Wedding Bel Blues: A Belfast McGrath Mystery (Bel McGrath Mysteries) (25 page)

“Where do you think she went, Bel?” he asked. “Amy,” he added, as if I wouldn’t know to whom he was referring.

I couldn’t look at him. We had been over this. “I don’t know, Oogie.”

He waited, as if there would be more.

“I really don’t,” I said, before pushing through the swinging doors into the bar, where I felt several sets of eyes on me before I burst out onto the street. She was dead. Why couldn’t he see that? Girls like Amy don’t disappear like that, never to be seen again.

Back at the apartment, I was still a little unhinged but I brought my purchases inside and started chopping tomatoes as soon as everything was unpacked, not being able to shake the feeling that my time at The Dugout, the idea that I could help, was a mistake. Maybe Jed had been right and I did feel guilty. It would be only natural, though I had suppressed the feeling for the years in between when I had originally left and now, when I had come back.

In between the slapping on the wood cutting board and the staccato thoughts running through my head, I heard the sound of footsteps coming up the rickety wooden steps and then the
click-clack
of high heels on the deck outside.

“I’m back!”

Caleigh. Good God. She was the last person I wanted to see right now, tan and rested and sensually fulfilled from her time in Bermuda, the likely recipient of many a massage, back rub, and fruity drink served ocean side. I had made the mistake of looking up the resort at which she was staying; it was all pastel cottages, personal valets, and five-star dining. Jealousy isn’t a good look on me, but there you have it: I was jealous, particularly after the last couple of weeks I had had with my family and the Manor and the local police. With a man in uniform and one who just wore a camp director shirt. I gave in to my envy just a bit, taking in her relaxed face, her tanned calves coming out of a pair of Tory Burch Bermuda shorts, her outfit topped off with a pair of Jimmy Choo sandals.

Wow. It hadn’t taken her long to fall into the role of rich Westchester wife.

She came into the apartment and, as always, sniffed disapprovingly in the direction of the Ikea sofa with the ketchup stain, my laminate kitchen cabinets, the rug with the hole in it at the foot of my bed. Even before she had come into the money and life that being Mark Chesterton’s wife afforded, she had found my apartment “drab” and “depressing.” She should have seen my fifth-floor walk-up on Avenue C. She would have loved that, but she didn’t go east of Broadway when she went below 14th Street and that had prevented her from seeing a pretty nice apartment that awaited me after hoofing it up the stairs.

“I’m back!” she said again, apparently waiting for a reply from me or some over-the-top reaction.

“Hi, Caleigh,” I said. I went so far as to give her a quick hug.

She waved toward the back door. “There’s some huge guy wandering around in the woods out there. I hope you know him.”

“There is?” I asked. I went to the back door and saw the familiar outfit of camp director shirt and khaki shorts. “Yes, that’s Brendan Joyce.” I heard him calling Felix’s name; the cat must have returned to his one true home with me. At least that’s what I told myself.

She curled her lip. “The kid with the braces? The one from school?”

“Yes. Except that he doesn’t have braces anymore. He’s a grown man who teaches art at the high school.”

“What’s he doing in the woods?”

“Looking for his cat.”

She didn’t respond, continuing to look around the apartment. “I brought you something,” she said after casting her glance on every surface and finding everything lacking. She pulled a tissue-wrapped gift out of her enormous leather bag and handed it to me. “Ta-da!”

I took the gift and opened it up to find a scented candle with an exact replica of the hotel where Caleigh and Mark had stayed glued to the lid. I opened it up and sniffed it.

“Doesn’t it smell just like Bermuda?” Caleigh asked.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to Bermuda,” I said. Honestly, to me it smelled like every single scented candle I had ever smelled—the pumpkin ones, the apple pie ones, the cinnamon and spice ones—all rolled together. For all I knew, she had bought a candle stateside, glued on some kind of art project, and called it my gift. When I saw her disappointed face, I did what I always did: I tried to make her feel better. “It’s lovely, Caleigh. Thank you. It will really be a nice addition to the place.”

She perked up. “You’re welcome! Mark picked it out. He thought you’d like a souvenir from our honeymoon after everything you did to make the wedding a success.”

