Something Borrowed, Something Mewed

by Bethany Blake

  So much for the bond between bridesmaids, not to mention employer and employee.

  I glanced at Socrates, who also seemed to be weighing our options, in between shooting me reproachful looks. I hoped he was devising a better plan than I had formulated, because I had nothing. Our only hope, at that point, was my mother. I was pretty sure I’d complained about needing to stop by Artful Engagements on the way home. But there was no reason for Mom to follow up with me that evening. She would never know that Socrates and I didn’t make it back to Plum Cottage.

  I corrected myself:

  If we didn’t make it back. I wasn’t counting us out yet.

  “When did this all happen?” I asked, when no one answered my first question. “Did you even know each other before we started planning Piper and Roger’s wedding?”

  We were in a pretty grim situation, regardless of whether one was about to kill or be killed, but all at once, Fidelia Tutweiler beamed with happiness. “No, Dex and I had never met before your mother brought in Artful Engagements.” She smiled lovingly at the handsome young man she’d sent to murder me. “It was love at first sight.”

  “So, all that stuff about Dexter being involved with Laci—”

  “What?” Dexter sounded surprised.

  Fidelia waved her hand at both of us, giggling like a schoolgirl. “That was just to throw you off the scent, Daphne. I knew you were investigating Abigail’s murder, and I was afraid there was a chance you’d noticed Dex and me together at the rehearsal dinner.”

  I had seen them chatting, but had assumed they were two near-strangers making small talk.

  Fidelia’s cheeks flushed with anger, like she’d read my mind. “It was all too easy to convince you that I believed Dexter was too good for me—because you believed it, too!”

  “That’s not true,” I told her. “I encouraged you to ask him out the day you were at Something Borrowed, Something New.”

  Dex smiled at Fidelia. “Yes. We were drinking champagne while Fidelia tried on dresses for our wedding.”

  Okay, maybe it was a little difficult for me to believe that my formerly mousy accountant and the Cary Grant look-alike were a couple, in spite of Fidelia’s recent attempts to add some color to her wardrobe and her hair. Then again, the two had complete ruthlessness in common.

  “You’re really getting married?” I asked.

  Socrates sighed deeply, like he thought that was a terrible idea. As did I.

  Fidelia clearly disagreed. She moved closer to Dex and slipped her hand around his bicep, resting her head against his shoulder and claiming him, although I, for one, had no interest in stealing him away. “Yes, we plan to wed as soon as all the unpleasantness over Abigail and Laci’s deaths ... and yours ... is just a memory.”

  I stepped back at the blunt reminder of my looming fate and turned to Dexter. “Why did you kill Abigail? Why not just break up with her? I know she was domineering, but you could’ve just walked away.”

  There was a long pause, during which Dex and Fidelia shared meaningful looks I didn’t understand. They seemed to be silently debating some point, Dex shaking his head and Fidelia starting to grin again.

  I got the sense that Fidelia had won when she confided, with what I considered misplaced pride, “I killed Abigail.”

  My eyes must’ve been huge, and Socrates actually barked. Not one of his measured, almost human woofs, but a loud, doggy bark of surprise. After all, Fidelia had once tried to rob me at gunpoint—only she’d used a carrot, and her hand had shaken so much that she’d had trouble drinking the hot chocolate I’d offered her before she’d broken down and shared all of her perceived inadequacies with me. And there had been many.

  I shook my head, trying to understand. “What the ... ?”

  “Dexter and Abigail were supposed to leave together in the wee hours of the night, before the wedding scam,” Fidelia began to explain. “I had to do something.”

  I took an inadvertent step forward, my hands balling into fists. Not that I would’ve punched her. But I did feel doubly betrayed. “You knew about the swindle?”

  Fidelia nodded vigorously, like she was proud of keeping that secret, too. “Yes! It was so funny to watch you all fretting about the horrible wedding Abigail was planning, all the while knowing it wasn’t even going to happen.”

  I blinked at her, suddenly wondering why, and for how long, she’d despised me, Moxie and Piper. There must have been signs I’d overlooked as I’d tried to befriend her and help her fulfill her dream of becoming an accountant.

