Bride & Groom

roads. Buck and I were still arguing when Twila’s car and her immense dog-box trailer were in the street and she was ready to leave. Buck was in the passenger seat.
    “No, you will not have time to groom them when you get back,” I insisted, “and I want them clean for the wedding. Twila is skipping the rehearsal, and she’s going to groom North then, but you need to be at the rehearsal! Rowdy and Kimi are going to camp with you. They’ll get plenty of time in harness there. It will not hurt them to miss today’s run.”
    Twila ended the spat by smiling at me from the driver’s seat, giving a conspiratorial wave, and driving off.
    As I was standing on the sidewalk loudly thanking Twila and heaven, Kevin Dennehy’s back door opened. He was on his way out, but stopped for a minute to give me a few pieces of information about Claire’s murder. To my shame, I realized that I’d been so preoccupied with my own plans and with my impossible father that I’d almost forgotten about Claire.
    “Sodium pentobarbital,” Kevin said. “They rushed it through.” He meant the autopsy, I assumed. “You know what that is.”
    “Of course.” Sodium pentobarbital is the drug that veterinarians use for euthanasia. The brand names for it are a bit grotesque: Euthasol and, worse, Beauthanasia. “Was that the cause of death?”
    “No. Same as the others. Head trauma. Blunt instrument.”
    “That talk we had. I know you must’ve passed along what I told you. Has anyone followed up on it?”
    He rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.
    “The world would be a safer place if you ran it,” I said.
    “I gotta go.”
    “Claire Langceil was a friend of Mac McCloud’s. She and her husband and son were at Mac and Judith’s when we had dinner there last Saturday night. Mac and Judith’s son and daughter were there, too. Ian and Olivia. And Olivia’s husband, John Berkowitz. Someone needs—”
    He interrupted me by pounding his right fist into his left hand.
    “You’re a Cambridge cop,” I said. “I know.”
    “Hey, you got beautiful weather for your wedding.”
    We did, too. But Kevin’s remark and the warm sunshine reminded me of my promise to Ceci to check the forecast and make a decision about tents. I scurried inside to my office, dislodged Tracker the cat from my mouse pad, and visited three weather sites, all of which predicted that Sunday and Monday would be clear and mild. Finding itself on the mouse, my right hand automatically performed the familiar act of checking for E-mail. As usual, I had dozens of new messages from my dog lists. Scanning for personal E-mail, I saw that I had a message from Mac McCloud. The subject read: Urgent.
     
     
Holly,
I need a great and unpleasant favor that I cannot ask of my family. Please meet me at my house as soon as possible.
 
Best,
Mac
     
     
    The message had been sent only ten minutes earlier. The time was now nine forty-five. It struck me as more than odd that Mac had E-mailed instead of calling, but the phone had been busy off and on all morning, and he knew that I read my E-mail all the time. Still, I tried to call him, but got no answer. On the off chance that Kevin hadn’t actually left, I checked his driveway, but his car was gone. I made no effort to track him down, mainly because I somehow had the sense that Mac’s urgent message had to do with dogs rather than with murder. I found Steve in the yard with Sammy. After quoting Mac’s E-mail and saying that I’d tried to call him, I said, “Steve, Mac knows that we’re getting married tomorrow. I have a bad feeling that this is about Uli. I need to go there. I need to go there right now.”
     

CHAPTER 38
     
    Steve refused to let me go alone. I argued that when we exchanged wedding vows, I wasn’t going to promise to obey him and that I had no intention of accepting orders from him now, either. He countered by saying that if he were setting out for some destination that I considered risky, I’d refuse to let him go alone. I reminded him that all the murders had taken place in the evening near the victims’ houses or, in Laura Skipcliffs case, at her hotel. He said, “So what?”
    I called Ceci, told her to cancel the tents, and managed to end the conversation. Then Steve and I left. We took separate cars. I had no idea how long the urgent favor would take. Steve and Pete were meeting at one o’clock to pick up the champagne and the rest of the wine, hard liquor, and mixers. I, of course, was