Mob Wedding Mayhem Read online

  “No! Mr. D’Argenzio is a very busy man and the absolute last thing he needs right now is to handle this. I’ll do it.” Todd took a deep breath, held it, then let it go in one long whoosh before following the officer around the small pond to where the ambulance and gurney waited. Stacy couldn’t think of any reason why she had to attend their introductions, so she stayed firmly put, keeping the scummy water safely between her and the deceased.

  Stacy watched from her vantage point as Todd stood beside the gurney and took another breath. The paramedic lifted the corner of the sheet and held it up, blocking her view, but it was the view of Todd that was the most perplexing. He looked ready to collapse in a faint for a moment, but then suddenly his expression seemed more confused than anything else. He turned his head this way and that, appraising the body as though he was trying to tell if his sandwich bread was moldy. Finally he shook his head, said a few words to the officer, and walked back to the golf cart where Stacy was waiting.

  “That was bizarre,” he said, sliding behind the wheel and turning the key to fire up the cart. “I don’t know who that was.”

  “Really? It was a guest?” Stacy asked as Todd drove back in the direction of the club house.

  “No, it couldn’t have been. I have a record of all our guests, and I even know most of them personally. They have to be accompanied by a member at all times, too, and I know all the members who’ve signed in guests in the last few days. No one was short his guest!”

  “So someone who snuck in to play golf?” Stacy suggested, although she couldn’t fathom why anyone would choose to wear those hideous plaid pants.

  “Not with our security guards, it wouldn’t be. Or let me put it this way… once word got out, it wouldn’t happen again, if you catch my meaning. No, there has to be some explanation we’re not thinking of.” Todd slowed the cart as they reached the club house, then let it roll to a stop altogether a good distance from the door. He turned to Stacy and lowered his voice. “Mrs. Prudell, I do hope we can count on your sense of discretion and decorum in this matter. It wouldn’t do to have any talk of this unfortunate situation out in the community.”

  “Oh Mr. Sanders, you don’t have to worry about me saying anything.” She hated to burst his bubble, especially since a hint of a smile had crossed his face. “It’s those guys you have to be careful of.”

  Todd looked where she pointed and his face fell again. A news van had already pulled up and a camera crew was unloading their equipment. Todd hesitated only for a second before reaching for the radio on his belt and ordering his security detail to come to the front to head the crew off. He then adjusted the channel and sent out a message to all staff members who could hear him that no one was to speak to a news outlet on pain of termination.

  Stacy wondered if he meant their jobs, or their lives.

  Chapter 6

  “Have you noticed that death has a way of following you?” Jeremiah remarked when Stacy got back to the office.

  “How can you possibly know already? I just walked in the door!” Stacy cried in defeat. She fell back onto the chaise in her office and threw a hand over her eyes.

  “Because I told him,” Rod said, turning around in Stacy’s desk chair and steepling his fingers under his chin. “By the way, the detective on this case wants to talk to you. I told her—”

  “Her?!” Stacy shrieked, sitting up again. “Not that horrible woman who handcuffed me and let her guys destroy my office looking for something that turned out to be a prank?”

  “No, not her. I promise. Her replacement, and trust me, you’re gonna wish it was the prank lady back again. This new detective gives even me the creeps. She’s always looking at you like she’s thinking of eight different ways to kill you using only objects within her reach.”

  Stacy looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack, but Rod started laughing. “I’m just kidding,” he finally managed to say. “But the look on your face was incredible. No, I’m on this case. I’m here to ask you a few questions, but since I understand this is your first experience with murder… oh wait, you’re second… I mean, wait… carry the one… how many dead people have you been involved with again?”

  “You’re not funny. You think you are, but you’re not. Now I’ll ask you to go, I have work to do,” she answered frostily, standing up and heading towards her desk. Rod stood up and blocked her path.

  “Okay, all kidding aside, I really am the detective assigned to this case and I really do have some questions. Like why aren’t you cooking dinner for Nathan anymore? He thought you’d at least cook for him.”

