Love You to Death (13 page)

B
en was waiting in the vestibule of Best Bridal when I arrived. He looked so male amid all that lacy floaty gauze separating the store’s entrance from the bridal shop. He waved at me through the glass door.

It struck me that someone passing by would think that I was a bride-to-be waving a hello to my groom-to-be, waiting for me at my wedding-dress fitting. That was a
pictures
do
lie
photograph I’d love to have.

“Long time, no see,” I said.

He smiled.

“Ah, you must be our missing bridesmaid” came the voice of a tall, thin woman with a tape measure around her neck. “Welcome to Best Bridal. I’m Helena, proprietor.” She turned to Ben. “Sir, you may have a seat in our gentlemen’s lounge.” Ben and I both surveyed the salon for the gentlemen’s lounge. Ah. There were two very girlie chaise longues in a heavy brocade, next to which were two magazine racks. I could see a
Field & Stream.
I wondered if Ben was the fishing type. What
did
he do with his free time? Not that he seemed to have any.

“If you hear any bloodcurdling screams, run in,” I whispered. “Though it might be Opal if a bridesmaid gained an ounce.”

He said nothing and sat down. Sarcastic and catty didn’t seem to work on him.

“Come with me, dear,” said Helena. She led me into a large room with racks of dresses against the walls. The very blond bridal party was hard at work, sliding into dresses, writing numbers on little slips of paper, holding up gowns against their bodies and peering into the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

“Abby!” Veronica said when she noticed me. Her voice was ridiculously unnatural. “How nice to see you! Everyone, Abby’s here.”

Everyone stopped and stared. I wanted to believe that they were staring because as a brunette, I was so out of place among the eight blondes, including Helena. But I knew better.

“Is that nice young man here?” Veronica whispered. “The police officer?”

“He’s in the gentlemen’s lounge,” I said.

Olivia came over and kissed me on the cheek. “Let’s talk after, okay?” she whispered in my ear. “Oliver’s just being a jackass, as usual.”

My shoulders unslumped for the first time since I’d arrived. “I’m relieved to hear you say that, Olivia. For a while there, I thought you thought the worst.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Between being up all night taking care of Oscar and my crazy hormones and all this stress, I just spontaneously combusted, I guess. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out more.”

I smiled. “I totally understand, Olivia. As long as you know I could never do what I’m suspected of doing.”

“Not a chance,” she said. “I grew up with you. I probably know you better than anyone does.”

I nodded. “You probably do. Except maybe Ben.”

“So, Abs,” Opal said, “I’m thinking pink velvet. No bows.” She took a dress off its hanger and held it up to me. “This would look awesome on you. On everyone. How amazing is it that all of my bridesmaids are size six? Okay, so we’ll each model a different gown that we all agree on and then we’ll vote on our very favorite.”

There were fifteen pink velvet gowns on the try-on rack. The reason we were picking dresses five weeks before the wedding? Because Veronica was worried someone would gain or lose before the big day, throwing off the entire “look” of the bridal party.

“Abby, you first,” Opal said. “Shimmy into your support stuff and then slink into this.”

I took the pretty pale pink gown into the fitting room with my bag.

“Do you think it’s safe that she has her bag in there?” I heard Veronica whisper.

“Mom,” Olivia snapped.

“How’s it going, hon?” Opal called through the curtains.

“Just putting on the hose,” I said. Which were totally unnecessary given the ankle length of the gown. I took off my everyday white bra and put on my pink push-up. Sexy! Then I slipped into the gown. The lining felt so silky against my skin. I put on the shoes and glanced at myself. The bra did its amazing things to my chest. I had just a hint of cleavage but could be easily called stacked. I felt very I’d Like To Thank The Academy. “Okay, here I come.”

“Wow,” Opal said. “We might not even have to try on any of the others. That’s gorgeous!”

She really must have thought so, because even Opal wouldn’t suck up at the expense of her wedding.

I looked in the full-length mirror. The dress really was gorgeous. Simple and elegant, but movie-star.

“We need a man’s opinion. Go show the good detective!” Opal said.

Well, I had wondered if he ever saw me as a woman. If he hadn’t, even in my black wrap dress, he would now.

