BRIDE and DOOM (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 2) (7 page)

              “I have a good rapport with Sterling Slaughter,” she began, glancing briefly at Becca then returning her gaze to the harbor ahead.

              “I’m not sure I know who that is.”

              “Yes you do,” said Kitty sharply. “You saw me talking to him and you just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

              “Is that what this is about?” She laughed. “Kitty, please!” She snorted. “You’ve been paranoid since college.”

              Kitty balked at that, offended.

              “It’s not my fault men you like take sudden interest in me,” she said, dryly.

              “Did you...” she was afraid to ask and acutely aware that her curiosity about Becca and Sterling had virtually nothing to do with the issue at hand, so she trailed off, regrouped, and finally admitted to herself she needed to know. “Did you spend time with him alone?”

              “I don’t kiss and tell.” Becca was staring at the water. She drank her vodka. The woman was incorrigible! Kitty scowled at her. “Oh, for God’s sake, Kitty. No! Nothing happened!”

              “You’re not lying to me, are you?”

              “No,” she said flatly. “I have no problem telling you who I’ve slept with, you know that.”

              Kitty sighed with relief.

              “But I’ll tell you something else. If he’s game, I am. And I won’t feel bad about it.”

              Any relief she felt was now gone. “Well, that’s not why I brought it up,” she began, turning slightly obstinate.

              “Oh really? I find that hard to believe.”

              “I know you told Sterling you saw Erik put candlesticks—candlesticks identical to the murder weapon mind you—in the trunk of his car.”

              Becca stiffened and crossed her legs nervously.

              “Why would you say that, Becca?”

              “Because I saw him.” She didn’t look at Kitty when she made the statement. Liars never can look you in the eye.

              “Where? When?” she pressed.

              “I don’t owe you any explanations,” Becca snapped. “I already talked to Sterling about it.”

              Kitty had had just about enough of this.

              “Well, did you talk to Sterling about your car? About altering the valet records? About how guilty you look for Johnny’s murder?!”

              “Whoa!” Becca said, jumping in her seat. “Whoa, calm down now.”

              “Oh, I’m very calm. I’m also very curious how you’re going to explain all that to the detective once I tell him.”

              “He doesn’t know?”

              “You know he doesn’t know or he would’ve asked you about it.”

              “Then how do you know?”

              It was as close to an admission as Kitty thought she’d get.

              “So you confess?”

              “I didn’t do anything, Kitty!”

              “It certainly looks like you did. Your vehicle had severe damage. I know you sideswiped Johnny!”

              “I didn’t!”

              “Then you didn’t have time to get rid of your Lexus or rent another car so, stupidly, you parked it here at the Delamar. Then after you
killed
Johnny, you realized the record of your car would be enough to incriminate you, so you used your trollop feminine wiles to work one over on the valets and have the books changed! Then, to create a diversion you put candlesticks in Erik’s trunk to frame him and put yourself in the clear!”

              “You’re insane!”

              “Why did you do it, Becca?! Did you mean to kill Johnny or did you think it was really Erik, you bird brain!”

              “Hey!”

              “Maybe if you couldn’t have him no one could, hmmm???”

              “Stop! Just stop it!”

              “I will not stop it until you admit what you’ve done!”

              Both women were heaving out of breath, staring wide-eyed at one another like wild animals.

              “Look,” said Becca after catching her breath. “I only changed the valet record once I saw what had been done to my car.”

              Kitty narrowed her eyes at Becca.

              “I didn’t have my car, Kitty. I’d reported it stolen that morning. I have the police report and everything.”

              “Can I see it?”

              “You don’t believe me?”

              Kitty wasn’t sure what to believe.

              “Fine,” said Becca as she opened her purse. She shoved the document in Kitty’s lap. “See for yourself.”

              Kitty read it over in disbelief, but it was official.

              “Your car was found at the Delamar valet parking lot?” Kitty questioned as soon as she read the strange detail.

              “Yes.”

              “What about the candlesticks?” Kitty pressed, not yet willing to give Becca a break. “Did you really see Erik with them?”

              Becca looked her dead in the eye and said, “Yes.”

              “Why don’t I believe you, Becca?”

              She sighed and said, “Because it’s not that simple. You wouldn’t understand.”

              “Try me.”

              “Look, I don’t know who killed Johnny,” she began. “And I don’t know who stole my car. But I was...” she trailed off.

              “Come on, Becca, help me understand this.”

              She sighed. “I slept with Erik.”

              Kitty froze as the admission washed over her.

              “What?” she asked. “When? Why?”

              Tears welled up in Becca’s eyes. “It was a mistake. We both regretted it. He’d been going through a rough patch with Mandy, and I...well, I don’t have a real excuse. He’s a good looking guy.”

              Kitty tried to react sympathetically, but she was horrified. The best she could do was say nothing.

              “It happened a few weeks back. Anyway, I wanted to smooth things over, make it up to him, you know? I knew Mandy had fallen in love with those candlesticks. She told me. I contacted the decorator for the store and bought three. Then I met with Erik. He was furious I’d contacted him privately, but he softened up once I showed him the candlesticks. I told him to give them to Mandy as a present and I watched him put them in the trunk of his car. I guess he never gave them to her, I don’t know. Maybe he was planning on surprising her tonight or something.”

