Fed Up (29 page)

Ignoring me, Robin resumed her attack on Nelson. “Get this straight. I am making this film. Me! I am in charge. It’s not about whatever pretty girl you happen to feel like looking at. I’m the producer and director. You’re just the cameraman. I’m the brain, you’re the eyes, and that’s all you are. You shoot what I tell you to. Got it?”

Nelson leaned forward. “Maybe the film
was
yours, but it’s mine now. And my film is much more interesting than yours would have been. I’m an artist, and you’re nothing but a third-rate, unoriginal, imitative, small-time hack!”

Robin laughed condescendingly. “You’re nothing but a technician. If you think that you are
ever
going to be a filmmaker, you’re dreaming. You don’t have the talent. As a cameraman, you’re barely adequate!”

“Oh, Robin.” Nelson spoke all too calmly. “I warned you. You have no idea what I have on film. I have so much! A great shot of you buying foxglove not too long ago. I bet you’d love that little sequence, my dear. It’s all right here, baby.” Nelson sneered and patted the camera that he held at his side. I had to wonder about his claim. Wouldn’t he have downloaded that footage?

But Robin failed to share my doubt. She made a mad grab for Nelson’s camera. He, however, held it in a firm grip. I was furious! Josh had been more than justified in punching Emilio, and he’d done it in the kitchen before the wedding, not just outside the tent during the reception. Now, I wasn’t about to tolerate a physical altercation

“Cut it out!” I demanded.

Robin drew her leg in and then swiftly kicked Nelson smack on the kneecap. Nelson yelled out in pain, and as he fell to the ground, Robin wrestled the camera from his hands. While Nelson was clutching his knee and swearing, Robin jabbed at the camera in what seemed to be an inept effort to locate the part that held the recording.

“You two are totally out of control!” I whispered angrily. “And don’t you dare ruin the wedding footage,” I warned.

“Stay out of this, Chloe. It has nothing to do with you.” Robin turned the camera upside down and began trying to pry out its innards.

Nelson snorted. “Actually, it has a lot to do with Chloe. Chloe was asking questions about—”

I cut him off. “There has to be a way to work this out.”

“Leave me alone!” Robin raised her voice. “Mind your own business, Chloe. And your boyfriend’s, too. I happen to know a lot more about Josh than you do, so maybe you should pay a little more attention to him and less to me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, completely confused and momentarily distracted. “What do you know about Josh?”

Robin halted her fiddling with the camera and looked smugly at me. “I know he’s not the chef at Simmer any longer. He quit. The new chef there is his supposed friend, Digger. Digger starts tomorrow. Marlee told me. You know how quickly restaurant gossip flies around.”

Robin had to be out of her mind. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Robin. Josh would have told me if he’d left Simmer. And there is no way Digger would take Josh’s job. It’s an unwritten rule that you don’t take your friend’s job, no matter what the restaurant.”

“How dumb can you be? You know these chefs. They all want to be stars. Digger wouldn’t hesitate to take a job on Newbury Street, even if it ticked off his good buddy. God, Chloe, you don’t know anything.” Robin laughed heartily.

Nelson stood up, his knee apparently not permanently damaged. “On the contrary. Chloe knows quite a bit. In fact, she knows everything she needs to about you, Robin. She knows about Francie. And the foxglove. She must be waiting for this wedding to be over to call the police. Isn’t that right, Chloe? Just wait until my movie hits the Internet.”

Robin’s face blanched.

I’d underestimated Nelson. All along, he’d known that Robin had killed Francie, whose agonizing death had registered on him as nothing more than a sort of twisted docudrama. As I was staring at Nelson, Robin, camera in hand, bolted toward the street and her car. Dammit! She was welcome to whatever evidence the camera held, which was not the only evidence of her guilt. Among other things, Héctor, Nelson, and I could testify. But that camera was valuable: it held the only recording of Adrianna’s wedding! And I was not about to let Robin destroy irreplaceable images so precious to my best friend. I took a few steps back and grabbed one of the shotguns that Evan and Willie had stashed in the plants by the entrance to the tent. I knew that those shotguns weren’t loaded, of course. But Robin didn’t share my knowledge.

