Bride and Doom

by Deborah Donnelly

  “Well sure, you can’t go blabbing stuff to the newspapers. But just talking with me isn’t going to hurt anything.”

  “It could hurt my marriage.”

  That stopped me cold. I opened my mouth to protest, then shut it again. Clearly this was important to Lily, and Lily was very important to me. But so was Boris.

  The silence was growing awkward, and my best friend was looking anxious. When in doubt, I told myself, do the right thing. And do it with flair. I raised the last of my excellent sauvignon blanc.

  “Of course I understand. And here’s to your marriage, my dear. One whole month now, isn’t it? Cheers!”

  Lily clinked my glass, looking relieved. We drained our glasses, ordered dessert, and shifted to the safer ground of wedding dresses. Even a scouting expedition needs a plan, and so far I didn’t have one.

  “Where do you want to begin?” Lily asked. “High end or low, or somewhere in the middle? God, this crème brûlée is heavenly. Nordstrom’s did a nice job with my gown, but you must know all kinds of specialty shops.”

  “I know the highest of the high,” I said, suddenly decisive. “We are beginning with Le Boutique.”

  Hazel Cohen wasn’t in her shop on Mondays, which was in our favor. Hazel saw brides by appointment only, and her attitude toward casual browsers was frosty. But her assistant Amber was alone this afternoon, doing paperwork in the back office with talk radio for company. As we walked in, she snapped off the radio and snapped to attention, then relaxed when she saw me.

  “Hi, Carnegie!” She put on her salesgirl persona and turned to Lily. “Are you looking for a gown? I’d be happy to help you—”

  “Not me,” said Lily, her eyes wandering to the mannequins in the front windows. “Carnegie’s the bride this time.”

  “Really?” Amber’s amazement was less than flattering. “That’s just—that’s so great! When’s your wedding?”

  “We don’t have a date yet. But could I just look at some styles, maybe try on a few? You could go on with your work.”

  I was breaking my own cardinal rule for clients here, which was to choose the bridal gown only after determining the site, season, and level of formality of the wedding itself. But everything about my wedding seemed out of order somehow, including my own feelings about it. If only Aaron was more enthusiastic…

  “Oh, that’s OK,” Amber was saying. “I’m just doing invoices. Bor-ing.” She giggled. “Don’t tell Hazel I said so.”

  “My lips are sealed. So, show me something wonderful in off-white.”

  Amber showed me dozens of gowns in dozens of subtle shadings, from eggshell to cream to ivory and on into hues called oyster and mushroom and parchment. But I was somehow dissatisfied with each one. I felt like Goldilocks, only without the “just right.” Finally I chose three, as different as possible from each other, and we took them into the shell-pink dressing room.

  The first gown was a truly spectacular creation, with a strapless lace-on-lace bodice atop a huge bell of a skirt in gleaming satin. The whole was tied together at the waist with a broad burgundy ribbon.

  “I look like a Christmas present,” I said, turning slowly on the dais. “Let’s try the one with the slimmer silhouette.”

  Amber helped me into a long-sleeved Grecian column of silk. It had hundreds of narrow pleats that ran, severely vertical, from shoulder to hemline.

  “That one’s really nice on you. Kind of…dignified, you know?”

  I made a face at Lily, who mouthed the word, “Bor-ing.”

  The third gown was the charm. The sweetheart neckline was wonderfully flattering, and a subtle peach tint in the creamy satin warmed and brightened my complexion. As I turned, the bias-cut skirt flowed and swirled and softened my own sticklike lines.

  “I don’t want to take it off,” I said, pirouetting happily.

  “Take your time,” Amber told me. “Say, is that Rose girl OK? She scared me half to death fainting like that! I almost fainted myself, I honestly almost did.”

  “She’s fine,” I said. “Shouldn’t have skipped breakfast, that’s all.”

  “I never skip meals. But I guess you can tell that. Oops, there’s the phone. ’Scuse me.”

  “Rose fainted?” asked Lily, as Amber left us.

  “M-hm,” I said absently, studying my reflection in the mirror as I stepped down from the dais. “She heard about the murder and passed out cold. Though she claimed it was blood sugar. You know, there’s something familiar about this dress.”

