The Bride Wore Dead

by E M Kaplan

  #

  Josie sat on the lid of the closed commode, lost in thought. But before a minute had passed, she heard a card key in the door. Patrick. She stood up and took one step toward the bedroom when she froze. She knew instantly, from the aggressiveness of the steps and the careless way the person had thrown down some car keys on a table, it couldn’t be Patrick. Frantically, she searched for a place to hide. The shower stall was enclosed with clear glass. The garment closet had no door, no curtain. No cabinets covered the trendy, exposed plumbing under the sink. Nothing. Beads of moisture broke out on her upper lip. She stepped into the alcove and pressed herself into the back corner, gripping the hanging garment bag in front of her even though her feet were exposed. Only a stupid villain from a Scooby-Doo cartoon could miss her. Her heart pounded.

  No more than ten seconds later, footsteps rounded the corner, and Peter Williams was standing in the bathroom, looming big, dark, and angry. Josie quaked in her shoes. He grabbed the bag of toiletries from the counter and dumped its entire contents into the sink. He tossed the empty bag to the side and pawed through Leann’s makeup cases for a few minutes. He gave a grunt of frustration, and Josie thought for sure he would turn her direction and instantly see her. Instead, he went back to the bag he had tossed down and rifled through the side pockets. She saw him glance at the Epi-Pens and then at the birth control pills. Then, in another pocket to the back of the case that she hadn’t seen, he found what he was looking for. They looked like several plastic thin squares, like pill sample packs. Josie squinted but couldn’t read the labels. He fanned them like cards, took an empty one out of the stack, and tossed it into the sink with the rest of his mess. He jammed the rest of the packs into his pants pocket.

  Josie held her breath. She needed to remain quiet and perfectly still. Just a few seconds more. Then, abruptly, he turned into the bedroom, grabbed his keys from the table, and left the suite. Josie, still frozen and only partially hidden in the closet, felt a dribble of sweat down her back. She stood there a minute longer. Another minute more before she was sure he wasn’t coming back.

  She took a tentative step out of the closet, fear nearly making her jump back and huddle behind the garment bag again. But then, curiosity overcame her, and she sidled over to the sink. Xanax, the discarded pill pack read on the label. The fact that they were sample packs meant they’d been given without a prescription. The fact that they’d been Leann’s said that when the going got tough, Leann got anesthetized. Not much of a game plan. Whatever the case, Peter Williams wasn’t letting them go to waste.

  Two minutes later found Josie hustling back to the safety of her own room. She closed the door behind her, seriously doubting her ability to leave her room ever again. But she needed to shower to clean up for dinner with Flores and to try to wash the stink of fear off herself…having stood trembling no more than two feet away from Peter Williams made her not want to take off her clothes, never mind stand under water with her eyes closed. She forced herself to take some deep breaths. She flipped on the TV and watched Martha Stewart for a good twenty minutes. And when she felt reassured by the banality of life, that nothing was going to change, that she wasn’t in any danger, she forced herself to get up and shower.

  CHAPTER 17

  Clay, the server from the dining room, knocked on Josie’s door a little before 6:00. One other guy was with him, and between the two of them, they wheeled a room service cart. Rather than push the cart into the room and leave her to remove the covers from the dishes of food, however, they stayed and performed a somewhat magical transformation on the sitting area of Josie’s bungalow.

  Over her kitchenette table, they unfurled a white linen tablecloth accompanied by two heavy white napkins. Then, they centered a large glass vase with pink roses, slightly past their peak in freshness, but beautiful in the lazy way their petals sprawled open. For plates, they set white china on silver chargers. Heavy silverware gleamed to either side. Clay decanted a mellow house red and set out a pair of modest glass goblets. A couple of candles finished the whole thing off. Then, the two servers placed the covered platters on the table and wheeled discreetly out of her bungalow. Setting the scene for a romantic tryst. Gag.

