A Wedding to Die For

by Leann Sweeney

  “So she got fired. Happens all the time.”

  “But she blamed me. She said I distracted her. Now I’m wondering if she’s venting her old anger toward me on you.”

  “She blames you for her incompetence, and to get even she wants to make me look guilty even if I’m not?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but my guess is she wouldn’t mind making your life miserable.”

  “And one way to do that is leak to the press that I was right there when Graham got pushed off that balcony?”

  His face tight with anger, he nodded slowly. “I can see her doing that. Especially since there are some extenuating circumstances.” I read worry in his eyes.

  “How extenuating?” I said.

  “She called me about that sketch artist and—”

  “I know that.”

  He reached for his gum. “What you don’t know is that she also asked me to meet her for dinner.”

  I felt my neck and shoulders tighten and that made my face throb. “And did you?”

  “Yeah. She said she needed to talk through the case.”

  This was a three-sticks-of-gum confession, and I wasn’t sure I wanted the details—but I was going to get them anyway. “So what happened?”

  “She was feeling vulnerable, overwhelmed by the biggest case of her career. She drank too much wine . . . started getting a little personal under the table and—”

  “One thing led to another?” I said quietly.

  He grinned. “Now who’s jumping to conclusions? Her hand on my crotch led me to walk out on her—for the second time in her life.”

  I smiled even though it hurt. “So she’s the one with the green-eyed monster on her back now?”

  He nodded. “The less I know about the case, the less she can involve me. And that’s better for you.”

  “She’s no problem for me.”

  “Tell her the truth, okay? Just make sure the lawyer is there.”

  “I’ll be happy to tell her the truth,” I said. “If she’ll listen.”

  When Jeff left the house, he must have said something persuasive to the reporters because when I came downstairs, I saw only one car parked down the street and a lone van from a local independent network. Someone sat in the driver’s seat of the white car. A stubborn reporter, maybe?

  I needed coffee, preferably strong enough to walk into the cup, so I headed for the kitchen. But before I could grind a single bean, the phone rang. Maybe the press thought a telephone call might work better than hanging around the neighborhood. I let it ring while I took a bag of French roast from the freezer. But when Megan’s voice came on the answering machine I rushed over and picked up.

  “Hey, I’m here. What’s up?”

  “Will you be home for a while?” she said. “Because I’m almost to your place. I need your help.”

  “Is this about your uncle Graham?”

  “In a way, yes. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She disconnected.

  Before she arrived, I debated whether to tell her what I’d learned, that her parents must have surely known the identity of the child they adopted. But when Megan showed up looking as pale and sick as I’d felt yesterday, I knew now was not the time.

  I was carrying my mug when I let her in and offered her coffee as we came into the living room. She refused.

  “You look pretty spent,” I said, sitting down.

  I gestured for her to join me, but she started pacing by the fireplace. “Courtney’s missing. She’s probably passed out in a crack house somewhere. I don’t think she knows Uncle Graham is dead.”

  “I talked to her last night outside the funeral home, and though she didn’t seem all that wasted, she might have been before the night ended. I could tell she had plans.”

  Megan chewed on her lower lip. “Roxanne was trying to call the America’s Most Wanted producers this morning to see if they could find her, if you can believe that. I stopped her. And then I thought of you. I know you’ve done so much already, but—”

  “I’ll do whatever I can,” I said.

  Megan, already no more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, looked like she’d lost weight. And the fire in her eyes that I remembered so well from our first meeting was dying little by little. Too many bad things had happened too fast.

  I stood and blocked Megan’s path when she turned in my direction. “Let’s slow down,” I said. “Make a plan.”

  She blinked, then stared at my face. “Abby, my God. What happened to you?”

  “Just a little argument with a door.”

  “I was so wrapped up in my own problems I didn’t even notice. Is this my fault? Did this happen in Jamaica? Did you get—”

  I gripped both her shoulders and looked into her tired eyes. “When’s the last time you ate?”

