Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom (31 page)

“You want to
what?”

“Relax, Ms. Wilson.”
Detective Valboa leaned against the bathroom wall, watching Karin
squirm as she was patted down by a female officer. While the
plastic cuffs were being readied for her wrists, she made an
outrageous move.

“I demand that you
arrest Scarlet Wilson this instant!” Karin’s voice grew so shrill
that, for a moment, I thought she would completely lose what was
left of her composure.

“Yeah, that’s not
happening. You’ve got a credibility problem,” the amused Cheswick
cop replied. “By the way, your pals just cut a deal with the
state’s attorney and rolled over on you.”

“They’re lying! She’s
the one that hired them!” Karin’s finger pointed in my
direction.

“Get her out of here,”
was his reply.

Officers Uglesich and
Peters carted Karin Frenlind away just as Bur showed up, demanding
to know why the cops were once again at the Four Acorns
Inn.

“We set a trap to catch
Karin and unfortunately your sister got in the middle of it,” Max
told him.

“Typical,” said my
brother. “She never did know how to butt out.”

“What?” I glanced up at
Kenny’s Mercer Security colleague. “Why didn’t you tell me,
Max?”

“I
did.”

“When?”

“I sent you a text
message when you were tearing up the stairs like a maniac! Why
didn’t you read it?”

“Because I heard a
noise and I thought my mother had fallen in the
bathroom!”

“Oh,” Max winced. “That
explains it.”

“If it’s any
consolation, we’ve got even more evidence now of her involvement in
this plot to ruin your business, which means she’ll probably take a
plea deal and skip the trial,” one of the uniformed cops told me.
“That will save the taxpayers a big chunk of
money.”

“She’s got some nerve,
claiming I’m the one that set this up! Why, I have a good mind to
sue the crap out of her!”

“That’s still an
option,” Kenny informed me, his arm around my shoulder. “In the
meantime, you’ve got guests coming in a short time and we’ve got
some cleaning up to do. Hey, Max!”

“Yes?” He was busy with
his cell phone.

“Let the Googins girls
and Jenny know the coast is clear.”

“I’m on it as we
speak.”

“You sent them away?” I
was stunned.

“Sure. We didn’t want
them here when Karin showed up.”

“Why didn’t you warn
me?”

“Because I followed you
into the woods and saw you take the back trail. It never occurred
to me you’d make such good time up the mountain, honey. I
underestimated your athletic prowess.”

“Captain Peacock, are
you trying to flatter me to get your fanny out of hot
water?”

“Ah, you know me too
well.” He kissed my forehead. Wrapping his strong arms around me,
he pulled me tight and nuzzled my neck. His embrace gave me
strength, which I sadly needed. That wrestling match in the shower
had knocked the stuffing out of me; my knees were still feeling a
little weak at the moment.

We all descended to the
first floor and went out to the sun porch, where a contingent of
cops were in the process of documenting the damage Karin had done
to the premises, to supplement the videos made by security cameras
Kenny and Max set up throughout the public rooms. I could see them
writing in their notebooks as they passed the
debris.

“I guess I’ll go into
the kitchen and let you folks work unimpeded,” I decided. I had
less than three hours before the first of the wedding guests
arrived. I might as well turn over the marinating chicken while I
figured out what to do with the upended table on the sun porch, now
that all those plates and glasses were destined for the
dump.

At first glance,
everything looked exactly the way I had left it before the dogs and
I went for that hike. I decided to make myself a quick sandwich on
the fly. Grabbing the peanut butter from the upper cabinet, I
spread a tablespoon’s worth on a slice of multigrain bread.
Crossing to the refrigerator, I pulled out a jar of raspberry
preserves and took it back to the kitchen island. I unscrewed the
cap, stuck a knife into all that sweet berry goodness and covered a
second slice of bread with a liberal coating. I got as far as
putting the halves together and then it dawned on
me.

“Where’s the wedding
cake?” I stood there stunned, knife in hand. Was it really gone?
Maybe, after the last few days of mayhem, my mind was playing
tricks on me. I’ve been under a strain, I reminded myself. Perhaps
I just thought I didn’t see it. Could it be some weird kind of
refrigerator mirage, a “now you see it, now you don’t” scenario?
Maybe the temperature inside the giant insulated cooler hit the
warmer air in the kitchen and
poof!
The cake appeared to
disappear.
Come on, Scarlet. Are
you listening to yourself?
“Damn!
It’s really gone!”

Rushing back to the
refrigerator, I pulled the door open and stared at the shelf where
I had placed the plastic cake container earlier in the day. My mind
kept trying to spin this catastrophe in a positive direction. Had
someone pulled it out to grab something behind it, forgetting to
return it? It wasn’t on any of the counters. Had someone
accidentally stuck it in the freezer compartment? I yanked at the
door. A cloud of white vapor escaped and when it cleared, there was
still no cake.

“Maybe Kenny and Max
hid the cake because Karin was on her way over here,” I told
myself. That was a logical explanation, wasn’t it?

“Boy, I missed all the
fun!” Jenny appeared in the doorway. “I can’t believe they captured
that wicked witch!”

“Jen, have you seen the
wedding cake?”

“Sure, it’s nice.” She
reached past me and grabbed a frozen yogurt bar from inside the
freezer. “I like how you did the icing.”

“I wasn’t asking if you
thought it was presentable. I was asking because I can’t find it.”
I slammed the door in frustration.

“It’s in the fridge,”
she insisted, watching me with more than a little concern. I shook
my head. “Where else could it be?”

“That’s what I’m trying
to find out, Jen.”

