Bride and Doom

by Deborah Donnelly

  “Don’t you?” I asked, suddenly uneasy.

  “Ah, well. May I sit down?”

  “Of course. Here, let’s go in the living room.”

  I hung up his coat, and we settled ourselves on the couch, Denisovich with his back to the glass doors. The sunlight shimmering and sparking off the lake turned him into a shadowy silhouette, like those television interviews meant to mask the identity of the person speaking.

  “You were saying?” I prompted.

  “Yes,” said the shadow. “Certainly Borya is innocent of murder. There is no question of that, no question at all.”

  “Of course not!” I was so relieved to hear him say it that I almost missed the unfamiliar term. “Borya?”

  “A diminutive of Boris. A nickname.”

  “I see. You know him well, then.”

  “He employs my sister Irina. He has been very good to her.”

  Irina was the silent, wizened little woman who sold flowers from the front of the Nevsky floral studio. But I could hardly spare a thought for her now.

  “So how do we get Boris released? What do we do?”

  “Such loyalty.” Denisovich reached forward, I thought to pat my hand, but instead he lifted my fingers to his lips in a ceremonial kiss. “And such beauty. No wonder Borya struck down the man who insulted you.”

  “What? You said he was innocent!”

  “Of premeditated murder, yes. That is why I tried to negotiate a plea bargain for manslaughter.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Manslaughter? But he didn’t do it! He came back to apologize to me for disrupting the party and found Digger lying there dead.”

  Denisovich sighed. “That is what Borya kept repeating.”

  “Of course he did, because it’s true! Why don’t you believe him?”

  “It’s not a matter of my belief,” said the lawyer, releasing my hand. “What would the jury believe? A moment of madness during a violent argument—perhaps they would have believed that. And I would have raised the possibility of self-defense. But such a coincidence as you describe? Hardly.”

  “But they’ll have to believe it!”

  “No. Unfortunately, they will not have to.”

  “Look, I know Boris. He would never attack someone with a baseball bat. It’s just not possible.”

  “And yet he had already attacked the deceased with his fists.” Denisovich turned up his palms and shrugged in a big-shouldered gesture I’d seen Boris make, times without number. “You see? It would be far better to accept a short prison term than to risk a verdict of murder. I told Borya that before the arraignment, but he would not listen.”

  “Prison, for being in the wrong hallway at the wrong time?” I rose from the couch, away from this man and his false comfort, and began to pace. “Boris would curl up and die in prison. I’m glad he didn’t listen to—wait a minute. The arraignment already happened, even though it’s Saturday? Boris pleaded innocent?”

  “Indeed he did. And I must follow his direction, however unwise.” Denisovich reached into his briefcase and drew out a sheaf of photocopies. “Now, you told the police you heard nothing in the corridor. No voices raised in anger, no sounds of a struggle, nothing?”

  “Nothing. The killer must have been long gone. The real killer.”

  I pronounced the word with total conviction. Boris had refused to plead guilty, and I refused to give up on him. So, first things first. The thought of the Mad Russian entombed in a cell was more than I could bear.

  “Mr. Denisovich—”

  “Trofim.”

  “Whatever. Can Boris be released on bail?”

  He sighed again. “Listen to me, my dear—”

  “I’m not your dear! Can he?”

  “Bail in a case of violent crime is very high,” he said stiffly, affronted. “In this case, three quarters of a million dollars. A bail bondsman typically requires a posting of ten percent.”

  I did the math. “So I could get him out for seventy-five thousand dollars?”

  Even as I said the words, they sounded crazy to me. Crazy, but not impossible. I paced faster. This wasn’t just a question of Boris’s freedom. What would his prolonged absence do to Nevsky Brothers Flowers?

  His brothers couldn’t pick up the slack, because he didn’t have any brothers; he just thought the name sounded good. The floral studio was actually a one-man show with a crew of assistants, most of them named Sergei, who jumped to Boris’s commands. As a sole proprietor myself, I knew that without him at the helm, the business might never recover.

  But where am I going to get that kind of money? The bank, that’s where. I’ll borrow it. Denisovich stirred impatiently, and I said, “Thanks, that’s all I need to know.”

