Dearly Depotted (10 page)

Grace thought it over, then smiled in relief. “Thank you. I feel much better. As the old saying goes, one should never borrow trouble. I must remember that.”

“Let me out of here, you overgrown Neanderthals!” I heard a warbling voice cry. I turned around and saw Grandma Osborne trying to dodge the policemen who were determined to keep her from leaving the ballroom. “I’m an old lady. Have some respect.”

“Our orders are to keep everyone inside the room, ma’am,” one of the exasperated officers explained, sidestepping a kick.

“Thugs! Haven’t you ever heard of the Geneva Convention?”

“You’re not a prisoner of war, ma’am,” the other cop said, dodging a swinging purse.

“Tell that to the commandant who interrogated me!”

Mr. Osborne and Pryce tried to grab her swinging arms from behind. “Mother, please!” Mr. Osborne said. “You’re causing a scene.”

“The police have promised me that we’ll be able to leave in half an hour, Grandmother,” Pryce assured her, “then we’ll take you straight home.”

“Half an hour? Why don’t they just dig a grave for me right here?”

“Grandma Osborne?” I called cheerily. “Do you need water?”

“Now here’s someone with a little horse sense,” she said, shaking off their grips. “The way they hoard water around here you’d think we were crossing the Sahara.”

I walked over to the cops guarding the swinging doors between the ballroom and kitchen and said quietly, “Is it okay if I get her a glass of water?”

The cops exchanged glances, then one of them opened the door wide enough for me to get through.

“I’ll get your water, Grandma,” I called. “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

I stepped into the kitchen and looked around for help. The staff had already been fingerprinted; now they were bustling about, trying to clean up and get out of there. I approached the man who seemed to be in charge. He was wearing a chef’s toque, a day’s growth of beard, a sheen of perspiration, and a scowl.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said as sweetly as possible, “but could I trouble you for a glass of water?”

“Gunther!” he called over his shoulder. “Get a glass of water for this lady.”

Lady? When had I crossed the line into ladyhood? I wanted to grab something reflective and check for wrinkles.

“Gunther isn’t here, Anthony,” one of the employees called.

“What do you mean Gunther isn’t here?” Anthony bellowed. “No one leaves before the work is done.”

As Anthony continued his diatribe, a quiet voice behind me said, “Excuse me,
señorita
.”

I turned as an olive-skinned teenaged boy in an oversized white jacket handed me a glass of water. “Here is your
agua.
”

“Thank you.
Muchas gracias
.” I took the glass and he backed away, smiling shyly.

As I headed for the door, a waiter rushed in, dropped off a load of soiled tablecloths, then headed out again. Seeing his white-tailed coat I asked myself again, why had Jack wanted to disguise himself as a waiter? Was it to keep Josiah from spotting him? Why had he come back at all? And where had he gotten the uniform?

I noticed Sheila Sackowitz unloading piles of soiled napkins from a stainless steel cart, so I walked over to her, hoping to have at least one answer before I left.

“Hey,” she said, pushing a lock of hair away from her face. “What’s up?” She looked frazzled, so I decided to keep it short.

“Sheila, do you know if a man by the name of Jack Snyder ever worked here?”

“Not that I know of, but I haven’t been here that long. Ask Anthony.”

I glanced over at Anthony, saw him scolding one of the cooks, and decided against it. “Do the waiters buy their outfits?” I asked her instead.

“Pants and shirts,” she said. “The banquet center supplies the rest.”

“Let’s get moving, people,” Anthony barked, clapping his hands. I had a feeling he was directing his comment toward me, so I thanked Sheila and left.

As soon as I stepped back into the ballroom, Grandma Osborne yelled, “Abby! Here I am.” She was seated in a chair along the wall on the far side of the dance floor, guarded by her son and grandson. I started across the floor only to have Pryce jump up and come to meet me. Astoundingly, there was a cordial expression on his face. It made him look almost—oh, I don’t know—sane.

“I’ll take the water to her,” he said. “You’ve got better things to do.”

I wasn’t sure whether to thank him or take his temperature—he did look somewhat fevered—so I simply handed him the glass.

His gaze moved to my hair, which by that time had slipped some of its pins, rendering it more windswept than upswept, then traveled the length of my gown and up again. “I meant to tell you earlier; you look stunning in that dress.”

Now he was scaring me. We both knew I didn’t look stunning; Pryce hated large prints on me, and I wasn’t particularly fond of them either. So why was he lying?

Marco’s words whispered hauntingly in my head:
“In case you haven’t noticed, Pryce still has a crush on you.”

No way. Pryce had dumped
me,
not the other way around. It didn’t make sense that he would suddenly find me desirable, or even socially acceptable. He must have had too much champagne. So why was he gazing at me like that? Was he waiting for a return compliment?

Standing there in the middle of the room, my stained fingers clasped behind my back, feeling like every eyeball in the place was focused on me, all I could think to say was, “And you look good in your tux, as well.” I cringed inwardly. How lame was that?

“Are you going to bring that water over here or leave me to melt in this chair?” Grandma Osborne called. I wondered whether she’d noticed me—red-faced and starting to sweat—and had taken pity on me.

“I have half a mind to let her melt,” Pryce muttered. “She hasn’t liked me since the day we broke up.” He pivoted on the heels of his shiny black shoes and strode away.

Since the day we broke up? I had to clamp my jaw shut to keep from yelling:
It wasn’t
we
who broke us up, you disloyal, egotistical moron. It was
you.
You not only broke us up, you stamped on us until we were ground into sawdust.
Instead, I pasted a smile on my face and walked in the opposite direction, just in case anyone (my mother) was observing us.

