by Leslie Caine
We both laughed and Carly said, “That bar near Parsons. When Rhonda came up from SUNY Albany. Remember?”
We took turns filling in Michelle on our outlandish adventures. I had tried to hide an underage drinking incident from my mother my freshman year at Parsons, which included climbing up a fire escape to change my clothes, soaked with red wine, thanks to Rachel’s errant elbow on a wine glass. In the process, I had barely convinced the police officer who saw us that we weren’t committing a crime. I broke a heel off my shoe during my second climb back up. I concocted a ridiculous story for my mother to explain how I’d left wearing a white tee-shirt and returned in a light blue one. All which ultimately wound up with my mother hauling out a bottle of red wine from her suitcase and insisting that we all have a glass.
“That evening had gotten off to a bad start,” Carly said. “Remember that crazy old woman at the bus stop? Erin tried to share her umbrella with her,” she explained to Michelle, “and she started screaming at her in Russian or Bulgarian.”
“She must have been thought Erin’s umbrella would bring her bad luck,” Rhonda said.
“Or else she was trying to wash her hair in the rain,” Rachel joked.
“I’ll bet the woman cast a hex on you that day, Erin,” Michelle stated.
“A hex?” I asked.
“Sure. That would explain a lot.” Michelle scanned my friends’ faces, as if to get their support. “Erin’s known something like six or seven people who were murdered,” Michelle said. “It’s like she’s cursed.”
“That’s not the kind of thing someone should be saying, Michelle,” Carly snapped. “Don’t play head games with Erin now. She’s about to be married.”
“No, no, you misunderstand my motives,” Michelle said, with a slight slur in her voice. “I’m looking at this from the opposite side of the spectrum. Let’s try on the thought that this woman placed a hex, or a curse even, on Erin. That way, we can lift the curse right now. Erin can wear her dress joyfully—” she gestured in the direction of my minivan, where my gown was safely locked inside—“knowing all that bad karma is gone forever.”
“You know how to remove curses?” Rhonda asked, intentionally exaggerating her Bronx accent.
“Of course. I use it for my daughter whenever she’s scared about monsters underneath her bed.” She chuckled. “It’s a multipurpose bad-vibes remover.”
“Who taught it to you?” Carly asked.
“My Aunt Bea. She was babysitting one day when I was a little girl, and Stevie pulled my hair. My sister, Amelia, meanwhile, had played the piano at this big recital, and everybody was raving about her performance. I got furious. Somehow or other, I convinced both of them that I’d put a hex on them. And so they were in terrible moods when Aunt Bea came over to babysit that night. She told us she’d execute her industrial-grade hex remover. And it worked.”
“What happened?” Rachel asked.
“Aunt Bea said what we needed to do was think really honestly about why we did what we’d did and exactly what happened. That we had to reach deep down inside of ourselves, then tell ourselves another story. One that ends happily. So the new story I told was that Stevie was helping me to get a rubber band out of my hair, and that I’d thanked him. And that I’d helped Amelia to play by flipping the pages of the music for her, and then I told her how beautifully she’d played.”
Michelle gave us a beatific smile. “Let’s do that right now. Close your eyes, and tell Crazy Lady you’re sorry for trying to share an umbrella, and that you wish her well. And imagine that Crazy Lady had realized that you meant well, then shared the umbrella, and gave Erin a hug when the bus arrived.”
They all closed their eyes, then I closed mine, but Rhonda said, “You realize that, if this was the Bronx, when we opened our eyes, Michelle would have vanished with all our wallets, right?”
Everyone laughed, including Michelle.
“And I’d have knocked over Erin’s glass of wine on her lap,” Rachel said.
Eventually we all played along, and Michelle told us the last step was to hold hands. “Now we just look at each other right in the eyes and say: ‘I forgive you and love you’ in unison.’ She led us in that little statement. “There. That’s it. Hex removed, once and for all.”
