Death by Marriage (3 page)

In my head I was swearing.
Damn, damn, damn
. I didn’t want dear old Martin to be a cuckolded husband, a patsy for a woman out to feather her nest with someone else’s greenbacks. I told myself Debbie Ellis’s gossip was just that—a speculative tale with no basis in fact. But I wasn’t so magnanimous I didn’t hope a little of the negative talk might rub off on Jeb Brannigan. Scott and I have almost nothing in common, but he’s family. I’m loyal.

Crystal finished checking off the various pieces of the Santa outfits worn by Deb and her husband, the mayor. Crystal wasn’t quite as colorful as usual today. She liked to shroud her ample figure in flowing caftans, hand-painted in brilliant-hued flowers. But in honor of the solemnity of today she was wearing her “dress” outfit, black cotton with a swirl of wh
ite lilies.

Her floor-length caftan moved gracefully with her as she turned to our Deposits file and removed Deb Ellis’s cash security deposit and returned it to her. Not exactly a state-of-the-art system, but it saved a lot of unnecessary voids on the credit card.

I hung the last Twenties costume
s
on the check-out rack
—three
long pin-stripe gangster jacket
s
and
a red velveteen smoking jacket
, which
was almost no costume at all
but
popular with gentleman who weren’t quite into the concept of “make believe.” And, finally, I balanced three fedoras and three plastic tommy guns on top of the rack. The thought of carrying these ancient machine gun replicas definitely made the day for our would-be
Al Capones
.

But not for me. Now that the set-up for the Twenties party was done, my mind reverted, for the thousandth time, to the boat parade.
Oh, Martin, I’m so very sorry. God bless.

“Crystal, my dear!”

Our all-time favorite customer came sailing through the door. And she’d never once rented a costume. Miss Letitia Van Ryn made her customary grand entrance accompanied by Royal Willie, the only live animal besides Artemis who was granted entry to DreamWear. Royal Willie, sleek and dignified, was a retired greyhound from the Sarasota Dog Track. His owner, only slightly larger than her pet, was a remarkable match for Royal Willie, from her wisp of a figure to the perfection of her silver-haired coiffure and the elegant lines of her designer clothes. Miss Letty is a representative of a vanishing species, a woman from “old money” who never had to work a day in her life. A woman who remained a spinster by choice, dedicated to the memory of a fiancé who drowned in a sailboat accident fifty years ago. A woman whose inherited wealth was strong enough to survive the vagaries of the investment market and cushion her from the anxieties suffered by the rest of us.

She’s is a darling, our Miss Letty. She lives in the penthouse apartment of a waterfront condo on Golden Beach inlet, not far from our modest strip mall, and frequently stops in for a chat while out walking Royal Willie. DreamWear’s main attraction for Miss Letty is Crystal and her light-hearted fortunes. But to tell the truth, I suspect Miss Letty’s interest in fortune-telling is prompted more by a kind heart than an avid interest in her future, which seems guaranteed to continue as smoothly and comfortably as it always has.

Sometimes I look at Miss Letty and see myself forty years from now. And I hear a faint echo of protest from that starry-eyed girl who dashed off to New York as eagerly as she’d dashed off to college. The girl who knew she could have it all. Brilliant career, the perfect man, elegant home, children . . .

I knew better now. But the years were passing, and there were moments when I regretted the lonely path I’d taken. Was this really what Robert Frost meant by “the road less traveled”?

I shook my head. This wasn’t the moment for my mind to wander. Too little sleep. Too much to do.

“Good morning to both of you,” Miss Letty declared brightly as she shortened Royal Willie’s leash. Not that Royal Willie has ever done anything so disgraceful as mistake the crowded aisles of DreamWear for the wide-open spaces of the dogtrack, but I always appreciated the gesture.

“Crystal, my child, I am very much in need of good fortune. I trust your ball has a rosy hue today.”

“My ball always has a rosy hue,” Crystal assured her, “especially for you, Miss Letty.”

The long strings of multi-color glass beads marking the entrance to Crystal’s Cave tinkled softly as the two women, accompanied by a docile Royal Willie, disappeared behind the midnight blue draperies. I frowned. Had I heard a hint of anxiety beneath the façade of Miss Letty’s salon perfection?

