Wedding Bel Blues: A Belfast McGrath Mystery (Bel McGrath Mysteries)

by Maggie McConnon

  “What are you doing?” Cargan asked, his voice recognizable despite my burrowing in under the bed.

  I slithered out, bringing a trail of dust with me. “Has this place been cleaned in the last five years, Car?” I asked, showing him my gloved hands, filled with under-bed detritus and nasty fluff.

  “Why are you wearing gloves?” he asked.

  I stood up and wiped my hands on my pants. “I was in the kitchen. Cooking.” In the distance I heard the timer go off that I had set to alert me when the scallops were done. “And I have to go,” I said.

  My brother blocked my path to the door. “What are you doing?” he asked again.

  “I was looking around.”

  “Did you see the police tape?” he asked, pointing to the yellow tape hanging listlessly in front of the open door.

  “How did you know I was in here?”

  “This is a crime scene, Bel,” he said. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “You always were the rule follower, Car,” I said, starting for the door. My eyes landed on the pile of police tape discarded outside the door, something glittering in between the adhesive and elastic. I picked it up on my way out. “I’ll get rid of this,” I said, my hands burrowing into the tape and feeling for the shiny object that had become stuck in its web.

  “I don’t know if you should,” he said, but I was already headed down the stairs, the tape in my hands.

  In the kitchen, I took out the scallops. They were perfect. I would bring a tray of them into the office and show Cargan that my mind really was on cooking and nothing else. I pulled the tape from my pocket and, making sure no one was around, unspooled it as quickly as I could, looking for the thing that was buried beneath all of that caution tape.

  There it was. I held it up to the light.

  I wondered where Mom’s earring had fallen off, when, and how. And why, up until this point, it had gone undiscovered.

  CHAPTER Sixteen

  The next night, I stopped in Dad’s studio before starting the short walk to the Grand Mill Saloon to meet Brendan Joyce. All I could hear when I entered was a banging coming from one of the side rooms, this one with a door that never closed tightly, the frame slightly bent from one or other of the times Dad had failed to measure one of his paintings or installations before trying to stow it in the room.

  “Measure twice, cut once,” Feeney used to say to Dad, a statement that was met always with my Dad’s face flaming as red as his hair.

  It was like being back in high school. I was going out for the night and had to tell my father where I was going, what time I would be back. And the weird thing? I was getting kind of used to it. No, this would never do. I couldn’t get comfortable here. I had to remind myself that I wanted to get out, to not be beholden to eating with my parents every Sunday, another day with the whole clan, pushed together in the kitchen, still fighting over the last drumstick, the last piece of pie stuck in the tin and misshapen.

  I’d tell them after I got things up and running at the Manor that they should start looking, with seriousness, for a new chef, a new Goran. Or maybe the old Goran. Maybe enough time had gone by that he had forgotten his blood oath to never return to the cursed catering hall.

  I walked over to the door and pulled it open. My father was bent at the waist, drilling nails into the side of a large wooden box that had “ART” stamped on its top, as if it would be anything else. When he heard me, he stood up quickly, hitting his head on a low beam in the A-shaped overhead space, staggering backward, the drill still operating at top speed, Dad waving it around wildly as he grabbed at the top of his head.

  I ran to the outlet and pulled out the plug, watching the drill whir its last revolution. “Dad, are you all right?” I asked. I took the drill from his hand and placed it on top of the box.

  “Bel! You scared the bejesus out of me,” he said. “What do you want?” But his angry tone was a result only of the blow to the head, the consternation at his pain. He rubbed his head vigorously, hoping to rub it into a painless state. “I’m fine!” he said even though it sounded like he was anything but “fine.”

  I pulled his hand away from his head to check the knob that was forming. No blood. That was good. “I just wanted you to know that I’m going out. Please tell Mom that the apartment is clean and that she shouldn’t take my absence as an invitation to go up there and vacuum.”

  He stood next to the box, his hand on the top, an almost protective gesture. “She’s just trying to help.”

