To Love and To Perish (14 page)

“Sorry I'm late,” Kate said as she rushed up to me in the back of St. Patrick's Catholic Church. I'd heard the distinctive sound of high heels on marble as soon as she entered the church foyer, despite the loud chatter of the bridal party waiting for the rehearsal to begin. “We were missing the linens for the cocktail tables and the brown velvet chair cushions.”

“Did you call the rental company?” I rubbed my arms to keep warm. Kate had changed from her jeans into a short black dress with a deep scoop neck. It made me cold just looking at her.

“They're sending the stuff over first thing in the morning. How's the rehearsal going so far?”

“We have most of the bridal party here.” I cast a glance around at the blond bridesmaids and the tall, dark groomsmen. The combination of a Texas-Irish wedding produced a very attractive bridal party. “All we need is a bride and we'll be good to go.”

“A bride running late for the rehearsal? What a surprise.” Kate craned her neck around me and peered into the sanctuary. The lights were dimmed and the sanctuary was illuminated by the glow of chandeliers hanging above the rows of dark wooden pews. The church was almost a miniature cathedral with a towering domed ceiling and ornate stained-glass windows throughout. An enormous crucifix hung over the alabaster marble altar table, and the cross reflected in the high sheen of the aisle.

“Wait until you hear what I found out at the Hay-Adams…Um, Annabelle. Is that Leatrice sitting in the back row?”

I gave a tiny nod without looking her in the eyes.

“What is she doing here?”

I put a hand to my head and began to massage in small circles. “Don't ask. I spent the last hour in a bar with an Irish priest and an eighty-year-old.”

“Excuse me?” Kate's eyebrows disappeared under her blond bangs. “All you have to do now is get yourself a duck and a rabbi and you'll be set.”

I glared at her. “You're a riot.”

“Leatrice at a bar? I didn't even know she drank.”

“She doesn't.” I motioned with my head as Leatrice began to slide lower in the pew. “That's part of the problem.”

Kate looked around the foyer. “Where's the priest you went bar-hopping with?”

“Shhhhh.” I motioned for her to lower her voice. “He's back in the sacristy with the monsignor. You'd never know he downed three beers in an hour aside from the slightly slurred speech. But that may just be his accent. I can't really tell.”

Kate's mouth fell open. “Wasn't the bride's mother worried about people drinking at the wedding?”

“I'm sure she didn't think she'd have to worry about the priest,” I said.

“This should be an exciting rehearsal.”

“To say the least.” I glanced nervously around the foyer for Kitty. “What did you want to tell me about the Hay-Adams?”

“I got a chance to talk to David, the catering director, while I inventoried the rentals.”

“The one who calls you ‘babe'?”

Kate smiled. What I might consider sexist, Kate took as a compliment. “Exactly. He mentioned that they had a nice wedding last Saturday with one of our colleagues.”

“Who?”

“None other than our Botox poster girl.”

“Barbie?” I said. “So she was working right around the corner from us.”

“Not only that,” Kate continued. “Did you know that Barbie wasn't as friendly with Carolyn as she liked people to think? Barbie begged her for a job once when she was between husbands and Carolyn turned her down and hired someone else just to be mean.”

My mouth fell open. The Hay-Adams stood only blocks away from the Mayflower Hotel. Bar
bie could have jumped in a cab and made it to the Mayflower and back before anyone would have missed her.

Kate waved her hands. “Wait, there's more. Did you know that Barbie's latest husband is loaded, and she bragged to David about her husband buying her something really big that people would be stunned by?”

“Like her lips?”

Kate gave me an exasperated sigh. “Like a business? Like the Wedding Shoppe?”

“She said that?”

“No,” Kate said. “I came up with that on my own. But it's a possibility, don't you think?”

There was a greater possibility that the “big” surprise Barbie got so excited about involved some sort of plastic surgery, but I hated to burst Kate's bubble.

“Did David notice her missing during their wedding last Saturday?” I asked.

“He said that she went out for a smoke a few times and stayed outside for a while.”

“In this weather? I didn't know that Barbie smoked, did you?”

“No, but Barbie and I aren't real tight,” Kate said. “She could be one of those secret smokers.”

I reluctantly agreed. “It would explain the voice.”

“Didn't Barbie find you and Marjorie at the funeral home?” Kate lowered her voice. “Maybe she found you because she's the one who attacked you.”

