A Veiled Deception (5 page)

“Because the cake lady gave it away. Who gives away free cake? Hey, aren’t you—”

“Detective Sergeant Werner,” I said, giving her a heads-up, trying to cut off the word “Wiener” at the pass.

“Oh, right. What’s up?”

“How well did you know Jasmine Updike?”

“Not very. She hasn’t been in Mystic for long. All I know is that she was once my fiancé’s study partner.”

Werner looked up at her. “And your fiancé is?”

“Justin Vancortland.”

“Right. Maddie told me that. Son of Justin Vancortland the Fourth.” Werner whistled. “Your future mother-in-law isn’t going to like the publicity this is going to cause. She’ll be the talk of the country club and not in a good way.”

No kidding, I thought, seeing Sherry’s confusion. “What publicity?” she asked.

“Why? What did Jasmine do, steal the silver?”

Werner regarded Sherry with a cryptic expression. “I take it you don’t think much of Jasmine Updike.”

“I think she’s a conniving bitch, and I wish she’d stop trying to steal my fiancé, if you wanna know the truth.”

Werner nodded. “The truth would be helpful in this situation.”

Sherry folded her arms and huffed. “What situation?”

Though I’d been trying not to beat my head against the wall as my sister dug herself deeper, I stepped her way and took her hands. “Sweetie, Jasmine was . . . is . . . she’s—”

“Dead,” Werner said. “Someone strangled her upstairs with a bridal veil during your party.”

Sherry paled as only a blonde could. “I don’t believe it.”

“Do you own a bridal veil, Miss Cutler?”

Five

I am blessed or cursed, depending on how you look at it, with an incurably restless spirit and the ability to work hard.—SALVATORE FERRAGAMO

“Don’t try to pin this on Sherry,” I snapped. “I’ll prove she didn’t do it.”

Werner accepted the challenge with the light of victory in his eyes. “I’ll pin it on her,” he said, “to borrow your cop-show cliché,
if
after the autopsy, and my investigation, your sister is
still
my prime suspect.” He dismissed me with a hand flick and turned to Aunt Fiona. “Who should I notify of Ms. Updike’s untimely end?”

“Why would Aunt Fiona know?” I asked.

“I apologize,” Werner said. “Attorney Sullivan seems always to have such an . . . eclectic . . . store of information.”

To give Sherry credit, she had remained stoic at being told she was a suspect, but now, at the mention of notifying Jasmine’s family, her eyes welled up and she began to tremble. Touching a finger to her lips, she composed herself. “Jasmine was staying with the Vancortlands,” she said. “Deborah would most likely have her home address.”

Werner closed his notebook. “I think we’re done here for now. I want you all down at the station around ten tomorrow, to give your formal statements. Agents Jaconetti and Cutler, no need to come down. Access the paperwork and fax it over.”

He eyed them cryptically. “Which doesn’t rule you out for questioning at a later date, you understand? And, by the way, this is
my
case.” He eyed Nick and Alex like a poker player watching for their “tells.”

The FBI versus the Podunk PD.

Taller than Nick and damned good-looking for a Wiener, the detective still had a Napoleon complex where the Feds were concerned. I’d have to keep that in mind.

“We understand,” Alex said.

“Of course you do.” Werner dismissed them. “Attorney Sullivan, please bring the guest list with you when you accompany the Cutlers to the station in the morning.” He placed his notebook in his breast pocket. “List caterers, rental company employees, and whoever else worked the party,” he added, as if she were his secretary. From Aunt Fiona’s expression, and in light of our earlier conversation, I half expected her to turn him into a slug. I wished I could. Not sure she could, either. Guess I had a few questions about the whole witch thing. As soon as I got up the nerve to bring up the subject again, I just might ask them.

Werner turned to leave and, with his back to us, raised an arm in a half wave. Hail to the poker player who held all the cards . . . so far. When the front door clicked shut, Sherry fell into Dad’s chair. “Aunt Fiona,” she said, her voice faint. “I think I need a lawyer.”

“You have one, dear,” Fiona said, coming over to stroke Sherry’s hair.

“This is preposterous,” my father snapped, about as angry as he ever got. Fiona squeezed Sherry’s shoulder and focused on Dad. “Blustering never got you anywhere, Harry. Action is what we need, and information. Did you mean what you said, Maddie, about proving your sister’s innocence?”

“I always mean what I say.”

