Newlywed Dead (5 page)

“Nothing important happened,” I said, and gave my uncle the stink eye. “One of the bartenders passed out.”

“Are they okay?” Felicity asked. I noticed the shadows that passed through her bright eyes.

“Actually—” My uncle started to tell Felicity the truth.

“They're fine.” I cut him off and gave him a serious glare. “Aren't they, Uncle Bill?”

Aunt Sarah had her hand on his back and I noticed the slight wince before he said, “Sure, sure, nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, good,” Felicity said, and put her hand on her heart. “I've felt like from the time I got engaged bad things have happened. If I were superstitious I would be very worried. I'm glad everyone is okay.”

“Everyone's great,” I said with a shake of my head. I
glanced at my watch. “Wow, you two need to get going. It's almost eleven thirty. You don't want to miss your cruise.”

“Oh, yes,” Felicity said. “We might have a helicopter on standby, but we do want to get to our honeymoon.” She stood up and gave my aunt and uncle hugs and kisses. Then she gave me a hug. I hugged her tight.

“Congratulations, Fel,” I said into her ear. “I'm so happy for you. Go and enjoy your honeymoon. Don't worry about anything. I'll make sure Mom and Dad don't overdo it.”

Felicity laughed and let me go. “I think it's a bit too late for that.” She waved her hands to illustrate the crowd and the tent and the giant trash bins full of empty paper plates.

“I plan on stopping by tomorrow when they crash to bring them some dinner,” I said. “How's that?”

“Perfect.” She gave me a kiss and another hug. I hugged Warren and they headed out the door.

Gage waited until they were out of the tent before he turned to me. “What really happened last night? Your texts were vague.”

“It's a story,” I said. “I'm not sure Mom and Dad even know, but one of the bartenders collapsed and died.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “Sorry,” I said.

Gage, ever the gentleman, pulled a clean tissue out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Was it someone you knew?”

“Not really,” I said, and wiped my eyes then blew my nose in an attempt to pull myself together. “I'd just been talking to her throughout the night. She seemed like a nice person who was down on her luck. I asked her about making
1950s cocktails and she showed me a few. We seemed to get along really well and I was going to meet up with her another day.” I dabbed at my eyes. “Then when I came out of the restroom, I learned she had collapsed. I tried CPR until the paramedics got there, but it didn't matter. They couldn't save her.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Gage pulled me into his arms and held me tight. I rested my head on his shoulder and wallowed in the comfort. “You should have called me.”

“It was, like, midnight, and what could you have done?”

“I could have been there for you,” he said, and lifted my chin so that I looked him in the eye. “I want to always be there for you. What time did you get home?”

“Two
A.M
.,” I said, and rested my head against his chest again. There was something comforting about his warmth and the sound of his heartbeat against my cheek. “George called a cab for me.”

“You should have let me know,” he said. “Mom was sleeping. I could have come and gotten you.”

“Hey, what's with the PDA?” my teenage cousin Alex called from across the room. “Are you two next? Hmmm?”

I stepped away from Gage. “Alex, why don't you go help my dad with the music, huh?” I called back.

“Oh, cool!” Alex said, and rushed over to the empty DJ area. Dad was busy walking Felicity and Warren out and had left the music to die.

“Good call,” Gage said, and took my hand. “You've had a bit of a rough twenty-four hours. Do you need to stay?”

I looked around at my rowdy family and my mom and
dad's friends. “Not really,” I said. “I've spoken to most everyone between yesterday and today. But I need to check with Mom. I want to make sure she has help with the cleanup.”

“I get it,” Gage said. “Let's go find your mom and see what we can do to help.”

Alex started playing heavy metal music as loud as the speakers would go. Gage took my hand and pulled me from the tent. After we got to the side yard, the music levels lowered dramatically. I guessed that one of my aunts or uncles had grabbed Alex and made him knock it off.

With a family as big and as crazy as mine there was no telling what would happen next. I just really hoped that everyone else kept Felicity blissfully unaware that a girl had died at her wedding reception.

Later that evening Gage and I sat in the warm, mint-green-painted living room of the little house I rented. It was my first house. I had lived in an apartment ever since I moved out of my college dorm, but I knew it was time to change my life when I realized that I had rented my apartment based on my ex-boyfriend Bobby's favorite bar. The Naked Truth had been right across the street from my old apartment so that he didn't have to go far to see me.

