Braking for Bodies (2 page)

I shook my head. “No way. There is no black cloud. It's gone . . . all gone. I got Rudy off that murder charge, didn't I? I'm cured of all cloudness. I'm officially cloud free. I had all winter to get rid of it. Heck, it probably froze to death just being here. The wedding dress fiasco is an easy fix. I'll get the right box on the next run. The ferry will be back in an hour and all will be right with the world.”

I handed the box over to Fiona. “Take this to Idle when you go up to the Grand Hotel. If you don't meet with Peep, he'll come looking for you, and what did you mean about Peep telling your dad? Tell him what? Why should you bring your checkbook? Fiona, what's going on and what the heck happened out in L.A.?”

“N
othing happened out in L.A.,” Fiona added in a rush as she grabbed the Brides and Bliss dress box from my hands. “It's just that Dad wouldn't much like Peep. Heck, nobody likes Peep.”

“Except Zo,” I chimed in. “Zo really likes the guy, and from what I can see they deserve each other.”

“There is that.” Fiona tucked the dress box under her arm and hitched the
Crier
bag onto her other shoulder. “I have flyers in here about the lilac festivities that need to be dropped off at the Grand, and I need to meet with Peep.” She rubbed her forehead. “Just when I thought my past was behind me, it rears its ugly head and bites me in the butt. Wish I could think of a way to bite it back.”

Fiona plucked out a yellow flyer and shoved it at me.
“Do you see any typos? Everything needs to run smooth at the newspaper while the parents are visiting here for the wedding. The
Crier
was their baby for twenty-five years till they handed it off to me and escaped to sunny Arizona. They're eating hummus, drinking smoothies, doing tai chi and they listen to Yanni. All that sun's fried their brains.”

“The flyer looks good to me,” I said, scanning the sheet. “But then I was in advertising for eight years where they spell catsup with a
K
.”

Fiona took off for Market Street. The
Town Crier
was on the bottom floor of the white clapboard shop; Fiona lived on the top. My name wasn't Sherlock but even I could tell that something had her jumpy, and Fiona wasn't a jumpy kind of person. Fact was, she was the one who stuck with me through thick and thin—and things got thin as tissue paper a few times—to prove Rudy innocent. We learned to pick locks together, outsmart motion detectors and scale porch railings with a single bound. Okay, that part was a lie. More like flop over railings and land in bushes.

With the lilacs in full bloom the island smelled like a giant florist shop, but the chill in the air was a reminder that winter hadn't left the island all that long ago. Vintage streetlights and twinkle lights nestling in the trees came to life as I headed in the other direction for the bike shop. Rudy had agreed to hold down the fort while I picked up the dress, so now I just had to make up an excuse why I didn't have it. I fell in step with a brew crawl making their way from bar to bar
and probably heading for the Ice House, which actually was once an icehouse. After this last winter I didn't care if I ever saw ice again. I flipped up the collar on my jacket and looked like one of the gang as we ambled past Irma's fudge shop with lights ablaze and customers at the counter, then to my bike shop. Well, the sign said Rudy's Rides, but it was half mine.

When I met up with Rudy last year, the place was on the skids, Rudy had a busted leg and he got accused of murder. Since I worked for his daughter back in Chicago, my job there was in serious jeopardy with the
accused of murder
part happening when I was supposed to be here helping Rudy and not making things worse. Rudy and I hit it off, so I quit my design job that I totally sucked at, depleted my 401(k) and was now half owner of Rudy's Rides. We'd carved out a niche market of renting theme bikes painted with golf clubs, cooking, music, flowers and the like. If we had a good season the shop would be in the black. If not, Rudy and I would be riding our bikes to the unemployment office.

I took the ramp we'd added to the front porch and sang out, “Honey, I'm home” to the black cat and the calico sitting on the windowsill. They responded with a
so what, it's only you
look as I slipped through the open front door. I congratulated myself on a job well done in avoiding Irma and sticky questions and—

“Okay, okay, where is it, where is it?” Irma chanted as she danced her way to the front of the shop from the living area in the back that I now called home. Rudy
and Irma cohabitated at the fudge shop, and with cat fur and fudge not being a match made in heaven, I tri-habitated with Bambino and Cleveland.

Irma twirled her way past the old wicker rocker and the pool table that I'd inherited along with the cats namely because black cat Bambino slept in the left side pocket. Irma might be a card-carrying member of AARP for some years, but she was the perfect blushing bride. And as her maid of honor, I was sworn to keep her that way and not blab about the missing dress!

