Death Takes a Honeymoon

by Deborah Donnelly

  Even her navel was cute, and who has a cute navel? Her eye makeup was light but skillful, and her hair, her gorgeous red hair, hung in a thick braid between smoothly muscled shoulders. Even in youth, Sam Kane’s scarecrow physique could have been nothing like this. Tracy got her fair coloring from her mother, but where she got her long, languid beauty was a mystery.

  I, on the other hand, felt like a train wreck. “I said to drop by?”

  “Of course you did! Oh, it’s marvelous to see you,” said the sitcom star. She had acquired a trick of widening her pale blue eyes in feigned innocence as she emphasized certain words. The effect, both comic and sexy, was quite charming— or at least it would be to someone not screamingly hung over. “You don’t look very well, though. I won’t hug you; I can’t afford to catch anything.”

  “I’m fine. Just feeling the effects of last night.”

  “You don’t still drink alcohol, do you? Can’t you see what it’s doing to your complexion?” Tracy tilted her lovely chin to chug from the bottle. “I told John I’ll hold a glass of champagne at the wedding, just for the video, but I’m certainly not going to drink it.”

  “John?”

  “She means Jack,” B.J. explained helpfully. She was stuffing various items into a canvas tote bag. “I guess the notorious Knack is reinventing himself, huh, Muffy?”

  “He prefers John,” she insisted. For an actress, she didn’t lie all that well. “And I prefer Tracy. Your bathroom is down this way?”

  “First door on the left.” B.J. hefted the bag, which read “Gardeners Do It Dirty” in faded letters. “Well, I’m off to work. You two have fun talking weddings.”

  “I thought you didn’t have to work today,” I said, following her to the front door. “You’re deserting me.”

  “You bet I am. I went to the bridal shower last week, now it’s your turn to play audience.” Her nose wrinkled. “I’m still fond of her, for old times’ sake, but she can be a pain in the ass. Here’s a key for you. Call me later, OK?”

  “OK.” I closed the door and tried to gather my wits. What exactly did I agree to last night? And did I say anything dopey to Jack?

  I hadn’t gathered all that many wits when Tracy sailed back into the room. She paused fleetingly, as if for the camera to find her, then drew me onto an overstuffed couch. I flicked a glance at her left hand, where a cushion-cut diamond, three carats at least, sparkled from a platinum band.

  “Alone at last!” The bride laughed an adorable laugh. “I still love B.J. to death, for old times’ sake, but she can be—”

  “A pain in the ass?” I offered.

  She blinked. “Well, yes. But I won’t tell her you said so.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. It is just so sweet of you to help me and John like this.”

  “You probably don’t need much help at this point,” I ventured. “I mean, you already have Beau Paliere and his—”

  “But I don’t have him, that’s the problem!” She twitched her head in irritation. “He brings you flowers and kisses your hand and practically makes love to you, and then when it’s showtime, he sends some snotty underling to take over! It’s ridiculous, like a P.A. trying to be a show runner.”

  “Want to translate that?”

  “P.A.’s are production assistants,” she said kindly, indulging my ignorance. “The show runner is what ordinary people would call an executive producer.”

  Ordinary people? I bit back an irate comment. I liked being ordinary. “So who did Beau send, and why isn’t he here himself?”

  She related the tragic tale. Beautiful Beau was pinned down in Venice by a crisis that concerned the daughter of the Italian finance minister and the closing of various canals for her waterborne bridal procession. So he’d dispatched one of his “Girls,” Shara Mortimer, to Sun Valley in his stead. This woman was a witch, a vampire, a monstrous control freak who was thwarting both the bride and her mother at every turn.

  “She contradicts everything!” Tracy wailed. “I changed my mind about the tiniest detail, white roses instead of red in the chair garlands, and she just refused! I mean, who’s in charge here?”

  “Your ceremony is outdoors?”

  “Yes. So?”

  Ah-ha. I began to feel some camaraderie with Ms. Mortimer.

  “Tracy, there’s a heat wave going on. White roses wilt in the heat, they turn brown and ugly. Your new wedding planner is only—”

  “But you’re my new wedding planner! Cissy is just thrilled.” I couldn’t imagine calling my own mother by her first name, but Cissy Kane, ever girlish, insisted on it. “I don’t care if this Mortimer person wants to stick around, as long as you’ll be here to keep her in line.”