  Up until now, Josie hadn’t thought about how she was going to keep the evening from escalating out of control. She had a sudden vision of having to fend off Detective Flores, of running screaming from her room into the lobby of the hotel, shirt torn, defensive wounds on her hands. She’d been so intent on getting information from him that she’d forgotten about the whole personal safety issue. But now, she’d invited this guy—clearly old-school smarmy—to have dinner with her, in her rooms. Together. Alone. She felt a little sick. But then, she steeled herself. She was just going to have to stay calm. Firm and polite. And not let him block the door. Piece of cake, she told herself, right after she threw up three or four times. Piece of fricking cake.

  However, when Flores arrived, dressed in jeans and a mostly-buttoned polo shirt, his manner was completely different. She was stunned into silence. Instead of machismo and Frank Poncherello, he was business-like, his short hair neatly combed, his cologne kept to a minimum. He shook her hand and then cut directly to the chase. He carried two manila folders with him. After carefully moving aside a wine glass, he placed the folders on the table and opened the first one.

  “I brought several files that might interest you,” he said in a clipped manner, his mostly-hidden white teeth, flashed against his dark skin. “The first is the medical examiner’s report. It’s pretty straightforward, so I think you can figure it out on your own.” He opened the next folder. “The next is a record of complaints and public disturbances that involve the Williams residence here in Puerta.” He closed the files and pushed them over to her. “I think you will find that one very interesting,” he said. “Needless to say—well, maybe not. These are unofficial copies. You can keep them for yourself, but if anyone asks me, I don’t know where you got them.” Josie nodded. He considered her for a moment, suddenly sizing her up in a frank, scientific way that she never would have expected from him. “All right then. If Obie sent you—Colonel Obregon, that is—then I trust you.” She was startled. Mr. Obregon was a colonel?

  She shrugged, “You can. I’m not clever enough to know what I’m doing. Never mind do something malicious. But I want to ask you, if you knew all these things, why didn’t the police do something? And how come you aren’t doing anything now?”

  “I’m here now, aren’t I?” he said.

  “A little late for Leann, wouldn’t you say? And what’s with the freaking personality change?” Her frustration and confusion slipped through.

  “Lady, you got some balls on you.” With a sigh, he shook his head ignoring her last question. “You gotta understand something. These guys, they’re real nasty. But there’s nothing to pin on them. It was an accidental death. It says so right there. I have a badge. I have to travel the straight and narrow path. That’s the one I chose and that’s the one I have to stick to. If I believed that everyone should have true justice no matter what, I’d be out at their house with my torch and pitchfork before this door here closed behind me. But I’m an officer of the law.”

  “So,” she said, “That’s why you’re here now?”

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Of course. I also believe in doing what’s right.” That boggled her mind, but she nodded. Whatever the lines of his logic were, they made sense to him.

  “Look,” he said, “Also, you should go talk with my Tia Maria. She works over at the house where Michael Williams is.”

  Josie blinked. “Maria Garza?”

  “Yeah, that’s her. She’s not really my aunt, but she’s a friend of the family. You know—I’ve known her my whole life, since I was in diapers.”

  “Where can I find her?” Josie asked, dreading the answer.

  “She lives out back behind the main house over there. She does the cleaning and the kitchen stuff. Not a lot of the cooking—Michael Williams do
es that for himself. But she’ll shop for him if he gives her a list of ingredients, that kind of thing.”

  “So, she lives at the house,” Josie said, not wanting anything to do with that scene. Oh hell no.

  “Yeah.” Worry crossed his face. “She might not want to talk to you. Sometimes she’s like that. She might pretend that she doesn’t speak good English, but she does.”

  Josie nodded and thanked him again. When he made a move to go, she asked, “So you’re not going to stay for dinner?”

  He smiled then, and seemed more like his earlier self. “Nah, I have to go see my girlfriend before she gets jealous and wonders why I am late. She’ll beat me up for sure.” He looked as if that were a distinctly entertaining prospect.

