Текст книги "Mama Gets Hitched"

Автор книги: Deborah Sharp

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Mama Gets Hitched: A Mace Bauer Mystery © 2010 by Deborah Sharp.

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Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First e-book edition © 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738726519

Book design and format by Donna Burch

Cover design by Lisa Novak

Cover illustration © Rick Lovell

Editing by Connie Hill

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Manufactured in the United States of America

To Charlene and Nancy, who love me despite the

cranberry-colored taffeta with humongous bows

I made them wear as bridesmaids;

and to Abbie, our fourth sister of the heart.

Acknowledgments

I owe a debt to friends and family members who’ve invited me to their weddings—in some cases, multiple times. All your ceremonies were in excellent taste. I never witnessed a single tacky moment, or anything remotely resembling the fictional mayhem, not to mention murder, that mars Mama’s Special Day. On the other hand, there had to be some payback for making me shoehorn my bridesmaid-self into that strapless Scarlett O’Hara number. (You know who you are, Miss Bride!)

As always, I want to thank the world’s greatest husband, Kerry Sanders, for unfailing love; and the world’s greatest mama, Marion Sharp, for inspiration.

I’m grateful to my fabulous agent, Whitney Lee, and to the talented staff at Midnight Ink. Connie Hill’s editing prowess saves me; Courtney Colton spreads the news about my books; and Lisa Novak’s genius makes the cover designs pop.

Thanks to Deborah “Dab” Holt, who bid in a charity auction for the chance to have a character named after her in Mama Gets Hitched. Always a good girl, she confessed she wanted her character to be bad. I pray she didn’t get more than she bargained for.

Thanks, again, to the town of Okeechobee, Florida, the real-life inspiration for fictional Himmarshee.

Finally, I’m indebted to those I’ve named, to anyone I missed, and especially to you, for reading.

Small, silver-trimmed circles of tulle covered the tabletop. Mama held up what looked like two identical pieces of the fabric, one in each hand.

“Don’t tell me you can’t see the difference, Mace.” She thrust the first circle under my nose. “This is celadon.” She shook it for emphasis. The fluorescent lights of the VFW hall gave the green tulle a dull gleam. “And this,” she waved the second circle within inches of my eyes, “is honeydew.”

I batted away her hand. “Like I told you, Mama, they look exactly the same. Light green.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, as if she couldn’t stand to deal for one more minute with poor dumb trash who couldn’t tell the difference between subtle shadings of tulle. I decided I’d had just about enough of her Bridezilla routine.

“Wouldn’t you say you’re going a little nuts, Mama? Does it really matter whether every square centimeter of tulle is dyed exactly the same shade as the next? All this whoop-de-doo is kind of tacky, anyway. After all, this is your fifth trip down the aisle.”

Mama looked wounded. “You know I’ve never had a real wedding, Mace. I eloped with your daddy. And when I got married after he died … well, you know all about Husband No. 2. After that nightmare, I thought I might jinx my third try by making a big to-do. Turned out that one didn’t take either, big wedding or small. And then No. 4 and I met on that cruise and decided to have the ship’s captain tie the knot.”

I remembered. My sisters and I were horrified when Mama came home with a new husband, twenty years her junior. We also got souvenirs that said My Mother Went to Cancun and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt.

“Poor No. 4,” Mama said. “He didn’t seem as good a choice on dry land as he had on the high seas. Maybe I shouldn’t have mixed champagne with Dramamine. Anyway, Mace, Sally is the first man I’ve really loved since your daddy. I want this wedding to be perfect.”

Mama was marrying Salvatore Provenza—Sally—in less than a week. Under the pressure of pulling off the Ceremony of the Century in Himmarshee, Florida, she’d mutated into someone my sisters and I barely recognized. She was driving us crazy, which wasn’t the unusual part. She’s always done that. But we’d never seen Mama so obsessed over the inconsequential.

