“No, I thought I knew exactly what I was doing. I was wrong, of course, but I didn't have a second's doubt.”
Shelley patted Jane's arm. "Well, I hate to be hard-hearted, but it's done now and it's not your problem. Livvy had a decision to make and she made it. Period. Now she's Mrs. Dwayne Hessling, whether she likes it or not. You're neither her mother nor her best friend and you couldn't have interfered."
“But the sad thing is, she doesn't have a mother or a best friend," Jane said. "And she needed both.”
The food was in place and smelled divine. The flowers were on the serving tables and Larkspur had placed small arrangements on some of the end tables as well. The furniture people had completed their work and slipped out a side door. They'd come back tomorrow at their leisure and Uncle Joe would let them in to pick up all the rental furniture and linens. The wedding cake, all four tiers of it, sat in solitary splendor in the side room, among the gifts on display.
Jane took one last look around. Perfection. And best of all, this was the last stage of the process. Everybody would be fed and the bride and groom would be seen off to their honeymoon and Jane could go home, cash the check for the last part of her fee, and forget she'd ever been insane enough to get involved in a stranger's wedding. She wondered if she could persuade her children to elope when the time carne. A nice monetary bribe ought to do it.
Finally at ease, she went to the front door and opened it. The photographer was taking one last picture of the entire wedding party assembled on a slight slope so they fanned up the hill behind Livvy and Dwayne. Livvy was either happy now or giving a decent impression of looking as if she were. Dwayne was beaming. Some kind soul had relieved Mrs. Hessling of her huge, horrible handbag.
Jane had the fleeting thought that maybe she should get a copy of this picture and put it in Mrs. Crossthwait's scrapbook as the old woman would have liked. But who was left to care what was in the book? It would probably end up in a garage sale and some antiques dealer would buy it to use the old pictures with old frames he was trying to sell.
The guests were getting hungry and were milling closer to the door. As the last picture was taken, Jane called out, "Will the bride and groom lead everyone back into the lodge?”
There were a few grumbles from those closest to the door, who were the hungriest, but they turned into exclamations of pleased surprise as the crowd flowed back into the lodge and discovered the miraculous transformation of the room.
As soon as most of the guests had gone along the food line, Jane checked with Mr. Willis that everything in the kitchen was in order. He assured her that it was and trays of second helpings of anything they might run out of were warming or cooling, as appropriate. Jane left the kitchen, then came to a stop. She'd been in the mode of thinking of all the things she must do and which would come next for days now, and suddenly, there was nothing for her to do.
Nothing!
She smiled blissfully and sank into the nearest chair and very nearly fell asleep.
When everybody was through eating, she'd have to round them up and head them to the side room where the magnificent cake awaited unveiling. There would be a few toasts, the photographer would take pictures of the ceremonial cake cutting, everybody would have a nibble, and then it would be time for the guests to start drifting away.
These happy thoughts were suddenly and violently interrupted by what Jane first thought to be a siren, but was a piercing scream that went on and on and on. There was a horrified silence in the main room. Jane leaped to her feet and ran to the closed door of the side room, colliding with Shelley and Mel as she reached it.
Mel opened the door just wide enough for thethree of them to slip in, then slammed it behind them.
Kitty was standing with her back to them in the center of the room, shrieking. Dwayne was sprawled at her feet, his eyes closed, a huge red stain spread across his white shirt. Mel stepped forward and took her arm. She turned to him with a knife in her hand. She stopped screaming and started whimpering. He pinched the blade of the knife between two fingers and she released it, looking down at it with horror. Mel bent to put down the knife and examine Dwayne. "Shelley, call 911," he said calmly.
Kitty drifted backwards, her eyes still on Dwayne, and backed into Jane.
Livvy and Jack had pushed through the crowd and entered the room. Jack stood with his back to the door, keeping anyone else from entering. Livvy had one hand over her mouth and was clutching her father's sleeve with the other.
