Groomed for Murder

by Laura Durham

  I put a hand to my forehead. “It doesn’t matter who did it or why right now. What matters is we have a dead body lying in the exact place people are supposed to eat dinner in a couple of hours.”

  Richard staggered backward. “This means my lobster medallions are going to be served rubbery, doesn’t it? Could this day get any worse?”

  I reminded myself Richard’s reaction was normal for a culinary person obsessed with perfect food. Or a sociopath.

  Kate fumbled for her phone. “Should I call 911?”

  I shook my head. “If we call the cops, our wedding is going to be one giant crime scene. And Stefan is going to blame us.”

  Kate bit her bottom lip. “He can’t blame us for a murder. It’s not like we killed Cher Noble. We didn’t even suggest hiring a drag queen to officiate the ceremony.”

  “Do you think that will matter to him?” I glanced at the closed library doors. “You know the buck always stops with us. No matter what.” I shook my head. “We need to fix this.”

  Richard folded his arms over his chest. “How do you intend to fix a dead drag queen? I refuse to be involved in any sort of Weekend at Bernie’s nonsense.”

  I tapped my chin with one finger. “Nothing like that. I’ve learned my lesson about trying to hide dead bodies.” I hated to admit this wasn’t the first time we’d stumbled across a murder victim at a wedding, and not all my attempts to “keep calm and carry on” had worked out so well. But it was my wedding planner instinct to fix any problem and make sure my couple had a magical wedding day, even if it meant not calling the cops at the first sign of trouble.

  “Have you?” Richard asked, giving me a pointed look. “I seem to recall a wedding on a yacht where you didn’t think it was such a bad idea.”

  I leveled a finger at my best friend. “Hey, buddy. I didn’t hear you complaining when you got to make it through cocktail hour without your food being overcooked or served cold.”

  Richard turned away from me in a huff. “I almost ended up on the evening news wearing a trash bag, Annabelle.” He took out a gray-and-white-striped handkerchief and began fanning his face. “Me! With a Hefty bag duck taped around myself.” He pressed the silk square to his lips to stifle a sob. “You couldn’t even tell I was wearing Prada underneath.”

  Kate held up her hands. “Okay, okay. I’m with Richard. Keeping things from the cops hasn’t always turned out so well for us. I also agree with Annabelle. Our client is not going to be even remotely sympathetic about this. We’re between a rock and a hard face.”

  I paused for a moment while I thought that Kate’s mangled expression wasn’t so far off, although I wasn’t quite sure who she considered the hard face. I heard the band warming up across the foyer and the clinking of glasses being set out in the adjoining room. I could even hear the faint noise of a leaf blower as the linden grove was cleared of fallen leaves. We still had a little less than an hour until guests showed up, an hour and a half until ceremony start, and two hours until reception time. Not long enough to get the cops in and out, that was for sure. But maybe we had enough time to move the wedding entirely.

  “You know the house next door?” I asked. “White-Meyer?”

  “It’s all owned by the same management company,” Richard said.

  “And the gardens connect through the brick arch on the side,” Kate said. “The houses even share the same alley for loading.”

  “And White-Meyer never has a big event when Meridian has a wedding going on,” I reminded them. “So the house should be empty.”

  Richard’s mouth fell open. “Are you suggesting we move the entire wedding next door?” He glanced at his Gucci watch. “In less than an hour?”

  I motioned to the dead body. “Would you rather have your waiters step over Cher as they serve the soup course?”

  Kate shuddered and turned her body away from the corpse. “Don’t even joke.”

  “We can’t do this without asking the house first,” Richard said. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to get banned for life because I co-opted a historic house without permission.”

  “Of course we’re going to ask,” I said. I hadn’t figured out exactly how I would word my request so it seemed like the most logical solution. Since the events director, Mary, had met Stefan, she knew the level of crazy we were dealing with.

  Richard squared his shoulders. “Let me handle it. She’ll understand once I explain everything. Anyway, Mary and I have bonded over our love of dogs.”

