by Elaine Viets
“Stacey, you don’t have any hips!” Helen snapped.
Stacey’s sunny little face clouded.
“I mean, you’re lucky to be so thin,” Helen said. “Most brides would kill to be as slender as you.” The rest would be treated for anorexia.
Stacey’s smile returned. She bought the dress. But Helen’s patience was shredded. She was tired of hearing: “My butt’s too big.” “My gut sticks out.” “I have cellulite on my thighs.”
Each statement was pronounced in the tragic tones usually reserved for, “I have terminal cancer.”
What irritated Helen was that these young women didn’t have an ounce of extra fat. They were model thin, with thick glossy hair and sweet, firm skin. But they didn’t appreciate their natural gifts. They also didn’t realize how soon those gifts would be gone.
Helen wanted to strip off her clothes and say, “This is cellulite, sweetie. This is fat. In twenty years, you’ll look like me—if you’re lucky. Most women my age look even worse.”
Stacey barely had her nonfat thighs out the door before Helen had the celadon affair.
Lindsey, a fragile redhead, came in to inspect her celadon bridesmaid dresses. Celadon looked like plain old celery green to Helen, but two-thousand-dollar dresses couldn’t be the color of a common vegetable.
Helen thought the pale green dresses would look like an Impressionist’s dream on Lindsey’s redheaded sisters and cousins. She expected the bride to go into raptures.
Instead, Lindsey fished two pale green carpet fibers out of a miniature purse. They looked like something the police picked up with tweezers at Kiki’s crime scene.
The bride put the two fibers against the celadon dresses. Her rosebud mouth turned down. “They don’t match,” she wailed.
“They don’t?” Helen squinted at the carpet bits. She could hardly see them.
“The color scheme is wrong, wrong, wrong,” the bride cried. “The dresses are supposed to match the hotel carpet exactly.”
Helen saw Lindsey sneaking into the hotel and snip-ping off the carpet fibers. She wondered if the rug had other bridal-induced bald spots.
“My whole color scheme depends on this.” Lindsey sounded desperate. “The dresses have to match the carpet and the carpet has to match the chair covers.”
Privileged brides rented chair covers so their guests wouldn’t see the naked metal legs.
“Everything is ruined.” Two tears ran down Lindsey’s unlined face. “We’ll have to send back the dresses.”
Helen saw an ugly shade of red. No way, missy, she thought. You’ll take those celery dresses if I have to chop them up and feed them to you. Helen summoned the last of her sanity and said, “Let me get Millicent.”
Millicent was hauling white gowns out of brown boxes in the back room.
“Another crisis,” Helen said. “Lindsey is crying because the dresses don’t match the carpet. I can’t believe anyone would make an issue out of something so stupid.”
“Helen, take a deep breath,” Millicent said. “I know it seems trivial to you, but it’s vital to her. I’ll handle this.” She ran her hands through her white hair, adjusted her black suit, and headed out to the salon floor.
“Lindsey, darling,” Millicent said. “Please don’t tell me you want an exact match. That’s so Kmart.”
Lindsey’s green eyes widened in horror. Helen could see the flashing blue lights.
“You want something in the same color family, but it should be at least two shades off.” Millicent picked up a celadon dress. “This is perfect, like everything else in your wedding. Now have your bridesmaids call me for their fittings.”
Lindsey put the fibers up against the dresses again.
“See?” Millicent said. “Two shades. Precisely.”
Lindsey sniffled. “You’ve saved my wedding.” “That’s my job, darling.” Millicent hugged her good-bye.
“Move over Henry Kissinger,” Helen said. “If you were in the diplomatic corps, we’d have peace in the Middle East.”
“World peace is not as important as celadon dresses,” Millicent said. “I’m unpacking stock in the back. Watch the store.”
The shop was blessedly empty. Helen sank down in the pink chair. She was tired of the problems of people who had no problems. “Who cares?” she wanted to shout at the brides. “In twenty years, you’ll be divorced, anyway.”
Like me, she thought. Had she ever shed tears over wedding trifles? She vaguely remembered some flap over baby’s breath and daisies. But it was almost two decades since she’d married Rob. She’d cried a river since then.
