“What do you mean, details?”
“Cause of death, condition of the body, Mr. Barry’s presence at the scene, and so forth. That won’t be released to the press just yet. For now, a party guest was found dead, that’s all.”
“Of course. Whatever you say.”
After they left, I went back to hang up the gown, just until I could get it to a dry cleaners. As I lifted the crumpled black folds, I heard a faint clatter against the tiles of the bathroom floor, and remembered: Mercedes’ powder compact. I pulled out the little square of black enamel and gold trim, and felt tears welling up. Just a bit of female frippery. Souvenir of a dead woman. I took a shaky breath, set the compact gently on a shelf, and returned upstairs to discuss details of a very different sort with Buck, Betty, and Bonnie.
The Buckmeisters were a living, laughing, hollering argument for charging an hourly rate instead of a commission. I figured that by the time Bonnie said “I do,” Buck and Betty would have paid me about fourteen cents an hour for my services. They popped in to see me almost daily, had me pursue every new fad and feature that showed up in the magazines or on-line, and changed their minds as often as Buck changed the bandannas that he invariably wore, pirate-fashion, wrapped around his broad red forehead and knotted in back above his scraggly gray ponytail. Today’s bandanna was blue with yellow polka dots. Buck was from El Paso, where he’d made a fortune in hot tubs, and moving to Seattle hadn’t changed him one little bit, no siree.
Daughter Bonnie was to be a Christmas bride, and we’d already worked through four or five entire scenarios for the wedding, from food to flowers to music, each of them increasingly Yule-ish. The only constants were the church and country club sites, the ornate wedding gown, and the invisible groom. Invisible to me, that is, because he’d been out of the country for the entire planning process, setting up a computer center for his company in Milan. I hoped he wouldn’t throw me any curves at the last moment. It was remarkable enough for a father of the bride to be as immersed in wedding minutiae as Buck was; grooms and dads usually just showed up and said “Yes, dear.”
“Yes, dear,” Buck was saying now. “I did too bring the chicken, it’s in this bag, no it isn’t, wait a darn minute, here it is! Carnegie, we brought you your favorite!”
“You eat up, dear, and we’ll tell you this wonderful idea we’ve had about the bridesmaids,” said his wife. Betty’s hair was dyed black as patent leather, and permed into curlicues that framed her round, kindly face just like a painted doll’s. “Instead of bouquets they could carry little silk purses, dyed to match their shoes, with flowers peeking out the top. Wouldn’t that just be sweet?”
I sank into a wicker chair, wondering how Boris would respond to yet another change in plan. “Very sweet. I bet you have a picture to show me.”
“As a matter of fact, we do!” Bonnie was the round, curly image of her mother, amplified with some of her father’s height and heft. “We found this at the library. Look!”
She opened a glossy volume authored by the sort of florist-to-the-stars that Boris claimed to disdain and, I suspected, secretly envied. The thought of Boris brought Corinne’s face, deathly pale, floating before my eyes. Should someone tell Boris about her fall, or would she be embarrassed if he knew? Damn her anyway for being so melodramatic.
“See?” said Bonnie. “It’s a bride’s purse in the picture, but all the girls could carry them, and we’d have Christmas flowers instead of these tiny little pansies or whatever they are.”
“Primroses!” Buck boomed. “Caption says they’re primroses and forget-me-nots. Hmph. I’d like to see anybody forget my little Bonnie. Anyhow, we’d want holly and mistletoe, wouldn’t we, to keep it Christmassy, or maybe poinsettias?”
Betty squealed at her husband in affectionate glee. “Why, Father, you know how big a purse you’d need for a poinset-tia? We’d have bridesmaids with tote bags!”
“Well, little poinsettias then. Carnegie, can’t your Russian fella come up with some kinda mini-poinsettias?”
“Amaryllis,” I said faintly. My head was swimming. Conversing with the Buckmeisters was odd at any time, but utterly surrealistic today. “We had planned on ruby-red amaryl-lis blossoms, with cedar fronds and red hypericum berries. If you don’t want them we really need to let Boris know.”
