Engaged in Death (A Wedding Planner Mystery) (20 page)

“It must be hard to move so close to your due date, especially when it’s so hot.”

She moved to clear some space for me to sit.

“Hey, I’ll get that.” I eased a heavy-looking box out of her arms and settled it on the floor.

She’d looked so young at Founder’s Day. Up close, she was about my age, with the start of crow’s-feet etched along her eyes.

“Thanks.” She sat with an oomph. “Actually, this heat isn’t bad. Y’all are softies. Port Quincy’s got nothing on a Houston summer. I’d offer you something, but most of the glasses are packed away.”

“How soon until you move?”

She looked at her swollen belly. “As soon as he’s ready to come out.” She placed her hand protectively over her stomach. Her giant wedding band was gone. “My due date is tomorrow”—she gave a content smile—“but everyone says first-time moms are late. I’ll head back to Texas a few weeks after he’s born.” Her smile waned.
Cut the chitchat, lady
, her glance seemed to say.
What do you want, other than to be a ghoul and relive the moment my husband was killed outside your window?

“I have some questions.”

“About Shane?”

“About who killed him.”

Deanna’s mouth twisted into an approximation of a grim smile. “I should be asking you that since you were there when it happened.”

“But I didn’t hear anything, honest.”

She looked at me for a second, then nodded. “I believe you.” She tried to make herself comfortable on the small patch of couch not holding any boxes, but gave up. “A lot of people in this town have welcomed Lonestar Energy. We’ve brought good jobs. But some folks—”

“Like Naomi Powell.”

“Yes, like Ms. Powell, made unnecessary trouble for my late husband. And others took matters into their own hands, people who weren’t happy with their settlements. Shane got plenty of threats, and they egged this house. But like I told the police, I don’t really have a clue who murdered him.” She stated this wearily, as if resigned to the fact her husband’s killer would never be found.

I swallowed to prepare for the next question.

“Who’s the father of your baby?”

I’d never seen a pregnant woman move so fast. She jumped up and jammed a manicured finger in my face, her whole body shaking. “Show yourself out.”

“So it’s not Shane’s.” I held my ground, although I was quivering inside. “Okay. Maybe the real father killed your late husband?”

“Don’t you dare—” Deanna began, then seemed to think better of it. She narrowed her eyes and changed tactics. “What do you want from me?” She was one cool cucumber; I’d give her that.

“I’m not blackmailing you. I just want to know who bashed in your husband’s skull and left him to die on my front lawn and, better yet, why.”

Deanna’s shoulders gave a barely perceptible shudder at my description of what had happened to her husband. She switched topics back to what was really bothering her. “Who told you about my baby?”

I paused for a minute, not wanting to expose Kayla. This woman made me nervous.

Deanna guessed anyway. “The fertility clinic. I was worried about that. Thank God Shane was a chauvinistic pig, and as soon as we found out I was pregnant, he wanted nothing to do with them. He would never consider that something might be wrong with his plumbing, not mine.” Deanna spat out this last bit, unknowingly echoing Kayla. Her eyes narrowed and she looked off in the distance.

My next observation drew a long pause from Deanna. “You don’t sound too unhappy about your husband being dead.” In fact, she sounded like she had as many grudges against him as everyone else.

“I didn’t kill him, if that’s where you’re going. We had our problems, but I’d never murder my husband.” She sniffed delicately, restored to her prim persona.

I’d gotten more information from her with blunt statements. “You wouldn’t kill him, but you would cheat on him.”

Deanna walked to the French doors overlooking the backyard and rested her hands on the small of her back. The low angle of the sun illuminated her profile. Her shoulders were tense, and a cord twanged in her neck. She turned back to me with tears quivering at the ends of her thick Kewpie lashes. “We tried for seven years. It took all that time for Shane to even consider testing. Do you know how much stress that can put on a marriage, all the charts and waking up to take your temperature? Especially when you have to carry it yourself, because your husband refuses to get any diagnostic tests? Not to mention I hate it here in Port Quincy. Shane was just a wildcatter when I met him. He wasn’t very good at the gas business. I was a geologist, and I taught him everything. I never really agreed to leave Texas, where I had family and a job I loved. So I got a little comfort somewhere else. You can judge me all you like, but I’m not the only person in this town with skeletons in her closet.”

