Engaged in Death (A Wedding Planner Mystery) (6 page)

I glanced at my cell phone, its red light flashing malevolently like a dragon’s eye. Work beckoned, but I turned it over, dismissing it for the moment. Whatever was happening at the firm could wait.

“Let’s go take care of the front yard.” The thought of Shane Hartley’s blood drying on the grass made me ill.

It took us a while to find the right key to the shed, extricate an old hose from a tangle of rusty tools and yard implements, and find a spigot on the side of the house. We worked in silence, jittery and pensive. The hose barely stretched around the porch, and water sprayed out in arcs from hundreds of pinprick holes in the rotten canvas. Mini rainbows shimmered in the mist from the hose, and I chose to focus on them instead of my grim task.

Rachel turned away as the weak spray hit the bloody grass. Out of the corner of my eye, it ran red, then pink and finally absorbed into the ground, leaving a sodden puddle. We gathered the yellow crime tape and had just finished scrunching it into a slick plastic ball when a gray sedan pulled into the pocked driveway, pausing in front of the sagging porte cochere. Two women climbed out of the car.

“Smart choice. I wouldn’t park under that thing either.” My voice was calm and welcoming in an attempt to mask the tension of the day.

Rachel grabbed the crime tape and tried to throw it over the side of the porch, but the slippery yellow plastic unspooled and fell in a pile at her feet.

“Are we here at a bad time?” The shorter, plumper woman stared at the tape, transfixed. She nearly dropped the large foil-covered bowl she carried. Her eyes trailed over to the wet patch of grass, as if she expected to see a body neatly outlined in chalk, or even Shane Hartley’s cooling corpse.

“No, we’re fine.” I threw the yellow plastic inside, where the waiting calico pounced on it before I shut the door. I dried my hands on my pajama bottoms. I hadn’t had a chance to change. I glanced at Rachel, happy to see she was covered up, albeit in a slinky but firmly tied silk robe and shorts.

“I’m not sure where the morning went.” I lamely gestured at our sleepwear.

Before I became too preoccupied with my appearance, my attention switched to our visitors. The first woman was short like me and almost as wide as she was tall. Her blond hair was teased into an honest-to-goodness beehive. Her voluminous top was dotted Swiss, with little green circles on a white background, which she had paired with tomato-red pedal pushers, ones that perfectly matched her red cat’s-eye glasses. She looked like a cheery box of Krispy Kremes.

“I’m Beverly Mitchell. You can call me Bev. We’re the official Port Quincy Welcome Wagon.” Bev pumped my hand, her numerous thick band rings tickling my palm. She thrust the heavy, cold glass bowl into my arms so she could shake hands with my sister.

I turned to the meeker woman mincing up the bowed porch stairs. She was tall and willowy, but all of her height was wasted, as she hunched forward like she wanted to disappear. Her floral housedress was faded and pilled. She looked through a curtain of lank, dull brown hair, which had escaped her clip. Her eyes, myopic and magnified behind large wire frames, darted right and left. She finally reached us and awkwardly handed Rachel a basket of muffins but didn’t offer her hand.

“You’re the singer from Sylvia’s funeral,” I blurted out.

The woman nearly jumped out of her sandals. She said nothing, neither confirming nor denying it.

“Your voice is amazing.” I tried to not scare her any further. “Are you a professional singer?” That seemed to have gotten through to her.

“I just sing for church.” She shrugged. “I’m the receptionist at my dad’s auto body shop. I was going to be an opera singer”—she gulped and looked down—“but that ship has sailed.”

“I’m Mallory Shepard, and this is my sister, Rachel.” I cradled the heavy bowl in my left arm and reached out to shake her hand.

The woman took a step back, leaving my hand hovering awkwardly in the air.

“You inherited Sylvia Pierce’s house.” She gave me an appraising look but didn’t seem to notice my extended hand.

“In a way.”
How did she know?
“Does everyone know everyone else’s business in Port Quincy?” I blurted out.

The woman released a peal of genuine laughter, and this time she held out her hand and consented to a weak handshake, her hand cold and papery. But the laugh was real and warm and rich and full, like her singing voice.

“I’m Yvette Tannenbaum. Excuse my poor manners. My husband told me about what happened here last night. A real murder in Port Quincy. It’s just a little . . . unsettling.” The laughter in her voice died out.

