by E M Kaplan
THE BRIDE WORE DEAD
A Josie Tucker Mystery
EM Kaplan
Copyright © 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 EM Kaplan
5thth Edition
All rights reserved.
Kindle Edition
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by the author
For Pop
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Jeremy, Theo, and Riley for their support
and complete disregard for personal space.
Esther Kaplan for her keen eye,
helpful insights, and wonderful dinners.
More people who helped me along the way:
Helen Wook and Jane Waldron;
Eric Frey;
Geoffrey Wolff;
and The Lost Lounge
Part 1:
The Wedding
Why have newlyweds dropped the custom of saving wedding cake to celebrate their first anniversary? Is it pragmatism—that the original flavor and texture of the cake won’t taste as good? Or fatalism—that the marriage itself won’t survive the first year?
Josie Tucker, Food for Thought
CHAPTER 1
“For the love of all that’s holy…” Josie’s cussing started out pious, but turned blasphemous in the next breath. In the full-length mirror on her bedroom door, her reflection cursed back. Her bridesmaid's dress was a travesty of teal satin with lavender trim, in cascades of foamy fabric from waist to floor.
She did a half turn and shivered in disgust, trying to smooth down the fluff, to reduce the frou-frou to a single frou. Her hands, with fingernails bitten down to the quick, scraped the fabric.
“Yeah, I’ll be wearing this again real soon.” That line was what weary, psychotic-with-stress brides fed their bridesmaids—that they would totally be able to wear these budget-busting monstrosities again. Riiiight.
Strapless with a tight bodice, the dress’s teal color had just enough green to bring out the yellow in Josie’s skin. She hated looking sallow. Even worse, below the waist, tiers of stiffened teal cascaded in an Olivia Newton-John nightmare. Like that old movie Xanadu, when roller skating was en vogue and moderation wasn’t. All Josie needed was a pair of white roller skates, a sequined headband, and strawberry-flavored lip gloss.
Wear the dress again? “Fat chance,” she told the mirror.
Her dog, a Pound hound named Bert, listened to her with a practiced patience. His head tipped to one side, he sprawled across a mound of her dirty laundry. With her recent stomach problems, Josie’s housekeeping skills had shrunk from pathetic to nonexistent. Being at the mercy of an indignant and vengeful digestive system made her incapable of Pledging the furniture. Or taking out the trash. Or vacuuming. Or a thousand other niceties that turned rented rooms into a home. Like putting out matching dish towels.
“What's the matter?” Her best friend, Susan, stepped—no, glided—out of the bathroom. On Susan, the dress looked elegant, of course. The shade of teal caressed her skin, which glowed like porcelain. If money and status had mattered to Josie, she would have called Susan upperclass. But Josie didn’t give a rat’s ass about stuff like that. Susan was just her oblivious, lucky, and loyal-to-the-end friend. No question.
“Not fair,” Josie said with a huff. Her hair had frizzed up into a dark, threatening cloud. She’d inherited her Thai mother’s hair color, but not its silkiness. Instead, Josie got coarse texture from her father’s family, their stubbornness so pervasive that it seemed to come out through the very roots of their hair.
Semicircles of sweat had formed under Josie's arms. The hot weather—unseasonable for Boston—was doing nothing for her disposition. Not that she was normally a glass-half-full person. Speaking of which, she would kill for a cool drink right now. Something creamy and fruity in a novelty glass…with a hint of vanilla. Maybe an umbrella and a pineapple garnish. And an interesting, but not-too-handsome man to serve it to her on a bamboo tray. In Fiji. She’d never been to Fiji. Maybe her boss, Julieanne, would let her telecommute.
“What’s not fair?” Susan asked, the inquisitive expression on her fine-boned face making her prettier. All she had to do was pronounce the “h” in “what” and she would have the Grace Kelly thing down perfectly. Susan had that quality of seeming aloft, as if she were levitating a foot above ground.
“You look great in this…getup, and I looked like Disney barfed on me. I look like tropical flavored Skittles.” Josie fluffed up the skirt to get a breeze on her legs. It worked for a minute, and then the material sank, re-sealing her legs in a sweltering, satin jail.
