May the Best Man Die

by Deborah Donnelly

  As I circulated through the party, tending to details, I felt the flood of relief and triumph that comes when one of my weddings, especially a big one, plays out perfectly. Some people get high climbing mountains. To me, Buckmeister/Frost was the summit of Mount Rainier.

  “Kharrnegie, Merry Christmas!”

  Boris wore a decorous black suit, but his tie was a garish affair featuring St. Nick on a skateboard. No fervent hand-kissing this time, just the rib-crushing hug he bestowed on everyone he didn't actually hate. When Boris took your breath away, he did it for real.

  “Same to you!” I had to speak up to be heard above the din. “Isn't this glorious?”

  “Da! I have suppressed myself!”

  “Surpassed. I meant the whole wedding, but your flowers are glorious, too. How was dinner?” As usual, I'd been too busy to eat.

  “Very fine,” said Boris judiciously. “But some confusion at the tables.”

  I sighed. “Buck kept asking extra people, so we had to squeeze in more place settings. In fact, I see an extra over there I need to talk to. Excuse me.”

  Aaron was chatting with the waiter at the coffee and hot chocolate table. His tie had little menorahs all over it.

  “Gut Yontiff, Stretch,” he said as I approached. “That's happy holiday, to those in the know.”

  “Don't tell me, let me guess. Buck invited you at the last minute.”

  “Yeah, he said because I'm new in town, I should come meet some friendly folks. Who do you suppose told him I was new in town?”

  “I can't imagine. But since you hate Christmas, I'm surprised you came.” I requested some cocoa, hold the rum, and sipped at it gratefully. As far as I'm concerned, whipped cream is one of the four major food groups. “So, what did you find out about Madison? Was she really in Tokyo that night?”

  “Won't know till tomorrow. She was booked at the Hotel Narita, but I have to talk to a different manager to get a direct confirmation. Anyone can book a room.” Aaron gazed around the Arctic Room, with its wreaths and trees and high-spirited faces glowing in the light of many candles. “I don't hate this stuff, Stretch. Good cheer in the middle of winter and all that. It's the manufactured sentimentalism that turns my stomach, and the pressure to buy a lot of crap that nobody needs.”

  “Well, I don't like that part of Christmas myself. I just don't let it bother me.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Aaron wasn't drunk, but he hadn't passed up the rum, either. “You didn't get dragged to the principal's office when you were eight because you wouldn't write to Santa.”

  “That's awful! Where'd you go to school?”

  “South Boston. Southie did not exactly celebrate diversity.” He set down his cocoa mug and wiped his mouth with a holly-patterned napkin. He didn't meet my eyes. “Boring subject, anyway. I came here to meet new people, right? I'd better get to it.”

  And with that, he walked off toward a gaggle of bridesmaids and asked the prettiest one to dance.

  Well. You think you know someone, then you get an unsettling glimpse like that. Not that I'd been encouraging confidences from Aaron, of course, especially lately. But even before his bombshell about being married, we had skated lightly over the surface of our histories. He seemed to prefer it that way, and I had gone along. It occurred to me that Lily and Mike probably knew all about each other's school days, and more besides.

  Half-lost in such thoughts, I circulated some more. Then, to get myself refocused, I decided to run through my private checklist one last time. So I made my way to the locked side room where I'd stashed my envelopes of tips for the staff, along with the bride's cape, the wedding certificate, various vendor contracts, and the outfits that the happy couple would change into for their getaway.

  Buck had lobbied for a grand horse-and-carriage ride around town; I think he was secretly hoping that he and Betty could ride along, just to hold on to their little girl a little longer. But Brian had calmly put his foot down. He was driving his bride to an undisclosed hotel—he knew Buck better than I thought—and then to the airport in the morning for their flight to Kauai. “From Christmas trees to palm trees,” he kept saying, and since Bonnie thought that was the cleverest thing she'd ever heard in her entire life, Buck had to concur.

  I straightened the velvet cape on its hanger, and was checking my list when a tap came at the door. A seedy-looking fellow with a crooked bow tie and a fancy camera poked his head in: Mitch Morrow, the local stringer for several celebrity rags. He could have worked full-time for any one of them if he'd been willing to live in L.A., but Mitch actually liked the rain.

