An hour later, I wasn’t so sure. And neither was Eddie Breen, when I called him at home in Seattle and asked him to help me out. I’m supposedly Eddie’s boss, but you would never know it, to hear him.
“It’s Thursday night, for chrissakes! You never did call me back to explain what the hell you think you’re doing over there, and now you want me to find you a classical quartet for Saturday afternoon in Idaho?”
“Eddie, please, I’ve made a commitment to this wedding. I need to show them what I can do, but I can’t find anyone in Ketchum, or even in Boise, who’s not already booked. Please?”
“All right, already. I’ll call around.”
We both called around, but to no avail. I’d almost given up and resigned myself to turning the problem over to Beau after all, when a brilliant idea came to me. Goofy, but brilliant. I called Chief of Police Larabee, and the problem was solved.
Now I just needed the bride to sign off on my solution before her mother had a chance to throw another fit. Tracy had skipped the softball game, but with any luck she’d be at the postgame party. I was on my way out the door when B.J. called.
“Muffy, I will love you forever,” she said, her voice low and surreptitious. “Matt’s in the bathroom. How’d you do it?”
“I didn’t.” It was good to hear her so happy. “You can thank Julie Nothstine. She found the necklace in—”
“Isn’t that nice,” said B.J., much louder, and I knew her husband was back in the room. “Matt and I are going out for a late supper. Want to come?”
“I’m still full of hamburger,” I told her. “And anyway, I’m going to the Casino Club. I bet I can find a nice Jewish guy there who’ll buy me a drink.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE CASINO CLUB HASN’T BEEN A REAL CASINO FOR FIFTY years, although illegal poker games persisted there for some decades after that. These days the only games happen at the pool tables, but a framed sketch of some Ketchum residents bent over their cards still hangs in the front hall of the Casino for old times’ sake.
I passed the sketch on my way in, and stood for a moment adjusting to the noise level and taking in the scene. Especially the scene at the bar, where most of the bachelor party crowd, home team and visitors alike, had gathered to raise their voices in song.
They were belting out a lewd and lengthy ditty, inventing verses as they went and capping every chorus with a generous glugging of beer. Terrible singers, but excellent drinkers.
Well, well,
I thought.
Who knew?
Who knew that a citified reporter out of Boston would get along so well with a bunch of ballplayers from L.A., not to mention a swarm of smoke jumpers from Idaho? Of course, the jumpers hailed from all over the country, but I was still surprised to see Aaron bellied up to the bar with Todd Gibson’s arm draped over his shoulders and Al Soriano lighting all three of their cigars.
I didn’t want to barge in, so I slipped into a seat at the back and bought my own drink. For that matter, I mused as the waitress left me, who knew that a smoke jumper’s bachelor party could be such a good-natured, almost wholesome, affair? The song was more lusty than nasty, and the choir included both female jumpers and many of their comrades’ girlfriends.
I guess if you’re tough enough to leap from a plane and battle a fire—and if you’re pushing forty, as Jack was—you don’t feel obliged to ogle strippers and drink till you vomit. How refreshing.
Not that this crowd wasn’t having a good time. As I listened to the high-spirited laughter at the song’s conclusion, and the volley of wisecracks over at the pool tables, I compared the mood tonight with Sunday’s strained gaiety at the Pioneer. No one had forgotten Brian, but tonight the celebration of life, in the form of Jack’s wedding, had pushed death into the background.
But not for me, not yet. Realistically, I had to admit that the nameless camper might be impossible to identify. But was I willing to let Brian’s death be written off as an accident, one that the victim brought on himself?
No.
I didn’t care for my cousin, and he treated B.J. badly, but no. I couldn’t collar his killer myself, but surely I could stir up enough information to make the police take notice. That was the least I could do, and I was determined to do it. When my wine came—I’d had enough beer for the year—I raised my glass in a private farewell to Brian Thiel.
“Look, it’s the star of first base!” Jack stopped on his way past my table with Tracy hanging on his arm, looking for all the world like a fond and faithful fiancée. He was freshly showered and glowing with vigor, but she was pretty green around the gills. Tequila is tough stuff. “Trace, you should have seen this catch she made.”
The bride gave me a deer-in-the-headlights stare. “Oh! I... I didn’t know you’d be here.”
That much was clear, but it was also clear that Tracy had come to her senses. The bitchy arrogance of this afternoon was gone, replaced by a contrite and even anxious smile. She must be wondering if I planned to spill the beans about her and Domaso.
Serve her right if I did,
I thought, but I knew I wouldn’t have the heart. Or the inclination, given the groom’s recent behavior. At times like this, a wise wedding planner stays out of the crossfire. So I turned my farewell into a salute.