Had she lost her mind? Had the wedding been “a success” and I hadn’t realized it? A guy had been murdered. I wouldn’t call that a success. “Yeah, about that, Caleigh.”

“About what? The wedding? We got some great photos of you, Bel. You look really good!” she said, which led me to believe that she thought I looked chubby and was overcompensating for that thought. I probably did look chubby, because I am chubby. To me Caleigh looked like she hadn’t had a decent meal in months, and I knew she had gone on some medically approved starvation diet two months prior to the wedding on which she had shed unnecessarily some twenty pounds. As she stood in front of me, even with the glow from her honeymoon I thought she looked positively skeletal. “Want something to eat?” I asked, my go-to in situations like this.

Her mouth practically watered at the suggestion and I didn’t wait for her answer. Mom had loaded my refrigerator with some lentil crap, a kale salad that wasn’t bad looking, and some leftover lasagna from a dinner she and Dad had had at the local Italian joint. I pulled out the lasagna and put it on a plastic plate, shoving it into the microwave for two minutes. She took a seat at the counter. I poured her a big glass of Cabernet, her favorite, and handed her a fork and the plate of lasagna, smoking hot and ready to be eaten.

She shoved a forkful of pasta into her mouth so quickly that she burned her tongue. “Ow!”

“Give it a minute to cool off, Caleigh,” I said, pouring a glass of wine for myself.

She nodded, putting her fork down. Outside I could hear the plaintive cries of Brendan, begging the cat to come to him. I had noticed a pouch of salmon in his hand; looked like he had hoped for a strong headwind to bring the smell of the fish to Felix, but it was dead calm out there. “So, what’s happened since I was gone?” she asked between mouthfuls of lasagna.

Were we going to go there? I wondered. Were we going to talk about what had happened between her and Declan? The murder itself? Or had life begun for Caleigh after she had said, “I do,” with no looking back to the events preceding that declaration? “Well, the police have been investigating—”

She held up a hand. “Don’t say it.” A trail of marinara wound down her hand and her forearm, stopping at her elbow. I was right: she hadn’t eaten anything substantial in a long time. No one makes that much of a mess while eating unless they are starving.

“Don’t say what?”

“Don’t say anything about anything. About
that,
” she said. “I’m happy, Bel. For once.”

For once? What happened to all of those years before this when she was head cheerleader, prom princess, accepted into the college of her choice early decision? What about those times? She wasn’t happy? Could have fooled me. “You’re just happy now?”

She pointed the fork at me. “Don’t talk about it. Leave it alone.”

“Caleigh, Cargan saw Declan and Mark arguing at the wedding. What was that about?”

“Nothing!” she said. “Leave. It. Alone.”

“Did he think that Declan was too close to you? Was he suspicious?” I asked. “Don’t worry. He has an alibi. He was dancing with Jonesy.”

“I know he has an alibi,” she said, sneering at me. “And yes, he thought Declan was too flirtatious.” She downed her wine. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

There was one thing I wanted to know, and even though she was done with the subject I asked her anyway. “Where did you meet him? He wasn’t at the rehearsal dinner. And I didn’t lay eyes on him prior to the wedding.”

She mumbled something between bites of food.

“What?” I said. “It sounded like you said, ‘The Dugout.’”

“I did!” she said, wiping her mouth. “I went to The Dugout.”

“Oogie didn’t mention seeing you there,” I said.

“Oogie wasn’t there,” she said. “Just as well. I didn’t want to see anyone I knew.”

“The Dugout?” I asked, incredulous. “Hot dogs and horrible beer? And even worse wine?”

“Yes,” she said.

“And Oogie is always there. Practically lives there,” I said.

“Well, this time he wasn’t,” she said, defiant. “I just wanted to have one last good time.” That made me wonder just what she expected from her marriage. “I didn’t realize he was coming to the wedding until after.”

“The brogue didn’t give it away?” I asked.

“He wasn’t even invited.”

“Yes, but a guy you had never seen, with a brogue, in the Landing?” I asked. Seemed obvious to me.

“Lots of people in the Landing have brogues.”

She had a point.

“I suspected that he might know one of us,” she said, “but I wanted the whole thing to be anonymous. Dangerous.”

“Oh, it was dangerous, all right, Caleigh. So dangerous that he ended up dead.”

