The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 1

by Elaine Viets

  Helen understood, but said nothing. She still had eighty-one buttons to go. Where was Mommy Dearest? She should be here by now.

  The room resumed its dull roar. It was nine thirty when the last button was done and the ten-foot cathedral train was arranged. Helen’s fingers ached and she’d torn a nail.

  “There. That’s it. Now I can pin on the veil,” Helen said.

  “Hold it! The mother should be here for that,” the videographer said. He’d been buzzing around all morning like an irritating gnat.

  “I don’t want my mother putting on my veil,” Desiree said. “She wouldn’t anyway. It would mess up her manicure.”

  “The pictures won’t look right without your mother,” the still photographer added.

  “I don’t care.” Desiree stamped her foot. Tears trembled at the edge of her eyes. The makeup artist hovered with powder and a foam wedge. Bridal tears could undo her work.

  “Honey, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” her friend Emily soothed. At least, Helen thought it was Emily. Her hair was done up in a fashionable twist and she was wearing an elegant plum-colored Vera Wang. “But Kiki’s late. I’ll go look for her.”

  When the young woman ran from the room to begin her search, Helen knew for sure it was Emily. She made her Vera Wang flap. Helen liked that.

  “Put my veil on,” the bride commanded Helen.

  “We can always stage it with the mother later,” the still photographer said.

  “It won’t look the same,” the videographer said. He was an auteur.

  Helen pinned on the trailing veil.

  “Ouch,” the bride said.

  “Sorry. I have to anchor it in your hair. There. You look beautiful.” Helen patted Desiree on her shoulder. This was such a sad moment. Those words should have been said by the bride’s mother, pronounced with love, pride, and teary eyes. Helen wanted to hug the forlorn little creature, but she didn’t dare. With that dress, it would be like clutching glass shards to her bosom.

  The bride studied herself in the full-length mirror. “I don’t look as bad as I expected.”

  “You look lovely,” Helen said.

  Desiree smiled and almost seemed to believe her.

  This is so sad, Helen thought. I’m bought and paid for—or maybe not. Helen wondered if Millicent had collected her money last night, but didn’t have the nerve to ask.

  “I’m glad it’s you and not that awful Millicent,” Desiree said. “She called my mother last night and said the most shocking things. She wanted her money right then, at the rehearsal dinner.”

  Imagine that, Helen thought. A merchant who wanted to be paid.

  “Did she get it?” Helen said.

  “Of course not. Mother said she’d give it to you today. I’ll make sure she writes the check as soon as she shows up,” the bride said.

  Helen decided debt collection was Millicent’s problem. She had enough to worry about. Helen checked the bridesmaids, making sure everyone was properly zipped and hooked, and no tags or straps showed. Then she unwrapped the bridal bouquet from the florist’s tissue paper. The greenish white flowers looked like they’d been grown in a test tube.

  Emily came flapping back, face flushed, makeup smeared, hair hanging. The hairstylist and makeup artist hovered nearby for emergency repairs, but they couldn’t do anything about the sweat stains on the plum Vera Wang.

  “I’ve looked everywhere for your mother,” Emily said. “No one’s seen her. The organist wants to know when to start the procession. She’s playing the same songs over and over.”

  “Better get my father in here,” Desiree said.

  Emily broke free of the flurry of combs and makeup and ran out again. She returned shortly with the bride’s father. Brendan looked splendid in his pearl-gray morning coat. Helen wondered if his silver hair had been touched up. Helen expected Brendan to turn teary-eyed when he saw his daughter in her wedding dress, but he ignored her bridal beauty.

  “What’s she done this time?” he demanded. He couldn’t even say Kiki’s name.

  “She hasn’t shown up yet,” Desiree said. “We’re supposed to start at ten, and it’s ten fifteen.”

  Brendan whipped out his cell phone and began punching in numbers. He had long, thin scratches on both hands. The cook’s cat must have been busy.

  “She’s not answering her home or cell phone,” Brendan said.

  The blond bridesmaids looked bored. Their foreheads were shiny. The makeup artists kept patting them with powder, which speckled their black dresses. Hairstylists poked their coiffeurs with pins.

