Wedding Day of Murder

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  Mrs. Craig seemed to know what he was getting at. “Lacy was involved in the band. She loved to read, and she spent a lot of time with me here.”

  “That about sums it up,” Frannie added. “She didn’t get out much. Riley, on the other hand…” She would have gone into a rapturous soliloquy about Riley’s social perfection if Jason hadn’t interrupted.

  “Riley was very popular, I’m sure,” he said. “What I’m trying to ask is if anything unusual happened to Lacy during that time.”

  “Lacy’s whole life has been unusual,” Frannie said. “She’s always been in her own little world. Bad things happen to her for no apparent reason.”

  “But she keeps a chipper attitude,” Mrs. Craig added. “Lacy’s a sweetheart and always has been. She was such a good little helper and always so pleasant to have around.”

  “Riley was a handful,” Frannie conceded. “Always looking for trouble, always pushing the limits and testing us. Then when she got in trouble, she would pout so cutely that none of us could stay mad at her. Those dimples and that curly hair—she could have modeled, if my husband had let me pursue that route.” Now it was her turn to pout.

  “Lacy didn’t like to get in trouble,” Mrs. Craig said. “She wanted to make us happy, to make us feel good. She’s always been very sensitive to the feelings of those around her. And so smart and talented. It’s a shame she doesn’t write anymore; she had such promise as a reporter.”

  “I think someday she’ll get back to it,” Jason said. “Right now her focus is on the town, but once things slow down here, she’ll want something else to do.”

  “Riley is talented, too,” Frannie said, as if they were having a competition. “I don’t understand why she wanted to get married so young. She could have done anything, and now she’s having a baby.”

  “A baby’s not the end of the world, Frannie,” Mrs. Craig said.

  “Mom, you were so much older when you had me. You wouldn’t understand; you don’t know what it’s like to be a young mom. Riley had so much potential.”

  Jason wanted to bang his head on the desk a few times. Not only was he not getting anywhere with finding out about anything that might be hidden in Lacy’s past, but he couldn’t seem to keep the conversation from diverting to Riley. It was as if Frannie had placed all of her hopes and dreams on Riley, never once considering Lacy’s massive potential. And now that Riley’s life wasn’t working out as she had planned, she couldn’t cope. He was tempted to point out all of Lacy’s attributes, but decided against it. Being the focus of Frannie’s positive attention was as bad as being the focus of her criticism, maybe worse. Riley was happy, possibly for the first time in her miserably selfish life, and yet Frannie couldn’t allow her to enjoy it. Family is the worst, he thought.

  “I should go. Thank you for the coffee, Mrs. Craig. I’m glad you’re feeling well today.”

  “Come back anytime,” she said. “Maybe when Tom is here.” Her tone was laden with something more than hospitality; he wondered if she was trying to tell him he might have an easier time getting answers when Mr. Middleton was there.

  “Thank you, I may do that.” He nodded to her and forced a smile for Frannie before letting himself out. If Lacy hadn’t had her grandmother’s constant love and attention, would she be as messed up as he was? Which was worse: having a mother who ignored you or having a mother who picked you apart? Neither was an enticing proposition.

  He pulled out his phone and called Kimber. “I’m on my way to the Stakely building. Can you meet for coffee?”

  “Sure,” she said, although her voice held questions.

  “Bring your friend. I haven’t met him yet,” he said. He also hoped that Andy might be able to fill in some of the blanks from Lacy’s college years.

  “All right. See you in a few.”

  They met at the ice cream shop in the Stakely building, currently the only sit down restaurant in the place.

  “Jason, this is Andy Kyun, Andy, Jason Cantor,” Kimber introduced. Jason and Andy shook hands before they sat. Andy put his arm around Kimber, and although Jason wasn’t as vested as Lacy in reading their romantic signals, it seemed obvious to him that any feelings on Kimber’s part were mutual.

  “Thanks for meeting with me,” he said. “I have few questions about Lacy.”

