The Silent Bride awm-7 Read online

  Click. A sheet from one of the EMS vehicles had been thrown over the body. The sheet was not big enough to cover the long swath of bloodied, lacy wedding gown train that hid the girl's feet. The train puddled out from under the operating-room-blue drape like an unchecked milk stain.

  They moved closer, walking at a normal speed, fighting the instinct to run. Run and stop it. Save the girl. Chase the perp. April stumbled on the high curb on the other side. Mike reached out and touched her arm. Going into situations, partners had many forms of communication. This wasn't a

  watch out.

  It wasn't a

  slow down.

  It wasn't even a

  Cuidado, careful now.

  He touched her arm in a different way, almost as if to make sure she was still with him. Still alive, and still his.

  "Contigo." I'm with you,

  she murmured.

  He squeezed her upper arm, then let go.

  Okay.

  A few more steps across the sidewalk. Then, click, she saw the blood, almost black on the red carpet. Blood everywhere. Cops everywhere. Mike headed through rain puddles to the people in the know.

  "Captain Coulter, Chief." Precinct captain. Chief of detectives, Avise. Present on a Saturday. They must have been gathered together for some event that was interrupted, April thought.

  The two men looked grim. "Mike, glad you're here," the chief said. Today they didn't shake hands.

  "You know Sergeant Woo."

  "Sergeant." The chief nodded at her.

  "Sir."

  Two minutes later, Inspector Bellaqua turned up with wild hair. She shook her head when she saw that April and Mike had gotten there first. Her hotshot pilot wasn't such a hotshot after all. Humiliating for her. Then she saw the body.

  "Who is it?" were her first words. She shot Mike and April a glance full of meaning neither understood, then listened as the chief answered.

  "Prudence Hay. Her father's a big shot on Wall Street. Her husband-to-be is from Pittsburgh. Big money on both sides."

  "Jesus. What's the story?"

  The chief gestured. "The killer was waiting for her out here." He pointed to the cathedral door on the Saks side.

  "We had two uniforms over there in front of Saks. Two more up there." He pointed toward Fifty-first.

  They followed his finger as it swept in opposite directions.

  "It was sheeting rain. None of them had a clear view. The shooter nailed her as she came toward him. In the face and neck. Ugly. She bled out in seconds."

  "Any other witnesses?" Bellaqua appeared to be making some calculations. The body was half-off the sodden red carpet under the dripping canopy about thirty feet from the door. Close enough for both the limo drivers and her father to see something if they'd been looking.

  Avise glanced back at the limos with their obscured windows. "It's like a steam room in those cars. None of them saw him."

  "What about the father?"

  "He was trying to keep his daughter dry. He didn't look up."

  Bellaqua nodded. Then, smug as a cat, she took stock of each of them and dropped her bomb. "We have a break in the Tovah case."

  April frowned at Mike. They did? When did that happen? He seemed as startled by the news as she was.

  "You know that partial thumbprint on one of the shell casings they found at the scene? It took so much time because there was so little minutiae that the match couldn't be made by computer. The partial had to be eyeballed against the prints of every person connected with Tovah's wedding. But we do now have a possible match," Bellaqua reported. "I just heard from FAS."

  "Anyone we know?" Mike asked.

  Bellaqua paused, holding the moment. She looked at April with a slight shake of her head. That caused

  Chief Avise to look at April. Mike looked at April.

  What?

  April felt the chill of the query, even though directly above them the sun finally pierced through the gloom of a gray, gray day. It shot down from an opening patch of blue with such intensity that the last flurry of rain droplets, hanging wherever they could take purchase, were suddenly transformed into strings of sparkling diamonds. Diamonds hung all around the church, the canopy, and trees in front of it.

  April saw the shimmering diamonds of light reflected all around her and got it in an instant. She'd known it on Wednesday. She should have been all over it. She had been thinking backward, not forward. Prudence Hay had been next on Wendy Lotte's party list. But they had cooled on Wendy by then, were hot on Ubu.

  "Wendy Lotte," April said with a sinking heart. The print was Wendy's. "Is she here?"

