Wedding Bell Blues Page 10

  She stood aside, and I entered the disaster zone that passed for a living area. Old newspapers, empty beer cans, articles of clothing, stacks of old mail, several large cats and an abundance of cat hair covered every surface and dotted the rug.

  Poor woman. A hubby, six kids, and no one to rake the living room.

  But the clutter paled into insignificance compared to the overwhelming stench of cat pee. No wonder the woman smoked. She needed something to fend off the smell.

  Mrs. Burns swept aside cats and newspapers to clear a spot on the sofa. “Take a load off.”

  I sat gingerly and breathed through my mouth, as I’d learned to do at crime scenes and autopsies where the victim had been dead for a while. I hoped I could learn what I needed in a hurry, before the urine odors saturated my clothes and hair.

  “Are there any additional arrangements you want Sophia’s to make for the reception?” I asked.

  She took a long drag on her cigarette, then exhaled a lungful of smoke. “Like I said, it’s costing too damn much already. Don’t try to heap more expenses on us.”

  “You misunderstand,” I explained hastily. “I’m only here to assure that everything goes smoothly, in the way that you intended.”

  “Holy crap,” she said with scowl, “if this wedding was the way I intended, my Linda wouldn’t be marrying that Baker brat in the first place.”

  “I’m sorry.” I drenched my voice with sympathy. “I didn’t realize there was a problem.”

  “Damn right there’s a problem.” Her eyes flashed with malice. “My Linda’s hot. She could have any man on the planet, but she chose Kevin Baker. God only knows why.”

  I threw her an understanding look. “This Kevin isn’t…acceptable?”

  “He’s an attorney.”

  “You don’t like attorneys?”

  Mrs. Burns shrugged. “He makes good money, and he’s not bad to look at, but Linda could have done better. Could have married wealth and prestige. For a girl with Linda’s looks, that’s what she deserves.”

  “So your family isn’t happy with the pending marriage?”

  Mrs. Burns arched an eyebrow that had been plucked and tortured into a thin line. “You afraid we’ll make trouble?”

  “No, but bad feelings can cause tension.”

  “Don’t worry, lady. My family knows how to behave themselves. We’ve tried talking Linda out of this, but if marrying Kevin is what she wants, we’ll grit our teeth, paint on smiles, and go along with it. And pay the price, which is too damned much in my book.” Her eyebrows lowered and her eyes narrowed. “Can’t promise the same for Kevin’s folks, though. They’ve always been troublemakers.”

  I opened my eyes wide. “Surely you don’t think the groom’s family would create a scene, not at their own son’s wedding?”

  Mrs. Burns stubbed out her cigarette and searched through the clutter on the table beside her until she found a half-full pack and lit another. “No, they probably won’t cause trouble. Not in public, anyway. Not in front of their fancy friends. They’re too status-conscious and holier-than-thou. They’d rather stab us in the back when nobody’s looking.”

  “So even though there are…strained relations between your families, you don’t anticipate any problems?”

  She sucked on the cigarette until I feared she’d inhale it, too, and blew smoke through her nostrils. “This is my daughter’s big day. Kevin’s not our choice. Hell, we can’t stand him or his family, but we’ll do everything to see that Linda’s wedding goes off without a hitch.”

  Without a hitch struck me as an obvious Freudian slip, but I kept a straight face.

  “And you don’t wish to make any changes to the reception plans?” I played my coordinator role to the hilt. “Now is your chance, while there’s still time.”

  She shook her head, then glanced at her watch. “My husband will be back soon. I don’t want to get him started again on how much money this wedding is costing us.”

  I forced a smile. “I understand. Thank you for your time.”

  She showed me to the door, and I hurried outside. After several deep breaths of air that was hot and muggy but untainted by cat urine, I strolled up the front walk of the Baker house next door and rang the bell. While I waited for an answer, I brushed cat hair from my clothes.

  A short, plump woman opened the door. “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Baker?”

