Tulle Death Do Us Part Read online

  Werner gave a motion that implied back-up-but-stay-alert to the officers. They complied, as did Wynona.

  I turned the page on the book of Life, and half expected it to begin to smolder. “Hear this voice, Thatcher McDowell.”

  From behind the curtain we heard: “You made me take the blame.” The man’s voice spoke with a bit of a whine. “You even made me hide the cash box in the attic of the Underhill building all those years ago, and I was scared, but I kept my toys, even if you said to throw ’em away, they’ll get you in trouble if anyone finds them.”

  “Well, now see,” Thatcher said, “that’s my Zavier. You know how he is. You can’t go listening to anything he says.”

  Zavier came out with his here-I-am smile, and because he seemed to expect it, people applauded, giving him a bit of the limelight. He’d always been a special friend to the people of Mystic. He’d help anybody with anything. He was often included in picnics and special events just so he felt like he had a life.

  What we did not expect our shy boy to do was shake his fist at his dad, then poke an accusing finger into the old man’s chest. “And those sex things you made me say I did, you take that back. Tell the truth now.”

  Thatcher tried to stand, but the officer nearest his chair flashed his badge. “Please remain seated, sir.”

  Fee led Zavier off stage and to the table with Eve, Jay, and the airman.

  “How about this voice?” I asked, the tremble I felt inside becoming evident in my voice.

  Eric McDowell was up next. Like the rest of them, he first spoke from behind the curtain. “On the night of the country club’s fiftieth anniversary, you took the Yacht Sea out in a storm. That’s the family boat. You weren’t alone. You took Wynona, Robin, and me. Who am I?”

  “Well,” Thatcher said, making a show of reseating himself, but removing his legs from the hassock. “You’re my son Eric, but you’re a little confused, boy.”

  Eric came out and nobody applauded. We were getting to the sticking point, and there was nothing to celebrate.

  Thatcher hit Eric with his unlit cigar. “Why’d you go and say those things, boy? Didn’t I teach you better?”

  “No, sir, you taught me worse. First, you made me captain your boat. Then you had Wynona help you get your hands on Robin, until I realized what you were up to. Eventually, I hit you with everything I could throw at you so Robin could escape. She ran for the rail and you followed. I know that Wynona and I were there to make it look like the party you lied about, but frankly, you’re one sick son of a sea cow.”

  “You’re making this up,” Thatcher said, but he didn’t sound as confident as he’d tried to be earlier.

  “To defend herself she broke one of your champagne bottles, then used it to cut your hand between your thumb and forefinger,” Eric said. “When you let her go to stem the blood, she jumped overboard. I didn’t think she’d make it in a storm, so I lowered the lifeboat and went after her. You kept calling me to come back.”

  Thatcher sat forward. “See, you’re all mixed up, boy. Robin, she was just walking along the rocks with her friends—they’ll tell you—and she got taken by a rogue wave. It’s in the records. And you’ve got no proof. She’s gone, son.”

  Because my throat was working and I was trying not to blubber like a baby, Werner took over. “How about this voice, Thatcher McDowell?”

  “I did not get taken by a rogue wave. Your son Eric saved my life, and that of my unborn son. He got me to shore, drove me to safety so the richest man in Mystick Falls couldn’t destroy me. And later, he helped me put my son through college.”

  Whoa. Now that was a piece of information about Eric McDowell I didn’t know. He caught my eye, and I nodded, which seemed to please him. I guessed our animosity was at an end. I had misjudged the man, but, hey, as far as the universe went, there was obviously something I’d had to figure out before we could get to this place.

  “I’ve had enough.” Thatcher stood, but two uniforms came from the shadows and helped him back into the chair, then stood guard, one on each side.

  The owner of the voice Thatcher refused to acknowledge came out from behind the curtain.

  “Who the hell are you?” he spat, letting us see his venom.

  She wore one of the tulle formals I’d recently bought, in red, like that night, and in front of Thatcher, she put on the blonde pageboy wig I’d brought her.

  Thatcher nearly had a heart attack. Werner nodded for the medics.

