by Laura Durham
"Do you want to know the kicker?" Richard asked. "Stealing a police car is a felony, so even though Marcus only got probation and time served, he was a convicted felon."
"Doesn't that make it harder to get a job?" I asked.
Richard pointed his wooden spoon at me through the divider. "Bingo. You're supposed to tell your employers or at least check the box on the job application form, but we don't use a form to hire people so it never came up."
"I'd never think to ask an applicant if they'd been convicted of a felony," I said. "Not in the wedding world at least."
"Who knows?" Reese cocked an eyebrow. "Your industry could be littered with convicted felons."
"That would actually explain a lot."
"It explains why Marcus had to hit up his old friend for a job at Capital Weddings," Richard continued. "Especially if other employers were more thorough in their background checks. It also proves that my instincts about him were right on the money. At least after the first week."
I didn't remind him that he'd only fired Marcus after discovering that the man had been sending out proposals laden with profanity. I'd learned that perfect recall was not a trait Richard always valued.
Richard appeared from the kitchen holding two plates with oven mitts. He set them down on the dining room table, which I noticed for the first time was set with both silverware and glasses, then returned to the kitchen.
"So our unintended victim wasn't as squeaky clean as we thought," Reese said as he stood. "I'm not sure that brings us any closer to figuring out why someone wanted to kill his boss."
"Maybe not." Richard reappeared with a third plate. "It was more for my own illumination. I always felt there was more to Marcus than met the eye."
"That reminds me," I said as I sat in the chair Reese pulled out for me. "What did you find out about the coroner's report that made you rush off last night?"
"How did you know it was about the coroner's report?" Reese asked as he took the seat next to mine.
"Kate may have overheard you while she was hunting down a vending machine," I said, inhaling the scent of the steak and grilled vegetables from the plate in front of me.
"I suppose it won't hurt to tell you." Reese cut a piece from his filet mignon. "The final coroner's report showed more in the victim's stomach than one chocolate."
"So the original report was wrong? Marcus ate more than the chocolate?" I nearly dropped the fork I'd picked up. "That's great. That means it could have been something other than Richard's truffles."
Reese held up a finger. "Not more than chocolate. More than one chocolate."
"I don't get it," Richard said. "Didn't all the witnesses say he only ate the cherry liquor?"
Reese took a bite and chewed it slowly. "According to the coroner, he ate more than one. Quite a few more."
"That means the people at the magazine who said he ate just one were lying." I put my fork down. "That means Cassandra was lying. But why?"
"Who's Cassandra?" Richard asked.
"Someone who had a motive to kill Marcie and plenty of opportunity," I told him. "And someone who's already lied to us more than once."
Reese took a sip of his wine. "So much for my day off. Looks like I'll be paying a visit to this Cassandra."
26
"These trees look familiar," Kate said as we stepped into the ballroom at The Wharf Intercontinental the next day.
The tall trees in planters lined against the wall were hung with strands of pink orchids, although I suspected they weren't the same orchids from the Love Brunch even though they were nearly the same color. I reached into my dress pocket for my phone so I could snap some photos of the setup before I got too busy and forgot.
"We kept the translucent wire and changed out the flowers," Mack said, coming in behind us. "Amelia wanted more of a blush tone anyway."
"How is our Valentine's bride?" Buster asked, staggering past us with a massive arrangement comprised entirely of red-and-pink roses.
"We just came from upstairs," I said. "Fern's keeping her and the bridesmaids happy."
Buster centered the towering centerpiece on one of the tables designed to look like a giant X and draped with red silk linens. "Are we sure this doesn't look more bordello than wedding?"
Considering the amount of red being used in the wedding, it was a fair question. I took a quick picture of the roses and studied it on my phone screen as Kate looked over my shoulder.
"The pink softens it.” Kate shook a few gummy bears into her hand and passed the mini cellophane bag to me. “Otherwise this would be more red-light district than Valentine's Day."
