Weddings Can Be Murder (4 page)

“You all go ahead and eat. I know it’s late
for lunch and you must be starving. Drake and Ron and I will check
in with you when we get home.” I held to the faint hope we’d be
back within an hour or so.

As we drove toward police headquarters
downtown, I couldn’t stop picturing the scene in Victoria’s house.
The blood, the disarray, the gown. Add to all this the fact that
they were now questioning Ron. I was glad we had passed up the
invite for lunch. My stomach was in such a twist, there was no way
I could imagine putting food in there.

I navigated the one-way streets downtown
until I reached the station. Luckily, Saturdays are fairly quiet
around here and we were able to snag a decent parking spot. As we
approached the main entrance, it looked like some kind of speech
was taking place. Media people from all the local stations aimed
microphones at a suited man with a two-hundred dollar haircut.
Politician or lawyer. I didn’t recognize him, but he had the look.
We swerved around the cluster of excitement and climbed the
steps.

I’ve been to Kent Taylor’s office before.
Several of Ron’s cases have overlapped with APD’s and most of the
time we’ve managed to work effectively together, if not always
cordially. In general, the police would love it if private
investigators and ordinary citizens stayed out of the way and
allowed the officials to do their jobs. Most of the time I’m
perfectly cool with that. Most of the time I don’t have a relative
who’s being questioned.

Drake and I made our way through security
but were stopped short of getting down the hall where the
detectives’ quarters are. I had to put my name on a list and wait
for a sergeant to come out and listen to our story. He stepped away
and apparently made a call. When he came back we were told that Ron
Parker was a ‘person of interest’ and we would have to wait until
questioning was completed.

“Does he need a lawyer?” I hated the fact
that I had to ask the question.

“Mr. Parker has not requested one,” the
sergeant informed me, “although he certainly has the right to.”

Something about his tone gave me an uneasy
feeling. I waited until he left and I turned to Drake.

“I think I’d better call someone for
Ron.”

“Charlie …”

“Even if he doesn’t want an attorney now, I
think he needs good advice. The fact that they brought him here,
rather than covering the questions back at Victoria’s place … I
don’t like it.”

He didn’t argue with me.

I thumbed through the contacts on my phone
coming across the name of Ben Ortiz, one of the attorneys our firm
had dealt with on multiple occasions when RJP Investigations
performed background checks and other investigatory errands
connected with various clients of Ortiz’s. Mainly, I liked the fact
that Ben was a bulldog in court and had pulled off some amazing
feats of defense. I tapped his number.

Court. Just having the thought go through my
head rattled me. Surely this thing would never go that far.

“Ortiz.” His voice was crisp and matched
what I remembered of the man who wore tailored suits and expensive
shoes.

“Ben, it’s Charlie Parker—RJP
Investigations.” I went into the condensed version of where I was
and what I was doing here.

“I can be there in a half hour,” he
said.

I repeated that Ron had not yet officially
requested counsel but I would certainly pay for Ben’s time, whether
or not it turned out he took the case—if there was a case. We
agreed to meet in the building’s lobby where I could bring him up
to speed with the little I knew.

Meanwhile, Drake had disappeared somewhere
and came back with two cello-wrapped sandwiches from a vending
machine.

“You haven’t had anything other than toast
and coffee all day.” He pushed one of the sandwiches and a canned
soda into my hands, ignoring my protests that I wasn’t the least
bit hungry.

I choked down the dry bread and unadorned
turkey, knowing he was right about needing nourishment, hating that
we weren’t all at the wedding reception having champagne and cake
right now. We walked the halls as we ate, each wishing we could
think of something to say to comfort the other. The best I could
come up with was to repeat what a great attorney Ben Ortiz was and
that he would help us think of what to do next. The part I left
unsaid was the worry over Victoria, where she might be, what
condition she might be in. Those thoughts hung over me like a dark,
ominous cloud.

* * *

“Tell me again, exactly what was said during
this argument between you and your fiancée?” Kent Taylor asked
Ron.

