Weddings Can Be Murder (2 page)

“Have you and Ron heard anything from
Victoria this morning?” I asked, amazed that my voice sounded as
calm as it did.

“Why? She’s supposed to be with you.”

I breathed. “I know that. I’m at her house.
She’s not here.” At that point, my fake calm left me. “Something’s
really wrong, hon. I don’t know what, but things don’t look
right.”

A moment of silence. “We’ll come. Wait where
you are. Fifteen minutes, max.”

I nodded, as if he could hear it over the
phone, but the connection was already dead.

The Jeep was warm inside, and it was
tempting to take Drake’s instruction literally and stay there, but
unanswered questions bug me to death. When they involve a loved
one, there’s no way I can sit quietly by. I pulled my keys, grabbed
purse and phone, and even remembered to lock the car as I headed
back to the empty house.

This time I paid close attention to every
detail. Nothing at the front seemed out of place. Small, potted
evergreen shrubs flanked the red painted door. The fact that the
door was unlocked when I arrived was troublesome, but there really
had been no sign that Victoria had not left it that way. Inside,
the entry hall with its console table, trio of Nambé candlesticks,
antique mirror and arrangement of fall foliage appeared exactly as
I’d seen them on previous visits. Still, the condition of the
living room worried me. The wedding gown on the floor would have
never happened with Victoria in control. Someone else had been
here.

I sniffed the air. Again, that noticeable
acrid odor. I stepped into the grouping of sofa and side chairs,
the area I’d only observed from the doorway earlier. From this
angle I saw it—a long smear of red on the wheat-colored sofa.
Closer, I could tell it was blood. Below the smear, on the blue and
cream area rug, a puddle had formed. Drops led away from it,
dripping their way toward the dining area and kitchen.

I swallowed hard, my toast and coffee
threatening to rise. My index finger reached toward the spot,
wanting to test whether it was wet.
Stupid move, Charlie.
I
yanked my hand back.

Other things began to catch my attention.
Slivers of wood on the hearth, shreds of stuffing from a pillow
that had fallen to the floor. A small statuette of a Franciscan
saint lay on its side on the mantel, nudged there by some force not
quite strong enough to knock it to the floor. I knelt and held a
hand to the glass fire screen. It was cold.

A sound at the front door startled me and
two seconds later Ron and Drake walked in, catching me on my knees
at the hearth staring up at them.

“What’s going on?” Ron demanded.

“I wish I knew.” I pointed out the red
stains.

“Where’s Vic?” Ron demanded.

“I was hoping you could tell me. I got here
to pick her up and found this. The front door was unlocked. The
back one is standing open …”

“Shit,” he murmured, rubbing his hands
through the somewhat sparse hair on his head.

“We have to call the police,” Drake said.
“Something could have happened to her.”

“Maybe she got scared and went to one of the
neighbors,” I suggested.

“And didn’t call me?” Ron paced the room,
his eyes flitting every direction.

I looked toward the dining table, surrounded
by six antique chairs. The purse Victoria normally carried hung by
its strap over one of them.

“Maybe she couldn’t call. Here’s her purse,”
I said, checking and verifying that her phone was inside.

“Charlie, she could have gone to a neighbor,
used their phone.”

Good point—stupid me.

“She’s missing and there’s blood. We have to
get the police involved,” Drake repeated. He was already pulling
his phone from the pocket of his tux. “Meanwhile, it’s probably
good if none of us touch anything.”

My hubby is quickly learning the finer
points of crime scenes after only four years on the periphery of
Ron’s and my private investigation business. I left Victoria’s
purse where it hung and tried to think of everything else in the
house I might have touched, while he dialed 9-1-1 and gave the
dispatcher the basics.

Ron continued to pace and there was
something about his expression that bothered me.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?” I
finally asked.

“Nothing! Nothing’s going—well, obviously,
something went on here.”

“Ron? You’ve been tetchy all morning. I
hardly noticed it at our house, with all our rushing around to get
ready. Is this wedding day jitters or something else?”

He glanced toward Drake then back at me.

In the distance I heard a siren.