  “Girlfriend?” Josie chided, with astonishment. “Seriously. What’s with the act earlier today? And here, I thought it was my irresistible charm.”

  Flores laughed and gave a little shrug. “Let’s just say there’s a time to be serious—and this is one of those times. Whenever it has to do with something for Obie, it makes me, you know, stand up a little straighter and pay attention more. I mean, I take being on the police force very seriously even if there’s not much to do in this town. Most of the trouble comes from tourists and from college kids out in the desert drinking too much. But this is a really small town. Most of the real policing gets done by the locals spying on each other.”

  “Like earlier today when you first ran into me,” Josie said.

  “Yep yep,” he agreed. “You didn’t stand a chance of not being seen.”

  “So, when there’s real trouble around here, you’d think that everyone would already know all about it then.” She scanned his face for a sign. He kept his expression perfectly calm, his eyes level with hers.

  “Maybe they already do.” He shrugged again. “Thanks for the offer of dinner though. I am sure you can find someone to enjoy it with you—maybe that skinny guy sitting out by the pool who was glaring at me.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You know who he is, right?” When she looked puzzled, he gaped at her, his broad jaw dropping. “Man, you sure don’t read People magazine, do you.” He shrugged and winked, a little of his earlier flirtatiousness surfacing. “But if you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you. You just have to find out for yourself. You’re the detective.” He burst out laughing at her blank expression and shook his head. “I can’t believe it. My girlfriend would kill me if she knew he was here. She would flat-out leave me.”

  “For that guy?” Josie was floored. Patrick?

  “Never mind,” Flores said, still laughing as he opened the door.

  “Thanks again for all of this,” Josie told him, picking up the papers he’d brought.

  “No problem. Maybe it will let you know a little of what you’re up against now. And help you stay out of trouble. Peter Williams—that’s a dangerous guy out there. He’s not good to women.”

  “I know.” Josie, glumly.

  “Look,” Flores said, “If you get into trouble, call me.” He took a pen out of his back pocket and wrote a number on the outside of a folder. “My girlfriend might beat me up, but I don’t want to see anything happen to you. Obie would kill me. And that means that my dad would kill me again after that. So you be careful, all right?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Josie said, “I will certainly try to do my best. Thanks again.” She was still mentally scratching her head at his one-eighty personality change. Why did he do the things he did? What motivated this guy? What motivated anyone? She said impulsively, “One more thing before you go. It’s kind of a dumb party-trick question, but I’m curious…What would you say is the emotion that motivates you from day to day? I mean, like your ruling emotion that drives you?”

  “That’s easy,” he said, smiling, “Duty.” He gave a little wave and left, whistling a tune. She heard it fade away as he made his way around the pool back to the lobby. Earlier, she would have guessed he’d say his libido, but now, she knew better. He really was a straight shooter.

  #

  Josie sat back down at the dinner table. She opened up the folder with the examiner’s report in it. It took a minute to focus on the dense, lengthy paragraphs, but after a while, the results began to make sense to her. More or less.

  Leann had died of an allergic reaction to the bee sting, that was for certain. Oddly, the report stated that the bee sting was under Leann’s tongue. Under? How in the world did that happen? Stung in mid-sentence, maybe?

  Josie set the report aside and opened the next folder. This one contained the public complaints that stemmed from the Williams residence in Puerta. Flores had given her a single typed sheet of paper—not a long complaint, she thought at first. Then she realized that the full sheet of paper contained not one complaint but an entire list of them.

  Dates and short descriptions was what they were, stemming back for years—approximately five complaints occurring each year for the last ten years. “DD,” many of them said, next to which Flores had written “(domestic dispute).” Next to all of them was also the terse summation, “No charges filed.” There were also a few items that looked like public disturbances and noise ordinance violations. There was one for discharging a firearm too close to the town center. In each of the instances, the offender was noted as Williams.