              Kitty mulled that over. Becca’s anguish—her sincerity—left Kitty with no choice but to believe her.

              “So when did you give him the candlesticks?”

              “About five days ago,” she said, easily.

              Suddenly, Mandy’s accusation that Erik hadn’t come home all of last night surged to the forefront of Kitty’s mind.

              “Was Erik with you last night?” she asked.

              “No,” said Becca, confused. “No he wasn’t. I stumbled to my room alone last night.”

              “You bought him three candlesticks?”

              “Yes.”

              “Only two were found in his trunk,” Kitty pointed out.

              “Wasn’t the third the murder weapon?”

              “No,” said Kitty, trying not to lose grasp on the thread of logic she’d secured. “There were six set out across the mantle and bar. Then after Johnny was discovered there were five set out and one in the coatroom.”

              “There’s a missing candlestick?”

              Kitty was ready to burst she was thinking so hard. “It’s too great a coincidence.”

              “I told you I didn’t do it!”

              “I need to think,” said Kitty, rising from the bench. Becca followed suit and stared at her, as Kitty gazed out across the harbor. “How would the killer know to use the candlestick?”

              She kept turning the question over in her mind, hoping it’d shed light on the killer’s identity or at least his perverse logic, but she was coming up blank.

              “It was
convenient
, not a coincidence.
Convenient
.” Kitty went on, sinking into a daze of hard thinking. “Who knew you’d given Erik the candlesticks?”

              “Anyone he told, I suppose,” said Becca, not that it was helpful.

              Kitty milled back down the marina.

              “You’re not going to tell that detective, are you?” Becca called after her.

              But Kitty didn’t turn around and didn’t answer. Ideas were forming in her mind, but they were too thin to grasp. Someone had to have known. Someone close to Erik.

              Who would be that close to the groom?

              It was fast approaching ten-thirty. She needed answers and she needed them now.

              Erik lived with Mandy in the heart of Greenwich in a quaint one-story home on the corner of Orchard and Pine. Kitty found it easily, though she’d never once been to their humble abode. After parking across the street and doing what she could to compose the questions that were racing through her mind, she trotted across the street and slowed up when she hopped on the curb.

              Their home looked more like a dollhouse than a real one. Its white picket fence, cute porch, and brown-shingled roof reminded Kitty of years spent gluing tiny wooden slats together on top of her father’s desk. Her father had grumbled over the construction directions as Kitty forged ahead, determined to build her dream house though it would stand only eight inches tall.

              Kitty pressed the doorbell and listened to it chime faintly within the house. She then stepped back and marveled at the sky as she waited. Big, fluffy clouds floated lazily by against the blue-dome sky. Greenwich was a beautiful town no matter the season, but summer tended to be Kitty’s favorite.

              She turned when she heard the door click open behind her, and met eyes with Erik.

              “Kitty,” he said with much surprise. “Ah, thank you for contacting that detective. But I was about to head in. It’s nearly ten-thirty.”

              “Hold off on that, Erik. We need to talk.”

              He looked concerned, but invited her in. “Mandy’s sleeping upstairs,” he said, implying they’d have to be quiet.

              When they reached the living room, a cozy space decorated much like a winter cabin, Kitty wasted no time to collect the facts head on—no beating around the bush.

              “When we spoke earlier, Erik, you said
they found candlesticks in your trunk
. But your phrasing was misleading.”

              “I’m sorry?”

              Kitty sat on the couch so Erik would know this wouldn’t be an easy conversation. He sat as well in an adjacent armchair that squeaked every time he shifted as brown leather gave under his weight.

              “Becca gave you those candlesticks.”

              He sighed. “What does that matter?”

              “It might not,” she stated. “But your affair with her certainly does.”

              Erik’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

              “Don’t deny it. I spoke to Becca.”

              “She’s lying! I never had an affair with her!”

              “Why would she lie?” Kitty asked, pitying his state. “I don’t care about the affair; I just need to know what happened to the third candlestick. I need to know who you pissed off when you slept with Becca. I need to know everything you’re not telling me or else I can’t help you, Erik. This is serious.”

              “It certainly is,” said Mandy from the doorway.

              “Honey!” Erik exclaimed, springing to his feet. “What did you hear?”

              “Everything!” she screamed. “Becca?! My maid of honor?! How could you?!”

              “I didn’t, Mandy! You have to believe me!”

              Kitty was stunned and her heart immediately sank at having caused this. She felt sick to her stomach and when she raised her eyes to say something to put an end to the screaming between bride and groom, she was met with Sterling’s steely gaze.

              “Let’s go, Erik,” he said, grimly.

              “Wait!” Kitty rushed to Sterling and grabbed his arm. “Not now, please not now!”

              “Good work about the affair,” he said with a grin. “Though it would’ve been a nice touch if you’d kept it private.”

              Mandy threw a vase at Erik, but he ducked and it shattered against the wall.

              “Could’ve spared some fallout, don’t you think?”

             
Oh, Sterling was so smug when he saw the opportunity for it!