Weddings, Receptions, and Murder

by Stacey Alabaster

  “Well, for one thing, there aren’t many routes one can take in this town,” I pointed out as we headed back along the freeway, which looked totally foreign now that the sun had gone down. The pines in the woods looked kind of intimidating at that time of night. Not at all welcoming. “And secondly, Margaret said that Bianca was in a rush. Cutting corners. So that tells me that she would have taken the most direct route, right?”

  Adam raised his eyebrows and shrugged a bit. “I suppose that’s as good a theory as any.”

  Once we’d reached the dealership again, it was time to take the freeway back in the direction of my house, which was slightly different to the way we’d just come. On the way back, the freeway snaked a few thousand feet to the right. I kept my eyes peeled on the way for any obvious stopping places.

  “Slow down,” I said, pointing out the window. “What’s that?”

  Adam slowly put his foot down on the gas. “What?” he said, staring through the fog.

  “There’s a gas station there.”

  “Are you sure it’s active? It looks like it’s been shut down for about ten years.”

  Yes, the paint on the sides of the building was faded and peeling, and the letters showing the price of gas were coming loose, but I didn’t think it was shut down.

  “Stop the car.” I squinted through the window. “It’s active,” I said. “It’s just closed at night, I suppose.” That was the way things worked in very small towns. If you didn’t get your gas by 5:00 p.m., you weren’t getting it at all. Goodness help you if you run out of gas late at night.

  We hopped out and I shivered, looking around. The gas station sat a few hundred feet away from the freeway in a little dug out part of the hill. It was flanked by the woods on either side and there was a steep ditch directly across from it that looked like an accident hazard.

  Around the side of the gas station, where the restrooms were, Jasper barked at something on the ground.

  “What have you got there, boy?” I asked, hurrying over. There was something shiny laying on the ground. Even the darkness of night couldn’t hide the shine of the diamonds.

  I picked the bracelet up and gasped lightly.

  It looked expensive.

  It felt expensive. It was constructed of several tiny square diamonds set in gold.

  I placed it in my pocket. “I’d better hand this in to the police in the morning,” I said when Adam came over to inquire about what I was up to. “Someone will be looking for it.”

  I pressed my nose up against the window of the gas station. All the lights were off. No sign of life. “I guess we’ll just have to come back in the morning,” I said with a sigh.

  “We?” Adam asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I need the lift.”

  Chapter 6

  Jasper was jumping up at me like he was begging me to let him come for a ride in the car again. Adam hadn’t even arrived yet, but Jasper seemed to have developed a sixth sense for his arrival. I didn’t think bringing him was a good idea, though. For one thing, he was growing a little too attached to Adam recently, and for another, I didn’t want him running onto the freeway when we stopped at the gas station. I was going to need all my wits about me when I questioned the attendant.

  I was distracted by an email that had just come through on my new tablet. “Oh, Jasper, I have no idea how to open these things,” I said, even though he was about as much help as if I’d asked the toaster, which had just popped up two pieces of very burnt bread.

  There was a knock on the door. “Thank goodness you’re here,” I said to Adam, showing him the way in. “Can you show me how to open my email on this thing?”

  He sniffed the air. “Is something burning?” He spotted the two slices of grilled charcoal. “Why didn’t the smoke detectors go off?” he asked suspiciously. “You do have smoke detectors, don’t you, George?”

  “I, um, I do…” I said, picking up the toast and eating it anyway. I didn’t mind the taste of charcoal actually. I mumbled my next statement, hoping to use the fact that I was eating as a sort of cover. “They just might be running a little low on battery power,” I said.

  Adam rolled his eyes but not in an ‘oh, you’re so charming with your absentminded ways, George’ style. Like he was genuinely frustrated with me. “I can come back later with fresh batteries and fix them for you.”

  But that kind of thing was getting a little…husbandy. And Adam hadn’t been my husband for over fifteen years. And I’d been leaning on him too much lately. He’d been dropping by to walk Jasper every day and I kept asking him for help every time I had the smallest problem. I made a vow that I’d get the batteries later and take care of it myself.

  “So, can you help me open my email?” I said to Adam, contradicting the very vow I’d just made five seconds earlier.

  He took it off me and shook his head as if to say, step aside and let a young person show you how this is done. He never let me forget that he was six months younger than me. “You need a passcode to get into it,” he said. “You’ve locked yourself out. Can you remember what you set it as?”

  I bit my lip and thought. “Jasper’s birthday,” I said. “March Two Thousand Eleven. So, oh-three-one-one.”

  Adam shook his head and punched it in. “There you go.”

  Finally inside, I opened the email and sighed. “It’s about this craft circle meeting tomorrow,” I said, placing the tablet down on the counter and now wishing I had never opened it. “They want to confirm the numbers. Because of the refreshments, you see. They don’t want to arrive shorthanded on the tea bags.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” Adam asked. He was dressed in his uniform again. I wondered when his shift was due to start.

  I sighed again. “Well, the problem is I don’t have a car to get there in. And I am supposed to be the one who actually runs these craft circles. Even though, in reality, Melissa has become the de facto leader. Still, I’m supposed to show some leadership, I think. So I can’t miss another one.”

