To Love and To Perish (13 page)

“Are you sure this is such a good idea?” Kate asked as I handed her the gift basket to be delivered to the Hay-Adams Hotel.

I followed her from my office to the front door of my apartment. “The mother of the groom requested a bottle of Jameson's Irish whiskey to be delivered to the priest's room before he arrived. I'm just following orders.”

“It's a huge bottle.” Kate shifted her weight to balance the basket on her hip, which barely held up her low-rider jeans. “This basket weighs a ton.”

“Are you sure you don't mind doing the errands for the Winchester wedding?”

“You shouldn't be driving around after what happened yesterday at Carolyn's viewing. The only other thing I have to do is inventory the rentals at the hotel. Once I drop this at the front desk, I'll do a quick count to make sure everything is there, then come back and pick you up for the rehearsal.”

“Thanks, Kate.” I opened the door for her. “I'm going to stay here and make the final changes to the timeline. Call me if you need anything.”

She looked back as she started down the stairs. “You're sure you're going to stay here and keep out of trouble?”

“After what happened yesterday?” I gave her a shocked look. “Trust me. I'm looking forward to a quiet day.”

I closed the door after her and walked to the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and scanned the bare shelves. A few cans of Diet Dr Pepper sat next to some cartons of leftover Chinese food. I took a can of soda and popped it open. Breakfast of champions. I started down the hall to my office but was stopped by my doorbell.

“Hold on a sec,” I called as I went back and opened the front door, expecting to see Kate. “What did you forget?”

Instead Ian stood on my doorstep in snug jeans and his leather jacket zipped halfway over a black T-shirt.

“I just got your message this morning,” Ian said, his brows furrowed. “My cell phone has been acting up. Are you sure you're okay?”

I'd almost forgotten that I'd called him after my run-in at the funeral parlor. I wasn't sure why I'd felt the need to call him, but I felt better already just from seeing him. “I'm fine. It was nothing really.”

He stepped closer to me and lifted a hand to my head, brushing his fingertips lightly over my bruise. His blue eyes met mine. “It doesn't look like nothing.”

“The doctor said that since most of the force landed on the side of my head, it didn't cause any major trauma.”

Ian cocked an eyebrow. “You're speaking American again.”

I smiled. “If someone tried to kill me, they missed.”

“I don't like the idea of someone trying to kill you, even if they missed.” Ian frowned. “You need to be more careful.”

“I can take care of myself.” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. “You could have called me back, you know. You didn't have to rush over here to check on me.”

“If I called, you might get irritated at me like you are now and not let me bring you breakfast.” He held out a white paper bag. “That, and we have to leave for a gig later today, so if I didn't see you now, I might not see you for a couple of days. I wasn't sure if I could last that long.”

I felt my pulse quicken and my anger melt away. “Oh.” I stepped back to let him inside and focused on the paper bag so I wouldn't have to meet his eyes. “Bagels?”

He shook his head. “Chocolate croissants from Patisserie Poupon.”

My stomach growled instinctively. “My favorite. How did you know?”

Ian smiled. “I have my ways.”

He followed me into the kitchen and unpacked the contents of the paper bag on the counter, peeling the pastries from sheets of white translucent paper. I handed him a can of Diet Dr Pepper from the refrigerator.

“It's all I have,” I said. “You should probably know that I don't keep a well-stocked pantry.”

He grinned as he took the can from me. “That means we'll have to go out a lot.”

I felt my cheeks begin to flush. “That doesn't sound so bad.”

He handed me a flaky chocolate croissant. “Good. I hoped it wouldn't.”

I took a bite and had to stop myself from moaning out loud. The combination of the buttery pastry and the rich chocolate was heavenly. Ian moved close to me and tilted my chin up toward him. I held my breath as he brushed my lips with his fingertips.

“You have bits of croissant on your lips,” he whispered, his face only inches above mine. He leaned down and his lips met mine so gently I almost couldn't tell he was kissing me except for the heat that surged through my body. I sunk into the kiss as he wrapped his arms around me and buried his hands in my hair. I dropped my croissant on the counter and lifted my arms to encircle his neck. He pressed his body against mine and his kiss became deeper and more urgent.

“Annabelle!”

It took me a moment to realize that it wasn't Ian who called out my name. It was Leatrice. I sprang back from Ian as I heard her come into my apartment. When would I remember to lock my door?

“In the kitchen,” I yelled, straightening my shirt.

Ian reached over and brushed my lips with his thumb. “You still have crumbs,” he said softly.

I smiled at him and noticed that his eyes burned
with heat. For the first time he looked dangerous to me. I took a breath to compose myself as Leatrice bounded into the kitchen.

“There you are, dearie.” She saw Ian and her face lit up. “I didn't know you were visiting, too.”

