Mob Wedding Mayhem (5 page)

“
R
od
, if I needed to know some info on somebody but I didn’t want to tell you why, what are the chances it wouldn’t make its way back to Nathan? Just on a scale of one to bite my ass, I mean,” Stacy asked her detective friend over the phone.

“No can do, Stacy. I know exactly why you’re calling and I’m not buying it. If you go within five miles of this case, I’ll have you locked up for obstruction just to save your skinny butt.”

“Aw, you think I have a skinny butt? I mean, what are you talking about?” she demanded. “I’m not up to anything, and you’d better not have me arrested!”

“If you’re not up to anything—let’s say, anything like investigating the intentional drowning of Joey Trippetto—then why don’t we just sit down for a nice chat with Nathan?”

“Why in the world does everyone keep throwing my husband’s name around? You know, I had a life before I married him, and I still do. I’m not afraid of anybody, least of all him. He, for one, trusts me to make a good choice, unlike some people who are at this very moment standing in my way. I should have you arrested for obstructing a wedding in progress.”

“That’s not a thing, Stacy. It’s not even a pretend thing. Sixth grade girls would think you’re a moron for suggesting it.”

“Be quiet! If you’re not going to help me with the information I want, then you leave me no choice but to get it straight from the source. I’ll be at Mr. D’Argenzio’s office if anyone’s looking for me.” She was about to press end and lay her phone down, but Rod’s frantic but tiny voice burst through her phone’s speaker.

“Stacy! No, wait! Don’t hang up, I’ll help you!”

“Good. You were almost too late, you know,” Stacy reminded him. “One more second and I’d have refused to help you.”

“Help me? Are you high? I’m the one helping you! Helping you not to go walking into something you won’t be able to talk yourself out of, that is,” he retorted angrily, knowing he’d been beaten at his own game. “But why are you doing this? Don’t you have some ladderback chairs to wrap in tulle or little lace baggies of birdseed to wrap? You know, something useful like that?”

“For your information, the brides have requested lattice-back chairs.”

“Are you serious? You’ve got to be kidding. You’re arguing with me over chairs when I’m trying to keep you from jumping right into a known organized crime family’s den of misdeeds?”

“Hey, I don’t have a choice in where they have the reception! If they choose to do it at the country club, that’s not my problem. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this so the wedding can move forward, with or without the guilty parties present. Understood? Nabbing the bad guys is your problem, filling little lace baggies with birdseed is my problem, remember?” Stacy’s tone dared him to argue, but Rod had known her long enough that he was immune to the intimidation.

“And I’m trying to tell you that if you don’t back off, you’re going to have both the entire D’Argenzio crime syndicate and my chief of police breathing down your neck. It’s going to be a race to see who gets to you first!”

Stacy was stunned into silence. It hadn’t crossed her mind that she could end up as a target in all of this, even after her first unfortunate meeting with the father of the bride. It wasn’t her fault he’d thought she had arrived to bring some other kind of contracts for him. But now she only wanted to find out who the dead boyfriend was and how he figured into all this before the family could be implicated, thereby cancelling the wedding.

“Just meet me at the golf course in an hour, okay?” Stacy said, trying really hard not to whine. She was feeling faint from exhaustion, and the sudden rush of heat that flooded her weary body made her break out in a light sweat across her forehead. She grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk and blotted her face, being careful of her makeup.

An hour later, Stacy waited behind the wheel of her sporty little car for the nondescript yet still somehow ugly car that all detectives seemed to drive. Instead, the sound of approaching tires behind her car made her look up. Instead of a dark blue Crown Victoria, the Corvette Rod had given Nathan rolled up behind her, so close to her car that she wondered if he was crazy enough to scratch the paint on both of their favorite cars.

“Soooo… whatcha doin’?” Nathan asked in a slow, sing-song voice as he got in the passenger seat of her car. He turned to her with a patient grin on his face, even though under the surface Stacy knew he was anything but happy.

