The Busybody Needed Killing, page 10
A door that led back into the lodge was opened and the crowd started moving toward it. I was pretty sure that if they’d opened the series of French doors that were to the right of the door, the crowd could have entered the banquet hall through them—skipping the receiving line entirely—instead of being funneled to the head of the line. Somebody around here understood crowd control.
Jack, Bex, Bobby, and I took our places in the line that was forming.
The banquet hall was now ready for a wedding reception. The long head table had been moved out from the wall and was fully set and decorated. The round tables had been moved away from the center of the room to make a space where a dance floor had appeared.
I was surprised to see that there was assigned seating. I know that’s not the right expression. Still, someone had gone to the trouble to create a seating chart. We wandered around from table to table looking for our names.
“Rebecca!” A distinguished-looking woman was waving at us—well, Bex really. Her hair was silver-blond—if there is such a color, and she had a long, slender neck and confident posture. “Your seats are over here.”
“Maddy! How wonderful!”
We started out toward the table—Bex and Bobby leading the way. Jack whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Maddy Nash, one of the best things that ever happened to Cranbury. I don't know if he’s here but her husband is Eli Summers—a doctor who didn’t go into medicine to make money.”
“They sound interesting.”
Bex and Maddy hugged. “What fun! How wonderful to see you! Is Eli going to be able to come?”
Maddy smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “He’s here. Don’t know if he’ll be able to stay. He’s been talking to a patient. It might be 'take two aspirin and go lie down' or something more serious.”
We were going through the introductions when an older man, balding on the top, bushy eyebrows, with a twinkle in his eyes walked up. “So! A trifecta. I get to see all of the Three Bs—first Bunny, now Bex and Bobby!”
The last two members of our table arrived shortly thereafter—Owen Cranston and Angela Griswold. I recognized Owen right away but didn’t mention I’d seen him before. As for his companion, she had just arrived today so I’d no chance to have seen her. The restaurant business was more flexible with its employees’ schedules than other businesses were with theirs. She was a petite, vivacious young lady and they made an attractive couple but Owen had been careful to introduce her as a friend—not girlfriend.
In any forced companionship—like being seated at a dinner table with people you don’t know—there’s bound to be a little tension—some forced conversation. Unless Dr. Eli Summers is seated there. With a gregarious generosity he made everyone seated at his table—and within seconds it became his—comfortable and welcome. Introductions were made, names swapped, origins revealed, occupations shared, and connections with the bride and groom explained.
Before we knew it we were all participants in an awards ceremony. Angela and I tied for the most-distantly-connected award, as we had never met the bride and groom before this weekend. Owen won the most-connected award since he had taught both bride and groom in high school. Bunny and Bex tied for the longest-time-connected-to-bride’s-family award. Categories and awards all made up as Eli awarded them—in a genial and kindly manner—but not southern. Oh, don’t misunderstand me—he was every inch a gentleman—he just didn’t hail from the South. I made a mental note to find out where he was from.
Occasionally Eli would defer to others—asking for information—or suggesting a story for them to tell—but the reins of the conversation always came back to his hands.
“Dr. Summers.” He’d just finished a tale about the Three Bs and the conversation had paused while we all chuckled.
“If you’re going to continue in that behavior, I’m going to have to call you Private Investigator Crawford—please, it’s Eli.”
“I stand—or sit—corrected. Eli, what’s your award-winning connection with the bride and groom? Did you deliver both of them?”
Eli looked blank for a heartbeat then shook his head. “Like an old family physician, huh? No, that’s not the case.” He cocked his head and I could see him assessing me, “But not an unreasonable inference, Crawford. No, my specialty shares the same onus among doctors that an endodontist does among dentists. I’m an oncologist. People don’t want to be referred to a person who performs root canals or one who treats cancer.”
Bobby leaned forward across the table. “But it’s a job that needs doing, and I suspect you do it much better than most. Bunny surely thinks so. She told me you wouldn't be calling in hospice."
"Hospice." Eli glanced over at Maddy who just gave him a small smile and a nod of her head. He kept looking at his wife who, as I found out later, had been instrumental in starting hospice in Cranbury. He went on. “There’s a group that does a job—performs a service—that needs doing—a damned important one.”
Eli turned back to the table. “Sonya Hardy—the executive director here—would agree with me. I can’t praise hospice too highly. Her mother’s dying and Sonya came to Cranbury to do what she could for her mother. Ask her about hospice and a job worth doing.”
He sat silent. I opened my mouth to speak and he started talking.
“Hospice is all for the patient—making them comfortable—dying with dignity. No nonsense about patients who are dying getting addicted to morphine—who cares? How bad is morphine addiction anyway even if death is months away instead of weeks? It’s not like my patients are going to start stealing to support their habit.
“Huh.” He snorted. “Can’t get some people to understand—like Theodore Drake and his ‘one step taken on the slippery slope to Hell’ nonsense. What’s all the fuss about medicinal drug use? If a glass of wine helps calm you down, drink it. A puff of marijuana to combat pain and nausea? Who’s it hurting? What if heroin is better than morphine for the patient?”
