Terror in Taffeta

by Marla Cooper

  “Um, yeah,” he enthused, shuffling his feet while playing with the fringe on a throw pillow. Zoe had turned her attention to a small statue in a nook near the bed, deeply engrossed in its craftsmanship, no doubt.

  “Oh, God, this is all my fault,” Nicole said.

  “What do you mean?” Zoe asked. “How is this your fault?”

  “I’m the one who brought her here. If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened!”

  “Nicole,” I said, “this isn’t anyone’s fault. Well, it may be someone’s fault, but it certainly isn’t yours. Or mine. Let’s be very clear about that.”

  Zoe set down the statue. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s—”

  “It’s no one’s fault,” said Vince brusquely, interrupting a sentence I kind of wanted to hear the end of.

  Right as I opened my mouth to ask Zoe what she meant, Mrs. Abernathy swooped into the room without so much as knocking. So much for privacy, I thought, forcing a smile onto my face.

  “Mom, someone went through Dana’s room!” Nicole said.

  “It figures, with all the hoodlums I’ve seen loitering around the plaza. Why I allowed you to drag us to Mexico, I’ll never know.” She hadn’t directed the comment at me, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have phrased it that way if she’d been talking to Nicole.

  “Mrs. Abernathy, this wasn’t a break-in. Someone was looking for something. They destroyed Dana’s room.”

  “How common,” Mrs. Abernathy said, waving a perfectly manicured hand in the air. “Well, there goes our deposit.”

  How was it that Mrs. Abernathy was so skilled at missing the point? I didn’t know how the girls put up with her. The woman should come with her own warning label.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “So that’s what I know. I need to go tie up a few loose ends so we can get out of here. I’ll be sure and tell you if the police find anything. In the meantime, if you can give me contact information for Dana’s next of kin, I’ll make sure the proper arrangements are made for her things.”

  Nicole’s eyes were wide. “But what about…?” The question hung there for a minute, unfinished.

  “What about what?” I asked.

  “Yes, spit it out, dear,” added Mrs. Abernathy.

  “Her … you know. Her body.” Nicole’s voice was barely audible. “Does she have to get buried here?”

  “Don’t be silly, darling. Kelsey will fly back with the body.”

  I would? No thanks.

  “I don’t know how these things work,” Nicole said. “I’ve never known anyone who’s died before. Well, one of my grandmothers died, but she was really old. She had dentures.”

  “Look, Nicole, it’s really sweet of you to be so concerned, but don’t you worry about it. What happens with the, the—with Dana is up to her family.” And no one else, I wanted to add. “They’ll take care of it. Now let’s get you guys all packed up. The limo will be here at four, and Evan will be waiting at the airport to fly us to Mexico City.”

  From there, the bride and groom would be off to the Riviera Maya for their honeymoon. I’d fly back home and find a bride to work with who was an orphan or maybe had two dads, and Mrs. Abernathy could go back to whatever hell she came from.

  “Okay,” said Nicole.

  “Great,” I replied, heading toward the door, anxious to finish packing.

  Ever the gentleman, Vince stood to see me out. “Thanks for everything, Kelsey. You really did do a great job planning our wedding.”

  “It was my pleasure,” I said, and I even kind of meant it for a second or two, until Mrs. Abernathy chimed in: “Next time maybe you can keep a better eye on things. But I suppose the flowers turned out nice.”

  As I reached for the door, a sudden pounding on the other side of it made me jump back a couple of feet.

  “Policía,” I heard from outside the door. Oh, thank goodness. They were done, which meant I could finish packing Dana’s things and get us out by four.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “Let them in.”

  I opened the door for Ortiz and Nolasco.

  “Hello, officers. Are you all done?”

  “Who’s in charge here?” asked Ortiz. I hadn’t noticed before how intimidatingly tall he was. It didn’t help that he was hovering over me with a scowl on his face.

  I started to point to Mrs. Abernathy, but she cut me off.

  “She is,” she said, pointing a finger back at me.

  “Oh, um, well—I’m just the wedding planner. Is the room all clear? Can I go finish packing it up now?”

  “No, the room is sealed. You cannot go in.”

  I sighed. I hated to leave the mess for someone else, but I didn’t have a choice. “Okay. I’ll tell the leasing company. I’m sure they’ll figure something out.” I grabbed a pen and paper off the desk and scribbled my cell phone number. “Here’s my contact info. If there’s anything we can do to help—”

  “I’m going to need a list of everyone who was staying here last night,” Ortiz said, flipping open a notepad and poising his pen above it.

  “You don’t think we had anything to do with this, do you?” Mrs. Abernathy asked indignantly.

  Ortiz ignored her. “The names, please?” It was more of a command than a question.

  No one jumped in, and the two officers were staring at me expectantly. “Oh, sure. There was me, Kelsey McKenna. Then the bride and groom here, Nicole and Vince.” I paused between names so he could write them down. “Nicole’s sister, Zoe. Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy…”

  Ortiz looked around the room. “Mr. Abernathy? Where is he?”

  “I believe he had to fly out early this morning,” I said, looking at Mrs. Abernathy for confirmation.