  “But I need to know more. Your relationship with Borya, for example. It was…intimate?”

  “What?” I quit pacing. “What business is that of yours?”

  “Of mine, none. But if I present you as a character witness, you can be sure that the prosecutor will make it his business. Were you and Borya lovers?”

  “I…we…”

  At this interesting juncture a knock sounded at my front door. More of a crashing thump, really—and by the way the walls shuddered with the impact, I knew exactly whose fist was doing the thumping. Excusing myself to Denisovich, I went through the kitchen to answer and found the doorway overflowing with Buckmeisters.

  “There she is, girls!” Buck surged inside like a force of nature. He wore a hot pink bandanna and an XXL sweatshirt that said SEATTLE RAIN FESTIVAL, APRIL THROUGH MARCH. The “girls,” his wife Betty and his daughter Bonnie, flowed into the room in his wake. “Told ya I saw her van there in the parking lot. Poor little gal.”

  Buck clapped me sympathetically on the shoulder, and I staggered sideways into Bonnie.

  “Daddy told me what happened last night,” she said, enfolding me in a sisterly embrace. “What a dreadful experience for you! You must be just as upset as you can be.”

  Bonnie was almost as big as her father but far more pillowy, and disentangling myself from her was like unrolling from a goose down comforter.

  “Thanks,” I managed to get out, “but I’m all right, really.”

  “All right, my aunt Fanny!” said Betty, taking her turn at hugging. She was about two feet shorter than me, so it was a low-altitude hug. “Look at you, you’re pale as porridge.”

  “We tried to talk to ya last night,” Buck told me over his wife’s head. “But the policemen told us to go on home. And then our car wouldn’t start! That nice fella of yours, Alan, he helped us out.”

  “Aaron,” I said automatically. We’d been through this before.

  “I brought you a tin of my favorite herb tea,” Betty burbled from the vicinity of my ribcage. “It’s called Chamomile Comfort, doesn’t that sound nice? I could make us all a cup right now.”

  “I appreciate this, folks, only I’m a little bit busy—” I glanced toward the living room, but Denisovich was on his feet and coming into the kitchen with an inquisitive look at all the commotion.

  “Howdy!” Buck boomed. Buck had no volume control and no mute button. “Didn’t mean to interrupt you, friend. I’m Bruce Buckmeister, call me Buck. My wife here is Betty, and that’s my daughter Bonnie. Pleased to meetcha!”

  Denisovich didn’t reply, no doubt because his teeth were rattling from Buck’s arm-pumping handshake.

  “This is Boris Nevsky’s lawyer,” I filled in. “Trofim Denisovich. He’s going to prove Boris innocent.”

  “Really?” Betty blinked her shiny round doll’s eyes at me. “You mean he didn’t kill that Digger person?”

  “Absolutely not. Boris is an old friend of mine, and I’m certain that he didn’t do it.”

  “Well, if you say so, that’s good enough for us,” said Buck. “Isn’t it, girls?”

  “It surely is,” chirped Betty. She and Bonnie nodded resolutely, like a pair of bobble-head dolls. “And I’m sure Mr. Dennovich will do a good job. Would you like a nice
cup of tea, Mr. Dennovich?”

  And so, inevitably, we all ended up in the living room sipping Chamomile Comfort. This was a testament to my fondness for the Killer B’s—and gratitude for their vote of confidence in Boris—because for my money herb tea tastes just like hot cologne.

  “I don’t mean to upset the ladies, Mr. Dennovich,” Buck rumbled, slurping down his cup and smacking his lips, “but who do you think really did the murder?”

  “It is difficult to know,” said Denisovich, with a baleful glance at me. “I can only do my best for my client. I cannot solve the case.”

  But I can, I thought, setting down my own cup. Or at least I can try.

  “You haven’t finished your tea, dear,” said Betty, hopping up. “I bet you’d like it sweeter. Shall I get you some sugar?”

  “That’s all right, really—”

  “You stay there, dear, I can find it. Oh, is that the doorbell? We didn’t notice that you had one…” A moment later she was back in the living room. “Look, everyone, it’s Alan! We were just telling Carnegie how you helped us with our car last night. What did you call it, hot-wiring?”

