May the Best Man Die

by Deborah Donnelly

  “High tech, huh?” Aaron underlined the phrase twice, then a third time. “So Kraye is due for a windfall from some kind of technology deal, and then he gets killed. The two things might be related.”

  “Or he might have been lying, to impress a girl.”

  “Maybe,” he said, flipping backward in his notebook. “But wasn't Schulman at a dot-com? Yeah, your friend Fiona said so. Of course, if it went belly-up, nobody's investing in it these days . . . hmm. Not much of a connection, but you never know. Let's go over all these notes at dinner, OK?”

  “I can't. I'm working tonight.” I explained about Ivy's dinner party, and Lou's new role as best man.

  “That's perfect!” Aaron shrugged into his pea coat. “You run along and be charming to Schulman, and see what you can worm out of him. Wear something sexy. Get the name of the dot-com, find out if Kraye worked there, too, and sound him out about high-tech investments.”

  “Forget it!” I said. “I'm not going to encourage that oaf. Can't Madison snoop around in Jason's personnel records?”

  “I am shocked that you would suggest something so unethical. Good idea, I'll ask her. But you should still see what you can pick up from him in person. Scope out Frank some more, too, though I'd be surprised if it was him.”

  “I'd be astonished. Nobody's that good an actor.”

  Back at the office, I settled down to review the guest list for tonight's gathering: the bridal couple, all four parents, the groom's one sister, the best man and maid of honor, and me. Ten people in all. Although, for once, the exact head count didn't matter; Ivy, loath to host a stilted formal meal, had taken my suggestion to engage a sushi chef for the evening. Now there's an ice breaker for you.

  Tonight I'd be meeting Charles Tyler for the first time, and also Frank Sanjek's sister, Erica. I'd already met his parents, a pair of small, soft-spoken people from Spokane whose transposition of their own first names to their children's—Frances and Eric begat Frank and Erica—was apparently the only walk on the wild side they'd ever taken. They were proud of their boy. To be marrying not just an heiress, but the daughter of the famous Ivy Tyler, well, that was really something. I liked the Sanjeks.

  I couldn't say the same for Sally's maid of honor, Brittany, a chattery girl obsessed with celebrity gossip. But she was going to look fabulous on New Year's Eve in her shorter version of Sally's black gown. This was one bridesmaid's dress that could definitely be worn again . . .

  Yikes! Suddenly, in midlist, I remembered the one detail I'd overlooked: fetching my trusty jade-green silk—my own dress for tonight's dinner—from the cleaner's. It was almost time to leave anyway, given the drive ahead of me, so I gathered up my things and called ahead to make sure it was ready.

  “I'll just put it out front for you,” came the cheerful voice of the Qwik-Kleen proprietor. She was used to my dashing in and out. “I'll hang it by the register . . . hmm . . . where do you suppose . . . wait a sec, would you, honey?”

  The receiver at her end clattered down; the Qwik-Kleen didn't run to HOLD buttons. I pressed the phone to my ear, straining for the distant noises of the mechanized clothes rack as it ground along, the suits and shirts swaying, imagining my jade silk coming around on the next pass . . . please?

  “Well,” she said, “it is just not here. Isn't that funny?”

  “No,” I said plaintively, “not really. Could you look again?”

  “I'm still lookin', honey, but if it isn't here, it isn't here. I'll call you tomorrow, OK, and if we can't find the garment, we'll replace it a' course, it's in our guarantee—”

  “Fine, whatever. Call me.”

  Damn, damn, damn. Most of my clothes were at the houseboat, and the dove-gray suit was still bloody. Well, didn't I deserve a new dress once in a while? I checked my watch: just enough time to dash downtown, make a quick but hopefully wise selection, and change at Ivy's apartment. And if I saved the tags and didn't spill anything, I could always return the dress tomorrow.

  What with running orange lights and having good parking karma, twenty minutes later I was on an escalator in the Bon Marche, heading up to Better Dresses. I was gazing vaguely at the back of the woman above me on the escalator when I came to with a little start.

  “Lily?”

  The woman turned around. My dear friend looked like hell, with puffy eyes and drawn complexion, but she actually smiled. If I had telephoned, I bet she would have hung up on me, but appearing face-to-face like this was too immediate for either of us to resist.

