Two Funerals and a Wedding (Domestic Bliss Mysteries Book 8)

by Leslie Caine

  “Steve’s here, too,” I said as I walked back inside with his sisters, while George remained in the garden to “putter around” for a while. “He’s taking a walk with your mother.”

  “We know,” Michelle said.

  “We saw them leave through the window,” Amelia explained. She led the way to her bedroom and shut the door. I had a brief flashback to my preteen sleep-over days. “Are we really going to talk about the wedding?” she asked her sister.

  “No. That was just an excuse for Dad’s sake,” Michelle said.

  I studied her bruised eye, which was still puffy and tender looking. It did look a lot better, though, which I told her.

  “I’m wearing yellow makeup. It balances out the purple so it hides the bruises better.”

  “She knows all sorts of tricks like that,” Amelia said.

  “Not tricks to cover bruises,” Michelle hastened to add. “But how to hide blemishes and how to make your eyes look better. Makeup tricks.” Michelle and Amelia took seats on her bed. I sat in a rocking chair in the corner.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “We’re scared,” Amelia answered.

  “Neither of us has been able to sleep since we heard about Drew,” Michelle added.

  “I didn’t get much sleep, either,” I told them. I tried not to look around the room in an obvious attempt to appraise the space. There was always something childlike in a room within one’s parents’ house. Amelia was quite childlike to begin with, and this room was no exception. She’d painted it a dark royal blue, which seemed a little incongruous with her forest green drapes. It was far too dark of a room. I could almost feel the lightness being sucked away.

  “Mark didn’t do it,” Michelle said looking me straight in the eyes. She appeared agitated. “He didn’t kill Fitz, and he didn’t kill Drew. Maybe I should have been more adamant, more convincing that my black eye was an accident. I need you to convince Steve of that. He can’t continue to treat Mark like the villain in all of this. It will only make my living with Mark that much worse.”

  “I want to help you, Michelle, but every time you try to convince me that your black eye was an accident, the more I start to suspect the opposite.”

  She grimaced. “Why? What can I do to change your mind?”

  “I don’t know, Michelle. Right now, all I can think about is how bad things are for Steve. I just want the police to arrest Drew’s killer and let Steve begin to heal from all of this. But…saying things will only be ‘that much worse’ is not a convincing argument. Maybe you should consider leaving him, Michelle.”

  She shook her head. “He’s my husband, and I’m having his baby. And Zoey is just a baby herself.”

  “You have a loving and supporting family. We’ll help you get back on your feet. But for the time being, you might want to just take a breather. Move up to Crestview, and stay and housesit while we’re on our honeymoon. Explain to Mark that the stress is getting to all of us, and you just want to let things settle down.” The Denver detective words came back to me—that we shouldn’t leave the country.

  “Thanks, Erin, but that won’t be necessary. I’m handling things with Mark just fine. All I need is for everyone to quit treating him like the black sheep.”

  “Speaking strictly for myself, I do not consider him a black sheep.” More like a black wolf.

  “Is Mom talking to Steve right now?” Amelia asked me.

  “Yes, and I doubt it’s going well. He probably feels like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders right about now.”

  Amelia blushed. “I told Erin the truth about Fitz and Mom,” she said to Michelle.

  A flash of intense anger passed across Michelle’s features, but quickly morphed into a blank expression. “Well, I have to say that I wish my sister hadn’t brought you into the family closet so soon. We Sullivans have our share of problems. As I’m sure you’ve gathered by now.”

  “It’s okay. I love having sisters-in-law nearby,” I said. That was true in theory. I had to admit, though, that I liked Amelia more and more, and Michelle less and less as time went on.

  I looked at Amelia. “What is your take on this, Amelia? Do you want Steve to intervene with Mark?”

  “No, I don’t. Mark wouldn’t hit Michelle. Not unless she hit him first.”

  “That’s not especially reassuring,” I said, just as Michelle was snarling, “I’ve never hit him.”

  “Yes, you did. You slapped him that one time you were fighting about Drew. He punched you in the stomach.”

