Wedding Day of Murder (10 page)

“What happened?” Jason asked. His
stomach churned. He could picture Lacy losing her footing, overbalancing, and
tumbling through the window. The fact that she somehow caught herself was
amazing.

“Andy,” Kimber said, beaming at him
with pride. “He was the only one of us not screaming his head off. He calmly
reached out and plucked her back inside.”

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,”
Andy said. “I think I was the only one who realized that she hadn’t plunged all
the way and was still dangling from the sill.”

“That’s true,” Kimber said. “I
thought she had already splatted on the sidewalk.” She shuddered. Andy squeezed
her shoulders.

“That’s disturbing,” Jason said,
but the story hadn’t helped him uncover anything about Lacy that he didn’t
already know. She was clumsy and a magnet for danger and strange happenings.
Everyone who knew her knew that. “Was she working on any business deals?”

Kimber’s eyebrows touched her
hairline. “You don’t know?”

“We don’t talk about her business
much,” he said. Money had become a taboo topic between them. No matter how hard
he tried, he couldn’t make peace with the fact that she was a millionaire and
on her way to becoming a mogul. Most of the time they pretended that the money
didn’t exist. When they went out, he paid, despite the fact that she had many
times more than his annual salary sitting in the bank.

“Nothing I knew of except…” Kimber
trailed off, not sure if she should continue.

“Except what?” he pressed.

“She really wants a motorcycle,”
Kimber said. “She doesn’t bring it up because she knows you disapprove.”

“Do you think Lacy on a motorcycle
is a good idea?” he asked.

“I think Lacy is a grown woman
capable of making her own decisions,” Kimber said, a little hotly.

“Touché,” Jason agreed. “It’s hard
not to be protective.”

“Take it from someone who has seen
her through four broken bones: you can’t prevent bad things from finding her;
you can only be there to help put the pieces back together,” Kimber said. “Miss
Independent does not like boundaries. They’ll only work for so long before she
starts to rebel.”

Jason shrugged one shoulder. He
didn’t disagree; he simply hadn’t found the right balance with Lacy between
protectiveness and freedom. Sometimes he came off a little controlling, but his
intentions were good. He wasn’t trying to take away her freedom; he was trying
to keep her safe. His greatest fear wasn’t that she would break, as Kimber
said, but that the pieces would be too small to ever put back together. He was
a cop. How could he live with himself if something bad happened on his watch to
the person he cared about the most?

Kimber waved to someone behind him.
Jason turned to look and saw Michael lurking in the doorway of the ice cream
shop. He gave Kimber a smile and heads-up nod before ambling away. “What’s with
that guy?” Jason asked.

“What do you mean? He’s a nice guy,
and funny,” Kimber said.

“There’s something wrong with him,”
Jason said.

“You mean other than the fact that
he has a Y chromosome and shares an approximation to your girlfriend?” Kimber
said. “Boy, you’d better get that jealousy under control.”

“It’s not jealousy,” Jason said.
“Lacy said she doesn’t have feelings for him, and I believe her.”

“I’m with Jason on this one,” Andy
said. “There’s something off about the guy. I don’t trust him.”

Jason thought he shouldn’t take
comfort in the fact that a total stranger shared his opinion, but he did.
Hearing Andy voice his doubts out loud only validated his concern, although it
was possible that Andy was also fueled by jealousy. Michael did a fair share of
flirting with Kimber, along with every other female on the planet. Maybe the
fact that he was a player was what Jason found off-putting. He hadn’t had many
relationships, but those he’d had were always serious and monogamous. He had a
low tolerance for men who could flit from woman to woman without conscience.
Whatever the reason, the buzz of distrust that had been building since
Michael’s arrival was coming to an apex. Maybe it was time to do a little digging
into the life of Michael O’Donnell and see what turned up.

His phone rang with a call from
work. “Excuse me,” he muttered and slid out of the booth to take the call from
Detective Arroyo.

“Those prints you pulled on Rain
turned up something. We’re going to yank her in and have a conversation with a
little more leverage.”

“I’m at the Stakely building. I’ll
bring her back with me.”

“I’m going to send backup in case
the crazies turn violent.”

