Weddings Can Be Murder (21 page)

I realized I would be smart to take my own
advice.

“Just be careful. It’s better not to say
anything at all.”

“I’ll tell them ‘No comment,’ just like on
TV.”

The great hide-behind, the thing that always
planted a seed of doubt. But I supposed it was better than giving
out a real remark that could be misconstrued or something requiring
further explanation.

“Try to avoid them completely if you can,” I
said. “Ron and I will be their targets anyway. Every time we leave
the house or come home it’s a new round of shouts.”

“I know, sweetie, I know.” She came over and
put her arms around my waist, mimicking the hugs I used to give
when I was a kid. Now she’s the shorter of the two of us. We patted
each other’s backs until it began to seem a little ridiculous.

“Are you and Ron okay over there? Got plenty
to eat and all?”

“We’re fine. I can hardly get him to eat
anything.”

“I’m gonna solve that with a big pot of my
beef stew,” she said. “He always loved it and that way you don’t
have to cook for several days.”

I started to say that it seemed like a lot
of work, but then realized she thrives on doing things for others
and right now our household made a good cause for her. She was
suffering and feeling as helpless as we were.

“Thanks. That would be wonderful. We need to
get to the office now, but tonight you should come over and we’ll
eat your stew together.”

The plan had such a ring of normalcy, I
returned home with a better attitude than I’d had in two days.

Ron perked up when I told him about Elsa’s
offer. Freshly shaved and dressed for the office, he almost looked
like his old self. Maybe we both could pretend this investigation
wasn’t quite so life-and-death depressing.

At the office, I picked up the items I’d
taken from Victoria’s, planning on resuming my phone call
inquiries. The phone rang as I picked up the old address book—Sally
informing me it was Kent Taylor on the line; Ron wasn’t in his
office at the moment. Did I want to take the call? I grabbed the
receiver immediately.

“Charlie, that DNA test I told you about
earlier? I’ve got results.”

“Wow—quick.” I hid my disappointment that he
wasn’t calling to say Victoria was found safe and sound.

“I pushed the state lab really hard on this
one. Since it’s evidence where a victim is missing and endangered,
I got it moved up the chain.”

I heard my brother clomping up the stairs, a
breath of cold air wafting from his clothing.

“Thanks. Mind if I get Ron on the line to
hear this?”

Taylor had no objection and I called out to
Ron. “Sorry, I had to get outside for a minute,” he said, picked up
his extension without even removing his coat.

“Charlie probably filled you in,” Taylor
said. “DNA results came back from the blood on Victoria’s living
room rug. It’s hers.”

So she’d been taken from her home, wounded
and bleeding. I couldn’t bring myself to go the next step and
consider she might be dead. The silence from Ron’s end told me he
was having the same thoughts.

“I know what you two are thinking,” Taylor
said. “Let me stress that we do not know yet. We aren’t the only
ones looking at this case.”

“So, we can believe she’s alive somewhere.”
I said it purely for Ron’s benefit, I knew. Taylor dealt with death
all the time and must have learned ways to be less emotionally
involved. He didn’t have anything else to offer so I thanked him
for the information

Ron and I spent a few minutes debating what
we might be doing, aside from waiting in hopes of another call from
Taylor. I suggested Ron get back to the laptop and passwords while
I would take up with the old address book again, as little as I
wanted to spend my time dialing numbers which had been
disconnected. I opened the book to the page I’d marked where I left
off, picked up the phone and started again.

The results were becoming predictable enough
that I nearly caught a little nap while listening to recorded
messages. One listing under the name Henderson, I noticed, had been
written in ink but was repeatedly scratched out and changed. When a
woman answered she caught me by surprise. I went through my rote
explanation of who I was and why I was calling.

“Morgan? I don’t think—”

The hesitation in her voice gave me hope. I
listened while she debated with herself a little, discarding ideas
aloud.

“The only Morgan I can think of was a lady
from my hometown. She was the grandmother of a good friend. I
imagine she’s been dead at least thirty years. I realize that’s
probably no help at all.”

