Love Kills

by Edna Buchanan

  The fourth Ron Fullerton I called in Chicago remembered Marsh Holt well. “Used to work for me, but we lost touch,” Fullerton said. “Nice guy. What’s your interest in him?”

  “I wrote the story about his wife’s death,” I said. “Something’s come up and I need to talk to him. His old number’s disconnected.”

  Fullerton didn’t seem surprised.

  “He’s had a tough time. Never got over losing her like that. Happened on their honeymoon, you know. Broke his heart. She was the love of his life.”

  “Right,” I said, recalling the bridegroom’s despair. “It was very sad.”

  “Sure was,” he replied. “Suzanne was such a talented girl.”

  “You mean Vanessa.”

  “No.” The word rang with the certainty of a man who knew what he was talking about. “Her name was Suzanne.”

  “No. Her name was Vanessa. She was a musician.” My voice sounded thin. My mind raced. “She drowned.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said irritably. “Her name was Suzanne. She fell. They were taking pictures on their honeymoon in Arizona. She stumbled and fell off a cliff, into a deep ravine. Died instantly.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “That son of a bitch!” I pounded my fist on my desk so hard it hurt.

  “What’s wrong, Britt?” Ryan asked softly from the desk behind me. He sounded concerned.

  “I’m so stupid!” I blurted, on the verge of angry tears. “What’s happened to me?”

  “Hormones.” He nodded wisely. “It happens. I’ve been reading up on it.”

  “On what?”

  “You know. Pregnancy.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?”

  “So I can help if anything happens.”

  “Like what?”

  He looked hurt. “Well, in case your water breaks, or anything.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Had the whole world gone insane? His sweet, sensitive face stayed in my mind, as I fled the newsroom.

  “I bought it, Lottie, hook, line, and sinker. I swallowed his whole damn story. Every word sounded true to me. How could I be so stupid?”

  “Everybody bought it,” she said, “not just you.”

  “But what’s happened to me? Why did my instincts fail? Where did my street smarts go? My experience?” Was my personal trajectory straight into the toilet? Was I totally unencumbered by the thought process? “He killed them, Lottie. He did it. He killed both those women. There may be others.” I took a tentative sip of the herbal tea she offered and grimaced. “I really hate this.”

  “Don’t worry, the good Lord will nail his ass.”

  “No, I mean this tea! I want to cut out coffee so the baby isn’t jittery, but I need caffeine, I crave caffeine; it’s the only thing that jumpstarts my brain cells. Chamomile sucks!”

  “It’ll grow on you,” she insisted.

  I paced the photo office in a cold rage. “He lied, lied, lied, right to my face, won me over with his stories, those sad eyes, and that radio voice. Had me driving his lying ass all over town. Had me offering words of comfort on how to survive and piece his life back together. I really related to that bastard, treated him like a victim, and all the while he was thumbing his nose behind my back. Laughing at her and her parents, those poor people who really believed he’d be the son they never had. They’re the real victims. So are Vanessa and Suzanne—and God knows who else.”

  “But why? Maybe he’s just a guy who, if he didn’t have bad luck, would have no luck at all. Tragedy stalks some people, some places. We’ve seen ’em. Like that damn boat, the Calypso Dancer. Every time it sails somebody dies.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned away, trying to think about something—anything—other than coffee.

  “Well?” she demanded. “Would you charter that floating death trap for a pleasure cruise?”

  “It’s not the boat,” I snapped. “The boat’s no ghost ship. It’s him. And I know the motive. That son of a bitch. I called Sally, Vanessa’s maid of honor, again. She’d neglected to mention, as did the parents, that Vanessa had already mingled her assets with her new husband’s, and named him her life insurance beneficiary before the wedding. She had discussed it with Sally, her best friend. He suggested that since they were about to travel outside the country they should take out policies naming each other as beneficiaries. It didn’t seem suspicious at the time, only thoughtful and efficient.”

  “How much?”

