A Groom With a View

“That's really diabolical,' Shelley said. 'But how does it help?'

“I don't know. Except it proves that Mrs. Crossthwait's death was planned. It wasn't a spur of the moment thing.”

Shelley shivered. 'Euwww. I don't like this at all. What a horrible scenario!”

Jane looked down at the tangle of binding. 'I don't imagine this stuff would hold fingerprints, would it?'

“Jane, it's getting dark and I don't like us being up here alone. Leave the seam binding here and let's finish packing things up and we can go sit in the kitchen until Mel comes back. I suddenly don'tmuch enjoy our solitude. I wish there were someone else around. Preferably a man. With a gun.”

They went back to Mrs. Crossthwait's room. 'Speaking of men, I haven't seen Larkspur for ages,' Jane said, picking up an armload of boxes full of sewing notions. 'He didn't say anything about leaving, did he?'

“Not to me. Where are we going with this stuff?'

“To her car. If we load everything into it, whoever comes to fetch it will have all her belongings.”

It took a couple trips, but they got everything except the sewing machine into the car; Jane planned to ask one of the strong young men to carry it out later. Jane put Mrs. Crossthwait's purse out of sight under the front seat, locked the Jeep, and pocketed the keys.

They headed for the kitchen to make some fresh coffee and found Larkspur leaning into the fridge, rummaging for sustenance.

“Where have you been?' Jane asked. 'I was starting to worry about you.”

He continued to search the fridge. 'Just here and there. I found some fabulous columbines back behind Uncle Joe's rabbit hutch of a house. They're not in bloom and might get really doggy flowers, but the foliage is magnificent. And there's a fern there that I can't identify.'

“But no treasure?' Jane asked.

He whirled around, bumping his head smartly on the egg tray on the door. 'Treasure?' he asked with exaggerated innocence.

“That's what you're really looking for, isn't it?' Shelley said. 'How did you happen to hear about it?”

Larkspur took Mel's dinner plate out of the refrigerator. 'May I have this, my dears?' At Jane's nod, he sat down at the table and took the foil off the plate. 'Oh, lovely chicken salad. Divine. How did I hear about the treasure? Oh, yes. I mentioned to a customer that I was doing a wedding at a hunting lodge and was rather wondering what would complement deer antlers. The customer asked where the lodge was and he said he'd once lived somewhere nearby and told me about the treasure.'

“Did he say what the nature of it was?'

“No, just that everybody in town believed there was something hidden in the lodge or the grounds that was extremely valuable.'

“Who was this person?' Jane asked.

Larkspur made a flapping motion with both hands. 'My dear, how could I possibly remember? I have absolute flocks of people in and out of the shop and it was months and months ago. Why? Does it matter who it was?'

“I guess not,' Jane said. 'Since it seems to be such a common rumor.'

“Rumor? Are you really sure of that?' Larkspur asked.

“I'm not sure of anything except that I want this wedding to be over,' Jane said. 'So I can go home and sink back into being an antisocial slob.'

“Testy, testy, my dear. And I'm absolutely certain you're never a slob. Antisocial perhaps on occasion, everybody's entitled to that, but not a slob. Where has your handsome detective friend gone?'

“Out to dinner. That's his that you're eating.'

“Will he mind?' Larkspur asked, tucking into the chicken salad as if afraid someone might take it away from him.

“No, he's gone out and gotten a social life. Well, a professional social life,' Jane said. 'Maybe that's him now,' she said at the sound of a door opening.

But it was Mr. Willis with a vast tray of ham and egg rolls, which he popped into the oven, but didn't turn the heat on yet. He was back in a moment with grocery bags full of beer, pretzels, chips, and dips.

“You shouldn't have,' Larkspur simpered.

Mr. Willis looked down his stubby nose. 'They're not for you. They're for the bachelor party. The young men won't care that it's not gourmet food.'

“The wedding party isn't back from dinner yet, are they?' Jane said, glancing at her watch. 'Not yet. But the beer has to chill.'

“Mr. Willis, have you heard anything about a treasure hidden in the lodge?' Shelley asked as he started stacking beer cans in the refrigerator.

“Who hasn't?' he asked over his shoulder. 'It's not in the pantry. That's all I can tell you.'

“You searched?' Jane asked.

“Who wouldn't?' he asked. 'But I think it's foolish. I've worked in two restaurants that were in old houses that were supposed to have hidden treasures. I was there when one of them was discovered.'

“What was it?' Larkspur inquired.

“A stack of old stock certificates for a defunct mining company. Hidden in the wall of an old pocket door. The owner had them framed as decorations for the walls and renamed the restaurant the Miner's Dream.'

“What's a pocket door?' Shelley asked.

“The kind of door that slides into a thick wall,' Jane said.

“Are there any here?'

“No,' Larkspur answered with certainty. 'And there's nothing in or around the well or the crawl space under the house.'

“You grubbed around under the house?' Jane asked.

“Just by poking a flashlight into holes in the foundation. If there's anything here, I imagine the wrecking crew will get it.'

“Is that how it works when something's torn down?' Shelley asked.

“I think so. That's how those pricey salvage companies get all the plaster and marble ornamentation to sell to suburbanites with more money than taste.”

Shelley bridled. 'I just happen to have a section of egg and dart molding from the outside of an old office building in my front garden.”

Larkspur wasn't embarrassed. 'But you, my darling, are the exception that proves the rule. I must go set up the flowers for the bachelor party.”

As he left, Shelley whispered, 'Aren't flowers for a bachelor party a bit much?'

“They're very macho flower arrangements,' Jane replied. 'Yucca leaves and those big obscene red plastic- looking flowers with the white thing sticking up out of them. He's tossing them in for free as a bit of a vulgar joke.”

Jane was desperately eager for Mel to return so she and Shelley could pick his brain about anything he might have learned. But he came back to the lodge looking a bit green around the gills and was only moments ahead of the minibus with the wedding party coming back from dinner in Chicago. Jane reluctantly let him go to his room to nap off his dinner and threw herself back into her 'hired hostess' role. Mr. Willis rushed the beer and grocery store snacks to the room where the bridal shower had been held earlier in the day, and Jane helped him put out wines, sherries, and elegant little nibbles in the main room for any guests who might be settling in there.

Shelley breezed through with an armload of coats she'd relieved the aunts and the bridesmaids of, and whispered, 'Just think, Jane, it's eleven o'clock. By this time tomorrow, we'll all be home and this will be but a pleasant memory.'

“Yeah, right. If we all survive until tomorrow night,' Jane muttered, polishing a water spot off a sherry glass with the tail of her blouse.

Fifteen

The bachelor party sputtered into action. The group consisted of Dwayne, his brother, his groomsmen, Jack Thatcher, and a couple of the older man's business associates. Uncle Joe wasn't there. Jane hadn't handled the invitations, so she didn't know if Joe's absence was because Jack didn't want him there or Joe had refused to come. The young men, determined to impress their important elders, were awkward and gauche in their efforts to behave. The older men were bored senseless. Jane peeked in the door a couple times and on each occasion the two groups