A MATCH MADE IN MURDER (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 5)

by Jeanine Spooner

  With his outfit squared away, she rifled through her dresses. Kitty was tempted to wear a pale purple dress, but knew Sterling well enough to figure he’d have a problem with matching her. It had been cute when they were dating, but only in the context of showing up to one of her weddings. Now that they were officially engaged, Sterling couldn’t stand being matchy-matchy.

  He padded into the bedroom holding a towel around his waist. He was dripping. Clearly the towel was only meant to cover him up and not actually serve its purpose.

  “Careful you don’t drip on your outfit,” she mentioned. “Water stains.”

  He had no response, but minded her instructions and made sure to steer clear of the clothes she’d set out.

  Something was really eating him.

  Despite Sterling’s mood and the way in which it distracted Kitty as she hustled to get ready, they managed to arrive at the Delamar on time.

  Kitty stepped out of the Jeep and fluffed her flowing yellow dress so the wrinkles wouldn’t set, as Sterling handed his keys to the valet.

  When he reached her he offered his arm, which Kitty grasped and together they started for the terrace restaurant through the lobby and just beyond the lounge.

  “You look nice,” he whispered, leaning in and charming her as though he’d snapped out of his funk and returned to his usual self.

  “So do you,” she smiled.

  The air was warm on the terrace in contrast to the crisp AC that filled the lounge. It smelled like cut grass and savory entrees. Kitty realized she was starving as they approached the hostess.

  Sterling stated their last names for the girl, who didn’t get a chance to review her reservation book and show them to the table.

  Kitty’s mother shrieked with delight from across the way, standing and waving and smiling and, of course, mortifying Kitty.

  “Oh God, she’s enthusiastic,” she muttered through her teeth as she smiled wide and waved back.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” said Sterling.

  They made their way through the restaurant.

  Kitty embraced her mother, who was a short, plump version of her. Penny’s hair was cut sharply and well styled into the same choppy locks that Kitty wore. Her makeup was done up bright and bold, and she wore a purple dress with a gray shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

  “I see you swung by Beehive,” Kitty mused as she released her mother to look her up and down.

  “I did!” she squealed, ecstatic.

  “Trudy did a great job,” she complimented, and then teased, “Looks familiar.”

  “Well, you've always had great taste!”

  Sterling seemed to hang back awkwardly and observe the exchange with a mix of terror and curiosity.

  “This must be Sterling!” Penny exclaimed as she spilled past Kitty to embrace her soon-to-be son-in-law.

  Sterling grunted. The woman was strong.

  Penny stepped back and stared up at him. She was beaming.

  “God bless you,” she said, which surprised Kitty. Her mother wasn’t the religious sort and the tone she used implied Penny thought it nothing short of a miracle that someone had actually proposed to her daughter.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Kitty asked, pulling her mother off Sterling. The woman had clamped her hands around his and Kitty could tell Sterling felt a bit trapped.

  “He’s in the little boy’s room.”

  “Ugh, don’t call it that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it doesn’t make sense,” said Kitty, reverting into a whiny teen.

  Penny smiled at Sterling as though he was on her side.

  “A big-time detective,” said Penny.

  “Why don’t we have a seat,” Kitty suggested, getting her mother off the subject. She was feeling more embarrassed than usual.

  They sat and Penny dove into all she’d read about his most recent cases. She flattered him and at times offered her perspective on the killer’s motive. And Sterling seemed to appreciate the topic if for no other reason than Penny was rambling on and he couldn’t get a word in, which suited him just fine. He’d rather listen to a conversation than carry it.

  “Daddy!” Kitty jumped out of her chair as soon as she saw Ernie waddle through the French doors that separated the terrace restaurant from the lounge.

  She rushed to him, gave him a big squeeze, and then pulled him by the hand to the table.

  Ernie was a portly man, wide in the hips, narrow in the shoulder. He’d always reminded Kitty of a cat in that sense, though his thick brown hair and circular spectacles helped him look like the intellectual that he was.

