Engaged in Death (A Wedding Planner Mystery) (3 page)

“The convertible was a free upgrade. It’s summer. Make the most of it.” Rachel slammed her door shut and ran her hands through her wavy, unscathed tresses. If anything, the wind had made her hair look even better, all beachy and tousled. She sashayed down the street to the church.

The wide oak doors were propped open, and we entered as discreetly as possible, sliding into a pew in the very last row. The minister was intoning away at the front of the church. I squinted and sat up a bit straighter, slipping my bug-eye sunglasses down my nose. As it turned out, I was grateful Rachel had overpacked. The hatbox had contained a pretty, wide-brimmed straw number, more appropriate for the Kentucky Derby than anything in western Pennsylvania. I’d pondered whether it would draw unwanted attention or help me shield my face. After the hair-ruining car ride, I was more than happy to hide under the hat.

“Sylvia McGavitt Smoot Pierce was a special woman. She touched the lives of everyone in this room. She was a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and a pillar in this community.” The minister droned on with generic platitudes, doing little to convey what a remarkable woman Sylvia had been. I tried to pay attention to the bland eulogy but began to scan the room for my mortal enemies. I needed to plan a drama-free exit.

Bingo.
Helene and Keith were ensconced in the front row. Helene sat ramrod straight in what looked like her impeccable, if ancient, black Halston suit and also a hat, but hers didn’t seem silly like mine. Keith turned to listen to the minister, and I caught his profile. He looked awful. My heart twisted, and I gasped as a physical stab of pain radiated through my abdomen.

“You okay?”

I blinked madly to stave away the start of tears. Rachel put her arm around me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. Momentarily restored, I looked back at the man I had been ready to pledge my life to.

At this distance, Keith looked almost as ruined as I did. His usually handsome face was drawn and pale, the bags underneath his eyes puffy and purple-tinged. He looked all of his thirty-five years and then some. His shoulders were rounded, his usual bravado gone. It was hot in the packed church, and his thinning hair was pasted to his head in sticky strands. He was wilting.

He’d changed so much in the years I’d known him, but I hadn’t noticed. I’d devoted all of my energy into my work at the law firm, days and nights and more days and nights, and I hadn’t seen the embers of our love changing, cooling, and dying. It wasn’t the same as it had been when I’d first met Keith. He’d been my mentor, a dashing young associate who’d made me laugh hysterically as we sat up all night going over depositions. We’d worked well as a team until he’d left for a neighboring law firm and a better chance at making partner. He had once been passionate and self-deprecating, and I realized, with a start, I hadn’t seen that side of him in eons. These days, he was obsessed with making more money and took his mother’s advice as gospel.

Keith had pursued partnership with zealous dedication and had been gone many evenings, driving me home and going back to his firm, returning in the morning for a quick shower. I hadn’t suspected anything. It last snowed in March, so Keith’s affair with Becca Cunningham had to have been going on for at least five months. Yet I had planned to marry this man in a few weeks.

The church had gone silent, and I looked up to see why. A mousy woman in her mid-forties, clad in a faded floral dress, had walked up to the pulpit. She removed the microphone and set it behind her. She extracted a pitch pipe from her pocket, blew a clear note, parted her thin lips, and began to sing “Ave Maria” a cappella. What emanated from her mouth was divine, ethereal, and transcendent. Her sweet soprano cut through my stupor, so strong it seemed to roll in waves to fill the immense church better than any organ ever could.

I began to sob. All of the emotion I’d been holding back bubbled over. I cried for my lost engagement, for Keith’s betrayal, and for dear Sylvia. Rachel rubbed my back, and I didn’t even blanch when she pulled a warm tissue, reeking of Britney Spears Fantasy, out of her bra and handed it to me.

I thought of how lovely Sylvia had been. She’d immediately taken me under her wing. She’d been a funny old battle ax, who’d earned the right over her ninety-nine years to say whatever was on her mind. She’d sworn like a sailor, played a mean game of canasta, and been my ally against Helene. My protector. I recalled our last visit at the Whispering Brook nursing home.

“Mallory, dear”—she’d held my hand in her knotted one—“I think you’ll bring balance to this family.”

I’d told her my concerns about Helene riding roughshod over our wedding and how it didn’t feel like it was about my marriage to Keith anymore.

She’d chuckled. “Perhaps it’s cold feet. It’s good to listen to your instincts.” Her lively blue eyes had glowed in her wrinkled face. She’d asked, “Hand me my laptop, will you, dear?” She had been hunting and pecking at the thing as I’d left, squinting through her reading glasses, her gnarled fingers surprisingly nimble. I couldn’t believe that was the last time I’d see her.

