ENGAGED TO BE MURDERED (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 4) (3 page)

              Through clenched teeth, Kitty sneered, “Someone would actually have to like you first.” But no one heard.

              “Margie, Hun, please,” said Trudy, implying she’d like her ring now.

              Margie swooned, but this time not in a good way. Her knees buckled and she gasped then quickly righted herself.

              “Margie?” Trudy asked, suddenly concerned.

             
Probably drank too much
, Kitty thought.
Irish lush
.

              She swooned again, stumbled forwards then in the effort to regain her balance overcompensated and tripped back.

              Kitty noticed her eyes roll up into her head and then, just like that, Margie fell straight backward, hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes.

              While Trudy shrieked and Sadie looked on mildly entertained, Sterling leapt to action and careened through the guests who’d swallowed Margie. He pushed them away, then immediately began checking her vitals, and at times shaking her.

              Kitty inched in, horrified, and two thoughts crept into her head.

              The first was that she could not believe this was happening,
again
.

              And the second?
Who better than Margie?

              With an ill glint in his eyes, Sterling met her gaze.

              “She’s dead.”

              The silence in Happily Ever After was deafening once the gasps and screams ceased, but that wasn’t as bad as what came out of their mouths next.

             
Wedding planner? Wedding killer!

              Kitty Sinclair is becoming an urban legend!

              I’d never let her plan my wedding! You never know who’s going to die!

              Every time someone uttered a snide remark, Kitty whipped toward the voice, but too late to tell who’d said it. Her heart sank and yet she was furious, and growing more so by the second.

              Sterling rose to his feet, which Trudy took as an indication she could go to Margie. Tears filled her eyes and her lips quavered in shock that soon gave way to incredible grief.

              Margie didn’t deserve this, Kitty thought, then she grimaced at her initial reaction. She shouldn’t have been pleased. How on earth could she have felt that way?

              Sterling didn’t let Trudy get close to the body. He held her back gently then wrapped his arms around her in a comforting embrace, which Ronald soon took over.

              For all the crimes he’d worked as a cop then a detective, Kitty wondered how many actual deaths he’d witnessed. His green eyes were dark and cold, deep set under a knit brow, and his mouth pressed into a hard line as if to keep his drink down. He didn’t look at Kitty, but stared at poor Margie, at times shaking his head, but the sentiment was so subtle she almost didn’t catch it.

              Finally, he stalked around the body, a passive way of getting all the guests to step back, creating room and also perhaps to try and see this from a new angle. His expression gradually turned steely, as though he was shifting from his initial turmoil into the productive, discerning, calculating investigator Kitty had come to know him as.

              “Call 9-1-1,” he told her in a solemn tone when he returned to Kitty.

              She nodded obediently, pulling her cell from her purse, and then asked, “Should I ask the guests to leave?”

              Sterling didn’t seem to have an answer and Kitty remembered the Maple - Coburn bachelor party where Sterling had held the guests until the local cops had collected everyone’s information. Her store was small, and unlike the bachelor party, where Johnny Gibbons’ body had been sealed off in the coatroom, here Margie was exposed for all to see. She hoped she wouldn’t have to put her guests through that no matter how cruel some of their comments had been.

              “Sterling?”

              “No,” he said softly. “Is there another room they can wait in?”

              At a loss she muttered, “No, there isn’t.”

              “It’s too cold outside,” he noted. “Damn.”

              The call rang through and Kitty immediately dove into a brief explanation of what had occurred. The 9-1-1 operator said help was on the way, but Kitty’s attention was stolen before she could thank the woman whose calming voice had given her some semblance of relief.

              It was the sound of someone pouring a drink. Kitty turned and found Sadie returning the cap to the whiskey bottle then setting it down, while at the same time lifting her drink to her mouth. It was casual. Margie’s death seemed to have no effect on her.

              Sadie must have sensed her staring, because the jeweler met her gaze and asked, “What?” as though she’d done nothing wrong then knocked her drink back like a shot even though it’d been filled to the brim.

