May the Best Man Die Read online

  “They said they wanted to wait for you,” said Kelli with a giggle. “I hope that was OK? Eddie's not here yet.”

  Lucky Eddie. The Buckmeisters were friendly folk, but they didn't help a headache, being very Texan and very loud. The phrase “three's a crowd” might have been coined for the Buckmeister clan.

  “There she is!” boomed Buck, the bigger-than-life patriarch of the threesome, rising up from my desk chair like a force of nature in a checkered suit. Buck, who made his pile as the hot-tub king of El Paso, was the kind of man who never met a stranger; to know him was to be embraced by him, as he embraced me now. Along with the suit, he wore a gaudy bandanna tied pirate-style around his high red forehead. The bandanna was different every day; today's was turquoise with yellow dots. “I swear, girl, you get prettier every time I set eyes on you!”

  “Carnegie, what happened to your hand?” asked Bonnie, the bride. Midway in size between her hefty father, Buck, and her petite, rosy-cheeked mother, Betty, she had curly black hair and a girlish enthusiasm that was leagues away from Sally Tyler's ice-princess disdain.

  “Just a cut,” I told her, as Momma Betty patted my shoulder and made cooing sounds. “Really, it's nothing. What can I do for you folks today?”

  “We had this wonderful idea!” said Betty.

  I tried not to whimper. The Killer B's always had one more wonderful idea. “Listen, guys, the wedding is less than a week away—”

  “But that's perfect!” Bonnie chimed in. “Because we're hoping he'll still be in Seattle.”

  “He, who?”

  “Beau Paliere,” said the blushing bride, blushing. “We watched the two of you on television. Isn't he wonderful? And he said if he was invited to a wedding in Seattle, he'd go.”

  “I don't know about that,” I said, groping for a good solid objection. This isn't fair. I haven't had breakfast yet. “I mean, I really don't know the man, and besides, he's used to movie stars—”

  “Bull puckey!” roared Buck.

  “Language!” chided Betty.

  “Sorry, Mother. But there's not a movie star around prettier'n my Bonnie! And I bet that Frenchman's never seen a Christmas blowout like ours is gonna be. So what do you say?”

  “Let's just think about it, all right, folks? I'm really awfully busy right now—”

  “Carnegie, look what came for you!” Kelli stood in my doorway, half-hidden behind an enormous bouquet. There were three dozen roses, at least, in the tenderest shades of pink and ivory and coral. Even the vase was extravagant: a huge and ornate urn in vintage milk glass.

  The Buckmeisters gave forth glad cries; Kelli set the bouquet on my desk, and I held my breath and reached for the enclosure card. Kevin Bauer? But we just met . . . and Aaron would never—

  But Aaron hadn't, and neither had Kevin. The card was from Beautiful Beau. “So charmed to meet you,” it read. Even his handwriting was beautiful. “I'm at the Alexis Hotel. Shall we talk?” His full name and a phone number followed.

  I swallowed my disappointment. Flowers from Aaron wouldn't have changed my mind about him, of course. Or would they? Meanwhile, the Buckmeisters were reading the card over my shoulder.

  “Well, there you go!” said Buck. “The man wants to get to know you, all right. I'll just call him right now.”

  Before I could protest, Buck punched in the number on my desk phone and, in his best Texan French, asked for “Monsoor” Paliere. As he launched into his introduction, and extended his invitation, I smiled weakly and subsided behind the roses. The Killer B's have that effect on me.

  “Well, that's just great!” Buck trumpeted at last. “Mercy boocoo to you, too!”

  Then he gave me a broad wink and handed me the phone.

  “My dear Carnegie!” Beau's voice was cognac-smooth. “How delightful that I'll be seeing you again, and observing you at work. Perhaps after this wonderful Christmas wedding we'll have a nightcap here in my suite. We have so much to talk about, you and I.”

  I couldn't imagine what, but with a passel of Texans gazing at me, I wasn't about to ask. I made a vague reply, thanked him for the flowers, and rang off. As the Buckmeisters made their way to the elevator, noisily thrilled about their date with destiny, I slumped back in my chair, and Joe poked his head in my door.

  “My darling redhead, did I hear the Killer B's talking about Beautiful Beau?”

