Bride & Groom

carving board was still within his reach.
    “Indeed,” said Althea.
    “It’s impossible to follow what they’re saying,” Ceci said. “They make no effort to make any sense, crooked men, I ask you! As if Lieutenant Dennehy were crooked, when he’s perfectly upright, I’m sure, although how does he know about this latest horror when it happened in Brookline, which is, as I was going to say, alarmingly close to Newton, and when I got out of my car this afternoon, well, before I opened the door, I checked carefully all around even though Quest was with me, but in the back, which is where Bonny Carr’s dog was, in her car and helpless to come to her rescue, but perhaps a small dog, the paper didn’t say.”
    “Big. Bonny Carr had a big dog,” I said. “An Airedale mix, I guess. That’s what he looked like.”
    Ceci was elated. “You knew her?”
    “Not really. I went to a workshop of hers. But I didn’t really know her.” And didn’t want to.
    “And you knew that tarot woman, too.”
    Steve laughed. "I’m Holly’s alibi. She was with me.”
    “Ceci, you may relax,” Althea said. “Dr. Skipcliff was fifty-seven. Victoria Trotter was fifty-six. Bonny Carr was only forty-five. And you are—”
    “A dog owner!” Ceci hastened to exclaim. "A woman! A woman known to Holly. Who was returning home.”
    “You were returning home in daylight,” Althea pointed out. Both sisters followed the television news closely. Althea’s eyesight didn’t allow her to read, but her Sherlockian admirers, Hugh and Robert, read newspapers to her. “Holly, you didn’t know Laura Skipcliff, did you?”
    My mouth was full. I shook my head, swallowed, and said, “No, I didn’t. She seems to have been a nice woman.” If my Kimi had been next to the table with a clear shot at the prime rib, she wouldn’t have pounced any more swiftly than Ceci did. “And the others weren’t! You’re just too nice to say so.”
    “I barely knew Bonny Carr. And I didn’t know Victoria Trotter well, either; I interviewed her for a couple of articles. That’s all. We weren’t friends.”
    “If either of you uses the word nice again—” Althea began to threaten.
    “Althea,” Ceci said, “you retired from teaching quite a few years ago, and we are not writing essays to hand in to you, we are at the dinner table discussing a subject of common interest, and…” For once, Ceci paused.
    I pounced. “Speaking of a subject of interest and writing, we need to talk about the ceremony. Althea, what are your thoughts about your part? Is there something you particularly want to include?”
    "Whoever would have thought that Althea would be allowed to marry people,” said Ceci, as if to herself.
    “The Office of Solemnizations,” Steve replied. “I have the forms.”
    "What if this monster is still at large?” Ceci exclaimed. “He’s not invited,” Althea murmured.
    Steve said, “We’re getting married no matter what.” Have I mentioned that I am crazy about this man?
    “As the Jewish ladies in Newton say,” Ceci told me, “when you got him, you got gold. One of those awnings you see at Jewish weddings would be nice, what are they called? A hoopla? And I always like that part when they step on the wineglass, and everyone says mazel tov.”
    Simultaneously, Althea said, “Huppah,” while I said, “An arch with flowers would be lovely,” and Steve said, “Whatever Holly wants.”
    Before Ceci could return to her plans to unite two gentiles in a Jewish ceremony conducted by her gentile sister, and before she could return to her obsession with the serial killer, Althea began to question us about precisely what we wanted her to say.
    “The one that starts ‘Dearly beloved,’” Steve said.
    “No obeying,” I said.
    “Of course not,” Althea said. “Perhaps something from the Bible, with a few words of my own.”
    I was sitting close enough to Althea for her to see the expression on my face. Or maybe she heard me catch my breath. In any case, her laughter burbled out, and when she recovered from the exertion, she said, “The King James, my dear! Did you truly imagine that I intended to string together nuptial passages from Dr. Watson?”
    To the best of my recollection, Althea’s Canon contained a brief reference or two to Dr. Watson’s conjugal bliss and almost nothing else that could be construed as any sort of paean to marriage. “We trust you completely,” I said. “We hope you’ll say anything you want.