Murder on the Bride's Side (21 page)

“It means that you might want to do them a favor, perhaps? Get rid of the thorn in their side for them. Stranger things have happened, you know,” he added conversationally. “Sometimes, people just snap.”

That stopped me. I froze, letting his words sink in. Blindly, I reached out and grabbed the back of the chair. Easing myself into it, I attempted to undo the damage of my outburst.

“Some people may snap and kill someone,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster, which, granted, was precious little, “but I am not one of those people. I just snap and then usually make an ass of myself.”

I thought I saw a ghost of a smile at this admission, but I couldn’t be sure. A loud electronic peal broke the silence. Detective Grant looked down at his cell phone and grimaced at the readout. Looking at me, he said, “Excuse me, I need to take this.”

Flipping open the phone, he turned his back to me. “Grant here,” he said.

As he listened in silence to the caller, his shoulders bunched and tightened. “Yes, sir, I understand, sir . . .”

I tried to listen without appearing to be doing just that. Shifting my gaze to the wall of bookcases that ran the length of the room, I stared at them as if just noticing their existence.

“Yes, sir, I understand you want this settled soon and I am doing my best, but . . .”

Crap, I knew it. Elsie’s behind-the-scenes machinations were backfiring. What she had hoped would be pressure to make Detective Grant look at suspects outside the family had merely become pressure to wrap up this case fast. With the discovery of the necklace, the easy solution was no longer that an outsider had committed this crime. The easy solution was that one of us had. Given David’s wild accusations earlier, I had a horrible feeling I knew who was about to become suspect number one.

Detective Grant’s next words confirmed my worst fears. Hanging up the phone, he turned to me.

“I think it’s time I had a chat with Mr. Harry Matthews,” he said.

The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.

—
JANE AUSTEN,
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

A half hour later, Harry was still in the study with Detective Grant. I had to admit, it didn’t look good. Bridget, Colin, Peter, and I sat in my bedroom, awaiting any news. A loud rap on the door jolted us out of our silence. It was Elsie. Her face drawn and tight, she looked, for once, her full age.

“Where’s your father?” she demanded crisply of Bridget.

“I don’t know. I think he went to make some phone calls. Why? What’s wrong?”

“I just heard raised voices in the study. Harry was yelling at that detective. I don’t like it. I have a bad feeling. God only knows what David said to Detective Grant during his interview. I need your father. He’ll know what to do.”

Bridget’s face lost color. She pressed her hand to her chest. “You think Harry needs a lawyer?”

Elsie nodded. “Knowing David, I think we all do. I had
thought that we would be fine having Graham here, but now I’m wondering if we need additional backup.”

Elsie swept away in search of Graham.

Bridget leaped to her feet. “Come on!” she said.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Out. We need a plan and fast.”

Minutes later, we were in Colin’s car and headed for downtown Richmond, where Bridget reasoned we could talk in private. “On to Richmond!” the battle cry of the Federal troops during the Civil War, reverberated in my head as the car brought us closer to the capital. But while the pithy saying might have raised the sprits of the boys in blue, it was doing nothing for mine.

After hearing of Elsie’s suspicion, Bridget cast herself into the role of amateur sleuth, resulting in a bizarre behavior combination of Lucy Ricardo and Nancy Drew. Colin had to make a few more calls regarding their canceled trip and it was proof of his extreme distraction that he had asked Bridget to drive.

Peter and I huddled quietly in the backseat while she tore south along I-95 in Colin’s BMW. If that suggests a certain peacefulness to our outing, let me rephrase. My back was pressed firmly against the leather seat. My right foot desperately sought out an imaginary brake. With one hand I clung to the door handle in a white-knuckled grip and with the other I clasped tightly to Peter’s. Peter’s posture was a little more blasé, although I heard him mutter, “Oh, sweet Jesus,” more than once.

