Died to Match Read online

  Eddie harrumphs that people should fend for themselves, but I believe that your experience as a wedding guest begins when you walk out your front door. Inconvenient dates, unreasonable distances, or incomprehensible driving directions are just as bad as wilted flowers or a lackluster cake. So I drove through the thinning drizzle, and parked Vanna just as the faint, moist sunshine began to gleam on the vast curves of the Experience Music Project, where it reared up from the Seattle Center grounds.

  I had mixed feelings about the EMP, at least the outside of it. Inside, the rock-and-roll museum was fabulous: 140,000 square feet of interactive exhibits, memorabilia from doo-wop to Hendrix to riot grrrls, and various innovative performance spaces. And, of course, it made a hip venue for a wedding.

  But the outrageous Frank Gehry design for the building itself gave new meaning to the phrase “You either hate it or you love it.” Inspired by the shapes and colors of electric guitars, it’s a multi-colored metal-skinned train wreck of dark gold, red, and silver sections, with rippling blue and green bands and iridescent pink bulges in between. I was leaning toward loving it, but mostly I found myself wondering how it was going to look covered with frosting.

  Because, unlike the Buckmeisters, Elizabeth knew exactly what she wanted for her wedding cake: an architecturally perfect model of the EMP. The cake itself would be bitter chocolate, laced with raspberry liqueur and filled with mocha mousse and French buttercream. Rolled fondant, carefully dyed to match the EMP’s in-your-face colors, would form the shell of the building. And a tiny marzipan monorail would wend through it, heading for a chocolate-and-gum paste Space Needle. The price tag was exorbitant, but people would talk about it for weeks.

  Before they could eat cake, though, they’d have to navigate their way to the wedding site.

  I pulled out again and made three passes, coming at the EMP across town from the freeway, then south from Queen Anne hill, and finally north from downtown on Alaskan Way.

  Then I pulled over on Fifth Avenue to record my findings in the spiral notebook that’s always in my tote bag. Eddie keeps suggesting some kind of digital gizmo, but paper works fine for me. And concentrating on practical matters helped me to keep from worrying about Corinne and Tommy.

  “Hello there!”

  The voice, and the simultaneous tapping on my window, made me jump. My favorite pen leapt from my fingers and hid itself down near the pastry crumbs at the base of the gear shift. Swearing silently, I rolled down the window, and a matronly woman with a pleasant smile handed me a parking ticket.

  “I wasn’t parking!” I protested. “I was just sitting here thinking for a minute.”

  “Well,” she chirped, “you should have thought about putting money in the meter. Have a nice day!”

  A parking fine and body work both, on top of the overdue overhaul on the engine. Wonderful. If only my mechanic would plan his wedding, so I could trade for his services.

  At least the Killer B’s had left. They drove a purple Cadillac with, heaven help us, a pair of steer horns mounted on the grille, so you always knew if they were around. I went wearily upstairs to check in with Eddie. I owed him big time for taking them off my hands. I considered telling him what Corinne had said, but Eddie has this funny notion that I read too much into things, and see mysteries where there aren’t any. Like the time I thought a guy courting Lily was married because he wouldn’t show her his house, and it turned out he just never vacuumed the place. Eddie would tell me to mind my own business.

  “Carnegie!” he bellowed from the workroom as soon as I cracked the door. “This boy’s a genius! He’s got this planning software working like a charm!” There were printout pages heaped around the room like snowdrifts: checklists, budget graphs, pie charts labeled “Bride’s Expenses” and “RSVPs to Date.”

  Eddie was at his computer, with my erstwhile Robin Hood standing behind him, puffed up with the praise. He was awfully good-looking. Maybe I should have kissed him back. At least he didn’t smoke.

  “Zack!” I said. “I forgot you were coming, after what happened last night.”

  “You mean that thing with Corinne? Bummer. She OK?”

  “I haven’t told him,” Eddie said quietly, his hands still on the keyboard. “I didn’t know if I should.”

  I moved a sheaf of pages and dropped into my desk chair. “Zack, you haven’t seen the news today, have you? Or talked to anyone at the Sentinel?”

  “Nah. My TV’s dead anyway. I slept in and, like, dinked around until now. What’s going on?”