“Nothing much, actually. I’m just waiting to meet a friend. And you?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Stacy. Rod called me—”

“That jerk! Who does he think he is, tattling on me like I’m cheating off his test paper? And to my husband, no less!” Stacy batted her eyelashes and clasped her hands together in front of her chest in a mockery of the damsel in distress look. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here, sweetie, maybe you can save me from this big scary car that I’m too meek and stupid to drive!”

“Now hold on just a minute! It wasn’t like that, but you’re not even going to let me explain before you go flying off the handle and acting like all the men in your life are out to oppress you somehow. As if we could even get by with it if we wanted to!” Nathan gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, turning away from Stacy to look out the window. The last thing he wanted to do was say something he’d regret later. “Rod called me because he got called away to a case and he knew you were expecting him here. He was afraid you’d go on inside and start digging around by yourself, fully expecting him to back you up. Since he’s not coming, he called me.”

“Oh,” Stacy answered quietly after a morbidly embarrassing pause.

“Yeah, ‘oh’ is right. He was looking out for you. And you know what? So am I! That’s why I’m here. But you’re just determined to make me into some kind of chauvinistic ‘lord and master’ over my household. Why are you so afraid of having a great marriage, and of trusting me enough to be your best friend?”

“I’m not—” she began, looking down at her hands twisted in her lap and letting her voice trail off.

“Yes, you are. Look, I know you were single for a long time, and I know you’ve had to take charge of your own life and your career. You’ve been running this company—my company, to be exact—for ages, and it’s got to be hard to let go of some of that control. But Stacy… I’ve never once treated you as anything other than your own person. Our marriage isn’t gonna survive if you can’t get it through your head that I’m not here to rule over you. I chased you for years before you agreed to marry me, and I did it because I love you. But ever since we got married you’ve been acting like I’m gonna turn the tables and become some kind of controlling jerk just because I managed to trap you into saying ‘I do.’ It’s not like that, so why are you determined to act like it is?”

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “Does it help at all that you’re one hundred percent right, and that I’m really sorry?”

“I’d love to crack a joke right now, but I don’t have anything. You’ve got to cut me some slack, and at least wait for me to do something piggish before you treat me like this.” He reached over and took her hand, but when Stacy looked into his eyes they were the saddest she’d ever seen them. Nathan cleared his throat, and the sound of him covering up his emotions almost destroyed her. “Now why don’t you start by telling me why you’re here? You’ve got the contracts already and this isn’t your first nuptial rodeo at the country club, so you can’t possibly need to get a look at the venue.”

Stacy opened her mouth to make a casual, off-the-cuff remark, but decided to try trusting Nathan instead, if for no other reason than to test the limits of the loving support he’d just bragged about.

“I’m going to go look through the offices in order to find out who this dead guy in the pond was, and if anybody really got killed the other day, only mere seconds before my meeting with Mr. D’Argenzio.”

It was Nathan’s turn to bite back his words. He pressed his lips together until they mashed into a pale pink line. Somehow he still managed to smile like that.

“What’s wrong, honey? Aren’t you going to say anything?” Stacy asked, knowing full well that she had the upper hand now. “I mean, it’s not like you’d ever tell me what to do or anything, right?”

He shook his head, still smiling despite the audible sound of his teeth grinding in frustration.

“Oh good! So… are you gonna come with, or do you just wanna sit here and watch my purse while I go investigate a possible mob hit?”

Nathan let his head fall back against the seat, finally unclenching his jaw and sighing deeply. He closed his eyes for a moment and Stacy could swear she heard him praying before he reached for the door handle. He still muttered to himself as he climbed out of the car.

“I’m gonna kill you, Rod.”

“
S
o
, where do you want to start, Dick Tracy?” Nathan hissed in her ear. Stacy looked around the dining room, ostensibly counting the tables and eyeing up the space for the dance floor, before cocking her head towards the wall of windows that overlooked the eighteenth hole.

