Killer Wedding Read Online Free PDF

reading. “I’ll do the cake.”
    The fun of cooking is enhanced, I think, when youcan do it with friends. And as I poured good olive oil into the heavy enameled pan, I began to gather my ingredients. First thing to do was finish sautéing the hot Cajun sausages. I loved the aroma and hiss of it all. While they were losing their inner pink, I lined up a dozen chicken thighs and a few dozen large shrimp, and began cleaning and chopping an onion (who needs two?) and peeling the dozen garlic cloves I’d use later.
    â€œWhat took you so long?” Wes asked, always needing details. He turned the bowl of pale lavender roses around, checking them with his discerning eye. “You made it to Beverly Hills and got the full Darius treatment. And then…?”
    â€œWhat a weird afternoon,” I said, as I removed the sausage and added the chicken, skin side down, to the hot pan. Holly handed me the lid and I covered the thighs to let them cook gently through.
    â€œI met Vivian Duncan.”
    â€œNo shit!”
    Holly was standing next to me at the industrial eight-burner range, sprinkling oregano over a mixture of baguette cubes and coarsely chopped prosciutto. When she thought I wasn’t looking, she swiped a few peeled cloves of garlic and tossed them into her pan.
    â€œHey!”
    â€œSo you met Vivian Duncan,” Wes said, eyes gleaming. “Was blood drawn?”
    â€œIt’s a pretty strange story. She had her car stolen in broad daylight right from the alley behind the shops on Rodeo. Right near Darius. She was so shook up she asked me to take over a client meeting for her. Isn’t that odd? I mean, we work in this town for all these years and I’ve never ever run into her, and then all of a sudden there she was, sitting on the pavement with a huge run in her pantyhose.”
    â€œShe was car-jacked?” Holly asked. “I give up. I mean, you hear about those things happening,” she said, shaking her white-blond wisps, “but when old broadscan’t get a manicure in B.H. without getting mugged, it’s too much. We should move.”
    â€œAway from L.A.?” I moved in for a surreptitious taste of Holly’s migas , the Spanish starter of ham fried with garlicky breadcrumbs she’d been stirring up. She caught me and shooed me off.
    â€œWell, we can’t leave town yet,” Wes said, diffidently, as he buttered his third cake pan and began mincing orange peel. “We’ve been invited to a wedding.”
    â€œWhat?” I spun and looked at him.
    â€œMy, what a coincidence,” he said, chuckling. “While you were out, we got a phone call from that man who works with Vivian Duncan. Ted Pettibone.”
    â€œYou’re kidding,” I said.
    â€œWhat do they all call him?” Holly asked. In the small world of caterers and party planners and restauranteurs, the gossip factor was appallingly high, and I had to admit, Holly was responsible for a fair share of it.
    â€œWhisper,” Wes said. “Those who know him well call him Whisper Pettibone, although I don’t know why. He spoke in a perfectly civil tone on the phone.”
    â€œMaybe he whispers sweet nothings in Vivian’s ear,” chuckled Holly, as she washed the arugula and romaine.
    â€œNot even a possibility,” Wes said, enjoying his fair share of gossip, too. “Vivian’s married to that handsome man who doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t really work, I mean. And they have a grown daughter, don’t they? But anyway, no matter what Vivian might be up to, Whisper is a, well, a confirmed bachelor .”
    â€œOh,” said Holly.
    â€œOh,” I said.
    I added the cooked chicken to the bowl of cooked sausage, and began sautéing the chopped onion and garlic cloves. Recalling the recent garlic theft, I quickly peeled and chopped two more cloves.
    â€œDid Whisper Pettibone invite us to the Silver-Bell wedding?” I