Her little speech resonated too well. I wasn’t here by choice, either. And if I’d stayed with Keith, we’d be settling in two streets over. I tamped down that thought and focused on the task at hand.

“Who is the father?”

“Does it matter?” Her tears ceased. She flicked the last ones away and rubbed at her mascara.

“You know it does.”

She sighed. “He’s in a loveless marriage, same as I was. We were going to divorce our spouses and be together.” She said the last part with a bit of wistfulness.

“He
was
going to divorce? Is your boyfriend abandoning your plan and staying in his marriage?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business.” She bristled, her expression huffy and panicked at the same time.

I smirked. “That’s rich. You conducted an affair. I don’t think your boyfriend’s wife would see it that way.”

I regretted it as soon as I’d said it. I flinched at the cattiness in my voice. This truly wasn’t my business, and I was probably taking out my own anger toward Keith on this woman. She might not have had a good marriage, but she’d still lost her husband in a violent murder.

“I’m no home-wrecker. His marriage has been over for years. Decades, even.”

Interesting
. That would make her lothario quite a bit older, if his marriage had truly been over for decades as she claimed. Something zipped across my brain. A wood-paneled PT Cruiser, the one that picked her up at the hospital.

“He’s just waiting for the right time to break it to her. She’ll be devastated, and he wants to soften the blow.” Deanna sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

“There’s never a right time.” I thought of the glossy stack of lurid photographs Sylvia had sent me anonymously, then switched subjects. “Tell me about the night Shane was shot.”

Deanna sighed. “Shane left after dinner to go back to the office, to look over the new offer letter the attorneys had drawn up for you. My boyfriend came over, but only for a little while, because we knew Shane would be back soon. He’d only been here once before. We couldn’t go to the place where we usually met, because . . . well, anyway. He left here around ten.”

Rachel and I had been asleep by then. “Couldn’t your boyfriend have left here, then killed your husband?”

“No! He had no reason to. He knew I was leaving Shane.”

“Why couldn’t you go to the place where you usually met? Why didn’t your boyfriend just pick you up later, after Shane came back and went to sleep?” Another thought skittered through my head. Two rosy marks appeared on Deanna’s doll face, as red as if she’d drawn them on with paint. She looked at me, an odd mix of defiance and shame making her lips twitch.

“Oh my God, you used my attic.”

Deanna turned mutely to look out the French doors again and answered in the affirmative with her silence.

“It was perfect.” She finally turned around to face me. “There was a key in the third-floor door, and we took it with us. No one ever noticed us there. We met at night when Shane was back in Houston for business.”

“You didn’t remove anything from the house, did you?”

Deanna gave me an indignant glare, and all of the contrition vanished from her face. “Of course not.” She snapped ramrod straight, holding her belly beneath her. She seemed more insulted than when I’d accused her of adultery. “We’re not thieves!”

“Did you happen to see any paintings?”

“Paintings? Of what?” She looked at me as if I were crazy.

“Never mind. I’ll be going now. Sorry to bother you.”

Deanna snorted.

“There
was
something odd.” She rubbed the small of her back. “The last time we were there? There was a light on. In the carriage house.”

“When was this?”

“About a week before Shane died.” She wrinkled her pretty face in thought.

I stood to go, so I could get back to Thistle Park and begin exploring the carriage house, a shovel or knife in hand.

* * *

“Let’s just call the cops,” Rachel suggested when I proposed a trip to the carriage house. We hadn’t been there since the day Garrett unearthed the station wagon.

“We’ll just take a teensy little peek,” I wheedled. “It’s still light out, just barely. Besides, I’m sure there’s not even a place to hide.”

