Just Murdered (8 page)

The organist had the presence of mind to start the recessional music. Desiree walked down the aisle with her new husband. Helen could see the ugly brown stains on her veil. The groom’s hand was wrapped in a bloody cummerbund. He smiled sheepishly. The bride seemed dazed.

Jeff, the wedding planner, was waiting in the cathedral vestibule with his emergency kit. While the receiving line formed, Jeff expertly bandaged the groom’s hand. Then he and Helen worked on the bridal veil. They were hidden behind the bride’s wide skirt, but they could hear the wedding guests.

Some stumbled through the reception line like bomb-blast survivors, too stunned to say anything. They just wanted out of there. Others made spiteful comments in what they thought were whispers. The cavernous cathedral magnified their voices. Jeff winced at every catty remark. He seemed to suffer for the bride.

Two black-clad women with bird legs, like crows in gold jewelry, were typical. Helen could hear snippets of their soft-voiced malice: “Her mother never showed up.”

“She was screwing a chauffeur twenty years younger.”

“Only twenty?”

“Personally, I’d go for the groom.”

“Maybe she already has.”

“Have you seen the bride’s dress? She looks like Michael Jackson marrying Elvis.”

When they got to the bride, the two crows cawed, “Darling, you look divine,” and smothered her with perfume and Judas kisses.

Desiree turned to stone. The groom smiled through clenched capped teeth.

At last, the receiving line ended. The guests who hadn’t fled picked up beribboned baskets of rose petals and straggled out to the cathedral steps. They threw the petals at the bride and groom like they were flinging trash, then rushed away. Helen couldn’t bring herself to touch the mangled flowers. The petals looked like blood spots on the marble steps.

Jeff seemed near tears at his ruined wedding plans, but he pulled himself together and herded the wedding party inside for the pictures. Kiki still hadn’t shown up.

Helen was furious. It felt good. It burned away her sadness for the bride. How could that selfish woman destroy her daughter’s wedding for a backseat quickie? Except Kiki’s quickie was turning into a sexual marathon. The Rolls sat in the parking lot, engine running, windows up. Helen wanted to knock on the black-tinted windows and drag Kiki out by her dyed hair, but it was not her place.

No one from the family approached the car. Helen wondered why.

Emily stayed with her friend, Desiree. The blond bridesmaid Lisa pulled Helen aside and said, “Do you know where the mother of the bride is?”

Her eyes strayed to the Rolls. Lisa already knew the answer.

“No,” Helen lied.

“Do you know when she’ll be coming?” Lisa’s face turned bright red. “I mean, when she’ll be here?”

“I have no idea,” Helen said.

Helen knew exactly when Kiki would appear. She’d wait until Desiree was changing for the reception. Then Kiki would put on that blasted rose gown and make her grand entrance at the reception, glowing from her sexual athletics. She’d revel in the scandal.

Helen also knew why Kiki had pulled this stunt. Her daughter was marrying a handsome young man, but she’d show them she was still one hot mama.

Her absence had an impact on the pictures. The photographer and the videographer had to work around the lopsided wedding party. The bride refused to smile. The groom looked like a department-store dummy. The rest of the wedding party fidgeted like four-year-olds. The photos took two hours, including time out for powdering and hair pinning. Helen thought she would go mad if she had to drape Desiree’s cathedral train on the altar steps one more time.

Finally, every photo opportunity was exhausted, along with every member of the wedding party.

“The photos are finished,” the videographer pronounced.

Desiree brightened. She managed a smile, although it resembled a corpse’s grin. “Now I can wear my real wedding dress.”

Desiree ripped off her heavy veil and crown and dropped them on the floor. Then she ran upstairs to the dressing room.

That’s right, girl, Helen thought. Get rid of what’s dragging you down. She picked up the crown and veil and followed Desiree at a slower pace. She was drained by the wedding’s raw emotions. Helen’s magical night with Phil seemed years away. Today she could not believe any romance had a happy ending.