The doorbell rang. Helen saw a woman of about forty sporting a plum-sized stone on her left hand. Hallelujah! A mature bride. They were usually easier to deal with. This one turned out to be a doctor with good sense and good money.
Helen soon had the doctor bride in the fitting room with three gowns. Millicent was measuring another bride’s train. The doorbell rang again. It was Nora, a nervous mother of the bride.
“Have a seat, Nora, and I’ll be right out with your dress,” Millicent said.
But Nora didn’t sit. She slipped by Helen and Millicent and found her dress in the back. She tried it on by herself in an empty fitting room. Millicent never let a woman alone with a salon mirror and her own insecurities. Now Helen saw why.
Nora stumbled out wearing fuzzy-ball tennis socks and a five-thousand-dollar red gown. She stood in the salon shrieking: “It’s too big. I hate it. My husband will hate it. It’s a disaster.”
Tears flowed. Makeup ran. Millicent charged out. “Nora, sweetie, it’s not a disaster. It’s a minor alteration. I know my business. I ordered it a little big because you’re so well-endowed. Our seamstress will take it in at no charge.”
“It’s dragging down my chest,” Nora cried.
Mother Nature did that, Helen thought.
“It just needs a little adjustment,” Millicent soothed. “Let me pin it for you. It will be fine. You’ll see.”
Millicent led a sobbing Nora back to the fitting room. In a short time, Helen heard giggles. “You are one hot mama,” Millicent said.
“I love it,” Nora said. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Once again, Millicent had worked her magic. No wonder her hair was snow white.
Helen waited on the next mother of the bride. Rosemary was a tall woman with hair like iron and a backbone of steel. Helen thought Rosemary could walk across the salon with a book balanced on her head.
“I’m supposed to pick out a black dress,” Rosemary said. “I have no say-so in the matter. I’ve been told it’s not my wedding—by my own daughter.”
Helen could see the bitter hurt in the mother’s eyes. “Would you like something strapless or with a sleeve?”
“I don’t know,” Rosemary said. “My daughter’s getting married on the beach. It could be cold. It could rain. I don’t care. It’s not my problem. It’s not my wedding. Oh, hell. Make it sleeveless. If my arms are flabby, who cares? I’m sixty-two.”
Helen sold Rosemary a handsome black knit, but she couldn’t do anything about her hurt feelings.
Simone, the next mother of the bride, was a scrawny face-lifted blonde. “I don’t want to compete with my daughter,” she said, as she picked out a flashy rhinestone number.
Helen translated that as, “I do want to compete with her.”
Poor Simone. She was expertly nipped and tucked, but a fifty-five-year-old could not upstage a woman thirty years younger. Not even if she went to the wedding naked. Especially if she went naked.
Helen sighed. Some women could not let go of their youth, even though it left them long ago. This store didn’t need a salesclerk. It needed a shrink.
Kiki’s murder didn’t surprise her. Helen was amazed every wedding didn’t end with a killing. Family neuroses were painfully exposed, often in the middle of the shop. Right now, Millicent was refereeing a family fight.
The father of the bride was sleek as a panther in black Armani.
The mother of the bride wore matronly blue lace. Mr. Panther curled his lip at the blue lace.
“Are you trying to make me look bad?” he said. “That’s a five-hundred-dollar dress. It looks it.”
“I’m trying to be practical,” the mother of the bride said.
“There’s nothing practical about a reception at the Biltmore,” he said. “We’re having it there because I am successful. My wife must reflect my success. Don’t come out in anything less than two thousand dollars.”
“Come, dear,” Millicent said. “I have something that will look smashing with your hair.”
Helen wondered what it was like to fight with a man because you didn’t spend enough money. Probably like any other fight.
The mother of the bride appeared next in a six-thousand-dollar dress the color of old money. She smiled tentatively.
“That’s more like it,” Mr. Panther said.
Helen hoped they would leave soon. I feel like one big exposed wound, she thought. I’m rubbed raw by other people’s unhappiness. All this money, all these plans, and half these marriages will fail. Just like mine.