My father scoffed. “How can you tell, Madeira, when you say it before you think it through? You practically pronounced Sherry guilty by vowing to prove she wasn’t.”

“I did not. She’d already told him how she felt about Jasmine, and he knew she was getting married. Of course the veil was hers. I just skipped ahead a few beats.”

“Well . . . see that you don’t rush Sherry into a jail sentence.”

I didn’t know who was more appalled at his words, me or my father.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m—”

Fiona touched his arm. “Scared out of your mind for your daughter’s safety?”

Dad looked up at her in surprise because she, his nemesis, of all people, understood. “Which doesn’t give me the right to attack Madeira,” he said. I sat on the edge of his chair and nudged his shoulder. “It’s okay, Dad. I understand. I’m as frustrated as you are.”

The kitchen phone rang and I ran to answer it.

When I completed the call, I pulled the phone plug.

As soon as word of Jasmine’s murder got out, half of Mystick Falls would be calling. They’d rally around us and smother-hen the lot of us the way they did when Mom died, which was wonderful . . . except that one of them has to be the killer.

“That was Deborah on the phone,” I said, rejoining the family in the den. “She wanted to know if Jasmine was still here, and I told her that I didn’t know where she was.” Surprise registered in their expressions. “Well, I don’t,” I said, my voice cracking.

“On a slab in the medical examiner’s office,” Alex said. “I understand why you couldn’t have said that, Sis. You did fine.”

Nick put a strong supportive arm around my waist, and I appreciated the subtle statement that he’d be there for me, for all of us. “Deborah invited us, well, ordered us, to her place for dinner tomorrow night. I’m supposed to bring the surprise to her beforehand without telling Sherry.”

Sherry came out of her fog. “What?”

“You may as well know sooner rather than later and with all of us to support you, sweetie, that Jasmine tried to distract you so that Deborah could prepare her surprise for you—the family wedding gown that generations of Vancortland brides have worn.”

Sherry sighed. “Oh, goody.”

“Sherry, I—”

“It’s okay, Mad. I can’t think of anything but Jasmine’s death and Werner’s determination to prove I’m her killer.”

“Listen,” Alex said. “I hate to bail in the middle of a storm, but I’ve gotta get on the road. Tricia’s been alone with the baby and her mother all day. She must need a break by now.”

I touched my brother’s arm. “Will you run Jasmine’s name through the system tomorrow? See if you can find out anything about her?”

“I’m on my way to D.C. at dawn, Sis. Nick, can you take care of that?”

Nick squeezed my waist. “Will do.”

Alex kissed us all good-bye, but he raised Sherry from her chair and hugged her.

“It’ll be okay, kitten. We’ve got your back. If you need distracting, go see Tricia and the baby while I’m gone.”

Sherry’s chuckle landed low on the laugh-o-meter. “I’m plenty distracted, thanks. But I will give her a call.”

“Thanks. Bye, Dad.” They shook hands, and Alex left.

The click of the front door snapped me into fix-it mode. “Sherry? Where the Hermès were you? You need an alibi and I hope it’s airtight and comes with plenty of witnesses.”

Looking from me to my father—who’d stood to pace but stopped to wait for her answer—Sherry covered her face and released a sob. “I need to call Justin,” she wailed, and ran. The back door’s familiar squeal and bounce announced her departure.

“The suspect has left the building.” I sighed. “The good news is that Werner won’t know what she said about Jasmine at the party unless somebody tells him.”

My father paled and reclaimed the chair Sherry had vacated. “I forgot about that. I don’t remember her exact words,” he said, imploring each of us in turn, “but please tell me that she didn’t publicly threaten to strangle Jasmine.”

Aunt Fiona shook her head. “Sherry threatened to kill someone, but she didn’t mention names, just feminine pronouns. What can I say, I’m a lawyer; I caught the loophole in the statement on the spot. Some might have suspected who she was talking about, but that doesn’t matter. Sherry’s words could be construed as a lead,
perhaps
, but not evidence. It’s also such an overused cliché, it’s lost its bite.”

I couldn’t sit still, so I got up to pace, wondering how to start proving Sherry’s innocence. Learning more about Jasmine seemed like a good start, but then what? I guess I needed a copy of the guest list Fiona was going to compile before she gave it to Werner. Then I’d go house to house, if I had to, and find out what the neighbors knew. I picked up on the heavy silence that had fallen at the same time as I passed an open window in the ladies’ parlor and heard Sherry on her cell phone. “No, Justin,” she said. “We can never tell.”