“Is this something you want to tell the
police, or would you rather get it over with while it’s just us
three?”

The siren grew louder, making the turn onto
this street.

“It’s just—I don’t know—Vic and I had an
argument last night.” He glanced toward the front door as the cop
car came to a stop at the curb.

“You guys never fight. Was it a bad
one?”

“I don’t know, Charlie. I’ve never seen her
like that. We were talking about today and about our honeymoon
trip. She’d found the tickets and I was a little put out that she
wasn’t happy with my surprise. That’s all, I swear.”

Footsteps approached the front door.

“Did the fight get loud?” I kept my voice
low. “Could the neighbors have heard it?”

“No! I don’t think so.” He shuffled his
weight to the other foot. “By the time I left everything was okay.
I swear, she fully intended to go through with the wedding.”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get that,” Drake said. “Maybe you’d
better shush about this until we see what the police say.”

Both Ron and I took that as excellent
advice.

Chapter 3

Two uniformed officers stood at the door
when Drake opened it, a tall, dark-haired man standing slightly
behind the other, a woman with her blond hair twisted into a bun at
the back of her cap. They seemed a bit surprised at the appearance
of Ron and Drake in formal wear at eleven o’clock in the morning. I
suppose I looked a little off-whack too, with my hair elaborately
done up, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt under my woolen dress
coat.

The female officer spoke first, verifying
that the call had come from this residence, and Drake basically
repeated what he’d said to the dispatcher. Victoria Morgan owned
the house and was supposed to be getting married this morning but
was missing and we’d found things out of order inside the house. I
led them into the living room and went through the list of things
I’d noticed out of place. Other than the blood and wedding dress,
most of the other items could easily be explained away, I supposed,
by someone rushing through the room in a hurry. I did my best to
impress upon them that Victoria wasn’t the type who rushed about
knocking things over, nor would she have left the room in disarray.
Not to mention that she was expecting me to pick her up this
morning.

In a standard divide-and-conquer move, the
male officer took Ron to the kitchen and the woman, whose badge
merely identified her as P. Lacey, shuffled Drake and me back
toward the front door where we went through a raft of questions of
the sort they were probably required to ask although they were
stupid. In my opinion.

“Could Ms. Morgan have simply left to do a
quick errand before the wedding?”

“No, her purse is here and her car is out in
the driveway.”

“Maybe she meant to meet you at the
church?”

“Leaving her dress, shoes and everything
else behind? Really! Not to mention that she would have phoned with
any change of plans.”

Officer Lacey must not have liked my tone of
voice. She turned to Drake.

“When was the last time any of you saw
her?”

“The rehearsal dinner last night,” he said
with a smile that was intended to say, Don’t mind my wife’s
attitude. She’s always a little short-tempered in situations like
this. “Other family members are in from Arizona and we met at
Pedro’s for dinner. Ron drove Victoria home afterward.”

Ms. Lacey wrote all this into her little
notebook along with our phone numbers and address. “I’ll need a
complete list of those at the dinner. Did either of you speak with
Ms. Morgan this morning?”

We both shook our heads. I felt as if I’d
done something seriously wrong by not staying in closer touch, but
really—we’re only talking a matter of twelve hours or so.

Through the archway to the living room, I
could see the other officer—I think he’d introduced himself as John
Blumenthal—with a guiding hand at Ron’s elbow, steering him toward
us. The man’s eyes, however, were aimed toward the blood-stained
rug.

“I’m calling in a 10-28,” he told P. Lacey.
To the rest of us, he said, “You all will need to leave the house
now. We have your contact information.”

“What? We can’t leave until we know where
Vic is,” Ron sputtered.

“We’re investigating the fact that she’s
missing. Meanwhile, I meant what I said,” Blumenthal replied. “You
can go home now.”

The two of them herded the three of us out
the door and down the front steps. Then the door closed between us,
just after I noticed Blumenthal speaking into his shoulder
mike.

“So. What now?” I asked.

“Well, I’m not going home,” Ron said. A
flicker passed over his face as he looked up at the bungalow. “This
is my home. Aside from a few things back at the apartment, I’m
almost completely moved in here.”

