Killer Wedding (14 page)

I
pulled my thin jacket tighter around myself. There was a definite, early-June-in-Santa-Monica chill to the air. The sky had been overcast for days. But I was happy. I had managed to park smack in front of the building I was looking for, a three-story architectural statement just a few blocks from the ocean. The ultramodern, concrete-colored structure featured odd flying angles and strange tubing railings and sheets of glass here and there. At the entrance, a small board displayed the numbers of each deluxe condo. A phone allowed one to call up and announce one's arrival. I pushed the button marked
S & B BELL
for several long, insistent seconds.

No answer.

I used Sara's key.

Soon, I had slipped past the lobby elevator, jogged up the stairs to three, and begun prowling an interesting hallway that was half indoors and half out. Wrapped around the corner, I found 3C. Sara and Brent's new condo.

Okay, I thought, looking around for inspiration, now what do I do?

Was, as Sara hoped and suspected, anyone home? Had Brent really deserted the lovely Sara and hidden himself away in their deluxe condo? Only one way to find out. I stood in the hallway and knocked. No sounds came from inside.

Brent, Brent, Brent, I thought, why have you bailed on your bride? The obvious thought was, because a woman had been killed at the wedding and he was afraid of being arrested. But I'd been over this a dozen times. Brent
couldn't
have murdered Vivian. I was sure of it.

One
, it would have been too unfair. I admit, this reason is based purely on principle. I think it's an outrageous notion that a party planner could be done in by the host when that wedding was going perfectly! Well, okay, that's my bias.

Which brings us to
two
. Even if Brent Bell did have some reason to hate Vivian, which I doubted, he was seen by hundreds of witnesses all throughout dinner. But something was surely up. Facts are facts. Brent did take a powder. So what, I wondered, was the problem?

I knocked again, several good, loud knocks. I called out, “Hello, Brent? Are you home?”

Maybe Brent bolted for a more personal reason. Maybe he had some other secrets that had nothing to do with Vivian's unfortunate death. I thought that one over. With my philosophy—you remember?
people are weird
—it was hard for me to be shocked at anything another being might do. I was therefore blissfully free to consider just about any weird thing.

Maybe Brent had a criminal past and when the cops showed up he was afraid they'd recognize him. Hmm. That wasn't bad. Maybe some former girlfriend showed up, unbeknownst to any of us, carrying a three-year-old she now claimed belonged to the groom. Possible. Or, maybe, after spotting my new friend Whisper Pettibone looking sharp in his tux, Brent had chosen the worst possible night in his life to realize that he was secretly gay. Oh, I give up!

I beat the door rather loudly and worried about what the neighbors would think. What they probably thought was: why had they plunked down their million dollars on a condo where aggravated caterers could make so much noise in their hallway?

Enough, already, of that. I used Sara's key.

“Brent?” I called out, closing the door softly behind me.

From where I stood, the condo appeared spotless and unoccupied. The living room was done in shades of mint and white, and looked like it had just been delivered from Ethan Allen, whole. I stepped into the dining room and noticed the same air of undisturbed newness. I continued through the deserted house.

“Anybody home?”

Down the hallway, looking in this room and that, I found no signs of life. In the kitchen, I opened the refrigerator and found it bare except for a large fruit basket. A ribbon across the plastic read
CONGRATULATIONS AND WELCOME HOME!
I reached out to see if the cellophane wrapper had been opened.

“TURN AROUND!”

I gagged on my gum.

“TURN AROUND! NOW! DO IT!”

My heart had leapt and exploded, and I was barely able to turn around, let alone speak.

Brent Bell stood there, blinking. “Wait a minute. You're…you're the caterer we met.”

“That's right!” I said, by now gushing adrenaline. “We met at the flower shop, remember? I'm Madeline Bean. Please,” I said, still in shock, “put that thing down.”

Brent Bell stood in his stocking feet holding a raised baseball bat.

“What the hell are
you
doing here?”

I noticed he did not lower the bat.

“Sara gave me her key.”