“Hear, hear.” I was in complete agreement with the good doctor.
“Now, Eli.” Maddy reached out and patted his hand.
“Oh, I know you and Joseph have seen the bad that drugs can do—especially how it can mess up the young.” He looked around the table at his listeners. “Joseph Godwin is a local psychiatrist who does a lot of work with troubled children in town and Maddy’s a social worker. They both do a lot of good, but I haven’t been able to get Joseph to understand that using drugs to get high as a teenager isn’t the same as using them medicinally.”
Maddy coughed—and Eli started. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get on my soapbox—it’s a wedding.”
From the head table came the sound of someone tapping a glass with a knife. Let the speeches begin.
After the cake-cutting, I excused myself and stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. When I was growing up, it was cigarette smoke that drove people outside. Now, people came outside to smoke. Funny how that works. I had slipped out the front door, onto the long porch that ran across the lodge. I figured the smokers would have gone back to the courtyard we’d been in before the reception line and I’d figured right. I wandered down the porch.
Why had I come outside? I wasn’t sure—a mixture of murder and wedding—I supposed. My new career had me puzzling over the murder but it was just idle speculation. I didn’t see any likelihood that I’d be involved in this one. The State of Tennessee had its own private detectives and, I’m sure, some of them were Roman Catholic and members of the diocese of Tennessee if Camp Serenity felt the need to hire one. Besides, Deputy Ross Howard of the Lee County Sheriff’s Department struck me as a very competent man. If the rest of the force was like him, the murderer didn’t stand a chance.
So if it wasn’t the murder—was it the wedding? Memories of our wedding—Eleanor’s and mine—came flooding in. The minister saying that if anybody did raise an objection he’d just say “overruled.” How beautiful she’d looked as she walked down the aisle toward me. My heart had ached at the sight of her. Until death do us part. And death had parted us.
I had stopped walking and was staring sightlessly at the parking lot, leaning on the railing. Bobby had asked if I would be okay coming to a wedding with her and I’d answered her truthfully—as truthfully as I could. But she was wiser than I. Eleanor had been, too—come to think of it. It was time to keep the good memories and move on.
I pushed off the rail, turned back in the direction I’d come from, and walked back toward the party. The fresh air had done me good. I looked up and saw two people standing at the other end of the porch. The man leaning on a cane was Joseph Godwin. That must have been him being helped into the golf cart. The cane explained the cart and the help, I guess. He was talking to Connie Green. She was offering him a small Styrofoam box, but he was waving it away. If there was a piece of her fried chicken in that box, the man was a fool.
I headed to the lobby where there was a phone that guests could use. I wanted to check on something before talking to Bobby.
10
Saturday Afternoon
WHEN I GOT back to the table Jack had disappeared, Bunny had taken Jack’s seat between Bex and Bobby, Owen and Angela were on the dance floor, and Eli and Maddy were standing, talking to another couple. I slipped into the chair next to Bobby, tapped her shoulder, whispered in her ear, and was delighted to get a vigorous thumbs-up.
Zelda and Arnold had left the hall—off to change out of wedding clothes and into traveling apparel. The crowd gathered itself together and moved to the parking lot, splitting into two to form a gauntlet for the newly married couple’s dash to their car. The final bit of tradition was ready to be performed.
Members of the camp staff were walking around with trays filled with small bottles of bubble soap solution that had wands tied to them with white ribbons. Throwing rice at the couple was old-fashioned and environmentally unfriendly. Soap bubbles on the other hand were nothing but fun. Already individuals were practicing to see if they could remember how it all worked. Some were pursing their lips, others gently waving the wands in the air, some trying for quantity, others for size. It was a fun idea that I’d never seen before. If it had been a night wedding we’d probably have been given sparklers, but they would have made a shabby display on this sunny December afternoon.
Zelda and Arnold had pulled one trick on their friends. Arnold’s car had been found and heavily decorated with white shoe polish, soap, and tin cans—but a white limousine was to whisk the newly married couple off to the Nashville airport. The best man was going to be stuck with the car he’d so enthusiastically decorated—or so the story went. I suspected that he’d been in on the plot from the beginning, but had little evidence to go on except that the driver’s view hadn’t been obstructed.
Bunny, Bex, and Bobby were standing together. They’d gotten extra bottles of soap and were occasionally blowing bubbles at each other. Jack and I were behind them. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that some of the camp staff had come outside to watch the bride and groom depart. I recognized a few of them but could name only two—Sonya and Connie. Movement caught my eye and I realized somebody was driving up to the camp. A late guest? I dismissed that idea. If you were this late you might as well have turned around and gone home. They’d be lucky if they caught a glimpse of bride and groom.
“Here they come!” Somebody shouted and, sure enough, there they were. They paused at the edge of the porch while Zelda blew the crowd a kiss, then raced down the steps, through a sea of bubbles, to the safety of the limousine.
I’d made sure to carry extra tissues in my suit pockets and handed them out to the appreciative Three Bs while retrieving their soap bubble bottles. Bunny looked drained but happy, smiling through her tears. I didn’t immediately see a trash can and wondered if someone was going to collect the bottles.
