I CALLED MICHAEL FIRST THING IN THE MORNING TO KICK OFF THE costuming side of things.
“Michael,” I said. “Are you sitting down?”
“I can be. What’s wrong?”
“We’ve created a monster. Eileen has decided to redo the entire wedding in a Renaissance theme.”
“Oh,” he said, after a pause. “That’s going to take some doing, isn’t it?”
“Do you think there is any possibility that your seamstresses can cut down one of the extra dresses to make a flowergirl’s dress and make seven doublets or whatever you call them—six adult and one child—to coordinate with the dresses? By July Thirtieth?”
“Let me check with Mrs. Tranh.”
“Great. I’ll see what I can do about getting the ushers in for measuring as soon as possible.”
“Good idea.”
“If Barry’s still loitering with intent, I’ll send him in tomorrow. If it should happen to take an unconscionably long time to measure him, no one around here will mind.”
“If it’ll make you happy, I’ll keep him around the shop long enough to pick up conversational Vietnamese,” Michael offered. “As for the rest, I assume you had them measured somewhere for tuxedos or whatever else they were originally going to be wearing.”
“Ages ago.”
“Maybe those measurements would be enough for us to get started. Normally I stay clear of Mrs. Tranh’s area of expertise, but as an old theater hand I can testify that they never have as much trouble making the costume fit the understudy in a Shakespearean production, what with all the gathers and lacings.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “But we haven’t yet finished notifying them all of the change of plans yet. There isn’t really any point in sending you measurements for an usher who categorically refuses to prance around in tights and a codpiece.”
“Good point. We’ll stand by. I hate to add a note of gloom, but what if you can’t find enough ushers willing to prance around in tights?”
“Steven knows a lot of history buffs who like to dress up in chain mail on weekends and thwack each other with swords. He’s sure he can find enough volunteers.”
“Oh, well, if there’s going to be swordplay involved, you can count me in if all else fails,” Michael said with a chuckle.
I spent most of the rest of the day in futile attempts to track down Steven’s footloose ushers. And the priest, Eileen’s cousin, who reacted to the news that Eileen wanted him in costume with suspicious enthusiasm. He offered to mail me a book with pictures of period clerical garb. Another would-be thespian. But he was the one bright spot in an otherwise ghastly afternoon. By dinnertime I was in an utterly rotten mood, incapable of uttering a civil word. Fortunately I wasn’t required to; Dad had come to dinner and monopolized the conversation with a complete rundown of his theories on Mrs. Grover’s death. As long as I kept an eye on him so I could dodge flying food whenever he gesticulated too energetically with his fork, I could wallow in my lugubrious mood to my heart’s content. I wallowed.
“Anyway, I’m going up to Richmond next week to see the chief medical examiner,” Dad said finally, as he picked up his coffee and headed out to the porch. Sighs of relief from those family and friends present whose appetites were depressed even by euphemistic discussions of forensic evidence. “I’ll see that we get some straight answers or I’ll raise a ruckus they’ll never forget.”
“Oh, dear,” Mother murmured.
Dad’s voice floated back from the porch.
“Yes, sirree, I’m going to go over the evidence and insist that they come right out and declare this a probable homicide, so the sheriff will take the investigation seriously.”
“I hope your father won’t really cause a scene,” Mother said. “That would be so mortifying.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “You know perfectly well that half an hour after Dad storms in there, he and the ME will be down at the nearest bar having a few too many beers and repeating all their old med school stories.”
“They went to med school together?” Jake asked in surprise.
“No,” I said. “Same med school, several decades apart.”
“But med school stories don’t change much,” Pam added. “Especially the pranks. Like singing ninety-nine bottles of formaldehyde on a wall, ninety-nine—”.
“Pam,” Mother chided.
“Or putting a stray cadaver in—”
“Meg!” Mother and Rob said together. Pam and I collapsed in giggles. Jake shuddered and looked, not for the first time, as if he were having serious second thoughts about the upcoming wedding. At least I hoped so.
Out on the porch, I could hear Dad expounding his plans for a trip to the medical examiner to someone. I peeked through the curtains, saw that Dad’s audience was a rather weary-looking Barry, and decided that I would go to bed early with a mystery book.