“Hooray,” I said. “No more murder victims in my life.”
“Do you know any rituals for getting criminals to confess and turn themselves in to the police?” Rhonda asked.
“Not even Wonder Woman has those kinds of skills,” Michelle said. She peered at me with an uncomfortable intensity that made me think she meant that I was Wonder Woman.
Chapter 29
The next morning got off to a rough start when Detective O’Reilly arrived at Audrey’s door. I pretended not to be assuming the worst as I asked him to come in. He nodded and said, “Morning, Ms. Gilbert. I’m here because we have been unable to locate Lucas LeBlanc in the last thirty-six hours. I wondered if you have a couple of minutes to answer some questions.”
“Has he gone back to California?”
“He appears to have left the country. We have information that links him to some drug deals. We were hoping he didn’t realize we were on to him, but someone might have tipped him off.”
I was doing my level best to keep my expression neutral, but I could feel my cheeks warming. Audrey and I had perhaps hastened his departure by letting him know that we’d taken the fake flour to the police. He’d claimed it was Drew who arranged the shipment. Maybe Lucas was the culprit all along.
“When was the last time you spoke to Mr. LeBlanc?”
“The night before last. He came over to assist with some dance lessons.”
“Was anyone with him?”
“Yes, Steve’s sister, Amelia.”
“She left the halfway house to come to Crestview?”
I nodded.
“That was an unfortunate decision on somebody’s part.” He glared into my eyes, but stopped short of accusing me to be the deciding factor. “Were just the four of you present?”
“At Steve’s and my house. Yes.”
“Did Mr. Leblanc say anything to you about leaving town? Or anything that might have implied that he was thinking about taking off?”
“No. The opposite. He wanted to have us complete the restaurant project as quickly as possible so the place could open. My impression was that he planned to run the restaurant himself and become both the head chef and the owner. Did he remove items from the restaurant as well?”
O’Reilly gave me a shrug. “Just some personal items from the office.”
“Are you considering the possibility that he was the murderer, and he’s fleeing town to escape a lifelong prison sentence?”
“We consider this behavior highly suspicious. But his alibi that he was in Crestview during Mr. Benson’s murder appears to be rock solid.”
“I’m sorry to hear that he’s disappeared on you. Obviously if I hear anything about him, you’ll be my first person to call.”
He straightened his shoulders. “I know Detective Delgardio is going to be at your wedding, and—”
“Linda’s a detective now?” I asked.
“It’s not official yet, but, yes, she’s being promoted. As I was saying, she’s agreed to invite me as her escort instead of her husband.”
“So…was this her choice not to bring her husband, or did you force her into the decision?”
“I hardly had to twist her arm, Erin. She doesn’t want to see more bloodshed, any more than I do. We’d post security guards, if we thought it’d do any good.”
“Are you telling me this so that I will squeeze in another chair at her table so that her spouse can come, too?”
“No, just out of courtesy to let you know our plans. She agreed that it would be best to be sharp and keeping her mind on her job, rather than just acting like a guest.”
“But she is a guest! I nearly put her in my bridal party! Please can’t you get another female officer to attend as you
r plus-one? We’ll find two seats for you. I promise.”
He shook his head. “Del and I can handle it.” He started to head out the door. “Be hearing from you soon, I’m sure.”
“Please tell Linda that her husband should come, too. We’ll fit you in at another table.”
“I will. Thanks. Just not at the kiddies table. They never seem to like me.”
“How odd. You’re such a Spongebob Squarepants kind of guy.”
He chuckled as he let himself out. Not even a minute later, my phone rang, with Steve at the other end.
“There’s been a work stoppage at Parsley and Sage,” Steve said to me in lieu of a greeting. “It appears Lucas, our de facto client, has skipped town.”
“So I heard. Detective O’Reilly came over and just now left. Are you ever going to finish, do you think, or is this probably it for the restaurant?”
