Weddings Can Be Murder (14 page)

Chapter 13

Making all those dead-end phone calls gave
me a headache. Even though I hadn’t made it through the entire
alphabet I set the address book aside, looking for something more
productive to do. Freckles convinced me the best thing would be to
hand her a dog cookie from the tin canister on my shelf. I did so,
then took her for a short walk around the block to clear my head.
Ron had retreated to his office after the television newscast,
looking as if he might put a fist through the wall.

When the dog and I returned from our walk,
Ron was on the phone. Once I figured out he was talking to Kent
Taylor, I listened shamelessly. Still, I was only getting half the
conversation. This call most certainly went against every scrap of
legal advice he’d ever received. I got the part where Ron asked
straight out whether he was seriously considered a suspect.
Apparently the answer wasn’t ‘yes’ because Ron didn’t explode on
the spot. But it must not have been a clear ‘no’ either. He stayed
quiet on the line for a full two minutes.

His next question, did they have any solid
leads from the hotline, brought more of the same—a lengthy answer
from Kent Taylor’s end. At that point either Ron ran out of
questions or Taylor came to the end of the answers he was willing
to give because Ron thanked him and hung up.

“So? What did he say?”

He sighed. “Well, the good news is that I’m
not really minutes away from being arrested as the damn
Killer
Bridegroom. And Taylor even promised to see if he
can’t get them to quash that description. At which point they’ll
probably scream about their freedom of the press and freedom of
speech rights and the best I can hope for is a lengthy and
expensive lawsuit later to gain back my good name. He did actually
say that.”

“At least he hasn’t become your sworn
enemy,” I ventured as I took the spare chair in his office.

“What he actually said was that they are
looking at all possibilities. Tips are coming in from the hotline,
but so far none of them have checked out. Apparently people are so
eager to get their name in the news that they’ll call in almost
anything. One lead came from Gallup and when the local cops checked
it out, turned out the woman the guy spotted was really his
neighbor. Seriously. Nothing but a publicity stunt. My life and
Vic’s life are on the line here, and people think it’s cute to play
jokes on the police?”

I could see his blood pressure rising again
so I tried to distract him.

“The address book isn’t yielding anything
but what if we start going through things on her computer? There’s
got to be up-to-date information there.”

He woke up the sleeping machine and I
dragged my chair around the desk. Side by side we looked at the
unfamiliar layout, getting a feel for the programs Victoria must
have used most.

“Let’s check email first,” I suggested.

Ron normally doesn’t have a lot of problem
invading people’s privacy—it’s what we do most of the time—but he
balked a little.

“I can do it in my office if you’d like,” I
said. Maybe he worried she would have private stuff of a very girly
nature on there, or perhaps he was afraid she would kill him when
she got back and found out what he’d done.

I agreed that it felt invasive but I forged
ahead. “I’m just thinking this will be the place where her most
recent correspondence is. We don’t have a way to check her phone,
so this is the closest we can come.”

He sighed and entered the password, then
pushed the keyboard closer to me.

Her inbox was fairly full but most of it
looked impersonal. Your order from Amazon was shipped; Don’t miss
the big sale at Pier One; Have better sex!!

“She could use a better spam filter,” I
commented as I scrolled past that one.

Several messages seemed personal. I opened
the first and skimmed the message. “Hi Vic, Congrats on your big
day! In case you’re checking email while you’re on your honeymoon
(you better not be!!), I had to tell you that Rick’s surgery turned
out fine. He’s home and recuperating. Talk soon when you get home.”
It was signed with the name Ginny.

“You know who Ginny is?” I asked.

“Yeah, a lady she did a living room for and
then they became friends. They have lunch once in awhile.”

“Maybe we should try to contact her. If Vic
is out there …”

“If she can get to a phone, wouldn’t she
have called me?”

Good point.

“Even if all she could do was drag herself
to Ginny’s doorstep, someone would have contacted the police.”