  “Half a mil, and I’d wager there’s double indemnity for accidental death. And that’s not all. Just before the wedding, Vanessa moved her savings into a joint account and everything she owned into their new apartment. He sold it all, Lottie, including the wedding gifts, some still unopened, her jewelry, her clothes, even her damn cello, made of wood from Bosnia. I talked to the apartment house manager and a neighbor. Holt had liquidators in the day after the funeral, bidding on everything but the bathtub. Cleaned the place out the same day.

  “Her father probably didn’t tell me because he’s embarrassed, or maybe her mother isn’t aware and he’s trying to keep it from her. Neither talks on the phone without the other on an extension.

  “I’ll wager it was the same with Suzanne. Liz, the best researcher we’ve got, is running Internet searches right now on all possible variations of his name, honeymoon tragedies anywhere in or out of the country, and the deaths of newlywed women in every state. Onnie’s helping.”

  Lottie took a seat across from me, her brown eyes serious. “If he did kill Vanessa,” she said hopefully, “maybe she was the only victim. Maybe Suzanne did die accidentally and it gave him the idea.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said, “but I doubt it. The man’s a pro, super dangerous to women. My gut instinct says he’s done it before and he’ll do it again.”

  Lottie picked up one of the photos she’d taken of Marsh Holt in the office that day. “Evil shouldn’t look this good,” she said. “Amazin’ how women hear his honky-talkin’ bullshit blues and agree to marry him twenty minutes later.”

  “When her parents suggested they wait and get to know each other better,” I said bitterly, “Vanessa reminded them that they met at a USO dance four weeks before her father went to war. They got married the day before he shipped out. She waited. He survived Pork Chop Hill; the rest is history. If only Vanessa had realized that Marsh Holt was not like her father. The signs were there. He blew into town a blank slate, with something evil, a ghost in the machine.

  “This is a helluva story, Lottie. We can nail the bastard. Expose him in the paper, and see him in the slammer before he marries another poor girl.” I checked my watch. “I’ll see if Liz has come up with anything.” I paused at the door and frowned. “There’s another problem. Ryan’s out of control. Did you know he’s been reading up on pregnancy?”

  She nodded matter-of-factly. “I think he hopes to deliver your baby, Britt. I wouldn’t advise it.”

  Liz was hunched over the computer in her little cubicle as usual, fingers flying, expression intense.

  “Anything?”

  Her ponytail bounced as she spun her chair around and faced me. “Darn right.” She pushed her little computer glasses up higher on her pug nose, the lenses reflecting a greenish glow from the fluorescent lights. “Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.” She handed me a printout.

  Marsh Holt and a Marshall Weatherholt shared the same Social Security number and the same date and place of birth. Before he shortened it, he was widowed under the name Weatherholt: three times. One bride, Colleen, died in a honeymoon ski accident in Colorado. Rachel suffered a fatal snakebite as they explored Mayan ruins in Guatemala on their honeymoon adventure. Gloria, the third, drowned in a Miami scuba-diving accident. As Marsh Holt, he married Suzanne and Vanessa, who experienced the same bad luck.

  The brides’ deaths had all been ruled accidental. Tragic accidents, perfect murders.

  I felt a chill. “Keep looking,” I urged Liz.

  I found Fred in
his office.

  “It’s a national story,” I said, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. “The man is a serial killer, and no one even suspects any of the dead were murdered. A helluva story. We have to break it first.”

  “Need some help?”

  “No way. I’m all over it. It may involve some travel.”

  “That might not be wise.” He looked skeptical.

  “I might agree in a couple of months. But I’m good to go now. I’m healthy.”

  He continued to frown. “I thought you were working on the Spencer York homicide.”

  “York’s a cold case. He’ll keep. He’s dead. This guy’s still alive, still out there stalking women.”

