The Walleld Flower (13 page)

On the way to Gilda’s Gourmet Baskets, Katie dropped the pizza off at her car, and then hoofed it across Victoria Square’s parking lot. As Andy had said, there was a light on inside the shop. With her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, Gilda sat at the sales counter, gazing down at what looked like paperwork. Katie pounded on the door, and Gilda looked up, delight soon replacing her wary expression. She hurried to unlock the door.

“Just the person I wanted to talk to,” Gilda said, and ushered Katie inside her shop.

Katie loved the heady aromas that mingled inside the shop. Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and the background scent of the many varied baskets themselves. “I bumped into Sue Sweeney. She mentioned something about a bachelorette party.”

Gilda’s smile broadened. “Because there’s not much time before the wedding, I thought we could combine the bridal shower and the bachelorette party into one event. Won’t that be fun?”

“Bridal shower?” Katie asked, warily. She hadn’t even thought far enough into the future to consider buying Gilda a wedding gift, let alone one for a shower.

“Yes. One of the duties of the maid or matron of honor is to set up the bridal shower. I’m registered at the Bon-Ton, Lord and Taylor, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and—”

“Stop, stop, stop!” Katie ordered. The panic was back. “Don’t you think it’s a little late to be planning all of this? I mean, doesn’t stuff like this need to be done well in advance?”

Gilda giggled. “Usually. But this wedding is all such a spur-of-the-moment thing. And it
is
my first time at the altar. Don’t you think I deserve the wedding of my dreams?”

Katie had been married only once, too, but she and Chad had gone to city hall, and the judge’s clerk had been their only witness. She hadn’t had the dress, the cake, or any of the pomp and circumstance.

“Gilda,” she began, trying to keep her voice level. “You definitely
should
have the wedding of your dreams. But it takes a lot of time and, quite frankly, I don’t think I’m up to the task to provide it.”

Gilda’s expression fell. “But you promised you’d be my matron of honor.”

“I’m happy to stand up with you, it’s just the rest of it I can’t—”

Gilda’s mouth began to tremble, and a single tear rolled down her left cheek. She sniffed. “This is supposed to be the happiest day of my life.”

Katie wasn’t sure what to say. She started to stammer. “Th-th-this is all so last minute… I wasn’t prepared for…”

“Don’t
you
want me to be happy on
my
wedding day?” Gilda asked.

“Of course I do, it’s just—”

A tear dribbled down Gilda’s other cheek.

“I’ll do my best,” Katie said with resignation. If worse came to worst and she didn’t find a new apartment, she could always sleep in her car. It would be a little tight with two cats and their litter boxes, but Gilda would have her dream wedding day.

Gilda brightened, wiping a hand across her eyes before handing Katie a piece of paper. “Here’s the list of wedding guests. Of course, you’ll only want to invite the ladies to the bachelorette party. It’s up to Conrad to figure out what he wants to do about the bachelor party.” She giggled like a schoolgirl.

Katie scanned the list. There couldn’t have been more than twenty or so people on the list, and many of them were members of the Merchants Association. Hopefully that would make the preparations easier.

“Now, I was thinking it would be nice to host a tea rather than an actual bachelorette party. Too bad the Square’s tearoom won’t be open until after the wedding—at least that’s
the rumor that’s going around. I’m sure we could hold it at Del’s Diner, but it’s not very… oh, I don’t know… girlie, is it.”

Gilda was nearly sixty and she wanted a girlie party? Katie would’ve thought a “Red Hat” gathering might have suited better, considering the average age of the wedding guests qualified them as baby boomers.

“What’s your budget?” Katie asked.

“
My
budget?” Gilda echoed, sounding surprised. She shook her head. “Oh, no, no. This is the matron of honor’s
obligation
. Look here.” She turned back for the sales counter, fished among the scattered documents, and came up with a piece of paper she handed to Katie, whose eyes nearly popped when she read the centered headline: Official Duties of a Bridesmaid. A long list of dos and don’ts followed. A
very
long list.

“Now, there’s not much time,” Gilda said, and gently pushed Katie toward the door. “Give me a call when things are set up so I’ll know where to arrive. And don’t forget to mention the registry on the invitations. I’ve added that information to the end of the list.”

“But—”

“I’ve got tons of work to get done before next Saturday. Keep me posted,” Gilda said, and closed the door on Katie. She turned and watched as Gilda went back to her sales desk, climbed back on her stool, and replaced her glasses on her nose.

Katie’s fist closed around the list, wrinkling the paper. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to wad it into a very tiny ball and throw it away.

You agreed to be her matron of honor,
a little voice inside her taunted.

She just hadn’t known that Gilda—now forever known to Katie as the over-the-hill bridezilla—meant to work her to death in the process.

By the time Katie returned home, the cheese on her pizza had congealed into a new form of rubber. However, a few minutes in the oven revived it to an edible state and gave her time to search through the boxes marked “Living Room/Desk Drawers” for the phone book she’d packed the week before. As she munched her dinner, batting away the attentions of two cheese-loving cats, she made a list of numbers and started calling around. No one wanted to talk about booking a party on such short notice—and especially not at eight thirty at night. “Call in the morning when the catering manager is here,” seemed to be the mantra of every restaurant hostess she spoke with that evening. She couldn’t say she blamed them.

