The Nitrogen Murder(95)

Elaine provided corsages for Dana and me.

“Just for the rehearsal?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Elaine said, nearly stabbing me with a weapon-length straight pin. “It’s only a little one. Tomorrow’s will be bigger.”

Of course. I figured this two-corsage protocol was in a bride book authored by a florist, but I knew such thoughts were anathema at a time like this.

The minister was a friend of Phil’s from Dorman Industries. A nice enough man, but I suspected he’d been ordained online.

On the second run-through, my corsage came undone. I unpinned it before it fell off completely and laid it on top of a small bush next to the gazebolike area at the bottom of the garden, where we stood for the pretend vows. We made one more run-through, this one with music from a boom box Elaine had brought.

Though I couldn’t name the piece, I knew I’d heard it at about three out of every four weddings I’d attended in my life. It was designed to be meditative and tear-jerking and seemed to be working already, even before the final take. Both Elaine and Dana were dabbing at the corners of their eyes.

I was holding out for a full-fledged cry tomorrow.



Ten minutes later, back at the top of the garden, ready to carpool to dinner at Berkeley’s world-famous Chez Panisse, I realized I’d left my corsage behind.

“Elaine is bound to notice,” I told Matt.

“I’ll get it,” he said.

I pointed, trying to aim my finger at a spot six levels down, to where three peach tea roses nestled among dozens of adult roses in full bloom. “I think I’d better go. You’ll never find it, and I know exactly where I put it.”

I made my way down the steep pathway, using the same aisle I’d used as a rehearsing maid of honor. I found the corsage and started up the steps.

It had turned dark suddenly, as it always seemed to do when the sun made its way down those last few degrees above the horizon. The garden’s visitors had left also, as if the sunset had signaled the park’s closing, though I was sure a posted sign indicated that it was open until ten o’clock at night. I saw shadows where I hadn’t seen them on the way down. They moved in strange ways.

I strained my neck to see the wedding party above, at street level, but it was a long way up, and there were many twists and turns and lattice overhangs between the garden levels and the opening at the street. The tennis players had left, and I felt an enormous distance between me and anyone else in the universe.

On the third level, a shadow materialized and a strong hand grasped my arm.

“I’m here to say good-bye.”

My throat went dry. I felt a shiver through my body.

I barely recognized Robin’s voice, hollow and menacing. With each word, she squeezed my arm more tightly. Her jacket was torn in several places; she looked and smelled like she hadn’t had a shower in days.

I thought I cried out, but I couldn’t be sure. I grabbed a branch and earned a few punctures from the thorns. My movie fantasy come true, but with the wrong leading actress.

Robin pulled me down, below the bushes. Even if my team missed me and looked down, they’d never see us. I tried to improve my odds—I screamed. But I’d never had a particularly loud voice, and I doubted anyone heard me.

Robin shoved me down next to her, still holding my left arm. I could hear her breathing, raspy and loud. It wasn’t the first time my retirement contracts had put me in the clutches of a killer.

This time seemed different.

Less frightening, as strange as that feeling was, even as Robin took a gun from the pocket of her windbreaker.

“My plan was to come tomorrow and ruin Phil’s wedding,” Robin said. She sounded drunk, but I smelled no alcohol on her breath. “Now I think this is even better, since you were the one who put all the pieces together.”

“Don’t do this, Robin,” I said. A weak command. “We can work things out. That’s your father’s gun, isn’t it?”

“I want a witness,” she said, her eyes glazed over. I knew she hadn’t heard a word I said. “My father had no witness when he did it, no one to share his burden.”

I knew what Robin meant by it—her father’s ignominious suicide. And I knew her plans for his gun.

I had one hand free. As it turned out, it was my right hand, the hand holding the corsage. And the long straight pin. I worked my fingers around and extricated the pin from the petals and leaves. I let the flowers fall to the ground and held on to the pin.

Robin raised the gun and trained it on her own head.

I closed my eyes as I always do when giving or receiving pain. I twisted my body and thrust the pin into Robin’s side, holding it close to the tip for leverage. The pin bent, too dull to penetrate the nylon jacket, but the movement rattled Robin enough for her to lose her grip on me, and on the gun.