“Piece of cake, Danny Boy.”
“Shut up, you’ll jinx him!”
Danny’s expression never changed. He slowly drew back his cue, deliberated for one last moment, and slammed the cue ball hard at the far corner. Too hard. His target ball, the solid, went spinning into the pocket and bounced right out again, while the cue ball popped off the edge of the table and onto the floor.
“I’ve got you now, sucker!” crowed Peter, over the triumphant jeers of the L.A. crowd. “You’re a dead man now. A dead man!”
He didn’t mean anything by it, of course. Why would he? But I heard someone gasp, and saw the dismay on Todd Gibson’s face, and on others.
“Oh, brother,” Aaron muttered, close at my side.
Danny went white. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to realize how many people were watching his reaction. He bent abruptly to pick up the cue ball, and smacked it down on the table even harder than he’d hit it in the first place. Then he turned on his heel and left.
The silence that fell was not what you want to hear at a party. I considered throwing myself into the breach with a toast to the happy couple or something lame like that, but I couldn’t see where Jack and Tracy had gone.
The Tyke had a better idea, anyway. From over at the bar she called out, “Hey, you bozos! Who wants to arm wrestle?”
“Her?” said Aaron. “That’s ridiculous. I’m sure she’s strong, but still—”
“Give it a try, then,” I said. “I dare you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Maybe I will. Hey, I think your bride wants you.”
Tracy was gesturing to me from a small door beyond the bar. When I reached her she drew me outside to an alley behind the building. The night air was still warm, but it felt fresh after the fumes within, and I breathed it in gratefully.
In the faint light that reached us from the streetlamps, the television star looked positively scared of me. I must say, I enjoyed that just a bit.
I waited a moment but she didn’t speak, so I went first. “Tracy, did Cissy tell you about the Ladislaus Quartet?”
She nodded indifferently. “Um, about this afternoon—”
“I’d prefer to forget all about that. Let’s just forget it and get on with the wedding.”
“Wait!” She clutched my arm. “Did you...are you going to...”
“I’m not saying a word. I only wish I didn’t know, that’s all. And I wish you didn’t think there was anything between me and Jack except—”
“I don’t think that. Dom told me later what really happened. I’m sorry.”
And how the hell would he know what really happened? I asked myself. For all Domaso knew, Jack and I could have been carrying on at the hot spring for hours. Perish the thought.
“But I want to explain about me and Dom,” Tracy was saying. “We fool around sometimes, that’s all. We always do, when I’m in town. I’m not going to keep doing it, you know. It’s just that, it’s just...” I was startled to see that she was close to tears. “It’s just that I’m scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Of getting married. Jack’s wonderful, but he wants to have children.”
“And you don’t?”
“I don’t know!” she moaned. “I guess so. I don’t even know if I want to be married. I just got so excited about having a wedding and then...”
“Then it took on a life of its own?”
“Uh-huh.”
I’d seen this before. And much as I dreaded the outcome, I gave Tracy Kane the same advice I’d given my other brides whose feet turned cold in their dyed-to-match pumps.
“Honey, listen to me. It’s not easy to cancel a wedding, or even postpone one, but it’s a lot easier than canceling a marriage. The wedding is just an event, just a ceremony and a party. The marriage is what’s important. So you think this over carefully, and you talk it over with Jack, all right? And if you really do want to change your plans, I’ll help you every step of the way.”
“Oh, Muffy!” She was weeping now, so I hugged her and patted her shoulder and pulled out one of the spare handkerchiefs I always carry. I never get them back, so I buy boxes.
“But if you do proceed with the wedding,” I said as she sniffled and dabbed, “I need your go-ahead about the music. I’ve found a string quartet of high-school students who play private parties in Ketchum. The cellist is the police chief ’s son.”
She looked dazed. “High school?”
“I’m told they’re pretty good, and the media will love it. Tracy Kane, big star, still a hometown girl at heart. So is that all right?”
“Anything you say, Carnegie.”
“And you’ll keep Cissy from fussing about it?”
