Veil of Night (9 page)

She had to call someone—911. That’s it. She should call 911.

She turned and ran for her office, the administrator in her abruptly taking charge. There was an event planned for the weekend, a twenty-fifth high school reunion. Surely this wouldn’t interfere with that; surely the police would have the mess cleaned up by then, and her nice, orderly reception hall would be in shining order again. She wasn’t certain of that, though; even to the very end, Carrie Edwards had a gift for screwing up other people’s lives.

And then another thought intruded. What if the murderer was still in the building? Watching her, maybe waiting around the next corner, armed with skewers and cake knives and floral sticks. Melissa faltered, then kicked off her high heels and picked up the pace, turning the corner and sliding like Tom Cruise across the floor into her office. She slammed the office door and locked it behind her, then glanced frantically around the small room to make sure she was truly alone before she lurched for the phone.

Chapter Eight

THE HOT, LATE-AFTERNOON SUN WAS SHINING DIRECTLY
into his eyes as Eric searched for enough room on the crowded street to park his car. The parking lot of the reception hall was a tangle of patrol cars, a medic truck, even a fire engine, though he couldn’t imagine why the fire engine was there. All of them had flashing lights, adding to the visual chaos. Okay, the patrol cars in the streets needed their lights on, but why the hell didn’t the rest of them turn them off? Across the street, news trucks were already parked, round satellite dishes blooming on their roofs. Eric found enough room to nose his car off the street and got out, nodding to a couple of patrolmen as he ducked under the crime scene tape.

Hopewell didn’t have many murders; the town was mostly upscale, no gang activity, and even their drug cases tended more toward prescription drugs than meth or crack. That didn’t mean the police department was inexperienced in handling murder cases, just that it wasn’t an everyday occurrence. When he’d been on the Atlanta force, between the gangs and drugs and everything else thrown in, the violence had seemed unending. It had been like working in a war zone. Even better, with its tax base, Hopewell could afford to pay its police department well, meaning they had good people, good services, and good equipment, which in turn translated to a high solve-rate.

The lieutenant and sergeant were already there, which upped his level of alertness. He’d already spent time with the lieutenant that morning, because the media had seized on the foiled convenience store robbery as something out of the ordinary and had contacted the department wanting an interview with him. He’d declined, because who had time for that shit, but the lieutenant had deemed otherwise. In a brief meeting beforehand, Lieutenant Neille had given him a curious look and asked, “By the way, why didn’t you use your weapon? Why throw something at him?”

“Paperwork,” Eric had replied, earning an expression from Neille that was both understanding and admonishing. “Besides, I’ve played baseball since I was four; I knew I could hit him.”

The reluctantly given interview hadn’t gone quite as smoothly. The same question had been asked, and he’d given the same answer. Then the reporter had said, “The suspect is hospitalized with a concussion, which brings up the question of whether or not you could have thrown something that wasn’t as heavy as a quart of oil.”

“Sure,” he’d replied. “But I wasn’t standing in the soup aisle.”

That remark had earned him a growled comment from Sergeant Garvey, something along the lines that one day his mouth was going to overload his ass and he’d end up in a lot of trouble. So what else was new?

Garvey moved to intercept him, his expression grave. “The manager has identified the victim as Carrie Edwards, the fiancée of Sean Dennison, the son of State Senator Douglas Dennison.”

“Shit,” Eric said. He hated high-profile cases, because as often as not the family caused problems and actually hindered the investigation with their demands, not to mention that the increased media attention also ate into their time. As luck would have it, Franklin, the older, more experienced detective who would likely have drawn the case
because
it was high-profile and he was more diplomatic—a huge understatement—than Eric, was on vacation at Disney World with his family. Like it or not, this case was his.

“The victim’s family is being notified, so her name hasn’t been released to the media yet,” Sergeant Garvey continued as they walked into the reception hall. The crime scene guys were already at work, taking pictures, combing the area for trace evidence. Eric put his hands in his pockets and approached close enough that he had a better view of the body, but not so close that he got in the way. Garvey stayed at his side.

The victim lay sprawled on her back in a pool of blood, one shoe on and one lying several feet away. A veil was draped across her face. Protruding from her body were several long, thin—

He blinked, to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

“She’s kabobed.”