  "You tell us. You wanted to be her contact," the chief accused.

  So she had. "She's the wedding planner. She should be here," April said faintly.

  "Bring her in," he said.

  "Yes, sir," April said. Why were they all looking at her? She wasn't the primary here. Both Bellaqua and Mike outranked her. April was sweating heavily. Her mouth filled with water. Nausea made her head spin. Already she was taking the fall.

  "Let's get this resolved today," the chief said quietly.

  "Yessir," the three detectives chorused.

  Thirty-eight

  T

  he brides rose up in the air like ducks over a pond, like clay pigeons in a skeet shoot. Just as they were about to take their vows, those brides took flight. They lifted up, and as they ascended into the heavens, instead of getting smaller they got bigger and bigger until they were as pregnant as clouds. Beyond pregnant, they filled the whole sky, growing as vast as continents on a globe. Looking up, no one could miss those expanding girls. They lifted up into the sights of the waiting hunters, and the guns exploded. Boom, boom, boom. The bride balloons fell down to earth, and one by one deflated into tiny dead babies in christening gowns.

  Wendy huddled in a back pew, having her visions again. Prudence was gone just like Tovah, and the people she was supposed to be tending so carefully— moving from ceremony to celebration—had become a bunch of miserable hostages. Even as a calming voice spoke to them over the microphones, telling them what happened and what they had to do, they were getting rebellious. There was no food, no water. How should she deal with this? For once Wendy didn't know.

  Her hands were shaking. She needed a shot of vodka, the whole bottle. The organ throbbed under the agitated buzz of voices. Some official was giving more instructions. She was doubled up and didn't hear what he was saying. She jumped when someone touched her arm.

  "Wendy, please come with me."

  Wendy looked up, but already knew the owner of that flat New York voice. Her misery turned to angry resentment when she saw the little Chinese detective standing over her, evaluating her with those slitted black eyes that were as cold as night. Behind her were two uniformed officers with 9mm Glocks and nightsticks dangling off their overburdened belts. Wendy felt the persecution keenly. Hundreds of people were swarming all over the place. Why single her out to embarrass?

  "I was in here the whole time. I didn't see anything. I don't know what happened," she said defensively.

  "That may be, but we need to talk anyway." The detective stepped back to make way for her.

  Wendy got to her feet shaking her head. "I

  can't

  be a suspect, Sergeant... ?" For once she couldn't remember an important name. She was sick, couldn't the woman tell?

  "Woo," the detective said over her shoulder.

  Look,

  Woo, Wendy wanted to say.

  The shooting happened

  outside. She didn't know anything about it. Anybody with a brain could instantly deduce she had

  nothing

  to do with it. Obviously this cop had no brain. Her anger escalated as the small woman with the gun at her waist and the two officers marched her around the crowd, down the side of the building where the saints' chapels were and candles burned.

  She wanted to cover her face. But she didn't have anything to use. She'd left her raincoat som
ewhere; she didn't know where.

  She also wished she had a gun of her own hanging from her own belt to threaten those cops right back. How dare they . . . She kept her head down to avoid making eye contact with anyone, but even so she did manage to see Lucinda Hay flanked by her sons. She certainly

  heard

  Lucinda, as usual not exactly behaving with dignity. Lucinda was wailing, demanding to see her husband, her daughter. No one was doing anything about it.

  Then Wendy and the cops were outside, amazingly in sunlight. Wendy was blinded by the sun. Intense blue sky after all that rain. She was on Fifty-first Street close to Madison, where nothing of the crime was visible. She was marched over to a police car. Her eyes blurred at the sight of the car. It looked like a regular car, but it was a police car. Someone opened the door and pushed her head down when she got in. She was shaking, but not with fear. With anger. The Chinese sergeant got in front and didn't talk to her. Another car with more police followed behind. She didn't see who was in it, but she heard the doors slamming. She weighed her options: Call a lawyer? No! Lawyers were a breed of compromisers, always wanted you to confess to

  something

  and make a deal. She wasn't doing that again. She could handle this herself. Just keep quiet. She needed to focus on keeping her life and her secrets to herself. She wasn't telling anyone anything. No matter what.