  “I am not answering questions about my marriage! Wait a minute, I take that back. I’m not answering your questions without my husband present. It’s an old Southern law, but it’s still on the books. I don’t have to say another word to you until my husband gets here.”

  “Oh, well. Since you’re turning all anti-feminist on us, I guess I’ll just pull up a chair right next to your desk and wait.” Rod reached for one of the conference table chairs across from where Jeremiah was still sitting, watching their argument unfold. With the chair nestled as close to the side of Stacy’s desk as possible, Rod lowered himself into it, plopped his elbows up on her desk, and put his chin in his hands, staring at her intently.

  “Nathan will be back later,” Stacy hinted. “Why don’t you just come back then? Mandy can even help you make an appointment for a time that is mutually agreeable for both of us.”

  “Ah, but Nathan won’t be back until well after three o’clock. He drove down to the farmer’s market in Alphia.”

  “How do you know that?” Stacy demanded. “Have you been following us?”

  “No. He told me at lunch that’s where he was headed,” Rod said with a nonchalant shrug. Stacy fumed.

  “You had lunch with my husband? What kind of detective are you? Are you the kind who digs up dirt on people with the express purpose of ruining their happiness, all because he has no happiness of his own?”

  “No happiness of my own? Are you kidding? I’ve been dating Tori for over two months! You seriously think I’ve been spending my time here just so I can annoy you? Wake up, sister. And I’ll have you know, I had lunch with Nathan because I hadn’t given you two your wedding present. He was nice enough to meet me.”

  Stacy’s fuming annoyance softened slightly. “You didn’t have to get us a present…”

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s nothing too big, just something from the evidence room auction. It’s a classic Corvette, we took it off a known drug dealer turned thug. You guys will want to get the blood out of the passenger’s seat before you drive it. Guy got his head blown off right in that seat. Made kind of a mess.”

  “Aw, thanks for the blood-stained car! I was totally gonna register for that, but they didn’t have any at Griffin’s!” Stacy rolled her eyes at Rod before throwing herself into her chair hard enough to make it spin away from the desk momentarily.

  “Don’t be cranky, and just answer my questions. Nothing too weird, just the usual. You should know them by heart by now.” He slid a piece of paper where he’d already written some of the questions down across the desk for her to read over. She sighed melodramatically, then answered them one by one while Rod took notes.

  “Is that it? Can I go now?” she asked pointedly, cocking her head towards the door and hinting to Rod that he needed to go.

  “Almost. Tell me what to bring to dinner tonight.”

  “Um, I don’t care what you bring since you’re eating it at someone else’s house. I’m sure they’ll enjoy whatever you come up with!” she answered brightly. Rod glared at her, but she matched his irritated expression perfectly.

  “Nathan invited us. My date and I will be over at seven. See you then!” he called over his shoulder. He left her office, and Stacy could hear the sound of uncharacteristically high-pitched giggling coming from the hallway. She could only assume from what sounded like panting that Tori had agreed to be his dinner companion. At least ther
e would be someone there to talk to while Rod and Nathan chest bumped and talked sports, or whatever it was those two were interested in when they got around each other.

  Stacy tried to put the events of the morning behind her and focus on her work, but images of the body floating face down in the pond still haunted her. Every time she tried to shake it off, the image was replaced with the body on the gurney, its blue hand protruding from beneath the sheet.

  “Boo!” someone said, causing Stacy to scream. She looked up to see Nathan’s surprised face before it melted into an apologetic expression. “Sorry, I didn’t know you didn’t hear me come in. Hey, are you okay? Stacy, you’re scaring me! What’s wrong?”

  Nathan came around behind her desk and gathered her in his arms, leaning over awkwardly to semi-cradle her as tears ran down her face. She suddenly found herself telling him about the body at the golf course and how she’d had to give a statement, first to the police and then to Rod.

