Death Takes a Honeymoon (18 page)

Breathing in all this cold floral glory, I began to cool off. And not just physically.
I shouldn’t have yelled at Mom,
I thought,
or Aaron either. No wonder he thought what he did, after Eddie laid it on thick about Boris. And his note did say
“love”...

I pictured Aaron slouched at the bar, gloomily checking his watch, wondering if and when I’d come. Then I pictured myself with a peace offering, one of those lush apricot-colored roses from the tub at the far end of the trailer. Smiling at the thought of his face when I handed it to him, I moved forward.

That’s when I saw something protruding from beyond the stack of crates. It made a small, pale shape against the gray floor. Very pale, and very still. My mouth went dry, and I heard the same dark roaring that had filled my ears in the parachute loft.

The shape was a naked foot.

Chapter Twenty

I BEGAN TO SHUDDER, BUT NOT FROM THE COLD. SWALLOWING bile, palms clammy, heart slamming like a fist inside my chest, I forced myself forward, step by step, along the aisle between the tubs of flowers. I wasn’t thinking, not in words, but my mind’s eye filled with images of horror upon blood-spattered horror.

The pale, still foot led to an ankle, to a bare calf, to the back of a knee...

“Do you
mind
?”

Foot, leg and all, jerked and withdrew in a thrashing of limbs. And not just one leg. Four. Tracy’s, of course—for the voice was hers—but also someone else’s.

“Oh, shit!” I stumbled back among the flowers, averting my eyes from the spectacle of my buck-naked bride surrounded by her flung-about clothing, and her snatched-up blanket, and her half-empty bottle of tequila. Not to mention the stunned but sated face of Domaso Duarte.

I could have fled the trailer, to complete this scene of utter farce, but at first I was too shocked to move, and then I was too angry.

“Tracy?” I said finally. “Tracy, I think I know what happened to your bra.”

I heard a bumping and muttering and shuffling, then the bride appeared around the corner of the crates. Her perfect tresses were tangled, her perfect makeup was a smeary mess, and she’d pulled on an oversized T-shirt that was clearly Domaso’s. She smelled like a double margarita with a chaser of sweat.

One might have expected confusion or embarrassment or even apology, but only if one didn’t know Tracy Kane. She merely offered me a photogenic smile and that adorable widening of the eyes. And Domaso kept out sight entirely— no doubt, the way Tracy had kept out of sight when I pulled over near Domaso’s Cadillac on the roadside Monday. At least that time he’d put his pants back on.

“Carnegie!” said the bride, in a sort of breathy purr. “Thank goodness it’s only you!
You’ll
understand.”

“Understand?” The shock was back. “Tracy, are you going to tell me that this isn’t what it looks like? I may be ordinary, but I’m not stupid, and if you think—”

“Of course you’re not!” She turned away with a petulant scowl and plucked up one of the apricot roses, pulling the petals from it one by one. “But you’ve been around, you know what it’s like.”

“What what is like? Cheating on Jack?”

“Oh, as if
you’re
so pure,” she retorted, and flung the half-denuded flower right at me. “Dom told me what was going on with you and John up at White Pine, you bitch!”

The rose slapped against my bare arm, and a stray thorn drew a thread of blood from my skin.

“Hey, that hurt! Dammit, Tracy, if you want a flower fight, you’re going to get a willow wand up your nose. Grow up, would you?”

Show business is tough, but the wedding business is tougher. Tracy caved.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. Make that a triple margarita. Tracy Kane never apologized. “I don’t blame you, Muffy, really I don’t. But I’m just doing the same thing you did with him, saying good-bye to...to an old friend. There’s no crime in saying good-bye, is there?”

I opened my mouth, but so many things were trying to get out that they jammed in the door. An explanation that Jack’s kissing me at White Pine wasn’t my idea. Indignation at Domaso for telling her otherwise. And amused vexation that Tracy had chosen this of all moments to call me Muffy for the first time in years.

“You know what?” I said at last. “I’m going to a baseball game. And as far as I know Boris Nevsky is on his way here right now, so you and your old friend better say good-bye for real.”

I was almost back to the lodge before I realized that I hadn’t taken a rose for Aaron. Well, he’d get a kiss instead. A big old kiss and an apology, because however skeptical and annoying Aaron could be, he was one of the ordinary people, too. And we were at least attempting to be honest with each other, unlike Tracy and Jack...

But no, I didn’t want to think about them right now. How was I supposed to give my all to this wedding with the groom coming on to me and the bride behaving like a cross between a soap-opera tramp and a two-year-old?