  Forty years later, I’d found her still in hiding, wearing cropped black hair, streaked blue, dressing like a man, these days sculpting granite into important statues, under the guise of the family business.

  Jay thought of his mother’s heart as made of granite. I thought she was dead. We both got a surprise when the story came out. We had both been wrong.

  Robin O’Dowd was ready to be set free and live again.

  “See?” she said, stepping right up to Thatcher, who had a hand to his heart. “I didn’t die. I simply protected my son from the man who could destroy me for knowing what he really was. You were too powerful to fight against back then, even with the truth. And for the record, I’d like to say that I’m pressing charges against you for attempted, aggravated sexual assault. I had the bruises to prove it, and I still have the pictures.”

  Thatcher turned to his son Eric. “You let me think I murdered someone.”

  Eric looked down at his father without emotion. “Too bad thinking yourself a murderer didn’t cause a need in you to repent, to do some good, shoulder the guilt, pay your debt to society. And who knows what you would have done, if you’d found out that Robin wasn’t dead after all. I know the bad things you are capable of.”

  The old man suddenly needed oxygen.

  Zavier rushed from the table to the edge of the stage. “Don’t you die yet. You tell them first. All those bad things. You did ’em. Not me. Tell ’em. Tell ’em now before you die.”

  Eric jumped from the stage, put an arm around his brother’s shoulder, led him to a table, and called for a ginger ale.

  Jay and the airman, who relied heavily on a cane, approached the stage, Eve not far behind.

  “Robin,” the airman said. “Robin, I can’t believe my eyes. Is it really you?”

  “Glen? Glen!” she screamed. “You didn’t die?”

  Jay lifted his mother down off the stage then his parents, both of them, were in each other’s arms, holding, confirming life, their tears contagious.

  Eve sort of held Jay up, he was in shock at the scene. He’d finally found his father, and he was not missing or dead, but now more alive than ever.

  “I said I’d never come back to this town,” Jay’s father said. “Too many bad memories, once I heard about what had happened that night. I couldn’t have lived here without you, and I didn’t want to live in a town where I suspected people of hurting you. But I got the country club invitation and I thought, what the hell? One more look. It had been so long.” He raised an arm to include Jay. “Right off, I find my son wearing my Purple Heart. Until this minute, I thought he was the surprise of a lifetime, but if my son was alive, then Robin had to be as well. And now there are two of you. I’ve gotten back everything I thought I’d lost.”

  Gilchrist kissed his wife and embraced his son. It was the night of their secret wedding, right after a shower, that I’d horned in on them—and got covered with his jacket—not for long, fortunately.

  Eve grinned from ear to ear. And had I just glimpsed Deborah VanCortland stepping from the shadows in the back of the room?

  “It’s a shame that we didn’t solve the mystery before Wayne was murdered,” I said to Werner as he approached me.

  Werner nodded. “But if I have my way, Thatcher—”

  “Also known as Snake,” I informed him.

  “Ah.” Werner covered the microphone with a hand. “If I have my way, Thatcher and Wynona will both get put away. Wynona’s a pretty sure thing. As for Thatcher, his assault on Robin won’t play—
time’s run out—but the recent sexual attacks, for which Zavier took the fall, will now be charged to Thatcher. He also has to answer for the country club’s financial games, and I’ll red-flag him to the IRS regarding his personal financials.”

  Werner leaned toward me, lowering his voice. “I’d sure like to know if Thatcher had a hand in killing Wayne.”

  Wynona, at the end of the stage, stamped a foot, catching our attention.

  She cleared her throat. “Wayne was getting fidgety in his old age, crying literally over his dead sister.”

  “Wayne wanted to know who sent Robin into the water. And I couldn’t let him know I was there, but he kept asking questions. Too many questions. So I shut him up.”

  Thatcher narrowed his eyes. “You wanted me to get rid of Robin, didn’t you, Wynona? One way or another you were going to see that Wayne got Robin’s half of his paternal grandparents’ money that night. You were always the most selfish person alive.”