Very good point. Nevertheless, I wrote down
Ginny’s email address, thinking I might start a correspondence with
her, just in case.

There were three other personal messages,
which I skimmed. With each, I took down the sender’s address as
well. By the time I opened the third one, Ron was looking bored and
had decided to refill his coffee. The note began much the same as
the others and I’d almost breezed on, until I got to the last line.
“Did you ever tell Ron about that call last week, you know, the
weird one? Well, however it turned out, I hope all is well.”

What call? I wondered. Victoria and I had
spent quite a lot of time together in the days leading up to the
wedding—picking up our dresses, checking with the florist, lunches,
little bits of last-minute shopping. She’d taken quite a few phone
calls but never referred to any of them as weird.

I thought back over the days, trying to
remember her moods. She’d been on something of a roller coaster, I
supposed. Wedding stuff, the way most brides must feel right before
the big day. It was, after all, her first marriage and would be one
of the high points of her entire life. There were quiet times; I
remembered even asking if she was all right once or twice. And of
course she’d answered with a bright smile and assurances. If she’d
been having doubts about Ron, his sister was probably the last
person she would admit that to. But she
hadn’t
—I swore she
had not experienced any doubts about going through with the
marriage.

Besides, what would that have to do with
some weird phone call that a friend named Emily would mention in an
email? I glanced at the date on the message. It had been sent
Friday evening, the night before the wedding would have taken
place. I wondered if Emily had been invited. Surely, someone close
enough to share these confidences would have been among the
guests.

When he came back with his coffee refill, I
asked Ron if he had a copy of the guest list. He gave me that blank
male shrug, meaning: ‘List? You mean there’s a written list?’ How
do guys think this stuff comes together anyway? I swear, my brother
can be one of the most observant people on the planet when he’s
being paid as a private investigator, and one of the most hopeless
when it comes to life’s really important things, such as his own
wedding plans.

I found a folder on the computer labeled
Wedding. That should do it. Sure enough, the highly organized
Victoria had created complete lists for guests, ceremony,
reception, and honeymoon. This last consisted mostly of a list of
things to pack—it had been up to Ron to make the travel
arrangements.

The guest list included an Emily Brackman,
who lived in Los Lunas on the outskirts of Albuquerque, and a Ginny
Fields with an address in the Tanoan Country Club area. I finally
felt I was getting somewhere—at least I knew these were up-to-date
addresses and the people on this list would have been in contact
with Victoria in recent weeks. I picked up the laptop and carried
it to my own desk.

I debated phoning. Oftentimes, you get
better information when you can take someone by surprise, showing
up in person. On the other hand, I could waste a huge amount of
time driving from one end of the city to the other, only to
discover my interviewees were not home. People had jobs, social
plans … this stuff gets so dang complicated at times. I picked up
the phone and dialed Emily Brackman’s number.

Starting the conversation was the toughest
part. How much did she know, had she watched the news since the
really vile accusations began, would she immediately hang up on
anyone from Ron’s family? I had to take the chance.

“Emily? This is Charlie Parker … I was
Victoria’s matron of honor … well, would have been …”

From the amount of noise in the background I
guessed she was at a mall and had at least one young child. Either
that or she worked in a daycare center. She asked me to repeat what
I’d said. Which I did.

“Oh, Charlie. Yes, of course, Victoria
talked about you a lot.”

Good things, I hoped, something that would
overshadow the current media blitz.

“I feel so bad,” Emily was saying. “Is there
any news? I just hate what I’m hearing on TV.”

“You and me both,” I said. “Right now we’re
just trying to track down any information we can—”

A kid-shriek, the kind that tends to pierce
eardrums, made me yank the phone away to a safe distance.

“Look, would it be possible for us to talk
in person?” I asked. “I think it would be easier.”