  She nodded, a movement that didn’t disturb the neat, slightly bouffant arrangement of her brown hair, and gave a warm but tentative smile. She wore a light blue denim patio dress, its sleeveless yoke embroidered with pale pink flamingos, and matching blue sandals that exposed pearly pink toenails. A touch of blush that matched her flawless lipstick highlighted her apple cheeks, and she emanated a whiff of Chanel No. 5.

  “I’m Margaret, events coordinator at Sophia’s. I’m here to check on details for your son’s wedding reception.”

  Her smile faded to a frown. “There must be some mistake.”

  “Your son Kevin is marrying Linda Burns, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but her family is paying for the reception.” Her mouth formed a moue of distaste before she continued. “Any details would be their responsibility.”

  “Of course.” I began my verbal tap dance. “But as a courtesy, Sophia’s likes to run the arrangements by the groom’s family, to make certain there are no surprises.” Again I brandished the contract with Sophia’s letterhead to authenticate my ruse.

  “How thoughtful of the restaurant,” Mrs. Baker said with a genuine smile. “Come in.”

  I stepped into a living room that looked like the after photo in a makeover of the Burnses’ disaster area next door. Hardwood floors and oak furniture gleamed; sofas and chairs, cushions plumped and welcoming stood free of clutter. An arrangement of fresh flowers graced the coffee table. And the aroma of baking filled the air.

  “Have a seat,” Mrs. Baker said. “I’ll be right with you as soon as I take the cookies out of the oven.”

  The woman, whose role models were obviously June Cleaver and Donna Reed, made me feel as if I’d stepped into a time machine and been transported to the 1950s. But a smoothly run household and flawless grooming didn’t mean Mrs. Baker couldn’t cause trouble. My mother and Caroline were living proof.

  While Mrs. Baker was in her kitchen, I studied a row of family photographs, arranged in silver frames along the mantel.

  “Those are my children,” she said when she returned. She picked up the frame on the far left and handed it to me. “That’s Kevin, my oldest.”

  “He’s very handsome.” I wasn’t just making conversation. The kid could have been a movie star. Not the too-pretty male-model type, but a man’s man, handsome with a hint of ruthlessness in the strong angle of his jaw.

  I handed her the photo and she replaced it at the proper angle beside the others. When she turned back toward me, her brown eyes swam with unshed tears. “I can’t believe my baby is getting married.”

  Her baby had to be going on thirty. “You’re not losing a son. You’re gaining a daughter.”

  Her glossy lips set in a hard, thin line. “I wouldn’t call Linda Burns a daughter.”

  I made a sympathetic noise.

  As I’d hoped, Mrs. Burns kept talking. “She’s not a nice girl.” As if suddenly realizing what she’d said, she clamped a hand over her mouth, then dropped it to her side and shrugged. “But she’s Kevin’s choice. That’s all that matters,” she added with strained enthusiasm.

  I handed her the copy of the reception-dinner contract. “Would you look over this, please?”

  She skimmed through the menu and other details, pausing here and there with a tsk-tsking noise. With a sigh, she returned the papers. “Not the selections I would have made, but then I’m not paying the bill.”

  “May I be blunt?” I asked.

  She looked startled, but nodded. “Please.”

  “We’ve heard at Sophia’s that there is…tension between your family and the Burnses.
Is there any reason to expect problems at the reception?”

  Mrs. Baker shook her head and smiled. “Our children squabbled when they were younger, but they’re all adults now. And mine, at least, know how to behave, especially in public.” She preened with maternal pride. “We can tolerate the Burnses long enough to see Kevin married. Especially since he’s so much in love. None of us want to spoil his happiness.”

  I pushed to my feet. “I’ve taken too much of your time.”

  “My pleasure,” she said. “Won’t you stay and have some cookies and iced tea?”

  The freshly baked cookies smelled wonderful. And fattening. “Thanks, but I should get back to work.”

  I returned to my car and drove away. Hard feelings obviously ran deep between the two families, but both mothers had expressed a desire to suppress them to insure their children’s happiness. I could only hope, for Antonio’s sake, that their good intentions didn’t pave the road to the reception from hell.