  “That’s right!” Buck thundered happily. “You should tell Mr. D. here about hot-wiring. He’d be real interested.”

  Aaron looked a little dazed—not an uncommon response to the Buckmeisters—and just pecked me on the cheek when I went to greet him.

  “Did they come?” he asked me quietly.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  Betty drew him away to meet Denisovich, and then the lawyer explained that he had to be going.

  “We’ll walk you out,” said Buck, dropping his womenfolk a huge wink. “I bet these lovebirds would like to be alone. You take care of yourself there, Carnegie. A nice girl like you shouldn’t be lookin’ at dead bodies, should she, Mother? You drink up the rest of that tea and you’ll feel better…”

  At last, like a receding tidal wave, the Buckmeisters were gone and Denisovich with them. I shut the door and turned eagerly to Aaron.

  “How long would it take us to borrow seventy-five thousand dollars?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got my van, and you’ve got the Volkswagen…” Muttering to myself, I dug around in the kitchen junk drawer for a pad and pen but came up empty. “There’s always Made in Heaven too. Can you get a loan against a business, I wonder?”

  “Carnegie, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “You don’t have to yell at me.”

  “I’m not yelling! I’m trying to keep up. What do you need seventy-five grand for?”

  “Oh, sorry. It’s to post bail for Boris.” I realized that my groceries were still sitting out, so I rescued the carton of milk and opened the fridge. “Denisovich thinks he’s guilty, can you imagine that? But of course he’s not, so we’ve got to get him out on bail. It seems to me—”

  “Are you nuts?” Aaron shot out a hand and slammed the refrigerator door. “Do you even know what it means to post bail? If Nevsky missed even one court appearance, you’d be responsible for the full amount. You’d lose everything.”

  I yanked the fridge open again. “But I can’t leave him there in jail, Aaron. He’s my friend.”

  “Is that all he is?”

  I gasped, but Aaron was poker-faced. I set down the milk.

  “I can’t believe you said that,” I sputtered. “Of all the juvenile—”

  “Juvenile? This guy mauls you whenever he sees you, and defends your damn honor like you were his wife or something. For all I know he did whack Duvall last night.”

  “He did not! I’m sure of it.”

  “How can you be?” Aaron threw up his hands. “He was drunk and angry, and you saw him yourself with the bat.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “And now you’re ready to bankrupt yourself for him, and me too. What am I supposed to think?”

  “You’re supposed to trust me!” I cried. “I’m your fiancée, remember?”

  “I wish you’d act like it.”

  “Me? You’re the one who’d rather watch a baseball game than—”

  “Are we back to that? Jesus, I want one lousy evening—”

  “Dozens of evenings. Hundreds of hours! I’m so sick of baseball I could scream.”

  “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

  With that Aaron walked out and slammed the door behind him, leaving me hyperventilating with anger. And a little regret too. Maybe more than a little. As my breathing slowed and rational thought returned—I put the milk away—regret was number one with a bullet.

  Then the doorbell rang again, and I rushed to answer it with an apology on my lips. Only the ringer wasn’t Aaron. It was a bored-looking youth bearing a bouquet of roses and lilies in a cone of cellophane tied with ribbon.

  “Kincaid?” he said. “Sign here.”

  I took the bouquet out to the deck, feeling a little queasy. Did they come? Aaron had asked, and I thought he meant people. Could he have been asking about these flowers? I opened the little white florist’s envelope and read the note inside.

  Sorry, Stretch, it said. Forget the Cubs. It’s just you and me tonight.

  “Oh, hell. Hell and damnation.”

  In a spasm of frustration and anger, aimed squarely at myself this time, I flung the flowers onto the planks of the deck—from which they bounced right into the water. I dropped to my knees and tried to snatch them back. Too late. The bouquet wobbled on the surface, a flowery little toy boat, and drifted off trailing its ribbons like mooring lines.

  “Lose something, Carnegie?” called a beach-ball-shaped fellow from the next houseboat down. Larry Halloway, my ever-present neighborly neighbor, waved a jolly hand. “I could come over and help.”

