Wedding Bell Blues (29 page)

The first thing I had done when I woke was go upstairs to take Lesley Lynn some clothes: a pair of my jeans, a T-shirt and some flip-flops, just some stuff to get her decent enough to go back to the Pittmans. I figured she must still have her own underwear and wearing it two days in a row wouldn't kill her. She wasn't in the bedroom where I'd left her. The door was open, but the bed was empty.

I stood in the doorway. Disbelieving was the only word that came to mind to describe how I felt. Shock was another, and then some others, none of which I said out loud. Where the hell was she? Had she left and I hadn't heard her? Had I slept like a rock?

The door to Miles Fortune's bedroom was closed. I lightly knocked on the door. When I didn't hear any movement from inside, I very carefully turned the knob. It wasn't locked. I eased the door open very slowly, peeked my head around and saw Lesley Lynn curled next to Miles Fortune in his bed.

“Shh,” he said with a little smile. He held up a finger. “She got scared in the night and came in here.”

I nodded and gently closed the door. Yeah, I thought. I just bet she did.

“Is she still asleep?” Scott asked. “Up there?”

“I guess,” I said, thinking this bed-hopping was a first time for my B and B and I was willing to bet it wouldn't be the last. I only hoped it wasn't going to happen too often or I'd have to change the advertising to “Doing It at the Dixie Dew.”

“Buckets,” said Ida Plum when she came in, taking off her purple raincoat, hanging it on the rack. “It's raining buckets and not supposed to stop all day.”

Ossie's wedding day. How appropriate, I thought. The skies are crying because this whole thing is a big mistake. Then a second thought: it's Juanita's wedding day, too, and maybe the third time is the charm. And maybe I was just in a gloomy mood, when what was called for was Panic with a capital P.

“I can try to get a tent,” I told Ida Plum, but at the last minute every rental place in Southern Pines was probably already booked.

“Ground's already saturated,” Ida Plum said. “All those high heels would sink up to their ankles. Not to mention muddy trouser legs, and anybody, especially the bride in a very expensive long dress that cost her half a down payment on a car or house, would ruin their clothes. Of course the bridesmaid's gown would be ruined, too.”

“I say move it,” Scott said. He took off his wet jacket, ran his hand across his wet head and reached for the coffeepot.

“Where to?” Some church? Somehow I couldn't see Ossie in his white hat walking down the aisle of First Presbyterian Church even if Pastor Pittman was doing the service. Ossie would probably be packing some firearm even then, though he didn't strike me as the type of hard-nosed cop who eats, sleeps and breathes the job.

“I'd say somewhere indoors.” Scott looked at an empty muffin warmer basket. “Our Mr. Fortune up and gone?” he asked.

“In and out,” I said. “He just left with Lesley Lynn.” I'd seen them leave as Ida Plum was brushing the rain off her coat with a tea towel. Miles had guided Lesley Lynn gently down the stairs and out the door. I wished he
was
gone, although he was a paying guest and I seemed to be suffering a dearth of those lately. At least I thought he was a paying guest. We had his credit card number and Ida Plum said it was one of those gold or platinum cards. He had saved my life. Maybe I owed him a free room for that. Or more. How did one ever repay someone for saving your life? I didn't know.

“I'd say you got space in the living room and front hall. You got the dining room already set up for doing receptions. I say move the furniture to the walls, stand some flowers around and go with it. Necessity is the godmother of making do with what you got. You got indoor space,” Scott said.

But the living room was not renovated. Walls had peeling wallpaper so old it had lost all color and looked like ancient newsprint. If the pattern had once been huge roses or violets or checks or stripes no one could guess it now. The fireplace mantel was rotten on one side and the mirror over it so old the silvering on the back crackled. Nobody could see anything in it. And the floors! Rugs had dry rot and places so bare you could see the weave of the backing. “Threadbare” was the word. I stood looking at the word made flesh.

“So we roll up the rugs and I toss them in Verna's overflowing dumpster. Get the Betts Brothers to bring in as many white flowers as they can get their hands on and nobody will notice,” Scott said.

“What about chairs?” I asked.

“What were you going to do outside?”

“Well, stand, I guess. A wedding ceremony doesn't usually last that long and Juanita said she's keeping this one simple.”

