Veil of Night (12 page)

No, she’d stick right here, cooperate with everything the police asked of her. Madelyn would support her through thick and thin, and everyone else who had been at the reception hall today would back up everything she’d said. And when this was over with, if Eric Wilder dared ask her out again as if nothing had happened, she’d restrain the impulse to call him a low-lying, back-stabbing, sewer-sucking son of a bitch—after all, he was only doing his job—and simply say she didn’t think they suited each other. Taking the high road would make her feel better.

She burst into tears.

So much for feeling better.

Chapter Twelve

ERIC WAS SO TIRED HE COULD PRACTICALLY FEEL HIS
ass dragging on the pavement behind him as he trudged into H.P.D. Not only had it been a long day, but he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. The
reason
he hadn’t gotten much sleep had been a good one, but sleep-deprived was still sleep-deprived. He had a ton of evidence and paperwork to deal with before he could go home, so he doubted he’d be seeing his bed for another few hours, at least.

The victim’s family had been notified. That was always the hardest part. In this case, because her fiancé’s father was a state senator, he and Garvey had made two of the difficult visits. The victim’s parents were devastated. They hadn’t dissolved in a flood of tears and questions, but instead looked as if they’d been flattened, their reason for living suddenly taken away from them.

The fiancé, Sean Dennison, had been almost catatonic with shock. “But I talked to her,” he kept saying. “It can’t be her.” They’d already known he’d called the victim because they’d checked the calls on her phone. He’d been at work when he called her, he said, something that could be easily verified in the morning, so if it was a lie, it was a stupid one. Not that Eric discounted stupid; he dealt with it every day. Criminals, by and large, weren’t mental giants.

Eric had already made one trip back to H.P.D. to log in evidence, before going to interview Jaclyn, and now he had her wet clothing to deal with. He had the consent forms she’d signed, he had reports to write—hell, was it any wonder he’d decided to throw a can of oil at a robber instead of shooting at him? If he’d fired his weapon this morning, he’d
still
be filling out paperwork. Instead, he was free to work a case … and fill out paperwork. There wasn’t any getting away from the damn forms and reports.

He took care of logging in the evidence and transferring it for testing, though in the case of Jaclyn’s clothing he was pretty sure he wasn’t proving guilt, more likely eliminating her as a viable suspect. As Garvey had said, she didn’t have the vibe, didn’t ring the internal alarm bells. They couldn’t enter their gut feelings as evidence in court, though, so until she was solidly cleared he had to be extra careful in how he treated everything pertaining to her. Not only did every
i
have to be dotted, but he had to look at her longer and harder than he normally would have done, just to remove the possible taint of preferential treatment.

He couldn’t even call her and say, “Hey, I don’t think you did it, but I have to do this by the book and treat you like any other suspect.” That in itself would be stepping over the line.

This wasn’t the way he wanted it, but it was the way things had to be. After this case was closed, he’d try again with her. Maybe she wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. Maybe she could be logical and not have drama all over the damn place. She didn’t seem like the drama queen type, though; she was pretty cool and controlled. That gave him hope. It also gave him incentive to get this mess cleared up as fast as he could.

Out of sheer curiosity, he did a computer search on kabob skewers. There were bamboo skewers, stainless-steel skewers, decorative skewers, plain-jane skewers. This had to be a woman thing, because no man in his right mind would give a damn about cooking chunks of meat and vegetables on a stick. Okay, maybe a professional chef would, but as far as he was concerned it was damn silly.

He pushed away the report he was writing, leaned back in his chair, and propped his feet on top of the desk. Lacing his fingers behind his neck, he let his shoulder muscles relax as he closed his eyes and mentally processed everything he’d seen and heard tonight, putting things in order.

First and foremost, the homicide was almost certainly classified as second-degree murder rather than capital murder or even murder one. The choice of murder weapon—kabob skewers—suggested a lack of premeditation. Whoever had killed Carrie hadn’t gone there with the intent to kill, because who could count on having kabob skewers conveniently at hand?