“Absolutely.” Tracy’s composure was returning, and with it her confidence. She’d be bossing me around again in no time. “It’s my wedding, not hers.”
“That’s the spirit. Now come inside, I think we might be missing something good.”
Sure enough, the chanting hit us as we opened the door.
“Talent Show, Talent Show, Talent Show!”
Over the heads of the crowd I saw the Tyke perched up on the bar, her ponytail coming loose and a victorious grin on her face. I pushed my way through to the front. Aaron stood below her, flexing his aching hand and smiling ruefully. Good man, I thought. I’d been hoping he would take his defeat gracefully.
But then the Tyke raised her beer mug to pronounce sentence, and I was suddenly horrified at the thought of my deskbound guy being humiliated in front of all these other men. What if she said one-armed push-ups, or something even harder? What had I done?
“Aaron Gold,” the Tyke declared, “your best talent is...”
She paused doubtfully, and into the hush that fell I piped up and said, “Kissing! He’s talented at kissing.”
Pandemonium. Everyone whooped and roared, and Aaron gave me a glittering look and laughed aloud.
“Excellent suggestion.” The Tyke waved her mug, anointing him with a slosh of beer. “Go ahead, mister, give it your best shot.”
I edged forward, blushing, and that was when Aaron Gold got me back for locking him out of the suite.
He slapped both hands on the bar, vaulted up next to the astonished Tyke, wrapped one arm around her shoulders and the other around her neck, and laid on a long, long, passionate kiss that brought down the house.
When he was finished, another hush descended as the crowd waited breathlessly for the Tyke’s reaction. Would she laugh at Aaron, or swear at him, or clobber him senseless?
But the Tyke did exactly what I would have done. She ran her tongue slowly across her lips, looked Aaron up and down, and said, “Best two out of three?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“AARON SEEMS NICE.”
“He’s very nice, Mom. Please don’t touch anything.”
My mother put down the pink gerbera daisy she’d been twirling between her fingers. It was Friday, the morning after the Talent Show and the day before the wedding, and we were visiting the floral workstation. Mom had never seen me on the job before, so she was tagging along as I did my rounds of checking on Food Bob and Photo Bob and Boris. I still hadn’t heard from Beau, but given what I was dealing with, that was fine with me.
Having Mom along was a distraction, but hardly my only one. In addition to pondering Brian’s death, I was wondering whether my bride was going to cancel her wedding. And on top of all that, I was half asleep. After Aaron’s performance with the Tyke, I had vowed to lock him out again—then spent much of the night letting him change my mind.
Now Aaron was off somewhere consulting with Julie Nothstine about trout fishermen and hermits and the spoils of war, while I went through the motions of getting Tracy Kane married. At least the flowers seemed to be shaping up well.
The floral crew was appropriately busy as bees, chatting gaily and zooming in and out of the refrigerated trailer as if it were their hive. They buzzed industriously around the work tables, gloved against th
e rose thorns and constantly misting their materials from spray bottles to combat the rising heat.
As Mom and I watched, scissors snipped briskly, spools of floral tape spun merrily around, and blocks of green foam were carefully carved and soaked and fitted into white porcelain bowls and elegant silver epergnes for the rehearsal dinner tables. Our general themes were candlelight and lilies for tonight, sunshine and roses for the ceremony tomorrow.
I snagged a worker bee as she zipped past. “Is Boris around?”
“Can’t you hear him?” She nodded toward the trailer. “Poor Wallace.”
Now that I listened for it, I could make out the disgruntled rumbling of the Russian’s voice. I told Mom to stay put and entered the chilly atmosphere inside. The trailer was half full of finished arrangements today, and I tried to thrust yesterday’s image of Tracy and Domaso romping among the tubs and sacks to the back of my mind.
“Then you must find space!” Boris bellowed, as Wallace cringed. “Kharnegie, is no cold space for buddy flowers. I cannot mek them all tomorrow, I must start today, but must be cold space!”