I shivered. “Fern did say that he walked out in the hall right after Barbie found us. What if she
claimed to have discovered our bodies when really she hadn't had time to leave the crime scene before Fern saw her? I can understand that she hated Carolyn, but what does she have against me or Marjorie?”

“Or Eleanor and Stephanie, for that matter?” Kate said. “I guess it's not a great theory after all.”

“Annabelle, Kate.” Kitty Winchester's face barely peeked above the thick collar of her gray fox coat as she flounced through the sea of bridesmaids and groomsmen to reach us. “Just who I needed to see.”

“Is Lady with you?” Kate asked.

“Well, yes.” Kitty motioned behind her to the only blonde covered from head to toe in a white fur coat. “But we have a bit of an emergency.”

My breath caught in my throat. Wedding emergencies weren't good.

“We left the flower girl's basket back in Texas. Could you find us a new one by tomorrow?”

I let out a breath. This wasn't an emergency. A real emergency consisted of sending the grandmothers off to the wrong wedding or a bride's veil getting flushed down a toilet. This was a tiny blip on the wedding radar screen and was nothing we couldn't handle.

“No problem,” I said. “I can even get one that matches the guest book and ring bearer's pillow.”

Kitty pressed a hand to her throat, and then looked past us to the altar. “I'm so relieved. Now I should go introduce myself to the priest since he flew in all the way from Ireland.”

“This should be interesting,” Kate said as Kitty flounced down the aisle.

I glanced down at my watch. “I'm going to run to the Wedding Shoppe and get the flower girl basket before the store closes.”

“You're leaving me to run the rehearsal?” Kate asked, her voice edged with panic.

“The priest will run it,” I reassured her. “All you have to do is line people up.”

“I thought you said the priest was drunk.”

I held up a finger. “I said he
may
be drunk. I can't tell for sure.”

“What about Leatrice?” Kate jerked a thumb in the direction of Leatrice's head, barely visible above the pew and sinking lower every second.

“Make sure she doesn't mingle with people,” I said. “She's wearing a Christmas tree skirt.”

Kate folded her arms across her chest. “I don't even know what that is, but if Leatrice is wearing it I'm assuming it's weird.”

“I promise I'll be back before you can even miss me,” I said, backing out of the foyer toward the main doors of the church.

“The pathway to hell is lined with good inventions,” Kate grumbled.

“Hello!” I pushed open the front door to the Wedding Shoppe and stepped inside, grateful they were still open and glad to be out of the frigid weather. I pulled off my gloves and laid them on a nearby table that was stacked with colorful wedding planning guides. “Is anyone here?”

Lucille appeared from the back of the shop. “Can I help you?” Her face softened when she saw me. “Oh, Annabelle, it's you.”

“Sorry to be coming in right before you close on a Friday night, but we have a bit of a flower girl emergency.” My eyes scanned wall shelves that were crowded with glittering white wedding accessories. Everything from purses to garters to photo albums filled the store from end to end. “The wedding is tomorrow and the bride's mother forgot the flower girl basket.”

Lucille smiled, and she looked better than she had in days. “If there's anyone who understands a wedding crisis, it's me. Where's the wedding?”

“The ceremony is at St. Patrick's, the cocktail reception is at the Hay-Adams, and the dinner and dancing are at the Decatur House.”

“I love the Hay-Adams. Are you using the roof?”

I nodded. “We're bringing in tons of heaters since it will be so cold, but the bride had to have guests overlooking the White House for cocktails.”

“It is the best view in the city.” Lucille had a faraway look in her eyes. “I'm sure it will be beautiful with all the holiday decorations up. What are the bride's colors?”

“Chocolate brown and mint green. She didn't want to get too Christmasy, but she wanted colors that fit the season. I just hope we all don't freeze to death outside in this weather.” I rubbed my hands together to warm them up. “So do you have a flower girl basket in the Liberace collection?”

“Is the bride from South Florida?” Lucille asked as she led me to the shelf with the heavily beaded wedding accessories.

“No, Texas,” I said. “Good guess, though.”

Lucille giggled. “It's one of our favorite games. We try to guess what collection people will like by how they're dressed when they come in the shop. If they're wearing crystals or peasant skirts they usually go for the Sierra collection, and if they're wearing fancy high heels they go for the Vera Wang.”

“What if they're wearing a business suit and old sneakers?”

Lucille winked at me. “The Cherished Moments.”

“You seem to be feeling better,” I said. “How's Margery doing?”

