5

Penelope tramped off and I headed across the lobby. It was crowded with guests perched on green brocade couches drinking tea in lovely china cups and eating little pastries as sunlight streamed in through the clerestory windows. I stepped out onto the porch; nearly every seat was taken. Waiters bustled about serving coffee and the best Bloody Marys on earth . . . so I’d been told. At the far end, which was mostly empty, I spotted a human triangle.

“Miss Summers,” I said, as I got closer. I bent down to talk to her face and not her hindquarters. “I think you have a dress that belongs to—”

“Not now, you’re ruining my chi. Go away.”

“I need the wedding dress that you have that you got by mistake, and I’ve got your yellow rhinestone dress here in this box that I got by mistake, and—”

Idle’s face jerked around to face me. She wobbled and the triangle toppled over, trapping me under it, both of us on the floor. “You got my dress? This day just keeps getting better and better.”

I tapped the box wedged under my arm. “Right here.”

Idle Summers was probably midforties and had enough lifts and tucks to look ten years younger to an audience. She had big boobs and curly blonde hair cut with hedge trimmers. That she could do downward dog wasn’t a surprise. That she could overcome gravity and right her voluptuousness from the upside-down position was nothing short of a miracle.

Idle scooted to one side and I took the other. She sat on the porch floor Indian style and tore into the box, then held up the yellow dress. “Isn’t it fantastic? Perfect for my ‘Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone’ number. I had no idea where to buy some fancy outfits, and then I talked to this nice lady at a fudge shop in town and she put me on to Brides and Bliss, where she bought a lovely wedding dress. Maybe that’s how the orders got mixed up.” Idle looked a little closer at the dress. “It’s got a spot here on the bottom.”

“It tangled with a lilac bush.”

“Oh, I just love lilacs, don’t you? I swear they smell like heaven. My granny had them in her garden in Ohio: pink, purple, white, all kinds. I plan on getting to as many of those lilac tours as I can; they have an amazing schedule of events. I can just have the dress spot-cleaned, so it’s not a problem.” Idle smiled, or came as close to it as Botox and injected whatever would allow. “The box you’re after is in my room. I haven’t even opened it. Yesterday was such a stressful day and everything was going wrong, but then my problem just sort of . . . well, it just died away and today is so much better. Isn’t that the best news ever?”

I followed Idle into the lobby and she stopped at the grand piano. She tucked her yoga mat under her arm, tossed her curls, squared her shoulders and belted out that song about the sun coming out tomorrow. In seconds she had the whole lobby, kids to grandparents, joining in. Penelope was right in that Idle Summers was a terrific performer and sure knew how to work a crowd.

“That was fantastic.” Idle and I took the staircase to the second floor and headed to one of the expensive rooms facing the front of the hotel and the lake.

“I just love to sing,” she gushed. “Always have. You know, I was up for a Tony a few years back . . . when things were really getting good for me and then suddenly things got . . . complicated.” She fished around in her lush cleavage, which was straining under the electric-pink workout top, and plucked out the key card. Any male with a heartbeat would kill to be that key card. She jabbed it into the slot on the door and pushed it open.

“Home sweet home. They let me stay here as part of my singing gig. Isn’t it amazing?”

And it was amazing, with yellow floral wallpaper, coordinating bedspread and curtains, a hooked area rug and a little alcove for reading. I could only imagine what this room went for a night.

“Look at this adorable antique writing desk.” Idle nodded across the room. “I just love it. I’m going to try to buy it and take it back to L.A. with me when I go. It’ll be a little memento of things gone right.”

“You’re going back to L.A. soon?”

A smile split her face. “I intended to stay here all summer and just hang low, but things have changed . . . for the better, the much better, who would have thought. I wasn’t sure I’d ever perform again, and now . . . I’m going to be singing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ tonight and lots of nights to come.” She handed me the white Brides and Bliss box. “Here you go.”