“What are you going to
do? The bride and groom are expecting a cake. You can’t get married
without a cake!”

“We have to find it.
Where do we even start to look?”

“You don’t suppose Bur
ate it, do you?”

“Even my brother isn’t
that stupid. No, this has to be Karin’s doing.” I thought about it
for a moment. With the sun porch vandalized and the cake missing,
she had struck a serious blow to our efforts on behalf of Annalee
and Gunnar. What else had she done while I was out? And why didn’t
anyone tell me about the missing confection?

“I thought Kenny and
Max were watching the house, Miz Scarlet.”

“I did too. I think we
need some answers from our Mercer Security team,” I decided. “Let’s
go find out what really went on.”

We tracked them down in
the garden. When Max looked up and saw us coming their way, he
whistled, doing his best impression of an enemy rocket about to
land. “Incoming!”

“Oh, Miz Scarlet! There
you are! I was about to come and talk to you,” Kenny stood up to
greet me, laying on the charm so thick I thought I was going to get
a sugar high.

“Nice try,” I cut him
off brusquely. “Where’s that damn cake?”

“Ah....”

“Ah
what?”

“We needed bait to lure
Karin out of her hidey hole, honey.”

“So you used my
cake?”

“We knew that she
wouldn’t be able to resist it, especially with the little birdies
on top. And it worked perfectly. I followed her to the supermarket
and parked next to her car, where I left the door unlocked and the
cake on the front seat.” It was obvious that the man with a plan
was more than a little proud of himself, even as the minutes
tick-tick-ticked away and time grew shorter. Annalee and Gunnar
would be here in just a few hours and we hadn’t sorted out the
chaos and confusion.

“Wait a minute. Why
would Karin care if
you
had a wedding cake in
your car?” I wanted to know. The minute I said that, the deer
looked right into my headlights and froze in his tracks. “You
took
my
car?”

“We needed her to know
the cake was destined for the wedding at the Four Acorns Inn,” Max
broke in, trying to rescue his colleague. “Your car has the inn
logo emblazoned on the side.”

“Where...is...the...cake?” I uttered through clenched teeth.
Kenny had the good sense to at least look sheepish.

“Well, Karin removed it
from your car and um, dumped it in the trash bin by the store
entrance.”

“My cake saver
too?”

“That plastic thing?
Give me credit for some good sense. I retrieved it. It’s in my
car.”

“And the,” I took a
breath before I said that final word, “birdies?”

“I’ve got them right
here.” Any other time, I would have thawed out a bit, but the
tension that permeated every muscle in my body made me rigid. I
waited impatiently as he put his hand into his left pocket and
pulled out the frosting-encrusted porcelain figurine with the two
birds. He grabbed my hand and made a big show of placing it in my
palm.

“Here they are, and as
you can see, the birdies are still in one piece.”

“You are so lucky,” I
hissed. “So, so, so, so,
so
very
lucky!”

My teenage assistant
had the good sense to follow me silently back to the house, even as
I carried on a running conversation with myself. Part of me was
trying to figure out how I was going to get everything done before
Annalee and Gunnar arrived with their families in tow, but another
part of me was having a delayed meltdown, still shaken by the
attack in the shower. It was one thing to survive it and another to
let go of the terror I felt.

“Who am I kidding,
thinking I could host weddings at the Four Acorns Inn? Perhaps I
should call the bride and groom and offer to take them to another
hotel or inn. I could refund their deposit and help them make
arrangements for the wedding and reception elsewhere. Sure it’s
short notice, but wouldn’t that be better than dropping them in the
middle of this ongoing nightmare?” My heart was heavy as I climbed
the steps to the sun porch.

Lacey and Laurel were
inside, already busy. Fighting back the tears, I steeled myself to
look at what remained of the latest disaster.

All the chairs had been
pulled off to the side, out of the way, and the kitchen wastebasket
was at the ready. Lacey had swept the broken bits of treasured
plates and glasses into piles and was now scooping them up in the
dustpan, one by one. I stood there, watching, as she deposited a
load in the trash. Every tinkle of broken glass was a painful
reminder of the loss. I heaved a forlorn sigh. The china and
glassware had belonged to my late paternal grandmother, the woman
who taught me to cook. In a single day, it was all gone, smashed to
smithereens.

“Scarlet, I hope you
don’t mind that we took the liberty of resetting the table,” my
mother said kindly. She sat at the head of the table in her
wheelchair, her hands moving deftly through the pile of rescued
blossoms. She was already repairing Jenny’s flower arrangement. I
leaned over and gave her a silent peck on the cheek. I didn’t trust
myself to speak. “We thought it best to get started, given that
there’s not much time before the guests arrive.”

The blue damask
tablecloth had been replaced with a pink one. My mother had neatly
folded the matching napkins and stacked them in a
pile.

“We were thinking that
it might be nice to use the everyday china and water goblets
tonight, to give the dinner a casual, intimate
feel.”

“Mmm....” I managed to
mutter, still choking on my disappointment.

“By the way, Scarlet, I
happen to know a great little store that sells replacement china,”
Lacey announced. “We were able to save five of the plates, so
you’ll just have to buy seven if you want service for
twelve.”

“It’s not the same,” I
sniffed, still hurting. I wasn’t ready to put on a happy face yet.
That didn’t stop Lacey from pushing my buttons.

“Let me tell you an
important lesson I learned a long time ago,” she said, placing the
broom against the wall and putting an arm around my shoulder. “You
remember my rat of an ex-husband? The night I found out that he was
keeping a mistress, we had a royal battle. I threw six of my
favorite Spode plates at his head. The next day I was furious with
myself for breaking them.”