A Groom With a View jj-11

by Jill Churchill

  “I think it's time for us to go to bed," Shelley said.

  “Absolutely," Jane said. She didn't want to be around when Jack's pals had left and the man had the leisure to let fly with his obvious outrage. "You don't need us for anything, do you?" she said to Mel in passing.

  “Nope," he said.

  Jane and Shelley fled to the relative safety of their adjoining rooms. "I wish there were locks on these doors," Shelley said, trying to shove a chair under the doorknob of her room. The chair was too short to be an effective wedge.

  “You don't really think we're in danger of being murdered in our beds, do you?" Jane asked nervously.

  “No, we don't know anything that's a threat to anyone, but I'd feel better if we were locked in."

  “How do you know we're not a threat?" Jane asked. "We don't even know how Mrs. Crossthwait was a threat to somebody and we know a lot more about these people than she did."

  “But we don't really know that, Jane. She could have had a long-buried history with someone in the family. Keep in mind about Marguerite and the wedding dress. Mrs. Crossthwait's story was true and Marguerite made much of not knowing her. She might have just forgotten because Mrs. Crossthwait was nothing but a minion, or shemight have been in a full-fledged panic at running into her again after so long.”

  Shelley paused, thinking, then went on, "And for that matter, we aren't certain that she was killed because of something she knew. Maybe she just annoyed someone seriously unstable to the breaking point. Or reminded somebody of someone they loathed.”

  Jane went to her room and put on her nightgown. She was nervous about the final day of the wedding, which was looming only hours away. And she was sick to death of speculating about Mrs. Crossthwait's death. But it was like a hangnail on a grand and tragic scale. She couldn't make herself stop wondering and worrying about it and trying to pick at it. When she'd combed out her hair and brushed her teeth, she went into Shelley's room and perched on the end of the bed.

  “We've been involved in murders before," she told Shelley, rather unnecessarily. "And we've figured them out. There were always suspects with good motives. But we've yet to come up with any motive for why someone would kill Mrs. Crossthwait. It's driving me slightly mad.”

  Shelley put down the paperback book she'd been pretending to read. "You're right. We've come up with dozens of rather stunningly stupid possibilities with absolutely nothing to back them up. You know what's troubling me the most?"

  “What?"

  “Whether there's some connection between the death of the seamstress and the trashing of Dwayne's room. I can't convince myself there's not a connection of some kind, but I simply cannot imagine what it could be. The first crime was so violent and final and the second was so trivial. It should have gone the other way, if you see what I mean."

  “I think I do, but it was probably two different people with entirely different motives."

  “I know it looks like that. But I have this strong gut feeling that they are related somehow," Shelley said. "I just can't formulate any reason why they should be.”

  Jane was quiet for a long moment. "The only thing the victims had in common, that we know of, is the wedding itself. Dwayne's role in it is obviously important, as the groom. Mrs. Crossthwait's was relatively minor. She was just making the dresses and they got finished even though she died. If there's a connection there, the crimes should have been the opposite way around."

  “Right. If the point was to get rid of Dwayne and stop the wedding, he would have been the murder victim and the dresses might have been damaged or torn up as a little extra warning. Jane, it just doesn't make any kind of sense."

  “It made sense to someone," Jane said. "Or to a couple of someones. Shelley, all I want is to get this wedding over with and go home. I'm considering making a sacred vow to never even attend another wedding the rest of my life.”

  Shelley grinned. "Be careful of those sacred vows. You've got three kids to marry off." Jane put her head in her hands and groaned.

  She was really trying desperately to get to sleep. And the harder she tried, the more wide awake she became. Two o'clock, Jane thought. I have to get up in four and a half hours. Then she worried that she would fall asleep so soundly she'd oversleep. She imagined the people coming to set up the tables, chairs, and linens and, without her guidance, getting everything all wrong. And what if Mr. Willis died in the night? Or Larkspur decided to suddenly move to Brazil instead of doing the flowers? Or the bridesmaids came down with malaria? Or Jack Thatcher decided the wedding was off? Finally, she fell into a light doze, dreaming of Larkspur in the jungle, giving medications to Kitty with a long, pointy flower. Kitty was lying on a sort of bier constructed of all her many pieces of luggage and swathed in yards of pink silk.

