Duffel Bags And Drownings (11 page)

Green, orange, and white—the colors of the Irish flag—had been used in all the floral
arrangements. Lyle and his crew had strung twinkle lights, wired the sound system
for the band that would arrive later, and set up buffet tables, bars, and seating
groups with comfy furniture. The swimming pool would be dyed green, filled with goldfish—I’d
been assured the green water wouldn’t do them any harm—then covered with plexiglass
and used as a dance floor.

It wouldn’t be a St. Patrick’s Day bash without lots of alcohol. The mixology crew
I’d hired was keeping it green with emerald mint martinis, kiwi coladas, honeydew
mimosas, and, of course, green beer.

Cady Faye Catering had planned a menu of Irish stew, corn chowder, corned beef brisket
and cabbage, and an array of green finger foods. The dessert bar—where I intended
to spent a great deal of my time this evening—would feature mint chocolate pudding,
and cupcakes topped with sugar shamrocks.

On my earlier visit this afternoon, I’d seen that everything was going smoothly and
was on schedule, so I’d seen no need to hang around—especially when I had pressing
personal business to take care of.

I’d dashed over to Nordstrom at The Grove, just a few minutes away, to pick up the
Flirtatious handbags Marcie’s friend was holding for us. She was at lunch, so I had
to wait around for about fifteen minutes. No big deal. I’d distracted myself looking
at—okay, trying on—capris and sundresses. I mean, really, I had to have something
appropriate to wear with my fabulous, yummy yellow Flirtatious satchel, right?

Somehow, time had gotten away from me. I’d picked up the Flirtatious handbags—concealed
in a shopping bag to avoid a stampede if they were seen—and headed back to the Brannock
home. The party wasn’t schedule to start for another hour-plus, so I wasn’t seriously
late.

I drove past their house and turned at the corner, looking for a parking space on
a nearby street. As events went, the Brannocks’ was easier than most but I still had
to focus on the job. That meant I had to put the whole thing about Cady’s divorce
and Jeri’s murder out of my head.

I still hadn’t heard back from Dan. I guess my maybe-I-found-something-important message
wasn’t all that important to him.

A spot at the curb was open so I swooped in, gathered my things, and headed back toward
the Brannocks’ street. The neighborhood was quiet. The sun was setting, casting shadows.
Tall trees rustled slightly.

Up ahead just a little farther down the block, a gray Honda Pilot stopped in the street.
It idled there for a few seconds, then Cady got out.

I froze.

Cady waved to the driver and blew a kiss. The Pilot drove off and she started walking
toward the Brannock home.

Even though I knew Cady was having an affair and had been to an attorney, it made
my blood boil seeing it played out in front of me. Of course, I knew nothing about
Cady’s marriage, her husband, or what kind of relationship they had—except for a couple
of unfavorable comments I’d heard from Faye and Lourdes. I knew I shouldn’t judge,
but it bugged me just the same.

I followed Cady, my mind whirling with everything I knew about Jeri’s murder and my
suspicion that Cady was involved. I knew this wasn’t the time to discuss it with her,
not at tonight’s event, anyway. I could do it tomorrow.

Or could I?

The green duffel bag sprang into my head.

Oh my God, was it hers? Did it belong to Cady?

It was packed with sexy clothes for a romantic getaway and she was having an affair,
so it definitely could have belonged to her.

What if Cady was planning to leave town tonight after the event? What if she was gone
a long time and days passed before I got the chance to talk to her?

I quickened my pace. Cady didn’t seem to realize I was behind her. I followed her
around the corner and down the Brannocks’ street, and caught up with her just as she
got to the Cady Faye Catering van parked in the driveway.

The rear doors were open. Nobody else was around. I saw that the van was empty except
for a couple of bins of cutlery, some aluminum foil and plastic wrap. I figured everyone
had already ferried the food to the buffet tables out back and were busy setting up.

“Hi, Cady,” I said.

She gasped and spun around.

“Oh, Haley, it’s you.” She plastered both hands against her chest.

“I saw you get out of that Honda Pilot,” I said, and nodded down the block. “Your
boyfriend’s SUV.”

Cady froze, then shook her head. “No. No, you’re mistaken.”

