A Groom wirh a View

probably two different people with entirely different motives.“
    “I know it looks like that. But I have this strong gut feeling that they are related somehow,“ Shelley said. “I just can’t formulate any reason why they should be.”
    Jane was quiet for a long moment. “The only thing the victims had in common, that we know of, is the wedding itself. Dwayne’s role in it is obviously important, as the groom. Mrs. Crossthwait’s was relatively minor. She was just making the dresses and they got finished even though she died. If there’s a connection there, the crimes should have been the opposite way around.“
    “Right. If the point was to get rid of Dwayne and stop the wedding, he would have been the murder victim and the dresses might have been damaged or torn up as a little extra warning. Jane, it just doesn’t make any kind of sense.“
    “It made sense to someone,“ Jane said. “Or to a couple of someones. Shelley, all I want is to get this wedding over with and go home. I’m considering making a sacred vow to never even attend another wedding the rest of my life.”
    Shelley grinned. “Be careful of those sacred vows. You’ve got three kids to marry off.“ Jane put her head in her hands and groaned.
    She was really trying desperately to get to sleep. And the harder she tried, the more wide awake she became. Two o’clock, Jane thought. I have to get up in four and a half hours. Then she worried that she would fall asleep so soundly she’d oversleep. She imagined the people coming to set up the tables, chairs, and linens and, without her guidance, getting everything all wrong. And what if Mr. Willis died in the night? Or Larkspur decided to suddenly move to Brazil instead of doing the flowers? Or the bridesmaids came down with malaria? Or Jack Thatcher decided the wedding was off? Finally, she fell into a light doze, dreaming of Larkspur in the jungle, giving medications to Kitty with a long, pointy flower. Kitty was lying on a sort of bier constructed of all her many pieces of luggage and swathed in yards of pink silk.
    This dream was interrupted by footsteps in the hall. A man’s footsteps, she thought. Should she get up and look? No. It was none of her business. She didn’t care if some idiot chose to waste a good night’s sleep. Then she heard Shelley stirring and the squeak of a floorboard.
    Jane hopped out of bed. “Who went by?“ she whispered into the darkness.
    “I don’t know.”
    There was a thin shaft of moonlight coming in the tiny window. Shelley was standing behind her door to the hall and holding her kerosene lantern over her head, ready to bash the skull of anyone who entered the room.
    “Do you hear that?“ Jane whispered. “A moaning sound.“
    “It’s just the wind. This is a replay of last night,“ Shelley hissed.
    “Look out the window. There’s not a breath of wind.“
    “What should we do?“ Shelley asked. “Nothing?“ Jane suggested.
    “Somebody’s moaning. Maybe they’re hurt. Let’s wake Mel up and make him check it out,“ Shelley said. “Where did you put him?“
    “Two doors down. No, that’s a bathroom door that’s closed off. I think he’s three doors down.”
    Shelley lit the kerosene lamp, very slowly and quietly opened the door, and stuck the lamp out into the hallway, in hopes of driving out anyone who might be lurking. She waited a moment, then peeked out. “Nobody in the hall,“ she said.
    Jane clung to the back of Shelley’s robe and they minced down the hall, the kerosene lamp casting eerie, jumpy shadows. Jane tapped lightly at Mel’s door. There was no response. She tapped again, a little harder. Still no reaction. She took the lamp from Shelley and opened the door.
    “There’s nobody here,“ she said, peering inside the tiny room.
    “You’re sure?“
    “Not unless he’s curled up under the bed or hiding in the wardrobe.”
    “Check to make sure,“ Shelley said.
    “Shelley! That’s dumb!”
    They heard the moaning again and clung to each other. Jane cocked her head, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from, but before she could determine anything, the door from the hallway to the main room creaked open. They were at the far end of the hall and could barely discern an amorphous gray shape, crouching in the doorway.
    Shelley clutched Jane’s arm so hard that Jane was sure she’d have permanent dents in her flesh.
    “What the hell is that?“ Shelley’s whisper was so high-pitched that Jane