“I’ll wait on their arrival,” Jason
said. He almost hoped the protesters would resist. Nothing cleared his brain
like a good fight, and since he became a detective, he hadn’t hit nearly enough
people. What did it say about him that he felt sentimental over his time on the
night shift when wrestling with angry drunks was almost routine? “I need to
go,” he said when he returned to the table. “Thanks for the meeting.” He
drained his coffee, momentarily forgetting that he was already caffeinated out
of his mind. There was a good chance he would never sleep again after today. He
felt jittery, and that annoyed him. The feeling bordered on anxiety, as if his
tension had to do with impending doom and not too much java.

Out of the corner of his eye, he
caught sight of Michael as he walked past his store. He was at the window,
staring intently at the protesters. He didn’t speak to Jason or appear to
notice him in any way, which was probably for the best. Jason wasn’t in the
mood for small talk with someone he disliked and distrusted.

When he arrived outside, the units
were just stepping out of their car. “Rain” saw them and seemed to understand
immediately that they were there for her.

“The fuzz! Don’t let them take us
alive. Stand together!” she yelled. Around her, the other protesters looked
confused and sleepy. Two of them yawned. One scratched. None of them shared her
outrage. Undaunted, she fell to the ground and went limp as soon as Jason and
the two uniforms approached.

“I passively resist your tyranny,”
she said.

“You’re not under arrest,” Jason
explained. “We need to ask you a few more questions.” What was a rational
approach to use on the irrational? Explaining didn’t help, pleading for answers
fell on deaf ears.

She began to sing “Kumbaya,”
substituting “Milo” for “My Lord.” Jason stared down at her, perplexed.
Kindness and understanding wouldn’t work with her; she was forcing him to
become what she had accused him of being. He might as well give her what she
wanted; perhaps it was the only way to get the answers he so badly needed.

“Your refusal to answer questions
is impeding a murder investigation. You’re under arrest for obstruction of
justice.” He bent, rolled her over, and cuffed her. She didn’t resist, much to
his dismay. He would like to add resisting arrest to her charges to make them a
bit more substantial. He and the units carried her to the car together. She
might be bad at remembering song lyrics, but she was an expert at becoming dead
weight.

They stuffed her in the back of the
patrol car. She ratcheted up the music and began murdering a Bob Dylan song.
Jason had never been so happy to close a patrol door and walk away. “All
yours,” he said to the uniforms.

“Thanks a lot, Detective,” one of
them said dryly.

Jason climbed into his quiet,
soundproof SUV and breathed a sigh of relief. At this moment, he was thankful
for the promotion that allowed him a moment of peace. Of course when they
arrived at the office, the scene would change. The uniforms would hand Rain off
to him again, and he would have to start the interview process while they went
on their merry way. He stifled a groan; he might as well speak Swahili for all
the luck he had communicating with the crazy woman.

When he arrived at the station, he
let Rain linger in the interview room a while before he joined her. Maybe if he
waited long enough, she might get the crazy out before he arrived. Not likely,
but a man could dream. In the meantime, he read the information that Arroyo had
been able to pull from her fingerprints. Her real name was Susan Jenkins. She
had three prior arrests for disorderly conduct, but no convictions. Her record
began at age nineteen and was fairly unremarkable. Jason stared at the
printouts, thinking. Her first arrest was in Detroit, but her first driver’s
license had been issued from a small town in northern Michigan. How did she go
from Susan, a small-town girl, to Rain, protester extraordinaire?

He tapped his pencil, thinking.
What he needed was someone who was good at research. He and Arroyo shared a
secretary with the sheriff. While she could be counted on to make copies or
type legal documents, she was abysmal at research. Some of the dispatchers were
awesome at research but bristled at any mention of secretarial work. They were
not secretaries; he got it. But on slow days, some of them could be counted on
to grant favors. He picked up the phone and called dispatch, smiling when he
heard Margie’s gruff voice. Margie had been there forever. She knew everything
about everyone, and she was a whiz at ferreting out information. Better still,
she liked him. Her kid had been a couple of years behind Jason in school. His
dream among dreams had been to join the football team. Unfortunately he was
terrible and never made it past being a water boy, but Jason had treated him
like a member of the team, inviting him to parties and events for players.
Margie remembered and reserved a soft spot for Jason. Sometimes being nice was
its own reward, and sometimes it paid unseen dividends.

“Margie, how’s it going today?” he
asked.

“The usual. The world would be a
lot better off without people, you know that?”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” he
said. If he could take Lacy to a desert island, he would stay forever.

