Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom (22 page)

“Me too,” I replied.
“If you’re hungry, you can grab something from the
fridge.”

“No, we stopped at a
clam shack on the way home.” Jenny washed off the ice packs, dried
them, and put them back into the freezer. “Hammerhead said it was
the perfect way to end the day.”

I looked at this bubbly
young woman in the tank top and shorts standing next to me. She
might not be in love with the boy just yet, but she sure was
enjoying his company.

Kenny was still on
duty, keeping an eye on the Four Acorns Inn from a distance. Thanks
to some remote technology, he was holed up on the second floor of
the carriage house, watching the action on a couple of monitors.
Just after eight thirty, he called me.

“Hey, what are the
chances I can get some grub when I get there?”

“I’d say pretty good,
handsome. When might that be?”

“I parked my car a
couple of streets over, so I’ll have to retrieve it. I can be there
in about ten minutes. Expect me to make a big show of arriving back
at the inn.”

“Thanks for the
warning. I’ll take the dogs out now and put the porch light on for
you. Ring the bell and I’ll let you in.”

“Just don’t let on that
I’m anything but a paying guest. No smooching at the
door.”

“You mean I can’t take
a running leap and throw myself at you?” I inquired mischievously.
“Damn! I was so looking forward to locking lips with
you!”

“Well, not at the door
anyway,” he chuckled. “Once I’m inside, that’s a different
story.”

“Is
it?”

“Oh, yeah. Count on
it.”

“I’ll hold you to
that,” I told him, giggling.

“That’s fine, as long
as you hold me.”

I did better than that
when he stepped through the door a short time later. By the time we
came up for air, I was light-headed and almost
giddy.

Once Kenny was in for
the night, he armed the security system and then he met with Ruth
for a few minutes in the library, to go over the day’s activity
log. When their briefing was done, I plated his dinner, poured him
a glass of wine, and sat with him while he ate.

“It looks like whoever
was targeting the inn has backed off. Maybe it was the law
enforcement response to the harassment that did the trick. The cops
have canvassed the neighborhood, asking questions, talking to the
residents. I think we’re okay now, Scarlet.”

“I hope
so.”

“To be on the safe
side, I’m leaving Ruth in place for another day or two. She’ll hang
around here, on the off-chance someone decides to try
again.”

“Okay,” I replied,
still a little apprehensive. I wanted to believe the trouble was
over, but there was a part of me that couldn’t shake my doubt.
Maybe it was because I still didn’t understand why it all had
happened. Someone went to a lot of trouble to terrorize us. Why
would that person just suddenly stop?

But apparently he or
she did, at least for a few days. Thursday passed quietly. My
mother and Thaddeus took a drive down to the Connecticut shore,
exploring the pokey little towns here and there. Lacey took Edna to
the senior center and introduced her to the regular lunch bunch.
Ruth hung out at the inn, helping herself to our collection of
books on local history. Her nephew showed up just after one and
took her to lunch at Dennison’s Restaurant, a favorite local eatery
in old paper mill. Jenny and I took advantage of the lull and got
busy with the upcoming wedding. We got the menu in order, decided
on decorations, and made the final arrangements for the guest
accommodations.

“We’ve got the justice
of the peace for the ceremony. I’ll firm up the details with Mark
Pritchard tomorrow. With that settled, we’ve got bigger fish to
fry. We need to make decisions about food, cake, flowers, and the
garden. Where should we start?” I pulled up the folders on my
digital file for the wedding.

“Let’s start with the
flowers,” Jenny suggested.

“I thought we’d do
something very simple, with roses as the signature flower. I’ll
need to pick up some florist’s tape and satin
ribbon.”

“What about the
cake?”

“They requested
chocolate cake. I thought I’d make Grandma Wilson’s version, but
instead of the usual chocolate fudge frosting, I’ll use chocolate
mousse between the layers.”

“Sweet.”

“It will be. The
Googins girls and Edna found a pair of little white lovebirds for
the top. The real trick will be to transform a chocolate cake into
a wedding cake. If I do chocolate frosting, it’s delicious, but
dark. And a regular white buttercream or cream cheese frosting will
spoil the fudgy goodness.”

“Could you cover it in
coconut?” The thought of burying a chocolate masterpiece in a
shredded white shroud seemed wrong. Did I use fudge frosting or
chocolate ganache as the glue for the coconut? And what if it
spoiled the taste of that fudge cake? I shook my
head.

“That seems too
tropical. It has to be a flavor that works with the cake, but
dresses it up for a wedding.”

“Can you use
seven-minute frosting? My grandmother used to make that. It was
awesome.”

“That might be too
marshmallow-y, but you’re getting closer, Jen.”

“White
fondant?”

“Or white chocolate,” I
replied. I quickly did a search and found a promising recipe from a
professional baker. Jotting down the ingredients on my shopping
list, I glanced over at my assistant. She had a faraway look on her
face.

“Any thoughts?” I
asked.

“Can I ask you
something, Miz Scarlet?”

“Sure.” I waited while
she found the words. I had no idea where she was going with
this.

“You know how those
blueberry bushes were mangled in the garden?”

“More like butchered,”
I corrected her. “What about them?”

“Wasn’t that the spot
where we stood and talked about the upcoming wedding?” Jenny’s eyes
reflected her worried spirit. I thought back to that conversation.
She was right. “And now we can’t hold it there because the bushes
were all chopped to bits.”

