Died to Match (30 page)

Graham shrugged. “As soon as he’s fit to travel, we’ll ship him back to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

“What about the murders here?”

“Oh, he’ll be charged, once we put a case together. But Boston wants him first. Got to follow procedure.” He hesitated.
“If we’d known about his background, we might have kept him away from Angela Sims. And from you.”

“But that’s not your fault.” It’s mine. If only I’d gone straight to you after he confessed at Snoqualmie Falls…

“I know it’s not,” said Graham, and sighed wearily. “With so many people at the Aquarium, and then Montoya’s drug connection, we had too many backgrounds to check and not enough time. Peters is a pathological liar, and a damn good one. Excuse my French. He could be Ted Bundy all over again.”

“Oh, surely not!”

“That’s what everyone said about Bundy.”

I shuddered, and once I started I couldn’t stop.

“Let’s get you home,” said Graham. “I’ll call you tomorrow about taking a full statement.”

The first thing I did when he dropped me off was to totter into my bedroom, unstick myself from my high-calorie clothes, and remove the slinky pink gown from its garment bag. Yes, it would cover the nastiest bruises, and for the rest, I’d just unfold the pink chiffon stole to its full width and wrap myself in it, as mummylike as possible. I was damned if I’d let this wedding party lose one more member. Not so much for Elizabeth’s sake—I had to admit, I’d be glad to be rid of her—but for Paul’s, and for my own professional pride. The show, after all, must go on.

Which was why I was trying so hard not to think about Zack right now. I had to pull off this wedding first. But the questions kept surfacing. Was the black cloak I’d been hunting for merely a dark green one? Was my brave-hearted Robin Hood truly a cold-blooded killer? Date rape, Aaron had said. Could Mercedes’ death have been a simple flirtation that turned deadly? Hard to imagine… horrible to imagine…

“Stop right there,” I said aloud to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. “It’s Scarlett O’Hara time. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

Tomorrow was also the time to think about poor Vanna White, with her new fender all accordioned and her new engine traumatized. Graham had arranged to have her towed to Pete’s, and beyond that, I’d have to worry about insurance and temporary transport and maybe even a car loan. But not now, not now.

For now, I washed that mocha mousse right out of my hair and pulled on some nice soft sweats. Then I pulled myself up to the office, clutching the stairway railing and groaning as I went. Scarlett was going to be slow off the mark for a while.

“What the hell happened to you?” Eddie had the phone in his hand, but clapped it down at the sight of me. “I told Aaron you were getting the cake, and then he called back and asked me where Todd’s place was, and that’s the last I heard. Except from Todd, and he’s practically hysterical, says you went speeding off in the van. I’ve been calling your cell phone every two minutes!”

Then he looked more closely as I levered myself into my desk chair. “Jesus H. Christ, Carnegie, you look like something the cat dragged in.”

“You should have seen the other guy. Listen, Eddie, it’s a long story, but the punch line is that we need a new wedding cake for the EMP tonight.”

I filled him in, as economically as I could, and headed off his exclamations of anger at Zack and dismay over Vanna by asking him to call Aaron.

“Just tell him I’m OK, and I’ll talk to him later. I have to get on this cake thing right away.”

I began by breaking the bad news to Todd. That went better
than expected: after a single gargling groan, the Scotsman had the grace to pretend that my personal survival was some consolation for his ruined masterpiece, and rang off to do his grieving in private.

Then I started calling bakers. We needed something that would look good and taste decent and be ready in one afternoon. How hard could it be?

Hard. I made call after call, but many of my usual cake purveyors were closed, and the others reminded me huffily that they booked months in advance and could hardly fit in another project at such short notice. It was understandable, but disheartening. Joe Solveto was out on another job, and he didn’t do baked goods anyway, though he could probably come up with some truffles and chocolate-dipped fruit for the buffet.

But a wedding cake isn’t just dessert, it’s an icon of the celebration, with centuries of tradition behind it, and plenty of modern hype as well. It just had to be there. I was mulling the possibility of a frosted cardboard box when Juice Nugent called. I hadn’t tried her because she didn’t work Saturdays, and I figured she couldn’t commandeer the ovens at By Bread Alone except by prior arrangement.

“Hey, Kincaid, I’ve got some questions about the Buckmeister deal.”