  Unlike Penny, who’d dolled herself up for the occasion, Ernie had stuck to his typical attire: head to toe corduroy with the exception of a taupe button down shirt. He couldn’t look more like a librarian if he tried. Even the leather patches on each elbow lent to the overall appearance, as did his loafers.

  Demonstrating good manners, Sterling rose to his feet when Ernie reached the table. He smiled with an air of pride and respect and offered Ernie his hand.

  Ernie smirked, shook his hand politely then glanced around at the empty chairs.

  “Sit here, Daddy,” said Kitty, pulling out the chair between her and her mother.

  As Ernie sat, followed by Sterling, Kitty got a waiter’s attention and swirled her finger in the air, the Delamar signal for a bottle of chilled champagne.

  When she sat down, she noticed her father looked a bit perturbed. Kitty placed her hand on his arm and brushed the corduroy, her silent way of checking if something was the matter.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” said Ernie with a polite smile. “Leaving the men’s room I accidentally bumped into a man as he was trying to enter. I honestly didn’t see him. I feel terrible.”

  “I’m sure he thought nothing of it,” Kitty offered.

  “Oh he let me know what he thought, all right,” said Ernie, who then feigned a chuckle to brush off the incident so they could talk about the wedding.

  “My goodness,” said Penny, leaning in. “Did he say something?”

  “He told me to watch where I was going. He had a very loud voice. It frightened me.”

  Ernie looked frazzled.

  Penny craned to meet Sterling’s gaze and told him, “We’re not used to these fancy city types.”

  Sterling smiled, but wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about. Greenwich wasn’t a city, more like a sleepy little town. And few were fancy, though if the Sinclair’s had only seen the Delamar, then that explained a lot.

  “Well,” Kitty concluded. “Let’s not let one bad apple ruin the pie.”

  “Oh dear Lord,” Ernie gasped, gaze locked beyond Kitty. “He’s coming this way.”

  Sterling sighed when he saw who Ernie was looking at.

  “He must be terribly upset with me.” Ernie was edging toward full-blown panic, and then looked utterly confused when Sterling began crossing toward the man in question.

  “Uh oh,” said Kitty, eyeing the man who could be none other than Sterling’s father.

  So much for getting off on the right foot!

  Steve Slaughter looked like he’d walked straight off a Marlboro cigarettes billboard minus the horse and cowboy hat. His broad, muscular shoulders and steely gaze—that was just as dark and green as Sterling’s—impacted his tall stature to the extent that he looked downright intimidating. Though he had to be in his late sixties, he seemed strong enough to wrangle a bull or win a bar fight. And most menacing of all was his shiny, bald head.

  “What do I do?” Ernie percolated with rising dread that a confrontation could be coming. “What do I say? Should I apologize?”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine, dear,” said Penny, patting his arm. “We’re all family now.”

  “What if he asks me to step outside?”

  "We're already outside, dear," said Penny like it helped.

  “He’s not going to ask you to step outside, Dad, you’re overreacting.”

  Kitty o
bserved Sterling with his father and noticed their greeting seemed cold considering they hadn’t seen each other in a few years. Sterling had his hands on his hips and Steve was looking down his nose at his son, which took Kitty aback when she realized Steve was a solid two inches taller. And Sterling was a very tall man.

  They made their way over and Kitty caught Sterling elbowing his dad, which prompted the steely man to smirk and look Ernie in the eye.

  “Little misunderstanding in the men’s room,” Steve barked, causing Ernie to cower and not necessarily recognize the man was gearing up for an apology. “These rich types rub me the wrong way,” he went on, to which Sterling cleared his throat as though his father would have to do better than that.

  Steve extended his hand to Ernie. “I know you’re not one of them,” he added. “I shouldn’t have barked at you.”

  “Oh, it’s quite alright,” Ernie offered up easily. He was eager to smooth this over. “Penny and I aren’t used to these aristocrats either.”

  Steve glared at him and his use of a fancy word, but when Sterling cleared his throat again, Steve softened his gaze, smiled, and let Sterling draw his attention to his fiancée.

