Marriage, Monsters-in-Law, and Murder

by Sara Rosett

  “Sabotage?” Mitch asked in a low voice. “Summer actually used that word?”

  The kids were several steps ahead of us, and we were continuing the conversation we’d had the night before. I’d related the blowup between Yvonne and Summer to Mitch.

  “Yes. I’m sure she did. That’s a very specific word to use, you know,” I said.

  “You don’t think that Yvonne could have . . .” he said, his eyebrows raised.

  “I don’t know. Until last night, I would have said no, that it would be impossible. But now that I think about it, just in the time I’ve been around—” I glanced at the kids, who were striding quickly along ahead of us. They didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us, but I’d learned that they were like sponges, soaking up everything we said and did, and they often quoted our words back to us verbatim—usually at very inconvenient times, too. Instead of mentioning Yvonne by name, I only said, “She’s made several disparaging comments. And, she’s constantly pulling Brian away from Summer.”

  “But to sabotage your own—”

  Nathan turned to us. “What’s sabataj?” he asked, doing his best to pronounce the new word.

  I opened my mouth to reply, but Livvy was quicker. “It’s when you hurt someone, but do it in a sneaky way,” she informed him.

  Mitch and I exchanged a glance as we caught up with the kids. “That’s my reader,” I said as I placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to rock your SAT vocabulary portion.”

  “Sure,” Livvy said, but I could see that her forehead had wrinkled into a frown. She had no idea what the SAT was, but she wasn’t about to admit it. I was sure she’d ask one of her older cousins later today.

  Mitch pointed to a sign posted at a fork in the road. “Only one hundred yards to the beach.”

  “Oh, look, the ruin is only two hundred yards down the other trail,” Livvy said. “Can we go and just take a quick look. Please?”

  “I don’t know . . . maybe later today,” I said, thinking that the smashed golf cart was not an image I wanted my kids to see. “It might not be open right now.”

  Nathan grinned. “You can’t close a ruin, Mom. They don’t have any doors.”

  “It should be okay,” Mitch said, checking his watch. “We need to let our breakfast digest a little longer before we swim, anyway. Let’s leave our stuff here.” He planted the beach chairs against the signpost. The kids dropped their pails and took off down the path toward the ruin.

  “Mitch, the golf cart might still be there—”

  “It’s okay. The police cleared it out this morning.”

  “How do you know that?” I dropped the beach bag next to the chairs and started up the path beside Mitch.

  “While you were with the kids upstairs after breakfast, I went for a walk around the resort,” Mitch said. “The golf cart had been loaded onto a flatbed and was being moved off the island.”

  “Really? So they’re done at the ruin?” I asked.

  “Yes, all finished. It’s open to visitors, and everything has been cleaned up. I also dropped by the maintenance building. One of the groundskeepers came in, and I struck up a conversation with him.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Mitch. “This is so unlike you. Usually I’m the one nosing around asking questions.”

  Mitch’s face was serious. “Yes, well, this involves my little sister. If someone is determined to hurt her, I want to find out what is going on and who is doing it.” Mitch paused, then sighed. “Unfortunately, the guy at the maintenance building said no single person from the resort is assigned to the building all day, and he didn’t remember seeing anyone unfamiliar around lately.”

  I glanced up the trail and saw that the kids were far enough ahead of us that I could speak in a normal voice. “You’re thinking about the socket wrench, aren’t you?” I asked as we moved deeper into the forest. The foliage became thicker, filtering out more of the weak sunlight.

  “Yes,” Mitch said. “I suppose whoever messed with the golf cart lug nuts could have brought a socket wrench with them. I said to the guy at the maintenance building that I was thinking of buying a golf cart and got him talking. I found out that most golf cart wheels use the same size bolts and lug nuts, so theoretically, whoever loosened them could have brought a three-fourths-inch socket wrench with them for that purpose, but how would someone know that they’d have the opportunity to mess with the wheels?”

