The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco (23 page)

T
he morning of Doug’s wedding dawned clear and bright, but a thin scud was overhead by nine o’clock, and when I left for the ceremony, the sky was a uniform gray with a sharp breeze blowing. I grabbed a cardigan to wear over my sleeveless spring green dress with the wide white belt and flared skirt. It had a fifties vibe that flattered my small-waisted figure. I’d have felt a bit snazzier without the clunky cast on my left arm; it wasn’t exactly the accessory I’d had in mind when I picked out the dress. I met Hart—looking handsome in a gray suit with a white shirt and flowered tie—in the gazebo parking lot. He kissed my cheek and I smiled at him, pleased to see him and oh so happy not to be witnessing Doug’s marriage on my own. We walked up the slight incline together.

“Going to rain,” he observed.

“I don’t think the ceremony will take too long.” Reverend Ramona, who was the officiant, had a reputation for keeping her services brief. I’d organized one wedding, where the bride went into
labor the morning of the ceremony, that Reverend Ramona completed in five and a half minutes.
No lie.

We mounted the steps of the gazebo, which was decked with pink bows and flowers, just as I had planned it. I figured Lola and her crew had been here since dawn to get ready. White folding chairs were set up on either side of a central aisle, with far more people on the groom’s side than the bride’s. People I took to be Madison’s family members sat in the front row, conversing quietly among themselves. Pachelbel’s Canon in D played from the portable stereo system.

Brooke, gorgeous in a coral sheath and a matching hat, waved from a row halfway back on Doug’s side. Lola sat beside her, looking tired but satisfied. Neither Maud nor Kerry had been part of our high school crowd, and they weren’t here.

I hugged Lola and then leaned across her to hug Brooke before introducing Hart to them both.

“Gorgeous flowers, Lo,” I said. I sat on the aisle with Hart between me and Lola and Brooke on Lola’s far side.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “They’d better get a move on—it’s going to rain.”

I started to shrug my way into my cardigan, and Hart held it for me, his warm hand brushing the back of my neck. “Thanks.”

While Lola, Brooke, and Hart made “get acquainted” talk, I couldn’t help but run through my mental event to-do list, noting that no one had bothered to put a runner down on the center aisle. Flowers, music, ushers with matching
boutonnieres, videographer—check. No guest book for attendees to sign, and no table for presents. I noticed two people with wrapped gifts on their laps. I shook my head. The guest book would be at the reception site, but some guests from the ceremony wouldn’t go to the reception. Two bridesmaids huddled near the gazebo entrance, clearly wishing they had jackets to put on over their strapless pink dresses.

The festivities began with Doug’s parents and then Madison’s taking their seats in the front row. A moment later, a smiling Doug, handsome in a dove gray morning suit with tails and waistcoat, took his place at the front beside Reverend Ramona in her vestments. He exchanged a joke with his best man and then threw his shoulders back, facing all of us. The crowd hushed and I could hear the wind soughing through the pines. It made a plaintive sound, or maybe that was just me taking the perfectly ordinary sound of the wind in the trees and making it fit my mood. The bridesmaids processed with two groomsmen to the strains of the Cure’s “Lovesong.” I pinned a smile to my face as a white limousine pulled up. This was it.

The chauffeur, portly in a gray uniform and cap, got out. Instead of opening the passenger door so the bride could make her entrance, he climbed the gazebo’s steps and shuffled down the aisle toward Doug.
Oh no
. I could tell by the way Doug’s face went blank and rigid that he knew right then, that he didn’t need to read the note the chauffeur handed him. The chauffeur, having delivered the envelope, beat feet out of the gazebo
and gunned the limousine out of the lot. The music cut off as Doug pulled a folded note from the envelope and scanned it. Everyone was watching him. Madison’s mother half rose but resumed her seat when her husband tugged on her hand. Doug lowered the page, swallowed, and then looked out at all of us.

“Well, folks,” he started, then paused to clear his throat.

My heart ached for him.