  This dream was interrupted by footsteps in the hall. A man's footsteps, she thought. Should she get up and look? No. It was none of her business. She didn't care if some idiot chose to waste a good night's sleep. Then she heard Shelley stirring and the squeak of a floorboard.

  Jane hopped out of bed. "Who went by?" she whispered into the darkness.

  “I don't know.”

  There was a thin shaft of moonlight coming in the tiny window. Shelley was standing behind her door to the hall and holding her kerosene lantern over her head, ready to bash the skull of anyone who entered the room.

  “Do you hear that?" Jane whispered. "A moaning sound."

  “It's just the wind. This is a replay of last night," Shelley hissed.

  “Look out the window. There's not a breath of wind."

  “What should we do?" Shelley asked. "Nothing?" Jane suggested.

  “Somebody's moaning. Maybe they're hurt. Let's wake Mel up and make him check it out," Shelley said. "Where did you put him?"

  “Two doors down. No, that's a bathroom door that's closed off. I think he's three doors down.”

  Shelley lit the kerosene lamp, very slowly and quietly opened the door, and stuck the lamp out into the hallway, in hopes of driving out anyone who might be lurking. She waited a moment, then peeked out. "Nobody in the hall," she said.

  Jane clung to the back of Shelley's robe and they minced down the hall, the kerosene lamp casting eerie, jumpy shadows. Jane tapped lightly at Mel's door. There was no response. She tapped again, a little harder. Still no reaction. She took the lamp from Shelley and opened the door.

  “There's nobody here," she said, peering inside the tiny room.

  “You're sure?"

  “Not unless he's curled up under the bed or hiding in the wardrobe.”

  “Check to make sure," Shelley said.

  “Shelley! That's dumb!”

  They heard the moaning again and clung to each other. Jane cocked her head, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from, but before she could determine anything, the door from the hallway to the main room creaked open. They were at the far end of the hall and could barely discern an amorphous gray shape, crouching in the doorway.

  Shelley clutched Jane's arm so hard that Jane was sure she'd have permanent dents in her flesh.

  “What the hell is that?" Shelley's whisper was so high-pitched that Jane half expected bats to appear to see who was talking to them.

  “I hate to say it, but it looks to me like a ghost. A sort of dirty ghost," Jane said.

  Shelley drew a deep breath, disengaged herself from her death grip on Jane, and suddenly strode forward, holding the lamp high above her head. "Get out of here!" she shouted at the apparition.

  For good measure, she stamped her foot.

  The figure whirled, clutched at its own chest, then yanked the door back open and fled.

  “Wow!" Jane said. "Just like Ghostbusters!”

  Two doors along the hallway were opened an inch or two. Jane was so disoriented she couldn't tell whose doors they were. And she was further distracted by the sound of a crash in the main room, and a shrill scream. Another bedroom door opened.

  Jane and Shelley stared at each other
for a long moment, silently debating whether to hide in their rooms or investigate. Naturally, they headed for the main room. As they approached the entrance, the door opened again. They drew back, thinking the ghost had changed its mind. But it was Mel who appeared in the doorway.

  “Nothing to worry about," he said cheerfully. "Everybody just go back to bed.”

  Several doors closed quietly. He pointed to one that hadn't and it slammed shut.

  “What on earth—" Jane began.

  “Just some folks playing silly ass," he said. "You two are going to be comatose in the morning if you don't get some sleep."

  “So are you," Jane snapped.

  “Yes, but I have no responsibilities here. You do.”

  Jane was too tired to argue. She and Shelley found their rooms and Jane toppled into bed like a felled tree and was sound asleep before she could even wonder who the silly asses had been.

  Seventeen …·,

  Jane was up at seven in the morning, not really.awake, but vertical and dressed, which was the best she could manage. Although, as Shelley pointed out, she had her shirt on inside out. The struggle to get the sleeves turned right side out seemed almost insurmountable.