  Adam told me he didn’t have much time so we’d better load into the ute. I apologized to Jasper, who was whimpering at me, and left. “I can drop by and take him for a walk when I’m finished at work,” Adam said.

  I agreed, a little reluctantly.

  “First I have to confirm that Bianca actually stopped here at all,” I said as we approached the gas station again, which was tricky to access without doing a full circle of the town and getting onto the freeway. “That’s still a theory at this stage, after all. Only when I know Bianca was here, then I can find out precisely what she actually did when she got here.”

  Adam looked wryly out at the gas station as he brought us to a halt. “She probably filled the car up with gas.”

  “I know you think you’re being funny,” I said. “But there’s got to be more to it than that. Or why would she lie about stopping here?”

  I placed my hand in my pocket and felt the cool, sharp edges of the diamonds still in my pocket. Whoops, I still hadn’t handed over the bracelet. I had a bad habit of doing that. I made a vow to make the police station my very next stop after the gas station.

  “Are you coming in with me?” I asked Adam, unsure whether I wanted the answer to be yes or no.

  “I can’t stop,” Adam said, dropping me off. “I’ve got a shift. Now, you’ll be alright getting home, won’t you?”

  “I’ll manage,” I said. “I always have before.”

  There was only one other car filling up in front of the gas station--some guy with grey hair in a suit, who shoved the pump impatiently into the side of his car and waited with his arms crossed like he was blaming the gas for taking so long to pump.

  I let him walk inside in front of me to make his payment, worried that I might encounter his ire if I dared to cut in front of him. Besides, I was in no hurry and I’d prefer to have this conversation with the gas attendant in private, once this irritated fella had flown.

  Mr. Suit stormed in through the automatic doors and made
a beeline to the counter. There was a young, scraggly looking guy behind it, wearing a trucker hat that was far too big for his small head.

  The gas attendant looked up with a slow gaze.

  “Your pumps are rigged!” Mr. Suit said. “There’s no way that my total came to forty dollars. There’s barely a trickle of gas in my car! It’s not even halfway filled up. And yet I’m being charged an arm and a leg!”

  The attendant, whose name tag read ‘Jesse,’ glared defiantly at the man. “There ain’t nothing wrong with my pumps. And I take offense to the accusation that I am trying to rip off my loyal customers. That’s called slander, you know.”

  The man crossed his arms like a sulky toddler. “I’m not paying for it.”

  Jesse reached slowly toward the phone. “Then I am just gonna have to call the cops,” he stated, not breaking eye contact with the man hovering over him.

  He threw forty bucks down on the counter and stormed out, purposely turning over a whole rack of magazines on his way out the door, which crashed to the floor.

  I took a deep breath. I was hoping I’d have a bit more luck charming Jesse. You catch more flies with honey, after all.

  “Lovely morning, isn’t it?” I said with a bright smile as I approached the counter. I nodded out the window to where Mr. Suit was speeding out of the parking lot, the sound of wheels screeching as he lurched back onto the freeway, leaving a trail of exhaust in his wake.

  I forced a little laugh. “Although, looks like not everyone agrees with me, eh?” I asked, waving toward the screeching car, hoping to get Jesse on my side by showing that I was on his. I had no idea if he was overcharging for gas or not, but I did know one thing for certain: that other guy was a jerk.

  But Jesse just eyed me suspiciously, giving me a long heavy glare, before he turned his gaze out the window. “You ain’t got a car,” he said.

  “No,” I said, switching from one foot to the other.

  “So I guess you ain’t here to buy gas,” he said, still eyeing me with suspicion.

  Well, it was obvious that friendly small talk wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I might as well just cut right to the chase then.

  “I wanted to ask you a few questions about Monday morning,” I said, walking right up to the counter.

  Jesse scoffed. “What right do you have to ask me anything?” he said, looking me up and down like he was looking for a badge.

  I wondered how long I could get away with bluffing. Would he actually ask for proof of ID if I stretched the truth a teeny tiny bit?

  “I’m investigating a murder,” I said, straightening up. Hey, if I acted the part of an official detective, he might just buy it.

  He looked down at the counter and shifted a little bit. “I already told you guys.” Great. So he had bought my story then. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t even see that guy who apparently turned up dead in some poor lady’s car.” He stared up at me with large green eyes that looked a little frightened, clearly not knowing that I was that poor lady he was referring to. “If he was here at any stage, I don’t know anything about it.”

  I was slightly confused, though. If Bianca never told anyone she’d stopped here, why had the cops—the real cops—stopped by to ask Jesse questions? I decided not to focus on that too hard just then. There was another car pulling up to the gas pumps and I had less than five minutes before we were interrupted again.

  “What about Monday morning, though?” I asked Jesse, trying to get his attention back. He’d also become distracted by the gas pumps. “What do you remember from that morning? Did anything unusual happen, at all?”

  Jesse adjusted his hat. “Monday morning?” He was fidgeting with the decal on the front, which probably belonged to a sports team I didn’t recognize. “Can’t say that I remember much happening on Monday morning. Besides the usual, that is.”