Kitty turned to Jane. Hiccupping and crying, she said, "Someone s-said the cake was beautiful. I–I wanted to look before it was cut. I c-came in. Dwayne was there. On the f-floor. I thought he'd f-fainted."
“Calm down, Kitty," Jane said.
“Then I 1-looked. There was a knife in his ch-chest." Her voice had risen to a shriek again. "I pulled it out. I thought it would s-save him. B-but there was all that blood."
“You shouldn't have touched it," Jane said, averting her eyes from Dwayne.
“I know. I know. But I thought—" She looked over Jane's shoulder.
“Livvy, why did you have to do this?" Kitty asked.
Livvy made a noise like a mouse caught in a trap. A little squeak. Then said, "Me? Me! You think I stabbed my husband?"
“You could have divorced him," Kitty said, sobbing. "You could have had the marriage annulled. You didn't have to kill him.”
Livvy's eyes rolled back and she slipped to the floor in a heap.
Mel sent Jane to guard the front door and make sure no one left.
“Is he dead?" she whispered.
“Very. “
The guests were babbling hysterically. Several grabbed at Jane as she passed through the crowd around the door.
“What's happened?”
“Who was screaming?" they asked.
“There's been an accident," she said loudly, her voice shaking. "Keep the doorway clear. Don't anybody leave." She had to pluck several hands off her sleeve to get away.
She could already hear sirens when she reached the door. Iva Thatcher had followed Jane and said, in a frail, trembling voice, "It's not Livvy, is it?”
Jane gave Iva a quick hug. "No, no. It's not Livvy. It's Dwayne. I'm afraid he's dead.”
“Dead! How?”
Jane didn't want Iva starting a riot of rumor. "I don't know," Jane lied.
Two police cars and an ambulance pulled up as well as a beat-to-hell green Plymouth. A very short, tough-looking elderly man got out of the car. Jane guessed it was Gus Ambler, the old sheriff Mel had gotten the background on the Thatchers from.
“Where is the victim?" John Smith asked.
Jane pointed the way and stood aside as he and the ambulance attendants rushed past. The old man was last and puffing with the effort to hurry.
“I'm with the police," he said gruffly.
“I thought so," Jane said, letting him pass. She couldn't have stopped his headlong rhinoceros progress if she'd tried.
She closed the door and leaned back against it with her eyes closed. If she'd had her car keys in her possession at that moment, she might well have grabbed Shelley and staggered to her rusty, familiar station wagon and driven away.
Twenty ··
It was the longest afternoon and evening of Jane's life.
The Thatcher family and everybody else who had been known to be in the lodge when Mrs. Crossthwait died had been told in no uncertain terms that they had to stay until the next day. It went far beyond mere coincidence that two murders should occur within the same group of people without there being a connection. Jane and Shelley took their turns at calling home and explaining that they would be delayed another day. Jane didn't elaborate to her mother-in-law why this was. She just let her think it was to finish off all the loose ends.
She overheard Layla on the phone a few minutes later, sobbing to her husband that she wanted to come home to him and the babies. Shortly after Layla's call, she spotted Eden on the phone, talking very quietly and intensely, funn
eling her words into the mouthpiece with her hand so as to not be overheard.
Everyone present had to be questioned. The guests were all upset and some of them wasted a lot of time being indignant and rude out of sheer fright and the desire to get away. The off-duty police officers were called in and the county sheriff's office sent a scene-of-the-crime unit.
Mrs. Hessling was too grief-stricken to even speak coherently and Errol begged the police to let her go back to the motel. The coroner, who was also the local doctor, had shown up and supported the idea, even supplying Errol with a mild sedative to give her.
Surprisingly, Iva got involved. "You must stay with your brother's… body," she told Errol. "It isn't decent to leave him with strangers. I'll take your mother back and keep an eye on her while my sister watches over Livvy.”