As she drove, Bridget outlined all the reasons we needed to save Harry. While I agreed with them all, I wished she didn’t
feel the need to elucidate each point with a raised finger. If anyone needed both hands on the steering wheel, it was Bridget.

“Reason number five. Do you remember the time Harry saved Queen Mab?”

“Who is Queen Mab?” asked Peter.

“More like
what
was Queen Mab,” I mumbled beside him.

“I heard that!” Bridget yelled with mock indignation. The subject of Queen Mab had been good-naturedly debated between us for years. Each of us thought the other was dead wrong, of course, but we didn’t take it personally. Turning around to continue her defense of Queen Mab, she also turned the steering wheel. The red Jeep next to us honked frantically as we slid into its lane. “For the love of God, Bridget! Watch the road!” I yelled, as the side of the Jeep loomed terrifyingly closer. I braced myself for death or, at the very least, a nasty injury.

Bridget wrenched the steering wheel back before either happened. The owner of the red Jeep flashed Bridget a gesture I wholeheartedly agreed with before speeding away from us.

“Hey!” Bridget cried indignantly. “That guy just flipped me off.”

“Just be grateful he didn’t have a gun,” I muttered.

“Whatever. Where was I?” she asked, ignoring me.

“Queen Mab,” Peter replied in an odd voice. I eyed him carefully for signs of shock.

“Right, Queen Mab,” Bridget replied, her voice growing misty with memory. “Queen Mab was my dog. I got her for my twelfth birthday. She was the cutest little thing.”

Inadvertently, I made a rude noise. Seeing Bridget’s body
begin to turn again, I yelled out, “For God’s sake, don’t turn around again! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“What kind of dog was Queen Mab?” Peter asked.

“A miniature poodle,” Bridget replied. “Elizabeth didn’t like her.”

“No one liked her,” I replied. “She tried to attack everyone but you!”

In the rearview mirror, I saw Bridget’s lips curve in fond memory. “She just thought she was protecting me, that’s all.”

“Protecting you!” I sputtered. “What about that time she attacked me when I was in a dead sleep! What exactly did she think I was going to do to you?”

“I don’t know! Maybe you were snoring or something! She probably just wanted to make sure you didn’t wake me.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” I replied. “First of all, I don’t snore, and second, even if I did, I would like you to explain how my terrified screaming as I tried to fend of that crazed dog in the middle of the night is preferable to my snoring—which I don’t do in the first place?”

“You do too snore, and if you ever heard it, you would already know the answer to that,” she replied loftily. “My point is, Queen Mab loved me and I loved her. But remember that weekend when we were all down visiting Elsie when Queen Mab got out and followed us to the boathouse?”

I did. It was winter and the temperature had dipped below freezing. Harry, Bridget, and I snuck out to the boathouse knowing the cold would prevent any of the adults from following us. Bridget and I were about sixteen at the time and had just discovered the stupid pleasure of smoking behind our parents’
backs. Huddled in the boathouse, we puffed away, while Harry regaled us with stories from his first year of college. I don’t remember which one of us first noticed Queen Mab wandering out onto the ice-covered James River, but one second she was there and the next she wasn’t. Screaming hysterically, Bridget ran out after her, but Harry yanked her back before she flung herself into the frigid waters. Seeing Bridget become hysterical at the thought of her beloved dog drowning in the freezing water, Harry jumped in after Queen Mab. He emerged a heart-stopping minute later, shivering and faintly blue, but clutching a trembling and drenched Queen Mab. For his efforts, Harry landed in the hospital with hypothermia and three rather nasty bites from an incredibly ungrateful Queen Mab. But that was Harry; he was always trying to save everybody.

Wiping away tears of remembrance, Bridget finished her story. “Harry saved Queen Mab that day. Anyone who would jump into those freezing waters for a dog that he didn’t even like could never be a murderer. He’s just too much of a softie. They don’t make guys like Harry anymore.”