“Cheers, you two. Quite a party.”
“Oh, we’re just getting started,” said Jack, and gave me a mischievous wink. You almost had to admire his gall. Then someone waved from across the room and he gave them the finger, but in an amiable way. “Hey, the guys from Montana showed up! Come on, sweetheart, you’ll love these guys.”
As he towed Tracy away she said over her shoulder, “I need to talk with you tonight, OK?”
“Sure. I’ve got something to ask you about, too. Come find me.”
As they disappeared into the crowd, Aaron emerged from it, his face flushed and his eyes shining. He smelled like tobacco, but he looked handsome as hell.
“Glad you made it, Stretch.” He dropped into a chair. “God, these smoke jumpers are great people. I’m having a great time.”
“I can tell.”
He rolled his eyes. “Give me a break, would you? The groom gave out cigars. What was I supposed to do, throw it away?”
“I didn’t mean that, honestly. I just meant I can tell you’re enjoying yourself. Aaron, am I that much of a nag?”
He was suddenly serious. “You can be, Carnegie. Sometimes you really can be a nag.”
I blinked rapidly against the stinging in my eyes.
Must be
the smoke.
“I’m only thinking about your health, you know.”
“I know that, Stretch. Never mind, I shouldn’t have said it.” He took my hand and gave it a little shake, side to side. “Let’s change the subject. Before I joined the choir, I was asking some locals about Boot Creek.”
“Did you find out who went camping there?”
“Well, no. But I did find out why somebody might have been. Turns out it’s a primo trout stream, so fishermen hike in there from time to time. Not often, because it’s hard to get to. And one guy told me about an old hermit who supposedly lives up there and runs people off.”
“A hermit? Maybe he was the killer!”
“I thought about that, too, but then the bartender told me it’s just a story the fishermen tell to keep other fishermen away. Pretty soon we’ll be pinning the murder on Sasquatch.”
“But it’s worth checking out, don’t you think? Julie Nothstine might know if there’s any truth to the story. She’s lived around here forever.”
“Maybe.” Aaron waved for the waitress. “Excuse me, miss?”
She came over and he ordered Scotch rocks. It wasn’t his first one, or even his second, as I could tell by the way he suddenly shifted to yet another subject.
“This smoke-jumping business, it’s really something. One of the guys here is a cardiologist, did you know that? He’s been back every summer for ten years now, just to keep jumping fire. Isn’t that amazing? I mean, dirty, dangerous work that doesn’t pay all that well, and a doctor can’t wait to spend his summer doing it? They get sent all over the west, too, Alaska to Arizona, anywhere there’s a fire. You should hear the stories these guys tell....”
Aaron, I realized, had caught the bug. He was falling in love with smoke jumping. I watched him fondly as the words came tumbling forth about the camaraderie and the courage and the exploits. It was Todd Gibson all over again. Not the hero worship, exactly—Aaron was older than Todd, and more sophisticated—but enthusiasm, admiration, and even envy.
“It’s like war,” he said at one point. “Izzy, my grandfather, he was at Pearl Harbor. All that death and destruction, but he calls World War Two the best years of his life. You don’t get that intensity working in an office, you know? Fighting wildfires is like war, but you’re saving lives instead of taking them. Danny Kane was saying—”
“Danny’s here?” I stood up and gazed around. Most of the revelers had gathered around one of the pool tables, and through a gap in the bodies I could see that Danny was playing Peter Props. I sat down again and said quietly, “I’m still wondering if we should tell him what we’ve found out, and ask him why he suspects Todd and the Tyke of killing Brian. Maybe he can help us.”
“I don’t know, Stretch. I’ve been keeping an eye on old Danny, and I think your first impression was right. He’s awfully jumpy. I vote we wait till we know more.”
“I guess. Let’s go watch them, anyway.”
I’ve always wished I could shoot pool. Not enough to actually learn the game and practice, but it isn’t the skill I want anyway. It’s the attitude. Pool players always look so cool.
Aaron and I found a place among the jammed-in spectators. Even Danny Kane, unprepossessing as he was, looked cool as he bent over the table with brooding intensity to calculate his shot. There were only two balls left on the deep green felt, a solid and a stripe. The game was down to the wire, and the crowd was keyed up high.
“You can do it, Kane, just take it easy.”
“Aw, he’s gonna blow it for sure.”
Judging by the catcalls, this was a grudge match. Danny was defending the honor of the smoke jumpers against the Californians. Or at least defending their money. One of the onlookers clutched a fistful of five- and ten-dollar bills.
“Piece of cake, Danny Boy.”
“Shut up, you’ll jinx him!”