“Uh, where's Rudy?” I needed to say something before guilt won out and I blurted the ugly truth. “I thought he was watching the shop.”

Irma tossed her hair and did another twirl. “He's over at the Good Stuff stirring up a new fudge recipe. Brandy Bonanza is his latest brainstorm for the adult crowd, so I came over here to fill in. I rented out that Wizard of Oz bike for two weeks,” Irma said as she pirouetted around the rows of bikes. “And the Tiger Woods bike and Spring Has Sprung that you just finished up and the Martha Stewart bike. Love the little plate of chocolate chip cookies you painted on the fender of that one. Okay, so enough about business, where's my white dress box from Brides and Bliss?”

“Uh . . .”

“You hung the dress up over at the fudge shop for me so it wouldn't wrinkle.”

“Well . . .”

Looking starry-eyed, Irma framed her face with her hands. “Don't you love the pink blush color and the
jacket with the beads, and remember how it took me months to find that dress. I just love my wedding dress and can't wait to try it on again.”

“I . . . I gave it to Fiona to take to her place. You don't want Rudy to see it, that would be all kinds of bad luck.” I was going straight to hell for this whopper of a lie, but I'd have to chance it. I couldn't very well have the bride in jail for murder, namely mine.

Irma's lips pursed to a pout. “Well, I guess I can go visit my lovely dress at the
Crier
just to make sure it fits.”

Think, Evie, think!
“Except . . . Fiona's working on that article about the Pattersons' anniversary, and you know how the Pattersons are about getting details right. Maybe you should wait till tomorrow, and I really need to pick up paint over at Doud's Market to finish the fly-fishing bike I'm working on. Can you watch the shop for maybe twenty minutes? Gee, thanks, I really appreciate it.” I escaped out of the shop, not giving Irma a chance to say no and giving me the chance to meet the next ferry and get the dress.

Cones of light dotted the Shepler's Ferry pier, the last of the day tourists lining up, as Sheldon—my know-it-all iPhone—buzzed my butt. Not only was the Shepler's Ferry dock good for docking ferryboats and delivering passengers safe and sound to the island, but it was one of the few hotspots for getting decent cell phone reception. Sheldon had a text from Abigail, my old boss and Rudy's daughter back in Chicago, wanting to know how I was doing with the wedding plans.
When I worked for Abigail, it took her two years to remember my name; I was never one of her fave people and I was definitely not about to tell her that I'd lost the dress.

The ferry pulled in and that was good. The bad part was that Nate Sutter, Irma's son and the local law enforcement officer, stood on the dock, hands on hips, looking pissed. I'd pretty much learned to live with the pissed part because Sutter used to be a cop in Detroit. I figured the Detroit gig was enough to make anyone pissy.

Sutter was easy to spot in his Windbreaker with a yellow
I AM THE POLICE
patch on the sleeve. And maybe his shoulders were a little broader than most guys' and his brown wavy hair always needed a trim and there was a faded scar on his chin, his body more gym than couch potato, and he favored his right leg when tired, like now. Most of the island female population considered Sutter a real biscuit, but personally I never noticed much about the guy at all.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Sutter as I drew up next to him and the ferryboat kissed the dock. “Some drunk-as-a-skunk fudgie onboard causing a problem?”
Fudgie
was the nickname the locals used for the tourists and the tons of fudge they gobbled down each year.

“You're half right,” Sutter groused, his brow furrowing as a woman in fuchsia pink capris and gold shoes and blazer bellowed to one of the ferry workers, “Take your hands off me, you bully.”

The other passengers waiting to disembark gave
Miss Loudmouth a wide berth as she ranted on: “That two-timing no-good husband of mine said he was going away on business. Yeah, it's business all right, funny business with that bimbo of his. Well, I wasn't born yesterday. I've followed them all the way from L.A. and I know they're here and I'm going to find them or die trying.”

“Ma'am,” Sutter offered, “I have no idea where your husband is.” He helped the woman off the boat. “And you need to calm down, you're causing a scene.”

“A scene! A scene! Ha!” The woman yanked her arm away from Sutter and threw her overnight bag on the dock, her bleached-blonde hair flopping over her forehead. “You haven't seen anything yet,” she snarled. “I'm going to catch that little weasel and that gold-digging secretary of his and toss her in the lake myself and divorce his scrawny butt right on the spot.”