I sat the box on the antique desk and whipped off the top to see a blue dress with sequined flowers. But what grabbed my attention most wasn’t the fact that Idle Summers did not have Irma’s wedding dress and who knew where it was, but that Idle did have a yellow flyer on the desk. It was the schedule for the lilac tours. The only person she could have gotten that schedule from was Fiona.

Okay, what was going on? What was the connection between Fiona and Idle? They had obviously met up for some reason last night. They knew each other in L.A., and now the Peepster was dead here on Mackinac Island of all places. Where in the heck was Fiona, and what were she and Idle Summers up to?

*   *   *

“Well, hot diggity dog. You got the dress,” Rudy said to me as I came into Rudy’s Rides with the white box tucked under my arm. Rudy was perched on a stool at the workbench and had on his Mark Twain uniform: a wrinkled white shirt, gray vest hanging open and bow tie skewed to one side. His hair looked as if he’d stuck his finger in a socket, and his blue eyes were sparkling and kind as always.

Rudy was Twain on this island of God, mother and apple pie that relied on tourism to stay afloat, at least financially. The island regulars of about five hundred assumed multiple roles in parades, pageants and exhibits. Rudy always dressed the Twain part. He said it made it easy to figure out what to put on every day and it gave him license to swill whiskey, smoke cigars and spout such things as Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.

Irma was Martha Washington in celebrated events, and she had the character down pat. I was the new Betsy Ross since old Betsy retired to Lauderdale and bequeathed me the costume, the flag and the sewing basket. I wasn’t great on the sewing angle, but the basket made a great place to stash KitKats to toss to the kids along the parade route.

I went over to the workbench and plopped the Brides and Bliss box between a bike seat waiting to get attached and Bambino and Cleveland, who were named after original Twain cats.

“Whoa,” Rudy said as I slipped off the top of the box. He put his hands over his face, covering his eyes. “Isn’t there something about seeing the wedding dress before the wedding being bad luck?”

“True enough, if this were Irma’s wedding dress.”

Rudy parted his fingers, looking out at me. “I don’t much like the sound of if. Usually my little fudge morsel is calm and serene and the picture of rational behavior and tranquillity and beloved by one and all. Then this wedding dress business started up and she’s been . . .”

“Distracted?”

“Completely off her nut.” Rudy was a mechanic in his other life; he’d decided he’d had enough of looking under hoods at carburetors and fuel pumps and retired to Mackinac, where there were no cars and lots of bikes and euchre tournaments. Rudy kicked some major euchre butt down at the Mustang Lounge, called the Stang. The trophies on the shelf over the workbench were proof of the kicking-butt part.

“You know,” Rudy said. He held up the blue sequined dress and tilted his head, a smile tipping his mustache. “I like this dress. I like the sparkle. Always been a sucker for sequins. Not exactly a traditional wedding dress, I’ll give you that, but like Twain says, Life’s short, break the rules.”

I sat down on the second stool beside Rudy’s where we spent many hours together working on bikes, Rudy fixing them and me painting. “I don’t know if Irma would agree, but getting rid of the sequins and bringing back your bride’s dress of her dreams is my problem, not yours.”

“Dear girl.” Rudy put his arm around me. “When Irma sees this dress, pots will be thrown, cans kicked, colorful words will fill the air around us and customers will dive for cover. I’m the one who lives with the disconcerted bride. Trust me, it’s my problem.”

“If it’s any help, I called Brides and Bliss to see what was going on. Seems a clerk had a little too much bliss, came in drunk as a skunk and screwed up the orders. A bunch of brides are on the warpath and the clerk is now living in Peru under an assumed name. Your old recliner is still in the back room if you need a hideout till this gets fixed, and since we’re on the subject of hiding, have you seen Fiona?”

Rudy picked up a wrench and added the new seat to the Sesame Street bike that I’d painted with Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, Big Bird and the gang. “You don’t really think Fiona had anything to do with this Peep guy being dead?”

“Do you?”