  They traveled the blocks she knew so well as they headed east on Fifty-fourth Street. She was wondering if they were going downtown when the car suddenly stopped in front of the Seventeenth Precinct. Sergeant Woo got out of the car and walked back to talk to the people in the car behind them. They didn't get out and show their faces. Who did they think they were, treating her like this? Didn't they know that she was well connected? She knew a hundred lawyers, maybe more. She could sue if she had to, she thought. Her hands were shaking. She knew she had too many secrets to sue. Woo returned, took her out of the car, and led her up the stairs to the second floor, where the detecdve squad room was nearly empty. It was a disgusdng place.

  Ignoring her some more, the sergeant conferred with a detective. Together they moved an unwashed male and the fat detecdve who'd been questioning him out of a dirty room that said INTERVIEW ROOM on the door. Woo came back to Wendy and led the way in, glancing at the full wastebasket and abandoned cell phone on the floor.

  "Gee, I'm sorry the place is such a mess," she murmured.

  Wendy made a disgusted noise. She did not want to enter the malodorous room. She was wearing a very good silk shantung suit and didn't want to sit in either of the chairs just vacated. She smelled alcohol. She needed no reminders that she yearned for a drink.

  Woo picked up the cell phone and left the room with it. Wendy looked up and nodced the mirror against one wall. With a sick feeling, she saw that four chairs had been set up in a line. Except for the table, the chairs took up nearly all the floor space in the room. What now, a lineup?

  The sergeant returned with a tape recorder. She did not seem distressed by the possibility of catching some disease in the room. She put the tape recorder down, rearranged the chairs around the table, then motioned for Wendy to sit. Wendy stood there. Next to the Chinese woman, she felt the power of her height. She was a tall and elegant girl from a good family. She did not deserve this treatment. Her eyes were puffy. She wasn't feeling well. She didn't like being pushed around by this little female cop, disliked it even more than when the male detectives had questioned her. The need for a drink circled her like a hungry shark.

  "Have a seat," the cop told her.

  Fine, Wendy sat. She could throw away the good suit. "Would you mind telling me why I'm here?"

  Woo popped a cassette into the recorder.

  Wendy looked down at her hands.

  The cop smiled, friendly. "Wendy, you and I talked last week, remember?"

  "Yes, of course I remember. You almost shot me when I went to turn on the air conditioner." Wendy ventured a little smirk.

  "Remember I asked you if there was anything in the apartment there shouldn't be?" Woo said, still nice as pie.

  Wendy's heart hammered harder. "Yes ... so?"

  "And you said there wasn't anything."

  Wendy frowned. "That's right. Where's this leading? Did you go into my apartment? I'll sue you ... I'll have your badge!"

  April Woo didn't answer. She pushed the record button on the tape recorder, gave her ID, a lot of it. Wendy's ID, the place, the day, the date, and the hour. Who was in the room. Just the two of them. Wendy glanced sharply at her watch, suddenly aware of how late it was. Nearly one-forty-five. By now the guests should be well lubricated and the luncheon in full swing. There would be no luncheon. She touched her hair. It was still damp. She dropped her hand.

  Woo led her through some simple questions, where she lived, what she did, her involvement in the Tovah Schoenfeld wedding. An hour passed. Easy questions. Wendy yawned. Woo seemed tireless. She turned the cassette over. Wendy asked for a Coke. The sergeant stepped to the door, called out for a uniform to bring a Coke. A moment later she had one. Woo punched the record button, repeated all the pertinent information. Still only two of them in the room.

  "Wendy, in our talks last week you didn't tell me the whole truth about your part in Tovah Schoen-feld's murder."

  "I told you I was in the ladies' room," Wendy said, flushing a deep red. How many times did they have to go over this? "There were witnesses who saw me there."

  "Did you know that eyewitness testimony is among the most unreliable of all?" Woo said smoothly.

  Wendy snorted. "What's reliable? You know I didn't kill Tovah. I couldn't have killed Prudence."

  "What's reliable is physical evidence. It's incontestable; there's no way to fight it."

