MURDER at the ALTAR (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 3)

by Jeanine Spooner

  “Of course,” said Kitty.

  As soon as Gretchen saw Marcus she bounded over and gave him a big hug, urged him back—her eyes pained with anxiety—and asked in a horrified whisper, “Does it feel religious in here? Jewish?”

  Kitty wasn’t sure how Gretchen had made the leap from Christian to Jewish, but tried to mind her own business as she set the hot teakettle on the silver tray.

  “Darling, this room couldn’t be more agnostic!” he said, and then shot Kitty a sly wink, which helped her sigh with relief.

  “Oh, thank God,” Gretchen exclaimed, then broke out into satisfied laughter.

  “See, my love?” said David, stepping up beside his fiancée. “I told you it was perfect. Wonderful job, Kitty!” he called out.

  She smiled humbly but thought I was this close to losing it.

  Suddenly, Marcus exploded with ideas, as he plucked a bag of Earl Grey, threw it in a teacup, and poured water.

  “The sun will set through those windows on the west side,” he explained. “And will cast the most gorgeous shades of pink and orange through the room, lighting you, Gretchen.” He rushed to the roundel. “You’ll stand here, Darling. See how the light is hitting my face?”

  “I see it!”

  Kitty tried not to roll her eyes. She’d made the very same points to the bride and hadn't received half the enthusiasm.

  “And David, you’ll be here, darkly masculine, backlit, like a superhero! And I’ll stand here!” Marcus hopped to the head of the altar. “I’ll pronounce you man and wife! Hundreds of guests will look on, crying in joy, flying into uproarious applause!”

  “They will!” exclaimed Gretchen who was all but jumping up and down.

  “It will be the wedding of the century! The wedding to end all weddings! The most luxurious wedding Greenwich, Connecticut has ever seen!” Marcus’ arms were stretched out, as he gazed toward the heavens, milking the demonstration for all it was worth. Then he snapped his eyes forward, beaming at the room at large, and punctuated his performance by taking a hearty gulp of Earl Grey.

  “Delicious,” he noted, lowering the teacup and stepping back until he was met with warm glass. “I’m ecstatic. I don’t know how I’ll sleep this week.”

  Kitty didn’t know either. The man seemed hopped up on caffeine. His eyes were wild and his gelled coif seemed to be standing on end.

  Then, without warning, the teacup fell from his left hand and shattered against the marble floor as he gripped his chest in a full-body grimace.

  “Marcus!” Gretchen rushed to him, as he quaked and dropped to his knees. “Call an ambulance!”

  Kitty almost didn’t register the order, but snapped to it when Marcus’ eyes rolled up into the back of his head. He gasped then toppled over. Gretchen shrieked. David evoked God’s help, yelling nonsense, and the Cartwrights and Downeys held each other in a huddle of horrified confusion.

  Once Kitty demanded an ambulance and recited the address, she ran to Marcus Joseph and placed her fingers on the side of his throat where his pulse should’ve been.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  She looked up at Gretchen then David, as she removed her fingers.

  “He’s dead.”

  Chapter Two

  Gretchen was inconsolable. Seated in one of the sitting rooms and trembling like a dying bird, the soon-to-be bride cried and rocked and at times honked her nose into a tissue, as David attempted to hold her still and get her to hush. Every time a police officer in the ballroom across the hall shouted, Gretchen flinched and hushed and nearly jumped to her feet, but her fiancé anchored her down, rubbing her shoulder and whispering soothing reassurances.

  Confusion didn’t begin to describe how completely the Downey’s world had been turned upside down by Marcus’ abrupt and unexpected death. Roberta stood in a catatonic daze near the window, while Cliff stood still, staring at the floor with such intensity in his squinting eyes that Kitty wondered if he’d burn a hole through the marble.

  The Cartwrights were no better, though Marcus’ hadn’t been a close family friend of theirs like he had the Downeys. David’s mother, Elizabeth focused her attention on the wailing bride, though there was nothing calming about Gretchen’s hysterics. In fact, Elizabeth appeared somewhat horrified by her, but like driving by a train wreck, she couldn’t divert her gaze. Her tightly permed, graying hair hugged her scalp like a swimmer’s cap, and seemed in matronly contrast to her otherwise stylish sense of dress, though the Chanel skirt suit seemed the exact same shade.