“They’ll have to wait, Juice. I’ve got an emergency here. Do you know any other bakers who could take a quick job, as in right this minute?”

“I’m not sure. What’s up?”

Quickly, I explained the sad demise of Todd’s master-work. “I need a substitute, just something big and pretty. It’s too late to play out the rock-and-roll theme—”

“Maybe not,” she said thoughtfully. “Thin layers would bake and cool pretty fast…. I’ll call you back in ten.”

The door swung open as I set down the phone. It was Aaron, his hair wet with rain and his black eye only slightly less ghastly for a night’s rest. Before I could stop him, he rushed across the good room to the office and embraced me fervently.

“Oh, God, Carnegie, I was afraid—”

But I was not feeling embraceable.

“Don’t do that!” I yelped. “It hurts.”

Aaron backed off, startled, and perhaps a bit embarrassed about exposing his feelings like that. “Sorry, Stretch. Shouldn’t you go to a hospital or something?”

“The medics said I don’t have to. Didn’t Eddie tell you?”

“Yeah, he did. Hello, Eddie.”

“Hello, yourself.” My partner stood up, with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. “I’m going to get myself some lunch. You two want anything?”

We declined, and he left us alone. I wouldn’t have said no to a hug then, a gentle one, but Aaron perched on one corner of my desk and resumed his normal impertinent air. “So. You really hammered Hammering Man.”

“How did you know—?”

“You’re on the local news, Slim. The Made in Heaven logo showed up nice and clear.”

“Oh, no.”

“They say all publicity is good publicity, but don’t you think you went too far this time?”

“Never mind that,” I told him sternly. “Are you going to let the stylist fix up that eye for tonight?”

“I already said I would. You never listen to me, that’s something I’ve noticed about you. But we’ll work on it. Meanwhile, aren’t you going to thank me for exposing the real killer?”

I frowned. “I still can’t quite believe that Zack is the real killer.”

“You mean Tyrone. Maybe you just can’t believe you were so blinded by flattery.”

“Flattery!”

“Come on,” he said, folding his arms and cocking his head smugly. “Tell me it wasn’t flattering to have a younger man following you around like a pet puppy. The whole thing was getting ludicrous.”

“What’s ludicrous is your being jealous of Zack!”

“Jealous? Is that what you think? This isn’t some soap opera, Stretch. The guy murdered two people.”

“We don’t know that for sure. What about Lester Foy? I still think he was Dracula. Corinne saw him in the Market the morning of Angela’s death, and then he came to the houseboat to get me—”

“Foy came here because you asked him to, remember? And Corinne only thinks she saw him in the Market. And even if she did, so what? He’s just a petty thief. But Zack—I mean, Tyrone—he could easily have found out where Angela lived—”

“Actually, he knew,” I admitted. “He was there with me.”

“What did I tell you?” Aaron stood up and began pacing along the picture windows, thinking hard, talking as much to himself as to me. Beyond him, I could see another rain squall moving across the lake, drawing a gray veil over the opposite shore. “Zack knew you were trying to figure out Mercedes’ murder, so he hung around here acting innocent and helpful. But it was just to keep an eye on you, in case you were starting to suspect him. And you fell for the whole thing.”

“There was nothing to fall for!” I rose, stung into anger by
his condescending tone. “If he was trying to act so innocent, why would he tell me about shoving Mercedes?”

He whipped around to stare at me. “Shoving her? What are you talking about?”

Too late I realized what I’d said. Well, it was going to come out anyway in my statement to Graham. I looked down, twisting my hands together. Might as well face the music.

“That night at the Salish Lodge, Zack told me he had pushed Mercedes into the water at the shorebird exhibit. He got angry, because she was flirting with him, leading him on, and then she laughed in his face.” I looked up defiantly. “Why would he tell me that if he actually murdered her? He was afraid she had drowned after he left her there, and he was so relieved when I told him—”

“Are you crazy?” Aaron grabbed me by the arms, his eyes wide and furious. “Zack confessed and you didn’t go to the police? Do you know what you’ve done?”

“He didn’t confess! You don’t understand—”

“No, I don’t!” he shouted. “You play around with a homicide case like it’s one of your little weddings—”

“Stop it!” I was shouting now as well. My head was throbbing, and I was sickeningly aware that Aaron might be right. But that didn’t justify his sneering at my livelihood. “Just leave me alone, would you? Stop pestering me when I’m trying to work.”

