Died to Match (2 page)

As I hesitated, wondering how to cast a soothing spell, the scene was stolen from me by a gypsy queen. Mercedes Montoya, another of Elizabeth’s bridesmaids, stepped up in a swirl of bright skirts and a chiming of bracelets. She was a classic Castilian beauty, via Mexico City, with a mane of midnight curls framing cheekbones so sharp you could cut yourself. And a mind to match. Mercedes had recently decamped from the Sentinel for the headier world of TV news, and she was already making a name for herself. The camera, as they say, loved her.

“Mister Soper,” she murmured, with the faintest hint of an accent in her caressing, dark-chocolate voice. “This is a party. Come dance with me.”

She held out a slim brown hand, sparkling with costume jewelry. Soper glared at her, breathing hard, but Mercedes’ hand never wavered and the smile never left her narrow, aristocratic lips. I marveled at her self-assurance, even as I waited for the burly contractor to snarl her off. We all waited, Zorro and Cleopatra and the rest of us, through a long, uncomfortable moment. And then damned if Soper didn’t take her hand and walk away, with a flush rising up the back of his thick neck. Taming the fury of Death, now that’s what I call magic.

The knot of guests unraveled, many of them following Mercedes and Soper to the dance floor. I saw Mister Rogers hand in hand with Lady Macbeth, and Dracula bowing gallantly to a hippie chick in love beads and granny glasses. As he swept her down the tunnel with his black cape fluttering around her tie-dyed shoulders, Lily went off to boogie with the Visigoths, and I was left with Aaron Gold. Behind the Zorro mask, his eyes were cold and angry. But not at me. Our latest argument was the farthest thing from his mind, at least for now.

“That bitch,” he said.

“Aaron! She was just smoothing things over.”

“No, she was just worming her way into Soper’s confidence.” His usually flippant East Coast voice was harsh and flat. “Montoya’s working up her own exposé on construction fraud. In a couple of weeks, Soper’s going to turn on the TV and wish he’d used that sickle thing on her.”

“Well, you’re trying to expose the fraud yourself. So what if it gets TV coverage, too?”

He sighed. “In the long run, it’s better for John Q. Taxpayer if this all comes out as publicly as possible. But I’ve been dogging that story for months. Our favorite fortune teller there waltzed off to KPSL with all my research in her pretty little pocket.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, she stole my notes right off my hard drive!”

“Couldn’t she be fired for that? For unethical behavior?”

“Well, I can’t actually prove it. But I got a very confidential lead about Soper bribing someone at the DOT, and now Montoya has lined up an interview with that same someone. And she was at my desk one night before she quit, fooling with my computer. Said she was interested in one of my programs, but that’s bullshit. She hates computers. I’d bet money she read those notes.”

“You’re beautiful when you’re angry.” I couldn’t resist; he needled me often enough.

“Very funny. She better not tip her hand to Soper, though, or he’ll really freak. He thinks he’s untouchable, but this bribery deal could bring him down for good.”

“Mercedes seems so talented,” I continued innocently. What a relief to be back on teasing terms after the chilly
anger that had sent us to this party separately instead of together. “I saw her interview Roger Talbot on that afternoon show the other day and she was brilliant.”

“Brilliant?” he yelped. “How brilliant do you have to be to bat your eyelashes? ‘The people of Seattle are so grieved for you, Roger’ ‘Roger, how will you pursue public office without Mrs. Talbot at your side?’ What a phony.”

I giggled at his rendition of Mercedes’ soulful on-camera manner, and he narrowed his eyes.

“Wait a minute, you never fall for that kind of crap. You’re just giving me a bad time, aren’t you? Wicked witch.”

Down below, the DJ cued up “Respect”—Otis, not Aretha. Time for a peace offering. “Look, Aaron, the Dome room’s next on my rounds, and I’m due for a break anyway. Come dance with me?”

He looked away uncomfortably, straightening his shiny black cape. “I promised Corinne, when she gets back from the rest room. If she ever gets back. She’s spending half the party in there.”

“Oh. Well, don’t let me keep you.” Corinne, with her golden curls and her syrupy Southern drawl and her icecream-scoop cleavage. I have long red hair, which I’m regrettably vain about, but I’m also skinny as a broomstick, and in my witch’s hat I towered over Aaron’s middling height. The difference in our statures bothered me, and amused him. He just called me silly nicknames and insisted that he didn’t have to be bigger than me, only smarter and more charming.