I spotted Reilly in a discussion with one of the cops who’d been interviewing the guests, and since I hadn’t seen him come in, I strolled over to see what he was up to. He stopped talking and looked around at me. “What?”

“Just wondering if you had any leads. Did the detective ever show up?”

Reilly glared at me for a good thirty seconds, then turned back to the cop and said, “I told you to clear her so she could leave.”

“She did leave, Sergeant.” The cop gave me an icy look. “Then she came back.”

“I had to go to the kitchen to get a glass of water for Grandma Osborne,” I explained.

“Does she have her water now?” Reilly asked, trying to maintain a pleasant demeanor.

“Yes, she does.”

“Good. Then you can go home.”

“I can’t go home until Marco brings back my car. Geez, Reilly. Why are you in such a hurry to get rid of me?”

“Because if I let you stay, you’ll try to take over my job.”

“I have a job, thanks.”

Reilly folded his arms across his chest. “Really? Then who was it that said, ‘If this were my case, my first question would be, why did Jack return to the banquet center?’ ”

There were spies in the ballroom. I pointed toward the door. “I’ll just wait for Marco outside.”

“Good idea.”

I was on my way up the hallway when I heard Reilly say, “Hey, Abby, hold up for a moment. I forgot to ask you something.”

I turned as he strode up to me, his notepad open. “Grace Bingham works for you, right?”

“Right,” I said slowly, trying to figure out where this was leading.

“Do you know her boyfriend, Richard Davis?”

Because of what Grace had just told me, I was immediately cautious. “I wouldn’t use the word
boyfriend
where Grace is concerned, but yes, I know Richard, in the sense that everyone in town knows who he is.”

“Were you aware he left the banquet center after the wedding?”

“Grace mentioned he had some kind of business matter to attend to, which he did, then he came right back.”

“Define
right back
.”

That was a problem, because I hadn’t seen Richard leave or return. Since I didn’t want to incriminate Grace’s beau by way of a bad definition, I had no choice but to fudge it. “By right back,” I said, drawing out the words until my brain was up to speed, “I mean that he left right after the wedding and was back during the reception.”

“But you don’t know what time he returned.”

“No, but Grace would.”

He checked his notes. “She said she couldn’t be sure.” The way Reilly put it I knew he didn’t believe her.

“So what are you implying? That Richard Davis killed Jack?”

“I didn’t imply anything,” he said irritably. “All I did was ask a simple question.”

“You asked”—I held up the appropriate number of fingers—“three questions. One question is simple. Three—complex.” I grinned, but he didn’t grin back.

“What’s your point?” Reilly snapped.

“That you should be focusing on the most logical suspect—Josiah Turner—not a reputable businessman and model citizen like Richard Davis.”

A flicker in his eyes betrayed his thoughts. Reilly knew something about Richard that he wasn’t sharing with me.

“Are you saying he’s not a model citizen?” I asked.

Reilly underlined a note he’d written on his pad. “Let’s just say, as of this moment, he’s a person of interest.”

 

 

 

 

A
person of interest? That wasn’t good. I hurried after Reilly, who was headed back up the hallway toward the ballroom. “Come on, Reilly. You don’t honestly think Richard had anything to do with this murder, do you?” He ignored me, so I said, “Okay, we’ll discuss this later.”

He stopped at the door long enough to say, “
We
don’t need to discuss anything.” Then he stepped inside and was instantly mobbed by cranky wedding guests who’d had enough. Reilly finally grabbed a chair and stood on it. “Okay, folks, I know you want to get home, so listen up. Everyone who’s been ID’d and fingerprinted, form a line right here in front this officer holding the clipboard. If your name is on the list, you can go home.”

“It’s about time,” I heard Grandma Osborne say.

There was no sense hanging around—Reilly wasn’t going to give me any more information—so I hustled to the dressing room to retrieve my purse before the mob came charging through the hall in their hurry to exit the building. I located the key I’d tucked in my bra, opened the locker, and was about to remove my purse when my cell phone rang. I stuck my hand inside the bag and groped blindly, discovering my wallet, a tube of lip gloss, a travel pack of tissues, two packs of cinnamon-flavored sugarless gum, and a lint-covered cough drop before finally finding the phone. By that time it had stopped ringing, so I checked for missed calls and saw Marco’s number pop up. I punched in his speed dial number, then, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear, I took off my heels and flexed my cramped toes. Much better.

As soon as I heard his voice, I said, “Where are you? I’m ready to leave.”

“I’m standing outside the building, in front of the doors.”

At that moment I heard what sounded like a stampede in the hallway. “You might want to move back,” I told him. “There’s a herd of grumpy people headed your way.”

“I’ll wait around the corner.”

I applied lip gloss and tried to repair my loose locks, giving the crowd ample time to exit the building, then I stuffed the stilettos in my purse and walked barefoot through the reception area, holding the hem of the skirt so it wouldn’t drag. I was about to push open the exit door when I heard someone say, “Abigail, wait up.”

I turned around as Pryce strode up the hall toward me. He opened his mouth to say something, then glanced down at my feet and announced, “You’re not wearing shoes.” Leave it to him to state the obvious.

“My toes held an uprising and I was overpowered. What are you still doing here?”

“I told Claymore I’d stick around to make sure everyone had gone.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Just to ease his mind. It was a rough evening for them.”

“That was thoughtful of you.” I didn’t know what to say next, so I hitched a thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the door. “I was about to leave myself.”

“Let me get that for you.” He strode ahead of me and opened the door. I walked under his arm into the muggy night air and looked around for my old yellow Vette and Marco.

“Here’s a crazy idea,” Pryce said with a forced chuckle. “Why don’t we go get a cup of coffee somewhere?”