Free Just Murdered by Elaine Viets

tumors.
    “Give us a hand here,” Brendan called. Another groomsman, Jason, pushed forward to lift Kiki. The men looked like high-class undertakers in their formal black tuxes.
    Terrific, Helen thought. The crime scene was contaminated by the four chief suspects. Make that five. Rod the chauffeur was holding the cobweb dress.
    No, six. Desiree grabbed the dress out of his hands. “What are you doing with your filthy paws on my wedding dress?” she said.
    “I had to get it out of the way or someone would step on it.” Rod did not sound quite so deferential now that he was a millionaire.
    “Don’t touch anything of mine.” Desiree, now wrapped in an oversized white robe, looked shrunken and older than her mother.
    As the four men turned over the body, the hoop skirt flipped up, exposing Kiki’s bare bottom.
    “No gunshot or stab wounds on the backside,” Brendan said coldly.
    Jason seemed to be suppressing a smirk. Luke looked poleaxed by this new view of his mother-in-law. Good thing he didn’t see the golden dollar sign on the other side, Helen thought.
    “OK, let’s put her back the way we found her,” Brendan said.
    Fat chance, Helen thought. She surveyed the chaos in the room. The staff was standing against the walls, trying to make themselves invisible. The hairstylists held silent dryers. The makeup artists put down their brushes. Even Jeff looked lost. He had no plan for this wedding emergency.
    In the center of the room, the bride shed bitter tears into the magical cobweb dress she would never wear. “It’s ruined. It’s all ruined,” she cried, and wiped her eyes on the gossamer skirt.
    Whether Desiree was weeping over her wedding, her marriage, or her dress, Helen didn’t know. She certainly wasn’t crying for her mother.
    “She didn’t have the decency to die in her underwear,” Desiree said. “She mooned everyone.”
    Amy started giggling wildly. Bridesmaid Beth gave her a sharp elbow in the ribs, and she shut up.
    The bride shook with shame and fury. The groom patted her back with the same hand that had held her dead mother. His touch was tentative, as if he expected his bride to sprout leathery wings and scales. Luke had the devil’s own luck on his wedding day. His vicious mother-in-law was dead—and her fortune went to his new wife.
    The father of the bride barked into his cell phone, “I don’t care! Get his ass off the golf course and get him over here right now.” Brendan strutted back and forth, a short, energetic general calling in reinforcements.
    The blond bridesmaids cried and clung to one another. Their black dresses were no longer symbols of sophistication. They were mourning clothes.
    “I’ll never wear this dress again,” Beth said sadly, “and it’s a Vera Wang.”
    “I’ve never seen a real dead person before,” Amy said. “She looks gross.”
    No one went near Kiki. That made her death even lonelier. Helen thought she looked oddly pretty with her gray-green skin, blond hair, and dark rose dress. As long as you didn’t look too closely at the popped eyes speckled with red pinpoint petechiae.
    Poor Kiki. She seemed so small in death. Helen remembered what Millicent had said. “If she were a man, would you notice her outrageous behavior?” The heart of a Hollywood mogul had been trapped in that little body.
    All eight groomsmen crowded into the room. Helen felt as if the air had been sucked out of the place. She leaned against the wall next to a silent hairstylist, and hoped everyone would keep quiet until the police arrived. But the drama wasn’t over.
    Lisa, looking like Nemesis in her black bridesmaid dress, marched straight up to Jason. Her brown eyes were electric with malice. “Since you were the last one to see Kiki alive last night,” she said, “maybe you can tell the police who killed her.”
    Jason’s handsome face took on a feral look. “You’re crazy,” he said. “I left the restaurant with everyone else.”
    “And waited for her in