Free Weddings Can Be Murder by Connie Shelton

you’re done,” he
said. “I’ll be at the Bingham site for an hour or so, then I want
you to go with me out to the Rossmoor job.”
    He turned away, plucking his jacket from the
back of his desk chair before walking out the other door into the
lobby. She could hear him giving instructions to Sheila, then the
outer door opened and closed. Juliette headed for the copy machine
which sat in an alcove off the hallway, placed the bid sheets on
the paper feed and set the controls.
    While paper hummed through the machine she
went back to the boss’s office where she picked up his sticky
coffee cup and stuck three stray paperclips into the little
magnetic holder where they belonged. Sheila spotted her through the
open doorway.
    “You know where the Rossmoor job is, don’t
you?” the older woman said with a sideways grin.
    Juliette shrugged.
    “Out near Al’s house.” Sheila glanced toward
the closed door of Marion Flightly’s office and lowered her voice.
“All the new girls eventually get a tour of Al’s house.”
    “What are you saying?” Juliette carried the
dirty coffee cup and detoured to stand in front of Sheila’s desk.
“That he’s coming on to me?”
    “Al comes on to all women. Surely you’ve
already noticed. He means nothin’ by it. It’s just his way.”
    “Have you been to his house?”
    “Sure.” Sheila took a long drag on her
current cigarette then tapped the ash into the ashtray that already
held four butts. “Once on a private tour, four times for the
company Christmas parties. It’s quite a place.”
    Juliette carried the cup to the little
kitchenette, last door at the end of the hall, where she rinsed it
and placed it on the drying rack before going back to check on her
copies. As she collated and stapled the bid pages she wondered what
Sheila had meant by ‘tour.’ She’d watched, in the early days of the
new job, assessing the office relationships, speculating on whether
Sheila and Al might have had something going. She’d pretty much
come to the conclusion they didn’t—Sheila was a few years older
than the boss, and she was married—until the remark about getting
the tour. Then again, she’d said Al didn’t mean anything by it.
Juliette shrugged it off and returned to the pile of files on her
own desk.
    It was after eleven when Al breezed in,
picked up the bids Juliette had stacked on his desk, and peeked
into her office. She shut off the dictation machine and removed her
earphones.
    “Ready for the Rossmoor job?” he asked.
“Bring a note pad.”
    Well, that sounded safe enough, she decided
as she neatened her desk and picked up her steno pad and sweater.
Outside, the day had warmed a bit and she ended up draping the
sweater over her shoulders. Al led the way to the back lot where he
bypassed the company pickup trucks and ushered her to the passenger
side of his Porsche. Her heart did a little flutter.
    Back in Texas muscle cars were the dream of
every boy in high school but none of them dared set their sights on
a car this magnificent. Bobby Ray Jackman’s Competition Yellow Boss
302 Mustang was the coolest car she’d ever set foot in, going to
the Cree-Mee Drive In for a burger. She touched the door of the
sleek black Porsche and settled into her seat. It smelled like
expensive leather and the tinted windows sealed her into a private
little world.
    Al slid into his seat, turned the key and
put the car in gear, almost in a single movement. A second later
they were making the right turn onto Greenlee Boulevard. He whipped
through the lane changes with a swiftness that nearly took
Juliette’s breath away. When he pulled into the fast lane of the
Interstate, Juliette let herself slip into a little fantasy where
the Porsche flew past the yellow Mustang, with Billy Ray gaping at
her in astonishment. She smiled through the side window as if he
were really there.
    “Nice, huh?” Al Proletti said, catching her
in mid-smile.
    She flushed. A glance at the speedometer
told her