I lucked into the house. I happened to be talking to the local homicide detective, Brian Murphy, when I started my house hunting. He mentioned that his mom was moving to Florida and wanted to rent out her house. It was a cute 1920s bungalow with three bedrooms and a finished basement. I negotiated a real deal on the rent. Well, to be honest, it was
Detective Murphy who offered me the deal. He felt having someone in the house was better than letting it sit empty. I didn't mind living in an older cop neighborhood. It was pretty safe. Generations of police officers and firemen had lived in this neighborhood and built families.

It did come with a few strange neighbors. Mrs. Crivitz next door had a tendency to peer out her windows whenever I walked outside. Mrs. C was in her seventies. She liked to hang around in floral housecoats and brightly colored muumuus. She had a daughter who was in her late forties who lived with her. The two were harmless but nosy to a fault. It made me very aware of how much time Gage spent at my place. I knew Mrs. Crivitz was judging me. I tried to tell her it was 2014 and grown women could live alone and have boyfriends who sometimes slept over. She wasn't buying it.

Then there was Mr. Mead across the street. He was a walking cliché. He loved to sit on his front porch and yell at the neighborhood kids to stay off his lawn. He had No Trespassing signs on the edges of his lawn along with signs of dogs pooping with a circle and a line through them. One day I saw him chase a dog owner off with a shovel. It was kind of funny since Mr. Mead was a forty-year veteran of the police department before he retired.

Of course, with all the perks of low rent and a great house, there were other disadvantages besides the neighbors. Detective Murphy had made it a habit of stopping by once a week to check on the house and see if everything was working well. Everything was always working because the house was close to perfect. I didn't mind his visits most
of the time. He was a nice guy who liked to talk about his daughter, who was my age and in a not-so-great relationship. Not that I had any good advice for him. I'd been with Bobby far too long.

“What is this cocktail?” Gage asked as he raised the highball glass I had handed him.

“It's a Tom Collins,” I said, and sipped the tart drink containing gin. “I'm trying different cocktails. I think it would be nice to add signature drinks to my engagement parties. I got the idea from the bartender at Felicity's reception.”

“Not the same one who ended up dead, is it?” He tasted the cocktail and raised his eyebrows, curved his mouth down, and nodded. “This is good, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I said, and snuggled in beside him. We had a fire in the fireplace and there was soft music playing from the iPhone holder. “Unfortunately, yes, it was Ashley who gave me the idea. She was making Cosmos and other cocktails. She made me one that was just wonderful and I thought that I needed to expand my horizons beyond beer and wine.”

“What, you don't like the wine I bring?” Gage seemed hurt.

I turned toward him. “What? No, I didn't mean that.”

He grinned at me and kissed me quick. “Just checking,” he said, and lifted his glass. “I like this.”

“Thanks,” I said, and leaned my head against his broad shoulder. “I think Felicity and Warren will be happy together.”

“They seem like a great couple.”

“It's too bad that there were so many deaths around their wedding,” I said, and sat up to count them off on my fingers.
“First there was the dead man at the scene of their proposal. Then the dead woman at the bridal shop, and now Ashley.” I sighed. “I'm glad that we were able to get Felicity off to her honeymoon before she found out about Ashley.”

“So tell me what happened.” Gage said.

I studied him for a moment. He had always been interested in what happened to me. Bobby had only cared if it had something to do with him. “I talked to her a couple of times last night,” I said, and sipped my drink. “She was nice. She seemed to know some of the people at the wedding who were friends of Warren's family. She told me she had bartended at a few of the high-society weddings and had a bit of a rapport going with at least one of the guests.”

“Sounds interesting. I can imagine that if you do enough of those events, you can get to learn a lot about the upper crust in Chicago.”

“I got that feeling,” I said. “The weird part is she didn't really fit the usual society bartender look. She was really skinny and looked a bit worn out.”

“What happened to her?”

“She passed out in the back hallway. One of the waitstaff came running out screaming. I was the first one to her. She wasn't breathing and she didn't have a pulse, but I wasn't going to witness another death. So I shouted for someone to call 911 and started CPR. George got one of those kits with the breathing mask and air bag and he started pumping oxygen to her while I did compressions. The EMTs got there after what seemed like forever, but they weren't able to revive her.”

“Oh, man,” Gage said, and put his drink down on the coffee table. He drew me in close and held me tight. “You were brave to do the CPR.”