We stood like that in the brand spanking new kitchen for a few more seconds. My racing pulse made a stab at slowing down. Where the hell had he been hiding? I had looked in most of the rooms. Finally, Brent lowered the bat and I could feel my heartbeat begin to drop below 300 beats per.

“Look,” Brent said, with a lot of force, “I don't know what you think you're doing here, but you better leave.”
He was breathing pretty hard, making me guess his adrenal glands were surging just like mine.

“Okay,” I agreed. “Okay. Let's be calm.” I took a few measured breaths. “I want you to know,” a few more breaths, “I did try knocking.”

“I thought you were somebody selling something. I thought you'd gone away.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, well…shit!” Brent gestured with the bat like he'd really like to smash something. “I'm sorry, too. I've been sacked out in the laundry room, and…” He rested the bat down again. “If you don't already know, I've split with Sara. Look, I don't really want any company right now. I don't want to talk about this.”

“Everybody is worried. Can't we sit down for a minute, as long as I'm here? Would you care for a drink or something?”

My mesh bag, which featured an unopened two-liter bottle of soda along with a few chocolate bars, seemed to catch and hold Brent's attention.

“I haven't really been…eating anything, I guess.”

“That's not good.”

As my initial shock was wearing off, I began to notice little details. Like, for instance, young stud Brent Bell looked like last Thursday's leftovers. He stood there in a dirty T-shirt and those formal tuxedo pants with the black satin stripe up the sides. In stocking feet. Looking at the blond stubble of his unshaven face, I had to guess he'd either been overly influenced by some
Miami Vice
rerun, or he hadn't changed in days. He looked pretty dazed.

“There's fresh fruit,” I said, trying not to spook him. “Why don't I get you some?”

I opened a few of the sleek brushed aluminum cabinets and drawers and discovered about fifty place settings of brand new Royal Crown Derby wedding china and an equally impressive supply of designer silver and Waterford crystal. The never-been-used refrigerator's new icemaker provided the perfect half-moon cubes for
our Diet Coke, and soon I'd fixed up a relatively humble fruit plate on a thousand-dollar English platter. I added the Nestlé Crunch bars, for fiber. From a gourmet's standpoint, I had committed sacrilege, but I was positively desperate for a shot of caffeine and Brent needed some carbs, quick.

He watched me slice up the last of the ripe cantaloupe. As soon as it was cut he grabbed a piece, popping it into his mouth.

“You don't have to do this,” he said, eating off the platter with his fingers.

“It's fine,” I said. “Let's go sit down in the dining room.”

“
No!
”

I stared at him, alarmed.

“It's just,” he said, looking worried, “I shouldn't be here. I'm trying not to use anything. What I mean is, I don't want to mess anything up. I've been staying on the floor of the laundry room.”

“Brent,” I said, “isn't this your place, yours and Sara's?”

“I shouldn't be here. Man, if Sara found me here she'd have me arrested. I just needed a place to think. I'm out of school, you know. And I wasn't ready to…I didn't want to talk to anyone. Promise me you won't tell Sara I'm here.”

“Brent, honey…she already knows.”

“Damn it!” Brent Bell looked as much like a man who is at the point of tears as I've ever seen. “
Damn it
!” He picked up the bat again, gripping it hard, and for a moment I thought the gleaming new toaster might be history.

“May I make a suggestion? Why don't we sit down? Maybe we could just sit here at the counter.”

“
No
! I don't want to touch the chairs or anything.”

“Then we can sit on the floor.”

“What?”

As I moved the plates and goblets to the kitchen floor, I kept talking. “You know, a picnic on the floor. You've
gotta eat, Brent. You look…well…not great.”

I sat down and unwrapped a Crunch bar.

He stood there staring at me. I took a bite. Then he sat down on the green tile next to me and grabbed a plate.

“Oh, God.” He picked up a strawberry and ate it whole.

