“‘Just a cup of coffee,’ she said. Nothing to worry about.
“I knew. I watched what was happening like a slow-motion disaster. I had to trust her. We’d always trusted each other. So I dropped her off that evening. She was wearing her engagement ring, pitiful little pebble such as it was…. I drove away, but I had a bad feeling. So I went back, parked, walked up, and looked in the front window, like an orphan with his nose pressed against the glass. I didn’t mean to spy on her. I saw him. Saw how she looked at him. And I knew.”
The fan’s name was Marsh Holt.
“For a while I hoped he was just a BF destroyer.”
“Excuse me?”
“A BF destroyer—you know, a pickup artist who likes the challenge of seducing women who have boyfriends. If that’s what he was, he’d move on and I could forgive her. I would’ve forgiven her anything.
“But Suzanne was a keeper. He was older, handsome, more sophisticated, and affluent. I was just an average Joe who loved her.” He licked his pale lips. “I had trouble breathing, literally, for months after she confessed she’d fallen in love with him. She wanted us to stay best friends, but there was no way…. I wanted her to be happy, to have the world and everything she wanted. But I couldn’t watch.
“I have years of golden memories, gifts from the gods who ultimately take away.”
“Well put. I take it you still write poetry.”
His sad smile turned sheepish. “None that I ever share. Suzanne had all the talent in that department. When I heard she died…If he hadn’t come into our lives…” He trailed off, lost in thought. Then his expression changed from melancholy to curious.
“Why is a reporter from Florida interested in Suzanne Chapelle? She didn’t publish enough to have this kind of posthumous attention from the press.”
“Actually, it’s not her writing that interests me,” I said. “It’s him. Marshall Weatherholt. Marsh Holt. The serial bridegroom.”
“Is he…?” His soft gray eyes stricken, he stared at my new maternity top. “He didn’t—You’re not…?”
“For God’s sake, no. I’m a police reporter. I think Marsh Holt murdered Suzanne, that he’s a serial killer. I’m working on a story about him, trying to piece it all together.” I told him about the other brides.
He sat in stunned silence, generating grief as though it were radio static, interference that at times prevented him from clearly comprehending my words. He’d blink, furrow his brow, repeat something I said.
“I hated him because he didn’t protect her, because he let that terrible accident happen,” he said slowly, covering his eyes with his hand. “But at the funeral, when I saw how he suffered, I felt guilty and ashamed. But if you’re right”—he raised disbelieving eyes to mine—“he intended to kill her from the start, like the others.”
I nodded, afraid that John Lacey might begin to weep aloud in that crowded and noisy coffee shop. So we left, or at least tried to.
I had slipped my shoes off under the table, and now they didn’t fit. It was as though a practical joker with a foot fetish had swiped my shoes and replaced them with much smaller look-alikes.
“Sorry.” I struggled, trying to cram my foot back into my size-five white Reebok, as Lacey stood waiting. “What new hell is this?” I stared in dismay at my swollen feet and puffy ankles. “Must be the airline flights, or a combination of flying and…” I dragged my teeth across my lower lip.
Finally I used brute force to jam my feet back into the shoes and hobbled painfully into the street.
“Sure you’re all right?” Lacey looked concerned.
“Absolutely,” I said, trying not to wince.
I bought a pair of soft rubber flip-flops at a chain drugstore across the street. They were pink, intended for wear in the shower or on the beach. They’d do fine until the swelling subsided.
“You should elevate your feet,” he advised. “I have five half brothers and sisters. My mom always swore that her feet grew with every pregnancy. ‘You start as a size six,’ she’d say, ‘and wind up a ten.’”
“No way,” I protested. “I have shoes, high heels, that I love. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna outgrow them at this age.”
I frowned at my pink flip-flops, wondering what my mother would think.
When I said I needed to make some calls and take notes, Lacey suggested his nearby apartment would be more comfortable than my motel room.
His small second-floor apartment was a typically cluttered bachelor pad, except for the room where he labored on his novel. Scrupulously organized reference books lined the shelves, and the walls were adorned with photos of Suzanne.
I was hungry again, so Lacey fixed me a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich in his tiny galley kitchen while I called the Coast Guard in Miami. Skelly O’Rourke was tied up at a press conference. Twenty-one Cuban refugees had successfully made it to U.S. soil, or so they thought. They had clambered from their small boats onto an old bridge in the Florida Keys, home free, they believed, under U.S. policy. However, the unused deteriorated span was no longer physically attached to land. On that basis, they had been scooped up and sent back to the island they thought they’d escaped, inflaming Miami’s Cuban community and setting off a firestorm of controversy.
O’Rourke would be tied up indefinitely afterward, conducting satellite radio and television interviews. No one else in the public information office even remembered Vanessa Holt. The dead bride was old news.
I called Ron Fullerton in Chicago. He had not heard from Marsh Holt and had no theories as to his whereabouts.
A spokesman at the U.S. Consulate in Guatemala City told me that local police had long since closed the investigation into Rachel Weatherholt’s snakebite death.
