Free For Better or Worsted by Betty Hechtman Page A

do any kind of event,” I said. Unfortunately, she asked what kind of parties we’d done, and I had to tell her that Lyla’s party was actually the first one we were doing.
    “Oh,” she said, sounding dubious. I sensed her backing away, and in an effort to keep the conversation going, I told her I’d been at the wedding, too. I asked if she was on the bride’s or groom’s side of the guest list.
    “Actually, both. My husband does business with the Kingsleys’ company, and I know Jaimee Fields from our women’s club.” She confided that she’d been questioned by the police and asked to give a DNA sample. She wanted to know if I’d been asked for one.
    “I came in after the event, so I guess they didn’t need one from me,” I said. What I didn’t tell her was that I’d been so close to so many crime scenes by now, I was pretty sure they kept my prints and DNA on file. Isa seemed uncomfortable with giving the sample.
    “What if the cops make some kind of mistake?” she said in a concerned voice.
    I assured her they were very careful about who they blamed and, besides, it would take forever to get any results for DNA stuff. By then they would probably have a suspect in custody.
    “You didn’t happen to see anything strange?” I asked. It had become second nature to me now to ask those kinds of questions.
    She gave me an odd look. “You must be the one I heard about. Tarzana’s answer to Nancy Drew. What’s this, the Case of the Wronged Wedding?”
    I gave her an uncomfortable smile and said I’d been involved with some investigations, but that I never gave them names.
    “I’ll tell you what I told the cops. I was there for a wedding. Everybody was standing around having drinks and appetizers. I wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen, so I wasn’t looking for anything weird. It just seemed like a regular wedding reception until the screaming started.”
    I thought she was going to leave it at that, but she leaned in close. “I’m not a detective, amateur or otherwise, but I think there was something going on between the bride and groom. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he was holding her arm so tight that when he let go, it left a mark where his hand had been.”

CHAPTER 8
    T HURSDAY WAS WAITING OUTSIDE THE BOOKSTORE when I finished for the day. She was more dressed up than I was used to seeing her. It seemed like she was going for a business look with the black jeans and rust-colored cotton jacket. She wore makeup down to lipstick, and her short brown hair looked styled. “Thank you for doing this,” she said as we walked to the parking lot and her car. “I need to handle this myself.” She glanced at me. “But maybe with some moral support.”
    She’d come back to the bookstore after lunch with her father, and asked for my help. Part of the reason for their lunch together was to bring Thursday her lime green Volkswagen and to discuss her future. “I’m all for moving ahead and making a new start, but I can’t leave these loose ends hanging. I just want to talk to Jonah’s father and clear the air.”
    I asked her again if she was sure she didn’t want to talk to her parents about it or have them accompany her, but she was insistent she wanted to do it this way.
    “You’re an impartial bystander. My father would want to handle the whole thing, and my mother—she’s still so upset that Jackson Kingsley insisted the police detain her. You get the picture?”
    I could see her point. Though I wasn’t totally impartial, either. I was curious to see what I could find out. She drove along Wells Drive past the turnoff for my house. I was glad she knew the way because as she turned from one twisty street to another, I lost track of where we were.
    Finally she pulled into a steep driveway and cut the engine. I followed her up to a house that sat on a finger of land above Corbin Canyon.
    The Kingsleys were expecting her and seemed surprised and not altogether pleased that