  “Anyhow,” Fidelia continued, “Abigail had no idea that Dex and I had fallen in love. The plan was for him to get her and the money out of the country—”

  “To the Caribbean, right?” I guessed, relaxing my fingers when Dex pointed the knife at me. A subtle warning gesture. I wiped my sweating hands on my shorts, which were finally drying in the warm, stuffy room. “I saw the brochures on Abigail’s desk.”

  Fidelia’s expression soured. “Yes. Unfortunately, the destination had to be romantic.”

  I suddenly remembered the big diamond ring I’d seen on Abigail’s hand, sticking out from under the sodden flag. I looked at Dex. “You were going to marry her.”

  Dex opened his mouth, but Fidelia jumped in. “No!” Her protest was loud. “That wasn’t going to happen. He was going to get hold of Abigail’s financial information—account numbers, that type of thing—before it ever got that far. Then he would clean her out, taking everything, including the ring I would wear, and come back to me.” She smiled at Dexter. “We’d start over, with Dex running the bridal shop and his new wedding-planning business, and me keeping the books.”

  “You really mucked up that plan, didn’t you, Fi?” Dex grumbled under his breath, picking at his nails again. He looked his real age, for a change. Younger and less polished. “Cost us a ton of money. We never even got the ring back.”

  Apparently, not all was perfect in their homicidal little love affair. And, while Fidelia might’ve added some color to her clothes and hair, and murder to her brief résumé, deep down, she was still the same insecure young woman she’d always been.

  “You didn’t think he’d come back, did you?” I asked, thinking that she would’ve been right. Whatever plans they’d hatched in the heat of the moment in Sylvan Creek would’ve dried up in the heat of the tropics, and Dexter Shipley would’ve just disappeared.

  Under different circumstances, I would’ve sympathized with Fidelia. I certainly knew how difficult it was to let the love of one’s life travel far away, with no guarantee of return—and I was fairly secure, unlike Fidelia, who clutched Dex more tightly, as if she needed to hold on to him for dear life even then. By the pale moonlight streaming through the windows, I saw her knuckles grow white around the dark fabric of his suit.

  “Of course I knew Dexter would come back,” she insisted. Her chin jutted, which only convinced me more that she was lying to me and fooling herself. “I just couldn’t take the thought of Abigail even believing Dex was hers for one more day, let alone a few weeks or months. When he dropped me off at my apartment—”

  I snapped my fingers, causing Socrates’ ears to twitch. Then I pointed at Dex, who was pulling away from his girlfriend. “You didn’t escort Roger’s mother, or mine, to a car during the storm, did you? You had your arm around Fidelia.”

  Dex didn’t try to answer, so Fidelia again responded for him, puffing out her chest. “Yes, of course, Dex took care of me. And when he drove me home, with plans to return to his own apartment to get a few final things for his trip, I made up my mind that Abigail’s get-rich-quick scheme wasn’t working for me. That love was more important than money.”

  Dex had a doubtful expression on his face, but Fidelia didn’t notice. She was too enthralled with her own story.

  “I went back to Artful Engagements and confronted Abigail in her office, telling her that she could carry out her swindle, but without Dex, because he was with me.”

  I swallowed thick
ly, knowing where the story was headed. I asked anyhow, if only to stall for time. “So, what happened?”

  Fidelia lost a bit of her newfound bravado. “That old witch laughed at me and said that, even if I was younger, Dexter would never leave her for a ‘schlump’ like me.”

  “Fi, you’re not . . .”

  Dexter made a weak attempt to shore up his girlfriend’s bruised ego, but to no avail. Fidelia spoke right over him, bitterness in her rising voice. “That’s what she called me.” The room was dim, but I saw spots of color on her cheeks, and her fists clenched, too. “A ‘schlump.’”

  If Abigail Sinclair had still been alive, I would’ve strongly cautioned her against calling people “trashy” and “schlumpy” in the future. Especially damaged young women. But it was too late. One of those words had already come back to bite Abigail, and hard.

  “Then she had the nerve to walk away from me,” Fidelia added. “She told me she was going to the garden to cool off and that I should let myself out when I was done being a ‘ridiculous child’ with ‘pipe dreams’ of romance.” Fidelia spoke more angrily, and her hands shook when she gestured to Dexter, who drew back. “Abigail acted like I’d made up our whole relationship! Like it was just in my imagination!”

