Weddings Can Be Murder (5 page)

Lorraine bustled into the kitchen, on her
way to the back door, a twenty dollar bill in hand. “Annie texted.
They’ve given up on us and ordered themselves a pizza.”

I hadn’t even thought to ask where Annie and
Joe were. Obviously, they were doing a better job of focusing on
dinner than I was.

“We all had chile three hours ago,” Elsa
reminded. “I couldn’t hold another bite.”

“Okay, then. Anyone who’s hungry can join
the kids.” I said in a half-hearted effort to simply get the
problem solved. I closed the fridge door and turned toward the
living room.

Paul had slumped into my favorite corner of
the sofa, taking possession of Drake’s TV remote as if he actually
lived here. Ron emerged from the guest room wearing the jeans and
rugby shirt he’d had on last night, and in one of those horrible
bad-coincidence moments the six o’clock news blared forth with the
lead story: “An Albuquerque woman is missing, on what would have
been her wedding night. No one is saying the fiancé, Ron Parker, is
a suspect
yet
, but defense attorney Ben Ortiz was at the
man’s side this afternoon at police headquarters.”

I froze. Ron froze.

Drake stepped inside with, “Did you know
there’s a—” He stopped midsentence and took in the scene. “—news
van outside?”

Ron headed for the front window.

“Don’t do it,” Drake said. He pulled the
drapes shut. “They’re already setting up cameras.”

“I’m gonna tell them—”

But Drake grabbed his arm, reminding him
what Ben Ortiz had said earlier.

“Shh,” I hissed. “Let’s listen.”

Channel 12 finished with a short clip of
Blake Moore standing in front of the building where we’d been this
afternoon, footage obviously taken shortly after we’d bolted. As is
too often the case no real news was given, just a lot of
speculation about what authorities
may
be investigating. As
far as I could tell, their only hard facts were that police were
called to Victoria’s home this morning when the bride-to-be was
reported missing and the fiancé had been questioned. Of course,
those tidbits were bad enough. Our phone immediately rang.

“Don’t answer it,” Drake advised. “It’s
probably reporters from other stations.”

A sinking feeling hit the pit of my stomach.
How could our lives have changed so much in the last twelve
hours?

I heard a sound at the back door and
immediately felt myself go on the attack. But when I raced in
there, ready to bean some reporter with my handy brass candlestick,
it turned out to be Lorraine, looking clueless as ever.

“Who wants pizza?” she offered. “We ordered
two but you better get there before it’s been devoured.”

“You’ll have to ask the others,” I said.
With an iron grip on her arm, I gave her the twenty-second version
of how we needed to lock ourselves in and not answer doorbells or
calls.

“Seriously? Even at Elsa’s place?”

“Especially at Elsa’s place. They’ll try
their best to get the neighbors to talk to them. Do
not
do
it!”

“Thank goodness the pizza guy got through
before all this happened.”

Whatever. I followed her into the living
room, where Paul was the only person interested in eating.
Repeating my warnings, I saw the two of them out the back door and
locked it behind them. We agreed that anyone wanting to go between
the two houses should call ahead and we’d each do our best to sneak
through the hedge in the dark of night.

The TV was off when I went back to the
living room with Ron, Drake and Elsa sitting in gloomy lumps on the
couch.

I joined them. “I feel like we have to do
something. We can’t just let this whole thing happen without taking
any action.”

“You three weren’t here for the chile
earlier. You need food,” Elsa announced. “No wonder you have no
energy.”

She got up, went to the kitchen and I heard
cupboard doors opening and closing.

“She’s right.” I followed, discovering she’d
already located fruit, cheese and crackers.

“It’s not the wedding buffet but at least it
might give you the energy to think straight.” Once again I knew why
I adored this lady.

We called the men and all sat around the
kitchen table. Ron looked like an already-condemned man; Drake kept
sending glances my way, silently asking how to handle this. I
hadn’t a clue. Luckily, Elsa began to recover first.

“I say we spend the evening making posters
with her picture. We’ll go around all over town tomorrow putting
them up.”