The mousy woman stopped singing, and the spell she’d woven with her voice was broken. The power seemed to ebb out of her now, and she was just a plain woman again, walking away to take a seat in a pew. People stirred, as if they’d just woken up. The minister gave a final blessing, and Keith and the other pallbearers carried Sylvia’s casket out of the church. I was due to walk down that same aisle with Keith as my husband, our marriage sealed. Instead, he was accompanying Sylvia’s coffin.

“Duck down,” I hissed, grabbing at Rachel’s arm as discreetly as I could as Keith passed by. We should have left before the funeral ended.

“Cover your face,” Rachel stage-whispered back, pulling my hat down over my jawline. My sister bent over double, pretending to look for something in her purse. I dared to glance up. Keith was scanning the pews, probably looking for me. I let out a sigh of relief as the casket disappeared out the door.

“We made it,” I breathed, my hand over my pounding heart.

Rachel gathered her purse and began to fuss with its contents. She stood and pulled down her skirt. I shook my head, barely suppressing a smirk.

Rachel had indeed found something to wear to the funeral in her prodigious luggage. She was sporting a crushed black velvet dress, decorated with a smattering of iridescent sequins. It was an outfit suited for junior prom, not a funeral. And the length of her dress would be fine on a pre-teen, but it didn’t quite cover enough of my sister’s five-foot-ten frame. The edge of her thigh-high silk stockings peeked out from under the dress, complete with garter belt. I’d stared in disbelief when we left the motel room.

“Where were you planning to wear this dress when you packed?”

“The rehearsal dinner.” She didn’t blink.

Then again, my funeral outfit of a poorly ironed, lint-covered black suit, too tight across my Snickers-bloated midsection, was no better. The straw hat, good for hiding behind, didn’t help. My getup telegraphed my mental state: rumpled and devastated. Rachel’s outfit screamed a different message: hot, velvet sex. Which might have been why so many people were staring at us.

“We have to get out of here.” I struggled to my feet and wavered on my uneven black heels. I was still a little out of it when I was getting ready, and I guess I hadn’t noticed they were from two different pairs of shoes.

“Mallory, get over here,” a voice commanded.
Crap. Too late.
Helene chastised me as if I were her naughty Yorkie and I’d just taken a poo on her rug. She must have realized I wasn’t going to obey since she began to make her way over.

I panicked. Dawdlers blocked the side entrances, and a crowd of people slowly ambled out the church’s wide back doors.

“C’mon.” Rachel gave my hand a squeeze. “Excuse us. Sorry. Excuse us.” She shimmied through the throng of funeral goers, gently shoving and pushing people out of the way. I held on to her hand as if it were a life preserver, stepping on toes and hurting feelings.

People gasped, “Excuse
you
!” and “Hold on, we’re all trying to get out of here too.”

I blushed at our rudeness, murmuring apologies, but the situation was too dire for us to stay in the church.

We finally exited and spilled out onto the front stairs, where I ran smack into Keith.

“My God, why haven’t you answered any of my calls? Darling, I’ve been so worried.”

The pallbearers had placed Sylvia’s coffin in the hearse, and I’d walked right into a trap. Keith reached for me, and I took an unsteady step back, rolling on my mismatched heels.

“Don’t touch me.” I took pleasure in Keith’s wounded expression. I’d never wished to hurt him before, and I felt ill from all of the enmity bubbling up toward this man I’d almost married.

“There you are.” Great, Helene was bringing up the rear. “We can work this out,” Helene pleaded in a low voice.

A few people leaving the church looked at us with curiosity.

“There’s nothing left to work out.” I crossed my arms.

“You can’t just cancel the wedding,” Helene hissed. “Think of us.” She gestured lamely toward Keith, who, to his credit, rolled his eyes and placed his hand on her arm. Helene looked like a cobra, her hair teased out over her ears, a tiny pillbox hat anchored on top with spiky bobby pins.

“Mother, this isn’t the place for this discussion. We need to bury my grandmother. If Mallory doesn’t want to talk to me”—he raised his eyes even with mine—“I understand, and I deserve it.”

Helene looked as if she couldn’t decide whom to strike, Keith or me. “Nonsense. You’re still engaged to Keith, since you have his ring.” Helene gave a haughty little jut of her chin, as if she were merely reminding me of the legal terms of a contract she wished to enforce.

Before we’d left the motel, Rachel had spotted the ring, winking merrily even in the low light, all three cushion-cut carats of it. “Are you going to give it back?” she’d asked.

“I don’t want it anymore. I may as well.” I refused to look at it.

