Agnes and the Hitman Read online

  The girl looked at Garth with awe. Garth blushed brighter than Cerise.

  Agnes turned around and grinned.

  Palmer and Downer took their places next to Reverend Miller, a big man who looked extremely unhappy to be there. Downer, on the other hand, looked ecstatic, which meant he probably had something horrible up his sleeve. And Palmer looked like death, or at least hung-over to the point of death, staring off into the distance with that If I Don’t Move, My Head Won’t Fall Off look in his eyes.

  The reverend nodded to the band, which immediately struck up very fast Latin dance music that spooked Cerise and Hot Pink into wild honking.

  “What the hell?” Palmer said, turning on Downer, who was laughing his ass off.

  “Don’t you get it?” Downer said, holding on to Palmer now, he was laughing so hard. “It’s flamingo music.”

  “What?” Palmer said, completely confused.

  “Flamenco music,” Agnes said grimly, but at that point the entire assembly was looking the other direction, and even the band slowed and then stopped playing as the musicians gaped.

  Brenda had arrived.

  She’d probably been expecting the wedding march and intended to slide in front of Maria, so the flamenco music took her by surprise, but she carried on anyway, walking down the aisle in a black lace dress, holding a black lace handkerchief to her lips at intervals and nodding to anyone who murmured their sympathy to the widow as she glided to the front. By responding only to those who said something, she stayed just this side of good taste, but Brenda in black lace was always going to be hot, and the black lace mantilla she had added had an unfortunate Bride of Dracula effect that threatened to topple the whole thing over into comedy, except that Taylor was really dead.

  “Morticia Addams does Seville?” Lisa Livia whispered.

  “She’s a widow,” Agnes whispered back. “Show some respect.”

  “She ain’t as much of a widow as she thinks she is,” Lisa Livia said.

  Brenda reached the gazebo and gave a sad smile to the groom’s family in the front row and then turned to her side of the aisle to take her seat.

  Lisa Livia waved to her.

  Brenda saw the necklace and went rigid. Then she saw Agnes and went berserk. “We can’t have this wedding,” she said loudly, and pointed to Agnes. “That woman is a murderer. Detective Xavier, I saw you back there, why isn’t this woman in jail?”

  Xavier took a couple of steps out from underneath the old oak. “I believe Miss Agnes is on a recreational furlough. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Beaufort. I got my eye on her.” He nodded to Reverend Miller. “You can go on, Reverend.”

  “Well, I’m making a citizen’s arrest,” Brenda said, rigid and righteous in black lace.

  “You can’t, ma’am,” Xavier said. “She’s already under arrest. Now let’s just all sit down and get started on this nice wedding.” He came strolling over to the chairs on the bride’s side, looking more relaxed than Agnes had ever seen him. On his way, he tipped his hat at Evie Keyes and gave her a roguish grin, and she smiled back at him, dimpling under her pink daisy.

  Jefferson Keyes looked startled.

  “I demand an arrest!” Brenda said, her voice growing sharper.

  “If you don’t sit down,” Xavier said, his voice growing softer, “that arrest is gonna be you for disturbing the peace.”

  Brenda drew a deep breath, which did amazing things for her cleavage, and sat down next to Lisa Livia. “Where’d you get that necklace?” she spat.

  “It was a gift,” Lisa Livia snapped back.

  Xavier sat down behind Brenda, next to Garth, who clearly wished he hadn’t.

  Up at the front, Reverend Miller was now conferring with Jefferson Keyes. Jefferson finally shook his head and sat back down.

  Reverend Miller drew himself up to his full rotund height. “I’m sorry,” he said, clearly not. “But I feel the irregularities present at this ceremony make it impossible for me to continue.”

  Lisa Livia tensed, but Brenda smiled, showing her teeth.

  The reverend flared his nostrils. “I don’t know what’s going on, but there are undercurrents here that make this wedding less than the holy occasion it should be.”

  Agnes drew a deep calming breath, the way Dr. Garvin had taught her. I’m going to kick your pompous ass into the Blood River and let the flamingos and the gators fight over it, you dickless wonder.

  Reverend Miller bowed his head. “Let’s all close with a prayer-”

  “Let’s not.”

  Agnes looked at Lisa Livia, thinking for the moment that she’d broken her promise to Maria, but then she realized that Evie Keyes was standing up, pink daisy quivering with repressed emotion.

  “If you don’t feel you can perform the wedding ceremony of my son, who will someday inherit a significant portion of the Keyes land and fortune,” Evie said, very distinctly, “then I understand. I’m just not sure he will.” She fixed the reverend with the iciest blue eyes since the Snow Queen, and the reverend froze. Understandably.

  Go, Evie, Agnes thought.

  “What the hell?” Brenda murmured under her breath, leaning forward.

  The reverend turned and smiled weakly at Palmer, who did not smile back, which wasn’t surprising since Palmer hadn’t smiled since Thursday, but Agnes wasn’t about to tell Reverend Miller that.

  The reverend turned back to Evie. “Can you assure me that nothing untoward is happening in occasion with this wedding?” he said, trying to work some sternness back into his voice.

  “No,” Evie said, having no trouble at all lacing her voice with a lot of fuck you and earning Agnes’s undying respect in the process.

  “Perhaps I was hasty,” the reverend was saying, going down in ignominious defeat.

  No doubt about it, Agnes thought as Evie took her seat again.

  Brenda made a little shrieking sound beside her, full of rage and frustration.

  “Very well.” Reverend Miller nodded to the band, which struck up that goddamned flamenco music again, setting off Cerise and Hot Pink all over again.

  “Stop that,” Agnes said, standing up, and the whole wedding now looked at her as she scowled at the band. “You, classical music from now on. If you can’t play that, you don’t get paid. You know the wedding march?”

  “Of course we know the wedding march,” the bandleader said. “We had to learn the damn flamenco for this gig.”

  Downer burst out laughing again.

  “Grow up,” Agnes said, and he stopped. Then she nodded to the band, and it began the wedding march. “Jesus,” Lisa Livia said.

  “If we’d had this at the country club-” Brenda began.

  “Shut your thieving, murdering mouth,” Lisa Livia said, and Agnes thought, That’s fair, and turned to watch Maria come down the aisle.

  Maria appeared at the top of the porch steps, unsmiling but lovely in flamingo pink, and Frankie paused beside her, too, beaming and majestic in tuxedo black, and they walked across the lawn together until they reached the edge of the chairs. Then somebody said, “Who the hell is that?” and Brenda turned, and gasped, “Frankie?” rising to her feet on the word as her face went paper white, and Frankie waved to Lisa Livia, and then made a gun out of his thumb and forefinger and shot Brenda.

  She fainted dead away and the wedding march trailed off.

  Agnes looked at the bandleader. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  He nodded to the band, which struck up the wedding march again, and Maria began her walk down the white cotton runner, her chin up, her long dark hair ruffling in the breeze, and Frankie on her arm, still beaming.

  Lisa Livia uncapped a bottle of water and poured it over her mother’s head, ruining her hair and makeup and making Maria smile, and Brenda came to sputtering. Lisa Livia grabbed one arm and hauled her into her seat. Maria and Frankie reached the end of the aisle as a lot of the guests on the bride’s side of the aisle suddenly developed a pressing need to be elsewhere.

  Maria gave her