It felt a little embarrassing that a private
investigator, a search-and-rescue pilot and little old me had not
thought of this much earlier.

“All we need is a good picture of her,” I
said. “I can lay out a flyer on the computer and I’d bet Drake
would let us have some of his office paper.”

“Take all you want.” At least we had a few
bright eyes around the table as enthusiasm picked up.

“While I’m doing the computer stuff, Ron,
you and Drake start calling her friends.”

The plateful of cheese and crackers quickly
disappeared as we now had tasks ahead of us. The phone had not
stopped ringing since the news story hit the airwaves and, much as
I hated to, I volunteered to listen to the messages. One of them
could be from a friend who knew something or, ideally, maybe we
would hear from Victoria herself.

Even as I had that thought, I knew better.
Vic would have called Ron’s cell phone if she was able to. Second
choice would probably be mine. Both of those had stayed dreadfully
quiet. As I listened, Drake’s earlier statement proved to be true.
Seventeen messages were from media people, from the four local
stations, two national networks, and a handful of newspapers. I
dutifully jotted down all the names and numbers—we couldn’t know
yet whether any of them might actually be of help.

Elsa cleared the plates away while I booted
up Drake’s office computer. Ron had dozens of pictures on his phone
and we quickly chose a couple that looked most like Victoria in
natural light with a pose that wasn’t overdone. I soon had the
facts and phone numbers typed below it and started the printer to
crank out a few dozen. If this thing went on longer than a day or
so (heaven forbid) we could have hundreds more done up at a print
shop.

“Okay, thanks,” Ron was saying to his cell
phone. By the look on his face, I knew it was another disappointing
call.

“Here’s a list of the people I’ve called,”
he said, handing it over to me. “Everyone wants to help but no
one’s seen her.”

“Most of these would have been at the
wedding,” I said.

My throat tightened at the thought—Ron and
Victoria’s big day ruined, the friends and family disappointed, the
unopened gifts, the uncut cake still sitting on my dining table,
her gown. I wondered if the police had taken it away or just left
it there in its sad heap of fairy-princess white. I suppressed a
sniffle and pretended I had an urgent need for the bathroom.

“I can try a couple of her clients,” Ron was
saying as I ducked out.

When I returned after a stern lecture to
myself about holding it together, Elsa had found thumb tacks and
tape, and had set them beside a nice stack of flyers on the table.
We would be ready to hit the streets first thing in the
morning.

“Okay, thanks,” Ron said to the phone. “If
you think of anything she might have said in recent days, any ideas
where she might have gone, please give me a call.” He gave the
number for our office as well as his cell phone.

Drake handed me his written list of calls,
mostly names Ron had provided, people I didn’t know personally. I
felt myself spiraling downward again, wondering what else we could
do. The thought that
nothing
could be done hung at the
periphery but I refused to let it take hold.

By nine o’clock we’d cross-checked our call
lists and compared notes, all with no results. I wanted to snatch
up the phone book and start with the A’s to dial every household in
the city, but realized that would not only be futile but rather
rude. I peeked around the edge of the drapes to find that there
were now three news vans out front.

“I’d better walk Elsa home,” I said. Having
my elderly neighbor caught in the glare of those awful lights was
unthinkable. Plus, I needed to reiterate some things to the rest of
the gang. Who knew what two pubescent kids who thrived on reality
TV might do when someone turned a camera and microphone on
them?

“Of course we know better than to talk to
the press,” Paul said, a little indignantly, when I brought it up
to the little family I’d assembled in Elsa’s living room.

“I’m just saying. No talking to anyone about
any aspect of this. Our attorney will be giving a statement in the
morning and that’s that.” I aimed my words toward thirteen-year-old
Annie who, alarmingly, seemed more titillated than horrified by
what we were going through.

The kid had never shown me a lot of respect,
but Paul and Lorraine both promised to rule with an iron hand.
Since they’d never done this in the past, it was with a lot of
trepidation I left and tippy-toed through the break in the hedge to
my own back door.