Memories of her own wedding haunted Helen. She’d been so in love with Rob. At the reception, she’d given him a bite of wedding cake. He’d mashed his piece into her face, to the delight of his cronies. Her maid of honor had applauded. Helen had laughed.

Her wedding photographer caught the scene. Helen thought it was the symbol of her marriage. She had seventeen years of sly humiliation, while she smiled and took it. Later, she learned Rob had had an affair with her maid of honor. She’d learned a lot she didn’t want to know, after she picked up the crowbar and smashed her marriage.

Run, Desiree, she thought. Run away before it’s too late. Luke doesn’t love you. Don’t waste your best years with a man who’ll use you. Don’t make the same mistake I did. You’ve only been married two hours. You can get an annulment.

Could she say that? Helen took on a mother’s duties when she put on the bride’s veil. A good mother would tell her daughter to get out of this mess.

Helen was greeted at the dressing-room door by the bracing smell of hot coffee. The breakfast buffet had been cleared. Jeff had set out plates of chicken and cucumber sandwiches, and dainty cookies.

What tempted Helen was the fresh coffee warming on the burner. Coffee would give her courage. After a cup of caffeine, she could drop some hints to Desiree. If the bride seemed receptive, she’d mention an annulment. Helen draped the dropped veil over a chair and reached for the coffeepot.

“You don’t have time for that,” Desiree said. “I want this thing off. Now.”

So much for Helen’s maternal fantasies. She was a servant and she’d better not forget it.

Helen approached Desiree as though the bride were a rabid animal. She carefully swung the heavy cathedral train out of the way and began unbuttoning the wretched dress for the last time. Desiree wriggled impatiently. A button slipped from Helen’s grasp.

This poor bride has had a terrible day, Helen thought, then rebelled at her sudden attack of saintliness. She was not going to play Victorian maid to Lady Desiree.

“The more you move, the longer this will take,” Helen said.

She stopped unbuttoning until Desiree stood still. Emily the peacemaker came over with coffee and cookies for the bride. That seemed to calm her.

Helen finished the last button and said, “There, you’re free. Step out of this carefully so you don’t get scratched.”

“Are you going to preserve your wedding dress?” said Amy, one of the dumber blond bridesmaids.

“So I can always remember this day?” The bride tore the dress from Helen’s hands, but that didn’t satisfy her fury. With one swift movement, Desiree grabbed the coffeepot and hurled it at the dress. Coffee splashed and shattered glass flew across the floor. A bridesmaid screamed.

“What are you doing?” Amy was shocked. “You could at least give that dress to charity.”

“So another woman can be as miserable as I am?” Desiree said. “Throw it in the trash.”

Emily bundled the ruined gown into a trash bag and hauled it out of sight. Jeff mopped up the spilled coffee and swept away the broken glass. The bridesmaids were afraid to say anything.

Desiree stood in her pure white La Perla underwear, showing off her slender body in a way that reminded Helen of Kiki. Desiree stretched like a cat, then started talking as if her seven-thousand-dollar tantrum never happened. “That dress hurt my back and shoulders. What do you think it weighed?”

“About twenty-five pounds, plus the train,” Helen said. “Why don’t you rest a moment or have a sandwich?”

“No, I want to put on my real wedding dress,” Desiree said. “The beautiful one. That ceremony was my mother’s idea. The reception is for my father’s business. But the afternoon cocktail party is mine. I’m going to have fun.”

I’m happy to help, Helen thought. Once the bride was buttoned into her fabulous cobweb dress, Helen could leave. She forgave Desiree her strange, sudden flash of temper. Maybe in her case, rage was a healthy response. Helen didn’t much care. She wanted to sit by the Coronado pool with a book and some wine. She could feel the cold glass in her hand and the warm sun on her hair.

“Terrific,” Helen said. “I’ll get your dress out of the closet.”

The door was stuck, a common phenomenon in the Florida humidity. Helen pulled on the handle and felt a weight behind it. The door was jammed.