  “Don't call them that! They might hear you.”

  He strolled over to the roses. “I doubt they can even hear themselves in all that uproar. Nice people, but they need a mute button. Who are these from?”

  “Are you telling me that Kelli didn't read the card, and you didn't worm it out of her? Joe, you're slipping.”

  “All right,” he laughed. “Next question. Why is the fabulous Frenchman sending you roses?”

  “Damned if I know. I'll ask him at Bonnie's wedding.”

  Joe went on red alert without moving a muscle, like a cat who hears the can opener and is pretending not to care.

  “Beau Paliere will be at Buckmeister/Frost?”

  “Yep.” I sat up and made a note for my file. “Just what I need is his snooty criticism of my—”

  “How interesting,” said Joe, leaning down to sniff a rose. A lock of his sandy hair fell fetchingly across his forehead. “Carnegie, remember how you asked me to run some of my vintage Lionel trains at the reception?”

  “I do, and I remember that you refused, even though I asked you ever so nicely. You're more worried about those trains than all your crystal and ceramics.”

  He straightened up and smiled sweetly. “Not anymore. Where shall we set them up, the buffet table or the hot chocolate bar?”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Joe, you're shameless! You think the paparazzi are going to shadow Beau Paliere at Buckmeister/Frost, and you want the unique arrangements provided by Solveto's Catering to figure prominently in the background of their pictures.”

  “Damn straight I do, if you'll forgive the expression.”

  “What if there aren't any photographers there except Bonnie's?”

  “Oh, no fear of that.” He drifted toward the door. “Excuse me, I've got some phone calls to make. . . .”

  At that point my cell phone chirped from the pocket of my coat. No cognac smoothness from Aaron. More like black coffee.

  “So, Stretch, you ready for your third degree?”

  “My what?”

  “Come on, you weren't that far gone last night. You're going to help me spring Darwin, remember?”

  “Of course I remember. But I'm at work. I have a meeting in an hour, I keep getting interrupted, and I still need to eat breakfast—”

  “Hey, me too. I'll be at the Daughter in ten minutes.”

  I was there in five. The Fisherman's Daughter was just up the block from Joe's building, a brand-new place trying a bit too hard to evoke funky old Fremont, with distressed lumber and fishing nets and such. But they served four-egg omelets and pepper-cured bacon, so what the hell.

  Best of all, the Daughter's waitresses fill your coffee cup before they even hand you a menu. This was critical today, because back at Ivy's apartment I'd been completely flummoxed by her built-in home espresso contraption. Built-in! What if I pushed the wrong button and injected hot milk into the drywall? I had taken one look and fled the scene.

  So I was eagerly dosing myself with caffeine when Aaron arrived, notebook at hand, in a navy-blue pea coat and white scarf. He looked gallingly wide-awake, the eager newshound hot on the trail.

  I decided to get the hard part over with right away. “About what I said last night . . .”

  “You mean, about your new friend Kevin?” He sat down and gave me a tight smile. “I don't want to hear about it. I'd rather tell you about your old friend Aaron, and why—”

  “Why you lied to me about your wife?” I could be brusque, too. In fact, I needed to be, to remind myself to stick to my guns. “No, thanks. We're discussing Jason Kraye's murder and nothing else.”

  He roll
ed his eyes. “All right, me proud beauty, be that way. But one of these days you're going to hear me out. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow . . .”

  “I'm not kidding, Aaron! Just drop the whole subject. Case closed.”

  “All right, Stretch.” He had taken out his steel cigarette lighter and was tapping it on the table, end over end, a habit he had when he was thinking hard. “All right, tell you what. I won't bring up my sordid past until you ask me to.”

  “You mean, unless I ask you to.”

  “Whatever. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Aaron put away the lighter and held out his hand, to shake on it, which got us a funny look from the waitress bringing our menus. But it cleared the air, at least for me, and soon we were diving into breakfast. It was—it used to be—one of the fun things about being with him. Good food and lots of it, and don't spare the ketchup. Some of my friends liked haute cuisine, but Aaron and I liked to eat.