              When Kitty moved on from gawking at Sadie’s lack of manners, she noticed Sterling's gaze had turned sharp, locked onto Margie’s expression, which appeared pained. Kitty also noticed Margie’s right arm was clenched across her stomach, though now relaxed since there wasn’t a shred of life in her.

              What did it mean?

              Trudy dropped to her knee and took Margie’s left hand before Sterling could stop her, though he mumbled no and stop and come away.

              It took Kitty a moment to realize what her friend was doing, but when Trudy selected Margie’s ring finger, she understood.

              “No!” screamed Kitty, as she dove at Trudy. Kitty slapped her hands off the body.

              “I need my ring, Kitty!”

              “Don’t touch it!” She pulled Trudy up to her feet then stared at Sterling with wide eyes. “The engagement ring!”

              He cocked his head, giving her his full attention.

              She didn’t want to alarm the guests so she stepped in close, leaned in, and spoke softly.

              “Margie didn’t drink anything. She’d only just gotten here. The only thing she did was put on that engagement ring.” Kitty stole a glance at Sadie who was munching on a pretzel and eyeing the few CD’s Kitty had stacked on the stereo. “What if the ring was poisoned in some way?”

              “Do you have gloves?” he asked her.

             
Mittens
? Came to mind then she realized Sterling was in detective mode and needed plastic gloves.

              “No.”

              “Pliers? A wrench?”

              The question only confused her, but she had a small toolbox under the bathroom sink. Quickly, she deposited Trudy with Ronald then wove her way through the crowd and ducked into the bathroom.

              “And a plastic bag!” He called after her.

              That she had. She grabbed the toolbox then rounded toward her desk, opened a side drawer, and grabbed a small box of Ziploc bags.

              When she returned to Sterling she handed him both and he kneeled down at once.

              “Is he going to cut off her hand?” asked Sadie, highly interested.

              “Lower your voice!” Kitty demanded as the horrific image Sadie had conjured rolled through her mind. “What in God’s name would make you think that?”

              Sadie smirked wickedly then shrugged.

              “Why not?”

              Kitty glared at her, but shrank. The woman had a terrifying presence that Kitty thought best not to challenge, even now. And she breathed a silent prayer of relief when she saw the flashing red and blue lights of a police cruiser that was just now pulling up to the curb outside.

              Kitty rushed past Sterling, who was using the pliers to gently work the engagement ring off of Margie’s finger, intending to isolate the prospective murder weapon in a plastic bag.

              “She’s in here!” She called through the wind and snow once she’d stepped onto the icy sidewalk.

              Two police officers labored inside as she held the door open.

              “Is an ambulance coming?” she asked, following after them.

              They seemed unconcerned and chortled,
Killer Kitty
under their breath, but hushed when they saw Sterling, who was rising to his feet, having bagged the engagement ring.

              “Collect everyone’s information,” he ordered. “Let them go as you do so.”

              The officers wasted no time shouting directives to the guests at large and getting their duty underway.

              Trudy looked utterly bewildered, watching the scene unfold as if she were stuck in a surreal nightmare. Ronald held his arm around her, but Trudy had slipped off to a faraway place.

              That’s when it hit Kitty. The engagement ring. It had been meant for her friend. No one could’ve anticipated that the pushy Margie McAlister would’ve put the ring on her finger. If the ring had been laced with poison, it had been intended for Trudy’s finger.

              Kitty gasped at the revelation then scanned the crowd, which had formed into two lines in front of each officer.

              Sadie Francis wasn’t in either, but instead she lingered around the refreshment table getting her fill of alcohol. The woman seemed entirely unconcerned, which unnerved Kitty, but only because her laissez-faire attitude didn’t imply outright guilt. She simply wasn’t taking this seriously. Yet it was bizarre.

              Kitty walked with a heavy heart toward the back of the first line where Trudy and Ronald had joined the queue.

              “Trudy,” she began, speaking quietly. “Would anyone want to harm you?”