  “Um, that’s not quite the situation. Your contract is with Beau Paliere, I can’t just barge in—”

  “Whatever.” Tracy bounced to her feet and began to jog in place. “We’ll figure it out at lunch. Are you sure you want to wear that? I’m going to change when we get there.”

  “Lunch?”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed, also adorably. No wonder the camera loved her. “Lunch at the lodge, with Cissy and Danny, remember? So hurry up and change if you’re going to. Cissy hates waiting for her food.”

  “Oh, right.” I sighed and started for the stairs. Despite B.J.’s ministrations, it still hurt to move quickly. What’s today, Tuesday? The wedding is Saturday. I can do this, if I just stay away from the beer....

  As I climbed to the loft, the phone rang. From the machine on Matt’s desk I heard a hum, a click, and then a familiar voice, speaking in an unfamiliar, businesslike tone.

  “Hello, this is Aaron Gold. I’m trying to reach Carnegie Kincaid. If you could ask her to call me back, my number is—”

  I grabbed the phone. “Aaron, hi!”

  “There you are, Stretch,” he said happily, and I felt a wave of guilt for lusting after Jack the Knack, however briefly. “You weren’t answering your cell, so I called Eddie and he told me what happened. Sorry about your cousin.”

  “We weren’t close,” I said automatically. “But thanks.”

  “So how long are you staying?”

  “Through the weekend.” I lowered my voice. “Somehow I got stuck with—”

  Footsteps thudded loudly on the stairs and rebounded inside my head. Tracy, keeping her lovely muscles warm, jogged up to the landing, made a show of pointing at her watch, and jogged down again.

  “I’m helping with Tracy’s wedding,” I said more decorously. “I’ll tell you about it when I get back. Unless you’ve changed your mind about coming?” The days ahead without him suddenly seemed very long. “You could fly straight to Hailey on Saturday—”

  “I thought we settled that.” Aaron sounded peeved, the way he often did these days. I heard voices at his end, and a distant phone ringing. “Look, I’m at work. I just wanted to see if you were OK.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” Between the headache and the noise of Tracy’s workout, I may have come across a little peevish myself. Don’t do me any favors, Aaron. “The sun is shining; I’m seeing all my old friends; I’m having a great time here by myself.”

  “Well, good,” he said stiffly. “Have fun.”

  “I intend to.” And then, because I couldn’t resist and because I’m an idiot, I said, “How’s it going with the cigarettes?”

  “ ‘How’s it going’?” Aaron’s voice went cold and flat. “Well, in the one whole day since you asked me that before, I guess it’s going fine. Maybe you could give me two days next time. I’ve got to go now. Bye.”

  And that was that. I slapped open my suitcase and pulled on a loose dress of flowered cotton, the one I’d been considering and then returning to my closet in Seattle for the last two weeks. Downstairs Tracy was doing hamstring stretches in the open doorway, outlined by the brilliant sun. I winced and groped for my sunglasses and car keys. Then I remembered.

  “I’ll have to ride with you,” I said. “B.J. has my car. Or we
could go find her at the nursery—”

  “Ride?” Tracy did the eye roll again. I was getting tired of the eye roll. “I’m on foot, silly. Don’t be a wuss, it’s barely half a mile.”

  Chapter Eight

  IT WAS A LONG, LONG HALF MILE.

  Tracy set a brisk pace, pumping her fists in time with her stride, and still had energy left over to talk about the wedding. Not the breathless gushings of a typical young bride, but a crisp, efficient run-through of her latest production. We might be old friends, but suddenly I was the staff and she was the star.

  “You’ll have to come up to speed fast. Tomorrow guests are arriving, and I’ve got my bachelorette party in the afternoon. B.J.’s invited, so I guess you can come if you want.”

  “How nice,” I said dryly, but my tone was lost on her.

  “Then Thursday afternoon there’s a picnic and baseball game at the jump base. I offered the caterer for that, I thought a Wild West kind of barbecue would be cute, with a chuck wagon and cowboy hats and all?”

