Weddings Can Be Murder (30 page)

Chapter 31

I baked cookies the following morning, two
batches of our family’s holiday favorites, then divided them and
took one plate over to Elsa. She insisted on making me a cup of
cocoa and, since she does hers the old-fashioned way rather than
from those little powdered packets I buy, I couldn’t refuse.

“What’s the news on the wedding?” she asked
once she had me hooked.

“I haven’t asked. I assume they’re waiting
for Victoria’s injuries to heal completely.”

“Oh, why wait?” she said, helping herself to
another biscochito from the plate.

I did the same—something about that cinnamon
sugar coating goes perfectly with hot chocolate. About the wedding,
I didn’t know how to answer her question. But since I had another
plate of cookies for the fiancés I would deliver them and make it
my business to ask.

Victoria greeted me at the door and I saw
she’d given up the sling and was now able to wear her normal soft,
fuzzy slippers. I held out the cookies, which she took with her
good hand.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Those men
are back and Ron went to the office this morning.”

For a split second I thought she meant
Proletti and his thug, and I thought of my pistol which was very
inconveniently locked in my glove compartment. Before I could react
I heard male laughter from the living room and figured out she
meant the FBI men. She pointed out agents Montenegro and Applin.
Finally, it registered with me that two plain vanilla cars sat at
the curb across the street.

“Have they been questioning you?” I asked,
wondering where this was going—should we have an attorney present?
It seemed they’d already asked Victoria plenty of questions.

“Not really,” she said. “Well, they just got
here.”

I squared my shoulders and headed toward the
men. Near the kitchen stood a third man, also obviously from the
government. He stood a little under six feet tall, with a gray
buzz-cut, brown eyes, and a straight line for a mouth. Montenegro
introduced him as Special Agent in Charge Gilbert Ahern from DC. I
remembered someone mentioning that he would be flying out west a
day or so ago.

He shook my hand and gave me an appraising
look, as if to determine whether I was important enough to give
them any information. I supposed it was all part of his job. I also
remembered Kent Taylor saying this older agent was due for
retirement soon but since he was the original one to investigate
Proletti’s activities all those years ago had decided to follow
through and see the case to the end.

Victoria had taken the cookies to the
kitchen and kept sending quizzical glances toward the three men. I
had to agree—what did they want with her now? Being the more brazen
or maybe the less intelligent, I came right out and asked.

“We brought back a couple of items,” said
Applin.

For the first time I noticed the green box
on Victoria’s coffee table.

“We assumed you would need those papers for
the case,” I said.

“Well, yes, we’ve kept the papers. I thought
maybe Ms. Morgan would have sentimental feelings for the box, and
of course the photograph of her parents, so I suggested we return
them.”

Three FBI agents to return two items of
memorabilia? Something didn’t register right.

“We’re on our way to the airport,” said
Ahern, stepping back into my field of view.

Montenegro shifted from one foot to the
other. What was going on here?

Vic hung back, staying near the counter that
divided kitchen from living room so I stepped up to take
charge.

“Thanks for that. So, if there are no more
questions, Victoria and I have plans this morning.”

I thought the invitation for them to leave
was pretty clear but it took a full minute for Montenegro to stop
looking toward the senior man and make the decision.

“Yes, right. Well, we’ll be getting along
then.” He moved toward the front door with Applin behind.

Ahern seemed to be studying the room but
eventually he followed the others. I watched through the peephole
until they’d gotten into the two cars and driven away.

“Now that was weird,” I said to Victoria who
had finally ventured away from the protection of the kitchen.

“It was. They just came in, kind of smiles
and happy—well, except for that older one—and offered me the green
box. I haven’t actually looked inside it yet. I hope they really
did give back the photo.”

“Yesterday, when they asked their questions,
did you get the feeling they wanted more information?”

“They asked me several times if I’d seen or
heard from Al Proletti again, and they repeated the same question
when they arrived today. Of course, I haven’t.”