“Wait! Your wig,” Veronica said, taking the long blond tresses off a mannequin. “It’s no use making a decision on the dress unless she’s wearing the wig.” She scooped up my hair in a net, then settled the wig on my head, fussing with the placement. She stood back. “Terrific. We were right to go dark blond, given your brown eyes.”

“You really should consider coloring your hair,” one of the other bridesmaids said.

Oh, yeah, that wouldn’t make me seem even more suspicious.

“Go show the detective,” Opal said.

Here goes nothing, I thought, heading out into the gentlemen’s lounge. He sat on the girlie chaise, reading his little notebook. I coughed discreetly, and he glanced up, then did a double take.

“Abby?” he said, standing up.

“They want a man’s opinion of the dress.”

Those dark, dark eyes traveled down the length of me, then back up. I saw him swallow. He did! He swallowed! He did see me as a woman! I had to play dress-up for it, but I was a woman!

Veronica came out, hands on her lack of hips. “So, what does our gentleman think?”

“Stunning,” he said, then sat back down.

“Good enough for me,” she said, taking my hand and pulling me back into the fitting room. “The gentleman says
stunning.
”

“Eight size sixes,” Opal announced triumphantly to Helena. “We’re done here, gals.”

As the chattering blond bunch exited the try-on area, Ben stood. All eyes swung to him.

“For the record,” I announced, before I could change my mind, “I didn’t kill Ted. And I didn’t try to kill my other two ex-boyfriends.”

Dead silence. One gasp. (Helena apparently had no idea such a controversial bridesmaid was in her shop).

“You don’t need to tell us that,” Olivia said, taking both my hands.

“Because you
all
know it?” I asked, looking from Opal to Veronica.

“Of course we know it,” Olivia said. “We
all
know it, right?” she added, glancing around with that
right, people!
look she had.

“Of course!” Opal said quickly.

“It’s crazy!” two other bridesmaids said in unison.

Veronica remained tight-lipped.

I squeezed Olivia’s hand and Opal’s. “You have no idea how much that means to me.” I had no idea if they—even Olivia—meant it, but it made me happy to hear it.

They both hugged me. “You know who else would know it,” Olivia said, staring at her mother. “Dad.”

Veronica smiled her tight smile. “Of course.”

Of course your warm and fuzzy daddy wouldn’t think his little girl was a coldhearted, cold-blooded murderer, but I know better!

There were more hugs and kisses, and then everyone left. Olivia was going home to Oliver and Oscar. Veronica and Opal were heading across town to another bridal shop for Opal’s third wedding-gown fitting. And the other bridesmaids were standing outside the shop, staring in at me through the glass door. They glanced away like startled deer, then hurried away.

“Sorry,” Ben said, putting on his heavy leather jacket. “I can’t even imagine what this feels like.”

“Are you sorry enough to tell everyone you made a mistake? That you’ve been investigating Mary-Kate Darling and
she’s
your new suspect? That you’ve gotten to know me so well you know I didn’t do it?”

“No,” he said.

Sigh. “So are we in agreement that no one you saw today is a killer?” I asked.

He shook his head.

It was time to pay Mary-Katherine Mulch a visit.

Mary-Kate was hostess of a trendy, expensive restaurant in the Old Port section of Portland, a fun, hip area of cobblestone streets, one-of-a-kind boutiques, more coffee lounges than you’d think possible and restaurants and bars. If Mary-Kate was a killer, she couldn’t very well kill me in a restaurant. So I decided to confront her there and see what happened.

Small tape recorder in my pocket, I headed in. It was between lunch and dinner, so I figured she’d have a few minutes to spare.

“Table for—” she began in a fake lovely-to-see-you-in-our-restaurant voice until her brain registered who I was. “What do you want?”

“I had no idea you worked here!” I said. “What a coincidence! And it’s uncanny—I was just talking to someone about you.”

Her brown eyes narrowed. “Who was that?”

“Petey Strummer,” I said. “You remember him, from Barmouth High.”

“Of cour—” she began, then shut her mouth. “Barmouth High? You must have me confused with someone else. I grew up in Kansas.”

“Kansas! Really,” I said. “What town?”

A million bucks she said something obvious like Kansas City. Or some town that didn’t exist.

“Topeka,” she said.

