Terror in Taffeta (18 page)

I clenched my fists at my sides while choking back a string of expletives. She had to be kidding me!
Breathe, just breathe
. Closing my eyes, I silently counted to five. I had bad news to deliver, and screaming at my client wasn't going to make it any easier.

“Mrs. Abernathy, I'm doing everything I can for you. Rest assured, you have my full attention. Just think of it as something I did on my lunch break. Anyway, we went to the church to find Father Villarreal, only he wasn't there.”

“That reminds me,” said Nicole. “We should really send him a thank-you note.”

“Yes, dear, you really must. Just because you're married now doesn't mean you can forget your manners.”

Brody and I exchanged a quick look. “I don't think that will be necessary,” I said.

“Of course it's necessary,” said Mrs. Abernathy, staring at me in disbelief. “We're not going to be gauche.”

“You can certainly write it,” I said, “but he won't be able to read it.” They stared at me quizzically, trying to figure out if it was some sort of riddle. “Father Villarreal is dead.”

That got their attention. There was a shocked silence as they absorbed the news. Kirk hadn't known him, but even he looked a little shaken.

“I'm sorry to have to tell you all. The police are looking into it.”

Nicole's eyes welled up with tears. “Why does everyone around me keep dying?”

I knew exactly how she felt.

*   *   *

I had planned on attending Father Villarreal's funeral, but what I hadn't planned on was arriving with an entourage. As it turned out, Nicole had insisted on coming, and Vince and Mrs. Abernathy wanted to pay their respects, too. Although we'd only known him briefly, Father Villarreal had played an important role in Nicole and Vince's lives. In fact, marrying the two of them had probably been his last official act before he died.

I only hoped it wasn't the
reason
he had died.

We arrived early and filed into the church, following a procession of people down the center aisle toward the casket, which was draped with a blanket of gladioluses and surrounded by enough candles to light the room on their own. One by one, the mourners stopped and said a quick prayer.

I wondered if I might be able to learn more about how Father Villarreal had died, and tried eavesdropping as we inched our way slowly past the packed pews. My Spanish wasn't good enough to catch anything other than an occasional noun, and I quickly realized that I didn't even know the word for “murder,” much less any of the terms for the various ways a person could die. I wondered if it would be rude to whip out my phone and open up my Spanish-English translation app. Probably.

Nicole and Vince were in front of me, and as we got closer to the front of the room, I heard her let out an audible gasp. She turned and grabbed my arm, her face white as a ghost.

“Nicole,” I said, “what is it?”

She pointed mutely to the open casket, where the priest's body lay peacefully, his hands folded over his chest, holding a rosary. Had she not expected an open casket? The sight of him must have been too much for her. I put my arm around her reassuringly. “It's all right, Nicole,” I whispered. “You can do this.”

Vince was nudging me in the shoulder, trying to get my attention. “What?” I said, allowing a little bit of irritation to creep into my voice. If anyone should be comforting his wife, it should be him.

“Kelsey,” he whispered, his voice tense. He pointed at the casket. “Who the hell is that?”

I stood on tiptoe and leaned to one side so I could get a better glimpse of the gray-haired man in the casket, who looked particularly unlike the man we were here to say good-bye to.

I shook my head as my voice caught in my throat. I looked at the couple, my eyes wide.

“I have no idea.”

 

CHAPTER 18

This could not be happening. I felt the blood rushing to my face, making my cheeks hot as I looked at Nicole and Vince. Mrs. Abernathy was a few seconds behind, but she quickly caught on.

“Who is that man?” Mrs. Abernathy hissed, grabbing me by the arm and squeezing harder than was entirely necessary.

“I don't know,” I said, my mind a complete blank. The three of them stared at me expectantly, waiting for answers, but I had none. The man in the coffin was a good twenty years older than Father Villarreal, and nowhere near as handsome; I could see that, now that we were right in front of him. I wanted to run out the church doors and into hiding, but since we were still standing in the front of the church with a couple hundred mourners looking on, I did the only appropriate thing there was to do: I pretended to pray.

