Garreth guessed Scott would turn onto River Road and take it to 282. While he debated heading that way himself to see if Scott still stuck to the speed limit there, Duncan came on the radio, voice oddly muffled.
“
The ten code meant escort, but…Signal S? They had no such code…did they? Garreth thumbed his mike. “Clarify, Five. Signal S?”
Duncan shot back: “
Moments later the blare of multiple car horns erupted to the south.
The wedding!
Garreth parked on the Oak Street crossing.
Shortly, Duncan’s car crossed the tracks at Poplar and turned up Kansas, light bar flashing. Followed by three black convertibles with tops down, then a string of cars with lights and flashers on, horns honking. A whooping Bride of Frankenstein and Dracula stood up in the rear of the first convertible, seemingly oblivious to the weather… her voluminous nightgown-looking dress, his cape, and their breath billowing around them. The next two held bridesmaids of Frankenstein and more Draculas, also standing up and yelling, and also ignoring the cold.
When Duncan passed him, Garreth saw the reason for the muffled voice: Duncan wore a Darth Vader helmet.
Between whoops, the bride and groom reached into a carton on the car’s seat and threw out handfuls of wrapped candy…onto the sidewalk, at parked cars, in the driver’s window of two cars they passed, and onto the railroad crossing where he sat. A glance out the window spotted candy kisses, some wax lips, and candy eyeballs beside the patrol car. In the bridesmaids’ car, Sue Ann jumped up and down, waving wildly, calling his name and screaming like a teenager.
The shivaree made two full noisy circuits, the bride and groom throwing out more and more candy as the horns and yelling drew customers and members out of the Sonic, Pizza Hut, Brown Bottle, and VFW. Three quarters of the way through the third circuit, they turned off at Pine. Heading for the reception.
Garreth grinned after them. That had been entertaining. It looked like a fun wedding indeed, and maybe he would look in on the reception.
Right now, Doris jerked him back to the job, sending him to see a Lawrence Ashe, whose Halloween tombstones had been painted with his own name…more or less. He found the actual new red lettering read:
Breathing down Garreth’s neck as he took the photographs, Ashe grumbled, “I expected a low crime rate in a town this size.”
“It’s Halloween, Mr. Ashe.”
And the high school parking sticker on the car in Ashe’s driveway suggested the identity, or at least the approximate age, of the prankster.
“A man still has a right not to have his property destroyed!”
Garreth stayed polite. “I don’t think you have permanent damage. Talk to Mark Wiesner at Sherwin Williams downtown about how to remove the paint.” Much less trouble, for example, than hooking sodden toilet paper out of the big oak in Ashe’s yard.
“But I want this vandal found and punished! What are you going to do to find him?”
That attitude killed all inclination to suggest a student was responsible. Ashe would likely make finding him — or her — a personal mission, turning the school upside down in the process. “Let me talk to your neighbors.”
Canvassing them — securing him entry into several more dwellings — located one who saw someone in Ashe’s yard, but happily she could only describe the costume, the Grim Reaper.
That news did not please Ashe. “There has to be some way to find him.”
His portable radio clicked. Duncan said, “
Being cute again. If he wanted to meet at the high school, Code R must mean Reception. But it offered an escape from Ashe.
He rogered the call and told Ashe, “We’ll stop Grim Reapers and check them for paint cans.”
Small chance of finding an armed Reaper, Garreth figured, but it placated Ashe.
At the high school, Duncan, still in his Darth Vader helmet, stood by his car. “I am your father, Luke,” he intoned, “and I tell you it’s criminal to miss what’s inside.” His voice returned to normal. “You gotta at least take a look. I’ll mind the store.”
After watching the shivaree, Garreth had to admit to curiosity about the reception.
A blast of sound and blood scent greeted him when he stepped through the gym door…the roar of overlapping voices, laughter, some whooping…and even louder than the voices, music: “The Time Warp” from
Garreth tore his vision from that to go check out the cake. Half of it had been sliced up, but enough remained to recognize a castle. Cake slices and punch bowls with skull-shaped cups flanked it, while a generous buffet spread down the table next to it, tended by a cowboy and French maid.
The music ended in cheers from the dancers.
Nat and Charly came over to him, panting a little. “Quite a bash, huh.” Nat raised his voice to be heard. “Try the punch. The orange, not the blue; it’s unleaded. The eyeballs are edible and not bad tasting. I think this will count as the wedding of the year, and probably acquire mythic proportions in memory.”
Charly laughed. “Exactly what Naomi, mother of the bride, is afraid of. Look at her.” She pointed at a table across the dance floor. “That has to be the stiffest upper lip in history. She’s been planning the perfect fairytale wedding since Julie was born and I’d love to have been a fly on the wall the day Julie announced her and Jason’s plans. I have it on good authority Julie delivered that news with an ultimatum to cut off Naomi’s histrionics: my way or the highway…threatening to elope.”
Garreth followed the direction of Charly’s finger, but instead of the bride’s mother, he saw Mary Catherine Haas and Anna Bieber at the next table. Oh, yes, last week she said something about making a wedding present. “How is Anna Bieber related to the couple?”
“She’s Jason’s great-grandmother,” Nat said.
“Then you’re related to Anna, too?”
“Only by marriage. Her son Jacob married my father’s sister Alicia.”
The DJ picked up a mike. “Now, folks, radio Z-O-M-B-I brings you music directly from the Mos Eisley Cantina! Please secure the safety on your weapons before entering the dance floor.” Music started again, this time the bar music from
Charly grabbed Nat’s arm. “I love this. Come on, twinkletoes. Dancin’ time!”
They charged back onto the dance floor.
Garreth circled around it to Anna’s table. “Good evening, Anna. So this was the wedding you mentioned. Do Julie and Jason like the flannel sheets?”
“Very much. Let me introduce you around…if you can hear me. Everyone, this is Garreth Mikaelian, the young man who came hunting his grandmother. You know Dorothy and my sister Mary Catherine. This is another daughter Emily, and Martina, wife of my son Edward, and Leona, wife of my son David. And this is someone I think you’ll be especially interested to meet…my daughter Mada.”
His pulse leaped, thoughts ricocheting from amazement — Lane still came, and early! — to panic over how to handle her here, in a crowd with her family. Until he saw where Anna pointed. Then his gut plunged in dismay. He stared across the table at a total stranger…at a ruined face, stretched so much by face lifts no elasticity remained, only a tight mask looking more like plastic than skin.
Mada was not Lane.
“She decided to surprise us by coming for the wedding. Isn’t that nice?”