  “This is Kitty,” he said then corrected “Catherine—”

  “But everyone calls me Kitty,” she added, already out of her chair and enthused to embrace her father-in-law. “It’s so nice to meet you!”

  When Kitty gave Steve a big squeeze the man went stiff and wasn’t quite sure what to do, but Kitty chose to take no notice.

  By the time everyone sat back down, a waiter arrived with a bucket of ice and a bottle of champagne, which Kitty plucked up and began peeling off its foil top.

  “So Steve,” Penny started. “Ernie and I work in a library up north.” She smiled and gauged his reaction. He didn’t have one so she went on. “Ernie’s been working on a book about how to properly train rabbits as house pets, and I enjoy knitting.”

  “I like to shoot rabbits,” he stated.

  Penny blinked and Ernie stole the first glass of champagne out of Kitty’s hand and downed it in one long gulp.

  “Dad,” Sterling said like a warning, but Steve interpreted it all wrong.

  “I hunt deer, bobcats—”

  “Aren’t they endangered?” Penny asked, not meaning to sound appalled, though she was.

  “Rabbits like I mentioned,” he went on. “Got a bear once, big brown bear. It’s stuffed in my living room.”

  “How interesting,” said Kitty and she meant it. She had a tremendous capacity to love whoever had lent a hand in raising the man she’d so easily fallen in love with. In her eyes, Steve was a hero of sorts.

  “Is that what you do for a living?” Penny inquired. “A sportsman? An expert marksman? A hunter?”

  “It’s just a hobby,” Steve explained, finally relaxing into the conversation. “I run a strip joint off the 101 in Hudson.”

  “Christ,” Sterling muttered.

  “They asked, I answered,” he barked. “I used to lead a much calmer life back when Sterling was a boy, but all that changed when—”

  “Dad.”

  “How could they not know?” Steve challenged.

  “We talked about this,” Sterling countered.

  Penny tried to smooth it over. “We read about it,” she offered. “We’re so sorry.”

  “Life’s a real bitch,” he barked, slapping Sterling on the shoulder then squeezing him hard. “You enjoy this woman as best you can every second.”

  “I will, Dad.”

  “I mean it,” he pressed, as though the weight of his wife’s death had changed him in ways that hadn’t affected Sterling. “You never know, son. You just never know.”

  Sterling looked uncomfortable, but Kitty was sure the topic had concluded.

  “Where’s Layla?” she asked her mother then explained for Steve’s benefit. “Layla’s my cousin on my mom’s side. She’s been studying geology in New Zealand, but flew all the way over just for the wedding.”

  “What the hell is geology?” Steve looked annoyed.

  “Rocks, Dad. It’s the study of rocks and the earth.”

  Now Steve looked disgusted, but he shrugged, claimed the entire champagne bottle as his own, and drank it down, leaning back in his chair and spreading his legs wide as though the Delamar’s famed terrace restaurant was no different than his living room.

  Kitty found it amusing, but Sterling was clearly dying on some level. She got the waiter’s attention and swirled her finger then softly announced, “Another bottle is on the way.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Steve in a manner that showed he wasn’t. “I guess I just feel comfortable with you folks. Ain’t that a good sign?”

  “I wish it were, Dad. I wish it were.”

  Penny picked up where Kitty’s question had left off. “Layla wanted to be here, sweetheart, but she’s terribly jetlagged. She’s up in her room. I’m sure she’ll be one hundred percent tomorrow morning.”

  Kitty nodded and realized she wasn’t at all disappointed, though she couldn’t wait to see her cousin. Being in Steve’s company had put her on cloud nine. And she genuinely felt that things were going well.

  “Grady’s coming,” said Steve, as he slammed the empty champagne bottle on the table.

  Sterling brightened at that.

  “Grady?” Kitty asked.

  “My uncle,” said Sterling. “Dad’s older brother.”

  Ernie let out a little yelp of terror then turned it into a cough, as Penny pat his arm.