  “That’s correct,” she said. “He had to be in Mexico City by nine A.M. to catch a flight home. Business calls!”

  “There was also another bridesmaid, Claire Johnson, and Ryan McGuire, the best man, but they headed back this morning, too.”

  Ortiz and Nolasco exchanged exasperated looks. I could have told them that wrangling a wedding party is like herding cats.

  “Okay, we’re going to need their full names and phone numbers. In the meantime, don’t anyone else leave until we can clear this up. We’re going to need to talk to everyone who was staying here,” said Officer Ortiz.

  I checked my watch. “Sure, we’ve got a little time. We don’t leave for another two hours.”

  His head jerked up from the notebook he’d been scribbling in. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask that none of you leave town.”

  There was a stunned silence as the words sank in. Mrs. Abernathy was the first to speak: “You don’t understand: we don’t live here. No live-o here-o.”

  Ortiz glared at Mrs. Abernathy’s improvised Spanish. “I understand perfectly, but I must insist.”

  “Surely there’s something you can do,” I said, feeling the panic mounting in my voice. “Checkout time is four o’clock, and we have a private plane chartered to take us home.”

  Officer Ortiz looked unmoved. “A young woman is dead, and we have a lot of questions. I’m afraid we can’t allow you to leave.”

  “Well, surely we get some say in the matter,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “I mean, you can’t make us stay here.”

  “The way I see it, señora,” said Officer Ortiz, “either you can cooperate with us now and do what we ask—”

  “Or what?” Mrs. Abernathy challenged, eyes flashing.

  “Or I can assume you are guilty and arrest you for the murder of Dana Poole.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “So let’s recap,” said Brody. I had texted him to meet me back in my room so I could update him on the situation. “You voluntarily called the police about a robbery and now you’re a suspect in a murder? That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “Right? What kind of murderer calls the police and says, ‘Hey, why don’t you drop by later and see what else I’ve been up to?’”

  “W
hat did they say?”

  “I already told you: they said we can’t leave.”

  “I mean specifically. Did they say you can’t leave?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did they say I can’t leave?”

  “No, they don’t even know you exist, but I’m stuck here, at least for the next few hours.”

  “Can they even do that?” Brody asked. “Can they really make you stay?”

  “They haven’t charged us with anything, but we should probably try to stick around long enough for them to talk to us all so they can see we didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  There was a knock at the door. It was Officer Ortiz, who had come to fetch me for questioning. I followed him to the dining room, which he had commandeered as an impromptu interrogation room.

  “So you’re the … wedding planner?” he asked, flipping through his notepad.

  “That’s right,” I said, nodding helpfully.

  “How long have you known the deceased?”

  “Just a few days. She was a late addition to the wedding party.”

  He jotted down notes while I talked. “Do you know anyone who would want to harm her?”

  Pretty much everyone, I wanted to say but didn’t. What I actually said—and which was very diplomatic of me, I might add—was, “Well, Nicole loved her. Beyond that, the rest of us didn’t really know her all that well.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said. “Did she have any enemies?”

  “Probably,” I said before I could catch myself. “I mean, who doesn’t these days?”

  He looked up from his notepad, his face inscrutable. “What about the sister, Zoe? How did they get along?”

  “About like the rest of us.” I was intentionally vague, not wanting to implicate anyone. “Why?”

  “I’m trying to establish who might have had a reason to want to kill her.” He peered at me intently, trying to gauge my reaction.

  “Kill her? Do you really think it was murder?” I’d hoped he’d been bluffing earlier, throwing around the M word to get our attention, but he certainly didn’t seem to be bluffing now.

  He tapped his pen impatiently on the table. “Miss McKenna, did you witness anything out of the ordinary between Zoe and the victim?”

  My mind flashed back to several catty exchanges I’d heard over the past few days, but it was all typical bridesmaid stuff.

  “No, I’m sorry. Zoe and Dana weren’t best friends, but believe me, there wasn’t anything between them that I haven’t already seen at a thousand other weddings.” Whatever he was trying to get at, I was pretty sure there was no way Zoe had had anything to do with it—whatever it was.

  Officer Ortiz insisted I walk him through the whole week, from the welcome party to the rehearsal dinner to the group outings, as well as give him a detailed description of the wedding and reception. I checked my watch impatiently. If he didn’t wrap it up soon, Evan wouldn’t be able to get us to Mexico City in time for our flight home.

  “I don’t suppose you can tell me what the cause of death was?” I asked. Maybe if I knew what happened I could convince him to let us leave.

  “No.”

  “Is it because you don’t know, or you can’t tell me?” I asked.

  He looked up from his notebook and gave me a cold stare. That was all the answer I was going to get.

  “But it wasn’t natural causes?” I smiled at him, hoping to soften him up, but still no answer. “If you tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help you.”

  That got his attention. He leaned forward menacingly. His bulky frame was built for intimidation. “If you have any information, I would recommend sharing it.”

  “No, I don’t know anything. I just want to be able to help.” I tossed my hair a little for good measure. “If I knew exactly what it was we were investigating…”

  I won’t lie: I was trying to work some of my feminine wiles.

  “Thank you, Miss McKenna,” he replied brusquely. “I believe we’re done here.”

