For Whom the Bluebell Tolls (8 page)

“Great, and now that will be all over the Internet with my hair all wet. Why can’t the paparazzi leave me alone?”

I hated to tell her that the person who snapped her picture wasn’t from the media. Mrs. DeYoung teaches second grade at the elementary school and probably wanted the photo for her scrapbook. And it also seemed to me that someone who wanted to be left alone would have been home, trying to mend her marriage and not traveling the country carrying signs. But maybe that’s just me.

I glanced back toward the Ashbury to Nick, who was lugging out a big insulated beverage cooler. After a quick confab with Lafferty, Nick lowered the cooler onto the trunk of the police cruiser. “Lemonade,” he announced to the crowd. “Courtesy of
Fix My Wedding
.”

Soon people queued up to fill the little paper cups from the side of the dispenser.

Nick then trotted over with an ice bag he’d balanced on top of the cooler. “Sorry it took so long. I thought the lemonade might help the spirits of the crowd out here.”

Jackie took the ice pack and applied it to her hand. “So it’s not really from the show after all.”

“Well, sort of. They paid for it. They just didn’t finish drinking it,” Nick said with a wink.

“Good man.” Jackie tapped my arm. “Remember what I said.”

Those nearby who had been sitting on the grass started to rise.

“Someone’s coming,” Jackie said.

A gleaming black limo rolled down Main Street and approached the inn. The front window descended. The driver spoke briefly with Ken Lafferty, then Ken moved the barrier out of the way and let the vehicle pass. But at the same time, the tinted back window lowered and a dapper gray-haired man leaned out and waved royally to the crowd—the whole Princess Di wave that’s no more than a swivel of an upraised hand, the kind they train royals to do.

Jackie tried to jump to see above the heads of the people in front of her. “Who is it?” she cried, almost frantically. “Can you see who it is?”

Nick and I and half of the crowd said the name almost simultaneously: “Henry Easton.”

“That rat.” Jackie crossed her arms in front of her. “He messed up my dress. I hope he dies, too.”

“Audrey, I didn’t see you on the shooting schedule for this afternoon.” Ken Lafferty stood, arms crossed in front of him, feet spread. Probably trying to look imposing. But seeing Henry Easton drive up in the limousine had immediately overwhelmed my curiosity and set my feet in the direction of the Ashbury.

Everyone who’s anyone in the bridal industry knows Henry Easton. His chain of posh bridal salons dots the major cities from coast to coast, and he carries only the top designers, some exclusively. His dapper image, wearing an immaculate tuxedo, is in every ad his salon places in the major bridal magazines, and he’d made guest appearances on more than one episode of
Fix My Wedding
.

“Ken,” I said, “I need to find out if there will even be a shooting schedule. If they’re going on with filming, I need to know the revised schedule and which of the floral designs they’re going for. And if they’re not filming, I need to know that, too, so I can figure out what to do with the thousands of dollars of expensive foliage sitting in our cooler.”

“Well, I guess it’ll be okay. You are a designated supplier.”

I barely waited for Ken to get out his last words before I took off running toward the historic inn, Nick trailing behind me. I climbed the steps to the stone portico and flung open the restored wood door.

It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the much dimmer light in the lobby. A dark wood staircase stood in front of me. To my left, at the restored hotel registration desk, owner Kathleen Randolph was the only person in sight. Her head jerked up from the book she was reading, before she nodded and returned to it.

To my right was the original historic restaurant—not the larger modern addition often used for community dinners and wedding receptions. Here, at least according to Kathleen, was where Washington chowed down on hoecakes for breakfast and cracked walnuts in his teeth. The space, normally booming during mealtimes, was closed for filming. Loud greetings, not meant for Nick or me, I was sure, sounded from the room. I peeked inside.

Most of the tables had been stripped of their cloths and stacked against one wall of the restaurant space. A couple of tables retained their coverings and were laden with coffee, lemonade, and baked goods kept fresh under gleaming glass domes. Nick’s catered tables.

Technical equipment, cameras, and screens were bunched in the other side of the room in a makeshift studio. There, crew members shook hands and mingled with Henry Easton, greeting him as if he were a hero recently returned from combat.

I overheard one of the cameramen saying that he’d go get Gigi. Another yelled to get the whole cast.

Nick went to stand behind his table. He looked innocuous, and I decided that might not be a bad observation point for me, either.

For the next few minutes, I helped pour and restock, as cast and crew assembled and grabbed coffee. They greeted Henry Easton and whispered among themselves.