“I brought breakfast.” Ian motioned to the croissants abandoned on the counter.

Leatrice rubbed her hands together. “Shall we take them to the dining room table and have a proper breakfast?”

Ian glanced at his watch. “I actually should be going. We have to head down to Charlottesville for a gig tonight and the lads will kill me if I don't help them load the truck.”

Leatrice's smile drooped. “Can't you stay for a while? I wanted to tell you all the things I heard on the police scanner this morning. Tonight is a full moon, you know. People go crazy when there's a full moon.”

“I'll be back on Saturday,” he said more to me than Leatrice. “Can we pick up where we left off?”

I felt my cheeks get red and started to nod when I remembered the Winchester wedding. “I can't. I have a wedding at The Hay-Adams on Saturday.”

“How about Sunday?”

“It's a date,” I said, walking Ian to the door with Leatrice close on my heels.

Ian opened the door and stepped into the hall. He gave me a lingering kiss on the cheek and waved at Leatrice.

“See you on Sunday,” she called out, waving as he disappeared down the stairs.

I turned to Leatrice once we'd gone back in my apartment. “What are you wearing?”

She spun around and the bright red felt skirt belled out around her. The skirt was decorated with vividly colored sequined appliqués of nut-crackers, angels, and wrapped presents. “It's called a Christmas tree skirt. Do you like it?”

“You're wearing a Christmas tree skirt?”

Leatrice looked at me like I was an idiot. “Well, it is the Christmas season. This is a very popular item on the Home Shopping Network. I'm sure you'll see other people wearing them around.”

“I doubt it.” I didn't have the heart to break it to her that the skirt was meant to wrap around the base of a Christmas tree. At least she was in season.

Leatrice stared at me for a second. “Why do you have crumbs in your hair, dear?”

My cheeks burned as I ran my hands vigorously through my hair to get rid of the croissant crumbs that Ian had obviously left behind.

Leatrice's eyes bugged out. “And what happened to your head?”

“I had an accident.” I tried to be as vague as possible. “Nothing serious.”

Leatrice sank onto my sofa. “Did you fall?”

“Not exactly,” I confessed.

“You mean someone did that to you?” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I knew I should have stayed with you and been your bodyguard.”

Luckily, my cell phone rang before Leatrice could ask me any more questions. I grabbed it off my coffee table and flipped it open.

“Wedding Belles. This is—”

“Annabelle, it's Lady Margaret Winchester.” I'd never heard Lady in a rush before. “Could you do me a huge favor? We need someone to pick up the priest from the airport and take him to the church for the rehearsal.”

“Sure,” I agreed, grabbing a pen and writing the flight information down on the back of a nearby magazine. I was glad Kate wasn't around to see me caving in to a client's last minute request again. “I'll be there.”

“You're a lifesaver,” Lady said. “I'm running to have my tiara refitted, but call my cell if you need me.”

I'd never heard of a tiara fitting, but nothing brides did surprised me anymore. I snapped my phone shut.

Leatrice stood with the door opened. “You're in no condition to drive with that welt on your head so consider me your wheel man.”

I sighed, too tired to argue about it. My nice, quite afternoon had officially been shot to hell.

“You're sure you don't want to take my car?” I asked as we got in Leatrice's yellow Ford Fairmont circa 1980-something. I could only imagine the impression we would make on the priest by driving up in a car as long as a school bus with an eighty-year-old driver sitting on a pile of phone books and wearing a pair of prescription flying goggles.

“Not when we've got a classic car at our disposal.” Leatrice rubbed the dashboard and a cloud of dust surrounded us. I think she confused old with classic. I knew that when my brides requested a classic car for their wedding they meant a pristine Rolls-Royce, not a car with sagging interior fabric and missing door handles.

“This baby purrs like a kitten.” Leatrice put the key in the ignition, and the motor rumbled to life with a violent grinding sound. Leatrice had clearly never heard a kitten purr.

She didn't bother to look behind her as she
pulled out from the two spaces on the street that her car took up. It had been no use trying to convince her that the trip would be boring, and I hadn't been fast enough to lose her on the stairs.

“This is so exciting.” Leatrice clapped her hands as we drove through Georgetown. “A day in the life of a wedding planner.”

“Being a wedding planner is far from exciting, Leatrice. Most days I make phone calls and work with contracts. Yesterday was not the norm.”

Holiday wreaths hung from every streetlight, and signs proclaiming sales hung in each shop window in the fashionable Washington neighborhood. Delivery trucks and double-parked cars didn't make it any easier to weave our way through the usual gridlock and impatient holiday shoppers. Having a car longer than most of the delivery trucks also seemed to be a drawback.