  “Stacy, I don’t like this. You agreed to do a mob wedding, and the next thing you know there’s a dead guy floating in your lap. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Why not? I don’t get it, how do you think these are related? The police and the club manager didn’t even know who the man is.”

  “Look, I’m painfully aware that you have a way of attracting corpses, but I don’t think it’s unrelated this time. I’m not gonna go so far as to say ditch this wedding… yet… but I want you to know I’m officially being careful now.”

  “Oh, are you?” Stacy asked, challenging him with a fixed stare.

  “You can shoot daggers at me with your eyes all you want to, missy, it makes no difference to me,” Nathan shot back, accepting the challenge by staring down at her with his arms crossed.

  “Married less than six months, and you’re already ordering me around. I see how it is.” She tried to keep her tone light and playful, but secretly it was something that had worried her all along. She’d waited a long time to get married, too long, by some busybodies’ standards. Giving up her independence had been one of her many worries, and now it was coming to pass right in front of her.

  “I’m not ordering you around,” Nathan argued wearily with a sigh. “I’m begging you to be careful, to take extra special care of the most important thing in my world… you. And you seem determined not to do that so you can… what? Prove that you’re still an independent woman who doesn’t have to listen to a man? Because I don’t remember ever saying that you did.”

  “You’re right,” Stacy admitted sheepishly. “I know you’re trying to be protective. But we can’t afford to lose this account, especially not over some unrelated but bizarre incident.”

  “An incident? Walking up on a dead body is an incident? Geez, I’d hate to see what an actual catastrophe looks like.”

  Stacy stood up and walked towards her husband, stopping in front of him and sliding her arms around his waist before pulling him closer and leaning her head against his chest. It took him a minute for his resolve to break down, but she finally felt his arms go around her, too.

  “Are we actually mad about something? Because if we’re not, there’s no reason to be arguing,” she said without looking up. Nathan kissed the top of her head.

  “I’m mad that Larry’s BBQ stopped offering their chipotle sauce, does that count?”

  “No. The sign clearly stated that it was for a limited time only,” she answered with a light laugh.

  “Well, they shouldn’t get people addicted like that and then rip it away from them. They’re like the crack dealers of barbecue sauce and I, for one, will not stand for it. Someone’s getting a nasty letter, just as soon as I can get you to write one.”

  Stacy looked up at Nathan’s adoring face and met him halfway for the most tender kiss she could ever remember. He leaned back, and looked at her for a moment.

  “Please take care of yourself. You’re all I have in the world.”

  “I will. I promise,” she answered softly, nestling inside Nathan’s embrace.

  Chapter 7

  Stacy had no way of knowing she’d be lying to her husband just a few hours later. What should have been a simple matter of getting some signatures on the wedding planning contracts at Mr. D’Argenzio’s office turned into a scene straight out of a bad mobster movie, only Stacy was playing the part of the confused visitor who walks in on a murder in progress.

  “I told you to take care of it! That’s what you call taking care of it?” a deep voice thundered from behind the door. Stacy paused in the middle of knocking on the office door, her hand still held in front of her in a dainty fist. A sharp bang on the other side of the door caused her to jump. She dropped her fist and turned away, scampering down the dark hallway on her tip toes, irritated that the soles of her pumps sounded almost as loud as what had to have been a gunshot.

  She’d only made it halfway down the long hall when the office door opened. A man stepped into the hall and called out for Stacy to stop. Instead, she kept going, alternating between looking disinterested and panicked.

  “Hey! I said come back here! What did you want?” he boomed in his baritone voice. Stacy froze. She turned around slowly, somehow managing to force a smile on her face before she’d made it all the way around. She was confronted by a thickly muscled man in a navy blue pinstripe suit with a deep red tie and matching pocket square, an odd fashion choice for so early in the day. Most men in the South wouldn’t wear something like that except in the dead of winter, and even then not until late evening. It must be why he’s sweating like a race horse, Stacy thought before recovering enough to level her voice.

