Part 28 (1/2)
We all leaned forward a little, and he rolled his eyes. ”Dracula was a guy named-well, never mind his name. He's a hotshot DEA agent from the party-drug task force. He'd been tracking Rick the Rocket, and he wanted to try some close-up surveillance. Without telling us, of course. The G.o.dd.a.m.n Feds are always pulling stunts like that. Excuse my French.”
Amid our exclamations, he continued, ”But Lester Foy showing up at the cemetery is a mystery to me. He must have been following one of you for some reason, but I don't see why.”
”I do!” Lily laughed her big, full-throated laugh. ”I mean, I can guess why he was there, but he wasn't following anybody. Carnegie, didn't you say Foy was with his girlfriend, and that she's a guitarist?”
I nodded. ”What's that got to do with it?”
”You were at Greenwood Cemetery in Redmond, right?” The phone started ringing, and as she stood up to answer it she said, ”Girl, Greenwood Cemetery is where Jimi Hendrix is buried! Music people go there all the time. Excuse me a minute.”
”Librarians are such show-offs,” said Aaron, in mock indignation. ”How did she know-”
”Aaron, it's for you,” said Lily from the kitchen door. ”Long distance, I think.”
He grimaced and shut his eyes, as if something expected and yet dreaded had happened. ”Sorry. My cell phone's on the blink, so I left your number with someone just in case.”
Two minutes later, he returned from the kitchen with an odd, tight look on his face. ”Well, it's getting late. Stretch, do you mind if we take off now?”
”No problem,” I said. Enough with the postmortem, let's go home and start the carpe diem. But when I followed him into Lily's bedroom to fetch our coats, and tried to steal a quick kiss, he kept his distance. I touched his shoulder. ”Aaron, what is it? Something wrong with your family in Boston?”
”Yeah,” he said, shrugging into his coat. ”Well, no, not exactly. But I do have to fly back there right away. There's someone I have to help out.”
”Who?”
Aaron jammed his hands into his pockets and sighed. I was just thinking about how handsome he was, even with a black eye, when he said, ”My wife.”
About the Author
DEBORAH DONNELLY's inspiration for the Carnegie Kincaid series came when she was planning her best friend's wedding and her own at the same time. (Both turned out beautifully.) A long-time resident of Seattle, Donnelly now lives in Boise, Idaho, with her writer husband and their two Welsh corgis. Readers can visit her at pelling reason is that no event planner in her right mind wants to plan an event where the guests are h.e.l.l-bent on drinking themselves to oblivion and behaving as poorly as possible en route.
So why, at ten o'clock on a frigid December evening, was I en route to the Hot Spot Cafe, inside of which were at least two dozen inebriated bachelors? Because of Sally ”The Bride From h.e.l.l” Tyler.
Now, most brides are content to let the best man coordinate the bachelor bash. Not Sally Tyler, oohh no. Sally was a mere slip of a girl, with milky skin and smooth white-blonde hair, but she had cold agate eyes beneath dark, level brows. When she was displeased-a seemingly daily occurrence-her eyebrows drew together and her furious glare pierced your vital organs like a stiletto carved from ice.
I desperately needed the revenue from the Tyler/Sanjek account, but it was turning out to be hard-earned. My innards were practically perforated.
Sally's latest excuse for a temper tantrum was this bachelor party. Supposedly, she asked me to plan the affair so that my valuable services, along with the food and drink, could be her wedding gift to Frank Sanjek, her devoted (not to say besotted) fiance. But I saw through that little fiction.
What Sally really craved was more scope to contradict, criticize, and in general control Frank's every waking moment. Though why she thought my involvement would prevent the best man from pouring too much booze, or screening p.o.r.no movies, or doing anything else he pleased, was beyond me. I'm a wedding planner, not a chaperone.
Anyway, I declined, Sally fumed, and then Frank's best man, Jason Croy came up with a perfect site for the party. A friend of his owned a cafe on the Seattle s.h.i.+p Ca.n.a.l, complete with bar and pool table, and the place was closing for a major remodel. The guys could take it over for the night for free. They could do their worst, with Jason as master of ceremonies-but only if the event was held immediately, well in advance of the wedding date.
So, like a good best man, Jason set up the bachelor party venue, the guest list, and the entertainment. Meanwhile I made peace with Sally by arranging for a buffet of serve-yourself Greek appetizers catered by my friend and colleague Joe Solveto, while stipulating that I personally would not be visiting the party permises. Frank thanked his bride for her generous gift, and everybody was happy.
Until ten minutes ago. I'd been working late, digging through some files over at Joe's office in the Fremont neighborhood, when my cell phone rang.