Mr. Willis and Larkspur both attempted to escape on the grounds that they had business scheduled for the next day, but were told it was too bad and they better get in touch with their assistants or partners and instruct them to take over. They did so with very bad grace.
The guests were all given paper and pencils and asked to write down everything they'd seen and heard, no matter how trivial, from the moment the photographer took the group picture until Kitty had started screaming.
Most of them had only the vaguest recollection of what they'd noticed. A few admitted they'd had too much champagne to remember much. Some wrote virtual tomes of "he said and then I said." Each had to give his or her written report to one of the off-duty officers, who read them, asked additional questions about times and locations, and made a red check mark at the top of the first page. This was what Jane, feeling very much like a prison guard, had to collect before people were allowed to leave in twos and threes.
Between departures, she skimmed through the reports and decided it was going to take a much better mind than hers to fit the various stories together and deduce anything coherent from them. It seemed that Kitty wasn't the only one who had heard how spectacular the wedding cake was and sneaked into the side room to take a look at it in its uncut glory. Several observers claimed they'd seen Layla go in the room. Others described someone who was obviously Eden going through the door.
One trophy wife, whose handwriting suggested she was way beyond mere tipsiness, claimed she'd seen Jack Thatcher go in the room in a most "furtive" manner, looking about to make sure no one saw him. But a great many of the other reports mentioned having spoken to Jack in the main room at one time or another. Jane wondered when he could have found time to skulk into the side room when he was so busy being the gracious host. She also wondered if the woman had a husband in a position to benefit financially if Jack Thatcher were arrested for murder.
Two people said they'd seen Layla go up the stairs to the second floor, another claimed to have seen Eden come down the stairs. Although their looks and dresses were really quite different, apparently the bridesmaids in their pink dresses were indistinguishable to the casual observer. One of the groomsmen claimed he'd been sitting on the second step talking to a pretty girl whose name he couldn't remember and that nobody went up or down the stairs.
Two people said they'd seen a seedy-looking groundskeeper-type hanging around the doorway, but none of them came right out and said they'd seen him go into the room. Jane assumed this was Uncle Joe.
Only one man had paid the least attention to time. He, a clock freak, asked for extra paper and outlined to the minute who he'd talked to, what they said, what they were wearing, but admitted he had his back to the side room the whole time and couldn't have seen anyone coming or going.
Oddly enough, no one, so far, had mentioned having seen Dwayne himself go into the side room. And he obviously had. There was a side door to the room, but it was stuck firmly shut, as Jane had discovered during the bridal shower when she tried to open it to get a little fresh air in. But if nobody noticed Dwayne enter, it might well be that nobody noticed the killer going in either.
There was eventually only a handful of disgruntled guests remaining and their accounts were being read and questioned. Jack was pacing the main room furiously, muttering about the general incompetence of the police. Marguerite had helped Livvy remove her wedding gown and the bride was now in pressed, creased jeans and a plaid shirt. She should have been in her pale blue "going away" suit long since.
Livvy was sitting on a sofa, looking stunned. Errol was trying to get her to eat something. As Jane watched, Livvy waved away a plate of food and suddenly burst into tears. Errol put the plate down, sat next to her, and patted her shoulder rather awkwardly and ineffectually.
Mr. Willis was clearing away the food and Larkspur was dismantling the floral arrangements. Jane guessed that they felt, as she did, that the wedding paraphernalia was now in very bad taste, considering that the groom was dead. Perhaps at the hand of the bride, if Kitty's accusation was to be believed. But could Livvy, the centerpiece of the wedding, have sneaked away without being noticed? Wouldn't that big white dress have been a sort of beacon? And wouldn't it have shown blood?
The last guests handed in their reports and left. And a few minutes later a sheet-covered gurney took Dwayne away. Jane noticed that Errol made a point of standing in front of Livvy, blocking her view, as this terrible departure took place. He was a very considerate young man.
Jane went to the side room, tapped on the door, and handed the reports over to Mel. "I've read a bunch of them. Practically nobody agrees on anything.”
