Weddings Are Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  “Shh. You know the rule—never offend a customer. You know who this is, don’t you?”

  “Chrissy Henshaw’s mother. Chrissy was a year ahead of us in high school.”

  “Yeah, I remember. The guy I was dating my junior year once told me he thought Chrissy was the most beautiful girl in the world.”

  “Thrilling for you.”

  “Yeah, men are such scum. I should have realized it then instead of having to get dumped twice when I was almost at the altar before finding it out.”

  “Well, Chrissy is getting married. That’s what this manicure is for,” one of the young women announced.

  “Then maybe she’ll be finding it out for herself soon enough.”

  Susan opened her mouth to protest this condemnation of her future son-in-law, but the manicurist’s next words made her shut it again.

  “You know, I heard something very interesting about this guy Chrissy Henshaw is going to marry—something about a commune.”

  “What? Is he involved in some sort of religious cult?” the other woman asked.

  Yes, what? Susan wanted to ask, when there was no immediate answer.

  “I heard that he was—”

  “Are we done, ladies?”

  He might be the best hairdresser in the state, but he sure has rotten timing, Susan thought, glaring at the man reflected in the mirror before her.

  SIX

  “You like?” BeBe spun her around and flipped the pink silk pongee drape off her shoulders in one movement. Susan peered in the mirror. Soft waves framed her face while an elegant French twist swirled around the crown of her head. She looked … she stared again … she looked like she was wearing someone else’s hair!

  BeBe seemed to sense some hesitation. “Of course, when you have had time to put on your makeup …”

  “Oh, yes. It’s wonderful,” Susan gushed, realizing she had been so concerned about what the manicurist had been starting to say about Stephen—which led her back to wondering about the identity of the dead woman—that she hadn’t concerned herself with a more immediate worry: Exactly how much was she supposed to tip this man? She’d planned on charging the visit, but surely she didn’t write the tip on the tab the way one did in a restaurant.

  “Perhaps the French twist was a mistake? Perhaps you would rather have worn your hair down?”

  Susan realized BeBe was interpreting her silence as disapproval. “No, this is wonderful! My hair has never looked so sophisticated or so elegant!” That wasn’t saying much, she realized.

  “You will wrap it in a length of net overnight.” It was a demand. The artist preserving his work.

  “Of course.” Now where was she going to find a length of net? Even her purse failed her there.

  “And just use your fingertips to push it into place in the morning before the wedding.”

  They both looked down at her elegant nails. They were certainly worthy of such a job.

  “Yes. Yes, of course, I will. Thank you.” Susan rummaged in her bag.

  “You will pay Tiffany at the front desk.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” Susan edged toward the doorway. “Thank you,” she repeated.

  “Your bill is made up for you already.”

  “Yes. Of course.” And with a final thank-you flung over her shoulder, her face burning with embarrassment, she fled the room.

  “How much do I owe?” she asked the elegant young woman who had greeted her over an hour before.

  “We don’t take plastic.”

  “You don’t what?” Susan stared down at the gold card in her hand as though she’d never seen it before.

  “We do not take credit cards. Cash or personal checks. That’s BeBe’s rule. And the check must be approved ahead of time,” she added quickly, before Susan could get the foolish idea that they trusted the likes of her in a place like this.

  Susan straightened her shoulders and lowered her voice. “Of course, I have cash,” she announced. “If you will just tell me how much I owe …”

  Maybe there was water blocking her ears from the shampoo. “Excuse me?”

  It wasn’t water. It was the truth. Thanking the gods for sending her to the bank yesterday afternoon, she handed over most of the money in her wallet and headed toward the door. Only to remember Kathleen had dropped her off; she needed a ride if she were going to go anywhere.

  “Do you mind if I use the phone? I need to call a taxi.”

  “We can call one for you.” The receptionist was going through the pile of twenty-dollar bills Susan had handed her with a frown on her face.