  Lily laughed out loud. “Of course there is, you idiot. It’s almost exactly like the one you wore as my maid of honor! Just a little paler, and probably twice as expensive.”

  “Twice, nothing.”

  As she helped me change clothes, I told her the price range of Le Boutique’s gowns, and her eyes widened.

  “Carnegie, that’s more than my car. I didn’t realize Beau Paliere was paying you that well.”

  “He’s not,” I sighed, deflated. Not Goldilocks, more like Cinderella at midnight. “I’m just daydreaming, that’s all. Want to go get some coffee? I shouldn’t drink at lunch—it gives me a headache.”

  We waved at Amber on our way out and were soon sitting at a Starbucks. It was around the corner from a Starbucks, and across the street from a Tully’s. When an ambulance comes to fetch you in Seattle, they bring an IV drip of caffeine.

  Lily frowned into her grande latte, two pumps of hazelnut, extra foam. “So, why do you think Rose fainted?”

  I tried not to smile. Lily’s streak of curiosity is just as wide as mine.

  “Well, I did wonder if Rose has a notion about who the killer is. Like maybe her father.”

  “Her father? Why would he want to kill a sportswriter? Did Duvall say something bad about the team?”

  “Worse than that. He insulted Walter’s daughter in print.” Our heads came together over the table, and I related Digger’s crack about Rose having “little talent and less class.”

  “Nasty,” Lily agreed. “Really nasty.”

  “There’s something else, too. Eddie says that a big strong man like Boris wouldn’t use a baseball bat. So we’re looking for someone smaller or weaker than Duvall, like—”

  “Wait a minute, we who?” Lily leaned back and frowned. “I was just making conversation.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Carnegie. Please. Let’s get back to wedding business, OK? Let’s talk dresses.”

  “Oh, all right.” I was surprised at my own lack of enthusiasm. If I did have Bride Brain Virus, maybe it was wearing off. “So, what did you think of those gowns?”

  “That third one was gorgeous, but…” She hesitated, then plunged ahead. Lily doesn’t pull her punches. “Do you really want to spend that much? What’s your budget for this wedding, anyway?”

  “I’m not sure. With all the contacts I’ve got in the business, it’s almost a shame not to have a big formal affair.”

  “But?”

  I heaved a sigh. “But Aaron’s pretty well tapped out because of his medical bills, and I’m not sure how I feel about starting our marriage deep in debt. Maybe a small simple wedding would be better.”

  “Is that what Aaron wants?”

  “Who knows! I can’t get him to sit down and talk about it.”

  “Of course not, with his grandfather in the hospital.”

  “No, even before that.” I drained my cup and set it down. “And even when the World Series is over, I bet he won’t care much about the details.”

  “Aren’t all bridegrooms like that?”

  “Mike wasn’t.”

  She smiled fondly. “Mike is a detective, he is all about the details. Now come on, let’s go find you a black T-shirt.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I found a black shirt, but as it turned out there was quite a bit of white on display at the party that night. White polyester lace, as a matter of fact.

  Juice and I came in separate cars, and she was waiting for me at Club NocNoc’s un
imposing entrance on Second Avenue. I continued past, looking for a parking space long enough to maneuver Vanna into, and found one just a couple of blocks away.

  I could hear the music as I got out of the van. When I joined Juice, NocNoc’s doorway was almost visibly bulging from the intensity of the sound inside. We couldn’t see in because the windows were plastered over with flyers that said ALL HAIL HONEYSUCKLE HELL.

  Juice wasn’t looking at them, though. She was looking at me, head to toe.

  “Not bad, Kincaid. Not bad at all. You should loosen up more often.”

  With no real sense of the NocNoc fashion scene, I’d put on lots of eye makeup and fluffed my hair out to give it as much volume as possible—which was quite a bit. I don’t usually do the midriff thing, but the T-shirt was on the short side and my jeans were fairly low slung, so what the hell.

  “Thanks,” I said drily. “I was trying to live up to your standard.”