“Rowland Horowitz,” I said. “He’s your attorney.”

“How did you know? Who told you?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, God. You didn’t tell Faye,
did you? Does Faye know?”

Okay, having her sister find out she was leaving her husband and getting a divorce
seemed like an odd thing to be upset about right now, but I went with it.

“Faye wouldn’t like it, would she?” I said.

Cady’s clinched her fists and her cheeks turned red.

“I
hate
her,” she hissed. “I absolutely
hate
her. This is her fault. All of it.”

I didn’t have a chance to ask what she meant because she kept going.

“All I wanted to do was make a few cupcakes for friends, for kids’ birthdays. Just
a hobby. Something I could have fun with,” Cady said. “But no. That wasn’t good enough.
It wasn’t big enough. Faye jumped in the middle of it—just like she jumps in the middle
of everything I do. We had to start a catering company. Nothing would do but for her
to take over.”

“You didn’t want it?” I asked.

“And we couldn’t have just a simple, ordinary catering company,” Cady told me. “It
had to be the biggest, the best. It had to keep getting bigger and better.”

Cady was becoming more and more agitated. I got the feeling she’d been holding this
in for a long time.

“Faye pressured you to do more?” I asked.

“Faye and everybody else,” Cady said. “My husband. He saw what the company was bringing
in. He started in on me, too. Do more, work harder. All he cared about was that stupid
catering company.”

I remembered that Faye had mentioned Cady’s husband was very interested in the catering
business, which didn’t seem to make Faye happy at all.

“Neither of them cares about me,” Cady said. “They only care about how much work I
do, and how much money they can make off of me.”

“So you found a boyfriend,” I said.

Cady closed her eyes for a few seconds and drew in a big breath. “Yes,” she whispered.

“You two were planning a romantic trip,” I said. “That’s why you brought the green
duffel bag with you to work.”

“It was going to be perfect,” she murmured, “spending time with someone who loves
me for myself, not for what he can get out of me.”

“That’s why you wanted a divorce,” I said.

“Yes, and I didn’t care what it took,” Cady said, growing angry again.

“Including killing Jeri?” I asked.

Cady froze. She looked at me as if she hadn’t understood my question. “That wasn’t
my fault.”

She turned around and started sorting through the bins in the back of the delivery
van, and said, “That girl at the attorney’s office shouldn’t have told Jeri what was
going on. It was supposed to be confidential.”

Oh my God, was I right? Had Cady murdered Jeri?

I heard the cutlery clink as Cady dug through it, my mind spinning, fitting the pieces
of Jeri’s death together.

“Actually,” Cady said, “anyone in my position would have done the same thing.”

“Murder Jeri?”

Cady spun around holding a butcher knife in her hand.

Oh, crap.

“I told you that wasn’t my fault,” Cady said, pointing the knife at me. “I had to
give that miserable excuse for a husband my portion of the business. I had to. It’s
the only way he would agree to the divorce.”

Wow. That was a really big knife. It took me a few seconds to drag my gaze from the
blade back to Cady, then another few seconds to understand what she had just told
me.

“You gave your portion of Cady Faye Catering to your husband?” I asked.

“If I hadn’t, the whole thing would have dragged on for ages,” Cady said. She shook
her head. “I wanted out. Now.”

A huge, missing chunk of Jeri’s murder fell into place. Jeri would have known that
with Cady gone and her husband—a man Faye couldn’t stand—becoming involved, the company
would likely fall apart.

“You didn’t tell Faye what you were doing?” I asked.

Cady tapped the flat of the knife against her palm. “Of course not. I couldn’t tell
Faye. She’d have fought me on it—like she fights me on everything.”

“When Jeri found out what you were doing, she confronted you,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” Cady said. “Jeri was so concerned about Faye. Faye was great. Faye was
wonderful. Faye would be so hurt. Faye did so much for everyone else. Faye, Faye,
Faye!”

Cady made a slashing motion with the knife. I took a step back.

“The day Jeri confronted you,” I said, hoping to distract her, “did you explain how
you felt?”

“I had no choice,” Cady said, waving the knife around. “Sometimes I slip into the
building through the construction site next door so Faye won’t see me and start in
on everything.”