“Maybe that’s all there is to it. You know
how, in the movies, the government agents are so all-knowing,
all-seeing? I suppose in reality they do not have all criminals on
cameras and under surveillance at all times. They probably wondered
if he’s still here in the city.”

“Yesterday, one of them made several phone
calls and I gathered he was checking airline flights for Proletti’s
name.”

There are certainly ways to travel without
buying an airline ticket or he could have a fake ID and buy his
ticket under another name, I thought, but there was no need to hash
it all over with Victoria. She was edgy enough already so I changed
the subject.

“Elsa wants to know what your plans are for
the wedding.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, put it off on Elsa,
huh. I
know
you are every bit as curious.”

“Well,
yeah
. I need to know when I
get to wear my gorgeous new dress.”

Her face went sad and I remembered, too
late, that her wedding gown had been taken as evidence by the
police.

“We will get your dress back, Vic. They
can’t possibly need it.” I spoke with all the assurance of someone
who is all blarney. I really had no idea if I could accomplish
this.

I distracted her with the cookies while I
thought about how to approach the police. If I called Kent Taylor
and asked permission to get the dress back he would most likely
have some line of legal mumbo-jumbo that would be a denial.
However, if I showed up at his office and begged … maybe threw in a
wistful expression and a tear or two over how sad it was about the
bride losing her gown … It was worth a shot.

I pulled my keys out of my purse and told
Vic not to worry. I would accomplish the mission and be back before
she knew it. A box of Christmas ornaments sat on the floor near the
unfinished tree so I handed them to her and suggested the time
would pass more quickly if she kept busy.

Twenty minutes later I was approaching the
municipal parking building next to the police department. Being one
of those places that charges you for an hour’s parking even if you
only rush right in and back out, I decided to make a call. Kent
Taylor picked up as soon as the department operator transferred the
call to his desk.

“Oh good, you’re there,” I said. “I need to
pop up and see you. It won’t take a minute.”

“Charlie, what’s this about?” I couldn’t
quite make out the joy in his voice, but surely it was there
somewhere.

“I’m already at the parking garage and I’ll
be quick.”

“Okay, you’d better be.”

I hung up before he could change his mind,
then pulled away from the curb and whipped into the parking
structure, taking my little ticket from the yellow machine that
dispenses them. Another car waited impatiently behind me then tried
to run the gate and sneak in without getting his own ticket. I
remembered the elevator to Kent’s department came out at the third
level of the garage so that’s where I headed,
finding—miraculously—I had a shot at the one empty space. The dark
car that had rushed in behind me at the gate apparently had the
same idea.

Too bad. I got here first. I got out, locked
my door and faced the building. The dark car stopped behind my
Jeep, angling so I couldn’t walk past him. Jerk! I turned to go
around. The car’s doors opened and two men got out.

That’s when I knew I was in real
trouble.

Chapter 32

The silver-haired man caught my attention
first, although the other one held a gun and was definitely the
more dangerous looking. About a dozen thoughts went through my mind
in a nano-second: he looked just as Victoria had described him,
complete with the vivid blue eyes; my gun was locked in the
glovebox; my Jeep was blocked in; I’m on the third floor, way above
the ground; it’s the police department—surely someone will come
along soon.

“All I want’s that evidence from your
girlfriend’s house,” Proletti said.

Vic was right—he did have a faint New York
accent.

“I saw those agents go to her house. You
leave there right after and come to the police? You must have it
with you.”

The statement made no sense. Why would one
bunch of lawmen give evidence back to the victim, only to have her
turn it back to another section of law enforcement? I only thought
of this later. At the moment he said it, I was struggling to keep a
clear head as the thuggish one came around the side of their car
and held the gun on me. I knew with a sick certainty it was the
same gun that had nearly taken Victoria’s life.

