In-Laws & Outlaws (6 page)

“
N
ow
, start over. You mean you
planned
for someone to be killed? Should we be worried about something?” Jeremiah asked, late that night as everyone met around the conference table, eyeing Stacy warily even as he struggled to apologize for his previous accusing attitude. Priscilla and Porter sat huddled together, barely occupying one space at the table, let alone two, as the other staff members watched expectantly.

“I didn’t plan for it, silly. What do you take me for? I was already thinking about having them all arrested for the pranks, just to get them out of the way long enough for these two kids to get married. I figured they couldn’t do too much harm from lockup. Then the old lady collapsed, and the only right thing to do was to have them all taken in. What was I supposed to do? Any one of them could have done it, so I had no choice.”

“Oh, I don’t know… you could have at least acted sad about the whole thing.”

“I really did try, but I’m telling you even Meryl Streep couldn’t pull off a performance that convincing.”

“Well, I’ll let it slide since they have since nearly caused all of us to go to the big house ourselves. But next time you have the opportunity to smile at a funeral, don’t. Okay?” Jeremiah asked, reaching out and brushing back a lock of escaped hair from his boss’ forehead so he could see her worried face clearly. Stacy shook her head, her shoulders slumping in near-defeat again. For as long as she’d worked in this business she’d always believed—and her reputation confirmed it—that she didn’t have a breaking point. But this wedding was on the brink of making retiring to a cabin in the woods and becoming a hermit sound really good. “Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

Jeremiah ate his words when she told him the details of the detective’s call. He shook his head, refusing to believe these things that had seemed like majorly annoying pranks could actually be so cold-blooded. He was prevented from arguing with Rod’s theories when Stacy sat up straighter and looked around the table with a fiery expression before jumping up from the table and racing to her file cabinet. She grabbed several file folders and her laptop, and carried them over to the table before spreading the folders around among her top staff. “Here you go, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get busy.”

“Um, what exactly are we looking for?” Tori asked, passing another folder to Mandy, who looked just as clueless.

“Someone wanted Great Granny dead, and wanted it to look like an accident, right? No, scratch that. Even worse than an accident, they wanted Porter’s family to look guilty. WHY? We’re gonna figure out who could have had a grudge big enough to kill.”

Stacy continued to smile gratefully at her senior staff members and security chiefs who had stayed to help solve the crime. She cleared her throat lightly to bring the tensions in the room back to a manageable level, then turned to look at the saddest little hopefully-soon-to-be newlyweds the world had ever known.

“You all know why we’re here. Porter and Priscilla were slated to be married tomorrow, and the bride has decided that she cannot go through with the wedding with this hanging over their heads. I don’t pretend to agree with that decision, but as her event coordinators, we are duty bound to honor that request. That being said—” Here Stacy paused to force down the bad taste that was threatening to rise in her throat at what she was going to say next. “—we need to get these people cleared of any wrongdoing and out from under police custody in order for this wedding to take place. That’s why I think it’s best to start at the very beginning. We need to start from day one in order to understand how this feud even got started.”

Porter and Priscilla exchanged a questioning glance, then both shrugged their shoulders. “Like I’ve told you, we’re not exactly sure on the details since it was all before our time, and the story kept getting twisted over the years. From what we could piece together, it either had to do with a goat breaking down a fence, or a vehicle with a bad set of brakes. One of those two things is behind it.”

The staff waited in quiet dismay, watching the couple’s faces to see if they were kidding.

“That’s it?” Stacy finally asked, her jaw falling slack in disbelief. “A goat or a car part? All of this has been about a goat or a fifty dollar set of brakes from Bob’s Auto Parts Warehouse?” The couple nodded.

“Well, in either case,” Priscilla continued, trying patiently to explain in her ever-loyal way, “it escalated because the other party wouldn’t make the situation right. Either a goat broke through a fence and damaged the fence, or somebody in one of the families bought a car from somebody in the other family, only it had bad brakes and caused the driver to run over the goat. And then the other party wouldn’t pay any restitution.”

“Wait, how many goats are in this story?” Jeremiah asked before Tori kicked him under the table.

Priscilla actually looked incensed at the implication that there would be more than one goat in this family, despite all of the craziness they’d suffered over the past few weeks. “Just the one goat. What do we look like, a bunch of hillbillies with goats running around all over the place?”