  “Awe, you guys’ll love Uncle Grady,” Sterling assured them.

  Ernie chuckled nervously. “We love Steve here.” The poor man was terror-stricken.

  “Uncle Grady’s a writer as well,” Sterling told Ernie. “He was a professor of philosophy up at Syracuse before he retired to work on his satirical novels.”

  Ernie was genuinely intrigued. He leaned forward and mused, “Grady Slaughter... Penny, have we read any of his books?”

  “He sounds familiar.”

  “You might have,” Sterling said proudly. “He wrote Time and its Patterns, and The Road to Randomness.”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Ernie. “The Road to Randomness! I read it last year! Wonderful, wonderful writing, so unique. He really got me thinking.”

  Sterling smiled and nodded. “Grady’ll do that. He’s the best.”

  “And he’s your brother?” Ernie asked Steve as though it shocked him.

  “Indeed,” said Steve, looking around for the next bottle of champagne. “One hell of a nerd, but I love the guy. That’s how it is with family.”

  It was the most encouraging statement Steve had made all night, and as if Ernie’s thrill to meet the wordsmith couldn’t rise any higher, Grady sauntered through the French doors and eyed the crowd.

  “Uncle Grady!” Sterling called out, drawing everyone’s attention to the tall man in his early sixties who was the spitting image of Steve, but couldn’t have carried himself more differently.

  Grady was equally tall, equally bald, equally confident, yet dressed in a modest suit, wore wire frame glasses, and was holding a book under his arm, which Kitty recognized as Nietzsche as soon as he came close enough.

  Sterling rose to greet him, but Grady kept his gaze on Kitty, as she smiled up at him then got to her feet.

  “This must be your beautiful bride,” he said, taking Kitty’s hand between his.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Uncle Grady!”

  He could hardly tear himself away, but did to shake hands with his brother and then make formal introductions around the table.

  “I trust my brother wasn’t behaving himself?” He chortled, as they all took their seats.

  No one laughed harder than Ernie.

  Then Grady turned to Sterling and asked, “How did you meet this fine woman? Tell me everything.”

  Chapter Three

  “Thank God for Uncle Grady,” Sterling sighed as he collapsed to the couch beside Kitty. “I’m not going to li
e, I was seriously nervous for awhile there.”

  Kitty laughed. “Your dad is great!”

  Sterling looked at her as if she were insane. “Hey, I love my dad, but he has his flaws. He rubs people the wrong way. That whole mess with your father in the men’s room? That was my worst nightmare coming to life.”

  “Oh, Daddy didn’t mind.”

  “Uh, yeah, your dad definitely minded. I’m just glad he didn’t opt for a restraining order.”

  Kitty kicked off her heels and tucked her feet under her so that she was leaning into Sterling’s shoulder.

  “If I hadn’t stopped him, he would’ve talked about my mother, you know.”

  Kitty fell somber then defended Steve. “Maybe he needs to talk about it.”

  “Not on an occasion like tonight, he doesn’t.” Sterling seemed put off. He tensed at the thought of Steve elaborating on the horror he’d survived growing up. “He’s not a classy guy. He has no sense of etiquette.”

  “He respected you, wouldn’t you say?” She stared at him until he looked at her. “When you indicated he shouldn’t go into all that, he didn’t. He’s a good guy.”

  “Yeah, I know he’s a good guy,” he sighed. “I also know I’m going to be on edge with him here.”

  Kitty shrugged then squeezed him. “I’m in the same boat. Whenever I’m around my parents I turn into an embarrassed teenager. That’s the way it goes.” Kitty let that sink in then her curiosity got the better of her. “Your wife’s murder was connected to your mother’s?”

  He fell silent and turned stiff again.

  “Do you ever talk to your dad about it?”

  Sterling held his breath for a beat then acquiesced. “Not really.”

  “What was she like?”

  “My mom?”

  Now it was Kitty’s turn to hold her breath as she double-checked whether or not she really wanted to know. “Your wife.”