  “Oh, Carnegie, I . . . I'm so sorry.”

  “So am I, Lily, more than I can say. And I miss you!”

  “I miss you, too. So do the boys. ‘Where's Aunt Carrie?' I hear it twenty times a day.”

  Her eyes were bright with tears. We half-hugged, me reaching up and Lily down, and then we were startled into laughter when the escalator dumped us off at the top. We moved out of the stream of shoppers we were blocking—honestly, people can be so cross at Christmas—and stood among the racks of glittery holiday dresses, first embracing and then stepping back, holding on by both hands. Holding on to friendship.

  “They let Darwin go,” she said, her voice tremulous.

  “That's wonderful! So the police found out who did it?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “No, they still suspect him. They just didn't have enough of a case to charge him with murder, and there was some kind of time limit. But Mike says they can always rearrest him.”

  “I see. Lily, this must be hell for both of you.”

  “We'll get through. He's staying at my house for now. I want Marcus and Ethan to see that he's still their Uncle Dar.” Marcus was six years old, and Ethan four. Too young for abstract explanations.

  “That's good, Lily. And you're seeing Mike?”

  “Just talking on the phone, and he shouldn't even be doing that. Aaron comes over a lot, though.” She squeezed my hands. “He told me where you're staying, and that you're helping him figure this out.”

  “I'm trying. We'll do what we can.” I thought about the mission Aaron gave me, to charm Lou Schulman, and sighed. “Everything we possibly can.”

  “Bless you both,” she said. “I just called Aaron, to tell him Dar was home. He said he'd have some research for me to do soon, on a dot-com or something. Listen, I was just on my break, trying to find this one last gift for Ethan, but I've got to give up for now. Can you walk back to the library with me?”

  “I wish I could, Lily, but I've got a rehearsal dinner in Snohomish in . . . Ack! In two hours. I've got to grab a dress and get going. What's the gift, though? Maybe I can find it for him later.”

  “Are you ready for this? Ethan wants a toilet for his superhero action figures!” She laughed out loud, that wonderful throaty laugh of hers, and it did my heart good to hear it again. “He was so proud of using the potty on his own last year, and now all of a sudden he's decided that his guys should do the same thing!”

  I joined her in laughter. “That's Ethan all over. Listen, I'll call you tomorrow, OK?”

  “You do that.” She hugged me again. “And you come for Christmas like we planned. Promise?”

  “Promise. Tell the boys.”

  She took the down escalator. I watched her descend out of sight—she glanced up and waved—and then I started to search for a dress that would knock the socks off Clueless Lou.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE DRESS WAS STUNNING BUT THE TRAFFIC WAS CRAWLING, AND I was late for Ivy's dinner.

  At least gridlock gives you time to finish doing your makeup, and call ahead to say you'll be late. And to slurp some coffee, too; I always crank up on caffeine before a big client event, and with time so short, it had to ride with me in a thermos. So I sipped and painted and fumed and sipped some more—Habitat coffee was excellent—at about nineteen miles an hour. When the traffic thinned out, just past the commuter cutoff for the Mukilteo Ferry, I put aside the thermos and gunned it.

  I thought I was home free at the exit for Snohomi
sh, but I hadn't realized how far out in the country the Tylers' country house was. After miles of secondary roads and a couple of wrong turns, I came at last to a private gravel lane winding through the darkness. It delivered me to a three-story mansion secluded in its own private woods, the proud residence of some turn-of-the-century timber baron. I parked Vanna and hurried across the wide cobbled courtyard, groaning to see all the cars there already.

  The front door was a massive oaken affair, flanked by coaching lanterns. I rang the bell and waited, grateful that the air was less icy than it had been lately. Looming high above me, the walls of age-softened gray shingle sprouted bay windows and corner turrets and a cedar-shake mansard roof, complete with widow's walk. The baron didn't fool around.

  An imperturbable middle-aged woman in a maid's uniform let me in and took my coat, leaving me garbed in nothing but goose bumps and a flimsy scrap of purple satin. Not exactly indecent—I was working, after all—but having my hemline and my neckline in such close proximity was way beyond my comfort zone. No spilling tonight, I vowed, and this rag goes back to the Bon tomorrow. Boys and girls, can you spell “slut”?