“Which is not my fault,” she said. “Just leave it alone, Bel.”

There were times, over the years, when I had wanted to lose my temper with Caleigh, but something had stopped me. Maybe it was guilt. Something about her being family, my almost sister. But I didn’t have that kind of restraint anymore, not after everything that had happened in my life and even the day that I had had, everyone now angry with me over what I thought was a sensible decision regarding my brother and his recollections, recollections that still didn’t amount to much or warrant his getting a lawyer and putting me in hot water with my parents. “Caleigh,” I said, speaking slowly. “A man died at your wedding. A man you slept with—”

“Shhhh!” she said, clasping a saucy hand over my mouth. “Don’t say another word.”

I took her hand from my mouth. Outside I heard Brendan clomping up the stairs to the apartment. “Do you realize that now that you’re back you have to talk to the police again?” I asked through clenched teeth. “That if this murder goes unsolved any longer, the suspect list will widen again and everyone will be questioned again? I’m surprised Kevin didn’t meet you at the airport and bring you in. They are going to want your phone.”

By the look on her face I realized that she didn’t know about those last texts, because I had deleted them before she had seen them.

“My phone? Why?”

It was like ripping off a Band-Aid, me blurting this out. “He was texting you. During the wedding. When you passed out, I deleted all of the texts not realizing that a) he would die and b) those texts would still be on his phone.”

She dropped her fork on the plate, her appetite gone. “Nice going, Bel.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So why would they want my phone?” she asked. “If everything is gone?”

“I guess to see if you had anything else related to him on it.”

Her face went blank and I wasn’t sure why. “I tried to get rid of everything, Caleigh. I was trying to help.”

“Thank you?” she said. “I’m probably a suspect now.”

You probably should have always been one, I wanted to say, but I didn’t.

Brendan knocked lightly on the back door and I called to him to let himself in. He walked in cradling Taylor/Felix, the smile that was on his face usually replaced by a thin-lipped frown.

“He keeps coming back here,” Brendan said, petting the cat’s head. “I don’t know why.”

Because he loves me? I wanted to say. But Brendan and I weren’t at the point where we could joke with each other, the tension between us completely understandable but uncomfortable nonetheless. Caleigh didn’t seem to notice.

He took in the two of us, Caleigh staring at her lasagna and me glaring at my cousin. “Am I interrupting something?”

Caleigh stood, wiped her hands on the paper towel I handed her, and smoothed down her Bermuda shorts. “Hello. Caleigh Chesterton.”

“I know you, Caleigh,” Brendan said, and something dark passed across his usually cheerful face. I couldn’t tell if it was directed at Caleigh or me. “We went to high school together.”

“Yes. We did,” she said, her clipped staccato indicating that her memories of him weren’t pleasant and I suspected had to do with some dismissal of him by her and not the other way around. “Bel, thanks for the lasagna. I’m going to leave now.” She passed Brendan on her way to the door. “Nice cat.”

When we heard her car speed off, the gravel road alerting us to her departure, Brendan looked at me. “She’s as delightful as she was in high school, I see.”

“No love lost?” I asked.

He was too much of a gentleman to say. His last comment was indeed his last on the subject of Caleigh Chesterton, née McHugh. He held on tight to the cat. “He’s gained some weight,” he said, lifting the cat up and down and feeling his heft.

“He’s been eating well.”

Brendan nodded toward the back door, the last place Caleigh had been. “Caleigh didn’t look happy when she left.”

“She wasn’t.”

“I hope it wasn’t my appearance here.”

“No,” I said, not saying what it was. I walked him to the back door and ruffled the cat’s fur. “It is okay if I visit with him occasionally?”

“I don’t know, Bel,” he said.

“Maybe I can bring him salmon from a pouch?” I said.

Brendan smiled, but it was sad. I was getting a lot of sad smiles these days from various people, which was really starting to bum me out.

“I guess that’s a no?” I said.

“Your life seems a little complicated right now,” he said.

That was one way to put it.

I waited until he was gone before I really let what had happened sink in, how I had ruined probably the best thing that had happened to me in a long time. I had no appetite anymore, which was how I knew that things were really serious.

I guess that’s what happens when you move on as quickly as I had from a former life without one backward glance.