Annabelle Archer BoxSet, page 29
part #1 of Annabelle Archer Series
I looked at Leatrice over my shoulder. “This is Joni. The videographer I spoke to on the phone.”
Leatrice began to fidget. “How did I know she was who she claimed to be? That bag could be a high-tech explosive, for all I know.”
“Did you explain who you were?” I asked Joni.
“Several times.” Joni arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t know I needed to bring two forms of ID, though.”
Kate gave her a nudge. “Well, you do look suspicious. Most terrorists are blond females, you know.”
“She’s wearing all black and carrying a package,” Leatrice insisted. “You can’t be too safe.”
“This is Washington,” Joni muttered. “Everyone wears black.”
I pushed open my front door and ushered everyone inside, taking the bag from Joni. “Do you want to stay and watch it with us now that you’re here?”
“Why not? It’s one of the more interesting wedding films I’ve shot for pure entertainment value. There was that time that I shot the biker wedding and the bride wore white leather. I don’t even know where you could find a leather wedding dress.”
Thankfully, I didn’t have any idea, either. The day a bride asked me for a leather dress would be the day I hung up my wedding planner hat.
“And how could I forget the circus wedding?” Joni continued. “That couple was a bit off to begin with, though.”
“Circus people are odd,” I said.
“Oh, they weren’t with the circus,” Joni explained. “They just wanted a circus-themed wedding. The groom dressed like a ringmaster and the bride wore a tightrope walker’s costume. All the guests had to dress up like clowns.”
“That’s one way to get a lower guest count,” Kate muttered.
Leatrice brightened. “I wouldn’t mind going to a wedding like that. I already have the outfit.”
I shook my head. Why was I surprised?
“I’ll put the DVD in.” Kate took the bag from me and headed toward my television stand tucked in the corner. “I’m dying to see what happened. We missed most of the action after the police detained us.”
“After the bride ran into the courtyard screaming that her wedding vendors had murdered someone, it was pretty much pandemonium.” Joni took a seat on the end of the couch and scooted over when Leatrice sat next to her. “I stopped shooting when the police came out. Luckily, I hadn’t come anywhere near the crime scene, and they weren’t interested in my ceremony footage.”
“It didn’t occur to the police that you might have inadvertently recorded something through the glass walls?” I stood behind the couch and waited for Kate to finish putting the DVD in the player.
“The officer who took our statements seemed really green,” Joni said. “I don’t think he’d been to many murder scenes.”
Leatrice turned around to face me. “But you’ll show this to the police if we find anything, right?”
“Of course. Once we’ve determined who the murderer is, I’ll turn all the evidence over to the cops and let them make the arrest.” I sighed. “We have to make sure our evidence outweighs the evidence they have against Georgia or it won’t do any good.”
“The DVD’s starting.” Kate hunched in front of the TV. “Where’s the remote to this thing?”
“I got it.” I reached over to the wooden end table at the foot of the couch and grabbed the silver remote control. Kate stepped away from the television screen as it filled with an image of the bride getting her makeup done in the hotel suite. She wore jeans and a white button-down shirt, and her bridesmaids clustered around her nibbling on bagels and sipping champagne. She looked so happy that I cringed remembering her face when she saw the dead chef. I pushed the fast- forward button and the screen flashed through more dressing footage, shots of the outside of the church, and the world’s fastest ceremony processional.
“Those are lovely dresses.” Leatrice sniffled. “Do you think we could slow it down and watch some of the ceremony? Weddings are so beautiful, I always cry.”
“No way.” Kate shook her head. “It’s a full Catholic mass. I sat through it once. No way am I sitting through it a second time.”
We watched in fast forward as readers zipped up to the podium, the bride and groom exchanged vows in rapid fire, and the priest whizzed through communion. I leaned against the back of the couch wondering how long it would take us to get to the good part. You know you’ve done too many weddings when you consider a murder the most interesting part of a wedding film.
“Here comes the cocktail hour.” Joni reached back and tugged on my sleeve.
I pressed Play and the courtyard came into view. Red lanterns hung from transparent wire and seemed to be suspended in midair. The camera panned the entire space then zoomed in on the bar set up against the Colonnade wall. As the camera slowly tightened its shot on the specialty drink menu in the red lacquered frame, I noticed a flicker of movement behind.
“Stop it there,” Kate cried, pointing to the screen. “Someone’s moving in the Colonnade.”
“You’re right.” I paused the DVD and forwarded it a frame at a time. The background was blurry, but I could make out two figures, both wearing white.
“Chef jackets.” Kate slid close to the screen. “They must be wearing chef jackets.”
I snapped my fingers. “Of course.” We watched as the figures grappled in slow motion. Then one pushed the other behind the indoor gazebo. The next few seconds seemed to last forever as we waited to see what happened next. Finally one of the chefs emerged into the camera’s view. Only one of the chefs. He left the room through the kitchen exit then came back in twice more, each time disappearing behind the gazebo. The killer certainly was thorough.
Kate turned around, her mouth hanging open. “Did we just see the murder?”
I nodded, unable to form a coherent sentence. I put the screen on freeze frame.
