The Final Vow

by Amanda Flower

  I knew that this was as close as he was going to get to admitting he’d been in love with the petite wedding planner.

  “No matter what her distraction might have been, my money is on the bride as the killer,” he went on. His mouth curved into a sneer. “I wouldn’t put it past her to push Vianna out of that window.”

  Before I could say anything, he added, “Vianna had worked with every kind of bride that you can imagine. The indecisive bride, the loud bride, the timid bride, the weepy bride, the reluctant bride, and the runaway bride, but this bride, this bridezilla, seemed different. Even with all of her experience, Krissie Pumpernickle made her feel like she couldn’t do anything right. Even if she did everything Krissie asked for, down to the most minute detail. She was so critical it was painful to watch. Normally I’d refuse to work for such a horrible client, but Vianna begged me to take this job. I’m their florist because Vianna wanted the best, and because I owe her for my career. I couldn’t say no. Not even to a devil bride.”

  Devil bride. In the last four months dealing with Krissie’s wedding, I’d heard Krissie called a lot of names by so many vendors, but “devil bride” was a new one. Krissie was spoiled and difficult, but I didn’t think her faults went as far as to be devilish, most of the time, at least.

  “Now that Vianna is gone, you could quit this wedding if it’s so horrible,” I said, then wished that I’d kept my mouth shut. If Armin quit, I didn’t know what I would do about the ceremony and reception flowers.

  He looked up the street in the direction his assistant had fled earlier. “I don’t have much choice in the matter. I have a contract with the family to provide the flowers for the wedding. It’s binding. I can’t break that, as much as I want to.”

  That made sense. The Pumpernickles also had a contract with me to host the wedding at Barton Farm. They could break it, but they would lose their deposit. I wished they would, although after the visit from the elder Pumpernickles that morning, I knew that was never going to happen.

  Armin cleared his throat. “And I’m doing it for Vianna. Her last wedding needs to be a great success, in her memory. I don’t much care about the bride and groom, but I do care about Vianna’s reputation. I want her business to flourish.”

  As he said this, another thought struck me. “Who will own the business now? Who will run it now that she’s gone? Did she have a business partner?” I was surprised I hadn’t thought to ask this question before.

  The florist shook his head. “The wedding planning business was Vianna’s whole life. I can’t imagine who she would have left it to.”

  Maybe if I answered that question, I would also find the answer to the more pressing question of who killed her.

  “If I was going to guess who might get it, it would be Piper,” Armin said. “Vianna was molding her into the next big wedding planner.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. Benji had insisted that Piper was innocent, but if Piper got to take over Vianna’s very profitable business if Vianna were to die, would she kill for that? And there was the issue as to why Vianna would choose an intern to leave everything to. She had other employees; I’d met many of them over the course of planning the wedding.

  “Vianna didn’t have friends,” Armin went on. “I doubt she even considered me one. Her whole life was her work. She was a workaholic. It served her well. Look where it got her. She had a flourishing business, but now she’s gone. She can’t take the business with her.” He sighed. “I might have loved her, if she’d have let me, but she always made it very clear that our relationship was never going to go there. Vianna wanted business partners. That was all. She didn’t have time for anything else and didn’t seem to miss it. Her job was her life. For her, success seemed to be enough.”

  I shivered. If I was honest with myself, Vianna sounded a little like me in that way. I could be a workaholic. My friends and family kept me sane, though, and I had Chase.

  “Do you think she was happy?” I heard myself ask.

  Armin looked me in the eye. “Yes, I would say Vianna was happy. She created her own life and didn’t let anyone stand in her way. She was young, ambitious, and driven. If she’d lived, who knows how far she could have gone?”

  “Do you wish Vianna had given you a chance?” I knew it wasn’t a fair question, and one I had no right to ask.

  His wide-open face closed off. “What I wish doesn’t have any bearing on reality now, does it?” He removed another cigarette from his pocket and lit up. He blew a puff of smoke out of the side of his mouth and squinted at me. “What I don’t understand is your interest in all of this. You didn’t know Vianna, not like I did. Why do you care?”

  I straightened my shoulders. “She was young and she died too soon, and she died on my Farm. I can’t help but want to know what happened to her.”

  He nodded as if I’d passed some sort of test. “If you find out who did this, let me know, will you?”

  I didn’t reply, because by the stern expression on his face, I had a very bad feeling that if I told him who’d killed the woman he loved, I would become an accessory to another murder.

  Without saying goodbye, Armin turned and walked back into his building. When he was gone, the flock of sparrows returned and resumed pecking at sunflower seeds on the sidewalk. I stood there in front of the bright blue door, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d judged Vianna unfairly.

  After visiting the florist, I had more questions about Vianna and the people in her life, not less. I pulled my ever-present notebook out of the back pocket of my jeans and made a note of what I’d learned. It didn’t seem like much because the more I discovered about the wedding planner, the more I realized I’d known absolutely nothing about her while she was alive. I wished I could have known her better in life because in death she was revealing herself to be a person I might have liked.