"The cupid flower girls don't scream bordello," I said, popping a couple of the sweet squishy candies into my mouth and passing the packet to Mack. "They're adorable in their white dresses, feather wings, and bows and arrows."
"Only because we talked the bride out of having her bridesmaids dressed like cupids," Kate reminded me. "That would have been less adorable and more 'leave the money on the nightstand.'"
I elbowed her. "Do I need to remind you the bride wants to get this wedding published in a magazine?"
"As soon as we get the pink lighting in, it won't look so intense," Mack said, handing the gummy bears back to Kate after Buster declined them. "What time does John Farr Lighting load in?"
I glanced at the time on my phone. "Now." The sugar from the candy gave me a needed boost, and I felt glad Kate always carried a stash in her dress. "I should also check on Sidney Allen. He's coordinating the confetti cannons and the dove release."
"Is Leatrice home alone?" Mack asked.
"Reese is going to visit her," I said. "And I know Sidney Allen plans to duck out the second those doves fly around in their heart formation and get back into their cage."
Mack pressed his brows together. "Why don't I have Prue stay with her? She was going to take Merry out for a walk around Georgetown anyway."
"Good idea," Buster said.
A head poked into the room, and I recognized our banquet captain for the evening, Luis.
"The haiku poet is asking where you'd like him to set up," Luis said, his face telling me how odd he found the concept of a haiku poet at a wedding.
I turned to Kate. "Let's go handle the Haiku Crew."
We left Buster and Mack in the ballroom and followed Luis to where a couple stood, each holding a battered case I knew contained their vintage typewriters.
"The cocktail hour will be in here," I said, leading them into a smaller ballroom with walls we'd draped in ivory fabric.
Kate pointed to the rustic wooden table flanked by old-fashioned red-tufted sofas. "Does that setup work for you?"
The pair thanked us and began unpacking their typewriters and stacks of paper onto the desk. I motioned to another table across the room. "That's the station for the paper cutter who'll be making Valentine's cards on the fly."
Luis nodded. "Did I read the BEO right, and is there really going to be a life-sized chocolate fountain?"
The BEO, or banquet event order, told the hotel crew every detail about the party so they could set up the rooms accordingly and so the kitchen could time the food. Chances were good that the words "life-sized chocolate fountain" had never appeared on one before.
"Yes," I said, "but the company promised me they cover the carpet with a plastic tray. Like the ones used for ice sculptures."
Luis scratched his head. “That’s got to be a big tray.” He didn't look convinced about the plan. To be honest, neither was I.
Kate and I returned to the foyer. I pulled my wedding day timeline from my pocket and scanned the first page. "We're on schedule. Ahead even."
"Good." Kate walked me over to a cocktail table. "We have a few minutes for me to tell you about happy hour last night."
I sat and flattened out my folded schedule on the table, checking off "haiku poets arrive" and feeling a certain satisfaction that setup was going smoothly. "How can you drink the night before a wedding?"
She waved away
my concerns. "I only had one drink and I nursed it. The important point is that Cassandra joined us."
"You were socializing with one of our murder suspects? What about the information Reese learned from the coroner?" I asked. "Cassandra is the one who told us Marcus only ate one truffle, and now we know that wasn't true. She could be lying about everything, including the fact that she killed him."
Kate flicked a hand through her hair. "I didn't know that then, did I? Besides, I still can't imagine her killing someone. If she wanted to kill Marcie, wouldn't she have said something when Marcus chowed down on the poison?"
She made a good point. It would take a seriously hard-hearted person to watch an innocent man eat something you knew would kill him. "I guess so. Marcie was the person she wanted to get rid of."
"I'm not even sure she really wanted to get rid of Marcie either," Kate said, crossing her leg. "After a couple of drinks, she was crying about the whole thing. She feels guilty about getting involved with Maxwell and sending the dead flowers to her boss."
"She's probably scared we're going to tell and she'll get fired."