When Gigi came in she looked a little worse for wear: red-eyed, fragile—which was a word I’d never associated with Gigi before. She was escorted by Bixby, who whispered something into her ear. Gigi nodded, then Bixby asked everyone to lend him their attention.

He waited while various crew members and some of the cast pulled up old wood chairs and sat. Suzy and Daddykins, his beard and mustache now neatly trimmed, slipped into seats next to a young man I hadn’t met—possibly the groom. Bixby caught my eye before he began, but my presence didn’t seem to bother him enough to ask me to leave.

“I’m Kane Bixby,” he said. “Chief of police of the town of Ramble. I’ve spoken to some of you already, and I expect to speak to all of you over the course of the next few days as we actively seek to discover who might have killed your friend and coworker. If you have any information or witnessed anything that you think might be relevant to our investigation, please stop me at any time.”

A hand shot up. The sound man, I thought, if I recognized the back of his head. Bixby nodded to him.

“Are you the only ones working on this? Aren’t you calling in somebody? The state police or FBI?”

“I assure you,” Bixby said, “we are not a backwater little town. I am a trained and experienced homicide investigator.”

I swallowed hard. Trained, probably. Experienced, sort of, if you could call it that. But we’d only had one homicide in Ramble before Gary’s demise, at least that I could recall. And although the murderer was eventually caught and prosecuted, I wasn’t sure that Bixby had all that much to do with it. Modesty forbids me from retelling the story.

Still, I wouldn’t call Bixby incompetent, either. Our crime rate is low, and the town remains a safe place, so he must be doing something right.

“And,” he went on, “we have a good working relationship with the state police, who have placed their resources at our disposal at any time we need them.”

“So it’s true then?” Tristan asked. “Gary was murdered, and didn’t commit suicide?”

Bixby nodded. “Even if we felt his death was self-inflicted—”

Gigi shook her head.

“—we treat all suspicious deaths as homicides unless the evidence proves otherwise. What we saw at the crime scene leads us to believe this was no suicide. Nor was it an accident. It would have been nearly impossible for Gary to have hanged himself, based on the height of the—”

Gigi clutched at his arm. Whether to stop him from saying more or to keep herself from going down is anyone’s guess. But she accomplished both.

“The next week will be difficult for all of us.” Her voice was soft, but the room grew quieter to hear her. “We’ve decided to go ahead with the wedding.”

The crowd erupted in noise, talking among themselves and shouting out questions.

I turned to Nick. “Who decides that? The network? The producer?”

“From watching them, I’d say Gary and Gigi literally ran the show. Now I’d say it was probably Gigi.”

Bixby signaled them to quiet down. Someone from the crowd echoed my question, “Who decided that the wedding is to go on?”

“I did,” Gigi said, “after much consideration about what is best for the show and what Gary would have wanted us to do. And after talking with Chief Bixby, of course, to make sure that it was all right for us to continue. But we do have a contractual obligation to fulfill.”

Suzy stood. “Contractual obligations? To me? Does that mean my wedding will turn into some morbid remembrance? Or are you just going to march us before the justice of the peace so you can cross us off your to-do list?”

Gigi shook her head. “No, plans go on for the wedding, and it will be as fabulous as you could dream it. That’s why we’ve invited Henry Easton. He’ll be taking Gary’s place, overseeing the fashion and makeup and flowers, just as Gary would have.”

“For this episode?” Tristan asked.

“For this episode,” Gigi said. “And any more that we might film.”

“Might? Does that mean we’re canceling the show?” A murmur went up, probably as the crew were determining if they’d have to dust off their résumés.

Henry Easton hopped up and joined Gigi and Bixby. “Gigi’s lawyer and my agent are in negotiations to make me a permanent part of
Fix My Wedding
,” he said. “I believe they will come to terms, and we can go from here.” He paused until the crowd quieted again.

“I understand the grief of your hearts. I made plane reservations to join you from Philadelphia the minute I heard what had happened, even before my agent called. And I understand that no one could ever replace Gary. He was a great man and a good personal friend. His death is an unfathomable loss to the show, the bridal industry, and the world. But I am grateful for the opportunity to follow in his shadow and make my humble attempt to walk, however falteringly, in his shoes.”

I wondered how long he’d practiced that speech.

“And I can assure you,” he went on, “the show and the wedding will be done to the best of all of our abilities, to Gary’s memory. Accordingly, it should be the best work we’ve ever done.”

