Veiled Threats Read online

  “Maybe you two met last night,” Nickie was saying. The shadow of last night's tragedy crossed her features.

  “Yes, we did,” he said absently, shaking my hand. “In the kitchen.”

  “Listen, I apologize,” I said. “I can't believe I thought you were—”

  “It's terrible about the bridesmaid,” he went on, as if he hadn't heard me. “Unfortunately, I'm late for a couple of meetings, so …”

  “I'm supposed to meet Theo at your office, is that okay?” Nickie asked.

  “No problem,” he told her. Then, with another murmured platitude to me, he was gone. Some prince. And Mary was nowhere in sight.

  “Carnegie, are you OK? You look upset. Is it about last night?”

  “Try to forget last night, kiddo. You go on home. I'm going to drop off your dress and go to the movies.”

  I HAD FORGOTTEN TO CALL LIEUTENANT BORDEN—OR MAYBE I was avoiding the whole issue—so the next day he called me. He tried the office first, and Eddie gave him the number at Joe Solveto's catering office in the Fremont neighborhood. Joe and I were having lunch at his desk, sampling the latest Solveto's hors d'oeuvres. Eddie and I had eaten popcorn for dinner, so I was famished, but I would have made room anyway. The food was superb.

  Joe combined the languid aplomb of Noël Coward with the competitive instinct of a great white shark, constantly tracking his competitors and refining his menus. He wore exquisite clothes, and styled his body at a health club the way some women style their hair. He also ventured out before dawn in howling rainstorms to go steelhead fishing, and he collected Lionel trains, “but only pre-1950, before they went plastic.” Almost all the vendors I dealt with were pleasant acquaintances, but a few, like Joe, had become valued friends. He was well-respected in the business, and generous with compliments and wise advice. Right now, though, Joe was in goofball mode.

  “Doesn't Eddie cover for you when the cops call?” he stage-whispered as he handed me the phone.

  “Shhhh!”

  “Lieutenant Borden, Ms. Kincaid.” It was a deep voice, with no particular inflection. “Just wanted to verify a few details with you.”

  He walked me through that dreadful evening, from the bridesmaids’ champagne consumption to the estimated speed of the Mustang as it careered down the hill.

  “And apparently you saw a suspicious individual on the drive earlier that evening?”

  “Grace told you about that?”

  “What exactly was this individual doing?”

  “Um, walking. Down the hill, away from Sercombe House. But see, the drive dead-ends at the house, so where was he coming from? I mean, he wasn't just passing through.”

  A pause. Joe was juggling two cherry tomatoes. The lieutenant sighed. “You saw a man, walking.”

  “Well, yes. He could have been walking away from the Mustang!”

  “You didn't see him at the vehicle, you didn't see him tampering with the vehicle in any way.”

  “N-no.”

  Long pause. Joe added a third tomato. “Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Kincaid.”

  “But what about the Mustang? Did you check it over?”

  “Thank you for that suggestion.” The weight of his sarcasm almost made me drop the phone. “Yes, we did. We expended quite a few man-hours on that, though the vehicle was too badly damaged to reveal much. We found no evidence of any cause of the accident beyond reckless driving while under the influence.”

  “Oh. But I suppose there could have been evidence that was destroyed in the crash?”

  Very long pause. A tomato hit the floor. Joe retrieved it and hit a two-point shot in the wastebasket across the room. “Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Kincaid.”

  I replaced the phone and cradled my head in my hands. If only I'd caught up with Mary! Maybe then I'd have had something concrete to tell him. Or maybe not. “Joe, am I crazy?”

  “On occasion. Pretty upset about the bridesmaid, aren't you? What was her name?”

  “Michelle.”

  “Right. The police got to me yesterday, not that I could tell them much except she was drunk and raving. But you think something else happened?”

  “No, I don't guess I do anymore. Pass the veggies, would you?” We munched in silence for a few minutes. When he wasn't playing the fool, Joe could be nicely silent. “These baby squash are wonderful. What's in the marinade?”