“Pestering you? You think I’m just here to—”

The phone rang and I grabbed it.

“Hey, it’s Juice. So how’s this? We do a mess of half-depth sheet cakes, cut ’em in circles, and use a poured chocolate glaze to cover them so it won’t take a lot of hand work. Then we pipe song titles around the centers.”

“Song titles?” I repeated stupidly.

Aaron watched me for a moment, his face perfectly impassive, and then left, closing the outside door behind him with exaggerated care. I closed my eyes.

“Yeah, so they’re like forty-fives, get it?” said Juice’s voice in my ear. “Records, EMP, rock and roll? You can put ’em on all the tables. And we’ll do an oversized one for the cutting, with the bride’s and groom’s names on it, like some kind of love song duet.”

“That’s… that’s a good idea.” I wondered, irrelevantly, how a cutting-edge type like Juice even knew about artifacts like vinyl records. “But can you get the oven space?”

“The BBA honchos said I can take over the kitchen this afternoon and call in some friends to help, on account of this being so important to my career.”

“Important?”

“Well, if I pull this off, you’re gonna want to feature me on your web site and urge all your clients to hire me and shit like that, right?”

“Right.” I even smiled. “OK, get started.”

“Already did. There’s a batch of batter in the mixer now. Lemon cake OK?”

“Anything, as long as they arrive on time.”

“I’m all over it.”

I sighed and slumped down in my chair. “Just so it doesn’t end up all over me.”

T
HERE
’
S A SAYING AMONG THEATER PEOPLE, AFTER A DISASTROUS
dress rehearsal: “It’ll be all right on the night.” After all the tragedy and farce, Paul and Elizabeth’s wedding ceremony was all right on the night. More than all right, in fact. And it brought out the best in everyone.

Everyone including the bride, surprisingly enough. When I called Elizabeth to relate the fate of her cake, bracing myself for the explosion, she astonished me by asking first if I had had been hurt, and only second whether her special-event policy would cover the cost.

“It should,” I told her, “and if it doesn’t, I bet my car insurance will. We’ll work it out. Meanwhile, listen to this great back-up plan…”

“That sounds fine,” she said, when I explained Juice’s idea. “Cake is cake, at this point. The important thing is that they’ve got the killer. Zack Hartmann, of all people! It’s unbelievable. Thank God the police are keeping a lid on it until after the wedding. Paul and I will be in Venice by the time this all hits the headlines.”

“It’s unbelievable, all right. In fact, I’m not sure I do believe it. I’m still wondering about Lester Foy”

“But he’s in jail, too, the bastard. So either way, Tommy’s safe to be best man.”

“Tommy’s going to make it tonight?” My spirits lifted at the thought.

“Yeah, his daughter told us that he’s still pretty shaky, so she’ll have to take him home soon after the ceremony. But he’s determined to be there for Paul.”

“Has his memory come back yet?”

“It’s starting to. Once it does, we’ll know for sure who murdered Mercedes.”

She went on, but I lost the thread of the conversation momentarily. Have I got a best man’s boutonniere? Better call Boris and make sure.

“That’s wonderful, Elizabeth. I’ve got to get back to my phone calls. You and Paul get going on that list of your favorite songs. Juice is waiting to take dictation.”

So the bride and groom had a hilarious afternoon, calling each other with musical ideas while they made ready for their big night. And Boris assured me that he had Tommy covered.

“Of course! Boutonniere for best man is more special than for groomsmen, and for groom, more special than that. Everything perfect. You will dance with me tonight, Kharnegie? I have good news, and all bridesmaids must dance.”

“Not this bridesmaid, not this time. You can dance with Corinne.”

I could almost hear him shrug, and see the full lower lip jutting from his thornbush of a beard. “Perhaps.”

Eddie and I plowed through the rest of the Lamott/ Wheeler checklists, and then he went off to mail the announcements while I hobbled downstairs to meet Lily. I was running too late to use Elizabeth’s stylist, who would be leaving the EMP while I was still checking in with my vendors, so Lily and I poured some wine and got to work. We spent half an hour giggling in my tiny bathroom, employing the entire
contents of my cosmetics case to prepare me for my supporting role.