  “I beg your pardon, what?” I asked. “Your love of . . .?”

  Richard sighed. “Mary loves Hermes. And I brought by some of my homemade dog biscuits for her little beagles last week.”

  For as long as I’d known Richard, he’d had a hard-and-fast rule about children and dogs. Both were too loud and messy for his designer lifestyle. But a tiny Yorkie named Butterscotch had been part of the package when Richard had started dating PJ. Even though I hadn’t met the boyfriend yet, I’d become acquainted with his dog when Richard began carrying the pup around in his man bag. He’d even renamed the dog Hermes, a name he claimed better suited the upscale pooch and him.

  “You and Mary talk about your dogs?” Kate asked, looking at Richard as if he’d sprouted antennae.

  Richard gave her an arch look. “I’ll have you know, she values my opinion on where to buy the best doggie sweaters.”

  “And I thought the dead drag queen was the weirdest part of this day,” Kate said under her breath.

  I put a hand on Richard’s arm. “You go talk to Mary. Explain everything. Beg, plead, remind her about Stefan.”

  “On it.” Richard spun on his heel and slipped out one of the double doors, pulling it closed behind him.

  Kate stepped further away from the dead body, resting her hand on one of the brass doorknobs. “What do we do?”

  I pulled out my cell phone. “I’m going to call Reese.”

  “What about the whole ‘cops will ruin the wedding’ thing?” She held her fingers up to make air quotes.

  I found his number in my recent call log. “I’m hoping if I explain my completely legal plan that doesn’t touch his crime scene, he’ll cut me some slack.”

  Kate elbowed me. “The only reason he’d go along with this is if you’re giving him a good reason. Are you giving him a good reason? Or are you planning to tonight?”

  I felt my face warm. “If you’re implying the only reason he would go along with my plan is because we’re . . . “

  “Doing the horizontal mambo?” Kate said, finishing my sentence in a way I never would have.

  I smacked her arm. “I never told you that.”

  “No, you haven’t.” Kate let out a breath. “And it’s driving me crazy. Come on, I tell you about my love life. Quid pro quo.”

  “I know you have,” I said. “And I’m scarred for life. I can never unhear some of those stories.”

  Kate grinned. “I really should write a book, shouldn’t I?”

  I couldn’t even imagine where such a book would be shelved. I shook my head as I speed dialed Reese. “While I’m talking to him, I need you to find a backup officiant and break the news to Fern.”

  “And should I meet you back here?” she asked, her eyes flitting to the body in the middle of the room. “You’re going to stay in here?”

  I gave a jerk of my head as the phone rang. “To make sure no one disturbs the scene.”

  Kate grimaced as she slid out of the room. When she pulled the door shut behind her, the only sound was the ringing of the phone in my ear. Just as I was convinced it would go to voicemail, Reese answered.

  “Hey, babe. I thought you were working all day.”

  Hearing his deep voice made me smile, even if I wasn’t happy about the reason for my call. “I am. I ran into a little snafu.”

  “Uh oh. Your idea of a little snafu usually involves a full-scale police investigation.”

  “Speaking of the police, are you on duty today?” I tried to make my
voice sound casual, but I knew it was higher pitched than usual.

  “Yes.” He drew the word out as he said it. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

  “What if I asked you to be discreet about something?”

  “Annabelle,” his voice was serious. “What’s going on?”

  “Cher Noble, the drag queen officiant for today’s wedding, was strangled with her boa.”

  A long silence followed by a groan.

  I took a breath and barreled on. “But if I postpone the wedding, the groom will probably sue me, so we’re leaving the body untouched. The wedding will now be held in the historic house next door. That way your crime scene is preserved and so is my career.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Meridian International Center in DC,” I said. “But can you not use the sirens? The neighbors here are a bit touchy.”

  “They’re really not going to like the rest of the day,” he muttered. “I have to call in the medical examiner and an ambulance.”

  “Okay, but can you ask everyone to be discreet? I really want to keep the situation as low-key as possible.”

