Annabelle Archer BoxSet Read online

  “Well, I’m the wedding planner, so I guess . . .”

  “I’m Detective Mike Reese.” He held out his hand and I shook it. “You’re the one who found the body, right?”

  “My assistant and I both found her. My name’s Annabelle Archer.”

  The detective nodded. “Your assistant already spoke to one of my officers. Would you mind coming back to the body with me? I have a few questions for you.”

  I followed him up the stairs to the back galleries. The sculptures that were so eerie in the dark seemed harmless with all the lights on. Detective Reese led me to the rear stairway and down to the middle landing. Several uniformed officers blocked the remaining stairs and another snapped pictures of the entire area. I waited at the landing while the detective went down the staircase and knelt beside the body. Two men in tuxedos followed a police officer down to the body and began examining it. One of the advantages to having lots of doctors as guests. A few minutes later, the paramedics rushed by me down the stairs.

  Mrs. Pierce hadn’t improved any since we’d last seen her. The blue of her dress cast a purplish hue on her skin and her contorted mouth had become pale and waxy.

  “Not bad looking,” Kate walked up to me.

  “What?”

  “He’s hot.” Kate pointed at Detective Reese. “Who is he?”

  “A detective.”

  “You know, I’ve never dated a cop,” Kate watched the officers working around her. “There are some cute ones here, too.”

  “And here I viewed this whole ‘mother of the bride dying’ as a negative thing.” Kate didn’t hear me. She’d wandered over to talk to one of the officers. My next assistant would be a little old lady with cataracts.

  “Annie.” Richard hurried up to me. “I’ve been searching all over for you.”

  “I’m waiting to be questioned by the detective.” I motioned to the only person clustered around the body not in a uniform.

  “Well, lucky you.” Richard gave me a nudge, and then became serious again. “I’m not sure if I can keep these guests calm much longer. They want to know what’s going on.”

  “Have you told them anything?”

  “Well, I couldn’t exactly make an announcement that their hostess is twisted up like a human pretzel, now could I?”

  “I’ll have one of my men make an appropriate announcement.” The detective joined our conversation. He turned to Richard. “You must be the caterer who placed the 911 call.”

  Richard winked at me. “Well, we know why you made detective so young.”

  Detective Reese ignored Richard’s comment. He wore latex gloves and flipped open a small notepad. “We found this on the body. Do either of you have any idea what these names and notes mean?”

  “Those are Mrs. Pierce’s recorded infractions.” My stomach tightened at the sight of the familiar spiral notepad. “She always had it with her.”

  “Infractions?” The detective looked confused.

  “Mrs. Pierce was . . . how would you put it? Well, particular about the way things were done.” Richard gestured to the notebook with a wave of his hands. “If she didn’t like what someone did, she would write their name down in that notebook. We called it her ‘hit list.’”

  “Interesting.” Detective Reese glanced up at Richard. “What did she mean by writing the words ‘skewers too sharp’ next to your name?”

  “Oh, heavens.” Richard tossed his head back in a manufactured laugh. “She wanted me to dull the skewers I used on the Indonesian satay station so she wouldn’t poke herself in the roof of her mouth.”

  “Did you?”

  “Have you ever seen a blunt skewer?” Richard tapped his foot on the ground. “Defeats the purpose.”

  “Who’s Maxwell Gray?” The detective turned to another page in the notebook. “And how would he have ‘taken the wrong side?’”

  “The photographer.” I noticed that my palms were getting sweaty, and I tried to wipe them on my pants without anyone noticing. “Mrs. Pierce was compulsive about being photographed from her right. She had me remind him a dozen times.”

  “So what did you do to upset her?” Detective Reese’s eyes met mine as he opened to the page where Mrs. Pierce had written my name in big, scrawling letters.

  “I wouldn’t let her rearrange the guest’s table assignments at the last minute.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not following.”

  “She felt that some guests weren’t dressed well enough, so she wanted them moved to the back.”