  How did my letting my father know that I was going out turn into a defensive conversation about my apartment, my dust bunnies? “I know, Dad. I just don’t want her to go to any trouble.”

  “You just don’t want her to invade your precious privacy,” he said, his hand going back to his head.

  This wasn’t going the way I had hoped. All I could hope for at this point was a hasty getaway with no further damage done to my father and his sensitive head.

  “We’re all set for tomorrow,” I said. “All of the potatoes are peeled and I created a few new canapés for the cocktail hour.”

  Dad raised an eyebrow. “What kind of canapés?”

  “Nothing fancy. Just your standard wedding fare,” I said, and it was the truth. I didn’t want to rock the boat too much, not with what I actually had planned.

  “Good.”

  He moved his hand across the top of the box. “What’s in the box, Dad?” I asked.

  “Art!” he said. “See?” He ran his hands across the letters stenciled on the top. “A.R.T. It’s art!” It sounded like the same response he had had when the local paper called the mural he had done at the library “disjointed” and “sadly reminiscent of something one would do with colored markers.” It took him a long time to recover from that one.

  I held my hands up. I surrendered. “See you later,” I said. “I hope your head is okay. Have Mom put some ice on it.” I walked out of the room, running into Frank, Aunt Helen’s paramour, outside the studio.

  “Bel, hi,” he said.

  “Hiya, Frank. How goes it?” I asked.

  “It goes well,” he said. “Your dad in there?”

  “He is,” I said. “How’s Aunt Helen?”

  “Okay.” He moved his mouth around, looking for the words. “I hope Caleigh is enjoying herself,” he said finally.

  “On her honeymoon?”

  He nodded.

  “Is there a reason why she wouldn’t?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself, adding, “Besides the fact that a guy died at her wedding?”

  “Well, that,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, that,” I said. “Terrible thing. What do you think?” I asked.

  He chewed on that for a minute and shook his head. “I think nothing.”

  I believed that. It was probably the best course of action when dating Aunt Helen; she could do all of the thinking for both of them. I stood for a minute and looked at him. When it was clear he had nothing else to say, I said good-bye. He let himself into the studio and made some positive noises about Dad’s installation. God bless you, Frank, I thought. You’re a better person than I.

  The Grand Mill had been here since the beginning of time, or so it seemed. When we were kids, it was called Trixie’s and was home to the town’s most dedicated alcoholics, the ones for whom a nip at eight in the morning was not an uncommon occurrence. Dad and Uncle Eugene had been regulars, though they didn’t order their first pint until after five in the afternoon, having what they called standards. A few years ago, it had been taken over by a couple who had moved here from trendy Brooklyn and who had turned it into more of an upscale eatery, even while retaining the “charm,” if you could call it that, from its days as Trixie’s. So, bead board, now clean and white, adorned the walls, and the tin ceiling gleamed overhead. Still, the guys left over from Trixie’s hung at the bar that sat at the far end of the dining room, their hoots over a Yankee home run or a Red Sox loss filling the space where diners came to enjoy a good burger or a bowl of mu
ssels. I didn’t see Brendan when I walked in, so I took a seat at the far end of the bar, close to the kitchen, and studied the numerous taps that were now on display. All microbrewed with the exception of two domestic selections, many with names I didn’t recognize. The Grand Mill had changed even more than I thought, judging from the drink list that was put in front of me. French Kiss? Pometini? And the dreaded Green Apple Martini, the bane of every bartender in New York. It was as if I had left the city only to have the city follow me right here. Was that what Foster’s Landing was becoming?

  I didn’t have too much time to mull that over, because Brendan and his dynamite teeth walked in the front door of the place, striding toward the bar with a confidence he hadn’t had when he was fourteen and then fifteen and so on. At eighteen, he hadn’t been much different than he had been at thirteen, so to see him walking with purpose toward me, not one feather ruffled, was refreshing.

  Maybe all of that orthodontic work had boosted his self-esteem in a way no one could have anticipated.