Any of the vendors who had been there, plus Jaclyn, plus Melissa DeWitt
. They had all known the skewers were there. On the other hand, it would take someone conversant with homicide laws to make a crime look unpremeditated when it was actually capital murder, and generally a killer didn’t think about lowering the level of the crime he’d be charged with so much as he thought about getting away with it, period. No, Carrie Edwards had been killed in the heat of the moment, with a weapon at hand, which in this case was kabob skewers. A skillful defense attorney might even make a credible argument that kabob skewers wouldn’t normally be considered a deadly weapon, that it was an unfortunate accident that one of the skewers had slipped between Carrie’s ribs and pierced her heart.

Carrie had been stabbed multiple times, with multiple skewers, as if the killer had simply started grabbing skewers and stabbing away. When one got stuck, or dropped, another one was at hand. That in turn suggested a frenzied rage. She hadn’t been killed coldly, or calmly. And afterward her wedding veil had been draped over her face, a clear indication that the perp didn’t want to see what had happened.

This was an acquaintance killing. Carrie had known her assailant.

The angles of the skewers might tell them something about the height of the attacker. Carrie had been—he checked his notes—five-foot-four. She’d been wearing shoes with three-inch heels, placing her at five-seven. He’d visually examined every skewer, and the skewers seemed to have been stuck in her at several different angles. She wouldn’t have been standing there motionless, though, while someone skewered her—okay, bad pun, even though it was only in his head. She’d have been struggling, trying to get away, maybe trying to grapple with her assailant. That would skew—damn it, he couldn’t avoid the word. It was as bad as paperwork, sticking to him like chewing gum on the bottom of his shoe.

“If you’re gonna sleep, Wilder, why not go home?”

The voice was Garvey’s. Without opening his eyes, Eric said, “Don’t interrupt me while I’m detecting.”

“Oh, is that what it’s called now?”

He could feel Garvey settling on the edge of his desk, and he sighed as he gave in and opened his eyes, looking up at the slightly battered, slightly worn face of his sergeant. “Why are you still here?”

Garvey gave a thin smile. “Like you, I’m detecting. It feels good to actually be working a case instead of wading through paperwork, shuffling you guys around, and running interference when one of you screws up.”

Eric could understand that. Even though his own ambition was to go as high as he could in the local police hierarchy—though he hadn’t ruled out moving into a state or federal job—he could also see where he’d miss working the cases. If he went state or federal, he might be able to stay in investigations. That was in the future, though; the Edwards murder case was right now. “So, what are you detecting?”

“I’m visualizing the angles of penetration,” Garvey began.

Eric snorted. “For God’s sake, man, get your mind off sex and back on the case.”

“Smart-ass,” Garvey growled, before grinning in appreciation.

Eric took his feet off the top of the desk and sat up. “Funny thing; that’s exactly what I was doing,” he admitted. “From what I saw, the angles are all over the place: from the left, from the right, slanted up, slanted down. Some of them were dangling from fairly superficial wounds. She’d have been fighting, trying to run. Maybe she fell, and the perp came straight down with a skewer, and that’s the one that got her heart. Unless the M.E. says the wounds only look as if they came from every direction, it’s gonna be hard to guess at the perp’s height.”

He picked up a pen and quickly sketched one of the skewers. “These suckers are eighteen, nineteen inches long, stainless steel. They’re big, but they’d be tricky to hold while you’re stabbing someone with them. This little ring at the end is the only place to grip them, otherwise, when the point hit resistance, your hand would slide right down the skewer.”

“Not the best weapon to choose if you want to kill someone. The perp didn’t go there intending to kill her.”

“Maybe, maybe not. We have seven people who knew the skewers were there: the wedding planner, the reception hall manager, the dressmaker, the florist, the veil-maker, the cake-maker, and the caterer. I haven’t ruled out the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker, either.” As Garvey rolled his eyes upward, Eric reminded himself to try going lighter on the smart-assness. He tried that a lot, usually without much success. “Anyway, three of those people had had disagreements with the victim just prior to the killing, but the other four may well have had run-ins with her in the past. The picture we’re getting of her isn’t warm and cozy; it’s more like bitch-on-wheels, running down anyone who gets in her way.”