Susan said with an arched eyebrow, “It would help if you’d actually worn a dress in the last ten years. I think that’s half the battle.”
Josie took a shadowboxing jab the mirror, just to remind herself who she was—Josie Tucker, reformed juvenile delinquent, not about to be demoralized by a silly outfit. Even if her hair had been forced into ringlets…and even if she was wearing mascara. She adjusted the thick silver and turquoise ring on her thumb and straightened up her slouch.
“Very macho. Look, we have to skedaddle if we want to be in the photos.” Susan snapped her long fingers.
“Macha,” Josie corrected, with her street-gathered knowledge of Spanish. “I wonder why they couldn’t have eloped to a tropical paradise like any other beautiful, affluent couple? I hear Maui’s nice. Why do they have to drag us into it? What's the reality here? There's divorce. The three-month, whoops, what were we thinking version. Or the 30-year, I gave up my life, so you could be a doctor version. Then, there's the storybook rarity—marital bliss, sometimes confused with complacency.”
“Gee, Josie. Bitter much?”
Josie ignored her. She couldn’t locate her keys. “Is Benjy meeting us at the church?”
Throwing back the coverlet on her unmade bed, she searched under the sheets. Not there. She finally spied her key ring on the window sill between a dead potted geranium and an empty, scummy goldfish bowl. Grabbing her teal handbag, she stuffed her feet into also-teal pumps that had been dyed for the occasion. Yay. Another bit of wedding day kitsch for which she’d had to pay a fortune.
Holy Pete, maybe she was bitter.
With the future of The Daily News uncertain, money was tight. People were saying print was doomed, a death knell rung by the Internet and commented on by thousands of gleeful, grammatically incorrect haters. Even if she managed to get a job at another publication, she dreaded jumping ship and having to build a relationship with a new editor.
But the paper was creaking and groaning like a ship going down. Her company-paid cell phone was ancient history—she’d forfeited that irritating modern-day ball-and-chain without regret. But the worst part was, the paper had canceled health insurance benefits while she was out on sick leave. Beautiful. She was becoming her doctor’s charity case—a medical pro bono, or whatever.
She sighed. Same old story, different decade of her life. Besides losing benefits, she’d taken a voluntary pay cut. Maybe she was prolonging her job’s inevitable demise, but who wanted to look for a new one when stomach cramps were laying waste to her waist every couple days?
Her savings account was dying of starvation, its balance at only a half-month’s worth of rent—minus a gouge for the hideous bridesmaid’s dress. She’d had the foresight to open the account, but never the wherewithal to deposit into it. A big chunk of her pay covered her mother’s shabby-but-clean nursing home bill. Another eleven hundred dollars a month got her a one-bedroom walk-up by Fenway and the Green Line, and she’d mailed this month’s rent not sure if she were getting another paycheck. Nerve-wracking. Her landlord was going to k
ick her out on her butt. She’d have to find a new place at the end of the commuter rail line, way the hell out in Lowell or somewhere. She fanned herself. Right now, she was willing to sell her soul to the devil for air conditioning.
“Yes, Benjy is meeting us there. But Drew is ditching us, the coward,” Susan said.
“Who can blame him? He goes to a family wedding every frickin’ weekend. That’s what you get with fifty thousand cousins—a million weddings, christenings, and funerals…but he also gets a guaranteed home-cooked meal whenever he wants. So, not a horrible trade-off.” Josie took a last look at herself in the mirror, but the grimace on her face was not reassuring.
Outside, she double-locked her apartment. The welcome mat in front of her door sat askew. Its cursive-lettered message long-faded by friends’ foot traffic said Go Away, but no one ever paid attention to it. Studies showed that the average person’s reading comprehension level was plummeting. Here was living proof—no one ever read her doormat.
“Who can blame him?” Susan said. “Why, we can, silly girl.”