  He slipped onto the barstool next to mine and fingered the drink menu. After greeting me with a quick peck to my cheek, he said, “Hard to get a good old-fashioned cold one around here. Everything is microbrewed within an inch of its life.” He pushed himself up onto his elbows and surveyed the bar taps. “Ah, Coors Light. Nothing better.” He looked at me, smiled. “And for you?”

  After I had eaten a farm-to-table meal at Mary Ann’s, Brendan’s lack of gustatory sophistication was welcome. I do enjoy hanging with people who enjoy a good old burger every now and again, for whom Jerusalem artichokes are anathema. Oh, who was I kidding? I do not. But if they come in the Brendan Joyce package I can overlook a lot. “Same.”

  He greeted the bartender warmly, a small woman with a prodigious backside I remembered from high school. Mandy or Mindy or something like that. I had blocked out her name because I remember her being particularly cruel after Amy had disappeared, intimating to me more than once that summer that I knew more than I was letting on. I watched her carefully for signs that she recognized me, but it was the same old girl whom I remembered checking out her reflection in every reflective surface available; this time, she had the big mirror behind the bar to make sure that her black eyeliner stayed put, that the height of her perm was just as it had been when she had styled it that unfortunate way before coming to work. “You remember Bel, Sandy?” he said to the woman behind the bar.

  Sandy. Sandy Greer. How could I forget? That girl had worn a perpetual scowl from the first day of kindergarten until this very day.

  “Bel McGrath?” she asked, putting the beers down in front of them. “Yes, I remember Bel McGrath,” she said before sauntering off, her jeans making a whispering noise in her wake. She remembered me and what she remembered she didn’t like.

  Brendan looked at me. “She remembers you,” he said before bursting into laughter. He stood and walked over to the waitress, asking if we could have a table in the corner, beckoning to me when he got her approval.

  I grabbed my beer and followed him, remembering that this table was not the one you wanted at sundown, light streaming in from the big window, blinding me as I felt around for my chair. Brendan reached over and took hold of the cord over the window shade, dropping it and draping the table in a more comfortable shadow. Once across from him, I took the opportunity to get a better look at him now that he was out of the village-mandated shorts and polo shirt that he wore for his job at the camp. Please God, I thought. Please make him have another job besides camp counselor, because as evolved as I am, I do like my paramours—and I hoped that Brendan Joyce would be in the running to fill the bill—to have a steady paycheck, a life plan, not just a summer job until the next thing came along.

  Too bad I hadn’t been thinking about that as I had stared into Declan Morrison’s dreamy brown eyes. That, I concluded, had been a minor hiccup in my usual practical personality.

  Brendan wasn’t wearing his village-issued clothes tonight, though he was sporting a nice polo shirt and khaki pants so that he looked like he was still on the clock, if just a little bit. He had tried to tame the mop of chestnut-colored curls atop his head, but to little avail; a few sprung loose and danced around the top of his head as he talked, animated and funny, a twinkle in his eye indicating that this was a happy person who enjoyed himself.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, perusing the menu but seeming to read my mind. “I only work at the camp in the summer. You’re not on a date with a part-time summer camp counselor.”

  I feigned relief. “That’s good to know.” I studied his hands; they were paint covered and looked suspiciously like my father’s.

  Good God. He was an artist.

  “Art teacher,” he said, reading my expression of horror, the one I had failed to suppress. “At the high school. Drawing and painting. Advanced drawing and painting. Advanced Placement art.” He smiled that toothy grin again. “All of the biggies.”

  “And your own art?” I asked.

  “When I can. Usually on the weekends. I do watercolors of the Foster’s Landing River mostly. Sell them at craft fairs. I can usually pull in a couple of hundred extra bucks on a weekend, which is a nice way to make ends meet. Big craft fairs are even better.” He polished off his beer. “People love watercolors. Particularly of landscapes.”

