Bride and Doom

by Deborah Donnelly

  “So you see,” I concluded, “if Digger really did turn up some evidence of steroid use, I can’t help wondering if—”

  “If Gordo Gutierrez is a murderer?”

  Stated out loud like that, it sounded shocking.

  “I know,” I said miserably. “He’s the sweetest guy in the world, and it’s crazy even to imagine it. But somebody killed Digger, and it wasn’t Boris Nevsky. I’m just wondering how likely it is that Gordo’s been using steroids.”

  She sighed. “It’s possible, of course. He showed phenomenal power this last season. But Gordo’s always been powerful, and players these days have the benefit of highly scientific training.”

  “Rotational mechanics,” I said, remembering Rose’s demonstration.

  Holly smiled a little. “You’ve been doing your homework. Yeah, there’s a really technical approach now to hitting the ball. They call it ‘bat swing science.’ Three-D computer modeling of the ideal hitter, statistical analysis of pitch speed and angles, the whole nine yards. And of course players work with nutritionists and do targeted weight training. Babe Ruth used to spend the off season shooting pool and boozing. It’s a different game today.”

  “So you think Gordo broke the home run record without any chemical help?”

  “That’s what I think, and what I want to believe. But there’s no way to know for sure. Let’s move over there.”

  She led the way to a bench, propped one foot on it, and began doing hamstring stretches with her forehead dropping almost to her kneecap. I sat on the bench, watching her ruefully. Carnegie Kincaid, Couch Potato.

  “OK,” I said, “supposing that Digger did uncover some evidence, do you think a steroid scandal is enough of a motive for murder?”

  Holly grunted, stretching harder. “Could be. Breaking the home run record put Gordo in the stratosphere. He got a huge new contract with the Navigators, and he’s booked for commercial endorsements for a couple of years at least. A drug rap would bring all that crashing down.”

  “And push him off his pedestal.”

  “You said it. Pro athletes live in the spotlight. They perform in public, and if they make it to the top, they’re idolized in a way that you and I can hardly imagine.”

  She did a final shoulder roll and a back bend, then joined me on the bench to retie her sneakers.

  “But their careers are short,” she continued. “Imagine being celebrated and applauded for game after game, and then having to retire in your thirties. Where do you go from there? What’s going to feed your ego? The home run champion’s got that validation for life. He’s always going to be somebody in the world.”

  “I see what you mean. But do you think—”

  “Carnegie, I’ve really got to get going.”

  “Sure.” We rose and walked back toward the market. Traffic was picking up, and we had to wait at the corner before crossing. “I appreciate your time, Holly. And your discretion.”

  “No problem. Just be discreet yourself while you’re asking around about this. Gordo could be clean, and you could start a rumor that would cause him a lot of grief.”

  “I’ll be careful. Have fun at the games.”

  “Thanks. Too bad Aaron couldn’t come.”

  “Aaron?” Startled, I stumbled a little stepping off the curb.

  “Yeah, I’ve got a second press pass and no one to use it. I called him in Florida about it, ’cause I thought he could fly back via Minneapolis. But he said he has to come straight back here for something important going on tomorrow. See you.”

  “See you, Holly.”

  As she disappeared in the crowd, I found myself smiling giddily. Something important. Aaron had the chance to attend not one but two World Series games, and he passed it up to spend the day with me. So what if we bickered a little? If that wasn’t true love, I’d eat my…

  Actually, I was feeling eager to eat my breakfast. It was tempting to drop into one of the market’s many restaurants, but I decided to go home and grab some toast while reviewing my notes for Rose’s wedding. I still had the nagging feeling that there was a detail or two I’d neglected—and the whole role of a wedding planner is to handle every detail.

  If there’s even going to be a wedding. As I walked back to Vanna, I pondered the consequences of my suspicion. If I was really convinced that Gordo was guilty—even if I couldn’t prove it—shouldn’t I try to stop the wedding, or at least delay it until Rose learned the truth? I couldn’t stand by and let her marry a murderer.