Rachel had gingerly picked up the ring from the motel dresser and slipped it onto her pinky, the only finger it would fit. It was a honker. The first Christmas after Keith proposed, Rachel had grabbed my hand and yanked it up to her face for closer inspection. “Holy mackerel, you’re an attorney in Pittsburgh, not a Kardashian! This is totally not your style.”

I’d reddened and explained Sylvia offered Keith her petite antique ruby engagement ring, but Keith had demurred. Left to his own devices, he’d gone to a jeweler downtown in the Clark Building and plunked down enough money to buy a small house. I was embarrassed by its size, and I often turned the ring around so only the thin band showed, the heavy diamond biting into the soft flesh of my left palm. Just a few days ago, I couldn’t wait to marry and switch to the thin, plain wedding band I’d selected.

I was eager to set Helene straight today, so I reached into my cavernous purse, where I’d thrown the ring before we left the motel. I scrabbled around for a few seconds until I felt it, the metal and stone cool against my fingertips.

“Then take it back!” I tossed it down the street as a bride would her bouquet. It flew through the air in a gorgeous arc, flashing fire and brimstone, showering sparkles and rainbows as it fell. People on the sidewalk gasped, and the ring hit the pavement, making a pleasing plink, plink, plink as it skittered down the street. The monstrous diamond popped out of its delicate setting and rolled toward the gutter. It had never been sturdy or practical, just a pretty façade. Just like our engagement. I took great satisfaction in watching Keith chase after it.

“You’ll never keep the house.” Helene’s face twisted with rage. Her low tones and concern about causing a scene were long gone. Her anger was so pure and hot, I staggered backward.

“Let’s get the hell outta here.” I grabbed Rachel’s arm, pulling her back to the Mini Cooper.

“Where to?” Rachel peeled away from the church, leaving a real strip of pungent rubber on the road.

“Two streets over.”

“What? We need to get out of this place before Helene burns you at the stake.” Rachel hunched over the steering wheel, relishing her role as getaway driver.

I grasped at the straw hat with one hand and clutched the car door with the other.

“I need to talk to Sylvia’s lawyer. I’ve been ignoring him. And since I’m never setting foot in this godforsaken town again, I should get this over with.” I didn’t want to linger and planned on cutting ties with Port Quincy, Pennsylvania, for good that day.

“The guy with the sexy voice,” Rachel said hopefully.

“Keep your panties on, Rach. This is business. Let’s attend to it quickly and get back to Pittsburgh.”

“I know your life sucks right now, but just try to have a little fun.” My sister was touching up her mascara as she steered the Mini Cooper through narrow, yellow-bricked streets.

I ignored her last comment and directed her to the address Garrett Davies had left in one of his many voice mails. We parked in front of an art deco office building that had once been grand but was now dingy and climbed the three flights to his office. I pushed open a heavy door and entered a small waiting room, overcrowded with couches and end tables laden with neat stacks of
People
,
Prevention
, and
Better Homes and Gardens
magazines woefully out of date.

The attorney’s assistant was an older woman with short burgundy hair. She was watching a small television behind her desk when we entered, out of breath from our climb up the stairs.

“We’re here to see Garrett Davies. I’m Mallory Shepard, and this is my sister, Rachel. It’s about Sylvia Pierce.”

The curvy woman bustled over and settled us on a comfortable, threadbare tweed couch. “Yinz want some coffee or tea? Some pop or water?” Her western Pennsylvania accent was strong.

“No thank you.” I offered her a polite smile. I didn’t want to prolong this meeting.

“He can see you now, hon.” She gestured for us to follow her.

“What did that witch Helene mean about you not keeping a house?” Rachel whispered as we were led down a shabby corridor. It was a far cry from the building my firm occupied, all chrome, glass, and gray marble.

“I have no clue. Maybe that’s why he’s been calling. Sylvia had a house, but no way would that involve me.”

I stumbled as I entered Garrett Davies’s office. Partly because my shoes didn’t match and also because the man who rose to greet us was one of the most attractive I’d ever seen. He was about five years older than me and a foot taller, with dark brown, nearly black hair cropped close to his head. Lovely bright hazel eyes were framed with impossibly long lashes.

He shook hands with each of us, his grip strong and true, and motioned for us to take seats. He pulled a bursting file out of a squeaky metal filing cabinet.

“You’re sisters.” He glanced at Rachel and me.

I looked up, startled. Most people didn’t see the resemblance.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make an appointment.” I tucked my shoes under my chair.

He turned his attention back to me and appeared immune to Rachel’s outfit.