  “Here's what I've got so far.” Aaron was well-practiced in operating a notebook with one hand and a fork with the other. He swallowed a mouthful of salmon hash and flipped to a page of scribbled notes. “The police haven't recovered the weapon yet, and there are no witnesses except you. No criminal background on Jason Kraye, no obvious motive for his murder. So the working theory is that Kraye was slashed in a drunken fight, maybe even unintentionally, and that the killer was one of the men at the bachelor party.”

  “Darwin, you mean.”

  “Well, they've been grilling everyone who was there, me included. But yeah, Dar's the prime suspect. Whether they book him or not, they'll keep on questioning him until he slips up. Or cracks up. I sure couldn't stay sober at a time like this.”

  “And it's all my fault!”

  “Jeez, I get first prize for tactless, don't I?” He put a hand on mine, then withdrew it when I stiffened. “What's done is done, Slim, and it's nobody's fault. The best way to help Darwin is to find out what really happened.”

  I squared my shoulders, feeling the coffee take effect. Bless those ancient Ethiopians, anyway. “OK, where do we start?”

  “Let's put together what we know for sure. You first. Tell me everything you saw going on outside the Café that night, every little detail.” He poised a pencil over a fresh page and crooked one eyebrow. “You can skip the musical entertainment. I saw that from inside.”

  “I bet you did.” I wondered if the memory of Santa's dance number was still as vivid for him as it was for me. Never mind that. Remember the scuffle.

  I closed my eyes and it all came back: the flailing shadows, the two men struggling, the third man kneeling in the frozen grass. But even with Aaron's interruptions, it didn't take long to describe the whole episode. I simply hadn't seen all that much.

  “So you didn't watch Darwin leave the premises, or Frank Sanjek, either? You're sure?”

  “Look, I'd love to be able to say that Darwin left the party by himself, while Jason Kraye was still alive. And I'm sure that's what did happen. But I didn't see it. I didn't see anyone leave except the stripper, going up the street on foot, and someone going downhill toward the bike path.”

  “No guesses as to who that was? Height, build?”

  I shook my head. “He was down in the bushes, I couldn't really tell.”

  Aaron nodded, frowning, and reviewed his notes. “But you definitely saw that both Darwin and Kraye had empty hands? No glint of a knife?”

  “No. They were shoving at each other, and then punching in a sort of half-hearted way. But I didn't see a knife. I told Mike that. I just hope he told Lily.”

  “He's not telling her squat.” Aaron waved to the waitress for more coffee, then looked at me ruefully. “She's the sister of a homicide suspect, for God's sake. The department's shorthanded, so Graham is still on the case, but he's not going anywhere near her till it's settled. Conflict of interest.”

  “Poor Lily! I hate to think of her dealing with all this alone. I should go see her.”

  “Bad idea, Stretch. Really. She's so strung out, seeing you now would do more harm than good. Leave Lily be for a while, and I'll tell you the minute that changes, I promise. Meanwhile, she isn't alone. She's got me.”

  “She's got both of us,” I insisted. “Whether she likes it or not. But I'll keep away until you think she's ready to talk with me. So, it's your turn. What went on inside the Café, that might have led to murder?”

  “That's what I can't figure out.” Aaron glared at his coffee, then shook his head as he dumped in some sugar. I wondered if he was yearning for an after-meal cigarette. “See, I just wasn't picking up any bad vibes there. Not that bad, anyway. Kraye was being a macho jerk, as I gather was normal for him. After you left, he goaded Darwin into drinking some retsina, and then some more. But Dar seemed like a sloppy drunk, not a dangerous one. Same goes for Frank and the other guys. I swear, it just didn't feel like the kind of party that ends with a knife.”

  “But it did, though. And you're only one observer. Maybe someone else at the party got a different impression. We could start by asking them. Though of course, the police already have.”

  “That's assuming they told the truth,” he pointed out.

  “I bet Lou Schulman didn't.”

  “The guy who groped you? What makes you think that?”

  “Well, he—wait a minute! You saw him groping me and you didn't say anything?”

  Aaron, all innocence, hoisted shoulders and eyebrows. “Seemed like you were handling things just fine by yourself. Besides, I had to finish my pool game. I was winning. What makes you single out Lou?”

  “I'm not sure,” I said, swallowing my indignation along with my coffee. Cream, no sugar. “I ran into him at the Habitat roasting plant, where he works, and he got awfully emphatic about not knowing Jason very well.”