I assumed my best gun-toting stance, or what I imagined that a gun-toting stance should be, and hollered at Robin. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Those words from my mouth? Whoever would have thought?

A second later, I heard a shot and saw Robin fall to the ground, facedown. Blood quickly stained the back of her shirt. She lay still.

But I hadn’t fired the gun. I hadn’t so much as brushed the trigger with my finger.

I whipped around and saw Nelson with the second shotgun still aimed at the immobile Robin. Thank God I hadn’t accidentally pulled the trigger myself. Why were these guns loaded? Willie and Evan, I realized, hadn’t just intended to march in with the shotguns. They’d planned to discharge the weapons!

Guests began pouring out of the tent. “Call an ambulance!” someone shouted. “I’m an EMT. Get out of the way.”

A young man, a friend of Owen’s family, pushed his way through the crowd and knelt down next to Robin. I turned and stepped away. Almost everyone at the reception took out a cell phone and dialed for help.

“Baby?” My chef had materialized next to me. I almost drove my head into his chest.

“Josh. Where is Ade? More importantly right now, where the hell are Evan and Willie?” I was beyond furious; I was livid.

“They’re over there.” Josh gestured behind him. “What happened?”

As we wove our way through shocked guests, I did my best to explain how Robin had ended up with a bullet in her back. At the same second when I located Owen’s brothers, ambulances, fire trucks, and police cruisers began to arrive. I paid no attention to the emergency vehicles; rather, I concentrated on Evan and Willie, who at least had the minimal decency to look appalled at the consequence of their aborted and unfunny prank.

“What were you thinking?” I demanded. “Arriving at this wedding with shotguns was bad enough, but
loaded
shotguns? What if Heather’s kids had found them?”

Evan was the first to brave my wrath. “We were planning on firing a resounding volley into the air at the end of the wedding ceremony. It was going to be very dramatic.”

“Dramatic? You were going to shoot off guns in the tent? Endangering our lives? Not to mention puncturing the tent! You two are the stupidest, most—”

“Chloe, I need your help.” The voice was Adrianna’s.

I felt terrible. Poor Adrianna must be a wreck. This was supposed to have been the perfect day she’d dreamed of. And now this! To my surprise, however, Adrianna looked remarkably happy for someone whose wedding had just become a crime scene.

I put a hand on her arm and said, “I’m so sorry about this. About everything! What can I do to help you? This is just terrible. First Josh punched Emilio, and then the flowers got wrecked, and then . . . Well, it goes on and on.”

Adrianna spoke with unusual force. “Chloe, I need you to focus.” She grabbed my shoulders and squared me in front of her. “Chloe, my water broke.”

I stared at Ade. “Your what did what?”

The exasperated bride put her hands on my cheeks and pulled my face an inch away from hers. “My water broke. Meaning, my water broke, and I’m going into labor!”

“What?” I practically hollered. “The baby is coming now? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” I frantically looked around for I didn’t know what. Something! Should I find Ade’s hospital bag? Rush her to the hospital? And there was that pesky matter of the swarm of policemen roaming the grounds . . .

“Chloe, get me out of this dress before it’s ruined. And then you can go find Owen. Crap, I wanted to go to the Ritz tonight.” She scolded her belly. “You couldn’t have waited another twenty-four hours?”

I rushed Adrianna upstairs to the bathroom and helped her remove her dress before any icky things got on it. “Okay, you get changed. I’ll go grab one of those EMTs downstairs and find Owen.” I hung the wedding dress back in its garment bag and zipped it shut.

“You will do no such thing!” Ade glared at me. “If you tell those guys, they’ll send me to whatever hospital they want, and I want to go to Brigham and Women’s like I planned and have my own doctor. I know that I have to go soon since my water broke, but I doubt this baby is going to fall out of me in the next few minutes. Oh, and for Christ’s sake, don’t let my mother know what’s going on!”

