Missing Mark (5 page)

ithout Madeline’s tears on tape, my
NEVER WORN
story was probably dead for May. At least in Noreen’s mind. But until my boss came right out and asked me how the bride’s interview went, I intended to explore the case from a couple of other directions.

I left Madeline’s house armed with a guest list from the wedding. As we’d gone over the names, I’d made who’s who notes in the margin. Most were friends and relatives from the Post side of the family. Madeline didn’t know the specifics behind all the guests on the groom’s side. But she circled the names of the two people who presumably knew the bride and groom best.

T
HE BEST MAN
was traveling on business for the Minnesota Department of Transportation so I listened to him on the speakerphone in my house while Shep explored his new surroundings. The telephone interview was a trade-off. Face-to-face I’d get a better sense of Gabriel Murray and his story. But this way, my taking notes wouldn’t make him nervous and I’d get answers faster.

Normally, I’d wait to meet in person, but Gabe wouldn’t be back from St. Louis for a few days. He was attending a conference on concrete bridges. His state agency had been through a rough stretch ever since one of Minnesota’s main bridges had collapsed during rush hour.

I knew what Gabe looked like because Mark had introduced him as his best man on the home video of the rehearsal dinner. Corporate suit and haircut. A contrast to the groom’s cartoonish but affable appearance.

Gabe knew what I looked like because he watched television news. He claimed Channel 3 was his favorite, but probably just said that to all the TV stations. He agreed to discuss Mark Lefevre as long as I agreed not to bring up the bridge fiasco or press him about when the new one would be completed.

First, we chitchatted about his wife and kids and life in the suburbs. Then he recounted how, when Mark failed to show up for the wedding and didn’t answer either his home or cell phone, Gabe—in his role of best man—drove the most likely route from the park in White Bear Lake, where the ceremony was supposed to take place, back to his friend’s Minneapolis apartment.

During the half-hour trip, he watched for Mark’s black Jeep. He didn’t see it flipped over in a ditch or stalled on the side of the road. He didn’t see it wedged against a tree or wrapped around a light pole. And he didn’t see it parked anywhere near Mark’s apartment building though he circled several blocks in each direction.

Gabe banged on Mark’s door anyway, but no one answered. Finally he convinced the landlord to open the small apartment.

Empty.

“Was the bed slept in?” I asked.

“Hard to tell, what guy living alone makes his bed?” he answered. “But his tuxedo was hanging on the closet door. So if he was heading to the altar, he was underdressed.”

“Did you notice the clothes he wore at the rehearsal dinner lying anywhere?” I asked.

That might prove whether Mark made it home after the party.

“I don’t remember what he was wearing.”

“Black shirt, gray pants, silver tie with dark stripes.”

As I watched Madeline’s home video, I paid close attention to Mark’s attire in case we needed an official description of what her fiancé was last seen wearing, or in case we needed to help identify a decomposing body. I wasn’t trying to be negative; I just like being prepared.

“Honestly, I don’t remember much about the apartment,” Gabe said. “When I saw he wasn’t there, I left.”

Then, with an anxious feeling in his stomach, Gabe drove what he deemed the second most likely route back to the waiting wedding party. Again, no sign of his buddy.

By now Shep had sniffed enough corners in my house to verify not only that he was the alpha dog but that the place was cat-free. He nudged me to play, but I tossed him a dried pig ear to chew on because I needed to concentrate on taking notes.

“What was it like when you got back to the wedding party?” I asked Gabe.

“Confusion. Madeline was upset. Her brother was trying to comfort her. Her mom livid. His mom mortified.”

He described how Mark’s mother fussed nervously with the flowers, just for something to do. She was a florist and had designed the wedding bouquets and floral arrangements for her son’s big day. Burnt-orange roses and brick-red berries with dried wheat. Just as I was wondering how Gabe could possibly remember such a specific autumn mix yet couldn’t recall what his pal was wearing at the rehearsal dinner, he explained that he and Mark used to work in her flower shop after school to earn spending money.

