Ultraviolet (17 page)

“Maybe you should look more into Violet’s past,” she suggested.

“Anything particular you want me to find?”

“She’s had a number of husbands. Two before Roland.” I could have responded that Roland had had a number of wives, two before Melinda, but I was hoping she would tell me something I didn’t know. When I didn’t bite, she looked a little annoyed. “Fine. You’re working on a timeline. You want me to tell you what I was doing at the wedding and when.”

“That would be great.”

“I was at the rehearsal dinner the night before. Everybody was happy. Roland was there, making a toast to his daughter. Violet wasn’t invited to that, thank God.”

“What time was the rehearsal dinner?”

“Six-thirty. Roland had rented Castellina, the Pinot Noir Room.” She smiled faintly. “Roland and Emmett’s family being cheap. It was a package deal for a better price.”

I would call that being thrifty, but what do I know? “I’ve been meaning to call Emmett’s parents…I wrote their names in the timeline but we haven’t connected yet.”

“You mean David and Goliath?”

I’d been digging in my purse for a pen and the notepad I always carry, but I looked up. “Goliath?”

“Okay, it’s Goldy. But she’s huge. I mean
huge
. She’s gotta be close to six feet and she’s just as wide. Luckily Emmett takes after his father.”

“Who else was there?”

“The bridal party, some close friends of Emmett’s. Gigi doesn’t really have any friends besides Deenie. She was lucky to have four bridesmaids. Sean wasn’t there. A conflict with his
band
,” she said scornfully. “But Renee showed.” She made a face. “She was invited to the wedding, but she and Gigi got into a huge argument at the rehearsal dinner and she was told not to come.”

“I thought she argued with Roland.”

“First Roland, then Gigi. Renee had brought this heavyset man with a beard, her date, and she hadn’t told anyone. They drove up in a Ferrari, if you can believe that. I mean, a thousand miles? You wouldn’t catch me doing that! Roland let Renee know it was bad form in plain terms, I’ll tell you. But her date gets all huffy with Roland. It was almost taken care of, until she and Gigi started sniping at each other. After that, Roland just roared, ‘Don’t come tomorrow. You’re not invited.’”

“After they drove all the way from Santa Monica?”

“Bad behavior’s bad behavior,” she dismissed. “Renee’s something else. She looks like a cat, you know. You probably heard that already. All that plastic surgery. And she decided to wear this leopard-print skirt out of faux fur with a matching leather jacket, also trimmed in leopard. I couldn’t believe it! She thinks she’s so funny but it’s just too weird.” Melinda gave a mock shudder. “And she had on this black pillbox hat with a veil, but it couldn’t cover up that face. Gigi was embarrassed. Not that she’s much better. Her bridal gown accentuated everything wrong—her hips, her arm fat, her short neck. She’s an attractive enough girl, but she looked terrible. I tried to give her some advice, but she acted like I was criticizing her.”

Imagine that.

“And Renee can’t stop,” Melinda said, returning to her earlier subject. “I mean, sure, a little freshening. Who wouldn’t? But it’s surgery after surgery. She still hasn’t stopped. It’s a sickness with her.”

“How did you meet Roland?”

The abrupt change of topic stopped her short. She looked as if I’d slapped her. “Why do you need all this? What are you trying to do? Am
I
a suspect?”

“I’m just filling in,” I said. It was just a question I’d put on my list, though I was a little surprised at her offense.

She flushed. “You’re an amateur. Acting like you know what you’re doing. I don’t even know why I agreed to this.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay.”

“I did not break up Violet and Roland’s marriage, no matter what anyone says!” she blasted back at me. “And I have every right to feel like she was trying to break up mine!”

“I wasn’t suggesting that,” I assured her. “Violet never said you broke up their marriage.”

“Roland was single when we met,” she wanted me to know. “He’d been single awhile because Violet ran off when he had his substance abuse problem. She just bailed. And Roland being Roland, he forgave her. He didn’t blame her for leaving him when he needed her most. He just picked himself up, went through rehab, then set about putting his name and expertise behind the clinics. I met him when he was opening the third clinic. He was so upbeat. I fell in love with him instantly.” She swallowed hard and looked toward the fire, tears glittering in the corners of her eyes. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“You were already living here”—I gestured to the condo surroundings—“when Violet returned to Portland a couple of months ago?”