  I waved back and gave Larry a big fat fake smile. “That’s OK, thanks, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

  Then I went back inside, closed the sliding glass door, and burst into tears.

  Chapter Ten

  The bedside phone went off like a fire alarm.

  I jerked upright in the darkness with my heart slamming, half-convinced that the clamor was my alarm clock and I was late for some critical meeting. But I never got up early on Sunday—or any other day if I could help it—and when I grabbed at the clock, I realized that it wasn’t the source of the racket.

  As I stared at the spiky red numerals, I came fully awake. Five twenty-three A.M. Why was my telephone ringing? I reached fearfully toward the table again.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m sorry to wake you, Stretch. I should have waited, but you can’t use your cell on the plane—”

  “What plane?” I’d gone to bed late and slept badly, but Aaron sounded even worse off than I felt. “Slow down, please, and tell me what’s happening.”

  “It’s Izzy. He’s had a heart attack.”

  “Oh, Aaron.” Izzy was Isaac Gold, Aaron’s grandfather, who lived in a Miami retirement home. Both Aaron’s parents had died young, so Izzy meant a lot to him. “I’m so sorry. How bad is it?”

  “Pretty bad. I can’t think straight.” He hesitated, and I could hear a babble of airport noises in the distance. “I shouldn’t have called so early. I guess…I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Of course you should have called.” I groped for something to fill the painful silence. “I know your grandfather will be glad to have you there. I wish I could go with you, but—”

  “You’ve got a wedding to run, Stretch. But thanks for the thought.”

  “Well, I’ll be thinking about you the whole time you’re there.”

  “I know that.”

  Another silence, and I said, “When do you get in?”

  Silly question, really, but Aaron jumped on it, just to be talking. “A few minutes past noon. It’s a direct flight. Usually I have to go through Atlanta or the Twin Cities.”

  “That’s good, then.”

  “Yeah. It’s a lot better this way.”

  He sounded so misera
ble, I wished I could reach through the phone and hold him. Instead I asked, “Did you watch the game?”

  “What? Oh, the Cubs won, six–four.”

  “Chicago fans must have been happy.”

  “Orgasmic. It all seems kind of pointless now.” I heard him sigh. “I’m sorry about last night, Carnegie. I was being stupid.”

  “Forget it, please. I’m sorry too, but don’t even think about it, not now.”

  “All right. Promise me one thing, though.”

  “Anything.”

  “Stay out of this murder case. I know Boris is important to you, but just back off and let the police do their job. Promise?”

  I hesitated only for a moment. After all, it wasn’t a police job to get Boris out on bail, was it? So technically I was being quite sincere.

  “I promise, Aaron. Give my love to Izzy, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “And to you too, you dope.”

  That made him laugh a little, and we said goodbye. I fell back on my pillow and stared at the invisible ceiling, forgetting Boris for the moment in my concern for Aaron’s grandfather. Izzy was a marvelous old man, funny and wise, and he looked exactly like Aaron was going to in about fifty years. The thought of Aaron growing old, and me along with him, made our recent squabbling seem woefully petty.

  Why was I fussing at him about something so trivial? One evening of baseball isn’t much in the grand scheme of things. And what does it mean that I’ve been so bitchy with Aaron lately? Maybe nothing. Lots of brides get bitchy. But I never thought I’d be like them.

  Uncomfortable thoughts to face in the darkness, so after a while I deliberately turned my thoughts in a happier direction: pondering all the delightful options for my wedding dress, and flowers, and cake.

  But somehow this wasn’t the panacea I needed. Little whispers of anxiety kept creeping in—Do I really want a big formal wedding? What if something goes wrong and Made in Heaven looks bad?—and try as I might, I couldn’t banish them. But I was tired, and the houseboat rocked, almost imperceptibly, and after a while it rocked me back to sleep.

  On my second groggy awakening I really was late. Joe Solveto had invited me for Sunday morning coffee at his catering office in the Fremont neighborhood, to hear his preliminary thoughts about my wedding supper. He was almost more excited about the prospect than I was.