  “Cumin powder and extraordinary skill,” he announced, eating one himself. His shadowy blue eyes narrowed. “And how is the bride business?”

  Joe never pried, ever. I could have answered, Business is just fine, and he'd let it go at that. But it wasn't just fine and we both knew it.

  “Business was getting better, but Michelle's accident isn't going to help. I hate to be cold-blooded about it, but there it is. I'd probably lose clients in droves, if I had any droves to start with. At least Nickie Parry's wedding has a huge budget.” I didn't mention the Keith Guthridge business, of course. Wedding consultants see a surprising amount of dirty linen, and discretion comes with the service. Just the suggestion that I gossiped about my clients would be enough to cut my business in half. “I'll need my whole percentage from Nickie to pay off a family loan, and I've only got three smaller weddings booked after hers.”

  Like a magician, Joe produced two wineglasses from a desk drawer, along with a half bottle of something intriguing. “Well, one step at a time. This is a freebie from the new wine shop on Pike. Join me?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “So you're on the way to paying off your loan, but meanwhile you need to eat.”

  “Meanwhile I need to eat and advertise and pay Eddie and get the front end of my van aligned. Landing Nickie's wedding was a godsend.”

  Joe frowned into his glass of Vouvray. “Douglas Parry is in legal trouble, isn't he?”

  “No! Well, not exactly. Not yet. Why?”

  He took a sip before answering and swished the wine in his mouth. “Hmm. Nice. But not nice enough for the price. Carnegie, I wouldn't presume to tell you your business, you know that. But I hate to see you so dependent on someone as … unsavory as Douglas Parry. There are rumors—”

  “There are always rumors, Joe,” I said stiffly. “Nickie and Ray are very nice kids, and Made in Heaven has a contract to put on their wedding. Whatever Douglas may or may not have done in his career, I don't see why I should boycott his daughter.”

  “Of course not,” said Joe. “I didn't mean that you should. I just … never mind, forget I said anything, please. Listen, can I ask you a personal question?”

  I leaned forward. “Anything.”

  “Hussy. You charge fifteen percent, right?”

  I sat back, startled. “Yes, I do. Why?”

  He swished some more wine. “I didn't tell you this, but Dorothy Fenner charges ten.”

  “What?! How can she? How does she manage?”

  “She manages because she got into Amazon.com on the ground floor and then got out at the roof. She could run red ink out of her shell-like ears for months and not notice it.”

  “But that's not fair!”

  “Don't even go there, Carnegie. Nothing is fair. Nothing.”

  I suddenly wondered how well I really knew Joe Solveto.

  “Well, hell. Do you think I should drop my rates?”

  “Absolutely not! Or we'll all be lowballing each other. But now that you've got the Parry wedding, you're batting in Dorothy's league. So, forewarned, forearmed, that kind of thing.”

  “Thanks, Joe.”

  “You're welcome. Forget I said anything about the Parrys, OK?”

  “It's forgotten. I still hate Dorothy, though.”

  “I do, too. She calls me ‘Joseph,’ and she's snotty to Alan. Look, here's to Made in Heaven, then.” He raised his glass, and I touched mine to it. We looked like a TV commercial, the perfect couple, redhead and blond, relaxing after the perfect party. Except that Joe's cheekbones were prettier than mine. He drank off his wine and bowed to me.

 
“May I have this dance, mademoiselle?”

  “Delighted, monsieur.”

  He waltzed me around the office, humming Strauss. My eyes half closed, I swayed in Joe's muscular arms and wondered if Holt Walker was a good dancer. He probably didn't have Joe's flair, but then he probably didn't have a lover named Alan, either. I hoped. Joe gave me a final dip and spin.

  “So when's your wedding, Carnegie?”

  This was a standard joke between us, and as I finished my wine I gave the standard reply. “Once I found out you were taken, Joe, I gave up the whole idea.”

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE CHECK BOUNCED?”

  It was Friday of the same week, and I was meeting in the good room with Mrs. Schiraldi, the assistant manager of the Glacier View Lodge at Mount Rainier National Park. At least, I was trying to meet with her. Eddie had interrupted us, insisting that I take a phone call at my desk while he stalled my visitor. The call was from the proprietor of Excellent Vintage, the shop where I'd bought Nickie's lace gown, and he was not amused.