  “That never happened.”

  “Yes it did!”

  “Amelia,” Michelle stated, holding her sister’s gaze, but keeping her voice gentle, “you’re confusing your bad dreams with reality again. It’s true that he and I got into an argument in front of you, and that we were really upset. But it was about him spending too much time at a party with his co-worker named Andrew, not Drew. I swatted him on the arm, and he pushed me away. That’s all. That’s what really happened.”

  “Okay,” Amelia muttered, lowering her gaze to the floor.

  “Tell her the truth this time,” Michelle instructed.

  “They did what she said,” Amelia told me in a low voice. It was like watching an older sister bully her younger sister.

  “I’m having Mark’s baby,” Michelle said to me. “I’m scared that Aunt Bea is going to be vindictive and will get Mark fired. That can’t happen. We can’t survive as a family on no income. You have to persuade her to change her mind, Erin. Please. I’ll never ask another favor from you as long as I live. But please, for the sake of Zoey and my unborn child, talk Aunt Bea out of taking any action against Mark. Please.”

  “I’ll talk to her. I can’t guarantee any results, but I will talk to her about this and tell her how badly this would affect you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I shifted my gaze to Amelia. “How are you holding up with all of this…craziness around you?”

  She pursed her lips. “Drew was a good man. Fitz was not.”

  “Yes,” Michelle said. “You’re right on both counts.” She rose and glanced out the window. “Steve’s sitting in your car.”

  “He is?” I stepped beside her and peered out. I could just see that someone was in the driver’s seat from this angle. “I’m going to head out. Bye.”

  They both said goodbye. I trotted down the stairs and looked for George. I could see through the glass back door that he was still puttering around in his onion patch. I opened the door and called, “Goodbye, George. I’ll see you at the rehearsal dinner next Thursday.”

  “Want me to make up a plate of home-grown onions for the drive home?” George asked with a grin.

  “No, but thanks anyway. I wouldn’t mind a petunia or two, though.”

  “Too late in the season for that. I’m confident that you already know what you’re missing with the onions. They’re best with a T-bone side dish. Drive carefully.”

  “We will.” I went straight to Steve’s van and got into the passenger seat.

  Steve muttered. “Hey.”

  “I didn’t know till just now that you were back from your walk.”

  “I’ve been out here for a little while. I was going to come inside in another minute or two.”

  “Is your mom in the house right now?”

  He shook his head. “She drove to a yoga class.” He raked his hand through his hair. “Now I have to stop myself from worrying if her instructor is male.”

  “I got the impression that the interlude with Fitz was a one-time thing. She was hurt, and because she acted out of pain, she made a bad decision.”

  “Let’s talk about it another time. Such as when we’re back from Europe. And life stops sucker-punching me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You’re the only good thing I’ve got right now.”

  A list of other good things in his life popped into my mind, but I decided to let him be sad and angry for now. “I’m re
ady to head back to Crestview,” I said, feeling my cheeks warm in embarrassment.

  He started the engine. “This has been a regular barrel full of monkeys. We’ll have to drop in on Mom and Dad more often.”

  I chose not to reply to his obvious sarcasm. I looked up at Amelia’s window and saw her watching us. I lifted a hand in a small wave, but she continued to watch me with doleful eyes.

  Chapter 21

  “Let’s grab some sandwiches and take the rest of the day off and go for a hike in the mountains,” I suggested to Steve. We were on I-25, several miles north of Denver, with Steve eerily quiet as he drove us home from his parent’s house.

  “That’s not a good idea. I might mutilate a tree.”

  “Mutilate a tree?”

  “I don’t want to take my anger out on you. Or on an innocent squirrel. Hacking a tree into small bits of wood feels like my only option.”

  “Ah.”

  We were silent for another few minutes.