“But Deanna Hartley definitely saw something? How do we know she’s telling the truth? Wouldn’t Garrett have noticed something when he was looking for a lawn mower?”

“Not necessarily. If we find evidence of someone having been there, we’ll tell Truman.”

We trekked deep into the backyard. Rachel held a dull serrated knife at her side, and I sported a rusty cast-iron skillet. When we reached the door to the carriage house, we stood solemnly before it. We were close to the creek, and dragonflies dive-bombed around us, gobbling mosquitoes and gnats, their iridescent wings translucent in the waning sunlight.

“You first.” Rachel gestured grandly toward the door.

“Why me?” I took a step back, my pan at the ready. Although I wasn’t sure how much good it would do as a weapon. That sucker was heavy. It would be hard to lift and strike someone.

Rachel sighed with impatience. “The heroine in the movie who goes looking for trouble is always the one who gets it in the end. I think we should call Chief Truman. But if you’re dumb enough to make us go in there, you should go first.”

I set the skillet on the newly mown grass. My sister had a point. “I promised him I’d stop snooping around, so I can’t very well tell him I dropped in on Deanna Hartley and interrogated her at her house, now can I?” Truman would kill me.

“Then what are you waiting for? She probably just imagined the light anyway.” Rachel shielded her eyes from the low angle of the sun.

“You’re stronger.” I retreated from the door.

“Don’t play that card with me.” Rachel reached for the handle, the key poised. The door swung open before she made contact, and we both screamed and ran back toward the house.

“Wait.” A man raced after us, dragging his right leg behind him, his gait uneven but fast.

“Will?” I wheeled around and searched for the skillet I’d abandoned in the grass.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Will Prentiss finally reached us.

“Too late!” Rachel shrieked, her voice shrill and frantic.

I was breathing heavily and tried to put some space between us. “What were you doing in the carriage house?”

“Sylvia knew,” he said defiantly. “She let me stay. Even offered to let me live in there.” He motioned to the house with a jerk of his arm. “But I’m doing just fine in the carriage house. Made myself a little space in the loft.” So that was why Garrett hadn’t noticed him.

“Too bad Sylvia’s not around for us to confirm.” Rachel’s hand clenched around the knife, ready to spring.

“How long have you been in there?” I tried to calm down, or at least keep from hyperventilating.

All of the air deflated out of him. He seemed to think we weren’t going to flip out.

“Off ’n’ on. I lost my house after my accident. My mom went to live with my sister. She sleeps on the couch. But it’s too crowded there. My sister has her husband and four kids. I got tired of sleeping on the floor, and I lived in my truck all of June, till it got repossessed. I just moved in here the week before Sylvia passed.”

No wonder he’d gotten here so quickly the day I’d called about changing the locks. He hadn’t driven over, just walked up the street with a toolbox. He must have left the carriage house, cut through the woods, and emerged out on the street.

“I asked Sylvia and everything, I swear. Like I said, she offered to let me stay in the house, but I just made do out here.”

For some reason, I believed him.
Almost
.

“Were you here the night Shane Hartley died?”

“No, ma’am.”

Argh! What was with the ma’ams again?!

“That night I was out drinking, sorry to say, and I passed out on my friend’s couch.”

“Likely story.” Rachel snorted.

Will lowered his eyes. “I’ll be clearing out now. Sorry I scared you, but I didn’t hurt Shane Hartley, even if you think I had a reason to.” He didn’t bother to collect his things, just shuffled off around the house toward downtown Port Quincy.

“
Now
can we call the cops?” Rachel flung her knife down in the grass in disgust.

“Sure.” I sunk into the grass as well. “I have them on speed dial.”

The police picked up Will Prentiss for questioning as he was on his way into town, minutes after I called. Soon after, Truman and Faith got to work inspecting the carriage house.

“Do you think he did it?” I wore a path in the grass, pacing back and forth between the broken angel statues and the back porch. I didn’t want to believe Will had killed Hartley, but it wasn’t looking good. “Ouch! These mosquitoes are eating me alive.” I slapped my leg, rubbing the welt that prickled up.