  “Bounced,” he repeated. “NSF. Not sufficient funds. And I understand that it isn't even your account, it's a Mrs. Grace Parry's. There was some confusion at the bank—”

  “I have signature privileges. It's all perfectly legal,” I assured him. “But there's got to be a mistake here. That account had almost twenty thousand dollars in it.”

  “Not as of last week, it didn't. Now, are you going to pay for this dress yourself, or—”

  “I'll call you back in half an hour. Bye!” I was already flipping though my Rolodex for Hal Jepsen's number at First Washington. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Ah, Ms. Kincaid, I was just about to call you. There was a misunderstanding involving Mrs. Parry's account.”

  “I'll say there was. How did it drop to zero overnight? I've been keeping a close tally—”

  “It's been cleared up,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Maybe not for you,” I snapped, keeping my voice down so it wouldn't carry into the good room. “I just wrote a rubber check for a wedding gown. That's not too good for my credibility. Now what happened, anyway?”

  “It's been cleared up,” he repeated stubbornly. “The merchant can resubmit the check and First Washington will clear it.”

  “Fine, but what happened?”

  “Thank you for your patience, Ms. Kincaid.” Click.

  I stared at the receiver. So that was why Grace Parry got so bent out of shape about my using her account. She'd been drawing down the balance, unbeknownst to her husband, and my impulsive acquisition of the Edwardian gown had scraped the bottom of that particular barrel. She must have made a big deposit after I left on Monday, which wasn't soon enough to cover the check to Excellent Vintage. I grinned. How embarrassing for Grace. She probably went on a shopping spree in Chicago and used up all the grocery money on suede pumps. Tsk, tsk.

  I called the dress shop back and returned to my meeting, where I soon lost my grin. Mrs. Schiraldi was an iron-haired personage who called me Miss Kincaid, and she bristled when I told her that Anita Reid, my bride-after-Nickie, had her heart set on a sunrise ceremony on Mount Rainier. Outdoors.

  “Does she realize,” demanded Mrs. Schiraldi, “that there could be a snowstorm, even in July? Or at least thunder-showers? We're above five thousand feet, you know.”

  “I know.” I also knew the real motive for her bad temper, and it wasn't the weather. It was the fact that the Glacier View's restaurant, in my professional opinion, couldn't handle fancy menus, and I'd hired Solveto's to prepare the wedding banquet. The banquet was a cart-before-the-horse affair; it would serve as the wedding reception, with dinner and dancing, but it was actually taking place the night before the ceremony. The ceremony was scheduled for six A.M. the next morning, and then the bride and groom would set off on a week-long backpacking trip. Up the road from the Glacier View was an area called Paradise, with a Park Service visitors’ center, spectacular views of the mountain, and the start of the honeymooners’ trail. Peter and Anita would spend their wedding night tenting in Paradise.

  Mrs. Schiraldi, meanwhile, undoubtedly suspected me of getting a kickback from Solveto's. She was wrong. I hired Joe frequently, but because he was good, not because he cut me in or padded his invoices and split the surplus with me. Such things do happen, in any business, but not with Solveto's and not with Made in Heaven. Big catered events meant big money changing hands, but none of it stuck to Joe's fingers, or to mine, except for our hard-earned percentages.

  “A n indoor ceremony followed by a brunch would be much more reasonable,” she said. “Our kitchen does a very nice brunch.”

  “They could have brunch in Seattle,” I pointed out, with my best artificial smile. “Peter and Anita first met on a climb of Mount Rainier, so they want their wedding outside, on the mountain. The National Park lodge at Paradise can't block out as many rooms as they need, and the Glacier View is the only private hotel in the vicinity. But if it's not going to work out …”

  “It will work out,” she conceded. Bookings like this didn't come along every day. I smiled some more, and we settled the particulars, from the breakfast menu to parking to the condition of the path connecting the Glacier View with the meadow where the ceremony would take place. Then I gratefully turned her over to Eddie for the financial details.