“It looks like there’s not going to be any wedding. Sorry. Um, there’s still quite a spread at the Club, so you can adjourn straight there. Don’t want it to go to waste just because . . . because, well.”

“Oh nos” and “I can’t believe its” bubbled up from the congregation. Someone started crying. I distinctly heard the word “bitch” but couldn’t tell who said it. Doug ignored everyone, striding down the aisle without looking right or left, wrenching at his ascot like it was choking him. I saw the grief in his eyes as he passed. A couple of people reached out to him, but he shook them off. Moving ever faster, he clattered down the stairs and then stopped, scanning the parking lot. His shoulders slumped.

He didn’t have a car! Someone had brought him to the park and he had expected to leave by limo, popping a champagne cork in the back with his new wife on the way to the reception. I rose.

“Amy-Faye—” Lola’s voice held a caution.

I looked down at a startled Hart. “He needs me,” I said. “I have to.”

Only vaguely conscious of Hart’s nod and
Lola’s and Brooke’s worried faces, I hurried after Doug. Touching him lightly on the elbow as I drew even with him, I said, “Let’s get out of here.”

He faced me, but the blind look in his eyes made me suspect he didn’t even process who I was. No matter.

“C’mon.” I headed toward the van. He followed me and climbed in on the passenger side. I was cranking the ignition, thankful the cast was on my left arm, when the back door slid open and Lola and Brooke piled in with a rustle of stiff fabric. The door thunked closed.

“He’s our friend, too,” Brooke said, meeting my gaze in the rearview mirror. Lola put a comforting hand on Doug’s shoulder, but he didn’t react.

Most of the wedding guests were gathered at the gazebo rail watching as we peeled out of the lot, spiriting the jilted groom away from their prying eyes. I didn’t know where we were going and I didn’t think Doug cared. We quickly caught up to and passed the lumbering white limousine, which should have had a license plate reading “2DTHOTZ,” and then banked around a curve and lost sight of it. Just as well. We drove through Heaven, past my office, city hall, the marijuana store Rocky Mountain Higher, my brother’s pub. The silence inside the van was fraught. No one knew what to say.

We flashed past a sign for I-70 and Doug suddenly said, “The airport.”

His voice sounded stiff, rusty, un-Doug-like.

“The airport?” Lola queried gently.

“DIA. I’ve got tickets to Bermuda—might as
well get my money’s worth.” He laughed harshly and pulled two ticket folders out of his jacket’s inside pocket. “Anyone want to go with?”

I sucked my breath in on a thin whistle. Before I could even think about doing something stupendously, unutterably stupid, Doug was tearing Madison’s ticket into confetti, rolling down the window, and letting the pieces trickle through his fingers into the slipstream. The wind ripped them away.

I took the turn that would put us on I-70 heading toward Denver International Airport.

“Road trip,” Brooke said softly. After a beat, she continued, “Remember the time we drove to Lake Powell for spring break and stayed on that dumpy houseboat that smelled like cat pee? Was that our sophomore year or our junior year?”

“Junior,” I supplied.

Lola jumped in to remind us about Troy falling overboard and asked Doug if he remembered what he called the virulent green cocktail he invented on that trip.

We continued east, bathing our hurting friend in good memories, reminiscences of times that had nothing to do with Madison, as we sped toward the airport and a plane that would take him to a solitary honeymoon. I suspected even a supersonic jet couldn’t outdistance his pain, but maybe a week on his own would help him come to terms with Madison’s desertion. At any rate, the best we could do was remind him that we’d shared good times together before Madison, and hope he got the idea that there could be more good times, eventually, post-Madison. Doug didn’t say anything, but it
seemed to me his shoulders relaxed infinitesimally as we drove farther east, and his face lost its carved-from-granite rigidity.

“Acid Rainbow,” he finally said, startling us all to silence. He cleared his throat. “The cocktail. We called it Acid Rainbow. Maybe we can mix up a batch when I get back. Crème de menthe and grenadine—”

“And pineapple juice and rum,” Brooke put in.

“It was nasty,” Lola said. “I’m pretty sure that’s why I don’t drink.”

