Something Borrowed, Something Mewed

by Bethany Blake

  All at once, on some cue I hadn’t heard, the boats around us all lit up merrily, to the oohs and aahs I’d anticipated. The sounds carried from the shore, where lanterns and sparklers also glowed in the darkness under a starry sky.

  I wanted to enjoy the view, but I was struggling to keep hold of my oars and switch on the Tiny-tanic’s battery-powered display. As the boat rocked, I managed to illuminate our entry in the waterborne parade, and it was impressive enough to earn a second round of gasps, and even some scattered applause.

  Then, in keeping with tradition, the convoy of about twenty people-powered, highly decorated craft, most carrying dogs dressed like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross, began to move in a slow, erratic circle.

  I had barely managed to get us out to the spot where the entries had gathered, and I got a little sweaty even before I’d really exerted myself.

  “We can do this,” I promised Timmy and Artie, who kept turning around, their matching, bulging eyes alight with excitement—or concern, because my efforts to stay on course in the choppy water were already failing.

  Hauling on both oars, I tried to line up the Tiny-tanic with the craft ahead of us, which carried a golden retriever who was wearing an outfit remarkably like my Statue of Liberty bridesmaid dress.

  “Lady, are you doin’ okay?” someone from another boat called to us from across a dark stretch of water.

  “We’re fine,” I promised, even as I realized the life jackets I’d wanted all of us to wear were stashed underneath my seat. I’d been so impressed with the dogs’ costumes that I’d forgotten all about safety and hadn’t even considered covering up Moxie’s handiwork. Which was probably a mistake, since, just as I’d feared, water was seeping in around the pole that Moxie probably shouldn’t have drilled into the already weathered boards.

  “I’m heading for land,” I told Artie and Timmy, keeping a wary eye on the small, but spreading, puddle at my feet. “We’re perfectly safe, so don’t panic!”

  That was the wrong thing to say. Both dogs started barking wildly, their little voices high and shrill, which people on shore apparently believed to be part of the act. As I rowed harder, getting nowhere, and the water in Tiny-tanic rose, the audience on shore applauded again.

  “We’re actually sinking now!” I called, hauling on the oars with all my might. The pole Moxie had installed popped free and fell over sideways, the lights sputtering out and water burbling in through the suddenly empty hole.

  Yapyapyapyapyapyap!

  Artie and Timmy either knew something was wrong, or they were having the time of their lives. Either way, their barks were like machine-gun fire as we tilted dangerously leeward. Or maybe starboard.

  “Mayday!” I cried, trying to recall a nautical plea for help. Artie and Tiny Tim spun around in the prow like the pinwheels attached to the sides of our doomed craft. “SOS! Ship down!”

  I heard the creak and clack of oars against wood and more barking and voices as our fellow parade entrants tried to rush to help. But rowboats are not made for rushing, and it was too late for anyone to save us but me.

  As the Tiny-tanic rolled completely sideways, I lunged for the dogs, scooping them up in my arms and leaping into the dark, chilly waters of Lake Wallapawakee.

  * * *

  “At least it was a warm evening,” I told Socrates as we drove down the long lane to Artful Engagements. In all the excitement over the maritime disaster, I’d completely forgotten about my promise to pick up Ms. Peebles’s bed and toys until Fidelia had texted me, asking if I could please bring some comforting items for the out-of-sorts little cat. Taking one hand off the wheel, I swiped my wrist across my forehead, getting some of my damp curls out of my eyes. “And it’s a good thing I left my phone with Mom during the parade, too. Otherwise, it would be at the bottom of the lake with the Tiny-tanic!”

  Socrates wasn’t happy about our detour to the mansion, and he was worried about Snowdrop and her person, but he couldn’t stop snuffling and huffing with what sounded like mirth—the canine equivalent of Mom’s outburst when she’d spied a dark pug version of Ernest Borgnine.

