Weddings Are Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  Tailing the navy Volvo had been more difficult than she would have imagined, and Susan hadn’t had the energy to think much about what Stephen’s unwillingness to run into the police might mean until she was sitting on the ground underneath the bottom porch of the Yacht Club listening to Stephen’s footsteps on the boards above her. He was carefully trying all the windows and doors.

  Perhaps, of course, his avoidance of the police wasn’t surprising, considering his apparent determination to break into the building. It might have nothing to do with the body. On the other hand, he certainly must have done something with the body; it couldn’t have fallen from the box without his noticing, could it?

  The tinkle of breaking glass followed by a string of expletives informed her that Stephen had discovered an entrance to the building. She heard him scramble through the opening he’d made. After waiting a few moments, Susan slung her purse over her shoulder and, wincing with pain, climbed up on the porch and peered in the window.

  Apparently Stephen also had come equipped with a flashlight, and she watched its beam travel around the large room, noticing that he took the time to check under the long linen cloths that covered the buffet tables. Whatever he was searching for wasn’t small—his inspection was cursory, and apparently satisfied that he wasn’t going to find what he was looking for here, he started for the stairs.

  Much as Susan wanted to follow him, she restrained herself. If he found what he was looking for, she was in position to watch him cart it off when he left the building. She found a stuffed porch chair in a dark corner and settled down to wait for his appearance.

  The full moon’s wide smear of light shimmering on the water was beautiful enough for Susan to forget for one moment that there was a dead woman—and a missing wedding dress—and that there were heaven knew how many people coming to brunch tomorrow and she had no idea what she was going to feed them.

  She glanced at her watch. It was almost one o’clock. Those guests would begin arriving in less than eight hours. Chrissy would be stepping into the car that would take them to the church in little more than fourteen hours. She took a few moments to wonder what her daughter would be wearing. And if Jed had remembered to polish the shoes he was going to wear with his morning coat. And whether or not Chad …

  She might have begun to fret seriously if a police car pulling up in front of the Yacht Club hadn’t focused her attention elsewhere. Following Stephen’s lead, Susan had parked on a side street and walked to the club, so there was plenty of room for the patrol car directly in front. The driver left his flashing lights on and got out of his vehicle, training the beam from his powerful flashlight over the outside of the building. A two-way radio hanging from his belt began to chatter as he made his way down the path to the Yacht Club.

  Susan held her breath as he (she could see well enough to identify the sex of the officer, but not much more) carefully moved the barriers in front of the awning and walked out of sight. She wondered what would happen when the two men met.

  There was little time to speculate. Within moments, the officer reappeared from under the canopy, a handcuffed Stephen by his side. “If you’ll just let me explain,” Stephen was saying. “I’m the groom. I have a reason to be in there. All I have to do is make a few phone calls—”

  “If you have such a good reason to be lurking around the Yacht Club in the middle of the night, why didn’t you turn on the lights? Why were you wandering around with a flashlight like a common burglar?”

  Those were, Susan realized, excellent questions. She would have liked to hang around and hear the answers, but it occurred to her that someone needed to do something about this situation immediately. She tiptoed to the back of the building and scrounged around in her purse for her phone—before remembering she hadn’t taken the time to charge the batteries. She cursed and looked around, wondering if there was a pay phone about. But she didn’t have time to call—something else was going on. Or else she had fallen asleep and those screams and shrieks were merely a feature of another nightmare.

  As quietly as possible, she ran around the side of the building and peered around the corner.

  She need not have been so careful. None of the three people standing on the sidewalk before the building was the least bit interested in what she was doing.

  Blues Canfield was doing an extraordinary imitation of a hysterical mother. “Get your filthy handcuffs off my son! Don’t you know he’s a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of an Ivy League university? That young man got perfect scores on his boards less than a year ago! He was offered fellowships at three of the best graduate schools in the country. Why, this young man could have attended Berkeley for free!”

  That bit of news stopped Susan dead in her tracks. Chrissy and Stephen could have been moving to California? Almost did move to California? There would have been no family holidays! Probably she and Jed would have had to travel across the country to see their daughter. And when … if … there were grandchildren, how could she possibly manage to spoil them long-distance? And what about … ?

  “Look! There’s another prowler! Why isn’t that prowler being dragged off in handcuffs?” Blues had changed her theme.

  Another prowler? Susan spun around, peering into the darkness for the person—until she realized Blues was talking about her. Then, “I’m not a prowler,” she called out. “I’m the mother of the bride. Susan Henshaw.”

  “Susan! Thank goodness, it’s you! You must do something. This dreadful man … this officious police person … he’s threatening to lock up Stephen and throw away the key! There’ll be no wedding tomorrow. Unless, perhaps, a jailhouse ceremony. Something for them to be ashamed of forever … Starting their married life in such a manner would certainly carry bad karma—”

  “Mother! You are being ridiculous!” Stephen roared into the night.

  Susan had enough presence of mind to be amused—but for only a few seconds. Then she had to act.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Officer?” she asked, walking up the sidewalk to the trio. Even to her own ears, she sounded a little strange.