  “I can’t think about food now. We have to do something about Courtney. She needs me. They all need me. Even if they’re weird and crazy, they’re still my family and—”

  “And you can’t help them if you don’t take care of yourself.”

  Her eyes welled. “I probably can’t help them anyway, but you can. Find out who killed my father and my uncle, Abby.”

  “I don’t know, Megan. I haven’t been doing this PI thing all that long. I’m not sure I have the skills to investigate murder. Maybe Angel can get more involved in your case. He’s had loads of experience.”

  “I’d rather have you. You certainly couldn’t do any worse than that policewoman. She doesn’t tell us anything, and she was so abrupt with my mother and me last night. Almost cruel.”

  “She’s trying,” I said, not believing I was actually defending Quinn Fielder.

  “I don’t trust her, but I absolutely trust you,” she said.

  “So you want me to find Courtney or the murderer-slash-murderers or all of the above?”

  “All of the above,” she said, nodding decisively. “I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

  “We’ll figure that out later, but first off, the two of us are going to sit down in my kitchen and have some Frosted Flakes. I need some brain fuel even if you don’t.”

  A half hour later, after Megan joined me in a bowl of cereal, a big glass of orange juice, and coffee, she seemed a little more like the young woman who’d walked down the aisle such a short time ago. I felt better, too. My face still hurt, but my insect bites were almost a memory and my stomach felt normal for the first time in twenty-four hours.

  I’d decided Jeff might be a good resource to help us locate Courtney, but before I could phone him, Megan’s cell rang.

  She flipped it open and answered, then mouthed, “It’s her.”

  Gee, I thought, easiest detective job I’ll ever have.

  Megan listened for a second, then said, “It’s not your fault, Courtney. Someone pushed him. You couldn’t have stopped that from happening.”

  I heard Courtney’s voice—her loud, slurred voice—saying, “It’s all my fault. I want to die, Meg. I want to die!”

  “Don’t say that,” Megan said. “No one else needs to die.”

  “Ask her where she is,” I whispered.

  “Tell me where you are,” Megan said firmly. “I’ll come to you. I’ll pick you up.”

  Megan listened intently for what seemed a long time. Then her face relaxed. “Okay. I’m coming. Don’t leave.”

  She closed the phone and looked at me. “She’s at the Starfish Motel near Galveston.”

  “I’ll Mapquest it and we’re on our way,” I said.

  On the drive south, Megan asked me about the Jamaica trip. I hedged, told her I had a few leads but nothing solid to report yet. Thank goodness she was consumed by the current situation and thus didn’t press me. She needn’t know her birth mother might be an embezzler and a fugitive or that other giant secrets had been kept from her. At least not until the DNA sample I’d sent off came back in a few weeks. I changed the subject by offering my version of what happened at the hotel last night and how guilty I felt about arriving too late
to help Graham.

  “Oh my God, Abby,” she said after I finished explaining. “I didn’t even know you were there.”

  “If I’d arrived a minute earlier, I may have prevented Graham’s death.”

  “Or gotten yourself killed. I mean, look at you.”

  “I prefer not to look at me. By the way, your uncle phoned me when I was in Jamaica and said he wanted to talk about something that would interest me. I’m worried that whatever he wanted to discuss had something to do with his death.”

  “Why would he call you rather than the police? He hardly knew you.” She began twisting her wedding ring.

  “My point exactly. But that call will probably show up on some phone record and make Fielder even more suspicious of me.”

  “Suspicious of you? What reason could you possibly have to hurt my uncle or my father? You didn’t even know them before the rehearsal dinner.”

  “Ah. A voice of reason in the wilderness. Refreshing, Megan. So what about Roxanne and Courtney? Would they have any motive to want Graham or James dead?”

  Megan hesitated, probably realizing for the first time that “finding the killer” meant looking close to home. “I—I don’t know. Both of them seem to have more personal problems than the last time I saw them. But murder? I can’t even think about them like that.”