“Y-
vette
,” Bev tsk-tsked her friend. “No one is supposed to know about that yet. Although, you’re right.” She gave me a pointed look. “Everyone is in everyone else’s business here. No one can keep a secret.”

Rachel and I exchanged glances. “So everybody in town knows someone was murdered here?”

Yvette shook her head. “Not yet. My husband, Bart, is the mayor, so the police alerted him immediately.”

“But I’m sure most people will know soon enough. It’ll be in the
Eagle Herald
. Things like this just don’t happen in Port Quincy. . . .” Bev’s gaze strayed over to the patch of wet grass. “Is that where he passed?”

“That’s where we found him.” Rachel refused to look.

Bev trembled but seemed to steel herself. “I know it’s not right to say, but I can think of about a hundred people who are rejoicing now that Shane Hartley’s dead.”

“I wouldn’t talk like that, Bev.” Yvette leaned against the railing. “Especially since you’re one of those hundred people.” She looked a little faint.

Rachel seemed ready to catch her if the whole thing snapped off and, from the looks of the rotted porch rail, it just might.

Bev glared at her friend. “You know I wouldn’t hurt a flea. Even if that flea was a rotten, no-good snake oil salesman and a land-ruining son-of-a-you-know-what.”

“Chief Truman seems to think Rachel and I are somehow implicated, which is ridiculous. Especially if Mr. Hartley had so many enemies.”

Rachel snorted next to me in agreement.

“Well, his wife is a decent human being,” Bev sniffed. “How she’ll manage with the baby due so soon, I don’t know.” She clucked her tongue.

“That poor woman,” Yvette addressed the porch floor. “She didn’t deserve this.”

My heart wrenched. Even if Shane Hartley wasn’t well liked in Port Quincy, he was a real person, not just a caricature. My heart did a flop for his wife and unborn child.

Yvette peered at her hands, twisting her gold wedding ring around and around. “I hope you don’t mind me asking. I don’t want to seem ghoulish. Were you here when it happened?” She peered up through her curtain of hair. “Did you hear the struggle?”

Rachel swallowed. “We were here, but we were sleeping. We didn’t hear a thing.”

“I don’t think the police believe us.” I shifted the heavy bowl in my arms. The bottom was cut glass, and the weight of it had already pressed patterns into the skin on my arms, little acorns, berries and sheaves of wheat. “They just left after questioning us all morning. That’s why we’re still in our pajamas.”

“You can keep that, honey.” Bev proudly gestured to the large dish and deftly changed the subject. “The glass, in addition to the zucchini casserole. It’s McGavitt glass, made here in Port Quincy. Right in the factory owned by Sylvia’s family. And don’t worry, the zucchini’s from the farmers’ market. I didn’t grow it.”

I tried to lift the heavy dish to get a better look. “You don’t say. Thank you.” I hoped we liked Bev’s zucchini casserole, because we’d be eating it for weeks. I didn’t delve into her odd remark about not growing the veggies herself.
What is with these people?

Bev snorted. “You don’t know anything about Thistle Park, do you?” She gestured around the grounds, the gems in her costume jewelry glistening on her fingers like Jolly Rancher candies. “Sylvia tried to keep things just as they were when the house was built. It’s like you’re living in a little bit of preserved history.”

“Something like that,” I mumbled. I had been a history major in college and was fascinated by the house, but that didn’t mean I reveled in the mess inside. “Sylvia told me about Thistle Park, but only because she wanted to escape from the nursing home and move back in. I’m trying to figure out what to do with this house and how best to carry out her wishes.” There had been no love lost between Shane Hartley and Sylvia, according to Garrett. How would she have felt knowing he had been murdered on her property?

“So you’re staying?” Yvette glanced around the beat-up porch.

You’re crazy
, her eyes said for her.

Rachel, however, peered at me with hope in her eyes.

“I don’t know. This place could be lovely, but it’d take a lot of sweat equity and money to even get it to the point where I can sell it. It’s barely livable. And after what happened . . . I don’t feel safe here.”