  “What is the usual?”

  He shrugged. “Comings and goings… People like that jerk earlier, making complaints. Trying to cause trouble.”

  Huh.

  I pulled out my phone and brought up a photo of Bianca. It was a professional portrait, the one on the dealership site. “Did you see this woman on Monday morning? Did she make a stop here?”

  Jesse froze still for a moment, staring at the photo, but then he shrugged and shook his head. “I suppose she mighta. But to be honest, I don’t recognize her. If I had to guess either way then I would say no, she didn’t.”

  “But you can’t be sure, can you?” I nodded up at the security camera. “Maybe she was here. Do you have footage of the morning? You can play it and be sure.”

  “I don’t need to do that,” he said in a low voice. “What is it to you, anyway?” he asked.

  “I told you. I’m investigating a murder. So it’s kind of important.”

  “Okay, she definitely wasn’t here. I have a good memory for these things. Are you happy now?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not particularly.”

  There had to be a reason he didn’t want that footage being seen, but there wasn’t much more I could do—I could hardly break into the back of the gas station and take the footage right there and then, could I?

  “You gonna purchase something?” Jesse asked.

  My phone started to ring. It was Hannah. I shook my head and held my hands up. “I have no way to carry it home,” I said. “And no car to fill up with gas.”

  He glared at me while I edged my way out of the shop.

  “Hannah!” I said brightly, pulling on my shades as I hit the sun outside. “What can I do for you on this bright Wednesday morning?”

  “I just got a call from Brenda,” she said. “Apparently, the Mason jars arrived early. Along with the yards of lace.”

  “Oh,” I said, a little surprised. “Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”

  Hannah sounded a little sniffly on the other end of the line. I couldn’t tell whether it was happy tears, sad tears, or just a case of springtime hay fever. “Yes. I was wondering if you’d be able to drop them off at the venue. The winery a few miles out of town. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and smacked my forehead in frustration.

  Then I returned to the call and remembered to smile. “Not at all.”

  “I love coming to this place,” Adam said, holding open the door of the bar. The scent of pickles and stale whiskey hit me square in the face. “I know it looks a little like a dive, but they do a good spread, I promise.”

  I took my jacket off and glanced around the smoky establishment. Where was all that smoke even coming from? It had been over a decade since smoking indoors was legal in Pottsville. Maybe the cooks in the kitchen were about as careful as I was with my toast.

  I shrugged and we found a spare table in the middle of the bar with a sticky surface. Well, we were here now, weren’t we? Might as well make the best of it and have a good time.

  “As long as they’ve got pasta and wine, I’m all good,” I said, sitting my purse down on the high table and putting my elbows down next to it, trying to ignore the stickiness. Trying not to think about what it might be.

  But none of the reds on the menu really stood out to me. They were all a little cheap and I knew they’d all taste like petrol. So I ordered a cocktail instead, along with a plate of deep fried calamari. I always figure that if you’re a bit iffy about the quality or hygiene of a restaurant, deep fried food is the way to go. It kills any trace of bacteria. Adam ordered grilled BBQ chicken wings, so he was a little braver than I was.

  “I assume I’m paying,” I said a little wryly, once we’d ordered and passed the menus back to the server.

  “Hey, if you’re offering,” Adam shot back at me with an easy shrug.

  Adam dug into his chicken wings when they arrived. “You’ve got to think about this whole thing a little more laterally,” he said.

  “Huh?” I said, and it wasn’t just the loud music causing my lack of comprehension.

  “Maybe Cain w
asn’t necessarily the target,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe Bianca herself was.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, having to raise my voice to be heard over the noise. There were people a few feet away having a disagreement at the bar and the music from the jukebox was so loud, it was distorted over the cheap speakers.

  Adam shrugged. “Maybe someone wanted to make her look guilty. Maybe someone had it out for her. Someone she ticked off really bad.”

  I stuck my straw in my thick margarita and plunged it in and out. “Who would be so annoyed with Bianca that they would want to frame her for murder, though?” On first thought, it all seemed a fairly farfetched idea. Then a little idea occurred to me in the back of my mind.

  Maybe she had peeved someone off really bad. Maybe I even knew who it was.

  Well, sort of.

  “Oh my goodness. The person who Bianca was originally supposed to sell the car to…” I murmured.

  Adam put down the bare bone of his chicken wing and wiped his mouth on the napkin. “Huh,” he said. “What person are you talking about?”

  I finished off the bottom of my drink. There was a large deposit of lime flavoring at the bottom which hadn’t been mixed properly that made me blink a few times when the bitterness hit my tongue. “Well, Bianca told me that she had already loosely promised the car to someone else.” I shrugged. “But she liked me better or something, I suppose. Or she just felt sorry for me. So she offered to bring the car out to me before the other customer—whoever they are—could pick up the car.”

  Adam was looking at me like he didn’t quite believe what I was saying. “Why would she go so above and beyond for you?” he asked. “What, are the two of you friends or something?”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “No, we just met when I went in to get a car. Like I said, I guess she just liked me better than this mysterious other customer.”

  Adam looked slightly amused. “I suppose you do have a way of charming people.”