  Baseball seemed an odd choice of activity—Sun Valley is golf and tennis territory—but then I remembered that Jack was quite the fastball pitcher in college. He’d even been scouted by a major-league team, he told me once, and when they didn’t make him an offer it broke his heart. I wondered if Tracy knew that.

  “John would look fabulous in a cowboy hat,” she prattled on, “and Daddy has dozens of them. But the jumpers said no, it’s just a casual bachelor party and all they want is beer and burgers. So I just need you to stop by there and coordinate with the caterer...”

  I trudged along beside my new client, cowering from the glare behind my sunglasses. I would have been sweating, but the air was too dry. My tongue felt like cotton and my eyelids like sand. Had Ketchum been this hot back in the Muffy summer? If only I’d brought a water bottle with me. Where the hell is the lodge?

  A remarkable sight along the roadside brought me to a halt. In a broad mown pasture, two bulls dozed contentedly in the grass. But these bulls were enormous, easily double life size, and made of bronze, with a small plaque bearing the name of a world-famous sculptor. Only in Sun Valley.

  My good humor somewhat restored, I took a stab at sounding enthusiastic and professional.

  “So, how many guests are we expecting?”

  “Two hundred, two fifty, it’s flexible.” Tracy shrugged. “I told Bob, he’s the caterer, just to have extra of everything.”

  Flexible. I thought about the very first wedding I’d done, figured down to the dollar for a bride with a modest budget, where two extra dinner guests would have been a problem. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure buys flexibility.

  “Friday, people are on their own, for tennis or golf or whatever,” she continued, “and Friday night is the rehearsal dinner on the terrace and the big skating party. We took the whole lodge for the weekend, so the rink will be open all evening. You have to be sure no one gets trash on the ice....”

  The details were slipping past me, but Shara Mortimer would have it all on paper anyway. Finding a way to work with her, while placating Tracy and Cissy, was going to be a tightrope walk with flaming hoops every few steps. But now that I’d taken on this job, I was going to do it right. No way was Beau Paliere—or any of Cissy’s wealthy friends—going to hear a word of criticism about the assistant from Seattle. Better than that, I was determined to dazzle the whole crowd.

  A woman went by laden with shopping bags, which prompted me to ask Tracy about her wedding gown.

  “To die for,” she pronounced. “To. Die. For. I was going to go strapless, but I’m bored to tears with that after all the award shows. So I’m doing the princess thing, but with a twist. I’ll wear my hair loose, with a pearled Juliet cap, and the dress has long fitted sleeves and a million tiny buttons down the back, and a chapel-length train from the waist. But the neckline is draped low, just barely legal. And I mean barely. The designer says it’s all about contrast.”

  “Wow.” It sounded all about mishmash to me, but then, no one had asked me. When you’re an on-the-day wedding coordinator, you don’t make things better. You make them work. “What’s the fabric?”

  “It’s slipper satin, very shiny, in a pale, pale coral to go with the new hair. And the train is featherweight chiffon, so it flutters down from the waist and sweeps along the ground in back. The whole package photographs like a dream.”

  “I can’t wait to see it. Maybe after lunch today?”

  “Oh, it’s not here. I changed my mind. I want pearl buttons instead of cloth-covered, to go with the cap, so I sent it back. There’s this Under Five on the show, Tessa, she’s flying up from L.A. on Friday in her dad’s jet. She’ll bring it with her.”

  “Under Five?”

  “An actor with five lines or less. A nobody.” She winked at me. “But I needed the dress, so I invited her.”

  I got back to business. “Friday is cutting it awfully close for alterations.”

  “Alterations?” Tracy stopped in her tracks and turned on me in amazement, the sun flashing off her designer shades. “Like if I gained weight? Carnegie, I’m in television. I don’t eat. I did a photo shoot in that gown for a wedding magazine two months ago, and I guarantee you, my waistline hasn’t grown an eighth of an inch.”

  “It’s just good to be certain—”

  “I mean, if anything, it’s smaller, because I’ve been working out like crazy. Elliptical trainer, spinning, upper-body lifting. My coach has me on free weights and machines both, especially the upper-bod stuff. I’m really afraid of saggy triceps, aren’t you?”