There would have to be sufficient proof, clear evidence of foul play, I was told, before anyone would consider reopening the case. Perhaps, he suggested, such evidence might be found if the body was exhumed.
I wondered. Rachel had been dead for three years, and Holt was so clever that finding injuries inconsistent with his snakebite story seemed unlikely. But it was worth a shot.
I called the New York City mortuary listed in her obit to ask where Rachel had been interred. She hadn’t. Perhaps there had been evidence of foul play. Marshall Weatherholt had had his bride’s body cremated. When her parents objected, he insisted that Rachel had once told him that was what she wanted. An oddly morbid conversation between giddy whirlwind lovers rocketing toward wedlock, but nobody questioned it. After all, he was the grieving husband.
As I continued to work the phone, John Lacey fixed me some soup, tomato with cheesy croutons.
He was right. His study, with its desktop computer, big leather chair, and comfy overstuffed ottoman on which to prop my swollen feet, was far more comfortable than any motel. And the food was better, hotter, and kept coming.
Lacey confirmed that there had been insurance. How much, he didn’t know, but Suzanne had mentioned it during those painful days before the wedding.
He had been invited, in fact she had pleaded with him to attend. But he could not bring himself to watch. “How could I?” he said.
Instead, he sat across the street, alone in his car, and saw the happy couple leave the church in a rain of rice and confetti. That was the last time he saw Suzanne.
I selected some of his photos to borrow for my story and even a few of her short poems.
I called the Colorado ski resort where Colleen was killed.
Few employees remembered the tragedy, but a veteran ski lift operator who did remember told me he’d heard something inconsistent with the newspaper accounts. Nothing disturbing enough to notify authorities or challenge the newspaper, but it had never left his mind.
“The husband said his wife insisted on making one last run despite the poor conditions, according to the paper. He said he reluctantly agreed, against his better judgment, and that’s when she was killed. Later, I talked to another couple. They’d wanted to make one last run too. The four
of them were waiting for the lift. But weather conditions deteriorated so fast that the other couple changed their minds. When they left, they said, the newlyweds were quarreling because she was afraid and didn’t want to go back up the mountain, but he insisted.
“Maybe the guy lied and put the blame on his wife out of guilt. If he hadn’t taken her up there, she wouldn’t have died. You never know how people will react in a crisis.”
“Did the couple you spoke with talk to the sheriff’s department?”
“Nah. They were leaving first thing in the morning and didn’t want to get involved.”
“Do you remember their names?”
“Not off the top of my head, but they’re regulars. We see ’em every year.”
Not concrete proof, I thought, but if witness accounts showed Holt lied to the police, that might get their attention. Either way, it was a damning detail I’d love to use in my story.
I begged him to try to recall their names and to call me at once if he did.
Lacey sat nearby, on the sofa in his little study, listening to me work, peppering me with questions between calls.
I talked to Vanessa’s parents in Boston. Without burdening them with too much information, I asked if the son they never had had filed a change-of-address form at the post office before he blew town. Or if a neighbor or apartment manager might be forwarding his mail.
They promised to find out and get back to me.
I didn’t want to brief Fred or the city desk until I had a strong lead to follow. With my progress at a standstill, they’d want me back in Miami and I wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. Fred would be unlikely to authorize any more travel once I was home.
This was my only shot and I had to make the most of it.
“We have to find him,” Lacey blurted, when I was between calls.
“What do you mean we?”
“You can’t do it alone, not in your condition. I can help. Suzanne and I knew from her work with abused children that justice is rare. Most often, the system fails. We have to try to make it work for her,” he said passionately. “She deserves it.”
“What’s your reason, Britt?” he asked later. “I need to be a part of all this for Suzanne. But you’d be happier and more comfortable at home right now, with your family and the baby’s father.”
“He’s no longer in the picture.” My voice suddenly sounded weary.
His eyes widened.
“Not by choice,” I said quickly, and then I told him, unloaded everything: about McDonald’s death and my escaping Miami to mourn the past, and how, in doing so, Marsh Holt, his doomed bride, and I had passed like ships in the night. About my anger and self-doubt when I learned the truth, and my determination to seek justice by exposing him in print.
He nodded, eyes shiny. “The minute I saw you, I sensed we shared a common denominator. People who’ve never suffered tragedy don’t understand. But we do, don’t we?”
We talked half the night. He was haunted.
“Suzanne used to dream of falling. She’d wake up with a gasp. What do you think that was,” he asked plaintively, “precognition? Some kind of warning? A sign that evil was singling her out?”
“Dreams of falling are common, but I don’t rule out anything,” I said, thinking of my Aunt Odalys, who dresses only in white and calls upon the spirits of the dead.
Lacey gave me his bed and made up one for himself on his study couch.
When trying to piece a complicated story together, I love to brainstorm with a good detective, or Lottie, or my landlady, or, believe it or not, a bright and interested editor. Lacey was perfect: quick, imaginative, and totally committed.
“Holt’s MO, faked honeymoon accidents, is brilliant.” I recapped for him what I’d discovered so far, as he threw a thin beige blanket across the couch.
