For Whom the Bluebell Tolls (13 page)

Where did that come from?
The crew must have been thinking the same thing. Tristan had a huge smile on his face. Max wiped away a tear.

To my right, Henry Easton leaned over and gave Suzy a big hug, his voice cracking with emotion as he murmured assurances in her ear. The boom microphone continued to hover overhead.

And I found myself trying to wipe away an unexpected tear without streaking my face with mascara.

After Tristan yelled, “Cut,” he turned to Brad. “Seriously, ‘Echoes of a Mother’ would make a good episode name. What do you think?”

As the rest of the crew started packing up, Henry began to walk toward the Ashbury.

I chased after him. I was not leaving without a decision on the flowers.

He startled as I touched his arm.

“Look,” he said, “I must get out of this heat. I’m simply melting away like the witch in
The
Wizard of Oz
.”

“Fine,” I said, half jogging to keep up with his pace, and agreeing wholeheartedly with his analogy. “All I need from you is a decision on which bouquet.”

“The first one, obviously. That Victorian fussy mussy one. The bride was nuts over it. That last one was interesting. Very dramatic. But it would take away from the dress, I think. The dress should be the center of attention.”

“You mean the bride.”

“Um, yeah.”

*   *   *

With just three days before the most elaborate wedding we’d ever done, we were on full staff and late nights. A couple of Shelby’s fellow students from nearby Nathaniel Bacon University—good old Bacon U—took time from their summer break and joined our crew. They’d helped us in the past when we’ve been swamped, and seemed to enjoy the experience. Melanie was a peaches-and-cream young lady who displayed an affection for ponytails, pastel floral shirts, and denim skirts. Opie, short for Opal, was our resident goth. Whatever wasn’t covered in black leather was tattooed with flowers. Shelby had made some great recommendations, I thought. Both girls were hard workers, had good attitudes, and could barely hide their excitement about working on flowers that might be seen on a reality TV show. And despite their differences, they seemed to work pleasantly together.

We’d put Darnell to work, greening up some of our more elaborate arrangements. He tried to pretend he was too macho to work on flowers, despite a clear natural gift. But since the greenery didn’t have petals, it wasn’t the same, right? At least we’d been able to convince him of that distinction. Both Liv and I were longing to see what he could accomplish with flowers, with a little instruction. Anyway, he did a fantastic job with the greenery.

“My dad wasn’t too happy about me coming.” Opie set her cell phone on the corner of her workstation. “’Cause of the murder. He’s saying Ramble is becoming a dangerous place. But I told him I wouldn’t miss this for anything. Still, I have to text him every two hours.” She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, pshaw.” Liv repeated one of our Grandma Mae’s favorite phrases. “This latest . . . unpleasantness . . . has nothing to do with Ramble. It has to be one of those outsiders with the show.”

“Maybe,” Amber Lee said. “Or one of our locals with the show.”

I bit my upper lip. No, best to face this one head-on. “Meaning Brad. That’s what people are saying.”

“Not everybody, mind you.” Amber Lee sliced her knife through a fresh block of floral foam. “Lots of people say Gigi. But then folks can’t help notice Bixby paying close attention to Brad.”

“Chief Bixby doesn’t always get it right,” Shelby said.

“And Audrey is too good of a judge of character to have dated a murderer.” Liv patted my shoulder on the way to the cooler. “And no one else from town had motive, really.”

“So, could Gigi have done it?” Darnell asked.

“It’s usually the spouse,” Opie added.

There was that rule again. “I don’t know. Gigi got a threatening note today, warning her to stop the show. She seemed genuinely shaken up by it.”

“Gigi also spends a lot of time on TV,” Amber Lee said. “She should be able to fake being shaken up by now.”

“True.” I thought about Gigi’s call from her insurance company. “And it looks like Gary’s death will help her financially.”

“Not if they connect her with the murder,” Opie said.

“You know,” I added. “Henry Easton also had a financial motive to kill Gary, since he wanted to take over as co-host. But that note muddies things up a bit. He wouldn’t want to stop the show.”

“So you’re thinking Gary was killed to stop the show,” Liv said. “And when Gigi decided to continue filming, the killer resorted to the threat to scare her and the rest of the crew off.”

“Then the question to ask is who would want to stop the show?” Amber Lee asked.

“Someone less than satisfied with the work environment,” I suggested. “Brad doesn’t really seem all that happy in his dream job. Gary had hinted at advancement, but then referred to him as a gofer. That had to be a tremendous letdown. Perhaps that’s why Bixby suspects him.”

“Your friend should call my dad.” Opie’s father was a high-powered lawyer who lived in the next town over. “Maybe he wouldn’t mind my coming out if I sent a little business his way.”