  But my gratitude was short-lived. Eddie had apparently been stewing about the arrangements for the Parry wedding, and after Mrs. Schiraldi left he boiled over.

  “I thought I handled the payments around here,” he said. “Now you're bouncing checks with our vendors?”

  I looked over from my desk, shading my eyes against the momentary sun. The weather that day was quicksilver, slipping from windy brightness to sullen showers within each hour, and lending a spotlit, melodramatic air to our view of the lake.

  “Of course you handle the payments, in most cases,” I said. “But your signature won't work on the Parry account.”

  “It would if you had insisted on it in the first place.”

  “Well, I forgot to in the first place. I told you that. What's the big deal?”

  “It's no big deal for you,” he grumbled, not meeting my eye, “but it fouls up my record-keeping if I can't pay the bills straight out. Waste of my time.”

  I might have held my tongue if he hadn't lit his cigar. The weather was already playing havoc with my sinuses, and just one whiff of that tobacco was too much.

  “Well, I pay you for your time,” I said, with chill politeness, “and your record-keeping is too complicated anyway. I never know where anything is.”

  That was a low blow. I never knew because I never looked, and in fact I was shamefully ignorant about my own business's books.

  “You never brought it up before,” he said, puffing furiously.

  “I never needed to,” I said, “and you never smoked cigars in here before!”

  “Well, I'll take it outside, then. Gonna drop off that earring at Diane's mother's house and then go home. I wish you'd let Sercombe House and the rest run their own goddamn lost-and-founds.”

  “It's part of the service,” I insisted. “Listen, did anyone call about that business card case—?”

  But he was already out the door. I could hardly object, since he was only supposed to work mornings, but I fumed just the same as I yanked open a desk drawer. The card case was still there, a heavy little thing, maybe even gold, with its soggy wad of paper inside. I'd already flushed the contents of the sandwich bag before Eddie saw it, to avoid yet another lecture on the younger generation. No one was going to claim the dope, and apparently no one was going to claim the case. Either the owner hadn't missed it yet, or … or the owner was the man in the rain. I slipped the case in my pocket and went downstairs.

  BY THE TIME LILY SHOWED UP FOR OUR FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER date, I'd gotten the mystery cards peeled apart with tweezers, dried them out with my hair dryer, and laid them out on my kitchen table next to the rusty little toy stove. Only thre
e business cards had survived the soaking: one for a gym called Powerhouse, another for a pool hall called The 418 Club, and a third for something called Flair Plus, which listed a street address but no indication of what kind of establishment it might be. My front door banged.

  “Hey, girl.”

  “Hey, Lily. What can you tell about a person from the business cards they collect?”

  “Depends on what they are. Is this a test from one of those trashy bride's magazines you read? Find Mr. Right by Stealing His Wallet?” She laughed, shaking me out of my Nancy Drewish study of the evidence. If it was evidence.

  Lily James is a formidably handsome black woman, almost as tall as me, with a wide, sculpted face, a voluptuous figure that I envy, and a stiletto sense of humor. Not exactly my image of a librarian. I'd met her at the business desk at Seattle Public, back in the days when I spent every lunch hour devouring pamphlets on how to start a small business. We'd begun by having coffee together, and discovered a range of common interests, like fine literature, liberal politics, and men. She was divorced, with two rambunctious little boys who called me Aunt Car.

  Lily always recommended my services to her friends and coworkers at the library, including Diane's mother, and Diane had recommended me to Nickie. So at this point I owed Lily my financial salvation, as well as a dinner I'd forgotten to cook.

  “No offense, Carnegie, but it does not smell like roast chicken in here.”

  “Oh, shit, Lily. I never even took it out of the fridge. I found this card case after Diane's wedding—”

  “Sorry about the accident,” she said softly.

  “Yeah. Me, too. If I'd just gone after her … Well, anyway, I found this, and before that I saw this guy …” Once again I explained about the man in the rain, but Lily was no Lieutenant Borden. She was fascinated.