Here’s a woman who nearly landed in prison after a corpse turned up in her turquoise convertible. Then, she found an old beau keeled over dead in his Cow Hunter Chili. She’s tangled with a gator, and was nearly trampled to death during a week-long horse ride through Florida’s cattle country. And that’s just what Mama’s survived in the past year.

Now, tulle had her in a tizzy. I was ready to head out into the swamp to escape. And my sisters, Maddie and Marty, were almost willing to brave the gators and the snakes to come with me. But I knew I had to give her the customary daughterly pep talk.

“Take a deep breath, Mama,” I recited. “Everything’s going to be fine. The wedding will be incredible. You’ll be the prettiest bride ever.”

Mama perked up. She rarely misses a Sunday at Abundant Forgiveness, Love and Charity Chapel. But she must have skipped over that part in the Bible about vanity being a sin. She’s tiny, with perfect features in an unlined face. Almost sixty-three, she’s still beautiful. And she never tires of being reminded of that fact.

“I’m sorry, Mace.” She ran her hands through her platinum-hued hair. “It’s all these details. And, of course, That Woman. I’m telling you, honey, she’s getting on my last nerve!”

“That Woman” could mean only one person: C’ndee Ciancio, Sal’s cousin-in-law from his first marriage. C’ndee had swooped down from New Jersey a month ago, bragging about her wedding-planning expertise, and bulldozing her way into helping Mama. Mama went along, mainly because C’ndee was kin to Sal, and Mama loved Sal.

“Where is she, anyway?” I asked.

Glancing at her watch, Mama frowned. “Running almost twenty minutes late, just like Ronnie Hodges. We were supposed to meet him here at nine a.m. sharp to go over the catering and the hors d’oeuvres. I had to steer C’ndee off melon balls wrapped in something called ‘prosciutto.’ That might fly in Hackensack, I told her, but not in Himmarshee. We’re just a little country town. We like things simple.”

Simple? Like a Gone with the Wind–themed wedding, complete with crinolines and bridesmaids’ parasols for my sisters and me? But I wasn’t about to start the debate again about those hideous dresses. Like the South and the Civil War, I’d already lost that fight.

Mama returned her attention to the tulle, scrutinizing the circles like a jeweler examining diamonds. I looked out the window. Low, gray clouds had leaked rain all morning, making for a dreary Monday.

“Looks like we’re getting an early jump on the rainy season. It’s barely June,” I said.

“Good thing,” Mama said. “It’s been so dry, the trees are bribing the dogs.”

The rain-slicked parking lot was deserted out front. Water droplets formed and fell from the red flowers of a jatropha branch that brushed against the window. I said a silent prayer the weekend would bring better weather for Saturday’s wedding.

Inside, it was all too obvious the VFW had served lots of meals at last night’s spaghetti dinner. A ground-beef-and-garlic-scented cloud hung in the air. We’d have to remember to light some of Mama’s aromatherapy candles in the hall before the ceremony.

Just then, the side door burst open. C’ndee rushed in, breathless, smelling of rain and White Diamonds perfume. Everything about her was big: A mass of dark, curly hair. Blood-red lips. Generous curves, emphasized by a clingy top, short skirt, and perilously high heels.

Mama looked pointedly at her watch. C’ndee pretended not to see.

“Let me tell you, there aren’t enough hours in the day!” She collapsed onto a chair next to Mama. “I found you some to-die-for bridesmaids’ gifts, Rosalee.”

She plopped a girly looking shopping bag on the table, next to an appointment book and a huge leather purse with more metal studs than a hardware store. “You’ll absolutely love them.”

“We’ll see.” Mama folded her arms over her chest.

I just hoped C’ndee hadn’t bought us animal-print thong underwear. I’d gotten an unfortunate glance at a leopard pair she wore, when she leaned over in a pair of tight hip-huggers. The undies rode up, the slacks rode down, and I learned more than I wanted to about C’ndee’s taste in lingerie.

“Where’d you park, C’ndee?” I asked. “I didn’t see you pull in out front.”

“There’s a big, muddy puddle out there. I parked in back, where it’s drier.”