“What do you want?” she asked.
Margie always got straight to the point. The other officers were terrified of
her, and rightfully so. Margie’s bad side was a place no one wanted to be.
However, when she was in a good mood, she baked amazing treats and left them in
the break room. For that reason and many others, most of the department was
committed to keeping Margie in a good mood.

“I was wondering if you might have
the time to find something for me. If you don’t, I understand,” he said,
crossing his fingers that he had caught her in an impartial mood.

“What information?” she asked. Her
smoke-laden vocal cords cranked together like rusty gears, but despite her
harsh sound, she had a tender heart. Sometimes it was buried deep, but it was
definitely there.

Jason told her what he wanted, and
she agreed to work on it as long as nothing more important came along. It was
the best he could hope for. Reluctantly he hung up and gathered the files. He
had put it off as long as he could, but now it was time to talk to Rain, AKA
Susan Jenkins.

Rain was lying on the floor.
In a puddle,
Jason thought, vaguely amused
by the lame little joke. On days without Lacy, he had to take laughs where he
could get them. He sat and arranged the folder on the table, making sure it was
at a crisp and perfect angle. Physical clutter equaled mental clutter; he
needed to be sharp enough to wade into the miry recesses of Rain’s mind.
Perhaps he should take out the table and chairs to make the space as empty as
possible. As it was, the chair across from him angled to the side, distracting
him. He straightened it with his foot and cleared his throat.

“Your name is Susan Jenkins,” he
said, lobbing the first volley.

“My label is Rain,” she insisted.

“When did you take that label?” he
asked.

She didn’t answer.

“I see here that you’ve been arrested
a few times at other protests,” he tried.

“Injustice always needs a
defender,” she said.

“What was the nature of those
protests?” he asked.

“The first one was a sweatshop.
Child laborers were involved.”

“It says you were arrested outside
of a school,” Jason said.

“Spelling bee,” she explained.
“They weren’t even being paid.”

“Okay,” he drawled. “The second
arrest was for projectile vomiting.” He peered closer at the paper. Had he read
that right?

“I had a vomit-in at a restaurant.”

“A vomit-in?” he asked, already
dreading the answer.

“I drank sour milk and puked a
lot.”

“Why?” he asked. “Were their
chickens caged? Did the beef use hormones?”

“No, it was a vegan restaurant, but
they overcharged on the miso and I got mad.”

“You got angry, so you made
yourself throw up,” he said.

“I don’t support corporate greed on
any level,” she said. “Plus I didn’t have enough money to pay for my meal
because of the high price of miso. It was very embarrassing.”

“Not having money to cover your
meal bothered you, but throwing up in front of strangers was fine,” he said.

“It was for a good cause,” she
said.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“Corporate greed,” she said.

“How did you hear about this
place?”

“Michael,” she said.

Jason’s ears pricked at the mention
of a familiar name. “Michael O’Donnell?”

“Yes. We had a date.”

“You had a date with Michael,” he
said. In another context, the girl might have been cute, but she was so
obviously awash in crazy that no sane man would get within ten feet of her. Why
had Michael asked her out? Was it coincidence that brought her here, or had
Michael purposely egged her on?

“What did he say that brought you
here?” he asked.

“He told me all about his boss and
intolerable working conditions,” she said.

“He doesn’t have a boss,” Jason said.
“He owns his own business.”

“I’m fairly certain that he called
the red haired woman his boss,” she said.

Michael did call Lacy “boss,” much
to her irritation. “Think hard. Did he tell you to come here?”

From her position on the floor, she
squinted at the ceiling. Then she blew out a breath. “I’ve said too much
already.”

Jason wanted to beat his head on
the table. Just when he was getting somewhere, she decided to clam up. “You
really haven’t, and this is important. Why are you here?”

“To protest corporate greed,” she
said.

“Look, I’m done being Mr. Nice Guy.
I need answers, and I think you have them. Why are you here?”

“You can’t intimidate me; my people
are used to injustice and intolerance,” she said.

“Your people? Who are your people?”
he asked.

“I’m one forty second Native
American,” she replied earnestly, holding up her arm for his inspection. Except
for a few freckles, she was as white as he was, possibly paler.

“I guess I’d better hurry this
interview along before Gloria Allred shows up with a TV crew,” he said. He was
joking, but she nodded her agreement. “Here’s the deal: Either you start to
give me real answers to my questions, or you’re going to spend some time in the
tank.” The obstruction charges were flimsy. He planned to drop them if she was
cooperative. For a few beats, he thought she might talk. Then she took a deep
breath and started to keen. Loudly. Jason covered his ears. “What are you
doing?”