  Besides, wasn’t there something about wives not testifying against their husbands? That complicated things further, if Gordo planned to use Rose as his alibi somehow. And yet I wasn’t fully convinced he was guilty, so how could I possibly convince her? This was the man she loved, the man she trusted—

  As I slammed the driver’s door, a thought slammed into my brain. Rose McKinney trusted Gordo with her future. With her life. What if she was in danger right now? I fumbled out my cell phone and tapped in her number. Paranoia or not, I wanted to hear her voice and know that she was safe.

  It was early in the morning to call a musician, but Rose answered right away. We talked a bit about the party at NocNoc, then I steered the conversation to Gordo.

  “So how’s the bridegroom doing? Any signs of cold feet?” Or a guilty conscience?

  Rose laughed. “Gordy can’t wait for Saturday! He says our wedding’s going to be the best party of his life. I just wish he didn’t have to be gone so much this week.”

  “Gone? Where?”

  I heard myself sounding the wrong note, sounding urgent. Had Gordo fled the country while I was dithering? But Rose’s next remark nixed that idea.

  “Yeah, he’s in L.A. till Friday taping interviews and a commercial. He left yesterday, so I’m kind of at loose ends. I’ve got a couple of rehearsals with the Fiends, but mostly I’m just hanging out.” Her voice grew carefully nonchalant. “I don’t guess you’d like to get together tomorrow, would you? Just to hang out.”

  “I’m sorry, Rose, I’m busy tomorrow.” My relief at having Gordo out of the way made me effusive. “I’d reschedule, but it’s really important.”

  “Oh.” She sounded deflated. “It’s just…there’s something I was going to ask you about.”

  “About the wedding?”

  “Yeah.”

  After a short pause I said, “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s, like, kind of personal.” The next pause was a long one. “I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. I just…oh, never mind.”

  “I’m heading back to my office now. Why don’t you stop by, and we’ll talk about it there?”

  “I said never mind! No big deal.”

  I could have pressed her further, but from her sullen tone I knew it wouldn’t help. And if the question was really important, she’d bring it up again.

  So instead I said, “I’ll just see you Saturday, then.”

  “OK, sure. Is everything on track?”

  “Absolutely. Everything’s just fine.”

  As fine as it can be, considering, I thought as I drove back to the houseboat. I just wished I could remember that one particular detail about the wedding arrangements. And that I knew whether this particular bridegroom had blood on his hands.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  As I neared my front door, I heard voices from out on the deck, so I went around the corner of the houseboat to see who was visiting this early in the day.

  “Mom, Owen! I didn’t expect you till Friday.”

  Mom and I hugged, then her fiancé shook my hand warmly. Mom wasn’t a big hugger as a rule, but her relationship with Owen Winter had softened her. There were other changes too—she’d bought a snazzy new car, and her perpetually permed and colored hair was now a free and feathery silver—but whether those were pre- or post-Owen I wasn’t sure.

  Owen himself was a bluff and hearty executive type, retired early from Boeing, who’d met Mom in Sun Valley when she drove up from Boise for an author’s reading
. He was well read and good-natured, and so smitten with my mother that I had to approve of him.

  I even let him call me Carrie, the way she did. I didn’t offer the same leeway to Adrienne and Kimmie, Owen’s obnoxious daughters, but they did it anyway. The whole family called my mother Lou, for Louise, which took some getting used to. I’d never get used to the daughters, who I thought of privately as the Bitch Sisters.

  “Good to see you, Carrie,” Owen was saying now. “Quite a view you’ve got here. How do you like houseboat living?”

  “Love it,” I said, thinking, They haven’t heard about the murder yet. Good. “Come on inside. Can you stay long?”

  “Owen can’t stay at all,” Mom explained, as I unlocked the sliding glass doors that led through the porch and into the living room. “He has a board meeting at his bank for a few hours, and then we’re going up to Snoqualmie Falls for two nights at the lodge. Isn’t that lovely?”

  My mother was a hardworking teacher throughout her marriage to my hardworking dad, then well into her widowhood. It did my heart good to see her relaxed and retired now, squired around to fancy places by her well-to-do beau.

  “Sounds wonderful, Mom. Especially with all this sunshine.”