“Probably the last straw. With Lucas leaving town, the majority owner is going to be Aunt Bea, and she has no interest in owning a restaurant. Even if they find a second buyer or two, they’ll probably want to redesign the interior their own way.”
“The place never opened, though, so it’s all brand new. And positively stunning.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll see. In any case, it’s over for the foreseeable future.”
“That’s a shame. You did a fabulous job.”
“Thanks. But there is an upside. I’m officially done with work until we return from our honeymoon…assuming we can still leave the country. I can help with the wedding planning.”
I grinned at the thought of him and his alphabetized seating charts. Audrey wouldn’t put up with that for half of a second. “Did you tell Audrey that yet?”
“No, but I will.”
“You can tell her your first task will be finding a seat at the reception for Detective O’Reilly. He wants to keep an eye on things. Meanwhile, I’ll suggest that she contact Chef Hummel and see if he can be our caterer after all on such short notice.”
“Yeah. Losing a caterer this late is a challenge. Good thing we’ve got Audrey at the helm.” He paused. “I also called my dad and invited him up for lunch. It’d be nice if you could join us.”
“You don’t want to make it a father-son lunch?”
“No, I’d always rather have you by my side.”
I grinned. “I can hardly say no when you put it like that. But I’m going to have to keep my presence at the lunch pretty short. I don’t want to take too much time away from Carly, Rachel, and Rhonda.”
To our immense relief, Chef Hommel was able to step in for Lucas. With Audrey eagerly filling in for me as tour guide at the picturesque Crestview Mall, I arranged to meet up again in forty-five minutes. I rushed off to join Steve and George at one of my favorite restaurants in Crestview, a small Italian place in a strip mall with little ambiance but extraordinary food. We polished off our entrees and were sharing a cheese-and-fruit plate when George finally broached the topic that was heavily on all of our minds. “This is all such terrible business with Fitz, and now Drew.”
“It sure is,” I said.
“There’s so much violence over drugs. I keep trying to wrap my head around it, the ugly loss of two young men we knew personally. Such a waste.”
“Detective O’Reilly came to the house and was telling me that Lucas was apparently a drug dealer,” I said. “Maybe he was the mastermind, not Drew. Drew could have simply been an addict that Lucas was supplying.”
Steve groaned and said to his father, “I have to convince Erin to stop trying to solve homicides like she’s some kind of master detective. She’s going to get herself killed.”
I glared at Steve, but held my tongue.
George patted his lips with his napkin, then set it down. He peered into Steve’s eyes. “Would you tolerate some advice?”
“Fatherly advice?” Steve asked, with that slightly crooked smile he got when he was nervous. “Of course.”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘fatherly.’ Raising you and your sisters always felt like your mom’s territory. I thought I was doing my part as the breadwinner. But I do know something about being a husband. We can’t build a safe haven for our loved ones, Steve. Walls that keep out danger also keep out…excitement, variety, life. If Erin was an avid hang glider, you wouldn’t want to deprive her of that passion, just because it was risky, would you?”
“No, but that’s a sport. And nobody is getting murdered.”
“Erin has a great head on her shoulders, and is willing to help people who find themselves in jeopardy. When a couple decides to marry, they take each other as they are and hope to grow both together and separately as a product of their union. It’s not a deli order; we don’t get to say ‘hold the mayo.’ No hang gliding or being a master detective, now that we’re together.”
Steve let that sink in for a moment. “You’re right. Well said, Dad.” As he spoke, Steve reached over and took my hand. “I’ve been thinking. I know this is a bit out of the ordinary, and I’ve got my two good friends as groomsmen, so you don’t have to say yes if you really don’t want to, but I’d like you to be my best man. It feels right somehow.”
George smiled slowly, and said, “I’d be honored.”
Chapter 30
That night, Steve and I drove to the wedding rehearsal at the Episcopalian church in downtown Crestview. Audrey and my bridesmaids drove together. We’d all dressed up for the dinner at the nice restaurant afterward, as had the women in Steve’s family. His dad, however, was in his tuxedo. His explanation was that he’d decided to consider this a “dress” rehearsal.