“Do you know what we’re supposed to do with these?” I gestured with my hand full of bottles.
Jack was straightening up from having just picked one up off the ground. He had a collection of them as well.
“Seems a waste to throw them away.”
I turned around to see if the executive director was still standing where I’d seen her last. If anybody knew what was supposed to happen to the bottles, Sonya Hardy would.
It took me a second to spot her. She’d obviously walked over to greet the car that had driven up. A man and woman had gotten out of the car and were talking to Sonya.
“Jack.” I kept looking at the scene before me.
Jack turned to see what I was looking at. “Yeah?”
“Recognize those people?” I cocked my head in their direction. “The ones with Ms. Hardy?” I knew who they had to be.
“Sure do. That’s Urban Drake and his sister, Nina—Theodore’s brother and sister. They must have driven out to the old family farm looking for him.”
11
Late Saturday Afternoon
I SAW NO reason to meet the Drakes. I wasn’t the last person to have seen their brother alive and wasn’t, technically, the first to see him dead. At least I assumed he’d been dead when the murderer left him. Anyway, there wasn’t anything I could tell them that Ms. Hardy couldn’t—anything they’d want to hear. One of the drawbacks of investigating murders was looking at dead bodies—as far as I was concerned.
The camp’s official checkout time was long past, but the wedding party had made arrangements with Sonya. We hadn’t had to vacate the chalet before the wedding, which was a good thing since I’d barely had enough time to get dressed as it was. Still, we’d expected to be able to leave the camp early enough for Bobby and me to get back to Shelbyville before seven or eight o’clock at night.
“Look, Crawford,” Jack grinned at me from the doorway into our room. “Bex and I were wondering if you and Bobby would like to spend the night with us in Cranbury. We’ve got plenty of room. Bobby can testify to that. She’s stayed with us before.”
I stopped packing and looked questioningly at Bobby. I hadn’t thought of doing that when I’d come up with my plan. “Would you rather?”
Bobby laughed and hugged me. “Can we take a rain check, Jack? Ford called and made reservations for us tonight in Nashville. We’re going to hear Mike Henderson and his band play at the Bluebird Cafe!”
“Really! That’s fantastic.” Jack looked at me. “He’s one hell of a musician and a heck of a nice guy, from what I hear. I know Bobby’s a fan of his—how did you hear of him?”
“We heard him play in a bar down in Shelbyville. Bobby wanted to see him play. I had never heard of him before, but wow.” That was during my second murder investigation.
Bex joined Jack in the doorway. “What’s this? The Bluebird? Tonight?”
“Spur of the moment kind of thing. I’d heard he played there and decided it would be fun. I called and, sure enough, he’s playing tonight and I could get two tickets. I figure we’ll probably be able to find a hotel room. The important thing was whether he was playing—and if we could get in.”
Bex crossed her arms and looked straight at Bobby. “Sounds romantic. I like that in a man. I approve—Jack and I approve. Bunny likes him too.”
Jack threw his head back and laughed. “Jack and I? Like I have anything to say about it!”
When we checked out I asked Sonya about Internet access. She confessed that their connection was a “little slow” but I was welcome to use it. The thought of uploading all the digital pictures we’d made on a connection that was a “little slow” gave me a headache. We’d probably miss the show at the Bluebird.
If I’d brought my laptop, I could have synced the phone with it, copied the files onto a thumb drive, and dropped it off at the sheriff’s. But I hadn’t. I resolved not to travel so unprepared again. Nowadays it seemed that everywhere I went, I found dead bodies.
Nashville wasn’t that far away. Once we got checked in I’d have plenty of time to upload the pictures and send them to Nan and Ross—I wondered how seriously Deputy Howard had been hurt. I’d make sure to choose a hotel with fast Internet access. I felt a twinge of guilt. I’d promised Ross not to leave here without sending those pictures. Still, if the sheriff was going to wait until Monday to send out investigators then nobody was going to do anything with what I had to send them until then. It was a rationalization. I realized that and I could live with it.
I pulled my phone out to check the time and discovered that I needn’t have been concerned—the battery was dead. I wasn’t going to be doing anything with the pictures until I could plug it in.
The hotel in Nashville had high-speed Internet access, an available room with queen-size beds, and a more than decent restaurant nearby. In addition, it was just a short taxi ride from the Bluebird Cafe.
It didn’t take long to get the pictures uploaded, but then I had to break them up into batches for mailing. If I’d sent all of them in one email it would have bounced back to me instantly. As it was, I might have some emails returned as undeliverable, but most should go through without a problem.
I turned my phone off and left it charging. I’d talked to Pauline, my house- and pet-sitter and she was fine spending another night with Tan and The Black. She told me not to hurry home when I explained what Bobby and I were doing. I took that as another sign of approval.
Nobody else needed to get in touch with me—if they did they could leave a message. I was making sure that my phone wouldn’t ring while Mike Henderson was playing.
I pushed the chair back from the desk and stood up. Bobby stood up too. She hadn’t packed for an evening out in Nashville, but she looked so good I certainly couldn’t tell it.
“Food, drink, and music?” I pointed at the door.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