  “Is something wrong with her?” Andy asked. “I thought she was going to be fine.”

  “She is, I just…” He could be honest with Kimber and trust her not to spread the news of his case. Andy was an unknown quantity, but he would have to hope for the best and extend the same trust to him. “Lacy is somehow involved with a case I’m working, and I need to know how.”

  “The murder?” Kimber whispered, eyes wide.

  “Yes,” Jason said. “Without going into specifics, I can say that there was a link between Lacy and the dead man. I need to delve into her past a little and see if I can find some connection.”

  “You don’t think it could have been some random thing?” Kimber said.

  “Maybe, but I’m not trained to look at random; I’m trained to find causes and connections and see how they link up. Right now Lacy is my only lead.”

  “What about the other protesters?” Andy asked. “I mean, they look and smell like a group of wandering serial killers.”

  “I agree, but the victim was new to their group. It’s possible that this was a random act of violence, induced by mental illness, but to reach that conclusion, I need to rule out everything else.”

  “What do you need from us?” Kimber asked.

  “I need to ask you a few questions about Lacy, to figure out if anything ugly is hiding in her past,” Jason said.

  Kimber and Andy looked at each other and burst into such loud laughter that the woman behind the counter bestowed them with a disapproving frown. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Kimber said. “Ms. Squeaky Clean couldn’t even take an open-book exam without feeling guilty for cheating.”

  “Remember when her bag spilled and papers blew away and she turned herself in to campus security for littering?” Andy asked. “And then wouldn’t leave until they fined her ten dollars?”

  “I’m not saying it’s anything purposeful that Lacy did,” Jason said. “Obviously she isn’t a criminal mastermind with all kinds of skeletons in her closet. You guys have known her longer than I have, however. Is it possible that someone connected to her has something that might be discovered?”

  “No,” Kimber said, still amused by the question. “I mean, we had friends other than the three of us. We hung out with the multicultural club. A lot of our friends have gone back to their home countries and we’ve lost contact. The ones we’ve stayed friends with work boring jobs and lead boring lives.”

  “Present exciting company excluded,” Andy interjected. “Being an accountant is more exciting than it seems. Or at least more exciting than having your hand repeatedly slammed in a car door.”

  “Can you think of anything, anything at all about Lacy’s life that someone might find interesting?” Jason asked.

  “Her uncanny ability to survive?” Kimber guessed. “I’m serious,” she added, “the girl is a walking catastrophe. I’ve seen her tumble down enough steps to equal Machu Picchu, and somehow she always gets back up again. Then there was the time she almost fell out the window.”

  “I haven’t heard that one,” Jason said.

  “It was scary,” Andy said seriously.

  “Yeah,” Kimber added, sobering. “She would have died.”

  “What happened?” Jason asked, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Already he had too many scenes of Lacy’s impending doom swimming around in his mind; he didn’t want to add another.

  “I don’t even know,” Kimber said. “Sometimes people fell out of windows because they were drunk, but that wasn’t Lacy. One minute she was there, and the next she was dangling by her fingertips from a fourth story windowsill. I freaked, which is not a proud memory for me. I pride myself on keeping a cool h
ead and not becoming hysterical, but I really thought she was gone.”

  “What happened?” Jason asked. His stomach churned. He could picture Lacy losing her footing, overbalancing, and tumbling through the window. The fact that she somehow caught herself was amazing.

  “Andy,” Kimber said, beaming at him with pride. “He was the only one of us not screaming his head off. He calmly reached out and plucked her back inside.”

  “It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Andy said. “I think I was the only one who realized that she hadn’t plunged all the way and was still dangling from the sill.”

  “That’s true,” Kimber said. “I thought she had already splatted on the sidewalk.” She shuddered. Andy squeezed her shoulders.

  “That’s disturbing,” Jason said, but the story hadn’t helped him uncover anything about Lacy that he didn’t already know. She was clumsy and a magnet for danger and strange happenings. Everyone who knew her knew that. “Was she working on any business deals?”

