Bride & Groom

normal things. We can eat whenever you want. No rush. I’ve fed all the dogs, and they’ve all been out.”
    “I’ll open a bottle of wine,” he said as he belatedly greeted the faithful India.
    A half hour later we were where I’d envisioned us, seated across from each other at the new picnic table eating linguine with fresh tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and mozzarella, the pasta accompanied by a green salad and French bread. The wholesomeness of the food felt defiantly at odds with the murders of people I’d known. India had settled herself under the table. In her own dignified way, she was affectionate, but she wasn’t cuddly. With some hesitation, I’d slipped my toes under her, and she was tolerating my need to draw on her warmth and strength. To avoid having the new floodlights transform the evening into an Alaskan summer, we’d turned off the lights in the side yard and were dining, as planned, by candlelight.
    “You want to talk?” Steve’s question was genuine. Still, I could hear Rita’s influence in it. She’d been a good friend to Steve throughout his divorce and during the early stages of our reunion. “You don’t have to,” he added.
    Mindful of talks I’d had with Rita, instead of pouring out everything on my mind the second he walked into the house, I’d given him a chance to make the transition from work to home. Now, we’d each had a glass of wine, and I did need to talk and to hear what Steve had to say. “When Elspeth was here on Friday,” I began, “she told me she’d had an affair with Mac.”
    “You told me. A one-night stand.”
    “It really couldn’t have been more than that. It was at some conference a long time ago. At that bookstore where Mac and I did our talks, he didn’t remember her at all. I was right next to him, and I could tell. I’m sure that Elspeth didn’t look even vaguely familiar to him.”
    “They kept the lights out. Or he was drunk, and they kept the lights out.” His face a bit stiff, he added, “You sure Mac’s never come on to you?”
    “Never. With me, he’s brotherly. Collegial.”
    “Any chance Elspeth was lying? Or imagining things?”
    “She imagined that a one-night stand was something more than that. And she imagined that Mac would remember her. And naturally, she was insulted that he obviously had no idea that he’d ever seen her before. She was furious. Anyway, in a sort of half-joking way, or what I assumed was a joking way, she said that Mac knew Victoria Trotter and maybe the other victims, too. Knew in the Biblical sense. And that maybe he’d murdered them all.”
    “You’re sure she wasn’t serious?”
    “I didn’t take her seriously. And Mac? I know Mac. We both do. Steve, you’ve read those profiles of serial killers. Mac doesn’t even begin to fit the picture. He’s anything but some isolated, frustrated daydreamer. He’s not depressed. He has a good opinion of himself, admittedly, but he’s not grandiose in the psychiatric sense. His books are successful. He’s successful. He has a very successful wife and two grown children. Even if he knew all the victims and slept with all of them, it’s impossible to see Mac as some sort of deranged human male insect who devours his sex partners. And years afterward?” I turned my hands palms up and gave a little laugh. “Mac as a homicidal sex fiend? The whole idea is a bad joke.” I paused. “But before you got home, I did check on the web for a minute, and this is freaking me out. Bonny Carr had a web site, and Mac is quoted on it. Some kind of endorsement of her methods. I forget exactly. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’d ever met Bonny. He’s not discriminating about what he endorses. Maybe she E-mailed him, he visited her web site, and he E-mailed back what’s there. Now that sounds like Mac.”
    Steve refilled our glasses. “Kevin said that Victoria Trotter had a lot of men in her life. Mac could’ve been one of them.”
    “Victoria? With Judith at home?”
    “It doesn’t have to work that way.” He didn’t mention his ex-wife, Anita, one of whose lovers had looked like a toad, or so Steve had once confided to Rita. “There was Elspeth. And what we know is that this is a guy who knew a lot of women who’ve died.”
    “Who’ve been murdered.”
    “At The Wordsmythe. At your launch party. Mac was talking to Claire, and... you remember Claire? She’s a veterinarian. Claire Langceil. Skinny blond.”
    “Actually, I ran into her in