I pulled the purple sequined hat from my jacket and dropped it next to the white box. “I found this in that Peep guy’s room. This means Fiona was there, and my guess is she was looking for his cell phone. There’s something on that phone she wants kept quiet. Do you have any idea what happened while she was out in L.A.?”

Rudy picked up a socket wrench. “None of us knows, and she never talks about it. Her daddy went to see her a few times when she was on the coast and always came back in a bad mood. Maybe giving her the Crier was Walt’s way of getting her out of that place. She refused at first, and then suddenly she gave in. All I know is that Walt is mighty protective of her and she’s the same, always wanting to please him. That’s half the reason she went to L.A. in the first place, to be a big-time reporter and make her daddy proud. I think Walt feels responsible for her being out there.”

“OMG, it is you!” came an earsplitting squeal from the doorway. It was the lady from last night, flanked by four others, all wearing yellow T-shirts. “You were the one standing over the body last night.” She held out her hand as she came my way. “I’m Gabi and we’re the Corpse Crusaders.” She pointed to her shirt, stenciled in blue. “It’s so much fun to meet one of the actors. Love that they just worked you all right into the town as if you belonged here for real.”

“Yeah, it’s freaking amazing,” I added.

“So,” asked one of the men, whose blond hair was cut short, “how did you know the dead man?” As if on cue they all pulled out matching yellow notebooks and pens, poised for action.

Rudy gave me a the spaceship has landed and the aliens have disembarked look as I said, “I’m not exactly an actor, but—”

“Were you having an affair with that Peep guy?” an elderly man asked. “Did he come to the island to see you? Are you going to do in his mistress next and then his wife?”

The blond guy let out a long-suffering sigh. “If you are going to knock off someone else, please, for the love of all that’s holy, let it be that Zo girl. If I hear one more like come out of her mouth, I’ll do her in myself.”

“For the record,” I rushed in, “I didn’t kill anyone.”

“But you were standing over the body, so that makes you a suspect.” Gabi scribbled in her notebook. “And what about that girl in the purple hat who was in the bushes? We saw her hiding there, and look, you’ve got her hat on the workbench. Is she the killer? Who is she and why was she there? Are you trying to frame her for the murder? That’s a great plot twist you got going on. I love it!”

“No framing,” I said as the Crusaders scribbled madly. “I don’t know why Fiona was there in the bushes or in the dead guy’s room.”

“Fiona?” Gabi squealed, proving once again that I totally sucked when under pressure. “Now we’ve got a name. This is fantastic. And she was in that Peep guy’s room!” They all scribbled again.

Rudy did the keep your mouth shut gesture of slicing his hand across his throat, and he was so right. “You know,” I offered, “the guy who has the skinny on all this is that police officer you saw last night.”

“He’s so handsome.” Gabi batted her lashes, sighed and looked a little faint as the blond guy added, “We tried talking to him and he’s really crabby. He threatened to throw us in jail if we harassed him.”

“See, that’s all just part of the game.” I flashed my best reassuring smile. “He’s supposed to be that way, and the jail part was added for color. What you need to do is go see him again and be persistent, just keep going back. He knows what’s going on, and he had Zo and that wife, Madonna, down at the station, questioning them. Now he knows even more than before. But whatever you do, don’t say anything about seeing the girl in the purple hat. Keep that to yourself and find out what he knows first. You all were really clever to have noticed the purple hat, and you don’t want that important clue to get around to the other groups.”

“You’re right.” Gabi nodded, and the rest joined in. “We have to keep our information quiet if we intend to win the free weekend at the Grand Hotel. The hotel is giving the prize to the whole team that solves the case; isn’t that fantastic? Thanks for your help, and we’ll be sure and tell the police officer you sent us over so he cooperates this time around.”

Before I could tell her Oh, please don’t do that, Gabi and her followers trotted out the door. Rudy leaned against the workbench, his mustache curved in an even bigger smile than before. “Nate Sutter will make you the next victim after sending these people over to him; you know that, don’t you?”