I dropped down onto the kneeler and closed my eyes, my brain frantically trying to put together the pieces.
Who is that man in the coffin?

The answer was actually fairly obvious. It was Father Villarreal. After all, it was his memorial service, at his church. If there had been some crazy mix-up at the morgue, someone would have noticed by now.

But that brought up an even more important question:
If that's Father Villarreal, then who was that man who married Vince and Nicole?

I knew if I waited for an answer, I'd be kneeling there all day, so I whispered a quick “amen” and got up to make room for the next mourner. A church attendant helpfully gestured to some empty seats in a nearby pew, squashing my plans for escape. Not wanting to disrespect the dead man, we dutifully filed into the wooden bench and sat in stunned silence as the service began.

We stood as the priest led everyone in a prayer in Spanish. We sat while he continued to speak. We knelt when everyone else knelt, but for the most part, the service was lost on us. We were attending the funeral of a man we'd never met, which was being performed in a language we didn't speak.

A woman came to the front of the church and started singing a slow, mournful tune, and Nicole let out a loud sniff from two seats down. She'd been holding back her tears ever since our discovery, and something about the song released the flood. The tears started slowly at first, then built to gentle sobs. An elderly woman sitting on the other side of Nicole offered her a handkerchief and patted her hand reassuringly, thinking Nicole was a loyal congregant in mourning.

Mrs. Abernathy, of course, was shooting daggers at me with her eyes. I was glad the funeral gave me a chance to prepare for the confrontation that was sure to come. Even if it was just delaying the inevitable, it allowed me a few minutes to figure out what I was going to say.

There had to be some simple explanation, some sort of miscommunication caused by the language barrier. Maybe there were two Father Villarreals. A father and son? That didn't make sense; priests don't have kids. A nephew who'd been inspired by his uncle to go into the clergy? I scanned the room to see if our guy was among the congregation. Mrs. Abernathy gave me a sharp elbow to the ribs. “Sit still,” she hissed. “This is bad enough already.”

I slunk down into my seat, wishing I could disappear.

After what felt like hours, the funeral was over and everyone slowly started making their way to the back of the church. I started to get up, but the others were frozen in their seats. Mrs. Abernathy sat on one side of me, Vince and Nicole on the other. I was surrounded.

“Kelsey,” Mrs. Abernathy began, exhibiting an eerie calm that was more terrifying than if she'd just begun yelling right off the bat. “What have you done?”

“Let's just stay calm,” I said. “I'm sure there's some explanation.”

“Who was that man?” Nicole asked, her voice frantic.

“That
man,
” said Mrs. Abernathy, “is Father Villarreal. It says so right here on the remembrance card. The real question is, who performed my daughter's wedding ceremony?”

“He—you—I…” I stammered. I was doing fine with pronouns, but I couldn't seem to get any nouns or verbs to come out. I shook my head vigorously to release more words from my head to my mouth. “I don't know!”

“Oh my God!” cried Nicole. “We were married by an impostor!”

“Now, let's not jump to any conclusions,” I said. “Maybe there are two Father Villarreals.”

“And my honeymoon!” Nicole wailed, ignoring my lukewarm reassurances. “I can't go on a honeymoon if I'm not even married.”

You can't go on your honeymoon anyway
.

“Look, let me see what I can find out. I'm sure there's a simple explanation,” I said. “Why don't you guys head back to the villa and get some lunch, and I'll talk to someone at the church.”

Mrs. Abernathy gathered her things to go. “I suppose if that's the best you can do, we'll just go eat some
more
Mexican food and pretend everything's hunky-dory.” With that, she departed in a huff.

Vince gave me an uncomfortable smile. “Thanks, Kelsey. Let us know what you find out.”

“Thanks, guys. I really am sorry about this. You deserve better.”

“It's not your fault,” Vince said.

“Yeah, there's no way you could have known,” said Nicole.