“Buddy...oh, body flowers.” Body flowers are bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages, as opposed to tabletops and garlands and covered tent poles and such. Boris was an expert at directing the adornment of spaces, but he liked to create all the personal pieces with his own two gigantic hands.
I reviewed the possibilities. “The kitchen can’t loan you one of their coolers?”
“Full of food,” said Boris, disgusted at the thought of protecting mere edibles instead of his creations. “All full.”
“Well... I know, we’ll crank up the air-conditioning in my suite, and you can store the dinner arrangements there for the afternoon.” I couldn’t get the suite down to forty degrees, the ideal temperature for flowers, but every little bit would help. “That will free up the trailer for tomorrow’s flowers. How’s that?”
“Brill-i-ant!” he bellowed, and engulfed me in a rib-crushing hug. Over his shoulder, I saw Wallace make a grateful thumbs-up and slip away. “Many thanks, my Kharnegie. Flowers will be magnificent for this wedding. Everything magnificent. You have talked to Beau today?”
“Not yet, but I need to tell him about a change in the music situation. He might not be too happy about it.”
Boris tilted his shaggy head and pursed his lips lasciviously. “Beau is most happy with maid of honor. He will not mind about music, you will see.”
“Let’s hope. Come outside and say hello to my mother.”
Mom had met Boris before, and she greeted him now with a wide smile and a shameless lack of concern for the fibs that she and Eddie had concocted about us. Boris surveyed the tables and his minions’ work with satisfaction, then checked his watch.
“Beautiful ladies will have lunch with me, yes?”
But Mom, it seemed, had other plans. “I’m so sorry, Boris dear. I have a date already. Oh, there he is!”
She waved at someone approaching from the grassy lawn beside the parking lot: Sam Kane, shambling along with a companion by his side and his white Stetson bobbing in the sun. The other man, no doubt a wedding guest, looked to be in his early sixties, almost as tall as Sam but built much sturdier, with fair-haired, ruddy-cheeked good looks and a vigorous stride.
“You and Sam can join us, Mom,” I said. “I need to speak with him, anyway....”
I faded off here. While Sam was nodding genially at Boris, tipping his hat to me, and stooping to peer at the flowers, his companion marched right up to my mother and kissed her on the mouth. And she kissed him back. Hard.
“Carrie, dear,” she said, and she was damn near glowing when she said it, “I’d like you to meet Owen Winter. Owen, my daughter Carnegie.”
“Good to meet you,” said this Owen person, his blue eyes twinkling. He had a thin tenor voice, the kind I dislike. “I feel like I know you already, from everything Lou’s told me.”
Lou? I didn’t like that, either.
“We’ll have to chat more later on, dear,” Mom was saying. “Owen has promised me a wonderful afternoon on the Harriman Trail, a bicycle ride and a picnic, so we’d better be moving along.”
They began to depart—holding hands, yet—when Mom paused and said, “Owen, did you ask Sam your fishing question? He wants to go trout fishing, Sam, but I told him I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where. I thought you might know?”
“Nope, but I know who does,” said Sam. “Domaso Duarte. He’s around here this week. Duarte knows every secret trout stream in Blaine County. We’ll get you fixed up, Owen.”
Owen expressed his appreciation and escorted my mother away, leaving me standing there stupefied with startling thoughts flashing through my mind like heat lightning. Mom and this new guy? Domaso and trout streams?
“Your mouth’s open, Red,” said Sam. “That Winter’s a handsome fella, isn’t he? Good taste in women, too.”
“I...yes, I can see that. Who is he, anyway?”
He chuckled. “Oh, I get it. Louise has been playing things close to the vest, huh? Winter just retired from Boeing. Pretty high up the food chain there, too.”
“And he lives in Ketchum now?”
“Not yet, but he’s thinking about it, and he’s got the bucks to do it in style. I gave him a quote on one of my best view lots up at White Pine, and he didn’t even blink. He’ll be at the wedding and the dinner and all, though, so you can check him out yourself.” Sam resettled his Stetson. “Now, Tracy told me about the switch in musicians.”