I kept my eyes on him and took a sip of Diet Coke. What the hell was going on here? Bride heartbroken. Bridegroom acting weirder than shit. I was at a loss. What, I wondered, would Vivian Duncan have done if confronted with this loony? I couldn't imagine. But one thing seemed certain. Vivian would not be sitting cross-legged eating chocolate on the cold floor.

“This is good. Thanks.” He reached for the grapes. “I guess I was a little out there.”

“Just a little.”

“This reminds me of when I used to work parties and we'd get to eat all the leftovers back in the kitchen. Thanks.”

“Brent, may I ask you a question?”

The guarded look returned, but he didn't say no.

“Are you really sure about this breakup with Sara?”

“Listen, it's not like that. It's just gotten out of control, you know? I don't want to hurt anyone. I mean, I love Sara.”

This was not sucking. I must have a gift.

“So you love her. And you married her. But, well, something must have gone pretty wrong because now you're living in a laundry room, starving yourself, and attacking people with a baseball bat.”

He stopped eating and looked ill.

Oops. Perhaps I had to work on my technique.

“I'm desperate,” he said. “I have no other choices.”

Desperate? What if…? For a moment there, I began to have a second thought.

“Please don't tell me you killed Vivian Duncan, Brent, because I quizzed Sara on the subject and she explicitly assured me you have an airtight alibi!”

“Me? What are you talking about? I didn't kill Vivian. Are you nuts? But I couldn't stay married to Sara when…ah, shoot! I am trying to do the noble thing here, okay? I am trying to protect everybody. There's stuff I can't tell you. Stuff I wouldn't want anybody to know. Leave it alone.”

“Stuff about you?”

“Maybe.”

“Stuff you didn't want to talk to the police about,” I said, starting to get excited. Of course! He was not expecting the police to arrive at his wedding and start asking questions about…

The rollers tumbled into place.

“Oh my God, Brent, did you ever work for Vivian when you were home from school?”

“What? What did she tell you?”

“Did you work as a waiter for Vivian's weddings?”

“So? What if I did? Lots of college guys pick up waiting gigs. The party circuit is fun. You can work whenever you're in town, no problem.”

Didn't I know it. That's the sort of help I usually hired, myself, when I was catering parties. No problem with that. There had to be something more that Brent couldn't stand to have come out on the night of his wedding.

“Please,” Brent said. “Please, leave this alone. I can't say any more. This is the whole reason I had to get away.”

“Well, maybe this is something that will blow over. Maybe the police will find the man who killed Vivian soon, and you won't have to answer any questions.”

“Do you think so?” Brent asked. “That's what I was hoping.”

“So, aside from that ‘stuff,' which we just won't talk about, is there any other reason you and Sara have to be apart?”

Brent looked at me, a slightly older woman drinking Diet Coke, sitting on the floor in my tight jeans and tan suede jacket How much of a threat could I be?

“Well, there's her grandfather, Jack Gantree. Know him?”

“We've met.”

“I've always hated the jerk, but I could never explain it to Sara. All those animal heads he's got mounted all over the house. Have you been there?”

I nodded.

“Well, then, you've seen them. They're disgusting. I don't get it. Their whole family was supposed to be these famous naturalists, or something. And instead of protecting and preserving all these animal species, her granddad ends up stuffing them and displaying them like trophies. It always bugged me.”

Well, I could see his point.

“But that isn't the worst part. Jack was always buying things for Sara. He could afford to buy everything in the world for her and he usually did.”

“That must have been hard to deal with.”

“Hard? I told Sara I could never marry her. I said I couldn't live up to all that wealth she'd been brought up with. But she kept pleading with me. She begged me not to be prejudiced just because her family had money. What was I supposed to do?”

I let him go on talking, letting the anger roll out.

“When we finally did decide to get married, I told Sara I wanted to elope, just the two of us. Who needs everyone else? But then her grandfather got wind of it and that was the last time I ever heard about our simple, private little wedding. The next thing we know, Big Grandpa Jack brings in
Vivian Duncan
, for God's sake! Just what was I supposed to do? And then Vivian swept right in and we're planning the wedding of the century.”