8 A Wedding and a Killing

by Lauren Carr

  “Less than eight feet,” Brewster said. “From where you’re standing to where she is now in front of the doors. I thought for sure she was dead.”

  Mac stepped over to where Edna glared at her shattered doors. “Thank God he missed you and hit the windows instead. Otherwise, it would be your blood and guts on this floor instead of broken glass.”

  She clutched the nail gun that she still had in her hand to her chest. Slowly, she turned to Brewster, who Fletcher and David had helped up into a chair. “He shot at me? I …”

  “Didn’t you hear me yelling to you to get out of here, Edna?” Brewster asked. “Instead of running, you came at him like a momma bear.”

  “All I could think about was that he killed Eugene and I had to protect you,” she said. “I don’t remember him shooting at me.”

  Checking the short distance there had to be between Sirrus and Edna when he was shooting at her, Mac said, “I think someone was looking out for you, Edna.”

  “I second that,” Brewster breathed while lying back to allow Fletcher to examine his broken arm. He glanced up to the blue sky above. “Thank you, God.”

  Fletcher said, “The bone is broken through the skin. That’s one serious break.”

  “It’s my shooting arm,” Brewster groaned.

  “Desk duty for you, Brewster,” David said, “but at least you’re alive.”

  Edna lowered herself down into a chair across from Brewster. “This is all my fault.”

  Mac eased the nail gun from her hands. “It’s not your fault, Edna. You saved Brewster’s life. Sirrus would have killed him if you hadn’t have thought fast enough to grab the nail gun.”

  “Poor Eugene … and Marilyn.”

  “Where was your weapon, Brewster?” David asked him.

  “I had left my weapon in the truck. I had no idea how dangerous these church ladies could be,” the officer replied with a chuckle, which abruptly turned to worry. “Where are the girls?”

  “I sent them to the neighbors when Deborah told me that it was Sirrus.” Edna looked up at Mac. “Did—”

  “They’re safe,” Mac assured them both.

  Bogie led a couple men up from the yard. “Sirrus Thorpe got nailed but good. I counted three shots to the chest.”

  “That’s how many shots she fired,” Brewster said. “She hit him with each one?”

  “Square in the chest,” Bogie said.

  “You were right, David,” Mac said. “Never mess with a church lady.”

  “I told you they scare the hell out of me,” David replied.

  Epilogue

  The mild, sunny weather was like a symbol of God’s blessing on the bride and groom’s wedding. While the church was filled to standing room only, the wedding party consisted only of the bride, groom, maid of honor, and best man. It was all they had time to invite with only eight days to throw the event together.

  The reception was as extensive as if they had a year to plan. The groom would not have it any other way.

  “A wedding without bringing together the best in food, wine, and friends is like a marriage without love! Eat! Drink! And dance everyone!” After toasting his bride, Carmine Romano wrapped his arms around Ruth and whisked her out onto the dance floor of his restaurant’s banquet room.

  “I need to put that into my wedding ceremonies,” Deborah told David and Chelsea where they were mingling near the dessert table. For officiating the wedding, she was clad in a long white dress with gold trim.

  “Things turned out very well for them,” Chelsea said. “Ruth and Natalie really did get a whole new beginning when they left New York.”

  “It was a blessing that she ended up with a good father to show her a truly loving relationship,” Deborah said. “Jenny is going to be living with them. She’s finally getting her new beginning.”

  “Well,” Chelsea said. “I imagine now is the best time to divorce Reese Fairbanks since he has been charged with assault and assault of a police officer here in Garrett County, and is being charged for bribery and a ton of other federal charges up in New York.”

  David said, “There’s someone else who things have worked out well for.”

  On the dance floor, Officer Brewster was dancing with both Allison and Kiersten at the same time. Allison clung to his broken arm, which was encased in a cast.

  “I’ve never seen that man so happy,” David noted. “He’s on desk duty for the next couple of months at least, but he’s thrilled.”