  “How about you stay on your beat, which is what you really wanted, if you recall, and we let another reporter do the legwork. Maybe Nell Hunter could—”

  “This is my story,” I said heatedly. “This one’s unique. Holt is more evil than the serial killers who stalk strangers and murder on impulse, driven by passions they can’t, or won’t, control. What he does is incredibly complex and totally premeditated. Patiently and persistently, he courts innocent young women with the intent to steal it all: their hearts, their money, and, ultimately, their lives. It takes months of planning and playacting. What could be more callous? This is a once-in-a-lifetime story!”

  “How much time would you need to nail it down?”

  “No way to know exactly. But you know me. I’ll work as fast as I can. Time only moves in one direction, and in this case speed is of the essence.”

  He nodded decisively. “Go for it. Keep me posted. Use caution and your own good judgment. Mary will arrange a corporate credit card and help with travel arrangements. Try to keep the travel to a minimum. You know we’ve closed some of the bureaus and trimmed as much as possible out of the budget. And Britt, when you’re on the road, check in with me or the city desk every day, hear?”

  “I hear you. Thanks, boss.”

  “Oh, and I know you’re eating for two, but try to go easy on the per diem. Go get him.”

  I flew out of his office and back to Liz’s desk, high on adrenaline.

  “I think he went to Amsterdam and was in Canada for a while,” she said, scarcely looking up. “He used his original last name.”

  I searched News files for the case closest to home, Gloria Weatherholt’s fatal scuba-diving accident six years earlier. It had scarcely warranted newspaper space, only three brief paragraphs. Gloria and Marshall Weatherholt, a Kentucky couple on their honeymoon, diving from a rented sailboat off Key Biscayne. She failed to surface. He called for help. Search divers pulled her from the water three hours later. The medical examiner ruled it an accidental drowning. Fatal water accidents are common in Miami.

  I called Sergeant Craig Burch. He sounded irritated and pulled no punches. “We’re swamped, working York full-time. We have enough unsolved murders to keep busy longer than any of us will live, and you want us to reinvestigate an old accidental drowning?” he asked accusingly.

  “Exactly,” I said, and filled him in.

  His interest level rose rapidly as he listened, but he wouldn’t make any promises. When they got a break, he said, he’d have Stone review the file. That was the best he could do.

  I worked the phones and the Internet to glean as much data as possible from law enforcement agencies who’d investigated the deaths, the local medical examiners’ offices, and news stories published both at the accident scenes and in the brides’ hometowns.

  Suzanne, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was a promising young writer and poet. She had won a national short-story-writing contest, according to a feature in her hometown newspaper, the Times Picayune. A prestigious literary magazine had published her prizewinning story. She’d won a grant from a major arts foundation and was at work on her first novel.

  Then she met Marsh Holt.

  During their Grand Canyon honeymoon, the couple had stopped to snap pictures at a spot with a spectacular view, a news story said. As the budding poet and novelist posed close to the cliff’s edge, loose stones apparently gave way and she slipped. As her new husband watched in horror, she plunged five hundred feet to her death. It took nearly a day to recover her body. Police described Marsh Holt as “inconsolable.”

  I called the sheriff’s department investigator, who confided that such accidents are not uncommon. “You never know what a tourist is gonna do,” he said. “Had one a couple weeks ago where a family stops their RV to let their dog out. The pooch runs off into a hazardous area with rock-slide warnings posted. The owner chases after him, right past the warning signs, until the ground gives way under his feet. He and a ton of rocks disappear into a deep crevasse.”

  “Any witnesses to Suzanne’s fall?”

  “None that I know of, other than the husband—and his camera. We processed the pictures. In the last frame he shot, she was standing right at the edge, smiling and waving at him. The man took it hard.”

  Oh, sure, I thought.

  The medical examiner had found that the slick leather soles and narrow two-inch heels of Suzanne’s strappy sandals probably played a role. “When she lost her balance, she had no traction and slid right off the edge,” she said. No foul play suspected.

  I downloaded Suzanne’s prize-winning short story from the literary magazine and folded the printout into a file folder to read later.