Lacey listened, eyes sick. “When I saw Marsh at Suzanne’s funeral, I thought he was careless with the life of my girl. But I never dreamed—”
“Exactly. He’s a hell of an actor. Until now nobody’s ever doubted his gut-wrenching performance as the bereaved bridegroom. It’s Oscar-worthy. He has the role down pat.”
“Because he’s had so much practice. What do we do next?” Lacey asked, before we said good night.
“I wish I knew.”
He kissed my cheek, a sweet and innocent kiss like that of a kid brother.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I know Fred Douglas too well, knew what he’d say, and that I didn’t want to hear it. So I called early, more than an hour before he’d be at the office. I planned to leave a sorry-I-missed-you, things-are-fine message, breezy and brief, just enough to buy me some time. I was shocked when he answered his telephone.
What the hell is he doing there at 7 A.M.? I wondered, dumbfounded, indignant, and totally caught off guard. Sure enough, he began to fire questions at me. I didn’t lie, but ducked a few.
I could hear the frown in his voice. The man knows me too well. “Sounds like you’re not accomplishing anything you couldn’t do from here,” he correctly concluded.
I denied it. “I still have more leads to run down before I come back.”
“Okay, but wrap it up and come on in. Try to catch an afternoon flight, tonight at the latest. See you in the newsroom tomorrow bright and early.”
I hung up, disheartened. My cell rang immediately, so quickly I thought Fred had called me back. Instead, it was the lift operator from the Colorado ski resort, with good news, I prayed, just in the nick of time. I didn’t want to go back to Miami, not today.
“That couple you wanted to talk to,” he said.
“You remembered their names?” I wanted to cheer as I groped for a pen.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“But I remembered that they’re members of a ski club. The Miami Ski Club.”
“Miami?” The witnesses I needed belonged to the Miami Ski Club, one of the largest in the country. And I was in Baton Rouge.
Fred’s right, I thought regretfully. Time to go home.
Lacey arrived back from the Café du Monde with a sack of beignets—sweet sugary pastries—and containers of rich, steaming café au lait. I broke the bad news as we ate.
He called his boss to say he wouldn’t be in, and we used the little time left to collect quotes and local color for my story.
We visited Suzanne’s grave at the local cemetery and the places she frequented during her short life, the school she attended, the church where her wedding and funeral were held just days apart.
Lacey introduced me to a few of her friends, all of whom embraced him fondly. Her maid of honor let me borrow a wedding picture. A complete set of wedding photos, Holt with each blushing bride, would provide powerful art for the story.
As I was about to make my flight reservation, Dr. Clark Wilson, the nationally known forensic photo analyst, touched base. “This is extremely interesting,” he said. “What time did you say these photos were taken?”
“Four o’clock in the afternoon,” I said. “She fell shortly after four P.M., according to the police report. The nine-one-one call was logged at four-oh-eight. The last photo, the one in which she stands closer to the edge, was two or three seconds before she fell.”
“Nonsense.”
“Excuse me?”
“Those pictures obviously were not shot when the photographer claims. They could not have been. On that date, at that time, the sun and the shadows were not in those positions at that location—not at four P.M., three P.M., or even noon. Those photos were taken at eleven-thirty-five A.M., give or take a minute.”
“Can you really be that precise?”
He was certain.
Excited, I called Arizona.
The deputy was not impressed. The medical examiner found Dr. Wilson’s findings “curious.” Neither considered it sufficient proof of anything other than the fact that the shaken bridegroom may have been mistaken about the time he took the pictures.
They stonewalled, but my story was coming
together. This was crucial. Dr. Wilson, foremost in his field, published in prestigious journals, had testified as an expert witness in major cases nationwide. How could his findings be ignored?
I called Liz, the News researcher. The night before, Lacey and I had brainstormed, trying to determine where Holt had gone by tracking his past patterns. Our admittedly vague conclusion was that he had probably headed north. But where? I asked Liz to search for a paper trail and suggested that his destination might be a northern city.
“He seems to like to go north in the summer and south in the winter,” I said.
“Who doesn’t?” she said.
I reluctantly booked a 7 P.M. flight back to Miami.
The Hansens called as I checked out of my motel. Vanessa’s father sounded confused, his voice shaky, as though he had aged dramatically in the brief time since we first spoke.
“I have something for you.” He went on to describe his trip to the post office in laborious detail. The punch line? Holt had not filed a change of address.
Next, Hansen had visited the apartment house where his daughter had planned to live with her new husband. He spoke to the owner and several neighbors. Holt had confided to each of them, they said, that he could not bear to remain in Boston without Vanessa. His only plan, he told them, was to drive long enough to distance himself from his memories.
His grief so touched the building’s owner that, in an uncharacteristically generous gesture, the man returned the couple’s security deposit along with half the first month’s rent.
Another profitable performance by Marsh Holt, the actor, I thought, with a sigh.
“So then we stopped to have lunch at the Fireside,” Hansen was saying, his voice querulous. “Do you know it?”
“No, sir.” I checked my watch. “I’m not familiar with Boston.”
Love Kills Page 15
