7 Brides for 7 Bodies

by Stephanie Bond

  “Ugh—you are definitely your father’s daughter, Carlotta.”

  She bit down on the inside of her cheek—she couldn’t exactly deny that truth.

  Tracey sniffed and gestured to Hannah’s outfit and grooming with a little wave of begrudged approval. “At least you’re not still hanging out with that horrid Goth woman.”

  Carlotta winced and waited.

  Hannah crossed her arms. “It’s me.” She pulled down the collar of the designer dress for a glimpse of the tattooed skin it covered.

  Tracey blinked. “Oh. You look...different.”

  “Yeah. Hey, I couldn’t help but notice your tee shirt. You work out at Turbo City?”

  Tracey gave them a little smile. “That’s right. Iris and I were doing a hot yoga class when she got the call, poor girl.”

  “Yeah, well, if you decide you really want to get rid of that huge ass,” Hannah said, “you should try Foster’s Crossfit.”

  Tracey’s mouth tightened into a knot. “I’m going to check on my friend, who just lost the love of her life.”

  “Our condolences,” Carlotta murmured. When Tracey walked away, Carlotta sent Hannah a withering glance.

  Hannah shrugged. “What? You hate her, too.”

  But Carlotta remembered that in another place, another time, she and Tracey would’ve been friends. It was disconcerting.

  She held up her finger to her lips, then quietly moved to stand at the end of the hallway, her back against the wall, to listen to the conversation in the living room.

  From the sound of things, Tracey had supplied Iris with a valium—a strange essential for one’s workout bag, Carlotta noted wryly. Iris certainly sounded more calm as she clarified to the officer that she and Greg Pena had been dating for two years, engaged for one, and were in the thick of planning their upcoming nuptials.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do now,” she said tearfully.

  “Be strong,” Tracey coached her. “You’ll get through this.”

  But Carlotta knew what Tracey was thinking—that Iris might as well kiss goodbye the deposits she’d paid to the caterer, florist, and band.

  Officer Merritt was explaining to Iris a neighbor had found Mr. Pena.

  “Which neighbor?” Iris asked, her voice abrupt.

  Carlotta frowned—why did that matter?

  A rustle of paper sounded—the officer checking his notes?

  “That would be Ms. Emma Weatherly,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Anyway, like I said, she heard Mr. Pena’s dog barking and she thought something was wrong, so she came in—”

  “How did she get in?”

  Was that suspicion in Iris’s voice?

  “Er...she said the door was open, ma’am.”

  “So you think he fell and hit his head, and that’s what killed him?”

  The cop must’ve deferred to Coop because he said, “We’re not sure how he fell, ma’am. But yes, there’s a head injury.”

  “He probably tripped on that nasty little dog—she was always underfoot.”

  Carlotta blinked. Iris Kline was obviously not fond on her fiancé’s pet.

  “Meanwhile,” Coop said, “can you help Officer Merritt with the names of the next of kin, and the name of Mr. Pena’s employer?”

  When Iris started haltingly listing names, Carlotta backtracked to the bathroom and veered into an adjacent room—a bedroom. The door was ajar and a light was on. She stepped inside and scanned the room.

  Greg Pena was a neatnik, which she guessed wasn’t wholly unusual...but how many men made their bed, then turned down the covers at an angle? Unless he worked for the Marriott, that struck her as strange. She’d thought he was getting dressed to go out, but what if he was expecting someone for a rendezvous? Not Iris, though, since she’d been busy sweating with Tracey.

  “Lose something?”

  She startled guiltily and looked up to find Coop standing in the doorway wearing a disapproving expression.

  She gave him a magnanimous smile. “I was just making sure Mr. Pena didn’t have anything on display that might upset his fiancée—you know, pictures of other women, that kind of thing.”

  He angled his head. “But that’s really none of our business, is it?”

  “No,” she agreed. “His death just seems so random, like there should be an explanation for what happened.”

  “The M.E. will find an explanation, although it probably will be less exciting than the version running through your pretty head.”

  She made a face. “Where is the fiancée?”

  “I talked her into going with Officer Merritt to assist with notifying the family.”

  “What about her friend?”

  “She left, too, but told me to tell you she’d miss seeing you at the country club. What’s that all about?”

  Carlotta’s cheeks warmed. “Tracey’s way of reminding me I don’t belong in her social circle.”

  “I figured Peter’s name and money granted you entrance anywhere in the city.”

  She shifted foot to foot. “Um...Peter and I are taking a little break.”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “Really? Does this have something to do with your father being back?”

  She sighed. “Doesn’t everything have something to do with Randolph?”

  “Have you and Wes talked to him?”

  “Not yet. Soon, I hope.”

  He nodded, acknowledging it wasn’t the place to discuss Randolph. “I see you’re back to work?”

  “Sort of. I’m working the Wedding World Expo this week.”

  “Sound frightening.”

  She laughed. “I don’t scare easily.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “We’d better get this job done before someone else shows up.”

  “Right.”

  “But...” He held open the door for her, then lowered his voice. “What’s with this new side of Hannah?”