“I was desperate to get rid of them, and they will keep Nate busy for a while till I can find out where in the world Fiona is.” I did a little innocent shrug. “And I sort of already sent another group his way. If Sutter’s going to make me a victim, I might as well really deserve it.”

Rudy laughed. It was one of those big laughs that filled the room, but it sent little tremors down my spine. Nate Sutter was all cop and I was one big pain in his butt.

“You couldn’t be content with just Irma wanting to string you up by your toenails. Now you’ve got Nate on your back?” Rudy said. “You really think that shamrock around your neck is enough to keep you safe after all this?”

“Not a snowball’s chance in hell, but Fiona’s my friend. I can’t sit back and do nothing.”

Rudy sobered. “Yeah, she’s my friend too, and this is serious.” Rudy checked his watch and handed me the socket. “Can you finish up? My latest batch of Mojito Madness fudge is ready and I need to get it sliced up and in the display case for the afternoon rush of fudgies.” He pointed to a screw and nut under the seat. “Just tighten this. Remember, righty tighty, lefty loosey. We want the tighty part, not the loosey. Can’t have the seat fall off when the kids are riding. Bad for business.”

Rudy gave Cleveland and Bambino some of the treats he kept in his pocket. They purred and cuddled up to him like sweet little darling kitties from some YouTube video.

I rented out the Star Wars bike for a week, the Grand Hotel bike and all three of the Downton Abbeys. I started in on my newest paint job, the doggie bike. My plan was to get a little cart that hitched onto the back—a pooch caboose—where the dog could ride along. Earlier this spring I tried a cat carrier and took Cleveland and Bambino for a test run. Bad idea took on a whole new meaning.

I got out the tube of raw sienna for a golden retriever for the puppy bike and ivory black for the black lab, and spotted a woman putting papers in the Town Crier newspaper stand across the street in front of Doud’s Market. Donna said Fiona’s dad did the deliveries this week, and her mom was here on the island too. My guess was this was Mom, and maybe she knew where Fiona was. With it being ten minutes till twelve, Fiona needed to get to the police station before Sutter imploded.

“Hi,” I said, coming up to the newspaper stand. “I’m a friend of Fiona’s and I’m wondering where she is. I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

The lady was tall and thin like Fiona, her graying hair pulled back in a loose bun with a pencil jabbed through it. My guess was that the pencil part came from running the Crier for twenty-five years.

“She lost some tote bag that she really likes,” the woman said while stacking the papers. “I don’t know what’s so special about a tote bag, but it’s got her in a state.”

The bag! If Fiona left it somewhere, anyone could have taken the olive oil bottle, smacked the Peep over the head and framed Fiona for the deed. “I’m Evie Bloomfield; I operate the bike shop across the street. Fiona and I are friends. In fact, I gave her that tote. It has I the Town Crier on it and—”

The woman stopped stacking papers and stared at me, the thin lines at the corners of her mouth pulling tight, her eyes chilly. “You’re the one who ran into the dead guy on the path. You need to mind your own business, missy. You’ve caused enough trouble.”

“Trust me, getting involved in the Peep Show wasn’t a planned event.”

“Leave Fiona alone. Her father would be heartsick if he knew all . . .” Mamma shook her finger at me. “Look, the guy was slime and he deserved what he got.” Her eyes narrowed. “I have everything under control now, so let it be. No one hurts my family, you understand me, no one. We don’t need your help. We’ll fix this.” The woman tramped off and called over her shoulder, “That’s what parents do, they take care of their kids no matter what.”

Well, dang. Rudy said Walt was really protective of Fiona, and it carried right over to Mamma Bear. Whatever Peep had on Fiona, the parents knew what it was, or at the very least they had their suspicions.

I started back across the street to the bike shop and spotted Irma coming out the front door of the Good Stuff. Sutter on horseback trotted down Main with his pissed-cop face firmly in place. Both of them headed straight for me, and was that Fiona peeking out the window at Rudy’s Rides? How’d I get so popular? It was at times like this that living on an island had definite disadvantages. There was no escape!