I looked back at Candace. “You probably don’t like the h, e, double-hockey-sticks word either, huh?”
“It’s okay, Erica,” Candace said. “I get what you’re trying to say and thank you.”
“Does that mean you’ll try out the screw—I mean, the attitude?”
She shrugged sweetly. “I’ll try.”
“Not the conviction I was looking for.”
Suddenly she was hugging me. “Thanks again, Erica.” She got to her feet. “I’ll try for you, okay?”
“Don’t do it for me. Do it for…” She was already headed for the stairs. She looked back at me and smiled, but those dimples were definitely at half-depth.
“From now on OLS is strictly crime. No more weddings,” Freddie said, coming up to me. “Am I right?”
“So right.”
Chapter Forty-three
I woke up pretty early the morning of the day before the wedding—wedding eve, I guess. There was too much on my mind for sleep. There was too much on my mind for anything really. It was going to be a miracle if Freddie and I pulled this off. I knew that at the end of the day, all that should matter was that Candace and Joey loved each other—not whether napkins were folded just so into little swans. But for someone who wasn’t that into weddings, I really did want them folded just so. Like really, really wanted that.
And I suppose I should have been happy that someone was in jail for Lyssa’s murder. Freddie had called over to the sheriff’s department, and Justin had been charged after all. I guess there had been enough time for Justin to follow Tommy and then go back to the gazebo, but it still wasn’t sitting right with me.
I pulled on some clothes and headed toward the kitchen. Maybe some coffee would help get me in a more festive mood or—
I spotted the top of Zaki’s head on the other side of the common room window. He was meditating on the porch again.
Hmm, here I was struggling with all sorts of conflicting feelings and overwhelming stress … and there was the guru who was dating my mom sitting on my front porch. How many people could say that? I didn’t want to bother him though. I mean, yes, he had invited me to meditate with him before, but that didn’t mean he wanted to meditate with me now. Hard to say what the etiquette was on this. Then again he should be trying to impress me.
I padded my way over to the door and peeked my head out.
He didn’t open his eyes.
I cleared my throat.
Still nothing.
“Hey Zaki.”
He still didn’t open his eyes, but he did say, “Good morning, Erica,” with just a tiny little smile.
“Morning.”
“Would you like to join me?”
I scurried outside and grabbed the extra mat. “Don’t mind if I do.” I sat in front of him and crossed my legs. He looked so serene. I wanted me some of that.
I adjusted my position a little bit and closed my eyes.
I lasted about twenty seconds before I said, “I always feel like I’m doing this wrong.”
“You cannot do meditation wrong,” Zaki said. “That is why we call it a practice. The skill is never completely mastered. The act of trying is the ability itself.”
“Cool,” I said.
We were quiet again. For about twenty more seconds.
“It’s just I’ve never been able to quiet my mind. Like not even for a second.”
Zaki opened his eyes. “Perhaps you would like to talk about what it is that’s bothering you before you meditate.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
“I have a lot of things that are bothering me actually. Number one, I think the police have arrested the wrong person for a murder that happened in town. You probably heard about it.”
“You feel as though it is your job to fix this mistake.”
“I do.” Seeing as Freddie and I had trapped Justin in the first place.
He nodded.
“I mean, I know it’s not my job to fix everything … but I kind of feel like it is. It really bothers me when people I care about are suffering.”
He nodded again.
“I’m also kind of worried that Freddie and I won’t be able to pull off this wedding tomorrow. At least not in a way that the bride deserves.”
Again with the nod.
“And while we’re talking about what brides deserve, I’m not sure if I’m being honest with myself about why I’m so uncomfortable with weddings in general. I’ve been saying it’s because of all the stress, but I don’t know … it’s like I have always just thought weddings weren’t meant for people like me.”
Still no words from him.
“And I’ve got to know … that message card you gave me,” I said, “why was it blank? Like why give me one at all? Were they all just random like Look at this inkblot. What do you see? A flattened frog? Or your first-grade teacher lighting fire to the school?”
He smiled and looked like he was about to answer right away, but then needed a moment to process that last part. “All questions are individual. How can they be anything but? Although your mother and I agreed that if she had a part in your question it would influence the reading of it.”
I nodded. “You are wise, Guru.”
“Zaki, please.”
“Everyone refers to you as Guru though.”
“That … was a marketing decision.”
I smiled. “A guru’s got to eat.”
He smiled back at me. “I don’t have all the answers, Erica. I will always be a student. Your mother and I have that belief in common.”
I nodded. I kind of wanted to ask him what his intentions toward my mother were at that point, but seeing as I didn’t know hers, I thought I’d better leave it alone. “But I kind of want to know while I’m still single.”
“Then that is your question.”
“But I don’t know the answer. That’s what I’m saying.” I mean, I think my mother had a point about Freddie and me shielding ourselves from asking the hard questions, but I didn’t want to be shielded any more.
“The beauty of meditation,” Zaki said, “is that by releasing our thoughts, new possibilities arise. Would you like to try again?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I will be able to do it.”