Faith looked grim. “I can’t say whether Will killed Shane or not. It doesn’t look good that he’s been hiding back here. We’re holding him downtown as long as we can.”

“He had access to the house.” Rachel’s eyes narrowed into flinty lines. I hoped she never became a judge; the defendants wouldn’t have a chance.

“Let’s not be hasty.” I squinted in the failing light.

Technicians were busy inside the carriage house with Maglites, inspecting every rusty tool, looking for signs that one of them had been used to kill Shane Hartley.

“Sylvia trusted him, after all. Although . . .”

“Although what?” Truman zeroed in on me, one eyebrow cocked. “Spit it out, Mallory.”

“Um, I know he’s suing Lonestar. The suit, especially the depositions, seems extra contentious.” Lonestar’s counsel had made Will’s mother cry during her deposition, with a particularly callous line of questions. The Lonestar attorney was one of Russell Carey’s fiercest, designed to break the will of those testifying.

“And why would you be privy to that information?” Truman’s nostrils flared.

Busted
. “I happened to see the depositions at work.”

“You happened to. What kind of law do you practice again?” His voice was so low I had to strain to hear it. I’d rather hear him shout than this.

I twisted my small citrine pendant and addressed my feet. “Commercial litigation. Mostly mortgage class actions. A little bit of pharmaceutical defense, some insurance work.”

“So why would you be looking at documents that involve energy cases? I thought we had a talk about not playing girl detective. Don’t you dare jeopardize my investigation by snooping around where you shouldn’t be.” By now, the sun had officially set, and Truman flicked on his flashlight. His face shined in its glow, and his expression suddenly softened. “I’d be careful if I were you. Your firm must consider Lonestar to be an important client. They weren’t really on your side when they called me to ascertain whether you were a suspect. They’re not looking out for you, Mallory.” Truman strode off to his squad car after this sobering reminder, not even bothering to say good-bye. I let out a shaky breath I hadn’t known I was holding.

“We got this. Trust me.” Faith gave me a beseeching look I could barely read in the dim light from the back porch. “It isn’t worth prying at work. Let us do our job. And don’t do anything to jeopardize yours.”

I gulped and looked at my feet. I hadn’t told Truman or Faith why Rachel and I had decided to inspect the carriage house. They didn’t know about my impromptu questioning of Deanna Hartley, or her admission she and her beau were the ones using the third floor as a love nest. It was information they should definitely know, but I selfishly held it back to avoid falling out of Truman’s good graces.

“We’d feel better if it seemed like you had any leads,” Rachel mumbled.

Faith made a dismissive noise and stalked off after Truman. Rachel and I went inside to iron linens and wash out more mason jars for Kayla’s reception, before we settled into an uncomfortable sleep. The next day dawned far too soon.

* * *

I parked the station wagon in front of Garrett’s office building and climbed the stairs as I had almost three weeks ago. So much had changed since then, it seemed like a lifetime. At least I had worn matching heels today, so navigating the three flights was relatively easy.

“He’s waiting for you, honey.” Garrett’s secretary grinned, her aubergine locks gleaming under the fluorescents. “Good luck.”

I smiled weakly. I was dressed conservatively, in a gray skirt suit, the kind I wore to represent a client in court. I’d tried to tame my hair, but renegade strands kept unraveling from my bun and slowly reverting to curls. I tucked one behind my ear and gave Garrett’s door a soft knock.

“Come in.” His smile was pleasant, but his tone was all business. “Ready?”

“I think so.” After Truman and Faith had left last night, there had been a missed call from him, which I’d returned with my heart in my throat. But it hadn’t been a personal call. He’d wanted to go over what would happen at the hearing. Dinner hadn’t come up, and he’d gotten off the phone amiably but professionally, closing the door on personal chitchat. Garrett had warned me that the hearing would be more involved than the preliminary opening salvos in court I’d handled for clients, because the judge would be handing down a ruling that day.