“Oh, that’s right,” sighed Bonnie. “I do like those amaryl-lises. Well, we’ll decide later. Oh! And I saw this article about tiaras. They say a tiara can be a bride’s crowning glory. Carnegie, I could wear a tiara!”
“Well, yes, you could. Although we have already ordered your headpiece and veil.” Twice, in fact. We’ve ordered everything for this bloody wedding at least twice.
Bonnie knit her brows. “Maybe a tiara on top of the veil?”
I smiled inwardly at the notion of all that sparkle and drama perched above Bonnie’s rosy, sweet-natured face. A tiara calls for a woman with a certain confident carriage, a certain aristocratic air… a woman like Mercedes Montoya. Suddenly Bonnie’s voice faded to a distant murmur, as the events of last night crowded around me, and I knew if I sat still much longer I was going to lose it.
“Folks, could you excuse me for just another minute?”
I went into the workroom and closed the connecting door behind me. “Eddie, if you love me, go out and talk to the Buckmeisters.”
“Oh, no,” he said, his feet planted on his desk and an unlit cigar clamped in his teeth. No smoking in the workroom, by order of the proprietor. “Ohhh, no, not the Killer B’s. If you’re too shook up to work, then get rid of ’em and take the day off.”
“I’m not shaken up; I’m going to Harborview”
“What the hell for?”
“Tommy Barry’s had a drunk-driving accident, I want to try and see him. Please, Eddie, just take some notes and don’t promise them anything for sure until I check it out.”
He grumbled, but he did it, and within minutes I was fleeing through the downpour to climb into Vanna. As I drove, Tommy’s voice sounded in my head: “You’re killing her!” But who? Who had he seen with Mercedes, and did that person know they’d been seen? Was there someone out there hoping that Tommy never woke up? Or planning to make sure that he didn’t? The police should be guarding him. The morning news had only hinted at foul play and said nothing of witnesses, but if the killer knew about Tommy, he could easily track him down.
I maneuvered into a tight spot behind a pillar in the hospital’s underground garage, and fumbled in my purse to be sure I had Graham’s card handy. I could call him from the lobby after I’d seen Tommy. A grandmotherly volunteer told me what floor Mr. Barry was on, then began to say something about restricted visiting. I didn’t stay to listen.
Hospitals try so hard to be efficient and cheery, like office buildings crossed with day-care centers. Soothing water-colors, potted plants, even espresso carts, for revving up the staff and calming down the visitors. But every time I enter one of those double-wide, slow-moving elevators with their indefinable hospital smell, I can taste Styrofoam and the thin, bitter vending-machine coffee that Mom and I drank by the quart at St. Luke’s, in Boise, as my father failed to recover from his third heart surgery.
Dad gave me my red hair and also my name. He had educated himself in the public libraries endowed by Andrew Carnegie, and conveniently overlooked the fact that old Andy was a robber baron. But Dad gave me so much more, and I still missed him. Mom and I practically lived at the hospital, that last time. She knew all the nurses’ names, and I knew every waiting-room watercolor by heart. Dad was buried in the veterans’ cemetery there in Boise. Mom went to see him every Sunday.
The elevator began to fill, and I squeezed back in the corner and tried hard to think of something else. You couldn’t get more “else” than the Buckmeisters, so I thought about them, and the Great Christmas Cake Conundrum. The dinner menu was shaping up fine; Joe Solveto was planning on roasted halibut with a macadamia crust and mango chutney, and he was fine-tuning a vegetarian entrée as well
. But the Killer B’s wanted the cake to be a special event in itself, some kind of colossal Christmas concoction that they couldn’t quite describe, but they’d know it when they saw it.
Buck, Betty, and Bonnie had done tasting after tasting— these folks just loved to eat cake—but none of my usual bakeries had really wowed them. So far, they’d rejected a traditional tiered cake with holly trim, a forty-pound brandied fruitcake, and a fantasy forest of fir-tree-shaped croques en bouche in a blizzard of spun sugar. Time was getting short. I had one more baker, deep in my Rolodex, who might just do the trick….
