LOVE, HOPES, & MARRIAGE TROPES Read online

  The Romaine Wilder Mystery Series

  by Abby Vandiver

  SECRETS, LIES, & CRAWFISH PIES (#1)

  LOVE, HOPES, & MARRIAGE TROPES (#2)

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  Copyright

  LOVE, HOPES, & MARRIAGE TROPES

  A Romaine Wilder Mystery

  Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

  First Edition | December 2018

  Henery Press, LLC

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2018 by Abby L. Vandiver

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-410-2

  Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-411-9

  Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-412-6

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-413-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Kevin H. I would always choose you. L.A.A.Y.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I always want to thank God first, my keeper and my friend. My mother who keeps Him company, as do my sisters. Thank you for all you’ve given me.

  And a thank you to my publisher, Henery Press.

  I want to also thank and give a shout out to my buddies at the South Euclid Lyndhurst Public Library. Bernard Francimore who is always full of ideas, and never too shy to share them with me. You inspire me. And Laurie Kincer, who epitomizes, and most times surpasses, the term librarian—knowledgeable and helpful, she can always put her finger on the right book or information just at the right time. Thank you for supporting me in my endeavors of becoming a better writer.

  And of course, Kathryn. Couldn’t do it without you, thank you sistah.

  Chapter One

  There was going to be a wedding at the funeral home.

  I stood in a sea of rubrum lilies, mums, and baby’s breath. Bubblegum pink taffeta bridesmaids’ dresses with sweetheart necklines exposed more cleavage than any blushing bride should want her groom to witness, and short front hemlines uncovered perfectly tanned thighs.

  And like everything in Texas the wedding was going to be big. A happy occasion, most everyone I’d seen that morning had been all smiles, especially my auntie. It would be her first time officiating a couple’s nuptials. But the love in the air was suffocating me.

  I wanted no part of it.

  Unfortunately, the backyard of the Ball Funeral Home & Crematorium, the wedding venue, doubled as our family home—a renovated southern plantation—and I just couldn’t seem to get around all the festivities. It was a beautiful setting if you were able to block out the dead bodies inside.

  Trying to fix a bite to eat and brew a cup of coffee in my brand new Keurig meant I kept stumbling over wedding vendors, the photographer and the fighting flower girl and ring bearer.

  I was definitely in the need of a caffeine fix right about now, and had purposely purchased the kind of brew master with pods so Auntie Zanne couldn’t try to fix any of her “teas” in with the coffee grounds.

  And before I could get a cup to my lips, I’d been pulled right into the thicket of things by one of the bridesmaids. J.R., our Jack Russell terrier, watched at my feet without so much as a whimper as she wrapped her arm around mine and gave a yank. Dragging me with her, at the bride’s request so she cooed, into one of the rooms off the kitchen hallway where the wedding party was readying for the ceremony. So far, though, I wasn’t sure she’d noticed I’d arrived.

  “Most people would kill to marry Bumper Hackett,” the red-headed bridesmaid squealed as I made myself flush with the wall, hoping to make a quick escape. “Ain’t that so, Tonya?”

  “I know I would,” Bridesmaid Tonya, who had grabbed me, admitted.

  “Jorianne Alvarez,” the first bridesmaid said. “You are so lucky!”

  “Thank you, Marilee, but rest assured, I’d be the one killing somebody,” the bride said, no hint of jest in her Texan twang. “Blood on my hands,” she looked up toward the ceiling, “I swear to God, if anybody tried to take Bumper from me.” She stood in front of the Cheval mirror and slid pink gloss across her lips. She smacked them to even out the color.

  “That lil’ ole Bumper bump you got there insured nobody else was gonna get ’em,” Bridesmaid Marilee quipped. She nodded her head toward the emerging bulge under the soft tulle skirt of Jorianne’s crisp white sheer-shouldered, silk and Chantilly lace wedding gown.

  “You got that right,” the bride said, she tossed the blonde ringlets from her face and held up a hand to be high-fived. “But that ain’t nothing compared to the fire my momma set under him.”

  That sent her bridesmaids into a fit of giggles.

  I shook my head. It was no wonder I’d witnessed the groom having panic attacks from the time he’d arrived. Inhaler in hand, short of breath, he was flush and feverish looking. A thin layer of sweat glistening across his forehead in the early morning sun and a constant cough, he’d almost run a rut into the lawn as he circled the backyard.

  The make-shift dressing room was cluttered with duffle bags, curling irons, makeup, and clothes that the girls had changed out of strewn around the room. The light and airy scents of the flowers mixed with perfume filled the room and evoked jollity and a girlishness energy.

  “Sugarplum,” my Auntie Zanne said as she poked her head into the room. “We’re gonna start soon, you getting the girls together?”

  Added to her many other social excursions, Suzanne Arelia Sophie Babet Derbinay, christened as such by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, known by Babet to most, but Auntie Zanne to me was officiating and hosting.