They were seated in an interrogation room
Ron had never seen up close before. Previous visits to APD
headquarters had always taken place either in Taylor’s glassed-in
office or the main squad room where the bustle of officers and the
torrent of questions had always been about someone else. The
closest thing he’d experienced to a personal tragedy was when
Charlie had been taken by desperate robbers from the lobby of a
bank eighteen months ago. It had been nerve-wracking and
terrifying, but he’d been on the right side of the law. This felt
completely different. The stainless steel table and chairs, the
large two-way mirror on the wall, the recording equipment … it all
felt antagonistic. His hands were like ice.

He sighed and went through the story again.
“Victoria had found the tickets I bought for our honeymoon trip. I
wanted the destination to be a surprise—Florida. Neither of us has
been there and it seemed like such a great destination this time of
year. I was going to pull them out when we got to the airport this
evening.”

Airport. That was another thing to cancel
and probably lose his money on, the airline tickets.

“But she disagreed?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t really say so. She
seemed, all at once … she just got all agitated, argumentative, and
started pacing the room.”

“She didn’t want to go?”

“I got that feeling. Something was really
bothering her about it.” Ron ran his hand through his hair for the
fortieth time in the last hour.

“But you don’t know what, and you swear
she’d never said anything against Florida in the past?”

“We’ve both been edgy for a few days. The
wedding, my moving into her space. Little things that we each
snapped about.” Ron nearly bit his tongue. He had to remember that
Kent Taylor was not his friend this time. He’d not been charged
with anything and he’d not been given the official warning, but Ron
knew his words would be used against him later if he kept
blabbering away.

Taylor took a different tack, asking about
the Beretta, getting Ron to repeat what he’d said earlier about the
last time he used it and when he’d cleaned it. They had stopped at
Ron’s car and picked it up, Taylor taking it into evidence to be
tested against the bullet holes at Victoria’s house. Ron still
didn’t know what evidence they’d gathered at the house, what
unknowns were possibly lurking to condemn him.

A knock at the door distracted Taylor and he
went to speak with the uniformed officer standing there. The two
chatted for a moment in low tones. Some new bit of information was
being delivered but Ron couldn’t hear what it was.

* * *

I spotted Ben Ortiz through the heavy glass
doors facing the street. The earlier political hubbub had
dissipated, the sleek-suited man gone and the remaining media
people either milling about or packing their cameras and gear into
vans at the curb. A couple of the journalists perked up when they
recognized Ortiz but he ignored them and walked directly into the
building.

Drake and I hung well back from the entry,
waiting for Ortiz to pass through security before stepping from
behind a large metal sculpture to greet him.

“Don’t talk to that bunch out there,
whatever you do,” he warned us after shaking hands. “Let me handle
them.”

He probably remembered that I tend to say
what’s on my mind, not always at the most opportune times.

“Charlie, I’m serious. They’re like vultures
waiting for fresh meat. You and Ron do not want to provide it.”

I nodded, reluctantly agreeing.

“Shall we go see what’s happening upstairs?”
Ben asked.

Drake and I gave each other a look. Neither
of us is good about waiting for the wheels of procedure to turn. We
like results—getting out there in our helicopter or raking through
stacks of paper to uncover evidence. I need to be
doing
something. I caught sight of the large clock hanging from the
ceiling in the lobby. Mid-afternoon already and I couldn’t see that
one thing had been accomplished toward finding Victoria and getting
her home again. I itched to go back to her house and start a
systematic search, to figure out a way to retrace her steps and
learn where she might be now. But with the cops treating her home
as a crime scene, there was no way they’d let me do what I needed
to. Drake and I followed along as Ben Ortiz pressed the button for
the elevator.

Kent Taylor emerged from the interrogation
room and the lawyer strode purposefully toward him. I noticed
Kent’s eyes harden when he saw who we were with.

“I’ve been retained by the family to
represent Ron Parker,” Ortiz said. “I understand he hasn’t been
charged, so don’t go into all that.”

