Fatally Flaky

Tom, meanwhile, was concentrating on preheating the ovens. Out in the main dining room, the strains of the wedding march began.

“Okay, folks, here we go,” I said.

We crowded together to watch the ceremony through the one-way mirrored panels I’d had put at eye level in the kitchen doors. The bridesmaids swarmed around Ceci, powdering her nose and cheeks with new makeup and patting her hair back into place. Then we only got to see Ceci coming down the aisle with Dodie, and Lissa in a lacy white flower girl outfit, before the back door to the kitchen was flung open, not by the security guards, or even Norman O’Neal, but by someone I dreaded even more: Billie Attenborough.

She swept in wearing a voluminous, silky-sounding black trench coat. Her blond-brown hair was soaked. Tall and bulky, she put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. “Why can’t any of you people answer your phones?”

“I’m doing another wedding today, Billie,” I said evenly. “I’ll be home to night, when you are welcome to call me. Now, would you please leave?”

Billie lifted her small, dimpled chin. “I can’t leave until I tell you the changes we’re making to the wedding arrangements.”

Tom groaned and lined another tray with rows of martini glasses filled with shrimp cocktail. Julian disappeared through the swinging doors.

“What’s that?” Billie demanded as she peered over Tom’s shoulder.

“Shrimp cocktail—what does it look like?” Tom replied.

Tom could move fast, but not as fast as Billie, who scooped one of the martini glasses off the chilled tray and began eating the shrimp with her fingers.

“Hey!” Tom yelled. He grabbed Billie by the wrist. She promptly dropped the martini glass on the floor, where it shattered. Noisily. I prayed the music in the dining room was somehow, somehow louder than Billie Attenborough.

“What is going on back here?” asked Jack Carmichael as he preceded Julian into the kitchen. Looking as dapper as ever in a custom-made dark gray suit, Jack’s presence made me smile. “Sounds like either a food fight or a party.” Jack glanced all around the kitchen. Julian started sweeping up the glass, while Tom quickly left the kitchen with his tray of shrimp cocktail. “Ah,” Jack said in recognition. “If it isn’t Bilious Billie. No wonder there was crashing and banging out here.” Jack watched Billie push the shrimp she’d been eating into her mouth and shook his head.

“Don’t say a word, you drunken old coot,” Billie replied, once she’d swallowed. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel.

“Nice talk,” commented Julian as he dumped the broken glass into the trash.

I ignored all of them and put the first tray of hot appetizers into the oven.

“Gertie Girl,” Jack said affectionately, “I’m here on an errand from Dodie. She says she hasn’t seen Doc Finn. She wanted to know if I had, because they’re going to want to start with the toasts once everybody’s seated. I told her I’d already called you and asked if you’d seen him, but she wanted me to ask you again anyway.”

Before I could answer that I still hadn’t, Billie cried, “Doc Finn! That miserable old man. We could have a miserable-old-men convention right here.”

“I have not seen him,” I said quickly. I checked my watch: 12:15. “How far along are they?”

“About halfway,” Jack replied. “I came in through the side dining room, so as not to disturb things any more than, say, Billie here breaking a glass.”

“Shut up,” said Billie.

There was a knock at the back door into the kitchen. Mentally, I cursed.

“Who is it?” I called through the heavy wood. If it was Norman O’Neal, he could just stay out in the rain.

“Craig Miller, Goldy. Is Billie in there?”

I shook my head and opened the door to Billie Attenborough’s fiance, Craig Miller. Wait, I forgot to think of him as Dr. Craig Miller. Important title, that. Before Billie and Craig were engaged, my best friend, Marla, had told me that Billie had told her that her next fiance was going to be a doc. Marla had told Billie she might want to find someone with whom she shared mutual love. But Billie had dreamily countered that she’d always wanted to be introduced at Aspen Meadow Country Club as “Dr. and Mrs.” So much for love, Marla had remarked, but Billie had ignored her. I’d said that I sincerely hoped the doc would be a psychiatrist.

“Billie, dear,” Craig Miller pleaded now, running his short fingers through his brown hair as if he might tear it out, “please come back to your mother’s house. Please don’t bother Goldy now.”

“I can’t leave,” Billie snapped. “She won’t let me talk to her about what I came here to talk to her about.”

“She hasn’t been herself lately,” Craig said to the group, his pale blue eyes wide with apology. “She’s been trying to lose this weight—”

“Would everyone who is not a caterer please leave this kitchen?” I asked.

“Goldy,” Billie said, “if you would just listen to me, I could tell you we’ve added fifty people to my guest list.”

She finally had my full and undivided attention. “You’ve done what?”

Billie blithely closed her eyes. “My mother was supposed to tell you, and in all the rush of things, she forgot.”

“I can’t handle fifty more people here. Fire department regulations.”

“Why do you think I’ve been trying to reach you and your assistant all day?” Billie asked. “We’re having to move the wedding and reception to the Gold Gulch Spa.”

“You’re doing what?”

“Billie,” Craig Miller tried again. “This can wait.”

“It cannot wait,” Billie announced. “Mother’s calling everyone now, to make sure she hasn’t forgotten anyone else.”

Norman O’Neal may have lost his lunch already, but I was quite sure I would be next. Fifty extra people. A different venue. More food than I had ordered or had time to prepare.

When Tom returned to the kitchen, there was yet another knock at the back door. This was turning into one of the worst catering days of my entire career. Julian moved quickly across the kitchen floor to answer it.

“It’s probably the ambo for Norman O’Neal,” Tom said.

“Ambulance?” Craig Miller said softly. “Oh, I wish I had known. I just thought the fellow outside had had too much to drink—”

I shook my head while Julian conversed in quiet tones with whoever was at the back door.

“They want you, Tom,” Julian said quietly.

Oh, God, I thought. Arch. Something’s wrong. I glanced at my cell. My son had not tried to call. Nor had anyone else since the last time Billie had phoned.

Tom left, then stuck his head back into the kitchen. He looked very grave. He signaled me and I went out into the rain with him.

“I have to go, Miss G. They just found Doc Finn’s Cayenne at the bottom of a canyon.”

“And Doc Finn?”

“Inside the Cayenne. Dead.”

4

Somehow, I don’t know how, Julian managed to get rid of Billie Attenborough and Craig Miller. Meanwhile, I pulled Jack aside and told him the terrible news. He turned ashen.

“Doc Finn?” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. “My friend? That’s not possible. They must be wrong.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. Can I get someone here to be with you?”

“How did it happen?” Jack asked.

I told him what I knew.

Jack rubbed his forehead. “I…we’d been talking a lot lately, Finn and I…” He broke off, and I signaled Julian for a chair. He rushed out, and returned with two.