  Kimber’s eyebrows touched her hairline. “You don’t know?”

  “We don’t talk about her business much,” he said. Money had become a taboo topic between them. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make peace with the fact that she was a millionaire and on her way to becoming a mogul. Most of the time they pretended that the money didn’t exist. When they went out, he paid, despite the fact that she had many times more than his annual salary sitting in the bank.

  “Nothing I knew of except…” Kimber trailed off, not sure if she should continue.

  “Except what?” he pressed.

  “She really wants a motorcycle,” Kimber said. “She doesn’t bring it up because she knows you disapprove.”

  “Do you think Lacy on a motorcycle is a good idea?” he asked.

  “I think Lacy is a grown woman capable of making her own decisions,” Kimber said, a little hotly.

  “Touché,” Jason agreed. “It’s hard not to be protective.”

  “Take it from someone who has seen her through four broken bones: you can’t prevent bad things from finding her; you can only be there to help put the pieces back together,” Kimber said. “Miss Independent does not like boundaries. They’ll only work for so long before she starts to rebel.”

  Jason shrugged one shoulder. He didn’t disagree; he simply hadn’t found the right balance with Lacy between protectiveness and freedom. Sometimes he came off a little controlling, but his intentions were good. He wasn’t trying to take away her freedom; he was trying to keep her safe. His greatest fear wasn’t that she would break, as Kimber said, but that the pieces would be too small to ever put back together. He was a cop. How could he live with himself if something bad happened on his watch to the person he cared about the most?

  Kimber waved to someone behind him. Jason turned to look and saw Michael lurking in the doorway of the ice cream shop. He gave Kimber a smile and heads-up nod before ambling away. “What’s with that guy?” Jason asked.

  “What do you mean? He’s a nice guy, and funny,” Kimber said.

  “There’s something wrong with him,” Jason said.

  “You mean other than the fact that he has a Y chromosome and shares an approximation to your girlfriend?” Kimber said. “Boy, you’d better get that jealousy under control.”

  “It’s not jealousy,” Jason said. “Lacy said she doesn’t have feelings for him, and I believe her.”

  “I’m with Jason on this one,” Andy said. “There’s something off about the guy. I don’t trust him.”

  Jason thought he shouldn’t take comfort in the fact that a total stranger shared his opinion, but he did. Hearing Andy voice his doubts out loud only validated his concern, although it was possible that Andy was also fueled by jealousy. Michael did a fair share of flirting with Kimber, along with every other female on the planet. Maybe the fact that he was a player was what Jason found off-putting. He hadn’t had many relationships, but those he’d had were always serious and monogamous. He had a low tolerance for men who could flit from woman to woman without conscience. Whatever the reason, the buzz of distrust that had been building since Michael’s arrival was coming to an apex. Maybe it was time to do a little digging into the life of Michael O’Donnell and see what turned up.

  His phone rang with a call from work. “Excuse me,” he muttered and slid out of the booth to take the call from Detective Arroyo.

  “Those prints you pulled on Rain turned up something. We’re going to yank her in and have a conversation with a little more leverage.”

  “I’m at the Stakely building. I’ll bring her back with me.”

  “I’m going to send backup in case the crazies turn violent.”

  “I’ll wait on their arrival,” Jason said. He almost hoped the protesters would resist. Nothing cleared his brain like a good fight, and since he became a detective, he hadn’t hit nearly enough people. What did it say about him that he felt sentimental over his time on the night shift when wrestling with angry drunks was almost routine? “I need to go,” he said when he returned to the table. “Thanks for the meeting.” He drained his coffee, momentarily forgetting that he was already caffeinated out of his mind. There was a good chance he would never sleep again after today. He felt jittery, and that annoyed him. The feeling bordered on anxiety, as if his tension had to do with impending doom and not too much java.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Michael as he walked past his store. He was at the window, staring intently at the protesters. He didn’t speak to Jason or appear to notice him in any way, which was probably for the best. Jason wasn’t in the mood for small talk with someone he disliked and distrusted.