A white car slowly approached, the driver
probably looking for a parking space in the crowded structure.
Proletti tensed and the thug moved in closer to me. I was just
trying to think of a way—any way at all—to alert the driver and get
him to go for help. When the car stopped and Agent Gilbert Ahern
stepped out I could have shouted for joy.

“Al,” he said.

“Gil. What are you doing here?” Puzzlement
showed in Proletti’s eyes.

“The other guy has a gun!” I yelled at
Ahern.

When he didn’t react the way I expected, all
at once I knew.

“Put it away, Fausto,” he said to the thug,
who complied. Turning to Proletti: “What did you tell your
daughter?”

“Nothing, man. I asked for the evidence,
searched the whole damn place. She had nothin’.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

I had no time to ponder the remark, not with
Fausto giving me the evil eye, so I tried to deflect his
attention.

“I thought you were on your way to the
airport,” I said to Ahern.

“Later. I’m on a different flight from
Applin.”

“So … Here are your suspects. Aren’t you
going to arrest them?”

My bluff didn’t work. His stern mouth turned
upward at the corners, his version of a smile. Ahern wasn’t here to
catch Proletti and his cohort. He’d followed them as they tracked
me. They were on the same side.

I remembered what Victoria said about the
cassette tape, where Al Proletti talked to someone they assumed was
in law enforcement. It wasn’t the Florida deputy, Elmer Reddick. It
was the FBI man from Washington. Kickbacks, bribes, who knew what
all—the agent had been in Proletti’s pocket for decades. I didn’t
want to guess at the devil’s pact the two had made. I only wanted
out of there.

Ahern might be a crooked lawman but he
wasn’t stupid. He read my thoughts as surely as if they’d been
written on my face in ink. He stepped behind me, effectively caging
me among the three of them. Unless I could knock one of them down
or kick ’em in the privates, I was stuck. I didn’t like the
three-against-one odds. Injure one of them and I still had the
other two to deal with.

“You know the nice thing about working with
a rube in a dink police department like this one?” Ahern said to
Proletti. “The nice thing is I’m the one who ended up with the
evidence.”

I took offense on behalf of Kent Taylor. We
didn’t always see things the same way but he was certainly not a
rube.

Ahern reached into his jacket and pulled out
a zipper bag full of neatly folded papers. I recognized them as the
ones that had come from the green box, including Juliette’s steno
pad and the cassette tape. In his other hand he had a plastic
lighter. He held up the bag and flicked the lighter.

Proletti’s eyes grew wide, his jaw slack.
Fausto looked toward his boss for guidance but none was
forthcoming.

Ahern was staring at Proletti now. “You know
how much I’ve covered up for you over the years, Al? You have any
idea?” He’d let the lighter go out, thank goodness.

Al held perfectly still. I wanted to turn
into a tiny field mouse and scurry away. Something here was taking
a nasty turn.

“If all that shit I covered up was to come
out now—you know how bad that would be for me? My
pension—pfft!”

“So, burn it! We’re both in the clear then.
Proletti tried to bluster his way through. “You got enough to
retire five times over, without a government retirement fund.”

“Only if I wanted to live on some
godforsaken island where you sweat all day and the mosquitos eat
you alive, looking over my shoulder all the time. No contact with
my family. Never see my kids, my grandkids? Nah. I want to live
where it’s civilized, send away for a little of the money now and
then, not enough to make anyone take a second look. I have to
doctor this tape so the evidence sends you away but doesn’t reveal
anything about me.”

So, why don’t we all walk away and you
can do that?
I really hoped he could read my face as easily now
as he had earlier.

“Give me the evidence, then,” said Proletti.
“I can go so far away you’ll never see my face again.”

“Huh-uh. No way. I’m not taking the chance.
Ex-federal agents don’t do so well in prison.”

I saw where this was really going. Ahern
wasn’t here to capture Proletti and take him in. There was too
great a chance, once arrested, the mobster would tell it all. This
meeting should have taken place between the two of them, all alone.
My very, very bad luck to be caught in the middle.