  Kip Cartwright consoled her not one bit, perhaps because at first blush she didn’t appear to need it. Instead, he hovered in the hallway, making it his business to spy on the police officers as they did their job. Curiosity it could have been, but Kitty felt like he was keeping an eye on things…and for a reason. But what?

  After two murders at two weddings in the last two months, Kitty couldn’t help but speculate and analyze every last detail, or that was her inclination. This was why she’d quarantined herself to the sitting room just as the families had been. She’d made herself sit in a plush, pink armchair set in the corner of the room at an attractive angle between two potted ficuses. Her hands were folded and resting on her crossed legs. She wasn’t holding herself together like Gretchen. She was holding herself back. Reminding herself, no, begging herself not to be a nosey busybody. The police were doing their job. She had no reason to assume Marcus had died from anything except natural causes.

  But he was barely thirty-five, lean and fit and full of energy. What natural phenomenon could’ve possibly caused this?

  She stopped herself before her inquisitive mind could launch into wild speculation. Besides, Sterling hadn’t shown up. No homicide had taken place. If that were what this had been, then surely he’d come barging through and take command of the officers.

  “What about Christopher Marlowe?” Kip asked with an air of optimism, as he milled back into the sitting room.

  Gretchen studied him, drawing a blank, and David immediately glared at his father for the suggestion.

  “Who’s Christopher Marlowe?” Roberta asked when the room had fallen into bewilderment.

  “He’s ordained,” Kip supplied easily.

  Offended, Gretchen’s mouth fell open. “With all due respect, I will not sit here while you replace Marcus! He’s irreplaceable!”

  Kip smirked to counter, but seemed to choose his words carefully. “He’s replaceable, quite literally. I’m not the bad guy here, but you need someone to officiate. Am I wrong?”

  He directed the question to Kitty, putting her on the spot to agree with him and upset Gretchen or side with Gretchen and discredit him, and she didn’t particularly want to do either.

  “All in good time,” she said with a mournful smile. It was just vague enough to dispel tension and lead both to assume she was in their corner. Rising to her feet so as not to fall prey to anymore side-taking she announced, “I’m going to check on things.”

  “Is this Christopher person you know non-denominational at least?” She heard Gretchen ask her soon-to-be father-in-law, as Kitty padded across the hall. It seemed a promising question, but if Kip wanted his friend Christopher Marlowe to officiate the ceremony, he had his work cut out for him. He’d have to bring Gretchen fifty Christopher’s before she’d be happy and decide. Good luck with that.

  Kitty rounded the doorway into the ballroom and what she saw next took her breath away. Sterling was kneeling beside the deceased Marcus Joseph and was using a pencil to lift a fragment of the shattered teacup, its handle to be precise, off the marble so that he could drop it into a plastic evidence bag.

  Suddenly, her heart was in her throat, pounding and racing and causing her a wave of dizziness. Not again, she thought, this can’t be happening again.

  Soon she was seeing stars and reached out for the glass wall, but it wasn’t there.

  “Kitty!” Sterling shoved the evidence bag against the nearest police officer and rushed to her just as her l
egs began to liquefy and her knees buckled.

  “I’m fine,” she said, as the room came back into focus and she fought the strength back into her legs. “Really.”

  “I told the officers to keep you in the room across the hall,” he said discreetly, holding her up by her arm.

  Kitty wondered if he’d instructed his team to do as an act of kindness, or selfishness. She wasn’t that nosey, was she?

  “I know how you take things personally,” he went on, but it rubbed her the wrong way.

  “Take things personally?”

  “No, I mean I don’t want you to take it personally…this death. It has nothing to do with you,” he stuttered, digging the hole deeper.

  “Why would it have anything to do with me?” she snapped.

  “You know, along with the other murders...” Sterling hesitated to make things worse by talking, and then went ahead anyway. “Trudy told me you took it hard last time.”