  CHAPTER 13

  Bill showed up at my condo an hour early to take me to the Adlers’.

  I greeted him with a kiss. “The cookout’s not until six, right?”

  “Yes, but I missed you.”

  “That’s always good to hear.” I snuggled into his embrace.

  Without a doubt, Bill was good for me. In my years as a cop, I’d allowed work to preempt my life, consuming my waking hours, isolating me from family and friends. I’d always had too many open cases and not enough time. In the process, I’d neglected to relax, have fun and luxuriate in doing nothing. Bill had warned me that if our upcoming marriage was to succeed, I’d have to learn new habits. Set in my workaholic ways, I was trying to reform. So instead of asking about his interview with Hector Morales, I offered Bill a beer.

  “You actually have something consumable in your refrigerator?” he responded in surprise.

  “At least a beer.” I hoped. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d looked.

  “Sure, I’ll have one.”

  I grabbed a Michelob and a Diet Coke from the otherwise empty fridge and followed him into the living room. We sat on the rattan sofa opposite the sliding glass doors that overlooked St. Joseph Sound where the channel was filled with boats returning to dock after a Saturday on the Gulf of Mexico.

  Bill sipped his beer and glanced around the room. “Have you thought about how much of this furniture you want to keep?”

  Bill had always teased me about my taste in decorating, calling it typical Florida-hotel style, but I loved the cool tropical blues and greens and the airy wicker and rattan. Mostly, I had to admit, I liked the status quo, and the thought of chucking belongings that had been with me for more than a dozen years made me slightly queasy.

  “No,” I said. “What’s the hurry? We’re not moving into the new house until after the wedding.”

  “No hurry, but you might want to start thinking about it. Maybe next week we can drive over to Plant City and pick out furniture from my folks’ house that we’ll want to keep. They had quite a few mission-style Stickley pieces that will look great in our new place. But only if you want them.”

  What I wanted was the way things were. Not because I didn’t love Bill, but because, under the current circumstances, he loved me and we got along just fine. I didn’t want to do anything that would damage that balance. Luckily, Bill had agreed on a long engagement to give me time to get used to the idea of marriage and a shift in lifelong habits.

  He was watching, waiting for an answer, his head cocked slightly to one side, with the crooked smile that quirked the corners of his mouth, and a sparkle in those baby blues that made my heart melt. God, I didn’t want to screw things up, but my track record with relationships, from my mother and sister to my former chief, was not reassuring.

  “We’ll check out the Stickley,” I said, diving blindly into the unfamiliar, but adding quickly, “only if we can take time from the case.”

  I’d been sabotaged by my insecurities. What I’d wanted to say was that I’d go anywhere with him, do anything he wished, any time, but I’d fallen back into the safety of the rut of work.

  A frown flickered briefly across that face I loved so much before he smiled again and nodded. “Alicia Langston is counting on us.”

  I’d opened the door, stumbled back into old habits, and didn’t have the sense or courage to back off. “So, what did you find out from Morales this afternoon?”

  “Not much that will be helpful unless we can get our hands on the roster of Grove Spirit House’s clients. In the months he’s worked there, Hector told me that hundreds of people, mostly women, have taken the Ashtons’ seminars, some attending only for an afternoon, others staying weeks or more.”

  “Did he recall any of them causing problems?”

  Bill shook his head.

  “Arguments between Willard and Celeste?”

  “Nada. He did mention that in the past few months Celeste has left the compound for a few nights every week to visit her mother.”

  “Trouble in paradise?” I asked.

  Bill shrugged. “Hector didn’t know. He was only there a few hours a week, and, according to him, their usual behavior was loco, so how could he tell if they were having problems?”

  Hector made a good point. “Had he seen the bald Hispanic guy with the scar who Garth ran into?”

  “No, and he knew of no one who fits that description who lives in the area.”

  “Maybe the guy wasn’t Hispanic,” I said. “Maybe he spoke Spanish to conceal his identity.”

  “If there really was an intruder.”

  “You think Garth lied?”