  “Did I dream that ghostly figure last night?" Jane asked, fumbling at her buttons and wondering why her thumbs didn't seem to be working right.

  “If so, it was a mutual dream."

  “You were terrific," Jane said. "Just telling it to scat!"

  “I was, wasn't I? What was Mel doing… roaming around in the middle of the night?"

  “I don't know what anybody was doing. Are you ready for breakfast?”

  Jane gathered her notebooks once again and the two of them headed for the kitchen, where Mr. Willis, chirpy as a chickadee, was just getting some freshly baked croissants out of the oven.

  “Are we the first?" Jane asked.

  He nodded as he set out a plate of the croissants as well as butter, cream cheese, and honey. Jane would normally have fallen on this feast like a starving barbarian, but today she was too preoccupied and only poured herself a cup of coffee. "The table and chair people are supposed to be here at nine. I wonder if I should call them."

  “Jane, if they're coming at nine, they're already on their way. Don't fret. Eat. You need your strength.”

  Jane couldn't face food yet, and merely sat sipping her coffee and running down her mental list of what still remained to be done.

  Iva and Marguerite came staggering into the kitchen, looking as tired as Jane felt. Iva had done something weird with her maroon wig, pulling some of the hair (if indeed it were hair, not polyester) down from the crown to form a sort of Veronica Lake sweep of bangs. It was extremely unattractive and as Iva sat down to eat, she kept fussing and pulling at it.

  Jane was fascinated and kept staring at the older woman. When Mr. Willis asked Iva if she wanted straight coffee or decaf, Iva turned slightly to reply.

  “Is there something wrong with your left eye?" Jane asked.

  “No! What a rude personal remark!" Iva snapped.

  “Sorry, but it looks like—"

  “Mind your own business," Iva said, tugging at the bangs again.

  The area around her left eye was heavily made up and it looked as if she'd used a good half a stick of blemish concealer above and below the eye. There was so much that it was caking. No wonder she was trying to hide it with her fake hair.

  One of the local ladies who was helping Mr. Willis turned from where she was standing at the counter, rolling croissants, and said, "Oh, honey, you need to put some witch hazel on that. It'll take the swelling right down. And I'll make you up a nice little ice pack.”

  Iva flung her croissant on her plate and got up and walked out.

  “Well! I never—" the helper exclaimed. "What's wrong with your sister's eye?" Jane asked Marguerite.

  “It's nothing. Nothing. She just ran into a chair."

  “You're sure it wasn't a door?" Shelley asked wryly.

  “No, she tripped getting into bed and fell against the chair," Marguerite said. "The back of the chair, the upright bit, hit her in the eye. It was just a freak accident. Nothing to worry about.”

  Marguerite sounded like a carefully rehearsed parrot.

  “Lucky she didn't put her eye out," the helper said cheerfully, apparently believing the story. "I had a cousin got hit in the eye with the top end of a hoe. Never could see out of it again.”

  Nobody knew how to respond to this and a silence fell over the group.

  “I think I better call the table and chair people," Jane said, having lost interest in Iva and still obsessing about her schedule.

  As she left the room, she met Dwayne coming in. He looked as fresh and cheerful as new paint. "It's the big day," he said. Apparently he'd gone all "groomish" and forgotten about his room being trashed and holding Jane to blame.

  “It is, indeed," Jane said.

  “What was all that noise last night?" he asked. "People tromping up and down the hall at all hours."

  “I don't really know," Jane said honestly. "I think there might have been a ghost at large.”

  He looked at her for a moment as if she'd lost her mind, then laughed. "Oh, I get it. A joke."

  “Right," Jane said, trying to assemble a smile.

  There was, naturally, no answer at the chair and table place. Jane told herself briskly that she shouldn't worry. It was too early for the secretary to be in the office and the truck was surely well on its way by now anyway. Still, she had visions of the truck sprawled on its side on a highway shoulder, tables and chairs scattered far and wide in the mud, perhaps a few curious cows browsing through the wreckage.