“I was wondering if you were ever going to return my calls.” He didn’t hide the peevish tone in his deep voice.

“I’ve been attending to some personal matters that are very pressing. I apologize.” I also couldn’t camouflage my annoyance and didn’t sound apologetic.

“So I’ve heard. The wedding, the likes of which has never been seen in Port Quincy. It’s big news around here when the town’s favorite son is getting married. Congratulations,” he added sarcastically, pulling papers out of the stuffed file.

Both my and Rachel’s mouth hung open.

“Is there something wrong?” He looked genuinely perplexed.

He didn’t know. I’d gotten plenty of stares during the fracas with Helene at the funeral and assumed word traveled fast around these parts. Everyone probably knew I was the jilted would-be bride. Heck, most of the people at Sylvia’s funeral had probably just been disinvited from the wedding. But maybe not as many people knew as I thought, since Helene still had hopes I’d go through with it and marry her rat-bastard son.

“The wedding is off. I’m not getting married.”

“Oh.” He paused a beat and stared at me as if waiting for an explanation, then seemed to remember his manners. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” I said, with a conviction that surprised me. “Please, let’s get on with it. Why did you call?” The sooner we left, the better.

“First off, my condolences about Sylvia. She thought highly of you, obviously, as she left you her house.”

“What house?” Rachel asked, at the same time as I said, “
The
house?”

Garrett laughed, his voice like silver bells. “Yes,
the
house. Thistle Park. And Sylvia was pretty wily. She predicted there’d be trouble if she willed it to you, rather than Helene or Keith Pierce, who were left the house in an earlier version of the will. She deeded it to you instead, two weeks ago. Just in time, too, but she couldn’t have known that.”

I chewed on this. Maybe that was why Sylvia had asked for her laptop as I was leaving the last time I saw her. The timing was right.

“You see, if she had just left it to you in her will—”

“I get it. I’m an attorney too.”

“Sorry. I don’t want to condescend.” He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Well then, I won’t explain it to you.” His handsome mouth curled into a sneer.

“You can explain it to me.” Rachel uncrossed and re-crossed her long, caramel legs. One lime-colored heel dangled from her right foot. Oh boy, it was
Basic Instinct
time, and my sis was doing her best Sharon Stone impersonation. “I’m not an attorney.”

I shot her a frosty look. “Sylvia probably thought Helene and Keith would try to claim her will was invalid if she left me the house. That she made it under duress or was of unsound mind. Especially since she changed the will two weeks before she passed away, most likely right after I last saw her. But, if she deeded it to me, it’s mine free and clear. It’ll be much harder for Keith or Helene to contest it.”
Sylvia was a genius
.

Garrett nodded his agreement, assessing me with shrewd eyes.

I frowned. “I’m flattered Sylvia wanted me to have her house. I just have no idea why. And until a few days ago”—the words hitched in my throat—“I was going to marry her grandson. Then the house would have been property I was bringing into the marriage, rather than property we received together.”

Garrett made a noncommittal sound. “Who knows why she wanted you to have it. The deed transfer appeared today in the local legal paper. It’s not like it was going to be a secret for long. They probably already know. The Pierces.” He spat out the last bit, so I guessed he wasn’t fond of Helene and Keith either. “Where do you practice?”

“Russell Carey. Complex litigation.” It wasn’t the most exciting work, with long hours, occasional all-nighters, hard-to-please clients, and years between victories. The cases representing banks and mortgage companies dragged on forever, but they appealed to my need for order. Any surprise rulings were appealed, making their way through the higher courts in slow and somewhat predictable fashion. I was good at it and it was a way to pay off my law school loans before the turn of the next century. I had spent six years at the firm and was determined to make partner.

Garrett Davies smirked. “As in class actions? So you play around with spreadsheets and do an occasional deposition. What are you, a junior associate? I’m impressed you know so much about small-time property transfers.”

My cheeks burned and I stood, dropping my purse on the floor. He was obviously annoyed at my cutting him off earlier, but this was uncalled for.

“Thanks for your time.” I bent down to shove the upended contents back into my bag.

“I’m sorry. That was rude. I don’t get to work with big-city attorneys that often. I forgot my manners. Please, sit.” He gazed at me with those hazel eyes, and my anger diffused a bit.

I sat with a huff.

Garrett rifled through the file on his desk. “Sylvia was working with the historian at the Port Quincy Historical Society, Tabitha Battles. She was going to donate some items from the house, but that will be your call now. She was also consulting with her real estate agent, Zachary Novak. She was trying to decide whether to sell the place. And if I may suggest—”

“Like I can stop you.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair.

Against my better judgment, I checked out his left hand. No ring.
Half point.