“It was temporary. Roland and I were working things out. I don’t need to tell you this, but we’d been fighting about the kids, Gigi and Sean. Roland just indulged them so much and I made the mistake of telling him he should stop bankrolling them. He really took that the wrong way.” Her mouth worked. “But by the wedding, things were better. We were virtually back together and were talking about going to it together. But then Violet got in the way. She kept calling him and calling him. I caught Roland on the phone with her a few times, and I got really upset. Then he started lying about it. It was just awful. Roland told me he loved me and not to worry about Violet, but you know her. Of course I was worried. Things really were improving between us, though,” she reiterated, as if saying it enough times might make it true.

“Renee came up from Santa Monica. On that Friday? Or earlier?”

“Earlier, I think. You’d have to ask her. I don’t remember.”

“So, the rehearsal dinner was the first event where people gathered…most of the family and friends.”

“Gigi had some luncheons or something earlier in the week, I think,” Melinda said with a shrug, losing interest. “Of course, we all got to see each other all over again at the memorial service. Renee was there. I think she sent her friend back and just stayed on. Gigi was a wreck and Sean was utterly useless. I had to make the arrangements, and it was really, really hard. I called the Lake Chinook Country Club and they put on the event, but I had special items brought in from Blackbird Pie Catering. They make bite-size tomato tarts that are indescribable. Everybody just loved them.”

She fell silent, recalling happier moments. I hadn’t even thought about a funeral or memorial service for Roland. Violet hadn’t mentioned any, and I wondered if she’d even attended. Maybe she’d missed the memo. She was outside the family and friends loop, and everyone thought she was guilty of killing him. Not exactly party guest number one on the list.

I quizzed Melinda on the schedule of events on the wedding day. She gave the time she arrived at both Castellina and the winery, and how she and Deenie had stalwartly held Gigi’s hands when the search for Roland began. Beyond that, she didn’t have much more to add. She started looking at her watch and I realized my interview was over, so I rose to my feet and thanked her for everything before she got antsy and pushed me out the door. Better to leave on a high note, just in case you need something more later.

“Would you like to take these with you?” she asked, indicating the six leftover hors d’oeuvres.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, I’m making dozens more.” She grabbed a disposable plastic tub and carefully arranged the crescents inside, adding dabs of chutney to their toasted tops. Then she snapped on a blue plastic lid and handed it to me. I thanked her and she said, “Maybe you’d like to join us at the neighborhood get-together. It’s at the Village Shopping Center the Saturday before Thanksgiving.”

“Definitely,” I said.

At the door, she had one more interesting thing to add. “Now that you’ve met Gigi, what do you think of her?” she asked as I gauged the distance to my car and the extent of rain that would drench me as I hurried to the driver’s door.

“Well…”

Melinda smiled faintly. “Gigi doesn’t think much of anyone besides Gigi. I’ve asked myself a thousand times what Emmett sees in her. Maybe she’s a good lay.”

Those last words ran around in my head all the way back to the cottage. Melinda was so tidy and precise, the phraseology seemed oddly crude for her. Her feelings for Gigi didn’t appear all that far from her feelings for Violet.

I spent the next several days filling in my timeline, reviewing my impressions, wondering if I was wasting everyone’s time and money. In this I wasn’t sure I cared. Violet was paying and didn’t appear overly concerned about the cost.

I did a bit of uneventful process-serving, uneventful except for the barrage of epithets thrown at me from a heavyset man who shook a brass candlestick at me he happened to have in his hand when I served him the eviction notice. I kept my eye on the candlestick, worried he might chuck it at me, but apparently he considered it too valuable and just kept up the four-letter words as I retreated to my car.

Sticks and stones, buddy. Sticks and stones.

I put in calls to Renee Hatchmere and David and Goliath Popparockskill, but none of them answered and by Friday not one of them had returned my call. David and Goliath lived in southeast Portland, on the east side of the Willamette and far enough from downtown to make me think of visiting them as a “trip.” I also tried calling Deenie again to no avail. I figured she’d give me the same information as the rest of the wedding party bridesmaids and groomsmen: the color scheme sucked, the wedding cancellation sucked, the bachelor party rocked, Roland’s death sucked.