  When she returned to the kitchen, the crowd had swelled. Marguerite had left, but Kitty, Eden,and Livvy had joined Shelley and Dwayne at the big table. Livvy looked wan and drained. She obviously hadn't gotten much sleep and was going to need some of Iva's concealer to cover the faint blue circles under her eyes. But as always, she was well put together in her rather starchy white blouse, black skirt, and stylish gray striped silk scarf as a belt. Jane suspected Livvy was probably even wearing panty hose.

  Livvy smiled wanly at Jane. "Everything in order?" she asked politely.

  “As far as I know," Jane said as confidently as she could manage. She hoped Livvy just wasn't a morning person and would perk up a whole lot as the day went on. Brides really shouldn't look like they needed to go back to bed — alone.

  Dwayne was watching Livvy with concern, too. And Kitty looked upset as well, glancing back and forth between the two of them as she picked nervously at her breakfast. This annoyed Jane. Bridesmaids were supposed to rally around the bride, petting and encouraging them. Instead, Kitty looked like she herself were about to go to pieces. Jane thought of brisk, refreshing slaps that were sometimes delivered in movies to shape somebody up. Too bad it wasn't acceptable in real life.

  Eden was another matter entirely. She'd come down in what might well have been her sleeping garments, an enormously oversized electric blue t-shirt with a Tweetie Bird logo on the front and baggy matching sweatpants. Her hair was un‑ combed and she looked tousled and sexy and was clearly the most cheerful person in the room. She was humming "Here Comes the Bride" as she tucked into her food and giving Livvy big, encouraging smiles.

  Uncle Joe wandered through to pick up a free meal. He piled a plate high with croissants and a quarter of a stick of butter and then, to Jane's astonishment, he gave Livvy an affectionate little pat on the shoulder as he left. Livvy turned and smiled at him.

  Jane couldn't believe Uncle Joe harbored a secret liking for anybody in the family. She wouldn't have thought he'd much more than barely noticed Livvy's existence, and yet the pat on the shoulder was clearly supportive. Could it be Uncle Joe who disapproved of Livvy's marriage to Dwayne? Might he have been the one who wrecked Dwayne's room in some hopeless attempt to make him feel unwelcome and possibly even drive him away?

  And if that were true, was he also responsible for Mrs.
Crossthwait's death? Or were she and Shelley wrong in thinking the two events were connected in any way? Uncle Joe had certainly been annoyed with Mrs. Crossthwait, but then he'd been annoyed with everyone. And Mel hadn't mentioned any sort of old or recent relationship between them after his gossip with the local law enforcement guys.

  Still brooding over this, Jane finally got around to eating a croissant. That and another cup of hot,strong coffee would certainly get her brain cells to all wake up. She hoped.

  The table and chair people arrived right on time and set about efficiently and quietly moving all the main room furniture back against the walls. They put the furniture in pleasant and attractive groupings, rather than letting it look like it was just shoved out of the way. Jane was impressed. She'd feared the room would end up looking like a warehouse.

  The ivory folding chairs were set in tidy rows and really brightened the room. So did Larkspur's efforts. Since the bride and groom would be facing the audience, he arranged what he called a "frame" for them of flowers. Two very pretty potted willows to the side and a mass of hothouse tuberoses, white delphiniums, and tall pink cosmos in vases in front of the little trees. The wide stairway had a pot of pink tulips matching the bride's bouquet at the end of every other tread. Jane hadn't liked this idea when he proposed it because she was afraid the bride's skirt would brush against the pots and she'd arrive with dirt all over her. But the stairs were broad enough that Livvy would have to go well out of her way to kick the pots over. The flowers scented the musty room and looked lovely.

  “For the first time, I feel this is actually going to work," Jane said as Shelley joined her in watching the transformation.

  “I hate to say this, after all the jokes I've made, but it really looks grand," Shelley admitted. "Either Jack or Livvy must have sensed that this dismal old place could be made beautiful. Who'd have thought?”

  Jane went to clean up, knowing the next few minutes would probably be her only free time. When she came out of her room in her lilac suit with the long flowered scarf, clean, curled hair, and a fast but pretty good makeup job, she ran into Mel in the hall. He was just coming out of his room.