But I could have. And I should have. And now in addition to finding a murderer, I had another mystery to solve. I had no doubt Mrs. Abernathy would ruin me if I didn't make this right.

As we were leaving, I saw the woman I'd talked to the day before snuffing out candles in the front of the sanctuary. Hoping to catch her before she left for the burial, I excused myself and hurried to the front of the church.

“Excuse me?” I said. “Remember me? From yesterday?”

She nodded. “The one who wanted to get married.”

Close enough.

“My name is Kelsey. Beautiful service, by the way. I know this is bad timing, but can I ask you a question?”

She glanced toward the door and looked at her watch. “I'm supposed to be leaving for the cemetery.”

“I'm sorry, I know. I'll be quick.” She nodded in agreement as she continued extinguishing the candles, leaving acrid smoke behind. Now that I had her attention, I wasn't sure where to begin.

“The man in the coffin—”

She nodded. “Father Villarreal.”

“That's just it. Are you sure it was him?” I hadn't meant to blurt it out like that. She was going to think I was nuts. Besides, I already knew the answer. If it weren't him, one of the couple hundred other people attending the funeral would have mentioned something. She furrowed her brow and nodded again, naturally puzzled by my question. “Of course it was him. He's been with this church for years.”

“Okay, sorry. Let me start over. Remember yesterday when I said Father Villarreal had performed my friend's wedding? Well, it turns out it wasn't him.”

She looked confused. “Then why did you come to his funeral?”

“We
thought
it was him, but it wasn't, and now we have to figure out who our priest was. Are there two Father Villarreals?”

She stared at me and shook her head. “No, there is only one.”

“He doesn't have another family member who is also a priest? Maybe a brother or a nephew or something?”

“I'm sorry, no. It is just him. Perhaps you got the name wrong.”

I was sure I hadn't. I had made the arrangements myself, and I vividly remembered being relieved when Father Villarreal agreed to step in after our original plans fell through.

“I'm sure that was the name I was given. He was supposed to fill in for Father Delgado.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, Father Delgado—are you talking about the wedding that was this past weekend?”

“Yes, in the chapel at the Instituto Allende.”

“I remember it,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “It was on his calendar, but then they called and canceled.”

“They what? No, that's not right. I would have been the one to call, and I definitely didn't.” I was pretty sure I would have remembered something like that.

“We thought you must have found someone else.”

“We were expecting Father Villarreal, and in fact someone showed up and introduced himself as Father Villarreal.”

“I don't know what to tell you,” she said, looking as uncomfortable with my questions as I was feeling. “It wasn't him.”

“And there's no chance he sent someone else in his place?”

“No, as I told you, it was canceled, so there was no need.” She snuffed the last candle out and turned to me. “Is there anything else?”

There was so much else but, unfortunately, nothing she was going to be able to help me with.

“No, thank you for your time.”

I retreated back up the aisle, thoroughly confused. Someone had called Father Villarreal and told him not to come? How could that be? I couldn't fathom why someone would cancel on our behalf and then show up pretending to be Father Villarreal, if that was what had happened. Was it a misunderstanding, or was the man who'd performed the ceremony an impostor?

Either way, not knowing was bad. Really bad. I had no idea what to do. I couldn't go back to the villa without answers. Nicole and Mrs. Abernathy would bombard me with questions, and this time I wasn't going to be able to get out of it by saying, “I don't know, I'm just the wedding planner.” As much as I'd protested that solving a murder wasn't part of my job description, finding out who had crashed their wedding—and performed the ceremony, while he was at it—definitely was within my jurisdiction.

I dug my phone out of my bag and dialed Brody. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” I chanted under my breath. I had promised to call after the funeral and was relieved when he answered on the third ring.

“Hi, it's me,” I said. “Can you come meet me? The funeral was a mess and I have to talk to you, but not there at the villa.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Yes, of course. I'd be happy to give you a bid on that,” he responded cryptically, a strangely formal tone in his voice.