  “It’s Mercedes Montoya.” How do I say this? “I was walking through the exhibits last night, after everyone left, and… Zack, she’s dead. I don’t know if you knew her very well— Zack? Eddie, catch him!”

  Zack had gone white to the lips, as if every last ounce of his blood had been drained away, and then he began to tremble and sway. Eddie leapt from his chair and guided Zack into it, then pushed his head down between his knees.

  “Slow breaths,” he said gruffly. Eddie has different degrees of gruff, though, and it stuck out a mile that he liked this youngster. “Carnegie, for God’s sake, get a glass of water.”

  Zack had to sip at it for a minute before he could speak. “What happened? Did she drown?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it until the police say I can. Sorry.” He nodded vaguely. “Listen, maybe you should go home. Eddie can show me what you’ve been working on, and we’ll get back to it later. Did you drive over?”

  “I took the bus,” he said hollowly. “Yeah, I think I’ll go home. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Eddie told him. He walked Zack to the door, then came back to his desk and began to gather the printouts into stacks.

  “I wondered if he had worked with the Montoya girl,” he said. All females under fifty were girls to Eddie. “Must have liked her a lot. They’re all in an uproar over at the Sentinel, according to your boyfriend.”

  “Eddie, I asked you before. Please don’t call Aaron my boyfriend.”

  “Well, then, your ‘acquaintance’ called, to tell you the Campbell girl is all right. He tried to see her at Harborview but she’d already gone home.” He sat at his desk and laid the paperwork aside. “How’s the best man? Sobered up?”

  “He’s in a coma, Eddie!” My partner had never met the Sentinel’s sportswriter, so I couldn’t expect any serious sympathy, but still I bridled. “They don’t even know if he’s going to live.”

  He winced. “Sorry. Well, there goes the wedding. Shall we divvy up the cancellation calls?”

  “Not yet, not till I talk to Elizabeth and Paul. I told you about Paul’s great-aunt, didn’t I? She’s ninety-eight, and apparently she’s been hanging on just to see him get married. I don’t know what they’ll want to do. We have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow, so I assume we’ll decide then.”

  “Good enough.” He glanced at his watch, a racy silver affair below his crisply turned-back cuff. Eddie wore a white shirt every day, starched rigid, and you could slice bread with the creases in his khakis. “Well, get going. You’ve still got time to change before dinner. Did you ever eat lunch?”

  “I wasn’t hungry. Why should I change for the movies?” Every few weeks Eddie and I went to a big-budget flick and ate junk food. I was looking forward to it tonight, though I planned to insist on a comedy, or even a cartoon—anything without blood.

  “Rain check,” said Eddie. “Aaron’s coming for you in half an hour. I told him you needed cheering up.”

  “Eddie, who asked you to set up my social life?”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “Now scoot. Put on something pretty.”

  “I will not! He just wants an interview.”

  “He told me he wouldn’t pester you with any questions.”

  I snorted. “Fat chance.”

  “Now, don’t get on your high horse. Aaron just didn’t think you should be alone tonight.”

  “I wasn’t going to be alone, I was going to be with you!”
<
br />   “Scoot.”

  Boy, do I hate a matchmaker, I thought as I descended the stairs. If Eddie nudged me any harder, I’d fall overboard myself. I wasn’t even sure if he liked Aaron, or if he just wanted me settled with a man, any man.

  No, that wasn’t fair. Eddie had made his distaste for Boris Nevsky quite plain right from the first date. And before that there was Wayne, the hot-looking videographer. Eddie had him pegged for the self-centered type within ten minutes. It took me two weeks.

  Holt Walker had been another matter. Smitten, I’d kept Holt to myself, away from Eddie and his opinions. And then my handsome and successful suitor had turned out to be a particularly unsavory sort of criminal. I sure can pick ’em.

  I was still getting over Holt, in more ways than one. Maybe that was the real reason I was hanging back with Aaron. That and the fact that all he really wanted now was some juicy quotes about a murdered corpse. I dumped my jacket on a chair and did what I always do when I’m tangled up inside my own brain: I poured a glass of cheap white wine and, ignoring the message light on my phone, I called Lily.

