“What? That can’t be right,” Yancey said. “Listen, Pastor Green, sometimes he can be a self-righteous dumb cluck, but we’ve never even come to blows over anything.”
Aunt Maggie put her hand on Yancey’s arm. “I’m sure you didn’t. He was probably just reading through that passage when he was attacked. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“He’s absolutely right. Why don’t you head to the hospital and we can lock up here,” Myrtle said.
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Richey,” said Pastor Green. “I hope it’s not too much of an imposition?”
“Consider it done.” Mr. Andre said.
Pastor Green and Yancey started walking toward the door.
“Not to be indelicate, Mr. Fischer,” called Mr. Andre after them, “but will you still be having the reception for Prissy tomorrow? There’s nothing as terrible as a bride off her schedule. I know I shouldn’t even ask, but I was her wedding planner once.”
Yancey Fischer focused on Mr. Andre as if coming out of a bad dream. “I don’t know. I’ll see what I can do to get some extra help tomorrow,” he sighed. “Sure … I mean of course, I don’t want to disappoint the Olins and the mayor’s family on our first day.” He broke into a sob. “Even if Morty doesn’t live to see it.”
Maggie stepped in front of me. “Let’s not speak too much of this in front of …” she nodded toward Danny.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “We need to finish.”
“Yes, we do,” Mr. Andre said as Irma Jean started pounding out the Trumpet Voluntary.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
My father raised his wine glass. “Cheers to the bride and groom. May their lives always be filled with happiness and good barbecue.”
After leaving the church, I barely had time to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. Leo and Tyler were already waiting at the house, and Leo’s mother had arrived from Galveston. After a short rehearsal at the church, mainly because the Olin/Obermeyer party was waiting in the vestibule, we gathered at the Bayou Restaurant.
I had only spent time with Gwynn Fitzpatrick on a handful of holidays, so I was still understandably nervous around her. She was a high school science teacher, and just listening to her talk I could see where Leo developed his own fascination with the science of weather. Growing up on the island of Galveston, they had seen their share of hurricanes. Leo’s father had passed away before we met. Mrs. Fitzpatrick was an attractive older woman with grayish-blond hair that fell to her neck. She had warm blue eyes that reminded me of Leo. After Leo’s dad died, Gwyn hadn’t seemed interested in dating anyone new. I think it would take quite a guy to replace him.
The crowd gathered around the pushed-together tables at the Bayou Restaurant as they raised their glasses towards us. Leo reached over and put his hand over mine and whispered into my ear, nuzzling my neck.
“Don’t forget, I still have to give you your surprise.”
I laughed as his lips tickled my neck. “I’m beginning to think it won’t be that much of a surprise,” I replied as I pulled him closer.
Mark leaned over, flashing his network smile. “Oh, trust me, Betsy, it’s going to be a surprise.”
“You know, too?” I said. “I know I didn’t see Leo dragging in any little silver boxes from the jewelry store. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see you bring anything.”
“Just be patient. The best is yet to come,” Mark said.
This, of course, set me on a different train of thought. What did he have that was such a big surprise for me? My curiosity was piqued.
“For once, my dear daughter, you just need to sit back and enjoy,” said my dad. Did he know, too? Now I wondered just how many people at the table were in on Leo’s gift.
“Betsy, Leo tells me you had a bee incident up here,” Gwynn said. “Was this man an experienced beekeeper?”
“Yes he was.”
“Glad you brought that up,” Leo said. “What do you know about bees and pheromones, Mom?”
“Alarm pheromones are released when a bee stings another animal,” she said. “Other bees are attracted, and they behave defensively, stinging or charging the animal.”
“Would you happen to know if this pheromone has an odor to it?” I asked.
“Um, it sounds funny,” she said, “but they say it smells like bananas.”
“Martha said she added the scent of roses to her calamine, but I couldn’t really place what it smelled like,” I told Leo.
“You could have been smelling the mixture of the two scents.”
Here we were, about to get married, and we were talking about a grisly death. We hadn’t even started to discuss Morton, my second pre-wedding death. It couldn’t be a good omen for our life together. I felt the exhaustion starting to sweep over me in my moment of contemplation.
“Betsy?” Leo had been watching me.
I forced a smile. “Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
I bit my bottom lip. “Yeah. Just tired from everything going on. You know.”
He nodded. “You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” His eyes met mine, seeking a last bit of reassurance.
I glanced over at my father, who was listening attentively to Danny telling him about something. If there ever was a man comfortable in his own skin, it was my father. He laughed out loud as Danny came to the end of his story. Now that I had been around my mother, I couldn’t imagine him with her. Had they once felt the way Leo and I were feeling? They were like two incompatible parts, and yet they made it work long enough to create me. I wondered why my dad, like Leo’s mom, had never remarried. For him it had been a lot longer than a few years. But for all that, he seemed happy, content even. In less than 24 hours Leo and I would be married. My life, Zach’s life, would change forever.
“So Betsy,” Rocky said, “have you-all decided where you’re going to be living?”
“I guess,” I said, “but we haven’t put a contract on a house. Until we do, Zach and I will be living with Leo and Tyler in their apartment in Dallas.”