“Over there. Let’s look around the kitchen and see if the chef is here.”

“Why, are you hungry all of a sudden?”

“Actually, smart guy, I’m pretty famished. But no, I’ve known the chef for years. He stayed on when the club was bought, so he might be the first one to talk. After all, he’s known me longer than he’s known the guy who signs his paycheck.”

“Good plan,” Nathan admitted. “Here, give me your phone. I’m gonna be your assistant taking notes to make it look official.”

She handed it over with a word of warning. “Don’t enjoy this too much, we’re not going to repaint the car like the Mystery Machine and name a dog Scooby.”

“We’re getting a dog? That’s awesome!” he answered excitedly. “I didn’t want to bring it up because I know it’s right at the beginning of the wedding season, but I’ve been looking at some dogs on the animal shelter’s website. They have this one dog, a black Lab, and it’s—”

“Hey, sweetie? Interviewing a man about a dead guy, remember? And no, I’m not ready to talk about dogs. You know you’ll end up sticking me with feeding it and watering it and walking it…”

“I would not!” he insisted under his breath, but stopped when they reached the swinging door to the kitchen. The two of them peered through the round window to see if anyone was inside before pushing through the door.

“Chef Ramirez!” Stacy cried, holding out both hands to the surprisingly young, good looking man as she walked through the labyrinth of gleaming metal countertops and rolling racks filled with dishes. He looked up and immediately reached for a bar towel to wipe the flour from his hands.

“Stacy! How are you, darling? You haven’t been here in ages!” He took her hands and kissed both her cheeks, a throwback to his culinary training in France more than his Mexican heritage.

“I know, we just haven’t had anything on the agenda that’s brought us this way, at least not in the last few months. Jorge, have you met my husband, Nathan?” she asked, turning and pulling Nathan forward by the elbow. The two men shook hands, and she saw Nathan wince under Jorge’s firm grip.

“You got married? Tell me it’s not true! I’ve been saving myself for you for all these years!” Jorge cried out before winking at Stacy.

“Please don’t let Miguel hear you say that, especially with all these sharp knives around,” she answered. Nathan visibly relaxed, and Stacy stifled a laugh at what would have been jealousy. Her expression turned serious as she spoke, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. “Listen, I need your help. I’m not actually here for planning purposes. I need to know… about the boss.”

Jorge stiffened, his back becoming straight. He squared his shoulders and his facial expression told her that he clearly had nothing to say on the subject. His body language was almost all the communication he needed to make his point, but he spoke out loud anyway. “I don’t have anything to say. And the kitchen is closed to everyone but country club staff.”

He pointed to the door briefly, then turned on his heels and walked back towards the dishwashing area, moving his arms and practically scooping up the other members of the kitchen staff to go with him. Stacy and Nathan were left isolated and confused, and had no choice but to head back to the dining room.

“That was beyond weird,” Nathan said. “So much for doing your own sleuthing using your connections. If that guy’s an old friend, I can’t wait to see how you approach a random groundskeeper.”

Stacy was about to fire off a retort but her phone buzzed in Nathan’s hand. She plucked it out of his fingers and turned it around to read a text from Jorge:

Sorry, caridad, I explain later. Miguel and I come to your house tonight for dinner. I bring shrimp and grits!

“Well, not only has my sleuthing paid off in information, we’re getting dinner out of it, too,” she said, shooting Nathan a triumphant look.

“Oh my god, tell me it’s the shrimp and grits! Please say he’s bring shrimp and grits!” he answered, swallowing loudly to avoid drooling on himself.

Half an hour later, the two of them were zipping over the cart path in a golf cart borrowed from the pro shop on the pretense of calculating how many strings of lighting would be needed for the outdoor reception. Nathan carried the tape measure from Stacy’s handbag this time, and they even stretched it between them as they walked around the grounds and talked.