I arrived at the lodge by the back way, past the ice rink and across the terrace, but I barely noticed the skaters and diners in my eagerness to see Aaron. I pushed open the door to the Duchin Lounge, squinting in the dimness after the glare outside, and hurried up to his bar stool.

The trouble was, the stool was now occupied by a woman in golf clothes. She frowned at me over her martini as I stood there, nonplussed.

“Help you?” said the bartender.

“I was looking for a friend...” I glanced around. Aaron wasn’t at any of the tables, either. “Never mind.”

Feeling a little foolish, and a lot let down, I retreated to the lobby to ask at the front desk for messages. None. Checked my cell for missed calls. Also none. And finally, though I really wanted to apologize in person, I tried Aaron’s cell phone. When his recorded voice invited me to leave my name, I disconnected.

Damn the man, why couldn’t he stay put so we could kiss and make up?

I tried his phone again when I got out to my rental car, and once more after the short drive to the smoke-jumper base. Still no answer, so I grabbed my notes about the barbecue arrangements and climbed out to survey the scene.

The scene differed considerably from the eerie darkness of Tuesday night. A row of picnic tables was set up in the shade of the ready shack, their red-checkered cloths fluttering in the breeze, and the same breeze carried the tantalizing summer smell of hot charcoal.

I didn’t see Food Bob, but one of his staff was busily filling tall red cups from a beer keg, while others tended the barbecue grills and set out generous bowls of potato salad and whole cherry pies. Lines of party guests in T-shirts and shorts were eagerly awaiting the food and drink.

Most of the partygoers were men, with a few women, but all of them were laughing and talking and no doubt telling each other outrageous stories. I was pleased at that. The bride and groom could misbehave all they wanted, but I still felt a duty to the guests.

Across from the feast, the grassy field beside the airstrip had been marked out as a baseball diamond. Various smoke jumpers and visitors were scattered across it, warming up for the game and exchanging good-natured taunts with the spectators.

The jumpers were mostly clowning around, but not the L.A. people. I recalled Sam’s comment that the studio boasted a real team, and that’s exactly what these guys looked like. While some of them stretched and jogged in place, the others formed a widening circle and snapped a ball from player to player with nonchalant precision.

But one of the players was a ringer from Seattle. And was he gloomy, was he sighing and consulting his watch and wondering where I was? Hell, no. He was out in the sunshine in his Red Sox cap playing catch and grinning like a kid, the bum.

I slammed the car door and marched over to Aaron. The grass was cooler than the parking lot back at the lodge, but I was still steamed.

“I thought you were waiting in the bar?”

“I was.” Aaron made a long throw to a husky blond fellow I recognized as Peter Props. Then he turned to me and the grin disappeared. “I waited quite a while, Stretch, and the longer I waited the madder I got about you locking me out. Then I started talking to these guys, and it turned out they were short an outfielder. I have to enjoy my vacation somehow, right?”

“Right.”
And I was going to apologize to this man? Please.
Still, I couldn’t help relenting just a little. “You can come back tonight, you know.”

“Maybe.”

There was an unpleasant pause, and then he made a show of looking back at my car. “Where’s your friend?”

“Which one?” I asked coldly. “I have a lot of friends here.”

“I meant Boris, but maybe you mean this guy Jack, the one you don’t need your arm twisted to talk to?” Again Aaron’s eyes were hidden by sunglasses, but I could imagine the look in them. “Is that why you were here the other night, to visit your friend Jack?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what were you and B.J. hemming and hawing about when I asked why you came?”

“Nothing,” I said huffily. “Not a damn thing. Not that it’s any of your business, but Jack and I are just—”

“Hey, Gold!” Peter Props gave me an amiable nod as he approached. He wore a “Tails of the City” tank top stretched across his beefy torso, and his broad nose was sunburned already. “Center field OK with you? I’ve got a camera guy who wants left and I usually play deep right.”

As Aaron replied, someone tapped my shoulder. It was Food Bob, wearing a “Kiss the Cook” apron around his broad middle and nibbling absently on his bushy brown mustache. He looked like a preoccupied walrus.

“Sorry I’m late,” I began.
And sorry I’m burning up work
time with lovers’ quarrels.

“No, no, you’re fine,” he said, folksy as ever. “There’s not hardly anything for you to do. Though I have got a question or three about the rehearsal dinner tomorrow...”