“Again, the doing is in the practice, and I promise none of your problems will disappear if you leave them unattended for a little while.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
I tried. I really did. But despite what Zaki said about the trying being the actual practice, I was still pretty sure I wasn’t doing it right. Lots of thoughts popped in and out of my consciousness, but every time one came to my attention, I did my best to release it. Whatever that meant. I also tried the whole “focusing on my breathing and nothing else” technique too, but every time I did that I suddenly felt like I was breathing funny, and then I would wonder why I was breathing so funny and then how it was that our brains knew how to make us breathe without even thinking about it, and our hearts beat for that matter and—
Let it go.
I took another deep breath.
I am thinking nothing. I am thinking nothing. Nope, I was totally thinking about the wedding and whether or not Freddie had told Big Don when the reception dinner was supposed to be. Yup, he had agreed to provide some meat options for the guests, and my mother’s caterers were going to supply the vegan options. This place was turning into quite the moneymaker for them. I hadn’t decided what I was going to hav—
Let it go.
Hey, it’s just like the Disney song “Let It—
Let it go.
We also really had to get one rehearsal in. Everybody needed to know where to stand. And we had to settle on a spot for the wedding arbor. We needed to find a pretty even spot of ground for all the chairs, and a path for Candace to walk down. At least she had her father to—
Her father to walk her down the aisle.
Hey, maybe that was why I wasn’t into
traditional weddings? I had never had a traditional family and—
Let it go.
And we needed to make sure we had rented enough chairs. It was possible some of the women for the retreat would want to watch the ceremony, so I still had to ask Candace if that was okay with her. It might be weird to be gawked at by a bunch of strangers. It might be good for Eeyore—I mean Mary—to see the wedding though. Cheer her up a little. Or not. A couple of weeks was not a long time to get over the death of the love of your life.
My breath caught.
No … a couple of weeks was not a long time at all to deal with a death like that … then sign up for a retreat?
That was actually kind of weird.
Really weird.
Why would Mary, in the depths of grief, sign up for a retreat asking the question Why am I still single? She already knew the answer to that question. And she really didn’t seem interested in participating in any of the sessions I had witnessed. Unless …
My eyes popped open and I jumped to my feet.
“Erica, are you all right?” Zaki asked, also getting up.
“I’m not. I’m—”
Just then my mother opened the door. “There you two are. Erica, what a nice surprise to—”
“Mom, when did Mary arrive at the retreat? Did she come with a group or—”
“No, no. She was by herself. First to arrive. Red brought her over.”
I put a hand to my head. I just realized something else that was very strange. Mary was always wearing a white shirt and a pair of khakis. I think maybe the exact same ones. Every day. I had thought she was depressed, but—
“What’s going on, guys?” Freddie asked, coming outside too with a mug in his hand. He had stayed the night so that we could get an early start—it didn’t matter. None of it mattered except—
“Mom, which cabin is Mary staying in?”
“Number seven, I think. Erica, what is going on?”
I couldn’t answer. I just jumped off the porch and headed down the gravel path that led to the cabins. Lyssa had been dating someone for money. Someone that she had gotten a lot of money from. What if … what if it was Mary’s Frank? It was crazy … but the timing. It just didn’t make sense that Mary was here.
I broke out into a run. I ran all the way to the cabin. Everyone shouting behind me.
I knocked on the door. A woman I didn’t recognize answered.
“Is Mary here?”
“No,” the woman said, shaking her head. “She got up early. Said she was going to the lake.”
My eyes scanned the room. Oh God … windbreaker! It was the windbreaker on the bed.
My head whipped around. Freddie had caught up with me.
I ran back toward the lodge shouting, “Mom, I need you to call the sheriff’s department. Tell them to get over here.”
“But Erica—”
“Just do it! It’s an emergency.”
I kept moving to the steps that led down to the lake.
“Erica?” Freddie called out, panting. “What is going on?”
“It was Mary. Mary killed Lyssa.”
Chapter Forty-four
“Hurry,” I said, pushing at Freddie’s back. He had gotten to the log steps that led down to the lake before me. The mist was still clinging to the water with the sun still low in the sky.
I couldn’t believe it. I never once … it had never even occurred to me …
I had believed her. I had felt so incredibly sorry for her. It didn’t make sense. But it did if Frank was the man that Lyssa had … what? Did she swindle him? And Mary knew? Oh God … maybe that brought on his heart attack.
If I was right …
“Freddie, we can’t let her get away,” I mumbled, watching my footing.
“She’s not…” Freddie had stopped at the bottom of the log steps. I came up behind him. “I don’t think she’s trying to get away.”
I froze.
No, it didn’t look like she was trying to get away at all.
Mary was sitting in the canoe with her back to us not moving.
Freddie and I walked slowly toward the dock.
“Mary?”
She didn’t turn.
I moved closer. “Mary?”
“The money’s gone, isn’t it?” she said in a flat voice.
