A Death in Duck: Lindsay Harding Cozy Mystery Series (Reverend Lindsay Harding Mystery Book 2) (18 page)

“Personally, I prefer the normal Anna, disorganized spice rack and all,” Lindsay said.

Drew laughed. “I guess I do, too. I like that she sabotages my attempts to keep the house perfect and that she doesn’t freak out when plans have to change at the last minute. And how she sometimes makes me take off my rose-colored glasses and just accept that things don’t always work out like I want them to. Let’s hope we get that Anna back when this is all over.”

“Here’s to messy spice racks,” Lindsay said, clinking her champagne flute against his.

Drew looked across at Anna. Even in the semi-darkness, she outshined every woman around her.  “I really am the luckiest guy on earth.” He inhaled and sighed contentedly. “Speaking of lucky, Anna said you grew up not far from here. That must’ve been great. I love being by the ocean, where you can really see all the stars. It’s kind of comforting how we all live and die and change, but everything out there just stays exactly the same.” He gestured to the wide expanse of star-spangled night.

Lindsay furrowed her brow. “I guess I don’t really see it that way. I mean, the sky is living and dying, too. It’s a cosmic warzone out there—stars exploding, huge chunks of space rock crashing into other stuff. Every millisecond, something new is happening, on this huge scale. It’s like a play with a hundred billion characters in it.”

Drew laughed. “That sounds like something my brother would say. He never accepts the easy answer, either.” He sighed again and turned back towards the ocean. “I wish I could convince him to settle down for awhile. I guess you heard that his wife died last year? Now he’s on this single-minded mission to wrestle every ounce of life experience out of the time he has left. It’s like he’s the one who had the terminal disease.”

“Poor guy,” Lindsay agreed. “I feel sorry for Owen, too. It sounds like Mike has him on some kind of Treadmill of Fun. He seems like a great kid, though.”

“He is. He’s a lot like his mom. Mike has always been this way—bouncing off the walls, just a crazy ball of energy, and Jocelyn would just shrug her shoulders and roll her eyes. They were opposites, but they balanced each other out.”

“That’s a soul-shaking loss. Maybe he’s afraid that if he slows down, it’ll catch up with him,” Lindsay said quietly. She’d seen this kind of behavior many times before. Rather than dealing with grief, people would undertake a series of major life changes—jumping into a new romantic relationship, selling their house, buying a sports car. For some people, the death of a loved one could provoke behavior similar to a mid-life crisis. It could happen to someone with rock-solid faith in an afterlife almost as easily as it happened to an atheist.

Drew held his hands up. “You’re the chaplain. I just fix people’s brains. I know very little about hearts and I definitely don’t ever go anywhere near their souls.” At that moment Mike and Owen came into view, emerging from between the dunes. The father and son made their way along the wooden boardwalk that connected the hotel’s deck with the main beach.

“Well, here comes the man himself,” Drew said. “Huh, Owen looks like he’s limping.”

When the pair reached Drew and Lindsay, Mike said, “I don’t suppose one of you has a Band-Aid? Owen cut himself on some broken glass or something while we were out playing glow-in-the-dark Frisbee golf.”

“I’m fine, Dad,” Owen said, with typical teenage boy bravado.

“Hmm… If whatever cut you was sharp enough to poke through your shoe, we’d better go inside so I can have a look,” Drew said, his forehead wrinkling with concern.

“Really, Uncle Drew. I’m fine.”

“Come on, you’d be doing me a favor. It’s only a matter of time until the Bridezilla Crew gives me another job to do,” Drew said.

Mike laughed. “For your sake, I hope this is just a one-time thing. Anna’s become like General Patton in pearls.” He slurred his words slightly. It was clear that, like most of the guests, he’d spent a little too much time at the bar during dinner.

When the two brothers stood alongside each other, Lindsay was again amazed at how alike they looked. Add 20 pounds and 10 years to Drew, and the two would be practically interchangeable. It was as if Mike were a digitally-aged version of his younger brother. Owen and Drew bid them goodbye and made their way inside. Lindsay noted with amusement that despite Owen’s injury, they took the long way around, skirting the far edge of the deck and keeping well outside the view of Anna and her mother.

“It must be handy having a doctor for a brother.” Lindsay said.

“Not really. I thought my parents were proud when I got my law degree. But when your little brother goes and becomes a brain surgeon? That’s hard to compete with!” He laughed good-naturedly. “It’s a shame our parents didn’t live long enough to see Drew get married. They would’ve loved Anna. She’s exactly the type of woman they would’ve picked for him.”

“I suppose she’s the kind of woman most parents would choose for their sons,” Lindsay said, smiling.

“She’s all right, but only if you’re into beauty, success, intelligence, and athleticism. Which clearly I’m not.”