#
Josie and Susan were opposites, but they’d gotten along since the first day they’d met in an undergraduate Asian art seminar. Susan, with her Dolce & Gabbana handbag—a failed enticement from a forlorn ex—had sat next to Josie, with her Jansen backpack that she’d gotten at a rock-bottom discount because of its hazmat orange color.
They made an even odder bunch when Benjy and Drew rounded out the group—the four of them, always friends but nothing more. As a joke, they’d made a pact never to date each other, but Benjy had a thing for Susan. The poor dope wore perpetual unemployed like an off-brand aftershave—definitely not Susan's type. An entrepreneur, he called himself. Always optimistic, always a schemer with some plan. At the moment, he was living in Drew’s spare bedroom, but, as he’d told them at lunch the day before, he had a line on something that looked verrrrry interesting.
What else could they do but be encouraging?...although he looked to Susan for approval more than anyone. Truth be told, it was hard even for Josie to escape Susan’s draw. Her friend was light itself, with an irresistible buoyancy, even in yucky times. Nothing could touch her. Not even a nasty teal-and-lavender dress.
Susan had parked her SUV illegally out on the street. Josie smirked—it was almost unnecessary to notice that it hadn’t been ticketed. Her friend never got tickets. Traffic cops let her off with warnings and sometimes a shy request for a date. (Personally, Josie had never met a shy cop.) Empty parking spaces appeared as Susan drove up. It never rained after she had her car washed. She’d never had a flat tire that Josie could think of. Even birds avoided pooping on her car. Okay, that was an exaggeration. But Susan did get her carwashes for free because Fazio at the local carwash was smitten with her.
Josie had a ‘75 Lincoln Continental, about a mile long and olive green. Her friends called it “The Green Giant” or the “pimpmobile.” The boat coughed noxious fumes both outside and inside—exhaust leaked into the AC vents. To avoid poisoning, she had to drive with the windows rolled down. But the Lincoln was a hand-me-down from her uncle in Arizona and it had gotten her through college.
Now instead of being just a boat, it had become a boat anchor, thanks to shrinking parking spaces and rocketing gas prices. She wasn’t sure if she could get it to pass vehicle inspection without major contributions to the garage gods. So, she wedged the car into her assigned parking space below her apartment and took the T or a cab. Her driver’s license had expired two months ago. Maybe someone would do her a favor and steal the car, but it wasn’t a zippy Accord with parts in high demand in chop shops…Were there hitmen who did that kind of thing?
“Late for the photos?” Josie finally focused on Susan's impatient foot tapping. “I have to be in the bridal party photos?”
As Susan slid into the SUV’s driver seat, Josie eyed the large step up. Between her and the high passenger seat, a gutter littered with fast food wrappers streamed by like a putrid moat. It didn’t smell pretty.
“If you’re not in the photos, the numbers will be uneven, darling,” Susan said.
With a grimace, Josie hiked her dress up knee high and climbed in. “Look, my legs are silky smooth.”
“Whoa, and hose, too. Josie Tucker really is a girl,” Susan said. “I know this is a big effort for you. You didn’t wear your first highheels until you were what…twenty-six?”
Josie hardy-har-harred and said, “If you are referring to my knuckle-bruising past, I’ll have you know that I haven’t gotten into a fistfight in about fifteen years.” Thanks in part to the steady but firm hand of her Aunt Ruth.
“Okay, sure,” Susan dismissed her with a wave of her elegant fingers, “You went all out. This really is a moment for posterity.”
“If I had my choice, I would be on the couch watching the Food Channel. Do you realize the lineup I’m missing right now?” Josie meant it. Watching food on TV was the only way she could enjoy it without severe gastric consequences. At this point, she ate only to prevent herself from passing out. Maybe she had become anorexic. Was that possible at this point in her life?
As soon as Josie pulled the door shut, Susan drove off at her typical break-neck speed. “Well, hold onto your stomach, we’re late. Just tell yourself, you’re doing it for Leann and Peter.”