“Okay, this is where the body was floating,” Stacy said, using her pencil to point in the direction of the pond. She stretched out the tape measure again and walked away from Nathan, then pretended to take note of the distance and recorded it in her notebook. She walked back towards him, cranking the metal handle on the casing as she walked. “Take a look at the landscape. Does it look off to you?”

“Off how? Like is there a bloody trail where a sad, spurned boyfriend got dragged in?”

“No! I don’t know what I mean, I just mean that there should be some sign of how he was dumped in, right?”

Nathan scanned the area all around them, pausing from time to time to also type in his phone as though taking notes. He looked out over the fairways and looked towards the tree line before letting his eyes rove the golf cart path all around them.

“Okay, when I play golf, I follow this path around the water hazard because I tend to hit the ball a little to the right. If you look at the way the grass wears down a little to the side, you can tell that most golfers here do, too. But look up at that slope. The grass is torn up a little bit in two tracks, just like a golf cart rode over the fairway.”

“Okay? I thought you guys could go anywhere except where the signs are posted,” Stacy said, trying to follow his logic.

“Right. But also look at how the grass stayed mushed down right in that one spot. It looks like there was a vehicle parked there, and that it stayed for a while.” Nathan wanted to walk over and take a look, but he couldn’t risk being seen standing in what could possibly be the scene of a brutal killing. “Here’s my theory… they brought the boyfriend out here in a golf cart—alive or dead, it doesn’t matter—and then carried him to the pond and threw him in.”

“But where did they get the rocks for his pockets?”

“The golf cart parking area where you return your cart. It’s got limestone gravel covering the lot to keep runaway carts from rolling too far. They put it in last year when the high school summer hires let some carts get away from them.”

“Look at the ground again, just on the other side of the pond,” Stacy said in a near whisper, coming over to Nathan and holding out her notebook for him to pretend to consult. “See the patches in the grass? Doesn’t it look like the four tire prints of a golf cart?”

“Yeah, it does. But they’re wider than golf cart tires.”

“You mean like one of those four-wheelers that hunters use?”

“Or one of those gator trucks like we use for moving equipment around at an event. But either of those would make a ton of noise.” Nathan looked up the hill and squinted briefly, shading his eyes from both the sun and from anyone who happened to be watching them. “I’ve got it! It’s not a wider track, it’s… something else.”

He took a quick look around to see if anyone had come near them, then darted across the small bridge until he was standing on the other side of the pond, directly across from Stacy. For the first time since this entire mess began, she felt actual fear, and not just for herself but for someone she loved more than her own life.

He was only gone a minute before he raced back to her. Instead of saying anything he got behind the wheel of their golf cart and motioned for her to get in.

“That’s what I thought,” he said breathlessly after putting some distance between them and the fourth hole. “The tire tracks are wider in that spot because the cart was moving around, side to side or something, and digging into the wet grass.”

“Wet? But it hasn’t rained in at least three weeks.”

“No, but they turn the sprinklers on to water the fairways. We just need to find out what time that sprinkler comes on and we’ll know roughly when they were there. The cart was probably moving around because the dead guy wasn’t dead.”

“What?! That’s horrible!” Stacy cried before remembering they were trying to keep a low profile.

“I know. They probably struggled in the cart when he figured out that something wasn’t right. Then they held his head under water until he stopped fighting, and then filled his pockets with the rocks to keep him from floating up. But with those old-style golf pants on, the rocks might have slipped out of the slanted pockets.”

He rolled to a stop at the club house and turned to Stacy, reaching towards her and brushing thick strand of her hair out of her face. “Who else do you know who can answer some questions?”

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I thought I knew Jorge, didn’t I? If that’s how he reacted, I hate to see what will happen if I go asking any of the other regulars about the owner. I’m not sure I’d get any answer at all, let alone a truthful one.”

“Then I hate to say it, but it’s time to talk to the bride… alone.”