That’s what I got for betting a million. But it proved nothing. She was class valedictorian, after all. Of course she knew her capitals.

“That’s interesting, Mary-Katherine,” I said.

The eyes narrowed into slits.

“Did you go on
Extreme Makeover?
” I asked.

She glanced around wildly and pulled me over to the waiting area. “Keep your voice down.”

“So it is true. You are Mary-Katherine Mulch.”

“I’m not going to bother lying,” she said. “Clearly you’ve been lurking into my life for some reason. The trail isn’t difficult.”

Holy cannoli. Lightbulb. I f lashed back to her angrily destroying the roses and throwing them at the spot where Ted had been killed. I’d been right. That hadn’t been the act of someone mad at the world. That had been the act of someone mad at the dead. At Ted. “He found out about the plastic surgery and was freaked out by it.”

She stared at me.

“He told me,” I lied. “He said he needed someone to talk to about it.”

Please, let that be a good bluff.

A gurgling sob escaped her, and then she burst into tears. “I never expected his reaction. I mean, yes, I expected him to be freaked out by it. But I didn’t expect what he said.”

Bingo.
Okay, now please continue. Please, please, please.

She sniff led. “I never in a million years expected him to break up with me because of it.” She broke down in sobs and I handed her a tissue from her station.

“When did he break up with you?” I asked.

More sniff les. “The day before the engagement announcement was coming out. The day before his murder.” She covered her face with her hands. Another sniff le, and then, “Do you want to know what that bastard said?”

That bastard?

I nodded. Waited.

“He said, ‘Everyone always says how beautiful our kids are going to be. But now there’s a good chance that they’ll look like you used to!’” She sniffled. “He said he was freaked out and needed to think. So he left and came back in a couple of hours and said he didn’t think he’d be able to get it out of his mind, put it behind him, that it was too weird.”

Whoa. What kind of guy had I been in love with? Had I even known Ted Puck?

“And then he told me the engagement was off, that we weren’t necessarily breaking up until he had a chance to digest, but he wanted to take a giant break. I asked him not to tell anyone, to just go on like everything was fine, and he agreed to do that until he had a chance to think things over.”

“And then what happened?” I asked.

“I didn’t see him for the rest of the day. And we always spent Saturdays together. And then the next day, Sunday, the day our engagement announcement came out, I went to his apartment with the paper to show it to him, and he said he didn’t even want to see it, he wasn’t ready to think about any of it and he didn’t know how he felt.”

“Wow, just because you used to look different?” I asked. “That sounds kind of extreme. I mean, this is you now.”

“He said he wouldn’t be able to get the image of the photograph I showed him out of his head.”

“What a jerk,” I said, and she nodded.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“Then he was killed,” she said, breaking down in sobs again. “God, it feels so good to tell someone this. I haven’t been able to tell anyone except my mom, and she never liked Ted to begin with.”

“Mary-Kate, did you kill him?”

She flew up and wiped under her eyes. “No! I didn’t.
You
did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then who?” she asked. “Everyone thinks it was you.”

“I think it was you.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“Well, it wasn’t me, either,” I said. “Maybe your mom was so offended that
she
killed him,” I suggested.

She shook her head. “First of all, that’s ludicrous. Second of all, I didn’t tell her about the breakup until after he was killed.”

“I’m sorry about what happened,” I said.

She glanced at me. “I’m sorry about what happened at your party.”

Yeah, because if it hadn’t, Ted would still be my boyfriend and wouldn’t have ended up breaking your heart.

“Why did you do it?” I asked. “I don’t mean what happened at my party. I mean, the plastic surgery. Couldn’t you just have gotten contacts and had Japanese hair-straightening treatments?”

“I didn’t do much more than that kind of stuff,” she said. “I got a nose job, chin implants, an eyelid restructuring, colored contacts, the Japanese straightening, color, I lost forty pounds. It’s not like I went
crazy
with plastic surgery.”

That sounded like crazy to me.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you know that when I used to walk down the halls of Barmouth High, boys would bark? That I never had a date? Not one in all of high school. I had only one female friend, and she moved away my junior year. How you look means everything. You’re so naturally pretty, you wouldn’t have any idea what it feels like to be ugly. Really ugly.”