Dearly Depotted (8 page)

He immediately pivoted to film the action at the gazebo, where investigators were busy taking pictures, measuring distances, and dusting for prints.

Jillian grabbed my wrist. “Is that blood on your fingers?”

“No, but I can remedy that.”

“Get that camera out of my face!” Reilly barked.

Jillian twirled around and saw her videographer filming the police. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be making a movie of my wedding!”

He shrugged, then began filming her. “Not now!” she cried. “Go back to the ballroom. Film my ice sculptures before they melt away entirely.”

“No one’s in the ballroom,” he told her, “but, hey, you’re the boss.”

As the man schlepped up the aisle with his equipment, Reilly yelled, “You, with the camera. I’m going to need that tape—disk—whatever the hell it’s called.”

Jillian turned toward Reilly with a gasp. “You’re confiscating my wedding video?”

“Video, still shots—anything filmed here today,” Reilly said.

“You can’t do that,” Jillian cried, her voice a notch below a shriek.

“Calm down,” I said as her cameraman handed the memory cards to Reilly. “You’ll get it all back.”

“When will that be?” she asked Reilly.

“When we’re finished with them.” Reilly handed the cards to another cop, who dropped them into an envelope.

“You don’t understand,” Jillian said, folding her hands together as if she were begging. “My parents are throwing a party for us when we return from our honeymoon, and my wedding video is the entertainment. That means I need them back right away so they can be put on a DVD.”

He narrowed his eyes at her and I could almost hear his jaws clanging together. “You’ll get them back when we’re
finished
with them.”

“Jillian, drop it,” I said quietly. “You won’t change his mind. Besides, the cops might find something helpful on that video.”

“Well, isn’t that special? A murderer on my wedding video. You know what? I’ve had it.” She started yanking the pearl-tipped pins out of her hair. “This whole day has been one big catastrophe. I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into going through with this marriage. I could have been halfway to Florida by now.”

“Hey!” I cried, trying to catch her flying pins. “Your veil will fall off.”

“I don’t care. I’m leaving. Let the cops try to stop me.”

“Jillian,” I said, yanking her hands away from her head, “this isn’t third-grade recess. You’re married now. You have a husband. You can’t have a tantrum and run away.”

“Watch me.”

“Darling?” Claymore called from behind the police lines. “Is everything all right? Did you find out what happened?”

I turned her around, forcing her to face the groom. “Will you look at Claymore standing there waiting for you—his beloved bride? How can you turn your back on him?”

She stared at him for a long moment, her nostrils flaring, her hands clenching and unclenching; then her anger dissipated; and finally, she let her arms flop down at her sides. “You’re right. I can’t act like the child I was”—she paused to check her slender, pearl-encrusted bracelet watch—“three hours and fourteen minutes ago.”

“There you go. Now straighten your shoulders and show your husband what Knights are made of.”

She tucked her loose locks behind her ears, moistened her lips, and adjusted her gown. “I can handle this.”

“Sure you can.”

“Besides, the cops don’t know there’s another videographer”—she pulled me close to hiss—“and don’t you dare tell them. I know too many of your secrets.”

“You wouldn’t,” I breathed.

“Oh, yes, I would.”

Oh, yes, she would. I gave her an outraged look, but she merely turned to Claymore and called in a dulcet voice, “It’s worse than we thought, lambkins. Jack Snyder is—”

I clapped my hand over her mouth. “Think of Melanie, for heaven’s sake. Is that any way for her to find out the father of her baby is dead?”

She pushed my hand away. “Melanie left a long time ago, and Uncle Josiah, too, thank God. What a grouch. He was pulling the whole room down.”

“Did I hear you say Josiah Turner left?” Reilly asked, coming toward us.

“Yes,” Jillian replied frostily, “when the music started.”

“When was that?” Reilly asked.

She shrugged. “Nine thirty, I guess.” To me she said, “Uncle Josiah said Melanie’s baby was sick, but I think they left because he doesn’t approve of dancing. Heaven forbid Melanie should have fun.”

Reilly started to say something else to Jillian, then noticed that Pryce was behind him, sticking to him like glue. “You can join the guests inside the building now, Mr. Osborne.”

“The building is empty,” Jillian remarked unhappily. “Everyone is out here.”

Reilly glanced over our heads and saw the crowd gathered on the wide sidewalk in front of the doors. “Why are those people outside?” he called to the cops forming a barricade. “Get them in and start processing them!”

Jillian watched Pryce head up the aisle, then turned back to Reilly. “Can Claymore and I leave? Our limo is waiting.”

“You have to be ID’d like everyone else.”

“But my honeymoon!” Jillian cried. Reilly ignored her and started back to the gazebo.

The indignant bride spun on her heel and flounced up the path in the opposite direction. I followed Reilly.

“Why aren’t the detectives here?” Reilly snarled. “Did anyone think to call them, or is that asking too much?”

“Lt. Corbison is away at a conference,” one investigator reported. “Lt. Williams should be on his way.”

“Sergeant?” Officer Benson called, striding up the path behind us. Reilly stopped so abruptly I almost ran into him.

He glowered at me, fists planted at his waist. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Up to the gazebo with you.”

By the expression on his face I could tell that my answer wasn’t working for him. Luckily, I had the power of female persuasion on my side, and since he liked quick, clear, logical answers, that’s what I gave him. “The way I see it, Reilly, you’ve already got my fingerprints on file, and you know who I am, so why should I sit inside and stare at the walls when I might be of assistance out here?”

He turned me to face the building and gave me a gentle push. “If I need your help I’ll ask for it.”

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for
that
to happen.