I slowly walked down the dock until I was at her side then lowered myself to my knees. Freddie joined me. “The police have it.”
She nodded. “I wasn’t trying to take the money for me. It was for Frank’s daughter.”
“What … what are you doing out here?” Freddie asked.
“I think I was going to paddle out to the middle of the lake and then just…” She looked at me then, eyes empty.
“What happened?” I asked.
She didn’t answer at first. The only sound was the water lapping gently against the side of the canoe.
“I never meant to…” Mary looked down at her hands. “I didn’t know she existed until after Frank died. He never told me. I think he might have been embarrassed.” She looked up at the distant treeline, barely visible in the mist. “His daughter, though, at the funeral, she told me Frank had been dating this … gold digger. That she had cleaned him out. That money was for Frank’s daughter’s college.”
I felt my shoulders drop. So it was … what I had thought. You’d think there would be relief in that, but there wasn’t.
“I kind of lost it a little bit after that,” she said, looking back at her hands and nodding. “Got every bit of information I could on who this woman was. She told Frank so many lies. Didn’t even use her real name, but I found her. She was on a Web site. For sugar babies.”
“Oh man,” Freddie said.
“Younger women wanting to date rich older men? I still don’t believe that’s how she met Frank. It must have been some other way.” She shook her head. “But maybe he was that lonely? I don’t know. And I guess it doesn’t matter now.” She took a long breath. “I contacted her. Tried to pretend I was a man interested in meeting her, but she said she was leaving town. I was desperate then. I don’t know what I was desperate for—why I wanted to see her—but I knew I had to. Maybe make her understand that that money Frank had given her … it had to be a loan. He never would have taken that money from his daughter. She meant everything to him. It just wasn’t right,” she said, looking at me. “None of it. It wasn’t right that he was dead, it wasn’t right that she didn’t care, and it wasn’t right that the last thing he would have wanted to give his daughter was gone.”
Mary clenched her hands together, knuckles white.
“So I went to the bus station. I thought there was no way … the odds were completely against me finding her, but I went anyway, and she just walked in.” Mary shook her head like she still couldn’t believe it.
“Did you talk to her?” I asked.
“No. I just followed her. Bought the same ticket she did. Then got on the bus. She never once noticed me. Never once looked at me. I followed her all the way here. Bought clothes at one of the rest stops. And when we finally got here, I watched her meet up with your friend, and I followed them. I waited down the road from her house. Then I watched her go to the party. I could see her through the window, riding that bull. Having the time of her life.” She again looked up at me as though I could explain to her how that could be. “After that I watched her go with that man to the gazebo. Frank was dead, and she was … hooking up. None of it mattered to her. The man who meant everything to me, meant less than nothing to her. My world had been split open … and she just carried on. I just couldn’t…” She shook her head.
I dug the heel of my palm into my chest. For a moment there, I had gotten just the tiniest taste of her sadness, and it was enough to make it difficult to breathe.
“What happened?” Freddie asked.
“I waited. The man left, and I went to the gazebo.” She shrugged. “Do you know what she told me?”
I shook my head.
“She r
ecognized my name and laughed. She told me that Frank had always loved me, but thought I only liked him as a friend. But that when she came into Frank’s life, it all made sense to him. That things happened for a reason. He believed that we,” she said, patting her chest, “didn’t get together because he was meant to be with her. With her?”
Part of me wanted to tell her I was sorry, sorry for her pain, but I couldn’t. Not when …
“I didn’t mean for her to fall into the water. But suddenly she was. I don’t even remember pushing her. I just remember watching as she struggled and—” She shook her head. “The next morning, I was just sitting on a bench in town when this man asked if I was headed for the retreat.”
That must have been Red.
“I said yes, and…” She shrugged. “At first I was in shock, but I thought maybe I could still find the money. Get it to Frank’s daughter. It was the only thing I could still do for him.”
She must have been the one taking the canoes. Going to Candace’s …
“Maybe don’t say anything more to anyone yet,” Freddie said. “You need a lawyer.”
“And you need to turn yourself in.”
* * *
Mary did turn herself in.
Didn’t make any of us feel any better though.
The rest of the day had a brutally somber feel to it. I couldn’t bear to tell Candace the whole story Mary had told us about Lyssa. I just told her that she had been arrested and that yes, we were sure she was the one behind Lyssa’s death. It was enough for now.
After Mary had been taken away, Freddie and I just set about getting down to the business of the wedding—not saying a whole lot. Normally we felt pretty awesome when we solved a case, but this didn’t feel good at all. It’s not that I felt Mary should go free, but … it just all felt wrong. And sad. Really, really sad.
On the bright side, the wedding was really coming together. The tent for the reception turned out better than we had hoped. It was beautiful—big, white, elegant. And we had found the perfect spot for the arbor—right in front of a little clearing in the trees that allowed for a view of the lake. We decided not to set up the chairs until the morning though. The weather was supposed to be good, so I didn’t think they would blow away, but I was concerned about the amount of bird poop we might find on them if we left them out.
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