  So much for wiles.

  You’d think with all the questions he had, he’d be open to answering a few of mine, but apparently it doesn’t work that way in Mexico.

  Okay, fine, it doesn’t work that way anywhere, but it was worth a try.

  He snapped his notebook shut. “You’re free to go.”

  “About that … free to go back to my room, or free to go back to San Francisco?”

  “Neither. You can’t go back to your room until we’ve had a chance to search it. And we’re going to need you to stick around for a few days.”

  “What? You’ve got to be kidding me!” I felt my face flushing.

  “Don’t make me arrest you, Miss McKenna.”

  “No, no, I won’t. I mean, I’ll try not to. You have my full cooperation.” My dreams of escaping our Saltillo-tiled prison were slipping away.

  “Good. Then you won’t mind staying in town a couple more days while we investigate.”

  Damn. If only I’d taken an early flight like the others. “You realize some of the wedding party is already gone.”

  “I’m a detective, Miss McKenna.”

  “Right. So I guess I’ll just, you know, hang out.”

  Ortiz nodded, glad I was finally starting to see things his way. “That would be best.”

  I swung by my room and cracked the door open, but Nolasco yelled something at me in Spanish and I closed it again. He was busy going through my things. The perv.

  I went down to the courtyard, where I found Brody waiting. I plopped into the chair next to his before filling him in on my own personal Spanish inquisition.

  “Anyway, I have to hang tight for now, but you can still make it home tonight if you hurry,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said tentatively. He was clearly worried about me.

  “No, it’s fine. It’s just so…” I waved my hand, at a loss for words.

  “Ridiculous? Unfair? Completely sucky?”

  “All of the above. Anyway, go on. Save yourself.”

  “Are you sure?” Brody asked.

  “Yes. Absolutely. Well, no. But yeah, go. Seriously. I’ll just…”

  There really wasn’t any good way to finish that sentence. My eyes welled up with tears of frustration.

  “Listen,” said Brody, leaning forward and squeezing my shoulder. “You booked me on a full-fare ticket, remember?”

  “Yeah?”

  “So it doesn’t make any difference if I go back today or tomorrow or next week, even.”

  I laughed, wiping the tears out of my eyes. “Next week? God, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “You know what I mean. I don’t have anywhere I have to be. That’s the beauty of being self-employed. I can catch up on work stuff here as easily as anywhere else.”

  “You mean it?” I felt about a hundred pounds lighter already.

  “I’ve already checked out of my hotel, though, so it would be great if I could move into one of these empty rooms.”

  “Oh, Brody!” I flung my arms around him. “You’re amazing. I have to call the rental agency to see if we can stay, but we’ll figure something out. Consider me your own private travel agent. And when you find Mr. Right, I’ll plan your wedding for free.”

  “Well, that kind of goes without saying.”

  Calling the rental company proved easy enough. The next guests weren’t arriving until Friday, which gave us a few extra days to figure everything out. It was ours—for a price, of course, but I wasn’t the one paying the bills, so what did I care?

  “Feel free to charge us double for the inconvenience,” I generously offered the rental agent.

  “No es necesario, señora,” he replied. “It’s no trouble at all.”

  “Oh, I insist.”

  Next on my list was Evan, who was already at the airport, waiting for us to arrive.

  “Hi, you on your way?” he asked. “We need to leave, like, now if we’re going to make it to Mexico City in time for your flight.”


  “We have a situation,” I said. “We can’t leave yet.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because it would land us in a Mexican prison,” I replied. “We kind of lost a bridesmaid while we were here.”

  “How do you lose a bridesmaid?”

  “Well, not lost like ‘look under the bed’ lost. You remember Dana? The late arrival you picked up the other night?”

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “We don’t know yet. They’re looking into it.”

  “That’s horrible! Is there anything I can do?”

  “I hope so. I’m not sure when we’re going to be able to leave. Is there any way we can reschedule?”

  “Of course. My calendar’s pretty flexible this week. I have some flights to make, but that’s the beauty of being your own boss.”

  “Thank you, Evan. I really owe you one.” I relaxed a little.

  “I do have one condition.”

  “We’ll pay you double—it’s no problem.” I was starting to enjoy running up a tab for Mrs. Abernathy. They could afford it. Perhaps I’d insist on luxury gift baskets for the house staff to make up for the inconvenience of dead bodies and histrionic guests.

  “You’re going out with me tonight.”

  “Evan—”

  “No excuses. You can’t possibly be booked up since you weren’t even supposed to be here.”

  “I don’t think I’d be very good company.”

  “What are you going to do, sit home and stew? You need some distraction.”

  “No way. You’re a pilot. They’d probably arrest me for trying to leave the country.”

  “I have some friends down at the police department. What if I clear it with them first? Would that make you feel better?”

  “Evan…”

  “Kelsey.”

  “Okay, fine.” At least it would give me an excuse to get away from my clients for a bit. Besides, Brody would be thrilled.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “Okay, see you then.”

  Brody looked at me expectantly as I hung up the phone. “Well? What did he say?”

  “That I’m going out with him tonight, apparently.”

  “What? Get out! That’s great.”