  Bill wiped condensation from his beer bottle against the leg of his cargo shorts. “Swinburn seems like a good kid, but we’ve known plenty of good people pushed off the deep end by extraordinary circumstances. No man likes the humiliation of being dumped. We have to consider the possibility that Garth could be covering something.”

  I nodded. Until we had incontrovertible proof of guilt, everyone was a suspect, from Garth to Celeste to Morales, and even Alicia, our client. But our investigation had hit a wall. Unless Adler had run across something in his crime databases, so far we had nothing concrete to offer Terry Pender for Alicia’s defense.

  “What’s the verdict on the Hatfields and McCoys?” Bill asked.

  I described my visits with Mrs. Burns and Mrs. Baker. “I think we can handle them, if Adler and Mackley help, and if we have a contingency plan in case of trouble.”

  “No signs of all-out war?”

  “The families’ dislike of one another was obvious in my conversations with the matriarchs. But most of their kids are adults now. We can only hope that with maturity, they’ve learned some self-control.”

  “Hell, Margaret, if chronological maturity equaled self-control, cops would be out of a job.”

  Unable to argue with that wisdom, I went to feed Roger, who was already in the kitchen, turning circles by his food dish.

  Bill parked his SUV in front of Adler’s house. I climbed out and released Roger from the backseat. The pooch, who had been here before, stopped only once to lift his leg on a clump of the liriope that lined the sidewalk before making a beeline to the front porch.

  The Adler house, pale gray clapboards with gleaming black shutters, was small but big on charm and warmth. The curving brick walk led to a welcoming farmhouse porch filled with rocking chairs, a swing and pots of bright red geraniums. More than a residence, it had home written all over it. Its appeal, along with our fondness for the Adlers, had prompted our earlier search in this same neighborhood for our own home, which we had found just a couple of blocks away.

  Jessica, fast approaching her second birthday, waited on the porch with her mother. Roger bounded up the steps in his funny drunken-sailor gait, ran straight for the toddler and swiped her face with his tongue.

  With giggles of delight, Jessica sat with a thud and grabbed Roger by the ears. “Woger tickle!”

  Jessica and Roger had played
before, but afraid he might nip her in his excitement, I picked him up and tucked him under my arm. Sharon lifted Jessica.

  “Good to see you guys,” she said. “Glad you could come. Dave’s out back at the grill.”

  Sharon, petite and pretty with green eyes and dark brown hair, waved us inside to the family room. I noted that her pregnancy had barely begun to show beneath the loose T-shirt she wore over her shorts.

  “We could sit on the deck,” she offered, “but it’s steaming hot out there, even in the shade.”

  “In here is fine,” Bill said.

  I settled on the sofa; Jessica scrambled up beside me, and Roger, lured by the scent of cooking, pressed his smushed-in nose against a glass pane in the rear door and drooled.

  Through the wall-to-wall French doors across the back of the family room, I could see Adler at the gas grill, brushing barbecue sauce on chicken. Dressed in shorts, a faded Pelican Bay Police Department T-shirt, and barefooted, he had the good looks of a young soap star. That thick, shaggy hair, those innocent eyes and his fresh-faced charm had lulled people he’d investigated into assuming there was no substance behind his handsome facade, but Adler was one of the best detectives I knew, and the Clearwater PD was lucky to have him. He’d been a great partner, and I missed him.

  Hell, I missed the whole department, even Chief Shelton, who’d made my life miserable every day of the fifteen-plus years I’d served with Pelican Bay. Working as a private investigator with Bill had its own rewards, but it wasn’t, and Bill would be the first to agree with me, the same as being a cop.

  Sharon served iced tea in tall glasses. Outside, Adler adjusted the temperature control on the grill, then joined us.

  “Hey,” he greeted us. “Food’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll toss the salad.” Sharon returned to the kitchen area, separated from the family room by a breakfast bar.

  Jessica crawled from me to Bill, who welcomed her with open arms. She patted Bill’s face with her pudgy hands. “Play horsey,” she demanded.

  He sat her astride his shin and bounced her up and down until she crowed with delight.