In fact, Gabe said mother and son had been at odds recently because she wanted him to take over her floral business and he wanted to pursue a comedy career. He only helped out at her shop if he was short on money. Marriage to Madeline meant Mark would never have to make another prom corsage.

“Was he funny?” I asked. “As a comedian?”

“I laughed.”

Gabe wasn’t an objective critic. They’d met in grade school when Mark’s mom moved into the neighborhood with her then little boy. After high school, they’d drifted apart, but reconnected five years ago at another dude’s wedding. The laughs felt just like old times.

“I was honored when he asked me to stand up for him.”

I believed Gabe. Even though I couldn’t see his face, his voice, just then, had the quiver of a guy trying not to let on that he was scared.

One thing never changed during their friendship: Mark was the class clown. Always pulling pranks. Gabe chuckled on the other end of the speakerphone as he relived how his buddy took their sixth-grade teacher’s dress out of a Laundromat dryer and wore it to school as a Halloween costume.

“So I wasn’t too worried when he was late to the wedding,” he said. “I figured he’d show up in a gorilla suit or something.”

When the ceremony didn’t start on time, the guests began to pick up on the drama. First they whispered. Then they pointed. Then they snickered. It was a relief when the minister finally told everyone to take their wedding gifts and go home.

“I halfway expected Mark to be waiting at my house or at least show up when all the commotion died down,” Gabe said. “But I never heard a word from him again. Even if he decided he wasn’t ready to get married, why would he write off his friends?”

The situation made no sense. But neither had the engagement. Mark was his buddy, but even Gabe couldn’t see what Madeline saw in him.

I questioned him about his take on the couple’s relationship. Solid? Steamy? Stormy?

“That’s the funny thing,” he said, “they didn’t really have a relationship. They lacked history.”

The pair had met in a downtown Minneapolis bar near a comedy club where Mark and other wannabes did stand-up routines. She’d seen his act that night and raved about it to him. Strange, according to Gabe, because while Mark’s humor made men laugh, snort, and hoot, most women considered his antics stupid.

But the joke was on them because exactly two months after they first met, Madeline Post, the only daughter of one of Minnesota’s wealthiest families, was engaged to Mark Lefevre and due to be married the following month. The pair picked a Saturday afternoon in early October to forsake all others. Not bad for a guy whose day job was working in a downtown parking garage.

“How did Madeline’s family like him?” I asked.

“Well enough. Her brother was friendly. Madeline’s mother started off a little aloof, but Madeline told him she’s like that with everyone. Takes a little while to warm up.”

All Gabe could figure was something happened to his friend after he left the rehearsal dinner. The party was held at Rudy’s Redeye Grill, a popular upscale restaurant known for its steaks and coconut shrimp. It was connected to the White Bear Country Inn where many of the wedding guests were staying. The party videotape showed dark wood, red walls, rich atmosphere.

“Did you guys do anything later?” I asked. “One last night on the town, perhaps? Throw back a few drinks? Check out some babes?”

“Actually my wife and I were among the first to leave,” Gabe answered stiffly. I wasn’t sure whether he felt sheepish that he cut out early or offended by my suggestion that he might be a party boy.

Gabe mentioned that he lost his coat that night, a distinctive black leather jacket with a loon stitched on the back. He hoped he’d left it in his car. Nope. He returned to look at the restaurant. No luck. Please let it be at home, he thought. Not there. He concluded that someone had stolen it, not a huge problem except his wallet was in the inside pocket.

“I was rushed the next morning because I had to call my bank and cancel all my credit cards. Otherwise I probably would have checked in on Mark, razzed him about his last hours of freedom and given him shit about paying me back.”

“He owed you money?” I asked.

“Two thousand dollars. Not enough to disappear with and not enough to disappear over. He was going to pay it back right after the wedding.”