  “Hey, you caught me just coming in,” she said. “I took the boys to their friend Dylan’s for a campout.”

  “A campout? Lily, it’s raining again, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Calm down, Honorary Aunt. They’re in Dylan’s basement. Kids have no nerve endings, they can sleep on concrete and love it. Now, what on earth happened to that Montoya person last night? She’s the TV star, right, the gypsy?”

  “She was.” I gulped some wine and gave her my tired little routine about not discussing the details.

  “I get it,” she said. “But you must be in shock. You want some company?”

  “No, that’s all right…. Actually, yes, I would like company. If you don’t mind having dinner with Aaron Gold?”

  “Aha, the cute reporter. Cute guys always welcome. Don’t you want him all to yourself?”

  “No,” I said. “No, tonight I definitely do not want Aaron all to myself.”

  Chapter Eight

  DINNER STARTED OUT AWKWARD AS HELL. STANDING IN MY living room, faced with a trio instead of a duet, Aaron masked his surprise with a bland and off-putting courtesy that was worthy of Zorro, and Lily responded in kind. The two of them had heard plenty about each other from me, so I knew there was some sizing up going on as they shook hands and commented on the weather.

  Lily looked smashing, in a royal-purple sweater and skirt that set off her statuesque figure and coffee-colored skin. Aaron was less rumpled than usual in yellow dress shirt and spiffy black leather jacket. I wore jade silk and an uncomfortable smile. Despite my second—and third and fifth— thoughts about Aaron, I really wanted these people to like each other.

  My two companions did have one thing in common: both of them assumed I was upset by what I’d witnessed and persisted in treating me with kid-glove kindness. If Aaron was going to tackle me for an interview, it wouldn’t be tonight.

  “I made reservations at Toscana,” he said as we walked out to the parking lot. The rain was thinning again, to the sloping mist so typical of Seattle. “I hope that suits you, Lily?”

  “Sounds wonderful, Aaron,” she replied graciously, but then frowned at the sight of his vintage Volkswagen Bug, recently acquired third-hand from someone at the Sentinel. It was banana-yellow, with appropriate brown spots of rust. “Umm, how about if I drive?”

  I was just as glad—at least Lily’s Volvo had some legroom—but that left the brave caballero scrunched in the backseat with her sons’ toys and soccer gear. Hardly the way to start a romantic evening. Serves you right for conspiring with Eddie, I thought, but without much spirit. Then, as we drove to the University District making the smallest of small talk, I stopped thinking about Aaron and thought about whether I was truly as upset as he and Lily believed me to be.

  Certainly I felt sad for Mercedes, and revolted by the horrible way that I’d found her. But as more time passed, there was also plain old vulgar curiosity. Who, of all the masked revelers at the Aquarium last night, had gone home with blood on his hands? And did those same hands try to drown Corinne, or was she fantasizing? Was the killer’s motive as deep and murky as Elliott Bay, or as simple and sharp as the glint off a diamond ring?

  The Italian bistro Aaron had chosen was dim and intimate, perfect for lovers but a bit much for new acquaintances. We had our choice of tables on a Sunday evening, so we settled ourselves into a corner booth flanked by shelves of wine bottles and hanging plants. The waiter lit our candle, poured our Chianti, and left us. We reviewed the menu, then fell into an uneasy silence.

  “So, Lily,” said Aaron after a moment. We both turned to him brightly, a couple of nice girls waiting for the boy to start the conversation. “Carnegie tells me that you’re African-American.”

  Lily gaped, stared, and let out a whoop of laughter. Aaron stayed deadpan, but his eyes were sparkling.

  “Yes,” she replied, once she got her breath back. “Yes, I’ve been Black for quite some time now. And how about yourself? One of the Chosen People, are you?”

  Aaron grinned. “As Chosen as they come. Pass the wine.”

  An hour later we were all full of penne puttanesca and the two of them were arguing about jazz.

  “Chuck Mangione?” Aaron protested, flourishing his fork. He’d shed his jacket and rolled back his cuffs. I vaguely recalled the musician’s name, but mostly I was busy admiring Zorro’s sword arm, which was very brown and strong-looking. “Mangione is a sure cure for insomnia! You can’t listen to his stuff and operate heavy machinery.”