“You know I really hate to hear that, Betsy. I have to say, working with you has been an experience.” He took a sip of his wine. “It also doesn’t hurt that you seem to be a magnet for murder in this town. Just when the Gazette gets into a sales slump, I can count on you to trip over a body somewhere in town. You’re like clockwork.”
“Oh my, Leo. Life for you will never be dull,” Leo’s mother said.
Leo leaned back and put his arm around me and sighed. “Let’s just hope that part of her life is over.”
A burst of wind hit up against the windows of the Bayou Restaurant. Across the way, the new floodlights that the Fischer Brothers had put up at Chateau Fischer swayed slightly in the wind. I thought back to Morton.
“Don’t worry, Betsy,” said Leo. “This system will hopefully clear out if another one doesn’t pile on it.”
Good to know I now had the weather channel on speed dial.
My dad’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. “It’s Art. I’d better get this.” He stepped from the table and moved to the back of the restaurant.
Mr. Andre, who had been standing to the side and talking to a waiter, came over. “Oh dear,” he said, “doesn’t your father know it’s bad etiquette to talk on your cell phone at your own daughter’s rehearsal dinner?”
“Probably not, but I’m sure it was important.”
“More important than manners?” Mr. Andre harrumphed.
My father clicked his phone shut and returned to the table.
“So, what did he say?”
“A couple of interesting things. What do you say you and I go to the bar and get a refill on my beer?”
I scooted out from the table, and the assembled crowd looked up as if I were about to propose a toast.
“Oh, um, I’d like to propose a toast to everyone who has helped me put our wedding together,” I said. “Aunt Maggie, you’ve been wonderful.” Mr. Andre began to sulk in the corner. “And of
course Mr. Andre.”
The diners politely lifted their glasses as Mr. Andre beamed and did a flourishing bow. I knocked back a swig of my champagne and headed to the bar with my dad.
“Whoever stabbed Morton sure knew what they were doing,” he said. “One quick efficient thrust, and he never had a chance.”
“Unbelievable. Morton was such a nice guy,” I said. “I just can’t imagine who would want to kill him. He went to church, he raised prize-winning roses and he was a good friend to Martha.”
“I think he was a good friend to a lot of people. How well do you know Martha?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. She seems like a sweet lady to me. I was pretty impressed with how she turned it around after Lenny’s death.”
Mr. Andre, now upset we were ignoring our guests, zeroed in on us.
“People, whatever is going on over here, it needs to stop. We are on stage right now, and it’s your job not to ruin the show.”
“Some of us don’t live in your make-believe world,” my father said.
A scream shot through the room, and the dinner chatter silenced.
“What happened?” Judd said.
“A face, I saw a face in the window,” said Leo’s mother.
“Where?”
“Over there.” She pointed to a bush outside the restaurant. My father rushed out the door and around the building. One good thing about inviting half the cops in town to dinner was that we were well-protected from peeping Toms. Elena headed out behind my dad. Mr. Andre stood at the door with his arms crossed. He wanted to be in control – but at no personal danger to himself.
I stood at the window scanning the grounds for the intruder.
“Uh-huh,” my father said. “We'll take a look. Back me up Elena.”
“I'll search the parking lot.” George said putting down his napkin. It was good to know my wedding party could double as security.
“Can you tell us what he looked like?” Leo asked his mother.
“He had a pudgy face and this awful black eye where his nose should be. It was terrible,” she said.
There was a bright light in the bushes. At first I thought it was the reflection of gunfire, but now shot echoed in the night.
"Got him. He tried to blind me with his flash." My dad said holding Bernard Price by the neck of his jacket. He pushed him into the room. Bernard stumbled.
"Would you like to tell us what you were doing out in the bushes?"
Bernard cleared his throat and straightened the camera strap around his neck. "The job of a paparazzi is never easy."
"Paparazzi?" I questioned.
"Yes Ma'am. You wouldn't let me take your wedding pictures, and then you bring in the famous weatherman, Mark Garret from Dallas. The girls at the diner wouldn't shut about him. So I got to thinkin' it might be an even bigger paycheck if I got some candid photos of him."
"One problem," Mark said. "No one cares about candid photos of weathermen."
"No one cares about weathermen, period. They're just blocking the map." Mr. Andre added.
Bernard shot a glance at Mark and Mr. Andre and then extended his hands to my father.
"Take me away. I hope I get a cell with good light."
"I don't carry cuffs to rehearsal dinners, but you can tell me all about it down at the station."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The next morning as the sun filtered through my curtains, I was immediately hit with a pang of anxiety. This was it. The big day we had planned for, saved for and waited for. Leo’s mother had driven to town in her RV, a necessity for someone in a hurricane zone, so Leo and Tyler had used that as their hotel. It was peaceful in my little house as I made the coffee, and I decided to take a moment to cherish the peace. The rest of the day would be filled with chaos, but this moment was mine. I grabbed my piping-hot cup of coffee and crawled back under the covers. I pulled my knees up to my chest and sat sipping quietly. I mentally went through today’s checklist.