              The eyes that had looked devoid of spirit suddenly ignited with fiery rage the second they snapped to meet Kitty’s gaze. Words didn’t come. Trudy only shook her head, as her mouth twisted into a hateful frown.

              “No?” Kitty asked as though the reaction had anything to do with her question and not the overall predicament they all found themselves in.

              “I should’ve never let you plan my wedding,” she scorned through a clenched jaw, as Ronald stroked her arm to hush her before she could fly into a rage. “You’re cursed.”

              Kitty felt her expression droop, as she stammered to reassure her friend, but she couldn’t. Part of her feared Trudy was right.

              “She didn’t mean it,” said Ronald to smooth things over.

              “Yes I do,” snapped Trudy. Tears were spilling from her eyes now. “I had a bad feeling about this. I didn’t want you to plan the wedding. Margie and I could’ve put the whole thing together just fine. But I felt sorry for you. I wanted to help. And look where it’s gotten me.”

              It was like a punch to her gut. It took the wind right out of her. Nothing hurt like the truth.

              Trudy could no longer look at her and turned her vacant gaze to the line ahead that was slowly creeping forward as guests gave the officers their information then left the store as fast as hostages being released from a bank on lock down.

              “I’m sorry, Trudy.” The statement, though heartfelt, had fallen on deaf ears.

              Ronald offered a grim smirk of his deepest condolences for Trudy’s reaction, but the stocky, bald man conveyed only a darkened grimace that pained Kitty even more than Trudy’s harsh words.

              When they stepped forward with the moving line, Kitty remained.

              The classical music that was still playing felt wrong and struck a nerve, as though it were mocking the tragedy taking place, so Kitty made herself useful and rushed to the stereo to turn it off. As soon as she did, the silence that took its place was like nails being dragged down a chalkboard. It seemed there was no relief.

              Still at a total loss for making any of this less painful, Kitty gathered up the bouquets from the table, carried them to the exit, and handed them to each lady as she left, though every recipient had a look of wild and grim confusion as she accepted the odd, displaced token.

              When it was Trudy’s turn to approach the door, she didn’t grace Kitty with a held gaze. She refused the bouquet. Ronald attempted to apologize, but it came out weak and muddled. And soon Kitty found herself in an almost empty room, winter wind blowing snow at her back.

              She started with a jump when two medics barreled through rolling a rickety gurney toward the body where Sterling was now standing. He instructed them to get Margie in for an autopsy, but Kitty couldn’t really hear him. She was consumed by the curse she could no longer deny. She was harrowed by Trudy’s condemnation.

              Sadie Francis was the last person the police dealt with, but the interaction was just as casual as Sadie’s attitude up until this point. Sterling hadn’t taken notice as far as Kitty could tell. And he wasn’t paying attention now, as Sadie waved her whiskey around, rattling off her legal name, home and store addresses; every tidbit with an odd smirk on her face, as though these officers were the men she’d been waiting to meet.

              The police finished up with her at approximately the same time the medics had moved Margie from the floor to the gurney. Under instruction from Sterling, the medics then carted Margie off but not before the police released Sadie.

              Sadie didn’t so much as give Margie or the medics one glance, but brushed past them so she could leave first.

              “Anything else, Slaughter?” One of the cops, a trim man in his early thirties whose duties had energized him, asked. The man had come to life in the twenty minutes it’d taken to clear the store of guests—or witnesses, as it were.

              “Let’s get this into evidence and test it for possible poisons,” he said, handing the Ziploc bag to his subordinate.

              “So you think I’m right?” Kitty asked him quietly once the officer started for the door.

              She shouldn’t have credited herself. She knew he hated it. It’d slipped out, though, so she tried to soften the assumption. “I mean you think it was the ring that caused Margie to keel over?”

              “Like you said,” he responded in a level tone. “The ring was the only change she’d undergone. It’s worth looking into.”

              “You know what that means, right?”

              “That the killer didn’t succeed at hitting their target,” he supplied.