  “Hey, Carnegie, can I catch a couple of you with Paliere? He's over by the gift table. I mean, the gift tree.”

  “Sure, why not.” I was happy to cooperate. Mitch had been careful not to crowd Bonnie's own wedding photographer, and Beautiful Beau had been unexpectedly gracious about my abrupt departure from Le Boutique. Besides, to be crass about it, a celebrity photo wouldn't hurt my business, either. And Joe might get to see his precious Lionels in print.

  As I trailed Mitch across the room, I plucked a glass of champagne from one of the bars. A glass of kir, actually, the crème de cassis giving the champagne a festive tinge of pink. We skirted the dance floor and arrived at the stately giant of a Noble fir tree, strung with white lights and hung with tiny toys, which presided over a colorful heap of wedding gifts. Beneath the branches, Joe's model trains chugged in a wide loop through the boxes and baskets, to charming effect.

  Beau waved to me over the shoulder of a slender blonde in a little black dress. Very little. Then she turned her wide-eyed face in my direction, and I forgot all about the fashion critique. Andrea! What was my mystery bride doing here? Come to think of it, what had she been doing at Le Boutique yesterday?

  “Hello there,” I said brightly. “How nice to see you again.”

  Then I waited for an explanation of her recent rude behavior, but I didn't get it. Not from her.

  “Run along, ma chère,” said the fabulous Frenchman. Andrea flapped her eyelashes and took her breasts elsewhere, and Beau raised his glass to me. The crystal sparked in the flash of Mitch's camera, and so did the glossy waves of all that photogenic blue-black hair. “Carnegie, I salute you. A wonderful event. Merveilleux!”

  “Thanks.” I held my peace for a few more pictures, but the minute Mitch wandered off, I demanded, “What's the deal with Andrea?”

  “Ah, straight to business.” He gave me an incandescent smile. “I like that. Andrea is . . . a dear friend of mine. A model. If I had known she was to be in Mariella's show, I would have explained earlier.”

  “Explained what, exactly? So she's a model who's getting married soon. What else?” The light began to dawn. “Oh, wait a minute, are you the fiancé? Is that what all the mystery is about?”

  Beau laughed aloud. “No, no, no! There is no fiancé. I sent Andrea to interview you. Or shall we say, to audition you.”

  “You sent Andrea?” I couldn't quite take it in. My wealthy new client, my first and only lavish wedding for next year, was a hoax? “Audition for what?”

  He stepped closer, and did the fingertips-along-her-cheek routine.

  “To be one of my girls,” he breathed. “I want you to bring the Paliere touch to Seattle.”

  Then he dropped his hand, and brought the Paliere touch slithering down my rib cage to my left hip. But he didn't get any farther than that, because I went ballistic.

  “You bastard!” I kept my voice down, but the effort it took made me even more furious. “Who do you think you are, jerking me around and, and . . . I ought to touch you with this!”

  I lifted my glass as if to fling the rosy contents right in his face. I wouldn't have done it, of course; only people in soap operas throw drinks in public places. But then, other people in soap operas always stand still to have drinks thrown at them.

  Beau didn't stand still, preferring instead to leap backward with balletic grace. Alas, the leap collapsed when his perfectly shod feet
became entangled in the piles of wedding presents. He landed underneath the Christmas tree like a gaffed salmon.

  The tree swayed, boxes crunched and skidded, ribbons and bows were mashed, and a glossy black clump of . . . something detached itself from Beau's head and sailed onto the chugging line of train cars, just in time to snag on the passing caboose.

  Mitch Morrow hadn't wandered far, so he got it all on film: the tree, the gifts, the sprawled, bald figure and—trailing merrily along the train tracks—Beau Paliere's toupee.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE REMAINDER OF BUCKMEISTER/FROST IS A LITTLE VAGUE IN my memory, but I know that my overriding goal was to keep the evening running smoothly without breaking into hysterical whoops of laughter—or into tears of anxiety about causing a scene at a client's wedding.