  Carlotta gave a little laugh. “Apparently, she’s been living a double-life. Her family is wealthy and well-bred. I caught her red-handed today, hobnobbing and conducting herself like a true southern belle, so the jig is up.”

  He pursed his mouth. “Hm...you think you know people.”

  “I know, right? Just like maybe Iris Kline didn’t really know her fiancé. Maybe there’s something else going on here.”

  He wagged his finger. “Don’t, Carlotta. I have new responsibilities at the morgue, and I don’t have time to go on wild goose chases...even for you.”

  She smiled. “What new responsibilities?”

  “Just helping out until a new chief M.E. is brought on.”

  Carlotta’s spirits were buoyed by the fact that Coop was being folded back into the M.E. community, even if only temporarily. He didn’t talk about it much, but she knew he missed the challenge of heading up the morgue.

  But as she followed him back through the hallway, her mind spun with vague frustration. First a young man had died on the runway for no obvious reason. And now another man was dead, his passing equally senseless. There was no obvious connection between the two young men. A wry smile pulled at her mouth—except for the fact they were both about to be married.

  Then Patricia’s comment came back to her. Bodies seem to turn up wherever you are.

  Carlotta sighed—Jack was right, and so was Coop. The men’s deaths were sad and untimely, but not sinister. In fact, so far the only connection between them was her. And that said a lot more about her life than it said about their deaths.

  Chapter Fourteen

  WES SLIPPED OUT HIS BEDROOM DOOR and into the hall, his ear piqued for activity. Carlotta’s bedroom door was closed, so hopefully she was still sleeping this Saturday morning. He didn’t want to have a conversation with her until he could sift through things that were doing figure-eights in his head...like the thing with Liz and the baby...and the thing with Mouse and the headless corpse...and what he was going to do about Meg.

  So far, he’d managed t
o avoid Carlotta by coming in late and feigning sleep when she poked her head inside his room to check on him. Guilt pinged at him. Not being able to see their dad was probably driving her crazy. He knew he should be there for her, but his sister could read him like a road sign, and he didn’t want to add to her stress load.

  So when he heard sounds coming from the kitchen, he winced and wondered if he could get out the front door without triggering the security alarm sensor.

  As he tiptoed across the living room, his gaze automatically went to the forlorn little metallic Christmas tree in the corner. His chest welled in vindication that he’d insisted they leave the tree up until their family reunited. At least when their father came home, he would see proof of how much Wes had believed he would return.

  But with the messes he’d created for himself personally and professionally, what would Randolph think of his son otherwise?

  “Good morning, stranger.”

  At the sound of Carlotta’s voice, Wes’s hand stalled on the doorknob. He turned around to find her standing there fully dressed and holding a vase of cut flowers.

  “Good morning,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t know you were up.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Where are you headed so early?”

  “I’m meeting Chance for breakfast.”

  She frowned. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Not really—”

  “Good, because I’m taking these to Mrs. Winningham, and they’re heavier than I expected.”

  At the flash of pain on her face, he remembered her injured shoulder and reached to take the vase. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, then rubbed her arm. “It’s fine. I just overdid it yesterday.”

  “Is the wedding convention thing still going on?”

  “Uh-huh, through Wednesday,” she said as she moved to open the front door.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Dad?”

  “No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Jack keeps telling me to be patient, but it’s hard.”

  “Liz says the same thing.”

  Carlotta’s mouth tightened as if she had just imagined biting the woman, so Wesley thought it best to change the subject. “What are the flowers for?”

  “A peace offering to help make up for the fact that the serial killer who came after me chloroformed Mrs. Winningham first.”

  Wes scoffed as he walked out on the stoop. “That wasn’t your fault.”

  Carlotta followed him down the steps. “It kind of was since I lured him here.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Still...she’s upset and I feel as if I should make some gesture.”

  “If my hands weren’t full, I could make a gesture,” he muttered.

  “Shh...there she is.”

  He looked up to see Mrs. Winningham standing on the other side of the fence she had erected to keep her fugly dog Toofers in her yard...and to keep the Wrens and their crabgrass out.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Winningham,” Carlotta called with a wave.

  The woman straightened and pulled at the neck of the blue terrycloth robe she wore. Her hair was a helmet of sponge curlers. She was watching Toofers do his business, standing ready with a plastic bag to remove little turds as soon as they hit her precious zoysia grass.

  Mrs. Winningham glared at the intrusion. “What do you two want?”

  “We brought you flowers,” Carlotta said, then nudged him.

  He dutifully lifted the vase of flowers over the fence so she could see them. And so if she said something mean, he could simply dump them on the zoysia.

  But to his surprise, the woman blinked and visibly softened. “For me?” She made a beeline for the fence, her pooch’s poop forgotten.

  Wes marveled over the effect a wad of flowers had on women. He’d taken Carlotta’s advice the last time he screwed things up with Meg and bought her a seven-dollar bouquet at a corner stand. She’d acted as if he’d grown and harvested the things himself. He vividly recalled the way she’d removed one bloom and put it in her honey-colored hair, just as sexy as you please.

  Remembered images might be all of Meg he would ever have, because an entire hothouse of roses wouldn’t help his cause once he told Meg another woman was having his baby.