  I held up my hand. “Not my job. I was grabbing something to eat when one of them pulled me in,” I said. Auntie slipped into the room and shut the door behind her.

  “Oh, we almost forgot we sent Tonya after her,” Marilee, the redheaded bridesmaid, chortled. She looked to my Auntie Zanne. “We wanted her to keep an eye on Bumper, Miss Babet. He’s as nervous as a fly in a glue pot.”

  “It’s his asthma,” the bride said. She walked over to the window which faced the backyard where the wedding was going to take place, pulling back the sheer curtains she peered out. “It acts up when he gets nervous. Just look at him, poor baby.” She shook her head. “He’s been sucking on that inhaler for the last couple of days.”

  Marilee and Tonya moved to the window to take a gander.

  “Maybe he should see a doctor,” I said.

  “Ain’t you a doctor?” Marilee turned to me and said, a whole lot of accent and too much bite in her words. “Doctor Romaine Wilder, right?” She squinted an eye at me. “Or are you not a real doctor. Just one of them with letters behind their names?”

  I decided not to even answer that comment.

  “My momma ain’t gonna let him outta her sight,” Jorianne said, a smile beaming across her face, her bright blue eyes sparkling. “And th
at includes letting him go to the doctor’s. She said he can go after we tie the knot.”

  “Unless he drops dead at the altar,” the third bridesmaid said. She’d hadn’t said a word until now. Standing in a corner brushing her hair and applying makeup, the short, thin bridesmaid had a quiet softness to her. Probably considered cute, she seemed mousy next to the stunningly beautiful bride.

  The smiles on the other three girls’ faces bottomed out.

  “Piper Alvarez!” the bride squeaked. “That’s my baby’s daddy you’re talking about. He’s got to be around a long time for us.”

  “Then you had better learn to take care of him,” Piper said. “He’s not invincible, you know.” Piper fingered her thin blonde hair.

  “He’s going to be taking care of her,” Marilee said.

  “You know he’s going to the NFL,” Tonya said. “As soon as he graduates from USC, and then Jorianne and her baby will have everything they could possibly want.”

  “I’m just saying,” Piper said and shrugged. She spoke without looking at anyone, but didn’t back down. Her petite, upturned nose and her brow wrinkled at the conversation. She ran her tongue on her dry, colorless lips. “Marriage is a partnership, you know.”

  Jorianne looked around the room then let a perturbed eye land on Piper. She walked over to her and plastered a fake smile on her face. “We just gotta get through today, lil’ sis,” Jorianne said. “I want my wedding day to be happy for everyone. Especially family. Maybe just today you can try not to tip over the outhouse. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

  “Sure,” Piper said and gave Jorianne the same bogus smile. “I can do that.”

  “Here,” Jorianne said, handing her the tube of lip-gloss. “Put a little of this on. Give yourself some color.” She turned around and walked back over by the window. I watched Piper lay the gloss on a nearby table without using it.

  “And that’s why I asked Dr. Wilder to come in,” the bride continued, rubbing her hand over her stomach, she nodded my way. “She is a real doctor, Marilee. Miss Babet told me. And I was thinking that maybe she could do something to help Bumper.” She looked at me. “Can you?”

  “Sure she can, Jorianne,” Auntie Zanne spoke for me. She wore her white hair tapered in the back and high on top. And playing her part to the hilt, she wore a clergy collar, black skirt, and low-heel black pumps. “She’ll give him a once over.” Then she grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. “And while she does that you girls finish getting ready. It’s nearly time to get started.” Auntie clicked her nail on her watch crystal.

  “Right!” Jorianne squealed and jumped up and down, placing a hand underneath her belly. “Because I’m getting married!”

  That brought laughter back into the room and gave us an exit. Auntie pulled me into the hallway and shut the door behind us.

  “That boy’s symptoms are probably due to him being at the long end of the proverbial shotgun,” I said.

  “Bonnie Alvarez doesn’t have a shotgun, she carries a snub-nose, Smith & Wesson revolver, and I had her check it at the gate when she arrived, just like everybody else.” Auntie Zanne took off down the hall back into the kitchen. “I won’t abide by any shenanigans during my first time officiating,” she said over a shoulder.

  “This wedding isn’t about you, Auntie,” I said catching up with her in the kitchen.

  “It’s at my funeral home. My house. It’s about me.”

  “How did they choose this place to have the ceremony anyway?” I asked as I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

  “I gave them a deal,” she said matter-of-factly. “Discount on the arrangements for their great uncle who died last month if they had it here.”

  “Auntie,” I said and chuckled. “That’s despicable.”

  “That’s business, darlin’.” My Auntie Zanne had a special relationship with her dead clients—she talked to them and she believed they talked back to her. And she let everyone know about it, not worried in the least how crazy it sounded. “Plus,” she continued, “Jorianne was happy to do it, it was one of my brews that sealed the deal with her and her little old high school sweetheart.”