  “I was hoping you’d have time to visit with me this morning,” she went on. “I would have called ahead, but it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and then your cell phone didn’t answer.”

  “New number,” I said.

  “But why—”

  “Eddie helped me find a better phone plan.” I’d learned to edit my reports to my mother, and the purse snatching wasn’t something I wanted to discuss. “I do have some things going on today, but why don’t you come along to Boris’s studio with me? He’s expecting me soon, and I know he’d love to see you, especially after—well, I’ll tell you in the car.”

  I couldn’t very well edit away the fact that Boris had been accused of murder, but somehow I didn’t feel like relating the whole thing in front of my future step-father. “Then we can have an early lunch at By Bread Alone. I need to check in with Juice.”

  “Juice?” said Owen.

  “She makes wedding cakes,” Mom, who’d met her once, explained. “Such a…colorful girl. I’d be happy to tag along, dear, and you could drop me off at the bank so Owen doesn’t have to come back here. But you really shouldn’t have gone out without breakfast. You know it’s the most—”

  “Most important meal of the day,” I filled in. I’d been hearing this since I was three. “Yes, Mom, I know.”

  Owen chuckled and excused himself to go off to his meeting, leaving Mom to gush about him while I inhaled some toast and grapefruit juice. She talked about the sailing trips on Owen’s yacht, and the peaceful evenings at Owen’s house in Roche Harbor, and even the pleasant times—“pleasant” was Mom’s euphemism for tolerable—they’d had with Owen’s daughters.

  What she didn’t talk about was their wedding plans, which made me so curious that I finally brought it up.

  “So have you set a date yet, Mom?” I put my dishes in the sink and rinsed my hands. “We should really get moving on reserving a site. The best places book up so far in advance that—”

  “Oh, Carrie, I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

  I turned to see the look of dismay on her face and felt it mirrored on my own. “Don’t tell me the wedding is off?”

  “Goodness, no! It’s just that we’ve decided—I know you offered to manage the whole thing for me, so good of you, but Owen thought, that is, we thought…”

  “Thought what, Mom?” For a moment I was sure that Owen had hired some other wedding planner, probably at his daughters’ urging. There was no love lost between me and the Bitch Sisters. “Just tell me.”

  Mom took a deep breath. “We’re getting married in Italy.”

  “What?!”

  “Owen and I have been planning a long trip, to Italy and a lot of other places. I’ll tell you more about it later. But, well, we decided to have a simple ceremony in Orvieto. It’s a lovely little city that—”

  “But I don’t do weddings abroad!” I sputtered. “I don’t know any vendors, I’ll have to research the legal requirements, I’ll have to—”

  “You don’t have to do anything, dear. We’re going to do it ourselves.”

  “But—but—Mom, you agreed to have me plan your wedding!”

  “I know I did, Carrie, and I’m sure you would have done a fine job. But Owen and I have looked into it, and this is what we want. We just take our documents to the city hall, and ask our innkeepers or whoever to be witnesses, and—”

  “Wait a minute. You mean I’m not even invited?”

  “Well…” She stood up and made a nervous little gesture with her hands. “Well, no. Don’t be angry, dear.”

  “I’m not angry. Who’s angry?” I folded my arms and leaned back against the sink. “I’m just—I mean, it seems to me that you could have…Mom, I’m a wedding planner, and you’re eloping!”

  She laughed, as if she couldn’t help it. “I am, aren’t I? At my age! Be happy for me, won’t you?”

  It was the laugh that did it. To hear my mother laughing like a girl, like a giddy young bride, and to hear myself carping at her like such a sourpuss, brought me back to my senses. I threw my arms around her.

  “Of course I’m happy for you, Mom. I think a ceremony in this Orvieto place will be sweet and romantic and perfect. You should do exactly what you want with your wedding. After all, you’re the bride.”

  She blushed and smiled. “A bride, after all these years. I never dreamed. But now what about your wedding? What sort of thing are you planning?”

  “I’m not really sure. Something big and fancy, I suppose.”

  “And when?” She looked at me quizzically. “Have you and Aaron picked a date? I want to make sure we get back in time.”