“Ah....” I tried to
recall the rest of the details. My mother had joined us in the
garden. “That’s also where Laurel mentioned she wanted to take over
Wallace’s house and do weddings.”

“But wouldn’t that mean
someone was spying on you?”

“Possibly,” I conceded
reluctantly. As I sat there, I realized the evidence seemed to
support her theory, so I corrected myself.
“Probably.”

“Scary.”

“Jen, do you know when
the ladies started planning their takeover of Wallace’s
mansion?”

“Oh, let’s see. I think
Lacey mentioned it right after that guy hit the neighbor’s mailbox.
That was at the end of April, wasn’t it?”

“It was. Did the ladies
talk to anyone else about this wedding business?”

“Well, they were on the
phone with Edna a couple of times.”

“But Edna was back in
Georgia. I don’t think anyone in Cheswick would have heard about
that. I’m trying to figure out if the news went out on the
neighborhood gossip line.”

“Lacey mentioned to
your mother that she ran into Sylvia Pritchard at the grocery store
a few weeks ago.”

“Could she be the wife
of our justice of the peace? Crap on a cracker! I wonder if he’s
been marrying people up at Wallace’s house.”

“You mean for
Karin?”

“I do,” I sighed. That
would explain a lot. How vengeful would the party planner be if she
learned from the local grapevine that the Googins girls were
plotting to take back the family manse and put her out of business?
Did that explain the Wilkies’ very bad behavior, or what happened
in the aftermath of their apprehension by police? Maybe Kradic and
company didn’t just break in to terrorize us. Maybe they had
another purpose, to recover or destroy evidence in the Wilkies’
rented accommodation. Suddenly, the latest intrusion and the
vandalism in the White Oak Room made sense, especially if Karin was
killing two birds with one stone. I pulled out my cell phone and
dialed Kenny. The call was immediately rerouted to voice
mail.

“Shoot. I have to leave
him a message.” The impatient part of me wanted answers now, not in
an hour or two. I hated to wait. What could I do in the meantime?
“Perhaps I should call Mark Pritchard, just to confirm the date for
the Pinault-Magnusdotter wedding and to see if he needs anything
from us.”

“That’s just a polite
way of saying you’re going to snoop, isn’t it?” Jenny asked
me.

“Am I that
obvious?”

“It’s only because I
know you pretty well now,” the teenager grinned. “What are you
going to say?”

“I’m going to tell him
someone wants to know if he does a lot of weddings in
Cheswick.”

“Someone?” She started
to laugh. “Don’t you mean you?”

“No need to tell him
that.” I waved her off. “I need to know if he works for Karin and
if he knows what the Googins girls are planning.”

“Why don’t you just ask
Lacey?”

“Because, dear girl, if
there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that when it
comes to gossip, it’s less about what someone actually said and
more about what the gossiper thinks she heard.” I jotted down my
questions on my digital notepad before I took out my phone and
started dialing.

“Ooh,
clever!”

Brrr-ing...brrr-ing...brrr-ing.
Three long rings trilled in my ear before the call was
answered. I turned on the speaker phone button and put a finger to
my lips to warn my assistant.

“Yes?” said the male
voice on the other end.

“Mr. Pritchard, this is
Scarlet Wilson at the Four Acorns Inn. I was just confirming the
wedding for Saturday, the seventh of June.”

“Yes, yes. It’s on my
calendar; I believe it’s scheduled for two
o’clock.”

“That’s right. Since
I’ve never done a wedding at the inn before, I wonder if you could
just go over the procedure we’ll be following.”

I peppered him with
questions and somewhere in the middle of the conversation I slipped
in a little surprise.

“We were planning to
have you do the vows in the garden, but we had an unfortunate
incident. Some vandals destroyed the bushes. So we’ve decided to
hold the ceremony down by the pond, with the bride and groom on the
dock,” I told him. Jenny’s eyes grew wide as she listened to me;
she mouthed the words, “We have?”

“I’m sure that will be
fine,” the man assured me.

“Have you done a lot of
outdoor ceremonies?”

“Quite a few. The
biggest issue is always the weather.”

“Oh, of course it is. I
expect we should be prepared to move the ceremony indoors if the
clouds roll in.”

“Most definitely. It’s
always good to have a backup plan.”

“I’ll get on that.
Before I forget, the bride and groom wanted to know if you do a lot
of weddings. They’re a little nervous that something might go
wrong. I know there’s a lot of paperwork involved and they’re from
Massachusetts. How do we handle all that if they’re from out of
state?”

Mark Pritchard launched
into a long explanation of his services for the wedding couple,
including his offer to accompany them to pick up the license on
Friday. As expected, he filled us in on his experience with Karin
Frenlind. “I’m usually up at her mansion three or four times a
month.”

Her
mansion? He made it sound like she owned the
place.

“Really? I knew Karin
did a lot of events, but I never would have guessed she does that
many weddings.”

“Good heavens! There
are only so many cocktail parties and business gatherings you can
do. Wedding consultancy is the real money-maker. It’s usually more
involved than putting on a single event. You might also handle the
rehearsal dinner, the bridal shower, or even an after-wedding
brunch.”

“I didn’t realize that.
Of course, I’m not in her league. The Four Acorns Inn is a
bed-and-breakfast, so this wedding will be very
simple.”

“Does this mean you
plan to offer this service to other guests in the future?” he
wanted to know. “Are you getting into the wedding
business?”

Chapter Seventeen --