  “Naturally.” Detective Reese cleared his throat. “When did this altercation between you two occur?”

  “It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before we found her.” I picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of my jacket. “But I wouldn’t call it an altercation. I mean, she was pretty drunk, so I didn’t take it too seriously.”

  The detective’s eyes widened. “She appeared drunk when you last saw her?”

  “The woman could barely stand up.” Richard leaned close to the detective and gave him a nudge. “I’m surprised she could remember Annabelle’s name, let alone write it down.”

  Reese turned to me and took a small step away from Richard. “Did you see her argue with anyone else tonight?”

  “My assistant, Kate, mentioned that Mrs. Pierce had an issue with the sushi chefs, but I don’t think it was serious.”

  “Why all the interest in the hit list?” Richard rested a hand on the detective’s arm and lowered his voice. “Do you suspect foul play?”

  “Just getting all the information.” Reese returned Mrs. Pierce’s notebook to the plastic evidence bag and backed away from us. “Excuse me for a second.”

  “He seems nice.” Richard’s eyes followed the detective. “Don’t you think, Annabelle?”

  “Richard.” I grabbed him by the shoulders. “He’s a cop.”

  “I know.”

  “Nice or not, I get the feeling he considers us suspects.”

  “Why would he even be thinking this is anything but an accident?” Richard readjusted his shirt collar. “The woman was clearly drunk and took a spill down the stairs. End of story.”

  “Not exactly.” Kate walked up and motioned for us to follow her away from the group of nearby police officers. When we moved out of earshot, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “They think it may not have been an accident.”

  “How do you know?” Richard’s face drained of color, despite all the hours he’d put in at the tanning salon.

  “Do you see that cute uniformed officer?”

  Richard stared over my shoulder. “Mr. Biceps?”

  “Wait.” I held up my hands. “Let me guess where this story is going.”

  “We were having a nice little chat until another officer pulled him away.” Kate kept her voice low. “I overheard them talking about an odd rash that the doctors who tried to revive her found. The ME will most likely do a tox screening.”

  “The ME?”

  “Medical examiner, Annabelle,” Kate sounded exasperated. “The guy with the body now. Get with the program.”

  “They think a rash killed her?” Richard made a face. “What a horrible way to go.”

  I groaned. Kate wasn’t always the most reliable source of information. Especially if it came from a man.

  “She didn’t die from a rash.” Kate looked at us as if we were idiots. “You guys aren’t the brightest balls in the box, are you?”

  “Does she mean brightest bulbs?” Richard asked me out of the corner of his mouth.

  Kate ignored him. “The rash apparently would’ve been caused by a medication overdose.”

  “So she overdosed on Valium or something.” Richard shrugged his shoulders. “Not surprising in this crowd.”

  “That’s not what the police are saying.” Kate shifted her gaze from Richard to me. “They’re saying this might have been intentional.”

  “Murder?” Richard went completely white and leaned back against the wall, his hand clasped against his heart.

  “Murder.” Kate nodded vigorously. “Poison.”

  Richard gave a tiny gasp before going limp and sliding down to the floor.

  3

  “I’m absolutely mortified,” Richard said after I fumbled to find my cell phone on the nightstand and pushed the button to accept his call.

  “I told you a hundred times last night, it’s no big deal,” I said, my voice still scratchy. “I felt like fainting myself.”

  “Do you know how bad it makes me look?”

  “Hardly anyone saw you.”

  “Annabelle, I’m not talking about what I looked like slumped against the wall. It makes me look like the prime suspect.”

  “You’re just being paranoid.” I sat up in bed and saw the suit I’d left crumpled on the floor after stepping out of it the night before. “Why would your fainting spell have anything to do with being a suspect?”

  “Oh, God, Annabelle. Don’t call it a ‘fainting spell.’ You make me sound like one of those Southern belles who wore their corsets too tight.”

  “Good thinking. You can explain to the police that your corset was too tight.”