  “People, what’s the problem?” Jeff, the wedding planner, looked like a worried little boy. “If we don’t start soon, the flowers will wilt and the dinner will be delayed, the chocolate souffles will fall, and the band will . . .”

  The dominoing disasters were cut short by the appearance of the groom, against all protocol.

  “Desiree, darling,” Luke said, “is there a problem?”

  Chauncey, his best man, was right behind him, mobile red lips in their perpetual pucker. The bride’s father strutted back and forth, looking at his watch and dialing his phone.

  The room grew smaller and hotter. Desiree seemed overwhelmed by the heavy dress and the crushing crowd. She stood like a melting snow queen in her crystal-frosted gown. “It’s ten thirty,” she said. “The wedding should have started at ten. What should I do? Should we postpone the ceremony or go ahead?”

  “Marry him,” her father said. Helen could see the man’s panic. His wife could delay this wedding, then run up even bigger bills for a second ceremony.

  “Marry him,” Chauncey the best man said. His voice quavered theatrically.

  “Marry me.” Luke kissed her passionately, but the bride remained rigid and unyielding.

  The bridesmaids said nothing. Emily patted Desiree’s back as if she were a colicky infant.

  “Is that your mother’s Rolls in the parking lot?”

  Helen wasn’t sure who said that.

  The bride broke from Luke’s embrace and looked out the window. When she turned back, Desiree’s face was a mask of hate and shame. “That’s her car. She’s with her chauffeur. She’s disgusting. I’m not holding up my wedding so that old tart can screw her chauffeur.”

  The bride took her father’s arm defiantly. “Let’s go.”

  The bridesmaids were shooed down the aisle like a flock of chickens.

  The makeup artist gave Desiree a final dusting of powder. The organist launched into the bride’s music. It was supposed to be a wedding march. But Helen thought the bride and her father looked like two invaders crossing enemy borders. They stomped down the aisle, Desiree’s cathedral train raising small flurries of rose petals in their wake.

  Just before they reached the altar, Desiree turned around and scanned the church for her mother. For one instant, Helen saw a vulnerable young bride who wanted her mother—even a mother like Kiki.

  But there was no sign of the woman. Desiree squared her shoulders and faced the altar.

  Her father presented her to Luke. Brendan did not kiss his daughter good-bye.

  Chapter 6

  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the minister said.

  He could have pronounced them dead.

  The bride glittered in the cold blue light of the stained-glass windows. The groom looked cyanotic.

  “You may now kiss the bride.”

  Luke wrapped his arms around Desiree for a soap-opera smooch, then jumped back as if he’d been stung. That sent her staggering backward. The maid of honor caught the rejected bride. Desiree burst into tears.

  There were titters and disapproving murmurs from the congregation. Only Helen guessed what had happened: The groom had cut his hand on the crystal dress. It was a vicious cut. Helen could see blood drops on the white carpet.

  A quick-thinking bridesmaid swung the cathedral train away from the dark red spatters. The best man whipped off his cummerbund and gave it to Luke for
a bandage.

  Muddy brown tears ran down the bride’s face and splotched her dress. So much for waterproof mascara. Desiree dabbed at the tears with her veil, leaving nasty brown smudges on the delicate fabric.

  Another couple might have laughed off the mishap. But Luke didn’t laugh, nor did he comfort his new wife. Desiree did not care about his bloody hand. They stood at the altar, separate and self-absorbed. They’d failed as a couple from the first moment of their marriage.

  The whole sorry incident was caught by two video cameras and a still photographer. Helen wondered if it would be edited out of the wedding photos or saved for the divorce proceedings.

  This marriage was doomed, she decided. The perfect rehearsal led to a wedding-day disaster. All the practice and planning couldn’t prevent these problems. Who knew a randy Kiki would skip her daughter’s wedding for hot sex with her chauffeur? The bride didn’t wear her crystal dress at the rehearsal, so the groom had no idea it was like embracing broken glass.

  Luke never did kiss the bride. When the confusion died down the minister said, “Let me present the new Mr. and Mrs. Praine.”