She paused to answer. “This is what
my people do when we’re faced with grief.” The words finished, and the horrible
keening started again. She sounded like an elephant in distress. He stood, left
the room, and called for a couple of deputies to take her to the jail. He
didn’t attempt it himself, both because she was still making herself limp and
because his phone was buzzing. A quick glance at the display showed that he had
missed a few calls. Worse, they were all from Mr. Middleton. As soon as “Rain”
was safely ensconced in a holding tank, he dialed Mr. Middleton. This time his
former principal didn’t mince words.

“It’s Lacy. She’s gone again.”

“Gone from where?”

“The hospital. They lost her. We’ve
looked everywhere.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Jason
said. He hung up his phone and stuffed it back onto his belt. “I have to go,”
he announced to Detective Arroyo and his secretary who were standing together
at her desk. “I didn’t get anything from Rain. She’s in holding on an
obstruction charge. I’ll work on her again later after she simmers for a
while.”

“Where are you going?” Arroyo asked,
eying Jason with suspicion.

“Family emergency,” Jason said.
“I’ll fill you in when I get back.” Just like that, he left. For so many years
since he joined the force, his work had come first. Until recently, he had
spent every holiday working so that men with families could have the day off.
Now he had someone, and he no longer wanted his life to be consumed by work,
but the transition was hard. Too often lately Lacy had to take a back seat to
some emergency. She was patient about it and didn’t complain, but how long
would her patience last? This time when she needed him, when she was really in
trouble, he planned to be there, murder investigation or not.

When he arrived on the scene, Jason
found the same players from last time—Mr. Middleton, Mrs. Craig, Tosh,
Riley, and Lacy’s Mom, Frannie. This time, however, it was none of their
faults. And this time, he wasn’t the only one who was outraged. Mr. Middleton
was in a fierce temper. Though he didn’t explode or say a word, the hospital
staff scurried solicitously around him, bringing reports and updates like
sergeants to a beloved wartime general.

“What happened?” Jason asked him.

“No one knows,” Mr. Middleton said.
“They called us an hour ago and asked if any of us had seen her. None of us
had, so we all came here. I can’t get an agreed upon time that anyone last saw
her. Her vitals were taken two hours ago. After that, things become confusing.
Apparently she was up and down all night demanding pudding. Finally they
brought her a case of it, and she stopped coming out of her room. She must have
eaten some because there’s a huge tower of empty containers beside the bed, but
after she settled down, everyone lost track of her.”

“I can’t believe this,” Jason said.
“She’s one woman. How hard can it be to keep track of her?”

Tosh snorted. “You’ve obviously
never taken her to the grocery store.”

Jason had, actually, and vowed
never to do it again. Lacy approached the supermarket with the same enthusiasm
other women reserved for the sales rack at Nordstrom. “My point is that it’s
their job to look after her. How could she have disappeared?”

“It’s not so easy,” Frannie said
with a hint of smug satisfaction.

I’ve
never lost her,
Jason wanted to say but bit down on a reply. Now was not
the time to start a war with his girlfriend’s mom. Now was the time to find his
girlfriend. “Has the hospital been searched?” He addressed Mr. Middleton who,
once again, seemed to be the only one with his head in the game. Mrs. Craig
looked worried and tired. Riley read a magazine while Tosh rubbed her back.
Jason didn’t know what Frannie was doing because he didn’t want to see. If he
saw that she wasn’t taking this disappearance seriously, he might lose it. It
was better to believe that she was as worried about Lacy as he was.

“Yes. Three times—once by
staff, once by security, and once by me and Tosh.”

“I looked in all the weird places,”
Tosh added, which alleviated Jason’s anxiety a little. Lacy would naturally
have gravitated toward the strangest or most dangerous hiding places.

“Is there a laundry chute here?” he
asked.

Tosh shook his head. “I asked. I
also checked all the laundry baskets, washing machines, and steamers. There’s a
code on the doors and someone staffs it fulltime.”

“The kitchen?” Jason prompted.

“Is also fully staffed. A patient
wandering in and demanding sugar would not go unnoticed,” Tosh said. “I showed
them her picture and asked a few people to keep an eye on the cookie cart.”