  “So you think Schulman doth protest too much? It's worth checking out.” Aaron jotted down the name. “It's worth checking everything. What does he do at Habitat?”

  “Some kind of computer stuff.” I told him what Fiona had said, about Lou being a programming wizard with poor social skills.

  “Typical,” said Aaron, still jotting. “I wonder how Schulman and Kraye got to know each other? I'll see if I can find out. And I'll call the other guys at the party, too. I can say I'm doing a piece for the Sentinel. Can you get me a guest list?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. Something about Jason Kraye, good or bad, past or present, made somebody at that party want him dead. We have to find out what it was and who it was.”

  “Just that simple.”

  “Well, look at what we've got going for us.” He dropped a credit card on our bill. “Excellent access to the suspects, for one thing. Most of the guys at the party were Frank's coworkers at MFC. So between me researching the book on Ivy, and you doing Sally's wedding—”

  “Damn!” I jumped up from the table. “I'm supposed to be at Meet for Coffee headquarters right now, for an appointment with one of Ivy's people. I'll pay you back, OK?”

  “My treat,” said Aaron. “Just be sure and pump them about Kraye. I'll drop by Solveto's later and you can fill me in.”

  “OK.”

  But I didn't have to pump Madison Jaffee. She ended up pumping me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “MS. JAFFEE WILL BE WITH YOU IN A MINUTE,” SNIFFED THE angular, sour-faced secretary guarding MFC's marketing department. Her nameplate said Nora, but her eyes said Wicked Witch of the West. She sighed, in the perpetually put-upon tone of the chronic complainer. “She's running late, as per usual.”

  “No problem.” Especially considering I'm late myself. I gave Nora a cheery smile, but she didn't have the energy to respond. It's a hard life, being grumpy.

  I settled into a chair to wait, but I'd barely made it to page three of MFC's latest annual report when Ivy's “whiz kid” came out to greet me. Madison Jaffee was about my age, with short black hair and a taut, coiled energy in her stride. Her angled green eyes were shrewd and skillfull
y made up, and a short upper lip gave her mouth a curious look—of surprise or anticipation. Her lip curled just a little at the secretary's frosty glance, then she shook my hand and steered me down the hall to a small conference room.

  If Madison's vigor contrasted cruelly with Nora's burned-out lassitude, her sophisticated taste in clothes made me feel raw around the edges. Most of the staff I'd passed on my way in were dressed Seattle-casual, lots of khakis and sweaters, but Madison looked more like Manhattan. Her hair clasped her temples like a cocktail hat from the forties, and above her cropped trousers and Italian boots she wore a wide-shouldered jacket, obviously one of a kind, made from panels of jewel-toned brocade.

  “Great jacket,” I said as she shut the door. We were forty stories up in a glass tower downtown, far from the MFC roasting plant in South Seattle. Unlike the heady atmosphere at Habitat, the only coffee aroma in this room came from the paper cups we brought with us.

  “Thanks. It's antique kimono fabric. I just got back from Tokyo yesterday, testing the waters for MFC in Asia. Have a seat.”

  The MFC lobby and hallways were decorated in conservative Corporate Yule, lots of holly and ribbon, nothing at all religious. The conference room, in contrast, was crammed with the bright and blatant signs of summer. There were sunshiny travel posters taped to the walls, a display of picnic baskets and beach paraphernalia, and a couple of easels pinned with ink and watercolor sketches of tropical shorelines and tall, cool drinks.

  “Creative Services is concepting our summer promotion for next year,” explained Madison, brisk and impersonal. “We wrapped up Christmas back in August. Now, I don't have much time, but Ivy filled me in on Made in Heaven and asked me to brainstorm a little. . . .”

  Storm was the right word. In one tempestuous, buffeting burst, Madison analyzed the Seattle wedding market, critiqued my promotional efforts thus far, and sketched out a six-month branding plan for Eddie and me to embark upon, starting with “Identify relevant opinion leaders” and ending with “Continue to cultivate press contacts.”

  We even came up with a phrase for me to work into interviews, to support the idea that my events were affordable without seeming cheap. The way Beau Paliere used Beauty and perfection in every detail, I would use Fairytale weddings for real-world brides.