  “You’re an absolute joy in the morning.” The sarcasm dripped from his voice.

  “It’s not morning anymore.” I picked up my alarm clock and groaned. Daylight poured into the dark room as I opened the blinds next to my bed. “Why are you so obsessed about this, anyway?”

  “Do you know why I had to close my restaurant?”

  “That happened before I knew you,” I reminded him.

  “Food poisoning.” Richard let out a long breath. “Imagine what it felt like to hear the word ‘poison’ bandied about again.”

  “That’s why you fainted? Well, food poisoning is totally different from murder. Nobody’s going to blame you for this one.”

  “Hearing anything associated with poison is never good for a caterer.” Richard’s voice became shrill. “You know how people in this industry talk, Annabelle. They’re going to have a field day with this.”

  “You’re right about that.” I walked from my bedroom to my office and flipped on the light. Small Tiffany-blue favor boxes for my next wedding covered the floor, but I was in no mood to think about my next wedding. I held my phone away from my face and checked my text messages. “I have texts from seventeen industry people since yesterday, and it’s barely two o’clock.”

  “No doubt all concerned colleagues,” Richard muttered.

  “Concerned with getting the dirt, you mean.” I pulled the door shut and continued down the hall to the kitchen, promising myself that I would spend some quality time cleaning my office. Soon.

  Richard gave a deep sigh. “I’m sure all the other caterers are celebrating my demise as we speak.”

  “What are you talking about? You weren’t the one murdered.” I turned on the fluorescent kitchen lights and opened the refrigerator door. A package of fat-free cheese slices, a browning head of lettuce, and a nearly empty plastic bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. I added grocery shopping to my mental to-do list.

  “Might as well have been,” Richard moaned. “Once the word is out that a guest died at one of my events, the clients won’t be lining up.”

  “Stop being so melodramatic. The detective said that they’d know more about the cause of death in a day or two. They’ll find out that your food had nothing to do with it, and you’ll be totally cleared.”

  “A day or two! I won’t have any clients left in a day or two.”

  “Listen.” I rolled my eyes and poured the remaining soda into a glass. I took a big swallow. Completely flat. I made a face and took another drink. “There’s nothing we can do except wait until the police have finished their investigation.”

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious about who murdered that horror of a woman?”

  “It would be nice to know who to thank.”

  “Annabelle,” he scolded me. “You have no respect for the dead.”

  “Come off it. I’m not going to pretend that I liked the woman. Okay, I’m sorry someone killed her. Not a nice thing to do, but if anyone had it coming . . .”

  “I wouldn’t go around saying that since you were the last person to argue with her before she died.”

  “Whose side are you on, Richard?” My old- fashioned doorbell rang loudly. I put the glass down on the counter and hurried down the hall to my bedroom.

  “Is that your door? Probably the press wanting an interview. I told you this wedding would put you in the spotlight.”

  “It’s probably someone trying to sell something.” I grabbed my suit pants from the floor of my room and pulled them on, then threw on the jacket and buttoned it up. No one would ever guess I didn’t have anything on underneath.

  “Whoever it is, they really want to talk to you if they climbed four flights of stairs. You’d think they’d have more elevators in an area like Georgetown.”

  “That’s why it’s called a walk-up, Richard, and it’s supposed to be charming.” I walked down the hall to the front door.

  “Exhausting, is what it is.”

  “I’ve gotta go. Try not to poison anyone today.” I clicked off the phone as I swung open the door, my mouth falling open a bit when I saw who it was.

  “Detective Reese?” I fumbled to put the phone down on the bookshelf next to me. My first-floor neighbor, Leatrice Butters, stood next to him smiling. A tiny woman in her late seventies, she never left her apartment without a heavy dose of bright coral lipstick and her unnaturally dark hair curled up in a Mary Tyler Moore flip. She wore a multicolored striped blouse and matching hand-painted sneakers, which I recognized as one of her gardening outfits.