  “Well, I have the contracts for Mr. D’Argenzio to sign, but it sounded as though he might be busy,” she began, but her voice trailed off when she saw the look of pale, stricken horror on the burly man’s face.

  “Wait, did you say, the contracts? You mean, you brought them with you? Here?” he asked breathlessly, already taking a step towards Stacy after casting a quick glance over his shoulder to the office. She nodded, trying to swallow silently but failing miserably. “Damn, I wish you’d gotten here twenty minutes sooner. Come on, I’ll take you to the boss.”

  Stacy looked over her shoulder longingly, hoping to make it to the door, to the parking lot, and to the safety of her car. Instead, she found herself practically pulled along, following this strange man into the room where she’d been certain something horrible had just happened. She cringed when they reached the open door to the outer office, half expecting to find blood and pieces of human brain coating the walls.

  Instead, it looked a lot like her dentist’s waiting room, complete with matching low-backed furniture and a coffee table filled with old magazines. These titles happened to be about golf, which made sense considering this was a golf course, but then again, so did most of the magazines at her dentist’s office. She’d always had a sneaking suspicion that her dentist’s insistence on her using an expensive proprietary mouth rinse he prescribed had more to do with his love of golf than his diligence in protecting her tooth enamel.

  “Boss, this lady brought the contracts. Whaddya want me to do?” he said, politely dragging Stacy by the elbow until she was through the outer office and standing in front of the owner’s wide mahogany desk. The leather chair behind the desk spun slowly, and somewhere within the office Stacy could swear she heard the sound of violin music. She was feeling pretty light-headed and on the verge of fainting by the time the man made the full revolution and finally faced her dead on.

  Mr. D’Argenzio was formidable even while still seated behind his desk. Stacy couldn’t imagine what it must be like to look up into his jet black eyes and feel the scrutiny of his piercing gaze. Considering the way he filled the desk chair, she guessed he had to be at least six-and-a-half feet tall, and probably tipping the scales at almost three hundred pounds. He didn’t look the least bit overweight, it was just that there was so much of him.

  “You? You’re the one they sent with the contracts? What in the
name of Pompeii is going on around this place? I needed those contracts half an hour ago, no wonder I didn’t get ‘em! And now because they’re late, I gotta deal with a whole other situation…”

  His voice trailed off as Stacy stood frozen in place. Her immediate reaction at being chastised was to drop her gaze to the carpet for a split second. It was only a reaction; any second now she would remember that she was Anastacia East Prudell and no one spoke to her like that. But for just that moment, she was in seventh grade math class all over again, standing at the board like an idiot while the hateful teacher ridiculed her for not working the problem correctly.

  A light red shape next to her shoe caught her eye. Its color was strange, standing out the way it did against the multi-hued beige carpet. It was unmistakable…

  “Mr. D’Argenzio, I’m Anastacia Prudell. I’m sorry the contracts were delayed, but I have them now. I didn’t realize you were in such a hurry to get them, I apologize.”

  “You apologize? Did I hear that right?” he demanded, a sarcastic snarl causing the corner of his mouth to turn up. His eyes registered disbelief at what she’d just said, but Stacy merely watched him calmly. She’d weathered more than her fair share of bridezillas and their mothers over the course of her career, and one irate wedding daddy wasn’t going to be her undoing.

  “Yes, you did. But as I said, I have them now. Let’s get them signed so I can get out of your way. You seem to be very busy today,” Stacy said pointedly, looking around the room at the four or five men who practically lined the walls.

  “You mean to tell me the contracts aren’t signed?!” Mr. D’Argenzio roared, slamming his fists against his desktop so hard that a tiny golf bag that held pens and pencils toppled over. Again Stacy refused to flinch. Flinching or showing remorse when a member of the bride’s family got angry was how you ended up eating the cost for the difference between the chicken and the lobster, and she wasn’t having any of that.