  I shrugged. “The details about golf carts being the only form of transportation on Camden Island are online and in all the brochures. It would be easy to find out. Chances are that sometime during the weekend, Summer would take a golf cart somewhere. Maybe Julia just watched and waited for her opportunity. With Summer and Brian having a dedicated ‘bride and groom’ golf cart, it only made it easier to target her. On the other hand, I can’t believe that someone wouldn’t remember a stunning young brunette or an older but still very attractive redhead, dropping into the maintenance building. That’s not on the list of resort amenities, you know.”

  “No, it’s definitely an area of the resort that a person would have to seek out. The building is located out of sight down a forested drive. But all I did was ask a resort employee the way and they pointed it out, so it’s not impossible to think someone else did it too. And the place was wide open when I first got there, no one in sight.”

  “They leave it unattended?”

  “Yes, it’s far enough off the beaten path that most of the vacationers don’t even know it’s there.”

  “And were there tools lying around?”

  “Tons of them. I saw three socket sets, and I only got a cursory look around.”

  The path curved, and the ruin came into view as the forest dropped away and the wide green lawn spread out in front of us. Livvy and Nathan were already halfway across the expanse, making straight for the ruin. Another pair of sightseers were moving around the ruin.

  We stayed clear of the path where the accident had happened, but I couldn’t help taking a closer look at it as we neared the area. It was empty. There was no trace, not even a speck of blood on the asphalt, that something tragic had happened there yesterday.

  When we arrived at the ruin yesterday, we’d come in from the side, and I hadn’t looked at the ruin from this angle, from directly in front of it. I could see the steepness of the cart path, and the sharp bend where it turned to hug the retaining wall. We paused a moment, taking in the panorama of the ruin.

  “Someone sure picked a heck of a place to remove the lug nuts.” Mitch’s tone was grim as he studied the path.

  “With the short distance between the top of the path and the turn, the cart was sure to flip over,” I said with a shake of my head.

  “And the steep grade of the path would mean it would probably be traveling at a good clip.”

  The morning was on the chilly side, but I felt a coldness settle over me that had nothing to do with the weather. I looked away to check on the kids, not wanting to think about how calculating someone had been.

  They had reached the ruin itself. “Stay off the walls,” I called just as Nathan gripped a stone near his head as if he wanted to climb to the top. I knew what he was thinking—what else could a ruin be for, except to use as a giant jungle gym? Nathan reluctantly released his grip on the wall and moved to follow Livvy through the rest of the house.

  “Do you think they’re okay in there?” I asked Mitch.

  “Yes. The walls that are standing are solid enough, I noticed that yesterday. Nothing is going to come crashing down on them.”

  As we crossed the slowly rising lawn, I noticed that the increase in elevation partially blocked the cart path from view. By the time we reached the area in front of the terrace where the wicker tables had been placed, I couldn’t even see the cart path. Mitch was looking the same direction I was. “Can you see anything?” I asked. “You’re taller than me.”

  “Not a single bit of the asphalt of the upper cart path.” Mitch turned to the ruin and climbed the steps
to the terrace. “Stay here a moment, would you? I want to check something out.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Mitch waved to the kids, who joined him as he walked through the ruin, then all three of them disappeared through what would have been the back of the house. I watched, scanning the ruin, smiling politely at the other couple, who were taking photos. After a minute or two, Mitch and the kids reappeared from the back of the ruin and made their way toward me.

  Nathan jumped off the terrace. “Did you see us, Mom?”

  “No, I didn’t see anything,” I said as I looked at Mitch.

  Nathan and Livvy thought it was a great joke that I hadn’t seen them and raced off to try to replicate the feat on the other side of the ruin. Mitch said, “We walked all the way around to the cart path. There’s enough bushes and trees to screen someone all the way there.”

  “Which means someone could have slipped away, removed the lug nuts, and rejoined us, without anyone being able to see them, at least not from here.”

  “Do you remember anyone disappearing for a while?” Mitch asked.