“We could go to our house,” Drake said.

“No!” A rush of rebellion ran through me.
“There’s no way I could sit around, wondering what’s going on. I’m
staying here.”

Ron ran his hands down the sides of his
face, then glanced at his watch. “The wedding’s supposed to start
in thirty minutes.” He looked completely lost.

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” I said. “I’ll
call Paul and tell him to keep everyone entertained, tell them
there’s a little delay. That will buy us some time.”

Neither of the men had a better plan, so
they merely nodded.

“Then, on the off chance that she really did
pop over to a neighbor’s house, forgot the time, didn’t notice the
arrival of two cop cars …” It sounded lame. “We should ask around.
You guys take the houses on either side, I’ll go across the street.
Ask if anyone has seen her, if they heard or saw anything unusual
at the house last night or this morning. Ron, what time did you
leave her here last night?”

“Eleven-thirty? Midnight? Something like
that.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t corroborate what
time he’d gotten to our house. I’d been dead asleep by ten.

“Okay, so use that as our timeline, the last
time we know for a fact that she was okay. Ask people if they
noticed anything after midnight.”

“Charlie … the police will want to ask the
questions,” Drake said.

I ignored him and pulled my cell phone from
my purse. Ron started moving. Drake shrugged and I watched the two
guys head in opposite directions, practically hopping through the
frosty winter-brown grass in their woefully inadequate dress shoes
and clothing. In five minutes, I’d informed our other brother,
Paul, that there would be a delay and asked that he take over and
keep folks busy for another hour or so. He dithered—he’s a great
ditherer—wondering aloud what he should do until I got impatient
and told him to figure it out. Sheesh!

The sun began to peek out through the clouds
as I walked across the street, and I hoped the day would warm up a
bit. I rang two doorbells where no one was home; Saturday errands
apparently took precedence over the excitement in the neighborhood.
At the third house, really the only other one with a clear view
toward Victoria’s, an elderly lady answered. My hopes dimmed when,
upon asking my question, I had to stop so she could turn up her
hearing aids.

“I never sleep a wink anymore, honey,” she
said. “Some nights I just lay there in bed. Sometimes I get up and
bake. Would you like to come in for a cookie? You look cold,
dear.”

I glanced back to see if I could catch sight
of Ron or Drake, but neither was near enough to rescue me. The sun
wasn’t hitting the covered porch where I stood and a gust of wind
nearly took my breath away.

“A cookie would be lovely,” I said.

The moment I stepped inside I had to peel
off my coat. The place felt like a hundred degrees. I hoped the old
woman’s Social Security covered such a heating bill.

“I’m Gladys Peabody.”

“Charlie Parker. My brother, Ron, is
marrying Victoria, across the street.”

“Charlie? That’s a funny name for a girl.
You ain’t one of them who’s changed herself from a man, are
you?”

I chuckled at the suspicious going-over she
was giving me.

“No, nothing like that. My name is
Charlotte—Charlie’s a nickname I’ve had since I was a kid.”

She led me through a living room that would
have been the dream of any Depression-era collector. Carnival glass
candy bowls, sets of pink and green sherbet dishes and a metal
tureen with intricately etched designs filled bookshelves and
glass-fronted curio cabinets. In spots, I had to turn sideways to
squeeze through the dining room as we headed toward a kitchen that
sported a slope-shouldered refrigerator (amazing the thing still
ran) and a dinette set of chrome edges and yellow leatherette
seats.

I already knew there was no way she could
have seen Victoria’s house if she’d been baking. The kitchen’s only
window faced a backyard full of elm leaves and crispy rosebush
canes. But she’d forgotten my original purpose and was intent on
pouring hot water from a kettle on the gas burner into a teacup. I
tried to make little hurry-up noises, picturing Ron and Drake
standing out in the cold waiting for me. But Gladys was not to be
rushed. She found an old fruitcake tin and opened it to reveal the
most scrumptious-looking pile of butter cookies I’ve ever seen. Oh
well, Ron and Drake could sit in the truck and start the
heater.