  When he arrived outside, the units were just stepping out of their car. “Rain” saw them and seemed to understand immediately that they were there for her.

  “The fuzz! Don’t let them take us alive. Stand together!” she yelled. Around her, the other protesters looked confused and sleepy. Two of them yawned. One scratched. None of them shared her outrage. Undaunted, she fell to the ground and went limp as soon as Jason and the two uniforms approached.

  “I passively resist your tyranny,” she said.

  “You’re not under arrest,” Jason explained. “We need to ask you a few more questions.” What was a rational approach to use on the irrational? Explaining didn’t help, pleading for answers fell on deaf ears.

  She began to sing “Kumbaya,” substituting “Milo” for “My Lord.” Jason stared down at her, perplexed. Kindness and understanding wouldn’t work with her; she was forcing him to become what she had accused him of being. He might as well give her what she wanted; perhaps it was the only way to get the answers he so badly needed.

  “Your refusal to answer questions is impeding a murder investigation. You’re under arrest for obstruction of justice.” He bent, rolled her over, and cuffed her. She didn’t resist, much to his dismay. He would like to add resisting arrest to her charges to make them a bit more substantial. He and the units carried her to the car together. She might be bad at remembering song lyrics, but she was an expert at becoming dead weight.

  They stuffed her in the back of the patrol car. She ratcheted up the music and began murdering a Bob Dylan song. Jason had never been so happy to close a patrol door and walk away. “All yours,” he said to the uniforms.

  “Thanks a lot, Detective,” one of them said dryly.

  Jason climbed into his quiet, soundproof SUV and breathed a sigh of relief. At this moment, he was thankful for the promotion that allowed him a moment of peace. Of course when they arrived at the office, the scene would change. The uniforms would hand Rain off to him again, and he would have to start the interview process while they went on their merry way. He stifled a groan; he might as well speak Swahili for all the luck he had communicating with the crazy woman.

  When he arrived at the station, he let Rain linger in the interview room a while before he joined her. Maybe if he waited long enough, she might get the crazy out before he arrived. Not lik
ely, but a man could dream. In the meantime, he read the information that Arroyo had been able to pull from her fingerprints. Her real name was Susan Jenkins. She had three prior arrests for disorderly conduct, but no convictions. Her record began at age nineteen and was fairly unremarkable. Jason stared at the printouts, thinking. Her first arrest was in Detroit, but her first driver’s license had been issued from a small town in northern Michigan. How did she go from Susan, a small-town girl, to Rain, protester extraordinaire?

  He tapped his pencil, thinking. What he needed was someone who was good at research. He and Arroyo shared a secretary with the sheriff. While she could be counted on to make copies or type legal documents, she was abysmal at research. Some of the dispatchers were awesome at research but bristled at any mention of secretarial work. They were not secretaries; he got it. But on slow days, some of them could be counted on to grant favors. He picked up the phone and called dispatch, smiling when he heard Margie’s gruff voice. Margie had been there forever. She knew everything about everyone, and she was a whiz at ferreting out information. Better still, she liked him. Her kid had been a couple of years behind Jason in school. His dream among dreams had been to join the football team. Unfortunately he was terrible and never made it past being a water boy, but Jason had treated him like a member of the team, inviting him to parties and events for players. Margie remembered and reserved a soft spot for Jason. Sometimes being nice was its own reward, and sometimes it paid unseen dividends.

  “Margie, how’s it going today?” he asked.

  “The usual. The world would be a lot better off without people, you know that?”

  “You’re preaching to the choir,” he said. If he could take Lacy to a desert island, he would stay forever.

  “What do you want?” she asked. Margie always got straight to the point. The other officers were terrified of her, and rightfully so. Margie’s bad side was a place no one wanted to be. However, when she was in a good mood, she baked amazing treats and left them in the break room. For that reason and many others, most of the department was committed to keeping Margie in a good mood.