Danny’s expression never changed. He slowly drew back his cue, deliberated for one last moment, and slammed the cue ball hard at the far corner. Too hard. His target ball, the solid, went spinning into the pocket and bounced right out again, while the cue ball popped off the edge of the table and onto the floor.
“I’ve got you now, sucker!” crowed Peter, over the triumphant jeers of the L.A. crowd. “You’re a dead man now. A dead man!”
He didn’t mean anything by it, of course. Why would he? But I heard someone gasp, and saw the dismay on Todd Gibson’s face, and on others.
“Oh, brother,” Aaron muttered, close at my side.
Danny went white. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to realize how many people were watching his reaction. He bent abruptly to pick up the cue ball, and smacked it down on the table even harder than he’d hit it in the first place. Then he turned on his heel and left.
The silence that fell was not what you want to hear at a party. I considered throwing myself into the breach with a toast to the happy couple or something lame like that, but I couldn’t see where Jack and Tracy had gone.
The Tyke had a better idea, anyway. From over at the bar she called out, “Hey, you bozos! Who wants to arm wrestle?”
“Her?” said Aaron. “That’s ridiculous. I’m sure she’s strong, but still—”
“Give it a try, then,” I said. “I dare you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Maybe I will. Hey, I think your bride wants you.”
Tracy was gesturing to me from a small door beyond the bar. When I reached her she drew me outside to an alley behind the building. The night air was still warm, but it felt fresh after the fumes within, and I breathed it in gratefully.
In the faint light that reached us from the streetlamps, the television star looked positively scared of me. I must say, I enjoyed that just a bit.
I waited a moment but she didn’t speak, so I went first. “Tracy, did Cissy tell you about the Ladislaus Quartet?”
She nodded indifferently. “Um, about this afternoon—”
“I’d prefer to forget all about that. Let’s just forget it and get on with the wedding.”
“Wait!” She clutched my arm. “Did you...are you going to...”
“I’m not saying a word. I only wish I didn’t know, that’s all. And I wish you didn’t think there was anything between me and Jack except—”
“I don’t think that. Dom told me later what really happened. I’m sorry.”
And how the hell would he know what really happened?
I asked myself. For all Domaso knew, Jack and I could have been carrying on at the hot spring for hours. Perish the thought.
“But I want to explain about me and Dom,” Tracy was saying. “We fool around sometimes, that’s all. We always do, when I’m in town. I’m not going to keep doing it, you know. It’s just that, it’s just...” I was startled to see that she was close to tears. “It’s just that I’m scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Of getting married. Jack’s wonderful, but he wants to have
children.
”
“And you don’t?”
“I don’t know!” she moaned. “I guess so. I don’t even know if I want to be married. I just got so excited about having a wedding and then...”
“Then it took on a life of its own?”
“Uh-huh.”
I’d seen this before. And much as I dreaded the outcome, I gave Tracy Kane the same advice I’d given my other brides whose feet turned cold in their dyed-to-match pumps.
“Honey, listen to me. It’s not easy to cancel a wedding, or even postpone one, but it’s a lot easier than canceling a marriage. The wedding is just an event, just a ceremony and a party. The marriage is what’s important. So you think this over carefully, and you talk it over with Jack, all right? And if you really do want to change your plans, I’ll help you every step of the way.”
“Oh, Muffy!” She was weeping now, so I hugged her and patted her shoulder and pulled out one of the spare handkerchiefs I always carry. I never get them back, so I buy boxes.
“But if you
do
proceed with the wedding,” I said as she sniffled and dabbed, “I need your go-ahead about the music. I’ve found a string quartet of high-school students who play private parties in Ketchum. The cellist is the police chief ’s son.”
She looked dazed. “High school?”
“I’m told they’re pretty good, and the media will love it. Tracy Kane, big star, still a hometown girl at heart. So is that all right?”
“Anything you say, Carnegie.”
“And you’ll keep Cissy from fussing about it?”
“Absolutely.” Tracy’s composure was returning, and with it her confidence. She’d be bossing me around again in no time. “It’s my wedding, not hers.”
“That’s the spirit. Now come inside, I think we might be missing something good.”
Sure enough, the chanting hit us as we opened the door.
“Talent Show, Talent Show, Talent Show!”
Over the heads of the crowd I saw the Tyke perched up on the bar, her ponytail coming loose and a victorious grin on her face. I pushed my way through to the front. Aaron stood below her, flexing his aching hand and smiling ruefully.
Good
man,
I thought. I’d been hoping he would take his defeat gracefully.
But then the Tyke raised her beer mug to pronounce sentence, and I was suddenly horrified at the thought of my deskbound guy being humiliated in front of all these other men. What if she said one-armed push-ups, or something even harder? What had I done?