  “Oh, please,” she snorted, brushing the truth out of the equation, then quickly changed her tune. “I’m going to get a bad reputation. Tell me this wasn’t foul play. Tell me you’re only here as a precaution.”

  Sterling held his breath and his words, but his eyes said the rest.

  “Seriously?” she asked in disbelief. “How? Why? What happened?”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out,” he said. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “I can’t sit with those people,” she pleaded. “And I can’t leave according to the police officers.”

  “Why don’t you get some air?”

  “What’ll that do?”

  “Kitty,” he said, firmly. “You can’t be here.”

  His eyes leveled into a dark, steely glare devoid of sympathy, and Kitty felt the totality of every line she’d ever crossed with him. What had started as a coy flirtation every time she’d meddled in his investigations would not be appreciated this time around. And because of it, she felt suddenly disconnected from him. He wasn’t looking at her as though she were someone he’d gotten to know and gone to bed with. He was looking at her like a stranger. No, worse, like a suspect.

  “Ok,” she managed to say, but it was only a breath.

  “I’ll see you tonight at eight,” he said softly.

  “Won’t I see you again and again for however many hours we’re trapped here?” she asked, confused by his dismissal.

  “Kitty. I’ll see you at the restaurant.”

  Sterling turned and started through the ballroom, returning to the body.

  One step forward and ten steps back it seemed. There was just no getting inside that heart of his.

  As she watched him get back to work, Kitty noticed he and the bulk of police officers focused on both the shattered teacup and the silver tray of tea bags. They were depositing each individual tea bag into its own evidence bag, cataloguing as they went. They didn’t bother with the unused teacups or coffee mugs. They didn’t so much as look at the coffee carafe. Just the tea.

  She felt eyes on her and realized Sterling was staring at her, his way of pushing her out the door, so she feigned an apologetic smile and left, crossing the hall and joining the Downeys and Cartwrights in the sitting room.

  “She’s exhausted,” said David. “How much longer do we have to be here?”

  “It’s not up to me,” Kitty said on a sigh. “I really don’t know.”

  She looked from face to face, assessing everyone’s overall state, color (whether they were pallid or rosy), breathing (whether relaxed or short and shallow), and finally their posture—her attempt to discern whether or not they were energetic or fatigued.

  Gretchen looked on the brink of death, but Kitty assumed that was because she’d balled her eyes out.

  “Gretchen, did you have any tea?”

  “Chamomile,” she said on a sniffle. “But barely a sip.”

  “Hmm,” said Kitty, gaze darting to Roberta who looked nearly as ragged.

  “Mrs. Downey, did you have any tea?”

  “Peppermint,” she stated. “Why?”

  “Just curious,” said Kitty, who hadn’t had any tea. “How much did you drink?”

  “I’m not sure. The police took my teacup.”

  “Would it be safe to say you hadn’t finished it?”

  “I hadn’t even had a quarter of it. Why? Why are you asking us this?”

  Suddenly all eyes were on Kitty, and Sterling’s perpetual warning not to meddle reared its self-righteous head. What had she gotten herself into? They were staring at her with such concern; she could almost see the dark thoughts rising up in their minds.

  “Oh, pay me no mind,” she said, laughing it off. “Just thinking about what the guests might want at the reception.”

  Gretchen stared daggers at her. “At a time like this?”

  “Excuse me,” said Kitty, fleeing from scrutiny as quickly as she tore up the hall.

  When she reached the kitchen, she threw the glass cupboard open where she’d taken the tea from. There were still a number of boxes left, though those that she’d selected for the bride and groom’s families were still on the silver tray in the ballroom—if not bagged and catalogued as evidence.

  Pulling down box after box until she’d cleared the shelf, Kitty made quick work of rifling through the mounds of tea bags inside. Each was unsheathed—no plastic packaging—exposed to the elements, but they didn’t look out of the ordinary. It was then that her gaze landed on the shelf she’d just emptied.

  Dark grains rested in a scattered pile.

  She paused.