“Is that so?”

“Not at all. I’m on the lookout for a pig-ugly slob who’s so dumb that she can’t alphabetize a packet of M&Ms.”

“Good luck with your search. It’s gonna be tough with those high standards.”

“I might be willing to compromise and date somebody smart and pretty, but only if she has a really terrible personality.”

In the few times she’d spoken with him, Lindsay already noticed that Mike always seemed to speak a million miles an hour, like the words were all engaged in a race to see which one could get from his brain to his mouth the fastest.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you without your jogging clothes on. You look nice,” Mike said.

Lindsay hoped the deep blush that rose in her cheeks was hidden in the darkness. “Thanks.”

“Personally, I hate running. It’s so boring.”

“I find it’s a really good way to clear your head.”

“It’s not for me. I decided long ago that, unless I am being chased by an axe-wielding psychopath, it’s not happening. I like to change things up exercise-wise. Jujitsu, square dancing, rock climbing…Are you cold?” He asked, taking hold of both her hands. “Yeah, your hands are icicles. Let’s go inside the gazebo.”

Mike guided her inside, placing his hand on the small of her back. A shiver ran up her spine; she couldn’t be sure if it was caused by the cold or the fact of being touched so intimately by a handsome man. She felt a pang as the image of the shocked look on Warren’s face when she’d broken up with him passed briefly through her mind.

“Did you guys make it down to the U-boat wreck this week?” she asked.

“No. I had the whole thing set up, but the dive reports said the water was still too murky to see anything. Winter diving is always iffy. We’re going to try again later in the week. It’s definitely on our bucket list.”

“Owen has a bucket list? That’s a little unusual for a 15-year-old.”

“Well, I guess it’s more my bucket list. But think of the experiences he’s gaining! Think how much more he’s seen and done than any of his peers.”

“That’s true,” Lindsay said slowly. “How does he feel about it, though? Do you think he wants to be so different from his peers? Sometimes it’s nice to feel like you fit in.” She looked at him, trying to gauge his receptiveness to her suggestions about his son. “Maybe you guys should talk about it.”

He seemed not to have heard a word she said. “You know, I really like your face,” he said. “You see so many pretty girls, but none of them look like you.”

“So I don’t look like a pretty girl?” Lindsay was more amused than insulted. She could tell by Mike’s rosy cheeks and glassy eyes that he might not be at his most eloquent in that moment.

“No. You’re more than pretty. You have, like, a magnet face. Like my eyeballs just want to look at it. And I like how your hair frizzes out at the sides. It’s like your ears are smoking.” Without warning, he leaned down and kissed her. Lindsay was taken entirely by surprise, most of all by the fact that she didn’t pull away from his embrace. His lips were soft and his mouth tasted like peppermints and champagne. He drew her closer to him and kissed her again. Leaning into him was like slipping into a warm bath. Her body felt light, her head swam with dizziness.

After a moment, Mike drew away. “Sorry. I just realized that I needed to stop talking before I said anything else dumb, so I kissed you. I hope you don’t think that was disrespectful. I’m really sorry.” He stood there nervously for a moment. “I better go see how Owen is doing.” He walked quickly out of the gazebo, pausing only briefly to look back and give Lindsay a goofy half-wave.

When Lindsay emerged from the gazebo a moment later, laughing, she was confronted immediately by Anna’s mother. All the other guests had gone inside, and they were the only two remaining on the deck. “What do you think you’re doing?” the taller woman asked. Her face was like a storm cloud, ready to burst.

“Nothing,” Lindsay said, still smiling to herself.

“Don’t try to say that was nothing. I saw you kiss him! I thought you were a Christian minister.”

“Last time I checked, there was no law—biblical or otherwise—against kissing.”

Big Lindsey shook her head in disgust. “I don’t know if I’m more shocked by him or by you.”

“Look, I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. Did you want him for yourself or something?”

“You need to pack your things and leave.”

“My stuff is packed. Just before the rehearsal, I got the news that my room is finally ready. I was just heading back to grab Kipper and my luggage and head up to our new room.”

“
Your room
?! I highly doubt Anna is going to want you within a hundred feet of her once she hears about this.”

“Why would she hear about this? I’m sure not going to tell her. I don’t really think she needs another distraction this close to her wedding. She’s pretty stressed out already.”

“Distraction? You really are a piece of work.” Big Lindsey moved so close to Lindsay that they were practically toe to toe. She towered over her, her voluminous hair seeming to block Lindsay’s vision. “I’m going to the bar,” Big Lindsey growled. “By the time I get back, you’d better be gone.”