  I sighed and headed to my car. As I moved, the sparrows took flight again.

  eighteen

  After leaving Coates Flowers, I had one more stop that I wanted to make before returning to the Farm. Krissie’s dress tailor was located in a fancy shopping plaza about ten minutes from the center of town. It was the kind of place that I didn’t go to often because I couldn’t afford the clothing in the nice boutiques, nor in my daily life did I have any reason to wear them.

  The shopping district was pedestrian-only. I parked in the lot to the right of it, and then walked along the faux-cobblestone sidewalk toward Tuxie Tailors. The bell over the door rang as I entered. There wasn’t anyone in the front room, but I could hear the whirl of a sewing machine deep in the recesses of the building.

  I glanced around and marveled at the stitching and workmanship on a dress draped over the dress form closest to me. I wished I could have Tuxie Tailors revamp our historical interpreters’ uniforms at the Farm, but I would never be able to afford it on my costume budget.

  The whir of the sewing machine stopped, and I stepped back from the dress form. A moment later, a rail-thin woman with frizzy hot pink hair stepped out from behind a curtain. She blinked at me from behind thick glasses. The frames were the same color as her hair. I assumed that had been planned. That color of pink didn’t happen by accident.

  She opened her arms. “Welcome to Tuxie’s. How can I help you?” Her voice came out airy, like she was speaking from a great height, or perhaps from another plane.

  “I’m Kelsey Cambridge. I just stopped by because I’ve been assisting with the Pumpernickle wedding, and—”

  “The Pumpernickle wedding,” the woman squealed. “You mean Krissie Pumpernickle’s wedding?”

  What else could it be? I wondered. If there was another New Hartford family with the surname Pumpernickle, that was most unfortunate. I nodded.

  She waved her hands as if she were shooing away a stray cat. “Then leave. I have nothing else to say to her. She has her dress now. What else can she want from me?”


  “I—I know that,” I said, deciding to play it straight with her since saying I was associated with Krissie had completely backfired. I should have expected that. “I just wanted to talk to you about the argument Krissie and Vianna Pine had in your shop yesterday.”

  The woman placed the back of her hand to her forehead as if she was afraid that she might faint.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, it was so horrible.” She sniffled. “It gives me the chills just remembering how it was.”

  “The argument, you mean?” I asked.

  “Argument,” she scoffed. “It was a full-on shouting match. Let me tell you … “ She made a sign of the cross. “That bride. She’s one of the worst, and I’ve been in this business for over thirty years.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  She blinked at me. “You agree?”

  I nodded. “Oh yeah. I’m the director of Barton Farm, and the wedding is to be on my Farm. I’ve been working with Krissie for months in preparation.” I didn’t add that Krissie was marrying my ex-husband. The woman didn’t need to know that.

  Her eyes brightened. “Oh, so you do know.”

  I nodded. I most certainly did. “You may have heard that Vianna has died.”

  She adjusted her pink glasses. “Of course. She dove from the steeple of Barton Farm’s church. If I were her and had to listen to Krissie yip in my ear day after day like a deranged Chihuahua, I might have considered a swan dive too.”

  I winced at the image. “She didn’t commit suicide. The police believe she was pushed.”

  The woman covered her mouth. “Oh my.”

  “And since it happened on Barton Farm, and I’m the director, I want to know what really happened and who is responsible for it. I’m sort of helping the police in their inquiry into Vianna’s death.”

  Lies, all lies, my conscience whispered to me. I pushed the good voice away.

  “I can understand that, honey,” the woman said with a nod. “I’m happy to help you then. People in the wedding business have to look out for each other, but before I’ll answer any questions, take off your shirt.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, thinking that I must have misheard her.

  “I said take off your shirt,” she said, as plain as could be.

  I gaped at her.

  She put her hands on her hips. “You have a hole in your shirt. If you think that I’m going to talk to someone in my tailor shop with a hole in their shirt, you have another thing coming.”

  I looked down at my Barton Farm polo. “I do?”

  She walked over to me and pointed to the tiniest of tiny holes on the seam on the left side. It had to be the size of a pinhead.

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” I said, thinking of the many Farm polos I had back at the cottage that were in much, much worse condition than this one.

  “Take it off,” she ordered, leaving no room for argument, and she went as far as grabbing the hem and trying to yank the shirt from my body.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, jerking myself away. “I’ll give you the shirt.” I took another step back and pulled the polo up over my head. Thankfully I had a tank top on underneath, so I wasn’t giving any pedestrians walking by a show.

  She took the shirt from my hand and headed back behind the curtain. I stood there. A second later, she poked her head back out. “Are you coming or what?”

  I followed her through the curtain. “Tuxie is your real name?”

  “It is now. I changed it,” she said, and sat at one of the four sewing machines in the room.

  “What did you change it from?”

  “No matter.” She picked up a spool of thread.

  Oh-kay. I glanced around the room, taking in my surroundings bit by bit. Tuxie’s workspace was a cacophony of color and pattern. A cluster of a half a dozen naked dress forms stood in one corner like a choir getting ready to perform. I found something about their pose unsettling and had to look away.