  Clicking along on my highest heels, I followed the maid through a lofty front hall and past a grand staircase, its banisters and newel posts carved in dark, gleaming wood. Beside the stairs stood a Christmas tree, twelve feet tall at least and decorated in high Victorian style. Marcus and Ethan would have loved it.

  We came to a set of fine paneled doors, from behind which came voices and a burst of laughter. The doors opened to the living room, where the first faces I saw were Ivy Tyler's, looking furiously at her watch, and Lou Schulman's, looking at my dress like he'd been hit from behind with a two by four.

  “Nice of you to drop by,” Ivy muttered through a gritted-teeth smile. She seized my elbow and turned her back to her guests. “I told you to come early!”

  “I'm awfully sorry, Ivy. Traffic. I'll go check in with Andy.”

  Andy was Andrew Mikami, private chef, master of sushi and showmanship, and a pleasure to work with. He was busy at the marble-topped prep island in the middle of Ivy's kitchen, arranging a display of slicing knives, rice paddles, and immaculate raw ingredients on black porcelain dishes. I recognized gari—pickled ginger—and nori—the sheets of seaweed for rolling—and of course the rice, but the ice-filled tray of seafood held some mysteries. The tuna and shrimp were familiar, and even the squid, but the remaining items were beyond my ken.

  As I walked in, Andy looked me up and down and gave a wolf whistle. “Carnegie on the half-shell, very nice!”

  I blushed. “Too much?”

  “Not at all. A different look for you, but a good one.” Then he turned businesslike. “I need fifteen minutes, OK?”

  “You got it. I'll put out the flowers.” I had decided on orchids for tonight, in lacquered vases that the ladies could take home with them. I'd also rented high stools and tables for better viewing of the culinary performance, and was relieved to see how well they fit into an arc around the island. I adjusted each delicate spray of orchids to just the perfect angle, and straightened the inlaid teak chopsticks at each place.

  “Can I help?” asked the maid from the kitchen doorway.

  “I think we're set,” I told her. “If you'll just—I'm sorry, I don't know your name?”

  “Eleanor.”

  “OK, Eleanor, if you'll just check in with Andy from time to time, to see if he needs anything. I'll be out with the guests.”

  The living room was long and gracious, with cream-colored plaster walls and mahogany picture rails, hung now with evergreen garlands. At the far end, an immense fieldstone fireplace was guarded by a brass fire screen in a peacock's tail design. Most of the party was clustered there, but Lou was waiting by the doorway. The minute I entered, his beery breath was on my cheek. At least our hostess served a classy brand of beer.

  “Man, you look hot,” he said, in a hoarse but fortunately low voice. “I really dig redheads.”

  I did some gritting and smiling of my own, but I had fences to mend with Ivy before I started charming Lou. I gave her the high sign, that everything was on track in the kitchen, then went to the fireplace and scraped Lou off on Frank's parents like a horse leaving its rider on a low-hanging tree limb.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Sanjek, so nice to see you again.” Small and washed-out and quite unremarkable-looking, they were nibbling on hors d'oeuvres like two modest little mice. “You've met the best man, I'm sure. Lou, tell the folks about that new car of yours, why don't you?”

  I left the three of them together and went over to Brittany, the irrepressible maid of honor, who was chatting gaily to a young woman who must be Frank Sanjek's sister.

  “Carnegie, this is Erica. Doesn't she look just like Frank?”

  I had to agree. Erica shared her brother's bland good looks, with curly gold-brown hair and wide, sparkling eyes. She also shared his open, ingenuous manner.

  “I'm glad you're here!” she burbled. “I've been trying to figure out about a dress for the ceremony. I have this really pretty one, but it's white, and I know you're not supposed to wear white to someone else's wedding, only Sally's wearing black, isn't she? Is she really wearing black? That's so . . . well, I guess it's sophisticated, isn't it? So could I wear white or would that still be rude?”

  “You and your mother can wear whatever you like,” I reassured her. “Black or white, or anything else, so long as it's on the formal side, to go with the gentlemen's tuxedos. I'm sure you'll look lovely, Erica. Did Sally tell you about the flowers? They're going to be gorgeous.”