“Corinne’s kind of my date tonight, Stretch,” he was saying. “I’m trying to keep an eye on her. She’s been really down since she broke up with that Russian guy.”

“She’s been looking kind of rocky,” I agreed. “But I think it was Boris who broke up with her.”

Actually, I knew it was. Boris Nevsky—Lily called him Boris the Mad Russian Florist—had given me the gory details as we planned Paul and Elizabeth’s wedding flowers. “She vanted to get merried!” he’d announced, mournful and astonished, shaking his shaggy Slavic head over the parrot tulips and the hellebores. Having dated Boris a couple of times myself, I was astonished too, but there’s no accounting for taste.

“I wondered about that,” said Aaron. “Corinne claims she dumped him, but she’s awfully depressed about it. And I think this wedding stuff is making her feel extra-single. Funny how weddings do that to women. Us bachelor groomsmen feel just fine.”

“I bet you do.”

He chuckled. “Hey, I meant to ask you, aren’t the bridesmaids supposed to be close friends of the bride? I didn’t know Corinne and Elizabeth were such buddies.”

“Sorority sisters at the UW, along with Mercedes,” I said. “Though frankly, I think Elizabeth’s main criterion was looks. She’d already picked out these slinky bridesmaids’ dresses, she just needed bodies to fill them. Says she doesn’t have time for girlfriends.”

“Too busy cashing out stock options at the top of the market. So it’s Mercedes the bitch and Corinne the goddess, and who else?” He glanced around as he spoke, keeping watch for Corinne. “I know you told me the lineup, but I keep forgetting.”

“Funny how you remember batting averages but not bridesmaids’ names.”

“Matter of priority, Slim. Help me out here, in case I miss the rehearsal. I go in by myself, and then out with a bridesmaid, but which one? Tell me it’s not Mercedes.”

“No, it’s not, but why should you miss the rehearsal? This is important, Aaron.”

“I know, I know. But I might have to go back East on short notice. So who’s my partner?”

“Well, we’re matching you by height, so you go with Corinne, and Paul’s brother Scott gets Mercedes.”

There’s often a glow of romance around the paired-up bridesmaids and groomsmen. Aaron and Corinne would be walking arm in arm, dressed to kill, up the aisle through the beaming crowd. I wasn’t crazy about it.

“Great,” he said. “And who’s the lucky girl who gets young Zack?”

“Angela Sims,” I told him. “She was Elizabeth’s assistant at Microsoft. Angela’s the pregnant nun tonight, you can’t miss her. She looks like Princess Di and talks like a trucker. She was the life of the bridesmaids’ luncheon.”

There was still no sign of Corinne, so we drifted back to the champagne bar. I figured I could take my break there and check the Dome room later. The harried barman set a bottle in front of us and returned to his customers. It’s nice sometimes, being the boss at a party. Aaron poured for us both, touched his glass to mine, and took a sip, gazing at me over the rim of the glass. He really could be charming, when he tried. And he could look sexy without even trying. So why did I get cold feet every time he got hot hands?

“You were at the bridesmaids’ luncheon?” he prompted.

“Oh, I was there all right. It was supposed to be a working lunch, to talk about dresses and hairstyles and manicures. But instead, we ate fajitas and drank tequila shooters for about three hours. Even Patty got happy.” Patty Lamott, Elizabeth’s older sister and maid of honor, had missed tonight’s party, claiming a schedule conflict, and Elizabeth had shrugged off her absence. No love lost on either side, apparently.

“Wait, wait, I heard about this,” Aaron was saying. “The
famous purse-snatching incident at La Corona? The newsroom was still talking about it when I got back from my last trip to Boston.”

“That was it.” I shivered a little and sipped some bubbly. “This creepy-looking guy grabbed Elizabeth’s bag. It had the wedding rings in it, she’d just picked them up at the jewelers. We all froze except Angela, who went sprinting after him like a racehorse. He sprained his ankle tripping over a trash can, and we all stood around guarding him and talking hemlines till the police came.”

Aaron laughed. “What a story!”

“Well, it seemed funny at the time, after all that tequila, but really, what if he’d pulled a knife or a gun or something? You should have heard the disgusting things he said, sitting there on the curb. And now we’ll have to testify at his trial. He had tattoos on his skull, for God’s sake.”

“Take it easy, Slim. Lots of people have tattoos. I’ve got a tattoo.”

“You? Where?”

“If you were more cooperative, you’d know that by now.” He grinned wickedly and reached out to take my hand. “I could arrange a viewing tonight….”