  Colleen was a native of Connecticut and an equestrian who rode in competitions from Madison Square Garden to London, England. She had walls full of blue ribbons, rooms full of trophies, and had competed in the summer Olympics.

  Athletic and competitive, she was also an experienced snow skier. Despite the fact that it was nearly dusk, she and her new husband had remained out on the slopes. It had begun to snow, but she insisted on making one more run. The bereaved bridegroom told police that he had reluctantly agreed. He assumed his bride was right behind him. It had begun to snow harder, with limited visibility. Colleen somehow missed the trail and skied right off the side of the mountain. When Marshall Weatherholt turned, she was gone. He stopped, waited, then went for help.

  The ski patrol arrived too late. She had crashed into a grove of large fir trees.

  Rachel, a clever young entrepreneur, had launched her own business at age twenty-three. Unable to find a high-fashion handbag with built-in, easy-to-reach compartments for her cell phone, credit cards, cash, and cosmetics, she created her own. Friends adored it. Every female who saw it wanted one for herself.

  A slick national fashion magazine featured her creation. Then the Enquirer photographed Lindsay Lohan carrying one, and what began as a cottage industry took off, with a small factory, scores of employees, and stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s stocking the distinctive bags. About to branch out into shoe, fashion, and jewelry design, Rachel met the love of her life and took time out for romance.

  Rachel took a sketch pad on their honeymoon, an exotic trek to Mayan ruins in Guatemala. She hoped for design inspirations.

  Poisonous snakes are native to the region. Warnings were posted at their hotel and on the trails. As the newlyweds hiked a jungle path, a small but deadly snake apparently dropped out of a tree and down the front of Rachel’s blouse, a sunshine-yellow safari shirt she had designed herself. The bridegroom reacted heroically, local police said. He tore away her shirt and removed and killed the snake. But, bitten several times, she died before help could arrive.

  Too bad she didn’t design a compartment in her backpack for anti-snakebite venom, I thought.

  Local police, reluctant to scare off tourists, declined to discuss the dangers further but did acknowledge that a number of such deaths occur annually, among both visitors and residents. They sympathized with the bridegroom. He had been distraught, they said.

  The investigators in each case scoffed at any possibility of foul play. After witnessing his Academy Award–worthy performance as grieving bridegroom, no one ever suspected Holt.

  Brilliant, I th
ought, as I transcribed my notes. The self-made widower knew how to manipulate law enforcement’s jurisdictional boundaries. The bride’s friends and relatives, who might be suspicious, ask questions, and demand answers, were back home, sometimes thousands of miles away. The investigators most often worked for small unsophisticated police agencies in remote resort destinations where they were better trained in tourism and public relations than in homicide investigation. They were also accustomed to the misadventures of visitors on a holiday. Tourists in unfamiliar settings sometimes stumble into deadly accidents.

  I had seen it in Miami, had written the stories. Tourists killed while boating, Jet Skiing, sky-diving, swimming, or snorkeling. People normally cautious at home feel invulnerable on expensive annual vacations. They never see it coming.

  Patterns emerged. The victims were already successful or climbing the ladder, mostly from well-to-do families. Each was outgoing, creative, and pursuing a central passion in her life, before being swept off her feet by Marsh Holt. They were busy playing music, writing, designing, or participating in national sports competitions, with little time for romance, until he entered their lives.

  How does he select them? I wondered. Did he really wander into a symphony hall in a strange city, see Vanessa, and choose her? Is it really that random?

  Vanessa at the cello, the stunning professional portrait her parents had sent me, had been published in full color in the arts section of the Boston Globe several weeks before they met.

  Suzanne had been featured in her local newspaper and in the literary magazine that published her prize-winning short story. The magazine had used a photograph of her with a short bio on the contributors’ page.

  The business section of Rachel’s local paper had featured the young entrepreneur’s booming design business, along with two photos depicting her with some of her creations.