A Groom wirh a View

feeling, too. But why would I care? We’ll be leaving after the wedding and the whole family can stay on if they want. I think they were practicing their story to tell Jack.“
    “It appears they haven’t found what they’re looking for yet,“ Shelley said.
    “And they think they can really tear into the place when everyone else leaves,“ Jane agreed. “I wish them luck, I guess.”
    The bachelor party was breaking up. Jack and his friends were moving through the room to the front door and saying their good nights. Dwayne and his friends followed respectfully. Jane spotted one of the young men wiping his hand across his forehead in a “Whew! Thank God that’s over!“ gesture. Errol saw it, too, and laughed.
    As the crowd was about to surge out the front door, Officer Smith came in. In full uniform. A silence fell on the whole group.
    Smith smiled disarmingly and said, “Just checking on some loose ends, gentlemen.“ Mel emerged from the hallway to the small bedrooms and greeted Smith amiably. The two of them moved against the tide of departing guests, chatting casually. “Awfully late, isn’t it?“ Mel said.
    “Just thought I’d stop by on my way home,“ Smith said, as though it were perfectly natural for him to be on his way home well after midnight.
    But Jack Thatcher was furious. He glared at the two representatives of the law, then said to his coterie of friends, “Sightseers!“ with a sarcastic laugh.
    “I think it’s time for us to go to bed,“ Shelley said.
    “Absolutely,“ Jane said. She didn’t want to be around when Jack’s pals had left and the man had the leisure to let fly with his obvious outrage. “You don’t need us for anything, do you?“ she said to Mel in passing.
    “Nope,“ he said.
    Jane and Shelley fled to the relative safety of their adjoining rooms. “I wish there were locks on these doors,“ Shelley said, trying to shove a chair under the doorknob of her room. The chair was too short to be an effective wedge.
    “You don’t really think we’re in danger of being murdered in our beds, do you?“ Jane asked nervously.
    “No, we don’t know anything that’s a threat to anyone, but I’d feel better if we were locked in.“
    “How do you know we’re not a threat?“ Jane asked. “We don’t even know how Mrs. Crossthwait was a threat to somebody and we know a lot more about these people than she did.“
    “But we don’t really know that, Jane. She could have had a long-buried history with someone in the family. Keep in mind about Marguerite and the wedding dress. Mrs. Crossthwait’s story was true and Marguerite made much of not knowing her. She might have just forgotten because Mrs. Crossthwait was nothing but a minion, or she might have been in a full-fledged panic at running into her again after so long.”
    Shelley paused, thinking, then went on, “And for that matter, we aren’t certain that she was killed because of something she knew. Maybe she just annoyed someone seriously unstable to the breaking point. Or reminded somebody of someone they loathed.”
    Jane went to her room and put on her nightgown. She was nervous about the final day of the wedding, which was looming only hours away. And she was sick to death of speculating about Mrs. Crossthwait’s death. But it was like a hangnail on a grand and tragic scale. She couldn’t make herself stop wondering and worrying about it and trying to pick at it. When she’d combed out her hair and brushed her teeth, she went into Shelley’s room and perched on the end of the bed.
    “We’ve been involved in murders before,“ she told Shelley, rather unnecessarily. “And we’ve figured them out. There were always suspects with good motives. But we’ve yet to come up with any motive for why someone would kill Mrs. Crossthwait. It’s driving me slightly mad.”
    Shelley put down the paperback book she’d been pretending to read. “You’re right. We’ve come up with dozens of rather stunningly stupid possibilities with absolutely nothing to back them up. You know what’s troubling me the most?“
    “What?“
    “Whether there’s some connection between the death of the seamstress and the trashing of Dwayne’s room. I can’t convince myself there’s not a connection of some kind, but I simply cannot imagine what it could be. The first crime was so violent and final and the second was so trivial. It should have gone the other way, if you see what I mean.“
    “I think I do, but it was