  “Oh … I forgot the tip,” Susan said, recklessly pulling the rest of the money from her wallet and handing it over. She’d use the twenty dollars she kept in the pocket of her purse for emergencies to pay the cab driver. “If you’ll just make that call, I’ll wait outside.”

  “Of course.”

  Susan hurried out the door, relieved to be alone.

  The receptionist was efficient, and as Hancock was a fairly small town, the taxi arrived before Susan had a chance to call home to see if there was anything she could stop and pick up on the way. She was settled in the backseat of the local taxi company’s Lincoln Town Car before it occurred to her to spend the time making a few phone calls to dig up some information about the last time Mrs. Canfield had been seen. She flipped open her cellular as she riffled through her address book. Then she dialed the Hancock Inn.

  The driver’s mirror was adjusted in such a way that she could admire her new hairdo as she spoke. Her hair looked so good, so perky, so … so young. She frowned. Too young? “Oh, yes, hi. I’d like to speak to the registration desk please.” She turned her head to the left and squinted. There was a small tendril hanging down next to her ear which disguised the slight droop her chin seemed intent on making. That man was a genius … “Yes. Hi, I’d like to inquire about a guest staying there. A Mrs. Robert Canfield … Yes, I understand you have to respect the privacy of your guests, but … Yes, of course, I would feel the same way, but … Yes, but … But … But …” Susan finally gave up and allowed the woman to explain at length the Inn’s policy regarding their guests’ right to privacy. When she ran down, Susan asked another question: “Is Charles there?” (referring to the owner of the Inn). “Yes, I’m sure he is busy. It is a very important wedding,” Susan agreed, as the driver turned on to her street.

  She leaned toward the front seat. “It’s the white colonial in the middle of the block, on the right.” She really had to get those balloons tied up, first thing.

  “The one with the driveway full of cars?”

  “Yes. No, I’m not talking to you,” she said to the woman still on the other end of the phone call. “I’m sorry. I’ll have to call back …” She shut her cellular and dropped it into her bag.

  “You having a party?”

  “My daughter is getting married.”

  “Hey, are you Chrissy Henshaw’s mother?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “Don’t you remember me, Mrs. Henshaw? I took Chrissy to the junior prom.… Lance Dancer. You know my parents.”

  “Of course, Lance. I didn’t recognize you. The last time I saw you, your hair was somewhat longer, wasn’t it?”

  “Somewhat longer and somewhat greener. I was going through a late punk stage. But I’ve gotten over that. It was just an adolescent phase. You know.”

  “What are you doing now?” Susan asked, breaking a pearly pink nail on something at the bottom of her purse as she searched for her wallet.

  “Well, I graduated from college and thought about going to Europe for a while or maybe bumming around down in South America. I was a cultural anthropology major, you know.”

  “I didn’t remember, actually. So how did you end up driving a cab?” she asked, remembering that she’d spent her emergency money a few days ago.

  “Oh, I’m just doing this for the summer. I finally made up my mind. I’m going to go to law school in the fall. Got to go where the money is, you know.”<
br />
  “So I’ve heard.” From half of Chrissy’s friends, in fact. Whatever happened to the good old days of liberal arts majors and plans based on idealism, she wondered when she had the time—which she didn’t now. Now she had other problems. “I … I don’t have any money with me. I spent it all at the hairdresser.”

  “Oh, yeah. I thought you looked different.”

  Susan noticed that he said different, not good. “I can go into the house and get some money.” If anyone had left any in the drawer by the door where they kept bills for tips and the like. The Henshaws had been making the employees of the U.S. Postal Service, United Parcel, FedEx, and the like rich for the past few months.

  “Why don’t I just write you a bill and send it?” he offered.

  “Would you? I’m awfully busy.…”

  “Sure. You just pay a ten percent surcharge for the service.”

  So much for generosity. Susan smiled. “Of course. And thanks for suggesting it.” She got out of the car, and after repeating her thanks, hurried up the sidewalk to her house. The door swung open as she arrived and her son Chad barged out, almost knocking her over.

  “Chad!”

  “Hi, Mom. I’m late.”