  Juice cut a striking figure, of course. She had topped her usual short-shorts and cowboy boots with a heavy denim jacket stitched along the seams with dangling earrings, fishing lures, plastic doll parts, and other trinkets that quivered and swung at her every move.

  “You pass,” she said, grinning, and pulled open the door of the club.

  Inside, NocNoc was a series of narrow high-ceilinged industrial-looking rooms, luridly lit by chandeliers with red bulbs. And each room was jammed to the walls with people far more stare-worthy than one slightly self-conscious wedding planner—or even her date.

  Juice might be striking, but as she elbowed a lane for us past the bar and the pool table, toward the source of the tidal wave of cacophonous music, even Juice was overshadowed by the white-clad bodies all around us.

  Brides! Dozens and dozens of brides.

  In a punk salute to Honeysuckle Hell’s impending union, many of her friends and colleagues in the music scene had plundered costume shops, Salvation Army stores, and maybe even their mother’s attics for wedding gowns of all shapes and styles to wear to her party.

  But not her female friends and colleagues, not in this crowd. The musicians doing violence to their instruments up on stage were all in black, and so were most of the women dancing, but almost half the drinkers and dancers at Rose’s party were men wearing white dresses.

  Juice and I halted at the edge of the dance floor, amazed.

  “This is wild!” I shouted to her over the throbbing music, as I was jostled by a swaggering gent in Captain Hook hair, a waxed black mustache, and an off-the-shoulder satin number with ruffles down to the floor. “Pat Robertson’s worst nightmare!”

  “Coolio!” Juice shouted back. “Check him out.”

  She pointed at one muscular guy, shiningly bald and ornately tattooed, who’d assembled his fashion statement from a white crinoline half-slip, a puffy-sleeved blouse, and a pair of black high-tops with plastic carnations woven into the laces. He’d also come up with some elbow-length lace gloves that encased his hands like sausage skins.

  And even he was outshone by a chubby fellow dancing near him in a peakaboo veil and a white vinyl bustier that dipped below his nipples. As I watched, Chubby, Baldy, and Captain Hook shouted with glee at one another’s outfits, clinked their beer bottles in a toast, and danced on.

  I was so busy taking in NocNoc’s denizens, it took me a while to notice the details of the decor. The occasional framed paintings, for instance, that looked like family portraits from another dimension. And the ceiling, intermittently visible in the strobing red light, that was crisscrossed with barbed wire and adorned with scores of naked Barbie dolls.

  NocNoc was weird weird, no doubt about it—and yet somehow I wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as I’d expected. In some ways, in fact, the atmosphere tonight was simpler and more good-natured than the competitive preening I’d seen at the more conventional engagement party Friday night. These people were bizarre-looking, but they were having a hell of a good time.

  “Want a drink?” Juice bellowed over the music, and I nodded and groped in my purse. She stopped me with a hand on my arm. “My treat, Kincaid, since you got me in here. You do white wine, right? Watch for Rose for me.”

  I watched, from a marginally quieter corner of the room, but it wasn’t hard to spot Honeysuckle Hell. She was the hub of noise and animation as she moved through the crowd. With every step, well-wishers clustered around her in a flurry of embraces and kisses and lively cries of congratulations.

  In any other club in Seattle tonight, all this acclaim would be for the man beside her: Gordo Gutierrez, the Home Run King. But this wasn’t a baseball crowd, and tonight was all about Honeysuckle Hell.

  Gordo took the role reversal in stride, smiling his usual placid smile, unfazed by all the men in skirts. As for Rose, she was incandescent with happiness. She wore a micromini dress in flaming red patent leather, a pair of teeteringly tall platform shoes, and most flattering of all, a great big girlish grin.

  “You came!”

  She squealed the words and threw her arms around me in a beer-scented embrace. My bride was tipsy tonight, I could tell, but this wasn’t the demolition drinking she’d been doing Friday night. This was straightforward high spirits, and since I found myself oddly fond of this particular bride, I was happy to hug her back.

  “Look, Gordy, Carnegie came! She actually came!”

  “Of course I did. How are you, Gordo?”