  “You mean you’ll be out of the country while I’m planning my wedding?”

  “I might be,” she said, surprised. “Would that be a problem?”

  “N-no, of course not. I just thought you’d want to be involved, that’s all.”

  Here was another odd thing about my upcoming nuptials. Not only was I veering back and forth between Bride Brain and the thought of eloping myself, but Mom was acting strangely detached about the whole affair. I’d always been privately amused by hysterical mothers of the bride who spent months obsessing about pink napkins versus coral napkins and whether grilled citrus prawns would be more photogenic than Dungeness crab tartlets. But now that my own mother was being sensible, I was rather miffed.

  More than miffed, in fact. I actually felt myself swaying on the brink of a full-fledged Bridezilla temper tantrum. What about my wedding! I considered shrieking. What about my coral napkins and my crab tartlets and me me me! And then, since I’ve never been one for shrieking, I began to laugh at myself, first silently and then aloud.

  “If you want to me to stay and help, of course I will,” Mom was saying. “I need to know your date, though, so we can make our plane reservations and—what’s so funny, dear?”

  “Nothing, Mom. Everything. We haven’t picked a date yet.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s get going, all right? I don’t want to be late for Boris.”

  “Of course. Now what was it you were going to tell me about him?”

  “Let’s get ourselves downtown first. It’s a long story.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  As we headed downtown I had to concentrate on the traffic, but after we parked I told Mom about Digger’s death, and Boris being bailed out by the Buckmeisters. She reacted just as I thought she would. Digger was just a name to her, but she’d always liked Boris.

  “Of course he’s innocent!” she exclaimed. “The poor man, being arrested like some criminal. Does he have a good lawyer? Owen knows so many people—maybe he could help.”

  “He has a lawyer,” I told her, as we walked up the block to Nevsky Brothers with the sun warm on our faces. “Whethe
r he’s any good or not is another story.”

  Nevsky Brothers was unique, just like its proprietor. Set amongst the restaurants, blues bars, and T-shirt stores of the Pioneer Square district, it didn’t have the standard florist showroom up front displaying flower arrangements and hard goods like vases and greeting cards. Instead, Trofim Denisovich’s elderly sister Irina tended a tiny bucket shop, shyly selling blossoms by the stem to passersby.

  Behind the shop was Boris’s domain, a huge skylighted workroom with exposed brick walls. It housed long design tables and supply shelves and humming coolers full of flowers and greenery and completed works of floral art.

  Irina waved us through, and Mom and I both paused inside the workroom door to take a deep, delighted breath. Nevsky Brothers smelled like springtime in paradise, a heady mix of freesias and roses and lily of the valley, intertwined with the smoky scent rising from the vast silver samovar over in one corner.

  “Khar-rnegie, and the bee-yutiful Louise!” Boris broke off from a conversation with various Sergeis and rushed over to us. “Welcome!”

  As he swept us each into a grizzly bear embrace, I was happy to note that Boris handled me far more decorously than he had at Yesler Field. He was grinning broadly, but his eyes still showed sleeplessness and worry.

  “Boris, dear,” said Mom, catching her breath from the hug and patting his arm, “Carrie told me about this terrible business. I’m sure you’ll be found innocent in no time at all.”

  “Thenk you, Louise,” he said, with a little bow. “With such friends as your daughter, and her friend Mr. Buckmeister, I have confidence. Kharnegie, you wish to see drawings for baseball wedding, no? Sergei, bring tea!”

  As Mom sipped her tea and wandered the workroom, Boris unrolled his colored sketches for Rose’s wedding flowers. Her color theme—if you could call it hers—was the Navigators’ navy, green, and white, so he was using a lot of deep-blue irises and white lilies and stephanotis, with his usual imaginative mix of greenery.

  His first design for Rose’s bouquet had been inspired by her name and her youth: a hundred white tea roses shorn of their stems and wired thickly together in the shape of a heart. Sweet and demure and so very not in tune with the butt-kicking bride. So he’d tried again and come up with a striking new design: a crescent of deep blue delphiniums, anemones, and viburnum berries, arched over a handle wrapped in blue and green ribbons. Perfect.