“Nine times out of ten,” Garvey said prosaically, “the perp is either family or friend. Maybe the groom realized his mistake and tried to break up with her.”

“I wish it’d be that obvious, but I don’t think he’s good for it. He said he was at work when he called her, which is too easy to prove or disprove, and I think the M.E. is going to give us a t.o.d. that rules him out, unless he can teleport.” He wouldn’t say so out loud, but he hoped the time of death would rule out Jaclyn, too. The medical examiner’s estimate of time of death wouldn’t be down to the exact minute, the way it was on television shows—hell, practically nothing they did was the way it happened on television shows, except maybe breathing—but they could get a fairly narrow time frame.

The techs hadn’t been able to lift any useable prints from the kabob skewers; as he’d noted, the skewers were too slender to really let anyone over the age of two get a good grip. Anyone grabbing the small wooden ring on the end would more likely hold the skewer with the ring pressing against his palm, rather than his fingertips, for striking power.

“What about the gray-haired man Ms. Wilde says she saw at the hall?”

“Neither of us thinks she’s good for the perp, so if she’s innocent, she’d have no reason to lie.”

“Mrs. DeWitt didn’t see anyone between the time she went into her office and when she found the body.”

“Doesn’t mean no one went in. She admitted the side door was unlocked. It may be that Ms. Wilde is actually the only witness who can tie the killer to the scene, unless we come up with some forensic evidence.”

That could be complicated. He hadn’t met the groom’s father, the state senator, but he’d seen him in political ads; he was gray-haired. The victim’s father was gray-haired. According to Mrs. DeWitt, there had been three other parties touring the reception hall earlier in the day, and two of them included an older man. He fully expected the crime scene techs to come up with a variety of stray gray hairs, and any of the multitude of people who’d been in the hall could have been in contact with someone gray-haired during the day and picked up a small hair. Wonderful.

Still, Jaclyn had said she’d seen a gray-haired man driving a gray, or silver, car. That gave him a little bit to go on, if nothing else panned out.

The problem with this case wasn’t a shortage of suspects, but too damn many. Almost everyone who had dealt with the victim evidently had some kind of grudge against her.

Garvey yawned, then hauled his ass up from the edge of Eric’s desk. “We both need some sleep,” he said, scrubbing a paw across his face and making a sandpaper sound. “My lovely bride is going to be pissed as hell at me, anyway. She wanted me to make sergeant so I wouldn’t have any more of these late nights, and now here I am, doing them anyway.”

Garvey always referred to his wife of fourteen years as his lovely bride, which sounded sweet, but Eric had met Garvey’s wife and thought he probably called her that out of fear. She was a short, slightly plump, deceptively pleasant-faced woman who ran the Garvey household like a drill sergeant. Once Garvey had even bought a gag tag for his car that read “I LIVE WITH FEAR (but sometimes she lets me go fishing).” He’d bought it as a joke, but Mrs. Garvey had liked it and insisted he actually put it on his car. He’d endured a lot of teasing over that tag, which he’d been forced to keep until he’d traded cars and “accidentally” forgot to get the tag off his old car.

On the other hand, they’d been married for fourteen years, so maybe the trick to a successful marriage for a cop was to marry someone who could kick ass and take names. She had certainly kept Garvey straight.

Eric got up, too, because there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could accomplish at this hour. “Give her a kiss for me,” he said, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to be on Mrs. Garvey’s good side.

“Bullshit. Kiss her yourself, if you have the balls.”

Chapter Thirteen

JACLYN DRAGGED HERSELF OUT OF BED EARLY THE NEXT
morning, watched a few minutes of the local news—no new developments in Carrie’s murder, which meant no one had been arrested and this whole nightmare would dissolve like a soap bubble. Madelyn had stayed until after midnight, simultaneously trying to comfort her while at the same time hashing and rehashing everything that had been said and done at the reception hall that afternoon, which kind of canceled out the comforting part. But no matter what either of them thought, or how upset they were, the show—in this case, two wedding rehearsals that night, plus handling the details of the five weddings coming up over the next three days—must go on, meaning she had to get her butt out of bed and down to the office.