“Did he say what the money was for?”

“He didn’t have to. I trusted him. We had a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Later he mentioned wanting to wow a girl.”

“A courting allowance?”

“Who knows? It started out just a couple of hundred bucks, but before long it was adding up to a couple of thousand.”

“Are you sore at him?” After all, two grand is two grand.

“I’m worried about him, not the cash.”

Gabe said it like the subject was now closed, and because I didn’t want him hanging up on me, I respected that.

So what kind of person was Mark? The kind of guy who’d walk away from his life and not look back? Welsh on a debt? Publicly spurn and mortify a woman who loved him?

“If he wanted to end things with Madeline, wouldn’t he just dump her?” I asked. “How did he call it quits with other girlfriends?”

That question brought a long pause on the speakerphone. Suddenly I wished we were face-to-face so I could read him better, because I must have hit on something he didn’t want to discuss.

“You know what I mean,” I pushed. “Normal it’s-not-working breakups or crazy business?”

Still no answer.

“Gabe, what aren’t you telling me?”

I explained that I needed to know the truth about Mark if I was to have any chance of finding out what happened. Now was not the time to hold back facts, or even suspicions, for fear of embarrassing anyone.

“This is tough on Madeline, Gabe, but she’s cooperating. I need your cooperation, too.”

With clear reluctance, he told me that Mark had been engaged to someone else when he met Madeline. But it wasn’t serious.

“How can being engaged not be serious?” I asked.

“They hadn’t picked out a ring, much less a wedding date,” Gabe answered. “It was more like an understanding.”

“So how understanding was she about Mark’s new fiancée?”

Another pause. “Not very,” he finally admitted.

“And Madeline was okay with it?”

“I’m not sure she knew.”

When the two men got together it was typically a boys’ night out, so Gabe had only met Mark’s old flame a few times. Her name was Sigourney. He couldn’t recall her last name. They’d dated on and off for a couple of years. A few days before Madeline and Mark’s wedding, Gabe was visiting his old pal when the phone rang. Mark let the machine pick it up. Sigourney started leaving a we-need-to-talk message. Mark disconnected the call without saying a word.

“A
WHIRLWIND COURTSHIP?”
I smiled at the maid of honor, trying to put the best possible spin on the engagement.

“A quickie wedding,” Libby Melrose corrected me.

The first thing I noticed was her hair. Cropped short and carrot red. She wore a leather beret like a crown, but a few curls escaped to frame her face. Unlike Madeline, who wore very little makeup, Libby was a cover-girl combo of lip gloss, blush, and mascara.

She and Madeline had attended the same exclusive prep school. Then Madeline went to college on the East Coast, Libby on the West. Both returned to Minnesota and still saw each other socially at places like the elite White Bear Yacht Club, where the wedding reception was supposed to be held.

Once I assured Libby that I just wanted to talk for background, not on camera, she was fine with meeting with me. So I continued that approach. “You must have been touched when Madeline asked you to be her maid of honor.”

“Surprised was more like it.”

I liked Libby’s blunt style. Sure, she and Madeline were friends, though she’d never considered theirs the bosom buddy-best woman type of friendship of which maids of honor are made.

“Let’s just say I’m not planning on reciprocating when I get married,” she said. “Frankly, I have friends I’m tighter with, but I held up my end of the deal for Madeline. Same can’t be said for the groom.”

“What was Mark like? What were they like together?”

We were sitting outside and people were walking by, so she lowered her voice. “They’d only known each other a couple of months. I suspected she was pregnant. When he skipped out just before the ceremony, I was certain. Guess I was wrong.” Libby held her hands palms up in a playful but non-apologetic gesture.

Like many reporters, I had a knack for making people comfortable and getting them to open up. It transcended age, sex, or occupation. Most of the time people want to talk, otherwise the media wouldn’t exist. It’s a question of approaching them the right way and helping them understand how they benefit.