Yeah, she was right about that. I thanked
her anyway and left my number, clicking off the call and dialing
the next number. This one netted me another answered call—this time
a man who loudly belched and told me Morgan beer was his favorite.
Must be a local brew wherever he lived—I’d never heard of it.

Ron appeared at my door. “I’m not getting
anywhere with the computer passwords. I got a look at her bank
accounts and everything makes sense with what I already
know—wedding plans mostly. Credit card charges that fit what we
were doing last week. Not a single thing since Saturday, other than
the recurring automatic payments she set up for utility bills and
such.”

I ran my fingers through my hair, raking it
back from my face. “The address book looks like a dead end
too.”

“I’m thinking home and stew with Elsa,” he
said.

I hated the dejection I heard in his voice,
even though most likely my own sounded the same. We put Victoria’s
stuff away in the safe and locked the office.

There’s something about a bowl of stew on a
cold winter night. The moment Elsa came over—Ron carrying the heavy
kettle and she with a basket of jalapeño cornbread—I felt like a
kid in someone’s loving care.

I set places at the kitchen table and
Freckles helped by carefully watching placement of all the food
items, despite the fact that she’d been given her own dinner the
moment we arrived home. Elsa ladled the steaming stew into big
bowls and we sat down, no one digging right in. We were all
thinking of Victoria.

“We should talk about her,” Elsa said. “None
of us can pretend we aren’t scared silly. Tell me what’s going on
with the investigation.”

As Victoria was the subject on all our
minds, there was no sense filling the evening with inane talk of
useless topics such as the weather or sports. We filled her in with
as much information as we had.

“Her father died in the Vietnam war?” she
asked, sneaking a bit of cornbread down to the dog, hoping I didn’t
notice.

“That’s what she told me,” Ron said. “He’d
died before he ever saw her. Vic’s mother raised her alone.”

Elsa didn’t say anything for a couple of
minutes, chewing on the stew meat, her mind clearly turning.

“I’m afraid he couldn’t have been killed
there,” she finally said. “The Vietnam war ended long before that.
I remember it well. The president going on TV, declaring the end of
hostilities. It was in 1973 because I remember the company where I
worked and the way we were all talking about it the next morning at
the office. Of course, ending a war is not quite that smooth. I
seem to recall the evacuation of more people when Saigon fell, and
that was a couple of years later.”

Ron’s spoon clattered in his bowl. “Victoria
was born in 1979.”

“Exactly.” She may be old but her math
skills are still excellent.

Chapter 20

A sound brought Victoria around to
consciousness again. Beyond her range of sight came the grating
sound of a key in a disused lock, an old doorknob turning. The
concrete room seemed tinged in pink. Late afternoon. What day was
this? She had no idea. Grunts and groans, male voices, sent
adrenaline shooting through her body. A picture came to her of the
two men in her house. They’d demanded something, some tape
recording they thought she had. What if they’d tracked her here?
Worse—what if they’d brought her here and were coming back to
torture her for the information. Oh god.

She suppressed a whimper and squeezed
herself tightly into her corner, pulling the musty tarp over her
head. Dust and flakes of paint filtered over her face and she
pinched her nose to avoid sneezing. If these were the men who’d
broken into her house her life depended on remaining out of
sight.

Heavy boots stomped down the concrete steps.
Two men, from the sounds of it, shuffling along, carrying something
heavy.

“Whew, what a day!” said a deep, gravelly
voice.

The other one, higher pitched, younger,
grunted agreement. “Damn generator’s a pain in the ass. When are
they getting power to the building, anyway?”

“Boss says not ’til after the holidays.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. At least we’ll have the place
enclosed by next week. Windows installed, locks on the door, we can
start leaving all this junk inside instead of hauling it
around.”

Metal grated against concrete as they shoved
the generator across the floor. Victoria held her breath, unsure if
they would be friend or foe. By their conversation, they seemed
more interested in getting out and grabbing a beer.

