All Dressed in White (26 page)

L
eo Farley kept his eyes on Jeremy Carroll’s front porch as he hit refresh on his cell phone’s email app for what felt like the thirtieth time in three minutes.

He had a love-hate relationship with computers. Sometimes he thought about how much easier his job would have been if he had had all this technology at his fingertips back with the NYPD. And then there were moments like this when he wished he had an actual human being on the other end of a good old-fashioned telephone call.

He had seen the worry in Laurie’s face when she stepped out of the car. Laurie’s show had been a phenomenal success so far. In both of the previous specials, the show had played a key role in identifying the murderer.

Laurie’s work at the Grand Victoria would prove instrumental, but this might be the first time that she only managed to move the ball downfield, without going over the goal line. I was a cop for nearly thirty years, Leo thought. I’ve learned to know the difference between a gut feeling and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But for Laurie, the sense of uncertainty was new. They still needed more evidence before the police could even possibly arrest Jeff. And Leo was determined to find it.

Maybe I made a mistake, he thought, not insisting on going
inside with her. He had intensely lobbied Laurie to allow him to accompany her inside Jeremy’s house, but she insisted on questioning him alone. She was so driven to get to the truth. But at least she didn’t come here alone. She had allowed him to make the drive with her.

To keep his mind occupied, Leo had called the Office of Student Services at Colby and asked for help searching the college yearbooks for any information about Carly Romano. According to Jeff, he was only a casual acquaintance of the young woman who’d been murdered near the campus. If Leo could prove that Carly and Jeff had been an item, they’d be one step closer to building a case against him.

When Leo explained he was a retired first deputy commissioner of the NYPD looking into Carly’s case in his spare time, the secretary volunteered that the yearbooks all contained an index by students’ names. She would scan any page mentioning Carly and email it to him. It was the only thing he could think to do as he sat restlessly in the car.

•  •  •

Laurie saw her father lean his head back in the driver’s seat when she reemerged from Jeremy’s house. She wondered how many times he had started to leave the car to check on her.

“Laurie, that might have been the longest twenty minutes of my life,” Leo said as she hopped into the passenger seat.

“Dad, wait until I tell you,” she said as she dropped the package on the floor and began to put on her seat belt. Then her cell phone buzzed. It was a new text from Alex.

Local news just reported the discovery of Amanda’s body. CNN is covering now. I’m taking Timmy to the pool but will follow updates online.

She was still reading the message when her phone rang. It was Brett Young.

She answered immediately. “Brett, I know. Big developments.”

“Huge! Please tell me you’re almost finished filming.”

“We’ve got everyone who matters on film, yes.”

She could almost picture him popping the champagne on the other end of the line. “So how long before you finish? I want to start advertising now.”

“We don’t have any answers yet, Brett.”

“We need to strike while the iron’s hot. I want to go to air as soon as possible. Wrap it up. Pronto!”

“There’s a little problem. We still only have questions, not answers.” She realized that the connection was already broken and Brett had not waited for her response.

Leo shifted the car into gear. “Brett must think you’re Houdini.”

“The news got out about the police finding Amanda’s body. Did you hear it?”

“No, I had the radio off. I was making some phone calls.”

“He wants me to finish as quickly as possible.”

“To what end?” he protested. “At this point nobody knows who killed Amanda.”

She thought about the photographs Jeremy had given her. Did she finally know who killed Amanda?

Maybe.

55

L
eo dropped Laurie off at the hotel entrance and waited for the valet to take the car while she went to see Alex. She had just walked into the hotel lobby when she saw Kate Fulton make a beeline in her direction.

“Oh, Laurie, thank goodness. I’ve been looking all over for you. I feel terrible thinking about anything other than Amanda right now, but it’s really important. I already talked to Jerry, but he said he couldn’t make any promises. I know I signed that agreement, but I don’t want you to use my interview after all.”

This was the last thing Laurie wanted to deal with right now. She had Brett breathing down her neck, and she desperately needed to talk to Alex. She could feel the photographs in her briefcase pulling at her. She and Leo both thought she should take them to Detective Henson, but she wanted Alex’s advice before making a final decision.

“Kate, I think I know why you’re having second thoughts about your interview,” Laurie said, “but can we please talk about it later? I’m sure we can easily edit out the segment you’re worried about.”

“Wait, do you know? Did Henry say something?”

Laurie reached into her bag and pulled out the first photograph she had taken from Jeremy, the one of the entire wedding party sitting around a table. Even from a distance, Jeremy had been able
to capture Henry’s hand entwined with Kate’s. “An intern for the wedding photographer had this,” Laurie said, giving her only copy to Kate. “And trust me, I’ll edit out the part where you said you wondered if you got married too young, and no one ever needs to know.”