This seemed to placate Suzy, and she resumed her seat. Her father reached out to hold her hand and whispered something into her ear. She shook her head.

“Now some practical issues,” Gigi said. “We’re not sure about using any of Gary’s footage. The network is going to run it by a test audience. Fans might want to see Gary again, or they might be weirded out by it. But since we’re early in the film schedule, we’re going to re-film all segments using Henry. That would be what? The opening interviews, trashing the original wedding plan, and what else?”

“The flower samples,” Tristan suggested.

“And then the voice-overs,” Gigi said. “We re-film everything with Henry, and then we can decide in postproduction which version to use in the final show.”

And as they huddled to discuss the practical aspects of filming, Bixby sauntered back toward the catering table. I hoped he was coming for coffee.

He poured a cup of black coffee from the insulated carafe into a stoneware mug, bypassing cream and sugar and all the delectable baked goods. He thanked Nick, then squinted at me.

“Moonlighting?” he asked.

“Just helping a friend.”

“I’d have thought you’d have all that froufrou flower stuff to do, what with the wedding still going on.”

I decided to ignore the implied insult. “That’s part of why I’m here. I needed to know if the wedding was still going on. And Gary never told me which design to go with. I’ve been working mostly with Brad, and I’d ask him what I’m supposed to do, but it seems that he’s being detained.”

Bixby cleared his throat. “Who said anything about detaining him? He’s not been arrested and no charges have been filed against him. He’s free to go at any time.”

“Did you bother to tell
him
that?”

Bixby didn’t answer my question, but screwed up his face. “Naturally, after we learned of his altercation with the deceased, we simply invited him in to ask him some questions.”

I couldn’t help notice Bixby’s use of the plural
we
. Apparently he was insecure enough in his accusations that he was hiding behind a group. If he were taking credit for a job well done, I’d imagine he would be crowing in the singular
I
. I wasn’t about to let him off the hook, either. “I had an altercation with Gary, too. And I suspect I’m not the only one in this room who did. Why zero in on Brad?”

“You make it sound like I’m a sniper with my sights on him. Like I said, we’re keeping our options open and will be looking at any altercations Gary might have had with anyone inside—or outside—this room.”

“While they’re putting on a wedding, and knowing that there’s a killer probably walking around town, you’re just going to sit back and watch them? What if Gary isn’t the only one on the killer’s hit list? I can’t believe you’re putting them—
us
—all in danger by letting this wedding take place.”

A smirk tickled the corner of his lips.

“What?” I demanded, maybe a little too loud.

Bixby took my arm and led me into the hallway. “Okay, Audrey, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I know you’ve seen some of the more unseemly parts of life. And you’re quick-witted. I think you can understand this. If we told them they could no longer film here, everybody connected with the show would be free to leave. And the chances would be pretty good that we’d never solve this thing.”

“But can’t you tell them not to leave town or something?”

“Only in the movies. Unless I arrested all of them, I have no power to keep them anywhere near Ramble. And if they left now, carrying any evidence with them, then the killer most likely gets away. He cools down, rationalizes to the point where he might not even think he killed someone. The whole town of Ramble gets a black eye. But, if we go on with the filming while my men and I pursue the investigation . . .”

“The heat stays on. You can watch them. Watch their reactions. The killer might make a mistake that gives himself away. And the town preserves its reputation.” And Bixby would preserve his.

He might not like it, but I’d be watching, too.

“See, I knew you were smart. Look, Audrey, I don’t want to put anyone in Ramble in danger. But I have a duty to find whoever killed that man in our town, even if it’s one of our own who did it.”

I found myself in a blinking match with the chief, as we stood there assessing each other.

He lost. “So, tell me about this altercation you had with Gary Davoll.”

*   *   *

Bixby seemed less than excited about my confrontation with Gary, especially when he learned I had an alibi. Which, good news for me, probably kept me off the suspect list. As he walked away and I turned to face the cast and crew, I couldn’t hold back a shiver. Unless the killer were a local, which I doubted, then he or she might be milling around this room. Or standing outside behind the barrier. And while I understood the chief’s reasoning and agreed that Gary’s killer needed to be caught, I wasn’t sure I wanted a murderer hanging around longer in our little town.

But I did have a flower job to do. And doing that job meant that I’d have to talk and work with these people. And keeping my eyes open meant I’d have to start associating some names with the faces of the crew instead of treating them like some homogenous machine.