  Not a big scene, surely? I could tell by the contented murmur of voices that most of the guests were settling down to their Christmas feast in happy ignorance of the entire incident. Not many people had seen Beau fall, or watched him bolting for the nearest men's room.

  But they'll all see Mitch's photos in the tabloids soon enough, I fretted. That was the big question: Would it be a front-page story, prompting Beautiful Beau to take some hideous revenge on me, or a minor item that he would laugh off once he was safely back in Paris?

  As I prayed for the latter, I rearranged the wedding gifts, aided by two of Joe's waiters and then by Joe himself. Most of the boxes were undamaged, and Betty could do triage on the rest when she took them home to hold for Bonnie and Brian's return.

  “How on earth did Paliere fall?” Joe asked, kneeling down to tenderly examine his little locomotive. Then, satisfied with its condition, he thought to inquire after Beau's. “He wasn't hurt, was he?”

  “Only his pride.”

  A snicker escaped me, anxiety or not, but I cut it decently short as I rose to look over at the dining area. Bonnie and Brian stood smiling at their special duet cake, while the guests oohed and aahed over the rest of Juice's confections now being delivered to their tables.

  “I've got to go cue the toasts and the cake-cutting,” I told Joe. “Um, when Beau comes back, I wouldn't fuss over him. I think he'd rather forget that this happened.”

  I wasn't planning to fuss myself, but I was planning to apologize. Only Beau never came back; he just sent a waiter to summon Andrea, and disappeared. I took the liberty of conveying his regrets and good wishes to the father of the bride, and then got back to work, still snickering and still fretting.

  The toasts were a nice distraction from my faux pas. They ranged from ribald to romantic—Brian, uninterrupted, was quite eloquent in his tribute to Bonnie—and the rest of the evening flew by in a joyful and delicious blur. Suddenly, it seemed, the cakes were eaten, the candles extinguished, and the Arctic Room was empty save for me, Joe, and the cleaning crew. Joe brought me a flute of champagne, as he often did, and we happily surveyed the wreckage.

  “Your best yet,” he said, touching his glass to mine, and then stifled a yawn. “Do me a favor, darling, and stash that cake top in the cooler at my place? I'll wrap it for freezing tomorrow, but I've got to be up in a few hours for a brunch and I want to get my trains home.”

  “No problem,” I told him. It was a bit out of my way, but the holidays are crazy for caterers and I was happy to help. “I've still got the keys.”

  I made my first trip down the block to Vanna with the cake box balanced carefully in both arms, shivering in the icy night and glad of the heavy coat I wore over my jade silk. The chocolate Yule log was long and lavishly decorated, not heavy, but unwieldy. Not too long ago, I'd watched an entire cake disintegrate inside the original Vanna, so I carried this one like a baby. Someone else's baby.

  Parked right behind me, yellow in the yellow glow of the streetlights, was Aaron's banana-mobile. He was trying to start it, and by the sound of things, he'd been trying for a while.

  “Good timing, Stretch!” He climbed out, rubbing his gloved hands together. He wore a formal topcoat, a bit like Eddie's, and his usual long white scarf. “You can give me a ride home.”

  “You could call a tow truck,” I pointed out, settling the box on the backseat.

  “I left my cell at home. Besides, I don't want to deal with the damn car tonight. Piece of junk, anyway. Come on, be a sport.”

  “OK,” I said, “but you'll have to work for your ride and help me carry stuff. I'm stopping in Fremont first.”

  As we stowed the paperwork, garment bags, and other odds and ends in the back of the van, I realized I still had Frank Sanjek's box of gifts. The reminder of the bachelor party brought back the memory of Jason's lifeless face, and the thought of Darwin in a jail cell. The evening's exhilaration melted away, leaving doubt and depression behind.

  “Aaron, don't you think we should talk to Mike?” I said as I stopped at an intersection. It was late, and the dark, frost-slick streets were nearly deserted. “Just tell him everything we know or suspect? About what Li Ping told me, and the CD, and—”

  “And your idea that Madison is the killer?”

  “Well, yes.”

  A long pause. In profile, in the half-dark, I couldn't read his expression. He finally spoke just as the light changed.