I hadn’t thought to look in the back when I dropped Mama at the front door, and then waded in from a parking space in ankle-deep water. In the boots I wear for work at Himmarshee Park, I’m not as fussy about getting wet as I might be if I wore shoes like C’ndee’s. They gave her “toe cleavage,” and probably cost two weeks of my salary.

I could see Mama eyeing the sack on the table with curiosity. I pushed back my chair.

“I’m going to look in the kitchen, see if maybe Ronnie slipped in from the back parking lot, too,” I said.

Mama was already tearing at tissue paper as I walked away. C’ndee, meanwhile, lifted the two tulle swatches from the table.

“Oh, my Gawd!” she cried. “These shades are completely different! This is awful, Rosalee!”

Turning, I caught Mama’s look of vindication. Then I continued through heavy swinging doors from the dining room into the VFW’s kitchen. The lights were off. Weak sunlight peeked through the sole window, a tiny slit near the ceiling. On this gray day, it barely illuminated a corner of the big room. I felt along the wall on each side of the swinging doors.

No light switches. I picked my way carefully into the dark space.

The farther I moved from the little window, the darker the kitchen got. I could just make out the shape of a big stove, and spaghetti pots stacked on tall wire shelves. My eyes were on the shelves when I felt something slick under my boot. I hoped whoever had used the kitchen last had picked up the big stuff. I didn’t want to sprawl into grease or sauce or whatever that was on the floor.

A sliver of light shone at the far end of the kitchen, a crack of sunlight under a back door. I inched toward it, hands out to either side to catch me, or anything I might be about to run into.

Finally, I rounded a countertop and reached the door. Feeling for the switches, I flipped on all three. The kitchen gleamed. I felt bad about maligning the cooking crew. I could see extra care had been taken in scrubbing everything clean.

Which made that nasty spot I’d stepped in by the stove seem all the more strange.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to find out what was on the floor. I’d walked into something I wished I hadn’t a few times before. I hesitated, wondering if I should call Carlos Martinez, my on-again-off-again police-detective boyfriend. Things hadn’t gone so well the last time we talked. Plus, how silly would I seem if what had felt slick and scary in the dark was only a puddle of cooking oil?

I retraced my steps around the corner, toward the hulking stove. It was just on the other side where I’d slipped. I swallowed. My mouth was suddenly dry. Slowly, I rounded the big stove and looked down.

A man lay motionless on the floor. His left arm was caught under his body. The right was splayed above his head as if he were reaching out for something—or someone. I recognized brown hair going gray and the tattoo of a tiger on his muscled forearm. Ronnie Hodges.

Blood soaked his white T-shirt, and pooled onto the floor around his body. At the far edge of the dark puddle, a print from a heavy work boot was just my size.

One of the swinging doors eased open. Mama poked her head into the kitchen.

“Mace, honey? Did you get lost in there? I hope you’re making us coffee.”

I held up a hand. “Don’t come in, Mama. I’m afraid I have some bad news about Ronnie.”

She ignored me, as usual, taking a step inside. “Did he call your cell-o-phone and say he won’t be able to make it?”

Taking a last look at the body on the floor, I said, “Well, he won’t be able to make it, that’s for sure.”

I hurried out the doors to stop Mama from tromping into a crime scene. At the same time, I found my cell phone in my pocket and hit the speed dial for Carlos. Looks like we’d be “on again,” at least for the purposes of another murder investigation.

As his number rang, I was steering Mama back across the dining room. C’ndee still sat at the table, busily separating circles of tulle into two piles.

“¡Hola, niña!” Carlos answered, and I could almost see the smile on his face. “Long time no talk.”

For a second, I was pleasantly surprised at how happy he sounded to hear from me. Then I remembered why I was calling, and made my tone appropriately grave. “You need to get over here, Carlos,” I said. “I just found a body on the floor of the kitchen at the Veterans of Foreign War hall.”

Mama’s eyes went wide. C’ndee stopped sorting fabric.