  “Nobody can prove that,” she sang.

  Thatcher slapped the arms of his chair. “You told me you were gonna marry Wayne after that night’s work, once you were sure he’d inherit all of the money.”

  “Doesn’t prove a thing.”

  “Thanks for the confessions, both of you,” Werner said into the mike.

  I turned off the mike and left the stage. First I checked on Bambi-Jo, who’d screamed once, fainted twice, and needed the paramedics and oxygen, evidently.

  She just kept rolling her head from side to side saying, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know.”

  What could I say? I’d been there inside her head. She sincerely did not know.

  And who came walking straight into the spotlight but Deborah VanCortland? “I just wanted to see it all fall apart,” she said by way of explanation. “My significant other heard on the police radio that they arrested Wynona and called me to listen. I heard them get directed here, and I knew it was time.”

  “Because you know more than you let on?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Deborah said. “I’ve been selfish since I learned how to get my own way. You know about my marriage, Madeira. Years earlier, at the scavenger hunt, I figured that one of the guys had taken Robin for a fling. But I actually did believe that it all went wrong when she got taken by that rogue wave, that she wouldn’t have died if we hadn’t played scavenger hunt. I justified my share of guilt; I’m good at that. I didn’t think Thatcher was capable of sexual assault any more than I believed Eric was capable of saving a life and protecting the good deed for a lifetime. I mean, he’s a politician.”

  I nodded, because I agreed with her on that score.

  “I did believe,” Deborah, aka Vainglory, said, “that they were both as selfishly greedy as I was. I am now and probably always will be…a teller of tales as they suit my needs,” Deborah added, almost as an afterthought. “If you want to arrest me for anything, you should arrest me because I outright lied and said that I was with Robin when that wave took her. I did it to stay popular.” She looked up at Robin. “I may be a bitch, but I’m glad you made it.”

  Robin gave Deborah a hard half nod.

  Deborah had helped steal away a lifetime of happiness for Robin with her husband and son, but Robin had too much class to point that out.

  “Deborah, one of you that I interviewed talked about two other scavenger hunters. One smelled of Brut aftershave. Who was he?”

  Eric raised a hand. “That was me. I always wore too much Brut.”

  Eric McDowell, also known as Grody to me. Another identified. “Can any of you identify Tuxman?”

  “One of my best friends, and the one with the most guilt for the rest of his short life.”

  I turned on my heel toward Werner. “Every scavenger hunter accounted for as far as I know.”

  Werner scanned the crowd. “Eric, anyone? Deborah? Bambi-Jo?”

  They didn’t even look at each other but denied, each in their own way, the existence of any other conspirators.

  “Huzzah, it’s done!” Jay came my way as I left Deborah with the police. Robin’s son, now Eve’s date, hugged and twirled me. “I found my dad because you raised your roof! I knew there was a reason you were important to finding him.”

  His parents smiled and kissed again.

  “Oh! Speaking of dads, I’ve gotta run. Hey, all of you, Robin and Glen, Eve and Jay, come to a party. It’s at my shop. Eve, show them the way.” I grabbed Werner’s hand and ran.

  Thirty-one

  They really shouldn’t allow a veil like this. All the men should rise in a body and make it a law for any woman not to be so attractive. It’s just a frill of lace, but it has been attached to the inside of a hat, just where the crown rests on the head. It really should be stopped—men have a hard enough time in this world as it is.

  —“MAKERS OF MYSTERY,” VOGUE, 1917

  My second floor had been transformed into a lavender fairyland. And there beside the orchestra was a spot for the emcee, our old friend Tunney Lague. Heck, he was everybody in town’s old friend.

  “Ah,” Tunney said. “Our Madeira’s here. Time to get this party officially under way. Harry, my old friend, has a plan, and I do believe he kept it from most of us until the very last minute. Even me. He only gave me my to-do list this morning. Nobody’s as organized as old Harry.”

  “And nobody tells so many secrets as Tunney Lague,” my dad replied. My father cleared his throat. “And let’s call me young Harry for tonight, okay, my friend?”