  A look of semi-shock washed over my face. “She came to you for a love potion?”

  “Why do you say it like that? A lot of people do.”

  “You shouldn’t put such nonsense in young peoples’ heads. You and your magic, hocus pocus.”

  “Pshaw!” She waved a hand at me. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Auntie,” I said, speaking to her as if she were a child. “It might have had to do with her being pregnant. You ever thought about that?”

  “Lots of people get pregnant,” she said. “How many of them get married?” She raised her eyebrows. “This ain’t 1958, kiddo.” She pushed up next to me and rubbed my back. “You should pick out a guy for me to give a cup to.” She gave a firm nod. “You might be the next one standing at the altar in front of me.”

  “That will never happened.” I rolled my eyes.

  “What? You’ll never get married?” She covered her heart with her hand.

  “You marrying me,” I said. “I’ll get a real preacher for that.” I patted her on her cheek. “And, I’m steering away from this whole thing. I’m on my way to the new ME’s office. I’ve got a delivery I can’t miss.”

  “You’re not staying for the wedding?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I was hoping you could help me coordinate,” she said, giving me a pout. “I just finished speaking with a family up front, and I need you to keep an eye on the business while I was marrying the happy couple.”

  “You’re speaking to grieving families about funeral arrangements at the same time you’re hosting a wedding?” I asked, disbelief evident in my words.

  “Well ...” A sheepish look on her face. “I hadn’t scheduled any appointments, but did you see how many people are coming up that driveway to go out back to the wedding? Hundreds,” she said and took a peek out of the kitchen window. “I left some of my brochures for our burial plans out. People can only hope to get married. Death, my dear, is a sure bet. I have to sell our place of business whenever I can.”

  “‘You left the brochures out? As in “out” at the wedding?”

  “No silly,” she said. “At the end of the drive, when the guests first come through. Very tastefully presented.”

  I bucked my eyes. “Oh yeah. That is better,” I said hoping she’d catch the sarcasm.

  “I know, genius right?” She smiled, telling me my disapproval went right over her head. “Now when the guests enter the yard they’ll see what we have to offer.”

  “I have to go,” I said, no need having this conversation with her. She saw no wrong in her actions. “So, I won’t be here. Why don’t you get your receptionist Floneva to speak to any would-be clients of yours?”

  She shook her head. “Last time I saw her she was chasing the caterer trying to get samples. That woman eats like a horse.”

  “Babet!” Miller Alvarez, the father of the bride stepped through the back door and took off his tan-colored Stetson. “Bonnie says you’re burning daylight and she’s all over me to get this dang thing started.”

  “Wedding’s not supposed to start until eleven thirty,” Auntie Zanne said, looking down at her wristwatch. “And that’s not for another fifteen minutes.”

  “What does it matter?” he said and swiped his fingers on either side of his dark brown handlebar moustache.

  “It matters because you’re supposed to get married with the hands going toward the hour,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to mess things up for those two before they can even get started.”

  Mr. Alvarez looked down at auntie from his six-foot-four, lanky frame and shook his head. “That boy is about to faint out there. You seen him? He might not last another fifteen minutes.”

 
“He’ll be alright,” Auntie Zanne said. “Romaine’s gonna have a look at him.”

  “Look. Can’t you just talk slow?” he said and ran his hand down the side of his corduroy pants. I knew he had to be hot. No wonder he wanted to get started. “Then by 11:31 you’ll be pronouncing them. You’ll be happy. Bonnie’ll be happy. That’ll work won’t it?”

  “Oh heavens,” Auntie said.

  But before she could finish telling him her thoughts, he’d given me a once over and shook his head. “And I don’t think my Bonnie Belle is gonna let anybody near that boy. Nobody but you and the bride until this thing is done.”

  Auntie flapped her arms on her sides, exasperated and looked from me up to the bride’s daddy. “Okay,” she said with a huff. “Let’s do this.” She pushed on Mr. Alvarez’s arm. “You. Out. Romaine. You get the girls moving then standby to give the groom some doctoring once he’s hitched.”

  There was always so much going on in this house. I knew I should have gotten up and left before daylight even hit.

  “Girls,” I said swinging the door open, reluctantly following my Auntie’s orders. “The wedding is getting started.” I pointed toward the window. “Time to head on out.”

  “Arrghh!” Jorianne said. She fanned her hands over her face. “I’ve got bees buzzing all over me,” she smiled, “They’re making me hot and nervous.”

  “It’s okay,” Marilee said and moved close to her friend. She’d filled her red hair with baby’s breath and her eyes with a pound of mascara. “You’re the first of us getting married. It’s making us all nervous. It’s just so exciting. I think I’ma cry.” Her voice went shaky.

  “Don’t cry!” Jorianne said. “Then I’ll start crying.”

  “Me too,” Tonya chimed in and went over and made a circle with her friends. “And we’ll mess up our make-up.”