  Josie shook her head in disgust. As she closed up the folders to set them aside, she nearly missed a photograph in the folder that she had just been looking at. The photo fell on the floor faced-down. She bent to pick it up and when she turned it over, she couldn’t suppress her gasp. The photo was of Leann—the living Leann, or some semblance of her—her face was swollen and bruised in most places. She had a split lip and cheekbone, a black eye, and a tear that separated her left ear lobe from her face more than it should have been—the undamaged ear still had a small hoop earring in it. Her other eye was well-made-up with earth tones of eye shadow and almost professional artistry in the plucking of the eyebrow above it. And there was a stony, resolute look in her eyes—as if she’d made up her mind to do something about her situation. But, for one reason or another—or perhaps, for the same old reason—nothing had come of it. Someone had written, in ballpoint pen, across the bottom of the photo, “No charges filed.”

  The photo must have been from some time ago—Leann was thinner and her hair was much shorter, in a style from the early eighties that recalled the pixie face of a gymnast, like Mary Lou Retton or Peter Pan. But the distorted shape of Leann’s jaw and the stony, almost dead look in her eyes made Josie keenly aware of the fact that Leann was dead now. Perhaps part of Leann had been emotionally dying this whole time. There were more incidents listed on the sheet, but no other pictures.

  Suddenly, Josie couldn’t take it anymore. Sensory overload. She wanted to gag. It was like a stomachache that was part of her now. She put the files away, taking all of the papers and stuffing them in a dresser drawer on top of the resort’s copy of the Gideon Bible.

  CHAPTER 18

  She smoothed her hair and went to the pool area intent on finding Patrick. She wanted to try to take her mind off what she’d just read, but she didn’t find him.

  The sun was going down, the daylight fading, and they’d turned on the lights around the deck and the patio. Light jazz music piped in through an unseen sound system. Maybe the rocks were fake, too. No one was at the bar, not even a bartender, which was no big deal. She was in no mood for alcohol. But still, it would have been nice to find Patrick…another soul to ward off the chilly feeling that had taken root deep inside her. She thought she would try the lobby and the dining hall before giving up. One more quick scan of the pool area, then she stepped toward the doorway. The lobby’s lights had already been dimmed, and stupidly, she was looking behind her at the pool. She crashed into a body coming out. Looking up, she found she had walked into Peter Williams.

  “Oh God,” she yelped, fear flooding her body with adrenaline, and then she quickly reigned in her momentary terror and added, “Sorry
I didn’t see you.” Act normal, act normal, she told herself.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” He frowned and peered down at her, recognizing her, probably from the wedding most recently. Whether it was the dim light or otherwise, deep circles were etched under his eyes.

  She thought quickly and feigned ignorance as best as she could. “Visiting relatives. What about you?” Okay, that was a slip-up. She should have just apologized and moved on. But now he was gripping her arms with his big hands. In the lobby behind him, she saw Tammy Roberts walking away from them toward her office.

  “I’m getting some of my wife’s things from our room.” He looked stricken, lifting his eyes to the suites beyond them. “I’m going to bury her here in Puerta.”

  She wasn’t able to stop herself from asking, “Are you going to invite anyone else to the funeral other than yourself?”

  He scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  “Seems to me, if she was my daughter, I’d want to be there.”

  He shrugged, clearly not comprehending but ready to brush her off. His eyes were a little unfocused. Maybe under the influence of that sedative she’d seen him take from the room earlier. “Excuse me. I have to go now.” He pushed past her. Heart still pounding, Josie stumbled into the lobby, but turned around to watch him—and saw him go into the bungalow across the pool from hers.

  “Didn’t go as you planned, huh.” Patrick said behind her in the lobby while she was still looking after Peter Williams.

  “Scared the shit out of me,” she said.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come up behind you so quietly,” he said, mistaking her words to mean him.

  “It’s okay,” she said. She struggled to focus on what he was saying. Because a possible murderer had had his big grubby mitts on her arms just a few seconds ago. Right on her. She wanted to scrub herself.