“Gosh, look at the time,” I retorted, but I didn’t take my hand away. “I’ve got to go supervise. If I see Corinne I’ll tell her you’re waiting for her.”

“Thanks, Wedding Lady,” said Aaron. He ran his fingers in little circles across the inside of my wrist. I could feel my blood shifting. “Save a dance for me, OK?”

“I’ll save two.”

What’s wrong with this picture? I asked myself as I pushed open the ladies’ room door a short while later. I’m at a party, Aaron’s at the same party, and what am I doing? I’m keeping an
eye out for his date. What a world. Still, I felt for Corinne. Weddings are hard when you’re brokenhearted, and I’m a sucker for broken hearts. That’s why I started Made in Heaven, I suppose. What better business for a hopeless romantic who likes to throw parties?

Inside the rest room, preening in solitary glory, was Mercedes Montoya. I wondered if Syd Soper was outside somewhere, resting his scythe and hoping for another dance. If so, he was a patient man; a fortune in designer cosmetics lay spilled across the counter, and Mercedes was employing all of it. No wonder the camera loved her. She obviously loved herself.

“The wedding planner!” she announced gaily, shaking back her midnight hair. Her eyes, meeting mine in the mirror, were suspiciously shiny and hugely dilated. Was it only alcohol flying her kite, or a little something extra? I really didn’t want to know. “I was just thinking about you! About hiring you.”

“Really? I didn’t know you were getting married. Who’s the lucky man?”

Mercedes clapped a hand to her lips. With the other hand she clutched my arm, tight enough to hurt. “No! It’s a secret! You can’t tell a soul. Not a single Sentinel soul!”

She gave a long peal of melodious laughter, then blinked vacantly and seemed to forget why she was laughing. Definitely something extra. I retrieved my arm. “I won’t breathe a word.”

“Good,” she murmured. “Good. Roger would be furious.”

“Roger?”

She gasped again. “How did you know? You have to keep it secret!”

“Keep what secret, Mercedes?”

She leaned close, her ropes of beads clicking and swaying.

“I’m going to marry the mayor!”

I thought I’d heard her wrong. “Mayor Wyble’s already married.”

“Not him. Roger Talbot! Roger’s going to be mayor next year, after I help him beat Wyble.” Mercedes was suddenly cold and shrewd. She was cycling through moods like a kaleidoscope. “We’ll have the wedding right before the primaries. The grieving widower finds happiness. People will eat it up.”

Apparently the widower wasn’t all that grieved, not that it was any of my business. Brides were my business, but I wasn’t sure I wanted this volatile prima donna as a client.

And yet, I thought, while Mercedes went back to fluffing her hair and humming a Motown tune. Landing another big-budget, high-profile wedding could put Made in Heaven in the news, maybe even in the trade magazines, and definitely in the black. I was still several thousand dollars in debt from starting up my business, and the dock fees on my rented houseboat were killing me. Well, time for those calculations later. I couldn’t very well hold her to a decision made under the influence.

“Congratulations,” I said, wondering if she’d apply my comment to the engagement or the election. Probably both. “But there’s plenty of time to plan. You don’t want to choose a bridal consultant on a whim. Think it over.”

“You don’t believe me,” she pouted. Mercedes had a superb pout. She slid a hand down her ragtag gypsy bodice and drew out a long gold chain with twisted herringbone links. Suspended from it, swinging inches from my astonished eyes, was a monster diamond on an ornate platinum band. “You’ll believe a girl’s best friend, won’t you?”

“Mercedes, that’s stunning!” I wanted to get away from her and her secrets, but for a moment I was mesmerized. The diamond swung back and forth, like a hypnotist’s watch. “It must be nearly three carats! Is it antique?”

“Family heirloom,” she said complacently, and lowered the treasure back into its cozy hiding place. X marks the spot. “It was his grandmother’s engagement ring, and now it’s mine. I told Roger, I’ll keep our secret, but I have to have something to put under my pillow, don’t I?”

“It’s a wonder you can sleep.”

She laughed. “I sleep very well. Roger makes sure of that.”

I wasn’t going anywhere near that one. “Well, like I said, think it over—”

“I don’t have to, I want you.” The kaleidoscope was turning faster; now she was sulky and stubborn. She rummaged in her patchwork shoulder bag and pulled out a wad of bills. “Here, take this. For a deposit.”

“Mercedes, you don’t have to—”

“Take it!” she said shrilly.