  “You sound like Redding. That’s what he wanted to know too. But no, but I wasn’t watching everyone. I did try to keep an eye on Yvonne and Patricia, but I couldn’t say for sure that both of them were always in my sight. I was more concerned that they weren’t together than if they were both always with the group.”

  “Hey there,” a voice called from behind us. Mitch and I had been looking in the direction of the hidden cart path where the crash had happened, our backs to the ruin. We both turned and saw Graham trotting down the shallow terrace steps. He wore running clothes that were drenched in sweat. He pulled out his earbuds that were attached to his phone, which was tucked into an armband. “If you’re looking for the beach”—he paused to suck in a gulp of air—“you took a wrong turn.”

  We were all wearing swimwear, so it was obvious we were on our way to the beach. Livvy and I had on swimsuit cover-ups over our suits. And Nathan and Mitch had on bright swim trunks with their T-shirts and flip-flops. The resort was a classy place, and you couldn’t just run around in your swimsuit, not that I wanted to run around anywhere in my swimsuit.

  “The kids wanted to see the ruin so we made a little detour,” I said as I checked their location. I could see them motoring around the side of the ruin toward us.

  “Is there a running path around here?” Mitch asked, his gaze shifting around Graham to search the forest that ringed the ruin.

  “Yeah.” Graham turned to point behind him, his words spaced out as he worked to get his breath back. “It goes from the resort through the forest and . . . comes out back there. A three-mile loop . . . It starts by the pool.” He pulled a washcloth out of his fanny pack and wiped down his sweaty face and neck. This was quite a different look for him from his usual shabby designer clothes. His face was bright red and his hair was plastered to his forehead. With his sticky clothes clinging to him, I could see that he had the beginning of a potbelly. He didn’t look nearly as attractive as he did when his golden hair was swept off his forehead and he was dressed in his expensive clothes.

  “Thanks, man. I’ll give it a try,” Mitch said.

  Unlike me, Mitch jogged a lot. I only ran if I absolutely had to. It would take something pretty bad, say a zombie apocalypse, to get me running. My neighborhood walking routine was the perfect exercise for me.

  “We won’t hold you up,” Mitch said, stepping away and calling the kids. Mitch tracked his times and his runs and didn’t want to slow Graham down. Graham, on the other hand, looked like he wouldn’t have minded lingering.

  “Thanks,” he said halfheartedly, and set off at the slowest trot I’d ever seen.

  I watched him for a moment while we waited for the kids to reach us. “You know, I think I can walk faster than that.”

  Mitch laughed. “Yeah, well, you’re quite a walker. You can really move.”

  “It’s all those years of pushing the stroller. Now that I don’t have the stroller I can go twice as fast.”

  * * *

  Despite our detour, we were still one of the first groups to arrive at the beach. This morning the water was pearly gray, reflecting the thin layer of clouds that skimmed overhead. Unlike the soft, sugary sand of the Gulf, the beach here was dark brown and densely hard-packed, but the kids didn’t seem to mind. Mitch settled the chairs into the sand, and the kids hit the water. Livvy had always been cautious when it came to the water. She didn’t splash in as quickly as Nathan did, but I was glad to see she didn’t hesitate or cling to me like she had in the past. She took it slow, but she did get in the water.

  Gradually, more people arrived and the film of clouds dispersed as the sun rose in the sky. Soon, bright umbrellas and towels dotted the sand and the sunlight became intense, beating down, making me glad I had a pair of sunglasses to slip on.

  Mitch and I joined the kids in the water for a while, then the kids transitioned to building sand castles, and Mitch and I returned to our chairs. After about two hours, I closed my book. “I better head back to the room. I need to change and pick up my binder before I meet Summer to go over some wedding stuff.”

  “Ah, the all-important binder. The notebook of knowledge,” Mitch said playfully. “Can’t forget that.”

  “Are you making fun of my binder?”

  “No, I would never, ever joke about something as critical as the notebook of knowledge.”

  “Liar,” I said, but I couldn’t help but smile at Mitch’s mock-serious face. “That binder is what brings order out of chaos. Sanity out of craziness.”