Kent Taylor was a cop who detested what he
saw as those guys in the system who routinely mucked up perfectly
good police investigations. I knew this—I’d heard his comments
about Ben Ortiz and his type on more than one occasion.

“We’re merely asking questions at this
point,” Taylor said, putting a diplomatic tone in his voice.

Ortiz had a way of facing the larger man as
if he were actually the taller one. “Mr. Parker and his family have
been through sheer hell this morning and it’s time to give them a
little peace. You know where to reach us if you have more questions
later on. I want him released now.”

“He’s not being held. We’re just crossing a
few Ts, that sort of thing.”

Ortiz sent a little nod my direction, a tilt
of the head indicating he wanted to talk to the detective alone.
Drake and I shuffled off to a row of chairs down the hall and
watched as the conversation became more animated. After a good ten
minutes of gesticulating and comments delivered through clenched
teeth, Taylor walked away and the lawyer came toward us.

“Should just be a few more minutes,” he
said.

It was more like a half hour, but Ron
emerged looking like a pup who’d been tossed into a roomful of
angry cats, intimidated and relieved to have escaped. The sight of
him in his wedding tuxedo felt especially wrong. I ran over and
gave him a hug, a gesture that probably hadn’t happened more than a
dozen times in his life—we’re typically not a huggy family. He kept
an arm around my shoulders and sent Drake a bedraggled smile. When
he started to tell us what had happened, Ben Ortiz cautioned him to
wait.

We rode the elevator in silence and came out
in the lobby.

“I want you to get a good night’s sleep,”
Ben told Ron.

As if that would be possible.

“Tomorrow, come by my office at ten and
we’ll go over the whole story.” He shook hands with his new client
and left us.

My steps faltered. How would any of us get a
wink of sleep with Victoria missing and this ridiculous cloud of
suspicion from the police? I wanted to storm back upstairs and
demand that Kent Taylor tell me what was being done to find her,
what actual evidence he had to implicate my brother. Drake’s words
interrupted that train of thought as we walked toward the exit.

“Look, everyone, he’s right. We all need
some rest if we’re going to act rationally. Let’s go back to our
house, eat something, think things through. Ron, the wedding will
happen yet. We’ll find out who got into her house and where they
took her.”

Ron stepped ahead and held the door for me
and I belatedly noticed a man with fakey-perfect hair and thick
makeup approach.

“Excuse me. Blake Moore, Channel 12 News.”
When he flashed the smile I recognized him immediately. “I just
heard about your fiancée—you are Ron Parker, right? It’s tragic,
her going missing like that. Is there some way we can help?”

Ron’s mouth opened, just as I jabbed him in
the ribs. My first thoughts were: What the hell? How did this guy
hear about it? How did he know who we were? Not necessarily in that
order.

“What are the police saying?” Blake Moore
continued. “Do they have a suspect in her death?”

“She’s not dead!” My rib-jab and vise-like
grip on Ron’s arm didn’t stop him from protesting loudly.

At that moment I saw Ben Ortiz approaching
at a fast clip. He hadn’t got as far away as I’d imagined and must
have overheard. Unfortunately, it looked as if all the remaining
media folks had also taken notice. In less time than it takes to
think about it, we were surrounded.

Chapter 5

“It was awful,” I told Elsa.

We’d escaped police headquarters—with
another dire warning from Ben Ortiz about keeping quiet—and made
our way home, where Paul, Lorraine and Elsa waited.

“The attorney says we’ll issue a public
statement in the morning. Meanwhile, we aren’t to answer the phone
or the door to anyone who isn’t a close friend or relative.” I
stared into the refrigerator, heedless of the cold air and waste of
electricity, feeling that I should be coming up with food for the
group.

Ron had gone into the guest room to shower
and change clothes. Drake was outside, having said something about
making sure our vehicles were locked.

“The attorney’s advice is surely for the
best, dear,” Elsa said.

At this moment I had no idea what was for
the best. Dusk had fallen quickly and Lorraine had dropped the hint
that her kids were hungry. I didn’t have a scrap of appetite and
knew Drake and Ron felt the same way because we’d discussed it on
the way home.