Death Takes a Honeymoon

by Deborah Donnelly

  “So let’s hear it,” demanded a low, menacing voice that I recognized as Danny Kane’s. “You and the Tyke have been sitting on something about Thiel and I want to know what it is.”

  “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

  The other voice was a sullen mumble, hard to make out, but I thought it belonged to Todd Gibson. Danny’s next words confirmed my guess.

  “Sure you do, Ned,” he prodded. “I saw the official findings. You radioed in when you spotted his chute, but you didn’t report the accident until seventeen minutes later. What the fuck were you and Taichert doing for seventeen minutes?”

  “I told you, she wasn’t there!” Todd sounded frightened. “She didn’t get there till after I called in. It just took me some time to get to...to find the...”

  I leaned my ear closer to the crack in the door.

  “The body,” said Danny. “The dead man. The corpse. Say it!”

  I cringed, as Todd must be cringing, from the cruel words.

  “OK!” he said. “I found the corpse, and I radioed in right away. The Tyke showed up a couple of minutes later, and then you came, and that’s all.”

  “That better be all.”

  I heard a thump and a clanging noise, as if Danny had shoved the younger man against the lockers. He said something more, but I lost it in a burst of laughter from above. Someone else had entered the building.

  The two men fell silent, then one of them went rapidly up the stairwell. After a moment the other followed, his footsteps slow and uneven. I waited long enough for them to get clear and then went upstairs myself, past a trio of carefree guests looking for the rest rooms, and stepped out into the bright, innocent world of sunshine and baseball.

  The game was still in progress, of course, and the tables were still crowded, though I felt like I’d been in the basement for hours. Todd had taken a seat by himself, but Danny was already in the parking lot getting into his car. I went around the corner of the building and leaned against the wall, thinking hard.

  So Danny Kane suspects foul play, too. No wonder I’d observed him drinking so much and acting so temperamental. He was a smoke jumper, and right now he believed that one of his comrades, or maybe two of them, had murdered another. No wonder.

  Was Danny’s only clue the time discrepancy in the radio calls, I mused, or had he noticed something out of order at the accident scene itself? Dr. Nothstine said the photographs showed Brian’s PG bag unclipped from his harness, and a suspicious wound on the back of his head. Danny could have seen all that in person, and followed up by examining the official report.

  It would be simple enough to ask him, but I wasn’t sure that would be wise. Danny had been drinking a lot since Brian’s death, and down in the basement just now he’d sounded almost violent, like a man in a nightmare. “Something weak in his character,” who had told me that?

  In any case, I didn’t want to fuel Danny’s suspicions with my own, for fear that he’d do something rash. Especially now with this new information—if it was fact and not illusion— about a campsite near the Boot Creek fire. If Al Soriano really did see a tent down there, then the field of suspects for murder went far beyond Todd Gibson and Pari Taichert, and Danny could awake from his nightmare of murder within the brotherhood.

  But he’s convinced that those two were hiding something, and I thought that, too. In fact, I still do. I shook my head in frustration. My thoughts were spinning in circles, and I needed someone to help me straighten them out. But my first choice of someone was busy playing center field. Maybe he could take a time-out... I stepped away from the wall and scanned the baseball diamond. Aaron wasn’t anywhere in sight. Had he left early?

  Maybe that was just as well. I still hadn’t decided whether I owed him an apology, or vice versa. So I dug out my cell phone—it showed a couple of missed calls—and reached B.J. at work.

  “Finally!” she said. “I’ve been chewing my nails to the elbows. Did you find it?”

  “Sorry. The locker’s been cleared out.” I gave her a moment for this to sink in. “I’ll help you explain things to Matt, OK? But listen, I heard something new about Boot Creek that I need to talk over with you. Can I come by the nursery after I’m done working here?”

  “Fine,” she said dully. “Whatever.”

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Hang in there.”