“I’ll mention it to him,” I said. “But Brad wasn’t the only crew member with motive. I happen to know from personal experience that Gary wasn’t the easiest person to work with, and it didn’t take much to put him over the edge.”

“Prima donna?” Liv asked.

“Oh, yes, and he threatened not only firing, but blackballing. I think he liked the crew to be cowering in the corner, afraid to cross him.”

“Well, that makes for lovely morale,” Amber Lee said. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love my job?”

“And I don’t think we can totally eliminate the idea that the killer was someone on the outside angry with the show.” I took a moment to stretch my back.

“Like Tacky Jackie,” Shelby said.

“Or maybe it’s not the show. Maybe someone wants to stop the wedding,” I said. “I’d like to poke around there a little more.”

Liv set down her tools, then tented her fingers under her chin. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. Why kill Gary and
then
send a threatening letter? Why not start with the threat? Seems out of order.”

“Unless . . .” Darnell said.

“Go on,” I urged.

“What if the threat’s a fake out? Like in football, when you fake to the left but run to the right. Maybe the killer just wants us to
think
Gary’s death had something to do with the show.”

I studied the centerpiece I was constructing, then gave a calla lily a little push to make it symmetrical. I liked symmetry and order. This murder lacked that sense of order. “I suppose Gigi could have murdered her husband for any number of reasons and then sent the threat to divert attention from herself. Make herself look more like the victim.” I explained about Sven, the stud muffin of a light guy, and the pretty Bulgarian seamstress who seemed a little too sad.

“So Gary and Gigi’s secret marriage wasn’t necessarily a happy one,” Melanie said. “How sad. I mean, a secret marriage is so romantic. Like Romeo and Juliet.”

Liv let out a snort. “If I remember my English lit, that didn’t work out so well. As I recall, both of them died.”

“I think we can rule out double suicide,” I said.

“But if Gary and/or Gigi were both carrying on . . . extracurricular activities,” Amber Lee started, “then those they were carrying on with each also have a motive.”

“Gigi’s lover, if she had one, might want to eliminate Gary as a rival,” Liv said. “So Sven stays on the list.”

“And if Gary had a lover, things might not have been rosy there, either,” Amber Lee said.

“I’d like to eliminate Nevena. I don’t know that she’d have the strength to string Gary up like that. Wouldn’t he have fought back?” I made a mental note to check with Mrs. June to see if Bixby had gotten any of the autopsy results in. “I also don’t think Nevena’s English is good enough to write the threatening note.”

“That’s
if
the killer wrote the note,” Liv said. “It’s always possible that they’re not related. That someone who wanted to stop the show is using the murder to make their case stronger.”

I leaned my elbows on the table and rubbed my temples. If Bixby’s line of deduction was going anything like ours, then someone might have just gotten away with murder.

“I can’t wait. Can you point out the suspects?” Liv scanned the restaurant of the Ashbury, which had been transformed into the staging area for
Fix My Wedding
.

“I will do no such thing.” I turned to face Liv. “You promised Eric, right to his scruffy face, that you were going to stay out of the murder investigation and work on the flowers.”

Liv put her hands into the air. “It’s not like I’m going to interrogate anyone.” She smirked. “At least not obviously. But while I’m here, if someone should respond to an innocent question . . . Besides, people trust pregnant women. They tell me all kinds of things they never used to. Of course, they mainly tell me their labor and delivery horror stories.” She shuddered.

“Just don’t get into any trouble. Eric would kill me.”

“Oh look, there’s Nick. And he has scones.” What can I say? It must be a family trait. She pulled me over to the catering table and soon had a scone and a decaf in her hands.

And I had half of a scone and a regular.

“I was telling Audrey,” Liv said, “that as soon as this wedding is over and the cast and crew leave, we all ought to have a nice picnic at Ramble Falls—Eric and me, and you and Audrey.”

“It’s up to Nick,” I said at the same time as he said, “It’s up to Audrey.”

“Great!” Liv was undeterred by the ambiguity. “It’s a double date.”

I should have known Liv had more than snooping on her mind when she’d begged to come with me. She was probably right. Surely the feelings that had resurfaced for Brad were no more than concern over him becoming a suspect in the murder investigation. Soon he and the rest of the crew would be climbing into those black Range Rovers and heading out of town. And Nick and I would still be in Ramble. Was there a future in either relationship?

Not if Nick had no qualms with me dating other people.

But that would only matter
if
Brad rode out of town with the rest of the crew. If he ended up locked in the county holding center awaiting trial, things would get messier from there.

That was my cue to leave the tattered remnants of my love life behind and do my job, which today was meeting with Gigi to show her our sample flowers for the reception. This time there’d be no three samples to choose from. We simply needed to show her what we had constructed so far to see if she required any tweaks.