  “That’s because he meets Edna for lunch every day,” Chelsea said before turning to Deborah. “Is it true she decided to accept the administrator position?”

  Nodding her head, Deborah smiled. “After we threw in the guest cottage and assured her a flexible schedule. Allison and Kiersten will be right down the path and Chase has agreed to babysit them while Edna’s working.”

  “I’m sure Benny will be able to protect them,” David said. “That’s one feisty little watch dog. Gnarly will never live that attack down.”

  “I’m so glad they aren’t going to press charges against Edna for killing Sirrus Thorpe,” Deborah said.

  “Well, Fleming didn’t really see how they could,” Chelsea said. “Gnarly found Sirrus’ gun down in the rocks, and it proved to be the murder weapon used to kill Eugene.”

  “Not only that, but forensics found traces of blood in Sirrus’ toupee,” David said. “DNA connected that blood to Eugene Newton. Sirrus Thorpe was on the scene at the time he was shot.”

  “He was obsessed with Edna,” Deborah said. “We all saw it, but thought it was totally harmless.”

  “I’m trained and I saw it, too,” David said, “but I disregarded it. On the day of the murder, Sirrus flipped out when he saw you and Edna in the cruiser to take you to the hospital. He was focused then on Edna. I dismissed it because when there’s a murder, everyone’s emotions get kicked into high gear. I didn’t think of it as a clue to the murder.”

  “He probably would have confessed if you had charged Edna for the murder,” Chelsea said.

  “Most likely,” David agreed. “In thinking about it, I believe killing Eugene was a crime of opportunity. Helga was spreading rumors about him and Edna, which Sirrus had started to believe—”

  “Between the rumors and Eugene making excuses for Edna to get away from Sirrus when he would become a nuisance,” Deborah said, “he began thinking Eugene was coming between them.”

  “Then, totally innocent, Helga forgot to sign her check and Eugene called her office,” David said, “but Helga wasn’t there to pick up because she had a doctor’s appointment. Sirrus must have picked up the phone and realized Eugene was at the church. We’ll never know if he knew Eugene was alone or if he let himself in with Helga’s key or came in through the back door that Ruth had left unlocked. Whatever the case, Sirrus was overtaken by jealousy and went to the church to get rid of Eugene so that he could have Edna to himself.” He held up his finger. “But he did have the presence of mind to establish an alibi for himself for the time of Helga’s murder.”

  “What was that?” Deborah said.

  “He made a point of telling me that he had caught a twelve-pound bass the morning Helga had disappeared,” David said. “Mac told me to check with the taxidermist to see when Sirrus delivered it to be mounted. Turns out he had delivered it to the taxidermist Tuesday morning, not Wednesday.”

  “So he lied,” Chelsea said, “to throw you off the trail.”

  “Yes, he did,” David said. “He had gone fishing on the day of Eugene’s murder. The next morning, he drugged his wife and then took her out to Pennsylvania to kill her in order to frame her for killing him. With Helga gone, that left Sirrus free himself to pursue Edna.”

  “And none of us saw it,” Deborah said with a sigh. “I’m almost afraid of being paranoid now. In the church, we deal with so many people who come from such
various backgrounds and have so many different needs. How many could, like Sirrus—”

  “Or Van Dorn.” Bogie slipped into the conversation while passing by with Dr. Dora Washington, his young and vivacious lady. “Look how far he fell.”

  “Or Helga Thorpe,” Deborah said. “How ironic that her husband ended up killing Eugene because he believed a rumor that she started—”

  “Then her husband ended up murdering her,” Chelsea said. “Now that’s ironic.”

  “The root cause of those murders was gossip,” Deborah said. “It reminds me of something an Irish writer once said, ‘Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a gossip.’ That was certainly the case for poor Eugene.”

  The band had started another slow dance. Along with the bridge and groom, Bogie and Doc Washington took to the floor.

  “David, would you like to dance with Deborah?” Chelsea abruptly asked.