She was still worried about being questioned as a suspect in Carrie’s murder; what sane person wouldn’t be? But what could she do about it? She couldn’t go out investigating, trying to find the real killer on her own, because she didn’t know the first thing about investigating crimes; that was Eric’s job, and the best thing she could do was pray that he was really, really good at it.

Coming to terms with the fact that he was doing his job by investigating
her
would take a while longer.

In fact, she might as well get over her hurt, get over him, and write him off. They’d spent the night together, but to men that was no big deal, and despite all her pep talks to herself about being cautious and not letting herself get too involved, the fact remained that she’d let herself expect too much. Now, no matter how she tried to reason herself out of how she felt, she didn’t know if they’d be able to start over. For that matter, he might not be interested in starting over. He might think that, if she was the type of person he could even momentarily suspect was a killer, then she wasn’t the type of woman he wanted to get involved with. If so, she couldn’t fault him for feeling that way, because it was how she’d feel.

She ate a few bites of cereal straight from the box, but the corn flakes tasted like sawdust and she made a face as she put the box back in the cabinet. Maybe she’d make do with coffee this morning. Her stomach, and her nerves, were too jittery for food.

The phone rang while she was getting dressed and she leaped for it, grabbing it up without even checking the caller ID.

“Hi, honey,” came Jacky’s cheerful voice.

Two calls in fewer than twelve hours? He must really,
really
want to impress his newest squeeze by borrowing her Jag. Sometimes months would go by without hearing from him; she would try to call him, of course, but all of her calls would go to voice mail, where she’d be told that his voice mail was full and she couldn’t even leave a message. That was one of his favorite tricks for avoiding calls he didn’t want to take.

“No, you can’t use my car,” she said. “And don’t keep on at me about it, I can’t handle it today.”

“But it’s such a little favor,” he began wheedling, then something in her voice must have sparked his single, long-dormant parenting gene to life, because he paused. “What’s wrong?”

Jaclyn inhaled. There wasn’t any point in not telling him, and she really needed to finish dressing and get to the office. “The police questioned me last night, after I talked to you,” she blurted, evidently so desperate for support she’d even turn to Jacky. “They suspect me of killing one of my clients.”

“How stupid can they be?” he demanded instantly. “Of course you didn’t.”

That swift, unquestioning faith in her made tears swim in her eyes. “They aren’t so sure about it. Thanks for not doubting me.”

“Not for a second. Now, if they suspected
me
—” He stopped, as if realizing he’d been about to admit to something he might want to leave unsaid, then smoothly picked up the conversation again. “So, who got dead? Anyone I know?”

“Her name is—was—Carrie Edwards.”

“Well, isn’t that still her name, whether she’s dead or not?”

“I guess … I mean, of course it’s still her name, but she’s a
was
, not an
is.”
And this was a weird conversation to be having so early in the morning.

“Carrie Edwards, Carrie Edwards,” Jacky mused. “I don’t—Wait a minute. The state senator, the one who’s running for Congress, Dennison … his son’s fiancée was killed. Was she
your
client?”

“Yep. Until yesterday afternoon, anyway. She fired me before she was killed.”

Jacky was silent a moment, then said, “Ouch.”

“It was a pretty big coincidence.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said blithely. “The cops will get things straightened out.”

Don’t worry about it
. There it was, Jacky Wilde’s philosophy of life, which he applied to all situations no matter how dire. “I hope so. In the meantime, I’m worrying.” She cast a glance at the clock; she couldn’t stay on the phone much longer or she’d be late … at least, later than she wanted. Being her own boss was great, but in a small firm like Premier it also meant she and Madelyn had to work long hours to make sure they prospered. “I’m sorry, I have to run. We have a really tight schedule this week and—”

“Wait, wait! Before you hang up, have you thought any more about loaning me the Jag?”