“Gotcha!” I said. “I’m on it. Are you in pain? Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m okay for now, but I don’t expect that to last, so you better find Owen. And one more thing,” Ade started as she yanked a shirt over her head. “Care to explain the gunshots, screaming, and sirens downstairs?”

“Um, not really. Don’t worry about anything! It’s all under control. Gotta run!” I dashed out of the bathroom in search of Adrianna’s new husband.

I found Owen in the chaotic crowd outside. The groom was still tearing into his abashed-looking brothers for their outrageous behavior at his wedding. “Shotguns? I mean, come on!”

“Owen!” I yanked him out of the crowd before someone tried to question me about the shooting. “Adrianna is having the baby.”

“I know she’s having the baby. I can’t very well do it, can I?” Owen looked irritated with the shambles left of his wedding reception.

“No, dummy. She is having the baby now! Come on. You two have to get out of here and get to the hospital.”

Owen’s face blanched. “Now? What about the Ritz?”

“Your wife said the same thing. Come on.”

I had taken two steps with the stunned Owen behind me when Naomi materialized in front of me. “The baby is coming now! Wonderful! Let me help. I know I can be of assistance in this impending event!”

“Actually, you can help. Go find Adrianna’s mother, Kitty, and engage her in conversation. Anything will do, but just don’t let her know that her daughter is in labor. Adrianna wants her out of the picture.”

Naomi nodded in understanding. “Yes, that woman’s aura is filled with negative energy, and she should not come near a woman on the verge of bringing new life into the world.”

“Stay with her for about ten minutes and then sneak around to the side of the house and take my car. You can drive Owen and Ade to the hospital, and I’ll be there as soon as I can. My keys are in my purse in the kitchen.”

“Of course. Tell Adrianna to picture a delicate blue iris. Trust me, these imagery techniques work wonders in managing pain.” Naomi rushed off into the crowd calling, “Kitty? Kitty? There you are! Let’s talk about the experiences you’ll have as a mother-in-law and grandmother.”

“Okay, Owen, Ade is upstairs in the bathroom. I better go talk to the police officers, so just run, and I’ll see you two as soon as I can get out of here.”

“You want me to go up there alone?” Owen looked petrified.

“Yes! Stop looking so freaked out! You’re not the one facing hours of painful contractions, so just get yourself together. Go!” I shoved Owen toward the house and approached the group of officers who were busy sorting out who in the hysterical mob knew anything of importance. I located Josh with one of the uniformed cops, a paunchy, mustached man who looked happily surprised to be working on a night when something dramatic had happened in the typically dull suburb of Newton.

“Here,” Josh said to the officer. “This is Chloe Carter, and I think she has some information.” Josh swung an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in. “Evan and Willie are under arrest, and their parents are already headed down to the station. Can you fill this officer in on what you know about Robin and Nelson? Can you believe that dopey Nelson shot her?” Josh shook his head and pointed to the street. I saw Nelson handcuffed and being led to a cruiser.

Despite my desire to come off as an insightful crime fighter in my own right, I gave an uncharacteristically terse and abbreviated version of what I knew and what I had overheard. Robin and Leo had staged the shopping trip so that he would be the chosen shopper, and Robin would have an opportunity to poison Francie. I didn’t know whether Leo had known about the murderous part of the plan or not, but I did know that he had failed to mention to anyone that he’d been having an affair with Robin.

“Is Robin dead?” I asked hesitantly.

“Nope,” the officer said, running his hand over his mustache. “Not yet. Can’t tell what kind of shape she’s in. Now, miss, let’s go over everything you saw again.”

Argh! I just wanted to get out of there and get to the hospital. I reminded myself that there was no way I would actually miss the birth, since Ade would presumably be in labor for many hours. But I did want to be there for her during her labor, so I decided the best thing to do was to reiterate my story as thoroughly and patiently as possible and avoid further questions.