Free Killer Wedding by Jerrilyn Farmer

this museum,” I said.
    â€œBig Jack Gantree. I wanted to be him when I grew up,” Wes said.
    I took Wesley by the shoulders and repositioned him a half-turn.
    â€œWell, there’s your hero. Right over there,” I said.
    Directly beneath the Triceratops under attack stood an elderly man with a rugged tan and a hardy crop of white hair.
    â€œRight, right, right,” Wes said. “So Big Jack is alive.”
    â€œJust barely,” Holly noticed.
    Wes chuckled. “I knew that old guy giving the bride away looked familiar. Man, he’s changed.”
    â€œHe started doing Exotic Kingdom before I was born,” I said. “He paid for this whole wedding. I gather Gantree took over raising Sara when she was a baby. I’m not sure what happened to Jack’s daughter but I think she died. And Sara’s father left or something. So Big Jack Gantree raised his granddaughter in the deep bush country of Beverly Hills.”
    â€œSometimes,” Holly said, “I drive around B.H. just looking at the houses. All those big, giant houses, you know? And I figure each big old house is worth like two or three million dollars. Maybe more. There they are. Block after block. Up and down the streets of Beverly Hills, there are like thousands of them…”
    Wes shot me a look, which I interpreted to mean: we had better prevent Holly from making eye contact with any more champagne servers.
    â€œSo!” Holly seemed to be making rather a zigzag line toward, one could only now hope, her final point. “I just drive around B.H. and think, ‘Who are all these rich people?’ You know? Like how could so many people I never even heard of have made so goddamn much money ?”
    â€œWell,” I said, “there are a lot of affluent families in Los Angeles…”
    â€œNo, no, no, no, no…” Holly interrupted. “I mean, yes that’s true. But I mean, like who are they? And I always think they must be people who made truckloads of money back in the old days of Hollywood. Way, way back, so no one would ever know who they are now. See? Like this old dude Jack Gantree. That’s all I’m saying.”
    As Wes and I considered the two main points Holly had made—(1) Who are all these rich people who can afford homes in Beverly Hills? and (2) How could anyone, inebriated or not, call “the sixties” the “old days of Hollywood”?—I spotted Vivian across the foyer, speaking with this evening’s host.
    Gathering my resolve, I stepped away from Wes as he began to wax lyrical to Hol about his favorite Exotic Kingdom episode—the one where Big Jack and the team took a foray into the protected game reserves of Rhodesia—and approached Vivian and Gantree.
    â€œHello, Madeline, dear,” Vivian said. “Have you met our host this evening? Jack Gantree meet Madeline Bean. I believe if I can be persuaded to retire someday, Madeline might just make a very nice wedding planner. We’ll see.”
    â€œVivian,” I said, evenly, ignoring her pointed comment until I could pay my respects to our host. Like any culture, L.A. has its rituals. “Hello, Mr. Gantree. I’m such a fan of your television career. My friends were just reminiscing about our favorite memories of Exotic Kingdom .”
    â€œWas it the one with the bull elephants?” he asked, excited now, a gleam in his eye. “That stampede was real, you know. You couldn’t fake it back in those days. My God, the cameraman was almost killed in that shot, but he stood there like a man. Was it the elephants? Or was it the chimps? The young ladies,” Gantree explained to Vivian, “just adored the chimpanzees. My daughter was with us when we shot that show and she wanted todress the chimps up in clothes. What nonsense! But the children who watched the show loved that episode.”
    While his body had grown frail compared to his robust “Big