“Your phone must be breaking up. I thought you said …”

“A body,” I filled in. “You heard me right.”

Mama clutched at her throat with one hand and at my wrist with the other. “Is it Ronnie?” she said in a small voice.

I nodded yes, shushing her with a finger to my lips.

“It’s the caterer Mama hired to do her wedding,” I said into the phone. “She was supposed to meet him here this morning. When he got to be a half-hour late, I went looking for him. And Carlos? You better bring the crime scene investigator. A big kitchen knife looks to be missing from a hanging rack. And there’s an awful lot of blood.”

_____

Mama, C’ndee, and I sat, shell-shocked, at a round table for eight in the dining room. We were waiting for the police and ambulance to arrive, though I was absolutely certain Ronnie was beyond emergency medical assistance.

All of us were rattled. C’ndee hadn’t said a word since I came out of the kitchen. She kept glancing at the closed doors and twisting a gaudy charm bracelet on her left wrist.

“Who’d have wanted to kill Ronnie, Mace?” Mama finally asked. “Do you think it was a robbery?”

“I don’t know what to think at this point, Mama.”

“I want to see his body.”

“Mama, I can tell you for sure he’s dead. I checked for a pulse. There was none. He was already cold, and waxy-looking. And there was so much blood.”

“He was my neighbor,” she said to C’ndee. “We weren’t close, but Ronnie and Alice go to my church, Abundant Forgiveness. Well, Alice does anyway. Ronnie’s not so big on church services, but he never misses a prayer breakfast. The man sure does love to eat.” She paused, laughter dying on her lips. “Loved to eat,” she corrected herself.

Mama was rambling, like she does when she’s nervous. But I knew she’d return to wanting to see for herself that Ronnie was dead.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said, “but you can’t go waltzing around in there. Carlos would have a fit. It’s bad enough I tracked through the blood on the floor. The place is a mess. And they don’t need any more random visitors in there to account for.”

“Well, then,” she said, “the least we can do is say a prayer for Ronnie.”

“I agree,” C’ndee said.

Coming from her, that surprised me. I wouldn’t have pegged C’ndee as the godly type. The three of us bowed our heads and joined hands at the table.

“Dear Lord, welcome Ronnie into heaven,” Mama prayed. “Let him dwell at your side in eternal peace until the day comes when all of your children will be reunited in your love.”

“Ahh-me …” I started to say, when I felt Mama squeeze my hand and continue.

“And, please Lord, remember I’m getting married this coming Saturday …”

I opened one eye and glared out of it at Mama. She snapped her eyelids shut.

“… please give us strength and guidance to complete all these details,” she went on, “such as deciding how we’re supposed to fill the stomachs of our one hundred and fifty guests.”

“Mama!” I hissed.

“In Jesus’ name, we pray …”

“Amen!” I added, before she could put in a plug for sunny weather and ask God to keep Uncle Teddy sober through the whole reception.

“Amen,” C’ndee echoed softly, as she crossed herself. She glanced again toward the kitchen. Her scarlet lipstick looked even redder now that her face was so pale. Maybe that tough Noo Joisey image was a façade. She seemed more shaken than we did at the idea of a man lying dead in the next room. Then again, Mama and I’d had some experience in the past year finding bodies.

When C’ndee spoke, her normally strident voice was a whisper. “Do you think Ronnie crossed the wrong people?”

Mama and I looked at her blankly.

“Back home, if someone pisses off the wrong people,” she wriggled her fingers in quote marks, “they wind up in concrete boots.”

Mama, exasperated, said, “Just say what you want to say, C’ndee. My stars and garters! I thought all you Yankees were supposed to be direct!”

“Sleeping with the fishes,” C’ndee clarified.

Ah-ha.

“That’s not how things work in Himmarshee,” I told her. “We’re just an itty-bitty town. The Mafia wouldn’t bother running things down here.”

C’ndee raised her palms in a shrug, a gesture right out of The Sopranos. “I’m just askin’. That’s all I’m sayin.’ ” She looked toward the kitchen again. “You know, I could really use some coffee.”