  The bachelor party was going well, but the number of guests had swelled far beyond expectations. I offered my services to Bob, who allowed as how he could use an extra pair of hands slicing pie. So I pitched in for a while, and even made a beer run back into town.

  Finally, in late afternoon, I checked in with him one last time, and he waved me away with a smile. “Everything’s under control now, m’dear. You get on with your other business. Oh, by the by, any idea where Beau’s at this afternoon? His office just called me looking for him, and then Cissy did the same thing.”

  I couldn’t very well say that Beautiful Beau was probably in a shower somewhere with Overripe Olivia. So I promised to keep an eye out for him and headed for my car, listening to my messages on the way.

  One was Paliere Productions in New York, asking for Beau, and the other was Dr. Nothstine, asking me to call. She didn’t answer, so I left her my own message. I think that’s why cell phones were invented, to increase the amount of telephone tag in our lives.

  I didn’t call New York, though. The office was probably closed by now, with the time difference, but that wasn’t the reason. I decided to let Beau make his own explanations, whenever he finally surfaced. I was the assistant planner here, not his personal secretary.

  I found B.J. out back of the nursery, sitting on an upended wheelbarrow among the tubs of aspen saplings and baby crabapple trees. A roof of shade cloth dimmed the sunlight here, but I could see the tear tracks on her face.

  “I’m so sorry, Muffy.” I laid a hand on the shoulder of her High Country Gardens T-shirt. “Matt will believe you about the necklace being lost, you’ll see. It’ll be all right.”

  “I guess. I’m just so mad at myself for having to lie to him in the first place. And all for a roll in the hay with a bastard like Brian Thiel. You know what Steve told me?”

  “Who’s Steve?”

  “The bartender at the Pio. I was fishing around about people’s alibis for Tuesday night, like I said I would, and he went off on this rant about smoke jumpers. He told me that one night he saw Brian in a corner, making out with the Tyke!”

  “What? She told me she hardly knew him.”

  “That’s not what Steve said. He said they were going at it like crazy. He was all disgusted because he knows the Tyke’s got a boyfriend.” She lifted her tearstained face. “What if people knew about Brian and me? What would they say then? What’s Matt going to say?”

  I was startled—no, shocked—to hear about Brian and the Tyke, but I didn’t have time to think about it. B.J. was beginning to cry again, and I sat beside her.

  “Matt’s never going to know, Muffy. And you’re going to forget about Brian and concentrate on improving your marriage. Come on, chin up.”

  B.J. sniffled into a tissue, and then sat up straight and squared her shoulders. “Well, like you said, what’s done is done.”

  “There you go. Now tell me, what did you find out about Tuesday night?”

  “Nothing definite. People were coming and going all night.”

  “Well, that may not matter anymore. Listen to this...”

  I was just finishing my story about the campsite that Al Soriano had spotted, when B.J.’s assistant, a bright-eyed college girl named Liz, called to her from the door of the garden store.

  “Someone to see you, boss. I’ll be out front watering the hanging baskets.”

  “Why not send them back here, then?” B.J. groused.

  But she headed inside, with me following, and we soon saw why not. The visitor was Dr. Nothstine, ensconced in a white wicker peacock chair that B.J. had for sale among the pots and the patio furniture. S
he looked drawn and tired, and her twisted leg lay limply to one side. But she sat her throne with dignity, like an aristocrat about to issue orders to the servants.

  “I apologize for interrupting you at work,” she began, with an intriguing little smile.

  “No problem,” said B.J. “In fact, you should hear this. Carnegie says there might have been somebody camping at Boot Creek at the time of the fire.”

  The doctor’s smile froze in place, and I could see the brisk intelligence working behind her faded blue eyes. “So the killer might not have been a smoke jumper at all. This changes everything. We shall have to—”

  “Hey, hey, guess who came back early?” A grinning Liz pulled open the front door, sloshing water from her sprinkler can, and stepped aside to reveal a good-looking wide-shouldered fellow holding a suitcase.

  “Matt? Oh, Matt.”