”Carnegie, it's Sally. You have to go to the Hot Spot right away. Jason needs you.”
”Why can't he just call me? What's wrong?” My stomach constricted at the sudden vision of all the things that might be wrong: property damage, an angry neighbor, an injured guest...
”Just go, OK? You're, like, two minutes away from there, aren't you?”
”Not exactly, but-” But if someone was hurt, or the police had been summoned, every minute would count. ”I'll be there as quick as I can.”
So I climbed into Vanna White Too, the new replacement for my dear departed white van, and drove through the Christmas lights and sights to the south side of the ca.n.a.l.
December in Seattle is usually gray and drippy, but this evening had a winter wonderland feel, with Christmas trees and decorations all a-glitter in the clear, crisp air. The ”Artists' Republic of Fremont” has gone almost mainstream these days, now that a big software firm calls it home and the fancy condos have sprung up, but there are still plenty of funky shops and charming restaurants.
Everywhere I looked tonight, white puffs of frozen breath rose above the Yuletide shoppers and diners as they hurried cheerfully along the sidewalks. Too bad I wasn't one of them. I crossed the Fremont drawbridge to the darker, quieter blocks along Nickerson, then dropped down a side street.
The new Vanna rode like a Rolls after the clanking and stalling of the old one, and we pulled up smoothly to the undistinguished brick facade of the Hot Spot Cafe. At least there were no police cars in sight, and no ambulance.
The front entrance was locked, so I hammered on it, and tried to peer through the gaps in the curtained front windows; no telling if anyone could hear me over the guitar music throbbing inside. After one last pound, I gave up and went around back, hugging myself against the cold.
I'm not used to real winter weather. I still had on my most businesslike suit from a morning meeting, but the temperature had been plummeting all day, and the silk tweed blazer, though stylish, was no match for it. So now I was s.h.i.+vering as well as irritated and anxious.
Out back, a wooden dining deck extended over a wedge of patchy gra.s.s and shadowy bushes that sloped down to an empty bike path and the wide, cement-walled lane of dark, still water. The Seattle s.h.i.+p Ca.n.a.l is a major waterway; on sunny afternoons, the Hot Spot's patrons could sit out on there with their beers and watch big sailboats and bigger barges move between Puget Sound to the west and Lake Union to the east.
Right now, though, the splintered planks of the deck held nothing but stacked plastic chairs and a silver coating of frost that sparkled in the light from the bare windows and sliding gla.s.s doors. The gla.s.s doors were unlocked, so I stepped gratefully inside.
A quick look around yielded a confused impression of milling young men, clouds of cigar smoke, puddles of spilled liquor, and a ma.s.sive serve-yourself Greek mess. Empty plates and gla.s.ses littered all the tables, but the mess went far beyond that.
From the demolished dolmathes scattered across the pool table, to the bits of fried calamari stuck to the ceiling, to the smear of spanakopita on the big-screen TV, Joe's feast had clearly been enjoyed in ways he never intended. There was a bit of broken gla.s.s-apparently juggling retsina bottles is now a recognized indoor sport-but no broken heads that I could see, no blood, and no cops.
And no Jason Croy Peering through the fumes, I spotted Frank Sanjek sitting stupefied near the television, on which two women with improbable physiques were cavorting in a hot tub. Though I couldn't fathom his devotion to Sally, Frank was a sensible fellow, with a cleft in his square chin and an amiable look in his light blue eyes. So far he'd been quite pleasant to work with.
Averting my gaze from the hot tub hotties, I headed toward Frank to ask for an explanation. But my path was blocked by three men, all of them in their early twenties and none of them sober.
”Hey, she's here!” shouted one, a beefy lad whose sweats.h.i.+rt was adorned with something damp and garlicky. At least it smelled less disgusting than it looked. He was swaying a bit on his feet, and gazing at me with the oddest mixture of shyness and enthusiasm. He dropped a moist, heavy hand on my shoulder and repeated, ”She's finally here.”
”Yes, I'm here,” I snapped, trying for patience and failing.
Someone turned off the music, and in the heavy-breathing silence I removed his hand. ”Brilliant observation. Now where's Jason?”
”How come you're wearing, like, a suit?” inquired one of his companions, a sharp-faced sort leaning on a cue stick.
”How come she's so flat?” muttered the third, and there were nervous snickers all around.
This drunken discourtesy left me speechless for a moment, and while I gathered my wits to tell him off, some of the other men, the ones who were still ambulatory, began to congregate around us. Not quite a wolf pack-the eyes were too dull, the movements too clumsy. More like a herd of cows. But still...
”It ain't whatcha got, it's whatcha do with it!” yelled someone from the back. ”Do it!”