Page 84 of Dial A for Aunties

And in that moment, I’ve never felt prouder of myself and my family.

34

“So let me get this straight,” Sheriff McConnell says. “The dead guy’s dead because... wait, why?”

It takes everything inside me not to leap out of my chair and throttle the guy. Luckily, I’m surrounded by my family, plus Jacqueline and Maureen. Jacqueline squeezes my shoulder and gives me one of her encouraging smiles. I can do this. I can spin a story to fool this man and let us all off the hook. “It’s really all quite simple, Sheriff. You see, Ah Guan—that’s the deceased—he wanted to steal the tea ceremony gifts—”

“That’s them gifts you people get before the wedding ceremony?”

I wince at the words “you people,” but keep going.

“Yes, in Chinese tradition, we usually have a tea ceremony, where the bride and groom’s relatives give them money or jewelry and so on. After the tea ceremony, Maureen and I took the gifts back to the bridal suite.”

“Hang on, aren’t you the lawyer?” Sheriff McConnell says.Good grief, did he just notice that? I suppose I have changed into dry clothes, but still. As though reading my mind, he shakes his head and mutters, “You all look very similar to me.”

“Yes, because we are all family,” Ma says, beaming proudly.

“What, you’re all related?”

“No, she meant a few of us are,” I say quickly. “And I’m sort of... a lawyer-ish type of person.” In that I watched every season ofThe Good Fight. “Anyway, so Maureen and I took the gifts back to the bridal suite and rejoined the procession, and that was when Ah Guan took the gifts. He must have been there all along, disguised as one of the groomsmen. I don’t think he expected the bride and groom to discover that the gifts were missing so early; usually, they don’t look at the gifts until the next day, but—I don’t know, maybe Tom wanted to look at what kind of Patek Philippe he got. When Ah Guan heard that they were conducting a search, he must’ve panicked and stashed the gifts in Maureen’s room. She’s the likeliest suspect because she was the last one with the gifts.”

Sheriff McConnell nods slowly, frowning at us the whole time.

“And then he needed a place to hide, and where else to hide but within plain sight?” I say, moving my hands animatedly. “He was disguised as a groomsman anyway, and the other groomsmen were drunk and weren’t really aware of what was going on, plus they don’t even know one another.”

“Yes, wah, they are so drunk. One of them—I don’t know who, but one of them”—Ma says meaningfully—“bring, you know, that alcohol, the very bad one. I think it is called ‘abstinence.’”

“Well, I heard that one of them brought weed,” Fourth Aunt says.

“Good grief,” Sheriff McConnell mutters.

“Yeah,” I cut in. “So he went into the groom’s suite, and whenthe search party went through the suite, he panicked and hid in a cooler. See, one of the baker’s coolers went missing earlier in the day, and I think Ah Guan was planning on using that to stash the stolen jewelry. We found the cooler in the groomsmen’s suite. It got locked by mistake, and he suffocated in it and died.”

Sheriff McConnell’s eyes are so wide right now they look like they’re about to pop out. But, as much as I brave myself for the inevitable cry of, “This is horseshit!” it doesn’t come. Instead, what he says is, “And then what happened?”

“Then the groomsmen must’ve found him at some point, and by then they were all drugged out of their minds, they were tripping hard, so hard they didn’t even realize he was dead. They must’ve thought it was a joke. They hauled him out and carried him cheerfully down to the altar. You can question them; we did, and they remember bits and pieces. Some of them remember finding Ah Guan and carrying him to the altar. They thought he was just passed out.”

“I don’t—wha...” Sheriff McConnell leans back, looking dazed. I can’t blame him. It’s a hell of a story we’ve all cooked up. But it’s the best we could come up with. I hold my breath as he rubs his forehead. “How did you all figure out all these details? You weren’t there, were you?”

“No, we pieced it together based on information we gathered from witnesses,” I say, my voice a lot more confident than how I actually feel. “You could talk to the groomsmen if you want. They’re right outside the office.”

He nods silently, still looking dazed.

Jacqueline hurries to the door and opens it. As promised, the groomsmen are all waiting outside, and they look terrible. Their clothes are bedraggled, their hair is all messed up, and a handful of them have what look like vomit stains down their fronts. Sheriff McConnell wrinkles his nose and grimaces. Can’t blame him; theysmell so bad I can practically see the stink fumes radiating from them. It’s a stench of sweat, vomit, and other bodily fluids I don’t care to think of. They stumble inside and blink owlishly at us.

“So,” Sheriff McConnell says, getting up from Nathan’s chair. “You boys are the groomsmen.”

They squint against the bright lights in the office and shrug. A couple of them mutter, “Worst job ever.”

“Which of you boys are sober enough to tell me what the heck happened?”

A couple of hands are raised, hesitantly. Sheriff McConnell picks one. “You go first. State your name and occupation.”

A short, friendly-looking guy steps forward. His hair is sticking out in every direction and his shirt is torn, but his eyes are the least bloodshot out of all the men. “Um, my name’s Henry, and I’m an actor.”

“And you know the groom... how?”

“I don’t. Not really. I’ve only met him once before today. We were all hired to play his groomsmen.”

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