  After an awkward silence, David led the reverend out onto the dance floor.

  “Chelsea needs to work on her subtlety,” Deborah said when David took her into his arms.

  “Isn’t this where you start your sermon?” he asked. “Give me your sales pitch to make me come to church with Chelsea?”

  “I don’t like sermons. I have found that when you give one to a reluctant audience, it tends to fall on deaf ears.”

  “You’re exactly right,” he said in a firm tone.

  “But I am willing to talk to you, if you want.”

  “Talk all you want,” he said. “I’ll give you to the end of this dance.”

  “Why are you mad at God, Chief O’Callaghan? Is it because He let your father die of cancer?”

  “Dad and I were just getting to the point that we were able to relate to each other as adults—as men,” David said. “I know, it’s a sin to be mad at God.”

  “It’s okay to be mad at God.”

  Not expecting such a response, he pulled back until they were arms’ length apart. He cocked his head at her. “Really?”

  “God and I have fights all the time.” She moved in closer. Placing her hands on his upper arms, she resumed their dance. “You should have heard me when I found out my husband had been murdered. Oh, I was mad at God for a good long time. I took a whole year off for sabbatical. How could I possibly preach about a God I was mad at? Just like you, I felt like things were finally perfect in my life. I was pastor of my own church. My husband and I had a beautiful son, and then God took my husband away from me. I felt like God had reached into my life with his giant hand and ripped the very foundation out from under me.”

  “Exactly.” He swallowed. “Even after all that, you came back to being a minister?”

  “Yes, I did,” she said. “I still get mad at Him, and I still fight with God when things don’t go my way, but that’s all part of having a relationship with Him. It’s just like having a relationship with anyone, Chief O’Callaghan. He doesn’t want us to follow Him blindly. You can’t get close to God if you don’t ask Him questions.”

  She tapped his chest. “Like that night that I went over to the church because I saw the lights on. Everyone was saying that Helga had killed Eugene and ran off. But you couldn’t accept that at face value. Something didn’t add up and you had questions. So you continued digging and asking questions until you found the answer … and thank God you did.”

  “That’s what a good detective does in any murder investigation,” David said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “Don’t you think you should do the same when you have questions about illness and evil and life and death and God?”

  Outrageous shrieks caused them to turn to the bar where Marilyn Newton had Edna Parker doubled over in laughter. Marilyn was stunning in a shimmery black dress, while Edna was dressed in a purple cocktail gown.

  “No one has a laugh like Marilyn Newton,” Deborah smiled. “You can hear it all the way across the lake.”

  “Senator Fleming pulled strings to get a permit for her to throw Eugene a full Viking funeral,” David said, “complete with setting fire to a boat on the lake to sink his ashes. She also got a fireworks permit. That’s going to be some memorial service.”

  “I hear Bill Clark is running scared.” Deborah’s eyes narrowed. “As he should be.”

  “It’s going to be an interesting election,” he chuckled. “Once Marilyn throws her top into the ring, Clark’s political career will be over.”

  “If anyone has a right to be angry with God, it’s Marilyn,” the pastor said in a low voice. “Her husband was at the church, devoting himself to what he loved and a crazy man came in and blew him away because he believed he was having an affair with her best friend, Edna.”

  Marilyn Newton was teaching the church’s new administrator what resembled a two-step.

  Staring at them, David said, “I still can’t believe Sirrus fired three shots at Edna from eight feet away and missed her each time.”

  “I can,” Deborah said. “We all prayed for God’s protection for Edna and her girls when we realized who had killed Eugene, and He answered our prayers.” She added, “Marilyn is taking Edna and the girls on her cruise with her. The girls are so excited.” She smiled. “Chase is housesitting Marilyn’s place. He’ll be taking care of Marilyn’s and Edna’s dogs. He’ll have a dog pack of six.”