Behind him, stifled laughter escaped from a couple of the patrolmen who heard the remark. Garvey put on his long-suffering expression, but not before he had to control the grin that threatened to crack his face. “For God’s sake, Wilder.”

Eric squatted so he had a better view of the body, looking it over from head to toe, his sharp gaze noting every detail. “What else would you call it?”

“Stabbed
. The term is
stabbed
. Remember that, especially when you’re talking to her family or the media.”

He grunted, continuing his visual. As far as he was concerned, “kabobed” was on the money. Metal skewers protruded from the corpse at different angles, and even from a distance he could tell that a couple of them had gone very deep, while others had barely punctured the skin. There were more puncture wounds than there were skewers; the killer had stabbed her repeatedly, maybe even using both hands, because of the difference in angles. The one that had apparently punctured her heart was buried damn near to the hilt, where a piece of blood-drenched meat dangled, along with what looked to be a pearl onion.

Too bad Franklin was on vacation. He thought he’d seen everything, but Eric would bet the farm this would be a new one on him.

Eric was very aware of the emotional wreckage this would cause. The dead weren’t the only victims of a murder; the families suffered, long and deep. Carrie Edwards was—had been—a beautiful young woman, murdered as she was planning her wedding. She’d likely have parents, siblings, friends; she definitely had a fiancé who had yet to be notified. Someone, somewhere, loved her. But he’d learned long ago that if he took every case to heart he wouldn’t be able to function, so he couldn’t afford to be too empathetic, to let himself get sucked into the emotional pain and grief that surrounded a murder. All cops handled it with dark humor, the darker the better. For the family’s sake, though, he’d remember to deep-six the kabob comments.

It was someone else’s job to soothe the pain this woman’s death would cause: a minister, a psychiatrist, a friend. His job was to find the killers and bring them to justice.

Food, ribbons, pictures of flowers and veils, and different brochures littered the area around the body. She’d struggled; the table she lay behind had been knocked askew, and her arms bore defense wounds. A briefcase lay on the floor. After the crime scene techs finished, he’d see what information the briefcase yielded, but he couldn’t be so lucky that the killer had left such a huge identifying item at the scene. The victim’s cell phone, which lay beside her, was more likely to point them in the right direction. It was an iPhone, so God only knew what they’d find on it.

Now that he knew the identity of the victim, he was aware of a small knot of tension easing from his stomach. He hadn’t let himself consciously think of her, but when he’d heard “reception hall” he’d instinctively prepared himself for the possibility that Jaclyn could be the victim. She was in the business, and she’d told him herself how crazy people got when they were planning weddings.

Maybe that was what had happened here. Someone had definitely gone crazy.

He rose to his feet; he’d seen all he could see for now. “Where’s the manager?”

“One of the officers is taking her statement. She discovered the body, made the 911 call.”

From the time the first patrol car arrived, an officer would have stayed with the woman, both to control the scene and to prevent her from making any calls. They didn’t want her contacting the media, friends, or anyone else, because controlling the information that got out was as important as the physical scene.

“She was almost hysterical,” Garvey said sourly. “She’d locked herself in the office, convinced a Freddy Krueger–like serial killer was hiding in a closet somewhere, ready to slice and dice her if she poked her nose out. An officer searched every room before she’d calm down, and she’s still wound as tight as a yo-yo.”

She could rest easy; this wasn’t the work of a serial killer. The veil placed over the face—after the victim’s death, by the looks of it—suggested that the murder had been personal. The murderer had known the victim, probably very well. The multiple wounds were also the mark of someone in a rage, which wasn’t the hallmark of murder by a stranger.

He got a quick briefing from the first-on-scene officer. The manager’s name was Melissa DeWitt. She was much calmer now, though through the open door he could see that she was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

She might not be so calm if she knew that right now suspicion was resting most heavily on her. It was amazing how often the killer would “discover” the body, either figuring the police would assume he or she couldn’t possibly have done it because otherwise why risk drawing so much attention, or thinking that would give a logical reason for any trace evidence left behind. Innocent or guilty, she was the starting point of the investigation.