  "I know the law," Wendy said angrily. "You can't intimidate me."

  "Wendy, why is your hair wet?"

  "What?"

  "Your hair is wet," Woo said coldly.

  "Uh, I was out in the rain."

  "When were you out in the rain, while Prudence was shot?"

  "Hey. It's been raining for two days. I couldn't get a cab this morning. You're intimidating me."

  "Not at all. I'm just trying to get to facts we can all rely on. Did you know that conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to murder carry the same weight under the law as committing a murder?"

  "Conspiracy?"

  "Under the law it's called felony murder. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  "No!" Wendy spat out. "I'm completely in the dark. I haven't a clue what you're talking about, and that's the honest truth." Wendy sniffed. It bothered her that her hair was wet.

  "Well, you've told me a few dishonest truths. Let's move to the honest truths now."

  Wendy shook her head again. "I don't know what you're talking about." She glanced at the mirror. "Whoever you are back there, I don't know what she's talking about."

  "Yes, you do, Wendy. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Prudence Hay was the next bride on your list."

  "Look, I was inside the church the whole time. I was where you found me. I had nothing to do with it." She brushed her palms together, brushing off the accusation. They were trembling.

  "There was Andrea. There was Tovah. And now Prudence. Prudence was the next bride on your list. You're the connection, Wendy—"

  "What! Andrea! What are you saying?"

  "Andrea Straka, pushed in front of a subway train the day before her wedding."

  "Oh, no, I never take the subway. Just—no!" Tears stung Wendy's eyes. "I don't know."

  "Yes, you're the link to all of them, Wendy. You know the who and the why."

  "I don't. I'm as puzzled as you. If I knew, why would I protect a murderer?"

  "That's a good question. Let's get this cleared up right now."

  Wendy drank some Coke. "I'm not the only person who worked on all three weddings. Louis did, his boys did. Tang did. Tons of people ... the calligra-pher. I have an assistant."

  "Her nam
e?"

  "Lori Wilson, she's on vacation."

  "Where is Lori on vacadon?"

  "Martha's Vineyard. Can I go now?"

  "No, Wendy. You can't go. You have to stay and help me out here. You're the link."

  "What's your problem? I'm not the link," Wendy snapped. "I told you I don't know."

  "And you're lying."

  Wendy shook her head. "I don't feel well. I need to go home."

  "In dme. We have a lot to talk about."

  Wendy kept shaking her head. "What is it that you think you have?"

  "Your thumbprint on one of the discharged shell casings, one of the bullets that killed Tovah Schoenfeld."

  Wendy's eyes widened. They jerked to the mirror behind which she was sure other detectives were watching her, maybe even filming her. Then to the closed door. No exit.

  "Jesus Christ. I'm being framed," she cried.

  "You're framing me." Panic filled her for the first time.

  "That's not the way it happens. Tell me what you know. I'm here to listen and to help. There's nothing that can't be explained and worked out," Woo said.

  Okay, yeah. Of course, everything could be explained. She calmed down. She knew how to spin her stories. Her stomach grumbled. She didn't know when she'd eaten last. She started thinking about food, then drink. She needed a drink. She'd explain fast so she could get that drink.

  Thirty-nine

  T

  he recorder clicked. End side two, cassette three.

  April reached over and popped it out, her face showing patience she didn't feel. She had six cassettes. She could get more and sit there for the next two days if she had to. The first three contained a lot of sighing.

  "Did you turn the recorder off so no one can hear you torture me?" Wendy slouched in her chair, looking more and more like a surly teenager.

  April nodded. She was going to zap the suspect with a stun gun. She almost wished she could, because she was not having much luck finding a way into this irritating woman, and liking her less and less as the hours passed. The pressure for something to break was crushing, and she couldn't help thinking of Jason Frank having fun thousands of miles away, leaving her with a psycho case she couldn't seem to handle. April knew exactly how Jason jumped into the sea of misery with his patients, leading them back into the past and forward into the future at the same time. She'd seen him do it. And now she'd tried being like him, nicer in every way. And it wasn't working.