Bride & Groom

most expensive one in reach. Sammy, leave it.”
    In part to avoid catching Sammy’s eye, I stood up. “I’ll go call Kevin.”
    “To arrest Sammy?”
    I laughed. “Steve, you’re starting to sound like me! We’ll end up being one of those identical-twin couples. I’ll get taller. You’ll get shorter. My hair will turn darker. Yours will turn lighter. I'll suddenly discover that I know how to remove foreign objects from dogs’ intestines, and—”
    “Call Kevin.”
    To our shared relief, Kevin wasn’t home. I left messages for him here and there asking him to call me. In fact, instead of calling me, Kevin showed up at my door at nine o’clock the next morning, that is, the morning of Wednesday, September 25, four days before the wedding.
    The house was in chaos. I’d started the day by preparing the third-floor apartment for the guests who’d be staying there, my friend Twila Baker, with her malamute, North, and my father and Gabrielle, with Buck’s golden retriever, Mandy, and Gabrielle’s bichon, Molly. I put fresh sheets on the beds, set up crates for the dogs, and carried up a supply of towels. I also dealt with calls from two people who’d lost the directions to Ceci’s house and needed me to explain how to get there. While I was on the phone with the second caller, Sammy somehow managed to get into my own first-floor guest room, where he amused himself by opening four packages that had been delivered the previous day. When I came upon him, he’d raided all four shipping cartons. Sodden strips of cardboard were everywhere, and the floor was thick with wrapping paper and Styrofoam peanuts. What’s more, he’d apparently eaten the gift receipt for a fondue set that we’d intended to return. Sammy lay happily in the midst of the wreckage with a miraculously unbroken bottle of special French brandy grasped between his beautiful big white paws. The brandy, together with a set of glasses, was a present from one of Steve’s vet school friends. The glasses and the bottle had been on a table. Evidently intending to swig the stuff down, Sammy hadn’t touched the glasses, but he’d used his paws or his mouth to steal the bottle and at the moment, with astonishing delicacy, was applying his teeth to the task of removing the cork. Considering the destruction he’d caused cold sober, I hated to imagine what he’d have done drunk.
    When Kevin Dennehy rapped on the back door, I staggered to it with one hand grasping the collar of the unrepentant Sammy and the other hand wrapped around the neck of the rescued brandy bottle. Sammy was delighted with himself, with me, and with the sight of Kevin, who eyed the smiling dog, the bottle, and me, and said, “The thought of marriage is driving you to drink, huh?”
    Sammy wagged his tail faster than ever. His eyes glittered.
    One slow word at a time, I said, “I just found Sammy uncorking this bottle. He somehow moved it from a table to the floor. Without breaking it.”
    “Hey, Sammy, gotta watch out for drinking alone. Or did you know I was coming over? Well, I’ll tell you, kid, it’s early in the day for me. But I could use a cup of coffee.”
    “Of course. Kevin, come in. I’m sorry. He made an incredible mess. It was my fault. I should’ve kept an eye on him. Or crated him. At least he gave me the bottle with no argument. He isn’t possessive with his treasures. But come in. I’ll make coffee.”
    Kevin and I had radically different taste in coffee. When I was writing against a deadline, I self-medicated with Café Bustelo. Otherwise, I drank French, Italian, or Vienna roast. Kevin’s cop loyalty to all food and drink purveyed by Dunkin’ Donuts was so marked that I kept a bag of Dunkin’ Donuts ground coffee in the freezer for him. As I made his coffee for him and mine for me, he fooled around with Sammy, but when we settled at the table, I managed to get his attention and said, “Kevin, thank you for coming over. I really need to talk to you. This is serious.”
    “Hey, marriage is.”
    “This isn’t about marriage. It’s about murder.”
    “Same difference.”
    “Kevin, please! I really am serious. It’s possible that what I’m going to tell you means nothing. That’s for you to judge. But I need you to quit fooling around and listen.” He did.
    “You remember Mac McCloud. You met him at The Wordsmythe at my launch party. Which was also his. He was signing his new book.”
    Kevin nodded.
    “He’s a vet. He mostly does