When the briefing was finished, he went into the office, pad and pen in hand, ready to write down everything she said. “Mrs. DeWitt, I’m Detective Wilder. Do you think you could answer some questions for me?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then turned her head to look out of the window behind her. “That’s Carrie’s car,” she said, pointing to a silver Toyota. “I was watching, waiting for her to leave so I could lock up. Everyone else had already gone, at least … I thought they had.” She shuddered a little, but didn’t appear to be losing control again.

“Everyone else? Can you give me their names? I need to know who all was here this afternoon.”

The woman nodded. “Of course. Just give me a moment to clear my head. I swear, I can hardly think straight.” She took another deep breath, and while she was occupied with calming herself, he visually inspected her. The attack would have left plenty of blood on the perp; she could easily have washed any blood from her skin before placing the 911 call, but he didn’t see a speck of blood on her clothing—and she was wearing a white blouse. He’d have to see if she kept a change of clothing here at work.

“Carrie met with so many vendors,” she finally said.

“Vendors?”

“You know—people who do work for the wedding. The caterer, the florist, they’re all vendors. Some of them I know very well, others I know by first name and trade. Today they were all, well … unhappy. Carrie wasn’t satisfied with anything anyone did. Time was getting short and they all needed decisions made, but she gave everyone the runaround. Anyway, Premier was handling the event, so Jaclyn Wilde will have everyone’s contact information. You should talk to her.”

Oh, shit
. Everything inside Eric stilled, for a moment. There couldn’t be two wedding planners with that name. “Jaclyn Wilde.”

“Jaclyn Wilde, the wedding planner.” Mrs. DeWitt frowned. “Well, she
was
the wedding planner, but Carrie fired her this afternoon. There was a horrible scene. Carrie actually slapped Jaclyn in the face, in front of several of the vendors. For a minute I thought there was going to be a brawl.”

“Jaclyn … Ms. Wilde was fired this afternoon?” Double shit. And the victim had slapped her, too. Was she the kind of woman who might snap under those circumstances? He didn’t know her nearly well enough to say. A memory came back to him:
She has the ability to turn the gentlest of people into raving lunatics
. Those were Jaclyn’s own words, from just last night. And since Mrs. DeWitt had already told him that Carrie had been giving all the vendors a hard time, he’d bet his pension the “she” Jaclyn had been talking about was now lying dead, literally skewered, down the hall. Well, fuck.

“Excuse me for a minute.”

“Sure,” she said, reaching for her office phone. “I’ll call my husband—”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d hold off on that,” he said, giving the officer standing outside the door a glance that told him to continue controlling the outflow of information. “Even the smallest detail you might let slip while you’re so upset could hinder the investigation. Ms. Edwards’s family hasn’t been notified yet, and it would be bad if they heard about this on television.”

“Oh!” She snatched her hand away from the phone. “I understand.”

Eric rose, closed his notebook, and went in search of Sergeant Garvey, whom he found standing next to Lieutenant Neille. “Problem,” he said briefly.

Both men gave him their full attention.

“Evidently there was a confrontation with the wedding planner this afternoon, and the victim not only struck the wedding planner, Jaclyn Wilde, in the face, but she fired her, too.”

“And?” Garvey prompted.

“I know Jaclyn Wilde.”

Lieutenant Neille frowned. “How well?”

“We’re not involved, and I can’t say I know her all that well, but …” Screw it, the truth wasn’t pretty, but it was the truth. “One-night stand.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

Garvey’s muttered curse was fouler than usual, but he followed the curse with a quiet, “Can you handle it?”

“Yes,” Eric answered without hesitation. And he could. He wouldn’t like it, he
didn’t
like it, but he could do his job. Jaclyn Wilde was a … possibility, not a commitment.

Garvey glanced at Lieutenant Neille, who sighed as he scrubbed his hand across his jaw. “For now, proceed,” said Neille. “If she starts to look good for it, we’ll put someone else on the case if you have any problem. And do it right, Wilder. If there’s any question, you’ll have to look at her harder and longer than you would otherwise, so know that up front.”

“I know.” And he did. It wasn’t as if Hopewell was lousy with detectives. There were six of them, two per shift. Franklin, who worked the same shift as Eric, wouldn’t be back from Disney World until Sunday night. No way would they call him back from the happiest place on earth when Eric said he could handle it. It was a measure of his superiors’ trust in him that they let him do this. If he said there wasn’t a conflict of interest, they believed him.

Now, if he could just convince himself.