Lucille's smile faltered for a moment. “Much better. She's been having headaches, so they're keeping her in the hospital for another night to make sure her head injury isn't serious. I'm glad you didn't get hurt too badly, dear.”

“Thanks. I was luckier than Margery, I guess.”

Lucille's cheeks flushed. “I'm so embarrassed about fainting at the funeral home. People must think I'm a real softie.”

“Of course not,” I lied. “What a huge shock to see Margery like that. You probably thought she'd been murdered.”

Lucille shivered. “I don't know what I'd do without her. She's always been the tough one around here. She would ask for raises from Carolyn for both of us because I was too scared and she stuck up for me with the other planners.”

“Were other planners mean to you?” I pulled the clear plastic box that held the Liberace flower girl basket off the shelf.

Lucille pressed her lips together until they turned white, then seemed to remember I was there and relaxed into a vacant smile again. “Some of them considered me a dingbat and never gave me the time of day.”

“Really? I never heard that.” It didn't surprise me, though. My wedding industry colleagues weren't the most accepting people.

Lucille patted my hand. “Aren't you sweet? You and Kate have always been kind to me. Not like the others.”

“Which others?”

Lucille took the boxed flower girl basket from my hands. “Let me open this for you. They tie them in the box pretty tightly. You don't want to be trying to get it out right before the wedding.”

Lucille pulled and tugged at the basket as she walked back up toward the register. “Margery is so much better at this than I am,” she muttered as she strained against the plastic ties that secured the basket to the box. “I don't have her arm strength.”

“Which wedding planners treated you badly, Lucille?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual.

“The big ones. Gail, Byron, Barbie.” She went behind the cash register, produced a pair of scissors and began hacking at the box. I hoped there would be something left of the basket when she finished. “Carolyn didn't help matters by telling people how forgetful and fragile I was. But Carolyn was wrong. I don't forget things. I never forget anything.”

I stepped back from Lucille so I wouldn't be in the path of the flying scissors. “The old guard wasn't very nice to anyone, Lucille. Eleanor pretended she didn't remember me the first twenty times we met.”

Lucille looked up. “Really? She made comments about me still being Carolyn's assistant after so many years, but she was unpleasant to everyone so I didn't take it too personally.”

I wondered if Lucille had taken it personally enough to kill her. I studied the sweet, white-haired lady and wondered if she'd taken things personally enough to kill everyone. I swallowed
hard. Maybe Lucille was right, and she wasn't as fragile as everyone thought she was.

“Did Stephanie treat you badly?” I asked.

Lucille pulled the basket free of the box. “Stephanie? What a sweet girl. Reminded me of myself when I first started out in the wedding business. Full of dreams and high hopes.” Lucille's smile faded. “At least she didn't have to live long enough to see her dreams disappear like I did. There's nothing worse than that.”

Except maybe being strangled by a photographer's cable, I thought. Lucille might not have been fragile, but she didn't seem too mentally balanced, either.

“So how much do I owe you for the basket?” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

Lucille punched in some numbers on the computerized cash register, still holding the scissors in the other hand. “Let's see. With tax it comes to $27.48.”

I fumbled in my wallet for my Wedding Belles corporate credit card and slid it across the wooden counter to her.

Lucille swiped the card and handed it back to me. “Do you need a bag?”

I bobbed my head up and down. I'd never even considered that someone as sweet and seemingly innocent as Lucille could be the killer. She certainly seemed to have the motive, or at least she thought she did.

My throat went dry. That meant that she'd tried to kill me as well. She knew I'd been asking around about the murders, and she also knew
when I went out into the hall at the funeral home. It would have been easy for her to come find me and hit me over the head.

But why would she attack Margery? Maybe Margery had started to suspect her or knew some incriminating evidence about Lucille. It didn't make me feel any better to know that Lucille was capable of almost murdering her best friend and that I was alone in the store with her.

I hurriedly signed the receipt that Lucille put on the counter and grabbed the handles of the paper bag. “I'd better get back to the rehearsal. I told Kate where I would be, and she's expecting me any minute now.”

“Are you okay, Annabelle?” Lucille came around the counter. “You look a little pale.”

“I'm fine,” I said a little too forcefully as I stepped back toward the door. I had to get out of there so I could tell Kate that we'd been wrong.

Lucille wasn't the most harmless wedding planner in town. She was the most insane. And in this business, that was saying something.