Helen had only one choice.
She picked up the wedding cake and heaved it at Melanie. The mad bridesmaid went down in a welter of white icing and chocolate layer cake. The top layer was cheesecake, which was really slick. Melanie’s skirt belled out modestly around her, covering a lot of splattered cake.
Melanie tried to get up, but her foot tangled in the hoop.
She slipped in the butter-cream frosting, twisting her ankle, and slid back down in the squashed cake.
“My ankle,” Melanie cried.
“My cake,” the bride cried, bursting into the room. “You ruined my cake.”
She picked up the huge bowl of sticky pink punch and hurled it at Helen.
Chapter 29
“Halt!” said Detective Gil Gilbert. “Drop it! Right now.”
The bride had already emptied the cut-glass punch bowl on Helen. Now she was preparing to smash her head with the heavy bowl. Helen was too punch-drunk to move.
“You’ll kill her if you hit her with that,” Detective Gilbert warned.
“I want to kill her,” the bride said, raising the bowl over her head. “She ruined my wedding.”
“You’ll lose your deposit on the bowl,” he said.
At that, a portly tuxedoed man stepped forward and took the bowl from the bride. “This has cost us enough already.”
Helen assumed he was the father of the bride.
Melanie sat quietly on the floor, the ruined wedding cake mostly hidden by her huge skirt. The knife had been confiscated by Detective Tom Levinson, who showed up with Gilbert for some reason Helen never figured out. He was reading Melanie her rights and was preparing to take her in quietly for questioning. But Melanie, who lived in her own romance novel, refused to go without a scene.
“I’ll tell you everything, but I want the world to know what I suffered,” she said. “Otherwise, I’ll call a lawyer now and never say another word.”
Helen thought the print-on-demand author looked remarkably pretty. Her gown had only a smear or two of cake icing on it. Her blond hair tumbled down her back. Her bosom was a seething blue sea of ruffles.
No amount of persuasion would convince Melanie to change her mind. She was determined to have her audience.
“My own guilty conscience made me ruin Beth and Farley’s wedding,” Melanie said, when everyone stopped talking and she was once more the center of attention. Helen noticed the wedding photographer was taping her statement. She wondered if the police would confiscate the video.
“The burden has been too great to bear. When I saw her”—she pointed dramatically to Helen—“sitting next to a man in uniform, I thought the police had come to arrest me.”
“It was just Uncle Chuck,” the bride said. “He’s a security guard at Wal-Mart.”
Melanie grabbed the attention back from the bride. “My life was ruined by an evil man. He seduced me with empty promises. He defiled my love. He even videotaped it. A kindhearted saleswoman tried to show me the error of my ways, but I wouldn’t listen. Instead, I ran to Page in his office and sought succor. Page Turner was intoxicated. He said vile things. Things I can hardly bear to repeat.”
But she managed. It was juicy stuff. Even Helen, shivering from a bath of cold, sticky punch, was spellbound.
“Page laughed at me. He said, ‘Yeah, I screwed you, but not as bad as your publisher. Your book might as well be printed on toilet paper, for all it’s worth.’
“He did indeed have a secret recording of our lovemaking. The scoundrel invited me to watch it. ‘Then maybe you’ll stick to what you know how to do—and it isn’t writing.’ ”
A charming blush stained Melanie’s cheeks and she tossed her golden hair. Every man in the place stared at her, and Helen was sure they weren’t thinking literary thoughts. That was quite an endorsement from the late stud, Page.
“His mocking laughter followed me out of the room. My soul was seared with words no woman should ever hear.
But I held my head high. Then I heard that little man say, ‘There goes another fool.’ My shame was complete. Everyone knew. I was ruined.”
Brad’s four little words brought down the mighty Page Turner, Helen thought. If he’d kept his mouth shut, Melanie might have gone back to her job, and Page would still be alive. But then, if she and Gayle hadn’t tried to open Melanie’s eyes, maybe none of this would have happened.
Helen shivered, cold to the heart at the thought of her own role.
After her humiliation in the bookstore, Melanie’s thoughts turned to murder.
“I vowed revenge on the tyrannical Turner. He insulted me and my precious book. I sat in the parking lot for hours, brooding on my ravishment. I must have revenge. The kind saleswoman told me Page had befouled another woman, a Peggy Freeton. I couldn’t believe he could be so cruel twice. She said, ‘If you don’t believe me, ask Helen. She lives in her apartment complex.’
“That night, when she got off work”—Melanie pointed at Helen again—“I followed her home. I saw the distinctive yellow mouse car of the Truly Nolen termite people. I knew what that meant. A termite tenting. It was a simple matter to get Peggy’s apartment number from the mailboxes and steal her termite information notice.
“Then I began my plan. I would avenge all womanhood.
It was the best plot I’ve ever done,” Melanie said proudly.
She knew about tenting. Her own building, like most older buildings in South Florida, had been tented. She’d had the lectures about the dangers of Vikane and the necessity of SCBA gear.
“I researched SCBA systems on the Net, and found a used one at greatly reduced prices. I had it over- nighted.”
Melanie knew Page liked kinky sex, although she didn’t say it that way. “I had his cell phone number and I called him that Friday to arrange a rendezvous. I told him to bring the video. I promised to add another interesting episode.
“When I picked him up at the bookstore, Page was already sodden with drink. I brought more of his favorite tipple.” Melanie modestly forbore to mention it was Bawls and vodka. “Soon he was staggering drunk. He had his arms around me, but it was not an embrace of love. The Coronado apartments were deserted. Everyone had moved out. I put on my latex gloves. I’m afraid they gave Page Turner some very wrong ideas about my plans for the night.
It was a matter of minutes for me to pick the lock, even with Page’s filthy paws all over me. I’m quite accomplished with the picks.
“Page staggered into the apartment and fell on the bed. I tied him up with scarves. Handcuffs would have left marks.
I’m afraid he was anticipating something quite different. He fell asleep before I finished. He was snoring. It was as if an angel guided me to the pillows on the bed.”
Helen thought that line sounded familiar. She also thought an angel had nothing to do with it.
“I put the pillow over his face and pressed down. His snores stopped. Soon, so did his struggles. I felt I’d struck a blow for women everywhere.
“I rolled the body off the bed and into the closet with the sliding doors. It was only two feet away. I hid him behind some long bridesmaid dresses. No one could see him.
“I remembered to take Page’s briefcase. Inside were two videos, both labeled. One was mine. The other was Peggy’s. I dropped the briefcase and the videos in a nearby canal. The first part of my plan was complete.”
The wedding party and the caterers looked like wax figures. No one said a word while Melanie told her bizarre tale. The bride and groom were holding each other, as if protecting themselves from the bridesmaid from hell.
