Bride & Groom

by asking what was wrong. Unfortunately, Jennifer answered the question. There’d been another murder, she said. In Newton. This time, the victim was a veterinarian. Perhaps Steve had known her? Her name was Claire Langceil.
     

CHAPTER 36
     
    Not all that long ago, Newton Police Officer Jennifer Pasquarelli had almost lost her job over a highly publicized dispute she’d had with the presumed perpetrator of the heinous crime of violating the leash law. Thereafter, Jennifer had completed some sort of social skills training course, whether graded or ungraded I didn’t know, although I suspected that if the course was indeed graded, Jennifer had squeaked by with D minus. Jennifer clogged the cogs of social machinery as effectively as Kevin made them spin. But she and her law-enforcement partner apparently got along well. The call she’d received hadn’t been a summons to rush to the murder scene and solve the crime. Jennifer wasn’t even a detective. Her partner had just wanted to keep her informed, or so she said.
    If our behavior immediately following the announcement of Claire’s murder had been analyzed to determine aptitude for detective work, the person attaining the highest score wouldn’t have been Jennifer. Kevin himself would’ve scored lower than Steve, who heard the news and vanished into the house. When he came back a few minutes later, he drew me aside and said, “I tried to call Mac and Judith, but all I got was a message. I tried Mac’s cell phone. Same thing.”
    I shrugged. “They’re both out? Not answering? His cell phone is off? But it was a good idea.”
    “Not necessarily. Their house is right near Route 2 and 128. With no traffic, you could get back there from Newton in no time. Or from Cambridge. Brookline. Belmont. It’s maybe twenty minutes from Newton. Convenient location. If someone had answered, it wouldn’t necessarily mean anything.”
    “Still, it was worth a try. Dear God, how awful! And here we are with all these people and this mess to clean up. And four strawberry shortcakes in Rita’s refrigerator. Steve, this is going to sound so horrible that I wouldn’t say it to anyone except you, but I have no intention of ever marrying anyone else. This is it.”
    “That’s not so horrible, is it?”
    “This is my only wedding! I don’t want it ruined. By anything. I wanted this whole weekend to be for us. I know it’s selfish. I should be thinking of Daniel and Gus and Claire and the other women. But I don’t have any other life to marry you in! I don’t want this weekend wrecked. I don’t even know what to do right now.”
    “Gabrielle seems to have it in hand,” Steve said.
    While browsing recently in a Harvard Square bookstore, I’d noticed a book called How To Make People Like You in Sixty Seconds. Or maybe it was... Ninety Seconds. Anyway, the title had made me think, as usual, of Alaskan malamutes, but also of Gabrielle. I hadn’t bought the book; I assumed that I knew what it said. When a new visitor appeared, Rowdy made repeated trips to the toy basket and presented our guest with carefully selected fleece dinosaurs and chewmen. Kimi specialized in gazing intently at her subject’s face. You fascinate me, she seemed to say. Sammy’s strategy consisted of fulfilling his mission in life, which was to be infectiously happy and thus to spread his happiness to everyone he met; he carried a benign virus of joy to which no one was immune. I, of course, was sick with love for him. Like Rowdy and Kimi, Gabrielle made people feel special. Like Sammy, she passed along happiness. But the crucial reason that people immediately liked Gabrielle was the same reason they immediately liked the dogs: Gabrielle’s contagiously happy fascination with people wasn’t some pretense she’d learned from a book; it was utterly genuine.
    I should also mention that Gabrielle was a superb organizer. As Steve had noticed, she now had everyone busy depositing refuse in trash bags and carrying glasses and serving dishes to the kitchen.
    “When Gabrielle gives orders,” Steve said, “people feel flattered.”
    “Holly,” Gabrielle said, “we have more paper tablecloths somewhere. Could you find them? Pete is helping Rita with the shortcakes, and the cream will need to be whipped.”
    “Thank you for taking charge, Gabrielle. I love you. Is Buck being impossible?”
    With a confiding smile, she said, “He does do things, doesn’t he.”
    “He’s planning something