  “Will do.” Tunney raised his glass. “Let’s have a drink to young Harry Cutler.” Our emcee smacked his lips and went back to his script.

  Aunt Fee’s jaw sat kind of slack. I put my fingers to her chin to raise it.

  “What is he up to?” she asked.

  Werner stepped in and came to our side, encircling my hand with one of his. Dante appeared and stood beside Dolly. She tittered.

  “Young Harry,” Tunney said, “your turn to take the floor.”

  My father went up the steps to a dais with a curtain behind it. “Fiona, would you please join me up here to lead the evening in the right direction?”

  “Has he been drinking with Tunney?” she asked near my ear before she followed him right up there.

  My sisters, I was surprised to note, were both here, Sherry and her husband, Justin, even Brandy with her significant other, Cort—Sherry’s father-in-law, also known as Deborah’s ex-husband. My brother, Alex, and his wife, Trish, too. Chairs were arranged to face the curtain up front.

  Dad took Fiona in his arms and kissed her senseless forever, until the wolf whistles were making me deaf, and the drummer built to a crescendo.

  Then my dad stepped back and grinned. “First surprise: I can be spontaneous. Second: I can kiss in public.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Watch this. I can kneel in public, too.” Which he did.

  Fiona slapped a hand to her mouth.

  He took out a small velvet box and opened it. “Fiona Sullivan, heart of my heart, will you do me the greatest honor and become my wife, till death do us part?” He furrowed his brow. “And maybe not even, which means I’ll have two of you. Wow, that’s a bit scary.”

  The Cutler kids—me included—and Aunt Fiona, too, thought that was hilarious.

  She might have been laughing, but her hands shook as he slipped the diamond on her engagement finger. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “We can’t hear you,” we chorused.

  “Yes!” she shouted, and Dad rose to take her in his arms again.

  “An engagement party,” she said. “A surprise engagement party.”

  “Oh no, sweet, did you think this was over? No, no no. Go into Madeira’s storage closet, will you? You’ll find everything you need in there.”

  “Ooh, not everything.” I thought I’d grabbed her veil a few days ago to bring here to fix. But had my dad put that thought into my head? Or my mom?

  Fiona looked forsaken. “You’re sending me away?” But she said it as s
he admired her engagement ring.

  My father blew her a kiss. “We’ll call you back when we’re ready.”

  My brother, Alex, led her to my storage area and shut them in. I opened the door a crack to hand them the veil and was told to wait right outside the door.

  A minister stepped up to the top of the dais, and Tunney pulled the curtains to reveal an arch decorated with lavender roses behind it. My dad stopped at the middle step and turned to face his guests.

  Tunney instructed us to take our seats, though I stayed where I was told, by the chairs lined up in front of the arch, then Tunney cued the bandleader, and they played the traditional wedding march.

  The doors to the closet opened, and five-year-old Kelsey, in a full-length gown borrowed from Sherry’s wedding, led the parade straight to the dais. Behind her, Sherry, in lavender on Justin’s arm, pushed a lavender decorated, twin baby stroller with Riley and Kathleen inside.

  My sister Brandy and Cort followed.

  After them, Alex told me to go up the aisle as maid of honor.

  I waited and waved to Robin, Glen, Jay, and Eve, in the back row, all grinning, and more often than not, necking.

  Then my brother, Alex, escorted our former Aunt Fiona—not really our aunt—eyes bright, her bouquet a ball of lavender roses, up the aisle. Alex handed her to my dad with a kiss and my dad and his soon to be new wife went up to meet the minister.

  “Harry,” Fee whispered, not knowing the minister was holding a mike. “We don’t have a marriage license.”

  “Yes we do.”

  “I never signed one.”

  “Sure you did. You thought it was a potting-shed permit.”

  “You distracted me!”

  The guests tittered.

  Dad’s grin went very wide, entertaining the guests the more while Aunt Fee’s back went ramrod straight.

  “Before we begin,” my father said. “I have an O. Henry quote for my bride.”

  We all groaned. “‘There she plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).’”