by Adrianne Lee
My sudden switch of topics wasn’t lost on Seth. He recognized the diversion tactic for what it was and rolled his eyes. “And drugged Reverend Bell?”
“Yeah. Did Troy mention any leads on that?”
“If he did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
I nodded, not feeling less guilty about holding out on him. He was working with the police. Best not to share my worries about Mom and the soiled dress. The missing belt. Not now. I wanted the facts first. And when I had them, I might never tell Seth. It depended on what I learned.
This time Seth changed the subject. “Have you spoken to Meg?”
I rolled my neck, the tightness there starting to give me a headache. “Not yet. Either she’s misplaced her phone again, or she has it turned off. I’m not sure where she is. I figured I’d swing by the café after I leave here. See if Big Finn knows where I can find her.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’d like to go with you, if you’ll wait for me to e-mail the file photo to Gooden. Sonny hasn’t had his morning walk yet.”
“I’d like the company.” Anything to ease the nagging worry about that missing dress and my mom’s avoidance of me. This was the first time I could recall that she hadn’t texted or called me at least twice a day. Even when I was in town. Yes, the bridal season was on, and the shop teemed with alterations and appointments and walk-ins, but that had never mattered. She always wanted to touch base with me. I felt as if I’d been cut adrift, my lifeline severed. Knowing my mother, she’d done this for my sake, thinking she was doing what was best for me. I’d never suspected she was a person to run from the truth. Or to hide from it. But what else could I think now?
The thought stopped me cold. I had been doing a lot of that lately, myself. Run, Daryl Anne, run. Hide. Deny. Apparently, I’d inherited the distasteful trait.
* * *
As we approached Cold Feet Café, I recalled Tanya telling me about the diner’s first days. No customers. Food wasted. The sinking feeling that they would lose everything they owned. Apparently nothing was as good for business as the murder of one of the former co-owners. There wasn’t a seat in the house. Folks were wedged tighter than sardines in a can. “I’m pretty sure they’ve exceeded their occupancy limit.”
“No kidding.” Seth held tight to Sonny’s leash, the dog lured by the delicious aromas wafting out to us through the rooftop vents. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen more people in the café than on the street.”
“There aren’t more people than on the street,” I said, glancing at the myriad shoppers milling along the sidewalks.
“I dunno… it’s a zoo in there.”
“It’s a zoo out here,” I said. I focused on the café, my confidence slipping away. “I doubt I’ll find Meg here.” Or Big Finn. Through the café window, I saw a gossipy friend of Billie’s spot me. An uneasy sensation raised the hair on my nape as she tapped her companions on the shoulder, and one by one they turned in my direction. “I need to get to the shop. Thanks for… everything.”
I started to move even as he stared at my lips, seeming reluctant to part with my company. But the old ladies were getting to their feet, tossing money at the counter, starting for the door. Panic swept me.
“Okay. See you later?”
“Sure. Call.”
As Seth and Sonny headed down to the beach trails, I spun to hurry off, but wedding shoppers crowded the sidewalk, impeding a speedy escape. I’d only made it as far as The Flower Girl florist shop when Billie’s friends caught up with me. Velda Weeks, the most aggressive of the trio, snagged hold of my arm. Around five-four and shrinking, she was panting, her age-spotted hand on her hip. Her boobs drooped southward toward her belt, a fact made more evident by her lack of a bra. She claimed that particular undergarment caused her untold shoulder pain and did nothing to improve the status of her girls.
“Daryl Anne,” she huffed. “We are so glad to run into you.”
Run after me, you mean. I refrained from saying it.
Jeanette Corn, lean as a dock post, nodded. She’d wound her long, gray braid around the top of her head like a garland, a hairdo she’d worn since the seventies. Long live Woodstock. “I told Velda, if anyone would be able to give us the real scoop, it would be you.”
“What scoop?” I asked, feigning complete ignorance. They wanted the same thing I’d gone to Seth to get. Facts.
“Don’t go all zippy-mouthed on us, Daryl Anne Blessing,” Wanda Perroni warned, shaking a finger at me as if it we were standing in the kitchen of her Italian bakery and that finger were a wooden spoon. “We used to change your diapers, you know.”