  B.J. flew into her husband’s arms, and his embrace lifted her right off the floor. A charming moment, but all I could think was: What is she going to tell him?

  Then Dr. Nothstine beckoned me to her side with a stealthy little movement of one hand. As B.J. and Matt went on smooching, she dipped the hand in her purse, fished something out, and dropped it quickly into my palm. I caught a glitter of metal and closed my fingers over the cool silver coils of B.J.’s necklace.

  No time for questions. I stashed the necklace in my pocket and mouthed a silent “thank you” just as Matt came up for air.

  “Carnegie, hello!” he said heartily. “We haven’t seen you for way too long.”

  I’d always liked Matt, and now I could give him my usual hug and kiss without reservation. “It’s good to be here. This is Dr. Julie Nothstine. I don’t know if you’ve met?”

  Matt greeted her with a courteous handshake, and the canny old lady held onto his hand and his attention just long enough for me to slip the necklace to B.J. Her face sagged for a moment in astonishment and relief, then she whipped it out of sight and held up her beaming face for another kiss from her man.

  “Young lady,” Dr. Nothstine said to me as she rose from her throne, “I believe our presence is no longer required. Perhaps you could walk me to my car.”

  She filled me in along the way. “I returned to the base this morning, as I told you I would. The gentlemen there refused to meet with me, but as luck would have it, a box containing your cousin’s effects was brought into the office just as I was leaving. I asked the secretary to fetch me a glass of water, and while she was gone—”

  “You swiped the necklace!”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that. But I’m pleased to have returned it to the rightful owner. A good morning’s work, and now I’m in need of my afternoon’s rest. Perhaps we can discuss your new discovery later on.”

  “Of course.” I opened the car door for her. “Dr. Nothstine, can I hug you?”

  She lifted her chin. “Certainly not. But you may call me Julie.”

  My cell phone sounded as she drove off. This time it was Cissy Kane, mother of the bride, calling to pay her respects to tradition. She was performing a special ritual, a wedding custom that’s been cherished and nurtured by mothers of the bride for centuries, perhaps millennia.

  Cissy was going ballistic.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE HE IS? What kind of wedding planner are you? He’s chasing after one of those actresses, isn’t he?”

  Cissy was stalking angrily up and down the Paliere suite—if a short lady with a figure like a balloon can be said to stalk. It was more of an infuriated bounce, exaggerated by the fluttery sleeves of her pale purple sundress.

  “How could he disappear like this?” she moaned. “Even Shara Mortimer used to answer her phone. And why won’t Sam answer his? He’s off at some construction site, but don’t they have phones? This is all his fault!”

  “Cissy, please sit down.” I shut the door behind me with a sigh. Who wants to be closeted with a madwoman?

  I had driven back to the lodge at top speed to find Cissy in the lobby, red-faced and quivering, having a full-blown melt-down. I’ve seen some amazing temper tantrums in my business, but this was off the charts. Various members of the staff were hovering around her like zookeepers around a rogue rhino, and the other guests were trying hard not to stare.

  Herding Cissy upstairs to the suite had at least removed us from the public eye, but despite her ravings, I still didn’t know what had set her off—except that at some point she’d noticed Beau Paliere flirting with someone besides herself. At least she didn’t know which specific actress he was chasing. We didn’t need a blowup between the mother of the bride and the maid of honor.

  “This is a disaster,” Cissy said, her voice breaking. “A catastrophe!”

  She was working herself into a frenzy. Time for sterner measures. I slapped the back of the needlepoint love seat— in lieu of her face—and raised my own voice.

  “Cissy, sit down. Right here, right now. Sit!”

  She bridled, but she sat.

  “All right, deep breath. In, out. That’s good. One more. In, out. Good.” She coughed a little, having ranted herself hoarse, so I got her a glass of water from the carafe on the conference table. She sipped at it, then shook a couple of round white pills from a bottle in her purse and gulped them down.

  “Tranquilizer,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Sam says I take too many, but how else can I manage all this stress? I’m a very sensitive person.”