  The traditional applause was tentative. Luke frowned. He was used to thundering ovations. He grabbed his wife’s hand and held it up triumphantly, like a victorious boxer. Now the applause was louder and mixed with laughter.

  Helen wasn’t sure what Luke’s gesture meant, but she didn’t like it. Was he saying his wife was a prize? The little bride with her tear-blotched face looked confused.

  That look pierced Helen’s heart. She felt tears in her eyes. Helen never cried at weddings, but she felt sorry for poor unloved Desiree. She was a showpiece for her parents’ ambitions and a bankroll for her husband’s career.

  The organist had the presence of mind to start the recessional music. Desiree walked down the aisle with her new husband. Helen could see the ugly brown stains on her veil. The groom’s hand was wrapped in a bloody cummerbund. He smiled sheepishly. The bride seemed dazed.

  Jeff, the wedding planner, was waiting in the cathedral vestibule with his emergency kit. While the receiving line formed, Jeff expertly bandaged the groom’s hand. Then he and Helen worked on the bridal veil. They were hidden behind the bride’s wide skirt, but they could hear the wedding guests.

  Some stumbled through the reception line like bomb-blast survivors, too stunned to say anything. They just wanted out of there. Others made spiteful comments in what they thought were whispers. The cavernous cathedral magnified their voices. Jeff winced at every catty remark. He seemed to suffer for the bride.

  Two black-clad women with bird legs, like crows in gold jewelry, were typical. Helen could hear snippets of their soft-voiced malice: “Her mother never showed up.”

  “She was screwing a chauffeur twenty years younger.”

  “Only twenty?”

  “Personally, I’d go for the groom.”

  “Maybe she already has.”

  “Have you seen the bride’s dress? She looks like Michael Jackson marrying Elvis.”

  When they got to the bride, the two crows cawed, “Darling, you look divine,” and smothered her with perfume and Judas kisses.

  Desiree turned to stone. The groom smiled through clenched capped teeth.

  At last, the receiving line ended. The guests who hadn’t fled picked up beribboned baskets of rose petals and straggled out to the cathedral steps. They threw the petals at the bride and groom like they were flinging trash, then rushed away. Helen couldn’t bring herself to touch the mangled flowers. The petals looked like blood spots on the marble steps.

  Jeff seemed near tears at his ruined wedding plans, but he pulled himself together and herded the wedding party inside for the pictures. Kiki still hadn’t shown up.

  Helen was furious. It felt good. It burned away her sadness for the bride. How could that selfish woman destroy her daughter’s wedding for a backseat quickie? Except Kiki’s quickie was turning into a sexual marathon. The Rolls sat in the parking lot, engine running, windows up. Helen wanted to knock on the black-tinted windows and drag Kiki out by her dyed hair, but it was not her place.

  No one from the family approached the car. Helen wondered why.

  Emily stayed with her friend, Desiree. The blond bridesmaid Lisa pulled Helen aside and said, “Do you know where the mother of the bride is?”

  Her eyes strayed to the Rolls. Lisa already knew the answer.

  “No,” Helen lied.

  “Do you know when she’ll be coming?” Lisa’s face turned bright red. “I mean, when she’ll be here?”

  “I have no idea,” Helen said.

  Helen knew exactly when Kiki would appear. She’d wait until Desiree was changing for the reception. Then Kiki would put on that blasted rose gown and make her grand entrance at the reception, glowing from her sexual athletics. She’d revel in the scandal.

  Helen also knew why Kiki had pulled this stunt. Her daughter was marrying a handsome young man, but she’d show them she was still one hot mama.

  Her absence had an impact on the pictures. The photographer and the videographer had to work around the lopsided wedding party. The bride refused to smile. The groom looked like a department-store dummy. The rest of the wedding party fidgeted like four-year-olds. The photos took two hours, including time out for powdering and hair pinning. Helen thought she would go mad if she had to drape Desiree’s cathedral train on the altar steps one more time.

  Finally, every photo opportunity was exhausted, along with every member of the wedding party.

  “The photos are finished,” the videographer pronounced.

  Desiree brightened. She managed a smile, although it resembled a corpse’s grin. “Now I can wear my real wedding dress.”