  As the wedding talk flowed along, I scanned the room for Frank and Sally, but they were elsewhere. At first I thought Ivy's husband was absent as well, but then I turned toward a leather wing chair drawn up to the fire, and found myself in the presence of Charles Tyler.

  Presence was precisely the word. It wasn't just that I recognized him from old pictures and broadcasts: the narrow bald head and the eyes dark as onyx under snowy brows. No photograph, not even a film, could have captured how it felt to be in the same room with him. Even seated, even aging, even in weakened health as he clearly was, Charles Tyler was commanding.

  Admittedly, I would have taken him for a man of seventy-five, not the sixty-something that Joe had mentioned to me. Tyler's skin hung loose on his face, as if he'd lost weight in some harsh fashion, and he slumped back in the chair as if he was grappling with gravity, and gravity was winning.

  But his brooding gaze, from eyes so dark that they seemed all pupil, arrested me where I stood. His shoulders were wide and unbowed under the rough tweed of his old-fashioned jacket, and his hands were preternaturally large, with long powerful fingers. He waved a hand at me now, and I excused myself to Erica and Brittany.

  “You're the wedding planner,” Tyler said, as if pronouncing a foreign phrase. His English accent gave an aristocratic lift to the raspy voice. “My girls talk about you constantly. Sit, sit.”

  I sat, wondering about “girls” plural, then realized that he meant Ivy as well as Sally. Odd to think of Ivy Tyler as anyone's girl. The mahogany piecrust table between us held a carafe and water glass. I set my sherry down beside them.

  “I've been looking forward to meeting you,” I began, tritely but truly.

  “Because you're such a fan of my music, I suppose?” The onyx eyes were mocking. “I'll wager that you prefer something sweeter. Let's see, Strauss waltzes? Pachelbel's Canon?”

  “I'm sick to death of Pachelbel!” I protested. “And I'm not crazy about Strauss, either.”

  “Then whom do you prefer? Quickly now, your very favorite.”

  Somehow the small talk had become a challenge. I glanced around—the other guests were occupying themselves just fine—and turned back to my inquisitor. If he thought I was going to name some obscure composer just to impress him, he was wrong. I don't know much about classical music, but I'm damn sure I know what I like.

  “Beethoven,” I declared. “The string quartets.
”

  “Hah!” He pointed a long finger at me, his hand twitching just a bit. “But which one?”

  “The first Rasumovsky.” Maybe that was trite, too, but I'd loved that piece since the first time I heard it, at a concert back home in Boise.

  “Really.” The dark eyes narrowed in appraisal. “Well, well, well.”

  And the old devil actually hummed the first few notes of the quartet's cello theme. He was testing me! I hummed right back at him, completing the theme, and he tilted his finely modeled bald head and laughed, an unexpectedly young and hearty sound.

  “You'll do,” said Charles Tyler, and I felt like I'd been knighted, or damed, or whatever it is that women get. “You'll do very well.”

  “May I join you?”

  The voice was familiar, but not one that I expected to hear tonight: Kevin Bauer. He wore the same gray fisherman's knit sweater as the other night, and he was gazing at Tyler like a kid meeting Santa Claus. Then he focused on me, apparently for the first time, and almost dropped his teeth. “Carnegie! I didn't see you come in. That's . . . quite a dress.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  KEVIN'S TONE WAS LUKEWARM, WITH A NOTE OF SOMETHING— disapproval?—that left me hovering between embarrassment and irritation.

  “Thank you,” I said, mildly defiant. “I just bought it.”

  “And I applaud it,” said Tyler roguishly. “It shows off your, ah, charms, very nicely. Very nicely, indeed.”

  “Well, Kevin,” said Ivy, coming up behind us, “are you satisfied with your part of the bargain?” She caught my puzzled look and laughed. “Habitat agreed to announce the merger at their holiday party tomorrow night, if the CEO here got an invitation to meet a certain composer. Kevin, come have a drink with me and talk business. You can schmooze with Charles over dinner.”

  As she led Kevin away, Tyler looked at me shrewdly.

  “A particular friend of yours, I take it?”

  “Y-yes,” I told him. “Yes, he is.”

  “I approve.” He patted my knee and I felt his hand twitch again, a sudden sideways jerk that we both pretended not to notice. “Mr. Bauer knows his music. What's more, he knows mine, and I'm not above a little flattery.”