  “You’d think Marilyn would blame Edna for …”

  “It’s not Edna’s fault,” Deborah said. “She feels guilty. Sure. How couldn’t she? God didn’t make it happen. He didn’t want it to happen. But it did and somehow God will turn this tragedy around … Somehow, some good will come of it. Just like your father’s death. … If it hasn’t already.” She leaned in to whisper. “Maybe the blessing from his death came in the form of your brother.”

  “Brother?” David’s eyes met hers. “You know that Mac …” Her gaze was already answering his question.

  “Your father and I had many conversations while he was dying,” she said. “He prayed that Robin Spencer would find their son and that you would have the relationship with him that he never got to have. From what I’ve seen, God did answer his prayer.”

  She pulled away from him. “Song’s over.”

  He realized that indeed the song had ended.

  “Thank you for the dance, David,” she said while walking away. “See you in church tomorrow.”

  Maybe.

  In the middle of the dance floor, David watched the pastor join her son, who took her hand to whirl her back onto the floor.

  The music had shifted into high gear and Ruth danced by in her wedding gown with her groom directly behind her.

  “Hey, Chief, don’t just stand there!” At the end of the Congo line, Marilyn grabbed David forcibly by the arm and placed his hand on her swaying hip. “Join the fun!”

  “I love you, Mrs. Faraday.”

  “That’s my name,” she purred into his ear, “do wear it out.” Wrapping his arms around her naked body, she laid her head on his chest and enjoyed the beating of his heart against her ear.

  The only other sound in the honeymoon suite of the small ship was that of the ocean off the Alaskan coast.

  ”Ah, it was a perfect wedding.” Archie closed her eyes to take in the warmth of his arms around her. “Just you, me, the pastor, and the whole Spencer police force. Who blabbed?”

  “I think it was Gnarly,” Mac said, even though he suspected it was Tonya who extracted the information from Bogie.

  “That’s okay,” she said with a dreamy sigh. “The most important man was there.” She kissed him. “Everything is just like I imagined—especially this honeymoon.”

  “Even though someone stole our main course for dinner tonight,” he asked.

  “Well, now you have a case to work on,” she giggled. “The Case of the Chilean Sea Bass.”

  “The captain is swearing
up and down that none of his crew would steal the guests’ main course of a special order dinner.”

  “Still, it was perfect …” She kissed his hand. “My mind has been more focused on something else than the food.” She laid back and gazed up at the stars through the skylight. The sky was so clear that she imagined she could see forever into the next galaxy. At least, she felt like she could.

  “Alaskan Princess,” she sighed. “Even the name of our ship is perfect. I certainly feel like a princess.”

  They were the lone passengers of the Alaskan Princess, a small cruise ship. Marilyn Newton had given Archie Monday ideas for a ten-day honeymoon cruise off the coast of Alaska. The ship had a crew of sixteen, and a passenger manifest that consisted of two people and one German shepherd. It was only the first day and they had already seen whales swimming off the side of the ship.

  “You were so afraid that you’d be bored on this cruise.” Archie asked, “Have you been bored yet?”

  “It is a honeymoon.” A wicked grin crossed Mac’s face. “Though, I am curious about what happened to that sea bass. I may not be able to resist questioning witnesses and tracking down suspects.” He grabbed her tightly and rolled over to kiss her passionately. “Starting with you, Mrs. Faraday.”

  She let out a high-pitched squeal while he tickled her ribs.

  “What were you doing this afternoon before dinner?” Mac asked with an evil laugh.

  Between screams of laughter, she declared, “I was alone … in bed … with my husband!”

  Their laughter filled the cabin.

  The door flew open.

  Mac rolled over and dove for his gun in the bed stand.

  With a shriek, Archie yanked the blankets up to cover herself.

  Gnarly leapt from the middle of the floor to land on top of Mac. Pinning his master down by his shoulders onto the bed, the German shepherd expelled the sum of his stomach contents onto Mac’s bare chest—the centerpiece of which was the half-digested, uncooked, Chilean Sea Bass.

  Their special order gourmet dinner now resembled road kill.