“Honey, believe it or not, this town is safe. You don’t need to worry about a thing. That’s why Yvette and I came over today. You can ask us for anything. We’re just so excited you two girls moved in, even if it’s temporary.” Bev gave us an encouraging smile. “People are real friendly here in Port Quincy. You’ll see.”

Yvette stood from her railing perch. “It was nice to meet you. I need to get going, but do let us know if you need anything.”

Bev pulled out a card that read, “Port Quincy’s finest seamstress” with her cell number. She pressed the card in my hand before she swooped in for an impulsive hug, all soft and bosomy and smelling of cinnamon. I was barely able to hold on to the casserole. Bev’s impromptu hug made me long for my mom far away in Florida. Had I made a mistake deciding to move into Thistle Park? Bev and Yvette began their descent down the bowed porch stairs.

“I hope I’m not being rude.” Yvette looked back. “But I heard about you calling off your wedding. Breaking things off with Keith Pierce and his mother. That was the right thing to do. You dodged a real bullet there.”

I shivered as Yvette followed Bev back to her gray Toyota. I agreed with her but didn’t appreciate her metaphor. I’d come too close to murder weapons lately to feel comfortable even hearing them mentioned, thank you very much.

* * *

“I’m not sure Febreze is meant for hundred-year-old rugs.”

Rachel doused another fragile rug with lavender-scented odor remover.

“Maybe we should use vinegar or baking soda.”

I sat on an uncomfortable, fraying horsehair couch, staring at my cell phone, willing it to self-destruct. When Rachel and I had entered the kitchen to put away Bev’s casserole and Yvette’s muffins, the device had been buzzing like an irritated mosquito. Apparently finding a dead body in front of one’s newly inherited mansion wasn’t a good enough excuse to call off work at my law firm.

Especially since I’d taken the previous two days off to go to a funeral, lick my wounds, and avoid Keith downtown. I’d slipped off to go to the bathroom this morning while Chief Truman and Officer Hendricks were grilling Rachel and e-mailed my best friend, Olivia, at the firm. I tried to describe the discovery of the dead body in the least alarming way possible as I tapped away on the miniature keys and explained why I wouldn’t be coming in to work again. All in the time it took to pee.

My e-mail to Olivia only made my phone hum more fervently. I finally called back Alan Brinkman, the partner who gave me most of my work, and instead of hello was greeted with, “Will you be taking tomorrow off for some other person’s convenient death, Mallory?”

“I think I can manage to come in.” I tried to laugh off his officious tone. “Although, these things do tend to happen in threes.” I promised Alan I’d be in tomorrow. I’d have to face the partners’ ire and the associates’ whispers and avoid Keith, who worked in the building next door.

“What do they want from me?” I grumbled to Rachel. “I can’t possibly concentrate and bill clients if I’m wondering why and how Shane Hartley ended up dead right under my nose.” Before this week, I’d spent more time at the office than usual, banking hours to make up for the time I’d take off for my honeymoon. That would no longer be a problem.

“You need a new job.” Rachel moved into the adjoining library to spray another rug. “You can’t work next door to Keith’s office building and avoid him every day. Or that Becca Cunningham.”

“But why do
I
need to find a new job? Keith and his tartlet should leave town.”

Rachel stopped spraying and gave me a look. “Because you’re overworked. You’re burned out. Even before this happened.”

“I’m one year away from making partner. I can’t quit now.” It was true. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do after I made partner, but the goal was within my sights, and I’d put in too much work to abandon it now. And work was the only thing going well right now. I needed to hold on to it like a life preserver.

My sister snorted. “You’ve been drinking the Russell Carey Kool-Aid a little too long.”

Stung by her assessment, I turned around and closed my eyes, wishing away my new reality, but when I opened them, I was still in Sylvia’s dilapidated house. A house I would need to sell, fast, before its upkeep drained what little savings I had. I pictured restoring the house to its original glory and felt a pang. Would I really want to sell it then? A crazy thought percolated up from the recesses of my brain.
What if I keep the house? What if I turn it into a B and B and hold weddings here?
I shook my head as if chasing away a gnat, dismissing the idea as a passing moment of insanity. I opened my eyes and turned back to my sister.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said grudgingly, putting down the spray bottle.

“It’s okay. I just don’t want to even think about my career on top of this house. I need to sell it and I have no idea how I’ll get the money to fix it up. Although . . .”