She debated calling out to them for help.
She opened her mouth but her voice came out as a croak, scratchy
with disuse. A moment later the heavy boots clomped up the steps
and there was the sound of a metal door closing, lock clicking in
place. They were gone.

Victoria pushed the tarp aside. Her left arm
still throbbed but the adrenaline surge left her feeling energized.
She had to get out of here. Find a phone, call Ron. She gripped her
left arm with her right hand, holding it tightly to her body as she
got her legs beneath her and stood. Her vision dimmed perilously.
She paused, allowed it to clear, tried a tentative step. As long as
she held her breath against the pain she could manage two or three
steps without stopping. She made it to the stairs, noting the light
had gone from pink to gray. The short winter dusk was coming on
fast.

Gripping a flimsy wooden handrail she took
the stairs one at a time, with a long pause after each exertion. At
the top of the flight she reached a small, square landing. The
metal door looked solid with a hefty knob and deadbolt. She twisted
the locking mechanism on the doorknob, fumbling it with her frozen
fingers. The thumb turn on the deadbolt was easier to manage;
although crusted with decades of dirt and grime it creaked the
ninety degrees necessary to release it. She edged the door open,
peering out carefully. A blast of icy wind fluttered her bathrobe
and she realized she was barefoot. A whiff of car exhaust remained
as the only trace of the men who’d been here a few minutes ago.

The door opened into an alley. She stood at
the threshold, debating which was worse, leaving or staying.
Indoors provided shelter from the weather, although no warmth other
than her own body heat. Outside, even that was borne away on the
breeze. But the men could come back. She had to get help, no matter
what it took. She stepped to the alley, her numb feet hardly
feeling the rough surface and layer of dried mud on the multiple
tire tracks that ran its length. She pulled the metal door shut
behind her, not locking the knob. Listened.

In the distance, traffic. Engines revving,
the toot of a horn. She looked toward each end of the alley. To her
left, it ended at some kind of loading dock behind a big building.
The high doors were closed, not a vehicle in sight there. To the
right was a street. No cars had driven by. She began walking,
taking stumbling steps on frozen feet. At the street she held back,
watching for activity. There was none.

The narrow thoroughfare was lined with two-
and three-story buildings of the office and warehouse variety, many
of them appearing to be empty. She didn’t recognize the area.
Yellow-brick fronts with large windows, some of the glass broken
and missing, others soaped or papered over. Graffiti on all. To her
left she could see the next intersection, some sort of convenience
store or package liquor place with a neon sign fizzling out a weak
signal. She couldn’t imagine walking in there.

But nothing else on the street appeared
open. A phone. All she wanted was to reach a phone. Ron would come
get her. She could have a bath and tend to her injured arm.
Thinking of warmth and family carried her to the corner. Outside
the store’s lighted windows she spotted a pay phone. A laugh
bubbled up—
haven’t seen one of these in years, and now it shows
up when I need it.

She picked up the receiver. It had an oily
feel in her hand and the parts that would touch her face smelled of
grease, liquor and unwashed hands. Her stomach lurched but she
forced herself to hold it. Then she remembered she would need coins
and she had none. Maybe in the store, she could borrow some. But a
glance at the clerk with long, slimy hair selling a miniature
bottle of booze to a guy in an oversized ripped parka told her it
would not be smart to walk in there. She gathered her robe more
tightly and stood with her back against the wall, pressing 0 on the
keypad.

“Operator.”

“I need to make a call,” Victoria said,
suddenly at a loss for the number. Ron’s apartment phone had been
taken out. He might be at her house. She gave her home number.

“Please deposit fifty cents or insert a
credit card,” came the voice.

“I don’t have any money. Please—I need to
reach my fiancé.”

“Please deposit fifty cents or insert a
credit card.”

She began to wonder if she was speaking to a
person or if this was an automated system. She had no clue. Her
head pounded and she couldn’t think.

The stringy guy in the parka came out of the
store and glanced her direction. His eyes were glazed and his grin
revealed missing and rotten teeth.