The doors swooshed open on the intensive care unit. Surprise, surprise: the police knew their job better than I did. At the end of the corridor I could see a brawny officer planted on a folding chair beside a door. Tommy’s room. I made a beeline for it, past a waiting area full of family members with strained expressions, despondently doing jigsaw puzzles or rereading magazines. I tried not to see them, not to imagine who or what they were waiting for. A tiny, sharp-nosed black supervisor with bloodshot eyes intercepted me, demanding my full name and relationship to the patient.
“You’re not Mr. Barry’s daughter, then,” she said. It sounded like an accusation. “Immediate family only at this time.”
“Tommy has a daughter? Can I get her phone number? I’d like to help.”
“We can’t release that information.”
“Can you at least tell me how he’s doing? Or could I talk to his doctor?”
“The doctor would tell you that Mr. Barry’s condition is critical,” she said, glaring up at me, “and there are no visitors allowed except immediate family.”
In another minute she’d call the cop over to evict me; he was already watching us suspiciously. Well, at least I knew Tommy was safe. I stopped in the hospital gift shop on my way out and tried to order a bouquet for his room, but they told me flowers weren’t allowed in the ICU. As I bypassed the elevator and clattered down the fire stairs to the van, I vowed to myself that I’d bring an armful of blossoms when Tommy woke up. Surely he’d wake up soon. At the moment, I didn’t even care if he could identify the murderer. I just wanted Tommy Barry back in the land of the living.
Preoccupied as I was, I must have pulled out of my parking space too fast. A bang like a gunshot coincided with a shock that flung me forward against my shoulder belt. I sat still for a moment, unsure at first of what had happened. Then I realized and groaned aloud, not in pain but in sorrow. If my insurance goes up I’m screwed. I scrambled out. My fender was a mess, but the occupants of the other car, a Catholic priest and a drab young woman, seemed to be intact.
“I’m so sorry,” I babbled as they climbed out of the shiny blue sedan. The priest, a burly man in his sixties, had been driving. “Honest, I thought I looked, but the pillar was blocking me. I’ll pay for any—Corinne?”
Drab and washed-out, matted hair pulled back with a rubber band, lush figure bundled in an oversized parka, the passenger was indeed Corinne Campbell. I’d never seen her without her face painted and her hair styled, but those round, slightly bulging aquamarine eyes were unmistakable. Of course, the ambulance must have brought her here, and then they kept her overnight. She stood hugging herself as if she were cold, looking dazed and miserable, staring at nothing.
“Do you know each other?” the priest asked, in the rich, confident voice of a born public speaker. He held out his hand. “What a very small world. I’m Father Richard Barn-stable. And you’re—?”
“Carnegie Kincaid.” We shook hands and I nodded at Vanna’s copper-colored Made in Heaven logo. Wedding professionals often do pink, so I try to stand out. “I’m an event planner. I was at the party last night where Corinne… that is, the party at the Aquarium. One of the guests had a car accident.”
Corinne snapped to attention. “Who?”
“It was Tommy Barry. He’s in critical condition, I couldn’t get in to see him. Listen, Corinne, how are you? I mean, are you OK now, and are you all right from last night?”
And did you jump or fall? That’s what I really wanted to ask, though I’d feel guilty about it either way. Either I failed her as a friend or I failed to spot a safety hazard at the party venue. Maybe I should call myself a disaster planner.
“I’m fine,” she said absently, gnawing at a thumbnail. “Father Richard is taking me home. Father, you’re not hurt, are you?”
“Not at all, not at all. And the car seems to be undamaged, though Ms. Kincaid’s van looks the worse for the encounter.”
“It’s just a little body work,” I said, bending down to inspect the fender. It wasn’t quite scraping against the wheel, but it looked awful, with bare metal showing through the white paint. Poor old Vanna. Nothing like a dilapidated vehicle to make a really classy impression. “It’s drivable.”
Corinne wasn’t interested in the state of my van. “What happened to Tommy?”
“He was drunk and he tried to drive himself home. He’s still unconscious. Corinne, has anyone told you about Mercedes?”
She stared at me. Corinne never seemed to blink. “It was on the news this morning. What happened? They didn’t really say.”