The young cop stepped aside to allow me to pass, but since I didn’t want to miss hearing what Benson had to report about Jack’s car, I went about two yards up the path, stopped, took off my left shoe and pretended to shake a pebble out of it.

“What did you find out?” Reilly asked the young cop.

“The victim’s vehicle had been moved from its original parking space, Sergeant.”

I stopped shaking my shoe and stood there balancing on one foot, thinking about the timing. Jack had been escorted to his car around eight twenty. Sometime between then and when Grandma Osborne found his body, he’d moved his car, had donned a waiter’s uniform, and was killed.

Reilly spotted me and crossed his arms over his chest. “Forget your way to the building?”

“Had a pebble,” I said, holding up the offending heel. He didn’t look convinced, so I put on my shoe and left, still mulling over the information. Jack must have known Josiah would still be gunning for him, so why had he come back? Was it to even the score?

 

 

 

 

I
entered the glass doors and found the reception area empty, so I walked up the hallway past the coatroom and the restrooms, opened one of the ballroom doors, and was promptly met by two policemen standing guard. “Reilly sent me,” I told them, trying to look official.

One of the cops held up his walkie-talkie and said with a dry smile, “Yeah, we heard you were coming.”

Ignoring their snickers, I stepped inside and glanced around. The guests had been divided into four groups and were talking among themselves in hushed voices, while police officers diligently collected pertinent information. Across the dance floor, the musicians were packing up their instruments, the bored photographers were snapping anything that moved, and the banquet’s cleaning crew was gathering dirty linen, folding tables for storage, and lining chairs along the walls. The videographers were gone, and I was fairly certain Jillian had managed to smuggle them and the second video out of the building. She wasn’t about to let the cops confiscate her party entertainment.

“Abigail,” my mother called, holding up a hand so I could find her in the crowd. She was sitting beside my father in a group that contained all the Knights and the Osbornes, so I motioned for her to come to me so we wouldn’t be overheard. She guided my father’s wheelchair toward the two folding chairs I had moved to one side.

My dad is a paraplegic, the result of a stroke suffered during an operation to remove a bullet from his thigh. He’d been caught in an ambush while chasing a drug dealer. Amazingly, he’d never had regrets, nor had he allowed himself any self-pity. He’d done his duty. That was what cops did. I was still in awe of his courage.

“Is there any more news?” my mother asked quietly. “We’ve heard only sketchy details.”

“I keep telling you, Maureen, it’s too early for more news,” my father said. “But why would you listen to me? I was only on the force for twenty years.”

“I believe you, Jeff,” my mom assured him, patting his knee. “I merely wanted to know if it was true that Pryce’s grandmother found the body, since the Osbornes are being so tight-lipped about it. I’ve been telling everyone that it couldn’t possibly be so, because Abby was keeping an eye on the woman and would never have let her wander outside alone in the dark.” She turned her gaze on me and smiled proudly.

Rather than burst her bubble I changed the subject. “Haven’t they cleared you to leave yet?” I asked my dad. Being a former cop, he usually got preferential treatment.

“They cleared us. Ask your mother why we’re still here.”

“We’re here,” she said tolerantly, “because I was waiting for a good time to give Jillian and Claymore their wedding sculpture.” She looked around and spotted the newlyweds. “They don’t seem to be busy now.”

I had to think fast. At Bloomers my mom’s sculptures could affront only a small number of people. Here she had hundreds to offend. The mood in the room was already tense; I didn’t want to see it turn ugly.

“With so much going on right now, Mom, it would probably be best to wait until later to give them your gift—like when they return from their honeymoon.”

She fixed me with the look mothers have perfected—the one that says,
I spent twenty-seven hours in labor with you, and now you cut my heart out?
“What are you trying to say, Abigail?”

“I’m trying to say”—What
was
I trying to say? Better yet, what was I
thinking
?—“that given the circumstances, I doubt Jillian would be able to fully appreciate all the effort you put into your sculpture. I mean, look at her over there, pacing and fretting, her mouth going a mile a minute. If she were wound up any tighter her brain would squeak.”

At that moment Jillian spotted me and came barreling over, her arms flapping in exasperation against the full skirt of her beaded gown, a photographer on her heels. “It’s almost eleven o’clock. We’re supposed to be on our way to Chicago right now.
Right now
!”

I saw the photographer aim his lens at my boobs, so I bent my knees to bring my face into focus. “Heads up, lowlife. I’m wearing heels that will break the bones of your insteps.”

“Don’t worry,” he said with a wink. “The cops took my film.”

At my steely look, the man shrugged and moved on.

“I don’t understand what the problem is,” Jillian said, scowling at a cop standing a few yards away. “They can’t possibly think Claymore or I killed Jack. The whole room can vouch for our whereabouts.”

“Jillian,” I said, “show a little respect. A man is dead.”

“I understand a man is dead,” Jillian ground out, “but this is my wedding night. I’m supposed to be on my way to Hawaii, not stuck here in Stalag Thirteen.”

“I’ll see if I can do something about it, Jillian,” my dad said and wheeled toward the door guards, my mother right behind.

“Thank you, Uncle Jeff,” Jillian called. She shot another sullen look at the cops nearby, then turned with a sharp sigh. “This is totally ridiculous. If you were in charge of this investigation, Abby, would you make me stay?”

“Not on your life. I’d be glad to get rid of you.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Let you leave? Because I don’t have the authority.”

“No, silly. I mean why don’t you investigate? You’re a natural snoop.”

“Two reasons. First, if Reilly found out, he’d lock me in the county jail and swallow the key. Second, I do have a flower shop to run.”