Okay, the best man had had a few other things to say as well. I caught an inkling of his feelings regarding the bride when he referred to Gigi as a “hysterical, whining train wreck.” Yes, I’m quick to pick up on these seemingly benign comments. Being the clever investigator I am, I told James it sounded like he was happy the wedding never came off and James very succinctly said Emmett’s head was up his ass because Junie-Marie, his last girlfriend, was the most lovely, sweet, voluptuous, down-to-earth woman in the world. Junie-Marie? I asked. Named after her grandmother June Marie, I learned. Junie-Marie’s only problem appeared to be that she did not enjoy the Hatchmere wealth. James thought that was a poor excuse indeed to throw her over for the wealthy, bitchy, vicious, skinny, ugly Gigi Hatchmere.

Gigi wasn’t ugly, and she wasn’t really skinny. I wasn’t certain about the vicious part, either, but I pretty well concurred with James on the wealthy and bitchy parts. I asked how to contact Junie-Marie, which made James highly suspicious of my intentions. He told me he didn’t have that information at hand, but promised to get it for me later. Like, oh, sure. I had a feeling he was the kind that spoke loudly and freely, then wished he could cut out his own tongue later.

All of this background material was interesting. Maybe some of it might actually have some meaning someday. I wrote it up in a report for Dwayne, making sure all pertinent information was recorded.

Violet called me daily. I’d given her Sharona’s name in case she needed an attorney any time soon, but so far she hadn’t called her. I think she had her fingers crossed that the court wouldn’t indict and she wouldn’t need representation. I kind of thought it would be good to get Sharona up to speed just in case, but then I don’t have a lot of faith in innocent until proven guilty.

Friday dawned gray and bleak and wet. It dampened my spirits, so to speak, and the thought of meeting Dawn and company at Do Not Enter in this weather sounded like a total drag.

I ran to the Coffee Nook in the rain, cinching the hood of my blue windbreaker so tightly that only my eyes, nose and mouth were exposed to the elements. Even so I thought I could drown before I blew inside with a gust of wind that caused everyone standing by the door to shriek with surprise and irritation.

“Shut the damn door!” Chuck growled.

I was trying to do just that but it took some effort. One of the other regulars helped me thrust back the wind, just as another customer blew in with the same wildly flinging door entrance.

“What a bunch of idiots,” Chuck said, dolefully shaking his head. My interest in knowing him slid even further down the scale into negative numbers. He added the icing to the cake by asking me, “Do you always wear the same thing?”

“I try.”

“Oh. Did I offend you? Sorry.” He tried to look apologetic but it appeared more like a smirk.

There was a girl in my high school who allegedly, every month, mapped out what she would wear to school each day for that month, just so she wouldn’t repeat herself on what was apparently a popularity-killing offense. I never saw the point of this and wore whatever the hell I felt like. I consequently was not elected to any high school court, nor was I hugely popular with members of the male sex, so maybe there was some validity to her obsession. My noteworthy high school achievement was burning the cinnamon rolls in Home Ec class and setting the overhead sprinklers off from the boiling smoke that filled the room. So, okay, I thought they weren’t getting done fast enough and I figured five hundred degrees was a better option. The sugar carmelized, blackened and turned the rolls into charred hockey pucks. Though I was willing to take the blame, my Home Ec partner, Michele, jumped in and said it was all her fault before I could fess up. At the time I was taken aback, but as I watched the events unfold I learned Michele loved to be the center of attention, either bad or good. She apologized contritely to the administration and teachers and said she would do whatever needed to be done to make it right, all the while slyly smiling at her friends when no one was looking, who in turn thought she was the coolest. Nothing ever bothered her. I helped her on the cleanup but she really didn’t care. She thought the world was one big joke and enjoyed her own niche of back-asswards popularity because of it. I think there’s a lesson in there somewhere, but what I really came away with is that baking’s a lot trickier than it looks.

Billy Leonard was seated on one of the Coffee Nook’s stools, so I slid onto the one next to him. Billy is one of those guys who looks like he was meant for pickup trucks, rusted fishing trawlers and evenings spent with cheap cigars and long yarns. Surprisingly, he’s a CPA. I find I learn a lot from Billy although he made an allusion to the fact that we were raising our kids as “hatchery fish,” coddling them, not preparing them for the harsh realities of life, which had me worried about my own abilities a few months back. I’ve come to peace with that, pretty much, now that I’m working for Dwayne. I’m pretty sure now I’m not a hatchery fish.