  Desiree ripped off her heavy veil and crown and dropped them on the floor. Then she ran upstairs to the dressing room.

  That’s right, girl, Helen thought. Get rid of what’s dragging you down. She picked up the crown and veil and followed Desiree at a slower pace. She was drained by the wedding’s raw emotions. Helen’s magical night with Phil seemed years away. Today she could not believe any romance had a happy ending.

  Memories of her own wedding haunted Helen. She’d been so in love with Rob. At the reception, she’d given him a bite of wedding cake. He’d mashed his piece into her face, to the delight of his cronies. Her maid of honor had applauded. Helen had laughed.

  Her wedding photographer caught the scene. Helen thought it was the symbol of her marriage. She had seventeen years of sly humiliation, while she smiled and took it. Later, she learned Rob had had an affair with her maid of honor. She’d learned a lot she didn’t want to know, after she picked up the crowbar and smashed her marriage.

  Run, Desiree, she thought. Run away before it’s too late. Luke doesn’t love you. Don’t waste your best years with a man who’ll use you. Don’t make the same mistake I did. You’ve only been married two hours. You can get an annulment.

  Could she say that? Helen took on a mother’s duties when she put on the bride’s veil. A good mother would tell her daughter to get out of this mess.

  Helen was greeted at the dressing-room door by the bracing smell of hot coffee. The breakfast buffet had been cleared. Jeff had set out plates of chicken and cucumber sandwiches, and dainty cookies.

  What tempted Helen was the fresh coffee warming on the burner. Coffee would give her courage. After a cup of caffeine, she could drop some hints to Desiree. If the bride seemed receptive, she’d mention an annulment. Helen draped the dropped veil over a chair and reached for the coffeepot.

  “You don’t have time for that,” Desiree said. “I want this thing off. Now.”

  So much for Helen’s maternal fantasies. She was a servant and she’d better not forget it.

  Helen approached Desiree as though the bride were a rabid animal. She carefully swung the heavy cathedral train out of the way and began unbuttoning the wretched dress for the last time. Desiree wriggled impatiently. A button slipped from Helen’s grasp.
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  This poor bride has had a terrible day, Helen thought, then rebelled at her sudden attack of saintliness. She was not going to play Victorian maid to Lady Desiree.

  “The more you move, the longer this will take,” Helen said.

  She stopped unbuttoning until Desiree stood still. Emily the peacemaker came over with coffee and cookies for the bride. That seemed to calm her.

  Helen finished the last button and said, “There, you’re free. Step out of this carefully so you don’t get scratched.”

  “Are you going to preserve your wedding dress?” said Amy, one of the dumber blond bridesmaids.

  “So I can always remember this day?” The bride tore the dress from Helen’s hands, but that didn’t satisfy her fury. With one swift movement, Desiree grabbed the coffeepot and hurled it at the dress. Coffee splashed and shattered glass flew across the floor. A bridesmaid screamed.

  “What are you doing?” Amy was shocked. “You could at least give that dress to charity.”

  “So another woman can be as miserable as I am?” Desiree said. “Throw it in the trash.”

  Emily bundled the ruined gown into a trash bag and hauled it out of sight. Jeff mopped up the spilled coffee and swept away the broken glass. The bridesmaids were afraid to say anything.

  Desiree stood in her pure white La Perla underwear, showing off her slender body in a way that reminded Helen of Kiki. Desiree stretched like a cat, then started talking as if her seven-thousand-dollar tantrum never happened. “That dress hurt my back and shoulders. What do you think it weighed?”

  “About twenty-five pounds, plus the train,” Helen said. “Why don’t you rest a moment or have a sandwich?”

  “No, I want to put on my real wedding dress,” Desiree said. “The beautiful one. That ceremony was my mother’s idea. The reception is for my father’s business. But the afternoon cocktail party is mine. I’m going to have fun.”

  I’m happy to help, Helen thought. Once the bride was buttoned into her fabulous cobweb dress, Helen could leave. She forgave Desiree her strange, sudden flash of temper. Maybe in her case, rage was a healthy response. Helen didn’t much care. She wanted to sit by the Coronado pool with a book and some wine. She could feel the cold glass in her hand and the warm sun on her hair.