Death Comes to Dogwood Manor. Sandra Bretting
be it from me to remind her that most wedding veils only ran between three and six feet long, which meant her cathedral-length veil was already grand by any definition. Then again, I’d already used honey instead of vinegar with Herbert Solomon, which had seemed to work, so maybe it’d work with her, too.
“Well, that’s true,” I said. “But yours is just as beautiful as hers. You have to remember, Princess Diana had a very different wedding venue.” The princess got married in St. Paul’s Cathedral, for heaven’s sake. That venue could handle a twenty-five-foot veil.
“Are you saying my wedding isn’t going to be as good as hers?” Stormie’s lashes went wild at the very thought.
“No, no. Of course not,” I lied. “But the aisle at Princess Diana’s cathedral was extra big and it could handle both her veil and train. I’m not sure the chapel at Dogwood Manor has enough space for a twenty-five-foot veil.”
“Well, I don’t care. Rex said I could have anything I want. Anything. And I want a veil just like hers.” Now Stormie sounded like a three-year-old who wanted ice cream for dinner and couldn’t have it.
“Let me look at your veil again.” I pulled out my most soothing voice. “Would you like to try it on anyway, since you’re here?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I want to try it on when it’s fixed.” With a flounce, Stormie hopped off the bar stool and practically skipped away. “Call me when it’s ready,” she called over her shoulder as she pranced through the studio. “I’ll expect to hear from you in…what? Two, maybe three days?”
I gulped. Realistically, that kind of change could take weeks to pull off. “That’s not possible.” My voice came out much too soft for its own good. “There’s the beading to think about, not to mention the lace trim—”
“Whatever.” By now she’d reached the exit, where she did an about-face. “Do whatever it takes to make my veil longer. I’ll make it worth your while. Rex doesn’t even check my bills anymore.”
The minute she stepped outside, I wearily folded my arms on the counter and plopped my head onto the makeshift pillow. Two, maybe three days? That was barely enough time to order more fabric, let alone bead the extra yardage. I could never lengthen her veil on such short notice.
Or could I? Slowly, I straightened. Stormie never said I had to attach the beads and lace by hand. Given a little fabric glue, I could add the embellishments onto the extra fabric in a matter of hours, not days.
Not only that, but I happened to have a whole roll of Carrickmacross lace, the same type used for Princess Diana’s veil, sitting in my workroom. I’d planned to use it for another bride, but we had six months to create that girl’s veil, which was more than enough time to get another shipment.
I rose from the bar stool and stepped behind the counter, where I’d stashed a sketch pad and charcoal pencil. After opening the pad, I began to draw on a fresh page.
A bit of ruching in the back and the audience will never know. The folds would pillow to the ground and hide the seam.
Inspired now, my hand flew across the page. That’s it. A bit of ruching here at the waist, a nip and tuck at the feet…
The pencil faltered. Only one problem. I’d seen some old footage of Princess Diana’s wedding, and the poor girl had had to walk forever to reach the altar. The aisle in her church ran at least four hundred feet, while the one at Dogwood Manor probably topped out at twenty.
A twenty-five-foot veil would never fit. Frowning, I dropped the pencil. Maybe I could fudge on the yardage and give Stormie a little less than twenty-five feet. But how much less? There was only one way to find out.
I grabbed my purse and made my way to the exit, where I flipped the Open sign to Closed. It was time to see the chapel for myself.
Thank goodness my next appointment wasn’t due for an hour. That would give me plenty of time to drive to Dogwood Manor, measure the chapel’s aisle, and then return with the answer in hand.
By the time I drove down the highway and pulled up to the mansion, Mr. Solomon’s car still sat under a clump of kudzu. I quickly parked my Volkswagen and walked up to the gate. Once inside the property, I passed the rosebush with its noisy cicada and skirted under the plastic tarp. A symphony of clanks, whirs, and bangs echoed through the walls and made the light fixtures tremble.
Mr. Solomon would never hear me above the noise. Since I couldn’t yell for him, I’d have to hunt him down to get his permission to measure the chapel. Heaven forbid he find me there by accident and wonder why I snuck onto the property—without a hard hat, no less—for the second time in one morning.
Maybe I should check the library first, since that was where I’d found him last time. So I entered the east hall and made my way across the tarp. I had a clear shot to the double-wide doors at the end of it.
One closed door after another passed in a blur. I did my best to ignore the other rooms, although my fingers itched to turn a doorknob or two. There was no telling what secrets lay on the other side of those closed doors.
I hurried before temptation could strike, and then I even worked up a respectable smile to help me sweet-talk Mr. Solomon into letting me measure the chapel. Once I entered the library, though, my grin faltered. No one stood under the ladder this time, and nothing greeted me but a squat cardboard box from Olde Time Books of New Orleans.
Drats. I quickly retraced my steps and reentered the hall. Mr. Solomon wasn’t on this side of the building. Maybe he’d wandered to the other end. That’s it. No doubt he wanted to check on Erika Daniels’s work over there, or, more likely, he wanted to criticize her work over there.
I set off again, but this time I noticed something odd after only a few feet. Every other door in front of me, about eleven doors in all, had been closed, except for the first door on my right. That one stood open an inch or two, and weak lamplight spilled onto the drop cloth. Tiny motes of dust swirled prettily through the yellow light before landing on the muslin.
Since I “cain’t-never-could,” as we said here in the South, resist the lure of an open door, I paused. Although the room probably wasn’t an office, given the insufficient light, there was no telling what else it could be. Perhaps it was a storage closet, with cleaning supplies and whatnot, or maybe an electrical room with breaker boxes for the property. Either of those could’ve lured Mr. Solomon away from the library. My conscience assuaged, I softly pushed the door open.
“Hello?” I carefully entered the room, convinced I might find him there.
Unlike the plaster walls in the foyer and library, this room was covered in wallpaper. Bright green leaves twirled up curlicued vines and ended just shy of some thick crown molding. Even after so many years, the leaves’ green color was vibrant.
Above the climbing vines, an antique gasolier hung from the ceiling. The frosted globes cast a pale halo on everything under the light fixture.
I waited for my eyes to adjust to the half light. Then I noticed a boxy object covered in an old bedsheet, which sat against the far wall. A dresser, maybe? I stepped forward and waited for the back half of the room to come into focus.
Next to the mysterious object was something left uncovered: a beautiful cherrywood bed, the posts carved in ornate swirls. Under its canopy lay a lumpy mattress covered by an old quilt. The quilt was rumpled and whorled, which meant I’d definitely stumbled across someone’s bedroom.
My curiosity piqued, I cautiously approached the bed. A folded newspaper lay on top of the quilt, which I lifted to the light. It was the front page of the Bleu Bayou Impartial Reporter, with today’s date printed in the upper-righthand corner.
How very strange. I softly put the newspaper down again. Judging by the knots in the bedding, someone had spent the previous night in this room. Their tossing and turning had even jostled a pretty glass finial that hung above the carved headboard.
The finial, which tilted sideways, was swirled with browns and golds,