  I wasn’t quite as amused by the memory of how I’d slogged through a muddy lake bed, after realizing the water was only chest high, with two bedraggled, costumed dogs, one of whom had lost the tiny hat Moxie had worked so hard to create. However, I was trying to look on the bright side of my second public humiliation at Lake Wallapawakee, which, like the first—when I’d been part of a polar bear plunge gone awry—had, of course, been captured on film by Gabriel Graham.

  “Maybe I’ll look heroic, like Jonathan did when he pulled me from the lake,” I added. “I was carrying two dogs to safety.”

  Well, I had been carrying them, until they’d both wriggled out of my arms and begun swimming in gleeful circles before racing each other to shore, where they’d arrived about two minutes before me, because my feet kept getting stuck in the muck.

  Socrates knew I was trying too hard to put a positive spin on things and that I wouldn’t look anything like an action hero when the Weekly Gazette landed on doorsteps the next day. Even in the dark van, I thought his expression looked doubful.

  I pretended I didn’t notice as I pulled up before an equally dark mansion, where a sign announced that the property was for sale—and that interested buyers should contact Beverly Berendt Prime Real Estate.

  “No wonder Mom has cooled on Bev,” I said, climbing out from behind the wheel. I went around to release Socrates, who reluctantly jumped down. “And I bet that’s why she’s not upset about Piper eloping, either. Mom probably wants to steer as clear of Beverly as possible until she can pull off her next real estate coup, which I guarantee will be in Zephyr Hollow.”

  Socrates had zero interest in petty feuds over property. And he had even less interest in entering Artful Engagements, although I’d reminded him, a dozen times, that the place was perfectly safe.

  Not only was the big house empty, but, like Jonathan, I believed that Abigail’s murder had been a crime of passion. The killer wouldn’t be lurking around waiting for some random visitors to knock off, too.

  “Come on,” I told Socrates, leading the way to the back door, where my key fit the lock. “This will just take a minute.”

  He continued to hang back, but trotted after me. A few moments later, we were in the kitchen where I’d last seen Daisy Carpenter trying, and failing, to assert herself with Abigail.

  As always when the building was quiet, I could hear the tick of the grandfather clock echoing through the whole first floor.

  And as I stood there listening to that familiar sound, I flashed back to the day I’d discovered Abigail’s body and the suitcases on the bed.

  A missing timepiece—and perfect timing.

  Messy brochures and overflowing baskets.

  Ambition clashing with amour.

  And a cat in a case, and at a cult ...

  “Why is this still not adding up?” I mused aloud, looking down at Socrates. “Just when I think one thing fits, it ruins another theory—one of which is laughable, because the person I’m thinking of can’t be a killer.”

  Socrates wasn’t laughing at anything. His tail dropped.

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s run upstairs and grab a few of Ms. Peebles’s things.”

  He didn’t look enthusiastic about that, either, but he trailed along behind me, both of us pausing while I found the proper switch to illuminate the corridor leading to the main staircase.

  Flipping that, I again assumed the lead, only to stop at Abigail’s office.

  “Just a peek,” I promised Socrates, who shook his head, making his long ears swing.

  Ignoring him again, I stepped into the dark room and flipped another switch. Abigail’s desk lamp turned on, and I noted that the brochures I’d seen were still near her computer.

  “Mom would’ve tucked those away,” I whispered to Socrates, who stayed near the door while I moved to the desk and picked up the pamphlets, one
of which advertised a romantic couples-only destination in the Caribbean, not far from where I believed Piper was staying.

  Studying the colorful photos, I finally realized that the brochures, which I’d assumed Abigail had collected for some other couple, were probably related to her own thwarted travel, and my pulse started to race.

  “Some of this is starting to make sense,” I told Socrates, dropping the fliers and turning to the messy baskets, which hadn’t been tidied, either. “Seriously,” I added, “Mom would’ve been all over this. I hate to say it, but I think Abigail’s estate chose the wrong Realtor.”

  If Socrates was listening, I didn’t notice, because for the first time, the jumble of wedding paraphernalia also struck me as out of place. Not only would an organized person like Abigail have kept her emergency gear in order, like a firefighter, but she probably wouldn’t have been rooting through the stuff right before she fled town.