  Only Marcus Joseph had downed all of his tea.

  She lifted a single bag of black tea from its box and inspected it more closely.

  That’s when she found it—a single dark grain.

  “Kitty Sinclair!” She heard one of the officers shout from up the hallway. “I’ll take your statement now!”

  Thinking fast, Kitty tore through all the kitchen drawers until she found a Ziploc bag.

  “Coming!”

  She was quick to swipe the dark grains from the shelf into the bag, tighten its lock strip, and hide her findings in her sundress pocket.

  If Sterling thought he was going to turn a cold shoulder on her and keep mum, she’d find out what happened to Marcus Joseph on her own.

  No one knew how to save a wedding like Kitty Sinclair.

  Chapter Three

  Observing Sterling from afar all afternoon had put her on edge. It wasn’t the way he worked the crime scene that had unnerved her, but his ability to ignore her entirely for hours on end. Several times he’d entered the sitting room where she’d been waiting with the Downeys and Cartwrights, and each time their eyes never met. When he’d spoken with Gretchen, she’d remained on the sitting-room couch. Kitty had been not four feet away and within Sterling’s line of sight, and he maintained zero eye contact throughout. It’s not that Kitty needed acknowledgment, not in the moment anyway. She’d held her own and did what she could to keep the families in good spirits considering the bizarre circumstance, but as she approached La Luna in time for her eight o’clock date, she realized the events of the day were now impacting her strangely. She felt awkward about meeting Sterling. She couldn’t take the cold shoulder any longer.

  Kitty stepped into the Mexican restaurant. She scanned the tables, as she approached the hostess stand, but it was too crowded to pick Sterling out of the fray.

  “I’m meeting someone,” she told the hostess, hoping he’d see her and come over.

  “Do you know if there’s a reservation?” The hostess was ready with the reservation book.

  “Slaughter?”

  “Hmm, no I don’t have it,” she said. “You’re welcome to take a look around.”

  Kitty scanned the restaurant one last time and felt certain he wasn’t there.

  “I’ll take a table for two. When Sterling Slaughter gets here, could you send him over?”

  “Of course,” said the hostess, gathering two menus and a cocktail list.
“Right this way.”

  The restaurant was spacious yet nearly every table was occupied. The hostess invited her to sit at a square table nestled between two tall, potted cacti. As Kitty lowered into the chair that faced the entrance, the hostess asked if she’d like the La Luna Margarita. Not quite grasping the question since Sterling and dark grains were on her mind, Kitty merely smiled and gave the hostess a quick nod.

  Kitty debated visiting the ladies room to give herself the once over. She hadn’t had time to stop off at home once she’d been released from the mansion. She’d barely had time to swing by Happily Ever After and file the contract for the mansion and make all the subsequent arrangements with the caterer and florist, informing them of the wedding location and getting all her ducks in a row. But she was apprehensive about leaving the table.

  A waiter appeared and set her Margarita on the table, which she stared at, alarmed. The thing was the size of a birdbath, bright green with an assortment of plastic flamingos, monkeys, and twisty straws shooting out of it. If she slouched she wouldn’t be able to see over the top of it and know when Sterling arrived.

  “Hiding?” he asked, stalking toward the table as a grin spread across his rugged face.

  “I had no idea it’d be this big,” she said, marginally embarrassed. “You’ll have to drink it with me.”

  Sterling pulled out his chair and sat then inched the Margarita goblet to the inner side of the table so that it was equidistant.

  “So,” Kitty began awkwardly. “How was your day?”

  His brows drifted up and his smile turned peculiar.

  “Same old.”

  He plucked one of the straws and angled it to his mouth so Kitty took up the other and drank with him. As she did, she became suddenly paranoid, unsure if he was sipping because he was a fan of the cocktail, or as a means to avoid any discussion about what had transpired back at the mansion.

  “Look,” she said, dropping her tone to a serious level. “You know I’m going to ask you what’s going on...”

  Sterling swallowed, leaning back in his chair and planting both hands on his thighs, and then eyed her. Ok, so he wasn’t going to make this easy.