I smiled and let up on the accelerator a bit. No point in getting there too fast.

C
hoosing a book for the Readaholics to read is a tough task, and the five of us who make up the book club take the responsibility seriously. Usually. There was the one time we wrote the titles of books ranging from
Gone Girl
to
The Moonstone
on slips of paper, taped them on my folks’ garage door, and threw darts to pick a winner. Margaritas were involved. (Trust me, the garage door, unpainted since Fleetwood Mac hit the top ten, and liberally pocked with woodpecker holes to start with, was not greatly harmed by our selection process.) Only Lola managed to get a dart to stick. Did I mention the margaritas? Her dart picked Elizabeth George’s
A Great Deliverance
. And there was the time, at least two years ago, where we decided (I don’t remember why) that we had to find a title that started with “Q” and found ourselves reading an Inspector Rebus novel. But mostly, we take the task seriously.

Which is how I ended up having a conversation six weeks ago with Brooke Widefield, my best friend, whose turn it was to pick a book. We were sitting in my sunroom, almost uncomfortably warm with the sun streaming through the panes, which I had Windexed to streak-free perfection only that morning. The celadon green tiles gleamed, and the plants (chosen with much help from Lola, who owned a plant nursery) stretched greenly toward the sunlight. I’d had an event that went late the night before, Friday, and I was makeupless with my copper-colored hair in a ponytail and wearing a faded University of Colorado T-shirt and shorts that had fit better five pounds ago. Brooke, of course, as always, looked exquisite, mink dark hair curling over her shoulders like she had just finished filming a shampoo commercial and green eyes emphasized by taupe shadow and mascara. Her crisp red capris and denim jacket could have been featured in a magazine spread about how to look chic rather than sloppy running weekend errands. I was the “before” photo and Brooke the “after.” I’m used to it.

“It’s hard to find murder mysteries without murders in them,” Brooke observed facetiously. “But since Ivy, well, I’m not in the mood to read anything too realistic.”

Ivy Donner, one of the Readaholics and our friend since high school, had been poisoned in May, and we were all still reeling. I found myself agreeing with Brooke that we didn’t need a police procedural or urban noir book for next month.

“There are lots of books without serial killers or gore,” I said, taking a swig of my diet soda. “Tons
of ’em. Really, when you think about it, books with brains caked on the walls and criminologists deducing the killer’s identity from blood-spatter analysis are a relatively modern development. What about something more old-fashioned, something pre–
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
?”

“Dick Francis,” Brooke mused, “except sometimes he kills off horses, and I can’t take that.”

Brooke had a soft heart for animals and volunteered at the Heaven Animal Haven, the no-kill shelter here in Heaven, Colorado.

“Dorothy Sayers?”

She wrinkled her nose. “After reading that one about the bells, I’m not much of a Sayers fan. Bor-ing. I’m more in the mood for something along the line of Nancy Drew.”

“I don’t think the others will be too
keen
on that,” I said. “Get it? Carolyn Keene?”

Brooke groaned and tossed a throw pillow at me.

“I guess that’s why they call them
throw
pillows,” I said, catching it.

“Stop with the puns already,” she said, “or I’m leaving.” She made as if to rise.

“Fine, fine.” I held up my hands in surrender.

“What about Agatha Christie?” she said. “We haven’t ever read one of her books.”

I thought about it. “I guess you’re right,” I said slowly. “I guess I assumed everyone had already read a lot of Christie, since she is the queen of mysteries.” I paused for a beat and decided to confess. “I’ve never read a Christie book, though. Don’t toss me out of the Readaholics.”

“I’ve read all the Miss Marples.” She put down
her diet soda, being careful to place a coaster under it, even on the glass table. “I’ve never tried any of the others, though.”