Was that supposed to be a bargaining chip? I bit down a smile and started walking. “I’m needed at the shop.”
Velda still had a grip on my forearm and was forced to move with me. “We won’t keep you but a minute.”
“Then get to it, Velda,” Wanda said. “The girl hasn’t got all day, now does she?”
“Right as usual, Wanda.” Velda yanked on my arm, and like a dog on a leash, I was forced to stop or end up tripping her. She leaned in, giving me a whiff of the cabbage she’d cooked that morning. “Since you were there and all, we figured you’d have the scoop.”
Again with the scoop.
“Did Meg’s mother die at the ceremony?” Jeanette blurted.
The question filled my head with sickening images, and my stomach pinched. Oh, brother. I could lie—oh, how I wanted to lie—but my telltale face would give me away. That didn’t mean I couldn’t hedge a little. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?” Wanda frowned. She knew a runaround when she heard it. “Is the woman dead or not?”
“She is.” I bit my lower lip. “But she didn’t exactly die at the ceremony.”
“The Weekly claims she did.” Velda huffed.
Jeanette’s hands went to her hips. “The paper says she was murdered right there.”
“I read the account today, too, and it does not say that.”
“Then where was she murdered?” Wanda demanded.
I gaped at her, frowning so hard that pain etched through my skull as shoppers bumped against our little group. “How should I know?”
“Well, you were at the wedding,” Velda said, as if that meant I could answer all the who, why, where, what, and how questions that only the murderer knew.
“Look, ladies, the police are still looking into it, and they aren’t giving out details.”
“Yes, but you were there,” Wanda reiterated.
I sighed. I wasn’t getting free until I gave them something. I decided to keep it to a verifiable fact. “I don’t have any juicy insider details. All I know is that her body washed ashore.”
“I was right,” Wanda said, wearing an I-told-you-so smirk.
Jeanette crossed herself.
But Velda looked as if she’d been sucking on sour grapes. “Well I, well I—I just never. Was she shot or strangled or drowned or poisoned?”
“Don’t know.”
Wanda shook her head. “My bet’s on strangled. Seems like lots of folks wanted to do that to her.”
Jeanette and Velda nodded in agreement. Jeanette said, “Not that the vile creature, God rest her soul, didn’t court such a fate. But the least she could’ve done was think about her daughter.”
In other words, how rude of Tanya for being killed and not considering first that she might wash ashore during Peter and Meg’s wedding? “Um, I don’t think she had any say in where her body was dumped.”
“All the same. It was in very poor taste.” Velda sniffed, disapprovingly, and finally released her hold on me. “Give Billie and Susan our best, dear.”
The trio shuffled off toward the café, heads together, undoubtedly deciding which salacious bits to mete out to the other gossipers awaiting their update.
There was no relief at the bridal shop. It, too, was packed with curious Weddingville residents, none of whom were shopping for wedding attire, but who were asking after me. I had to get out of there. Now. But tha
t proved easier said than done. A swirl of bodies impeded my progress to the main door, bumping and spinning me this way and that. As I neared my objective, I caught my mother’s reflection in a mirror. It was an unguarded moment. There was a strange desperation in her eyes and an angry scratch on her cheek.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I exited the bridal shop, emerging into the warm day, feeling chilled and lost, much like the day my dad died. I started walking, heading to my quiet place without even thinking about it. A lone figure sat at the end of the dock. I recognized that fiery red hair that now seemed like flames against the murky water in front of her. Meg.
Meg wore faded jeans and a plaid shirt that I knew belonged to her father. A scrunchie that she must’ve had since junior high was as ineffective now as it had been then in taming those wild tresses. I started toward her. Seagulls cried overhead like a chorus of mourners, covering my best friend’s grieving sobs and the sound of my steps. But Meg felt the footfalls tremor through the dock planking as I approached. She lifted her head, on alert, ready to ward off anyone with nerve enough to invade her private retreat. Until she saw it was only me. Without a word, she scooted over, and I sank down beside her. I waited. Nothing I could say would ease this heartache. I knew. I’d lived it.