  “I went outside to check on the tulip beds, and found this nice young man on his way to see you.” Leatrice took Reese’s hand and squeezed past me into the apartment.

  Leatrice noticed the mounds of papers on the dining room table and the books in towering piles on the floor. She shook her head. “She’s a busy career woman. No time for anything but work.”

  “Thank you, Leatrice.” I tried to keep my voice pleasant as I closed the door.

  “I’ll make us all some coffee while you entertain your guest.” Leatrice ignored my protests and hurried to the kitchen. “Happy to do it, dear. Happy to do it.”

  “Nice place.” Reese sat down on my yellow, overstuffed couch. I pulled back the front drapes and light flooded the sparsely furnished room. I moaned inwardly as I noticed the herds of dust bunnies on my hardwood floors.

  “Thanks, but it’s a mess.” I straightened a pile of wedding magazines on the coffee table. “As my very helpful neighbor told you, I’ve been swamped with work.”

  Detective Reese leaned forward and picked up one of the pink candy hearts that were piled in a bowl next to the magazines. “I thought these were only around at Valentine’s Day.”

  “Those are special ones we got with the bride’s and groom’s names printed on them. We had a lot left over that they didn’t want.” I didn’t add that I snacked on them constantly and had seriously considered ordering a private batch when I ran out.

  He popped it into his mouth. “Pretty creative. So you plan weddings full time?”

  “Full time and then some.” I swept my hair out of my face and let it fall down my back. “Brides are pretty demanding clients.”

  “Mrs. Pierce more than most, I take it?”

  “You asked me these questions last night, Detective. Why are you questioning me a second time?” I suddenly noticed that my suit was covered in beige lint from the area rug in my bedroom, and I felt my face flush. Fabulous. It looked as though I’d been rolling around on the floor.

  “I thought you might be able to help me out.” He smiled as his eyes traveled down my crumpled outfit. I hadn’t remembered that he had dimples, too.

  “Sure.” I sat down across from him in the yellow twill chair that matched the couch, trying to brush off some of the lint on my suit without being obvious. Still grinning, he took a notebook out of his blazer pocket.

  “We made a list of the guests in the Corcoran last night, but I wondered if you might have an original guest list.”

  “I have the list of names and addresses we gave to the calligrapher.” I went over to the dining room table and shuffled through the folders to find it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually eaten at that table. “What are you hoping to find?”

  “There’s a name in the victim’s notepad we can’t match up with any of the guests or staff at the reception.”

  I located the thick list of names and handed it to Reese. “She didn’t limit her infractions to the wedding.”

  “I’m guessing that some of her guests declined the invitation and got themselves written up.” He gave me a quick wink, and then began studying the list.

  “It sounds like you’re catching on to Mrs. Pierce’s style, Detective.”

  “Thanks.” He held my gaze for a second before returning to the papers. I hadn’t remembered his eyes having so much green in them. Not that it mattered.

  “Coffee’s ready.” Leatrice walked into the room carrying a wicker tray with three mismatched mugs and set it on my glass coffee table. “You don’t have a thing to eat in there, Annabelle.”

  “I’m never here to eat,” I said, more to Reese than to her. Why did I feel that I needed to explain myself?

  “So how did you two meet?” Leatrice handed us both a mug and perched on the couch. She leaned closer to Reese as he started to take a drink. “I already added some sugar and there isn’t any milk to be found.”

  “We met last night when one of my clients died at the wedding.” I watched Leatrice’s face drop. “Detective Reese is in charge of the case.”

  “I’m here to get some more information from Ms. Archer.”

  “Heavens!” Leatrice put her hand over her mouth and shook her head back and forth. Then her eyes lit up. “A murder case?”

  “We’re exploring all the possibilities.” Reese flipped through the guest list, his eyes darting from the paper to Leatrice. “It’s not as exciting as it sounds, ma’am.”

  “I read mystery novels all the time.” Leatrice took a sip of her coffee. “I’m always on the lookout for suspicious people. Isn’t that right, Annabelle?”