“Well, you’ve made everything much easier. Did you manage to come up with anything to feed all these vegetarians?”
“Naturally. Wild mushroom bisque or asparagus torte for a first course. Then the mâche, pomegranate, walnut salad with champagne dressing like the rest of the guests. For the main course there’s a choice of herbed risotto, gorgonzola gnocchi, or a French spring vegetable stew. And the same selection of desserts as the rest of the guests.”
Susan remembered the honey Bavarian with fresh raspberries she had been looking forward to all week. “I’m sure everything will be wonderful.” She looked up at Charles. He had a serious expression on his face. “There is something else, isn’t there?”
“I don’t want to worry you, but …”
“Go ahead. Better the problem I’m prepared for than something coming at me out of the blue. What’s up?”
“We’ve been getting some slightly strange phone calls.”
Susan gasped. “About the murder?”
Now it was Charles’s turn to look confused. “The one at the Women’s Club?” he asked, referring to a murder that had taken place at election time a few years ago.
“Ah … sort of,” Susan answered awkwardly. She’d better watch what she said. “What are the calls about?” She asked the question she wished she had asked before.
“Well, most of them seem to be referring to a missing minister, but the others …”
“The Archangel,” Susan said, realizing just how strange she sounded.
Charles seemed startled.
“The missing minister is known as the Archangel.”
“Oh, that’s a person’s nickname.… That explains a lot. The girl at the reception desk thought maybe someone was putting a curse on Chrissy’s wedding.” He chuckled. “It’s funny, when you think about it. The poor girl really panicked. Apparently someone called up and announced that the Archangel would be there for Chrissy’s wedding rehearsal. You can see why she thought it was rather creepy.”
“Especially since the Archangel is stuck between planes in Chicago,” Susan explained, and then grinned. “That really does sound strange, doesn’t it?”
Charles was looking over her shoulder. “It does.… You’re going to have to excuse me. I think I’m needed in the kitchen.”
“And I’m sure my guests are wondering where I am,” Susan said. Whatever the kitchen crisis, she knew she could leave everything up to Charles. And Jed was trying to attract her attention, she realized—either that, or he had developed some sort of strange twitch in his left hand, which was waving strangely behind his back.
She hurried over to her husband’s side with what she hoped was a bright smile on her face.
“Cat got your tongue?” Blues asked.
Susan just stared at Blues. “Excuse me?”
“You know, it’s just an expression. You looked like you had something on your mind. A secret.”
“Oh, not really …”
“Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. I’m certainly not psychic. Now, when the Archangel is here, things will be different.”
“How?”
“Oh, she’s psychic. She can read minds.”
“The Archangel … your minister … is a woman …”
“Yes. Don’t tell me things are so conservative in this part of the world that you’ve never heard of a female minister.”
“No, or course not. I just wasn’t thinking of her that way …” Susan’s voice drifted off.
“What way?”
“As a … a missing woman.” Susan realized she was sounding more than a little idiotic. “Sorry, I was thinking about other things, I guess.”
“Of course, you must have so much on your mind—or did you hire someone to do all this? One of those wedding consultants I’ve read so much about?”
“No, I thought it would be much more meaningful if I planned everything myself,” Susan said, feeling slightly insulted that Blues had thought such a thing. On the other hand, maybe Blues thought that a woman who would take on a task like creating a wedding for four hundred and fifty people without professional help was insane. And perhaps, if she thought that, Blues was right.
Then Susan had another idea. “What does the Archangel look like? I mean, it’s such an interesting name—and I want to recognize her when she appears,” she added.
Blues thought for a moment before she answered. “Well, I have only seen her once in the past ten years, and she had dyed her hair orange then.”
“That sounds interesting.” But Susan had noticed movement toward the tables. “Why don’t we find our seats and you can tell me more about her—I thought you all were very close.”
“You mean our commune family?” Blues allowed Susan to guide her to a seat near the large bay window which looked out over the rear gardens of the Inn. The outdoor lights had been skillfully placed, and pockets of flowers glowed in the darkness.
“Yes. You call yourself a family.… Do you have regular reunions?”
“Oh, we don’t get together regularly at all. In fact, this is the first time everyone in the commune has been together since it broke up.”
“You don’t live near each other?” The women were seated across the table from each other as the rest of the guests milled around looking at place cards and finding their seats.
“Heavens, no! We made a pact, see, when the commune dissolved. That’s why we’re all here.”
“A pact?”
“Yes, we promised to rejoin for any and all life-changing events in the lives of our members.”
“Like weddings,” Susan said.
“And funerals, yes. But when it comes right down to it, people in the family don’t seem to get married very often …”
“And we didn’t agree to celebrate the divorces,” the red-haired man sitting next to Blues added, a grin on his face.
Susan wracked her brain for his name—certainly a close relative to be seated at the head table … ?
“Well, a lot of us haven’t even bothered to get divorced—you know how couples can just drift apart over the years,” Blues said.