  “Fi, you know that’s not true.”

  Dexter sounded sincere. Almost hurt. But who knew what to believe from a scamming, cheating, murderous wedding planner?

  I kept thinking he had to be with Fidelia for the same wrong reasons he’d been with Abigail. Yet, to my knowledge, Fidelia couldn’t offer Dexter Shipley anything but love. She was a part-time accountant with student loans. And if he thought she was heir to her father Davis Tutweiler’s fortune, he was mistaken. The artist whose paintings had sold for upward of a half-million dollars had left his daughter nothing.

  Perhaps they really were in what passed for love between two heartless people.

  “I take it you followed Abigail to the garden,” I said, breaking an uncomfortable silence, during which I’d seen Dex and Fidelia silently communicating again. From the way Fidelia’s gaze had slid to the knife, I was fairly certain they were asking each other if it was time to wrap up the discussion, so I tried to keep us talking. “Where did you get the garter?”

  “From a basket in her office,” Fidelia said, confirming my suspicion. “I started looking for something, anything I could use to kill her. I saw the baskets and rooted around until my hand hit the first thing I thought might be useful.”

  I cleared my throat. “And . . .”

  “Do we really need to hear this?” Dexter sounded whiny, and Fidelia ignored him.

  She’d done one, maybe two, bold things in her life, and she wanted to brag about her first intrepid act.

  “I ran out to the garden, and I found Abigail by the fountain.” Fidelia’s eyes gleamed. “She couldn’t believe I’d had the nerve to follow her, and she didn’t even look scared when I got close—until I whipped the garter, which I’d twisted around my hands, around her throat and pushed her down into the water.” Fidelia laughed, a short, mocking sound. “She had to wear those stupid stilettos all the time. I barely shoved her. And the rest was so easy!”

  I didn’t know if she meant physically or morally easy. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  Socrates seemed to think it was the latter. Backing up next to me, away from the phone, which was useless, he growled, a low, deep rumble in his chest.

  “Why did you give Piper the garter as a gift?” I asked. “Why not just burn it? Or bury it?”

  Fidelia smiled again, smugly. “I thought maybe I’d frame Moxie Bloom, or, at the very least, muddy the trail of clues.”

  I must’ve looked confused, because Fidelia explained, “Moxie had mentioned shopping at the Gilded Lily one time when we were talking about possible wedding gifts for Piper. I had shopped there, too, buying some candles for my apartment and my friends at Oh, Beans.”

  I recalled the strange smell in Fidelia’s home. The scent hadn’t come from outside, where kids were lighting off fireworks. It had been Gunpowder and Sky.

  “I stopped in the shop when Dex and I had a romantic night at the Walnut Mountain Inn,” Fidelia added, reaching out to stroke Dexter’s arm.

  The gesture made me shudder. Dex didn’t look too happy, either. I was starting to wonder if the bloom might be fading off the rose, at least for him.

  “I stuck the garter into a silver bag, stamped from the store,” Fidelia continued. “Then I dropped it off at the Sodgrass Club, with a bunch of other gifts that had been left in all the chaos.”

  Talk about bold acts. “Weren’t you afraid you’d be noticed or remembered, either at the shop or the club?”

  Fidelia’s expression iced over. “I’m not memorable like you—or Moxie, whom I knew the Gilded Lily’s shopkeeper would recall. Who has blue hair?”

  I didn’t say “lots of people,” because it wouldn’t have been helpful.

  “No one ever notices me,” Fidelia added, her eyes glittering again. “It’s normally a curse. But it can be a blessing, too. Unlike you, I don’t cause a stir every time I enter a room.”

  I was starting to understand the root of Fidelia’s anger, toward me and Moxie, at least. She was jealous of the fact that people tended to notice us—if sometimes for all the wrong reasons, at least in my case. And she wasn’t being fair. I would’ve gladly let Fidelia have my share of several recent spotlights. I’d begged her to play the role of the Ghost of Christmas Future in a performance that had drawn a lot of unwanted attention to me. And she could’ve rowed the boat at All Paws on Deck, too, if she’d wanted to make a literal splash.