I’m used to counseling hysterical brides and soothing their irate mothers, but explaining this kind of news to this kind of person was above and beyond. To complicate matters, a behemoth SUV full of teenagers came down the ramp and honked at us; the priest’s car was blocking the aisle. He hastened to move it, and Corinne stepped aside with me.
“I can’t say much either,” I told her, remembering Graham’s admonition. “She died some time during the party, or right after. I found her. The police are questioning everyone, so you’ll probably get a phone call. They, um, know about your fall.”
A hand shot out from the baggy sleeve of her parka and gripped my arm. “Carnegie, I didn’t fall.”
“Oh, Corinne, I’m so sorry. I knew you were upset about Boris, I should have come and found you so we could talk. Aaron feels really bad about it, too. Is Father Richard going to stay with you this afternoon? You can always call me, you know.”
“What are you talkin’ about?” Her Southern accent had grown stronger.
“Well, I don’t want to butt in, but if you’re still feeling like you might harm yourself, you shouldn’t be alone.”
“Y’all think I jumped?” She shook my arm impatiently and her eyes got even rounder. “Carnegie, somebody tried to drown me.”
Chapter Seven
IT WAS MY TURN TO STARE, INTO THE AQUAMARINE SHALLOWS of Corinne’s wide, wild eyes. The SUV lumbered off, and we were left in echoing silence.
“Are you sure? Maybe it was a joke. People were drinking a lot—”
“I don’t know who did it, but it wasn’t a joke. I was sitting on the edge of the pier, over where the guests weren’t supposed to be, you know? I went around the barricade. I just wanted to be alone. Somebody in a black cape, or a cloak or something, came up behind me. He bunched it over my face and we wrestled around and then I hit my head. Next thing I knew, that guard was hauling me out of the water. I didn’t jump, honestly. You believe me, don’t you?”
Father Richard joined us at this point, and Corinne’s demeanor changed abruptly. Her expression went blank, and she turned quickly away from us to get into his sedan and slam the door.
“I’ll take her home,” the priest told me, as I gazed after her in consternation. “We’ll just forget the fender bender, shall we?”
“Father, has Corinne told the police she was attacked?”
He moved closer, his back to Corinne, and spoke softly.
“She plans to,” he said. “Unfortunately.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have to understand,” he said, “she’s told stories like this before. I’ve known Corinne since she came here to the university, and she’s always had, well, call it a vivid imagination. She gets a bit dramatic when things aren’t going well. There was a young man once, she was angry at him, and she made an accusation that wasn’t
quite true.”
“An accusation?…” I couldn’t quite say “rape” to a priest.
He nodded significantly. “We settled it quietly enough, but the police are unlikely to take her seriously a second time. Nor should they, I’m afraid. I think Corinne just needs a different way to explain what happened last night. Self-destruction is a sin against God’s love, you know, and she’s a very devout girl.”
“I understand,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I did. “Well, here’s my card, in case there’s a problem about your car. Thanks for being so reasonable about it.”
“You’re welcome. God bless you.”
They left, and I drove away with my thoughts spinning like a whirlpool. It was certainly possible that one woman tried to kill herself on the same night that another woman was murdered. Corinne might well have repented her suicide attempt, then gotten the idea for her “story” from the report of Mercedes’ death on the news. She’d been all alone out there in the dark, beyond the barricade, with no witnesses. Simple enough, last night, to slip into the water in drunken despair. Simple enough, this morning, to pretend there was a killer stalking the party, and play the victim instead of the fool. Or the sinner.
But wasn’t the boy who cried wolf devoured by one? Was Corinne’s wolf in a black cloak imaginary, or all too real?
I needed time to think, and I wanted to give the Buckmeisters time to vacate the office, so I swung out of my way to do a drive-by of the Experience Music Project. Even if Paul and Elizabeth decided to postpone, I’d have to check off this chore eventually. For each of my weddings, I drive to the site pretending I’m a guest with no special knowledge of one-way streets or parking-lot entrances. It gives me a better sense of where to put signs or set up valet parking, and serves as a double check if we’ve put a map in with the invitation.
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