  Both doors behind me flung open, and I spun around to see Fern standing wild-eyed in front of me. “Where is she?”

  I tried to block him from pushing past me. “You can’t mess up the crime scene. The police are on their way.”

  Kate ran up behind Fern. “I tried to stop him, but he didn’t take the news so well.”

  “Cher!” Fern cried as he spotted the dead drag queen. “We’ve got to get the boa off her. She can’t breathe.”

  I wrapped both arms around Fern to keep him from lunging at the body. Kate grabbed him from behind, and we pushed him out of the room.

  “She’s dead,” I told him once he’d stopped straining against me. “There’s nothing you can do to help her.”

  Fern’s wide eyes focused on me before he let out a blood-curdling scream. “Someone here is a murderer!”

  The band stopped playing, the waiters stopped setting up, and Kate and I froze as everyone turned to look at us. I caught Fern as he slumped against me in a dead faint.

  So much for keeping things low-key.

  Chapter 3

  “Well, that wasn’t pretty,” Richard said as he walked up to me.

  I stood at the top of the double staircases leading from the ground level up to the main floor of Meridian House. I had a good view of the front entrance below, the closed doors to the library, and a straight line of sight to the outside garden. Instead of the sounds of the band rehearsing, I heard the clattering of cases as they packed up to move next door. Glasses clinked in the dining room as waiters filled racks and carried them outside and through the brick archway to the historic home next door.

  “You mean Fern’s reaction to seeing Cher Noble?” I gave him a look. “Might I remind you you’ve been known to swoon before?”

  Richard waved a hand at me. “Not that, and for heaven’s sake, stop using the word swoon. It makes me sound like a character in a Regency romance. I meant it wasn’t pretty watching my guys walk the ceremony bar across the linden grove to the White-Meyer house.”

  I peered around him to look outside and held my breath as three tuxedo-clad waiters gently lifted the towering stack of cheese wheels doing double duty as the wedding cake and began shuffling it through the loggia. “Did it make it in one piece?”

  “Barely, but yes. Buster and Mack are moving the floral urns, and then my waiters will start switching the chairs.”

  I noticed the overflowing urn of tulips had already disappeared from the escort card table, and only the empty orange buckets and florist supplies remained in the corner of the room as evidence of the décor. I still needed to gather up the cards with guests’ names and reposition them next door, but I knew I still had time.

  I pulled my phone out of my dress pocket and noted the time. “We should make it. Kate’s outside repositioning the valets and having one stand in front of Meridian to redirect any stragglers.”

  “I hate to mention this, darling.” Richard shifted from one foot to the other. “When I was outside, it was spitting a bit.”

  “Spitting? As in rain?” I shook my head. “Nope. The forecast didn’t call for rain until later tonight after our ceremony and cocktails are long over.”

  “Okay . . .” Richard drew the word out to several syllables.

  “Absolutely not.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I have to deal with a groom from hell and a dead body? I refuse to be rained out as well.”

  Richard touched a hand to my shoulder. “Are you feeling all right? You look a bit manic and your eye . . .” He pointed to my twitching eyelid.

  I put a hand over it. “I’m totally fine. Why is everyone obsessed with my eye?”

  “Maybe because it looks like it’s about to twitch off your face,” Richard mumbled, putting an arm around my shoulder. “Are you sure we’re okay to do all this?” His eyes darted to the entrance of the historic house as if a SWAT team might burst in at any second.

  “We aren’t touching anything remotely near the murder scene,” I said with more confidence than I felt. I had suspected relocating a wedding after finding a dead body might not be exactly kosher with the DC police, but I’d always found it was better to ask forgiveness than permission. Something I’d learned from Richard and seemed to do a lot of with Detective Reese. “No one has gone near the library since we dragged Fern out.”

  A chef in a white jacket passed us carrying two large silver trays, and I got a whiff of bacon. No doubt Richard’s brown sugar bacon-wrapped scallops. My stomach growled, virtually empty save for the few gummy bears I’d eaten earlier.