“I want to talk about what happened in my kitchen the other night.” I picked at a piece of thread hanging from the button of my suit. “About dinner. I made a mistake.”

Garrett stared at me like a trapped deer and cleared his throat. “No, you didn’t. It isn’t a good time for us to start anything. I have a daughter who could get hurt, and you just broke off your engagement.”

My shoulders slumped, and he must have seen me trying to choke down my pride, because his face softened. “I just don’t want to complicate things.”

He doesn’t want to go out with you
.
Just quit it already.

I glanced at the clock over his desk. “We’d better go.”

The walk over to the Port Quincy Courthouse was tense. Tense because I’d basically asked Garrett out, and he’d said no, and tense because I’d never been one of the parties in a lawsuit. I had represented clients in court many times, and I’d felt nervous for them, anxious to secure a favorable decision, but I’d never had a personal outcome staked on a case.

As we crossed the street, a Lexus slowed and Zach leaned out the window to wave. Tabitha must have been wrong. His car hadn’t been repossessed. She’d probably just seen it being towed. I was glad I hadn’t brought it up to Rachel and given her more ammunition against Tabitha.

Garrett and I shuffled through a metal detector and up the stairs of the ornate courthouse. It was cloaked in Pepto-pink marble. A central atrium displayed four floors beneath a vaulted stained-glass ceiling. “This place looks like the Bellagio, if the Pink Panther had designed it.” I craned my neck to take it all in.

Garrett laughed. “Port Quincy was important once, back when the glass factory was running twenty-four hours a day.”

We reached the courtroom, and he surprised me by grabbing my hand and giving it a squeeze. His warm touch sent electric pulses up my arm. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” My quavering voice betrayed my nervousness. I’d finally reached a point in my legal career when court didn’t make my heart beat fast, but that had all gone out the window today.

The heavy double doors grated as we entered. Keith and Helene turned in unison to scan the room. Helene eyed me as I made my way down the middle aisle in front of Garrett, contempt visible on her sour face. She stared me down as if I were an orange jumpsuit-clad perp, handcuffed and ashamed. I stared back at her and made her stiffen when I dared to offer her a triumphant smile. I wasn’t entirely confident, but she didn’t need to know that.

Keith gave me a curt little nod, the beginnings of a new beard scruffing his chin. I stared back at him, my smile dissipating, wanting to give him nothing. I didn’t miss the look Keith gave Garrett. It was one of deep, abiding hatred that had been marinating for some thirty years. Garrett gave Keith a smirk. A shiver raced down my back, my fake poise evaporating in a puff of anxiety.

Ever the gentleman, Garrett pulled out my chair for me and began taking out papers and files.

“All rise,” called the court crier as he announced the Honorable Judge Ursula Frank.

Judge Frank swished into the room, and I was treated to a view of her worn Birkenstocks just below the hem of her robe. She hit her gavel and said crisply, “Be seated.” She wore gray braids laced around her head like a crown, no makeup and an imperious expression.

Helene and Keith’s attorney went first. He was a wizened man, with genteel movements, a suit that was a little too big, and a high, nasal voice. “Your Honor, we have evidence that Mallory Shepard is in possession of three priceless works of art and is making no effort to safeguard these national treasures.” He paused for a beat and turned to me, as if he were about to address me directly.

“So?” Judge Frank’s voice was bored. “Why should I care? It is her property, isn’t it? She can light those paintings on fire and charge people to see it, if she wants. Make it performance art.”

I bit my lip to hold back a smile. Helene sniffed, loudly enough for it to echo through the high-ceilinged courtroom.

“Your Honor, Sylvia Pierce was nearly one hundred when she made the hasty and misguided decision to deed her ancestral home to Miss Shepard—”

“This isn’t a hearing to determine the mental state of Sylvia Pierce. Try to focus on the topic at hand, which, if I may remind you, is an emergency injunction to avoid irreparable destruction to three ‘priceless’ paintings. That is, if they actually exist.” The judge made air-quotation marks as she said the word priceless and was now studying her green plastic watch.