Of course not. I was simply suffering a hangover of gloom from Martin’s accident.

Idiot
!
It’s Christmas
. Joy. Parties. Love. Peace on Earth.

I bit off a sigh as two more Santa suits came back, the customers arriving neck and neck, along with gossip flaming into the kill zone. Whew! Golden Beach certainly didn’t like Vanessa Kellerman. If the yacht club set had its way, she’d be hanged from the nearest yardarm. Which
likely
meant she was guilty of nothing more than marrying well.

After both customers headed toward for the yacht club, the golf course, the Community Center, or any place else they could spread wild rumors, I sank down on the natural wicker bar stool behind the counter, settled myself into the French blue velvet upholstered seat, and stared into space.

Could there possibly be any truth lurking among the rumors? Surely not. This was Golden Beach. As far as I could recall, we’d had only one murder since I’d come back to town—a domestic violence that morphed into manslaughter. Womanslaughter. But flat-out premeditated murder? Not. Martin Kellerman had had a heart attack, tumbled off the bow, perhaps dead already, and been finished off by the twin diesels of his ironically named
Rainbow’s End
. A tragedy, but not murder. And that’s what I would tell the police.

I transitioned to my ever-reliable professional smile to greet a couple who had just entered the store. Everything about them screamed country club snowbirds, from their fiftyish age to shorts and sandals in December, the labels on their matching polo shirts, their tennis tans, and the expense of their haircuts. In brief, they smelled of money. I broadened my smile. Not because I heard the chink of coins, but because I pegged them as customers who might demand more than my customary courtesy.

I was right.

The wife homed in on our check-out rack as if it were a blue-light special. “Jeffrey,” she cried, fingering the long black fringe dangling from one of the Twenties dresses, “this is just what I need.” She turned to me. “You rent these? That’s what I was told.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach.

“Fine. I’ll take this one.”

“And when did you need it, ma’am?”

“Tonight,” she snapped, obviously implying I was an idiot not to know that.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but these costumes are all reserved for this evening.” I thought fast. “But I have a very pretty Greek
chiton
which can be belted up to look exactly like the early Twenties when the hems were still ankle-length.”

“But I want
this
one.” The woman’s voice rose to a whine.

“I’m really sorry,” I repeated, “but all these costumes were reserved weeks ago and are waiting for pick-up for the Bayport Country Club dance tonight.”

“Jeffrey,” the woman wailed, turning to her husband. “Do something.
Buy
it, for heaven’s sake.”

Jeffrey, too much the businessman not to recognize an impasse when he saw it, had the grace to appear embarrassed. “Evelyn, he explained patiently, I can’t buy a costume which is already rented for tonight. Nor, I’m sure, would this young lady sell it.”

“If you’d come in even two days ago,” I said as gently as I could through gritted teeth, “I would have been happy to make one just for you. In fact, I’d be happy to create one you can buy and wear to as many parties as you’d like. I just can’t let you have this one for tonight.”

“I should have known,” the woman said, her venomous tone rising to reach other customers who had just walked through the door, “that a small place like this wouldn’t be able to handle the demand of a big party.”

“Evelyn!” her husband hissed.

“Oh, well”—the woman sighed dramatically—“you may show me your miserable Greek gown.”

The glass beads of Crystal’s Cave beat a high-pitched tattoo. “Willie!”shrieked Miss Letty’s disembodied voice from behind the velvet curtains. Jeffrey broke off the soothing murmurs he was whispering in his wife’s ear as something sleek and furry flashed past us. Evelyn screamed and fell sobbing into her husband’s arms. Another frantic tinkle of glass as Crystal and Miss Letty erupted through the bead curtain, their eyes darting in a frantic arc around the shop. Bemused, I stood like an idiot—later, I’d attribute my failure to act to sleep deprivation—and watched the action like a couch potato absorbed in a game show.