At least that was the plan.

I extricated myself from the catering table as Liv nabbed another scone to the tune of “I guess what they say about eating for two is true.”

Gigi was nowhere to be seen, so I headed over to the desk where Kathleen Randolph stood. “Good morning,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows. “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” She closed her eyes and exhaled. “Sorry, Audrey. I shouldn’t take it out on you. When I agreed to let
Fix My Wedding
take over the inn for the week, I thought it would be great exposure. But between catering to the cast and crew, meeting Gigi’s demands for the reception space, and the police crawling around the place asking questions . . .”

“It’s a lot of stress, I’m sure.”

“It would have been better for my Chi had I closed up the place and taken a cruise. Although maybe not as good for my pocketbook. It depends on what happens with bookings when this whole fiasco is over. I’m not sure if folks will associate my place with Gary’s murder. Or if that’s a good or a bad thing, business-wise. At least it didn’t happen here. Not that I’d want it to happen anywhere . . . Oh, that sounded rather heartless, didn’t it?”

“I understand. You’ve thrown your whole life into this place. And it shows. You have a perfect right to be concerned.”

“But the hotel did already survive one murder.”

“Another murder?”

“Back in 1876. Our nation’s centennial.”

I settled in for the duration. Once you got Kathleen started on an historical account, that was pretty much what you had to do.

“The inn was run by a middle-aged couple, the Buckmans. Never had kids. From what I gather, he’d run the stables, and she would do just about everything else, from making the beds to doing the bookkeeping, to cooking in the restaurant, with only one servant to help. Then Mr. Buckman got sick.”

“Let me guess. Poisoned? Another entry in the category that it’s usually the spouse.”

“Take it from someone who’s had three, there are easier ways to get rid of them.” She smiled. “I guess there was some initial suspicion of Mrs. Buckman. But then others started getting sick, including the woman herself. Then she died.”

“Mrs. Buckman?” I asked.

Kathleen nodded. “So they arrested her husband.”

“Even though he got sick first?”

She kept on nodding. “I guess the working theory was that he’d tried the poison on himself first, either to try out the potency of the poison or to get her arrested. Then, when that didn’t work, he used it on her.”

“Huh. At least they got him.”

“But it wasn’t him,” she said with a hint of a smirk.

“How did they figure that out?”

“He died in jail of the same symptoms.”

“How did—?”

“Back then, they’d get the food for the prisoners from the hotel. Turns out, the man’s brother, the elder Mr. Buckman, came to town to take it over, and the servant girl did all the cooking.”

“So was it the brother or the servant girl? Or were they in, as they used to say, cahoots?”

“Neither.” Kathleen stopped there, her broad smile coaxing me to ask. “Well, they might have been cahooting for all I know . . .” She winked. “But they were cleared of the murders.”

“Okay, who did it?”

“Best they were ever able to figure, it was Mrs. Buckman, after all. Only she hid her poison in the flour, and apparently it leached out. A lot of other guests, the brother, and the servant girl all got sick, but since the intended victim got a double dose, it killed him. True story. The elder Mr. Buckman married the servant girl, and the hotel flourished after that—after they’d thrown out all the flour.”

I shook my head. “Amazing.”

Her broad smile dimmed. “I shouldn’t be so excited about that story.”

“But the hotel survived that mess. You should find encouragement in that.”

“I shouldn’t be so obsessed with this place, the history of it. After all, a man died.”

“Gary was someone you barely knew, so no one is going to blame you for not falling to pieces over it. But I don’t think you need to worry about business. I suspect the TV exposure will probably do you some good.”

“As long as people perceive the place to be safe. And that’s only going to happen if the murderer is caught. Bixby’s been asking me a lot of questions about Brad. Did I see when he left the inn? Was he anywhere near the desk before I found the note? Did he have notepaper in his room?”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth. I was running like crazy, trying to get lightbulbs that would suit that Gigi woman and her boy toy. Is that really her name?”

“I think Gigi is her real name. But this boy toy. Blond fellow?”

“Yes. Sven something. I could check the records.”

“No, I’ve seen him.”

“Well, I have, too. With Gigi. Not very discreet for an affair.”

“You’re sure they were having an affair?”

“Audrey, I run what is basically the only hotel in Ramble. I could tell you stories about a lot of your upstanding neighbors, only it wouldn’t be good for business. I know what an affair looks like. Trust me on this. But all Bixby wanted to know is where Brad was and if he had access to notepaper.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I had no idea where anybody was. And the notepaper is in all the rooms. Audrey, I sure hope you’re poking around in this.”

“Me?”

“Oh, don’t start playing all humble. The whole town knows how you caught Derek’s killer.”