I would start with helping to decorate the church. After that, I was having my hair done along with Elena down at the Best Little Hair House in Texas. Miss Ruby had cut my hair for so long that being with her this morning was only right. Through years of pigtails, pimples, bad dates and bad marriages, Miss Ruby had a gift for making me feel better. From there we would go to the church to climb into our dresses and hopefully not mess up the work that Ruby had done. My last task was simple. All I had to do was walk down the aisle with my father and then take Leo’s hand.
The phone on the night stand rang. I reluctantly put down my coffee to answer. My moment was gone. Time for action.
“Betsy? How you doing today, darlin’?” my father said.
“I’m fine. A little nervous, but I’m fine.”
“Don’t be nervous. You’re doing the right thing marrying that fella,” he said. “Why, if he wasn’t a man, I’d marry him myself.”
“Daddy!”
There was a pause on the other end.
“Thanks for callin’ me that today,” he said. “I know I’ve already given you away once, but somehow it just feels like this time I’m really losin’ you.”
“You’ll never lose me, Dad.”
“Oh yes I will,” he replied. “You say that, but you’re about to move away with your brand-new husband. You have your own life to live, and that’s how it should be.”
“Is it really?”
“Yes, it is, and you know it.”
“I was just sitting here thinking about everything we’ve been through in the last few months,” I said. “I had no idea it was this difficult to get married.”
“Yeah, well, hopefully preparing for a wedding is like a waiting period for a gun license. Gives a person time to cool off before they go and do something stupid,” my dad said.
“You would equate getting married to using a firearm. It’s just that sometimes I thought about all the things that went wrong … Charlotte actually coming to Texas, fighting with Prissy Olin …”
“And don’t forget the little matter of your florist being stung to death by bees.”
“And Morton,” I added. “Poor Morton. I don’t know how Martha is handling all this.”
“Martha?”
“Yes, she was sort of involved with both men.”
“Wait a minute,” said Judd. “I thought he was just a friend. You mean to tell me that Martha was seeing Morton Fischer on the side?”
I explained what I knew about their friendship and how Morton escalated it after Lenny died.
“I can see I’m going to need to call her in and question her on Morton’s death. What motive would she have?”
“I’m not sure why she would want to kill Morton,” I said. “Right now, I’m thinking of how. She had access to the bees, but I just don’t see her jabbing a knife into a man who was such a good friend. Especially after all he tried to do for her.”
“What did he do for her?”
“Helped her fix up her place. I also got the feeling they were always together at church functions.”
“Like he was her church husband?” said my dad.
“Well, she certainly couldn’t bring Lenny, now could she?”
“So what would possess her to kill him?”
“This probably doesn’t sound too good on the morning of my wedding, but one husband is enough of a problem for any woman,” I said.
“Something your mother might have said.”
“How very complimentary of you.”
“Do you think Charlotte will be at the wedding?”
“Are you worried?” I said. “No, I think she’s long gone. Like Martha and husbands, I had one mother too many. I’m just thankful Aunt Maggie is still there for me.”
“Me too, darlin’,” said my dad.
“Any news on who or what was hiding in the bushes at my rehearsal dinner?”
“I will have you know we’ve put an APB out for one-eyed perpetrators,” he said. “I was thinkin’ when you’re up front saying your vows, just
turn around and take a look-see …”
“Very funny. I’m just wondering if we’ll have any people there at all.”
“You aren’t too popular right now, that’s for damn sure.”
******
An hour later we were over at the church, hanging white bunting over the ends of the pews.
“Betsy,” said my cousin Danny, “What time will Mr. Leo be in our family?”
“What time?”
“I’m getting two new cousins today. What time will it be?”
I put my arm around Danny’s rounded shoulders. “I guess by about 3, your family will have grown by two.”
Zach smiled and drew in a breath. Maybe he was getting a little nervous, too.
“Two people bigger. I like that. I hope you like the wedding cake knife Mama got you.”
Aunt Maggie turned around abruptly on the small ladder she was balancing on, nearly falling off. “Danny! It’s a secret. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” He turned and looked at me as he tried to figure out how to take it back.
“Danny, don’t you know how to keep a secret?” Zach said. “A present is a secret until you give it.”
Danny’s face fell. I tried to make him feel better. “What did you say, Danny? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. My mind was on other things.”
“You didn’t? It seemed like you did. I said that …”
“Danny!” my aunt repeated.
“Nothin’.” He put his head down and stuck a bow onto the end of the pew.
Martha Stokes came in carrying a large vase of deep red roses.
“Danny, help out Mrs. Stokes,” Maggie said.
Danny rushed over and took the vase from Martha. As he tried to walk down the aisle, the flowers wobbled to one side, spilling out a little of the water.
“Careful there, son,” Martha said. “I put an awful lot of work into that one.”
“Yes ma’am,” Danny said, slowing his walk and trying to stabilize himself.
Martha Stokes turned back and then around to look at the sanctuary. “Oh, it’s lovely. This is going to be a beautiful wedding.”
Buzzkill (Pecan Bayou Series) Page 13