  “It is beautifully hypnotic,” Lily insisted. “I used to fall asleep listening to him.”

  “You weren’t falling asleep, you were falling into a stupor. Mangione isn’t fit to tie Coltrane’s shoes.”

  “Oh, not another ’Trane snob!”

  “Bite your tongue,” Aaron shot back. “Next thing you’ll be telling me you listen to Yanni and Kenny G!”

  Lily bridled. “And what’s wrong with Kenny G?”

  “A lot of brides want Kenny G played at their weddings,” I chimed in. “But only after the ceremony.”

  They looked at me, puzzled. I think they’d forgotten I was there.

  “Why after?” asked Lily.

  “They don’t believe in sax before marriage.”

  They both chortled, and Lily threw her napkin at me, saying, “Bad jokes from the woman who hates jazz.”

  Aaron looked at me in horror. “You hate jazz? Say it ain’t so, Slim. Say it’s only Sominex jazz like Mangione’s.”

  “It’s true,” Lily insisted. “Carnegie loathes everything except Dixieland. She’s hopeless.”

  I tried to take a dignified sip of wine, but my glass seemed to be empty again, so I put it down. “Just because I don’t like irritating music with no melody and no rhythm—”

  “Philistine!” said Aaron. “She’s beautiful, but she’s a philistine. What am I going to do with her?”

  Lily snorted. “I bet you could think of something, a Chosen guy like you.”

  “I bet I could,” he said, doing Groucho Marx with his eyebrows.

  “OK, time out,” I said. “No more of this.”

  “Well, then,” said Aaron, “let’s talk about murder.”

  I could swear the candle flickered when he said the evil word, but maybe it was just the shadow that descended on our spirits. Then the flame rose again, and I got mad.

  “Dammit, Aaron, I should have known—”

  “Hey, it’s no crime to be curious. Besides, I’m just wondering how you’re doing, after what you’ve been through.”

  A likely story. “Aaron, this evening is off the record.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “I’m serious,” I told him. “If I see one word in the Sentinel—”

  “Look, if you think I’m so unscrupulous, how come—”

  “ ’Scuse me!” Lily, her diplomacy radar on full alert, made off for the ladies’ room an
d left us to argue in private.

  Aaron sat back, breathing hard, and folded his arms. “Stretch, when I say something is off the record, it’s off. You can bring along a chaperone if you want, but don’t question my integrity, all right?”

  “It’s just that after seeing you there last night, it’s hard to separate the person from the reporter.”

  “Well, I’ve done the separating for you. I took myself off the story, as soon as I realized you were involved.”

  “Really?” I said, abashed.

  “Really. Paul assigned it to someone else. We hashed it all out in the newsroom this morning.”

  “Oh.” I thought about Zack’s reaction to the news. “How’s everyone at the Sentinel feeling about Mercedes?”

  “They’re shocked, of course. But they’re news junkies, they’re fascinated. And, of course, some of them weren’t crazy about Mercedes in the first place, including me. But nobody wanted her dead.”

  “Well, somebody did.” It occurred to me, for the first time, to wonder if Mercedes’ secret fiancé was as blissful about their engagement as she was. Suspicion is a poisonous thing. “How did Roger Talbot react?”

  “He wasn’t there, just left a message asking everyone to cooperate with the police, and tapping Paul to do the obituary. To tell you the truth, I think everybody’s mostly concerned about Tommy. More wine?”

  “I’d better not.”

  We ordered cappuccino for three, and when the waiter was out of earshot I asked, “So, who do you think killed Mercedes?”

  “Soper,” said Aaron promptly. “Gotta be. Look how he came at me with that sickle thing.”

  “But he wasn’t trying to kill you.”

  “Of course not, but it shows how short his fuse is. I think Mercedes let on that she knew about the bribery, and he went ballistic. I think Death killed her.”

  Lily overheard him as she slid back into the booth. “That’s what kills everybody. But you’re talking about that guy with the scythe, aren’t you? Why would he kill Mercedes Montoya?”

  “She was working on an exposé about his company,” Aaron said quickly, with a significant look at me. I got the message: the bribery story was still under wraps. “So it’s a scythe? I thought it was a sickle.”