Jill Churchill - A Groom With a View

Jane and Shelley fled to the relative safety of their adjoining rooms. "I wish there were locks on these doors," Shelley said, trying to shove a chair under the doorknob of her room. The chair was too short to be an effective wedge.

“You don't really think we're in danger of being murdered in our beds, do you?" Jane asked nervously.

“No, we don't know anything that's a threat to anyone, but I'd feel better if we were locked in."

“How do you know we're not a threat?" Jane asked. "We don't even know how Mrs. Crossthwait was a threat to somebody and we know a lot more about these people than she did."

“But we don't really know that, Jane. She could have had a long-buried history with someone in the family. Keep in mind about Marguerite and the wedding dress. Mrs. Crossthwait's story was true and Marguerite made much of not knowing her. She might have just forgotten because Mrs. Crossthwait was nothing but a minion, or shemight have been in a full-fledged panic at running into her again after so long.”

Shelley paused, thinking, then went on, "And for that matter, we aren't certain that she was killed because of something she knew. Maybe she just annoyed someone seriously unstable to the breaking point. Or reminded somebody of someone they loathed.”

Jane went to her room and put on her nightgown. She was nervous about the final day of the wedding, which was looming only hours away. And she was sick to death of speculating about Mrs. Crossthwait's death. But it was like a hangnail on a grand and tragic scale. She couldn't make herself stop wondering and worrying about it and trying to pick at it. When she'd combed out her hair and brushed her teeth, she went into Shelley's room and perched on the end of the bed.

“We've been involved in murders before," she told Shelley, rather unnecessarily. "And we've figured them out. There were always suspects with good motives. But we've yet to come up with any motive for why someone would kill Mrs. Crossthwait. It's driving me slightly mad.”

Shelley put down the paperback book she'd been pretending to read. "You're right. We've come up with dozens of rather stunningly stupid possibilities with absolutely nothing to back them up. You know what's troubling me the most?"

“What?"

“Whether there's some connection between the death of the seamstress and the trashing of Dwayne's room. I can't convince myself there's not a connection of some kind, but I simply cannot imagine what it could be. The first crime was so violent and final and the second was so trivial. It should have gone the other way, if you see what I mean."

“I think I do, but it was probably two different people with entirely different motives."

“I know it looks like that. But I have this strong gut feeling that they are related somehow," Shelley said. "I just can't formulate any reason why they should be.”

Jane was quiet for a long moment. "The only thing the victims had in common, that we know of, is the wedding itself. Dwayne's role in it is obviously important, as the groom. Mrs. Crossthwait's was relatively minor. She was just making the dresses and they got finished even though she died. If there's a connection there, the crimes should have been the opposite way around."

“Right. If the point was to get rid of Dwayne and stop the wedding, he would have been the murder victim and the dresses might have been damaged or torn up as a little extra warning. Jane, it just doesn't make any kind of sense."

“It made sense to someone," Jane said. "Or to a couple of someones. Shelley, all I want is to get this wedding over with and go home. I'm considering making a sacred vow to never even attend another wedding the rest of my life.”

Shelley grinned. "Be careful of those sacred vows. You've got three kids to marry off." Jane put her head in her hands and groaned.

She was really trying desperately to get to sleep. And the harder she tried, the more wide awake she became. Two o'clock, Jane thought. I have to get up in four and a half hours. Then she worried that she would fall asleep so soundly she'd oversleep. She imagined the people coming to set up the tables, chairs, and linens and, without her guidance, getting everything all wrong. And what if Mr. Willis died in the night? Or Larkspur decided to suddenly move to Brazil instead of doing the flowers? Or the bridesmaids came down with malaria? Or Jack Thatcher decided the wedding was off? Finally, she fell into a light doze, dreaming of Larkspur in the jungle, giving medications to Kitty with a long, pointy flower. Kitty was lying on a sort of bier constructed of all her many pieces of luggage and swathed in yards of pink silk.

This dream was interrupted by footsteps in the hall. A man's footsteps, she thought. Should she get up and look? No. It was none of her business. She didn't care if some idiot chose to waste a good night's sleep. Then she heard Shelley stirring and the squeak of a floorboard.

Jane hopped out of bed. "Who went by?" she whispered into the darkness.

“I don't know.”

There was a thin shaft of moonlight coming in the tiny window. Shelley was standing behind her door to the hall and holding her kerosene lantern over her head, ready to bash the skull of anyone who entered the room.

“Do you hear that?" Jane whispered. "A moaning sound."

“It's just the wind. This is a replay of last night," Shelley hissed.

“Look out the window. There's not a breath of wind."

“What should we do?" Shelley asked. "Nothing?" Jane suggested.

“Somebody's moaning. Maybe they're hurt. Let's wake Mel up and make him check it out," Shelley said. "Where did you put him?"

“Two doors down. No, that's a bathroom door that's closed off. I think he's three doors down.”

Shelley lit the kerosene lamp, very slowly and quietly opened the door, and stuck the lamp out into the hallway, in hopes of driving out anyone who might be lurking. She waited a moment, then peeked out. "Nobody in the hall," she said.

Jane clung to the back of Shelley's robe and they minced down the hall, the kerosene lamp casting eerie, jumpy shadows. Jane tapped lightly at Mel's door. There was no response. She tapped again, a little harder. Still no reaction. She took the lamp from Shelley and opened the door.

“There's nobody here," she said, peering inside the tiny room.

“You're sure?"

“Not unless he's curled up under the bed or hiding in the wardrobe.”

“Check to make sure," Shelley said.

“Shelley! That's dumb!”

They heard the moaning again and clung to each other. Jane cocked her head, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from, but before she could determine anything, the door from the hallway to the main room creaked open. They were at the far end of the hall and could barely discern an amorphous gray shape, crouching in the doorway.

Shelley clutched Jane's arm so hard that Jane was sure she'd have permanent dents in her flesh.

“What the hell is that?" Shelley's whisper was so high-pitched that Jane half expected bats to appear to see who was talking to them.

“I hate to say it, but it looks to me like a ghost. A sort of dirty ghost," Jane said.

Shelley drew a deep breath, disengaged herself from her death grip on Jane, and suddenly strode forward, holding the lamp high above her head. "Get out of here!" she shouted at the apparition.

For good measure, she stamped her foot.

The figure whirled, clutched at its own chest, then yanked the door back open and fled.

“Wow!" Jane said. "Just like Ghostbusters!”

Two doors along the hallway were opened an inch or two. Jane was so disoriented she couldn't tell whose doors they were. And she was further distracted by the sound of a crash in the main room, and a shrill scream. Another bedroom door opened.