  But the young officer seemed too relieved to notice. “Are you the mother of the young woman who is going to be married at the Presbyterian church tomorrow? It’s Henshaw, isn’t it? You’re a friend of the police chief’s.”

  “Yes, I—”

  “Stephen, have you noticed just how well known to the police the family you’re marrying into seems to b—”

  “Mother! Shut up!”

  “Is that the way you were brought up to talk to your mother?” Blues asked, almost curiously.

  “Mother! That is exactly the way I was brought up to talk to you!” Stephen shouted.

  That seemed to slow her down just a bit. “Well, yes. Well, we believed in raising a child to stand up for himself … to question authority … to …”

  “Lady, it’s late. If you’re going to start quoting bumper stickers, we’ll be here all night. And I’m busy even if you aren’t.”

  “Not busy! Until your beloved child gets married, you don’t know what being busy is, young man.”

  Susan thought Blues’s statement was right on target, but the police officer was mumbling something about not even being married to say nothing of having children, so she politely let him get on with it. The only thing she was interested in hearing was Stephen’s explanation of what he was doing wandering around the Yacht Club in the middle of the night—as long as it had nothing to do with the dead body. She didn’t need the police meddling in that particular matter right now. “You know who I am,” Susan said calmly. “And this is the young man my daughter is going to marry tomorrow, Stephen Canfield. And his mother, Bl—”

  “Barbara Canfield, Officer.” Blues held her hand out to the policeman. Susan noticed that the other woman was taking special note of the badge number on the man’s chest. “Now, why don’t we all take a few moments to find out just what’s going on and then we can be on our way.”

  “I was here looking
for something,” Stephen said, trying, Susan assumed, to start the ball rolling.

  “What?” the officer asked.

  “What do you mean?” Stephen asked.

  “What were you looking for here? At the Yacht Club. In the middle of the night. With a flashlight.”

  “Heavens, Stephen, were you doing that?” his mother asked. “How did you get in?”

  Susan cringed. She had hoped that knowledge of the broken window was going to remain her little secret.

  “I …” Stephen paused and glanced at Susan. Was he wondering just how long she’d been hanging around outside of the Yacht Club, she wondered.

  Next Stephen glanced up and down the street, the frown on his face deepening.

  “Stephen, your entire upbringing should prevent you from being intimidated by this type of puppet of petty local government.… Speak up!”

  “Mother, I can handle this myself.” Stephen sounded tired and angry, and suddenly, Susan felt sorry for him. This was, after all, the young man her daughter had chosen to share the rest of her life.

  “If Stephen will let me, I’d like to explain, Officer.” Susan added swiftly, seeing he was about to interrupt, “Stephen was here on an errand for me. I’m afraid this whole misunderstanding is all my fault.”

  All eyes turned toward her and Susan thought quickly. “You see, I was worried about … about …” It was late. It had been one of the longest days of her life. She was completely exhausted. Her brain, normally capable of creating a legitimate-sounding excuse under trying circumstances, seemed to be failing her.

  And then Stephen chimed in, finishing her sentence and solving the problem. “Her notebook. I came here looking for the notebook Mrs. Henshaw has been using to keep track of the wedding plans. You see, I was just over at the Henshaws’ house, saying good night to Chrissy—”

  “That’s my daughter,” Susan chimed in, appreciating the story Stephen was weaving.

  “And by this time tomorrow night, she’ll be my wife,” Stephen said, never missing a beat. “But when I was dropping Chrissy off, Mrs. Henshaw mentioned that she had misplaced her notebook.”

  “Isn’t it a little late to be worrying about wedding plans?” the policeman asked. “Isn’t everything all set and ready to go by now?”

  “That just shows how little you know about planning something like this,” Susan said, thinking of all the last-minute details that were still worrying her.

  “And I thought I had seen the notebook here earlier in the day when Chrissy and I were checking out the decorations, so I offered to stop on the way home and see if I could find it. I …” Here, for the first time, he paused, as if doubting whether he should tell this part of the story. “I thought I might be able to get in through an open window, but I’m afraid … I’m afraid I broke one around in back of the building.”

  “You entered the Yacht Club through a broken window?” The police officer sounded solemn.

  “Yes, but—”

  “But my family has rented the Yacht Club for the entire weekend,” Susan interrupted, suddenly seeing a loophole in the direction the policeman was traveling. “So don’t I have to press charges if you are going to arrest this young man?”

  “I don’t know about that,” the policeman answered slowly. “I think—” The walkie-talkie on his belt interrupted him. “Excuse me.”

  “I—”

  “Mother, please, just don’t say anything at all until we have this worked out,” Stephen said quietly.

  But it all worked out much more quickly than Susan would have expected.

  “I’m going to have to take Mrs. Henshaw’s word for it and let you go,” the officer said, reaching over to unlock Stephen’s handcuffs. “But I think someone should hang around here until that window gets fixed,” he added, starting toward his car.

  “You’re leaving?”

  Susan thought Blues seemed remarkably nonplussed by the fact. She, herself, was overjoyed.