It had been enough that Meg sat with me when I was at my lowest point. She’d offered me chocolates and condolences. I had no candy, but prayed my being here would offer her at the least a modicum of that same comfort. As her sobs began to subside, I found the small packet of tissues in my pocket and offered one, then another. She blew her nose, wiped her damp cheeks, sniffled, and took my hand. I squeezed.
She held on tight and said, “This was definitely not the wedding I dreamed it would be.”
The pronouncement came with a wobbly smile that stabbed my heart. “I’m sorry.”
“The last thing I said to her was so… mean.”
I squeezed her hand again, wishing I was brilliant and had a magic wand to vanquish the guilt edging that confession. “I’m sure she knew you didn’t mean it.”
“But I did.” Contrition filled Meg’s watery gaze. “That’s the awful thing. I did mean it. She didn’t love me. She only came here to horn in on my future life with Peter.”
Sometimes I hated being right.
Meg grimaced. “So why am I so sad?”
A weight settled on my chest. “Because you’re a good person, and you wouldn’t have wished what happened to her.”
“No. I wouldn’t.” We fell silent for a long stretch. Meg pulled out the scrunchie and rewrapped it around a handful of hair, the result a crooked ponytail. “I can’t figure out who in this town hated her so much they would’ve killed her.”
Whereas I could think of several folks with motive. Including me. “I have it on good authority that she was kicking up her heels at The Last Fling after the rehearsal dinner broke up.”
“Must have been after I told her to get lost.”
Licking her wounds? Drowning her sorrows?
“Who was this good authority?” Meg asked.
“Who else?” I grimaced at the memory. “Spybody.”
“It must be true then.” Meg’s frown was indicative of someone weighed down with a boatload of unanswered questions.
Maybe I watched too many mysteries on TV or maybe it was working in Hollywood, but my mind veered into detective-think. “It’s not impossible that she could have hooked up with some lowlife at the bar. Are the police only looking for suspects among those who knew her? Are they even considering that it might have been a random crime?”
“The sheriff didn’t mention anything about The Last Fling…” Meg said, perking up at the suggestion. A look I recognized brightened her eyes.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
She began to nod, reading my mind as only a best gal-pal can. “I’ve developed a powerful thirst sitting here in the sun. I could really use something to wet my whistle.”
* * *
The Last Fling sat several blocks out of town in a nonresidential area. It was, I realized, very near the cliffs that Seth had suggested might’ve been where the body was dumped into the bay. I shivered, even as an odd sense of excitement skittered through me. Coming here felt right. Yet a little dangerous. We might be onto something.
The parking lot was compacted dirt that turned into a muddy bog whenever it rained and a dust bowl during long, dry patches of good weather. We parked amid a slew of other cars and a couple of motorcycles and let the dust billows settle as we eyed the bar from the safety of the windshield. Once a lumberman’s lodge, the log building backed against a stand of Douglas fir, new growth that had replaced the original trees used as material to build this place. Everything about it screamed lumberjack and biker gang hangout, except the frilly painted sign.
But the name change wasn’t the only concession the bar owner had made to the city council’s mandate for wedding-themed uniformity. The ceiling had once displayed dozens of hats, mostly baseball caps, but those had been replaced by garters. Blues garters, pink and white garters, red garters, and even one black garter. I glanced toward the stage, saw the featured band was Bridey and the Grooms. Playing nightly.
As music and chatter swirled around us, I took in the customers with one sweep. If this were an episode of our sitcom, I would’ve chosen biker-bar-chic or cowboy work clothes for cast members. These patrons, however, wore a variety of jeans or Bermudas, tank tops or polo shirts, and boaters or flip-flops. A trendy couple near the door dined on shrimp cocktails floating in a watery red sauce.
The music started up again, then stopped. I glanced toward the stage at the band and did a double take, realizing that I knew the blue-haired singer. Jade Warren, bridesmaid number two. I nudged Meg in the ribs and whispered, “I thought Jade said her band was called The Jaded Edge.”