  “Of course you are,” I said, with a serious effort not to sound sarcastic. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

  I was expecting either a major calamity—the wedding was off—or a minor hitch, like another mismatched pair of shoes. Mothers of the bride can go either way. What I got was somewhere in between, but edging toward calamity.

  “It’s the Ladislaus Quartet,” she said venomously, as if laying a curse on all four of them. “Their manager called. They’ve cancelled.”

  “But they can’t,” I said, taken aback. “Did he say why?”

  “Something stupid about a coup,” she said. “They’re in Java or Jakarta or someplace stupid like that, and there’s been a coup or an uprising or something and they can’t travel. How could they do this to me?”

  I let that one go. I was busy calling Beau’s cell phone, but he didn’t answer, and I couldn’t wait for him. Did I have a number for Sebastian in Mexico? He was the entertainment director, so this was technically his problem, not mine or Beau’s. But someone had to reach him as soon as possible. Wedding ensembles aren’t available at a moment’s notice.

  “Cissy, we’ll work something out, but I need to make some more calls. Why don’t you—”

  “I want Beau.” Amazing, how dangerous those little rosebud lips could look. She got to her feet again, ready to rejoin the battle. “He should be handling this, not you. We’re paying him a fortune, and where is he?”

  “I’ll find him,” I promised. I would, too, if I had to search Olivia’s sheets to do it. “But meanwhile, why don’t you go home and look over your outfit for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow? Or you and Sam can—”

  “Sam is working,” she said, waving the tumbler and sending droplets flying. “As if I’m not! He leaves all the real work to me, all these details about the wedding, hundreds of decisions. He goes off to work and Tracy goes off to play and nobody appreciates what I do, damn them all!”

  I wouldn’t have guessed such a chubby little arm could heave a water glass that far or that hard. At least she didn’t throw it at me. The tumbler hit the minibar refrigerator and burst like a small bomb, spraying glass shards everywhere.

  I yelped in alarm. Cissy broke into sobs. And someone rapped a jaunty shave-and-a-haircut on the suite’s door. Given the alternatives, I answered the door.

  “Aaron!” I practically dragged him inside. If anything could calm Cissy, it was an attractive new man. And even if Aaron was still mad at me, surely he’d rise to a crisis?

  “Listen—” he began
, but I cut him off.

  “In a minute.” I was whispering, though Cissy probably couldn’t hear us above her own wailing. “I’ve got an emergency here. Help me out, OK?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Just be charming. Major charm.”

  Then I raised my voice to say brightly, “Cissy, here’s my good friend Aaron Gold. This is Cissy Kane, Tracy’s mother.”

  My hero. Without another word of explanation, Aaron came on like Cary Grant.

  “You mean sister, don’t you?” He set down the laptop he was carrying and took her hand in both of his. “Or else you had Tracy very young. Tell me all about the wedding, Cissy. Sun Valley seems like a perfect spot...”

  He led her to the love seat and she followed like a lamb, leaving me with the mess. Probably a lifelong pattern of hers, I thought sourly, as I phoned Housekeeping for a vacuum.

  I considered calling Olivia’s room as well, to begin the hunt for Beau, but opted to wait till Cissy was out of the way. So I disposed of the bigger bits of glass and shook the slivers off my paperwork as Cissy prattled happily away at her new admirer.

  The next knock on the door wasn’t Housekeeping. It was my mother. She took in the broken glass, gave a knowing nod when I rolled my eyes at Cissy, and then joined us in the sitting area. I made introductions, we all sat down, and there was an expectant pause.

  “So you’re Aaron Gold,” said Mom. “I thought you’d be taller.”

  “Mom!” Strange but truthful, that’s Louise Kincaid.

  Aaron just leaned back and laughed. “And I thought you’d have red hair.”

  “That was my late husband,” she said, not quite hiding a smile. “Carrie has his temper, too.”

  “Does she have a temper? I hadn’t noticed.”