But it wasn’t only her unhappiness that haunted Helen. She was afraid. Each day, fear tightened her gut. Each night, it invaded her dreams.
She wondered how much longer the police would be able to ignore the pressure to make an arrest for Kiki’s murder. I’m an easy suspect, she thought. My fingerprints are in all the wrong places. My blood is on the victim’s dress. I had a fight with her the night she died.
Every time the doorbell rang, she expected to see Detectives McIntyre and Smith. If I can’t find the killer, I’m going to jail, she thought. If by some miracle I’m not convicted, my ex and the court will find me, thanks to all the trial publicity. I’ll wind up back in St. Louis. That will be another kind of prison.
So what am I doing to save myself? Spinning my wheels.
Helen had poked around and eliminated Chauncey as the killer—maybe. Jason still seemed a likely suspect, but others were just as good. Helen didn’t know what to do next. She was lost.
My life is hopeless, she thought.
To set the seal on her hopelessness, Cassie came back for the third time that week. Her wedding dress had more viewers than an art museum opening. “I’ve brought my cousin Lila to see my dream dress!!” Cassie’s black curls bobbed cheerfully on her shoulders.
Millicent rolled her eyes.
Helen said, “You’ve already shown it to your mother, your father, both grandmothers, your sister, your aunt, all four bridesmaids, and your best friend.”
“Do you think I should go ahead and buy it?” Cassie said.
“No, I think you should bring in the band and the caterer,” Helen said. “Everyone else has already seen the dress.”
Millicent gasped. Cousin Lila laughed. “Why don’t you get the dress before you wear it out, cuz?” Lila said.
Cassie hesitated, then said the three little words they’d been waiting for: “I’ll take it.”
“Praise the Lord,” Millicent said and grabbed Cassie’s credit card before she changed her mind.
After Cassie left, Millicent said, “I’m splitting the commission with you, Helen. I waited on her first, but you made the sale.”
“I don’t deserve it. I could have wrecked everything. I’m losing my patience. These big weddings set women’s rights back fifty years.”
“Weddings bring out the worst in some women,” Millicent said. “We’ve got Mom trying to recapture her lost youth. She’s afraid of growing old. She believes her daughter’s wedding is the signal her life is over. The bride is crazy, too. Brides become different people—moody, demanding, given to tears and scenes. Even if they’re living with the guy, they’re still nuts. It’s the commitment. Before, they could pack up and leave if something went wrong. They can’t do that if they marry the guy. So they’re scared.
“You’ve got two frightened people, the mother and the daughter, and they can’t comfort each other. And don’t forget Daddy. He has a midlife crisis and boffs his secretary.
“You know what? There’s a reason for all that craziness. It’s nature’s way of getting the bride out of her parents’ house and into her own.”
Helen laughed.
Millicent looked out the shop window. “LaTonya and her mother are coming for her final fitting.”
“At five fifty?” Helen said. “We close at six. I’m not sure I can take another bride.”
“LaTonya isn’t another bride,” Millicent said.
LaTonya was almost as tall as Helen, with flawless dark skin. Her body was big boned and sculpted. She was a preppie princess in pre-law at Harvard.
Her mother, Dorcas, wore a faded pink flowered housedress and plastic thongs. Millicent saw that the bride’s mother had no interest in spending money on herself, but she’d do anything for her darling daughter.
Mom and daughter first went to Millicent’s archrival, Haute Bridal. “They wouldn’t show us a dress,” Dorcas said. “Said my baby girl would be happier here where they had cheaper stuff.”
Dorcas spoke without bitterness. Helen would have picketed the place—or burned it down.
“We bought here because Millicent was so nice,” Dorcas said. “It was the right place to go.”
Dorcas had spent five thousand dollars on LaTonya’s dress and veil. Dorcas’s sister bought a thousand-dollar dress. Her aunt spent seven hundred bucks. Millicent knew Dorcas owned a string of wing-and-chip shops and raked in a million bucks a year. She was also a gospel singer of local renown.
Helen took the bride upstairs to try on her dress for the final time.