Chapter 19

Still baffled after her strange confrontation with Big Lindsey, Lindsay gathered Kipper and her luggage and made her way across the lobby to her new room. At the front desk, the receptionist sat wearing a Santa hat and a bored expression. Lindsay gave her a sympathetic smile as she passed. As Lindsay crossed to the opposite hallway, she almost collided with Anna, who was stomping towards her with Big Lindsey in tow. In their wake followed several of her other female friends and relatives.

“Where are you going?” Anna demanded.

“To my new room,” Lindsay replied, taken aback at Anna’s belligerent tone. “What’s going on?”

“My mother told me everything, that’s what.”

“Okay,” Lindsay said, drawing the word out as if she were talking to a very feeble-minded person. The women arrayed themselves around her, like a mob baying for blood. Kipper assumed a defensive posture and growled. Lindsay patted his head to soothe him.

“I deserve some explanation. Please, Lindsay. You owe me that. Maybe your grief over your aunt or your crazy mother got the better of you and you just fell into his arms?” Anna suggested.

Lindsay put her hands up. “Look, he kissed me. I didn’t really think it was a big deal. He was drunk. I’m not sure he even knew what he was doing.”

“Oh, that’s just great.” Anna looked like she was on the verge of tears. “I can’t believe I made you my maid of honor.”

“She’s lying, Anna. And she’s not even wearing the right shoes!” Big Lindsey snapped. “She’s a drama magnet. She just wants you to feel sorry for her.”

“I don’t get it,” Lindsay said, becoming angry. “Am I messing up your psychotically perfect wedding plans somehow? Or are you trying to protect him from me? I’ve barely talked to him. I mean, I just broke up with Warren a few days ago.” Lindsay felt like all the eyes on her were shrinking rays, making her feel smaller and smaller. The unfortunate receptionist behind the desk was doing her best to shuffle papers and pretend she was stone deaf.

“Can’t we talk about this somewhere else?” Lindsay asked through gritted teeth.

Anna shook her head in disbelief. “You and Warren broke up? Why didn’t you tell me? I bet that’s it. He’s wanted you this whole time, ever since you dated him, and now that you’re free he has his chance.” The tears had begun to flow freely down Anna’s cheeks. Lindsay had a strange impulse to tell her friend that the wedding makeup wasn’t smearing at all—Big Lindsey sure knew how to paint a face.

“What do you mean ‘ever since I dated him’?” Finally, the missing piece of the jigsaw clicked into place. Lindsay couldn’t believe how dense she’d been. “Wait, do you think I kissed
Drew
?”

“I saw you kiss him!” Big Lindsey shouted triumphantly.

“What you saw was Mike kissing me.”

When Big Lindsey spoke again, her voice was less certain. “But we all saw you over by the gazebo with Drew. And then when I went over there, I saw you kiss him, and then I saw him run off.”

Lindsay put her hands over her face, trying to block out the nightmare that was playing out before her eyes. She felt a physical ache in her chest, as if the accusatory words were tiny arrows that had lodged in her heart. “Drew went inside to help Owen. He cut his foot. Why didn’t you talk to him first? Did you really think that he’d cheat on you? With
me
?”

The women who had clustered around to witness Lindsay’s debasement were now staring awkwardly at their fancy shoes and Lindsay’s scruffy ones. One by one, they drifted back into the bar. Anna’s mother was the last to go. As she took her leave, she glared icily at Lindsay. Anna and Lindsay were left alone in the lobby. Even though the reason for their fight had evaporated, neither of them seemed capable of erasing the feelings it had generated.

“I just don’t understand how you could think I would do that do you. You’re one of my best friends. You and Rob are like my family. You practically get a running commentary on my interior life, and you still don’t know me better than that?”

“Friends don’t always tell friends everything. It’s not like when you’re 13 and you gab to your friends about every setback with a boy and every embarrassing thing that happens to you. Grown ups have secrets. They lie,” Anna said.

“That’s not what friends do,” Lindsay said.

“Look, I never told you this, but I caught my ex with one of my so-called friends. I went out to lunch with her, and then that same afternoon, I found out she’d been sending him naughty emails. And I
still
took him back!”

“Oh, Anna. I’m so sorry. But that’s not what’s happening here.”

“Maybe you don’t understand because you didn’t have friends when you were younger. In junior high and high school, your girlfriends will turn on you like a pack of hyenas. That’s just how it is. You learn to look out.”

“But we’re not 13 now. And I’m not like that. You could’ve told me what happened with your other friend. I would’ve understood.”

Anna let out a mirthless laugh. “You don’t have any secrets. I’ve got an ex-husband and ex-boyfriends galore. You have Warren the Super Cop who loves his job and his mother and his sweet Lindsay. My job is all blood and chaos and adrenaline. Your job is being God’s number one goodie-goodie. My mom is…I don’t even know what, and your dad is known to every person in Central North Carolina as some kind of saint. Even when you do something wrong, it’s always because you’re trying to help someone.” Anna made an over-dramatic frowny face and whined, “‘Oh, I’m Lindsay, I feel bad because I returned a library book three days late.’”