  “I got a taste of some genuine animosity toward their dad last night when I talked to them at the visitation.” I glanced down at the map I’d printed off the computer. We were getting close to the exit.

  “From what my dad told me, Uncle Graham and Roxanne did have a blowup about six months ago.”

  “A blowup?” I merged right and exited the freeway a few miles before the Galveston causeway.

  “My cousins lost their mom to cancer about ten years ago,” she said.

  “Sylvia told me.”

  “Anyway, Roxanne reacted by pulling closer to Uncle Graham, becoming more like a mother than a daughter. And Courtney totally rebelled. So Roxanne became the favorite, until she got that odd boyfriend who played in the Dallas symphony.”

  “Violin, by chance?” I asked, remembering Roxanne clinging to one of the musicians the day of the wedding.

  “How did you know?” said Megan.

  “She was stuck like a cocklebur to the violinist at your reception. Anyway, what happened with the boyfriend?”

  “I think it was the only time since they dissolved their business that Dad and Uncle Graham joined forces on anything. Apparently the boyfriend had been treated for bipolar disorder and would call up in the middle of the night or come over and play his violin outside Roxanne’s window. When he got Roxanne to max out one of her credit cards, Uncle Graham called Dad for help. A few weeks later the guy ended up with a new position in Boston.”

  “So Roxanne figured they had a hand in this and was pissed off with both her father and her uncle?” I asked.

  “Knowing Roxanne, she’d never admit to that. She wanted to blame everything on Courtney.”

  “On Courtney? How does that logic work?”

  “She thought Courtney told Uncle Graham about the boyfriend’s health problems.”

  I nodded. “Okay, so Roxanne had reason to be pissed off at all three of them.” I wanted to ask about Courtney’s substance abuse history, how long she’d been abusing, but we had come to the turnoff for the Starfish Motel. Seconds later we pulled into the parking lot.

  We were greeted with peeling paint, a few broken windows patched with duct tape, doors marred by grime and mold and brown bottles and empty beer cans littering the area. The place oozed sleaze.

  I parked not far from the room Megan pointed out, number twenty-one. We both got out of the car, but before we could take two steps, a door swung open and Courtney staggered out into the sunshine.

  She shaded her eyes and shrieked, “Yee-ha! It’s Megan!”

  She wore the same clothes she’d had on when I saw her last night, only the blue jeans skirt was now on backward and she wore no shoes. Arms above her head, she shouted, “It’s my birthday, Megan! Did you know that?”

  “It is not her birthday,” Megan whispered out of the side of her mouth.

  “She’s sure celebrating something,” I said.

  “I don’t get it. On the phone she was crying and saying she wanted to die,” Megan said. “Now look at her.”

  “Probably been snorting coke since you two talked.”

  Courtney swayed in our direction, bridging the gap between herself and Megan and then falling into her arms.

  “I’m here to take you back home,” Megan said.

  Courtney pulled away and laughed. “Home? Didn’t you know?”

  “Know what?” Megan said quietly. She was putting on her usual strong front, but her breath was coming fast and she was twisting the ring around and around.

  “Our house in Dallas was repossessed. Let’s celebrate that!”

  Megan turned Courtney back toward the room, saying, “You have a home with us. Now, let’s get your stuff and get out of here.”

  I followed, but before I entered the motel room, I heard a car engine. I looked around and saw a white Taurus slow to a crawl as it passed the motel. White Taurus. Wasn’t it a white Taurus parked on my street this morning? Had the reporter followed me all the way down here?

  But then I recognized the driver. She was wearing that cloche hat. The woman and I locked eyes for an instant, and then she put the pedal to the metal and sped away.

  What the hell was she doing? Following her daughter? But I didn’t have time to consider other possible explanations because a guy tore past me out of number twenty-one. At least he didn’t slam a door into my face, something I was mighty grateful for. I had to smile as I watched him run to a rusted blue pickup, though. He was naked as a worm aside from a straw cowboy hat.