  “Fine.” The big Dominicano had no trouble pitching his voice loud enough to be heard. “Great music, huh?”

  “Terrific.” I didn’t think I was bleeding from the ears yet, but it was just a matter of time. “Has the photographer arrived?”

  “Oh, he came and went already.” Gordo grinned broadly. “I don’t think he liked the scene.”

  Damn. I tried to think of a diplomatic way to ask him if Rose had behaved herself for the pictures. But Gordo read my mind.

  “No worries,” he said, while Rose was distracted by another wave of well-wishers. “He got some nice shots of me and Rosie and Rob.”

  “Rob is here?” I suddenly wished my T-shirt were more flattering.

  “Yeah, he and some of the other Navs.” He looked around and then waved one brawny arm over his head. “Yo, Charmin’! Over here!”

  Suddenly Rob was beside us—and in men’s clothing, thank heaven. Again, in another crowd the baseball fans would have been all over him, but the attention he was getting at NocNoc was strictly due to his looks. He wore a long-sleeved black knit shirt that fit beautifully against his muscles, snug black jeans, and black suede shoes.

  Not that I was looking all that closely, you understand.

  “Hey there, Carnegie,” he said. “How are y’all doing after the other night? Nasty business.”

  He leaned in close so I could hear him, which didn’t bother me one bit. I suppose a woman who’s newly engaged should be oblivious to the male sex except for her one true love. But give me a break, I’d had a crush on Rob Harmon at a very impressionable age. Why shouldn’t I appreciate both his looks and his personality now that I had the chance? My feelings weren’t personal, they were…aesthetic.

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “Thanks for doing the photographs. Are you enjoying the party?”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it.” He smiled that fabulous smile. “Gordo’s got himself a wonderful girl.”

  Rose heard the comment and wrinkled her nose playfully at Rob. He wrinkled back, and Gordo beamed at them both. Then we were joined by the two band members who had chased after Rose on the baseball diamond, and she made the introductions.

  “Hi, JD. Hi, Nick. You know Rob, don’t you? And have you met Carnegie? She’s helping with the wedding.”

  Nick, the one with the outlandish haircut, looked me straight in the eye and shook my hand as if he were wearing a suit and running for office. What Eddie would call “a real operator.” JD, of the unformed features and the wispy beard, nodded vaguely, but his dark yearning gaze was all for Rose.

  I noticed, though, that
she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Was there trouble among the Fiends? We all kept up some small talk, or rather small shouting, but JD’s focus on his lead singer was hard to ignore.

  Finally Rose muttered something about the ladies’ room and left us. Gordo followed her, looking concerned, while JD stared dolefully after them. Rob excused himself as well, and then JD drifted away, still without speaking a word.

  “Cheerful, isn’t he?” I commented.

  “Don’t mind JD,” said Nick. “His old man just croaked.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Was it…unexpected?”

  “Totally!” Nick laughed, and then rearranged his face in a more decorous expression. “He was that ESPN dude who got whacked at the baseball party.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “JD is Digger Duvall’s son?” The screaming guitars and throbbing drums made a background to my blank astonishment.

  “Yeah. James Duvall, JD.”

  “Oh.” I remembered the blond goddess on Digger’s arm at the party. Way too young to be JD’s mother, and, by the look of her, nobody’s wife. “I didn’t even know Digger was married.”

  “Oh, yeah. Treated his old lady like shit, though, from what JD says. Hey, look at Rose. She told us the Fiends weren’t playing tonight, but I guess she can’t resist.”

  Rose, having eluded JD, was now being coaxed up onstage. It didn’t take much coaxing, though, after her initial hesitation. The crowd began chanting “Honey—suckle—HELL!” over and over, and by the third or fourth repetition she squealed again—I could hear it over the clamor—and threw herself into Gordo’s arms.

  He must have been expecting it, because he picked her up bodily and passed her over his head and onto the outstretched hands of her admirers. By this point people had packed the dance floor tight enough to give the guest of honor safe passage all the way onto the stage. Flushed and laughing, she reached her destination with a final scramble and a flash of hot-pink underpants. No business like show business.