“Turquoise pants and gold Rolex?” I added. “He's at Mission Point Resort.” Sutter gave me a
what the heck are you doing
look as I pointed up to Main Street. “One of the horse taxis will take you there.”

“Horse?” Miss Loudmouth froze, her eyes arced to her hairline. “Do I look like a woman who rides a horse, for God's sake?”

“If you just think of this town as an extension of Warner Brothers Studios, you'll be fine.”

Sutter folded his arms. “Thanks a lot,” he said to me, as the two of us watched the woman drag her luggage up the dock. “Now she'll cause trouble at the Point and I'll have to go there.”

“Except her husband is up at the Grand and maybe she'll decompress by the time she finally figures it out, or she'll be too tired to care.”

Sutter arched his left brow. “So this is you doing me a favor?”

“Uh, sure. Why not?” Actually I did it to buy Fiona time with Peep so she wouldn't be caught in the middle of a domestic-triangle mess. Fiona had enough mess to deal with . . . whatever it was.

“Why are you here at this hour?” Sutter wanted to know, breaking into my thoughts on Fiona.

“Doing my duty as maid of honor and picking up your mother's wedding dress.”

Mentally chanting,
Please be there, please be there, please be there
, I skirted around the boarding procession of tourists. “Do you have a delivery for Irma Sutter from Brides and Bliss?” I asked the same ferry worker I talked to before.

He scowled down at me. “Lady, you just picked it up on the last run.”

“It was the wrong box,” I said, dropping my voice so Sutter wouldn't hear. “Can you check again? Please? And hurry?”

Mumbling, the guy disappeared back inside the ferry as Sutter came up beside me.

“All I got,” the worker said as he reappeared, “is this box for Idle Summers up at the Grand.” He shoved the Brides and Bliss white box with pink bow at me.

“But . . . but that's who the other box was for.”

The guy hunched his shoulders. “Hey, I just deliver
'em. My guess is this Bliss place sent two packages to Mackinac and one of them is yours. They just both went to the same person. It happens.”

I signed the clipboard
again
and glanced back to Sutter, who had a devil smile on his lips. He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels. “You lost my mother's wedding dress?”

“And I found it. This is probably it right here, just going to the wrong person, is all,” I declared with a lot more conviction than I felt. I said a quick prayer to Saint Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. I slid the bow off the box and pulled back the tissue. “It's . . . it's chiffon with yellow rhinestones.”

“Maybe I can get you into some kind of protection program so Mom doesn't find you.”

I did a full-blown smile to confirm my innocence. “It's like the guy said, the other box up at the Grand has got to be Irma's dress.”

“Isn't there something about you and a black cloud?”

I jutted my chin. “There is no cloud.”
Maybe.
“I'll meet Idle and straighten things out.” I gave Sutter a hard look and tried to retie the pink bow so it didn't look like a teething two-year-old did it. “I just saved you from the L.A. crazy woman, so you owe me. Promise you'll keep this . . .”

“Fiasco?”

“Incident to yourself.”

“You want me to lie to my mother?”

“Just don't say anything, okay, and don't come
anywhere near the Grand because that will cause attention and she'll find out because no one around here can keep their mouth shut.”

Sutter made a cross over his heart and added, “I bet it's the cloud.” He retied the pink bow to perfection, then took off. When I got back to the bike shop, I stashed the second Brides and Bliss box around back, slapped a perky innocent-as-a-lamb smile on my face and went inside to face Irma.

“Where have you been?” she wanted to know. “And where are the paint cans?”

Holy freaking cow! The paint. “Wrong color.”

“I tell you, the whole island is going to hell in a handbasket.” Irma shoved a paper at me. “The Sherlock bike needs to be delivered to Heaven Sent up on the East Bluff. They want it tonight for an early ride tomorrow. What's with fudgies and early biking? Didn't they ever hear of vacation? I need to get back to the shop to help Rudy close up. He's swamped, Brandy Bonanza's a big hit.” She gave me the squinty-eyed look. “What's going on with you? Your left eye's twitching.”

I walked to the door, herding Irma in that direction. “Tell Rudy I said hi, thanks for holding down the place, see you later. Gee, your hair looks shiny, you'll make a lovely bride.” Then I closed the door, leaving Irma on the outside.