  I then stepped into the dimly lit room. It smelled like a mix of semen, urine, and sweat, the stench so strong it nearly knocked me back out the door. Courtney was sitting cross-legged on the queen-sized bed, an unlit cigarette hanging from dry lips. Megan had her hand over her mouth and nose, and I was tempted to do the same.

  “I’ve got a pint of Jack Daniel’s somewhere for the party,” Courtney said, her words all running together. She then looked at me and said, “Who invited you, bitch? Oops, I can call you bitch, can’t I?”

  Megan started to say something, but I cut her off by raising a hand. “Call me whatever you want. Just be nice to Megan, because she cares a lot about you.”

  “Yeah, she came here for my birthday.”

  “No, she came here because you asked for her help,” I said.

  Courtney looked at me, her heavy-lidded eyes dark and empty. “Yeah, but why’d she have to bring you?”

  “I volunteered. But this isn’t about how much you dislike me. This is about how both of you have lost your fathers in a week’s time and how you need each other. Roxanne needs both of you, too.”

  “My father?” Courtney said, looking confused. The cigarette fell from her lips onto her lap, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “You told me you’d heard about him on the news,” Megan said.

  “Oh,” Courtney said, swiping a hand through her hair. “That’s right. He jumped off the roof. But you know something? I always told him he wasn’t allowed to die until they found a safe place to bury his liver.” She raised her head to the ceiling and started to laugh, but seconds later her shoulders started to shake and she began to sob. And seconds after that, Megan was beside her, holding her, stroking her cousin’s messy hair and trying to comfort her.

  I stepped outside for some fresh air and to make a call. This girl would need more help than Megan could offer. I’d seen used syringes on the nightstand, and the white stuff on the carpet by the bed probably wasn’t talcum powder.

  Kate was with a client when I reached her office, but I had her receptionist interrupt. After I told her the situation, Kate said she’d contact either a drug counselor or someone from Narcotics Anonymous and g
et them over to the motel as soon as possible. With any luck, they’d get Courtney into a detox unit pronto.

  Courtney had thrown a minor fit but did not protest as much as I thought she might when the drug counselor arrived at the motel room. She seemed to connect with the guy—maybe it was their similar cobra tattoos. Anyway, he happened to be one of Kate’s success stories when she was working under a supervising psychologist. The guy was a recovered addict now certified as a drug counselor. With his support, Courtney was admitted to a mental health facility in Galveston, the whole process taking about two hours. Then a relieved Megan drove Courtney’s car back home while I decided to get my interview with Fielder over with.

  The acne-scarred Henderson was again working the desk at the Seacliff Police Station. But there was a whole lot more action than the last time I’d been here. The place was crawling with cops in khaki, blue, and green uniforms from every jurisdiction.

  “Man, who threw you against the wall?” Henderson asked with a grin when I’d entered.

  “I had a little accident,” I said. “Is the chief in?”

  “She hasn’t left. Found her asleep in the chair this morning. I’m worried about her. This case is eating her lunch. She even had you on the short list of suspects.”

  “Yeah, she hinted at that.”

  “The chief doesn’t hint, Ms. Rose.” Henderson grinned, then stood and gestured for me to follow him down to Fielder’s office. “Yesterday she was swearing like a sailor about you and how you were the next Lizzie Borden, but she’s got her sights set on someone else today.”

  “And who’s this latest suspect?” I asked.

  My timing was off because Henderson opened Fielder’s door just as I asked the question.

  The woman might be over her head with two murders in a week’s time but that didn’t mean she’d gone deaf. “Don’t be pumping my officers for information, Ms. Rose. Henderson, leave us alone.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered, his cheeks as red as a baboon’s butt. He knew he’d been the cause of her irritation with me and probably felt guilty.