Now everyone was looking at Jason,
wondering what to do next. He felt the same pressure he sometimes felt at work,
as if the task was too big and he wasn’t up for it. This time the stakes were
higher because it was Lacy and she might be in danger. At the very least she
was sick and not in her right mind; she should not be up and wandering. With
that thought in mind, he decided to make things official. Lacy was
incapacitated, and that made her officially a missing person.

“I’m calling it in,” he said. He
stepped into the hall to get away from so many sets of eyes and relayed all the
pertinent information to his dispatch. They would put out the word among the
officers and state patrol. Word would spread to the fire crew and paramedics,
too. The civil service community was tight knit and looked out for its own. As
proof, not more than a minute later the officer in charge of their local state
patrol post called him back and offered their infrared plane. Jason held them
off for a while until he could search again on foot.

He made a fist and ground it into
his eyes. They felt gritty. Last night he had stayed so late with Lacy that he
barely had time for sleep. Then he had thought the worst was over. Who knew it
would start all over again today? After a deep breath, he dropped his fist and
went back inside. Five pairs of eyes turned hopefully in his direction. “Mrs.
Craig, if you and Frannie would be so good as to go home and keep an eye out in
case Lacy goes there. Riley, do the same at your house. Tosh, come with me so
we can start the search again.”

“What should I do?” Mr. Middleton
asked. He was used to giving orders, not taking them, but he was similarly
exhausted and not as young as he used to be. Jason was torn between wanting his
calm, steady presence, and wanting to give him a break to rest.

“If you could coordinate the flow
of information, that would be great,” Jason said. “I’m going to give the
searchers your number and they’ll report to you with what area they covered,
when they’re done, and what they found.” In any emergency, having a base of
operations was essential. At work they had dispatch; for the volunteers they
would have Mr. Middleton. The older man nodded, looking both relieved to have
something to do and disappointed that it wasn’t on the front lines.

Jason’s gaze traveled to Frannie.
She was reading the paper. Indignation on Lacy’s behalf rose up, choking
anything he might have said, which was undoubtedly a good thing. She felt his
eyes on her and looked up. She tapped the paper. “I talked to this boy.”

Jason stepped closer to get a
better view. Carl Whethers’ picture stared back at him. “You talked to him?” he
repeated. She nodded. “What did you talk about?”

“Lacy. He said he was planning a
story about her. He wanted to know some stories from her childhood. I gave him
some pictures.”

And
you didn’t think to mention this when we were having a conversation about Lacy
yesterday,
Jason thought. He gritted his teeth and tamped down a response,
noting that his ability to do so was wearing thin. Soon he wouldn’t be able to
hold back a reply; soon everything he thought about Lacy’s mother would come
tumbling to the surface; he had to find Lacy before that happened. If she was
safe and well, he wouldn’t be so frustrated and impatient. He needed his
buffer. “What kind of stories did you tell him?”

“Oh, just some cute stories about
all of Lacy’s mishaps. He thought those were funny. He wrote a lot of them
down.”

“What did he write on?” Jason
asked.

“His computer,” Frannie said.

“You saw his computer,” he
reiterated.

She nodded. “I commented on it
because it was beaten up. I told him he needed a new one. He said he was saving
for a Mac.”

“Did he say anything else? Anything
at all about Lacy or the protests or anyone else in town?” Jason asked.

“No, just that he planned to talk
to more people in town about Lacy. I gave him Kimber’s number,” Frannie said.

“Did he talk to anyone else?” Jason
asked the group before they broke up.

Everyone else said they had never
heard of Carl Whethers. Mr. Middleton’s lips were pressed together in a grim
line. Jason wondered if he was as frustrated with Frannie as he was. How could
she talk to a stranger about Lacy? Lacy would hate that. She was a private
person. To have her dirty laundry aired to a stranger, and a reporter no less,
would feel like a stab in the back.

“Did he say why he wanted to do an
article on Lacy or what the focus was about?” Jason asked.

“No,” Frannie said. “But all
publicity is good publicity, right? I figured it would help her little building
project.”

Jason couldn’t take it anymore. He
switched his focus to Tosh. “Are you ready? Let’s go.” He turned and left
without waiting to see if Tosh would follow. Though he had a head start, it
didn’t take Tosh long to catch up. His legs were like stilts, and he always
seemed in danger of losing control, like Bambi on ice or a Great Dane puppy who
hadn’t grown into his paws yet. On the best of days, Tosh annoyed him, a
leftover sentiment from their former rivalry. Today he had no patience for
anything. He kept his gaze straight ahead and tried not to snap when Tosh
started to talk.