  “Give me a little more time, Stretch. Let me hear back from the hotel in Tokyo, and make some other calls, and then we'll talk it over. One more day, OK?”

  “I don't think we should—”

  “Just a day, for God's sakes.”

  “All right, all right! Don't yell at me.”

  “I wasn't yelling,” he said sullenly. “I was making a point.”

  “Well, you made it. Now be quiet and let me drive.”

  We were heading north on Westlake Avenue, toward the Fremont Bridge, and hitting patches of black ice on the roadway. I leaned forward at the wheel, anxiously feeling each loose little slip of Vanna's tires. At the next red light I sat back, and glanced over at Aaron again. He had a cigarette pack in his hands, tapping one loose.

  “Hey, don't smoke in here! If you're going to mooch rides, the least you can do is show some—”

  “So I forgot!” He jammed the pack back in his pocket. “Can't you ever give me a break?”

  We drove the rest of the way in silence. But when I parked at Joe's building and reached into the van's side door for the cake box, Aaron got out as well.

  “You want help with that?”

  “No. Yes.” I pulled Joe's spare keys from my tote bag, and tossed the bag back in the van. “Just open doors for me.”

  As we rounded the corner to the building's back entrance, I tried not to look down through the skeletal trees at the cold black surface of the Ship Canal. No lighted window tonight, across the water in the Hot Spot. No tipsy young men. No knife in the darkness. Aaron, ahead of me, didn't seem to feel my unease. He flipped on the lights and surveyed the tasting room.

  “It's like a little bistro in here.” His tone was carefully neutral. “Nice.”

  “Joe designed it himself. Unlock the cooler door, would you? The smallest key on the ring.” The cooler was about eight by ten, with rows of shelves and an overhead light on a timer. Inside, I looked for a clear space to set down my burden among all the wine bottles and food containers. “Could you come move this champagne for me? There's a doorstop by your foot.”

  Aaron propped open the door and followed me in, and I stepped farther into the narrow space, to make room. Suddenly, a gust of air swirled through the small, cold chamber, carrying a faint but definite whiff of perfume. Familiar perfume . . . The door of the cooler slammed shut.

  Shocked speechless for an instant, we heard the lock snap into place, and a clatter of quick, retreating footsteps. Aaron attacked the bare metal door, I added my weight to his, and we both shouted in anger and dismay. But after a few long minutes of unavailing effort, we fell silent again and listened.

  More footsteps and then, barely audible, the tasting room's door to the street, banging closed. After that came only our own b
reathing, and the tiny ticking of the timer overhead.

  The light went out.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  AND HERE I THOUGHT I COULD SWEAR. AARON'S VOICE MADE A strange metallic echo as he cursed the door, the person who shut it, the person who built it, and life in general, all in terms that would have made my father blink in admiration.

  “Feel better?”

  “Not really.” In our close, utterly dark confinement, his words seemed both loud and far away, and when he pounded the door one last time, I jumped. Then I heard him draw a deep breath. “I'm done now. Sorry.”

  “Don't mention it. What are you doing?”

  “Looking for the emergency latch.” I heard brushing, slithering sounds, as he ran both hands around his end of the compartment. “Where the hell . . . Aw, don't tell me there isn't one. That's illegal!”

  “It's an old cooler. Joe bought out a restaurant that was closing.”

  “Too bad the old temperature control works so well. I don't suppose you have your cell phone on you.”

  “In my tote bag.”

  “Which is—?”

  “In the van.”

  “Good place for it, Stretch.”

  More soft sounds, cloth on cloth, as we each drew our coats tighter around us. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, I was thinking. Surely Kelli and the cooks would arrive early in the morning. But how early?

  “At least it's not a freezer,” I ventured.

  “Thank you, Pollyanna.” Aaron shifted; I could hear his shoes rasp on the cement floor. “So what do you think, a burglar? Does Joe keep a lot of cash around, or valuables?”

  “Just those serving pieces up in the storeroom, and then his equipment. But it wasn't a burglar, Aaron, it was Madison Jaffee. I'm pretty sure I recognized her perfume. I told you she's the killer!”