It was that blasted hoop skirt. Helen knew she shouldn’t have shoved the rose dress into that closet with Desiree’s precious cobweb wedding dress. Now the door was caught. If she ripped that dress, Kiki would tear her heart out.

Helen’s arms were strong from hauling heavy wedding dresses. She pulled harder on the door. It wouldn’t budge.

“What’s keeping you?” Desiree tapped her foot impatiently.

“The door’s stuck.”

“Let’s get Jeff,” the bride said.

Helen didn’t want Jeff to see the rose dress squashed in the closet. He might report her to Kiki.

“Just needs a little old-fashioned female force.” Helen tugged harder. Nothing happened.

She would not be defeated by a lousy door. Not when a cold glass of wine was calling. Helen gave the door a mighty yank.

It opened.

Out tumbled a waterfall of red-black taffeta, yards and yards of it, tucked and folded into a giant bouquet. The rose dress must have fallen off the hanger—and fallen into something. It sure didn’t smell like roses.

The slippery dark fabric was wrapped around logs. Then Helen saw the logs were legs, shapely legs ending in size-four heels. She heard screams and realized they were coming from her.

She’d found Kiki.

The missing mother of the bride slid out of the closet in the rose dress. Helen couldn’t see her face. It was covered with a white cobweb. Helen pushed it aside.

Kiki stared blindly at Helen. Her mouth was open and angry, her eyes were wide and cold. She was dead, smothered with her daughter’s marvelous wedding dress.

“Oh, no,” the bride wailed. “Oh, no, no. I loved that dress.”

That’s when Rod the chauffeur burst into the room.

“Has anyone seen Kiki?” he said.

“Ewww,” Amy said. “What’s wrong with her nails?”

Nails? What nails? Kiki looked like a big, stiff doll. Helen didn’t even notice her fingers.

She felt strangely warm and disconnected, as if she were wrapped in cotton.

Shock, said one side of her mind.

Shit, said the other. I’m never going to get that cold wine.

There were shrieks and screams as a dozen cell phones simultaneously called 911.

Only Amy, the airhead bridesmaid, noticed the dead woman’s manicure. “Her nails are too short.” Amy’s gray eyes were wide with horror. For her, a broken nail was a tragedy. Murder was unthinkable.

Kiki’s small curled fingers seemed pathetically child-like. The gold daggerlike nails were gone. They’d been cut to the quick. Why would she mutilate her manicure?

She didn’t, Helen realized. Kiki would never do her own nails. She’d have a manicurist come to her house the morning of the wedding.

This morning. A thousand years ago.

The curled fingers no longer looked sad. They looked creepy. Anyone who watched TV knew about DNA. If Kiki had scratched her killer, she’d have traces of the DNA under her nails. Her killer had cut them before she—or he—shoved the body in the closet.

Then I opened the door, Helen thought, and left my prints all over it. She felt sick.

Run! she told herself. The police will be here any minute. Everyone heard me fight with Kiki last night. With my past, I haven’t a chance.

Helen looked around frantically for her purse. She could slip out the side door before the police arrived.

Stay! said her rational side. You’re a servant who opened the wrong closet. Nobody noticed you. Nobody cares about you. Sit tight. Of course your prints are on that door. You’re supposed to help the wedding party.

“Somebody help me turn her over,” Brendan said. “I want to look for wounds.”

The father of the bride—and a lawyer—was tampering with a crime scene, but nobody said anything. The groom and the best man rushed over to help. Helen thought she saw Chauncey’s too-red lips form a fleeting smile before he assumed a properly solemn expression. He had reason to smile. His theater was saved. Kiki’s untimely death brought him a hundred thousand dollars.

Chauncey, Brendan, and Luke had trouble lifting the unwieldy body in the outrageous belled skirt. Helen saw the skirt had a huge rip on the side. The stitching had given way in spots, and the roses bulged like tumors.