Emily chuckled. “It would. I’ll be home in
about an hour and will have the kids down for naps, if you want to
drop by.” The Los Lunas address matched the one from Vic’s list,
and Emily provided brief directions for how to find it. I gave it
an hour and fifteen minutes—wanting those kids soundly asleep—then
I pulled up in front of her house.

The small towns south of Albuquerque have
grown tremendously in recent years and what I remembered as a
sleepy little riverside burg in my high school days now featured
such amenities as a Walmart Supercenter and a medium security
prison. I mention these with no particular opinion on which is the
better neighbor. Emily’s home turned out to be in one of several
new subdivisions which have boosted the local population, those who
want out of the big-city bustle of Albuquerque.

The Brackman’s home distinguished itself
from the other cookie-cutter tan and brown houses in the
neighborhood by having fairly mature trees out front and a neatly
manicured, although winter-brown, lawn. Over the gate leading to
the backyard I could see a brightly colored tangle of
gymnastic/swing set equipment for the kids but at least the front
yard was nicely uncluttered. I tapped lightly at the door, not
wanting to risk a doorbell.

“Charlie? Hi, come on in.” Emily looked like
the kind of woman who would be Victoria’s friend. Similar
hairstyle, long and dark, dressed in jeans and a sweater. She was
pretty but not gorgeous, the girl in high school who would shine at
English and math and probably help on every committee, but wouldn’t
even bother going out for cheerleader. She had Fleetwood Mac
playing in the background, subdued enough not to keep the kids
awake but with enough volume we could talk without causing a
disturbance either.

“I’m just making myself a cup of tea. Would
you like one?”

I accepted and followed her into the
kitchen.

“I think I only met Ron once,” she said, her
back to me as she worked at the counter. “Ran into Victoria once at
Macy’s and he was with her.”

“Where do you know her from?”

“We met at UNM, interior design classes. Hit
it off right away. We kept in close touch for awhile but our lives
went separate ways. I married right out of school, worked awhile,
followed my husband’s jobs out of country. He works for an oil
company. We were stationed in Saudi for fourteen months, Canada for
awhile. When we finally decided it was time to get with the program
if we wanted kids it seemed best to come back to New Mexico. Both
our families are here, you know, keep the kids near the
grandparents. Good thing we did—we ended up with triplets.”

She set delicate china cups and saucers on
the table, along with a beautiful sugar and creamer set. When I
admired them she told me it was her daily indulgence, having a
quiet cup of tea during nap time.

“Next year they’ll be in kindergarten. I’m
debating between going back to work, at least part time, or
treating myself to mornings in my robe with dishy romance novels
and plenty of cups of tea. I know what I’m
tempted
to
do.”

I smiled along with her and she sighed after
her first sip.

“I don’t want to take away from your quiet
time,” I said. “The reason I called is because I came across an
email you sent Victoria on Friday.”

“Oh gosh, I wasn’t even thinking. She must
have been so busy that day.”

“It was a little crazy, but she’s so well
organized. Everything was coming together just as she wanted
it.”

“I don’t know how you guys are coping.
Between her disappearing like that and then what they’re saying on
the news …”

“We’re doing our best to ignore that. So
much of it is speculation—we just really don’t know anything. Ron
and I’ve decided to piece together any information we can get.
Which is how we got started on the emails. In your message you
mentioned a call Victoria had received, something weird. Can you
tell me about that?”

“She didn’t mention it to you? In that case,
it’s probably nothing.”

“Still, anything you remember could be
helpful.”

“Well, let’s see. I met her for lunch last …
last Thursday? I’m pretty sure. I’ll look at the calendar. It was
the day my mom agreed to take all three kids for an afternoon.
Anyway, Vic and I met at Costell’s. Have you been there? Cutest
little place for salads and sandwiches—too girly for most guys, but
we like it. I had this mango-avocado salad.”

I guess my expression told her I really
didn’t need to hear the menu.

“So, she mostly talked about the wedding but
at one point she brought up this phone call. I still don’t know
why, other than she seemed to be unsure whether to mention it to
Ron or not.”