“Well, you can’t go in there to find some.”

“I know, Mace. I’m not stupid.” A flash of irritation surfaced. “I meant I’d be glad to run to that diner and pick up enough for everybody. I’ll bring some back for the cops, too.”

I started to protest her going, but then realized coffee might be what all of us could use. I couldn’t leave, since I’d found Ronnie’s body. Besides, if I left Mama alone with C’ndee at the VFW, Mama might kill her. And since Carlos was the Himmarshee Police Department’s only homicide detective, having to handle two murders in one morning might stretch him a bit thin.

“Fine,” I told C’ndee. “But hurry back. Detective Martinez might want to talk to you, too.”

She’d only been gone a few minutes when Carlos rushed through the door. Outside, I saw what looked like the entire department, including the police chief, arriving in three squad cars behind an ambulance.

My stomach fluttered at the sight of Carlos, just like always. It hardly seemed right to be thinking about how fine he looked, with poor Ronnie’s body growing colder in the next room. But I couldn’t help myself. The man was as gorgeous as a Spanish prince. Dark skin, black eyes, broad chest tapering to a waist without an ounce of fat. I knew how firm and muscular his body felt under that button-down dress shirt and blue-striped tie. I might have blushed, or licked the drool from my lips. Instead, I thought about Ronnie’s fate, and felt my features form into a more suitable expression.

All business, Carlos nodded brusquely at Mama and me. “Where is he?”

I pointed to the closed kitchen doors.

“Poor Ronnie,” Mama said. “This is just awful.”

“Yeah, you two have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t know when I left Miami that Himmarshee would end up taking its place as Florida’s murder capital.”

Before either of us could jump to the defense of our normally tranquil hometown, we heard a hubbub erupting in the parking lot outside.

“Let me through! Somebody said there’d been a knife fight. Who got hurt? Mama! Are you in there? Are you all right?”

The voice, accustomed to silencing an auditorium of Himmarshee middle-schoolers, belonged to my red-headed sister, Maddie.

“I’m fine, honey,” Mama yelled.

I went to the window and slid it open. “The fight was already over when Mama and I got here,” I said through the screen. “Ronnie Hodges is dead.”

Maddie’s hand flew to her throat, just as Mama’s had done earlier. Their gestures were the same, but their looks couldn’t be more different. Maddie towered over Mama, who barely reaches five feet in heels. And while Maddie may be the oldest sister, I never tire of reminding her that I’m still the tallest, at five-foot-ten.

Marty, the youngest, rushed across the rapidly filling parking lot. Her blond hair bounced in a braid from one slender shoulder to the other. Breathing hard, blue eyes filled with fear, she peered into the VFW window. “Are y’all okay? We were so worried, Mace! Maddie even jumped out of my car while it was still moving.” She jabbed an elbow at our big sister. “I just about ran you over!”

That poke passed as criticism from Marty. Petite and pretty like Mama, our librarian sister was normally as gentle as a baby lamb. I’m somewhere between the two of them: Not as sweet as Marty; not as scary as Maddie.

“We’re okay,” I said. “Ronnie isn’t.”

I filled them in. Maddie looked sad; Marty shuddered when I described the murder scene.

“Has anyone told his wife?” she asked.

Carlos came to the window just in time to overhear Marty’s question. “No telling what she’s heard by now. I’m still amazed at how news travels in a small town. That’s not to say it’s always accurate.”

The Himmarshee Hotline was surely humming. It wouldn’t be long before half the town arrived to check out the crime scene.

Carlos had his cop face on. “Mace, I need you to come back in and tell me exactly what you saw, and when. And then I’d like you to translate for your mother.” He nodded to the table where Mama still sat. “She’s obviously upset, since the man was a neighbor. But she keeps going off on tangents. Something about food for a hundred and fifty and some kind of tool.”

“Tulle,” I said. “It’s a fabric. You tie it around three candied almonds as a wedding favor. But believe me, Carlos, you really don’t want to know.”