“It’s not very easy to tell who it is, though.” Leatrice squinted at the out of focus figures on the television.
“But we know two very important things now.” My brain started working on overdrive as I focused on the screen. I walked to the TV and pointed to the figure who must have pushed Henri into the ice sculpture. “Whoever killed Henri wore a chef’s jacket and had dark hair.”
“You’re right.” Kate studied the screen intently. “That narrows it down some, but at the Fairmont there are lots of folks who work in the kitchen and have dark hair.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But Georgia isn’t one of them.”
18
“If the DVD clears Georgia of the murder, I don’t understand why we don’t take it to the police.” Kate followed me through the Fairmont Hotel lobby, running to keep up.
After Joni had left and Leatrice went downstairs to get her magnifying glass so she could further inspect the footage, Kate and I rushed down the back fire escape of my apartment building. Before Leatrice could notice we were gone, we’d hopped in my car and sped away. We knew she would have insisted on joining our search for dark-haired men in chef jackets, and it’s hard to be inconspicuous with a little old lady in pink cowboy boots tagging along.
“For starters,” I said, turning to Kate, “I called Reese, but I had to leave a message. Let’s hope he bothers to call me back. I told the officer I talked to that we’d found evidence to clear Georgia, but he sounded like he didn’t believe me.”
Kate tapped a finger on her chin. “The police don’t believe the wedding planners turned amateur sleuths? Shocking.”
I ignored her sarcasm and resumed walking. “Even though we helped him solve the murder of our mother of the bride, he doesn’t seem to think we’re anything but a nuisance. Plus, the police are sure that Georgia is the killer, so it’s going to take a lot of convincing for them to admit they made a mistake and let her go.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure Kate kept up. “I also think we need to have more evidence about the actual murderer before we turn our information over. Which is why we’re back at the Fairmont. To narrow down the list of dark-haired suspects.”
“So you want us to build an entire case, and then hand it to the cops on a silver platter?”
I took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. “If that’s the only way to be sure that Georgia is cleared of the murder, then yes. Unless Reese deigns to return my call.”
“I don’t know about this, Annabelle.” Kate lowered her voice and closed the distance between us. “Do you think it’s smart of us to poke around the hotel? What if the real killer doesn’t want to be discovered?”
“We’ll be discreet,” I assured her. “I promised Georgia that I would ask around the hotel. I’m sure her colleagues will want to help her.”
Kate shot me a sideways glance. “Except the one that wanted her fired and the one who framed her for murder.”
“Mr. Elliott isn’t off my suspect list.” I reached the second floor landing and paused to catch my breath. “The charming general manager may not have a lot of hair, but if I remember correctly, it is dark.”
“So is Marcello’s,” Kate reminded me. “Are there no Scandinavian chefs in the city?”
“Believe me, if Richard hadn’t been working with him at the Dumbarton House at the time of the murder, Marcello would be at the top of my list. But unless human cloning has come a lot further than I think, it would have been impossible for Marcello to kill Henri. I still think that Marcello might know something about who did kill his archenemy, though.”
“Too bad he would never tell us.” Kate followed me past the executive offices and through the door that led to the back hallways.
“After the way he reacted when we mentioned Henri, I doubt he’d be willing to talk about the murder case again.”
“Luckily we don’t have to talk to him to get the information we need.”
The halls in the back of the hotel were in stark contrast to the ones the guests saw. Painted cinder-block walls and utilitarian tile floors were a far cry from the hotel’s trademark gleaming marble and polished glass. I stopped in front of the door to the employee cafeteria and motioned with a jerk of my head. “We have more than enough people right here who can lead us to the killer.”
“Good thinking, Annie.” Kate patted me on the shoulder. “If anyone is gossiping about the murder, this is the place we’ll hear it.”
I walked inside the employee cafeteria, which had recently been painted red. We were met by the buffet line, which reminded me of elementary school, with the rectangular metal pans of steaming food lined up behind glass hoods. We passed the hot food offerings and made our way down to the beverage station. The ice dispenser made a grinding noise but produced no ice, so we filled our tall paper cups with lukewarm Diet Coke. Nothing like a nice warm soda.
Once we had our drinks, I motioned for Kate to follow me into the sitting area filled with square tables and wooden chairs. A TV mounted on the wall played Oprah, and a cluster of women in housekeeping uniforms watched intently. A tall man I recognized as one of the security staff sat in a corner reading a newspaper. He glanced over his paper as we chose a table by the window that overlooked the roof of the Colonnade.
Kate slid her chair closer to me. “How are we going to get any information out of these people? No one is talking.”
“I guess we wait until Oprah is over.” I peeked at my watch. We had twenty minutes before the talk show queen released her siren’s hold on the room.
“Do you ladies work in the hotel?” A deep voice startled me, and I jumped, spilling a bit of my soda on the table. No great loss. The security officer stood over me in his dark suit.
“Not exactly,” I started to explain. “We’re event planners, and we have an event in the hotel.” Technically not for another two months, but not a complete lie, either.
He cleared his throat. “You can’t be in the employee cafeteria if you’re not an employee.”