“And we shouldn’t complain about not seeing each other, after all,” Rhythm said, sitting down next to Susan. “We do seem to be living a nice long time—no funerals so far. I guess we all are lucky enough to have good healthy genes.”
“Probably all those bean sprouts we ate back at the commune.”
“Certainly the lack of chemicals in our diet …”
“Don’t let’s get started on that.”
“You know the additives in our foods are killing us all!”
“The additives in our foods are keeping us all from severe cases of food poisoning …”
Susan glanced down the table at her parents. Her father seemed amused by the energetic conversation her question had engendered; her mother’s expression was less enthusiastic. But waiters were circling the table with bottles of pinot blanc and merlot—perhaps that would help.
“Organic versus inorganic—it’s an old argument,” Rhythm said, leaning uncomfortably close to Susan’s ear.
“One of the reasons the commune broke up … at least that’s what we all thought at the time, wasn’t it?” Blues said, interrupting herself to ascertain that the merlot was indeed from California before allowing it to be poured into her glass.
“Well, that’s all ancient history, isn’t it?” Rhythm said, nodding his acceptance of his wife’s choice of wine. “But you were asking about our Archangel, weren’t you?”
“It’s just that it’s such an unusual name …” Susan said. Actually, she had been wondering if the unknown woman’s death was going to occasion the first funeral the group attended.
“Of course. And the Archangel is an unusual person. She was training to become a nun when she—as she puts it—saw the light and decided traditional religion was too sexist, too elitist, and too bound by traditions to be relevant in modern life. So she traveled and studied and experimented with differing views a
nd beliefs until she came up with something she felt she could live with and preach. She was looking for a congregation when she came across our group. We were in need of a spiritual leader—at least some of us were—and she fit right in.”
“You know, I’ve always wondered exactly how communes get started. Does a group of people get together and form one, agree on rules, find a place to live, accept new members …” Susan stopped talking. It suddenly seemed like an incredibly difficult task.
“It was pretty easy for us,” he said.
“We had a place to live, which helped,” Blues explained.
“You owned a farm?”
Both Canfields chuckled.
“Many communes aren’t land-based,” Rhythm explained.
“But they all need a place to live,” his wife added.
“We lived in a hotel in the middle of San Francisco,” her husband continued, accepting a large plate of wild mushroom risotto from the waiter.
Susan saw that meditation might be more appealing if it was accompanied by room service.
“It wasn’t a hotel when we were living there,” Blues continued, destroying the image Susan was busy creating. “We just used it as a place to live—like an apartment house. It was owned by Wind Song.” She interrupted herself and pointed to the end of the table where a large, brassy woman with bright red hair was tucking into a pile of sautéed bay scallops. The woman wore a remarkable (and large) collection of silver and turquoise jewelry. Much of it was in need of a thorough polishing.
“Wind Song inherited the hotel from her grandparents. They had built it the year after the Great Quake. She and her husband contributed it to the commune. In fact, I always thought he talked her into the contribution.”
“That’s all water under the bridge, Blues,” her husband insisted.
“Who is she married to?” Susan asked, hoping to prevent an argument.
“High Hopes is what we called him then. That’s him, sitting on her right,” Blues continued.
The man on Wind Song’s right was as unlike his name as possible: middle-aged and portly. Thick horn-rimmed glasses kept sliding down a large ruddy nose, and the only indication of an allegiance to the counterculture was the Jerry Garcia tie around his neck.
“They had a wonderful wedding,” Blues said nostalgically. “Nothing at all like this, of course. We got up at sunrise and fasted and meditated all day long, writing down wishes and messages for the couple’s future. Then we had the service.” She paused and a frown appeared on her face. “It was held outdoors, but we couldn’t find a stream so instead of sending all our good wishes out into the water, we burned them in a campfire there. Air instead of water, you know, completely different symbols—I remember the Archangel commenting on it at the time. The practice of burning symbols for luck is quite common in China, she said.” Then Blues smiled, the next memory being even more pleasant, apparently. “Then we all ate a huge meal and got completely drunk on cheap champagne. It was the best wedding I’ve ever been to—except for this one, of course,” she added quickly, returning to the present.
“Yes, why are we sitting here talking about the past, when it’s the present that should interest us now?” Rhythm spoke up. “I’d like to propose a toast,” he said, standing up and lifting his wine glass. “To our new friends and new family—to Susan and Jed Henshaw!”
Jed, smiling, raised his glass to salute the Canfields. Susan, however, was busy wondering why Kathleen was standing in the doorway, waving to get her attention.
FIFTEEN
“Ladies’ room,” Kathleen whispered in Susan’s ear, as she passed behind her chair.
“If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” Susan murmured, looking regretfully at the full plate a waiter had just placed before her. But she knew from the expression on Kathleen’s face that something had happened. She hurried up the stairs to the second-floor ladies’ room, wondering what was up—and why they were always rushing off to the ladies’ room together.
“There isn’t another dead woman in here, is there?” she joked—and then realized she and Kathleen weren’t alone. One of the bridesmaids (Susan couldn’t remember the girl’s name) was standing at the mirror, swabbing her eyelashes with mascara. She looked more than a little startled by Susan’s question.