“It’s not my fault,” she told Mason, who nudged his head against her knee, looking for another handout. She peeled a piece of cheese from the slice and gave it to him. Della demanded the same, and soon all she had left were bald patches of hardening crust.

She read through the list of maid/matron of honor duties
again. Some of them made sense: witness and sign the marriage license, make a toast—wasn’t that the duty of the best man?—and assist the bride with her dress and makeup on the big day. Even that last was pushing it a bit. Well, maybe if the bride was in her early twenties—but Gilda was near sixty.

Why, oh why had she ever agreed to do this? Then she remembered—she hadn’t. Gilda had asked and assumed she’d say yes, plowing on ahead.

And that’s just what Katie needed to do: plow on ahead and start making plans for the bachelorette party. Tossing the pizza box in the recycle bin, she found a pad and piece of paper, sat down on the couch—and immediately became a cat magnet—and started jotting down notes for the party. First up, invitations—or could she skip that part and just e-mail everyone on Gilda’s guest list? Considering the time crunch, that might be the best idea. And maybe she could find a pretty e-invitation online.

Were they going to have to play stupid games—like Bridal Bingo? Katie rolled her eyes, jostling Della, who sat on her lap. The cat retorted with an indignant,
“Brrrrpt!”

“My sentiments exactly.”

Although details of setting up the party were still heavy on her mind, Katie welcomed another bright spring morning. No rain—or snow—made it that much easier to load the back of her Focus with more boxes, before taking off for her appointment.

Arriving at her destination, she glanced at her dashboard clock. Right on time. She double-checked the address on the pad before her. This was definitely the place. A look around the unkempt yard and the piles of trash at the end of the drive did not fill her with confidence. The apartment was empty—ready for immediate occupancy—as the man who’d answered her phone call had said. Judging by the garbage
they’d left behind, it looked like the former tenants had left in a hurry.

Katie got out of the car and walked up the cracked concrete path, taking note of the broken downspout and missing roof shingles, her feelings of misgiving growing exponentially. But she’d promised the landlord she would definitely consider the place. He’d been adamant that she agree before he would schedule the appointment.

She rang the bell and the door was eased open almost immediately. A gray-haired, haggard-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties stood before her, a four-toed cane clutched in one hand, the newspaper tucked under his arm. “Ms. Bonner?”

“Yes. And you must be Mr. Hartsfield.”

“Come in,” he beckoned.

The dark entryway wasn’t at all welcoming. Would this weird-looking guy bop her on the head with his cane, and—

Get a grip,
Katie scolded herself when the man lagged behind, his cane making a crackling sound on the sticky hardwood floor.

“I’m offering the first month free,” Hartsfield said from behind her.

Katie broke through the gloom into a bright but filthy kitchen. She walked to the center of the nearly empty room. The only furniture was a paint-spackled, wooden hard-backed chair, which Hartsfield promptly took. He straightened his right leg, massaging his knee.

“I know it’s a pit.” His tone conveyed more than just weariness—desperation.

“Did you have to evict your last tenants?” Katie asked.

He nodded. “It took me nine months—and the courts—to get rid of those pigs. My sister rented it out while I was in rehab at the VA center in Batavia. Unfortunately, she didn’t bother asking for references.”

Spray-painted epithets did not complement the wallpaper’s columns of dainty roses. A cupboard door hung from
its hinge. Holes had been punched through the drywall at irregular intervals. Bare wires dangled from the ceiling where a light fixture had once been.

“I figured if I offered a month’s free rent”—he caught her gaze and backpedaled—“maybe two—it might be incentive enough for the next tenant to do a little pre-move-in cleanup. Since my accident, I don’t have the stamina to do that kind of work, and I can’t really afford to have it done.”

Katie sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Hartsfield squinted at her. “Bonner. I used to work with a Chad Bonner. He was an English teacher at McKinlay Mill High School.”

“He was my husband.”

“A fine man. I was in the hospital when he had his accident. I’m so sorry.”

“So am I. What did you teach?”

“Math. I spent my whole career at McKinlay Mill High.”

Heather raised an eyebrow. “By any chance did you know Heather Winston?”

He eyed her for what seemed like an eternity before answering. “She was a student of mine. So was Barbie Jackson. It’s hard to believe they’re both now dead.”

“And that the same person probably killed them,” Katie said.

Hartsfield frowned. “I heard Barbie fell.”

“As far as I know, it hasn’t been ruled a homicide—yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. What do you remember about Heather?” Katie asked, recalling Barbie’s gibe of days before.

Hartsfield shrugged. “She was a good student, but she was out sick a lot. She wanted to be a model or something.”

“Was she a popular student?”

He shook his head. “Not like Barbie. The boys used to fight over that little cheerleader. I wasn’t surprised when Barbie had a baby not long after graduation. Her parents threw her out of the house.”

“Do you know where she lived after high school?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

Katie thought about it. Back then there would’ve been fewer apartment complexes in and around the village. Could Barbie have been living in one of the Webster mansion’s apartments? If so, it was no wonder she hadn’t volunteered information that might have implicated her in Heather’s death. She had definitely been frightened on Tuesday night. Less than twelve hours later, she was dead.

Hartsfield cleared his throat and looked around the kitchen. “What do you think?”

Katie sighed. “Is the rest of the apartment in the same shape?”