He began to move away, clearly expecting me to come along. Behind me, Aaron and his teammates were deep in conversation about defense strategy. I sighed and followed Bob.
Business before pleasure,
I told myself virtuously.
Not that
I’d call this pleasure.

Over at the picnic tables my virtue was rewarded by the sight of Al Soriano, the very man I wanted to question about Brian’s last hours. Let Aaron obsess about alibis. I wanted to understand Brian’s relationships with our three suspects.

Al was sitting by himself with his ball cap pushed back on his dark curly hair, nursing a beer and excavating his way into a minor mountain of potato chips. I concluded my business with Bob as fast as I decently could, then snagged a beer of my own and sat next to him.

“Hi, I’m Carnegie Kincaid. We met the other day?”

“Sure,” said Al. “Brian’s cousin.”

“That’s right. I didn’t get a chance to ask you, did you know him very well?”

Al shook his head. “Not really. I would have, as the season went on.”

“But I suppose he got along well with the rest of the jumpers. Danny and the Tyke, for instance, and Todd Gibson?”

“Oh, everybody gets on with Danny. The Tyke kind of picks and chooses her friends, you have to let her make the call. But Toddy’s a Ned, you know, so he and Brian trained together. You could talk to him.”

“Of course.” I could see Al wondering where these questions were going, so I shifted my ground. “But I heard you flew as spotter on the Boot Creek fire, so I was wondering if you could tell me about that flight. About whether Brian was”—I wasn’t sure how to phrase this—“if he was distracted or anything.”

Al wiped the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand and sat up straighter, donning an air of responsibility like an invisible uniform. His tone was serious, but not unkind. “You mean, did I observe some sign that Brian Thiel might fail to execute his safety procedures? No ma’am, no way. I’m the spotter. Anybody isn’t a hundred percent on the ball, I don’t send them out the door. Period.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest.... So, nothing unusual was going on that day?”

“Well, it’s not exactly usual to hang up in a tree,” he said, unbending a little. “It just happens sometimes when you get these squirrelly little wind shifts. I saw Brian’s canopy clear the plane, then he caught some down air that took him away from the jump spot. But he drifted into the black zone, so I thought he’d be OK, just get a little sooty ahead of time. I even laughed.”

Al scooped another handful of chips and crunched on them thoughtfully. “Then I got distracted, thinking I saw a tent down there, and when I looked back he was hung up in this big stand of pondos. You want to land in lodgepole pine or Doug fir, because they’re softer and the canopy’s sturdy enough to hold you, but he didn’t have a choice.”

“ ‘Pondos’? Oh, ponderosa pines.” The three tall evergreens in the White Pine meadow were ponderosas. “So then Brian— wait a minute, a
tent
? Someone was camping that close to a fire?”

“Well, this particular fire blew up so fast, and people can be so damn foolhardy. But it was just a glimpse through the smoke. The Boot Creek drainage is pretty country, but kind of inaccessible, and we never got a report on any campers in the vicinity. So I must have been wrong.”

Or else you were right, and the camper kept his presence quiet
for a reason.
The idea was dizzying, and I barely noticed when Al excused himself to go claim his hamburger. All of us, Dr. Nothstine and B.J. and Aaron and I, we’d all been so focused on the three smoke jumpers who had parachuted down with Brian. But what if a fourth person had been on the ground already?

For one smoke jumper to kill another had seemed inconceivable, and maybe it was. Maybe Todd’s evasions and Danny’s moodiness and the Tyke’s belligerence had nothing to do with Brian, and we had to look at his death from another angle altogether. Maybe—

“Hey, Carnegie.” Into this maelstrom of uncertainty came Jack the Knack, star pitcher. He was slapping a ball into his glove and scanning the picnic area anxiously. “Have you seen the Tyke? She’s late.”

“Sorry, no. Can’t you start without her?”

“Not really. We made a big deal about allowing two women on each team so Annie and the Tyke could play, and now these guys are saying that two women are required. Tracy told me they’re serious players, but this is ridiculous. Still...”

He gave me a speculative look, nose to toes. “You used to play a little ball, didn’t you? I don’t suppose you could cover first base for a few minutes, just till the Tyke gets here? Everybody’s waiting.”

I looked over to the diamond, where most of the players were watching Jack talk to me. The smoke jumpers had taken the field, including a lanky dark-haired woman, presumably Annie, at third base. One of the L.A. visitors, the bronzed man I’d last seen in a Speedo, stood at home plate taking practice swings with an aluminum bat that glinted in the sun.