“And it almost killed me.”

“Would it help if I offered to pay you?”

“What?”

“For investigating. Maybe a reward. If you can find the killer, that would help my business.”

“Look, maybe you should call in a professional. A real private eye.”

“Whom no one would trust, and who wouldn’t have the same access to the cast and crew that you do. Look, maybe you don’t have the training or the experience.”

“Or a license or a gun.”

Kathleen waved off my concerns. She pointed to her forehead. “But you’ve got instincts.”

“I couldn’t agree to that. Look, if I’m poking around, it’s more to help Brad.”

Kathleen nodded. “Fine by me. But my money is still on you.”

I started to walk away, shaking my head. Audrey Bloom, PI? Ridiculous. Although I might look good in a fedora, if I could find a cute one large enough for my head. Then I remembered why I had come to talk to Kathleen in the first place.

“Kathleen, could you tell me which room Gigi is in? Or buzz her? Liv and I were supposed to go over the centerpieces with her, but I haven’t seen her.”

Kathleen bit her lip, then waved me closer. “That’s a bit of information you might need to know. Gary had a room here—not that it was slept in, mind you. He showered in it, but the housekeeper told me the sheets weren’t even touched. Gigi, on the other hand, was staying in the RV parked out back. One of my staff said they saw Gary headed back there. At the time, I thought maybe they were having a meeting or something, because that’s when everybody thought . . . before they knew Gary and Gigi were married.”

“So Gigi’s staying back there now?”

She nodded.

*   *   *

Liv and I, each holding a large arrangement of flowers, stood at the door to the jacked-up RV. I don’t mean jacked up as in “put the jack underneath to change a tire.” I mean sleek and shiny, with pop-out compartments in every direction. Only, since they’d had the RV wrapped with huge pictures of Gary and Gigi, those images jutted out like severed body parts as the pop-outs were extended. An ear here. A nose over there. A ghoulish smile just over the tires. Picasso would have been inspired.

It had everything but a doorbell, so I knocked.

This part of the Ashbury was private and shaded, just a small patch between the back door of the kitchen and a wooded area that abutted the hillside. Probably why the RV was parked here. I heard no response to the knock, except the birds calling to each other in the trees and a rabbit that tore across the grass and darted into the bushes.

“No answer,” I said.

Liv banged on the door. The echo came back off the hillside.

“Show-off,” I said.

Almost a full minute ticked by with no sounds except the buzz of a bee that dove in a little closer to check out the flowers we were carrying.

“I wonder where she is,” I said. “She told me three o’clock.”

“Conference with her lighting guy?” Liv quipped.

“No sense standing out here. Might as well wait in the Ashbury.”

“Or . . .” Liv reached forward and tried the doorknob. It turned in her hand. “We could check out Gary and Gigi’s little love nest.”

“Wait, you can’t do that. It’s trespassing.”

“How can it be trespassing if Kathleen owns the property? I think police can search hotel rooms with the permission of the owner. That’s what they do on
CSI
.”

“But this isn’t a hotel room. And we’re not the police.”

“True,” she said. “So I don’t even think all those evidence-gathering rules apply to us.”

“I have no idea. But we could still get arrested for breaking and entering.”

“The door’s unlocked. No breaking. Just entering. And if the police come, we’re just two local yokels wanting a peek at the luxury RV. I doubt they’d do any more than slap our wrists.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Neither do I.” The voice came from behind us, and I spun around to see Gigi, her arms crossed and her signature smirk on her face. “I’d apologize for being late, but I’m more curious why my florist wants to snoop around in my RV.”

Gigi pulled open the door and gestured for both of us to enter.

It took little time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I wished my apartment kitchen were as big as the one we stepped into. Sleek cherry cabinets were interrupted by gleaming stainless appliances, with a flat-screen television over the gas fireplace in the corner. We set the flower arrangements on the stone island. Yeah, Bixby would have believed the yokels-wanting-to-see-the-RV defense. This was worth seeing.

“The flowers look great, by the way. Perfect.” Gigi circled the island, studying them from every direction. “I wouldn’t change a thing.” She placed a hand on her hip. “And now that you’ve seen the place, can you tell me why you were so anxious to look around?”

I glanced at Liv, who was practically bent over backward trying to peek into the bedroom down the hall. I hit her on the arm and Gigi chuckled.

“Seriously, you can’t hide much in an RV.” Gigi kicked off her heels by the door and slid into a bench seat by the table and gestured for us to do the same. It took Liv a few moments to maneuver her growing belly in the space. “So what was the draw?
Rabid
fan?
Morbid
curiosity? And I can’t think of anything else that has an ‘id’ in it. Except
lurid
, and you two don’t look the type.”