Six

What I do is about now. It’s about the lives we lead.

—HELMUT LANG

Early the next morning, I dressed in tan slacks with a yellow sleeveless summer sweater and camel leather flats. I disliked the world before dawn, and I couldn’t face it in a bathrobe.

I stepped from my bedroom and stopped dead. “Crime-scene tape across Brandy’s bedroom door.” I looked at Nick. “Can you stand it? How weird can life get?”

Wearing yesterday’s clothes, suit jacket over an arm, a sock in each pocket; tie hanging loose, Nick gave me a one-armed hug. “Weird is normal in my line of work. It’s just never hit this close to home before.”

I sighed and tiptoed down the hall.

With Nick bringing up the rear, I sneaked him down the front stairs, shoes in hand, trying to get him out the front door before anyone else got up. Unfortunately, my father was working guard duty. The back stairs would have been a better choice, but they’re
so
squeaky.

We stood frozen as my father, sitting at the old oak breakfast keeping-room table, glanced at us over his wire-rimmed glasses, set down his coffee mug, and methodically refolded his morning paper, dangling us from his hook like squirming bait. One of Nick’s shoes hit the floor with a thud, startling a squeak out of me.

“What’s the matter, Nick?” Dad asked. “You didn’t want to cross the crime-scene tape to climb out Brandy’s window? Or are you getting too old for that?”

Oy. “Dad, I—”

“Sir—”

“Coffee?” My father raised my mother’s daffodil octagon coffeepot, postponing his verdict on Nick’s predawn presence and making me want to scream. Nick released his breath, dropped his second shoe, nodded, and toed them on. I got us each a mug from the kitchen across the hall from the keeping room, though at one time its huge fireplace had been used for cooking. So the bait sat down to eat with the shark, where plates and cutlery had been set .

. . for five?

Beside a basket of sugared blueberry muffins sat a daffodil butter dish and a porcelain beehive honey pot. I reached for a muffin, losing my appetite, however, when my father cleared his throat and placed his glasses by his plate. Uh-oh.

“Madeira, you’re a big girl,” he said. “And, Nick, I like you. I’d simply like to know who’s living in my house and who isn’t.”

“I’m not living here, Mr. Cutler,” Nick said. “Last night was an exception.”

My father raised a speaking brow.

“
Another
exception,” Nick said, backpedaling. “It’s just that Maddie was upset, and—”

“Justin, Sherry,” my dad called out, obviously foiling another getaway. “Come in, join us for breakfast. I went out early and got enough muffins for everybody.”

As usual, Sherry failed to hide her blush. Coming down the back stairs hadn’t done them any good at all. My father could apparently see through walls.

“Don’t mind if we do.” Justin slapped Nick on the back as he went to the kitchen for mugs, very much at home and not at all intimidated by my father. That engagement ring on Sherry’s finger must be worth its weight in courage.

“You’re a cool one, Mr. Cutler,” Justin said, returning.

The pot calling the kettle cavalier, I thought.

My father chuckled, and the circulation returned to my legs. My father wore pride like a badge. “I’ve taught highly libidinous college students all my life,” he said. “You think I’m not hip?”

Nick hid his amusement by sipping his coffee.

My father snapped his fingers. “Rad! That’s what it’s called now, right? I’m rad,”

he said. “Or am I the bomb? Anyway, my girls are all grown up.”

“And they grew so well,” Justin said, eating Sherry up with his bedroom eyes. My father’s cup stopped halfway to his lips. Even Harry Cutler, the hip, rad bomb, had his limits.

We all breathed again when Dad’s cup finished its journey and Dad took a sip. “I don’t think any of you could have committed a crime,” he said. “You’re too noisy when you’re sneaking around. ‘Take off your shoes on the stairs, Nick. You’ll wake my father.’

You call that a whisper, Madeira? Besides, even whispers echo in this place. Sorry I never told you that.”

He watched us over the rim of his mug, put it down, split his muffin, and buttered it with great attention to every crumb. “Justin, my boy, kindly refrain from making my baby girl giggle until you’re behind closed doors. Not that I don’t appreciate your efforts

. . . last night in particular. Sherry needed cheering up and her laughter’s infectious. I liked hearing it, though I would have been happier if it had come from a five-year-old playing with her dolls.”