“I deserve that. I suggest you sell the house. Sylvia went into the nursing home half a decade ago, and the house is a disaster. Structurally sound, but a mess. I had the electricity and water turned on for you last week, per Sylvia’s request, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Would Sylvia have told me about the house if we had stopped in to see her two days ago? If I’d been there, could I have saved her?
I’m sorry, Sylvia
.

“Mallory?” Rachel placed a hand gently on my arm.

I must have zoned out for too long. “If the house is in such bad shape, who’d want to buy it?”

“The land may be more valuable than the house. I know the fracking people were hassling Sylvia about granting a gas lease, but she wouldn’t budge. She tried to set it up so you couldn’t use the land for that purpose—it was her last request, in addition to you getting the house. Of course, being an attorney and all”—his tone was mocking—“you know she couldn’t give you the house with that kind of restrictive covenant. But you should know her wishes, just the same.”

“Fracking?” Rachel wrinkled her nose at the word. “What is that?”

“I’ll explain it later.” I was spent, my head spinning. The enormity of Sylvia’s bequest was beginning to sink in. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Davies. If that’s all, I think we’ll be going.” I rose, purse firmly in hand this time.

“One more thing.” Garrett smirked, undoing my composure. “You’ll need these.” He reached into the accordion file and pulled out an enormous cluster of at least twenty keys looped around a metal ring big enough to fit over my wrist. He dangled them in front of me, in a taunting manner, and I plucked them roughly from his hand.

“What do these unlock?” I turned the keys over in my hands. Some were modern and others antique, giant copper skeleton keys with thistle handles oxidized to a mint green. There were even miniature silver and gold keys, so delicate I feared I’d bend them.

“I can’t help you there, but I know this one”—he pointed to a conventional house key—“is for the front and back doors. Sylvia had the locks changed when she moved to the nursing home. This one”—he pointed to a worn brass key, blackened by time—“is for the shed out back. The rest of them? Could be doors within the house, cabinets, maybe jewelry boxes. You’ll have fun exploring.”

The weighty key ring made my new inheritance unavoidably real. I sank back to my chair for a moment, Rachel and Garrett staring at me.

“Thank you.” I stood at last. “For arranging this for Sylvia.”

Garrett Davies gave us a genuine smile for the first time. It nearly knocked me out. “Good luck.” He shook my hand.

A frisson of electricity went through me as he let go, and I shivered.

“You’re going to need it.”

* * *

“What a jerk face.” I couldn’t get out of Garrett Davies’s office fast enough, but running down three flights of stairs in mismatched heels wasn’t the easiest thing to do.

“But I was right, he is hot. A teeny bit old but undeniably yummy.” Rachel pulled down her dress, which was riding up dangerously toward her hips.

I snorted. “He’s five years older than me, tops.” I glanced in the car’s side mirror, donning my sunglasses so I wouldn’t see the damage the last few days had wrought on my face. And so my sister wouldn’t see my growing exasperation with her.

“Right, like I said, he’s kind of old. But still adorable. I’d date him.”

I let my sister’s comment pass. “Whatever. He’s certainly not very charming.” Though he
was
lovely to look at. Not that being attractive made him any less of a boor.

Rachel dismissed my last remark with a wave of her hand. “Let’s go find your house.” She started the rental, as excited as a child on Christmas morning.

“Sylvia’s house.” I couldn’t envision it ever really being “my” house, especially if I wasn’t going to keep it. “And Garrett Davies is right, not like I want to admit it. I’ll have to sell it.” No way could I hold on to a piece of property fettering me to my ex-fiancé and Port Quincy.

“It’s still yours for now.”

I directed my sister down a steep hill, away from Port Quincy’s downtown, through a little valley and up another sharp incline. The charming turn-of-the-century office buildings thinned and transitioned to small houses, then larger ones. The houses closer to town had been chopped up into apartments, but soon we reached streets where stately Victorians lined the road, set back from wide emerald lawns devoid of dandelions. A landscaper tended a rosebush in front of one house while another watered the lawn. We were clearly in the gentrified part of town.

“So, fracking. What is that?” Rachel drove the rental like Danica Patrick, ignoring the
TWENTY-FIVE MILES PER HOUR
signs liberally posted all over town. I clutched the door with white knuckles and said a silent prayer.

“It’s a way of getting natural gas out of the ground. Hydraulic fracturing. You drill by pumping water and chemicals into the earth under lots of pressure, and it breaks the shale rock so the gas trapped inside bubbles up. It’s made a lot of people around here very rich, and it’s generated a bunch of work for the law firm where I work.”