Kate had been the first to turn in for the night after the bachelorette dinner. Amanda’s brother, Henry, was the first of the men. They were the only married people in the gang. They were both parents to young children, eager for some downtime. After saying good night to their dinner companions, they had gotten together in one of their rooms.

“I love my husband,” Kate said. “It was just one night. It was a terrible mistake, for Henry, too.”

“You don’t need to explain.”

Kate gave her a huge hug. “I felt so guilty for thinking about myself when they’ve finally found Amanda. Poor Sandra and Walter. Austin offered the whole family the use of his jet if they needed to get home, but they said they wanted to stay here.”

“They’re actually holding up okay,” Laurie said. “After all these years, I think they were ready to hear the truth. There is one more thing you can help me with.”

“Anything.”

“Were Meghan and Amanda arguing while you were all down here?”

“Not to my knowledge,” she said. “But, as you now know, I had other things on my mind. Why?”

“Amanda told you she was having second thoughts about the wedding and needed to find something out. Is it possible she figured out that Meghan had feelings for Jeff?”

“I don’t know—maybe. You don’t think Meghan killed Amanda, do you?”

“Oh, of course not,” Laurie said quickly. “We just try to cover all our bases.”

She watched Kate head toward the elevator, knowing she was going to destroy that photograph. The pictures that mattered to Laurie were still in her briefcase. Five of them showed Meghan at various times during the week, staring longingly at Jeff as he doted on his fiancée. But it was the final photograph that was most shocking: Amanda pulling her arm from Meghan’s grip during a heated argument.

56

L
eo had just returned to his hotel room when he heard a knock at his door, followed by a familiar voice. “It’s Laurie. Dad, are you there?”

She sounded concerned. He jumped from the chair to let her in.

“Have you seen Alex and Timmy?” she asked immediately. “I can’t find them anywhere.”

“Timmy left a note saying Alex was joining him and Jerry for the water park. He used five exclamation points.”

The sight of her son’s carefully printed words on the Grand Victoria stationery only partially calmed her. “When Alex texted me saying he was going to the pool with Timmy, I thought he meant the hotel.”

Leo expected his daughter to worry once again that Timmy was getting too attached to Alex, but she changed the subject back to the case. “Dad, I can’t decide whether to take these pictures to Detective Henson.” She removed the photos from her briefcase and spread them out on the bed. Leo hadn’t had time to study them closely in the car.

“Look,” she said, pointing to a picture of Meghan glaring in the background as Jeff and Amanda posed under a poolside marble archway. “You can tell she’s in love with him, and he has no idea. And then in this final picture, it’s obvious Amanda and Meghan
were fighting. Meghan never said anything about a confrontation after that one incident at the Ladyform offices.”

“You think they were arguing about Jeff?” Leo asked.

“Somehow Amanda could have learned Meghan was in love with Jeff. Maybe she even sensed it was mutual. She told Kate she had to find something out before she could go through with the wedding. This picture may have been taken when she confronted Meghan about her real feelings. I think they cut the argument short because it was time to get ready for dinner, but agreed to meet privately later. That’s probably why Amanda was heading for the parking garage. If only Jeremy had followed Amanda all the way to the car.”

“I thought you told me that Meghan and Charlotte rode up together on the elevator after Amanda said she forgot something.”

“They did, but once Meghan went to her room, she was alone. We’ll need to check with the hotel, but there must have been a way for Meghan to double back out of the hotel from her room without being seen. The camera footage is grainy. If she changed out of her dress into jeans and a baseball cap, she could have passed for a man. Plus, I was thinking about Carly Romano. If she and Jeff were dating, and Meghan was already interested in Jeff, then Meghan might have been the one to hurt Carly, too. She wanted Jeff to herself.”

At that very moment, Leo’s laptop let out a high-pitched
ping
from the desk in the corner. He had a new email message. He nearly ignored it, but sneaked a quick glance. It was from the Office of Student Services at Colby.

“Speaking of Carly,” he said, “I checked with the college to see if I could track down more details about her connection to Jeff. They scanned every yearbook page with Carly’s name on it.”

He opened the attachment to the new message. “I don’t see any mention of Jeff here,” he said, “but take a look at this.”

Laurie scanned the tribute to Carly in her sophomore yearbook. She was the president of the debate team.
Without Carly, the club had no choice but to elect a new president. “Carly’s death was a tragedy and loss to our team and the entire Colby community. I only hope to do half the job she did.”

Beneath the quote was the smiling face of the new debate team president, Colby junior Meghan White.

•  •  •

As Leo’s laptop pinged with the incoming message, Jeff Hunter’s cell phone rang. It was an unexpected call from New York City. Jeff was shocked by who the caller was and what he said about Meghan.

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