Robert Parker: Rough Weather

“Why do you think he’s here?” Susan said.

I knew who she meant.

“He’s not a social kind of guy,” I said. “I assume it’s business.”

She nodded.

“We don’t really know quite why you’re here,” she said.

“Same answer,” I said.

“Maybe he doesn’t know, either,” Susan said.

“Maybe,” I said.

The lightning flashed again, and the leaves on some of the trees near the house had begun trembling faintly. Susan turned suddenly against me and put her arms around me and pressed her face against my chest. It was almost unthinkable that she would hug me at such a time and mess up her outfit. I put my arms around her lightly and patted her softly.

“If he kills you,” she said, quite calmly, “I will die.”

“That would make two of us,” I said. “He won’t kill me.”

“I would die,” Susan said.

The first scatter of raindrops hit the window.

“No one’s done it yet,” I said.

“He came close ten years ago,” Susan said.

“Close only counts in horseshoes,” I said.

I patted her gently on the backside. She nodded and straightened.

“You can’t leave this alone,” she said. “Can you?”

“No,” I said.

“I understand,” she said.

“I know you do.”

“It was the gun,” she said. “Seeing you put on the gun.”

“I always wear a gun,” I said.

“I know.”

“We need to get going,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

We stood for a bit longer with our arms around each other, while the rain became more frequent against the big window. Then Susan stepped back and looked at me and smiled.

“Here we go,” she said. “Let me just check the mirror that having a mini-breakdown hasn’t messed up my look.”

“Nothing could,” I said.

She walked to a full-length mirror at the end of the hall and studied herself for a moment.

“You know?” she said. “You’re right.”

As we walked the long corridor toward the chapel, I could hear the faint sound of a helicopter landing on the pad behind the house on the south side of the island. A helicopter is like a tank. Once you’ve heard one, you always remember.

“Late,” I said to Susan.

“What?”

“Chopper,” I said. “Lucky they got down before the storm starts to rumba.”

“You think the storm will get worse?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t even hear the helicopter,” Susan said.

“That’s because you’re focused on me in my tux,” I said.

“Of course,” she said. “You’re always listening, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Sometimes I peek,” I said.

She looked at me sideways as we walked.

“I’m aware of that,” she said.

Behind us, lightning spilled briefly into the hall through the big French doors. A few seconds later there was a grumble of thunder.

“Storm’s still a ways off,” I said.

“Something about the time between the lightning and the thunder?” Susan said.

“Lightning’s traveling at the speed of light,” I said. “Thunder’s coming at the speed of sound. The closer they are, the more they coincide.”

“My God, Holmes,” Susan said in her lowest voice. “Is there no limit to your knowledge?”

“I’ve never quite been able to answer, ‘What does a woman want?’”

Susan smiled and banged my shoulder lightly with her head. In a small anteroom to the former library, Heidi and her daughter stood with Maggie Lane. With them was the famous conductor with the tan and the silver hair. Heidi was in her imperious mode. She introduced us quite formally. Actually, she introduced me, and I introduced Susan. Did Susan not notice?… Fat chance!

Adelaide was in full wedding dress, except there was no train. Probably couldn’t find train carriers. She had a small face, which looked even smaller because she had so much red hair insufficiently contained by her veil.

“ Adelaide ’s father chose not to attend,” Heidi said. “Leopold will be taking Adelaide down the aisle.”

“Okay,” I said.

“You’ll wait here with us, Mr. Spenser,” Heidi said. “Dr. Silverman, an usher will take you to the first row on the right. Mr. Spenser will join you. Please sit at the far end, near the wall.”

“Okay,” I said.

I was in my docile mode. Susan winked at me and followed the usher out of the anteroom. Through the window behind me, lightning flashed again. And not very long after, the thunder grumbled. No one paid any attention.

“You’ll be the last to enter the room, Mr. Spenser, after Leopold has delivered Adelaide to her husband. Please try to be unobtrusive.”

“On little cat’s feet,” I said.

I doubt that Heidi even heard me.

“Mo-th-er,” Adelaide said, making it into several syllables. “Everyone’s here. It’s time to start.”

Heidi was nodding absently. The anteroom door had a small peephole in it that allowed you to see into the chapel. Heidi appeared to be counting the house.

“Why does the library door have a peephole?” I said. “Keep people from stealing the books?”

“When it was built it was thought to add a secretive medieval quality,” Maggie Lane said.

I nodded. I could hear the string ensemble playing appropriate music as the guests were escorted in.

After a time, Heidi said, “All right, I’ll go.”

She looked at her daughter.

“Let me get seated before you and Leopold begin,” Heidi said. “Just like we rehearsed. Maggie, don’t let them start too soon.”

“Mo-th-er…” Adelaide said.

Heidi smiled and stepped away from the peephole. Heidi leaned forward and kissed her daughter, carefully, no messing up the look.

“It’ll be perfect,” she said to Adelaide.

She put her hand on Adelaide ’s cheek for a moment. Then she turned and went out the other anteroom door into the hall. I took her place peeking through the door, and watched her appear a moment later at the double doors to the chapel. She came down the aisle alone, the mother of the bride, like a queen at her coronation. She was erect, beautiful, elegantly dressed, and perfectly done, with just the right amount of hip swing. I felt sort of bad for the anticlimactic Adelaide.

Maggie wanted to peek, too, and I sensed her resentment. But my docile mode took me only so far. After Heidi’s long promenade, she slipped into her seat in the first pew. I could almost feel the impulse to applaud run through the chapel, but everyone fought it off successfully.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” Maggie said, as if trying to void any usurpation of her position.

Leopold put his arm out. Adelaide, looking pallid and swallowing often, put her hand on his arm. He patted it and they went out of the anteroom. I followed them discreetly. They went through the big entrance to the chapel. The musicians, cued from the anteroom, I assumed, by the grim and ubiquitous Maggie, began to play “Here Comes the Bride.” Leopold and Adelaide started down the aisle toward the waiting groom. Adelaide seemed pulled in upon herself, smaller than her mother, somehow frail-looking, as if the support of Leopold’s arm was more than symbolic. After they got to the waiting groom and Leopold had retired to his pew, I skirted the back row more silently than the yellow fog, and went down along the side and sat where I’d been told.

It may have begun the day as a library, and it might be a library tomorrow, but at this moment it was every inch a chapel. The ceiling had been draped in dark gauze so that it seemed to reach a peak. The seating was in real pews, not folding chairs. There were hymnals in each pew. A small program lay on the seat in each place. The bookcases were draped in the same dark gauze they’d hung from the ceiling, and stained-glass windows hung in place. The lighting was provided by candles. In front was an altar of ornately carved wood that looked as if it had been lifted from a medieval church in Nottingham. There were flowers everywhere, huge vases as tall as I was, standing in exactly the right places, hanging flowers, flowers smothering the altar.