  “This is my dad’s fault, mostly,” Steve said. “He was your typical absentee father—off at work while we were growing up. He’d spend twelve hours a day at the office without thinking twice. Coming home after all of us had eaten and were off in our rooms doing homework. Then, come to find out, he was sleeping with his secretary. Having his secret life, while he deserted us…left us to our own devices. Including my mom, while she dealt with Amelia’s psychosis. And all the trouble Drew and I kept getting into.” He smacked the steering wheel with the heel of his hand so hard that I worried for a moment that the airbag might inflate. “I’m lucky you wanted to marry me in the first place. Now you’re dealing with my dysfunctional family, and my blind devotion to my childhood buddy. I hope you haven’t changed your mind about marrying me.”

  “Of course not! Ninety-nine percent of families are dysfunctional. Yours isn’t even within the worst quarter of the scale.”

  Steve smiled a little. “Where did you find a scale of crazy families? Did you rank us according to a questionnaire in a women’s magazine?”

  “No, it was just a random sampling based on the families I’ve known. Don’t forget that I was given up for adoption as a toddler, and that my adoptive dad divorced my mom and pretty much made himself a stranger.”

  He glanced at me. “You don’t ever worry that I’ll do the same thing, do you? Run off and leave you?” he asked gently.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Oh, Erin. I’ll never leave you. No matter what happens. If we ever break up, it’s going to have to be because you’ve gotten so fed up, you decide to leave me.”

  “I can’t imagine ever doing that. It’s not hard to see why you’d leave me, though.” I paused as Steve navigated us alongside a string of orange pylons for a lane closure. “Maybe this is how the vast majority of couples feel right before their weddings. And I suspect that, as interior designers, we get more glimpses of marriages than most people do. It never bothers me when couples disagree on design decisions. It’s more fun sometimes—determining how both of them can be thrilled with the results. But every now and then, with kitchen remodels, there’s that particular exchange of one-liners that breaks my heart.”

  Steve nodded, immediately picking up on my drift. “The wife says: Well, I’m the one who’s going to be using the new kitchen. Then the husband says: Well, I’m the one who’s going to be paying for the new kitchen.”

  “Exactly. That’s the snippet of dialogue that I hear too often, and it always makes me cringe. And I’ll bet shortly before their weddings, none of those couples would have dreamed that in another ten years or so, they’d be trying to belittle their spouses over a kitchen remodel. But, really, I think it’s their own interior lives that they’ve misjudged. That the wives weren’t anticipating that they’d come to resent doing the lion’s share of the household tasks, and the husbands weren’t expecting to resent working many more hours outside of the house than their wives, in order to bring in the larger salary.”

  “Which doesn’t justify my father’s affair.”

  “No, it doesn’t. All I know for sure is that Eleanor is totally wracked with guilt. She believes she’s indirectly caused her family to implode. She seduced Fitz to get back at your dad. For whatever reason, she chose to have her fling at Michelle’s house, which just compounded everything. My hunch is that your father feels equally guilty. He seems like a gentle, loving soul to me.”

  “It’s going to be a while before I can forgive him for putting his own desires ahead of his family’s needs,” Steve grumbled. “You have unusually low expectations for fathers, thanks to yours putting the bar so low.”

  That was true, I thought. I probably was asking too little of George. “Maybe Eleanor so overcompensated with her excellent parenting that he felt superfluous in his own household. It’s not for me to say. Things fall apart sometimes. I just think it’s best to make all of our relationships as good as they can be. And I think it’s just as damaging to a relationship to tear yourself down as it is to tear down your partner.”

  He was silent for a while. “Meaning I need to get a grip on my regret for being so thick-headed about Drew.”

  “Yes, but, more importantly, I need to handle my dad’s desertion and know that his actions have no relevance to your likeliness to leave me. I hope your parents can put their marriage back together. Not just because they strike me as really good people, but because they raised my favorite person in the entire world.”

  “I love you so much, Erin Gilbert.” We stopped at a light on the south side of Crestview. “You’re letting my father off too easy, though.”

  “What he did to his wife and kids is in the past. Our parents’ relationships have nothing to do with yours and mine. We rock!”

  “You said it, girlfriend!” Steve replied dramatically, which made me laugh.