  If I hadn’t been afraid to anger her more, I would’ve argued those points. Instead, I asked, “Why did you stuff poor Ms. Peebles into a suitcase?” I addressed not Dex, but Fidelia. “Because I know you returned to the scene of the crime. Not Dexter.”

  It was my turn to shock Fidelia. Her gaze darted between me and Dexter, who shrugged. I sensed that he was starting to see the whole chain of events more clearly as Fidelia laid them out and was realizing that, together, they’d made quite a mess. Fidelia, who didn’t seem to grasp that, turned back to me. “How did you know that?”

  “I actually first suspected you because of Ms. Peebles,” I told her. “But I couldn’t believe it was true.”

  “I don’t understand . . .”

  “She’s a very friendly cat, but she wouldn’t come out of her carrier at your house. And then she scratched you, which she’s never done to me in all the times I’ve pulled her from sticky situations. I knew you must’ve done something to her to make her fear you. I just couldn’t accept it.” I hesitated, then admitted, “To be honest, I initially thought Brother Alf Sievers, who had his own issues with Abigail, was the killer. But he has a cat who follows him everywhere. I knew he’d never lock Ms. Peebles in a suitcase.”

  “Ms. Peebles is a horrible cat!” Fidelia insisted, stamping her foot. “Dex told me he’d left a watch on Abigail’s nightstand”—she shot her lover a displeased, jealous look—“but when I returned to grab his things, the watch was gone. I knew that wide-eyed little feline brat had taken it, so I locked her away, to punish her.”

  Socrates barked again. He didn’t like the cat, but he disapproved of cruelty in any form. I, meanwhile, got worried. “You haven’t hurt Ms. Peebles, have you?”

  Fidelia rolled her eyes. Like Detective Doebler, she was feeling her oats. “Your precious cat is fine. In fact, she served the great purpose of luring you here. I certainly can’t destroy her before I tell the police how awful I feel about letting you volunteer to pick up some of her things—only to have you wind up dead.”

  “Fi, relax.” Dexter chided his partner in crime for getting a little too obviously gleeful over their spree.

  I spoke to him, realizing there was a slim chance I could convince him to be an ally. “Dex, why didn’t you get the suitcase, like you originally told me? Why the lie?”

  His gaze, under lowe
red lids, cut to Fidelia, and to my surprise, he answered me. “I wasn’t going back to the mansion. Fidelia was the one who changed the whole plan, without my knowledge. It was her mess to clean up.” His smile was forced. “Wasn’t it, sweetie?”

  I looked down at Socrates, and I knew he was thinking the same thing as me. Dex wasn’t really loyal to Fidelia. And he might not have a taste for homicide. It was one thing to be part of a scam, and another to throttle someone.

  Or maybe I was wrong, because I suddenly remembered Laci Chalmers, and one final piece of the puzzle fell into place. A piece that made my heart sink.

  “You killed Laci, didn’t you, Dex?” I asked, wanting to know the truth. I was also buying more time, now that I was starting to formulate a strategy. “Fidelia knew—from me—that there was a good chance Laci would be alone at the lake, if only during a brief window of time, and she contacted you the minute I left her apartment, telling you to hurry there and strangle her.”

  Some of the color drained from Dex’s face, and I knew I’d been right. He didn’t relish taking lives, like Fidelia apparently did. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do the deed, under duress.

  “Fi thought Laci had pictures of us from the party and was just waiting to use them against us,” he said, tapping the knife harder against his palm. “I had no choice but to kill her and take her camera. I was in too deep by then.”

  “Dex, sweetheart.” Fidelia finally noticed that her man was getting agitated. She turned to him and rubbed his arm again. He once more recoiled. “We just need to take care of Daphne. Then we’ll leave the country. It’s all going to turn out okay.”

  Socrates and I were running out of time, and I dared to take a few steps closer to my phone. Socrates stayed by my side. Then I asked the most impertinent question of the night.

  “Fidelia, how can you and Dex run away to a foreign country? He’s a junior wedding planner whose little money, I presume, is tied up in a business he can’t liquidate overnight. At least, not without raising suspicion. And you’re a penniless—no offense—part-time accountant!”