The Perfect Couple(8)
“Shooter Uxley,” the young man says. “Benji’s best man.”
Shooter, yes! Celeste has mentioned Shooter. It isn’t a name one forgets, and Celeste had tried to explain why Shooter was the best man instead of Benji’s brother, Thomas, but the story was puzzling to Karen, as though Celeste were describing characters on a TV series Karen had never seen.
Bruce then shakes the hands of two young ladies, one with chestnut hair and freckles and one a dangerous-looking brunette who is wearing a formfitting jersey dress in a color that Karen would call scarlet, like the letter.
“Aren’t you hot?” the Scarlet Letter asks Bruce. With a slightly different inflection, it would sound as though the girl were hitting on Bruce, but Karen realizes she’s talking about Bruce’s outfit, the black jeans, the black-and-turquoise shirt, the loafers, the socks. He looks sharp but he doesn’t exactly fit in. Everyone else is in casual summer clothes—the men in shorts and polo shirts, the ladies in bright cotton sundresses. Celeste had told Karen no less than half a dozen times to remind Bruce that the Winburys were preppy. Preppy, that was the word Celeste insisted on using, and it sounded quaint to Karen. Didn’t that term go out of style decades ago, right along with Yuppie? Celeste had said: Tell MacGyver, blue blazers and no socks. When Karen had passed on this message, Bruce had laughed, but not happily.
I know how to dress myself, Bruce had said. That’s my job.
A tall, silver-haired gentleman strides across the lawn and walks down the three stone steps into the driveway. He’s dripping wet and wearing a pair of bathing trunks and a neoprene rash guard.
“Welcome!” he calls out. “I’d open my arms to you but let’s wait until I dry off for those familiarities.”
“Did you capsize again, Tag?” the Scarlet Letter teases.
The gentleman ignores the comment and approaches Karen. When she offers her hand, he kisses it, a gesture that catches her off guard. She’s not sure anyone has ever kissed her hand before. There’s a first time for everything, she thinks, even for a dying woman. “Madame,” he says. His accent is English enough to be charming but not so much that it’s obnoxious. “I’m Tag Winbury. Thank you for coming all this way, thank you for indulging my wife in all her planning, and thank you, most of all, for your beautiful, intelligent, and enchanting daughter, our celestial Celeste. We are absolutely enamored of her and tickled pink about this impending union.”
“Oh,” Karen says. She feels the roses rising to her cheeks, which was how her father always described her blushing. This man is divine! He has managed to set Karen at ease while at the same time making her feel like a queen.
There’s a tap on Karen’s shoulder and she turns carefully, planting her cane in the shells of the driveway.
“B-B-Betty!”
It’s Celeste. She’s wearing a white sundress and a pair of barely there sandals; her hair is braided. She has gotten a suntan, and her blue eyes look wide and sad in her face.
Sad? Karen thinks. This should be the happiest day of her life, or the second-happiest. Karen knows Celeste is worried about her, but Karen is determined to forget she’s sick—at least for the next three days—and she wants everyone else to do the same.
“Darling!” Karen says, kissing Celeste on the cheek.
“Betty, you’re here,” Celeste says, without a trace of stutter. “Can you believe it? You’re here.”
“Yes,” Karen says, and she reminds herself that she is the reason that the whole wedding is being held now, during the busiest week of the summer. “I’m here.”
Saturday, July 7, 2018, 6:45 a.m.
THE CHIEF
He pulls up to 333 Monomoy Road right behind state police detective Nicholas Diamantopoulos, otherwise known as the Greek. Nick’s father is Greek and his mother is Cape Verdean; Nick has brown skin, a shaved head, and a jet-black goatee. He’s so good-looking that people joke he should quit the job and play a cop on TV—better hours and more money—but Nick is content being a damn good detective and a notorious ladies’ man.
Nick and the Chief worked together on the last homicide, a drug-related murder on Cato Lane. Nick spent the first fifteen years of his career in New Bedford, where the streets were dangerous and the criminals hardened, but Nick doesn’t subscribe to the tough-guy shtick; he doesn’t use any of the strong-arming tactics you see in the movies. When Nick is questioning persons of interest, he is encouraging and empathetic; he sometimes tells stories about his ya-ya back in Thessaloníki who wore an ugly black dress and uglier black shoes every day after his grandfather passed. And the results he gets! He says the word ya-ya and people confess to everything. The guy’s a magician.
“Nicky,” the Chief says.
“Chief,” Nick says. He nods at the house. “This is sad, huh? The maid of honor.”
“Tragic,” the Chief says. He’s dreading what he’s going to find inside. Not only is a twenty-nine-year-old woman dead, but the family and guests have to be questioned, and all of the complicated, costly wedding preparations have to be undone without destroying the integrity of the crime scene.
Before the Chief left his house, he went upstairs to find Chloe to see if she had heard the news. She had been in the bathroom. Through the closed door, the Chief had heard the sound of her vomiting.