Kate shook her head. "I don't think so. She seemed broken up about the whole thing. I get the feeling she got pulled into it by Maxwell sweet-talking her, but I don't even know if she wanted to be the head editor. She probably liked the sound of it, especially the way Maxwell sold it to her."
I cringed. "I still can't believe someone as young as her was attracted to a man who could be her grandfather. The dating scene in DC can't be that bad."
"Before Reese, how many dates had you had?" Kate asked.
I thought for a moment. "Okay, fine. You made your point. I still say anyone desperate enough to sleep with Maxwell Gray is desperate enough to commit murder. Plus, since she works at the magazine, she had opportunity that no other suspect had. The killer had to have access to the chocolates after Richard delivered them."
"Brianna had access. Richard saw her at the magazine offices when he delivered the box, and we have no idea how long she stayed after he left."
I tapped my pen on my schedule. "You know I'd love it to be her, but how was she supposed to know there would be chocolates to poison? The killer had to have the poison on them to inject into the truffles. I think Brianna is a nasty piece of work, but it seems odd that she'd be walking around with nicotine poisoning on her."
"Then Marcie's chef ex-husband," Kate said. "He could have done it. He's a smoker."
"How do you know that?" I thought back to our talk with Chef Symon. Had he mentioned smoking?
Kate held up a hand and wiggled her fingers. "The tips of his fingers were stained and so were his teeth. I wouldn't be surprised if he smoked a pack or two a day."
"Good eyes, Kate."
"I've gotten good at spotting the signs. You know I don't date smokers, and some of them try to hide it." She made a face. "I can always know for sure by the first kiss, but who wants to waste an hour or two?"
I didn't point out that some people waited more than an hour before a first kiss. Reese and I had taken months to get to that point, but I knew Kate found our romance to be glacially slow.
"Even if Marcie's ex smokes a lot, that doesn't mean he used nicotine to try to kill her," I said. "If he was smart, he'd want to use something that directed suspicion away from him. If his smoking habit was common knowledge, I doubt he'd use that as his murder weapon."
Kate frowned at me. "So we're back to Cassandra?"
"Looks like it."
"I'm telling you, she was broken up about Marcus last night. Apparently they'd become pretty good friends, even though he was also tight with Marcie. Cassandra knew all about Marcie's divorce, and I know her boss didn't share all that dirt with her."
"So Marcus went out with the staff and dished on their boss and his old friend?" I eyed Kate. "That doesn't seem cool."
"I got the feeling from Cassandra that Marcus was the type of person who was a ton of fun to hang out with, but you wouldn't trust him as far as you could throw him." She put a hand to her chest. "Personally, I'd never dream of revealing your dirty secrets. Mostly because you have none, but the second you do, Annabelle, they're safe with me."
"That's very comforting. Do you think Marcus knew dirt on Cassandra? Maybe she told him about Maxwell and the scheme to scare Marcie out of her job."
Kate drummed her polished nails on the table. "She was pretty loose-lipped last night. If she was always that chatty after a couple of drinks, she could have let it slip."
"I wonder," I said, rolling an idea round in my mind. "What if Cassandra's victim wasn't Marcie? What if it was Marcus all along?"
Kate sat up and uncrossed her legs. "You think we've been looking at the wrong victim?"
"I'm just saying that she definitely had a motive to kill him if there was a chance he'd spill her secrets. Not only would Cassandra have gotten fired if anyone found out, chances are good the scandal would have been so bad she never would have gotten another job in this town."
"That's true. She would have been ruined."
"We've already established that she had the most opportunity," I said. "Maybe we were right about that but wrong about the motive. Her motive to kill Marcus would have been much stronger if she was afraid he'd reveal what she'd done."
"So she poisoned chocolates meant for Marcie because she knew her boss wouldn't eat them?" Kate asked.
"She told us she knew Marcie was on a diet. Plus, if she knew which truffles were poisoned, she could even eat one herself to throw us off the trail."