“Darcy O’Connell told us it would be okay for us to come here for a drink while we’re working,” Kate explained. Again, technically true. Darcy had said that during our last job at the Fairmont, but she probably hadn’t intended for us to stop by randomly and hang out.
The officer narrowed his eyes at us and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “I’m going to have to confirm this with Miss O’Connell.” He walked out of earshot and spoke low into the device.
“Don’t worry, Annie.” Kate took a sip of tepid soda and made a face. “Darcy will cover for us.”
“So much for being low-key,” I muttered. “The whole hotel knows we’re here now.”
“If we really wanted to blend in, we should have swiped a couple of housekeeping uniforms.” Kate pointed a thumb toward the cluster of women in blue uniforms with white aprons.
I rolled my eyes. “This is not an episode of I Love Lucy. Do you really think the two of us would pass as maids, anyway? We’re about twenty years younger than those women. And when is the last time you cleaned something?” Not that I was one to talk.
Kate made a face at me. “I can clean. I just choose not to most of the time.”
“I’ll bet you don’t even own a toilet brush.”
She gave me a horrified look. “Toilets use brushes?”
Before I could even begin to explain, my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my purse and recognized the number on the caller ID.
“Hi, Nadine,” I said as I answered the phone. “What’s up?”
“I’m worried about my dress,” she said in a shaky voice.
“What about it?” I kept my own voice calm. “Did something happen?”
“No, but the girls at the salon are concerned about the cathedral-length train getting crumpled when it’s transported to my hotel suite. Can we get a stretch limo so the train doesn’t have to be folded?”
I heard the unmistakable sound of smoke being exhaled. “You want me to get a limo for the dress?”
“Yes, the longest one they have. I’m going to pay one of the girls from the salon to ride with it.”
God forbid the dress gets lonely on the ride across town.
I ignored Kate’s muffled giggling. “No problem, Nadine.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” Nadine said. “Can you make sure the limo is black? Since my dress is technically ivory, I think a bright white limo would clash with it.”
I paused to steady my voice and keep from laughing. “You think a white limo will clash with the dress?”
Kate clamped her hand over her mouth and shook with silent laughter.
“Don’t you?” The bride sounded shocked that I would question her.
“A black limo is no problem, Nadine. Call me if you think of anything else.” I dropped the phone in my purse.
Kate wiped tears from her cheeks. “Ow. My sides hurt.”
“It could be worse.” I grinned. “At least she didn’t insist on a police escort for the dress.”
The security officer returned to our table, looking deflated. “Miss O’Connell gave you the okay to be here.” He forced a smile before he turned away. “Have a nice day, ladies.”
“We’re lucky that Darcy is so cool,” Kate said.
I bit the edge of my lip. “I’m sure she’s wondering what we’re up to.”
“It’s no big deal. She’s on our side, remember? Didn’t you see how stressed she was trying to keep up with Georgia’s workload and her own? Darcy wants Georgia back more than anyone.”
I looked past Kate and saw Darcy’s face in the cafeteria doorway. She waved for us to come outside and then disappeared from view. I pulled Kate by the sleeve out of the cafeteria. Once in the hallway, I spotted Darcy behind a stack of plastic glass racks.
“What are you doing there?” I asked.
“Me?” she snapped, stepping from behind the racks. Her white blouse was half untucked from her black skirt and her hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days. She’d gone from naughty librarian to demon-possessed librarian. “What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re actually here for a tasty snack in the employee cafeteria?”
“What happened to you?” Kate stared at Darcy.
“I pulled an all-nighter trying to catch up on work.” Darcy rubbed her hands over her bloodshot eyes. “Sorry if I’m a little grumpy, but I’m exhausted. I can’t take much more of this.”
“Sorry if we took you away from something,” I said. “We thought we might overhear something in the employee cafeteria that could help us prove Georgia’s innocence.”
“Really?” Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Did you have any luck?”
Kate shook her head. “We hoped to find some of the kitchen staff or chefs, but they aren’t in there.”
“The sous chefs are downstairs getting ready for a party in the ballroom,” Darcy explained. “Most of the kitchen staff is probably there as well. Any reason why you want to talk to them?”
I looked at Kate, who nudged me to continue. “We found some evidence that shows that the actual killer had dark hair and wore a chef’s jacket.”
Darcy’s mouth gaped open. “That’s amazing. What kind of evidence?”
“The videographer shot part of the murder from the courtyard without even realizing it,” Kate said. “We just watched the DVD.”
“Did you get a really clear look at the killer?” Darcy’s eyes widened with excitement.
“It’s fuzzy,” I confessed. “We can’t make out who did it, but we do know he had dark hair.”
“If you’re looking for dark-haired chefs, then you should talk to the two sous chefs and the pastry chef first,” Darcy whispered. “All of them worked directly under Henri, all of them have dark hair, and all of them hated their boss. Emilio and Gunter should be working on the buffets in the ballroom foyer, and Jean may be setting up the dessert display already.”
“Thanks, Darcy.” I gave her arm a squeeze. “I know Georgia would be happy to know that she still has friends in the hotel.”
Darcy nodded. “Georgia was a great boss, and I never knew how hard she worked until now. If I can do anything else to help, please let me know.”