“Do not answer that, if you value your job,” Stacy said to her entire staff in a dry, sarcastic tone. “So, help me understand. A goat belonging to… somebody?” The couple nodded. “And we’re not sure which family actually owned the goat?” They shook their heads. “So we don’t even know who owned the fence?” The couple shook their heads again. “I suppose it doesn’t actually matter. But how many generations ago was this whole mess involving a goat, a fence, and/or a car?”

“The best we can figure is it was Great Granny’s dad, and Porter’s relative of about the same age. That’s the only way any of it would even make sense. If the folks involved are all dead, and there’s no one alive who remembers how the original fighting got started, then we’re just all carrying on over nothing.”

“Wait a minute, back up. What did you just say? Did you say, ‘If the folks are all dead’?” Stacy looked around the table for any sign that the others were following her. “It’s a pretty weak motive, I’ll admit, but is it even remotely possible someone killed Great Granny because she’s the last person to have lived through the feud in the first place?”

There were quiet murmurs around the table as everyone pondered the possibility.

“That would have to have been one cruel relative to have taken it that far,” Porter finally offered, and several others nodded in agreement.

“Or, selfless?” Mr. Giudice suggested. “What if the guy smoked the old lady—sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out—I mean, offed the old lady, just to put an end to all this crazy feuding and stuff? Stranger things have happened, especially in large families who hold a grudge. I should know, I’m Italian.”

“It’s a possibility, that’s for sure,” Stacy said, confirming his theory while trying hard not to sound like she was grasping at straws. “But the police already said someone intentionally put peanut oil on the dishes. Why would they do that unless they were trying to sneak it into someone’s food? Or unless they were trying to frame Mrs. Lancaster for murder since she made the food?” Porter blanched at hearing his mother’s name and the word “murder” in the same sentence, and Priscilla gripped his hand tighter. She leaned her head on his shoulder in a touching display that made Stacy wonder for the hundredth time how these two could be so much in love with so much hatred going on around them.

Then it hit her like a bolt of lightning, a flash so clear it was as though the little naked angels had fluttered down with a banner that explained it all. She sat up straighter in her chair and placed both hands flat on the table in front of her to make her announcement.

“I think I know,” she began in a slow, distant voice, her eyes taking on a far off look as she concentrated, struggling to connect the dots between all the various characters she’d met in this odd play. “Jeremiah, what was that you said about smiling at a funeral? I don’t think this was about the feud at all, it never was. It’s about greed.”

“
S
o what are
we looking for?” her staff asked once again as they began to sift through the papers in the manila folders.

“Anything at all,” Stacy said unhelpfully before turning to the unhappy couple with a sympathetic look. “Porter, Priscilla, the time for lying and sugar-coating is way behind us, so far back there it’s just a speck in the rearview mirror. So I’m gonna tell it to you straight: your families went way overboard with the credit cards to pay for this wedding. At first I thought it was because they loved you so much, but now I know it’s because they were trying to one-up each other. What can you tell me about their finances?”

The bride and groom exchanged a questioning, curious glance before turning back to Stacy with blank looks. “Nothing,” Porter said with a shrug. “They don’t have any money. I mean, not serious money. They have enough to get by and be comfortable, I guess, but I’ve been trying to tell them all along that we don’t need fancy centerpieces or doves released at the moment we exchange vows. We’d have been just as happy with a cake from the grocery store and some barbecue from Smokin’ Hot. They just wouldn’t listen.”

“No, they didn’t!” Stacy said with a laugh. “Your cake alone costs more than a year’s tuition at your alma mater… well, in state tuition, that is. But this money had to come from somewhere. I really hate to ask you this—I mean, you cannot begin to know how much I don’t want to ask you this—but who was planning to pay it all off?”

Porter and Priscilla exchanged another blank look. “I don’t know,” Priscilla answered. “I wasn’t in on all the goings on, and once I’d had my say about how I didn’t need any of this kind of stuff to enjoy my wedding day, I stayed out of it. Mama just said they were taking care of it. You know, just between all of us, Mama never got to have a fancy wedding. She got pregnant in the tenth grade, when Daddy was only a junior. They got married at the courthouse one day after school, and neither one of them ever went back. But they worked really hard to make a good life for us, and they still love each other so much. I just figured this was kind of like the wedding Mama never got to have, so I stepped back and let her run with it.”