Josie fumbled with her seat belt and realized she’d slammed the bottom of her dress in the door. “I don’t like Peter. That bastard got drunk and…hit on me in a bar one night.” She tugged the bottom of her dress and heard a rip for her effort. Huffing, she sat back for a minute and willed herself to stop sweating. She adjusted the air vents, wondering if she could point them under her dress.
“You were at a bar? Was it O’Malley’s? You never go to O’Malley’s without us.” Susan changed lanes and incurred the ire of two other drivers who honked their horns before they were star struck by Susan’s breezy Queen Elizabeth wave and Marilyn Monroe blown kisses.
O’Malley’s had old rock 'n roll and young clientele who smoked trendy cigars in the street outside. From across the bar, Peter’s beer-fogged eyes had locked on Josie. All alone, she must have looked like an easy target. He was a big man, tall and broad—a rugby player. His dark mane of unruly hair and mid-winter tan spoke of indolence and Swiss ski slopes.
Stalking her from across the bar, he had not so much approached her as pounced on her. His tight, two-fingered pinch on her wrist made her feel like a scolded toddler. She recognized who he was—from school, when he’d made the sports pages every week. But in his watery vision, she was a stranger. With a sharp twist, she turned her wrist against his fingers, escaping his grip. When he walked away at last, bored, her heart was pounding and only then did she remember to breathe. Behind the bar, her face in the mirror was dark with anger, her fists clenched. Neither of them had said a word during the whole exchange.
“I think I told you before. I was out alone, no big deal—until I ran into the Neanderthal.” Opening the glove compartment, she looked for a tissue to swab her forehead. She rifled through a bunch of old newspapers, a box of condoms, and a flashlight, but didn’t find any tissues. Twisting around, she spied a crushed box of them sliding across the backseat. Susan swerved again, and Josie grabbed one when the box skated her way. As she dabbed her damp forehead and neck, she wondered if her sweaty underarms were being dyed teal. The myth that women, especially Asian ones, didn’t sweat was hilarious. So funny.
“Hard to believe.” Susan said, her eyes on the road. “I mean, I believe you, but it’s hard to believe because Leann and Peter have been going out since she was in high school. Well, on and off…maybe more off than on. I guess this was one of those off times.”
“The time I saw him in the bar wasn’t that long ago. I was getting a Drambouie because I thought it would settle my stomach. He wasn’t with anyone that I recognized. Before I knew it, he was breathing beer fumes down my neck, grabbing my wrist like he was going to drag me back to his cave.”
Susan
yanked the SUV around a corner. “Did you punch him?”
“Several large men had to restrain me from doing so,” Josie said. She shook off the memory. Besides, he was someone else’s problem now, sad to say. “I’ve been using that weight set I have at my place, you know. I’m getting buff. No more Ms. Nice Guy for me.”
Susan laughed. “Yeah, if you don’t throw up on their shoes.”
“Don’t put it past me.”
Susan sighed. “If I’d known you were going to complain so much, I wouldn’t have asked you to fill in for Lisa. This is a favor to me, too, you know.”
Josie sighed and tried to ratchet down the gale-force level of her complaints, which was a lot, even for her. “I know. I know.”
#
After Susan had taken Josie to meet Leann, there was no way she could have refused to fill in as a bridesmaid. Leann had pressed her hand—such an old-fashioned gesture—and thanked her with such wide-eyed earnestness for being in the wedding party, it touched Josie, somewhere deep inside of her prickly pear heart.
Another girl, Lisa, was supposed to have been in the wedding, and Josie was only a last-minute replacement to fill out the numbers of the wedding party. Josie was in the outer circle of friends, more like friends of friends by virtue of Susan, but Josie happened to be Lisa’s size. A panicked, last-minute plea…and Josie had complied. Something about Leann’s wide blue eyes made Josie want to help her. She was so innocent-looking, so young, so pure, Josie found herself agreeing to fill in almost before she realized it. If Leann had that effect on Josie, how did she affect the opposite gender? Was she a siren? A vixen? A helpless doe? Were those desperate eyes saying, Please, oh please, let everything go smoothly…or, Oh God, am I making the right decision?