“So everybody stands for the ten minutes it takes Pittman to read some words and the bride and groom to mumble ‘I something, something, something.' Soon as the cake is cut and all the food inhaled in the dining room, you clear the table, we take out the leaves and ta da, let the dancing begin.”

“I don't see a thing wrong with that.” Ida Plum stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “Except where do they put all the raincoats and umbrellas? Is there by any chance among all that stuff at Verna's something such as any sort of coat-rack?”

“I'll look,” Scott said.

When Ida Plum saw the wastebasket full of glass I told her about last night. She poured herself a second cup of coffee, almost downed it in one gulp, and said, “You gonna bother Ossie with all this on his wedding day?”

“No,” I said. “Besides, Bruce was here. He can tell him if he wants to. Mrs. Rigsbee is under arrest and since we have no jail anymore, he probably carted her over to Pinehurst. Or Vass. If Vass even has a jail. Either way, she shouldn't be a problem.”

“Probably Pinehurst,” Scott said. “And today, at least today, I've got an inside job. No gazebos.” He pronounced it “gaze bows” and winked at me as he left by the front door, minus umbrella. Mr. Macho, taking on the elements with only a windbreaker and nothing on his head.

Miles Fortune had worn a well-seasoned London Fog trench coat plus some type of Sherlock Holmes hat and opened his “brolly” as he escorted Lesley Lynn out into the downpour. Still a mystery man who came and slept, ate and left, taking Lesley Lynn with him. Was he taking her to her aunt Calista's house? Or L.A.? After all she was a beauty queen. And I still had a niggling suspicion he might have had something to do with the courthouse burning. Was he the kind of documentary maker who'd set a fire just so he could film it? Burn down our town icon and hotfoot it out to wherever he came from in the first place? I confess when I cleaned his room I sniffed extra hard for any evidence he'd been closer to the fire than just a bystander, anything that would confirm my suspicions. So far, nothing.

According to Malinda, who dropped by on her way to work, word was the fire chief had no idea what started the fire that reduced our beautiful courthouse to a blackened Confederate soldier and some empty standing brick walls.

“But,” I said, “sit down and let me tell you my latest. Bigger news. I found Butch Rigsbee.”

I handed her a mug of coffee, indicated a stool at the kitchen island.

“I'm en route.” She took the coffee. “Just stopping in to hear the latest. Spill and don't leave anything out.”

I told her all, including the details of Allison's confession, how I found the body, the Old Spice and everything.

“I didn't know they still made the stuff,” Malinda said. “That must have been the giant-sized bottle. Imagine embalming with Old Spice.”

“Where did he take Allison?” Ida Plum asked. “Police station? Then where? We have no jail,” she said again and clucked her tongue at all this latest Littleboro news.

“The wedding?” Malinda put down her coffee mug, shrugged into her raincoat. “What's going to happen with that?”

“According to Scott,” Ida Plum said, “we're taking it inside. Juanita's garden wedding is going to be dry.”

“I hope you don't mean sans alcohol.” She laughed. “Weddings are the only time I get champagne. There
is
going to be champagne, isn't there?”

“Prosecco,” I said. “That's what the groom wants. And I've ordered some local brews. Scott suggested those.”

“Including some green bean wine?” Ida Plum said.

“Is there really such a thing as green bean wine?” Malinda raised an eyebrow. “Don't save me any.” She looked as if she'd never put anything green to her lips again in her life. And I wouldn't blame her.

“Absolutely,” I said, and shuddered a little. Not on this earth would I ever put a touch of green bean wine to my lips. Ugh. Scott may have been joking. Surely nobody had made a wine out of beans. But then stranger things happened. Look at vodka, made from potatoes! But at least it wasn't green unless they added a tint.

Malinda stood in the half-open doorway, gave us a two-finger goodbye wave and was gone.

In Littleboro, when you hear the same rumor with most of the same details then you figure you're getting close to the truth. With the Allison story, everyone would know the truth and it was so awful it probably wouldn't need to be embellished. I was sure at least some extra details would travel in the area of what really happened though. Put enough versions together and you're in the ballpark of the truth.

I put an emergency call in to the Betts Brothers for any white flowers they could get their hands on, preferably fresh. The plan had been to use both plastic and silk and mix in a little fresh in pots for the outdoor deal. My grandmother would have been horrified at the idea of plastic flowers, but Bobby Betts said they did it all the time and so far nobody was the wiser, especially for the outdoor weddings. “Fresh just melts,” he said on the phone.