  “But I was just going to ask you to tie the balloons to the mailbox.”

  “We’re decorating the mailbox for Chrissy’s wedding? Does Dad know about it? He was just complaining to Grandmother about how much you paid those gardeners to plant all the flowers around the house.”

  “I … he … which grandmother?” She wasn’t sure whether she preferred her husband complaining to his mother or to hers, but it still would be interesting to know. “And where are you going?” she asked, as her son stepped off the porch.

  “Mo-omm.”

  “If you would get the balloons that are in the garage and tie—or tape—them to the mailbox, I won’t ask you to do anything else.”

  “You will, you know.”

  Susan looked at her son’s slightly too long hair and cheerful face and grinned. “Yeah, you’re probably right, but if you hurry you might be able to vanish before I make another request.”

  “Okay. The balloons are in the garage, right?”

  “Yes. There’s tape in my purse if you need—”

  A star on the freshman soccer team at his university, Chad was out of hearing range before the words were out of her mouth.

  Susan entered the door intent on finding her husband—so intent that she did not notice a silver BMW motorcycle roar up in front of her house—so intent that she fell over the pile of boxes stacked just inside the front door.

  “You should be more careful, dear. Some of those gifts have fragile stamped on them.” Claire stopped on her way down the front hall stairway to offer this suggestion. There was a long garment bag in her arms. “And from Tiffany’s, too!”

  “And Cartier,” Susan added, looking down at the packages by her feet. “Maybe we should put them in the living room with the rest of the gifts.”

  “I was about to do that. I was taking the dress—”

  “Chrissy’s wedding gown has arrived!”

  The relief Susan felt was to be short-lived.

  “I was talking about my dress for the rehearsal dinner tonight,” Claire corrected her. “Of course, I bought a dress for the wedding, but I just couldn’t resist this one when I saw it at Neiman Marcus.… Are you telling me Chrissy’s wedding dress has been misplaced?”

  “Yes, I haven’t even seen it. I think it’s here—it was coming from Italy and then the best man picked it up at the airport and brought it to the Yacht Club, but no one seems to have seen it.”

  “Of course, it has arrived. I saw it in her room just a few hours ago.”

  Susan ignored the box that fell on the floor as she dashed upstairs to her daughter’s room.

  It was a mess. Each year Chrissy had come home from Rhode Island School of Design with piles of art projects and assignments, her own and her friends’. What had started out as a charming young woman’s room had begun to look like an artist’s storage closet by the time she was a sophomore. Two more years had increased the disorder and then, less than a month ago, Chrissy had topped off everything by moving in all her belongings from her dorm room. The sprinkle of wedding clothes and presents had only been frosting on a very disorderly cake. But there was only one spot in the entire room where a wedding gown could hang. Susan stared at the brass hook centered high on the back of the closet door. Empty.

  “I think Stephen’s mother wanted to see it. She must have taken it over to the Inn.”

  Jed’s mother appeared in the doorway by her side.

  “You saw it?” Susan asked.

  “Of course, Chrissy was showing it off down in the kitchen just a while ago. Where were you?”

  “At the hairdresser.” Hadn’t Claire noticed?

  Apparently she had. “Yes. I … I thought you were going to leave it down for the wedding—not that it doesn’t look absolutely lovely the way it is, of course.”

  Of course. Susan just smiled—a little weakly. “Tell me about the dress. What does it look like?”

  “Susan, I thought Chrissy was exaggerating, but she wasn’t. It is the most beautiful wedding dress in the entire world!”

  Gushing, her mother-in-law could only be described as gushing—which told her nothing. “But what does it look like?” Susan persisted.

  “Well, it’s long and just skims her body at the bodice then it flares out to the ground.”

  As if that didn’t describe about half the wedding dresses in the world! “So what’s the fabric like? Is it as unusual as the girl making the dress insisted?”

  “Yes. It’s … it’s white, of course. But there are highlights of blue … some green … a little silver and bronze.… It is incredibly beautiful, but very difficult to describe.” Claire sat down on Chrissy’s bed, apparently thinking she had done just that.