Jaclyn took the phone away from her ear and for several seconds stared at it in disbelief. Only when she heard him saying, “Hello?
Hello?”
did she put it back to her ear.

“No,” she said firmly. “I haven’t thought about it at all. I was more concerned with the fact that I might be arrested for murder than I was about you having a set of nice wheels to impress your latest floozie.”

“Hey! There’s no need to be disrespectful, young lady. Lola isn’t a floozie.”

“How old is she?”

“What difference does that make?” he asked evasively.

“Younger than I am?”

“I haven’t asked.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Not that it matters. Even if she was an appropriate age for you, I’d still say no. You go through cars the same way you go through money. I have one car. I need it.”

“Not at night!”

“Jacky! At least half my work is at night! That’s when a lot of people get married or have parties, you know. I’ll be working every night for the rest of this week, and there’s no way I can do without my car. But even if I wasn’t working, the answer would still be no.”

“Fine, if that’s the way you’re going to be about it,” he said sulkily.

“It is.”

His good-bye was curt. Jaclyn hung up, figuring she wouldn’t hear from him for the next few months. Part of her was relieved, part of her was sad, and all of her was exasperated; the latter was pretty much her default setting when dealing with her father. She loved him, but she never relied on him. Her rose-colored glasses had been broken a long time ago and she saw him as he was, warts and all.

Funny how exasperation made her feel a little less worried about her precarious legal situation. No, she wasn’t
less
worried, just not as focused on being worried. Jacky was good for that, at least.

She hurriedly finished dressing, grabbed her appointment book, then for a split second looked for her briefcase before memory slammed into her head. The cops had her briefcase. “Oh, no,” she groaned, momentarily closing her eyes in dismay. She needed her briefcase; it held all the details of the rehearsals and weddings that were rushing at her like high tide. Surely she could get it back today … couldn’t she? She couldn’t think of any reason why she wouldn’t be able to get it, because her briefcase didn’t have anything to do with Carrie’s murder, other than just lying there at the scene. Or would they consider it evidence? Maybe it was covered with Carrie’s blood.

Crap. Crap, crap,
crap!

Knowing it was her own fault—leaving her briefcase behind—didn’t help the situation. She had Eric’s card in her purse, with his private cell number written on the back. She hated to call him for anything, but maybe he’d say
No problem, the briefcase wasn’t the murder weapon, you can pick it up at headquarters
. Maybe. Doubtful, but maybe. Because she was a suspect, she thought they’d probably keep the briefcase as proof she was there, as if they needed any more proof. Maybe the briefcase was circumstantial evidence, a reason for her to go back to the reception hall after meeting Madelyn.

She’d never know if she didn’t try. A quick glance at the clock, though, told her that it might be too early to call. The fact that she didn’t even know what hours he worked pointed out to her all over again how incredibly reckless she’d been to sleep with him on such short acquaintance.

Even if she couldn’t retrieve the briefcase, she still had all of the information in physical files and on her computer at the office; it would be time-consuming to access all the files and pull the pertinent information out, but she could do it.

Frustrated, she made the drive to Premier; the parking lot was empty, the building dark, so she got her little bash-and-dash flashlight out of the console. Armed with the flashlight and her pepper spray, she unlocked the back door and let herself into the building. With the lights on and the door securely locked again, she put on a pot of coffee and began the daily routine of making a list of everything that had to be done that day. They had two wedding rehearsals that night; Madelyn was taking the pink one, and Jaclyn had the Bulldog one.

The Bulldog in question was, of course, the University of George’s mascot, Uga. This wasn’t the first football-themed wedding she’d done, and wouldn’t be the last. They were, after all, in the South.

Diedra arrived next, surprising Jaclyn because her assistant was just twenty-four and had a very active social life, which meant she wasn’t habitually an early riser. She was punctual, usually getting into the office at eight on the dot, but “early” seldom happened in Diedra’s world.

