Carmichael. I checked my watch: 11:30. He and Doc Finn couldn’t have already started drinking, could they?
“Uncle Jack,” I said, glad for the break. “I thought you were coming to Cecelia’s wedding.”
“Gertie Girl.” He sounded a bit worried. “Is Finn there?”
“Doc Finn?”
“Yeah, yeah, Doc Finn, the old coot. He was supposed to pick me up, and he never came. Maybe he forgot. He does do that sometimes.”
“Let me check.”
I ducked into the dining room. About fifty guests had already taken their seats. They looked at me expectantly: Food already?
“I don’t see him, Jack. Did you try his cell?”
“He’s not answering. I’ll just drive over to your center. Maybe he’s in the parking lot visiting with somebody.”
“Okeydoke. When you get here, come and say hi to us. We’ll be in the kitchen.”
He hung up, but before I could return to the kitchen, I saw a weaving figure duck into the dressing room, which was right next to the dining area. He was not a member of the wedding party. I was guessing it was Norman O’Neal, the difficult father of the bride. So much for the security guards.
Tom was ferrying the shrimp cocktails to the small refrigerator in the curtained-off dining area.
“It looks as if Norman O’Neal is here,” I warned. “There could be trouble. He just walked in a very unsteady fashion right into the dressing area, where Ceci is supposed to be.”
Tom bobbed swiftly behind the curtain to the dining area, and I followed, unsure of what to do. But Tom showed no signs of uncertainty. He slid his tray into the small refrigerator that we’d set up next to the cake stand, and headed to his left, right into the makeshift dressing room.
Behind him, I murmured, “Maybe you should be careful. This guy’s an attorney.”
“All the better,” Tom replied without breaking stride.
There was no way I was going to stand by while my husband, who lifted weights and was in spectacular shape, flattened the father of the bride.
“You’re my ex-dad,” the bride was whispering angrily at the tottering male figure in a rumpled suit. The loveliness of Cecelia O’Neal, whose white dress fit her stunningly, was ruined by the flaming spots on her cheeks and her furious expression. “Please leave,” Cecelia hissed when Norman O’Neal didn’t move. “I don’t want to see you.”
“Where’s your mother?” Norman demanded, pulling himself up straight. He was under six feet tall, and had a gray bottlebrush mustache and a puff of gray hair just above his forehead. He positively reeked of alcohol.
“Sir,” Tom said calmly, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m asking you nicely. And I want you to leave nicely.”
“Who the hell are you?” asked Norman O’Neal.
“I’m police,” announced Tom, one eyebrow raised.
Norman O’Neal’s rheumy blue eyes took in Tom, who was still wearing his apron. “I don’t think so.”
Lissa O’Neal, who was now an adorable eighteen-month-old with wisps of blond hair framing her face, clung to her mother’s dress and began to whimper. In the main dining room, the hum of voices from more waves of arriving guests rose. I couldn’t imagine that this little conflict—between Tom and an inebriated attorney, no less— was going to end well.
“Where’s Harold Finn?” Norman O’Neal demanded querulously. With his index finger, he scratched his mustache. “If Doc Finn’s in this wedding, then I’m going to be, too.”
“Sir—,” Tom began again, still patient.
The curtain swished open, and everyone except Tom jumped. It was not the first time I’d thought he had better hearing than I did, not to mention a sixth sense as to who was approaching.
“Dear me,” said Father Pete, our short, corpulent priest. He cleared his throat and took in the anxious faces of our little tableau. All anxious, that is, except for Tom, whose eyes had never left Norman O’Neal.
“Who’re you?” demanded Norman O’Neal, reeling unsteadily toward Father Pete.
Father Pete was as kind and pastoral as the midsummer days were long, but he didn’t suffer fools gladly. “Where is your mother?” Father Pete asked Ceci, who had picked up the now-crying Lissa. Father Pete looked around the small makeshift room. “Cecelia? Where is Doc Finn? I thought he and your mother were walking you down the aisle.”
“I don’t know where any of them are,” Cecelia wailed suddenly. She began to cry, too, which brought a fresh onslaught of tears from Lissa. As mother and daughter clung to each other, I thought,
There was a sudden hush in the large dining room on the other side of the curtains. All ears were apparently now attuned to the dressing room drama. Luckily, the DJ must have sensed something was amiss, as he started playing some Led Zeppelin a bit too loudly.
“He’s not going to ruin anything,” Father Pete was saying soothingly. “That’s because he is going to get out of here right now. Off you go, ex-dad.” At that point, Father Pete, who was wearing his robes and surplice, took hold of Norman O’Neal’s elbow and began pulling him back toward the curtain.
Norman O’Neal hollered, “I’m not going to allow a cop in an apron and a priest in a dress to tell me what I am or am not going to do!” At that point, he took a wild swing at Father Pete. Tom moved swiftly to plant himself between the two men, but Father Pete was too fast even for Tom. Our priest caught Norman O’Neal’s arm with one hand and delivered an uppercut to his chin with the other. Norman O’Neal flailed awkwardly, grasped bunches of the curtain to the area with the dining tables, and crashed backward, landing in Julian’s perfect wedding cake.
“Oh, Christ,” said Father Pete. “I didn’t think I hit him that hard.”
Norman O’Neal, his backside covered with frosting, didn’t move. Tom bent down to feel his pulse.
“I’m going to call an ambulance,” Tom announced quietly.
“You’re not going to charge me with assault, are you?” Father Pete asked, his eyes filled with worry.
“Absolutely not,” said Tom as he punched numbers into his cell phone. “That was textbook self-defense, Father.” Tom asked me to send someone to find Julian, which I did. Father Pete, meanwhile, had moved to soothe Ceci and Lissa.
Two seconds later, Tom was giving quick directions to emergency services. He then hung up his cell and hoisted a still-unconscious, frosting-and-cake-covered Norman O’Neal.
“Any way I can get to the kitchen from here without going through the main dining room?” Tom asked me.
“Yes, I’ll show you,” I said quickly. I was trying to suppress a wave of nausea.
“Say, Father Pete,” Tom said as he heaved Norman O’Neal toward the kitchen. “Where’d you learn to box like that?”
Father Pete stopped comforting Ceci and smiled shyly. “In my former life, I mean, before I was called to the ministry, I won the Golden Gloves.” He beamed. “Twice.”
Once Tom, a lolling, closed-eyed Norman O’Neal, and I were in the kitchen, there was a knock at the back door. Two uniformed security guards had heard they were needed.
“You are,” Tom announced as he handed off a still-unconscious Norman O’Neal. “Lay this guy out on the gravel, and when the ambulance arrives, get him in there. I told the ambo guys no sirens or lights.”
“But it’s raining,” one of the guards protested. “You put this guy on the ground, he’s going to get wet.”
“The rain will help clean him up,” Tom said before turning back to the kitchen.
The guards obligingly took hold of Norman O’Neal and dragged him across the gravel outside the kitchen’s back door. Once he was laid on the ground, Norman woke up enough to begin puking. Julian, meanwhile, had reappeared in the kitchen.
“What the hell happened to my cake?” he demanded.
“Norman O’Neal happened to it,” I said. “Sorry. Can you do anything to make it look like…I don’t know, a ski slope?”
Julian rolled his eyes and said he would try.