  “Wesley and I feel so bad about what happened to you, Mrs. Winningham,” Carlotta said. “We just want you to know we’re sorry.” She kicked Wesley.

  He grunted as the curlered woman took the vase from his hands. “Right. We’re sorry a maniac terrorized you before he tried to murder Carlotta.”

  Carlotta kicked him again. “Anyway, we hope you like them.”

  “I’m allergic to daisies,” their neighbor said primly, and began to pluck the offending flowers from the arrangement. She passed the handful of dripping allergens back to Carlotta. “And I don’t care for the vase.” After removing the picked-over flowers from the unlikable container, she handed it over the fence. “Thank you.”

  Carlotta gave her a little smile. “You’re welcome.”

  Mrs. Winningham sniffed. “I read in the newspaper that your renegade father was taken into custody.”

  Since Carlotta seemed to be struck mute, Wesley piped up. “That’s right.”

  “Will he be coming back here to live with you?”

  He lifted his chin. “That’s the plan.”

  The woman surveyed them both with a critical gaze. “I have something to say about that.”

  Wesley shifted, ready to defend his father, but Carlotta put her hand on his arm.

  “I will be glad to have him back,” Mrs. Winningham finished.

  Wes blinked. “You will?”

  “Yes. Your father always kept his yard looking very nice.” And with that, she turned around and called for Toofers to follow her inside.

  He gave a little laugh. “That was unexpected.”

  But Carlotta’s hand tightened painfully on his arm.

  “Ow. Listen, I need to get going—”

  “Wes.” Her eyes were wide. “I just remembered something Dad told me before he was arrested.”

  She had his full attention. “What?”

  “He said he’d taken care of the fire ants.”

  He frowned. “The fire ants in our yard?”

  “Right...the ones Mrs. Winningham complained about, then later thanked me for taking care of.”

  “You thought I got rid of them, but I’d forgotten about it.”

  She nodded. “So then I thought Michael Lane had done it when he—”

  “Secretly moved in with us?” Wes cut in dryly.

  “Right.” She put her hand to her forehead. “But just before Jack took him away, Randolph said he’d been trying to do little things to help us, like taking care of the fire ants.”

  Wes couldn’t stop the grin that spread over his face. “That means he was monitoring the listening device we found in the kitchen from nearby, and not just when you were in trouble, but for a while.”

  “But from where—a parked vehicle?” She shot a glance toward the busy street at the end of their driveway. “God knows we’ve had enough strange vehicles stalking us lately that he could’ve gone unnoticed.”

  A guilty pang struck Wes—between the loan sharks dogging him and the private investigator Meg’s father had put on his tail, he could take credit for the recent traffic jam on their driveway. Then he frowned. “But no one found an abandoned car after Jack took Dad into custody.”

  “That we know of,” she agreed. Although that detail might come up in her Monday morning chat with D.A. Kelvin Lucas.

  “But driving around to monitor the townhome seems kind of random, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so,” she agreed. “So maybe he could’ve been in a hotel room?”

  He mentally mapped the handful of hotels in the vicinity. “Could be. Or maybe he rented an apartment?”

  “Or a house,” Carlotta added.

  Wes’s heart rate picked up as this mind leapfrogged ahead. “He
and Mom could be living in this neighborhood!”

  Their gazes locked and in tandem they turned and looked in the direction of the house on the other side of their townhome.

  Quiet, unassuming...convenient.

  Wes wet his lips as a preposterous idea bloomed in his brain. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Carlotta hesitated, then shook her head. “Wes...that’s impossible.”

  But adrenaline began to drip into his bloodstream. “Humor me. When did the gay couple move in?”

  “About five years ago.”

  “And you’ve never met them?”

  “No. I always meant to introduce myself, but...they seemed stand-offish.”

  “So they’re avoiding you?”

  Carlotta scoffed. “Maybe they don’t want to mix with the next door neighbors who have drive-by shootings and police chaperones.”

  He ignored her. “They work from home, right?”

  “I just assumed so because of all the deliveries they receive.”

  “Have you ever seen them outside, doing chores or mowing their yard?”

  “They have a lawn service.”

  “As if they don’t want to be seen.”

  “Or as if they don’t own a lawn mower.”

  He ignored her, then gestured toward the sun room the furtive neighbors had added to the back of their small house. “The addition...”

  “Infuriated Mrs. Winningham because it blocked her view,” Carlotta offered.

  “And gave the occupants a great view of our house from all angles.”

  But Carlotta still looked dubious. “That’s a stretch, don’t you think?”

  “How many times have you actually seen someone come and go from that house?” he demanded.

  Carlotta shrugged. “Maybe a handful of times.”

  “And they’ve never spoken to you?”

  “No. It was always a quick glance, maybe a wave.” Then she frowned. “Or maybe I waved. But Wes, it’s a gay couple. Two men.”

  “Maybe one of them just looked like a man.”

  Her head came up. “You mean one of them could be Mom in disguise?”

  “You tell me—you’re the one who crashed your own funeral in a getup so good no one recognized you.”

  “Except Dad,” she conceded.