The men were on the sofa, their cell phones
sitting dark and silent on the coffee table in front of them,
glasses of Scotch resting on coasters. Maybe it was a sign that Ron
was beginning to unwind a little.

“Elsa said something to me while she was
stacking those fliers earlier,” Drake said after offering me a
drink. (I opted for the wine.) “She asked if Victoria had always
lived in Albuquerque.”

“She has.” Ron didn’t even look up from his
lap.

“I suppose we could try going way back in
her past,” I said. “See if she’s been in touch with old school
chums or previous co-workers?”

This time Ron did look up. “I wouldn’t know
where to start. Ever since she opened her own business, it’s all
been about clients and suppliers. It’s been years since she worked
for an employer and she rarely talks about her childhood. All I
know is that her mother raised her alone and died fairly
young.”

“Maybe Kent Taylor will let us get to her
business files so we can search out some more names.” Drake offered
the idea but I had my doubts.

If Taylor had any reason to believe
Victoria’s disappearance was tied to her business, he’d have
already confiscated those files.

Chapter 6

October, 1978 – Miami, Florida

Juliette Mason gave her curly brown hair a
shake and plumped the long spirals into place. Dark eye makeup,
pale pink on the lips—getting this aspect of her appearance right
was the easy part. She glanced toward her bed where she’d laid out
several clothing choices. The short skirt with lime-green diagonal
stripes was cute, her favorite outfit, but was it right for a job
interview?
This
interview?

She’d received the inside tip from a
neighbor whose brother’s son’s best friend worked for Pro-Builder
Construction. The city’s largest contractor was looking for a
secretary, and rumor had it the boss liked them young and pretty.
Juliette knew that attitude was sexist—half her friends considered
themselves feminists and were in on the bra-burning craze—but at
this point she needed a job, one that paid better than the minimum
wage position at the auto parts store. Hell, the guys at the store
hit on her all the time, anyway. Why not let some old geezer flirt
for a lot more pay?

The blue pantsuit was the most businesslike,
the one her mother would have chosen if she were still alive. The
belted jumpsuit was classy, a tangerine polyester that looked
almost like silk, but it really was more appropriate for evening
with a few gold chains added around her neck. She reached for the
short skirt and matching pullover top.

Forty minutes later she stepped off the bus,
hiked her faux-leather bag strap over her shoulder and walked the
half block to the address she’d been given. The squatty concrete
building didn’t say much about the success of the contractor, but
the Pro-Builder sign was right there. She supposed a construction
firm could build fabulous steel and glass high-rises for others
even if they operated their own business out of a couple thousand
square feet on a few acres of fenced dirt lot.

The concrete structure was free of
ornamentation but there were wide windows on all sides and she saw
desks inside. With luck, she might get one of those. Anything that
showed blue sky and palm trees would be better than her current
cubbyhole on the mezzanine above the auto parts store, where the
nauseous reek of new tires never went away. She pulled the tinted
glass door open and went inside.

She barely had time for a quick impression
of the interior—nicer than she’d imagined, with some kind of stone
flooring, earth-toned upholstery on the chairs, good quality wood
furniture. A hallway led toward the back of the building and two
closed doors concealed other rooms.

“Can I help you?” The husky voice came from
a receptionist who was in her forties with blond hair in a classic
upsweep from a decade ago. Her makeup was perfect, her clothes
stylish and her nails painted to match her lips. While Juliette
searched for the name of the man she was to see, the woman took a
long draw on her cigarette.

“Um, yes. I’m here for an interview with Mr.
Proletti.” Juliette prayed she was pronouncing his name
correctly.

“Al’s out on a job. He told me to talk to
you. Go ahead, have a seat.” Ash fell from the cigarette when the
woman—whose nameplate said her name was Sheila Page—pointed to the
chair in front of her desk.

Juliette sat, tucking the hem of her skirt
under her legs and setting her purse on the floor.

“The job is basic secretarial,” said Sheila,
“typing, filing, dictation. Sometimes the bookkeeper needs extra
help with ledger entries. You ever done that before?”