  Mitch’s tone changed. “Too bad we don’t have something like that to help sort out Ned’s death and everything else that’s going on.”

  “I know,” I said with a sigh as I stood and worked my feet into my flip-flops. No matter what we did, the awful things that had happened weren’t far from our thoughts. I called out to the kids that it was time to go.

  Livvy ran up, scattering sand and water droplets across Mitch and me. “Aww, do we have to?”

  Nathan was on her heels. “Can’t we stay a little longer?”

  I looked at Mitch. “I have to meet Summer for lunch. Wedding stuff.”

  He tilted his head toward the trail that led back to the resort. “You go ahead.” The kids didn’t wait to hear more. Excited, they whirled around and made for their sand castle.

  “How long will you and the kids stay?” I asked.

  Mitch checked his watch. “Probably only another twenty minutes. I’ll round everyone up, and we’ll get lunch.”

  “Okay. Don’t forget, Livvy wants to go to that kids’ tennis lesson this afternoon. See you in a little while.” I kissed Mitch, waved to the kids, and headed through the dunes, staying on the path that would take me through the forest and back to the resort.

  After a quick shower, I slipped on a loose turquoise shirt, white shorts, and sandals and headed out to meet Summer. As I emerged from my room, I saw Patricia slip out of the room two doors down from mine. Then she moved furtively to the stairway exit.

  Why would she be in Ned Blackson’s room?

  Tips for an Organized Wedding

  Outdoor weddings have special concerns.

  Comfort:

  Have sunscreen, bug spray, high-heel supports, and fans handy for guests and members of the wedding party.

  Plan B:

  A backup location either indoors or in a covered area is a good thing to have in case of bad weather.

  Setting the Scene:

  If you don’t want the groom to see the bride before the ceremony, screens or indoor waiting areas should be arranged beforehand.

  Audio Issues:

  Sound is another thing to consider for an outdoor ceremony. Decide if you’ll want a microphone for the officiant as well as speakers to amplify music. A setting like a beach may have a lot of wind, which is something that will need to be taken into account when considering sound setup.

  Wind:

  Win
d can also play havoc with hemlines. One solution for the hemline issue is having small weights, like metal washers, sewn into hems.

  Chapter Nine

  “Why would Patricia be in Ned’s room?” I asked

  Summer.

  She took a bite of the calamari appetizer we were sharing and shrugged. “Who knows? I’ve given up trying to understand anything Patricia does.”

  I’d met Summer for lunch on the veranda that stretched across the back of the resort and overlooked the pool and golf course. Tables were spaced across the right-hand side of the veranda while the left half had wicker chairs and tables arranged in conversational groupings.

  “Besides, maybe it’s not his room anymore,” Summer continued. “Maybe the management cleared out his stuff.”

  “No, I asked at the desk on my way down. They said the police have asked them to hold the room until they’ve finished, so Ned’s things are still in there.”

  Summer tilted her head. “Why are you so interested in this?”

  “Because of everything that’s happened,” I said simply. “I don’t want anything else to go wrong.” Seeing Patricia had reminded me of the look I saw on Patricia’s face after the accident, the look of relief, but I didn’t want to mention it to Summer. She already had enough stress, and I didn’t want to add to her worry. “I don’t know, it is just something odd. With all the other odd things going on . . . well, I just don’t want anything else to happen.”

  “I know.” Summer dropped her napkin on the table and pushed her plate away. “I’m not thinking about any of that stuff, not Ned or any of the pranks or even interfering mothers-in-law. The only thing I’m focused on right now is becoming Mrs. Abernathy.”

  I hadn’t brought up the subject earlier, but since Summer had mentioned it, I asked, “So everything is okay between you and Brian?”

  “Yes. Better, actually. I’ve known for months that Yvonne wasn’t my biggest fan, but as the wedding got closer, her little campaign to derail us intensified. Brian couldn’t see it until last night. Things aren’t so good between Yvonne and me, but that’s her decision to act that way. I was pleasant when I saw her this morning at breakfast. She gave me the cold shoulder.”