  In the middle of the room were two long tables with sewing machines. Tuxie sat at one of those tables and removed a sparkly dress from the machine, which was what she must have been working on before I arrived. She put my shirt in its place.

  She looked up at me with a needle bit between her lips. “What do you want to know?”

  “What did Krissie and Vianna fight about when they were here?” I asked.

  “Ahh,” she said. “Well, I don’t rightly know, but they were as mad as two wet hens when they were going at it, or I should say Krissie was. Vianna was calm as can be and had that sweet fake smile on her face that she always wore. I hated that smile.”

  I remembered that smile too, and I hadn’t been a fan of it either. “Did you catch some of what they said to each other?” I asked hopefully. “Maybe I can make some sense of it.”

  “Maybe you can. I couldn’t be sure.” Tuxie moved the needle to the other side of her mouth and turned my shirt inside out. “Krissie said that Vianna had to come through with the lights that she wanted. Vianna said that it wasn’t possible, that Barton Farm wouldn’t allow it.” She looked up at me. “I guess that means you.”

  I nodded.

  She smiled as if pleased that she’d made this connection. “Then Krissie said it was non-negotiable, and that the Farm came through with Abraham Lincoln, so it should be no trouble at all to get the lights. She seemed to think getting Lincoln was harder.” Her brow furrowed. “I’m pretty sure he’s been dead a long while.”

  “He has,” I said. It wasn’t the place or time to start explaining historical reenacting to Tuxie. If she ever ventured out to Barton Farm, I would be happy to do it. And, ugh. I’d forgotten about drunk Lincoln. Again. I feared that I had something of a mental block when it came to him. “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “Vianna again said it wasn’t possible. She said it was a liability and safety issue. Krissie didn’t much care for that, and that’s when she started yelling.” She took a breath. “She said she could ruin Vianna’s career if she didn’t get her the lights. Vianna didn’t seem too concerned about it, though, until Krissie said she’d tell the world Vianna’s secret.”

  My pulse quickened. “What secret?”

  Tuxie shook her head. “Don’t know. I had to kick them out at that point. Krissie was causing quite a scene. I had a couple of other customers in here at the time, and the arguing made them uncomfortable. I gave Krissie her dress and asked her and Vianna to leave.”

  Those other customers must have been the witnesses Detective Brandon alluded to.

  “So, Krissie threatened the reputation of Vianna’s business and then blackmailed her with some unknown secret,” I mused.

  “Looked like it to me.” Tuxie changed the thread on the machine to one that was an identical match to my blue polo shirt. Her fingers moved so deftly that I almost missed it. She ran the polo through the machine and then inspected her work. “As good as new,” she declared.

  “Thank you,” I said. I accepted the shirt from her outstretched hand and put it back on.

  She nodded and peered at me over her glasses. “It’s best to catch the holes and fix them before they become too big to handle. That’s always been my motto.”

  I realize that Tuxie’s motto could be applied to many things in life, including solving Vianna Pine’s murder.

  nineteen

  When I got back to the Farm, I saw a news van parked in front the visitor center. A thin woman in a raspberry-red suit spoke into a microphone in front of a cameraman dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. A knot formed in my stomach. They had to be here about the murder, but I suspected there was something more to it than that. The wedding planner’s death wasn’t the first to occur on Farm grounds, and I’d never had a news van pull up to the front door of the visitor center before.

  I parked my car in its usual spot, in the far corner of the parking
lot, and walked over to the woman. As I got closer, I saw that she wasn’t alone. My father, Roy Renard, was with her, recording a sound bite. His sandy but mostly gray hair was brushed back from his face, and he’d grown a beard, which was all but completely gray, for his Shakespearean acting gig. As usual, my father was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, or at least he would have been if it hadn’t been for the cape draped across his back, brushing the gravel parking lot. My father had a fondness for wearing his costumes outside of the theater.

  I groaned. Dad would do just about anything to be in front of a camera. And as much as I loved him, I didn’t want him to be the one representing the Farm in this instance.

  Laura, in her historical interpreter clothing and hair coiled at the nape of her neck, stood off to the side of the visitor center’s main entrance. She waved me over.

  I glanced at my father and felt like I was watching a train wreck in progress. After a moment of hesitation, I joined my best friend. “Tell me what’s going on, and as quickly as possible.”

  “Well,” she began slowly, drawing out the word for maximum effect.

  “Laura,” I said sharply. “There’s a newscaster in the Farm’s parking lot with a microphone in my father’s face. I don’t have time for the long version.”

  She took a deep breath, but before she could tell me what on earth was happening, I heard my father say, “My daughter, Kelsey Renard Cambridge, who is the director of Barton Farm, is right over there. You should talk to her about this.”

  At my side, Laura said, “Uh oh.”

  In my head, I thought of an exclamation that was a tad more severe.

  The raspberry-suited reporter made a beeline for me. Her camera guy jogged in her wake. “Keep filming,” she said to him over her shoulder.