I nodded. While I didn’t share her affection for Queen Mab, I did agree with her about Harry. He was a good guy. He’d spent the better part of his life trying to help others; the least we could do was try and help when he needed it. Next to me, Peter cleared his throat; he’d been doing that a lot today. I wondered if he was coming down with a cold.

Finally, we neared Capitol Square, normally an oasis of enormous trees and expansive green lawns and home to the State Capitol building. Today, however, thanks to the morning’s unrelenting downpour, it was an oasis of slick leaves and muddy
puddles. Even the crisp, white neoclassic angles of the State Capitol looked gray and lumpish through the watery haze.

With precious little warning, Bridget yanked the steering wheel viciously to the left and we skidded into a parking garage and into a vacant spot. Bridget switched off the ignition, and the car gave a pathetic shudder and fell quiet.

No one spoke, until Colin began to mumble, mantralike, “I will always drive. I will always drive. I will always drive.”

Bridget turned in her seat. “What are you talking about?” she demanded indignantly. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my driving! There’s not a scratch on this car!”

Peter leaned forward and laid his hand on Bridget’s shoulder. In a somber voice, he said, “Some scars are on the inside.”

Bridget scoffed as she threw the car keys to Colin. “You guys are a bunch of babies.”

“If by that you mean that your driving induces a lack of control of emotion and bladder, then I agree with you,” I said, easing myself out of the car on rubbery legs.

“Whatever,” Bridget said, tossing her head. “I didn’t drag you three down here so you could make fun of my driving. We need to go someplace private and talk. What are we going to do about Harry?”

“Honey, nothing’s
happened
to Harry. The police are just talking to him,” said Colin. “And where are we going exactly?” He peered out from the garage doorway to the rain-soaked streets.

“The Slip,” replied Bridget, referring to Shockoe Slip. The area had once been the city’s largest commercial trading district and part of the city ravaged by fire during the Civil War. Now
its remaining nineteenth-century warehouses boasted elegant restaurants, nightclubs, and shops. With a flick of her wrist, Bridget sprung open an enormous lemon-colored umbrella. Raised high above her head, it resembled a giant, merry toadstool. Unfortunately, even though she held it as high as she could, the umbrella was still a good three inches below Colin’s head. Good-naturedly taking the umbrella from Bridget, Colin wrapped his arm around her and the two proceeded out onto the sidewalk. Peter and I followed under my more sedate black umbrella. The temperature had dropped with the arrival of the storm. Huddled inside my jacket, I ducked and weaved along the sidewalk to avoid the traffic’s watery shower.

“What is she planning on doing, anyway?” Peter asked me as we both danced to the right to avoid the spray from an oncoming minivan. Cold, dirty water nevertheless splattered across my khaki pants. I looked down at them in dismay. My attempts to spiff up my appearance had been for naught. Chloe wears leather Prada boots in a thunderstorm and doesn’t get a drop on them. I wear khakis from the Gap and get drenched. That’s justice for you.

“To steal a line from Daffy Duck, you’ve got pronoun trouble,” I said. “It isn’t what ‘she’ is planning on doing. It’s what she’s planning on ‘us’ doing.”

“Oh, God,” he moaned.

“Yeah,” I said, “that about sums it up.”

After a few minutes slogging through the waterlogged streets, we arrived at the Tobacco Company, a warehouse restaurant that serves one of the best brunches in town. A soaring three-story atrium of brick and intricately carved wood paneling, it is
crammed with antiques, stained glass, and nineteenth-century tobacco advertisements. Entering through the cocktail lounge, which was populated with patrons reclining on large red sofas, we took the exposed antique elevator to the dining floor above. The hostess quickly found us a table. I slid into my seat and clamped my arms around me to warm my damp skin.

The waitress, a perky young woman who cheerfully identified herself as Sandy, appeared seconds later to take our drinks order. Colin, in his role as designated driver for life, ordered coffee. The rest of us required something stronger. I only wondered if, after hearing Bridget’s “plan,” one would be enough.