Mel wasn't surprised. "We do a public service class from time to time to show people how the law enforcement agencies work," he said. "In one of the sessions, the attendees are warned that a fake argument will take place during the hour and they are to observe closely. Later a man and woman enter the room, squabbling, and he drags her out the other door. When the attendees write up their impressions, they're almost always way, way wrong. Wrong color hair, heights, weights, clothing. And they've been told it was going to happen and to observe closely."
“Then what's the point of the reports here?" Jane asked.
“First, to get an impression of the people writing them…"
“That certainly works."
“And sometimes they get things right, if you're patient enough to piece them all together.”
“Good luck," Jane told him.
Shelley had been helping clear the tables, picking up glasses, dishes, ashtrays, and silverware and taking them to the kitchen. Now she joined Jane.
“We should pack up the gifts," she said.
“The police are using the room to interview people," Jane said.
“Yes, I know that, Jane. That's why I made the suggestion."
“You think they'd let us eavesdrop?" Jane asked.
“Maybe. If we were very quiet and very busy and didn't appear to be listening."
“There's nothing to lose by trying," Jane said.
They went to the door with armloads of boxes. Jane banged on the door with her elbow. "May we leave these in here?" she asked when Mel opened the door.
He grinned. "Just leave them?"
“Well, pack a few things, maybe," Jane said with a straight face.
Jane could see Kitty sitting on one of the rental chairs, twisting a handkerchief in her hands as John Smith sat across from her, asking questions.
“I told you already. Over and over," Kitty was saying in a weak, tear-ravaged voice. "You ought to be talking to Livvy instead of me. I only came in here to look at the cake. I saw Dwayne lying on the floor. I thought he'd had too much to drink and passed out or something and went to him. Then I saw the knife and I pulled it out. I wasn't thinking. I guess something told me I could make it better that way. It was stupid, I know…"
“We'll move to another room pretty soon, Jane. Just leave the boxes by the door," Mel said.
“Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained," Shelley said with a shrug.
“Don't you hate it when trite things are true?" Jane commented, unloading her boxes onto the floor.
The p
hone rang and Jane, who was closest to it, picked it up reluctantly. "Thatcher Lodge," she said.
A harried-sounding voice came over the line. "Yes, she's here," Jane said, "but she's not able to come to the phone right now. May I take a message?" Jane listened for a moment, perplexed, then started making frantic "pencil and paper" motions at Shelley.
“I'm sorry. I'm not authorized to give that information without permission. Let me call you back in a moment.”
She scribbled a woman's name, a newspaper name, and a telephone number, and said, "I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
“A reporter?" Shelley sneered.
“Not exactly," Jane said, staring at the paper. "The society editor of a Chicago paper. Wanting to confirm a wedding announcement."
“I thought you'd already taken care of that," Shelley said.
“I have. It's to appear this Sunday in a different paper. And with a different bride."
“What on earth are you talking about?"
“The editor wanted to confirm the details and spelling of the names of the bride and groom: Katherine Louise Wilson and Dwayne Hessling."
“What? Who's this Katherine person?"
“Kitty."
“Oh, Jane, they just mixed up the bridesmaid with the bride.”
Jane shook her head. "No, Shelley. I was in charge of the announcements and I never turned one in to this paper. Somebody else mixed up who was the bridesmaid and who was the bride at this wedding.”
Twenty-one
Jane knocked on the door of the side room again. This time Mel looked distinctly cranky. "What now?" he asked, stepping through the doorway and closing the door.
“I've learned something you really should know.”
He didn't look heavenward, but it was a near thing. "Okay, let me have it," he said.
But when Jane was through explaining about the phone call, he lost his impatience. "You're certain you didn't call this in wrong?"
“It's just a little local suburban paper. Almost a shopper. I had no reason to contact them." She gave him the name of the newspaper. "Nobody there would be interested."
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