Leatrice turned around in her seat to face me while we stopped to let a group of tourists cross the street. Her eyes looked enormous through her prescription goggles. “You haven't told me what happened yesterday.”

Oops. “I assumed you'd heard on your police scanner.”

“Heard what? Did I miss something big?” She practically bounced out of her seat as she thumped herself on the forehead. “I knew I should have gotten a second scanner for the bathroom. I try to be quick but I lose precious moments in the shower.”

“It wasn't a big deal in the end.” I tried to gloss over the attempted murders in the hope that she wouldn't get all worked up about them. “A cou
ple more wedding planners were attacked, but no one ended up dying.”

“The police think it was the same perp?” Leatrice used law enforcement jargon as much as possible.

I held my breath as we swung onto M Street and veered onto Key Bridge without signaling. “A slightly different weapon, but they're assuming it's the same person.”

Leatrice rapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “The first two victims were both strangled. What did he use this time?”

“Three victims,” I corrected her. “A third wedding planner was strangled at an industry party Wednesday night.”

Leatrice gasped. “I can't believe I missed that, too. This is awful. I'm definitely going to get a second scanner. So how were the latest victims attacked?”

“I guess there wasn't anything in the funeral home to choke someone with so the killer used a marble bust.”

“Blunt force trauma instead of asphyxiation. Curious.” Leatrice looked at my bruise and narrowed her eyes at me. “Were you one of the people to get attacked?”

“Technically yes,” I said. “But I didn't get hit very hard. I'm fine.”

“Does Detective Reese know about this?” Leatrice reached over and opened the glove compartment, then pulled out a cell phone that looked as old as her car.

“Of course. He showed up at the funeral parlor and questioned everyone,” I said, hanging on to
the door handle as we took the exit for the GW Parkway toward the airport. I glanced at the cell phone as Leatrice put it back in the glove compartment. “Is that a rotary dial?”

“Does he think you're in danger?”

“He warned me to be careful.” Actually, he'd threatened to throw me in jail if I came within ten feet of the murder investigation, but Leatrice didn't need specifics.

She gave a low whistle. “So that's three people who have been murdered—all wedding planners—plus two more wedding planners almost killed.”

“I wouldn't say that I was almost killed,” I said. “The other victim fared worse than I did. They admitted her to the hospital for a possible concussion.” I made a mental note to call the hospital and check on Margery later.

“This may be the first wedding planner serial killer in the history of violent crime.” Leatrice looked positively gleeful. “I wonder who would want to kill a bunch of wedding planners?”

“A bride?” I guessed. “Although it should be the other way around.”

“Do you have any suspects?” she asked as we drove along the Potomac River. Without leaves on the trees, it was even easier to see the stark white marble of the city's monuments reflected in the water. The river looked like a sheet of gray glass today without the usual crowd of boats that packed the water during the warmer months.

I hesitated for a moment, but talking with Leatrice about the suspects seemed harmless enough.

“The first two victims are both older planners who have a lot of connections to each other. They actually had plenty of reasons to kill each other,” I said. “When it comes to motives, Carolyn's husband stood to gain the most financially, but no one saw him at the crime scene and he doesn't have any reason to kill the other victims. Several people could have killed Carolyn as revenge for being fired. Byron, Gail, and two sales clerks were all fired by Carolyn and weren't too happy about it.”

“It sounds like the first victim wasn't the most loved planner in town,” Leatrice said.

“Nope. She'd been around forever, but she'd also had lots of time to make enemies.”

“What about the other old-timer?” Bold words coming from someone who had the distinctive scent of Ben-Gay.

“Eleanor was more annoying than anything. Someone could have killed her so they wouldn't have to hear her bragging about her fancy clients anymore. She took part in firing Byron, so he wasn't a big fan of hers, either.”

“So they had Byron in common?” Leatrice said.

“And Maxwell. I always forget him. They both had affairs with him when they were all a lot younger. Actually, Carolyn used Eleanor's affair to blackmail her into leaving the company.”

Leatrice's eyes widened. “I imagined wedding planners being so prim and proper.”

I laughed. “Guess again.”

“What about the third victim?”

“Stephanie didn't have much in common with the other two at all. She was young and new and
everyone liked her,” I said. “Well, the old guard may not have liked her, but they don't like anyone new. I can't figure out why anyone would kill Stephanie.”

“She didn't have anything in common with Carolyn or Eleanor?” Leatrice pressed.

I gnawed the edge of my lower lip. “She got friendly with Maxwell at the party before she was murdered, but I have a hard time thinking someone killed her because of that. Even if they were jealous.”

“It sounds like it's the one thing that links them all together, though.” Leatrice hunted around in her glove compartment with one hand. “I wish I had something to write all this down on.”