  Susan decided it was time to get to the crux of the matter. “Where is it?”

  “Oh, I thought I just told you. Chrissy took it with her to see her in-laws.”

  “What?”

  “She thought they would like to see it—especially her future mother-in-law.… You know, I am so glad she and Stephen’s mother get along so well. I think the relationship of the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law is sometimes so difficult, don’t you? I have friends whose daughters-in-law have done some terrible things. Such terrible things, I cannot tell you …”

  “I guess …” Susan wondered just where this conversation was leading.

  “I know I’m terribly lucky Jed married someone—”

  “Susan, I’ve been looking all over for you.” Her mother had arrived.

  “I was at the hairdresser,” Susan said, wondering if anyone was going to notice this fact without her mentioning it.

  “Yes, that’s nice, dear,” her mother said, looking around Chrissy’s room. “It’s not here, is it?” she asked.

  “What’s not here, Mother?”

  “The box. The box Chrissy’s wedding dress was shipped in. I’ve been looking all over for it. I was going to throw it away—this house is getting very messy, Susan. And all this wrapping material is going to be a real problem unless you start taking care of it.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Jed’s mother announced. “The dress wasn’t in a box when Chrissy brought it home. And I loaned her the plastic bag from my dress to carry it over to her future mother-in-law’s. I just happened to have an extra garment bag with me. I like to be prepared for emergencies.”

  Susan’s heart dropped. “You said she was going to the Inn?” Susan asked.

  “Actually the Field Club,” her mother answered. “I think she was meeting her future father-in-law there.”

  “I don’t know about that. I thought Chrissy said something about Mrs. Canfield needing the wedding dress at the Inn—although I can’t possibly imagine what for. I was actually thinking of heading over to the Field Club myself. I’d like
to use the weight room for a few minutes,” Claire said. “Where is your daughter dashing off to now? She just arrived home a few minutes ago.”

  “Susan, where are you going?” her mother called out as Susan headed down the stairs.

  “To the Field Club.”

  “But, dear, you have guests coming in less than two hours. And you were going to change your clothes, weren’t you? And if you’re heading in that direction, maybe you should take Claire along with you.…”

  “I think Claire will want to spend more time there than I do. I’ll be back in just a few minutes. There is something I have to check out.”

  Susan hurried down the steps, not waiting to hear more. Her hair didn’t matter. Her clothing didn’t matter. Even the dead woman in the stall at the ladies’ room in the Yacht Club didn’t matter. She had to find Chrissy.

  SEVEN

  She just missed her. Chrissy was fine, apparently. The front right fender of Susan’s Cherokee was smashed, and there was a large fieldstone dislodged from the hundred-year-old pillars that marked either side of the driveway into the Field Club, but her daughter was just fine. It paid, Susan reminded herself, to keep things in perspective.

  “Women drivers! I shoulda known it was a woman driver when I heard the crash into the post. Lady, do you know how many years these posts have been standing here? And no one has run into them except women drivers. There was that Mrs. Swenson who used to get drunk while her husband was out on the links—ran into that exact same post at least half a dozen times. And then there was Mrs. McNaughton—she hit the post one morning when she was driving a huge station wagon of kids coming in for swim team practice. Scared the life out of the little mites, it did. And then there was …” The club’s character, Scotty the gardener, took off his hat and leaned closer to the windshield. “Ah, Mrs. Henshaw, I didn’t recognize you with your hair all fancy like that. You just missed your daughter.… Ha, ha.” He laughed at his own joke. “You missed seeing the lassie and you just missed running into the car she was in. Get it?”

  Susan bent her lips into a smile. “I certainly do, Scotty. You don’t happen to know who was driving that monster car my daughter was in, do you?” Her asking was just a formality. Scotty was the unofficial gatekeeper of the club. He knew everyone who went in and out, who they were with and, if possible, what they were doing with that person. The joke around the clubhouse was that if Scotty ever wrote his memoirs, half the club would be in divorce court.