  Moving closer, I dug a hand into one of the baskets, which held cuff links, bow ties and cummerbunds.

  Then I checked another, which held hair ties, bobby pins—and garters in an array of colors, from white to pink to pale yellow.

  “There’s no blue one,” I told Socrates. “Don’t you think that would be a very common color?”

  Socrates woofed softly, and I thought he was probably trying to tell me that we should get moving, and that Detective Doebler would’ve already gone through the baskets, too.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” I said. “Fred Doebler’s a guy, and he wouldn’t think to even consider a stash of random wedding stuff. He probably didn’t look in these baskets at all, and had forgotten about them by the time the garter showed up as the likely murder weapon.” I recalled how Detective Doebler had let me go upstairs while the crime scene team was still in the garden. “The murder obviously took place outside, and that was his main focus.”

  Socrates looked doubtful, and I had to concede that maybe he was right and Detective Doebler was aware of what I considered to be a potentially important clue.

  “Come on,” I said, joining him at the door and shutting off the light. “Let’s go upstairs and find Ms. Peebles’s things.”

  Socrates dragged along behind me, resigned to the task at hand, but still clearly objecting to our adventure, which for once wasn’t investigative.

  Well, maybe it was a bit investigative. As we passed through another corridor on the second floor I stopped once more at Abigail’s bedroom, where the door was wide open. Poking my head into that chamber, I listened closely.

  I didn’t hear a thing, except the distant ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs.

  “I swear, there was a watch on the nightstand,” I told Socrates, peering hard at the small table. I could barely make out the outline of the book and tube of hand cream I’d seen before. “I’m sure that whoever came back to claim the suitcase took the watch, too.”

  Socrates, who’d often accompanied me to pet-sitting jobs at the mansion, responded by shuffling off toward the upstairs living room, where Abigail kept a basket of cat toys and a bed for Ms. Peebles.

  Following him into the spacious, tasteful room, illuminated by moonlight streaming in through windows that overlooked the garden, I once again thought the messy baskets were an anomaly, and maybe a clue. A similar basket was neatly stacked with magazines, and the cat toys were arranged tidily, too.

  Figuring I’d grab the whole stash, I walked across a thick carpet that covered an antique parquet floor. And when my steps were muffled, my ears picked up a faint sound I’d hoped to hear in the bedroom.

  The tiniest ticking of a clock or watch.

  Getting excited again, I knelt down by the basket, while Socrates stood in the middle of the floor, his paws sunken into the soft rug and his eyes trained on the door.

  “Why are you so spooked?” I asked him, reaching into a bunch of catnip mice, plastic balls filled with bells and little birds with fluffy feathers.

  And then my fingers found the watch.

  Not just any watch.

  The one I’d seen on the nightstand—and, I suspected, the one that had been missing from Dexter Shipley’s wrist when he’d shown me dresses at Something Borrowed, Something New. He’d checked his empty wrist then, and at the Sodgrass Club, where he’d complained about doing that out of “force of habit.”

  Hardly anyone wore a watch on a regular basis anymore, when everyone’s phone had a clock, and I turned over the masculine timepiece, examining the back in the soft moonlight. And, sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed, about both Dex as the owner and his relationship with Abigail. I squinted at a small inscription reading, To D.S.—All my love, until the end of time. A.S.

  “Ms. Peebles stole this,” I told Socrates, still staring at the somewhat cheesy note. “I bet she was purposely trying to leave a clue that would lead the police to Dexter!”

  “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I always expected Socrates to talk one day, and when he did, he’d probably critique a theory like the one I’d just set forth. For a split second, I thought he’d actually responded, and I wheeled around, only to discover Dex Shipley, wedding planner on the rise, likely murderer—and Abigail Sinclair’s partner in a romance that had somehow gone wrong—watching me from the doorway with a very funny gleam in his dark movie-star eyes.

  Chapter 44

  “I thought I’d left my watch up here the night poor Abigail met her demise,” Dex said, leaning against the door frame, his arms crossed. A bemused smile played at the corners of his lips, making me keenly aware that he wasn’t at all worried about the fact that I’d just identified him as Abigail’s missing secret lover and likely killer. “When I came back to grab my bags the next night, I tried to find it, but I ran out of time. No pun intended.”