  “Terrified.”

  I glanced at her figure as we went on walking. She wasn’t tough-looking like the Tyke, but her triceps were firmly sculpted, and her waistline was certainly taut and narrow beneath that remarkable bosom. Come to think of it, I didn’t recall the bodice of her waitress uniform jutting out quite so boldly years ago....

  “What did you think?” said Tracy archly, noting the direction of my gaze. “Of course I’ve had them done. Frankly, I’m surprised that you haven’t. You of all people.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and changed the subject. “Um...tell me about your trip to Portland. I haven’t been there in months. Did you see the Vermeer show at the art museum?”

  “Of course we did. Do you always walk this slow?” She stepped out a little faster. “Let’s get back to the wedding. Beau hired Valerie Cox to do the flowers. She’s good, isn’t she?”

  “She’s the best.” Valerie Cox of San Francisco was renowned in wedding circles for her exotic, extravagant creations—and notorious for carrying her creations in her head instead of committing them to paper. “A little eccentric, but—”

  “Fine. And Bob I already know, I’ve been to his parties before.”

  “Were they open-air parties? Because it’s a whole different ball game, serving outdoors.”

  “I guess so. I don’t remember.” She seemed to lose interest in her vendors—or maybe she was just working her way around to the real issue. “Listen, I need you to help me with something. It’s this nonsense about John’s best man.”

  I almost said “John who?” then caught myself. “What nonsense? Who’s it going to be?”

  More eye rolling, accompanied by a camera-worthy sigh. “He asked Pari Taichert, of all people!”

  “Well, it’s unusual to have a woman as best man, but it’s not unheard of.” Nor was it unheard of to have the best man loathe the bride, though of course I didn’t say that. “And if they’re longtime friends, it can be a really meaningful choice.”

  “Oh, screw meaningful! How is it going to look in the pictures, to have this little dyke standing there? And she wants to wear a tuxedo. ”

  I stopped dead. “Tracy, listen to me. The fact that a dear friend of Jack’s—I mean, John’s—is a lesbian is completely irrelevant here.”

  “Oh, she isn’t really,” Tracy admitted grudgingly. “She’s got a boyfriend in the Air Force, but he can’t make i
t to the wedding. What do you suppose he would think of her in a tuxedo? I swear, she’s just doing it to get back at me for taking Jack away.”

  Personally, I thought the Tyke would look spiffy in a tux, but my job was to soothe the bride, not torment her. “We’ll worry about clothing later. Right now it’s important to make John feel that this is his wedding, too. Years from now you’ll look back on this and—”

  “Yo, girls! Want a ride?” A dull red convertible screeched over to the curb and Domaso Duarte, looking anything but dull, leaned an elbow out. Beside him in the passenger seat, Gorka barked a deep-throated greeting, his extravagant pink tongue lolling and drooling. “Looks hot on that pavement.”

  “You’re going the wrong way,” I pointed out, amused despite myself, and thinking that a ride would be welcome.

  “For you I’ll hang a U-turn anytime.” Domaso grinned at me, then cocked his head at Tracy. “Besides, I was only running into town for something, then I’m coming back. What about it, blondie?”

  The former blond was indignant. “I don’t think so.”

  “Just trying to be nice to your friend here—”

  “Leave us alone, for God’s sake!” She marched away, her braid swinging like a glossy copper pendulum.

  Domaso laughed and roared off, and I hurried to catch up with Tracy.

  “What was that about?”

  “Nothing. He’s just a jerk sometimes.”

  “You didn’t have to be rude.”

  “What do you care?” she snapped. “Just because Dom was all over you at the bar last night.”

  “We were only dancing—”

  “Oh, never mind. Let’s cross over.”

  Well, brides do get temperamental, after all. I followed Tracy across the road and up the drive to the grand fieldstone façade of the Sun Valley Lodge. The glass-and-timber double doors were embellished with the face of Old Sol, Sun Valley’s emblem since the early years. Back when Sonja Henie was cutting figure eights on the ice rink, and later on when Hemingway was upstairs typing For Whom the Bell Tolls. Quite a place.