  I snuggled up to him as best I could while we were both wearing our seatbelts. I hoped the thoughts of the killer weren’t tugging at Steve’s mind, like they were for mine.

  I was loathe to admit it out loud, but one big black mark on his parents was that they could be complicit in murder. It was a ten-minute walk between their house and Michelle’s. If they had seen Drew shooting up on their daughter’s porch, and he’d babbled about wanting Michelle to move up to Crestview with him, was it inconceivable that they wouldn’t have decided to take matters into their own hands? Speed up his course of self-destruction to protect Michelle and Zoey from his influence?

  What a hideous thought! Of course they would never have done that! Needing to distract myself, I asked, “What do you want to do about Parsley and Sage?”

  “That’s not really up to me.”

  “Didn’t you say that you’d received the last shipment of materials and furniture?”

  “Yeah. It was all delivered to the restaurant this morning, but I didn’t schedule the crew.”

  “You’d pretty much cleared your schedule to work on it all of next week. And I already cleared mine in advance of the wedding.”

  He slowly smiled. “We could finish setting it up. Then invite some of Drew’s friends over to remember him there, in the place he was so excited about opening.”

  “Precisely what I was thinking.”

  I saw him wince and realized that his eyes had filled with tears. “Drew would really have liked that idea,” he said.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do.” I tried to hide my own tears, but couldn’t quite manage the feat.

  Steve put his hand on my knee.

  “I wasn’t as kind to him as I should have been,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know how much his friendship meant to you.” In fact, maybe their bonding was extra strong with his workaholic father being less of a presence in Steve’s life than he could have been.

  “You saw his downward spiral, but I couldn’t. He was deeply troubled. I just—” He stopped and released a slow sigh. “The killer needs to be brought to justice.”

  “Yes.”

  Steve smiled at me. My heart did its typical ha
ppy dance, despite everything. We found a parking spot and walked hand-in-hand through the alley to the restaurant, Steve using his key to let us inside through the back. I immediately caught a whiff of a foul odor as I stepped inside.

  “Does it smell like gasoline to you?” I asked, hoping my sense of smell was deceiving me.

  “Yeah,” Steve said. We both sniffed as we walked deeper into the restaurant, trying to identify where the odor was stronger.

  My nose led me toward the kitchen. “I’m going to crank up the oven hood,” I told Steve. The giant fan began to whirr.

  Steve said, “I think it’s coming from—” He stopped, looking into the office.

  Lucas was kneeling on the floor, facing the opposite wall.

  “Lucas!” Steve cried. “What’s going on here?”

  “This is my own establishment,” Lucas said, puffing himself up and squaring his shoulders. “I have a right to do as I wish. What are you doing here?”

  “We came over to see if we can finish the work on our own time,” I said. “It smells like gasoline.”

  Steve strode through the office doorway and lifted a gasoline can. “It’s empty. You were setting fire to the place,” Steve said, his hands fisted.

  “No, the can of petrol is for my car. I ran out of gas. I had to walk to the petrol pump. I stopped in to try and use the petrol to clean an ink stain on the chair. I didn’t realize that I knocked the can over, with my big fat foot. It spilled everywhere.”

  “Isn’t that your rental car, parked in the private space by the back door?” Steve asked.

  “Yes, that is right. I put in enough petrol to make it run. I did that first. Then I came in to eat and spilled the rest. I must leave now. I’m getting a headache. It is probably caused by all the fumes from the petrol.”

  “Which you spilled on the floor,” I said, “throughout the entire restaurant. Especially in the kitchen.”

  Lucas hung his head. “My excuse is…not so good. I was embarrassed to tell you the truth.” He looked at first me, then Steve, searching our eyes. “I did come here to set fire to the building. I was desperate. This place is going to bankrupt me. I wanted the insurance money. But I changed my mind. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t light the match.” He held up a cloth. “See? Smell. I was cleaning up the petrol. Look. You see?” He pointed at a mop and bucket in the back corner of the kitchen.