The attorney cleared his throat and pressed on. “Sylvia Pierce was showing signs of a failing mind, Your Honor. She was not aware of how valuable many of the items in the house were, items that might be hidden. She changed her will seven days before she passed and created a transfer of deed to someone who isn’t a member of the family.”

My heart stung at his words. I was more of a family to Sylvia than those two ingrates.

“Like I said, so what?” The judge seemed uninterested. She plucked some lint from her robe. “You’ll have to do better than that to convince me Sylvia Pierce was losing it. She was as sharp as a tack, and she could deed her house to Mickey Mouse if she wanted to.”

Helene stiffened and clutched at her purse, before sending me a dour look.

“And, may I remind you, we are here about an injunction. If you don’t return to the matter at hand, I’ll throw you out of this courtroom.” She sat up, uninterested no more, and glared at the attorney.

“Yes, Your Honor.” The wind let out of his sails. “But my client feels there are bigger issues at stake. Issues of national and historical importance. The paintings, you see, are a John Singer Sargent, a Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and a Camille Pissarro.” He leaned back on his heels, flushed and peevish. All was quiet in the courtroom.

Well, at least I know what the paintings supposedly are
.

His admission confirmed the tentative list Tabitha and I had pieced together.

“Fascinating.” The judge peered down from her perch. Her tipstaff twitched and readied for something. “What’s fascinating is that you dare to come into my courtroom on a fishing expedition. I do
not
have time for this!”

Garrett pinched my arm under the table. “Ow,” I cried out, drawing all eyes to me. My exclamation seemed to snap Judge Frank out of her rage.

“You are trying to get this woman”—Judge Frank jabbed her finger at me—“to admit whether or not she’s found the paintings. Number one, that’s none of your business. Number two, there’s as much of a chance of those paintings existing as there is that I’m the tooth fairy. It’s just a ridiculous legend.”

Oh, my God
. This wasn’t about stopping me from harming priceless paintings; it was about getting me on the record to admit whether I’d found them or not.

“Your Honor.” Helene’s attorney cleared his throat and loosened his tie. “If I may respond—”

“You may not. Your clients are furious Sylvia Pierce outfoxed them. This is a joke.” She picked up the papers that must have been the injunction, then tossed them in front of her.

“Objection!” It wasn’t the attorney who said this, but Helene. She jammed her skinny hand onto the table and turned around to face me.

“Control your client, counselor, or I’ll throw her out.”

The little old man patted Helene’s arm ineffectually, and it was Keith who pushed his mother’s shoulder, sinking her into her seat.

“I’ve heard enough. Your petition for an injunction is denied, with prejudice. All bills assigned to the petitioner.” She stood up, banged her gavel, and whooshed out of the courtroom, her clerks jogging to catch up with her. Before she left, I swear she gave Garrett a barely noticeable nod, her eyes alight with laughter.

Helene stormed out of the courtroom, her kitten heels tapping the tiles with such force I expected to see little sparks with each footstep. At the last second, she wheeled around and stared at me, then began to advance. I threw up my arm, the one newly out of its sling, and let out a squawk.

“Mother.” Keith shook his head in warning. Helene turned and exited the courtroom. Keith gathered Helene’s purse and shuffled after her. Their dejected attorney packed up his briefcase and followed him out.

Garrett and I were alone.

“We did it, and we didn’t even say anything!” I marveled at how it had all gone down.

Garrett turned with an irrepressible grin.

“Do you know the judge?” I recalled her slight nod of acknowledgment.

“I’m in her courtroom all the time. And I booked her trial advocacy class back in law school at Pitt.” He took a deep breath. “About dinner . . . I made a mistake. I’d like to ask you out again.”

I smiled; this time, I was ready. “The pleasure would be mine.”

* * *

“I wish I’d been there to see the look on Helene’s face.” Olivia speared the fries adorning her salad. We Pittsburghers never passed up an opportunity to top off our food with a healthy handful of fries, be it salad or sandwich. We were in my office, reliving yesterday’s denial of the injunction.