“Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry,” I said.
“My friend,” Jack was mumbling. “Doc Finn. I can’t believe it. I just—I don’t believe it. How could this have happened?” His pale blue eyes beseeched me, all his energy drained.
“I don’t know, Jack.”
“And, oh my God, this endless rain.” Jack’s non sequitur took me by surprise. When I didn’t respond, he said, “It’s just that Finn was a great driver, and that SUV of his was excellent. A ravine? I don’t understand.”
I did not know what to do. Finn had been Jack’s only friend in Aspen Meadow. But now I was worried about Jack. Maybe his son, Lucas, would be able to come be with him, and take him home.
“Can we go outside?” Jack asked me.
He was my godfather. He had brought me games and puzzles and endless days of joy when I was a child. I loved him unconditionally, totally, and forever. Now his best friend had died, and he was a mess. He had helped me when I desperately needed it. I simply could not abandon him.
I looked around helplessly for Julian. He understood the situation in an instant and brought me an umbrella.
“Tom told me what’s going on.” Julian’s voice was low. “He didn’t know what to do about Dodie and Ceci. But he thought the wedding shouldn’t be more ruined than it already has been. They’ve got a couple of deputies stationed outside your French doors to tell Dodie when the ceremony’s over—”
“Wait. As soon as the bride and groom say I do, pull Father Pete aside and clue him in. He’ll know how to handle things.”
“Good idea. How’s Jack?”
I shook my head. Julian turned on his heel and moved quickly through the kitchen, intent on making this already-messed-up wedding seem as normal as possible.
When Jack and I stepped outside under the umbrella, the ambulance was just pulling away, presumably with Norman O’Neal inside. Jack wrinkled his face in puzzlement, and I murmured that a wedding guest had gotten sick.
One of the sheriff’s department deputies had given Tom a windbreaker. Tom and two more investigators were deep in discussion. Tom’s discarded apron lay, sodden and forgotten, on the ground.
Investigators? Julian had said two uniformed cops were outside the French doors, for when the time came to notify Dodie. So what was going on? It was as if I’d been in a mental fog, and now I grasped a situation that I hoped Jack did not. Beside me, he’d tilted his head forward and was rubbing his hand through his sparse gray hair.
I stared at Tom with his underlings. The Furman County Sheriff’s Department did not handle car accidents. No Colorado county did, and that was because the state patrol was in charge of automobile accidents. The sheriff’s department was only called in if there were other issues.
Criminal issues.
“Where’s Lucas now?” I asked Jack. “Let me call him for you.”
Jack gave me his son’s number, and I punched it into my cell. When I got voice mail, I identified myself and told Lucas his father needed him, as in, right now. I told Lucas where I was, and hoped his resentful attitude of that morning didn’t mean he’d ignore my message.
Without thinking twice, I punched in Marla’s number. Like me, she’d been unhappily married to the Jerk. Unlike me, she had inherited wealth and had no physical fear whatsover. Those two attributes had allowed her to clean his clock, financially and physically, when he’d come after her. We’d been fast friends ever since she divorced him. She had a wonderful heart, and although she might not particularly want to come take care of Jack, she’d do it anyway.
“Just a sec, Jack, take the umbrella, okay?” While he protested, I moved out into the rain. Marla’s home phone rang and rang. “Pick up,” I said to Marla’s voice mail. “I know you’re there and I need your help. This is an emergency, and I do mean a genuine bona fide emergency.”
On the other end, the phone crashed and clicked.
“For God’s sake, Goldy,” Marla said dramatically. “Now what?”
“Marla—”
“I mean honestly, Goldy, tell me one time your life hasn’t been a crisis. I have to get lots of sleep, just so I can deal with all the energy I have to expend—”
“Doc Finn’s dead,” I said quietly. Oh, why hadn’t I brought two umbrellas outside? Jack had moved off to talk to Tom, which was not something I wanted. And I was getting soaked.
“Dead?” Marla echoed. “Doc Finn? What happened?”
“A car accident. Marla, please listen, I’m under a time crunch here. I’m at my event center, trying to do Cecelia O’Neal’s wedding. But—” Oh, really, how could I summarize the events of the last two hours? I couldn’t. “—I need you to come over and be with Jack, my godfather. Take him to your place, take him to his place, do what ever. Just be with him. He’s a wreck, and I can’t get hold of Lucas. Please?”
“All right, all right, why didn’t you say so? I’ll be there in ten minutes. Wait—did you try to reach Charlotte Attenborough? She and Jack have been going out for the last two months.”
Oh, Lord, in the confusion I’d forgotten about Charlotte. She and Jack were indeed an item, maybe more in her mind than his, I’d gathered. Charlotte could be imperious and was used to getting what she wanted, but compared to her daughter, she was Mother Teresa. Still, I simply couldn’t face any more Attenboroughs today, and I doubted Jack could either.
“No, I didn’t call Charlotte, and I don’t want to. It’s a long story. Look, Marla, I’m outside and I’m totally sopping wet. Could you just please come over and get Jack? We’ll be in the kitchen. I’ll give him a drink or something.”
“Do you even keep scotch in that event center of yours, or are you strictly a wine type of gal?”
“Marla, please?”
She groaned and signed off. I quick-stepped over to Jack, who was trying to elicit information from Tom.
“My friend Marla’s coming to get you,” I announced. “Please, Jack, could you come into the kitchen?”
Tom looked me up and down. “You have a dry outfit inside?”
I told him I did. Then I shepherded Jack back into the kitchen, where Julian was giving two of the servers instructions on how to serve the egg rolls.
“I shouldn’t be bothering you,” Jack announced suddenly. He looked around the kitchen, his eyes wild. “You’ve got other things to do here. And where’s Dodie? I should be helping her. I should, I don’t know, be doing the first toast or something.” His face became even more agitated. “Do you know anything I could say about Ceci?” He rubbed his forehead. “I think Dodie just invited me because she wanted Finn to have company during the reception.”
“Jack,” I remonstrated, “you’re in no condition to do any such thing.” I reached into the cupboard behind the dry vermouth and drew out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. I poured Jack a hefty drink, plopped in some ice cubes, and drizzled in a bit—a very little bit—of water. Then I asked him please to sit down in one of the chairs Julian had brought.
Julian then wondered aloud if he should send Dodie outside to talk to the two uniforms, as she kept asking him if he’d seen Doc Finn.
“No,” Jack said suddenly, draining his drink and setting the empty glass on the counter. “Don’t ruin her special day with her daughter. Let me go talk to Dodie, tell her Finn was unaccountably delayed because of some…medical thing, I don’t know what, and does she want me to make the toast. Now, Goldy, don’t go getting stubborn on me, because I’m much more stubborn than you are, and I’ve been at it a lot longer. Dodie can learn what actually happened once the reception is over. And, godchild,” he said tenderly, “you need to get into some dry clothes, take care of yourself for a change instead of everyone else.”
Julian and Jack disappeared through the swinging doors. Two of the servers came back and said the guests had moved to the far end of the dining room for picture-taking, and all the tables had been moved back into the main dining room. Could they take out the shrimp cocktails, to start putting them on the plates? I gratefully said that would be super, then headed off to retrieve the clean uniform I kept in the restroom closet.
Somehow, we got through the next two hours. Jack did a wonderful toast, holding little Lissa with one arm and his glass with the other. Marla showed up as lunch was being served, and told Jack he was going home with her, no argument permitted. Besides, she added, she had a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label, which he needed to