“It is.” Meg nodded. “They have upcoming gigs booked in Las Vegas.”
“Really? Then what are they doing here calling themselves Bridey and the Grooms?”
Meg’s gaze followed mine to the dance floor, and her head snapped back fast enough to induce whiplash. “What the heck…”
“She lied to us,” I said.
“No. Maybe they’re just using this place to rehearse the material for their Vegas shows.” Meg frowned, obviously wanting to deny what was right in front of her. She trusted people too easily. But faced with the proof, she abandoned the denial as fast as makeup that had reached its expiration date. Meg said, “Yeah, she lied to us.”
I sighed. We both knew why Jade had lied. Back in our high school days, the three of us shared our ambitions of showbiz careers. Now Meg and I were living in L.A., working at a Hollywood studio on a popular TV sitcom. Meg was about to marry a movie star. Luck had been less kind to Jade.
Luck needed a swift kick.
My neck itched, that creepy crawling sensation of being stared at. But glancing surreptitiously around, I realized it wasn’t just one person boring a hole in my back. It was pretty much everyone. The guys playing pool, the guys playing darts, the guys guzzling beer at a nearby table, the bartender, the waitress. Everyone except the bald, head-down drunk at the end of the bar. I cringed.
Usually when we drew male interest, drinks would arrive at our table, followed shortly by sex-minded dudes offering cornball pickup lines. Compared to this, that was a cakewalk. These stares hurt my heart. They were for the bride whose wedding ceremony ended with her mother’s corpse washing ashore. No one approached us. But I could tell they wanted to. The air actually vibrated with collective curiosity and with the restraint the curious showed in leaving us alone. Bravo for good manners. And the difficulty of knowing what to say to Meg in this situation.
“The last thing I want to do is embarrass Jade,” Meg said, backing toward the exit. I wasn’t entirely sure it was only Jade that worried her. “We should leave.”
“No.” I knew I was being cruel asking Meg to stay and risk ending up the target of thoughtless remarks or questio
ns, but she wanted answers as much as I did. “If Jade was playing here that night, we need to find out whatever she can tell us.”
Meg messed with her scrunchie again, as though tightening it somehow tightened her resolve. “You’re right.”
I didn’t have a scrunchie to tweak my courage. I’d have to get my bravado the tried and true way, from a bottle. Sometimes only old school works. “Let’s get a drink.”
We bellied up to the bar. I wanted a straight shot that would sear through my middle and burn up the ball of anxiety singeing my solar plexus. But I wasn’t an it’s-noon-somewhere drinker. We each ordered a Honeymoon Sweet, Irish coffees, light on the Irish, heavy on the whipped cream. Pool balls clinked amid occasional laughter. The band continued tuning, doing rifts, and stopping a song in the middle a couple of times. Jade’s voice had matured, acquired a lilting vibration over the years that felt like honey in my ears. Rich. Smooth. Addictive. I’d buy her CD in a heartbeat. But the song was unfamiliar, something about broken dreams and empty roads ahead. Had she written it herself?
“Wow, she still has that amazing voice, only somehow it’s even better,” Meg said. “She’s wasted doing gigs in dives like this.”
“We both know how difficult it is to break into the music business,” I said, reminding her of other friends we shared who couldn’t get seen or heard by any recording honcho. “The streets of Hollywood are paved with brokenhearted, mega-talented artists.”
“She ought to try out for one of those shows like The Voice.” Meg licked whipped cream from her upper lip. “She’s good enough to win or at least gain recognition, which could lead to a break.”
I had a thought. “Maybe you could take a demo tape to Peter’s agent?”
Meg lifted her head, smiling. “I could do that. Let’s go tell her.”
“Not now. We don’t want to interrupt—” As I said that, the music stopped. Voices filled the gap. No one applauded. And the sadness I’d set aside momentarily seemed to increase. Meg had lost her mother. Jade’s incredible talent was going unappreciated. Both sorrows weighed heavy on my heart. We couldn’t save Meg’s mom, but maybe we could do something to help Jade.