“I didn't even think about it, really. It was instinct. I went through safety and CPR training before the scuba proposal. I thought it might not hurt to be able to help out should there be an accident at one of my proposals. I never figured I'd have to use it at Felicity's reception.”

“But you did,” Gage said, and took my drink and put it beside his. Then he pulled me into his arms and brushed the wayward hair out of my face. “There's a big difference between training in CPR and actually doing it. You were very brave.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. He got it. “It was hard. I was afraid I was breaking her bones, I had to pump so hard, and it was all for nothing.”

“Some things you can't fix, Pepper,” Gage said, and kissed me soft and slow. “But I'm so lucky to know a woman like you—someone who tries no matter how scary. Most people would look the other way, or worse, they would run the other way. But not you. You step up and try to help.”

“Thanks,” I said. It felt so right being with Gage here in my living room in front a crackling fire. I didn't want the time to end.

The doorbell rang suddenly and we broke apart.

“Are you expecting someone?” Gage asked.

“No,” I said, and looked at the clock. It was eight
P.M.
I straightened my blouse and got up. The doorbell rang again followed by a knock. “I'm coming,” I said to the door. I
took a moment to look out the peephole before opening the door. The neighborhood might be safe but it was still a good idea to check the door before opening it. “It's Detective Murphy.”

I opened the door to find my friend and landlord standing there with the collar of his winter coat raised up against the chill. “Hello, Detective,” I said. “I wasn't expecting you.”

“Can I come in a moment?” he asked.

I glanced out into the night and thought I saw faint snowflakes on the air. “Sure.” I waved him inside and closed the door against the cold.

He wiped his feet on my entrance rug. Not because I asked him to, but most likely out of habit. This was, after all, his mother's house. He looked up and spotted Gage standing near the couch. “Oh, you have company.”

“Yes,” I said. “Detective Murphy, you remember my boyfriend, Gage,” I said, and waved toward Gage, who had a smear of lipstick on his jaw.

“Yes,” Detective Murphy said as the two men shook hands. “Good to see you.” He turned toward me. “I'm sorry to interrupt.”

“Let me take your coat,” I said. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? A cocktail? I'm trying new cocktail recipes for future proposal events.”

“No, no,” Detective Murphy said, and waved off my suggestion. His hound-dog face seemed troubled. He wore a fedora covering his thinning gray hair. His blue eyes held both interest and sadness. His expression always looked
like that of a man who had seen too much and cared too much. “I was stopping by to check on you. I understand you performed CPR on a young lady last night.”

“Yes, the bartender at Felicity's reception,” I said. “It was tragic.”

Detective Murphy drew his mouth into a firm tight line. “Yes, it was.”

“Do you know what she died of?” I had to ask.

“It's too early to tell,” he said with a shrug. “Autopsy's scheduled for Monday afternoon.”

“I can't imagine it was natural causes,” I said, and hugged myself. “She seemed too young for that.”

“It's standard procedure to check things out when there's an unexplained death,” he said. “And you're right, she was young.”

“How young?” Gage asked.

“She was twenty-five,” Detective Murphy answered.

“That's what she told me,” I said. “I was surprised because she looked a lot older.”

“The life she had was tough,” he said. “I was surprised to see that you were involved in another death.”

“She wasn't involved,” Gage said, and put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. “She was at her sister's wedding reception and tried to save a girl's life. She did CPR until the EMTs got there.”

“That's courageous,” Detective Murphy said. “You are a good person, Pepper.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Anyway, I won't stay,” he said, and eyed Gage's protective stance. “We'll talk later. You two have a nice night.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Stay safe.” I closed the door behind him and turned to Gage. “What do you think that was all about?”

“I don't know,” he said, and took my hand and led me to the couch. “We were in the middle of something . . .”

I let him draw me down next to him. “I'm worried.” I said, and wrapped my arms around my waist. “I've got a bad feeling that Ashley didn't die of natural causes.” I looked into Gage's deep blue eyes. “That means that my family is involved—however indirectly—in another murder.”

“It's beginning to become a thing,” Gage agreed.

“Maybe I can figure something out before Felicity and Warren get back from their month-long cruise.”

Gage drew me against him and planted a kiss on my forehead. “If anyone can do it, you can, Pepper.”

“Then maybe Ashley can rest in peace and Felicity won't worry about what happened and how she could have prevented it.” I reached up and wiped the smudge of lipstick off his jaw with my thumb. “I like happy endings.”

“I know,” he said. “Let's hope we can give Ashley one.”