“Shouldn't you concentrate on the road?” I asked as we drove under the highway and swerved into the right lane. We were making record time to the airport. Probably because Leatrice either couldn't read the speed limit signs or didn't care about them. “But I was never involved with Maxwell and neither was Margery.”

Leatrice snapped the glove compartment closed. “Margery?”

“The other wedding planner who got attacked at the funeral home,” I explained. “Carolyn's assistant.”

“So she probably had the same connections to Eleanor and the other planners who had it in for Carolyn?”

“She'd worked for Carolyn for almost twenty years, so she knew them all and worked either for them or with them. But nobody held Carolyn's actions against Margery. She was only her assistant.
And I didn't have an affair with Maxwell or a history of working with the same people that Carolyn and Eleanor did, so who knows why I was targeted?”

“My guess would be that the killer wanted to keep you from poking around in the case.”

“That's what Richard and Reese think,” I admitted.

“Those are all the suspects and clues? No photos or video footage?” Leatrice looked dismayed when I shook my head. “There's not much to go on.”

“Well, we know that Byron lied about leaving the Mayflower for the church when he really stayed at the hotel where Carolyn was killed.” I spotted the yellow and white terminal on my left and motioned for Leatrice to take the first exit for Ronald Reagan National Airport.

“That's pretty incriminating. How did you find out?”

I unfolded the piece of paper where I'd written down the flight information. “Gail. She and Byron work together a lot.”

“The same Gail who got fired by Carolyn? Are you sure she isn't telling you to set him up and make herself look good?”

I directed Leatrice to the arrivals section of the airport complex. “I'm not sure of anything and I wouldn't put it past her. She and Byron are supposed to be friends, but she ratted him out to us. And I'm not so sure they aren't still friends.”

“Some friend,” Leatrice said. “Who do you think would be capable of strangling three people?”

“I'd say Byron if I didn't think he was too prissy
to pull it off. Gail is vicious enough to do it, but I'm not sure of her motive to kill Margery or me even if she was jealous enough of Stephanie to commit murder. If the victims were strangled in some sort of autoerotic asphyxiation, I'd bet money on Maxwell. But I really don't see him as a murderer.”

Leatrice cocked her head to one side. “Auto what?”

“Nothing important.” I didn't relish the idea of explaining S&M to Leatrice. “My point is that I have plenty of suspects but no idea who really did it.”

Leatrice swung the car in front of the baggage claim entrance and slammed it into park.

“Wait here. I'll be right back,” I said as I hopped out of the car. “All I have to do is find an Irish priest.”

“Will any Irish priest do, lassie?” A stocky man with a head full of bushy white hair called out in a thick accent.

I stopped and turned around. “Are you Father O'Malley?”

“Aye.” He picked up his slightly battered suitcase from the curb. “I'm here for the Kelly-Winchester wedding.”

I gave a sigh of relief. I'd found the priest. Now I just had to deliver him safely to the wedding rehearsal. This should be a breeze.

“I'm Annabelle Archer. The wedding planner.”

“A wedding planner? They hired you to plan their wedding?” The priest scratched his head. “How marvelous!”

“The car is right here.”

Father O'Malley's eyes widened when he saw
the yellow stretch Ford. Leatrice leaned out and waved as she popped the trunk. I helped him hoist his suitcase inside, then opened the front passenger side door for him and jumped in the back.

Father O'Malley lowered himself into the passenger's side and gave a start when he saw Leatrice. “Are you a wedding planner, too, young lady?”

Leatrice giggled and I rolled my eyes. Pretty suave for a priest.

“I'm her neighbor and driver.” She held out her hand. “Leatrice Butters. You can call me Lee Lee.”

My mouth almost hit the ground. Lee Lee? This was new. “Leatrice, this is the
priest
for tomorrow's wedding. We're taking him to the church for the wedding rehearsal.”

“Do we have some time to spare?” Father O'Malley looked back at me.

“A bit,” I said, pointing Leatrice to the exit heading back into the city. “Would you like a driving tour of the monuments?”

“I hoped we could stop somewhere for a pint before going to the church.”

“A pint of what?” I couldn't imagine wanting ice cream in weather like this. I glanced at the ruddy-cheeked priest. “Do you mean you want to stop for a drink?” He looked like he'd already had a few.

“You do have pubs in Washington, don't you?”

Leatrice's face lit up. “Oh yes, let's go to a pub. I've never been to one.”

The priest turned and winked at me. “That's a good girl.”

I rubbed my temples as I imagined what Kitty would say when I showed up at the rehearsal with an inebriated priest. I didn't even want to think about arriving in an ancient Ford driven by an equally ancient driver in a sequined Christmas tree skirt.

The murder investigation had just become the least of my worries.