It was a thrill for me to see the love of my life happy, and I felt exhilarated to be doing a run-through of the main event. Not surprisingly my bridesmaids hit it off with Steve’s two groomsmen; he’d met them in Crestview several years ago, and they still lived here in town and were great guys. Audrey and Eleanor were clearly enjoying their catbird seats, giggling like the best of friends. As George and Rachel took their places flanking Steve and me, George joked about being the oldest best man ever. The priest promptly replied, “Not by a long shot. I once officiated at a wedding with a best man who was eighty two.”
“Was this at a retirement home?” George asked.
The priest hesitated for a moment, and Eleanor, sitting in the front pew, chimed in, “Don’t ask a priest a question you don’t want answered truthfully, dear.”
“My point remains that you are not the oldest best man,” the priest said with a wink.
“Maybe you could be the best oldest man, though,” Eleanor suggested. George laughed and, with a twinkle in his eye, started to reply, but was distracted by one of the double doors at the far end of the aisle being pulled open. My heart stopped for a moment when I saw that a uniformed police officer had entered. What would have been a witty rejoinder from George was no doubt gone forever; George promptly headed up the aisle to greet him. Audrey hopped up as well, and the three of them had a quiet discussion.
The quiet conference ended, Audrey and George looking grim. George walked over to Michelle’s first row seat and said, “The police want to speak with you.”
She gasped and looked frightened. She was sitting next to Eleanor, who put her arm around her shoulder. Eleanor’s features and bearing grew stony, her eyes, fierce. Audrey, meanwhile, reclaimed her seat on the other side of Eleanor and said, “He said he just has a few questions.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” George assured Michelle, and perhaps his wife as well. “They just want to ask you some questions about Mark.”
“Why?” Michelle asked. “Can’t it wait?”
“I’m sure this is just standard procedure for interviewing a witness,” Audrey replied.
An officer tracking down a “witness” felt like anything but “standard procedure” to me. The policeman approached. “I’m Officer Dunlap, with the Denver Police Department, Ms. Dunning. We’ve had some conflicting reports about the sequence of events that transpired at your residence.”
“Conflicting reports?” Michelle repeated. “In other words, you were talking to my husband, who must have told you I was here.”
“We’re in the middle of a wedding rehearsal,” Eleanor said. “Can’t this wait until Sunday or Monday? After my son’s wedding? Or tomorrow, at least?”
“I’m afraid not. We’re trying to solve a homicide, ma’am.”
“I can show you both to my office,” the priest suggested, “if that would be acceptable.”
The officer responded with a slight nod.
Eleanor sank back into the pew, with a look of despair on her face.
“Mom?” Michelle said. “Can you come with me?”
“Unless your mother is your attorney, this needs to be a private conversation,” Officer Dunlap said.
That sounded ominous.
The priest ushered Michelle and the officer away, and returned by himself. He said with a smile, “These matters are ultimately in far greater and more-capable hands than our own.”
Steve’s and my gazes met. He looked anxious. He probably saw a measure of frustration and despair in my features. He turned and looked at his sister Amelia, who was silently rocking herself in her seat on a pew.
“Before we proceed,” the priest said, touching my elbow gently, “I’d like to take a moment and lead us in a prayer.”
The tenor of the rehearsal was permanently damaged, although we all put up a show of pretending not to notice. Judging by my internal clock, we took another thirty or forty minutes to wrap things up for Saturday’s main event. Michelle had yet to return.
Eleanor rose and excused herself to go check on Michelle. A minute later, Amelia suddenly sprang to her feet and darted down the hallway after her mother. Audrey started to rise, as well, then hesitated and looked at me, asking tacitly if I wanted her to get involved. I shook my head, and she sat back into the pew, looking tense.