  Richard shook his head. “You had to know he would be upset.”

  “How? No one told me they were friends.” I nibbled on the edge of my thumbnail, and Richard swatted it out of my mouth. “Is he okay?”

  Richard bobbled his head back and forth. “He’s over in the other house with the grooms and their attendants. He seemed to calm down once he had some champagne.”

  “You gave him booze?” I rolled my eyes. No one loved bubbly as much as Fern, but it usually made him louder and more dramatic, and he was already plenty of both to start with.

  “I stocked the new getting-ready room with plenty of champagne and a tray of the grooms’ favorite hors d’oeuvres. They’re all drinking, so no one will notice if Fern gets a bit tipsy.”

  I squeezed Richard’s arm. “Good thinking on the hors d’oeuvres. Stefan loves your mushroom chopsticks. Maybe he’ll eat so many he’ll forget to be outraged. How did he take it when you told him about Cher Noble?”

  “Surprisingly well.” Richard didn’t meet my eyes. “Especially since I told him we were moving because of a broken AC unit and not because their drag queen officiant had been murdered.”

  “What?” I gaped at him. “You didn’t tell the grooms their officiant is dead?”

  “You told me to move them to the house next door and keep them happy, which I did. If I told them Cher had been killed, they would not be nearly so happy.”

  “How are we going to explain why the person marrying them isn’t a six-foot-five drag queen dressed like Cher from the ‘If I Could Turn Back Time Farewell Tour?’” I tapped my foot on the wooden floor. “I think they’re going to notice.”

  “Kate wasn’t able to get another Cher impersonator to do the ceremony?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you know how many drag queen Cher impersonators are licensed by the District of Columbia to perform legal wedding ceremonies?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “One. The only officiant Kate could find who could get over here on a busy Saturday during high wedding season was a rabbi. At least this rabbi is ‘Jewish light,’ so he’ll do the ceremony before sundown.”

  Now it was Richard’s turn to gape at me. “A rabbi? You must be out of your mind. The couple isn’t even Jewish.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” I tried to keep my voice from reaching
howler-monkey volume. “We didn’t exactly have a lot to choose from. Kate even called Perry’s restaurant where we found Cher, but there’s some big drag show out of state so all the drag queens are in New Jersey.”

  “There’s a scary thought.” Richard ran a hand through his choppy bangs. “Is there any chance the rabbi will wear a Cher wig and a cocktail dress? I think I could scrape those up and get them over here in time.”

  I didn’t ask how he could pull it off because I really didn’t want to know. “I’m pretty sure eighty-year-old Rabbi Hoffman is going to say no.”

  “Nobody goes the extra mile anymore.” Richard shook his head. “Don’t even get me started on finding decent wait staff.”

  I heard the jingling of metal and looked up to see Buster and Mack, our two floral designers, rushing across the emptied-out loggia toward us. The two men each topped six feet and three hundred pounds and wore lots of black leather biker garb with metal rivets and chains, which meant I could always hear them coming if I didn’t feel the ground trembling first. They were known as much for their custom Harleys as they were for their lush, modern floral designs.

  “All the floral from outside has been transitioned over,” Mack said, rubbing a hand over his dark-red goatee. “Can we start on the inside arrangements?”

  “Do the large standing pieces we had flanking the band first,” I said. “Let’s leave the table arrangements for last.”

  Buster cleared his throat, but his voice still came out as a gravelly rumble. “The back terrace next door is nothing compared to the linden grove. Are you sure the AC can’t be fixed in time?”

  I shot Richard a look. “You told everyone it was an AC problem?”

  “You know how wedding people talk,” Richard said. “I didn’t want it to get back to Stefan.”

  Mack looked from me to Richard. “It isn’t an issue with the AC?”

  I touched a hand to Mack’s thick forearm. “Actually, the officiant’s been murdered.”

  Mack sucked in air and clamped a hand over his mouth.

  “But we just saw the rabbi wandering out behind White-Meyer house,” Buster said. “When did he get killed?”