  “Got to, ma’am. The burglar alarm just sounded over at the Presbyterian church. Say,” he added, calling back over his shoulder as he ran toward his vehicle. “That’s where the wedding is supposed to take place tomorrow, isn’t it?”

  “If we all live that long,” Susan answered grimly.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Well … uh …”

  “So … uh …”

  “I think … that … uh …”

  It was obvious that no one wanted to be the first to finish a sentence. Susan suspected neither of her companions had any idea what to say. Susan, however, knew what she wanted to know. “Why are you here?” she asked quietly.

  “What do you think my son is doing here? He’s looking for your notebook—he just told that policeman—”

  Susan heard the indignation in Blues’s voice and quickly stepped in to placate her. “It’s not that I think Stephen was lying—”

  “Actually, I was. There is no notebook—at least I didn’t see one,” he interrupted.

  “You lied?” His mother gave the impression that she could not imagine such a thing. “Stephen, how many times have I told you that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you tell the truth about it? You know I’ll understand. You know I’ll always love you. You know your father and I value truth above everything else. As the poet Keats said—”

  “Mother, I know all that. I appreciate it. And, if you want to hear the truth, you’ll have to stop talking and listen.”

  “You know, I feel strongly that listening is really a creative activity. And one I’m very good at, if I do say so myself.” Even in the dim moonlight, Blues looked self-satisfied.

  Susan didn’t believe a word of it, but there wasn’t time to go into it. “So why are you here?” she asked Stephen. “What were you looking for when you broke into the Yacht Club?”

  Stephen glanced at his mother and Susan before speaking. “The wedding ring.”

  “Chrissy’s ring?” Susan wondered what would get lost next.

  “The symbol of the love the two of you are going to share together forever?” His mother was less succinct.

  “Yes.”

  “You lost it?”

  “David lost it.”

  “David? The best man? The one who’s always drunk? You trusted him to keep the ring overnight?” Susan was too upset to consider whether or not she was being unforgivably rude.

  “David and I are best friends,” Stephen protested. “It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t take care of it. He’s never done anything like this before—and he’s not always drunk.”

  “Stephen is right, Susan. I’ve known David since he was a child, and he’s usually very responsible. Things are a bit difficult in his life right now. His parents … well, that’s not important. But poor David is a lost soul. However, he’ll find himself someday.”

  “Mother … it’s late. I’m exhausted and I’m sure you are, too. Father is probably wondering what’s happened to you.”

  “Father is here. You know my motto. Action, not reaction.”

  All three of them turned toward the voice.

  “I thought it better to wait in the shadows until the police presence had been eliminated.” Rhythm seemed to think that was an explanation rather than the lead-in to a rather obvious question.

  “Father, what are you doing here?”

  Susan heard exhaustion, exasperation, and something else in Stephen’s voice. Whatever was going on here, and she suspected it was more than the loss of a wedding band (why break in if Stephen had a reasonable excuse to enter the building?), it was beginning to take its toll on the young man.

  “When my wife gets up, gets dressed, and sneaks out of our bedroom in the middle of the night, I consider it my duty to see just where she is going,” he answered.

  “Excuse me?” Blues was obviously outraged. “Are you suggesting that I can’t take care of myself?”

  “Of course not. I just thought you might like to share your adventure,” her husband answered smoothly.

 
Blues frowned and Susan noticed that no one except Stephen had explained—either honestly or not so honestly—what made it necessary for them to be at the Yacht Club in the middle of the night. One of the most interesting aspects of this, she suddenly realized, was that her presence seemed to be accepted as perfectly normal. Was it possible that the Canfields thought it was the mother of the bride’s duty to check out the place where the wedding reception was to be held the night before the big event? After midnight?

  “So where were you going?” Blues asked her.

  Susan didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to admit that she had been following Stephen, and she didn’t want to say anything that might lead to questions about how she happened to be here. She glanced at Stephen, who was staring intently at her.

  “I think Mrs. Henshaw and I should be leaving,” he said firmly. “After all the wedding is tomorrow, and I think I’d better get busy coming up with something to put on Chrissy’s finger tomorrow.”

  “You know,” Susan said, suddenly inspired, “Jed’s mother offered you two her mother’s wedding band, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, but we refused it. So I don’t suppose she brought it with her—and she doesn’t live nearby, does she?”

  “No, but Claire rarely takes no for an answer. I’ll bet she brought that ring along just in case,” Susan answered.

  “In case?”

  “In case Chrissy changed her mind,” Susan explained. Although the truth was that Claire would undoubtedly be working to make the girl see her point of view—at least, she would if past experience meant anything. Susan’s mother-in-law had never let a no dampen her enthusiasm for one of her own ideas.

  “Is Claire staying at your house?” Stephen asked.

  “No, the Inn. Why don’t we both head over there and we can ask her if she’s brought it along?” Susan suggested. “I’m sure she won’t mind being awakened for something so important.”

  “Okay, why don’t I follow you—I don’t know my way around town all that well …” Stephen’s voice seemed to dwindle off. Susan wondered if he was remembering all those twists and turns he’d made between her house and here—could unfamiliar ground account for them all?