Read Online Died to Match by DEBORAH DONNELLY - Free Book Online

demeanor changed abruptly. Her expression went blank, and she turned quickly away from us to get into his sedan and slam the door.
    “I’ll take her home,” the priest told me, as I gazed after her in consternation. “We’ll just forget the fender bender, shall we?”
    “Father, has Corinne told the police she was attacked?”
    He moved closer, his back to Corinne, and spoke softly.
    “She plans to,” he said. “Unfortunately.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You have to understand,” he said, “she’s told stories like this before. I’ve known Corinne since she came here to the university, and she’s always had, well, call it a vivid imagination. She gets a bit dramatic when things aren’t going well. There was a young man once, she was angry at him, and she made an accusation that wasn’t quite true.”
    “An accusation?…” I couldn’t quite say “rape” to a priest.
    He nodded significantly. “We settled it quietly enough, but the police are unlikely to take her seriously a second time. Nor should they, I’m afraid. I think Corinne just needs a different way to explain what happened last night. Self-destruction is a sin against God’s love, you know, and she’s a very devout girl.”
    “I understand,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I did. “Well, here’s my card, in case there’s a problem about your car. Thanks for being so reasonable about it.”
    “You’re welcome. God bless you.”
    They left, and I drove away with my thoughts spinning like a whirlpool. It was certainly possible that one woman tried to kill herself on the same night that another woman was murdered. Corinne might well have repented her suicide attempt, then gotten the idea for her “story” from the report of Mercedes’ death on the news. She’d been all alone out there in the dark, beyond the barricade, with no witnesses. Simple enough, last night, to slip into the water in drunken despair. Simple enough, this morning, to pretend there was a killer stalking the party, and play the victim instead of the fool. Or the sinner.
    But wasn’t the boy who cried wolf devoured by one? Was Corinne’s wolf in a black cloak imaginary, or all too real?
    I needed time to think, and I wanted to give the Buckmeisterstime to vacate the office, so I swung out of my way to do a drive-by of the Experience Music Project. Even if Paul and Elizabeth decided to postpone, I’d have to check off this chore eventually. For each of my weddings, I drive to the site pretending I’m a guest with no special knowledge of one-way streets or parking-lot entrances. It gives me a better sense of where to put signs or set up valet parking, and serves as a double check if we’ve put a map in with the invitation.
    Eddie harrumphs that people should fend for themselves, but I believe that your experience as a wedding guest begins when you walk out your front door. Inconvenient dates, unreasonable distances, or incomprehensible driving directions are just as bad as wilted flowers or a lackluster cake. So I drove through the thinning drizzle, and parked Vanna just as the faint, moist sunshine began to gleam on the vast curves of the Experience Music Project, where it reared up from the Seattle Center grounds.
    I had mixed feelings about the EMP, at least the outside of it. Inside, the rock-and-roll museum was fabulous: 140,000 square feet of interactive exhibits, memorabilia from doo-wop to Hendrix to riot grrrls, and various innovative performance spaces. And, of course, it made a hip venue for a wedding.
    But the outrageous Frank Gehry design for the building itself gave new meaning to the phrase “You either hate it or you love it.” Inspired by the shapes and colors of electric guitars, it’s a multi-colored metal-skinned train wreck of dark gold, red, and silver sections, with rippling blue and green bands and iridescent pink bulges in between. I was leaning toward loving it, but mostly I found myself wondering how it was going to look covered