“Right.” I took a steadying breath and prepared to defend my unilateral decision. “I couldn’t reach Beau last night, and I thought I’d better get on it right away. I really think this is the best solution—”
“ ’Course it is!” He slapped me on the back and I staggered a little, not as steady as I thought. “It’s just fine to have Larabee’s kid playing his fiddle for us. No, it’s the cello, isn’t it, the big one? Anyhow, I heard them at a party last Christmas.”
“How were they?” I asked, mental fingers crossed. The kids’ references were good, but—
“Terrific! Practically professional. And I can always use a little extra support from our police force, if you know what I mean. Parking tickets and such. In fact, I invited the chief to the wedding so he can watch his boy perform.”
“Good idea.” I thought it over. “Actually, that’s a very good idea.”
The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that a police presence at White Pine was exactly what we needed. If Aaron and I could turn up enough information about Brian’s death, or even stir up some kind of reaction from the killer, Chief Larabee would be on hand to take over from there.
I was less certain about the significance of Domaso’s interest in trout. The Wood River Valley was teeming with fishermen, any one of whom could have been camping near the fire last Saturday, the day Brian died. Although I did see fishing gear in Domaso’s convertible on Monday. He could have been just coming back from Boot Creek—
“Kharnegie!” Boris tapped my shoulder impatiently. “Do you take care of air-conditioning, or do I send someone?”
“Sorry, I’ll go do it right now. I’ll see you at dinner, Sam.”
We weren’t actually rehearsing the ceremony till tomorrow morning—it was too much trouble to transport everyone up to White Pine and down again—but then tonight’s affair was less of a standard rehearsal dinner and more of a general bash. Between Tracy’s photo ops and her father’s business-related hospitality, this wedding wasn’t standard at all.
I did my own mental rehearsal on the way to the lodge, running through the list of vendors I still had to check on. Beau may have planned this wedding, but he sure as hell wasn’t directing it. I was.
As I crossed the lobby I glanced through the glass door of the Duchin Lounge. Speak of the French devil, there was Beau at a table for two, very much tête-à-tête with Olivia. They seemed to be arguing, but I pretended not to notice.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Beau, I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday.”
“And here you find me,” he answered smoothly. But his tone carried a warning, from boss to underling. “As you see, however, I am engaged. Everything progresses well, non? You are capable of managing today’s schedule without my direct supervision?”
“Of course I am,” I snapped. “But there are some details we should—”
“You two go right ahead.” The actress rose abruptly, her mouth tight and her considerable bosom lifting indignantly beneath a skimpy black crop top. “We’re done talking. In fact, we’re done altogether!”
Heads turned toward us from around the lounge. Beau captured one of Olivia’s hands and drew her into her seat again, murmuring in French, pouring on the charm.
“Ma chere, in Paris one always flirts with the chambermaid. It meant nothing....”
I thought I’d seen Beau in action before, but this was like watching a horse whisperer. Olivia’s expression softened, her eyelids drooped and fluttered, and by the time I left the lounge he was nibbling on her fingertips and she was cooing like a contented dove. Amazing.
Back in the lobby, I heard a different kind of whispering. Staff and guests alike murmured and pointed, discreetly directing each others’ attention to a side window that looked onto a private little alcove of the terrace outside.
At least, the man and the woman standing in the alcove must have thought it was private. On their side the sunlight would be bouncing off the white window curtain, making it look opaque. But the curtain was perfectly sheer from our side, affording us all a front-row seat for Tracy Kane’s latest love scene.
And a charming scene it was, too. She was looking up into Jack’s face, speaking rapidly, her palms on his chest and her lovely features set in earnest appeal. The words were inaudible but obviously persuasive, because Jack bent closer and closer, spoke a few words in reply, and enveloped her in a tender embrace.
Throughout the lobby, their unseen audience let out a single, satisfied sigh. Mine was especially sincere, being a sigh of profound relief, and I headed upstairs with a far lighter heart. The wedding was on.
Death Takes a Honeymoon Page 21