“Oh, that’s right, Chrissy said you sometimes got mixed up in murders—like that woman on TV—Miss Marple.”
Susan, who enjoyed the mysteries on PBS as much as anyone (and much more than her husband), wondered what the world was coming to when the younger generation seemed to think Agatha Christie was a scriptwriter rather than a novelist. But she had no time to lecture now. “I have done some investigating,” she explained modestly to the bridesmaid.
The young woman looked as though she didn’t believe it but, her makeup apparently perfect, she piled her equipment back in her purse and fled from the room.
“I guess I have to be more careful about what I say.”
“The younger generation isn’t as tough as we are,” Kathleen said. “Now, tell me who you think the dead woman is.”
“I was wondering about—heavens, I don’t know her name—about the minister everyone calls the Archangel. But she’s supposed to be held up at O’Hare. Why? Did someone say something significant?”
“Actually, you just did. At the end of the table I’m at, there are two discussions going on. One, led by your mother, is whether or not you should have gotten your hair done today.… Don’t say it! I know perfectly well what happened, but when I tried to explain, she insisted on telling everyone how you would never carry an umbrella when you were in grade school, either.”
“I have an umbrella,” Susan started to protest, and then got back to the point. “That’s not why you called me in here, is it?”
“No, and I think you’re right. I think the Archangel is the woman in the restroom at the Yacht Club.”
“You mean, in the back of Tom Davidson’s van.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“But why are you so sure it’s her?”
“Because the story that she’s in Chicago is just that—a story!”
“How do you know?”
“Well, apparently she’s flying here from D.C.”
“Washington, D.C.?”
“Yup. And I don’t think they route flights from D.C. to New York City through Chicago.”
“It doesn’t seem likely. But maybe she had something to do in Chicago?”
“The man sitting next to me claims to be Stephen’s closest relative—an uncle. Does he have any grandparents?”
“No. They all died either before he was born or when he was young. I gather, from what Chrissy says, they were both part of the San Francisco old money scene.”
“Then they probably died of embarrassment from their children’s antics.”
Susan quickly lost interest in the murdered woman and focused on her future in-laws. “Why? What do you know about Blues and Rhythm?”
“You know the reason for the commune, don’t you?”
“Not sex, drugs, and rock and roll?”
“Art and politics. Or, to be more specific, guerrilla theater … street theater.”
Susan frowned.
“You know. People dressed up in army fatigues bleeding catsup and Karo syrup on the steps in front of the offices of the draft board.”
“Rhythm and Blues did things like that?”
“Oh boy, did they. This group is big on reminiscing. So far I’ve heard about the time they held a funeral service over the bodies of slaughtered baby piglets in front of the Marine recruitment center—or maybe it was the wedding of Satan and Uncle Sam they held there, and the funeral service was at City Hall.” Kathleen pushed her gorgeous blond hair back over her shoulder and yawned. “Frankly, I’ve heard so many strange stories in the past ten minutes that I’m completely confused. It’s an unusual thing for an ex-police officer to hear—being arrested was apparently the high point of these people’s lives at that time.”
<
br /> “You mean they have police records, they’re—what do you call them? Habitual offenders?”
“Yeah, but the charges were minor. Disorderly conduct. Unlawful assembly. Demonstrating without the necessary permit. Indecent exposure. Urinating in a public place—you don’t want to know about that one,” Kathleen insisted, seeing that Susan was about to ask. “Anyway, I think you could chalk most of this up to overenthusiastic youthful high jinks.”
“What does it all have to do with the Archangel and where she is now?”
“She apparently didn’t give this up when the commune split up—didn’t settle down and buy a house in a suburb, or a town house on Nob Hill either. She’s been politically active ever since; that’s why she was in Washington. She was addressing some sort of congressional committee yesterday.”
“Sounds like she’s involved in more legit activities these days …”
“Definitely.”
“So you think the Archangel is the murdered woman because she was in D.C. and someone claimed to have gotten a call from her from Chicago.” Susan frowned. “Pretty flimsy evidence for an ex-cop.”
“No. Because she’s here—and someone wants us to think she isn’t.”
“I don’t get it. We’re not absolutely sure she’s dead …”
“No, but she is here. Apparently some of the commune members had brunch with her right here at the Inn. At least, that’s what one of the men—I can’t remember his name, but he’s the best man’s father—told me.”
“Really?” Susan realized she couldn’t identify him either.
“I suppose he could be lying, but we could just ask some of the waitresses and find out about that quickly enough.”
“True.”
“And she was supposed to be driving over to your house with Rhythm and Blues.”
“And she didn’t show up?”
Kathleen nodded seriously. “And she didn’t show up.”
“Maybe she’s been detained …”
“I considered that. So I asked some questions, like what does she look like …”
“I asked that, too—all I could find out was that her hair was green—or orange—or some other strange color at least once in the past ten years,” Susan explained. “What did you find out? Does she look like the murdered woman?”
Weddings Are Murder Page 11
