Leann Sweeney - A Wedding To Die For

The young man stood. “Can I help you?”

“My name is Abby Rose. Chief Fielder wanted to see me.”

“Yeah, she said to—” His desk phone rang and he picked up, listened for a second, then said, “The chief has no comment. This is an ongoing investigation.” He replaced the receiver gingerly, still staring at the phone. “Reporters have been calling all day. Last murder we had was five years ago, and it was nothing like this. Vietnamese fisherman got into it with his partner and stabbed him right through the gut with this old shark spear. Only had two calls from the press on that one. But this here? I can tell you—”

“Thanks, Officer Henderson,” came Fielder’s voice from a hallway straight ahead. “I’ll meet with Ms. Rose in my office.”

She gestured from the shadowy corridor for me to follow her, and I left Henderson sitting at his desk doing nothing, probably because that’s what he was good at. That and running his mouth.

Dark wood paneling, circa 1970, lined the hallway and the worn dingy carpeting was probably about the same vintage. Fielder disappeared through a doorway to my right and I came in on her heels.

The old world ended and the new millennium began inside her office. The wood floor gleamed, her huge oak desk commanded the room, and an air purifier hummed in one corner. I caught a hint of lemon polish and above me an antique brass and walnut ceiling fan looked as if it was hot off the assembly line.

On the wall to my right hung a massive framed photograph of a man wearing the Seacliff uniform, only with a lot more brass than I’d seen on Henderson at the front desk. The man in the portrait looked to be in his sixties and an engraved metal placard confirmed this: “Chief Quinton W. Fielder, 1940-2002.”

So policing was a family business, huh? Was that how she’d landed the top job at such a young age? Probably.

“Thank you for coming, Ms. Rose,” Fielder said.

“No problem.” To my left photos were spread on a conference table and the map I’d drawn yesterday was tacked to a bulletin board on the adjacent wall.

Fielder’s eyes bore shadows beneath, evidence of a sleepless night. She wore blue trousers and an aqua-striped oxford shirt, the buttons strained thanks to her more than adequate breasts. Badge and gun were attached to her belt. Maybe she was going straight from here to compete for a spot in a “Girls with Nightsticks” Playboy layout. Good thing I was wearing a sweatshirt. Sweatshirts hide even what you don’t have.

She had walked over to the table. “I hope you can help me with something.”

“Sure.” I joined her, deciding that being polite and cooperative were the order of the day for Megan’s sake.

She held up a picture, one taken on the front steps of the Beadford house. It showed the bride and groom entering, the crush of guests in their wake and the professional photographer snapping away.

“This was taken about the time Kate and I arrived,” I said.

“Good. Now, here’s the same photo.” She slid an identical 5 by 7 across the table, but this one had grease pencil cross outs on all the people in the picture but one, the woman in the beige pantsuit and brown hat. She was standing alongside the photographer and looking down into the viewfinder of a digital camera pointed at Megan and Travis.

Fielder tapped the unmarked face. “Did she sign the book?”

“No. She came late to the church. Mrs. Beadford might have gotten her signature, though. Have you found the book?”

Fielder reached into a file box under the table and produced the album. “Mrs. Beadford tucked it away in an upstairs bedroom for safekeeping. But after interviewing her—”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s doing better. Came home from the hospital last night. But she claims everyone at the reception signed or made congratulatory notes except for her.” Fielder nodded toward the picture. “Neither Mrs. Beadford nor anyone else in the family knows who she is. And if she came inside after taking her photos, no one remembers seeing her. How about you?”

I mentally scanned the room where the strings played, then searched my memory bank for images of the great room. Nothing. But I was certain that if I had seen her, I would have remembered her because of my failure to get her to sign the book. “We never crossed paths in the house, but I spent most of the time in the kitchen with Kate and the caterers. She could have come and gone by the time I had a chance to mingle with the guests.”

“Maybe,” said Fielder.

“James Beadford could have invited her,” I said. “Or she could have been someone’s escort.” But another possibility popped into my head. Had the questions I’d asked a few weeks ago at the hospital where Megan was born or even Megan’s request to the adoption registry flushed a bird from cover? A mother bird who couldn’t resist a wedding?

“I’ve considered those obvious possibilities,” Fielder said. “You didn’t see anyone with this woman at the church, did you?”

“No. She was alone.” Shoving aside my excitement at the possibility the mystery woman could be Megan’s mother, I said, “Maybe she was a reporter for the local paper? The Beadfords seem well-off and the newspaper might have wanted to cover the event for the society page.”

Fielder’s eyes narrowed and I surmised from the twitch in her jaw muscle that she didn’t appreciate I may have come up with something she hadn’t considered.

“I know this town, Ms. Rose,” she finally said, her tone as frosty as the air outside. “Number one, I doubt she works for the paper. Number two, unlike where you come from, we don’t have a society page.”

Unlike where I come from? Was she referring to Houston in general or had Jeff told her about my former life as a do-nothing heiress while I had been imprisoned in the laundry room yesterday?

“I need more information from you, Ms. Rose,” Fielder went on, her demeanor controlled, her voice devoid of emotion now. She walked over to her desk and sat, gesturing at the armchairs across from her.

I took a seat.

“I’d like to hear more about the rehearsal dinner,” she said.

“I told you what I know.”

Fielder leaned toward me, fingers intertwined on top of the desk. “Are you sure?”

“As I said before, I noticed lots of bickering, but I got the feeling the family was pretty much acting as they always do, or at least that’s what Megan indicated.”

“I want facts, not guesses,” she said.

I pictured a scarlet A for “Attitude” embroidered on her shirt. Trying not react to my emotions, I said, “I already told you about the tension concerning the TV that Holt brought with him. And I noticed Travis and his new father-in-law engaged in a lively discussion at the reception.”

“They argued?” She pulled a legal pad toward her. Patches of new color spread beyond her blush.

“That would require an assumption,” I said.

She looked down at her pad, jotted a few notes.

“Anything else you saw or heard that might be important?”

“No,” I replied.

“You’re free to go,” she said abruptly.

“Gee, thanks,” I said, “but I was always free to go.”

Since I was already in Seacliff, I swung by the Beadford house to see Megan, hoping I could also pick up the birth certificate as Angel had suggested. I parked the Camry on the Beadford’s cul-de-sac and slid from behind the wheel, deciding I would keep my speculation about the mystery woman to myself. Megan had enough on her plate right now.

The setting sun tinged the horizon beyond their house a deep orange, seagulls squawked above me, and the smell of dead fish hung in the air. The crime scene tape had been removed, but one forgotten strip on a front hedge blew in the breeze like an enemy flag. I grabbed the remnant and stuffed it in my jeans’ pocket before I knocked on the door.