And that’s how we came to be reading
Murder on the Orient Express
, the book jouncing on the van’s passenger seat as I headed for my brother, Derek’s, pub. I’d finished it the night before and was looking forward to the Readaholics’ discussion tomorrow. I tried to anticipate everyone’s reactions, but the only one I was sure of was Maud’s. Our resident conspiracy theorist would be wholeheartedly enthusiastic about the book because it contained a conspiracy. I smiled to myself as I parked the car in the gravel lot. I had found the whole conspiracy thing totally unbelievable. Twelve people working together to kill one man? Puh-leeze. Murder conspiracies didn’t work, not in real life.

*   *   *

We’ve all heard the advice about doctors not performing surgery on their own family members. It’s against the Hippocratic Oath, I think, or maybe the American Medical Association bans it. The same should hold true for event organizers. If there were an event-organizer governing body, I’d be happy to propose a bylaw that made it unethical to plan parties for family members, especially brothers. Under that rule, such an act would be punishable by having to listen to an endless loop of John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” or taking a cross-country road trip with said family. In a VW Beetle. With no air-conditioning. In August.

I looked at Derek and said in my reasonable voice, even though my day’s supply of
“reasonable” was about exhausted, “You can’t invite more people. The fire marshal’s max capacity is two hundred twenty. We’ve already invited three hundred, not counting the people who will come because they read about the opening in the
Heaven Herald
or from a friend. Even though a fair chunk of the invitees won’t be able to come, especially the ones from Denver, you’re asking for trouble by sending out more invitations this late.”

We were sitting in my brother’s ready-for-grand-opening brewpub, Elysium Brewing, on the outskirts of Heaven, Colorado. The building had originally been a factory—shoes, I think—and the designer had kept an industrial vibe with exposed pipes and the original brick walls. They contrasted nicely with the new fittings installed late last month. On a sultry August day, the narrow windows were open, and brilliant sunshine lit up the booths with their orange leatherette upholstery and made the woodwork gleam. When I’d heard the pub’s decorator was going with orange, I’d been skeptical, but against the dark wood and the bar’s brass fittings, it looked really good, especially in the evening under the soft glow from the antiquey-looking pendant lights. From where we sat in a corner booth near the kitchen, I could barely glimpse the patio, where Derek envisioned selling a lot of brews on long summer evenings, and the wide staircase that led to an open area with eight pool tables and an auxiliary bar on the second floor, offices on the third floor, and a rooftop space, which would eventually be a venue for private functions. A humungous stainless steel vat with tubing spiraling
around it took up a large chunk of space. It sat in a glass enclosure so Colorado’s craft beer enthusiasts could watch the brewing process in action. Whoop-de-doo.

The janitor mopped his way past us, leaving an odor of lemon cleanser, which temporarily overpowered the hoppy beer scent that pervaded the pub. Derek ran a hand through his short hair, which was a deeper auburn than my coppery locks. It stood on end. “People won’t all come at the same time,” he argued.

“I know, but trust me when I say that guests with an invitation in hand are going to expect to walk right in, not have to wait in line until the place empties out enough that there’s room for them.” I’d owned my event-organizing business, Eventful!, for four years now, and I’d learned a thing or two the hard way.

“But we’ve got to invite Gordon’s doctor sister, Angie, and her husband, Eugene—he’s an accountant—now that they’re back in town. Their daughter—what a tragedy. And that guy who’s running for state senator against Troy Widefield—not that I want him to beat Troy, but—”

A tattoo of stiletto heels on the stairs and raised voices interrupted us. “—what the judge has to say, Gordo,” a woman’s voice said. “You can’t just not pay Kolby’s college tuition. The semester starts in a couple of weeks. He’s—”

“He’s twenty-four and a useless parasite,” came Gordon Marsh’s voice. “I paid for his first attempt at college, and I don’t feel I owe him another go-round. I gave him a job here, and that’s more than
he deserves. I’m damn sure he drinks or spills more beer than he sells.”

“He’s your
son
!” The speaker, a slim brunette, came into view. In tight jeans, a Western shirt that strained the pearl snaps across her chest, and carefully feathered hair, she looked a decade younger than the fifty-two or -three she had to be.