“You look tired,” Millicent said to Dorcas. “Sit here in this chair, and we’ll have your daughter come down in her dress. I’ll put on her veil and everything, so you can see the whole effect.”
LaTonya didn’t whine about her thighs, hips, or gut. Helen was grateful for that. She zipped the bride into her dress. Millicent crowned her with a chiffon veil. The white satin dress and brown satin skin were a stunning combination.
Millicent called out, “Here comes the bride.”
LaTonya slowly descended the stairs, her head held high. Her white veil floated like a banner.
“Here comes the bride,” the mother crooned to the traditional tune.
Then her voice swelled and she sang, “I say, here comes the bride, oh Lord, Lord, Lord.” Dorcas turned the tune into a full-throated gospel song.
I say here comes the bride
I am filled with righteous pride.
Thanks be to the Lord, oh yes.
LaTonya gave her mother a dazzling smile.
Millicent had tears in her eyes. “Did you ever see anything so beautiful?” The afternoon’s frustrations were borne away on the mother’s sweet song.
Dorcas dabbed her eyes with a man’s handkerchief. “I’ve been lost all these weeks, worrying about money and details,” she said. “I forgot what this wedding is all about.”
The bride, Helen thought. There would be no wedding without the bride.
There would be no murder without the bride, either. Kiki wanted to upstage her mousy daughter at her own wedding. But Desiree was a mouse with the heart of a wildcat. And her mother was dead.
It was Desiree who demanded to see Helen. It was Desiree who fed her the information about Millicent, then sent Helen off on a wild-goose chase that wasted her time.
Desiree knew something—and she didn’t want Helen to find out what it was.
The bride was the key to this murder.
Chapter 24
Helen walked home from work in the soft twilight. Fort Lauderdale was preparing for its nightly party. Musicians were setting up in the Las Olas restaurants. Sunburned tourists were ordering pitchers of margaritas. Cruise ship passengers wandered aimlessly through the shops.
Everyone had vacation smiles except Helen. She felt tired and sad. There’d been too many emotional scenes at the bridal shop today. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. Sh
e didn’t know why she was crying—and then she did.
She missed Phil. She could see him now, that lean muscular body and those blue denim eyes. She missed his sardonic comments and his sharp intelligence. But most of all, she missed his love. She needed their champagne nights to survive the drudgery of her dead-end job.
With Phil, the Coronado seemed delightfully eccentric. Tonight the place looked seedy. Rust trails dripped from the window air conditioners. The sidewalk was cracked. The purple bougainvillea had dead spots, even after Margery’s pruning.
Helen also missed the comfort of her friends. She wanted to sit out by the pool and sip wine with Peggy and Margery, but both their apartments were dark.
But she wouldn’t go running to Phil. Not as long as his awful ex, Kendra, the Kentucky Songbird, was living with him. Maybe someday Helen could find the courage to forgive him. But not with Kendra gloating in the background. The woman had seen her naked. It was too much to bear.
Helen saw a light on at Phil’s place. Should she peek through his miniblinds?
Why not? She had no pride left after popping up in her black panties.
She crouched down and looked through the slats. Phil’s living room was the same welter of Kendra’s clothes, cereal bowls, and coffee cups. Helen’s stomach turned when she saw a brush bristling with red hair on an open pizza box. A red lace bra sprawled on the sofa.
The woman was shameless.
Phil’s bedroom door was shut. Was he locked in there with the braless Kendra? Or had they gone out together?
Helen wanted to knock on Phil’s door. She wanted to knock in his head. She didn’t do either. She marched home head down and ran into a solid wall of muscle.
It was Detective Bill McIntyre. His crooked-nosed partner, Janet Smith, was standing next to him on Helen’s doorstep. Helen’s heart started thumping when she saw them.
“Can we talk with you?” McIntyre said.
No! Helen started to shout. But she was afraid to say that. “Come in,” she said, hoping she sounded natural.
She unlocked her door. The two detectives followed her. Detective Smith prowled the two-room apartment, picking up knickknacks and putting them down. Helen wanted to tell her to stop, but she didn’t. She was starting to sweat.