  Socrates still wasn’t amused, and I wasn’t laughing, either. I pulled my phone from my pocket—and Dexter pulled a knife from one of his, inside the blazer he was wearing on a hot summer night. Not so much as a bead of sweat dampened his brow.

  Speaking over Socrates’ low growl, Dex nodded to my phone. “I would toss that in my direction, if I were you.”

  It was the most cinematic confrontation I’d ever had with a killer, and I wished I wasn’t afraid for Socrates’ and my lives. As things stood, I couldn’t exactly enjoy the encounter, and I surreptitiously tapped the screen with my thumb, hoping I’d hit the right app out of the few on my home screen, before bending over to slide the phone across the carpet. It spun to a stop near Socrates’ big paws.

  Dex let the phone lie where it had landed. He’d lost interest in the surrendered device and was studying me. “Why do you look like such a mess?”

  I’d nearly forgotten about my damp clothes and tousled hair. I tugged at the soggy hem of my T-shirt. “My boat sank to the bottom of Lake Wallapawakee.”

  I thought that explanation begged for greater details, but Dex didn’t seem interested in those, either. He shook his head with mock sadness. “So many tragedies at that lovely body of water lately!”

  I knew then that he’d killed Laci Chalmers. And he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t murdered Abigail, too.

  “Why don’t you just let me and Socrates go, before you make things even worse for yourself?” I suggested, knowing full well that he wasn’t going to listen to me. Still, I had to try. “I don’t really know anything, and I just want to go home.”

  He knew I was lying, if only out of desperation, and he laughed out loud. “You want to run to the bumbling detective and share everything you do know. You have a reputation for digging up the truth.”

  “So what is the truth?” I challenged him. “Why did you kill Abigail and stuff poor Ms. Peebles in a suitcase?—which was really uncalled-for!”

  Dex finally lost his cool, in-charge demeanor, if only for a moment. Confusion clouded his eyes, and not because I’d blurted that stupid thing about confining a cat, which was terrible, but not as “uncalled-for” as murder.

>   Dex knit his brow. “The cat . . . ?”

  I was suddenly baffled, too. “Why didn’t you take your suitcase with you the night you killed Abigail?”

  I’d perplexed him again. “I . . . I . . .”

  He didn’t have to finish his faltering explanation, because all at once, the front door slammed downstairs, then heavy footsteps thudded up the steps.

  Dex stepped into the room, concealing himself in the many shadows.

  “Be careful!” I tried to warn the person who was hurrying down the corridor in our direction, and Socrates barked, too. “Don’t come in here!” I again tried to caution the individual who had, hopefully, inexplicably come to our rescue.

  I supposed I’d expected Jonathan Black to miraculously make yet another appearance in the nick of time, although a small part of me knew that was not a realistic belief, given that I hadn’t told him where I was, and that he was three thousand miles away.

  Yet I was still disappointed, if grateful, when Fidelia Tutweiler burst into the room.

  “Fidelia!” I cried. “Watch out!”

  She blinked at me in the darkness while I tried to figure out what was happening, because Dexter didn’t threaten her, or say a word. He did step into the light so he stood shoulder to shoulder with my part-time accountant. Then the room got strangely, eerily still.

  “Fidelia?” I asked, my voice a little choked. “Did you come here because it took me too long to get the cat toys, and you were worried?”

  I already knew the answer, because I’d put some of the impossible-to-believe pieces together. And so I wasn’t completely surprised when my fellow bridesmaid gave me a level stare and said, flatly, “No. I thought Dexter was taking too long. I was starting to worry that my plan had gone wrong, and you had killed him.”

  Chapter 45

  “How long have you two been together?” I asked Fidelia and Dexter, who continued to hold on to his knife.

  He alternated between tapping the blade against his palm and cleaning fingernails that I was sure were already impeccable, but I knew I’d have no chance if I tried to dart past him. Not with Fidelia at his side, blocking the door that led to the hallway.