  “You mean your salary as a public-school teacher doesn’t keep you in caviar and champagne?” I asked.

  “Hardly,” he said. “I’m saving up for my own studio so I can move the paints out of my house. I think the smell of turpentine keeps me in a permanent state of light-headedness.”

  You and my father, I thought.

  “How is it going with the investigation?” Brendan said, his eyes still on the menu.

  “You mean the death at the Manor?” I said. “Nothing as far as I can tell.”

  “Was he drunk?” he asked. “You know, crashing through the banister like that?”

  It had all been detailed, right down to the broken FDR bust, in the local paper.

  “Hard to know,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Accident?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Murdered?” he asked, looking at me.

  “Definitely,” I said. “I was the only witness, if you could call it that. I was just wandering through the foyer when it happened. When he fell.”

  Brendan winced, making a whistling sound through his clenched teeth. “Oh, geez. Sounds awful.”

  “I didn’t know the guy at all, but it was still pretty bad,” I said. All I knew was that I had once found him attractive until he turned into an oily gigolo. “Seemed like a pleasant guy, though.” And cute. But not as cute as you, Brendan Joyce.

  “Anybody at the wedding who might want to kill him?” Brendan asked, putting his menu down on the table.

  My mind flashed on a few faces: Mark Chesterton’s. Caleigh’s. And, for some reason, my own father’s. Mom, licking her lips as she told her latest lie. I quickly shook the thought of that aside and didn’t answer, except to give a little shrug.

  Over dinner, I got to know a little more about my date. He had never married and at thirty-seven, exactly my age, was the talk of his mother’s friends, his elderly aunts. His reason—he hadn’t met the right person, anyone who excited him enough to give up the life he had now—didn’t sit well with them. There had to be a girl out there. He was just too picky. He couldn’t make a decision. And on and on and on. Did he like women who brandished broken wine bottles with wild abandon? I wondered. If so, I was his girl.

  “So, I’ve been on more blind dates with more former Roses of Tralee than I can count.” He smiled, signaling for a third round for the two of us to the server. At this rate, I’d still be half in the bag by the time the O’Donnell wedding started, and I was notorious for being able to hold my liquor. I had a lot to do, given my thoughts about how the ham would be cooked and was starting to think that I was in over my head with this whole thing, the preparation I had in min
d. But this was the most fun I had had in ages and I wasn’t going to let a hundred hungry Irish guests—and a pig—stand in the way of my having a good time.

  “Not a good one in the bunch?”

  He must have been a little drunkish himself. “Not as good as you.”

  Well, hello there.

  CHAPTER Seventeen

  Four o’clock in the morning comes quickly.

  Especially after three beers and a bourbon nightcap.

  But memories of an excellent make-out session with the sweet Brendan Joyce put a smile on my face when I awoke and made the effort it would have taken to get out of bed a little easier, a bed that was slightly rumpled when I got home, even though I remembered making it and fluffing the pillows that very morning. But that didn’t matter. I had had a date with a nice guy and that made 4:00 a.m. not quite as difficult to face.

  I was so glad he had gotten his braces off.

  I tiptoed down the steps of the garage and down the gravel path where I waited, in the dark, the full moon overhead the only light to see by, for the truck that would bring me the most succulent pig I had ever tasted.

  You want ham? I’ll give you ham.

  It takes about twelve hours to roast a hundred-pound pig and after I had come home the night before, Brendan acting as my partner in crime, we drunkenly cleaned out an old pit that Dad had once built behind Shamrock Manor and away from the old structure where I could place the animal for roasting. This was always going to be a clandestine affair and I was glad to have an accomplice, someone who had a lot more upper-body strength than I did and who could help me make the pit usable. The truck pulled up a few minutes after four, and I directed them to the space where I would roast the pig, hoping that the telltale signs of going in reverse—the beep, beep, beep of Javier’s large truck—wouldn’t wake up my parents. Mom, I hoped, was using her noise machine, and Dad, his own noise machine, was probably dead to the world as usual.