“Don’t remind me,” Gordon growled. He appeared on the stairs above her and followed her down, his heavier footsteps in contrast to the angry tapping of her heels. Derek’s partner in Elysium Brewing, he was in his early fifties with a full head of dark blond hair sprinkled with gray. His tanned face had its share of lines, and he carried a little extra weight around his middle, but he was still a handsome man. He reminded me of a younger, blonder James Brolin. He had a reputation as a player, though, with a philosophy of love ’em and leave ’em. Lots of ’em, if rumors were correct. I was sure he thought of himself as a “stud.” He’d tried his pitch on me when he first went into business with Derek, but I was having none of it. Sure, I’d gone out once with a guy who turned out to be a murderer, but I had to draw the line somewhere.

I’d asked Derek why he’d partnered with Gordon, and he’d told me Gordon was an investment genius, head of his own venture capital firm, GTM Capital, with a knack for underwriting start-up bars and restaurants that went on to be hugely successful. He had a unique hands-on approach to his projects, where he or one of his senior staff “embedded” with the company they were underwriting until it was well and truly launched.

“I need him. Don’t piss him off, sis,” Derek had said, stopping short of suggesting I date the man to keep him happy. He knew how that was likely to go over.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” Susan Marsh said, eyes narrowed to slits. “You can’t do this to Kolby.”

“The hell I can’t!” Without warning, Gordon swiped a beer mug from the bar and hurled it in Susan’s direction. It missed her by a good three feet, hit a booth, and shattered on the floor.

Derek was on his feet immediately, making calming gestures as he approached his partner. “Whoa, big guy, no need for this.” He stood between Gordon and Susan, which made me nervous, but Gordon didn’t seem inclined to launch more missiles at his ex-wife.

Susan, eyes big, scuttled out of the bar, but not without stopping to snap a picture of the broken glass with her phone. For her lawyer’s use, I imagined. I was so startled by Gordon’s sudden fury that I stayed seated, not sure whether to call the cops or let Derek handle it. The two men talked for thirty seconds. Then Derek clapped his partner on the shoulder and returned to me while Gordon headed up the stairs to the roof, shaking a cigarette out of a packet as he went.

“What was that all about?” I whispered.

Derek shook his head. “I don’t know. Gordon’s been edgy lately, losing it over the least little thing. When we first started putting this deal together, fifteen months or so ago, he was brusque, sometimes rude, but you could always see where he
was coming from, you know? I mean, yeah, he was out for number one, looking to structure the partnership contract in his favor, but that’s just business. When I didn’t lie down and roll over, he respected it, I think. I mean, our contract’s fair.” He ran a hand through his hair again. “Lately, though, sis”—he gave me a serious look—“I don’t know how much longer I can put up with it. If I could afford to buy him out, I’d do it tomorrow. He’s rude to the employees—that’s why Sam quit—and he busted a crate of hops the other day when the delivery truck was an hour late. If he behaves like that around customers . . .”

I could see worry in the deep line between his brows and the way his jaw worked. I reached over the table to punch his shoulder. “Hang in there. Maybe it’s the grand opening that’s got him on edge. Hopefully, he’ll settle down once we’re past Friday night.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

He didn’t look hopeful, and I got the feeling there was more he wasn’t telling me. I didn’t have time to draw it out of him, though, since I was on the verge of being late for a client meeting. “Hang in there,” I repeated, sliding out of the booth as gracefully as I could in my tan pencil skirt. “I’ll be back at five.”

I’d agreed to take a few shifts behind the bar until Derek could find a replacement for Sam, the bartender who’d left in a huff after a run-in with Gordon the day before. I’d put myself through college bartending, among other jobs, and I wanted to help out because Derek had begged me to and because I,
like my folks and sisters, had a fair chunk of change invested in Elysium Brewing. I’d even persuaded the Readaholics to put off our discussion of
Murder on the Orient Express
until tomorrow night so I could work at the pub this evening.

“Thanks, Amy-Faye. You’re a lifesaver.”

“I’ll add that to my résumé.” With a smile and another shoulder punch, I left him sitting in the booth and headed for the parking lot and my van.