough. The foul-smelling fog engulfed me too. My eyes watered and blinded me. My throat spasmed and closed. Inside the tent, no harp music now, just coughs and shrieks. Someone rushed by me, hit my shoulder, and practically bowled me over. And then masses of people boiled out the opening along with the fog. Pushing and shoving, holding their noses, choking, stumbling, eyes streaming with tears.
And everywhere the stink, that incredible smell-from-the-Black-Lagoon stink.
My eyes were still watering, but through the tears I spotted Mrs. Steffan, her ample figure doubled over in a seizure of coughing. A bridesmaid stumbled and crashed to the grass. Another bridesmaid clutched her throat. The minister yanked at his neck brace as if he were choking. Two women barfed like something out of a horror movie.
And there was Sterling. He was a good hundred feet from the tent, blowing his nose and wiping his eyes. He must have bolted down the aisle and escaped first. Was he the one who’d almost flattened me? A real hero. But where was Pam? Apparently Sterling hadn’t bothered to make sure she was okay, and I couldn’t see her anywhere. Caterer people streamed out of the other side of the tent now too, the smell apparently flooding under and around the tent divider.
The fog was slowly dissipating into waves of mist, but the stench remained. People milled around, getting as far from the tent as they could. I winced when a harpist found a rip in her gown, her reaction a distinctly non-angelic outburst.
I shoved my way toward the tent through the crowd, an awful premonition suddenly giving me strength. This was it. This was how Michelle had figured a way to do it right in front of the wedding guests! Hide a murder behind a shroud of fog.
I was in better shape than the wedding people, because I hadn’t been inside with the full force of the blast, but I had t
o blink and hold a tissue over my nose as I worked my way through the lingering fog inside.
The tent was empty now, dim. Only a lone candle had escaped the fog, and it burned with a ghostly flicker. Chairs were overturned, bows and drapery tangled. Banks of flowers awry where people had stumbled into them, flower arbor leaning at an angle. And stink, oh, the stink!
I stopped short halfway down the aisle. By the light of the flickering candle, I spotted something in the aisle up ahead, something that turned me as cold as the ice sculpture.
Because the tent wasn’t quite empty after all. . . .
A body lay crumpled in the aisle. A knife buried to the hilt in its back.
Chapter Eight
No. . .
I ran to her and felt for a pulse at her wrist, then her throat. Nothing. She lay on her stomach, arms spread, one leg pulled up, airbrushed makeup still intact, hair still elegantly upswept, scent of perfume still lingering. The diamonds at her ears and throat glittered in the candlelight. But the gown tangled around her legs, as if she’d tried to run and been brought down before she could escape. Running from the putrid fog like everyone else . . . or running from her killer? A faint trickle of blood darkened the corner of her mouth. The brass handle of the knife stuck out of her back like some bizarre accessory.
I felt peculiarly detached, horrified but numbed, my mind stalled. Not possible, one part of my mind insisted. But another part shivered in horror.
A man in a dark suit ran toward me through the dissipating mist. He knelt by Michelle’s body and touched her bare shoulder.
“Is she dead?”
“I-I think so. I can’t feel a pulse.”
He checked her throat too. He seemed to know what he was doing. I couldn’t think straight. Michelle dead. Not Pam, but Michelle.
The guy was already pulling out a cell phone as he stood up. “I’ll call 911.” He spoke with a bit of an accent, but I was too distressed to identify it.
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