She struggled in, carrying her purse, her briefcase, a venti Starbucks cup, and a large covered platter. When she saw her, Jaclyn leaped up from the worktable and hurried to take the platter before Diedra dropped it. It was surprisingly heavy, considering its size. “What’s this?”

“Food. Double-deluxe brownies, to be exact, with fudge icing. Made by my own dainty hands, because I figured if there was anything a murder suspect needed, it was chocolate.” Diedra set her cup of coffee down and shed her other burdens.

Jaclyn’s mouth started watering as she set the platter on the table. “Double-deluxe?” She didn’t know what that meant, but if it had to do with chocolate, it had to be good. Then she said, “How did you know?”

“Your mom called Peach, Peach called me. It’s silly, thinking you’d have killed the bitch, though if you had I’d give you an ironclad alibi, and you wouldn’t even have to pay me.” Diedra’s dark brown eyes sparkled. “I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but, damn, it’s tough not to when you can’t think of anything good to say.”

“She can’t have been all bad. She had family and friends who loved her. We only saw the demanding side, and, really, no one deserves to die just because they’re demanding.”

“And petty and spiteful,” Diedra said drily. “Don’t forget those parts.”

“Okay, she was demanding, petty, and spiteful. She still didn’t deserve to die.” Jaclyn didn’t know why she was defending Carrie; she hadn’t liked her, was glad Carrie had fired her, and the only reasons she was upset about the murder were because of where it had happened, and because she herself was a suspect. She did feel sorry for Carrie’s fiancé, but she’d have felt a lot sorrier for him if nothing had happened and he had actually married her.

“So, how did it happen? Was she shot? Clobbered over the head?”

Jaclyn paused, realized that last night neither Eric or Sergeant Garvey had said exactly how Carrie had been killed, and she’d been too rattled to ask. “I don’t really know. I just assumed she was shot.”

“You mean you didn’t
ask?”
Diedra looked astounded, as if she couldn’t believe Jaclyn’s oversight.

“I didn’t think about it. I was pretty upset when the detectives were interviewing me.” The smell of the still-warm brownies was getting to her, bringing her appetite back with a vengeance. She lifted the aluminum foil and took a deep breath. “How early did you get up to make these?”

“Too damn early. I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else.”

“Well, thank God you came in early today of all days. One of the reasons the detectives were questioning me was that I left my briefcase at the reception hall, which means they have it and I don’t.”

Diedra looked taken aback. “You don’t ever forget your briefcase.”

“I did yesterday. I didn’t even realize I’d left it until the detectives mentioned it. The time with Carrie was upsetting.”

The question in Diedra’s eyes made Jaclyn draw a deep breath. She hated to go into the sordid details, but Carrie had slapped her in front of so many witnesses there was no way to keep it quiet. “It was a disaster from start to finish,” she said. “Gretchen quit, Estefani was about to quit, then Carrie slapped my face and fired me.”

“Oh. My. God.” Diedra’s mouth dropped open. Appalled, she stared at Jaclyn.

“I’m embarrassed that I just
took
it, that I didn’t hit her back,” Jaclyn confessed. “On the other hand, I’ve never been in a fight. She might have mopped the floor with me. But Bishop said she’d sue me, us, if I hit her, so I didn’t. I kept the legal and moral high ground, but, damn, I didn’t like doing it.”

“You were smart. She probably slapped you
hoping
she could get you to do something she could sue Premier for. I’ve met a few people like her before. They’re always pushing, always stirring up trouble and seeing how far they can go. It’s like they get off on it.”

That description summed up Carrie pretty well, Jaclyn thought. “Anyway, all I could think was to get the vendors out of there before she slapped one of them, too. Estefani was a little volcano, threatening to blow. I could just see the whole thing turning into a brawl that made the papers. Carrie demanded a refund, though, and I reminded her that the contract she’d signed stated any refunds were prorated. She didn’t like that, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Then I left. Melissa was in her office so she didn’t see me leave. A man drove up as I was getting in my car and he saw me, but I don’t know who he was so I don’t know how to find him, and he might have been the one who killed her, anyway.”