Royal Willie was off and running, his goal much more enticing than the dog track’s mechanical rabbit. Evidently, Artemis had sneaked through the front door with the latest customers, a not unusual occurrence as the oversize orange cat enjoyed passing his days sleeping in the comfort of DreamWear’s air-conditioning. Artemis, terror of the local dog population as well as cats, squirrels, rats, and mice, had met few serious challenges in his time. Royal Willie, prince of the dog track, was definitely one of them.

Artemis outpaced Royal Willie until he hit the low wall bordering the front window display. He bounced straight up, headed for the side wall rack and raced toward the back. Sensing that Royal Willie was about to catch the rabbit for the first time in his illustrious career, Artemis made a leap for the orange-fur body of the lion and clawed his way to the upper shelf. Where he crouched, rump in the air, wedged between the lion head and the tall white ears of the Easter Bunny, his tail bushed to twice its normal size, his teeth bared in triumph. With a long drawn-out
Grrr-yee-oww-yee-oww-grr
he offered a joyous challenge to Royal Willie who could only stand quivering below, offering frustrated yips.

“Oh, Willie, how could you?” sobbed Miss Letty as one of my customers, younger and faster on his feet than most, solemnly handed her the greyhound’s leash.

“It’s all right, Miss Letty,” I assured her. “No harm done. This was bound to happen sooner or later. I should put them both off limits, but I just don’t have the heart.”

“But your beautiful costumes . . .”

“They’re fine. Artemis’s orange fur blends right in with the lion.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Royal Willie’s captor turn away to hide his twitching lips.

“Animals!” Evelyn huffed. “Come, Jeffrey. I’ll never find anything suitable in this madhouse.” The couple who had inadvertently let Artemis in, perhaps feeling guilty, followed them out.

Our dear Miss Letty began to cry. “I’ll pay you for the lost sales, Gwyn. I’m so terribly sorry, my dear, I can’t imagine what got into Willie.”

It took a while to convince her that no harm had been done. That, no, I would not take her money, absolutely not. Royal Willie was welcome any time. Well, perhaps next time his leash should be tied to something.

Crystal, still murmuring words of sympathy and reassurance, escorted Miss Letty to the door. I turned to our sole remaining customer. Royal Willie’s captor—Boone Talbot, Chief of Police.

Chapter 3

I’d met Boone Talbot for the first time last night. Until now, the paths of DreamWear and the Golden Beach police might as well have been on two separate planets.

Of course Talbot had been Chief of Police only three months. Many long-time residents of Golden Beach had wanted a nati
ve son to replace our retiring c
hief, and they mocked the youngish Deputy Chief from Grand Island, Nebraska, as having “corn husks behind his ears.” They also complained that the town council had somehow managed to hire a man from a state as far from a large body of water as it’s possible to get for Chief of Police
in
a town bordered on the west by the Gulf of Mexico and the Intracoastal Waterway and on the east by the Arcadia, a river officially designated by the state as “wild and scenic.”

Of course, making fun of our new Chief was a handy tool for obscuring the fact that he’d been hired after an embarrassing accounting scandal rocked the reign of our blissfully entrenched Chief Brannigan. That’s right. Jeb Brannigan’s father. Small world.

Chief Talbot wasn’t a strikingly handsome man, but when I’d seen him up close and personal last night, using a battery-powered megaphone to corral the milling boats into some semblance of order, issuing firm commands to police and EMS on his radio, and still finding time to question the most immediate witnesses, I couldn’t help but be impressed. Of course boat captains were probably easier to herd than cows. Or maybe not. These were mostly Yacht and Country Club types, unaccustomed to taking orders.

By the light of day Boone Talbot was even more impressive. After introducing him to Crystal, I gave him a leisurely once-over while the two of them exchanged a few polite words. Last night I’d thought his wavy hair was white. Instead, it was the color of sand mixed with cornsilk. The lines on his craggy face added character, not age. His sharply intelligent blue-gray eyes didn’t look nearly as intimidating as they had under the quickly rigged portable spotlights last night. Or maybe it was the three-piece suit. Outside of law offices and funerals, we didn’t see many of those in Golden Beach. This was a town where you can wear shorts and sandals to the finest waterfront restaurants. According to the town council, Golden Beach is one big resort. A
fun
place. Live to one hundred and enjoy every moment.