Married to Murder - Sample
Married to Murder
Jennifer Oberth (author)
Name: Ella Westin, despite interference from everyone
Date of Incident: October 1, 1827
Location: Port Bass, Maine, New England
Supervisor: Agent Arthur Brown
Report filed: For Your Eyes Only
Incident: Murder
I tripped over Mrs. Anita Bonavant in my new shoes, imported from England and as expensive as a bejeweled Spanish saber. A woman is supposed to look presentable on her wedding day, though why fancy shoes from another country are paramount I’ll never understand. They make the dress so long you trip over the hem in those new never-to-be-seen shoes anyway.
How inconsiderate to die on my wedding day. She knew this meant more to me than anything, so she ends up murdered under my brand new shoes. She’s lucky I didn’t get blood on them or I’d find one of those voodoo priestesses from New Orleans and bring Bonavant back to life so I could stab her in the back with my own knife instead of the white-handled, ruby-encrusted dagger someone else used.
As I’ve been trained to do, I studied the room. I found a short cigar, an overturned bottle of French perfume and blue flowers dropping from the bun in her soaked hair. I picked up every petal for later use.
There was a large armoire in one corner, empty. No clothes, no shoes (expensive, imported or otherwise). I considered hiding Bonavant’s body inside until after my wedding, but Agent Brown tells me I can’t tamper with evidence. No, taking every last blue flower from the body doesn’t count. They are part of my wedding, not evidence in a crime.
Agent Brown also tells me how dry and boring my reports are, hence the intricate details and colorful impressions I’ll continue to add throughout. I’ll state evidence and interrogations, word for word, even though they all point to my groom as murderer.
Despite its being the morning of my wedding and Joseph Westin’s knife sticking out of the back of my matron of honor, I didn’t corrupt the evidence, though I feel I’d have been well within my rights. I even left one of Joe’s sweet-smelling cigars where I’d found it lying next to her body.
Why on earth the murderer had to smash my German chocolate wedding cake, with blue flowers affixed down the sides, over Anita’s corpse, I couldn’t guess. Exquisitely filled with vanilla and topped with yellow frosting, the pastry had been stuffed in Anita’s mouth in a gruesome display. I took those flowers, too, as they were also a part of my wedding and not the crime.
When Agent Brown found me baking instead of investigating Anita Bonavant’s murder, a string of expletives I shan’t write down flowed from his mouth, much as the French perfume had flowed over Anita’s hair.
“Ella, what are you doing?”
I stood in Anita’s messy kitchen, mixing flour, water and other ingredients necessary to make a dessert befitting my wedding. “Baking a cake.”
Agent Brown, my superior with the black mustache, large pumpkin head and ill-fitting blue suit with too-wide lapels, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “There’s a body through there.”
“Yes, I know.” I stirred with vigor.
“But…why…you’re in…what-”
I couldn’t stand another splatter, from my boss or the batter, so I pointed to a cake pan. He retrieved it without thinking. “It’s just my matron of honor. No one’ll notice she’s missing at the wedding.”
“You can’t get married. I’m assigning you to the case.”
“Since when?”
“Since I tripped over her body in the living room.”
“I’m on vacation, Agent Brown.”
“You were first to the scene.”
“It’s my wedding day.”
“You have to fill out a report.”
“I’m going on my honeymoon tonight.” I poured the batter into the pan and shoved it in the oven.
“Not if you don’t figure this out.”
I glared as Agent Brown studied the large kitchen; the new oven shipped from Chicago, the pots hanging from nails on the wall, a lot of counter space and much evidence of a messy baker having made a cake. It was a wealthy kitchen. I was the messy baker but no one needed to know that. I’m not the most adept at baking, although I do enjoy it. If I wasn’t a working woman, called to action by my government, I’d have been a baker. I often wish my cover was running a pie shop, but the world at large knew me as a secretary. Not that I had many connections outside the job, which could explain why I was marrying inside it. Solve a murder on my wedding day? That was going too far. “I’m getting married in three hours.”
“Plenty of time for the famous Westins.”
I wiped my hands on the apron I’d thrown over my wedding dress. “I’m not a Westin yet.”
“You may not be at all. I saw the knife. I saw the cake Joe was supposed to pick up an hour ago. The perfume, we can guess, was for the purpose of covering up the odor of this.” He held up the sweet-smelling cigar. Joe’s brand.
We heard an “oomph” in the living room. Seconds later, Joe stumbled into the kitchen.
Agent Brown folded his arms over his chest. “I told Agent Lanten to keep everyone out, including himself.”
“There’s a body out there,” Joe informed us, looking rather disheveled.
I couldn’t tell if his unkempt appearance was physical or more of a mental reaction. I saw no wrinkles in his gray trousers or white shirt, but his hair stuck up on its ends. Confusion and a little panic shone from his usually open face. I would attribute that more to me than the body, as he’s quite used to bodies but not so used to me despite our upcoming nuptials. I shrugged off the apron and retrieved my coat. “Boss, take that cake out in one hour, let it cool and frost it with that yellow frosting over there and by God you’d better not burn or drop it.” Grabbing Joe’s arm, I led him out of the house. I would attach the blue flowers myself at the church if I could find clean ones. Otherwise, no one but Anita knew I’d meant to have them on the cake, so no one would miss that particular decoration.
“What about Mrs. Bonavant?”
“We have three hours to prove you didn’t kill her, or by all that is holy, I will make myself a widow before I’m married.”
Joe held my arm like a gentleman but stopped me in my tracks. “Were you baking a cake with a body in the other room?” He was working himself into a frenzy. And I thought Agent Brown’s reaction was unrecordable.
I really should have stuffed her in the armoire.
End of Sample