A mental light bulb lit up in my head. No wonder some of the servers said they thought
they’d seen Cady in the building that day—she’d actually been in there.

“I put my duffel bag in the employee lounge with the other bags to disguise it. Somebody
would have noticed it in my office,” Cady said. “And it was a good thing I did because
here came Jeri, hunting for me. Sent by Faye to track me down.”

I got a yucky feeling in my stomach as I realized that my presence at Cady Faye Catering
that day had been one of the reasons Faye had asked Jeri to find Cady.

“Jeri found me, of course, and insisted we go into the ice room,” Cady said. “She
started in on me about how she knew the details of my divorce, how awful she thought
it was, how I was abandoning the business and it would be all my fault if everyone
lost their job. I couldn’t take it!”

Cady hadn’t always seemed completely stable to me. I could see why the confrontation
with Jeri might have pushed her too far.

I only hoped the conversation we were having wouldn’t push her too far again—especially
with that butcher knife in her hand.

“And then—then—she insisted I tell Faye what I’d done,” Cady said.

“No way were you doing that,” I said.

“I tried to get away from her,” Cady said, tearing up. “I tried. I really tried. I
even climbed the stairs up to that water tank to get away. But she came after me.
She just kept coming.”

“So you hit her and pushed her into the water tank,” I said.

“No.” Cady shook her head frantically. “I—I didn’t push her into the water. I hit
her. Not hard. I just wanted her to leave me alone. My ring scratched her face. It
was an accident. I swear. But she became enraged. She tried to push me down the steps,
so I—I—hit her and ran away.”

“You hit her hard,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to,” Cady insisted.

“She hit her head on something—the wall, one of those railings, something,” I said,
“and she fell into the water and drowned.”

“I didn’t mean for that to happen!” Cady screamed and pounded her palms against her
head, still clutching the knife.

Okay, Cady was seriously losing it. I tried to calm her down.

“It’s all right,” I said. “It was an accident. You didn’t mean for any of it to happen.
I can see that. So will everyone else.”

Cady stopped screaming. Her gaze bored into me.

“You’re going to tell Faye, aren’t you?” she said.

Of course, I was going to tell Faye—I was going to tell anyone who would listen—but
this didn’t seem like the best time for complete honestly.

“No!” Cady lunged at me and swung the knife. The blade sliced the sleeve of my jacket.
I scrambled out of the way.

Cady screamed again, threw down the knife, and took off running. I tossed my handbag
and portfolio into the van and followed her. She dodged between the vehicles parked
in the driveway. I was close behind as we ran through the gate into the Brannocks’
backyard.

Servers in leprechaun costumes, the caterers, the bartenders were all busy setting
up. Construction workers were stringing lights, and three guys from the florist were
arranging flowers on the buffet tables. The band was tuning up. Nobody seemed to notice
as Cady ran past with me close behind.

“Stop!” I shouted as Cady circled the pool. “Stop!”

I was winded, and running in three-inch pumps wasn’t easy.

Cady stopped. She was breathing hard. Maybe she was out of breath, too, or she felt
safe with the pool separating us.

“Look, Cady, this whole thing is understandable,” I said, which wasn’t true, of course,
but I needed to catch my breath. “You can explain everything.”

“No!” Cady screamed.

Two electricians stringing lights on the shrubbery turned and looked at us.

“Call the police,” I said to them.

“No!” Cady screamed again.

“Now,” I said to the guys. “Call 9-1-1. Hurry!”

“No!”

Cady’s scream revved up louder and louder. I turned. She was a couple of feet away,
running toward me. She hit me with a full body blow. Back I went, Cady on me, and
we fell into the pool.

The water closed over me. I tried to get away, but Cady held on. We sank deeper and
deeper into the pool. I struggled, trying to get free. My lungs hurt. I tried to hit
her, knock her off of me, but the water softened the blows.

Panic set it. Frantic, I fought, pushing her away. Nothing helped. She kept grabbing
me, pulling me deeper into the water.

Something looped my waist and yanked me backward. Stunned, I exhaled as I was dragged
upward. My head broke the surface and I gulped in a huge breath of air.

Oh my God, what had happened?