“Plastic,” I said. I was half-horrified.

“These days even some bridal bouquets are plastic,” he said.

I remembered how Reba had stuck her plastic bouquet in a vase of water in the motel room. Poor Reba.

Now I was all the way horrified. Where was the sentiment? The romance of roses and lily of the valley? Orchids? I'd seen Mama Alice cater weddings where the bridal bouquet was one huge white orchid that had been flown in from some exotic island halfway around the world.

“Whatever,” I said. “See you about three this afternoon?” I had final decorating touches, a couple more swags around the top for the wedding cake and a couple mixers full of buttercream icing to make for the cake squares. Thank goodness I wasn't doing meringue. Not in this weather.

 

Chapter Fifty

By the time the Betts Brothers van drove up in front of the Dixie Dew, I was covered in buttercream, but the five-tiered cake was a work of art, all scrolls and swags and icing roses. I had not lost my touch. “Yay!” I shouted when I finished and set it on the middle of the dining-room table. Sure Juanita had said seven tiers, but with enough Prosecco she'd be beyond counting, and of course, I'd lower the price. Today I just couldn't handle another two layers.

At four o'clock the sky was still pouring buckets. It had not stopped, paused, or slacked a mite all day. Rain fell in silver sheets off the porch roof.

After the Betts Brothers did their do and left, Ida Plum and I stood in the hall, looked into the living room and told ourselves the whole thing was a bower of white. With the candles lit, the effect would be breathtaking. At least we hoped it would.

When the white stretch limo stopped in front of the Dixie Dew, Ida Plum and I totally expected Juanita and her “party” to step out, holding umbrellas of course. The rain had not slacked all day.

We went to the front porch to get close-up looks as the bride arrived.

Instead we saw a little twig of a girl scoot up, hand out, ready to ring the doorbell. She scooted to a stop on the top step, announced, “Miss Deye will be alighting momentarily. Her hair and makeup people are not finished.” Then the pixie person in a black smock asked, “Where are the photographers, the newspaper reporters? Inside? Is someone from
People
magazine here yet?” Her perky little acorn of a face with half-black hair, half-green, she, or he, looked as if it had never seen a calorie outside a head of lettuce.

“Photographers?” Ida Plum and I looked at each other. “Reporters?”

“They plan to arrive later,” I lied. Something that was getting to be a habit. Had I been hanging around Allison too much and it was rubbing off on me? “But please come in out of the rain.”

“Yes,” Ida Plum said. “Get in out of the wet.”

The elfin of a girl whirled around and sprinted through the puddles back to the limo, slammed shut the car door.

Ida Plum and I stood on the front porch to see who (or what) would pop out of that limo next.

We waited, noted the engine kept running and running the whole time and there seemed to be movement going on inside, but no one came out.

We waited some more, looked at each other, shrugged. “Didn't she say momentarily? How long exactly is momentarily?” Around here in Littleboro, a person might say, “I'll be with you directly,” which meant sometime in the near future, after I'm done doing what I'm doing right now. Momentarily was a big-city word.

Ida Plum looked at her watch.

I heard Sherman in the hall scratching to be let out, so I opened the screen door. He darted out, followed by Robert Redford fast on his heels. Those two were inseparable.

I looked at my watch, almost turned to go back to my cake icing, my scrolls, swags and roses, except I knew I'd wait as long as it took to see the famous Miss Deye, this return of the native, our local daughter made good giving her grand entrance and to be there to watch her milk her “moment” for all it was worth. Photographers! Reporters! Had she forgotten this was Littleboro?

At the same time I dreaded it. Who was I to even be in the same “moment” with a woman who had been the toast of L.A.? Her singing voice on scores of commercials, everything from shampoos to car rentals to vacation cruises. Her voice talent had gone around the world. I almost felt like ducking out, going back and hiding behind my icing bowl in the Dixie Dew kitchen. What if Scott, seeing her again, decided he wanted his life back with her? What was life in Littleboro compared to the bright lights and glam of L.A.? All that fame and money? All the glitter and glory? What did I have to offer? Work and a warm bed. A sincere heart, an honest relationship.