"That's clever," Kate said. "So what do we do about it?"
I pulled my phone out of my dress pocket. "Reese was going to talk to her today. Now he'll have a few more questions to ask her."
Kate grabbed my arm. "What if he's questioning her right now? He doesn't know she was actually trying to kill Marcus and not Marcie."
"At least we think she was," I said, pressing speed dial for my boyfriend and hearing it go to voice mail. "There's always the possibility we're wrong. It wouldn't be the first time."
I left him a message, hoping he'd get it in time.
Kate squinted at something over my shoulder. "Is there anything in the meeting room across the hall?"
I followed her line of sight. "Just the candy we had the bellman deliver for us when we arrived."
Kate stood quickly. "The candy for the display later tonight? That's the vendor room?"
"Didn't I tell you the hotel catering exec needed to move us to that room?" I asked. "Why?"
Kate started speed walking toward the doors. "I'm pretty sure I just saw Brianna poke her head out of there."
27
"You must be seeing things," I said as we walked down the hotel corridor toward the bride's suite. "There was no trace of anyone in that room, and the candy boxes were all there."
"If I'm hallucinating visions of Brianna, I think I need to see a doctor."
I patted her arm. "It's been a long week."
Kate pushed the door open since it stood slightly ajar. We'd thrown the dead bolt earlier so it would prevent the door from closing all the way and to keep us from having to knock every time we popped in and out of the room.
I followed Kate inside and took a moment. The suite was a very different scene than it had been the day before. Duffel bags littered the floor, their contents spilling out of them, and garment bags hung across the backs of chairs and from the tops of doors. A decimated tray of bagels and muffins sat on a room service trolley, and a couple of empty bottles of bubbly surrounded by glass flutes were on the coffee table.
The air held the scent of hair spray and coffee, and I noticed a couple of cardboard drink holders jammed into a nearby trash can. It was hard to hear much over the pulsating hip-hop music, but the muffled sound of female voices came from the direction of the bathroom. As Kate and I walked closer, I could hear the distinct sound of Fern's voice rising above all the others.
"I'm telling you girls, the last thing you want to deal with on your we
dding night is a big--"
"How's it going in here?" I asked, drowning out whatever inappropriate advice Fern had been dispensing.
Fern stood at the mirror behind the bride, who was perched on a padded stool. He held a curling iron in one hand and a can of hair spray in the other. His hot-pink pants looked impossibly snug and matched his spread-collared shirt. Instead of his usual topaz ring, a pink heart-shaped stone that looked big enough to be a ring pop glittered on his finger. "Fabulous. We've changed up the hair on the bridesmaids a little bit."
"Inspired by Valentine’s Day, naturally," Amelia added, not moving her head but waving at us in the reflection.
I glanced at the other women in the room and tried not to let my face show my surprise.
"They've got feathered bangs," Kate whispered to me through a plastered-on smile.
"I can see that.” I didn't let my expression falter as I looked at the collection of Farrah Fawcett winged hairdos surrounding us.
"They're wings," one of the woman said, rolling her eyes. "Get it? Cupid? Wings?"
I got it, and I was going to kill Fern. How were we supposed to submit the wedding to magazines when all the bridesmaids looked like they'd escaped from the eighties?
"Did you cut their hair?" I asked, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
Fern winked at me. "Just a teensy snip here and there. Nothing that won't grow out."
Amelia was going to owe her bridesmaids big time, I thought as I took in the facial expressions of the women in the room. If they ever spoke to her again.
"Are you giving the bride feathered hair too?" Kate asked.
Fern shook his head and his tidy man bun bobbled on the top of his head. "We're sticking to an updo for Amelia, but I'm curling the two sides of the bun together into the center to make a heart. Isn't that going to be darling?"
I fought the urge to slap my forehead and then Fern's. "Are you sure about this, Amelia? You're going to have these photos for the rest of your life. Don't you want to stick with something timeless like the French twist you did at the trial?"