Lindsay felt like she’d had acid thrown in her face. She’d tried to reach out to Anna, but Anna was too mired in the toxic quicksand of her emotions to take the help that was being offered. Lindsay’s eyes stung with held-back tears.
Was this really what people thought of her? Was this what one of her best friends thought of her?
She tried to hit upon a reply. Her mouth formed words, but she couldn’t find the breath to speak them. Finally, she said. “It’s not true that I’m always nice. If that was the case, I wouldn’t be able to tell you that you’re acting like a mean, insecure backstabber who can’t admit when she’s wrong.”

Anna let out an exasperated cry and stomped back to the bar, leaving Lindsay to turn in her room keys at the front desk and walk out, alone, into the night.

###

              Lindsay was awakened the next morning by an insistent buzzing. By the time she’d left the hotel, it was past 2 a.m. She had been too exhausted to try to find alternative accommodation, so she’d spent the night curled up with Kipper in the backseat of her Honda.

The buzzing began again. The whole car seemed to vibrate with it. She sat up and Kipper, too, perked up his ears. She rifled through her purse and patted down her pockets. Finally, she zeroed in on the source of the sound—her phone had slipped underneath the passenger’s seat.

“Hello,” she mumbled.

“Where are you? You didn’t pick up your phone. And you weren’t in your room when we got here last night. Are you okay? I was really worried. You’re supposed to meet your mother-in-law today. Remember?”

              “My what? Oh. Is that you, Rob?” Lindsay said, piecing this morning’s reality together.

              Rob paused. “Are you drunk?” he asked.

“Unfortunately not. I’m afraid plans have changed.” A thin pink line of morning sun had risen across the horizon. “I guess you probably haven’t talked to Anna yet.”

“Nobody’s up yet. I wouldn’t be up, either, expect that my mother is very, very anxious to meet her daughter-in-law. She doesn’t understand why you’re not here, and neither do I.”

Lindsay took stock of her appearance. She was still wearing the same royal blue Shantung sheath she’d worn to the rehearsal, but the dress was now a mass of wrinkles and dog hair. She leaned forward to glance in the rearview mirror—what she saw wasn’t heartening. Her hair was completely plastered to her head on one side and on the other, it stuck out in a mass of wild curls. Smeared mascara had created a ring of black around both eyes—the effect was a cross between an unsuccessful prize-fighter and an angry panda.

“Today’s not really great for me, Rob. I don’t think I can help you.”

“Did something else happen with your aunt? Did Sarabelle do something to you?” He paused and gasped sharply. “Don’t tell me you got back together with Warren.”

“Is that really the worst of those three possibilities?” Lindsay asked wryly.

“No, of course not. But it would mean that I’d have to return the ‘Congratulations on Breaking Up with Your Uptight Boyfriend’ plaque I had engraved for you.”

“Well, it’s none of those things. Last night I got demoted from maid of honor to persona non grata.”

“What? Are you okay? What happened?” Rob asked.

“It’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ll try to sum it up. Anna’s mother, who is a manipulative cow, falsely accused me of making out with Drew. Anna believed her and reamed me out in front of practically everyone. Then, even after I convinced her that she’d been wrong, she continued to insult me and basically called me a boring goody two shoes.”

“Whoa! I can’t believe I missed that!” Rob said. “Did you punch her?”

“And
I’m
supposedly the one who feeds on drama,” Lindsay said.

“That’s not it. Okay that is it, a little. But that sounds awful. I wish I’d been there to, you know, defend your honor.”

“If you had seen Anna last night, you would’ve run screaming from the room. You know that face she makes with the vending machine at the hospital eats her quarters? It was, like, ten times worse than that.”

“Wow, you’ve had perhaps the worst week in the history of weeks.” There was a long pause. “Do you want to go back to Mount Moriah? I’m sure I can come up with some way to explain it to my mom.”

Lindsay had rarely known Rob to be so unselfish. She must’ve really sounded pathetic. “I don’t think I’m allowed to leave yet because they still might want me for questioning. And I’ve got to start making funeral arrangements for Aunt Harding. My dad doesn’t think he can get out here until next weekend.”

Rob sighed. “What do you want to do?”

“First and foremost, I want to change my clothes. How about I meet you and your mom for breakfast in town somewhere? You’ll have to figure out something to tell her about why I’m not there and why I’m not going to the wedding anymore.”

“I’m sure I’ll come up with something. I’ve had an awful lot of practice.”