Porter put his arm around Priscilla’s shoulders. The fear was written clear across his face, just as much as if someone had put it there with a permanent marker. He was afraid he’d never get that same chance with his bride if Stacy didn’t hurry up and do something.

“Okay, it’s a long shot, but I say that’s a good start. Porter, not trying to air your family’s dirty laundry, I promise nothing will leave this room. It’s in the wedding planner code,” she joked solemnly. “How are things on your family’s end?”

“Well, we’re probably pretty much in the same boat as ‘Scilla’s family. My dad graduated high school and joined the Army where he trained as a mechanic. He’s comfortable, but he never would open his own shop. He’s worked for the same garage for almost thirty years, even though Mom has nagged all this time to start his own garage. He always said he just wanted to tinker with the cars, not run a shop full of employees.”

“As much as it hurts to say this, my opinion is that the money in this wedding has been coming from your family, Priscilla. Both your mom and your dad—and your grandparents, if I’m being honest here—would suggest the most outrageous, over the top accoutrements, while your parents, Porter, would argue over each expense. I don’t mean to point fingers, but I got the impression that your mom was playing keep-up and your dad was fighting her tooth and nail.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” he said quietly, nodding his head. “But if we still think someone in the family murdered Great Granny, do you really think it would be someone in her own family?”

Stacy saw Priscilla stiffen at Porter’s question. “Wait a minute, you said my grandparents were in on it?” she asked, her eyes becoming impossibly sadder. “They don’t have any money! My grandfather is… well, let’s just say… no, that’s not right.” She sighed in defeat. “My grandfather has a gambling problem. I can’t tell you how many times my parents have had to get him out of trouble. There’s no way he was paying for all this.”

Stacy was dying inside, even though no one in the room ever would have known it.
What am I doing? I’m no detective!
she thought miserably.
I might as well just try my hand at driving a manure truck for a living as being a detective!

“Wait a minute…” she began, and it was her turn to become silent as she thought. Someone started to speak but out of the corner of her eye she saw Jeremiah hold up his hand, telling the person to give her a minute. “Nobody go anywhere, I really need to go check something out.”

Stacy bolted from her chair, grabbed her purse and keys, and stormed out of the building. No one moved until after she’d jumped in her car and skidded down the long driveway, sending a shower of tiny pebbles smattering against the outside wall. As she drove, she punched in the number for the only contact she knew of who could make sense of this.

I just hope he’s willing to break down the door,
Stacy thought, taking a peek at her red leather pumps and realizing she’d need the back up pair since she wasn’t dressed for this particular occasion.

She reached her destination just as the sun was setting but she couldn’t risk turning on her lights and giving herself away. The cover of darkness gave the place an eerie feel. She wracked her brain, but couldn’t think of a single slasher film that took place at a pig farm, so she breathed a brief sigh of relief. Stacy stepped carefully, considering the location, and was relieved to know that the ear-splitting squeals of the residents would cover up the sound of her shoes crunching on gravel.

Using her phone as a light, Stacy looked around the property until she found the trucks, the very same ones that had only a day or so ago been tearing up the grass in front of her office. She looked around, trying to tell them apart, but finally decided she’d just have to look in each one. Trying the first door, she found it locked, and knew there was no point in bothering to try the other doors. Instead, she took a deep breath and stuck the toe of her expensive, beloved shoes into the grill of the truck and hoisted herself up by climbing the massive grate on the front. She kept moving until she was walking precariously on the hood of the truck, high enough to peek into the cab through the windshield.

Still relying on her phone and hoping against hope that no one called and gave her away, Stacy shone the tiny light around the interior of the truck. When it turned up empty, she blew out a breath and climbed back down to the safety of the ground. She was careful not to let her phone illuminate the massacre that must have taken place to her shoes.

She repeated the climbing process on the second truck and the third, but finally hit pay dirt with the fourth truck. Just as she squinted at her phone to try to call Detective Sims again, a flashlight beam lit up around her, causing her to squint into the light. The surprise of it threw her off balance and she lost her footing, only to slide down the sloped of the truck’s hood and land on her rear end. The absence of any pain at falling only confirmed what she already suspected even before she smelled it… she’d landed in manure.

“What the hell are you doin’ climbin’ on my truck?” the old man with the flashlight demanded, shining the light directly in Stacy’s face. She held up a hand to shield her eyes, but the stench was unbearable. She was prevented from answering the question by the sound of approaching sirens.