Jill Churchill - A Groom With a View

Shelley nodded. "You could be right."

“Remember?" Jane said. "We were wondering all along why Jack Thatcher was letting Livvy marry someone so gigolo-ish. Kitty and Dwayne knew they weren't socially acceptable to the likes of the Thatchers. They had every reason to suspect Jack would give Dwayne a bundle to get lost."

“White trash who know they're white trash and make the best use of it?”

Jane took a sip of her coffee. "Something like that. Even we know that sometimes you get what you want by being deliberately obnoxious. I've seen you do it.”

Shelley grinned. "So true. But somehow I just can't accept Kitty's story. I suppose because it's so ugly and coldhearted."

“Yes, it's hard to connect with that kind of thinking, isn't it? But there is some evidence that Kitty's story is true. Just the fact that she put that wedding announcement in the paper is one thing.

Nobody'd do that unless they knew for sure they were actually getting married."

“Didn't work that way in her case, though," Shelley said, flapping her hand at a moth that had taken a liking to her and kept trying to form a relationship with her hair.

“But only because they misjudged how desperate Jack Thatcher was to get some grandsons on the way. But there's more. Look at all the luggage Kitty brought along to the wedding."

“I'd forgotten that. I remember thinking she looked like she had enough stuff along to follow up the wedding with a round-the-world cruise."

“Me, too. I'd bet anything she'd burned her boats and has nearly everything she owns in the suitcases and her car. She did intend to marry Dwayne this weekend."

“But was it what Dwayne intended?" Shelley asked, taking another vicious swipe at the moth.

“Apparently so," Jane said, then frowned. "Or maybe not. Possibly he just let her think so. But why would he want her to believe it?"

“Was he double-crossing her?" Shelley wondered. "Maybe he was just stringing her along in case the wedding fell through and he came out of it as broke as ever. No, that won't play.”

Jane shook her head. "I can't get a handle on Dwayne's role in this. Do you suppose he even liked either of them?”

Shelley shrugged. "I hardly spoke to him. But he could well have been one of those people who only like themselves. He certainly looked thepart. Maybe he, too, had grand visions of little Dwaynes all over the place and figured Kitty looked like good breeding stock and Livvy could finance him."

“Or maybe he just got in way over his head with the whole scheme and didn't know what to do," Jane said irritably. "There was Kitty on the one hand, who appears to have absolutely worshiped him, which is pretty hard to dismiss even if you don't have an inflated ego. And Livvy on the other hand, who was reluctantly willing to provide him with cash, luxury, and social standing.”

“You're saying he was spineless?"

“Probably. And maybe just too stupid to carry it off. Maybe he really did blurt out something about wanting Kitty instead, and Livvy lost her head. Imagine if you didn't really want to marry the guy to begin with, and then, while you're still in your wedding dress, he hits you with the news that he prefers a drip like Kitty. Add to that how utterly, horribly stiff-upper-lip and repressed Livvy is…"

“Mount St. Helen's. ." Shelley said. "KA-BOOM!”

t wenty-two·

"I can't stand this moth anymore. Let's go back inside," Shelley said.

As Jane hoisted herself wearily to her feet, she said, "Don't you wonder what she might have in all that luggage?"

“I imagine the police have already thought of that," Shelley said.

“Still, let's just have a little peek.”

They refilled their coffee cups and strolled casually down the long hall to Kitty's room. Jane put her ear to the door and couldn't hear anyone inside. She tapped lightly. No response. Shelley opened the door gingerly. The room was empty.

It appeared that police had already made a cursory, and surprisingly tidy, inspection of Kitty's belongings. Two large suitcases were open on the bed. A briefcase was open on the small table under the window. Jane hadn't seen it before. A big box from Victoria's Secret was open and fullto the brim with exquisite and very sexy underwear. It all looked several sizes too small for Kitty's ample figure.

“She must be pretty good at fooling herself," Shelley said, holding up a lacy size 32 B bra. "She's got to be a thirty-eight C or it's been too long since I bought underwear.”

Jane was preoccupied. "There's something missing."

“What?" Shelley said, dropping the bra back into the box.

“There was another piece of luggage. A smaller case. Brown, I think. I carried it in and noticed that it was pretty light and had something in it that sort of thumped.”

They looked under the bed, in the wardrobe, and in the bathroom. There was no sign of it. "Where could she have put it?" Shelley asked.

“Maybe the thumpy thing was a makeup mirror and she took it up to Mrs. Crossthwait's room, or Livvy's."

“Let's take a look," Jane said.

“What do you think is in it that makes it so important?" Shelley asked.

“I don't know. It's just the fact that it's missing that makes me wonder.”

They left the room and as they went down the hall toward the main room, they passed Kitty. She tried to make a grab at Jane's sleeve, but Jane managed to dodge her grasp with a fair degree of tact. "Jane, you've got to tell them," Kitty said. "They think I killed him. I would never have done that. I'm sure it was Livvy. You have to tell them Livvy tried to get out of the marriage at the last minute."

“I have told them, Kitty. And I'll tell them again, if you want. Now, you should really go rest. It's been a horrible day for everyone."

“They're questioning Livvy now. She'll probably confess," Kitty said. "And this nightmare will be over for some people. Like you. But not for me. Never for me.”

She turned and slouched toward her room, crying again. The seat of her skirt was butt-sprung, her once-crisp suit jacket was wrinkled and lumpy. The heel of one shoe looked crooked, as if it were about to come apart. She was a mess.

Shelley and Jane went to the main room where Eden and Layla had gotten another puzzle out and were silently, doggedly working on it as if solving what the picture was might resolve the whole mess. They weren't speaking. Each had a plate of leftovers and a glass of wine at the side of the table. The cat, who had befriended Jane earlier, was sitting on the third chair, with only his head showing. Any moment now, he'd be tasting one of their dinners.

“We should get some scraps while there are some left," Jane said. "But I want to look for that suitcase first.”

Errol and Marguerite were now occupying the sofa Livvy had been sitting on earlier.

“Livvy's being questioned," Marguerite said."They let her father be with her, but not me. That's wrong. Jack's such an ass. He'll huff and puff and make everything even worse. Have you two heard this absurd story that terrible Kitty person is telling?”

Jane and Shelley nodded, but said nothing.

“It's so stupid! Nobody could have believed it. Dwayne? In love with that box of rocks? Errol, you know that's not true, don't you?”

Errol shook his head. "I don't know. I've never understood Dwayne. I don't know what made him tick."

“You didn't get along with your brother?" Jane asked softly.

“It wasn't a matter of getting along so much," Errol said. "I just always felt he was thinking circles around me. He always had schemes and plans and secret stuff going on. Sometimes he'd tell me about them when we were younger and he'd be so proud of how clever he was. But I never even got what he was talking about. It was like, I dunno, circles inside circles stuff. Real complicated. Trying to second-guess everybody."